The Joy of Mutual Submission

Ephesians 5:21

For the past few weeks, we’ve been learning how to worship God together as a church. When we gather together for worship, we should submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit – who is God and who is not only among us but within us. In this way, the Holy Spirit “fills” us when we gather together, so we should submit ourselves to his presence and influence in our lives when we gather for a worship service. That’s why James Montgomery Boice says, “The ‘Spirit-filled’ life is not to be measured merely by one’s private morality or even by one’s private spiritual experience but by how one conducts himself or herself with other persons.”[1]

When we genuinely submit ourselves together to his influence as a church, several outcomes will occur. We will speak to one another through a variety of good songs, we will be thankful for one another, and we will submit to one another. It is this third outcome that I would draw your attention to today – submitting to one another. What does this mean and how well are we doing this as a church?

Submit means to “take a subordinate position” or “defer to the other person” or “treat the other person as more important than myself.”

• In its most concrete sense, this word envisions a soldier who literally “stands under” or “places himself under” the authority and leadership of his superior officer.
• In a more abstract sense, it is a mentality that elevates the interests, needs, and perspectives of other people in over my own – and these other people in this case are the other members of our church family whenever we gather together for worship and service.

Does submission flourish or languish in the church?

Submission is not a popular concept today and for good reason, for our natural, fleshly, sinful nature does not like to submit to anyone other than myself. Yet our church – any church – should be a place where submission flourishes. Sadly – very sadly, churches are a place where submission languishes instead. Submission languishes when:

• We disregard or disrespect members of a different ethnicity
• Assert ourselves forcefully in business meetings
• Insist that our preferences are superior to those of other members
• Spread divisive gossip or teaching to other members
• Expect other members to give us special, preferential treatment
• Cling tightly to our positions, roles, and titles
• Refuse to cooperate or participate in normal church gatherings and functions
• Receive service from other members but refuse to serve in meaningful ways ourselves

Such attitudes and behavior are the opposite of how a submissive person thinks and behaves and should not occur within a church family.

Submission inside the church prepares us for submission outside.

Submission within the church prepares us to behave properly in our roles outside the church. Submission to one another in the church should cause ripple effects that carry over into our family relationships and social relationships as well.

• The wives among us should submit to their husbands. (Eph 5:22-24, 33)
• The children among us should submit to their parents. (Eph 6:1-3)
• The employees among us should submit to their employers. (Eph 6:5-8)

Does this behavior describe our church? If you’re a wife, are you following and supporting the decisions and leadership of your husband at home? If you’re a young child or teenager, are you following and obeying the decisions of your parents? If you’re employed by someone somewhere, are you doing what your employer requires of you? And are you doing these things with a submissive spirit rather than a complaining or stubborn one?

In addition to these domestic and social relationships, the NT also teaches that we should display the same submissive mindset in at least two other scenarios:

• Christian citizens should submit to their government officials (Rom 13:1)
• Church members should submit to their pastors (Heb 13:17).

All five scenarios I’ve mentioned from the NT require intentional effort on our part because to willingly “stand under” and take a subordinate position to a husband, parent, employer or to government officials and pastors is neither a mindset nor behavior that comes naturally. We must depend upon the Holy Spirit to think and behave this way.

Even those in leading roles should be submissive.

As uncomfortable and undesirable as submission may be in the five previously mentioned scenarios, we can make a clear case from Scripture and even from logic and social theory that we must accept at least some form of subordination in the world. A nation without laws and governing officials, a church without appointed pastoral leaders, businesses and companies without directors and managers, and homes without a head cannot succeed.

Yet, because of our sinful nature, those who end up filling leadership roles in the home, society, and the church can easily develop a “me-first” mentality. When this happens, a supervisor, government official, pastor, husband, or parent behaves more like a nonbeliever than a follower of Christ.

Even Christ’s closest early followers, the twelve disciples, had this problem. So, Christ explained how nonbelieving leaders tend to “lord it over” and “exercise authority” over the people they lead. This means that they like to abuse their authority and leadership position for selfish reasons rather than to use their authority and leadership position to serve people instead. As John Calvin explains:

“God has so bound us to each other, that no man ought to avoid subjection. And where love reigns, there is mutual servitude. I do not except even kings and governors, for they rule that they may serve. Therefore, it is very right that he should exhort all to be subject to each other.”⁴⁰

That’s precisely what Christ himself told his closest followers, that those whom God places in leadership roles should view themselves as servants who gladly sacrifice for and support whomever they are to lead.

Paul refers to this kind of submissive mindset for everyone, not just those who are not in a leading role. He says, “Submit yourselves to one another” (Eph 5:21). This certainly means that we should practice submission in the roles that Scripture specifies. Yet this also means that we all should practice mutual submission to one another. It even means that a husband should submit to his wife in a certain respect or that a parent should submit to a child in a certain respect.

How does such submission occur? It occurs as husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church and pursue meeting her needs more than his own. It occurs as parents seek to provide for, train, draw close to, love, and point their children to Christ at their own expense. It occurs as employers treat their employees like VIPs and as pastors lead a congregation in a humble way that processes feedback from members and places the members spiritual and personal needs over their own, loving and leading like Christ.

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3-4)

We should clarify that this principle of “mutual submission” (in which we all submit to one another) does not demolish, reverse, or undermine the roles clearly given in Scripture which God has assigned for the home, the church, and society at large.

• For instance, mutual submission does not require a husband to do whatever his wife tells him, a parent to allow whatever a children wants, an employer to accept whatever employees demand, a government official to tolerate whatever citizens insist, or a pastor to say or do whatever every member prefers.
• Also, all such roles – esp. those within the church – require leaders to be ultimately allegiant and submissive to Scripture no matter how popular or preferred that may be.
• Furthermore, all such roles require a certain measure of discernment and trust, knowing that no leader can make decisions which perfectly and equally please everyone they lead.

For these reasons, mutual submission is required. Those who are being led should gladly and willingly accept and support those who lead them recognizing the challenge that leading entails. At the same time, those who are leading should gladly and willingly acknowledge and serve those whom they are leading, recognizing the challenges that following entails. This mutual respect between those who lead and those who follow reveals the true essence of mutual submission and this is the attitude and spirit which should characterize a church when it gathers together for worship and service.

Before we consider some specific applications of this principle of mutual submission as a church, we need to acknowledge why this principle is so important.

Mutual submission is important because we follow Christ.

Paul tells us that we should submit to one another “in the fear of God” or the “fear of Christ” (Eph 5:21). The KJV/NKJV translates “fear of God” but the early and majority of Greek manuscripts reads “fear of Christ” and should probably be translated as “out of reverence for Christ.”

Paul’s point here is that by practicing mutual submission, we reflect and respect the supreme example of mutual submission, for he submitted himself in two incredible ways.

• First, Christ submitted himself to the people of this world by serving them, accepting their mistreatment of him, and dying for their sins. By doing so, he submitted himself to those who were supposed to follow and submit to him. He said, “Even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
• Second, Christ submitted himself to God the Father by doing these things for this is what the Father wanted him to do. By doing so, he submitted himself to one who was his equal. He and the Father are both equally the one, same God (Phil 2:5-6).

The key here is to meditate a lot on Christ’s own example of submission. He served and suffered for us all, putting our own needs before his own, and most importantly, putting the will of the Father over his own. If Satan can’t divide our church through false doctrine and obvious sin, he’ll attempt to do so instead through an unsubmissive, uncooperative, me-first mindset – which is contrary the example and teaching of Christ.

When an individual in the church exhibits this kind of me-first mindset, this indicates that they are not walking in step with the Holy Spirit but are instead walking in step with their own selfish nature. And when a church in general is permeated by this kind of me-first mentality, this indicates that the church is fostering a selfish spirit rather than being filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

Sadly, and far too often, churches are a platform for ugly displays of arrogance, assertiveness, division, and selfishness. Members argue and assert themselves over the voices and opinions of others and choose to distrust the decisions of those who make them. On the flip side, people who make decisions often make them without considering the thoughts and feelings of others.

At Brookdale Baptist, let’s be different. Let’s model and practice mutual submission together. Here are some ways we can do this.

By involving a variety of members.

As we learn to submit to the Holy Spirit in our worship services and ministries, we should deliberately involve members from multiple generations and stages of life, varied ethnicities, diverse backgrounds, differing economic experiences, both genders, and having a variety of spiritual gifts and personal abilities.

“From whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” (Eph 4:16)

This is why, for instance, we should appreciate the involvement of a variety of members in the worship service from the keyboards to the worship team to the announcements, prayers, and Scripture readings. This is one recommendation Clare Jewell, leader of Every Ethne and Generate Ministries made to us when he visited our church to provide some church health consultation.

This is also why I hope to expand our ability to involve more people in a variety of roles over time so that those who do teach and serve in various capacities will be able to take a break now and then thanks to some kind of rotation that keeps everyone fresh and avoids any one person from filling a particular teaching role indefinitely. It will take time to achieve these goals as well as we should, but these ministry goals are based upon a biblical desire to build a church culture of mutual submission to one another rather than fostering a culture of a few holding preeminence and doing the majority of the work and holding an outsized influence over what we do.

I appreciate the advice I’ve received from some longtime deacons at Grace Church of Mentor, OH, who served alongside the founding pastor then his son, Tim Potter. Pastor Tim guided the church forward, staying true to its biblical foundations while introducing a more intergenerational, discipleship-oriented approach. These men told me they were skeptical of Tim’s ideas at first but realized along the way how biblical they truly were.

One of Tim’s mottos has been “no member left behind” and he attempted to build intergenerational camaraderie by involving both the younger members and older members of the church in key planning times and ministry teams together. We’ve been following a similar approach over the past year at Brookdale, with positive results.

BTW, I’ve invited Tim Potter to be a guest speaker at Brookdale next year, Apr 28-29, for an advanced discipleship training seminar and to preach to us on a Sunday morning! I look forward to his ministry with us.

When a church is committed to involving a variety of members in its decision-making processes, programming, and ministries, they make it more difficult for any one person, faction, generation, group, or set of personal preferences to become dominant or divisive.

In a church like Brookdale, which has a long history of more than 50 yrs., it’s easy for a small group of people or a very specific set of preferences to rise above the rest over time so that other perspectives, ideas, and people are pushed to the side. By God’s grace, we can all recognize this tendency and acknowledge our need to view our ministries with a fresh set of eyes that blends together the people God has placed into our church for this time – all centered on and submitted to the clear teaching of God’s Word of course.

By assembling a pastoral team.

“He gave some … pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” (Eph 4:11-12)

“In the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.” (Acts 13:1).

This pastoral team should be a group of men that work closely together in a spirit of mutual submission among each other, having healthy conversations about ministry concerns and then deferring to one another in each man’s area of gifting and responsibility. These men (including myself) should accept wholeheartedly what Christ taught about the importance of being a servant leader. That’s why I asked a friend to make me a “Life is Service” plaque for my office several years ago, because I want to keep this mission before me.

This pastoral team should also work hard at spending time with church members – discipling them, hearing from them, building close relationships with them, and fostering a spirit of mutual submission and sacrificial service throughout the entire church family, helping members identify their spiritual gifts, developing their abilities to serve, and finding ways for them to become involved in meaningful, sacrificial ministry of their own.

By assembling a pastoral team, we must also be committed to supporting that pastoral team in their attempts at leading and serving as Christ teaches. This is something I am committed to as your pastor and I look forward to sharing more about how this pastoral team may develop over the next year or so. With God’s help, I envision a team of 3-4 pastors, men from different generations, some paid and some not, some from outside the church (like me) and others from within the church, providing an ideal blend of perspectives for a healthy pastoral team.

This will be a more biblically balanced and healthy model than what we’ve practiced in the past – which is having one pastor and maybe an assistant who then relies heavily on the deacons as a kind of secondary pastoral team of sorts. Instead, we need a pastoral team to make pastoral decisions and fulfill pastoral responsibilities together and a deacon team who provides necessary assistance in non-pastoral matters, such as building and property maintenance, member care, financial oversight, technology concerns, and missionary care. We’ve explained this clearly in the new bylaws which I hope you will be here to approve on July 17^th after the morning worship service and potluck meal! There will also be a younger man named William and his young family joining us that weekend who is prayerfully considering joining our future pastoral team 😊

By letting other members serve you.

This may be the simplest, most direct application of this principle, “Submit yourselves to one another” (Eph 5:21).

Let me encourage us all to consider the importance of involving ourselves to a reasonable degree in more than the Sunday morning worship service. Those who are adults of any stage of life should give serious consideration to participating in the Sunday morning Sunday School classes we provide and those of us who are parents should do the same for our children and teens. I would kindly suggest the same for our Wednesday night ministries and other occasional ministries as well.

I don’t say this due to some contrived, demanding, or legalistic notion that insists you must “be at church every time the doors are open.” That’s not the case. I do say this for a very biblical reason, however – that doing so ensures that you receive teaching and spiritual influence from more than whomever speaks in the Sunday morning worship service, which often is me.

This is why I am so glad to sit in a Sunday School class right now for a while which is taught by Mark Hulbert and then in a discussion group led by Tim Kremer. It’s also why I love bouncing ideas off of people both older and younger in the church, hearing various perspectives which often shape and alter the outcome of my pastoral decisions for the better. Almost every major decision I’ve made in this first year at Brookdale has been influenced and shaped (and in some cases canceled 😊) by the good and thoughtful input of members throughout the church! Who’s teaching, mentoring, and serving you besides your pastor?

I can’t always share who those people are and what exactly they said, but I want you to know this so that I can foster and encourage a culture of proper trust and camaraderie throughout the church. Will you pray that we can achieve this kind of church culture more and more over the next year ahead? It would be so special and reassuring to know that you are trusting God in that way and praying to that end.

By volunteering to serve others.

So, we should all involve ourselves in service to our church and we should also be eager to be served by other members in the church, too. Consider the example of a family which Paul names in the last chapter of his letter to the church at Corinth (1 Cor 16:15-16).

“I urge you, brethren—you know the household of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints—that you also submit to such, and to everyone who works and labors with us.”

As a church, we should not only be committed to involving a variety of members in our various ministries, programs, and plans, but we should all be eager and prepared to serve. This is one of the blessings of VBS, for instance, since this year as many 40+ members (nearly half our church family) participated and served in one way or another.

Ideally, we should all be serving within our church family, as Christ himself taught us to follow his example of being a sacrificial servant (Mark 10:44-45). When the number of those who serve increases, the spirit of mutual submission increases, and this is an evidence of a church who is filled with the Spirit.

By singing a variety of good songs.

We spoke about this at length last Sunday from Eph 5:19, when we learned that even the earliest churches sang a variety of songs not only in lyrics but in cultural style – psalms hymns, and spiritual songs.

Nicolas Ellen, an African American pastor of Community of Faith Bible Church in Houston, TX and adjunct professor of biblical counseling at Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Minneapolis, MN tells the story of when he and an Asian-American pastor teamed up to pastor a church together. In their efforts to blend cultural preferences together for Christ, they included a variety of songs in their worship services, some more Asian and others more African American in style. In some of their pastoral and planning meetings, they would assess their services and admit that on occasion, one service may have leaned too heavily in one direction or another from a cultural standpoint.

Perhaps you noticed that our worship service featured a larger degree of newer songs last Sunday and a larger degree of older songs today. Did you notice that? Were you okay with that? Hopefully so! That’s mutual submission in action and a mark that we are growing in being filled with the Spirit in our worship together.

While it’s difficult to get such a balance perfect on a regular basis, I deeply respect their attempts to do so! By God’s grace, that church not only grew to include Asian and African American members, but other ethnicities, too.

FWIW, as with Tim Potter, I am also hoping to invite Nicolas Ellen and his wife, Vanessa, to speak for us at Brookdale Baptist sometime in the next couple of years. You will be grateful for their ministry!

How can you better apply the principle of mutual submission and follow the example of Christ?

How is God encouraging your heart today towards increased submission to one another? Is he encouraging you to join the church? To be served or to serve in some particular way? Or to enthusiastically embrace the ideas and participation of other members one way or another? By God’s grace, let us depend on his Spirit to follow the example of Christ and be a gathering of submissive servants for his glory.

---

[1] James Montgomery Boice, Ephesians: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Ministry Resources Library, 1988), 191.

⁴⁰ Calvin, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, 204.