Understanding submission, continued

Last time we met, we discussed how we have trouble with this word, "submission." Doesn't seem to matter if we are talking about submitting to God, to our spouse, to an elder, or to civil authority. It just seems to "get our hackles up" as my grandma used to say. We don't like it. We're not comfortable with it.
We talked about how the things we are taught are sometimes the things that cause conflict in this area. Today we'll chat about our attitudes..... Yeah, my toes got mushed today, hope yours will survive this study!! (Grin)
Here are our focus verses, before we dig in:

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves.17 Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor. (I Peter 2:13-17)

Human beings like to have things their own way, no?
Yes.
From the almost-three-year-old who digs in her heels and wants to eat the peas with her fingers or dress herself in clashing colors, to the oldster who wants to have things "just the way they've always been," we humans can be pretty stubborn.
Yep, I'm guilty here, too.
The desire, the lust if you will, is to have things the way WE want. To gratify ourselves, many times at the expense of others. And boy, will there be conflict from that! Human nature is a whole, big, messy package of attitudes, and they are all dominated by the desire to gratify ourselves.
James said that was where conflict arose:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:1-3)

Our desires, whether it is parent and child in that relationship, or husband and wife in the marriage relationship, or even in politics among different nations in this world -- those desires keep crashing into each other like cars on an icy road. This kind of conflict won't end until everyone is keeping the traditions and guidelines of God. That is why we are in the process of salvation, of sanctification....it's our responsibility to grow more like the Father, so that we are more in line with His guidelines. That is what will stop us from crashing into each other. We must overcome the things we have learned in our lives, and overcome the attitudes that stem from pleasing ourselves.

Satan loves to see those crashes, by the way.We must realize that even as believers, we still hear his broadcasts. We still can be influenced by them. We must strive daily to push them back, to ignore them, for Satan loves to see us having problems with submitting. He is still working and producing conflict -- in fact, anywhere he goes, conflict erupts like a volcano. He's a master at producing it!
Here is what Paul said about Satan's former influence on Christians:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time,gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. (Ephesians 2:1-3)

Here's where our stories changed, though:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:4-5)

God made us alive! He gave us liberty! But we can't have liberty without guidelines (like laws, policies, or even the example of a godly person) to which we submit. If we have liberty without guidelines, the end result is chaos. We as individuals must use self-control and submit to guidelines before the chaos happens.....

We have to understand, then, that there is authority in our lives. It's a fact of life. It may be God; it could be another human being; it could be a law. Everyone lives under authority and everyone must submit. Here's an example -- there is a law of gravity, right? And a person standing at the edge of a thousand-foot drop off a cliff will step away from the edge and not over it. Why? Because we desire to live; we know that if we break that law of gravity, we will be at the bottom of the cliff, either hurt or dead. So we submit to the idea of the law of gravity, in order to preserve our life, our liberty.

Submission doesn't involve just our relationship with God. It doesn't only involve our relationship with people. We've just seen that it can occur in common sense, or what we would call the laws of nature. And here is where the rubber meets the road, folks: if we have the mind of God, we will be looking for opportunities to submit to God, because ironically enough, that is where true freedom lies. Remember what Jesus told us in John 8?

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”......Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:32,34-36)

Knowing the truth and submitting to that truth is what brings liberty. If one is standing on the edge of the cliff, common sense and the truth of God tell us that we should obey the law of gravity -- the other choice is to give up our freedom to live. So, true liberty happens when we submit to truth. It's the liberty that God wants us to have. The freedom that He calls us to enjoy.

 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. (Galatians 5:13)

Now, we've given ourselves a lot to think about. The next time that we get our hackles up about submitting to anything, we'll have to think about these things.....
.....and hopefully this will give us a foundation on which to build, as we discuss our passage, starting tomorrow. Are we really supposed to submit to worldly authorities? Hmmmmmm.
Hope you will join us!