FREE MEN

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore,

and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

There is a word we shall be hearing more and more as the church is being drawn together.

It is the word submit.

Wives are to submit to their husbands. We are to submit to one another in the fear of God. We are to submit to authority, both in the world and in the Body. We are to bring this spirit of rebellion and lawlessness which is not only abroad in the world, but stirs in our own hearts, into subjection to Jesus by submitting to him and to every authority that stands under him.

In the Kingdom of Heaven there is order. The glorious creatures that stand before the throne gladly submit to the Holy God. The elders gladly fall on their faces and cast their crowns before the ever living One. Every one standing on that sea of glass freely submits to God.

Our Lord submitted to his Father’s will at every point.

“I do only those things which please him.

I do nothing of myself.”

And when we are walking in the Spirit, we submit to Jesus exactly as he submits to his Father. We do it with joy and without reservation.

Misguided Submission

But we need to be sure when we submit, that we are really submitting to Jesus. There is a danger that we start making the act of submission itself into a virtue. We can become so busy submitting that we forget to watch who we are submitting to.

I am held accountable if I submit to a false prophet. For our Lord warns us to beware of false prophets and explains how we can know them.

And I am held accountable if I submit to the yoke of slavery of legalism. There are men who are just waiting to get their hands on those who submit indiscriminately to any voice that claims to have authority.

Wherever they see an assembly where believers are learning to submit, they’re right there ready to take advantage of the situation.

And they are subtle. They have us doing things that seem very, very good. They convince us that we have gained so much by submitting to their clever additions to the gospel, that we have advanced far beyond the simple walk with Jesus Christ we once had.

But when our walk with Jesus is no longer simple, clear, direct, chances are we’re not walking with Jesus anymore. Chances are we have fallen into bondage to a tyrant who dominates us through some form of religious legalism.

Paul brought the gospel to the providence of Galatia. Through him people saw Jesus crucified for their sins. They believed. The Spirit fell upon them and the word was confirmed again and again by miracles working in their midst. A church came into being that bore all the marks of God’s presence. These people were the Body of Christ in Galatia, but when Paul left, men came into those churches who got the people to submit to things that had nothing to do with Jesus Christ. Circumcision. Special days and months and seasons that Paul never told them about. New rules. New disciplines. All these things were added to Jesus Christ., Paul got wind of it and wrote them strong words.

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel--not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you,

let him be accursed.”

What those false teachers did was very simple: they took the principle of submission which the Galatians understood well, but switched the object. They substituted themselves and their beautiful teachings for Jesus Christ, And while on the surface those churches may have seemed to be thriving more than ever, while the name of Jesus was still being used and the Spirit was still being talked about, the people were back under a yoke of slavery heavier than any they had ever known in the past.

When the principle of submission is detached from Jesus Christ and used by a man or a group of men who presume to stand in Christ’s stead, the results are often very impressive to the natural eye.

You walk into the place and you can feel the power. You are staggered by the numbers who have flocked to this thing. And you say to yourself, “Why this movement surely has the blessing of God on it.’ But as you allow yourself to be drawn in, you discover that you are being asked to submit to what Paul calls "another gospel." You are subtly being brought into bondage to things that Jesus never commanded.

These movements turn out men and women who, are joyful and productive only as long as they can feed on the atmosphere of the cult. Take them out of the cult and make them stand on their own two feet in this real world among these real people and real problems, without getting that periodic spiritual fix and they fall apart. Then it becomes obvious that these people are not the joyful victorious saints they seem to be.

Beneath their identical smiles and identical “praise the Lords” they are spiritual robots. Puppets. Jesus Christ does not produce such people.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, (the old bondage), behold, the new, (freedom), has come.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you tree.

A Time to Submit and A Time to Refuse

But because of false brethren secretly brought in, who slipped into spy out our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage...to them we did not yield submission even for a moment, that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

To know when to submit and when not to submit it may be helpful to keep several things in mind.

First, we are bond slaves of Jesus Christ and of no one else.

It is true that we have found our freedom through submission,

But not indiscriminate submission.

Not stupid submission.

Not blind, unthinking submission.

Submission to him who laid down his life for us, atoned for our sins with his blood and who is our only Lord.

We belong to him. Father; mother, wife, husband, children, siblings even our own lives are deliberately cast from the throne of our hearts.

Jesus alone reigns there.

And every day when we get up,

we make sure that Jesus is still alone is on that throne.

And from that throne Jesus teaches us where to submit and where not to submit. He fits us into the Body.

He mixes us in with brothers and sisters who not only comfort us, but often irritate us and misunderstand us.

He convicts us when we’re lax and warns us when we are hardening our hearts.

Our fitting into the Body is always tied to our relationship with Jesus, our direct, personal living, trusting, obedient relationship with Jesus.

We are to be manipulated no man and we are to manipulate no man.

Yes, we are under authority in the Body, but authority that conforms to the Spirit of Jesus Christ, And the Spirit of Jesus Christ never violates the human will. If God wanted to disregard our wills, he would not have had to send his Son to the cross. He could have snapped his fingers and turned us into a race of sweet smiling robots. But that’s not what God is after. He’s after sons and daughters who are free. Even if he has to run the risk of allowing multitudes to look into the face of his Son and deliberately choose hell.

God will not manipulate people. Only Satan does that.

And when in our fellowships we allow ourselves to be programmed by those above us in order that we can program those under us... even if we are being programmed to praise God...the thing is false. It is satanic.

In the wilderness Satan was trying to program our Lord. Jesus didn’t give an inch. And Satan is trying to program us every day of our lives. If you have a passion for programming, find a computer. And if some man is trying to program you, tell him to get lost.

Our link with God is faith not legalism.

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so many things in vain?...if it really is in vain. Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?

If I believe in Jesus, I’m going to obey him. I’m going to do what he says. People who say, “I believe,” but never do his will, only think they believe.

But if I try to produce works, if I try to do the good things that are required of believers, without having my eyes and heart on Jesus Christ in faith, I end up in the worst kind of bondage.

Satan will always send somebody along to tell me what I have to do. And it sounds very correct. But Satan never tells me where the power comes from, never tells me about the cross, And the harder I work at obeying the rules, the more enslaved I become to the rules and to the people that lay them down.

“What must we do to be doing the works of God?” they asked. Jesus. And he answered, and still answers,

“Believe in him whom he has sent. Look to me, trust me, walk with me, and I will guide you and give you all the power you need to do the Father’s will, And you will be slaves no more to any man or spirit or doctrine or rule. You will be free men and free women, doing the Father’s will, hastening the coming of my kingdom, fitting in with brothers and sisters, enduring persecution with a joy that will never leave you, in this world or the next.”