PRINCIPLES OF JESUS CHRIST SERIES

SUBMISSION & TIMING

 

            As we were worshipping the Lord said, “There is something that I am dealing in the whole heart and life of each one of My people. Let them go home early and have more time with Me because there is something that is coming forth in the spirit.”

 

            Just now as we were going around, one of the sisters was a bit shy to share a vision she saw yesterday.  She wrote this vision and I read it, I felt it was good to know something that the Lord is doing.

        

            This is what she said: ‘Yesterday at the Saturday prayer meeting, I had a vision.  It is not something very easy to share.  If I tell it some people might think that I have gone into the deep end.  First I saw a thick cloud of darkness and I also noticed there was a crack in the darkness.  Through the crack I noticed that beyond the darkness is brilliant gold colored light.  But as we prayed the crack still remains and it got no wider.  Then I saw the devil.  I knew it was the devil beyond a shadow of doubt.   I saw fear in the face of the devil.’ 

 

            It’s not easy to share a vision of a devil.  It’s easier to share a vision of Jesus.  What I believe is happening is we are cracking some realm of darkness over this land through all the prayers and there is something happening.  There is a flow of the Spirit we all can sense.  You and I know that the fullness still had not come.  It had begun.  Revival has begun.  The fullness has not come and apparently the devil knows that is coming forth.  There is a great fear.  There is a great stirring in our hearts knowing that something is about to explode.

 

            This morning we want to close with the series on principles of Jesus Christ applying in His life.  This morning we are going to touch on the principle of timing and submission.  The two go together.  Jesus’ life is the ultimate example of what submission is like.  The ultimate example of what timing is like.  When we were young, we thought that being right about certain things is enough.  But as we grow and mature in life, we realize that being right and doing the right thing at the right time is also important.  As maturity sets in we realize that timing can play a big role in many situations.  The timing for saying certain things, the timing of winning a person back to the Lord and the timing of doing the right things, all these rest around the big word timing. 

 

            The word timing is related to the word submission.  You notice that basically in a lot of problems that we read in the bible and in church history have to do with submission and timing.  Many people who have gone from one phase of ministry to another, one phase of life to another, have encountered submission problems in their lives.  Either they are submitting to some authority figure or somebody else is submitting to them. You notice that timing has to do with it.  Sometimes when we are under authority, we have to wait for the right time to do or say certain things. The ability to wait has to do with the quality of submission.  So timing and submission are related.  

 

And the reverse is true.  It’s important as a leader to enhance the people flowing in one accord and one leadership.  The leader must also move in the right timing of the Lord.  If the leader does the right thing in a wrong time, people will find it hard to submit.  So when the right thing is done in the right time, in the fullness of time you will have the full backing of the people. But sometimes some things are not done in the fullness of time and a leader is not able to do what he wants to do.  If the leader has the patience to wait a year or two, then more people will be willing and information would have been gathered and more people will be able to flow along with that vision.  So we find that both ways, submission and timing always plays a dual role together.

      

            Philippians 2, we see Jesus’ life in His submission.  When we talk about Jesus submitting and obeying in His life, learning the principle of submission, we also find it relates to the principle of timing.  In His life, He was sensitive to God’s timing to do the right thing at the right time.

 

            Phil. 2 verse 5 onwards, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.  Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” 

 

            Lets look at some examples in Jesus’ life in regard to timing and submission.  How Jesus grew in learning submission.  Submission is something that we all have to learn in our life at certain point.  There was a teaching on submission during the Charismatic movement that went to the extreme.  People submitted themselves to church leaders to the extend that they do not have anymore thinking process going on or they do not make decision for themselves anymore.  Somebody else make decisions that are personal and private for him or her.  That’s where the doctrine of submission has gone to the extreme, so that for many people they do not know how to hear God for themselves.  If they want to get married, they have to ask permission from the leaders.  If they want to make a personal decision in their job, they will ask permission from the leaders.

 

            Now there is a difference between asking for permission and asking for advice.  Advice and counsel means there is option whether you want to follow it or not.  You just want to get more information to make a right decision but you are making the decision.  But in many cases of Christian extreme groups, they teach submission to a point that the church members don’t grow anymore.  They remain spiritual babies because they never learn to hear God for themselves.  When they have to make a decision, all they have to do is to depend on the leaders.  That’s how extreme some groups can become like Jim Jones and all those cults.  They could dominate peoples’ lives since they surrender the right of their own personal life to such leaders.  When the leaders go wrong, it’s very dangerous.  The whole group dies. 

 

            God did not design submission in that way.  He designs for it to flow in a give and take manner.  Every time the bible talks about submission, it says submit one to another, that’s a give and take process.  Submission is not demanded.  People who recognize something in others give and yield their submission.  Remember the principle is that submission is never taken but it’s given freely.  In other words, when we respect and we learn something from someone else and we recognize the hand and the wisdom of God in someone, we voluntarily yield our submission because that person knows better in that area.  So it should be given rather than be demanded or taken.  So in all of our life, we need to learn the principle of submission and principle of timing.  These are the things that break our pride, break our self, break our flesh and cause us to be able to be filled with the Spirit of meekness that would inherit the earth. 

 

Jesus learned submission from very young. Lets look at the gospel of Luke.  There are many times in His life when submission was demanded.  We want to consider the special time in His life when He practiced those principles.  In Luke 2, Jesus was twelve years old, just a little boy about to turn a teenager the following year.  Luke 2: 41 “His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.  And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast.  When they had finished the days, as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem.  And Joseph and His mother did not know it; but supposing Him to have been in the company, they went a day’s journey, and sought Him among their relatives and acquaintances.  So when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking Him.  Now so it was after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.  And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers.”

 

            I want you to know that at twelve years old, He was remarkably matured.  Verse 48, “So when they saw Him, they were amazed;” at such maturity in a boy so young.And His mother said to Him, ‘Son, why have You done this to us?  Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously.’  And He said to them, ‘Why did you seek Me?  Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?’   But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them.”

 

            Although Jesus was twelve, He knew more than His parents about spiritual things.  He knew the purpose of God in His life.  He knew the call of God in His life.  He had more knowledge than them.  He also knew His destiny and call.  He says, ‘I must be about My Father’s business’.  Very few twelve years old children know what they want to do in life.  But Jesus knew what He was called to do.  He knew His destiny at twelve years old.  Normally if we Christian parents bring their children up in the way of the Lord by twelve they would know their destiny. 

 

            In verse 51, “Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them.” 

 

            The Greek says, “He was submitted to them.”  I don’t think it was easy.  It’s easy to submit to someone who knows better than you but it’s hard to submit to someone who you think you know more than him/her.  Secondly, it’s easy to submit to someone who knows what is God’s purpose for your life.  It’s easy to yield to that person because that person will help you into God’s purpose.  But it’s hard to submit to someone who does not know what God wants to do in your life.  And as great a miracle as Jesus had when He healed the sick, cast out devils, opened blind eyes, healed the lame, opened deaf ears and made the dumb to speak.  As great a remarkable miracle is the fact that in all His perfection, in all His holiness, in all His wisdom and knowledge, He could learn to submit which is also learning to wait.  Submission and timing always goes together.  Little children have the habit of being impatient.  The interesting thing is patience comes from experience.  We learn patience in life.  I pray that the older we grow in the Lord, the more patient we may be. 

 

            Young ministers after graduation usually are very impatient to get to do what they want to do.  But after a few hard knocks, they learned to be a bit more patient.  Submission and timing flows together.  Jesus knew that one day He will come out from the umbrella of His mother and father but now He has to learn the most difficult thing to do. That word is easy but the most difficult action to do in the Christian walk and its spelt  ‘WAIT’.  It’s not easy to wait but Jesus was not like other children.  Have you ever seen little children?  You ask them to wait and they want to do something.  They are eager to do it.  Perhaps you are taking them to a park and you have something else to finish.  You say, “Could you please wait for another hour?”  You could see them waiting but every five minutes they say, “Papa, is it time to go?”  Half an hour later, they will say, “Can we go now?’  I mean they could hardly wait.  But submission and waiting go together. 

 

So Jesus submitted to His parents and we know from references in the gospel of Luke 3 that He only launched into His ministry at the age of thirty.  This means eighteen long years of patient waiting.  A lot of pastors especially denominational pastors who want to renew their church struggle with submission to their superiors.  When they ask me, “Pastor, what is your advice from your point of view?”  I said, “There is only one key word ‘patience’.”  Unless God calls them out it’s different.  Patience to wait on the people to come to know the Holy Spirit and when we get on fire by the Holy Spirit we sometimes lack patience with people.  It’s amazing that Jesus with all His glory and splendor had so much patience.  Because most of time in the world, the more knowledgeable a person is the more talent or ability a person have, the more impatient he/she has with others who are too slow.  They either scold the people who are too slow or push their way around.  But that’s not God’s way.  God’s way is to be patient.  Eighteen long years He is subject to His parents.  I believe that from that day onwards He just obeyed. I mean every year they went up to the feast, but from that day onwards, He never stayed behind.

       

            Can you imagine Mary calling Jesus, I mean calling a small boy.  Not calling for help.  It is quite a unique experience.  Can you imagine this unique experience of Jesus’ mother?  “Jesus, can you come here?”  “Yes mom.”  You mean Jesus never called His mother mom?  Of course He did.  Who do you think He is?  Son of God yes but He was Son of man.  If He didn’t call His mother mom, what do you think He calls His mother?  Oh yes, instrument of God to bring Me forward.  Of course He called His mother mom.  “Jesus can you please wash the dishes?”  “Yes, mom.”  He submitted.  He waited on God.  He didn’t say, “I am not made to wash this.  I am made to cast out devil, heal the sick, open blind eyes.”  It’s important for us to learn to yield and to submit. 

 

Submission has to do with timing and our ability to hold ourselves back in God.  Waiting for God’s perfect timing.  The people around Jesus in His hometown knew Him as a carpenter.  Which means that as He grew up helping His father, He was probably making some tables and chairs.  I mean Jesus Christ, Son of God, a man without sin doing such a humble job.  Some of us think that this kind of jobs is not for us.  No such thing.  We need to learn humility and submission in ordinary matters of life.  I realize that sometimes in some church groups they force people to do humble tasks.  That would be wrong.  People have to be slowly taught how to do it and not compelled to do it.  As they learn to do these little things their lives develop the quality of meekness and submission that money can’t buy.  No bible school training, no lecturer can give you the training of meekness.  That can only come with washing toilets or doing the most humble task that is given to you. 

 

There are times when Joseph must have sent Jesus out and said, “Jesus can you go out and deliver this stool?”  He delivered the stool or delivered something else.  People will place orders and Jesus will be there and ask, “What would you like to order?”  “A table and two chairs.”  No wonder when Jesus went out as Son of God, people cannot accept Him.  They asked, “How can this be? This is the man who delivered my table and now He commands demons to come out.”  They couldn’t put two and two together.  It was harder to accept Him especially if you know Him.  In fact the one place that had the most resistance to Jesus Christ was His hometown.  He could not do mighty work because when He tried to do something, they would say, “I know you.  You are the carpenter.  Now you are saying you are the Son of God.”  It was very hard to accept.

 

            Do you know why Pharaoh was so cruel to the Israelites when Moses came?  The Pharaoh was most probably Moses’ colleague in the school for princes.  The Pharaoh whom Moses came to meet grew up together with Moses.  Moses grew up in Egypt.  He grew up as a prince.  They had a special school.  Suddenly Moses was missing for forty years and he comes back and say, “Let my people go in the name of Yahweh.”  The Pharaoh said, “This is the fellow I played marbles with.”  You could see that some of the resistance that Pharaoh had.  How could Pharaoh be so hard?  Part of the reason is familiarity.  Familiarity breeds contempt.

 

            Here is Jesus and He did all these things in His hometown.  In verse 51, He was subject to them.  But His mother kept all these things in her heart.  There are many degrees of submission that we learn to.  We learn and we grow in submission.  The first and hardest lesson, which Jesus here succeeds beautifully, is to learn to submit when you have something greater than the one you submit to.  When you know more than the one you submit to.  When you know your own life than the one you submit to.  It’s very difficult.  Most people would rather not submit.  They will rather call it quits. 

 

            Another example of this area of struggle of submission is the life of David.  When David was launched out into his public ministry after he had slain Goliath, the women were singing, “Saul had slain his thousand and David has slain ten thousands.”  Can you imagine David coming to work under that kind of set up?  He was more anointed than Saul.  Saul had already lost a great portion of his anointing.  The only difference is that David was talented, gifted, anointed but he didn’t have a position.  Saul had a position.  David had to learn submission.  I mean he could have easily instigated a rebellion.  But David submitted because he waited for the timing of God.  God had prophesied that in his life that he will be king.  Yet he didn’t view Saul and Jonathan as a rival.  He viewed them with love.  Even Jonathan told David,  ‘When you are king, I will be next to you.’  Jonathan was a submissive person too.  He says, ‘I recognized God’s call in your life.  This is divine destiny, nothing human.  When you are king, I will be next to you.’  Sadly, he died with Saul.  All through Saul’s life, David had to learn to yield and to work under a man who was less anointed than him.  He was more gifted than that man but yet he could be under him. 

 

            Now the reverse is also important.  Many times people find it hard to be leader over others who are more talented.  Most people feel insecure.  That should never be.  The reverse is also necessary when God teaches grace. Do you know what Saul’s failure was?  He failed to realize that position also comes from God.  When God gives you a position, unless God takes it away, no man, no demon can ever take it away.  Instead of being thankful for David, who could now help him to extend his reign and all that God wants him to do, he became insecure and he wanted to get rid of David.  You noticed that David had that kind of grace to take people who are as talented and who are as powerful as he was.  Remember the time of Abner?  He wanted to receive Abner but Joab didn’t want because Joab thought his position was threatened.  Then David wanted to receive a lot of these mighty men who are skillful in the own right, they came to David and David became captain over them.  He never felt insecure because when God calls and God positions you, your security is in God.  So from the reverse side, we need to understand that most of all is our walk with God.  We must rest in God.  From the point of submission and timing, which is in Jesus’ life, He learned to submit to imperfect human parents when He was perfect.  Jesus knew no sin.  He was perfect in His heart, mind, thoughts and deeds.  To submit to parents who are less perfect than Him, it’s as amazing to me as healing the sick and casting out demons.  That shows the grace on Jesus’ life, the willingness to flow along with God’s plan and God’s timing.  Eighteen years of that.  

 

          Finally Jesus graduated from the first stage of submission and He moved into the second stage.  In Luke 3: 23 when Jesus was thirty years old and He was about to begin His ministry, He had to do something more.  He had to submit in another pattern in another realm.  He already submitted to His parents for eighteen years and God looked at Him and when He came out of the water baptism, God says: ‘This is My Son in whom I am well pleased.’  Do you know that you can please God by submission and timing?  When you allow God to exalt you rather than exalting yourself, everything will be in divine harmony.  But most of the time being human and if we get in the flesh, we want to do things ourselves.  But if we were to just go on our knees and pray and let God do the exalting, you do the humbling, and all things will fall into perfect place.  It may not come in the time that you expect but it will come in a time that God has. 

 

            What Jesus did was very interesting.  First of all He had to say goodbye to his home.  From that day onwards, He was not coming back home or going back to his job as a carpenter.  He’s no more going back there.  Sometimes when you have been in something for eighteen years, if you don’t watch out, you can be comfortable in it and you don’t want to change.  Moses was pretty comfortable after forty years in the wilderness.  He had a good wife.  He had a family.  He had a good father-in-law.  He had a nice job taking care of the sheep.  He had his food, clothing and shelter.  He had everything nice for himself.  There is nothing more he could ask for in life except to live all his days for God.  So when God asked him to go he was a little bit less willing.  If we don’t watch out, sometimes we are staying in certain areas for eighteen years or forty years, we don’t want to change anymore.  We are so complacent.  God is bringing us to another deeper realm and we say, .No God, we don’t think we could go along with that.”  God has to shake us up in order to promote and bring us into a deeper realm of submission.  This is the most interesting thing I have found. 

 

            We all know that promotion come not from the east or from the west, but it comes from God.  Now the word promotion also means exaltation.  And the word exaltation also goes with the word humbling.  The humble shall be exalted.  So there is no exaltation without humbling.  So before God promotes there must be a humbling process in our life.  There must be another area of submission and yielding that demands of our life.  To be willing to yield to Him even more.  To be willing to submit to Him and His timing even more.  As Jesus was about to launch out into His ministry, God spoke to Him to have one more realm of submission.  By that time John the Baptist was already out doing his ministry.  Jesus knew more than John the Baptist.  Jesus had more and a bigger calling than John the Baptist.  But God wanted Jesus to go and submit to John the Baptist.  How did He submit?  John the Baptist’s portfolio in ministry was preaching the baptism of repentance.  Calling the people for the Lord.  Now Jesus could have just started His ministry in another corner of Jordan and started preaching straight away.  But God is a God of order not disorder.  There is always a proper channel and a proper flowing of one thing into another.  God asked Jesus Christ of Nazareth, fully God and fully man, sinless, pure and perfect and the Holy Spirit spoke to His life to go and submit to John the Baptist.  That act of submission is to be baptized in water by him.  That’s another act as great as Jesus’ healing the sick. 

 

            In Matthew the record tells us, as Jesus came to John’s ministry in verse 13, “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him.”   John himself knew.  Look You are greater than me.  I am not even worthy to unloose the shoes lace from your sandals.  Verse 14, “And John tried to prevent Him to persuade Him from doing so because he said, “How can I do that to You?  You should be baptizing me rather than me baptizing you.”   And John said, “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?”

 

            What a marvel of submission.  The bible says submit one to another.  When we come to one another and we are willing to submit to one another, there is always unity.  When each one of us comes with a servant heart and we say, ‘I am prepared to serve you and wash your feet.’  And you come prepared to wash my feet, and then there is no strife.  There is no striving because I have come prepared to serve you and you have come prepared to serve me.  There is perfect harmony.  The only reason why there is disunity would be we are no more willing to serve one another and to wash one another feet.  May God deal in our hearts that we will say, “Lets serve one another.

 

            Lets see what we can do to show our love for one another.  Here you could call Jesus a spiritual giant, and yet He comes to John the Baptist and said, ‘John, please baptize Me.’ John felt like a small little shot and say, “How could I do it?”  But Jesus says in verse 15, “Permit it to be so now.”

 

             If you read it in the Greek this is what Jesus is saying, ‘Ask your permission for this to be done.’  Just permit it to be done.  Jesus is saying, “Can I have the permission to enter your house.”  If Jesus comes physically right now, Jesus won’t even enter your car or house.  He would still come and say, “Can I have permission to enter your car or house?”’  You will say, “Lord, you are my Master, you own my life.”  What a polite Jesus we have.  We can see evidence of that in chapter 24, when Jesus Christ was about to go off, and the two disciples on the way to Emmaus had to welcome Him and persuade Him to stay.  Unless He is invited He won’t stay.  So Jesus said, “Let permission be granted.”  That’s what He said, “Let permission be granted now in this matter for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”  It’s a right thing to do in a right time.  This submission He went through is slightly different from the first one.  Although the factors are still there but it’s slightly different.  In this area of submission, it is what I call a joining of the flow of the Spirit of God, where Jesus recognized that John’ ministry is vitally important.  In fact all of Jesus’ disciples were in a certain sense touched by John the Baptist’s ministry.  Some were great followers of John the Baptist.  Some were just touched.  Look at the ministerial ethics involved.  Jesus didn’t just come and preach in the opposite corner and started taking away John the Baptist’s disciples.  He could have done it but Jesus came to John the Baptist and yielded to him and then John the Baptist gave permission for his disciples to follow Him.  Look at the ministerial ethic involved.  These are small things that matter as far as God is concerned.

 

            Look at the gospel of John.  We got to compare all the gospels to get the full picture.  After He was baptized in water, Jesus kept coming to John.  Now you know that He came the first time, it was for water baptism.  Why do you think He came the second time? 

 

            John 1: 35-36 “Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples.  And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God!”

 

            What was Jesus doing with John the Baptist?  Did He start preaching yet?  Not really in that sense.  Why did Jesus go a second time, a third time and a fourth time?  Jesus was submitting Himself to the ministry of John the Baptist and to the timing of God.  So Jesus kept going there.  I mean you thought, oh, He finished His water baptism and He can run off now with His ministry.  It is not like that kind of submission.  Submission, you say, “Let me do this one act of submission and then after this I can get away with what I really want to do.”  That is a right act but with a wrong attitude.  Unless you are willing to submit forever it’s not real.  Jesus was prepared to just wait and He came when John the Baptist was still the main preacher.  Jesus was the new man.  Look at the ministerial ethics involved.  Jesus had the ability to preach.  I mean the anointing had already come on Him when He came out from the water baptism.  The Spirit of God was already on Him.  But Jesus just hanged around, stayed around with John the Baptist and stayed among the group.

 

            Sometimes when you see an anointed person leading in a revival prayer, some of you may feel that you could do a better job.  You think God has called you to many areas of prayers, Praise God!  Just like Elisha hangs around Elijah, Jesus also hangs around John the Baptist.  It doesn’t mean if you hang around these people you will be limited by them.  But it means that everything that they have for you can be imparted properly so that you can build on the foundation that they have for another realm.  You yield, you submit and let the Spirit take His time.  Usually you think its time to start your own ministry, but actually it’s not time until we die to self. When that happens, then we think, God, even if its forever, no problem Lord.  When you began to think that any time is fine, as long as God’s will be done, then you are ready to do God’s work.  You began to think that, Lord, anytime is your time.  My time is Your time.  Then you are more ready.  So Jesus hung around and waited around.  John did the right thing.  See this is a good reflection on John.  He was not insecure.  He knew where he was.  He knew that the success of his ministry means as Jesus comes he could pass over to Jesus.  John 1: 36 “And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God.’”  That day he lost two more disciples.  These are all ministerial ethics. 

 

            When you want to start a church and you know that your ministry comes from another ministry, you wait.   You abide your time.  You don’t decide your own time.  God decides a time for Jesus.  John the Baptist was sensitive to decide the time.  What happens if John was not sensitive?  God would have taken him off the scene.  You don’t have to worry about that.  Will you miss God’s time if you submit to somebody whom God told you to submit and don’t allow you to do what God wants you to do.  Don’t worry about it.  As you keep submitting God will take that person off because God will not allow His plans to be delayed by anyone who is disobedient.  He will just take John the Baptist off the scene.  Thank God, John was sensitive.  John says, this is the one I am talking about and more and more disciples started deserting John.  More and more disciples started following Jesus.  That took place for many months.  Through all those times, after Jesus was baptized, He had forty days and nights in the wilderness.  Then He had submission to John the Baptist for a period of time.  Several months, Jesus was waiting for one signal.  Jesus cannot really start His ministry until John the Baptist’s ministry was shut down because there cannot be two opposing forces on a sense.  Although there were many people who were following Jesus and whatever John gave Him He took.  So somebody came to John the Baptist and said to him and made this statement to him, that would have been upset some Christian leaders if it happened to them.  But John was not upset because he knew his calling.  

 

            John 3: 26 “And they came to John and said to him, ‘Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified – behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!”   So Jesus began baptizing and people are coming to Him.

 

            Verse 27-30, “John answered and said, ‘A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.  You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice.  Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled.  He must increase, but I must decrease.’”

 

             What a lovely man.  I am sure he got a great reward in heaven.  Jesus had some people following Him by now although His followers were not baptized by Him but by His disciples. Jesus had some measure of ministry but He didn’t go all out yet.  He didn’t go all out because He was still waiting for one more signal from God.  One more sign from God.  He had to work in a very quiet way.  He didn’t really broadcast Himself.  Whatever advertisement He had, He got it from John the Baptist.  Until one day, the signal came.  John the Baptist was put in prison.  It’s all the timing of God.  His ministry had come to an end.  The bible tells us in the gospel of Mark chapter 1: 14 “Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled.’”  This record of Him doing all these things and announcing publicly was after John was kept in prison.  The time has come so He announced.

 

            So we see in the second lesson on submission is a different lesson compared to what we learned earlier.  First of all the lessons are different.  The first lesson we learned is personal ethics.  He says, “Lets permit this to be done for righteousness sake,” and then He waited for John to turn his disciples to Him.  All these are personal and ministerial ethics that go a long way.  All these are evidences of submission that we need to watch and flow along with. 

 

            So, firstly is in the area of ethical things, where we learn what is the righteous thing to do and how to fulfill righteousness.  This looks like some kind of delay and it seems to hurt but it doesn’t.  Learning patience in the area of ethics and righteousness.  Do you know that in this life, if all of us believe that what is right and wrong is the same for everybody, there will be a tremendous peaceful world?  Generally as Christians, we have a general sense of what is right and wrong but when it comes to some specific areas, people began to differ.  How do they differ?  According to the development in their life because Hebrew 5 says, that those who mature in God learn to discern right and wrong, which means that discerning right and wrong is a growth process.

 

            There is something that we know the Word says it is wrong but when you began to apply to different areas and to the situational ethics that’s where you are left with only your conscience in God.  And you got to discern the principles in your heart.  That discernment is where people differ.  That’s for the development of applying the Word correctly and ethically that sometimes people just cast aside.  Like for me, I make a strong stand about collecting love offerings in any public ministry.  I don’t believe in collecting love offerings as practiced by some flamboyant evangelists.  It’s my ethics and I will not permit it.  No matter how anointed a man of God is, I say these are principles of righteousness to me.  I will not bend.  I will not bow to that.  No matter how famous the man of God is.  I say it’s wrong, that’s it.  I don’t like a man of God coming to the pulpit, saying, “How many here have a one thousand dollar bill, how many have gold rings and how many have this or that?” To me this is wrong.  But these are things that we learn to adhere to in the second process of submission.  That we wait and we learn to wait until everybody flows along in that area.  In the area of these small things of right and wrong, we learn what I call a patient submission.  

 

            The second area in His learning to submit was in the temptations that He had forty days in the wilderness.  Jesus submitted His success, His plans, His life, and His desire to God.  But behind the temptations was this, lets turn to the gospel of Matthew 4: 2 for forty and nights He was already tempted.  In Matthew 4: 2 “And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.”  Do you see the word that He was hungry?  Jesus was tempted when He was hungry.  When you are in an ordained fast, you normally get over the hunger.  You don’t feel hungry.  But the moment the time period of your fast is over, you can feel the hunger.  Imagine after the end of the fast, the devil came when He was hungry and said, “Turn this stone into bread.”  Jesus had the power to do it but He didn’t want to use that power.  These three temptations have to do with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life.

 

            So my friends, the second point has three sub-points.  The submission that God deals in our life is in the areas of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life.  You may encounter some testing in submission and timing at the second phase of whatever you are doing.  Maybe it’s in business.  As you launched out, the devil gives you an offer to compromise your Christian principles and ethics to get a million dollars. All you have to do is go along with some bribery.  All you have to do is to do this illegal thing.  What do you choose?  Remember that principle that we have spoken?  What you get by compromise you will never be able to keep to the end.  Nor will you ever be satisfied.  You compromised and you got it.  What happen you get sleepless nights?  Secondly in the end you lose it because you can’t live with that kind of thing.  So we realize that the second area of submission is very deep area.  As you look and you ask, “Shall I yield to God’s higher principles?”  If you answer is yes, although it looks like you will lose but you gain on your inside.  It looks like you lose on the outside but you gain on the inside.  The gain on the inside will in the end lead to gain on the outside.  God doesn’t shortchange you.  Everything that you yield to God, He bless in return. 

 

The first submission of Jesus is with His parents and He learned the normal submission to parents’ authority that we all learned as children. This is what I called the basic area of submission.  Just learning to flow along with parental authority. 

 

            The second area is in the area of principles where we learn that submission and principles go together and higher principles are called in the realm of submission.  Submission without principles is not submission.  Most people only know the first level of submission, like the parental kind of submission or an army kind of submission.  But the second level of submission goes higher.  It touches on higher principles like personal ethics that you hold to and principles that you value in your life.  These areas that you submit to will begin to produce another dimension in your life and ministry.  That is the second phrase of submission and timing.  Jesus waited until John was shut up in prison and He launched out His ministry.  It was the divine timing.  He did not instigate.  He did not do anything to try to remove John the Baptist.  He waited because He knew God has His time.  He just hung around the group.  He did whatever He could in His time.  He did most of His ministry in private.  Disciples followed Him to His house and He shared with them.  He reserved His public ministry until John was put in prison and He launched out because now He is ready.  He was all tested and proven.  God gave Him great success.  That went on for three years.  At the end of the three years, there was the third area of submission that God dealt with His life.

 

            Luke 9: 51 “Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.”

 

            When He knew that the time had come and He had to submit to something else, something else that even His own disciples could not understand and comprehend.  The third level is awesome. 

 

It is like Abraham giving his son Isaac.  Because what you give up is what God gave.  Do you know that Abraham went through these three realms of submission?  God first called Him out of the land of Ur.  Abraham wrestled with submitting to God’s call in his life.  God called him again after his father died.  Which means that he found it difficult to submit to God and leave while his father was still alive.  There was a struggle in his life.  When his father died, he yielded to the call of God to go out of the land of Ur.  So he overcame the first level.  Then at the second level, he didn’t fully obey God’s command.  God said, “Leave your kinsfolk.”  He had one kinsfolk with him called Lot.  So finally they had problems with one another.  And here is where Abraham yielded everything to God.  He couldn’t care for the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life.  He said, “Lot, if you turn left I will turn right.”  Although Abraham was older and Abraham had the first choice yet Abraham said, ‘Lot, you go and take your first choice, I don’t mind anything.  I give you first preference.’   You see, Abraham was tested in the area of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life.  What kind of man he was.  It was like the temptation of the forty days in the wilderness. He went through all these all the time.  The bible tells us that when Lot left him, God said, ‘Abraham, look up, lift up your eyes and see the land I give to you.’  So God waited until that area was dealt with in his life.  He knew what kind of heart Abraham had.  You learned about the story when Abraham delivered Lot and all these other people of Sodom and Gomorrah and then Melchizedek came to him and blessed him.  The king of Sodom said, “You can keep everything.”  Abraham said, ‘I will not take one shoe string from you.’  He was being tested on the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life.  When he passed all these tests, God’s blessing came on his life.  The final test of Abraham was in Genesis 22 when God said, ‘Abraham, give me your son.’ 

 

The final test of Jesus when He was successful was when He was told by the Father to give His life for the world. This was something that His disciples never fully understood.  Now here is a point.  Jesus yielded His submission even when His parents didn’t understand Him. Because He succeeded in the first level of submission, and in the second level where He submitted to John the Baptist’s ministry, now in the third level He could push through ahead of what God told Him to do even though His disciples did not understand Him.  That was how submissive He was to God. 

 

            Lets look at His disciples’ reaction when Jesus started going forth.  In Luke chapter 9: 51 “Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and He sent messengers” to prepare the way.  Verse 53,  But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem.”  I mean the people who receive Him, now didn’t receive Him anymore.  He just pressed on.  He knew His destiny, like a lamb led to a slaughter.  When He heard God, He will just yield to God’s call for giving up His life.

 

            In Matthew 18, the disciples knew that something was up and they were saying to one another.  They came to him and said, “Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  The disciples started arguing about this because they thought that some great kingdom was going to be set up in Jerusalem.  There is the misunderstanding of what Jesus meant when He was going to Jerusalem.

 

            Mark 9: 30-32 “Then they departed from there and passed through Galilee, and He did not want anyone to know it.  For He taught His disciples and said to them, ‘The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him.  And after He is killed, He will rise the third day.  But they did not understand this saying, and were afraid to ask Him.” 

 

            There were amazement, bewilderment; all these were taking place among His disciples.  The force of submission drove Jesus as He prayed and tarried in Gethsemane, and went on in Jerusalem to the cross.  Submitting ultimately to the Father’s will whatever happens.  What divine submission.  What is involved here in this third level of submission?  It means that is completely, everything that He had from God is also taken from Him.  At least at level one, what He had from God was still there.  At level two when He submitted to John the Baptist’s ministry, what He had from God was still there except that it was waiting to be manifested.  But at level three, everything, all the success He had, He was willing to surrender to God.  In other words, the eyesight you received from God, you are willing to give it back to God.  Abraham knew he risked everything when he offered his son Isaac.   It was up to God.  He knew God could do it but it was still up to God.  That was the level of submission. 

 

            The three children, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace, said to king Nebuchadnezzar that if God were to save their lives, that is fine but if God doesn’t save their lives that is also fine.  They are not going to bow to idols.  See they had the level of submission that surpasses even the natural.  This third level is very high.  It’s the giving up of everything.  Usually the third level you do it alone because everything is stripped from your life.  It’s literally like the cross.  Everything that is there is stripped from Him.  All you have is God and the divine knowledge that you are doing what God wants you to do.  I don’t know if anyone of you have been there, but it’s the most difficult thing to do.  Now these three comes in cycles too in our life; they come with each phase in our life and in ministry but the third submission is more powerful than we think.

 

            Now if you read I Peter 2, you realize that the topic was on submission.  In verse 13 it says, “Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme.  Then in verse 18, “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear.”   So the example he is talking about is submission.  In verse 21, “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:  Who committed no sins, Nor was deceit found in His mouth.”  

 

Look at that kind of submission.  I mean He just sealed His mouth.  Pontius Pilate questioned Him but He didn’t answer a word except for a certain point where the name of God was involved.  Verse 23, “When He was reviled, did not reviled in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.”  That’s the high quality of submission.  Total, everything.  God doesn’t bring us to the third level until we passed the first and second level.  In the third level, we see it’s like the kind of sacrifice where Abraham sacrificed Isaac.  It’s total complete and you and God.  When Abraham was offering Isaac, he had nobody, not even his family.  It was he and God.  If he makes it, he made it.  If he fails, he failed.  It’s something that you go alone.

 

            No.2 in the third level, the submission is not for you.  The first two levels are for yourself.  The most remarkable thing about this third level of submission is for those around you to be blessed.  What is Jesus doing at this third level?  He is giving Himself as a sacrifice for us.  The women cried when He carried the cross up the hill and He said, “Women don’t weep for Me but weep for yourself.”  Because He knew that this doing was to bring forth something for His disciples and for the others.  He knew that this sacrifice He paid was not for Himself but it’s for others.  The first two levels of submission are just; the first one is learning authority.  The second is waiting for the time of your gift and has to do with principles.  The first one has to do with authority is learning to work with authority which all of us struggle at different time.  The second has to do with principles.  The third has to do with life.  First you give up your own life and then others will get life because of your sacrifice.  If you could give your life then other lives will come forth.

 

            I remembered the man who first translated the bible into English.  All because he translated the bible, he received much opposition and persecution at that time.  See sometimes to turn the tide you got to lay down your life.  You have to lay down one life in order that the tide will change.  Do you know sometimes when I pray for our nation, I weep and cry because I know that there are some in our nation who never have the chance to hear the gospel.  You know whom I am talking about.  I know in my heart that it will take some lives that are sacrificed before this group can hear.  Not sacrificed in vain but it will take some lives at the third stage of submitting to the will of God.  God will call forth some to be martyrs but the blood that is shed will open the door for thousands to come into the kingdom of God.  I wonder whom God will call to that task.  You can obviously see that unless we go through the first two stages, we cannot understand the third stage.  When John Wycliff translated the bible into English, he knew that he could die for doing so.  But yet he did it because there was another hand leading him. There was a hand higher than the human hands that were laid upon him.  There’s another hand compelling him.

 

            Like Paul, Paul says, ‘I go bound in the Spirit.’  There’s something higher.  Even if we live to 120 years old, it will still be short compared to eternity.  If we live our little life for a cause bigger than us, it will leave a great impact.  John Wycliff knew that something was bigger than he is individually.  When the authorities found out about his translation they arrested him.  It was a custom of that time to burn such people considered as heretics publicly.  As they put the firewood around him and hung him up to be burned at the stake that one life was sacrificed for generations down the road.  You say, ‘Brother, isn’t the Blood of Jesus Christ enough?’  My friends, the world will not come to know the Lord Jesus unless we have people who are willing to lay down their lives and blood for Jesus. We can confess prosperity, we can confess protection but there are some places and some groups and some doors that are never opened unless human blood is shed to open those doors.  As he laid his life at the stake he did it not for himself. He didn’t translate the bible for himself.  If he dies his children and his wife will miss him. He put aside his family because there was something bigger that he must submit to for eternity.  As he died on the stake burning, he said, ‘God open the eyes of the king of England’ and he died.  Years later his prayers were answered.  God opened the eyes of the king and the king commissioned the King James translation.  From that time onwards the bible came into the hands of the common men on the street.  I want you to know the bible you hold in your hand didn’t come without blood being shed.  I want you to know that history is being made that day when John Wycliff lost his life.  History is being made all the time.  If you want to make history, you must move to the third stage because in order to change the forces that need change, we have to love God onto death.  Then and only then we can change the world. 

 

            At one point the church of Jesus Christ was being persecuted right and left.  But there was one righteous man called Stephen.  As he was persecuted and as he died, he said, ‘Lord, lay not this charge on them,’ and God took that one prayer and He started working in Saul’s life and converted him.  In Act 9, we are told when Paul was converted Jesus appeared and said, ‘I will show you how many things you must suffer for My Name’s sake.’  Preaching the gospel is not just for the sake of amassing prosperity; there is something deeper that should be working in our life.  Paul says in II Cor.4, we give our lives daily. The dying of our Lord Jesus Christ is on us so that life may come forth.  That’s the submission he is talking about.  Unless we are willing to give ourselves to the degree of submission, we cannot make history and change the world for God.  But when we are willing, there will be a quickening of the spirit because God honors that kind of submission.  It’s eternal powerful and thousands can come to God as a result of that one life that is shed as a seed.  Where is your level of submission?  Is it at level one in authority?  Or level two in principle?  Or level three in life?  How do you measure your submission?  Lets move deep into what God bring us to submit to.  Submission and timing is a divine combination.

 

 

 

 

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