Meaning of Obey and Submit

A while back the elders here at Lansing had planned a sermon series on the local church, with the first particularly tricky/sensitive message dealing with submission in verses like Hebrews 13:17. That sermon has led to a number of questions about just what it means to submit and obey. If one example is given, it naturally leads to thinking of another example and wondering about this, that, or the other possible situation. And it becomes a little tricky.

John Piper is the best. I listened to a couple sermons by him on Monday that were preached on Hebrews 13:17, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you." They were very good and in the second one when he talks about what obey and submit actually means, he takes a while to develop biblically and practically that leaders/elders can be very fallible and there needs to be safeguards in place.

Then at the end he asks:

What then does "Obey your leaders and submit to them" mean? The word for "obey" (peith) is a very broad word and means "be persuaded by" (Hebrews 6:9), "trust" (Hebrews 2:13), "rely on" (Luke 11:22), and comes to mean "obey" because that is what you do when you trust somebody. So you might say it is a "soft" word for obey. It encourages a good relationship of trust, but still calls for the people to be swayed by leaders.

The word for "submit" (hupeik) occurs only here in the New Testament. It's the more narrow word, and means "make room for by retiring from a seat," or "yield to" or "submit to."

So with all this background, what I would try to distill as the meaning would be something like this: Hebrews 13:17 means that a church should have a bent toward trusting its leaders; you should have a disposition to be supportive in your attitudes and actions toward their goals and directions; you should want to imitate their faith; and you should have a happy inclination to comply with their instructions.

The New Earth

I really appreciated Randy Alcorn's book, Heaven, as I was preparing my sermons on the Present Heaven and on The New Heaven and New Earth. His content and illustrations were excellent. I especially liked his stuff about "It doesn't get any better than this...." near the end of the book, which I paraphrased for my sermon last week:

Have you ever been on a wonderful vacation or sat around a campfire with friends or around a Christmas Dinner with your family and leaned back and said with total satisfaction those enchanting words, “It doesn’t get any better than this.” I’m sure you have, though I know for some of you it may have been years ago and things are so rough right now you can hardly remember. But you have been there, right? Even if just for a moment you have thought, “It couldn’t get any better than this.” Well, that is not true because the most ordinary moment on the New Earth will be greater than the most perfect moments in this life. And just when you are in perfection on the New Earth enjoying some adventure or relaxing with family and friends or part of a worship service or reading a great book or playing a fantastic sport and you sit back and think, “I doesn’t get any better than this” – it will. Everyday will be better than the day before and will keep getting better and better because of our increasing capacity for joy and increasing knowledge of our infinite God. It just makes me want to shout out, “Thank you Lord! I can hardly wait! I can hardly understand why you would welcome me in, but I know you will because Jesus died for my sins! So thank you Lord!”

Sermon on Heaven

I quoted the old beautiful paragraph from The Last Battle in my sermon conclusion on Sunday. Here it is again for anyone to read:

Conclusion

So in conclusion, let me read you an incredible paragraph. If you have read it before, you will probably agree that it is one of your favourite paragraphs in all of literature. It takes place at the end of The Chronicles of Narnia. At the start of the book Jill and Eustace were traveling on a train when they were suddenly thrust into Narnia. After their amazing adventures in Narnia they are afraid they will be sent back home but Aslan (who is a picture of Christ) tells them this good news:

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadowlands – dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And then here is the beautiful paragraph I want you to hear:

“And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read; which goes on forever; and in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Heaven will be glorious – both the present Heaven that we go to the second we die, and the future New Heavens and New Earth. Our joy will increase daily forever and ever and ever. I can hardly wait. Tears will be wiped away. There will be no more sickness, no more children dying of aids, no more cancer. There will be no more depression. There will be no more struggles with sin. There will be love and joy and peace and perfect fellowship. There will be Jesus Christ in all His glory.

Final Application

Look forward to it and think about it everyday! Remember everyday that if you know Jesus you will go there not because you are a good person but because of God’s incredible grace in having His Son die on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins. Remember everyday to set your mind on things above. Remember that there is only one life and it will soon be passed and only what is done for Christ will last. So let us dedicate ourselves afresh today to living for eternity, and to storing up treasures and joys in Heaven by being true disciples who are fully committed to Christ and His church and committed to worshiping God, walking with God, and working for God. I wish I could go on but I must close – so come back next week and bring your friends and we will go on to talk about the final New Heavens and New Earth.