TEXT: Matthew 26:39

SUBJECT: Attributes of Christ #10: Submissiveness

The Lord’s Supper is a time for remembering. In eating the bread and drinking the cup, we remember what Christ has done for us. But in recalling what He has done, we must not ignore Who did it.

It is our first duty and privilege to know the Lord Jesus Christ. To know Him is life eternal; eternal death is to know Him not. Who is Jesus Christ? The world itself could not contain the books to answer that question, but the Lord allows us to summarize. Jesus Christ is God and Man in one unique Person. He is connected to God because He is fully Divine; He is connected to you and me because He is fully human.

The characteristics of God can be named: He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, for example. But what are these but words? They are words we can look up in a dictionary and put into sermons, but do we know what they mean? We live in a world of time and space where nothing stays the same. Thus, it is hard for us to get our minds around the attributes of God.

But that’s all right: we don’t have to! For God has become one of us and we can see His Divine glory in the human face of Jesus Christ.

What kind of man is the Lord Jesus Christ? Much can be said here, but today’s verse calls Him a submissive man.

I don’t have to explain submissiveness in detail; you know what it is. It is a willingness to obey—and more than a bare willingness—it is an eagerness to obey from the heart.

It is, therefore, the opposite of being self-willed, of being defiant, and of doing what you’re told only because you have to. Something outside of you may force your obedience, but submission comes from the inside: it obeys because it wants to obey; it finds pleasure in serving another.

GOD’S SUBMISSION

Is this quality a weakness? In some men, it is. Because they have submitted to the wrong authority. Or because they have submitted more fully than they ought to. Or because they have submitted for the wrong reason.

Submission—like everything else in the world—can be abused. But the thing itself is good. We know it is good because God Himself is submissive! This may sound wrong to you—if not like heresy. But it’s true. There is One God and He is sovereign; He rules all things and is ruled by none. But the One God subsists in Three Persons! Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equal in every way, yet—with the consent of all—there is an order in the Trinity.

By being sent, the Son submitted to the Father; by being poured out, the Holy Spirit submitted to the Father and the Son. Thus, God sees nothing wrong with submission; it is self-will that He hates and pledges to break.

If submissiveness is an attribute of God, we’re likely to see it in Christ. And we do—all through His life.

We know very little about His childhood, but what we see of it shows Him a boy fully submitted to God. When He was twelve years old, He went up with His family to observe a holiday in Jerusalem. When the days were over, the family packed up and went home. But the Lord was not with them. When it occurred to them that He had been left behind, they went back to Jerusalem and turned the city upside down looking for Him. When the found Him in the Temple, Mary—the Lord’s mother—was appalled at her Son’s behavior. She scalded Him with the words,

But the Lord is even more amazed! He can’t believe that His mother—of all people—doesn’t know where His loyalties lay!

He loves Joseph and Mary; He’s devoted to His family, but when their will crosses the will of God, He chooses God’s will every time! He submits to His parents we He can, but He submits to God always.

As a Man, He makes the same point over and over again:

It is easy to make these claims to other men, when they try to break your will and pull you away from God. But what’s not so easy is to say the same thing to yourself. Especially when doing the will of God means not doing what you’d rather do. Yet the Lord was firm here too.

The Lord was a real man. And yet this man—this man among men, this hero among heroes—happily submitted to God’s will even when it hurt!

You ought to admire the Lord for His submission to God’s will. For if He had not been the way He was, you would be lost without hope. For it is only as He became "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross", that you became saved.

For the same reason, you ought to thank Him and praise Him for His submissiveness to God.

You ought to imitate Him.

When you do, you won’t be sorry: for no one is less free than the man who declares his freedom from God. And no one is more free than the one who finds perfect freedom in doing the will of God.