This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day two of our look through Hebrews chapter five. We're going to look
at verse seven today. In this portion of Hebrews that we're looking through
right now, we're talking about Jesus being our great high priest.

And one of the things about a high priest is that they can understand what we're
going through. They can relate to what we're going through. And as the author of
Hebrews talks about Jesus being able to relate to us because he became man, he's
uncovering these truths about who Jesus is that uncover for us the truth about
who we need to be.

Yesterday we talked about the fact that we live in dependent petition in our
relationship with God. Today we're going to look at the fact that we live in
reverent submission. Verse seven talks about that.

During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions
with loud cries and tears to the one who would save him from death. And he was
heard because of his reverent submission. So to the loud cries and tears that we
talked about yesterday, now we add this reverent submission.

Jesus submitted himself to the Father. He didn't have to. We talked about this
yesterday.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they're equal, but he decided to submit himself so
he could teach us what it means to submit. Just three verses very quickly.
Hebrews 5.

7 says Jesus was heard because of his reverent submission. So Jesus submitted to
God. James 4.

7 says, "Submit yourselves then to God. " We're to submit to God. And Ephesians
5.

21 says, "Submit to one another out of your reverence for Christ. " Because we
submit to God, now we need to submit to one another. Jesus' relationship with
God shows you and I how we should relate to God and how we should relate to one
another.

And really when you talk about submission, I know it's a word we don't use often
times and because of it, it sounds more like slavery to many of us, which is not
at all what the Bible means when it talks about this word. The most important
daily choice that's behind this word, what it really means is unselfishness. And
then when you talk about unselfishness, we usually see it in our daily lives, in
our relationships.

So let's start there and then work our way towards what it means in our
relationship to God. This verse we just read out of Ephesians 5, it gives
specific direction to unselfishness. Submit to one another.

It talks about unselfishness in families, that husbands submit to wives, wives
submit to husbands, parents submit to children, children submit to parents. It's
a relationship. Understanding what that means grows out of understanding what
Jesus did, what he chose to do.

Having the power to be unselfish comes from the power of what Jesus did. That's
where it begins. When you understand what this really means, it gives you new
power in your life.

Understanding Jesus' submission to the Father empowers our submission to God and
our submission to one another. Understanding Jesus' unselfishness empowers my
unselfishness in my marriage, towards my kids, towards a friend. So let me just
walk with you some truths about this word submission that you can find
throughout the Bible because it's such an important word to understand.

There's so much misunderstanding about it that I believe sometimes Satan is
trying to cloud the issue here. And the issue is, am I willing to be unselfish?
So some truths about submission.

Number one, submission does not cancel out our equality. Sometimes submission is
talked about in terms of the submitting one is inferior to the other, like wives
submit to your husbands as if wives are somehow inferior because they are being
unselfish. Well, Jesus submitted to the Father.

He's obviously still equal to the Father. It's Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So
the times that we use this word as if one were a slave to another, that is
nowhere in the Bible.

This is a willing choice to serve others. And when we talk about this willing
choice to serve others, to submit to others, to be unselfish towards others,
let's just be honest. That is often most difficult with those who are closest to
us.

Sometimes it's easy to serve someone I'm only going to see once during the day
or maybe only see once during the month. I can be very gregarious, very kind,
very outgoing, and I can say, "Let me embrace you and serve you. " But what
about the person I'm going to see every single day?

How about when I've got to go home and I want to rest at night? How about this
big question that comes into our minds? If I serve them, are they going to serve
me?

Are they just going to take me for granted? Are they just going to let me keep
serving them and serving them and serving them? Is that what my kids are going
to do?

Is that what my wife is going to do? Is that what my husband is going to do? And
yet, when we begin to think that way, we begin to think that it's canceling out
our equality, that somehow by serving I'm becoming inferior.

Jesus said exactly the opposite is true. Jesus said the greatest among you are
the servants. So don't buy into the world's idea that by being unselfish or by
being a servant to others, you are somehow inferior to others.

Jesus teaches us by his example that submission does not cancel out our equality
and in fact it does the opposite. It's the greatest thing we can do. We also
learn throughout the Bible that everyone must submit to other people.

It's not just one class of people or a few people who have to submit. Everyone
has some submitting to do. Just a really quick list, not an all-inclusive list,
of submission in the Bible.

Romans 13 tells us that we all have to submit to the governing authorities.
First Corinthians 13 says believers have to submit to fellow laborers in Christ.
Ephesians 5 we just looked at, we have to submit to one another.

It also tells us there that wives submit to husbands, husbands submit to wives,
children to parents, parents to children. Here in Hebrews 5 we've just read that
Jesus submitted to the Father. Hebrews 12, James 4 tells us that believers are
to submit to the Father.

Hebrews 13, 7 says believers are to submit to spiritual leaders. First Peter 5,
5, young men are to submit to older men. That's not the whole list.

I'm just trying to help you to see that this is just throughout the Bible. This
decision to be unselfish in my relationships to others. The only way to truly
serve another person is to submit to another person.

And that brings us to the last and I think most important truth about what it
means to submit. Submission in the Bible, it's not forced. It must be chosen.

Jesus chose to submit to the Father. It was his willing choice to leave heaven,
come to earth, be born in Bethlehem, live as a man, die on a cross, be
resurrected. He chose to submit.

Submission cannot be demanded. It has to be chosen. Nowhere does the Bible say
husbands demand that your wives submit to you.

No, it says wives choose to submit to your husband. Wives choose to have a
submissive attitude. Nowhere does it say anywhere that this is anything but a
choice.

That says to me, that reminds me that you cannot choose to serve without
choosing to submit, without choosing to be unselfish. This gets to the core of
what serving is all about. This gets to the place that really challenges me,
challenges us all, I think, about what serving is all about.

As long as serving is on my terms, my time, my way, what I want, I'll serve you,
as long as that's what serving is, it's really more a hobby than serving, let's
just be honest. When I choose to serve another and put myself, my needs under
their needs, when I choose to serve another because of their needs, and that
changes my schedule, that changes my That changes what I wanted to do. That's
truly serving.

That's what Jesus did. That's what Jesus chose to do, and that challenges me to
my core. I want to serve the way I want to serve.

I want to serve in ways that are comfortable for me, ways that work for me.
That's the ways that I want to serve, and I'll probably want that the rest of my
life because I'm a human being. So we got to ask Jesus for strength, for
strength to choose to be unselfish, to have a kind of attitude of heart and mind
that it can only come from him, because he gave us the example, reverent
submission.

Reverent means that submission grows out of my relationship with God. That's
where it comes from. Let's pray for God's strength today.

Lord, I pray, we all pray together, that we could be people of reverent
submission today. Because of our relationship with you, because of our love for
you, because we know that you're going to meet the needs in our life, we can
depend on that. Then, Lord, give us opportunities to serve, and when it hits us
that we don't really want to be unselfish in this situation, remind us, Jesus,
of who you are.

Remind us of the power that you can give, and give us a joy, even an
unselfishness. Lord, we don't want to submit in an unwilling way. We don't want
to submit in a way that takes gratitude or thanksgiving or joy out of our lives.

No, we want to submit like you did, with a heart of love, with a heart towards
you, with a heart of reverence. So we ask for that in our lives today. We ask
this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Tomorrow we're going to look together at how you and I can learn
obedience.