Message
OLH: Holy Living – A Secondary Mission Yielding to a Greater Mission (In Christ)
1 Peter 2:11-3:7
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
What does it look like to ‘die to one’s self and rise to new life’ in Jesus Christ as taught in Scripture? What does it look like to live out Jesus Sermon on the Mount teaching, ‘do to others as you would have them do to you?’ How does it look to live out love as Jesus calls his followers to do in the Spirit of God, ‘no greater love has anyone than this, than to lay down their life for another?’ These are things of a ‘greater mission.’
Sunday, we encounter a text in 1st Peter, echoed and amplified in other texts of Scripture as well, speaking to ‘submission’ in relationships. What does that look like? This conversation of ‘submission’ in relationships gets quickly into the weeds if we don’t step back and see the bigger mission of God for our relationships. The word is used over 3 dozen times in Scripture to describe a host of different relationships: citizens and governing authorities, us and Jesus, slaves and masters, husbands and wives, one to another, for example.
What is God’s greater mission?
I stumbled on a definition of submission that has been very helpful. ‘Sub’ mission is ‘a secondary mission yielding to a greater mission.‘ Now that’s helpful. When encountering the word submission in Scripture, and your tendency would be to turn up your nose at it, dismiss it, or be frustrated with it, ask first, “What is God’s greater mission?” What would be a ‘secondary mission’ in the relationship being described, and how might that secondary mission yield to a greater mission of God’s within the context of the teaching?
As Steven Curtis Chapman energetically sings as a refrain of one of his past popular songs, ‘I’m diving in, I’m going deep, in over my head I wanna be… the river’s deep, the river’s wide, the river’s water is alive… so sink or swim, I’m diving in.’ ‘Sub’ mission – like a submarine… going under, placing my secondary missions under God’s greater mission.
We are diving in together, 1 Peter 2:11-3:7, see you Sunday,
Pastor Mark