Surrendering Our Will

Call to Worship

To all who are weary and in need of rest

To all who are mourning and longing for comfort

To all who fail and desire strength

To all who sin and need a Savior

We, Moraga Valley Presbyterian Church, open wide our arms

With a welcome from Jesus Christ.

He is the ally to the guilty and failing

He is the comfort to those who are mourning

He is the joy of our hearts

And He is the friend of sinners

So Come, worship Him with us.

Scripture Reading & Reader

Scripture Reader: Robert Roy Terry

Philippians 2:5–7 NIV

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Post-Scripture Prayer

Pray.

Body of Sermon

Good morning, friends! Would you start your morning by opening up to Philippians chapter 2? As you’re turning there I want to do a little bit of housekeeping this morning.

As we were planning on stepping into this year, we talked about how we felt like God was calling us to make some changes. One of the changes that we talked about was changing our face to our community.

We believe, and scripture supports this idea, that God is doing a new thing. We sense we’re in a new season, and we sense the Lord doing some exciting things in our midst. This morning and in the weeks following we’ll be unveiling an updated logo and feel for who we are as a church.

God has been beyond faithful to us as a church for the last 6 decades, and we hope this video explains what we hope to see Him do in the future. Turn your attention to the screens.

PLAY BRAND REVEAL VIDEO

To say I’m excited is an understatement. I am hopeful, I am confident, I am putting all my chips in on what I think Jesus is going to do with our community.

Over the next several weeks we’ll have little freebies that we’d like to take with you, we’ll have updated merchandise that you can purchase as you celebrate with us in what God has doing.

One of the notable differences in our logo change is the lack of the cross that is on our campus. One of the overwhelming things we talked about in our logo redesign is how we felt like God is moving us to pray and dream outside of our campus — and we love our campus, nothing wrong with that, it’s a gift to us and our community — but we feel as if God is calling us to serve and love a people, the people who live all around the Moraga hills and all through Lamorinda.

We believe that our new logo celebrates our call to serve Moraga, reminds us of our history with a stained glass look, and is full of unique pieces of architecture from around our campus that will encourage us on that Jesus is building His church.

I want to thank a couple of people who have been so impactful in helping us celebrate this moment. These aren’t just gifted folks, but they’re committed to God’s work here at MVPC, which seems really special to me.

I want to thank Mark Bergman and his firm, BergmanCramer, for their work in helping us tell the story of what God is doing here at MVPC. I want to thank Bill Welden and his company, Proclaim Promotions, for their work in helping us visualize God’s story here through lots of signage; and another, who doesn’t go here, but is John Sharp, who works with Landmark Graphix, who is helping us with our updated room signage which will include braille for those who might be visually impaired.

Another thank you is in order, to Alan Koenigsberg, who serves as our Executive Director, who saw the whole process from beginning to end!

I think it’s wise to help us commit this moment to God. Let’s pray.

————

Alright, we’re going to step into Philippians 2 in just a few minutes, so keep a finger there as a marker…

We’re in Week 4 of a 5-Week Series on Spiritual Practices for every day people who want to follow Jesus. This series is an invitation into habits and patterns of living that, as you live them out, the Spirit will help to form you into a new person.

Now… There’s nothing inherently spiritual in solitude, in fasting, in a life of simplicity, but how we encounter God while engaging in those things, is well worth the price of admission.

This morning we’re going to step into the spiritual practice of submission.

Submission is simply, “humbling ourselves for someone else’s good.”

Richard Foster, who teaches on Christian spirituality and the formation of our inner life, says that this is the most difficult of all of the spiritual practices — and I find myself with an aversion to the word, “submission.”

In general, I don’t like being told what to do; and I typically pride myself in my own agency. I think I’m of average intelligence and I work hard. The idea of willfully bowing my knee to any one or person, seems absurd. I also think that being born in America also gives me some kind of chip on my shoulder, I’ve grown up in the country that doesn’t negotiate with terrorists, that believes it can win EVERY Olympic event, and I know we’ve all listened to the 1986 Beastie Boys hit, “Fight For Your Right,” and we all know the words — “you gotta fight, for your right…” — so the idea of submission feels like an exercise in inferiority.

Or… for some of us, we’ve grown up too close to Berkeley, and why would we submit when we could protest? We want to speak truth to power, to subvert injustices, we love the see the underdog win.

Submission is hard in general, not to mention, hard for groups of people who have always been forced to bow their knee to others — the African American community, women… this is a word filled with uncomfortable connotation.

Submission is a word, or an idea, that carries with it a lot of struggle.

Take Genesis 3:16 for example, and here I feel that the English Standard Version, explains this idea a little bit.

Genesis 3:16 (ESV)

To the woman he said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;

in pain you shall bring forth children.

Your desire shall be contrary to your husband,

but he shall rule over you.”

Even in relationships, like really important ones… the idea of humbling ourselves for someone else’s good, we find that even there, we keep butting heads. Marriage, parenting, co-workers, best friends. This is a word with a lot of struggle.

It’s also a word that carries with it, a lot of abuse.

This is a word that loads of marriages have crumbled over. — In Ephesians, Paul gives what is called “a household code,” these are instructions that Peter and Paul give to earlier followers of Jesus, as they tried to make sense of what it meant to follow Jesus in the most basic of arenas of life, like the home.

And for a long time, passages like these, like in Ephesians 5, have been used to push down the role of women within marriage. Women have unfortunately been treated like property — at the beck and call of their man. This is the subjugation of women, and it is not something that the gospel props up.

Rather… Here’s the spirit in which Paul wants to talk about this passage, and it’s the whole context in how the whole idea of submission in the home is framed — here’s how Christians are to behave in the home, Ephesians 5:21

Ephesians 5:21 (NIV)

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

I had the honor of being in the wedding party of one of my friends, and I asked him what he was most excited about for in marriage. He goes, “I just want to out serve her every day.” Their marriage is a beautiful picture of not power — but trying to outdo one another in service, because they see Jesus’ example as an example of humbling service.

Isn’t that beautiful? Some people might call it “regressive,” like society is taking a step back when we put someone else first before ourselves… but I think it’s actually the freeing path that Jesus invites us into when we are invited to follow Him.

Submission is not just humbling ourselves for someone else’s good, but Renovare, a Spiritual Formation resource group, says that submission is the “discipline which frees us to let go of the burden of always needing to get our own way.”

Jesus shows us that kind of example.

Finally… we’ve made it to Philippians 2. Turn with me there where your finger has been a place holder.

Here, in verses 5-7, Paul is instructing the church in Philippi to have the same attitude as Jesus, and in verse 5 says, “in your relationships with one another…”

It doesn’t seem like that profound of a statement, but I think it’s important that we keep coming back here.

As far as it concerns other people: be like Jesus.

Is this person your spouse? Be like Jesus.

Is this person your sworn enemy? Be like Jesus.

Is this person representative of a set of values that you loathe? Be like Jesus.

The invitation with made by Paul is that whether these people are your in-laws, your outlaws, or in any person in between — be like Jesus.

Paul explains how our attitudes should be shaped towards others like Jesus.

Look with me at verse 6…

“Who” — Meaning Jesus, “being in very nature God,” — Paul is communicating the belief that Jesus is FULLY God, — and this implies that Jesus has all of the same privileges as God. If Jesus is God, then He alone has unreserved power and control. The same power that spoke all things into being, the same power that placed the stars in the sky, the same power capable of raising the dead.

But listen to Paul’s explanation in verse 6:

Though He has every power and privilege at His disposal, Jesus “did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage,” or as the English Standard Version says: Philippians 2:6

Philippians 2:6 (ESV)

did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

Jesus does not cling to, does not hold onto, He is not reaching for — the power that is actually His.

Paul explains this in verse 7… Jesus, Paul says, “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

The idea of becoming nothing is this word in Greek, kenoo, — which has become a theological topic by itself. This is what scholars call the “self emptying love of God,” some translations read, “Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”

To be clear, Jesus never ceases to be God… instead God becomes a man to serve mankind. Both fully God, both fully man — this is another theological phrase, “the hypostatic union,” and all of these theological phrases come together to shed light on the fact that for God, for the God-man Jesus Christ, there is nothing that is beneath Him, not even identifying with us.

This is one of the most unique things in all of world religion, where God, who has not divested Himself of power, but rather changes His position, — He gets on our level — so that we might see what true submission looks like.

Jesus’ path of submission was to do the work of God, which is repairing the relationship between us and God. This is Jesus’ prayer in John 17:4

John 17:4 (NIV)

I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.

Jesus did not cling to the privileges of heaven, but rather submitted so that He could finish the work the Father gave Him to do.

We are not here today, we are not apart of the family of God, if submission never happens… we’re not going to spend any time on it this morning, but this is how it continues in verse 8-11. The submission of Jesus is our redemption in Jesus.

Submission, on a really practical level, is a practice that teaches us to say to God: “not what I want, but what you want God.” And if we want what God wants, it doesn’t matter that we are entitled to power, or endowed with privilege, or we have the authority to rule — because we aren’t losing anything.

That’s how we envision it though… we think of submission as a way to get trampled on, — we’ve been hurt, we’ve experienced the betrayal of others — but it’s not in what I want, it’s in what God wants and what He wants for me. Some of us go, “I’m not sure I’m willing to risk that, Brandon.”

I get it… I really do. But I think Paul is essentially reframing what Jesus has said elsewhere in the gospels… “if you lose your life, you’ll find it.” My invitation is to say: Jesus has already done this, and He’s inviting you to trust Him that it’s worth it.

It is worth entrusting your life to God, to what He wants.

It is worth submitting myself to someone else, because I’ve learned that in following Jesus I am open to the idea that I don’t always have to have my own way.

This is an unbelievably liberating invitation. Equal parts hard, but equal parts freeing.

It gives us a capacity that we don’t have otherwise.

Richard Foster wrote, “In submission we are at last free to value other people. Their dreams and plans become important to us.”

I think the practice that is most difficult, is also the place of greatest flourishing.

I don’t know that an individualistically oriented world like we live in cares enough about the dreams and plans of others…

I don’t know that a story that’s all about me knows how to honor someone else.

I don’t know that a universe where I’m the hero builds up someone else to be the best version of themselves in Jesus.

Are we starting to see that submission is a beautiful word?

I think there are at least two key areas where we need to practice submission:

Our Close Relationships

Our Work

Our Close Relationships

I think it’s probably hardest to submit ourselves to the people who know us the best: our spouse, our kids, our parents, our best friends…

We’ve probably heard the phrase, “familiarity breeds contempt,” and I don’t want that to be a true statement for followers of Jesus, that we lose some tangible amount of respect for those we have the longest and deepest relationships with. I think we have an issue of honor, where we no longer see someone as worthy of placing respect and value on.

Submission is a breeding ground of honor.

When I submit myself to Erica, I remember that God is orchestrating a beautiful story in her life, where the dreams He’s given her are starting to take shape. She’s easily the most talented and gifted woman I have ever met but I won’t see that unless I move Erica to a place of honor, where I see she has something to contribute.

When I submit myself to my boys, I communicate to them their worth and value — that their creativity is good and will mightily be used by God and occasionally they have some pretty great ideas.

In our Close Relationships, submission requires that we submit our preferences to someone else.

In Our Work, we need submission.

Submission reminds me of my own limitations, that I exist in an economy that is bigger than myself. Submission requires some degree of humility… humility is consciously taking the lowest place.

We are not the highest pinnacle of human knowledge, experience, or wisdom. There’s always more to go, someone else to learn from, some other power and authority that I will answer to.

Submission is a great reminder that we all report to someone else, no matter how high up the ladder we go. I’m so grateful for this. Dave and I, we still report to someone else. Actually we report to 6 other people. We are in submission to them.

I think most tangibly where Submission gets worked out in the work place is when we let the best idea win, or we let another group of people receive the credit for success.

I think, in general, we just need more stories of wonderful people not trying to make a name for themselves… people who live in a state of humility, who regularly live out the example of consistently bringing worth and value to others.

We’ve got some people in our church who do this really well… two of the easiest that come to mind are Rich and Sharon Wells. They’ve been eager to serve, without complaint, for the last 30 years. They are completely willing to do what is asked of them, and they do things that no one see’s. Every week Sharon sets out water for those who serve on stage, and every week, she goes around and picks up after us. Humility for the benefit of others… Thank you, Rich and Sharon.

Submission is not a dirty word in the Christian life, it is a life-giving, honor-placing, value-restoring exercise in which we model our lives after Jesus and the result is the flourishing of our community.