“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21).

At the core of every breakdown of relationships and community is selfishness, pride, and ego. When individuals are more concerned about their personal rights than they are about personal responsibility to themselves and to others, relationships and community become impossible.

The verse of the day reminds us we are called to submit to one another.

Submit.

Moderns don’t like that word. It goes against much of what our culture values.

Submit.

It literally means to accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another person.

It means – I have rights and wants just like you. But for the sake of our relationship and, most importantly for the sake of Christ – I choose to yield.

It is only when we place our responsibility to one another and to Christ above our own rights that relationship and community become possible. When individuals insist on their personal rights above all others, relationship and community become impossible.

While the ordering of the words in our text has submitting to one another first, the reality is that submitting to one another is only possible when we submit to Christ first. It is because of our reverence and desire to honor Christ that we submit to healthy relationships and community.

It was God who created us to be relational creatures. It was God who declared, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). God honoring relationships and communities trumps personal rights.

If we love Jesus, we love his children, we love his church, we love one another. Our commitment to one another trumps our commitment to personal rights.

“I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears” (Psalm 34:4)

Being a Christian doesn’t change what we deal with. Being a Christian changes how we deal it.

Life is life.

As the writer of Ecclesiastes wrote so eloquently in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Such is life. The difference is how we respond to life.

The key is seeking the LORD. Don’t just think your way through things. Seek God and God’s will. In every situation, in times of joy and in uncertainty, seek the LORD.

He is our strength. He is our comfort. He is our deliverer. He is our Savior.

Seek the LORD.

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).

One of the most important understandings of Christian theology is reality of the second coming of Christ and the final judgment. Both these realities speak of God’s providence and sovereignty.

• God’s providence means that God has a plan and purpose for our world
• God’s sovereignty means that God is in control

Here is why this is so important.

The world you and I live in screams “There is no God.” “God is dead.” “If there is a God, and God is good, how could such atrocities take place?”

God’s answer to these questions is God’s providence and sovereignty.

You see, I don’t know how what’s happening in Afghanistan, Haiti, Louisiana is good. I don’t know how the threats against women and Christians by the Taliban will work for the good. In the same way, I don’t know how the deaths of six million Jews under Hitler was good. I don’t know.

But I thank God for God’s providence and sovereignty. You see, what God’s providence and sovereignty promises me is that there will come a day when all will have to bow their knees at the name of Jesus and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.

That includes the Nazis. That includes the Taliban.

Christ followers will bow our knees in worship and joy. Christ-followers will delightfully declare with our tongues that Jesus is Lord.

The Taliban and the Nazis too will bow their knees in abject horror at the reality that their actions and deeds are coming under judgment. And to the terror of the Taliban and Nazis, they will confess with their tongues, “Oh no! Jesus really is Lord!”

God’s providence and sovereignty absolutely matters.

Without it, the Taliban and the Nazis go free without judgment against them. And that would be the most horrific injustice.

So, Christian. Know this: “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”