Learn to Submit
Three key takeaways
Submission is a decision to place yourself under God-ordained authority, or to serve and prefer others in humility. It is what makes relationships work, like oil keeping an engine running smoothly. Learning it shapes you in ways little else can.
Ultimately, you submit to God, not to people. That is the safeguard in every relationship. It stops you putting anyone on a pedestal, and it stops you overruling those who hold a rightful place of authority over you. Knowing when to press forward and when to hold back takes prayer, and the answers are not always easy.
Submission is meant to be beautiful, not harsh. Because God is a loving Father who has made you a son or daughter, submitting to him is a matter of trust and received love rather than cold duty. Jesus models this perfectly, and David's psalms show how it is lived in the hardest circumstances.
A word nobody wants to hear
Few words are as unwelcome in Western life as "submission". Society has grown deeply suspicious of authority, and people are trained to rebel rather than submit. Rebellion is worn as a badge of honour, and a T-shirt reading "rebel" would draw nods of approval. Try wearing one that simply says "submit" and see what happens. Doing so would be the truly rebellious act.
Yet the Bible talks about submission constantly. It speaks of children and parents, husbands and wives, employers and employees. It speaks of submitting to governing authorities and to church leaders, and of submitting to one another. Submission, in this broad sense, is what allows relationships to function: preferring others, and sometimes placing yourself under another person's opinion or preference.
So why does it matter, when should you do it, and how is it possible? The life of David offers some of the clearest answers in Scripture.
The story so far
David was a shepherd boy anointed by God to become king of Israel. Soon afterwards he defeated Goliath, was made a captain in the army, and proved so successful that the women began to sing that Saul had slain his thousands but David his tens of thousands. Saul, the reigning king, did not enjoy the song. Jealousy and suspicion took hold of him, and he twice hurled a spear at David in the royal household.
David had to flee. What followed was a long journey, perhaps a decade, in which Saul hunted David while David remained under Saul's rule, trying to live out God's promise that he would one day be king. The story fills roughly 1 Samuel 18 to 28, and it is well worth reading in one sitting.
One of its most famous moments comes in 1 Samuel 24. Saul enters a cave to relieve himself, unaware that David and his men are sitting in its innermost parts. David's men see an opportunity, telling him that this is the day the Lord spoke of, when he would give his enemy into his hand. David quietly cuts off a corner of Saul's robe, and then his conscience troubles him. He stops his men from attacking, declaring that he will not raise a hand against the Lord's anointed. When Saul leaves, David follows, bows to the ground and calls out, "My lord the king." He shows Saul the corner of the robe as proof that he means no harm, and he leaves judgement to the Lord.
It is a remarkable passage. Four reasons for learning to submit emerge from this period of David's life.
Why learn to submit?
it builds faith
Through years of struggle and opposition, David learned something about God's provision and protection that he could not have learned any other way. This was the same David who sang, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies," and, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are with me" (Psalm 23). Hiding in a cave while his pursuer wanders in unguarded must have felt like exactly such a moment. Submitting to someone who was not treating him well taught David about God's kindness, strengthened his faith, and gave him songs that are still sung today.
it makes you like christ
David became more like Jesus before Jesus was born. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught, "Love your enemies." That was a radical idea. The accepted moral instruction was to love friends and hate enemies. A thousand years earlier, David was already doing it. When Saul was unguarded and at his mercy, David treated him with kindness and respect, calling him "my lord the king" and "my father". He loved his enemy, trusted God's timing and aimed at reconciliation.
it prepares you
David's years of submission reshaped his heart and prepared him for leadership. The pattern appears elsewhere in Scripture. Moses spent forty years in the wilderness before becoming shepherd of Israel. Joseph endured a decade of mistreatment, false accusation and prison before God raised him up as prime minister of Egypt. David had been told he would be king, and God was now at work preparing him to be one. That preparation was itself an act of God's kindness.
If you are struggling to submit to a boss, or to circumstances in your family, it may be that God is preparing your heart for something fruitful and good that he intends to lift you into. That is his way and his purpose.
it wins others
David rebuked his men when they were less conscious of God's ways, yet he also won their hearts. Throughout his story, people gather around him with devotion and commitment, partly because they can see integrity, faith and a willingness to place his own life under God. It is much easier to follow someone who is visibly submitted to God. In this way David built, almost without trying, a band of loyal followers who could see God's hand on his life and the character being formed in him.
People watch this kind of thing. In the workplace, others notice how a Christian handles a difficult boss or employee. In the family, children watch how their parents treat one another and wonder what it looks like to follow Jesus. The apostle Peter even says that wives can win unbelieving husbands through godly submission (1 Peter 3), because it shows them something of Christ in the way that person lives.
something beautiful
Beneath all these reasons lies a bigger one. Submission is meant to be beautiful, even glorious, because it shows something of what God is like. Godly authority and godly submission are a window into the being of God.
A comparison helps here. The word "Islam" means submission, and submission is a core idea in the Islamic world: God, great and awesome, has created people to be servants who submit heart, life and body to him. There is something impressive about millions of people bowing in unison, making costly decisions in submission to God.
The Christian understanding is radically different. God is not only an awesome being who made servants. He is a God of love who made sons and daughters. Submission to him is therefore not driven by duty alone, because he is higher and should be bowed to. The whole thing is coloured by trust in a Father in heaven who is working for the good of his children. What could be harsh, dutiful or cold becomes something beautiful.
Jesus models this. He was completely submitted to his Father, saying that he does only what he sees the Father doing and says only what he hears the Father saying. Yet when he prays for his disciples, he asks that they would be with him in the Father's presence, so that they might know the love the Father has had for him since before the beginning of the world. Submission, in Jesus' life, sits within the context of receiving love and responding with a heart warmed by God's grace.
when should you submit?
This is probably the hardest question, and there are no easy answers for every situation. The teaching has been abused over the years to let ungodly authority go unchallenged. The phrase "do not touch the Lord's anointed" gets lifted out of context and weaponised, used to stop people being challenged who ought to be.
David's own example shows both sides. In the cave, he chose to hold back. He did not want to gain advantage by killing the previous king, and he knew instinctively that this was not how to become king. He would let God get him there. Yet in the chapter before, hearing that the Israelite city of Keilah was under attack from the Philistines, David prayed and sought God, who told him to go and help. So he took his men and rescued the city, effectively setting Saul aside to do what God had given him to do. There are times to press in and times to hold back.
What runs through both is prayerfulness, and the recognition that he was ultimately submitting to God rather than Saul. He pressed forward because God told him to. He held back because Saul was the Lord's anointed, not merely because he honoured Saul. That is the safeguard: God is the highest authority.
This is why Scripture says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Ephesians 5). Whether the relationship is between parents and children, husbands and wives, or employers and employees, the submission is rooted in reverence for Christ. Any authority a person holds exists because God is over them. This guards against putting people on a pedestal, and it equally guards against overruling those who rightly hold authority.
The Exodus offers another example. When Pharaoh, the rightful king, ordered that all Israelite baby boys be put to death, two named midwives did not obey his command because they feared God. They recognised a higher authority.
These examples are extreme. Most people are not hiding in caves or deciding whether to take revenge on a boss. Even so, most people will find that the call to submit to one another stretches them to their limit at some point, whether in marriage, parenting or work. It can feel as though it is ripping you apart on the inside. The inner tension is not far from David's, because this is one of the ways God works in a person.
A child often thinks that having to obey parents is the worst thing in the world. Many parents later discover that being a parent is harder, because they must submit themselves to God's calling on how they raise their children.
how do you submit?
If submission is so hard, how is it possible? David gives a unique window here, because the Psalms record his prayer life. Many of them were written by him, and several carry headings that place them in this very period.
When the Philistines seized him in Gath, he prayed, "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you" (Psalm 56). In the cave, fleeing Saul, he prayed, "In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge till the storms of destruction pass by" (Psalm 57). When Saul sent men to watch his house in order to kill him, he prayed, "O my strength, I will watch for you, for you, O God, are my fortress" (Psalm 59). In the wilderness of Judah, he prayed, "My soul thirsts for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water" (Psalm 63). Looking back, he wrote, "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them" (Psalm 34), and "The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer" (Psalm 18).
Here is an inner world forged through difficulty, made of prayer, devotion, worship and the receiving of God's love. David might well have wished he had stayed a shepherd with his guitar and an occasional bear to deal with. Yet in the midst of a terrible situation, he could say that God would rescue him and send out his love and faithfulness.
So the answer to how is to bring yourself before the Lord and discover that he is your protection, guardian, fortress and rock. In the end, all submission is to God, whose perfect love casts out fear.
The Psalms were also Jesus' songbook. He would have sung and recited them throughout his life, and in the account of his road to the cross he is heard quoting them. He sang these words while oppressed, attacked and slandered, entrusting his life to God. Just as David's men were drawn to him by his integrity and trust in God, people are drawn to Jesus. He is the Son of God who humbled himself even to death, trusting that God would protect him and raise him up. Watching him, a person can say: I want to be on his team, and I want to give him my heart. That is what helps in all of this.
at redemption
At Redemption, submission is treated as something learned over a lifetime rather than a rule to be enforced. The church seeks to hold together honest acknowledgement of how hard it can be, and a conviction that God is at work in those very struggles. Many people in the church community are in seasons of difficulty at work, at home or in relationships, and the hope is that these seasons are understood as part of God's shaping and preparing of his people.
The church also looks to David's prayers as a pattern. It aims to grow in prayer, personally and together, learning to seek God's face and trust him when everything feels hard. It also keeps in view believers around the world who face persecution far more extreme than most will ever know, and learns from them. The aim throughout is to become more like Jesus and be ready for whatever God calls his people to do.
