Self-Denial is Not Martyrdom: Pursuing a Life of Submission

How do you think we can find the difference between biblical self-denial and martyrdom?

In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster defines some important terms for us.

He says “Self-denial is not the same thing as self-contempt. Self-contempt claims that we have no worth, and even if we do have worth, we should reject it. Self-denial declares we are of infinite worth and shows us how to realize it. Self-contempt denies the goodness of the creation; self-denial affirms that it is indeed good. Jesus made the ability to love ourselves the prerequisite for our reaching out to others.”

As I said earlier, we cannot serve others if we have made ourselves a burnt offering.

Matt 10:39
“He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.”

If submission is so wonderful and life-giving why are we so darn afraid of it?

Is it because it forces us to address our own sinful selfishness that we have dressed up and made look really spiritual under the guise of recognizing our own value in Christ?

Is it a knee jerk response to the churches failings to value each other as we ought, and so therefore we instead encourage us to become self-focused and self-stuffed? As John Ortberg puts it, we become self-stuffed with self.

For me, this whole submission topic has an application in marriage and family life. For a long time, women were taught, perhaps incorrectly that they should be willing to give up everything for their families. Our bodies, our time, our desires, our goals, our minds, we no longer mattered as people, we were just vessels. The church, sadly, also coopted this cultural lack of value of women.

So now we have this bounce back of devaluing the work of family and parenting in favor of whatever else makes the parents, especially the mothers, feel more appreciated or valued. We defend nearly any behavior even to the abandonment of marriage and families if it makes the person leaving feel more fulfilled, and supports his or her own desires and life goals.

I remember chatting with a Christian friend when she was struggling in her marriage and she said to me “He doesn’t appreciate me. I deserve to be appreciated. He doesn’t value my opinion. I deserve someone who will.” For various reasons, that marriage did eventually end but what she said stuck with me. Because she was right and she was wrong.

Yes, she did need to be valued. But she already was. Her value was to be found in Christ. Yes, her husband needed to value her, but all she could see was a way out not a way forward.

Doesn’t it often feel easier to find a way out rather than a way forward?

As a parent, especially with small children, I find myself feeling regularly unappreciated and sometimes unvalued. Mostly because children are incapable of fully comprehending all the necessary things that mothers do to make the world go round but also because parenting by necessity involves giving up my right to have my own way.

I often say I didn’t know how selfish I was until I had children. What could have been loving service and submission to my current role as primary caregiver often became a begrudging duty.

Personally, I haven’t yet figured out how to stop caring about getting my own way. If anything marriage and parenting has managed to bring this out more than ever. As I try to serve my family and deny self, I end up being angry and resentful.

How do I stop wanting my own way?

It’s a common joke that we would die for our children but don’t want to cook them dinner.

Dying for someone feels easier sometimes than the prospect of living a sacrificial life, day after day. Click To Tweet

But wait, Foster says that this is supposed to be freedom, not bondage. What are we missing?

Let’s also look at Paul’s letter to the Philippians where he says

“Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others.” Phil 2:3-4

He is not making any class distinction in this passage, in fact, his only comparison is to the sacrifice and humility of Jesus and how we are all called to be more like him.

Foster says “The Epistles did not consecrate the existing hierarchical social structure. By making the command to subordination universal, they relativized and undercut it. They called for Christians to live as citizens of a new order, and the most fundamental feature of this new order is universal subordination.”

I know that whenever we bring up submission, we probably all think of times when submission has been misused. However, I would argue that in those situations, that wasn’t true biblical submission.

Biblical submission cannot by it’s very essence, be demanded. Why? Because it is voluntary. If it ceased to be voluntary and done in love and respect, it would not longer be biblical submission. Click To Tweet

Whenever someone is being forced to submit that is a major red flag that we have trod off the path of biblical submission. This does not, however, mean that submission cannot be requested or lovingly suggested.

Just because we are surrounded by a culture of “don’t judge me” doesn’t mean that is how the church is supposed to behave. We are in fact encouraged to build each other up in Christ and encourage spiritual growth. Helping each other to learn to pursue the discipline of submission to embrace freedom from the tyrannical need to always get our own way, is a beautiful way to encourage growth. But again, we have to want it.

If we say we want to become more like Jesus, if we claim that we want to grow in our faith and do the work that God has called us to do in this life, then self-denial is going to be part of that.

This is the third in a series of blog posts about the discipline of submission. While some of the sentiments feel especially appropriate and convicting right now, I actually wrote this over a year ago as a teacher for our church’s Wednesday night adult class. Bear with me as I figure out how to best share this important area for growth that the majority of us need in our spiritual lives. You can find the first and second posts, here and here.