In church this week, Jeff Noble compared King Solomon to King Jesus. When Solomon became king he had to consolidate his empire by eliminating several people who posed threats to his power. For example, his brother Adonaijah, who had already tried to take the throne, without David’s consent. Jesus, in the same way, will consolidate his kingdom. In the apocalypse he will come as a warrior with a flaming sword, surrounded by his angel army. On that day “every knee shall bow,” and those who in life rejected his kingship will then be rejected from his kingdom. As Jeff said, “He will tolerate no challenge to his authority.” There’s no doubt about it: You don’t have to look very far in the Bible to perceive that God asserts unequivocal, unflinching, absolute authority over creation.

Jeff also said that we in the modern West have authority issues. Ever since the Boston Tea Party, Americans have been throwing off yokes with a cry of, “Freedom!” You can see it in our political parties, our approaches to sex, sexual orientation, medical decisions, guns, property (“get offa my land!”), money, lifestyle, music, fashion, you name it. Take it from Miley Cyrus in her hit We Can’t Stop:

It’s our party we can do what we want to
It’s our house we can love who we want to
It’s our song we can sing we if we want to
It’s my mouth I can say what I want to

Independence and equality is deeply rooted into the American value system. And for good reason, I’ll say. It has developed out of oppression and inequality. The Boston Tea Party, from King George III. The French Revolution, from the strangling of the poor. Civil rights, from racism and slavery. We are right to champion freedom and equality and resist undue assertions of authority.

However, this same skepticism of authority has gradually doubled back on God. When we postmodernists bump up against this absolutely authoritative King God, some of us recoil in revulsion (“How dare this God demand to be worshiped? How selfish!”)(cf. Oprah). Some of us just don’t connect with that part of God. We obey him out of obligation and fear and performance-based acceptance. But whether we are the prodigal or the older brother in the story of the prodigal son, whether we run away from God’s authority or try lock-step conformity, something is missing. The Bible calls us to embrace and love God’s authority (cf. Basically all of Psalm 119).

How do we do that? How do we love and embrace God’s authority? 

I believe the answer is in part that God’s grace enlightens our hearts to depend on God’s strong hand like a son does his father, and find it more freeing than independence.

Freedom and independence aren’t always the same. Independence means not needing other things. Take marriage for example. If my wife and I are living in a dysfunctional cycle where I come home and do my own thing, don’t talk to her, don’t pay attention to her, and she does the same thing, keeping to her room, ignoring and avoiding me, are we independent? In a sense our relationship is more independent than it should be. We don’t rely on each other to do anything. However, is that relationship free? I don’t think so. Pins and needles. Awkwardness. Unaddressed hurt. That relationship is a ball and chain, and the more independent you become, the heavier the weight secretly gets. That’s because freedom isn’t just being in charge of yourself, cut loose, independent: Freedom is being properly dependent. For the slave, it means getting out of there, but for marriage, it means coming together and learning how to communicate needs and meet each others needs in love.

As marital freedom comes through right dependence in marriage, so ultimate freedom comes through right dependence on God. God made us for relationship with him, so freedom means learning our roles in relationship to him. For example, my money is not my domain, it is God’s gift, and I am a steward. When I learn that role, I can loosen my death grip on the wad of cash and be generous. And as I do it, trusting in God to provide what I need instead of myself, I learn that he is much better suited to the task, and I can breath easy, and finally be free. While assertion of authority by a man against another man is often oppression, when God asserts his authority, it is like the strong hands of a father as he reaches over his frustrated child, trying to unscrew a cap, and says, “Here, let me.”

We are left to decide whether we will yank our bottle away from the Father and say, “No, it’s mine!” or yield willingly to his strong hands and learn how much love resides within his power. The issue of how we handle God’s assertion of authority is in the end a question of whether we know and believe that he loves us. In any sphere in which we know the love of God, by faith, by his precious and very great promises, we will not WANT to do it on our own. We will embrace his authority as a child does that of a good father whom he knows loves him back. We will find freedom in dependence.