Jesus, amen.
Amen.
You may be seated.
Kids, you are dismissed to your King's Kids class.
For him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, speaking of Jesus, so that
you may not grow weary or faint-hearted in your struggle against sin.
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
And have you forgotten the agitation that addresses you as sons?
My son, my daughter, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when
reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves.
And chastises every son whom he receives.
It is for discipline that you have to endure.
God is treating you as sons.
For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate
children and not sons.
Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them.
Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?
For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them.
But he disciplines us for our good.
That we may share his holiness.
For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.
But later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for
your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.
Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God.
That no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled.
That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau who sold his birthright for a single meal.
For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected.
For he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
May God bless the hearing of his word.
Some of the most formative moments in parenting our children to train them, to form them, are in moments of crisis.
Moments of hardship.
Your child tries out for a play.
Your child tries out for an orchestra, a band, or an athletic team, and they don't make the cut.
They're disappointed.
And that is a parental training opportunity.
To speak into their lives for their good.
Your child is being marginalized from a group at school or in the community because they don't fit in.
It raises questions in them.
Their identity, who am I?
It's a parenting training opportunity for their good.
You get to speak into their life who they are.
Your child gets in trouble in school or with the police.
They're facing really stiff consequences.
They may be trying to ignore it, keep it away from their consciousness, or maybe they're just deathly afraid.
It's a parenting training opportunity to train them in responsibility for their good.
It might be the moment they need most for later in their life.
God brings hard things, hot things, heat into the lives of our children.
And we as parents have the opportunity to make the most of that opportunity.
To form our children's characters.
To ignore it would be to be unloving to our children.
For those of us who have put our faith in Jesus Christ, by God's grace he brought us out of the domain of darkness.
And transferred us into the kingdom of the beloved son, the family of God.
We are God's sons and daughters.
And our loving father brings heat into our lives.
To form us.
To grow us.
To strengthen us.
To help us to endure all the way to the end.
To our very last breath.
Holding fast to Christ.
Our loving father disciplines us for our good.
So this morning from Hebrews 12, I want to convince you of this.
We must welcome God's loving discipline.
Because it's always for our good.
I'll just say that again.
We must welcome God's loving discipline.
Because it's always for our good.
So we're going to walk through this passage.
I'm going to ask four questions.
And answer them.
Here are the four questions.
What is God's discipline?
Second question.
Why does God discipline us?
Third question.
How does God discipline us?
Fourth question.
How do we respond to God's discipline?
We welcome God's discipline.
His loving discipline.
Because it's always for our good.
So let's start with this first question.
What is God's discipline?
And in one word, it's training.
It's God training us.
Did you notice when I was reading through this section how many times that word discipline or disciplines or disciplined shows up?
It shows up nine times.
That's a lot.
That kind of repetition is emphasizing the importance of God's loving discipline in our lives.
But for many of us, when we hear the word discipline, we think strictly in terms of punishment.
We think of when in terms of child raising, our child disobeys.
They do something wrong.
And we spank them.
We give them a time out.
Because we want to help them understand what they've done.
Bringing painful consequences for bad behavior.
And that's part of parenting.
It's a necessary part of parenting.
But biblically speaking, that word discipline is broader than just punishment.
It includes it, but it's broader.
It has the sense of training.
In Ephesians 6, we're told to raise our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
The training and instruction of the Lord.
We're to grow them up.
We're to help them endure.
And God uses discipline to help us endure.
It is for discipline that you must endure, verse 7.
So let me help you see a connection here.
If you turn back to Hebrews chapter 10, verse 32, we read this.
But recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with suffering.
So the writer's looking back on an earlier period of the original audience and said,
When you were converted, remember that time you were suffering and you endured it?
And then in verse 36 of chapter 10, he says,
For you have need of endurance.
Now.
They had grown weary and fainthearted.
They were tempted to walk away.
To drift.
To fall away.
He says,
For you have need of endurance.
This long obedience in the same direction.
So that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised.
Holding fast to Christ all the way to your very last breath.
And then in chapter 11, we have this hall of faith.
The who's who of the faith.
20 plus examples of men and women who endured by faith all the way to the end.
Pursuing holiness.
Trusting in God.
When we turn to chapter 12, we read this in verse 2.
Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross.
Despising the shame.
Seated at the right hand of God.
Verse 3.
Consider him, Jesus, who endured from sinners such hostility against himself.
So what is this discipline?
It's God training us to endure.
To strengthen our faith muscles.
Instead of atrophying them.
That we endure all the way to the end.
Pursuing holiness.
The writer of Hebrews puts Jesus to the forefront.
As the ultimate example of endurance.
So that we don't grow weary and fainthearted.
When you suffer hardship.
Whether that's something within you or from out of you.
You can be tempted to want to throw in the towel.
In verse 4, he says,
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.
The struggle against sin is the sin within us.
When we are tempted to sin ourselves.
And then there's sin outside of us.
When others are seeking to be hostile to us for following Jesus.
And what he tells this church, this first century church,
is that they had not yet resisted that to the point of shedding blood.
Nobody had died for being a follower of Jesus in this church at this point.
He's saying, hey, you've got a real struggle.
But you haven't gone the distance in terms of Jesus and some of the other people from the hall of faith.
And then in verse 5 and 6, he says,
You have forgotten something.
He poses that as a question.
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
What he's saying is, why are you surprised that you're suffering?
Why are you surprised that you're experiencing hardship and pain?
And then he quotes Proverbs 3, 11 and 12.
My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.
So let's think in terms of training.
My son, do not regard lightly the training of the Lord.
His intentional seeking to help you endure by faith,
nor be weary of being reproved, corrected by him.
Don't grow fainthearted in that.
For the Lord trains the one he loves and chastises.
That's an interesting word.
Underneath that word, it means to whip.
And the idea there is corporal punishment, spanking.
He spanks every son whom he receives.
He wants to grow us.
Help us to endure, grow us in holiness.
The Lord disciplines us.
So the connection that's being made here is
what this church, this first century church was experiencing,
the suffering at the hands of people who were seeking to hurt them.
They were being exploited.
They were having their names dragged through the mud.
We know this from chapter 10, verses 32, 33, and 34.
They were being put in prison.
They were having their property plundered.
And what we're being told here,
and it requires a radical shift of thinking,
don't be surprised by this.
God is in it.
Training you.
Growing you.
Helping you.
Because God uses all sorts of heat,
all sorts of crisis, hardship, difficulty,
sufferings, to train us, to grow us.
You might be thinking, I didn't sign up for that.
Yes, you did.
When you became a Christian,
when you were adopted by your loving Holy Father,
you signed up for holiness training.
He loves you so much.
This kind of thinking is a radical shift of thinking, isn't it?
Hardship comes into your life.
Sometimes you want to blame God.
Here's a story.
When I was a seminary student,
I was driving the car a lot,
and I'd listen to Moody Radio.
And one afternoon, I was driving home,
and I heard an interview with a Vietnamese pastor.
And this pastor and his church at that time
were suffering greatly in Vietnam.
They had their building burned down.
They were suffering threats.
And at the end of the interview,
the host asks this Vietnamese pastor,
how can we pray for you?
How can the American church pray for you?
And you know what this Vietnamese pastor said?
Don't ask God to stop the persecution.
And then he goes on to say,
our suffering is as if God is tightening the string on a violin.
And we, the Vietnamese church,
gets to add tonal depth to the worship of God across the world.
So he was thinking of his suffering as God's training,
growing, helping them endure.
This Vietnamese pastor had not forgotten Proverbs 3, 11 and 12.
He was seeing that this pain was actually for their good
and our good as the worldwide church.
It's a radical shift of thinking.
Do you have heat in your life?
Are you facing hardship in your life?
Difficulty?
How are you interpreting that?
Have you forgotten you are sons and daughters?
What is God's discipline?
It's God training us.
Second question.
Why does God discipline?
In two words.
Love and holiness.
That was three words.
Love, holiness.
Why would God bring heat into our lives?
Doesn't that seem mean?
Why make us uncomfortable?
Why stretch us?
Why would he intentionally cause us pain?
In this passage, we are giving a two-fold answer.
His motive is love.
And his aim is holiness.
Let's look at his loving motive.
Did you notice when I was reading that there was this reference
to fathers and children all the way through?
In fact, there's a comparison between earthly fathers and our heavenly father.
What's up with that?
I mean, in verses 5 and 6, it's like, have you not forgotten that God addresses you as sons and daughters?
Proverbs 3.
And then he starts talking about, verses 7 and 8,
that the argument is, what kind of father would God be if he didn't discipline us?
The assumption is, fathers lovingly discipline their children.
Hey, if our earthly fathers, then how much more will God?
And then he makes this really interesting statement.
If everyone else of God's children is being disciplined, but you're not,
could it be because you're not a legitimate child?
The other side of that is this.
If you are experiencing the discipline of God, you are a child of his.
Verses 9 and 10, they get at this idea that,
well, earthly fathers disciplined us for a short time as best as they knew how.
I'm grateful for Steve Salvati's discipline in my life.
He did as best as he could.
But our heavenly father, how much more is the argument?
Our heavenly father, how much more will we subject ourselves to him?
Because he disciplines us for the long haul, for our good.
Here's what's behind this, these references to fathers and children.
It's verse 6.
The Lord disciplines the one he loves.
He loves you.
Son of God, he loves you.
Daughter of God, he loves you.
And it's not just a rub your back love.
He's going to love you into holiness.
In verse 10, we read,
For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them,
but he disciplines us for our good.
That's his loving commitment.
He loves us into goodness.
And that goodness is not left for us to define, but he defines it to share his holiness.
God in his love values your holiness more than your comfort.
We know from 1 John that God is love.
And we know from our Bibles that the greatest demonstration of God's love towards us is in the giving of his son.
And there was all sorts of pain in that.
Jesus suffered the wrath of God.
Terrible pain physically, spiritually, emotionally, for our good.
And for the joy set before him, Jesus endured it.
God loves you.
He loves you so much.
He wants you to share in his holiness.
Now let's turn to his holy aim.
Verse 10.
He defines for our good.
In greater clarity, he says,
To share that we may share his holiness.
We are to be holy as our God is holy.
And he is actively training us to endure so that we become more and more holy all the way to our very last breath.
The most basic sense of the word holiness is to be set apart.
To be distinct from the world.
And you can think about it along two lines.
In terms of moral purity, God is the ultimate standard of moral righteousness.
He's morally perfect.
Jesus, totally God, totally man, is God incarnate on the planet.
And if you look at his life in the gospels, he was morally sinless.
All the way through.
Morally perfect.
That's the standard for us.
That's what we're being called to.
But it's just not moral purity.
It's relational peace.
It's a holy peace.
Peace within the triune Godhead.
God has eternally experienced peace.
And then when God in his mercy rescued us through the blood of Jesus, adopting us as his own, he made peace with us.
We've been justified by faith and therefore we have peace with God.
God wants us to be like him in his holiness.
And that's not a downer.
That is really good.
God is full of joy.
The most joyful being of all experience in all of existence is the most holy.
In verse 11, he goes on to further describe this holiness, this good.
And he describes it as this peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Why does God discipline us?
He disciplines us out of his love for our holiness.
His motive is love.
His aim is holiness.
And he is seeking to yield this peaceful fruit of righteousness, this goodness, this holiness in us.
All right.
Some of you today are going to need to repent of something sinful.
Because when hard things enter your life, instead of trusting in God's holy motive, you question it.
Why are you doing this to me?
Why are you letting this happen?
You're questioning God's character.
You've lost sight.
You've forgotten that he's treating you as sons and daughters.
That he loves you.
That he brings hard things into your life.
Because he loves you and wants to make you holy.
When God brings the heat into your life, what question are you asking?
Are you saying, why are you doing this?
Or are you asking, God, show me what you want to do.
Have your way.
The answer, why does God discipline us?
It's because he loves us.
The third question, how does God discipline us?
In a word, painfully.
Verse 11.
For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.
Okay, if you're a Christian in the room, I just want you to see the word in verse 11.
The word painful.
For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.
If you're a child of God, you will experience pain as your heavenly father forms your character.
As he strengthens your endurance, you will experience pain.
Why will you experience pain?
Well, here's some reasons why.
Because oftentimes, when God is at work in you, showing you areas of sin within you,
you start to realize that you've been grieving God.
It's a kind of pain.
And not only grieving God, you've been hurting others.
It's a kind of a pain.
It's the pain of embarrassment.
It's the pain of causing people distress.
That your sin distresses other people.
That's painful.
But what we learn from the Bibles is that when that pain goes from being horizontal to going vertical,
and you gain this godly sorrow over your pain,
that leads to repentance.
That leads to holiness.
Another reason why this can be painful
is because some of our sinful patterns in our life,
we think are going to be painful to give up.
Now, we think, oh no, I can't live without that.
For some reason, they register as lost.
Now, let's be very sober-minded here.
Addictions.
Addiction to pornography.
Addiction to alcohol.
Addictions to gambling.
Addictions to different kinds of drugs.
Addictions to gambling.
There will be pain
and coming off of these sinful patterns.
But to think that that's not worth it.
God is holy and he loves you
and he wants to pull these things,
pull you out of these things.
The pain will be worth it.
another reason why things can be painful is this
because the consequences of past sinful choices
can have ongoing and present painful effects
just think about if you were a younger person
and you were making foolish sinful financial decisions
and now you continue to reap what you sowed 10 years ago, 20 years ago.
That can be painful.
But God is in it, using it to train you.
One other reason is
because suffering for Christ can be painful.
Again, this church that the author is writing to,
they were being publicly humiliated.
There were people being put in prison.
They were having their properties plundered.
That would have been very difficult.
It would have been very painful.
The worst that we tend to experience here now in the United States
is we get looked over for a job
because we're too honest.
People talk about us behind our backs.
We get canceled on social media.
Like that's the worst thing.
You know what?
We haven't resisted to the point of shedding blood yet,
brothers and sisters.
It's going to be painful.
God's discipline is painful.
But God is loving.
He's using it all to train us to endure unto holiness.
To hold fast to Christ all the way to the end,
to our very last breath.
God gets some of his best holiness training done
when we're in crisis.
When we're experiencing the heat.
Pain has a way of getting our attention, doesn't it?
Pain has a way of softening our hearts.
Hardship has a way of giving us ears to hear,
of posturing our hearts.
It was Billy Graham who said that
the same sun that melts the butter hardens the clay.
When heat comes into your life,
it can tenderize you.
Depending on how you respond.
But it's not just the heat of sinful choices
or our sinful choices
or the sinful choices of others.
Natural disasters are heat.
God wants to train us in that.
The heat of aging and ailing bodies.
God is training in that for us.
The heat of a tragic death.
God is training in that for us.
The heat of relational conflict.
God has training in that for us.
He is using all things
because he is a sovereign God in the details.
Behind all this
is the belief that God is in the details.
Working all things out for the good of those who love him.
Been called according to his purpose.
And that purpose is Christ likeness.
Romans 8, 28 and 29.
How does God discipline us?
He uses pain.
Hardship.
Difficulty.
Have you heard the expression?
No pain, no gain?
When I was a young man lifting weights.
No pain, no gain!
I look back on that disbelief now.
But God's training of us
to strengthen our faith muscles.
He will bring pain
to bring about holy gain.
It's because he loves us.
In the moment,
no discipline.
It's seen as,
experience is painful.
But let me just be clear.
To be a child of God
is not all pain.
It's not incessant pain.
We have seasons,
wonderful seasons
of relational peace
and healthy bodies.
And we're not experiencing
persecution from others.
But let's just be clear.
Those are seasons.
What I love about my Bible
is it's so realistic.
It explains reality the best.
Did you see the word later?
For the moment,
all discipline seems painful
rather than pleasant.
But later,
it yields the peaceful fruit
of righteousness
to those who are trained by it.
Later.
You know what?
Many of us want that later
to be like 10 minutes later.
But the reality is this.
God is at work
for your good.
And that later
may be
later in the afternoon.
It yields a peaceful fruit
of righteousness.
It may be later in the week
or weeks
or months
or years.
Remember the book of Judges?
The cycle?
God would raise up a judge.
There would be peace
brought to Israel.
And that judge would die.
And then Israel would go back
to their sinfulness.
And then God would raise up
an oppressor.
That was God's heat.
That was God's loving discipline
of his people.
And sometimes
it took decades
for Israel
to come to a point
of saying,
Lord, deliver us.
God is patient
and he's loving
and he's on a timeline
for our good.
So we'll have seasons
of peace
and sometimes
we'll have seasons
of pain
but God
is using it all
for our good.
We welcome
God's discipline
because it's always
for our good.
There are two passages
I want you to
look at maybe
later today
or in the week
just so that you know
that what I'm telling you
is not just limited
to the book of Hebrews.
Look up Romans 5,
2-5.
Look up James 1,
2-4.
When we are told
that we welcome
hardship and suffering
because it produces
in us endurance
and in the end
steadfastness
and in the end
holiness.
He brings heat
and pain
for our good.
Last question is
how do we respond
to God's discipline?
in a word
humbly.
We humble ourselves.
In verse 11
we read this
for the moment
all discipline
seems painful
rather than pleasant
but later
it yields
the peaceful
fruit of righteousness
to those
who have been
trained by it.
To those
who've welcomed it.
to those
who have
subjected themselves
to the will of God
their father.
To those
who have
humbled
themselves.
I've been trying
to convince you
that we
welcome
God's loving
discipline.
We welcome it.
We welcome
the momentary pain
because we are
convinced
that holiness
is better
than comfort.
And this
those who've been
trained by it
there's another word
in the passage.
It's in verse 9
that gets
at the heart
of this.
Besides this
we've had
earthly fathers
who disciplined
us and we
respected them.
Shall we not
much more
be subject
to the
father of
spirits
and live
to submit
ourselves
to him
and live
to thrive?
In verse 36
we read
for you have
need of endurance
so that
when you
have done
the will
of God
you may
receive
what is
promised.
This is just
different ways
of talking
about humbling
yourself
under God's
mighty hand.
Surrendering
your will
to his.
Welcoming
his holy
and sometimes
painful work.
It's where
we are
consenting
to what
he's doing.
Where we
yield to him.
Trusting
in his
character.
Here's what
that sounds
like.
God brings
heat into
your life.
Maybe your
first impulse
is to react
in unbelief.
Why are you
doing this?
But then you
come to your
senses and
you say
father would
you have
your way
in me?
I don't
I don't know
why all this
is happening
other than
I trust
in your
character.
I trust
that you
are loving.
I trust
that you
want to
produce
holiness
in me.
So God
would you
use these
circumstances
in my
life
to make
me more
like
Christ.
God
opposes
the proud
but gives
grace to
the humble.
I want
to recommend
a book
for you.
It's this
little book
by David
Mathis.
It's called
Humbled.
Many of you
have read
it.
Listen to
the
subtitle.
Welcoming
the
uncomfortable
work of
God.
There are
11 copies
of this
at the
Connect
desk.
Grab one
on your
way out.
This
will help
you
welcome
God's
loving
discipline.
See it
for what it
is.
To make
the most
of it.
Imagine
this.
You're a
dad with
a 10
year old
son.
He steals
$20 from
your wallet.
You've got
it on
video.
Two
responses.
You tell
me which
one is
the humble
response.
response
one.
You bring
your son
into your
bedroom.
You're like
son.
I got
you on
video.
Your son
says that's
not me.
He looks
like me
but that's
not me.
Did you
talk to
Scott?
My older
brother?
He looks
like me.
Maybe it
was him.
And he
starts digging
himself further
and further
into the
pit.
Right?
And you're
going to
have to
respond to
that wisely
as a mom
or dad to
have an
appropriate
consequence.
But is he
humbling
himself?
No.
Second
response.
You show
your son the
video.
First thing
he says,
that was
me.
I haven't
been able to
sleep,
dad.
I've been
wanting to
tell you but
I've been
afraid.
I've been
afraid of what
you would
do.
In fact,
I know I
deserve to
be spanked.
Here's the
$20.
You spank
him.
Tears are
shed.
And then he
says to
you,
thanks dad
for helping
me.
I know
it's wrong
to steal.
I know
it grieves
God,
it hurts
others,
and that
includes
myself.
30 years
later,
he says,
dad,
you know
what?
I haven't
stolen
since.
I learned
a lesson
that day.
Which one
humbled
themselves?
The second,
he took
responsibility
for what they
had done,
and they
allowed the
discipline to
run its
course and
to train
him to
be holy.
The rest
of the
passage in
verses 12
through 17
shows us
what it
looks like
to run
the race
that God
marked out
for us,
to pursue
holiness,
to run it
in peace
and in
holiness,
both in
terms of
relational
peace,
in terms of
sexual purity,
let's
apply it
like this.
Are you
experiencing
heat?
Are you
experiencing
hardship?
How are
you interpreting
that?
Is that
just the
universe
run amok?
Could it
be that
your heavenly
father is
behind it
for your
good?
Yes!
He's
sovereign over
all things
and he
is loving
you unto
holiness
and so
if you're
experiencing
heat
personally,
what you
do is
you humble
yourself.
You say,
God,
use this
for my
good
and that's
not letting
other people
off the
hook.
That's you
saying,
God,
do your
work in
me.
Not
blaming
others that
you start
with yourself
but then
do you
know someone
who's
experiencing
God's
heat?
Are you
living life
with people
who are
experiencing
God's
heat?
Yes!
You know
how you
can help
them?
You help
them by
pointing them
to the
throne of
grace.
By saying
you need to
cry out to
God,
help you in
your time
of need.
Welcome
his work.
I'm with
you.
I'll walk
with you.
Let's do
this
together.
How do
you respond
to God's
loving
discipline?
We humble
ourselves.
We welcome
it.
Some of
the most
formative
moments for
us will be
when God
brings the
heat.
Why does
what is
God's
discipline?
It's
training.
Training
in holiness.
Why does
God
discipline?
He loves
us.
He wants
us to
be holy.
How does
God
discipline
us?
He uses
pain.
And how
do we
respond?
In humility.
We welcome
God's loving
discipline because
it's always for
our good.
Let's pray
together.
God in
heaven,
forgive us
for questioning
your motives,
for arching
our back
when you are
seeking to do
us good
through hard
things.
God, would
you have your
way in us
grace?
And would
you help
us, one
another, to
obtain the
grace of
God that we
would help
each other not
miss out on
what you're
doing in
our lives.
God, would
you help us
to endure and
to make us
holy for the
glory of your
name.
Amen.