Well, I do hope that you are well and your life is good at the moment, that things are going well.
! But as I say that, it is not always the case, is it, that life is peachy, that life is easy.
Often life throws a curveball at us. Life is full of hardship and difficulty.
The question is, how do we respond to life when it goes bad?
I want to say that this passage that we've got in front of us is about that issue of coping with hardship and of difficulty.
It's about endurance, particularly in the Christian life, in following Jesus.
The word endurance appears four times in the section here, doesn't it?
It's written to a group of Christians who, if you go back in your Bible at home maybe, look at chapter 10,
that you can see what kind of experience they've had recently.
They've suffered public attacks.
They've suffered affliction of various kinds.
They've been imprisoned, some of them.
They've had their possessions stolen.
They are in trouble in the world.
And there seems to be no let-up.
But the command of verse 2, if you look there, is pretty clear, isn't it?
Despite the hardships, they should run with endurance the race that is set before them.
They must keep going in the hardship.
They must persevere to the end.
We must endure the Christian life as well as enjoy the Christian life.
And we might ask ourselves, why does it have to be like that?
Why can't I go through the Christian life like a walk in the park?
Why is it such hard work?
The Apostle Paul calls Christians, he describes them as soldiers.
Doesn't he?
And as hard-working farmers.
Or as marathon runners.
Just picture those people, the soldier crawling through the mud with bullets flying overhead.
Or the exhaustion of long-distance running and the perseverance that that takes.
Or the back-breaking work of labour in the fields.
And we can get to the point, can't we,
if we've been a Christian for a long time,
if we've been following Jesus for a while,
maybe the initial excitement of faith has kind of waned a little.
And we're just trudging through from one day to the next.
So why all of this endurance?
God, why don't you just take away the difficulty
if I'm trusting in you and I'm following you?
Well, he gives us three reasons why, I think, in Hebrews 12 today.
Why does it have to be so hard?
That the writer to the Hebrews says, first of all,
the endurance of the Christian life,
the hardships are for your discipline.
For your discipline.
Just look at verse 7.
It is for discipline that you have to endure.
He tells us, doesn't he, that there is a reason behind the hardship.
The reason for the struggle of enduring to the end.
There is a purpose behind that.
There is a godly design in that.
It is discipline.
He wants to really drill this in.
Did you hear that word?
It's just repeated over and over again in the passage.
Don't regard lightly the discipline of the Lord.
The Lord disciplines the ones he loves.
What son is there whom his father doesn't discipline?
He goes on, discipline, discipline, discipline.
Your life, if you are facing opposition and hardship because you are following the Lord Jesus,
is not out of control.
Things are the way they are for your discipline.
That is the explanation.
So, the writer wants to say, don't take your hardships the wrong way.
Don't view them in the wrong way.
Neither should you despise them, nor should you be overly discouraged by them.
If you look at verse 5 and 6 there, he quotes a verse from the book of Proverbs.
And in that verse in Proverbs, there are two warnings about how we deal with hardship.
Warning one, my son, don't regard lightly the discipline of the Lord.
In other words, don't despise what is happening to you.
And don't despise the Lord for it.
When we have hardships coming to our lives, the temptation is to grow cynical, isn't it?
Maybe there are folk who did once trust in God and had great hope in him,
and yet hard things come and they grow bitter towards God.
Because they despise what is going on in their lives.
He says, no, we shouldn't do that.
We shouldn't forget and fail to recognise that God is using these things for some greater good,
for our discipline.
Don't despise it.
And then warning number two comes.
Don't be weary when reproved by God.
Don't be discouraged when difficult times come.
Because, he says, for the Lord disciplines the ones he hates.
No.
He disciplines the one he loves.
Often, much hardship and much difficulty in the Christian life
is a sign of much discipline,
which is a sign of much love from God.
in him being persistent in his intention for your good.
And if you think about it, that is completely upside down thinking, isn't it?
It's just totally counterintuitive.
That sometimes the greater the hardship,
the greater display of love from God,
sometimes when the world is hardest against God's people,
it is a sign that he is most for his people.
You may have heard of the Baptist preacher John Piper.
John Piper is pretty popular, isn't he, in the States.
And a few years ago, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
And in the time of his treatment, over a couple of years,
he thought a great deal about the issue of suffering
and of hardship in the Christian life.
He wrote many things over that time,
but one article really jumped out where he entitled it,
Don't Waste Your Cancer.
He was saying, wasn't he,
that counterintuitive way of thinking of hardship
is don't waste the things that make you suffer in this life.
Don't take them the wrong way.
Don't waste the opportunity that God is giving in this moment
to discipline you and to grow you and to teach you things
that otherwise you wouldn't have learnt about yourself and about him.
We should never say, should we, if we're following Christ
and we trust in him, that God is punishing me
if I'm suffering for some reason.
God is punishing me for something I've done
and I'm paying back in this suffering.
I want to say Christians are not punished.
Jesus Christ, as we trust in him,
as he dies on the cross,
he endures, doesn't he,
the suffering that we should have endured,
that we deserve.
He takes every ounce of punishment
that we deserve
for rebelling against God.
But,
we are rebuked
and we are chastened
and we are put back in line.
Christians are disciplined.
But,
what sort of discipline is it?
If you think about that word,
we just don't like it, do we?
The word discipline.
The more I've said it,
I wonder whether you want it to move away.
Does it make us think of
old-fashioned public school lashings?
Is this a brutal,
cold,
systematic kind of discipline
like SAS selection?
God is going to thrash
all of the impurities out of us
like some evil schoolmaster.
Well, no,
because the example he uses
of this discipline
is the caring and loving discipline
of a good father,
isn't it,
in verse 6.
The Lord disciplines
the one he loves.
He chastises every son
whom he receives.
He uses the illustration
later on
in verse 9
of an earthly father
who loves his child
and who disciplines them.
So, endurance
is there in the Christian life
for discipline,
but secondly,
it is there for
fatherly discipline.
not just any old discipline,
fatherly discipline.
The writer's aim here
is to get us
to move from
despairing
and despising
God
in the hard things
to loving him
for them
and taking advantage
of them in our lives
to be subject
to him
for change,
to almost value
these opportunities
that suffering brings.
So, what he does here,
he argues from the lesser
to the greater example,
doesn't he?
He uses the lesser example
of a good earthly father.
This might not be
the experience
of everyone
in this room
of having a good
earthly father,
but we know,
don't we,
what a good earthly father
should do.
That he disciplines
his child
and the child respects
and loves him
for that.
The word in the original
Greek language
means to correct
or to educate.
And an earthly father
does that
for the child
that he loves.
He would be a bad father
if he neglected
to do that,
wouldn't he?
So that the child
develops and grows
and moves from
childish things
to grown-up things
so that they can live
a bigger and fuller life
so that they can engage
with the world properly.
The father teaches
the child
so that they can
experience life
to its fullest.
Our little two-year-old,
we're trying to teach him
not to say,
I want,
but please may I have
every single time
he forgets it.
Please may I have,
not I want.
Why do we do that?
Is it because I'm a stickler
for politeness
and for doing the right thing?
Well, actually, yes.
But it is for the purpose,
isn't it,
of him knowing
how to engage
with people properly,
of honouring his father
and his mother,
and engaging
in good relationships
with people
and eventually
enjoying life more.
It's not because
I want to come down
on him and tell him
he's always doing
the wrong thing
all the time,
but that he will enjoy life.
Discipline is for the
grace
and benefit of life,
isn't it?
And his argument is that
if earthly fathers
know how to do that,
how much more
good
in your life
will God's discipline
do for you?
Just look at the comparison
in verse 10.
They disciplined
earthly fathers
us for a short time
as it seemed best for them,
but he disciplines us
for our good
that we may share
in his holiness.
Earthly fathers
can discipline us,
can't they,
to give us a well-rounded
character
for earthly life.
But do you see
what God is aiming
at here?
He disciplines
his children
to share
his holiness
for a heavenly life.
Hardships come
to develop us,
to make us holy
and to make us
fit for heaven
for a much
fuller life
than we know now.
Hardships come
in God's
plan
that
we will become
more like him
in building
our spiritual
maturity.
So since
God
does this
for his children,
notice
in verse 6,
he does it
for every
son,
that is the one
who receives
the inheritance,
he does it
for every
believer
who is a son
whom he
receives.
It's not a sign
of his rejection
when difficult
things come,
but of his
reception
and of his
love.
Saying to us,
you are in
my family
and you are
going to enjoy
heavenly life.
And if we
are expecting
a life of
roses
and if that
is what we
are experiencing
all of the
time and we
think that is
normal,
we've got to
wonder,
haven't we,
what claim
have we got
in the
family of
God?
He uses the
word illegitimate,
doesn't he?
If we're not
disciplined,
then we're
illegitimate,
sons,
we're not in
the family.
But when
things are
hard,
it is a sign
that God
is making
us holy,
preparing us
for heaven.
So the
endurance is
for discipline,
it is for
a father's
discipline.
Thirdly and
lastly,
the endurance
is for
momentary
fatherly
discipline.
It is for
momentary
fatherly
discipline.
Just drop
your eye
down to
verse 11.
For the
moment,
all discipline
seems painful
rather than
pleasant,
but later
it yields
the peaceful
fruit of
righteousness
to those
who've been
trained by
it.
Let's be
honest about
it,
no discipline
is pleasant,
is it,
in the
moment.
But isn't
it true that
often the
best things
for us are
the most
difficult
things in
our lives?
when I was
a little
boy,
it's a
trivial
example,
when I was
a little
boy,
there was
a bowl
of grapes
on top
of the
piano
in the
living
room,
and I
tried to
steal some
grapes
once,
and my
dad
called to
me,
and I
got a
wallet
around the
back of
the legs,
and it
wasn't
nice,
it was
painful,
but I
learnt
then not
to steal.
It's a
really trivial
example,
isn't it?
in all
seriousness,
it hurts
to have
our weaknesses
and our
impurities
exposed.
As God's
purpose is
to make
us more
holy,
and that
indwelling
rebellion
against him
is still
there,
his concern
will always
be to
expose it
and to
deal with
it,
and that
is going
to hurt
in life.
It will
hurt to
have the
impurities
burnt
away.
God
may end
up dealing
with us
quite
harshly
in life.
He may
take things
away from
us or
put things
into our
lives that
we didn't
welcome and
we didn't
want to
shake our
self-confidence.
But the
point of
verse 11 is
that that
pain is
only momentary,
isn't it?
It will
be slight,
like the
blink of
an eye in
the grand
scheme of
things.
It's like
when a
doctor
pushes on
the wound
to find
out where
the source
of pain
is.
It hurts
for that
moment,
doesn't it?
He does
that as
he seeks
to heal
it,
not to
irritate
it,
God
isn't
just
throwing
things
out in
our
lives
to wind
us up
with
hardship,
but to
draw out
our
weaknesses
and heal
and to
make
holy.
And it's
momentary.
if we
think about
it in
60 billion
years time
in eternity,
if Christ
has returned
and we're
all in
heaven by
then,
with new
resurrection
bodies and
our bodies
are glorious
and there's
no more
pain and
no more
suffering and
we're in
the presence
of God.
60 billion
years time,
will we
have a
second
thought
for the
70,
80,
90 years
of suffering
that we've
had in
this life?
Maybe it'll
be a little
pinprick on
our minds
by that
point,
won't it?
It'll be
momentary and
we'll see it
then for
what it
is.
He says,
then we
will enjoy
the peaceful
fruit of
righteousness.
I think
now we
don't enjoy
this peace
because
actually the
fruit needs
to mature,
doesn't it?
We don't
enjoy that
fruit fully
because there
is still
things in
our lives
which need
sorting out
our own
pride and
our self
concern.
They destroy
that peace
as it should
be.
But to
those who
are trained
by these
discipline
issues,
to us
if we
are willing
to consider
the hard
things in
our lives
as part
of God's
discipline,
if we
don't
despise
those things
and as we
ask God
to help us
understand what
he is doing,
to have our
pride dealt
with,
well,
then there
is a day
when with
perfect peace
we can enjoy
the fruit
of those
things,
that we
will be
perfectly
righteous
and we
will be
holy.
And
hardships
will come,
won't they,
for all of
us,
if they
haven't
already,
many of
you are,
I know,
suffering with
many hardships.
We are to
expect them,
but Hebrews
12 tells us
we should
expect them,
but we
should not
dread them.
We need
not fear
them and
always be
paranoid and
always be
anxious about
future hardship.
The message
is don't
fear
hardship,
actually,
don't fear
hardship,
don't waste
hardship as
well.
Don't miss
the opportunities
that they
bring.
Christians,
we want to
be more
holy,
don't we?
I want
that,
I struggle
with many
things,
but I want
to be more
like Jesus
and God
in his
grace uses
hardships in
that struggle
all.
Let me
close with
a quote
from J.I.
Packer.
He says,
God seeks
the fellowship
of his
people and
will send
them as
gifts,
both joy
and sorrow,
to detach
their hands
from the
things of
this world
and to
attach those
things to
himself.
They are
put in our
lives to
make us
fit for
heaven,
for fellowship
with him,
aren't they?
so don't
despise
hardships in
your life.
Ask God
to mould
you in
his
fatherly
discipline
that you
will enjoy
this peaceful
fruit of
righteousness
as you are
trained by
his discipline.
Let's pray.