Divine Discipline

 

 

"⁴ You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; ⁵ and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
⁶ For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.”

⁷ It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸ But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹ Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? ¹⁰ For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. ¹¹ All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."

Hebrews 12:4-11

 

Good Morning My Beloved,

Welcome to worship this Lord's Day!

We are so thankful for our beloved brothers and sisters in Christ from around the world, we are glad that you are all with us today. I would like to encourage you to visit our Prayer Wall, not only to pray for our brothers and sisters in their time of need, but to also add any prayers or concerns that you may have.

 

Many people receive the Word of God with joy, they believe for a while, yet in time of trial or temptation, they fall away. They do not understand or respond properly to His discipline, they do not persevere when trials hit, as they certainly will. The subject of God’s loving discipline of His children is one of the most misunderstood but practical truths in the Bible for you to understand and apply. The truth is that we do not enjoy being disciplined, however, it is both necessary and for our good. Discipline is an expression of love. I believe that the value of discipline largely depends upon ones reaction to it. God’s purpose in discipline is to teach us, if we will only listen.

 

C.S. Lewis once wrote "Many would rather have a benevolent grandfather in heaven whose prime interest is our contentment than have a Father whose prime interest is our character."

 

I believe that it is as important to understand the purpose of God's discipline as it is that we learn how we are to properly respond. To despise God's discipline is to be indifferent to the importance of its significance.

 

Sadly, may Christians today, think that taking up your cross means wearing a piece of jewelry. Even though Jesus plainly stated that the call to salvation is a call to lose your life, in fact, Jesus took His cross on the way to His execution.

 

In Mark chapter 8, Jesus warned us "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it"

 

Let us bow our heads in prayer.

 

Heavenly Father,

 

Father, thank You for Your Word for us today. Thank You for loving us and caring for us as sons and daughters. Lord, thank You for teaching us, help us to understand the implications of this portion of Your Word in our lives, that we might realize that sanctification it's part of being our trained toward righteousness. Conforming us to the image of Christ, Who was perfected in suffering.

 

Father, know that Your Word is alive, powerful, and refreshing, challenging at times but it is also instructive. Continue to work in our lives, so that we can live lives that are marked by the peaceful fruit of righteousness. May it all be for Your great glory.

In Christ's name we pray

Amen

 

Today's Message: Divine Discipline

 

As Christians, we often take comfort and find strength from the promises of God’s word. However, I believe that it is important, that we better understand what they are. There are three types or purposes of Divine discipline; Corrective, Preventive, and Educational.

 

The Apostle Paul wrote in II Corinthians 12:7, "Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!

 

As Christians, we often struggle to apply the lesson of divine discipline to our walk of faith. We act as our own defense attorney, complaining to God about the severity of our punishment, pleading our case against the hastiness of the verdict. We find ourselves questioning God’s motives, His wisdom, and the justness of the trial. Even crying out to God in frustration, asking "Why must I go through this?" There should never be question as to whether God knows what He is doing. There is never anything uninformed, misguided, or unfair in God's child-rearing efforts. He is the prefect, loving Father.

 

In other words, if God's discipline is to have its desired effect, we are not merely to endure what we suffer. We must be trained by our suffering, with a willingness to learn from it.

Caught up in our daily lives, we slip into a forgetfulness of God’s Word, therefore, we occasionally need to be reminded. And, God often uses discipline in order to prevent us from sin. Just as we as parents, put restrictions and limits in place to keep our children from harm, so too does our heavenly Father allows restrictive circumstances to come into in our lives for our good! Allow me to point out, how close the word discipline is to the word, disciple. Coincidence? I believe not.

Proverbs 15:31-32 says "He whose ear listens to the life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. He who neglects discipline despises himself, but he who listens to reproof acquires understanding."

 

Open with me your Bibles to the twelfth chapter of the book of Hebrews. As we continue in our study of the wonderful portion of God's Word, today we will be looking at verses 4-11. I'm sure most of you are familiar with with some of the text, at least in part, as it is so often quoted, however, I believe that it is particularly important, that we study it in whole

I invite you to follow along with me as I read to set the text in our minds, while we prepare our hearts for a message from the Holy Spirit. I believe that we will all be richly blessed by it. Hebrews 12:4-11.

 

"You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.”

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."

 

Here, the writer is urging the Hebrew Christians to consider their current trials and suffering with spiritual maturity. He encourages them to remember God’s ways with his children. As we have been studying chapter 11, we learned that the Christian Life is one of faith, a matter of believing what you have not yet seen, you have not yet received. Living for a future hope in the glory that is to come.

However, it is also one of sacrifice. It all really comes down to sacrifice or self. 

 

We are called to deny ourselves, take up our cross, follow Him. We make the sacrifices that are called for in a life of repentance, a life of holiness and a life of sanctification by saying no to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. We are called to resist the Devil; to fight against him and the onslaught that comes from his enterprises in the world.

 

And we do all of this not because we hold in our hand the end of our faith, but because we believe in what is to come. There is waiting for us, God's promise of a great reward. We have the evidence sufficient for believing the promises of God. As we journey along this walk of faith, we see Him answer prayer; we see Him providentially order our lives; we see Him pour out His blessing upon us, and we see it enough to anchor our faith. Therefore, it is imperative for us to hang on in difficult and challenging times.

Verse 4, "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;" I'm sure that you will recall, he has been calling them to a life of faith, calling them to accept the fact that it’s going to be a challenging life. Here, He is saying you haven't had to go as far as He has, none of you has died for for faith. 

I have known many Christians, who think that if things go wrong in your life it’s the devil, saying things like "It's by the power of Satan that I am going through all of these things. God would never do this to me." If we come into the kingdom by faith, if we have confessed Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, if we acknowledged Him as the One who died and rose again on our behalf, then why is it that this life is still so hard? The answer comes in verses 5-11. It is the discipline of God.

 

When we face difficulties and challenges in our lives, we don’t look to Satan, we are not under his sovereignty. Through Jesus Christ, we have been delivered from his power over us. We have delivered from darkness to Light. We are no longer captives of Satan, we have been set free by the blood of Jesus. Therefore, the issues that comes into our life, the trials that challenge us, the suffering that calls for our courage and the pain that calls for our faith to be strong, is not the work of Satan in the life of a believer, it’s pretty clear, having read that passage over and over again, it's the discipline of God. And I believe that that is how we must view it, as the discipline of God. In fact, if you will notice, it is repeated throughout the entire text, all the way down to the last verse.

 

In the original text, its actually the word "paideias," which means the rearing of a child, the training of a child. A paidagōgoswas child trainer, a child mentor, a child teacher.So, when we talk about pedagogy, we're talking about child training. The word speaks of whatever occurs in the life of children, that which is wrought upon them by their parents, to cultivate their soul, including corrective issues, curbing their passions, and hedging them against the things that are dangerous. In other words, It’s all part of our training as the children of God. I want to be very clear here, it does not convey the idea of punishment, its consistent with the idea of training. There is a distinct difference between divine punishment and divine discipline. Discipline refers to training for an intended good outcome. Punishment, however, refers to retribution, vengeance and wrath. God doesn't do that to us, that's not what we're talking about here. We’re not talking about condemnation. Punishment has one purpose; discipline has another Let me put it another way, in punishment, God is the Judge. In discipline, God is the Father.

However, discipline is not just for our protection, it is also for our instruction, with a view to producing virtue, aiming at the increase of character. God’s discipline serves to make us Christ’s disciples. The trials we face are divinely designed to mature us so that we become more serviceable disciples in Christ’s church and kingdom. While there is little do doubt, unbelievers can also learn a lot through the hard knocks of life, and as a result, they might even become a better people because of their trials. That's not to say that they're all bad to start with, they just need Jesus! The point is, they aren’t being made into Jesus’ disciples through suffering. God’s fatherly discipline is for believers only.

 

Now, I know that some of you may like what I am about to say, however, its biblical. Scriptural discipline is done with a rod, not with "time outs." Discipline is not done by taking away your child's Xbox or iPad. Proverbs 13:24 says "He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently." If you love your children, you will correct them. Go corrects those He loves. And, let's face it, we all have sin in our lives that need correction. God is in the business of correction.

 

In I Corinthians 11:30-32, Paul says " For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world."So, we see it is possible to become sick because of frivolous sin. You might want to start there when things go wrong in your life. That's a really good place to start. when you examine your life, and you begin to see that God is correcting you, you have to understand this is not punishment for your sin, He is correcting you in love.

 

God also uses discipline as prevention. The Lord demands that you stay away from evil company because evil company corrupts good morals. Scripture is full of  barriers that  the Lord puts into our lives to shelter us from corruption.

 

If you will remember, we mentioned II Corinthians 12 earlier, and Paul's thorn in the flesh. Corinthians 12 he says it’s like a stake, like a sharp stake rammed through my flesh. This is the stake driven through his flesh. It’s a messenger of Satan. The messenger is angelos, a satanic angel, demonic activity in the church that he loved in Corinth. They were buying into these false teachers, and it’s running a stake right through him. Let me tell you this, the Lord will do some amazing things, even turning demons loose in a church to make life miserable for the pastor of that church in order to keep that man humble.

 

God also uses discipline for education, to teach us. Designed to teach you the experiences of life that lead to deeper fellowship with God. In Luke chapter 22, Jesus said to Peter "Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." You cannot strengthen your brother until you have been through the trial that he's going through. 

 

And, in II Corinthians chapter 1, Paul said  "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ." 

 

And, let's not forget, Proverbs was primarily a tool put in the hands of fathers for the instruction of sons. So, in verse 5, you could regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or you could faint when you’re reproved by Him. The writer of Hebrews gives two extremes when it comes to reacting to the discipline of God and neither of them is acceptable. Whether for protection or for correction, don't misjudge it's urgency. It's important. If it's for education, learn your lesson, be a sympathetic teacher and help others who are suffering.

 

We  must learn to form the habit of heeding the disciplines that come. Because there is a progression in discipline! So, whatever trials come into your life, view them spiritually minded. God's disciplining you for your good and His glory. Arthur Pink once said "God always chastens twice if we’re not humbled by the first. Remind yourself of how much sin there is yet in you. View the corruptions of our own heart and marvel that God has not smitten you more severely and more often."

 

In verses 6 through 8, we see that discipline proves two things, they become clear in His discipline. God's love, and your sonship. That’s why you don’t faint. We have the sweet assurance that everything that comes into your life comes from God’s love. It’s all motivated by His love.

 

Follow along with me as I read "For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons."

 

Lamentation 3:31-33 says "For the Lord will not reject forever, For if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness. For He does not afflict willingly or grieve the sons of men."

 

Isaiah 63:9, says "In all their affliction He was afflicted." A loving father disciplines for correction, for protection, for education because he loves the child and though he too feels the pain, he understands the benefit. If you’re without discipline, your not son, you're illegitimate. Listen, he more rebellious you are, the more undisciplined you are, the more disobedient you are, the less you enjoy life. If you can sin and not be bothered, you better do some serious self-examination.

 

Now, in verse 9, we see two things two things that God produces, "Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? " If we respect and honor our earthly fathers; shouldn’t we respect and honor our spiritual Father? He says "be subject to the spiritual Father and live." The first thing it produces is life.

 

We see the second thing it produces in verse 10, "For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness." Discipline is exacting. Discipline is costly. Consistent Discipline will wring you out to the point that you do not believe you have the energy to carry it through. But not to pay the cost is to tell the child, "You are not important to me. You are not worth it!" Discipline contributes to how much you enjoy this life and all its riches in Christ.

 

In verse 11, "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."

You know, when you're going through the agony and suffering of trials, it doesn’t seem joyful at the time.  Carnal senses react negatively. We find no joy in illness, the loss of a loved one or unresolved conflicts within our families. There's no joy in that. It's sorrowful.

 

Then, look at the end of verse 11 where He says "yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." There's no joy in the grieving, all the suffering and pain, but "afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." Discipline completes the picture of living by faith and understanding that the life of faith is a life of challenges; it’s a life of trials and suffering. 

But we triumph over by faith and focusing on Jesus who also triumphed in the midst of suffering, even unto death on the cross.

 

Revelation 3:19 says "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent."  

 

In Closing...

 

In my life, I have found that when serous trials strike, it is much easier for me to see God’s hand behind those events than when minor frustrations occur. God’s discipline in minor hassles that occur, tend to be regarded lightly. Rather than seeing these minor occurrences as God loving hand giving me an opportunity to develop more patience, it's far easier to become irritated. Especially in times when I have more to do than I have time to do it in. Rather than seeing God’s hand moving in my life, telling me to pause and slow down, I’m more inclined to think, "That's just great! Now how am I going to get everything done?" 

 

In order to grow in godliness, you must learn to see every trial as God’s loving discipline, that He cared enough to specifically tailor to you as an opportunity to trust Him. I know that some of you may have come from abusive families, or marriages and trust is a lot harder for you. This is where we must learn to exercise faith. When God brings disciple into our lives, we will have to work harder at trusting God's love. Believe me, I know it can be difficult when we don't see any reason for the trials we face, believing nothing good could possibly come from it. It can be difficult to trust in God's love and care, His sovereignty over your situation in those times. But its in these situations, we must cling to
the love of God and to His sovereign goodness over every circumstance.

 

Someone once said, "Do not interpret God’s love by your circumstances. Rather, interpret your circumstances by God’s love." 

 

May it be so.. 

 

And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.

Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen

 

 

 

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