New Salem Baptist Church

Divine Discipline

Dec. 1, 2024

Read Hebrews 12:3-11.

            3          For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary, fainting in heart.^[1]

Weariness and fainting in heart are real dangers facing the follower of the Lord Jesus. When are lives are easy, those are not dangers. When are lives are easy, we may need to throw aside some weights that are slowing us down. But when we are suffering, as the Hebrews believers were, then we face the danger of growing weary or fainting away.

We know what it is like to become weary physically, mentally, or emotionally. We can grow weary spiritually. When you are weary you no longer want to try hard. You would rather do nothing than something.

We can faint, that is, pass out. If we faint, we become unresponsive. The way that we can be redeemed from succumbing to weariness or being faint of heart is by considering Jesus. That is in the beginning of the verse.

Jesus endured hostility from sinners. The world is full of sinners. Sinning is the natural propensity of all people. What was the reason that they were hostile towards the Lord?

They were hostile towards the Lord for two reasons:

• They were hostile because of what he said.
• They were hostile because of who he was.

People will be hostile towards you for the same reasons. You may speak the truth to someone or to a group of people. Since most people do not love the truth, they will not like what you have to say. But this should never influence you to refrain from speaking the truth. We must speak the truth, especially when it is unpopular.

This is what was happening to the Hebrew believers to whom Paul is writing. They were speaking the truth to their relatives and neighbors and they did not want to hear it. They persecuted those believers.

The other reason that Jesus experienced hostility is because of who he was. He was a righteous person. That is, he lived according to the will of God. Some despised him simply because he was a good man. If a person is at enmity with God, they will be at enmity with those who follow God.

R.C. Sproul tells the story of a time when a good friend of his went golfing with Billy Graham and a third fellow. The three of them played 18 holes. When he and the other fellow were in the locker room getting ready to leave, he asked him, “How did you like playing golf with Billy?” The man angrily responded, “It was ok, but I don’t like having religion shoved down my throat!” Here was the amazing thing: the three of them had been together the whole time and Billy Graham never said even one word about the Lord that day. They just played and made casual conversation. That man was discomforted just by the presence of Billy Graham!

That’s the way people felt towards Jesus.

You may do nothing wrong at all. You might just be living according to the will of God as best as you can and people will despise you for it.

In verse 4 there is a slight change in subject:

⁴ In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ^[2]

He is alluding to sin against the believers by others, but then it becomes evident in the verses that follow that he means much more than that. He means our own sins as well as sins against us by others.

In the same way that we should not faint when persecuted, we should not faint when we are disciplined by the Lord for our own sins.

First, see that we are to resist and struggle against sin in our lives. Many Christians take sin too lightly. The results of taking sin lightly is that we are disciplined by God.

If we would seek to overcome the remaining sin in our lives, we would experience less discipline by the Lord. We will likely never escape it completely, because we have many things in our lives that are out of harmony with the Lord, but we can avoid much of the Lord’s rod simply by addressing our own sin.

Not many of us like to hear this. We do not want to hear about our own failures and sins, even if it’s from ourselves! We do not even want to think about our failures and shortcomings, let alone deal with them. It’s the way we are. But we must. And, if we do, life gets a little better.

Even if we do take sin seriously and address it, we haven’t shed our blood in the struggle. The implication is that we ought to be willing to fight it that hard, even to shed our blood. This shedding of blood is not for atonement. Only the blood of Jesus can atone for our sins. This shedding of blood is just a symbol for great resistance to sin.

 ⁵ And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

       “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

nor be weary when reproved by him.

⁶    For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

and chastises every son whom he receives.” ^[3]

When there is a sin in our life, the Lord does not want it to remain. There may be a sin that we have lived with for years. I do not mean the obvious ones. The sins that we know about, we ought to be laying aside, as the apostle directed us in verse 1. I mean, there may be a sin in our lives to which we are blind. We are so fallen that there are parts of our lives that are out of harmony with the Lord’s life and we may not see it.

One way the Lord gets our attention to those sins is by disciplining us. When bad things happen, for example, with the Hebrew believers it was being persecuted in a severe way. Their persecution was actually the Lord’s hand to discipline them. But, the Lord’s hand of discipline takes many forms.

When bad things happen, we must consider our own life. “Is there something about me that is out of harmony with the Lord’s life?” This is a question we ask ourselves. And, do you know what? It will be known to you what it is with which the Lord is displeased.

After walking with the Lord for fifty years now (yes, I am that old!), this has been my experience time and time again. I recognize what it is that displeases the Lord. I think most of have this kind of experience.

Paul (who the early church identified as the author) commands not to “regard lightly the discipline of the Lord.” This is precisely why we must consider our lives when it happens. Do not just plow through the difficult times!

There was a farmer in an age past, before the days of mechanization, that had a spacious farm with more than one kind of crop. It was a well watered place so the crops grew well and he enjoyed the provision of income that they provided for he and his family.

He had two strong plow horses. They were magnificent creatures. They were both tall and powerful, with leg muscles rippling as they pulled the plow. Whenever he would come to a rock in his field, he would just plow through. The rock would be overturned but remain in the soil. The bigger rocks would put a strain on the horses, but they were up to the task because of their magnificence.

But the rocks would damage his plow blades. He had to end up replacing them frequently. Not only so, but next planting season he would go thought the whole process again because he never removed the rocks from his field!

He wasted much money on purchasing new blades and on treating his horses for injuries sustained because of those rocks.

If you regard the discipline of the Lord lightly, you are the farmer. The rocks are your sins. You just plow through. The least that will happen is that you will waste money buying new “blades.” You may have to treat “injuries.” But in just a few verses, Paul will reveal something more unpleasant than just burdensome expenditures and minor injuries.

See that the word “nor” is in verse 5. We can react to divine discipline in two ways. We can regard it lightly, that is, just plowing through. Or, we can become weary. I think the weariness sets in when the discipline is more severe.

Why should we not become weary? Why should we not give up? The answer is in verse 6: It’s because the Lord loves us!

Oh! This is sometimes hard to see! In fact, when the discipline is severe, it is a sore temptation to think the opposite! Our tendency is to think the Lord does not love us to leave us in a certain condition or certain situation. We cry out to him to help us out of it. We plead with him. We yearn from the depths of our heart, yet we remain in whatever situation that is causing our great distress.

The author reminds us that the very reason we are in the condition we find ourselves is because God loves us! It goes against our thought, but its true and we must receive this truth by faith. That is, by trusting what we are told instead of trusting our still rebellious hearts.

⁷ 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?^[4]

This is why we must endure. We talked about endurance last week. We are tempted to give up when times get hard in the running of our race. Likewise, we are tempted to give up when the Lord’s discipline comes. This is why we have to endure. Don’t give up!

The temptation to give up is real. So, the apostle commands us to endure. Listen! If you give up the discipline doesn’t go away. If you give up the discipline just gets prolonged because you are a child of God!

⁸ If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.^[5]

If we are not disciplined at all or if the discipline is just fleeting and goes away after you give up, then you don’t even belong to God! That’s what the apostle says!

In verse 9 he reminds us that we accepted the discipline from our earthly fathers, so how much more should we accept the discipline from the Father of spirits? Because our earthly fathers just disciplined us as they thought best and maybe they were wrong. Maybe they disciplined us too lightly, or too harshly, or maybe out of anger. But, God is perfect in his discipline. Oh! It may not seem like it, because we are hurting! But it’s true!

The reason we get discipline is so we will share in his holiness (vs. 10). Oh! We need holiness! We lack holiness. Holiness just means that we are separated to God and separated from the ways of the world. We need more separation! And that is why we must experience divine discipline. If you are truly God’s child then you cannot avoid it.

 You can avoid some of it, but not all of it. In a moment I will share how we can avoid some.

¹¹ 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. ^[6]

Discipline is painful. What a true statement that is. But once we have been trained by it, something happens. What does the apostle mean by trained?

He means that we don’t faint. That is, we don’t give up. We endure it. Not only endure it but find the rock and abandon it to the pit. We repent of whatever sin we perceive has brought us into the chastisement wherein we find ourselves. Repentance is a wonderful thing! I used to have a t-shirt that said just that. Repentance is a wonderful thing because it brings us peace!

That’s what the apostle says.  We receive the peaceful fruit of righteousness. That is the goal: righteousness. Righteousness here is a practical, personal righteousness. This means our actual living according to God’s precepts. When we arrive there, we have peace!

[Application and Conclusion] What are we to do? Much of what we need to do I have mentioned along the way. You may not be experiencing discipline at this moment in time. But, if you are, you must:

• Reflect on why you may be disciplined. The Spirit within you will help you see it, if you don’t already.
• Don’t just plow through the discipline. But dig up the rock and throw it out. In other words, confess and repent.

What if you are not going through discipline right now? There are still sins in your life. You can still find them, walking through the field of your life. Toss them into the abyss.

Earlier I had said that you cannot avoid discipline. It’s going to come eventually. But I said, too, that you can avoid some of it. That is by rooting out sin in your life. When we perceive a sin, we must never ignore it. If we ignore it then, if we belong to God, we will get discipline. If we attend to it, we will get less discipline.

We wanted less discipline from our parents growing up. I still want less discipline!

Put your hand to the plow. But throw the rocks out first. Then your plowing will be peaceful.