New Salem Baptist Church

Divine Discipline, Part Two

Dec. 8, 2024

Read Hebrews 12:12-17.

Chapter 12 is all about divine discipline. We do not like to hear about discipline. We do not even like to hear about our own sins, whether from others or even ourselves! The reason we do not like to hear about discipline is because it is painful. The apostle says this in verse 11 and our own experience is a witness to this truth.

We do not like to hear about our sins because no one likes to be reminded of their failures. Yet, our sins and discipline are realities and it will do us no good to ignore them. In fact, if we ignore them we only get more discipline! Therefore, it is in our own interest to become familiar with the teaching in this chapter, even if it is not so pleasant.

¹² Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, ¹³ and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.^[1]

The word, “therefore,” points back to what the author had just written in verse 11, that after we have been trained by the discipline, we gain righteousness and we experience peace. Because these will be the result of our experiences we should strengthen ourselves.

See the consequence of discipline. Before God finishes his work within the circumstance of suffering, the Hebrew believers were experiencing despondency. And so it is with us. Before God completes his purpose in the discipline, we may feel despondent. Our hands can actually droop and our knees can actually feel weak, because our bodies and minds influence one another.

However, more likely, this is a metaphor for emotional suffering, as it was when King David wrote about his suffering:

⁸  Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have broken rejoice. ^[2]

David wrote this after his sin with Bathsheba and while he was suffering from the Lord’s hand of chastisement upon him. His bones were not broken, but he felt as if they were.

Likewise, drooping hands, weak knees, and lameness (the inability to use an appendage) are metaphors for the spiritual and emotional state with which we may find ourselves in times of discipline. In other words, chastening can become quite severe and can result in our despair.

We must lift our hands and strengthen our knees. We must make a straight path for our feet. This means we must exercise our will to renounce the sin we have discovered and we stand up straight. We choose to keep following the Lord, without being distracted….walking straight.

We do this not by our will by itself, but by calling on the name of the Lord and receiving this strength from the Spirit. If left to ourselves, we will have our bones put out of joint. That is, we will go from lameness to a worse kind of lameness!

Now we come to what I consider one of the more troubling verses in the Bible, verse 14:

¹⁴ Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. ^[3]

Why is this verse disconcerting? I think many disciples of the Lord recognize that they lack holiness and this verse says that they cannot see the Lord after this life without it.

Last week we defined holiness as our separation unto God and our separation from the ways of the world. The apostle is using holiness and righteousness as synonyms in this chapter. He had just written that righteousness results from the training of discipline and now he mentions that we must have holiness. Holiness always results in a practical righteousness.

Many Christians overlook the gravity of this verse by saying that every genuine believer will be holy by the time they die because the Spirit is working in them. Of course, it is true that the Spirit is working in every lover of the Lord Jesus. But this does not guarantee that every single Christian will possess holiness before they die. Two things prove that every Christian will not die in a holy state:

• Most obviously, we know some Christians who have died and yet did not possess holiness. Almost all of us have known someone like that. It is possible that they were Christians in name only. But, I speak of those with whom we had a fair confidence that their profession of faith was real. They lived for the Lord, yet there was some sin in their life with which they never fully dealt. Thus, knowing some people who have died without holiness refutes the notion that every Christian will be holy when they die.
• The second thing that proves not every Christian will be holy when they die are the numerous warnings in the New Testament that warn of not being holy when the Lord returns, including this verse itself. There would be no reason to give so many warnings if every believer was guaranteed holiness. There are a multitude of such passages.

This means that the process of being made holy will continue after this life if we are not made holy now. In other words, it is possible for divine discipline to continue after we die. This is quite an unpopular idea. But it is too clear in Scripture to deny it.

We must seek and even strive for holiness. That is the apostle’s word! Strive!

One thing that will rob us of our holiness is not being at peace with other brothers and sisters in Christ. Oh! That includes those in our own household. It includes those closest to us. This includes members of our original family, like brothers and sisters. It is more difficult to be at peace with our brothers and sisters by blood than with our brothers and sisters in faith or with casual friends. There is something about close family ties that makes it more difficult to overlook faults and character defects.

Husbands and wives must be at peace with one another. If they are not, then neither one is holy. The more we love someone, the smaller the disagreement becomes that disrupts our peace. That is just the way human life is!

Jesus taught this same vital principle in the Sermon on the Mount:

So, if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.[4]

Be at peace. Be willing to bend your will to the one you love. This goes a long way in bringing peace with those we love.

Therefore, we must always strive for peace. It is a wonderful gateway to personal righteousness. In verse 11, the apostle revealed that our personal righteousness results in peace. But, it is a two-way road. The peace we have with our loved ones and brothers and sisters in the Lord leads to a personal righteousness, or holiness!

So, our right living leads to peace within us. And, the peace that we have with our loved ones and those in the church will result in our holiness!

                                                                                                                                                   Seeing to it that no one falls short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;^[5]

We must ask a crucial question: what is grace? I think most of know that grace is just the favor of God upon us and it is unmerited, meaning that there is nothing that we can do to get it. God just bestows it upon us. This is a classic definition of grace.

But, what is the best expression of the favor of God? It is just God Himself! There is nothing better then God Himself!

Grace, in its highest form, is just God in Christ dispensed into our being for our enjoyment in our experience.

Grace is just God in Christ dispensed into our being for our enjoyment in our experience.[6]

When we are experiencing intimacy with the Lord, knowing his steadfast love for us by trusting Him, and we are enjoying his closeness to us, this is really grace!

To “fall short of the grace of God,” then, is to fall short of Christ. In fact, Paul comes right out and says this elsewhere (Gal. 5:4).

If we allow bitterness, or offenses, to remain in our heart then this is opposed to God’s will and it causes trouble. If we are not at peace with one person, it affects our relationships with others as well.

What else will rob us of holiness?

¹⁶ lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.^[7]

Fornication will keep you from seeing the Lord when you die. Even as a Christian, if you are involved in fornication (sex outside of marriage) then you will not see God when you die.[8]  This sin is mentioned often in the New Testament. Therefore, it is not a small matter, as the world thinks it is. The world thinks it is nothing at all. This is because they neither know God’s speaking on the subject, nor do they believe it if they do know it.

The solution to fornication is marriage!

7 Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. ² Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.^[9]

The apostle could not be any more clear. Marriage saves one from the sin of fornication! In a very practical way, marriage is salvation. (Not salvation from eternal perdition, of course, but salvation from the plies of sin.) Therefore, single persons, especially men (who seem to have a harder time controlling their passions than women), need to seek marriage diligently (unless they have full control of their passions).

The other thing that may disqualify us from seeing the Lord is being a profane person (NKJV). The Legacy Standard Bible has “godless person.” The example of Esau is given and, specifically, the selling of his birthright for food.

Do you see the commonality between fornication and giving up important things for food? They both have to do with heeding our bodily appetites over God’s design. Whether sexual appetite or alimental appetite (that means having to do with food), if we allow our bodily appetites to dictate our actions then we are a profane person, even if we watch our language and are otherwise polite. We are profane if we commit fornication or if our stomach is our god.

Still referring to Esau, the author goes on:

For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.^[10]

Here is the great danger of falling into a sin and not dealing with it: we may find ourselves in a position where we cannot find repentance. The “it” for which Esau sought was the inheritance of the blessing. Even though he desired it so strongly, he could not bring himself to repent.

This is the fifth time that the author mentions inheritances. This book is about inheriting the kingdom. Just as Esau did not receive his inheritance, we are in danger of missing our inheritance. This is the apostle’s warning to us.

[Application and Conclusion] What have we learned today? First, we must include possibly the most important point from verse 6 (which we covered last week) and that is:

• The Lord loves us. This is the very reason that he disciplines us. In one sense, it is counter-intuitive because, when we are suffering it is hard to see his love. Yet, the truth is that he is disciplining us because he loves us.
• Also from last week (verse 11) we saw that, when discipline has done its work, we gain a practical righteousness and we experience peace.
• Now we have seen that we must overcome the despair that may accompany our suffering. We must strengthen ourselves by turning to the Lord.
• We saw today that we must strive for holiness. The two ways that the apostle guides us in this regard are by:
• [1] ensuring that we are at peace with everyone, but especially those in our families (through experience, our family relationships engender the most difficulties), and
• [2] controlling our bodily appetites. This means fleeing fornication and not allowing our stomach to be our god.
• Finally, we must not forget that we can forfeit our inheritance if we fail to complete our sanctification, our holiness.

What should we do? As we strive for holiness we must be at peace with our loved ones and our brothers and sisters in the Lord. So:

[1] consider with whom you are not at peace. Then, you must go to that person and be reconciled. This most often entails making an apology. In your view, you may think that they are more at fault than you are. And this may even be the case. But, most often, even if we think that they are more at fault, there is something we could have done better. Be ready to apologize and that means also asking. “Would you forgive me?”

[2] avoid fornication. This means to seek marriage. And, until then, call upon the name of the Lord in times of temptation.

[3] renounce profaneness. As we have seen, in the apostle’s view profane doesn’t mean using foul language or being rude. It means allowing our appetite to take precedence over more important matters of life, such as seeking and serving the Lord.

These three things are quite practical and neither are they difficult. But they do require our attention. Let us consider our lives before the Lord.