You want to turn your Bibles
to the book of Hebrews chapter 12, please. The book of Hebrews
chapter 12. Sometimes when we read the word
of God, we just start in the middle of a chapter or at the
beginning of a chapter and we start reading and unfortunately,
speaking from my own personal experience, it's difficult to
understand the chapter until we understand the context of
the entire book. And so when we read in chapter
12, Hebrews chapter 12, we want to be sure we have the context
of all that the book of Hebrews is bringing, as well as the rest
of scripture. And so I've entitled today's
message, God's Correction of His Children. And I wanna underscore
the relationship between God the Father and His children here,
because that's what this text of scripture is about. the fatherly
correction, God the Father and his children. And so when we
see this, I hope that we can see the comfort that this gives
to us as believers in Christ, that God the Father has brought
us into relation with himself as his dear children. And I wanna
consider that with you, let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
hallowed be Thy name. You are holy, You are good in
all that You are, and due, wise, eternal. No one changes You. You cannot be changed, and all
of Your will and purposes are done. And it is through Your
Son that You have done all Your work, and it is to Your Son You
direct us now from Your Word, and it is by Your Spirit, the
Spirit of Your Son, that You teach us these things from Your
Word. And we pray, O our Father, that You would be so pleased
as to make Yourself known in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ in His work, your great love towards us and your work
in our lives now, that we might honor you and look to our Lord
Jesus for everything and worship you in Him. In Jesus' name we
pray, amen. Hebrews chapter 12, I want to
read with you the first 11 verses. first eleven verses, and we want
to focus our attention on verses four through eleven as we look
at this. Hebrews chapter twelve, Wherefore,
seeing we also are encompassed about with so great a cloud of
witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth
so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that
is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher
of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured
the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right
hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be
wearied and faint in your minds. You have not yet resisted unto
blood, striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation
which speaketh unto you as unto children, my son. Despise not
thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked
of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If you
endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what
son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers
of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence.
Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of
spirits and live? For they, verily, for a few days
chastened us after their own pleasure. Let he for our profit
that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now, no chastening
for the present seems to be joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward
it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which
are exercised thereby. And I want to stop there for
today. The correction of God the Father of His children. There
is no greater blessing, no greater privilege in all of creation
than the privilege God the Father has given to His people when
he put them in relation to himself as his children. I say that there
is no greater because it is that relationship that his own beloved
son is in, the relationship of a son. And it's the nearest and
dearest relationship that God the Father could put us in with
himself. Angels are not the children of
God. Only God's people, and not all
people on the earth are children of God, but only those the Lord
makes his children. How is it that we came to be
the children of God? How is it that God the Father
has made us his sons and daughters? Scripture teaches us, first of
all, in Ephesians chapter one, it says that he has chosen us
in Christ, that we should be holy, and without blame before
him in love, that's Ephesians 1 verse 4, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. And
this is teaching us that God the Father made us his children,
he put us among the children by his electing love, by his
predestinating grace, and it's all by Jesus Christ. So that
was the work of God the Father. And not only that, but because
it is by Jesus Christ, we also learn that we were made the children
of God by the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is the Son of God. He
Himself, who is the Son, the only begotten Son, and He is
unique in that relationship, No other. No, there's none other
but Jesus Christ, who is the only begotten son of God. That
means he is all that his father is in his nature, in his essence,
in his he's eternal as his father, his power and his holiness and
his will and his work are all equal with the father. And he
is unique in that relationship, the son of God. And it is by
Him, by giving His Son to join Himself to us in nature, and
in that nature as the Son of God and Son of Man, to redeem
us from our sins and to bring us to God in a close relationship
by removing our sins. by His precious blood and bringing
us to Himself. The Son of God made Son of Man,
laid His life down and shed His blood to purchase us out of the
debt, the prison that we were in because of our sins. And He
ransomed us and set us free, our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. And so he first set us free from
our sin and from the law in order to give us his own spirit and
to bring us in our own experience to the understanding, to life
and understanding and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. so that
by the Father we are chosen, by the Father we are predestinated,
and by the Lord Jesus Christ we were redeemed by His precious
blood. And then He, the Lord Jesus, because He redeemed us
and perfected us forever by that one offering of Himself to God
for our sins, He gave His Spirit to us, the Spirit of His Son. God the Father has given us the
Spirit of His Son. So now the Spirit of His Son
in us brings us into that relationship where we know it. We are the
sons and the daughters of God, by the work of God, the Father,
by the redeeming blood of Christ, His Son, and by the Spirit of
His Son in our hearts, which causes us to cry in the most
endearing terms, Abba, Father, my Father, He made himself, he
put us among the children. And I say that this is the greatest
blessing that God has given any creature of all of creation,
is to be put in the relationship between himself and us as the
children of God. Now, it's important that we understand
this relationship here is what's being talked about in the 12th
chapter of Hebrews, so that we get a clear focus here of God's
purpose for his people and God's work in Christ for us and how
he, in our experience of our life, teaches us by his own fatherly
care of us what he's done for us and his relationship to us
and he brings us along in this life that he's given to us in
Christ. What was the purpose? It was
to conform us to the image of his own dear son. What did he
do? He took us from the kingdom of
Satan. We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others,
and he has translated us into the kingdom of his own dear son,
Colossians 1.13. He is going to conform us into
the image of his son, Romans 8.29. And this is all by the
work of God the Father. What a blessing this is. And
I was listening to Pastor Donnie Bell praying while we were in
Tennessee. And in his prayer, I couldn't
help but get a picture in my mind when we, as children, would
sit around in our own house and my parents would talk to us.
And my dad would be talking. And we were all quiet, very quiet
and listening because He required us to show respect as children. And in that prayer, I couldn't
help but have this picture in my mind of God the Father with
the family of God, His household. In the presence of God the Father,
speaking concerning us who had sinned against him, we had sinned. And what would he do in his love
and his purpose of grace to make himself known in all of his glory? He said to his eldest, to his
only begotten son, our eldest brother, he said, I want you
to take their sins. and own them as yourself, as
your own, and then offer yourself up in sacrifice, in give your
life for them in order to bring them to me again, to redeem us. What a picture this is of God
our Father in his great eternal love for us to save us from our
sins, our offenses against him, and do so at the price of the
death of his own son. Amazing grace. And so when we
open this up here, when we open this up, let us not miss this
context. Look back at Hebrews chapter
three. I want you to see this. He says
in, I'm sorry, Hebrews chapter two, in chapter two, verse nine,
it says, we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the
angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor,
that he by the grace of God should taste death for every, and it
should say, son. For it became him, God the Father,
it pleased him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all
things, in bringing, what? Many sons to glory, to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. You see how
God the Father did this? How did he make us his sons?
He brought us to himself, brought many sons to glory by making
Jesus Christ the captain of our salvation. Notice. In verse 11,
for both he that sanctifyeth, Jesus Christ is the one who sanctifies,
and they who are sanctified, his children, made holy, are
all of one. They're all of one, meaning Christ
and them are joined together. as sons of God. They're joined
to Christ, and in Him they are the sons of God. And He is in
them, and His Spirit in them makes them to know their sonship
by His own precious blood, by God's predestinating grace, by
His electing love, choosing us in Christ and giving us to Christ.
And so he goes on, he says, both he that sanctifies Christ and
they who are sanctified, the children of God, are all of one,
for which cause Christ is not ashamed to call them what? Brethren. You see the relationship here?
What a close relationship. The one of whom God the Father
has said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. When he speaks these words, he
speaks of all of his children because he made them one in Christ. And he took the nature of those
God the Father had already put among the children even before
the world was made. He put us among the children
in his predestinating, electing love. And so Christ is not ashamed
to call them brethren. In fact, he owns them as his
brethren. And what does he do? Verse 10,
saying, I will declare thy name. I will make known to my brethren
all that God is. My father, I will declare thy
name unto my brethren in the midst of the church. These are
his brethren. Will I sing praise unto thee?
You can hear the whole chorus in the text that Romel read earlier
in Revelation 5. The whole chorus of heaven rings. Heaven rings. It vibrates with
the worship that all the redeemed give to Christ. Thou hast redeemed
us. out of every kindred and tongue
and people and nation by thine own blood." Amazing. And he says again, and again,
I will put my trust in him. I, the Lord Jesus Christ, I will
put my trust in him. And again, behold, I and the
children which God has given me. You see it? What great grace
this is. And for as much then as the children,
that's who those God had chosen to be his sons, are partakers
of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same,
that through death, his own death, he might destroy him that had
the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through
fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. He did not take on him angels,
he took on him the seed of Abraham. There it is. We're made the children
of God by Jesus Christ. God. Oh, and then look at chapter
three. Look at chapter three, verse one. Wherefore, wherefore,
holy brethren. You see those two words? Holy?
How? By the Lord Jesus Christ, by
his one offering of himself with our sins to God in sacrifice,
giving himself to God for us. He has sanctified us, and that
was the will of God. Wherefore, we are holy and we
are brethren. We are the sons of God. We are
partakers of the heavenly calling. Now, we are to consider the apostle
and high priest of our profession. You see the context here? What
is the context? It's the new covenant, the New
Testament in Christ's blood, fulfilling all of the conditions
and bringing in all of the promises of God, which was to adopt a
people to himself by the blood of his son and giving them the
spirit of his son so they might see Christ and know their sonship
by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so 1 John chapter 3 verse
1 says it this way. Beloved, he says, what manner
of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called
the sons of God. It does not yet appear what we
shall be. Let me read it to you. 1 John chapter 3 verse 1. Behold,
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we
should be called the sons of God. We have the Lord's own words. This is the highest possible
privilege, the closest possible relationship that anyone could
have to God the Father, to be his sons and daughters. Therefore
the world does not know us, it knoweth us not, because it knew
him not. The world did not know the Son
of God, and it won't know us either. Verse two, beloved, now
are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall
be, but we know this, that when he shall appear, we shall be
like him. For what? For we shall see him
as he is. All right, so now we understand
something about this relationship of God the Father by the Lord
Jesus Christ through the Spirit of God. What was it that Nicodemus
asked Jesus? Jesus told him, you can't even
see the kingdom of God. You can't enter it, you can't
see it, you can't know it unless you're born of the Spirit. Unless
by the will of God, He makes us his sons through the operation
of the Spirit, through the preaching of the Word of God concerning
the Son of God in his work. And what did he tell Nicodemus?
What did Nicodemus say? How can these things be? And
what did Jesus say? He directed him to his sinful
condition. like the children of Israel,
bitten by the serpents in the wilderness with no hope and no
remedy, directing him to Christ and him crucified as the serpent
hung on that pole of brass in the wilderness. All who looked
then lived. All who believe Christ now are
born of God. They have ever eternal life.
Now, you see the relationship. Do you see how this is brought
about by the Spirit of God? What does he do in our experience?
He directs us to Christ crucified, doesn't he? What was the book
of Hebrews about? Wasn't it about the fulfilling
of the new covenant in Christ's blood? Wasn't it? Hebrews 13,
20, it's about the fulfilling of
the everlasting covenant in the blood of Christ. And so he has
to show us that all of the Old Testament scriptures foretold
of this through the sacrifices, through the law of Moses, all
the requirements that God laid on us to do, which we could not
do and never would do because of our sinful nature. And therefore
we were separated from God. Christ, the Son of God, took
our nature to fulfill those requirements. Not only the requirements for
our obedience, prohibiting us from what we shouldn't do, and
not doing what we should do, but also the requirements for
God to make atonement for our sins. Christ fulfilled it all,
and that's what the book of Hebrews is about, to make us the sons
of God, the brethren, the holy brethren, to bring us to God.
And now when we get to chapter 12, after talking to these people
who had heard of Christ, who had believed Christ, and yet
through the trials of their life, through the affliction of false
teachers in the Jews' religion, threatening them, bringing their
names into the dirt and speaking ill of them and treating them
so. He says, you need to endure. It's a race of faith. You need
to look to the Lord Jesus Christ who ran it first and entered
into glory. And how do we do this race? How
do we run it? Looking unto Jesus. And now he
says this in verse four. In considering all these things,
how did the Lord Jesus, what was He given to do? For the joy
set before Him of having a people and saving a people and purifying
them and bringing them to God, holy, in love, without blame
and in love before the Father as God the Father had given Him
to do before the foundation of the world. What did He do? Such
joy He had. that he endured the cross and
all the shame of our sin and the reproach of sinful men and
the assault of the kingdom of Satan and even the outpouring
of his father's own justice and wrath upon him for our sins. He endured it all for that joy
set before him. He trusted in his father. He
believed his God. Now he ran the race by faith. He's our author, He's our finisher,
He's the one who was entered for us. And now He says this
in verse four, you have not yet resisted unto blood striving
against sin. Now children of God, He speaks
to you. Children of God, you who have come to look to the
Lord Jesus Christ and depend on Him to save you from your
sins, from first to last, before God and in the dominion of your
sins, Looking to him, what does he say? You have not yet resisted
unto blood striving against sin. This is a fight, isn't it? It's
the old man and the new man. It's the Christ in you and it's
the sinful flesh that we are by nature. It's the spirit versus
the flesh. It's God's gospel versus our
works. It's the fulfillment of the Old
Testament in the new by the blood of Jesus versus our own sinful
attempts to make ourselves righteous by what we do. All of this is
spoken of here. You have not yet resisted unto
blood. He's drawing here the picture from Gethsemane, isn't
he? The Lord Jesus Christ, his sweat dropping like blood to
the earth. Why? Because he faced in that
obedience to his father, taking our sins and bearing the shame
and the guilt of them before God. And it was to him such a
weight. Such a submission in trust and
obedience to His Father. And He resisted the temptation
to not to depart from that. And He prayed to His Father,
Father, Thy will be done. And what is He telling us through
this? Through faith we do the same. We strive against, in our
new man, we strive against that old nature, don't we? We do not
live in confidence in ourselves, we live in the confidence of
Christ, what he's done. So he goes on, verse five, and
you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as unto children,
my son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord. And I know that you have probably
experienced this, but I was such a little self-righteous, disobedient,
rebellious child that when my father would spank me or whatever
he did to me, I always accused him in my heart of doing something
wrong. I didn't receive it like I ought
to have. And you know there's one thing
when I look back on my life as a child that I regret more than
anything is that I did not honor my parents in the Lord as I should
have. I wish I could go back when my
father at the end of the day was weary and his back was hurting
because he had a broken back and he had provided everything
for me and here I am in the rebellious age of 14 or 15 and he asked
me to take his shoes off. And I thought, why don't you
take your own shoes off? I wish I could go back and take
his shoes off and his socks and wash his feet and rub them too
for what he did for me. You see, we ought to honor our
parents. we ought to honor our parents.
Why? Because God the Father is our Father and our relationship
to our parents on earth is but a reflection of that. And if
the relationship, that eternal relationship between us and our
Father in heaven by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, by
his own spirit given to us is such a relationship that even
the reflection of it ought to be so highly prized and valued
and respected that God uses this to teach us about the first and
the eternal one. And so he says here, you have
forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as unto children,
my son, God in his comfort. We read in Psalm 103, as a father
pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
He says, my son, he speaks to us endearingly, doesn't he? He
identifies our relationship to him as sons. Despise not thou
the chastening of the Lord, neither faint when thou art rebuked of
him. Don't think of yourself as being overly tested. It's
your father's hand. And he says, for whom the Lord
loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
This is God's love to us. And there are several illustrations
of this love. Sometimes we think about the
affliction of when our fathers or mothers corrected us. But
think about it. Here's your little, I'm drawing
from my own experience. Here's your little son, and he
reaches out for the electrical outlet, and you tell him no.
And what does he do? He reaches out for it again.
So what do you do? You correct him. And you make
it so he feels the pain of that on his tender little hand, or
whatever it is. Do not, parent, do not withhold
the correction of your children. And children, do not despise
the correction of your parent. What would a father do who let
his son grab a hold of that life-ending electrical circuit and not care
about it? That father would not love his
son, would he? The same thing, going out into the street. What
do you do as a parent? No, do not do that. Now, if your
child hasn't been taught to listen and to respect the word no, what
are they going to do? They're going to run out into
the street and they're going to be run over. And so we see
that it's so natural that God is drawing from that relationship
between our father and us, and our mother and us, that He's
saying, do not despise the correcting hand of the Lord. This is because
He loves us. And it's an indication of His
love. It's the evidence of His love for us, that He corrects
us. And so I heard Todd tell a story about Walter Gruver. And he and his wife had five
natural children, biological children, but they adopted a
child, a young girl in Mexico. And they were afraid to correct
her. Because they thought that she
might think that because she was adopted, that they were being
overly harsh. And so they let her go. They
let her go. And time went by. And finally,
there came a point where Walter was, he reached the end of his
patience with her, and he took her aside, and he gave her a
good correction. And she was crying, and in tears
she said, Now I know that you love me like the rest of your
children, you see. It was that fatherly care that
she was missing because he was reluctant and for who knows what
reason. I see parents so insecure in
their child's affections that they withhold correction. They
think their child is going to not love them if they correct
them. Please don't do that. Please realize that your child
is a sinner. Who did they come from? You.
They're going to be a sinner just like you. They're going
to have all of your intellect and all of your strength. And
God teaches us as parents to correct them early. Early. The earlier you start, the more
tender they are to your love and your correction. They will
see then that it is because you love them that you withhold them
from hurting themselves. And part of that pain that they
would feel in their life is to not learn one thing, obedience
to their mother and father, obedience to the ones who love them more
than anyone else on earth. God hasn't given your children
to me to correct. He hasn't delegated the authority
to me to correct your children. He's given them to you. They're
your offspring, the natural part of your body. They have your
DNA. And they're in that relationship
to you where you have the greatest impact. They depend upon your
love. They want your comfort. They
need your communication. They have to have it, and to
not have that is the greatest pain to their little hearts.
And so teach them out of that love comes also this child training,
this discipline. And it's going to smart. It's
going to make them feel like that they're mistreated in their
little self-righteous souls. But don't let that stop you.
Look at God's Word. He has revealed in His own way
of dealing with His children that we need to be corrected
and that correction comes out of His love. So he says here,
for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. Teach your children
to respect authority, to respect their teachers, to respect the
law. Why? God has delegated these
things for us in this life. A child left to himself brings
his mother to shame. And if they don't learn to submit
in obedience to the law, to the teacher, to their parents, what
are they going to do? They're going to grow up and
they're going to teach their own children in the same rebellious
way. And they're not going to be able
to get along with their boss. They're going to be failures
and they're going to be arrogant and hard-necked. And in the Old
Testament, such a child left to himself what he would not
obey. And it was a rare thing. They were to be stoned. God views
this with great seriousness. And whom the Lord loveth, he
chasteneth. So think about these things.
He scourges every son whom he receiveth. How do we know that
God loves us here? Because he corrects us. Does
God correct everyone in this fatherly way? Evidently not. Because there are those, he goes
on, if you are without chastisement, where of all, all of God's children
are partakers, then are you illegitimate. You're not sons. You're not God's
sons. You do not have his spirit, and
Christ did not die for you because God the Father did not set his
love upon you. And we might naturally think,
well, if God doesn't treat all of the people on earth as his
children, because he doesn't scourge them, then he doesn't
love them. And that would be correct. God does not love all
people ever born to Adam. He loves his people he chose
in Christ. And we might think, we might
think in our little arrogant minds, that that somehow is unfair. But this shows our pride. This
shows our self-righteousness. Because we think that God's love
ought to be ours by entitlement. That we deserve it. And this
shows a complete ignorance of God. He was not influenced by
us when he made us. We weren't there. He does all
things according to the counsel of his own will. And that's why
it says God is love. And we love Him because He first
loved us. We didn't create God and we don't
contain Him. We don't dictate to Him. He does
all things according to His own will. That's why He gets all
the glory. We can't earn the Son of God to be given to redeem
us from our sins. We can't earn the Spirit of God
to be given so that we might call God our Father. We cannot
earn any of these things. It has to be on God's part, all
His doing and all to His glory. And so we trust him as our father,
just like our children. Did we birth ourselves? Did we conceive ourselves? Did
we produce the food on the table that's given to us to eat or
clothe ourselves? Of course not. We shouldn't be
so foolish as to think that somehow we did what only God could do
as our father. He provided everything for us. And so we ought to reverence
him. Reverence Him that He would so love us and provide in all
of His wisdom for us. Okay? So we see these things
in a very close relationship. In the Proverbs in several places
it says, do not withhold a chastening of your children. Don't, don't,
you spare it. Don't you spare it. And if we
think that we should raise our children in another way, what
are we saying? That we know more than God. Or that we're gonna
listen to the world's wisdom. I was reading something as I
was preparing this sermon, and I don't know if I can put my
finger on it. It's amazing what the world teaches about raising
children. It's offensive is what it is. In the light of God's word, it's
offensive. And I can't find it right now. But we'll go on. Look at this. Hebrews chapter
12. Notice, don't faint when you're rebuked of him. The Lord
rebukes us. How do we know? How do we know
that we are being corrected by God? Well, understand this, that
when our fathers corrected us, it had an effect on us, didn't
it? if our fathers truly corrected us, what did it do? It made us,
it had a couple of things of effect. Number one, it made us
very submissive. It had an immediate effect of
making us submissive, didn't it? The other thing it did, it
actually comforted us when it was over, because we knew now
that dad had settled things. We got this mess all figured
out. Dad's gonna take care of whatever
mess I got myself into, and he's corrected me for it. And there
was some peace in that, wasn't there? Even with our own parents,
you were glad when mom and dad found out what you had done and
had taken it into their hands. There was always that fear that
one day they're going to find out. They did. And then they
took it out on you. And that was comforting, wasn't
it? And then it was especially comforting to know that your
relationship with them hadn't been hurt. You see all these
dynamics. How do we know when the Lord
corrects us? Because when God corrects us, it has the effect
that He intends. He doesn't give correction to
His children and then they just go on. He actually turns them
to Himself, doesn't He? He says, he goes on here, if
you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what
son is he whom the father chasteneth not? Verse eight, if you are
without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you
bastards and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers
of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence.
Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the father of spirits
and live? For they verily for a few days
chastened us after their own pleasure. But He, notice, for
our profit that we might be partakers of His holiness. What is the
effect of God's chastening hand? How do we know it's from God?
Because it makes us partakers of His holiness. Now you think
about that. What is this, to be a partaker
of God's holiness? Rewind a little bit. Remember,
What was it that Jesus told Nicodemus, how did you become the sons of
God? By the Spirit of God. And what did the Spirit of God
do when He made you sons of God? He directed you to Christ and
Him crucified. In all of the deadly bite of that serpent,
coursing through your veins in that absolute helplessness of
your dying self, looking to Christ, you were made alive, right? You
were given eternal life. You saw that God himself had
provided his son and offered him up in order to reconcile
you when you were his enemy in your mind and by wicked works
by the death of his son. Now, isn't that the way that
we begin in the faith? It is because that's the birth,
that's the being created in Christ Jesus and translated and being
born of God and being raised to spiritual life. It's because
we heard the word of Christ in the gospel and Jesus said, the
words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. And there's spirit and life to
us because he redeemed us. He gave his spirit to us because
he purchased us with his blood. Now, the effect of the chastening
hand of God is the same way. It's the same effect that had
when we were first, when we first believed, when we were first
born of God. we're directed to look upon Christ. In other words,
God's chastening hand causes us to come even more earnestly
and urgently and insistently to find that we are sons of God
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We look to Him. We look to Him
and we find in Him our all and we see God's goodness to us.
In other words, it brings us to that great need we have of
our soul and turns us from the foolishness of our unbelief to
continue on in this race, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. And so if you look with me at
1 Peter chapter, actually it's in, well let's read 1 Peter anyway. 1 Peter chapter one, notice he
says in verse three, 1 Peter 1.3, Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to what? His abundant
mercy has what? Begotten us again. In other words,
He's birthed us as His own unto a lively hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. Because Christ paid for our sins,
God remembers our sins no more. He justified us for Christ's
sake. He raised him from the dead. And having raised him from
the dead, what did he do? He gave us life from the dead
in our own souls. He birthed us as his children
because of the redeeming blood of Christ. Because of Christ,
we are made the sons of God. By his offering of himself to
God, he took our sins away. He reconciled us. Now look at
2 Peter. Chapter 1. He says in 2 Peter 1, verse 1,
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them
that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness
of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. You see that? What was that basis
on which God gave us faith? The righteousness of God and
our Savior Jesus Christ. God's righteousness is the gift
of Christ. He laid his life down for those
who were his enemies by nature, and he redeemed them to God out
of pure mercy and grace and love. He loved his enemies and gave
himself for them, to have them, to purify them, to bring them
to God, to make himself known, to show them his glory. That's
what he did. It's all through the righteousness.
His blood cleanses us, and the obedience and shedding His blood
clothes us, just like the skins God clothed Adam and Eve with.
Verse 2. Now to you who have obtained
an allotment of faith because of the righteousness of Christ,
to you grace and peace be multiplied, to you through the knowledge
of God and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power
has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness
through the knowledge of him that has called you to glory
and virtue, whereby are given unto us what? Exceeding great
and precious promises that by these you might be what? A partaker
of what? The divine nature. What are we
partakers of by the chastening hand of God? His holiness. God is teaching us here that
the new birth, which produces Christ in us, Christ comes to dwell in us.
We have a new nature now. That new nature is the seed. It's God's, the Father's own
seed in us, Christ in us, by the gospel. And His chastening
hand that first brought us into a relationship with Him through
His Spirit, seeing Christ in Him crucified, continues to renew
us in that relationship and to bring us again and again to Himself
through seeing Christ for us, seeing our relationship, what
God has done. And we become partakers of the
divine nature. And what are these exceeding
great and precious promises? But the promises of the New Covenant.
that He would make us His sons, that He would give us eternal
blessings, that Christ Himself, the testator, would give us all
that is His because of what He did for us. And this was all
according to God's eternal will. And so this chastening that we
experience, and it might be anything in our life that causes us now
to be turned and to cry to God for mercy and to see our salvation
is in Christ alone again and again, we're renewed by the Spirit
of God who first birthed us and regenerated us, and there's this
process by which we're taught again by God. What do all those
who are taught of God do? They come to Christ. Isn't that
what John 6 says? As many as were taught of the
Father and have learned of the Father cometh unto me, Jesus
said. So what does the Father teach
us now? The same thing. Let me turn you to that in John
chapter 6. In John chapter 6, He's talking
here to those who saw him break the bread and asked him if he
could make bread like God did in the wilderness, and he said,
no, no, no, I am the bread of life. And in verse 36 of John
chapter 6, he says, you have seen me and you believe not.
Verse 37, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and
him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. If God has
put it in your heart to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you've
been drawn of the Father to Christ. you've been given to him. He
says, for I came down from heaven not to do my own will, there's
the obedience of the Son, but the will of him that sent me.
It was his work that I did. It's his righteousness, therefore,
that's displayed in that work. And this is the Father's will,
which has sent me, that of all which he has given me, the children
now, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the
last day. Every one God the Father has
given him. as his children for Christ to redeem and bring, Christ
will raise them up. It will be done. Verse 40, And
this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which
seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life,
and I will raise him up at the last day. Look at verse 44, No
man can come to me except the Father which has sent me draw
him and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in
the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. Every man,
therefore, that hath heard and learned of the Father comes to
me." What is the discipline God the Father puts on us? It's ultimately
to bring us to Christ. And that discipline can take
a lot of forms. Where is the most tender place
on your child's body that you apply that discipline? Well,
we usually think of it as their rear end, don't we? It's safe
to give them a whack there. In proportion to a father and
a mother's love for their child, to make sure that they obey.
That's our job as parents. Make sure your children, make
sure your children obey. that they do what they're supposed
to do. That's our job. God has given,
He has delegated that authority to us. And He has made that tender
place there. It isn't going to hurt them.
They'll think it hurts. It does hurt. It has the sensation.
What is that same thing on us as believers? Is it not our conscience? That most tender place in our
body, in our soul, is our conscience? And don't we feel the most pain
when we feel a separation, a loss of the sense of God's presence
in our life, a loss of the sense of the sweetness of the gospel?
And what is the effect of that chastening hand of God? It might
take a day, a moment, it might take months. What is the effect? is to cause us to say, turn us
again, Lord God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine. We need
to be brought to Christ again and again. Look at Titus, the
book of Titus in chapter three. He says in Titus chapter 3, we
ourselves, verse 3, we ourselves also were sometimes, this describes
a disobedient son, foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts
and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating
one another, but after that the kindness and love of God our
Savior toward man appeared, Notice in verse five, not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy. He
saved us by the washing of regeneration, and notice the next words, and
the renewing of the Holy Ghost. You see how God the Father does
this? It's a constant renewing of faith in Christ, looking to
Him again. And the discipline God brings
into our life shows us that it's His hand because it brings us
to Christ. What mercy this is, that God
would use things to trouble our souls, to make our conscience
pain, to feel a loss of the sense of God's presence. And like David
cry out in the Psalm, Psalm 32, thy hand was heavy upon me. The
moisture was taken from my bones. And when I kept silent, I felt
this because we, As children, we should tell our
parents everything, shouldn't we? We should not withhold back
from them. And what does God do when He
corrects us? He causes us to confess who we
are and what we've done. And we confess our need. We ask
Him. We come with a petition of a
conscious awareness of what we need and we ask Him, Father,
and then we seek, we look for his answer in his word, and we
listen to the gospel again, and then we knock, because we expect,
we persistently ask him, give me Christ or else I die. Don't
we? Give me this grace again and
again. And this is the hand of God. And so the book of Hebrews
is talking to these people who had been tempted to leave Christ
under the afflictions of persecution, that there was something more
tangible, something else. No, there wasn't. He offered
himself once. He fulfilled the Old Testament
and the new in his blood. And this is, he's everything.
God's brought us into relationship to himself as sons, dear children. And know this, that all the troubles
of your life that draw you to Christ are the evidence of His
work, the work of our gracious and tender and pitiful, forgiving
Father. It all comes from His hand. And
teach your children, teach your children, in all these relationships,
teach them to tell you everything. But teach them more than that,
to tell the Lord everything. Remember what Eli told Samuel?
Go lay down again, and if he calls, you answer. Speak, Lord,
for thy servant heareth. Don't let your children go by
the wayside. Eli did not restrain his sons,
and God killed them. Do not do that. Apply the correction
in love. Don't do it in anger, but do
it in love. And pray by God's grace that
he would help you to teach your children that you are a sinner
in need of a savior just like them. And teach them in the way
you speak to them and pray with them that you are going to the
throne of grace and they need to go there too. Don't tell your
children that because they're your biological children that
they have an in with God. They do not. There's only one
way to the Father. It's through Jesus Christ and
His precious blood. It's not because you've sprinkled
water on their head when they were babies. It's not because
you know the Lord, they're going to know the Lord. you're going
to pray for their souls. And when you apply that correction,
you're going to be asking God by His grace to take that sensitivity
that this puts in their mind, to open their mind to the hearing
of the gospel so that they would hear of Christ and Him crucified
as their only hope of salvation and find their own hope in God
the Father. Right? We direct our children. And what a precious gift it is
to mothers and fathers to be given children, to teach them
in the ways of the Lord in such an intimate, unrestricted way. And we correct them and we make
them do hard things, don't we? It's good for a child to bear
the yoke in his youth. Teach them to be content with
disappointments. Take your burdens to the Lord.
Trust in the Lord. Even under the affliction of
life, the afflictions of life, trust in the Lord. He cannot
do wrong. He's too wise and too good to
do wrong, and trust Him by Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we
pray that you would teach us as your dear children, you would
draw us to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we would welcome all correction,
even though at the time it is not pleasant for us. We would
look upon it as your hand of love and your all-wise care of
us. And we would be so thankful that
You had called us and directed us to Your Son to find our salvation
in our all in Him. This relation we have with You
by Your will and by His blood, by His Spirit in us, help us
to cry, O my Father, Abba Father, be my Father, correct me, bring
me to Yourself, don't leave me to myself, but turn my heart
to You in the Lord Jesus again. In His name we pray, Amen.