Good morning again. Today's text
is taken from Hebrews chapter 12. We're going to look at the
first 11 verses. And the title of the message,
as you can see, is Chastening and its Fruit. God produces in
the believer what, verse 11, you'll see of our text, calls
the peaceable fruit of righteousness. And he does so by the means of
chastisement. That's the loving, corrective,
disciplinary measures that are appointed by God for his adopted
children in Christ. And as we'll see, this chastisement
is likened to the discipline that children receive at the
loving hand of their earthly parents. And I think it will
help our understanding of this fruit, the fruit of the Lord's
chastening, what it produces, if we will consider it within
the mindset of Romans 8, 28, where Paul wrote, and we know
that all things, all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. and all these things which includes
the chastenings of the Lord. They all work together for good
for each and every one of those and whom God the Holy Spirit
ultimately produces this peaceable fruit of righteousness and that
through chastisements. Now, leading into our text today
in the preceding chapter, chapter 11 of Hebrews, we're given a
brief history or an overview of some of the Old Testament
saints. And in that chapter, he relates to us how all these
objects of God's everlasting mercy and grace, how they had
endured great difficulties in bearing his cross. And so we're
prone to applaud their great faith. Many even refer to chapter
11 as the hall of fame of faith, but this chapter really is a
testimony of God's faithfulness. How that in each of the trying
circumstances that are listed there, he supported them all
the way. He gave them the strength to
run their race and he gave them the grace to persevere to the
end and the faith. And so with that as the example
set forth, he continues into our text in chapter 12. saying,
wherefore, seeing we are also are compassed about with so great
a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, in other
words, anything that would hinder us, and lay aside the sin which
doth so easily beset us. He's speaking of the sin of unbelief
that would leave us in doubt or despair. Instead, he's saying,
and let us run with patience. That means so as to endure the
race that is set before us. And how are we to run it? 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 ye be wearied and faint in your minds. See, being
sinners, and the Bible says all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God, well, if we're judged on our very best efforts,
we would deserve the wrath of God, so we wanna keep in mind
this contrast, because on the cross, see, God's wrath was poured
out on the sinless, the unblameable Savior, the one who knew no sin,
but suffered and bled and died. He, see, who offered himself
up without spot, according to the scripture, dying for and
at the hand of sinners, those full of spots, if you will. So
there's the contradiction. So let us endure, seeing the
joy set before us in Jesus Christ, and faint not. Continuing in
verse four, he says, ye have not yet resisted unto blood,
striving against sin. See, these to whom he writes,
like us, we haven't had to face, to die, say, a martyr's death
for our faith, at least not yet. But God had so purposed that
in the lives of some of those cited in that previous chapter.
And he says, and ye have forgotten. And many think that would be
better translated as a question. as have you forgotten the exhortation,
that's the encouragement, which speaketh unto you as unto children,
that is, as the children of God. And so he reminds them of it
by quoting from Proverbs 3, says, my son, despise not thou the
chastening of the Lord. That was the exhortation. And
this chasing of the Lord, now, to begin with, I want you to
remember, it is not in any sense to be considered as punishment.
due unto the sins of God's children. Sins do have their consequences
in this life, but see, if this was the Lord's chastisement,
it wouldn't be dealing with them as children, but rather in a
judgmental way, and that didn't happen for the household of faith,
you see, because of their surety. The one who said, I'll take on
that debt, the debt due unto God's justice due to their sins.
He took that responsibility. He bore the full punishment due
unto all their sins, their past sins, their present sins, their
future sins. As God said through the prophet
Isaiah, as I read earlier, Jesus Christ was bruised for our iniquities,
the iniquities of his children. And the chastisement of their
peace was upon him. So the chastening of the Lord
upon his children, see, is not punishment, but rather it's correction,
it's instructive, and that's ultimately for their benefit. And notice it's called the chastening
of the Lord. So every affliction that a believer
endures under the providential hand of our sovereign God, it's
appointed by God. and that in love and mercy, it's
governed by him, it's limited by him, it's how difficult, how
long, how many, and it takes place for God's own glory and
the believer's own good. So as much as our flesh, I mean
our sinful nature, dreads being so disciplined, and as sorrowful
as it may be at the time, we're not to despise it. We should
actually highly regard it. And that doesn't mean we will
enjoy it, but we should regard it highly. That is, knowing it's
going to achieve that which God intended for our good. Paul continues
citing this encouragement to God's children, saying, nor faint
when thou art rebuked of him. Verse six, for whom the Lord
loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
So this chastening is done in perfect love, and this loving
discipline is only for the children which he receives, but it's for
every one of them, every son whom he receiveth. We should
be rejoicing if that describes us, even though, as this passage
means, we're gonna deal with some difficulties, just like
everyone in this world does, yet, For the believer, these
are the appointed chastisements from our Heavenly Father that
are given in perfect love for our good. Because as you see
in verse seven, if ye endure chastening, God dealeth with
you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father
chasteneth not, but ye be without chastisement, whereof all are
partakers. He's meaning there all of his
sons are partakers of. But if you're without this chastisement,
then are ye bastards and not sons. See, none of God's children
are exempted from chastisement. In other words, no chastisement
means not in his family. And not all who profess to belong
to him are his true children. They may not be what they profess
to be, What, listen, what they, and I know this firsthand from
my past experience, what they sincerely believe themselves
to be is children of God. In other words, saved sinners. And if their difficulties, if
they don't ultimately yield, and I'm jumping ahead a little
bit, but as we'll see in verse seven, this peaceable fruit of
righteousness, I said verse seven, I meant verse 11, I think. If
it doesn't yield that, then they are bastards. Now they may be
a professor, but that would be an illegitimate professor, not
sons. And that shoots a big hole, doesn't
it, in the health and wealth gospel. It would suggest that
our outward peace and our prosperity in this life is somehow an indicator
of who is eternally blessed by God. See, now God's children
are not without the Lord's chastisement in this life. Continuing in verse
nine, he adds, furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh,
our earthly fathers, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence,
we submitted to their correction, knowing they loved us, and so
we ultimately, or eventually, respected them for it. Well,
shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of
spirits, the creator of our very souls, and live, and that eternally? For they, he's speaking of our
earthly parents, they verily for a few days, and I think he
means in the days of our youth when we weren't under their upbringing,
verily for a few days they chastened us after their own pleasure.
That would be as they judged best in their finite wisdom.
But he, think about who he is here now. That's our all-wise,
our infinitely wise heavenly father. He chastises us for our
profit, okay? And he can't, unlike us, and
when we're raising children, we might make a mistake in how
we discipline our child, but this is almighty God. So he can't
fail to bring their problems, their difficulties, if they're
chastisements, he can't fail to make them for our profit. That we might be partakers of
his holiness. Now, this is quite a benefit.
This isn't speaking of the essential holiness of God. God is holy,
and that's not a communicable attribute. That only belongs
to deity. But we partake of it as believers
in the holiness which is in Christ. It's received out of his fullness. We partake of it. That means
we enter into fellowship with it. We are in a center. There's a way to have communion
with a holy God in whose presence sin can exist. This is just the
amazing truth of the gospel. And we do so as we see all of
our holiness in Jesus Christ by God-given faith. See, the
only holiness that a believer has is his holiness. And that's
based upon the merit of his perfect righteousness. having been imputed
or charged to the accounts of everyone for whom he established
it for by his doing and dying on the cross. So our difficulties
and our troubles and our afflictions, our chastisements for a believer,
they bring us to a greater sense of our sin, often because of
the way we go through such difficulties. and selfishly saying why me and
so forth. And so they cause us to acknowledge
our sin and see our sin and what does that do to a believer? It
reminds them of the full pardon and the forgiveness of all our
sins, reminding us of our completeness in Jesus Christ. As it says in
Ephesians, we're accepted in the beloved, in the Lord Jesus
Christ. You know, sinners are described
in Colossians 1.22 there. We see that there he sees them sinners
as holy and unblameable and unreprovable, and that's all due to their oneness,
their union with Christ, their sinless substitute who stood
in their place, their representative in whose righteousness, his righteousness,
they stand before the holy bar of God's justice, not guilty,
righteous. And then in verse 11, he declares,
Now, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth
the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised
thereby. So the afflictions that believers
endure under the chastening of the Lord, they don't seem to
be a matter of joy. Speaking of those things that
we would naturally grieve over, circumstances we would never
choose for ourselves. But notice the wording, it indicates
that believers are being exercised by the Lord's chasing. I do a little physical exercise
because I know it's for my good. But honestly, other than when
I was young and was playing sports or walking in the woods or something,
I've never really enjoyed exercise just for the sake of exercise.
I know there are people who say they do. But listen, whether
or not, as you can see from this passage, you enjoy physical exercise
or not, he tells us here that this involves experiences that
none of us enjoy. But yet, they're tokens of the
love of God in Christ. They're the work of God, the
Holy Spirit, and the believer, and they're evidences of sonship,
of being one of the adopted children of God. And so the very things
that we grieve over, they're among the all things that are
working together for the eternal good of God's children. And I
know our senses may, and I think often do, scream otherwise, especially
when we're going through a difficulty, but faith will have us believe
that, and patience will have us experience it. So let's consider
in a little more detail this chastening of the Lord. First
we've seen it's something that's grievous, We don't enjoy it,
it's a burden that opposes our own wills. Can't you honestly
say that everyone you know, they don't always get their way, things
don't go according to their wishes or their wills? Well, we also
know from the scripture, there's a broad way that leads to destruction
and many be that go in there. That means the majority of our
fellow human beings, they're not among these sons, not among
God's adopted children in Christ. So while we can know that the
chastening of the Lord seems grievous, we cannot conclude
that just because others experience grievous things that that isn't
necessarily this beneficial chastening from the Lord. This is exclusive
to the sons which he receiveth. But here's something for you
to think about. It's clear from God's word that all things do
work together for good. To them that love God, to them
who are the called according to his purpose, Well, that means
in all grievous things that true believers endure, they should
be considered as a chastening of the Lord. For they ultimately
yield or produce that which is good for us, the peaceable fruit
of righteousness. As we saw back in verses seven
and eight, this distinguishes the true sons, God's adopted
children, from those who are not spiritually born again of
God, not the God of this Bible here. And of course, he's the
only one who can give spiritual life. The believer's eternal
good can all be attributed to the finished work of Christ for
them. And all their eternal good's
a fruit, and it's effect of that work on the cross, that's where
he established his righteousness. And then that imputed or charged
to them, see, Again, otherwise guilty, hell-deserving sinners,
they're reconciled to a holy God. See, peace has been made
between them and God. That's why it's a peaceable fruit
of righteousness. So all the fruit and efforts,
or effects, excuse me, produced in the believer as a result of
Christ's accomplished righteousness for them may well be considered
to be peaceable fruits of righteousness. The chastening of the Lord includes
what one credible Bible commentator that I studied referred to as
the afflictive providence of God, afflictive providence. In
other words, it includes all the trials, the temptations,
the difficulties, or afflictions that are appointed by God, brought
about according to his own sovereign will in the lives of his children,
and all flowing from his love for them. As we read there in
verse six, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. Now, to
the believers at Corinth, Paul wrote this. He said, there hath
no temptation. And the word temptation is translated
that way. There is a word that includes
trials and testings and afflictions. Well, there hath no temptation
taken you, but such as is common to man. The point being, your
difficulties are not unique to you. But to the believers at
Corinth, he adds, but God is faithful, see, who will not suffer
you. to be tempted above that you're
able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that
you may be able to bear it. See, no matter how difficult
our trials may seem, they may seem unbearable, we know from
this that God doesn't give his children any more than he will
give them the grace to bear it. And so, and we have a record
of his faithfulness. You think of Job, if you've read
the book of Job and all Job went through, I don't see how he could
not follow his wife's advice and curse God due to all his
circumstance. I know why he couldn't, because
of God's faithfulness to him, you see. And we have a record
of that faithfulness to all those examples of the saints in Hebrews
chapter 11. You know, you can tell I like
that verse, Romans 8, 28. And I know that many false preachers
also speak words of comfort to their congregations in their
times of difficulty, and they'll quote to them, Romans 8, 28 possibly,
that all things are working together for their good, see, even through
their difficulties. And that verse really is, to
me, a source of comfort. If you're a born-again believer,
But know this, if the gospel you believe, okay, that is that
body of faith concerning how God saves sinners, if it doesn't
set forth the imputed righteousness of God in Christ as the only
ground of this peace that's made between a sinner and God, then
there's no legitimate basis for drawing that conclusion, that
the difficulties in their lives are chastisements from the Lord
so as to be to their eternal good. not if and when the peaceable
fruit of righteousness continues to remain absent. Because, as
we see from this passage, that is precisely what the Lord's
chastisement produces. And I say that with sadness because
there is so much deception. There's so many who count themselves,
quote, Christians, who know nothing about the peaceable fruit of
righteousness that belongs to all true believers. And I know
in years past before I'd ever heard about a wrought out righteousness. Now I knew that the Bible, I
was religious, I knew the Bible talked about God being righteous
as in a holy attribute. But I didn't know anything about
the righteousness as we read in Romans 10 for that Christ
was the end of the law for. In other words, he was the finishing
of by his work. I had never even heard the term
imputed righteousness. I didn't know I needed a righteousness,
a perfect righteousness. And I didn't know how a sinner
could have one, not knowing anything about the doctrine of imputation.
But I took comfort from Romans 8, 28 back then. But you know,
at that time, in so doing, so I didn't have any basis for doing
that. It was like I was reading somebody else's mail. If God,
see, hasn't at some point brought you to value, by the Spirit's
work of regeneration and conversion, and that through God's ordained
means, he says, through the foolishness of preaching, as Robert said
in the 10 o'clock hour, through that preached gospel of God's
grace in Christ, that gospel that Romans 1, 16 and 17 tells
us is the power of God unto salvation. Verse 17 says why it is, because
therein is the righteousness of God revealed, Well, if he
hasn't brought you to value that and rest in that, this peaceable
fruit, you see, there's no evidence yet that you're one of God's
children. And so, despite any claim or profession to the contrary,
to continue in that and to die in ignorance of are not in submission
to his righteousness alone. Well, that exposes one who is
not a son, but if he's religious, like I was, just an illegitimate
professor. Robert mentioned those verses,
Romans 10, one through four, that speak of those. As Paul
prayed for his lost fellows, Jewish folks, the Israelites
there, he prayed for them because he's saying they're lost. He
bore them record, they were lost, going about to establish their
own righteousness because of their ignorance of the righteousness
of God. So anyone who hears a gospel
message, it ought to make them want to know more about this
righteousness, his righteousness, that which alone brings this
peace that will reconcile a sinner, a lawbreaker, unto a holy and
a just God. That righteousness, just to be
sure you hear it again, Robert did a good job of mentioning
that this morning. It's that which Jesus Christ,
the God-man, and he alone produced by his obedience unto death on
the cross, by his perfectly satisfying God's law and his broken justice,
broken by our sins that are against God. And he did so on behalf
of all those the Father gave him, all those for whom he came
and lived and died, Providing, see, for them as their substitute
and as their surety, he said, I'll take on that debt. That
which we can never produce for ourselves, this perfect righteousness,
see. because my doing and dying won't
cut it. It takes the infinitely valuable
blood of a sinless lamb, Jesus Christ. And God, and this is
wonderful news about grace, he freely puts this righteousness,
just as he put their sins to the account of Jesus Christ,
that he might bear the penalty. Well, everyone then for whom
he lived and died, he puts this righteousness to their account.
That's the doctrine of imputation. These very sons in whom we see
in our text, he chastises. Well, I thought it'd be helpful
to consider a few difficulties and how, so we can see how it's
realistically. And I wanna begin by a couple
that I know only true believers experience, the difficulties,
these difficulties. And the first one is their persecution
over their identification with and promotion of God's gospel. You know, when you consider context
of Hebrews 12, which referred us back to chapter 11 and the
trials of that great cloud of witnesses, the Old Testament
saints. Well, much of the afflictions that they endured, they were
due to their identification with the gospel. But listen, there
are people who have suffered persecution over every religion
in the world. Not just Christianity, be it
true Christianity or false Christianity. You know, Christ didn't say,
blessed are they which are persecuted for their faith or for their
religion. He did say, though, in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew
5, blessed are they which are persecuted, what, for righteousness'
sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So he's talking about
being eternally blessed. Blessed are ye when men shall
revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely, for my sake. And you know, thankfully, in
our day, We haven't been called upon to be martyred or to suffer. Our persecution is very light
compared to some, like those in Hebrews 11, but you know,
all believers are persecuted, at least to some extent. And
it's often in the form of rejection of family and friends with whom
they attempt to share the gospel, or just because of their identification
with this gospel. You see, the Bible calls this
the offense of the cross in Galatians 5. It's the offense which the
gospel see of pure, unadulterated grace. That's the only kind of
grace there is. Grace and works don't mix. It's
the offense that it brings to our natural mind that will have
us cry out, wait a minute, I know I received Christ when
I was this age or that age, so don't tell me there's nothing
I can do to be saved. God would be unfair. You know,
when I thought like that, I wouldn't have phrased it this way, and
I wouldn't have, because this would have told on me had I done
it, but you know, in essence, hadn't I might as well have been
saying, don't tell me that I really do need God's mercy, and I really
do need his grace. Now, I talked a lot about mercy
and grace back then before I knew anything about God's righteousness
and Christ, but I really didn't need it. You see, the preacher
told me, Jesus has done all these wonderful things for me, but
he did them for those that go to hell too. The difference is,
is what are you gonna do? Now, what are you gonna do here?
That's the real difference maker in most of so-called Christianity. Oh, and I received him, see,
and I received a counterfeit. That's not the God of this Bible.
He won't have that. And you know, Christ encourages, those things
are often said to us in anger when you're sharing the gospel.
And it's because it's offensive. You know, people know the implications
of what you're saying. They go, wait a minute, that's
not what I believe, so you're saying I've been wasting my time
all these years believing a false gospel. I'm lost. And you know,
God has to make us lost before he saves us. He makes us see
our losses, I should say. But Christ encourages us if we
endure that light persecution compared to these others. When
he says there in verse 12 of Matthew 5, if that happens, rejoice
and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for
so persecuted the prophets which were before you. You're in good
company. Well, Secondly, only the children
of God, true believers, experience what some refer to as the inward
cross. It's the internal warfare between
the flesh, what we are by nature, our sinful nature, and the spirit. But look, those without the indwelling
presence of God the Holy Spirit as he, that have not yet been
given spiritual life, they do not experience the chastisement
of the Lord, or can't claim to it, at least at that point, and
the eternal good that's derived from bearing that inward cross,
that battle. Now, by nature, you know, as
fallen sinners, even before any of us heard and believed God's
gospel of grace, didn't you struggle some internally? You're trying
to live right, and we're sinners, so there's a struggle that goes
on. We wanna live moral lives. If we're religious, that consistent
with what we know or believe is God's will in the Bible. And
if we're not, our conscience tells us. There's a battle that
goes on there. But until God brings spiritual
life and gives us a gift of faith, you see, to believe on Christ
as he's revealed in his gospel, As Jeremiah put it, as the Lord,
our righteousness, well, that warfare between the spirit and
the flesh, that's yet to be engaged. In the state of unbelief, there's
no spiritual life to do battle with our fallen, sinful natures.
So that's kind of a vain struggle in which the sinner, and think
about that, the sinner, the most common definition of sin is missing
the mark. And a sinner is one who misses
the mark. He falls short, see, of the very
perfect righteousness of God that he requires. That's what
he says we're all gonna be judged by in Acts 17.31. The sinner
presumes to be able to measure up. The one who misses the mark,
who can't measure up, presumes that he can and gain their own
victory in essence as that passage Robert referred to in Romans
10, producing their own righteousness. That they imagine at least contributes
to finding them accepted in God's sight. They'll often say God,
oh Jesus, God's done 99% of all you've got to do. But that little
part they give you, they set it forth as the difference maker
in rivalry with what it took, the blood of Jesus Christ. So
it would be presumption for one who's never heard of, as that
was true of me in years past, or who never submitted unto the
righteousness of God for all their salvation, to imagine that
these internal struggles they're having are the Lord's chastening
for their eternal good. Well, let me recap a little bit
the conclusions we've drawn so far. And that's that this peaceable
fruit of righteousness is produced, one, for all the children of
God, and two, only in them, and three, by God's appointed means,
that is, by the chastening of the Lord. And now since we know
that both believers and unbelievers, they experience difficulties
and afflictions, oftentimes very common ones with others, it's
obvious we can only distinguish between them. We can only distinguish
for ourselves. Or judge the tree, so to speak,
by the fruit that yielded afterward, not by those trying circumstances
themselves. As the scripture declares, and
I think Robert read Matthew 5, God causes it to rain on both
the just and the unjust. So let's look a little further
at this fruit. We read in verse 11 of this chastening
of the Lord, and we're told that afterward it yielded the peaceable
fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
You know, as with most things of value, this benefit it came
at a cost. This fruit of righteousness I'm
doing, I know I'm being repetitive, but I'm trying to, I want to
emphasize this fruit of righteousness costs no less than the shed blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, his obedience under the death of
the cross, and it's a fruit of righteousness because thereby
he established righteousness. In Isaiah 61, God's children
are called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that
he might be glorified. See, Christ, he lived and died
for these trees of righteousness that were planted in him. They
were made one with him to do for them what they couldn't do
for themselves. And this all so that God alone
gets all the glory, see? Not the sinner. It's all his
doing. It's not theirs. God doesn't save anyone because
of anything they do. God doesn't save you because
you believe something. If you believe On the Lord Jesus
Christ, as he set forth in the Bible, is the Lord our righteousness. If you believe God's gospel that
sets that forth, it's because the Lord's already saved you,
and he's given you now the blood-bought gift of faith, and thereby, what
do we read in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9? By grace are you saved through
faith, that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, it's not
of works, lest any man should boast. God gets all the glory. Christ did it all. It's all his
doing, and it's not the saved sinner's. If you believe, it's
because he's done the work. Having his righteousness, see,
believers stand in him complete or perfect, and that's what it
means to be justified. Just to be justified means to
be declared righteous in his sight, not guilty. As Jim read
in Romans 5, 9, sinners, he said, there are justified by his blood. Well, he read in the first verse
of that chapter, therefore being justified, and Jim put the comma
there after justified as I do. You know, the punctuation marks
weren't in the original. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We learn about how this peace has been made, this peaceable
fruit of righteousness. I say that about the Pauls there
because many will take that verse to say, oh, we're justified by
our believing, by faith. We know that can't be so because
God doesn't contradict himself. He would say it in verse nine,
now you're justified by his blood. Well, believers, think of your
own conversion under the gospel of God's sovereign grace. You
know, in this process, we're convinced of a sin that we had
been oblivious to previously. And that's the evil of daring
to believe that salvation was conditioned in any way to any
degree upon us. In other words, based on our
decision, based on our response. And you know, for me, that was
a troubling thing to discover, how wrong I had been in my belief
of what now was being exposed to me as a false gospel of works.
So you see, that too was a difficulty, a chastisement, if you would,
as at first I wrestled with trying to make the true gospel see of
how God saves sinners that I was now hearing. How can I make that
fit with all these other false notions I had? And it was impossible
because grace and works don't mix. You can read about that
in Romans 11, they can't coexist. And so this process, it was not
a joy at first, not until God humbled me, granted me the gifts
of faith and repentance to fully embrace his wonderful gospel
of free and sovereign grace in Christ. You know, free, we have
such a hard time accepting a free gift, don't we? Well. This one will have you
put in the lost column any other thing that you might have accredited
with helping you to accomplish salvation other than the finished
work of Christ, his righteousness. Now how do I know that troubling
conviction that I came under was a chastisement from the Lord?
I know it because of the afterward. In hindsight, I know that the
Lord was correcting me and he was doing so big time. And I
now know that this chastisement was from the Lord because it
yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness as I came to see
and rest in and value that imputed righteousness as the only ground
of my salvation. And you see, that fruit is all
to the glory of God. And all believers experience
this peaceable fruit of righteousness in their born-again conversion
because belief of God's gospel, wherein his righteousness is
revealed, that's the first recognizable fruit, or excuse me, occasion,
in which we see this peaceable fruit of righteousness, which
it's delivered to us in our lifetimes. So by faith, we discover the
perfect peace that's been made so as to reconcile us into a
heavenly father. And it's a piece of fruit. It's
peaceful. You know, it's provided in consequence
of the covenant love of the Godhead, by which God the Father is revealed
as the God of peace. God the Son is the one who made
the peace, the peacemaker, if you would. God the Holy Spirit
is the one who makes this peace known to us as he breathes life
into the spiritually dead sinner. See, through that, through those
spiritual faculties of life, through the spiritual eye of
God-given faith, the belief of God's gospel, we experience what
Romans 15, 13 describes as joy and peace in believing. Whatever
cross or burden is sent the believer's way, you know, he or she can
know that it's sent to promote their fellowship, their communion
with God, partakers of his holiness, not hinder it. And we can see
various ways that God could use these afflictions to rid us of
those things that would hinder or distract us from being constantly
aware. of this debt of gratitude that
we owe to our Lord and Savior. In other words, to have our mind
fixed on things above rather than the things of this world.
So let me just list a few more examples, and I'll wrap up, of
how the Lord might use chastisements to produce fruit of righteousness
in true believers. You know, James tells us first
of the benefits. He said in James 1-2, my brethren,
count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. Again,
trials or testings are included there. Knowing this, that the
trying of your faith worketh patience, but let patience have
her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire as incomplete. And when you look what you have
in Jesus Christ that lasts an eternity, wanting nothing. See, God uses our difficulties
in our trials and our testings. to wean us from our reliance
on the things of this world so as to grow in our reliance upon
our love for him. And we experience these things
afterwards. And listen, whether that means
we'll understand the benefit of each difficulty in this lifetime,
as I know we often do once the trials are over and the afterward,
or whether it's in the hereafter. We just know it to be so because
faith believes God and knows the faithful God who so promises
us here. What about circumstances in which
you're prospering? Whether it's prospering financially
or prospering in good health or rich in friendships or in
love or in family relations, whatever it is, there's nothing
wrong with those things, we should enjoy them. But any type of prosperity,
you know it can be a curse if and when it draws our attention
away from God, from worshiping him, from our focus on that which
we possess in Christ. Here's the good news, if you
want God's dear children, he's gonna regain your attention and
you may well do that through chastisement of sorts. So if
he does that, remember this, whatever that difficulty he may
bring your way to get your attention is, in no sense again is this
punishment. for the believer's sinful neglect,
say. No, Christ bore that. Remember,
the text said today, we're being exercised by a loving hand of
our Heavenly Father in these chastisements. Well, I could
go on, but I'm running out of time. Sorry for keeping you so
late. I'll just be brief. You know, poverty could be a
means of doing that. see in Philippians 4, 419, God
says he'll supply all our needs according to his riches and glory,
and being poor may heighten our sense of what we have eternally. You know, our health's gonna
decline, all of us as we age, these bodies of sin and death,
and you know, that can serve to remind us that this life is
short, it's gonna end, and you know, our conversation That word
in the Bible means our citizenship. It's not of this world, you know? And that puts our minds on things
above and that wonderful peaceable fruit of righteousness we have.
And then lastly, if God brings an injustice your way, you know,
what if the government becomes, gets into this socialism so much
everybody's talking about? And so when they start absconding
people's savings and property and wealth, you gotta feed that
animal, you know? And so I would consider that
an injustice, but we know that one can serve God's purpose and
bring that peaceable fruit because of those who were being written
to in Hebrews. They lost their worldly goods,
and yet we see in Hebrews 10, 34, they were commended, being
told, you took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves
that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. So that loss heightened their
sense and their enjoyment of what they had waiting for them
in heaven. And that's something that'll last forever. Nobody
can abscond that. They can't take that away from
you. That's a peaceable fruit of righteousness. Well, if and
when this same peaceable fruit of righteousness is brought in
you, as I think it often is when we're worshiping God, But if
it happens after you've endured some difficulty or some trial,
then count it all joy. So you know you're being chastised
by the loving, eternal, heavenly Father. And that's a mark of
his true children. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. So despise not thou the chastening
of the Lord. Thank you.