And let's continue here. We've
got a lot of stuff here, but as you know, the way we operate
on midweek is we do more of a reading, so exposition, if it were going
to be not, I won't say deeper, but
a more thorough exposition. Of course, it would be a little
bit longer. It would have taken us years
and years and years to get through it. But one of the things that
I like about what we've done midweek over the last year or
so is that we are able to get exposure to more teaching, exposure
to more of the scripture and therefore we get the full counsel
of God's Word in a not a rapid place but a thorough place. So
that is one of the reasons that I enjoy doing this style on midweek. So let's go to chapter 12 and
now let's read through verses 1 through the end of 11 and we'll
talk about verses seven or so tonight. Therefore,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let
us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured from
sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not
grow weary or faint-hearted. In your struggle against sin
you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My
son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be
weary when reproved by Him. For the Lord disciplines the
one He loves. and chastises every son whom
he receives. It is for discipline that you
have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is
there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without
discipline, in which all have participated, you are illegitimate
children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly
fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not
much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they
disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but
he disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness.
For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant,
but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those
who have been trained by it. Now, I wanna talk about this
from the back going forward. So we'll look and see what Paul
is saying here about discipline. Now, it seems odd, in some sense,
because when we think of discipline, if I were to ask all the children
in the room one by one, what does it mean to be disciplined?
They would say, to get a whooping, or to go to time out, or to lose
a toy, or be grounded, depending on how old you are, whatever
it might be. They would look at it in a punitive
way. Punitive means punishment, you're
paying for something, you are being treated harshly, or a consequence
that seems harsh. That's not what discipline means.
Now it may look that way, it may be punitive, it may be in
that sense of an earthly way, it may feel that way, it may
look like that. But when someone goes to the
penitentiary, it's not discipline, it's punishment. And even though
we like to talk about it being something for rehabilitation,
it's not necessarily the case. It usually is you burglarized
the store, you robbed the bank, you're going to go to prison
for 20 years and after 20 years, That is the time that we've allotted
to say, you've paid for your crime. So you're paying for something
that you did wrong. Discipline is not paying for
something that you did wrong, even though it feels that way
sometimes. And so when we think of the discipline of the Lord,
we do not need to think about punishment. We do not need to
think about consequential responses that God gives when he sees us
do something wrong. Now, is that inclusive of that?
Yes, in some way. But it's not what Paul's talking
about here. Paul does not want us to fall
into this mindset of like, uh-oh, that's why I'm going through
all this problems, because I've been doing bad and God's trying
to get my attention. That's not the point of discipline.
Discipline needs to be understood in a holistic sense. A holistic
sense in the relationship that God has with his people. That
God put forth his son to satisfy his wrath, his just punishment
for sin. So if God has satisfied his just
punishment for sin in the body and the blood of Jesus Christ,
what, pray tell, is God's business when people think that it is
God's business to punish his children for the sins they've
committed. You see, it's antithetical to
the gospel. As a matter of fact, it's very
anti-Christ. Now, it does not mean that the natural consequences
in an earthly way of justice are escaped. For example, even
under the law of humanity, the law of these United States, the
law of almost any civilized culture in the world, theft and murder
and those types of crimes have a Consequence. And the consequences
of those are punishment. But I want us to leave the idea
of consequential punishment when thinking about the discipline
of the Lord. And I want us to think about the love of God in
the context of discipline. Because, after all, is that not
what Paul has done? He has said, in his example,
have we not all had earthly fathers? And I want to change the word
discipline to trained. for just a minute, who have trained
us, who have taught us, who have corrected us, who have encouraged
us, who have rebuked us, who have punished us? Have we not had earthly fathers
who have done these things and we respected them? Yet, shall
we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?
So there is something that Paul has equated in the context of
discipline as a positive thing for the believer. As a matter
of fact, I would even say that the idea of discipline in the
very nature of Jesus Christ in his earthly existence, in his
incarnation, where he learned discipline. But we know that
Jesus never sinned in any way in his human He never sinned
in thought. He never sinned in desire. He
never sinned in speech. Can you imagine a child who never
sinned in speech? A child who never sinned in his
aggravation? Imagine being this person in
the world in which we live. with true human emotions, with
true human desires, with true human interaction, with true
and real society and community, with knuckleheads at every turn.
And yet Jesus never sinned. So the discipline that he learned
was not related to anything he had done wrong, yet he was trained. He was trained. I had a conversation
with several people last week, and this continued to be in the
same vein, this idea of learning things. There are some things
we can learn in the context of knowledge. We can hear the data,
we can hear the stories, we can hear the instruction, and we
can learn and glean in that context. But there are some things that
we must learn through experience. In other words, you can teach
a person all sorts of things from a book about how to learn
a language, but you can really learn a language by speaking
it. You can teach people from a book or from a class on neurosurgery,
but they're only really gonna learn how to do it until they
start on the cadavers. You can teach a person all about
health and nutrition and fitness and weight training and weight
lifting, but they're not going to grow in their muscular physique.
They're not going to become healthy until these things are put into
practice. So for the most part, discipline is when we're taught
during the practice of something. So what is it that God is trying
to teach us? What is this discipline that
we are experiencing as God's children? I will suggest that
it is this. It is the love of God working
out our lives according to His purposes. That's what it is. the love of God because he's
given us to Christ and Christ to us now because we are legitimate
children we suffer and we are disciplined and we experience
opportunities to be taught and trained and and grow in many
different ways. Sometimes they're pleasant, sometimes
they're hard, sometimes they're devastating. But according to
the Word of God, the discipline of the Lord, which includes the
suffering of the saints in life, is not just something that is
akin to the work of Christ and the life of Christ and the example
of Christ, but it's related to the very work of Christ as a
child. That as Christ has suffered,
we too shall also suffer. Now think about the sufferings
of Christ for a moment. Christ, the creator of the universe,
the God of all things, created for himself a body. For himself
in this mysterious union where Jesus is the son of God eternally. and God the Son eternally, and
then God the man, physically, temporarily, God the human. It's not something that the Bible
teaches us to a great extent. In other words, it's taught,
and we just take it as it's taught. We don't get all the explanations.
We don't get the addendum in the back, the incarnation explanation. I mean, I would love to see that.
I would love to hear how God did what he did, but God's not
in the business of demonstrating all the details of his divine
will and purposes and his power. He doesn't teach us how things
are. He just tells us how things are.
when it comes to the incarnation of Christ. And so before we move
on, with all that I've just said, this is the point I'm trying
to make. That the discipline of this life, the sufferings
of this life, the hard trials of this life, the temptation
that comes in this life, are created by God to do something
glorious in the life of His people. Ultimately, that we rest in the
sufficiency of His promises knowing that these are part of his purposes,
to grow us and to grow our faith. That's the point. So that discipline
is to help us endure. It's to help us endure. And that's
the context of this writing right here. Because he says, therefore,
look at verse 12, therefore, lift your drooping hands and
strengthen your weak knees. and straight, make straight paths
for your feet. And then he gives us some instruction
that we'll talk about next week. But we see there in this context
now of chapter 12, verses three through 11, that's where I'm
gonna be for the remainder of our time together. We know that
we have not suffered as Christ has suffered. We have not suffered
temptation as Christ has suffered temptation. We have not suffered
wrath as Christ has suffered wrath. We have not done any of
these things to the level in which Christ has endured them,
yet we know that our endurance is to look at Christ. But when
we experience things that are hard, when we experience the
temptation to walk back into the law, to walk back into Judaism,
to walk back into evangelical life, to walk back into things
that are just better for our family, better for our business,
and all of these things, these are moments of discipline. When
we have a bad day, when we have a bad attitude, when we have
fear about tomorrow, or worry about yesterday, These are blessings
and these are loving gifts from our Father who calls us to rest
in His promises and see that He will do that which He's told
us He will do. Being an American is probably
the greatest act of discipline that the Lord could ever do for
us because we look at everything at our fingertips. We hear the
foolishness of the idea of what we have been told is the American
dream, which has changed generation to generation to generation.
I think America has been dreaming long enough, they need to wake
up and get busy. But that's a whole other conversation that's not
akin to the scripture at all. But we hear about all of these
opportunities, we look and compare ourselves to those around us,
we are inundated with all of the world's promises. Isn't that
incredible? how these things we're learning
in Hebrews relate almost perfectly the things that we're working
through and learning in 1 John. Here it is, the discipline of
the Lord. It is at work today. It is at work in our hearts and
in our minds this very moment. Because we're thinking about
the things that stress us. We're thinking about the things
that burden us. We're thinking about the things that cause us
to fear. And this is the discipline of the Lord. Because the question
is, are we going to continue to work through these things
in our own wisdom, our own power? Our own strength? Or are we going
to resolve to say the Lord has it? These are the Lord's burdens.
These are the Lord's purposes. This is the very will of God
today. Now think about that for a second.
What happened today is the will of God. Had it not been, it would
not have taken place. What happened yesterday is the
will of God. Or it would not have taken place.
What is going to happen tomorrow is the will of God. or it will
not take place. The Lord's will is done. Our
culture and its understanding of this self-created God and
the self-created Jesus and the self-created Christ is so prominent
in our world. They've created this more Greek
or Roman mythological being that has a plan and a purpose and
man keeps screwing it up and he has to stick his finger down
in there and fix it and wash the sheets and mop the floors
of the world and get it back on track and hope again for another
thousand years just to see if it'll work. This man messed it
up. This people messed it up. We'll just keep going. That's
not what the Bible tells us about God's sovereignty. The Bible
tells us that God calls us all things to be as they are after
the counsel of his own will. Now there is an extremely strange
response that I get from that when I'm talking one-on-one with
people who aren't necessarily versed in what the Bible teaches.
They will say, oh, so yesterday when I slapped my mama, that
was the will of God? It was God's purpose? Or God
wanted me to slap my mama? You see how silly that is? That's
the same argument that Paul gets in his mind from the people in
Rome when he wrote to that church in the first century. where he's
talking about the sovereign grace and the free grace that comes
only through the finished work of Jesus Christ for the elect.
And then he says, well, should we just continue to sin that
grace may abound? No, that's absurd. We don't in
the name of grace murder and slap and kill and curse. We do
not do that. The same thing is true in the
context of what we learn about God's sovereignty. It is the
will of the Lord that through these times, even in our sin,
God uses these opportunities, because he has decreed them,
to train us. To train us. And in this training, it is evidence
of his love for us. But why does it feel so tough?
Why is it hard? Why can't we just all get along? You remember that? Can't we all
just get along? Why can't we just have one big
ecumenical party and just call the thing God and just be done
with it? Because the Bible differs in
that. The revelation of God through the Holy Scripture is very myopic. It's very narrow. The true good
news of the one true God is not something that can just be broad-brushed. We can't say to ourselves, wow,
I know that we just use different terms, or that we just use different
names, or that we're just thinking all sorts of things, but we're
all talking about the same thing. I mean, all these denominations,
they believe the same God. All these different religions,
they believe the same gospel. This is nonsense. Because the
Bible reveals something completely different. The Bible reveals
a God who has sovereignly created the world for the sole purpose
of glorifying his name, that through creation and into creation,
he would redeem a people for himself, whom he has foreknown,
that is loved, before the foundations of the world. And that the purposes
that he has set forth after the counsel of his own will is through
the election of these people, out of the world and that everything
that takes place in the world from beginning to the day of
destruction is for the sake of his name as it relates to his
work of redeeming his people for his namesake, for his glory. And so the training of life is
forever until this life is over. And it is not necessarily pleasant. I mean, what's pleasant when
you talk back to your mother and you get spanked or you get
reprimanded? What's pleasant when we're sitting
in the humanity, in the mind, our human mind, we're sitting
into our adult lives or to our teen lives or to our child lives
and we're going through all the stresses, whether it be related
to the gospel or not, it's a stress and we're wondering how we're
going to manage where we're going to go, what we're going to do,
when is this all going to work out? Well, what does it mean
for something to work out? What does it mean for God, through
his loving discipline, to bring successes through our trials?
Isn't that a strange question? To the philosopher, he or she
would say, oh, the success of that is then when the trial is
over, or that we've overcome it, or that we have learned not
to walk there anymore. And that's part of it, but ultimately,
what is the promise of God? That he would sweep the path
straight? That he would take away all the trolls under all
the bridges? That he would make sure it was always sunny? Nothing
would take place that would take us off our path. We would never
feel down, lonely, despair, downhearted, downtrodden. No. In the end, in the end, we get
the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained
by it. That's what discipline is, training. trained by it. The peaceful fruit of righteousness. Now what does that look like?
I've painted that picture and I sit and I wallow in that, in
my picture, but my picture is not going to be like your picture
and ultimately it just, instead of what we see and experience,
it's going to be who we're with. It's going to be how things are
with Christ. that we are finished and in the
end of it all there is never again. Now imagine this for a
second. I hope your brains don't pop. But imagine for just a second
that there is never again a worry to ever enter your mind. Never
again to enter a pain. See we're about to bust out in
holy laughter aren't we? I mean and we're not even trying to
get there. But it's just never a pain in our hearts Never a
thought of anger. Never a feeling of frustration. The peace of righteousness, the
peace of Christ. And so we look at what the peace
of Christ is, and we think we can understand it, but then we're
so dumb in our flesh that we come back to the table and go,
okay, now I've got to work toward it. No, we don't work toward
it. It's been granted to us and promised to us, and all of the
sequences of our days presents us the opportunity to understand
the endurance of the Lord Jesus and the glory and the subsequent
glories that are His, that He has promised to give us, that
we may share with Him. And absolute... Jesus is not writing
His hands in despair. There is no... there are no footprints
on the carpet of the throne room of God. He is not getting up
and pacing himself back into. And I think when he stood for
Stephen, he's thinking, oh yeah, coming
to my rest. I'm gonna show you, Stephen,
just how lightweight the stones on your face really are. I'm
gonna show you how lightweight that burden really is. You've
never carried a burden like Christ has carried a burden. That's why Paul starts this discussion
about discipline with the command to consider him who endured from
sinners such hostility against himself. And that is really the
context here is that these people would find their lives so much
easier if they would just give in and placate to these spiritual
bullies. who require of them that which
Christ has not commanded. And he's telling them to be patient
because in the discipline of the Lord, it is the reward of
all of this is life. And that when we see people who
are confessing that they have no burdens, when we see people
in life who are saying, man, my life was perfect. And then
they want to give credit to the Lord for all this lack of any
problem. What Paul is saying is these
are illegitimate children. Yet it is one of the very centerpieces
of many. There are many false gospels,
but that's a centerpiece of some of them. And that when hard things
happen and when trials come, people go, oh, what is God trying
to teach me? Let me learn it so it'll stop. Like uncle, you
know, when you're twisting your little brother's arms. Say uncle. I don't even know what that means,
but that's what we told them to say. Till we ripped their shoulder
blades off. Just give in. No, don't give
in. Endure. Endure. Endure the temptation. Endure the suffering. Endure
the stress. Endure. Last, hold fast. How do we hold
fast? By standing firm in the finished
work of Jesus Christ. By standing firm in the good
news of God's love for His people. That's how we stand firm. That's
how we endure. That's how we know. And then
when we feel the wrath of the discipline of God, it is not
a negative thing. It is a beautiful thing because
in the midst of all of this, God is reminding us that there
is nothing we can do. And God is revealing to us over
and over again that if we are to do anything, And if we think
we can do anything to resolve this world and everything in
it, then we are not going to be the recipients of His grace
in the context of these circumstances. You know the phrases, right?
In our weakness, He is strong. I can endure all things because of Christ. Philippians
4, one of the most twisted pretexts of the Bible. And fathers and mothers discipline
our children and we make mistakes and we do it wrongly and we have
to go back in. You know, for those of you who
are parents, if you haven't yet, you will. You will apologize
to your kids. I misjudged, I misspoke, I was too harsh, I was wrong,
I didn't believe you, I thought you were a liar. You are a liar,
but at that moment I thought you were lying. And you have
to apologize. You have to apologize that in
your discipline you sinned. So we do what we think is best,
but God always does what is best. God always trains us in ways
that is best. So let me tell you what that
looks like then. When everything that we consider hard is swallowing
us, let's endure it without complaining. How do we do that? By focusing on the one who didn't
complain. It'd be good to read Peter's
epistle, see, where it says there was no reproach, When he was
hated and reviled, he did not return with revile. I'm the master
scoffer. I think it's probably a gift
that I have that's not of God. I can fuss and complain in my
spirit quickly because I have a standard by which the world
should rule and operate. I know exactly how things should
be. There is a picture in my brain about how things should
be. And if they were just that way, I think the angels would
stop singing for just a few seconds to go, wow, you see. And you
know that's blasphemous. I'm being funny. But that's how we think, that's
how it is. And then complain in our spirit, and complain in
our mouths, and complain. So even in that, we think, oh,
I got to get it straight. No. What is the opposite of complaining?
What does Paul teach us in Ephesians? Rejoicing. What does James say?
Rejoice. Thank God. Thank God for this. Thank you, Lord. Whatever you're
doing, this is great. I don't want to be like a motivational
speaker and say, fake it till you make it. Because that would
be awful. But beloved, when we consider
Christ, we don't have to fake it. Can we not consider the sufferings
of Christ for our good? Christ didn't do that for Himself.
Christ did that for the glory of the Father. How was the Father
most glorified? In the redemption of His people.
by grace alone, period. It is the graciousness of God
that expressly defines who He is and that Jesus in all of His
humanity expressly reveals the perfection of God's glory, the
fullness of all that God is and everything that He wants us to
see concerning Him. We see it. We see it. So we are being trained in the
context of our lives, in the bad days, and in the good days,
and in all the days in between, in every circumstance, because
God's love for us is true. But we don't go to the place
and say, oh, I'm going through a lot of stuff here, I must be
a believer. Because unbelievers go through a lot of stuff. And
just because we're not going through a lot of stuff, because
it's just not that season yet, we can't say, I must not be a
believer. Beloved, sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's subtle.
But if we're honest, if we're honest about where we are, and
we're honest about how we think, and we're honest about how we
process this world around us, all of us have burdens. Now we
may be good at pretending like they're not. And we may be good
at expressing joy and confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that in and of itself is a mercy of the Lord. We don't always
have to be whining and writhing in the floor in despair and being
depressed and broken to say, oh, now I really see. Because
I think part of how the Lord matures us in these circumstances
through his discipline is that we are able to say, this doesn't
matter. we are able to hold loosely all
that we have. We are able to see relationships
that are good and bad and here and gone and without losing our
minds and losing our hearts and being overcome. We're able to
see the blessings of life and the curses of life all as good
gifts from above. We're able to come to the word
and to be encouraged and in that moment, find just a little tiny
opportunity to rejoice and to be away from the world that we
are not of, yet we are still in. Because if we're not being trained
by the Lord, guess what? Let's look at verses 12 through
17 as a preview. If we're not being trained by
our loving Father, look at this. Because we are being trained,
lift up your drooping hands. You ever felt droopy? You know
what it's like when you just don't want to do anything? That's
next week. And strengthen your weak knees.
And make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may
not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. And then some
instruction, verse 14. Strive for peace with everyone.
And strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God. Further
explain that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble,
because that root of bitterness will defile many. And also see
that no one is sexually immoral. See that no one is unholy like
Esau, who sold his birthright for some food. For you know afterward,
when Esau desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected,
for he found no chance to repent, but he sought it with tears.
And in that, very short sentence or two, we begin to see the therefore
of this command, of this instruction, of this teaching about the discipline
of the Lord and it's loving purpose is to give us the peace that
is ours in Christ already. So that we may not fall into
sin. Because when we are weak, what do we do? Our flesh feeds
itself. When we are weak, whatever your
flesh likes to eat, that is what happens when we're weak. That
is what happens when we give up. That is what happens when
we take our eye off the founder of our faith and the perfecter
of our faith. We give up and we find ourselves sitting in
the hole of despair, unable to move, and we just give the flesh
everything that it wants, and then we feel guilty, and then
the law comes back on and comforts us. It's not a comfort. And that's why he gives in verse
18 that four. You have not come to what may
be touched. You have not come to Sinai, beloved.
You have not come to the place where God's gonna take you out
of joint and break your arms and throw you in jail. You have
come to a place where God is restoring you. The discipline
of the Lord is a restorative process, a corrective process,
and more importantly, a means of grace through which we are
able to endure looking at the finished work of Christ. So with all of that, we know that ultimately as the
Jews had refused the truth of the gospel en masse, as Paul wrote in chapter
2, and as he continued to show, and as he's shown in many other
of his writings, that the significant greatness of the finished work
of Jesus surpasses all of its shadows. So, beloved, the discipline
of the Lord in this trial-by-fire life that we live is nothing
but a shadow. As Paul would say it in 2 Corinthians
4, this light, momentary affliction prepares us, listen to these
words, for an eternal weight. Wait a minute, I don't want to
carry burdens again, eternally. It's an eternal weight of glory.
And it's an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
In other words, we're going to get to heaven. We're going to
be in eternity. We're going to be in the new
heavens, the new earth. We're going to be with Christ. And
we're gonna be telling the stories, if we all, you know, if we do
it like we would at our family reunion. We're gonna be telling
the stories of our days before glory. And imagine the martyr's tales. I was seized and I was arrested
and I was chained and I was whipped and I was starved and I was cut
open and I was burned. Oh, that's horrible. Somebody
else comes and says, I stubbed my toe. Somebody else comes and
says, I lost a dime. Somebody else says, man, I don't
know where I put my glasses. And losing your glasses and burning
at the stake is going to have equal significance with the weight
of glory in comparison. So what are we fussing about? Even the fussing is the discipline
of our loving God as the Word of God teaches us and instructs
us to look to Christ and to rejoice in Him. It really is an insane
remedy because the world looks at it and says, how do they find
peace in this? But the Word of God says that
it is the peace that surpasses all understanding. Look to Christ
and be encouraged, beloved. Let's pray. Father, your discipline, help
us to look at it with sweetness. Help us to understand it. And
Lord, we don't dismiss as this text goes through and says, therefore,
you know, we lift our hands and we stand up and we continue to
walk and we throw away sin that ensnares us and traps us and
tricks us and trips us. So Father, we're not saying this
is not talking also about these things that we willfully rebel
against. So Lord, you are teaching us
about those things too. But Father, I fear that the most
of us that most of us are not necessarily
as burdened by these things as we are by the things that we
feel overwhelm us and trap us and try to empower our flesh
to work and to fulfill your purposes. So Father, from a pastoral perspective,
Lord, be our shepherd. Let Christ, Father, teach us.
May your spirit instruct us in how to apply these things to
the very discipline that we're going through this very moment,
each of us. That if it is your will, Lord,
we will do the things that you've put in our heart to do. Lord,
if it is your will, we will see that which we should be doing.
Father, we know that the will of your heart for your people
is that they would come to know the truth of Christ and we have
come to know this truth of this free and sovereign grace because
we are your elect, because you have granted us this great eternal
life through the promises that you've made before the foundations
of the world fulfilled in the person of Christ who died on
the cross to satisfy your justice and who has risen from the dead
to prove your promises are true. and that there is no power aside
yours, and that there is no comparison besides Christ and what He endured. And so, Father, in Your glorious,
peaceful, gentle discipline, You teach us to discern the difference
and to not put our eyes and our focus on everything that is weighing
us down in this life whether it be matters of faith and fellowship
or father, whether it be matters of fear and frustration. Lord,
teach us. Teach us to look for the peace,
the peaceful fruit of righteousness, who is Jesus Christ, our King.
In his name we pray, amen.