Father, we thank You for all
things. Lord, the things that we know
are obviously good to us, and the things that we think are
not good to us or for us, Father, they are still gifts for me.
For even when we experience discomfort and trials and tribulations in
this life, Lord, it is part of Your loving discipline to us,
Your people. And so, Father, as we continue to learn your
word, as we continue to grow in our understanding of grace,
Lord, help us to see your heart. Help us to see and understand
the good news of Christ as it applies to our lives and to our
relationships and to our thoughts. Lord, to our communities, to
our cultures, to our politics. And Lord, give us peace that
is illogical and absolutely absurd to the world, that surpasses,
as your word teaches us, all understanding. Father, give us
that peace, which is, and who is, Jesus Christ, our righteousness. Lord, solidify in us and ground
us in Your redemptive work that we may never forget that You
have elected Your people for salvation and that none of us
will perish even when we feel as though we will fall away.
You will keep us in the faith. Father, we are grateful. We are
grateful that we are free in our country to worship. We are
grateful that we do not hide. and have to labor underground.
Lord, we are grateful. Let us take full advantage of
these freedoms. And Father, let us never put
other rights and freedoms above the true freedom that is in Christ
alone, that even if we are imprisoned or lose our heads, it is for
Your glory, and it is the beginning of that new promised life that
You have given us in Him. And so help us to rejoice. And
we pray these things in Christ who saves. Amen. Hebrews chapter
12, Hebrews chapter 12. I started this last week and
so I'll read through and then we will talk about it a little
bit more tonight. Therefore, since we are surrounded
by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight
and every 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 a father does not discipline? If you are left without
discipline in which all have participated, then 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, the Lord, disciplines us for our good, that we may share
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.
Therefore, lift your drooping hands 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. Strive
for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no
one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to
obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs
up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. That
no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his
birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward.
When he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for
he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire
and darkness and gloom and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and
a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further message
be spoken to them. For they could not endure the
order that was given. If even a beast touches the mountain,
it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the
sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. But you have come
to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to the innumerable angels in festal gathering and
to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and
to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous
made perfect. And you have come to Jesus. the
mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks
a better word than the blood of Abel. I'll stop there. Now, of course, we won't cover
all of this tonight, but it stands together. This is an opportunity
for us to hear the word of the Lord and in the hearing of the
word of God, we are taught. We are encouraged. We are disciplined. And so as
we left out of this introduction or this transition into chapter
12 last week, we talked a lot about running. We talked a lot
about standing. We talked a lot about what faith
does and that the fact that God's grace establishes us in the faith
and we, by faith, rest in the finished work of Christ. After
all, this is what this letter is intended to do. To show us
that the working and the laboring unto eternal life is a fool's
labor. It is a fool's errand, for the
labor for salvation has been accomplished and finished through
Jesus Christ. So that in our lives, in our labor, we are resting
in the righteousness imputed to us in Christ, even while we
are working very hard day to day. even when spiritually we
are struggling, even when we feel as though we need to set
aside some things that are not pleasing to the Lord. But at
no time does that work. At no time does this personal
moral righteousness ever do anything effectively to the heart of God
Though it may please Him, it is not perfected in us in any
righteousness. It is not bringing us to any
place or statute of holiness. It is, after all, just a reflection
of our thankfulness to God, the cause of His everlasting love.
And so what Paul is trying to do as he wrote this letter is
to help them see that the death of Jesus, the cross work of Jesus,
substituted for the people of God alone and the elect will
all come to know the grace of God. That those for whom sins
have been paid have no fear of condemnation. Yet there are many
of our elect brothers and sisters across this world that have yet
to believe. who have not come to the truth
of Christ. That is why we are called for the sake of the glory
of the name of Christ to proclaim the gospel, to teach those who
are willing to give ear so that the gospel of Jesus Christ can
be proclaimed, that He is glorified in the grace and in the faith
that He grants His people. Though our culture has really
mixed up that reality and added a lot of things to it and added
a lot of conditions, It's nothing any different than what was going
on here in the first century, with Judaism coming into not
just fellow Israelites, but also Gentiles, as in Galatia, adding
to the conditions of salvation, giving assurances based on performance,
or based on types of worship, or based on certain distinctions
that were not given through the apostles. And so while we all
can learn and grow, as Paul says very clearly here in chapter
12, he begins to talk about how our lives should look and give
some brief detail about the fact that there are some things that
we should do because of who we are in Christ. Paul and the other
apostles throughout their New Testament writing, they don't
labor on these things in an effectual way. They don't beat over the
head of the sheep these don't-dos. But however they emphatically
rebuke and exhort through the teaching of the Word, and even
admonish, which is like an exhortation with a warning, that we should
walk in a manner worthy. But in that worthy walking, it
is nothing but a reflection of our great gratitude. And if we
look at it as we get through with this letter over the next
few months, next month or so, we will see that really it is
all played out in one ultimate reality. that all of the doing
of the Christian faith has nothing to do with us earning or producing
or perfecting or establishing confidence of righteousness because
that's been done in Christ. But it has everything to do with
showing and revealing our understanding of the gospel and our love for
one another. That's why in verse 1 of chapter
13, Paul says, let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect
to show hospitality to strangers. Let marriage be held in high
honor. All this shotgun, not shotgun,
but this succession, this, you know, machine gun, rapid fire,
do this, do this, do this, let this be, let this be. So that
the reader would realize that while we are resting in the sufficiency
of God's grace, we are not lazy in our living out the gospel.
We have some things that we must do. But even when we know these
things, even when we realize that the gospel is all of grace
and that it is God's sovereign purpose and that it is an effectual
guarantee for us as His people to be in the faith and to be
kept in the faith and to be kept in the love of God, it does not
diminish the fact that we struggle. It does not diminish the fact
that sometimes we feel as though God is angry with us. It does
not diminish the fact that sometimes we wonder, what did I do to deserve
this circumstance? I mean have we all said that?
We've all said that. Some of us are saying it right
now. Did I not pray well enough? Did I not tithe well enough?
Did I not attend church well enough? Did I not trust well
enough? Is my faith not strong enough? Did I say the wrong thing?
Is it this bitterness inside my heart toward my friend or
my family or my whatever? And we'll always come to the
place of wondering what in the world have we done to bring about
this punishment? Not realizing that there is no
punishment. Of course there are consequences.
Every word has a consequence. Every action has a consequence.
Every thought has a consequence. And consequences are good and
consequences are bad. You save your money, you'll have
some for a rainy day. You blow it all, you'll be asking
for help. The consequences of aging, you gain wisdom, you get
mature, but you also get older and things fall apart. The consequences
of speaking kindly or that you can temper anger and help someone
through a hard time versus popping off at the mouth could ruin relationships
forever. There's a consequence. The consequence
of Jesus dying on the cross is that the elect are justified
and that they will, by the Spirit of grace, be given the knowledge
of His finished work, the consequence of right living, the consequence
of love, is a well-rounded, matured understanding of the grace of
God, of His love, and it is a fruitful ministry in this life that we
live. Believe it or not, beloved, this
is what we're learning on Sunday mornings during our time in the
letter of 1 John. And it's what we'll be learning
as we read through the letter of James after this. But all
of that being said, it centers on one specific thing that Paul
is talking about here as he transitions. That even though we know that
we have life in Christ and that His word is sufficient and that
His grace is powerful to save and there is no way that anyone
could pluck us out of our hands, we labor in this seesaw dichotomy. Am I saved? Am I lost? Am I doing
what's right? Am I doing what's wrong? And
it goes without saying that those seasons have ups and downs. You hear it now more than anything
where people say, well, if God's people would have just done what
was right, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. Speaking about
economics, speaking about politics, and that's the furthest thing
from the truth of the Bible. I hear more and more people all
over the place teaching out of John's Apocalypse because they
have related it to present events, which it has nothing to do with.
present events, but it does make people consider what's really
taking place. And in the end of it all, every believer wants
to stand firm. Every believer wants to feel
confident. Every believer wants to endure Even when we grow to
understand that all of these things are a gift from God, we
want to endure. We want to endure in the faith. And sometimes we
believe that enduring in the faith is to remove all sense
of doubt, all sense of self-righteousness whatsoever. When you get that
one figured out, let me know. All sense of fear, all sense
of burden, and that if God would just grant us this incredible
peace of nothingness, maybe it's nirvana, we'd be snuffed out,
like the mystics would say, or the eastern mystics would say,
then we'd be in a right place. But that's not going to happen
for the believer. That's not going to happen for God's people.
God's people are always going to be in turmoil, always going
to be in a little bit of a war, always going to be struggling
with the sufficiency of God's grace with the reality of the
mirror. as long as we have breath in
our bodies. We're going to feel very confident one day and then
another day we're going to visibly be able to see the sinfulness
of our flesh and say, where am I? We hear it a lot where people
say, man, I wish I could just go back to where I used to be.
I wish I could find that zeal that I used to have. I wish I
could feel the way I used to feel. And that might be good for a
50-year-old talking about his 30s, We shouldn't be talking
like that about our faith. We should rest in the place that
God has us and endure. But the question is, how are
we able to endure? That's what grace does. God's
power keeps us enduring. By what means? We saw that last
week. By the endurance that is Jesus Christ, by the endurance
of Jesus Christ, to finish the work of salvation, to accomplish
the purchase of His people. So we see there, we are surrounded
by a great cloud of witnesses. Now why would Paul write that?
What does he mean by the witnesses? We talked about that a little
bit last Wednesday night. All of these heroes, the hall of
fame of faith, that we see. The Old Testament narratives
and the stories of these people who have gone before us, they
all ran a different race. They all ran a different type
of life, but they all equally suffered. And they were all,
as God's elect, promised eternal life, yet none of them received
that promise in this life because you cannot have eternal life
in this world. Praise God for that. I do not
want an eternal groundhog day in this world, but we will have
a new life. and a new kingdom, and that's
where he closes out, and he's not closing, but he closes out
his thoughts as I read, and I'm not gonna get there for another
week or so, but when we see what he says in verse 18, for you
have not come to what may be touched. See, he already said,
and all these commended through their faith, though they did
not receive what was promised, they were commended. since God
had provided something better for us that apart from us they
should not be made perfect. See, this is a promise for all
God's people. We are all going to be together
in that perfection. Everyone who is yet, who has
already passed on from this world awaits the day when the rest
of us will be together and when the body of Christ is all united. That final day, that imputed
righteousness that is applied to our account. our new bodies will be made in
the likeness of Christ. Now, I'll be honest. I have sat
many hours staring into the void of my conscience. wording things
and walking through arguments, establishing pictures with my
brain to see if I could come up with a sense, just a small
way of wondering how this is going to be. What is it going
to be like? Let me get one small taste of what it will be like
to know Christ powerfully and to be like Him physically. to
be like Christ physically. I can't. I've never been able
to fathom that because it's beyond me. It is illogical and irrational,
yet it is the promise. It is the promise of God for
His people. So as we endure, We can endure
as we look to Christ. We endure with those saints who
have gone before us who also look to Christ. And we understand
that Christ is the one who establishes his people. And Christ is the
one who secures his people. And Christ is the God who created
all of this for his purpose of establishing himself a people
who were not his people. That's why the world exists. Now, as we sit and think about
Jesus and as we read through this letter, remember, we're
not doing exposition in depth on Wednesday nights. We read
through so that which would take several years can take several
months. But as we're reading through
this letter, we see the very next thing that Paul tells us
to do in verse three is he says this command, consider, consider,
We have been perfected in Christ and one day we shall all be perfected
together. We are absolutely promised life
and we have a great cloud of witnesses that have gone before
us who are promised life and they are awaiting that promise
as we are awaiting that promise. And what is Paul saying? Quit
looking at the world and everything in it to establish your peace
and hope. to establish your measurement,
the canon of what success and prosperity looks like. Stop looking
at the world and its theologies. Stop looking at the humanity,
the humanistic way of philosophy, even if it is derived from biblical
theology, and look to Christ. It's that simple. that a young
child who can barely write or maybe not be able to read can
be given the grace to believe in the finished work of Jesus
Christ. To be able to understand and
be settled in his or her spirit that Jesus' work on the Christ
for His people paid for me. I am a child of God. And so we might think, well,
He was God. We hear the story. We understand
what he experienced. And Paul commands us to consider
him. What does it mean to consider? What it means to think about,
to focus on, to evaluate, consider, consider what it might be like
if tomorrow you woke up with a shoe growing out of your ear.
Consider what it might be like if you checked your stimulus
deposit and there were a million dollars in there. Consider what
it would be like if before we finished our service today, the
world came to an end. Now think about it for a second. We're sitting here and being
told to consider things that are absolutely probably two of
them, one of them impossible, two of them improbable, and very unlikely, but yet we
can do that. We have no root of evidence.
We have no historical record. We have no witnesses. We have
no people who have had any of that happen before, but yet we
can sit around and think about that for a minute and go, yeah,
I could see that. I could see what I would do. I could see that. But yet
we have the record of grace. We have the word of grace. We
have the history of grace. We have the Word of our salvation
and the truth of what Christ endured and what His people have
endured and that the promises of God have never failed. But
yet it's easier to imagine the crazy, unimaginable, and consider
it rather than consider that which is not just about imagination,
but is the witness of God Himself concerning Himself. So consider
Christ. Consider Christ. the founder
of our faith, the finisher of our faith, the creator of the
world. Consider Christ, the incarnate God-man who came into the world
to save His people from sin. Consider Christ who took the
fullness of the totality of the wrath of God upon Himself, and
the wrath of God is satisfied in the death of Jesus for the
elect of God. Consider Him, who subjected himself
to the futility of creation, to made himself, though he is
the righteousness of God, made himself to bear the guilt of
sin, who subjected himself willfully to the cross, and looked beyond
it, despising the shame, to the glory that God had given him,
to the glory that he was restored to, that he had before the foundation
of the world. Now Paul says, consider him who endured. Now think about
this for a second. What did Christ endure other
than the cross? The cross was enough, right?
He endured all sorts of things. Christ endured from sinners hostility. I mean, let's think about it
for a second. Let's consider it for a second. Are you at this
present time or have you ever endured from a human being hostility? Have you? Of course we have.
We've endured. And in that enduring, it was hard. You know what's
crazy about enduring? It's not our choice, is it? I've
never met a woman who's given birth who said in her mind, okay,
I'm going to start this labor without pain. I'm going to start
this labor with no irritation. I'm just going to go about my
day and hey, there's a baby in the house. Now there may be some
anomalies that live like that, but for the most part, there
is at least some discomfort, if not some incredibly, not to
play on words here, excruciating pain, which means out of the
cross. That's where that word comes from. It's the pain that
was described from crucifixion, the word excruciating in its
Latin form. I've never met a woman who just
decided not to endure it. It's coming, childbirth comes,
labor pains come, and it comes when God is ready. It doesn't
come on schedule, and it doesn't come at command. The same thing
with illness. I think tomorrow I'll catch coronavirus
and I'll be out for a couple of weeks and then by the 15th
of February I'll be fine. And then maybe around November
I'll catch the flu. Nah, maybe I'll move it to December.
That's not the way it works. We don't get to choose that which
is put upon us. And in the same way, even though
Christ did choose the cross, He did decree the cross and decree
and choose to endure hostility from sinners, we do not. We do not. And so we will endure
whether we want it or not. We will stand under suffering
no matter what. No matter what. And there is
nothing in the Bible that promises that this suffering will ever
cease until the day that we become like Christ. Or our bodies die. So we look at the hostility that
Christ endured. Now here is something interesting.
Based on that little argument that I just made, we don't get
to choose what we endure, but Christ so chose to bring himself
into this world, to endure hostility from the very creation that he
made, and to endure the wrath of God, the shame of the cross,
and he is the almighty God. Friends, what kind of superhero
would bark on the scene and be the humble man? I mean, would
you buy those t-shirts? I'm humble, man. What are you
going to do? I'm going to let you beat me
up. I mean, this is silly, but Christ, Christ willfully endured
all these things. Why? Well, of course, for the
sake of His name, for the glory of the Father, for the sake of
His elect, that He might bring them into righteousness through
His own righteous obedience. And the list goes on and on.
But ultimately, we want you to see that the object of redemption
is the body of Christ. That through the endurance of
Christ, we are made alive. We are healed. We are saved. So consider him, consider him
who endures from sinners such hostility against himself. Why
should I do that? Paul says, so that you may not
grow weary or faint hearted. You may not grow weary or faint-hearted. What is it that we endure? We
endure hostility. We endure doubt. We endure weak
faith. We endure all sorts of things.
There are hundreds of things in our minds right now that we
could probably stamp out on a piece of paper in a brain dump session
and say, these are the things that are weighing me down emotionally,
physically, psychologically, spiritually, etc. And in all those things, Our
flesh is always pressed to do something about it. Our flesh
is always pressed to try to find a way that we might get up from
underneath this stuff a little bit more and step to the side
and just have some relief. And sometimes we believe the
lie of the culture of false Christianity, of false Gospels. And we believe
the lie to some degree that will tell you, oh, you know what,
you don't have enough faith, that's why you're going through
this stuff. No, that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says
we're going through this stuff because our Savior went through
the same thing. And that if God Almighty, in
the flesh, purposefully endured the same hostility and the same
suffering and the same temptation, so that we would have eternal
life. When we suffer in the same way, it is not punishment. It
is not consequential. It is absolutely correlative
to us being His body, so that what He has experienced, we also
experience. But the difference is, He endured
it unto life, and we endure it by faith, by looking at Him. And it's not about it getting
easier either. There are many things that I feel like I have,
by the Lord's mercy, conquered in fear. And when you get that
list out of the way, there's a hundred more behind me ready
to come up. Paul reminds us there, he says,
I want you to consider Christ and what He went through so that
you would not grow weary, so that you would not faint and
pass out in your heart I mean, you know what he wrote
to the Corinthians? Y'all know that. In chapter 3,
if you go in the book of Acts and you see what Paul endured. Paul didn't get up one day and
go, you know, I think I'm just going to submit myself to horrible
beatings and trials and hatred and animosity and suffering and
persecution. imprisonment, starvation, shipwrecks,
snakebites, fires, liars, thieves, kings, all this other kind of
stuff. My daddy taught me to aim big.
I'm about to go big. But Jesus told him he was going
to suffer greater than any man would ever suffer in the world
for the sake of his name. Paul talks about the fact that
The suffering that he endured was for the joy of Christ. In chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians,
verse 7, he begins, but we have. And there's a comparison there.
You know that verse 6 is one of my favorite verses of Scripture.
Let light shine out of darkness. For God who said let light shine
out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give us the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We have this treasure. We have
Christ. We have the knowledge of Christ.
We have the truth of Christ. We have the endurance of Christ.
See, the Gospel story, the Gospel truth, the Word of God teaches
us about the endurance of Christ. What does it do for us? Spiritually,
it aligns us with Him. Physically and emotionally and
mentally it aligns us with Him in a way that we know we are
not alone. And if Christ, who is our God and Redeemer, has
gone through these things, He has sympathy for us. He is going
to bring us through it. It's a half lie when people say,
God's never going to put anything on you that you can't handle.
He's going to put it on you and you can't handle it. But He's
already handled it. I had a dear brother ask me how
I was doing over the weekend. I hadn't talked to him in several
months and so I just filled an email full of everything that
was on my mind over the last few months. And at the end I
read through it and I thought, that's a horrifying thing to
send to somebody. He's probably going to get on
a plane and fly over here to the United States and see what
he can do to help me. It would be like guns blazing or something.
So I added this at the end. I said, despite the tone, the
timbre of all of this that I've just shared with you, and despite
the gravity of all these circumstances, I am thankful that these are
not my problems and they are not on my plate, yet they are
the Lord's problems and He will deal with them. And it made me laugh, literally
out loud in my house laughing that this is so true, but it's
so hard to just hold that, isn't it? Paul says we have this treasure
in jars of clay. Why? To show that the surpassing power
belongs to God and not to us. And he says these words. We know
them. There have been songs written about them. They've been tattooed
on people's faces and everywhere else. We've heard this. He says
we are afflicted in every way. We are perplexed. We are persecuted. We are forsaken. We are carrying
always in the body the death of Jesus. Those are the negatives
that he says. Death is at work in us. But that's
not how he leaves it, is it? We are afflicted in every way,
but we are not crushed. We are perplexed. but we are
not driven to despair. We are persecuted, but we are
not forsaken. We are struck down, but we are
not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the
death of Jesus in order that the life of Jesus may also be
manifested in our bodies. We who live are always being
given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus
also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at
work in us, but life is at work in you. 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. Why would he say that? Because
it is the truth. Christ has endured temptation
to the end. Never giving in. Ever. I don't know about you, but there's
a point where I break. There's a point where my flesh
just sort of goes wax off. I'm not doing this anymore. In
almost any circumstance, there's always a point, isn't there? And when we come to seeing what
Christ endured, He endured it all. Imagine being righteousness,
being God, and enduring hatred, hostility from birth. Jesus, when He was an infant,
was running for His life. Many people died in the name
of Christ as infants. Yet He always endured. Even in the garden as he prayed,
Father this cup may it pass from me, but not my will but yours
be done. As the capillaries of his skin
burst into blood. And then he laid out his life
on the cross and died under the wrath of God. None of us can go that far. Christ made it to the end. What's
that show us? We don't have to. The endurance
of Christ to the end finished the work. Established the promise. Sealed it legally and spiritually
and physically. And so we have it. So we are
not to grow weary when we consider Christ. And it is the simple
power of God through this mental focus and spiritual experience
with the Scripture that causes us to understand that when we
suffer in this life, it is God's discipline. And that is what we'll be talking
about next week. But listen to what he says. Have you forgotten?
Because they'll say, well, Paul, we're suffering greatly. It would
be so much easier just to go back to Judaism and believe in
Jesus on the side. It'd be so much easier just to
give in to these conditions, to give in to this cultural gospel.
Can't we just be secret sovereign gracers? No. No. So don't forget the exhortation
that addresses you as sons, as children. Don't forget it. where He says, My son, do not
regard lightly the discipline of the Lord. Now see, if we don't
listen, we'll think that that means, be careful, God's going
to get you. But that's not the point. Do not take it lightly.
Do not take it as just some temporal consequence that's going to teach
you a lesson. Do not regard lightly and do
not be weary when reproved by Him. Why? because it is evidences
of the love that He has for us. I want you to think about that
for a second. God's love for His Son, God the Father's love
for the Son, resulted in the destruction of the Son. So God's love for us is also
understood in our training As we suffer, we look to Jesus and
consider His suffering, and in considering His suffering, we
know God loves us. How does Paul say it? It's not
I who live. This is not my life. Paul isn't
living here. It is Christ who lives within
me. So then I live my life by faith
in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. And so in verse 7, it is for
discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as a child
that He loves. For what son is there whom a
father does not discipline? Now think about that. Think about
our fears. Think about our temptations.
Think about our failings. Think about our sins. Think about
the correction that comes and the beauty of it when we look
not to our lives but to the life of Christ. We know that our Father
loves us. We know that He corrects every
son whom He receives. Now you might be thinking a little
bit biopically in this context. Well, isn't discipline when we
do that which we shouldn't do? And God corrects us. Yes, that
is included there. But discipline is also in that
temptation. I don't know what to do. I'm
not focused right now. I don't have faith. God corrects us. I'm fearful. I'm worried. I'm anxious. I don't know how I can fix this
situation in my life. It's not your situation. It's
not your life. It belongs to Him. So that is
the exhortation this evening. To know that even when we suffer
in temptation, even when we feel as though we're ready to walk
away, God holds us and He promises us life. And He tells us that
if we consider Christ, we will endure. Let's pray. Father, help us. Help us, Lord,
and help us to pray and understand how to pray. Some of the most
effectual prayers are just groans that rest in Your power and sovereignty. And Lord, I know that it's almost
impossible as a teacher, as a shepherd, to come up with commentary that
can illustrate every possible mental thing that could apply
to these issues that we deal with every day, Lord. And it's
not our job to do that. It's not my calling to do that,
Father. But Your Word is sufficient. So we pray that You would teach
us what we've heard and what we've read tonight, that we would
be encouraged that we would be granted the peace to know that
we will endure, that Christ has set the record straight, that
Christ has finished the work, that Christ has established us
before you as righteousness. So when we worry and labor over
all the things that we wish that we could be in the faith, We
fail and then we fall into sin. No matter what it looks like,
Lord, we come and grovel in our souls and worry about standing
before You. But Your Word says that as Christ
has gone through the Holy of Holies, we too can walk through
that place and be in Your presence without shame. Lord, that is
what motivates us. Your love is what motivates us.
Your mercy and tenderness as a father and a motherly tenderness
to teach us and to grow us and to equip us and to establish
us. And Lord, I pray this for all of us. Because Lord, there are things,
as you very well know, that are outside of our ability to endure. So keep us in the faith. Help
us to see Your love for us in Christ. It's in His name we pray. Amen.