Discipline. What a topic for Sunday morning. Discipline. It's one of those words that
instills a great rhythm in the heart, a great rhythm of thoughts
and feelings in one's soul. As you think of the word discipline.
It comes on the mind as a bad thing for some. Something that
one must seek to avoid, if you will. And all the while we worship
with our hearts that reach toward a God that we do not even know
or understand. This. How we often think of this word
and define it in our own minds is very similar to how we come
and acknowledge God for who he is. We've come to this place
today not to seek into a door and to revere and fear a holy
and just God, but sometimes we've come to a God that lives in peace
with all men. A God who is a God that does
not exist is what that is. And a God like that will never
hear the praises of a tongue that for such praises from an
idolatrous heart of false assumptions. We come to worship, and who we
are to worship is God, and He is holy. We come to worship, and who are
we to worship except holiness Himself? For in the presence of dead things, Honestly, in the presence of
God, dead things shake and tremble. The pillars of the temple shook.
And Isaiah's vision of God's holiness, inanimate objects,
rocks, were shake at the holiness of God. And yet we come comfortably. The righteous come before God
with fear and understanding. We understand His word and that
His word lays its foundation in His righteousness and holiness.
Our hearts are calloused when we come to worship a God of our
own making. And the fruit of such things is that we hold to
a facet of discipline that is not true. Sometimes we
hold to a facet of discipline in the context of God's discipline
as a result of a personal and responsive idea. sometimes because
of our personal or responsive consequences. And in some cases,
that may be true, but in the reality of God's holiness, we
all have nothing but really disciplined to behold. We are his children, and if we're
not his children, we have nothing but death to behold. May we come today, church, with
a heart that bleeds out of a right view of our God. Might he in his grace give us
the ability to see his holiness? And to see it like we've never
seen it before. We should come to our place of worship with
bent hearts, bowing souls and a broken spirit and seek not
to look upon his holiness as though we have the privilege
to do so. Just as I touched the ark to
prevent it from being defiled by falling into the mud. His hand was that which defiled
the holiness of God, not the dirt. For the dirt does what God purposed
it to do. But man must die when he tries
to do what is right in the eyes of God. When we come to the word of God,
Church, The question is, do we see God in light of the Scripture,
or are we blinded by our own devices and worldly religion? Are we too blind to understand
the presence of our King should be death for us? Are we too numb to discover the
supreme and eternal chasm between us and God's holiness? Have we
made God? an idol of our own hearts and
painted Christ's face on the cover to make us feel at ease
with our intentions and thoughts. What comes to a man who denies
the respect of God and worships him in vain? Death comes. Because that is what is right.
And that is what is just. And that is what is holy. Death
comes as it came to the sons of Aaron who approached God in
a cavalier and immature way. Death came to those in the early
church who ate at the Lord's table in an inappropriate, unworthy
manner. And death should come to us today
as we sit here comfortably looking to get something for ourselves
and then become indignant when we do not. We are truly here to worship.
And we should be here to tremble. We should be here to cry out
for mercy. We should be here to cry out
at Thanksgiving that our God has mercifully stayed his hand
of wrath and slowly swung his scepter of judgment as we labor
for what we call the gospel, when in reality, it is just a
fight for the next fix of joy that gives us another boost in
our own little world towards demigod status. We fail to see God's holiness,
and in turn, we worship wrongly and we view him incomplete which
is not him, but something he gives that we worship. The reality is, Church, that
oftentimes we define discipline as a bad thing because God, in
our view of God, is skewed. And the reality is that God is
holy and he is hungry for wrath. And he has laid his wrath for
the church on his son so that his righteousness and holiness
would be seen. God is worthy because he is Lord. He is Yahweh. He is God. He is Abunai, the sovereign one
who deserves all praise. And Christ has made him known.
God's mercy and God's grace alone can cause a man to tremble before
him. The wicked do not fear him, but sit comfortably looking for
bread and other things. Like we looked in Proverbs this
morning, when it says, for the wicked
eat the bread of wickedness, and they drink the vine of violence. The blind not see God, but think
that he has given them a chance to make things right And they
slowly and quietly await the day of restitution, where they
might lay their case before him. And then before his eyes and
his ears, that they will be justified in their own faith and their
own God and their own understanding of him. This will not be true. For there is none who can hide
from his holiness, and there is none that will not be judged
in light of his righteousness. Every man, every woman and every
child will stand before God and each of us will give an account
for every word that has come out of our mouths. For it will
be a reflection of every love and passion that has rested in
our hearts. Every word is recorded. Every option, every breath will
be laid bare before our holy God and he shall store His righteousness
by casting those who are not His into the lake of fire. He
will show His righteousness in that He took the sins of the
church and cast His wrath upon His Son, so that those words
in the heart of wickedness would be atoned for. These hearts that we now hold
so dear, so precious and notoriously untrustworthy. And yet we hold to what we feel
and we hold to what we think over what God Himself has declared.
Be holy, for I am holy, declares the Lord. So what does this have
to do with discipline? Everything. God's holiness. Here's a summation
of today's sermon. You want to take it down and
you don't take any more notes. God's holiness is the reason
for his discipline, because it is a reflection of it through
sanctification. God disciplines those he loves
and how. How he disciplines is a reflection,
is a shadow of how we should discipline. I think it's the
other way around. We should discipline the way
he has called us to discipline as a shadow of his holiness,
of his righteousness. Just as a father disciplines
his son, he disciplines us so that we would be conformed to
the likeness of his son. Discipline comes. to show God's
holiness and to show God's adoption of his church. That he might
present us blameless and spotless, not in perfection, but in the
shadow and the reflection of his righteousness. This, let's define that for a
few moments. You can turn with me to Proverbs
chapter three. verse eleven and twelve. Here Solomon writes, My son,
do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof. For
the Lord reproves him who he loves as a father and a son in
whom he delights. Discipline defined There's a lot of definitions
that I found. However, there are two main veins in defining
discipline. Vein number one, to punish in
order to gain control or enforce obedience. Number one. Number
two, training to improve strength or self-control. Two veins of
thought. The first one is punitive. I punish you that
you might feel a little judgment, a little wrath, and by doing
so, then I will gain control over you because you will fear
discipline. And then in fearing discipline,
you will become more obedient out of your fear of discipline.
That's definition number one. Definition number two is, as
we do with our children, we train them and develop and instruct
them, and in turn, we teach them what is proper behavior And by
doing that, it's improving their self-control through training
and also improving their strength through training, specifically.
That could go with anything. All right. I want to suggest
to you that God does not discipline, really, for the purpose of number
one. He does not do that. He does not punish his children. For God's punishment is wrath
and judgment. It may feel like punishment,
but the purpose of God's discipline is not to punish, but to correct
and train. It is always for good, never
for punishment. Now, that's also in the way I'm
defining discipline right here. So which one of these really
hits closest to your heart? When you feel the discipline
of the Lord, do you feel as though God is getting you? that God is doing something that
you might just be broken so that you can just walk the talk line
so that he won't discipline you anymore. And guess what? He will. Which way do you think God deals
with you the most and why? I'll be honest with you. Some
of us in the room would probably say the first way because we
are very, very aware of our sinfulness. It's not a bad thing to be aware
of. But in some sense, we have so much sin in our life on a
continual rebellious basis that we felt like every act of discipline
toward God is a consequential recompense for our disobedience.
But it's not. Not for His children. But yet it is a corrective discipline. For God will discipline those
who are obedient to Him, as we'll see in a moment. As a matter of fact, I would
suggest to you that God disciplines even harder those who walk closer
to Him. Don't believe that? You show
me one person in biblical narrative that wasn't dealt with in a hard
way and went through hard things as a discipline of the Lord for
His glory. My son, do not despise the Lord's
Discipline or be weary of his reproof for the Lord reproves
him who he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights.
Don't you want to be loved and delighted by the Lord? There's several things I want
to point out here. This may be a very short message today, but it might
not be. I should not even say that because
it's always a it's always a fail proof, isn't it? But we see my son. Of course,
we know Solomon speaking to his sons, sons, whatever. We don't
really know. Some people say Lemuel. Either
way, a father speaking to his son, my son, do not despise the
Lord's discipline. He's saying to his son that the
Lord disciplines as though he would his own son. So the Lord,
in some sense, acts as a father for his children. We are the
sons and daughters of God. So as you read that, as you see
that, you reflect on the nature of the adoption that God has
done through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Wednesday night,
you should come. This past Wednesday, we dealt
with the substitutionary atonement of Christ and the substitutionary
righteousness, the imputed righteousness of Jesus. So in this sense, when you see
the word son, Do you understand it is the purpose of God to adopt
his sons and daughters out of this world for they belong to
him. God adopts his church out of
the domain of darkness. He brings them out of darkness
into the light of his marvelous son. God adopts the church. We are his children. We don't
pick our father, he picks us. We don't seek after God. He found
us. We don't see our sin. He showed
us. We don't repent because we came
to our senses. He gifted us repentance. We don't
believe because we're smart enough. He gave us faith. For any man who believes the
other is arrogant and lost. For it is by grace you have been
saved through faith, which is a gift. No one can boast before
the holiness of God. Why should I let you into my
kingdom? Because I did this and I believe
that and I did... No! Because God, you are a God
of mercy and you've had mercy upon my soul. That is salvation. We're not Pelagian. We don't
believe people are born good. We don't believe there's a good
man walking around the world today. We don't believe there's
a man worthy of being called a son of God or the daughter
of God or being adopted by the grace of God. There's no man
walking the planet today that is deserving of the blood of
Jesus Christ. There's no one walking around
today who has or has ever walked around today who is worthy of
the righteousness of God by gift. None of us. We all deserve his
judgment. We all deserve his wrath. And
friends, until pulpits get alive and stop being stupid and start
preaching the fullness of the holiness of God, the world is
going to continually be an effect full of despair and hopelessness. And the church will be powerless. It is time to share and to teach
and to cherish the fullness of God's holiness. Church is not
an American institution. It is not a country club that
we come to and feel revived and refreshed and loved. It is a
place where we come to tremble before the holiness of God. And
we often do so because we know that if it weren't for his grace,
he would send us straight to the pit of destruction. God adopts us out of that. God reaches down in His mercy,
and He says, you are My child, and I will bring you to life,
and I will pull you up out of darkness, and you will be My
son, and you will be My daughter, and I will save you, for you
can do nothing to bring salvation to yourself. And friends, not only should
that be the crux of our lives, that is the power of God that
changes lives. That's the power of God that
gives peace to the weary. That is the power of God that
gives strength to the weak. That is the power of the gospel
for which we should not be ashamed, as Paul says in Romans 1 16. God's adoption of his children
give us a picture of his discipline. To teach us, to mold us, But
really, before we go there, I want to look at this passage and then
I want to look at the New Testament usage of this passage. To see God's ultimate reasons
behind this. The Lord loves, therefore, the
Lord disciplines. As a father. The son in whom he delights. The reality of it is, is that
when our faith is stretched and challenged, When our hearts and
minds are stretched and challenged and confronted by the gospel
of Jesus Christ, when the life that we live is graded against
the cheese grater of discipline, God is strengthening us. And so what Proverbs is teaching
here is that we should not despise discipline. Let me teach you
something. This is about a heart change. Discipline should be joyful. I didn't say we like it always. But when you despise something,
you don't want it. So the opposite of despising
something is to yearn for it. So we should yearn for the discipline
of the Lord. Yearn. Look for it. Pray for it. Run into it. Thank
God for it. Praise Him for us with the fullness
of joy, because it is of the Lord. Last week, he who finds
a wife finds a good thing. This week, he who finds discipline
finds a good thing. Why? Because it is of God. And
what God gives to His children is always good. Always good. Always good. All things that are from the
Lord. Sovereign, the sovereign. All things are good that come
from Him. God is in control of what we
think is harsh. And sometimes what we feel is
unmerited. The discipline of the Lord. What did I do to deserve
this? Nothing. Except that I saved
you. Except that I paid for you through
the blood of Christ. So I bought you, I own you, and
I can train you and mold you. This is a gift to you. You are
seeing my holiness. In a way that no one can, the
world is blind. And they go about their way with
joy, and they seek one folly to another, and foolishness from
day to day, and they seek after their own treasure, and they
are living their best life now, and there's nothing else they'll
ever receive except my judgment. Let me show you my holiness today
through the discipline of your life. God is in control. God is the author of our discipline.
He's the author of our suffering. That means He causes it. For there is no suffering for
the child of God that God does not cause. Not only is that biblical in
context, theologically sound, but it's historically evident.
God calls. suffering. God calls the cross. And Jesus is the righteous. And yet he suffered greater than
no man ever has or will. For he took an eternity of God's
judgment against you, and he put it on himself. If you are a child of God. We should love the Lord's discipline.
What discipline in your life today are you not loving? Think
about it. What challenges do you see? What
frustrations? What heartaches? What sufferings?
What attitudes? What mindset? What temptation
are you seeing today that you just wish would just disappear
from your life? What irritation? What person? What problem? What stress? What moaning? What opportunity to praise? Why
would we want to get rid of that? I had a brother tell me today that some brothers and sisters in
the Lord, or not today, this week, told me that some brothers
and sisters in the Lord indicted him, just brought many indictments
against him. All untruths. 20 plus things on a list, a piece
of paper. You're this type of guy and you're
this type of person. You're this type of person. This is not God.
You're not God, but this is God. And I heard it deeply. As he shared those things, this
is how I responded. I said, praise God. Praise God. I said, because somewhere along
the way, some of these indictments will be true in your life. I
said, but if they're not, then God is showing you that they
could be. And this is the discipline of the Lord that you might praise
him through it. But when they reviled Jesus,
he did not return. Reviled is reviled. When they
accused Jesus, he did not stand in defense of his own integrity. What indictments are against
you? What indictments should be against
you? Well, that's not true, but there is some that are. A wise
pastor told me last year, he said he used to get really angry
when people used to accuse him of being a liar. He said he stopped getting angry
about that, even though he never lied. He had lied. And he probably would lie in
the future. So why should he get angry about someone telling
him what he really is? We should love discipline. We
should love correction. We should love consequences,
because they mold us, they shape us, they train us, and they teach
us. They teach us And they give us
a glimpse of the holiness and a glimpse of the wrath, what
it could be. God said, I'm molding you, I'm
disciplining you, or I could just judge you. And the good thing is it's not
our choice, for God loves us and saves us and disciplines us. A strengthening,
a training, a molding. This training, this discipline,
do not despise the Lord's discipline. It is good because it is his.
So we should love and look forward to and pray for the discipline
of the Lord because it is the strength, the strength of our
faith, the strengthening of our faith. It is the training of
our righteousness in our lives. It is teaching us dependence.
We said this this morning is that if our government was always,
you know, as long as I've been voting, there's always been strife
and confusion. And you look back historically,
there's always been bipartisan or partisan fights and arguments
and things. There's always been economic
ups and downs. There's always been social ups and downs. If
our government can control that, why would we even look toward
God? So even the stress of our lives
is part of the discipline of God with his to his people. And yes, for the unbelievers,
it is part of a reflective current judgment. But that's another sermon. But this discipline, this training
comes in many forms, in many ways, and for many so-called
reasons. Primarily, it is a direct shadow
of God's holiness because it either comes to mold us or to
mash us a little bit. But even in our mashing, we're
being molded, you see? It's never punishment. It's never
punishment. It's never judgment. For the
judgment of God is not on this church. Discipline comes due to two things. As a direct consequence to our
disobedience. A direct consequence to our disobedience.
Or a direct calling to continue walking like Christ. So it either comes when we're
sinning or it comes when we're looking like the sun. Well, that doesn't help me at
all. See, it should help you because you were looking, some
of us were looking at discipline in the wrong light when we started
this morning. And going, man, I got to get,
how many of you have ever said this? Don't raise your hand. I got
to get my life together and start living better for the Lord or
I'm going to keep having these problems. You know what's crazy? You get your life better, you
start living better for the Lord, and your problems get worse. There is no prosperity except
the grace of God and the kingdom of God. So the discipline of the
Lord does come when we sin against Him. It does come when we're
rebellious. It does come when we're lazy. It does come to teach
us to work and walk closer in a relationship with Him, to actually
began to challenge and train ourselves to be disciplined in
certain areas of our faith. And sometimes it may feel like
punishment, but it is for us to learn repentance and holiness
and sanctification. And on the other side of that,
when we're walking with the Lord in lost step, it can bring the greatest suffering
in our lives. the greatest discipline that the Lord could ever bring
for us because he wants to mold us to a new level, shape us to
a more conformed picture of Christ. So, yes, it does come as a result
of sin, but it's not always that. It will come even when we're
walking to the best of our ability, which is not very good, but even
by the grace of God, when we're walking in righteousness. And God brings discipline to
those who sin as correction and to those who walk in obedience
as correction, as well as strength. Job, behold, blessed is the one
whom God reproves. Therefore, despise not the discipline
of the Almighty. What had Job done? Didn't God
himself with his own mouth say Job was a righteous man? And yet, God disciplined Job
for being righteous. See, we look at it and we need
to define it in the biblical sense. Discipline is corrective. It's to teach us, really, to
be greater worshipers. Be transformed, not cunning. And God's discipline is a transforming
agent. It is given so that We might
become more like Him, might become more dependent upon Him, might
become more aware of Him, might worship and adore Him. All of
these things. This discipline, this reproof.
Reproof is a corrective and a consequential discipline, but it's not judgment. If you do this, child... See,
we can understand this from the context of being parents, some
of us, or even children at one time. We used to always think
our parents were the meanest people that ever walked the face
of the earth. Did we not? In some regard, some
season of our lives? I don't know if I should share
this or not, but I'll... I don't know. You ever have your
kids tell you that they hate you? And a few days later, they
love you? Huh? Yeah. Grandkids. Why is
that? Because we don't like discipline.
We don't like being trained. Even when they haven't done anything
wrong, you say, you know, you should probably hold your fork
a different way. They don't cut with that knife like that. It's
dangerous. It bruises the ego of self-sufficiency. It stabs the pride of personal
adaptation. I know what I'm doing. I know. I know. I know. Don't tell me
what to do. The fool says, I know. The fool
despises instruction. So as we look at this, God is
disciplining his children so that he can mold us and it is
not judgment. Because Solomon says here, do
not be weary. You know, punishment is weary,
wearisome. Continual punishment. OK, you
know what? You're not doing what I want.
So you're going to be grounded to your 60. That's where it's at. What's
that going to teach? What's the purpose in it? It may be needed,
but what's the purpose in it? Do not retire. Do not give up. And I honestly think that we
should not pray for the discipline of the Lord to stop. Especially
in lieu of praying God will be done through it. Why would we
want to stop growing in our faith? Why would we desire to be out
of God's molding us into his holiness? Why? Why? Why? Why? Because it stinks, really.
It's not pleasant and it's not fun at times and life hurts and
the discipline of the Lord sometimes feels a little strenuous. But
we are not to grow weary because his disciplines His discipline
only comes at the strength of His grace. So the discipline of the Lord comes
at the strength of His grace and at the strength of His faithfulness.
So what should that mean for us? Honestly, friends, that is
the power of God. That is the gospel of which we
should not be ashamed. We should not be weary, but we
should boldly, with an expressible joy, worship His holiness. And
the discipline in our lives give us a picture of that holiness.
So we see a little change here in the Proverbs. We see an adoption
as sons. We see the picture of the gospel. We see discipline as sons, which
is the picture of the gospel. We see love as sons, which is
a picture of the gospel. And we see this instead of wrath. So we have two options. Discipline
or wrath. Which do you prefer? Well, the
good thing is, as we'll see in just a minute, is if you're a
child of God, there's no choice. For you get disciplined. Because
God disciplined those whom he loves. Friends, this is not some cheap
response of pity that God had on his people. This is not some
cheap pity that God looks down and goes, Oh, I can't, I can't
take this. I've got to do something. God's righteousness is displayed
in his atonement, not pity, not the wringing of hands. How am
I going to save them? He created us that he might show
his righteousness. and his saving himself of people
for himself, and then judging those who are not faithfully
following him. So what difference does this
make for us? I mean, in our homes, at our jobs, with our government,
and also in our church. I mean, discipline for children.
Let's talk about that for a minute. How do we discipline our children?
Well, to discipline our children, and the word there is train our
children in the statutes of the Lord. Train! Mold! Encourage! Admonish, review,
reprove, train in righteousness, not anger. If a child gets angry
because of good training, then that's his problem. If a child
gets angry because you want to push him there, that's your problem. Our children are not ours, they're
stewards. We are stewards of these children.
They belong to God, and we are to display the gospel in training
our children. That means we don't punish our
children from the context of disciplining them as a punishment. We discipline them, and some
people will call it punishment, so that they might learn the
judgment of God and the grace of God. But they learn that all
in line with the holiness of God. This type of behavior will
put you in hell. This is what God must save you
from in order for you to be saved. This is the heart that you are
born with and only Christ can make it new. What about society? The death
penalty. Oh, we shouldn't murder. It's
not murder. The scripture says that God has given the government
the sword. He ordained them to kill in the
name of justice. If you want to look at how God's
law was established as far as what a capital crime was for
the people of Israel, we'd all be dead quickly. Talk back to an elder, you die.
Disobey your parents, you die. Steal something, you die. Blaspheme,
you die. Work on Sunday, you die. That
means make up your bed, you die. Why? Because it's violation of
the holiness of God. It's a picture of who God is. And God is just as holy in the
New Testament as He was in the Old Testament. As a matter of
fact, I would say God's wrath is harsher in the New Testament
than it ever was in the Old Testament. For the Old Testament, God is
a God of long-suffering and patience and endurance. The New Testament,
God poured all of His wrath on His Son so that His righteousness
might be displayed. for the saving of his people. What about our church? Joshua
Harris wrote a book a year before last or so called Stop Dating
the Church. One of the top ten things he says you ought to look
for in a church, number nine, is you ought to look for a church
that will kick you out of it. And if the church you're looking
at won't kick you out for living in sin, you shouldn't join it. Why? Because the Scripture commands
it. And as elders, and as brothers
and sisters, we have to follow the Scripture. I don't care what
tradition says. God's Word trumps tradition.
Thank God, God's Word trumps what we think is right. Turn to Hebrews chapter 12, in
our closing moments. I'm going to take this passage
of Scripture and show you the usage of it here in Hebrews. If I start in verse 2, I know
it's right in the middle of a sentence, but looking to Jesus. who is 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 God, of the throne of God. Verse three,
consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against
himself. You hear that? So that you may not grow weary
or faint hearted. It's the same language. Do not
be weary. 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? And he quotes Proverbs 3 right
here. 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, verse seven. 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,
that you are illegitimate children and not sons. It's not just we have had earthly
fathers who discipline 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 his holiness. For the moment, all discipline
seems painful, that light momentary affliction that Peter talks about,
rather than pleasant. But later it yields the peaceful
fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
So that's a picture of what discipline is. That's a picture of what
God is doing. And I've already preached that
text a few years back. But there's specific things I
want to remind you of, is that what we see is that the reason
for discipline is sin. I didn't say because you sin. Remember, there's two things.
You can be disciplined because of your sin and you can also
be disciplined because of your obedience. Discipline is the
training of the Lord, not the punishment of the Lord. But Jesus,
It says there in verse three, consider Christ looking to Jesus,
consider Christ who endured from sinners such hostility against
himself so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted. Christ bled by the hands of sinners. Now, let me ask you something.
Sometimes do you blame other people for the struggles in your
life? Of course we do. And what we see here is the reason
that sometimes we are disciplined, that we think, hey, these things
are bad, take it away. Even when it comes at the hand
of a sinner, it is of the Lord is what we see there. John 11, Caiaphas, it is better
that one man died than a whole nation. And John says, Caiaphas
did not speak these words of his own accord, but prophesied. unbeknownst to Him. So even when the evil people
or the wickedness of the world come in and begin to crash our
lives, it is by the hand of God for His children to realize that
God is molding them into people who look like His holiness and
who worship Him for His holiness. It is a cleansing. Peter says
it is the testing of our faith. Like gold, though it perishes,
though tested by fire, results in praise and glory and honor. And the outcome of our faith
is the preservation of our souls. It's righteousness who is Christ.
And so the reason that we have to deal with suffering and discipline
is because sin is in the world and God therefore must train
us even when we are his. Because God's rich mercy gives
us, listen to this word, the privilege of being trained in
righteousness. When we should receive wrath. See Romans 1, we ought to just
be turned over to our depraved and reprobate minds. But God in his rich mercy has
caused us to be born again to a living hope. Not an eternal
death. The second reason is sonship.
We see here in this text. Have you forgotten the exhortation
that addresses you as sons, going right back to Proverbs? Sonship. We are adopted as sons. Jesus
said in Revelation 3, those whom I love, I would prove and discipline,
so be zealous and repent. Discipline comes because we are
adopted by God. That is only possible through
the obedient life and atoning death and supernatural resurrection
of Jesus. But the most, the main point.
And the main last few points I want you to see is that the
reason is sovereign. It's sovereign. God is the author
of it all. Friends, I want you to take this
mindset that you have about who God is, and I want you just to
put it on the table for a moment, and I want you to hear the Word
of God, so that you might get a fresh perspective and a real
reality of who God is. God is not the person that you've
created Him to be in your social circles. God is not the person
that someone probably has taught you, if God is not this God.
For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves, therefore,
and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourself
with any swarming thing that crawls to the ground, for I am
the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be a
god. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. That is God. That's who he is. His holiness displays an intrinsic
worthiness. Without his holiness, he is nothing
but a maniacal being that just puts things on people that they
cannot achieve. And he commands something that
we cannot achieve, so he had to achieve it himself. And he took all the sins of the
church, all the iniquities of the people of God, and he put
them on he who knew no sin, and then he became sin, and the righteousness
of God died for the wickedness of the world. And now we have
a church to call that. And then even though we are still
sinners saved by grace and we fight the good fight, we still
struggle. And so we don't have a righteousness
of our own, but yet Christ's righteousness has been put on
us that we might stand justified before God. God prepares himself
a people And he teaches them to understand and to worship
him and to see his holiness through his discipline. Friends, when
you suffer at the hand of God, repent and believe in worship.
Thank him that he's not giving us wrath, but that he's molding
us and sanctifying us every moment of our lives. And if you aren't
going through that, these people who say, I have no burdens and
my life is great, I fear for their souls, for they are not
a child of God. Or they're lying, which is what
I usually think. He's watched too many self-help
videos. It's fine if he bangs his head against the wall when
I leave. Jesus took judgment so that we
could receive holiness. So we can be taught holiness
instead of being judged by holiness. I'd rather be taught holiness
than judged by it. The final reason is this. The
reason is solid. The reason is solid in that God's
holiness and glory is revealed through His church. We are molded
so that God's manifold wisdom is proclaimed for the shaping
of our lives on a continual basis. And one day, The discipline of
the Lord in the context that we know it will cease and we
will be made whole forever. Hallelujah. Discipline does not
call salvation. Discipline does not create justification. It points and prepares. It points
to it and prepares us for it. Discipline is the call of your
sons and daughters. It comes that we might behold
the holiness of God and that we might tremble before Him,
but at the same time, we don't shrink back because God has made
peace through the blood of the Lamb. But we are still in awe where
perfect love casts out fear. God has shed His own blood for
the sins of the church that He might display His righteousness
in forgiving us through the blood of Christ. We have not bled. in our resisting
sin, but God has. We have not bled in our resisting
sin, we have not bled in our discipline, but God has. Holiness
is the purpose of discipline, and it teaches us and those around
us the reality of the gospel, which begins with God holiness
and which ends with God's holiness. I'll look at it this way, I feel
like we're some cherished jam in the middle of God's graceful
sandwich. It's glory food. I know some
denominations that can take that and run with it. He is worthy. I mean, honestly. The sovereignty of God, the fact
that God created us for his own glory, he can do with us what
he pleases, especially the church who he bought with his own blood.
For what brush calls out a defiance against its owner to paint with
the brush desires? What clay jumps off the table in retreat,
for it doesn't want to become a pot at the potter's hand? What
instrument makes its own melody against the will of the master
musician? None of them. And so it is that none of the
children of God despise correction, and training, and holiness. It was Paul who said, for this
light and momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal
weight of glory beyond all comparison. And so, children of parents,
love the discipline of your parents, for it is of the Lord to teach
you God's holiness, to reflect the judgment that He will put
against sinfulness, that you might understand grace. Children of God, Love the discipline
of the Lord, for it teaches the same thing. In church, love the
discipline of the body, for it reflects the holiness of God. Why is it so difficult sometimes?
Because our little hearts, they become so deceived. What does God want you to see
out of all of this? I believe His holiness. Because some of us are still
stuck back on, how this good? Some of us are still stuck back
on, I just can't give God credit for that. I'm sorry. If your
God is that small, I pray He would reveal Himself to you in
a great way. Because either God is the Sovereign,
or He's nothing. He either is the Savior or he's
nothing. He either is holy or he's nothing.
And my prayer for you, if nothing else, that you would become a
deep worshiper, a worshiper of the true God, the one who can
cast both body and soul into hell, but in his great mercy
has caused us to be born again through the blood of Jesus Christ. Repent and believe in Jesus today.
Respond. Trust. Hope. Fall. Whatever it is, whatever
word you want to call it, believe in Christ. Trust in Him. For He is your only hope. Let's
pray. Father, I pray that as we conclude our
service today, Lord, You would continue to work. I
know you're going to, you're working. God, we thank you. Let
me just thank you for what you're doing, for you are working your
purpose out in the lives of everyone here. Father, you're even working
in my inabilities. You're working in our distractions.
You're working in anything. Father, you're working out for
good. You're working your ultimate and eternal purpose. And so, God, as we understand
discipline a little bit clearer today, I pray that we would.
I pray that each of us would have a deeper intimacy with you,
a deeper understanding of your holiness, that we might come
before the word of God in a different manner from this point forward,
that we might worship with a different spirit and that we might understand
that all that we experience in this life as your children is
from your hand for our good. Help us to see our sin. Help
us to see if the consequences that we're feeling are because
of sin or help us to realize where you're growing us into
the likeness of your son because of our allegiance. Lord, help us to love each other.
To be intimate with each other. That we might know you more and
more. I want to be the people that
you call us to be. Help us to be your church, for
without you, without your glorious grace, there is no hope for us. We thank you in the name of Christ
our King for this. In Jesus name, Amen.