Disciplined For My Discipline

Hebrews 12:1-13 (ESV)

12 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,

2 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.

3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

5 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.

6  For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7 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?

8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

9 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?

10 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.

11 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.

12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees,

13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.

(Disciplined For My Discipline)

***Talk about what it means to Eulogize someone*** (Start by defining to Eulogize an individual means to simply speak well of them. But you’re not speaking well of them because they died. You’re speaking well of them because they lived. There is a life lived between life and death. It is the very meaning of the dash on the tombstone between two dates. The dash may look insignificant but it really tells the story of your life.

Hebrews 12:1-13 (Message)

1–3  12 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!

4–11  In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed! So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children?

My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline,

but don’t be crushed by it either.

It’s the child he loves that he disciplines;

the child he embraces, he also corrects.

God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.

12–13  So don’t sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet! Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!

N.T Wright in his book: How God Became King, talks about in chapter three: The Missing Middle.

N.T. Wright quotes the Apostle’s Creed: “I believe… in Jesus Christ, God’s only son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit; born of the virgin Mary; Suffered under Pontius Pilate; Was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; On the third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father almighty; From thence he will judge the living and dead.”

In my Apologetics class, we call this, “The Grand Narrative of The Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

However, N. T. Wright, the great apologist, struggled with the lack of information that we have on the life in between Jesus’ birth and His death.

In other words, all this great information on his virgin birth and His death by crucifixion and still not enough information about the life Jesus lived in the middle.

I want to focus on this Resurrection Sunday, what happened in between Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ death.

I believe that while many of us are waiting to hear and many will scream “HE GOT UP” today. I think without FULL disclosure of what Jesus went through in the middle, we will never fully understand how praise God for His resurrection.

First of all, I want us to imagine us being in a court room and I want to call to the witness stand, The Great Cloud of witnesses. According to Dr. Tony Evans, Chapter 11 is a long chain of testimonies about what faith can do. Then the author says, Therefore, since we also have a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us…let us run with endurance. This large cloud of witnesses is that group of approved believers in heave who inspire believers on earth to live in agreement with their faith and accomplish God’s kingdom purpose in history.

It’s like parading a previous boxing champion through the ring before a title fight. He shakes the contestants hands and says, “I’ve been through this, and I testify that you can endure and emerge as a victor.” Clearly, the author of Hebrews wants his audience to lay aside every hinderance and the sin that so easily ensnares. Their spiritual immaturity and unwillingness to grow through living by faith had become an encumbrance.

An illustration of this is an Olympic sprinter strips off his warm-up gear to eliminate extra weight and wind resistance. Similarly, we need to jettison unbelief and anything in our lives that might trip us up spiritually and prevent us from running the race well all the way to the finish line.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary says:

12:1–2. The life of faith has been amply attested by this great cloud of Old Testament witnesses. (This does not mean that they watch believers today.) Hence believers ought to run with perseverance (hypomonēs; cf. 10:32, 36; 12:2–3, 7) the race marked out in their Christian lives, setting aside whatever hinders and the sin that so easily entangles (euperistaton, “ambushes or encircles”).

Their supreme Model for this continued to be Jesus, however admirable any Old Testament figure might be. He is both the Author and Perfecter of our faith. The word “author” (archēgon) was used in 2:10 (see comments there) and suggests that Jesus “pioneered” the path of faith Christians should follow. He also “perfected” the way of faith since He reached its end successfully.

All that I am saying right now is; we’ve got some intercessors and cheerleaders, who stands in the courtroom of God and declares victory in this life of faith. All they are really saying is “WE FINISHED!!!”

This also means, that because they achieved excellent living by faith, we also, have no excuses for not applying the scriptures that say, laying aside every weight and sin. Every desire that we have to resist and pretend that God doesn’t have the power to keep us if we want to be kept.

Isaiah 1:16-17 “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.”

My brothers and sisters, We are to “run with endurance the race that is set before us.” The Greek word translated “race” is agōn, from which we get our word agony. It signifies a wrestling match or race in which endurance and determination must overcome the aching desire to quit.

In a race such as the quarter mile, there are moments toward the end of the race when the body cries out to let up. Pain starts in the calf and works up through the hamstrings to the gluteus maximus. At times it is so intense it feels like a burning fire. Agony is the best way to describe it. A wrestler knows the same pain when struggling against a powerful opponent who seeks to crush him to the mat by sheer weight and relentless hold. It would be so easy to let up and let a fall be declared, but the champion heart fights through, waiting for that opportunistic moment of lost concentration or of a shifting of weight that allows an explosive hold-breaking surge. Paul describes his efforts to bring others to their full maturity as the agonizing of an athlete, but he said, “To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily” (Col. 1:29).

I don’t know about you, but I believe that if God could keep them back then, He can keep us right now.

I believe that God can give them victory back then, He can give us victory right now.

Our prayer today should be: Lord, resurrect a champions heart in me!

The key to victory is a simple decision to be disciplined. I this text, Jesus is our ultimate example of what it looks like to place yourself under super strong restrictions.

This simply means, I am resisting ME!

dis•ci•pline \ˈdi-sə-plən\ noun

1: punishment

2 obsolete: instruction

3: a field of study

4: training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character

5 a: control gained by enforcing obedience or order

b: orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior

c: self-control

The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Cross)

CROSS The instrument upon which execution by crucifixion took place.

Luke 9:23 “And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Crucifixion)

CRUCIFIXION (σταυρόω, stauroō, “put up posts”; cruci affigare, “bind to a cross”; תלה, tlh, “hang”; צלב, tslb, “hang”). A form of torture and execution in the ancient world that involved fixing a person to a wooden post or tree using ropes or nails; used in the execution of Jesus.

Galatians 2:20-21 (Message)

Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

Some of you might be asking yourself the question right now:

How did Jesus Do it?

He kept His eye on the joy set before Him, the “joy” alluded to in 1:9 wherein He obtained an eternal throne. The believers’ share in that joy must also be kept in view. After enduring the cross and scorning its shame, Jesus assumed that triumphant position at the right hand of the throne of God (cf. 1:3; 8:1; 10:12) which presages His and the believers’ final victory (cf. 1:13–14).

Watch This: This is what we need to understand. Starting in verse 3, We actually see the faith of a disciplined finisher.

Here’s what I heard the Lord say: “Because I was disciplined, that’s why I discipline.”

2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Look at your neighbor and say: Before you give up on God, Let me give you verse 3:

3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

For the Christian disciple there is only one way to run this race successfully and that is to look to Jesus, whom our author describes first as “author” (archēgon) and then as “finisher” (teleiōtēn) of our faith. Archēgos can mean founder, leader, or pioneer, a prince or ruler. The meaning here is that of founder, the first, even the designer of this race. As a leader or pioneer, Jesus is meant to be followed. He is not the one and only, but the first of many. He has set the course and we are to follow hard after Him. He is also the first one to finish the race, the perfecter in terms of having completed it. The word teleiōtēs is used nowhere else in the New Testament, the LXX, or the classical writers. Again, is our author coining a usage? If so, it is one more indication of this creative and facile mind, which we made mention of in the Introduction. Jesus not only designed the race, but He was the first to complete it and break the tape. As pioneer Jesus set a number of firsts; He designed several facets of the race He has called us to run.

First, Jesus set the pattern of identifying with those in need. This was made clear by our author in chapter 2 in which he thrusts the great Creator and Eternal One down into the stream of a suffering and soiled humanity. Jesus walked among the sinful, the sick, and the excluded, forever setting the example for His followers.

Second, He claimed that His own life was the essential base for life itself. The Father had given Him life, and now He had the authority to give it to whomever He willed (John 4:13–14; 5:26–27; see also p. 16). He described Himself as the Vine and the believer as the branch. There was no way the branch could live or bear fruit except by abiding in the Vine (John 15:1–8). The only way we as disciples can hope to run and complete that race is to abide in the Vine even as Christ abided in His Father.

Third, Jesus set the pattern for our race by accepting social outcasts and ministering to them without being repulsed by their outward behavior. He did not consider them untouchable or unclean but rather persons whose inward needs had to be met before they could ever change their outward behavior patterns (Luke 7:36–50; John 4:1–30). If we are to be His disciples, we too must be more sensitive to the inward needs of those whose behavior is considered bizarre, wrong, or repulsive by society. If we constantly turn away, there is little hope that any of these will ever find the redemption of the lifegiving Christ.

Fourth, Jesus set a difficult portion of the race, that of loving one’s enemies. In this He pioneered a whole new form of patient construction. He knew that love was often necessary to break down the patterns of hostility that had grown up over a long period of time, whether between two parties or as a result of their heritage passed on to them. Patience over a long period of time, laying the foundations of loving deeds, made possible the recall of some lost sinners.

The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Chapter 12)

In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed! So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children?My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline, but don’t be crushed by it either.It’s the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects.God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.

12–13  So don’t sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet! Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!