A Model for Discipline

Introduction

When we deal with parenting and the correction of our children, we can have no greater example than our God. Hebrews 12 is really an encouragement for us as children to endure hardship, trials in life like the men of faith from chapter 11. The theme starts in Hebrews 10:36 “For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.” Chapter 11 ushurs in a list of examples of men who fought their fight, endured their race and received the reward because of it. Chapter 12 begins with a set of exhortations to lay aside the weights and the sin that drags us down and to run with patience (another word for endurance) the race that God has laid out before us.

You see God is working in our lives to train us, mold us in holiness. If you remember any of the parenting messages so far you should start to see the correlation here because the main purpose of disciplining our children is to train them. The life you are living with all of its ups and downs, the hardships, trials and even the blessings where according to vs 1 set before us. God put them in our path.

We often struggle with what God is trying to accomplish in out lives. We don’t like the pain associated with being transformed into the image of Christ. Suffering is the most fertile ground for the growth of our souls because it tills up the hardened ground. Comfort, apathy, habit settle in over time. The ground of our lives lies fallow and we begin to settle for where we are spiritually. We don’t like change because change hurts. As so we are tempted to fight back or flee God’s work in our soul. Vs 5 gives us two wrong responses to the changes God is trying to accomplish in your life:

despise- to think lightly of or with contempt- we can sneer and get angry at what God is trying to do. This leads to rebellion and fighting God in our hearts.

faint- the other response is to lose heart, to quite, to give up because we are discouraged. If there is so much wrong with me, then what is the point I might as well stay like this. And so, we try to get out from under God’s plow in our lives.

God had brought a plow into the field of these Hebrew Christians and suffering in this case was God’s plan to correct them, train them, mold and develop them in holiness. The author challenges us to look to Jesus. Why? Because Jesus endured the cross, he shamed the shame as it says in Greek literally, and now He is receiving the reward- set down at the right hand of God. He faced the hostility of sinners against him, He bore the cross, He sufferred for you and me. Vs 2 calls him the author and finisher of our faith. This phrase can mean one of two things:

the beginner and the completer of our faith

the forerunner and the one who brings our faith to the end- The Greek word author can carry the idea of a forerunner and considering the context of running a race in this chapter, this is the likely meaning. Jesus set a pattern for us to follow in the way we endure suffering knowing we shall receive the reward if we endure.

I said all of that to get us into the context of God’s model for discipline. The author of Hebrews reminds us of how our Lord deals with us in correcting us. You may not like everything that the book of Proverbs has to say about disciplining your children, but God Himself sets an example for us to follow. Much of what you will hear tonight will just reinforce what I said last week from another angle. If you are still struggling to see how these messages apply to you because you are not a parent, see how God treats you as a child.

God corrects us because He loves us vs 6

Biblical discipline and spanking as we saw last week must be motivated by love. The author of Hebrews reminds us of our relationship with God. Sometimes when you are going through suffering it can be hard to remember that God loves you. vs 11 reminds us that no chastening for the present seems to be joyous but grievous. Suffering hurts. It hurts to be in pain. It hurts to have your heart wrecked by someone you love turn their back on you. It hurts to be hated. It hurts to be ignored and treated as if you don’t matter, to be overlooked. It hurts when God takes something away that has been precious too us. God’s discipline hurts and so we doubt God’s love.

Spanking our children sometimes hurts too. As parents, we don’t delight in causing them pain, but that pain is a necessary part of their training process. If God uses pain to train us in holiness, why wouldn’t we as parents think it appropriate that we should too?

But Vs 5 reminds us that God looks at us like we are His children. Isaiah 49:15 “Can a woman forget her sucking child, That she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, Yet will I not forget thee.” God’s chastening is not a sign that He has forgotten us; rather, it is a sign that He remembers us, is paying attention to our lives, loves us, and is working to mold us into something amazing.

Vs 6 reminds us that the Lord loves those who he chastens. And just to remind us of the pain that often comes with chastening, he says and scourgeth. This reminds us of the Proverbs 13:24 “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: But he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.”

How do you measure love?

Do they treat you kindly?

Do they speak to you?

Do they remember what you like and don’t like?

Do they want to spend time with you?

Do they notice when you are upset?

Do they do things for you or buy you little gifts to show you love?

All these things show love and can help us measure love. But the real test of love is how much do they want what is best for you. We can do all these things to show our kids we love them, but if we don’t seek what’s best for them, our love is selfish. God doesn’t bring suffering into our lives because it makes Him happy in some sadistic sort of way. God doesn’t chasten us because He just demands obedience and you aren’t respecting Him enough. God chastens us because He loves us and wants what is best for our lives.

God corrects us because we are His children vs 7-8

God corrects us secondly because we are his children. Vs 7 starts off with the words if ye endure chastening… The word if here could be translated as since. Chastening reveals that we are His children and enduring chastening is evidence that we are sons.

There is a special relationship between a Father and a son, a mother and her daughter, parents and their children. God only disciplines us because we matter to him. Not only does God love us, He values His relationship with us. He wants it to be as close as possible. I have used this illustration before, but lets say one of my children decides to become a punk rocker and everytime she sees me, she slams doors and says I hate you. This problem that exists in our relationship is keeping us from being close. Sin in our lives keeps us from being close to God. Not all suffering is because of sin. Sometimes God is trying to teach us lessons about Himself, but we don’t think of sin the way we should. A simple definition for sin that I used to use with children is anything I think, say or do that displeases God. Wrong attitudes are sin. Wrong words are sin. And obviously wrong actions are sin. God wants to work those sinful patterns of thinking, sinful habit and words out of our lives because they hurt the Father/Son relationship.

When it comes to parenting, if we value the relationship with our children like we should, we will want to remove the things that are hurting that relationship. If your kids are severely disrespectful towards you as a parent, you need to deal with that. If they are consistently lazy, you need to deal with that. Dealing with these problems shows that your children matter to you and have value. Leaving them to their own devices actually shows that you just don’t care.

This point also highlights the fact that God only disciplines His children. No one else has a right to spank my kids. That is my job. I don’t go around spanking your kids because God doesn’t spank those who are not his children. Other people’s kids don’t have that kind of relationship with me that my kids do. The main reason not to spank other people’s kids is because you don’t have that same love, value relationship that their parents do. We can get on to them when they misbehave, but no one can properly discipline them without that parental love relationship.

Hebrews says in vs 8 if you do not receive chastening, then you must not be a son. What kind of message are we really communicating to our children when we do not discipline and deal with problems in their behavior.

God corrects us for our profit vs 9-11

The third reason God corrects us if for our profit or benefit. Vs 9 begins with a description of our human parents. The fathers of our flesh corrected us and we respected them enough to start obeying them, but it seems when the father of Spirits corrects us, we don’t give Him the respect and obedience that He deserves. If we did, the result would be that we would live.

Vs 10 makes another contrast between our earthly parents and our heavenly Father. Our earthly parents sometimes discipline us for the wrong reason. The author here uses the words after their own pleasure. Sometimes parents spank because they are lashing out. They are reacting in anger to something the kids did. It makes them feel better to release this anger toward their child. The phrase carries more meaning than just that though. The word pleasure can also speak of what is logical to them. Our parents do what they think is right, but they sometimes make mistakes. No parent is perfect.

Children I want to plead with you to be merciful to your parents. Don’t rebel and turn away from your parents because they messed up some of the time. I am not excusing our mistakes, but none of us will ever be perfect parents. Can you show mercy to us? I guarantee when you are older and have children of your own, you will make mistakes too.

But God doesn’t discipline because it makes Him happy or because it satisfies His anger. God’s wrath is never a knee jerk reaction to our behavior. God also doesn’t struggle with not knowing the right thing to do with His children. He knows everything. As parents, we should model our parenting after God’s pattern of parenting. So if God doesn’t discipline for these reasons, why does He do it?

For our profit. God wants to develop in us good things. He wants to make us the best version of ourselves that we can be by becoming like Christ. He knows that a life lived in harmony with God brings the greatest satisfaction and joy. He is merely trying to get us to experience that benefit of walking with Him in obedience.

Vs 10-11 give us two benefits of God’s discipline:

that we might be partakers of his holiness- God wants to develop within us true holiness. Gal 4:19 “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,” God labors to see Christ formed in us. To see Christ live His life through us. Notice we are partakers- sharers in. It isn’t our holiness. It also says it is his holiness. Gal 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” God wants to develop in your and me Christlike character that comes through abiding in Christ.

the peaceable fruit of righteousness- A right relationship brings peace. There is turmoil when we are at odds with God. There is turmoil when our children are at odds with us. God disciplines us so that the relationship can be at peace.

Parenting is not about venting our frustrations, getting our kids to stop embarrassing us or causing them pain. Parenting is about helping our children to grow into the adults that God wants them to be. It is almost guaranteed that if we do not discipline them, they will not reach that goal on their own. God might bring someone else in who rescues their lives by inspiring them to walk with God, but we as a parent didn’t get them their. Do you want what is best for your children?

Conclusion

This message has been a little bit softer on the exhortation because my goal tonight is to inspire you to want to parent like God parents. Think back over your life and the lessons that God taught you. Where any of those associated with painful experiences? It is sometimes at those moments that we grow leaps and bounds. If it hadn’t been for those experiences would you have learned that lesson?

Now let’s apply that to parenting. What lessons do your kids need to learn that they won’t learn without an element of pain from spanking? Do you not want to see your kids learn those lessons? Granted it would be so much better if they would just learn it without the spanking, but how often do we learn our lessons without God’s chastening? Do we love them and value them enough to seek what is best in their lives?

I have already asked last week whether you are willing to submit your thinking about parenting to the authority of God or not, but I will reiterate it here tonight. Will you trust that God has modeled before us the best way to train your children in holiness?