Enduring Hardship As Discipline

Welcome Online & Visitors

OFFERING

Prayer Wall

Ladies Discipleship Group - Tuesday Nights at 8 pm online

Elim Conference - Just Saturday Nov. 7th, need people to sign up to bring breakfast foods.

Introduction

Alignment. When we hear that word, we tend to think of our cars. If your car is out of alignment, it means you are constantly pulling on your steering wheel in order to drive straight down the road.

When our cars out of alignment, we take them to the shop, but what do we do if our life is out of alignment? As in, we are not in alignment with God. How is that fixed? We are going to talk about that today.

What causes us to get out of alignment?

Sin

Bad Theology

Being Stiff-Necked

Those are real and very serious problems. They are addressed throughout Scripture. And the answer is almost always the same…repent. Repentance means to change your mind.

For instance, if you have bad theology, you need to change your mind. If you are in sin, you need to stop doing what you are doing, but in order to really do that, you have to change your mind on the way that you see that sin.

For many of us though, things aren’t that simple. We really love our sin or we are really attached to our bad theology or we don’t even see it as wrong. We have become deceived, our hearts have been hardened.

As we have been studying the book of Hebrews, we have noticed that some it talks about the deceitfulness of sin and the dangers of falling away from God.

Today we are going to look at Hebrews 12 and we are going to look at how God uses discipline (aka suffering) to get us into alignment with Him.

Main Text

Hebrews 12:3–17 NIV

Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.

Main Point - God Disciplines Us In Love To Make Us More Like Him

What Happens When We Get Out Of Alignment? We Are Disciplined!

In my house, with my kids, there are times they get out of alignment. It may be subtle, it may be wide open rebellion. But something happens and they have become disobedient to me, their father.

When this happens, I have to correct them. Sometimes we have talks, sometimes there is a more stern correction involved, but either way, the point of this is that the child is brought back into alignment with me and Autumn.

In fact, the Bible tells us in Proverbs, that if you don’t discipline your children, you hate them. That’s a strong statement! God wants to change the way we see discipline today.

Last week we were encouraged, because of the gospel to lay aside every weight and sin that may hinder us from running our race. Looking to Jesus, who has ran this race before us and did so without sin. Even in the midst of hardships, suffering and persecution, Jesus did not cave to sin.

So, as you are looking to Jesus and you see that he endured his suffering from sinners, we too should endure our suffering as we struggle against sin, therefore…

I. Don’t Grow Weary Or Lose Heart

Do Not Despise (Or Grow Weary) Of God’s Discipline. In verse 5, we see that it’s easy to grow weary when we experience hardships. Why is that? Because in verse 4…

Sin Is Defined As A Struggle. Some people falsely teach that once you get saved, you will never sin again. Yet, the Bible tells us over and over again, we will struggle with sin.

The Greek defines this word for struggle to mean a strenuous effort against opposition. If you were to take this word apart, there’s a part of this word that has the understanding of fighting in a contest.

It’s like our battle with sin is a heavyweight boxing match and we need to put in some serious effort to beat this opponent.

It Must Be Resisted - The way we defeat this opponent is to resist sin. Stop doing it. We can only do that through the power of the Holy Spirit working in us and through us.

Romans 8:12–13 NLT

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.

We Must Kill Our Sins By The Power Of The Spirit.

Now, we need to remember all of this is written to Christians. We are only empowered to kill our sin once we have received the Holy Spirit. And this empowerment comes after we receive the grace and acceptance needed for the forgiveness of our sins. Keller puts it this way…

He gives you the grace and the acceptance before you can overcome your sin. You don’t overcome your sin in order to get the grace and acceptance.

Timothy Keller

But I also think this struggle against sin can mean that we are struggling against sins committed against us. This can cause you to lose heart, but God wants you to endure. So whether the suffering is a result of your own sin and God using that to help refine you. Also, I want to say, this discipline may not be a result of sin at all, but what we might call fruitful pruning. Either way…

Don’t Lose Heart When God Disciplines You. Don’t grow weary in this battle. Keep fighting the good fight. Keep casting of the weights and sins that hinder you and keep moving forward. Why?

II. God Disciplines The Ones He Loves

Our Discipline Comes From The Love Of God, Not The Wrath Of God. God is treating us as his children. Now the whole world is his children in one sense. We are all created in his image, but we are his sons and daughters specifically if we have been born again. Therefore God treats us as sons and daughters by disciplining us or chastening.

Chastening means flogging or scourging. These are not very happy words in our minds, but this should remind us of what the Proverb says. Proverbs 13:24

Proverbs 13:24 NIV

Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.

If God didn’t chasten or discipline us, the author of Hebrews says that would mean we are not his sons. God loves the ones he disciplines, but it doesn’t feel like love to us, most often.

The Greek Word For Discipline is Paidiea And It Means Education. It’s an education with a goal in mind. God educates us through our suffering. The goal is to bring us into alignment with Him.

This word is used often in the Scripture and its a full on discipleship word. You guys know how much I love discipleship. But the idea here is that God is discipling us into his image by using hard situations to transform us.

We say, “sorrow, disaster, calamity”; God says, “chastening,” and it sounds sweet to Him though it is a discord to our ears. Don’t faint when you are rebuked, and don’t despise the chastening of the Lord. - Oswald Chambers

Too often church people do not want this. We don’t like being corrected. We don’t ever want to be rebuked. We are always right. It’s even worse in small churches, because we have convinced ourselves that we know better than anyone else, which is why we go to a small church, so we can show that off.

Try and tell someone they have bad theology. They leave. Try to disciple someone and rebuke a sin in their life. They leave. We see this as punishment. We see all chastening as punishment.

We think because our life isn’t perfect, God must be punishing us. But…

This Isn’t Punishment. God doesn’t punish us for our sins. Jesus has already taken our punishment. It would be double jeopardy if we got punished again for what Jesus was punished for, but as it is, we are not being punished. We are being perfected (to use the language of Hebrews) and that perfection comes through discipline.

Instead, God will chasten us to produce in us the holiness that he desires. Punishment comes from the position of wrath, chastening comes from the position of love.

This is the point of our text today. Hardships in life are not punishment for your sin, but discipline with the purpose of making you holy.

III. Endure Hardship As Discipline

True Children Are Disciplined

If Earthly Fathers Disciplined Out Of Love, How Much More Does God Do It?

Not All Hardship Is Discipline. Some of our suffering comes from Satan. He afflicts us. He is still prowling around seeking whom he may devour. The enemy certainly seeks to destroy us.

Neither is it discipline if we bring it upon ourselves. If you make terrible choices and then you get the normal consequences, that’s mostly on you. If the sign says don’t swim sharks, and you jump in, don’t be surprised if you come out missing a limb.

But God can use it all to help us grow. Nothing is wasted.

Discipline Isn’t Pleasant, But It Produces Holiness in Us

Therefore Keep Running. Level paths for your feet are for running your race.

IV. The Goal Is Holiness

We Must Submit To His Discipline For It To Produce Life! (V.9) If we don’t submit, we are wasting the process. If we don’t submit, we will continue down the wrong path. If we do submit to Him, God through the power of the Holy Spirit will transform us more into the image of His Son. He makes us holy through suffering.

Titus 2:11–14 ESV

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

This is the goal. God’s grace is given to us to train us (instruct us) (paideia) to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures (NLT). It teaches us to live self-controlled (meaning you stop sinning), upright lives …why? Because Jesus died for us and redeems us from lawlessness, so he can purify us and turn us into a people who are zealous for good works.

Obstacles To Holiness:

Living A Quarrelsome Life. Make every effort to live in peace with everyone. To be holy, you must exhibit the fruit of peace in your life.

Lack Of Perseverance. What Happens If We Don’t Endure Hardships As Discipline? We may fall short of the grace of God and/or a root of bitterness will grow up in our hearts and defile those around us. Grace and forgiveness are key aspects of holiness.

Sexual Immorality - We must let God reign in our bodies. Sexual immorality is a sign that you aren’t doing that.

Godlessness - The sin of no faith. Esau only looked at today and forsook tomorrow. He didn’t have faith in God and sold his birthright for a bowl of soup.

Decision

Now, many of you are going through hard things today. I want to verbalize that. Here’s what I think this passage wants you to know. God loves you and whether it’s divine discipline or an attack of the enemy, God is with you and he will use these circumstances in your life to grow you in holiness, if you will let Him.

What should you do after reading a text like this? Make a decision today to endure the hardships you are going through as discipline from Father God, who loves you and wants the best for your life.

If you’d like prayer, I’d love to pray with you this morning as we sing.