Enduring As Children of God pt. 2

Introduction

Being a Father is one of the greatest joys of my life. It is also one of the biggest challenges. The challenge on the surface is not due to my girls being difficult to manage but due to the world being a difficult place to navigate.

The world is full of uncertainty and the trials can be overwhelming at times. And as a protective dad I have this desire to want to spare my kids hardships in life. I want to see them protected.

Seeing them grow up and assert themselves in the world just tares at all those fatherly instincts to be there along side of them but it is simply just not reality.

Being a human father has its limitations. And every Christian parent has to come to the place where we have to relinquish our parental authority and trust them into the sovereign hands of God. He is the One who has had them all along.

As parents we just exercised stewardship over those God entrusted to us. Fathers are in a sense an illustration put in place for God to teach us something about Himself and the reality of Spiritual discipline in our lives.

And this is a spiritual discipline that we are to endure as true children of God. God is treating us as His children when He disciplines us. If you are never disciplined by the Lord you are not truly His child. Discipline affirms the true reality that we are His. He is transforming us to reflect the glory of Christ in our lives.

Earthly fathers should be doing the same thing with their kids but this text before us is not here to tell us how to be better earthly fathers. It is here to shape our understanding of spiritual discipline as Christians in the world.

It is here to awaken us to the reality that God as our spiritual Father is busy and seriously working transformation in us through the things that we suffer through in the world.

Hebrews 12:9-11 makes this point, first by laying out a contrast. Look back at your text to verses 9-10a :

I. The Contrast (9-10a). 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,

The contrast is between our earthly fathers and our spiritual Father and the first aspect that the contrast reveals is dealing with concept of respect.

We were respectively obedient to our earthly fathers when they disciplined us. Remember when we were under their authority? For some it has been a long time.

This word “disciplined” here is denoting the idea of instructing or teaching. This is a constructive dynamic that is going on. It is not punishment to inflict pain or harm for no purpose.

Hebrews is just making the point that we were subject to fathers who were of flesh and blood but yet we respected them.

The logic then begs the question of our how much more then are we to be respectively submissive to our spiritual Father, the very God who gave us life and created us for His purposes.

Kind of interesting that there are parents out there who stress obedience in their own homes towards their rule but personally before God are not concerned with their obedience towards Him.

Parenting is a living parable that is to metaphorically direct us and instruct us to living before our spiritual counterpart. But the contrast is not only there to make the point of God’s superior role as our spiritual Father.

The contrast also makes a distinction between our earthly fathers and our spiritual Father as we see in the first part of verse 10.

Earthly fathers discipline for a short time in ways that seem best to them. Fathers are fallen people with limited abilities and understanding. So often they can blow it and make mistakes.

Most of us can remember negative things about our fathers and some earthly fathers were very abusive. Earthly fathers can be like that.

You may see those failures in earthly fathers and it is definitely a humbling thing now as a father yourself, make the same mistakes.

Truth is, our fathers were all fallen men who were incapable of living up to the character of God perfectly. The best any parent could ever do is to reflect that character to some degree. And some do it more than others.

But the contrast here makes a distinction between our earthly fathers and our spiritual Father. Our spiritual Father disciplines us for our ultimate good. Our spiritual Father has a certain objective in mind.

Earthly fathers may have various things in mind when they discipline. Some may be noble and some may not be. Earthly fathers may discipline out of their own relative and pragmatic motives depending on the situation at the moment. (Why? Because I said so, that’s why)

But our spiritual Father has our ultimate good as His objective. We see it at the end of verse 10. He doesn’t discipline us out of the whims of a fallen nature like earthly fathers can. He disciplines us for our good.

Have you ever heard your Dad say that? “I am doing this for your own good?” I was told that at times but I am not sure I believed it at the moment when the discipline was being carried out. But the good is defined here in Hebrews in verses 10-11 and how it makes a contribution to us. Look back at your text.

II. The Contribution (10b-11). 10b 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.

Here in verse 10 we are told what the good is: “that we may share His holiness”. God desires us to share His holiness as a reflection of His glory in us while we live in the world.

This is what God considers to be “good” in our lives. That our lives are reflective of His holiness in how we live out the Christian life in the world.

He is not leaving us to our own relative standards of what we call “good” but He is working in us that which He calls good. And He is sanctifying us by challenging the relative perceptions that we embrace as “good” for ourselves. We live too often like we know better than God does.

Because what we think is good is whatever it is that makes us comfortable and contributes to our own affirmation. This idea is counter-productive to our sanctification and to our embracing discipline as a benefit to the Christian life.

But our spiritual Father knows that producing holiness in us is that which is for our ultimate “good”. And if He is disciplining us to this end and we know that to be true then we can see how discipline in our lives is an expression of His fatherly love towards us.

We don’t usually like discipline because it interrupts our sense of comfort and the smooth tranquil flow of life. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.

The term painful here is referring to pain of mind or spirit. It is the idea of affliction or grief (BAGD). This is not necessarily emphasizing the physical aspect of pain. Though physical pain can illustrate the mental or spiritual aspect of pain.

I was on a fishing trip last week and we were going across the lake fairly fast in the bass boat. The water was relatively smooth until we hit some waves from another boat and the boat began to bounce fairly hard.

While that happened one of the rods with a hook tied to it stuck in my leg and immediately I knew this was not good because the bouncing was creating excruciating pain in my leg. Needless to say it got my attention.

Waves can come and so can a hook to the leg in the figurative sense but God is using such difficulty in life to teach and to train us in holiness that we may reflect His glory in the world.

And this contributes to the well being of our lives too. It yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Discipline conditions us in righteousness and holiness in order to produce the fruit of peace.

What is the “peaceful fruit of righteousness” that Hebrews is referring to?

When you look at the terms being used in this context you can see that Hebrews is referring to the peace that comes from living in communion with God as our spiritual Father and in fulfillment with His purpose for us in the world.

This is what the gospel works in us. We are justified in Christ positionally by faith alone. And if that is true, sanctification in holiness is not optional but it will be the by product of our justification.

Our spiritual Father works it in us through discipline and the presence of that discipline in our lives affirms that we are His children.

Christian we need not descend into despair when we hit the waves in our life. Nor do we need to think that God has forsaken us when we get a hook in the leg because of those waves.

Maybe the mental and spiritual pain that you are experiencing is due to the actual physical complications of your body. Or maybe it is in the form of the material needs that you have in life.

Or maybe it is because of the cultural issues that we see in our society today when we look at the news. And we experience fear because we think things are out of control in the world.

Some may even say that since today is Father’s Day pastor maybe we could talk about how Father’s have failed in the world. Certainly there are points about that that we could talk about.

Christian I think all the problems in the world are ultimately a Fatherhood problem. But the problem is not with the Father, meaning our spiritual Father. The problem is the children who are in rebellion against the Father’s will and who attempt to skirt the discipline of our spiritual Father.

Even in the Church the idea of discipline in order to work His sanctifying grace in us is something that is frowned on because it is perceived as being negative. The pursuit of holiness in our lives means that we will have to leave certain behaviors and pleasures behind that God calls sinful.

We prefer a Christianity that doesn’t call us to holiness because it is far more comfortable to the way we live. And too often when God is disciplining us we prefer not to see it as discipline but just one of those bad things that happens in a fallen world.

Certainly that can be true but when the trial comes and the Holy Spirit convicts you Christian don’t disregard what your spiritual Father is trying to get you to see through the events going on in your life.

If your spiritual Father is giving you a wake-up call don’t hit the snooze button and go back to sleep. He will go to whatever means He needs to get you out of your slumber. Wake up!

Do not disregard it. It is without a doubt His discipline towards you as His covenant child. Often people talk to me about these types of events when they happen in their lives. I usually tell them to learn what it is that God is trying to teach you.

Sort of like school. If you fail to learn the material you will be taking the class again next semester.

Conclusion:

Christian in that discipline God undergirds us in His ongoing provision of grace revealed in the gospel. Discipline may bring us to the awareness of our need for change but the gospel reminds us of the basis by which we are accepted by Him. (Trapeze in a circus with a net)

We confess our sin and turn from it and know that He is faithful to forgive us of all our unrighteousness as He sanctifies holiness in us.

As a true believer in Christ the gospel being preached is not making the attempt to re-justify you. The gospel being preached is sanctifying you in the light of the gospel.

The gospel is putting the holiness of God on display calling us to the end of our sin and into the arms of our spiritual Father and His discipline.

Unbeliever the gospel is always being preached calling you to repentance from the pursuit of sin to faith in Christ for your justification. Believe the gospel.

Lets Pray!