Faith's Discipline, Part 2

David Bible, Hebrews chapter 12, verses 4 to 11, "Faith's Discipline." Let me read it for you, set it in your mind, and then that will be our topic of discussion this morning.

Hebrews chapter 12, verse number 4, says, "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood and you're striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons: 'My son, do not forsake or do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.'

It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seen best to them, but he disciplines us for our good so that we may share his holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."

Faith's discipline. Why is this here? It's here because as the writer of Hebrews is addressing his audience, he wants him to understand the nature of their God. He is a God who disciplines his children. Nine times in eight verses, the word "discipline" is used. It's all about the Father's discipline of his sons. Very important.

Why this? Well, remember back in Hebrews chapter 10, as he addresses them, he says in verse 32, "But remember the former days when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who are so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward, for you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not those who shrink back to destruction, but are those who have faith to the preserving of the soul."

So it concludes chapter 10 by talking to them about their sufferings, the hardships that they went through because they converted to Christianity. Therefore, they were kicked out of the synagogue, and some of them were kicked out of their families, and they suffered reproach for the name of Christ. And so he goes into chapter 11 to talk to them about faith and faith's endurance, faith's patience, and he goes through a whole litany of people that live by faith because he wants them to see that faith is something that is lived out every day in your life.

And when he comes in chapter 12, he talks about running their race with endurance. How? By investigation - by looking at this great cloud of witnesses that have surrounded us, Hebrews chapter 11, and all these men and women that ran the race in faith. There's an investigation, and then there's a fixation - you fix your eyes upon Jesus, right? Then there's a consideration - consider him, consider his person, consider his position, consider all that he is, because you want to run the race effectively. But he also wants them to know that in that running, there's discipline, discipline that comes in a variety of ways.

And so he begins by saying in Hebrews chapter 12, "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. None of you have shed any blood yet." People, he was 11 - they did. Others have, but you haven't. "But you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons." You have forgotten something. You have forgotten what Solomon said in Proverbs 3:11 and 12. And you can't afford to forget what he says because it adds to all that's going on in your life right now. It interprets what's happening in your life when you go through hardship, pain, suffering, adversity, affliction - you name it - because there's a Father who disciplines his children, and we told you last week there were three ways that happens.

Remember that? The first way was correctional discipline - that when you sin, God corrects you. You're disciplined because you've sinned. David and Bathsheba - perfect example, right? Ananias and Sapphira - there's a good example. They were disciplined to the point they died in church because they lied to the Spirit of God, Acts chapter 5. First Corinthians 11, Paul says, "Many of you are weak and sick, and some have even died because you eat and drink of the cup in an unworthy manner." That is correctional discipline. That's what God does when you step out of line and you sin against him, and God has to bring you back. He corrects you. It's called correctional discipline.

And then we told you there's preventional discipline, where God prevents you from sinning in some capacity. Perfect example: the Apostle Paul. Remember that? Second Corinthians chapter 12 - that God had given him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, so that he could not and would not exalt himself. He was suffering so that he wouldn't become prideful. He knows that. And so sometimes suffering comes our way, affliction comes our way, the discipline of the Lord comes our way for preventional purposes. It prevents us from engaging in some kind of sinful behavior.

And so God allows the affliction, God allows the loss, God allows the rejection to prevent you from falling into deeper sin. Perfect example: when husband, young men and young women are dating and once anticipating marriage, and then all of a sudden the other one backed out of the marriage. That's preventional discipline. There's pain there, there's loss there, but maybe God was preventing something disastrous from happening if you marry this individual down the road. We need to accept preventional discipline a lot more willingly and a lot more joyfully than we do, because God is stopping you, hindering you from engaging in some kind of sinful behavior.

And then we went to the third one, and the third one was instructional discipline, where God is instructing us in the ways of God, instructing us in the Word of God, right? The example is Job. We're studying Job on Wednesday nights. And we told you Job 42 - that Job learned things about God he never knew before. And so part of Job's suffering was all instructional. It wasn't correctional - he hadn't sinned. It wasn't preventional to keep him from doing this or that, but it was instructional, that he might grow in his walk with the Lord. Remember that? Don't forget that. Last week, but let me add to that.

Because whether it's correctional, whether it's preventional, or whether it's instructional, listen carefully - it's all confirmational. It's all conformational. In other words, God is doing this to conform you to his image. There's a purpose behind what God's doing, and the purpose is this: he wants there to be an exact representation of the King so that you'll have an effective outreach for the kingdom of God. God is purposely behind doing all the things that he does. It's all conformational.

You know Romans chapter 8, right? Verse number 28: "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose." We know that. But listen to verse number 29. Very, very important. It says, "For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to his image." It's all been predetermined that you, as a child of God, would be conformed to his image. How is he going to do that? Through discipline. He wants to conform you to his image, his likeness.

We know that when we see him, we'll be like him, for we'll see him as he is. And we know that this conformation - there's two kinds of conformations. One is bodily, and one is spiritually. There's going to be a bodily conformation. First John 3:2, "When we see him, we'll be like him, for we'll see him as he is." Paul speaks about it in Philippians chapter 3, when he says this: "For our citizenship is in heaven" - verse number 20, I'm sorry, it's Philippians 3 - "from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory."

In other words, there's going to be a bodily conformation when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to take us home to be with him. But before that, there is a spiritual conformation that we are being conformed daily to the image of God. And so our Lord disciplines us correctionally, instructionally, or preventionally, that we might better represent him as our King.

And so the Bible says in Second Corinthians 3, verse number 18, "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit." In other words, we look into the perfect law of liberty, the mirror, the law of God, the truth of God, and as we do, the Spirit of God is transforming our lives. That's why the Word of God is so important to us, because the Word of God is a living word. It's not a dead word. It's an active word, not an inactive word. And so therefore, whatever we're reading is showing us the glory of Christ, and through the reading of the Word of God, through the study of the Word of God, we are being transformed from one glory to another level of glory to another level of glory, even as by the Spirit of God, that we might be conformed to the image of God, that we might learn to act and speak and work like the Christ and serve like the Christ. He's conforming us to his image.

If I told you last week that, you know, your life is like a coin, right? On one side is a sovereign side, and one side is a human side. And the human side is all about Scripture. The sovereign side is all about suffering. From the divine side, God causes us to suffer through discipline that we might be conformed to his image. On the human side, God uses the Scripture to conform us to his image. But because we tend to stray away from Scripture, not spend as much time in the Word, what does God do? He corrects that. He turns us around.

That's why Psalm 119 is so important when the psalmist says these words, Psalm 119, verse number 67: "Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word." What a verse! "Before I was afflicted" - they put the word "discipline" there - "before I was disciplined, I went astray. I did my own thing. I went where I wanted to go. I said what I wanted to say. I just lived my life as I wanted to live my life. Before I was disciplined, I went astray, but now I keep your word."

So the sovereign side of the coin says suffering, because God's going to discipline us in a unique and special way to drive us to the Word of God, because he knows that from the human perspective, our time in the Word of God is going to transform our lives so we are conformed to his image. That's why we emphasize the Word of God so much in our church. That's why we teach it in our church, because that's the most important thing.

So God's going to do that. There are three passages of Scripture - one is Hebrews 12, but there are two other ones that explain this to us. Turn with me to John chapter 15 for a moment, John's Gospel, 15th chapter. Listen to what Jesus says. There are three passages of Scripture that you must understand when it comes to discipline, okay? And when you go through discipline, when you go through suffering, when you go through adversity, because that's the tools that God uses, you have to ask yourself: is this correctional, preventional, or instructional? Because the end result is conformational, that we might be conformed to the image of the living God.

So Christ says these words: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit." God wants you to bear more fruit, so every vine that's a part of the tree is pruned. Pruning is the cutting away of the extras. You know, God is actively pruning away all those extra things in your life that are keeping you from becoming like him. He might remove someone in a relationship. He might remove you from your job. He might remove you from your love for material things. He might remove all these extra things that keep you from being conformed to his image. It's the pruning process, and Christ wants his men to understand this, that they would come to grips with what God the Father is doing.

The pruning process is the cleansing process. That's why he goes on to say in verse number 3, "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you." So you're cleansed, but there needs to be more cleansing. You're clean, but there needs to be a continual pruning of your life so that you bear more fruit. He goes on to say down at verse number 5, "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples." He doesn't want you just to bear a little bit of fruit. He wants you to bear more fruit.

So how is he going to get you to bear more fruit? By cutting away all those things that you're holding on to in place of him, removing them from your life. Whether it be persecution, slander, loss, rejection, isolation, physical pain, whatever it may be, God is taking away everything so that you are solely fixated on him. He wants to drive you back to the Word. "Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word." See, affliction drives us to the Word. By the way, the unbeliever is not - he's driven away from the Word, but the believer is driven to the Word because he wants to keep it.

God ordains trouble to purge us from those things that draw us from producing more fruit. In Galatians 5, it talks about the fruit of the Spirit and the joy and the peace and the love that's to emanate from our lives every single day. If that's not evident, God begins the pruning process. That would be correctional discipline. It could be instructional discipline, but he wants to move you closer to him.

Let's note what Charles Spurgeon said about this verse. He said, "It is the Word that prunes the Christian. It is the truth that purges him. The Scripture, made living and powerful by the Holy Spirit, effectually cleanses the Christian. Affliction is the handle of the knife. Affliction is the grindstone that sharpens the Word. Affliction is the dresser that removes our soft garments and lays bare the diseased flesh so that the surgeon's knife may get at it. Affliction merely makes us ready to feel the Word, but the true pruner is the Word in the hand of the great vine dresser."

God's at work. If you need to understand that what's happening in your life right now, God is working in your life. Always beware, because we always say, "I hope I don't have to go through that. I hope I don't have to face that." It should - you should be saying, "Boy, I am so glad they're facing this. I hope that one day I face that." Why? Because that means you're a son of the living God. He disciplines his sons. We are always afraid to be disciplined. Listen, your children don't like discipline, right? Your children don't want to be spanked, right? But what happens after that? A conformation to living a life that truly represents the Christ.

No discipline is ever joyful, right? Hebrews says it's painful. The pruning process is painful. So John 15, okay? John 15 is simply a unique illustration of the vine dresser, okay? So the vine dresser has a process. That process is pruning. The product is always production - more production, producing more fruit, because that's where he's going. And so you need to remember that.

So go from the illustration of the vine dresser who prunes you to another illustration of the refiner or the metal worker who proves you. One prunes, one proves. The product of the pruning is more production. The product of the proving is purification.

So turn to James chapter 1. James chapter 1, this is the second verse. It's about the metal worker, the refiner. James chapter 1, verse 2: "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." Let endurance prove you, right? So there's the testing of your faith. Maybe the King James says the proving of your faith. The proving of your faith produces endurance.

So here's the point: what happens? There's a proving process. I've shared with you this illustration before because its historical background is in the metal worker who takes a big chunk of gold ore and throws it into the melting pot and turns up the melting pot so that it begins to melt the gold. As it does, all the dross rises to the top. He takes a big old spatula and removes the dross, throws it away, and then turns up the heat some more. And then more dross comes to the top. He takes a spatula, removes the dross, throws it away, and then he looks over into the pot to see if he can see his face reflected in the gold. Once he sees his face clearly reflected in the gold, he turns off the heat. But if he didn't see it clearly reflected, he just turns it up all the more so more dross rises to the top.

That's called the proving process, the testing process. That's what God does in our lives. He wants to produce in us a pure and holy life, a clean life, so that we can live for him. That's the discipline process that God uses.

And then there's a third one - that's Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12 deals with the parental discipline, right? In John 15, it's the vine dresser. In James 1, it's the metal worker. And in Hebrews 12, it's the father who disciplines. And why does he do that? Because he wants us to truly bear his name. He wants us to perfectly look like him, and he'll stop at nothing to do that. Why? Simply because there is an exact representation of the King that needs to take place so there'd be an effective representative of his kingdom. We are children of the kingdom of God, and God wants us to be effective in representing him, no matter what.

You see, God stops at nothing to make you more like him, so you need to understand that. But the writer of Hebrews says very clearly, "You have forgotten something. You have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons: 'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him, for those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.'" In other words, you have forgotten this, and you can't afford to forget it.

So my challenge to you is you can't forget God's discipline in your life. It's correctional, it's preventional, it's instructional, all for the purpose of being conformational. But note this: it goes beyond that. God tests us, God proves us, God prunes us, God does all this work so that we'll live a life that is anticipational. Yes, it is a word, in case you're wondering. I know I use words sometimes that are not in the dictionary. I use words that should be in the dictionary. But the word "anticipational" is in the dictionary. It's living in anticipation of the coming King.

You know that when God disciplines you, it's for anticipational purposes. In other words, he wants you to live a life longing for his return. Illustration: John on the island of Patmos, that rock in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea where prisoners were exiled to. John was all alone. He was exiled, and he received a vision - many visions of heaven. He writes down the book of Revelation so we're able to understand his vision, and through all that, the Lord says that he was coming. And every letter that he writes to the seven churches that are in turmoil, that are suffering, he wants them to live in anticipation of the coming King, that the King is going to come.

So when the Lord says, "I come quickly," John says, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus," as he's being persecuted for his faith, as he is rejected by all because of his faith, as he lives in isolation on the island of Patmos. He lives a life that is anticipational, anticipating the arrival of the King.

How do you know you're being more conformed to the image of God? You are more anticipating the coming of God. If you're not living today looking for tomorrow, the King's coming, then there's a lot more conformation that needs to take place in your life, because believers were driven to live expectantly, expecting the return of the King.

So the Lord knows whether or not you're living in anticipation of his kingdom coming, and if you're not, maybe you need an instructional discipline. Maybe you need correctional discipline so you realize, "I need to be looking for the arrival of the King," where Paul says in Second Corinthians chapter 4, "Therefore we do not lose heart." We don't lose heart. Here he says earlier, "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh." We are constantly being given over to affliction. Why? So our lives will be conformed to the image of God so others will see God in us.

So he says in verse 16, "Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

He lived a life anticipating the coming of the King. Why? Because he went through so many hardships. How many times was he shipwrecked? How many times was he beaten? How many times was he snake-bitten? How many times was he rejected? How many times did he go through imprisonment? It moved him to anticipate the coming of the King.

You see, we should live lives by looking at what happens to us, whether it be emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, relational, social, economical, financial - you name it. God's at work. God's at work. God's doing something. God's doing something in my life. He's trying to conform me to his image so I might learn to anticipate his coming more and more and more. Take a look at it.

So he says this: "You have forgotten something very, very important. The exhortation," he says, "which is addressed to you as sons." What an important statement.

The intention of discipline - the intention of discipline is correctional, preventional, instructional, so there will be a conformational product that's evident in your life so you live a life that's anticipating the coming of the King. But there's the caution - that's point number two. The intention is point number one. The caution is point number two. He says in verse number 5, "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him."

Here's the caution: when you're being disciplined through affliction, through suffering, through pain, through loss, whatever it may be, there are two responses - two responses that are negative responses. Number one is to treat discipline with disdain, or treat discipline with despair. He says, "My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord," in other words, treat it lightly, as if it means nothing, because it does mean something.

How would you treat lightly? How would you live a life of disdain toward the discipline of the Lord? There are several reasons, several ways. One is through callousness, becoming hard-hearted. Your heart doesn't melt under the pressure. It doesn't melt under the heat, but you stand firm against it and resist God's conformational process in your life. You stand resilient against the pruning process. You fight against the proving process. You stand tall against the punishment process. Your heart becomes hard and calloused.

Another way is to complain - complain about what's happening to you, gripe, mumble, groan because of the pain itself, the length of the pain, the time of the pain. But you begin to grumble and complain, moan and groan. As Paul says in Philippians chapter 2, "How do you prove yourselves as light in the world? You don't complain. You don't grumble. You don't moan." That's what the unbeliever does.

So we treat discipline lightly. We treat it with disdain when we become calloused toward what God is doing. We begin to complain about what God's doing, or we begin to question what God's doing: "Why, Lord? Why me? Why not them? Why at this time? Why not at another time?" Or just carelessness - we don't care about being conformed to his image. We don't care about maturity. We don't care about spiritual growth. We don't care about any of that stuff.

"Don't regard lightly, don't disdain the discipline of the Lord. Nor faint, nor treat it with dismay or despair when it comes." Some people collapse. They break under the pressure. Don't do that. He says why? Because God is at work. Why are you in despair, O my soul? Again, in verse 11, "Why are you in despair, O my soul?" First, verse 5 of chapter 43, "Why are you in despair, O my soul?" You can't say the same thing over and over again. "How can I possibly be in despair, and why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, for he is the help of my countenance." "Why are you in despair, my soul, and why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God." You've lost trust. You've lost hope.

The writer he says, "Listen, you should remember this. You should know this. You're Hebrew people. You're Jews. You're raised in the synagogue. You're masters of the Old Testament. You love the Torah. Everything about your life is centered on what God's Word says, and you have forgotten a very important part of what God's Word says in Proverbs 3:11 and 12. And if you forget that, you're going to treat lightly the discipline of the Lord. You're going to faint when it comes. You're going to break under the pressure. You're going to collapse."

Because it says, "For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and scourges every one of his sons." God does this. God's at work. He said, "I want you to remember God's at work in your life, no matter how hard the fight, no matter how long the race, no matter how intense the pain. God is at work. Let him have his work in you, for God is at work both to will and to do of his good pleasure, right? Let him work. Sit back and say, 'Lord, thank you.'"

Would it be at this Thanksgiving season, we live a life of praise to God for how he disciplines us, thanking him, Lord, for his discipline, thanking him for how he is conforming us to his image, that we might better anticipate the coming of the Messiah.

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for today. You are a great God, and you alone are worthy of praise. Right now, you're at work in everybody's heart in this room. For some, you're at work in a disciplinary process that's driving them back to the Word, that they might grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. May we not resist that. May we not treat it lightly. Let us not faint under the pressure that comes our way. Let us rise up and stand firm and thank you for what you're doing, giving praise to God for his conformational work in our lives, that we might better represent you, Lord. Thank you for your work in us and through us. May we live for your glory until you come again, as you most surely will, in Jesus' name. Amen.