Faith's Discipline, Part 3

Take your Bible, please and turn it with me to Hebrews chapter 12 Hebrews chapter 12 verses 4 to 11

This is our third week on faiths discipline as You're turning. I want to share with you and bring Wednesday night this past Wednesday night together with Sunday morning And I like how the Lord does those things in unique and special ways So if you can remember this phrase The accuracy of your memory Will always determine the efficiency of your ministry the accuracy of your memory will always determine the efficiency of your ministry When we talk about your ministry, we talk about your service for the King The sphere of influence in which God has called you to live out your spiritual existence in your family in your church in your workplace in your neighborhood that's your ministry and the accuracy of your memory will always determine the efficiency and the Efficacy of that ministry You must always Remember what God? has done You must always remember who God is And so on Wednesday night, we talked to you about how to remember what the works of God the ways of God the words of God and the wonders of God the Bible says very clearly these words in Psalm 77 verse number 11. I will remember the works of the Lord The question is do you? Remembering the works of God, how about how about the ways of God Deuteronomy 8 verses verses 1 and 2 Remember that the Lord your God has led you all this way And Then you remember the words of God John 15 verse number 20

Remember the word that I have spoken unto you Or even Acts 20 verse number 35

Remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ We got to remember the works of God remember the ways of God Remember the words of God and even the wonders of God for the psalmist says in Psalm 77 verse 11 surely I will remember your wonders of old Psalm 105 tells us remember God's wonders Why is that so important? Why is that just repeat itself over and over and over again? simply because Israel was prone to forget Just like you and me Israel was always prone to forget the works of God the ways of God the words of God and the wonders of God over in Psalm 106 verse number 6 The psalmist says we have sinned like our fathers We have committed iniquity we have behaved wickedly Wow, that's that's that's quite an admission But why is that our? fathers in Egypt did not understand your wonders They did not remember your abundant kindnesses But rebelled by the sea at the Red Sea If you don't remember You will rebel If you don't remember you will resist If you don't remember you will reject what God has said what God has done you must remember and So it says nevertheless God he saved them for the sake of his name that he might make known his power God saved them for his namesake not for Israel's sake But for his namesake just like he saved you Philippians 129 you believe on him for his namesake You suffer for him for his namesake Everything is about God's name But Israel forgot So it says in verse number 12 it says Then they believed his words

They sing his praises verse 13 Yet they quickly forgot His works they did not wait for his counsel, but craved intensely in the wilderness Not only did they not remember his wonders they did not remember his works and They rebelled in the wilderness Because they craved intensely the things that God did not have for them you ever done that You ever crave something so much that you want it so badly It doesn't make you there was what God has said or what God has done

You want it badly and So the next verse is the verse that my mother Quoted to me more than any other verse in the scriptures verse number 15 So he gave them their request but sent a wasting disease among them He gave them their desire But sent a leanness to their soul a barrenness to their soul You know Sometimes God gives you what you desire what you crave intensely just to show you how barren your soul will be How bleak your life truly is? How your life becomes a wasting disease? inwardly Because you craved intensely that which God did not want you to have Simply because They did not remember the wonders of God or the works of God So it says as you read on That when they became envious of Moses in the camp and of Aaron and the Holy One of the Lord The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan and engulfed the company of a Byram And a fire blazed up in their company the flame consumed the wicked They made a calf at Horeb and worshiped a molten image Thus they exchanged their glory for the image of an ox that eats grass Why they forgot God their Savior who had done great things in Egypt? Wonders in the land of Ham and awesome things by the Red Sea They forgot They just did not remember The accuracy of your memory will always determine the efficiency of your ministry If you do not remember what God has done, you will rebel against what God has said And you got to be very careful about that Now you ask why do you tell us this? Because in Hebrews chapter 12, there's a reminder That you need to remember Not the works of God not the words of God not the ways of God listen carefully Not the Word of God

Are you ready? but the whip of God The whip of God Look at it Hebrews 12 He says verse 5 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 whips every son whom he receives the word scourge Means to flog with the whip the right of Hebrews Has says you have forgotten The exhortation You have forgotten the words of God concerning the whip of God in your life

God disciplines his own We forget that That's why we we crumble under suffering we crunder crumble under hardship and adversity Because we have forgotten that the Lord God of Israel disciplines his own So he tells him in verse number four of Hebrews chapter 12 You have not suffered to the point where you are shedding your blood and that's because he has just talked about those in Hebrews 11 who sacrificed their lives and Were willing to shed their blood for the name of Christ because they lived the life of faith So in his exhortation to help them to live that life of faith of believing in what God has said He tells them there must be this investigation this fixation upon the Christ who has already run before you and Then says listen You have not yet shed any blood For your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but you have forgotten You have forgotten what the Bible says concerning discipline In the in nine times that phrase is used between verses 5 and verse number 11 Because he wants you to understand that God disciplines his own This is faith's discipline and So we told you there's an intention For discipline that intention you remember it is correctional Preventional or Instructional right You've sinned and God corrects you it's called correctional discipline Illustration was David and Bathsheba Preventional is that God prevents you from sinning So he allows adversity and difficulty and hardship and suffering to come your way because he wants to prevent you from suffering Illustration was the Apostle Paul when he was given a messenger from Satan a thorn in his side So that he would not exalt himself

He would not become prideful And God gave it to him to keep him humble and Then there's instructional discipline illustration was Joe and All because we read in Job chapter 42 how the Bible says that Job learned He learned what God was teaching him But he had to go through all that pain all that suffering all that loss To realize that God was instructing him Job about himself So he would learn him all the more And Job listen, he was upright He was God-fearing He was a man who loved the Lord he was blameless the Bible says right But on top of all that here was a man who needed to know more about the Lord So the Bible says these words Here now and I will speak I will ask you and you instruct me he was open for instruction The most blameless God-fearing upright man on the face of the earth From whom God said There was no one like him on the earth Still needed to be instructed in the ways of God And listen carefully

How do you know? You're learning from God

Listen carefully next verse. I Have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes have seen you therefore I Loathe myself Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes How do you know you're receiving instruction from the Lord You learn to loathe yourself That's a hard thing for us to understand In our self-absorbed society where everything is about us and We expect everything to come to us To say I must loathe myself. I must hate myself I must abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes Listen, if the most upright God-fearing blameless man on the face of the earth did it about us There is no greater Old Testament character than Job Who walked and talked with God He suffered immensely But he learned because of instructional discipline And we told you whether it's correctional preventional or instructional

It's always Conformational, right? It's going to conform you to the image of God

God has an intention to his discipline he's going to conform you to his image and that conformational discipline leads to an Anticipational discipline where you learn to anticipate the coming of Christ all the more John the John the Apostle on the island of Patmos come quickly Lord Jesus That's all the intention to discipline We talked about that over the last couple of weeks and then there was number two the caution in discipline This is a great caution here He says in verse number Six verse number five My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are reproved by him Listen, don't treat that discipline with disdain and don't treat that discipline with dismay or despair In other words don't disdain what God's doing not the discipline itself, but the results of what God wants to accomplish Don't disdain it don't treat it lightly

Don't become hardened Don't become callous Don't become careless don't just question God all the time and Certainly don't bow under the pressure and crumble under the pressure Why because God's at work doing something unique and special in your life

God is disciplining you to conform you to his image He wants you to look just like him speak like him act like him He wants you as a child of his to be just like him that's why we discipline our children We want them to behave properly So our father disciplines us So we will behave perfectly That's what God wants from us And so you have the intention to discipline you have the caution for discipline and then you come to verse number three the verification Of discipline, you know discipline proves something it verifies something And that's what the Bible tells us for six 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 What verifies? proves Discipline two things you are cherished by God and you are a child of God two things He cherishes you he loves you

That's why he disciplines you He does everything For his glory But the things that he brings your way So that you will glorify him all the more but he does it simply because He loves you

He loves you if he's the one says he predestined you to salvation He loves you John 3 16 He redeems you He loves you He disciplines you What father doesn't discipline his child So the Bible says in Lamentations chapter 3 verse number 32 For if he causes grief that he will have compassion according to his abundant loving-kindness for he does not afflict willingly The Bible says in Isaiah 63 verse number 9 that in all our affliction he too was afflicted He doesn't just feel your pain Because he's God and created you he feels your pain because as a father he disciplines you So he does He disciplines us because he cherishes us

He loves us, but he disciplines us because we are children of his You know, I don't I don't discipline your children And you don't discipline my children Why because I'm not the father of your children And you're not the father of my children And you don't love my children like I don't love your children But I love my own so I discipline them God loves his children So he disciplines them We tend to envy all those people who don't go through suffering who don't go through hardship who don't go through pain who don't go through Trouble we envy those people

We should pity those people Because They're not experiencing the discipline that you are Because you're loved by your father in heaven Who cherishes you as one of his own? So you're owned by God you're a child of the Living God he wants to conform you to his image So important No, you you have been to the to a store, right? And you've watched children behave obnoxiously in stores And their parents don't do anything And the first thing you're thinking of is let me help you with your child Let me show you what you need to be doing Because you see if you love your child, you'll discipline your child But if you don't love your child, you'll just let him do whatever he wants to do, but if you love them You discipline them And the word scourge means to flog with a whip, you know, sometimes God's discipline is very severe Very severe it hurts There are many times that my father disciplined me And it hurt I remember time when I was in seventh grade and I got in a fight at school and I was sent to the principal's office and I had to call my father And I didn't want to do that But I he made me call my father

In fact, he dialed the number and my father answered so I had to talk And so I told him what had happened and told him he had to come get me So we did Left work Came and picked me up Took me home and never will I forget the pain that he inflicted on me on that day Saying you will never ever do this in school again, that's called correctional discipline, right? And I remember that day very clearly in my mind And my father made it very clear

It's not I'm not gonna discipline you because I don't love you I'm gonna discipline because I do love you and I want you to act properly in public as well as in private Because you're representing this family's name in your school, but more than that you're representing God's name in school Therefore I'm going to discipline you and he did My father never spared the rod never did And I'm so grateful because you know what you learn to respect your father That's what the Bible says very clearly Says furthermore verse 9 we had earthy fathers to discipline us and we respected them We respected them don't discipline your children and they will not respect you Discipline them and They will respect you Because what do they know that you love them enough to? Inflict discipline upon them that they might behave in a way that honors and glorifies the name of God Very important how many times does the Bible speak about fathers disciplining their children? Bible says in Proverbs chapter 13 verse number 24

He withholds his rod hates his son Does it get any clearer than that? He withholds the rod hates his son. I didn't say that God said that It says but he who loves him disciplines him diligently Diligently not sporadically Not every once in a while, but diligently and there's intensity behind that word There's a zealousness behind that word Why because you love your child The Bible goes on to say these words Proverbs chapter 23 Verse number 13 do not hold back discipline from the child Although you strike him with the rod

He will not die He will not die You should strike him with the rod and rescue his soul from Sheol the sentence Says over in Proverbs 22 verse number 15 foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child But the rod of discipline will remove it far from him far from him and then it says over in Proverbs chapter 29 verse number 15 the rod and reproof give wisdom But a child who gets his own way Brings shame to his mother How many mothers do you know that today are living in shame? Simply because their child got their own way

That's a sad indictment upon parenting today We become so busy With other things Than the actual ministry we have with our children if God gives you a child or Children That is your emphasis in life That is your legacy in life And you're called to discipline them Why because you're their parents you're the father And you love that child He's gonna say this correct your son He will give you comfort He also would delight your soul That's so good Correct your son He will give you comfort He will delight your soul

Why listen listen carefully your children are the window To the condition of your family

Did you know that? Your children are the window to the condition of your family They give us a portrait about how it's like in your home like we told you over the years the eyes of the wife are The windows to her relationship to her husband So now your children are the windows to the condition of your home That's why Proverbs is so important you correct your son He'll give you comfort not shame comfort He will delight your soul and the delight of that soul is seen by everybody who observes Your children and that's because you love them in such a way that you will discipline them You'll correct them Well, just think if you love your children, how much more does God love his children He has an unconditional Volitional kind of love for us He has a the most beneficial kind of love for us And while we are yet sinners he died for us So his love for us far outweighs our love for our children And so the right of Hebrew says listen you you have forgotten what the Word of God says about discipline About the the whip that God yields and wields to make sure that you are like him So he quotes Proverbs 3 11 and 12 He says Be cautious about this because we don't we don't want you to disdain that discipline or become dismayed at the discipline Why because of what it verifies what it proves it proves you are cherished by God and that you are a child of God How great is that? So you have the intention to discipline? You have the caution in discipline you had the verification of discipline and then you had the culmination of Discipline so the writer says this Hebrews chapter 12 verse number 9 Furthermore we had early fathers to discipline us and we respected them

Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live For the dis 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

That's true, but sorrowful Absolutely yet to those who have been trained by it Afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness Listen what is the culmination of discipline three things? liveliness holiness and righteousness Well, we're disciplined by God we live In other words, it's just not that we're alive, but there's a liveliness about our lives There is Enthusiasm there is a vitality there is energy there

There's a vigorousness about our lives We're different children because we've been disciplined by him Why because now we live for him and to live for him instills vitality and energy in your life Because you want to honor his name You've been corrected by him You have been disciplined by him to be To be prevented from sin

You've been disciplined by him to instruct you in the ways of God You've been disciplined by him to conform you to his image you've been disciplined by him to anticipate his coming again in your glories in heaven And that doesn't cause you to live the the liveliest life Then there's a major problem with you spiritually Because God's at work There's a liveness, but there's also the fact that we are partakers of his holiness There's only one kind of holiness in the world It's his holiness There's no other kind of holiness It's his holiness He is holy Holy

Holy So he wants us to be partakers of his holiness Everything about his discipline Moves us in that direction He wants to purge away the dross take away those things that hinder our development That we might share in this holiness And the third element is righteousness That we might yield the peaceful fruit of Righteousness, do you know that a righteous life yields? the greatest fruit possible Because it's fruit of the spirit It's the fruit of a holy life It's the fruit of a righteous life

Listen to what Isaiah the prophet said In Isaiah chapter 32 verse number 17 The work of righteousness will be peace and the service of righteousness quietness and confidence forever Wow Think about that quietness and confidence forever See that's where God's leading you that's where God's moving you Do you remember what happens in the Old Testament to the child who is not Subject to discipline and will not follow discipline The Old Testament tells us this in Proverbs chapter Excuse me

Deuteronomy chapter 21 verse number 18 If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and his mother And when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them He's rebellious That his father and mother shall cease him Bring him out to the elders of the city at the gateway of his hometown They shall say to the elders of the city This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious He will not obey us

He is a glutton and a drunkard Then all the men of a city Shall stone him to death so you shall remove the evil from your midst and All Israel will hear of it now think about that God was serious about children obeying their parents and when the father would discipline his child and That child rebelled and did not listen that would not obey They would take him to the elders of the city This is our son And the elders don't say well son, is this the way it is? Oh, no It was the parents word and that's all the word that mattered and they took him out and they stoned him to death So that all Israel what? Fear Disobey Their fathers All that became emblematic of Israel not listening to their Heavenly Father the Lord God of Israel That their lives were at stake But they couldn't afford afford to rebel and and not listen to the words of God the writer of Hebrews is saying Let me tell you something about faiths discipline It is something that God does You can't afford to forget what he said you can't afford to forget what he does You can't afford to forget the whip that God wields Because it's all because you're his children and you are cherished by him he wants you to Become a partaker of his righteousness He wants you to live a righteous Figure of his holiness

He wants to live a righteous life and he wants you to live a life

That's alive First glory having said that let me remind you what Peter says in his Epistle About those who were being chastened Suffering not because of anything they had done simply because he were believers in the Lord Jesus But they were suffering greatly They were being for lack of a better phrase chastised and God was allowing all this to happen And Peter says these words first Peter 5 verse number 6 therefore Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God humble yourselves Under the mighty hand of God The phrase the mighty hand of God is a phrase That symbolizes from the Old Testament the destiny of Israel The destiny in Israel in two categories Always one of two the destiny in terms of their discipline or the destiny in terms of their deliverance But read through the book of Exodus read through the book of Deuteronomy and everything about the mighty hand of God was the hand that mightily proved Israel's destiny it always happened through discipline and deliverance But Peter says You need to humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God And then he says this That he may exalt you at the proper time God is going to exalt you At the proper time

So I want you to think about your life And where are you right now under God's mighty hand of discipline? And are you humbling yourself under that mighty hand? Because that's the hand that's going to move you toward holiness his holiness his righteousness and your liveliness and then he says Casting all your anxiety on him Because he cares for me, of course he does That's what he does And then down to verse 10 After you have suffered for a little while It's not gonna be forever But it's going to be for a little while the God of all grace Who called you to his eternal glory in Christ? Will himself perfect confirm strengthen and establish God's going to do something after you suffered for a little while he is going to perfect you The word perfect is a word used of of the mending of nets in the Gospels The restoration of nets nets that had been fragmented tied back together After you've suffered for a little while what God is going to do he's going to tie every loose end together Set you're complete There's nothing lacking there are no holes In your righteousness or your holiness You're tied all together And then he's gonna make you as solid as granite he is going to as the Bible says confirm you It means to solidify you So not only will supply that which is lacking he's gonna solidify everything in your life

So you're strong as granite there's gonna strengthen you gonna fill you with his strength that says And then he's going to establish you in other words He's going to settle you So your life is foundational So he's gonna supply that which is lacking In supplying that which is lacking

He is going to solidify everything about your life So it's as strong as granite He is going to strengthen you and he's going to settle you Only after you've suffered for a little while and some might say well I have been suffering for a little while And I'm not being solidified I'm certainly not being settled I'm certainly not being strengthened. I'm miserable And I wish it would end But it hasn't so what do you do? You go back up earlier to what Peter says in 1st Peter chapter 6 verse number 5 He says All of you clothe yourself with humility toward one another For God is opposed to the proud But gives grace To the humble so it says in verse number 10 that the God of all grace will do this God only dispenses his grace to the humble He doesn't dispense his grace to the proud And so you must go back and humbly submit yourself to the mighty hand of God's destiny No matter how hard the discipline might be God is doing it for a great and mighty purpose in your life Because you're cherished by him And you're a child of his And he wants for you more Than you want for yourself And he is in the process of working out great things in your life So I challenge you That you submit yourself to God's mighty hand the destiny See that you are cherished by him and a child of his That you might live for his glory and his honor and thank him For all that he's doing Because he loves you so Let's pray together Father we thank you for today The opportunity you give us to study your word You are a great God Thank you for your discipline in our lives Thank you are you how far you correct us how you redirect us How you grow us and instruct us in your ways Lord help us not to be ignorant or Or Not understanding for the things you are doing in our lives There is never a time where you are not at work in us to will and to do of your good pleasure Help us to see it and sense it and then submit ourselves to it Then we might best represent you on this planet Until you come again as you most surely will to take us to your glory in Jesus name Amen