The Discipline of God
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Background
During this time in the history of the early chruch believers were being persecuted for turning their backs on the Jewish faith.
This was hard on many levels When you are a Jew you are a jew in every aspect of your life and when you turn away from that you lose
Family Friends Business Customs Faith families The new believers of the early chruch were being pressured from every corner of their life they could not get away from it. (10:34) They were in danger of going back to their old customs and their old beliefs just to have peace in their lives.
Some had the thought of adding the traditions of the old covenant to the faith of the new covenant If you read in the last part of Hebrews 11 The writer started to sum up the bases for the Exhortation in 12:4-11 by telling all the things that the saints of the Old Testament went through and endured never seeing the great coming of the Messiah (11:34-38) This passage is telling believers to put their focus on Christ because the suffering that He endured was far worse and we need to draw from the example of his walk of faith and are to use it when we grow tired in ours. Also during this time there was some major miss information and thought that if you are a follower of Christ then your life was going to be easy
1.) Purposes of Discipline (12:4)
God uses hardship and affliction as a means of discipline, a means of training His children, of helping them mature in the their spiritual lives We must realize that there is a major difference between God’s discipline and His judgmental punishment.
Jesus took all of our punishment on the Cross God does not require double payment for sin God uses Discipline in three different ways
A.) Punishment
God does punish His children we experience His punishment as a direct result of our sin However Gods punishment is always corrective never judgmental
We see Gods punishment of David after his interactions with Bathsheba David loved God and God loved him but he still punished him
Even though we are forgiven form our debt of sin we still have to deal with the consequences of it. One thing to remember is that God only Disciplines the ones he loves.
B.) Prevention
Some times God disciplines in order to prevent sin often times God will not allow us to do things or be around certain people because they are bad for us. often times what may seem like a hardship or inconvenience to us may be Gods loving hand protecting us. If we as Gods children accepted His preventive discipline more willingly and gratefully, He would have much less need for administering His corrective discipline.
C.) Education
Through Gods disciplining us we have a better understanding of Gods power and sufficiency.
it allows us to be better ministers of the gospel to people that come behind us down the roads that we have already walked. It also allows us to be better equipped to handle things in our own lives down the road Only faith can bring us to appreciate discipline, whatever the kind it may be.
2.) Perils in Discipline (12:5)
A.) Regarding it Lightly
this is the main thing that can keep God from accomplishing what He wants to in our lives. the spiritual weakness mentioned in this verse is not that of taking our problems lightly but of taking the Lords discipline through them lightly. we can take Gods discipline lightly in many ways:
Callousness
we don’t recognize that God is the one doing it when we are calloused Gods discipline will harden us to it rather than soften us to it. Complaining
in this case our attention is on God but in the wrong way instead of showing patient endurance like the hero’s of chapter 11 we gripe and complain. we don’t accuse God of anything wrong, but we also don’t think He is just in what He’s doing. Questioning
much like complaining questioning God shows a lack of faith. this is not like the questioning of God to truly find the answer to something but this is like the questioning a child does to their parents when they don’t want to do something. Carelessness
when we don’t care about Gods Discipline then we can’t profit from it, it does not make us better it makes us bitter.
Naomi was like this, she even changed her named to Marta which means bitterness.
B.) Fainting
Some people become so overcome by their problems that they give up; the become despondent, depressed or faint. They give up and just collapse. Children of God have no need to faint because of Gods discipline.
He gives it to us to;
strengthen us not to make us weak to encourage us not to discourage us to build us up not to tear us down When we faint of Gods Discipline Gods purpose for doing it is lost and our blessings are lost.
3.) Proofs in Discipline (12:6-8)
A.) Proves Gods Love
God loves us as his own children the first thing that we should think of when we are suffering is our Fathers love for us. We see His love through faith Faith’s logic is simple, “we are God’s children. God loves His children and is bound by His own nature and His own covenant to do them only good.
Therefore what ever we receive from God is for our own good and from His love. This includes the discipline that he gives us.
B.) Proves our Sonship
All men are subject to Gods punishment, but only His children receive His discipline. We may want to discipline other peoples kids every once in a while but not on a regular basis.
The want to discipline other peoples kids is not always there because the love is not there. Discipline is given not only out of love but out of obligation.
since our children are given to us we have also been given the obligation to discipline them in the right things to do. if a child is not ours then we have no obligation to give them anything. we might not even have any feeling to that child at all. An undisciplined child is one that is not loved and one that often times is miserable. Discipline in the christian life is not in spite of sonship but because of sonship.
4.) Products of Discipline (12:9-11)
A.) Life
Our response to Gods discipline should not be resentful resignation, but willing and grateful submission. We should want to benefit as much from our Fathers discipline as we possibly can. What this passage is saying is that through the Fathers discipline we will have a better life than we could have ever dreamed of on our own.
David was a perfect example of this.
B.) Holiness
To live for the Lord is to live in holiness Gods primary desire for us is that we be holy as He is holy. Because God is perfect His discipline is perfect.
Often times our parents got it wrong, God never gets it wrong. His discipline is always proper, always at the right time, of the right sort, and in the right degree. There is only one kind of holiness, Gods holiness. He is both the source and the standard of holiness.
Discipline itself is not meant to be pleasant. If it were pleasant, it would have little corrective power. By its very nature, discipline is unpleasant to administer and to endure.
“And so what do I say? I say let the rains of disappointment come, if they water the plants of spiritual grace. Let the winds of adversity blow, if they serve to root more securely the trees that God has planted. I say, let the sun of prosperity be eclipsed, if that brings me closer to the true light of life. Welcome, sweet discipline, discipline designed for my joy, discipline designed to make me what God wants me to be”.