God’s Discipline For Our Holiness

Transcript

GR 1720
04/06/2014
God's Discipline for our Holiness
Hebrews 12:3-11
Gil Rugh

We're in Hebrews 12 together in our study today, Hebrews 12. In this closing portion of the book of Hebrews there is a strong emphasis on how the believer should live in light of the finality of the work of Jesus Christ, the grace that He has brought in bringing the salvation that God had planned for from before the foundation of the earth. Had been typified and illustrated and prepared for through Israel's history with its sacrifices and priestly system. Now has come together in one man, Jesus Christ, who has come as high priest to offer the final sacrifice for sins, which would be the sacrifice of Himself. And He continues that ministry as high priest, having been exalted to the right hand of the Father, He now is there as our representative for those who have placed their faith in Him.

In Hebrews 11 we had examples from Old Testament history of how those who have placed their faith in God and His promises and the salvation He provided in His Son should live their lives, how they did live their lives. This is in the context of believers who are facing trials, persecutions, and more serious problems in the days ahead. It's easy to wear down in the Christian life, not just wind down but wear down, become weary. And he is writing to exhort these believers, even though they have been through much, you are not done. In Hebrews 10 he told them, “you have need of endurance. And when you have done the will of God, then you'll receive what was promised,” the promises yet future. We are looking for the final realization of all that God has promised to those who love Him, the glory that we will enjoy in His presence for eternity. He'll focus on that a little later in Hebrews 11.

After focusing on these heroes of the faith he began in Hebrews 12 by saying, these witnesses who have testified to the grace of God and His enabling power, their lives where they trusted God and His promises even when they didn't see the fulfillment of what God promised, even when they had to give their lives because of their testimony for Him. They did not waver in their faith in Him and what He promised. So that is to encourage us, the end of Hebrews 12:1, “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” We noted there, that race set before us indicates God's sovereignty in determining the race that we must run. All of us as believers are running by faith, we are all running toward the same goal, but we don't all run the same course. God sets the course for us as individual believers. He sets the course for us as a church. This church that he is writing to is going to face difficult times, persecutions, perhaps some of their number will be imprisoned, even executed. That's the course they must run. For us God has set before us our course, our race we must run.

We are encouraged by the testimony of those who have gone before us and the ultimate encouragement and testimony to us is the example of Jesus our Savior. Verse 2, we are to have “our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross and He has sat down at the right hand of the Father.” The joy before Him, accomplishing the work of redemption that would make possible the establishing of an eternal kingdom which those who have been redeemed will share in the glory of God for all eternity. He'll come to that further in Hebrews 12.

So verse 3 picks up on this theme of endurance. “Consider Him who has endured” and further develops it. He is going to encourage them by explaining to them God has a purpose. Your sufferings, your trials, the situations that seem to crush you or overwhelm you, they shouldn't cause you to despair. They shouldn't cause you to become weary and give up. You should see in that the hand of the loving heavenly Father disciplining you so that you might share in His holiness, His peace, His righteousness. He is preparing you for eternal glory. He'll draw the comparison very simply with human fathers and how they exercise discipline in their own families.

So he says in verse 3, “for consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself.” And that word ‘consider,’ that's the first command given in these first three verses. This is something you must do, and it's a word that means to give consideration to, but it is intensified. And it means to give careful, intense consideration to Him who has endured such hostility against Himself by sinners. That's the example of Christ. He endured the cross, all the hostility, the opposition that sinful men directed against Him. He endured it and He becomes an example for us that we might follow the One who loved us and gave His life for us, the One that we now serve. And if we do that, it will encourage us not to grow weary and lose heart. When we lose focus we begin to get discouraged, we lose focus on the goal that God has set before us. We take our attention off the One who is our Lord and Savior. We become absorbed with our problems, some of them great. Some of these may give their lives, suffering horrible deaths before this over having to deal with rulers like Nero who will delight in bringing the most horrible deaths to those who profess faith in Christ. But you know that's not where the focus is. The focus is to be on the goal God has set before us and the Savior who came and died to be our Savior. So you won't grow weary, lose heart, get faint. We might say today, run out of energy. The person who is running the race says, I'm just too tired to go on. I'm just going to sit down. I'm going back and give up. He's saying, no. How do you not do that? We are all human, the Lord knows our frame that we are but dust, the psalmist said. But be encouraged. Remember verse 1? “Let us run with endurance the race that He has set before us.” He provides the enabling grace to run the race He set before me. So no, it's not too much. It's not that I just can't go on. I have to realize I follow the example that my Lord and Savior set down.

Don't grow weary, don't lose heart, and then it's like that slap in the face—“you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.” So he doesn't sit down in the puddle with them, so to speak, and say, I understand. It's been tough, many of you have paid a great price already, it's hard to go on. I empathize with you. And we'll just have to have a word of prayer together and hope it all works out. After he tells them, put your complete attention on Christ and what He endured, that will enable you not to grow weary and give up, then it's sort of like he says, now pay attention. You haven't yet died. That's sort of brutal. I mean, we have resisted, we have struggled, remember some of them had been in prison. Some of them had lost their homes. But this is not a pity party. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood, of dying, giving your life in your striving against sin. You think this is more than I can do. I'm just worn out, this just can't go on. This is not something for crybabies. Some people think I am too black and white. Just do it. And I realize it is difficult. I live with a wife who has struggles, I have struggles. But the point is I haven't given my life yet.

I don't know what kind of week you have had. Some of you face great difficulties, physical difficulties, financial difficulties, family difficulties, job difficulties, personal problems. No one knows what you are going through. But do you know what? Here you sit, still breathing. You haven't given your life yet, so quit complaining. And you can't quit. That's true for all of us. It's true for me when I get so turned in. I just can't do this, Lord, can't do it another week, can't do it another day. I'm just out of gas, I'm worn out. Get going, I set the course before you. I know what you can do and not do. “My grace is sufficient for you.” That's the point here, you haven't yet died. Some have died. Back in Hebrews 11:35, “some were tortured, not accepting their release that they might obtain a better resurrection. Others experienced mocking, scourging, chains, imprisonment, they were stoned, sawn in two, tempted, put to death with the sword” and so on. You haven't died yet. So it does not matter what you've experienced, here you are; no matter what you've experienced, you are reading my letter, you are hearing it read.

And now further rebuke, you have forgotten the exhortation, Hebrews 12:5, which is addressed to you as sons. You have forgotten what God said to you. These are Jewish believers, remember, and he is going to quote from their Old Testament—Proverbs 3. And you see those capitalized sentences in verses 5-6, indicating they are quoted from the Old Testament—Proverbs 3:11-12. He says, “you have forgotten.” This is what happens. Sometimes our problems, it's just like they grab our attention and we can't think of anything else. And they just seem overwhelming. And they forgot what the Scripture said. And I love the way it is put, “you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons.” We have the “word from God which is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. And it pierces into our innermost being and it discerns the thoughts and intentions of our heart.” That's what he wrote back in Hebrews 4. And this is not you have forgotten the exhortation which was addressed to other people in another time. This is God speaking to you. As he writes this he is quoting something God wrote a thousand years earlier. But he says it is God's Word to you and you forgot it, you've taken your attention off it—God's Word to us.

And then he says, and he repeats it. “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are reproved by Him.” Up in verse 3 he had said, so you will not grow weary or lose heart. And you have in your margin, literally fainting in your souls. You think you are about to faint, you are giving out. You have forgotten. God says, don't faint. I don't want My sons to faint when they are reproved by their loving heavenly Father. “For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. Some of the discipline is severe.” We are to see the trials, the difficulties, the opposition by sinful people, the circumstances that come into our life that seem to just drain every ounce of energy out of our bodies. Scourging is a severe discipline. You have to see this now, we're talking about a heavenly Father, the Lord disciplining His children. That word discipline, not just punishment for sin. The word discipline here is a more positive word. Its basic form comes from the word child. So some of you have in margins or other translations child discipline, child training, a word that in certain forms means to discipline or to train. But its background is in the context of training a child. The kind of discipline that is brought to bear so that they become the mature person they are supposed to be. We have been born again through faith in Jesus Christ. We have become sons of God through faith in Christ. We have seen in our study in Timothy, the church is the household of God, His family. Now as God's children, He disciplines us. He disciplines us not to discourage us, not to crush us, certainly not to destroy us. He loves us and He wants to mature us so that we are more like Him.

So he quotes from these great verses from the book of Proverbs. They apply to us, it is God speaking to us just as it was, the proverbs written a thousand years or so before these Hebrew Christians were reading it. It was the exhortation addressed to you as sons, we, 2,000 years after the book of Hebrews, it's the exhortation addressed to you as sons. What a blessing. All of a sudden my discipline and the hard things I am going through and the trials and suffering are put in perspective. This is not an indication that God has given up on me, that God has abandoned me, that God doesn't care about me. This is my heavenly Father taking care of me as His child, disciplining me so I become more what He wants me to be as His child, manifest more of the beauty of His character. Verse 6 says, “for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, He scourges every son whom He receives.”

Now, the explanation coming out of this. Verse 7, “it is for discipline that you endure.” Basically saying we endure because we understand it is God's discipline. That helps give us endurance. When I am focused on the trial and we say, I can't see any good that comes out of this, I can't see any purpose in this. Would God do this to me if He really loved me? How often, if you've been a believer for a while, you have people ask you, can you tell me why God would bring this in my life? Why this would happen? Because He loves you. I say, that's a strange way to show love. How many times did you discipline your child and they are crying and they say, “you don't love me.” What do you say? Yes, I do. That's why I discipline you. It's for your good, so that you will learn and grow. But when God does it for me, what do we say? You don't love me, God. Wait a minute. You have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you. Take seriously the discipline of the Lord. So “it is for discipline that you endure.” This is not just a tragedy that has come into my life that ruins everything, this is the hand of the loving Father disciplining me for my good. “It is for discipline that you endure.”

The second statement, “God deals with you as with sons.” My suffering and the trials that come into my life all of a sudden begin to take on a different perspective. And just instead of being a tragedy that is frustrating and ruining my life, here is another example of the greatness of God's love for me. Not just to cause me pain. You don't discipline your child if you really love him, you discipline because you want to improve him, you want him to learn, want him to grow. Well, God is dealing with you as with son.

Then this question, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? You know in our world everything that God says is opposed by the world. In this whole area of child discipline, I quit clipping articles out on it. Child abuse, we have children's rights. Let’s say a world that can't tell the difference between a man and a woman, how are they going to tell the difference between a parent and a child? We live in a world that is in total opposition to everything God says. But the question is still here, what parent is there, what father is there that does not discipline his son? I mean, it's part of being a father. You are responsible for the discipline of your son. Doesn't mean mothers can't discipline, the ultimate responsibility for discipline of the children in the home rests with the father. God is my heavenly Father, what kind of Father would He be if He didn't discipline me? The idea there is a father who doesn't discipline in his home, well, you are totally outside the biblical context here.

We're going back to the book of Proverbs and read a few verses. Come back to Proverbs 13. Let me encourage you as you are coming to Proverbs 13 to make it a regular practice to read the book of Proverbs. There is nothing more practical. And you know Proverbs has 31 chapters and we often encourage one another to read it through in one month. So if you start today, this is the 6th, pick up with Proverbs 6 and read it, tomorrow read Proverbs 7. Then you'll move into the next month unless you read a couple of chapters to take care of that, but if you do that rather regularly, you'll find something. Every time I go through Proverbs, I find different of the proverbs leaping out to me because of different situations I am in, different things I am dealing with. So you know you work this verse because you are going through and you are thinking about how should I discipline my kids and should I, and is physical discipline bad. And all of a sudden all these verses on discipline might leap out. Another time I am dealing with business situations or job, all of a sudden those verses leap out. And God has given this to speak to us.

And so note what Proverbs 13:1 says, “a wise son accepts his father's discipline, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.” And that's the kind of contrast that he is dealing with. Remember back in Hebrews 10? “The just shall live by faith, and if he turns back My soul has not pleasure in him,” God says. So a wise son listens to his father's discipline, pays attentions, learns from it. The scoffer is not open to discipline. Come down to verse 24,” he who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” Not just when he loses his temper, he shouldn't be disciplining then. We are disciplining for their good, not because we are frustrated. But if you withhold the discipline from your son, your child, you don't love him. You don't do it because it's not convenient. I don't want to, and besides the world says I could harm his delicate, fragile self-esteem. That's what the world says. But we want to operate on God's truth. “He who withholds his rod hates his son; he who loves him disciplines him diligently.”

Now if that's the way a loving father deals with his children, what can I expect from my loving heavenly Father? He will discipline me diligently. Then why should I be discouraged and want to give up because God disciplines me? He loves me so He disciplines me diligently.

Come to Proverbs 22, and I haven't picked all the verses, verse 15, “foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.” Again the world doesn't accept this. Children are innocent and good and if you discipline them physically that will warp them. No, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of discipline is to remove that foolishness. You see the result of a lack of discipline in our homes now. We have grown men who are still running around acting like kids. Sometimes you see a grown man, you say, he needs to be turned over somebody's knee and spanked, but he's too big, too old. Too bad somebody didn't love him enough to do it when he was little. Men still want to act like kids. They are still pretending they are teenagers that have grown up. The rod of discipline will drive it far from him, that foolishness.

Proverbs 23:13, “do not hold back discipline from the child. Although you strike him with the rod he will not die.” So he wants you to think you are killing him, but if it's done effectively. . . You shall strike him with the rod and rescue his soul from Sheol. You saved him from self-destruction. I mean, a child left to himself is destined for a life of foolishness if he doesn't learn the self-discipline; he doesn't learn there are certain things he can do and must do and certain things he shouldn't do and must not do. He's going to be a man running around. Don't hold back discipline properly administered.

I sometimes tried to tell my dad, hitting me with the belt is going to kill me. It didn't. My kids tried it when I used the ping-pong paddle, they are both still here. That doesn't mean you beat your kids. Everybody wants to say, you are beating your kids. There are certain men who may deal discipline out like that, but in reality we understand the difference. There is discipline, and properly administered physical discipline, the pain of the punishment has to be greater than the pleasure of the disobedience or it loses its impact. And fathers are responsible for the discipline.

One more verse, Proverbs 29:15,” the rod and reproof give wisdom.” We want our kids to learn, be wise, to grow up. We sometimes say to our kids, grow up, act your age. It’s sad to have a man who has not learned wisdom. The rod and reproof give wisdom. A child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother. Have you ever been to the store and seen a little kid sitting on the floor, his mother trying to talk him into coming. And he is hollering, no, or crying because he didn't get his way. I was just as sinful as that kid but I never sat on the floor of a store and told my mother, no. I'd still be recovering today. My dad didn't know how fragile my delicate self-esteem was. I'm glad he did. The real world is not like that and men who don't discipline in their home, it brings shame to the mother. They can't control the little monster. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The father disciplining the son doesn't mean my mother could never discipline. But we didn't get very old until my mother didn't discipline me. All she said was go to your room until your dad comes home. No, I don't go to my room. I never said that, I mean, I had survival instincts. Then when dad came home, he took care of it.

And I've shared with you he'd come in, “turn over.” “Well, Dad, you haven't heard my side.” “You don't have a side.” “What do you mean?” “Your mother is right even when she is wrong. Turn over.” All my mother had to say is “I'll tell your Dad.” All of a sudden, three boys in our family, we weren't as sinful as other kids in the neighborhood, but you know, we learned, the pain wasn't worth it.

I'm going to go aside. I'm 71. I get to talk about the old days. When I went to grade school, I went to the same grade school my Dad went to, a four-story grade school. We lived in the poor part of town and there were people who lived in even a poorer part of town and we were mixed race. We had black and white in our school and so on in a suburb of Pittsburgh for grade school. We were in the mountains of western Pennsylvania, you had all kinds of weather—lots of snow, cold weather, rain. We walked to school. When the bell rang every grade school kid lined up down the sidewalk and up the sidewalk, didn't matter if it was snowing, didn't matter if it was raining, you lined up. We stood there and we walked in at the appropriate signal. The principal stood outside the front doors and we went on two sides, I still remember her name—good morning, Miss McConnell, good morning Miss McConnell. How many did that . . . I don't know, enough to fill a four-story building with grade schools, all line up and be very respectful and say, good morning. Fear. That's it. They used yardsticks, not the little thin . . ., no those nice thick ones. One time, confession. I walked by, turned around and said something to my friend when I should have been saying, good morning, Miss McConnell. I don't know who got ahold of my collar, but when I landed I was in the principal's office. And then I had to have the proper discipline administered for a little thing like talking to my friend instead of saying, good morning Miss McConnell. I learned something—I say respectfully, good morning, Miss McConnell, I don't talk to my friend.

In the classroom I had a friend named Robert. He disobeyed. In those days shame was part of the discipline so he had to come up to the front of the class, bend over and grab his ankles with his rear end up in the air. If that's not humiliation enough, then she pretended she was Ralph Kiner of the Pittsburgh Pirates—whap. One time she did that and she got three or four in and the yardstick broke. Rescue? Salvation? No. Robert, you go to the principal's office and get me a new yardstick and bring it back and we finished the count. Do you know what that did to everybody? Fear. I don't want to be up there holding onto my ankles with my hiney in the air, getting whacked in front of the class. You say, that's a terrible thing to do to those kids. I learned something. And you know what? Not that it ever happened to me, but when I did get spanked at school I never wanted my Dad to find out because that meant I got spanking #2 at home. “Dad, you don't know what that teacher is like.” “I don't have to, the teacher is always right.” “You don't know what they did.” “No, but I know what you did, turn over.”

That's the way things went. It was good, wasn't it? Helped simplify kids' lives. I mean, that's the way our homes were. Now we have parents, we have to read four books on psychology and wonder how do you raise kids today. What do you do with these little fragile . . .? Turn them over and whack them, in love. We're not talking about men who lose it and punch their kids. I mean, our society doesn't even know the difference between beating somebody up and properly administered discipline. But we as believers should. It's good for them.

So all of that to say in this which should be common knowledge, this is how father's demonstrate their love and concern that their kids will grow up to be responsible adults, not still acting out their foolishness. Be able to exercise wisdom, self-discipline. So what is God doing with us?

Come back to Hebrews 12:8, “but if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers.” All of God's children experience God's discipline. It's a sign of love. If you don't discipline your son, you hate him. God loves us. If you are without discipline of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Let's just clarify this. Anybody who doesn't experience God's discipline isn't really a child of God. We all know what it's like. We go through things, they are difficult, they are trials and we notice the hand of God on us. God is disciplining us. My Dad was serious about discipline, but he' didn't discipline anybody in the neighborhood but his own children. God disciplines His children. We have people who say, nothing happens to me, I'm fine. Well, that may say something. You are illegitimate is the only thing that would indicate, you are somebody pretending to be a child of God and you are not. Discipline is an evidence of love. All of a sudden now these readers who are looking to face some severe discipline, scourging, even the level of persecution and some of them may die in it understand this is a loving heavenly Father, demonstrating His love for me, demonstrating He's concerned that I grow and mature and become more like Him. You know we place our faith in Christ and we are born into God's family, He doesn't leave us in the nursery. Now He matures us to prepare us for the greatest glory of all—His presence.

Now the comparison again with earthly fathers, verse 9, “furthermore we had earthly fathers,” fathers of our flesh, literally as you have in the margin, physical fathers, “earthly fathers to discipline us.” We respected them. Doesn't mean at the time that the discipline was pleasant. I understood my Dad was doing it because he cares. Came home from a long day at the steel mill, he wasn't too busy to discipline me when I needed it. I respected him and gave him the honor due a father. Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live? Shouldn't we be giving our voluntary, glad obedience to the Father, the One in whom we have true life. We are living our spiritual life in Him, the righteous shall live by faith. We had those examples in Hebrews 11. Some went through difficult trials but we admire them, we honor them, we learn from them. Christ the Son of God learned obedience, we saw earlier in Hebrews, through the things He suffered. The Son of God walked this earth, learned obedience through the things He suffered. And I think my life ought to be pain-free? I don't need discipline. I don't think God would discipline me if He loves me. Now I get perspective. As difficult as this situation is, I see it as the manifestation, the demonstration of God's love. That takes the edge off just weariness. You know it's when I become absorbed with the trial and I just can't see any purpose and it seems it goes on, I lose motivation. Now I see that God is maturing me, further opportunity to grow, He loves me.

Verse 10, our earthly fathers again, our physical fathers, “they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them.” Characteristic, our earthly fathers are human, they discipline for a time and a relatively short time. At my age I look back and the time when I was really subject to my father's discipline was relatively short compared to the rest of my life. And the discipline wasn't always perfect. The discipline I administered to my children wasn't always perfect. Sometimes you have to look and say, perhaps I overdid it there. Perhaps they didn't deserve discipline there. Perhaps that wasn't the best kind of discipline to administer as I think about it. What we say about our earthly fathers, we respected them even though their discipline was for a time and was for benefits primarily in this life. Sometimes they made mistakes but He, referring to our spiritual Father, our heavenly Father,” He disciplines us for our good so that we may share His holiness.” There is never a mistake in His discipline, there is never too much or too little. It is always for our good. He's the God who “causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called by Him. He disciplines us for our good, note this, so we may share His holiness.” What a goal. Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1:4, we have become partakers of the divine nature. We haven't become God, but we have become partakers of His moral character, His nature. And now He is maturing us so that we share His holiness. The suffering, the trials develop me to be more like Him, the God who is holy. I have entered into salvation in Christ but now there is the process of maturing me. Just like in the physical realm as Proverbs said, “you discipline your child so the foolishness is driven out of him so he might have wisdom.” He's not going to be an adult acting like a two-year-old. He's grown and matured, manifesting something of your character, hopefully, as a mature person making wise decisions. So God now is disciplining us for our good so that we partake of His holiness. And suffering, pain and trial do that, they help us cast aside the things that hinder us, help us to set aside those weights which would slow us down as verse 1 said—“lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us,” that failure to trust God.

What happens when you have a serious situation whether, for these it might involve persecution, for us something serious faces us—a disease in a child, one of our children or our own situation. Doesn't that help clarify things? Other things that may have encroached in our lives don't seem as important. The things of this world aren't important. Lord, I can only trust you. This helps to clarify things, mature me and I learn to trust Him. And these other things aren't all that important. You have a child that has a serious illness, you'd gladly give up your wealth or your possessions if that would restore him. I mean, it focuses our attention in a good sense when our attention is on Christ, on the love of our Father. We say, He's doing this for our good. Remember Job, the most righteous man on the face of the earth? He still had it wrong, still had to mature. Terrible pain, terrible suffering, but when all is said and done Job acknowledges he's learned more about God, more about God's character. Job has grown. That's what God is doing with us.

Hebrews 12:11, “all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but to be sorrowful.” What else can you say? It's not discipline if it's not painful. We have “talk discipline,” and I'm not saying there isn't a time when you don't sit down and talk and the punishment may be verbal rebuke, but whatever kind of discipline there is, it's not pleasant. It's not pleasant if you have to be rebuked. When you rebuke your children verbally, sternly, and then if you have to exercise the physical discipline, spanking, no discipline seems joyful. You don't say to your child, you're under discipline, go to your room and watch television. Or go to your room and play video games. No. Discipline by definition is unpleasant, it is sorrowful, it causes pain to one degree or another. So when we're going through trials and difficulties the experience of the discipline is not itself joyful, it is sorrowful. I'm not glad I'm being chained in a prison, I'm not glad I'm being tortured. It's a sorrowful, painful and unpleasant experience. I'm not glad I have this physical problem, this financial, or whatever.

“Yet to those who have been trained by it.” And that word trained, we get the word gymnasium from it. It denotes intense, vigorous training. And “those who have been trained,” gone through this training process which is intense, it is vigorous, those who “have been trained by it afterwards.” So the discipline itself is not pleasant but the result of the discipline is very desirable. It “yields the fruit of peace and righteousness.” You see it is God's character being produced in us, His holiness, His peace, His righteousness. That's why He has to discipline us as His children so that we develop more of the beauty of His character. Now all of a sudden we can look at the unpleasantness of what may come into the course that God has set for them to run and say, this has been placed here by a loving heavenly Father to discipline me. It's not a trial to crush and destroy me, even if it results in my death, as we saw in Hebrews 11, as we saw with Christ. It is a trial to prepare me for the holiness, the peace, the righteousness, the glory of His presence. I mean, He is maturing me to be like Him in my character.

I want to read just a few verses with you, there are many but I will just read a couple. Come to 2 Corinthians 4. You know this is a pervasive emphasis in the Scripture, particularly in the New Testament epistles where I have focused attention for some of these verses. 2 Corinthians 4, Romans 8, this is similar to that. In Romans 8:18 Paul says,”I am convinced that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be manifested in us.” Present suffering, future glory.

2 Corinthians 4:16, “therefore we do not lose heart.” Remember he is writing “that they endure, not lose heart, not grow faint. 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.” So the suffering, the trials that even result in the breakdown of this physical body, they are being used to strengthen us in our Spirit, in our inner man, our new man, and preparing us for glory. Light affliction, weight of glory; momentary, eternal. “While we look at things not which are seen but which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not seen are eternal.” Trials tend to draw us in and we become absorbed in the trial. I have to keep my attention (we've talked about) on the goal. This is temporary, this is preparatory, this is a training time for me for when I will step into the glory of His presence as He has matured me and prepared me for that time.

One other passage, 1 Peter 1:3, “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So we've been born again and we have a hope, a living hope, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith.” See, whatever we are going through on the course that God has set before us, the race we are running, I am protected by His power, I'm enabled by His grace for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time. “ In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while if necessary you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

So the analogy in Hebrews has been running a race, being under the discipline of God all for the ultimate goal. Here the picture is like you put the gold through the furnace of the fire to burn off the dross, to purify it. So in the end “that we may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen Him you love Him, though you do not see Him now you believe in Him. You greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.” The outcome of it all, the salvation of our souls. Colossians puts it, there will come a time when “Christ will present us before the throne of God's glory as holy and blameless and without spot.”

So we keep that in mind. That's what God is doing. The trials that come, the difficulties that come, whatever they are, they vary for us individually and they vary from church to church in different parts of the world. We have to run the race that God has set before us and that's an encouragement. It's the hand of a loving, heavenly Father who brings us into obstacles, trials, unpleasant things, but for a good purpose—that we might partake of His holiness, His peace, His righteousness, and ultimately the fullness of the glory of His presence.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the riches of your Word. Thank you that in Christ we have everything necessary for a life of godliness. Lord, what an encouragement and blessing it is to know that you are our heavenly Father, you love us, all you do in our lives is for our good so that we might have the joy and privilege of maturing, becoming more like you, having the beauty of your holiness, your peace, your righteousness more fully manifest in our lives. Lord, may we be encouraged to endure whatever you might bring into our lives. We pray in Christ's name, amen.