Hebrews 12:3-11. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on August 13, 2017.
There is always friction between generations. Though generations today may disagree on how to teach and train children, you will not find very many people who would say that it shouldn’t be done at all. The question is not about teaching kids, but about how and what we teach them. Thomas Sowell, the American social theorist and political philosopher has said, “Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.” He is not the first to recognize the importance of socialization.
Today it may seem like our culture is kicking back against this as they tell parents to teach their kids all religions so that they can choose for themselves, or even better, don’t teach them religion at all. Similarly it is becoming vogue to avoid seeing the gender of your child as something that is biological. The mark of a progressive parent is to help your child transition from a biological gender to the gender of your feelings. Of course, the social discussions taking place around them and with them begs the question if these kids are being overly influenced in this area. Regardless, my point is that these two examples are not really rejecting the idea of training kids. The truth is that they object to training them in certain ways and with certain ideas. Thus in the areas that they want to deconstruct they promote jettisoning it and in the areas they want to construct they promote very heavy training, if not outright propaganda. In truth they indoctrinate children with their truth that gender is a state of mind, and that all religions are the same, if anything at all.
Our passage today focuses on one of the great difficulties of trusting God, and that is the fact that God treats us as His children. Just as human parents teach and train their child, so He teaches and trains those who will trust Him in order for them to be like Him. May we learn to embrace this fact with faith.
In verse 2 we were told to turn our focus upon Jesus. In verse 3 another word is used that takes this focus further into the mind and tells us to “consider” our Lord Jesus and what He went through. Believers in God can not only look to Jesus to show us the way, but also we can make connections between what He went through and what we face in our life.
First, we are told that Jesus endured hostility from sinners. Do you remember in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:11-12) where Jesus told His disciples, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Now Jesus said that knowing that great persecution lay ahead of Him. He was not merely taking His place in a list of those who have trusted God through the ages. He is the Lord Himself, perfect and without fault. He is the Son who is to inherit all things, and yet sinners brazenly persecute Him too. It is easy for wicked people to tell themselves that the righteous are not as righteous as they pretend. This becomes the justification for why they can mistreat them. But this idea is completely undercut with Jesus. This hostility between those who want to follow God and those who despise them for doing so is a fact of life. But the key is that Jesus endured it. The word means He persevered and stayed the course of faith even when to keep faithful was like a heavy burden on His back. Too easily, we reach the end of our patience and throw off faith like a heavy weight. “I won’t carry it anymore! This is too much, I quit!” When we look at Jesus and see that He didn’t quit, knowing full well what was ahead of Him, we are to take courage from it. The godly have always suffered at different times in their lives because of the fallen world in which we all live. But, Jesus tells us to rejoice because God will reward us along with all who have endured such evil. Don’t look at Moses, Elijah, et alia and say that you aren’t as good as them. Don’t look at Jesus and say that it must have been easy for Him. Instead, trust God and take your place (whatever you are called to face) among God’s faithful followers.
In verse 4, when the writer mentions bloodshed, he is literally talking about death. Jesus didn’t just endure hostility from sinners. He was also executed and killed by them. Jesus endured with faith to the point of death. But notice that the struggle is not with the sinners themselves. The real battle is with sin itself. We are reminded that we haven’t resisted against sin to the point of death yet (if we had we would be in heaven and not reading Hebrews). The sin we resist is not the sin of those sinners who are being hostile. The sin we resist is our own temptation to jettison faith and give in for the sake of comfort and ease, to make the pain stop. We are to recognize that Christ shows us to trust the Father even if it costs us our life. Many Christians throughout history have resisted sin to the point of bloodshed. But they did it by thinking about what Jesus endured, and keeping their eyes on the goal of being with Jesus and like Jesus.
Now I did skip over a very important phrase. We are told to consider Jesus in order to avoid becoming “weary and discouraged in our souls.” Both words give voice to the reality that our inner person struggles with trusting God. When we face hostility and even death, we can grow tired of trusting God. We can be discouraged in the fight against our flesh. Such a soul is on the verge of giving in to unbelief and sin. Where does one get the strength and desire to keep going on? For a time we may have it from our own sheer will power, but this is not put forth as an answer for the believer. Your strength will always come to an end. The only way we can avoid spiritual weariness and discouragement is to keep our eyes on Jesus and draw strength from Him. Your soul needs spiritual nourishment that it cannot get from the things of this world that your flesh craves. When you feel discouraged, ask the Lord Jesus to strengthen you by His Spirit and also talk with other believers. Sometimes they can encourage you with their stories of how God helped them.
In verses 5-11 we are reminded of our calling and position in Christ. We have become sons of God. John 1:12-13 says, “But as many as received Him [Jesus], to them He gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” The truth is that every child must be taught the way to live in this world. Now some versions use the word “chastise” in this passage. The problem with this is that “chastise” has come to be used of corporal punishment only. Originally it meant to make chaste or pure. The Greek and Hebrew words that lie behind this translation refer to everything that is done in order to train up a child. Thus it involves instruction, training, correction, rebuke, and sometimes punishment. That is why I have used the word “discipline.” God does all of the above in our lives. We belong to the Lord and as such He is going to work in our lives in many different ways in order to help us grow up and become like Him. Every time you go through a difficult stretch, you need to be careful of thinking that God is mad at you or doesn’t love you anymore. He loves you very much because you are His child.
Verse 5 tells us that we can forget God’s Word to us. It is important to recognize how forgetting God’s Word can lead to losing faith in God. The writer quotes from Proverbs 3:11-12, which is written in the form of a parent addressing a child with wise instruction. The key is that God’s Word tells us that not only are we made to be the sons of God, but that God will actually treat us as His children by being faithful to do all that a good parent would do in order to prepare their child for adulthood. The enemy of our soul wants us to forget who we are and to create a rift between us and our Heavenly Father. Your flesh even wants to lash out in anger at God when He allows difficult times in our lives. But God’s Word tells us that He loves us and that nothing in this world can separate us from the love of God, except our own choice (Romans 8).
Now the proverb in verse 5 brings up the issue of despising God’s discipline. It tells us not to despise God’s discipline because it is proof that we are His children. Now the word “despise” typically carries the sense of a strong, visceral reaction- which we would do well to avoid. But the word it translates here actually has the sense of not caring at all about it. It is the picture of a person who could careless that God is “disciplining them because they are His child.” Instead of being encouraged by it, they see it as worthless or something not worth holding on to, as they toss the relationship away. How great and amazing it is that the God of the universe has made us His children. You are special and He is bringing you to His greatness. But you must trust Him. Just as the One and Only Son of God, Jesus, was allowed to face difficulties even to the point of death in this life, so we too must face things in our life that our flesh will despise. We must resist the temptation to throw away the priceless love that God offers you. Don’t let the difficulties of life cause you to treat God’s love for you as a thing of little worth. Like Esau we can sell our faith for a pot of beans, or for an immoral, sexual liaison, or for a drug induced high, or for the praise of the world, or for any other work of our flesh. God’s work of discipline is proof that He accepts you as His child, rather than the opposite. Why doesn’t He spoil you and me rotten? He doesn’t do it because it would ruin us. He cares about what we become because we are not illegitimate children.
In verses 9-10, we are reminded that God’s discipline is superior to human discipline. Whether parents or teachers or professionals, we often look up to humans who train us in ways that our flesh doesn’t appreciate, but our minds recognize as valuable. How much more ought we to embrace the discipline of God. He is not subject to the jealousies and selfishness of humanity. He trains us for our benefit. Only God can bring us to that which is good and profitable for us, both in body and in soul. It is more than profitable. We also are able to obtain a portion of the Holiness of God. He is not just teaching us to look a certain way. He is changing us from the inside out. We are separated from those who reject His discipline and fashioned into His image, to His glory and for our good. This is the essence of holiness. God is completely other than fleshly humanity. But in His grace, He gives Himself to us and makes us like Him.
Lastly, in verse 11, we are told to see the result of God’s discipline over the occurrence of it. When we are in the moment of discipline it is not joyful. The occurrence can obscure our vision of that to which it is leading us. We have to learn to see beyond the instruction that our flesh doesn’t like, and the rebukes that our heart is hurt by. We have to learn to see beyond the hardships that He allows us to encounter and see the joy that is on the other side. We will not be children forever. He will finish His work and we will be adult sons of God at the resurrection. God’s work in us will yield the amazing fruit of righteousness that is characterized by peace. In a world where we are being stirred up to anger, division, and self-seeking, is a God who tells us that we were not created to be so. You will never find peace by tossing aside your faith and confidence in the Lord. But with Him there will be peace in the time of trouble. There will be peace in the midst of the storm. There will be peace, though the world be raging, in the shelter of God’s arms.