Responding to the Father’s Discipline
By Jay Wegter
What to do when God catches you in His ‘net’. You know what a cargo net is—it confines things in a space so that they can’t move around at will. What perfect illustration of what God does from time to time in the life of His children. Both Job and David used that imagery of being caught in God’s net (Job 19:6; Ps 66:10-11). The Lord ordains circumstances in your life that appear to contradict His promises— even His care. It is as if He has placed your natural strengths in the crosshairs of His rifle of providence. You feel squeezed or twisting in the wind, abandoned—a victim of your circumstances. If read merely on the surface of things, it does not appear that God is for you. Your ability to control things seems to have evaporated.
What do you do then? Devise ways to escape the net? Do you look for a utility knife to cut the net? Here is the problem regarding one’s instinctive response, the doubting saint blames his boss, his acquaintances, the devil—but does not attribute the providence in his life to the hand of God. No wonder the believer is not thinking in terms of how to respond obediently under God’s discipline.
How desperately God’s perspective is needed. The Christian has a race to run and to complete as a faithful witness. A trusting obedient response to God’s discipline is required to please the Lord and run the race with endurance. Our text this evening, Hebrews 12:1-17 identifies the pitfalls that accompany suffering, as well as the responses the Lord commands of us. You are going to find as I have found that the faith/obedience responses Scripture calls for are the opposite of our natural tendencies when we are experiencing trials and afflictions.
I. Christ, the supreme example of running a triumphant race (vv. 1-3).
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Heb 12:1-3).
This cloud of witnesses testifies to the fact that God is faithful, and that the faith He grants will carry you safely through all your sufferings. This race is not a sprint, but a long-distance race. To run this race, you must take up your cross and deny yourself.
Unmortified sin seeks to block your path to the finish line. Endurance is required— but stamina is the opposite of how you will feel sometimes: you’ll be tempted to back off on your effort, slacken your pace, retire for a while.
But, looking unto Jesus and considering Him is the source of courage, resolve, patience, and perseverance (v. 2). Looking unto Jesus is the opposite of self-pity amidst your afflictions. Christ is both Savior and example—He must be first your Redeemer before He can be your example. Our Lord always kept His eye on the prize—namely the glory of God in the salvation of His people.
The temptations during our difficulties are real—they can show up as weariness in following the Lord and losing heart. That is often manifested by no longer diligently mortifying temptation and sin. We are to fill our minds with the victory Christ has won (vv. 2-3)—you’re going to run in direction your mind and heart are looking. Consider what Christ endured on our behalf—the bitterness and cruelty of His enemies who took pleasure in contradicting Him. This discipline of looking unto Jesus shores up our faith against despondency, relaxation, and collapse.
II. Through chastisement, the Father trains His children to run the race with endurance (vv. 4-11).
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and 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.” 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 seemed 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 (Heb 12:4-11).
Believers have a contest with sin in themselves. Fleshly lusts wage war against the soul (1 Pet 2:11). The inclination of sin is toward doubt and distrust, especially when circumstances are dark and appear to be against us. If the believer under testing lapses in his diligence, and in his watchfulness against sin it can affect his meditation on Scripture; causing him to hear God’s voice in the Word less and less. The child of God must be careful not to despise or reject the Father’s discipline.
The Father’s chastisements are marks of His love for His children. His chastening is the effect of His love, and not His penalty for sin. This work of discipline is corrective and instructive, not punitive. He disciplines us to take away sin and to increase grace and holiness. I think of the severe trials that Job and David experienced. They reached periods of utter discouragement, but not unbelief. The preciousness of their faith will be displayed for all eternity (1 Pet 1:6-7).
It is the duty of earthly fathers to discipline us (v. 9). But their discipline was often inconsistent, they could be too strict, or too indulgent. Their discipline at times was merely according to their mood. But God Almighty’s discipline is coming from His perfect love and wisdom. His discipline will accomplish a glorious end and goal, namely that His people will share in His holiness (v. 10). It is Puritan John Owen who said of this infinite blessing, “To share in His holiness is the greatest imaginable privilege, only matched by Christ’s righteousness being ours by imputation.”
Believers are to diligently keep their souls in faith and patience during suffering, trial, and affliction; not allowing weariness and despondency (fainting) to drag them into a state of discouragement. A full resignation to God’s will during testing has the effect of causing such persons to ‘live’ (v. 9). By ‘live’ meaning increase in spiritual vigor unto eternal life. This is the peaceful fruit of righteousness (v. 11)—descriptive of the person whose trials have been softened by faith, and who’s sufferings have promoted patience, submission, heavenly-mindedness, and mortification of sin.
III. Exhortation to obedience in running the race (vv. 12-17).
Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears (Heb 12:12-17).
We are required to look around in the Body of Christ to search for feeble knees, heartless brethren, slothful saints—‘fainting’ in running the race—possessing a low level of hope, despondent. We are to lift them up, exhort, comfort, encourage them, admonish them, pray with them. Model before them what straight paths look like amidst suffering. Entire ministries are needed to rescue the backslidden and recover wandering believers (vv. 12-13).
‘Healed’ in verse 13 means dealing with the lameness—the causes of lameness. Like a spiritual paramedic who has brought a patient to E.R., caring believers ought to come alongside their brethren in biblical self-confrontation—assisting them in self-diagnosis by means of the Word of God. We are to diligently watch over one another for their edification (Heb 3:13).
Holiness is how we come to blessedness. It can be no other way, for God’s character is the law of the universe (v. 14). Holiness is not only preparation for blessedness and happiness, holiness is preparation for the sight of God—an experience reserved for the pure in heart (Mt 5:8). The unholy in life and practice will be excluded from heaven. For ‘grace’ is salvation from the rule of sin in the life (see Eph 5:1-4; Phil 3:18-19; Rev 21:8).
Sloth, negligence, unbelief, and sinful habits of mind are never static, they grow covertly like a root that eventually emerges as a plant ready to reproduce itself. And such is the imagery of a root of bitterness that defiles many (v. 15). Churches must not tolerate attendees who are living in sexual sin or in a pattern of wrangling over words—Scripture describes them as despising and profaning sacred things (vv 15-17). They can be restored, but what a common folly it is—men would like to have the blessing of mercy and glory (heaven), but like Esau, they reject the use of means—namely faith, repentance and obedience.
CONCLUSION: the discipline God sends upon His beloved children makes them choose—makes believers shed their double-mindedness and declare their true, functional treasure. There is no greater treasure than sharing His holiness (v. 10). And if that is your actual treasure, then you will respect your Heavenly Father’s discipline. For the outcome of His discipline is conformity to Christ. As Paul states in 2 Thessalonians 2:14, “It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Finally, what are you calling the Father’s discipline in your life? Does it include your weakness, your losses, crosses, how about delays, disappointments, misunderstandings, frustrations, disillusionments, illnesses; do all of these qualify?
My friends, so many of your brethren are quietly hurting, suffering in silence; they need your encouragement. There is a corporate responsibility that accompanies our obedient response to the Father’s discipline. You are to draw near to your brethren who in the race have shown that their hands are weak and knees are feeble (vv. 12-13). Build them up, console them, help them identify patterns of unbelief and compromise that they may again return to a place of running the race after the pattern of their triumphant Savior.