God’s Chastening Love for His People
By Pastor Matt Black
21
February 2007
Midweek Service
Hebrews 12:1-6
Introduction: Open your Bibles to Hebrews 12, and let’s read verses 1-11. The title of this evening’s message is: “God’s Chastening Love for His People”.
Hebrews 12:1-12, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. 5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
As we come to the subject of chastening and discipline tonight, my purpose is to look to the reason we discipline our children. We do it because we are mirroring and imitating the Lord. “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (verse 6). God loves us to much to allow us to keep on sinning.
I. God’s goal for us: Holiness. We need to be “looking unto Jesus”. We need to be HOLY like Jesus. We need to be “perfect and complete wanting nothing” as Jesus is!
God’s ultimate goal for us is Holiness; therefore He gives us a clear path to holiness: Look unto Jesus. We are compassed about by a great cloud of witnesses that have run the race with patience and finished as changed, transformed people. If you are a believer, this is the unmistakable path God has for you! Holiness is a necessity for the Christian life and Christian home. If you are saved, God’s going to make you holy!
A. Errors about Holiness: First we will cover two extremes people fall into when trying to understand how the Christian is sanctified.
1. Christian perfectionism. There are some who say that Christians can come to Christian perfection. Though the Bible does teach that a believer will hate sin and progressively become more and more holy, the Bible does not teach a second work of grace where a believer in Christ becomes able to be perfect. There are sins that beset us!
John agrees:
"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8).
2. Carnal Christian doctrine.
There is a teaching that totally disregards holiness. That is that there can be a believer that lives like an unbeliever. There is a believer that goes on sinning and sinning. Now a Christian can backslide into sin, but God always brings His chastening hand to wake that Christian up! There is always a forward progress in the Christian life. The first word of the Gospel is Repent! The Christian life is a life of repentance and a constant progression to holiness. Without this holiness no man will see the Lord. John tells us 1 John 3:6, “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.” The true believer cannot continue and abide in sin. He’s been given a new nature.
The third error on holiness is:
3. God somehow doesn’t see sin in the believer.
a. It is true that God forgives our sin. He’s thrown our sins as far as the east is from the west! So, it is true, that of those who have trusted in Christ, it is stated,
"He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel" (Numbers 23:21) and that Christ declares of His spouse "Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee" (Song of Solomon 4:7). The testimony of Scripture is most express that in regard to the justification or acceptance of the persons of the elect, they are "complete in Him"—Christ (Colossians 2:10); "accepted in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:6)—washed in Christ’s blood, clothed with His righteousness. In that sense, God sees no sin in them; none to punish.[1]
Pink goes on “But we must not use that precious truth to set aside another, revealed with equal clearness, and thus fall into serious error.”
b. It is also true that God chastens us presently for our sin.
God indeed does see our sin, and He chastens us for it! God not only promises every spiritual blessing to us in Christ, but He promises us also the rod and scourging!
Ø Philippians 1:6, “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
Ø Our text in Hebrews 12:14 tells us “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.”
Ø Ephesians 1:6 tells us that God “hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love”.
Ø Jude said in verse 24 tells us that God “is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy”.
1. Our Problem:
a. We get Distracted. Sin besets us easily!
b. We get weighted down. When we are beset in sin we are “weighted down”!
2. Our Solution: “and let us run with patience the race that is set before us”
a. Lay aside Sin
b. Run with patience the race
c. Look unto Jesus
1.) With Joy Endured the Cross
2.) Despised the Shame
3.) Is Set on the Right Hand of God
d. Consider Him
1.) Endured contradiction of sinners against himself
2.) Was there any sin in Christ? No! How can we expect any less?
3.) Without looking to Christ we will be wearied and faint in our minds!
Notice where the battle is: the mind (heart)
Look to Jesus! Center your life on Jesus! The greatest battle is in the focus of your heart! If you get weary with life, then you need to renew your mind and focus on Christ.
II. The Only Hindrance to God’s Goal of Holiness: Our Depravity.
The first thing Paul addresses is the depraved nature of man. Paul here tells us in verse 1, “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us”
We are so given to sin that it easily besets us. We are not prone to look toward the ultimate goal of our lives which is pleasing Christ, but we constantly have to battle against a depraved heart.
A. We need to fight to the death against sin (verse 4). We have not yet resisted unto blood—the idea is that we are fighting against the desire for wickedness that wells up in us because of our depravity. The only way to do this is to “look unto Jesus” and to “consider him that endured” He endured the “contradiction of sinners” and he “endured the cross”
B. Scripture
Ø Galatians 5:16-17, “Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”
Ø Romans 7:22-25, “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
III. The Lord’s Loving Solution for Believers who continue in Sin: Chastening.
A. Chastening defined: It is any trial or event that brings us to the end of ourselves, and awakens us to our need for the Lord.
B. Purpose of Chastening: it is one of the ways that God wakes us up and drives us to be Holy as He is holy.
C. Clarification: Suffering is not always Chastening.
Now before we jump to conclusions as Job’s friends did, we need to understand an important truth. Suffering is not always because of sin. In fact there are many reasons God allows the child of God to suffer.
1. Some afflictions are for the Glory of God alone.
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all" (Psalm 34:19). God sends God’s people afflictions to show His mighty power and deliver us. Think of the man born blind from birth that the Lord gave sight. Think of Lazarus who was in the grave, and the Lord brought him to life again. There are many trials and sufferings that God brings us to simply to demonstrate His power in us!
2. Some sufferings are for the prevention of sin. Listen to Paul’s testimony: "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure" (2 Corinthians 12:7).
3. Sometimes sore trials are sent for the testing and strengthening of our graces and to make us more like Christ: "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience" (James 1:2-3). God wants us to be like Christ: “perfect and entire, wanting nothing”.
4. Sometimes God’s people are called on to endure persecution. 2 Timothy 3:12, “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”
5. Having said all that, sometimes suffering is given to us as a gift to purge us from sin. Our text says in verse 6, “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” God does this as an act of mercy, for remember Paul said some who took the Lord’s Table with sin in their lives were sick, and some had died.
James said if there is anyone sick in the congregation “let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.” (James 5:14-15).
I can say there have been many difficult events in my life that were used to wake me up even further to the holiness of God.
I remember the loss of my mother just after I was saved. I began to stray, and the Lord woke me up.
IV. The Application to our own Homes.
You and I need to discipline our children as the Lord disciplines us. We need to mirror the Lord in our homes. There is much said in the Bible about how to discipline our children.
Correction with the rod: SPEAKS OF NEED FOR HOLINESS, AND CREATES AN UNDERSTANDING OF RESPONSIBILITY BEFORE GOD.
Ø Proverbs 22:15 Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
Ø Proverbs 23:13 Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest [DISCIPLINE] him with the rod, he shall not die.
Ø Proverbs 23:14 Thou shalt beat [DISCIPLINE] him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
Conclusion: If our children do not receive discipline from us early, they will receive it from some authority later in life by going to jail, losing a job, dividing a marriage.
Closing Hymn: 353 Search Me O God