And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8
If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9
Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10
For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. 12
Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13
and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 14
Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.15
See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; 16
that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17
For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
Our text tells us that we must not faint or become discouraged but put our hope in God that He will lead us and direct us as we submit to His Fatherly discipline of
us. As we are told, no chastising seems joyful for the present but painful. God is not some kind of Polly Annish God, He knows it hurts, He knows that our souls cry out within us, discipline does hurt!
But afterwards, that is after we have submitted to God and his providential sovereign care and sought to learn from Him, repented of our sins, then we will see the
fruit of peace and of righteousness. We should expect this peace, anticipate this righteousness and if you ask how I know this will happen, the answer is easy, because God says so right in His word. God loves His people and He loves us enough to hurt us because
it will produce in us that which is pleasing to Himself and to make us into the image of His Son.
In verses 6-8 the text speaks to what this discipline proves. God’ discipline proves His love and our sonship. When I was working in the youth jail many years ago
I met a young man who had been arrested and was looking at a long incarceration. In a conversation he told me, “I know my dad never loved me…he never disciplined me.” God our Father has so much love for us that he will accomplish that in us which is good and
necessary. He knows best and we do not. The Father knows that the children cannot know.
I remember when one of the boys burned himself badly with hot broth. While he was crying and I held him, putting cool towels on the burn as Dana spoke to the doctor
who encouraged me to continue doing what I was doing. But the little boy did not understand. The coolness of the towel on the heat of the burn only seemed to intensify his pain and yet it was necessary. He kept saying to me over and over in that small 4 year
old voice: Daddy, why are you hurting me?
We feel like that at times. But we also are more wise than a four year old and know that our God knows what we need and although it may hurt, it shows us, it proves
to us that He loves us.
The reasoning is simple: We are God’s children. God loves His children and is bound by His own nature, word and covenant to do only that which is good for them. Therefore,
whatever God does is from love.
Verse 6 has some pretty strong language in it. He chastens His children and He scourges every son whom He receives. The word scourge of course refers to flogging with
a whip and was a common Jewish practice. The point of Hebrews 6 and Proverbs 3;12 which is the passage being quoted, is that God’s discipline can sometimes be severe.
When our disobedience is great, or our apathy is deep, our sin unrepented of, then God’s chastising may indeed be severe, but this too is only because He loves us
and will have His way and will bring us to the point of blessing and conformity.
The text asks, what son is there whom his father does not discipline? A father does what he has to do to bring the child into conformity to the family’s standards
and rules because that is what it is to be in a family. At times, earthly parents feel as though their children are unteachable and unreachable but with the Lord that is never the case. We are never out of reach and never out of His love and that fact that
He disciplines us, and even severely at times, proves the point.
There is a product that this discipline produces and the text says that the consequences of this discipline is life. “Shall we not much more readily be in subjection
to the Father of spirits and live?”
A missionary to Indochina when visiting the USA was asked if he liked living there. He had been through war, famine, disease, political and military upheavals and
countless other experiences that most of us would do anything to avoid. He responded, “I don’t think I could ever come back to the boring existence of the United States. We have seen God work so many wonderful miracles over there. Why would we want to come
back here to the humdrum routine?”
The Lord was putting His children through much and was disciplining them , that is, growing them up in maturity through fatherly punishments, instructions, and education
in difficulty. The product of God’s love and the product of God’s discipline is the same; it is life, the abundant life, the life given to the purpose of being made more into the image of our Savior.
God’s discipline also works holiness in us, verse 10: “For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them but he for our profit that we may be partakers
of his holiness.” Our God has as His desire for His children that we would be a holy people, a people called out, separate from the world and devoted in everything to Him. God purifies us and sanctifies us and mortifies sin in us so that He might accomplish
His will in and through us, that is: making us holy!
It is faith that understands as the text says that in a little while or afterwards, there will be a great harvest of righteousness. Faith says we discipline our children
with the hope of what it will produce…later on. The same is true with our Father’s discipline of us. We both discipline by faith and receive discipline by faith because we know the Lord disciplines those He loves.
Prayer: Father, again I am faced with the pain that my sin causes and at times the pain that Your Fatherly discipline brings as well. I see through Your word what
rebellion and continual sin does to Your heart as well as what my submission to your chastising promises. Give me, I pray, a holy hatred against all things that displease You and fill me with undaunting resolve to put sin to death and to pursue and secure
the virtues of the Christian life, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Come, Let Us Worship and Bow Down (Psalm 95:6-7)
