Have you heard about the mechanic who accidentally drank from a brake fluid can and really liked the taste and then drank the rest of the bottle?
One of his co-workers caught him taking a swig of brake fluid the next day. “Man, that stuff will kill you,” said his friend, “you’ve got to give it up.”
“Don’t worry,” the mechanic responded, “I can “stop” anytime I want.” (Van Morris, Mt. Washington, Kentucky; www.PreachingToday.com)
Ironically, “I can stop anytime I want” are the words of a lot of people, with real habits,” however they seldom do! Our battle with sin is a similar story because it takes too much to quit.
Our lesson today reveals that every believer needs to know that spiritual victory over sin is demanding and requires sacrifice. In these verses in Hebrews chapter 12, the author encourages people in their struggle with sin and explains how they can strengthen themselves to spiritual maturity and run the race. Notice the condition of the people that he addresses in verse 4…
Hebrews 12:4 “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;” (NASB)
The author tells these believers that they are to keep on resisting sin to the point of shedding blood. This phrase is acting like a colloquial phrase. Like phrases we use today, “cream of the crop”, or “lickety-split.” Shedding of blood literally means “until the day you die.” The author is saying that God expects each believer to have victory, but it will take submission to discipline and sacrifice, therefore…
We must Keep on UNTIL we ACCOMPLISH THE PURPOSE of our DISCIPLINE.
First, let’s never be guilty of failing to growing spiritually because we failed to train and learn. I believe this is the main idea of these verses we are looking at today. These verses serve to help keep every believer from spiritual apathy. Verse 4 implies that it will be a constant battle for the believer in their fight against sin. We will battle sin until the day God takes us home to glory.
The one-time famous evangelist Billy Sunday said, “Listen, I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot. I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. And I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old, without strength in my fists, footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to glory and it goes home to perdition.” (Billy Sunday, evangelist of 1900s, www.PreachingToday.com)
We are not to give up in our fight against sin in this side of eternity! We must keep on resisting sin in ways the bible tells us in other places; “drawing nigh unto God”, “putting on the Lord Jesus Christ”, “yielding our bodies to righteousness”, “put off the old man and put on the new man”. We do this by studying and researching the Bible in order to submit to the Holy Spirit until we come to the end of life’s race.
We should never think that we can spiritually coast to the end and do well. I think that is why in verses 1-3, our life as a believer is described as a race and the end of the race is when it matters.
In his book “Good to Great”, Jim Collins writes:
The coaching staff and team of a high school cross-country team met for the yearly banquet after winning its second state championship in two years. The program had been transformed in the previous five years from good (top 20 in the state) to great (consistent contenders for the state championship on both the boys’ and girls’ teams).
One of the coaches commented, “Why are we so successful? We don’t work any harder than other teams. And what we do is just so simple.
He was referred to their simple strategy: We run best at the end. We run best at the end of workouts. We run best at the end of races. And we run best at the end of the season, when it counts the most. Everything is geared to this simple idea, and the coaching staff knows how to create this effect better than any other team in the state.
One of their strategies was to place a coach at the 2-mile mark (of a 3.1-mile race) to collect data as the runners go past. The coaches did not calculate the speed of the runners, but how many competitors they pass from there to the end of the race.
The kids learn how to pace themselves and race with confidence: “We run best at the end,” (Jim Collins, Good To Great, Harper Business, 2001, p. 206; www.PreachingToday.com)
The charge to the believers reading this letter to the Hebrews, they are to diligently run until the end! In thier struggle against sin, they are to keep on resisting sin until the day they die.
That’s what Gordon McDonald discovered he had to do when he fell into sin. He was a pastor in New England; instead of remaining vigilant against sin, he dropped his guard and found himself in involved in a sinful situation. Until a lifelong friend and mentor told Gordon, ‘You are momentarily in a great darkness. You have a choice to make. You can—as do so many—deny this terrible pain, or blame it on others, or run away from it. Or, you can embrace this shame and pain, let that pain do its purifying work as you draw near to God during the process. If you choose the latter, I expect you will have an adventurous future modeling what true repentance and grace is all about.’” (Gordon McDonald, Leadership journal’s weekly newsletter, 5-13-08; www.PreachingToday.com)
There is one way to handle the situation when we sin. Don’t deny the pain and sin, blame others, or run away. Instead, repent and find God’s forgiveness and God will bless through His purifying work.
When we fail, we must never let our sin stop us in our progress to spiritual maturity. We must keep on resisting sin until the day we die. We must experience discipline as believers and in order to do that…
We must APPRECIATE the evidence of LOVE in DISCIPLINE.
This attitude is more than simply being thankful for discipline, because only a few people like discipline. The point that I’m making here is that we should cherish discipline, because it is evidence that God loves us.
Hebrews 12:5-7a And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.”
Correction is part of discipline that a believer will need to endure.
In the Greek language in which this was written, the word “discipline” literally means “child-training.” It includes everything a parent would do to equip and prepare their children for life. It includes instruction and correction, teaching and punishment, as well. It’s what the old-timers called “applying the board of education to the seat of learning.”
The point here is that discipline is a tool that God uses to train His children. Many of us can recall the discipline from a parent is not a very comfortable experience. And yet, that discomfort is one of God’s method to get believers ready to handle the race that is set for each of us.
Hebrews 12:7b-8 If you endure discipline, God is treating you as sons; For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
The date of writing the letter to the Hebrews was during the Roman empire. Back then a typical Roman father had legitimate and illegitimate children. He had children by his wife and children by other women. But the only children a Roman father cared for were those he had through his wife. They were the children he would discipline and train to take over the family fortune someday. His illegitimate children he often ignored. He didn’t invest in them because he did not care how they turned out, so he left them without discipline.
The Bible tells us that God disciplines His children, those who have come to faith in Christ, His Son. God disciplines them, because He cares about their future.
The point the author is making is that discipline is not a sign of God’s displeasure; it’s a sign of God’s favor. Discipline is not a sign that God despises you; it’s a sign that He loves you very much!
Author and pastor Leighton Ford said this: God loves us the way we are, but he loves us too much to leave us that way. (Leadership, Vol. 4, no. 1; www.PreachingToday.com)
God wants us to endure and mature! God cares about us and wants the best for us. That’s why He disciplines us.
Before the era of cell phones, Roberta Hestenes was a mother of a teenager years ago, when a serial killer known as the Hillside Strangler was attacking and killing young women in their southern California neighborhood (La Cañada, Los Angeles County). Her daughter was out baby-sitting one night. The child’s parents had picked her up, but she didn’t return home at the expected time.
Roberta and her husband, John, began to worry. Roberta says, “As the hours stretched on, John and I became upset, and I became frantic. They reported her missing to the police and after hours of searching, the police said, ‘We’re doing everything we can do. You just need to go somewhere.’ The hidden message was, ‘Quit bothering us and let us do our job.’
So, Roberta and her husband went home to wait and minutes later, their daughter arrived home. Apparently, the couple for whom she was baby-sitting came home hours later than they told her they would. What a relief! Her parents were so glad to see her.
But guess what they did next? Just what many parents do when they are concerned about their children. Once the relief set in, they had a very different conversation: “Why didn’t you call us? Why didn’t you let us know? We were worried sick. How could you be so thoughtless?”
The lesson they learned? Roberta Hestenes concluded, “Love sometimes comes out as complaint.” (Roberta Hestenes, “It Takes a Family,” Preaching Today Audio Tape #207; www.PreachingToday.com)
In the same way, “the Lord disciplines the one He loves” and we, in the midst of our discipline, doubt and complain about His love and care. But we need to appreciate the evidence of love in His discipline, and…
We need to APPROPRIATE the exercise to be MATURE through DISCIPLINE.
A believer will need to embrace discipline and allow discipline to help us to be spiritually wise and stronger.
Hebrews 12:9-10 “Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 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 biological fathers didn’t always do discipline right. And sometimes their discipline made us bitter. However, Our Heavenly Father always does it right. His discipline makes us better. He disciplines us for our best, to make us holy like Himself. (see the end of verse 10)
Hebrews 12:11 Now no discipline seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
The word “trained” at the end of verse 12 in the Greek, is gumnazo. We get our word “gymnasium” from it. We are to understand that God’s discipline is a process like a gymnasium would be used to strengthen our muscles and conditioning our body!
The idea is that though discipline is one way we strengthen our faith. Discipline is how our faith is stretched and worked out. “Gumnazo” is how we exercise our spiritual muscles, so we are able run the race that is set before us. God’s discipline is an exercise and we are to utilize it. And use discipline to get better, not bitter.
The believers in Hebrews need to hear that they shouldn’t be afraid of the discipline to grow stronger and be part of God’s work on earth to help others.
Abraham Lincoln had a life of filled with challenges yet it made him be the person who could endure when others couldn’t.
The level of suffering he endured throughout his life is simply astonishing. He was a victim of relentless and tragic sorrow. His mother died when he was 9. His first love died when he was a young man. Later, three of his four children died in childhood. His wife had some mental illness, and he probably suffered from what we now call clinical depression.
Lincoln’s political path was no easier. He was hugely unpopular in his own times. The media portrayed him as a hapless hick from the backwoods. Eastern society rejected him and his wife because they were from Illinois – then considered the rough western frontier. And when he ran for president, leaders in Southern states made it clear that if Lincoln were elected, the country would divide. With 82 percent voter turnout in 1860, he won with less than 40 percent of the popular vote.
Rather than shrink from a nightmare in the making, Lincoln accepted leadership of a country that was deeply divided. He knew his election would bring that division to the surface. Sure enough, after his election the Southern states began seceding from the union before he even took office. Then, roughly a month after he took office, all-out civil war erupted. His popularity grew during his presidency until, four years after he took office and just six days after the Confederate surrender, he was shot and killed in a final tragedy that helped to bring the nation back together. It was in their grief over his death.
What made Lincoln such an effective leader during this great crisis? Could it have been his intimate acquaintance with sorrow and hardship. The pain prepared him for the kind of self-sacrifice his presidency and our nation would require. (Amy Simpson, “There’s Power in Showing Your Scars,” Amy Simpson blog, 4-29-13; www.PreachingToday.com)
Believers need discipline to strengthen us and prepare us “to run the race that is set before us.” We shouldn’t resist God’s discipline. Instead, respect it. It is evidence of His love and exercise for the race.
Hebrews 12:12-13 Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
Do you hear the “Coach” encouraging His team: Put up your hands; Strengthen your knees; and Stay in your lane! The original readers of the letter to the Hebrews, were in a difficult situation: The description that their hands were slack; their knees were weak; and they couldn’t even stay in their lane when they ran. But, they are winners and under the discipline of their “Coach”, they’ll be well prepared to run the race to victory!
Lastly, from this lesson I want to give to you the way to grow in spiritual maturity: Respect God’s discipline; don’t reject it because it’s from the “Coach.” And be involved in self-discipline, the study and training of His Word anytime you can… so “that we may be partakers of His holiness.” (12:10)
We must Keep on UNTIL we ACCOMPLISH THE PURPOSE of our DISCIPLINE. We need to APPRECIATE THE EVIDENCE of His love in DISCIPLINE. And We need to APPROPRIATE THE EXERCISE to be mature through DISCIPLINE. It’s the way to grow to spiritual maturity and for the ability to run the race that God has set before us.