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God is Our Superior Father - Discipline - Hebrews 12

Today we look at how Jesus is our ultimate example in discipline and suffering.

Sermon Transcript

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good morning welcome if you're new here my name is gene i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor and i have a question for you this morning have you ever been chased by a bee we all do the same thing when that happens right i don't know where it is we're scared of it every time we spend a huge portion of our lives trying to prevent ourselves from looking like idiots that's what we do think about it a lot of time but when it comes to the bee all of that goes right out the window we don't even care anymore it's kind of like when you walk through a spider web same thing instantly instinctively we become karate masters right the spider web last week we talked about fears things we're scared of we looked at fear of the lord and we saw that that's a good thing to be afraid of that what about fear of your parents when you were a kid did you ever reach a point where you got a little too comfortable around your mom or your dad you ever have that happen perhaps you said a bad word in front of your parents maybe that happened to you for me one of my first times was when i got chased by a dog my dad and i were walking along and a dog literally got off the chain and i perceived that it was coming after me probably wasn't and i started running and swearing and of course the dog chased me more right doesn't help don't do that they think you're playing or something like that christmas time it's coming it's really weird here in southwest florida isn't it don't feel like christmas it's kind of strange except at night when you drive by all the nice neighborhoods with the palm trees but during the day it's like really it's going to be christmas in a few days this week so makes me think of a christmas story that's on the tv constantly so you've probably seen it come on the television 5 000 times a day they should get their own channel for that show you probably remember ralphie and his dad he gets a flat tire so he wants to be like a pit crew mechanic or something he's like time me go change the tire he gets excited about it who does that ralphie wants to help so ralphie gets out of the car too and he's holding the hubcap with all the nuts his dad i think he hit it with a tire iron they all go flying out and ralphy says fudge but he clears it up for us he says that's not what i said i said the mother of all bad words mom interrogates them with the soap in the mouth some of you are old enough to remember that when that was a possibility we could do that interrogate some where did you learn this all right but if you watch the movie carefully and you know in your own life we probably learned it from our parents today we find ourselves in hebrews chapter 12 where we will see that jesus is the ultimate example as the son and god is our superior father first as it pertains to the son we'll pick up where we left off last week and add a couple of verses hebrews 12 starting at verse 1 therefore since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith let us strip off every weight that slows us down especially the sin that so easily trips us up and let us run with endurance the race god has set before us we do this by keeping our eyes on jesus the champion who initiates and perfects our faith because of the joy awaiting him he endured the cross disregarding its shame now he is seated in the place of honor beside god's throne think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people then you won't become weary and give up after all you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin jesus gave us the ultimate example to follow on receiving discipline being disciplined maybe not complaining we saw the agony in the garden yes he asked the father if it's possible take this cup don't really want to get crucified but your will be done not mine jesus had fears we saw last week but ultimately he was obedient to the father and so we must follow jesus's example in obedience and both exhibit and receive discipline hebrews 12 5 will continue and have you forgotten the encouraging words god spoke to you as his children he said my child don't make light of the lord's discipline and don't give up when he corrects you for the lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes each one he accepts as his child as you endure this divine discipline remember that god is treating you as his own children whoever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father if god doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children it means that you are illegitimate and not really his children at all since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us shouldn't we submit even more to the discipline of the father of our spirits and live forever for our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years doing the best they knew how but god's discipline is always good for us so that we might share in his holiness no discipline is enjoyable while it is happening it's painful but afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way so just as jesus is the superior son and our superior brother as we've seen god is the superior father last week we talked about kind of a bad word right fear in the series we're talking about things like that obedience maybe they're not really bad words but we definitely don't like them one of them is discipline i like that too much in hebrews we've seen the relationship between the father and the son so i want to connect last week's idea by starting in the proverbs proverbs 1 7 fear of the lord is the foundation of true knowledge but fools despise wisdom and discipline my child listen when your father corrects you don't neglect your mother's instruction i hit the pause button stop the tour bus for a second and point something out a little disclaimer here there's a difference between discipline and abuse when it comes to parenting we need to know what that is we can do it physically we can do it with our words we can manipulate and do things like that so many people it's kind of like the husbands and wives thing right so if a husband wants to be a little manipulative they're going to take some scriptures they're going to use that and then not read the rest that applies to them right but there's a standard for all of us especially if we're supposed to be leading well and so you'll get a lot of parents who will say honor your mother and father that pick one of the ten commandments they like that one a lot all right but maybe they don't like a few of the other ones so what happens uh we don't have to honor people in their sin not to honor sin to do that and if we're going to go old testament right you want to do the okay let's pick the old testament scriptures we can do that but let's look at some of the other commands like for example if someone commits murder or adultery or something like that we get to stone him to death so what would happen back then to a parent who is doing one of those sins and then said honor me sure i can honor you by stoning you to death get it so there's the other side to this coin that we have to look at all right you have to kind of earn that respect so to speak we need to look at both sides of the coin here that's what we're going to do today we're not going to look just at one side of it both for example paul in ephesians he is quoting old testament scripture he says children obey your parents because you belong to the lord for this is the right thing to do quote honor your father and mother this is the first commandment with a promise if you honor your father and mother things will go well for you and you will have a long life on earth because they won't kill you but keep reading ephesians 6 4 fathers do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them rather bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the lord both sides of the coin we need to look at them we all we all have responsibilities in the family unit and if we neglect them we will lose some of our privileges the older generation often accuses the younger generation of being entitled you heard that entitlement it's a younger generation they're entitled but we'll see today that perhaps perhaps the older generation is often suffering from entitlement syndrome as well we must always love and honor one another but you can have some boundaries if need be then we have the other side of things so if we have strict discipline over here we have what i like to call prosperity parenting over here we talked about prosperity preaching well there's also prosperity parenting so to speak like the prosperity gospel some christians and kids feel entitled to just get whatever they want no matter how they're behaving i'm a child of god so i can get whatever i want right wrong it doesn't work that way what would happen if we just let kids do whatever they wanted right get whatever they want actually i think a lot of people do and how is that working out for us today modern parenting seems almost void of discipline i don't know about you but when it came to having discipline and being disciplined my parents did not play any games at all i knew they were in charge for example you did not did not just any old time of the day open up the refrigerator he didn't do that well they're showing there what are you doing you're wasting electricity you're going to ruin your appetite we get yelled at for that you didn't snack during the day you had to earn the snack by doing what eating your dinner and if you didn't finish your dinner what happened it became breakfast what happened strict but i'd say it worked you did not get whatever you wanted didn't happen that way you were not entitled to anything you had to earn it and if you got out of line you knew it wasn't yours anymore never was i remember one time i was really bad a lot but this one time really struck me i was in a star wars at all the star wars toys and i had paper routes i earned a lot of it but my dad did give me a lot of stuff and i had star wars bed sheets and curtains and t-shirts and underoos and all kinds of cool stuff remember under us you could run around your underwear it was awesome well anyway i was really bad came home from school one day and my room was emptied just white sheets regular curtains gone now sometimes i'd get physically disciplined but that kind of discipline worked too i remembered now i want to do another disclaimer here in my case and many others listening sometimes the physical discipline was a bit much again i'm not advocating for any kind of physical abuse here but if i'm being honest sometimes it worked help me remember i didn't forget but today seems that you have prosperity parenting where the kids just do and get whatever they want no matter what where no doesn't mean no anymore or in fact you can't say it anymore right it's too negative you might hurt their confidence if you say no all right people say make another choice what there is no other choice no sit quietly obey no that's too negative but we'll see today the bible doesn't say to do it that way at all the bible says no or don't a lot so these people these prosperity parents what they're really saying is they know better than the bible i can parent better than god interesting attitude and some of these people are actually calling themselves christians kind of funny but how is that working today how is that working for this next generation lack of discipline breeds lack of discipline so modern christianity as we've seen in this series is a lot like modern parenting yeah it's supposed to be about a relationship but a balanced one both sides of the coin both the blessings and the discipline so let's look at biblical parenting so what we're going to do i'm going to read you a really difficult quote really difficult but we're going to take a look at it through a biblical lens not what we think or what we want to think or what society tells us to think just a biblical lens so this quote is from a biblical preaching illustration books for pastors for sermon prep and it's been used a lot over the last probably 40 years so the books by michael p green i don't know if he made it up or whether he was borrowing it from somewhere so here we go every baby starts life like a little savage completely egotistic and self-centered babies want what they want when they want it be it a bottle mother's attention or a dry diaper deny a baby these wants and he or she is seized with rage babies have no morals no knowledge and no skill for survival all children not just certain children are potential delinquents if permitted to continue in the self-centered world of their infancy where they gave free reign to every impulse and had every want instantly gratified all children would grow up in that mold of depravity that is the stuff out of which are made criminals killers and rapists tough quote there's what we want to think about that what society tells us about that then there's what the bible says about it if we're reading it right so let's look at what the scriptures say about disciplining our children we saw what hebrews says right out the gate this morning whoever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father if god doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children it means that you are illegitimate and not really use children at all before that the word punish was used if you were looking very carefully and in the greek it is scourge scourge same greek word used for when they flogged jesus before the cross sounds pretty harsh proverbs 13 24 those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children absorb that those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children those who love their children care enough to discipline them so the bible does prescribe physical discipline and again if i'm being honest there were times when that was applied to me as a child and it worked i didn't forget the lesson but discipline doesn't have to be physical discipline we can do a lot with our words so i want to connect some dots for you this morning talk about adenisia so how do we get there proverbs most of them are written by solomon right a couple at the end not so much lemuel's mom hezekiah but most are written by solomon solomon if you're new king david's son but not his only son see in the beginning he had a lot of trouble with absalom it doesn't go well there next in line will be adenisia solomon though is younger and so naturally you would think that adonaija is going to become the next king when david dies but that's not the case because the lord tells him that's going to be your heir solomon and he's going to build the temple well david gets old and so he's having trouble keeping warm so they get him kind of like a servant girl almost like a concubinish type of thing abbashag that'll be important a little later it doesn't seem important but it is in the meantime adenaja proclaims himself the king it's a big deal because he gets the support of joab his military commander by far one of the priests jesus will mention later in the new testament uh oh well the prophet nathan gets bathsheba that's solomon's mom so they have different moms these sons of david says yo go remind david that solomon's the king she does so and david proclaims solomon the king yay they celebrate but not out of naija now he's worried really freaks out thinks solomon's going to kill him but solomon has mercy and lets him live okay david dies and then adonaija goes to bathsheba and says hey can you convince solomon to give me abhishek so it's kind of like taking his dad's wife in a way i'll ask solomon solomon isn't having it he said that's it that is it you might as well make this guy king i'm going to kill him and so he kills or has adonaija kiln so why did he die what got adenisia killed well let's back up towards the beginning of the story here's the reason why first kings 1 5. about that time david's son adenija whose mother was haggith began boasting i will make myself king so he provided himself with chariots and charioteers and recruited 50 men to run in front of him now his father king david had never disciplined him at any time even asking why are you doing that david never disciplined him and got him killed proverbs 19 18 discipline your children while there is hope otherwise you you will ruin their lives you see discipline doesn't have to be physical according to the bible it is sometimes we see that but discipline also means we tell them the truth in love it means we don't spoil them it means we don't let them believe that we're entitled to anything adenisia suffered from entitlement syndrome because his dad let him do it and according to words if you're doing it right you really shouldn't need too much physical discipline the bible talks a lot about the power of words everywhere from the proverbs to james chapter 3. but it also tells us we have to be wise and careful about the way we use them then there's the other side of the coin children proverbs 12 1 to learn you must love discipline it is stupid to hate correction proverbs 13 1 a wise child accepts the parents discipline maca refuses to listen to correction a wise child listens and learns from our words when back to the other side of the coin used rightly proverbs 15 5 only a fool despises a parent's discipline whoever learns from correction is wise if you reject discipline you only harm yourself but if you listen to correction you grow in understanding so why is it worth obeying why is it worth listening you will grow in understanding and because of that save yourself from some trouble and in our faith why well because we're being led by a good father who loves us and cares about us and provides us with a good example which brings us to another side of things here yeah you can employ physical discipline yeah you can use words but there's one thing that i think is even more powerful our example have you ever heard the phrase do as i say not as i do that kind of thinking is actually what leads to a lot of misunderstandings in the bible we've seen that you should be looking at what jesus did not just what he said otherwise we might end up ripping our eyes out right here's a phrase i like a little better actions speak louder than words proverbs 17 27 a truly wise person uses few words and so i'm going to end my sermon right now a person with understanding is even tempered so we can use words to instruct and discipline but the bible also talks a lot about using fewer words and leading by example so i try to take you to something that we went over recently we were in a corinthian series last yearish and so those who have been with us for a while take you back there refresh your memory a little bit corinth was kind of messed up so when we look at that book of the bible it's a new testament letter written by paul the apostle along with sosthenes to the church in corinth where they're experiencing a lot of messed up stuff the first issue is what i like to call pastor worship that's why we talked about it in this series where i talked about celebrity pastors propping people up a problem in the early church and in corinth they're guilty of it oh no apollos is a better speaker i'll come to church service when he's speaking right no peter's better i follow paul paul gets really angry the first four chapters are divided or dedicated to that issue division that's what i mean to say division in the church over these factions being developed and paul says some interesting things if you're paying attention first of all he says i'm like a father to you follow my example do you want me to come with a rod or with love imagine me saying that to the church imagine that todd what do you want you gonna cut it out different in the early church wasn't it i wasn't afraid to say things like that then later he says again my example chapter 9. ends with i discipline my body so that when i preach i'm not disqualified interesting you see the best way to exert discipline is to exhibit discipline paul knew that you see if you were leading troops up a hill in battle and you charge up the hill to take it you look behind you and there's no one there you're not leading anyone if no one is following you you're not leading we must be a good example we must be leading well with love that's the real key whether it be as fathers husbands if your children wives your spouses know that you love them and you're leading well with goodness they'll likely follow you if you're doing it right you see you have to be worthy of following if you want your wife to do that first peter thing and submit to you right you have to what does it say treat her as your own body you have to love her she has to know that and she won't have a problem with it the other side of the coin we need to do our part if we're fathers husbands first we need to do that well that's what's important if we look at our children we look at our wives look at our spouses moms dads we both have to play our part and if we're leading well probably going to follow but if they're not following we have to look back at ourselves we have to do some self-inventory take some self-reflection because kids i found it very funny early on it's kind of like looking in a mirror for being honest it's tough now only if we really can say with complete honesty and integrity that we are leading well with love that we are disciplined ourselves in all ways then only then can we say it's on them in that case what happens if i'm being honest it happens or someone just wants to be that way it doesn't matter they might say something like oh that's too difficult i want to go through all that work all right then make excuses for why they're not doing it that's too much it's intimidating whatever but you'll see this example come up paul used it in acts chapter 20 ezekiel he's told this by the lord ezekiel 3 i believe chapter 33 2. he likens him to a watchman on a tower he says you're like a guard on the tower all right so if you see the enemy coming and you warn the people they don't do anything about it while the blood's on their hands then if you warn them they do something about it the blood's not on your hands so that's kind of how it is and this is how it is with god he's worth following he's worth submitting to he's worth obeying he loves us so if you don't know that john 3 16 gave his only begotten son that's how much he loves you so he's worth listening to jesus was the ultimate example of the ultimate love all the way to the cross so if we're not listening if we're not obeying it's always on us he made the ultimate sacrifice with the ultimate example he's not asking us to do anything he wouldn't do himself i want to invite you all this week thursday is that christmas eve wow thursday christmas eve 6 30. we are having our christmas eve service right here and i want to invite you if you're tuning in from somewhere else you can tune in we're going to be filming it streaming it we're going to talk about the ultimate gift of the sun now may the god of peace who brought up from the dead our dear lord jesus christ the great shepherd of the sheep and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood may he equip you for all you need for doing his will may he produce in you through the power of jesus christ every good thing that is pleasing to him all glory to him forever and ever amen