West Loop Church UBF

Happy New Year! We started our new year at West Loop church with key verse messages as our guide for 2011. Jim Cook gave us a message on Galatians 2:10 that we are God's masterpiece. Tim Fitch gave a message on John 4 and taught us the right way of worship. And Rhoel gave us a simple math formula - Jesus plus nothing equals everything.  Today I would to give a message on Hebrews 12 and it's about God's discipline. I know many of us already know the meaning of Hebrews 12, that God disciplines us for our good. It’s just that every time God’s discipline comes, it so hard to see them as God’s fatherly love. I was brought up as a spoiled son. My parents treated me like a prince and so when struggles and difficulties of life come, I always struggle a lot even as a Christian. So today I would like to give a message with the title “God's discipline, God's fatherly care” and it’s based on Pastor Tim Keller’s Hebrews 12 message entitled “The Runner.”

Hebrews is written to people who are so beaten down with difficulties struggles and suffering that they're ready to give up and that the book of Hebrews therefore is intense public pastoral counseling. At every point the writer of the Hebrews wants his readers to understand how to become the kind of people who can cope with the brutal realities of life.  And here we are taught that life is race, why to run the race, and how to run the race.

I. Life is a race

What does that mean that life is a race?  We get that metaphor from verses 1-4 and also verse 11. Verses 1-4 say, "Let us run the race marked out for us." The word race is the Greek word "Agon" from which we get our word "agony". And it can also mean a wrestling match or a contest.

So life according to these verses is a race. And just a race, but it’s an agonizing struggle and a regimen of difficulties. Then in verse 11 it says, "No discipline seems pleasant at a time but painful but later on it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by..." and the word “trained” by is the Greek word "gymnesto" in is which we get our word gymnasium.

So when the difficulties of life overwhelm you feel like everything is out of control. It's not what you expect life to be. It's not according to your plan what life should be. But just because is not your plan doesn't mean there's no plan.

If we use this metaphor for the difficulties of life that life it's a form of athletic training then we can understand life a better way. We can see life in two things:

1. Sufferings and difficulties of life are in some way necessary. John Newton says, "Everything is necessary that he (God) sends. Nothing can be necessary that he (God) withholds." Everything that comes into your life is necessary. Nothing can be necessary that doesn't come into your life.

Now I know this is a hard accept. It's a hard saying especially when you're in the midst of a horrible tragedy.  It might not be an appropriate biblical perspective on sufferings and difficulties of life. There’s more than one perspective in the Bible on suffering. It's not always Romans 8:28 where it says, "For God works for the good of those who love him."  For example there's another saying in the bible, that evil and sufferings in the world God did not create. God created the Garden of Eden. That's the world he created. Not the world we see now. But because of the way in which we have behaved, we have brought evil and suffering in the world. But God in his right time would put an end to evil and sufferings.

But we also need to see sufferings and difficulties of life according to what Hebrews says to be able to handle life. Let's look at the physical realm for example. There are things in this world that are so hard to do yet are necessary to be able to live a healthy life, and that is eating right and exercise.  Every year when you go the gym or health club, it's always crowded during the first two months of the year. But then it becomes almost empty after that. It is not easy. Exercise is hard but necessary. Cleaning the house, washing the dishes, throwing out the garbage are also exercises!

So what does exercise do to your body? When you do weight training for example, when you’re doing bicep curls, what it does is it's taking a muscle and making it hard for it to do its job. An exercise is opposition, doing something to oppose the way your body works. It puts stress on it and unless that happens, you're arms will be the same spaghetti arms. And soon you're going to be flabby and die young. So therefore physical exertion, physical pain of the training is absolutely necessary for good health.

Again John Newton says, "Everything is necessary that he sends, nothing can be necessary that he withholds." So the book of Hebrews tells us this:

Your faith will never grow unless it's tested
Your commitment will never grow unless it's threatened
Your patience will never grow unless it's taxed- unless it’s pushed to the limit
Your compassion will never grow unless it's tapped
Your courage will never grow unless it's challenged. And it will be.

The first thing we learn from this athletic metaphor is that sufferings and difficulties of life are in some ways necessary.

2. Sufferings and difficulties of life are paradoxical.

What do I mean by this? Well we just talked about exercise. When you're in the gym exercise is like this: "When I'm week then I am strong"  When you do weight training for example, you do sets of repetitions or add more weights and as you do sets of repetitions and as you do them, you feel like you're getting weaker and weaker. It's becomes harder and harder to do your exercise. But the weaker you feel you're getting, the stronger you are becoming and that's how exercise works. That's how you build muscles.

So as you're going through sufferings and difficulties of life, you feel like your faith is getting weaker, your patience is getting weaker, your courage is getting weaker, you feel like not getting stronger at all. But you are.  And that's how it works.

So life is a race, life is an agonizing struggle, you feel like it's out of control, yet there's a plan to it.  And it so important for us to see this way otherwise you will grow weary and lose heart.

Expectation is very important.  Half or more than half of the pain you experience when difficulties happen are due not to the difficulties, but due to your shock or your confusion and your self-pity over the fact it's happening. Half of the pain isn't from the event, but it's from your inability to process and largely because of your expectations.

Two months ago I went to the hospital for a procedure because of some abdominal pain.  And when I was in the operating room, the nurse who was there explained to me how the procedure works, what to expect, how long it take, and what were the risks. So he pretty much prepared me to what’s going to happen. I was especially comforted when he said that as soon as he injects the medicine into the IV, I would fall asleep and when I wake up, the procedure is done.  And that's exactly what happened. So when I woke up, I said to myself, “That wasn’t not bad at all.”  But if I was to go to the operating room and any expectation, I would be totally scared. It's everything to do with the preparation. George MacDonald - a Scottish author and Christian minister of the late 18th century has a great saying where he says "Everything difficult points to something more than our theory of life yet embraces." If suffering comes into your life and you just meltdown, you just freak out it’s because you had a theory of life that was inadequate. That didn't really embrace reality.

Now what does it mean by "theory of life." Well, what is the meaning of life? What do we want life to be? What do we want to live for? If you're meaning of life is to maximize happiness and comfort in life now, when suffering and difficulties in life comes, it will destroy you. It will destroy you’re meaning in life because you’re very reason for living is not to suffer. And suffering is inevitable. We need to enlarge our theory of life to be able to handle realty.

II. Why do we need to run the race (5-10)

Verses 5-10 tell us why to run the race and here the author switches the metaphor and the reason is this. We just learn that Life is a race and everything that comes to us, this exercise that comes to us is planned by God but he must not think of God as a coach. Rather we need to think of God as our Father. When sufferings and difficulties comes into your life we need to see them as part of God's fatherly care. In verse 5, it says the Lord's discipline and the word discipline is the Greek word "Paideia"  which means correcting a child or instructing a child.

Verse 5 and 6 say, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”

When we think of discipline, the meaning has the connotation of punishment and that's ok. If my concern is the flourishing and the good of the child, then sometimes there's going to be consequences. Example, if my child lies the worst thing that I could possibly do is not bring any consequences in the child's life. Because the child would then goes on to be a liar then lives the most miserable life because no one will trust that child and the child will trust no one.  So what do need I do? I have to say, “Go to your room, I’m not going to buy you that toy dinosaur you want me to buy at target.”

Paidia(discipline) means God who is a perfect parent will bring nondestructive design pain into a child's life, but not 1 ounce more, not one second more, not 1 millimeter more than the child absolutely need to escape the lying, only for the good of the child. Then we go down to verse 10 where it says, “Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best.” As parents we try our best to discipline our children. But sometimes when we discipline our kids, our motivation is always mixed. There’s discipline and then there’s something else. For example, some of you may notice that my kids are shy, so they look well behaved with other people but at home, they are not.  One time while having dinner, instead of eating their food my kids were playing. Then out of nowhere my daughter started screaming and it was the most annoying sound I’ve ever heard. So I blew up and told her, “Go to the bathroom, you’re going to get spanked.” Off course my motivation was to discipline but also I blew up and I was mad. So I wanted to spank her as way of payback saying, “How dare you do that to me?” Human parenting is imperfect. Sometimes after I disciplined my kids I say to myself, “what have I done?” Human parenting is imperfect, but not God’s. Verse 10 says, “They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.” This means that sufferings and difficulties that God allows to come into your life is his way of getting his greatness and glory deep into your soul. If you can't see what verse 7 says, “Endure hardship as discipline, as “Paideia,” then you're not going to grow. You’re not going to make it.

God’s way of discipline is like this: In this world, there’s brokenness outside of you and there’s brokenness inside of you. Brokenness outside of you: There’s disease, conflicts, racism, war, injustice, need, and poverty. Brokenness inside you: There’s foolishness in me, pride in me selfishness, cowardice, lack of self-knowledge, all sorts of things in me that needs to be dealt with otherwise I’m in trouble.

Now God the father who didn't design all the brokenness in this world, but God the father brings external brokenness into connection with your internal brokenness at exactly the right time, the right place, exactly the right proportion to move you from blindness to self-knowledge, from cowardice to courage, from selfishness to generosity, that's what he's there doing.

The best example is Jacob’s son Joseph and the brothers. What was wrong with Joseph? Well Jacob had something to do with it.  Jacob made an idol out of Joseph and he made Joseph his favorite and was spoiling him in an incredible level. Joseph was on his way to becoming evil, proud, arrogant, self- absorbed, and therefore miserable. What did God do? He used the jealousy of his brothers to get Joseph sold into slavery, he used the lust of Potter’s wife to get Joseph into prison. God used the external brokenness on the internal brokenness and in the end, Joseph becomes a great man. He becomes a great man and saves his family and in the end he looks back on everything else in his life and he says in Genesis 50:20, to his brothers, “You meant it for evil, God meant it for good.” Now that’s God’s discipline, that’s Paideia.  And unless you can see the hardships of your life as that, you’re not going to make it.

3. How do we run the race?

There 3 practical applications and 1 dynamic application.

1. Practical Humility - Verse 7 says, “Endure hardship as discipline.” Again discipline in Greek is “Paideia” means correcting a child. So that’s mean you are a child.  And children will never ever understand the discipline of the parents. Even if you give good parenting, to a child it’s too much, too long, you’re mean, not fair. They could never understand then maybe after 20 years then they’ll understand. Then they’ll say thank you. Sufferings and difficulties of life we can never understand why it happened. But our response should not be anger or despair. You know when a parent disciplines a child, “Did you lie, yes. “Go to your room, I’m not going to buy that toy.” And most kids would say, ok, I won’t do it lie anymore. But there’s a kind of kid who says, “I never liked that toy anyway.” To the kid, the parent is the enemy. When difficulties of life come to you and you don’t understand then you don’t understand. Don’t retaliate with anger or despair. Practical humility

2. Practical obedience – the word endure is the Greek word for “Hupomeno” meaning not budge, remain still.  And most of the time when sufferings and difficulties of life comes, you retreat from the normal things you do that are right.  You stop praying, you don’t eat right. Your stop helping other people. You retreat from bible reading.  But practical obedience means remain still and keeping doing the right thing. Do not budge. If it gets difficult just do it. It’s like exercise. When sit ups are hard to do, do it.

3. Practical evaluation- Go back to verse 1b.  “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” What is this mean? Illustration:  After work I would go to the gym, which is two blocks from where I work.  When I go there and put on my work- out clothes then straight to the treadmill. In front of the treadmill are glass windows so that you can see the view of the beautiful downtown Chicago. But because it’s dark outside, instead seeing the view, I see my reflection. I see myself and when I’m jogging I can see reasons why I need to work out. When I’m jogging you can see parts of me that should not be bouncing. It brings out the worst in you!  When difficulties of life come, it will bring out the worst in you. Remember that kid who says, “I never liked that toy anyway.” He was looking at the parent and blames the parent instead looking at himself and the problem. Practical evaluation is to look at yourself and the problem. And instead getting angry at God, you should say, “this suffering is bringing out the worst I me.” Then you say to God, “Lord, what do you need for me to work on? Is it my fear, my pride, my worries?”  And you look at them and you say, “These are things I need to work on to make it in life and here is my opportunity.”  Practical evaluation.

Lastly and most importantly is the dynamic.  We just learned that life is race, why to run it, and how to run. We just learned a good exercise plan and now what is our Gatorade or our energy bar. Verses 2 and 3 says, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

Jesus our God came down to earth and suffered. Why do we suffer? It’s says for the joy set before us, and what’s that joy? Our theory in life should not just general happiness and comfort now, the ultimate joy before us is getting the glory and greatness of God into our souls.  Becoming what we are designed to be. What about Jesus, why did he suffer? Why did he come to earth and got in the race? What was the one thing that Jesus didn’t have in heaven? When I was in the Chicago one to one vocal team, I always loved the song “Rise again” and especially love the ending of the song because it tells the reason of his sufferings. It says, “Come to take my people back.” When he came to earth, who was he seeking? He was seeking us. In his suffering he was seeking us. And now in our suffering let us seek him. Jesus suffered and died so that in our suffering we have God and the love of God. Jesus lost God in his suffering but in our suffering we get God. Jesus suffered for our sake and now we suffer for his sake and that’s our energy bar, that’s our Gatorade. Let’s pray.

Resource: http://sermons.redeemer.com/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=18414&ParentCat=6