The Peaceful Product of God's Discipline - Part 1 (Hebrews 12:11)

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The Peaceful Product of God's Discipline, Part 2 (Heb 12:11) | Worship Service

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And now please with your Bibles open to Hebrews chapter 12, and looking at our text this morning. Before we begin, we'll pray together.

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Our great Father, we ask now for your blessing upon your word as it is preached, as it is meditated upon, as our hearts are before it.

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We know that your word examines our hearts and knows all things. You reveal to us our sin, our shortcomings, our weaknesses, our frailties, and you expose them for us so that we might, we might mortify that sin and that we might be strengthened by your word and that we might draw near to you and you would draw near to us.

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And so we pray that you would do that this morning in our time here in your word, that you would expose to us our faulty thinking and the sinfulness of our hearts and the ways in which we mischaracterize you and your dealings with us.

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And we pray that you would strengthen us by your grace to embrace your loving hand of discipline in our lives, that you would be glorified through that and that we would be made better by it, that you would allow us by your grace to share in your holiness and that you would produce in us the fruits of righteousness and holy living.

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And so we pray that you would be honored through this time and that you would sanctify us by your truth. It is in the name of Christ our

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Lord, we pray, amen. Hebrews chapter 12, today we are back in Hebrews 12 and you will likely be relieved to find out that we are nearing the end of our study in God's discipline.

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In fact, the study in God's discipline may be itself discipline in your life as you're looking forward to the affliction being lifted and moving on to more important or we should say more enjoyable subjects later on.

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Discipline is a difficult thing for us to grasp to get our minds around. And we've been taking our time or I should say,

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I've been taking my time. You really have no choice in the matter but I've been taking my time working through this so that we might think rightly and respond appropriately to God's hand in our lives.

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That our hearts and minds would be flooded about the truth or with the truth about discipline so that when it comes, not if it comes, but when it comes, we would embrace it and cooperate with the

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Lord in the sense of responding rightly that he would produce in us those things which he intends through the difficulties.

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The peaceful fruit of righteousness and being able to share in his holiness. We are looking forward to an eternal reward.

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That is what we are seeking after. That is what we desire. And so as the author says in chapter 10 verse 36, you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

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And we want to endure and we want to respond appropriately so that we can do the will of God in the midst of his afflictions and disciplines that he sends.

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And then we can receive after that the reward. Back at the beginning of verse four, I offered to you an outline that has sort of been our guiding framework as we've worked our way through the passage.

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There were four points. Unfortunate for you, there weren't just four sermons, but there were more than that. There have been four points.

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Verses four through five, we looked at the proper perspective of discipline. And we saw there that discipline is a blessing that God reserves for his children.

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He does not give that to his enemies. He punishes his enemies, but he blesses his children with discipline, with afflictions.

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Discipline is from a heart of love and not from wrath. There is not a drop of God's wrath that is mixed in with his discipline in our lives, not a bit.

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It is all motivated by his fatherly and redeeming love. And we embrace discipline by not despising it, by not looking down upon it, and by not despairing under it.

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And those are really two opposite extremes. The one is to reject it and to hate it, and the other is to just lose heart underneath of the discipline.

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Then in verses six through eight, we looked at the proof of discipline. We saw that discipline is an evidence of God's fatherly love for us, and it is an evidence of our adoption into his family.

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Then in verses nine and 10, we saw the purpose of discipline, which is our sanctification as God prepares us, and molds us, and shapes us so that we might share in his holiness and enjoy holiness of life.

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And now we come to verse 11, and we're looking now at the product of discipline that God produces in us the peaceful fruits of righteousness.

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Look at verse 11. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

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Now there are a number of contrasts in verse 11. There is the contrast between what discipline seems to be doing, that is creating sorrow, and what it is actually doing, which is creating the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

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So there's the contrast between those two things. There is a contrast between how discipline affects us and how we experience it in the moment.

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No discipline seems joyful in the moment, in the present, but afterwards, that's the contrast, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

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So there is the contrast between what it seems to be doing, and what it is actually doing, between what it does in this moment, or how we experience it in this moment, and how we actually experience it in the time that is to come, in the future when it produces the fruit.

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And then there is a difference, of course, between how discipline feels to us, and the fruit that we enjoy from it.

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And it's two totally different things. And the difference is between what is taking place in the moment, and what takes place, or what is enjoyed in the future.

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And these contrasts confront us with the necessity of embracing discipline by faith. We're not that far removed from Hebrews chapter 11, and we spent more than just a couple of weeks in Hebrews 11 looking at the definition of faith, and all of the manifestations of faith in the heroes of old, all the way through the

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Old Testament, beginning back even just after the sin of man outside the garden with Cain and Abel.

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And we looked at all the expressions of, not all the expressions, but all the expressions in Hebrews 11 of faith and what it is, and how it preserves and protects the child of God in the life that we live, through the difficulties and the afflictions, the trials and the tribulations that inevitably come into this life.

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And we looked at all of those examples of men and women of whom the world is not worthy, men and women who did not live for this life, but lived for the next.

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And they looked forward to the life that is to come, and did not judge the faithfulness of God to His promises based upon what seemed appropriate to them in the moment, but instead judged the faithfulness of God to His promises based upon the character of God, that He is trustworthy and that He will keep

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His word. And so these are men and women who looked forward to the life that is to come. The author is calling us in chapter 11, chapter 12

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I should say, the author is calling us to embrace discipline by faith, and to face the trials and the afflictions with the same faith that preserved the men and women of old, to approach the difficulties and hostilities of this life with the same resolute trust in God and His promises as we look forward to afterwards when discipline yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

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And to not judge the character of God or His love for us or His purposes in terms of what seems to afflict us in the midst of the moment.

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So verse 11 is about anticipating the peaceful fruit of righteousness which is to come, which is in fact the forward -looking element of faith.

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And we don't assess the character of God by what seems to be striking us in the moment. So verse 11 is our text for this morning.

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We've noted a couple of the contrasts in the verse, and so we'll kind of approach the verse from that perspective, noting the contrast.

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So here would be our outline for this morning. Number one, we're gonna notice the pain of discipline that is our present experience.

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Look at that. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful. And then we'll notice the product of discipline, the product of discipline which is our future expectation.

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Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. There is the contrast between what we experience now and what we can anticipate for the future.

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So let's look first at the pain of discipline that is our present experience. Verse 11, all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful.

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Now I have to appreciate the author's bluntness. Right, after all of this talk about discipline, he just comes right out and says to us something that we've probably been longing to hear since verse four, and that is that all discipline seems not to be joyful in the moment but sorrowful.

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This is how discipline, this is how we experience discipline. We don't experience discipline as something that we enjoy.

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We experience discipline as something that causes us deep sorrow. Discipline is not joyful, it's sorrowful.

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It's sorrowful in the moment. It's sorrowful for the whole time that we're going through discipline. In fact, discipline is not intended to be joyful.

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This is why I appreciate the author's bluntness. How much discipline is joyful? All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful.

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So not some discipline is sorrowful, not most discipline is sorrowful, but how much?

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All discipline in a moment seems not to be joyful but instead sorrowful.

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This in fact is the nature of discipline. And I shouldn't have to say this, but I'll go ahead and say it.

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Chastisements and discipline by nature are unpleasant. That is the point. That's the point.

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The point of discipline is that it's unpleasant. The point is not that it is joyful, but that it is sorrowful.

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Discipline is intended to cause sorrow. So if you say, God has brought an affliction into my life and I am not enjoying this, this causes me deep grief and sorrow and pain in the moment.

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That's the point. It's not intended in the moment to cause you anything else, but the sorrow and the affliction and the trial that you are experiencing in that moment.

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That is the whole point of discipline. All discipline seems not in the moment to be joyful, but instead it is sorrowful.

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All training, all discipline for a race, for instance, is intended to hurt. It's intended to be difficult.

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Remember, we are not that far removed from the athletic analogy in verses one through three of running the race, casting off the sin that so easily entangles us and laying aside all of those encumbrances and fixing our eyes on Jesus, the finish line, and running the race with the expectation of the reward that is to come.

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That's the athletic metaphor in verses one through three. The author does not just flip the table over and begin a new metaphor in verse four.

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There is a parenting parallel here with the discipline, but the idea of discipline itself is that of training and preparing one for things which are ahead.

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And that's the analogy here with discipline. The discipline is intended to train us for what lies ahead of us in the future.

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If that is difficulties that are to come in the future or usefulness in the kingdom in the future, or whether it is just simply ministry in this life that is in the future, or if it is so that we may enjoy more of a heavenly reward in the future, all of those things are the point of discipline.

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That affliction and that sorrow is the very purpose of the discipline in training us, in preparing us for what is to come.

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You don't train for a race by sitting in the basement watching other people race on a television while you pound down a bag of Doritos and a two liter of Pepsi.

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That might feel enjoyable in the moment, at least for half a bag of Doritos and half a two liter of Pepsi. It might feel enjoyable in the moment.

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It might be something that you like at that point. It might taste good. It might be relaxing. It might be easy.

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It might be comfortable, but that's not training. When you go to the gym and train, then you're training. When you go out onto a practice field and train, then when you are sweating, when you are straining, then you're training.

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I could trademark that. When you're straining, then you're training, but you don't train in a basement pounding back

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Doritos and Pepsi, but instead you have to put forth the effort. It has to be difficult.

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It has to be painful. That in fact is the whole point of discipline. Listen to Spurgeon. Now listen, I have, I think, four quotes from Spurgeon's sermon on this passage, and I would commend that you go read

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Charles Spurgeon's sermon on Hebrews chapter 12, verse 11. He does a better job in his sermon than I'm gonna do today and next week on this passage.

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He does a far better job. For one, even though he's wordy, he's far more concise, and so it's one sermon instead of two.

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You're getting two for the price of one. And I don't mind saying that Spurgeon does a better job because I don't have to worry about you wishing that Spurgeon was here as your pastor because he's dead and so you're stuck with me.

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Here's what Spurgeon says. If affliction seemed to be joyous, would it be chastisement at all? I ask you, would it not be the most ridiculous thing if a father should so chasten a child that the child came downstairs laughing and smiling and rejoicing at the flogging?

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Joyous? Instead of being at all serviceable, would it not be utterly useless?

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What good could a chastisement have done if it were not felt? No smart and surely no benefit.

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It is the blueness of the wound, says Solomon, which makes the heart better. And so if the chastisement do not come home to the bone and the flesh, distill the tear and extort the cry, what good end could it have served?

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That's it. That's the purpose. That's the point of discipline. Because you and I learn through pain.

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We learn through adversity. God teaches us things in the midst of suffering that He does not teach us outside of suffering.

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I would dare say even He teaches us things in suffering that we could not learn outside of suffering.

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The suffering is the point. There's a sanctifying work effect that is going on.

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There is a difficulty that we face that when we come through that at the end, even if it means that we exit this life because of the suffering and we step into glory on a resurrection

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Sunday, for instance, and we stand in the presence of the Savior and that's when the affliction ends, we learn something in that affliction.

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And listen, the affliction will cease the moment it ceases to be useful to the Lord. But as long as it is useful to His ends, then it will continue.

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And so we never have to get the middle of affliction and say, I think I've learned everything I can learn from this, but for some reason, the affliction continues.

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No, the affliction is the point. The suffering is the point. If it were pleasant, then it would have no corrective power at all.

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It wouldn't make us hate this world and long for the next. It would make us love this world and forget about the next.

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If afflictions were just enjoyable, affliction wouldn't make us think about heaven and we would forget the future if it were peaceful, if it were enjoyable.

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If it were joyful in the moment, it would make us comfortable and we wouldn't cast off sin. Instead, we would trifle with sin.

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We'd play around with it. And we'd actually think if we didn't have to go through afflictions which purged us of sin, we would actually begin to think that God himself does not take sin seriously.

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Another quote from Spurgeon. If discipline were pleasant, he says, it might even work the other way and be hurtful.

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For a child would surely think that the parent only played with his disobedience and that the disobedience was a trifle if the very gentle blows were enough with one or two soft chiding words to express parental hatred of sin.

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But if the mockery of chastisement were given, then the child would be hardened in sin and even despise the authority which it ought to respect.

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Close quote. That's it. If the discipline of the chastisement does not sting, then the child has no sense in which he has displeased the father.

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But if the chastisement is difficult and if the chastisement is painful, then the child begins to be softened by the chastisement and begin to realize how seriously those who love him take his disobedience.

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And so if all God's chastisements were joyful and easy for us to endure and not difficult at all, we would start to think that God trifled with sin and that he didn't think it was that serious.

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And then we would begin to trifle with sin. Discipline is intended to make us hate sin as much as God hates sin.

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And God will take the sin of His children very, very seriously because He loves us that much.

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And He takes our holiness very, very seriously because He loves us that much. Again, Spurgeon.

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You might start to wonder if it's Spurgeon who's preaching or me. It is me quoting Spurgeon. My brethren, if God sent us trials such as we would wish for, they would not be trials.

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If they were chastisements that on the very surface seemed to be joyous, then they were not chastisements.

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They would be the sweets, the harmful sweets which children like to eat until they turn their stomachs and are overtaken with sickness.

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See, if you and I were to write the script for our lives, we would write into it all kinds of riches and ease and comforts and conveniences and joy and delights and delightful adventures and things that were always happy to us.

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We would never write in anything difficult. Now, maybe we would start to feel guilty after a few hundred pages of our life's manuscript and we might write into it a few things, a few difficulties just to sort of strike a balance.

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So we would have, for instance, we would show up at a restaurant and the food would be served cold or they would overdo our steak or you'd accidentally burn a steak once a year or have a sore throat once every four or five years or it might rain on your only day off during that week or you get stuck in traffic for 20 minutes.

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Those are the type of difficulties that we would write into our lives if we had the choice.

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And we would do that just for balance, so that we could at least know what it's like to experience a little bit of affliction.

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Just last night, for instance, I was at a restaurant and they didn't bring out the refills of the garlic fries nearly as fast as I would have liked them to have done that.

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In fact, I did not get a refill of garlic fries. All I got was a refill of normal fries. The indignity of that was almost unbearable.

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That's the type of affliction that we have to endure and those are the type of things we would write into our lives. But would you write into the script of your life the loss of a child, a miscarriage?

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The loss of a loved one? Terminal illness? Chronic pain? Death of a friend?

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Betrayal? Would you write any of that into your lives? Not a single person here would.

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These are the things that God writes into our lives so that He might sanctify us by it. The affliction is the point.

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The pain of it is the point. God is not trying to keep you from sorrow, by the way. Look at verse 11, all discipline.

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Actually, let me bounce your mind back up to verses four, verses five and six. Those whom the

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Lord loves, He disciplines and He scourges every son whom He receives. Look at verse eight, if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

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So every single child of God experiences discipline at some point and in some measure in this life for their sanctification.

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Every last one. And if you are without discipline, you are an illegitimate child, not a true legal child.

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You have no inheritance. You're not part of that family. If you're in the family, then discipline is your blessing.

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And all discipline is what? Sorrowful. Doesn't feel joyful. So therefore, if God's intention is to bring discipline into all of our lives and all discipline is sorrowful, then sorrowful is

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His intention. In the moment. In the moment. God is not trying to keep you from experiencing sorrow.

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If He were trying to do that, He's failing miserably because we've all experienced it.

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Just yesterday, I stood at the graveside and buried somebody from our church family whom I love. This coming

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Friday, we're gonna stand up here and we're gonna have a memorial service from somebody else from our church body whom I love. Our lives are full of sorrow.

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God is not trying to do His best to keep you from experiencing it. It's not

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His intention. His intention is not to guard us from the difficulties of life. And as a parent, if you're a parent, you understand this.

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There are times when you know that you are gonna make your child cry. It is unavoidable. I came to this conclusion early on in my parenting.

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There's no way that I can raise these children without making them cry. So I gave up trying to not make them cry.

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Now, I didn't start trying to make them cry, but I gave up trying to not make them cry because I understand that every time that I say no to something that they want, they're gonna cry about that.

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Every time I say yes or do something that they don't want, they're gonna cry about that.

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Every time that they don't get what they want or they get what they don't want, they're gonna cry. So you just give up trying to keep your kids from crying.

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You realize that if they don't cry, I'll never teach them virtue. All the things that I want them to learn in this life are going to be learned through tears.

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And so the sooner we come to grips with that as earthly parents, the easier our parenting will be.

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And the sooner we come to grips with that as God's children, the easier it will be for us to embrace discipline.

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God is not trying to protect us from crying. Now, this should not discourage you. I know at first glance, it doesn't seem like I'm trying to not discourage you, but this should not discourage you.

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Let me give you two just points of application that I want you to walk away from with this. Number one, you and I are not required to enjoy

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God's discipline. Okay, that's what verse 11 is saying. It's not intended to be joyful, but sorrowful. That means that you and I are not required to enjoy it.

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God doesn't demand that we love pain for the sake of pain, that we enjoy sorrow for the sake of sorrow.

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It's not his expectation. You and I are not biblically required or morally required by Scripture to enjoy trials, difficulties.

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We're not masochists. We are, however, required to enjoy the fruit of discipline.

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We do get the fruit of discipline that we get to enjoy, but we are not required to enjoy discipline itself. Number two, it is okay to acknowledge that discipline is hard.

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It's okay to acknowledge that. After being in the midst of discipline, admitting that you are suffering or sorrowful or that you're not delighting in it, you're not enjoying it, that doesn't make you less of a believer.

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Doesn't mean you're less mature. Doesn't mean you're less spiritual. Doesn't mean that you're less sanctified.

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A stoic disposition, the type of disposition that just grits its teeth and says, no, my spine is stiff and my heart is hard and my neck is unbend and I will not bow down before this, that's the despising of discipline that we talked about weeks ago.

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God does not require of us the sort of stoic, this has no effect on me, this isn't affecting me and my family at all type of disposition.

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That is not the mark of spirituality or spiritual maturity. So you're not required to enjoy discipline and it is okay to admit that discipline is difficult.

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Paul didn't enjoy or rejoice in being in prison. He prayed, he asked people to pray that he would be let out of prison.

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So he didn't enjoy the prison, but he rejoiced in the prison. Do you understand the difference between those two things? It's not the prison that brought him joy, the

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Lord brought him joy in the midst of the prison. So it is with affliction and difficulty. We don't take joy in a disease or a chronic illness or a chronic pain or the death of a loved one.

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There's no joy in that. There's no delight in that. There's no treasure in that. It's not that that we cherish and enjoy, but we can rejoice in the midst of the affliction.

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And that in fact is what we are called to do. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of Christ, you and I are able to do that.

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To rejoice in the midst of the affliction, to give God praise, to bow our heads and our hearts under His hand, under His loving rod, and to say,

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Lord, I will take this from your hand and I thank you for it. I don't understand what you're doing in it, but you will teach me through this. And so I will worship you.

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You give and you take away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That response can be ours in the midst of discipline, even though we are not, and we are not required to enjoy it or to love it.

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In fact, recognizing that discipline is hard is a necessary prerequisite to verses 12 and 13.

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Look at verse 12 and 13. Therefore strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble and make straight paths for your feet so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

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That's the responsibility of the body and the life of those who are undergoing discipline and suffering affliction.

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We're to come alongside and recognize that discipline makes for a weakened state. In the moment, discipline makes for us to be lame and out of joint and our knees are feeble and our feet are uncertain.

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It's not easy on us. And so we recognize that and we reach out to the body of Christ who has to come alongside of us, has the joy of coming alongside of us and encouraging us in the midst of this.

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See, verses 12 and 13 are not unrelated to the issue of discipline. Verses 12 and 13 is the response of the body, other believers around those who are enduring discipline as they recognize discipline is difficult and sorrowful and a trial in the life of this person.

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So let's come alongside of them and strengthen them in the midst of this so that they will not be put out of joint, that this will not ruin them, but instead produce in them the peaceable fruits of righteousness and give them the grace to share in God's holiness.

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Now there are in verse 11, two things, two dangers as it were in our own assessment of afflictions that we need to be aware of.

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And the first is in that phrase, in the moment. I want you to notice it. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful.

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The point here is not the discipline only lasts for a moment. In other words, the author's point here is not the brevity of the discipline, because that would not be true, would it?

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There are some discipline that lasts for a lifetime. You lose a child. That is something that sticks with you for the rest of your life.

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Or if you lose a spouse, or if God allows for a terminal diagnosis of a terminal illness in your life, an illness that will eventually take your life, that discipline is not for a moment, that discipline is for the rest of your life.

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Some affliction, some suffering and some trials, in fact, last for the duration of our lives.

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So the point for the author here is not that the affliction is just for a moment. He's not saying, look, affliction is just for a moment, so just kind of blink and it'll be gone, or here's

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God's promise to you, it's not going to last long. There's no such promise in Scripture that afflictions and trials will not last long.

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It might last long. And it might be painful and last long. That's by God's hand as well.

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Rather, the point of the author is in describing the perspective that we are to have upon the trials.

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We are not to judge the benefit and the fruitfulness of affliction in the moment that we are enduring it.

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That is to say, in the present. All discipline does not seem to be joyful in the present.

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In the moment of the affliction, it is not joyful. And here's the danger. The danger is that you and I would begin to pass judgment on the fruitfulness of the affliction or begin to pass judgment on God's faithfulness to us in the midst of that affliction based upon either how we feel or based upon the fact that what we are enduring right now is what we're experiencing in the present.

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In other words, I judge God's plan and His purposes, which are overarching and lifelong in terms of what

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I am suffering or enduring in the moment. In the moment, it's sorrowful. Therefore, don't view

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God's hand, His purposes, and His love through the sorrow, but instead recognize that you as a creature are limited by your perspective in the moment.

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A sinful response would be to say, I don't see the point in all of this, and I don't see even now what I'm learning in the midst of this affliction.

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Therefore, because I don't see it right now in the moment, God must not have a purpose for it. Or because I'm not experiencing this peace in the moment, there must be no peace to come.

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Or because I don't see the fruit of this and I am not enduring the joy of this, and I don't see the delight in this in the moment, therefore

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God can have no purposes that transcend that moment. That's the point of the author. It is with the eye of faith that you and I must assess affliction.

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It's with the eye of faith that says, God is a good God, God is a sovereign

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God, and every last thing that He appoints for me is for His glory and is for my good.

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And it is because of His infinite love for me that I can look beyond how

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I feel about this in the moment and see the hand of God in the broader, writ large.

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In my life, Romans 8 .18 says,

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Paul says, I consider that the sufferings of this present age are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

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Notice the contrast, the sufferings of this present age and the glory that is to be revealed. Paul says they're not worthy to be compared.

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You put my suffering, you put the glory side by side, one next to another, you start to draw comparisons to them, and they're not worthy to be compared.

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They're apples and they're oranges. They're two totally different things. They're not even in the same category. The one does not even deserve to be put up next to the other.

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So my afflictions are here, the glory is here, and the glory is such that when I put them side by side, that's the perspective that I have to push the afflictions away and say, it's the glory that overshadows all of that.

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But in the moment, the only thing we can see is the affliction because we cannot see the glory with the eyes of flesh.

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But with the eyes of faith, we can step back and say God is good, God is sovereign, so every last thing that He has appointed for me is for His glory and it is for my good.

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So we can say for the momentary and light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond all comparison.

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Not worthy to be compared. Sufferings in the moment are always overwhelming.

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They're always overwhelming. The second danger that we run into is the danger of assessing our sufferings, our afflictions and discipline, not just by what is in the moment, by what appears or seems to be with the eye of flesh.

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And this is in the phrase, what it seems. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful.

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These are two dangers that we fall into. The one is to assess everything on the basis of what we experience in the moment.

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The other is to assess all of God's purposes and plans in terms of what appears to us to be the case in the moment.

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This describes the, this word seems here is the word from decao. It's a verb that describes to perceive or to think, to suppose or to presume or to assume, to believe.

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It describes what strikes the senses, what appears to the senses. And not the spiritual senses, not the eye of faith, but the natural senses.

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What strikes the eye in the moment. And this, unfortunately, in this world is all that we have to go by in terms of our fleshly afflictions and what seems to us.

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And the assessment that we can make in this world, if it's just in terms of the moment, and if it's just in terms of our assessment of it in this world from what we can see, then we will always despair in the moment of the afflictions.

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This is the assessment of flesh and blood, how it appears to us. So in the moment, we use the mind of flesh and the heart of flesh and our own sinful reasoning and our own warped evaluation.

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And we take what appears to us in the moment concerning our difficulties or our trials, and we make an assessment of God's purposes based upon that, how it appears or seems to us.

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But are we perfect in our perception of reality, spiritually speaking? Are we even close to perfect in our perception of reality?

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We most certainly are not. We are prone to deception. We are prone to mistakes. We're limited in our knowledge, our wisdom.

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Our assessment is therefore limited. Our discernment is limited. We can't see the future. We can't see the unknown or unseen realm.

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We don't know what the future holds for us so that the difficulty that we are enduring right now may in fact be preparing us for something even greater later on.

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And not a difficulty, but a blessing. But we can't see that because we have eyes of flesh, and without the eyes of faith, we cannot even believe that God would be doing something like that through our discipline.

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We can't see everything unfolding in our lives. There are tons of things that are hidden from us that we don't know.

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Dangers which we might face. Sins that threaten to undo us. The devil's designs in our lives.

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All of that is unknown to us. And so the minute we begin to assess our discipline based upon how it seems to us in the moment, we have immediately stepped into the darkness and we've begun leading ourselves around into ditches.

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And the author is saying you can't do that. Last quote from Spurgeon. So it is with many of us.

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We are so jealous of our own ease and pleasure that the moment we even see the rod, we are affrighted and alarmed.

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And at the very first stroke of it, before it has even made the flesh to tingle, we think it is utterly unbearable and that God intends to destroy us.

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What then? With the clouds of fear, the dust of unbelief, the smoke of ignorance, and the midst of selfishness, it is little wonder that we do not perceive the truth.

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And thus we say, no chastisement seems to be joyous. I say that's the assessment of the flesh.

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The midst of unbelief, the smoke of doubt, the delusion of our lack of discernment.

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We can't see even 1 % of what is real concerning our lives, the lives of others, or our futures.

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We don't have any of that. We are blind men in a dark room with black walls on the surface of the room.

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And we are stumbling about in the midst of our affliction. And in comes the truth of Scripture, and the light comes on in the room, and the light says,

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God is good, God is sovereign, and every last thing that He has appointed for us is for our good. Even if it is difficult.

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Even if the sorrow in the moment seems unbearable, God is doing something good through it. So you can either stiffen your neck and resist that, or you can bow your head and embrace it.

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But stiffening our necks and resisting that is not gonna unlock the door and get us out of that dark room.

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We just simply do not know what all is going on, and we have to confess our ignorance.

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In fact, that's the best we can do, is to confess our ignorance in that moment. Not to judge or assess the work and the hand and the purposes of God upon what seems to be true, appears to us in the moment, but based upon what

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God's Word says is true. And that takes the eye of faith. William Cowper, in his hymn,

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God Moves in a Mysterious Way, has these lines, Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust

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Him for His grace. Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour.

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The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. It seems to us in the moment to be sorrowful.

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That's the bud. It has a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. Afterwards, it will yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

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Now, God's discipline is intended to produce in us holiness, the fruit of righteousness, and we're going to look more at the peaceful fruit of righteousness next week.

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We are to pursue holiness, and we are to pursue righteousness in our lives. One of the intentions of God in discipline is so that we might hate sin as much as He hates it, and cast it aside, and lay it aside, and pursue holiness, and pursue righteousness, turn from our sin, repent, trust

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Him for His grace each and every hour. We are to pursue that, as Hebrews 12, 14 says, we're to pursue peace with all men, and the holiness or sanctification without which no one will see the

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Lord. We will pursue that holiness. And to that end, we engage in self -examination before the

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Lord's table. I'm going to read to you 1 Corinthians 11, which describes God's discipline,

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His disciplining work, and the purpose of examining ourselves before Him. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 23.

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For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and when

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He had given thanks, He broke it and said, this is my body which is for you, do this in remembrance of me.

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The same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

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For as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the

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Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself and in so doing, he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

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For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason, many among you are weak and sick and in number sleep.

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But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the

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Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world. There is a sobering reminder in 1

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Corinthians 11, namely that one of the things that God does in order to purge us of sin is to bring discipline and chastisement.

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So Paul says, examine yourselves, mortify the sin, put the sin off so that God will not judge you through discipline.

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He doesn't mean judge in the sense of eternal damnation, but that there is a discipline that happens in our lives that is intended to rid us of sin.

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And if we persist in it, then all we're doing is saying, Lord, you have given me opportunities to turn from this sin, to mortify it, to put it to death and to pursue righteousness.

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But I am refusing to do that. So therefore, bring discipline into my life to do that.

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And that's not actually what you're saying with your words. That's what you're saying by your life. So this is serious.

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We don't trifle with sin. It is a profane thing to have sin in our hearts that we are not dealing with, that we leave unresolved and unconfessed and unrepented of, then to come to the

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Lord's table and to partake of this and make a mockery of the blood of Christ and the death of Christ.

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So the invitation is examine yourself, identify your sin, turn from that sin so that God will not judge you by bringing chastisement into your life to purge you from that very sin.

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So if you want to make the chastisements of the Lord, only those things which are absolutely necessary in your life, then do the work of putting off sin in your own life so that He will not chastise you in order to do that work.

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If you're an unbeliever here and you have never repented of your sin and trusted Christ for salvation, you've never been born again, this table is not for you at all because that is an ultimate blasphemy for you to claim that you have a part in this when you are not part of the body of Christ.

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These are the elements of His death, His sacrificial death on the cross for His people. God commands you first to repent of your sin, trust in the

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Savior and be born again so you might have eternal life. Then you can come to the table and enjoy the elements with the people of God.

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So if that doesn't describe you, that you are not a believer, then please don't partake of these elements. You're eating and drinking judgment to yourself.

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For the believers, our duty is very solemn. We are to solemnly examine ourselves to confess our sin to the

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Lord. We can confess that the things which we are required to do we have not done and the things that we are told not to do, those are the things that we have done.

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Confess those to the Lord, turn from those and pray for His grace to strengthen us in resisting sin. So let a man examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

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And we'll do that now. I'll ask the ushers to come forward and then we will have a few moments of quiet prayer and then I'll lead us in a prayer of confession.

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Our gracious God, while you have removed from us the guilt of our sin, the condemnation that accompanies that because of the death of your son, yet sin remains in us, it dwells within us, we fight against it.

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It is present to us each and every day as we fail to do those things that you have required and we have done those very things that you have forbid.

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We have sinned in our thoughts, in our words, in our minds, in our hearts, in our neglects.

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Father, our hearts are filled with iniquity that we are not even aware of. Sins which are in the corners and the shadows of our lives that come out once in a while.

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And we hate those things and we turn from those things now and pray for your grace to strengthen us in the midst of our confession.

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And that you would, by your grace, reveal even now in our hearts and in our minds those things that displease you so that we may turn from them and confess them.

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So we come not as those who have been beaten and bullied into feeling of guilt, but as those who have hope that our sins are completely paid for in the death of Christ.

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And that you have granted us not just forgiveness of sins, but also the righteousness that is necessary for us to stand in your holy presence and rejoice forevermore.

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You have provided both by your grace. And our claim to stand before you and to come before you both now and in eternity has nothing to do with our own merits or our own good deeds or our own accomplishments in any way.

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We would have to turn from all of those as just expressions of our own pride and self -reliance. And instead, we can only come to you and claim the righteousness of Christ.

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We are clothed in that righteousness. We have been forgiven by Him. We are covered by His blood.

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And so we thank you for that once and for all sacrifice which has paid the price sufficient for any and all who have believed upon your son and who have been imputed the righteousness of God.

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So we trust in that. We thank you for that. We rejoice in that. We pray that you would lift our minds and our eyes off of the sinfulness of our own hearts and place them on Christ, that we rejoice in His good provision of forgiveness and righteousness and salvation to all who are

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His. We thank you for these great gifts of grace and for this opportunity to remember now the sacrifice of Christ.

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Be glorified and delighted, we pray, in our meditation and in the attitude of our hearts for the glory of Christ, our