The Peaceful Fruit of Righteousness

If you would like to turn with me, please, to the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, we press forward in our study of the book of Hebrews, Hebrews, chapter 12. And once again, we ask the Lord to bless our time together.

Let's pray.

Now, Father, as we open your word, we would ask that you would be with us by your spirit, that you would help us to understand. And especially, as we encounter encouragements to holy life, encouragements to discipline and perseverance, may we hear, may we desire to be obedient, we pray in Christ's name.

Once in a while, this used to be a much more popular thing for people to do, but used to be, and when it first became popular to use the search engine Google, I remember when I first heard of Google, I didn't want to use it because it sounded so weird.

Now, we are all owned lock, stock and barrel by Google. Google knows everything about you. Google follows you around, knows where you've been, knows who your friends are. I was just in Pryor, Oklahoma, where there is a huge, just outside the city boundaries, a huge Google server farm.

And they have bought everything in the area. And the pastor of the church I was speaking is assistant chief of police in the city. And they had gone out to Google's facilities there. And everywhere they went, the police were ushered to where they could go and where they couldn't go by armed guards.

They have their own little army, their own little, they've got helicopters. And nobody knows what's going on there. It's weird, okay? And that's just one part of Google. I believe that there were some movies that came out a number of years ago where the machines became intelligent and tried to wipe us all out.

They were called Skynet. I think they missed the name.

It will be Google.

And so when it first came out, I really didn't want to have anything to do with it. But they pretty much put everybody else out of business. And so you have to use Google. And it was sort of popular to Google your own name, see if there's anything about yourself.

Now, I don't do that. But once in a while, people will direct me towards something. And it's amazing, the stuff that you will find. I'm not suggesting you Google my name. But if you do, you're going to find some pretty amazing things.

And last evening, I just happened to be directed to a couple of videos on YouTube, another fascinating area of the Internet, which is, of course, a part of Google, where I learned that, well, some of the words that were used of me, I really couldn't properly use in the pulpit.

But fundamentally, I am not only a false teacher. I am unsaved. And I am an idiot as well, all at the same time. And these particular individuals, their big thing is to attack what they like to style, lordship salvation.

Now, if you're not familiar with this particular issue, believe it or not, there are people and there are churches right here in this valley and all around us who will tell you that you do not have to repent of your sins to be saved.

That's works salvation. Repentance is a good thing, but it's an optional thing. That sola fide, salvation by faith alone, is just that, except the faith is not a faith. It is a living faith. It's not a faith that is part and parcel of repentance.

This is an intellectual acknowledgement of a certain very limited number of facts concerning the ministry and life and death of Jesus Christ. And all you've got to do is say, I believe those things. And then you've got your ticket, your ticket's been stamped, you have eternal life.

And at that point, theoretically anyways, and I would say this isn't what you should do, but theoretically anyways, you can then go live however you please. And you don't have to remain in the Christian faith.

You can become a Buddhist or a Muslim or an atheist, agnostic, it doesn't matter. You have been saved and this is what they call salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Now, anyone who knows their Bible and hasn't had their entire theology completely twisted out of shape by a particular teacher or something, knows that that is not what the Bible teaches.

That that is not what the Reformers taught, that is not what faith alone ever meant, that's not what grace alone ever meant, that this is a gross perversion. In fact, there are a number of warnings in the scripture against that kind of belief, specifically.

In fact, I would say that some of the words that were just read to us from Jude would have reference to these kinds of teachers. Now, you know that we've been going through the book of Hebrews and we've entered into that section where God talks about His disciplining us as sons and daughters, as children of God.

We came right toward the end of that section, the last time that we were in the book of Hebrews, but we did not have the opportunity the last time to fully enter into the very end of the exhortation, which is sort of the summary statement of all of it.

But what we'll see is this is a part of a larger section of this epistle where we are going to hear very strong words about the necessity of the pursuit of holiness in the Christian life. Now, I do recognize, and I recognize that this particular movement I was just deriding probably began as an overreaction to the legalism and man-centeredness of many other religious movements.

There's always two sides that you can fall off of when you're talking about being balanced. And while this group has fallen off over here into what we call antinomianism or libertinism or easy-believism and have become a caricature of the gospel over there, over here we know that the general tendency of man is to exalt man's abilities, man's capacities, man's possibility of controlling the grace of God by what we do.

And so you have the legalism and you have those systems where you would deny justification by grace alone, through faith alone, so on and so forth. And so we want to remain in the middle. We want to remain where the Bible would lead us to be.

And that means we take seriously the absolute grace and sovereignty of God in salvation. He is the only one who saves. We can add nothing to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But because we listen to all of what the Bible says, we also know that God has a purpose in saving us.

That He has a purpose in leaving us here in this world. He doesn't just save us and then zap us up to heaven. Instead, He has a purpose in forming Jesus Christ within us, in conforming us to His image, and in so doing, glorifying Himself.

And so we allow all of Scripture to speak, not just one small portion. And so the need to be disciplined, the need to endure, is very clearly a part of what we have here in Hebrews chapter 12, beginning at verse 5.

We've worked through most of this, but let's remind ourselves of what the Word of God says. And have you forgotten the exhortation, the author asks, that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him.

For the Lord disciplines the one He loves and chastises every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons for what son is there whom his father does not discipline.

If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?

For they disciplined us for a short time, as it seemed best to them. But He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.

But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. And so we have worked through much of this section, especially the section that speaks of our being chastised by the Lord, that the Lord chastises every son whom He receives.

And that's a truly amazing statement that I think would be especially relevant to those who would try to present a Christianity that is a bed of roses. A Christianity that is focused upon making, well, your best life now.

That kind of a concept is completely absent from verse 8. If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Those are strong words, very strong words.

We've considered them before, but I emphasize them once again, because as we get into the text we're going to be focusing upon today, verse 11. That is the background. The background is that there is a biblical mandate in the promises of God that He will not leave His children without discipline.

He will not leave us and abandon us if our fathers recognize the need to discipline us. If we as parents can recognize this and do so imperfectly, then surely our Heavenly Father will discipline every individual that He takes out of the kingdom of darkness, transfers to the kingdom of light, but then He doesn't just leave us sitting there and does nothing with us.

And say, well, you know, you've been saved now, just live life as you please. No, there is going to be discipline, there is guidance, and there is the constant activity of the Spirit of God in conforming us to the image of Christ.

And when each one of us looks into our own hearts, into our own minds, and recognizes how easily we turn from the path, how easily we fail to continue to actualize the lessons that we've been taught over and over and over again, how easy it is for us to compartmentalize, that's the religious part over here, here's my life over here, they're separate, and so I don't really have the Lordship of Christ in this part of my life, but I'm doing pretty good over here.

When we recognize how often that is the case in each one of our lives, then we know that if God is going to be faithful to His role as our Heavenly Father, what's going to be the result?

He is going to discipline us. He is going to discipline us.

And if we do not receive that discipline, if weeks and months can go by where we can look back and we have no recognition of the work of God in our life, we see no evidence that we have been convicted of sin, no evidence of a desire for holiness, that's a dangerous thing.

That's a dangerous thing. Because very clearly He says, all have participated in this discipline. If you are left without that, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. You're not a part of the family.

Because that's what God is doing amongst His people. Those are strong words, but that is the context of the concluding statement that we look at today.

Verse 11,.

For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Now, as we consider these words, they seem to be rather self-evident.

How much can we really get out of these words other than just simply repeating them? Because it's rather obvious, is it not, that all discipline, and that is that term, paideia, which is really the same term that is used of the training of children.

It is that discipline that we would think of with children and not just the little child, not just the, you know, let's use your inside voice now instead of your outside voice type thing, but it would go all the way up into early adulthood.

That kind of discipline, for the moment, seems painful rather than pleasant. It does not seem to us to be joyful, but rather grieving at the moment. But then, at a later point, now you say, again, we got that, we read through it the first time.

But I think it's something we have to always keep in mind, because how many times have you in the Christian life been put in a position of being brought alongside someone who is suffering, brought alongside someone who is undergoing the discipline of the Lord, and the first question that they ask is, why me?

If God really loves me, he wouldn't put me through this. And, of course, most of us can also think of times where those were our words. Why me? Not now, not in that way. Don't take this thing away from me.

It always seems to be grieving. It always is a burden at the time, and yet the normal Christian life should be that we've been through this process so many times that, first of all, we should have no questions whatsoever about the faithfulness and consistency of our Heavenly Father in bringing this discipline.

That's not always a part of the human relationship. There are times when one could question one's parents' discipline, and, of course, there are those tragic situations where you have abusive parents.

But in this situation, there is no question that God always has a purpose in the discipline of his children. Now, we may not know what that purpose is. He may not see fit outside of general categories.

The general category is always that we might partake of his holiness. That's what it said just a few verses before that. But the specific area in which that discipline is taking place might not at first be completely obvious to us.

But we have the promise that God is faithful. And so, the discipline, it can seem grieving or painful at the time rather than joyous, which might cause us to feel somewhat of a conflict because we're told to rejoice always, and yet the discipline does not seem to be joyous.

The reason we can rejoice even in the midst of the difficulty is because we recognize the purpose that God has in the discipline he is bringing into our life. And what this passage tells us is we are to be forward-looking, trusting individuals.

If we focus only upon this particular moment in time, then we can simply be swallowed up by grief and difficulty. Now, most of the time, in most of our experiences, the period of discipline may seem exceedingly long to us.

In hindsight, it really wasn't that long. We know how this works. I mean, most of you have shared with me the wonderful experience of sitting in the dentist's chair. I'm really glad I've got a really good dentist now.

But when I was a kid, I don't know. Have things just gotten a lot better since? They have?

Okay, good.

All right. Oh, I'm asking the expert here.

Yeah.

Things have gotten a little bit better in modern days, but I had some really unpleasant experiences as a 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, somewhere around in there, year old, with those, you know, they crank your mouth open and they stick 14 rooms worth of furniture in there.

And, oh, it always felt like you were going to gag. And I don't care how many shots they gave you. The shots hurt more than anything else they did, and it still hurt when they drilled. And, oh, it was just, it was not a pleasant, and even the drills smelled bad.

I mean, it was just, it just wasn't, it wasn't a pleasant thing. It's not as bad now, but it does seem like the clock slows down, even now, when you're in that chair, you know? I mean, it's just like, it's like, normally, you know, when you're running out of time, you're trying to get something done.

Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, you know? But then when you're, you know what I mean? When it's unpleasant, oh, it just seems like forever. But then if everything goes well, and let's say you went in and you just had a horrible toothache, and everything goes well, and now, shortly thereafter, it's all, the pain's all gone, and, oh, I can chew right, and I can eat my favorite foods again.

And you look back, and you don't think about how long it was. In fact, you start thinking, eh, it wasn't all that bad. But during the time, oh, it just seems so long. That's how we experience things. And Scripture realizes that.

Scripture's not trying to say that this is a, this is an easy thing to go through. And it's not putting some carrot in front of us, but it does give us, I think, one of the most helpful exhortations, when it says, but later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Two really important things to pick up there. First of all, what is the peaceful fruit of righteousness? And then what does it mean to be trained by it, and the antecedent to the it is the discipline that God brings into our lives.

Let's start with the discipline, then move back to what the peaceful fruit of righteousness is, because that's sort of the end result of all of this. To those who have been trained, if we do not allow God's discipline to be a training experience, we will not receive the proper end result that God intends us to have.

If we are always constantly fighting against it, if we're always trying to find the easiest path, and we're not willing to follow the Lord through the difficult times and through the difficult way, if we're always trying to make things easiest for ourselves, then we are not being trained by that discipline, and we are in essence short-circuiting what God's intention in bringing that discipline into our lives really is.

Now, the term to be trained there, I know there's a number of people in the congregation that will appreciate this. It is a long word. Gengunas menois. Gymnasium is the term that we're... Gymnazo, to train in the gymnasium.

We at least brought a part of that term over into our language. And the form it's in is to speak of one who has experienced that training, and it continues to have an impact to the particular present moment.

It's not someone who... I would imagine Brother Warren back there, he works in the gymnazo field. If we did not have health clubs, what would poor Warren be doing?

I don't know.

But something tells me he'll confirm this for me. And that is, I imagine in early January, Warren sees a bunch of folks he's never seen before at work. Because we all make that New Year's resolution. And boy, I imagine that his employers love January.

Good time of the year. Oh, it's a good time of the year. Especially if you can get somebody to sign up for the whole year. Because in a large portion of those folks, you're not going to have to worry about them toward the end of the year.

And in fact, the reality is, come February, a couple of those shining faces, not around anymore. March, about half of them are gone. And April, you're back to the core again. And so they went and they did their thing for a little while.

But that's not what this is talking about. We've all been there. We've all been there. You start off, you've got really, this is going to be my year. But you see, training is not done in a week. It's not done in a month.

It is something that is ongoing. It's a regular thing. And it's not always enjoyable. It's not always enjoyable. I know I'm looking in the faces of folks who understand exactly what I'm saying. Because whatever goals you might set, trying to get there can be very, very difficult.

You have setbacks. In the physical field, you have injuries. And right now, we're entering into time of the year here in Phoenix. If you really want to, for me anyways, I'm having to move the clock back, back, back, back, back.

And please, if any of you drive between like 3 and 5 o 'clock in the morning, please watch those little blinking lights of people, crazy people like me, that are out there on the road at that time. Sometimes so early in the morning, even the cops turn on their spotlights, sort of look at me like, what are you doing?

Never do that. It blinds me. I ride off into a cactus or something like that. It's great. But believe me, when that alarm goes off at 2 .45 a .m., I don't want to get up. I don't want to do that. It's not pleasant.

It's grievous. My body says, you idiot. But if I have a goal in my... If I didn't have a goal in mind, let me tell you something, wouldn't do it. I could find every excuse in the world. But that's why I set goals.

That's why I go and try to do things. And I realize, man, if I'm not ready to do that one, I'm going to die out there on a mountain someplace.

I've got to get up.

I've got to do it. And I want to do it, and that's what allows me to do the training, and it's ongoing. There really aren't much... You can't take much in the way of vacations from it either. You really can't.

It's amazing, especially as you get older and older. You work and work and work and work, and you get to a certain level of fitness, and then I went to Ukraine. You have to start all over again because your body just sort of falls apart, you know, like overnight if you're not keeping up with the training.

That's exactly what's being talked about here. Paul uses the exact illustration. And so he's talking about people who don't just endure suffering like a good Stoic would. Well, that's just the nature of the universe, you know, and just be a good Stoic and undergo it.

That's not what training is. Training has a goal. You're trying to obtain a particular capacity and ability. And for the Christian, what we want to be able to do is to present to God a heart of wisdom.

We want to have sanctification. We want to have holiness. We want to participate in his holiness.

These are our goals.

These are the things that excite us. And so the training has a purpose. It has a regimen to it.

It's logical.

It makes sense. And so we're talking about to those who have been trained by the discipline that God brings into their life. And so if we just go stumbling about our lives each and every day, and we don't take time to open the Word of God, we don't take time to consider what's been going on in our lives, and to see it in light of God's truth, well, that's like people, and again, I'll make reference to Warren.

I imagine he sees people come in, and they've got trainers there, but they don't want to spend that extra money. And so they just come in, and they just start running around the place, and they'll run up to a machine, and they'll read the instructions, and they'll go, and then they go off to the other thing, and they leave, and okay, they may have done little something.

But if there's not any thought in the mind as to, well, what do I want to accomplish? Do I just want to lose weight? Are there certain muscles that I need to be strengthening?

What's my goal?

What am I trying to get to? Then you can't do training properly. It takes some thinking, and the Word of God forces us into that. So, these are words specifically for people who have been trained by God's discipline.

What's the goal? What's the goal? Later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Now, it's interesting to me that the way the writer expressed this in the original language, for those of you who are looking at that, later, the peaceful fruit to those who, by it, have been trained, it renders righteousness.

Righteousness is put at the end of the discussion. So, this is a common way in more classical Greek, Hebrews, Luke, Acts, more classical than Koine, to tie together a concept. So, you put those who have been trained by discipline in the middle.

You wrap it up in the peaceful fruit of righteousness. It becomes all a single concept. So, you can't chop it up into pieces, which, unfortunately, the way we have to translate it in English, still is a possibility for us to do.

It's just not possible in the original language. So, later, upon reflection, after the proper enduring and being trained by this discipline, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. And let's just be perfectly honest with ourselves.

When was the last time we ever sat around going, what is the peaceful fruit of righteousness?

What does that mean?

And we Christians have certain phrases we use. Some people call it Christianese. And my concern is, because we speak Christianese, sometimes we'll hear a phrase like this, and we'll sort of put it in a certain category without really giving a whole lot of thought to it.

And I think a lot of us have done that. I know I have. Peaceful fruit of righteousness. If we were honest and someone took a poll of what's really important in our lives, say, on Tuesday of this week, how many of us have been in the top ten list we would have given?

What does it mean?

If we don't know what it means, how can we have a real desire to obtain it? And besides that, haven't we already been made righteous? I mean, justification by faith. We've been put to righteousness with Christ.

Can I add to it?

What's this all about?

Well, a couple of things.

I started thinking about peaceful.

Peaceful.

This particular form is only found twice in the New Testament. And in James, it's used of the wisdom which is from above.

It's peaceful.

And here, it's peaceful fruit. And I had to give it some thought, and thankfully, I do have some excellent commentaries. And one in particular has just been a tremendous assistance to me over the course of this study.

Philip Hughes' commentary on Hebrews, I think, is one of the best that's out there. And he pointed out appropriately that what you have here is a continuation of the physical exercise, gymnasium, discipline metaphor.

Because during the time of discipline, when you are being trained, you are undergoing stress. You are undergoing the need to put out a lot of energy. You're fighting through the battle and the difficulty.

You're engaging in the activity you've been training toward. And so now, afterwards, what do you have? You have a cessation of that fighting and that discipline. And you have a period of peace. I mean, you think about your own experience in your own family, for example, as a child.

There would be a time where you had to be disciplined. You had done something that was wrong. Your parents did the right thing in disciplining you. And once the discipline is passed, what was frequently the result, at least in a good family situation, would be a restoration, maybe a period of special closeness between yourself and your parents.

And so this peacefulness, this peace that comes, could it be related to that? Let me read you some words here. For the Christian, the seed of divine chastisement proves to be wonderfully productive. When our author describes the harvest it produces as peaceful, the metaphor is still that of the athletic contest, but the adjective bespeaks the rest and relaxation enjoyed by the victorious contestant once the conflict is over.

The fruit of righteousness, moreover, may be equated with the crown of righteousness, which the apostle Paul, as he approached the end of his course, saw ahead awaiting him in the glory of his master's presence, 2 Timothy 4 .9.

Righteousness and peace had long since been associated with each other in the vision of the prophet when he proclaimed,. The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness quietness and trust forever, Isaiah 32 .17.

Where righteousness and peace are marks of the everlasting kingdom of Christ. The righteousness produced by discipline is that perfect righteousness which, imputed in justification and striven for in the Christian race, is fully imparted when at last the victor stands before his exalted Lord face to face, for it is indeed nothing other than the unblemished righteousness of Christ himself.

This, too, is the perspective of Peter when he speaks of our living hope, which is firmly fixed on an inheritance imperishable, undefiled, and unfading kept in heaven for us, adding that this causes us to rejoice, even though now, for a little while, we have to endure a variety of trials.

These trials, in fact, are intended for the purifying of our faith, even as gold is tested and purified by fire. So also James pronounces, That man blessed who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised those who love him.

Enduring the trial and standing the test of disciplinary affliction is precisely the training of which our author is speaking here. It is the perspective of faith which explains the unaltered and unutterable and exalted joy of the Christian athlete as willingly enduring all things.

He fixes his gaze on the glorious person of him who is the object of his faith and his love. And what does that remind you of? Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. That was just a few verses ago, even though it was a number of months ago, as far as preaching is concerned.

That was just a few verses back. And so what is this? What is this promise? Being trained by the discipline of God produces in us the peaceful fruit of righteousness. That peaceful fruit is the very image of our Lord and Savior in ourselves.

He is the very essence of righteousness. He is called the Prince of what? The Prince of Peace. And so whatever the work of the Spirit of God in our lives must be to make us most like Christ, that will be the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

That's going to be different for each one of us. I mean, there's obviously general things for all of us that we have in common. But the wonderful thing is it's not a cookie-cutter situation. The Lord knows where you are.

The Lord knows where I am. He knows what he needs to be working on in each one of our lives to make us more like Christ. And so the peaceful fruit of righteousness is simply a description of a true believer who is walking in harmony with the Spirit of God, trusting in the righteousness of his Savior, fully cognizant of the faithfulness of his Father, who is bringing into his life those trials, those difficulties, whereby he can be trained and disciplined to evermore reflect the glory of Christ in his words, his actions, and all aspects of his life.

These words, therefore, can have meaning to anyone no matter what situation they're in because it's God's purpose to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. So here is the end of this section because we now have a therefore.

We're now going to have the exhortation that comes from this. He said, you have forgotten the exhortation. Now that I've reminded you of the exhortation, now that you recognize that discipline is not something that is to be resisted.

It is to be something that is to be expected, looked for, and once you recognize that the result is you partake of the holiness of God, you produce the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Only when you are trained by this discipline as it comes into your life, now that you've seen that, it seems like maybe there was some grumbling, some complaining among some of the Hebrew Christians.

Now that you see that, therefore, these are the things you need to do. You need to look at what's going on in the congregation as a people together. You see, for a lot of us, we've listened to what's been said before, and what have we done as Americans?

We've viewed it primarily, first and foremost, in a private way. My life, me only. But these are words being addressed to a community, to a community of faith. And as we're going to see when we get down a little bit later on, when you look down at verse 15, where you have the root of bitterness mentioned there, we're going to find that comes straight out of Deuteronomy 29, and it's talking about the people of God as a corporate body, the warning of what happens when you get unbelief and apostasy within the corporate body, and the bitterness that can spread to other people.

We do not live on an island. God has put us in a community. Some people are more communal than others, but we are still in a community. We pray for one another. We are to bear one another's burdens. And so, the exhortation that's going to come after this is to recognize all of us are experiencing this, and it's a whole lot easier for congregations in nations where Christians are persecuted as a group, to see how, as a group, these words could apply to the congregation as well.

When you see that everyone is going through the same kind of persecution, that really draws people together. That draws people together in a way that we may find out in the not-too-distant future, but right now it's difficult for us to know.

When we're having to help each other just to make it through the day, we may find out that there's aspects to these texts that we've only touched upon, but that our currently persecuted brothers and sisters know very, very well.

Know very, very well.

So, the exhortation is coming, but this morning, let us close with this consideration. We need to be praying in our individual lives and as a congregation. Lord, I want to see the peaceful fruit of righteousness in my life.

I want to see the peaceful fruit of righteousness in the congregation's life. And I want that goal, that end, to be so precious to me that I will be trained by your discipline. I will not resist it. I will not pray that you will deliver me out of it, but that by your and by your Spirit, you would cause me to be trained to embrace that discipline.

And as a result, I will see in my own life and the life of those around me, the peaceful fruit of righteousness. May that truly be our desire this morning.

Let's pray together.

Dear Heavenly Father, we pray for the faith that we need to trust you to be a just and righteous Heavenly Father. We have often, Lord, we confess, questioned your wisdom as a Heavenly Father as we went through the dark and difficult times.