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

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April 24, 2023

By faith we look past the pain of discipline in the moment to the product of discipline in our lives. God is producing in us the "peaceful fruit of righteousness." An exposition of Hebrews 12:11. This stream is created with #PRISMLiveStudio

Angels and End Times Part 3 | Adult Sunday School

16:53: Well, good morning, we're glad you're here today on this beautiful Sunday that we have. Would you please stand as we sing
17:00: Christ Our Glory. Christ our glory,
17:55: Christ our hope, Christ our King forevermore.
18:05: Be still and remember the worst that can come, but shortens our journey and hastens us home.
18:24: Hours should be wasted on seeking our joy and placing our hope in one will be destroyed.
18:36: We look for a city that hands have not raised, we long for a country that sin has not stained.
18:52: Christ our glory, Christ our hope,
18:58: Christ our King forevermore.
19:04: We look for a city that hands have not raised, we long for a country that sin has not stained.
19:33: Though trouble and anguish increase all the more, they cannot compare to the glory in store.
19:45: Come joy or come sorrow, whatever befalls, the light of the
19:54: Savior will outshine them all. Christ our glory,
20:04: Christ our hope, Christ our King forevermore.
20:14: Christ our glory, Christ our hope,
20:21: Christ our King forevermore.
20:27: Christ our glory, Christ our hope,
20:34: Christ our King forevermore.
20:39: Come joy or come sorrow, whatever befalls, the light of the
20:50: Savior will outshine them all. We're going to go back to the
20:59: Psalms this morning and sing Psalm 2. Nations rage, the people plot in vain.
21:21: The kings and rulers of this age, against God's holy name.
21:29: They in their mortal reign, oppose the
21:35: Holy One. We cast asunder all these chains, our bond shall be undone.
21:46: Declares the Lord his Lord, he from his heaven laughs.
21:54: As anger flashes, plot to war and terrify in wrath.
22:02: Yet I have asked for thee, according to my will.
22:11: Said, Thine anointed King to me, on Zion's holy hill.
22:20: Now God's anointed one shall tell of this decree.
22:27: He said, Today thou art my son, I have begotten thee.
22:36: To thee has thine own reign, as thou hast asked of me.
22:44: Lay hands on earth for thee to reign, so thine estate shall be.
22:53: Through the lands of Rome, the nations shalt thou shame.
23:00: As if it were with iron rod, their kingdom shalt thou break.
23:08: O King, throw off thy grudge of birth.
23:16: Before the Lord bows to the
23:27: Son, lest he give anger sway. Lest thou be in his wrath undone, and perish in the way.
23:41: The blessed thrall he ne 'er, whom he declares his own.
23:50: Adore his name in holy fear, in refuge at his throne.
24:00: Continuing in the Psalms this morning, we're going to read out of Psalm 62. Surely my soul waits in silence for God.
24:09: From him is my salvation. Surely he is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold.
24:16: I shall not be greatly shaken. How long will you assail a man? That you may murder him, all of you, like a leaning wall, like a fence thrust down.
24:26: Surely they have counsel to thrust him down. From his high position, they find pleasure in falsehood.
24:33: They bless with their mouth, but inwardly they curse. Surely wait in silence for God, O my soul.
24:41: For my hope is from him. Surely he is my rock and my salvation.
24:46: My stronghold, I shall not be shaken. We're going to sing a new song this morning called,
24:54: My Soul Will Wait. He surrounds, and my heart grows faint within.
25:21: When the darkness overwhelms, and my fears are pressing in.
25:29: I will trust in you, O Lord. In the silence
25:35: I will wait. I will stand upon your word.
25:41: You're my soul and rock and my salvation. My steadfast hope that won't be shaken.
25:50: My soul will wait, my soul will wait for you.
25:57: You're my stronghold and my shield. In the midst of every threat.
26:05: Though the wicked never kneel. They will banish life on earth.
26:14: Yes, I know the outcome sure. Satan's evil plans will fail.
26:22: In your power I'm secure. You're my soul and rock and my salvation.
26:30: My steadfast hope that won't be shaken. My soul will wait, my soul will wait for you.
26:42: You're my comfort when I feel forsaken. My refuge and my sure foundation.
26:50: My soul will wait, my soul will wait for you.
26:57: This is love I can't explain. This is mercy unreserved.
27:06: Through your sacrifice so great. I have peace that's undeserved.
27:14: For the battle has been won. And I fear no shame or loss.
27:22: Now the sting of death is gone. You're my soul and rock and my salvation.
27:30: My steadfast hope that won't be shaken. My soul will wait, my soul will wait for you.
27:42: You're my comfort when I feel forsaken. My refuge and my sure foundation.
27:51: My soul will wait, my soul will wait for you.
27:56: Hearts before you, we will trust in you.
28:26: Perfect savior, strong defender.
28:33: We will trust in you.
28:45: Hearts before you, we will trust in you.
28:57: Perfect savior, strong defender.
29:05: We will trust in you.
29:13: Amen. You may be seated. Praise to him, the
30:14: God of light. Who from the mountains by his might.
30:23: All praise to him who names the stars.
30:28: That save his fame in skies afar. All praise to him who reigns in love.
30:38: Who guides the galaxies above.
30:44: Yet bends to hear our effort with sovereign power.
30:53: And tender cares to him whose love is seen.
31:01: And Christ the son, the servant king. Who left behind his glorious throne.
31:11: To pay the ransom for his own.
31:17: All praise to him who humbly came. To bear our sorrow, sin, and shame.
31:28: Who lived to die, who died to rise. The all -sufficient son of Revice.
31:39: All praise to him whose power imparts.
32:04: The spirit of all truth and peace.
32:13: The fount of joy and holiness. To father, son, and spirit now.
32:23: Our souls we lift to you, the triumphant God.
32:31: Our songs of praise to father, son, and spirit now.
32:42: Our souls we lift. Our wills we bow to you, the triumphant God.
32:51: We are songs of praise.
33:08: Psalm 97, beginning of verse 1.
33:35: The Lord reigns. Let the earth rejoice. Let the many islands be glad.
33:40: Clouds and thick darkness surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
33:47: Fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries round about. His lightnings lit up the world.
33:54: The earth saw and trembled. The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the
34:00: Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the peoples have seen his glory.
34:07: Let all those be ashamed who serve graven images, who boast themselves of idols. Worship him, all you gods.
34:14: Zion heard this and was glad, and the daughters of Judah have rejoiced because of your judgments,
34:19: O Lord. For you are the Lord most high over all the earth. You are exalted far above all gods.
34:26: Hate evil, you who love the Lord, who preserves the souls of his godly ones. He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
34:34: Light is sown like seed for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart. Be glad in the
34:40: Lord, you righteous ones, and give thanks to his holy name. Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads.
34:53: Our Father, you are the righteous God of all the earth. You do what pleases you for your glory and for the good of your people.
35:02: And you count all peoples and all nations as nothing before you, for you rule them in justice and in righteousness, and everything that you do is just and righteous because you are the just and righteous one.
35:16: So we thank you for your nature, for your character, for your loving kindness toward us. We thank you that you have not dealt with us according to our sins as our iniquities might deserve, but according to your grace and according to your infinite redeeming love for us.
35:32: So we pray that you would strengthen and comfort our hearts in these truths and by your grace so that you would accomplish every good purpose in us, everything that you desire for, our sanctification, our pursuit of holiness, and our walking in the truth.
35:49: And we pray that you would be honored in and through us, your people, that we would yield to you lives of obedience and holiness and righteousness.
35:57: We pray that you would produce in us the fruit of righteousness, the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
36:04: And we pray that every affliction and difficulty and trial that you appoint for our lives may serve to conform us to the image of Christ and to sanctify us in the truth and by your truth and produce in us those things which are pleasing in your sight and those things which are for our ultimate and eternal good.
36:23: Be honored and glorified through our worship as we meditate and reflect upon these things.
36:28: We pray that you would be exalted in the hearts and in the minds of your people and that as we cast away every impure and ignoble thought that you would be honored in our affections and that you would turn and incline our hearts to you and toward Christ.
36:46: And do this, we pray, in the power of the Holy Spirit. We ask these things in the name of your Son, our gracious and loving
36:53: King. Amen. And so to Him I leave it all
37:50: And so to Him I leave it all
37:56: My heir, my
38:04: God, ordained to stride He never will deceive me
38:11: He leads me by the proper path I take
38:20: His hand and turn my dreams away
38:29: And patiently I wait His day
38:34: And patiently I wait His day
38:47: Ordained to stride Though now this cup in drinking
38:53: May bitter seem to my faint heart I take it all unshrinking
39:01: My God is true, each born anew
39:07: Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart
39:12: And pain and sorrow shall depart And pain and sorrow shall depart
39:21: Ordained to stride
39:33: Here shall my stand be taken Though sorrow, need, or death be mine
39:41: Yet I have not forsaken My Father's care is round me there
39:50: He holds me that I shall not fall And so to Him I leave it all
39:59: And so to Him I leave it all My Father's care is round me there
40:09: He holds me that I shall not fall And so to Him I leave it all
40:19: And so to Him I leave it all In 1
40:32: Thessalonians 4 it says, But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.
40:42: For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
40:51: For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the
40:57: Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
41:10: Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the
41:15: Lord in the air. And so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words.
41:25: We're going to sing, Turn Your Eyes. Turn your eyes upon Jesus Look full in His wonderful face
42:00: And the things of earth will grow strange in Him Then the light of His glory and praise
42:20: Turns to a hillside
42:27: Where justice and mercy embrace
42:35: There the Son of God gave His life
42:41: For us, and our measureless debt was erased
42:50: Jesus, to You we lift our eyes Jesus, our glory and our pride
43:07: You, our Savior ever true Lord Jesus, we turn our eyes to You Turn your eyes to the moon
43:37: And see Christ the Lion away Glorious God, fear of death is gone
43:51: For we carry His life in our head
43:58: Jesus, to You we lift our eyes Jesus, our glory and our pride
44:16: You, our Savior ever true Lord Jesus, we turn our eyes to You Turn your eyes to the heavens
44:36: Our King will return for His own
44:42: Every knee will bow Every tongue will shout
44:49: All glory to Jesus alone Jesus, to You we lift our eyes
45:03: Jesus, our glory and our pride Our Savior ever true
45:16: Oh Jesus, we turn our eyes to You Oh Jesus, to You we lift our eyes
45:30: Jesus, our glory and our pride
45:40: Our Savior ever true
45:45: We turn our eyes to You Oh Jesus, we turn our eyes to You Please turn, if you will, to the book of Hebrews, to chapter 12.
46:27: The book of Hebrews, chapter 12. And we're going to begin reading at verse 9. And we'll read 9 through verse 11.
46:34: We'll be looking today at verse 11. Hebrews 12, verse 9. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them.
46:42: Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time, as seemed best to them.
46:49: But He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful.
46:58: Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Let's pray together.
47:07: Gracious God, we come now to Your Word, and we have sung the sentiments and the affections of our hearts to humble ourselves, to seek
47:16: Your face, to hear from Your will in Your Word. That is our desire today.
47:22: And we pray that You would send Your Spirit to accomplish in us those things which You desire. That You would open our eyes to Your Word.
47:30: That You would shine the light of truth upon our hearts and upon our minds. So that we may see and evaluate all of life, including the afflictions and difficulties that You have appointed and send for Your people.
47:42: We may see them in the light of truth, as You intend them to be for us. And that we may understand in our hearts and in our minds, deep down within, what
47:51: You desire for us, what You intend for us, and what You will accomplish in us. And we pray this, that we may acknowledge
47:59: Your goodness in our lives, and that we may rejoice and celebrate and know peace and joy, even in the midst of trials and afflictions and difficulties, so that we may glorify
48:09: You. We long for that day when every wrong will be righted, and justice will be done, and we will stand in Your presence and rejoice together.
48:19: And we pray that here as we tarry, that You would be glorified through our response to all that You will for us.
48:27: So help us now, we pray, as we look at Your Word, to see it and understand as we should, for the glory of Christ, in whose name we pray.
48:35: Amen. You and I are driven by incentives. Everything that we do in life is a response to an incentive.
48:45: We do things in life because, or we make decisions, I should say, based upon what we deem to be in our best interest in the moment, either in the immediate or in the long term.
48:54: So we even make short -term decisions based upon our long -term interests.
49:04: Looking ahead, we do this often when we invest. We will take money that we could spend on something that we want now, that would delight us now, and we would save that or invest that or set that aside in some way in order to get something in the future that we think that we might enjoy in the future even more than what we might enjoy in the presence.
49:23: So we're always making tradeoffs in the decisions that we make. How we spend our time, how we spend our money, what we do in each and every day, it's all geared in some measure by incentives.
49:34: We do those things that we deem to be in our best interest in the moment or at least in our best interest at some point when we expect to get a payoff.
49:43: We endure in the short term all kinds of difficulties and sacrifices and pain, and we are willing to do this if we are convinced that the long -term benefit is worth the payoff.
49:56: Athletes do this. This week is the NFL Draft, and if you watch the NFL Draft as I monitor it and sometimes watch the first round, you will see a whole bunch of athletes, people who have spent their time and their energy and their effort exerting themselves and disciplining themselves and training themselves in the hopes that their name will be called sometime during the draft and there will be a payoff, that all that they have sacrificed is going to come back to them and pay rewards or dividends in the end.
50:25: Entering into any professional sport is always a group of people that know people in their lives that while they were on the court or on the field or sacrificing and training and being disciplined and exerting themselves and investing in what they viewed to be their future, they will always have people in their lives who spent that same amount of time playing video games in the basement, chomping on Doritos, and not spending any time at all investing anything for any kind of a payoff.
50:55: There are the short -term people and the long -term people. The people who are athletes, they are willing to adjust their diet and change their routine and sacrifice their spare time and spend their weekends putting forth the effort because they believe that there could be a payoff.
51:08: They're going to make the team or they're going to win the championship. They're going to get something that is worth the sacrifice in the short term.
51:14: We see this with athletes. We see it also in the medical procedures that you and I are willing to endure. We are willing to let somebody cut us open and put us to sleep, not in that order, we're willing to let people put us to sleep and then cut us open and even go through the physical therapy, the pain of physical therapy, and change our diet and sacrifice that pain in the short term if we have the hope that we can beat this disease or cure the pain or somehow make our life better, repair an injury.
51:45: I will give you a personal example, which I tend to steer away from personal examples, but a couple of years ago when
51:51: I had my shoulder operated on and I preached for a few weeks with my arm in a sling like this, I just had to keep it immobile for six weeks.
51:57: Well, during that six weeks, apparently my body created a lot of scar tissue so that when I finally started to go in for physical therapy, one of the things that the physical therapist had to do was stretch out my shoulder in an excruciatingly painful fashion, and I made very little progress for several weeks.
52:13: I went in and visited the doctor again, and he said, you are one of a small number of people that your body produces scar tissue abundantly and quickly.
52:23: So if you wonder what does Jim do better than most of the population, that is my thing. That's what
52:28: I'm skilled at apparently. I'm an overachiever in terms of scar tissue. So the physical therapist, every week when
52:34: I would go in, she would have to stretch my shoulder out, and the goal was to tear the scar tissue that had formed inside the joint.
52:42: It was excruciatingly painful. Why was I willing to let her do that to me? Because at some point in my life after that,
52:49: I wanted to be able to raise my hand like this. Now if I raise my hand in a class, I'll usually raise my right arm because I'm right -handed, but what if I lose my right arm in some accident?
52:58: Not being able to raise your arm higher than this would have its drawback. So I was willing to let her tear scar tissue in my shoulder in the short term as excruciatingly painful as that was, and it was, because I wanted the payoff of being able to raise my arm and function and putting your arms above your head apparently,
53:15: I think, is kind of a nice feature of having two arms. We don't use it in our worship here very much because we're not charismatics, but there are other applications for using both arms above your head.
53:28: Sometimes we are willing to sacrifice and endure pain for the hope of the payoff and not even the guarantee of the payoff, just the hope of the payoff.
53:35: We're willing to gamble, if I can use that word. We're willing to sacrifice something and invest something in the hopes that there will be a payoff, even when that payoff is not guaranteed.
53:47: We take risk of losing something in the near term so that we can have the hope of gaining something greater in the long term.
53:56: The same mentality must be applied to the subject of God's discipline in our lives and the afflictions that He sends us.
54:02: We endure pain in the short term. This is what verse 11 says. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful.
54:10: We endure this and we embrace this in our life in the near term. Why? In the hope that, or with the certainty that, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness in the lives of those who have been trained by that discipline.
54:26: That is embracing something in the short term with the confidence that if God's Word is correct, if God's Word is true, if He's going to keep
54:33: His Word, there is going to be, after the short -term sacrifice of the suffering in the midst of affliction, the sorrow, there's going to be after that, the enjoyment of the peaceful fruits of righteousness.
54:43: That's what verse 11 is about. Let's read it again, verse 11. We looked at half of this last week.
54:49: All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet to those, to the ones who are trained by it, that is by the discipline, afterwards that discipline yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
55:03: One of the peaceful fruits of righteousness in verse 10 is that we would share His holiness. That is something that God is preparing us for and doing in us in discipline.
55:11: Another one is that we enjoy the fruit of that discipline. Even though the difficulty is real in the short term, the fruit is just as real in the long term.
55:21: And the author here is contrasting what we experience in the short term, the sorrow, with what we get to enjoy in the long term, the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
55:29: And all the way through the passage, he has been imploring us to understand that the difficulties that we face in this life are not indications of God's wrath upon us or His displeasure with us in that sense, but rather, the discipline that we endure in this life is, in fact, an expression of God's love for us as He trains us for the life that is to come and for enjoying in this world the peaceful fruits of righteousness.
55:53: Last week, we saw that the pain of discipline is our present experience, and this week, today, we're going to look at the last half of verse 11 and see that the product of discipline is our certain and future expectation.
56:04: Now, last week, I said something that I want to give a little bit of a clarification to because it might have struck some of you, particularly those of you who might have come since, say, the middle of January when we covered this subject.
56:16: Last week, I talked about God scripting our lives and writing things into the story of our lives and appointing and sending things to us like illness, sickness, chronic pain, houses burning down, children dying, a spouse dying, and even a miscarriage.
56:32: And I think that there was a visceral reaction on behalf of some of you, and that may be because you weren't here back in January when we covered this reality that discipline that God sends into our lives is not because of something that we have done that deserves that.
56:48: So if when you hear something like that, you're thinking in your mind, what have I done to deserve a miscarriage? Immediately, you have framed discipline wrong.
56:56: Discipline is training. God uses as training all of these adversities that come into our lives, but it doesn't mean necessarily that there is a one -to -one correspondence between something you have done and something bad that has happened to you.
57:07: That's the wrong way to think about it because discipline is not an expression of God's wrath. It is not a punishment for your sin.
57:14: If God dealt with all of us according to what we deserve, we would all be in hell right now. That's what we deserve.
57:20: God doesn't deal with us according to what we deserve. So discipline is not a punishment that God inflicts for some sin you have committed.
57:27: We covered this back in January, and I don't want anybody to hear what I said last week and think to themselves,
57:34: Jim is suggesting that God is just up there punishing us for these things that come into our lives that we're not even aware of what it is that we have done.
57:42: I just want to reframe that because I know that there are people here who are new, who were not here back when
57:47: I laid all of that foundation so insufferably long ago. The product of discipline as our future expectation.
57:56: Now, this verse is structured around this contrast between how discipline is experienced by us in the present and what discipline produces for us in the future.
58:04: You see that contrast in the word yet, or maybe some translations have but, or then, again, and then.
58:11: At the middle of verse 11, it seems not to be joyful but sorrowful, and yet, here's the contrast, to those who have been trained by it, it produces or yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
58:21: Who are those who have been trained by discipline? I would remind you it is only God's children who are trained by discipline.
58:27: God does not discipline unbelievers. He is not training unbelievers in righteousness. He is not producing for and in unbelievers the peaceful fruits of righteousness.
58:36: He is not allowing them to share in His holiness. This is a blessing. This is an intention of God that is strictly aimed at His children.
58:45: We are the ones who get the blessing of discipline. And I want you to get used to that idea of the blessing of discipline.
58:51: It is a blessing that is reserved only for those who are within the family. No other child in the world received the blessing of the discipline that I would give to my own children.
59:02: That was my blessing to them. My gift to them was discipline. Likewise, God does not pour out
59:07: His discipline upon unbelievers. He pours out His wrath on unbelievers, His judgment on unbelievers, but not discipline.
59:15: Discipline is God's work in the hearts of His people, His children, to train us in righteousness, to produce in us holiness, so that we would share
59:24: His holiness, and so that we would enjoy the peaceful fruits of righteousness. And notice that verse 11 says, it describes those who have been trained by it.
59:33: Notice that it doesn't use the word discipline. All the way through this passage, up in verse 5, down in verse 6, verse 7, verse 7 twice, verse 8, verse 9, verse 10 twice, verse 11, the beginning of the verse, has the word discipline.
59:48: Discipline has been His theme all the way through this, but this word trained is a different word. Notice it doesn't say for those who have been disciplined by Him, but for those who have been trained by the discipline.
59:57: It's a different word. It's the word gumnadzo. Gumnadzo, from which we get our word gymnasium.
01:00:03: Describes being trained or undergoing discipline to practice or to exercise. It describes a rigorous exertion that is intended to hone skill or develop capabilities.
01:00:14: That's what it describes. Those who have been gymed by it. G -Y -M,
01:00:20: I just realized I didn't specify there. Those who have gone to the gym and been trained by the gumnadzo, the training.
01:00:29: That is what's being described. A gymnasium was a place of athletic training, a rigorous exercise where discipline was inflicted, physical training, where athletes and people developing certain skills and honing abilities would go to have those skills and abilities honed and crafted and made precise so that they could compete in the exercises, so they could compete in the races.
01:00:52: This is not the word that is used for discipline. The word for discipline is paideia, and that includes training and child rearing.
01:00:59: We talked about the definition of this back in verse 4. I'll just remind you, it is a broader term that describes all kinds of instruction, training, teaching, even punishment.
01:01:07: It describes tutorage and education, and sometimes just generically, rearing or raising children is the idea.
01:01:14: So it's a broad term, discipline is a broad term which incorporates a lot of things, all designed to mold and shape and train and form children in the rearing process.
01:01:26: And those who have undergone discipline, they are the ones who have been trained by it. Those are the ones who have been trained by it.
01:01:33: There is a training aspect to discipline. And this is ultimately what it is that you and I are looking for in our own lives in terms of discipline.
01:01:41: Not so much that we are embracing pain for the sake of pain, but that we are embracing discipline because it produces something in us and trains us for something.
01:01:52: That's why we embrace it. Not because we love pain, not because we delight in difficulty, not because we receive joy from the tribulations itself, but because these things are intended by God for our training, for our equipping, to hone us and to shape us, to make us capable, to do something in us that is for our good and for His glory.
01:02:13: With that word training, the author returns to the athletic metaphor that he began up in verses 1 to 3.
01:02:18: Remember, run your race with endurance. Run with endurance the race that is set before you, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, keeping your eye on the finish line.
01:02:25: You're to run that race that God has laid out, the course that He has set for you. You are to do this. Then he begins to talk about the discipline, the rearing, and the training, yes, that is required for those who will run the race effectively.
01:02:37: So now he's just sort of capping now with this reference to training. He's capping now this athletic metaphor that he started back at the beginning of chapter 12.
01:02:45: The same theme is being developed, and here it comes to the conclusion. For those who run their race, there is discipline that is involved in this.
01:02:52: This discipline is itself the training for the race that God has laid out for you. This is why we embrace it.
01:02:58: This is why we regard discipline in our lives as a blessing sent from God. This is a transforming way of thinking about affliction, suffering, persecution, hostility from unbelievers, hatred that the world heaps upon us, and the scorn.
01:03:13: We are to look at that and see it and receive it as God's blessing in our lives. Yes, this difficulty is real.
01:03:19: Yes, the difficulty is painful. But this is God's training. He's disciplining us.
01:03:26: And His only intention is love. You and I are in a race, and discipline is not pain for the sake of pain.
01:03:32: And even when I said as last week that in the midst of discipline, pain or sorrow is the point.
01:03:37: I don't mean is the point in terms of that is the only goal. It's just pain for the sake of pain, but rather I mean the sorrow and the pain, the difficulty of it, is part of the intention of God in it because it is through the difficulty and the sorrow that you and I are trained and disciplined.
01:03:53: So like children who will not learn from the loving discipline of their parents, if you and I refuse
01:03:58: God's discipline in His chastisements and refuse to learn the lessons and pursue holiness, then
01:04:04: He will send further discipline. Come to grips with that.
01:04:12: If you will not heed the first chastisements, more chastisements will come. You think it's miserable now.
01:04:20: Child of God, continue in your sin, and you will learn new degrees of misery. God will sometimes scourge
01:04:26: His children. That's what verse 6 says. He will goad us. He will afflict us until you and I embrace the very thing that He wants us to embrace.
01:04:37: Until we learn it, until we receive it. And the reason is not because He hates us, not because He is filled with wrath.
01:04:45: The reason is because He loves us too much to leave us in our stiff -necked rebellion. Because He loves us too much to leave us in our stiff -necked rebellion.
01:04:53: He knows what sin does to us. He will do all that is necessary to purge that from our lives. This is why the author encourages a right response in verse 5.
01:05:03: Do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him. Will you respond?
01:05:09: Will I respond to God's chastening with humility and obedience or hostility and obstinance?
01:05:17: Will we seek to learn obedience and grow in grace or harden our hearts and resist
01:05:22: His purposes? Will you respond in faith, trusting in a God who is sovereign and good? Or will you respond with insolence and pride and hard -heartedness and stiff -necked rebellion?
01:05:32: That is the choice. That is what is before each and every one of us that endures God's discipline.
01:05:37: This is a revolutionary mindset that you and I have to have towards afflictions in our lives.
01:05:43: That this is here for a purpose and God is doing something in it for my good. And so now the question is, what can
01:05:49: I learn? What sin can I put off? What sin can I mortify? How can
01:05:54: I pursue holiness in this? How can I finish this training exercise and be more useful to the
01:05:59: Lord, more fruitful for Him, and draw closer to Him? Because it is not a purposeless pain.
01:06:06: It's not an aimless discipline. It has a purpose. It has an aim, and it is training us for our race.
01:06:13: God knows exactly what needs to happen to you and I for us to be fruitful and for us to be faithful and for us to mortify sin.
01:06:22: And those are the very things that God sends into our lives to shape us and to prepare us for His usefulness.
01:06:29: So when does the fruit come? Look at verse 11. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
01:06:36: It comes afterwards. Fruit is not instantaneous. The fruit of discipline is not instantaneous.
01:06:42: Now, sometimes it is, and there are fruits in discipline that come immediately as a result of discipline.
01:06:50: But generally speaking, the bulk of the fruit that you and I enjoy as a result of God's discipline is something that comes afterwards.
01:06:58: It's later on. Discipline, the fruits of it are not always immediate. The fruits of discipline are not only immediate.
01:07:05: They're not always immediate and they're not only immediate. Now, I don't think that the author intends here to rule out the possibility and the reality that there might be immediate fruit in the life of a believer as a result of discipline.
01:07:16: You can think of ways in which suffering can immediately produce a fruit in your life. Something bad happens, a tragedy strikes, you get bad news, and immediately you begin to pray.
01:07:27: Immediately you begin to focus your mind and your heart upon Scripture, upon God's truth, upon disciplining your heart and your mind, you begin to pray in ways that you've never prayed before.
01:07:36: That's an immediate fruit that comes out of the midst of discipline and affliction and suffering. And those are good fruits.
01:07:42: But sometimes, those are short -lived fruits. In other words, the fruit is there and as soon as the affliction is gone, then we go right back to normal, don't we?
01:07:51: Not praying as much, not seeking the Lord as much, not being as concerned about holiness in our lives as much.
01:07:56: As soon as the affliction is lifted, the fruit vanishes. Well, if God is going to produce long -lasting fruit,
01:08:02: He's going to produce in us the peaceful fruits of righteousness. A mistake that many people make is they become deeply grieved when they do not see immediately results from discipline in their lives.
01:08:14: Because they undergo affliction and they want to see immediately in the moment something good that comes out of this.
01:08:21: I want to see what the Lord is doing and I want to see all that the Lord is doing right now. But that is not how God works. Sometimes the connection between our suffering and our affliction and the fruit that comes from it can be years in the making.
01:08:34: You don't plant a seed and immediately expect to receive fruit off of that within a couple hours, do you? Children do.
01:08:41: Children do, right? Remember, I've said several weeks ago that children are foolish. When I would take my kids out when they were young, we would plant a seed and within a few hours they would be out there looking at it, wondering why the seed didn't come up.
01:08:53: Maybe even a couple of days later wondering where's the seed, where's the plant. You don't have to explain to them. You need to have a long -term idea here of what is supposed to happen.
01:09:01: This might be a couple weeks before we see the beginnings of the plant and it's going to be even longer before we see fruit off of that.
01:09:08: You don't prune a tree and expect it to produce fruit the next day. There's affliction and then there can sometimes be a long period of time before you see the fruit of that affliction.
01:09:18: You may not perceive an immediate improvement or profit in your life off of the discipline that God sends to you in the moment.
01:09:27: Get that carefully in your head. You may not see immediate improvement or profit in your life but I can promise you discipline produces fruit in the long term.
01:09:38: How can I promise that? Because Scripture says that afterwards that discipline yields the peaceful fruits of righteousness.
01:09:45: We can't always connect the dots between our suffering and affliction and the discipline and the fruit that it produces.
01:09:53: I am positive, I can say without any hesitation, I would be willing to die for this truth, that there are spiritual peaceful fruits of righteousness, peace in my own life, that it is present today that is the result of some affliction or difficulty that I have endured at some point in my
01:10:10: Christian life. Possibly even from an affliction that I in this moment cannot even remember ever having.
01:10:18: But that fruit is there. I'm not the same person I was 25 or 30 years ago. And neither are you if you're in Christ.
01:10:25: You're not the same person you were even last year. God is producing fruits in your lives all the time and He is using affliction to produce those things.
01:10:33: So I cannot always connect some peaceful fruit of righteousness that I enjoy in my life, my character, in my heart now, directly with an affliction and say well this is tied to this.
01:10:44: Sometimes that's possible. Sometimes you can say I suffered this, here are the three things that I learned and here are the things in my life that are different as a result of me going through that affliction.
01:10:52: Sometimes that is the case. But sometimes there is fruit in your life that is tied to a difficulty or an affliction, some active discipline in your life that God brought into your life and you can't necessarily even remember the discipline or the difficulty and yet God has produced fruit out of that.
01:11:08: That is certainly the case. Sometimes fruit is immediate. I will acknowledge that.
01:11:13: Sometimes fruit is immediate but the point of the author is that we don't necessarily have a justification for expecting to see all of the fruit immediately and we can always know that there is better and greater things to come in terms of the fruit of God's discipline.
01:11:28: Spurgeon, using the children of Israel and their time in Egypt and coming out of that in the
01:11:33: Exodus draws an interesting parallel to the immediacy of fruit. Listen to what he says. The good of trouble is not generally while we are in trouble but when we get out of trouble.
01:11:44: You just need to stop, say la. Meditate upon that for a few moments. The good of trouble is generally not while we are in trouble but when we get out of trouble.
01:11:54: Yet on the other hand it sometimes happens that God can give us the jewels even before we leave
01:12:01: Egypt so that they can march out of the house of bondage with golden earrings hanging at our ears and covered with all manner of ornaments.
01:12:09: But for the most part however it is nevertheless afterwards that this happens. Remember the children of Israel coming out of bondage.
01:12:16: They asked the Egyptians for treasures and the Egyptians gave them and they walked out incredibly wealthy having been slaved for centuries.
01:12:23: Spurgeon says sometimes that's what difficulty does. Sometimes in the midst of discipline we walk out immediately with the jewels and the treasures that the discipline has produced.
01:12:32: But we always know that even in those times when we walk out immediately with treasures from our discipline that there is still greater fruit that is still yet to come in the future because afterwards it yields the peaceful fruits of righteousness.
01:12:45: So sometimes God does give you the jewels from discipline in the immediate but He's always going to do even more in the future as you enjoy the peaceful fruits of righteousness.
01:12:54: Psalm 119 verse 67 the psalmist says before I was afflicted I went astray but now I keep your word.
01:13:00: Notice how he connects before I was afflicted my affliction I went astray now I keep your word.
01:13:06: The psalmist says affliction has produced in me obedience. Because of the affliction I have learned obedience.
01:13:12: Also because of the affliction he learned God's statutes. It's good for me that I was afflicted that I may learn your statutes.
01:13:18: Psalm 119 verse 71 So even when there is immediate profit to us in our discipline there is still even greater fruitfulness afterwards from our discipline.
01:13:29: This is in fact what was true of the heroes of faith. Remember back in chapter 11? Abraham waited he was promised a son he was promised a land he waited years to see that son of promise and he died in the land having never received the promise of that land.
01:13:48: And Isaac followed and did the same thing and Jacob and then Joseph all of whom lived their lives and never saw the fulfillment of that promise.
01:13:57: And we look at Abraham and we say man there is a faith to emulate. He's one of the heroes of the faith. Here was a guy that endured through affliction and embraced
01:14:05: God's discipline. Like Moses Abraham was a man who refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter this is describing
01:14:13: Moses choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.
01:14:19: Considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt for he was looking to the reward.
01:14:25: Later on in Hebrews chapter 11 women received back their dead by resurrection and others were tortured not accepting their release so that they might obtain a better resurrection.
01:14:34: All those Hebrews Hebrews 11 heroes of faith they anticipated something greater in the future and they were willing to endure in the present all manner of difficulties and sufferings and afflictions and discipline.
01:14:47: Why? Because the reward the payout they were convinced was greater than anything they would sacrifice in the present.
01:14:53: And we look at their faith and we say that is magnificent we want to emulate until we are offered the chance to emulate and then we say no no no no
01:15:01: I'm done no more affliction no more discipline no more difficulty you're not going to emulate the faith of Abraham and Moses and those who were willing to be tortured and not accept their release for a better resurrection.
01:15:13: You can't emulate that faith unless you are put in a position where you can look to the reward and say I'm willing to endure in the short term whatever it is that the
01:15:21: Lord has appointed for me so that I may enjoy the peaceful fruits of righteousness. This fruit that is enjoyed comes after the conflict after the conflict.
01:15:31: Now what is the peaceful fruit of righteousness? I want to skip past for a moment the word peaceful since that describes it
01:15:36: I will come back to that in just a moment. What is the fruit of righteousness? There are two ways to understand that phrase.
01:15:43: The first is kind of a narrow sense of understanding it and the second is broader. I'll give both of them to you.
01:15:49: I'm not going to ask you to choose between the two because I think that the author can mean both of these things. I think that both of these things are true.
01:15:56: First, the first way of understanding this in a narrow sense is that the fruit that he is describing is in fact righteousness.
01:16:02: It is the fruit of righteousness. Righteousness is the fruit. These are the same thing. In other words, the fruit that is produced through our discipline is righteousness.
01:16:12: Now if that is what the author is describing here, he is not talking about the righteousness that makes us acceptable before God on Judgment Day.
01:16:19: That's imputed righteousness. That's a righteousness that is not ours that is credited to us at the moment of faith.
01:16:26: In other words, that righteousness describes our standing before God. So it's not imputed righteousness.
01:16:31: If that's what the author is describing, he's talking about practical righteousness. That is holiness of life. It's righteous living that is in view.
01:16:38: It would be akin to what he says in verse 14, pursue peace with all men and the sanctification or holiness without which no one will see the
01:16:46: Lord. And so some have suggested that the righteousness here in verse 11 is basically the same thing as holiness that is mentioned in verse 14.
01:16:54: You and I are to pursue peace with all men and holiness or sanctification without which no one will see the
01:17:00: Lord. I find it interesting that in verse 14 where this becomes a command to pursue something, he has the word pursue peace and pursue holiness.
01:17:08: And in verse 11 he has there the peaceful fruits of righteousness. So if righteousness and holiness are synonymous, then what we have here that God is going to affect in us through discipline, the peaceful fruit of righteousness, he tells us in verse 14 to pursue these very things.
01:17:23: Peace with all men and holiness without which no one can see the Lord. So if this is what is being described, then all he's describing here is righteous conduct that itself is the result of discipline.
01:17:34: It's the fruit of discipline. And there is certainly a sense in which discipline produces this in our lives, righteous conduct. When we go through affliction, the point of the affliction is that you and I would mortify sin, that we would lay aside the encumbrances that keep us from running, and lay aside the sin that so easily entangles us and run with endurance the race that is set before us.
01:17:55: It is the putting off of sin that is the point, it is the goal of discipline. So it could be that discipline, or sorry, that the fruit here is itself a righteous conduct.
01:18:06: It could be understood in a second sense, which is a little bit broader, that is to say that it is the fruit that righteousness in our lives produces.
01:18:15: In other words, as a result of discipline, you and I become more righteous in our conduct, and that righteousness in our conduct, in our behavior, practically speaking, begins to produce all kinds of other fruits.
01:18:26: Like what? Like, for instance, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self -control, the fruits of the
01:18:32: Spirit. So if that righteousness, which has been imputed to us as a gift from God, begins to take shape in our lives, practically speaking, we need to work out and live out our salvation and the righteousness that God has given to us, that is going to start producing all kinds of other fruits in our lives, which would be the peaceful fruits of righteousness.
01:18:52: Submission to God's will, mortification of sin, a heavenly mindedness, trust and reliance upon God's grace, appreciation for the
01:19:00: Scriptures and God's promises, a thankfulness, obedience, the pursuit of holiness, readiness for every good work, that type of fruit is produced by afflictions and discipline in our lives.
01:19:11: As God takes the one who has been made righteous by faith and begins to prune them for fruitfulness and effectiveness, every vine that is in Jesus Christ will be pruned so that it may bear more fruit.
01:19:25: That's the goal. Discipline is the pruning. It's difficult. It's painful.
01:19:31: We get that. We understand that. But the end result is not just pain for the sake of pain.
01:19:37: The end result is pain that produces fruitfulness so that you and I can enjoy the peaceful fruits of righteousness.
01:19:44: And the very fact that affliction in the life of a Christian produces fruit of this nature, of this kind, is itself a testimony to the divine nature of what is going on in our discipline.
01:19:58: Spurgeon says this, Trials breed discontent, anger, envy, rebellion, enmity, murmuring, and a thousand other ills.
01:20:08: That is, he says, naturally speaking. That's what he means. Trials produce these things naturally speaking.
01:20:14: You take somebody who has suffered, somebody who's not a believer who has suffered horrible difficulties and trials in their life and what does it produce?
01:20:20: All of these things. Trials breed discontent, anger, envy, rebellion, enmity, murmuring, and a thousand other ills.
01:20:26: But God overrules them and makes the very thing which would make
01:20:31: Christians worse to minister unto their growth in holiness and spirituality. It is not the natural fruit of affliction but the supernatural use to which
01:20:42: God turns it in bringing good out of evil. The natural result of affliction is not humility and gentleness and patience and kindness and goodness and self -control and reliance upon God.
01:20:56: That is not what is naturally produced by suffering. Naturally suffering produces bitterness and anger and resentment and hostility and pride and stiff -neckedness.
01:21:05: That is what it naturally produces. But the fact that these things can produce in Christians all of these fruits is a testimony that God is at work.
01:21:14: So you see some gentle little church lady sitting on the pew who has gone through all kinds of affliction.
01:21:20: She is physically suffering all kinds of difficulties and trials that God has appointed for her things that she has had to deal with and yet she is the most gentle, kind, meek person you have ever met.
01:21:31: Tell me, how does that happen? That is a supernatural thing. It can only happen supernaturally.
01:21:38: That is the work of the Spirit of God. The natural result is a hardness of heart and a stiff -neckedness and a bitterness over difficulties.
01:21:47: Because that is how the natural man responds to it. So why is it described then as peaceful?
01:21:54: These fruits of righteousness. All of these things are peaceful. I think that describes how it is that you and I enjoy it in the moment as opposed to the discipline which is sorrowful.
01:22:04: You can probably think of few things in your life that you would describe as sorrowful and peaceful. Can you think of any?
01:22:13: Where you thought, man, this was this point in my life, this season of my life was just sorrow upon sorrow upon sorrow.
01:22:20: But boy, it was so peaceful and joyful. Can you think of any example in your life? You probably can't.
01:22:28: See, sorrow in the moment is what describes discipline. Peacefulness in the future is what describes the fruit that comes out of the discipline.
01:22:38: So peaceful stands in stark contrast to the sorrow of the moment that we experience in the moment of the discipline and it stands in contrast to the discipline itself.
01:22:47: In discipline, we often are not at peace. Discipline does not produce peace in the moment that we are suffering it.
01:22:57: No child is at peace while being disciplined by their parents. So think in terms of the types of hostilities that are described in the book of Hebrews that these early
01:23:07: Christians were facing. Persecution, reproach, anger and hostility from their enemies, from the world, being cast out of the synagogue, being excluded from their family gatherings, losing their possessions.
01:23:22: As it says, some of them had been seized and they accepted joyfully the seizure of their property back in chapter 10.
01:23:28: Does any of that sound like peaceful circumstances or situations in their lives? It's not. But that was what discipline was.
01:23:34: Discipline is not peaceful. Discipline is painful. The fruit is peaceful. The fruit is something we enjoy later on when the discipline is gone and we enjoy it in peace and it brings us peace.
01:23:46: Discipline is itself a pledge of our peace with God because He only sends it to His children. And so when we experience discipline, we say, well, this is
01:23:53: God's pledge that I belong to Him. He would not be doing this in me if I were not
01:23:59: His child and therefore I know that I am at peace with God. And you and I can be at peace in our soul, even in the midst of the conflict that is outside.
01:24:09: We can suffer. We can sit in difficulty, in affliction, and say,
01:24:16: I will be at peace with this. We can be at peace in our hearts in terms of how we are before God, even in the midst of extreme difficulty.
01:24:27: But when we come out of the discipline, the fruit that we get to enjoy from that is enjoyed peacefully.
01:24:34: One last observation I want to give you, and that is that verse 11, the description there in its entirety is the opposite of sin.
01:24:41: Notice that. See, discipline is intended to rid us of sin. Discipline is sorrowful in the moment, but joyful in the future, pleasant in the future.
01:24:54: Sin, on the other hand, is pleasant in the present and sorrowful in the future.
01:25:01: These are polar opposites of one another. The description of discipline is the opposite of what sin gives us.
01:25:08: Discipline is sorrowful and not joyful. Sin is joyful, pleasant, and then sorrowful later.
01:25:16: Discipline produces in us peace and fruit and righteousness afterwards. Sin produces rottenness and destroys righteousness.
01:25:25: Discipline produces it. Sin destroys it. Discipline purifies the soul, whereas sin sickens the soul and rots it from the inside.
01:25:33: The outcome of discipline is peace and life and fruit and joy and glory. The outcome of sin is death and barren souls and sorrow and destruction and the loss of everything that you treasure.
01:25:45: Discipline feels in the moment like you are going to lose everything and gain nothing.
01:25:52: Sin is the opposite. Sin feels in the moment like you are gaining everything and you'll never lose it.
01:25:58: And yet the payoff is exactly the opposite. With discipline, you feel like you're losing everything in the moment, but in the future, the payoff is enormous because the glory that is to come as a result of that is more than you and I can possibly imagine.
01:26:14: So discipline in the moment is difficult, but the payoff is huge. Sin in the moment is pleasurable and glorious, but the payoff is destruction and death and ruin and the utter loss of everything.
01:26:28: So sin always feels in the moment like I'm gaining everything, but in the end, I lose everything, including my soul.
01:26:35: These two are opposite, which is why discipline, one of the intentions of it, is that it would rid us of sin and purify our hearts.
01:26:43: Because in the end, sin causes you to lose everything and you profit nothing from it. And so you and I embrace discipline that we might gain infinitely more.
01:26:54: And we embrace discipline not because it makes discipline pleasant, but because it makes discipline profitable.
01:27:01: It makes it profitable. Why would you, Christian, be struck with God's rod and profit nothing from it?
01:27:09: You're going to be struck with the rod. You might as well profit from it. It might as well be to your usefulness and to your fruitfulness.
01:27:17: Therefore, do not despise the discipline of the Lord. I close with one last quote.
01:27:23: This one's not from Spurgeon. In fact, I don't know who said this. I did some internetting this week and couldn't find out who originally wrote this, but I found it in John MacArthur's commentary, and he didn't give an attribution for this.
01:27:34: He just said, someone has written. Now, it might be that the person's name is someone, in which case this is an attribution.
01:27:42: But here's what it says. And so what do I say? I say, let the rains of disappointment come if they water the plants of spiritual grace.
01:27:53: Let the winds of adversity blow if they serve to root more securely the trees that God has planted.
01:27:59: I say, let the sun of prosperity be eclipsed if that brings me closer to the true light of life. Welcome, sweet discipline.
01:28:06: Discipline designed for my joy. Discipline designed to make me what God wants me to be.
01:28:15: Our Father, we thank You for the great work that You do in the lives of Your children. We pray,
01:28:21: Father, that You would cause our hearts and our minds to reflect upon these truths and to see Your hand in them and what
01:28:28: You are doing in our lives through these truths, through this Word. We pray,
01:28:35: Lord, that You would teach us to embrace Your discipline, not because we think that it will make it more pleasant for us, but because we want it to be profitable to our souls.
01:28:44: And so we wish to lean into what You are doing in our lives, the work that You are doing in Your Word through discipline, by the power of Your Spirit.
01:28:55: We pray that it would produce in our hearts and in our minds, in our lives, both now and forever, fruit that will endure for all of eternity.
01:29:04: We want to see fruit in the near term always. We pray that You would give us faith to see and look for the fruit that is to follow the discipline that You bring.
01:29:13: Help us to see all affliction and trials and difficulties that You have appointed for us in the light of these truths.
01:29:21: And help us, we pray, to respond rightly to everything that You bring into our lives so that we may honor
01:29:27: You, so that we may point to Your work, and so that we may enjoy the peaceful fruits of righteousness.
01:29:33: We know that You will bring the rod to bear in our lives because that is Your promise to all who are in Christ Jesus, Your blessing to us.
01:29:41: And so we would just ask that that rod may produce fruit in us in the short term and in the long term, and we may enjoy the peaceful fruits of righteousness and share in Your holiness.
01:29:54: May it not be in vain, we pray, in the name of Christ our Lord, amen. Let's stand and end our service this morning and sing together,
01:30:04: He Will Hold Me Fast. When I fear my faith will fail,
01:30:20: Christ will hold me fast. When the tempter would prevail,
01:30:30: I could never keep my life's fearful path.
01:30:38: For my love is often cold, He will hold me fast.
01:30:55: For my Savior loves me so, He will hold me fast.
01:31:11: Whom He saves are His delight, Christ will hold me fast.
01:31:18: Precious in His holy sight, He will hold me fast.
01:31:25: He'll not let my soul be lost, His promises shall last.
01:31:33: Brought by Him at such a cost, He will hold me fast.
01:31:46: He will hold me fast. For my Savior loves me so,
01:31:53: He will hold me fast.
01:32:05: For my life He bled and died, Christ will hold me fast.
01:32:12: Justice has been satisfied, He will hold me fast.
01:32:19: Raised with Him to endless life, He will hold me fast.
01:32:26: Till our faith is turned to slide, When He comes at last,
01:32:37: He will hold me fast. For my
01:32:44: Savior loves me so, He will hold me fast.
01:32:53: He will hold me fast. He will hold me fast.
01:33:00: For my Savior loves me so. The grace of our
01:33:13: Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. Have a great week.