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

Welcome to Kootenai Church. We're glad that you're here today. We're going to start our service this morning and seeing how firm a foundation. Would you please stand as we sing praises to our Lord and King this morning?

And to you he has said to you Who for us hath not dismayed For thy God and will still give Up hell by my righteous omnipotent hand. Fiery truthways shall mine Thy grace all sufficient shall be thy supply.

The flame shall not hurt Only design to his foes That so the whole hell Should endeavor to shake Our eternal nemesis. The plan for all our sin and pride Was placed upon the perfect Lamb Who suffered, bled, and died As the mother of a sovereign God.

Whose greatness will be shown When those who crucified your son Rejoice around your son. For who knows Was there reveal That sets the guilty free That justifies ungodly men And calls the filthy clean.

O righteousness that proved to all Your justice has been met That is satisfied.

Through one atoning head.

Your son for come to know Invincible Mercy that forgives my sin And makes me like your son A glory And your son For come to Would send your son For a I glad When dark trial He gave.

And his birth.

Is strong to save From the arms of death From the deepest grave. And he gave us.

It will.

Amen, you may be seated.

While you're doing that, just have one announcement that is not in your, well, this might be in your bulletin, but that one announcement, I guess, that I want to draw your attention to, the rest, I should say, are in your bulletin, so please check that.

But we have a memorial service this coming Friday for Mike Kopp, who went to be with the Lord last Sunday, on Resurrection Sunday, of all the days to step into the presence of the risen Christ. I can't think of anything better than doing that, other than to die on Resurrection Sunday in the pulpit preaching about the resurrection.

That, I think, would be, not next year, but sometime way in the future, would be a great way to go. He's blessed indeed to receive his heavenly reward. So that is next Friday at 2 p .m., right here in the church.

The Call to Run with Endurance and Fix Our Eyes on Jesus

Hebrews chapter 12, and since it's been a couple of weeks since we've been here in this text, we're going to read verses 1 through 13. Hebrews 12. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which has addressed you as sons.

My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure.

God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live? They disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, 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. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

This is the word of our God. Will you please stand with me as we pray?

Let's bow our heads.

Our Father, it is with grateful and glad hearts that we, as your children, gather together here to worship you. In the midst of all of life's difficulties and afflictions, and the trials and tribulations that you have appointed for us, even the death of loved ones and brothers and sisters in Christ, we know that you are sovereign over all, and that you have appointed all things for our good and for your glory.

We pray that you would strengthen us to embrace these things and to love these things, and to see your hand at work in all of life's difficulties around us and through us. We pray that you would continue to produce in us holiness and righteousness, the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

And we pray that you would strengthen us to endure all the discipline that you have brought into our lives, so that we may present to you obedient lives, holy lives, hearts that are purged from sin. We pray that you would strengthen us to mortify sin, to cast off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles us, so that we may run our race for your glory and for that reward that awaits us at the end.

We pray that you would comfort us in the midst of these things, and that you would be honored and glorified through and in your people today, in your word and through our worship. We pray that you would strengthen us and unite our hearts together in love and in fellowship, in worship, in service to one another.

Be honored here through us, your people, we pray, as you draw us near to yourself and produce in us holiness and righteousness and a longing for the world that is to come. We ask this in the name of Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Wonderful, merciful Savior,.

Precious Redeemer,.

Who would have thought that a lamb could rescue the souls of men. Oh, you rescue the souls of men. Spiritlessly lost, oh, we hopelessly lost.

In 1 Peter 4, verses 12 -13, it says, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you. But to the degree you are sharing the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of his glory, you may rejoice with exaltation.

We're going to sing, It Is Well.

When peace like a river attended my way, when sorrows like sea billows rolled, Thou who saved, it is well, it is well.

You may be seated.

The Peaceful Fruit of Righteousness in Hebrews 12:11

And now, please, with your Bibles open to Hebrews chapter 12, we'll be looking at our text this morning. Before we begin, we'll pray together. Our great Father, we ask now for your blessing upon your Word as it is preached, as it is meditated upon, as our hearts are before it.

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

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

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

And so we pray that you would be honored through this time and that you would sanctify us by your truth. It is in the name of Christ our Lord we pray, amen. Hebrews chapter 12. Today we are back in Hebrews 12 and you will likely be relieved to find out that we are nearing the end of our study in God's discipline.

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

Discipline is a difficult thing for us to grasp to get our minds around. And we've been taking our time or I should say, I've been taking my time. You really have no choice in the matter, but I've been taking my time working through this so that we might think rightly and respond appropriately to God's hand in our lives, that our hearts and minds would be flooded about the truth or with the truth about discipline so that when it comes, not if it comes, but when it comes, we would embrace it and cooperate with the Lord in the sense of responding rightly that he would be able to, he would produce in us those things which he intends through the difficulties, the peaceful fruit of righteousness and being able to share in his holiness.

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

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

Back at the beginning of verse four, I offered to you an outline that has sort of been our guiding framework as we've worked our way through the passage. There were four points. Unfortunate for you, there weren't just four sermons, but there were more than that.

There have been four points. Verses four through five, we looked at the proper perspective of discipline. And we saw there that discipline is a blessing that God reserves for his children. He does not give that to his enemies.

He punishes his enemies, but he blesses his children with discipline, with afflictions. Discipline is from a heart of love and not from wrath. There is not a drop of God's wrath that is mixed in with his discipline in our lives.

Not a bit.

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

The one is to reject it and to hate it, and the other is to just lose heart underneath of the discipline. Then in verses six through eight, we looked at the proof of discipline. We saw that discipline is an evidence of God's fatherly love for us, and it is an evidence of our adoption into his family.

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

And now we come to verse 11, and we're looking now at the product of discipline that God produces in us the peaceful fruits of righteousness. Look at verse 11. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful.

Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Now, there are a number of contrasts in verse 11. There is the contrast between what discipline seems to be doing, that is creating sorrow, and what it is actually doing, which is creating the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

So there's the contrast between those two things. There is a contrast between how discipline affects us and how we experience it in the moment. No discipline seems joyful in the moment, in the present, but afterwards, that's the contrast, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

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

And then there is a difference, of course, between how discipline feels to us and the fruit that we enjoy from it. And it's two totally different things. And the difference is between what is taking place in the moment and what takes place or what is enjoyed in the future.

And these contrasts confront us with the necessity of embracing discipline by faith. We're not that far removed from Hebrews chapter 11 and we spent more than just a couple of weeks in Hebrews 11 looking at the definition of faith and all of the manifestations of faith in the heroes of old, all the way through the Old Testament, beginning back even just after the sin of man outside the garden with Cain and Abel.

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

And we looked at all of those examples of men and women of whom the world is not worthy, men and women who did not live for this life, but lived for the next. And they looked forward to the life that is to come and did not judge the faithfulness of God to his promises based upon what seemed appropriate to them in the moment, but instead judged the faithfulness of God to his promises based upon the character of God, that he is trustworthy and that he will keep his word.

And so these are men and women who looked forward to the life that is to come. The author is calling us in chapter 11, chapter 12 I should say, the author is calling us to embrace discipline by faith and to face the trials and the afflictions with the same faith that preserved the men and women of old, to approach the difficulties and hostilities of this life with the same resolute trust in God and his promises as we look forward to afterwards when discipline yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness and to not judge the character of God or his love for us or his purposes in terms of what seems to afflict us in the midst of the moment.

So verse 11 is about anticipating the peaceful fruit of righteousness, which is to come, which is in fact the forward-looking element of faith. And we don't assess the character of God by what seems to be striking us in the moment.

So verse 11 is our text for this morning. We've noted a couple of the contrasts in the verse. And so we'll kind of approach the verse from that perspective, noting the contrast. So here would be our outline for this morning.

Number one, we're gonna notice the pain of discipline that is our present experience.

Look at that.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. And then we'll notice the product of discipline, the product of discipline, which is our future expectation. Yet to those who have been trained by it afterwards, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

There is the contrast between what we experience now and what we can anticipate for the future. So let's look first at the pain of discipline that is our present experience. Verse 11, all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful.

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

This is how discipline, this is how we experience discipline. We don't experience discipline as something that we enjoy. We experience discipline as something that causes us deep sorrow. Discipline is not joyful.

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

How much discipline is joyful? All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. So not some discipline is sorrowful. Not most discipline is sorrowful, but how much? All discipline in a moment seems not to be joyful, but instead sorrowful.

This in fact is the nature of discipline. And I shouldn't have to say this, but I'll go ahead and say it. Chastisements and discipline by nature are unpleasant. That is the point. That's the point. The point of discipline is that it's unpleasant.

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

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

All discipline seems not in the moment to be joyful, but instead it is sorrowful. All training, all discipline for a race, for instance, is intended to hurt. It's intended to be difficult. Remember, we are not that far removed from the athletic analogy in verses one through three of running the race, casting off the sin that so easily entangles us and laying aside all of those encumbrances and fixing our eyes on Jesus, the finish line, and running the race with the expectation of the reward that is to come.

That's the athletic metaphor in verses one through three. The author does not just flip the table over and begin a new metaphor in verse four. There's a parenting parallel here with the discipline, but the idea of discipline itself is that of training and preparing one for things which are ahead.

And that's the analogy here with discipline. The discipline is intended to train us for what lies ahead of us in the future. If that is difficulties that are to come in the future or usefulness in the kingdom in the future or whether it is just simply ministry in this life that is in the future, or if it is so that we may enjoy more of a heavenly reward in the future, all of those things are the point of discipline.

That affliction and that sorrow is the very purpose of the discipline in training us, in preparing us for what is to come. You don't train for a race by sitting in the basement, watching other people race on a television while you pound down a bag of Doritos and a two liter of Pepsi.

That might feel enjoyable in the moment, at least for half a bag of Doritos and half a two liter of Pepsi. It might feel enjoyable in the moment. It might be something that you like at that point. It might taste good.

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

I could, I could trademark that. When you're training, when you're straining, then you're training, but you don't train in a basement pounding back Doritos and Pepsi, but instead you have to put forth the effort.

It has to be difficult. It has to be painful. That in fact is the whole point of discipline. Listen to Spurgeon. Now I have, I think four quotes from Spurgeon's sermon on this passage. And I would commend that you go read Charles Spurgeon's sermon on Hebrews chapter 12, verse 11.

He does a better job in his sermon than I'm gonna do today. And next week on this passage, he does a far better job. For one, even though he's wordy, he's far more concise. And so it's one sermon instead of two, you're getting two for the price of one.

And I don't mind saying this Spurgeon does a better job because you know, I don't have to worry about you wishing this Spurgeon was here as your pastor because he's dead and so you're stuck with me. Here's what Spurgeon says.

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

Joyous? Instead of being at all serviceable, would it not be utterly useless? What good could a chastisement have done if it were not felt? No smart and surely no benefit. It is the blueness of the wound, says Solomon, which makes the heart better.

And so if the chastisement do not come home to the bone and the flesh, distill the tear and extort the cry, what good end could it have served? That's it. That's the purpose. That's the point of discipline.

Because you and I learn through pain. We learn through adversity. God teaches us things in the midst of suffering that he does not teach us outside of suffering. I would dare say even he teaches us things in suffering that we could not learn outside of suffering.

The suffering is the point. There's a sanctifying work effect that is going on. There is a difficulty that we face that when we come through that at the end, even if it means that we exit this life because of the suffering and we step into glory on a resurrection Sunday, for instance, and we stand in the presence of the Savior and that's when the affliction ends, we learn something in that affliction.

And listen, the affliction will cease the moment it ceases to be useful to the Lord. But as long as it is useful to his ends, then it will continue. And so we never have to get the middle of affliction and say, I think I've learned everything I can learn from this.

But for some reason, the affliction continues. No, the affliction is the point. The suffering is the point. If it were pleasant, then it would have no corrective power at all. It wouldn't make us hate this world and long for the next.

It would make us love this world and forget about the next. If afflictions were just enjoyable, affliction wouldn't make us think about heaven and we would forget the future if it were peaceful, if it were enjoyable, if it were joyful in the moment, it would make us comfortable and we wouldn't cast off sin.

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

Another quote from Spurgeon. If discipline were pleasant, he says, it might even work the other way and be hurtful for a child would surely think that the parent only played with his disobedience and that the disobedience was a trifle if the very gentle blows were enough with one or two soft chiding words to express parental hatred of sin.

But if the mockery of chastisement were given, then the child would be hardened in sin and even despise the authority which it ought to respect. Close quote. That's it. If the discipline of the chastisement does not sting, then the child has no sense in which he has displeased the father.

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

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

Discipline is intended to make us hate sin as much as God hates sin. And God will take the sin of his children very, very seriously because he loves us that much. And he takes our holiness very, very seriously because he loves us that much.

Again, Spurgeon. You might start to wonder if it's Spurgeon who's preaching or me. It is me, quoting Spurgeon. My brethren, if God sent us trials such as we would wish for, they would not be trials. If they were chastisements that on the very surface seem to be joyous, then they were not chastisements.

They would be the sweets, the harmful sweets, which children like to eat until they turn their stomachs and are overtaken with sickness. See, if you and I were to write the script for our lives, we would write into it all kinds of riches and ease and comforts and conveniences and joy and delights and delightful adventures and things that were always happy to us.

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

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

Those are the type of difficulties that we would write into our lives if we had the choice. And we would do that just for balance, so that we could at least know what it's like to experience a little bit of affliction.

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

All I got was a refill of normal fries. The indignity of that was almost unbearable. That's the type of affliction that we have to endure and those are the type of things we would write into our lives.

But would you write into the script of your life the loss of a child, a miscarriage, the loss of a loved one, terminal illness, chronic pain, death of a friend, betrayal? Would you write any of that into your lives?

Not a single person here would. These are the things that God writes into our lives so that he might sanctify us by it. The affliction is the point. The pain of it is the point. God is not trying to keep you from sorrow, by the way.

Look at verse 11, all discipline. Actually, let me bounce your mind back up to verses four, verses five and six. Those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines and he scourges every son whom he receives. Look at verse eight, if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

So every single child of God experiences discipline at some point and in some measure in this life for their sanctification, every last one. And if you are without discipline, you are an illegitimate child, not a true legal child.

You have no inheritance. You're not part of that family. If you're in the family, then discipline is your blessing. And all discipline is what? Sorrowful, doesn't feel joyful. So therefore, if God's intention is to bring discipline into all of our lives and all discipline is sorrowful, then sorrowful is his intention in the moment, in the moment.

God is not trying to keep you from experiencing sorrow. If you were trying to do that, he's failing miserably because we've all experienced it. Just yesterday, I stood at the graveside and buried somebody from our church family whom I love.

This coming Friday, we're gonna stand up here and we're gonna have a memorial service from somebody else from our church body whom I love. Our lives are full of sorrow. God is not trying to his best to keep you from experiencing it.

It's not his intention. His intention is not to guard us from the difficulties of life. And as a parent, if you're a parent, you understand this. There are times when you know that you are gonna make your child cry.

It is unavoidable. I came to this conclusion early on in my parenting. There's no way that I can raise these children without making them cry. So I gave up trying to not make them cry. Now, I didn't start trying to make them cry, but I gave up trying to not make them cry because I understand that every time that I say no to something that they want, they're gonna cry about that.

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

So you just give up trying to keep your kids from crying. You realize that if they don't cry, I'll never teach them virtue. All the things that I want them to learn in this life are going to be learned through tears.

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

God is not trying to protect us from crying. Now, this should not discourage you. I know at first glance, it doesn't seem like I'm trying to not discourage you, but this should not discourage you. Let me give you two just points of application.

And I want you to walk away from with this. Number one, you and I are not required to enjoy God's discipline. Okay, that's what verse 11 is saying. It's not intended to be joyful, but sorrowful. That means that you and I are not required to enjoy it.

God doesn't demand that we love pain for the sake of pain, that we enjoy sorrow for the sake of sorrow. It's not his expectation. You and I are not biblically required or morally required by scripture to enjoy trials, difficulties.

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

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

Doesn't mean you're less mature. Doesn't mean you're less spiritual. Doesn't mean that you're less sanctified. A stoic disposition, the type of disposition that just grits its teeth and says, no, my spine is stiff and my heart is hard and my neck is unbend and I will not bow down before this.

That's the despising of discipline that we talked about weeks ago. God does not require of us the sort of stoic, this has no effect on me, this isn't affecting me and my family at all type of disposition.

That is not the mark of spirituality or spiritual maturity. So you're not required to enjoy discipline and it is okay to admit that discipline is difficult. Paul didn't enjoy or rejoice in being in prison.

He prayed, he asked people to pray that he would be let out of prison. So he didn't enjoy the prison, but he rejoiced in the prison. Do you understand the difference between those two things? It's not the prison that brought him joy.

The Lord brought him joy in the midst of the prison. So it is with affliction and difficulty. We don't take joy in a disease or a chronic illness or a chronic pain or the death of a loved one. There's no joy in that.

There's no delight in that. There's no treasure in that. It's not that that we cherish and enjoy, but we can rejoice in the midst of the affliction. And that in fact is what we are called to do. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of Christ, you and I are able to do that.

To rejoice in the midst of the affliction, to give God praise, to bow our heads and our hearts under his hand, under his loving rod, and to say, Lord, I will take this from your hand and I thank you for it.

I don't understand what you're doing in it, but you will teach me through this. And so I will worship you. You give and you take away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That response can be ours in the midst of discipline, even though we are not, and we are not required to enjoy it or to love it.

In fact, recognizing that discipline is hard is a necessary prerequisite to verses 12 and 13. Look at verse 12 and 13. Therefore strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble and make straight paths for your feet so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

That's the responsibility of the body and the life of those who are undergoing discipline and suffering affliction. We're to come alongside and recognize that discipline makes for a weakened state in the moment.

Discipline makes for us to be lame and out of joint and our knees are feeble and our feet are uncertain. It's not easy on us. And so we recognize that and we reach out to the body of Christ who has to come alongside of us, has the joy of coming alongside of us and encouraging us in the midst of this.

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

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

Now, there are in verse 11, two things, two dangers, as it were, in our own assessment of afflictions that we need to be aware of. And the first is in that phrase, in the moment. I want you to notice it.

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

There are some discipline that lasts for a lifetime. You lose a child, that is something that sticks with you for the rest of your life. Or if you lose a spouse, or if God allows for a terminal diagnosis of a terminal illness in your life, an illness that will eventually take your life, that discipline is not for a moment, that discipline is for the rest of your life.