The Discipline of the Lord — Phil Beach Jr.

This morning to see amidst all of what you're doing, this high intention of your heart. Help us, Holy Spirit, to hear your heart today in your word. Help us, we pray. Do we have children today? OK, the children can go ahead with their teachers, please, nice and quietly without.

Let's bow our hearts for a moment and pray. And we do ask, if you could, to put your phones on vibrate so that you're able to get a call if it's an emergency, but it doesn't unnecessarily distract anyone.

That's an interesting vibrate, isn't it? It vibrates so loudly it affects the... Can you imagine what it's like if you have a gathering of a thousand people and you don't make that announcement? Every ten seconds you've got this song and that song.

This is the cell phone generation, isn't it? Father, we are so thankful this morning. I thank you, Lord, that you gave us a season here where we could just testify of your goodness. That's refreshing, Lord, and we're so thankful when you orchestrate and move in our midst in such a way where you're giving us this enabling and this grace to be able to talk about your goodness.

Lord, I thank you, Lord, for the grace that's on Janice and Bill. I thank you, Lord, that you have given both Janice and Bill the assurance that Janice's father is right now with you. What an awesome, awesome gift that you've given Janice and Bill.

And I thank you, Lord, for the victory that you brought Mike and Daisy through in the hospital, Lord. I can remember when we went there, Lord, and that little baby was almost lifeless, just lying there.

And how your heart, Lord, was so moved with compassion. And it was all you, Lord, that we're unworthy servants that stand in your presence, Lord, and our acceptance is because of your blood. It's not because of our holiness or our goodness or our righteousness, Lord.

We're most sinful, Lord, apart from you. And we want to give your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, his proper place, Lord, in all of these wonderful testimonies, Lord. And we just thank you for your goodness, Lord, in letting our mouths speak the name of Jesus.

You've called us, Lord, to be able to speak his name. We can call him Savior. We can call him Lord. Help us, Lord, to call him our master of everything. And now, Lord, I pray you'll give us insight today and give us faith and give us understanding as we look into your Word.

God’s Permission, Testing, and the Purpose of Discipline

I want to begin by the help of God in Hebrews chapter 12. The Lord has put a word into my spirit, a very specific word, and so I want to encourage everyone to listen carefully. Not so much to my voice, but listen to the Holy Spirit and the Word of God that you may hear through this clay, broken, imperfect vessel.

That's what you want to listen for, OK? You want to listen for the voice of our Father who speaks through ignoble vessels, who speaks through weak vessels, OK? The message you put in my heart this morning was understanding why he gives Satan permission to sift us, why he gives the enemy permission to sift us, OK?

This is something we have to come to grips with. I believe, and I share this with a few of my friends and my wife, that the Holy Spirit has spoken to me through the Word and has forewarned me, not only in my own personal life, but also he has asked me to publicly speak about this, that we should be prepared in the present and in the days to come to be subject to tests, and he's forewarning us by giving us his Word so that we can be comforted and we could be filled with faith.

This is not intended to create fear or despair, as Mike so beautifully said. It's not intended to make us feel like, oh, God, I'm just going to give up on this. No, it's intended to put hope in our heart and peace in our heart.

Let's begin in Hebrews chapter 12, OK? Let's listen, listen for the voice of God. Now, one of the things that we have to clearly understand when we are under the wonderful provision of God's child training and discipline, listen carefully.

We must never, ever, ever assume. We must never assume that because we have received a revelation from God that he loves us, and how many have got that revelation that God loves you? That is a wonderful revelation, and it's one that is priceless.

But brothers and sisters, the Scripture says that God loves not only you and I, he loves the world. But we mustn't ever believe or we mustn't ever, ever be misguided into believing that because God loves us, he loves our wickedness.

God loves the world, but does not love the wickedness of the world. God loves us so very much, but he does not approve of any darkness or wickedness that is in us. And therefore, as surely as God loves us with an everlasting love, equally true is he is constantly, relentlessly fighting against the wickedness within us, seeking to so train us and discipline us and teach us so that we would seek the paths of his holiness and his righteousness and flee from the path of wickedness or the path of doing our own thing.

And so we mustn't ever, ever, ever mix these two up and assume that because God loves us, he approves of wickedness. Listen carefully. Here is the love of God. God loves you with an everlasting love, but is entirely against all the sin and wickedness and darkness that lurks within us and is committed to separating us from it and keeping us abiding in his Son where there is no sin, where there is no darkness.

Jesus Christ intrinsically, that is, his value, his intrinsic moral character is identical to that of his Father. That's what God is after in our lives. He loves us, but he wants to see more and more and more the moral perfections of his Son ever, ever, ever living and being manifested in our life.

The moral perfections of his Son. There is a deceiving spirit that has come into the ranks of Christendom, and this deceiving spirit has beguiled us and misguided us and oftentimes creates a misconception in our heart as to the nature of God's love.

And it leads us astray by making us believe that because God loves us so much, because God blesses us, how many have been blessed by God? It must mean then that he is not really too upset with sin or wickedness or darkness.

Mercy. It's mercy. And so we have to be sure that we get this clear. What fellowship has light and darkness, Paul says in 1 Corinthians? What communion has the Holy Spirit with the works of the flesh?

What fellowship has Christ with Beelzebub? What partnership has the heavenly beauties of Christ with the earthly base desires of sinful human nature? What fellowship? There is no compatibility. And part of our calling as the church consists not only of the revelation that God loves us.

My God, when we were yet without sinners, he died for us. When we were yet without hope, he died for us. Part of the calling and revelation is not only that, but that God is light and in him is no darkness.

And that as partakers of the heavenly calling, we are not only called to partake of this love, but we are called to partake of his moral character. It is said of the Lord Jesus Christ, thou has loved righteousness and hated iniquity.

Thou has loved, speaking about Jesus, thou has loved righteousness and hated iniquity. This is the end in God's discipline in our life. That we might love righteousness and hate iniquity. That we might love what is right.

That we might love what we see in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The full display of his moral perfections, his goodness, his kindness, his honesty, his truth, his unwillingness to engage in any form of darkness or deceit.

We must come to love that and hate iniquity. Hate the wickedness that lies within our own bosom. Hate the passions that are within our own bosom. The passion of sin. We must learn to hate it so much that we have nothing to do with it.

But brothers and sisters, that is an impossible task. It's an impossible task without being subject to God's child training and discipline and scourging. And so that is why God admonishes us in Hebrews chapter 12.

Endurance, Holiness, and the Christian Race

And that's where we're going. That's where we're going. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1. Please listen carefully. The Holy Ghost is saying to us through the word of God, do not be surprised. Do not be alarmed.

Do not think that some strange thing has happened to you. If you find yourself subject to all kinds of testings and trials and difficulties and siftings as though something is wrong, but rejoice and be exceedingly glad because God is proving the genuineness of your faith.

He is teaching you through the discipline and through the trial and through the difficulty. He's teaching your soul to love what is right or to love what is intrinsically true in the person of Jesus Christ and to hate iniquity, to hate wickedness, to hate lawlessness, to hate every form of deceit and darkness and to pursue after holiness and to flee from and run from wickedness.

This is what God is after. This is what characterizes a church that is without spot or wrinkle. Not necessarily a loud church. Not a singing church. Not a church engaged with all kinds of rituals and programs and outward activities.

And maybe some of them are fine, but the essential substance of what God is looking for in you and I is a soul that has been disciplined by a loving God to the point where it loves righteousness and hates iniquity and has nothing to do with it.

Nothing to do with iniquity. Nothing to do with lawlessness. Nothing to do with deceit. Nothing to do with moral darkness. Nothing at all to do with it. Just like Jesus. Hebrews chapter 12. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance, every unnecessary weight.

And that particular sin, which so readily and cleverly clings and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us, looking away from all that will distract to Jesus Himself, Who is the leader and the source of our faith and is also its finisher.

The One who is bringing it to maturity and perfection. As Norman mentioned, He that has begun this good work in you will bring it to perfection. He will bring it to perfection. That is the divine promise of God.

But we mustn't neglect the human responsibility. While we are trusting in a sovereign God who alone is able to do the work, who is putting the desire in our heart to serve Him, the human responsibility is that as God is moving in our heart to do of His good will, we must cooperate and say, Yes, Lord.

Because we can in fact sense the Spirit of God moving. We can in fact sense to know what is right and wrong, but say, No, I'll go my own way. I know this is right, but it's too costly to go that way. So I'm going to change it a little bit.

Notice, let us, let us, it says in Hebrews 12, it is God working in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure, but let us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, looking away to Jesus Christ. Verse 3, Just think of Him who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and bitter hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or exhausted, losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.

And you have not yet struggled and fought agonizingly against sin, nor have you yet resisted and withstood to the point of pouring out your blood. In other words, the writer is saying, Listen, you who are weary, you who are a little bit tired, you who are feeling the pressure of what it is to really serve the Lord, don't be discouraged, because consider Jesus.

Jesus, in His fight against what? Sin. His fight against sin. And He didn't even have inherent sin within Him like we do, but yet because He was light and He was the Son of God, and intrinsically His character was one like the moral perfections of God, His whole earthly life was one of fighting against sin.

He refused to do anything, or think anything, or act in a way that would be displeasing to His Father. And it cost Him what? It cost Him His life. It cost Him the shedding of His blood. And the writer of Hebrews is saying, Have you resisted in your battle against sin to the point where you're losing your life?

Not yet. So don't get too discouraged. Consider Jesus. Now, many of these believers who He was writing to ultimately had to shed their blood. But at the time of the writing, it hadn't happened yet. It's a costly thing to embrace the purpose of God.

Not just salvation. I'm not talking just about salvation. The purpose of God in our salvation. The purpose of God in our salvation is not only to save us from hell. Thank God for it. It's not only to make us children of God.

Thank God for it. It's not only to deliver us from the guilt and the fear of hell. Thank God for it. But it is to so transform us and change us, so as to deliver us from any association with anything that is dark or wicked.

To make us a people who do what is right. He that doeth righteousness is righteous even as He is righteous. It's not costly to simply claim to be a Christian. And to go to church. And to smile at people.

And to embrace wickedness and darkness and compromise. And have fellowship with evil. It's not costly to do that. But it's costly when our call to follow our Lord results in a discipline in our life that is so severe by the love of God that our soul begins to abhor what is evil.

Abhor darkness. Abhor anything that is not right. That's when it becomes costly. Notice what the Scripture says here. Verse 5,. And you have completely forgotten the divine word of appeal and encouragement in which you are reasoned with and addressed as sons.

Listen, My son, do not think lightly or scorn to submit to the correction and discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage and give up and faint when you are reproved or corrected by Him. Always remember.

Always remember this. Whenever you are being disciplined and corrected and scourged under the child-training hand of God, it is for the purpose of teaching your soul more fully how to love righteousness and hate iniquity.

Always remember that. When we finally, which I don't think we'll do today, we might just barely touch it. When we finally get to the mystery of why did God challenge Satan to attack His servant Job? And why did Satan beg God for permission to sift Peter and all the disciples like we?

Why did he do it? And why in the world did God say yes? If you fail to understand the word of Hebrews 12 and the divine revelation of what God is after, then it won't make sense to us. But if we understand that all the discipline and all the chastening and all the child-training and all the times that Satan gains permission by God to come and do His work upon us, it will all make sense if we keep in view God's intention through it all is to bring us through failure, because we will fail.

When God lets Satan do things in our lives, just like Peter, he failed. He denied the Lord. Satan sifted him and he denied his Lord three times. But Jesus was praying for him that his faith wouldn't faint.

And through it all, what happened to Peter? Peter arose out of the ashes of failure, Michael. He arose out of the ashes of bitterness and heartache, knowing he had failed his Lord, into a man that renounced confidence in himself, that knew in himself he was a sinful man, and that had learned to love what is right and hate wickedness.

And it was upon that vessel that the mighty power of Christ could work and touch many lives. It is only upon vessels that have learned to love righteousness and hate iniquity that the anointing of God can rest.

Because the anointing of God is Christ Himself. He is the anointed of God. And so please remember this, brothers and sisters. I sense the Holy Spirit wants to just really drill this one thought. This one thought.

God’s Loving Correction of His Children

Do not despise. Verse 5. Do not lightly, think lightly, or scorn to submit to the correction and discipline of the Lord. Verse 6. For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone He loves. The presence of discipline in our life is not a sign that God doesn't love us.

It's a sign He loves us. Are you glad about that? Huh? It's a sign that He loves us. And He loves us so much, He disciplines us in order to teach our soul to uphold what He hates and to love what He loves.

How many want to learn to love what He loves and hate what He hates? How many want to learn to walk in the moral righteousness of God? And not only to claim Christ as your righteousness, but to do what is right.

If you're a true child of God, you are going to go down this path. Because God must have His children. Not only to stand positionally or judicially justified from their sins, but practically free from their sin.

And that means a lifestyle of doing what is right. For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves and He punishes, even scourges every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes.

Verse 7, You must therefore... Now write this down. Write this down. You must therefore submit to and endure under correction for discipline. Those two words. Submit and endure. Submit and endure. To submit is to come under.

To submit is to bow down under. Listen. But to endure, listen carefully, this means you've got to be willing to be in it for the long haul. Long haul. Listen, we have a hard time with long haul things in this day that we live in.

We know... What's that? And what's to come. Listen, we know it's a fast food day. We don't have to submit to the lengthy process of going home and starting from scratch and making a hamburger. When we have a thought in our mind and we need to call someone, we don't have to submit to the grind of looking for a paid telephone or waiting until we get home.

We pop open our cell phone and make the phone call. It's a quick society. But brothers and sisters, please hear this. Please understand this. When we come into the kingdom of God and we come under the discipline of God, we have to throw that out.

You don't come to God on your terms with shortcuts, bypassing His process of perfecting holiness in us. We come to Him with a submissive heart and we come to Him recognizing we must endure. We must submit under.

We must stay under the pain. Stay under the trial. Stay under the difficulty. Stay under the hand of discipline. It's easy to want to buck out from under that and to find temporary relief. But if we do, then we are not going to experience the intended purpose of God in that trial, which is the soul becoming more holy in its ability to run from what is wrong and embrace what is right.

So remember those two words. Submit and endure. Submit and endure. Endure. Submit and endure. This is how we must enter into the school of God's discipline. We must be pupils who submit and pupils who endure.

If you're in college and you want to get a degree, you have to endure certain courses. And some of those courses you're not going to like. How many here love trigonometry? How many love Algebra B? Norman raises his hand.

What's something you don't like? Alright, physics, whatever. But let's just say, Mike, that you knew by God that you had to get a degree and part of the degree consisted in sitting under a physics teacher and doing well in that class.

How would it make you feel? You'd say, well, I'm out of here. Go ahead. Leave. You won't get your degree. You've got to endure under what you don't like for better, for worse. Till death do us part. In sickness and health.

In richness and poverty. What's that? The marriage vow. We don't decide we want out because we don't like what we're experiencing. We've got to submit and endure. Same with God. You must submit and endure.

For God is dealing with U .S. sons. For what son is there whom his father does not train and correct and discipline? For if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all of God's children share, then are you not illegitimate offspring and not true sons?

Moreover, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we yielded to them and respected them for training us. Shall we not much more cheerfully... Oh my, why did they have to put that word in there?

Cheerfully. Cheerfully submit. Now, are you getting this taste? Are you getting the balance? It is God's sovereign power working in us. We can never, ever, ever do it without God's power. But once we realize God's power working in us, there is the responsibility that we have to submit.

God will not submit for you. He'll give you the power to submit. God will not obey for you. He'll give you the power to obey. God will not surrender for you. He'll give you the power to surrender. So when we get the revelation that God's power is working in us and that I can't do it, hallelujah, that's true.

In myself, I can't do it. Drawing from my human willpower, I can't do it. But I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me. So when I finally become weaned from trying to live this Christian life by my own strength, and I come to God in a state of poverty, in a state of helplessness, God, I can't do it.

I need Your help. Then at that moment, and as I walk in that posture, God is energizing within me through the Holy Spirit, strengthening me to obey Him. The grace of God has appeared to all men, teaching us to say no to ungodliness and worldly lusts.

Teaching us to say no to what is not like Christ. You see how that happens? We can't do it if we're trying in our own power. But we can if we are depending on the power of a resurrected Christ Who promises to give us that strength.

Sharing in God’s Holiness Through Discipline

Verse 10, For our earthly fathers disciplined us for only a short period of time and chastened us as seemed proper and good to them. But He disciplines us for our good. Listen, that we may become sharers in His holiness.

What does it mean to be a sharer in His holiness? The word holiness is a word that means set apart for God only. And so to be a partaker in God's holiness, we must be subject to discipline. Because discipline yields holiness in the lives of those who submit to it.

Holiness is a lifestyle that loves what is right and hates what is wicked, what is sinful, what is wrong. Holiness is a lifestyle of abiding in the sinless One, Jesus Christ. Holiness is a lifestyle where our actions look like love.

Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, patience, gentleness, goodness. Holiness is a lifestyle where our actions look like 1 Corinthians 13. Love is kind. Love is patient. Love is not proud. Love is not haughty.

Love is not boasting. Love does not hold grudges. Love is not self-seeking. Love does not have personal ambitions that are placed above God's will. Love serves. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity.

Our souls must learn holiness through discipline, through chastening, through trial training, through scourging. And as our souls learn holiness through discipline, then more and more and more can we say, it is no longer I that liveth, but Christ that liveth in me.

That's a nice saying. But it doesn't carry much weight when you get up in church and say, I thank God for Galatians 2 .20. I am crucified with Christ and it is no longer I that liveth, but Christ that liveth in me.

And then you're going home in the car and you bark at your wife like a dog. It doesn't make much sense, does it? No. And that's what God has to do. God has to mess up our inconsistencies because He doesn't love us.

No, because He loves us. He loves us, but He hates those inconsistencies. He hates them so much. Look what He did to His Son because of them. How many saw the Passion? Huh? How many? You got a little picture of what may have happened to Jesus?

We don't know because it's all based on Mel Gibson's conception of the Passion, but I believe it was fairly accurate. Why did God put His Son through that? Because He hates your wickedness and He hates my wickedness.

He wants a man like His Son. Moral perfection. Moral righteousness. Unspotted from the world. And so He delivers us and then He disciplines us so that our souls will seek the paths of holiness. And like Joseph, when Potiphar's wife tried to seduce him, what did he do?

He ran. Are you running from the tempter when he comes to seduce your soul to partake in wickedness? Are you running from the temptation to do what you know is morally wrong? Or do you find your soul is still infatuated with what is wrong?

And you find yourself walking toward it. Well, brothers and sisters, that is our true condition without God's help. And if you're one of His, you will experience the scourging of God not to destroy you, but to disentangle you from that sin and wickedness that God hates so that you can become a slave not to sin, but to righteousness and God's will.

A slave to desiring that which is heavenly and not that which is earthly. A slave to seeking the advancement of God's spiritual kingdom and not your own kingdom where you sit as the king and rule. Now, we're not going to get to Luke 22, but I encourage you to read it.

Luke 22, verses 24 -30. Read it when you go home. This is a great mystery. But Jesus spoke to Peter and He said, Simon, Simon, Simon, listen to Me. Satan hath desired to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith fail not.

And when you are converted, strengthen your brethren. As God enables, we're going to look into very deeply these words of Jesus. And we're going to understand why did God let Satan sift Peter. It looked for a moment when Peter was standing by that fire warming himself, cursing his Lord and denying Him that it was all over.

It looked for a moment as if Satan had got the ultimate victory and disbarred the one man that Jesus had hoped would become a great leader in the church. It looked like it for a moment. But history tells us that even though Satan sifted Peter, the intercessory prayers of Christ prevailed.

And Peter learned the all-important lesson. Norman, Carl, Brian, Robert, Michael, Pedro, Bill, Mike, Mike, Phil. Listen, Peter learned the all-important lesson through Satan as God's instrument. He learned this lesson.

I must love righteousness and hate iniquity. And Peter learned his greatest iniquity was his pride and his cocky self-confidence. That's iniquity. And so through the discipline, Peter came out of the ashes of failure and heard his Lord say what?

Feed My sheep. Feed My sheep. Feed My sheep. Okay? You having fun? That's good. Now, let me ask a question as we close. How many have heard God's Word to your heart? Not just Scripture in your head. How many have heard God's Word to your heart?

Lay hold of it this morning because with God's Word comes all the grace from an interceding Savior to make it work in your life. Let's bow our hearts right now. Let's bow our hearts right now. Thank You, Lord.

My God, thank You, Lord.

Responding to God’s Word in Prayer

Father, we thank You for Your Holy Spirit even now. We thank You for the power of Your presence. We thank You for Your precious Word that is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword that penetrates, but not only penetrates, it purifies.

It penetrates and purifies and perfects what is lacking in us. We commit our lives to the Word of Your grace. We pray, Lord, that You'll give each one of us the power to say yes to whatever You're saying to us today.

As we sing this song, I just want to invite everyone here to say yes to whatever God has said to you today. Whatever it is. If you want special prayer, you need help, and you want prayer, come forward, and some of us brothers will come and pray with you.

But whatever it is, say yes.