Embracing God's Discipline, Part 3 (Hebrews 12:4-5) | Worship Service

And good morning, and welcome to Kootenai Church. We're glad you're here today. Would you stand as we sing, let your kingdom come.

Let your kingdom come, bless your strength, oh God. Anchor rich through those who trust as you institute.

Good morning, will you please turn your Bibles to Psalm 94. Psalm 94, and while you're turning there, I just have a couple of announcements. One of them is after our service today at 12 .15, there is a meeting for the graduates and the parents to plan the graduation service, which will be in May.

So if you are graduating this year and you're wanting to participate in our annual graduation celebration, you'll need to be at that meeting 12 .15 in this room back here at the back of the sanctuary.

And then the other announcement is that last night, a longstanding member and person of our congregation went home to be with the Lord, Marilyn Brothers. You know, Marilyn, she hasn't been here for the last couple of years simply because of a physical inability to be here and be part of our church body.

But at 95 years old last night, she went to be with the Lord after just a couple hours after having a FaceTime conversation with her family. So she has been around here longer than I've been around here, and I've been around here now for more than 25 years.

And she preceded me here quite a while before me. And one of the last times that I visited with Marilyn, she was telling me that on the, I asked her how she was doing, and she said, well, I'm looking forward to going home to be with the Lord.

And this was probably almost a year ago now. And she said, when Harvey, her husband died, she said the morning he woke up, the day that he died, that morning he woke up and he had no desire to eat. He didn't wanna eat, had no hunger at all.

He didn't eat anything. And then later that day, he died. And she said, when my father died, same thing. He woke up that morning, had no desire to eat, didn't eat anything all day long, and he died. And she said, every morning I wake up and I'm hungry, and then I'm immediately disappointed.

So I told her, I said, well, you wake up some morning, you don't desire to eat, give me a call so I can come and see you. Psalm 94, this is a Psalm that describes God's vengeance upon his enemies and his avenging of the wrongs that are done to his people.

And the way that God uses a suffering in the lives of his people in this world, Psalm 94. Oh Lord, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, shine forth. Rise up, oh judge of the earth. Render recompense to the proud.

How long shall the wicked, oh Lord, how long shall the wicked exult? They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly. All who do wickedness vaunt themselves. They crush your people, oh Lord, and afflict your heritage.

They slay the widow and the stranger and murder the orphans. They have said, Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob pay heed. Pay heed, you senseless among the people, and when will you understand, stupid ones?

He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see? He who chastens the nations, will he not rebuke? Even he who teaches man knowledge? The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are a mere breath.

Blessed is the man whom you chasten, oh Lord, and whom you teach out of your law. That you may grant him relief from the days of adversity, until a pit is dug for the wicked. For the Lord will not abandon his people, nor will he forsake his inheritance.

For judgment will again be righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it. Who will stand up for me against evildoers? Who will take his stand for me against those who do wickedness? If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence.

If I should say, my foot has slipped, your loving kindness, oh Lord, will hold me up. When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, your consolations delight my soul. Can a throne of destruction be allied with you, one which devises mischief by decree?

They band themselves together against the life of the righteous and condemn the innocent to death. But the Lord has been my stronghold and my God, the rock of my refuge. He has brought back their wickedness upon them and will destroy them in their evil.

The Lord our God will destroy them. Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads. Father, what a great mercy it is to your people that we are called by your name, that we have been gathered by your grace and the moving and working of your spirit to worship here this day.

We thank you for this place to worship. We thank you for the freedom to do so. We thank you for the glory and the joy that it is for us to gather around your word and to behold in your word wonderful things.

We are reminded constantly of your goodness and grace toward us, your infinite and eternal and redeeming love for those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ. And we are also reminded in your word of the day of judgment that is to come and that you are working all things for the good of your people, for the glory of your name, and that eventually every wrong that is done will be righted and every right thing that is done will be rewarded.

So we thank you that we can have that confidence. And we pray that today as we gather together in worship and in fellowship and rejoice before you, that you would fix our eyes and our hearts upon Christ, that you would teach us discernment and that you would teach us patience, that you would produce in us persevering faith and an enduring love and affection for Christ, and that you would strengthen those who are your saints to stand under adversity and affliction, teach us to be humble and to learn under your hand, your chastening hand.

We thank you for your love for us and for your kindness. And we have been given so many reminders of that love. You have called us to your son. You have saved us and redeemed us. You have promised us an eternal inheritance in a kingdom and a new creation with eternal and glorified resurrected bodies where we get to behold your face forever.

We long for that. We look forward to it. It is our prayer and our desire that you would give us grace to persevere to it that we may see it. In Christ's name, amen.

Most of deeds I've done in my pride I strive to earn The favor he alone pleads my son

God’s Grace Is Sufficient in Weakness

Second Corinthians chapter 12, verses seven through 10. It says, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me to keep me from exalting myself.

Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions and hardships for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. We're gonna end our music portion this morning by singing what e 'er my God ordains is right.

Ordains is right, his holy will be still one soldier You need to have your Bibles open to Hebrews chapter 12.

The Discipline of God in Hebrews 12:4-11

Hebrews chapter 12, and if you are joining us today for the very first time, you are dropping into the middle of a series of messages on the subject of discipline, not church discipline, but the God's discipline, his training and correcting of his people in Hebrews chapter 12.

We're gonna read together verses four through 11. And this is something of a deep dive that we're doing into this subject matter. And you're gonna see why here in just a moment. Hebrews chapter 12, beginning at verse four, we'll read it together.

You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. And you've forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to 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're 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?

For 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. That is God's word. Let's bow our heads and pray before we begin our study. Our father, it is a great grace to us that you have revealed to us in your word, your purpose and your work through afflictions and suffering and difficulty that you have given us this passage which instructs us in your love for us and the discipline that you send into our lives.

Though understanding this and embracing this is one of the most difficult things that we could do in this world, we pray that you would give us grace that we may bow our hearts and our knees before the truth of this passage, that we may understand your purposes and that we may be convinced of your love for us and that the afflictions and sufferings of this world are an evidence of that very thing.

And should not at all cause us to question your purposes or your grace, but rather to humbly submit to your hand in these things that we may be conformed to the image of Christ, that we may taste your holiness, participate in it, share it, that you would produce in us, your people, the peaceful fruits of righteousness.

So we ask that you would still our hearts and our minds here today and instruct us in the truth through your word we pray in Christ's name, amen. We must never be ever in doubt that God is behind all things that come to pass, that he has a purpose in it and that he is in everything that he appoints and ordains for us, that he is working out a perfect plan and that he is accomplishing our sanctification.

He is working all things for our good and for his glory of that we can never have any doubt. We can know that with absolute certainty. Now, generally speaking, we know that these things are true. It's in the specifics that we get bogged down and we begin to question that reality.

Generally speaking, we can know that everything God ordains happens for a purpose, he has a plan in it, he has appointed it for us, suffering, affliction, good things and bad things, blessings and things that are not so much blessings to us, at least how they appear.

We can be confident that God is working through all of those things, all of the variety of circumstances and events that happen to us in life and that he is accomplishing something through it. Generally speaking, we can affirm all of that.

Specifically, in the specific afflictions and sufferings of life, oftentimes it is much less obvious what God is doing. We can describe what God is doing. Generally speaking, he's accomplishing our good, he is working for his glory and I can submit to that.

But specifically in this particular affliction, what is God doing? That is a question that is a lot more difficult to answer because we don't always know exactly what it is. Sometimes there is a one-to-one correspondence between things that are going on in our lives, the afflictions and the suffering and something we have done to bring that into our lives.

Sometimes there is no necessarily obvious on the surface, one-to-one correspondence between what we are doing in our life and what God is doing. Sometimes, and I think that all of us have probably been in a situation where you have said, why is the Lord bringing this into my life?

Why is he allowing this to happen at this time? Of all times, I don't understand what he is doing in it. I don't comprehend what the purpose of this is and I'm not even sure that I know what it is that I'm supposed to be learning in the midst of this affliction.

You ever had that happen to you? You're wondering, what's the purpose of this? I missed my flight, so I missed the conference, and then I missed my rental car, and then I missed this, and all these things happen.

And you're sitting on the other side of that waiting for something good. You think, I've endured all of these things, there must be some hidden blessing, right? I'm gonna run into John MacArthur at the airport and he's gonna offer me a ride and I'm gonna be able to ride with him and he's gonna give me a bunch of free books.

And had it not been for the fact that my flight was canceled, I would have never had this providential experience. But then that doesn't happen, that doesn't unfold. And instead, you spend the night in the airport next to some guy who smells like he hasn't bathed in a week or a month or more and probably hasn't, and then still you get home and you're there, I don't even know what the whole purpose of all that is.

And that's just even the lightest afflictions that we endure. We don't always understand what it is that God is doing in the midst of them. This last week, I finished the book of Genesis in my annual going through the Bible plan that I'm part of.

And the last 12 chapters of Genesis are some of my favorite chapters in all of the Old Testament. I should save the book of Genesis for the end of the year so that I can read that at the very end. Because the story of Joseph is one of those stories where you watch the affliction that unfolded in the life of Joseph, what he endured.

And if you don't know the story going into it, what the outcome of it is, all the way through his little biographical section there in Genesis, you would be asking yourself, okay, what's the purpose of this?

I don't understand why it is that Joseph is enduring all of the things that he is enduring. He was hated by his brothers. They couldn't even speak kindly to him, the text says. They resented him. They couldn't even say a kind word to him.

Hey, can you pass the salt? Well, I'll pass you the salt. Do we have one in a rock shaker so that I can pitch it across the table? They couldn't say anything to him kindly. So much so that when they were away from their father, they plotted his murder.

Now by the grace of God, that got thwarted. He was thrown into a pit instead. He had to wonder what was going on with that. Then they sold him into slavery where he was sold to Potiphar. And then in Potiphar's house, Potiphar's wife made advance after advance, proposition after proposition, until she was finally so frustrated that Joseph was turning away her propositions that she falsely accused him of sexual impropriety and had him thrown into prison where he spent years and did good to others only to have that good forgotten when the people who were in prison with him got out and could have done something to deliver him but didn't.

They forgot all about him. So sitting in an Egyptian prison after all of those things, Joseph had to wonder what in the world is going on with all of this. All of the difficulties and the injustices and the hostility.

One bad thing happening after another. And here I sit in a prison. And how was Joseph to read the providence of God.

In those events?

In the moment.

He could not read the providence of God until retrospect. It's looking back on that that Joseph would have been as ruler of Egypt able to say, this is what God is doing all the way through these things.

Have you ever considered that maybe the reason God allowed Joseph to grow up in a family full of people who were hostile to him and would not give him affection was so that God could prepare him to be able to say no to the advances of somebody else's affection?

Maybe it's possible that Joseph, when Potiphar's wife would come after him, could just simply say, you think I need your affection? I don't need your affection. Have you met my family? You've never met my family.

I don't need these advances. Is that what God was doing for all of those years preparing Joseph to turn away a false affection and be able to identify it for what it truly was? Is that what God was doing there?

Is it possible that all of his time spent in the prison wondering and waiting day after day, night after night for years, if anybody was going to remember him, is it possible that all of that was intended to prepare him to forgive his family, to save his family, and to preserve a nation when he finally got out of prison?

Now, Joseph could never know that right then in the moment. I don't think that when his brothers plotted his murder and then Reuben saved him and they threw him into a pit instead, that Joseph was in the bottom of a pit thinking to himself, I'm going to rule Egypt someday.

He would not have been thinking that. Probably at no point until Pharaoh said, put a crown on his head and a robe on his back, did Joseph ever think, I'm going to rule Egypt someday. It certainly wasn't in the pit and it wouldn't have been in Potiphar's house as a slave and it certainly wouldn't have been in the prison where he was forgotten.

In the moment, it is very difficult to read the providence of God in the sufferings and afflictions that he appoints and ordains for us, but in retrospect, we can look back on it and see it for what it is, see it for what is obvious.

This is exactly what Joseph did when his brothers finally arrived in Egypt. Joseph was able to say to them, do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here for God sent me before you to preserve life.

For the famine has been in the land these two years and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth and to keep you alive by a great deliverance.

Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God, and he has made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his household and ruler over the land of Egypt. Joseph understood that in retrospect, not in the moment of the affliction, it's in retrospect that Joseph was able to say, this is the hand of God and he has been preparing me for this this whole time.

And before that were to happen, Joseph could not, apart from divine revelation, have any way of seeing the circumstances as they unfold and be able to predict what it is that God was ultimately gonna do through those circumstances.

So through all that Joseph endured, over the course of his life, God was training him and preparing him and molding him and shaping him for his purposes. And though Joseph could be excused for his ignorance that he would someday rule Egypt, he could not be excused for his ignorance that God was in some way doing something in Joseph and for Joseph through all of the afflictions.

That is the paradigm, that is the mentality by which you and I have to embrace the disciplinary purposes of God in the sufferings and afflictions that come into our lives. Joseph was a son of God and he experienced God's discipline in life, just as Solomon would later describe to his son, you see here in Hebrews 12, verse five, "'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.'". Joseph was loved by God, therefore Joseph received the discipline of God. That's the afflictions and the sufferings and everything that come into our life that are intended to train us, equip us, motivate us, encourage us, and strengthen us for the work that God has for it.

Joseph could not have avoided it. The afflictions were appointed by God and they were God's doing. That's why Joseph at the end of it was able to say, you didn't send me here, God sent me here. Now what could his brothers have said?

No, no, no, we sold you, we got the money, we sold you into slavery. We took your robe, we dipped it in an animal's blood and lied to our father about it. That wasn't God who did any of that, we did that.

And Joseph would say, you didn't send me here, God sent me here for a purpose that you didn't even know you were being used to accomplish. And yet all of the suffering and afflictions that have come into my life as a result of your hatred for me have only accomplished this, the preservation of Egypt, the preservation of our lineage and our family, and the good that God is going to do to you and I through it.

It's in retrospect that Joseph could see all that God was doing. He could not know that he would eventually save Egypt and his family, but he could know that God was going to do something in him. And God demands of us, he calls us to at least believe that much.

He doesn't call us to be able to explain all the minutia of what he is doing. Charles Spurgeon, if Joseph had been alive when Spurgeon was preaching, Joseph would have agreed with what Spurgeon said. Spurgeon said this, there is no attribute of God more comforting to his children than the doctrine of divine sovereignty.

Listen, under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that sovereignty overrules them, and that sovereignty will sanctify them all, close quote.

Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that sovereignty overrules them all, and that sovereignty will sanctify them all.

This is the humble mindset by which the child of God kisses the rod that strikes his back. That's our mentality, kiss the rod. It is an expression of God's love for us, his infinite, eternal, all-wise, omnibenevolent love for us, his redeeming love that chose us from before the foundation of the world and has saved us and sanctifies us and secures us everlastingly, that love that the Father has for his own, that is the love that is behind the rod.

And if you and I understand that even in the most adverse of circumstances, God is using those things for our good and for his glory, and even for our eternal good, not just our temporary good, but our eternal good, then you and I can turn around and we can kiss the rod that strikes us, because we know that it is out of deep affection.

From that quote that I gave you last week from Spurgeon, the rod is baptized in his deep affection before it is ever laid to the back of the believer. That is what we must know, that is what we can know.

This is not a mindset that comes naturally to us, and I understand it is not a mindset that is easy for us to adopt. And I'm gleaning something from the feedback that I'm getting from a few people. I think this has been beneficial for us as we've gone sort of a deep dive into this subject.

Some of you have said that you have never heard discipline explained like this, that this is the purpose of God in it. You have an idea of what God's discipline is that is entirely wrong, or you've just never even thought about it, you've never gone deep into it, you've never really given yourself to think of what it is that God is doing through it and what Hebrews chapter 12 means.

And I think that for most of us, what we're looking at, those three things that I mentioned last week, they help reframe the entire issue. And since this sermon is really the continuation of last week's, we've had seven days off, but this is the second part of last week's sermon, I wanna give to you those three things that we went through last week in terms of God's discipline.

Number one, the purpose of discipline is correction, not punishment. That's a paradigm changer. It's correction, it's not punishment. Number two, the motive of discipline is love, not anger. And third, the aim of discipline is our good and not our harm.

It's correction, not punishment. It is out of love, not anger, and it is for our good and not our harm. Those three statements, which are all born out here in Hebrews chapter 12, they frame the issue of discipline, God's discipline for us.

And I'm gonna give you another one that will help sort of revolutionize the way that you think about discipline. And here's another one. You could call this number four, if you wanted to, if you're caught up into outlines and you wanna have one, okay, this would be number four.

The purpose of this passage is encouragement and not warning. It's encouragement, not warning. Most of us, when we read Hebrews chapter 12, we think that this is a warning passage. It's not a warning passage.

There are five warning passages in Hebrews, right? We've gone through them. Chapter two and three, chapter four and five, chapter six, and there's one in chapter, what was it, nine or somewhere in there, 10, maybe, I forget where it was.

That's the fourth one. We have one more that is ahead of us. It starts down in verse 19 or so. There are five warning passages in Hebrews. This is not a warning passage. This is an encouragement passage.

Most of us read Hebrews chapter 12 and we read verse five, and I want you to look what it says. You have forgotten the stern warning, which is addressed to you as sons. Is that what it says? You've forgotten what?

The encouragement. The paraklesis, from the word, from which they get the word paraclete. You're familiar with that word because we refer to the Holy Spirit as the comforter, the paraclete. Jesus, in the Gospel of John, chapter 14, 15, 16, in his upper room discourse there, described the ministry of the Holy Spirit as being a ministry of comforting and encouraging.

Jesus said, I will send the comforter, the paraclete, to be with you. That's a reference to the Holy Spirit, the comforter and the encourager. This is paraklesis, a form of that same word which describes an encouragement that is intended, or sorry, an exhortation that is intended to encourage and to comfort.

Verse five doesn't say you have forgotten the stern warning that is addressed to you as sons. Verse five says, you have forgotten the comfort and the encouragement that is addressed to you as sons. You see, that frames discipline in an entirely new way.

This is all encouragement. This is all intended to show us that behind all of the discipline and the afflictions in this life, there is a loving hand of providence that is behind all of that. There is a sovereign grace and a sovereign love that is behind that that is acting for our best interest, for our good, in protecting and preserving and sanctifying us.

Therefore, when we face discipline in this life, we are intended to be encouraged by that. And yet, that is not the perspective that most Christians have about discipline. Most Christians read Hebrews chapter 12, verses four through 11, four through 11, and they think that this is a warning passage.

God is in heaven, and the rod of his discipline and his anger is raised high above his head, and he is watching you. One little slip-up, one little sin, one little mistake, and he will bring the rod of his discipline down upon your back with a fury and an anger and a vengeance that we cannot even describe with words.

Therefore, don't you sin, don't you mess up, don't you have a wrong motive, because God in heaven is just waiting. He is just wringing his hands, waiting for you to mess up so he can show you what for.

That's the perspective most Christians have about God. Or, they think that God calls us to run this race, and that having called us to run the race, to finish our course, to cross the finish line, to lay aside every sin that so easily entangles us in the encumbrances which make the race difficult to run, that God is in heaven, and his goal is to throw things into your life to make that race difficult.

I could run my race if it weren't for afflictions, but God tells me I'm supposed to run the race with endurance to cross the finish line, and then God sits in heaven and says, okay, let's see how he handles the car breaking down at just the most inopportune moment possible.

Let's see how sanctification handles that. And not just the car, but this month, I'm gonna make it the car and the refrigerator and the stove and the dishwasher all at the same time, and then once he digs himself out of that financial mess, that hot water heater that has been on the brink for a number of years, I'm gonna bring that one crashing down on his head, and that furnace.

We'll see how he handles that. And over here is this couple. They're doing really good spiritually. I'm gonna give them a miscarriage. And I'm gonna give him a terminal illness, and I'm gonna take his wife from him.

We'll see how he finishes the race.

Some of you here have that perspective of God, and you need to repent. That's not our God. That's not our God. That's not what this passage is about. This passage is not about all the hindrances and difficulties that God throws into our path to keep us from finishing the race.

It is about all the things that God has appointed for us to strengthen us to finish the race. That's what they're there for. So that you will put off sin, that you will lay aside the encumbrances, that you will fix your eyes on Jesus, and that you will run with endurance the race that is set before you.

And to guarantee that you will cross the finish line, God with all of the love of heaven, none of his anger, and for your good and his glory, he is going to correct you along the way, and he is going to bring things into your life that will discipline you so that you will finish the race, and you will finish it with joy.

This passage is not a warning passage. This passage is an encouragement passage. It's intended to be an encouragement passage. It doesn't say you have forgotten the somber, terrifying, earth-shaking warning that is addressed to you as sons.

If you are faint in your heart, if you are about to give up, if you are in despair and affliction, you have need of endurance, it's because you have forgotten the encouragement of verses four through 11.

Look at that passage. I want you to notice all of the encouraging phrases, beginning at verse five. Don't faint when you are reproved by him. Don't faint when you're reproved by him. Verse six, those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines.

Verse seven, God deals with you as with sons. Verse eight, if you don't have discipline, you are not a son. Verse 10, he disciplines us for our good so that we may share his holiness. Verse 11, he's producing in you the peaceful fruits of righteousness.

Every phrase of this passage is intended to be an encouragement, an exhortation, a comfort to us so that we look at afflictions and sufferings in this life and we don't view them as God's hammer coming down on us in his wrath for our harm, but as God correcting us out of love for our good.

And we don't view the afflictions and sufferings of this life as something that God is doing in order to trip us up so that we don't finish our race to see if we're really gonna be able to do what he's called us to do.

No, instead, they are the things, the elements of training that God brings into our lives to strengthen us for the race that is ahead. This is a passage of encouragement. And because this is so misunderstood and often abused in church teaching, we are well-served to take more than just a couple of moments to think through the implications of what we are seeing here.

So I mentioned earlier that last week, I gave you those three statements. The purpose of discipline is correction, not punishment. The motive of discipline is love and not anger or wrath. And the aim of discipline is our good and not our harm.

And one thing that we need to get to now is some of the applications of these issues in the scenarios that come up in day-to-day life. We need to think through these from a biblical perspective. And that's what I wanna do with the rest of our time here.

Everything that follows was intended to be at the end of last week's sermon. We got to what ended up being the end of last week's sermon and realized if I go all the way to the end of that, I'm not gonna answer any questions.

I'm just gonna raise more questions than Hebrews 12 will answer. We need to take the time to think through what this means for us in the day-to-day afflictions that we endure. So I mentioned a number of questions for which Hebrews 12 does not give answers, but these are the things that pop into our minds.

How often should I expect discipline? How severe will it get? How long will it last? What form will it take? What sins bring disciplines and which sins does the Lord let slide? What am I to learn in the midst of the discipline?

What are the specific lessons? How does discipline affect those around me? My children, my spouse, my family, my church, is all difficulty discipline? And are the difficulties that come into our life, are there some of them that are not discipline?

And how do I know when it's just difficulty of living in this world and when it is discipline? But with these three principles in mind, the purpose is correction, not punishment. The motive is love and not anger.

And the aim is our good and not our harm. Now let's walk through a couple of scenarios and say, how do these principles inform how I view an example of affliction or suffering that comes into my life?

Here's the scenario, a natural disaster strikes or a man-made disaster strikes. Could be a hurricane, a tornado, an earthquake, a mudslide, or a war. A disaster strikes, and it affects more than just one person.

Let's say in our scenario, our imaginary scenario, that it takes out two people's houses. They're right next door to each other. It's a mudslide. Two of them are entirely wiped out. And the result of this disaster on these two people is identical.

They lose all of their earthly possessions. Their computers, their clothing, their food, their appliances, everything's completely destroyed. And they are left with nothing but the shirts that are on their backs.

In the very same event, God is working in multiple ways to accomplish multiple things on multiple levels in multiple different peoples and people groups. So let's walk through it. To the believer, God is using adversity as discipline and training, okay?

So we have our two men, unbeliever and the believer. Let's deal with the believer first. In the life of the believer, the Lord is using that adversity as discipline, as training, as correction. God intends in that mudslide for the believer that believer's good.

That's all that the Lord intends for it. The Lord has no evil intentions at all in that mudslide for that believer, none. There's not a frown, there's no condemnation, there's no scowl on God's face at all.