*** The concern over this tweet is the lack of consideration for how complex the mind is and how trauma affects the brain. Will you trust him? In verse 3 he says, “Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.” The first glimpse of suffering we see in this church here is that something is threatening to make them “grow weary and lose heart.”. So grateful for Benner’s insight and wisdom, and especially his down to earth literary genius . Most people in the world have no experience of lasting joy in their lives. But there is also wrestling and struggle. Should we see these things as part of God’s overarching discipline of his children for their good? The stress level here is huge. And he is doing it through what he suffered, which means that God ordained suffering in the life of Jesus to bring him to the fullest expression of obedience. They never felt accepted. Let us be clear, if there is no discipline, there is no discipleship. Chewing is a normal natural necessary and highly enjoyable activity for rabbits. Sometimes he treats you way better than you deserve, and sometimes he spanks you in order to bring it to your attention — but you can’t tell which it is. And the big “if” is: will you believe this? He is learning at each stage the actual implementation of his obedient heart in acts of obedience. . And she kind of went back to her bedroom. Or verse 7: “It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons.” In other words, in your pain, you are not being treated as a slave or as an enemy. In Romans 2:4 it says, “Don’t you know that the kindness of God is meant to lead you to repentance?” So now here you have God using another method besides spanking or suffering to bring us to repentance. Now the second thing to ask is what kind of suffering this is and where did it come from. The issue is: will you believe this? That’s the burden of this passage. “Be anxious for nothing . . Another glimpse of their suffering is the reference to the hostility against Jesus (verse 3): “Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself.” Why consider this? Or will you kick against this chapter and demand in the season of suffering that God give a greater account of himself than he does in this chapter? There is no discipline more important than the regular reading of God’s Word. If we do not discipline ourselves, God Himself will discipline us (Heb. The suffering is coming from the hostile will of sinful adversaries. As you resolve to grow and change this year, remember that good intentions without diligence will fail. Most people in the world have no experience of lasting joy in their lives. He rules over sinners and Satan, and they unwittingly, and with no less fault or guilt, fulfill his wise and loving purposes of discipline in our lives. The KJV translation uses the word temperance in place of “self-control” which, like self-discipline, generally refers to our ability to control or restrain ourselves from all kinds of feelings, impulses, and desires, which includes the desire for physical and material comfort. It is normal for Christians to have experiences of stress and suffering that threaten their faith and press too hard, or last too long and feel almost intolerable. Since the Father’s great passion is fruitfulness, it is a time for evaluation. Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? Hebrews 12:6, he disciplines those whom he loves. It has a totally different conception of what is happening to us. What hostile sinners mean for harm, God means for good. Verse 6: “Those whom the Lord loves he disciplines.” The design of God is love. Who’s in charge of this? Notice very carefully: this text does not say that God looks on while hostile sinners hurt his people, or while Satan ravages the elect, and only then steps in to turn all this evil for good. It’s the difference between the surgeon who plans the incision for our good, and the emergency room doctor who sews us up after a freak accident. The hostility of sinners is real and it is wrong and responsible and guilty. The video above is from the Desiring God Ministries website with a lightly edited transcript below. It’s not a little feel-good chapter about how to make the best of your troubles — or even about how God makes the best of your troubles. And so God is always, I think, disciplining us. Especially when God himself says in Exodus 4:11, “Who has made man’s mouth? You always do that,” and maybe hit them. I believe in the Holy Spirit. She’s hurt, and I am mad as all get out, and to kill time I pick up the garbage and take it outside to put it by the street because it is garbage pick-up day. The first answer to that is seen in verse 3: “Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners.” This is what Jesus endured, and this is what you are enduring. Bible verses about Desiring God. They are despising. And who’s doing this? I can give you an illustration. At the end of his life, Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.” Keeping the faith is a fight to be fought and a race to be run. Here is what I mean. This text says, God is the doctor planning our surgery, not the doctor repairing our lacerations. Two weeks ago in Hebrews 11:35–38, we read about Old Testament believers who were tortured, mocked, whipped, imprisoned, sawn in two, destitute, homeless. The upshot then is this: if it is more difficult for God to govern the hostility of sinners against his people, and yet this passage teaches that he does just that, then why would we even think of denying the less difficult act of God’s rule over natural things like hurricanes and sickness? And so what we need to remember is that we are always loved. We will ask if it has a purpose or design and what it is. . God created men and women in his imageÑequal in value and complementary in roles. Someone might ask, does this principle of discipline apply to things like natural calamities and sicknesses that are not caused by the hostility of sinners? It is the means that God uses to build a healthy Christian (Heb 4:12, 2 Tim 3:16). This is the design of our loving Father that comes to us painfully and mysteriously through the hostility of sinful adversaries and the natural hazards of a fallen world. Procrastination is generally considered unproductive and many teachers b. you too have resisted, but have not yet had to shed your blood.” So the suffering in view is mainly persecution in various forms, short of martyrdom. Here is one of the most remarkable things about God ordaining hard things in our lives in a disciplinary way: Jesus was disciplined and never sinned. And so what we need to remember is that we are always loved. Hebrews 5:8 says “[Jesus] learned obedience through what he suffered.” Now a lot of people read that and they say, “Whoa. “He endured hostility from sinners . . He makes the sun shine. So the point there is God is always disciplining us. As it does when a child cries after a spanking. Out of his goodness he is always doing things for our good, both gentle and hard things. For God’s children, know that discipline is always ever in love. Because the same kind of thing is happening to you and you need to get strength from Jesus. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have 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? God allows us to undergo trials and temptations so our faith will be tested and we will grow in maturity as Christians. It goes deeper than the average. . We do not think the same or act the same because we serve a different Master. And so will diligence without God. What they design as a deterrent to faith, God designs as discipline for faith. The word “seems” (discipline “seems” not to be joyful) hints that there is a kind of residual joy of hope that hangs on beneath the cloud, but the tears and the sighs and the groans are so many that it looks like sorrow has the upper hand — at least for a season. We’re on a mission to change that. When a sinning believer is rebuked and he turns from his sin and is forgiven, he is won back to fellowship with the body and with its head, Jesus Christ. We are at the very beginning of a new year. You know, he could have caused a car to careen over the curb and smack me into the hospital, and he would have been absolutely right to do so, but instead he smiled upon me. In other words, what adversaries do to you out of sinful hostility, God is doing out of fatherly discipline. Acting against carnal impulses is not legalism. Why do so many Christians think that… God God God God shows shows. Designed for Joy includes fresh contributions from fourteen young leaders, casting a uniÞed vision for Christian manhood and womanhood. In the strength that God supplies that God may get the glory (1 Peter 4:11), This was about 35 years ago when we were still teaching. From 2 to 4 a.m. was the time he usually gave to prayer; the time he could be most sure of being undisturbed to wait upon God.” Wow... God grant me discipline to be a man of Your Word and prayer like Hudson Taylor. The upshot then is this: if it is more difficult for God to govern the hostility of sinners against his people, and yet this passage teaches that he does just that, then why would we even think of denying the less difficult act of God’s rule over natural things like hurricanes and sickness? They could never measure up. And when I got on the driveway the sun was as bright, as glorious as could be. 2 Timothy 2:15 ESV / 111 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. These distinctive roles are not the vestiges of a bygone era, but integral to GodÕs timeless, good design for humanity. That is repair. How do you sleep at night when being a Christian may result in mob violence? He hits hard at the idea that we must appropriate the Gospel for ourselves every day, confessing our sins and turning to the cross. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.” The link with Jesus and the hostility shown against him shows that this is what the Christians are dealing with. The Scriptures need to be meditated upon, read, or heard two or more times per day (Deut 6:4-9, Josh 1:8) so that we can know and do the will of God. The discipline of fasting not only expresses a longing for God to break in and change us, but also awakens a hunger for his sovereignty in our lives. All our wrestling and fighting and running are done with a deep restfulness of spirit that Christ himself has already won the decisive victory for us and is sovereignly working in us and will bring us to glory. Here comes a new kind of challenge, and he becomes obedient again. Affliction, when we accept it with patience and humility, can lead us to a deeper, fuller life. There is a restful side to the Christian life and a wrestling side to the Christian life. But where did it come from? God's discipline is designed to make us like His Son. For more than thirty years, John Piper pastored in the rough and tumble realities of downtown Minneapolis, preaching his people through the ups and downs of life one Sunday at a time. There is rest and peace in the Christian soul. That is the first answer. No human agent is causing the hurricane, but a human is willing the hostility. From the beginning, Moses warned the people of growing fat and forgetful: The sky was blue. . But he is even willing to tell us more. Please consider this request from John Piper and become a monthly partner by December 31. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. And I was getting down on her like I have never done anything like that. Is it not I, the Lord?”. And his words are contemptuous. So when I say to them that God disciplines us in love, that is very hard for them to feel. Will you let the Word of God settle the issue for you, so that when the suffering comes, you don’t turn on God and put him in the dock and prosecute him with accusations? “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest,” Jesus said in Matthew 11:28. Hard work is not legalism. “The wisdom of God devised a way for the love of God to deliver sinners from the wrath of God while not compromising the righteousness of God.” ― John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of … God adores our diligence when it unveils his worth to the world. Will we trust him? Another glimpse of their suffering is in verse 11: “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful.” In other words, the present experience of these Christians was sorrowful. It is a massive statement about the gracious sovereignty of God over the evil that befalls his people. And it wasn’t because Job was acting in any overt, sinful way that needed discipline, but it did turn out in the end that Job had some sediment of pride at the bottom of his life that got jostled up into that beaker of life. And God gives Satan permission to beat up on him. Developing a discipline of gratitude is essential for us as we grow in our knowledge of God and our experience of him. Psalm 63 “O God, you are my God; earnestly I will seek you; my soul thirst for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a … Such neglect of self-discipline prolongs their spiritual immaturity, leaving them with little self-control to resist temptation and sin. One time I got really mad at Noel, because I found a whole crate of rotten pears in the garage. The difference between a dad like that our God who disciplines us in love, is that God never, never feels contemptuous of us. All of our resources exist to guide you toward everlasting joy in Jesus Christ. And that is what this passage teaches. Who is doing this? But they may also be the torque of the engine of faith running on the fuel of the Spirit to the glory of the grace of God in a self-centered and undisciplined world.. [I have been reading Jerry Bridges’ book The Discipline of Grace: God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness (NavPress, 1994, 2006). The Lord Disciplines the One He Loves This is the whole point of Hebrews 12:3–11, the clearest explanation in the Bible of the profound good we receive when God disciplines us. Posts about Desiring GOD written by themighty3d. Job, remember, was described in the very first verse of the book as being an upright man and blameless. They never felt delighted in. In other words, a dad in his sinful meanness might say, “You are such an idiot. 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. Paying attention to what the early church prayed for can help keep your prayer life from falling into a rut. It informs us about God’s Law and how badly we have fallen short of it. So I see in this passage the precious teaching that God reigns over the hazards of our circumstances and over the health of our bodies and over the hostility of our adversaries and he designs all of life ultimately as a loving father’s discipline. Joy had been covered with a dark cloud of pain. In and of itself, God does not enjoy afflicting his children (Lamentations 3:33), but when necessary, as a loving Father, he will discipline us (Hebrews 12:7–10). Verses 5–7 say that one of the reasons you are growing weary and losing heart is that “you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord. Here is another factor. What they plan as destruction, God plans as salvation. When it says he learned obedience, it means he moved as he grew from one degree of obedience to another. His discipline is to prune every branch in our lives that does not bear fruit so that our lives can increase its yield. And so will diligence without God. 9 FOREWORD As we look out at the church today, there is so much that encourages us and fills us with gratitude. (See Hebrews 11:36). And so he is calling for us to have greater faith and greater humility. It is for discipline that you endure.’” (see Proverbs 3:11–12). The main answer of the passage is that God is in charge here, and that he is in ultimate control of these afflictions and that they are in fact the loving discipline of a perfect heavenly father. And I stopped and cried. Desiring God through fasting and prayer. . The Purpose of Discipline The purpose of church discipline is the spiritual restoration of fallen members and the consequent strengthening of the church and glorifying of the Lord. 12:5–11). 1 John 5:14-16 ESV / 6 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful. God never says, “You always do that. The ultimate good for a Christian is to be sanctified, which is to be conformed to the image and likeness of Christ. (Hebrews 12:3–11). This whole passage is built on another answer to the question: Where does this suffering come from? As you resolve to grow and change this year, remember that good intentions without diligence will fail. But it is not yet martyrdom, though that could come. Our pain is not the effect of God’s hate, but of God’s love. He is author of. Which is harder to attribute to God’s design: the hostility of sinners against God’s people or the destruction of a hurricane? Verse 6 goes so far as to say, “[God] scourges every son whom he receives.” Who is scourging? And I went in to her, and I said, “What is with the pears?”. That is not what the text says. Hebrews 12:7-11 Pain's Purpose. That is my picture. “My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in” (Proverbs 3:11-12; see also Hebrews 12:5-11). For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart. That he has given the world over to Satan and the free will of man. Who is whipping? That is the question. He was always on their case, spanking and criticizing and speaking ugly words. Here comes a new challenge, and he begins obedient again. Our wholeness as human beings created in God’s image depends on it. If he spanks, if he brings any kind of hardship into our life, it is with measured, careful, wise, loving application of his wisdom and his grace to our situation. You are being treated as a loved child of God. To embrace God's discipline is to understand that a loving God will never chastise his children capriciously. Then, last week in Hebrews 12:1, we heard the call for all of us to lay aside sins and weights and run the marathon of radical love and holiness, while these saints witness to us along the route that it really can be done “by faith.” And then in verse two the writer tells us to look to Jesus who, like these Old Testament saints, endured a horrible death and was shamed, but set his eyes on the joy set before him. Hebrews 12:6, he disciplines those whom he loves. And these Christians were in that danger, as are many of you. The reason is that in both cases — hostility and hurricanes — you have to deal with the pain caused by the event. There are people I know who have a very hard time feeling loved by God. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. Desiring God. Discipline Virtual Space Amino. But he has told you what you need to know: it is the love of an all-wise Father to a child. . That is a big if. He probably will not tell you why it is your turn, or why it is happening now, or why there is this much pain, or why it lasts this long. Verses 10–11, “He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. The Lord’s discipline is a response of His love for us and His desire for each of us to be holy. God is. If we submit to this sovereign, loving, fatherly care, we will not “grow weary and lose heart,” but we will keep the faith, fight the good fight, and finish our course, and die well, and glorify our Father in heaven. Desiring God; John Piper; Church Attitudes Toward Mental Health -by Kathi There has been much talk recently about Desiring God's tweet on February 6, 2018. This was true in Hebrews 10:32–34; and it was true of the Old Testament saints referenced in Hebrews 11:35–38; and you can see that it is true here in the connection between verses 3 and 4. We’re on a mission to change that. This is extremely important for knowing your God and for living by faith through the suffering that is coming sooner or later into your life. I’ve learned that asking God to discipline me is a Christian Hedonist’s prayer; it’s asking him for a greater capacity to enjoy him. It says that God is disciplining us; he is teaching us and correcting us and transforming us. We will ask what kind it is and where it comes from. He has learned from Israel’s history which played on repeat: first blessing, then forgetfulness, idolatry, discipline and exile, repentance. Christians are unavoidably out of step with this world. But it will not work in this passage. I just cried, because God was kissing me on the cheek after that rotten attitude. Here Steve exposes the common danger we all face in learning the “how” of spiritual disciplines without the “why.” He presses us to think about our heart motivations to read the bible and pray more, so we will cultivate […] Will you accept the mystery of God’s providence in the pain of your life, and be trained by it (as verse 11 says) for the sake of good and peace and holiness and righteousness and life? And now he brings this legacy of suffering up to date and applies it to the believers of his day. But they may also be the torque of the engine of faith running on the fuel of the Spirit to the glory of the grace of God in a self-centered and undisciplined world.. let your requests be made known to God . And at the end in chapter 42 he says, “I have got to repent in dust and ashes. I know God disciplines me, because the Bible tells me so. A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer John Piper. You mean like he stopped being disobedient and became obedient and thus sinned?” No, that is not what it says and that is not what it means. The book of Hebrews is a very mature and sober book when it comes to the pain and stress of Christian living and the endurance that it takes to run the race and fight the fight and finish well. Losing heart is a great spiritual danger. Verse 9 poses our concluding question: Will we “be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?” Or will be rebel against the father of spirits, and die? Growing and continuing in our spiritual formation means that we need to continue to expand our thinking of what spiritual disciplines are. There is hostility and trouble and stress and suffering, but evidently no martyrs yet. And the more you have suffered, the more you will cling to the precious teachings of this book — if you are willing to believe them. John Piper is quite the writer and lover of God. 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