The Lord has blessed us. We have had good fellowship and ministry from the middle-aged brethren—a very refreshing and practical word for us all.
Tonight, I would like us to turn again to the book of Hebrews. We are looking at this matter of endurance. Last time we considered heaven and endurance; tonight, discipline and endurance.
We will begin in Hebrews 10:35:
Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.
For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay.
But My righteous one shall live by faith;
And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
Then we turn to Hebrews 12:1-13:
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us 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 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 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?
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.
We should also add James 1:2-4:
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when ye encounter various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
And let endurance have its perfect result,
so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Lord, if we were to come before You and list the things that we lack, I do not know what we would write down. But You say we lack endurance. We lack wisdom. We need faith.
As we hear You speak to us, we come into Your work tonight of discipline in our lives, with a joy set before us, with the reward in mind, with a goal and a high calling. May laying hold of that keep us on the track.
We thank You, Lord, for Your love for us. We pray, as we share this matter tonight, that You will increase our endurance as a measure of Christ is given to us through Your faithful discipline, even by the Word of God. We commit this time to You tonight in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Last time we spoke about the connection between heaven and endurance. To make a long story short, we see in Scripture that every time somebody saw the Lord, they gained endurance. In seeing the Lord, hope arose in their hearts and enabled them to press on.
This was true whether it was John on the Isle of Patmos or the Old Testament brethren mentioned in Hebrews 11. When you see the Lord, there is something in that. There is life. There is hope. There is a goal that suddenly lifts your spirit and sends you forward.
As we travel through the wilderness, we are on the way to Zion, to rest, to the promised land. Along the way, we look up and see that Jesus is our Apostle. Just as Moses took the children of Israel through the wilderness, Jesus, our Apostle, is taking us into the land of rest. We want to see Him and follow Him.
In Hebrews 3:6, the Holy Spirit says, “Today.” We live today. There is only today, and then His kingdom comes. If we are going to live today, then it is incumbent upon us: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”
The children of Israel came all the way to the promised land but would not go in. The Lord said, “Go in, go in.” Joshua and Caleb said, “Go in, go in.” But the people said, “We cannot go in.” They lost their opportunity.
The letter to the Hebrews is not about getting saved. It is about coming into the fullness of what we were created to be, coming into God’s purpose, and becoming part of what He has planned. It is a large and comprehensive plan.
If we walk under the light of Jesus, our Apostle, and live according to that word of the cross, we do not harden our hearts. We listen to what He says to us today. This enables the Holy Spirit to do His work within us.
Another way we could put it is this: by standing under the cloud and the fire, we stand in Christ. When we stand in Christ, Christ lives in us and, by the Holy Spirit, does that transforming work which prepares us for what lies ahead in His glorious kingdom.
That was the simple picture from last time: looking unto Jesus.
It says, “For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.” We need endurance so that, having done the will of God, we may receive what has been promised.
The children of Israel had been slaves in Egypt for quite a while. The promise of a land of milk and honey, houses they had not built, and farms already bearing crops they had not planted sounded like a dream. But the actual travel through the wilderness was difficult because they had no endurance. Their souls got short. They got mad with one another, mad at Moses, mad at Miriam, mad at the snakes—just mad at everything.
But God had Moses, who kept falling down and praying for the people, interceding for them and asking mercy for them. Along with him was Aaron, the high priest, falling down and praying, “God, do not destroy them. You promised You would take them in. Lord, You have to take them in.”
Slowly but surely, the tabernacle made its way to the Jordan River, the crossover. Now we have an Apostle and High Priest like Moses and Aaron. As we travel through the wilderness, what a bunch of whiners and complainers we can be.
“I do not like that guy who preached. In our fellowship, we have people who cannot preach their way out of a paper bag. I do not like the leadership. I do not like the building we are meeting in—it has too much mold. I do not like the saints I have to sit near. I would like to sit near nicer saints.”
And Jesus falls down and intercedes for us. Jesus, the High Priest, comes before the Father and says, “Father, You know in their hearts they want to follow Me. Give them another chance. Help them through.”
What is going on on earth is being enabled by our Lord’s wonderful intercessory work in heaven. This is a wonderful truth.
God has a larger plan than we are aware of. The Jews could not wait to cross the border, find the first plot of land, claim it as their own, and start growing corn on the cob. That was all they cared about. But the Lord had a much greater plan: a kingdom for His own Son, Jesus, and out of that kingdom to bless the nations and rule the earth.
People with tiny minds can only see a couple of days ahead. Therefore, discipline is necessary to increase and stretch our understanding of what God wants.
Our brother shared that God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of Jesus. Having foreknown us, He called us, justified us, and glorified us. Right now, in His great process, He is carrying this out as we go through the world.
In one sense, it is simple. We stand under the word of the cross. We let the Lord speak to us today. The Holy Spirit gets to work inside, and the Man of glory faithfully brings us to glory. It is a large plan. It is a great plan.
This march from grace to glory, described as running the race, necessitates that we have an open heaven. Heaven’s touch must be on our life and in our church life. Otherwise, there is no sense of upward call, no goal, no reward, and not much hope.
If we get too earthy, too earthbound, and too worldly, that heavenly touch is missing.
Brother Sparks used to call this “the curse of the earth touch.” He used that phrase concerning assemblies formed under the heavenly vision of the all-sufficiency of Christ. They began to gather and meet, but somewhere along the line the church touched earth. Then the curse of worldliness and worldly ways began to move in and corrupt what God was doing.
If we are not truly under heaven, we may talk about the blood of the Lamb and the word of the cross, but they have become merely words. They are no longer reality; they are only doctrine.
No matter how good a beginning any fellowship or company of God’s people has, the temptation is to become earthy and lose the heavenly perspective. The church is not merely the church; we are also the kingdom of God. This heavenly dimension, this kingdom-of-heaven dimension, is necessary for us truly to be the church.
Sometimes we become so busy that we lose the heavenly perspective, burden, goal, and desire. We stop pursuing Christ and merely learn doctrine. That was the danger facing the Hebrews.
They were laden with many Jewish doctrines and practices. After being born again and undergoing persecution from the Jews, they may have been kicked out of the synagogue, but the synagogue had not been kicked out of them. They were in danger of losing the heavenly perspective because they were holding onto earthly things.
Hebrews is a heavy book. It bears the gravity of God’s fuller purpose for our lives. There is a heaviness to God’s purpose and to the Spirit’s exhortation.
Hebrews 6:17-18 speaks of God desiring to show the heirs of promise the unchangeableness of His purpose:
In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath,
so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.
God was communicating to Abraham, “I have a purpose for you, and I want to swear to you that I will fulfill this.” God could swear only by Himself. Thus He said, “Blessing I will bless you,” and, “Multiplying I will multiply you.” He doubled the promise because He wanted Abraham to know the unchangeableness of His purpose.
Somewhere along our pilgrimage, the Lord begins to deal with us more deeply because of the unchangeableness and greatness of His purpose. He wants to lay hold of us so that we do not remain babies, as in Hebrews 5, regressing to the milk of the Word. He wants us to press on to maturity in Hebrews 6.
Either we circle back into the wilderness and live on milk, or we press into the maturity that the Lord desires for His people. The gravity of God’s purpose necessitates discipline.
The Lord Jesus allowed His disciples for a time just to follow Him, watch Him, and be blessed by Him. But the day came when He needed to discipline these men. During the last year before the cross, He questioned them, corrected them, and showed them how little faith they had.
They were going to be apostles of the church of Jesus Christ, His bride. They needed discipline. Even as the Lord was personally facing His destiny at Calvary, He was burdened to bring these brothers from foolishness, shallowness, and silliness into depth—a life laid down for the purpose of God.
The first eleven chapters of Hebrews say, in effect, “Look up to heaven and see Jesus.” Then chapter 12 says, “Run this race looking unto Jesus.” He is our joy and hope. He is the Author and Perfecter of our faith. Keep running toward Him. He is your goal.
But then the Holy Spirit underscores the gravity and sobriety of God’s purpose. He says, “Look in heaven, and now see the Father.”
The Father comes into view in Hebrews in this full way because it is time to discipline us unto sons. Listen to His words with the gravity and depth of the Father’s love:
My son, do not despise the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
For whom the Lord loves He disciplines.
Now the Father is speaking.
From the moment we were saved, something in our inner being cried out, “Abba.” We came to know our Father who is in heaven. We pray to our Father. But now the time has come for us really to know Him.
Many people know and love Jesus, but they are afraid to know the Father. Hebrews calls Him “He with whom we have to do.” All things are exposed before Him. It also says, “Our God is a consuming fire.” This is our Father. Welcome to the Father.
Let me say right from the start: all discipline the Father gives is given with grace and mercy. But He is not fooling around.
This passage is from Proverbs 3:11. Many scholars believe that the sections in Proverbs beginning with “My son” record wisdom Solomon received from David. David may not have disciplined all his sons well—Absalom was a mess, and Adonijah had never received a cross word from David—but somehow David poured his life into Solomon.
David shared his secrets, desires, blueprints for the temple, singers, courses, and all that was in his heart. Part of Solomon’s legacy of wisdom was his father’s repeated words: “My son, my son, my son.”
Perhaps the other sons were afraid of David and avoided him. They wanted their own way. They had everything they wanted and did not want to hear David’s lectures: “Are you praying in the morning, at noon, and in the evening? Do you hold the Word as your delight?”
But Solomon evidently loved that preaching. He took it in. It became blessing and wisdom to him.
If we are going to understand discipline, we are also going to get to know the Father. Are you like Solomon or Adonijah? Do you want to go on with your life without getting too close to the One who may reprove you? Or are you like Solomon, saying, “Dad, what have You got to say?”
A lot depends on our attitude.
The Father’s responsibility is to bring us into glorious sonship. That is His business. If you are a father, your business is to bring your sons into mature sonship. In the old days, if you were a carpenter, you brought your son up to be a carpenter. Part of raising him was teaching him the trade.
God our Father is in the business of making sons out of us—grown-up, mature sons out of His children. He gladly receives all the children saved by grace, and now it is time to make them sons.
The New Testament speaks of the adoption of sons. The Greek word is really the placing of sons. A child may be brought into a royal family but know nothing of the kingdom. He has to learn not only how to dress and eat, but how to serve, reign, be merciful, be loving, live truthfully, and live righteously.
There is a lot to learn. The Father is placing sons.
The word translated “discipline” is child training. Of course, you may feel better when you hear that. “I thought He was going to discipline me; now He is just going to child-train me.”
Well, His child training includes reproving with strong words. It includes being told, “You did wrong, son.” It includes correction. The passage even says, “Whom He loves, He scourges.” Our Father in heaven is not politically correct.
But discipline is not punishment. It is child training. It is conforming us to the likeness of Jesus Christ. We have that life in us, but it must be brought out through discipline. We must learn to endure under that discipline as the Holy Spirit carries on His sanctifying work in spirit, soul, and body.
Some people faint as soon as they hear that the Father comes with severity and sobriety to discipline His sons—male and female sons. That is one of our problems today.
We have developed this strange psychological idea of inflating children’s self-esteem: “Oh, you are wonderful. You can be anything you want. There are no winners and losers; we are all winners.” But there are winners and losers. There is right and wrong. There are times when a hand needs to be slapped for stealing cookies.
Everybody has become so fluffy that if they are reproved in the church, they take offense and faint. If the Father came with some grown-up talk and said, “I want you to shape up from your selfish, silly life and get on with My purpose,” half the people would faint immediately.
That is why He says, “Do not faint when I reprove you.” He does not want us fainting; He wants us to listen and do what He says.
A brother from Richmond told me years ago, “God plays hardball. We play softball.” God means it. There is a lot at stake in His kingdom, and His Son is coming. Preparations are necessary. The Lord is serious about this, and He is disciplining us.
Philippians says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” This means that you respect God your Father. As the Father speaks His words to you, the Holy Spirit backs them up inside:
For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
He speaks a word, and then He performs it from within.
Look up in heaven and see your Father as He disciplines us. While the Father disciplines us, we still hold to our precious High Priest, who does such an inward work of atoning. We hold to our Apostle, who is taking us toward our destiny. But now our Father is working on us.
Is discipline too hard to accept? Do we need a safe zone in church? College campuses now have safe zones where students do not have to hear the truth. Something is wrong with that. Especially in college, you should be able to stand on your own feet and begin to think.
The church cannot faint away. When you experience the Father’s discipline, think of walking in the desert. The Father says, “Son, you have gotten out of the light. Get back under the word of the cross.” He nudges you back onto it.
Did that kill you? The Lord says, “Come on, you are neglecting the Word. Get back under that light.” We need that.
As long as we get under the light, the Holy Spirit can work in us. But when we get out from under heaven, the Holy Spirit goes silent. There must be correspondence between heaven and earth for things to be done.
Walk in the light as He is in the light. Then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. It is a living dynamic, a ferment of the Spirit working in our lives. But when we get out from under the light, heaven is not touching us, and we grieve the Spirit.
In one sense, the Father cannot discipline you unless you have decided to lay aside every weight and every besetting sin, run the race, and look to Jesus. It is your choice. Do you want the goal? Jesus?
Then run the race and look to Him. The Father will discipline you to keep you in the race, and you will gain endurance.
When I was in high school, I played football. Back in those days, we did not train all year long. When football was over, you did not touch a football or do much exercise until the next September.
Then we had calisthenics. I could barely do two push-ups. After a half hour, we had to run half a mile around the track. I could not make it. I fell down a couple of times. I fainted. Back then, they did not give you water; you sat there for a while, then got up and went.
Three weeks later, I could do two laps and fifteen push-ups. I was in good shape. But it was tough.
Endurance comes through practice, exercise, and discipline. That is what the Lord wants to do in our lives. But you have to have a good attitude. I wanted that letter jacket. I went to Babylon High School—Babylon, that is where I grew up—and I was proud of the big orange B on my jacket.
Do you have a goal? Do you want to attain to that for which you were created in the kingdom? You have a purpose in the kingdom. Even if it is a small part, fulfill that purpose. That must be wonderful.
James could say, “Count it all joy,” because he had been under the Father’s discipline long enough. Most people say, “Count it all joy? What, are you crazy?” But James says:
Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye encounter various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
And let endurance have its perfect result,
so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
We are not masochists. We are not happy because trials come. We count them as joy because we see their end: maturity and endurance.
Before the Father disciplines His sons, He says, “Notice what Jesus endured in His race.” Hebrews 12:2 says that, for the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross. That is endurance. He ran that race for you.
Verse 3 says, “Consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners.” Verse 4 says that we have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood, but Jesus shed blood and endured through it all.
The Father says, “You do have a goal. You do have Someone to imitate. You do have Someone to show you that the Lord can give you endurance to go through whatever He asks.”
Jesus was perfected through endurance and has become the Author and Perfecter of our faith as we go forward into glory.
The Father wants us to get the positive out of discipline. Sonship is wonderful.
For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.
Do not focus only on the word “scourges.” Look at the other two things. First, if the Father has taken up your discipline, you know He loves you. Second, you know you are His son. Not merely a potential son—you are His son. That is why He disciplines you.
Hebrews 12:8 says that if you are without discipline, you are illegitimate children and not sons. But we are partakers of discipline. When the Father comes around, it is because He knows you are ready to encounter whatever discipline He wants to give you.
Hebrews 12:9 says that His discipline increases our life—our zoe life. Hebrews 12:11 says that it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hebrews 12:14 says:
Pursue peace with all men, and sanctification, without which no one will see the Lord.
This process brings us into greater purity of heart so that we may see the Lord.
Think of the goal. Think of sonship. Think of the maturity to be gained in your life.
There are four practical areas in Hebrews where the Father disciplines us unto sonship. The first is fainting in the wilderness because of a bad conscience.
Hebrews 10:22 says:
Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Many saints do not draw near to the Lord because every time they come near, their hearts condemn them. Their conscience is guilty. Therefore, they circle back around in the wilderness.
Hebrews 9:14 says:
How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
The Father is reapplying and helping us understand the precious blood of Jesus. We need the High Priest to get us out of the wilderness of a bad conscience.
In Revelation 12, the first thing said of the overcomers is that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb. If the blood of Jesus Christ is not our present reality and position, we are under condemnation. The enemy will see to it.
Many have been raised in a strict culture of outward laws, expectations, and righteousness. Such an upbringing can leave a person with a guilty conscience. But thank God we have the precious blood of Jesus Christ to wash away all that stuff.
First John says that whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart. He knows our weaknesses. He knows why we do what we do. He has made a way for us to live without condemnation and paralysis in serving the living God.
If you always feel condemned, meet, plead, and pray with your great High Priest. He understands you. He loves you. He knows you. He was tempted like you. Come to Him with all your weaknesses and let the High Priest deliver you by His precious blood.
The Father disciplines us in this: every time you sin, confess your sin. First John 1:9 says:
If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
You may need to confess that sin a thousand times. Keep confessing when you sin. Know that the Lord Jesus forgives you, and then go on. The Word has to retrain your heart.
Some of our guilty conscience is not the conscience given by God but the conscience given by upbringing, family, society, or culture. That conscience must be crucified with Christ so that the real conscience, upon which the Holy Spirit is working, may be sensitized.
The true conscience may convict you of sin, but it does not condemn you. The conscience imposed by family or culture can hold you back from serving the living God.
If you have to get up every night, open Romans 8:1, and say, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,” then baptize yourself into that verse. The Word of God will eventually be applied to your heart, and you will know it is true.
The Father’s discipline for those dealing with a guilty conscience is simple:
The more you have been dealt with concerning sin, the more precious the blood of the Lamb becomes. We live and serve the living God because of the precious blood of the Lamb.
The second problem needing discipline is shrinking back at the Jordan River of the crucified life. Many Christians want to serve God, but as soon as they start, they are tripped up by encumbrances and besetting sin.
Before we run the race, we must lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us. These entanglements are not necessarily evil in themselves, but they entangle our race. Our greatest entanglement is the self-life.
You cannot swim across the Jordan River in flood tide by the strength of your self-life. The Father’s discipline brings you to the end of yourself. The more you struggle, the more exhausted you become and the less fruit you bear.
I have served the Lord with all my heart in a certain matter and seen no fruit. It is discouraging. Then I realized I was doing it, and the Lord would not allow it to bear fruit.
We have to learn that it is Christ, not I, who serves.
This is the Jordan River. Many Christians come up against it and keep trying. “I am going to swim across.” They cannot make it. “I have a raft with all this stuff on it.” Too much baggage. They cannot make it across.
The Father frustrates Christians trying to serve Him out of their own self-life. That may sound mean, but we have to come to the place where we cannot do it anymore.
Often there is a besetting sin—anger, lust, pride, or something else—that keeps tripping us up every time we try to serve God.
There is no way through except Galatians 2:20. There is no way through except the Lord’s deliverance in our lives. The Holy Spirit strips away and exposes these things.
The brothers in New York had a retreat. When they were honest about what they needed to discuss, they said pornography. Christian young men were trying to overcome a temptation staring them in the face every day. They formed accountability partnerships and began to deal with it seriously.
If we are going to serve God, it will not be with such besetting sin and garbage in our lives. The Father will not allow it. He will set up trials and circumstances that undo us and expose our failure.
Hebrews 5 speaks of those who should have been teachers but still needed someone to teach them the elementary principles. They could not chew meat; they needed milk. How can we serve God in that condition?
But there comes a burst of light from heaven. It may come in different ways, but God sends that light, and then there is consecration again in our lives. Romans 12:1-2 speaks of presenting our bodies as living sacrifices.
This time, it is consecration with intelligence. You realize that what you are consecrating is not your old flesh or your old determination to try harder. You realize that you have been crucified with Christ and offer His life in you as a vessel for service.
As you present the members of your body as instruments of righteousness, God begins to do a new thing by His life in your life. You cross the Jordan.
The Jordan is the end of yourself. On the other side is a service anointed by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, and prompted by His life within. It is a whole other dimension.
You still have to learn, “I cannot, but He can.”
Major Ian Thomas shared this message of the exchanged life. He was a youth worker at college and tried to witness to everyone, but nobody was saved. His meetings seemed fruitless. Then he came to Galatians 2:20 and said, “Lord, that is it. I quit.”
The Lord said, “Good.”
Then he asked, “What should I do?” The Lord said, “Go to that meeting this afternoon and speak.” He replied, “I have nothing to say.” The Lord said, “That is okay. I do.”
He went to the meeting not knowing what he would say. He opened his mouth and began to share, and people were saved. But it was not him; it was Christ.
From then on, whenever the Lord told him to do something, he said, “I cannot.” The Lord said, “Yes, but I can.” Then he said, “Okay, I will go.”
The Lord wants to do things by His life, not by ours. There is a discipline process involved, but what a wonderful process it is when we come into the freedom of His life lived through us.
The third need for discipline is the discipline needed for sojourners who have become settlers. We are sojourning through the wilderness, but somewhere along the way we say, “That is pretty nice over there. I think I will settle down.”
It is like the two-and-a-half tribes who stayed east of the Jordan. They fought with the other tribes and shared their victories, but all along they had their eyes on the green fields of Moab. They wanted the beautiful pasturelands east of the Jordan.
They said, “We love the Lord. We serve the Lord. We are all for the Lord, but we want to live east of the Jordan.” They became semi-worldly, and that is the first stage of becoming worldly.
When the Assyrians came and took northern Israel captive, those tribes were the first to go into captivity. They had intermarried with the Moabites, worshiped their idols, and lost their touch with heaven.
Perhaps this is like the people Haggai addressed: “Consider your ways.” They had come out to sacrifice, but then became distracted building their own houses and their own lives.
It is amazing how foolish Christians can become. Those who have been around for a while can name brothers whom we do not see anymore because they are too busy with stuff over in Moab. Something distracts them from the pilgrim way.
Settling is easier than being a pilgrim.
Usually, two things make someone settle. First, problems come: family problems, health problems, financial problems. The thorny ground chokes the Word through the cares of life, and the person becomes stuck.
The second distraction is success. Success breeds commitment to success, more blessings, and more blessings. When you are blessed enough, you begin to feel very free. But do not let your freedom become an occasion for the flesh.
The Lord has blessed many saints with financial freedom, homes, and basic comforts. What a tragedy if these blessings become distractions from serving the Lord. We may serve the Lord, but only out of obligation, without a touch of heaven.
Unless the Father disciplines such a person, he may come to despise his birthright, as Esau did. He may come short of the grace of God.
The church of Laodicea was so comfortable on earth that it had little thought for heaven. We can be distracted by things and success until we are no longer living as pilgrims under the cloud and fire. We become a camp off to the side.
Jesus said that no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. That is serious. The Father speaks seriously about it. This foolishness has to be driven out of a child of God before he despises his birthright.
Hebrews 4:1 says:
Therefore let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.
Have you taken a side detour? Then the Father, in His love, will begin designing circumstances that put pressure on what had been a comfortable life. God the Father is more concerned for character than for comfort.
He will deal with us until we realize that our purpose and calling are not to accumulate things, but to be stewards of everything He gives us, including our time.
The fourth matter is the most sober. It concerns the saint who once served and knew the Lord, tasted the Lord in wonderful ways, but is now in willful rebellion and willful sin.
Hebrews 10:26 says:
If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.
And it says:
It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 speak of children of God who truly know the Lord, have tasted the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, tasted the age to come, known something of heaven, and tasted the Word of God—yet fall away.
They may grow weary. Their souls may get short. Often they become offended. If there is a possible way to be offended, and you serve the Lord long enough, you will be offended. The saints may offend you, the leaders may offend you, your own hopes may disappoint you, your ambitions may not be fulfilled, or you may even be offended by God.
When people become offended, they fall away.
I do not believe Hebrews 6 teaches the loss of salvation. The writer says that if you knowingly and willfully walk away from the Lord, there is nothing human beings can do to make you repent. They can come and talk with you, but if you have made up your mind, it is impossible from the human side.
But it is not impossible with God. God has a way of restoring His children. One way or another, they will fall into the hands of the living God.
Hebrews 10:29 gives perhaps the most solemn warning to Christians in the Bible:
How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.”
And again, “The Lord will judge His people.”
It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
The Lord loves us so much that even when someone goes far away, He knows where that person is and can still deal with him. If He must do some tragic thing in that person’s life to save his spirit, He will.
Hebrews 12:25 says:
See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.
Those beyond human help can still be touched by the Father who loves His children.
The Lord’s discipline is to convince us of one thing: there is only the way forward. Be faithful. There is only the way forward. There is no other way if you want to be with Him.
If we truly want to know the God of discipline—God our Father—we already know that He is a God of grace and mercy. Every discipline He gives is given with grace and mercy. But He is also a holy God, and He wants us to be sons.
He is looking out for the interests of His own Son, and He wants us to become sons. Even His wrath is jealous love. He is convincing us to follow the Lord.
How important is your inheritance to you? You have a kingdom inheritance.
The church plays a game that says everybody will make it, everybody is a winner, you do not have to do anything, and you can be as worldly as you want because everybody gets the same prize in the end.
But that is not in the Bible.
When His kingdom comes, those who endured—those who abode under the Lord—will be blessed. He will say, “Come, enjoy the inheritance. You have been faithful in a little thing; now be faithful over much. Come into the blessing of the Lord.”
But there will be people whose lives were meant to perform, be, and serve in a certain way, and they will be left outside. Nothing would cause more remorse in my life than to be unable to be part of the kingdom when the Lord Jesus returns.
I was born for that kingdom. That is my inheritance, and I want to claim it. I want to keep pressing on to Jesus. Do you?
Second Peter 1:10-11 puts it positively:
Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;
for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
Keep growing. When Jesus comes, you will be ready.
We have some believers who have been Christians for fifty, sixty, or seventy years, and we have brand-new Christians here this week. Will the Lord take only the old ones? No.
He looks for the person standing under the light, saying, “Thy will be done”; the person hearing today as the Lord speaks, studying the Word, serving the Lord, growing in faith, knowledge, and endurance.
Whether you are a brand-new Christian or have been a Christian for many years, it is the one who is walking and serving when He comes. Those are the overcomers. Those are the ones who will be received into His kingdom.
Are you on the way, or are you stymied? Are you stuck? The discipline of the Father says, “Get unstuck.” There may be disciplines necessary in your life, but He wants you growing so that you may be part of the kingdom, even as He has destined you to be.
What a wonderful kingdom we have to look forward to. It is coming very soon.
Are you on the way through the wilderness with your High Priest and Apostle? Are you listening to the Father when He speaks? If He reproves you, do you take reproof?
You will find that reproof always comes with love. Are you under discipline? Has He placed you under discipline for some reason? It is a wonderful place to be because, when you are under discipline, you know that He is pleased with you even while you are under discipline.
The Father loves us—the Father of mercies, the Father of all grace. He comes and says:
My son, do not take lightly My discipline,
And do not faint when I reprove you;
For whom the Lord loves, these He disciplines,
And scourges every one that is a son.
Are you a son? Is that your destiny—that you will meet not only Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest, but also your Father? It is all part of the process of being placed as a son.
Dear Father in heaven, we are so thankful that You come to us and speak a word that is strong and true. We pray that You will speak to our hearts in such a way as to enable us to grow into sons.
Lord, take away from sensitive spirits any sense of condemnation, any sense that they have been thrown out. Rather, draw us by the presence of Jesus. We want to run after Jesus.
We know we need much discipline in our lives, but Lord, we want to hear Your voice and obey in this day. We want to be those able to eat meat, discern righteousness, and do that which is right.
We want to be correctable, Lord, and understand that there is much more to learn of living in this eternal kingdom soon to come. Teach us. Have mercy on us. Lead every one of us into this glorious kingdom that is our destiny. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.