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4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” ~ Hebrews 12:4-6
Today, we return to our study of Hebrews 12. In these three verse that we will consider today, we will gain valuable principles on battling those things in this life that would trip us up in our pursuit of the Lord Jesus.
In v.4 of today's passage we read, "In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood."
Like any important relationship that we have, our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus requires endurance. The writer of Hebrews has written these words so that we would not grow weary in our pursuit of Him. In order to do this, our focus is to be placed on the Lord Jesus who suffered as He did on the cross. As a result, we will be enabled to look at our difficulties and sufferings through the lens of His wisdom.
Our struggle against sin or the temptation that leads us to choose contrary to God's wisdom is and always will be intense due to the fact that we are born again and we live in a world that is naturally in opposition to God and His culture. In this struggle we often find ourselves positioned to see our nothingness the best. When we come face to face with His greatness and our own nothingness, it is imperative that we are defined by the Lord Jesus greatness because He made us to be in fellowship with Him.
In Hebrews 12:1-3, we saw how drawing encouragement from the lives of other believers who have gone before us helps, but not completely. It is only when we look to the Lord Jesus that we gain the additional motivation to endure in our pursuit of Him and His culture.
The "sin" that these to whom the writer of Hebrews wrote was the sin of others, not their own sin. The struggle was to not be influenced by whatever opposition they faced from "sinners," fellow Jews who opposed the gospel, and to continue believing in God's promises. Up to this point, they had "not yet resisted to the point of shedding their blood."
In v.5-6 of today's passage we read, "5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son."'
In these verses the writer of Hebrews quotes Proverbs 3:11-12 where he provides the the encouragement these young believers needed. This reminder included the reminder that they were the sons of God. When we consider what the Father thinks of the Lord Jesus, we are given the understanding of what He thinks of us who believe in His Son as our Savior. God, the Father, wants us to understand something so thoroughly foreign to our thinking that it is difficult for us to accept it and easy for us to forget, just like it was for the original readers of Hebrews. But if we hear it, and remember it, and believe it, our spirits will be lifted in the middle of our greatest struggles.
The phrase "loose heart," here in v.5, is the same word that is translated "grow weary" in v.3. The hostility of sinners often causes us to grow weary. And, it is the discipline or the training of the Lord, that enables us to understand that our growth in the Lord includes the opposition or hostility of sinners.
From Proverbs 3:11, we discover that God's training can include reproof and scourging for destructive behavior, although it is by no means limited to reproof and scourging. Training, or discipline, is not to be confused with punishment. That would be a negation of the cross, where Christ absorbed all of God's wrath and punishment for us. In punishment, there is no intent to help, only to hurt. The goal of punishment is vengeance, not redemption. God's discipline of us is always redemptive.
According to v.5 of today's passage, we are not to regard the discipline or training of the Lord, "lightly," "because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son."
When we called on the Lord Jesus to be our Savior, we became the sons and daughters of God. The purpose of God’s discipline of us is not to punish us but to transform us. He has already meted out His punishment for our sins on the Lord Jesus at Calvary. The key words here are "loves" and "accepts." The emphasis here is not at all on the result of training but the motive behind it, and, His motive is always pure love. The Lord trains us because He loves us. Bad things happen to us because He loves us. The training of the Lord is a sign of His acceptance of us as sons. It is a sign that He wants us close to Him. More than that, it is a sign that we are close to Him, for if we are disciplined, we are the accepted sons and daughters of God.
