BOOK OF HEBREWS
DISCIPLESHIP
DR. JIM DIXON
DECEMBER 02, 1984
HEBREWS 12:1-11
There is an ancient Chinese proverb: parents who never put their foot down generally have children who step on toes. Discipline is necessary at every age of life, and the Bible speaks of three different kinds of discipline. First of all, the Bible speaks of parental discipline. As Christian parents, God calls us to discipline our children, to bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Now, parental discipline has been much abused in our nation and in this world. In the city of Los Angeles, not too long ago, a seven-year-old girl came into the emergency room of a major hospital. Her mother, in a fit of rage, had just cut out her eyes with razor blades. Can YOU imagine what it would be like to grow up blind knowing that your own mother had taken sight of yours. In that same city, a 10-year-old boy was strung by his heels from the family garage. The parents decided to discipline him. They almost took his life.
The city of Los Angeles has not cornered the market on child abuse. There is child abuse all across this nation in every city and every town. They are little girls who are molested by their fathers from their earliest months. There are little boys who are branded with hot irons. I do not think anything is more tragic than child abuse in our time, and yet violent physical affliction is not the only form of child abuse. There is another form of child abuse just as serious, and this form of child abuse is called permissiveness. A child left to itself is an abused child. A child that has no boundaries, no enforced guidelines, is just as abused as a child that is branded with hot irons.
Now unfortunately, liberalism in education and psychology and theology has done much to reinforce permissiveness in our time. Some parents are so afraid of physically abusing their children that they no longer administer proper spankings. Some parents are so afraid of stifling childhood creativity that they no longer offer proper criticism or proper rebuke to their children. Some parents are so afraid of prejudicial indoctrination that they no longer offer their children teaching and spiritual values in morals. In ethics, liberalism is rampant in our time and liberalism, whether in education or in theology or in psychology is rooted in a philosophy that is called secular humanism. Secular humanism teaches that mankind is intrinsically good, that there is no God and there is no sin.
Humanism teaches that children should be encouraged, they should be provided for, they should be given opportunity, but they should not be disciplined or instructed. They should simply be given opportunity and they will bloom like the beauty of a flower. But You see the Bible presents a different portrait of humankind. The Bible tells us that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and we have gone astray from our mother’s womb and discipline is essential and proper child rearing. Bob prayed that the Holy Spirit would be upon me. I am sure he is, but my next point is not.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a great poet and philosopher who lived during the English romantic period. He was the son of a minister and one of fourteen children. When in the year 1810, when Coleridge was 38 years old, he had a friend over his to his over to his house, and the friend was a liberal educator, and they were discussing child rearing and the educator said that parents should not discipline their children because that produced hardness of heart. He said that parents should not instruct their children because that produced prejudicial indoctrination. Parents should not instruct their children in religion or in morals or in ethics. Children should be set at liberty to bloom like the beauty of a flower. Coleridge smiled and he invited the educator into his backyard to see his gardens. They opened the back door and the educator saw nothing but a field of weeds.
He said, “Samuel, I do not understand. You have nothing here but weeds.” Coleridge said, “Well, you understand, I did not want to restrict the creativity of my garden in any way. I wanted to set it at liberty to produce in accordance with its nature to give bloom like the beauty of a flower.” Now, what Coleridge understood was that children left to themselves do not grow gardens. They grow weeds, and the Bible calls that sin. As parents, we are called to discipline our children in order to deal with sin, in order to pull weeds from their gardens. We are called to instruct our children in order that we might plant flowers in their gardens. We are to discipline our children and instruct our children, pull weed and plant flowers. That is what we are called to do. That is why the Bible says he who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves his son is diligent to discipline him.
That is why the Bible says, bring up a child and the way he should go, and when he is old, he shall not depart from it. That is why the Bible says hero Israel, the Lord your God is one God, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and words. I tell you, this day shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children as you wake in the morning, as you go to bed at night. As you walk along the way. We are called to discipline our children and we are called to instruct our children and our discipline will never take the form of child abuse if our discipline is biblical.
The biblical word, the Greek word that is used to describe parental discipline is a special word. It is the word paideuo. It is a word that is used only to describe the relationship of parents with their very own children. This word paideuo is different from the Greek word for punishment, which was the word coloso. Coloso, or punishment, was a judicial term. It was used in the courtroom. It was used to describe the implementation of punishment from the leveling of a fine to the pronouncement of a death penalty, coloso or punishment focused on the criminal act. Its goal was justice and I for an eye, its motive was righteous, indignation, even wrath and intended to breed fear in its recipients. But you see, the Bible does not use this word coloso to describe the discipline that we are as parents are to give to our children. We are not judges and they do not sit in our classrooms. They do not sit in our courtrooms.
The word that is used is this special word paideuo. And paideuo does not focus on criminal acts. It focuses on the desired behavior. Its goal is not an eye for an eye, its goal is not to get even. Its goal is nurtured, even perfection, transformation and the likeness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Its motive is not wrath or rage. The motive of paideuo is always loving concern, and it does not breed fear, but it breeds security in its recipients.
Now, you can spank your child and it can be paideuo or it can be coloso depending on you. If your attitude of heart is rage and wrath, then it is coloso and it is not proper. But if your attitude of heart is loving concern, then it is paideia. If your goal is getting even making them pay, then it is coloso. But if your goal is nurture and transformation into the character of Christ, then it is paideuo. You see, the choice is yours. And the beautiful thing is that when we become Christians, when we receive Christ as Lord and savior of life, and we enter his family through belief in His son, the word that is used to describe the father’s relationship to us is the word [inaudible]. It is not the word coloso. Justice has already been satisfied on the cross. God is not trying to get even with us. We are not destined for wrath, but to obtain salvation and God’s discipline in the life of his children is always administered in love and for the sake of our betterment.
And the fatherhood of God is meant to be the model as Christians that we have for the parenting of our children. Parental discipline. Now there is a second form of discipline that I want us to discuss this morning, and it is called “self-discipline.” The Greek word, egkrateia, which means inner strength. We discipline our children in order that they might develop self-discipline because we are not going to be with them always. The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, and he said, discipline yourself. In the book of Proverbs, God has said that a man without self-discipline is like a city broken into and left without walls.
10 years ago, I was driving my car on Havana Street in Aurora, and I began to notice a pressure feeling around my head, a tight band, and it lasted for a time. And so I went into the doctor, and I had my blood pressure checked and my blood pressure was 185 over 105. Now that’s not perfect blood pressure. In fact, the doctor seemed to be concerned about a meltdown, some kind of China syndrome. So he put me on an exercise program, and I began to jog. Now as it turned out, I did not really have long-term high blood pressure with some kind of a sympathetic reaction. Barb was seven and a half months pregnant with Heather. And a month and a half later when Heather was born, my blood pressure just returned to normal. But I have continued to jog for 10 years and, conservatively speaking, I am sure I have logged more than 7,000 miles in that time. I have experienced all the hazards of jogging. I have been chased by dogs. I have been drenched by passing cars in the midst of rainstorm. I have jogged in temperatures from zero degrees to 90 degrees. I have experienced many hazards. My mustache has frozen over.
I have tried to make myself comfortable. In the summertime, I take ice cubes and I put them in a washcloth, and I carry them with me to kind of cool myself down. I have worn shoes that cost as much as a hundred dollars in order to keep my feet comfortable. I have tried to avoid the hard city streets. I have run on the Highline Canal, I have run on terrain all-weather tracks. I have run on country roads. I have tried to make it fun. I have carried radios with me. I have listened to football games. I jogged with friends. I jogged with my brother. On Saturday morning, Barbara’s gone with me on her bicycle. I have tried to encourage myself. I have tried to encourage myself. I have read, I have read the books by Jim Fix, and I have read Runner’s World, but the bottom line is jogging is miserable.
There are a few times, there is a few times when it is enjoyable, but most of the time it simply requires self-discipline. And most of the things in life that are worthwhile are like that. It takes self-discipline to work, to do your job responsibly and effectively. It takes self-discipline to diet, to eat effect, to eat responsibly, eat effectively, to eat responsibly. It takes self-discipline to live a life of integrity in this world. Self-discipline, to live a life of obedience in a fallen world. Self-discipline to live a life in accordance with the moral and ethical values that God has revealed and proclaimed in His Word. The holy scriptures. Many times it takes self-discipline to be faithful in the word self-discipline, to be faithful in prayer.
Barb and I disciplined our children, Drew and Heather. We do that because we long to see them develop self-discipline. We make them clean their rooms and make their beds. Drew’s not very aesthetic. He does the best he can, but we do that because we want them to be self-disciplined when they grow up so that they will not live in the midst of a mess. We discipline them to do the dishes. We disciplined them to do their homework. They do not always get “A’s,” that is alright.
But we want them to grow up and be disciplined enough to function in a competitive world and to live a life that is responsible. The other day, uh, about two or three days ago, I was in the kitchen and Drew and Heather were sitting at the kitchen table and uh, they were, I think Barbara had given them a Hostess Twinkie. This was in the afternoon. They came home from school, and I heard Heather turn and say to Drew, isn’t Mom great? She sure spoils us. And Drew took a bite of the Twinkie and he said, yep, she sure spoils us, but not enough.
There may be times when unintentionally we spoil our children, but the truth is we want to discipline them because we want to see them develop self-discipline that they might live responsibly in this world right now, whatever discipline Drew and Heather have, they have because they long to please mom and dad. Their self-discipline is rooted in their desire to please us. And that is why when they bring their report card home, they say, how did I do? They bring it to us. When they clean their room, they come, and they want us to come and see it. And they say, how did we do? When they wash the dishes, they have us come into the kitchen and they say, how did we do? But you see, the Bible tells us that when we grow up, we are to discipline ourselves out of a desire to please God. We are to discipline ourselves out of a desire to please the living God. And that is what we want for Heather and Drew. The Apostle Peter, in the first chapter of second Peter tells us that Godly self-discipline must be rooted in a desire to be virtuous in the sight of God. If you long to hear God, say to you, well done my good and faithful servants, then you are going to discipline yourself in this world.
The Apostle Paul says, every athlete exercises self-control, self-discipline in all things. They do this to obtain a perishable crown, but we imperishable…. I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and I subdue it, lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified. Paul said, “Let those of you who would be matured be thus minded, self-disciplined, essential for godliness as we pilgrimage through this world.”
Now thirdly, and finally, there is another form of discipline, and it is called divine discipline. God’s discipline. We discipline our children in order that they might develop self-discipline, but God wants us to know that if we do not develop self-discipline, then we should begin to expect his discipline as children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He loves us too much to neglect us.
He is a responsible parent. He establishes boundaries and He enforces them in our life. His eyes are constantly upon us. He sees everything you do, and He is not negligent to discipline you. One year ago, I read the tragic story of a two-year-old girl who lost her life when she fell into a canyon on jagged rocks. Through many tears, her father explained what had happened in the springtime in New England. He took his little two-year-old daughter out to the country, they were going to have a picnic, and found a beautiful meadow with flowers in it, and they got out of the car, and they walked into the meadow and the fathers found a spot under the tree. He sat down there, he began to read a book, and he told his little two-year-old girl to go ahead and play, but not to go too far to stay close by.
And she would go around the meadow and she would pick flowers and she would bring the flowers up to her father and say. She would say “Flower, daddy.” He would say yes. Then he would go back to reading his book. But after a time he fell asleep. He said he did not know how long, but when he woke up, she was not there. In a panic, he began to search everywhere, all across the field and threw the meadow. Finally, he came to the precipice. He came to the cliffs, and there he looked down and he saw the body of his little two-year-old girl crushed in the rocks. Below, this world is filled with human tragedy. It is not possible for most of us to comprehend the anguish that that father felt, it is not possible for us to comprehend his guilt since he had fallen asleep, and he felt somewhat responsible for her loss. As much as we love our children, the Bible tells us God loves us more and he is not irresponsible.
He never falls asleep. He is not negligent. His eyes are constantly upon you. The Bible says The God of Israel never slumbers and the God of Israel never sleeps. The psalmist says “Whither shall I flee? Should I flee from thy presence? If I ascend to the highest heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in the depths of Sheol, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and I dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Thou are with me.” God is constantly with you as your father through Christ. He looks down upon you. And when you come to the cliffs, when you come to the precipice, when you come to the jagged rocks, He is there and He sees you, you and in His love, He disciplines you and He begins to draw you back. And you see, He wants you to view His discipline like that as being for your good.
And that is why the Bible says, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord. Have courage when you are chastised by Him, for God disciplines, those whom He loves he disciplines, and He chastises every son that He receives. It is for discipline that you must endure. God is treating you like sons for what has done is there whom his father does not discipline. And if we were left without discipline in which all have participated, then we would be illegitimate children and not sons. We have had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live our earthly Fathers discipline us for a short time at their pleasure, but God disciplines us for our good that we might share His holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
God has one goal in your life by his grace and by his mercy, by his parenting. He wants to bring you to righteousness. He wants to bring you to holiness. He wants to conform you to the expressed image of the son of God. He wants to bring you to the gates of heaven without flaws or blemish prepared in this world for life in the next world. That is his goal in your life are live the northeastern United States and with this will close and the northeastern United States. Codfish is a big industry and there is a market for codfish all over the United States, particularly in those portions of the country furthest removed from the northeast coast. But that presented a problem. How did you ship codfish from the east coast to the west coast and still preserve the freshness and the flavor? At first, they used to freeze the codfish and shipped the codfish in trucks, but they found that the process of freezing took away the flavor and the freshness of the fish.
And so they began to put the codfish in saltwater tanks, keep the codfish alive and ship it from the east coast to the west coast. But they found an amazing thing. The codfish still lost its flavor, and it also lost its texture. It became soft and mushy. But somebody came up with a brilliant idea, some genius. They still ship the codfish in saltwater tanks, but in the tanks, they put the natural enemy of the codfish. They put the catfish and that ornery catfish chased those codfish from the east coast to the west coast. And when the codfish arrived on the west coast, they still had their flavor, their freshness, their texture. In fact, they were better than they had been when they left the east coast.
Now you see, God has one desire in your life and that that you might arrive at the shores of heaven in good condition. We are all in a great tank called life. And if you had the authority, if you had the power to govern the circumstances of your pilgrimage, you would not allow a single catfish in that tank. If our children could choose, they would never clean their bedroom, they would never wash a dish and they would never do any homework. But we love them too much to allow that God loves us too much to allow us a life with nothing but smooth seeds. We need catfish in our tank. We need trials in life. How do you view tests and trials in your life? The world views them as mere happenstance, maybe bad luck. But as Christians, you are not called to view life in that way. God wants us to view some of those trials as expressions of his loving discipline. Obviously, other trials are simply the result of living in a fallen world, but God wants us to view all trials as opportunities to grow, opportunities to learn his love.
That is why the Apostle James says count it all joy. When you experience various trials, you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and lets steadfastness have its full effect, that you might pre be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. When you are in the midst of a trial, God wants you to ask yourself that there is not some disobedience from which he would have you to repent. God wants you to take an inward look in the midst of that trial and you all have them, and God wants you to ask if you haven’t gone astray, if you’re not near the cliffs, if you’re not at the precipice, if you’re not near the jagged rock, and by His discipline, He’s not seeking to draw you back in the midst of every trial. He wants you to view it as an opportunity to grow three types of discipline, parental discipline, self-discipline, and God’s discipline, all essential for life in this world. The author of Hebrews says, for the moment, all discipline is painful rather than pleasant, but later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. May God add his blessing to the words that he shared with us this morning. Let us have a word of prayer.
Lord Jesus, by Your love, You have called us into Your family. Have as we have received You as Lord and Savior by Your power. Your Father has become our Father, and we have entered the family of God. Lord, we would live responsibly as children of God. We have children of our own. Help us to rear them properly with loving discipline and in the instruction of the Lord. Help us to establish biblical boundaries and enforce them in love. Lord, we thank You for the parents You have given us in this world, for the time they have given us, for the love they have poured out. We pray Your blessings on them.
Lord, help us as adults to develop self-discipline and we might live lives of obedience in this world, that we might follow the guidelines of Your word, that we might live morally and ethically in a fallen world. Lord, we thank You for Your discipline. We know that it is administered in love because You care so much for us. Help us to have open hearts to Your discipline like clay in the hands of a potter. We want You to mold us. We love You; He trust You. We look forward to the day. We will see You, and we pray these things in Your great name. Amen.