Trained by the Loving Father

Main idea: When hostility comes, trust that you are being trained by the loving Father.

God’s goal

The race you're running

1. Strip off every weight and sin.
2. Think hard about Jesus’ example.
3. Remember God’s love trains
4. Rejoice in the results.

• Automated Transcription

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  We are turning today to our I think it's about our fifth session in our trust in God series and the book that we encourage you to get along with that is trusting God, by Jerry bridges, and I think the subtitle of that book is trusting God even when life hurts. And that's how we want to help you. We want to help you. Trust God through adversity. We all face adversity. How do you trust God in that? It started with Ian, who's away at youth camp right now. It started with him talking about trusting God in the big picture, governments, grand things. Josh hit the trusting God who is sovereign over all the little details. And then John plesnick talked to us about trusting God in His goodness, so we could trust God because he's good. And last week, we looked at his wisdom. We can trust God because he's wise. Today we're going to we're going to look at this. We're going to trust God because we know He loves us. I can trust God in adversity because I know he loves us. God is love first. John four eight says God's determination is love toward the members of the Trinity. God's determination is to love us. He has real affections for his people. We want to look at that today, probably in one of the most forgotten ways. Stand with me for the reading of God's word, and we're going to read Hebrews chapter 12. One of the quickest to forget ways of God's love is in Hebrews 12. That's what the writer of Hebrews tells us, that we are quick to forget this truth. You'll see it when we get to it. Hebrews 12, verse one, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted in your struggle against sin. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood, and have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons, my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. And what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline and all you have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more 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, that we may 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. This is the word of the Lord, oh God, we thank You that You love us. We see it in Christ. We see it in provision. We see it in your spirit you have poured out Your Spirit in our hearts and now Holy Spirit, we need you to understand the words that you inspired and put down on these pages so that we would turn to you in faith, trust Christ and follow Him, give our will over to a loving Father. We pray that you would be at work. There are a dozen or so people that just are on the forefront of my mind, sitting in this room or in the room before this hour, going through such hard things, such hard things, it is an amazement that they are bearing them, and we pray that You would help them and us. Pray that you would help us be ready to learn and hear. I pray for churches around our city going through their own difficulties and challenges. Lamp stand, church. And Chris tornquist is going to be preaching there and coming coming weeks as interim, as they search for what they're going to do in the future, how they're going to survive as a church, a new church plant. God grant them grace. Help them be a lamp for the gospel. Help us right here. Be a lamp for the gospel. You have given us the gospel for life, for the return to Christ, and for transformed lives. Do that this morning, in Christ's name. Amen, you may be seated this week. Saw the home going of Dr John MacArthur. I know some of you may not know that name. He was the founder and president of the Masters seminary, radio preacher on Grace to You, pastor of Grace Community Church for 56 years, we are one of seven distance locations for the Masters seminary. We have a distance campus. There are 18 masters Academy international training sites around the world. These are all part of his part of his vision. I have a handful of personal MacArthur stories. I got my first degree from the Masters college. I was offered a scholarship as a transfer from Eastern Washington University to the Masters College. Shortly after arriving at masters, Dr MacArthur was gracious. I met I met him there. More importantly, I met my wife, Lynn, to there. And one of the really important story MacArthur stories has to do with the John MacArthur seal of approval after getting a really hard foul in a game, I didn't respond with retaliation after the game, Dr MacArthur goes over to my wife, Lynn, dad, who was waiting for me after the game. We were newly engaged, and he says, Dan is a really great leader for the team. Like yes, the John MacArthur seal of approval if she was getting cold feet. Hopefully this will keep her from having them. The one that's far more important to me is in 2004 after I went through the master seminary for my M div, I got back to Faith Bible Church was going through all kinds of turmoil. In 2004 they asked me to be team lead and teaching pastor, it was for Lynn and I probably the hardest time of our lives, because we had so many people leave. It was difficult to sort out what was going on, and Dr MacArthur called me two times on Monday nights at 10pm like the guy doesn't have enough to do. You know that usually Monday's work, go visit all the sick people, run staff meeting, and at 10pm he calls me to give me wisdom about how to press on and press forward. What a precious gift. So in honor of him, I listened to his 2010 sermon on this passage, as Austin Duncan calls him, J Mac. I said, like, what does J Mac have to say on this so I downloaded it from Grace to You, and in the introduction to this passage, he said, We need this passage because we have not finished, finished our race, yet we still live by faith, not by sight. And I'm mowing the lawn while I'm listening to it, I go like this. I'm like you are now, John, you see him now, what a precious thing. He finished faithfully. I mean, that's he's kind of my contemporary Hall of Faith. This passage is set right after the Great Hall of Faith. Passage in Hebrews, all these, from Abel to the prophets who had faith in God, did great things for God and suffered greatly for God without yet receiving the reward. We need to do the same. MacArthur, was unflinching for 56 years of pastoral ministry, and he is a model to me of dealing with criticism. You're not going to go through life as a Christian without hostility. You're not, I mean, you're not going to go through life without hostility. Period. You're not going to go through life going to go through life as a Christian without hostility. And the first call, one of the first calls that Jesus makes to would be disciples, is a recognition of that reality. If anyone Jesus If anyone wishes to follow me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
  
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  That's not a do this, and I'll reward you statement as if by suffering, you could earn God's credit or favor. It is a. Faith statement this world is filled with sin and rebellion, you have to make a determined statement that I am cutting that off every day, and I am trusting Christ as the one to follow. It is a statement of faith that Jesus, Christ is better than anything in existence, and you are willing, if something else is competing with Christ for your affection, to cut it off and pursue him. That's how you started the race. But as soon as pain comes, we forget. We forget. This passage is written to remind us. This passage is written to remind us, what are you feeling from God when you have a family member criticize you for your faith in Christ. I mean when, when you have a kid or a grandkid who denies the faith, denies you for having the faith like do you feel loved by God at that moment when your adult, grown children won't let you see your grandchildren because they think your belief in Christ is dangerous. What are you feeling from God? Oh, that's how I know God loves me when your biology professor opens her first lecture saying that any references to God will get you a failing grade. Are you feeling loved by God when you're at work and holding a biblical view about gender will get you fired? Do you say? You know that really shows me God loves me. That's why it's the most forgotten reality about God's love. Because what happens here is people were saying that the story in Hebrews is this is Jewish Christians who have trusted Christ as their Messiah, and a whole bunch, a greater number of Jews had grown hostile toward them, so much so that some had had their property destroyed or taken from them. They were undergoing severe persecution, and some were saying, How can this be God's love for me? And one of two things was happening, I'm out, or I quit, like I just can't do it anymore. Though Hebrews is written so that you would look to Jesus as you go through trials, that you would look to Jesus as better than Moses, better than Joshua, better than the priest, better than all the sacrifices. The ultimate sacrifice is Jesus, and you would look to Him, that you would look to Him. So the writer wants to stir our memory. He says, when those pain points come, you need to know you're loved, not in removing the pain, but in being trained by the pain, the big idea out of this section goes like this, when hostility comes, trust that you are being trained by the loving father. When hostility comes, trust that you are being trained by the loving father. God has two purposes for you in trials, first is to transform you to be like Jesus, his son that gives him glory here on Earth, criticism, hostility as a Christian is a training tool by God to make you more like Jesus, which gives God more glory on Earth and helps you be a better witness. The second purpose of this training is to help you get across the finish line, because the journey gets harder as you go, not easier. And he wants to build a strength. He wants to build a purpose. He wants to build a character to help you cross the finish line. I think of the example of MacArthur. You know, he's a celebrity pastor, and you think, you know, he should be satisfied, because all kinds of people have bought his books, and all kinds of people show up at his church. And he's super popular. He's on the celebrity pastor circuit. I. So he has, he has endured enormous criticism, enormous criticism. You will too, you will too. Your race, God's purposes for your trials. Sub point there in the introduction, second, your race. What is it your race is your life of faith that is living, trusting Jesus until you cross the finish line, until you cross the finish line. And that finish line could be at death, or it could be a Christ return. And you have family, you have neighbors, you need to evangelize, earning them to join the race with you. You want to say, come be part of my people, because we're part of Jesus people. You have a church that strengthens you and you serve and you serve them, and they can so that they can continue in the faith, and you provide a Christ like example for all that's your race you have to evangelize. You have a church that strengthens you and you strengthen them, and you provide a Christ like example of all you want to finish that race in faith. You want to finish it in faith. And intuitively you know it. You know it's true. Every person who becomes an accomplished athlete or an accomplished musician has had a coach or a teacher who has put them through painful training. You know it's true. You know that there is no accomplishment in this world that is worthwhile if it's easy. Ian, this isn't a particularly redemptive thing, but a lot of you like puzzles. Willie Galion loves puzzles every winter, when they're land locked and inside locked, they like buy a 3000 piece puzzle. Like any of you like puzzles? Yeah, I bet you do. Do you buy the 25 piece puzzle that takes you two minutes to put together? It's not worth it, right? There's not enough pain. I
  
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  when it comes to God, we forget. And here's the difference, when you sign up for it, you're like, Yeah, but when it happens to you, you're mad. This wasn't my choice. Yes, it was. If you're a Christian, you signed up for it when Jesus said, If anyone wants to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me. The writer of Hebrews is reminding you of what you originally signed up for, not to say, suck it up buttercup, but to say, you have a purpose, and God has a purpose. So let's follow the passage. We'll highlight the love portion when it comes. I know my job, the elder's job could be summarized in Colossians, 128 to present. Every man complete in Christ, every man, every woman in Colossians, 128 the present, has to do with the moment Jesus splits the sky in glory, in a great cloud, if you want to put it in your mind, over Riverfront Park in all glory, and you are ready for his return. We want to present you complete in Christ, he prays that way, in First Thessalonians, that at His return, you would be holy, blameless. Or when it happens, when it goes
  
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  and your chest never rises in this life again, I
  
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  you. That's what the writer of Hebrews wants. That's what the elders want. That's what I want. So God loves you, and He will train you to finish. Let's walk through his training regimen. Number one, strip off every weight and sin. If you're going to get across that finish line in faith, if you're going to take the pains and difficulties that come at you in the right way, you need to start by stripping off every weight and sin if you're going to finish well, you're going to have to cut loose your greatest enemies, distractions and sins. I mean, your greatest enemies are distractions and sin. You're gonna have to learn how to cut them off. First verse one of chapter 12 says, Therefore, looking at that hall of witnesses, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, chapter 11 is not literally the Hall of witnesses sitting in the stadium going finish. It is their testimony. If you've never been there, go to the what I call the Hall of Fame at Gonzaga at the McCarthy center. It's open through the week, and it's like a big museum. And you'll find a 40 foot poster of drew Timmy, you know, like all these guys who have gone before, and it is positioned for the student athletes, because the weight room and the training room is attached to it, the locker rooms are attached to it, and the McCarthy center is attached to it. When an athlete walks in and they look up, they are inspired by the players who have gone before in every field of athletics that Gonzaga has been successful in since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. Have fun. Read chapter 11 this week. You'll see what I mean. Lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
  
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  These trusted God and did what was right and good in this life. They made an impact, and they suffered greatly without receiving their reward. You have a God given race to run and you have two enemies to finishing it well, distractions and sins. Distractions are the things that you're doing, the things that you're obsessed with. They are not sins themselves, but they are weighing you down. And functionally, how do you find what they are, is you just take some time to prioritize your life, saying, I can't do everything. What's the most important thing? What are we going to do to refocus right now? Like that's the simplest way to think about it, but God will bring trials or difficulties to help heighten the need of priority. Not long ago, Lynn and I played a card from Dan and Kelly. Dan's playbook of marital counseling. A couple have been struggling with series of problems for years, and we said, well, we'll be happy to counsel you. Here's the Dan and Kelly rule book for a couple who have been in problems for years, you can't get pregnant, you can't move to a new house, and you can't buy a dog. How do those have to do with my problems? Well, here's how you have deeply entrenched patterns, and if you're going to take the time necessary to conquer those patterns, you can't get distracted by adding another kid to your life by getting a dog or moving houses, because those things will suck up all your time you ever got a puppy because they have watched literally people fall off the tracks from making real progress with the Lord because they didn't prioritize godliness. Is having a kid, getting a puppy, or what was the third a sin? Were those a sin? Buying are those sins? Of course they're not sins. Of course they're not sins. But those are illustrations of the kinds of things that can be distractions, so you have to reprioritize. You have they can be your they can be a huge enemy. They're weighing you down in the sense, you have three layers of clothing that you're wearing at the core. If you have trusted Christ, you have Christ's righteousness that will get you across the finish line. But you also have sins and distractions, and if you're going to run the race, well, you got to get the distractions off, you have to reprioritize so that you can focus. Second, you got to get the sins off, because they're slowing you down. They're hurting your testimony. Just in case you might be curious what some sins you might have. Mark 721, through 23 has one of these little lists of things that Jesus says, defile us, make us impure. We could add that slow us down. These things slow you down. From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, all these things come from within, and they defile a person. They weigh us down. Strip off, strip off the weight and the sin, and run, run with endurance. If you don't take time to regularly refocus your efforts or put to death those heart sins, practical sins, it'll slow you down, and if you're not careful, it could end up knocking you off track. Back. Second, think hard about Jesus' example. First, strip off the weights and sins. Second, think hard about Jesus' example. To keep you going, it's easy to connect this point, the love of God is demonstrated to sinners, chiefly in the gift of Jesus, Christ, His wrath bearing death on the cross wins our forgiveness, is what ushers in salvation for us. And here, the writer of Hebrews says that that loving work to become our wrath bearer is also our example of finishing in faith, looking to Jesus, who is better than everything, the founder and perfecter of our faith circle, the word founder, because there the root of it is a cool word that means line leader. And we don't have a version of that in English, but I'll give you a Nepali version of it, a Sherpa. So a Sherpa is the mountain guide who leads the climbers up. He's been there before. He's endured the hardship before, and he gets them to the top of Everest, like finally, after centuries or decades of mountain climbing, at Everest, the Sherpas are the heroes, but that's Jesus' role here. He's the line leader. He's the one who forged the way through the jungle of opposition, of sin, Tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin. He's the line leader. Look at him. He's paved the way, and he is the Perfecter. He's completed it by crossing in how did he do that? Well, he was focused on the goal. He's focused on the goal, who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising, the shame he was born to go to the cross. Jesus, life had great success, but from his birth, people wanted to kill him. Herod wanted to kill him. The religious leaders wanted to kill him. Eventually, the Romans did kill him. Everybody wanted to kill him. And he had to go to the cross. He volunteered to face the rejection, shame and torture, he had to die to bear the wrath that he himself, as God, demanded for the sin of humanity. But it was the joy on the other side of the cross that helped him do it. It was what that joy of returning to the right hand of his father to rule and reign in glory and power. That joy of being present with the father so that he could be our king and our Prophet and our priest, that joy made him look at all the shame that he was going to suffer as puny and rank, despise the shame, and he was rewarded. He is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews one three tells us that he's seated at the right hand of the throne of God and glory. And here's incredible news. If you haven't trusted Christ, I want you to turn to Jesus today. Cry out to Him today. Say I'm a sinner. I know it. I am reaping horrible consequences for my sin. I know it. I have only one way of escape. It's you. I'm coming. Please forgive me. You're my Lord. Do that today. Do you want to know what happens when you experience conversion? When you are saved and changed? You are you are given a ticket. You You have a seat reserved at the right hand of the throne of God. It's reserved for you. You ever bought a ticket at a movie theater? There's a slot purchased for you at the right hand of the throne of God. It's called being seated with Christ. The Apostle Paul said it this way. He said it this way, and He raised us up with Him, Jesus, and seated us with him that is with Jesus in the heavenly places, in Christ. Jesus, when you trust Christ, you are united to him, and he is seated at the right hand, and you are as good. As with him, spiritually, you will be as you will be with him, physically when he calls you home or he returns to rescue you for the joy set before you, you can endure sin, resist it. You can endure rejection, hostility, criticism. Says this, consider Him, verse three, which is where I get the idea for think in this, think hard. That's what considering is. Think hard,
  
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  consider him. Think hard about him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted. Did my Lord do it? Did the one I'm following do it? Yes, he did to a level you will never experience. Am I through the Bible reading? I'm reading Matthew 26 and Matthew 27 on Thursday and Friday, and they're really, really long chapters about The Last Supper and the rejection the betrayal of Judas and the rejection of Peter and the arrest by the Jewish guards, the terrible trials by the Jewish leadership leading to the trials to the Roman leadership, the beating, the flogging, the rejecting, the crucifixion and the constant ridicule from every level of culture toward Jesus. Oh, if you're if you're so loved by the Father, why don't, why don't you have him call you off the cross all the way through to the wrath bearing from the father so that he could accomplish the payment of your sins. He did it. He made it all the way through. He made it all the way through. Your line leader made it all the way through. Think about him, and if you haven't trusted him, he made it all the way through so that you could have eternal life in glory with him.
  
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  He suffered out of obedience to the Father. He suffered for glory. He suffered for me, he suffered for you. And you can say, I can keep going. My Savior did it. I can keep doing it. He says, in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. You have not yet faced the sin or die choice, have you? You haven't faced it yet. You haven't faced the deny Christ or die choice. I mean, lots of people over the history of the world, lots of people in the world right now face that choice. We don't you face the deny Christ or be unpopular, deny Christ or get lambasted on social media. That's what you face. You might face Dan I Christ or I'm not going to have a relationship with you, mom or dad or son or daughter, like those. Things really happen to you. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. He made it think hard about him. Cling to him. He made it, and he knows how to help you make it three. Remember God's love trains you through discipline. Here's what we usually forget, and the author tells us this pain what it often does, especially when it's prolonged. Is it it makes us feel isolated and alone and we forget that we're loved children, old friend that I haven't seen for a long time, I just just heard about his passing, and he had gone through very, very long, long pain, and he had forgotten that God loved him, and it had terrible consequences. So the the writer of Hebrews understands this. He understands this. You're tempted to forget? So? He says, My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. He says, Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as son? Yeah, I have actually forgotten. When you volunteer for training, you volunteer for pain, and you understand the outcome. But sometimes, when you're in pain, you forgot what you volunteered for, and you think God must not be good anymore, or God doesn't love me anymore. No, quite the opposite. Son, my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor be weary when reproved by him. I mean, you have a couple of really serious consequences. The stakes are high. When you're at the pain point. You could regard the discipline of the Lord lightly, which is to get mad at God, or reject God, as if he has no good purpose, only mean purposes. Or you could just suck it up and and try to go on your own, thinking that you're going to solve it on your own. Both of those are ways to regard lightly the discipline of the Lord. Weariness could overwhelm you. You just get beat down by the tiredness of enduring criticism and hostility. You'd like to be able to have a meal with these family members or friends that you used to and you just want to give in following Jesus. But here's what he says, the Lord disciplines the one he loves. There you go. You're going through pain. It is the Lord's discipline, because He loves you. What is discipline? It says He chastises every son whom he receives. You want to you want to understand the difference between wrath, punishment, God's justice and fatherly discipline. Listening through the MacArthur message on it, I thought he gave just really three, three really helpful categories. Our Father uses discipline, pain, for correction for prevention for education. Those are the three categories. Write them down, for correction, for prevention, for education, you could be going the wrong way, and God uses the consequences of sin to bring pain into your life so that he can get your attention, and he can turn you the right way. And that can happen when you're a son or daughter of God, you start going the wrong way, and he uses painful correction so that you come you turn the right way. And we understand parenting. Godly parents help their children face painful consequences with their sinful choices. And we should get this. We do good. We do get this, that if you let your children, if you let your children follow their sinful natural course, they won't be good teammates. They won't make good spouses. They won't make good friends. They won't make a good good adult sons or daughters, because their selfish, sinful, stubborn pride is never broken to become kind and caring. I mean, we're in an era where people don't want to do that right now. Really, the era is any any parent that inflicts pain is cruel and harsh. That's that's a cultural expression. I mean, there really is some idea that you have, you know, two children fighting like cats and dogs over who gets to play with toys, and they're, they're hitting and biting and scratching, and what we're told today is that you're supposed to bring both of them on your lap, and you're supposed to say to them, I can tell you, have a really big hole in your heart where you don't feel loved enough, where you're not secure in my life, I really love you, because I know if you really, if you really believed that You wouldn't be mean and cruel to your sibling. Here's a here's a big I am going to punish you through Corporal cuddling. I'm going to be really like because I'm going to be the person who fills you all up. So you don't need to be mean and your children do what hack got away with another one man, mom's a softy that doesn't curb sinful practices. Sometimes it takes pain for proud, selfish children. Sometimes it's correction, sometimes it's prevention. God knows the direction you're headed, and it could be because of a distraction or because of what he understands is coming ahead for your pride or your particular weaknesses, and something that he throws in your life. In this case, we're talking about a criticism or a hostility is a hard. Stop for a heart check. Was I going in a direction that was not going to be good for me, my family, my lord, my church? Was I going in the direction? Sometimes use it as prevention, and sometimes he uses it as education. And all of them, you have to remember the word discipline. Paideia is an educational word, it's not a punishment. Word, Paideia, discipline used here is not a punishment. Word, it's an education word, God wants you to learn important things. As soon as I say that, I've heard this my whole Christian life, somebody's going through a significant trial. It could be hostility and it could be a physical suffering. It could be a circumstance. And the Christian says, I hope I learn my lesson quickly, so that fill in the blank, I won't feel the pain anymore. Could I be a quicker learner so I stop feeling the pain? There's some sense of that. I
  
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  you want to get out of the pain. What does God want? You want to get out of the pain. What does God want? God wants your Christ, likeness. He wants your usefulness, and he wants you to arrive with him in faith, in glory. One of my team said this really profound thing this week. I never asked God to do what it takes to make me like Jesus, because I'm afraid of the pain.
  
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  It could be all kinds of things, but what, what God wants to learn is three things. Think there's three huge lessons to learn. I one first, first, God wants you to know him better through Christ. The Apostle Paul said that he wanted to know Christ and the fellowship of His sufferings. He wanted to know Christ and the fellowship of His sufferings. And in a way, when we run with success, when we run with accolades, when everybody's on our side, we love it, but when it's pressed, when criticism is pressing in, we turn to Christ and know His sufferings better. One of the first things that God wants you to learn is more of himself. It was good that I was afflicted, that I might learn your rules. John plesnick preached out of that passage a couple weeks ago. Second, he wants you to be more useful. He wants you to be more useful. A way of talking about that is for in Second Corinthians, chapter one, the apostle Paul talks about all that he went through, he endured all kinds of things so that he may come be a comfort to you who are in any affliction. God wants you to be useful.
  
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  The third thing he wants you to know and remember through pain is this world is not your home. This world is not your home. You started experiencing some success, and you thought this world was your home. This world is not your home. I just want to remind you that your homes with me keep running on the finish line. God's a loving father. He's a loving father. And if you're here this morning, not following Jesus, not submitting to him as master, if you're being really beat up over sinful choices you make, God, the good father, is saying, Come daughter, Come son, away from your sin and to me, come to my son who will give you rest.
  
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  It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons or daughters and finally, rejoice in the results. Rejoice in the results. We have to strip away the weights and sins. We have to think hard about Jesus. We have to recognize that God. Discipline is because He loves us to conform us to Christ, and fourth, we want to rejoice in the results God's love through adversity gets good results here and in the life to come. You need to rejoice in that father's discipline for a short time has seemed best. But this is God disciplines for our good, our good that we may share His holiness. Holiness is the unique reality about God that makes him totally different. In the Bible, it combines many things about God that make him totally different than any of his creation. He is infinitely perfect, perfectly pure, good, just, righteous, sinless, and he's far more of that than any created thing. But he helps us and teaches us through discipline so that we can share His holiness, so that we can become more like Jesus Ian. He shares His purity, His goodness, His justice, His righteousness, with us in this life as we sin less and less and manifest Christ like character more and more in this life, we still have to cut loose weights and sins in the next life, they will be over. Stop, stop, think, stop, think when you experience pain, especially hostility, conflict in your life with with people you love, or people in your world. God's discipline develops your character and abilities so that you can resist temptations to impurity, so that you can resist temptations to react sinfully in the next challenge,
  
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  I bet every single person in this room can remember something of a pain point that made them cry out to God for mercy and grace. I bet everybody can you might remember the pain point that made you turn to Jesus as Lord and Savior, and you should thank God for that. That pain point, without it, you could still be on the path to judgment in hell. God's love through adversity is transforming your character, your peace, your skills. Verse, 10 and 11. Verse 11 says, For the moment, all discipline seems painful. Paul, are you? British seems painful. It is painful. All discipline seems painful. I see, like his classic British understatement, it seems painful. It is painful. 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. Peaceful fruit of righteousness doing what is right, accompanied by is doing what is right is accompanied by one of the best feelings in the world. Like, have you ever responded in a way that honored the Lord? And it was really hard, but you could walk away and say, but by God's grace, honor the Lord. I mean, that's the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Is a precious thing when God has helped you,
  
  48:28
  the peaceful fruit of righteousness comes when you know it's hard you're going to suffer for it, but your conscience is clean that you have been willing to do the right thing for the will of God. You one pastors conference, I sat in a Q and A with Kevin de Young, Joel, Beeke and John MacArthur. Lots of you don't know all three of those names, but all three of them are well written, well known pastors who have a vibrant ministry. Someone asked the three of them, how do you handle criticism? De young looked to comfort everybody with Christ's cross work, remembering when he could face his criticism and remembers how much he's loved in Jesus. Joel beaky said he worked late into the night until he fell asleep exhausted. This is when I get criticism like it just spins my mind up. So I just go to work, and I work till three in the morning, until I'm exhausted. MacArthur said, I don't worry about it. God is sovereign. I trust him. Thanks, John, I do worry about it. Then he said, What else did you expect? You signed up for it, didn't you? Oh, he reminded us of the beginning. We did sign up for it, and it doesn't mean that he doesn't love us. All three of them were right. De Young was right. We looked to Christ. So beaky was right. We keep at the task. We just keep working, we keep trusting Him, and we keep working. And MacArthur was right. God is sovereign. We signed up for it. He will empower. He will help us cross the finish line. John said the criticism is has been the best thing to keep me humble as I serve Him. God loves to educate father. Thank you for this word that you have given us. We pray that You would help us remember that you do love us when adversity comes, especially the hardest kinds of adversity most humans face, which is conflict with people that are in our lives, those we love. And I pray that we would remember that you have good ways in it, that you have good things to teach us, help us be willing and eager in Christ's name. Amen.

Dan Jarms

Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.

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