Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Hebrews 12

Heat. Heat. We return this morning to Hebrews 12. We were here a couple of weeks ago and we gave a rather long talk on the current child abuse laws in the state of Oregon. And as I said last week, it’s my intention now to go back over the material presented then in more detail. And so we want to first begin that process with a reexamination of Hebrews 12:1-13 and then next week we’ll talk about corporal punishment and then the following week after that, three weeks from today, we’ll finish up that set of four talks by going into some detail of the new administrative rules relative to child abuse and pointing out all the problems in that legislation.

But this morning we want to turn our attention to Hebrews 12:1-13. We will from this next week draw some correlaries between the way our father in heaven disciplines us and the way we should discipline our children. But this morning we want to look at what the original intent of this passage is, which is to encourage people in the faith, to encourage them in the face of persecution and trouble, and to encourage them to strive against their own sinfulness.

So that’s what we’ll do, God willing. We’ll spend a lot of time this morning talking about tribulation and suffering. Martin Luther said the following: “I never knew the meaning of God’s word until I came into affliction. I’ve always found it one of my best schoolmasters.” Now, some of us can experientially speak to that as well. And I hope this morning by the end of the service that we’ll see from the word of God that the affliction that we come into from God’s hand should be an encouragement to us.

It should be seen gratefully and thankfully coming from his hand for our betterment. This portion of Hebrews is, I believe, the central thrust of the entire book of Hebrews. Really, I think the first 11 chapters are building up to this particular exhortation found in the first verse. So it’s a very important passage of scripture. We don’t want to deal with it lightly. We want to spend some time this morning looking at it.

Also, it’s good to keep in mind that this passage follows immediately the context of Hebrews 10 and 11. We’ve spoken to the first portion of Hebrews 10 several times in the last few months. We talked about attendance at Sunday services and we talked about how the book of Hebrews is drawing correlaries between the new covenant and the old covenant, showing the continuity but also showing the discontinuity—that the new covenant is a better covenant with better promises and more fulfillment than the old covenant. What the old covenant looked forward to has now been accomplished through the work of the covenant mediator, Jesus Christ. On the basis of that, then the believing community was encouraged to not forsake the faith and specifically not to forsake attending the Sabbath worship services.

Between Hebrews 10 and 12 is Hebrews 11, and that’s sometimes called the Hall of Faith. We have a whole list of people who by faith showed certain obedience to the word of God, and they’re listed there as an encouragement to us. This morning we’ll have three basic points. The first point we’ll deal with is the exhortation itself in verse one. The second thing we’ll talk about are the various encouragements that would hear the exhortation, and those various encouragements are listed in verses 1 through verse 11. And then the third point will be the repeating of the exhortation, or the exhortation repeated in verses 12 and 13.

Let’s begin with the exhortation itself. However, the central teaching of what’s going on here in this whole passage really is found in a little phrase, “let us run.” Hebrews 12 proceeds by saying, “Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” This is really the central message of the book of Hebrews to the people that receive it.

Let us run with patience the race that God has set before us. Now, that exhortation has several aspects that are rather obvious if you look at it very much and begin to think through the implications. The first thing is that there’s this race we have to run, and there are various things that we can glean from this passage about the race that we have to run. First of all, the race is hard work.

Okay, the word used here in the Greek is agōn, which is the root word for, I suppose, the word “agony” or “agonizingly.” Agōn—hard work. In other passages of scripture, it’s translated as “conflict” or “competition.” Philippians 1:30, for instance, Paul says, “Having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear to be in me.” In Colossians 2, “For I would that you knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh.” The word used here indicates that there’s a tremendous amount of work. It’s not simply a little short sprint, for instance. It’s a word used in the games in the Greek games, but it was the word used kind of generically for any of these contests that involve a great deal of striving or work. So the race is hard work.

Number one, it’s hard work because, of course, there are obstacles in that race path. There are things that are going to try to hinder us as we seek to run the race. There are bumps, as it were, in the track. There’s pits. There’s sloughs of despond from Pilgrim’s Progress. My daughter, I was talking to her this morning about Pilgrim’s Progress. She was telling me, you know, that there is this death valley. It reminded me of that portion of Pilgrim’s Progress where there are pits, there’s snares, and Apollyon himself dwells in that land. And I think it’s good to keep that analogy in mind as we think about the race as we go through most of the scriptures this morning and the implications of it. But it’s important to realize the race is hard work. It does require a great deal of effort to be faithful to the calling that God has given us.

The race also, secondly, requires preparation. And he tells us that specifically in this verse. He says to lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily encompasses us. Now the word “weight” there is a word used of anything that would hinder the runner from doing his job. If in the games, for instance, you were going to train for a marathon run, you would in the course of your training lose pounds. And so it has specific reference to extra flesh on your body. And I suppose many of us, including myself, of course, would lose some pounds if we were to train for a long race.

It’s important to recognize there, though, that many of the things that you’re going to have to strip off to run that race successfully are not necessarily wrong in and of themselves. They’re wrong for running the race. They’re not convenient, but they’re not in and of themselves sin. Because he says there’s two things you got to lay aside: the weights and then the sin itself. And remember, in the context of Hebrews 12, there’s two things going on that is discouraging these people from running the race.

There’s persecution from outside, for which in many cases they have no reason to be persecuting the Christians. They’re trying to do what’s right. They’re trying to follow the new covenant worship pattern that God has set out. They’re getting persecuted from people. It’s not their sin that’s causing that persecution necessarily. And then secondly, he says to lay aside the sin itself. So it’s important to recognize that as we prepare mentally in our minds to run the race of faithfulness on the track that God has set before us, we recognize there are things which may in themselves be perfectly harmless, and yet for running that race are inequipped to let us do that, and they have to be stripped off from us. You could probably think of a lot of examples yourself, but certainly one good example is television. I don’t see where television is inherently evil. Some people hold that position. I don’t believe it’s true. I don’t think the scriptures teach that at all. But sometimes for some people, television can be a real encumbrance to the race that they have to perform, for a particular period of time, you know, a task that God has called them to do. To prepare for something, and it can be a real encumbrance. And so these sorts of verses should be an encouragement to prepare for the race of faithfulness, and that includes stripping aside those things that as we train, we recognize will not do us well in that race.

When you go to prepare for a race, you don’t know exactly some of the things that are going to hold you back. But as you begin to prepare the race and run it, then you recognize there are encumbrances—they’re lead weights, as it were, tied to your feet that you didn’t even know were there. And he encourages us to strip them off. Now the word for “lay aside” means to throw off as a garment. So even though he’s talking originally about a word that clothes talks about a long process, yet he’s saying also these can be easily taken off. It’s not like you have to over a long period of time disrobe yourself of them. You can just shed them as a garment. Like the example of television—you can just turn it off. You can get rid of the TV if it’s a real problem. You can put it out of the house. Whatever. But some of these things should just be laid aside.

And then our sin, of course, also easily besets us. And as I said, that fits into the context of the passage because we know that the Hebrew Christians were suffering from both things—persecution and their own sinfulness. And preparation includes stripping off those things for our preparation for the race.

And then we also find out about this race that it is predestinated by God, the race that we’ve been called to do. He says here, strip aside those things so we can run with patience the race that’s set before us. The race doesn’t come about by chance or something. It is set before us intentionally, as it were, from the hand of God. Now the word there is also used in other passages of scripture, even in Hebrews itself. For instance, in Hebrews 6, talking about God’s witness to his acts, he says, “By two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who had fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.” The hope set before us. The race set before us. The hope is set before us by God. It doesn’t happen by chance or anything. It’s predetermined by God. The race that God has called us to do is set by him.

Now, that may seem a real obvious point, and so why dwell on it? But I think it’s an important point. It’s important to recognize in trials and adversities and striving against sin that these situations come to pass because God has so ordered them. And we must yield ourselves to them in that sense, recognizing they come forth from the hand of God.

Calvin, in speaking in the Institutes on this matter, mentioned several lessons from scripture. Joseph, for instance, with his brothers. He said, “You intended it for evil but God meant it for good, that people would be saved through you,” having sold me into slavery and acted as if I was dead. These things they intended, but God set that course before Joseph for good. There’s an example. David in several instances talks about the same thing. In 2 Samuel 16:11, David says, “Let him alone because the Lord has ordered him to curse,” talking about Shimei. David recognized that persecution was coming from him unto him because of the preordination of God himself. In Psalm 39, David says, “I have kept silence, remained mute, because thou hast done it, oh Jehovah.”

Calvin, quoting on these things, says the following: “If there’s no more effective remedy for anger and impatience. He has surely benefited greatly who has so learned to meditate upon God’s providence that he can always recall his mind to this point: ‘The Lord has willed it, and therefore it must be borne, not only because we may not contend against it, which is certainly obvious, but also because he wills nothing but what is just and expedient.’ If God has called these things to pass in his providence, then it is just and expedient that they be there.”

The race is set before us by God himself. And it’s important to recognize that. It’s important to wrestle through that issue if you haven’t yet and come to resolution. Really, many of the encouragements will not take hold as it were in your life if you think these things happen apart from the decree of God.

And finally, I wanted to point out about this race—not going to any detail now, but as we go through these various encouragements, there’s a progression, I believe, in this text as to how that race is to be run, the fashion in which it’s to be run. And I was trying to explain this to my wife last night as I was jogging, you know, about how we’re talking about a race and how you’re supposed to be running the race. And I think that as we go through the various encouragements from the word of God, we’ll see that by the end of the race, we’re running faster with more motivation than the beginning exhortations that he gives us.

So we’ll talk about that as we go through the exhortations. Also recognize, in terms of this race that’s set before us, that the encouragement itself, the exhortation is that there are runners involved, of course, and we’ve talked already about how the runners were stumbling. Hebrews 13:2 says that the entire epistle of Hebrews is a note of encouragement, an encouragement to those who are weary and who are stumbling. Verse 3 describes those people as weary and faint. In chapter 12, verse 5 says, “Be careful that you don’t faint.” Verse 12, when we get to it, talks about how their hands were hanging down and their knees were lame. That word there actually is the root that’s transliterated to the English as “paralytic.” Their knees were paralyzed. They were unable to move them. So they were in real trouble here. The race—the runners, as it were, having a hard time winning the race, and some actually stopped altogether.

It’s important to recognize, though, that the encouragement in verse one is not put as saying you do these things. The writer of Hebrews says, “Let us run with patience. Let us lay aside these encumbrances. Let us run with patience the race set before us.” So the author includes himself in that group that he’s trying to exhort and encourage. And we may not have the specific problems of the people that were addressed in the epistle to Hebrews, but we have our own problems. And that inclusive use of the term means that we need these encouragements as well, for us today.

I don’t want to dwell a lot on this, but it is important to recognize the Hebrew Christians here. One of their sins that they were falling into was backing off from doing those things that would bring them persecution. Okay, in terms of church attendance, for instance. Well, there are many Christians today when they hear about things like the child abuse laws. The first thing they think is, “Well, maybe we could spank differently. Maybe we could get rid of spanking all together so the authorities won’t bother us.” Now, before you really come down on people too hard about that, you want to think about what they’re saying. They’re saying they don’t want to be thrown in jail. And they’re right. They shouldn’t be thrown in jail. We don’t want our children taken from us. Their motivation is correct—to keep discipline and to keep control of their children as opposed to having them taken from us. But they’re fainting in the race if they give up the route of discipline.

We’ll talk more about that in a few weeks, but there’s a current example of how we can faint in the things that God has told us to do because of outside persecution. And I’m sure, again, you each can think of areas in your own lives where you’re not performing in the way that God would have you perform in whatever area. And these things this morning should all be an encouragement to you to strive to run that race with patience.

Okay, that’s the first point—the exhortation itself. Now, secondly, the encouragements. We’ll spend most of our time this morning on these set of encouragements. The encouragements begin with a cloud of witnesses in verse one. “Wherefore,” that’s a strong emphatic word in the Greek—very important to recognize the connection back to Hebrews 11 here. “Seeing as we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.”

And there we have the very first encouragement to run this race that God has given to us. We’re compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses. I struggled with that verse all week until last night. Actually, I think I finally came to a proper understanding of what those words are talking about. If you read commentators, there’s a lot of talk about, “Well, are we talking about a stadium and these witnesses are sitting around the stadium and they’re watching us? Are they witnessing our perseverance? Are the dead saints watching us and seeing how well we do? Or are we watching them? Are we supposed to be having our eyes upon them and as a result seeing their witnessing life of a good life and then being encouraged?” Who’s watching who—here is what you get into a lot in the commentaries. But I think a couple of things here that led me to the conclusion I’ve reached—and I’m certainly open if anybody wants to dispute this—but first of all, the word used here for “witness” is a specific term for a legal witness, somebody who testifies to something. The Greek word is martys. I’m not sure if the pronunciation is correct. It later became the base word for the word “martyr” because as time went on in the first century, those who did testify as legal witnesses to God and their covenant relationship to God were martyred for their faith. But the Greek word doesn’t have any implication here that you have to die. And in fact, you see later on in the chapter that you haven’t died. “You haven’t striven to the point of death or shedding blood.” But in any event, the term is a technical legal term. He could have used the term for “spectator”—”seeing as how we’re coming to follow so many spectators who are watching us.” He didn’t do that. He used a legal term.

Secondly, remember what the whole thrust of the book of Hebrews is. It’s a statement of how do we connect the new covenant with the old covenant? And that the new covenant is even better. It’s discontinuous in terms of its blessing and the enablement that the new covenant saints have to do what was called to do, all the law. Okay, the whole basis of Hebrews is covenantally bound. More than any book in the New Testament, it’s really obvious. It’s a book talking about covenant. And what would be to a person that’s trained in covenant—what would be the first application of the word “witness” in his own thinking?

He would see these people as witnesses to the covenant relationship that God had with them. Remember that God’s name, Jehovah, in the Old Testament—his covenant name to the people of Israel—has the implication that he’ll be to them all that he is because he’s their covenant keeper. Now he’s in covenant relationship to them. And as they walk in obedience to the terms of the covenant and enabled by the covenant mediator, Jesus Christ, and his word, God will be to them all that he is.

I believe that these witnesses were witnesses to the covenant itself. Now, we know that throughout the scriptures, you have the need of two or three witnesses to confirm all things. And there are various elements in the scriptures that talk about two or three witnesses to the covenant itself, the covenant relationship to God. And I think that what the writer of Hebrews is doing here is he’s encouraging the Hebrew Christians that they’re in a covenant relationship to God. And that covenant relationship means that God will take care of them and they will be able to persevere in the faith. And whatever he brings to pass will be a result of him being Jehovah God, their covenant God, being to them all that he is in terms of blessing them.

So I think what he’s saying here is not only do we have a two or three-fold witness to our covenantal relationship to God, we have a multifold witness—a whole cloud of witnesses—to that covenant encompassing us about. And the word “cloud” there doesn’t mean a small cloud. It means a big, huge, sky-light cloud. That’s the number of witnesses we have to the covenant relationship we have with God and of his covenant faithfulness.

So instead of “cloud of witnesses,” if you’re keeping notes, the first encouragement I would say is really a covenant witness. Verse one says that our encouragement to run the race would be the covenant witness of those people who have gone before us in the covenant relationship, and God has demonstrated a covenant faithfulness to them as they walk in faithfulness to the covenant of God.

And as a result of that, then he says that as we have this cloud of witnesses about us as an encouragement to us, we should prepare ourselves to run that race. Then we should run it with patience. “Patience” in the Authorized Version. That word “patience” is what characterizes the race at this particular level—the encouragement. He’s given the encouragement of the old covenant witness. And now he’s saying as a result of that, run the race with patience.

“Patience” is a word—hypomone—which comes from two words meaning “under” and “stay.” To stay under something is to be patient. Okay, to stay under the race—in this case, to stay under whatever the conditions of the race that God has placed at this particular point in time. Stay under them. Run the race with patience. Staying under the discipline of God. You remember a couple weeks ago we talked about discipline. We’ll talk about it again. That our man is supposed to have his children in subjection, under control, under authority, in rank as it were. Okay, there’s a relationship between those two words as well. So patience is what characterizes the running of the race at this particular point in time—staying under whatever God has given to us.

Now, that should be enough, shouldn’t it? At this particular point in time, God has given us a command to run the race. He’s given us a command to walk the covenant faithfully. And now he’s given us an exhortation, an encouragement, from the old covenant of witnesses primarily—as a witness to the covenant relationship that God has with us. And that should be enough to encourage us to run the race with patience.

But God, in his great love and mercy that he shows to us, goes on to give another encouragement—another encouragement—in verse two. Verse two, he then shifts to the second source, which is Jesus himself. “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him that endured much contradiction from sinners against himself, lest you be weary and faint in your minds.”

He’s given the covenant encouragement, and now he gives us the encouragement of the covenant mediator having come in their Christ. The old covenant examples are not the only thing he gives them in terms of encouragement. He gives them the fact that now we stand this side of the covenant mediator’s work of Jesus Christ. And that should be a further encouragement for two reasons. One, because that covenant has been fully established, fully in place. We don’t have to look forward to something. We look back to the finished work of the covenant mediator. And that should be a great encouragement to us as we seek to run the race and not weary and not be faint.

And secondly, he talks about how that work was accomplished. That covenant mediator work was accomplished through the suffering of Jesus Christ. And so Christ is not only an encouragement to us because he’s the covenant keeper. He’s an encouragement because of the way in which he became the covenant mediator in his sufferings.

He says, and by the way, it’s important to see that he says, “Looking unto Jesus.” That word means to look aside from other things unto Jesus. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Okay, that phrase would be an accurate rendering of this particular word in the Hebrew. It’s important though to recognize, however, that we’re not—I want to say this and take a little bit of time off here to mention this. There is a song: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look upon his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.” It’s not exactly the sense here, is it? He is encouraging us to run the race. He’s not encouraging us to get out of the race. He’s not encouraging us to get above it all somehow. He’s encouraging us, enabling us to work with faithfulness in this life on earth and in all the earthly tasks he commanded us to do.

We’re encouraged to look upon Jesus not in terms of some sort of escape mechanism. When I became a Christian, one of the first things I heard from some of the radical revolutionary types that I used to hang out with was that Christianity was the opiate of the masses. And I didn’t like that much. But you know, I think unfortunately in too many situations in our country, that’s just the case. A Christianity that turns its eyes upon Jesus in some sort of escape, to get us out of the race and to make the race seem irrelevant somehow in terms of eternal truth, is not biblical Christianity, and it does produce an opiated effect in the population. But the scriptures don’t do that. They give us these—he says turn your eyes upon Jesus so that you can run the race with patience, that you can do all those tasks God has called us to do in this earth and to do them faithfully before him.

And then he tells us in verse three, “Consider him.” And the word there means to be in an analogous relationship. Look to him as an analogy to yourself. Look at his sufferings and compare your sufferings to his sufferings. And if any of us do that—and if any of us understand the sufferings that Jesus Christ went through, both on the cross and then the preparation for the cross in the garden of Gethsemane, and the revilings that he received from people in terms of words and the actions that were taken against him in terms of stripes and to his actual suffering of the cross to the point of death and shedding his own blood, sweating great drops, as it were, of blood in the garden.

Anybody who compares himself to the suffering of Jesus Christ recognizes that we’ve not been called to suffer that much. And that should be an encouragement. If we have hard times, we can remember that Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, the covenant mediator who initiates covenant and completes it for us, the alpha, the omega, he suffered more than we’re ever going to be called to suffer.

And so now we can run the race, not just with patience. We can run the race recognizing the covenant mediator has come. We can run the race with thankfulness that we haven’t been called to suffer as much as our Lord and Savior has been called to suffer. By way of analogy, then God reminds us of the necessity of remembering Jesus’s suffering as an encouragement to us. Jeremiah 12:5 is important to just touch on briefly here. “If thou is run with the footmen and they have worried thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And if in the land of peace wherein thou trust they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the dwelling in the swelling of the Jordan?”

He’s saying, “If you’re not faithful, if you get weary under the small amount of persecution you already have, what are you going to do when they flood the Jordan? What are we going to do in this land if we begin to weary and faint out of the situation we have in this country when in five years they actually do seek to come and take every child away from us? If that happens, we’ll just give up, won’t we?” So we have to look to Jesus as a result of the suffering that he went through, recognize that we can be called to more suffering also. And we should bind up our hands and do what’s right and to run the race with an understanding of the appreciation we have for the small amount of suffering we been called to so far.

Striving, there, by the way, verse four: “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” And the striving there indicates an agony—comes from that same word for race—agonizingly striving, struggling hard against sin. And he says, “You haven’t done that yet. You may be called to do that, though.” He says, “Yet,” as a result, the Jeremiah passage should be an encouragement to whatever called to now—to remember not to worry and be faint, to give ourselves encourage—so that if more trouble comes down the line we’re ready to handle it as well.

So now we’ve had the encouragement of the old testament covenant witnesses. We’ve had the encouragement of the new covenant mediator himself coming and initiating the new covenant and many blessings that’s spoken to throughout the rest of Hebrews. He talks about how the new covenant is a more blessed covenant than the old covenant, and that should be an encouragement. We move from the position of running the race with patience—just beginning to jog down, as it were—and now we run the race with patience, not weary, not strife, not fainting, and actually now with an increased appreciation for the suffering that Jesus went through and by analogy our minimal amount of suffering. We’re following too. We have appreciation now on top of patience. So we’re starting to run a little bit faster, and that should certainly be enough again, shouldn’t it? But God moves on and gives us even more encouragement.

I suppose it’s necessary for some. It’s a disappointment to us sometimes to see how many people that we admire and trust can fail even under those minimal circumstances that we’re called to do. Let me give an example of that. Archibald Alexander relates an incident which Rushdoony repeats in his “God’s Plan for Victory.” There was a conversation amongst a bunch of pastors. The American clergyman George Whitefield was in New Jersey at the time. He was dying, with some other clergymen, including a Reverend William Tennent. They were sitting around afterwards and talking. And Whitefield was talking about how it seemed to him, you know, that he was so weary of having run the race and he was getting rather tired and was really looking forward to the time when he could go home to be with his Savior, asking the other pastors if they didn’t also feel that same thing—that the work is so hard sometimes and the blessings are so few that it’s really, you know, you tend to get weary of it and you want to go on to be with your maker.

And he asked Tennent, you know. He was the only one who didn’t immediately say, “Oh yes, you know, it certainly is wearing and we sort of like to go on home now.” Tennent was the only one who didn’t say anything, and he was sitting next to Whitefield apparently in silence. So Whitefield thought, “Well, how come this guy hasn’t charged enough? Yes. You know.” So he says to him, “Well, brother Tennent, you’re the oldest man among us. Do you not rejoice to think that your time is familiar at hand when you’ll be called home and freed from all the difficulties attending this checkered scene?”

Tennent turned to him and said bluntly, “I have no will about it. I have no will about it.” Whitefield didn’t leave it go, though. He said, “What do you mean? You know, you must want to go on home now and rest up.” And Tennent answered again. He said, “No, sir. It’s not. It is no pleasure to me at all to think of going home to be with Jesus now instead of doing the work that God has called us to do.” He says, “It’s no pleasure to me at all. And if you knew your duty, it would be none to you. I have nothing to do with death. My business is to live as long as I can and discern my Lord and Master as faithfully as I can until he shall think proper to call me home.”

Whitefield still urged for an explicit answer. The Tennent then continued on. “I have no choice about it,” he said in terms of time of his death. “I am God’s servant and have engaged to do his business as long as he pleases to continue me therein.” But he says, “I’ll ask you a question.” He says, “Suppose you have a slave and you put him to work. You send him out to the field. You hire a guy to go out to the field and do work for you. Let’s say about the middle of the day you find him. You go off to see how he’s doing his work. You find him lounging under a tree. He said to Whitefield now, “and complaining, ‘Master, the sun is very hot. It’s hard and difficult. I’m tired. I’m weary of the work you have appointed me, and I’m overdone with the heat and burden of the day. Do, master, let me return home and be discharged from this hard service.’” What would you say to that fellow? “You’d say that idle slave, that idle fellow, ‘Why doesn’t he do his work that I’ve called him to do?’ You would be very upset. That was a wardenship.

He said, “Or suppose you hired a man to serve you faithfully for a given time in a particular service, and he should without any reason on your part, and before he has performed half his service, become weary of it, and upon every occasion may express the wish to be discharged or placed in other circumstances. Would you not call him a wicked and slothful servant and unworthy of the privileges of your employee?”

Now, he did that in a nice way, and the other pastors and Whitefield understood the point finally. They were complaining about the work that God had called them to do. And God has called us to run that race in this life and to not seek release from it in an early fashion. To recognize there will be a blessed time when we go home to be with Jesus, of course. But until then, he’s called us to work. He’s called us to faithfulness. And the encouragements he give us, he gives us in this text, should be seen as encouragement to walk the life that God has given us to walk, to run that race with encouragement.

I was driving. I know Judge Harrison was an inspiration to me in the last few years of his life—the last few months rather—and I would talk to him. I think it was Takashi. I remember that one evening he asked him if he was anxious to go home and be with Jesus, and Judge Bruce said no. Said, “I’ve got work to do. God has called me to work, to work for him, and I have work to do before I’m going to go home.”

He knew he had to continue to strive to do the work that God had called him to do. And as a result, he lived for several more months until he could get to the Reconstruction Conference and be an encouragement and exhortation to all the people gathered there in Seattle—300 people or more. It was important. He knew that God had called him to do these things. And he knew that it would be wrong and sinful for him just to give up the ghost, as it were. It’s wrong for us to do that as well. So we have encouragements from God not to do that.

We’ve had the encouragement of the old covenant witness. We’ve had the encouragement of the covenant mediator himself and his example. And finally, God gives us another encouragement—yet even a better encouragement. He turns to the scriptures themselves and gives us a written encouragement now from the covenant word that he has given to us.

Verses 5-11. Verses 5 and 6, he quotes from Proverbs 3:11 and 12. And then the rest of these verses 7-11 is an exposition of that passage of scripture. This is an excellent opportunity for us to look at scripture and see how God, and in his perfect way, interpreted his own scripture for people. Takes Proverbs 3 and then interprets it.

And the first thing we see here is that there is, first, notice that I have in terms of this passage, and the first thing that’s important to remember is that we need to have more diligence in terms of remembering and applying the word of God because he begins this quotation from Proverbs 11 with the statement, “And have you forgotten the exhortation?” Now it’s true in the Greek that perhaps another rendering of this would be, “Have you forgotten the exhortation that God has given you in Proverbs 3?” But either way, the point is that there is some possibility and increased possibility that people have forgotten that encouragement. And so it is with us. We’re called to study the word of God. We’re called to impress that word of God upon our minds and not forget it. And sometimes when we faint and grow weary, it’s because we’ve forgotten the encouragement that God has already given us in his word.

So we need to be more diligent in studying and applying the scriptures. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it lots more. But if we’re too busy to study the scriptures ever throughout the week, then we’re too busy period. We better cut back, because it’s the source of our life, our relationship to God. We understand that relationship by studying the scriptures. We understand who God is, what we’re to do. If we don’t have time to do that, then we are going to grow weary. Our knees will become paralyzed. Our hands will be slack. We won’t be able to finish the course that God has given us to do. More diligence is needed to study and apply the word of God.

Secondly, notice that this particular encouragement is a corrective for two errors. There’s two errors being addressed here. First, he says in verse 5, “He says, ‘My son, despise not the chasing of the Lord, nor faint when rebuked of it.’” Those are two ways of dealing with the discipline that God gives to us, both of which are wrong.

Now, the first one’s rather obvious. “Despise not the chasing the Lord brings upon us. Don’t treat it lightly.” Many of these things are because we—for those of us who have children, we can think about the relationship of what we’re saying to them. We talked about the servant we wanted to be done with this work. If you give your child a task to do, they only do half of it. They start complaining about it. You don’t like that. And many times here as well, if we reprimand our children, they’ll take it lightly. And we know we have to reprimand them much more severely then, because it’s a very dangerous thing to begin to hold the reprimands that God gives us throughout our lives in light regard. And that will certainly lead to a course of damnation and perdition. It’s a fearful fact that some people do harden their hearts to the discipline of God and treat it lightly and not as corrective.

But secondly, there’s another problem that was rather obvious to us. Probably not many of us engage in that. But secondly, he says, “Nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.” The word “rebuked” means that he is correct—that God has at this point in time gotten across the message. He’s told us what’s wrong. We understand it. But now we faint because of it instead of being corrected, of moving on to action. We give up. We get discouraged. Okay?

And that is another error that we can take an approach to God’s discipline and should be avoided by this text. We can faint when we’re rebuked of God. Calvin talks about this and quotes from St. Bernard in his Institutes, and I’ll read this quote to you. St. Bernard said, “Sorrow for sins is necessary if it be not unremitted. I beg you to turn your steps back sometimes from troubled and anxious remembering of your ways and to go forth to the table land of serene remembrance of God’s benefits. Don’t stay on the fact that God has corrected you on an error. Continue to think about your sin and continue to say, ‘Oh, me. I’m just terrible. I’m just terrible.’” He says, “Don’t do that overly long. Repent, turn from it, and then go to God’s table land—the serene tableland of God’s remembrance of God’s benefits.”

“Let us mingle honey with warm wood, that its wholesome bitterness may bring health when it is drunk, tempered with sweetness. If you take thought upon yourselves in your humility, take thought likewise upon the Lord in his goodness.” There’s work involved in correction, but there’s honey as well, because God is reproving us that we might come back to him, not that we’d stay in an attitude of contrition and of feeling sorry for ourselves. Don’t just remember yourselves in those situations. Remember the grace of God and turn back to it. It’s important.

That’s another good example to remember with our children. Don’t allow them to feel sorry for themselves over discipline. Help them to see what we’re trying to do is shed these sins, to lay aside these sins and weights, not to be overly involved in analyzing them, but to say, “Yes, I sinned. I’m sorry for that sin. God is my witness. I truly repent of that sin. I now want to move forward, because God has forgiven me in Jesus Christ, to the race that he’s called me to do.”

So these encouragements are encouragement to run the race but encouragement also to avoid these two errors: to despise chastening and then to faint when rebuked.

Third, this encouragement then is based upon the fact that chastisement is approval both of the sonship and the fatherly love of God. And we talked several weeks ago about how the words here—”chastise” and “chastening.” These words throughout this passage mean—come from the Greek word paideia, meaning “instruction.” That God corrects us in an instructing fashion, not in condemning us, but in instructing us, in disciplining us for correct service.

We’re sons. We’re not slaves. When we recognize that God is chastening us. And the fact that God chasens us and disciples us over specific matters is a proof of our sonship before God and that we’re not slaves. Now, this is a tremendous truth, isn’t it? That now we have not only been encouraged to keep the race because of the witnesses, we’re not just encouraged to keep the race because of the example of Christ, but now we’re actually told that those bumps in the road, those pits and stuff, are part of the means whereby God is proving to us that he’s our father and that we’re his sons and daughters.

Calvin talked about how we have two types of judgments from God: chastisement on the one hand and vengeance on the other. Chastisement for the people of his, vengeance on those people who are not God’s people. Today we talk about judgments of God, trying to figure out whether the judgment of our land is a judgment unto repentance and restoration or whether it’s a judgment unto destruction. Same sort of two ways that God deals in scripture with two types of people that we’re talking about today that Calvin talked about there.

Christ talked about the difference being between a son and a slave. The son and the slave both are flogged. But the son receives the flogging that he might be corrected by it, that he might be chastened as a freeman, and is necessarily then being disciplined by God, that he might exercise more discipline in his life as a free man before God. The slave is flogged by God as a punishment for his sin solely, not in terms of bringing him to chastisement or instruction, but simply to punish him for his sin.

We’re not of that type. We’re the freemen. And this should be a tremendously tremendous encouragement to us to recognize that God flogs us to bring us to a better position of being freemen under him and exercising self-government and liberty. The slave is punished and scourged and punished, as opposed to the son who is through that punishment and trial brought to amendment. Brought to amendment. And we should recognize that when God’s discipline comes upon us, we shouldn’t deny it. We should do all over long. We should amend our ways. We should repair to the word of God. We should repair back to a correct relationship to him. And that’s the reason this chastisement comes upon us. These verses tell us. And that should be a tremendous encouragement to us.

So now we have even more encouragement, don’t we, to run the race? Because now we’re not simply just running it with patience. We’re not just running it with patience and appreciation. Running with patience, appreciation, and love—because we’re now been proved sons of God and as beneficiaries of his love.

Notice also that by analogy here, our earthly fathers don’t compare to our heavenly father in heaven. God moves on from the point of telling us that his chastening proves our sonship or our love to then compare his chastening of us to our father’s discipline of us. And he says there are certain limitations that your father had upon themselves. They disciplined us for a short time, as it were. You only got x amount of years to discipline your child. If he hasn’t come to repair, it’s too late. He’s out of your control now. God doesn’t have that restriction of time. We’re perpetually his sons. We’re always in a position of being disciplined by God and brought to a place of maturity under God.

The fathers, it says, disciplined us for their own pleasure. That doesn’t mean in the text there that they did it because they wanted to do it. It means that they did it because that was what they thought was best. That’s what the word means here. They disciplined us the best way they knew how—I guess is the way to think of it. But fathers make mistakes, don’t they? And mothers make mistakes. We have with our children. We have unjust discipline at times. We’ll punish the wrong child. We’ll, like in basketball, you know, we’ll pick up the foul that was a result of another person’s foul, and so not bring justice to the situation. We’ll try to do what’s right, obviously, but we won’t do it right. That’s a problem with all the time. We have limited knowledge. We have limited wisdom in terms of our understanding of our children as well. And so our discipline will be as our own pleasure, trying to do what God wants us to do but falling short.

God doesn’t have that limitation. When he brings discipline upon us, it is perfect because he has perfect knowledge of who did what, what occurred, what our particular sin was. He has perfect knowledge of what’s needed to correct us. So God’s discipline is even greater than our father’s discipline. And his fatherliness is even greater than our own earthly fathers. And finally, it says here that God’s discipline is to the end that we might live. Okay? Says that in verse nine: “As a result, we should be in subjection under the Father of spirits and live.” The fathers, our earthly fathers, cannot bring life to us. They cannot give us life more abundantly, as Jesus promised. But our heavenly father can. And that’s why he disciplines us—to give us life, life more abundant, true life, covenant life under him in terms of his government and in terms of his calling.

So in this set of encouragements then, God compares himself to our fathers. We see that he is our father. We’re his children. We’re loved by him, and we should be encouraged by that. We know those of us who are fathers how much we love our children. You can’t imagine how much you love a child till you have some children, and you recognize the importance of parental love. Think about that in terms of God’s love for us. He loves us more than we love our children. The scriptures clearly teach in a more better fashion and a more giving fashion than we would give to our own children. He gave his very son himself to die on the cross for our sins. Now, that’s a tremendous encouragement to run the race.

And by now, we should be speeding up in our desire to run that race before God, given this encouragement. And finally, he tops it all off by telling us that his judgments and his disciplines are efficacious to peace and to joy. The result of his discipline, the result of his chastening us is peace and joy. And we find that in verse 11: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”

He says the chastise that God brings to us doesn’t appear joyous yet, but it is a cause of joy for us when we understand, we’ve gone through the process, we’ve been given the peaceable fruit of righteousness in our lives. We then recognize the joy with which we receive the discipline from God, and that should be the final capstone, as it were, of the encouragements here that God gives us—that should be the final emphasis or impetus to us rather to run the race, not just with patience, not just with thankfulness, but with love for our father who gives us the peaceful fruits of love and joy, being true sons of his.