The Book of Hebrews 12:4-11 Practical guidance on godly discipline
Hebrews 12:4-11 · Vern Peterman · Jun 29, 2014
Hebrews, No. 58
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926432507940

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We've been going through the parenting series within the Hebrews study. And originally, today was going to be the last day of it. We've decided, however, we're going to extend it one more week to include defense of the faith, apologetics, so that no one will take your kids captive. Our culture is becoming increasingly secular. We have, in God we trust, printed on our money. It doesn't mean very much. In God we do not trust is increasingly, I think, the right assessment.

Christianity is subject to growing antagonism. We have even high profile, very outspoken, In terms of writings, very prolific writings by guys like Dawkins, here's James Randi, another outspoken critic. He's about to meet his maker, though he's getting old. At any rate, there are a great number of those who are speaking with increasing intensity, filing lawsuits even, to try to oppose Christianity.

The question of origins is increasingly being presented as science versus religion, and that's being characterized as faith in spite of the facts, even though atheism requires belief in multiple miracles without a god, as we'll see next week, and without scientific evidence. And so it's being, I think, misrepresented as a matter of science versus faith, when in fact it's a competition of two faiths.

And so we'll take a look at that. What constitutes a myth or a fable is often understood, I've heard it said, by one outspoken atheist. He's president of the Texas Atheist Association. He said the Bible is just full of fables. Well, we'll take a look at that. He misunderstands what the word fable is. because it's not the right word.

Anyway, we'll be going through that, taking a look at that, kind of an overview of apologetics as a key part of parenting. Okay? All right. Now, we're going to present seven biblical principles of godly discipline. Okay? Seven. Oh, well, anyway. So godly discipline is corrective. That's going to be a key point here. It's corrective. It has a range of expressions. It is to be expressed from love, key point. It is to be paired with true approval and true standing, speaking the truth. It is to be with reality and consistency. It is to be appropriate to the character, age, and stage of the child. And it's to be carried out in the context of modern society, as we'll look at here. All right.

One of the most dangerous places in America is the Christian bookstore. Sorry to say. Christian bookstores are there to sell products, so they offer what sells. Twice since Nancy and I've been here, the Christian Booksellers Association has met here in Denver, and they've had their convention in Denver.

A friend of ours has been a part of that and so has invited us to come take a look around. And we were, well, I was appalled. A great many of the exhibits were for what's called Jesus junk. You take something and put a fish sticker on it or put a verse on it, you know, and sell all kinds of little paraphernalia that you can hang up and wear on you and things of that sort.

But in terms of books with real content, very little of that was available. Some books on Christian parenting that we cannot recommend and they've been around for a while. Baby Wise and Growing Kids God's Way by Gary Ezzo of Growing Families International. I would say two things there. One is Gary Ezzo has a personal character that is profoundly unbiblical. But secondly, while there is a lot of good biblical content in the books, there's also things that he's just invented and that are not biblical.

Additionally, Christian or otherwise attachment parenting books by William and Martha Sears. They wrote a book trying to make this look good for Christians. The reality is it's based on Freudian psychology. Freud was an atheist. And based on evolution. And his presentation of evolution is not correct. There are even evolutionists who are upset with him because of his misrepresentation. So, at any rate, two books that have biblical issues, and so we caution against those. Neither of these sources is fully biblical, and where William and Martha Sears pull scripture into it, they twist. All right, now, spiritual aiming. We presented this last week. Spiritual aiming has a few components.

Assuming that the child becomes a believer, and we talked about, you know, where this parenting is headed. At adulthood, and that's where parenting is headed, and you're raising someone who will become an adult, hopefully in a couple decades roughly, right? At adulthood, the child will know what it means to walk in fellowship with the Lord and to grow. So this is the spiritual aiming that we're doing.

Secondly, at adulthood, the child will know what it means to be interdependently dependent on the Lord in a growing church body. We're not independently dependent upon the Lord exclusively, but also interdependently dependent upon the Lord. That's what church body action is about, and knowing at adulthood what that means. How do I participate in and join in a church body?

Thirdly, at adulthood the child will know unless he or she has the gift of singleness, and we talked previously about how do I know that, he will know how to lead his wife and family, or for her, for the daughter, to know what it looks like to have a man lead the family.

Now, one of the other things I think is an important perspective here is discipline is only one of the parent's tools. We've actually talked about six different tools, and we'll itemize those. But discipline is only a part of the parent's tools. So a parent who's only looking at discipline to do the whole job is not having the right perspective. Discipline is only one of the parent's tools, and we talked about six. The New Testament tells us that the tools that the parents have available to them include Discipline to correct. We'll have some brief explanation of each one of these. Discipline to correct. Instruction to place it in the mind.

That's the word instruction in Ephesians 6.4. Coming alongside to exhort from 2 Thessalonians 2. Encouraging in wise behavior and attitudes, again from 2 Thessalonians 2. in attitudes, behavior, decisions, and actions, and imploring, also from 1 Thessalonians 2, imploring to feedback truth and reality, and then finally, seeing examples to imitate deeply. We're not talking about mimicking. It's not superficial. It's not just a good acting job. but something to imitate deeply. Paul exhorted the Corinthians to imitate me as I imitate Christ. And that's not superficial, that's deep imitation.

The example that a parent gives, gives validity, gives authenticity, gives credibility to the rest of the tools. See, that's the value in the example that a parent gives. If a parent is not living out the example appropriately, then all the wise words will be cast aside. So the example gives credibility to everything else that's said.

Now, since discipline is corrective, then the right path, the path that the child should be on, should be made clear. If it is left only to catch the child doing something wrong and then try to discipline that, but not make the right path clear, then that's not going to come off well. The right path has to be clear so that when discipline is brought, that's where you need to go. That's the direction you need to be headed. That's why the rest of the parent's tools, including instruction, have to be a part of the picture. We've got the whole set of tools for parenting, so that discipline is only one. All the rest are to tell them, here's the right path. Here's the right path.

Not just, you're on the wrong path, guess what the right one is. See the difference there? If the right path is not clearly presented, discipline is going to look like it's all negative and not a lot different from punishment. Not a lot different from punishment.

The right path ought to be clear first. This takes some thinking ahead on the parents' part, right? Instead of always starting off with, oh, no, you don't know about that part of the right path, and then catching up to it. making the right path for the child clear from the outset. Remember when I told you this. Discipline is corrective. The same way that God's discipline to us is designed to put us back on the right path.

And this, by the way, is Galatians 6.1. If you find a brother or sister who has fallen off the path, fallen off the path, you who are spiritual, that is, walking in the Spirit, are to restore that one back to the path, right? So parents ought to be looked at correcting attitude and behavior, okay? Restoring them back to the path. The reason for us to make that point is in contrast discipline with punishment. Punishment has the idea not of putting them back on the path, But we're meeting out justice. It's just about justice.

Here's what you deserve. And guess what? Does God give us what we deserve? No. Mercy is God withholding punishment we deserve. And grace is giving us above what we deserve. Giving us things we never earned. So mercy and grace are demonstrated by using discipline as a corrective versus punishment, which simply says, here's justice. You got justice, right? You got what you deserve. So saying that discipline is corrective is actually from a position of mercy and grace.

Discipline is corrective because attitudes and actions have consequences. We want them back on the right path because being off the path has consequences that you don't want for them, and ultimately they won't want for themselves. So attitudes and actions have consequences in life. The reason the parents are going to be stepping in to discipline is so the child gets the message about attitudes, actions, and the consequences. To help them think through, here's what happens if you do this. And the parent is stepping in rather than letting nature take its course to tell them, here's what the consequences are, because frequently kids don't think about consequences.

I can remember one time when I was a kid, I figured out how to make nitroglycerin. And so I started making it because I could, right? And so I start mixing this stuff up, you know, and I get partway through and I thought, you know, I wonder if I'm making too much. I want to start doing some calculations. Yep, six city blocks would get wiped out. I think I better cut back. So, kids just don't think through consequences very well. You have to help them. When a child is young, parents seek to protect their child from the dangerous consequences that could come about. But over time, they're to aim for them to be responsible for their attitudes and actions.

This is key. Now, Proverbs chapter 22, 15 and 29, 15 read like this. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of discipline will remove it far from him. This is getting at the point that there is a sin nature in human beings. It's a recognition of that. It's part of the problem with parenting approaches from the secular world. that don't recognize the sin nature, that don't recognize that foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child.

Next, the rod and reproof give wisdom. Now, notice something. The first one talks about the rod of discipline. The next one says the rod and reproof. So it talks about a range of different discipline options. It talks about there's more than one way.

These give wisdom, but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother. the foolishness that's bound up in the heart. If that gets lived out, uh-oh. If that gets lived out, uh-oh. Now, one thing we have to be aware of, though the rod may indeed mean corporal discipline, and we'll talk about that in a minute, that is bodily discipline, the term was also used figuratively for a sharp exhortation.

And the Apostle Paul used it in 1 Corinthians 4.21, because they need lots of sharp exhortations. So calling for a rod doesn't uniformly mean that bodily discipline, corporal discipline, is what God intends. And I think some mistake that where, boy, I'm always going to use the rod. Well, that may not be exactly what God has in mind.

Remember, we've got a multitude of tools, six here, and those can be mixed and put in combinations. Willful disobedience and defiance is most important to be corrected firmly. Parents, you must win. Got that? Parents, you must win. Always. Must be opposed and corrected decisively. Lying, sneaking, and deception, however, are covert defiance and disobedience and must be corrected. Got that? that lying, sneaking, and deception are covert disobedience and defiance.

Children can have a range of strength of will, and let me tell you something, parents who have compliant children do not understand parents who have a strong-willed child. Yep. They don't understand it. They will think you're doing something wrong. No, you have a strong-willed child.

And children can have an inclination towards open disobedience and defiance or sneaking and deceptive disobedience and defiance. Often children will pick one inclination or the other among those. And it's very important for the parent to discern what's going on here.

We made the point earlier with Proverbs 29.15 that there's a range of expressions. Godly discipline as a range of expressions may vary between verbal admonishment to corporal discipline, bodily discipline. So there's a range of expressions in there. It should not be a one-size-fits-all.

I'm going to use this, and that's what I'm always going to do. It should be a matter of saying, I've got a whole tool chest here. As a biblical parent, I've got a whole tool chest, and what's the best tool for the job? That's the question, okay? What's the best tool for the job? Consideration by the parents as to what should be done in each case is best, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Always doing one thing all the time for every child is not likely the best answer, okay? Not likely the best answer.

Now Hebrews 12.6 reads like this, For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. Let's point out one thing, just as rod was used figuratively in 1 Corinthians 4, scourges is used figuratively here. The Lord doesn't actually get out and whip and whip you, does he? So it's a figure of speech. Discipline is an expression of love. This is key. Discipline is an expression of love.

It doesn't rate high on the fun meter for anybody. It doesn't. But it is an expression of love from parents to the children, just as it's an expression of love from God to us. The intent is not to punish. The intent is not to show how ticked off I am. is to put the child back on the right path. As a corresponding principle, one that matches it, failure to discipline conveys a lack of love for the child. Got that? Conversely, discipline is not an expression of the parent's anger, frustration, or embarrassment.

If that's what's happening, time to cool off, okay? It is for the correction of the child out of a constant and consistent selfless love, not the expression of the parent's current emotional state. Right now I feel so uh-oh. That's not the right place to come from. Now, true approval and understanding. What do we mean by this?

First I'll start off, the self-esteem movement is finally running out of steam. That started actually back around 1880 and got kind of new wind during the 60s and 70s. It is actually finally running out of steam and the idea that you're supposed to just build up the child's self-esteem no matter what.

Our second son, Ed, who was here just a few weeks ago, his full-time job is a prison guard. And his job at present is transporting prisoners, sometimes one at a time, to everything from doctor appointments to another state, and then between prisons in Nevada. He tells me that none of the prisoners that he has encountered have poor self-esteem.

I think that's very insightful. Biblically, parents are to approve the things that are in reality and truly excellent. Philippians 1, 9-11. That's what parents should do. Recognize excellence, approve those things, and not otherwise. Not just clap, clap, clap for whatever they do. Consistent with this though, negative name-calling is not within biblical bounds either. We're not trying to build self-esteem, neither are we trying to tear them down.

That's the wrong direction. Parents are to feed back the truth to their children in an encouraging way. Encouraging them towards what? The right path. Raise them with Christ-esteem. There's the direction to go. It's not self-esteem. It's not tearing them down. Raise them with Christ-esteem. Rather than trying to boost self-esteem, the aim ought to be to develop Christ-esteem and then an understanding of who we are as believers in Christ and who Christ is in each of us. Christ-esteem. Ephesians 1, 3 and 4.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. So you are in Christ. Where? In the heavenlies. Just as He, the Father, chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Now, did God just pick you and say, yeah, that one? No. Chose you in Him before the foundation of the world. There is the value in Christ. Christ-esteem, not self-esteem. Now, with reality and consistency.

When we were looking at Ephesians 6-4, first Sunday we started this series here in June, we said the three ways of exasperating a child. So here are the instructions. If you want to exasperate a child, there's three ways to do it. Too strict a discipline. The bar is way too high. The discipline is way too intense.

Two lacks of discipline, and we made a comparison to a kite where, you know, you hold on to the string really tight, and then is the kite going to fly? No, not going to go anywhere. Or you say, oh, good, we'll just let it go. The kite doesn't go anywhere either. Now, then the other, the third option is inconsistent discipline. The kid never knows what's coming next, okay? Am I going to just do something and get away with it? Or am I just going to get completely overrun by my parents? I never know.

The discipline that is consistently about right is what we're aiming for. We're aiming for it. The truth is, it's a challenge. It's quite a challenge. The children keep growing and changing, and so do the circumstances. So do the circumstances. So it is a challenge, I'll admit that, but aiming for about right as they grow.

Now here's James 1.17, Malachi 3.6 and other passages provide the same message. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of light with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. God does not change. contrary to what some teach called open theism. God does not change.

He is consistent. His love is consistent. That's the example. As God disciplines us, as parents disciplining, consistency, coming from a consistent character, is the key. As the Lord's character never changes, discipline comes from the Lord's character, which is, as we saw in Hebrews 12, Love. Parental discipline should reflect the Lord's unchanging character of love and grace and mercy. Love and grace and mercy. Also consider the character of the child.

How is this one best influenced? One child will be more influenced by one mode of discipline, but another will be influenced by a different mode of discipline. Nancy and I have used sometimes in our conversations the term currency, and of course this kid doesn't care about currency, right? But, so what is the child really, what does the child really hold valuable to what does the child respond? And you may have seen it yourself, one child really responds to certain things and another child does not.

We had an instance where one of our kids you could isolate and that would be the worst thing you could do to them. Social isolation. The other one, it was just fine with it. Social isolation didn't do a thing. And so what is the child's currency? Discover what will have the most influence on a child. Discovering that is important. you might discover that one child is more impacted by being isolated socially, but another is more influenced by being charged financially. In fact, Nancy and I, we talked about, we found that for one of our sons, the currency was currency.

That'll cost you. Oh, no. But another may be more impacted by verbal correction. So what will have the most impact? That's what you want to So, the age and stage is also critical. Biblical tools that are available for parents need to be adjusted for the age and stage that the child is at.

Now, we'll talk about physical discipline or corporal discipline here shortly. Nancy and I knew one family where the mother walked into the room and she said, That was her son. You put your father down right now! I'd say at that point in time, don't try spanking.

In the same way that scripture recognizes degrees of spiritual maturity, there are degrees of maturity in children. Discipline must be appropriate to the level of maturity of the child, also consistent with the child's ability to understand the right path. It has to be communicated in such a way that they understand. Can't use, you know, $100 words with a kid who's not going to understand it. So understanding what is the right path and what do I need to do to get back on the right path is important.

Also, in the context of modern society, discipline and dealing with behaviors in general needs to be adapted to the society and of what society will require for the child, both during the years that they're growing up and on into adulthood. For example, parents today must instruct and discipline their children if necessary to stay away from items that did not exist in biblical times, such as electrical outlets, hot kitchen items, things like that. So there are risks and hazards out there today. that didn't exist back in biblical times. In fact, didn't exist back even a generation or two ago.

Now, why am I showing you this? These are capacitors. These are electronic components called capacitors. My dad had a drum full of different capacitors. And I looked at these capacitors. One, two. One wire on one end, one wire coming out the other end, and guess what? There's two slots in these things, and the outlet already looks like it's saying, uh-oh, right? And so here I am, and you know, I've got, here is an outlet, and it's sitting right there, and it's got electricity going to it. And I find a really big capacitor. Oh, this is impressive, right? So the capacitor goes BOOM! And the house goes dark.

You don't want your kid doing that, right? So it has to be adapted to today's modern society. You have an advantage as parents, and there's lots of electronic things available these days that can be used as a key. You lose that privilege, right? So that's an advantage. The disadvantage is, boy, everything out there electronic has all sorts of hazards in it, doesn't it?

The reality is Christian parents are in a tougher and tougher place. Tougher and tougher place. It is very challenging. to be a Christian parent these days, and it's getting tougher. Not only because of things like what electronics exposes us to. I mean, you can bring the whole world onto the screen, right? That's terrible. You can bring anything onto the screen in addition to that. In addition to that, it becomes more and more technically challenging for the parents to stay on top of all this.

Now, let's talk about corporal discipline. This isn't a military term. It's bodily discipline. We have a legal and social environment in which public corporal discipline of a child can result in parents being reported, investigated, having children removed from the home by the authorities, etc. And we even have state and local agencies that are set up for that sort of thing. And the reality is that there is a need for it.

However, in biblical times it was assumed there would be corporal discipline, physical discipline. That was just assumed. Of course you're going to correct the child using physical discipline. It was automatically assumed you're going to do that. Today, corporal discipline is a biblical option. You see the mention there of the rod, the scourging, and that kind of thing.

Biblically, it's an option, but a few considerations. It is risky to use it in public. You better have other options already thought through. It's risky to use it in public. It can get you in this kind of trouble and you'll end up hiring lawyers and things of that sort.

Be sure that it's the best option and necessary. In other words, if one of the other choices is going to get the result that you want and make the correction, another choice is probably better, right? Make sure it's the best one and also necessary because there is a range of options. Is it really necessary that I use this one? Third. Be sure that love is the motive. Be sure that love is the motive. It's not, again, because I'm really angry. It's not because I'm terribly frustrated. Be sure that love is the motive.

Some considerations there. Now, one more thing. Wisdom. Pray for it. Christian parenting in these times requires lots of wisdom, and increasingly so. A believer, as a believer, you're free to seek from God's Word, as we've been doing here this morning and this last month. You're also free to ask God for it. This is from James 1, 5-7. You're also free to ask God for wisdom. Aside from praying for wisdom, it's wise to pray about everything.

When my mom was done raising five kids, I asked her one day, I remember talking to her on the phone, I said, if you could do anything differently after raising five kids, what would you do? And within less than a second, I mean some fraction of a second, she said immediately, pray more. Pray more.

Pray about your children's present issues and pray about their future. Of course, Nancy and I are done raising our kids, at least we think. But we pray for our kids and for their spouses and for our grandkids every day. We don't pray just about present issues, we do, but we also pray about their future years away from now.

Pray about their circumstances that they're in now and pray about the Holy Spirit's work in their hearts. As they're young and need to come to the Lord, there's a ministry of the Holy Spirit. to convict them. That's from the Gospel of John. As they get older there are multiple ministries and become believers there are multiple ministries of the Holy Spirit at work in their hearts. So you can pray about both of those whether they've come to believe yet or they have come and then the Holy Spirit has multiple ministries in their lives.

Also remember the spiritual aiming in the midst of these things. Sometimes these discipline issues can get really difficult to sort out, and it may be puzzling at times trying to find out what's the right route. Remember where you've got them headed. That's key. Not only is it helpful as kids get into the latter stages of their upbringing, to tell them this is where we're headed with you, but it's also important for parents to keep in mind. In the big picture, this is where we're going, okay? It's not all about the current discipline issue, but this is where we're headed. This is where we're going.

We want at adulthood that child to know what it means to walk with the Lord and to grow spiritually. We want at adulthood for the child to know what it means to be interdependently dependent on the Lord and in a growing church body. In adulthood, we want that child to know, unless he or she has the gift of singleness, how to lead his wife and family, or for her to know what that looks like and look for a man who does. These are key things to keep in mind because perspective, and especially in an intense discipline situation, and especially if you're quite concerned, or you're turning out to be a real battle, keeping the big picture in focus is extremely important.

And, like we had in the previous slide, let's pray for wisdom now for the parents here. Lord, we thank you in this issue of discipline, which is certainly, as we've said, not the whole picture, but an important part. We pray for the parents that are here this morning or those who may be listening online. We pray for them for wisdom. We pray for understanding and insight from these biblical principles. And we would ask for those of us who are not in the parenting role for whatever age and stage we're at, we pray for us to support those. As a church body and as extended families, we pray for the support of those who are taking on the increasingly challenging job of parenting. We just thank you that you've made these things available to us and made us aware of them and to understand them because you love us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.