also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 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 set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin, and ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. Furthermore, we've had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastisement for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore, lift up the hands which hang down in the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet. Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. Here ends the reading of God's precious and infallible word. May he bless that to our hearts. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, God is a loving and gracious father. God is a wise father. And therefore, God is a disciplining father. We witnessed baptism this morning, and we saw the covenant promises that God, for Christ's sake, desires to be our heavenly and gracious Father, caring Father, that He promises to provide for His children, and that He will give them every good thing and prevent all evil, or turn it to a profit. How comforting that is. that God promises that in baptism. Yes, these realities, of course, need to be embraced by true and saving faith, worked by the Holy Spirit. But even the Holy Spirit is promised in the promises of baptism. And that's why we heard that we are called, and parents, you are to instruct your children therein, that we should respond to these promises of God with faith and with new obedience, submitting to the heavenly Father, wise Father, gracious Father, loving Father, and therefore disciplining Father. Now, the Hebrews, as we continue our series in Hebrews, we have come to chapter 12. The Hebrew Christians, some of them were drawing back from the covenant promises which are yea and amen in Jesus Christ. Why? Well, there were hardships and there was persecution because of their faith. What the author to the Hebrews does in this chapter, he wants them to understand all their struggles, all their hardships, even their persecution, even that temptation that they have to draw back and to draw away from Jesus Christ. He wants them to understand all these things in the light of God's gracious fatherhood. And he puts, therefore, before them, in this chapter, a picture of God who is wise and gracious, and therefore disciplines. And he does that to encourage them, to encourage these people and to give them hope, and he urges them then to look in their hardships to the God who is a gracious Heavenly Father who cares and who disciplines his children wisely. And we could, of course, focus on that this morning together, and some of it will shine through. But we want to focus this morning really on one verse from this chapter, which is a very helpful verse and practical verse for you parents as you bring up your children. And so with the Lord's help, we would like to draw your attention to verse 10. And where we read our text for this morning, for they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our prophet, that is the Lord, that we might be partakers of his holiness. And so our theme then, with God's help, God's better fatherly discipline. First of all, discipline for our pleasure. We see that in the first part of the verse. And then the second part of the verse, discipline for our prophet. Now I'm quite sure that the author of the Hebrews must have been watching parents for some time. Perhaps he was a parent himself. We don't know. We don't exactly know who wrote Hebrews. But when we listen to our text, it's almost like he has also been looking around in our time, hasn't he? Don't you think? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure." There is a great number of parents on this planet nowadays that believe that we should not discipline children, but just make them realize their goals and their desires the way they want it. There are parents that are afraid to upset their children. There are other parents that try to parent in a way that they at least can do whatever they want. Don't upset me. Just do whatever you do. As long as I can do what I want, go ahead, have fun. That's among other things, disciplining according to your own pleasure. And I don't need to tell you that Children do immediately pick up on that. They see through it. That's what our text talks about. Let's zoom in for a moment. For they, who are the they? That's the fathers. We see that fathers after the flesh. Verse 9 tells us that. The earthly fathers. For they verily, the literal word means on the one hand. On the one hand. And on the other hand, we get later on in the verse. For they, on the one hand, for a few days, parents, we have our children just a few days, to make a lasting impression on our children. Time flies. And so our influence is very, very important to set, as it were, a course for the future. For they verily for a few days chastened us. Now, when we hear this word, we immediately think about judgment and punishment and those kinds. No, this is a word that's broader. It's the broadest word for parenting. It simply means bringing up a child. For they indeed for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure. And these words mean, after their own pleasure, to be of an opinion, to think or to suppose something. So it has the idea that our earthly parents parent us in the way they think is best for us. They parent based on their subjective judgments which may or may not be good for us. So what is it saying? It's saying, wrapping this up, for our earthly parents, fathers, on the one hand, parented us for only a short time, and they did that in the way they thought was best for us, and sometimes it wasn't, and sometimes it was. Isn't that how we intuitively approach parenting? Just the way we think is best for us. But in our second thought, we are going to listen to something that is better, God's better discipline. Now in our text we see this sharp contrast between what God does and what we think is best. And if we look at a random look, and we are going to do that for a moment together, look at the Old Testament, we see examples of parents or fathers that parented in a way that they thought was best for them. Earthly parents. And what do we learn? We think about Eli, don't we? He was a God-fearing man, yes, and he was a priest, Eli. But his parenting wasn't the best. What was his problem? He was far too permissive. Rather than removing and punishing his sons, when he heard about their sins, he just scolded them. Why do you do this? I hear wicked deeds about you. And it's not good what you do. But the sinned sons did not listen and he didn't take action against their wickedness. And what was the result? It was a disastrous result. Two things. First, people began to abhor the service of the Lord. And the second was that later on he was removed and punished. Do you see that? The way we parent is very important for the next generation and has influence how they experience the things of God or not. And they see and they pick up on these things, whether we find these things important, yes or no. And then God came with his judgments to Eli's son and said it to Samuel, remember? And Eli said, yeah, it's the Lord. Let him do what seems good to us. Was it a godly response? I'm not sure. Was he resting in God's justice and God's sovereign control? Or was he saying, oh, well, it is too late already. I can't change them anyway. We don't read about repentance and struggling and wrestling and humbling prayers before the Lord. Eli was too permissive, and the results were destructive. We could think of Lot, another father. Lot chose to go first near Sodom, then in Sodom, and then he became one of the leaders of Sodom. He was inviting all kinds of worldly influences into his home. We think about it when we read also later that he was vexed with the filthy communication or lifestyle around him. We see all this, what's happening in this month. We look around us and we can be vexed by that. I hope we are. But that was in Sodom all year round, not just a month. And it influenced the children. It influenced the way they thought. Remember what happened later? His daughters had illegitimate relations with him. Yes, he was partly responsible. Influences from outside. How do we deal with those things? Lot went closer and closer. We think about Isaac. What was his sin as a father? Favoritism. He was guilty of favoring Esau over his son Jacob because he loved his food. Esau made those delicious meals. And what do we see? Next generation, Jacob. There we see the same thing happening. Joseph, Joseph is favored by Jacob. And what happens in that family, it brings trouble, bitterness, bitterness and resentment. And it got worse and worse. It had consequences. When we desire, when we parent just in a way that we think is best, not according to God's will, it has consequences. Not only does it reflect itself upon the next generation, but as fathers, through our sin, it's easy to provoke our children to wrath and anger. That's what we see. We think about another example. Think about King David. He was so busy with the kingdom of God. And he was a godly man, sure. A great poet, a wonderful king and warrior in battle. But was he often there for his children? He was an absentee father. He wrote wonderful psalms, yes. But the children got the short end of the stick. What about when we think about how it went with when he was raising his children? He chose himself, different wives from different ethnic religious backgrounds and what consequences that had. It had consequences for the way they raised their children. It would be sending off, sending our children off to to public school in our days, approximately. What consequences it had. We see all these beacons, as it were, these warning signs in the Old Testament of fathers who reaped fruit of their parenting because they did it according to their own pleasure. But there is also a contrast, a positive example. What an example Job is for us this morning. Blameless, fearing God, shunning evil. Can that be said of us? When there was this feast going on, Job bowed his knees early morning. Every morning he brought all his children one by one to the Lord, naming them before the Lord. What was his greatest fear? His greatest fear was, it may be that my sons have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts. What an example. This is the opposite of parenting in a way that seem us right. And God blessed it. As we think about these things, dear congregation, maybe you say, yes, these are all examples. Give me the gospel. Maybe that's what you think when you hear these examples. These examples are there for our learning. Don't dismiss them. Let them humble us, rather. And we look and see our sins and let them bring us to the cross. Don't dismiss them. Because how often have you and I, if we are parents here this morning, parent and disciplined in a way after our own pleasure? And how often have we spared our children because of their crying? Which the Bible says, don't do that. How often have we simply disciplined because our children are in the way? They're not giving me my me time. And we lost our temper and our self-control, right? How often have we just tried to manipulate, talk them into something? If you do this, then you get this. I count to three, and then you must listen. We are supposed to teach them obedience to the Lord. How many times have we threatened them and not followed upon our word? Let it humble us this morning that it is a mercy if God in his great mercy looks upon our children and gives them grace despite of all the sins that we have committed as parents. Let us not say, well, I did such a good job. No, let us give all glory to God when one of our children or more of our children are saved. Let us embrace the promises and live in godly lives and look to Christ, to the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse us also from our parenting sins this morning. Let us confess our sins and let us look to the Lord and how he parents us and how he parented his only begotten son. After all, the first verse of this chapter says to us so clearly, doesn't it? looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Him we need. Him we need, yes. And as we look to Him, we are called to lay aside every weight and every sin that so easily besets us. Well, parenting sins are very easy, aren't they? Let us lay those aside as well. Let us confess them and let us look to Him running the race. Even if you're here this morning and you say, my parenting, it's a marathon. Don't give up. Look to Jesus. Learn from how the Father, the Heavenly Father, dealt with His Son and ask for His Spirit. Ask for the same kind of way of dealing with your children. This Father is allowed, because He is the Most High God, to do everything for His own pleasure, and sinlessly so, and gloriously so. Let's learn from Him in our second thought, how He parents His children for their profit. But first, let's pause for a moment and sing together Psalm 173, stanzas 1, 4, and 6. God always parents his children for their profit. That brings us to the second half of our verse. For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. His last phrase tells us that the Lord has always a very specific parenting goal in mind. Not his child's happiness, but his child's holiness, because that will lead to happiness. And that should be the goal for us as parents as well. The Hebrew Christians needed to be reminded of this. They had these hardships and these persecutions that were going on and they had to make a stand for the Lord. And they were discouraged. You read that in verse 12. We read there about hanging down of the hands and the knees that are feeble. They are tempted to return, to turn away from the Lord because they say these hardships, it looks like God is against us. But the author to the Hebrews reminds them in verse four, wait a moment, wait a moment. Have you resisted against sin, even striving against it unto blood? Have you given your life already for it? And he asked this question, have you forgotten how the Lord parents his own children? don't turn away. The Lord parents His own children in a very beautiful way. They are discouraged. They are suffering and they have forgotten to remember that when there are hardships in our lives, it doesn't necessarily mean that God doesn't love us. They think so, but that's not necessarily true. And therefore, the author to the Hebrews, as he has been quoting the Old Testament over and over, and going back to the Old Testament, he goes to the Old Testament parenting manual, if you will. Proverbs. And in verse 5, he quotes Proverbs 3, and he says, listen, here's the reason that you shouldn't make that connection, I suffer and therefore God is against me. Proverbs 3, verse 11 and 12, where the Lord speaks to his children, he says there, my son despised not the chastening of the Lord nor feigned when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourges every son whom he receiveth. Don't think that the Lord leaves his own children without hardships and trials and persecution and tests of faith. and give them times in which they need to make a stand for the truth and suffer. Don't think that God does that because He loves to make your life difficult. No. Remember His goal, that you may conform to His holiness, that you may be partaker of His holiness. God has a specific goal. It's because God loves us that He allows us to experience hardships. The author to the Hebrews says that He parents His children. It's because God is a good and loving Father that He chastens His children and even allows His children to be scourged. Now let's look at this verse for a moment and focus on these three words that are used The Lord uses three things in the lives of His children, which we can learn from for our parenting. Parents, first chastening. That's the first word we hear. That's again that same word for parenting, that general word, it means training, it means disciplining. This shows that God the Father is actively involved in the life of his children, disciplining in order to disciple them. He is not an absentee father. He is a wise father who is present and trains his children by all that, everything that happens to them in their lives. Child of God, isn't that how you have gotten to know him? that He, like a wise father, trained you. He teaches us lessons, life lessons, humbling life lessons, often, to see what's in our hearts. I think of those verses in Deuteronomy 8. First verse five, it puts it like this, thou shalt also consider in thine heart that as a man chasteneth, same word, trains his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth, trains, brings up thee." Do you see that? He is the Heavenly Father. He trains his children, parents his children. Disciplines issue. Deuteronomy 8 verse 2, just a few verses before. It says, and thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee through the wilderness, there's 40 years. What was his purpose? To humble thee. So that we submit to the Lord. To humble thee and to prove, test. to know what's in thine heart. He's always focused on the heart, so that his children can become partakers of holiness. And then it ends with these words, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. Do you see that? God desires obedient children, and therefore he trains his children. The Lord uses everything in his children's life to teach them. He's always looking for obedience from the heart. Holiness of life. And parents, therefore, that should be our goal too, prayerfully focusing on the heart, teaching them to fear the Lord, not in the first place you, but to fear the Lord. That's the first word here. Chastening. Second word is rebuke. That means that when a child goes astray, we are called as parents. That's what God does. He comes with his word. He rebukes them. He says, what you're doing is not good. And he will take us apart, as it were, and speaks to us. Child of God, haven't you Experience that, don't you experience that from Sunday to Sunday, that the Lord speaks to you, and sometimes he comes with a rebuke, because there's something not right in our lives, so that you may be once again partaker of his holiness. He takes us as we're apart, he speaks to us, he zooms in on our lives, and he puts the finger where it needs to be pointing. And so that's what we are to do, to take our children apart and speak to them when they have gone astray and when they have not listened to our training and to our disciplining, then we are to take them apart and speak to them. This is not good, my son, my daughter. And tell them why I've taught you this. And remember, you are to obey your parents in the Lord. This is not good. And when the child then goes on and on, then there is the third word. What is it? The Proverbs text says scourging. The Lord uses scourging. He brings pain into our lives. Hardships. God will visit us for our sins when we've gone astray and ignored his word. That's what he did with the Israelites, remember? Threw the wilderness into the promised land, and then they ignored prophet after prophet after prophet, and they went astray. What happened? He brought them to Babylon, pain, hardship. And when they had learned, the prodigal came home. And what a father he is. He received. The child with open arms. Open arms. That's who God is. Because he wants to make his children partakers of his holiness. Do you see the model this morning? Chastening, training, rebuke, words of correction, and scourging, fatherly discipline, pain, life circumstances. Here are the instructions, dear parents, right from this chapter for you this morning. Look to God, the Heavenly Father, and learn from Him. And say, Lord, teach me. Teach me these things, to do these things for Thy honor and glory. But most of all, parent me this way. Parent me this way. be my Heavenly Father, train me." Because if we want to train our children and we have not been trained this way by the Lord, how can we do this for our children? Then we do these things maybe outwardly, but And oh, the Lord wants to come to our lives through His power of His Spirit and train us and correct us and bring hardships to our lives and suffering to our lives so that we would be obedient children to Him, true sons and daughters. And this is what we are to show to our children, that God also in this way deals with me. And that you rejoice in those things, because it shows you that you're not a bastard, not a illegitimate son, but a real son, a true son of God, when He does these things in your life. The idea here is of Roman fathers. They were not living very godly lives, and they had some illegitimate sons here and there, born out of wedlock, and yes, they would support them, they would give them money, but they would not be involved in their lives. Bastards. So they grew up, raised without any discipline. illegitimate children. But their own children, their legitimate children, what did they do for it? They did not spare any type of training for them. They would rigorously raise their children so that they knew my inheritance is being passed to the next son and he will take care of it. I have trained him. Galatians 4 verse 1 and 2, it gives almost the impression, there speaks also about these things, that it was close to slavery what these Roman fathers did. And now what is the point of Hebrews verse 9? Just as earthly fathers corrected us, so the Lord, but much better, Much better than those Roman fathers, much better than we do by nature, with our own wisdom, in our own estimation, what we think is good. No, here is the Lord who disciplines His children the best way possible. Yes, we submitted to our fathers with all their sins and their shortcomings. We still submitted to them. How much more than should we submit in our trials and hardships and difficulties and learn from Him who is the Father of spirits, verse nine, the heavenly, the best Father possible, the Father of the universe, our creator. But can you say this morning, my Father, my heavenly Father, who knows what is best for me because I have learned to trust in Jesus Christ. God is a Father who is completely devoted to the proper training of His children. And He has one goal, holiness. Obedience and submission fall under that category. And it shows that we belong to Him when He doesn't spare us the rod. He wants us to profit from it. so that we can learn what it says in Romans 8, all things must indeed work together for good for those who are chosen according to His good pleasure and those who are going to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. All things. Let me give you an example. How God does that, from the Old Testament again. Jacob. Why Jacob? Well, Esau, his brother, is mentioned in the rest of the verses in verse 16 and 17. We read about him. He was a bastard. He was left to himself. He did despise the chastening of the Lord, and he did continue in his sin. Yes, the Lord even spoke to him, rebuked him, and so on. But he went on in his sin. As we warn today that we do not continue in our sins ignoring God, Esau was never saved. Esau died without the blessing of God. But Jacob, Jacob, we saw earlier, a father that failed in so many ways. There's hope for such fathers. If you say that this morning, we think about Jacob, a sinner, a liar, a cheat, and a self-focused man, a self-absorbed man in many ways. And yet, and yet, he was desirous for the promises and blessings of the Lord. And God met him. Bethel, house of God. God promised him to care for him. God promised to care for him. Yes, he brought him to Laban and he got some of his own medicine. Laban cheated him. He tasted some of his own bitter medicine. But nevertheless, God protected him and he brought him all the way to Peniel, from Bethel to Peniel. And there he wrestled with God. He hung on for his dear life. The prophet Hosea tells us that he cried with tears and in deep agony. He clearly lost the wrestling match with God. There was someone stronger than him. He didn't know it was God, but it was the angel of the Lord, we are told. And there where he lost everything, there God came with his blessing. He blessed him indeed. And there God dealt with him as a son. He trained him. He rebuked him. Yes, he scourged him. He just touched his hip out of joint. And there he goes away limping. God didn't spare because Jacob was his son. And there he goes limping and the sun shines over his life. Prince with God, Israel. Someone who prevailed because ultimately God prevailed. A true son. A true son. And that's what God did. We've last, several weeks ago, we've thought about Hebrews 11. All those heroes, God did the same for them. But dear congregation, most amazingly, He doesn't do this just for his children. He did this for his very own son. He treated his very own beloved son, Jesus Christ, this way. In Hebrews 5, verse 7 and 8, we are told that he struggled with strong cryings and tears and he wrestled in deep agony because he was God's very own son. That's how he dealt with his very own son, his eternal son. And the son, when we see him in Gethsemane, he holds on for his dear life to the Father. Why? Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by what he suffered. Blessed Son, who was with the Father forever, he who came down to earth not for himself He went through this fatherly discipline. He was trained. He learned obedience by what he suffered. He learned obedience by entering into hardships and suffering, not for himself. That's how the father showed him love. But even more so, That's how the Father through Him shows love to sinners who say, I have sinned. I have failed as a parent. I have failed as a child to submit to my parents and more. I have failed to submit to the heavenly Father. I'm a disobedient child. Here, look at Jesus Christ this morning and see how the Father loved Him. It was His pleasure to bruise Him. He endured suffering so that He can love fallen sons and daughters this morning. He scourged His Son. Yes, He scourged His Son. to bring disobedient sons and daughters back to himself, away from sin, away from death, away from hell, that we deserve. By his stripes you are healed. This is how he dealt with his son. And so this chapter invites us to look to him in his suffering. First verses, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, for the joy that was set before Him. There will be a day of redeemed sinners in heaven, all partakers of His holiness. What did He do? He went through sufferings, endured the cross, despised the shame, and now He sits at the right hand of God. Now in verse three, calls us all to consider Him. to put our minds on his life, especially when you find life hard, especially when you need wisdom for parenting, when you want to learn how God deals with his children. He endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. Why? so that when we look to him we are delivered from self-pity. O poor me, lest ye be wearied and faint in your souls, it says. God trained his son this way. He learned him obedience by what he suffered. So dear parents, is our parenting style mirroring God's? Are we focused on the hearts of our children? Do we really believe that holiness is more important than happiness? Then we should stop doing things according to our own pleasure, and I include myself. Then we should allow the Lord to train us for His glory, and for our prophet, then we should trust that he knows what is best for our children, therefore train our children, chasten them, rebuke them, verbal correction, and therefore also when necessary use physical and real life consequences. Scourging. Isn't this your desire? As you look to the Son and how the Father dealt with the Son to do the same for your children, that you have the same goal as the Heavenly Father. We desire to see blessing. Let our goal be holiness. Let us not spare for their crying. Let us remember when we seek to parent for God's glory and we seek our children's prophets, rather than their pleasure, that short-term pain, with God's blessing, may reap long-term gain, yes, eternal gain. May the Lord bless us, dear parents. May He treat us as children. A wise, heavenly Father, who knows what is best for us. May you receive all honor and glory when He parents us and we learn to look to Him and parent Him. Because let us remember what it says in verse 14, that those who follow peace and holiness will see God. Also in parenting, when you follow that, pursue those goals with God's grace. The opposite is true too. We heard it about Esau. Those without holiness will not see God nor receive his eternal blessing. Therefore, let us look to the Father and to the Son and pray for an abundant measure of the Holy Spirit to have the same goals. And so, with our sins still there, seek to parent for his glory. and for our children's profit.