The Lord Disciplines His Sons  

Hebrews 12: 4-24

Pentecost 11 (Proper 16)

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen.  The sermon text for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost is the epistle reading Hebrews 12. In our epistle reading from Hebrews we are all called sons of God.  To be a son of God is a very high status.  It means that we belong to the family of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. In order to understand what it means to be a son in God’s family we will need to look first at the Old Testament. In the time of the Old Testament it was the son who received an inheritance from his father.  And if you were the firstborn son, you received a double portion of the inheritance, leadership over the family, and the blessing of carrying on the covenant promise.  This language of sonship carries over into the New Testament as well. While we are by nature sinful, we have been adopted as sons of God in the blood of Christ.  And if you are a son of God, then you are an heir to all the blessings that Christ has won for you through His death and resurrection. That inheritance that we have received from God is forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life.  This sonship and all its blessings were first given to you in the waters of Holy Baptism.  Through Jesus we, both male and female, are called sons.  That is adopted children who have received an eternal inheritance through Christ Jesus.

Isn’t it wonderful to be part of the family of God!  Isn’t wonderful to be called sons of God!  Of course it is.  But to be part of a family and to be considered a son in that family means that we will also have to talk about discipline.  In every loving family there is indeed discipline.  Loving parents discipline their children and loving children know that they will be disciplined.  If sinful parents disciple their children, the best they know how then we must understand that the Lord will most definitely discipline all of us. “For the Lord disciplines the one He loves and chastises every son whom He receives.”  If you are a son, then you will indeed receive discipline from the Lord. 

Of course we understand that discipline can be difficult and painful. Our Lord disciplines us like a gardener, who takes care of an orchard or a garden.  Orchards and gardens need a lot of attention.  First, you have to look out for plant-eating bugs.  Second, you have to water the trees and plants, so they don’t shrivel up.  Third, you have to trim your plants so that they produce fruit.  Many plants don’t produce an abundance of fruit naturally. An apple tree, for example, if left alone, will not produce apples.  First, one must cut and trim the apple tree, and then it will produce fruit.  For vines to produce fruit, you have to cut away the dead and unused branches so that the plant thrives. 

In the same way, God ‘trims” us so that we produce fruit.  He cuts off the branches and parts of our lives that are harmful to us.  That may mean taking away distractions we’ve come to love more than we should.  It may mean allowing us to suffer so that we remember the one who carries us through every suffering.  It may hurt!  When an apple tree is first trimmed and pruned down to size, it looks like the gardener is being cruel and mean.  The apple tree looks like a poor tree indeed.  But give it time, and this poor tree will grow and produce so much fruit that you won’t be able to collect it all. (Concordia Pulpit Resources) 

Remember the words of our text. “For the moment all disciple seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”  Our Lord disciples us by instructing us in His Word and training us according to His will.  Our sinful nature still clings to us and so the Lord reveals our sins so that we don’t get comfortable in them.  To become comfortable in our sins is deadly, it is drifting away from Christ.  Our Lord reveals our sins.  He shows us how our sins cause us pain and how our sins harm others.  The Lord then gives us a contrite heart and a repentant spirit.  As sons of God we live a life of struggling with sin.  We live a life of repentance and forgiveness. 

Our Lord disciplines us by instructing us in His Word and at other times He disciplines us by allowing certain things to happen to us.  There are times when we suffer and do not know the reason.  We may get diagnosed with a serious illness, we might be experiencing grief, we may be dealing with a troubling problem at work.  Our life can be filled with great struggles.  God does allow things to happen to us that cause us to experience suffering and pain.  When that happens, we must always remember that God works everything for the good of His children.  He is disciplining us in order to draw us closer to Him.  He allows things to happen in our life to strengthen our faith, and He moves us to rely upon Him in times of trouble. 

This discipline is painful at the moment and so it may appear to us that God does not care about us.  There is a temptation to believe that God does not love us.  We forget that we are sons of God.  When we forget that God disciplines His sons, we would do well to look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.  In the fullness of time, the eternal Son of God took on human flesh.  Jesus was temped in every respect as we are, yet without sin.  On the cross, He suffered God’s wrath in our place and through the shedding of his holy and precious blood He redeemed us from sin and reconciled us to His heavenly Father.  As we look to Jesus and what He did for us through His death and resurrection we see that God does not discipline us, His adopted sons, in anger or displeasure. Instead, God disciplines us in love.   

Consider the example of our parents.  Even though our parents were far from perfect they were right to discipline us.  So it is that every son that the Lord loves and receives He disciplines.  In fact, if we were not disciplined by the Lord, we would be considered illegitimate children.  Our Lord’s loving discipline is certainly for our good.  Our Lord does not want us to fall away from Him and go down the wide door that leads to hell.  Our Lord wants us to trust in Him and go through the narrow door that brings us to heaven. 

Through the blood of Christ, you have been made a son of God and have all the benefits that come with it: forgiveness of sin, salvation, and eternal life.  As a son you will also be disciplined by the Lord.  But don’t let this thought of discipline make you grow weary or fainthearted. Instead, lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees with the promise that God loves you because of Christ, and He is disciplining you for your ultimate good – to bring you into His heavenly Jerusalem with innumerable angels in festal gathering, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. And until that day, “do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him.”  Nor let us forget that through Christ Jesus we are sons of God and that the Lord disciplines His sons whom He loves for their good.  Amen.