Ephesians; 1:5 – The sons of God will be disciplined, part 4.

2Co 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves;

2Co 4:8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;

2Co 4:9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;

2Co 4:10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

2Co 4:11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

2Co 4:12 So death works in us, but life in you.

2Co 4:13 But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, " I believed, therefore I spoke, "we also believe, therefore also we speak;

2Co 4:14 knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.

2Co 4:15 For all things are for your sakes, that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.

2Co 4:16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

2Co 4:17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,

2Co 4:18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

2Co 5:1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2Co 5:2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven;

2Co 5:3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, shall not be found naked.

2Co 5:4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

2Co 5:5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.

2Co 5:6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord —

2Co 5:7 for we walk by faith, not by sight —

2Co 5:8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

2Co 5:9 Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.

2Co 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

“One day I am going to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that is phony in my life will be brought out in the open, and so I have been trying to get rid of that which is phony. I want things to be crystal clear, because someday the Lord is going to turn a light on my life and everything will be exposed. What a light that is going to be. It is rather terrifying.” [J. Vernon McGee]

Heb 12:5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,

"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;

Heb 12:6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,

And He scourges every son whom He receives."

Heb 12:7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

Heb 12:8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Heb 12:9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?

Heb 12:10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness.

Heb 12:11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

To some extent, God’s divine purpose is accomplished through sorrow. Yet, that sorrow yields peace.

Discipline isn’t supposed to be fun. It hurts, and if we are humble enough to see, we know that we have caused God to pain us because of our choice to sin.

We remember that the incarnation, the Son of God coming into the world as a man, was devised and accomplished just for us. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus completed the work that would make us like Him; being new creatures in Him and having His divine nature within. Think of what a monumental change that is from the creature you used to be. Now imagine a person so changed who carelessly neglects that nature through sin, and instead of living in this world as the brother or sister of Christ, that person continues to damage his own life by pursuing the course of his old life. It’s the ultimate in foolishness, and yet, we all have a tendency to do it, and so God must help us to keep our inner eye singularly upon our Lord Jesus Christ, our Master, our Savior, our Maker.

Sin is always against God’s nature, the divine nature that we now possess. God would rather see us pained than see us callously indifferent towards that nature.

Keep your mind on this important principle while we read our Lord’s instruction to all His disciples.

Mat 6:19 "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

Doing this could easily involve sin, but at the least, it is a neglect of your divine nature to be friends with the world.

1Jo 2:15-16

Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

Mat 6:20 "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;

Mat 6:21 for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Mat 6:22 "The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore your eye is clear [Greek: haplous = singular], your whole body will be full of light.

Mat 6:23 "But if your eye is bad [Greek: poneros = wicked, evil, bad], your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

How can light be darkness? The person thinks it is light. The great darkness in the human race is self-deception and lack of humility.

Mat 6:24 "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

One of the disciplines brought upon the Corinthian church was Paul’s letter.

Heb 12:11

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

2Co 7:8 For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it — for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while —

2Co 7:9 I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, in order that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.

2Co 7:10 For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret [thankful for the discipline], leading to salvation [deliverance from carnality]; but the sorrow of the world produces death.

The sorrow of the world produces death because it is imperfect and not designed only for your betterment. The world doesn’t care about you.

2Co 7:11 For behold what earnestness [Greek: spoude = diligence, earnest care] this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation [strong opposition against that which is wrong], what fear, what longing [vehement desire], what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter.

They were not innocent [Greek: hagnos = holy, sanctified, or pure] before their repentance as 1Co clearly reveals, but because they responded to their discipline properly the revealed holiness.

Heb 12:9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?

Heb 12:10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness.

Heb 12:11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Discipline is not joyous; it is grievous when the believers suffer it. Nevertheless, the end product is a good thing and it will result in holiness and righteous fruit.

Heb 12:12 Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,

Heb 12:13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

Vv. 12-13 entreat us to respond properly to the discipline. Strengthen and walk straight rather than continue in the sin that brought the discipline.

He is writing to Jews who would know the passage in Isaiah. Many of them were probably discouraged by the suffering they faced by leaning back towards Judaism.