The Discipline of the Lord | Hebrews 12:4-13
Brian Hedges | February 23, 2025
Good morning. Let me invite you to turn in the Bible to Hebrews 12.
It’s been said that if you preach on suffering you will never lack an audience. I know both from personal experience and pastoral experience that suffering is something that we all face, it’s something that’s always difficult when we face it, and it comes in a variety of forms.
There are the physical dimensions to suffering, of course, through injury or sickness or disease. Perhaps even more difficult are the emotional aspects of suffering; think about depression or disappointment, loneliness, maybe broken relationships. We think about the heartache and the grief that we feel with the loss of a loved one and that enduring experience of grief.
There’s also specifically spiritual aspects to suffering. This is the suffering we experience in our relationship with God. So think about the guilt and shame that we feel over sin. Think about those times in your life when you’re asking, “Why, God, have you forsaken me? How long, oh Lord, until this problem is over?” Maybe even feel abandoned by God.
Then there are those particular forms of suffering that come to Christians because they are Christians. Think here about any type of opposition or discrimination or persecution that you might face simply because you’re Christian, because of your faith in Jesus. That can be anything from pretty mild to pretty severe in certain parts of the world today.
Suffering is hard for all of us, but Paul Tripp and some others have pointed out that it’s not just what we suffer, it’s how we suffer. It’s how we interpret our suffering that really defines that experience for us. So you can suffer something really hard, but if you have the right interpretation of it, you can endure, and you can actually benefit and you can grow from it. But if you have a wrong interpretation of your suffering, you can actually make the suffering worse. That can happen in a number of different ways.
For example, you might think or believe that you’re suffering because you don’t have enough faith. If you just had enough faith, you would not suffer as much. Or you might think that you’re suffering because God is angry with you, and God must be punishing you. I’ve even had the question before, “Why is God doing this to me?” You might believe that God is not being fair to you or that God has forgotten you.
Or, on the other hand, you may think that suffering just has no meaning at all, that there’s no real meaning to the suffering, that God’s really not involved in this at all. Life is just hard. Life is painful. Suffering is a part of life, and you just have to grit your teeth and bear through it all.
So you can put the wrong meaning on suffering or you can say there’s no meaning to suffering. Either way, you’re falling short of the way the Scriptures talk about suffering, and you’ll end up making the experience of suffering worse.
So today we’re going to look at this passage in Hebrews 12, and it’s really a passage that’s written to suffering Christians. It’s written to Jewish believers in Jesus the Messiah who are facing opposition for their faith in Christ, and they’re being called to endurance, even endurance and faithfulness in the face of suffering. That’s the specific context he is addressing here. We’re going to pick up in Hebrews 12:4-13.
As I read, notice the words “discipline” and “disciplines.” You have both the noun and the verb. Together they pop up over half a dozen times in this passage. Hebrews 12, beginning in verse 4.
“In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.’
“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
“Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.”
This is God’s word.
What you’ll notice in this passage is that as the author here is talking about suffering—and specifically suffering opposition, suffering persecution, suffering for the name of Jesus—that he characterizes this suffering as discipline, the discipline of the Lord. So what I want to do is ask three questions about that.
1. What Is the Discipline of the Lord?
2. Why Does He Discipline Us?
3. How Should We Respond to It?
1. What Is the Discipline of the Lord?
Question number one, what is the discipline of the Lord? I think we could see two answers here in this passage.
(1) The first is that this discipline is parental training. Really, you have to see the words that are used here. So you have got the noun form of the word “discipline” and then also “disciplines,” which is a verb. Those are related to one another, and the keyword here is the Greek word paideia, which is the word from which we get our word “pediatrics” or “pediatrician.” It was the word that described the whole process of discipline and instruction and education of a child. Okay? That’s the language that’s being used here.
This is used a number of times in the New Testament, but four times you have the noun (in Hebrews 12:5, 7, 8, 11), and then three times you have the verb (in Hebrews 12:6, 7, 10). So the key thing to get from this is that the author here is framing our understanding of suffering with this concept of God’s fatherly, parental discipline or training in our lives, which is allowed and is even used by God for the shaping of our character. Okay? That’s the important thing. So he’s giving us a specific interpretation of suffering by calling it the discipline of God as our Father.
(2) But he also says that this discipline is painful. That’s the second thing. It’s parental training, but it’s also painful. And you see that in a couple of places.
He says it directly in verse 11. “For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.” But he also uses another word, and this is important. He uses not just the word “discipline,” he uses the word “chastises.” The word “chastise” there is a word that’s used, I think, about seven times in the New Testament. Every other time it’s used, it refers to whipping or even flogging or scourging. It’s the word that’s used in John 19 to describe Pilate flogging Jesus.
Of course, it’s assuming here the forms of parental discipline that would have been used in the ancient world, which would have included whipping of some kind. Now, I know that immediately raises some problems in our minds, and especially in some minds. If you came from a household where the discipline was really harsh, where maybe you’re not only spanked, but you were even beaten or you were whipped or there was abusive discipline—so you’ve come from that kind of background—you read something like this and it’s triggering to you. Right? Understandably so.
Let me make it really clear: nothing in the Scripture should ever be used to justify abusive discipline. Okay? But this passage here is kind of assuming the forms of discipline that were used in the ancient world.
But even here, there’s a distinction made between the earthly father and a perfect heavenly Father. So the passage tells us that our earthly fathers disciplined us however it seemed best to them. But God, as the perfect heavenly Father, infinitely better than the best human parent ever could be, only disciplines us for our good.
Now, here’s the thing. Every parent knows that there has to be some form of discipline, and the point of this sermon is not to debate or talk about what those specific forms are. But if you raise a child without any discipline whatsoever, without ever correcting attitudes or behavior or showing a clear distinction between right and wrong where there’s some kind of discipline to discourage wrongdoing and to encourage right doing—you do that, you ruin the child. There has to be some form of discipline.
God as the infinitely perfect heavenly Father knows that, and so the suffering that comes into our lives is characterized in this passage, as well as others (in fact, he’s quoting here from the Old Testament Proverbs 3), as the discipline of the Lord, who is our heavenly Father. The passage tells us that we are not to either treat it lightly or grow weary under it, but instead we are to submit ourselves to it.
Before we move to point two, I think we need to ask a couple of questions. First of all, does this apply to all suffering or only to persecution? I think in the context, it’s pretty clear that the suffering this author is speaking of is specifically the suffering of persecution. Right? “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood,” verse 4. He’s talking to these people who are facing persecution, facing opposition because of their faith in Christ, and he’s saying that this suffering is the discipline of the Lord. I think that’s what it means in context.
However, I do think that you can look at a wider lens at the way Scriptures talk about suffering, and you can see that the same kind of language is used in other passages to talk about other aspects of suffering. So for example, in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul writes to the Corinthian church, and he mentions that some people are sick, some people have even died, and he says that this is the discipline of the Lord. It’s the discipline for their sin, but it’s come in the form of physical sickness. That’s 1 Corinthians 11:32.
When you have the letter of Jesus, the risen glorified Christ, you have his letter to the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3. This is a church that is lukewarm. One of the things that letter says is, “Those whom I love I reprove and discipline—” same word “—so be zealous and repent.”
They’re not facing persecution, and yet the passage is telling them that those whom God loves or whom Christ loves, he will discipline them.
Then you have the Old Testament example of the saints. Think about the author of Psalm 119, who talks about affliction a number of times in that psalm. One verse says, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.” He even says, “It’s been good for me to be afflicted.” It seems to be talking generally about the kinds of afflictions that we experience in life.
Just one more example. Think about Job. We sang these words together as we began our worship this morning: “The Lord gives, the Lord takes away; / Blessed be the name of the Lord.” It comes from the end of Job 1, when Job has lost all of his children through a series of natural disasters. He’s lost all of his wealth. By the end of the next chapter, he will have lost his health as well. And in the face of all this loss, all of this grief, Job says, “I came into this world naked; I’m going to return in the same way. The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Even though Satan is the immediate agent behind all this suffering, he attributes it to God. He sees it as coming through the fingers of a sovereign God. “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
The very next verse, Job 1:22, says, “In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.”
Now, you take all those passages (and we could go to many more), and I think it becomes pretty clear that the way in which the Scriptures talk about the sufferings of believers leads us to view all of our sufferings as coming into our lives under the sovereign, providential care of God as our heavenly Father, even though this passage is talking specifically about persecution. So I think we can apply it broadly.
A second question, then, that we should ask is this: should we then say that suffering is actually good? Is suffering then a good thing? The best answer I’ve ever read about that is from C.S. Lewis’s book The Problem of Pain. Let me read it to you. Lewis says, “Suffering is not good in itself.” I agree with him on that. I don’t think suffering in and of itself is a good thing.
“Suffering is not good in itself. In the fallen and partially redeemed universe, we may distinguish between, one, the simple good descending from God; two, the simple evil produced by rebellious creatures; and three, the exploitation of that evil by God for his redemptive purposes; which produces four, the complex good to which accepted suffering and repented sin contribute.”
Now, that’s very wise and very nuanced and helpful. Lewis here strikes two important notes; first, that suffering in and of itself is evil and not good. It’s the result of the fall as part of living in a fallen world. Second, that God exploits this suffering and uses this suffering for good in our life.
So there is a complex good, but it is a kind of good that we only get when we interpret our suffering rightly, when we respond to it rightly, when we receive it as coming from the loving hands of a caring Father who is permitting these things to come into our lives for our good. So what is the good that he intends?
2. Why Does He Discipline Us?
That leads to the second question, number two: why? Why does God discipline us? Why does God allow suffering to come into our lives? Why does God allow persecution to come into the lives of these Jewish believers? Again, I think the passage gives us two basic answers.
(1) Number one: because he loves us. God disciplines us because he loves us. He is a loving Father. This is what the text says. Look at Hebrews 12:5-8. “And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?” And now he quotes from Proverbs 3.
“‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.’
“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.”
Now notice this.
“For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.”
In other words, he’s telling us that the discipline, the suffering comes into our lives at the hands of a good and wise Father because he loves us. It means that this suffering that we experience is actually a proof of our sonship.
Listen, Christian; don’t wish away all of your trials. God’s using those. He has purposes for those, and it shows that you are his child.
The poet William Cowper was certainly no stranger to suffering. He was melancholy, chronically depressed, in and out of insane asylums in the eighteenth century, befriended by John Newton, the author of “Amazing Grace.” John Newton led Cowper to write many hymns, and he was professionally a poet. In one of his poems, William Cowper said,
“Did I meet no trials here,
No chastisement by the way?
Might I not with reason fear
I should prove a castaway?
Bastards may escape the rod,
Sunk in earthly vain delight,
But the trueborn child of God
Must not, would not, if he might.”
If you don’t receive any suffering at all, the author says you’re illegitimate children. You’re not real Christians. You’re not really God’s children if there’s never any discipline. The discipline is a proof of his love; it’s a proof of your sonship. That’s the first reason.
(2) Here’s the second: he disciplines us for our good. The good to which the suffering leads when we submit to God as our Father, the good to which the suffering leads is holiness. Look at Hebrews 12:9-11. “Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject [or submit ourselves] to the Father of spirits—” I think that phrase just means God is the Father of believers “—the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time, as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Okay, there’s the goal. God our Father, because he loves us, disciplines us, and he disciplines us for our good so that we may share in his holiness. In other words, suffering is a part, actually, of the formation and sanctification process in the Christian life. God uses these things that we encounter in our lives to lead us to holiness, to conform us to the image of Christ. He uses these things so that there will be this peaceful fruit of righteousness.
You can see how the author now is kind of mixing his metaphors. He’s switching now from thinking in terms of parental training to farming. And farming involves this arduous labor, but it’s all to bring about a crop. Here’s the crop: the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
But then notice this; he puts another metaphor in at the end of verse 11. “Later it yields a peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Now the word “trained”—that’s another important Greek word; that’s the word gymnazo, from which we get our word “gymnasium.” So he’s back to athletics. He’s back to the athletic metaphor that began this chapter that we saw last week. You’re to run with endurance the race that is set before you.
So you put all those metaphors together—parental training and farming—to produce this peaceful fruit of righteousness, and this athletic training that calls for endurance. All of those are given to frame the way we interpret our sufferings.
I think they help us avoid two attitudes. On one hand, denial. Christianity is not stoicism. It’s not the ancient Greek philosophers who just tried to, you know, show no emotion and just bear up under suffering, without any real expression of grief or lament or anything like that. That’s not what this is. The Bible is very honest about the suffering. And you read the laments of the saints in the psalms, and they’re crying out, “How long, O Lord? Do I have to go through this? And why have you forsaken me, God?” They are calling out to God with tears. In their pain, they weep and they wail. They scream and they shout. They express all the torrents of emotion that swirl inside the soul. Nothing in this passage is meant to suppress that. There is a place for grief. There’s a place for tears. There is a place for laments in the Christian life. We don’t want to avoid denial.
But on the other hand, if the suffering that we experience is really the fatherly discipline of God, and if it really is a part of the athletic training that’s helping us run the race set before us, and if it really is going to lead to this peaceful fruit of righteousness and lead us to share in God’s holiness, we should also avoid despair in our suffering, because it’s not meaningless. The pain is not wasted. It’s not pointless. There’s a reason, and we may not fully understand the reason, we may not fully discern the reason, but we can affirm, as the old Puritans used to say, that God’s rod of discipline is his pencil by which he draws the image of Christ in our hearts and souls. He has purpose in it.
I think our problem is that we’re so short-sighted, and because we cannot see exactly what God’s purpose is, we lose heart, and we grow weary in the midst of the discipline.
There’s a great poem, actually, by C.S. Lewis that speaks to this. It gives a pretty vivid, I think, but simple word picture or metaphor, and the poem is about a bee that is indoors. It’s trapped indoors and it’s trying to get outside to the grass and to the flowers, but it keeps bumping against the transparent glass. It’s going to eventually just kill itself, you know, bumping up against the glass, trying to get outside. Here’s how the poem goes. Lewis says,
“...we shall be like the bee
That booms against the window-pane for hours
Thinking that way to reach the laden flowers.
“‘If we could speak to her,’ my doctor said,
‘And told her, “Not that way! All, all in vain
You weary out wings and bruise your head,”
Might she not answer, buzzing at the at the pane,
“Let queens and mystics and religious bees
Talk of such inconceivables as glass;
The blunt lay worker flies at what she sees,
Look there—ahead, ahead—the flowers, the grass!”’
We catch her in a handkerchief (who knows
What rage she feels, what terror, what despair?)
And shake her out—and gaily out she goes
Where quivering flowers stand thick in summer air,
To drink their hearts. But left to her own will
She would have died upon the wind-sill.”
Do you get the image? In a very similar way, we’re like those bees. We want joy. We want life. We want satisfaction. You know, we want to be happy. We want all the beauty that we think our hearts were made for, and we’re trying to get there. But we’re bumping against this transparent glass, and we can’t see what we really need. So God, like this person in the poem, takes his handkerchief of affliction. It feels confining, it feels restricting; it’s frustrating. Like the bee, we feel terror. We’re afraid of what’s happening here. We feel rage. We’re angry at what’s happening here. We feel despair, sadness at the loss. But what we don’t know is that the handkerchief of affliction is just to get us to what we really want, which is real life. And we get that as we share in his holiness, as we become more like Jesus Christ, as we are conformed to the image of Christ. That’s the purpose of the discipline.
Don’t wish away all of your trials. You pray, you can ask God to remove the thorn in the flesh like Paul did. But if he doesn’t remove the thorn, then you receive the word, “My grace is sufficient for you, my strength is made perfect in your weakness.” You trust him, and you submit yourself to your heavenly Father, believing that he’s going to use whatever that suffering is. He’s going to use it for your good.
3. How Should We Respond to It?
We’re already now into point number three. Third question: how do we respond to the discipline? I’ve already given you several answers to that—submitting, don’t grow weary, don’t treat it lightly, trust in God. But let me give you two more answers that you find in the passage.
(1) Number one: strengthen one another, and you see this in Hebrews 12:12-13. Here’s the exhortation that comes following this explanation of Proverbs 3.
“Therefore, lift your drooping hands, strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.” It’s really a call to muscle up for the race. Right? “Strengthen your weak knees. Lift up your drooping hands.” It’s a call to be strengthened.
This is actually a quotation from Isaiah 35 and an allusion to Proverbs 4. I don’t have time to read the the lengthy quote, but one of the commentators, Gareth Cockerill, he suggests here that in Isaiah 35, the call to strengthen the weak knees and lift up the drooping hands and so on is really a call to those who are being led on the highway to Zion. They’re the exiles, and it’s the promise of being led back to Zion. And, of course, there are all kinds of Messianic prophecies woven in there and the whole idea of a second exodus and all these things.
Cockerill suggests that here in Hebrews he recalls that passage, remembering that Jesus Christ is the one who has already opened up this new and living way (Hebrews 10) and who has now led us to Mount Zion (the second half of Hebrews 12, which we’re going to see next week). This is a call, then, for us to strengthen ourselves. Really, I think it’s a call for us to strengthen one another for the race, as we’re in the way of Jesus. We’ve come to Mount Zion.
I say strengthen one another because all the pronouns here are plural. He’s not just saying, “You as an individual pull yourself up by the bootstraps and strengthen your own weak knees and lift up your own hands.” He’s telling the congregation to do this, and it’s a call for all of us to help one another.
Once again, it signals this note that we’ve seen again and again in Hebrews, that we need the church. We need the community. We need brothers and sisters in Christ. We need people who are helping us to run the race and who are strengthening us for endurance.
This is a really practical thing. Have you ever noticed this, that suffering alone is much more difficult than suffering with others? What a difference it makes when, in that moment of grief, there’s someone who silently comes alongside and just puts an arm around your shoulder and weeps with you. Or when someone visits you when you’re sick or in the hospital and they help support you through that, or you’re dealing with some kind of grief and loss and you have a community surrounding you. We need one another. Suffering is easier when we suffer together. So strengthen one another for the race.
(2) Here’s the second response (I’m almost done). The second way we should respond is to consider Jesus’ suffering and glory. This isn’t just a gospel tag-on to the end of the sermon; this is actually how the passage begins. We looked at the verse last week, verse three, which says, “Consider [Jesus], who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”
Hear what he’s saying! There’s something very practical about this, that the way to avoid growing weary in your own sufferings is to look to Jesus and consider Jesus in his sufferings. And I’m saying consider Jesus in both his suffering and his glory.
Consider Jesus in his suffering. This is one of the dominant notes sounded in Hebrews. Jesus is the captain of our salvation who was made perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2:10), so that he could lead many sons to glory. Here’s Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, and he came down to earth. And what did he experience? He experienced suffering.
Hebrews 12, in many ways, mirrors Hebrews 2. In Hebrews 2 you have the incarnate Son who is suffering in order to lead many sons to glory. In Hebrews 12 you have all of us who as sons are also suffering as God leads us to share in his holiness.
Hebrews 4:15—Jesus is that priest who is tempted as we are in every point, yet without sin. And that’s why he is a sympathetic high priest. That’s why we can go to God’s throne of grace and find mercy and help in time of need. He knows. He understands, because he’s been tempted and tested with suffering.
In Hebrews 5:8, he learned obedience through the things he suffered. What an amazing thought! Jesus Christ, the perfect son of God, learned obedience through what he suffered. Do you think that you and I can learn obedience without any suffering? You see, he’s paved the way as the pioneer of our salvation, and it is the way of suffering.
Friends, this in and of itself is a great comfort to us because it reminds us of one of the distinctive aspects of Christianity that sets it apart from every other religion in the world. That’s this, that we serve a God who understands suffering by personal experience through the incarnation of Christ. This is not a God who is remote and far-removed, but God who in the person of his Son took that suffering into himself.
There’s a poem that I’ve read here a number of times over the years that was written by a soldier who had seen all of the horrors of trench warfare in World War I. He wrote this poem called “Jesus of the Scars.” He said,
“If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.”
Then the final stanza goes like this:
“The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.”
Jesus has wounds. Jesus has suffered. Jesus has suffered with us. Jesus understands.
Consider Jesus. Consider his suffering, and his suffering not only with you, but his suffering for you. He endured the cross, despising the shame. He did it for the joy that was set before him.
What was the cross all about? It wasn’t just that he suffered with us, but it was also that he was suffering for our sins. He was suffering in our place, and you have the whole great exchange: his death in order to give us life, his pain that leads to our gain, his sorrow that leads to our joy, his righteousness now covering us because our sins have been laid on him. He has suffered for us; he has suffered with us; consider the suffering of Jesus.
Then finally, consider the glory of Jesus, the one who not only suffered but is now resurrected and has sat down at the right hand of God. See, the resurrection is perhaps one of the most important doctrines to help us in our suffering, because the resurrection reminds us that this isn’t the end and that the suffering is leading somewhere. It didn’t end in the cross for Jesus. He came out of the tomb on that third day. And there is a very powerful truth here at work in our hearts and lives, that when we submit to the fatherly discipline of God, we receive those sufferings as coming from his hand, those sufferings then work for our glory, they work for our good. They’re leading us along the same path that Jesus has trod. We are waiting for that day when we will be resurrected like him and we will inhabit this new heavens and this new earth, where there is no more suffering.
Listen, that’s the only hope for suffering in this world, because here’s the deal: it doesn’t really matter whether you’re a Christian or not when it comes to suffering. You’re going to suffer anyway. Nobody escapes suffering. Suffering is not a Christian thing. Suffering is a human thing, but Christianity gives you a perspective, it gives you an understanding. It gives you a framework for interpreting those sufferings, so that in the middle of them all you can say, “This is not meaningless. I may not understand, but I know that God is good and I can look to the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ, and I can say that as awful as this was, crucifixion was the worst event that ever happened in human history. And as awful as it was, God used it to bring salvation to the world. He will use my pain and he will use my suffering and he will use this persecution, or this affliction, or this cancer, or this grief, or this loneliness, or this loss, or whatever it is. He will use this. He will use it in my life and he will use it for his kingdom.”
Listen to Lewis just one more time. Lewis said,
“‘He came down from heaven’ [quoting here the Nicene Creed] can almost be transposed into ‘heaven drew earth up into it.’ And locality, limitation, sleep, sweat, footsore, weariness, frustration, pain, doubt, and death are from before all worlds known by God from within. The pure light walks the earth. The darkness received into the heart of deity is there swallowed up. Where, except an uncreated light, can the darkness be drowned?”
The darkness is swallowed up. The darkness of suffering, the darkness of death, it’s swallowed up in the heart of Jesus Christ, who took it all for us and rose from the dead to give us hope.
Let me ask you this morning, as you think about the things that you’re suffering in your life, what’s your interpretation of it? How are you viewing it? How are you thinking about it? Do you have this hope, the hope of the crucified risen Christ working in your life, of a heavenly Father who loves you and who is using those trials, those afflictions, is using those to do you good? Trust in him this morning and submit yourself to his fatherly care. Let’s pray together.
Our gracious and merciful God, we thank you this morning for your word, we thank you for the perspective that your word gives us on our sufferings and trials, and we pray now that you would help us to receive this word and the wisdom that it has for us. Lord, just hearing those words will not change us. We need the work of your Holy Spirit to apply them to our hearts, to awaken faith and hope, so that in the midst of all of the difficult things we face, we’re holding on to truths that are beyond what we can see, beyond what we can even fully understand. But we’re holding on to these truths and promises of your word, and we’re believing this gospel, this good news, that Christ crucified and risen changes everything, including the shape and the meaning of our own sufferings and trials. So, Lord, we pray by your Spirit that you would help us to embrace those truths today and live in light of them.
As we come now to the Lord’s table, we ask you to make it a means of grace to us by your Spirit, so that as we receive the elements of the bread and juice, we would do so with our eyes on Jesus, the bread of life, the one who has given himself for the life of the world; and that we would see in the emblems, the broken body and the shed blood of Christ, Christ crucified for our sins and raised for our justification. May we find new hope springing up in our hearts today. So Lord, draw near to us in these moments as we seek your face. We pray it in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
