JUN 18 2017 | The Giant Series S1E7 | Hebrews 12:5-11

Sea Change Church · The Giant Series S1E7 · "Hebrews 12:5-11" · Adam Stadtmiller · June 18, 2017
Hebrews 12:5-11
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Such a good, good father. Please be seated. And he sent us his word to show also how much he loves us. And today we're going to read from Hebrews 12, 5 through 11. 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 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. This is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God.

Amen. South Africa's wildlife parks are a great success story. They brought many animals back from the brink of extinction and millions of tourist dollars from all over the world. But as we first reported in January, there's a problem lurking in the South African bush. Game rangers discovered that a new group of juvenile delinquents has been attacking and killing the white rhino.

The rhino they've spent years protecting. This is a mission to save the rhinos in South Africa's Pilinsburg Park. Rhinos who were thriving until an unknown killer began stalking them. A tranquilizer dart brings the animal down. Yeah, he has got a dart. The rhino is tagged to make it easier to identify. Just about to insert a microchip into the shoulder.

The rangers have to count these animals to protect them. Ten percent of the rhino population was being wiped out. Thirty-nine during the killing spree. Dead rhinos started turning up all over the park, and it clearly wasn't the work of poachers. The rhino's horns hadn't been touched. The park rangers soon found themselves cast as cops conducting an investigation.

And their first findings led them to believe that if they were to round up the usual suspects, they'd need a pretty large holding pen. That's because this is one of the prime suspects. A killer caught on home video terrorizing a group of tourists. It turned out that young male elephants were behind the murders of Pilinsburg's rhinos. Many of the carcasses were decomposed at first, and the indications were there that it was elephants.

Gus Van Dyke is Pilinsburg Park's field ecologist. I must be honest, I really was skeptical at first. Because you didn't want to believe it. Yeah, you don't want to believe that an elephant is capable of killing around it. Why would they do it? Well, like juvenile delinquents from urban jungles, they'd grown up without role models. What's different is they don't have a father.

Everyone needs a dad. I think everyone needs a role model. And these elephants that left the herd had no role model and no idea of what appropriate elephant behavior was. Poignant. Poignant. Everyone got to pray for those elephants, right? I don't know what's happened to those elephants. I know that they reintroduced fathers and male elephants back into that herd, and they saved the rhinos by doing that.

Happy Father's Day today, right, to all of you dads that are out there. Future dads, we'll let you into the group. The world needs a father. If there is a time in society right now where the world needs a father, it is now. Fathers have a unique calling upon them, and I believe that they are uniquely created, that men are uniquely created to be fathers and can do that job like no other created being in the world.

Recently, I was at the Sammy's. No, it wasn't Sammy's Woodfire Pizza. Whatever the one is over by Islands over there in the La Jolla Village. And California Pizza Kitchen, that's where it was. And it was a Torrey Pines. No shade on Torrey Pines Elementary. But nonetheless, it was a Torrey Pines Elementary fundraiser. And 200 of us descended upon the California Pizza Kitchen.

And they probably should have closed the California Pizza Kitchen because we looked like the herd of young juvenile elephants that had descended upon the pizza place. And they had tried to put normal customers in and amongst us, but it wasn't working. They were complaining. And children were running everywhere. It looked like, you know, some catastrophic dystopian movie that you see these days.

That, you know, we were just, we had taken the place over. It was ridiculous. And we sat with two single moms that are friends of my daughter's. And my daughter Lily was there as well. And between the two single moms, they had five children, all in fourth grade or below. And as we were sitting there, I mean, it was like, it was a war zone. I mean, literally, I didn't want to be there.

It was overwhelming, overstimulating, over everything. And I come out of, you know, the crystal meth drug culture. And I was going to say, I couldn't handle it. They were breaking bad, for sure. Millennials are like, yeah, you're awesome. And I remember sitting there, and the kids were going crazy. And the little kids that we were sitting with got up and started to run with the pack.

And it was like a pack of wolves running everywhere. And the one mom said, hey, you can't go. And the other mom said to her children, you can't go. And both of the children, like this pack of kids, like five of them, looked up. And they bounced, okay? My kid got up, got ready to go. And I said, yeah, you know, you're not going to go. And my daughter just sat down.

No questions, okay? And the one mom looked at the other mom. And she goes, that's why you need a dad. And I was like, thought to myself, absolutely. That is why you need a dad. I got to say one thing. I don't think, and while this might be controversial, excuse me for being controversial. I don't think women are built for discipline. Not that they can't be disciplined.

Not that they can't discipline. And I see single moms making an incredible effort to do that. Single women, I have found, are moms, not just single women. Moms have a more difficult time disciplining than dads. Now, that is just my observation from my 47 or 40, almost 8 years of life. And maybe you disagree with me. I have a single mom. We came up in a single mom family.

And one of the problems that women have with discipline is their nurturing nature. One of the gender strengths of women. And can we please get back to gender strengths? Are there any gender strengths? Everything is not a negative stereotype in the world. Everything's not a negative stereotype. And one of the problems with my mom is she just was so nurturing and loved us so much, the two-week restrictions would turn into a three-day restriction.

Like over and over. And we tried so hard to make that happen. And, you know, and what did she normally say? I'm going to call. Who's she going to call? I'm going to call your father. Yeah. Now, granted, can men overdo it with discipline and do a really poor job? Absolutely. We're going to see that with King David. A horrible dad. Horrible at restraint.

But I do believe that God has asked men to have a special way of restraining. Now, that does not mean that women do not have strength. Just like our muscles have fast twitch and slow twitch muscle that are each built for different things. They are both muscle. They are both strengths. And I believe that women have an incredible strength that men will never have.

And the way that women respond or discipline can so often be in nurture. My wife has the ability to sit with my children and have a reasonable conversation with them, which I find very difficult sometimes when I'm disciplining, and talk to my children in a way that actually brings them to her side of the understanding. Whenever I go a little too much on the discipline, what does mom come in?

Mom comes in and cleans up the mess, perhaps, that sometimes I have made. The reason I'm saying all this today is because I believe one of the strengths of fathers is to discipline, but for a reason. Because we see the Bible show God as a father. That God is a father who uses discipline in all situations to create relationship and to let you know that you are a child of his and to let you know that you are beloved.

That all discipline by the father God is meant for two reasons. One, to let you know that you have a father. The scripture here says that you are not illegitimate. You didn't just get sired and then the father ran away. That God, according to my favorite verse, says he will not leave you as what? The scripture says as what? Orphans. The entire scripture is meant to bring us back to a father.

To say that you belong. That you are beloved. That you have a place and I want to have relationship with you and I love you. So we are going to talk about a gender strength today that fathers have and that the scripture definitely points to when God identifies himself as a loving father. Let's jump into the scripture if we can. Actually, before we get to the scripture, I have that statement there that the world needs what?

A father. Desperately. The world needs a mother too, by the way. The world needs mothers and fathers. The world needs a community. A gender diverse family has a strength that no other type of family has. Let me just give you that little term right there. We, as believers, as biblical believers, will fight for a gender diverse parenting system. That there are gender strengths that women have.

There are gender strengths that men have. And we believe that the strongest family unit has gender diversity in it. And I believe that we are living, as you will see, and I see this, and maybe you're not seeing it. But I want you to know that I am seeing this. That we are living in a culture where many, and I would say this is Western culture, not all cultures.

Just because America puts it on the TV doesn't mean that the entire world is making those decisions. But in American Western culture, we are living in a culture where many are pushing to not only blur the identity of fatherhood, but to eradicate the need of it from the family structure. That as long as you have a group of loving people surrounding a children, no matter who they are, maybe it could be six women who decide they want to be a child's mom, or whatever, or a parent, or a grandmother, or whatever it is.

As long as you have loving people, which I think is so important. I don't disagree that we need loving people around a family. But as long as you have that, then you don't need a father. I will say I will flatly disagree and deny that. Now, I'm not talking about any father. I'm talking about fathers who want to pursue what it looks like to be the best father that they can in regard to coming alongside their partner, to coming alongside their family, and to stand up and be the best father that they can be.

I'm not talking about absentee dads that live in a home, and they're a shell of a man that lives with their family. I'm talking to say I am going to go after it with God to be the best father that I can be. And that is something that I've tried to do. I tell you, my marriage, one of my goals in my marriage is with my wife, and she'll let you know if I'm accomplishing it or not.

This is funny because we were at small group the other night. We had our final small group for this series. And I tend to make these big statements, you know, and my wife's a thinker. So we're all there. And we had talked about it recently that our marriage is in a really good place. And I said, you know, this is the best place our marriage has ever been in.

Right, baby? And she goes... After 20 years, it'll be 20 years this July. I know not to ask my wife that in front of people. See, she needs to go deep. She's a free diver in emotion. She is going to go deep. Her lungs are going to shrink like the free divers. She's going to get in touch with her own reality, come back to the surface. And six weeks later, she can give me the answer to that.

So on the way out yesterday, we sent her to Big Bear today for four nights just to get away and decompress. And summer's starting to get her ready to summer. So she's up in Big Bear. And on the way out, she goes, you know, I think this is the best place we've ever been. I'm like, that's awesome. I'm going to call everybody in small group. Can I get that?

See, I would agree with her. But I know. She goes, on date night, on Thursday night, we've had a date night almost every Thursday for 20 years. And she said, you know not to ask me things like that in front of people. I said, absolutely, after 20 years, I should have known that. Say, she does an amazing job as a mother. But as a father and as a husband, I want to live the greatest love story ever told.

I really do. I want to know because I want to know that I am loved in a way like no one has ever known. Now, that doesn't mean that you won't be able to do better than that. It's just my goal. I'm not even comparing it to anybody. I don't look at somebody and say, well, I'm doing better than that one, but not as good as that one. I don't Facebook consult for my emotions, okay?

I don't go look at how your trip to Tahiti was and then think, gosh, it was my trip to Big Bear. Measure up. You know? I don't take a consensus of society for my opinions of what truth are. And so one of the things I want to do is I want to live the greatest love story ever told. I really do. That's my goal. To be the greatest husband, father that the world has ever seen in the name of Jesus.

And I'm not trying to live in front of the world in any way. I'm not trying to present myself as that. It's just my goal. I don't measure up to that, but it's not a bad goal to have. And so we see as we look in fatherhood, now we're going to relate this scripture here not only to a father God, because it's a beautiful scripture that talks about discipline, saying, I'm showing you every time that you're a child of God and he loves you.

But we're going to relate it to our giant series in Samuel. There is multiple times in the book of the Kings, 1 Samuel through 2 Kings, that talk about fathers that did not restrain their children. They let their children do whatever they wanted. When you have a society, whether it be mothers or fathers, and I did not say that mothers cannot restrain or discipline their children.

I did not say that. I think they're very good at it. I just don't think they're built to do it the best. That with that, that you're going to have a society that looks a lot like that herd of elephants that we see. You're going to have a rampant overrun. And the question is, where are the boundaries and restraints of a family? Similarly, with David, King David, he did not do that with his son Absalom, with his brother that we'll see after that.

I think his brother's name was Abishai. I get my Hebrew names messed up on occasion. We'll see it. He did not restrain his sons. There was a priest from Shiloh did not restrain his sons. Do we know what his name was? Eli, that's right. A priest at Shiloh. And we're going to look at this today. But first of all, we're going to start by dissecting this verse.

Verse 1. And if there was a main course for you today, it is this. Every time we have hard times in our life, the scripture says, receive it as discipline from the Lord, knowing that when a father disciplines you, he not only says, you're my kid, but I love you. Every time you have hardship, every single time. How do we know we're being disciplined by God?

God said, it's not your job to figure it out. Every time that you have a hard time, take it as discipline and find me in the midst of it and hear my voice say, I'm calling you home. You are not an illegitimate child. You are not an orphan. And I love you. That is the main course. If you walked out right now, that's the main course. But let's back it up with some scripture.

Verse 1. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? And I think we can make the jump there that he was writing to men here, but it can be as children of God because if you look at the whole of scripture, he's not just looking for sons. It's sons and daughters. Have you not forgotten what? What's the word it uses there? Exhortation.

An exhortation is something that is meant to spur you on. It is if you were on the sidelines that you're watching your kid play and perhaps you've been a part of youth soccer like I have and it can be a crazy experience. But you see these parents that are just calling out to them, yay, score, yay, go ahead. And I'm the one that's coaching. They keep telling their kid to do something I told them not to do.

But nonetheless, stop coaching from the field. But it's an exhortation. What is so interesting is when was the last time you saw discipline framed as something that's supposed to exhort you, something that's supposed to lift you up? Hey, you're going to get disciplined. It's going to be awesome. It is going to be amazing. It's like when my kid does something, you know, wrong, that I will come and say, hey, this is going to be amazing.

Let me just tell you about your discipline. It is so good. You're going to love that. You're going to wait for it. Wait for it. It says, have you not forgotten the exhortation that he addressed you as children of God? I mean, if you spend the rest of your life pursuing the identity, we look for a lot of identities in the world today, right? Lots of identities where they're all trying to find an identity.

Let me give you one you can pursue as a beloved child of God. Pursue that one for a while and see where it leads you. To wake up every day and say, I am loved by a good, good father. A father that loves me. And where can we find this? We find it oftentimes in hard times. This entire passage on the topic is being the subject of discipline is meant to be a word of encouragement.

Whenever you have hard times, take it as discipline. It's meant to be an encouragement. I got to say, that is a view you are not going to see on the nightly news. That is a view you are probably not going to hear in the line at the taco stand. That is something you're not going to hear. It is an upside down counter-cultural view that can only be sourced, in my opinion, from the terra firma that is the kingdom of heaven.

It is a beautiful thought that every time we have a hard time, every time we have a struggle, there is an open doorway to say, Dad, where are you? Dad, find me in this. Father, help me. Show me that you love me, no matter what the hard time is. I would say, that will reframe it. And if you are a framer, and some of you in here are framers, we're framing right now for some concrete out there on our deck, perhaps it's time to reframe how you look at difficult, enduring difficult hardships in your life.

Maybe your life would look a little bit different if the foundation or the framework of how you endure hardship is a framework that on each layer of the frame, it says you are a beloved child of God, and this is meant for a purpose. I heard something this week. I met with a group of pastors that were up in North County. We're talking about safety procedures in church and stuff like that.

And one of the things that they said, and this is from the next point down, we'll get to it in a minute, but I want to say it now, never waste a crisis. One of the pastors said, you know, I learned never waste a crisis. Are you wasting the hard times in your life? Just say, oh, woe is me. I've got to call somebody on the phone, let them listen to me about how bad I'm doing.

Not for encouragement, just because I like talking about me a lot. You know, are you wasting the crisis in your life, or are you using it to turn for a redemption? I love that statement. Never waste a crisis. It says why, now if we go back to this question about why we're meant to have encouragement, why? Why? Because discipline proves that you are a beloved child of God.

It says in verse 8 of the passage we read, if you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and what? Not sons. I was a youth pastor for a long time, and I was a playground dad for seven years. I went every Friday, my daughter's entire preschool and elementary school career. I went the first Sunday.

They asked me to volunteer on a Friday, the first Friday of kindergarten, because somebody had not shown up, a paid worker. And I showed up, and as I was on there, I thought, you know, Lord, I prayed a prayer. Can I be here until these kids graduate? Anyway, and I said, can I come back next Sunday, or next Friday? And I did, and I don't know how many I missed, not many, but for about seven years, I went every single Friday, and I was a playground dad, and just hung out on campus and played.

Yeah, by the way, dad, you can do that. FYI, moms, you can do that as well. It's not a bad idea. And so I was there, and I remember kids would act up, and you have to be very careful about how you discipline them. But these kids would be going crazy, and no one could handle them. And I would find that if I just said, hey, you're going to have to wait out of the game right now, or you're going to have to stand on the side, or I'd talk to them aside, or I'd say, hey, I don't want to have to take you to the orange vest.

You don't want to talk to the orange vest, trust me, okay? The orange vest is like me saying, I'm going to take them, you know, dad's coming. And I would find every time, I can't think of one time it didn't happen, where within the next week, or later that day, or I think that kid's never going to talk to me, they would show up and sit with me. All of a sudden, they would start running alongside me.

Hey, can we play? By the end of seven years, I had a bevy of kids that would follow me, who I had had to discipline just once, just twice, but wanted to be part of that structure. I want to say kids want to be part of structure. We want structure. A society that says, do whatever the heck that you want, in the name of being who you are, will lead to a broken society.

We have to have boundaries. We have to know where those lines are. And the purpose of religion, the purpose of Christ falling, is to define truth, and to draw lines and discriminate against the things that are sin, and that are not truth. You hear all the time, but love wins. Love wins. Read your scripture. That's not true. Love comes in second, to truth.

It says, speak the truth, what? In love. Love comes in second, not first. And that God is a God of love, but love is not God. And love has boundaries. Love has conditions. And the scripture, over 1,500 times, uses the word if. If you want to step into my love. If you want to follow me, says Jesus. And so what we need to do, is walk inside of this, the confines of God's truth.

And so here we are today, looking at this. We look at David, in 1 Kings. Now look at 1 Kings 1, 6. And I gotta tell you, David was a really bad dad. Actually, he's fallen out of my top five. He was in my top five. Who cares what Adam's top five of the Bible is? But nonetheless, I love David. I just can't respect him as a dad. And I'm not, you know, the culture of fatherhood was different back then.

I get it. But I'm more of a Uriah the Hittite guy. I like David, but here's what it says. Now God liked David a lot, so I'm not gonna argue with David, right? Because he's a man after his own heart. But sometimes I'm like, God, really? But he did. You know, nonetheless. Now this, now his father, this is talking about Absalom's brother. Now his father, King David, had never what?

When? At any time. Ever. What a, what a, what a gross place to grow up. The king's son with no discipline. You do not want that. You wanna have confines. It says, has he even, even by asking, he didn't, never even ask this one simple question. Why are you doing that? Really? Like, parents, any parent here, I'm not asking you to raise your hand, but have you never asked the question, like, what are you thinking?

Like, why did you feed the dog butter? Like, what? Dogs don't eat butter. My dog, my kid did not feed the dog butter. I just made that up. Adonijah had been born next after Absalom. We know about Absalom. He rebelled against his father and tried to kill him. And he was also very handsome. The king's son, really good looking, and the king and his father never asked him, why did you do that?

That's a recipe for getting chased out of town by your son like Absalom did to King David. First Samuel, this is talking about Eli at a 3.13. For I told him, this is speaking to, about what would happen as a prophecy to Eli, that I would judge his family forever because the sin he knew about. His sons blasphemed God and he failed to what? Restrain them. We have to restrain our families.

We need to have a gender diverse parent system that works together upon their gender strengths to restrain our children. To have our children grow up with boundaries and to create a culture of love and that every time they are restrained, they know it's because that they are loved and it creates more relationship. Discipline should create more relationship with you and should let your children ultimately feel loved.

You're going to see the fruit of that in their lives as they continue to play out their lives. So how do we know then that we see, excuse me, in verse 1b, I want to move on. Verse 1b says, my son, speaking to be daughters as well, do not, what's the words there? Regard lightly. And some other translation said lightly esteem. The discipline of the Lord. Now I want to stop there because this word lightly esteem is when, ever has anybody tell you something and you're kind of like, eh, eh, well whatever, whatever they say, I don't really care what they think.

I have a pastor, friend, acquaintance I've known for 25 years now. We were on our first staff together when I was 24 and he was 19 and he's in a jail right now and he's going to probably be in jail for the next, for the rest of his life. And, um, he met with another pastor who's a friend of mine. They were best friends and before he went to prison and the cops came and got him, uh, the guy said, what happened?

He said two things. He said, the first thing is the Lord had been speaking to me and disciplining me and he goes, I didn't pay attention. And he says, number two, the Proverbs are right. if that doesn't wake you up, I gotta say, if you are lightly esteeming the discipline of the Lord and a lot of people say, I don't know, God never speaks to me but you know that God's been telling you to stop doing this.

That's a great place to start with the voice of God. Whether it's drinking, whether it's your pills, whether it's the way you speak to your wife or your children or that little relationship you've been brewing on the side there that no one knows about or the porn that you look at or just what your anger or the unforgiving, you got your deal. You know, everyone has their deal and God has been so gracious over and over and over.

There's gonna come a time because he loves you when he says enough is enough and you're gonna hit rock bottom. I gotta say, that was a huge wake up call. For me as well, it makes me re-assimilate and re-look at my life. No one is above the discipline of the Lord and I wanna say, let's not lightly esteem the discipline of the Lord. Now is the time. Now is the time to turn back 100%?

I love the story that Elliot said. With your life, it's not just money. Are you giving him three grains? You know, and expecting a harvest in return. God will give you a hundredfold, he says. Well, let's give him all. If you're lightly esteeming, receive this perhaps as maybe it might be the final word God gives you. Maybe, who knows? Maybe there'll be a hundred more.

But perhaps, maybe this is the last word today. Moving on. It says, but do not be weary when reproved by him. You know, so easily, we just get weary. I'm going through hard times. One of the things it says is he exhorts you. This is an exhortation. When you're going through hard times, when God has disciplined you, don't grow weary. Stand up. And I've said this over and over again, but it's becoming part of the lexicon of our church.

Do not lay down in the valley of the shadow of death. It says, as you what? Walk. And does anybody know where that road leads at the end of Psalm 23? Leads to a beautiful little pasture, but then after that it leads somewhere else. Yeah, that you live with the Father. He brings you into his house. And it says that we will live with him. I will say all hardship has a road.

Every hardship. If there's a road that walks through hardship, the valley of the shadow of death, if it has a signpost on it, it says, God's love this way. Every single time. You have to remember that. You have to put yourself in a position to receive the encouragement, the goodness of God that is saying, come home. Come home. I'm here beside you. It might look dark.

I'm here beside you. Find friends. Find worship. Find the word of God. Yesterday I was, I was just, I don't know, I just had stress on me. You ever get that? You just woke up, just when I slow down I get stressed because I'm not running. Stress, stress, and all day I'm gardening. My yard looks beautiful by the way. My wife said I spent way too much money on the yard and so on the lawn but it's green and I'm doing all these things to de-stress but there's my Bible.

All these things but there's the Bible. Finally around 9 o'clock at night I thought I gotta get into the word of God. I got into the word of God and the sweet comfort of God just whoop and it was like I had no, I was like, and I didn't even know why I was stressed yesterday. I was just there. You know, you ever get that? It just shows up for no reason. You know?

And I just gotta say you gotta know where to turn and how to find the road signs. I gotta say the word of God is a road sign to lead you home in a hard time. Worship is a supernatural weapon of warfare. If you wanna beat back darkness, don't just reach out to binge watching Netflix. Maybe binge listen to the Bible. Maybe binge worship. Maybe fast. My prayer partner and I were trying to have one day a week.

I'm horrible at fasting. I don't like it. I'm not good at it. Not that you're supposed to like it. But one day a week, we're trying to fast until noon. At 1125, Rigoberto's, I could smell the bean and cheese burrito. Like, I'm in my office. I do not know how the bean and cheese burrito, you know, the wind was blowing the opposite direction, but Satan brought the smell of the bean and cheese.

And there it was, and I was like, oh, I mean, I got 35 minutes. Am I diabetic? I think I need to go right now because maybe my feet are numb. I was going to convince myself of some kind of thing I needed to eat. Use the resources at your hand or don't. Netflix might give you, you know, a little bit of a, you know, time to escape. Maybe another glass of wine, another time to escape.

But if you want real freedom, it's the Word of God. It is Jesus Himself. It is a comforting Holy Spirit. This week, I laid in bed multiple times. I said, Jesus, Holy Spirit, because we've been focusing on that around here. Holy Spirit, just comfort me. I need you to be a comforter. Comfort me. Speak to me. I love you. Just speak to me, Holy Spirit. Do your thing.

Counsel me. I just give you my life. I turn over everything, everything you want. It's so good. And I've been giving you a little updates on my life. I have these things I don't want to turn over, so I just tell God I don't want to turn that over. He's actually, in the last three weeks since we've been doing that, I've gotten to the point where I'm like, I want to turn it over.

Isn't that a good win? I'm like, yeah, I want to turn that over. So let's just turn over everything to God. And finally, as we read, you were, verse eight. Oh, I already said that. So I'm going to go to the final point here. So how do we know when we're being disciplined? And I've already done this. I should have given you a spoiler alert because I've said it.

Hebrews 12, 7 just says this. How do you know when God's disciplining you? How do you know? Because, you know, it's like trying to figure it out. Is God mad at me? God never disciplines you because he's mad at you. It says, endure hardships as discipline. God's treating you as what? His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? Let me just read that again.

It's so powerful. I mean, there's been times where I've known God has disciplined me. I'll tell you about one of those in a second. But let me read it again. Hebrews 12, 7. Put it up on your wall, your fridge. Endure hardships as discipline. God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? I want to say the role of a father.

Scripture. Scripturally. How do I know? Because the Scripture tells me. I haven't done a scientific research. I haven't checked the brain chemistry. I don't know. You probably could and figure things out. But I've looked at the Bible and I tend to live my life according to the Word of God. And it talks about father's role in a family to restrain their children with the help of the mother to come in and work in that.

We see that as an incredible helper. Like the Holy Spirit also is a helper. Both women and the Holy Spirit are called helpers. I don't think women you're in bad company when you're called a helper. Okay? Holy Spirit's also called a helper and he's part of the Trinity. So let's just leave it at that. That was a good little point right there, right? Let's not.

Come on. Give me that one. You're being loved. And so if God is disciplining you right now you'll know when I was in college and ask the worship team to come up and we're going to do good good father again. When I was in college I was there and they were I was the college campus ministries pastor when I was there. And I remember it was time to turn in all the things I had done and I went and took the former college ministry pastor it's only for one season on ASB and I took his resume of what he had done and all the things because I was just I had 21 units I was overwhelmed and I turned his in as opposed to mine like yeah ooh yeah ooh yeah I mean you would have think you know I don't know I don't know why I thought I'd get away with that.

I had done more than him like my resume was better I thought but I just didn't have the time and so it was like hey how did you do spiritually and I just turned his in and when it got time they pay you for doing it you get like $1,800 I got a $900 check and I was and I was like $900 I went and asked and the guy when I went to ask him he brought up the other guy saying he goes this is Gordon's like why did you turn this in I was like and I was mad and I was angry I worked all year for that who are I who are you you know you're self-righteous and I went and I started reading my Bible and this verse over there and that was one time where I knew God said you know what bro mellow out I disciplined you and you need to figure out because there are going to be a lot higher stakes along the way you never know what's coming down the pike right let's stand you're not going to be I'm not going to be I'm not going to be I'm not going to be I'm not going to be I'm not going to be I'm not going to be I'm not going to be