https://youtu.be/iOS6kby7rP4?si=Hz00yhGJMvgSEy2Q

 

Introduction: Importance of Doctrine

We’ve come to a section in the Book of Hebrews where the writer is primarily focusing on application. In the New Testament letters, the writer will typically start with significant doctrine. Up front, there’s doctrine and theology. Then, after they’ve given us a doctrine of theology, they will move into a moment of application, saying, Here’s what I want you to do with this doctrine in theology.

That’s what the writer of Hebrews is now doing. For the first 11 chapters, he provided us with a substantial amount of doctrine and theology. He told us a lot about who Jesus is, where Jesus came from, what he came to earth to do, and what he accomplished. He talks about Jesus being the image of the perfect God. That Jesus is better than angels, that Jesus establishes a New Covenant, and that Jesus mediates a better covenant with a better sacrifice than those of the Old Covenant. That Jesus is continually our great High Priest interceding for us.

He’s given us a lot of doctrine. He’s explained to us what faith is and why it matters. Now he moves into chapters 12 and 13, and he begins to tell us, What do you do with this doctrine of theology that I’ve now given you? The Book of Hebrews is a transcribed sermon, and I think it serves as a model for how we ought to preach in our present age. We live in a culture in the United States where it is very normal for sermons to be primarily practical or application-oriented.

You go to church and you hear, Here are three steps to do this. It’s often absent of theology and doctrine. When you look through the New Testament letters, they spend a lot of time teaching doctrine and theology. We see the book of Galatians has six chapters. The first five are doctrine and theology, and one chapter is application. We see here in Hebrews, 11 chapters chock-full of doctrine and theology, and two chapters of practical application. The most balanced letter is Ephesians. Three chapters of doctrine, three chapters of application.

But most of the New Testament authors spend more time teaching doctrine and theology than they do practical application, which I think is a model for how we ought to teach in our services. Tragically, across the Western world, in modern evangelicalism, we spend very little time teaching doctrine and theology. We wonder why our churches are kind of a mess. People ask, Why do you spend so much energy teaching doctrine, because that’s what the New Testament author said. We want to be like them.

So this is valuable in our conversations as believers; we should spend lots of time talking about doctrine and theology. As parents, we should be spending lots of time teaching our kids doctrine and theology. Now, certainly, we should not stop there. Those of us who are in the Reformed world sometimes we can stop with doctrine and theology, and then we forget to do the application part. So both are important.

The writer of Hebrews has now moved into chapters 12 and 13, where he is spending significant time giving us very practical exhortations. In the first few verses of chapter 12, he gives us some exhortations. The one that I spent the most time talking about last week was he tells us to get rid of sin and to get rid of any hindrances that may distract us from Jesus, even if those things are not sinful. Get rid of sin. Sin is bad. It distracts, it causes harm, it dishonors Jesus. Get rid of sin.

But in addition to that, there are lists of things in your life that are not necessarily sinful at all, but you should get rid of them because they potentially are a distraction between you and Jesus. The immature Christian asks this question, Is it sinful? It’s not that I can do it. The mature Christian or the maturing Christian asks a different question, a better question, not Is it sinful? But rather, will this thing help me run after Jesus better? If the answer is no, then you should consider eliminating it from your life.

We talked extensively about that last week. That was the first exhortation in the first few verses of Hebrews, chapter 12. Then he’s going to give us significant, more practical applications as he goes through chapters 12 and 13. But before he gets to more exhortations, he has this moment here where he pauses and talks about discipline.

He says, get rid of sin and get rid of things that may distract you, even if they’re not sinful. By the way, this is going to take some discipline to do well. If you refuse to engage in it, if you refuse to get rid of sin and to get rid of things that are distractions, God will discipline you because he loves you and he wants to make you better. That’s what he does; he begins to focus on it.

So the sentiment that we see from him here in the middle part of chapter 12 is, in essence, to embrace God’s discipline. He doesn’t explicitly say that. That is the implied application. In the middle part of chapter 12, he’s going to talk about the fact that God disciplines us. This is a good thing, and we should like it. We should say, God, bring it on, because he disciplines those whom he loves. If God is not disciplining you, you should question whether or not you are genuinely his. That’s what the writer of Hebrews implies here.

So this morning I want to talk a little bit about God’s discipline of us. I want to talk a little bit about how God disciplines us. Then I want to focus on one particular way he disciplines us. Primarily by the way in which we judge and correct one another. First, let’s pray one more time.

God, as we look at a few verses from Hebrews chapter 12, would you help us understand it? Would you cause this to change our hearts, to transform us? May we embrace your discipline. May you discipline us as needed and make us more like Jesus. I pray, would you do that? Would you do that in me? Would you do that in us? I pray. Amen.

 

Understanding God’s Discipline

Hebrews chapter 12, verse 5. The writer of Hebrews says:

“Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?”

There’s an exhortation that was given to you. There were some words given to you, some challenges. The reason they were given to you is because you are sons. You are children of God. Then he says this:

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord.”

Don’t take it lightly that God wants to discipline you. It’s a serious thing. It’s sacred. We should make much of this. We should be excited about this. This is a good thing. I am a dad to a four-year-old. I have disciplined this child for quite some time now on a regular basis. I can assure you, she doesn’t like it when she’s being disciplined.

But the writer of Hebrews would have me say, When your good Father disciplines you, you should be excited about that. In First Corinthians 11:32, the apostle Paul says this about God discipling us:

“God disciplines us so that we may not be condemned along with the world.”

That’s a remarkable statement. There are a bunch of people in the world who are going to be condemned. They’re going to face the wrath of God one day. It will be a tragic, heartbreaking moment, heart-wrenching. God says, some of you believe in me, and I’m going to continually discipline you so that you don’t end up in that category.

When God disciplines us and causes us not to be in the category of people that are going to face his condemnation, that’s a good thing. Praise God. It is a gift to be disciplined. Then he alludes to this here in this chapter. Good fathers discipline their children. A father who refuses to discipline his children is not a good father.

I want to say that to the kids in the room. When Mommy or Daddy disciplines you, they put you in a timeout, give you a lecture, or may spank you. That’s a good thing. That’s a good thing because they love you. We have various forms of discipline in our home. Verbal warnings, time-outs, and there may be moments where there needs to be a firm, physical spanking.

We call them pow-pows in our house. Lettie does not like pow-pows, I can assure you. But it’s good for her to get pow pows. It’s good for God to give us pow-pows when we sin. It’s good for God to introduce pain into our lives, to get our attention, for us to know that that behavior is unacceptable. When God gives you a pow-pow, you should say, Thank you, Daddy. Thank you.

Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 9. He says, We had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. We’re thankful for them. Shall we not be much more subject to the Father? We recognize what a good dad does. How much more should we respect it when God does it?

Side notes to the dads in the room. Discipline should be something that you are primarily involved in. It is very common, I’ve noticed, in American society for moms to carry the weight of disciplining the children. That is inappropriate. Dads, you should be thoroughly involved in that process. You should be leading the way.

A good dad should be involved. Do not just advocate that or delegate that to your wife. That’s unfair to her. It doesn’t mean that Mama never disciplines children. But if Mama does all the discipline, that’s unfair to her. That’s way too emotionally exhausting. Dads, you should be involved in that process.

 

Consequences of our Actions

Now, there are many ways in which God disciplines us. I’m going to mention a few of them. First, God will often allow us to experience the consequences of our own actions. He will say, You’ve made this bad, foolish choice. I’m going to orchestrate the events of your life to ensure you suffer the consequences of this thing.

I sometimes have to do this with my kids. It’s hard. I want to protect them sometimes. My kid is doing something dumb, and there’s going to be a consequence of that. If you pull the dog’s tail or the dog’s ear, the dog might scratch you, hit you, pound you with his paw, and he might nip at you. I want to protect you from that. But it might actually be good for you to get a little nip from the dog so that you realize you shouldn’t pull the dog’s ear. He doesn’t like that. That’s not kind.

So sometimes we have to allow our children to experience the pain of their own actions. That is hard as a parent to watch. But sometimes God does that for us. We see this over and over again in the scriptures. Sometimes God will lead us into difficult situations, hard situations, or God will allow us to experience variations of suffering. He doesn’t want you to suffer, but he is going to lead you into a really hard situation, into a moment where you are experiencing suffering because it will expose your sin.

That’s God’s ultimate motivation whenever he’s disciplining us, to highlight in us that there’s something that he wants to get rid of. One of the greatest examples of this in the Old Testament is the Babylonian exile. If you’re not familiar, the nation of Israel came out of Egypt, went into the promised land, and they’ve been there for several hundred years. For almost all of that history, they have been incredibly inconsistent and unfaithful in serving God for hundreds and hundreds of years.

God eventually takes the nation of Israel, and he says, I’m going to send you into Babylon. God raises up the Babylonian empire and the Babylonian army, and God makes them strong, this pagan army. God gives Nebuchadnezzar, the pagan ruler, the desire to attack Israel. God does all of that. God leads the Babylonian pagan army, and he strengthens them so they can attack and destroy lots of Israel.

Lots of people are killed, lots of the city is destroyed, and the few survivors are then enslaved and dragged off to be slaves in Babylon. God did that to his people. God makes it very clear in the Old Testament, I did that to you, Israel. You’re gonna go be slaves for 70 years in Babylon because there’s something in you as a people that I want to get rid of.

I’ve heard Christians in our modern era say things about God. God’s a nice guy. He would never do these kinds of things to you. God wouldn’t discipline. God wouldn’t be mean. God wouldn’t introduce pain into your life. God’s not that kind of God. The same God of the Old Testament is the one who wrote the New. I think you’re misunderstanding who our God is. He will absolutely raise up a pagan army and have you dragged off and be slaves for 70 years because he loves you so much. He’s willing to do whatever needs to be done to get out of your heart and soul the ugliness of sin.

Side note, to be very clear, not all suffering is discipline. Sometimes we suffer in this life, and it’s not necessarily God disciplining us. There’s a host of reasons why suffering happens. Discipline is simply one variation or one reason. If you’re interested, we did a sermon series back in January on suffering. We did several sermons on why God introduces suffering. If you’re interested, you can find it on our website, horizoncitychurch.com, click the sermons button. You can find them there.

We want to be very careful. If someone is suffering, don’t assume it’s because of discipline. That would be insensitive. I’ve heard Christians say some things that feel insensitive. If someone is experiencing some sort of physical illness, we ask, What’s causing God to discipline you? You don’t know that, so be very careful. We don’t want to make those sorts of assumptions.

 

Discipline by being Caught in our Sin

Another way God disciplines us is that he will often let our sin get caught. This is often quite humiliating. God will discipline us by saying, I’m going to orchestrate the events of your life in such a way that when the next time you do that sin, you’re going to get caught, and it’s going to be incredibly embarrassing to you and those around you.

We see this over and over again throughout the Scriptures and in church history. We see this a lot in our modern era. I’m always grieved when there’s a pastor who has a moral failure and he is caught in sin; it breaks my heart every time. Every time I say, Thank you, God. You love that pastor. You let him get caught. You didn’t let it be hidden. He isn’t dying with that sin; you let him get caught. As heartbreaking and embarrassing as it is to him, to his family, to his church, and the body of Christ as a whole, as much of a disgrace and a reproach as it is to the body of Christ, it is grace to that man.

Praise be to God that you would love him enough to allow him to get caught. What kindness.
There’s a prayer I pray regularly. Lord, if there’s anyone in our congregation with hidden sin, would you help them get caught? So if you’ve got some hidden sin, just know the clock is ticking because God’s going to answer my prayer. You’re going to get caught, and it’s going to be painful, it’s going to be humiliating, and it will be God’s mercy toward you.

The thing we see with all of these forms of discipline from God toward his people is that these forms of discipline are never the first response. With the nation of Israel, they go into the land, and 800 years go by before he brings Babylon. 800 years of consistent blasphemy, disrespect, disobedience, and inconsistency. God is continually kind and faithful to them and protects them and provides for them over and over again, generation after generation. God is so patient and long-suffering with them, calling them to repentance.

When God disciplines us harshly, it is because there has been a long track record of him disciplining us lightly that we have ignored. He says, I’m going to get your attention one way or another. So this is a great warning for us that when God is disciplining us lightly, we should listen, because if we don’t, he will discipline us more harshly.

 

Rebuke from Others

The light way God disciplines us is that he brings other people into our lives to correct us and rebuke us, to point out our flaws. This is God’s discipline in your life. It’s the light version. You, as a Christian, have other Christians in your life to point out to you your flaws, to judge you, and rebuke you. That is God’s kindness to you.

He’s long-suffering, he’s patient, he’s gentle. There are lots of reasons for us to have a Christian community. There are lots of good reasons for us to lean into Christian friendships and spend a lot of time to make sure we don’t miss Sundays, if at all possible. That we lean into relationships with other believers. It’s encouragement and inspiration. There are practical helps.

But one of the most important reasons that we lean into Christian community and Christian friendships is that Christians can correct us when we’re wrong. They can highlight our flaws. We don’t like that one. If someone comes to you and tells you you’re doing something wrong, what you ought to do is say, Praise God. He’s being kind to me by bringing someone to tell me how wrong I am.

I’m sure we all respond that way every time. No, of course you don’t. We get angry, we get frustrated. We don’t like it. But our responsibility as believers is to look at one another and to diagnose how we’re doing, to judge one another. First Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 12. The apostle Paul says this:

“What have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?”

Some of you guys are so worried about sinners and people who don’t believe in Jesus, let’s spend a lot of energy judging one another in the church. Now, I know some of you are like, wait, didn’t Jesus say, don’t judge? Don’t judge lest you be judged. He did say words that sound like that, but that’s not precisely what he said.

When you look at the context in Matthew and Jesus’ teaching, he’s talking about a hypocritical form of judgment. He’s saying, don’t hypocritically judge, lest there will be people who come along and hypocritically judge you. Jesus explicitly tells us to judge. In John, chapter 7, verse 24, Jesus says:

“Judge with right judgment.”

So there’s a bad form of judging hypocritically, or there’s a right form of judgment. When you use right judgment, there’s a right way to judge. People will say, I don’t judge. We all do. When I walk into Chipotle and I’m staring at the food, I’m judging whether or not I want to put that chicken in my mouth. Does that chicken look like something I want to consume right now, or would I rather the carnitas or the steak? I am passing judgment on which of these is best. I’m making a decision.

The apostle Paul and Jesus make it very clear we should all be doing this as Christians with one another, looking at other Christians and determining, Are you doing what you ought to be doing? Are you living the way you ought to be living? When you lean into the Christian community, it’s like having a bunch of extra side-view mirrors. That’s what the Christian community is supposed to be, a bunch of extra mirrors that help me see more of my blind spots so that I’m less likely to cause a wreck. So I’m less likely to be a danger to myself or those around me.

People ask me all the time, Why should I become a church member? Why does church membership matter when you become a member of a church? Is it because we get to vote on things? Here at Horizon Church, our members do vote on the budget. Our members have access to financials, my salary, and various decisions. Yes, there’s that element to it, but that’s such a small part of it.

Becoming a church member is most valuable because you get a bunch of extra side view mirrors in your life. When you become a member of a church, when you lean into Christian community or if you’re a part of a church that doesn’t do formal membership, when you lean into those relationships with other believers, the thing you get, the most valuable thing, is a bunch of extra people to judge you.

That is God’s kindness to you. That is God disciplining you through other believers in the lightest form of discipline possible. It’s not actually all that painful for someone to look at you and tell you that you’re sinning. It hurts our ego, it bruises our pride, but it’s not painful at all. Earlier in Hebrews chapter 12, the writer of Hebrews says, In your fight against sin, you’ve not shed blood. He says, You guys are all up in arms about the things you’re going through. In the process of disciplining you, you’ve not shed your blood.

In the process of getting rid of sin, you’ve not shed blood, you’ve not lost an arm, you’ve not been crucified. What you’ve experienced is not that big a deal. So someone told you to stop doing what you’re doing. That’s not that big a deal. In fact, it’s God’s discipline in your life. Don’t make light of that. Later in Hebrews, in verse 11, he says this.

“For the moment, all discipline seems painful, not pleasant. But later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

In the moment when you’re being disciplined by God, it doesn’t feel good. It’s not pleasant. But later, it will yield great fruit. So embrace it. The way God does this is he calling us to correct one another. 35 times in the New Testament, we are told to rebuke and judge one another as believers. Here’s the clearest one. Luke 17, verse 3. Jesus is speaking, he says:

“If your brother sins, rebuke him.”

That’s pretty simple. The implication there is, if you see your brother sinning and you don’t rebuke him, you are disobeying a direct command of Jesus. If I see a believer sinning and I tell them that they’re sinning and to stop, which I’ve done on occasion in my life. Sometimes I’ve gotten a response from some people saying, Who are you to tell me?

Well, if I don’t tell you, I’m sinning and I’m going to stand before God, and so I don’t care if you like me or not. I care about what I’m saying before Jesus, and I’m judged by him. So if you’re mad at what I just said, fine. But Jesus is happy with me, and I live to make him happy. When a Christian brother or sister rebukes you for your sin, it’s a good thing. Proverbs 27, verses 5 and 6 say this:

“Open rebuke is better than secret love.”

Someone who openly rebukes you is better than someone who says nothing but claims to love you in their heart. Someone says, I love you and I keep my mouth shut. That’s not love. It is better for someone to open their mouth and to offend you. In fact, the very next phrase there in Proverbs 27:6 says this:

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”

The wounds you get from a friend correcting you, those are faithful wounds. Side note: When we seek to bring correction to one another, we want to be gentle and tender. Galatians chapter 6 says this.

“If anyone is caught in transgression, restore him in a spirit of gentleness.”

If any Christian you know is sinning, it is your responsibility to open your mouth and say something and restore that person to not sinning. But when you do it, do it in a spirit of gentleness. Sometimes people use the commands of Scripture to rebuke one another, to discipline one another, as an excuse to just be jerks. You’re being unkind, and you’re not representing Christ.

We want to correct people. We want to do it in a spirit of gentleness. In addition to that, if someone rebukes you and they do it in a way that’s not gentle, that’s not an excuse to ignore them. That’s an immature thing to do. Someone can rebuke you, and they do it ungentlely. They sin in their rebuke, but the content of their rebuke may still very well be accurate. So you should ignore the fact that they were not gentle and just receive the rebuke. Maybe later down the road, you can follow up with them.

A week later, you can follow up and say, You rebuked me that day. Thank you. I prayed about it. I’m asking God for his help to fight that. In the conversation when you rebuked me accurately, the way you did it didn’t quite represent Christ well. It might have been easier for someone in my church to receive that.

 

Responding to Correction

In my pastoral experience, there are usually four ways in which people respond to correction. When God is seeking to discipline a Christian through another Christian. Here are the four ways we respond.

Number one is that we get defensive. We begin to defend or justify the action.

The second thing we often do is we get quiet, and we get really uncomfortable. We’re anxious about the confrontation, and we get quiet and pretend like we’re listening because we just want the moment to be over and move on.

The third response is that we want to return the person who rebuked us. They’ve corrected us. They’ve said something to us that hurts our feelings. We want to then turn around and return the hurt to them. I am feeling hurt, and now I’m going to say something back to you with the sole purpose of hurting your feelings because you’ve hurt my feelings.

Or the fourth way sometimes we respond is we simply ignore the person.

We get defensive, we get quiet, we return the hurt, or we just ignore them. Friends, all of these are wrong responses. All of these are sinful responses. When another brother is correcting you, it is God seeking to discipline you. The writer of Hebrews says, Do not make light of that. The right response would be to humbly ask, Would you tell me more? Tell me more about how wretched I am.

Can you tell me more about how I did that? Can you give me some other examples? What are some other things that I did? Can you help me understand how this is hurting other people? Do you have any wisdom that can help me get how I can get better at this? Or maybe you say, I’m sorry. Would you forgive me?

For some weird reason, humans struggle for that to be one of our early instincts. Someone is sinning when we rebuke them; the right response we want to hear is often the expression of sorrow and apology. Or how about this one? Brother, sister, I think you’re right. Would you pray for me right now? Would you pray right now for me that God would help me to receive this discipline? Psalm 141, verse 5. This is David speaking about other people rebuking him. This is what he says:

“Let a righteous man strike me. It is a kindness. Let him rebuke me. It is oil on my head. Let my head not refuse it.”

Someone rebukes you, pour that oil all over me. It’s like a fragrance. Bring it on. Do we respond like this often when we’re being corrected? I wish I could tell you this is how I respond every time. God disciplines us through each other, and we should not make light of that. Church, if we refuse to receive the light discipline that comes from the verbal corrections of our fellow brothers and sisters, you should expect a more harsh form of discipline if you continue in your disobedience.

The refusal to receive correction, I almost want to say it’s the worst of sins. I wouldn’t quite say that, but I almost want to say that because this sin, the refusal to receive correction, impedes every area of your life. If you have a major anger problem, but you’re willing to listen to correction and people correct you on your anger problem, eventually your anger problem will get better with God’s help. But if you refuse to listen to correction, no area of your life ever gets better.

The writer of Hebrews is saying, Don’t make light of this. The Lord is going to discipline you. Receive it. In Hebrews 12:14, he uses the word ‘strive’. The word strive here is conjugated in the original Greek in a particular way. It’s a verb, and it’s a second-person plural verb, meaning it’s one person talking to a group of people collectively.

This form of the Greek verb ‘strive’, the way it appears in the original Greek, implies that there’s a collective effort that he’s commanding you to do. So he’s saying, strive to do these things. But he’s not saying you individually strive, he’s saying plural. All of you as a group, collectively, together, strive to do these things. It’s a group effort because he knows he can’t do it alone.

Then he gives them a list of things to strive together to do. Look at verse 14. He highlights two things. He says, peace with everyone and holiness. He says, Strive to have peace with everyone and to have holiness. But you don’t do it on your own. You strive together. Well, how do we strive together to have peace with everyone? Well, if one person doesn’t have peace with another one, someone’s got to say something. That’s the implication. There’s some form of verbal correction.

Or, how do we have holiness? How do we strive for holiness together? Well, when we see each other not being holy, we open our mouths and we say, That thing you did wasn’t very holy. Then in verse 15, he highlights two more things: that no root of bitterness springs up. And he later says in the verse that no one is sexually immoral. So, as believers strive together to make sure no bitterness springs up.

How do you make sure no bitterness springs up without talking to one another about it? If you see one person being bitter, it’s your job to say, I see some bitterness springing up. Let’s stop that. Or if you see someone being sexually immoral, you know of someone doing that which they ought not do. The Bible is very clear on what the parameters for sexuality are. One man, one woman, within the bounds of sacred covenant. Anything outside of that in any kind is sexually immoral, is an abomination to God.

So if we see anyone else who claims to be a Christian doing that, it’s your job collectively to help them. They can’t do it on their own. We strive collectively to do this together. Together, embrace the Lord’s discipline so that we can be peaceful with everyone. To be holy, to have no bitterness, to avoid sexual immorality.

I’m in a couple of private Facebook groups that have various discussions on various topics. In one of these particular groups, there was a conversation that came up. I chimed in and gave some thoughts. Then something I said led one of my friends to think there was some bitterness in me.

My friend Ken, he lives in Tennessee, saw this thing I posted in his Facebook group and he sent me an audio text message. He’s said, Hey, man, I really appreciate your insights. I think there’s a lot of wisdom. However, there was one phrase you said in the middle of this paragraph that leads me to believe that maybe there’s some bitterness in you toward this other person. Maybe I’m wrong, bro. But I want to ask you about that phrase because I think most people reading this probably won’t pick up on it, but because I know you and I know the situation. Maybe I’m wrong. Just give me a heads up, correct me if I’m wrong.

You know what? He wasn’t wrong. There was absolutely some bitterness in my heart toward that person. This was about two months ago. I wish I could tell you this was a decade ago.
I had to pause and say, Ken’s 100% right. So I sent my message back and said, You’re right. I am bitter in my heart. We went back and forth, multiple messages. I was frustrated about the situation.

I had not talked about it. So this bitterness slipped in, amid other words. When we went back and forth, I just said, Brother, forgive me for demonstrating my bitterness. Thank you for challenging me. That person wronged me. They were wrong in what they did. They’re probably never gonna say sorry. They’re never gonna apologize. They’re never gonna acknowledge it.

So, for my own spiritual well-being, I was encouraged to choose to forgive that person. I have to be honest, that was really hard to hear. My friend Ken is saying, we need to strive together to have peace with everyone. These two believers are frustrated with one another, and he’s challenging both of them. My friend Ken is a gift to me.

God disciplined me through the correction of a fellow believer. It was good for me. I recognized in my own heart, there’s some bitterness there. I need to go pray. I have some work to do. Lord, would you forgive me? God sends people your way because he loves you and he wants to root out of you the things in you that are ugly and broken.

 

Conclusion: Consequences for Ignoring Correction

What happens if someone refuses to listen to the correction over and over again? Two things will happen. Number one is this: If you refuse to listen to the light correction, the verbal correction, and rebuke of those other believers, then God will find more harsh ways to discipline you. It’s going to happen because he loves you. He’s a good dad. Why would we expect him not to discipline us?

Second thing, if someone continues to disobey, refuses to listen to the correction of people, refuses to embrace the lighter forms of discipline, then what’s going to happen is eventually those of us who are Christians, we are going to realize that this person is not genuinely saved, that their faith is not genuine, that they’re not genuinely a son of God. They may have duped themselves into thinking they’re a Christian. They may have duped others into thinking that their trajectory is eternal judgment.

If there’s a person who claims to be a Christian, maybe they do Christian stuff. Maybe they’re a member of a church. Maybe they’re a member of this church. But if that person refuses, over and over again, to receive correction and to obey God’s word as commanded, that will be assigned to the rest of us. That person does not have the spirit of God at work in their life. That’s a very sobering reality.

The Bible gives us very clear instructions as a church on how we deal with this. I won’t go into detail now, but Matthew 18 and 1st Corinthians 5 give us very clear instructions that someone in the local church who refuses to receive a correction must eventually be excommunicated. They are removed from that church. That is a painful, painful situation. We call that church discipline. When a church disciplines one of its members by publicly declaring that person is disobedient, and they refuse to do what God has called them to do.

So we want everyone to know that we don’t think this person’s a Christian. We think if they died today, they would go to hell, and because we love them, we want them to know it, and we beg for them to repent of their sin. Now, the process of church discipline should be a long, patient process.

My church in Minnesota, over the course of six years there, we disciplined and excommunicated seven different people over the course of six years. But each time, it was a one to two-year process of us trying to get them to listen, and they refused. Church discipline is a lost art in American evangelicalism. Today, when you excommunicate someone, you’re the bad guy. I can’t believe you would have kicked someone out. How evil you are.

But the Bible says it’s a form of kindness. This person thinks they may be a Christian, they think they’re going to heaven, but they’re not. That’s a very dangerous place to be. So it is time for that person to know that they’re not going to heaven, and they should repent of their sin.

Refusal to listen to correction could be evidence that you are not genuinely saved. You think you’re headed to heaven, but you’re not. I implore you, when you are corrected, humbly repent of your sin. Beg God for his mercy. He will give it. He disciplines us because he loves us. After all, we are his children. As the writer of Hebrews says here in chapter 12, if he doesn’t discipline us, then we’re not legitimate and we’re not actually of him.

Therefore, seek the mercy of God and collectively strive for holiness. Allow God to discipline you through other people. Do not make light of that discipline. In doing this, as we embrace correction and discipline, as we strive together to do this well, in this process, we will experience all that God has for us in this life and the next.