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There is a lesson of life that the Lord pressed upon me in devotional time this week that I now share with you, and it comes from the 12th chapter of the book of Hebrews.
Listen to what the Word of God records:
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood, and you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children. My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines those whom he loves and chastises every child whom he accepts. Endure trials for the sake of discipline. For you see, God is treating you as children. For what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you're illegitimate and not his child. Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the father of spirits and live? Our earthly parents disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them. But God disciplines us for our good in order that we may share in his holiness. Now discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who've been trained by it.
I want to share some thoughts with you about divine discipline. This past week, I had the joy and favor and honor of being in Las Vegas to preach for the 72nd International Boule gathering of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. On my way back from Vegas, when I got on the plane, I was sitting next to somebody's big mama. Her name was Miss Williams, but I know a big mama when I see a big mama.
On the plane in the row behind us came a mother of another ethnicity with a four-year-old daughter named Emily. For the entirety of the flight, all we kept hearing from the row behind us was, "Emily, stop that." Emily would take her doll and hit it on the window. Emily took the table tray and kept flipping it up and down. She took off her seat belt and began jumping in the chair. She put her feet on the back of my seat and kept pushing. Emily got loud in the middle of the flight and her mother looked over and said, "Emily, lower your voice." To which Emily said, "You shut up."
That's when Big Mama stood up. She turned around and said, "Do you need help with your daughter?" She turned back and sat down and she said something that is still with me today. She said, "What you won't correct, you can't control. What you won't correct, you can't control."
Some of us have lived long enough to know that the only thing more discouraging than an undisciplined child is a parent who won't do anything about it.
Now, let me tell you something important. Everything that is painful is not necessarily discipline. Everything that doesn't make you shout is not always the hand of God on you. The struggles you deal with, the tragedies we experience, the pains we go through, the diagnosis we endure—all of those are not always God's corrective hand on your life.
Beloved, suffering is part of life. And I know you may not want to hear this, but we live in a fallen world. We live in a sinful society. We live in a toxic environment. We live in a world that is historically damaged on an earth that has been generationally abused. We are surrounded by a people who lust and hunger for violence and wealth and war. Greed and selfishness are all around us. Insensitivity and inhumanity is on every corner. Our world is perverse and polluted. It is cold and callous.
Sometimes we go through bad things simply because we do not live in a perfect world. David is reflecting on this in Psalm 51 when he's repenting over his sin. Listen to what he says:
I was born in iniquity and I was shapen in sin.
We are birthed and born into an imperfect world. Sometimes bad things happen to good people because bad things happen.
Jesus was talking to his disciples one day and said, "Don't you know God causes it to rain on the just as well as the unjust." The writer of Ecclesiastes, Solomon, when he writes that book, he's discouraged because he's lived long enough to figure out that there's no formula to bad things. Bad things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people.
It's important that you know there's a difference between suffering and discipline. One of the biggest mistakes people in the body of Christ make is to assume that if someone is suffering, it's because God is disciplining them, that something must have happened that they brought it on themselves. No. Sometimes suffering is just what it means to be human.
When Jesus encounters a boy who is born blind in John chapter nine, the disciples ask him a question. They say, "Jesus, who messed up? This boy or his mom and his daddy?" Jesus answers neither. Because sometimes it's not something you did. It's just the world we live in.
Sometimes it's not suffering. Sometimes it's Satan. I see some of you at the 11:00 service—you're dignified. You're a little bougie. You've got your degree on the wall. You don't believe in that Holy Ghost demonic demon stuff. You're too educated. You've got too much degree behind you. You've climbed the ladder. But let me tell you that as a child of God, you are always under demonic attack. You are always under enemy oppression. You ain't got to believe it for it to be real.
Paul said in Ephesians 6, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of wickedness in high places." Jesus said in John chapter 10, "You have an enemy who comes to steal, kill, and destroy." Peter said, "Our enemy walks around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."
Satan is not trying to kill you. Satan doesn't want your life. Satan wants your faith. Watch what he says to God. When God says, "Listen, Satan, you can mess with Job, but you can't kill him," Satan says, "I ain't trying to kill him. I don't want to kill him. I want to destroy his faith. I want to take him through some things that make him doubt whether you are real. I want to put him in a situation where he stops reading his Bible, where he stops praying, where he stops coming to church."
Satan gets more victory when you walk away from God than when he kills you. It's your faith he's after.
When Satan went to Jesus and said, "Let me have Peter," Jesus went to Peter and he said, "I prayed for you that your faith doesn't fail." Because your faith is at stake when Satan is attacking you.
Sometimes the bad things we go through are simply because we suffer. Sometimes it's because Satan is attacking us. And sometimes it's sin. Because I know it's going to get real quiet right here, but there's no need to blame God or the devil on some of the stuff you going through in life. If the truth be told, some of the stuff you going through in life, baby girl, brother man, you brought it on yourself.
We make decisions that are not wise. We step outside of the will of God. We do things that threaten God's destiny over our life. And whenever you sin, whenever you step outside of the will of God, there's a price you have to pay. Sin has consequence. And hear me, you can be forgiven and still have to deal with consequence.
When Paul talks about sin in Romans chapter 6, he says the wages of sin is death. Paul realizes what I want to share with you: sin always has a price. And sin will cost you more than it advertises. Let me say that again. Sin costs you more than it tells you it's going to cost.
And you're not the only one who pays for your sin. Your family can pay. Your children can pay. The organizations you work in can pay. Innocent people can pay for your sin. A woman gets hit by a drunk driver. She has nothing to do with that drunk driver. But he made a decision that cost her a payment that had nothing to do with her.
And sometimes the things we go through are the result of other people's sins.
That's typically when the divine punishment of God comes into play. When God sees you wavering off course and sends a storm wind to blow you back in the right direction. When God sees you outside of his will, comfortable living outside of what God's plan for you is, God orchestrates a little pain, a little problem, to put you back on your knees and to make you remember how much you need to be back in church.
When God takes you through a storm and a situation you never thought you'd go through in order to change your bad behavior. Is there anyone here who can declare there have been some moments when God had to release you into something to get you turned back around, to take some stuff out of you, to change some bad behavior, to put a desire to worship back in your heart?
Some of us got here the hard way. He disciplines us.
And contrary to contemporary Christianity, God has more than grace to grow you. God has more than favor to fix you. God has more than mercy to mold you. God has more than abundance to alter you. God is a God who's able to use a little storm every now and then. He's a God who can use a little pain the right way. A God who can rise up enemies around you. A God who can navigate you through the valleys of life. A God who can put a thorn in your flesh. A God who can break your hip. A God who can let some bad stuff land in your life.
God is able to use his discipline to change your life. Because whomever the Lord loves, the Lord disciplines.
Watch what the writer of Hebrews tells us about divine discipline.
Let the church say inevitable. You can't escape God's discipline. You may not like what I'm about to tell you, but at some moment in your life, in some moment in my life, God is going to ordain and orchestrate a situation you don't want to go through that is meant to develop you and discipline you.
At some point in your life, whether you like it or not, God is going to release you into a situation that you don't want to go through that is meant to develop you and to discipline you. You ain't got to vote on it. You don't have to approve it. You don't have to like it. But in every life, God is going to take you through something that is meant to develop you and to discipline you because you are God's child.
When you read through the Bible, you'll find out anyone God used, God disciplined. When Moses was disobedient and hit the rock, God had to discipline him. When King Saul kept disobeying God, he got disciplined. When Peter rebuked Jesus and said he couldn't go to the cross, he got disciplined. When Miriam opened her mouth and spoke against Moses, she got disciplined. When Zechariah was disbelieving that Elizabeth could be pregnant, he got disciplined. When Martha was running around trying to do too much, she got disciplined. When the children of Israel were too scared to go into the promised land, they got disciplined. When David committed adultery with Bathsheba, he got disciplined. When Uzzah reached out and touched the Ark of the Covenant, he got disciplined. When Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh, he got disciplined.
You can't be used by God and not be disciplined by God. All of us will be disciplined by God.
And let me tell you why. Because you and I are sinners. And I ain't talking about first-time sinners. We are repeat offenders. We are habitual sinners. We are experimental sinners. We find new ways to sin after we got over the last way that we used to sin. All of us in here are sinners who fall short of the glory of God.
Is there anybody here that can be honest and declare like Paul, "Every time I try to do right, there's something inside of me that likes doing wrong"? You are a sinner. And the truth be told, you like some of it. Everybody in here sins, which is why God disciplines you.
But the discipline of the Lord is not simply because you sin. It's because God loves you. God loves you too much to leave you in sin. And God understands what the world has forgotten today: that love does not always give you everything you want. Love does not always say you can do whatever you want to do. Love is not a yes to every request. Sometimes love demands a no.
If you're taking care of a child and she's got a fork in her hand and she's making her way to an outlet to stick that fork in the outlet, that's not when you say, "Stop." Love makes you run over. Love makes you yell. Love makes you slap their hand. Because love will not allow you to sit by and watch them do something that you know will damage them.
This is why God did not give you everything you asked for. This is why God did not say yes to every prayer. This is why God didn't promote you on that job. This is why God brought that relationship to an end. This is why God don't let everybody like you. This is why God took you through what you went through. Because some stuff was not good for you.
I wish I had about five folk that can look back over your life and be grateful that God said no. That God closed the door. That God didn't give you what you wanted because God loved you too much.
His discipline is parental. I love the way the writer of Hebrews says this: when God disciplines us, he disciplines us as his children because he's our parent. Notice he doesn't discipline us as a judge. He disciplines us as a parent. Not a judge, but a parent. There's a difference.
A judge convicts. A parent corrects. A judge punishes you on what you've done. A parent disciplines you because of who they know you can be. A judge looks in your past and gives you what you deserve. A parent looks in your future and gives you what they think it's going to take.
Here's the fundamental difference between a judge and a parent. A judge wants your punishment to fit your crime. A parent wants the discipline to fit a child. And divine discipline is not connected to the severity of your sin. It's connected to the condition of your heart. God disciplines you based upon where your heart is, not what your sin was.
Let me give you an example. Remember the first two kings of Israel, Saul and David. Both jacked up, messed up, got problems on every hand. Saul kept committing a sacrifice at the altar that he wasn't ordained to do. David lusted after Bathsheba, had an adulterous affair, had a baby by her, and then set her husband up to get killed.
Okay, y'all miss it. Saul went to church and led praise and worship when he couldn't sing. David lusted after a sister in the church, had an adulterous affair, had a baby, then lied about it, and had the husband killed. But David's discipline was lighter than Saul's. But what David did was worse than what Saul did.
Why is God more merciful with David than God is with Saul? Because of David's heart. David's heart was closer to the Lord. And when you fall, that's what God is looking at in your life. Not how bad the fall was, but where your heart was in the beginning. How much do you really love the Lord? How much do you hunger for righteousness? Is your worship sincere? Do you even talk to God? Where is your heart?
Let me tell you something real quick. I've disciplined my sons, but I've never beaten them. Not once in my life have I taken a belt and beat one of my children. I didn't beat my children for a number of reasons.
Number one, because I was beaten all the time. My mother beat me as a hobby. That's all we knew. We don't know what timeout is. We ain't never had time out ever. Time out was the time it took you to get up off the floor after you got knocked out for talking back. So I made a promise to the Lord if I ever have children, I'm not going to beat my children because I was beaten all the time.
Number two, I made a promise to the Lord that I'd never touch my children in anger. If I'm mad, I need to calm down. I refuse to hurt one of my children because I don't know how to control my anger.
Number three, the reason I didn't beat my children is because I did what every parent needs to do early. Early, you've got to get your children to a place where they look at you and think you might be crazy, like there's something wrong with him. The minute you get there, all is well. But my kids learned early he might be crazy.
And finally, I don't beat my children because I believe in the lowest level of discipline for the highest level of change. The lowest level of discipline for the highest level of change. If a talk is all it's going to take, then that's all I'm going to use.
My oldest, when he was younger, if you did something wrong, I could look him in the eye and go, "I'm just disappointed in you." And he would break down and cry. He'd change because I said, "I'm disappointed in you." That other one, that second child—you know it's that second child, right? I could look at him and go, "I'm disappointed in you." He looked back and go, "Is that it? Are we good?" So with him, I had to take it to another level.
I believe in the lowest level of discipline for the highest change.
Let me tell you how I know God loves you and how God disciplines us as a parent. Because God believes in the lowest level of discipline for you that's necessary to change your behavior. God doesn't just kill you when you mess up. God's punishment is progressive. It starts at the lowest level and makes its way up.
It starts with a word. Before you even do it, God will give you a word in your spirit. God will let you hear something in church. God will let you read something in the Bible that lets you know, I shouldn't do this.
If the word doesn't work, then comes the weight. The weight—that keeps you up at night when you know you have not done what is right.
If the weight doesn't work, now comes the warning. The warning is that shot across the bow. That warning is when something almost happened because of what you did but shouldn't happen but didn't happen because God's letting you know if you don't make a change, something bad is about to come your way.
If the warning doesn't work, then comes the work. The struggle of trying to balance things because now you're starting to pay a price for your actions and your behavior.
If that doesn't work, now comes the weariness. Where you start to suffer loss—finances, reputation, relationships.
When the weariness doesn't work, then comes the witness. God will taint your witness in public. That people will start to know what you've done in hopes that public pressure will cause you to make a change.
When the witness doesn't change it, then come the wounds. When you start realizing you're hurting the people around you by what you're doing.
When the wounds don't work, then come the woes. That's when you start suffering your own physical pain. Your own body begins to respond. You can't escape it. You know that you're paying the cost for a lifestyle or behavior that God's trying to change.
And then comes the wreckage where you lose everything and you hit rock bottom. But here's the good news of a merciful God. God doesn't start with the wreckage. God starts with the word.
God believes I want to just speak to you and you be able to change your own behavior. I want to change your heart with the lowest level of discipline that brings the highest level of change. And there ought to be a few folk in here that ought to be grateful. You didn't have to hit rock bottom for God to change who you were. You heard that warning. You saw what it was doing. You began paying the price and you changed without having to lose everything.
Is there anybody here today that's grateful that you didn't lose everything? That you didn't have to reap everything you sow? That God was merciful in God's warnings?
Because his discipline is parental.
It's inevitable. It's parental. And it's transformational. Here's what God says. When I discipline you, something good is going to come out of this. When I finish doing what I'm doing, you're not going to be the same person you used to be.
When I bring you through this storm, when I finish this season, when I get you out of this struggle, you're going to look back over your life and be grateful that God took you through what you went through to change you to who you are. I'm looking for some folk in church today who can testify, "I had not always been who I am right now, but God changed my life. God disciplined me. God took some stuff out of me. God took some tastes out of my mouth. God took some habits out of my heart. God took some things out of my spirit that were destroying who I was. And I'm grateful that God chastened me."
Every time God disciplines you, God says something good going to come out of this.
Told y'all I was in Vegas a little while ago there with AKs and in my favorite hotel. They were doing construction that caused me to have to walk a long way around to the elevator. Every time I walked by the elevator, I saw a sign on the wall. The sign said, "Please pardon our dust. You're going to love us when we're done."
Oh, that sounds like the discipline of God. Please pardon what I'm going through right now. Please don't judge me by what's happening right now. Please don't condemn me based upon what I'm doing right now. But when God gets finished with me, when God finishes this work, when God does what God is up to, you're going to love who I am.
I wish I had some folk who declare like Job, "When God gets through with me, I shall come forth as pure gold."
He's working on me.
Let me close by telling you how good God is. When you were born, God had a plan for your life. Yes. Jeremiah 29 says, "I've got a plan to bless you, and God's plan for you is so good that God gave you a gift to make it happen." Proverbs teaches us that God gives us a gift and the gift makes room in the place prepared for us. God's got a place prepared and God's got a gift on your life.
What keeps you from the prepared place of God is not that the gift don't work. It's character. Gift without character leads to destruction. Gift without integrity leads to despair. Gift without discipline will lead to corruption. If your character's not right, God can never be blessed by the gift he's given you that others will give him glory for.
But here's how good God is. When your character needs some working on, God doesn't cancel the blessing he has for you. God says, "Let me work on your character, and I'll grow you into your gift that'll make room for my blessed place."
A few years ago when the boys were young, I wanted to do a family photo. Went to do a father-son shoot and I ordered them matching outfits because we used to wear them back then. I couldn't get him to do it now if I tried. But I made the mistake of ordering the same size for both boys and Deuce is significantly larger than Cooper at this time. So now I've got an outfit that fits Deuce but an outfit that doesn't fit Cooper.
Part of my thought was, "Well, just send it back. Cancel it. We'll try again later." And I literally heard the Lord say to me, "Don't send the gift back. Hang it up. Don't cancel it. Hang it up. Don't send it back. Hang it up."
Because he's going to grow into it. And what he can't wear today, if you hold it, he'll wear it tomorrow.
God has a gift that maybe your character doesn't fit right now. So God says, "I'm going to discipline you. I'm going to grow you up until you fit the gift. Because the gift will take you to the prepared place. I'm not going to cancel your gift. I'm not going to send back your assignment. I'm not going to return your blessing. But I'm going to grow you through it."
So when you're being disciplined by the Lord, here's the question I want you to leave church with today. The question is not why is this happening to you? The question I want you to ask is what is God doing through this?
How is God growing me? What is God removing from me? How is God maturing me? Because when God gets finished with this, it'll be for my good so I can share in his holiness and I can bear the fruit of righteousness.
There is a lesson of life that the Lord pressed upon me in devotional time this week that I now share with you, and it comes from the 12th chapter of the book of Hebrews.
Listen to what the Word of God records:
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood, and you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children. My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines those whom he loves and chastises every child whom he accepts. Endure trials for the sake of discipline. For you see, God is treating you as children. For what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you're illegitimate and not his child. Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the father of spirits and live? Our earthly parents disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them. But God disciplines us for our good in order that we may share in his holiness. Now discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who've been trained by it.
I want to share some thoughts with you about divine discipline. This past week, I had the joy and favor and honor of being in Las Vegas to preach for the 72nd International Boule gathering of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. On my way back from Vegas, when I got on the plane, I was sitting next to somebody's big mama. Her name was Miss Williams, but I know a big mama when I see a big mama.
On the plane in the row behind us came a mother of another ethnicity with a four-year-old daughter named Emily. For the entirety of the flight, all we kept hearing from the row behind us was, "Emily, stop that." Emily would take her doll and hit it on the window. Emily took the table tray and kept flipping it up and down. She took off her seat belt and began jumping in the chair. She put her feet on the back of my seat and kept pushing. Emily got loud in the middle of the flight and her mother looked over and said, "Emily, lower your voice." To which Emily said, "You shut up."
That's when Big Mama stood up. She turned around and said, "Do you need help with your daughter?" She turned back and sat down and she said something that is still with me today. She said, "What you won't correct, you can't control. What you won't correct, you can't control."
Some of us have lived long enough to know that the only thing more discouraging than an undisciplined child is a parent who won't do anything about it.
Now, let me tell you something important. Everything that is painful is not necessarily discipline. Everything that doesn't make you shout is not always the hand of God on you. The struggles you deal with, the tragedies we experience, the pains we go through, the diagnosis we endure—all of those are not always God's corrective hand on your life.
Beloved, suffering is part of life. And I know you may not want to hear this, but we live in a fallen world. We live in a sinful society. We live in a toxic environment. We live in a world that is historically damaged on an earth that has been generationally abused. We are surrounded by a people who lust and hunger for violence and wealth and war. Greed and selfishness are all around us. Insensitivity and inhumanity is on every corner. Our world is perverse and polluted. It is cold and callous.
Sometimes we go through bad things simply because we do not live in a perfect world. David is reflecting on this in Psalm 51 when he's repenting over his sin. Listen to what he says:
I was born in iniquity and I was shapen in sin.
We are birthed and born into an imperfect world. Sometimes bad things happen to good people because bad things happen.
Jesus was talking to his disciples one day and said, "Don't you know God causes it to rain on the just as well as the unjust." The writer of Ecclesiastes, Solomon, when he writes that book, he's discouraged because he's lived long enough to figure out that there's no formula to bad things. Bad things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people.
It's important that you know there's a difference between suffering and discipline. One of the biggest mistakes people in the body of Christ make is to assume that if someone is suffering, it's because God is disciplining them, that something must have happened that they brought it on themselves. No. Sometimes suffering is just what it means to be human.
When Jesus encounters a boy who is born blind in John chapter nine, the disciples ask him a question. They say, "Jesus, who messed up? This boy or his mom and his daddy?" Jesus answers neither. Because sometimes it's not something you did. It's just the world we live in.
Sometimes it's not suffering. Sometimes it's Satan. I see some of you at the 11:00 service—you're dignified. You're a little bougie. You've got your degree on the wall. You don't believe in that Holy Ghost demonic demon stuff. You're too educated. You've got too much degree behind you. You've climbed the ladder. But let me tell you that as a child of God, you are always under demonic attack. You are always under enemy oppression. You ain't got to believe it for it to be real.
Paul said in Ephesians 6, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of wickedness in high places." Jesus said in John chapter 10, "You have an enemy who comes to steal, kill, and destroy." Peter said, "Our enemy walks around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."
Satan is not trying to kill you. Satan doesn't want your life. Satan wants your faith. Watch what he says to God. When God says, "Listen, Satan, you can mess with Job, but you can't kill him," Satan says, "I ain't trying to kill him. I don't want to kill him. I want to destroy his faith. I want to take him through some things that make him doubt whether you are real. I want to put him in a situation where he stops reading his Bible, where he stops praying, where he stops coming to church."
Satan gets more victory when you walk away from God than when he kills you. It's your faith he's after.
When Satan went to Jesus and said, "Let me have Peter," Jesus went to Peter and he said, "I prayed for you that your faith doesn't fail." Because your faith is at stake when Satan is attacking you.
Sometimes the bad things we go through are simply because we suffer. Sometimes it's because Satan is attacking us. And sometimes it's sin. Because I know it's going to get real quiet right here, but there's no need to blame God or the devil on some of the stuff you going through in life. If the truth be told, some of the stuff you going through in life, baby girl, brother man, you brought it on yourself.
We make decisions that are not wise. We step outside of the will of God. We do things that threaten God's destiny over our life. And whenever you sin, whenever you step outside of the will of God, there's a price you have to pay. Sin has consequence. And hear me, you can be forgiven and still have to deal with consequence.
When Paul talks about sin in Romans chapter 6, he says the wages of sin is death. Paul realizes what I want to share with you: sin always has a price. And sin will cost you more than it advertises. Let me say that again. Sin costs you more than it tells you it's going to cost.
And you're not the only one who pays for your sin. Your family can pay. Your children can pay. The organizations you work in can pay. Innocent people can pay for your sin. A woman gets hit by a drunk driver. She has nothing to do with that drunk driver. But he made a decision that cost her a payment that had nothing to do with her.
And sometimes the things we go through are the result of other people's sins.
That's typically when the divine punishment of God comes into play. When God sees you wavering off course and sends a storm wind to blow you back in the right direction. When God sees you outside of his will, comfortable living outside of what God's plan for you is, God orchestrates a little pain, a little problem, to put you back on your knees and to make you remember how much you need to be back in church.
When God takes you through a storm and a situation you never thought you'd go through in order to change your bad behavior. Is there anyone here who can declare there have been some moments when God had to release you into something to get you turned back around, to take some stuff out of you, to change some bad behavior, to put a desire to worship back in your heart?
Some of us got here the hard way. He disciplines us.
And contrary to contemporary Christianity, God has more than grace to grow you. God has more than favor to fix you. God has more than mercy to mold you. God has more than abundance to alter you. God is a God who's able to use a little storm every now and then. He's a God who can use a little pain the right way. A God who can rise up enemies around you. A God who can navigate you through the valleys of life. A God who can put a thorn in your flesh. A God who can break your hip. A God who can let some bad stuff land in your life.
God is able to use his discipline to change your life. Because whomever the Lord loves, the Lord disciplines.
Watch what the writer of Hebrews tells us about divine discipline.
Let the church say inevitable. You can't escape God's discipline. You may not like what I'm about to tell you, but at some moment in your life, in some moment in my life, God is going to ordain and orchestrate a situation you don't want to go through that is meant to develop you and discipline you.
At some point in your life, whether you like it or not, God is going to release you into a situation that you don't want to go through that is meant to develop you and to discipline you. You ain't got to vote on it. You don't have to approve it. You don't have to like it. But in every life, God is going to take you through something that is meant to develop you and to discipline you because you are God's child.
When you read through the Bible, you'll find out anyone God used, God disciplined. When Moses was disobedient and hit the rock, God had to discipline him. When King Saul kept disobeying God, he got disciplined. When Peter rebuked Jesus and said he couldn't go to the cross, he got disciplined. When Miriam opened her mouth and spoke against Moses, she got disciplined. When Zechariah was disbelieving that Elizabeth could be pregnant, he got disciplined. When Martha was running around trying to do too much, she got disciplined. When the children of Israel were too scared to go into the promised land, they got disciplined. When David committed adultery with Bathsheba, he got disciplined. When Uzzah reached out and touched the Ark of the Covenant, he got disciplined. When Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh, he got disciplined.
You can't be used by God and not be disciplined by God. All of us will be disciplined by God.
And let me tell you why. Because you and I are sinners. And I ain't talking about first-time sinners. We are repeat offenders. We are habitual sinners. We are experimental sinners. We find new ways to sin after we got over the last way that we used to sin. All of us in here are sinners who fall short of the glory of God.
Is there anybody here that can be honest and declare like Paul, "Every time I try to do right, there's something inside of me that likes doing wrong"? You are a sinner. And the truth be told, you like some of it. Everybody in here sins, which is why God disciplines you.
But the discipline of the Lord is not simply because you sin. It's because God loves you. God loves you too much to leave you in sin. And God understands what the world has forgotten today: that love does not always give you everything you want. Love does not always say you can do whatever you want to do. Love is not a yes to every request. Sometimes love demands a no.
If you're taking care of a child and she's got a fork in her hand and she's making her way to an outlet to stick that fork in the outlet, that's not when you say, "Stop." Love makes you run over. Love makes you yell. Love makes you slap their hand. Because love will not allow you to sit by and watch them do something that you know will damage them.
This is why God did not give you everything you asked for. This is why God did not say yes to every prayer. This is why God didn't promote you on that job. This is why God brought that relationship to an end. This is why God don't let everybody like you. This is why God took you through what you went through. Because some stuff was not good for you.
I wish I had about five folk that can look back over your life and be grateful that God said no. That God closed the door. That God didn't give you what you wanted because God loved you too much.
His discipline is parental. I love the way the writer of Hebrews says this: when God disciplines us, he disciplines us as his children because he's our parent. Notice he doesn't discipline us as a judge. He disciplines us as a parent. Not a judge, but a parent. There's a difference.
A judge convicts. A parent corrects. A judge punishes you on what you've done. A parent disciplines you because of who they know you can be. A judge looks in your past and gives you what you deserve. A parent looks in your future and gives you what they think it's going to take.
Here's the fundamental difference between a judge and a parent. A judge wants your punishment to fit your crime. A parent wants the discipline to fit a child. And divine discipline is not connected to the severity of your sin. It's connected to the condition of your heart. God disciplines you based upon where your heart is, not what your sin was.
Let me give you an example. Remember the first two kings of Israel, Saul and David. Both jacked up, messed up, got problems on every hand. Saul kept committing a sacrifice at the altar that he wasn't ordained to do. David lusted after Bathsheba, had an adulterous affair, had a baby by her, and then set her husband up to get killed.
Okay, y'all miss it. Saul went to church and led praise and worship when he couldn't sing. David lusted after a sister in the church, had an adulterous affair, had a baby, then lied about it, and had the husband killed. But David's discipline was lighter than Saul's. But what David did was worse than what Saul did.
Why is God more merciful with David than God is with Saul? Because of David's heart. David's heart was closer to the Lord. And when you fall, that's what God is looking at in your life. Not how bad the fall was, but where your heart was in the beginning. How much do you really love the Lord? How much do you hunger for righteousness? Is your worship sincere? Do you even talk to God? Where is your heart?
Let me tell you something real quick. I've disciplined my sons, but I've never beaten them. Not once in my life have I taken a belt and beat one of my children. I didn't beat my children for a number of reasons.
Number one, because I was beaten all the time. My mother beat me as a hobby. That's all we knew. We don't know what timeout is. We ain't never had time out ever. Time out was the time it took you to get up off the floor after you got knocked out for talking back. So I made a promise to the Lord if I ever have children, I'm not going to beat my children because I was beaten all the time.
Number two, I made a promise to the Lord that I'd never touch my children in anger. If I'm mad, I need to calm down. I refuse to hurt one of my children because I don't know how to control my anger.
Number three, the reason I didn't beat my children is because I did what every parent needs to do early. Early, you've got to get your children to a place where they look at you and think you might be crazy, like there's something wrong with him. The minute you get there, all is well. But my kids learned early he might be crazy.
And finally, I don't beat my children because I believe in the lowest level of discipline for the highest level of change. The lowest level of discipline for the highest level of change. If a talk is all it's going to take, then that's all I'm going to use.
My oldest, when he was younger, if you did something wrong, I could look him in the eye and go, "I'm just disappointed in you." And he would break down and cry. He'd change because I said, "I'm disappointed in you." That other one, that second child—you know it's that second child, right? I could look at him and go, "I'm disappointed in you." He looked back and go, "Is that it? Are we good?" So with him, I had to take it to another level.
I believe in the lowest level of discipline for the highest change.
Let me tell you how I know God loves you and how God disciplines us as a parent. Because God believes in the lowest level of discipline for you that's necessary to change your behavior. God doesn't just kill you when you mess up. God's punishment is progressive. It starts at the lowest level and makes its way up.
It starts with a word. Before you even do it, God will give you a word in your spirit. God will let you hear something in church. God will let you read something in the Bible that lets you know, I shouldn't do this.
If the word doesn't work, then comes the weight. The weight—that keeps you up at night when you know you have not done what is right.
If the weight doesn't work, now comes the warning. The warning is that shot across the bow. That warning is when something almost happened because of what you did but shouldn't happen but didn't happen because God's letting you know if you don't make a change, something bad is about to come your way.
If the warning doesn't work, then comes the work. The struggle of trying to balance things because now you're starting to pay a price for your actions and your behavior.
If that doesn't work, now comes the weariness. Where you start to suffer loss—finances, reputation, relationships.
When the weariness doesn't work, then comes the witness. God will taint your witness in public. That people will start to know what you've done in hopes that public pressure will cause you to make a change.
When the witness doesn't change it, then come the wounds. When you start realizing you're hurting the people around you by what you're doing.
When the wounds don't work, then come the woes. That's when you start suffering your own physical pain. Your own body begins to respond. You can't escape it. You know that you're paying the cost for a lifestyle or behavior that God's trying to change.
And then comes the wreckage where you lose everything and you hit rock bottom. But here's the good news of a merciful God. God doesn't start with the wreckage. God starts with the word.
God believes I want to just speak to you and you be able to change your own behavior. I want to change your heart with the lowest level of discipline that brings the highest level of change. And there ought to be a few folk in here that ought to be grateful. You didn't have to hit rock bottom for God to change who you were. You heard that warning. You saw what it was doing. You began paying the price and you changed without having to lose everything.
Is there anybody here today that's grateful that you didn't lose everything? That you didn't have to reap everything you sow? That God was merciful in God's warnings?
Because his discipline is parental.
It's inevitable. It's parental. And it's transformational. Here's what God says. When I discipline you, something good is going to come out of this. When I finish doing what I'm doing, you're not going to be the same person you used to be.
When I bring you through this storm, when I finish this season, when I get you out of this struggle, you're going to look back over your life and be grateful that God took you through what you went through to change you to who you are. I'm looking for some folk in church today who can testify, "I had not always been who I am right now, but God changed my life. God disciplined me. God took some stuff out of me. God took some tastes out of my mouth. God took some habits out of my heart. God took some things out of my spirit that were destroying who I was. And I'm grateful that God chastened me."
Every time God disciplines you, God says something good going to come out of this.
Told y'all I was in Vegas a little while ago there with AKs and in my favorite hotel. They were doing construction that caused me to have to walk a long way around to the elevator. Every time I walked by the elevator, I saw a sign on the wall. The sign said, "Please pardon our dust. You're going to love us when we're done."
Oh, that sounds like the discipline of God. Please pardon what I'm going through right now. Please don't judge me by what's happening right now. Please don't condemn me based upon what I'm doing right now. But when God gets finished with me, when God finishes this work, when God does what God is up to, you're going to love who I am.
I wish I had some folk who declare like Job, "When God gets through with me, I shall come forth as pure gold."
He's working on me.
Let me close by telling you how good God is. When you were born, God had a plan for your life. Yes. Jeremiah 29 says, "I've got a plan to bless you, and God's plan for you is so good that God gave you a gift to make it happen." Proverbs teaches us that God gives us a gift and the gift makes room in the place prepared for us. God's got a place prepared and God's got a gift on your life.
What keeps you from the prepared place of God is not that the gift don't work. It's character. Gift without character leads to destruction. Gift without integrity leads to despair. Gift without discipline will lead to corruption. If your character's not right, God can never be blessed by the gift he's given you that others will give him glory for.
But here's how good God is. When your character needs some working on, God doesn't cancel the blessing he has for you. God says, "Let me work on your character, and I'll grow you into your gift that'll make room for my blessed place."
A few years ago when the boys were young, I wanted to do a family photo. Went to do a father-son shoot and I ordered them matching outfits because we used to wear them back then. I couldn't get him to do it now if I tried. But I made the mistake of ordering the same size for both boys and Deuce is significantly larger than Cooper at this time. So now I've got an outfit that fits Deuce but an outfit that doesn't fit Cooper.
Part of my thought was, "Well, just send it back. Cancel it. We'll try again later." And I literally heard the Lord say to me, "Don't send the gift back. Hang it up. Don't cancel it. Hang it up. Don't send it back. Hang it up."
Because he's going to grow into it. And what he can't wear today, if you hold it, he'll wear it tomorrow.
God has a gift that maybe your character doesn't fit right now. So God says, "I'm going to discipline you. I'm going to grow you up until you fit the gift. Because the gift will take you to the prepared place. I'm not going to cancel your gift. I'm not going to send back your assignment. I'm not going to return your blessing. But I'm going to grow you through it."
So when you're being disciplined by the Lord, here's the question I want you to leave church with today. The question is not why is this happening to you? The question I want you to ask is what is God doing through this?
How is God growing me? What is God removing from me? How is God maturing me? Because when God gets finished with this, it'll be for my good so I can share in his holiness and I can bear the fruit of righteousness.
