Sermon Discussion Questions:

[Main points of the sermon: Discipline is Imperfect, Needed, Loving. Practical application: discipline should reflect God's character, discipline is painful, discipline takes time]

1. What was your experience like with discipline from your parents? Do you think they modeled a healthy, godly pattern?
2. Think of a time where God disciplined you. How does God's discipline, which is painful, reveal His love?
3. What would you say to the person who believes that "requiring obedience" from your children feels "legalistic"? 
4. If there are older parents in the room, share any wisdom they learned from what they did right and what they did wrong in their own parenting. If you could go back in time and do something differently with disciplining your kids, what would you do?

3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 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. 6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” 7 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? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 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. 11 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.

• Heb 12:3-11

What this passage makes clear to us is two things:

1. The assumption is that parents discipline their children: For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? There is no argument being made that a parent should discipline; it is taken for granted that a parent does.
2. A parents’ discipline of their child is to reveal God’s discipline of us, His children.

Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. - Deut 8:5

Discipline is Imperfect

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. - Heb 12:10

The emphasis is on the contrast between God’s perfect application of discipline and our own imperfect discipline. Our fathers disciplined us “as it seemed best to them,” but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.

God has never had to adjudicate a dispute between two brothers who are blaming each other for who really started the fight, and He isn’t sure which one is telling the truth. God has never had a bad night of sleep because the baby was up five times and so He snaps in anger at His other children. God has never been uncertain about what punishment fits the crime. God’s discipline for us is always perfectly applied.

But our discipline is far from perfect. We don’t know everything, so we are often relying on imperfect knowledge of how events really played out, or what the wisest consequence would be. We are creatures who can only focus on so many things at once, who get hangry, who get tired, who can’t always explain ourselves well when we get flustered. And we are sinners—we can lose our temper, we can be lazy, inconsistent, we have big egos that feel challenged by defiant little people, that are motivated by desires to please other grown-ups at the expense of what is best for our children, or just lack faith in God’s prescribed wisdom. And while the intent of this sermon is to lay down some clear tracks that God’s Word provides for us, I promise you, even the best of all parents have days and moments when it comes to discipline where they feel deeply ashamed of what they have done or what they have failed to do.

And the reason I am starting with this point is because sometimes when God begins to convict a parent about being faithful in discipline, they look back on their failures and say: “Well, that didn’t work! My kid’s behavior didn’t change, and I just got angry.”

Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint—but also, God didn’t give us His instructions on the assumption that only flawless, perfect people could implement them. He knows that mom’s will be sleep deprived, that dad’s won’t always be able to know if the child is lying, that we our application of discipline will fall short of God’s divine standards—He knows! But He still made you the parent. He still put the rod of discipline in your hands. He didn’t make a mistake when He made you the parent. And when you fail—either by indulging your child or being overbearing—you know what you do? You sit your child down and apologize to them, and remind them that even though their earthly father is imperfect, they have a Heavenly Father who isn’t, and you want to be more like Him in your own discipline of your children.

Discipline is Needed

In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. - Heb 12:4

And then from this point on, the author of Hebrews turns to the image of God disciplining us like a father disciplines a child. The point being, one of the means by which we “struggle against sin”—by which we fight it—is through God’s discipline of us. God’s discipline over us takes place when we lack discipline over ourselves. God gives us His law, makes it clear, and when we break those laws, He disciplines us. Sometimes, we break the rules because we don’t know what the rules are—Oh, I didn’t know that grandma doesn’t want us to wear shoes in the house. Sometimes, we break the rules because of extenuating circumstances where we couldn’t have done otherwise—I can’t shut the door behind me, I’m carrying this heavy package. But sometimes, we break the rules not because it is unclear, not because of some special exception, but because we just don’t want to. And that rebellious energy inside of us that wants to throw off restraint, restrictions, that wants to define our own rules—that is sin. John tells us “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.” - 1 John 3:4

And the Bible is abundantly clear that we come into the world as sinners. Our precious, sweet little babies who bear God’s image and are of inestimable worth and value and dignity and deserving of all of our love—are also totally depraved. You have to teach your children to share, to exercise patience, to be kind, to forgive, to show respect. You do not have to teach your children to hit, to yell, to be cruel. Put two toddlers in a room with one toy, and you will see this play out. The Bible teaches us that our wills are “bent” towards sin. And so, if a child is left without correction, then that lawless energy will become more dominating, more destructive.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. - Prov 22:15

But there is a movement today that directly undermines this concept, that denies the idea that “folly is bound up in the heart of a child,” but believes that children are inherently good and just need to right environment and nurture to set them up for success. This is sometimes referred to as “gentle parenting.” One person explains that for the child…

“No motivation is bad, because no feeling originates in one’s selfishness, one’s greed, or one’s desire to dominate. Anger and inappropriate behaviour are caused by frustration: the frustration of not being understood, of not being able to accomplish what one wishes, of not being able to freely do what one wants. When a child experiences a curb to their will, the parent needs to offer comfort. Instead of punishment, a child should face the “natural consequences” of her choices. For instance, if a child refuses to go to sleep, this means that she suffers the natural consequence of getting tired and cranky.”

This parenting method rides on the belief that children are inherently good. By nature, they are compassionate, gentle, and loving. If they are being violent, selfish, or disrespectful, the problem isn’t the child, it is the environment, the circumstances…the parent.

It implies that simply meeting all a child’s needs will improve their behavior. Affirming emotions, making children feel “seen,” or removing sources of stress is the key to raising compassionate and respectful adults.

But any philosophy—whether you are talking about politics, economics, or parenting—that abandons what the Bible teaches us about original sin is bound to run its ideological boat against the rocks of reality. Tina Fey, years ago was sharing what it was like to be a mom of a young child, and joked about how her two-year-old “might be a sociopath” because when she told her daughter it was time to shut the cartoons off or get out of the bath, her two-year-old would become enraged and would try to choke her mom. She laughs it off: “It’s funny because they are not strong enough to kill you…at least not yet.” Tina Fey is a comedian, so she might be exaggerating, and she tells it in such a way that sound humorous, but it illuminates the dark reality that the Bible attests to that in our children there are motivations that are bad.

It is not the will of the infant that is harmless, but the weakness of his little limbs. - Augustine

I was recently speaking with a mother (whose permission I asked before I share this) who had a child and tried in earnest to apply the methods of gentle parenting. But as the years went by, she became disenfranchised with the method. Every time the child threw their food across the room or yelled insults at her or melted into a tantrum, she tried to calmly ask them to explain why they were feeling that way, show patience, and let them learn from the natural consequences of their actions. But it just did not comport with reality, and by the time she gave birth to her next child, she adopted a more traditional method of correction. She said that the gentle method rests on showing your child empathy, but never teaching the child how to exercise empathy themselves, to consider how their actions effect other people. The method assumes that children have the capability to arrive at good behavior only by having it modeled for them, and never having negative behavior corrected. That children have the mental and emotional ability to arrive at good behavior through example and conversation. But that assumes that children are not, by nature, sinful.

But they are, which is why Proverbs warns us:

The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart. - 29:15, 17

A child left to himself is a danger because left to himself their most base, self-centered motives will consume them. And a mother will feel embarrassed, ashamed. Is that right? Is considering shame over your child’s behavior a Christian motive for thinking about discipline? Apparently. Shame is wildly misunderstood today, but the Bible assumes that shame has its place. That there are some things that we ought to feel ashamed of. And if your child throws a temper tantrum in the grocery store because you didn’t buy him a candy bar and now everyone in the store is aware of that fact, the reality is you will feel shame, you will be embarrassed. And the Bible’s wisdom to you is not “Don’t be embarrassed! Shame has no place for you!” That sounds super duper spiritual, but it will not help you practically (and our culture is none the better for jettisoning all shame). Instead, Proverbs is warning you of reality and offering you the path to wisdom: a child left to himself will bring shame to his mother, so the rod and reproof—not indulgence, not just buying a candy bar to stop the tantrum—are needed. The “shame” hear shouldn’t be fixated on an unhealthy fixation on pleasing people; the “shame” is fixated on your child’s behavior being out of accord with what God expects. What does God expect?

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” - Eph 6:1-3

Life will go well with you, children, if you honor, respect, and obey your father and mother. Paul then immediately turns to the Dads and tells them: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” - Eph 6:4

We see that connection back in Hebrews

Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. - Heb 12:9

Children who are not disciplined by their parents do not respect their parents. But they need to respect their parents because God commands them to. And if we parents do not teach them to do that, we are putting stumbling blocks before them, we are moving them out of God’s pathway of blessing and life.

Discipline is Loving

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” - Heb 12:6

One hesitation that Christian parents have when considering discipline is how we can make sense of it from the gospel. Aren’t we saved by grace, not by works? Aren’t we delivered from the punishment of the law? Isn’t our entire faith predicated on our confession that we couldn’t behave well enough, that only Jesus could keep the law, and we are saved by Him? So, how does “disciplining” our children for bad behavior not raise a bunch of little legalists?

Awhile ago, a popular Christian author who was on high alert about “legalism” shared a story where he promised his wayward teenager that if his behavior would improve, he would take him to the phone store and buy him a new phone. As the week went by, there was no improvement in the child’s behavior, and the father sat him down to talk about how he had fallen short. After the conversation, the dad nonetheless took his son to the store and bought him a new phone regardless. When the son asked why, the dad told him, “Because this is what God does to me every day.”

And that feels really true, doesn’t it? Doesn’t God show us abundant grace far above and beyond what we deserve? Absolutely. But what did that son learn that day from his father? What my father threatened as a consequence didn’t happen. The father wanted to show the son something about what God was like, very commendably so…but is that a correct representation of what God is like? What grace is like? Does grace spare you of the consequence of your actions? **And when that popular Christian author then went on to have an affair, step down for a short time, then come back with a new wife and start a new church…what else did the son learn about God’s grace?

The first temptation of the serpent was to make God sound like a Father who wouldn’t follow through on His threat of punishment: You will not surely die…

Taking punishment out of the hands of God is not gospel-centered. Making God seem too soft to follow through on what His holiness demands is not grace. The gospel is not that within God there were two conflicting feelings: love and justice, and between the two, love wins. God loves His perfect standard of justice! And He hates sin. The good news of the gospel is not that God becomes less than His righteous character, cheapens it, discounts it, so we can go to heaven. The good news of the gospel is that God sends His son, Jesus Christ, to perfectly fulfill the Law’s righteous demands and to absorb the wrath of God, so that sinners can be welcomed into the family of God, redeemed from sin.

AND THEN, as those who are now children of God, God empowers us to obey Him and to keep His law…and disciplines us when we don’t. This is critical for us to understand: God’s discipline of us is not Him punishing us the way that Jesus was punished for our sins. Our sins deserved eternal death. That was taken away by Jesus—thanks be to God. But now, as children who are secure in God’s family, we strive to obey, to keep the Law. And because we are His children, God will discipline us when we do not. God’s Laws are not arbitrary, they are not meaningless—they are the path to life! They show us how to please God and enjoy the world as He designed it. Which is why He disciplines us.

To the church in Laodicea, who was walking in wild sin, Jesus warns:

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. - Rev 3:19

The discipline of God is an expression of His love, a means of grace He provides to lead us to the path of life, even if that correction is deeply painful. God loved David, but when David sinned, God disciplined him painfully. His child died. His kingdom was torn apart. And friend, if you have an idea that God’s grace means that there are not painful, sharp, enduring consequences to your sin, then you have stumbled into a twisted version of grace…and let this sermon be a means to help you correct it, before you presume upon God’s kindness as an excuse to stumble into even more painful rebellion. Your unrepentant sin will hurt you, will hurt those around you.

And while God’s discipline may hurt, the absence of discipline is far worse. Hebrews tells us it is a sign that we are NOT God’s children:

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? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. - Heb 12:7-8

If God is disciplining you—even if it is painful—it means that you are His child!

Okay parents, what do we learn from this? By failing to administer discipline to our children, by failing to give the appropriate, wise consequence we threatened, we are not showing our children God’s grace—we are keeping them from it.

When God makes a covenant with David, where He promises that David will never lack a son to sit on the throne, He promises:

I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him - 2 Sam 7:14-15 (see also Ps 89:32-33)

And this proves to be an interesting contrast with the kind of discipline David provides to his children—which apparently was very little. After one of his sons rapes his half sister, we are told that David gets “very angry” but that he does not punish him (2 Sam 13:21). The Septuagint’s translation includes this little parenthetical remark: “David would not punish his son Amnon, because he loved him, since he was his firstborn.” And you know what happens? Absalom, another son of David, murders Amnon to avenge his sister. Which puts Absalom on a trajectory to break with the authority of his father David, and eventually start a political coup to oust his father, which ends in Absalom being killed, and even then, when as David is about to pass his kingdom on to Solomon, his other son, Adonijah follows in the path of Absalom and tries to usurp the kingdom, and it results in him being put to death (2 Kings 1-2, esp. 2:23-25). If you want a powerful case study of the danger of failing to discipline your children, just look at the family of David.

His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, “Why have you done thus and so?” - 2 Kings 1:6

David needed the wisdom of his son, Solomon, who may have written all his teachings on parenting from Proverbs by learning from what his father did not do:

Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on putting him to death. - Prov 19:18

Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. - Prov 13:24

God’s love and God’s discipline are not mutually exclusive. God’s love is displayed through His discipline, because we are still sinners, and God loves us too much to leave us in our sin that will continue to hurt us and others. Something my wife and I often say when we are talking with our kids about consequences, before they lose a privilege or get a spanking, is something like: “Mom and dad love you too much to let you continue doing this.”

Practically

Okay, practically, what does discipline look like?

First off: Older parents, we need you!!

Discipline should reflect God’s character

• It is not uncontrolled (loss of temper, yelling, intimidation)
• It is not vindictive (Settling a score, getting vengeance, “I’m gonna make you pay, make you feel as bad as you made me feel”)
• It is not arbitrary (Inconsistent, rules unevenly applied, not clearly explained, punishments administered without understanding why)
• It is not empty (Empty threats, pleading, bribing)
• It reveals both God’s love and righteousness
  • Which means that corrective discipline should be outpaced by affection, playfulness, quality time, words of affirmation, and “catching them doing right.”
    • Penny jar
  • Four parenting styles:
    • Low in responsiveness and low in demands (negligent parents)
    • Low in demands and high in responsiveness (permissive parents)
    • High in demands and low in responsiveness (authoritarian parents)
    • High in responsiveness and high in demands (authoritative parents)
    • “…kids raised with authoritative parents have better emotional regulation, perform better academically, become more self-reliant, and have a higher sense of agency than kids reared with other parenting styles.”

Discipline should be painful

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant - Heb 12:11a

There is a reason that repeatedly we are told about the “rod of discipline” in the book of Proverbs. The assumption is that for children—young children in particular—the use of corporal punishment is the most effective means of discipline. Children have very short attention spans, can’t handle long arguments or complex emotional please. But they can understand the sting of a spank on their backside. And this can start when they are very young, as soon as they can understand what you expect of them. So at one year old, your child can learn that you expect that they do not spit their food out or throw their cup on the ground. So when they do, you firmly say, “No sir,” and then flick the back of their hand. And as they grow and need more severe consequences, you upgrade to a swat on the back of the hand, and then a swat on their butt.

The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. - Prov 29:15

By mere words a servant is not disciplined, for though he understands, he will not respond. - Prov 29:19

We must have words, of course. You need to explain clearly ahead of time why. You need to cuddle your little guy after a spank and tell them you love them, that their consequence is over.

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. 14 If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol. - Prov 23:13-14

Of course, there are other methods of discipline besides spanking. And at a certain age, you stop spanking your child because it is no longer effective. You take away video games. You take away the car. You take away the money for college. But, the reason that Proverbs fixates on the method of discipline that is used for children is because if you deal with this when they are children, then you don’t have to be beating your head against the wall when they are teenagers.

Discipline plays the long game

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. - Heb 12:11

Fruit takes time to grow.

Ultimately, the heart change in your child is going to take place with the Lord working, so you pray. But while you pray, you also obey what God has commanded you to do.

Take home work: Husbands and wives, talk with one another. Are we happy with how we are discipling our children?

If there is a big change, then sit down with your kid and explain to them what is going on. In necessary, apologize