The Proper Perspective REALLY Matters
14th Sun. after Pent. – 8/21/16 – Mt. Calvary Luth.
Text: Hebrews 12:4-24 Pastor Keith Besel
v. 6 “For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He
receives”.
Introduction
 Looking at the same item or event from different perspectives can change things a lot. Consider
for example the many different perspectives from which the Olympics have been viewed these
last weeks. The TV networks see them as an opportunity to make money; officials see them as
a job; athletes view them as a dream fulfilled; coaches view them as a chance to be a mentor;
fans view them as entertainment while still others view them as annoying, unimportant or even a
senseless distraction. Each perspective makes a big difference.
 Take a young boy named Johnny as another example. He’s with his mother at the grocery
store. As they’re in the checkout line, Johnny sees another young boy take some chocolate
from the shelf, put it in his pocket, and quietly walk away.
 Johnny is hungry, and the chocolate looks good, so he follows the other boy’s example. It
seemed so easy.
 After Johnny’s mom finishes paying; they walk out of the grocery store and to the car. It’s
there that his mother notices the chocolate. After some questioning, his mom gets the truth –
and she is not happy.
 Now it’s one of the worst days of Johnny’s young life. His mother scolds him, makes him
apologize to the manager, and it’s no candy for a month.
I. How do we fit into the story?
 So how do you and I see ourselves in this story? Well, it all depends on our perspective.
 What is Johnny’s perspective on things? When Mom first finds out, Johnny swallows hard and
thinks, “Mom is going to kill me.” He tries to lie about it. But he knows Mom is seeing right
through the lie.
 Johnny worries at that moment that Mom is so disappointed in him that she no longer loves
him. He believes she’s going to hate him from now on. And besides, Johnny told her about the
other boy, but she’s not even mad at him. It’s like she loves him more than Johnny.
 Now shift the camera over to think about Mom’s perspective on the same event. Mom is terribly
disappointed and angry because she knows that she taught Johnny that stealing was wrong –
she knows Johnny is better than this. But the reason she is so disappointed is because she
loves Johnny so much.
 She has no interest in killing her son as he may suppose. She actually wants to protect him.
But…she knows that if her son is going to learn to live a long and productive life he needs to be
disciplined when he does what’s wrong. As for the other boy, that is out of her control – her
focus is on her son, the one whom she loves.
 Those are two very different perspectives – but there’s more. What if you and I are Johnny and
Mom is God? What is our perspective when we suffer or have to deal with the consequences of
our sin?
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 A common first thought is that God must hate us now. Why else would He allow us to suffer
as we do? If He really loved us, He would have kept us from sinning in the first place right? If
He really loved us, He’d punish the other people, the unbelievers when they sin rather than let
them get “away with it” or prosper as they do.
 Our feelings get all mixed up and we end up like a little girl named Nancy that had just been
disciplined by her mother. Nancy stomped up to her room in a huff and could be heard banging
the furniture around. Then, things got quiet. A few minutes later she called down, “Mom, how
do you spell hate?” A little later, she called down, “How do you spell love?”
Not long after, her mother saw a note come fluttering down from the upstairs landing. It read:
“Dear Mom, I hate you. Love, Nancy.”
 That’s how our love is for God very often – here one moment, gone the next and everywhere
in between – depending on how things are going in that instance.
 One moment we think of God as if He’s a “helicopter parent” waiting for us to do something
bad so that – “Bam!” – He can catch us in the act. We see our suffering and pain and we think
God is so cruel that He actually wants us to suffer and die.
 But the next moment we think He’s the “Bee’s knees” and we do all we can to try and “butter
Him up” so that our suffering will come to an end or we’ll get something else that we think we
really deserve.
 I’ve left the most important perspective as the last one for us to consider. What is God’s
perspective on these things?
 Well fortunately God’s love is not wishy washy and ambivalent like ours. His love for His
children – even though we are disobedient each and every day – is as constant as a heartbeat.
 Everything that He does is guided by His great, incomprehensible love for us! In fact it is
because of His love for us that God must discipline us – because He’s making us holy even as
we are already holy in Christ. He’s preparing us for eternal life even as we already have eternal
life given to us in our Baptism.
 God disciplines us because He wants us NOT to die, but to live with Him.
II. How do we know which perspective is true?
 But that is not the perspective that everyone has toward this situation of salvation and discipline
in our relationship with God. For example, a famous atheist author named Michael Sherlock
wrote, “If the person offering you salvation is also the one threatening you with punishment, it’s
not really salvation. It’s terrorism and extortion.”
 With that quote, Sherlock adds one more perspective that I haven’t mentioned yet – it’s the
twisted perspective of Satan, who is only pleased when a gift of love and a work of salvation is
perverted and changed into an act of hatred and evil.
 So how do we know which perspective is true; which one is the proper perspective on these
issues of suffering and salvation? I hope it’s safe to say that all of us here today would like to
see things from God’s perspective of love, right? But how do we know that He loves us?
 Verses 5-6 of our text say that we can know that He loves us because He has made us His
sons. “The Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives” (v.6).
It is against God’s nature to discipline unbelievers who have rejected Him and His offer of love.
Unbelief receives instead God’s wrath and condemnation on Judgement Day. But discipline is
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God’s expression of love because He wants to keep us from turning away from Him in unbelief.
He wants to keep us close to Himself as the beloved children whom He has redeemed.
 And so as Paul says in Romans 5:3-5, “…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering
produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and
hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through
the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”.
 He has made us His sons, which includes men and women alike. How have we been made
sons? Verse 24, it’s through “Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant” and through His
“sprinkled blood” that we have received in the water and Word of our baptism.
 In baptism we are connected directly to the blood of Jesus that was shed on the cross. His
blood, as verse 24 says, speaks a far “better word than the blood of Abel”. Abel’s blood, as we
recall how he was murdered by His brother Cain in jealousy, cries out to God for vengeance.
That’s the best our human hearts can ever do apart from God.
But Jesus’ blood from the cross cries out, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”
(Luke 23:34). Jesus’ new covenant works reconciliation and forgiveness not because we have
earned it or deserve it, but because we have been given the free gift of faith and we have been
made to be sons and daughters by His grace.
 You see, there’s a big difference between discipline and punishment. God does not punish us
for our sins. That’s already been done when He vented His wrath out against all of our sin as it
was placed upon His Son on the cross.
 God’s discipline then is not a sign of His hatred or disfavor, but an extreme sign of His love
and concern for His children that have gone astray in sin. In verses 7-8 we are reminded that
the only ones that “get away” with sin here on earth are those who are not God’s true children.
They’ve rejected Jesus and their future holds only eternal punishment with the devil and his
demons in hell. So, in the end they “get away” with nothing at all.
 So our assurance of God’s love is the discipline that we receive. For it is God’s desire that it will
turn us away from the wrong we do in word and deed and keep us on the straight path toward
eternal life.
 In verses 12-14 we’re called on to actually live as the sons that Christ has made us to be.
When we are tempted to sin we are called to “lift [our] dropping hands”, “strengthen [our] weak
knees”, “make straight paths for [our] feet” and “strive for peace with everyone”. In verse 13 the
Greek literally says we are to make “straight wheel tracks”. When Alexander the Great built the
highway system, the chariot wheels would create two ruts in which the chariots could ride
smoothly. It was when a chariot would turn out of the rut that it would often break a wheel and
become stranded.
 When our Father disciplines us it’s the result of us trying to go our own way; trying to get
away with turning out of the smooth path of the guidance He gives to us in His Word. But Christ
in His love has repaired our broken lives and placed us back in the straight path with Him. As
long as we stay with Jesus we have a straight and sure highway to eternal life.
 And that points us to the final point declared in verses 22 & 23. In describing the way of Christ
we are told how truly blessed we are as Christians. It says, “But you have come to Mount Zion
and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal
gathering”. And listen closely here, “and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in
heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect”.
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 You see we are not considered to be just any old children, but we are the “assembly of the
firstborn”! When this letter was written, no one was more important than the firstborn son,
because it was the firstborn son that received the entire inheritance from his father.
 That’s how utterly amazing God’s love is toward each and every one of us. We are all; every
one of us that has been sprinkled with Christ’s shed blood from the cross in baptism; every one
of us that believes and confesses Jesus alone to be our Savior and Lord – we are all loved as
God’s firstborn son! This means that we all receive the inheritance of our Father’s heavenly
estate.
Conclusion
 Johnny’s mom had a good perspective. But if she, a sinful and human mother, disciplined her
son lovingly according to her best judgment, imagine how wisely and lovingly our heavenly
Father is disciplining us now today!
 The temporary pain and suffering we face here does not compare to the glory He will reveal
to us when Christ returns. You see, the proper perspective really does matter! Amen.
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