Sermon for August 24, 2025 (Hebrews 12:4-24) by Rev. David Domanski
When you were a kid, did you love being your parents’ kid? If you’re a kid now, do you always love having your parents as your parents? Did you? Do you? Always? I’m sure we know, by and large, what a blessing it is to have our parents. They love us. They want the best for us. But occasionally there’s that little thing that brings every kid—and every parent—grief. Can’t avoid it. Really mustn’t avoid it. It’s necessary, even helpful. It is DISCIPLINE.
In our text this morning, the writer to the Hebrews tells us about how discipline works in our relationship with God. And the discussion of discipline begins sweetly enough: You are a son of God. Central to a proper understanding of the Old Testament is the idea of sonship. It was the son who received an inheritance from his father. And if you were the firstborn son, you received a double portion of the inheritance, leadership over the family, and the blessing of carrying on the covenant promise.
This notion of sonship carries over into the New Testament as well. While we are by nature children of wrath and sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3), we have been adopted as sons of God (Gal 4:5) in the blood of Christ. And if you are a son of God, then you are an heir to all the blessings that Christ has won for you through his crucifixion and resurrection: forgiveness, eternal life, salvation.
This sonship and all its blessings were first given to you in the waters of Holy Baptism. And being a son involves discipline as a loving God must sometime discipline His sons. This discipline, however, frequently seems to us as unfair because as sons of God, there is the temptation to believe that life will be easy. However, the author of the book of Hebrews reveals this is not the case.
In the verses that precede our lesson, the writer of Hebrews describes our life as sons as similar to a race (12:1) in that the life as sons of God is often difficult, challenging, and painful. It says that as we live as sons, we can grow weary and fainthearted (12:3). The truth is that we bring many of these difficulties and challenges upon ourselves because of the sins we commit. But even as we struggle against sin and temptations, we desire to walk in the ways of the Lord (vv 14–16). As sinners, we often stumble and fall, bringing pain upon ourselves and those around us. This pain can act as a warning that moves us to repent of these sins and move us away from sin and toward our Father.
And even when we don’t sin, but pain and suffering come to us because we live in a fallen world, the author to the Hebrews would have us consider the Lord’s hand in every difficulty we experience in life. God’s Word reveals that the Lord himself disciplines His sons for His own purposes (vv 5–10)—to make them stronger in faith and more fit to serve. This discipline is frequently painful and unpleasant (v 11), but it’s always in love that the Lord disciplines His sons.
Hearing that the Lord disciplines his sons in love may sound odd because we know that God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (Ex 34:6). So when we are enduring the Lord’s discipline, there is the temptation to believe that God does not love us. God’s discipline can seem too harsh, and we may begin to see God only in his wrath (vv 18–20). We forget that it’s sometimes necessary that we be disciplined in order to recognize sin and repent of it.
When we forget that God disciplines his sons, we would do well to look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith (12:2). In the fullness of time, the eternal Son of God took on human flesh. Jesus was tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin (4:15). On the cross, he suffered the Father’s wrath for your sin. And through the shedding of his holy and precious blood—a blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (v 24)—he has redeemed you from sin and reconciled you to his heavenly Father.
As Jesus endured the Father’s discipline for our eternal salvation, we begin to see that the Lord does not discipline his sons in his anger and displeasure. Instead, the Lord disciplines his sons in love (v 6). Consider the example of our earthly fathers (vv 7–9). They discipline us for doing wrong. As this is never pleasant, we may begin to question their love for us. Yet we come to understand that they discipline us specifically because they love us.
So it is that every son that the Lord loves and receives he punishes and chastises also. In fact, if you were not disciplined by the Lord, verse 8 says that you would be considered an illegitimate child. And the Lord’s loving discipline of his sons is certainly for their good. Consider once again the example of earthly fathers. They discipline their sons for various reasons, and they do this according to their own wisdom. While earthly fathers discipline us for a short time as seems best to them, God disciplines his sons for their long-term, eternal good (v 10). The Lord disciplines us for our good so that we may walk in his ways (vv 14–16). This is for our good—lest we defile ourselves with sin and fail to obtain our eternal inheritance in heaven (v 15), which Christ has won for us through his crucifixion and resurrection.
Through the blood of Christ, you’ve been made a son of God and have all the benefits that come with it: forgiveness of sin, eternal life, salvation. And while there is that thing that grieves every child and parent—discipline—as part of our relationship with the Lord, do not grow weary or fainthearted. Instead, lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees (v 12) with the promise that God loves you for Christ’s sake, and he is disciplining you for your ultimate good—to bring you into his heavenly Jerusalem with innumerable angels in festal gathering, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant (vv 22–24). And until that day, “do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him” (v 5). Nor let us forget that the Lord disciplines the sons whom he loves for their good! Amen.