The Perfect Discipline

Well, as the sermonette topic reminded us, Passover preparation season is upon us. And in a few weeks we're going to be taking the symbols of Jesus Christ's sacrifice for the sins of the world. Right here, for many of us, right here in this room, as we will prepare for that. David's sermonette talked about the process of examination. And for some of you, you have begun to think about it. For perhaps others, it hasn't occurred yet at this time. But we're told, as he read in one of the scriptures, to examine ourselves.

What will you find? What will we discover? Same thing we discovered last year, or two years ago, or four years ago, or something that we first saw 20 years ago. That's okay. That may be necessary. This is a time of year which is one of revealing. We're told to purge out the old leaven. We put out that representation of sin. We eat unleavened bread during the days of unleavened bread to show the sinless life of Jesus Christ within us. And it's a very, very beautiful season.

Spring obviously marks the return to life of nature. I had a chance finally to get out in the yard after the snow began to melt this week and began to see bulbs coming up. Life coming back through the ground, as some of you may have seen. As the snow departed, that revealed that to us. Yesterday I was walking in my backyard just to see what the trees looked like. And my cherry trees, I see little buds on the cherry tree.

I was looking at my apple tree and I really whacked it back last fall. And I was looking to see if there's any life left. It may come out later. I may have really shocked it. I don't know. I'm praying for my apple tree right now that it will bud forth.

But my cherry tree is okay. And so we'll begin to see those signs of life if you haven't already had a chance to get out and to do that. God places the festival of days of unleavened bread pass over at this time of year to teach us really about the true source of our life, our spiritual life, and where that comes from. And if we take a very serious approach to this season, we'll examine our spiritual condition. Now in doing so, whatever we find is going to bring a certain response. It might discourage us if it's something that we see that has already been revealed at some point in the past.

But it should never be devastating. Whatever we find as we go through the examination, and David did a good job in his sermonette of bringing out certain explanations of what that word can mean and how it can be applied to us, whatever we find should not be devastating. I often think over the years, and it's a combination of the fault of probably the ministry and well as our own individual guilt and immaturity. Over the years, I felt sometimes that we get into too much of a self-flagellation approach to this subject. We sometimes take a medieval approach where we want to just kind of whip ourselves with some cords and wear a hairy shirt and walk around on our knees and really punish ourselves and get into a self-flagellation approach to kind of get in shape for the Passover.

And over the years, what I'm saying is personally, I've backed away from a lot of that and tried to reflect that in helping you prepare for it as well. But I still find sometimes that there's this angst. Mr. Rothenbacher will know the word angst. It's a good German word, right? I think I'm stepping out here. But we get into this angst, this anxiety, this pent-up, fraught-up fear about this approach to examination ourselves, especially before the Passover, when we really shouldn't. And we don't need to.

We don't need to beat ourselves up. Rather, what we need to do is discipline ourselves, rightly so, into obedience and on the right path of worship and understand it for what it is. Let's turn back to 1 Corinthians 11. I won't read what was read in the Sermonet, but just a little bit further in 1 Corinthians 11, this classic section that takes us into the season of the year.

Let's read verse 31, 1 Corinthians 11, verse 31, as it follows along from this thought of examining ourselves before we take the symbols of the bread and wine. Because Paul says, if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. A judgment is a process of time. Judgment is not just one event. Judgment is not just one set time. Judgment is really a process over time. When you understand fully from the biblical period of time, in a sense, the church, you and I, we're under judgment now, as we've been called, to our opportunity for salvation.

And that process of judgment is our life, the days, months, and years of our life. And so, we are to judge ourselves. It's that we're not going to be judged in the wrong way. Verse 32, but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. And so, we're chastened by God.

That's what this process really leads us up to.

It should not be an anxiety-ridden exercise in frustration every year that's based on guilt. God never intended it that way. He doesn't want us to get caught up in that trap.

Nor should you just slide into Passover without any serious thought, either. That's not... that's taken the opposite approach. So, you want to avoid both extremes. But as we go through it, and whatever we learn, whatever we see, whatever our reflection, prayers, fasting, study, bring to mind as God's Spirit works with us, whatever is there, understand that, as it says, we're really being chastened by the Lord. It's God's way of dealing with us in a right, proper, perfect manner, whatever we learn.

And so, my main point here this afternoon is very simple.

God reveals things to us as we prepare for the Passover service. Not to discourage us. Not to discourage us.

But because He is offering us help to overcome.

God reveals things to us not to discourage, but because He's offering to help us overcome.

If we take that approach to this whole process of examination, leading up to the Passover, and certainly even beyond, as this is a process that really will come upon us at various other times, depending upon what life throws at us, God is with us. Not to discourage us, but to help us overcome. And so, in this section here is the thought of chastening, or correction, or discipline. All synonymous words for this thought and this idea.

And God is our Father, and He is chastening us.

That, you know, and offering us that opportunity.

I'd like for you to think for a minute how your parents chastened you as you were being raised. How did your parents discipline you? How did they correct you?

Now that, I already see, brings some smiles. Also brings some frowns. Also brings some half frowns and half smiles as you think about that. How did your parents chasten you? Because that often sets the stage for how we think about correction, discipline, whether or however it comes to us, and certainly the most important sphere as it would come from God.

I ask myself that question, as I wrote it down in preparation here, and I think back to my own father. My father came from a family of 12, and it was, you know, it was not a genteel upper-class family. There was a great deal of love in the family, but there was also discipline, and it was a hard life. They were not wealthy, and everybody had to pull their weight, and they didn't have a whole lot. Whatever my father learned, as he had his family, myself, my sister, and my older brother, he had to, just as any other parent, apply discipline, chastening correction, as he had learned it, and deal with us.

Although in our case, especially with my younger sister and I, as we were basically coming of age during the 1960s, it was a whole different time and a whole different experience on us than what anything he had been raised in. He was raised in the 20s and 30s during the Depression period, and a whole different world than he was trying to raise my sister and I, and especially me, as I think about it in my life. I ever got chastened by my dad. I can remember my dad, he never wore a suit coat, but he would take that belt off, and I remember it being applied. At least, I remember one time where he whipped me with his belt. He didn't raise any welts, didn't break the skin. I don't remember what I did, but I'm sure I deserved it.

My mom would go for a switch. When I would see my mom heading out the door to one of the trees out there, I knew, you know, you can run, but you can't hide. But I can remember my dad taking a belt to me. Now, I didn't go dial the child abuse authorities, the social services, after that, and report anybody. It was a different time, just a different time. I'm not saying that that should be what's done, but there were times when circumstances would just blow, and that would be what was meted out. My dad would correct me in other ways, too.

I remember one time, in this case, all I took was a word from him, and I learned something that I still remember to this day. We were getting ready one night to go to a Cub Scout meeting. It was father and son night, and he'd made the effort to come in from work and get cleaned up and go with me to the school to the Cub Scout meeting. I was getting ready. We were both in the bathroom, and I remember him saying to me, what are you wearing tonight?

I was, I guess, what, 12 or 13, just real smart, you know? I spoke to him in the way that I would have spoken to some of my friends on the playground. He said, what are you wearing tonight? I kind of remember looking up and saying, clothes. It had kind of a smart, eloquent tone to it, and he caught it. I remember him stopping mid-shave, mid-stroke on his face, and turning to me and saying, don't you ever talk to me like that again? He caught the sarcasm, and me trying to talk to him in a sense, just like one of the boys. He said, don't ever talk to me like that again. I never did. I never did. Talk to him like that again. Now, we had other words, probably, over the years. I remember one time another word came out of my mouth when my mom was around, and it should never have come out of my mouth, and she just took me by the arm, took me in the bathroom, pulled an old toothbrush out in a bar of soap, and scrubbed my mouth out with a bar of soap. How many of you have ever had that happen to you?

That word never came out of my mouth again. At least, my mom's, well, no, I will say that word never came out of my mouth again. I learned from getting my mouth washed out with a bar of soap. It's not a pleasant feeling. My dad was a bit rough. He was never cruel. He was never abusive, but he did chase me. Now, over the years, actually, several years later, it took me to come to a point where I could appreciate what my dad put up with from me, because he put up with a lot from me, and I didn't realize it until years later how much he had to have put up for me. I remember thinking about it. It came to me over just a number of incidents, but I remember thinking one time what he lived through in his war experience. As I've said before, he survived Omaha Beach on D-Day. It was not really until later years, more recent years after he died, that I heard a story about a heroic action that he took on that that just came out of the blue to my aunt, and it just stunned me. It just shocked me. It stunned me. I fully realized what that guy lived through when he was about 22 years of age, 23, and then he came home afterwards and raised the family. As I said, he had to put up with me, because he didn't deserve that in that sense. So it took me a number of years to really understand more and more about his teaching and his guidance, his chastening of me as his son, and the things that I learned from him, like to work hard, to pay as you go, to treat people with respect. So that's things you learn over a period of time. I'm working on a sermon I'm going to give hopefully around Father's Day this year, and the title is One More Day with Dad.

One More Day with Dad. And maybe I'll bring out some more things at that particular time. But how did your father chasten you? God is our father, and we are his children.

He's raising us into his family, a spiritual family, through the process of our lives. It's a lifelong process. And each year at Passover, we get our lenses cleaned. We examine ourselves. Now, the scripture talks about chastening. Our human parents didn't always, and we as our parents of our children, we don't always, and if not always, discipline perfectly. But the one thing about God's discipline that we can count on is that it is perfect. God's discipline is always perfect. No one human being, no one human form of discipline, is always going to be perfect.

There's going to be ways, there'll be mistakes, and the lesson will not be learned.

You know, think back over some of the discipline and some of the ways by which you interacted with your parents, and the ways you could get around some of the discipline.

There would be times my father would kind of ground me and not allow me to do certain things or maybe go certain places, but I learned how to get around it. Mom. I learned to go to mom, and then she would go to dad, and then I would get what I wanted if I really worked it right. I'm not saying that out of pride, and I'm not trying to give any of our young people lessons. They may already learned it anyway, because that's not the right way to do it.

Young people and parents and moms, that's not the thing to allow to happen, but I learned it, and there were times that I employed it, and it kind of evaded the chastening, evaded the punishment. You know, with God, He doesn't let us off that way. God doesn't let us off that easy. There are times that come when God chooses to chasten us, and when that happens, you and I have a serious matter on our hands, because we have got to face it. We cannot ignore it when God chooses to chasten us. Whatever He's chosen at that time is the right time.

When He's chosen to reveal something to us that we need to correct, it's the right time, and His chastening will always be in the right proportion. In Hebrews 12, this section talks about chastening from God. The discipline of God is my heading, in this New King James Version. Beginning in verse 3, Hebrews 12, it says, For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted a bloodshed striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons. And the quotation from the Psalm, My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him, for whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives. Who is the Lord? Whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son that he receives into his family, into a relationship with him. And then going on, he says, If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons.

For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? A true father is going to provide discipline for a son and a daughter, for a child. If they don't, they're negligent. Now, that chastening, that discipline, should be appropriate, should be measured, should be specific to whatever need is there, depending upon the infraction, the age, and all the other circumstances. But it is a job of a mother and a father to provide discipline and to chasten. And it is part of the process of love.

Now, sometimes we didn't think that they were loving us too well. And our kids have no doubt felt that as we've chastened them over the years, that we may be a little bit too harsh. And if it's done with a moment of frustration, raised voice, or out of anger, then maybe it's not always the most appropriate. But this is the ideal. We said that is part of being in a family relationship. Now, verse 8 says, If you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. So, in the relationship we have with God, that chastening is part of what legitimizes that relationship. So, it makes it right. And if we don't understand that and chafe at it and accept it, then we're going to be working across purposes. Verse 9, Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Me, as I said with my own dad, the respect grew years later, deeper. The respect grew deeper.

Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the father of spirits and live? Because we take the chastening, because we submit to it and we certainly learn as much as we can from it, our life, our spiritual life, gets enhanced. For they, indeed, for a few days chastened us, as seemed best to them, but he, for our prophet, that we may be partakers of his holiness.

That's why when God does it, it's not to discourage us. It is not to devastate us, but it is to encourage us and to offer, at the same time, the help to deal with whatever we find. Whatever we are going through, whatever is necessary at that particular time, because the end result, God knows, is a better character, a deeper level of conversion, a better son, a better child, because he is dealing with us in a spiritual sense toward the end result of his kingdom. He is taking us through that one step at a time to the kingdom. He deals with us from a larger perspective than we sometimes even understand as we try to deal with our own children. I think that sometimes I want to hope that, as we've been perhaps a bit more, quote, enlightened as parents today, that when we do chasten and discipline our children, that it is with a long-term perspective in mind, and it is not just the momentary frustration, not just something that is so short-sighted that it goes beyond the Saturday night or the weekend situation or that particular episode, that when we apply discipline with our children, that we are thinking longer term than just the immediate. And if young people, you can understand that as your parents deal with you, that they are taking more of a long-term approach because of their experience, then it works better and it can be taken better. Because as it says here, God is dealing with us toward the end result of holiness. And he sees that that's got to be dealt with. That has to be excised. That must be met head-on to be holy. Now, verse 11 says, no chastening, no discipline, no correction seems to be joyful for the present. And no, it doesn't.

I never enjoyed the spankings that I got. I never enjoyed the looks that I got, the words that I got.

And if my sons were here, they'd probably say the same thing. And you would say the same thing, I'm sure, for yours. They are not joyful. But they are painful. They can be painful, get a pride hurt, get feelings upset. No correction whenever it is given in whatever form, in whatever relationship we have, whether it's an annual review on the job, something that may be pointed out to us by a friend. Or, as we finally wake up and realize that what we are dealing with is indeed God dealing with us in a particular situation. And we quit beating our head against the wall, and recognizing that this time this is God talking to us.

Hello, this is God. To borrow a title.

Then we understand it. But it's painful. And it hurts. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Afterwards, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. This was one of my first memory verses in the church, Hebrews 12-11. First time I joined the Spokesman's Club when I was a senior in high school, the men's speaking club that we used to have years ago in the church. This became our model. This became our model for the year, for the club.

And we memorized it, and we kept coming back to it through the year.

Because in Spokesman's Club, you were there to get corrected.

At least that was the emphasis in some cases. And I got corrected. Boy, did I get corrected!

You get thrown in with a bunch of grown men who are farmers and salesmen and retail businessmen.

You start giving speeches, and you start evaluating comments.

Going through that whole experience, it was interesting. In those days, in some ways, it was very direct.

As we say, we liked it. We went through it. But this became our memory verse. I've always remembered it, but I understand it far better now than I ever did as a young man in that church experience at that particular time. Because I've been through so much since then. We've all been through so much. It's a scripture to come back to, to understand that the chastening that God puts upon us and deals with us is one that when we listen, yield, work through it, overcome, deal with, it will eventually yield fruits of righteousness.

Joy and peace, patience, long suffering, deeper understanding.

When we have been trained by it, or as the old King James Version says, exercised by it.

This is very true. When God shows us something, He offers us the help.

Seeing correction from that point of view would require you and I to change our point of view.

Because He's preparing us for the Kingdom of God. In the end, He wants us all there. He wants the result and the fruit of holiness for us. And He knows how to get us to that point. He is the wise, perfect Father.

The special music we heard had a reference to the prodigal son.

We all know that parable in Luke 15 of the prodigal son.

Of the father that had two sons, I'll just rehearse it to you, we don't need to turn to it. You know the story. Two sons, and one of them was kind of a strong willed, and he wanted his inheritance early. The other was a good son who stayed behind. But the one son wanted his inheritance early. The father gave it to him. He went and lived it up in Vegas. Spent the money.

Told them, you know, thought he had some friends. They all abandoned him. And he was kind of eating chitlins out on the street when he came to himself. And he said, I will return to my father. And he came back, and his father received him. The other son had a little bit of adjustment to deal with as well. But in the end, guess what? The father had both sons at home.

He had both sons at home. There's a lot of lessons from that. But for this one, we can draw that.

I think he was a pretty wise father. He could have said, no, I'm not going to give it to you, your inheritance. He could have dug in his heels and known what was going to happen. He knew what the father knew what was going to happen. He could have said, I'm not going to give it to you. You can leave whatever you want, or you can't leave or whatever.

The wise father in that parable is God, symbolizing God. And he let the one son have his mind, as well as the money, knowing that that was the only way by which he would get him back and get him to the point that he did. So he gave the son what he wanted. He knew the road that son had to travel in order to return. God knows what we need. That's why he will deal with us in a perfect, just and right way as we need it. When that son came to the point and said, I will return, he knew how near his father really was.

But he had to walk that road to come to that understanding. And in the end, as I said, the wise father had both sons. God is the wise, perfect father. And he, as he chastens us, if we can understand it, he is bringing us along the road that we need to where we will be with him and his family and achieve that end of holiness. God deals with us as the wisest father. So as we examine, look, think, pray, and go through this process, what's the key? Well, let's look in 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

1 Corinthians chapter 5.

2 Corinthians chapter 5.

In verse 7, pass over 11 bread-related verse. It says, Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump.

Purging out the sin can get to be kind of a lumpy process.

But it's what has to happen, that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened.

You truly are unleavened. For indeed, Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.

That is the focus point. As we contemplate the Passover service, we need to be putting our minds and thoughts upon Christ. We need to be recognizing that He is our Passover. He is sacrificed for us.

He is the key to help us deal with what we find in this process of examination. He is the key to get us through.

In Romans 8, verse 34, one of the most encouraging passages of all of Paul's writings, Romans 8, verse 34, this passage that talks about God's love, actually in verse 33, it says, "...who shall bring a charge against God's elect? That is God who justifies?

Who is He who condemns? It is Christ who died.

And furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." Christ makes intercession for everyone of us. He died for us. He is risen, and He is at the right hand of God.

And this whole passage is talking about the love of God that nothing can separate us from. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Tribulation. Distress. No tribulation can be losing a job to having somebody snub us and pass us over.

Depends on how thin-skinned we are and our level of maturity.

Persecution. Famine. Nakedness. Peril. Or sword.

The implication is none of these can separate us from the love of Christ.

They can cause trouble, but they can't separate from the love of Christ.

As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all these things were more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers nor things present, nor things to come. This is an all-encompassing, all-inclusive passage that Paul essentially dashes off in these sentences everything that essentially could come at us in life to separate us, we think, from the love of Christ. And he said, none of these trials do. Nothing, no height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because He is the one who makes intercession for us, as verse 34 says at the right hand of God.

When we come to whatever we find during any period of examination, this season of the year or any other time of the year, and sometimes it may be a bit overwhelming, it can be a bit discouraging, we have to always remember God reveals these things to encourage us and to help us.

And when He does, then the help is right there. Just like the prodigal son knew that he could return. When he came to the moment where he recognized what he had done and who he was and how big a mistake he had made, he said, I will return to my father and home.

He knew that much how near his father's love was. And that's what we have to always understand. At any point in time, as we go through the frustrations, the stresses, and the trials, we must always remember just how close the father is. So that we can say, I will return. We can rise up and we can understand that there is not anything that is going to separate us from the love of God. That Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us and nothing will separate us from the love of Christ. He's making intercession for us. So many scriptures talk about this intercessory aspect of Christ's present ministry and present position. Just one in Hebrews chapter 9, verse 24.

It says, For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, speaking of the temple and the holy of holies, the holy place and the holy of holies, is not gone there, which are copies of the true, but in heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. For us. How many times does that phrase, For Us, come up? We read it back in 1 Corinthians 5-7 where Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. And again in Romans 8-34 where it says He makes intercession for us.

So many times this is brought up and we have to remember it because we need that encouragement.

When we get stressed out with the issues of our lives, we will fail to turn to God. We will take our eyes off of Christ. We will forget He's the head of the church because we think it's our church. And we've got to solve all the issues. We've got to solve all the problems ourselves. I fall prey to that just as much as anyone. When we get caught up in some of the issues of our personal lives and frustrations, we forget that Christ is making intercession for us. And that there's nothing really that can separate us from Him except ourselves. See, I forgot to bring that out back in Romans 8. That's really the implication that Paul comes down to. There's nothing but ourselves that can separate us from Christ, from God, and that love. We're the only ones that can do it. Either we forget, we just don't see it, we get caught up in self-pity, guilt, angst, as I said, and we don't tap into that source. We forget that Christ is there, our Passover, and is interceding for us. And Christ is the head of the church.

And He is either the head of the church or He's not. That's about as simple as we can put it. We must always remember it. We can't afford to forget it. We will forget it, but we'll pay a price when we do. But these Scriptures point us to the role of Christ as our intercessor for our sins and for our life. We're here in Hebrews. Let's go back to chapter 4 of Hebrews. These few verses in Hebrews 4 give us a bit of an indication of, again, how Christ helps us and something we should remember.

Hebrews 4 and verse 14, Seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Every temptation that we go through, every basic temptation of life, he went through as well, and yet he did not sin. So let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We have to petition. We have to go there. We cannot forget that. We have to do it boldly.

Sometimes we may have to raise our voice. Sometimes we may need to spend a little bit more time getting to that point where boldness is actually a part of the manner by which we approach God.

You don't get that with a prayer over the steering wheel as you're going down driving to work.

You don't get that so much with just a casual approach. That sometimes will only be there when we're on our knees and we're focused and we're pouring ourselves out to God. That we are desirous of mercy, his pardon, his forgiveness, and the grace to help.

You see, grace is more than just the blood of Christ. Grace is more than just forgiveness. Grace is God's ability to help us when we recognize what grace truly is.

Our minds get so clouded with this bloody idea about grace that it's just the blood of Christ.

That's a twisted approach when that's all that we understand about grace.

Christ's blood does forgive us, and that is part of that grace. But God's grace goes far beyond that to how we live and how he interacts with us and how he helps us in time of need.

It's part of God's grace when he reveals certain things to us that we need to understand and we need to overcome.

Because that grace is what will encourage us.

And that's where grace is the help in a time of need. Going on in chapter 5, the thought really continues. Verse 1, For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin.

So, Christ, as the ancient high priest, were taken from among men, from among life. A high priest, a priest, could never forget where he came from.

His humanity, his weaknesses, even as he has to make sacrifice for, make intercession, help people relate to God. The closest role to that is the ministry today. Ministers can never ever forget and afford to forget that he was taken from among men to perform his role in things pertaining to God with the people, to offer gifts and sacrifices in a spiritual sense of a life to help people relate to God.

Verse 2, it says, He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. This just amplifies the understanding of of Christ's compassion for us in our time of need, to give us the grace that we help, that we need to help. God, again, reveals things to us not to discourage, but to help us, to give us that grace to help. And this is that season of the year to focus on Jesus Christ and upon His life. In Luke 11, Luke 11, there's a parable here that Jesus spoke shortly. Luke 11, in verse 5, He said to them, Which of you shall have a friend? And go to him at midnight, and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within and say, Do not trouble me, the door is shut, my children are with me in bed, I cannot rise and give to you.

Wouldn't be a true friend, would it? So, you know, it's kind of a contrast here. I say to you, though, though he will not rise and give to him because he's his friend, yet because of his persistence, the person continually knocking there, he will rise and give him as many as he needs.

So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find.

Knock and it will be open to you. Seek, ask, seek, and knock. If you want to take three three verbs from that, ask, seek, and knock. Those all take persistence, but it will be open. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened.

If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone?

Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Well, the answer is no. Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

Well, a good father won't. A good father will provide the need.

So if you then being evil, less than perfect, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? God is perfect in His chastening of us.

When He disciplines us by whatever method, it is the right time, the right way, the right proportion, because He is the perfect Father. And that we have to understand.

And He will give us the help of His Holy Spirit to deal, to help, to overcome, to help to understand, and perhaps in some cases even just enough grace to be sufficient.

You remember when Paul asked God three times to take a particular problem from Him?

And the answer he came to understand was, my grace is sufficient for you.

He didn't take whatever the problem was completely away, but He gave him the grace to deal with it. It seems from that one reference.

Sometimes that grace is sufficient and will be if we're patient and if we understand exactly what we're going through. So this is the season to focus on Christ and His life in us, and the cleansing power of God's Spirit working in our lives, helping us to mold and form and shape the most important relationship that we have, and that with God Himself as Christ lives His life within us.

So the one takeaway point throughout this whole message that I leave with you this afternoon is to understand that God reveals things not to discourage, but to help us. And if we can enter the season with that in mind, then we will do well and God's grace will be sufficient.