Main Idea: God's children endure in the faith through the Father's love.
1. Run God's Race (v. 1-3)- Through of the grace of His gospel, God has made us alive in Christ and adopted us as His children.
- In every part of our lives and in all circumstances, God is in the process of making us more like Him.
- At times, God uses difficulty, hardship, pain and suffering to lovingly conform us into His image.
- God's children should not view suffering or even painful circumstances as punishment, even though we may not be able to see the purpose
- At times in our race, we can get weighed down by legalism
- Sometimes in our race, we can get bogged down in sin
- Legalism is a weight hinders our faith in Christ
- Viewing our sin too much hinders us from seeing Christ and having faith in Him
- We are to set aside all things that would hinder us from trusting in Christ alone
- Sometimes we waver in our faith when trials, difficulty, pain and suffering come
- we may experience pain and agony as the saints of old did
- just like the saints of old received commendation from God in the past, so will we if we finish the race.
- We must not lose sight of the saints of old who stand as witnesses, testifying to the sustaining grace of God through life's many trials
- In addition, if we are to run the race with faith, it must be firmly grounded in Jesus Christ, who loves us and gave Himself up for us.
- In all things, we must consider Jesus who endured such hostility from sinners, so that we may not grow weary or fainthearted.
- Jesus is the founder and the perfecter of our faith. He will bring our faith to completion as we cling to Him.
- Discipline is not punishment - all the punishment we deserved has already been placed on Christ.
- All discipline is from our loving and Sovereign Father, who treats us as His children
- The trials that the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11 encountered were God's way of training them in faith and helping them to endure.
- Jesus Himself was perfected through suffering.
- It is the Fatherly love of God that motivates Him to use all means to shape us into His image
- It is precisely because we are His children that He disciplines and reproves us for our good
- Through suffering and difficulty, we can know God more deeply and experience the hope of life in Him
- God only disciplines us for our good
- All of the Father's discipline, though it is painful and unpleasant at times, results in the peaceful fruit of righteousness if we will learn from it.
1. Where do you see that you may subtly be looking at legalistic ideas or practices to assure you of God's pleasure?
2. How does this keep you from seeing and hoping in Jesus more fully?
3. Where do you feel like suffering and difficult circumstances must be a sign of God's punishment?
4. How does knowing that all of the punishment we earned (for past, present and future sins), was fully given to Jesus change the way we view difficulty and suffering?
5. What weighs us down in life? Is there anything currently weighing us down that is distracting us from faith in God?
6. Where are we are we tempted to be more aware of our sin or just failures or weaknesses than we are of Jesus to sustain us and keep us faithful to the end?
7. How does knowing that God loves us as His dear children change the way we view His discipline?
8. How does knowing that God does not discipline us because He is angry with us change the way we think of His discipline?
9. What do we need to set aside in our lives, so that we can focus on Jesus and the race set before us more fully?
10. Read Philippians 1:6. How does knowing that "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" give you hope and faith?
