Reap the harvest of hardship! - Hebrews 12:7-11
This summer I had the opportunity to work with two young interns who are studying to be teachers at Martin Luther College. Messiah has used interns for several years. It is one of the ways we support our worker training system and the young men and women who will one day spread the gospel far and wide. In the past, summer interns have helped with our summer youth camps and golf tournaments. I was confident this year’s interns could do all that. But it was the less glamorous part of being an intern that caused me some concern. In the past our summer interns have power washed algae off pillars, cleaned bugs out of the light fixtures, and scooped sludge out of gutters. Basically, a bunch of dirty jobs that no one else wants to do. But this year’s interns were girls. This was the first year we have had girls interns and I wasn’t sure girls did that sort of thing. So, I asked their moms, and they assured me the girls could do anything the boys did. Kristen especially encouraged me not to hold back. “give it to them, Pastor”, she urged. So, I did.
The summer started out great. The girls helped with our summer camp and golf tournament just like the boys had done in the past and they did a good job. (Ms. Michelle ran into a little girl at school this last week who was singing the song you ladies taught her at soccer camp.) The summer started out great, but then came the list of dirty jobs. Unlike the boys who typically grumbled under their breath, the girls weren’t afraid to vocalize their displeasure. They vocalized their displeasure about changing lightbulbs, power-washing the patio, and painting the handrails, but there was one dirty job that elicited shrieks of protest. A family of cockroaches had taken up residence in a filing cabinet. I know this because we discovered digestive evidence defecated all over the files. I was able to exterminate the granddaddy of the roach family. However, there were droppings that needed to be disposed and a cabinet that needed to be sterilized so I called upon the interns. They were not happy. I am pretty sure this was the most unhappy they had been. How do I know? Well, they told me so. In fact, one of them went so far as to say I was her biggest Opp. For those of you who are not fluent in the language of Gen Z that means the interns consider me to be their biggest opposition to happiness. I tried to tell them that they would be able to go back to school and get sympathy from the classmates when they told them how their mean old pastor made them clean – in the words of the interns- “la pooparacha” out of a filing cabinet. I tried to tell them that cleaning up said “la pooparacha” would prepare them for the day when a child in their classroom would get sick or have an accident and they would have to clean up. (Which, by the way, happened the day after the “la pooparacha” incident.) But at the time the interns weren’t interested in what I had to say. As far as they were concerned this dirty job was a hardship inflicted upon them by a pastor who was an opposed to their happiness.
Do you ever feel that way about God? When hardships come into your life does it ever feel like God is your biggest Opp? I know we are not supposed to feel that way about God. We all know that our God is a good and gracious God, but sometimes when life fills up with difficulties, irritations, frustrations, stressors, and anxieties it almost feels like our good and gracious God is opposed to our happiness. After all, our good and gracious God is omnipotent, He is all powerful, He has the ability to prevent, protect, and preserve us from any and all hardships… so why doesn’t He? Why does our God allow hardships into our lives?
Is He mad at us? It would be understandable if our God was made at us. We have thought, said, and done some maddening things. From God’s perspective, sometimes it must look like we are in competition with each other to see who can break the most commandments the fastest. After everything our good and gracious God has done for us, It would be easy to imagine that our constant sinning has made God so mad that He allows hardships into our lives as some sort of revenge or retribution for our sin. That would actually be to our advantage if that were the case. If our sin could be avenged or paid back by hardship, it would hurt but it would be worth it. But our sin cannot be avenged or paid back by the hardships we suffer. As saint Paul so pointedly reminds us in Romans 6:23, “The wages of our sin is death.” If God were to pay us back for our sin it would be hell not hardship that we suffer.
Our God is not some disgruntled deity who gets a kick out of hurling hardships down upon us because He is mad at us, our God is not our biggest Opp, that is simple not who our good and gracious God is, and yet there is no denying that fact that He allows hardships into our lives. Why? In Hebrew 12:7-11 God tells us why He allows hardships to enter our lives.
In verse 7 we read, “7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?” If you are dealing with any kind of hardship, I know it doesn’t seem like it, but that is a good thing. It means God is treating you like one of His own children. Because of His great love and rich mercy God chose to redeem you from your slavery to sin. Jesus suffered and died on the cross to pay the price of your redemption so that you could become a child of God. Now, as one of His own dear children, God has a vested interest in you; He cares about you and wants what is best for you. Which is why God allows hardships to enter your life in the first place. I know that doesn’t make sense to some, especially those who are proponents of the prosperity gospel. Proponents of the prosperity gospel would like us to believe that the life of the child of God should be free of hardship and full of rainbows and lollipops. But that is a false teaching used by Satan to draw people in so that when hardships come, they become disillusioned and leave the family of God. But our heavenly Father never promises His children rainbows and lollipops, rather he promises His children hardships. In fact, In verse 8 our heavenly Father goes so far as to say 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.” A child who doesn’t have a father who cares about them will have a life free of hardship.
Parents who care about their children allow their children to face hardship because, as every good parent knows, hardships may be hard, but they can also be helpful. Which is why a good parent does not hover over their child like a helicopter ready to swoop in and take away any hardships that their child might face. A good parent does not resemble a lawnmower who cuts down all hardships in their child’s path so that the child doesn’t have to face hardship in the first place. Good fathers and good mothers allow their children to face hardship because they know hardships can be helpful.
As a father myself, I have allowed my sons to face certain hardships in the hopes that they would prove helpful. However, it is not easy to know how much hardships you should allow your children to face. I am sure there have been many times I have messed up the amount of hardship my sons have faced. At times I have tried to shield and protect them hardship only to discover later that I was creating a weakness in them. At other times I have overburdened my sons with a hardship that was beyond what they could endure and have nearly crushed them. As parents (and pastor) we don’t always get it right. We aren’t perfect, so we don’t always know what amount of hardship is going to be helpful or harmful.
There is a great deal of comfort in knowing that our heavenly Father is ultimately the one who determines the amount of hardship that enters our lives. This is comforting because our heavenly Father is a perfect parent. In verse 10 we read, “10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.” When it comes to the amount of hardship He allows into our lives, our heavenly Father doesn’t try to do what is best, rather, He does what is best. That means even when we don’t understand the hardship, even when it seems an unnecessary obstacle to our happiness, even when it is unwelcomed and unwanted we can trust that our Heavenly Father is allowing the right amount of hardship into our lives to be helpful.
Now, in the moment it is seldom easy to see how a hardship can be helpful. Last week I talked to several people who were struggling to see how hardship could be helpful. On Monday I talked to a student who has been dragged into someone else’s scandal and though the student really has nothing to do with the scandal, gossip and rumors are running rampant and frankly Christian love and compassion seems to be at an all-time low. Wednesday, I talked to a grandmother who is struggling with the death of a grandson. It has been months since the grandson died but suddenly and out of nowhere, she was once again overcome with sadness. She doesn’t know why she feels this way. She knows her grandson is in heaven, but she misses him and can’t understand why God would take him away so soon. Thursday morning, I got a text from a father who had to rush his child to the ER. The child was excelling in their sport, and the coaches were planning to bring the young athlete up to the next level, the family was excited and proud, but then the young athlete got injured, badly. The young athlete’s season is likely over. In the cosmic scheme of things this might not seem like a big deal compared to cancer and bankruptcy and death, but, as every parent knows, watching your child suffer is a legitimate hardship. In the moment, the student, the grandmother, and the father all struggled to see how the hardship was helping them and honestly, in the moment, so was I.
Thankfully, and as God would have it, this last week I was also working with this text from Hebrews 12. And I was able to first assure the student, the grandmother, and the parent that God recognizes that their hardships were hard. In the first half of verse 11 God says, “11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” God does not dismiss nor diminish how hard hardships can be. God knows, in the moment, hardships are downright painful. But God invites us to look beyond the moment; God invites us to look beyond the pain and see the harvest that hardship produces. In the second half of verse 11 God says, “Later on, however, it [hardship] produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” God promises us He will use our hardships to produce a harvest of righteousness and peace. Like an athlete in training, hardships make us more resilient, they build up tolerance and endurance, make us stronger. This is what is meant by righteousness, not that our hardships make us right with God, the hardships of the cross upon which our Savior bled and died has made us right with God. This is a righteousness that follows, it is our right living in obedience to our good and gracious God. Hardships train us in such righteousness, but I think more than anything else hardships make us humble. Hardships force us to see our own limitations and cause us to surrender our cares and concerns to one more capable than ourselves. Hardships cause our heads to bow in prayer and look to God as our source of strength and comfort. And there in the presence of our God we find peace.
I think it is going to take a while before the interns see how cleaning “la pooparacha” out a filing cabinet was helpful. It is likely that still today they see me as their biggest Opp. But I hope and pray you don’t feel that way about your God. Your God does not allow hardship into your life because He is mad at you and is opposed to your happiness. Your God allows hardship into your life because He is treating you like one of His dearly loved children. You can trust your God is only going to allow a helpful amount of hardship into your life. And maybe not in the moment but in time you will see that your God used hardship to produce for you a harvest of righteousness and peace. Therefore, fellow children of the heavenly father, let us reap the harvest of hardship. Amen