The Nature of Sin, Pt 9: Discipline
Hebrews 12:4-11 4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” 7Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. 12Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13“Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
James 1:2-4 2Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
It is not commonly spoken of from the pulpit, but fairly often spoken in believing circles that life’s difficulties are the punishment for one’s sins. This is absolutely not true. It is true that consequences often follow poor choices in one’s life, but these consequences are not punishment for sin. They are just what happens when one makes bad decisions. But when we read verses like Hebrews 12:4-12 the conclusion we can draw is exactly that the Lord punishes and rebukes his children. This is of course because we have all had fathers who punished us to a greater or lesser degree, and we certainly didn’t think we were being loved at the time.
Let’s understand something here: the word ‘discipline’ has a different meaning in Greek than it does in English. In English it does mean punishment as when one makes a mistake, but in Greek it more properly means ‘train up a child’. It has been translated ‘discipline’ but as often as not also translated ‘chasten’, ‘chastise’, or ‘teach’ which are more educationally related. If we take the Greek meaning in mind, the metaphor being used in Hebrews comes more in line with the ‘testing of your faith’ used in James. Now the idea being expressed is not punishment but more exactly ‘training in righteousness’.
We all would like our lives to be easy; we’d like to set out upon it early, have everything fall our way, and end up either rich or famous, probably both, and pass everything off to our kids at an age that has three digits in it. But that seldom happens, and the question often asked is, “Why do I have to go through this stuff?” the answer to that question is also in the Bible where Paul writes,
Romans 8:28-29 28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…
If God’s purpose is for things to work out for our benefit, and if we find ourselves griping that the struggle of life seems much too difficult then what the heck is going on? There’s an adage that gives the answer:
When you know what you have done is wrong, punishment is not so painful because it feels deserved and serves to improve you. More often, though, we don't properly connect the action with the consequence, and all hope of improvement is lost. (Unknown)1
So let’s think about this for a minute: If God is wanting things to work out for our good that implies that He uses the circumstances of life to teach us how to be more like His Son. But if we are not paying attention….. Dear reader the very fact that you are reading this is a probable indication that God has a call on your life. He wants you to be like His Son. Yes, you can be like Jesus. How is that even possible, you ask? God said, “Be holy as I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44). Having accepted Christ as our Savior, the entire rest of our life is spent being sanctified, that is, is spent being trained in how to be holy. So when Hebrews talks about treating hardship as disciple it means to learn from it. That’s how we gradually become more and more like Jesus.
But that is hard to do, mostly because we don’t realize what is happening; we don’t connect the action with the consequence. I imagine that you have a person who is the ‘bestest’ of friends and that you occasionally sit down over coffee and talk about how things are going well, or not going well. And you have said to that person, “Why is this happening?” And if that friend is the ‘bestest’ he or she will be honest with you, and together you work through the struggle. Did you know you can do that with God too? You can be that intimate with Him; you can ask why things happen the way they do, and He will answer. It’s called prayer.
And prayer is necessary when we ‘face trials of many kinds.’ I would not propose that anyone can face trials with joy. It is part of our human nature to gripe when things don’t go our way. But we actually should face them with joy because God is offering us an opportunity to grow in holiness through those struggles. Did we injure anyone during that trial? Here is an opportunity to seek reconciliation through repentance. That is growing in holiness. Did we sin during that trial; did we cheat, steal, or behave un-righteously? Here is an opportunity to grow in holiness. Are we blaming someone for that trial? Maybe the trial is a result of our own sin-nature and God is using the trial to expose that area of weakness so we can bring it to Him for healing. The jist of all this is that every single experience in our lives, whether good or bad, is an opportunity to grow in holiness. Let’s not waste the opportunity.