The Cost of Discipleship - "Coming to Grips" - Part 1

“Coming To Grips With God’s Discipline Of The Believer” Erwin Lutzer Part 1 Though God is the Father of all men, he has a special filial relationship to those who have been born into His family through faith in Christ Jesus. Paul, the apostle, encourages us to develop intimacy with our Heavenly Father. “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 15). That God disciplines His children is not in doubt, but how He does is not always clear to us. We are especially confused when we try to find a link between a particular transgression and God’s disciplinary response. When a couple, whom I shall call Sally and John, had a deformed baby born to them, they asked a question that we all would likely ask in their situation, “What did we do to deserve this?” Eventually, they accepted their bitter disappointment as a judgment from God because they had had a premarital relationship. The chickens were coming home to roost, they thought. Yet, when the baby grew up to be a special blessing despite his handicap, they wondered whether they were right in their original assumption about the discipline of God. One Christian woman I know chose to ignore the counsel of the elders in her church and decided to divorce her husband on the grounds of incompatibility. Within a month she took sick and nearly died. She interpreted the illness as a direct judgment from God for her rebellion. But because she fully recovered, she later doubted whether this was God’s discipline or not. Though we as Christians are opposed to the pantheistic doctrine of Karma, we do believe in a general law of cause and effect. Paul did write, “Do not be deceived. God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:8). This, we think, gives us the right to interpret the tragedies of life as a judgment for specific sins and failures. Yet, when we stop to think of how and when God disciplines us, we immediately face some rather puzzling questions. First, is He not inconsistent? In both instances given above, we can think of other people who were guilty of the same sins and failures, yet they did not experience God’s disciple (or at least they did not have the same tragedies come to them). As parents we have been taught to treat all of our children alike; the experts tell us that there must be consistent discipline. But our Heavenly Father seems to disregard this fundamental rule. Document the lives of both His faithful and unfaithful servants and virtually no pattern of discipline is readily discernable. (But we must remember, Isaiah 55:8, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord.”) A Second question: how can one be sure of the connection between a particular sin and the discipline? In each of the instances mentioned above, the people involved had other sins or weaknesses in their lives that could have accounted for the discipline. The relationship between sin and its consequences is not always easy to detect. To probe this topic we must study God’s discipline from a broad perspective, and then narrow our focus to try to answer the puzzling questions we have raised. What is the basis of discipline? The people to whom the book of Hebrews was written were experiencing persecution; indeed, they were on the verge of having to die for their faith. They had joyfully endured the seizure of their property and identified themselves as prisoners of the Lord. This meant increased persecution. But it was becoming wearisome; some wanted to give up their Christian witness. God spoke to them this way: “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons” (Hebrews 12:4-8). The text could not be clearer; the basis of discipline is sonship. Every one of God’s sons is disciplined; indeed scourging is proof of sonship. We usually think that God should prove His love by delivering us from the hardships of life. Actually, the opposite is the case; these trials prove His love. “You should be exceedingly glad on this account, though now for a little while you may be distressed by trials and suffer temptations, so that the genuineness of your faith may be tested, (your faith which is infinitely more precious than the perishable gold which is tested and purified by fire. This proving of your faith is intended to redound to your praise and honor and glory when Jesus Christ is revealed” (I Peter 1:6-7 Amp.). All sin must be paid for. Those who reject the sacrifice of Christ end up bearing the weight of their own sin. And because there is no human suffering that can pay the debt, the condemnation goes on forever. But those who accept the sacrifice of Christ for themselves are shielded from His wrath. The doctrine of grace teaches that we do not have to get what we deserve! Thus, although God punishes His enemies, He chastises His children. We must think of this discipline as correction, not condemnation. The Greek word used in the text of Hebrews 12:4-8 is paideia pais, which means child), and refers to instruction. Charles Bridges wrote, “The same hand – but not the same character – gives the stroke to the godly and ungodly. The scourge of the Judge is widely different from the rod of the Father.” Our Heavenly Father is so consistent in His discipline that not even His beloved Son escaped the scourging that all sons need as they develop toward maturity. “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation….” (Heb.5:9). What this means will be clarified in a future section. Clearly, there are no exceptions! Every son whom the Father receives is scourged. Far from being inconsistent, our Heavenly Father takes great pains not to overlook any of His children. From what we’ve seen so far, I believe two implications follow: first, discipline is a sign of sonship. If we are without discipline, we are illegitimate. We are not born of God the Father but only claim to be. In practical terms this means that if someone says he or she is a Christian and lives in sin without any form of discipline, such a person is probably deceived. Since God holds earthly fathers accountable for punishing and admonishing rebellious children, we cannot expect that He would do anything less. Discipline is not an optional course in God’s curriculum; it is required. Just as an oak tree cannot grow without wind, so we cannot become mature without the benefit of scourging. Second, discipline is a sign of love. We usually think just the opposite, namely, that discipline is a sign of God’s anger and displeasure. “Why does God turn against me when I need Him most,” we ask, as if God’s primary motivation is a morbid desire to make life difficult for us and “even the score” at every turn. But God’s discipline toward His children is not motivated by revenge, but there is no doubt that God desires to glorify Himself through the lives of His children. But He does not arbitrarily give us difficult circumstances simply to please Himself. We must not lose sight of the fact that discipline is actually for our good. We’ve all told our children, “This spanking hurts me more than it does you!” I’m not sure that this is true (at least my children didn’t believe me!), but the sentiment expressed is that no responsible parent disciplines his children arbitrarily. It is done with the best interest of the child in mind. One woman, who when told that her tragedies were the result of God’s love for her, responded by saying, “I wish He wouldn’t love me so much!” But God loves all of us equally in Christ. Some are called upon to suffer more than others, but they should not attribute it to the belief that “God love me too much.” Life is filled with injustices and tragedies that appear to come indiscriminately to the godly as well as the ungodly. It is better to try to learn the lessons God has in mind for us than to blame our lot in life to a higher degree of love. What is important is to realize that everything which does come to believers first passes through God’s loving hands. The basis of discipline is sonship. Our sufferings are appointed for our good and God’s glory.