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August 26, 2007
C-Pentecost 13
Hebrews 12:1-13
Pastor Robert Raasch

God Disciplines Those He Loves

Jim is a middle aged man whose kidneys are failing.  He has to go through dialysis 3 times a week just to stay alive.  He makes the comment, “Pastor, why is God punishing me like this?”  Lisa is a mom with three children.  After 15 years of marriage, her husband decided that he didn’t want to be married to her any more.  He ran off with his secretary.  Lisa says to you, “What did I do to deserve this?”  Gary has been out of a job for 9 months.  At first he handled it pretty well.  He trusted that God had a plan for his life.  But lately the whole thing has been getting him down.  He says to you, “Why is God doing this to me?  It’s just not fair!”

My friends if you were counseling these people, what would you say to them?  What comfort, what words of wisdom would you give them?  Or for that matter, maybe it’s not other people who are dealing with these situations.  Maybe the circumstances of your life have you wondering, “God, why are you putting me through this?  Why does my life have to be so hard?” My friends, if you’ve ever found yourself questioning why God would allow you to endure such a trial in your life, then take heart, because in our text for today the inspired writer to the Hebrews offers us some words of hope.  This morning/evening we look to the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, as we consider the theme:

The Lord Disciplines Those He Loves

Now, in order for us to get a grip on this whole idea of discipline, we need to first understand that discipline does not equal punishment.  What do I mean by that?  Well, so often when something bad happens to us, we’re tempted to think, “God is punishing me.”  You realize that’s not at all illogical to think that—for a number of reasons.  First, we know that God sees and hears everything we say and think and do.  Secondly, we know that he is the ultimate judge of our behavior.  And so when we fail to live up to his standards, it’s only natural to think that he’s upset with us and he’s going to punish us.  The flip side of that equation is also true, namely if something bad happens to us, it is only natural to think that it’s because we did something to deserve it.  For example, if I wake up in a jail cell, it’s only natural to think, “I must have done something pretty bad last night to have earned this kind of punishment.”

Well, so it is with all kinds of hardships in life.  When the doctor says that the cancer is inoperable, when the EMT says that our loved one didn’t survive the crash, when our supervisor says that we don’t have a job anymore, there’s always going to be a part of us that feels like we deserve to be punished.  Do you know why that is?  Because the fact is, we do deserve to be punished!  That’s what our conscience tells us.  More importantly, that’s what God’s law, written in the Bible tells us.  God says, “The wages of sin is death.”  “The soul who sins is the one who will die.”  In other words, all the bad stuff that happens to people, the sickness, the pain, the death and heartache, the job loss and financial ruin—all of it, all of it—is only what we all had coming from a just and holy God.  It’s all what we earned from God.

But notice, I didn’t say it’s what we have coming to us.  I said it’s what he had coming to us.  You see, all that bad stuff is no longer what is in store for us.  Why not?  I think you know the answer to that.  The fact is, someone has deleted from our record all the sins that once earned God’s wrath and punishment.  When Jesus Christ took on all our sins and carried them to the cross, God, the righteous judge punished Jesus in our place.  God the Father put Jesus through something a lot worse than the loss of a job, worse than death of a child, worse than any depression and disfigurement of the body.  God put Jesus through hell, literally.  God punished every single one of your sins and mine through the crucifixion, more than that, through the absolute abandonment of his son on the Cross of Calvary.

My friends, do you realize what that means in terms of your life today?  It means that God can’t punish you for a single one of your sins—because he’s already punished Jesus for all those sins.  God can’t punish two people for the same sin.  That would be the credit card company coming to me and saying, “You need to pay this bill.”  And so I pay the bill.  But then the credit card company comes to my wife and says, “You need to pay the very same bill.”  She’d say, “My husband already paid that bill.”  “No, we’re going to make you pay it, too.”  Wait a minute that’s not right!

Well, so it is with God and us.  God can’t make us pay the bill that Jesus has already paid.  God can’t punish us for sins that have already been forgiven!  My friends, that’s the gospel.  Notice, it goes against what my conscience says, namely, that I should be punished.  The Gospel is God’s trump card.  It’s God’s final verdict.  It’s God saying, “Here’s the deal:  for Jesus’ sake, your sins are forgiven.  I’m holding nothing against you.  I love you more than you’ll ever fathom.  The only thing I really want for you is to keep you close to myself and one day take you to heaven. 

But wait a minute.  If that’s true, if really loves us with an unfathomable love, in fact, if he really is all powerful, then why does he sometimes allow bad things to happen to us?  If God is not punishing us, then what is he doing?  The answer:  he is disciplining us.  Our text says, “The Lord disciplines those he loves.”  Now, I realize that some would say, “that’s all just semantics.  Discipline, punishment.  What’s the difference?  It all feels the same to me.”  And to a certain extent, that’s true.  Both discipline and punishment hurt.  How does the writer to the Hebrews put it?  “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.”  Isn’t that the truth?  If the discipline doesn’t hurt, if it’s not regarded as something negative, it’s really not discipline.  If the spanking you give your child makes them giggle with delight, well, you can’t really call that discipline.

So, if both discipline and punishment hurt, then what’s the difference between the two?  The difference is found in the intended purpose for each.  The purpose of punishment is to make a person pay for his wrongs.  Punishment resides in the realm of justice.  You did something bad, now you must receive something bad.  Or to put it another way, justice always looks to the past.  This is what you did.  Now you have to make up for what you did. 

Discipline, on the other hand, looks forward.  Discipline is not about paying for our past sin.  Jesus has already done that.  Discipline is all about training us for the future.  And really, that’s the second key thought we want to take home today, namely, the purpose of God’s discipline is to train us.  In other words, God is always working to improve us, to make our faith stronger, to make us more Christ-like.  Sometimes God does that by allowing hardships to come into our lives.

Think about some of the familiar characters in the Bible—and how God used various trials to improve and train them.  When we first meet Joseph, he’s kind of a cocky arrogant, spoiled son of his father Jacob.  But after God allows him to be sold into slavery, accused of sexual assault and thrown into jail for a crime he didn’t commit, well, in the end, Joseph was molded into a man who not only trusts God’s plan for his life, but also is willing to forgive those brothers who sinned against him.  The Lord trained Joseph through those trials. 

Or you think of Moses.  At one time he looked to himself to single-handedly deliver his people from slavery in Egypt.  It’s only after God forces him to run for his life and spend 40 years living as a simple shepherd, that he is he prepared to lead the Children of Israel with an attitude of humility and faith.

My friends, you realize that God’s motive and his methods haven’t changed in 4000 years.  His motive is still love.  And his methods?  Well, God still uses some of the same trials and tribulations on us that he used on his early believers.  Sometimes it’s sudden financial set back.  Remember Job?  Lost all his livestock in one day.  Other times it’s health problems.  Think of Sarah who was unable to have a child for years, or the man who was born blind or the man who was paralyzed from birth, or the woman whose period never stopped—each one of these people faced a unique trial in their life.  A trial that God ultimately used to bring them closer to himself.  A trial that gave each one of these people an opportunity to trust in God and his Word.

You might say that God uses trials to serve one of two purposes.  On the one hand, God allows hardships into our lives to call us to repentance.  Sometimes it takes getting arrested for DWI or getting kicked off the team for breaking training rules, or having the bank foreclose on my house, before I am willing to admit, “Wait a minute.  I’ve got a problem.  I’m going down the wrong road.  God, you’ve got to help me.”  Sometimes, it takes a long hard trial to break down our selfish pride and lead us to turn to God for hope and forgiveness.  And really that’s the second and more important purpose God has for our trials, namely to lead us to lean on God, to trust in him for help and strength.  For then we can say with St. Paul, “When I’m weak, then I’m strong.”  In other words, when the hardships I face wear me down, then I’m forced to hang onto God’s words and promises and I’m stronger because of it.

Now, is that always easy?  No, sometimes it feels like God is stretching us beyond what we can bear.  Reminds me of the rehab I went through after I broke my leg.  I expect that a lot of you know what that’s like.  You know, when that sadist (otherwise known as a therapist) puts you through the wringer.  Stretching those ligaments to the point of pain.  But how’s the saying go?  “No pain, no gain.”  If that man hadn’t forced me to endure that pain, I wouldn’t be walking today.  That pain—limited, and directed by a knowledgeable expert who ultimately had my best interest in mind—that pain in the end served my long term good.  It brought blessings into my life, even if it’s something as minor as being able to chase a tennis ball around the court.  

Well, isn’t the same thing true of God and his training of us?  If the purpose of God’s discipline is to train us, then consequently, the result of God’s discipline will be blessings for us in time and eternity.  Isn’t that the point that the writer to the Hebrews makes here in our text?  He says, “Our fathers disciplined us for awhile as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness…it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

Do you see the end that God has in mind when he allows us to go through hard times in life?  God’s goal is to refine us, to burn off the impurities, to make our faith stronger, our hearts purer, our lives holier.  God does have a purpose for our pain, and in his hands, he will accomplish good things in our lives.

In fact, when you step back and see the big picture, you and I may find ourselves, not only thanking God for all good things he’s given us, but thanking him for the hard times as well.  Isn’t that what St. Paul meant when he said in Romans 5, “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character and character hope.”?

Isn’t that the point that WELS song writer Michael Schroeder made when he wrote the lyrics to the song, Send the Storm?  In that song the writer is basically asking God to send trials into his life to keep him close to God.  That artist appreciated what God was doing through the hardships in his life.