“CHILDREN OF GOD”
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 16)
August 21, 2016
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as
sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
Hebrews 12:7 (ESV)
If you’ve ever been a parent, I’m sure you’ve heard it at one time or
another: “Why can’t you be more like So-and-So’s parents? They let
him stay out as late as he wants to, and they buy him whatever he
wants.” So-and-So’s parents are really something, aren’t they? If
you’re enough of a sucker, you could almost become convinced that
you’re one of the meanest parents who ever lived. It’s not until
we’re older that we begin to appreciate what our parents made us do
and what they wouldn’t let us do, as well as the consequences that
they administered when we did what we weren’t supposed to do or failed
to do what we were supposed to do. Did you noticed how I said that?
I deliberately used the word “consequences” when I could have used the
more familiar term, “punishment.” I did that for a reason, because we
are not talking here about punishment, but discipline. They both may
appear to be the same, but there is a world of difference between the
two. I would hope that no loving parent ever punishes his or her
children. You see, punishment has to do with retribution. You punish
someone to get even--to even the score. Discipline, on the other
hand, has to do with teaching. In fact, the word discipline means
“teaching,” just as the word disciple means “learner.” Loving parents
discipline their children, trying to get them to associate good
behavior with good experiences and bad behavior with bad experiences.
In this way parents teach their children to behave in a manner that
will benefit them and the people with whom they associate.
Like any loving parent, God disciplines His children. And being
typical children, we don’t always appreciate it. We see His
discipline as being harsh and unfair. We want to have a voice in
determining what happens in our lives. We look at the apparently
carefree lives of unbelievers and wonder why our lives can’t be just
as easy. The Epistle for today speaks of the hardships that we face
in life not as something to be avoided or dreaded, but as something to
be embraced and valued as the discipline of a loving Father--something
from which we can learn and something through which we can grow. With
the text before us as our guide, let’s try to rediscover two facts
about the hardships that we endure as the children of God: (fact
number 1) hardship is discipline and (fact number 2) discipline is
love.
The hardships that the child of God experiences in life are
discipline. You could say that they are spiritual exercise, since
they do for the soul what physical exercise does for the body. And
just what is that? For one thing, exercise evaluates. When you
exercise you find out what kind of shape you’re in. Can you walk that
distance? Can you run at a certain speed? Can you do a certain
number of sit ups, pushups, or leg lifts? Can you touch your toes
without bending your knees? I’m not going to ask any of you to answer
these questions because, quite frankly, I don’t want to answer them
myself. But the point is that you find the answer to these questions
when you begin to try to do these things. There are spiritual
exercises too. Is your faith in Christ strong enough to endure a
personal tragedy? Is your confidence in Christ strong enough to
endure the loss of money or property or loved ones? Can you enjoy the
material blessings that God showers upon you without neglecting the
spiritual ones? These questions can only really be answered as you
face these various situations. And that is a part of discipline.
But exercise doesn’t just evaluate your health; it also improves and
strengthens it. You become stronger by trying to do things that you
can’t do. That’s the whole point of exercise. By extending yourself
beyond your usual limits you eventually become strong enough to expand
those limits. You become able to do what you could not do before.
It’s the same way with spiritual exercise--spiritual discipline. We
look at a difficulty, a hardship, or a goal, and we say: “There is no
way that I could handle that!” But then we find ourselves in a
situation where we have no choice but to handle it, and it is then
that we discover--much to our surprise--that, by God’s grace, we can!
The spiritual discipline that comes our way by the hand of God
strengthens us in the faith, enabling us to draw more on the strength
of the slain and risen Christ to live in this world as His people.
I mentioned in the beginning that there is a difference between
punishment and discipline. Punishment is motivated by anger and
retribution; discipline is motivated by love. You don’t really care
about the behavior of people you don’t love, but if you really love
someone, you will care very deeply about how that person lives. You
will want to see that person grow in all respects: physically,
intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. If you see that person
developing habits that are not consistent with growth, you will
intervene in any way possible to change those habits. That’s why God
disciplines His children. He doesn’t seek revenge when His people do
wrong. His righteous anger against our sin has already been appeased
in the cross of His Son Jesus Christ. But He does lovingly seek to
steer His children in the right direction. And because people (even
God’s people) are pretty stubborn at times, the Lord sometimes has to
resort to using drastic measures to get their attention and to set
them on the right path, but He always deals with them in love. We
have seen the extent of His love for us in the cross of Jesus.
Looking at that perfect atoning sacrifice for human sin, is there any
reason for us to doubt that He loves us when we are disciplined?
Discipline is hard work. It’s a lot easier (and certainly less
stressful) to just let your children do whatever they want to do. You
avoid arguments that way. But that’s not love; that’s indifference.
God is certainly not indifferent toward us. He can’t be. He has too
much invested in us. The One who in love has sacrificed His one and
only Son to accomplish our forgiveness and salvation is still at work
in us, bringing us to a realization of what Christ has done for us and
how we are to respond to this undeserved grace. This is all for our
benefit, so that we may grow in His grace and be strengthened through
our fellowship with Him.
What God is saying to us in this passage of His Word is that as
children of God we don’t have to look at hardship as a sign of God’s
displeasure. He loves us. We are assured of that by the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. We are acceptable in the sight of God in spite of our
sin and our salvation is an accomplished fact, proclaimed in the
resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The hardship that God allows to
come into our lives is His loving discipline. He is at work in us,
molding us into the people that He has redeemed us to be in the
perfect life and innocent death of His Son and has called us to be in
the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. May that knowledge enable us to accept
the hardship that comes our way, receiving it as the good that it is,
as we follow our Savior on the way of the cross that leads through
suffering and ultimately to glory.
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in
you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and
strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our
world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able
ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is
faithful, and He will do it. Amen.