Why the Whoopin?

Sunday Night Bible Study Recap
March 5, 2006


I remember when I was a kid and I got in trouble in church. My mom was in the choir, but that didn't save me from her wrath. She actually left her choir seat and had me meet her in the hall. She took me to a room and proceded to give me a spaking. When she was done, I remeber looking at her and saying, "that didn't hurt." She said, "do you want me to do it again." I forced out a cry and said, "No, no. It hurt. It hurt."

Now, I don't remeber what I did to deserve that discipline, but I know I deserved it. I never received discipline I didn't deserve (although, one time, when I lived in Africa (*chuckle*) I almost got in trouble for eating the last pieces of a special candy that we didn't get much of over there, which I didn't eat, until my mom smelled the peanut butter on my sister's breath and not mine...)

See, parents my get it wrong sometimes, but God never does. And that's what we're talking about here. Why the Whoopin? What is the purpose of discipline from God?

Think back to the most memorable trouble you've ever gotten in to. I love hearing stories of creative punishments, especially now that I'm a parent, and the reason those punishments were given. Typically, why are we punished or disciplined? Because we have done something wrong. We have broken some stated code of rules/code of conduct. When God disciplines us it is because of the same things. We have broken his established rules.

But that's not the purpose of discipline. We are disciplined because we do something wrong, but for another purpose...so that we know that it's wrong and don't want to do it again.

But sin is fun...and the consequences that we know we will face don't keep us from sinning for very long. We have to desire holiness. And holiness is a process. Discipline helps us move toward holiness.

Galatians 5:17-26 shows a contrast that leads us to deserving the whoopin'. See, our flesh is fighing with the Spirit for control of our lives. All those things we want to do that go against the spirit (immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.) Our flesh sets itself against the spirit.

Now the spirit offers these things to our life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentelness, faithfulness, and self-control.

Godly dicipline leads us away from the flesh and toward the spirit. But the flesh is so attractive, and we keep going back to it. Why?

Jeff Bridges quotes Jay Adams in Pursuit of Holiness (a good book that I recommend):
"we were born sinners, but it took practice to develop our particular styles of sinning. The old life was disciplined toward ungodliness."

Bridges goes on to say: "christians tend to sin out of habit. It is our habit to look out for ourselves instead of others, to retaliate when injured in some way, and to indulge the appetites of our bodies. It is our habit to live for ourselves and not for God. When we become Christians, we do not drop this all overnight. In fact, we will spend the rest of our lives putting off these habits and putting on habits of holiness." (if you want a theological term, this is called sanctification.)

And there it is.


The purpose of Discipline.


Holiness.

God disciplines us to make us more like Christ. To reflect Christ and therefore comform to the image of God.

Discipline is no fun, but if you want the peace, joy, love, hope that God promises, you have to be open to the discipline that God wants to give to you to develop those characteristics.

So often we want to hear from God. But do we really want to hear what he has to say? Are we willing to hear the discipline? We usually just want to hear the "beaches and sunshine" aspect of blessing from God without being willing to hear discipline.

I challenge you to be open to the discipline of God. It won't be easy, but it will produce Godly character. If we truly want to be holy as He is holy, we must be willing to hear from Him, even when it means that He's trying to break us, scatter us, and make us depend on nothing but him.

Welcome discipline as it leads to holiness.