Heb. 12:4-11
It was 1980 and the United States ice hockey team was in the Olympics playing the Soviet Union. Michael Kruger writes, “I was in my living room, and I was running around screaming my head off because, with about a minute to go, we were doing the unthinkable. Here was this pesky little group of college kids from America playing the greatest ice hockey team in the entire world. There was no chance of winning this game. And yet we were winning – with about a minute left. The commentator cried, ‘Do you believe in miracles?’” Kruger continues:
“Then – ‘YES!’ We had won.
“Was it just sheer blind, dumb luck that the team managed to pull it off?” He asked.
“Of course not.”
“A lot of it came down to the coach, Herb Brooks, and what he did with his players. Brooks knew he didn’t have the best team in the world. But he became famous for his grueling fitness routines as he pushed his team right to their limits. His was a simple philosophy: we may not be the best team, but we will be the fittest. One of the reasons the US team beat the Russians is that they simply wouldn’t stop skating. That was because of the training they had received” (From Hebrews for You).
In this section of Hebrews 12 (vv.4-11), the writer explains how hard training helps not only in sports but also in the Christian life. The word our author uses is ‘discipline.’
Of course, the word discipline is not a friendly term today; however, when rightly understood we can discern its benefit. Kruger writes, “Now, let’s be honest: no one likes the word ‘discipline.’ We tend to think of ‘discipline’ as negative, while ‘training’ sounds positive. But they are two sides of the same coin.”
To demonstrate his point, he observes a coach working with his team in practice, noting:
“A coach may make his team run as a punishment because they did something wrong. If someone shows up late, he gives them five laps round the field. It is a correction of bad behavior. But he may also make them run to build their endurance in general. Later in the same training session, the whole team is running laps around the field – not because they have done anything wrong but as part of their training. If you were looking at that training session from a distance and just watching players run around on the field, you wouldn’t know which reason was motivating the coach. Is he disciplining them or training them? In a sense it doesn’t matter. It is all to make them better runners and better team members.”
That is the same perspective we should have on God’s discipline. Sometimes he disciplines us because we do wrong things; sometimes he brings discipline just to make us better runners. It is not always clear which of these God is doing. But in a sense, it doesn’t matter. We can trust in our good Father, who knows what we need. He is making us fitter and more prepared to run the race.
I hope you can join us this Sunday morning as we look at the love of God for us in disciplining us for his Kingdom’s sake and our good. See you Sunday morning. Are you ready to run?
Coram Deo,
Pastor Wayne
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