Identity is a complicated issue in current culture. In many ways, we are in crisis mode, not knowing what our identity is or how to craft it both individually and as a culture. Part of the reason for this is because we are so adverse to pain. Pain is seen as inherently wrong. We seek comfort and, more worrying, we can achieve it. For in this place of comfort we have found that it solves no problems. Mental health is epidemically problematic, even though we are more comfortable than ever. We, like Solomon, have learned that everything is vanity in the end. To whom can we turn?
“Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
Hebrews 12:3-12
‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.’
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? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Do you identify as a child of God? I’ll make two points today. The first is that identity is something that is given to us, not something that we craft. When God made us, He defined who we were and what we were made for. This is a huge blessing because there is no question of whether or not we are valuable by some finite standard. No, by the eternal truth of God we have His image and are inherently valuable thereby.
The second point is that the blessing of being a child of God comes with the added benefit of being Fathered by Him. Also to our benefit, God Fathers us through discipline. This biblical paradigm is dreadfully foreign to our modern “sensibilities”. It feels like a contradiction to be totally loved and yet heavily disciplined by the same person. But God does exactly that. And why? Because we are sons. And sons are disciplined in order to share in their Father’s inheritance. To be ready to receive it when the time comes. What is God’s inheritance? Holiness. In the end, it is the process of discipline that makes us legitimate children of God. Question: do you want to be a child of God? Not, “do you want to be saved” but rather “do you want to be disciplined?” Praise God it is for our good in holiness.