grace & discipline

I've been thinking a lot about grace and discipline the last few months. I need both in my life a lot; I think the lack of both has contributed to a lot of the bad things that have happened in my life the last several years, and just about all of my readers have been on the receiving end of me not being disciplined in my words or actions.

At the start, grace and discipline seem diametrically opposed, and in many ways they are. Discipline gives you a structure and a set of rules to live by, and grace gives you freedom to do as you wish. But you have to walk the line between the two just as much as you have to let both work very hard.

God hates religion. He desires ourselves and our love, as Peter has been working out so eloquently the last few days. Our faith in God is not a series of payments we make to earn our way back to God, but it is a gift that God blesses us with. Yet the temptation to talk to ourselves in terms of moralistic works-based theology is overwhelming, as Tim Keller brilliantly expounds on. The temptation to treat ourselves moralistically-- to say, "Matthew, you screwed it up again and you just need to try harder to make it right,"-- is always lurking below the surface. Keller often says that you can disobey God in two ways: the traditional hedonistic way, or the way in which you do good works but you trust in those works rather than in the grace of the Gospel.

But grace needs discipline to work well, and this is the mystery I've been exploring lately. Discipline represents the deadest of dead works, the self-flagellating moralism that cannot save you. Yet, as Eugene Peterson says:

Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There's no life in the bark. It's dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows and grows and grows. If you take the bark off, it's prone to disease, dehydration, death.

So, yes, the church is dead but it protects something alive. And when you try to have a church without bark, it doesn't last long. It disappears, gets sick, and it's prone to all kinds of disease, heresy, and narcissism.

Peterson is specifically referring to the complaint that the church is "dead" and thus worthless for us to bother with, but I still really like the idea of bark to understand discipline and grace. The disciplines that I take part in-- prayer, fasting, reading the Bible, going to church, singing to Jesus-- are structures and bark that protects the grace of the Gospel growing within me. And with that understanding, I think, grace can have the power to penetrate the deepest parts of my life.

At the heart of things, I sin because I don't believe the Gospel. When I let my desire to be liked by others or my desire to control my own life take precedence in my life, I worship an idol and don't trust the grace of Christ to save me. I can even commit idolatry when I rely on my good works, my good image, or my desire to earn my salvation. But when I repent and trust in Jesus, I can admit without fear where I am broken because my hope, my identity, and my salvation are all found in Him. And from that grace, then, I can build up disciplines.