Christian Self-Discipline

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There was an A-list Hollywood actor, whose name you would recognize if I told you, who a few years ago got into a spat with a radio talk show host, and they both hurled insults back and forth at each other. And one of the insults from the actor to the radio host was, yeah, well, anybody could do what you do. It doesn’t require any intelligence or any talent.

Somebody gave him the opportunity to prove that, gave him a slot to talk on the radio, so he decided he was going to come in and host his own radio show, at least for a night. You can probably guess how it went if I tell you that there are still copies of that that circulate on other radio shows about how painful it was to listen to, how painful it was for the man who tried to host the show, couldn’t get any callers, or if he did, people thought it was fun to call in, and when he went to them to hang up, He ends up reading a book on the air. And I know it’s not necessarily nice to chuckle at somebody else’s misfortune, but given the fact that the man has a reputation for having a pretty big ego, I’ll admit I’ve chuckled a little bit listening to it when it was played.

But he learned a valuable lesson, I hope. He learned a valuable lesson that there are some things in life you can’t just come into never having done it before and expect to be perfect at it. We see that in all sorts of things we do.

I’ve probably told you before about the one and only time I ran a 5k. The one and only time. It has never happened again.

My dad is a marathon runner and years ago he was prepping for I think the Oklahoma City Marathon and asked me, you want to run this 5k with me in Norman for fun as I’m getting ready? Sure, why not? I was about 22 and I thought, I don’t have to do anything to prepare for this.

I just go run. I nearly died. It was awful.

And if I’ve told you this story before, I’ve told you that I was the last person across the finish line who was not in either a wheelchair or a stroller. So that tells you how that went. I realize you cannot just come into even a 5k.

I know it’s not a marathon, but you can’t come into a 5k with no preparation and expect that it’s going go well. Find that with all sorts of things we do. You know, we get better at things over time if we’re disciplined and keep doing it.

When my grandfather died, we ran across a tape that he had of my very first sermon I ever preached. And sometimes they’re still train wrecks, but this was a massive pile up, like one of those things that’s on the news and they call the EPA because there’s stuff spilling everywhere. It was awful, but I like to think maybe I’ve improved over the years doing things, doing it repeatedly.

Something as simple as cooking breakfast. First time I tried to make fried eggs for Jojo. It was a mess, but I’ve gotten where they look edible now, through practice, through discipline, through doing it over and over and over. And Paul writes in 1 Corinthians about the need to be consistent and be disciplined in the things that really matter, specifically talking about our Christian life, the need for self-discipline, the need for consistency, the need to keep at what we’re supposed to do.

In chapter 9, if you’ll turn there with me in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, we’ve been doing this study through the book of 1 Corinthians, and this is where we find ourselves, is this passage where he talks about needing to discipline ourselves. And he uses himself actually as the example. So as you’re turning there, once you do find it, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word.

If you can’t find 1 Corinthians 9 or don’t have your Bible, it will be on the screen up here for you. But we’re going to read the last four verses of this chapter, just a short passage this morning. I can’t guarantee that that means a short message, but it’s a short passage.

We’re going to look at these four verses at the end of the chapter, starting in verse 24. And here’s what Paul says, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?

Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

Therefore I run in such a way as not without aim. I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. And you may be seated.

So if you’ve been with us the last few weeks, you probably recall that what Paul has been talking about is the effectiveness of his witness, his credibility as he goes to places like Corinth and preaches Jesus. He wants to ensure that he is living in such a way that he has credibility with people who are expected to listen to this. Because we’ve all probably seen people over the years that proclaim one thing with their mouths and live another way the rest of the time.

And which are we more inclined to listen to and take seriously from them? Or at least which do we really think they believe? If there’s a disconnect between their actions and their words, we tend to assume they actually believe what their actions show and not their words.

And that’s particularly troubling when it’s from Christians who proclaim the gospel, who proclaim a transformed life in Christ and then show anything but in a consistent way in the way that they live. We need to keep this in mind that Paul’s talking about his witness if we go all the way back through chapter 9. He’s been talking about his witness, he’s been talking about the things that he does and does not do, even the things that right for him to do, but he says for the sake of making sure that others hear the gospel without obstacles, I’m willing to put aside these things that I’m entitled to in order so that my witness with these people has credibility.

Keep that in mind because if we don’t keep that in mind, if we don’t keep that context of what we’ve been studying already, and we just look at these four verses on their own, it could be misunderstood easily as though Paul is talking about needing to earn his salvation or being in fear of losing his salvation if he doesn’t perform well enough. But again, he’s been talking about the effectiveness of his witness for Christ. He’s been talking about his overwhelming desire to reach people with the gospel. And so Paul, we see here, is talking about this competition, but he’s in competition with himself to be the most faithful witness that he can be.

He’s in competition with himself to ensure that in everything he does, he speaks and acts in a way that will give the gospel message the credibility it deserves. He talks throughout this passage about a prize and pursuing a prize. If you weren’t here last week, we went through several verses where Paul five times uses the word win.

He wants to win, but it’s not a selfish winning because every time the object of that winning that he’s talking about is somebody or some group of people where he says, I want to win them. I want to win the Jews. I want to win the Gentiles.

I want to win the down and outs of society. He’s talking about bringing people to Jesus. They were the prize.

His prize is both the people and the privilege of being a witness to them. So we need to keep that in mind so we don’t think that this is just him pursuing influence or pursuing power or having a good reputation. It’s all about reaching people for Jesus Christ. And he describes how he runs well in this race through faithfulness and self-discipline.

These are some things for us to keep in mind as we’re going through this passage. He points out to us, though, throughout this entire thing, and really in the passages we’ve looked at in previous weeks, that our Christian walk and witness require self-discipline. They require self-discipline.

If you and I as Christians, and I am speaking specifically this morning to those who’ve trusted Christ as their Savior, if you’re listening to me and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, we are thankful you’re here first of all. And I think there’ll be some things that I’ll have to share with you that will be pertinent to you as well. But this is not a message about just try harder, do better, and you’ll be accepted by the Lord.

This is a message for those who’ve already trusted Christ as their Savior, and what we’re supposed to do as a result of that. And if we as Christians are walking in a way that there’s no self-discipline, we just do whatever we feel like, whenever we feel like, it’s never going to bode well for the witness that we have in the world. Because even if the world does the same things that we’re doing, they know we’re not supposed to do those things.

They may do them themselves, but look at us and say, wait a minute, there’s a disconnect between what you’re saying and how you’re living. And so there’s this prize that he describes in verse 24. It’s not a participation trophy that we automatically receive.

You know, sometimes you participate in a competition and you get an award just for showing up. That’s not what this is. He says in verse 24, Do you not know that those who run a race all run, but only one receives the prize?

He’s telling them, he’s telling the Corinthians and by extension us, That just by showing up to the race and being Christians, we don’t receive the prize that he’s talking about, which again is not eternal life. It’s this opportunity to be the witnesses God created us to be. And that’s not just automatic.

You and I, unfortunately, don’t just automatically have credibility with people all the time, just because we say so. But he says, of those who run, they all run the race, but only one receives the prize. Now, he’s using an analogy here to say somebody has to run well in order to gain the prize.

Don’t misunderstand the analogy and don’t take it too far by thinking, oh, it’s a competition among us, and only one of us gets to be the witness. Because he’s telling this to a group of people. He’s telling all of them to run in the way that they’re supposed to.

Because he’s making the point that people don’t win in a race just by showing up. They win because they run well. And so the message here is not that we’re competing with each other, and it’s not that only one of us can win.

It’s letting us know there has to be some effort put in. If we want to be an effective witness for Christ, if we want to be somebody who points other people to Jesus Christ, with the words we say, yes, with our witness and sharing the gospel with people, if we want to be somebody that makes an impact on other people for Christ by the way we live our lives as well, There’s some effort that’s involved and required in that. We have to work for it a little bit.

And so he says there at the end of verse 24, run in such a way that you may win. He says, put in the work. Put in the effort.

Practice. Conduct yourself like you intend to win this thing. I help with the, there’s not an athletic bone in my body, as you probably guessed from the 5K story.

I like things like the academic team. Now, some people like Caleb can do both, And I’m impressed by that. But I help with the academic team here at the school at the church.

And one thing I keep telling them is that you practice the way you want to perform. Because it’s not just them. This happens with teams all the time.

You know, you come into the beginning of a year and you kind of goof off at practice a little bit. And it’s fun and games. And then you go to your first meet and you get slaughtered.

That’s because you didn’t put in the work. But then this team, they put in the work after that and they get better. And suddenly they compete better because they practiced.

They put in the work and they practiced the way they wanted to perform. He uses a running analogy. Run in such a way like you intend to win.

Even my dad would tell you he has run marathons. And he doesn’t go to win, he goes to finish. For him, finishing is winning.

And so consequently, he doesn’t come first in the marathons ever. He doesn’t even come in the top hundred in these marathons because he’s not running with the intent to be first. He’s running with the intent to finish, and so that’s what he accomplishes. And I’m not knocking that at all.

That’s a huge accomplishment, especially for a man in his 60s. Yes, especially with my performance in the race in my 20s. It did not work well.

It’s a huge accomplishment, but you can see that there are people there at these races that they’re there to win, and they want it, And they’ve trained for it, and they’re hungry for it. You can see the look in their eyes. And those are the people that are coming at the beginning of the pack.

And I think that’s what Paul wants us to understand here. Run in such a way that you may win. It’s not talking about winning our salvation.

It’s talking about winning our witness. If you want to represent Christ well to people, if you want to point others to Christ well, then put in the effort. Do it consistently.

Don’t make it just a Sunday morning hobby. And by the way, I’m not preaching just to you, I’m preaching to myself too. This is for all of us.

Because it’s all of our job, everybody in here, if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ. But we’ve got to put the work in and do it consistently. If we want to win people to Jesus Christ, we’ve got to go out prepared to win them. And with the intent of winning them.

Now Paul was writing to a church where a lot of these people came from pagan backgrounds. And we’ve already seen through 1 Corinthians some of the corruption that they brought in with them, some of the old habits that they carried with them. And a lot of these people were fairly new Christians.

And there was this lure of the old pagan lifestyle. Now for a church like this one, the issues may be a little bit different. I doubt anybody in here is wanting to go hang out at the pagan temples and be involved in wild parties and immoral behavior.

at least the ones who are here consistently that I know, that doesn’t seem to be an issue. Where we would talk about worldly behavior and that being a temptation and a lure. But especially if you’ve been a believer for a lot of years, the thing that would draw us away from being a faithful witness is subtler, but every bit as destructive and it’s the lure of comfort and complacency.

Sometimes we’re not the witnesses we need to be. and again I’m talking to myself as well but sometimes we’re not the witnesses we need to be and intend to be because we’re just comfortable and we’re complacent we’re just okay with how things are you know things are going alright in our lives, things are going alright in the church things are just good and we get comfortable and that’s not an indictment of central specifically, that’s an indictment of much of what calls itself Christianity in the western world We look at our brothers and sisters in other countries today, especially where there’s persecution, and we see churches that are on fire. We see churches that are exploding and growing, and it’s because nothing’s okay for them, so they can’t focus on, I’m just comfortable, I’m good.

They recognize what time it is. And so Paul draws our attention to the discipline and the determination that top athletes have when they’re preparing and competing, and uses this as a picture that I think we can understand. He says in verse 25, everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things.

He says in order to go out and compete in the games, they’re being self-controlled not just when they’re on the course, not just when they’re running, but the whole time they’re preparing. This is a full-time job for them to prepare. And even today, top athletes are that way.

You see gymnasts who don’t eat regular food like the rest of us ever because they’re exercising that self-control in order to be better equipped for their sport. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. There’s a drivenness there.

There’s a willingness to make the sacrifices of whatever we need to sacrifice over here in order to reach the prize because they’ve decided the prize is worth it. And if they’ll do this for earthly prizes, if the athletes will do this for earthly prizes, we should commit ourselves even more so for eternal prizes. Because he says here that they compete in verse 25 in order to receive a perishable wreath.

They would wear these crowns made of leaves that were a sign of honor. And Paul doesn’t say that to minimize that. When you earned that wreath, you had shown you were at the top of your game.

You had really accomplished something. But ultimately, he says it is a perishable wreath they run for. And we run for an imperishable one.

We run for one that’s eternal. And again, here he’s not talking about earning his salvation by running the race. He’s talking about the prize of the people that he has been a witness to that are going to be with him in heaven someday because of the salvation that they’ve received, the salvation they’ve been told about, because he ran in such a way as being able to witness to them. You and I can run and win gold medals.

We could compete in the Olympics like they were doing. I don’t know, some of you kids still have time in front of you. I think that ship has sailed for me and probably most of us.

But we could be at the top of our field in something. And we could work hard and we could amass wealth and power and prestige and influence and all the things that the Corinthians loved. But all of those things die with us.

We don’t get to take our Olympic medals into the kingdom. We don’t get to take our wealth or our position into the kingdom. What we can take with us are those that we have told the gospel of Jesus Christ. And those are our imperishable wreath.

And so the comparison he’s making here between the wreaths is that if they’re willing to run so hard after something that really just lasts for a little while and is gone, then you and I, recognizing we have something far more precious and far more long-lasting to run after, we ought to be every bit as committed as they are. And so Paul argued that we can’t allow ourselves to get comfortable and complacent. We go into verse 26 and he says, Therefore I run in such a way as not without aim.

Paul’s not just out running around. He’s not out running aimlessly. That’s what he means here when he says not without aim.

I don’t know if you’ve ever gone on a run or a walk and really didn’t care where you were going. You were just going. I don’t ever do that on walks, but I do that on car rides sometimes.

I just want to get out and drive. I’m not going anywhere in particular. And when I do that, I’m usually looking at scenery and I’m going a lot slower than I even do on a normal basis.

Paul says, I’m not doing that. I’m not out sightseeing. This is not a hobby.

I’m not running aimlessly. He’s talking about keeping the goal in mind, heading straight toward the goal. That makes me think of the day Jojo was born, was diagnosed with the heart condition we didn’t know she had. And she was born at Ada.

They didn’t have the facilities to take care of her there. And so they set a helicopter down from OU Children’s to pick her up and take her up there. Charles is still in the hospital, having had a C-section that day.

And I said, I’m going to Oklahoma City. They had to tell me, do not try to beat the helicopter there. And the reason they had to tell me that, which I’m not that dumb, but apparently they’ve had parents get in wrecks trying to beat the helicopter there because they’ve got that focus, that goal in mind of I’ve got to get to my child.

now that’s a bad idea trying to race a helicopter in a vehicle but I think that’s the kind of determination and this kind of single-minded focus on where we’re going that we as believers need to have when paul says we run not without aim he’s talking about I I know where I’m going and nothing is going to deter me from getting there he kept his goal in mind and he didn’t waste his opportunities to serve the lord as a faithful witness he he uses this other example in verse 26 I box in such a way as not beating the air. And I’ve never been a boxer, but I’ve watched people box. I’ve watched people practice.

And I thank the Lord I’m not that punching bag. This is a lot of force, especially somebody that knows what they’re doing. It’s a lot of force behind those punches.

And when you’re in a boxing match, you want that force to go into your opponent. You want it to land where it’s supposed to be, where it’s going to have an impact. And if they, what did they call it?

Bobbing and weaving, Trying to avoid, if your opponent ducks and you’ve put all this effort into that punch and they duck and you end up hitting air, that’s a bunch of strength that could have gone into winning the competition that you have just wasted and dissipated into the air. Paul said, I’m not boxing that way. I’m not shadow boxing here and beating the air.

I’m making sure that every blow lands where it’s supposed to with maximum impact. What he’s talking about here, again, he’s using an analogy. He’s talking about not wasting his efforts.

and it’s so easy to get focused on things that do not have an eternal impact and when we do that we’re beating the air paul was serious here about his self-discipline he continued using that boxing metaphor to make the point he said I discipline my body and make it my slave that word discipline there in the greek means to hit below the eye it was a word that they would use in a boxing match when you’ve given somebody a black eye, hitting them in the face. He says, I do that to my body. Here he’s not preaching that you’ve got to beat yourself to death.

There’s a group of men in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado called the Penitentes that will practice whipping themselves as a form of self-punishment for their sins, believing that that carries some weight before the Lord. That’s not what Paul’s talking about here. Instead, he’s talking about treating his fleshly desires and his own will even as the opponent in this boxing match.

And he’s going to take what he wants and he’s going to take himself and show it who’s boss. Not talking about whipping himself physically, but talking about that level of self-discipline that says, I’m not going to be ruled by what I want and my desires and my fleshly impulses. Instead, I’m going to master those things, and I’m going to make them work for me as I serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And even as I tell you this, I recognize that this is an incredibly difficult thing to do.

This is the goal that we shoot for, whether we hit it or not. And we can look at that and say, well, Paul was sure militant about this, wasn’t he? There’s a reason for that.

And it comes in at the end of verse 27. He says, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. Being undisciplined could disqualify Paul from the thing that he wanted most in the world, which was to be a witness, an effective witness for Jesus Christ, to bring others to know him.

Paul recognized that if he did not exercise that self-discipline, it only takes one slip up in order to disqualify yourself from that ministry, to disqualify yourself from credibility in the minds of those you’re trying to witness to. How many people have we seen over the years shoot their credibility all to pieces preaching the gospel, sometimes having effective ministries that are reaching thousands of people and they let their guard down, they don’t exercise the self-discipline that they’re supposed to, and they make a sinful choice that tarnishes that credibility forever. Now, to you I want to say if you’ve made choices in your past that were not for the glory of God, That does not mean you can never be a witness.

That does not mean that you are disqualified from serving Him. There is always grace. There is always forgiveness.

There is always the opportunity to come back and serve Him faithfully from here on out. But what Paul is saying is, I don’t want to have to go down that road. I’d rather not have to go down the detour of disqualification and restoration.

It’s easier if I just am faithful to the Lord to start with. And I know many people that I’ve talked to that have said, yes, I lived a rough life, and then I came to the Lord or came back to the Lord later in life, and I’m thankful that He uses me. And God has given them wonderful testimonies, but I’ve spoken to them that they say, I wish, though, that I had chosen differently to begin with.

And that’s Paul’s point. I don’t want to do anything that’s going to cause me to lose even a single opportunity to be a witness for Christ. And so maybe you’ve had a rough past from here on out. run after Jesus Christ. Practice that Christian self-discipline to be prepared to serve Him from here on out, to not do anything else that’s going to disqualify you in somebody else’s eyes.

Now, I told you at the beginning, this is not just a try harder, be better kind of message, because there’s no hope in that. There’s no hope in that just being told, we’re all bad, you just got to try harder and do better. Have a nice evening.

No, there’s an answer here for how we’re able to do the thing that Paul calls us to do. Because elsewhere, the New Testament tells us, Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance, every weight, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. This is the running metaphor that Paul was using.

Paul is probably not the one who wrote this, but here in Hebrews 12, It’s the same metaphor. Let us run the race that is set before us. He says, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The key to Christian self-discipline is not self-righteousness and just trying to be better. The key to Christian self-discipline is to fix our eyes on Jesus. If we want to represent Jesus well, if we want to draw others to Jesus and point others to Jesus, if we want to be the witnesses that He intends us to be, there’s no better way for us to do that than to look to Jesus, to keep our eyes on Him all the time.

And so with that in mind, I look back over what Paul has said about running the race, about competing well. and I think for us as we look to Jesus we need to continually take stock of a few things what is my race what race am I running we know here the race we’re supposed to be running the race Paul is talking about as being a faithful servant of Jesus and a faithful faithful witness of him to others that’s the race we’re supposed to be running but I’d do well and you’d do well to ask for us to ask ourselves from time to time what race are we actually running what is it we’re actually running toward because if it’s anything other than that, we need to get back on the right race course. We need to ask ourselves, what is my prize?

For Paul, he says here the prize is the people that he’s having the opportunity to witness to. If our desire to be witnesses is motivated by anything else, if it’s motivated by financial interest, if it’s motivated by social connection, if it’s motivated by influence, if it’s motivated by anything other than a love for Jesus Christ and a compassion for the people we’re trying to win, our motives are misplaced. And we need to consider what the prize really is.

And how can I run well? By looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Looking to Jesus as the one who, like I’ve shared in previous weeks in talking about similar subjects, looking to Jesus as the ultimate example of what it is we’re supposed to do.

Paul is an example, but Paul is an example because he follows the ultimate example, Jesus. And Jesus was entitled to sit at the right hand of the throne of God all along, to sit next to His Father and enjoy the splendors of the heaven He created and be glorified all day throughout eternity. And yet Jesus, Jesus set all of that aside and came to earth to live among us.

Even though we didn’t deserve His love, we didn’t deserve Him to do anything for us because of our sin. He came to earth to live among us, to teach us the way back to the Father, and then to make the way back to the Father for us by taking responsibility for our sins and being nailed to that cross and shedding his blood and dying to pay for our sins in full so that we could be forgiven, and then rising again three days later to prove it. Paul is a good example of self-discipline, but Jesus is a better example of self-discipline.

And even Paul would tell us, like he told the Corinthians, follow me as I follow Christ. When we keep in mind what Jesus has done for us and what Jesus has done for the people around us, when we begin to see them the way he sees them, when we begin to see the world the way Jesus sees them, not as, oh, they don’t think right, they don’t believe right, they don’t act right, but lost sheep that Jesus died for. And when we keep before us the price that he paid and what he went through for them, it’ll change the way we walk and run on a daily basis. It’ll make us want to be self-disciplined, not because we’re afraid of what happens if we don’t, but because we love Him and we want to represent Him well.