Castaway Believer – Part 2
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 554 aired on April 3, 2016
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line, the show with no hidden agendas. That’s right,
just 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, education, and nothing else. We’re not trying to sell
you anything, not trying to hustle you, not going to ask you to join up, fess up, or give up. We
just want to give you accurate information. It is my prayer this information will help you verify
as well as identify the plan of God for your life so maybe you would orient and adjust to the plan
yourself. I learned a long time ago you can never change anybody but yourself and you are a
product of your decisions. On this show you will hear accurate information that will let you
know what your choices are. Then it’s up to you, it’s between God and you, it’s your life and you
live it the way you want to live it. He gave you volition, you have the ability to choose. It starts
off with the ability to choose Jesus Christ as your Savior. Then it goes to the ability to choose
God’s plan or your plan, that is deciding how you’re going to live the rest of your life once you
accept Christ as your Savior. It all starts with the most fantastic decision anyone can make. The
words of God in John 3:16,
“God so loved the world that He gave His uniquely born Son that
whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.”
He paid the penalty for our
sin. It is clear in 2 Corinthians 5:21 when it says,
“He who knew no sin was made sin for us so
that we could be made the righteousness of God through Him.”
He paid for our sin. He paid our
penalty. The One that knew no sin was made sin. The only way we could ever come to God or
ever have an eternal relationship with God was if someone else paid the penalty for us because
there is nothing in us that God could accept. Romans 3:10 says,
“There are none that are
righteous, no, not even one.”
Isaiah 64:6 says,
“All of our good works are like filthy rags”
in
God’s eyes. What would we have to do that would ultimately cause God to forgo judgment on
us? The answer is nothing and ultimately Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, the anointed Son of
God paid for our sin. Thus, by receiving Him as our Savior through faith alone we have a
personal relationship with God by becoming members of the royal family. As members of the
royal family of God we have a life set out in front of us. We have options, agendas, choices, and
privileges. God gives all of this to His children and all of it He gives to you. Last week we
started a study concerning these choices and these decisions. This study was based out of the
book of 1 Corinthians. Paul ran into a group of Christians in the city of Corinth who had trouble
sticking with the plan. They were distracted in many different ways. Once he left Corinth after
18 months of ministering there, he wrote some letters back trying to get them to be squared away
in their approach to life. He was using an athletic metaphor, trying to tell them that they had to
press on and not be distracted. Here’s what he said in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.
“Do you not know
that those who run in a race all run, but only one will receive the prize? Run in such a way that
you may obtain it. Everyone who competes for the prize is temperate
in all things. Now, they do it
to obtain a perishable crown but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore, I run not with
uncertainty. I fight and not like one who beats the air. I discipline my body. I bring it into
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subjection lest when I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.”
This doesn’t
mean that Paul is expecting he might not go to heaven if he did something bad, this is not what
he is saying. He is saying that God had a plan for his life and if he didn’t fulfill the plan, then
God would set him aside and find someone who would do it. This is true for us today. God has
called us to do something. This is why He left us here. Once you accepted Christ as your Savior
He could have taken you straight to heaven but He didn’t. He left you here.
God has a plan for
your life and your objective is to learn the plan, understand it and fulfill it.
He starts off by
saying to these people in Corinth,
“Do you not know?”
This is a very strong Greek negative. The
word is pronounced
ouk,
almost like oink from a pig. “Do you not understand this?” They should
have already known this since they observed these Isthmian games constantly. Remember, Paul
was there in Corinth making tents. He was selling tents, maybe renting tents, I don’t know. He
had been joined by Priscilla and Aquila and they were working the Olympic Games or the
Isthmian games in order to make money to survive. Then he would go into the synagogue and
teach on the Sabbath. Eventually he was able to get enough finances from a gift from the church
at Philippi to teach on a daily basis. This eventually got him run out to where he moved into a
private home and began to teach. Even the president of the synagogue and his entire family
believed in Jesus Christ. This brought him before Gallio and the Jews attempted to try and
prosecute him as a heretic. Gallio was too smart, threw it out and Paul continued to minister. Paul
left Corinth, he’s over in Ephesus now and he’s writing this letter back. He’s indicating that he
wants a response from them. They’ve seen the games. They know about the athletic competition
and he’s using this to make a point. You’ve watched these things on television. You’ve seen the
Olympic races. You’ve seen track and field meets. Paul says, “The one in a stadium running.”
Running in a race is a metaphor for hard exertion in the Christian life.
He uses the word
stadium. It’s a race course. It’s usually measured in their times by 185 meters.
Basically what
Paul is saying here is our life is a prescribed distance.
In other words, God has set up for us
the time, a place and a manner of our departure.
We don’t know the details but we know we
have been told in Colossians 4:5,
“Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders making the
most of the opportunity.”
We have been told in Ephesians 5:15,
“Walk carefully
[circumspectly],
not as a fool but as wise.”
Then in Ephesians 5:16 we are told,
“Make the most of your time
because the days are evil.”
As believers in Jesus Christ each one of us has equal privilege
and equal opportunity to win that crown, to run the race and win the crown, but so few
believers actually do it.
It requires self-discipline and this means that we have to be responsible
before the Lord for every decision that we make. God created us equally. He gave us spiritual
freedom and there is no excuse for any of us not be a winner at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
There is no excuse for any of us not to hear these words,
“Well done, My good and faithful
servant”
(Matthew 25:23), but there are some things necessary if you going to hear this. In
regard to spiritual advancement in your life, there must be self-control.
You must use your
volition to keep your sin nature in check.
Remember, all of us have a sin nature.
“The mind set
on the flesh
[sin nature]
is hostile toward God; for it does not obey God”
(Romans 8:7). We have
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a sin nature, we got it from Adam. It’s called Adam’s original sin. Romans 5:12 says,
“For by
one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and now death has passed on all, for all
have sinned.”
Yes, we are born spiritually dead infected with Adam’s original sin. We must use
our volition to keep our sin nature in check. All of us do not have the same lust patterns. All of us
do not have the same desires. What may cause one Christian to fail and fall out of fellowship
with God might not cause another Christian to fail. For example, some people may be tempted
by sex. Others may be tempted by money. Others may be tempted by power. Others may be
tempted by approbation. There are different temptations. In Judges 16:1 we have the illustration
of Samson.
“Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot and he went in to her.”
How would you like
for the world to know about all your infidelity? I don’t think you would. Samson did not use self-
control. He allowed himself to go where he should not have gone. We have a testimony of it in
the Bible. He had a weakness and that weakness was for loose girls. Self-control requires self-
discipline.
In 2 Timothy 2:3-4,
“You must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Do not get tangled up with the affairs of this life.”
This requires the believer to have self-
discipline to study God’s Word daily.
The inculcation and the application of the Word of God
in your life must be more than Sunday morning and Wednesday night. It must be on a daily basis
or you will never get out of the first grade. If you sent a child to the first grade for three hours a
week, they would never get out of the first grade, If you go to church and you hear a 30 minute
sermon on Sunday morning, a 30 minute sermon on Sunday night, a 30 minute sermon on
Wednesday night, this is about one and a half hours a week. You are never going to get out of the
first grade.
It is critical that you sit under a well-qualified pastor who will teach you the
Bible and you study daily.
This is one of the things that I do in my life every day. I sit down
with my notebook, my Bible, and I listen to God’s Word taught to me by my pastor who has
thousands of hours of Bible study available on tape, on video, and they are all free. How about
that? No charge ever.
If we are going to be the winner believer, if we are going to get the
winner’s crown, we must use self-control, self-discipline and self-restraint. Self-restraint
means we avoid the nonessential things in our life and we are not impulsive.
Again,
Ephesians 5:15-16 says,
“Walk carefully
[circumspectly],
not as a fool but as wise making the
most of your time, because the days are evil.”
Self-control, self-discipline, self-restraint, and then
poise.
Poise means we have to be able to think under pressure.
We have to be able to
concentrate under pressure. It is critical that we are able to do this. Then we have a strong Greek
conjunction here,
but.
We go to what 1 Corinthians 9:24 says, “
But only one receives the prize,”
lay hold of the prize and the prize is the award. This is why he said in Philippians 3:14,
“I keep
pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
The fact is
that you were provided the assets in eternity past to ensure that you win the race.
He is
“pressing toward the mark,”
the
skopos.
This means the aim or the objective in the Greek New
Testament. The mark is the finish line. We press toward the finish line and the finish line is the
end of the race. This is when we transfer to heaven.
This is why we are here,
“To press toward
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Pressing forward is a present
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active indicative and it’s the word
dioko.
This means it occurs in actual time. We have a calling.
We have an invitation. It has been issued to us. He issued us an invitation to believe in Him and
He issued us an invitation,
“To be worthy of the calling
[why?]
so that Christ would be glorified
in you”
(2 Thessalonians 1:1-2). This requires something on our part. This requires the doctrine
of self-control. We must have self-control. We must have the ability to manage our actions and
our emotions. If we can’t do this, then we will never have any self-control in our life.
Without
self-control, no believer will ever grow to be a spiritually mature believer.
He must learn to
control his sin nature rather than letting the sin nature control him.
Actually, there are three
things you have to control. Yes, you have to control the flesh or the sin nature. You have to
control, avoid, the lures of the world.
You can’t stop the world from tempting you but you can
stop your sin nature from responding to the temptations and you have to be able to
overcome the strategy of the devil and this strategy is to deceive you.
It’s a deceptive strategy
to lure you away from truth and into something that is false like salvation by works, spirituality
by works. In other words, you are going to go to heaven because you are a good person. No, this
is not true. We go to heaven because we have faith alone in Christ alone. We’re going to gain
God’s favor in time because we observe certain taboos, this is not true. God is not going to like
you any better because you don’t wear makeup. God is not going to like you any better because
you don’t chew gum or you don’t drink some kind of soda. This doesn’t make God like you better.
Are you trying to give God some kind of emotion that He will respond to something that you’re
doing? God laid the plan out. The plan requires self-control. Where do you get self-control? This
is something I’ve had trouble with all my life and I’m sure you probably have too. Where do we
get self-control from? The answer is in Galatians 5:23. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control.
Once we are filled with the Holy Spirit by the use of rebound, we demonstrate the fruit of the
Spirit and one of the fruits of the Spirit is indeed self-control. Self-control is an amazing thing. It
means we have strength and we have the strength to overcome these things that tempt us, the
things that lure us aside. Then 2 Peter 1:6 says, “In your knowledge add self-control.” Even
though self-control comes from the fruit of the Spirit, it’s a learned asset. You have to learn self-
control. This starts off as a child when parents teach their children self-control not to do certain
things. This requires discipline and learning respect for authority. 2 Timothy 3:2-3 describes the
core attitude of an arrogant person,
“They are lovers of self without self-control.”
Self-control
must be learned. Self-control is the fruit of the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Let me give you
some principles on it. Self-control means you taking responsibility. Divine authority, God’s
Word, demands self-control. You can read about it in Ephesians 4:31-32, “Stop slandering each
other. Stop fighting with each other. Be kind to each other. Be forgiving of each other.” This
demands self-control. You cannot let your temper go off on someone that you don’t like, whether
it’s a member of your family, a member of your church, or a person in the business world. The
Word of God does not allow you to slander, malign, criticize, backbite, judge, or pronounce
sentence on anybody. God will handle it and it requires self-control on your part. You get set up a
lot of times. People ask you, “What do you think about so and so?” Don’t answer this question.
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Don’t give an opinion unless you can say, “I think they are wonderful people. What do you
think?” Then you may find out what those people really think. Lack of divine viewpoint, that’s
having the Word of God in your soul, having a completely renovated thought process, results in
self-absorption, being totally preoccupied with yourself.
If you don’t understand the plan of
God, you are always going to be preoccupied with yourself.
You are going to have your little
self-pity parties. You are always going to think everyone is out to get you. You must avoid this.
The Word of God in your memory center gives you good options to choose.
If you have a
brain, and you do, and you have a stream of consciousness, and you do, inside the stream of
consciousness is a memory center. When you come up to a situation in life, like a fork in the
road, then if the Word of God is in your memory center, it will tell you which fork to take. Yogi
Berra was once asked this question about when you come to the fork in the road, which fork do
you take? Yogi had an amazing answer about this. He didn’t even know there was a fork in the
road. Someone asked him one time, “Don’t you know anything?” He said, “Not only do I not
know anything. I don’t even suspect anything.” He said, “When you come to the fork in the road,
take it.” There are forks in the road. These forks in the road can be related to people, to business,
to church membership or whatever. There are choices you must make, decisions you have to
make. Without the Word of God in your memory center, you will not have any options for self-
control because it is the Word of God that the Holy Spirit uses to remind you of your bad
decisions. Then you must decide, “Will I do this bad decision or will I not do this?” Don’t blame
it on someone else. Don’t pass it off on your parents. Don’t pass it off on your environment. Pass
it off on yourself, you made the decision. You chose, you did it. You just knew your options and
you chose the wrong option. Without self-control you will live only to be stimulated with your
desires. Without self-control you will live only for stimulation. You will live to find happiness in
people or circumstances or something but it won’t be to follow God’s plan because you have no
self-control. Once you begin to revolt against God, your emotions will block out any reason and
any ability to face reality. You won’t be able to tell what reality is because you have no self-
control. You will deceive yourself and eventually destroy yourself. Lack of self-control leads to
self-destruction. Some of you listening to me may have already destroyed yourself. You may
already be able to see the end and you know you are done, you are toast. Maybe you are
incarcerated for a bad decision you made and you’ve lost your freedom. Maybe you made a bad
decision in marriage and you are stuck in it and you wonder, “What in the world have I done
because I did not exercise self-control?” How many times does this happen in the lives of young
people who don’t exercise self-control and wind up with responsibilities that they are not capable
of handling? They have to call in grandma and grandpa to handle it don’t they? You’ve been
there, you know what I’m talking about. This is a good point to remember. Under self-deception
a believer who is out of fellowship with sin in his life will assume that he’s okay because he
observes certain taboos. He performs certain rituals. He goes to church. He takes communion. He
sings in the choir and he thinks, “I’m okay because I’m going through these rituals.” If he doesn’t
know God’s Word and how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, he’s just deceiving himself and
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accumulating wood, hay, and stubble, all these right things done in the wrong way. They will
never even realize it until they get to the Judgment Seat of Christ and then they will not hear,
“Well done.”
They will watch all of their good deeds burn up as wood, hay, and stubble because
they were all produced from the energy of the flesh. You can produce good works from the
energy of the flesh or you can produce divine good from the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Only
production under the filling of the Holy Spirit is rewardable, that’s the prize.
Anything else,
you are running out of bounds. You’ve stepped off the race course and you’ll be disqualified. You
will not receive the crown. You will lose your escrow blessings in the future without self-control.
What’s sad is many Christians are so distracted by their self-importance that they wind up
disqualifying themselves from ever getting the winner’s prize because they are distracted by who
they are, what they want and what they think. Self-motivation must come from self-evaluation.
Here’s what I’m saying.
If you don’t know yourself, then you don’t know what you need. The
only way to know yourself is to look into the mirror of the Word of God and see yourself as
you really are.
Without this, you’ll have an arrogant, unrealistic self image. When you look into
the mirror of God’s Word, you see yourself, you see your flaws, you identify them, and you know
your needs.
You cannot look into the mirror of God’s Word if you don’t know it and learn it.
How can you know it and learn it if you don’t listen and understand? Do you want to know
yourself? You are not going to know yourself in an hour and a half a week. It’s going to take you
sitting under a pastor that will teach you God’s Word. Then slowly and surely you begin to
conform to the image of Christ and not in a legalistic ritualistic way, but in a way that is so real,
so appealing, so magnificent, and so phenomenal that even your friends will want to know what’s
the difference. “How can you live like this? How can you do these things? How do you not get
angry? How do you not worry? How do you not get jealous? How do you do these things?” This
is just simply the Christian life. This is the way you are suppose to live. It’s only through the
filling of the Holy Spirit that you will ever have any self-control. The question I will wind up
with today is will you allow the Holy Spirit to take control of your life? I hope so because the
self-control I’m speaking of is not just physical. 1 Timothy 4:8 says,
“Bodily discipline is of little
profit but godliness is profitable for all things.”
Godliness is the filling of the Holy Spirit and
advancing to spiritual maturity.
This is the self-control I’m talking about. This is what glorifies
God and this is what will re-present Jesus Christ in your life to your friends. Think about it. Until
next week, this is your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to The FLOT Line