hallenges them using an athletic metaphor. In this
athletic metaphor he talks about an athlete who runs the race and he compares the Christian life
to the race. He said, “You’ve got to keep your eye on the prize, you must stay inbounds, and you
must train.” We studied the doctrine of self-discipline as a result of this where Paul said,
“Anyone who competes for the prize must be temperate in all things.” This is actually what we
wound up with the last Sunday that I was on the air with you,
“Temperate in all things.”
This
means self-control and he was talking about how athletes abstain from certain food and certain
drink. They even abstain from physical pleasure when they came to train for the games. This
verb, temperate, doing without, is a present middle indicative in the morphology of the Greek
text. This is what we call a deponent verb, it has an
mai
ending and is an active voice meaning
they must do this and the indicative mood is what we call the mood of reality. I’m sorry if this
bores you but this is important because this lets you know what the Apostle Paul is saying. You
must have, present tense, every day, middle voice, you must do it, indicative mood, the mood of
reality. Here’s the reality to this passage before we move on today, try to get this.
If you ever
hope to reach spiritual maturity in your life you must have self-discipline.
What does this
mean? This means you have volition. Every one of us has volition. God gave us volition as part
of the format of our soul. We have mentality, we have volition, we have a conscience, we even
have self-consciousness. These are the invisible parts of you. In this volition, you are a product
of the decisions that you make. You’re not a product of the environment that you grew up in.
You’re not a product of who your parents are.
You’re a product of the decisions that you make
in your life.
Your volition can go positive or your volition can go negative. Remember that God
gives us all equal privilege and equal opportunity.
We have the opportunity to believe in Jesus
Christ and receive Him as our Savior, the privilege to take God’s Word, learn it, use it, and
apply it into our life so that we can renovate our thinking.
Then we begin to think in terms of
the mind of Christ, that’s the New Testament, that’s the Bible. 1 Corinthians 2:16 says it is,
“The
mind of Christ.”
Philippians 2:5 says,
“Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.”
Proverbs 23:7 says,
“As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.”
The Christian life is a mind game.
555-Castaway-Believer-p3-transcript.pdf
The real you is what you think not what you look like, not what people think about you.
The real you is what you think, what goes on in your mind. God says He can read your mind.
This is what the omniscience of God is all about. He knows what you’re thinking. He goes back
and forth, 2 Chronicles 16:9 clearly says this, and sees our thoughts. If you are going to be a
winner believer, a believer who is going to hear your Father say,
“Well done, My good and
faithful servant”
(Matthew 25:23), then you’re going to have to have some self-discipline to
control your volition so that it doesn’t move into the trends that you have in your sin nature.
Everybody has a sin nature trend. We all have a sin nature, we got it from Adam.
“For by one
man sin came into the world, and death by sin and now death has passed on all for all have
sinned”
(Romans 5:12). The Bible is clear, all have a sin nature, but not everybody has the same
trends. Some people have a trend toward lasciviousness. This is the wild side of the tracks. These
are the honky-tonk type folks. Then some people have a trend toward legalism. These are the
self-righteous people. Now to be honest with you, I’d rather hang out around the honky-tonkers
than the self-righteous people because the self-righteous people will judge you. They have an
unrealistic self-image of who and what they are. At least the lascivious guy knows what he is and
interestingly is the type that responds to the message of our Savior, such as the tax collectors.
The Pharisees didn’t respond, they were the legalistic crowd. It was the tax collectors, the
prostitutes, and the people of the streets that responded. This made the Pharisees so angry. They
were so legalistic. Are you legalistic in your life? Do you think God is impressed with you
because you observe some taboo? In certain parts of the country it’s a sin to wear makeup. In
certain parts of the country it’s a sin to do one thing or another. Let me ask you a question. What
do you think turns God on? Do you think God is emotional, that you can actually manipulate
God and get Him to bless you because you don’t drink or you don’t smoke or you don’t cuss or
you don’t do something? This is not it. The legalist thinks he’s going to heaven because he’s
earned his way there. He’s been a good boy. He hasn’t misbehaved and surely God’s going to like
him because he’s been good and kind to his fellow man. This is not what the Bible teaches. Look
at Ephesians 2:8-9,
“For by grace are you saved through faith, it is a gift from God not of works,
so that no one can brag about it.”
Matthew 7:22-23 goes on to say,
“In that day many will say to
Me, ‘Lord, Lord, in Your name did I not do many wonderful deeds?’ Then I will tell them, ‘I
never knew you.’”
Are you kidding yourself? Do you think you’re going to heaven because
you’re a legalist, because you observe certain taboos or are you going to heaven based on faith
alone in Christ alone?
1 John 5:12-13 clearly says,
“These things are written so that we might
know that we have eternal life. He that has the Son has life, he that has not the Son of God does
not have life.”
How do I get Christ? I receive Him as my Savior. How does this happen? John
3:16,
“God so loved the world that He gave His uniquely born Son so that whoever believes in
Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
The legalists of our Lord’s day did not believe
that He was the Messiah, but many of the lascivious crowd did believe it. They saw the miracles
that He did. They saw the indications that He was in fact who He said He was. They believed it
and it was counted to them for righteousness just like Abraham’s faith was counted to him for
555-Castaway-Believer-p3-transcript.pdf
righteousness (Genesis 15:6). Anyone who thinks they are going to heaven because they don’t do
certain taboos, they are kidding themselves. There’s only one way, that’s faith alone in Christ
alone. If you haven’t done this, please simply do what Romans 10:13 says,
“Whoever will call
upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
In the privacy of your home, in the privacy of your
automobile, or at your office, simply bow your head and tell the Father that you are believing
that Jesus Christ is His anointed Son and you will receive Him as your Redeemer. It’s this simple,
“He that believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God”
(1 John 5:1). This is what being born
again is, it’s being a believer. You were born into sin and separated from God. When you believe
in Christ, receiving Him as your Savior, now you are born again or you have a spiritual birth.
You are placed in fellowship with God through, by means of, Jesus Christ, by using your volition
to make your decision because God would never coerce you. God would never in any way
infringe upon your rights. He gives you the privilege to make up your mind. Therefore, it is
critical that you understand the impact that your volition has in your life. You must exercise self-
control as a believer. I wound up last Sunday giving you this verse in 1 Timothy 4:8 that says,
“Bodily exercise is of little profit but godliness is profitable for all things since it holds promise
for the present and also for the life to come.”
Godliness is nothing more than living the spiritual
life. Remember when you believe in Jesus Christ and receive Him as your Savior, you enter into
a relationship with God that will never change. This is your position in Christ. But you also are
in fellowship with God and this is your experience, not your position. You can break fellowship
with God by using your volition to commit sin. When you sin you come under control of your
sin nature. Now you are what the Bible calls carnal or fleshly. Unless you recover by means of
rebound or confessing this sin to God, everything you do for God while you are under control of
your sin nature is going to be judged as wood, hay, and stubble. It may be the right thing but it
wasn’t done in the right way because it was manufactured, it was produced from the energy of
the flesh, not from the filling of the Spirit.
The only thing your Father will accept in eternity
that glorifies Him are those deeds that are produced under the filling of the Holy Spirit
while you are in fellowship with Him.
You cannot be in fellowship with God if you have
unconfessed sin in your life because that sin will quench the Holy Spirit and that sin will grieve
the Holy Spirit. Thus you will be a carnal Christian. Right now, look at your life and answer a
question. Is there sin in your life that you haven’t confessed to God? Remember, it could be a
mental attitude sin like worry, like anger, or agitation. It can be a sin of the tongue like gossip,
slander, maligning, or criticizing. Or it could be an overt sin such as immorality. Is there is sin in
your life that you haven’t confessed to God because if there is, you are not in fellowship. Just like
you used your volition to get out of fellowship, you have to exercise your volition to get back in
fellowship. Just like your volition went negative and you said, “No God, I realize I’m not
suppose to do this but I’m going to do it anyhow.” Then if you want to get back in fellowship you
have to make the same sort of decision. You have to use your volition to come before your
Heavenly Father and say, “Yes God, You are right, I sinned.” God promises,
“If we confess our
sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us”
(1 John 1:9). The spiritual life takes self-control. You
555-Castaway-Believer-p3-transcript.pdf
must have self-control to not allow your sin nature to manipulate you. You must use your volition
to be smart and wise about temptations when they come your way. You must have self-control to
recognize the deceptions of the devil. He’s a master at deceiving us. Use your volition to say,
“No, this is wrong. I don’t agree with that” and not buy into the personality that brought it to you
because you trust this person. You like this person and think, “Well, surely they wouldn’t mislead
me” but they will and they did. Using your volition is critical.
You cannot live the spiritual life
without using your volition to say no to the lures of the world.
The world is always out there
and it is always distracting you, telling you that happiness can be found in the details of life and
this is not true. We are a product of our volition. If you want to grow up spiritually, if you want to
glorify God, if you want to be a winner believer in eternity and hear,
“Well done, My good and
faithful servant,”
you must learn to use your volition in self-control and thus self-discipline.
This
is why 2 Peter 1:6 says,
“In your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control,
perseverance”
Self-control is learned. You must learn it from the Word of God.
This is why
Paul wrote,
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”
(Philippians 4:13). This is a
verse of self-control. The core attitude of the legalistic, arrogant Christian is the person that Paul
described in 2 Timothy 3:2-7 as a lover of self, without self-control. He put in plain words, the
legalist or the lover of self has no self-control. The lascivious believer who allows the
distractions of the world or the lust of the flesh to lure him away from the spiritual life has no
self-control. You must have self-control in the area of handling sin. You must confess your sin
anytime it occurs, not at night, not the next day, immediately. When you sin, go to God and name
the sin because if you don’t, even though you’re a believer you will break fellowship with God,
you will quench and grieve the Holy Spirit, you’ll be out of fellowship. Go to God immediately,
use self-control and name the sin. Secondly, use self-control to do what the Bible tells you to do,
“Grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”
(2 Peter 3:18).
“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed”
(2
Timothy 2:15).
“Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me”
(Matthew 11:28-29).
Here are three verbs, grow,
study, learn, that require self-control.
The Christian life is not a ritual that has no reality to it.
The Christian life is real. It is your soul, the mentality of your soul being reformed into the
image of Christ.
This is why Romans 12:3 says,
“Stop thinking of yourself in terms of
arrogance beyond what you should think but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to
each one of us a standard of thinking from His Word.”
Paul said, “Self-control is essential. Those
athletes that compete in the Isthmian games there in Corinth, they do it to obtain a corruptible
crown but we use self-control to obtain an incorruptible crown.” The winner’s wreath that they
win will go into the casket with them but the wreath that you win is called the crown of
righteousness. We will ultimately surrender this to our Savior as we lay it before His feet.
Revelation 4:10-11,
“The twenty-four elders fall down before Him, the One who sits on the
throne, and they worship Him who lives forever and ever
[that’s our Lord Jesus Christ]
and they
cast their crowns before the throne saying, ‘You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor
555-Castaway-Believer-p3-transcript.pdf
and power, for You created all things and by Your will they existed and were created.’”
The
believer who is mature wants no personal recognition. He only wants to glorify his Lord,
his Master, his Savior.
Thus Paul goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 9:26,
“I run this race
[this is
his life he’s talking about]
not as uncertainly
[this means not like he didn’t have a personal sense
of destiny, he knew what God called him for]
and I fight not as one that beats the air.”
In other
words Paul says he’s not just shadowboxing. He has a deliberate objective in his life of what he’s
trying to do. By the way, a personal sense of destiny is problem-solving device #6 on the FLOT
line of your soul and you should know what this is. If you don’t, contact me and I’ll send you
messages on having a personal sense of destiny.
Two keys if you’re going to be a mature
believer are to stay objective and to know your destiny.
Here it was again, listen,
“I run not as
uncertainly,”
this is objectivity,
“and I fight not as one who beats the air,”
he knows his destiny.
Philippians 3:10 is your destiny,
“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”
Thus, Paul said in 1
Corinthians 9:27,
“I discipline my body.”
In other words, “I force my body into compliance.”
This means he doesn’t let his sin nature raise its ugly head. Better to translate this, “I bruise my
body.” This word that he uses is very strong in the Greek New Testament. It actually means to
beat the flesh until it becomes black and blue and the body is spoken of as the adversary or the
seat of the lust and the appetites which war against his mind. This is an analogy that he’s using
here for the Christian life. There is a war in your mind. There is the flesh that we must control.
Romans 7:23 is clear about how the flesh is there. Paul says,
“I see a different law in the
members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the
law of sin which is in my members.”
“In my members”
means my sin nature. What’s in his mind
is the Word of God. What’s in his body is the sin nature or the flesh waging war against what’s in
his mind.
The lust of the flesh fights against the will of God.
Listen to Galatians 5:17, this may
help you understand why you act like two different people sometimes.
“For the flesh sets its
desires against the Spirit and the Spirit sets its desires against the flesh. These are in opposition
to one another so that you cannot do the things that you please.”
This is where the conflict
comes in your life. In Romans 7:15-20 Paul goes on to say,
“What I am doing I do not
understand for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very things that I
hate to do.”
Does this sound like you? The things you want to do, you inevitably don’t do and the
things that you don’t want to do, you inevitably do. The reason is you’re not filled with the Spirit.
The reason is you’re not growing in grace. This doesn’t mean that if you stay filled with the Holy
Spirit and grow in grace that you will be a perfect saint, I’m not saying that. You have this sin
nature and what I am telling you is to get control of yourself and you won’t be a loose cannon
anymore. It’s up to you. You can continue to live your life like a loose cannon, going off on
anyone and everything and giving in to anyone and everything or you can take control by using
your volition to stay in fellowship with God by rebounding when you sin, problem-solving
device #1, by growing in grace, Biblical orientation, doctrinal orientation, problem-solving
devices #4 and #5, and having a personal sense of destiny, problem-solving device #6.
555-Castaway-Believer-p3-transcript.pdf
Remember the 10 unique problem-solving devices that make up the FLOT line of your soul?
This is what the show is called, The FLOT Line. If you don’t remember these, let me know. I’ll
send you the book
Christian Problem Solving
free. Paul says,
“I bring my body into subjection, I
make it my slave”
(1 Corinthians 9:27) using the word
doulos,
a slave. “I lead my body into
slavery” and the idea is this. The body and the desires of the flesh are not only to be conquered
but to be led captive. Remember, the language throughout this passage is figurative, so he’s not
talking about inflicting actual pain on his body. What he’s talking about is subduing the appetites
and the passions of his flesh which are located in the body. The true position of our natural
appetite is that they should be our servants, not our masters. We should not be led by the flesh.
We should not be led by the appetites of our flesh, but we should make them follow us and be led
by us. Thus Paul goes on to say,
“
[If I don’t do this, if I don’t control my flesh]
lest that by any
means after I had been a herald to other people, I myself would become a castaway.”
A
proclaimer is what he is, he’s a proclaimer of God’s Word to other people. He said,
“After being
a proclaimer, I myself would be a castaway.”
I can think of nothing worse than living the
Christian life and coming to the end of the race and God having to set us aside because we would
not fulfill His plan. If you think that God won’t replace you, you are wrong. The Bible is full of
illustrations where God had to replace people that got out of His will, that didn’t obey His
mandates. People that were His children, He replaced them. Just like Saul, He replaced him, and
He can replace you if you don’t follow the plan, if you don’t stay in fellowship. This doesn’t mean
you are not going to heaven, it means God will set you aside and find somebody else that He can
use since you’re unusable.
He cannot trust nor use you since you won’t learn His plan and
obey His Word. What a pity for God to have to set you aside as a castaway believer.
What a
pity for you to come into heaven and not hear
“Well done.”
You will be there. You will have
eternal life, that’s not the issue. The issue is you will have no crown to lay at the feet of your
Savior because you are like the servant-master who didn’t look for the return of the Master, the
parable that our Lord Jesus Christ gave in Luke 12:35-48, the servant- master who was occupied
with other things. Think about it, it is critical. You must understand these things. Until next week,
I’m your host Rick Hughes saying thank you now for listening to The FLOT Line