I'm gonna start with a little devotional, I hope you don't mind. I got kind of excited about something, so I'm gonna share it with you. If you'll turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter four, I'm gonna kind of continue from what we talked about last week. From Ephesians four, I'm gonna read a few verses, just kind of review a little bit of what we talked about last week, and just to help us to start to think about the spiritual disciplines. Ephesians chapter four, starting in verse 17. I'm gonna read 17 through 24 of Ephesians four. says this, I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness to work all in cleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ. If indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And that you put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. So what it's saying there is there's two men, there's the old men and there's the new man. And what we're encouraged to do in verse 24 is where I really want us to focus. So we're encouraged to put on the new man, which was created according to God and true righteousness and holiness. Now, what we see here is what we talked about last week. We talked about that there's the supernatural aspect of sanctification and then the part that we're responsible for as well. And what you see is that we have a new man. Now, where does that new man come from? It was created according to God. That the reason that we are able to be sanctified is because God has given us a new man that allows us to be sanctified. But then he puts it right back on us. He says, you put on the new man. So there's a responsibility of what God does. And without him, we would never be able to be sanctified. but at the same time, it's him saying, you need to put on the new man. And in verse 22, he says, put off the old man, verse 24, put on the new man. Now really that word put on and put off, it really gives the idea of kind of putting on a jacket, of putting on a cloak. And what he's saying is he's saying, take off the old man, take off the things that used to control you and now put on something new. For the first time in your life, you're able to do this, so put this on. And the interesting thing about this is, is when we have this battle between the old man and the new man, Really what it's saying is, is all the things that feed the new man, you want to take away, that you really, what you want to do is you want to, I mean the old man, you want to starve the old man. You want to take away everything that would give it any opportunity to have a hold in your life. So anything that you do that would give any opportunity for this old man to grow, you take it away. You think about anything in your life that would cause you to stumble and you take it away. You starve the old man. But if you're going to starve the old man, then what are you going to try to do with the new man? You're going to nourish it. You're going to feed it. That's right. And so he says, put on the new man. And in the same way that you starve the old man, what you're desiring to do in sanctification is you're trying to feed the new man, that you're seeing that what you have here is you have a new man. You have a new person that was created in Christ. He was created for righteousness and holiness. And you want to feed that new man. Now, how are some ways that you think you feed that new man? How are some ways that you would feed the new man? Bible study. What else? Prayer. What do we call all these things? Spiritual disciplines. That's right. You see what the fact is, is that if we want to feed this new man, that the way that that new man is fed is spiritual disciplines. And I want to read to you just something I learned on this passage. Martin Lloyd-Jones has a six volume commentary set from his sermons on Ephesians, and he has about one sermon on every verse. It's quite remarkable. But he's talking about this verse and listen what he says. He says the real secret of Christian living is to discover the art of talking to yourself. We must talk to ourselves. We must preach to ourselves. We must take truth and apply it to ourselves and keep on doing so. That is the putting on of the new man. We have to hammer away at ourselves until we have really convinced ourselves. In other words, this is not something that you wait for passively. There is no greater snare in the Christian life than to entertain the idea of waiting until we feel better and of then putting on the new man. On the contrary, we have got to go on telling ourselves the new man is already in us. So like I said last week that really what sanctification is is applied justification that we're always talking to ourselves. We're always trying to put on this new man. We're always telling ourselves that we've been made holy by the cross of Jesus Christ and we don't have to live for the old man anymore. We can walk for the new man. And so I love that the key to the Christian life is learning how to talk to yourself. And so if you're driving down the road and you're talking to yourself, don't think you're strange. You're just living the life that God wants you to live. So I want to encourage you this week to think about that, to talk to yourself, to motivate yourself, to always be preaching to yourself and reminding yourself of who you really are. And you are a new creation that the old things have passed away and the new things have become. And the reason that we are here tonight is because we want to learn practically how to feed the new man. What can we do to make this new man grow? And as we cause this new man to grow, then the old man will start to fade as well. It will become easier actually in some ways to defeat the old man as the new man begins to grow. So what I want us to do is I want us to turn to 1 Timothy chapter four. And I don't know if any of you have gotten the book yet, but the spiritual disciplines by Donald Whitney. Basically what we're doing is I'm going through and I'm summarizing the chapters and we're starting with chapter one this week and we're just going to keep going through. This first chapter is kind of an introduction. Why spiritual disciplines are important. Quite a bit different from what I talked about last week, but I think it'll be an encouraging start for us. 1 Timothy chapter four. Look at verses 3, verses 2 and 3. What you've got there is you've got a real good example of bad discipline. That you're not just trying to discipline yourself for the sake of discipline. You see what these people are doing is it's hypocrisy. What they're doing is they're forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. So what you've got is you've got a group of people like the Pharisees who are saying you've got to be disciplined. But their discipline is not to become godly. What they're doing is they're thinking they're actually going to become holy by doing this. They're neglecting the God part of this. And so they're creating their own rules. Right. They're saying that this is the way that you need to do this and this is the way you need to do this. And what you have is you have these teachers who are making these people feel completely confined. And most of us may have felt like that in many ways at different churches or different things that we've been taught that it's so confining. But we're going to learn later that that's not the reason for disciplines that it's not supposed to be something that is supposed to confine you. It's not rules that you create in order to control people's lives. But we also have example of the benefits of godliness. And if you'll look in verse eight, um, what are some benefits there of godliness? Why is godliness profitable? It really says two things in verse eight. Okay. How is, how is, how is godliness and discipline which leads to godliness? How is it profitable for the life now? And why does that benefit us now? When you get the peace of Jesus. Okay. Jesus left us for peace. And so you have that peace, but you don't have the strife of the world. You lose all that stress. Right. Which is great. Yeah. Okay, good. What else? How does it benefit us? Here. We have to discipline ourselves to study the Word and know the Word. Very good. Any other ways you can think that a discipline benefits us here? Okay, good. How does it benefit us for life to come? Right. You're right. Exactly. We talked about last week that holiness is really all that God asked for us. That's his number one desire. That's the only thing that he really wants for us. We can sum up everything he wants for us in the fact that he wants us to be holy. And so obviously every time we do something here that is pleasing to the Lord, then we're increasing our rewards in heaven, which is kind of just an amazing thought. It's great. So there's benefits, there's profitableness for being godly for here and for the life to come. And it's comparing it with physical exercise, that physical exercise does have some benefit for you, but not the same kind of benefit that spiritual discipline has. That spiritual discipline has a benefit to you that will not fade away. Someday you're gonna get old and you're not gonna be able to run or you're gonna get fat or whatever, something's gonna happen, And that's not going to benefit you any longer, but spiritual discipline is always going to benefit you. And so he's trying to make his case there. Now, look at the second thing I said. When did you ever try to discipline yourself in order to reach a specific goal? Does anyone have an example of a time when you really tried to work hard to reach a goal and you really had to use discipline? What's that? Losing weight? Okay, good. It's definitely a discipline. Why is that? Why is that a difficult discipline? Okay, that's good. Right, but it's hard and there is there we talked about last week. There's no easy ways to do it It's kind of just it's just discipline. So Jeff's MC Anything else? Anyone ever done a marathon No, I wish somebody had you know, I've got friends who do marathons and they work real hard and I'd Sydney Donuts while they're doing it, but I personally have never done a marathon and have no desire to whatsoever and It's really a logical principle. You can't expect to do well in the triathlon unless you're really putting a lot of time in. It's just ridiculous to think that. I'll show you how unspiritual I may be. I used to love Saturday Night Live back a long time ago when the Belushis were on there. John Belushi had the skit where what he did is they showed him training for the Olympics. And they showed him running, and it was just a gross sight. He was just a huge guy, and he was running down, and he had kind of a holster on. I don't know if you already see this. And he had Twinkies. And so he was running down. He was running down. As he was running, he was opening up Twinkies, and he was throwing the wrappers on the ground, and he was downing them like they were nutrition bars. And then all of a sudden, he pulls out a cigarette, and he lights a cigarette, and he's smoking here. And he's got a Twinkie here, and he's running as fast as he can. And they're doing all this advertisement for training for the Olympics. Well, the reason that's funny is because it's just ridiculous, right? But the fact is that we try to do this. We try to do this with godliness, that we, we think somehow that we can grow in godliness without hard work, without discipline. And the principle remains the same, that there's a goal that we want to get and we will not get there unless we are disciplined. And it says here that we're disciplined for many reasons because it's profitable for now and it's profitable for the life to come. The third thing there, I just put in the past, how have you felt about things such as reading the Bible regularly, prayer, worship, evangelism and fasting? You can just think about that throughout the week. It's important to think about that because most of us or many of us, there's been times we viewed that not as being a benefit to us, but really is something that we just have to do. And we do it not because we can see what it's really going to do for us, but just because we feel like we have to do it. And until we get a vision of the reason that we're doing it, it's always going to remain a drag. we have to realize that all of this discipline is for a purpose, that it's for the life here and for the life to come. And when we get that vision, then those things don't become difficult really as much anymore. Well, first of all, let's look here, it says the spiritual disciplines, the means to godliness, they are the way to godliness. Donald Whitney in the book here, he says, the spiritual disciplines are those personal and corporate disciplines that promote spiritual growth. That's basically just his definition. He says, this is what they are. They're personal and corporate disciplines that promote spiritual growth. Personal being your own Bible study, your own prayer, those types of things. Corporate disciplines would be worship, fellowship, those types of things that you would do as a corporate body. And he says, it's interesting that he says, those personal corporate disciplines that promote spiritual growth. If you just put the period after spiritual disciplines, then you would change the whole thing. But they're not just discipline, they're disciplined to promote spiritual growth. Because this is where you wanna be, and you know that that's the only way you're gonna get there. So what is the real purpose of the disciplines? Someone look at Romans 8 29. What does that have to do with spiritual disciplines? Right. That's right. There's an encouraging thing about that as well. Do you say we know we're going to get there? that God has, if we have been justified, then we will be glorified. It's a great promise. It's great encouragement to know that as difficult as it might get, you know, we're going to be glorified. So the question directly comes out of that. Well, if that's a promise, I mean, think about that. We're guaranteed to be glorified. If we're justified, we're guaranteed. So why, so why all this work? Why discipline? If we're already guaranteed to get there, it's like, we're guaranteed to win the race. So why work hard? Well, Hebrews 12, 14, who has that? And that's the thing that God says, I will get you there that you will be made holy. But the way you make you are made holy is you put every effort. I love that you put every effort into becoming holy. You put all of your energy. You really exhaust yourself for the purpose of holiness. What you're trying to do is pour out all of your energy for the desire to be holy. So the purpose of the disciplines is to, to make us holy is to make us like Christ. First Timothy four seven. Um, you don't have to turn there. You'll see it at the bottom of every page for this entire lesson. Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. This verse is the theme of the entire book. This first chapter, what that does is it unpacks that verse before we go on to the rest of the book, that the entire theme of this book is discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. And that, that, that verse is huge. You've got the discipline that we have to do. And the why is so important. And whenever you do discipline without the why, then it just becomes, well, what he says here later on is he says, discipline without direction is drudgery. It's terrible. There's nothing worse than being, trying to be disciplined when you don't know why you're doing it. You're going to give up every time. And the worst thing is, is when you're trying to be disciplined, but you don't really think that you could ever really do it. Like maybe you're trying to lose weight and you're, you're being disciplined, but you really, in the back of your mind, you think I'm really never going to be able to do this. Or, you know, I'm trying to run this race, but I'm really never going to be able to finish. But we have the guarantee that we will finish. And so we have the guarantee from God that it will happen. And we work hard knowing that as we work hard, that God is going to complete this. And so discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Whitney says, I will maintain that the only road to Christian maturity and godliness passes through the practice of spiritual disciplines. That's a huge quote. The only road to Christian maturity and godliness passes through the practice of spiritual disciplines. That's why I always say there's no secrets, that it's very simple, but this is the way. that we grow in godliness. And you'll see here, I'll open the front chapter here, and we kind of have a list of the disciplines that we will at least will be studying in this class. And it kind of gives you an idea of what these disciplines are that Christ has called us to do. There's Bible intake, there's prayer, worship, evangelism, serving, stewardship, fasting, silence and solitude, journaling, learning, and the kind of the classic book on spiritual disciplines is Celebration of the Disciplines. He lists some that are not in this book. He mentioned study as a discipline, simplicity, submission, confession, guidance, and celebration. He mentioned celebration as a discipline, that we need to discipline ourselves to celebrate. And we'll talk about that a little bit later. But the fact is that all of these things, all those things I just mentioned are things that we do because we desire to be godly. Now look at letter D there. Like I said, discipline, this is a quote, direct quote from his book, without direction, dredgery that godliness is the purpose and at any point when you forget that you'll give up at any point if you don't understand that the reason that you're doing this is because you die or be godly you'll give up that's why Hebrews 12 2 is so great it says fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and perfect of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross and endured the shame we have the idea of this what we do is we fix our eyes on Jesus we look at him constantly don't look to the right we don't left we fix our eyes on him And as we fix our eyes on Him, then we're encouraged to keep going. We see the way He lived and what He did, and we fix our eyes on Him. But the moment that we take our eyes off of Him is the moment that we get sidetracked, the moment we get discouraged. And so we always have to think, as we're working, that why are we doing this? Why am I getting up early in the morning? I'm doing this because I desire to be godly, because God has created me for this purpose, because I want nothing more than to be like Him. That's that preaching to yourself. All the time you're thinking, I'm doing this, Not because I have to, but I'm getting on my knees and I'm praying because I want to know God. I want God to speak to me because it's benefit for this life and for the life to come. So discipline without direction is drudgery. And he makes a huge point of that in the front of this book that you have to remember that. E there is godly people are always disciplined people. And I want you to look on one of your pages here. I've got some examples of the disciplined life. I love biographies. I think I talked about that last week. And so I just went through five or six biographies that I had and pulled out some quotes. And it's amazing to me. It's really true that there's no one that's ever greatly used of God. That's not a very disciplined person. And the only bad thing about reading biographies is you always feel guilty. You know, these guys were just so much better than you. And you just think, man, I'll never do that. But Whitfield says, I left no means unused, which I thought would lead me near to Jesus Christ. That anything that he thought would lead him near, he did. D.L. Moody. R.A. Torrey wrote a book on Moody. It said everything he was and had belonged wholly to God. He gave himself wholly unreserved, unqualified entirely to God. Every day of his life, I have reason for believing he rose very early in the morning to study the word of God way down to the close of his life. Mr. Moody used to rise about four in the morning. He would say to me, if I'm going to get in any study, I have to I have to I have got to get up before the other before the other folds get up. And he would shut himself up in a remote room in his house, alone with his God and his Bible. Jonathan Edwards, he made resolutions, and you can actually buy just a copy of those resolutions. They're quite amazing. He was very young when he made those. It says, resolve never to lose one moment of time, but to improve in it the most profitable way I possibly can. Resolve to study the scriptures too steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same. Resolved to strive every week to be brought higher in religion and to a higher exercise of grace that I was the week before And this is what Edwards, uh, this is what it says a quote about about Edwards He commonly spent 13 hours a day in his study The investigation of difficult subjects in the organization and arrangement of thoughts in the invention of arguments in the discovery of truths and principles Now I should think about this. Do you think there's any coincidence that the greatest American theologian ever spent 13 hours of study a day? I mean, there's no coincidence there. I mean, it just wasn't a freak accident that he happened to be the greatest theologian of American history ever. And I mean, true, he was very gifted. I mean, he was a brilliant guy. I could never do what he did. But the fact is, is when you spend 13 hours and study a day, then God does things for you. Then God uses you in a certain way. Then God allows you to grow. And so what I'm not, I'm not saying that you need to spend 13 hours a day, but I'm trying to get you to understand that the amount of time you spend is the amount of time you get, that the more you discipline yourself, The more time you put in, the more results that you'll see. And it's no coincidence that all of these men did great things for God. The reason that they did great things for God is because they put in the time that they knew it was going to take. Uh, read Hudson Taylor, his biography, spiritual secrets. I've got it down there. It's such a wonderful read. It says that once right after feeling the call to China, he began to prepare as well as he could for a life that would call for physical endurance. He took more exercise in the open air, exchanged his feather bed for a hard mattress and was watchful not to be self indulgent at table. All this led to more Bible study and prayer. Hudson-Taylor said, I have begun to get up at five in the morning to find it necessary to go to bed early. I must study if I mean to go to China. I am fully decided to go and am making every preparation I can. Hudson-Taylor's biography said, in these days of easygoing Christianity, it is not well to remind ourselves that it really does cost us to be a man or woman whom God can use. One cannot obtain Christlike character for nothing. One cannot do a Christ-like work save a great price. David Elliott said, prayer and pains through faith in Jesus Christ will do anything. Robert Murray Machane said, the real secret of his soul's prosperity lay in the daily enlargement of his heart in fellowship with his God. His morning hours were set apart for the nourishment of his soul. Spurgeon said, I must take care above all that I cultivate communion with Christ. For though that can never be the basis of my peace, mark that. yet it will be the channel of it. So I just wanted you to see just from those examples. And there's, there's hundreds of more. I could have given a many, many more examples. That's fine. But the fact is that God used these men, not by coincidence, but he used this man because they were disciplined because they chose to spend the time that it took to do that. And so we see that godly people are always disciplined people that if you desire to be godly, you will be disciplined. And a F there it says, God uses three things to change us, to be more like him. Can people turn to these verses Proverbs 27 17 and Romans 8 28 God uses three things to change us. First of all, he uses other people Does anyone have that Proverbs 27 17? This is parish where you read that when you get it and then someone else Romans 8 28 Proverbs 27 17 How does God use other people to change us to conform us into his image. Lots of ways, sometimes enjoyable ways and sometimes not enjoyable ways. Yeah. There's those people that you thank the Lord for putting in your life and other ones. You say, thank you that I'm growing through this person being in my life. So, but, but it is true that God uses people, right? Doesn't he? You can all probably give testimonies of the ways God use people to help you grow in godliness. He also uses circumstances. Romans eight 28. Somebody read that. That's right. How does God use circumstances to help us to grow? Good and bad, too. That's exactly right. He uses bad circumstances for us to grow and good circumstances. So God uses other people and circumstances. And the third thing he uses is spiritual disciplines. Now, the interesting thing is, is the first two we can't really control. We can choose who are our friends, and that's important. And so we want to choose people that are going to encourage us. But in many ways, we can't choose those people who are always around us. We also can't choose our circumstances, that God is going to use those things apart from our decisions to make us into his image. But the one thing that we do have control over that will allow us to be more like him is the spiritual disciplines. That's God working from the inside out, and it's the only one that we have a part in. On the one hand, like we talked about before, growth and holiness is a gift from God. But on the other hand, we can do something to further the process. So what you've got is you've got these two things that God is using, and it seems that those are somewhat easier to grasp because we can't do anything about it. but it's the discipline that wins that seems so hard because it's on us because it takes something from us. It takes perseverance and self-control, but that is the only one that we have control over. So the encouragement here is to make the most of it. Uh, he, he also says spiritual disciplines are spiritual exercise. Actually in first Timothy four, seven, that word discipline is the word, um, gymnastica is the word in, in, uh, in, uh, Greek. What does that remind you of? anything, gymnasium, gymnastics, it gives the whole idea, really, of exercise. And actually, the King James Version, if any of you still have one, the King James Version says, exercise for the purpose of godliness. That gives the very clear picture that godliness is just like exercise. That the same way that you would train, that you would run to do a marathon, that you pray, you know, so that you might talk to God, or that you read your Bible so that you might hear from God, that we should view it exactly like we view exercise. Which actually is not very encouraging, because none of us really love exercise. But it's a pain. That's right. But it has good results, doesn't it? And we keep the result in mind. And more than we desire to be healthy, we desire to be godly. And so as much time as we would ever put into exercise, we would put so much more time into spiritual disciplines because we desire to be godly more than anything. And the more that we desire to be godly, the harder we're going to try, the more we're going to work. And so we always keep our mind focused on Jesus and say, that's where I want to be. That's where I want to be. I want to be just like him. And so we continue to strive for that. And we never have a chance to give up because we never get there. until we're glorified. So it's, it's encouraging. Look next. The spiritual disciplines, the Lord expects them to be a disciple of Christ is at the very least to be one who learns from and follows Christ. Uh, I did want to read some of these verses. I'll look at Matthew 11. If someone would, two people would look at the other two. Um, let me read Matthew 11 29. Just giving the idea of being a disciple is really one who learns from Christ. Matthew 11 29 says, Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Obviously, it gives us a very clear idea that Jesus is saying, look at me and learn from who I am. What else do we see there? Do we have the other ones, Luke 9, 23? Galatians 5, 22 and 23, does anyone have that? But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. See, Jesus makes it very clear in those first two passages that if we want to be like Him, we need to learn from Him. And we learn from Him by looking at the way He lived. Look at the sacrifices that Jesus Christ made. Look at the fact that He went to the cross, alright? I mean, the greatest sacrifice He could have ever made, Hebrews 12. I mean, He made an amazing sacrifice. And he says, based on that, we learn from him. We look to the way that he lived and we desire to live like him. So there's never going to be a point where we've given enough until we've given everything, until we've given our life, that that is the ultimate that we could go. And Jesus did that. And so we look to him and we learn from him. The result of that is the Galatians passage is that we live as if we were walking in the spirit. If you look at the next page, this quote by Dallas Willard, it's another book on spiritual disciplines. I'll say something about here in a minute. says my central claim is that we can become like Christ by doing one thing, by following him in the overall style of life he chose for himself. If we have faith in Christ, we must believe that he knew how to live. We can, through faith and grace, become like Christ by practicing the types of activities he engaged in. By arranging, should be our whole lives, around the activities he himself practiced in order to remain constantly at home in the fellowship of his father. I mean, that's amazing. He says that we can become Christ, like Christ, by following him in the overall style of the life he chose for himself. What are some examples of the life that Jesus chose for himself? Give me some examples. Very simple life. In what sense? What do you mean? Do you think that was kind of just coincidence? He just didn't have a lot of money or Yeah. That's right. It is. That's right. It says the overall style of life he chose for himself. What are some other ways that Jesus lived? Some other ways he showed discipline? That's right. Even Jesus prayed and sought the Father's will, didn't he? What else? That's right. And he could have. And if he did, we would have had nothing. So it's amazing. What else were you saying? You know, I'm convinced that's a discipline as well. I mean, honestly, I've been so encouraged by Revelation 22, I believe verse 16. which has this whole list of sins and of people that will not inherit the kingdom of God, the adulterers and the fornicators. And the first one is the cowardly. Isn't that amazing? That the cowardly are right alongside in God's eyes with the adulterers and the murderers and the fornicators and the witchcrafts, all those. I mean, God is serious about us being bold and strong. And I think that takes practice. It takes work and it doesn't come natural for anyone. For the people who it comes natural for, they don't do it graciously. And so they have to practice doing it graciously. Those that may be able to do it graciously don't have an easy time doing it. And so there's work for everybody. But, uh, yeah, it's, it's, I don't know. I've been on both sides of it. So, um, anything else? Ways that Jesus disciplined himself? Well, I would just look at this quote again. If we have faith in Christ, we must believe that he knew how to live. We usually skip past the way that he lives and go to the way that he died. Don't we? That we're not really considering the way that he lived. But it's the same way we looked at these men of God who did great things, that there was no coincidence that Christ lived the way that he lived. He lived that way because he knew that if he was going to be who he needed to be and who God desired him to be, then he had to live that way. He had to live that way. And his death was not just an example for us. His life was an example for us. And so we're to look at that life and to do accordingly. And it says there on the second thing, applying those disciplines make us like Christ while neglecting them make us useless. Look at the Roman numeral three there. There is danger in neglecting the spiritual disciplines. There are two things that are really dangerous. The first thing that is dangerous about neglecting the spiritual disciplines is that we will not bear fruit. Just like we talked about before, it's like trying to win a race without exercise, that by exercise you win the fruit of the prize, but without exercise, you don't do that. How can not being disciplined keep us from bearing fruit? That's right. Good. What are some other things? How could it keep you from bearing fruit? How can lack of study keep you from bearing fruit? Lack of Bible study. Don't know the material well enough to understand it. That's right. That's right. What if a situation comes up and you don't have the right answer that you would not be able to bear fruit because you had not studied? What are some other ways that that it can hurt you? When you lose self-control. Because if you study the word, you're focused on the word, especially in the morning. The word gives you the direction to go. You don't end up going the wrong way because you just forgot the word. That's right. It urges you to do it. That's right. I mean, I think we could go on forever talking about the ways that an undisciplined life could keep us from bearing fruit. But the second thing is that it allows us not to use our God-given gifts. I was thinking about this today when I was looking at this. It's like Carl Lewis deciding that he was going to work at the drive-thru at McDonald's because he wasn't willing to put the work in to do what he was gifted to do. I mean, think about that. He knew that he was gifted to jump and to run and to do all those things, but he just thought, eh, it's kind of a pain. I mean, think about all I'm going to have to do, so I'm going to go get $8 at McDonald's. Imagine if he would've done that. It would've been foolish. It would've been an incredible waste because he had gifts, but he wasn't willing to work hard to get them. So how are some ways that we could not use our gifts if we weren't disciplined? Okay. That's true. Okay, say you have the gift of service. If you're not disciplined, how could you not use that gift of service? Or, like Joyce said, you're too concerned with your own life, and so you're not giving to anyone else. What about the gift of encouragement? How could not being disciplined keep you from being encouraging to someone? Right, exactly. Discipline is the root of everything. It's the root of our entire walk with Christ. that he has allowed us to be disciplined. We always acknowledge that all these things are from him. But if we're not disciplined, we will not bear fruit and we will not use the gifts that God's given us, that we will, our lives will become completely useless. We can never expect to do that. Um, what time is it? Oh, okay. Uh, look at this, uh, this quote, I want to, I want to read this. This is, this is amazing. Um, just kind of neglecting the discipline to life. Uh, it's about Cooleridge, the, um, late 18th century, 19th century poet. Do you see that on the back, neglecting the discipline life? It's just kind of an example of what could be a result of someone's life without being disciplined. It says, nothing was ever achieved without discipline. And many an athlete and many a man has been ruined because he abandoned discipline and let himself grow slack. Cooleridge is the supreme tragedy of indiscipline. Never did so great a mind produce so little. He left Cambridge University to join the army. But he left the army because, in spite of all of his erudition, he could not rub down a horse. He returned to Oxford and left without a degree. He began a paper called The Watchman, which lived for 10 numbers and then died. It has been said of him, he lost himself in visions of work to be done that always remained to be done. Cooleridge had every poetic gift but one, the gift of sustained and concerted effort. In his head and in his mind, he had all kinds of books. As he said himself, completed save for transcription. I am on the eve, he said, of sending to the press two octavo volumes, but the books were never composed outside of Coolidge's mind because he would not face the discipline of sitting down to write them out. No one ever reached any eminence and no one having reached it ever maintained it without discipline. There's a great quote. I love that. He lost himself in visions of work to be done that always remained to be done. Isn't that amazing? I mean, how many times have we decided that we were going to do something? We've known we've wanted to do it, but it just remained there. It just remained a great thought of something we could do. You know, I think about so many times when God has said little things like, write this person a card or encourage this person this way. And it remains a good idea, but it just remains undone and the opportunity passes. Well, that's how it is. And this is a great example of someone who neglected discipline. And it has great, great results. But there also, there's a freedom in embracing the spiritual disciplines. Roman numeral four, there's freedom in embracing the spiritual disciplines, which at this point kind of sounds confusing because everything we're talking about with exercise and all that seems that it would be very, uh, restraining even says, although they may seem binding and restrictive, they are paths to freedom. Richard Foster and his book here, celebration of disciplines. His first chapter is actually called, um, where'd I have it here? It's called the door to liberation. He says, spiritual disciplines. is the door to liberation. Elton Trueblood said, discipline is the price of freedom. Why is that true? How can a disciplined life give you freedom? You have kids, you know. Okay, explain. Well, when they're well disciplined and they behave properly, you can get a lot more done and enjoy them and teach them more because they're not ready. Good. Okay. What are some other ways? What are some ways that discipline brings freedom? Nothing worse than that. Just absolutely miserable, guilty feeling when you know you're just, you know, you're just an idiot. You've just gone three days and you haven't spent time with the Lord and you just feel like you're never going to get back. You know, there's nothing worse than that feeling. You're also free from the enslavement of your old self. That's right. You're not a slave to your old passions, and you're not free to live. Good. Great freedom. Well, we're created to do that, and so we have the freedom to actually live the way we were created to live. What are some other ways that discipline might bring freedom? One of the things I was talking about, I was talking about this kid playing the guitar, and he said, That's right. That's right. I remember there was a point in my life when I first for the first time realized that I was starting to understand the Bible that I had learned some some ways to study and I was starting to understand that opens a whole new world. When you start to learn how to study the Bible, it's a whole new ball game. I mean, it's just incredible, and that's the same way. And actually, that story in the book was great, and I understood that completely, because I own a guitar, and I play about eight chords, which means I can play any of the praise songs, but that's it. And so, the fact is that there's a lot of songs that I get, and I can't play those, right? I can play a lot of stuff, but there's a lot of things I don't have freedom to play, because I didn't take the time to do it. But once you master that, once you get all the, then you can pick up any piece of music, and you can play it. And there's great freedom there. Anybody can give you something, and you know how to play it. So there's great freedom in that. But the fact is, is that that's discipline comes with great freedom. Um, look at what, um, it says there'd be discipline is the price of freedom. Freedom is the reward of discipline, freedom to quote scripture found in the discipline of memorization. You have freedom from spiritual insensitivity found in fasting, freedom from self-centeredness found in worship service and evangelism, freedom to live as Christ has called us to live. I mean, that's incredible. There's great freedom found in discipline. So it's so funny, you know, I heard someone say every before that, that everything in the Christian life seems like a dichotomy. It just seems so there's, there's this side and there's this side and you're not really sure how they work together, but they always do like providence and prayer. You're just not sure how that works, but you do it cause you know it works. It's the same with this. The fact is, is that it seems difficult, that it's never good. It's never easy. It's never just enjoyable in and of itself to get up when the alarm goes off and spend time in the word. But as you do that the rest of the day, you find great freedom. And so there's always this great price that you have to pay, but you pay that price knowing that you're doing it for godliness, you're doing it for freedom. And I think in some ways there's an aspect where we need to understand it's not bad to seek these things that we might be free. It's not bad to seek these things that we might have peace. Hebrews 11, six says, without faith it's impossible to please God. He who pleases him must believe that he is, and he is the rewarder of those who seek him. What that says is if you want to please God, you have to believe that He will reward you. Basically what you're doing is you're seeking reward. And all those guys in Hebrews 11, that's what they did. They were seeking reward. And so in some senses, it's okay for us to seek to be godly because we want peace. To seek to be godly because we want that freedom. Because all of those things are gifts from God. And all of those things cause us to be satisfied with God. And God, like we talked about last week, is glorified when we're satisfied in Him. When we are completely satisfied in Him, that brings glory to God. And so we desire to have that freedom, and we work hard for it. We work hard for that peace that we give, and we know the opposite, and we don't want to do that. We want to starve that old man and feed the new man. So there's great freedom in the spiritual disciplines, even though they seem so difficult. Look at Roman numeral five there. The last thing really he talks about is there's an invitation to all Christians to enjoy spiritual disciplines. Never dull and boring if we keep the purpose of godliness in mind. That this is what causes these things from being a drag. This is what causes them from being boring when we always keep the purpose in mind, which is godliness. Jesus is our example of discipline, as we already talked about. He was the most disciplined man that ever lived, yet the most joyful and alive. And so we always look to the example of Christ. It says, for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. That even He was enduring these things, looking to what is ahead. And so all the time, you're seeking to live disciplined, because you know that it has great reward here, and you know it has great reward in the future. And the moment that it gets tough, the moment it gets so discouraging, you just think about the reward. Hebrews 11, that's what the whole chapter's about. People were looking past right now. They were looking past the difficulty and looking to the future, always. All of Christianity is looking ahead. It's looking back to what Christ did, but then it's looking ahead. It's saying, I'm going to, I'm going to sacrifice an hour of sleep here because I know of what it's going to give me. I'm always looking ahead. I'm going to sacrifice some time to encourage people and to spend time with them because I know the benefit that it's going to be to me. We're always thinking about the benefit here and the benefit to come. We're always looking to the future. And so, um, we look to the, to the life of Christ and understand that, that he lived this way. He lived this discipline life, but he was a joyful and alive person. I just, the sixth one is actually not really in the book. I just kind of added it. I added the, the issue of time and I added it because it's kind of an issue with me and I'm going to assume it's an issue with you. If not, then this is just kind of self-disclosure by Josh, which is fine. Um, second Peter, um, chapter one, uh, verses three through seven. Actually, I'm going to read, um, I'm going to kind of read versus I'll read verses three through seven. Listen, there's some, there's some words that are used here quite a bit. And they're real interesting when he's talking about how to be holy. He says, as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, which is amazing, through the knowledge of him, that's huge right there, I wouldn't even plan on saying this, but through the knowledge of him, that's how important knowledge is, that all of the things that we have are attained through knowledge. It's always about feeding our mind with the truth. As we feed our mind with the truth, we realize what we have and we live that way. Who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." I want you to think about some of the words in the next few verses that have to do with our discipline. But also, for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to your virtue knowledge, to your knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness, brotherly kindness, brotherly kindness, love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he has cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure. If you do these things, you will never stumble." He uses the word diligent twice. He uses self-control and he used perseverance. Now, the reason I put these with the issue of time is because it always takes time to do these things. The willingness to give these time is all about diligence, self-control, and perseverance, isn't it? It's all about self-control. It's all about saying that I'm going to do this, even though it seems that I don't have the time, that I'm going to make out time for this. The reason I've placed this here is because what we've learned is discipline and godliness are inseparable. You cannot be godly without discipline. And I believe you cannot be disciplined unless you set aside time to do that. You cannot be. And it's difficult. I know. I'm taking 15 hours of school and working 30 hours a week. I know how difficult it is. But at the same time, I know that when I go through these times, when I spend my quiet time studying for school, that I'm miserable. I don't like to live that way. I do it, and it's terrible. And so I know that I have to make time, no matter what it is. And for me, a lot of times, John Piper has a great quote. He says, TV kills preachers. He says that, and it's really true. That there's time when I have some time just to myself. And the stupidest thing for me to do personally is to watch TV. If I have time with nothing to do, I want to just rest. I want to relax. And more than anything, I want to be refreshed and I want to be refreshed by the word. And so there's a lot of things if we look at our lives and that's what I've put here, what things keep you from spending the necessary time with the Lord. It seems to me that before we go on next and we talk about Bible study, that you've got to decide first of all, what is keeping you from doing Bible study. And there's, there's no need for us to go next week and come back here and talk about studying the Bible if you're not willing to set aside time to do it. So this week I want to encourage you to think about that. What is it in your life that's keeping you from doing that? Where can you make some time? Preferably, I think you need to make time in the morning if at all possible. I think you need to meet with God before you meet with anybody else. And so I want to encourage you to think about that. How can you reorganize your time? For me, I've got to be just willing to go to bed early. Getting up is not a big deal for me, but I've got to get to bed early. And so that's a big deal. And I just want you to think about that. Before you come back next week, how are you going to arrange your life to make way for godliness? I just put there the closing prayer. Think about God's deep love for you and desire to communicate with you through the spiritual disciplines. Ask the Lord to help you become willing to practice these disciplines during the coming week. So I want you to think about this week and practice that. I've also put some review questions here. There's five of these. If you want to look at these sometime during the day, you don't need the book. You can just look at these. These are some things that are maybe some further study. If you want to do those through your time with the Lord tomorrow, that would be great. If you have the book or even if you don't have the book, you can look at these preview questions. If you want to come next week and you want to think about That it would be helpful for you to to kind of just evaluate some things in your life and come back next week prepared I've also at the end what I'm going to do every week is I put just a couple of book recommendations I've put these two things Richard Foster the celebration of disciplines is kind of the most classic book on spiritual disciplines It's a great book. The spirit of the disciplines is understanding how God changes lives Basically what this is is understanding how spiritual disciplines work. It doesn't even go through the disciplines It just talks about how it works. It's a great resource and a great book. So if you're looking to do further study on those, uh, you can do that. Donald Whitney is the one that we're going through is, uh, we're going through spiritual disciplines for the Christian life by Donald Whitney. So I'd encourage you to get that and, um, you can get it. I put on the first week, if you still have the first week, a bunch of websites where you can get those books. Let me pray and we'll go. Dear God, we do think about how much you've loved us. And Lord, you've demonstrated that very clearly through the cross. And Lord, we can never question whether you love us or not. It's clear to us that you love us. Lord, we thank you that more than that, you desire to have a relationship with us. You want to communicate with us. And Lord, you want us to know you and you want us to be like you. And Lord, it's very simple to think about. We know that the way to do that is through godliness, but God, it's so difficult. And we all would admit right now that it's so hard. It's just difficult to live this way. It's difficult to live disciplined. So God, we need you. We say today that we are completely dependent, and we want to be spiritual beggars. We want to beg you to help us, to cause us to be disciplined, to give us that vision of godliness, to give us that desire to be like you. God, help us to take the time to do this. We want to grow. We pray that you would help us to do that. In Jesus' name, amen.