The Disciplined Life

By: Isaac Wardell

It has been said that nothing in this world comes naturally. We are often impressed by the gracefulness of those who compete in the Olympics, or by Sports Players such as Karl Malone (formerly of the Utah Jazz), even by great people in History like Winston Churchill. But as we go behind these people we see they spend an incredible about of time practicing, and disciplining themselves. An Olympic Athlete will spend almost their whole life training every day, hours a day, for that one performance that they hope will give them a gold medal, the highest athletic award given to a person.

A reporter once asked Karl Malone if he could accompany him on his workout session to see what kept him in shape and gave him the ability to gain the nickname of “The Mail Man”. Mr. Malone agreed to allow the reporter to accompany him. In writing about it afterwards, the reporter, completely worn out, said that Mr. Malone had started behind his house, in the foot hills of the mountains, and began running, not walking, running, up the mountain. Needless to say, the reporter had a hard time keeping up. Soon they reached the top, and went down again, and then up the second mountain. When they reached the third mountain the reporter was shocked to see Mr. Malone turn around and run up the mountain…backwards! Needless to say, Mr. Malone put a lot of time, and discipline into preparing for his time on the basketball court.

Winston Churchill is thought by many to be one of the greatest leaders of all time. His speeches and impromptu remarks have become famous. Everyone knew he was a natural, and he proved it by his eloquence. In reality though, Mr. Churchill wrote everything out and practiced it endlessly in front of a mirror. He even wrote in the margins the responses to his remarks like “Cheers” “Prolonged clapping” “Standing Ovation”. He wasn’t dealing with an issue of pride; actually he had a lisp that made it impossible for him to be spontaneous in public.

As we can see from these examples, and the examples of any great person:

What appears to be natural in reality is a Disciplined-hard-working man or woman.

We all start off with the same thing when we enter this life: Nothing. We are all Dead in trespasses and sin. (Eph.2:1) When we through faith accept Christ's payment for their sin, then the grace of God laid hold of us and transformed us into the potential of being a Servant of Christ.

Faith saves us, not Grace — George Butcher

Staring in grace as a person with the potential of being a Servant of Christ, we work by grace to discipline our lives unto Godliness. Reject old wives fables, and exercise yourself towards Godliness. (I. Tim. 4:7)

The sad reality is that we don’t take to heart this verse. Instead out of selfish motivation we do just as our advisory desires. When we don’t like the mess this world is in, we cultivate blindness. When we don’t like the sound of weeping, we cultivate deafness. When we do not like the problems people have, we cultivate insensitivity. The list goes on, the point is: When we don’t like something, we cultivate callousness to the situation. Pretend it doesn’t exist, ignore the real need.

To many of us have small hearts, selfish ones that are occupied with small things like today, pleasure, gold, fame, my world, my wants, my desires, my gain, my selfishness, what is in this for me?

Oh that we had the heart of our Lord, a large heart that was occupied with large things like eternity, people, love, compassion, heaven; the things which will last forever.

We’ve probably all seen John Wayne standing over an open grave and holding a Bible say “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. [Gen 3:19] We bring nothing into this world, it is sure we can take nothing out of it”. While the movie star is correct concerning temporal things, everything listed under the small heart above, the truth is that the things that Christ was focused on, the things that occupied his large heart, will last beyond death and the grave they will last for eternity.

Large hearts aren’t always accepted. James Gilmour went to Mongolia and wrote these words in his diary, “Several huts in sight, O Lord, suggest by your Spirit how I should come among them to teach the life and love of Christ”. Near the sunset of his work he wrote, “I have not as far as I am aware, seen anyone who even wanted to be a Christian”.

Unless the heart is very large, such service cannot be understood in today’s world, Even among the Church. Ask yourself honestly, would your Church send out a man like James Gilmour, who worked his whole life and would write at the end, “I have not as far as I am aware, seen anyone who even wanted to be a Christian”? I think there would be very few who could honestly answer that their “Church” would continue to support such a man after seeing no fruit from his work.

The reason for this is that the Church is made up of people, and too many people, as we have seen, have small hearts. They are concerned with performance, fame, what makes them look good, etc. They want missionaries that “See lots of people saved”, they want glory boys who reach masses of people, and see great works done. Then they can point to such a person and say “See him, he is a missionary we sent out” or “Him? Oh yes I know him!”; oh what selfishness is displayed even in the Church of Christ today.

I wish to God that we could all say as the song sung by Greater Vision: “If just one more soul were walk down the aisle, it would be worth every struggle, it would be worth every mile, a life time of labor is still worth it all if it rescues just one more soul”

Even the person who had the largest heart of all, our Lord and Savior, was rejected by his own people. Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?(John 1:46). Unless the heart is very large, service such as that performed by James Gilmour cannot be understood in today’s world.

While others may be allowed to enjoy the many comforts and luxuries of this life…the disciplined servant of God must be constantly denying themselves for something better.

If you want success you must be willing to sacrifice. — George Butcher

One definition of discipline is, “Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior”. It is not easy to discipline oneself, every year the #1 New Years resolution in America is to work out more, get in shape, etc. Yet most people just barely work off the extra weight they put on from Grandma’s cake, Aunt Margie’s cookies, and all the other goodies from the holidays, before they give up on “getting in shape”. Why? Because they aren’t disciplined enough, they aren’t willing to sacrifice whatever comfort they are enjoying to go to the gym, the couch is too comfortable, the ice cream tastes too good, they like sleeping in to much to get up a half hour earlier to go for an early morning jog.

None of these things are wrong in and of themselves, they just show how little people are really willing to sacrifice to get in shape. Sure, if it is convenient, if it benefits them they’ll do it, but if it doesn’t they aren’t going to sacrifice, or discipline themselves to obtain that goal, and then they wonder why they are out of shape…

Granted I’ve used an easy illustration here, but what you should understand from it is that while others may be allowed to enjoy the many comforts and luxuries of this life…the disciplined servant of God must be constantly denying themselves for something better; or in other words, if you want to be a great speaker like Winston Chruchill, it may require endless hours in front of the mirror. I’m sure Mr. Churchill had other things he would have liked to have been doing, going to a party somewhere, reading his favorite book, etc, but instead he spent the time in front of the mirror practicing his speeches.

What about us? Do we want to be remembered as great men/women who were deeply rooted in the word of God? To be rooted in the word of God we must spend time studying it. Perhaps we have to sacrifice some sleep to spend time in his word, or take a couple less appointments at work, maybe not go to see that new movie that just came out…whatever the case may be, if we are going to be disciplined servants of God, we are going to need to learn how to sacrifice, to deny ourselves, and take upon ourselves the yoke of Christ.

The Discipline of Serving

Let us pause a minute and take a look at the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 9. This chapter gives us a glimpse into the servant example set by Christ. In this chapter he raises a paralytic, tells Matthew the tax collector to follow him, heals a woman with 12 years of sickness, raises a girl back to life, touches the eyes of blind that they may see…Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching, preaching, and healing. (Matt. 9:35).

Christ was going about serving others, he was watching out for others, but notice there was a price for such a sacrifice, for having such a big heart. The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.(Matt. 8:20)

“Isolation is the tyranny of service.” — Unknown Author

As we look at Christ we see he was often in what we would consider isolation, even his disciples didn’t understand his big heart. Instead they were focused on their small hearts: At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?(Matt. 18:1) They were thinking of their own well being, their fame, positions, etc.

We must realize that people with small hearts, like the Pharisees, who had nice clothes, the best seats, adoring crowds…had/have NO POWER to change lives or lift the weary souls into the arms of God. While all the luxuries of this life may make us comfortable, and popular, they tend to be for our own pleasure, and have nothing to do with making an eternal deference.

When looking at a foreign mission field we must ask, are we really concentrating on what matters? 91% of missionaries minister to Christians in foreign lands…no where do I see that pattern being set in scripture, by our Lord or his disciples in their missionary travels.

The greatest discipline of missionary service is the ability to get DOWN in the mud and the people like Moses did of old. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; (Heb.11:24-25)

When Christ said “…So send I you…” I can’t help but think that he meant for us to follow his example, learning to have a large heart, to take the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth; that he didn’t mean for us to live a life of luxury, of satisfying our selfish pleasures, but rather sacrificing everything to take his name to those who don’t know it. To share in their problems, weaknesses, sickness, and heartaches, that we might share the good news of Christ with them.

This is the example set by our Lord, he experienced our pain, our weaknesses, our problems, our heartaches, so that he could understand and ultimately share what he had come to do with us. He spent 30 years of his life, learning “getting down in the mud with people”, and then he spent 3 years sharing/teaching about who he was, and what he had come to do.

This is the discipline of serving at its greatest.

The Discipline of Caring

Going back to Matthew Chapter 9 where we read of Christ serving, we see anther element of discipline, the discipline of caring. When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion. (Matt. 9:36)

One thing we can not miss in our modern world is the explosion of people, and of their needs. Mass media and instant communication have brought the reality, and harshness of many needs right before our eyes. Even the unbelieving masses see the need, and cannot help but do something. For those who know this history of Black Hawk Down, Time magazine ran an article about a malnourished child in Somalia. The compassion was so great, the out cry so great, that the US military, and the UN all got involved in trying to take food to this small country.

If those who do not know Christ have such compassion, shouldn’t we have compassion even more so since we can see the spiritual need? For it is what Christ taught us, the example we are supposed to set is one of compassion.

When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion, because they were weary. (Matt. 9:36)

Christ saw a need, he saw that people were weary, not only physically weary, spiritually weary too, and he had compassion on them. Most of us live in such a high context society, everything we want is at our finger tips, or if not, its only a mile away at the local Wal-mart. Most of us don’t really know material need. I’m reminded of a good friend of mine who visited Romania a little over a year ago, to this day when she talks of Romania I can see in her eyes, and hear in her voice compassion for the orphans that touched her heart. She saw a material need, but she also saw something more, something that touched her heart in the same way Christ's heart was touched: she saw a spiritual need.

Many of us see a spiritual need, or hear of it, but it is all so distant from us, and we develop a callousness to it, as I mentioned before, when most of us hear of need, we develop deafness, when we see a need, we develop blindness...

Christ knew of the spiritual need, which far outweighs any temporal earthly need; He went out of his way on multiple occasions to tell about the good news of the promised Messiah, and in areas that were often considered…undesirable; and to people that were less then reputable.

Think of the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, Samaria was not a desirable place. She had been married and divorced multiple times, and the man she was living with was not her husband…she was a fornicator, just to say a little. Yet she was searching for the truth; Christ had compassion on her, and went out of his way to tell her of the good news he brought. He saw that she had a need for physical water, but what really touched his heart was her need for spiritual water. The spiritual need he saw resulted in him having great compassion.

We believers have the answer for the Spiritual need! We should take upon ourselves the discipline of compassion as Christ had, willing to sacrifice to take the solution for this Spiritual need to those who so desperately want to hear it.

Too often we are wrapped up in our own selfishness, we are living a good lifestyle, and while we are concerned about the spiritual state of the lost lambs, we really don’t feel compelled to do anything about it. We don’t really understand compassion. We like our things, our material possessions, our luxurious lifestyles; we are not willing to sacrifice them to have the compassion that Christ had to go out of our way, to give up the temporal material things, to fill that spiritual need.

There is a stern warning given to the church of Laodicea in Revelation, concerning such an attitude. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; (Rev. 3:15-17)

Our fast paced world may be nice to see, but the price is very high to live in it. No longer may we claim ignorance to the needs and cries of the multitudes. The cry and need is not just a physical one, the unbelieving population can attempt to fill that, what our Lord saw was a deeper, spiritual need, the need for the news of a Savior, the need for the solution to sin that he held, that we believers hold.

Too many missionaries, and churches, feel the pressure to meet all the physical needs of those who are not as fortunate to have “everything”. In reality we would do well to keep material things in their place and realize the most important issue, the place where we should have the most compassion is where Christ had it: in focusing on the soul, and its eternal fate.

They were scattered like sheep having no shepherd (Matt. 9:36)

Perhaps the reason Christ's passion was so great was that he fully understood that it is the hopelessness of the situation that is the worst curse for those lost in sin. Allow yourself to concentrate on this for a moment as I did recently…picture yourself, knowing that you are a sinner, and knowing there is nothing you can do, and yet not knowing that there is a savoir. You have no hope. Not even a false one that many in our culture can claim. YOU HAVE NO HOPE! What a curse indeed, to have no hope is life crushing within itself.

If we were to understand that one principle, the realization that the cry which is the loudest, is from those who have no hope. Those who live without hope, and face dying without hope. What a sad and desperate life; is it any wonder that Christ had such compassion? He realized the value of a soul; I cannot honestly say that any of us truly understand the value of a soul. We have however, been given a glimpse into its value, and if we were to concentrate on that glimpse, the compassion we would have for lost souls would cause us to go out of our way, out of our luxury and comfort, to reach those who have no hope, who live in fear, because they do not know what lays beyond death.

There are many who are doing their best for others, but are bound by their own selfishness. The single greatest qualification for a shepherdwho is reaching for the lost sheep is compassion. For only the shepherd who has true compassion for the lost sheep, can reach it.

The discipline of compassion will cost us dearly in time, friends, resources, and numbered years. We may not even be thanked for having compassion, when we look at Christ in Luke 17 we read of when Christ had compassion on ten lepers, and so he healed them…and yet only one returned to thank him. The large heart which is filled with compassion is not understood in today’s world; but only when we have gone through the “HeartBreak of Compassion” will we understand the "Discipline of Service” for the sake of Jesus Christ.

The Discipline of Labour

The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few (Matt. 9:37)

Our Lord Jesus points out a very disturbing problem of discipline: Although many see the need, even hear the cry; they do not put their hand to the plow. Only 1 out of 100 people who say they are interested in missions ever get to the field. That is 1% of those who are ever interested in the missions, actually do something and make it to the field.

If they are worthy of Thy [Christ] Blood…are they not worthy of my labour? -- C.T. Studd

As mentioned in the service section, the greatest discipline of missionary service is the ability to get down in the “mud” with people. Christ spent most of his life labouring at a carpenters bench, from there he moved to labouring amongst the people. He crisscrossed the land of Israel again and again with the words of Life and the hands of Love. He sacrificed all he had, even a place to sleep, to labour for the people he loved.

Such love does not escape the attention of the dying, or the eyes of God. As we look at our great men who were disciplined, we see that they laboured long and hard, Mr. Churchill probably wore out several mirrors practicing his speeches (Ok, lame attempt at humor there), but when he made a speech, it was noted by the crowding masses.

Now imagine that you are one of those people with no hope, and someone is here labouring among you, a person who has denied himself a luxurious life to bring you, a person without hope, news of the words of Life and Love. Would you sit up and take notice?

It is hard to leave a luxurious life style that we area accustomed to, and go to a new place, learn a new language, live in perhaps a dangerous place…etc. The work is real, the labour costs us something.

The life of a labourer is not an easy one; the word itself should give you a clue. The honest truth is that there are many missionaries, but few labourers. There is a difference, it is possible to be a missionary without being a labourer.

A study of Americans showed that 65% of Americans fear something about the day in which they live; but as Christians we don’t have to fear. For God hath not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (II. Tim 1:7). Sure, we don’t like the idea of catching a disease that could kill us as we labour to take the news of Christ love to a new place, it requires sacrificing the security of a good hospital where we know we can probably get treated for most anything. But if dying is the largest fear we have to face then the words of George Butcher are extremely relevant to us: “So what if you get sick and die? If you do, he’ll take you to glory”

The Apostle Paul truly understood this idea when he said For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Phil. 1:21). To live is Christ, sacrificing all our selfish desires to our Savior. To die is gain. Did you get that? Gain…there is a better place then this earth to be. As one of the lead characters from the film “Last Flight Out” so rightly said “There is no better place to be then in the center of Gods will…unless it is in his presence”.

This man, Mateo, understood that true meaning of Labour, he eventually gave all he had, his luxurious lifestyle as an American Doctor, his comfortable home, all his worldly goods, eventually even his life, to take the news of Christ's love to those who were dying to hear it. He had the compassion of Christ in his heart.

Jesus said to his disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. (Matt. 16:24). Here we have an act of discipline, deny himself; it takes a great deal of discipline to deny oneself, to sacrifice what our comforts. Many today hate to run in this race, and stumble at the discipline of it. Like those who want to get in shape, but soon tire of the discipline needed to get to that point, in the same way those who are interested in missions, and may even start in that direction, often stumble and give up because they don’t have the discipline needed to make it to the goal.

Imagine if an Olympic Athlete decided half way through training for his performance that he didn’t want to sacrifice any more, that he didn’t want to give the discipline needed to have a gold medal. Well the answer is obvious; he would never get the gold.

In the same way if we refuse, or give up on, the discipline needed in the Christian walk to reach the point of compassion that our Lord had, then we will fail to reach the goal of reaching others; in the same way the athlete who gives up early will never reach the gold medal.

Paul at the end of his life could say he had run a good race, had fought a good fight. Remember one of our definitions for discipline is: "Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior." Well Paul had disciplined, and trained, himself to run the Christian race in the same way that an athlete prepares himself on the track every day for the race that will earn him a medal. Paul had disciplined & trained himself to be a good soldier, he had learned how to fight effectively in the same way a drill sergeant disciplines his men until they can fight effectively.

Imagine if there was no discipline in the military, and then one day a war came. Well we would have a horrible mess, because the troops would not know what to do, would not have been trained in how to reach the goal. of winning the battle. In the same way if we give up early on our discipline, our training, then we will not be able to reach our goal, or victory, either.

“The desire may well be strong and commendable, but the discipline will determine the outcome.”-- George Butcher

Satan knows that the disciplined man is perhaps one of his worst enemies, so he will try to trip up the disciplined man/woman by sending along self fulfillment, satisfaction, enjoyment, and warm experiences, things that edify ourselves…and take away from the labour of serving our Lord sacrificially.

Remember: Discipline involves sacrifice.

Below is a chart showing a space picture of the world:

You can see the masses; let us take a look at the way the population is broken down:

Notice the statistics on this chart. 99% of the unevangelized live outside of North America. Meaning that 99% of all the people who need to hear of the love of Christ live outside of the luxury we enjoy in North America. Not to mention that 95% of the world population lives outside of North America.

If we are to truly understand discipline and sacrifice, we must understand that Jesus said we must deny ourselves. Which in this case means that in order to reach those who need to hear of our Savior, we probably need deny our privileges as comfortable Americans, in the same way that Christ sacrificed even a place to sleep to labour among the people who had such a Spiritual need.

If we are to truly understand the discipline of serving then the second figure there must become a stark reality: 91% of Foreign Missionaries minister to Christians. Christians are not the ones who need to hear of the love of Christ, it is the unevangelized! It means truly denying ourselves and perhaps reaching into a completely new culture, where there are no Christians.

Paul in writing to the Romans said, Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation (Rom. 15:20). The idea of a missionary, and I think we all agree that Paul was a missionary, was to go to those who had not heard. Not minister to the Christians who already know of Christ.

If we are really seeking opportunity then this next chart must force us to realize that there is indeed a great need:

Consider for a moment that the current estimated of people in the world is about 6.5 billion. That means that in this 10/40 window live almost half of the people in the world. These are 80% of the poorest of poor…talk about Compassion; these people have nothing…most not even hope.

They are 97% of the least evangelized. Half the world population makes up for 97% of the least evangelized! Talk about opportunity for labourers!

As one wise brother once said "Consider yourself called [to mission service] unless God leads clearly otherwise". The reason this statement is so true, is that Christ set the example himself, he denied himself to take the news where it needed to be heard!

Summery

Discipline involves sacrifice, denying oneself. For the disciplined Christian it means that they center on the cross, and realize that once they start down the road of discipline, there is no return. One does not stop half way if they are going to run the race. They don’t stop their training if they are going to win the fight. They are willing to sacrifice everything to the will of God.

We started out talking about great men, and how they were disciplined; if we are to be used greatly of God, we must be disciplined in all areas of our lives, as the above chart illustrates. We must focus on the cross and allow that to be our everything; denying ourselves & willing to sacrifice all that we have to take up our cross and follow him. No matter where we live, work, etc, if we are to be known as great men/women of God, then we must discipline ourselves.

“The desire may well be strong and commendable, but the discipline will determine the outcome.”

-- George Butcher

*Special thanks to George Butcher for illustrations, and some of the thoughts expressed.