Introduction:
I don’t know how many of you like or dislike the word discipline, but the word usually brings a strong response. You, either, love discipline and live a disciplined life, or you love discipline but are frustrated because you don’t live a disciplined life, or you hate discipline but live with discipline, or you hate discipline and don’t live with discipline at all.
Discipline, for the purpose of this message, is simply, doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done in order to bring about the desired result.
In the first year of my undergraduate study at UC Davis, I read a poem in my English class about a priest on his deathbed. He regretted living his life with great discipline because he felt he missed out on the fun and joy of spontaneity. I don’t recall whether the poet made up the character in the poem or whether the character was one he had observed.
I was at the time a new Christian of one year, and I felt that much of Christianity was about the repression and discipline of our passions in order to please God. Obviously, I now know that’s not true. Over the last eight years, I’ve discovered that Christianity is about freedom, security, joy and expression of our greatest passion for God and for one another with the most positive outcome imaginable.
Because I was right out of high school and able to experience living away from home, discipline was the last thing on my mind. When discipline did come to mind, the word carried a very negative connotation. As a result, I played hard and studied little.
While others slept, I had a group of undisciplined and spontaneous friends to hang out with. While others got up for class, I slept in. While others studied for their exams, I played, only leaving ten minutes to read the conclusion of each chapter of the textbook before my exams. I never saw the inside of the campus library until my sophomore year in college.
What changed my life was a little book, titled, "You and Your Network," that really turned me on to a life of discipline and the joy of the Christian life. I went from being a distraction to others to being on the dean’s list almost every quarter, and I loved life and served in ministry throughout my last two years at UC Davis.
Whatever your response is to the word discipline, know that discipline is absolutely necessary in certain areas of life in order to experience maximum enjoyment of life. This morning, we will be looking at Philippians 1:18:b-26.
Paul, whose joy could not be repressed even by a prison cell, reveals three areas of discipline that brought him joy and can bring us joy, if we have the courage to exercise discipline in these areas. Again, discipline is simply doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done in order to bring about the desired result, even joy.
The first discipline Paul exercised is the discipline of redemption. We read this in verse 19-20. The discipline of redemption involves returning worth to the time, to the situation, or to the people God entrusts into our lives.
Paul is saying that being in prison and its outcome is part of the plan God had for saving him. You might remember from the book of Acts, Chapter 9, the record of Paul’s conversion, when God told Ananias why He chose Paul. Acts 9:15 reads, "But the Lord said to Ananias, ’Go! This man (Paul) is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name."
Paul, imprisoned and on his way to be tried by the Roman Emperor, understood that God is a redeemer God. God takes the Christ-hating and violent persecutor, Saul, and converts him into the Christ-loving and good-news bearer, Paul.
The title of Redeemer is used over ten times in the Old Testament to describe God. We worship a God who takes sinners and turns them into saints. That’s what it means to redeem, taking the worthless and giving worth or taking the evil and bringing good out of it.
Paul in his letter to the Romans in Chapter 8, verse 28 states, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Our God took a victim, Joseph, and turned him into a victor. Our God took a whore, Rahab, and turned her into a hero. And our God took the greatest sinner against Christ, Saul, and turned him into the greatest saint for Christ, Paul.
This means God can take us and our flaws and our secret past and give us new worth, new purpose and new meaning. That’s His specialty.
Because Paul worshipped a Redeemer God, Paul regained value to God, and he practiced the discipline of redeeming the time, the people and circumstances of life rather than becoming depressed, hopeless and fearful in his situation. Verse 20 tells us "he eagerly expect and hope that he would have sufficient courage to exalt Christ, whether he lived or died."
Unless you have faith that God is a Redeemer, how can you face your bad situations with hope and positive expectation? A naval officer in our seminary told us that the Navy supported the Chaplain program because their research showed that those who had a strong faith dealt much better with crisis and imprisonment. Victor Frankl observed that many of the Jews who survived the Nazi camps had a strong faith in God.
To practice the discipline of redemption means to see with eyes of faith that we worship a Redeemer God and to partner with God to bring good out of every moment, every person and every circumstance. That means we have to fight off any tendency toward negative grumbling or unbelief.
One of my affirmations for life is, "I believe that people can change with God’s help." If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be a pastor. No doubt, the discipline of redeeming is a discipline that requires your will to see what is not yet seen and to hope when circumstances or people are not favorable.
Several years back, while I was a campus minister, one student came into leadership and began questioning and resisting every effort I made. In our planning meetings, there was enough tension to suffocate everyone. Everything I said was used against me. So I called the main office and asked what I could do. The director of the ministry told me I could remove her from leadership the next day, and he would back me up.
I called up my mentor and prayed about the situation. God convinced me that removing her was the easy way out, and redeeming the person and the circumstance was His plan for me. From that moment on, I had a great peace and even a joyful expectation of the potentially good outcome.
For the next six months, I held my tongue and affirmed her where I could, even though she tried to disqualify me as a leader in the ministry and set the ministry back in various ways. When her term was over, not only did we become friends, but other members of the leadership team learned a new way to deal with difficult people and circumstances.
Whatever your response is to the word discipline, know that the discipline of redemption is absolutely necessary in life in order to experience maximum enjoyment of life.
The second discipline Paul exercised is the discipline of perspective. We read this in verse 21-22. The discipline of perspective involves seeing our relationships to things, to situations and to people as God sees them.
Paul now looks at his life in light of eternity, not just in terms of his earthly existence. He realizes that his life belongs to God whether he lives here and now or whether he dies and lives with God in Heaven. But Paul is no dummy, even though it’s good to be productive for God, he knows living with God in Heaven is better by far.
Unfortunately, most people don’t have perspective in life. When we lose perspective in life, we also lose joy. When we do not see the difference between good and better, we do not have perspective. When we do not see the difference between means and ends in life, we do not have perspective. When we do not see the difference between temporary and eternal, we do not have perspective.
How often do we prioritize our life demands? Sometimes because we are pressed by deadlines at work, we give up our family time or our time with God. The urgent takes the place of the important, not because we have intentionally chosen, as Paul does, but because we don’t even know which is better or more important. I’m not preaching at you, I am instructed under the same authority, God’s Word.
We value material success and the approval of our boss or clients over the vow to our marriage partner and the legacy we could have with our children. When we no longer have priorities in life, we have failed to discipline our perspective. We may gain income and approval but not joy.
How often do you see the difference between means and ends in life? In recent years, studies have shown many people in America are working themselves sick because of the over-time hours and the drive for efficiency and productivity. I do agree that success is bought with leisure time, but success at the cost of one’s health or family or relationship with God is not success.
We have lost perspective when we believe that money or acquiring more is the end in life. Acquiring more money or more possession for the sake of having more money and more possession is foolishness. Someone has said, "Money is like blood. Our bodies make blood in order to live, but we don’t live in order to make blood." Likewise, we make money in order to live, but we don’t live in order to make money. When money becomes an end in life, we have failed to discipline our perspective, and we lose the opportunity for real joy.
How often do we mishandle the temporary for the eternal and vice-versa? Things are temporary; people are eternal. You cannot bring your new computer, your nice car, your beautiful furniture or your finely decorated home with you into eternity. But your child who spills orange juice on your new computer, your neighbor who dinged your nice car, your husband who scratched the beautiful furniture and your teenager who leaves a mess around your finely decorated house, these people are all eternal.
They will either spend eternity in heaven or eternity in hell. Let’s show people we have some sense of perspective in regard to what is temporary and what is eternal by loving people and using things, rather than loving things and using people. Likewise, we need to love God and use things, rather than love things and use God, as if we could. When we start using God or people and loving things, we have lost the correct perspective in life.
Whatever your response is to the word discipline, know that the discipline of perspective is absolutely necessary in life in order to experience maximum enjoyment of life.
The third discipline Paul exercised is the discipline of delayed gratification. We read this in verse 23-26. The discipline of delayed gratification involves putting off receiving a reward in order to receive a greater gain later.
Paul desired to be with Christ in Heaven, which is better by far, but he was willing to stay behind for the sake of finishing the work God had for him to do among the gentiles, the non-Jews. Paul was so sure that when he died, he would be immediately with Christ in a better place, and his suffering at times was so bad that death was an option he welcomed.
I don’t know how many you have considered suicide because nothing could be worse than what you were going through at the time. You weren’t even sure that you were going to Heaven, but you were so hurt or depressed that you didn’t care. Realize Paul knew he was going to Heaven, but he still didn’t choose death. He delayed gratification so that he would experience the joy of a good legacy.
In other words, Paul knew he was getting the joy of Heaven, and he could chose to get it now or later. He chose later so that he could also get the joy of a good legacy. He delayed gratification so that he could get double joy. I know Paul, even as I preach, he is looking down from Heaven with a great smile, thinking, "The additional years of suffering in prison, the harsh travel and the souls saved before my death; they were all worth delaying my gratification of having Heaven as soon as possible."
What is Paul’s legacy? He is known as the greatest missionary in the history of Christianity. His contribution to the New Testament may only be second to Jesus Christ. His model of Christian faithfulness and impact for Christ cannot be matched by anyone since. I can go on and on about Paul, but what about us?
Are we willing to delay our gratification in order to leave a beneficial legacy behind? Or is our life all about pleasing self immediately? Do we have to have everything our neighbor has in order to be happy or can we delay our gratification and invest some of our money into God’s work of restoring people to Himself?
If God is moving you to be more generous in your giving to His work, do so. When you don’t open up your hands to give when God calls you to give, your closed hands cannot receive the blessings God wants to give to you. I encourage you to develop a simple budget and pray about what God is calling you to give through the church or through missionaries.
Ever since my first job after college, I set a goal to increase my giving to God’s work each year. When I married Susan, I found that we were giving about the same percentage to God’s work through churches and missionaries. Recently, we struggled with how much we can give when we went from two incomes to one income. But more importantly now than before, we felt we ought to give generously so that we can enjoy freedom from worry.
Let me explain. In addition to giving 10% of our income to this church, we give to plant a couple of new churches and to missionaries around the world. We are multiplying our ministry beyond this church. We have diversified our investments and have leveraged our efforts for God’s kingdom. When Susan and I get to heaven, we might not be able to brag to others about what we owned on earth or the expensive activities we participated in, but we will have impacted more lives for Christ than that through the Marin Community Christian Church alone.
God never says we can’t own homes or be wealthy. Sometimes that’s the way God chooses to bless His people. God does call us to redeem time, situation and people with our wealth and to have the right perspective about the wealth God has given to us.
When we spend only on ourselves all of our lives, whatever we have, dies when we die. If, however, we have exchanged our time, energy and money for eternal things, such as partnering with God in the work of missions to reach the unsaved, we leave a legacy of joy for self, joy for those who are saved through our time, energy and financial investment, and when we get to Heaven, the joy of being with God will certainly be there.
Whatever your response is to the word discipline, know that the discipline of delayed gratification is absolutely necessary in life in order to experience maximum enjoyment of life, even eternal life.
Conclusion:
Let me close by introducing us to Dr. Han Kyung Chik. I want to read an excerpt from a book, "He [Dr. Han] astonishes people who meet him because of his unassuming behavior. He stays in the mountains of Korea with his daughter and son-in-law, doing his work, his study, and his sleeping all in a single room no larger than a normal size living room in the United States.
But this man’s influence is felt around the world. His church of 60,000 members, regards him so highly that they built him a posh residence on the Young Nak Presbyterian Church property. In that area, at current prices, the residence would command a million-dollar value -- or more. He declined to live there. He understands and lives out the truth that "a man’s life consists not in the abundance of things which he possesses." Dr. Han has raised millions of dollars for the Lord’s work around the world. He has built colleges, orphanages, middle schools, homes for the disadvantaged; not a dollar has stuck to his hands.
Paul wrote in verse 21, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Warren Wiersbe asks how we might complete the sentence, "For to me to live is money and to die is to leave it all behind?"
"For to me to live is fame and to die is to be forgotten?"
"For to me to live is power and to die is to lose it all?"
Or is it, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain?"
How empty and meaningless our lives would be, no matter how long we live or how much we possess, unless we exercise the discipline of redemption, the discipline of perspective and the discipline of delayed gratification for God’s sake.
