Don't Disqualify Yourself

Hey, this is Tim Pratt Jr. and I want to welcome you to the Student of Life podcast. Listen, we're going to get into so many transferable truths throughout the content of these episodes that I believe God is going to use to help you apply because he's going to reveal what's already been there the entire time. Enjoy. Hey yo, what's up? So this is your host Tim Pratt Jr. and this is the first episode of 2024 Um, so listen, I just want to kick this one off with another sermon I preached, and I believe through the power of God, um, man, I just believe God is really shifting things, and I believe that we're really going to be challenged in our self-discipline. So this episode, uh, is going to be about self-discipline biblically, uh, some things that we can learn from the world, and so on. So just bear with me because I believe through the power of God and through our self-discipline, this is what's going to help set us apart. And just where we're seeing so many things, uh, go in today's world, uh, just, just that's what I believe. That's what I believe when I look at the scriptures. And I— we will unpack that today. So I believe this is going to be an exciting one. I believe it's like, again, going to challenge us, uh, in a biblical sense, but as well as in a circular sense. So just bear with me and let's go from there. So this one We're calling it Don't Disqualify Yourself. Don't disqualify yourself. I'm gonna say one more time, don't disqualify yourself. Yeah, my preaching side's gonna come out of me a little bit in this one, uh, because I just, I just love this, love this episode. I mean, love this particular, uh, topic. So, uh, for you all that's tracking with me, again, I'm gonna, uh, go to 1 Corinthians 9. 1 Corinthians 9, and we're going to start the 24th verse, uh, and I'm gonna read it in the ESV, and I'm gonna just read it one time. Uh, again, I like to encourage people, get your Bible, go along. You have the Bible app, get a hardcover, whatever you do, get a Bible, man. Just study and meditate on the scripture yourself and contextualize, man. Do the homework yourself. Uh, that being said, let's jump into it. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize. So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline— but I, but I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. So let's point out a few things before we just kind of get into the, the, uh, the meat— or I should say just more the points of this episode. Uh, Paul starts out in the verse saying, do you not know that in a race all runners run, but only one receives the prize. So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control. Every athlete exercises self-control. But I love this other part, say, so run that you may obtain it. In some translations it reads as run in such a way. So if you can run in such a way to win, or run in such a way that you can obtain it, then it lets me know that you can run in another direction that you can obtain it. Or you can't win it. But then he goes on, he says right after, he says every, every athlete exercise self-control in all things. Now in this passage of scripture, you know, Paul, he uses a lot of metaphors when it comes to, um, the training. And, uh, oh man, it was at the tip of my tongue, but like how, how, uh, they would compete back then, even to the point, I believe, when I was reading the— reading about this in the book with Greg Crochelle, uh, he made a note that was interesting to saying training in the Greek means to enslave. So if it's meaning to enslave, meaning I'm going to enslave my body, my will, I'm going to bring it under a personal self-control. Because see, this is very powerful here, um, and kind of how I dealt with it in, in the context of preaching and teaching the gospel is that a lot of times we say that, you know, the self-control temperament, um, is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is true, that's biblical, that it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit that we can find in Galatians. But or Ephesians. Yeah, Galatians. So, uh, matter of fact, let's, let's check it out. Let's read it. Let's read it real quick. Let's go to it live. Uh, the fruit of the Spirit. Yes, you're gonna hear me typing in the background. Uh, Bible verses, because I want, I want to stay with the word of God. Yeah, Galatians. All right, so Galatians 5:22. Let's pull it up here. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. So yes, it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Uh, as I was studying and considering this text, um, I believe Paul, like I said again, was talking about a personal self-control. Because what tends to happen is our flesh, the flesh that we live in It resists limits on its freedom. It does not like to be tamed at all. And so he's telling us that it is not possible to limit it without self-control. So if we don't have self-control, this flesh is going to do whatever it wants to do. So I believe in this text right here, Paul was saying that this, this personal— because he uses some I statements here— but this personal self-control is what's going to enable the Holy Spirit to do what it desires to do through us. We have to have some type of level of self-control that helps us submit to the government of the Holy Spirit that's inside of us. Like, check this out. See, the Holy Spirit doesn't need any help. It doesn't. You can't feed it. I mean, it is— it's, it's God. The Holy Spirit— I mean, Lord forgive me, not it— he is God. He's God. The Holy Spirit is God himself. You have God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit. So when you have the Triune God, the Holy Spirit is a part of that. You cannot feed him, you can't teach him anything. He is there for us if we have accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior. So I believe personal self-discipline is what empowers the Holy Spirit to to demonstrate this fruit through us. Like, we— the Holy Spirit, he doesn't, he doesn't need any more cultivating. He doesn't. But we do. In order to do that, it's a tender relationship, and it starts with self-discipline. So, so that's what Paul is, I believe, is saying here. Because if he just would have stayed at the I statements and we don't connect the dots through rightly dividing the word of God, then Paul would have just been talking about willpower only. And this is not willpower, because like I say, Paul is very much aware of the fruit of the Spirit. But Paul also knows that the Holy Spirit can't make us do anything. We can only partner with him, and this comes through submission. This comes through us submitting to the Holy Spirit. So Paul, in this text— now, I just, I like this, is truthfully, I love all the Bible. I mean, some areas are you know, like very, very, uh, dreadful, just being honest with you. But it's there, and all scripture is profitable. All scripture is inspired by God. So there's always something that we can get out of it. But in this particular passage, man, I, I have really like just the whole 1 Corinthians 9, to be honest with you, right above that. But I'm not going to get into that because there's another episode I believe you can check out, Adapt with Adapt 'Without Compromise' that will unpack that. But this one here, Paul is saying, okay, I understand that there's something that I need to do. I have to discipline my body. I'm not talking about disqualifying myself in the context of salvation. He was not talking about losing himself, but in other words, he was saying that I don't want to disqualify my ministry. Because see, what tends to happen today, and we see it with scandal after scandal, and this is not, you know, I want to be very graceful with this, but a lot of times the messenger gets in front of the message. The message— the messenger gets in front of the message because we have things out here say, well, it doesn't matter who it came from, it's still the truth. Okay, there's, there's some truth to that, but that's a danger because that's what's going on now. I mean, so many people can speak truth, preach truth, teach truth. Go take some of the world-class communication, but it's not— they're not even convinced. They're not even living it. And that's dangerous because that brings forth so much confusion in the body of Christ, so much confusion in the world. Just imagine if I'm— if, if I was teaching my kids, this is how you love your wife according to Ephesians 5, but they see me dogging their mom out. They see me coming in. Now, my wife, being 100% with you, she's going to divorce me if I'm just going to habitually practice that. She's not going to stay around because I, I know I wouldn't either. Like, just being straight up with you, I know I would stick around for it. So because this is habitual practice, but let's just say we say, hey, no, we're going to stick it out and, you know, we're going to ride this out, don't want to get divorced. And now I'm teaching my kids, I'm getting up here and I'm preaching and teaching on Ephesians 5, but they see me do something that's totally opposite to it. Like, they're like, man, my own dad, my boys, my daughter grow up now, my boys thinking that it's okay to treat women like that, and my daughter is now thinking that it's okay to be treated like that. Like, that, that's not cool. And so we can't do that because Jesus lived— he taught and lived it. He demonstrated it with his life. So living it will always be more important than just teaching it. And I'm not trying to put one against the other because teaching is very important, but teaching without living it is very, very dangerous. And I believe people that live it, man, that has the gift of teaching, that have been called to teach and preach the word of God, man, they will be way more impactful and powerful because of the anointing of God that's on their lives. The anointing, God's approval, comes from living the gospel out. Now again, I know I said this a lot, It's about habitual. We all have missed the mark. We all live in the flesh. I know that it's obtainable to live a life like Christ, but we are not in our glorified bodies, uh, and we are not God. So I'm not trying to make excuses, but we live in the flesh, and so sin is about— like, it's power. Sin does not have power over us. It does not have dominion over, over us. But our thoughts and all of these type of things that go on in this world as we live in this body, it's going to happen. But are we habitually practicing it? Do we have a mind of repentance? Are we continuing to flesh out our, our minds, man, you know, with the word of God? Uh, what I'm saying, like, fleshing out this, these worldly thoughts and things like that. So I don't want to get too sidetracked with that because again, that's another episode for another day. But I just want to make that clarity for those that are, that are tracking with me. So what, what tends to happen is, um, what Paul is suggesting here is that no I'm not talking about salvation. I just don't want to disqualify myself to reach people because it— what happens is with us, again, scandals get in the way. So for example, I work at 360 Insights. I, I'm in ministry. I, I coach. I, I do a lot of different things. If I start acting all crazy, then I come back and trying to preach this gospel to someone about life change, how in the world are they going to believe me? Like, like, just being straight up, how in the world are they going to believe me? Because I'm going to disqualify myself. So I want to make sure that through the power of God, I'm living in such a way I'm disciplining my body, I'm disciplining my mind, I have enslaved it so I, I can train this mind through the power of God. Because where the, the mind goes, the body goes. And Paul was saying that, that nothing is getting in the way. Nothing is getting away. I'm going to make my mind, my body, the will, the— I'm going to make it be obedient unto Christ. And, and also too, I have the Holy Spirit to submit to, to make it more easier where I'm not just in willpower. So we gotta train, we gotta train in this text. And, and I love a note that, uh, Greg Rochelle pointed out in his book. He said that in that time they often train naked because they didn't want anything slowing them down. And you know, like, like he made in the joke, I'm not suggesting that we start going to the gym and training naked and all of that. No, that's not what I'm saying. Uh, I say might get brownie points or whatever, cool points, if you do it when the kids are not at home. If you do have kids, you know, hey, train naked in your house, whatever. But married people, married people only. Um, but this is the thing, um, they did this because they were not willing to let anything get in the way, nothing to slow them down or stop their progress from maturing in their level of training that they were taking on. So Paul is saying here that, man, listen, um, I'm enslaved to this. I'm not going to let, again, my mind or my body determine my actions. I am training myself. I am disciplining myself to live a godly life so that I might win. Like, he might— because keep in mind, the verse over there, it's all about winning souls. So he wants to continue to do that. He wants his life to be the best message that he preaches or teaches. This is essentially what Paul is saying. But he knows that he has to self-discipline himself because you have so much. And I love this because he even told Timothy— he told Timmy to train yourself to be godly. And this is the part that I really want to focus on, um, in the context, is that trying is attempting, but training is a commitment. I'm gonna say that again: trying is attempting, but training is a commitment. Because oftentimes what happens with us is we say, hey man, I'm trying, I'm trying to do right, I'm trying to stop using profanity, I'm trying to have a better marriage, trying to stop having sex outside of marriage, man, I'm trying to stop gossiping, I'm trying to get my money right. We doing a lot of trying, but we're doing a lot of training. We doing a lot of trying, but we're not doing a lot of training because we're not committed. We're not committed to change. Because see, when, when we're truly training, I'm thinking with the mindset that, man, I want to see results, I want to see change. So I'm going to walk in self-discipline, self-control, so that I might see the results that I know God desires to see in my life. But that's going to come through self- discipline. It's going to come through me denying myself, making my mind up, being clear, having a clear goal, but knowing I have to force my body. Because see, when Paul talks about I have to force my body, I have to discipline my body, if I have to force something, that means something is— it's an opposing force that's trying to stop me. But Paul had a made-up mind, and this conviction that he had came from God. And so because he was training himself to say that my mind is made up, I'm convinced by my Lord and I can save it. I can live this life that is obtainable. And so therefore, man, nothing is getting away— not the world, not my flesh, and not the devil. Nothing is getting away. And those pretty much touch everybody, because if somebody is demonic influenced, hey, fleshly things, hey, in this world— I've said this before on a podcast, man— though the world is literally designed to suck the living life out of us that God desires us to have. But through self-discipline and self-control, man, that's, that's the answer. Through the power of God, say, hey, I'm, I'm gonna do my part, but I'm also surrendering. I have a heart posture of surrendering to the Holy Spirit to live this life. So I'm training, I'm committed. What, God, what must I do to truly train in such a way that I don't disqualify myself? What must I do to train myself to, to think about an eternal perspective and an internal prize? Because, because how is it that we can come across people that are not self-disciplined? I mean, I'm sorry, Lord, how can we come across people that are not saved but seem like they have more self-control and self-discipline than us? So that lets me know that it's possible to do it and do it in a secular environment. But people of God, we are people of God, should have the power of the Holy Spirit. To help us, a tandem relationship to help us overcome anything that tries to exalt itself before God. So we have to come back and ask ourselves, am I trying or training? Trying is attempting, but training is a commitment. And so, so another verse I love is Proverbs 25:28, uh, NIV. All these be from the NIV. Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control. We just talked about it in Timothy, we talked about it in Galatians, but Titus 1:8, rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. See, self-discipline is a recurring theme in the Bible, and, and truthfully, when we trace it through the scriptures, like being honest self-discipline is the link to spiritual growth, righteous living, and moral living. Because we have God's moral compass in our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit. We're not trying to keep the law, but the law is written in our heart through the Holy Spirit because what Jesus did, and now we have his spirit. So that's why when we really trace self-control, like when we really study it in the scripture it touches every aspect of our life. I mean, just think about it. It touches our personal behavior, our growth, spiritual growth, whether it be, um, financial growth, vocational growth, our leadership, self-control. It aligns, it aligns with so much in our life, and it, and it helps us. It helps us in our faithfulness. It helps us in our temperament. It helps us in our marriage. It helps us, um, in just all things. When we taking on a challenge, we're going back to school, that takes self-control and self-discipline. So again, Paul is saying that I'm not trying, I'm, I'm training, because trying is only attempting. That's why again, I'm trying to get my life right. I'm trying to, I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying. But are you training? Because training is a commitment. And so Paul is saying in this text, I have a clear goal, I'm calculated, I'm a planner. Look, I have direction through the power of God. But declaring, declaring all of this, defining, declaring, is not enough. Now training is going to have to back this up. Because in closing, when we look at any championship team any successful marriage. Most financially free people— I understand there's exceptions in social media and all of that, uh, a lot of people get rich off stupidity— but most financially free people, they didn't try. They were training. See, we see the 15 minutes of fame with a lot of stuff, but a lot of them was going through rigorous training. Rigorous training in this context. So again, I want to ask you, are you walking in self-discipline? Are you taking what Paul said— and what verse was that? Um, let's go back. Are you taking 1 Corinthians, uh, like, give me some— say my thing screen jumped. Verse 27, 1 Corinthians 9:27, but I discipline my body and keep it under control. And if I say, verse 8, least after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. I discipline my body and keep it under control. Are you training to keep your body under control? Because this last point in, in this closing is that I was talking about a marathon. The marathon is 26.2 miles, and however long training that takes, but I said even with having the Holy Spirit, if I told you right now, hey, it's the first of the year, uh, January 1st, and by January 31st I have not been eating right, none of that, but I'm gonna try to run the marathon with no training, I guarantee you— because we've seen it on My Wife and Kids, for those that watch this— so, so, uh, one of the Waynes is playing Michael Kyle when him and his, uh, wife I can't think of her name right now, but Jay on the show, she played on Gina Martin, uh, Teach Campbell. Yeah, um, when they were getting ready and she was training and training and training, you know, he cheated, got in the cab ride, and, you know, basically the truth came out. But he was not ready. He thought he could eat and do whatever he wanted to do, and he thought he would be able to finish it, but he didn't because he never trained for it. And that's how we are a lot of times. We saying we're gonna sign up for this, God, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna run this, this very challenging task that you have before me without training. Oh, I'm praying, I have the Holy Spirit, but I'm not training. So a lot of us may need to take a step back and say, hey God, have I missed out on opportunities to train for such a time? Am I not prepared because I didn't respect the necessary season that I was in when you desire for me to train and prep for this? And now that's why I'm saying, God, I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying, but I never trained. So all we can do is truly repent. We're done. I'm done. All we can do is truly repent and say, Lord, forgive me. I, I, I didn't take, um, these seasons seriously in my life, and I'm asking you to help me. I'm asking you to guide me. I'm asking you to give me another chance, because going forward, I'm going to train more. I'm gonna walk in self-discipline and rely on your power. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, I'm gonna do my part with my personal self-discipline to live out a life that's pleasing to you, so I won't disqualify myself, and that I might win some over. Not that I'm necessarily winning souls, but through the power of God, they see God in me. They see that I'm a person of love, temperament, patience, grace, and so on. They see this in me. And I'm unlocking it because of my self-control, my self-discipline, and it's all pointing to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I refuse to get in the way of the work that God wants to do, and that's going to come through self-control. So I believe that's what's going to position us, and that's what's going to start separating people apart, uh, just self-control, man, in all areas of life. I'm not saying everybody's called to be a bodybuilder or finish a marathon. That's not what I'm saying. But in all areas of life. Life is multifaceted, and the areas of life that the Bible talks about when God wants the whole man— are we willing to give him that through self-control, or are we willing to have— say, oh, God has this area, but I'm gonna try to operate in willpower, and God, I just don't want you to touch this area. So, so let's again ask ourselves, man, are we disqualifying ourselves? Are we? Because I want to encourage you through this episode, don't do it. Don't disqualify yourself and just turn it over to Christ and do your part through self-discipline. I love you all, man. I hope you have a prosperous year, and we're gonna get back into it, uh, very, very soon. So again, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Uh, share with somebody that maybe struggles with self-discipline, self-control. And I pray to God, man, that I challenge, but at the same time in a graceful way, because it's all-inclusive. This hit me, it beat me up, it cut me up before it even approached you or came through the airways or whatever you're choosing to listen to it through. So again, man, I love you all. I'm praying for you. Uh, just be mindful and just ask God to help. But remember, train. Don't try, train. Hey, what's up? I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to the Student Life Podcast today. If this content has impacted you in any kind of way, please take some time to share it on your social media feeds. And also, if you want to connect with me or just learn more about me, go over to www.timothypratt.org. Once again, thanks.