THE DISCIPLINED MAN

“THE DISCIPLINED MAN”
Matthew 5:1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: 2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
When Jesus called men to follow Him, He called them disciples. A disciple is a learner, a student. The word “disciple” is from the Greek word Ma-tha-tas and it means “disciplined one.”
The Lord’s disciples were many more than just the named twelve.
All that were students of the Lord were called, “followers of the way.” Why? Because they went beyond just making a decision, they lived the life.
There are many decisions people make in life: marriage, college, jobs, investments, vacations, church. But the two decision that will count for eternity are these:
1) Will you commit your life to Jesus Christ as your savior? Every person must decide if they will trust Christ with their life. Will I give Him my life and live for Him or not. Choosing to give your life to Christ will determine your eternal destiny in heaven. To reject Christ is to reject God’s gift of eternal life and sadly to end up in hell.
2) Will I be His disciple? What does that matter? If I offered you a week to work and labor and then promised you 100 years of a life of wonder and glory with all your needs met you would surly accept that. A disciple labors for the Lord for a life time and ends up will riches untold and positions unfathomed.

Why didn’t the Lord call His disciples “diligent ones” or “faithful ones” or “seeking ones” or “spiritual ones?” Why? Because it takes a discipline life make a faithful, loving, compassionate man.

Would you have accepted the Lord’s call?
If your answer is yes that here are the steps:
1 – A Disciple is first a student.
John 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Every one of us here have disciplines over what we love. If we love sports, we will discipline our self to be at practice and at the games. We will give our best physically and mentally to win. If we don’t give all we have we will not benefit our team.
The same is true spiritually. If we love the Lord we will discipline our life and give our self to the things of God. We will then seek the Lord, study his word, engage in Church worship and make Jesus the center of our lives and home.
The key word to a discipline life is not discipline but love. If we love sleep, we give ourselves to sleep. If we love food we give ourselves to cooking. If we love racing we give ourselves to the race track. If we love TV, money, pleasure, we give ourselves to those things.
Jesus said again in John 8:31 If you continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.
The next verse tells us that as we learn the truth, the truth will set us free from the things that prevent us from being disciplined and receiving the great rewards for time and eternity.

Remember that we are three part beings, body, soul and spirit. If truth is conveyed from mind to mind than one has an intellectual understanding of a truth. It is something we talk about.
But, when truth is conveyed from life to life, that truth becomes a life and that is what we live.
Jesus’ message was His life and He expressed that message by His total being, His voice and heart and very emotions.
Let me give you and example. A dad speaks to his child with a language far greater than just words. That child has five senses.
1) Hearing dad’s words is only 20% of what dad says.
2) The child then feels dad’s or mom’s tone of voice.
3) He then sees dad’s expression and knows if dad said it with love or anger, with patience or haste.
4) He also knows dad’s touch. A child can tell a lot about dad’s touch. Does dad love me? Does he take time for me? Does he hug me? Touch is another 20% of how that dad teaches his child.
5) Then last sense God gives a child is taste. The Bible says in Psalms 34:8, “O taste and see that the Lord is good…”
Dad’s leave a taste in their children’s mouth, a taste of kindness and love, a taste of security and acceptance or he leaves a taste of “I am to busy for you.” “You aren’t important.”
Being a disciplined one is not just words, it is a life. Jesus words to His disciples were more than mind to mind, they were life to life.

The word disciple is used 272 times in the New Testament and it is used only in the first five books.
A disciple of Christ must first be a student, a learner, a discipline one. Children are taught discipline at home with dad puts the family on a schedule.
Then they see to it that all instructions are carried out and fulfilled.
A child is not to quit something or allowed to leave anything unfinished.
Discipline begins at home, moms and dads. And it is conveyed not from mouth to mouth alone but from life to life.
A child goes to school and is taught discipline by doing their studies and completing their assignments. If a child can not complete school assignments they will live an undisciplined.
That is why in order to get a good job employers want a person to have a High School Diploma, minimum.

One dad told this story: Out of parental concern and a desire to teach our young son responsibility, we require him to phone home when he arrives at his friend's house a few blocks away. He began to forget, as he grew more confident in his ability to get there without disaster befalling him. The first time he forgot, I called to be sure he had arrived.
We told him the next time it happened, he would have to come home. A few days later, however, the telephone again lay silent, and I knew if he was going to learn, he would have to be punished. But I did not want to punish him!
I went to the telephone, regretting that his great time would be spoiled by his lack of contact with his father. As I dialed, I prayed for wisdom. "Treat him like I treat you," the Lord seemed to say. With that, as the telephone rang one time, I hung up.
A few seconds later my phone rang, and it was my son. "I'm here, Dad!" "What took you so long to call?" I asked. "We started playing and I forgot. But Dad, I heard the phone ring once and I remembered."
How often do we think of God is One who waits to punish us when we step out of line? I wonder how often he rings just once, hoping we will phone home.
Dennis Miller.
1 – A Disciple is first a student.
2 – A disciple is next an example.
Luke 14:27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
It is interesting how John addresses himself in the book of John. He doesn’t say, “I John,” but he refers to himself fourteen times as “that disciple.”
My Dad taught me discipline when I was a boy. He taught me to work on the farm and I could not go to the house till the work was finished. And sometimes the work was finished till 2:00 in the morning. I don’t think the work was ever done in eight hours. God taught me one thing on the farm and that was farming was 24-7. And God taught me something about His business. It too is 24-7.
I remember quitting early a few times on the farm before the work was done. My dad knew how to correct that. We went out at night when it was dark and finished the work. I learned something. Get ‘u done! Just get’ u done!
Anybody that will be anything for God must have a disciplined life.
A person must have and develop organization and a schedule and give themselves to that schedule. They get up at a certain time. They work a certain time. They have their time with God. They have their time with their family. They are disciplined.
Paul used the analogy of a man winning a race to winning in the Christian life. First Corinthians 9:24: Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.
26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:
27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
When I ran track, most of the other guys and girls in our school were out doing their thing. I was running and excuse the phrase “puking my guts out five days a week so I could run on Saturday.”
You know what? I was never first. I always came in second and third and forth string on the track team. I wasn’t number one. But, I heart was to win for my school.
You know what we need in church? We need folks that don’t have to be number one. They don’t have to be seen. They don’t have to be talked about. We just need folks that will run the best they can with all they have for the Lord.

I learned a little about discipline by Lanny Bassham. He won an Olympic gold-medal in small-bore rifle competition. He tells what concentration does for his marksmanship: "Our sport is controlled non-movement. We are shooting from 50 meters--over half a football field--at a bull's eye three- quarters the size of a dime. If the angle of error at the point of the barrel is more than .005 of a millimeter (that is five one-thousandths), you drop into the next circle and lose a point. So we have to learn how to make everything stop. I stop my breathing. I stop my digestion by not eating for 12 hours before the competition. I train by running to keep my pulse around 60, so I have a full second between beats--I have gotten it lower, but found that the stroke-volume increased so much that each beat really jolted me. You do all of this and you have the technical control. But you have to have some years of experience in reading conditions: the wind, the mirage. Then you have the other 80% of the problems--the mind.
Sports Illustrated, August 2, 1976, pp. 31-35, quoted in How to Profit from Bible Reading, I. L. Jensen, Moody Press, p. 80.


It takes discipline to have good health. A lot of you young people will grow up and die early because you have absolutely no discipline in what you eat. You are going to have throat problems, tonsil problems and ear infections. Then you will get older and have stomach problems. You will probably get diabetes and a hundred other diseases because you think you can eat junk food and it won’t bother you.
Sure junk food taste good. I like a good old hamburger. And eating one now and then isn’t going to kill you if your now and then is once a month.
The other night I went to Chick Filet and I thought I need something healthy. I thought, “I know the salad with tomatoes, corn, lettuce, carrots, and the chicken would be good but boy would I like a caramel coffee milkshake.” I was all alone. My wife was at the coast with the girls. Nobody was watching. I could have had anything I waned. I bought the salad that night.

People joke about being a red neck and they say, “You know you are a red neck if you are cutting grass and you find a car in your yard.” No, that is just an undisciplined person. The joke may be funny but the life really doesn’t bring any glory to God.

Kathy plays the piano well. She can sight read and she knows her timing very well. A lot of young people are off on their timing and very few can just sit down and sight read a piece of music.
Why can she do this? Kathy took lessons for ten years and then disciplined herself to practice from 45 minutes to 2 hours a day for ten years. She took lessons from those who demanded perfection. I’ll say this if your teacher doesn’t demand perfection, get another one.
Kathy sings well because she began training since she was eight years old and then took professional lessons for a number of years and disciplined herself to practice 5 hours a week.
She enjoys art and is a good artist. Again, she like most children started drawing at age two but then she took profession art lessons for eight years and disciplined herself to practice.
Her violin ability didn’t come because someone bought her a violin. It came about from ten years of lessons and a thousand hours of practice.

A disciple of Christ is not a dreamer. He is not someone who wishes and hopes to achieve something. A disciple of Christ sets a time to get up. He sets a time to go to work. He sets a time to study. He sets a time to worship. He sets a time to practice and to achieve what God wants him to achieve. Every successful person in life is disciplined.


3 – A disciple is someone who knows how to love.
JOHN 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Walking in love is not natural for an unsaved person. And it only comes by discipline for a believer. Peter revealed to us the step-ladder of the disciplined life in Second Peter 1:4-9. He said, add to your faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and ultimately and lastly, charity or love.
Selfishness is natural. People are by nature self centered and selfish. That is human. But, it is divine to love, to give, to forgive, to show patience, to humble our hearts. We need patience.
Please forgive me if it offends you if I use my children as examples but as I thought of my children and love, I don’t think I’ve seen a daddy that loves his son more than Daniel. Daniel has always been loving and joyful much more than many people know.

4 – A disciple is someone who renounces all rights.
LUKE 14:33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.
Some have ask, “How far do you have to go to be the Lord’s disciple?” That is up to you and the key has everything to do with your love relationship with Him. To Paul, he thought nothing of giving up his secure job with the Roman government to walk with the Lord. But, he doesn’t ask you to give up your job. He does want you to give up your life and live for eternal things.
John Newton said, “When people are right with God, they are apt to be hard on themselves and easy on other people. But when they are not right with God, they are easy on themselves and hard on others.”
William Penn said, “No man is fit to command another who cannot command himself.”

I read an amazing statistic the other day. It said, that of all the America that own running shoes, 87% don’t run.

A.W. Tozer in his book Men who met God said, ee must face the fact that many today are notoriously careless in their living. This attitude finds its way into the church. We have liberty, we have money, we live in comparative luxury. As a result, discipline practically has disappeared. What would a violin solo sound like if the strings on the musician's instrument were all hanging loose, not stretched tight, not "disciplined"?


5 – A disciple is lastly a teacher.
LUKE 6:40 The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.
A disciple is supposed to end up as a duplicate of Jesus Christ.
Tom Landry was the head football coach of the Dallas Cowboys for many years and won a couple of super bowls with his team. He was there teacher. He said this about discipline: ”The job of a football coach is to make men do what they don't want to do, in order to achieve what they've always wanted to be.”
Tom Landry
ROMANS 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
The end result of being a disciple should be a reproduction of the teacher, who will do the same things the teacher did.
We can fail to convey intellectual thoughts but we always convey our life. Dads, moms, adults, youth, A discipleship is a life, not an intellectual knowledge of facts.

This next story made me think of my son, Daniel. He is a very disciplined young man.
A son asked his father, 'Dad, will you take part in a marathon with me?' The father who, despite having a heart condition, says 'Yes'.. They went on to complete the marathon together. Father and son went on to join other marathons, the father always saying 'Yes' to his son's request of going through the race together. One day, the son asked his father, 'Dad, let's join the Ironman together.'

To which, his father said 'Yes' .

For those who didn't know, Ironman is the toughest triathlon ever. The race encompasses three endurance events of a 2.4 mile (3.86 kilometer) ocean swim, followed by a 112 mile (180.2 kilometer) bike ride, and ending with a 26.2 mile (42.195 kilometer) marathon along the coast of the Big Island .