A Disciple is Disciplined

Admiral Hyman Rickover is dead now. But when he was alive, he was the terror of the US Navy. A volatile combination of genius and perfectionism, Admiral Rickover was the father of the nuclear powered submarine. He was a man who inspired either fear or fanatical loyalty in his subordinates. From the fifties to the eighties, Hyman Rickover wielded immense power in the Pentagon and in the halls of Congress.

That didn’t keep him from personally interviewing every officer who would serve aboard one of his nuclear subs - and he thought of them as his nuclear subs! These interviews with Rickover became almost legendary in the Navy. Candidates were often reduced to either tears or rage under his relentless questioning and browbeating.

One day, a young officer was interviewed by the Admiral. Listen to his account of that interview…

I had applied for the nuclear sub program, and Admiral Rickover was interviewing me for the job. It was the first time I met Admiral Rickover, and we sat in a large room by ourselves for more than two hours, and he let me choose any subjects I wished to discuss. Very carefully, I chose those about which I knew the most at the time - current events, seamanship, music, literature, naval tactics, electronics, gunnery - and he began to ask me a series of questions of increasing difficulty. In each instance, he soon proved that I knew relatively little about the subject I had chosen. He always looked right into my eyes, and he never smiled. I was saturated with cold sweat.

Finally, he asked me a question and I thought I could redeem myself. He said “How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?” Since I had completed my sophomore year at Georgia Tech before entering Annapolis as a plebe, I had done very well, and I swelled my chest with pride and answered, “Sir, I stood fifty-ninth in a class of 820.” I sat back to wait for the congratulations - which never came. Instead, the question: “Did you do your best?” I started to say, “Yes, sir,” but I remembered who this was and recalled several of the many times at the Academy when I could have learned more about our allies, our enemies, weapons, strategy, and so forth. I was just human. I finally gulped and said, “No, sir, I didn’t always do my best.”

He looked at me for a long time, and then turned his chair around to end the interview. He asked one final question, which I have never been able to forget- or to answer. He said, “Why not?” I sat there for a while, shaken, and then slowly left the room.

The young officer who wrote this account went on to write a book entitled “Why not the Best?” He also went on to become the President of the United States. His name - Jimmy Carter.

When we come to the Christian life, we might well ask that same question: “Why not the Best?” In light of what God has done for us in Jesus, he deserves no less than our best as His disciples.

We have been studying a manual of discipleship. It is the book of 2 Timothy - the very last book that Paul wrote. He wrote it to a young man who had become like a son to him. He wrote this book from a Roman dungeon, where he awaited execution. And he wrote it to challenge Timothy with the question “Why not the best?”

We learned last week that one of the first qualities that must be true of a disciple of Jesus Christ is courage. In a world that heaps scorn and ridicule upon the gospel and those who believe the gospel, we are going to have to have the courage to stand alone.

Today, we are going to look at the quality of discipline. A follower of Jesus Christ must have inner discipline if his life is going to make an impact for the Lord.

2 Timothy 2:1 You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 2:2 And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

Paul is presenting an interesting pattern here in these two verses. He’s saying that in order for Timothy to have a ministry - in order for his life to have an impact upon other people - it is going to have to start with Timothy’s inner life. Before Timothy could be a disciple-maker, he must first be a disciple himself. Part of that process is to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Inner strength will produce outer significance. Who you are on the inside will determine what you can accomplish on the outside.

Too often we misplace the emphasis, and we focus on what we are on the outside. We become so preoccupied with our outer performance as Christians, that we take little thought for the fact that our outer life is supposed to flow from an inner strength that we can only get from walking with God.

Our walk with God is largely based upon one quality that God wants to develop in us: discipline. The simple fact of the matter is that we do not become disciples automatically. It takes hard work. Disciples are made, not born. It is only as we develop inner discipline that we can become all that God wants us to be.

Paul gives us three beautiful examples of disciplined lives in this passage. Each one of them has something to say about the Christian life. He tells us about the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer.

2 Timothy 2:3-4 Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer.

Anyone who has served in the military knows that the life of a soldier is a life of discipline. You cannot do as you please. You live on a military base. You are in a constant state of readiness to receive orders. You are at the disposal of your commanding officer. His will controls your life and your priorities.

Not too long ago, the President of the United States called upon our troops to go into the island of Grenada in the Caribbean to rescue some American students and put down the Marxists who had seized power there. Imagine what would have happened if the soldiers who had received those orders had said things like “Well Mr. President, we think we’ll be able to get to it next week sometime. Joe here has to go to the bank today to take out a car loan. Harry says that he doesn’t want to miss the football game on TV tomorrow night. Bill’s brother-in-law is coming in from Cleveland on Tuesday, so he won’t be able to make it. Ralph just bought a new sailboat, and some of us are going to help him launch it next weekend.” Do you get the picture? Yet this is how some of us treat the Lord when it comes to doing the things that Christians are supposed to do. We have our own little “to do” list which we place above God’s will for our lives.

Luke 14:16 Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

If you’re going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, you are going to have to make that your number one priority in life. The lesson of the soldier is that our priorities are shaped and determined by the priorities of our commanding officer. That is a very important aspect of discipline.

Then there is the athlete:

2 Timothy 2:5 Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules.

The Olympic games started back in Ancient Greece. From what we know of them, we know that there were strict rules governing who was eligible to compete in the games. There was a stipulation that every contestant had to swear an oath that he had completed at least ten months of training in his particular event. It was felt that anything less would have lowered the standards of the Olympic Games. So, if you wanted to compete, you had to submit to that rule.

An athlete, whether he be an ancient Greek discus thrower, or a modern-day NFL football player, has to compete according to the rules. He has to place himself willingly under the discipline of the rules of the game.

Imagine if you went to a football game between the Giants and the Jets and all the players were doing their own thing. Some of the players were lined up facing this way, some were lined up facing the other. A few of them were lined up with the cheerleaders. Some of them had helmets on, some did not, so that the TV cameras could see them better. A few of the Jets players showed up wearing red uniforms, because they didn’t like the green uniforms they were supposed to wear. Some of the Giants offensive players were off on the sidelines arguing about who was going to play quarterback instead of Phil Sims. When they finally got things together for the first play of the game, Lawrence Taylor grabbed the ball before the Jets center could snap it and he ran for a touchdown.

This wouldn’t be worth watching would it? Part of the magnetic attraction of NFL football is the tremendous discipline and organization we see on display. Isn’t it ironic that a nation that glorifies doing your own thing has gone stark raving mad over a sport in which 22 individuals willing submit their own desires and goals for the higher good of the team? The excitement of football is that nobody is doing his own thing - everybody contributes his part to the team effort.

An important part of being a disciple of Jesus Christ is submission. Submission to the rules of the game. It is only when we recognize that we cannot simply go out there on the playing field of life and do our own thing that we will begin to get hold of the idea of discipline.

1 Corinthians 9:24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

God has given us a game plan by which to live our lives. It is the Bible. If we abandon the game plan - if we try to freelance our way through life - even if we call ourselves Christians, we are not His disciples. There are going to be people at the last judgment who are in for a big surprise. They’re going to stand before God and say “‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?” And the Lord will say “Depart from me, I never knew you.” They were freelancing. They had not submitted themselves to the game plan of God for their lives. This is the lesson of the athlete. Submission to the rules of the game.

Finally, there’s the farmer.

2 Timothy 2:6 The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops.

Do you know why we are seeing such incredible changes in the Communist world today? It is because the Communists are finally paying the price for violating this verse - 2 Tim. 2:6 - for so many years. The state has tried for 70 years to run agriculture in the Soviet Union and the result is that the country today is on the verge of starvation. The markets are empty, there is little food on the shelves. The USSR is the largest importer of grain in the world. And the reason is that the farmer has been separated from the fruit of his labor.

Farmers in the eastern bloc live and work on collective farms. The government decides what crops the farm will grow, when they will be planted, how much fertilizer they will receive, and when they will be harvested. And the government sends out armies of agricultural supervisors to make sure that the plan is followed. Did you know that in the Soviet Union, there are more agricultural supervisors than there are farmers in the United States?

The individual farmer in the USSR has been reduced to an unthinking robot who simply does what he is told, regardless of the consequences or the reasons. That special bond between a farmer and his land no longer exists, so the farmer no longer cares what happens to the crops. He has been robbed of the incentive to work hard, so he becomes lazy and apathetic. I saw this in Eastern Europe this summer. In Austria, the fields were immaculate. In Romania, the crops on the huge collectives were scrawny and poor. Many fields had great bare patches where the crop was ruined.

Paul says that the Christian life is like the life of a farmer. It isn’t an easy life, but it is a tremendously rewarding one. The secret is diligence and hard work. The reason that the farmer in Eastern Europe is not willing to work is that he knows that he won’t see any reward for his work. But the farmer in the free world works hard, because he knows that a good crop will bring great reward to him and his family. So he gets out of bed before dawn to begin his work. He stays out in the hot sun to care for his fields. His hands are calloused and his muscles are hard from the work that he does. He drives himself beyond exhaustion because he cares about what he is doing, and he keeps the end in view.

So it is with the life of a disciple of Christ. Discipline means hard work. Diligence. A willingness to keep on doing the things that Christians are supposed to do, with the knowledge that there will be a reward.

We’ve lost sight of this in the church today. We complain about what we’re expected to do. We sign up to serve in a particular ministry, and then act surprised when we find out that it’s going to take hard work, it’s going to cost us time. We think up the lamest excuses to try to get out of doing our Christian duty. And the church has become soft and lazy and apathetic - just like the farmers in the Communist bloc. And many of us are living on the verge of spiritual starvation because we’ve forgotten how to work hard for the Lord.

Being a disciple is all about discipline. Inner strength that comes from having our priorities straight like a soldier, having our will submitted like an athlete, and being diligent like a farmer. Discipline will give us the inner strength that we need to give our best to the master.

Maybe you’re fed up with the way you’ve been living the Christian life. You look at your spiritual life in the mirror and you know that you’re flabby and soft and out of shape. You know painfully well that discipline is not your strong suit. I have good news for you. God does not expect you to develop discipline all on your own. Like every other quality of the disciple, God wants to help you cultivate the quality of discipline in your life. Paul told Timothy - a young man who was timid and fearful, and maybe even a bit lazy - to “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus”

It is only by the grace of God that we can develop discipline in our lives. God says we need it. He says He will give it to us by His grace. So let’s ask Him for it. So on that great day when we stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ to receive our reward, if Jesus asks “Did you do your best?”, He won’t have to ask us that second question “Why not?”