Discipline Yourself: Your Motivation Won't Go the Distance

Introduction

Some days you feel like you could climb Mont Blanc barehanded, in shorts and flip-flops. And the next day, you'd rather spend the whole day in bed. Samuel MABBOUX doesn't claim to be any different: "There are mornings when I don't feel like reading my Bible, when I don't feel like praying, when I don't feel like going to the prayer meeting." His point is simple, taken straight from 1 Corinthians 9: motivation is fickle by nature, and it will never be enough to sustain a Christian life over the long haul. So when it drops (and it will drop), discipline has to take over. In this passage, the apostle Paul puts you on a track, at the starting line, and asks you one thing: run so as to win the prize.

Sermon Outline

1. Motivation isn't enough: look at David, look at Job

• Motivation isn't linear or constant. It depends on your mood, your desires, sometimes even the weather.
• Look at David in the Psalms: from one psalm to the next, you get the impression that at one moment he's held in God's arms, and at another he's begging for death at the bottom of a cave.
• If Job had built his faithfulness on motivation, he would have let go of God's hand long before he was scraping his sores with a piece of broken pottery.
• Samuel MABBOUX puts it plainly: "Don't build your Christian life on motivation, because it's going to fade." You need something else.

2. Run to win (1 Corinthians 9:24)

• "Don't you know that they which run in a race run all, but one receives the prize? Run so that you may win."
• Not everyone runs. Choosing to run at all is already a choice, a choice to follow the Lord. He didn't force you to come to church this morning.
• But once you're in the race, he leaves you free: free to decide what training plan you put in place. Free to choose the discipline you hold yourself to.
• Samuel MABBOUX remembers a ski race, the "Easter egg race." Usually 50th out of 100, he finished 2nd that day, because he wanted to win, and he'd studied the course and warmed up like never before. He concludes: "We have the spiritual life we give ourselves the means to have."

3. Discipline takes over when motivation lets go

• His roommate Thomas, a trail runner: he gets home from school, laces up his shoes, and runs in the rain because he has a race in a week. "I don't feel motivated, but I have to discipline myself."
• His parents, for the Thursday prayer meeting: they'd eat dinner at 6:45 to leave by 7:15, heading to a Protestant church at 4,000 feet where the pastor preached in a coat and scarf, with a thermometer hanging above the pulpit. "Rain or wind, even if it was the cousin's parakeet's birthday, we went to the meeting."
• One snowy evening, they left earlier, shovel in the trunk, to clear three feet of snow off the steps in front of the church. The motivation wasn't there, but the discipline was, and it marked Samuel MABBOUX's life.
• He confesses it about himself: "There are Champions League Wednesday nights when I'd rather watch the match than pray. But because I discipline myself, I go to the meeting."

4. Self-control as training

• Verse 25: "Everyone who competes exercises self-control in all things." Self-control means holding yourself back, mastering yourself. It's the image of ancient athletes who gave up certain foods, alcohol, and sexual relations to perform at their best.
• For you, that means: abstain from sex outside of marriage; steer clear of addictions to alcohol, drugs, scratch-off lottery tickets, lying, stealing, and overeating.
• It isn't about deprivation for its own sake. "God doesn't want us to give up everything. There's plenty we're free to do. But there are things we need to abstain from because they'll pull us far away from God."
• Athletes did this for a perishable crown: back then, a crown of parsley, later of bread, so it wouldn't wilt. We do it for an imperishable crown.

5. "I discipline my body" (verse 27)

• "I therefore run like that, as not uncertainly. I fight like that, as not beating the air, but I beat my body and bring it into submission, lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected."
• "Rejected" is the word disqualified, taken out of the race. "Submission" is the word for slavery: treating your body like a slave, keeping it on a leash so it can't run off toward what pulls it away from God.
• Even Paul, who wrote most of the epistles, had to keep his body under control. He probably didn't always feel like going to preach, especially in Corinth. But discipline is what carried him through.
• Samuel MABBOUX uses Cristiano Ronaldo as an illustration: 41 years old, still the highest-paid athlete in the world, six meals a day, no soda, no red meat, five 90-minute naps, the gym every single day. He disciplines his body hard for a fleeting reward. How much more should you, for eternity.

6. Ephesians 5 and Galatians 5: walk by the Spirit

• Ephesians 5:15-17: "Watch therefore carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil."
• Galatians 5:16: "Walk by the Spirit, and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh." The flesh and the Spirit are opposed to each other; discipline lines you up on the right side.
• The list is long: sexual immorality, uncleanness, idolatry, jealousies, strife, divisions, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. "Those who practice such things won't inherit the Kingdom of God."
• But the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) grows out of a disciplined life, not a life ruled by mood.

7. God isn't looking for Christians, he's looking for disciples

• Take a survey in Nice, and half the people would tick the box marked "Christian." But how many are true disciples?
• A disciple is someone who repeats the effort. Like Olympic figure skaters who run through the same jump a thousand times.
• Repeat the effort in prayer, in consecration, in church life, in service, in love, in kindness, in interceding for one another.
• Christ himself, in the garden of Gethsemane, no longer felt any motivation to go to the cross: "not my will, but yours be done." He stayed disciplined out of love for you. So be disciplined out of love for him.

Key Takeaways

• Motivation depends on your mood; discipline depends on your decision. Only the second one lasts.
• You have the spiritual life you give yourself the means to have. No more, no less.
• Don't come out too fast, be steady. A year after conversion, it isn't the person who wanted ten meetings a week who's still standing, it's the one who stayed disciplined.
• Disciplining yourself isn't for God's sake (he already knows his Word, he doesn't need you to read it). It's for yours.
• Set dates. Otherwise church meals, prayer times, and moments with God will stay stuck as good intentions.
• Faith is a muscle. Train it the way Cristiano Ronaldo trains his body, but for an imperishable crown.

Personal Application

1. On a scale from 0 (Job scraping his sores) to 10 (already with God), where are you this morning? And if you're low, what concrete discipline can you put in place today so you're not stuck depending on your mood?
2. Check your screen time in your phone's settings. If you put half of that time into prayer or Bible reading, what would your spiritual life look like?
3. What's the "Thursday prayer meeting" of your week, the appointment with God you'll keep even when it snows, even when there's a Champions League match on?
4. Is there an area (food, screens, sexuality, alcohol, lying, spending) where "disciplining your body" means setting a clear boundary this week?
5. Are you a Christian who checks a box on a survey, or a disciple who repeats the effort? Name one thing you'll repeat every day for the next 30 days.

Scriptures Cited

• 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (the central text)
• Romans 12:11 ("be not slothful in business, fervent in spirit")
• Ephesians 5:15-17 (redeem the time)
• Galatians 5:16-23 (walk by the Spirit)
• Psalm 42 (an example of a fluctuating David)

Frequently Asked Questions

Why isn't motivation enough in the Christian life?

Samuel MABBOUX points out that motivation is fickle: it depends on your mood, the weather, how tired you are. Look at David in the Psalms, he swings from mountaintop to cave floor from one chapter to the next. If you build your whole Christian life on motivation, you won't last. Discipline has to take over when motivation drops.

How do you practically discipline yourself to follow God?

Set dates, not intentions. Fix a time in the morning or evening to read your Bible, pray, close the door, and be alone with God. Go to the prayer meeting even when it's raining and cold, like Samuel MABBOUX's parents who shoveled snow off the church steps just to get inside. Steady discipline beats motivation that starts strong and collapses after six months.

What does 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 say about Christian discipline?

Paul compares the Christian life to a race in the stadium. Everyone runs, but only one receives the prize. Run so as to win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things for a perishable crown; Christians do it for an imperishable one. Paul himself says: "I beat my body and bring it into submission, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected."