The Enlargement of Life
"Living Knowledge manifest in Self-control”
Reading: 1 Corinthians 9:24 ff
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. 25 And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. 26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. 27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
(Read 2 Peter 1:5-7)
We have over the last few weeks been examining this passage in 2 Peter, in order to see some of the principles of Kingdom living, that when applied brings a fruitfulness and abundance in our Lord, and the knowledge of Him. In fact when these things are fully operational in an ongoing way, we discover that the possibility of us stumbling not only diminishes but actually disappears. Peter puts it this way; "...for if you do these things you will never stumble;” So the recurring nightmarish treadmill that some people find themselves trapped in, of growing in the Lord, knowing His hand of blessing and deliverance, then falling when a particular temptation to a particular weakness comes along, is something that can be a thing of the past. In fact I would go even further and say on the basis of what the scripture teaches it is something that we need never succumb to again. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Galatians 5:1)
STAND FAST is in the Perfect Tense, there has been an event which has happening in your past, which if you permit it to run its course, will drive you, will thrust you, will propel you into even greater things far in advance of your past and current experience.
Other ways translated: to be stationary, to persevere: abide.
So this is not some quick zapping from heaven that transforms us into people who don’t even have to try, like someone who has won a holiday all you have to do is lay back in the sun. Our Lord has set us free, He has given us all the tools that we will ever need to stay free, but He is saying to us; "use them and you will remain free."
In the Scriptures there are many analogies and pictures used to assist us for the grasping and application of the things of our Lord, and the ways of His Kingdom. In 1 Corinthians 9, we have a picture of the Athlete, one that Paul uses on more than one occasion. Here we have a person who has an objective, they are looking for the winning of the prize, they have become a person of singular thought and purpose and no matter what, and they are going for it. They dedicate themselves to the training and self-denial that is required for them to reach their goal. Yet the training is not enough, you can have the fit person who could cover the race distance is half the time of the others, but if they do not compete according to the rules, then they are disqualified. You can be the most super fit person you could ever hope to be, but if you don’t know the rules, or you even break the rules, then all your efforts have been in vain. Paul puts it this way; “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified”
Samson is the classic example of someone who knew the anointing of God, who knew how under such an anointing, how to overcome the enemy from without, but he never knew how to overcome the enemy from within until it was too late. Such was his self-deception that when the Spirit of God had left him, he did not know it.
Paul writes here to the 1 Corinthians 9:25: "...everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things...." Now that word "temperate" used here is the same basic Greek word that is used in 2 Peter 1. where we are told to ’add to the revealed and experiential knowledge of Him, and in particular the Moral excellence of our God that we have received by faith and in the given faith, add to this temperance/self—control’. The Greek word EN-KRAT-EIA is used here. ’En’ holds the meaning of "something that has a fixed position." ’KRATOS’ holds the meaning of "dominion, might, power and strength." It also is used of a person who is Content. So both Peter arid Paul are saying to us, “Be a person who has the dominion of righteousness within you. A person who is in control and not controlled by anything that is external and foreign to what you have become in Christ Jesus.” The controlling force in our lives has now become Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit is the agent of His control.
Now in Acts 24, we have a record of Paul before Felix. Felix is seen here as a man who is personally out of control. He is controlled led by forces outside of himself, in this particular case, money. Now Felix has many opportunities here to become a person who is in control. Paul spends time with him and in v25 we read; "Now as he (Paul) reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and answered, ’Go away for now; when I have a convenient time I will call for you.’" It is a fact that the various powers bestowed by God upon man are capable of abuse; the right use demands the controlling power of the will under the operation of the Spirit of God. Here in Acts 24:25 the word temperance/self-control follows Righteousness, now righteousness represents God’s claims. Self-control/temperance being man’s response to that claim. Now in 1 Peter 1:6, temperance/self-control follows knowledge, which suggests that what is learnt requires that it be put into practice.
Felix was a man out of control; Paul was a man in control. Felix was a man who was out of control because of what was the driving force in his life, was dead and inanimate. Paul was in control because his driving force was the living God within him.
There is a call here in 2 Peter 1:6, to add to the knowledge that we have received by experience and revelation, self-control, we are to be content people. Wherever there is incontinence there is indignity, demands upon others to clean up the mess. That really is the picture that is being put across to people who have never come to terms with be self-controlled, that they are people who are incontinent. One aspect of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. Add to what you know to be true, add to what you know about the moral excellence of God, add to your exercise of faith in these matters, add self-control. Be a person who is in control of yourself because what you have become in Christ Jesus, is a child of the almighty God, a partaker of the divine nature and a person who is now complete in Christ and is incomplete when your relationship with is disrupted by sin. That occurs when you are out of control of self. You have within you the power of God to hold dominion over self and of self, and the hardest battles you will ever fight are the internal battles with self. Yet that is just the place that has become the habitation of God.
