Hey my friends, it's Matt. This is the Ten Minute Bible Emmer Podcast. And guess what I didn't do today? No, seriously, guess this is gonna be fun. What didn't I do today? Well, now you're just being ridiculous. You're saying funny stuff that of course I didn't do. Of course I didn't do that, Mike. Okay, good one, Chad. No, I didn't do that either. Keep it within the realm of things that might actually happen. Come on, what didn't I do today? Okay, I'm just gonna pop the bubble here. I didn't work out, I didn't lift weights. Is it because I couldn't or didn't have time? Oh no, they were right there. I walked past them like three or four times. I was even wearing workout clothes. I could have done it. Do you know why I didn't do it? Because they're heavy. And I didn't feel like it. They had other things that felt better that I could do, so I chose those instead. I might still go work out later. I think it's important. I like to try to be healthy. It's just sometimes I don't want to, and then I don't do it. That's a funny thing when I go to movies and for uh you ladies who are listening, this might seem completely foreign to you. I mean, I I don't really understand the social mechanics of what it's like when a lady watches like an attractive or well put together or super athletic lady in a movie. I don't know, like if you're jealous or you aspire to that, or you just you just don't care or what. I don't know. But I know for dudes, when we see a guy who's clearly put in the work and he's doing cool things we wish we could do physically, athletically. He's got good character in a show, doesn't make us jealous. It's just there's kind of this sense of like, yeah, good job, man. Uh, I gotta get it together. Like, I could go a little harder. I need to discipline up. But when I say that, I'm always also eating hot tamales. So make of that what you will. There's a guy in the Bible who demonstrated tremendous self-discipline. Maybe this is even somebody who Paul had in view in Galatians chapter five, when he's talking about self-control and in this list of the fruit of the spirit. I mean, I would bet that Paul had somebody in view who really exemplified each of these fruit of the spirit as he's gone through the whole thing. It seems logical. This guy was a student of the scriptures. If if he was doing that, then I think there's a good chance he's picturing the same guy I am from the Old Testament when it comes to self-control. And in particular, this self-discipline aspect of self-control. Yesterday, by the way, we talked about the keeping your temper in check aspect of self-control. And today we're going to talk about the self-discipline aspect of self-control. And tomorrow we're going to talk about the resist temptation aspect of self-control. I wonder if Paul was picturing Daniel from the Old Testament when he was writing this word self-control here in Galatians chapter 5 as a fruit of the spirit. When's the last time you read Daniel? Maybe you've never read it. It's a good one. You should go check it out. It's kind of a confusing book because it happens a little bit out of sequence. There's some genre stuff happening here from a uh a book that's really written at a very unusual intersection of culture and history. And it comes through as you read it that this is just a little different than most of what you get in the Old Testament. Daniel was a guy who had like four feet, and one was in each of these different worlds. Daniel was old enough to remember Solomon's temple and the very end of the age of the southern kingdom of Judah. Also, he got taken to Babylon as kind of a hostage, kind of a promising young man. You're going to come help us, you know, build our people. We take the best and brightest from all the people groups that we collect tribute from. So Daniel was also a guy who was in Babylonian culture, he's saturated and all of that. He's familiar with King Nebuchadnezzar and his policies. But then Daniel was also a guy who had a foot in the world of Persia, because in the book of Daniel, we get the story of the end of Babylon. That's the famous disembodied finger writing on the wall of the last king of Babylon on the last night before Babylon or the night that Babylon got conquered by Persia. So Daniel also has a third foot in the history and culture of Persia after the fall of Babylon. But then Daniel also has a fourth foot in the returning exile era of things, because as soon as Persia conquered Babylon, I mean Babylon conquered Judah in 586 BC, then in 538, 539 BC, so whatever that is, 50-ish years later, Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonians and then immediately let the Jews return back to Jerusalem and start rebuilding things. If you haven't read Daniel in a while, go read Daniel. That's my point. Daniel is also compelling because he's like those heroes in movies that a dude will sit there and watch, well, munching on hot tamales and be like, dang, that guy's got it together. He just keeps making the right choices. He's principled. He's not a sucker for whatever's right in front of his face. And just time and time again, Daniel makes the hard decision that he is convicted of. Now, some of these convictions I don't even totally understand. Like there was food that the Babylonians wanted him to eat, and he's like, nah, I'm not going to eat that. Me and my friends, we're not going to eat that. That just isn't what we do. And we have religious reasons, we have health reasons, we're not going to do it. And so there's an episode in Daniel where it's like, uh, you have to eat our food. And he's like, nah, we're not going to. And you just see if our Lord doesn't preserve us on the diet that we think it is right for us to eat. And sure enough, they're healthy and strong anyway. There's another incident where Daniel and his friends are told, you know, worship this idol. And particularly Daniel's friends are like, no, we're not going to do it. And then God delivers Daniel's friends in a very, very memorable, dramatic way from a very grisly and public execution they were to be made an example of. But they demonstrated self-control. They demonstrated fearlessness and discipline. And they wouldn't bow down to the bad ideas of the age and God delivered them. And it was pretty cool. And in all of this, Daniel and his friends are all like, you know, but if God doesn't deliver us, uh, that's okay. He's still right and we're still doing the right thing to demonstrate discipline and to follow him on his terms. Then of course, there's the famous incident in Daniel where Daniel gets caught praying because he won't stop praying to God, and he gets outed probably by some political rivals, and he gets thrown into a lion's den. Again, one of these public graphic, grandiose. We're going to make an example of you really grisly executions. I mean, you could have just beheaded him or something dignified. Nah, we're throwing people into furnaces. We're feeding people to lions. And by the way, all of this squares with what we know about how the Babylonians and Persians did their executions for things like this. They were very creative. And if anything, Daniel and his three buddies kind of got a little bit nicer executions than some of the other people we hear about getting killed from extra biblical sources. Well, of course, you know how the story of Daniel and the lion's then ends. He gets thrown in there and the lions don't eat him. And then just there he is, still in there, and they get him out, and they're like, well, I guess yours is the one true God. I made a super academic deep dive, highly intellectual, I mean, maybe the most heady video I've ever made in the history of my YouTube channel about that Daniel and the Lion's Den situation a while back. I mean, it's it's really heavy sledding, so it might not be for everybody, but I'll have Jeff link it down below if you've got a few minutes to peruse that. It might help just sort of flesh out what we're talking about here. Here's the point Daniel is the kind of character we look at and go, dude, I'm impressed. You're the kind of guy I aspire to be. A dude who has mastery of his body's desire for pleasure and comfort, a dude who lives for something more than that. Isn't that what heroes are made of? Isn't that what the people who you aspire to be are about? They're made of sterner stuff, a tougher metal. And when you see a man or a woman like that, it reminds you that there really could be people of principle. There really could be people who do things because they believe in something that is bigger and realer and truer than all of the dumb stuff that most of our choices and lifestyles betray that we actually believe in. Everybody talks a lofty game, but come on, look at what we do. A lot of what we do tells a story that we just don't like to feel bad. And we like things that make us feel good. And I guess that's fine and all. But heroes, heroes like Daniel, they challenge us, they push us by their mere existence to imagine a life of greater discipline, to imagine a life that is lived for something bigger than what we often feel tempted to live for. Second Timothy 1 7. How do we find it? How do we find Timothy here? Remember, all the T's are together and they're all in alphabetical orders. And really, as you find one T, you find them all in the Bible. Second Timothy one seven. Here we go. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. This was written from a guy who lived like Daniel to a young man who lived like Daniel. This letter, 2 Timothy, is really a passing of the baton letter from a guy who lived without concern for comfort, but with concern and dedication and discipline towards something bigger. And Timothy was on his way to becoming the same thing. And Paul is writing basically his goodbye death note to Timothy here in 2 Timothy. And what's he telling him? Well, he's hey, God didn't give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. Dang, that is some stiff upper lip stuff in the face of something very, very serious. Hebrews 12 11, just a couple pages over, further into the book, goes like this. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who've been trained by it. Now, disciplined here kind of moves between that idea of self-discipline and also discipline given to us by our dads or mentors in our lives. And I don't have any problem with them kind of being used interchangeably here. I mean, where do you learn self-discipline? Well, from people who taught you discipline, either directly or from a distance. But the point is, yeah, discipline is painful, whether it's inflicted on you by a mentor or teacher, or hopefully at some point by ourselves. However, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. I got I'm gonna do one more. I get another one from Paul, 1 Corinthians chapter 9. And I gotta tell you, by the way, sometimes I just sit and think, like, oh, you know, what does the Bible say about that thing? And I've got it in my head because, well, my dad and my teachers, my mom drilled this stuff into my brain when my brain was squishy back in the day, as we have discussed. And it's kind of fun to be like, oh, yeah, that's right. Somebody taught me that. And I didn't enjoy it when I was being made to learn it. But you know, it's hopefully produced that harvest of good things in me. Other times I go to think of something, like, well, what does the Bible say about that thing? And nothing neatly and immediately springs to mind. And I just got to go and think for a while or flip pages or look stuff up. That was the case with the self-discipline thing. Like for today, I didn't have any of these off the top of my head. It's just it's a big book. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not there. Nobody has the whole thing mastered. We're always learning it as we go along. Here we go. First Corinthians 9, 25. Everyone who competes, ah, okay, so he's using an athleticism metaphor here. Paul writes, everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown. Oh man, this is such great payoff, that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I don't run like a man running aimlessly. I don't 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. Well, that's sort of the biblical treatise on self-discipline from a Christian perspective right there. I'm not doing this for vanity. I'm not doing this to get something that people will begrudgingly give me credit for and celebrate at least for this season until next season starts. I'm doing this for something that lasts forever. I'm doing this for something that matters in a meaningful way. This isn't aimless body worship vanity. This isn't fist fighting with the air. This is going somewhere and it's of significance. Daniel understood that. Paul understood it, Timothy understood it. So many more of these people in the Bible understood it, and I aspire to it. Self-control. We've talked about the keep the temper under control side of it yesterday. We've talked about the self-discipline side of it today. Tomorrow we'll talk about the resist temptation side of it, and then we'll be done with the fruit of the spirit. Weird. What will we do with ourselves? That's plenty for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.