Self-Control

Before we begin update on Bev and Greg

Doing well in Thunder Bay Ontario

They say hi and thank everyone for the prayers

Also an update on Ukraine

Joe Dukes shared this update and has close connections

We don’t hear about it as much in the news

Keep these brothers and sisters in prayer

A damn was blown up and neighborhoods are under 8 feet of water

Make shift rafts floating around looking for food and clean water

Constant bombing

They said the Russians send missiles every night

And the siren alerts go off from 2am-5am

They are now becoming accustomed to these living conditions

More than 3,000 square miles

Which is the size Delaware and Rhode Island combined

Completely destroyed

Let’s pray for these people

Is your life out of control?

Are your finances out of control?

Is your marriage out of control?

Are your relationships out of control?

Are you children out of control?

Mine are

Is your tongue out of control?

Are your thoughts out of control?

Are your selfish desires out of control?

Satan uses our desires to control us

As humans we have desires that attempt to control

Our lives and our hearts

The desire to be accepted

The desire for pleasure

The desire for wealth

The desire for fame

The desire for happiness

The desire to be attractive

We even have to fight the desire for self-acceptance

I don’t know about you but when I wake up and look in the mirror

The first thing that crosses my mind is not

Man I look good

Wow I love how great of a person I am

I love everything about myself

Normally I have to attempt to force myself to believe I am of worth

I have to daily remind myself that I am loved

I have to fight the desire to tear myself down

And remember that I am made in His image

And chosen by Him

When we find ourselves battling these desires

When we find our lives out of control

We are in a tug of war with God

We are saying, we want things to be our way

We want to live out the selfish desires that make us happy

But we also tell God that we want to be followers of Him

The problem is we cannot truly experience the FOTS

We cannot experience true love, joy, peace

When we are not in complete and full agreement with Jesus about our lives

We are on one side of the rope

Jesus is on the other

And we are pulling and fighting against His will

For our desires

It is so challenging to have self-control when the world around us is telling us that we deserve our desires

The world tells us that it is normal to say yes

Our culture tells us that we can have it our way

Burger King - Have it your way

When we have it our way we should see the results never are honoring to God

Worldwide more than 1 billion people have obesity

Worldwide more than 270 million people have used drugs in the last year

Worldwide more than 1.3 billion people use tobacco

Worldwide more than 1.6 billion people gamble

Up to 65 percent of men turn to pornography at least once a week

More than 1.2 billion in the world are in poverty

When we have it our way

Our way is selfish

Our way is idolatry

Our way means that we are choosing something else over Jesus

Many times when we sin we will use the expression

“I couldn’t help myself”

Really?

We can’t help but choosing something else over Jesus

Do we understand that when we choose something else over Jesus

We are declaring by our actions that God is not enough for us?

That we need something else to fulfill our desires?

We are in a battle

Against the world, the flesh, the devil

We are battling these internal desires

The world tell us that it is okay to indulge in these temporary pleasures

People do what they want to do

Journey - anyway you want it

Thats the way you need it

Anyway you want it

Not sure what “it” is

Nor do I want to know

But this is what people are listening to

This is what people believe

We are here not because of what the world believes

But because of the truths found in the gospel

Let’s turn to our passage for this morning

As we conclude our series on the fruit of the spirit

Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

Reminder - FOTS

1. not dependent on our circumstances

We must choose to be filled with these characteristics of Christ no matter what else happens in our life

2. we cannot produce it on our own

The desires are of the flesh are produced by us

The fruit of the spirit is only obtained when walk in a daily relationship with our Lord

When we abide in the vine

Final fruit

Challenging one

Put on love, joy, peace

Patience - starts to test my strength

Kindness and goodness - generally a good person

Faithfulness - maybe sometimes...

Gentleness is often related to self-control

How we choose to respond in gentleness is often a response of the heart if we choose to control

The world is marked by harshness and cruelty

We must live counter culturally and demonstrate self control

Self- control is not just simply bottling up our anger

And then when no one is around letting it out on a wall.

Self-control is not biting our tongues when the person is around

And then talking about them behind their back.

Self-control is not turning from one sin in public

And then committing another in private

Self control is a determination to surrender our lives not to the desires of our flesh but to the deliverance provided by the Holy Spirit.

Self control is thinking before we act and staying within the God given boundaries

Self control demonstrates inner strength through sound judgement

Helping us to say and do things that are pleasing to God

We spent a lot of time looking at desires of the flesh

Desires of the world

Desires that cause us to be in a tug of war with Christ

Let’s look at desires that we should have

Desire to please God

Growing up Nannan

Just a taste

Taste never was just a taste

Turned into eating half of it

Thinking back on it now

I would love to say to my grandmother

Have some self control over your desires

Now I jokingly say to my dad

Just a taste all the time

Today is father’s day

Wish my own father and all of the other father’s and father figures a very happy fathers day

My own father taught me to have self control over my desires

our parents have to teach us that we cannot always just do as we please

We already established in western culture

The mindset is to enjoy yourself, please yourself, do what you want to do

Imagine if that’s what our parents did

Imagine if they never taught us its wrong to run into the road

Our Lord has give us his word, guidance, direction in our lives

He is our father and has taught us what is wrong and right through His scripture

But sometimes we choose not to listen

Sometimes even though our dad tells us not to run into the road

We start running

And then like Marshall, we turn around and look at our dad and smile at him

Even though we know what we are doing is wrong

We see how far we can push the limit before we get caught

Or get in trouble

God gives us freedoms in this world

But God also knows his children are tempted to over indulge

God establishes boundaries for his children

True freedom is not a license to do as you please, but a liberty to do as we ought - Alistair Begg

James 1:25 “But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”

We need to have the desire to please God by obeying his commands

Would you be considered a follower of Jesus based on your conduct?

Have you turned your back on sin?

Have you made a commitment to the Lord to be obedient to His ways?

Do you have a strong desire to obey and please God?

It is a dangerous thing to listen to the word of God

and then willfully, knowingly, deliberately disobey God

Pastor Greg reminded us a couple weeks ago

Whatever a man sows he reaps

What am I doing in my life that is cheating me out of God’s best and causing a tug of war in my life?

What is it in your life that you just can’t let go of?

When we can’t let go of those things

We find ourselves back in the tug of war with Christ

Surrender requires letting go and letting God

When we surrender we let go of the rope

And let God win our battles for us

Surrender requires self-control

Self-control to do what is right despite the desires of our flesh

Self-control to think before we act

Self-control to think before we speak

On average 7,000 words a day

Are our words tearing people down?

Are our words demeaning to others?

Or do we demonstrate control

Self control is a determination to surrender our lives not to the desires of our flesh but to the deliverance provided by the Holy Spirit.

I am not a golfer

But I am told there is a saying

The 6 most important inches are the inches between your ears

Isn’t that true in all of life

How we think, what is in our heart

is a direct result of the self-control that we have over our lives

We know that God’s word tell us

Hatred = murder

1 John 3:15 ESV

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

We know that God’s word tell us

Lust = adultery

Matthew 5:27–28 ESV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Maggie swallowing penny

Doctor said wait for it to be expelled

What goes in our mouth will be expelled

What goes in our minds fills our heart

Matthew 15:17–20 ESV

Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

What are you allowing to fill your heart?

Are you allowing the desires of the flesh and the world?

Or do you have self-control to fill yourself with the power of the spirit?

You may be saying my heart desires to please God

But its tough

Its so challenging to live out these fruit of the spirit

It absolutely is

Which brings me to my next point

It takes

Determination to trust God

1 Corinthians 9:25–27 ESV

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

As many of you know

I am not an athlete

I do understand discipline

Being a musician requires discipline

I am sure the athletes in the room would say it is harder to be an athlete because of the sweat, blood and tears

But the calluses on my fingers might say otherwise

The countless hours required to practice and have the skill level of

Bryant, Jeff, Bri or others on our team might disagree

Either way the apostle Paul talks about the discipline that athletes need

The self control that athletes require

Paul talks about athletes here because everyone was familiar with the Olympic games at the time

Paul knew that Self-control was an essential part of the Christian life

We should make it our goal to please Him

And we should be questioned by those in the world why we don’t do the things of the flesh

Our answer should not be because of the rules of our church

But instead our desire to please him

And our determination to trust Him

We should be motivated by the prize at the end of the race

John Piper put its this way

Life is not a place for proving to God or anybody your strength. Life is a place for proving whose strength you trust—man’s or God’s. Life is not a place for proving the power of your intelligence to know truth. It’s a place for proving the power of God’s grace to show truth. Life is not a field for demonstrating the force of our will to make good choices. It’s a field for showing how the beauty of Christ takes us captive and constrains us to choose and run for his glory.

John Piper, Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999) (Minneapolis, MN: Desiring God, 2007).

We must be determined to trust Him knowing His ways are higher than our own

While the things of this earth, the desires of the flesh seem appealing

We must remember that eternal life with Him is far better

We do not fight because eternal life is based on our efforts

We must demonstrate self-control, discipline, determination

We must fight because faith without works is dead as it says in

James 2:26 “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”

We know as we have seen all through the book of Galatians that our salvation is not found in anything that we do

Our salvation is not based on our works

Our salvation is provided through the saving power of Jesus Christ

Our strength is given through the power of the Holy Spirit

Our life in eternity is provided because of the saving grace of our God

But we are still called as believers to put on the fruit of the spirit

To live lives that reflect Christ in everything we do

And to depend on Him for the strength we need

We are in the midst of a battle that is going to take determination to continue to rely on God

1 Peter 2:11 ESV

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

Paul tell us that we need to fight our selfish desires and have self-control over our cravings

1 Corinthians 6:13 ESV

“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

Jesus himself gives us instruction on the amount of determination and self-control it takes

Matthew 5:29–30 ESV

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Just because we tear out our eye

Or cut off our hand

Does not mean that we can overcome all sin

But what both Jesus and Paul are telling us

Is that we are in the middle of a fight

A fight against our selfish desires, selfish impulses

That takes determination to please God

John Piper says

Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999) Olympic Spirituality, Part 2

The body is not evil in itself. God created it. And he will raise it from the dead to exist forever. But the body is the base of operations for sin, and sin uses it to give rise to many impulses that are destructive to spiritual life.

The fight is like a boxing match as Paul says

1 Corinthians 9:26 “So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.”

Whenever I think of boxing I can’t help but think of a famous boxer

Who once said,

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.

You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you’re hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!

Rocky knew that it takes determination to fight through this battle

But Rocky’s determination

His self-control

Was misplaced

Rocky believed that He could fight every fight on his own

How often do we believe that we have the strength to fight these fights on our own

Yes we need to have determination

Yes we must have self-control

We must draw our strength from the Holy Spirit

Self control is a determination to surrender our lives not to the desires of our flesh but to the deliverance provided by the Holy Spirit.

But when we look at this list of fruit

It seems like a daunting task to put all of these on

But we must remember that this is the fruit of the spirit

We can only experience this fruit

When we are abiding in Christ

Christian behavior and expectations are never separated from the grace of God

“Scripture never expects us to hear God’s command, separate from our focus of God’s word for us in the person of his son and when we divorce these things we almost always go wrong” - Alistair Begg

That brings us to our next point

We can experience

Deliverance because of God

As I mentioned earlier self-control is a very challenging fruit for me

Everything in our lives is about self

So whenever I am able to exemplify this fruit

I often want to be filled with pride and say

wow what a great job I did at have discipline and determination

wow look at how controlled I am in my life

It is humbling to remember that fruit is not produced by the law or by the works we do

But it is only produced by the life of Christ

We must become what God intended for us to be

Alistair Begg also said this

“Self effort becomes the disguise of self control, self effort apart from dependance upon Christ is entirely self focused and ultimately is destined to failure”

The fruit of the spirit is not easy

But it is how we are called to live

It is not natural

Nor can it be produced even by our hardest efforts

It is a gift of God

And we can only live with these Christlike characteristics

When we are mastered by Christ

Every dimension of our lives should be brought under the control of Christ

Our victory and assurance is found in Christ

John Piper says

Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999) Olympic Spirituality, Part 2

So “self-control” is not ultimately control by the self but by the Spirit. We experience it usually as control by our own will, but in fact it is God in us willing and working his own good pleasure

Philippians 2:13 “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

When we come to this understanding that it is not by our own strength or our own doing

This should once again humble us

Bring us to our knees in worship and awe of who He is

How he loves us so much

That not only did he send his son

To be born

To be beaten

To die

To rise again

So that we might have eternal life with Him

But he also gives us the power of His spirit

So that we might have the power through Him

To put off the desires of the flesh

And to instead pursue the desires of our Lord

To have the determination to trust Him in all circumstances

And to have deliverance from all sins for all of eternity

We can experience true self-control because of His never ending love for us

You may be listening and thinking

Well this is a nice message for the younger generation

Or maybe this doesn’t apply to me because I have been a follower of Jesus for my whole life

Or maybe you think that you are not as tempted by things as others are

Paul in his instructions to Titus

Tell us that self-control is a discipline that applies to all ages

All walks of life

Titus 2:2–6 ESV

Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.

Why do we need to be self-controlled?

Paul tells Titus

Titus 2:11 ESV

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,

A study in 2010 found that self-control is actually contagious.

When those studied even watched or thought about someone with self control

They were more likely to show the same restraint

People tend to mimic the behavior of those around them

Let’s demonstrate self-control

And be a light and an example to those around us of God’s love

Self control is a determination to surrender our lives not to the desires of our flesh but to the deliverance provided by the Holy Spirit.

Story

Greek Mythology

Island - 3 sirens

Half bird half human

Sing songs

Sailors crash boats

Could not resist their selfish desires

Odysseus - wax in ears

Tied to the mast - he wanted to hear desperately

Until they passed safely

Often wax in our ears is the self-control that we can demonstrate on our own

Sure we can avoid the sin

Sometimes we may even be safe on the other side

But when we do it on our own

Without relying on the strength of God

Ultimately we bring all the honor and glory to ourselves

Another captain - Jason

Brought a skilled musician Orpheus

Captivating musician

Whenever he played everyone listened

The sailors gathered under the mast and listened to Orpheus

Sirens played

But Jason and his men only heard the beautiful music of Orpheus

Passed by safely

As sons and daughters of God we are not prisoners to our passion, chained to the mast

We have heard a sweeter song

Gathered under the cross we hear a heavenly song

Holiness, discipline, self-control

They are not burdens that should have to plug our ears with wax

They are a joy to live our lives how Christ created us

Invitation to be free from the chains of the desires of the flesh

The desire to please God instead by obeying

Zephaniah 3:17 ESV

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Scripture tells us not only to hear this music from heaven

But also to sing it loud so that others hear it too

Revelation 5:9–10 ESV

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

Revelation 5:12 ESV

saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

Revelation 5:13 ESV

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

Let’s let our songs, our worship, and our self-control

Be a determination to surrender our lives not to the desires of our flesh but to the deliverance provided by the Holy Spirit.