What is Self-Control?

Introduction

Can you control yourself? These are the words my teacher said to me when I was in school. And the truth was, I couldn’t. I had this bad habit of being the class “smart aleck”. I wanted to make people laugh and so when something funny would happen or if my teacher asked me a question, I would answer with what I thought was a hilarious response.

So could I control myself? No. Today we finish out our sermon series on a Fruitful Marriage and fittingly we end with self-control. And this is a good time to remind you of how we started this series and the theme that has run through it from the beginning.

The Fruit of the Spirit are not the fruit of working hard or the fruit of being human. The Fruit of the Spirit are fruits produced by the Holy Spirit in your life.

In other words, if you try to love harder because I preached on love a while back, good luck. If you try to be more patient because of the sermon on patience, good luck. What you will find is that the harder you try to be patient, the less patient you actually are. It’s almost like you can’t control it.

And speaking of control, here’s one my thoughts for today -

We Are Out-Of-Control Control Freaks

In other words, we want control everything we can, but we can’t. We try to control all of life. We schedule ourselves to the hilt and the schedule gets blown up in an instant. We try to start a diet and quickly that is ruined by lunch.

We started going to the gym on January 1 and stopped on January 2. So we can’t even control ourselves, yet we see to control others. And what we find is, we can’t control them either, but if we focus on controlling others it helps us forget about controlling ourselves.

I’ve said all of this to say this - None of the fruit of the Spirit are attainable in our lives apart from God. Period.

The Fruits of the Spirit in marriage are only attainable through the Spirit of God. We do not produce them in ourselves, God produces them in us as we follow him and allow him to fill us!

In other words, if you want self-control, what you are really asking for is God-Control. You need God to control your life. You need more of the Holy Spirit. In order to get that, you have to surrender your will to him, you have to follow Him and allow him to fill you with His Spirit. And the Holy Spirit in you will produce self-control.

So with that in mind, let’s jump into our text.

Titus 2:11–14 ESV

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Paul here is writing to Titus a leader in the early church and giving him instructions on how to setup leaders in a group of house churches on the Isle of Crete. Unfortunately some people had come into these churches claiming to be Christians, but were not. They were causing all types of havoc.

Cretans, themselves, were known to be liars, evil beasts and lazy gluttons, (Titus 1:12)so this isn’t out of character. So Paul is writing this letter to encourage Titus to rebuke them and setup honorable leaders in the churches.

In Chapter 2, Paul outlines what this will look like or what the ideal Christian household looks like. And the repeated word in this chapter is the word - self-control. He says that older men should be self-controlled, sound in faith and love and steadfast. Older women, should be reverent, not drunkards, teaching young women to love their husbands and children to be self-controlled.

Paul urges the young men to be? You guessed it, self-controlled. Reminds me of a quote…

There has never been, and cannot be, a good life, without self-control.

Leo Tolstoy

If we really consider what I said earlier though, how does Paul expect this to happen? How does he expect for the older men, women and younger men to live self-controlled? He tells us in verse 11 and 12. He says that the Grace of God has appeared, who is that? Jesus, VBS answer.

Jesus appeared and he brought salvation, or a heart change to all. In other words, all the Cretians may have been liars and lazy before, but now, through God’s grace, they too can live self-controlled lives.

Paul says that the grace of God is training us. That’s a form of the greek word Padiea, which to the Greeks was more than just head knowledge training, but a long term, discipling process. God’s grace is training us to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives. When will we do this? In this present age, he says at the end of verse 12! This is good news! As we wait for Jesus Christ to appear in glory, he says in verse 13, we can live self-controlled lives today.

So this brings us back to marriage and application. What does this have to do with marriage? I’m glad you asked.

You Lack Control Over Others

When it comes to the things you can control in this life, let me remind you first of what you cannot control.

You cannot control God. Not with your good works, doing the right things, praying the right way, saying some sort of magic words, no matter what, you cannot control God.

You cannot control your family. Your parents, nope. They are old and set in their ways and will do what they way. Your kids? They are young and set in their ways. Kidding, they are rebellious and struggle to do what you say on a daily basis.

You cannot control your co-workers. Yes, if you work a regular job with a bunch of sinners, guess what? You cannot control them. If you work a religious job, say as a pastor, you cannot control the people you work with. Amen.

You cannot control your spouse. This may be the most important idea I can give you today. Too many times in marriage, people get married and they think they can control their spouse. Here’s a few of the ways.

Manipulation - In marriage two people will try their best to manipulate one another. They will do that through gifts, sex, and flattering words. You say the right things or do the right things and you hope to get what you want. Hey, I rubbed your back, didn’t I?

Withholding affection - In this instance, one spouse withholds affection, loving touches, sex, or even saying “I love you” until the spouse does what they want. This is wrong. Your body is not your own, Paul says in 1 Cor 7.

Intimidation - We use our anger or size or tone to intimidate our spouse into doing what we want.

Guilt Trips - Some of yall’s favorite trips to take is a guilt trip. But when you take a guilt trip, you go no where fast.

Criticism - You might be too stupid to understand what I want. Your mom said you were dumb. You try to criticize someone into submission.

Silent Treatment - I’m not going to talk to you until I get what I want.

Abuse - physical, emotional, psychological

When people try to control their spouse, it leads into all types of problems. And it will end in disappointment. Why? Because you can’t control other people.

Self-Control Is The Only Real Control You Have

When it comes to life, the only control you have been given is over yourself! You may not be able to control your spouse, but you can certainly control you through the power of the Spirit of God living inside of you.

The root of this word in the greek means to have “a sound mind.” In other words, if you are trying to control others, you are out of your mind. If you are controlling yourself, that means you are in your right mind.

We talk about “circumstances over which we have no control.” None of us have control over our circumstances, but we are responsible for the way we pilot ourselves in the midst of things as they are.

Oswald Chambers

In other words, you can’t control your spouse or your family or your work or even the circumstances of your life, but you can control how you respond to those circumstances.

And more than anything, this is the point I want to get across, when it comes to self-control in marriage, a lot of it comes down to your response to any situation. You can’t change your spouse. As much as this sermon series has been about the fact that God put your spouse in your life to aid in your sanctification process, I want to reiterate this point, you still cannot change them. They have to surrender to God’s will for them and be willing to model their life after Jesus. You can’t change them.

This is one of the reasons I believe the Apostle Paul highlights marriage to an unbeliever as a reason for divorce. He realized the strain that being unequally yoked put on a person and marriage. It’s impossible for you to change your spouse. They have to willingly change themselves with the help of God.

When we talk about self-control, that’s exactly what it is. It’s you working in conjunction with God to control various aspects of your life. When looking at your marriage, there are several areas of your life where you will need to exert your self-control.

Here’s a few:

Speech - Last week we talked about gentleness in our speech. When your spouse does you wrong, how do you speak to him or her? Do you yell? Do you nag? Do you go silent? True self-control is being able to be gentle in your speech.

Body Language - How do you respond to your spouse with your body? Are you abusive? Are you withdrawn? Are you withholding affection? Or are you free? Do you touch your partner, give them hugs? Hold hands? Kiss? You can’t control how they respond, but you certainly can control how you respond and approach them physically.

Finances - How do you control your finances? Are you open and honest about your finances with your spouse or do you have secret accounts and hidden visa bills? Do you use finances as a way to manipulate your spouse? “You better do this, since I’m paying the bulk of the bills”.

Sexually - Do you have control over your sexual impulses? Are you looking at porn? Do you lust after other people? Do you secretly long for your spouse to look like or act like some other man or woman you know?

Conflict Resolution - If you are in a conflict with your spouse, you must have self-control. You must love your spouse the way Jesus loves them and that means conflict resolution is more about controlling your anger, your words, your actions than anything else. Do you respond to your spouse with anger? Do you respond with bullying? Are you always getting your way? Are you always giving in?

These are all areas where you need to have self control in marriage. They are all important. You must be able to control yourself and that only comes by giving yourself over to God.

The key to this series is this fact. If you want a fruitful marriage, you need more of Jesus in your life. You need to surrender your life to him daily. And it must be all of your life. You can’t do this half-heartedly. You can’t do this by holding certain areas as off limits to Jesus. Here’s a Tozer quote that I like:

Now, think with me about those who are demi-disciples—that is, part disciples, half disciples. These are men and women who bring their lives partially under the control of Christ, but they leave whole other areas outside His control. Long ago I came to the conclusion that if Jesus Christ is not controlling all of me, the chances are very good that He is not controlling any of me.

A. W. Tozer

And that really is the bottom line. Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, needs to be controlling all of you. He is good and gracious. He brings salvation to all people. He trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright lives in our day as we wait for the blessed hope, his appearing.

Conclusion

So to close today, as this is the last Sunday on this series, I’d like to give you the opportunity to share. How has God worked in your marriage? Where are you seeing fruit?

Prayer & Journaling Points

Father, how can I give you more control over my life?

Lord, what areas of my life do I need to give over to you?

Jesus, what are some ways I can show my spouse I love them and trust them this week?