Fruit of the Spirit: self control

As we draw to a close in our studies of the fruit if the Spirit, three issues come to my thoughts as I’ve gone through it…

1. The character of God. He doesn’t ask us to be anything he’s not.
2. The sense of natural produce. Every Christian should look like this.
3. It’s the fruit of the Spirit, yet something we have to work on.  There is no contradiction here!

As we come to the last aspect of the fruit, there are a few things in the word “self-control” that make it stand out as seemingly different from the other eight aspects.

• The word is not used directly in scripture of the character of God. (But when you think of the history of salvation, the patience of God, and the delay in his judgement so that people have the opportunity to be saved, who could honestly say that God does not exercise “self control”? Or is it because the context of self control is “the desires/acts of the sinful nature” in vv.16-21, to which God is not prone?)
• There is much more of a personal focus in this word. The other aspects are community words, especially say, patience. We are to be patient with people who provoke our patience! Self control, by very definition, is about dealing with yourself.
• There is an apparent negativity about the word. Love, joy, peace etc are positive words. Self control implies something apparently negative. It feels nearer, for instance, to Paul saying “the fruit of the spirit is a lack of impatience”, rather than simply using the word patience, as he did.

So what do we make of this? The word Paul uses for self-control is a two part word, the word in and the word strength/power (ἐγκράτεια) The latter word is used in our word democracy – people power demos means people and kratos, power. The word here means not people power but inside power. We might translate it strength within. That tells us that the word is not a negative word. It takes us back to last week and the moped rider and police motorcyclist. The police officer has the power but doesn’t need to rev up at the traffic lights to prove it!

I think this is helpful, because there are those and there have been those in the past who try to see self control as control of the body in terms of self denial – abstaining from food or marriage or comforts, an ascetic life – as somehow more pious and appropriate than “ordinary living”. Paul was all for controlling the body (after all he wrote in 1 Cor 9:27, I beat my body and make it my slave) but that is not an end in itself. Self control here, strength within, is much more the positive control of a godly life. Self control is not just stopping doing something, but controlling myself in order to be what God wants me to be and do what he wants me to do.

Actually, we get a positive picture of what Paul means by going to the text I’ve just quoted from in 1 Cor 9:

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last for ever. 26 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27 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.

So the picture here is of the Olympic race. In v25 he says everyone who competes goes into strict training. That word strict training is the same word as self-control (the verb rather than the noun  ἐγκρατεύομαι/ἐγκράτεια). So the analogy is that an athlete, by training is able to run better and faster. Some years ago I did a 10 mile run for charity, around a reservoir. I jogged to get fit for it, and on one occasion an ex-army man saw me training. He said to me that he’d watched me, and that my style was all wrong and I was making hard work of it. But he never told me what I should be doing! When Paul talks about self control he’s not talking negatives but positives. Run with an aim, run for the prize. It is not the act of pummelling my body that’s the self control, but the crown, the prize of glory. Pummeling my body, he says, helps me get to the finish line with zeal and glory.

So what’s the issue for us:

What controls our lives?

We are often controlled by popular opinion. Popular opinion is the thing that will offer us popularity. Take for example dieting. That’s a form of self control. It can be good and care of the body. Yet the hidden control behind it may be a culture that says “thin is good”, “thin is popular”. There are many people who are controlled not by self but by popular opinion. Self control says I’m not going to be wrongly controlled by those forces outside me. I’m going have power within to resist the false controls and fix my eyes on the correct goal.

Or for some people it may be another person. Lots of people feel the pressure to live, act and behave with someone else’s expectation. Many years ago I spoke to a school teacher in a special needs school, who said she never wanted to do that job. I asked why she did it and she said it was because her mother always wanted and expected that from her. She was controlled by another person.

For some people it may be work. The old adage says work to live, don’t live to work. I know our work is our mission field and we don’t want to create a sacred/secular divide, but some people never get the opportunity to serve God in their church life because their work life is consuming and controlling them even when they are not there. Jesus spoke in the parable of the sower of the seed that grows well but is thwarted by the cares and worries of this world. Work is of this world. There will be no work in the next world, but there will be the church!

Again, Paul says, I keep my eyes on the prize. The prize is not the golden handshake from the company but the welcoming hands of Jesus. Don’t let work control you!

All these are just examples. What is the principle back in Gal 5? People in Galatia are being controlled by “the sinful nature” (16f). Ultimately, if we are not under the self-control of the fruit of the Spirit, we are under the control of the world the flesh and the devil. (Look at verses 19-22) Paul also wrote…

9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor 6:9-11)

That is what some of you were. BUT…!

This brings us to the apparent irony here, that this self-control is the fruit of the Spirit. This comes back to one of the points I started with tonight, namely that we have been looking at the fruit of the spirit as natural produce of God’s Spirit at work in us, and yet it is something we have to work on. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control. Although it seems ironic it is straight forward. The Spirit of God gives us the strength to control ourselves: to not let other people control us; to not let work rule us, to not allow popular opinion to be our god. To evade the sinful nature. So actually the fruit of self control is FREEDOM! Freedom to run God’s race.

Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold… 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:12,17f)

Do you need the liberation of the Spirit to allow you to be self controlled, to grow into the character God wants you to be, to be controlled not by worldly forces, but by God himself? It can be done. There is “strength within” if the Holy Spirit is within. This is the fruit of the Spirit.