What is Self-Control
Fruits of the Spirit • Sermon • Submitted
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What is Self-Control
What is Self-Control
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Hey all!
Tonight will be the last night we combine as a youth group!
While this a bit sad, it means that we will be getting back to our regular meeting times.
That is right! Starting next Sunday Night October 11! High School Youth group will be back.
And Junior High!
You will be meeting back on October 14th!
Over the past two week, we have meet as a leadership team and we believe that we can come back to youth group, in our youth room for youth group.
Things will still be different of course.
One of the changes that we will be doing is we will ask everyone wears a mask to youth group.
It is really had to social distance.
So we believe the best way to protect us is to require everyone to wear a mask when you are in the youth room, game room, and youth lobby.
We will expect you to show up with a mask on and wear it until you get up into your breakout rooms.
*But know that if you do not want to take off your mask no one here will force anyone to do that.
If you have any issues you can contact me and we can talk more.
We are super excited to be meeting again starting next week!
We hope to see you all there!
So tonight, we are going to be ending our series on fruits of the spirit.
I hope this has been enjoyable or at the very least insightful for you.
Tonight we are going to be finishing with self-control.
This whole idea of self-control is one that we can all look at and learn from.
So lets refresh where we have been
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
The fruit of the Spirit, self-control
The word for self-control means to have the ability to wait without becoming hasty or impetuous- it means having patience.
Showing self-control is mastering one’s desires and passions.
Who would say that you have a great deal of patience?
Okay… lets test that a bit, yeah?
How do you respond when the WIFI goes down?
What do you do when the video-game freezes up on you?
What emotions come over you when a slow driver has been in front of you for half an hour?
When your chicken nuggies, take an extra 5 mins to get done at McDonalds, how do you respond to that?
The bathroom line is super long< besides making you want to pee in your pants or worse, what would you like to do?
The reality is not very many of us are cool and patient like we think we are.
Actually I would say a great deal of us have zero to none on the patience scale.
If you notice all of those things mentioned have nothing to do with you.
They all effect you- may make you late, or hungry and you may pee your pants but the reality is that you cannot do anything about it.
You see often we get fixated on the problem that we respond in a way, as we all admitted too, is not very kind.
I came upon this quote this week in preparing this message:
“When you can’t control what is happening, challenge yourself to control how you respond to what is happening. There is great power in that.”
I think Paul understood self-control really well.
As he is mentioning it here but he also brings it up on 1 Cor 9.
Here is what he says.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 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.
Right now, a ton of sports are going on,
The NBA finals, The MLB finals, Hockey just had there Stanley Cup, The WNBA is playing their finals.
Marathons are being ran.
Tennis matches are being played
E-Sports has lot of their tournaments as well.
And you know what?
Only one person or one team can be crowned the best.
People, athletes, professionals, all compete with the idea of winning the prize.
For some it is a trophy for others it is having the best business.
But what makes these people stand out is their self-control.
Paul is saying that runners run to obtain a prize.
Everyone trains and competes to win the prize.
Paul is saying we also need this mentality to run hard, and run fast and aim towards the finish-line, so that we can obtain a prize that is not some dumb trophy or rewards for some game, but it is a reward that is imperishable.
I mean have you seen how some of these people train?
They put in lots of hours and they invest time and energy for what?
They know what they want and they go all in for a prize.
Let me ask you something today?
When was the last time you went all in for Jesus?
You said- Jesus, what you want, I am yours.
When was the last time you committed to giving a sin that had plagued you for years?
When was the last time to promised that you were going to share your faith with someone only to still be right where you are?
You see those examples, yeah— those have everything to do with you.
Yet, we aren’t as mad when we don’t follow up, or if we are the reason the line is long.
When we commit to self-control we feel like we have to keep up our end of the deal.
So right now, are you running this game of life, aimlessly?
As in you wake up put on a shirt and do the same thing over and over again expecting different result, still cussing, still skipping church, still not praying, still not reading your bible, still looking at porn, still lying, still dating someone you shouldn’t, still spreading more and more gossip, still dishonoring your parents, friends and co-workers, still.....
and you wonder why you don’t feel connected to Jesus, or feel like he is not really there, because you are running a race with no goals, no plan, no aim and you wonder why you aren’t winning?
DUH right?
Jesus doesn’t want you to keep a list of do and don’t
That is what the law was- Jesus came to finish the law, to fulfill it.
It was a list of do’s and don’t but the life of Jesus- the one we put our faith in is now so much more.
We come to Jesus and we obey because we love Him.
You know what the biggest problem facing the church today?
It isn’t mask or no mask, it is not worship styles, it’s not boring preaching, or lack of offering, racial tensions, it is not any of that.
It is believer who have no self-control and they say one thing and do the other.
Paul says in ver 27
But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
Every-time you step out of this church, come home from a camp, or leave a bible study— the world is watching.
They see how you respond to your parents, teachers, coach, and friends.
They see your actions.
They hear you say— Jesus is awesome, I love Him so much on your story- then you turn around and cuss someone out--
You are a witness to this world.
Actually we are ambassadors.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
You all know what an ambassador is?
It is an official representative of one country to another another country.
You act on behave of that country.
It is a very high ranking position.
Which sounds crazy to think that someone is an ambassador for America, and there are ambassadors here in the US that are representing other nations.
It is wild.
Actually what is more wild is Paul is calling you and I an ambassador for Christ.
Meaning that we are to represent Christ to others.
Since Christ is not here physically.
Christ has entrusted us to act on his behalf.
SO..... how are we doing?
How are you doing?
God could have elected anybody to represent Himself.
Yet he picked us.
TO be lights to this world, to be his witnesses, to be his ambassadors.
God seem to have a great deal of faith and trust in us to not let him down.
Because let’s be real, this sound horrible.
This sounds like a terrible idea.
Like I wonder if Jesus got back to heaven and was like, alright, we are done and all the sin is covered, how are we going to let others know about this Dad?
And God is like the people will tell them, we must trust in the people.
Excuse me? What, you mean the people that just shouted kill me, those are the people you want to trust to tell the world about what I did, what we did for them?
and God answered back yeah, i do.
Because here is the best part.
While you may think it is a horrible idea, I may think that, God says, yeah that’s right, I’m making them my ambassadors.
I am not sending them our empty handed, they will be equipped with my word, and they will have the Holy Spirit.
You see, you can’t screw this up, you have everything you need.
While we may be ambassadors we are also running this race.
And the prize is not some ribbon, or a places medal, or a trophy, that stuff does not make any difference at all!
But this prize is imperishable, this prize is the only one worth competing over.
We keep on being ambassadors and we keep running the race, we keep it under control- through self-control so that our witness does not reflect poorly on who we are representing.
You see if someone came up to you today and gave you a list of all the things you needed to be to be an ambassador for some famous person, it would make our head spin.
TO be honest there are some requirement for us to be good ambassadors, you know what they are?
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
You know why God calls you His ambassador, is because you have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of you and you can be his ambassador because you are not alone and you have been equipped for good work.
It is crazy but the Holy Spirit living inside of you will fill you up with love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self—control.
SO YOU CAN FINISH THE RACE!!!
You can aim for a prize that is not from this world and you can take, or drag as many others after you as well.
IN order for us to do this it involves us surrendering fully to God and it involves us continuing to show self-control in our lives.
I love that when you read the OT, it was never the obvious choice, God used literally anybody.
Sometimes it would seem like God made a mistake, but He never did, He knew exactly what He was doing.
You are not a mistake, You are loved greatly and God has an amazing plane for you.
Keep pushing towards the finish line, we are all there with you, you are not alone.
Let’s pray
Seniors stay behind please.