Self-Control

And the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity, I will summon you. Pray with me. Father in heaven, we have no hope apart from your Holy Spirit's work in our lives. And even as Tim explained the story about how none of us are good enough alone, we are certainly of no use to anyone apart from your spirit.

And so we ask you to bless our time together this weekend, that it would be edifying, that we would build one another up, and that this would be an opportunity for many men to receive ministry and help and resources that maybe they don't find near their home. and it would be a chance for each of us to grow closer to the conformity of the image of your son Jesus. Amen. Amen.

So in Acts 24-25, it says, As he reasoned, this is speaking of the Apostle Paul, about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed. And then we're not going to look at the rest of this verse. Because in the absence of the ability to do some kind of verse-by-verse exposition, even through a small passage, I've chosen more of what you'd call a topical sermon.

And the topic is this idea of self-control. And I think what I want to do is open up what self-control is in the Bible, what it's described as, talk about the importance of it, the imperative of it, and then hopefully give you some hope that there's resources so that you may exercise this virtue that is, in fact, expected of you. I am not unaware of the irony of a man who's 280 pounds standing in front of you and talking about self-control. so anybody that was here last year may be able to tell that I am in fact 20 pounds lighter than I was last year so I'm on my way to exhibiting more self-control but in the history of my preaching I think that I have, so I preach through books at church but for some of these types of things I preach on things I feel like I understand or know and I recognize the importance of practicing what I preach and I think that I never really talked about self-control much and one of the reasons was I never felt like I really understood it or had exercised it well.

But we're to preach the whole counsel of God and I have a sense that if the men in this room are anything like me, this is something that you need And it's something you need teaching on. It's something you need exhortation on. It's something you need encouragement on and edification. And so we're going to dig into it. And if you turn to Romans 1, we're going to, for lack of a better term, jump around a few verses in the Bible. and we're not going to get real deep with a lot of them, but I just want to give you a bit of a survey of the New Testament that you may be impressed that this is not just some random topic I found in a hidden verse in Acts and the rest of the Bible doesn't really talk about it, but maybe it's my pet thing.

I want you to see it. And so in Romans 1, I think most of you here may be familiar with this passage where God is explaining the reprobate. He's explaining the fall of man and what we've fallen into. And one of the things we see in verse 26 of Romans 1 is for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. It says, for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion. For one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. Now, the point I'm trying to make by bringing you to this verse is not about homosexuality, which certainly is condemnable. It's that it was the passions that they were turned over to. so now I want you to look at 1st Thessalonians excuse me, 1st Thessalonians 4 verse 3 and for those of you who are keeping score at home, I just completely changed the direction that I planned to go, so we'll see what happens now I rarely know at this point, usually I do that later but 1st Thessalonians 4 3.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality. So he's referring right now to sexual immorality and he's teaching the Thessalonians that this is God's will. But then look at verse 4. That each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. following the passions of your own flesh and not controlling your own body is completely contrasted here with following the passions of your lust is described as being like a Gentile.

If you're not controlling your own body, as far as Paul's concerned, when he writing to the Thessalonians you just a worldly person You a son of Adam You really a son of the devil That how we know the difference between a Christian and a non at least in one of the ways is whether we see self being exhibited So now if you turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. I'll let you turn there. I'm kind of a...

I'm able to speak fast if I want to, But I find that if you turn the page of your Bible, you're going to get to know your Bible better or your Bible app. And if you read the words yourself in front of you, that's way better than me reading them to you. 1 Corinthians 9, a little longer passage here that we'll read. Verse 24. 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. Now, remember, we're talking about self-control. So listen, 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.

Paul is making an analogy now about self-control and discipline that is exercised by athletes. And so anybody in here that has ever had any interest in athletics, either yourself or watching it on TV, one of the things we know is that the people who attain to the highest levels work very hard and put in a lot of sacrifices. And some of those sacrifices are probably unnecessary.

Some of these guys, I think, take it too far. But to achieve these highest levels, they need an amazing amount of self-control. And in this case, you know, we think about, I don't know why, whenever I think of this, I think of Michael Phelps, that swimmer guy, that, you know, as far as I know, is still the best swimmer that ever lived. That guy had such self-control.

Everything was exactly the way it needed to be. And one of the reasons for this is that self-control has two aspects to it that I want you to be able to separate in your mind so that when you apply it to your own life, when you're praying for God to help you with it, that you'll be able to start to differentiate these things, also when you're just confessing as well. Self-control, very clearly we saw in 1 Thessalonians, is necessary that you might be sanctified.

So that you won't be sexually immoral. You have to be able to control yourself so that you don't have sex with someone that's not your wife. You have to be able to control yourself so that when you're sitting there on the internet maybe reading an innocent article about something that's not bad and an ad pops up that tempts you, you have to have the self-control to say, I'm going to say no to even indulging in this for longer than it takes to find the little X and close it.

Self-control is not only about controlling yourself so that you don't sin. So you're already expected to be fighting sin in your life. Self-control also involves controlling even your good passions. Some of the things that you are allowed to indulge in in this life because it's legal. It's not a violation of God's law. But there are things that you have to give up because they don't help you achieve that imperishable wreath.

So just like Michael Phelps can't eat McDonald's and go win gold medals, it's not because McDonald's is inherently evil. It's because that doesn't help him reach his goals. And so we have to think about our lives in such a way where we can say, well, what is our goal? Do you even have goals? I mean, it's a whole different discussion. But, you know, we have men in here from age 17 or whatever the youngest age is all the way up to however old.

And the question is, do you even have a goal? Like, is there one thing that you want to accomplish that you actually have to discipline yourself to do? That's step zero. I'm talking about the self-control necessary to achieve them. But you need self-control to reach some of your financial goals. I'm not talking about the Dave Ramsey, like, let's all get rich.

I'm talking about honoring God with your money. Being a good steward of what God has given you requires self-control. It's not just, you know, a room full of men, it's easy to talk about pornography and fornication and assume that there's probably someone who I'm hitting you in the heart with it. But there's all sorts of things we need self-control with.

In fact, I would argue that every aspect of our lives we need it. you have to have mastery over your own body so that lest after preaching to others you're not considered disqualified in fact it's one of the neatest things about the whole deal for me with you know tim just told you i'm a pastor i was not a pastor for a long time ago i don't i don't know how long have i been one a year or something now and it wasn't really what i was trying to become And then I got, long story short, I want to make this about me, I got thrust into the position, and I'm trying to do my best to be this pastor that the church needs, and I'm realizing, well, there's one area that I personally feel very convicted about, it's that I overeat. And even if I wasn't overeating at times, as long as I was still overweight, it made it look like I was an overeater. And I thought, well, I've got to start doing something, I've got to lose weight.

I have to try to do something that shows that I'm actually self-controlled and then what did I find right away of course it was harder than I thought thanks well turn to first Timothy chapter 2 I want to impress upon you that self is utterly important to God When Paul reasoned in the book of Acts about righteousness and the coming judgment, he reasoned about those two things and self-control. His exhibition of the way to Felix in Acts 24 was basically righteousness, which is found in Christ. There's a coming judgment, so you better figure this out.

And you need self-control in the middle. This is the definition here. This is definitional Christian life. 1 Timothy 2.9, just quickly, talking about women. Women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control. Interesting.

Verse 15. She will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. Self-control is just apparently a really important Christian virtue. It's part of a chain of virtues in 2 Peter 1, we'll see in a minute. Qualifications for overseers, which qualifications for overseers is just, here's what it means to actually be practicing the Christian life, other than being apt to teach.

Every Christian should attain, or should try to be striving toward the virtues described for overseers. There's nothing about overseers that's some special thing in the scripture other than they're supposed to have the gift to teach and preach. But listen to what you're aspiring to as an overseer. An overseer must be above reproach, a husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled.

Deacons, verse 8. they must be dignified not double tongued, not addicted to much wine not greedy for dishonest gain it doesn't say self-controlled there but I'd venture to say if somebody was addicted to too much wine we'd agree he lacks self-control this is every aspect of our lives and this is what makes I think this one the hardest for me in some ways is that I can be self-controlled in a whole bunch of ways and I can put my head on the pillow at night and I can count how great I did and all these things that maybe I used to not do as well or that I can see another guy struggling with. And I can get nice and proud of myself for that because I don't focus on the areas that are hardest for me. Because you know what?

There's guys in this room who, being over in the hall when they bring the desserts out, that's like the hardest thing for you. Okay, I was sitting there. Was it Ben? I was talking to Ben about it. Like they bring the little lemon desserts out I have this inner struggle with it. I want it, but I know I shouldn't have it, especially before I'm trying to preach.

And for some people, dietary things isn't your deal. So I can't name every possible area of life that one of you needs to repent of your lack of self-control. I can just bring the whole topic up for you. And it's up to you, by praying with God, thinking about, well, confessing. What are the areas of my life? Where I don't have my body under submission to myself.

That's up to you to work out and to be honest about it. And if you're not sure, ask. Ask in prayer that God would reveal to you your hidden faults. So that was 1 Timothy. If we look at 2 Timothy 2.22. Flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace along with those who call on the Lord have nothing to do with foolish ignorant controversies you know that they breed quarrels Timothy is commanded to flee youthful passions most of us just think of sex probably kids like to get drunk a lot of it is just the same old stuff and the concern is that some of us have we're past the point where we're so worried about some of these grosser sins that we dealt with when we first got saved Lord willing if I said hey stand up and the last time you looked at porn was this long ago sit down or whatever there would be a lot of people that could sit down because we don't struggle with some of those things as much as when we first became Christian we're supposed to grow in these areas but there's other things going on and that passion to get angry and to let loose, that's a lack of self-control.

You know, in Ephesians 4, after you put on the new self, you're told, be angry and do not sin. And that's a quote from Psalm 4. Paul didn't make it up. If you're supposed to be able to be angry as a Christian, you're supposed to be able to correctly discern what's going on around you, and if necessary, recognize evil in this world and maybe even be angry about it the way God would be angry about it.

If you want, we could describe abortion procedures. If it doesn't make you angry, there's something unholy about you to know that that's happening. But God tells you to be angry and not sin. The world has a way that it gets angry. And many of us have dealt with this in your past life and some of you in your Christian life. Because some of us think, well, once I got angry, I lost control.

I don't think so. I think we relinquish control so that we can enjoy the intoxicating effect of the anger. And I think a lot of us, our problem is that we make choices leading up to the point when maybe you do lose control. Think about this. Think about taking a drink, right? Most people in the room, I guess, could take one drink of alcohol and you're not going to be drunk. then you take another one and then you take another one and eventually somebody drunk and there was a progression there the problem wasn the one that got you drunk The problem was your lack of self leading up to that point Your problem is not that the image of the girl came on the screen when you were looking at some other internet page.

The problem is that you were looking at something that you knew was close to it. So self-control helps us to get far away from those things. so turn to Titus now just want to prove the self control point I think you get it but I guess what I want is for you to see it in the scripture alright I'm going to get maybe two hours here where I'm going to preach not tonight, total sorry, I scared Tim for a second and so what would be more important than thinking, wow, that guy really said that one thing that was really neat, would be you having some idea of the prevalence of this teaching in the Scripture that you might be able to go back and just study it yourself. Titus 2.

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Just listen for self-control. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled. Sound in faith and 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. Self-control is not just a thing for young men, It's not just a thing for old men. It's not just a thing for men. It's something God expects of Christians. The book of Proverbs, verse 25. This is a memory verse for you.

Sorry, chapter 25, verse 28. If you don't know this verse, you should memorize it. Give you a second to turn there. I want to hear you turning there. I want you to see it for yourself. Verse 28 of chapter 25.

A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. a man without self-control is going to be completely under the control of someone else whether it's Satan whether it's your passions whether it's just other people in your life do you realize that when somebody makes you angry you just gave them control a lot of us don't think of it that way next time you get angry and you think someone made you angry I want you to remember that you decided to get angry or you relinquished control of your passions and emotions to this other person a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls you don't want to be that way 1 Corinthians 9 tells us that even non-believers are going to exercise self-control in order to attain the prize that they receive. Self-control is a Christian virtue, and it's expected of you, but it's common to man. There's non-believers out there exercising self-control in a number of areas that Christians fail.

And that should be to our shame. So, turn to Galatians 5. This is the exciting part. so we're here to build up men alright and part of preaching Galatians 5 part of preaching is exposing the text to you so I open the text and I try to tell you what it means and to some extent give you some context if we went verse by verse through something we can do a little more of some of that but part of preaching is applying it part of it is giving people hope that the thing I just told you that you must be exhibiting and that you're probably failing at on some consistent basis now my goal is to give you some hope that you've already been granted this.

So let's read. Galatians 5 I'm going to start in verse 16. You have the Holy Spirit if you're a Christian. Alright? If you have repented of your sin and believe that God the Father sent His Son to be the Savior of the world and that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, unstained by sin, lived the perfect life that you and I could not live, was born under the law, was delivered up by the predetermined counsel of God, the Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried and rose again three days later so that you could have your sins forgiven and be treated as if you had the righteous life He lived.

If you've done that, if you've repented and believed that, you're a Christian and you've been granted the Holy Spirit. Now listen to some of these promises that come with the Holy Spirit. Verse 16. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. This is not... Don't mistake this for sinless perfectionism, by the way.

You will be glorified one day, and you will no longer sin. In this life, we will still struggle against the flesh, but we won't gratify its desires. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit... under the law.

Now listen to the works of the flesh. The works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. And Paul says, I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against these things there is no law. And those who are in Christ Jesus belong to Christ. Jesus has crucified the flesh. Your flesh is dead to you if you're a Christian. So all these desires of your flesh that are evidenced by these outpourings have been put to death on that cross if you believe in Jesus Christ.

And now you have been given power. So, imagine for a moment that I pointed at a tree in the woods out here. It's a little dark right now. and I'm sure you all have heard these types of analogies if I pointed at a tree and I said that's an apple tree and the first thing you're going to look at and you're going to say why are there no apples because everybody in here is utterly aware that apple trees bear apples that's the fruit of an apple tree apples so if you look at the tree I point at and you don't see apples, you're going to say, I don't think it's really an apple tree.

So if I point at you, and we don't see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we may rightly ask the question, why isn't the fruit of the type of person I'm telling you this is a spirit-filled person, why isn't that fruit evident? Why do I see fits of anger, jealousy, rivalries, dissension, sexual immorality, impurity? Why do I see the fruit that's evident of the bad tree?

So I'm not here to beat you up and we're all going to fail at times. But I think that the progression of the Christian life and the trajectory is going to be that we are repenting regularly for our bad fruit that we still are going to have once in a while because of this sinful flesh. Something else to consider. If I planted an apple seed, and then however long apple trees take to start, I don't know agriculture very well.

And then I pointed at a little sapling and I said, hey, there's an apple tree. And you looked at me and said, well, how come there's no apples? It must not be one. I'd say, okay, I know enough about agriculture that it takes a few years of maturity before the fullness of the fruit comes. Do you understand the analogy? If I get some head nods or something.

Thank you. I didn't think it was really complicated. My teenager got the analogy, so I thought we'd get it. But we have to also be patient, not only with ourselves, but with others. As you're counseling other men in particular, if you're helping your wife or your children with things, sometimes the good fruit does come later. Sometimes there's a little bit of time where the roots have to grow deep before that tree grows big enough to start bearing fruit, but also weather the storms that are going to come.

So I don want you to I not trying to pull a poll washer and what I mean by that is I don want everyone to be like on the ground crying saying I must not have been saved And I'm not saying that was ever his goal, but it seems to be his effect on people. My goal is to build you up at this point so that you may know the Holy Spirit lives in you and has already granted you these things. Self-control is available to you already. and it is the opposite of nearly every one of the evidences of the flesh in Galatians 5.

So if you turn to 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 1, which, just by the way, being close to Reformation Day, if there was ever a point in time where affirming, Like affirming, by the way, I'm the Pope. Like 2 Peter was his last chance and he didn't do it. This would have been a good time to be like, yeah, just for clarity. I'm the Pope and just keep following in my footsteps.

Peter didn't do that. So just a little tidbit for you on Reformation week. But in 2 Peter, in verse 10. so we're going to start in 10 then we're going to work backward Peter says therefore brother so because of all the things we're about to read in a second be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election for if you practice these qualities you will never fall Peter is trying to help people have assurance of salvation Peter wants believers to know hey, you can know that you have eternal life just like 1 John tells the people in chapter 5 or just like John told the people in his first epistle, chapter 5 Peter wants people to know you have eternal life in fact it's the opposite of what any Catholic folks would tell them but anyway, let's get on Catholicism so anyway he says if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.

So let's look at the qualities. Go back to verse 5. So for this reason, because you have become a partaker of the divine nature, that's in verse 4. For this reason, because the Holy Spirit dwells in you, because there's a promise of sanctification, you're being conformed to Christ's image and it will happen. The problem is that most of us don't want it to happen as much as God does, and so he has to put us through painful moments where we finally yield to it.

We're very stubborn, even in our salvation. He says, for this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith, the beginning of the Christian life, your faith, your belief, that Jesus Christ died for you, rose again for you, and that you are justified before a holy God, although you have done nothing whatsoever but be an offense to him your entire life. Your faith justified you.

But, he says, supplement that with virtue. We're to keep learning. We're to keep learning about truthful things. We're to keep learning what God has said is pleasing to Him. We're told to try to discern what the will of the Lord is. Try to discern what's pleasing to Him, we're told.

Well, I'll give you a hint. What's pleasing to Him is everything He told us explicitly is pleasing to Him. So read it. Memorize it. Reread it. read it again once you've exhausted every word of scripture then we can start looking outside of scripture and try to figure out secret things of God but you won't do it most of us would rather open a fortune cookie to find out what we should do next than have to read Proverbs every day for a month to try to see if we can understand God better I use this analogy you literally reading God mind when you read the word of God It sounds quirky because we don mind read and If somebody thought they were psychic in here we probably have to talk to you and stuff But we reading God mind when we read His Word because His mind doesn change Because God's Word is firmly fixed in the heavens from all eternity.

When you read His Word, you are literally reading His mind. You can know what the will of the Lord is. But listen, He says, supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control. then you supplement your self-control with steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and it all leads to love. But you need self-control right in the middle of this chain of virtues that's going to lead you to the point where you are actually going to have the correct brotherly affection and the correct love for others.

And ultimately, it's going to give you assurance that you are a Christian as you see your growth in it. God is good. He's not going to leave you in your sin. He's not going to allow you to continue to be beat up by the fact that you still struggle with sin. He'll let you struggle. And you may call out like Paul, Oh, wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death.

But you will see the progression in your heart of your hatred for the sin as you hunger and thirst for righteousness. So if you go to Hebrews 4, I want you to be encouraged that you're not alone. The end of Hebrews 4. And here's the thing, if every man in this room was against you, you're still not alone. Because if you have Jesus Christ, you're not alone. and if I could lose 20 more pounds and tell you hey look I understand self control that doesn't help you alright what helps you is if you know Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ though says in Hebrews 4.14 since then we have a great high priest Jesus Christ who has passed through the heavens Jesus the son of God let us hold fast our confession.

So hold on to your confession of faith. Hold on that you believe him. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Hebrews 2.18 just read it real quick and then come back to 4 for because he himself has suffered when tempted he is able to help those who are being tempted Jesus Christ came for the glory of God he came to accomplish redemption for his people which most often when we talk about salvation we're talking about justification so when people say hey when were you saved very few people say well I'm actually being saved right now I'm not quite saved we're talking about justification yeah I got saved on October 12th whatever year I prayed with the deacon in church everybody's got a story sometimes people don't know the date but Jesus Christ came not only to justify you but he came to sanctify you and it says here that he was tempted as we are yet without sin.

And it said in chapter 2, so he is able to help those who are being tempted. Whether it's temptation to sin, like outright commandment breaking, I know I shouldn't do this and I'm really struggling with it, I need help. Whether it's that kind of temptation or whether it's maybe a lesser type of thing where it's like, well, I know I shouldn't have had a piece of cake tonight It probably wouldn be sin if I ate one but I trying to grow more like my Savior I trying to grow in his image and exercise self And whatever your personal self thing that you are dealing with may be.

And for some of you, this is the first time you thought about it. Or maybe it's the first time in a while. So it's going to take time. But what Jesus tells us to do, he says, let us then with confidence, verse 16, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Now, most of us know that we're saved by grace.

By grace, we've been saved through faith. This is not a result of works, right? Lest anyone should boast. So we all get it like, OK, for you to even have faith today that Jesus died on your behalf, God had to be gracious to even grant you that faith. We get that. But this verse is not about that kind of justifying grace that grants faith.

It says that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. You need grace every moment. And God has already accomplished everything that had to be accomplished so that you can have the promise that the same spirit of Jesus Christ is in you. The same power is in you already. So you just need to pray. You need to trust that God can take you through every temptation.

And I will add that I think that we can help one another. I think sharing with people, hey, this is something I want to improve at. It doesn't have to be a big deal. Maybe you just want to save $5 a month. I don't know, right? But if you want to glorify God, and if you want to have the assurance that comes from salvation, the assurance that comes, that 2 Peter 1 was talking about, making your calling and election sure if you practice these qualities, understanding the fruit of the Spirit includes self-control, is paramount.

And so my challenge for you is to consider these things and ask yourself, what's an area where I would like to exhibit more self-control? Just, again, do it for the sake of God. If you do it because you want to be a millionaire, I just don't think that's a noble reason to have certain self-control. Do it for God's sake and trust Him with the results of it.

So let me pray. Father, you are holy and set apart from us. And yet your word tells us to draw near to the throne of grace because Jesus Christ, our great high priest, has passed through the heavens and has done everything necessary to open the veil that we may approach you for help in time of need. and I dare say that the only reason we are not experiencing more success or victory in some areas of our Christian life and I'm talking about overcoming sin and growing in virtue the only reason we don't experience it is because we're not coming to you and asking you in humility we're not coming in childlike faith and so Lord forgive us for our obstinacy forgive us for our pride Forgive us for even our willful ignorance.

Let this weekend be a time that our eyes are opened to the vileness that resides within us, that it may be made clean, that we may have new hearts created in us and right spirits renewed in us, Lord, that you may be glorified in our bodies. and we ask this because of the precious name of your son Jesus. Amen.