Fruit of the Spirit Sermon 3 - Self Control

Galatians 5 and the Fruit of the Spirit

We'll read from Galatians 5, one more week. These are the words of God. For freedom Christ has set us free, stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look, I Paul say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.

I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace for through the spirit by faith.

We ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision excuse me, circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love. You were running well who hindered you from obeying the truth.

This persuasion is not from him who calls you a little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty whoever he is.

But if I brother still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who would settle you would emasculate themselves for you were called to freedom brothers only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another for the whole law is fulfilled in one word.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself, but if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another, but I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh 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 that you want to do.

But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now 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.

I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such things.

There is no law and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

This is the word of the Lord. I'll just pray Lord God. Thank you for your words. Thank you for the clarity of the words from from Paul. Thank you that he is so smart and that he preempts any possible objections that we have and that he explains things so thoroughly and carefully.

It can be hard to understand, Lord, but he has provided the answers that we need. So God, we ask that this word from your words, God, this passage from your words would penetrate our souls and would change us, that the spirit would use his own words to change us into the ways that he wants to change us, God, and that we would be forever impacted by these words and that we would internalize them, that we would remember them at the key moments, God.

The Fruit of the Spirit and the Law of God

So I thank you for the words that you spoke through, Paul, and that we're about to talk about today. In Jesus' name. Amen. All right, this morning we have the final four fruit of the spirit to talk about, but I'm actually going to focus really on one in particular.

If you remember last time, what we were doing was I was using the book of Proverbs to demonstrate each of the fruit of the spirit, how you can apply it and expand it to specific situations. You know, it's one thing to talk about love, but it's another thing to know what love is and what it looks like in everyday life.

It's one thing to talk about patience, but it's another thing to know how patience expresses itself in our everyday life, in the civil life, in social life. The book of Proverbs is a great place to go for that because it applies the law of God to everyday situations.

And as we said last time, the law cannot make you good. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ and the spirit of God can do that. The law cannot make you good, but it can show you what goodness is. And that is the point of the fruit of the spirit, the book of Proverbs and the law of God.

It shows you what these things mean, what these things are. And so, for example, it is easy to see how central the law of God is to the first of the four remaining fruit, the fruit of goodness, since we only know what is good based on what God has told us is good from his word.

And so as we live the Christian life, the spirit of God will change our lives to make them lives full of good works, according to, again, the scriptural standard of what is good. The next fruit is faithfulness.

The fruit of the spirit is faithfulness. Now I used this verse last time, but I'm going to use it again. Proverbs 3, it says, let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck.

Write them on the tablet of your heart. Just like we asked last time, what is written on our hearts? The law of God is written on our hearts. Romans 2 says that. Jeremiah 31 says that. Again, you can see the spirit, the fruit of the spirit is so closely connected to the law of God.

The next fruit is gentleness. The fruit of the spirit is gentleness. This is Proverbs 15. Verse 1 says, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Two sentences later, it says, a gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.

What's interesting about these is if you look at the foundations here, both of those Proverbs are really applications of the commandment against bearing false witness. Because harshness, when you really think about it, if we're honest with ourselves, when we're harsh with people, even our own children, what we're doing is we're actually bearing false witness against them as if their lives were not as valuable as ours.

As if they did not bear the same image of God that we do. And so harshness is really bearing false witness, and the Proverbs applies it that way. So gentleness, of course, would be the opposite side of that, where there is no law against gentleness.

Proverbs 25 says, with patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone. Ecclesiastes 10 says, if the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place for calmness will lay great offenses to rest.

These are also sort of applications of the commandment against bearing false witness, but they're also civil applications of the commandment to honor father and mother. So gentleness in the face of authority.

We can see that gentleness is part of the law of God. It's commanded in the law of God. The law is central to the fruit of the spirit. That's why Paul even says against these, there's no law. See, the law is central to the fruit of the spirit because it provides us with a guide on what the fruit of the spirit actually mean in everyday life.

We dare not take these words that Paul says, love, joy, peace, patience. We dare not take those words and define them in any other way besides what the spirit of God has revealed to us. That doesn't, that wouldn't make any sense, right?

Like we wouldn't say, okay, the definition of the fruit of the spirit is something besides what the spirit has revealed. That wouldn't make any sense. The same spirit that, that Paul's talking about. These are the fruit of that spirit.

That's the same spirit that inspired the rest of the scriptures. And so we would of course define these words according to the scriptures, but what I want to focus on today is the final fruit of the spirit.

Self-Control as a Fruit of the Spirit

The fruit of the spirit is self control. The fruit of the spirit is self control. Now if you are, maybe if you grew up on the King James version or maybe you're just a fan of the King James version, this is a different fruit of the spirit.

It's called, they don't call it self control. The King James version calls it temperance. The fruit of the spirit is temperance. I like that word. I like that word because it kind of captures the essence of what self control is.

Temperance. I like that. Now the Greek word is used a few different times in the New Testament, so I thought it's not used that often, so I thought it might be helpful to talk about each time it's used to get a little insight into the meaning of what self control or temperance means.

The first time that it's used is Acts 24. This is interesting. This is when Paul is, he's in custody, he's in prison by Governor Felix, and this is what happens. Listen to what it says. It says, Felix, having a rather accurate knowledge of the way, put them off, saying, when Lycaeus, the tribune, comes down, I will decide your case.

Then he gave orders for the centurion that he should be kept in custody, I'm talking about Paul, not the centurion, but have some liberty and that none of his friends should be prevented from attending his needs.

After some days, Felix came with his wife, Drusilla, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus. And as he reasoned about righteousness and self control and the coming judgment, and then it goes on from there, I'm not going to quote the rest of it, you see what happens there?

Paul's in prison. Governor Felix knows about Christianity. He knows pretty accurately what it's all about, and he goes to Paul and he's like, teach me about this. You know, I want to know more. And Paul is teaching about Christ Jesus.

It's very specific. It says, Paul is talking about faith in Christ Jesus. And what does it say he teaches about? Teaches about righteousness, self control, and the coming judgment. How many of our gospel presentations would talk about those three things more than anything?

That's interesting thought to think about. So Paul's focused on this. Next up is second Peter, chapter one. Look at what second Peter says. Well, I guess this is just regular Peter, but in his second letter, he says, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self control and self control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love for these qualities are yours and are increasing.

They keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's almost like the same list of the fruit of the spirit, right? Peter is giving this list of different virtues, different things that should mark the Christian life.

And it's a similar list to Paul's list and self control is there. This is like a fruit, a fruit of the spirit list in its own. Very interesting. I think it's also used in first Corinthians nine. Here's what Paul says there.

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 is one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control. Lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified. That is so interesting as well.

Paul is using the concept of self control and discipline and he's using it as an, he's showing us an example of an athlete, a premier athlete. He's like, that's the example. That's what you should do in the Christian life with your self control.

Now if you know anything about athletes and what you do, because I know you sat under preaching from, uh, from Jared for so long. So, you know, at least about one athlete, if you've ever read about his like Tom Brady, we're talking about Tom Brady, obviously his diet and his exercise regimen, it's insane.

It's obsessive. Like he has certain things that he eats, certain measurements, certain amounts, and he's obsessed with it. There are many reasons why no one will probably ever achieve what he has. But one of the reasons is most are not willing to put the effort that he has put in.

And Paul uses that as an illustration for us. That's the kind of self control we should be exercising in our Christian lives. Not with diet and exercise and football, but with self control over other things.

Lastly, we have Titus chapter one, and this is a quick one. Paul's telling Titus, he says, for an overseer as God Stewart must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick tempered or drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.

Obviously that's the qualifications for elder, but when you think about it, those qualifications are just simply a list of what every mature Christian ought to be like. So interesting usages of self control or temperance in the Bible, I think.

It really does seem to be a hallmark of sorts for Christians. It's just something that should mark the lives of all believers. Yet, if we are all honest with ourselves, there are some areas in our life where we have good self control and other areas of our life where we simply do not.

And so what I want to do today is I want to focus on a couple of strategies or ideas for us all to focus on so that we can practice better self control in more areas of our life through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Self-Control, Triggering, and Microaggressions

And the first thing I want to say about self control is that the very word itself gives you a clue about who is responsible for it. It is self control, self control. We're required to have control of ourselves.

This is an important distinction to remember as we live in a day where triggering is a thing. The concept of microaggressions is being affirmed by everybody. And so this idea of self control is super important.

If you don't know what triggering is, someone says they're being triggered when someone has done something or they've heard something that has caused them to react a certain way, usually a very negative over the top reaction.

And a microaggression is what you call being triggered by something very small that wasn't intended to offend you, but you choose to let it offend you. It's a concept that excuses harsh and bad reactions.

It is a concept that excuses bad behavior. The whole idea of being triggered by a microaggression is an attempt to put the blame of your reaction on someone else. Something you saw that you didn't like, something someone said that you didn't like, and so you put the blame on them for your reaction, not you.

What it creates is a situation that everyone else is responsible for what you do. Everyone else is responsible for making you react a certain way. And Paul says that's the exact wrong person to put the blame on.

If you're being triggered by something, if you're, if you're, if you're caving to this idea of microaggressions forcing you to do something, that's the opposite of self-control. You are responsible to control your own reactions, you.

Being triggered is not an excuse not to practice self-control. Being triggered is not an excuse to sin. The scripture addresses this directly. Romans 12, the apostle Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul kept it real, man.

It's almost like he could see into the future, right? But this is the thing, people have been the same for forever. Paul says this in Romans 12, he says, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

And then he says this, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

You see what Paul says? He says, if it's in your power, right, as long as it depends on you, sometimes it doesn't depend on you, right? Someone could just come up and punch you in the face or something, or someone could just come up and attack you, then it's not, you know, you're not at peace, but it's not really your fault.

But as far as it depends on you, control yourself. You are responsible for your own reactions, not the other person. Paul goes on, this is what I find so awesome about this passage, Paul goes on, he says, to the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by doing so, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Now what I found so cool about that, I didn't know this before, I didn't know this before I wrote the last sermon, but this is a direct quotation from Proverbs, Paul's doing the exact thing we were doing last week, applying Proverbs to the fruit of the Spirit.

Self-control starts with the word self for a reason. We must remember that what other people do does not determine what we do. We can, with the power of the Holy Spirit, learn to exercise control over ourselves no matter what someone else does.

Emotions, Patience, and Pausing Before You React

So how do we do that? So here's my second point about self-control. The key to not being, the key to not being someone who gives in and just gets triggered by everything, the key to self-control is to not be ruled by your emotions.

We cannot be ruled by our emotions. That is something that I know that I need to practice. I think we probably all could practice it, but I'll speak for myself. I need to not be ruled by my emotions. Now, emotions are not a bad thing, right?

Like, we don't have to disregard them, we don't have to suppress them, like in Star Trek, right? I don't know if you guys know anything about Star Trek, but there's a race in Star Trek, the Vulcans, who basically, they said, okay, emotions are inherently counterproductive and inherently bad.

So from an early age, we're going to learn how to suppress them all. And then by the time they're adults, they're just completely emotionless. It's completely logical, no emotions at all, and that's what their whole race is all about.

They do that. We don't have to do that. We don't have to do that. And it might be tempting to think, well, yeah, you know, if I didn't feel anger, that would be a good thing, right? If I didn't feel these things, that would be a good thing.

But our Lord Christ felt emotions, so they can't be inherently bad. But the point is to harness your emotions and control your emotions instead of letting them harness and control you. The point is that we should use our emotions and do our bidding instead of letting us do the emotions bidding, right?

The exact opposite of microaggressions and getting triggered. That's what we need to do. And the Bible talks about this as well. Ecclesiastes 7, it says, be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.

Proverbs 16, it says, better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes the city. Ephesians 4 says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. So you see, patience and self-control over your emotions is so crucial, right?

So how do we do this? How do we control our emotions? Because let's be honest, emotions are powerful. Is anyone here an expert at being angry but not sinning? It's hard. It's hard. So how do we do it?

How do we do it? That's the question. Now this is the third kind of section. The first thing we need to do if we're going to learn how to be in control, right, self-controlled, is we need to pray to God fervently.

This is impossible to do on our own. This is a contextually accurate place and a good place to apply the famous passage, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. That's so true with this specific example.

Emotions are powerful and we need help from above to get control over them. So the first step is to pray. And the second step is to just wait, right? When somebody says something to you or something happens and you feel the emotion start to well up.

I don't know about you, but when I feel the emotions in me, like I can almost physically feel it, right? Like I can feel my heart rate increase. I can feel my blood pressure almost rising. I almost feel a little bit warm sometimes.

When you feel that, just take a step back, just wait, pause, do not respond right away. This isn't just self-help mumbo jumbo. This is biblical. Proverbs says this, Proverbs 29 says, do you see a man hasty in his words?

There is more hope for a fool than for him. What's the implication here, right? Like don't be hasty, take a step back, wait. Don't just react to triggers. That's it. That's the mark of someone who's undisciplined, someone ruled by their emotions.

This is hard. This is really hard. That's why you got to, the first step is to pray, right? Because this is super hard to get to the second step where you don't just react, where you take a step back, you pause and you think before you respond.

But the Proverbs says that that's applying the law of God. That's what you have to do. Proverbs 13 says, every prudent man acts with knowledge, but a fool flaunts his folly. Do not be hasty to speak. Do not be impulsive to make a speech before God.

You see, this is the thing you to practice self-control. You have to pray to God because we need help to do it. And then also we have to pause and think before we react to anything. That's the antidote to being triggered, right?

That's the antidote to microaggressions. So how can we do this? Why should we do this? Right? Because, you know, it's one thing to say, well, we should do it because God says so, right? Well, that's true.

We should do things because God says so. But this is so much deeper than that. This is about the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? Like this is the answer of this and it's not just hypothetically the answer or just kind of like abstractly the answer.

This is so this is the this is one area where I need to remind myself of the gospel over and over and over. Because look at this, right? When somebody sins against you, especially when it's a fellow member of the Church of Christ, when somebody sins against you or someone else, we need to recognize and remember that God is the one who is the offended party.

OK, so when someone sins against you, God is the one who is offended because when we sin, we ultimately sin against God. Now, if God has forgiven the brother of all his or her sins, then we have no right to get triggered by them.

None. See, we can live peaceably with all, especially those in Christ, because we know that Christ died for them just as he died for us. So God doesn't hold anything over on them. Just like he doesn't hold anything over on us.

God has wiped their slate clean, just like he did for us. So what right do we have to not do the same? The answer is none. We have no right. We have no right. So if we really believe the gospel, the gospel is important to us, right?

And we have to, if that's true, then we have to remember that the complete forgiveness available in that gospel from Christ is the key to self-control. We don't have to turn into robots. We don't have to just be like, I don't feel anything.

I don't feel anything. It's not like that. We don't have to suppress our feelings. We can have the emotions without sinning. We don't have to overreact because the old man was crucified with Christ. We can criticize people or accept criticism without crushing them or being crushed by them because the old man was crucified with Christ, freed from sin.

Like we said earlier, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away and see that the new has come. That's how we do it. That's why we do it. That's why we practice this.

This is how we practice all of the fruit of the spirit, right? The key passage, this is so important. I've been thinking about this passage a lot in the last few weeks. And this is just so important and so applicable to this idea of self-control and all the fruit of the spirit rather.

And it comes from Matthew 18. We talked, we all said this together earlier about Peter saying, how many times do I have to forgive? And Jesus said to him, 77 times. So basically as many as it takes. And then Jesus tells a parable to Peter.

He says, therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10 ,000 talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had in payment to be made.

So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.

And seizing him, he began to choke him saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.

When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. And his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all the debt because you pleaded with me.

Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I have had mercy on you? And in his anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

It's just so instructive for us, right? Did God lose patience with us? He did not. He did not. Did God get triggered at our rebellion and our myriad of microaggressions against him? No he did not. Did God choose to forego his goodness, his gentleness with us?

No he did not. So then we can't, we dare not do the opposite to our others, to our other brothers made in his image. And that's the key to self-control because you have to remember that like no matter what the other person does to you, whatever happens to you, right?

It's nothing compared to what we've done to Christ, to God. So even the greatest triggering you can imagine, it's nothing to what we've, we could have triggered God to do. So may God help us to take this all to heart, all of us take this to heart so we can practice self-control in light of the amazing forgiveness available in Christ.

Let's pray. Lord God, thank you for this passage from Paul, from the fruit of the spirit, God. Thank you so much for, again, the clarity that Paul gives us in this. Thank you that the message is so consistent as well, God.

Thank you that Peter taught the same thing. Thank you for the fact that Christ taught the same thing. This is just amazing. I always kind of find it funny when people will say that the Bible is so inconsistent.

I can't imagine why they would say that. It just seems so amazingly consistent from start to finish. And so God, I pray that you would send your spirit inside of us to help us grow in all and be fruitful in all of these areas, in all of these areas, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, God.

I pray that you would increase in all of us these things. Like Peter said, we have these things, but let them be increasing because we all have areas in our lives where we do not exercise the self-control that we ought to.

I know I do. I know I do, God. And so I pray that you would help me in particular, but also each one of these people to grow in these areas, Father. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your grace.

Thank you for your Holy Spirit sanctifying us moment by moment. In Jesus' name, amen.