Fruit of the Spirit: Self-Control (pt1)
This transcript is from a sermon by Tim Keller discussing the biblical concept of self-control, which is described as one aspect of the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ in Galatians 5. Keller contrasts the biblical view of self-control with the ancient Greek philosophical understanding, which saw self-control as the highest virtue achieved through willpower alone. Instead, Keller argues that true self-control comes from being motivated by love for God and others, rather than mere self-interest. He emphasizes that self-control is not about rigid self-discipline for its own sake, but about choosing the ‘important thing’ (love and obedience to God) over the ‘urgent thing’ (selfish desires). Keller provides practical advice on cultivating self-control, such as meditating on Scripture, being accountable to others, and looking to Christ’s example of selfless sacrifice. The overall message is that self-control is a fruit that grows out of a vibrant relationship with God and a desire to please Him, rather than a mere exercise of willpower.
Introduction and Context : The passage begins by introducing the concept of the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ from Galatians 5, which includes love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Keller explains that these are not separate ‘fruits’ but rather different facets of the singular ‘fruit’ of holiness that comes from the Holy Spirit’s work in a believer’s life.
The Greek Understanding of Self-Control : Keller contrasts the biblical view of self-control with the ancient Greek philosophical understanding, particularly that of the Stoics. For the Greeks, self-control was seen as the ultimate virtue, achieved through sheer willpower and discipline. They believed that self-control was necessary for true freedom and independence. However, Keller argues that this approach is ultimately inadequate and leads to a dead end.
The Biblical View of Self-Control : In contrast to the Greek view, the Bible presents self-control as one aspect of the holiness that comes from the Holy Spirit’s work in a believer’s life. It is not about rigid self-discipline for its own sake, but about choosing to obey God and love others over selfish desires. Keller emphasizes that true self-control cannot be achieved through mere willpower or self-interest, but only when one is motivated by a desire to please God and love others.
The Importance of Self-Control : Keller highlights the importance of self-control, likening a person without self-control to a city without walls, vulnerable to all kinds of destructive influences. He also discusses the ‘commands of the flesh,’ which are the sinful nature’s compulsive demands for selfish gratification. Self-control is necessary to resist these commands and maintain spiritual integrity.
Cultivating Self-Control: Keller provides practical advice on cultivating self-control. First, one must clearly envision the ‘important thing’ – love for God and others – and meditate on it until it becomes vivid and compelling. Second, in moments of temptation, one must choose the ‘important thing’ over the ‘urgent thing’ (selfish desires). This may require the support of friends, Scripture memorization, or other aids. Ultimately, self-control comes from looking to Christ’s example of selfless sacrifice and allowing Him to be the master of one’s life.
Action Items
- Meditate on Scripture and the glory of God to make the ‘important thing’ (love for God and others) vivid and compelling
- In moments of temptation, consciously choose the ‘important thing’ over the ‘urgent thing’ (selfish desires)
- Seek accountability and support from friends to help maintain self-control
- Memorize and recall relevant Scripture passages to combat temptation
- Look to Christ’s example of selfless sacrifice as motivation for self-control
- Allow Christ to be the master of your life, enabling Him to produce the fruit of self-control
The acts of the sinful nature are obvious, sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fists of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control. Against such things there is no law. those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit, let us not become conceited, provoking and envying one another.
Okay, here ends the reading of God’s Word. Self -control. Some people said, yeah, it’s the last of the fruit of the Spirit. It comes last, and that’s my experience too, a lot of you say. You know, the love, the joy, the peace, but self -control, way down the list. In a sense, it can’t be the last, because as we’ve been saying all along, and we will show you again this evening, the fruit of the Spirit is a singular word, a singular noun. It doesn’t say the fruits of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience. It says the fruit of the Spirit, because there is one fruit, which is the holiness that comes to us out of God’s own nature when the Spirit comes into our life. The Spirit of God is a loving Spirit, yes, it’s a joyful Spirit, yes, it’s a peace. Yes, and it could be called peaceful spirit or joyful spirit, but that’s not just the word that God uses to describe Him, He calls them the Holy Spirit, because that above everything else describes what it means to be a Christian. And the holiness is like a diamond and it has many facets and love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, and so on, are all just aspects of holiness, and they have to exist together. They all stimulate one another. They’re two sides of the same coin, as we see. They all work together, and therefore, though one of them may be leading in your life and one of them may be lagging in your life, they have to all come together, eventually. They’re all attached. They might be on rubber bands, so one can come in, the other one stretches before it attaches up, but it can’t be disconnected, and that’s very important, because you can manufacture self -control, as we’re going to see.
You can have a kind of self -control that is nothing more than just willpower, and has nothing to do with love or joy or peace. Self -control isn’t derived from and flows, that doesn’t flow out of love, joy, and peace isn’t self -control. You know, if some poor person, you know, because of your background, your childhood, if your poor little, if you think of your life as sort of a little iron rod, it was bent, you know, to the left, sure enough, if you just take the same kind of power, you can bend your life back to the right, you know, after a while it breaks. A friend that Terry and I both know, he tells a great story, his name is Frank Barker, and he’s a pastor in Alabama, and he tells this great story about how he tried to give his wife self -control. They said when we first got married, his wife was deeply depressed, she went into this dark, deep depression, she was discouraged, and he said, boy, I’ll tell you, I counseled her, I did everything I possibly could to help her, every single day I walked in and I looked at her and I said, buck up, but he says, nothing helped, except he did it, you know, he’s got this old Alabama. an accent. So I’d say, I’d say, buck up, but nothing happened. And of course, he was making fun of himself, and he was essentially saying that when I was a young man, I thought that self -control kind of existed by itself. I thought that it could just be done. It could just reach down, like all the commercials say, you can reach down and you pull it out. But you see, the self -control can’t grow without all the rest. It grows out of the love, out of the joy, out of the peace. It’s part and parcel with it.
Now, for a moment, as we proceed, think about this. We all have a problem with self -control, right? Everybody here hopefully can think of some emotion you have trouble controlling, the tongue you have trouble controlling, a habit you’ve got trouble controlling, a relationship you’re having trouble controlling, yourself and the relationship in a sense. And you can’t think of anything that’s out of control. Your pride’s out of control. Wait. Just so you know, you’ve got something out of control. We’ve all got it. What does the Bible mean when it says self -control? This little word that we read here in Galatians 5 is the word self -control. In the Old King James, it says, it’s temperance. What a great word, temperance. We’ve lost it almost completely. Except we still have the word around, only in a shorter form. We talk about losing your temper, which of course means not being angry necessarily, because you can be angry without losing your temper, as you know. Losing your temper means you’ve lost control. And it’s a Greek word, very interesting and important word, agra teia. And it comes first of all from the Greek term krot, which is the word for power, for strength, for dominion, and for lordship. And you see the word krot is put together with the word ego, which is the word ego, which means the self. And so what we have here is a word that really means power, lordship, lordship over yourself, mastery over yourself. And the opposite word in Greek is a krotas, which is interesting. Lexicon says, a krotas is one who has no inner strength and therefore no discipline. Because inner strength and discipline go together.
Now, it’s important to keep in mind that for the ancient Greeks, now this is important, because a lot of people who think they understand self -control, they, as I just mentioned, that the buck up type of person who says that self -control is essentially a stoic, essentially not a Christian, but a Greek in their understanding of self -control. For the Greek, self -control was the ultimate virtue. It was a virtue out of which everything else flowed. It was the highest importance I put down here, Aristotle, in his ethics. And this is one of the very first major comprehensive book on ethics, had a huge section on self -control. I can’t imagine today, someone writing a book on ethics, he would have dealt with all kinds of things like the dignity of human life and lots of things. But you probably would not have a huge section on self -control. The Greeks believed that the only way that you could be a free and independent person… with their self -control. And you can understand how they would see that. They saw that if you had self -control, everything else followed. The only way, if you have self -control, nobody can control you. And you understand that, you still have that. People say, never let them see you wet. That’s a way of saying, as mean as they’re being to you, if you are unflappable, if you are in utter total control, in a sense, they’re not controlling you. You can say, fixed in stone, may break my bones. And what is that? That’s a way of saying, you can’t hurt me because I am in control of my emotions. I am in control of my temper. I’m in control of myself. And so, you know, the Greeks, especially the Stoics, pray self -control as the highest virtues. Total self -control in the area of food, in the area of sex, in the area of the tongue, in the area of the passions, they believe in control for control’s sake. And there’s a problem with that, as we’re gonna see. It doesn’t work.
Actually. You know, there’s a sense in which I can see history in this, in three phases. What goes on is so often in a culture or in a society, there is, the society is often religious when it starts. You can see this, I know that when you go to public school, the textbooks tell you that the Puritans were looking for freedom when they came here. That’s silly. Of course the Puritans were looking for freedom, it’s sort of an accident they were looking for freedom. They were looking to start a Christian country. There’s no doubt about that. Just about every society that we know, a very culture civilization has a kind of religious basis and the people have a religious fervor, and out of that religious fervor comes self -control. You have to control yourself for God. Very often the next generation has lost that love of God and has lost that, you can see this in the early history of New England, has lost that passion for God, and now they have the malls without the heart. They have the external malls without the internal monitor. And what you have now is no longer people who have self -control for God’s sake, but they’re stoic. And a stoic is someone who says, I control myself for myself. I control myself because it’s good for me. I control myself because it’s good for society. It’s just good to have discipline because it’s good to have discipline. And a lot of our parents were stoics, you know that. A lot of our parents were definitely scared.
I think it’s interesting, maybe I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, I was reading in Seven Days Magazine a little biography of Keith Herring, the great artist, gay activist, lived in Greenwich Village for years in this side of age, and they did a biography on him. And the most interesting thing to me was that his parents, I know the kind of parents he had, I know the family basically, I don’t know them personally, but he was raised in Fishtown, Pennsylvania. Fishtown, Pennsylvania is right down the road from where I was raised. And his parents were definitely afraid when he went through a Jesus freak stage, and he got real active in Evangelistic Bible studies and all that sort of thing, and he got really upset about it. And then what happened was he… He got rid of that and he moved to Greenwich Village and got into the gay lifestyle and the gay activism and all that and they didn’t like that either. See, the point is, his parents were so ex. That is, I want you to be moral but I don’t want you to be religious about it. I want you to be self -controlled because it’s good to be self -controlled because self -control is what you have, you see. You just don’t give in to this and that and you have self -control. The problem with it is that whereas very often religious people have stoic children, stoic people have Epicurean children. And in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, the two kinds of people that Paul always had to deal with were the stoics and the Epicurean.
The stoics said, because there is no real truth, there is no real God, we need to be self -controlled just so we can be authentic people. And the Epicurean said, that’s how I feel too, and the Epicurean said, because there is no truth, get out there and have as bit of time as you possibly can. What are you talking about, self -control? Like, who’s gonna get me if I don’t have self -control? My parents said, you have to have self -control, you’re a soic. about dad you believe in heaven and hell. well sure I believe in heaven and hell well how do you know when you get there. well I don’t know I mean let’s not talk about this sort of thing religious a private thing. oh I see dad you in other words you really don’t know if there is a heaven and hell. well I don’t know you know go ask somebody else and of course eventually the kid says what’s so big about self -control so religious parents are so a kid and so a kid kids have epicurean kids and epicurean kids epicurean kids of people who are out there dying it’s true they’re dying for lack of direction they’re dying for lack of meaning in many cases it’s the sons it’s the kids of the epicurean they go back to being religious because they realize after a while you know what if I don’t have God I don’t have me you can’t really have a society without God you can’t really have morals like I can’t purpose that guy I can’t even have a self without God because the knowledge of God and the knowledge itself, as son Calvin says, they increase and they decrease or diminish together their coordinate things
Now, biblical self -control is very different than pagan self -control in biblical religion the idea of self -control is clearly present of course we see it right there in the middle of all this other stuff right it’s clearly part of holiness is very important but it’s wrapped up with a rest it’s the opposite of uncontrolled passion or uncontrolled body because you see the works of the flesh that we read had bodily things like sexual immorality and drunkenness but it also had fits of rage which is an emotional thing and a self -control is over against being completely out of control any of your emotions or your habits
in 1st Corinthians 9 25 and we’re gonna look at that in a second Paul likens the believers to an athlete who is disciplined why to win the prize but Paul says this self -control is for his brethren’s sake Galatians 5 says it’s for Christ’s sake because it says here those who belong to Jesus Christ has crucified their passion that means they’ve nailed them up there get up you passions, and you stay there, and you don’t go squiggling all over the place and messing up my life. Why are you crucifying the passions? Why are you putting them up there? Why are you putting them in their place? For Jesus’ sake, I belong to Jesus. And so the point is, the stoic approach doesn’t work in the end.
And I put down here in italics, self -control is not something you do for yourself, civically. In fact, self -control only comes when you want something more than yourself. You want something more than your own happiness. You want something more than your own ego. It’s a hard thing to say, but in the long run, I’m finding that people… Let’s put it this way. 1 Corinthians 11 talks about it. 1 Corinthians 11, 20. In the 20s, late 20s, 28, 29. Paul talks about an interesting phenomenon. He says, it’s possible. And Jesus talks about it, too. It’s possible for… A person, to have a demon cast out of them, and then to come back with seven brothers, it says, and find the house cleaned and wet and ready for a party. And in come the seven demons along with the brother and the man who’s worse off than before. Have you heard that? That’s a parable. What does that mean? It means it’s quite possible to use the self as a way to gain self -control, but in the end, you’re buying a little bit of time, but you’re digging yourself in deeper. For example, if I can think about this for a moment, I think we mentioned it last week. Very often people that are addicted, that have eating disorders, that have drug addiction and so on, they suffer, and this is true. The counselors will look at them and say, well, the problem is that people hate themselves. They’re down on themselves. There’s self -loathing in there. That’s right. So what we have to do is we have to build up their self -esteem, but to make them feel good about themselves, we’ve got to show them that they are great. And so what they do is they appeal to pride, in a sense, to get rid of little selfishness. They try to cast out little selfishness by appealing to bigger selfishness.
Now, we mentioned this last week, it’s very important, very important. So for example, I knew, in the shelter, I knew a woman who had a lot of addictions and went to a psychologist. The psychologist said, your problem is you do all this because you hate yourself, you’re down on yourself. What would you really like to do? Decide what you want to do and then do it. Find out what your standards are and do it for yourself. And she says, what I want to do is I want to run the Boston Marathon. She says, I don’t want to win it. I don’t want to even place it. I just want to finish the Boston Marathon. He says, great. And she went into training and she trained for two or three years and finally entered the Boston Marathon and she finished. And actually, did it help her, by the way? Did it help her feel better about herself? Did it help her focus her life? Was she able to overcome the addictions? Yes. Was that good for her biblically? In the end, it was a dead end. Because first of all, it’s only working in the long run because in the short run, what happens if she didn’t finish. I wanna know. I think she lucked out. I think she lucked out. She just thought I’m gonna do something and she just happened to, she happened, just happened to get a standard she could reach. And we all know, you know, we’re in New York, we all have these standards we’re going to and a lot of us realize it’s Russian Roulette to get to. I mean, those of us who make it say, I got there because I was great, but we all know that there are other people as great as we are that just didn’t get there. You know, the wheel, the ball didn’t drop. It’s not the way to go. You can say to a little kid, I think we decided it was last week, you can say to a little kid, get control of yourself, little man. Don’t let them see you cry. You should have more self -respect than that. And bingo, the kid gets control of his emotions because he’s getting more proud. You’ve shown him, be self -conscious. Care about what other people think. Put up the image. You think that really helps in the long run? You can’t get self -control, really. by appealing to yourself.
And I wasn’t joking. If you’re, it’s possible to get your habits under control and it’s possible to get your tongue under control by getting your pride out of control. And I know folks, I know people that have been in various addictive situations, in many cases, addictions come because people want desperate control. They want control over their lives and that’s why they do what they do. And to actually say, all you need is to deal with your self -esteem. You need to get control of your life for you. In the end, it puts so much pressure on you that in the short run, maybe you’ll make the Boston Marathon. In the long run, you’ll be crushed by it. Discipline doesn’t happen when you say, you’ve gotta do it for you. Do it for nobody else but you. And a lot of therapy sparks like that. That’s a terrific amount of pressure. And I think that most of us, in the short run, we can’t handle it. In the long run, none of us can handle it.
Now, look, it’s center. This is extremely practical. You can’t get control for yourself. Here’s a summary of it. Center of the first page. The greatest seeds of courage, friends, the greatest seeds of courage are seeds of self -control. Heroes are people who forget themselves. Peace, courage is the ability to say, I don’t care about my fears. I don’t care about, you know, heroism very often is our challenge. Tremendous thieves of discipline you discipline yourself to see I’ve got to get there and I’m gonna I’m gonna ditch my fears I’m gonna ditch my desire for safety I’m gonna do it at that point so they sit down and say I can do it because I know I’m great they say I’m gonna go out there and I’m gonna I’m going to Destroy that pockhole full of enemy snipers and I’m going to rescue my comrades because it’s something I really want to do It’s something I want to do for myself. It’s a standard. I set for myself so I can feel better about myself. Don’t be ridiculous Heroes forget about themselves And that’s why they have such self -control They’re not sitting there saying for me for me for me. No As we’re gonna see in just one second, self control comes when you want something more than yourself. And the more you concentrate on yourself and in fact the more you try to deal with discipline because you’re doing it for you The less you’re gonna be able to do it.
extremely practical Quick thing on self -control and culture. No, I don’t really have time for it knows somebody’s gonna be mad at me Okay, I do never before Look I can do this quick Never before have we had a society with so many problems with self -control. I’m positive that many of the eating disorders we have now, we did not have 50 years ago anywhere. Where’s that coming from? The addictions, the drug addictions, the violence problems, people out of control. Isn’t it weird, we’ve never had a society where people are more concerned about discipline and getting it in shape and tucking it in and moving on out, you see? And never have we had more problem with it. The reason is, as I’m saying, is the stoic approach, that means self -control without God, has fallen apart. We’re all Epicureans now and we’re getting worse all the time. And if you want an authority, I don’t have to go any further than our friend Tom Wolf, who lives right down here in the East 60s, and he says, in 1835, our friend de Tocqueville said that people in the United States could afford the extraordinary political and personal freedom that they had only because they were so intensely religious. There was certainly an internal religious monitor in people and throughout the country, you hear that? In other words, the reason that both had the self -control was they had a religious center. Now, when Roosevelt enunciated his four freedoms, they were, three were rather obvious, freedom of fear, freedom of expression, freedom of religion. The fourth was freedom from one, which was an astonishing idea to Europeans, but it was very much an American notion.
Now, if you’ve had every form of freedom that has been known to man, and then some, the only freedom left is freedom from the internal monitor, freedom from religion. And he says, this is the last freedom that we’re reaching out for, and it’s the reason for having so much trouble, because when you get rid of that internal monitor and you have nothing but stoicism left, it eventually decays. It has to, because after a while you say, who am I really controlling myself for? And if you say for yourself, as we’ve just seen, it’s inadequate. Now, I’m just gonna make a, I’ll say what I’m gonna do here. I’m gonna make a reference. Proverbs 25:28, don’t. Don’t refer to it, don’t turn to it, let me just refer you to three passages I would like to see you study about self -control.
This is my application for the evening.
Number one, Proverbs 25, 28 says, Like a city without walls is a man without self -control. Like a city without walls is a man without self -control. In Nehemiah chapter 1 verse 3, when Nehemiah heard that Jerusalem had no walls, he wept. Why? Because he knew that a city without a wall wasn’t really a city, or it wouldn’t be a city for long. Because animals could come in there, and marauders could come in there, and robbers could come in there, and eventually armies could come in there, and he realized that’s the way it is. A human being without self -control is not a human being. You’ve lost some of your humanness. We all need a wall around us. That’s what Proverbs 25, 28 says. One way to put it. Inside our hearts, remember how we talked about this before? Our hearts are like a seed bed. You know how an acorn has got not just one tree in there, but an entire forest? You know, you can have, there’s an ocean of wood in the acorn. One acorn could eventually cover the entire world, and actually, technically, the entire universe with trees. You know that? And with nothing, nothing but what was in that acorn to start with.
In the same way, in every one of our hearts, here are these little seeds. The resentment, which, of course, if watered, can become murder. Envy, which can become paranoia. Rationalizing, which can become lying. Envy, which becomes robbery. Lust, which becomes adultery. What you need is a wall around us to keep out the marauders that could come in and that are the influences that actually can draw those seeds out. Because, you see, those of us who tend to be resentful, there’s aggravating people out there. Those of us who tend to be lustful, there’s beautiful people out there. We need a wall around us to protect our seedbed. That’s what self -control and that’s why it’s so important.
Secondly, if you look at Ephesians 2, 1 to 3, another passage, don’t have to look at it now. I suggest you look at it there because it talks about what, it calls it the cravings of the flesh. And the word there for cravings or desires is a Greek word, you know, solemnata, which actually means the commands of the flesh. We forget that one of the things we’re up against, when it comes to the sinful nature, is the sinful nature has, the sinful nature is an idol manufacturing shop. The sinful nature is the part of you that doesn’t want to obey God and doesn’t want to worship God. And so it tries to get you to worship anything else. The flesh is that which takes good things and turns them into idols and says, you must have this or you are sick. You must achieve this or you are dirt. The flesh tells you that. And as a result, the flesh actually commands us to do things. That’s what that word’s allowing. it to me. It commands us. It doesn’t just say, I suggest, you lust after that woman. It says you’ve got to have her. It doesn’t say I suggest that you, if it would be nice to make a few more bucks and climb up the corporate ladder, you say you are nothing if you aren’t able. Look at all the other people that came out of business school the same time you did and look where they are. How can you look at yourself in the mirror and you don’t even want to hang around with those people anymore because the flesh is not just saying I suggest, it’s saying you’ve got to have it. We do not realize how strong the flesh is. And as a result, Christians in particular are constantly, they’re miscalculating, they’re underestimating the compulsive strength of sin. It still is inside us and Paul’s talking about that. As a result, I think a lot of Christians too quickly immediately see any kind of really, really heavy, difficult sorts of sins that are very nagging and very difficult to overcome. I almost immediately figured this must be some Satan. Why? Because you don’t understand as well as you should, I think, just how strong the flesh is in making command. I do believe, by the way, in demon possession, but if you want my personal opinion about it, if somebody says, I think I’m demon possessed, that’s a little bit to me, like somebody coming in and saying, I think I’m severely mentally retarded, I’ve been really studying up on it, I’ve been reading a lot of books about it, and I really wonder if I am and what do you think? And the answer is, if you’re really worried about it, you’re probably not. And the answer is, the person says, am I demon possessed? I got it. Or you wouldn’t be bothered by it, you wouldn’t know that you are, you see. You wouldn’t be sitting around, you know, closing in your right mind. Certainly I believe in demon possession, just like the Bible says. But I think too often we run to it when actually we’re under the control of the commands of the flesh.
Now finally, the last thing to say, what is self -control? Now next week I’m going to talk about temptation, but here’s what self -control is. And I’ll give you the summary now, and next week we can get back to it in detail. Self -control is the ability to choose the important thing over the urgent thing. The important thing biblically is love for God and love for your neighbor. The urgent thing is to please yourself. And here’s the ironic thing, only as love precedes the urge, only the desire to give others joy precedes the urge to give yourself joy, will self -control grow, and also will joy grow. But the Bible continually says, you have to lose yourself to find yourself. You have to seek the joy of other people to find joy yourself. The ironic thing is that when we put love first and self -second we find ourselves. Stop looking for yourself. Seek for God and you find yourself. It’s very ironic. I mean, the picture that Jesus says you have to lose yourself to find yourself is actually comic. You know, you’re saying, I’ve got to find myself. Don’t find me. Don’t find yourself, guys. Look for me. But I have to find myself. Look for me. So you’re seeking for God. And as you’re seeking for God, there I am. That’s the picture. I’m looking for God, I gave up looking for myself, I said I only want you and for gosh sakes I found me. When Christ with our life appears, you will appear with Him in glory. When Christ appears, you appear.
So there’s two parts to self -control and here they are. You must clearly envision the long -term goal, the important thing, number one, and then secondly, you have to be able to ditch the competing urges in the trenches.
Now I’ll just do this, let me give you a quick example. Paul, how do you say it? Paul envisions what he wants. He sees the glory of God. Sin, essentially, is an infection of the imagination. For example, you know that there’s children starving, right, out there in the third world, but you watch a TV commercial and the commercial shows you, little kids with flies buzzing around, coughing and hacking their lungs out, and what has happened at that point is you see what you knew all along. What was on audio goes on video. Something you knew all along suddenly becomes vivid to you. And when that becomes vivid to you, it controls you and you give. In the same way, the self -control comes when the important thing is on video. When the important thing is very real to you, it comes from meditating, it comes from knowing, it comes from thinking, it comes from reflecting. When it’s very real to you, you find yourself developing self -control. And what should be very real to you? The glory of God, pleasing and giving him joy. The love of God and the love of your neighbor. See, when Paul, in Acts, maybe next week I could read it for you, Acts 23, there’s a place where Paul is slapped when he was in on a trial. He was on trial, and he slapped. And he turns around and the person who ordered him slapped, he says, maybe God will use, will slap you, you whitewashed wall. And somebody turned to him and said, you know who that is? That’s the high priest. Of course Paul knew that was the high priest. And then he suddenly said, oh, and he quotes Exodus 22, verse 28. And he says, oh, he says, that’s right, it is written, you shall not revile a ruler of your people. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have Exodus 22 .28 on the tip of my tongue. The reason Paul snapped out of his anger was suddenly on video came this verse. He knew the scripture that well. He knew God’s truth that well. And it came up and it snapped off his anger. He got self -control because on it came. He knew the Bible that well. Do you? Do I? That’s why we don’t have this kind of self -control. So it has to be on video. You have to clearly understand it.
And then secondly, when you’re actually in the trenches, that means at the moment when you really want to do the wrong thing, you have got to learn how to turn it on at that minute, like Paul did. See, for example, Paul says in first Corinthians 9, it’s like running a race. You know, you’re running along and your lungs say, you got to stop, you know, and your body says, I need a break. And yet Paul says what you have to say at that time. is, no, the prize, the prize, I’ve got to get this much in, I’ve got to do this much time, I’ve got to get this, in other words, at the minute when you’re ready to give up, can you put it on video? What does it take to do that? It takes friends. It could be that some of you are struggling with self -control and you can’t do that. You’re learning how to envision and see the beauty of God, but it’s hard in the trenches at the moment of sensation to put it on, then you need a friend to tell you. You need a friend to call you, you need a friend to pray with. Maybe you need to write it for yourself, whatever, it takes time, but that is the second part of self -control. The first part of self -control is envisioning the important thing, and the second part is choosing the important thing over the urgent thing in the trenches. Enough said.
Here’s how you get self -control in the end. Look at Jesus. Look at what Jesus did for you. He set his face like a flint so he could die on the cross for us. When Peter came to him and said, no, not the cross, not the cross. He said, get me behind me, Satan, do his best friend. I will have nothing divert me from my goal. Think self -control. He did that for you. Realize what he did for you. Recognize and think about it. Say, I am not gonna let anything get between me and you. Not one of these sins, none of this stuff. That’s the only way you can do it. That’s the only way you can envision it. Jesus Christ is the captain, the greatest captain, the most amazing captain. Of all. You know, I’ve heard of other captains that when they were out on the field, they ripped their clothes off. And they took off their protective bulletproof vest and things and they took their wounded men and took care of them. But Jesus Christ was somebody who took himself off and ripped himself to pieces to make a hole. You look at Jesus Christ and if you look at him like that, you’ll get self -control. And if you let him be your master, he will make you master of your faith. You won’t be a city without waltz anymore. He’s the one who allowed the demoniac, remember that demoniac came into his life? And he had the demoniac closed in his right mind. And he can do that for your spirit as well. Look at him. Let’s pray.