Trinity Streetsville
Self-Control | Organic - Growing the Fruit of the Spirit
[MUSIC PLAYING] Hello and welcome to Trinity Sermons. Here at Trinity Church Streetsville, we aim to share biblically-based sermons with you rooted in our desire to love Jesus, live like Jesus, and lead others to Jesus. This is our final sermon in our series on the fruit of the spirit. Her pastor, Rob Perkman, preaches about self-control. There is so much in this message that we think he will absolutely want to hear. So thanks again for listening. Enjoy the sermon, and God bless. A reading from Galatians 5, verse 16 to 25. I advise you to obey only the Holy Spirit's instructions. He will tell you where to go and what to do. And then you won't always be doing the wrong things your evil nature wants you to do. For we naturally love to do evil things that are just the opposite from the things that the Holy Spirit tells us to do. And the good things we want to do when the spirit has his way with us are just the opposite of our natural desires. These forces within us constantly fighting each other to win over us and our wishes are never free from their pressures. When you are guided by the Holy Spirit, you need no longer force yourself to obey Jewish laws. But when you follow your own wrong inclinations, your lives will provide these evil results. In pure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, spiritism, that is encouraging the activity of demons, hatred and fighting, jealousy and anger, constant effort to get the best for yourself, complaints and criticisms, the feeling that everyone else is wrong, except those in your own little room. And there will be wrong doctrine, envy, murder, drunkenness, wild parties and all that sort of thing. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living this sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God. But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, He will produce this kind of fruit in us. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And here, there is no conflict with Jewish laws. Those who belong to Christ have nailed their natural evil desires to His cross and crucified them there. If you are living now by the Holy Spirit's power, let us follow the Holy Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. This is the word of the Lord. It's hard to believe, but it was seven weeks ago when we began this journey. And actually, it was seven weeks ago when I shared with you this picture of our newly planted garden at home. And you might remember, it was just kind of just at the very beginning stage that we had just planted some things. I wanted to give you an update now that seven weeks have gone by. This is what we are looking at now. It has-- look at that growth that has happened. Over those seven weeks, it was at the beginning, it was just these tiny little lettuce plants and a few little, you know, sprigs of garlic. And now the lettuce has shot right up and the garlic is shot right up. And then there were our pea plants. Our pea plants started just as little seeds, and then they sprouted and they grew into these little baby vines. And now the pea plants, I have to tell you, are taller than I am. It's absolutely amazing. So we have been so blessed to see this growth taking place in our garden. And we also have been growing, I hope, over these past seven weeks here at Trinity Streetsville. And here's what I mean. We are told that, according to the Bible, that if we have the Holy Spirit living and working in us, and at the same time, we tend the garden of our own soul, then supernatural things will grow in us. What kind of things? Let's say this together. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And today, we're at the end. We finally made it to the end, and we're going to be looking at the very last fruit of the spirit, one called self-control. And actually, self-control really does apply even to our home garden, because as the garden grows, and as more and more beautiful, delicious things appear on the vines, especially these sugar snap peas, you have to have some self-control. My daughter, Georgia, loves sugar snap peas. They're delicious. You can eat them right in the pod. They're so tasty. But she kept saying, Dad, can I take them now? Can I eat one now? Can I have one now? And I kept saying, no, Georgia, no. You've got to have self-control. You can't eat it yet. I think she still ate a whole bunch of them before they were ready. I can't prove it. But anyway, what are you going to do? Isn't it interesting, though, that even self-control is a fruit of the spirit at all? Because Paul actually begins by telling us that when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, then he goes on to say that we will have this fruit in us, which is self-control. So what does that mean? Is the Holy Spirit controlling us? Or are we controlling our self? Is it God-control or me-control? Is God-control-- it's kind of mysterious. This is actually part of the mystery we want to look at today. Is it God who is actually controlling our lives? Or is it us that are demonstrating self-control? If I had asked you seven weeks ago when we looked at all those fruit of the spirit, which one of those you needed most in your life, if I had done a secret ballot, my hunch is that maybe three quarters of you would have said, I actually need help, most of all, with self-control. And we need help with self-control when it comes to our thoughts. Sometimes we can't control our thoughts. Others need self-control when it comes to our words. We say things that we shouldn't say. Some of us need self-control when it comes to our actions. We do things that we regret. Some of us need self-control when it comes to our spending, when it comes to our eating, when it comes to our drinking, when it comes to our technology, and all the other habits that we have picked up along life's journey, this is the real question that we all struggle with. How do I get control of these things? How do I get control in my life? Or put another way, how do I control things so that the things don't end up controlling me? Because after all, if you think about it this way, if you don't have self-control in your life, then one of two things are true. Either, something else is controlling you, or you are out of control. Now, nobody wants to have something or someone else control them, right? Do you know what we call it when something or something else is controlling you? We call that slavery. Nobody wants to be a slave. Nobody wants to have our actions dictated by some other force. We don't want to be slaves. And nobody wants to be out of control either, right? When we're out of control, we usually say things we regret. We do things that later we end up being embarrassed. If you think about the last time that you lost yourself control, chances are you embarrassed yourself. You said something, you did something. When we lose our self-control, we end up feeling horrible. We feel like a failure. Why does this keep happening to me? Why can't I get this right in my life? Or we feel defeated? Or actually, we can end up feeling really, really hopeless. Like, there's no hope for me. I'll never get out of this. I'll never be free. I'll never figure out how to get control of this area of my life. The worst thing about self-control, I think, is that we'd have nobody else to blame, but ourselves, after all, it's self-control, right? We can only blame ourself for our lack of self-control. You've probably seen this movie. It's like 20 years old now, but it's called Bruce Almighty. How many of you have seen Bruce Almighty? You're familiar with this movie? Okay, well, there is like just one scene in the movie where Jim Carrey, who is the lead actor for a brief period of time, is given these divine God-like powers. He can do whatever he wants to do. And the scene I want to show you, what he does, is he actually ends up using his power to cause one of his rivals, a news anchor that he did not like, to lose his self-control. He loses his self-control. This is kind of a funny clip. It's actually a pretty good illustration, 'cause in this case, what is happening is the person playing God is actually causing someone to lose their self-control. But in real life, God actually wants us to gain self-control, the exact opposite. Now, there's so many factors that cause us to lose our self-control, stress, sleep deprivation, emotional struggles, experiences from the past, or that desire for instant gratification, all those things can cause us to lose self-control, they cause us to develop bad habits, they cause us to make very bad decisions. Some of the things that we do when we are out of control, actually temporarily, they do make us feel better. Yelling at that person did make you feel better temporarily. Buying that car made you feel better temporarily. Ordering all those drinks that night at the restaurant did make you feel better temporarily. And yet, pretty soon, that empty feeling returns. And that's because while these impulsive decisions do kind of make us feel better, they actually don't cure the deeper problem going on in us. It's like if you have a cold or if you've got a sore throat, how many of you have ever taken NyQuil, right? NyQuil, does NyQuil help? Does NyQuil make us feel better? Does it help us sleep? I mean, yes, how could it not? It's basically just like two ingredients, Jack Daniels in food coloring, right? That's where NyQuil is. So, of course, it makes us feel better, but is it actually curing us? No, it's not curing us. It's not getting to the bottom of the problem, right? Only God can cure the deep hunger that lies underneath all of those longings. And God cares about those longings, but He also knows that there's only one way to satisfy them, and that's through Him, and that we have to develop therefore self-control. So today, let's just ask three things about self-control. What is the purpose of self-control? Secondly, what is the problem we have with self-control? And thirdly, how can we get a plan? What is our plan for regaining control in our life? The purpose, the problem, the plan? Let's talk about the purpose of self-control. The purpose of self-control, its primary purpose, is actually self-defense, right? Self-control enables us to defend ourselves against temptation and ultimately destruction. There's this great proverb that is found in the Bible that goes like this. It says, "A person without self-control is as defenseless as a city with broken down walls." Now in ancient times, a wall was there to protect the city and its inhabitants against invaders. And when you didn't have that wall or when your walls were broken down, then all of a sudden you could be attacked. You were vulnerable. You couldn't even be destroyed. And when we lack self-control, we are vulnerable to temptation and to destruction. And the worst part is, is that when our self-control breaks down, it's not just us that gets hurt, right? The whole city pays the price. When you don't have self-control, your whole family pays the price. Your friends pay the price. Your career pays the price, right? The enemy storms the whole city and takes a whole bunch of people out because of our lack of self-control. These all start to pain in our lives and the lives of others. So the first purpose of self-control is actually self-defense. But it's also, on the other hand, a positive force. The Bible also tells us that self-control is part of a life of godliness and it leads to love, actually, in all sorts of good ways. So for example, Peter writes this. He says, "Add to your faith, goodness, "and to goodness, knowledge, and to knowledge, "self-control, and to self-control, perseverance, "of perseverance, of godliness, and affection, "and affection, love." This is a list of just beautiful, beautiful qualities that we all want in our life. And right in the middle of it is self-control. And if I were to go out at coffee hour after the service and I were to say to you, do you want more love in your life or do you want more godliness in your life? You would say, yes, I would love more righteousness and godliness and knowledge and all that good stuff. But the thing that we don't often realize is that key to getting all that is to also mastering self-control. So we realize now that the purpose of self-control is on the one hand, it's defensive, it's to protect us from temptation and destruction. But on the other hand, it's positive in that it leads to godliness and love and all sorts of other good things in our life. But what's the problem? What is the problem with self-control? Well, one reason we lack self-control so often is because self-control is always in the on position, right? When something is always on, it runs down, right? Like your smartphone's battery. All day it is on, it's running applications, it's receiving notifications, it's staying connected to the internet and slowly, slowly, it gradually depletes and depletes and depletes and the more you use it, it depletes, it wears down and eventually, eventually it runs out and it dies and that often happens at the worst possible moment 'cause it's always on, even if you don't know it's on, it's on and that's kind of what self-control is like. It's always on, our guard is always up. We always have to be exercising self-control at some level. Even right now you are exercising self-control at some level. You're trying to not let your mind wander as I'm speaking to you. Others of you, you really wanna talk to the person beside you but you're saying no, I can't do that right now. It is not an appropriate time to do that. Some of you just heard me mention cell phone and you wanna pick up your cell phone right now and you wanna check it but you're like, no, I cannot do that. Some of you are finding this all incredibly boring and you have a yawn, you really want a yawn but you're stifling that yawn, you're stifling it, you're trying to exercise self-control. If I see anybody yawn shame on you, shame on you. You've got no self-control and that's the problem. When something is always, always on, it's a tendency for it to tire out and for it to burn out and run down, become weak, especially when we need it the most. So that's one of the problems with self-control. It's always on but secondly, the second problem is that temptation is always nearby. There's always an invader at the city walls, right? No sooner had you defended against this enemy over here that there's another enemy coming at you over there. Let's say, for example, you don't have much self-control when it comes to shopping, okay? Well, guess what, tough luck. There are stores absolutely everywhere. Everywhere you go left, right, there's stores and they're open around the clock, some of them and they actually have these big buildings. I don't know if you've ever seen one of these but they're called shopping malls and if you go inside a shopping mall, it's just a great big store filled with all sorts of little stores, store after store after store after store and now they actually even started putting stores out in the aisle of the shopping mall so that when you go from one store to the next store, you go by this little kiosk which is like a mini store, right? You cannot get away from the store. Now even shopping malls have to close down, even the 2.2 million square foot shopping mall square one here in Mississauga, second largest shopping mall in the country, it has to shut down from time to time but you can still go home and watch the shopping channel or you can log on to Amazon or Timu or Sheen or Home Depot and you can continue to shop all night long. So my point is that the temptation is always there. It is everywhere. You don't even have to go search for it, it's in your face. Whatever you struggle with, it could be tech, it could be food like I said, it could be drink or some other addiction, it's always, always there. That's one of the problems with self-control. And then that adds that the third thing and that is we actually underestimate how hard it is to get a hold of our self-control. So many times we say things like, oh, I can handle it, right? It's not that bad, I could stop any time. And when we say things like this, it just shows we don't actually understand how deep this goes. Or are we say things like, oh, it's just who I am or it's not my problem or it's not hurting anyone or don't judge me or whatever. It just shows we're avoiding the seriousness of the struggle. And again, yeah, you might be able to deal with some of the symptoms of your lack of self-control but you never actually fix the problem in ourselves. You've got a shopping problem. Yeah, you can cut up all your credit cards but it does not change what's going on inside of us. So these are the problems with self-control. It's always on, temptation is always nearby and it is harder than we realize or like to admit. But I wanna end today on more of a positive note, right? I wanna finish by talking about some solutions. We've talked about the purpose of the problem. Let's talk about a plan. How do we grow self-control in the garden of our lives? Well, the first way to grow self-control in your life is simply this, just to remember something. Remember that you're free, right? When we're controlled by something else, we've already said that we're acting like slaves at that point, but we aren't slaves, right? We are free in Christ. Paul writes it like this, it's for freedom that Christ set you free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. You are not a slave to anyone or anything. You have been set free by God's grace. From the moment you are born, there are things constantly trying to shackle you with chains and weigh you down, right? And things that are not good for us and try as we might, we cannot free ourselves from those chains, but God has the key to our bonds. And that key is something called grace. God comes along and he loves us with such a love and values us with such value and it steams us so much that it sets us free. So that the next time a habit or a temptation comes along and we say, oh no, here we go again. I'm just gonna screw up again. I'm gonna give in, I'm gonna overeat, I'm gonna over shop, I'm gonna over drink or whatever. And we're like, oh, then I'm gonna feel so guilty about it and feel horrible and worthless. Stop. Just remember a truth. You're not a slave. That's not who you are. You've been set free. God has given you his grace and by that grace freedom to walk away from that. God's grace is more than enough. It's enough and more than enough. So no matter what tempts us, God says yes to us. As we try to say no to temptation, God says yes to you. Yes, I love you. Yes, you are mine. Remember you're free. So that actually is just simply speaking how the fruit of the spirit starts to grow in us. Just remembering who you are and remembering that you're free. But there's something more that we need besides just the knowledge. We also need friends. We need friends around us to help us gain control of the many temptations and pressures in our life. People who know what we struggle with. People who can support us. People who can encourage us. People who can pray for us. You know, in fact, there is another proverb. Fools think that they need no advice but the wise listen to others. You know, think about Jesus. Jesus went about in groups. He went in groups of whether he had his best three friends or 12 friends. He, they did life together. Paul also traveled with others. They did life together. When Paul wrote to churches, he was writing to these communities of people who were doing life together. Most all of our spiritual growth, this is actually really important. Most all of our spiritual growth, especially our growth in self-control, happens not in private study. It happens in groups as we work through these struggles together. Here at Trinity, we have these little groups. We call them life groups. You can check out our website. Join our life group in the fall. Doing life together, we need friends to help us in our spiritual growth. Thirdly and lastly, if you want self-control, you have to give it up. You have to give up control. Remember what Paul says, this mystery. When the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he'll produce in us self-control. It seems really backwards, right? So when the Holy Spirit controls us, then all of a sudden I'm gonna be able to control myself. How do these two things fit together? The Bible is full of paradoxes like this. Jesus says the first are gonna be last. He says the weakest are gonna be the strongest. He says the greatest are gonna be servants. And here what you see is exactly the same thing. If you want self-control, you have to surrender control. It's a mystery. It's a mystery of the Christian faith. You are always gonna be free to make your own decisions. You are not a puppet. And yet God wants to control your life, right? We have to make a lot of decisions by ourself. And yes, at the same time, we're not alone. God is working in us, and God is working through us to help us. It's a mystery, folks. Who's controlling me? It's not an either/or. God controls our lives by the Spirit, but as that happens, we develop self-control. We have to give up control in order to gain control. And so let's end this whole series on that note. Are you ready to give control to God? Are you ready to surrender your life to Jesus? I wanna end with just a short prayer. Maybe that prayer is an opportunity for us to surrender control to God's Spirit. So let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for today. Many of us know that we need more self-control. But what we really need is for you to take control of our lives. We need you to set us free from what enslaves us. We need your presence to heal our pains and the hurts from our past. Please do that. We need you to forgive the mistakes and the people we've hurt. Please do that. We need good friends to walk with us. Would you give us those people in our lives? And we need your Spirit, Lord, to transform us from the inside out. And so Lord, we give you control of our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for listening in today. And next week, we will be starting up our Summer Sermon series on the Book of Psalms, the Bible's Songbook. Come back again and thanks again for listening. Today's sermon was taken from the June 30th, 2024 service at Trinity Church Streetsville in Mississauga, Ontario. 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