Many people assume self-control is simply a matter of willpower. You just try harder and restrain yourself and resist temptation.
Ultimately, this approach is futile and it can be terribly discouraging. Today on Truth for Life, we'll discover the true source of self-control as Alistair Begg teaches from Galatians chapter 5 verse 23. I've discovered few things in my life. I haven't really made many discoveries, but I discovered one.
Actually, two. One great discovery is junk is junk. That's one of my great discoveries.
You can tell I work at a very high intellectual level. And the other discovery is people do what they want to do. People do what they want to do.
You take the incidences in our church family here of those who no longer walk with us. It began when they decided just to do what they want to do. We sat with them, we talked with them, said, no. They said, there's no excuse.
And when we sin, it would be much better if we just were honest about it and said, you know, I did that because I wanted to. I did that because I enjoy that. That was good. I think I'll do that again. I'll just have one more. Just one more, and then I'll stop. And one more leads to one more. I'll just have one more look. I'll just have one more visit.
Just one more. In Proverbs, Solomon says, like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control. In other words, the picture is so clear, strong walls were necessary for the inhabitants to live in safety. And strong walls are necessary for you and me if we're gonna live in safety. Now, I said I'd spend longer on the first than I have.
Let's go to the second. The need for self-control is clear. Secondly, the nature of self-control we need to understand. The nature of self-control we need to understand.
What is it that the Bible is talking about here? It's not talking about external moral influences. External moral influences, like, for example, just say no, can partially condition our behavior. But they cannot eradicate from our sinful hearts the fundamental flaw in our moral makeup.
They may educate, but they cannot eradicate. And when you think about that, you realize how important it is that we understand that what Paul is talking about here—again, and don't let's forget, he's talking about fruit. Self-control is the Spirit- enabled ability to avoid excesses and to stay within the God-given boundaries.
That's a sort of random definition. That it is Spirit-enabled, Word-guided, if we might add that too, to avoid excesses and to stay within the God-given boundaries. So that we obey the Bible, we're enabled by the Spirit, and then we cultivate the skill—and yes, I think it is in some measure a skill—of living a thoughtful and a careful life in which we do what is right despite our desires. Then we do what is right despite our desires.
Because remember, the desires that are within us, you go into chapter 6, and Paul makes it clear. He says, Whoever sows to the flesh reaps. Whoever sows to the Spirit reaps. Do not be deceived.
He says, God is not mocked. You will reap exactly what you sow. So the Spirit of God at work within us, producing this element in us, enables us to do just that. That's why, again, Solomon in his wisdom, recognizing that the real issue is the issue of the core of our lives, says to his son, as it were, Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Guard your heart.
Now, he doesn't mean a cardiological issue. The heart is the center in the Bible of both your mind and your emotions. It's just the epicenter, the you-ness of you. So he says, You guard that. Because he realizes that every sin is an inside job. So if we manage to do all these different things externally and don't guard our heart, then we will be susceptible to temptation if we live in a wardrobe as we will if we live in the center of New York City. Because the real enemy of our souls is within.
Within. Sinful desires, says Peter, we quoted it earlier, abstain from these things. These are the sinful desires which make war on your soul. Jerry Bridges, who has helped me through these studies, suggests this as a definition, and I'll give it to you. Self-control, he writes, is the exercise of inner strength under the direction of sound judgment.
So, inner strength under the direction of sound judgment that enables us to think, say, and do things that are pleasing to God. I think that is actually very helpful. And that instruction is given for all of us in all the different stages of our lives. We don't have time to do this now, but let me just remind you of it, and you can look it up.
It is quite striking. When Paul gives direction to Titus to encourage his congregation in Crete, he says, Now I want you to teach what accords with sound doctrine. And then he gives directions for various elements in the church. Older men are to be what? Sober minded, dignified, self-controlled. So he says, I don't want a bunch of people… I don't want a bunch of old men in your church that are a bunch of dirty old men. I don't want a bunch of old flabby guys that never exercise and just grow fat and miserable. They're supposed to be self-controlled. Now, let me say about your older women. They should be reverent in their behavior.
They shouldn't be slanderers or slaves, slaves to much wine. In other words, self-controlled. And they can train the young women to love their husbands and children and to be self-controlled.
Pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their husbands. And he's not finished. He's not finished. Likewise, urged the younger men to be what? Self-controlled. So in other words, there's no stage of life where you get out of this class. It's not like this is a great talk for the teenagers, you know, Let's take him in a room, all the boys in one room, all the girls in another room, and give him the talk, you know.
No, this runs through the entire operation. Two days before you die, somebody will legitimately say to you, Hey, beg, get a hold of yourself. Be self-controlled. Stop doing that.
That's ridiculous. Now, the nature of it needs to be understood, and it needs to be understood clearly. And when you go to Titus, you realize that after he's given all of these imperatives, what does he immediately say? For the grace of God has appeared. You see, there's the impetus. There's the dynamic.
You never get the imperative in isolation from the indicative. Urge them to be self-controlled. Make sure they stop doing this. Tell them not to do that. Tell them to fix this.
Make sure they're self-controlled. For the grace of God has appeared, you see. That's it. That's the issue. That's the wonder of it all. Scripture never expects us to hear God's command separate from our focus on God's work for us in the person of his Son.
And when we divorce these things, then we almost inevitably go wrong. Religion says, Become by self-effort what you're not. Christianity, Christian faith, says, Become by grace what you are. Become by grace what you are. Because you have been set free, 2 Corinthians 5, in order that you might live for him. And Paul says, We make it our goal to please him. So someone says, Well, why are you not going to do that? Or why are you refraining from that? Well, because we've got a lot of rules at our church. No.
No, no, no. No, because I made it my goal to please him. I want to please God. I want to please God so much that I'm not going to do that with you. I'd like to, but I'm not going to do it.
I'm not going to sell out for a simple pleasure. Because I have a Father who loves me and who has died for me and his Son and who has prepared a place for me and who is waiting for me. So, no, my great concern is not what he will do to me. It is what I will do to him.
Search me and try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there's anything, Father, in me that makes you sad and lead me in the way of everlasting. Third point, finally, quickly. Number one, the need for self-control is clear. The nature of self-control needs to be understood so that we don't think in terms simply of a self-focused self-effort whereby we are trying on our own to do these things. Grace, grace, grace, enabling grace. How, then, does self-control become part and parcel of our lives?
Because I had need and nature, I wanted to use the word normal, which is just a problem I have. So I wrote in my notes, How does self-control become the new normal? How does self-control become the new normal?
Well, let me just say one or two things, and then I'll stop. The beginning of self-mastery, the begraining of our lives being brought under control, is being brought under the control of Christ. The beginning of self-mastery is to be mastered by Christ. It is not asceticism. When Paul is writing these kind of letters, there are all kinds of people around who are saying, You can't do this, and you mustn't do that, and if you do that, there's no way that you could ever know or love God and so on.
They had all—some of them had fantastic names, like the encretites. And the encretites forbade wine, they forbade marriage, they forbade anything that was fleshly at all. Paul isn't doing that. In fact, Paul is doing the reverse of that. You can read this in 1 Timothy 4. The Spirit expressly says that in the later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage, require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving. And you need to realize, he says, that everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the Word of God and by prayer. So it's not asceticism.
It's not Saint Francis of Assisi. It's not, you know, walking around like Gandhi and putting your fingers in your ears anytime you hear secular music. You can try that if you want, but don't call it biblical self-control. What it means is that in every dimension of our lives is brought unto the mastery of Jesus.
We would just say a word or two. First of all, our bodies, right? Romans 12, 1 and 2, present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God.
What does that mean? Self-control. What is… Apply it to yourself.
Remember James 1, 14, whatever it was we read? Everyone is tempted, and they are lured away by their own desire. Self-control. Are you lazy?
Are you lazy? Then it's an issue of self-control. Do you refuse to take rest and recreation? You're out of control. Are you and I prepared to eat and eat and eat? It's a self-control deal.
Or drink and drink and drink? It's a self-control. Are we prepared to live within the bounds of biblical sexuality, or are we going to imbibe the spirit of the world? I don't want to labor this at all, because it so easily becomes the focus, and there's so much more to it. But nevertheless, let's just acknowledge this, that in terms of the progression or digression or depression within conservative Christian circles, the impact of a secular worldview in the matters of sexuality has a far greater hold within the professing Christian church than the Christian church is even prepared to admit itself. And it is a matter of self-control. That's why not only does the Bible say you've got to guard your heart, but Paul says to Timothy, I want you to flee.
I want you to make a run for it. Well, that doesn't sound very spiritual, does it? Surely I could stay and have a conversation. You mean like Joseph had a conversation with Potiphar's wife? What a deal that was. You could sleep with me.
It won't be a problem. I mean, may the king, the goodness Potiphar, he doesn't have a clue what's going on. This is a perfect opportunity. I see you every day. You like me, don't you, Joseph? Come on. What does Joseph do?
He runs down a street. Why? Because he cares more about God's glory than he does about having sex with Potiphar's wife. Simple. How could I do such a thing and sin against God? In other words, the only way that I could do this is if I enthroned myself and dethroned God, if I decided to worship my own desires rather than to worship the God who has preserved me and prospered me.
Contrast David and Bathsheba. He sees. He conjures. He acts.
He follows through. In terms of our emotions, self-control, do you have a spirit of resentment or of bitterness or of self-pity or just a flaming temper? Incidentally, to have a temper that requires being brought under self-control is not a mark of ungodliness. To fail to control it is a mark of ungodliness. So our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts. And with this we stop. Paul says it is imperative that we take every thought captive, bringing it under the rubric of God's authority.
You remember, he says to the Philippians, I want you to think about the kind of things that are good and profitable and so on. When I was young, people would tell me, So you can't listen to that music? You can't listen to those songs?
They might have been right. But I mean, my songs weren't that bad. She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this really a problem? You're gonna tell me that this is on the same continuum as filthy rap music? I mean, there is a difference. But the principle is there. It's hard to take every thought captive when the stuff we fill our minds with militates against the very lordship of Jesus. We need then to learn to nip these things in the bud. We need to learn to be honest about temptation.
We need to say to ourselves, I can't put myself in those vulnerable places. Because the day when, as Sinclair Ferguson has told us, the day when desire and opportunity and temptation combine, that's a tough day. Desire, opportunity, and temptation. You're really up against it that day. If you've got desire and no opportunity, what are you gonna do? If you're tempted but you've got no desire, who cares? Desire, opportunity, and temptation.
Watch out for that day. Because when they combine, it's deadly. So what the Spirit of God does within our hearts is in part to break the chain of self-indulgence, to enable us to resist fleeting pleasures. And we do so in the awareness of the fact that there's a direct flow-through from what goes on between our ears.
When you play golf, people usually say, the most important six inches in golf are the six inches between your ears. And there's a measure of truth in that, isn't there? Because if you think wrongly, you're probably going to execute wrongly as well. So a thought reap an action. So an action reap a habit. So a habit reap a character. So a character reap a destiny.
It's clear. And the progress that we make, we can't make on our own. That's why God puts us together, so that we can watch out for one another. Let me finish with one illustration. I'm not good on Greek mythology, but I found this, and you will remember it from school, those of you who were better educated than me. You remember the sirens. You say, Oh yeah, I heard them just this evening in Solon. Yeah. No, I don't think you did.
No, no. The sirens were half woman and half birds, remember? And they lived on a very famous island. And what they used to do was try and beguile the sailors who were passing by by their entrancing singing. And they would allure them with their singing so that their vessels would run aground on the rocks, they would be shipwrecked, and they would perish. When the hero Odysseus passed by the island, he decided, I can fix this. So he stopped his ears with wax, and he tied himself to the mast of the ship so that he could not be seduced.
In the mythology, when the Argonauts traced the same route, Orpheus employed a different strategy. He took a harp and played music of such superior charms that the sailors gave no heed to the siren song. Now, do you get this? It's when our affections are taken up with the wonder of God's grace and goodness to us. When those songs matter so much to us, these songs really have no appeal for us. When Christ is all in all, then we understand how fleeting and how feeble and how futile are these things. We're involved in a continual and irreconcilable war. But it is a war where victory is assured, as we have crucified our lives with Christ in the wonder of his grace to us, as we live by the Spirit. Let us also walk by the Spirit.
And let's not be too cautious about saying to one another, Hey, you might want to be careful there. Because, you see, the Spirit of God cultivates within us solid joys and lasting treasures. And all the other stuff is a counterfeit. It's all Vanity Fair. It's all candy floss. It all looks so attractive. The entryway to most of these bad clubs is very, very nice. As soon as you go down the stairs, as you often do, you go into virtually a deep darkness.
Surely it's a metaphor. And Christ shines his light in our hearts. And there's a corresponding study guide available if you'd like to use this Fruit of the Spirit study for your next small group Bible study.
This is a study that will delve into God's character, show you how he is conforming you to the image of his Son, and you'll learn to display your faith in a way that shows how great he is. You can download the study guide for free from our website truthforlife.org slash fruit. Or if you'd prefer a booklet, they're available at our cost of just two dollars. You can order them from our online store at truthforlife.org slash study guides.
While you're online, check out the book we're currently recommending. It's titled Honor, Loving Your Church by Building One Another Up. This is a book that will challenge you to put God above everything and to practice Christian humility by putting others ahead of yourself. Ask for your copy of the book Honor when you donate to Truth for Life at truthforlife.org slash donate. We are glad you've joined us today. Tomorrow we'll begin a series that explores what it takes to follow Christ. We'll find out why Christianity is not for the lazy or for the faint of heart. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
