Trinity Baptist Church

The Fruit of the Spirit

“Get Hold of Yourself”

(self control)

Galatians 5:23

             

I heard about a flight instructor that was sitting next to his student in their single engine plane, when he said, “Well I think it’s time to take her in for a landing.  Are you ready to go down?” The student said, “No problem, let’s do it.”

 

Well, as they were approaching the runway, the instructor looked at his student and noticed how calm he was.  Normally, students who are coming in for their first landing were nervous, wide-eyed, and sweating bullets.  But this young man was as cool as the other side of the pillow. 

 

The instructor thought to himself, “I cannot believe how calm this young man is.  He will make a great pilot.”

 

But then the plane hit the runway with a thud, bounced fifty feet into the air, hit and bounced again, ran off the runway and landed upside down in a cornfield.  The instructor, still strapped in his seat upside down, looked at his student and said, “Son, that was the worst first landing any student of mine has ever made.” The student said, “Me? I thought you were landing the plane.”

 

Now that young pilot may not have been in control of the plane, but he was in control of himself.  That is the essence of the fruit of the spirit called “self-control.” Self-control is when you are in control when everything else is not.

Now the tree of the culture we are living in today is barren of the fruit of self-control.  We are living in a society increasingly out of control. 

 

Our society is financially out of control.  Americans are the most indebted people on earth, with household debt averaging $71,500, twice that of Great Britain, and eighty-nine times that of Switzerland.

 

Many Americans are like the professional golfer, Doug Sanders, who once said, “I’m working as hard as I can to get my life and my cash to run out at the same time.  If I can die right after lunch on Tuesday, everything will be fine.” The credit card debt alone that we have in this country dwarfs the gross national product of many small nations. 

 

Our society is also physically out of control.  Did you know that every day in America?

        - we eat 75 acres of pizza

        - 53 million hot-dogs

        - 167 million eggs

        - three million gallons of ice cream

        - 3,000 tons of candy

- $2,021,918 is spent on exercise equipment,

- We spend $3,561,644 on tortilla chips

- $10,410,959 on potato chips

        - drink 524 million servings of coca-cola

- eat 2,739,726 Dunkin Donuts

- and 101,280,321 adults are on diets.

 

California pathologist, Thomas J. Bassier, says that on the basis of autopsies he has performed, two out of every three deaths are premature; they are related to what he calls “loafer’s heart,” “smoker’s lung,” and “drinker’s liver.”

Recent studies from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta say that nearly 60% of adults do not exercise regularly.  The word exercise, like the word discipline, really irritates some people. 

 

I get the urge to exercise every so often, but I’ve discovered if I’ll just lay down and rest for a little while it passes.  Sometimes I have to turn on the TV and eat some Fritos but it will eventually I get over it. 

 

Our society is emotionally out of control.  Our highways have become battlegrounds and our school yards have become shooting fields.  Road rage is now rampant on the highway.  You had better be careful because if you blow your horn at someone, they may shoot their gun at you.  Children are now shooting children, as well as teachers, for seemingly no reason whatsoever.  It is not uncommon to hear of mothers killing their children; two stories in the news just this week.

 

And surely you know that our society is morally out of control. In our most recent elections, Americans expressed their support for abortion, homosexual marriage, increased welfare and the legalization of marijuana.  We are now a snowball headed for hell at a break-neck pace with regard to morality in America.

 

Proverbs 25:28 says in the NIV, “Like a city whose walls are broken down, is a man who lacks self-control.”

 

What a vivid word picture emerges from that verse. 

 

 

Cities were usually built on hills with fortifications that followed the natural contour of the land, and their only real source of defense was the walls. Jericho was an example of that design.  But when the walls came down, the city was absolutely defenseless. 

 

The Bible says without the walls of self-control, an individual, a city, a state, a nation is totally defenseless and easy prey for the enemy.

 

Whether it’s playing a musical instrument, mastering a computer program, or learning a foreign language, any worthwhile endeavor demands self-control. Maybe that’s why Aristotle called self-control “the hardest victory.”

 

But it really is the difference between victory and defeat in the game of life.  For if you control self, you win; but if self controls you, you lose.  We see that in three truths we learn from this passage.

 

1.  The Danger of Self-Confidence

 

Now you will never be free of self, but you must be free from self if you are going to win the race of life and fight the good fight.  There is a danger to what is called self.  There is no middle ground.  Either you control self, or self will control you.  We are living in a society that is saturated with self. 

 

The bestselling books on the market are consistently self-help books.  Just listen to a few of these book titles from religious and secular bookstores:

 

 

One of the most popular approaches of the psycho-babble coming from psychiatrists and psycho-analysts today is the promotion of “selfism”, which elevates self to the level of God and seeks to avoid anything that would lower someone’s self-esteem. 

 

Over the last couple of decades, the lexicon of self-words has been purged of all terms that “selfists” regard as negative. 

 

No longer are we to use words such as self-denial, self-discipline, self-control or self-sacrifice. 

 

The only words we should use are self-confidence, self-contentment, self-expression, self-assertion, self-indulgence, self-realization, self-approval, self-actualization, and even self-worship.

 

Selfism has one commandment which says “I am the lord my god; I shall not have no other gods before me.

 

Think about how that kind of thinking has changed society, and even our vocabulary.  Linguists tell us there are approximately 600,000 words in the English language.  The average American knows between ten and twenty thousand of them. 

 

And yet in everyday conversation, you will only use about half of the words you know. 

 

In fact, 25% of average American speech is made up of only ten basic words. A mere fifty words make up sixty percent of our speaking vocabulary.  The most common words are: “you”, “the” and “a”, but the word we use most often is “I”.

 

Now compare this emphasis on self to what Jesus said in Luke 9:23: “Then he said to them all, 'If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and follow me.”

 

Did you catch the difference?  Society says, “Deify yourself.” Jesus said, “Deny yourself.”

 

What happens if we never develop that aspect of the fruit of the Spirit in our life?  What is the result of a life or society saturated with self, where self is in control? 

 

Beginning in verse 19 of Galatians 5, Paul gives the characteristics of a society where self is in control.  He speaks of the “works of the flesh” and flesh there is a synonym for self. You can basically summarize these characteristics in four words.

 

First of all, there will be immorality. 

 

He speaks of “adultery, fornication, uncleanness.”

 

Then there will be indecency. 

 

He speaks of “lewdness.”

 

Then there will be idolatry as we see in verse 20.

Then you can categorize the rest of those characteristics under iniquity.

 

In other words, every area of life and society is affected by this failure to acknowledge God and live under His control.  That is the danger of self-confidence.  In contrast to that, think about

 

2. The Demand for Self-Crucifixion

 

Verse 24

 

Now that is the result of self-control.  You see, there is only one way to bring self under control and that is to kill it. It has to die, and Paul says it can only die by crucifixion. And I will warn you that self dies hard. 

 

Someone has well said: 

 

“The last enemy destroyed in the believer is self.  It dies hard.  It will make any concessions if allowed to live.  Self will permit the believer to do anything, give anything, sacrifice anything, suffer anything, be anything, go anywhere, take any liberties, bear any crosses, afflict soul and body to any degree, anything if it can only live.  It will consent to live in a hovel, in a garret, in the slums, in far-away heathendom, if only its life can be spared.” 

 

I believe there is one verse in the Bible that gives the real key to self-control better than any other and it is Galatians 2:20 where Paul said, “I (referring to the self) have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

 

A great preacher by the name of S. D. Gordon used to say, “In every man’s life there is a throne, and when self is on that throne, Christ is on the cross.  But when Christ is on that throne, self is on the cross.”

 

You see, self only wants to attend the funeral, but the only proper place for self is in the casket.   

 

A. W. Tozer said it best when he said:

 

“Self is one of the toughest plants that grow in the garden of life.  It is, in fact, indestructible by any human means.  Just when we are sure it is dead, it turns up somewhere as robust as ever to trouble our peace and poison the fruit of our lives.”

       

The Christian who is living under the control of the Holy Spirit, evidencing the fruit of the Spirit won’t run around bringing attention to himself.  The Spirit of God never does that.  Why would He lead you to do it?  He only brings glory to Christ. 

 

Neither will that Christian always be belittling or downgrading himself. Listen, some of us need to learn it’s not about us. I hear about people who get mad and quit church or lose their temper and deicde they’ll do this or that or the other. 

 

Where in the world did you get the idea those were your decisions to make.  Remember, you’re dead.  Dead people don’t make decisions.  Someone else makes those decisions for them.  They don’t get offended.  They can’t.  Ever walk by the casket and say, “They don’t look too good”, and the corpse raises up and says, “You don’t look so good yourself buddy!”?  That doesn’t happen. 

You can’t offend a dead man.  You can’t run off a dead man.  Dead men don’t decide their angry and leaving.  Dead men have lost all their rights and abilities. 

 

And as a Christian who is denying self and seeking to live the crucified life all of that has been surrendered to the control of the Holy Spirit.  Those are Christ’s decisions to make, not yours.  Those are Christ’s words to speak, not yours.  Those hurtful comments are his to deal with.  And ultimately, all that matters is that you are crucified with Christ. 

 

Someone once asked George Mueller:  “Mr.

Mueller, what is the secret of your great life?”

 

George Mueller replied, “There was a day when George Mueller died.  He died to his ambitions, his goals, his wants, his desires, but he said once and for all, that Christ is his life, and his life totally belongs to him.”

 

What he was talking about is

 

3.  The Delight of Self-Control

 

Now remember we have been speaking about the fruit of the spirit.  I think you would agree that the life that is the happiest is the life that bears the fruit of “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

 

But notice what Paul says in verse 25

 

You see, self-control is not a work, it is a walk.  Self cannot be controlled from without.  It can only be controlled from within. 

Self-control is a matter of spirit-control.  The way to self-control is surrender to the spirit’s control.

       

I want to share with you my definition of self-control.  Self-control is when you are so filled with and led by the Holy Spirit that the way you act, or re-act in any given situation, glorifies God and edifies others. 

 

Someone has said, “God mightily uses Christians who stay cool in a hot place, sweet in a sour place, and little in a big place.”

 

Frederick the Great of Prussia was walking on the outskirts of Berlin when he encountered a very old man proceeding in the opposite direction.  Frederick said, “Old man, who are you?”

 

The old man replied, “Why, I am a king.”

 

Frederick laughed.  He said, “A king? Over what kingdom do you reign?”

 

The old man proudly replied, “Over myself.”

 

My friend, when the savior comes into your heart and the Holy Spirit takes control of your life, then you will bear the fruit of the spirit, which is self-control. 

When the spirit is in control, self is in control.  When self is in control, you won’t ever have to worry about having to get a hold of yourself, because the grace of God will have hold of you and that will be sufficient.

 

Let’s pray