THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF CONTROL
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A dear friend of mine in the USA who is a senior member of the Forum, wrote to me after last month’s message and encouraged me to take a fresh look at Paul’s letter to Titus especially the second chapter.
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I noticed that Paul on five occasions in that chapter spoke about being self-controlled. Titus was to urge the older men to be self-controlled (2:2), the older women “to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine” (i.e. self-controlled), the young women were to be taught by the older women to be self-controlled (2:5), and the young men should be urged to be self-controlled also (2:6).
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The fifth time appears in the last few verses of the chapter:
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“The grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are His very own, eager to do what is good. (2:11-14)
Why does Paul make such a big thing about being self-controlled? Well, the answer is in those verses: we have been saved from this world, saved for all eternity - we are on our way to heaven - and we are waiting for the appearing of our great God and Saviour who made the supreme sacrifice for us so that we could be part of God’s forever family. So that is our motive for doing what is good and saying “no” to worldly passions. And to do that, we need to exercise self-control.
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It’s not easy to be self-controlled but the good news is it is a FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT – it comes out of being filled with the Holy Spirit, of thinking in line with the Spirit and living to please (not grieve), the Holy Spirit.
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“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness
and self-control” (Galatians 5:22).
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Notice it is SELF control not GOD’s control. God does not control people. He gave us free will and He respects us - and the freedom He gave us - and expects us to make our own decisions. That way, we are responsible for the decisions we make, and the way we choose to live.
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So, we are not controlled by the Holy Spirit, but we are given strength from the Spirit to be able to be self-controlled. In other words, the way it works is: we have supernatural strength to be self-controlled - if we want to be.
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To see how it works let us take another example of the fruit of the Spirit: KINDNESS.
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When I travel on the bus between where I live - and Brixton, there is a café which is very popular. I have never been inside, but it always catches my eye because on one of the windows is painted this story:
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“Someone asked a little boy what he wanted to be when he grew up...
“KIND” he said!”
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Being unkind is something that comes naturally to our fallen human nature, but we all know that being kind is obviously the best way. The little boy wanted to be kind and that’s the first step. The Spirit within us helps us to be kind even when we would otherwise be unkind, but we have to cooperate with the Spirit in wanting to be kind and in choosing to be kind in any given situation.
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It’s the same with self-control - we will know by the Spirit when we are in danger of being out of control. So here’s the way to be self-controlled: Whenever we are being tempted to think about or to do, “ungodly and worldly things” - we choose quickly to stop and think about something else like:
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“Whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things”
(Philippians 4:8).
THAT IS CALLED SELF-CONTROL!
Everyone has to exercise self-control to a degree.
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Even worldly people exercise self-control and it’s always for a reason:
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They have to get up in the morning and get to work on time so as not to lose their job, they choose what to eat and how much, in order to stay healthy and not put on weight, sometimes they control their anger in order not to get into a fight even when really they want to punch someone on the nose - and so on.
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For us as Christians and especially as ministers - serving others out of our service to God, we do so for a reason too - firstly it enables us to live godly, peaceful and fruitful lives in an ungodly world, and ultimately there is the great reward of being ready for the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ!”
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