Spirit-Control

Yesterday I preached sermon 10 of 11 in our Fruit of the Spirit series. We talked about Self-Control. As I've preached these messages I've begun the sermon writing process with the blogs I wrote last year, and the notes I have from the teen lessons from last spring/summer, and my original notes from a year and a half ago.

As I've been doing this series I came to a deeper understanding about the Fruit of the Spirit, but my thinking wasn't really that radically transformed until this past week. I started on self-control thinking I knew what it was about, then God showed up.

I said in the sermon,"This seems to be the one people struggle with the most. This seems to be the one that people have the most trouble with." When I first studied this topic with a group, the adults of the church wanted to know about self-control. From my initial study I found the word, egkrateia, to be simple and straightforward. But then I read something that I had read before, it just hadn't started to sink in yet.

"the various powers bestowed by God upon man are capable of abuse; the right use demands the controlling power of the Spirit of God;"

Galatians 5.22-23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."

I think the reason people struggle with this one so much is because we put too much emphasis on the "Self" listed here, and not enough on the "of the Spirit" at the beginning. This is the Fruit of the Spirit. It's fruit so it takes time to grow, but the Spirit is the one producing it. These nine characteristics are all Fruit of the Spirit, so we can substitute any one of them for the word fruit at the beginning. It would be, "Love of the Spirit" "Joy of the Spirit" so therefore it would be "Self-Control of the Spirit".

These characteristics are dependant upon God. So really, it isn't self-control, but Spirit control of the self. The Spirit empowers us to be self-controlled, and to use the gifts God has given us properly, it is dependant upon Him. Spirit-Control.

Peace be with you

...Self-Control...

When people found out I was doing a study on the Fruit of the Spirit a lot of people had the same comment, "Let me know when you get to self-control." After seeing the depth and complexity of the other eight aspects of this incredible gift of God, I was shocked when I got the the final characteristic, not by the confusion that it caused me like gentleness, or by the seemingly impossible command of goodness, or of the incredible realization of joy. This one shocked me in its simplicity.

The Greek word for self-Control is egkrateia (pronounced egg-kra-tee-a). Literally it means, "self-control, continence (self-restraint), temperance". Temperance means, "moderation in or abstinence from indulgence" and indulgence, "yield to the desire of/for".

This one is so simple in it's meaning. We as humans have been given so many good things, so many great things. And with every thing there is a right way to use it and exercise it. It there is a right way then there obviously has to be a wrong way. We are capable of abusing what we have. Think about it.

Food, it's so good, it looks and smells amazing, in moderation it provides energy, but sometimes we over eat.

Our bodies, they are capable of producing so much good, of doing so many things, but sometimes we fail to take care of them, we fail to exercise.

Our minds, think about how incredible this is, we have the ability to think, to learn, to remember, to reason things out, and yet we are guilty of not living up to our fullest potential at times because of laziness.

Sex, God gave this incredible gift for pleasure, procreation, and most importantly to seal the covenant of marriage between a man and woman. But this too has been abused, in premarital fornication, in extra marital affairs, in homosexual relationships, and in pornography.

What is it for you?

All of these things are gifts from God. He made everything and made it for a good and perfect use. We have the ability to miss use them all. In order to use these gifts correctly we need the controlling will power that only comes through the power of God.

Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 9, he uses the illustration of an athlete in training. In 1 Corinthians 7 he talks about sex and the good it does in marriage. In 1 Corinthians 6 he talks about how the body belongs to God and how we need to honor God with our bodies. In Matthew 25 Jesus talks about the parable of the talents.

Self-Control is crucial because without it we abuse the awesome gifts God has given us. Without it we fail to live up to our fullest potential, and without it we fail to honor God.

Egrateia, draws upon God in order to use the gifts He has given us properly. I gain Self-control by having Gentleness, submission to God, humility and teachability, and being considerate of others. This comes from a spirit of Faithfulness, honesty, and integrity. Faithfulness flows out of Goodness, moral excellence, striving to be more like God. This attitude flows from Kindness, goodness expressed through action, doing the right thing simply because it's the right thing to do. That starts with Patience, enduring hardship and trial without complaining or retaliating. I am able to be patient because I have Peace, contentment and satisfaction with life, peace comes from Joy, the reason to rejoice, and the source of joy is Love, the unconditional love from God.

Peace be with you