The Fruit of Self Control

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Go morning, CCW.

Y'all doing good this morning?

Have you had a week?

Some of you had a week.

And uh we told the serve team this morning we come together for this moment.

And uh you remember the old MasterCard slogan that everything had a price, but some things money can't buy, and that this is priceless.

So we're hoping for a priceless moment this morning that God would work on your heart and give you refreshment and rest in the word and through the worship.

It's been, like I said, a week.

Last week we celebrated the 13th anniversary of CCW and had a really phenomenal service.

Um, much of that goes to a team of people, but man, it was good.

We had a choir here, Miss Niva had them rolling, and that was sweet.

Thank you all for being involved in that.

And then Christy, I saw you earlier, and Sue.

That was so good sharing the testimony of how CCW came into existence, and Pastor Danny shared such a strong word.

So, what a week and reflection of 13 years of CCW.

So, man, it was good.

Um, I wanted to share one thing that's coming up that's really, really important.

So, if you didn't get a card, we got some ushers, but you should have gotten a card that looks like this.

Connect groups.

This is one of the heartbeats of CCW on how uh we disciple people to grow deeper in your faith.

Connect groups are sermon-based.

So we come together after a sermon like today, and we discuss in homes, mostly some meet back here, uh, those sermons, questions that are drawn out from them.

And so, anyhow, if you would take that card, does anybody need a card?

Anybody not get a card, need a card?

We have some ushers.

If you do, there's some out in the foyer as well.

Would you fill this out?

We want to take them up during the offering.

And here's all it says.

Okay.

It talks about connect groups being a great way for us to dig deeper, but bearing burdens with each other.

But if you would like more info, this little section right here, just write your name on that, and one of our pastors will follow up with you.

And uh, I want to do this right now.

If you are a connect group leader or host, your home or you lead the group, would you stand so that the church can identify that?

Y'all take a look around.

Stand up for just a minute, okay?

All right, keep looking, keep looking.

Thank you very much.

There are at this moment ten groups.

Some people are serving that aren't in the room right now.

There are 10 groups.

So on the barcode, if you scan that, it's gonna put you front and center to a page with all of the connect groups.

And you can look over those.

They have location, they have time.

There's a connect groups on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

There's a few during the day.

Um, and so there's a lot of options, and I would really encourage you.

This is awesome.

I love this.

I love when we get together for worship service on Sunday.

But connect group is how you get to know people, you dig a little bit deeper, and you'll begin to have a small group of people that can help fight battles and things on your day-to-day.

So I would encourage you.

Some of you have been in this church for a long time and have never been a part of anything like this.

And we just want you to get a little more.

So if you would fill that out, and uh you can fill out on your name and say, No, I'm not interested.

And I promise uh we may call you.

All right.

So that's enough of that commercial.

Uh, to introduce the last fruit of the spirit.

We made it through the fruits.

Praise the Lord.

Uh, we've been doing this all summer.

I wanted to share with you this sweet video.

My buddy JC is gonna help you on this video here, the fruits of the spirit.

So if you'd play that video.

I know his mom and dad are proud.

Kaylee and John.

Thank you for sharing that.

And uh, we're gonna be looking at the last one today.

Self-control.

Um, self-control is an essential element that allows a believer to manage impulses and desires.

This fruit is different than any other fruit.

It's interesting.

Um, and I never really looked at it this way, but studying it this week, you have all these fruits.

And love is the beginner.

Like the rest of the fruits don't matter, and the gifts don't matter without love.

So gifts and fruits start with love, and 1 Corinthians 13 says it's all noise without love.

So that's the beginning, but the ending of fruit, it lists all of the others gentleness, goodness, kindness, faith, all of them.

And it's a lot of kind of how we respond to people.

Um, but the last one is different, and it guards the other fruits and allows them, and then it also acts as a guard from the works of the flesh side of things.

So it's it's interesting that it acts as like this gate, this system.

It made me think of this week when I was growing up.

Now, y'all can be sad for me if you want, but I didn't have a neighborhood full of kids.

Like I was the kid, and there was six or seven houses, but it was like some older people that it was built up while I lived there.

When we first moved in, there was just a uh uh a gravel lane, and then this other road was built next to my house, and they started building houses, but there was only just, you know, senior age people.

There's no kids.

And so I often could be found in my yard behind me was a great big picket fence.

And you could find me from about five o'clock in the evening, in the evenings during school year, till eight or nine at night, playing baseball with myself.

I'd have a catch with myself, I'd throw the ball up, hit the ball, and it would soar across that road and go into there was like a park.

Well, I had this goal.

I wanted to hit it to the fence of the park over there, which to me looked like 500 yards.

But anyway, so I would throw the ball up, hit it back, I'd go chase my own ball, come back across the street.

This went on for hours.

If you viewed this, you might look at this kid like, man, what a loser.

All day long, this kid's doing this.

Well, sometimes I got brave for some, you know, probably a dumb reason.

I would hit the ball back from the park on the other side toward my house.

And very often, when I hit the ball back, I break a picket.

My dad would get so angry about his pickets being broke on the fence.

You know, one section of the fence might have had 15 pickets.

And so all of a sudden, I'm breaking pickets, and the fence looks like a jack-o'-lantern.

You know what I'm talking about?

It's like it's missing teeth.

And I I had to learn how to become good at fixing broken pickets, you know, nailing them back together so my dad wouldn't be angry at me.

But I just throw that ball out.

I don't know how.

I hit the house sometimes.

I never broke a window.

I'd throw the ball up, hit it back.

A few times I'd be over there just by myself playing my game, and I hit the ball, and a car would come flying by, and I'd watch it just soar over the car's roof.

I'm like, oh, the Lord kept me on that one.

But there I was, and I thought about why my dad got upset about his gates.

He wanted his gates there, and he cared about those gates.

You know why gates and fences are so important?

It is a stopping point.

It tells everybody that looks at that place, this is not where you're going.

This is owned by somebody else.

You don't go past this point.

This is somebody else's property.

And there I was breaking my dad's gates, telling everybody, here, if you want to get in here, animals who want to get in here, here's the place.

So our gate brought safety.

I want you to think of self-control a little bit as a gate today.

And in Greek rhetoric, before we pray, the final word, often in a phrase of words, carries great emphasis.

And he says, and the fruits of the Spirit, and this last one, is very emphatic, in self-control.

Pray with me.

Lord, we love you.

We thank you for the opportunity we have to be in your presence today.

And God, I pray that you would make sense of your word to each and every person that's here, open our hearts to hear what you have to say to us individually.

And God, I pray that uh you would help us be close enough to you, God, that the practice of self-control would guard us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Point number one this morning is this the survey of self-control.

You can find in Proverbs 25, verse 28, a verse that says, A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.

Proverbs 25:28

A man without self-control is a mess.

Letter A is this the gamble of no gate.

In the ancient world, gates were a symbol of something.

They were a symbol of strength, they were a symbol of security and stability.

The word for gates is pile.

And in Greek, that means there was no swinging doors.

This gate was firm.

They were a place of authority.

If you look through different places of scripture, you see some things that happened with gates.

Judges used to sit at the gate.

You see that in Ruth chapter 4.

Ruth 4 · chapter mention

It was a place where legal transactions occurred.

They were at the gates.

Samson, humiliating the people of Gaza, grabbed up the gates and went walking, parading their strength, their security, saying, Look at what I have pulled right out of the ground.

You have no strength better than me.

And he was taunting them by carrying their gates.

You see, a broken wall meant vulnerability.

An unguarded gate meant anybody can enter.

Heather and I, for 10 years, we lived in a house in Connorsville, Indiana, and just the way the house came to us, it wasn't like by design or our thought, but for 10 years we lived in a master bedroom that had no door.

Can you all imagine?

With three children, me in my pajamas, here comes the kids.

It was unguarded at all times.

I could be asleep.

Dead asleep.

Y'all know what it's like when a kid wants you and you're dead asleep, and they peer in and you're asleep.

And you wake up to eyes just staring at you.

What do you want?

Oh well, punch you, child.

What are you just staring you?

We had no gate.

And now that I think about it, I'm like, what an easy thing to fix.

Never fixed it.

Without a door, anyone or anything that is existent can intrude.

Without a gate, you surrender your decision ability.

I want you to turn to Nehemiah chapter one.

I want you to look at a scripture.

Go to Nehemiah chapter one.

You see the importance of a gate.

And Nehemiah.

And I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem.

And they said to me, The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach.

Why?

The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burnt with fire.

And if you understand the study of the book of Nehemiah, he sets and God puts a passion within him to go back and rebuild the walls.

When he got to this place, they were in great distress because the gate was missing.

We came home from vacation one time and I hired a student.

We had not long had a uh chocolate uh lab, chocolate labrador, a little puppy named Miley.

It was Callie's first dog.

And um, anyhow, uh we were learning everything about a big dog, right?

And all that goes on with that.

And um, so we went away and I hired this student.

Heather hates this story, um, and he was to come and feed the dog and take care of things, let the dog out, take the dog for a walk.

Well, we came home, and you know when you get home from like vacation or you've been away, like it's like a great relief in a sense.

We're home.

We made it home.

Well, we walked into the door, and immediately we were met with a smell that we didn't like or feel comfortable with.

And then I looked around and we get to the room where the dog's cage was.

The dog cage was bent up.

The dog had broken out of a cage and was all over the house.

I mean, I I want to spare you from some details, but it was terrible.

It was disgusting.

And so we get home from vacation and talk about ever feeling fire in your bones about a teenager.

I'm like, I cannot believe this dog had been held back in the cage so long that it broke itself free to eat or relieve itself or whatever it needed to do.

And so we get back, and for the next four hours, I'm shampooing carpets.

I thought in this person, and that my home was a place where the gate was safe.

I thought it was safe for my dog.

I thought it was safe to leave.

But without the proper gate, without the proper wall, things can go really awry.

I thought it was okay.

Take that back to our flesh.

Our flesh in Galatians 5 is the CPU of the unguarded gate.

The flesh.

Decisions from the flesh are driven by impulses.

The Bible says in Galatians 5, 16, but he who walks with the spirit, and then it talks about the fruit that comes from that spirit.

And so there's a gamble of living in that flesh.

It's a it's an insecure place.

When we live in the flesh and don't walk in the spirit, it's a place without security.

It's an unguarded place.

Let her be.

We'll look at the guarding at the gate.

Proverbs 4.23.

It says, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.

See, self-control is the Holy Spirit standing guard at the gate.

The Holy Spirit propelling fruits of the Spirit forward and protecting us.

It's the guard of this heart from the works of the flesh and allowing the fruits of the Spirit.

And the Bible talks about that.

It says to keep guard of that.

John 14, 26 talks about the Holy Spirit and says the Holy Spirit brings to remembrance the things that we are taught.

As a guard, when we're about to make a decision, it says that the Holy Spirit brings to remembrance.

It guards, it guards up.

Romans 8 26 says that the Spirit intercedes and works on our behalf.

You have a guard, Christians, at your gate.

The Holy Spirit is undoubtedly fighting for you today.

There is a war that Galatians talks about.

The flesh and that spirit go to battle, and the spirit that you have wages war against your flesh, so that you not let your guard down to the works of the flesh.

So you won't succumb to the flesh.

So that you won't do that thing and then wallow in that guilt and then feel stuck and then feel dirty and then feel the feelings of our infirmities.

The Spirit is producing self-control in the Holy Spirit.

So a couple of practical biblical helps to that, and then a couple of just other practical insights.

Biblical helps.

How do we build up that guard?

Philippians 4, 6 through 7 says, Be anxious for nothing, but by prayer and supplication, let your request be made known to God.

And then the peace of God that passes all under starting here is that word will guard your heart and your mind through Christ Jesus.

So number one is a prayer wall.

Build up a prayer wall.

If you want to enable self-control in your life, a practical biblical insight is you have to build up a prayer wall.

A shield.

You know what a shield is like.

You put a shield up and then you're protected because I've got my prayer shield.

I'm protected from outside enemies.

Just like that gate at my house.

What does it do?

It's a prayer shield.

And so that enables self-control in my life.

Another way: a Bible verse memory gate.

Psalms 119, 11 says, If I hide God's word in my heart, then I will not sin against him.

Again, the works of the flesh that are trying to get in.

And I put up a Bible memory gate.

I had to do this as a young teenager.

As a teenager, y'all remember?

Some of y'all that grew up my age.

MTV music videos.

Right, we're showing age.

How many of y'all remember this?

I'd never seen nothing like MTV music videos.

I went to a small Christian school, and when I saw some of the things that happened on MTV music videos, my little teenage mind was like, wow.

Look at that.

Never seen nothing like that.

They're not doing that in the Christian school.

And so I literally put a scripture on a sticky note on my TV, Proverbs 15, 3.

I memorized it as a teenager because I needed it for these eyes.

It says, the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.

And so I put up a Bible memory gate so that I would not turn on channel 31.

MTV and Channel 30 was VH1 and Channel 33 was B E T.

And I could watch all the girls that my eyes desired.

Except I had to do it through the lens of a Bible memory verse.

I put up a gate because I didn't want to feel the feelings of my infirmities.

I didn't want to feel the sin that made me feel dirty.

And so I had to build up a Bible memory gate.

By the way, that works for whatever your thing is: anger, jealousy, outburst, inflexibility, whatever.

Put up a Bible memory gate for the thing that you struggle with.

I've shared openly.

I don't want to be a complainer.

So Bible memory.

I've Philippians says, do all things without grumbling and complaining.

I've built a Bible memory gate, so I won't.

You have to do that.

Another practical Bible.

And so how do we guard at the gate?

Seek watchmen.

Watchmen for your gate.

Proverbs 27, 17.

This is where we may struggle the most.

Accountability.

Proverbs 27, 17 says, iron sharpens iron.

Who do you have around you that you can be honest with about temptation and struggle?

We have to create a spiritual fortress.

I've been working 32 years as a Christian on my gate, and I'm still fortifying.

I'm still looking around, going, mm-hmm, a little weak there.

Need to put up a memory gate.

Ooh, better watch back here.

Ooh, better get somebody to help get my back on this because I need a gate.

I gotta fight that impulse so that I'm not going to the fruit of my flesh.

Let me give you a couple of practical insights.

Those are things you can find straight from the Bible.

Okay, here's a couple of practical things that just the Lord and speaking to me, thinking over this.

Number one, say no in the small things.

If you begin to practice saying no in the small things, for example, impulse buying.

Right?

Say no in the small things.

Impulse buys.

Doom scrolling.

Small thing.

That's turned into two hours.

Okay, small thing.

Earlier bedtimes.

Right?

Being faithful.

My phone goes off and tells me 10 o'clock is coming.

That's my phone.

They were laughing at me the other night.

I was like, it's telling me it's my bedtime.

If I have to do something, I'll do something, but I'm trying to have a gate.

So say no in the small things.

Two, decide your no's ahead of time.

When it comes to the time that you need to say yes or no, it's too late.

Many cases.

Decide your no's in advance.

Number three, you have to starve the source of the flesh.

You have to starve.

Starve it out.

So back to the buying.

Cut up a card.

You have to starve it.

So you may have to cut up a card.

If it's a phone problem, you may have to put on a filter on your phone that keeps you from looking at things.

When you get angry, starve the small thing.

Go for a walk.

Go breathe.

Right?

You have to starve the source.

Number four, gratitude shrinks cravings.

So the thing that you're desiring of the flesh, if you'll instead of that, take a moment and thank God.

Just thank God for some things that you have.

Gratitude shrinks all of the flesh cravings that we desire, get jealous about, or envious about.

And so, gratitude.

Thank God for five things instead of dreaming on, or whatever it is.

And number five, and there's a whole sermon on this, but I want you to consider this biblically.

Seek God about fasting.

Because when you fast, you tell everything else that wants to own you, God owns me.

I don't have to have you.

I don't need to have you in my life.

God is the owner of all of this.

And so maybe fasting, that thing.

That's just some practical things.

Number two, the solution of self-control.

Don't you go back there to Galatians chapter 5?

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

Look at verse 16 and then verse 19.

In order to understand the solution, we have to first look at the problem.

It says, I say then, walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

For the flesh, lust against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh, and they're contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

Here's the works of the spirit or the flesh.

They're evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissension, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like.

I want to talk to you just a minute about a few of those.

Because in order to understand this problem, we have to see that these works of the flesh, what happens when we work in the flesh is we are out of control.

The fruit is called self-control.

When we have that control and we let down the gate is when we can walk in this.

And Paul shares basically there's three different kinds of divisions.

There's sexual impulses, there's relational problems in walking in the flesh, and then there's excess.

So just a couple of those.

He starts with sexual, and he talks about adultery.

Let's just define these three areas that he hits.

Adultery is sexual relations with someone other than your spouse.

Okay?

He says that is walking in the flesh.

That is living in an impulse, that is seeking and having no restraint.

So adultery, the second thing he mentions is fornication.

Fornication is relations outside of the covenant of marriage.

That's before marriage or not married, but fornication is walking in the flesh in that way.

And then he gets really broad.

He says, uncleanness and lewdness and immorality.

Okay.

Immorality in scripture is where we get the word pornea.

And originally, in the linguistics, it was linked to prostitution.

As in, the person involved with immorality is prostituting themselves.

Consumption of pornea, listen to me, church, is linked to depression, self-image problems, marital, decreased intimacy, divorce.

This is what it does.

Pornia takes you from pleasure to prison and poison.

It takes you from pleasure to prison to poison.

And Paul says that is walking in the flesh.

That's having no restraint.

By the way, many people have this desire.

You were created with this desire.

It is innate to us to have sexual relations, but this is a perversion of what God gifted you in the covenant of marriage.

The second grouping of things.

Relational things.

Listen to the list: hatred, contentions, wrath, jealousies, selfish ambitions, and dissension.

I was studying this and I thought how you can lump these together, and I felt like you could lump them together as a root problem.

And I want to say, when you think about all of the reasons for the feelings that you have, the struggle, the dislike, some maybe hatred.

I hate that most of you, those things come up because you've been hurt.

I hate your hurt.

And I empathize with people who hurt.

I'm a good hurter.

God gave me uh the spiritual gift of mercy.

So you can, you know, hit me in the face and I'll hug you for your mistake.

You know, like mercy for me is being able to walk with people through their wrong.

Um I'm I'm good at crying with people.

Okay.

But many of you today, when I consider this, you've faced deep evil.

You've had profound hurt, and sin is very sad in your life.

And I'm saying all that because I know it's heavy, and I'm not seeking in this moment to flippantly say what I follow with.

I think there's a reason that many people get to their pain.

It's not usually that you just decided to be angry or bitter or mad.

But Hebrews 12.15.

How do we lump these together?

Looking carefully, Hebrews 12.15 says, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness spring up, causing trouble.

Some today are here and you've decided on bitterness.

There's some people here today and you're mad.

You're a long time mad.

There's some people here today, you're mad at an old ex.

And it's going on and it's going on and you're mad.

And there's some people here today, and you're mad at what used to be a friend, and you've held that madness close to your heart.

There's some people here today, you're mad at a parent.

You're mad at a longtime situation.

And when they come across your mind, whoever they are, the feelings that come up for you are always mad.

Hebrews said you have to dig up that root.

How many of you weedy, right?

If you weedy and you just cut the top of the weeds, well, that's fine.

They're gonna be gone for a few days.

If you don't dig up that root, hatred, contentions, jealousies, selfish ambitions, dissensions, if you don't dig up the root, next time that you're tempted and that thing comes up, you're just gonna be mad.

The Greek word there says see to it, or looking carefully, says see to it.

It's episcopo and it's a corporate command that the community, it's talking to church, does not have those roots of bitterness.

The community does not have in it, the church does not have in it hatred, contentions, jealousy, selfish ambitions, wrath, and dissensions.

It says, pull up that root, because if you don't pull up that root, you are considered defiled, ritually not fit for worship.

That's why Matthew 5 says, if you have aught with somebody that's you leave the altar, go get the thing right, don't worship, go get the thing right.

Your gift of worship is not accepted.

You're presenting yourself defiled in that moment.

He says, Don't bring that into the community.

The first part of verse 15, Hebrews 12, 15, gives us the sharp contrast.

Why does this happen so often in us?

He says, looking carefully, lest you fall short of grace.

The grace of God.

That's the sharp contrast.

God has been so gracious through the blood of Jesus Christ to you and to me for forgiveness.

And self-control is the fruit that puts that in check.

It stops the emotions that leads to you saying, I have no grace left for this person and that person.

It's the gate that says to me, Rick, don't go there.

Y'all got that gate?

Don't go there.

Don't think that about that person.

Don't go down that road of jealousy.

Don't go there.

It's the grace of God that helps self-control, and I'm able to have a gate.

I'm always impressed at someone who's either at my house or we're out somewhere, and it's like dessert time, and they're like, I'm not having any.

I'm like, what?

What do you mean?

We did all this for this moment.

This is the apex.

Why would you not have any?

Last night Heather made black raspberry pie, homemade.

Beautiful.

It was so good.

I over-indulged.

And I understand that in my gate problems of self-control, this is a possible problem.

Okay?

I'm confessing.

You all need to confess today, too.

You know, I often do like Solomon when it talks about this gate.

Solomon said, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we'll die.

So I'm like, he was the second wisest man that ever lived in the Bible.

I like Solomon.

But I think as a Christian mantra, don't go there is a good one.

Instead, give grace.

The grace that freed us for a different eternity, church, is the same grace that you can give.

And so the writer said, look carefully.

Bitterness, the root of bitterness, isn't walking in the spirit.

So the opposite of the thing, the thing that Jesus did, the thing that he did from the cross, a Christian forgives.

Hear me about this, though.

I got thinking this week.

In a sense, forgiveness is about that person that makes you just mad.

It's about them.

But it's least about them.

It's about you.

And it's most about the God in you.

When you forgive your hurt, you're putting at the gate of self-control the Holy Spirit.

Against hatred and contention and wrath and jealousies and selfish ambition.

You're showcasing God.

You have the human right, right?

Everybody would applaud you.

They would say, you know what?

I understand why you're mad.

I am with you.

I'm mad too about that.

But I want to remind you of that old bracelet.

What would Jesus do?

He'd forgive.

And he did.

I came across a sermon I preached on a similar topic as I was studying.

And I quoted a pastor, and I went back reading, and I was trying to, where did I get this?

Because I was reading it and I said, I don't, I don't know.

This is what I said.

Not everyone has your best interests, so let them go.

I disagree with myself.

Is that allowed?

I think I'd say now, walking in the spirit is to keep loving, forgive, and if they leave, they leave, but you can continue to love.

That's walking in the spirit.

Now, what I'm saying there is hard.

Now, I'm not saying everybody's got to be your best friend.

Not everybody and you are going to die, but you can continue to love.

So he goes on, the excess, drunkenness and revelries.

I don't know about y'all.

I got I got some people that I know that I grew up with, and I'm like, I don't even get it.

I'm 43 years old.

Can you imagine me getting down out of a dance club, getting my revelries on?

When I see people and they start talking about it, I'm like, what?

You are grown.

What are you doing?

Like, I what do I need to go get drunk about?

Oh, I'm drunk.

I'm drunk on Ephesians.

What it says, I'm I'm filled with the spirit, not spirits.

I'm like, what are we doing?

What are we doing at this age?

What are we even thinking?

But this, this, the way that the writers were writing, it was banquet culture.

And so in banquet culture, feasts happen often, and the feast turned into the party, and the party turned into revelry, and all of a sudden it turned into an orgy, and it got into this big pile of debauchery.

Because they didn't have a gate.

They didn't decide ahead of time.

No, I'm not going to be drunk.

I'm not going to do that.

That's not who we are.

And when it's too late, it's too late.

Self-control helps with that.

What letter A?

Self-control.

Patterns are present.

We see all of the problem that Paul was talking about.

Self-control, patterns, bread.

Look at Titus chapter 2.

Titus 2 · chapter mention

It's talking of qualities of a sound church.

Paul is writing to Titus, who's a minister at Crete.

That's important.

Look what it says.

But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine.

That the older men, hear this, older men, it hits older men and older women.

Older men, be sober.

That word self-control is used in different ways all throughout this verse.

Be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, and patience.

The older women likewise that they be reverent in behavior, not slanders, not given to much wine, teachers of good things.

Good things, that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blaspheme.

So it's important again that you understand.

Paul was writing this to Titus, ministering to Cretans, and that society was famous for its sexual immorality and dishonesty.

Okay?

You could say the word Cretanize, and to Cretanize something meant to lie about something.

How about that for your culture?

Like if we said we Chelsea's something and it meant to lie.

To Cretanize meant to lie.

See, the word self-control is repeated in these verses, the same meaning in verse 2, twice, in verse 5, in verse 6, in verse 8, and verse 12.

When you're studying the Bible and the same word or theme is presented over and over and over, he's trying to get the point across.

This is the quality of a sound church.

To be sober-minded, to be temperate, to be discreet.

All versions of saying sought self-control.

And he calls men to it and women to it, older men, younger women.

And on it goes.

He speaks to things that are supposed to be sound.

Well, what does he say to the older men, the aged men?

And the word for them is presbyties, and it means ambassadors.

Older men that are in the church ought to be acting as ambassadors of their church.

In some families, you'll hear things like this.

He's just old, he's getting that way.

You know?

It's talking about this grumpy man who's kind of surly, kind of mopey, and doesn't like a whole lot of things.

Right?

Anyone know somebody like this?

Don't point.

That's not nice.

Cantankerous.

My Bible says as you age, you should be getting better.

You should be getting better at self-control.

You should be better at lacking jealousies, at lacking selfish ambitions, at lacking dissensions and contentions.

You should be getting better.

It says sober, grave, temperate.

The word sound there, the sound mind is the word paistus.

It means conviction of God.

As you age, the conviction of God should get stronger.

And then it says, sober in love.

That word, you know, is agape, which means loving people to the point of sacrifice.

As you get older, you should be loving in a way that everybody knows you'll sacrifice your wants, your time, your needs, your desires, your things, so that others can see that self-control, that soundness.

He is a man of God to be like.

Patterning your present to become more and more convicted by the Holy Spirit and more willing to sacrifice.

That's what the aged men of the church.

The women, it says, holy and reverent.

Reverent again speaks to basically the same need of control.

What we just shared about men.

But it goes on further, and he says to women, not false accusers or slanderers.

Interesting ladies.

He says, when you become an accuser, you walk the road that Satan walks.

You know what the word Satan means?

Accuser.

He is the accuser.

By opening the cause against God, you act the part of an accuser.

He says, quit running your mouth about people.

Quit accusing.

If you don't have something nice to say, don't.

If you have something to say, admonish.

Love.

Talk to someone to their face.

It says, don't be an accuser, a slanderer.

Don't run around like that.

Loose lips.

And it says, not given to wine.

Again, self-control.

Teaching good things.

This patterns our way of living in the present.

Verse 12 talks about that.

Look at what it says.

Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age.

Self-control helps me in the present, right here and right now.

If I'll have this control, if I'll have this gate, if I'll have these guards, my right now will be able to walk in the spirit.

My right now will be able to exude the fruits of the spirit.

Letter be.

Self-control points to the prize.

Look down there at the bottom of Titus 2, verse 13 and 14.

Titus 2:13

We're going to read in just a moment.

But Titus calls the prize the blessed hope.

Paul kept preaching in different places about self-control.

And we're going to land here in a second, but Paul was preaching to a man named Felix, and Paul had been imprisoned for two years, and he was trying to get the gospel across to them, proving that he was not guilty of what they were saying he was guilty of.

And he said, if you look at the scripture in Acts 24, I believe it is, 14, somewhere around there, he says, I judged his righteousness and his self control.

He said, I kept him in prison to judge his righteousness and his self control.

I watched this man and kept him.

And you know what I was looking?

His self control.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9 24 through.

Let's turn there.

Go to 1 Corinthians 9.

Looking at the prize.

Paul has a pattern of using self-control.

He's using the picture of the Olympics and trying to help those convey this understanding of what it takes.

Verse 24.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run?

But one receives the prize.

That's that blessed hope in Titus.

Run in such a way that you may obtain it.

And everyone who competes for the prize is what?

Temperate.

In all things.

That's self-control.

Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.

Therefore I run thus, not with uncertainty.

Thus I fight, not as one who beats the air, but listen, I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

He said, I practice in running, in boxing, in Olympics.

They practice self-control to become the best that they can be.

And the same is true for you, Christian.

He says, practice self-control.

Well, Paul seeks here in Titus to share this same thing.

What Paul is seeking to share is it was sin, it was the works of the flesh that caused the loss of these things.

And Paul wanted to share where sin created chaos in Genesis.

Grace created order in the New Testament.

It restores soundness.

We can do this.

We can walk in the Spirit.

It's been given through Jesus Christ's death and blood on the cross and the Holy Spirit that's been given to us.

Let's look at Titus 2, 12 through 14.

Again, it says, teaching us, here's the definition of self-control here.

Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.

If you want to give a definition to somebody of self-control, it's in that verse.

Denying the works of the flesh.

Now I can intemperance, soberly, righteously live for God in this age.

But to what end?

Verse 13 and 14.

Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every what?

Lawless deed and purify himself, his own special people, zealous for good works.

He says, Jesus came the blessed hope, and he redeems us from all of the flesh over here, and he came so that all the good works over here can be shown.

You and me are a special people because of the fruit of the Spirit in us.

We're marked.

We're his people, we're his church, we're separated because of the blessed hope.

Well, I was thinking this week, and the Lord really fed me kind of a neat idea, and I wanted to share it with you.

A letter from self-control.

If I go off course here, it's because I can't read my own writing.

Now, the things that are following here, this is fictional people with some circumstances that I think are close to some that I've been around, but none of them are based on, you know, someone here or something like that.

But here's a letter from self-control.

You may not think of me often, but I think about you every day.

I am not your prison.

I'm your protection.

I'm not chains.

I'm the guardrail that keeps you from falling off the cliff.

When you hold me close, you actually have freedom.

When you let me go, it hurts so much.

Please don't let me go.

I want to tell you from the story of my life about four people who let me go.

Tom.

Tom was twenty-five years sober.

He'd worked so hard.

Twenty-five years of freedom.

And one night, one bad night, he told himself, it's just one drink.

He left me for a drink.

And now, twenty years later, Tom ends most nights in a stupor.

He's not living.

His life is a fog.

Not family, not faith, a fog.

I hate that stinking drink.

April.

April was a faithful wife and a devoted mother.

But she battled loneliness so much.

And loneliness kept whispering in her ear.

And she left me one night and listened to that loneliness.

It was one of the worst nights that I had that whole year.

She left me and stepped into a room.

And after she stepped into that room, her house broke in two.

She hurt, he hurt, the kids hurt.

Why, April?

Marcus, he was a respected leader, faithful even in his church.

Late at night, he began to trade me for a glowing screen.

It wasn't fast like some of the others, but he slowly let me go.

He didn't even want to.

But secret sin devoured him.

He lost his wife, his reputation.

He gave me up for mere moments.

Why would you let me go?

All I wanted to do was help.

Tanya.

Tanya never touched alcohol.

She never cursed.

She never missed church.

And somehow she lost me too.

Her pride was her addiction.

She measured her worth by how clean she looked, and she measured others by how dirty they seemed.

Tanya prayed long prayers, but her compassion and grace were short.

Her Bible was highlighted, but her heart was hard.

She didn't stumble into the gutter.

She climbed onto the pedestal, and the fall up was worse.

Tanya, why?

How did you miss it?

Well, I want to tell everyone it's not over for any of them.

Because Jesus Christ formed me, self-control.

And he wrote some notes for Tom, April, Marcus, and Tanya.

To Tom, Jesus said, I've not let you go.

The same spirit who ride who raised Christ Jesus from the dead whispers, Tom, you can start over.

It's going to take a lot of grit, but my grace is greater than your fall.

I told a woman at a well once, Tom, I would give her a drink and she would never thirst again, Tom.

Come home.

To Marcus in April.

They called me the man of sorrows.

And I want to be close to you because I bore all of the shame.

I know the guilt and the shame that you feel from hurt.

But I took it on the cross.

What has been destroyed in a choice can be restored in my love.

Tanya.

I'm the one, Tanya, who dined with sinners.

I knelt to wash feet.

I died for all.

Can you lay down the scorecard and come to me?

I'm here for you.

You see, I'm self-control and I'm not found by willpower or might.

I'm found by Jesus.

I'm called self-control, but my real name is Jesus Christ living in you.

So don't just hold me self-control.

Hold him.

And when you abide tightly to him, I'll never let you go.

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