Wisdom for Self-Control - Proverbs

We're in the book of Proverbs. You can turn to Proverbs Chapter

Proverbs 25 · chapter mention

25. We've been going through the

book of Proverbs for our summer series, studying the wisdom

writings found in Proverbs, and as you came in, you should have

got a bulletin that said Instructions for Life.

That's really the the main theme of all of the ways that we're

trying to understand wisdom offered by the Proverbs, and how

Wisdom and Knowledge and Understanding turns into the way

we're supposed to live our lives.

The instruction as we've been going through this, and you

think about all of the Weekbyweek themes that we've

looked at, you could almost retitle the entire series

Instruction for Relationships. Because really, when you study

proverbs and you really meditate on what they're saying, they're

teaching us how to live well by the fundamental need that we

have for relationships. And so by way of review, just

think about everything we've talked about so far.

The very beginning of our study said that the beginning of

wisdom is the fear of the Lord. So you got to get your

relationship right with God before you receive any of His

instruction. And then as we went week by

week, it was really relationship by relationship.

And we talked about the necessity for having wisdom in

the way that we use our words to not talk about each other

rudely, to not gossip, to not have our our our mouths out of

control when we use our speech. And then we talked about the

relationship we have with our friends and friendship and

wisdom and how to be a good friend and the importance of

friendship. With that we contrasted

friendship and family and neighbors.

And then we last week looked all the whole theme was husband and

wives, and what wisdom says about the importance of getting

those instructions right. Next week we're going to look at

parenting, how to be people who understand wisdom and

instruction not just for our lives, but how to impart it into

the lives that God has given us to care for.

And so you think about all of that.

And apart from the fear of the Lord, there is one relationship

that really sets all of the others into order, and it is.

It's one of the most frustrating relationships of your life.

It is inevitable. This person follows you

everywhere, and you can't get rid of them.

And they're the the first one that is really responsible for

your problems and the last one to accept blame.

And of course we're talking about not your motherinlaw or

your unavoidable neighbor or the frustrating family member that

you see at all the functions. We're talking about you, the

fundamental relationship other than your relationship with God,

and this relationship has everything to do with that.

One is the relationship that you have and the responsibility you

have to put yourself in order. And as much as we live in a day

and age that tries to find blame and point the finger for the

problems of our world and the problem of your life at everyone

but you, the Bible is clear that one of the great enemies of life

is yourself. And so today we are going to

look at the very important topic, maybe the topic that sets

all wisdom into motion, which is the topic of self-control.

So we look first at Proverbs chapter 25 with one of those

Proverbs 25 · chapter mention

great proverbial pictures starting in verse 28 to look at

the the, the, the theme or the picture of self-control by

actually looking at something else.

It says in verse 28 of Proverbs, chapter 25, whoever has no rule

Proverbs 25 · chapter mention

over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls.

So we have Hebrew literature, the likening of one thing to

another. And this wisdom says, if you

can't rule your spirit or in this sense put your passions,

your spirited desires into order, you can be likened to a

city that has no wall. The walls have crumbled down.

And we we do a little bit of historical context for this, but

not something that's hard to grasp.

We don't live in a day and age where walls are a necessity for

a city, but we are not far removed from that being the case

for most of human history. For a city to actually have a

society, a civilized people group inside of it, that has a

functioning economy, has a functioning justice system, you

have to have borders and those borders have to be protected so

that city can be secure. And an ancient reader would read

this and it would be a matter of fact that if that protection

that comes by the way of a wall, so that the enemy can't get out

or can't get in and justice can't get out, the wall goes

down and the city eventually comes to ruin.

We just went to Israel. And it was in some ways a study

of the prosperity and the demise of Israel based off the security

of the wall. When this is when the king was

ruling and the wall was secure and Israel was being blessed.

And this is when Israel worshipped idols and the walls

came down and the enemy came in. And with that picture in mind,

we now have an understanding of what the Bible is saying about

how God made us to live. That we ourselves are a little

functioning society within ourselves, and we have all sorts

of passions and desires, and those things need to be ruled

with a garden, in in in fenced. And when we can't control our

passions, we are a disaster waiting to happen.

We are a city that is waiting to turn into rubble.

And you think about the great problems of your life and how

often they have the word self right in front of them, and it

is all flowing from a lack of selfcontrol or a lack of your

ability to put your desires into order.

Think about these words times you've experienced when you've

been selfdeceived. Hard to see through that one,

and all of the ways that in selfdeception you are letting

the destruction come into your life.

You don't know what you don't know.

You don't know how you're fooled.

Self pity when you become the center of all of the things that

you're focused on and all of your energy goes into just how

hard and how horrible your own life is.

Self conceit in the other way, how great you are.

Self importance, self centeredness, self indulgence,

all eventually pointing you down a road of one form or another of

self harm. It's been said that all

temptation leading to sin is in fact an inside job.

And as much as we look out and blame everyone else, the Bible

says so much of the rubble of our lives is due to a lack of

selfcontrol, the inability to rule over our own passion.

And so today we're going to look at what the proverb say.

Here's some wisdom and instruction so that the walls

that encompass your life would not break down and that you

would not allowed all of those self qualifying problems come

into your life and allow your life to turn into rubble.

We'll look at what is essentially wisdom for

selfcontrol in three parts as we look for the Proverbs to speak

to us. We have the first part, which is

the warning, what the proverbs will tell us, much like the

crack in the wall, here's what will happen if you don't have

selfcontrol. And then secondly, we'll we'll

look at the reward. Wherever there is a reward, a

warning, it is to help us to see the reward.

And then finally, and maybe the most important part, how do we

actually rule over our passions? How do we go from people who

feel out of control to feel the the joy and the reward of having

a life that is well ordered? And so we'll spend probably the

most time looking at the key to selfcontrol.

But we start with the warning, which is fairly obvious how many

of you have felt at times. There's something in your life

that has lost your control that you once ruled and now it rules.

You and the proverbs Will will look at 2 proverbs and they'll

essentially gives us warnings with two lens a nearsighted

warning and a farsighted warning.

Essentially saying if this happens to your life and

selfcontrol is something that you can't control.

There is immediate effects and there are longterm effects.

First the immediate it says have you ever found honey?

Eat only as much as you need less, you be filled with it and

vomit. So here's an an ancient

predicament. You find the honeycomb and it

doesn't say to not enjoy it. Honey is something sweet.

It can be therapeutic. It can be something to be

enjoyed. But what it is saying is do not

overindulge in the good thing that you have found.

In other words, there are sweet things in life that can make you

sick. And one of the ways that the

warning for the immediate can be plain to see is that we live in

a culture of overindulgence. We live in a culture that has

taken many of the sweet things of life and of God and of our

modern world, and they have offered them to us with such a

high amount of volume that they eventually make us sick.

I mean, think about all of the ways we could think of modern

examples. I doubt any of you are

struggling with honey this morning.

If you are, you came to the right service.

Stop eating so much honey. But you're no doubt struggling

with one of the many ways that you could be indulging in our

culture. How many of you have felt like

you just pull out the phone too much and you scroll through your

preferred app too much? It's a sweet thing that will

eventually make you sick. How many of you have enjoyed

small leisure time in video games and then just turn it into

something that you give over to everything?

How about checking emails or sports scores Or stocks Or news

alerts? Watching TV, movies?

YouTube. You work too long.

You stay up too late. You party too hard.

You worry too much. You fear the future.

You can't stop your racing, mind.

You lust after everything and certainly something on the list

is a way for you to understand the overindulgence that we live

in. And the immediate says put the

brakes on with the 1st way that you get the warning because the

the example of honey gives a very immediate danger to eat too

much. You actually hate to get so

graphic in church, but I happen to just be reading the Bible.

Eat too much and you will vomit. It's it's nature's way or your

body's way of pulling the emergency brake on something you

should no longer do. The the idea being if you have

to go through that intense of a lesson, hopefully you now

realize that is not a good thing for your life.

I was watching the movie Sandlot.

How many Sandlot fans are out there?

Classic movie. I find no fault in it so it can

recommend it to anyone. There's a moment of

overindulgence where selfcontrol was lost.

The the, the ragtag bunch that practices at The Sandlot beats

the the rich kids across town. They they win the baseball game

and they go out to celebrate, go to the County Fair, and as

they're walking in, one of the kids pulls out some chewing

tobacco, he says, What do you guys want to take some chewing

tobacco? And they all take it and they go

on the tilt, the whirl, and they they get the result of something

coming out to say you shouldn't do that ever again.

And as they're leaving with stained shirts, the narrator

says. From then on we decided to stick

to bazooka bubble gum. That's good short sighted

warning so that you don't continue down a path that will

eventually turn your life into selfcontrol with longterm

effects and everything on the list that we just listed.

Hopefully you've had moments when you've overindulged with

your spending, You've overindulged with drinking or

eating or enjoying the leisure time, and something has happened

to, say, pump the brakes on them.

Most of us are stubborn enough to pump right through that to go

right through the initial warning, and that's why the

proverb say okay, if vomit isn't a good enough lesson, let's get

a longer case view of what will happen if you don't control your

passion. So now we come to the next

warning, which is the long view. Proverbs Chapter 23 don't mix

Proverbs 23 · chapter mention

with wine bibbers. These are not your social

drinkers. These are people who have

committed to drinking every day, every chance they get their

alcoholic for wine or with gluttonous eaters of meat.

Again, these are not people who are enjoying the occasional

feast, but they eat meat to the point of gluttony.

Overindulgence as a definition now of their life and look what

happens. The drunkard and the glutton

will come to poverty. You do this long enough, you

spend all your money on wine and meat on feasting, and you're

going to lose your money, and drowsiness will clothe a man

with rags, so you'll be poor in rags.

This example, specifically with alcohol, is just as current

today as it was when the proverb was written.

We just went my family and I just went to New York, and it is

what I call the Vacation Bible school for my kids as we look

out on humanity. And there were times when I got

to do the real lesson of a long view.

Not just warning my children about bad choices, about losing

control with something like alcohol or drugs, but actually

pointing to something that was rags and poverty and without

judging, without trying to lay a burden on the person who had

fell into this lifestyle with all compassion in my heart for

the predicament they find themselves in.

When I found people on the street that were living in rags,

it was a great time to say this is what happens if you go down

that road. And of course, these are extreme

examples. We can preach an entire sermon

on temperance specifically for alcohol and food, but the idea

is to take the examples and expand it into any area of your

life. Or have you have lost the

ability to rule over your passion, and now your passion

rules you? It is not going to just cost you

a hangover on the weekend or an overdraft fee once or twice.

What the Bible is saying is if you lose control of your

passions, eventually it will take you down a road where you

are no longer in control of your entire life.

We don't belabor this because the problem with self-control or

lack thereof, is largely self-evident, and every single

one of you can look out into the streets and see the example, or

look into your life and be warned of the path that you're

currently on for all of the ways you do too much of the category

that the Lord is convicting you in right now.

So as we stated, we look at the warning so that we can focus on

the reward. The proverbs are full of warning

and reward and it is always to point us to the reward.

The Bible does not want to put us in a spiritual straitjacket

and fear wrong steps, and in fact it points us to say this is

the way that God designed your life so that you can enjoy your

life more. So now we look at the reward and

we start with what I find to be a a good time to look at

selfcontrol defined. So if you collected all of the

different ways that wisdom and knowledge and understanding lead

to instruction so that we can control our life, here's a

working definition. Consider this.

Selfcontrol is the ability to use sound judgment or wisdom in

choosing the important thing over the urgent thing, resulting

in long term health rather than short lived pleasure.

This is what is being offered through the Wisdom writing.

As I said in Proverbs 3, trust in the Lord, His design His

priority for your passions. Reorder them so that you're not

living for the urgent pleasures, but you are making decisions for

longterm health, and it will be health to your bones.

Wisdom will in fact add years to your life.

It will bless all areas of your life.

Wherever your passions are properly ordered and you begin

to use sound judgment, there will be a longterm reward.

Here's one example, a proverb explaining the reward in the

area of maybe the selfcontrol. One O 1 lesson, which is how we

all need to practice selfcontrol with our words, with the words

that are really an overflow of our thoughts and our heart, and

how we can actually find selfcontrol for our inner

selves. It says he who guards his mouth.

The the now. The the the picture of the wall.

Picture it now, not just around your whole life, but around your

mouth. The wall guards the mouth and

you preserve your life. But he opens wide.

His lips shall have destruction. Where the guard of selfcontrol

covers any category, you are leading to life.

Open wide your mouth and see what happens to your

friendships. See what happens to we just

talked about marriage, husbands and wife.

Let's see what happens when the wall of your mouth just falls

down and you open wide your mouth and watch all of the

destructive path that will follow.

And conversely, find out what happens when you choose your

words wisely and you bridle your tongue like like we bridle

horses to put it under control. And find all of the ways that

your words will actually be used to bring life and encouragement

and enhance your relationships and extend your health.

And again, this is just one way the proverbs give us one

category, but the idea is that the reward is plain as well.

There's a new documentary out on all of the ways that we can

watch documentaries about people who are are worth viewing

because they did something that the world would consider great

with their lives. One that I enjoyed growing up in

the 80s and 90s was Arnold Schwarzenegger's because he was

the last action hero. Literally, That was his movie

and he was a man of just giant muscle.

I don't need to explain that to you.

He's like the most popular muscle man of all time.

And in the movie he's 22 years old and he is a specimen of

muscle and he's winning Mr. Olympia at 22 years old.

He has migrated to from Austria to the United States.

He's learned English, he's mastered his body, he's won the

medal that that he set out to win.

And he said to master my body I had to master my mind.

Which means that the reward is self-evident.

If you are able to master your mind, to make good decisions

about your physical health, to make good decisions about how to

exercise, your reward will be self-evident.

We don't have to. I don't have to convince you.

That when you do well in the categories of discipline, there

is all sorts of net benefits to your finances, to your body, to

your relationships. So what we have to ask more

deeply is how do we actually master our mind?

And we don't do it just by looking at the few people

throughout history that have found a category of success.

The goal is not to make all of you bodybuilders, because no

doubt Arnold Schwarzenegger master one area of his life, but

not all of his life. There are certain areas of his

life where there is no doubt cracks in the wall.

So we now look to the wisdom writing to say okay.

The danger is clear and the reward is obvious.

But how, in fact, do we take lives that are out of control

and put them into control? So we'll spend the time looking

at the proverbs that offers us some insight into how we can

grow from the word of God into disciplined lives more and more

and more. So we start by looking once

again where we started. Proverbs Chapter 25.

Proverbs 25 · chapter mention

I find it helpful sometimes, not always with the collection of

wisdom being somewhat fragmented, But in this case,

it's really interesting to read the verse right before the one

we started with. Look what it says.

It is not good to eat too much honey, So to seeks 1 to seek

one's own glory is not glory. Whoever has no rule over his own

spirit is like a city broken down without walls inserted

into. The proverb is a warning not

just about unruly lack of selfcontrol, but at the center

of it is someone who's seeking their own glory, the proverb

writer said. It won't be glorious.

Seeking your own glory is like eating too much honey.

Neither one of them are good. Seeking your own glory is

parallel with losing control of your passions.

In other words, this is a matter of who you're worshipping.

Every decision where your passion controls you is Putting

you at the altar of worship is serving you foremost, more than

God and more than others, your appetites and your desires and

the way that you use your mouth and make your decisions.

When you are seeking your own glory, you are walking towards a

city of rubble. And so one first step in

considering is this is who is at the center of the decisions

you're making. Now we get to a proverb that

warns us what not to do. Because some of you may hear

this message and think, okay, I get it.

Got to try harder. I have to take control of my

life. I have to take it back.

I have to do things that will make me a more disciplined

person. I'll set my alarm before I leave

church and wake up earlier. I'll read my Bible more, and I

myself will eventually overcome my lack of discipline by working

harder. But look what the proverbs say.

A wise man fears and departs from evil, but a fool rages and

is selfconfident. So what we're not talking about

is just doing better. On both scenarios, you're still

at the center of the story. You're still at the center of

the attempt to save the the the city in ruin.

Consider this quote. The danger is self becoming over

controlling is just as dangerous as being out of control.

Anorexia is no better than diabetes.

Legalism is no holier than than lust.

You cannot repair the southern wall by removing bricks from the

north tower. This is not a message to say

Christian. Do better by picking yourself on

your by up by the bootstraps and just say no to sin and grit your

teeth and stop being out of control.

This is a fundamental message that is the beginning of your

faith and it is the endurance of your faith and it is in fact

where all control comes from and ends.

It is a message that points us right back to the name of God

himself, apart from which there is no name under heaven by which

men can be saved, including your own, for your own problems.

And to get this point, the Proverbs require us to crack the

Riddle. Remember Proverbs?

Often times unfolding a Riddle to solve an enigma.

And when we think about the metaphor of the city wall, I

want you to take it to its end. Imagine the wall does come down.

Imagine the enemy is now approaching the border where the

wall once stood and they are coming to ransack the city.

A wise person would not simply stand there and try to put the

bricks back up. We go back to Proverbs chapter

Proverbs 14 · chapter mention

14. It says the wise person fears

evil and departs. Where do they go?

And now we get our answer from the Proverbs Proverbs chapter

Proverbs 18 · chapter mention

18. The name of the Lord is a strong

tower. The righteous run to it and are

safe. There's another picture of a

wall, but there's this really important part of the the

defense of a city not simply with the wall, but the tower of

refuge. For when the wall is under

breach, for when there is a crack, when there is an enemy,

there is one last place of defense, and it is the tower

where all the people seeking safety would run to, and they'd

come to the top. The last final high point to to

outrun your enemy was the tower itself.

And when the wall goes down, the people run to the tower.

And when our walls crumble because of our lack of

selfcontrol, we do not rebuild the wall.

We call upon the name of the Lord to seek refuge in the

tower. It is the only way that we can

ever find the perfect balance between a lack of selfcontrol

and the replacement of legalism. Because if the sermon stops

without pointing us to God, you will either feel condemnation or

you'll feel pride. Some of you will feel condemned

because you do do the things too much.

And you say, Yep, once again I remember I'm not worthy because

I overindulge and I can't control myself and I don't have

good practices and I don't have good habits and I'm not

discipled. And others you will say, well, I

am if it's up to me, if it's going to be, it's up to me.

And I wake up early and I come to church and I do everything

right. And so now we have condemnation

and we have pride. And one is not better than the

other. There's lust and there's

legalism. But there is one way that our

lives can find the perfect control.

It is not by taking back control.

It is giving up control completely.

It is to say to God, the Tower of Refuge.

I need you. In your moment of weakness.

He is your one defense. In your moment of success, he is

your righteousness. In your moment of temptation, He

is the only way that you can find the perfect wall of defense

for your life. As I was meditating on this at

this exact moment, as I was meditating, I was in my office

yesterday, which is actually my car parked in the shade, and I

was like, Lord, I I'm beginning to understand for my own life

how important it is for me to continually run to the tower,

but how can I see the picture clear?

How can I just remember time and time again that you are the

Tower of Refuge? And as I was contemplating that,

someone pulled up and parked right next to me and they looked

over and I looked over because we're parked in the shade.

And as she's looking at me, she holds up a sign that says Jesus

loves you. And I thought, that's the

answer. That is exactly what I needed to

hear. Because the name of the Lord is

a high tower has a deeper meaning than what this proverb

even understood. The name of the Lord in fact,

has been revealed as Jesus the Christ.

And through the revelation of the name of the Lord, we don't

just get the answer for self-control, we get the answer

for all of it, salvation and cleansing, which is called

sanctification and how we can actually walk in the power to

live our lives under the defense of the name of the Lord.

It is in fact the covering of the power of Jesus, given to us

freely through His Spirit. So I want all of us, whether

you're saved or whether you're listening to this and you're

thinking, Lord, this might be my cry for salvation.

I want you to consider this powerful moment that Paul is

writing to Titus about this very topic, the topic of how to live

with a life of self-control. He says this, the whole chapter

is about self-control. And then he says, here's the

key. The grace of God that brings

salvation has appeared to all men, to those who are condemned,

to those who are living with self-righteous pride.

All men have received the grace, the undeserved favor of God for

salvation, to not just rebuild the wall brick by brick, but to

be plucked out of the rubble, rubble and put into the tower.

And how? How does this look when the

grace of God brings salvation? It appears to all men.

What does it do? It teaches us that denying

ungodliness to acquire selfcontrol, denying worldly

lust, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in the

present present age. It appears in two ways.

The love of God poured out through Jesus Christ, saving us

and sanctifying us, pulling us from the rubble and then getting

all the dust off of our clothes and cleaning up our faces and

binding, bounding up our wounds. It is saving us and it is

sanctifying us. And this is the fundamental

difference in how we answer the question for selfcontrol or

selfmastery between religion and Christ.

Because up until the point where we actually look at the key to

selfcontrol, we have done nothing to separate ourselves

from humans desire to just be discipled people.

All religions are trying to point people to better lives,

that have a better understanding of how to control the wild

passions of the heart. But what religions say, without

exception is that you must pull yourself from the rubble and you

must clean yourself. That you must do more, that you

must try harder, that you must grit your teeth, that you must

come and understand more about how to clean yourself up with

all of the religious things to do, the services to attend the

money, to give the missions to go on.

It is an all an effort to prove your worth.

It's all dependent on what you can do.

But the message takes an entire 180 turn.

When we hear the message of salvation by grace and

sanctification by the Spirit, it goes from what you can do to

what God has done. The grace of God has appeared

through His Son, Jesus Christ, saving us and purifying Himself,

purifying us for himself, his own special people.

This is the joyful practice of not selfcontrol by controlling

yourself, but selfcontrol by giving control to God.

And I think about how to understand this message through

how you teach this message. Because any one of you who have

ever been a parent, I see new parents.

So you will need this message soon.

Any one of you have ever raised children, preached this entire

message. The message of the warnings for

lack of selfcontrol. You better clean your room and

do your homework. The reward of selfcontrol.

I'm going to give you an allowance and you preach the

message all the time, over and over and over again, because

children are walking examples of the lack of self-control.

I love them, but they have no self-control at all.

They don't know how to put themselves to sleep.

They often times don't know how. They don't know selfcontrol to

to eat. They don't know the selfcontrol

to stop just wanting to eat ice cream.

They don't know the selfcontrol to to work hard and do their

homework. And they need little Holy Spirit

guides to say this is the way to live.

And here is the fundamental breakdown in your parenting.

Here's when it goes really well and here's where it doesn't work

so well at all. You are either teaching your

children selfcontrol through the law or through love.

You are either saying if you don't do this, if you don't do

this, I will punish you and your life will be horrible and your

life will be miserable. So you better do it because this

is the law of the house and if you don't do it, you'll be

condemned as soon as they leave your house.

They will go on a entire journey of self discovery and freedom to

get out of the burden of the law.

And then there's the moments where we do it in love.

Because I love you. Because I am your father who

cares for you. And I want nothing more than for

you to do well. Listen to my instruction.

Obey the household rules. And when you do it in love, it

is the practice of what God is doing for all of us.

You're no longer condemned. You are living under the grace

of this household. You're living in a way where

love will build you up, in the way that you should go, so that

in all the ways I want you to know obedience.

It is so that you have selfcontrol to preserve your

life. And it is with this in mind that

God offers us the free gift of His Holy Spirit, the free gift

of His guide for our lives. And look what it says.

Galatians Chapter 5. I say then walk in the Spirit

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

and you'll have a lesson in learning how to do that.

Walk in the Spirit in the morning as you start your day,

praising God and having him fill you once again with His life and

His ways. Walk in the Spirit as you open

the Word and study the the teachings of Wisdom to point you

in the way that you should go, that you would have the control

of the Word over your life. Walk in the Spirit as you pray

and seek Him. Walk in the Spirit as you

practice all of the ways that Wisdom instructs your life, and

if you do that, you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

In other words, you shall not have an unruly spirit.

You no longer live with your flesh telling you what to do.

And Paul will go on to say all of those ways that lust of the

flesh can so easily play out and so easily turn our lives into

rebel. And then he says, But the fruit

of the Spirit, for those of us who have received the free gift

of salvation to be born into his Spirit, to walk in his spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit is love. The fruit of the Spirit is joy,

peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self-control. The one that ties all of them

together. Against such things there is no

law. It is the power of the Spirit to

willingly be controlled by the goodness of God.

And so the message does come in two ways.

It comes in salvation, and it comes in sanctification or

cleansing. Some of you need to look at your

life and confess and admit to God, who brought you to hear

this message today, that you have allowed the walls to turn

into rubble. You have allowed the

overindulgence of your passions to lead you down a path of

destruction. And your moment with God right

now is to say, I want to call upon your name to be my strong

tower, to be my refuge. This is your moment of

salvation, which is free. It is the grace of God to all

who believe, And for those of us which is all of us who have

experienced the power of the born again, life to be

regenerated by God, to choose rightly to walk in his ways.

We come time and time again to say Lord, fill me anew, cleanse

me anew. For the little ways that there

is cracks in my wall, I have put self at the center of worship

once again sanctify me. God, cleanse me so that my

self-control would really be your control of my life.