Self-control as a fruit of the spirit with Scott Beyer and Luther Pratt

In this episode of Balancing the Christian Life, we talk about self-control. Welcome to Balancing the Christian Life. I'm Dr Kenny Embry. Join me as we discover how to be better Christians and people in the digital age. But the fruit of the Spirit is joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there is no law. Hopefully this is very familiar reading to you. We know these virtues as the fruit of the Spirit, but I'm not sure we often unpack what they are and how they differ. I've already devoted two episodes to joy and love, and one of the things I discovered when we discussed those two virtues is they are difficult to untangle from the others. However, there is something different about self-control. For one thing, it's listed at the end of Paul's list, which often means something, but there's a common sense understanding I have about self-control I'm not sure is completely warranted. I mean, doesn't self-control mean you learn how to well control yourself? In one sense, that's right, but in a very real way it's just deeper than that. For example, in the Old King James, this virtue is called temperance. So what's up with that? How are temperance and self-control the same? To help me understand this virtue more, i asked two guys who impressed me a lot to come on. First, i asked my old friend, scott Byer Scott is an evangelist in Louisville area to help me unpack this idea more. He and his wife, jenna, are parents to currently eight kids, seven of whom are adopted, but Scott has helped us understand the place of dinosaurs in the biblical text as well as telling his own story. Scott is also the host of his own podcast, love Better, which I highly recommend. The other guy I asked is Luther Pratt, an evangelist in Greer, south Carolina. Luther and his wife had worked in ministry for many years and he landed on my radar when I was interviewing evangelists we financially support from my home congregation. Luther was both kind and insightful and I knew he was someone who would do a good job with this. So, scott, let's start with you. What does it mean to be self-controlled?

In its purest sense. self-control is the idea of an internal control over something. An automobile comes from the hoarseless carriages. You had this carriage and you'd hook some horses onto it and there's an external force pulling it along. But then we got automobiles and it became self-mobile. All of the things to make it move and control its direction are an internal thing. Self-control is the same idea. I don't have parents telling me what to do and that's why I do it or certainly parents pressuring me to. I don't have external boundaries stopping me from it. If Adam and Eve had self-control, which was what was intended in the garden, they didn't need a hedge around the Tree of Knowledge, good and Evil. They would have just stayed away from it. But without self-control, god ends up having to drive them out of the garden so they won't eat from the Tree of Life anymore after that. That's not self-control, that's God physically removing them. The goal of self-control is I can do that, which is right, simply because it's right, not because I was forced to coerce or anything For me.

I love word meanings. The word comes from the basic word that goes along with what Scott said strength and dominion. How many of us do not want to have more self-control? We want to have more control over our lives, our joy, our happiness, our influence on other people to help their lives be better. We know the opposite the lack of self-control, what pain, suffering and sin that brings into our life. It just doesn't affect us, affect those around us. I like to see where not just the meaning of the word, but where else is the word used. One place that's used is Acts, chapter 24 and verse 25, when Paul was before Felix. Just notice the placement of this word. This goes along with what Scott said. It says he sent for Paul. That's Felix sent for Paul and hurt him concerning the faith in Christ. Now, as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control and the judgment that come, felix was afraid. Notice where it's placed there. You got right living righteousness, being right with God. We want that relationship and we want that feeling in that relationship that we know we're right with God. We know one day there's going to be an accountability, There's going to be a judgment or what's in between those. It's self-control. Self-control is one thing that Felix did not have. I also like to look at the opposite meaning of the word. The opposite meaning is used in 1 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 3, and one translation translates it this way they will not control themselves, And that sounds like a lot in our world today. It literally means self-indulgence. But where do I want to be in life and in my walk with Jesus? I want to be in a right place and have a right relationship. I want to feel good about the relationship, feel good about myself and what connects that is self-control.

One of the things that you touched on that I think we don't often think about is that self-control and joy are connected. Happiness happens, joy is chosen. So if I'm going to be somebody who wants joy, i have to have self-control. And people who are all of their success or positive things in life are all external, then they just are tossed by whatever wave comes along. The people that we tend to look up to are people who go through hard things and still manage to be upbeat, positive, optimistic people with hope as an anchor for their soul. that's a choice And that's a form of self-control. Every time I say I'm going to choose to see the best in this, or I'm going to choose to trust in God, or I'm going to choose to ride out this storm and stick with the character traits that I ought to have, that's self-control. And so joy and self-control are a lot more intimately connected than we sometimes think of.

Oh they are. If you simply when we go back to the bad works of the flesh that are mentioned there, you almost could put a story or a name with each of them and think about the joy stealer, the sadness, the suffering, the self-disappointment, the feeling of failure, all the things we don't want to feel alive or have in life. We want the joy, we want the peace, the other parts, that's for the spirit, but the bottom line is sin and Satan and the choices we make. they bring that lack of joy. Bill Hall, in an article that goes along with what Scott said, it says self-control is that which enables us to rule rather than to be enslaved. I like that.

I like that too. If I'm in control of me, i'm not being yanked around by whatever sin or urge is in control of me And you talk to addicts, they feel completely out of control, and I don't just say that. As other people, i know the experience of being caught up in an addiction to any number of different things And you feel like it's in control of you. Yes, and that's a horrible feeling.

It is a horrible feeling And you feel like you let God down, those important to your life down, and then rock bottom. you feel like you let yourself down. You use that word control. I like how you're something controlling you When we go back to the text that Kenny has us looking at. but the fruit of the Spirit. I want the Spirit and I want Christ to be the controlling force of my life And that path in life brings about that fruit from love all the way down the self-control. But what makes it work is that self-control, part of the fruit of the Spirit.

And it's interesting to me with self-control, like you said, it's a fruit of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit wants us to self-regulate. His goal is not to be this taskmaster over us And that's an interesting aspect of Christianity is you have Satan. Satan is perfectly happy to be a taskmaster, to completely control you and put you in a position where he owns you, and it's not a positive relationship. But God, on the other hand, he says I want to be your master, but I want you to want me to be your master. I want you to want the relationship. Self-control is only a fruit of a relationship with a God who wants you to be in that relationship and to be voluntary. The very nature of Christianity is it is me choosing to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling. If I don't want it, he's not going to make me, and so it's an aspect of the freedom that we get. We have the freedom to choose.

One of the things that I would say, though, is we have the freedom to choose who will be my master, because the fact of the matter is we cannot save ourselves. Will you let Satan save you Or will you let God save you When it comes to choosing the master that you will have? if we were going to go back to the King James Version, it would not say self-control, it would say temperance. I thought temperance was all about liquor. I thought that was about getting drunk. Aren't we just being told here don't get drunk.

God doesn't want us to get drunk on a lot of things, and when you go back to the works of the flesh, drunkenness is there. But a word before it is envy. You ever known somebody who's intoxicated with envy, or with themselves, selfish ambitions, outbursts of wrath? We've seen people control by anger. I felt like anger controlled me sometimes. I didn't like that feeling and I wanted to get it under control. Temperance was that good King James word that really is broader than just the use of alcohol.

Yeah, luther said it perfectly Temperance became a word associated with alcohol because that something does require self-control And also it removes self-control. Right, if you are intoxicated, you don't have self-control. But the thing that came first was the broader sense of, in every area and facet of life, who's pulling the strings? Am I letting the things in my life, whether it be anger, or my friends or circumstances, or even idols and false gods? am I letting them control me, or am I going to control myself and make a decision intentionally as to how to live? I think there's the key. If you think of it in terms of drunkenness, the whole idea behind alcohol is that it removes your inhibitions. You all of a sudden feel free, and this is where people will talk about social drinking. One of the reasons they do that is they are shy around people And so they feel socially awkward, so they need something to remove those inhibitions, never mind the fact that there is another option I could learn to be better around people. Yeah, when we try and again find an external source to do that, it's not self-control anymore.

I have never been shy about talking to people. I do not relate to that at all. Scott, when it comes to this idea of temperance and I'll go ahead and tell you the guy who often my eyes to that he said that temperance is the inability to moderate pleasure And that idea of delayed gratification gone. And if you are temperate, it's somebody who is in some ways moderate, that you have learned how to moderate your impulses. Does that make sense?

It. Does You think about tempering steel? What we're doing is we're saying here's a raw material, but there's actually more in it. We could bring better out of it. So let's temper it so that it is hardened and useful for a specific purpose. And self-control is all about purpose. If I have a purpose that I wish to live for, i am going to have to put the work in to do that. Well, yeah, and that's self-control.

I want to take this and I like everything that both you do just said. I really like Scott's comparison with the tempered steel. I want to use it. Somebody I know and I'm not going to say names, the person probably wouldn't mind. This is a great Christian today. But when I first met this Christian he was not serving the Lord faithfully and he was the guy we used to cut the church grass. So I'm in the church office, i'd hear him out there cutting church grass. I'm trying to make that human connection with him. So I'd go out there and take him a bottle of water and he did not want to engage in conversation And eventually, after doing this for felt like a couple of years, he called me. He wanted to get together and talk. He was a user of alcohol. He was addicted to crack. We prayed in his living room together for forgiveness, to begin this fresh start with Christ, and this guy came back 110% to serving Christ and I'm thinking how could you walk away from crack and alcohol so easily? He did it. We have said a lot and in our discussion so far which is good and right about our choices, the way we use our free will, but sometimes somebody might think that I'm a victim of the alcohol and a victim of whatever I'm addicted to. Maybe it's anger or maybe it's some other struggle. I want to go back to the beginning of the verse and I don't want to leave out and I know we're not trying to leave it out, but I want to bring it on into the discussion and hear But the fruit of the Holy Spirit. One thing Paul said that I believe. I don't understand all of it, how it works, but I believe it and I know it does work. In Philippians 4, paul said I can do all things through Christ Jesus, who strengthens me. The Spirit does strengthen us and as we are led by the Spirit and we walk in the Spirit as he says in verse 25, while we have our part, nobody should ever think that I'm unworthy, i'm trash. God doesn't want me. We have God's help. We have the Holy Spirit's help to grow that fruit of the Spirit and to change our lives. Life does not have to be a life of hopelessness. A few years later, after I moved to South Carolina, my friend called me with the Bible study question. I think we talked for an hour and we hung up and I'm thinking that is an awesome Christian that God made.

Man. What a great story. In a world where we hear all these bad stories, it's really important to remember they're not all bad stories. There are some people, and what you're touching on is self-control is transformative. Yes, and it's not transformative overnight. My guess is the gentleman that you're talking about from the day he made the decision to day two probably some pretty minor differences, right, but some years go by and it's amazing the transformation that happens with self-control. And we see this in other areas. We see this in diet and exercise, something we don't tend to like to talk about. But realistically, most health issues can be affected by regular, consistent diet and exercise. Not all I'm not making a blanket statement there but a big portion of them can be affected by regular, consistent diet and exercise. You go to the gym at the beginning of the year and then you don't go back and look too And yeah, of course you didn't see a change. But 15 minutes of exercise every day beats four hours of exercise once a month. The goal in self-control is a consistent transformation, and that's what you're describing is. Here's somebody who was in a really dark place and it affected every facet of his life through the transformative power of self-control, aided by God. God will help those who are trying to bear fruit, and I don't always know how that is, but that's the whole point. Of Providence is the unseen hand of God working in our lives to help us, and that may be put in the right person in your life at the right time. It may be the guy who comes out of the church building and hands you a bottle of water, and the Lord has a way of doing that. When you put one foot in front of the other, the Lord has a way, in his own way, of making sure your efforts to show self-control will bear fruit.

We call these the fruits of the spirit, and fruit happens after processes are taking place. If you have committed yourself to follow God, like you're talking about there, luther, this is something you should start expecting. As you put more trust in God, you're going to have more self-control Does that make sense.

It makes perfect sense. Another place that we see this word used, this kind of just hops right in what we're talking about, is over in 2 Peter 1. What's interesting is the placements of words When you look at where it's placed I know we might talk about this later in the fruit of the spirit it's placed last And like how you brought up, kenny, the idea of a process no matter where somebody's at in their journey in life and maybe they're in a dark place, they could take that same step, that baby step to come to Christ, and you slide right in serving Christ And, yes, you might have growth, you'll have things overcome, you'll have struggles, but you have Christ, god and the spirit of God helping us. We're not in a alone And it's not called the fruit of me, the Christian. I grow as I grow. It's called the fruit of the spirit that helps me to bear these. So God has a part and I really like how Scott brought out the idea of God's providential care. He's there, he helps in ways I can't understand. I don't know, but I know he does. When Peter is writing 2 Peter 1, he's now the aged Peter. He had some urgent things to say to Christians he loved and he wants them to grow their faith. And he mentions in verse 5 to give all diligence to add to your faith virtue. I love the word virtue. The word virtue means the desire for excellence. I just want to be a better person. I want to be a better Christian. To do that I have to add to virtue knowledge. I have to grow in my knowledge of God's Word that the Spirit has given us. And what's next To knowledge I add self-control. It's just logical. I have to practice and live what the Spirit has given me and to that we add perseverance. Sometimes we think of perseverance means perseverance through trials and definitely it can mean that Sometimes, just daily, keeping on trying to be a strong Christian is perseverance and practicing the self-control that goes back to the knowledge, to want to be a better person, that goes back to my faith. So it's interesting where self-control holds those things together. And as I grow in the knowledge of God's Word, i grow closer to God and he leads me.

I'll go ahead and tell you they're not known very well that word. Perseverance, actually translated, means taking teenagers to the mall. So that's.

Exactly. Hey, i'm here as a testimonial. I've survived raising three teenagers, and they're wonderful.

They are wonderful as well as I do. Everything has upsides and downsides. Child raising buyer knows this better than we do. I'd say child raising is 80% just flat-out hard work and 20% complete joy. But for some reason that 20% just outweighs the other 80. Byer, you're welcome to disagree with that.

No, the thing is that we understand this, that all the really worthwhile things in life come slowly over time. Nothing really wonderful is a quick fix wonderful, and so, whether you're talking about raising children, that is highly satisfying, but so frustrating in the process and then getting to the point where you get to enjoy their fruit of grandkids. You get to enjoy the fruit of seeing your kids grow up and be autonomous themselves, actually showing their own self-control. That's an interesting aspect of parenting, right Is? your goal is to get them to not need you in the room. They have self-control on their own right, and it's a joyous thing when you get to the end of that. Ecclesiastes says the end of a thing is better than its beginning, and I would argue I'm going to take that one step further and say that as a general rule, the longer the time span between the beginning of a thing and the end of a thing, the greater the end is. The long-term things bring the greatest amount of joy. And guess what That means? the journey's longer, which means self-control is more important. Self-control in parenting is vital because there are lots of bad days, there's lots of confusion in the process, kids are always changing. With all of my kids, i have eight kids and that means I have eight opposites. I don't know how that is, but they're all different. So just when you think you've got it figured, out you don't. I still know nothing about parenting, and it's highly frustrating. You would think you would start seeing oh this, I've had this before, but you haven't, because every human being that you raise is their own person. If you want to get good at a craft, whether it be playing the violin or woodworking, those things don't happen overnight. Malcolm Gladwell is fairly famous for saying that it takes about 10,000 hours to become an expert. And then what we don't talk about is that in that same book that Malcolm Gladwell talks about 10,000 hours to become an expert, he says that's essentially when you begin. If you want to be great at the violin, you have to put 10,000 hours in to get to expert level and then you can start having the conversation about what it actually means to be a good violinist. The time involved in anything worthwhile requires self-control, which is why every expert in every field that you ever see is somebody who's shown self-control, at least in that arena.

You know the thing about it, and there's part of me that's pushing back on this buyer, because one of the things that I think is I could make the counter-argument as well. the most important relationships that I have in my life now were made in an instant, but I didn't understand the commitment that when I had those relationships. the thing about it is I became a parent and everything changed instantly. Did I understand the level of commitment that I would go through? No, Has it become a richer experience than I anticipated? that it would be, Yeah, But holy cow, if I hadn't made that commitment, that was just all. everything that happens is consequence. If I hadn't made the commitment and stuck with it, if I hadn't started out with the commitment, Yes.

And okay, so I'm going to agree with you to disagree with you. It all begins with the commitment. You're absolutely right. You get involved in something before you know really what you're getting involved with, right? Yeah, you say I do, and the wedding is a beautiful thing, it's a wonderful moment.

Oh, it's not for men. It is not for men, it is.

But go ahead. But the pictures are great and everybody's gathered and it's supposed to be this really happy occasion. But I will tell you, having officiated a fair amount of weddings, there is this little voice in the back of my head. Every time the bride and the groom are saying I do this, says they have no idea what they just do.

Of course they don't. And I will not identify these people because I went to their wedding and they promised they would not fight And I thought, oh, what a foolish promise to make in your own vows Good luck. But the thing about it is I've been through my fair share of squabbles with my wife. Thank God for them. We learned each other through squabbles and good times and all of that, and I wouldn't trade them at this point. They've made us what we are for, better or worse, and I think I'd say all that to say and this is absolutely going back to self-control, which is this idea of I think about especially younger people who obey the gospel and everybody's who get baptized and everybody's kind of looking around the room going should we? Does this kid know what he's actually doing? And I think about that, exactly what you're saying right there, byer. Of course he doesn't know exactly what he's doing. Nope, he'll learn, and the most important part isn't that he understands it, but he's making the commitment to start to understand it, does that?

make sense. Yeah, and I'm sure Luther can speak to this Baptism, because you baptized a few people. they don't know the full depths of what they're getting into.

I'm going to be the great compromiser here. You both are right. I'm taking a safe place. You both are right, thank you. It begins with commitment.

Switzerland just gets caught in the crossfire.

Come on. But when you put in your hundred hours and your thousand hours and your 10,000 hours of anything, you're going to get better at it, and that's the beauty of walking with Christ and following the things of the Spirit. I like some words that are used here, like in verse 25, if we live in the Spirit, hey, we're Christian. There's a sense. We live in the Spirit, yeah, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let's do what he said At first. When you get baptized. That's easier said than done. But you're on the journey, right, you're on the journey, and once you put in the time, you're going to grow, you're going to get better and you're going to see the seeds of love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and greater self-control. The seeds grow And so you got to make the commitment That's becoming a Christian, baptism, faith, and then you have the walking in the Spirit, walking after Christ. They're sure 10,000 hours. It's a process of it's marriage, of it's raising children. I remember I'm like I forget which one of you all said alter what they say. You know how it's going to. You know what else not going to be so perfect.

If it was good, I said it. If it was wrong, that's right.

That's right. So Scott said it. I've seen those beautiful weddings, uh-huh, and I remember one and I love them dearly to this day. But did their wedding? beautiful place almost gave away where the wedding was And they spent the next five months at my dining room table fighting And we went through. No, they're great people, they were going through the ordinary. It was nothing. It's what everybody goes through. You have ties you have struggles, you have failures. I say to people okay, welcome to being a Christian, that's part of it. You're going to have success and some failures. Don't beat yourself up, just learning growth from it. And it gets better once you get closer to your 10-hour, 10,000-hour marker.

And I guess what I would argue is that the process to get to the end, to go from the wedding, that is a beautiful thing and requires commitment to that couple. We have a couple of our congregation. She just passed away. They had been married 71 years Wow 71 years. Wow, they are my life goals. They still held hands. That is more beautiful than the wedding And I choke up even saying that. But her funeral was beautiful in its own way because it was the end of a journey of life of those two together, and it was a life well-lived. The death of righteous people is more beautiful than their birth at baptism. That doesn't make baptism not beautiful. It's the angels There's rejoicing in their presence. The scriptures are clear on that. But when you have shown self-control faithful unto death, and somebody dies in the Lord, that's even more beautiful, because now we're at the end. They have nothing but the reward ahead of them. There's no more struggle. And I guess that's the point of self-control is. It gets you to the end of the story, which is what the beginning's all about.

Well said, you guys have both yeah, both of you guys have talked about this process here And I'll never forget, because we did a thing for my grandparents where we did a video project and we interviewed each one of my grandparents for their 50th anniversary separately And one of the things that I remember asking my grandfather was okay, this is quite a milestone, how did this work and not contemplate divorce or something like that? And he looked at me and it was a joke, but it maybe see something that I never saw before. He said what makes you think we never thought about divorce? He said of course we did. He said we did all that stuff. It may be considered that maybe my grandparents' marriage was not written to the stars. It was written in hard work. It was written to a couple of people that decided you know what? I don't like you very much right now, but I'm going to make this work anyway.

And go ahead. I completely agree. What self-control does is it demystifies these things Instead of it being oh, this beautiful marriage because two people just happened to meet each other, that just happened to be the perfect fit, and it's the Disney lie that there's that one person out there for you. Or you look at people who have raised their kids in a way that, look, people make lots of jokes about me raising kids, but I'm still doing it. I'm not done with it. You don't know the final product. You look at people who have gotten to the final product and go how did you do that? It's easy to tell ourselves they just had better kids, like it was a role of the dice. Self-control says the opposite that these processes can be chosen and anybody can do it if you're willing to put the work in.

Yeah, and I guess another way that I would say exactly the same thing that you just said buyer, which is, everybody has choices, but self-control is which choice are you going to make? You get to choose that.

And God gives us that. He gives us that free will, he gives us that ability. And what is before us, before life or death, and we get to choose. And God wants us to choose life. And it's a great life. It's not perfect, it's not always easy He used that word instead but it is better than the other road. The road less traveled is better than the other road.

Amen. So you guys are making a really nice advertisement for self-control and you have made it sound so wonderful. Why would anybody choose anything else?

He does mention the works of the flesh first.

Yeah.

We have to live in this world and try not to be of this world. The problem with not being self-controlled number one is, as a Christian, i'm leaving my commitment that I made to Christ and I'm not being led by Christ, not being led by the Spirit, and I need to get honest with myself that when I go back up and look at Galatians 5, 17, he says the flesh lust against the Spirit, and I think I saw one translation that said wars against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another. Now watch this so that you do not do the things that you wish. It almost sounds like Paul's illustration in Romans 7. And the problem with not being self-controlled is you are going to be controlled by these other things. It might be sexual sins, fornication, pornography, which is a scourge in our society, the idea of somebody being controlled by hatred, or just living always, every day, in jealousy, and the list can go on. What happens is it affects you, but it doesn't only just affect you. It affects your family, it affects your spouse, it affects your marriage, it affects your kids, it affects your school life as a young person, It affects your work life and your other relationship And then ultimately the pinpoint is on. It affects you because of the choice you made not to have self-control. Anytime you put your big toe in the water and just partake of some of these, it comes back and bites you and you think, oh, that's why I don't want to, that's why I'd rather have the self-control. It's actually easier than living a life in this.

I think a really good example of how we end up living a life we didn't intend, which is caused by a lack of self-control, is King Saul. The story arc of King Saul is one of the saddest in all the Bible to me, because he was a pretty decent fellow. You start out the story and you think I like this guy. You just run into him. He's out there looking for some of his dad's livestock. He doesn't seem to show any signs of being a wicked, malicious guy. But as the story progresses you see him making promises that are rash and not thoughtful That's a lack of self-control Making proclamations that then have consequences because he didn't slow down and wait. You see him making sacrifices because he just couldn't wait any longer for Samuel to show up. The long-term effect of that is a guy who could have been a good king but becomes synonymous with absolute power, corrupts absolutely that he was corrupted by that power because he became king. Then nobody tells him no. He's not telling himself no, he's essentially like a child, but he's wearing a crown. The danger, i think, is that all of us have within us the capacity to be a bunch of big kids. We want it, so I'm going to have it. Self-control is something Jesus said he who's faithful and little will be faithful and much. You can't wait for the big things to become self-controlled. You have to be self-controlled in the little things. One of the things that I'm convinced makes a big difference in somebody's life is reading a little bit of scripture every day. I don't say a lot of scripture, i just say just read a little bit of your Bible every day. That's a little bit of self-control, that every day, somewhere along the line, i'm going to stop and commit myself to thinking about the text. Yet how many of us don't even do that? I say that not to shame everybody else. I've found myself getting caught in that and you think, man, as a preacher, certainly you'd be amazed how many times preachers can get caught in the exact same thing. If not being in the Word, it's a self-control issue. If you can't show self-control in little things, you're not going to show it in the big things. It's something that has to be nurtured. We live in a society that is not nurturing it, and we're not doing it with our kids, by the way, either. We've got to be really careful with that that we not raise a bunch of little emperors who don't know how to say no, because they can then become adults and they don't know the feeling of being denied something, and then their life goes off the rails. And sometimes you can trace that back not just to them, but to mom and dad too.

It's interesting y'all bring up Saul, because we actually had studied about Saul about a month ago. He started out humble. He looked like a leader, he was serving his father, but it was the little choices. He came to the crossroads of self-control and he went to the left and to the right and he made baby step choices. When he made the first bad baby step choice, would you say ask him, saul, do you think he'll ever try to kill your son? Oh no, never do that. Would you directly disobey God? Oh no, i would never do that. The baby steps led him down that way. So he started out as a good story and because of choices, and when he used his ability to choose the control in his life, they were not God's choices, they were fleshly choices and it led him where he was at. I know it's interesting and I'm not sure how directly it fully connects with our relationship with the Spirit, but it talks about the Spirit of God leaving him. It talks about God sending him a distressing spirit. It was him using his ability to control his life, but unfortunately he made some wrong choices.

In that over and over again, where somebody, what was the downfall of David Is one moment a lack of self-control. One moment And that's all it takes. Sometimes Self-control is the wall around the city. It's me saying I'm not going to let external things decide my fate. Good salt.

Philander. Did he murder anybody?

We don't have any record of full-andering, although I'm a big fan of the old-timey word you chose.

I guess what I'm trying to say is the difference between David and Saul was not necessarily one understood what sin was and the other one didn't. It's that one kept on after he sinned, kept on running back to God and one started running away from God And the choice that he made was oh man, i messed up. Where are you going to go now? What choice are you going to make? And David kept on saying I guess I'm going to have to go home to God because he's got my back, even when I don't. It's not because David was a paragon of righteousness, it's because he was somebody who understood the relationship that he had with God. Does that make sense? Do you see what I'm saying there?

Yeah, and to be fair, self-control isn't everything, it's not all of it. You can have moments of lack of self-control and still be made right with God, because David imploded his life, his lack of self-control, but it didn't implode his relationship with God. There was a pathway back to God. He's still considered faithful. Yeah, with Saul, i think one of the things that you see, and Luther, you can disagree with me, or if you think differently, because you've been studying him recently, but it's always felt to me like Saul was always full of excuses. He'd make a mistake and then there was a good excuse for why he made the mistake. Oh, yes, and in comparison, david is. That's right. I guess I am the man That's me against you and you only have I sinned.

I agree with you totally. They both had their own journey of faith. Saul's became more reckless, more excuse making, and the beauty of David is when he's approached and the moment David says I believe it's all in the same verse, i have sinned. The very next words in that tense room and that discussion are from God. God has put away your sin so instantly. And there's a lesson for us today when we look at Galatians, chapter five, and we all deal with these works of flesh and people we love and care about, and brethren that come to church and worship God each week. They have to deal with these works of flesh. Either it's publicly known or not publicly known. It might be silent battles that they have. And the beauty of walking in the spirit. And we mess up and we sin. Yeah, john, one nine Love that verse, that's just to so go to verse. I messed up. God forgive me. You're instantly forgiven. You're in your journey, the sins gone. The sad thing about Saul is Saul could have had that too, but he didn't hold himself accountable. David did hold himself accountable. Both men had a journey of faith. One was a train wreck and one ended with him telling his son on his deathbed. David told Solomon that he says I want you to know the Lord. God. That was very personal.

People I know who have high degrees of self control have also got a high degree of self accountability. They tend to be the people who say in this situation, that went wrong, what could I have done better? The low self control tend to do the opposite. In this situation that went wrong, what did everybody else do? And they only factor in their own participation at last. In almost every situation there are things others could have done as well. The most productive thing to do is to look at what could I have done differently.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, i wasn't anticipating that we go here, but there's a real danger for embracing the victimhood status. I think so Because it absolves you of all responsibility.

I would just say don't mistake that with the idea that there aren't victims.

Of course there are.

Every one of us here would agree that sometimes people are victimized. They are the victim. But when we say victim mentality can you correct me if I'm defining this wrong But the way that I think of it is as the person who decides my life is hopeless and there's no pathway to success, and that's based off of all these things that happen to me. We really enjoy particularly these Americans actually is this idea of somebody having a story where they could have easily cried victim and probably would have even been right. They start out with an impoverished life or a bad childhood or some sort of physical deformity or difficulty, and yet they overcome. Self-control is an aspect of being an overcomer. It's not all of it, but it definitely is part of that recipe, i think.

You look at one of the best victim stories. We have a man unjustly accused of a crime and given a death sentence and going through with it, then saying you know what, i forgive you guys. It doesn't sound much like a victim to me, although he was absolutely a victim.

Excellent point. Everything about what happened to Jesus was not just, and he made it clear he had an out right. He could have called for that legion of angels, he could have gotten out of it, but instead he showed self-control and quite literally I say thank God he did.

Yes, there you go, Luther. You said yes.

I was going to add to that. I could see it in your eyes, Luther It was there. I was holding back The Old Testament parallel you know parallels with Jesus is Joseph. Joseph could have cried. The victim mentality. Every time I read and studied Joseph's life I learned something more and deeper. His brother's wanted a killing. They throw him in a hole, then they sell him to those passing by. They sell him into slavery in Egypt and he's a slave in household apothefer. And he really at that point could have cried I'm a victim and got his own TV show somewhere. And we all would be weakened for it Took away from my father. My father was lied to about my death. Then Parva's wife creates more trouble in his life and he's put in prison. What was the secret to his success? His secret was no matter where he was, no matter what he went through, he had self-accountability. How can I commit this great sin against God? I'm thinking really, you're a young guy, You're another country, You're away from your family. You could do whatever you want to do. Nobody back home is going to find out about it. He had this sensitive accountability to God that translated into self-control And that's really translated into his old journey with God that 10,000 hours down the road he looked back and say and love his brothers that look what y'all meant for evil. God meant for good. Joseph didn't get there overnight, But that's part of that fruit of growing as you grow in your faith.

I hadn't thought of it in context of Joseph, but you're absolutely right, without self-control, that's a very different story. It is One way to look at that is self-control empowers the victim.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

There was a case a while back and I'm going to forget the names. this young woman had been kidnapped and kept by captives for a very long time until she was finally found out and released, and her mother said to her at one point the greatest victory you can have over these men that kidnapped you is to go on to live a fabulous life. I remember that, yes, that, i just think, is such a hard thing to tell somebody who has legitimately been victimized.

Yeah.

But it's such good advice too, because it puts you back in power. The whole idea of victimization is to remove your autonomy, remove your power, to make you feel powerless. Self-control says you know what, I can do something about it. I can't control all these other things, but I can control this. When Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, every day he would run. He had factored out in his mind how long, if he ran in place, it would take for him to run a mile. So every day he got up and, in his cell, ran a mile. It was a way of staying physically active, certainly, but I think even more it was a way of controlling one thing. He couldn't control a lot of things, but you could control one thing. And you see that common thread, all the more so with someone like Joseph right. There was so much he couldn't control, but I can control my character.

Yes, and it goes back to he controlled his faith in God and that carried him through. That made all the difference.

Almost all blessings that we have, If we take them to extremes, turn into curses. is there a way in which self-control can become a curse?

When I saw that question I'm like wow, he's digging deep here. So I was determined to dig deeper and find an answer. I think about Jesus and his ministry and how, all throughout his ministry, he had to deal with the combative religious leaders of his day. And in Luke 18, verse 9, jesus gives a parable that was going to inflame them even more, but it's a great lesson for us today. Also, he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, they had the perfect self-control in keeping the law of Moses and their regular human regulations. But here is the problem. The other problem, verse 9, is and they despise others. So two men went up to the temple to pray. They went to Pharisee, the other tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus for themself. God, i thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, i give tides all I possess, and the tax collector, setting it far off, would not so much raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And then here's the punchline from Jesus, i tell you, this man went down to his house, justified rather than the other, that man who beat his chest and said that I'm a sinner, and he was humble enough that he would not even want to lift his eyes up to God. Jesus said he went down to his house, saved The other guy did not. It's tragic in our church families If you run across somebody who feels like they got the law of Christ done perfectly and now they've become maybe condescending. Or yeah, let's do to obey the law of Christ. You're righteous but you don't want to become self-righteous. And then a byproduct of self-righteous is you start despising others and picking out where they don't have self-control. So I'd say one way it could become a curse is self-righteousness And that's a hard thing to pull yourself out of or pull somebody out of when they have that. It's a danger.

Yeah, i think when you start talking about self-control, everybody has self-control that they're better at in some areas than others. One person may have very strong self-control in regard to their emotions and another person may have really good self-control regarding their finances. But you may not have both right, or, at the very least, you're better at one than another. It's always easier to look at somebody else and despise them for their lack of self-control in an area that it seems to come easier for you, and when self-control turns into a tool for self-righteousness where I can now despise other people or look down on them, because look at what I've figured out One you've forgotten your origin story, right? You've forgotten that all of us need Jesus. The very fact that I've had the second chance to get better at something is only because he did that. And you also forget what it feels like to go through that struggle and instead of lifting them up, you're busy creating a sense of superiority to them. So self-control, i think, only really becomes a problem when I start using it in my relationship to other people and how I view them. Ironically, when self-control becomes about other control or my perception of other people, then it's not useful. If it's purely focused on what can I do better? How can I improve? How can I discipline myself? How can I be a better disciple Which, by the way, those two things same route right, then it's great. And I guess one other thing I would add to that and it's really not a different thing, it's just maybe another way of saying something we've already been saying is self-control isn't everything, because everybody has imperfect self-control. Perfect self-control that ship sailed the first time you sinned. So self-control as a perfect thing it's a non-entity. It doesn't exist without some of the other things, like grace and mercy and love, and so you have to remember that It's not the whole thing, it's a piece of the thing.

Yes, and it's a process, because the word used in our passage in Galatians 5, it's a fruit. Fruit grows, it develops within, and it's not everything, it's part of everything.

Yeah, yeah. I think also there's another potential problem. You guys talked about self-righteousness. I think the other thing that you could do is hyper-focus on things that may make no difference to yourself. My son I will not say which it's OCD trait where he will be very particular in the way that he does the laundry. If he does a load of laundry, i get it, it's a quirk that he has. But if he over-focuses on that, that's not going to do him any good. He will major in the minors. Did you see what I'm saying there?

Yeah, and, as Luther just pointed out, it's a fruit of the spirit. So the self-control has to fit within the umbrella of. Am I showing self-control in the things the Holy Spirit would have me show self-control? There it is, there it is. If I'm showing self-control in things that don't matter, that will have minimal, if any value. And one of the things I mentioned was nutrition and exercise. Yeah, the Bible says that's a profit, but it's a minimal profit. It is a good thing to take care of your body, but if I spend all the next 20 years of my life being a fitness fanatic, i'm going to actually miss out on some things that are even more important. So it has to all fit within the umbrella of. What is the Holy Spirit wanting me to put self-control into? Not, hey, i'm a very controlling person. Those are different things.

That's the beauty of God's Word being a mirror. We need to read it, we need to think about it every day Because we can get off on our little Christian work of our life and working out my salvation with fear and trembling and I start piling up the bads I'm doing and I start seeing some of the goods I'm doing. Going back to the mirror of God's Word shows me reflection of where I can see balance in my life. Hey, i've been emphasizing too much of wanting to work out at the gym way too long to develop that area where I'm not as bad as I thought it was as being a Christian. Going back to God's Word helps me keep a balance in my life and a balance on how I see myself on the journey, because sometimes, to be honest with you, life and circumstances and life stressors you get in a place where you beat yourself up And when you come back to God's Word you realize God loves you. God gives us grace. We live under the umbrella of grace. That doesn't exclude obedience and striving to serve God. It's not under the umbrella of law. A second thing I would say where it can turn into a curse is if I go back to Galatians 5 and in verse 4, paul says you become estranged from Christ. That idea of estranges to me, the idea of separated or divorced. Watch this, you who attempt to be justified by the law. What was the problem with the law Moses? You could not keep it perfectly. Only Jesus kept it perfectly. That's where we need God's grace and God's forgiveness. Now, this is where I'm going with this. This is where me wanting to be a better Christian and have self-control can take a wrong turn And I call it performance religion. I got to get everything under the New Testament right in my life where I can't be a good Christian. How's that different than I got to keep the law of Moses to be perfect and right with God? My relationship with God will never be based upon perfect performance religion. It's going to be based upon faith that gives room for growth and mistakes and sin and forgiveness under God's grace. So always remember, as I'm trying to grow on my self-control, i'm growing in the realm of God's grace and God's love and his patience and his help. Don't get yourself cornered into performance religion because you're not going to keep the law that perfectly.

Is there any significance that self-controls mentioned last in the fruit of the Spirit?

The short answer is I don't know. The Holy Spirit doesn't tell us, so we don't know for sure. But it does feel awfully appropriate because you have all of these other ones and none of them happen without self-control. So here's all these things we want, and some of the other fruits of the Spirit are a lot more appealing. Self-control is not really want that fruit. That's like eating your vegetables a little bit more but you don't get the other ones without that one. So in that sense it feels pretty fitting to be the capstone.

I see it as a linchpin that makes the other ones work. One hobby I have is gardening. My wife had me build her like four large garden boxes, 27 inches high, 12 feet long. We planted 90 plants and to get to the garden it's downhill from the house. I take the rotting lawnmower with a trailer, Went out there one day, loaded the trailer, it was disconnected from the lawnmower, put in the tools, put in everything I need to do the work for a couple hours down there. No linchpin Lost. The cotter pin Drowning nuts, Little cotter pin held everything together so I could get down and do the work to grow the fruit of the garden that my wife wanted To me. Self-control is the cotter pin. I can't have a copy of love without self-control. I'm not going to have joy without self-control. It's the cotter pin that goes back through this verse and holds it together so God can grow the fruit in my life.

I end all of my podcasts with Be Good and Do Good. Why is being self-controlled a good idea? It's good to tell yourself no.

Part of being people who are seeking a lasting city is learning I don't need all the stuff or things that this world is offering. Telling yourself no is a good life habit that builds a better person.

And to tag on that, exactly while we're in this lifetime, in Glacier's chapter 6, verse 4, he mentions that you can have rejoicing within yourself. There becomes a self appreciation and calmness within yourself. That's a good that comes in this lifetime by seeing that you have self-control.

The more I've studied this stuff, the more I think I'm not sure that you can disentangle these from one from the other. I think they come as a package. I just think they come as a package. Alrighty guys, I really appreciate this. I appreciate who you guys are and what you guys do. Self-control for a little bit. So thank you very much, Thank you.

Thank you, have a blessed day.

The idea of self-control was more complicated than I first thought. I kind of love how Bayer and Luther brought in both Saul and Joseph to help explain the idea and the very real potential. We have to turn self-control into self-righteousness. I don't know about you, but I've had that problem in the past. As I've said already, these are two excellent guys and I'm grateful to both know them and call them buddies of mine. Thanks, guys, for helping us understand this virtue even more. As for the good thing I'm thinking about, like I said last time, my wife and I have recently gotten back from Chicago and we're settling into the rhythms of getting back to home. We saw things like the Bean, the Sears Tower, the Hancock Tower and generally did a lot of walking around the city, but there's nothing quite like coming home to your own bed, and that is a very good thing indeed. I want to remind you about the Balancing the Christian Life Conference we have coming up July 27th through 29th. If you want more information about that, you can go to my website, wwwbalancingthecrishanlifecom and look for the link that says Balancing the Christian Life Conference, to both sign up and see what we've got in store. As I said before, there is no cost to the conference this year and I'm excited about what we've got planned. So until next time, let's be good and do good.