In this men's ministry series we have been looking at the various character qualities that make up the fruit of the Spirit These are qualities that the Spirit produces and qualities that we ought to be prayerfully and purposely pursuing. This week we come to the last quality of the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23, the quality of self-control.
Self-control is the mastery of your self. It is the ability to stay on the mission that God has given you and not be derailed by temptation. What is the essential mission God has given you? To love God and love people for God's glory. That means a lot of different things in every area of your life—work, relationships, church, money, etc. The opposite of self-control is self-indulgence, which is getting distracted from the mission. Self-indulgence is turning off the road by taking the exit ramp of temptation into sin. Paul gives examples of this in 5:19-21 (sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these).
In Matthew 4:1-12 we see the self-control of Jesus when Satan tempted him in the wilderness. The three temptations were the first major challenge to Christ's mission; Satan tried to derail him, but Christ exerted self-control and stayed on course.
Matthew 4:1-11
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." 4But he answered,
"It is written,
"'Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
"'He will command his angels concerning you,' and
"'On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.'"
7Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'" 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9And he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." 10Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written,
"'You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.'"
11Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
Recall the events leading up to Christ's temptations. 1) Christ had just been baptized and anointed by John the Baptist for his ministry as the great High Priest; 2) he was baptized with the Holy Spirit in full measure; 3) the Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tested. God was testing his Son, just as he had tested his son Adam in the Garden and tested his son Israel in the wilderness, so that he might learn obedience (Heb. 5:8).
As God was testing Jesus, Satan was also at work, tempting him to be self-indulgent and disobey his Father. Satan didn't want Christ to get to the cross; he wanted him to avoid the hard path of obedience and suffering that was his as the Messiah.
First temptation: Don't trust your Father Satan tried to persuade Jesus to use his power to avoid starvation instead of trusting his Father to give him food after the fast was over. He wanted Christ to use his divine power, rather than obey in his human strength as the representative of mankind.
Jesus responded with Scripture, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. In effect, he said, Satan, my Father said a long time ago to the children of Israel and I say the same thing to you: man is not ultimately dependent on bread, but on Him, the creative and sustaining power of all things. He is the only indispensable source of man's life and well-being. Christ intended, no matter how hungry and weak he was, to maintain self-control and wait until his Father provided food for him.
Second temptation: Test God Satan tried to lure Jesus into creating an artificial crisis, a situation which would not happen in the normal course of obedience service to the Father. The crisis would manipulate the Father into showing his dependability. Christ responded with self-control, quoting from Scripture: "You shall not put the Lord God to the test." He was saying I'm not going to dive off to see if my Father will save me. He hasn't commanded me to do so. I would be testing and experimenting with my Father.
Third temptation: Worship me! Satan made one final attempt to derail Christ. As one author described the temptation, "Satan presented Christ with a vision of the world in which nations stood ready to abandon their idols and accept Christ as Lord ... Christ could win the world without pain—no weeping over Jerusalem, no crucifixion ...." All Jesus had to do was bow and worship Satan, acknowledging his lordship over mankind.
Christ knew that the road God had placed him on had a cross at the end of it, and he had to go all the way to the end. So, with utter self-control (unlike the first Adam), Christ, the second Adam, stood above the wilderness and cried, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.'" At that moment, Christ triumphed over temptation and the Tempter.
What do we learn about temptation and self-control?
1. Temptation is an invitation to take a detour and disobey God—to indulge your desires. It is an exit ramp. And sometimes when you get off on an exit, it's hard to get back on the road. By the time you do, your marriage may be gone, you may be enslaved to drugs, you may be in financial hardship, etc. Don't get off the road.
2. Temptation is inevitable. Jesus was full of the Spirit and led by the Spirit, and he had an absolutely pure heart, and yet he experienced temptation. Don't be naive to think that you are beyond temptation. Don't think it's strange that you experience temptation to do awful things. You are in spiritual warfare with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Testing and trials are the way to holiness and heaven.
3. Satan doesn't always tempt you with bad things; he tempted Jesus with bread, not booze; with safety, not sex; and with power. These were good things. Today, he tempts you to put good things in the place of first importance over God—things like friendship, family, respect, romance, financial stability, etc. If any of these things are of greater importance to you than God, they will control you. You will not have self-control, and eventually you will take the exit ramp of temptation away from God.
• If you live for human approval, people will control you.
• If you live for money or power, your greed will control you.
• If you live for pleasure, your physical desires will control you.
How do we grow in self-control, so that we are able to stay on the road?
1. You must know the Word of God well, so it is right there to counter the temptation when it comes.
2. The love of Christ for you must control you. You need to see that Christ was not just resisting temptation for himself, he was resisting temptation for you. As the second Adam, he set out to undo the results of the first Adam's fall by living a righteous life and then dying on the cross to pay the price for all the times that you lacked self-control and went off the exit ramp of temptation and into sin.
Christ loves you. That truth needs to be real to you; it needs to hem you in so that you stay on the road and fulfill your mission to love God and love others for God's glory. The Redeemer's Word and love for you must be like a video, constantly playing in your life, so that you stay on the road.
How will you respond?
Growing in self-control requires discipline. If you lack self-control, it is hard to exercise discipline.
1. Read the Word and meditate on the love of Christ for you. Do this regularly. How can your men's group encourage one another to do this?
2. In what areas do you tend to struggle most with lack of self-control? What do you need to do differently? How do you need to think differently?
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