Lets open our Bibles up to 2 Peter 1 (page 1204 of pew Bibles). After five weeks of teaching it, youd think Id know what chapter were on by now. This series is called Virtuous Reality, and our virtue this morning is Self-Control. Its found in Verse 6. He says, …and add to your knowledge, self-control… [Verse 5], For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to your goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control… Now weve been trying to define these words. Its pretty important to define what they are. One of the best ways to remember what self-control means in the Greek is to think of a phrase that you and I often use. When we say to somebody, Get a grip! Get a grip on yourself, thats what the definition is. It means to get a grip on yourself-literally, to bring something under control; under management; to get a handle on something. Everybody has areas in their lives where they struggle with self-control. You might struggle with laziness or messiness, your diet, your exercise program or lack thereof. You might struggle with your temper; you might struggle with greed or lust or coveting. You might struggle with gossip. The list of things that we struggle in goes on. Sometimes well be doing well for a period of time, and then well have relapses; and then well feel bad that we thought we were on the right path. We thought wed changed, and here we are back at square one all over again. One of the things I think that all of us struggle with from time to time is when were in our car. I dont know about you, but when Im in my car sometimes, I can lose my religion-as the saying goes. Its never to the point of road rage…but close. If somebody cuts you off or somebody runs a light or the traffic lights-the fact that theyre not synchronized-[you might think] somebody is deliberately trying to unsynchronize the lights. Theres a gremlin that comes in and makes it so theyre not synchronized. One of my pet peeves is the train. It seems like theres never a good time to run into a train-well, literally, but-figuratively, youre always on a mission. You hit the train, and you think, Oh, why do they have to have these things during the day? They should outlaw them. Well, this week, I was double-trained. Have you ever been double-trained? I never had been double-trained. I came on HWY 14-I live off HWY 14, so Im on 14 a lot. Just past the jail, there is a set of railroad tracks. I got caught by that train. I was a little annoyed and irritated because it was making me late. Finally, I take off for freedom, and I get by K & W, and I got hit by the second train; so I was double-trained. That one decided to stop on the tracks just so I could admire its cargo. It just sat there for the longest time. I just thought about the message for this weekend. I thought, Well, there are things you can control, and there are things you cant control. I cant control the fact that I left the house as two trains were coming, crossing the street I was driving on. I can control my response to those trains. Am I just going to sit here and seethe, be angry, irritated and cranky? Or, can I use this time for something productive? So I made a choice to get out my cell phone and make some phone calls. Who do I need to talk to? What are my messages? What am I forgetting? I spent the time very productively and rather calmly as I waited for the train to pass. There is a saying by Martin Luther. He says, You cant stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can stop them from making a nest in your hair. You can say a mess in your hair too. We cannot stop temptation. We cant stop wrong desires from crossing our minds, but we can do something about how we respond to those temptations when those buttons are pushed. What can we do? Struggling with temptation and the will is as old as the beginning of man. Think about Adam and Eve and their struggle in the Garden for the fruit. Dont eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That didnt work out so well, right? I think about Cain and Abel, and they had a little bit of sibling rivalry there. Cain especially had resentment toward Abel because Abels offering was received, but Cains offering was not; so he started to plot in his mind some revenge-ways he was going to get even. God knew this, so God confronted Cain about the temptation-about his need for control to not enact revenge against his brother. Lets turn there to the Book of Genesis 4 (page 4 of pew Bibles). I think one of the things we need to do if were to resist temptation is to see sin for what it is and what its intention is. I think this passage helps us to see that. In of Genesis 4:6, God says to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it. So we get this word picture of sin like some sort of beast crouching at the door, waiting because its desire is you. Now we should talk about that word desire. When I looked up that word, I saw that it had two meanings. One was a craving of a man for a woman; it had to do with sexuality. The second meaning of the word was a craving of a beast to devour its prey. So the meaning of that word desire depends on the context. Based on the context, what is the meaning of desire? Its of a beast wanting to devour its prey. So God is telling us here that sins intent is to destroy. Sins intent is to devour. Sins intent is to kill, and thats what the Bible says: sin leads to death, so we should not be surprised by that. The problem is that you and I-if were not careful-begin to be at home with sin. If were not careful, we can actually start to welcome it in our lives and become accustomed to its presence. Weve talked a lot about the role of the Holy Spirit in these virtues when it comes to moral excellence, when it comes to knowledge and understanding the Word of God; so it should be no surprise again that we talk about the role of the Spirit in regards to self-control. So in the Book of Galatians 5, Id like to examine what Paul says about the part the Spirit plays as you and I struggle to resist sin-as we have this inner conflict-this inner battle that we go through. Paul says in Verse 16 (page 1155), So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. It doesnt say that God will take the sinful nature away-not at all. He simply says that we will not gratify them if we are living by the Spirit for the flesh the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. So, weve all experienced that conflict. Well experience that conflict today; well experience that conflict tomorrow. It is a part of the human nature, of the sin nature, that you and I struggle with. So he talks about that, and he further talks about the results of that. [Verse 19], The acts of the sinful nature are obvious; sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like. In other words, this is not an exhaustive list. Ive given you a representative sample here. I think you get the picture, Paul is saying. [Verse 21], …I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Well, youve found yourself on that list; I guarantee it. Youve found yourself in several different places. Youre probably a little bit alarmed at the company youre keeping here. It talks about anger; it talks about jealousy; it talks about hatred; it talks about factions and envy. You go, Boy, thats me. Why do you have to put me in a crowd with witchcraft, orgies and all of that? The core of sin is rebellion against God, so Paul puts them in the same list. The second thing you think of is Paul said they shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, and you say, Oh no, Im in trouble because Im guilty of checking off many of these on the list. Well, theres a real important point that you need to understand. That is when Paul says in Verse 21, Those who live like this… That means to habitually practice something. This becomes norm for them. This is their lifestyle. Theyre not struggling with sin and feeling bad when they fall; they basically accepted that as an acceptable lifestyle. It becomes the norm rather than the acceptation. Paul is not saying, Look, if you do these things, you are going to spend a Christ-less eternity. The only thing that causes us to spend a Christ-less eternity is when we refuse to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Paul says a life that is not reconciled to God will manifest these tendencies, these behavior patterns, so he tells us what sin is. Sin causes separation from God. Sin is not something we should take lightly; sin is not something we should coddle and be comfortable with in our life. See sin for what it is: its desire. Its like a beast to devour. Its like a cancer that eats from the inside out. It grows; and it spreads; it causes corruption, and it causes destruction. Were going to watch a media right now which is kind of a humorous way to illustrate the point of how you and I can sometimes get comfortable with sin in our lives. (This is a clip from the movie End of the Spear). Im not hungry anymore [after viewing that clip]. Notice he goes from saying, This is nasty to This is good. Theres an old saying when you drink something or eat something that you dont like, but you keep drinking or eating it: an acquired taste. What was once repulsive becomes something good. Thats what sin will do. [Imagine] the person who is overseeing funds of some sort, and they get desperate for the dollar; so they take from that and feel guilty. However, they continue to take when they continue to face hardship. The next thing you know, it doesnt feel so bad. The next thing you know, theyre really enjoying the lifestyle that they have because of these extra funds that are coming into their life. Theyre no longer feeling guilty about robbing from the till. Its a man or a woman-maybe he or she is single or divorced or having marriage problems. They find a man or a woman theyre attracted to; they become intimate, and they feel bad. They do it again; they feel bad. Maybe as they continue on, they dont feel so bad anymore. Theyre enjoying that elicit relationship. You can go on with examples, but you understand what were talking about. We can become callous toward sin and become accepting of it in our lives. When the Holy Spirit is working in our lives, we come to see it for what it is; and we become repulsed by it. We say, I dont want that in my life. How do I get rid of this in my life? God says there is a better way. In Genesis, when God says to Cain, You must master it, hes talking there about his willpower. The Holy Spirit did not come as He has now, so Cain is pretty much on his own to resist this temptation for revenge. He doesnt fare so well. We live in a better day. We have the Holy Spirit who is promised to the Believer to come and indwell us and empower us to live an upright life. Lets look at what Paul says as we continue on in this text because there is going to be a change. Hes been talking about the horrendous consequences of sin. Now hes going to talk about the fruit of the Spirit. He says [in Galatians 5:22, page 1155], But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Thats the one were on. Against such things there is no law. Lets just leave self-control for one moment and talk about the fruit of the Holy Spirit. One of the most common things or misconceptions or wrong interpretations you and I hear of Scripture a lot is when people talk about the fruits of the Spirit. Theyll say, Well, there are nine fruits of the Spirit. No, there is not. How many fruits of the Spirit are there? One. There is one fruit of the Spirit. Some of you are looking at me cross-eyed. Look at your Bible. How many is that? Is there an S after that word? This is the only passage that talks about this. Paul says, But the fruit, singular, of the Spirit is. There is one fruit of the Spirit, and it has these nine different manifestations or characteristics. Tomorrow I have an important date to keep. I have been asked by Red Robin to be a judge of their burger contest for their cooks. How in the world Red Robin thought of me, that I would want to eat their burgers and judge them, is beyond me. I guess thats one of the mysteries when we get to Heaven that we will find out about how they asked me. Ive been studying my judge criteria. Dont laugh! They award ten points just for the wrapping. You know that thing I rip off to get to the burger? There are like ten points in how you wrap that, so Im going to be more careful with it from now on. You judge it on the patty-how is it cooked? How is it centered on the bun? You judge the bun-is the bun broken? Is the cheese melted right on it? Is it angled correctly? How are the condiments? Are they placed on there the right way? Is it centered in the basked as it should be? You have all these criteria, and they talk about the different characteristics of a hamburger. Now when I judge that burger, I have one burger. It has many different characteristics, but I have a single burger. You have an apple. That apple has many characteristics. You can say, Well, its red. Its soft. Its hard. Its sweet. Its sour. Its juicy. Hard, soft, whatever the characteristics that apple has, youre not talking about multiple apples. Youre talking about one apple. So the fruit of the Spirit has manifested itself through these characteristics. Now heres why this is important. There is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and there are the gifts of the Holy Spirit-plural. The Holy Spirit gives different gifts to His church. So all of us, it says, have a gift-first of all. Second of all, none of us have all the gifts. So we have a combination of gifts. We have some primary gifts, some dominant gifts and some more secondary gifts; but you and I all have gift-mix that the Holy Spirit gives to us. Some of you are servers; you love to serve and help people. Some of you are teachers; some of you are administrative; some of you have the gift of help; some have the gift of leadership or administration. We try to put the right people in the right places. We have GPS; we try to find your giftedness and plug you into the right area. If you dont do that, you have a person in administration, and they say, Look, Im not very administrative. Then we need to say, Oh, okay. Youre not administrative. You shouldnt be in administration. If we have somebody in a teaching role who is not a teacher, thats not going to edify. We need to pull them back and say, We need to find something else for you. Youre not a teacher. We only have certain gifts. We cant say that with the fruit of the Spirit. You cant lay into somebody with your tongue and say evil, bad things about him or her and say, Well, I just dont have the fruit of gentleness. No, you do! You cant blow your gasket and start throwing things and hitting people and say, Well, I just dont have the gift of self-control. Yes, you do! If the Holy Spirit is residing in you, then all these manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit should be present in your life. Every believer should have each manifestation in their lives, so thats why thats important. Now lets get back to the subject matter. We talked about no fruit and good fruit; I do think its possible to have fruit thats not so good. I do think as believers, we can have fruit; but that fruit is not as tasty-not as desirable-as it should be. I think sin causes that. Our family went with another family to an apple orchard in the area. Its a trip we make every year. Its a good orchard with good apples. This year was different. Every tree we went to, the fruit was small. It had bumps on it; it was deformed. It didnt taste right. It didnt look good. We thought maybe they were be more ripe up above on the hill, so we went up on the hill. It was the same deal. [We thought] maybe we were in the wrong region; maybe we needed to go over here, so we went all around that orchard. There was bad fruit everywhere; deformed fruit everywhere; bumps and bruises everywhere. We brought our basket back to the clerk empty-not one apple. Wed bit the apple; it didnt taste as good, so I said, Listen, what happened to your apples this year? She said, Oh, we had a hail storm here. The hail storm hit the apples at a very important time in their formation. All those little dings and bruises-those arent worms. Thats where the hail struck the apples, and it impeded its growth; but they still taste good. I wanted to say, Actually, they dont. They dont taste good. I think thats what sin does. Sin damages us. It sells us short; it robs from you. Your fruit might be there, but may not be as ripe as it should be, as appetizing as it should be or as mature as it should be. So Paul says, Dont be a friend to sin. Look at the destruction, the havoc that it can bring. Instead, you learn to walk by the Spirit. He is going to reiterate that. In Verse 24, he says, Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Now he says that a second and third time. Anytime you see a passage emphasize something two and three times, the author is saying, This is really important. We need to understand what it means to live by the Spirit. Paul says, I really want you to get that. So lets talk about that. What does it mean to live by the Spirit? We saw a bad example of it in Cain with what its like to live by the flesh and use only our willpower to try to overcome temptation. Lets see what it looks like when the Spirit is in control; lets look at a positive example. Lets look at the life of Christ in Luke 4 as He is undergoing temptation in the wilderness. If we want to learn how to be self-controlled, we should look at the master of self-control-the One who was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Verse 1 of Luke 4 (page 1017 of pew Bibles) says, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert. So who led the Lord to the dessert? The Holy Spirit did. Were naïve to think that because the Holy Spirit is present in our lives were not going to undergo temptation-desert, wilderness experiences-because we will. So He leads Him there where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them He was hungry. Jesus is fully God, but Hes also fully man. When He is tired, He needs to sleep; when He is thirsty, He needs a drink; and when Hes hungry, He needs to eat. You and I have probably not gone a week in our lives without food. Most of us have never gone a day without food. I cant imagine what He is experiencing as systems kind of begin to shut down. Youre in a desert; its hot, and your mind begins to hallucinate a little bit and plays tricks on you. He sees a stone there; and the stone, really if you look at it, its white and its round. Its about this big. It kind of looks like a loaf of bread, and He starts to think about that. He starts to think, Wow. I remember the bread that my mother would make for Me. I can just smell that bread. Wouldnt it be wonderful if that stone were bread, and I could eat and satisfy my hunger? Its there that Satan comes on, and hes going to use that desire because Satan uses our desires. Hes not going to temp you with something thats undesirable. Hes not going to wake you in the middle of the night and tempt you to go in the kitchen. You wake up all groggy, Walk into the kitchen. Open the kitchen drawer. Pull out a knife. Cut off your finger. Oh, I really want to but… No, hes not going to tempt you to do something like that. He is going to use natural inclinations and desires. Jesus is hungry, and hes going to use that hunger as a vehicle to tempt. The first thing hes going to do is what he always does: get Jesus to question what He knows. That's the method of operation hes always used: Adam and Eve-did God really say, Will you really die? He puts those doubts in our mind, and he says to Jesus, If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. Give in. Jesus responded, ‘It is written: Man does not live on bread alone. Whats so bad about that? you might say. Why would that be so harmful if Jesus would just turn the stone into bread? After all, Willie Nelson sang the song about it in ‘We Are the World. As God has shown us, by turning stone to bread… God did not do that. It was actually the opposite: He did not turn stone to bread because that would be taking a shortcut. If He turned stone to bread, then you truly cant say He was tempted in all things as we are yet without sin. The truth of the matter is He could have cheated. Instead of trusting the Father to provide food for Him to live, He could have bypassed that and took matters into His own hands. He wouldnt have waited on God and showed a lack of faith and trust. Its the example of the person dipping into the till that we talked about. Im going to bypass. Im not going to trust God to meet My needs, so Im going to rob this organization. Its a person who is single or in a troubled marriage and says, Well, Im not going to wait on God either to bring healing to my marriage or bring a mate. Im just going to bypass all of that and have this affair. Im going to take the shortcut. Again, you could use a number of examples in that area. Im not going to do the hard work. Im not going to trust. Im just going to bypass. So what we see here is Jesus response to temptation. Its not just saying no to sin; its saying yes to God, and thats important. Being in self-control, really-ironically, is a matter of Spirit control. We say self-control in the Bible; its not just your willpower. It is the Spirits power. Its not just self-control. It is Spirit control. It is you yielding to the Spirit; its you saying yes to God. Thats what Jesus did. He said, Im going to trust My Father to meet my needs. Im not going to bypass. Im not going to take a shortcut. Im going to trust and rest in Gods provision. Thats what God has called you and me to do. We talked about how you dont want to estimate the power of sin in your life; neither do you want to underestimate the power of God in your life. We say the Holy Spirit is working in us and through us. That's no small thing. What does the Bible say in the Book of Romans 8:11, if youd turn there as we close? In Romans 8:11 (page 1118), Paul is dealing with the church in Rome, and he says to them, And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you. The Spirit that raised Christ from the dead: is there power in that? When you think of the lifeless corpse of Jesus lying on that stone in the tomb, there is dried blood mixed with spices, crucified, buried for three days-do you think about that lifeless pale corpse all of the sudden being energized and brought back to life and strength by the power of the Holy Spirit? It says the same Spirit which raised Christ from the dead dwells in you. You have not been freed from the presence of sin, but you have been freed from the power and the penalty of sin. You have life a whole lot better than Cain had it. Its not just your willpower. Right now, for sure, if you sin, its because that was your choice; because I guarantee you that if you had yielded to the Lord, if you would have responded to that sin by not only saying no to sin but saying yes to God, you would have overcome that temptation. We all know that were going to fail in certain areas, but failure becomes the exception rather than the norm when the fruit of the Spirit is active in our lives and were growing in the virtue of self-control as we surrender that to Him, yield that to Him and allow His Spirit to work in us and through us. Father, we come before You today, and we ask for Your forgiveness for our sins. There have been times where we have lost control, the times that weve acted upon those impulses, those urges, those desires. We very much let our flesh control our lives. Weve tried to use willpower, and it hasnt worked. We want to surrender to the control of the Spirit today. We pray that Your Spirit work in us and through us, and we will grow in the virtue of self-control, learning not only to say no to sin but say yes to You and Your will. We want our lives to bear good fruit, mature fruit that is good to the taste and pleasing to the eye. Father, we remember the sacrifice of Your Son. We remember the body that was broken and the blood that was shed for the remission of our sins, and we worship You. We give You thanks. In Jesus name, Amen.