The Fruit of the Spirit: Self-Control - Audio
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As the kids are going, I think it'd be appropriate to mention it's Veterans Day weekend. We have a lot of veterans in this congregation and some current servicemen so I just want to say thank you for that, thank you for your service. We're finishing up the fruit of the Spirit today which with what is by far the worst fruit of the Spirit, it's yeah, I don't like this one at all so I'll be preaching mostly to myself and hopefully you can help me after, but let's take a look just so you know what it is. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith in those generals and self-control, self-control it's what it sounds like, there's nothing special in the Greek here, it's just the ability to restrain yourself when you want to do something and you know you shouldn't, it's not complicated but it is really, really hard. Not for everyone and by the way, note here, fruit of the Spirit. The Greek there is singular, it's the fruit of the Spirit so like there's one big fruit right? It has all these different facets to it, so it's got, there's nine different facets that Paul brings out here, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faith in those generals and self-control. The reason it's singular is so that no one gets off the hook, you can't be like, well I got seven out of nine so I'm good, that's not how it works, you're really supposed to be developing the entire fruit of the Spirit and we've talked about each one in succession and we're going to talk about self-control today and to do so we're going to look at really probably the most, one of the most wild examples of self-control throughout scripture and that is Jesus' time of temptation or testing in the wilderness in Luke 4. So let's read that text together and then we'll jump in, we'll pull it apart and kind of see what the biblical view of self-control and how to do it is. So Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, by the way, if in Greek it can be either if or since. I disagree here with the new national version, I think it's since you are the son of God, tell this stone to become bread. Jesus isn't confused about whether or not he's the son of God, neither is the devil. But because he's the son of God he has certain power, right, and so the devil's like, you should use that power, since you are the son of God, tell this stone to become bread. Jesus answered, it is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone." The devil led him up to a high place, showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world and he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor." It's been given to me by God, the Father, and I can give it to anyone I want. If you worship me, it'll all be yours. Jesus answered, it is written, "Worship Yahweh your God and serve him only." The devil led him to Jerusalem, had him stand at the highest point of the temple. Since you are the son of God, he said, "Throw yourself down from here." It's written, "He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully. They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." Jesus answered, it is said, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." The devil had finished all of this tempting or testing. He left him until an opportune time. There's a lot going on here. This is a really rich text. We could do an entire series on this text and so we're going to miss some of the good
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Self-control starts with the Spirit and by staying in the Scripture.