Markers of Maturity - Self Control

Series: Markers of Maturity

This week Pastor Matt talked about Self Control and gave us some helpful pointers to reflect on as we grow in this area of our lives

Main texts: Romans 7:14-25, Galatians 5:13-26

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Amen. Who's up for God's word this morning? Yeah. I hope so. Because I got a word. Cool. So um we're doing our uh our new series. Um, Judith started this one off a couple of weeks ago. Then we had like Palm Sunday, and we had Easter Sunday, and that was awesome. Hey, our our first Easter, we love, you know, we love being your pastors. It's incredible. But our first Easter uh leading the church, it was it was special for us. Um but um our new series, Markers of Maturity. It says signs that we are growing into who God has called us to be. These are the signs, the oh, okay. The things that maybe signify our maturity, but maybe the things that maybe we need to grow into a little bit. Oh dear me. It's horrible having to grow and change into things, isn't it? Anyone up for a challenge? Not me. No, thanks. It's been a tough week. Anyone up for a no, no, no, I'm not Matt. I'm tired. Anyone tired? I know, I know exactly what you're saying. Um dear. I've got a message this morning. Um, is that alright? Yeah, come on, so let's believe that it's it's from God's heart, you know. Um yeah. Easter was great, man. Um had too much chocolate? Anyone have too much chocolate in their house? See, we've got two different children. We've got Joshua and we've got Charlotte. And Charlotte's like, can I have something, Taddy? Can I eat this? Can I have this bit of can I open this? Can I do and Charlotte's like, let's go, let's go, let's go. Josh is like, wow, I've got loads of eggs, and they're all in a tower. He's built a tall tower, right? And he just admires. It's the same with his like he's got Christmas money from like three Christmases ago. He just keeps it as I don't know about you, but um I don't know where he gets that from, but it's certainly not Judith. Uh Charlotte, however, Charlotte's habits, but yeah, um we we eat too much chocolate, don't we, at Christmas? Um, anyone's eggs gone already? It's all gone. Yeah, Ruth's gone already. Okay. Um, but it's hard all that chocolate in the house, not to scramble lot, right? Um I've been on a little bit of a journey with my eating. Um I've well I'm hoping I've been healed because I don't have any pain, but you know, um I've got gallstones if you don't know. Um so normally I would have gone wild as well, you know, wild with the chocolate. But um have you ever have you ever wanted to not do something? And then you end up doing precisely that thing. Anyone? Just me. Okay. Uh have you ever like maybe not wanted to do something? I don't want to do that. I'm not gonna do that. And then you do it. Yeah? Have you ever like, did I say that already? Sorry. Have you ever wanted Do you know what? In preparation for this message, I'm like, I've got to get that stuff right, I've got to practice saying that, and I failed the first time. Doesn't matter. Have you ever said, I'm gonna do this? This is something I'm gonna do. And then not being able to follow through. You've not succeeded. We're all the same, I think, on this level, aren't we? We've all got the same thing going on here. Um, I've been trying to get up early. I always get up early anyway, but I've been trying to get up early to prepare my messages in the holidays. It's a little bit harder to get up to get up early. Um, I just keep hitting the snooze button. Any snoozes? Yeah, and you you know. Um maybe you're a doom scroller. That's I don't know if that's an official title for this. You're only when you do just a doom scroller. Maybe you have impulsive spending habits. Maybe you love a gossip, maybe it's your anger. Are you you're angry? Maybe you're a procrastinator, maybe it's the chocolate, maybe it's the chocolate, the overeating, maybe it's drinking alcohol, I don't know. Listen, there's no judgment here, I promise, right? Remember, I said this a second ago. I've got a word for you, I believe. Uh, don't feel like anyone's pointing the finger because none of us are perfect. But if we're looking at markers of maturity, the things that indicate our growth, um, the signs that are telling us we're on the right track, I thought it might be good to look at self-control this week. How does that sound? Sorry, sorry, not sorry, but sorry. Um, I don't know about you, but sometimes um I feel really mature in my faith. I'm like, hey man, I'm doing all right. Yeah. And then sometimes I'm like, what? What? I don't even I feel like a child. And Judith spoke two weeks ago. If you've not heard that message, man, it was good. She talked about maturity, she just opened up the topic of maturity, what it means to grow, what it means to not, to grow out of our childlike faith, to grow out of the things that feed us, to grow into what uh we're being called to be. Um, but I'm a bit, I think we're all a bit the same, aren't we? I do the things that I don't want to do, and I don't do the things that I actually really want to do. Um if that sounds like you, it's okay. Everyone, take a big deep breath. It's okay. I promise it's okay because you're not alone, and it's not just because I'm the same, because I am, but the apostle Paul found himself feeling the same way. Uh, we're gonna read from Romans 7. Uh, in this in this here, Paul uh Paul's writing to the Jews about the law and how Jesus has overcame sin. But I think it's relevant to us this morning. It says, it says, We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do, and if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that God that good itself does not dwell in me, that is my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out, for I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, I keep on doing. For if I for if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I that do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work. Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For my inner being I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law, of sin at work in me. What a wretched man I am! I think we all feel like that sometimes, do we? Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself, in my mind, am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature, a slave to the law of sin. Like I said, relax. If the Apostle Paul can struggle with this stuff, then we can too. And we all do, right? Um, we don't like to admit it, you know, it's not something that we parade and tell everyone about our deepest inside thoughts and feelings, right? Um but it's excuse me, but it's like sometimes like there's a battle going on within us, right? Um to do what's right, to not do what's wrong. That's our flesh, our selfish desires. And it's it's at conflict, isn't it, with the new creation that we have been born into, that we've been made into because of Christ Jesus. Let me let's read from Galatians 5 as well. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but you do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and div devour each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. There's just some really good advice in the Bible, isn't it? Verse 16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with one another, so that you do not do whatever you want, but if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Here we go. The acts of the flesh are obvious sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. Man, that's an interesting list of stuff, isn't it? I wonder where you fall in that lift list of stuff. Some of that stuff's really easy to count, to kind of say, that's not me, right? Um other stuff not so. I warn you as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. Here we go. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against these things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit, let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. So here we have us human beings struggling to do what we want to do, struggling to not do what we want to do, and feeling like there's a conflict within us. We've agreed on that, haven't we? Then there's this, in Galatians 5, there's this list of stuff that's just, you know, the flesh. It's described as the acts of the flesh, and then we have the fruit of the spirit. Okay? The bad stuff, the good stuff. Um and uh I and I'm guessing that most of you of you have heard a message on the fruit of the spirit. But um, I guess if we were looking for the ultimate markers of maturity, it would be this stuff, wouldn't it? So you'll probably, over the next few weeks, we'll probably come back to this a number of times. So here we are, we have the victory over sin and death through Christ Jesus living within us, but we still have earthly desires of the flesh. It's natural to do the things we don't want to do and to not do the things that you actually want to do. So do we just give up? No. That for me is where the maturity comes in. Okay, and I believe that we can build self-control. We can build it. It's like a muscle that we need to exercise. Does it sound good? Should we try and build some? Should we try and build that muscle up? Yeah, you're gonna get it wrong. Yeah, the desires of the flesh, man, that's hard stuff to overcome. But let's build up some strength in this area of self-control, amen? Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow,'s this? Uh so I I wondered if I could, you know, uh give you some advice. Is that all right? I suppose that's maybe why you're here. Um, number one, let's cultivate our relationship with the Holy Spirit. See, and I'll always come back to this point. You've probably noticed me do this one loads of times, but if we get our relationship with God right, the rest is just overflow. Okay? If you struggle with, I don't know, anything on that list, debauchery, I don't know. Maybe you do, maybe I shouldn't joke, sorry. But if you struggle with anything on that list, then I can guarantee you one of the strongest weapons you've got in your self-control bag is to spend time regularly with Jesus is to get that quiet time right. If we spend time with him and we invite him into every area of our lives, let's just rewind. If we spend time with him and we invite him into every area of our lives, then the joy, the peace, the forbearance, the kindness, the goodness, the faithfulness, the gentleness, and the self-control, it can take care of itself, I believe. Um Psalm 119, verse 11, it says, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. When we take when we make his word central in our lives, we're setting ourselves up for that win. Philippians 4 8 says, Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. When we spend time with God in his word, when we ask the Holy Spirit to help us, when we are get when we get quiet, like when we put aside the noise, you know, maybe that's on a morning, maybe it's on an evening, I don't know. Maybe it's not a regular thing, it doesn't have to be. But what is important is that you are spending time. Maybe you have worship music on, maybe I don't know what it looks like for you, but a regular, quiet, intimate time with Jesus will serve you when it comes to those areas that you struggle with self-control. Okay, it's the fruit of the spirit at work in us. So if we allow and we submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit, it's gonna naturally over time work itself out. So let's be people who are gonna spend time with God, pray, read his word, apply his word, and listen. Like get quiet. It's really hard with the kids running around. I get it, but finding a quiet moment in your day to stop and listen to the Holy Spirit, be alone with him is one of the it's probably the biggest, strongest thing you can do if you want to do the things you want to do and you want to stop doing the things that you don't want to do. Okay. Uh number two, a little bit more practical, this I guess. Set radical boundaries. Matthew 5, 29, and 30. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. I hope he means like figuratively. It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. We've already heard this morning about not letting your right hand know what your left hand's doing, right? Cut it off and throw it away. It's better for you to lose one part of the body than your whole body go into hell. Wow. I don't know what your eye is that maybe you need to gorge out this morning. But we need to maybe set some radical boundaries. Maybe, maybe you need to get rid of your phone. Maybe you need to ask a friend to help you lock it down, to change the password, to have it shut down on an evening at a certain point to stop the doom scrolling. Maybe you need, like I said, share your password. Um maybe maybe you just need to empty the snack jar. You know, it's really easy to read that scripture there, isn't it? And think, oh yes, I must, I must. But like in reality, I don't I don't know if Jesus is calling us to cut our own eye out, but he is asking us to make a change that costs us, right? Um, you know, I've been heavy as long as I can remember. All right. Um overweight. Let's call it what it is. Now I'm hopefully I'm on the journey of overcoming that by the grace of God. I believe it's a miracle that you know I am where I find myself today, right? And if you want to know the story, come and talk to us. I haven't got time today. But um what I'm saying is I understand that stuff, right? Um it's really hard when there's loads of crisps in the house, not to eat loads of crisps. All right, and uh when we're setting radical boundaries, trying to do the things we want to do and not do the things we don't want to do, maybe that's something that we need to make practical steps in order to change our behavior. Um I don't snack on chocolate and crisps. I snack on sugar snap peas, and there's none in Aldi. This last week I've been really struggling because there's not been any in Aldi. Uh, they've sold out and they haven't got any in. And I'm like, Judith, if you could if you go to the shop, check for sugar snaps, check for sugar snaps. But they're super healthy and there's something I can snack on, all right? Uh and uh and uh and sugar-free jelly, you know, like on an evening you've had your tea and you just kind of sat watching a bit of telly, maybe just relaxing. It's really easy to go, ooh, I could just eat uh so I have I have a little bit of jelly. Alright. Those are practical boundaries that I've placed on myself, okay? And I and I believe that you can do the same thing for your area, whatever it is that you need to cut out, all right? Um it says in 2 Timothy verse 22, flee from the evil desire desires of youth and purge, I'm sorry, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. How do we flee evil desires? Flee evil desires. Do we just pray and hope for the best? For me, it needs to be something practical to set ourselves up for a win. For me, fleeing is a practical thing. Okay. Um at my work, I've got a really good friend. Let's call him Jimmy. All right, uh, because one day Jimmy might come here. Um, but Jimmy is a really solid top bloke, he's got a he's got a beautiful heart, but at the moment, and over the last couple of years, he's been really struggling because uh he doesn't believe that the way our school is being led is the right way, and he's got himself in a little bit of uh a negative place. He's going around in circles and he's thinking, so anything that we do at school now is really negative, even if it's really positive, he's got something bad to say about it. Okay and that's really sad for me because Jimmy's like a really good friend of mine, and there's another guy, um, let's call him Sid, right? And they like they're they're fun. Guys, to be around, right? I really like their company, but when they're together, I kind of cope anymore. I've had to remove myself from that situation because I don't want to be someone who's caught up in gossip and negativity. All right. Um I've got a new alarm clock. It's awesome. If you're ever struggling, Judith hates it, but it's awesome. Get this, right? This is just an example of us practically fleeing, doing something different for a different reward, right? Because um gone are the days when I can wake up to the radio. It's a wake up the alarm clock, which she doesn't like that. That's what happens when you get married, all right? Um so and I've got an I've got a watch that'll just vibrate, vibrate me awake. I'm like, oh, it's time to wake up, and I can tiptoe out the door, and Judith, just still asleep. Any blokes know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Except when Judith gets, sorry, I wasn't gonna go there. I won't get when Judith gets up, it's like slam this, mash now. Making all the noise. But to be fair, to be fair, I do I do get up earlier. Like I do get up early, but so my new alarm clock's awesome, right? Because what I'll just snooze, I'll sit in my sleep now, Avalon, to snooze my watch, okay? I can before you know it, my early start is no longer an early start. So I've found an app for my phone, right? What you do is you you go downstairs, find something, right, that's got a barcode and scan the barcode. And then uh and that now my alarm will go off, but in order to stop the alarm, right, I've got to get up, go downstairs and scan the barcode, right? Seems a bit silly, and that sounds funny, right? But that's me showing self-control. Okay, self-control can be a supernaturally God-given thing, but it can also just be me being really wise and making a change practically to the way that I live. The self-control for me getting out of bed early doesn't happen in the moment. Doesn't happen when I'm sleepy. It happens the night before when I set my alarm. And I set up that alarm and I hate myself in the morning, but 10 minutes later I'm I'm really pleased that I've done the thing I wanted to do and shown the self-control. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, me getting out of bed isn't fleeing evil, but maybe the thing you need to overcome is let's keep going. Number three, let's make ourselves accountable. Um, James 5, 16. Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other so that you might be healed. There's so much strength in walking the journey together, guys. Maybe you need to find someone that you trust and ask them to help you set the boundaries. Okay? They might know about a wonderful alarm clock and be able to point you in the right direction of it. Maybe you just need to, maybe if you don't know anyone in our community that you can trust, maybe you just need to start the journey of building the trust. Maybe, uh, maybe actually you need to become the person that people need you to be so that you can build the trust so that they can then approach you to say, help, I need help. How can I do this on my own? And and it doesn't have to be me and Judith. It doesn't have to be Ruth, it doesn't have to be David and Angela. We can do this for one another, guys. All right, and that's it's what's beautiful about community, isn't it? And it's happening, you know. We know we hear stories of just people helping each other out. Um yeah, let's let's be the kind of community that we can help each other out with this stuff, you know, you know, like on a Sunday morning we we we say, come on, if if you've got a need and you and you're gonna pray, we're gonna pray. Pop your hand up if you've got a need. And some Sundays we're like, these guys are awesome, they're walking in the spirit, man. There's no need in this church because no one is putting their hand up, but I don't believe it. There's a level of vulnerability as a community that we're called to, I believe, that sometimes we just need to step out into, guys, it's scary. It's really scary to come and find someone and say, listen, can we go for coffee? Like we need to talk about a couple of things. But if we're accountable to one another, we can really, really make some positive progress in the areas all of our lives that we need to show self-control in. I'm bringing it into land, y'all. Um, number four, let's ask God for help. Philippians 2, 12 and 13. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. God is at work in you. God is at work in you, and it's it's not in our own strength. We can we can sometimes think about the flesh versus the spirit inside of us being uh a striving. That the fleeing, I've talked about, you know, maybe it's a battle, but it's in his strength that we can see victory in these areas of our lives. Okay, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his purpose, the power at work in you. Amen. Come on, let's maybe let's ask God for help. Um maybe you want to close your eyes, maybe you want to just hold your hands out. But God, we come to you now as people who ain't perfect. I mean, we are perfect through what you've done, but sometimes we do things we don't want to do, and sometimes we don't do the things we know we should do. And Holy Spirit, we need your help. God, will you help us to set boundaries? Will you help us to build rhythms where we can meet with you regularly? Will you help us to build trust so that we can bear each other's burdens, that we can share and be accountable to one another. Will you help us, Lord? We want to stop doing the things that we don't want to do, the things that don't honor you, whether it's gossip or spending, doom scrawling, procrastination, God. We want our lives, our our our wills, our hearts, our motives to honor you and honor you only. And we uh we want to please you, God. We want our our every single days to please you. From the moment we wake up to the moment we lay our heads to sleep, God, we want to honor and please you. Will you help us? In fact, Holy Spirit, even now, will you place things on our heart? We surrender, Holy Spirit. Speak to us.