This is the sermon preview of sermon five of nine in the preaching series Elect Spiritual Fruit. To watch a recording of this message, visit FBCM’s services and sermons page.
"Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.” -from James 3:3-10
As anyone attending First Baptist Church Muncie during this series has noticed, we've made faux-political signs for the fruit of the Spirit. The one which is most amusing to me is "Self-Control 2024."
I've tried to figure out what makes that particular sign so amusing to me. Perhaps it seems so antithetical to so much of our public life, which is animated by excess or problems exterior to us. Problems and solutions are offered by parties and candidates who promise, "I have a plan" or "I alone can fix it." It would seem odd if a candidate stood up in front of their potential voters and said, "You know some of your problems are your own fault, and could be fixed by self-control." Even when we speak of "personal responsibility," we often mean other people taking such responsibility.
And, sadly, whether through violent demonstration, riots, assassination attempts, the horrible result of the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit (including self-control) has been seen in public life over the last several years.
Self-control is unique in another way, too. It's the only fruit of the Spirit, which we cannot die directly to the character of God. For God does not have any excess passions or sinful tendency within himself he must resist
Self-control is something which you notice when it is not there. Being a relatively new father, I have been acquainted with how impulse control is something which develops in young ones. Babies certainly aren't born with it! Yet it would be a mistake to imagine that self-control happens automatically as we age, or that those mature in age always display superior self-control.
No, as the New Testament repeatedly stresses, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit needed by young and old, by men and women, for the whole church. It is needed because it directs our actions away from our impulses to serve others and our Lord.
James recognizes one small way our lack of self-control starts: our speech. He likens the tongue to a rudder of a ship which, while small, steers a large craft; words can be like a spark which begin a huge fire.
Small habits, indulgences, do not stay small.
But self-control is more than just grit, determination (though that is not to say it does not involve effort). It is a fruit, a result, of the Spirit in our lives just like all the others Paul lists.
So what does it mean that something from outside of ourselves, not a leader or a program but the very Spirit of God, helps is with self-control? It means that we are no longer slaves to earthly things.
Paul's encouragement to the Phillippians might help us understand. His encouragement is to keep our minds on Christ and to remember we are citizens of heaven.
"Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." - Philippians 3:17-21 (NIV), emphasis added
Questions from Christopher J.H. Wright's Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit:
What are the typical forms of lack of self-control that are evident in your culture? In what ways are Christians tempted in the same way?
Where, in your own life, do you see the need for greater self-control? What steps will you take, spiritually and in practice, to cultivate this part of the fruit of the Spirit?
What are practical ways in which you could, by example, carry out what Paul tells Titus to do in the passage above (Titus 2:2-8)?
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