Gal 5:16 …let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. (NLT) 5:22… the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23a gentleness, and self-control. (NLT)

1) love, joy, peace,

2) patience, kindness, goodness,

3) faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Let me give you a small quiz to see how well these Fruit are seating in your mind…

1) The fifth Fruit of the Spirit is _________________

Kindness

2) The two Fruit that start with the letter "P" are: __________; _____________

Peace; Patience

3) The seventh Fruit of the Spirit is: ________________________

Faithfulness

4) The two Fruit of the Spirit that start with the letter "G" are: _________________

Goodness; Gentleness

5) The only Fruit of the Spirit with three syllables is : ____________________

Faithfulness

6) The Fruit of the Spirit that I least exhibit is: ___________________

I've heard that some of you have other people who have been "helpfully" pointing out to you the answer to that last question… that's not much fun, is it?

Some of us…perhaps many of us would go right to the last fruit on the list and point out "Self Control" as our least exhibited fruit. That is not without reason..

You remember the list of "Sins of the Flesh" in Galatians 5 that comes just before these verses with the Fruit of the Spirit? The Fruit of the Spirit are God's answer to to eliminate the Sins of the Flesh from our lives….

Acts of the Sinful Nature:

    1) sexual immorality- any thought or deed outside a marriage covenant

    2) impurity- soiled living you don't want exposed                                                

    3) debauchery- readiness for any sinful pleasure

    4) idolatry- putting anything in God's place                                                      

    5) witchcraft- sorcery, anti-God/anti-Christ focus

    6) hatred- hostility; opposite of love                                                                   

    7) discord/fighting- quarrels/strife/

    8) jealousy- desire for what someone else has                                                    

    9) fits of rage- uncontrolled temper/emotions                                                               

  10) selfish ambition- desire for selfish advancement                                              

  11) dissensions- opposite of unity/criticizing

  12) factions: disliking people who are different                                                       

  13) envy; embittered desire to take from another

  14) drunkenness- control by other than Spirit                                                        

  15) orgies- unrestrained sinful behavior 

Back in July…. I took the list of the Fruit and matched it with this list and we asked ourselves the question: Which Fruit of the Spirit are designed to be God's antidote for which Sins of the Flesh?

We were able to take the fruit of patience and match it to several sins on this list as God's antidote to that sin… we could match faithfulness, and peace, and kindness with the sins that a harvest of those fruit, in us would eliminate from our lives.

So…let's try that same exercise with this last fruit of self-control. Which of these sins of the flesh would a harvest of self control eliminate out of our lives. Would a growing harvest of the fruit of self control help us eliminate:

    1) sexual immorality Yes!

    2) impurity- soiled living                                                  Yes!

    3) debauchery- readiness for any sinful pleasure Yes!

    4) idolatry- putting anything in God's place                                   Yes!                  

    5) witchcraft Yes!

    6) hatred- hostility                                                                   Yes!

    7) discord/quarrels/strife Yes!

    8) jealousy                                                      Yes!

    9) fits of uncontrolled temper                                                         Yes!

  10) desire for selfish advancement                                               Yes!

  11) dissensions-criticizing Yes!

  12) disliking people who are different                                             Yes!  

  13) envy Yes!

  14) drunkenness- control by other than Spirit                                  Yes!               

  15) orgies- unrestrained sinful behavior  Yes!

We've got a Winner! The Fruit of Self Control is God's antidote to every one of the Sins of the Flesh!

That's not accidental…nothing God ever does is… When you see something startling in the Bible, always look for it's meaning….. because there always is one.

If you look closely at all nine fruit you could categorize them like this…

Fruit 1: Love Chief Attitude

Fruit 2-4: Joy,Peace,Patience Inner Attitudes

Fruit 5-8: Kindness, Goodness

Faithfulness, Gentleness Outward Actions

Fruit 9: Self Control Chief Action

If you buy into that and realize that self control is a very important fruit…then we need to follow up with the question:

Webster - Self Control = Control of one's self!

Control of one's emotions, desires, actions, etc.

That sounds easy! Self Control is just saying no to wrong actions and attitudes…

It's saying no to poking the snooze button one more time..

It's saying yes to brushing your teeth…

It's saying no to eating a half gallon of ice cream in one setting…

It's saying yes to getting to work on time and putting in an honest days work…

It's constantly grabbing yourself by the bootstraps

Grabbing yourself by the knap of the neck (whatever that is)

Being the captain of your fate…the pilot of your soul…

If we apply this knowledge to the Sins of the Flesh vs Fruit of the Spirit screen we just had up here you'll see how easy all this is…

If you're having a problem with sexual immorality, just tell yourself, you are not going to do it again… it's so easy!!!

Repeat three times; "I won't do that wrong action again" and you'll be free of that temptation for the rest of your life….right?

If you're struggling with hatred, quarreling, jealousy… just (as Webster said) control your emotions. Just say to yourself "quit that"…and that will be that!

If you're given to "fits of rage"…just promise that last person you exploded to that you will never do that again and your problem will be history!

If you struggle with drunkenness, just tell yourself you will never drink again and all those overwhelming desires will dissolve into the air.

We all know what I am saying is a bunch of nonsense! If we each had a dollar for every promise we ever made to ourselves or to others to stop our sinful actions and attitudes…

We could pool all those dollars and quickly finish the new church up the road…and probably have enough left over to build one of the new rear wings….

Huge industries have developed around this human deficiency. If any of that were true the self help industry…. the multi-billion dollar diet industry…. the "everybody's got an un-used piece of exercise equipment in their back room" industry… would not exist!

Yet the facts continue to stare us all in the face…

All any of us need to stop the repeated sinful actions and attitudes that show up in our daily lives is the self-control to "just say no" !

Here's a little secret to write down in your little black book…

Biblical self control is not something that comes from deep within yourself !

All of God's "Fruit of the Spirit", including self-control,… are implanted in you by God

Philippians 2:12- …Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. (sound like bootstrap theology…)13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. (NLT)

If we miss this we have missed the most important truth about self-control and it will throw off every other aspect of our understanding of the other Fruit.

God never intended for us to be transformed in our attitudes and actions by an act of our own will.

He intended that He would transform us as we become obedient to His will

It's easier to understand if you stop thinking of this fruit as

Self Control vs. Spirit Control

Do you remember that is the basis of what this whole passage in Galatians 5 is really all about?? It never was about what any of us could do to fix ourselves. It has always been about what God would do to fix our sinfulness…if only we will let him.

Galatians 5:16-26  So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For 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….

 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control…. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (NIV)

God is saying: If you will allow me, I will implant my own Spirit within you. When you face temptation to sin…and you will… You can draw on the power of my Spirit within you to say no to the temptation. The more you allow my Spirit to lead you into righteous attitudes and actions….. the stronger and stronger…and stronger…. you will become over satan's attempts to derail you.

I was reading a classic story in Scripture this week about a lack of self-control: Look at the piling up of one wrong action after another…

2 Samuel 11:1 In the spring of the year, when kings normally go out to war, David sent Joab and the Israelite army to fight the Ammonites. They destroyed the Ammonite army and laid siege to the city of Rabbah. However, David stayed behind in Jerusalem. 2 Late one afternoon, after his midday rest, David got out of bed and was walking on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath. 3 He sent someone to find out who she was, and he was told, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her; and when she came to the palace, he slept with her.

This piling up of one wrong action leading to another and another is not foreign to any of us…

1) Had David gone to do what God had told him to do he wouldn't have been in a place to be tempted.

2) Had he not walked out onto the back porch when he knew Bathsheba would be freshening up… You think this was the first time she had done that? You think David didn't have to go into the corner of the roof and climb up onto the pillar, hook his leg hang out over space just so he could happen to see her?

3) If only when he saw her he had repented and just walked away…

4) If only he hadn't sent his messengers to get her, If only he hadn't forced her to sleep with him… If only he hadn't then had her husband killed…

We have all followed this trail, toward one sin or another, many times…perhaps even this last week

When I was a teenager… the Hobe Sound North Beach was a wilderness. For a while the county turned a blind eye at a growing trend toward nude sunbathing there and my friends and I would go there "to look for shells"…

SHELLS??? Oddly, my shell collection never materialized..!!!

I was caught up in the David syndrome… I went there and there they were… and I went again just to check if they still were there and sure enough they were… I did nothing wrong…I was just the victim, in the wrong place, at the wrong, time, over and over again.

Now-days you can go "shell collecting" with just a few clicks on the computer mouse…

I don't know if that is your weakness…but I know something is….

"I'd be willing to improve that sinful area of my life…but I just don't have the will-power"

You don't need more will-power…. You need Spirit power!!

What God is saying to you is not:

If you'll control yourself…I will give you a little push from behind???

What God is saying is:

If you will empty yourself of the need to be in charge of your own will and allow my Spirit to indwell you… allow my fruit to begin to grow into a harvest inside your soul… I will begin to change your sinful attitudes and actions from the inside out!

Conclusion:

Some of you have resigned yourself to the fact that certain sinful deficiencies will have to be a part of your life for as long as you live.

I'm here to tell you, this morning, that that is simply not true!.....

Romans 8:12 Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. 13 For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. (NLT)

Romans 13:11 This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living. 13 Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. 14 Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires. (NLT)