00:36 Amen. Thank you for joining me. Good to be here today.
00:40 Welcome to the cafe. I hope you’re having a great day, a great week. We are in part three of a three-part series on the biblical art of self-discipline.
00:53 The Bible word would be temperance. How do we live and exhibit temperance? How do we get ourselves under control? And you may be thinking, well that’s not a fun topic, Brother Clark. But it is.
01:03 And the reason why it’s a fun topic is because it’s important to God. If it’s important to God, it should be important to us. And if we want so badly to improve in life, do we not? We want to improve in health and fitness.
01:17 We want to improve our finances. We want to improve our relationships. We want to improve our housing or automobile or business or whatever it is.
01:28 We want to improve all these things. Do we not want to improve for God? Do we not want to get better for God? You know, I had a preacher for many years who helped lead me to the point of surrendering to preaching. Man, I had been saved as far as I understood.
01:48 I’ve been saved. But he really was a very influential in my life. And this man, Michael Rode from Glory Bound Baptist, now at I think New Buffalo Baptist, he would always say, if you’re not growing, you’re dying.
01:59 And I have to agree with that. As a Christian, if we’re not looking to grow, then oh, how we are just falling off. And those that are stagnant, those that are just going through the motions, we’re not really living for God.
02:11 He doesn’t expect us to go through the motions. He made us amen. He said has only begotten to die for us.
02:16 Amen. The least we can do is go ahead and live for him and grow for him. And so that’s kind of the prelude here.
02:21 The first message dealt with our example for self-discipline, which is Jesus Christ. He is our example. Amen.
02:31 We looked at the traits of Jesus being so loving and caring and truthful and diligent and meek and gentle and good and righteous, and how all of these elements exhibit temperance in the life of someone that has all power, all control and is almighty and sinless and perfect.
02:47 It took great temperance for Jesus to live the way that he did. And then we looked at this idea of who’s in control, the idea that we have a battle going on internally versus thy will or God’s will versus my will.
03:00 Amen. And that battle is strong. And we see Christians dealing in that battle every day.
03:06 And God has said, I’m going to let you fight the battle, but I’ll equip you if you’re willing to be equipped. And we talked about Galatians 5:25. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit.
03:16 And of course, our text verse here, Galatians 5:22-23, the fruit of the spirit, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance against such there is no law.
03:31 And I made the point that temperance is why I should say the Holy Spirit preaching through me made the point I don’t wanna take any credit, is that temperance is kind of the linchpin of these other ones love, joy, peace, and so many others. We have those because we live under control and in godly, godliness in all that we do.
03:52 And so thirdly, here, we’re looking at how we live and what that reflects on others, or how that reflects to others, we are to model this behavior for the benefit of ourselves and others.
04:04 You know, we really need to think about how we live. Sometimes I know personally, what will convict me to make a change is how my family views me.
04:13 So if I’m doing something small, maybe in the world’s eyes, just maybe just bumming out at night or something. After a long day, I try to be mindful of all what does that look like to my son?
04:27 How about my teenage son, and he sees dad over there on the couch just sitting there. Okay, maybe for 20 minutes, an hour fine, but longer than that, maybe that’s not a good example for him.
04:36 Amen. Maybe I need to be spending time with my family or in God’s Word or working hard or whatever it may be. And so sometimes we need to think about how this behavior or Christian self control can be modeled so others can see it.
04:49 You know, Paul thought of this 1 Corinthians 9:26-27. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly, so fight I not as one that beateth the air, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, less that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. Well, this is a wonderful verse here.
05:13 1 Corinthians 9:26-27. I encourage you to look it up. Spend some time in that verse.
05:18 Paul’s running this race as a Christian. Amen. And he’s not fighting uncertainly.
05:22 He’s not beating the air. Amen. He’s not shadow boxing.
05:24 He’s not trying to do something that is unfruitful. He keeps his body under subjection so that by any means he’s preaching to others, he himself is found unworthy, a hypocrite.
05:40 I learned early on when the Lord called me to preach, to repent to the Lord every single day, to be heavy in prayer to the Lord, to be heavy in His Word as much as I can, to study His Word, to trust Him.
05:54 I learned that because how could I get up there and preach to anyone, not even a single person, if I myself was not living what I’m preaching. Oh how the congregation will find that one out. Amen.
06:04 They’ll find it out quick, fast, and in a hurry. Amen. We are to be examples for others.
06:09 We are the Christians they are looking to. And how do we act? You know, think about this. If we are a Christian, right, if you are a Christian, if I’m a Christian, if we’ve been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, by grace alone, through faith alone, and Jesus Christ alone,
06:23 if we’ve been saved and someone else looks at us, are we exhibiting that self-discipline that God expects us to exhibit so that we can properly model that to someone else?
06:32 So that we can be like Paul and say that we’re running the race, but we are not being found to be hypocritical.
06:40 We’re not being found not credible. Can we wear the title proudly or do we hide the fact that we’re Christians? Have you ever thought to yourself, man I hope they don’t find out I’m a Christian.
06:51 Have you ever called customer service and said okay I’m gonna take the Christian title and put it in the drawer for a minute.
07:05 Have you ever, whatever, had a really bad meal and complained to the waiter and said well I’m gonna take my Christian name tag off for a minute. I’m gonna hide my Bible in my purse.
07:12 Look, we need to model this behavior of self-control and self-discipline and understand others are watching us, even those we interact with, so that when we are trying to share the love of Christ, we must be showing the obedience of Christ in our own lives.
07:28 There is no need to falter. You know, as I preach this message, I thought about the idea of someone listening and saying, is this brother preaching some kind of works salvation? I’m not. We’re saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Jesus Christ alone.
07:42 This is not about salvation. This is about a closeness with God. This is about showing God that you love him.
07:48 Jesus himself said, if you love me, keep my commandments. Okay, that’s pretty simple there. There is no need to falter.
07:53 This is completely in our control, like getting anything else under subjection or discipline. You know, you’re able, hopefully, Lord willing, to get up in the morning and brush your teeth every day, so they don’t all fall out.
08:05 Or you’re able to get up every morning and get dressed and go to work or to school.
08:12 Or if you’re retired, to go tend to the things the Lord had you to tend to. Or if you’re in the ministry, you’re able to get up every day and go do those hospital visits, amen, or the work on the church building, or the work on the sermon preparation, or whatever God’s called you to do.
08:27 So you’re showing discipline in your lives, right? And if you’re able to do those things, then why not? Why not be able to let the Holy Spirit rule and reign through you?
08:38 As I mentioned in part two of this message, amen, we are to let the Holy Spirit reign within us.
08:45 Galatians 5:25, if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. That’s capital S. So we are to let the Holy Spirit do this for us. And we are to rule over that fleshly Spirit of ours.
08:54 Proverbs 25:28, he that hath no rule over his own spirit is like acity that is broken down without walls. And that we understand that to be a Bible time city, a city that could easily be invaded and overthrown. And so we are to let the Holy Spirit go to work for us.
09:13 You know, oftentimes obedience, and God helped me to say this correctly, is kind of getting out of the way and letting God move. So the idea is, let me just depart from sin and just pray and read the Bible and spend time with the Lord, and then the Holy Spirit won’t be grieved.
09:28 You know, and then what happens? Well, now the Spirit’s leading you and you’re living a temperate life.
09:34 You know, the idea is that we don’t have to be super Christian when we do this, but we just simply have to trust God that if we are living as he called us to live, that he’ll give us this ability to do this.
09:44 He wouldn’t have made this such an important point in the Scriptures through what Paul wrote, through how Jesus lived, and through even what Peter wrote.
09:54 God wouldn’t have included this in the Scriptures and had us to do this if we were incapable of doing it.
10:01 Think about what temperance did for Paul. You know, his great ministry came by the grace of God working within him a temperate spirit that he could only be accounted for as credible.
10:11 So we think of the fruit in Paul’s ministry, there was great discipline behind all that Paul went through, right? And you read about, he writes about his sufferings in the epistles, he’ll write about being whipped with the cat of nine tails, he’ll write about being shipwrecked, he’ll write about being stoned, he’ll write about being cast down in a basket from a building, and write about all of these things, near-death experiences, and yet he was so disciplined, he went back and kept doing it.
10:44 He was obedient. He understood that his circumstances didn’t dictate God’s favor upon him, but rather that the Holy Spirit should not be grieved, and he lives for God, and he’s gonna do what God calls him to do. And that credibility shined through.
10:59 You know, Felix, the governor, the Roman governor of Caesarea, who came to visit Paul when Paul was arrested, and try to see what this whole gospel was about. When Paul talked about Jesus, of righteousness, of temperance, and of judgment, what did Felix do?
11:17 The Bible says he trembled. Think about it, the governor trembled because of Paul’s words were credible, right? So Paul’s words were really the gospel of Christ, and those were credible, amen.
11:30 Paul exhibited outwardly what he knew and practiced inwardly, and that made him very credible.
11:38 Do we exhibit outwardly what we know and practice inwardly, and are we credible, right? You have to think about the role of temperance and self-control in being a witness to others.
11:47 If you’re around somebody every day, and you don’t speak a word to them about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and only your conduct could communicate to them what it is all about, would you be able to show through your conduct the love of Christ, the obedience of Christ, the glory of Christ, the meekness and long-suffering of Christ, the humility?
12:12 Would you be able to show that through your conduct, through your own lives? I often tell my congregation, if you kept a journal every day, what would that journal say at the end of the day?
12:21 What story would it tell about your priorities, about your life, about who you are as a Christian, or would you even know, would there even be any evidence that you’re a Christian in that journal?
12:31 These are tough questions, but they’re important to think about and act upon, because it’s important to God. 2 Peter 1:2-9, Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,
12:50 through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
13:04 And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.
13:16 For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
13:30 Think about that. What Peter is saying here is that if we are living temperate and all these other godly qualities, then we are living as Christ intended us for us to live.
13:43 And if we are not living that way, then what we have done is we have forgotten what Christ did for us on the cross.
13:46 Let’s never forget what Christ did for us on the cross, and let’s use that as motivation to get ourselves under control, to live for him, and to enjoy the peace and comfort and the closeness of God that comes with living a temperate life. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it.
14:03 Practice this. Practice what I’m preaching. I’m gonna practice what I’m preaching.
14:08 And until next time, take care, God bless, and amen.