2 Peter 1:5 For this very reason, having made every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control.
Introduction
I want to start with this question: in Peter’s list of virtues in 2 Peter 1:5-7, why isn’t verse 5 enough? By the end of v.5 you have faith equal to that of the Apostles, and you have goodness, which is God’s moral excellence, and you have spiritual knowledge. So you have God’s perspective on things in the way you think, and you love and hate and desire what God loves and hates and desires. You feel like God feels and think like God thinks—isn’t that enough? Why do we need anything beyond v.5? If your desires are godly and your thoughts are godly, won’t that automatically produce actions that are pleasing to God?
It would if it weren’t for … Mr. Sarx. Sarx is the Greek word for flesh. And in the NT, your flesh is the part of you that still wants to behave like an unbeliever even after you become a Christian. The flesh is the source of all kinds of sinful impulses.
How many times have you been doing just fine—thinking the right way, even feeling the right way—everything’s fine… , but suddenly you have a sinful impulse, and before you can even think about it, you’ve already acted on that impulse? And afterward you’re thinking, Why on earth did I do that? You did it because you are a walking civil war.
1 Peter 2:11 … the desires of the flesh … war against your soul.
The Greek word for flesh is sarx. You have an enemy named Sarx living inside you that sabotages your best intentions. Galatians 5:17 For sarx desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to sarx. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. Have you ever heard one of those “more self-controlled than thou” preachers say, “If you really wanted to stop that behavior, you’d stop” You don’t stop because you don’t really want to”? That’s false. Galatians 5:17 is clear that you can truly want to do the right thing but still fail because of the flesh.
Galatians 5:17 … They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.
So no, verse 5 is not enough. It’s not enough just to have moral excellence and godly thinking… —is because you can have all the right desires, but the actions won’t be there unless you can get control over the impulses of the flesh.
Aren’t there some things you’ve done hundreds of times in your life after resolving never to do it again? “I don’t ever want to do this again!” and yet you’ve done it hundreds (or if we’re honest, probably more like thousands) of times since then? You have the ability to say no to it and many times you do, but many other times it seems to be the master and you’re the slave.
Just think how much better your life would be with more self-control. But on the other hand, lacking self-control puts you in serious danger.
Proverbs 25:28 Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
A city whose walls are broken down is going to be a defeated city. As soon as it gets attacked, it will fall. It doesn’t stand a chance. Without self-control, you’re in deep trouble. Your life can be destroyed.
And the enemy attacking your city is a tricky enemy because it lives inside you. The only defense against that enemy is self-control.
So how do you increase your self-control? We’re about to find out because self-control is the next virtue in Peter’s list in 2 Peter 1:5-7. As always, the answer is in God’s Word … or is it?
Why Are Unbelievers so Good at It?
If the answer is in the Bible, why are there secular people who have lots of self-control? Like … every elite athlete in the world? There are people who hate God, never touched a Bible, zero interest in spiritual things, ungodly reprobates… , and yet their self-discipline puts me to shame. Self-control is fruit of the Holy Spirit. So how is it that people without the Holy Spirit can have almost superhuman self-control, they can train like they’re in the first half of a Rocky movie … , meanwhile I’ve had the Spirit living in me for decades and I can’t keep my commitment to go for a walk each day? They can go their whole athletic career without eating a single doughnut, and yet even with the help of the Spirit, my diet completely collapses every potluck.
Could it be what they have isn’t really self-control? No. The Bible uses unbelieving athletes as an example of extreme self-control in 1 Corinthians 9—same word as here and in the fruit of the Spirit. How can that be?
It Comes from Knowledge
To answer those questions, and to learn how to increase our own self-control, we need to back up and remember the context. We’re in this paragraph where Peter is describing in detail what the process of spiritual growth looks like. You start with your faith that you received from God in v.1, and you build seven virtues on that foundation. And the way to grow each one of these virtues is by using the one that came before it in the list. So which virtue comes right before self-control? Knowledge.
2 Peter 1:5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith moral excellence; and to moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and to knowledge, self-control.
So self-control comes from knowledge. It’s something you have to learn.
Titus 2:11 The grace of God … 12 teaches us to say "No" to … worldly passions, and to live self-controlled … lives
It’s something you learn. It’s a matter of knowledge—but knowledge of what? What information enables you to grow in self-control?
Know the Process
Power Over Your Impulses
How about we start with the meaning of the word self-control? The Greek word is egkratiea. kratos means power, control, lordship, or dominion. And the first two letters point that power inward,[1] so the idea is power and control exercised over your inner self. So here’s my definition of self-control: The ability to say no to your impulses when your impulses conflict with your larger goals. Your larger goal is to keep your job so you can make a living… , your immediate impulse is to call in sick and sleep in… , self-control is the power to overrule what your body says and force it to get up and get dressed and go to work. Whether it be a bodily impulse, a craving or some physical desire; or some emotional pressure to say something or to act a certain way—self-control is when you have the power to say no and keep your good intentions in charge.
Part of God’s Nature
And this is part of what makes you human. If you had no self-control, you’d live like an animal. Whatever you felt like doing or saying in the moment, that’s always what you’d do or say. That’s how animals live. But humans are much more complex than animals. You can gain power over your impulses.
When David says, “I have stilled and quieted my soul,” who is the agitated soul? That’s David. But there is also a part of David that had the power to quiet his troubled soul. When Jesus says, “Don’t let your heart be troubled,” who is he saying that to? Your troubled heart is you, but there’s another part of you— executive[2] you—who has the power to untroubled your troubled heart.
You are a complex being made in God’s image, and self-control is part of God’s nature. Remember, the goal of this whole passage is to spell out what it means to share in the divine nature. Even God says no to some of his own impulses in a sense.
Psalm 30:5 His anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime.
When God is angry with one of his people, there comes a time when his mercy shuts his anger off and takes over.
That’s not to say God’s anger is bad in any way. God doesn’t have any sinful impulses, and he’s not in conflict with himself. His wrath is perfectly good, righteous, and holy and it brings him glory. But there comes a point when he decides mercy would bring him even more glory, and God is in total control of which of his emotions he acts on. That’s God’s nature, and Peter’s teaching us how to share in that divine nature. Learning self-control is the process of learning how to utilize that executive part of your inner man.
You Have the Power
And by the way, just knowing that God built you with that executive function is helpful, because you need to know that it is indeed possible to say no even when it feels impossible. Everything you have the power to do, you have the power not to do. But anything you can freely choose to do, you can reject. God gave you executive function. So when you struggle with self-control in some area, make sure you understand that it’s because you have relinquished control to your flesh in that area, and you have the power to take it back.
So that’s what self-control is. And all humans have it to some degree, which is why we hold people responsible for their actions. We put people in prison for their actions, but not deer and antelope.
Christian Self-Control vs the World’s Self-Control
Even unbelievers have some self-control, but what’s the difference between their self-control and Christian self-control?[3] The Bible uses the same word for both, but there’s got to be some difference, because Christian self-control is fruit of the Spirit.
Temporal v Eternal
The Apostle Paul tells us exactly what the difference is between the self-control of athletes and Christian self-control in 1 Corinthians 9, where he talks about runners, wrestlers, and boxers. And he says this:
1 Corinthians 9:25 Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things.
Same Greek word—elite athletes have a lot of self-control. But then he tells us the difference between theirs and ours.
1 Corinthians 9:25 … They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.
The difference is in the motivation. And this brings us to the next thing you need to know about self-control: namely, how it works. Peter tells us that the way to get self-control is through knowledge, and so we’re looking through Scripture to find out what knowledge. First, what it is, and second, how it works.
And here’s how it works: it’s powered by the desire for a crown—a prize—some big, desirable goal.
1 Corinthians 9:25 … They do it [exercise self-control] to get a crown
So the power behind self-control is the desire for whatever prize you’re going after. Self-control is not a stand-alone virtue. It’s 100% dependent on what you value. That’s why you can have lots of self-control in one area and not in another area. A pro football player can have incredible discipline in the weight room, but no self-control at all when it comes to his emotions when something is unfair or with his running his mouth when he should be quiet. Amazing self-control with his body, zero control over his emotions or words. That’s because self-control isn’t an across the board character trait—it’s dependent on your values. He values fame or money or prestige, and that strong desire empowers self-control in the weight room, but it doesn’t give him power over his tongue or his emotions because he doesn’t see failures in those areas as a threat to his goal.
All self-control is powered by desire for a prize. And that applies to both worldly self-control and Christian self-control. That’s what Paul said. Look again at the verse. He doesn’t say, “They do it to get a crown; we do it just out of sheer moral goodness and inner strength.”
1 Corinthians 9:25 … They do it to get a crown … we do it to get a crown
All self-control is powered by desire for a crown. That’s true of worldly self-control and it’s true of the fruit of the Spirit. No one just has that power inside as part of their character. It’s always powered by some reward. The only difference is in the reward. Theirs is earthly; ours is eternal.
When people have trouble resisting temptation in a certain area, they think it’s because they lack willpower, but that’s not true. Every human being has plenty of willpower—all the willpower you’ll ever need. It’s just that willpower is tied to what you prize.
Imagine a woman who has committed to give up sweets for a month. She’s home alone, the ice cream in the freezer is just calling her name, and finally she just can’t resist any longer and caves in. She’s going to just have one bite. But then she has another, and another, and the whole time she’s thinking, “I need to stop, but I just can’t—I don’t have the willpower.” Then she hears her husband pull into the driveway. Immediately she puts the lid on the ice cream and stuffs it in the freezer. All the willpower in the world.
Imagine a man looking at porn. “I need to stop this, but I just can’t.” He hears his wife coming, and in an instant, clicks out of whatever he’s looking at or slaps his laptop closed.
In both cases, they instantly have total control. It’s not even a struggle. Instant, total self-control.
That is very strong willpower, and it came from their desire for a prize. In this case, a negative one. The prize of avoiding shame or disapproval or conflict with certain people. The prize can be positive or negative. Two sides of the same coin—if you really want something, then you also really fear the loss of that thing.
Christian Self-Control
So the definition of self-control in general is the ability to say no to your impulses when your impulses conflict with your larger goals. The definition of Christian self-control is it’s the ability to say no to your impulses when your impulses conflict with eternal goals. A person who does not have the Holy Spirit has zero ability to generate enough desire for unseen, eternal prizes to enable self-control.
So in those two examples, with the ice cream and the porn, was that Christian self-control? No, because it was powered by an earthly, temporal prize not a spiritual, eternal prize.
Know the Prize
So what’s the eternal prize? That’s my next point—in order to learn Christian self-control, you need knowledge of the process and knowledge of the prize.
And Paul identifies the prize as anything that’s eternal. Two people can do the same action, one for temporal reasons and the other for eternal reasons.
If you’re trying to lose weight, and it’s because you want people to be impressed with you, and you want more comfort and acceptance in this world—you might have enough self-control to reach your goal, but that’s not Christian self-control.
If you want to lose weight to honor God, to be fit enough to be able to serve others for more years, to be a good steward of your body to please God—then your self-control is righteousness and does honor God. That’s Christian self-control.
Paul’s Prize
In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul talks about his own self-control, which was legendary. And he tells us how he pulled it off—the same passage where he talks about the athletes. All my life, I’ve misunderstood v.27, where he says “I beat my body and make it my slave.” I always thought he was teaching how to get self-control. If you want to make your body your slave, beat it—train hard, like an athlete punishing his body in the gym.
But now I realize, that’s not the method. That’s just a description of the self-control.
1 Corinthians 9:26 I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave.
All of that is a description of his self-discipline. “This is how self-controlled I am. When my flesh comes up with some dumb impulse that conflicts with my goal, I say, ‘Shut up Sarx!’ and pop it one in the nose until it backs off.” Wow Paul, that’s pretty amazing self-control. How do you manage that? What prize do you desire so strongly, or what loss do you fear so deeply, that it empowers that kind of control over your body? Here’s the motivation:
27 … so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
So it was a negative motivation, which is fine, as long as it’s something spiritual. “Disqualified” is a very weak translation of that word. Normally it’s translated “rejected” or “worthless.” It’s a very strong term—so strong that the fear of that happening terrified Paul to the point where it gave him amazing self-control. Any impulse that threatened to push him in that direction was an absolute nonstarter. Just like a bodybuilder who says, “Go to MacDonalds for lunch? No way!”
So learning Christian self-control is mainly a function of recalibrating your values so you have strong enough desire for eternal prize that it enables you to say no to impulses that threaten those things. Can you imagine how much self-control you would have if your fear of God’s displeasure were as strong as your fear of rejection or humiliation or embarrassment in the eyes of people? Can you imagine how much self-control you would have if your desire for God’s smile on your life were as strong as the Olympian’s desire for that gold medal?
So what is the prize? It’s anything God has promised. You increase your self-control by increasing your desires for anything God has promised, and by increasing your fear of those things he warned about.
So if you have an area where you lack self-control, ask yourself, “What earthly prizes are enough to motivate self-control?” (like your boss walking in on you or money or avoiding embarrassment). And then ask, “How could I shift from prizing those things to prizing some of the things God offers as motivations?
If you have a sin or habit in your life that you can’t seem to let go of, the power to do it will come from desire for a greater prize. It takes a passion to conquer a passion. Thomas Chalmers: “We only cease to be the slave of one appetite because another has brought it into subordination. … There is not one personal transformation in which the heart is left without an ultimate object of beauty and joy. The heart’s desire for one particular object may be conquered, but its desire for to have some object is unconquerable. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one.”
How to Change What You Prize
Now, you might hear all that and say, “That’s a lot easier said than done. I’m aware of a whole lot of spiritual prizes God promises, but they just don’t really motivate me all that much. How do I change my desires and values so that my desire for those things is strong enough to give me self-control?”
This is where we see some of the genius of the order of Peter’s list. If Peter put self-control first in the list, we’d throw up our hands and say, “How do I get that?” But it’s not first; it’s third. What comes before it? What’s the first virtue Peter tells us to build onto the foundation of faith? Moral excellence. Your Bible might say goodness—it’s God’s moral excellence: loving what God loves, hating what he hates, desiring what God desires. You can’t ever get to self-control without first shaping your desires so that you love what God loves. And how do you make that happen in your heart? What’s the starting point that comes even before moral goodness in the list? Faith—trusting the promises. You change your desires by trusting the promises. That’s the short answer. If you want the long answer on exactly what that looks like, go back through the last two sessions.
Know the Pain
So what kind of knowledge will help you with self-control? You need to know the process, know the prize, and third, you need to know the pain that will come with failure. You need an understanding of the consequences of failing to resist various impulses.
An Olympic swimmer can resist eating a Big Mac and fries because if he tries to eat that stuff, with every bite he takes, he can just feel that .02 of a second coming of his time in the 50 meter that will be the difference between a gold medal and not even placing. He knows exactly what the consequences are for giving in to various impulses.
Even if you really, really desire an eternal prize, it won’t help you resist an impulse if you’re not convinced giving in to that impulse will jeopardize getting the prize. If you really, strong crave nearness to God, will that help you resist the impulse to nurse a grudge toward someone or entertain envy? Not unless you’re 100% sure that entertaining those thoughts will cost you intimacy with God. If you think you can still be just as close to God even though you give in to those impulses, then your desire for nearness to God won’t empower self-control. You have to understand the loss that will come if you give in to that impulse. That’s what I mean by knowing the pain.
One reason people often fail at diets is they don’t really believe a particular lapse will derail their goal because you can always make up for a failure. Even if you really, really want the prize, if you’re not 100% convinced that a failure in this particular instance will jeopardize that prize, you still won’t have power for self-control.
It takes a lot of knowledge to understand the consequences of sin because most of them aren’t immediately obvious. When you’re tempted with a sin, you might just think, “I’m not supposed to do that.” But do you know why? Do you understand what damage that particular lapse in self-control will do to your heart? Do you understand the damage it will do to your faith? To your prayer life? To your joy?
Do you even understand the natural, earthly consequences? The book of Proverbs is great for that. Proverbs speaks more about self-control than any other book, because it’s a book about how the world works. And it doesn’t work very well for people who lack self-control. Just think of how many proverbs warn about the consequences of an unbridled tongue.
Proverbs 13:3 Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin.
Or all the proverbs that warn about the consequences of failing to control your temper. Or your appetites. Or your spending. Or laziness. Or impatience. Life is really hard for people who lack self-control.
But beyond the natural consequences, there are spiritual consequences. Do you understand that if you allow some angry thoughts to run after hurts you, it could plant seeds of bitterness that, ten years from now will dominate your life and be next to impossible to get rid of? Do you know that indulging thoughts of self-pity will render you incapable of enjoying God’s kindness?
Self-control requires understanding exactly what’s at stake each time a particular impulse of the flesh pops up. Sometimes you can’t say no to certain things now because of impulses you gave in to weeks and months ago that you had no idea are connected to this issue.
Know the Enemy
So, know the process, the prize, and the pain. Now one more—know the enemy. You don’t have to resist all your impulses. Many of them are just fine. But you do have to know which ones will be harmful to your godly goals.
Whatever your prize is determines which impulses you need to resist. The athlete has to resist the impulse to overeat or to be lazy, but not necessarily the impulse to talk too much. You can be a blabbermouth and still get a gold medal. The athlete knows which impulses are his enemy, but what about you? Do you know your enemies? Which impulses will get in the way of your spiritual goals? Answer: any ungodly impulse. Those are the enemy.
Titus 2:11 The grace of God …12 teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled … lives.
So Christian self-control is the power to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions. Paul calls them the acts of sarx (the flesh).
Galatians 5:19-23 The acts of the flesh are … sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. … 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is … 23 self-control.
The thing to notice about that list is it isn’t just physical actions. It has things like drunkenness and sexual sin, but it also has jealousy, selfish ambition, hatred, and envy. People usually don’t think of resisting impulses toward envy or hatred with self-control. But remember the definition of self-control—power to control your inner self. It’s not mainly about controlling your actions; it’s about controlling the impulses the drive your actions.
I think those preachers I mentioned before who think they’ve pretty much mastered self-control probably think that because they don’t struggle with some of the more obvious acts of the flesh like drunkenness or fornication. And the more subtle acts of the flesh going on inside their hearts go undetected.
Are there some Christians who have mastered self-control? Is it mainly just an issue for younger people? According to Titus 2, there are four categories of Christians who need to improve with self-control: older men, older women, young women, and young men. He says other things to each group, but the one thing that is included for every category is self-control. Then Paul sums up that section by saying this:
Titus 2:11 For the grace of God … 12 teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives.
Self-control is an issue for everyone who has the flesh, which is everyone.
There are a lot of Christians who don’t know what’s sinful and what’s not sinful. They don’t know what the acts of the flesh are. They feel guilty about things that aren’t even sin, and they indulge thoughts and attitudes that are sinful without even realizing they are sinful. It takes knowledge to understand which thoughts, which impulses, and which attitudes you need to resist and which ones aren’t sinful and are okay.
Know yourself
To increase your self-control, your knowledge of your own heart. You need to understand what motivates you, what doesn’t motivate you and why. What are your vulnerabilities? When are you most tempted? What tends to strengthen the desires of your flesh? What tends to strengthen spiritual desires?
Recently I’ve been studying the brain and how the ADD/ADHD brain is different from a typical brain. And that’s given me a lot of insights about why certain areas of self-control, like task initiation or staying on task or time awareness don’t work the same in my brain as for others. So I have to come up with strategies to guard me in my areas of weakness. If you want to learn how to control yourself, you need to know yourself. You need to understand who this beast is you’re trying to control.
Know God
Know God How to Walk by the Spirit
This is the most important one. Once you understand what the impulses of the flesh are, you need to know how to defeat the flesh.
How do you defeat the flesh? Well, in that same passage where Paul listed all the acts of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, he said this:
Galatians 5:16 Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. … 18 If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. … 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Pretty straightforward. Walk by the Spirit—verse 18 says be led by the Spirit, v.25, keep in step with the Spirit. Do that, and you won’t be controlled by the impulses of the flesh. So if you want self-control, you’ll have to learn how to keep in step with the Holy Spirit.
Power from God
You can see why I say this is the most important one, because it shows how to tap into divine power. I don’t know how many sermons I listened to on Self-control that gave the simplistic solution—just let the Spirit bear his fruit. If you’re stuck in the all or nothing, it’s me or it’s God thinking, you will be perpetually confused by the Bible.
Here’s a rule of thumb for all Christian virtues: You can’t do it without the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit won’t do it without you. It’s like when God promised the Hebrews that he would give them the Promised Land. He said, “I’ll give it to you,” but to receive that gift, they had to fight a whole lot of battles. And when they didn’t do it the way God said, they didn’t get the land. In the war against our flesh, God said, “I’ll give you victory.” But if you don’t fight the way he said to fight, you don’t win.
So never stop learning about how to walk by the Spirit. The more you let the Scriptures, inspired by the Spirit, guide your thoughts, and the more you follow his leading every time you know the right thing to do, no matter how small, the more power you’ll have over the flesh.
Conclusion
Does that seem like a lot of stuff you have to know? Don’t let that discourage you. You don’t have to be a theologian to have self-control. Every Christian has some self-control, and the more you learn, the more capacity you’ll have for more self-control. You’re never trapped in the bondage of out-of-control passions, because there is no upper limit to how much self-control you can gain as you increase in knowledge.
Summary
Moral excellence and knowledge (thinking and feeling like God) aren’t enough because of the impulses of the flesh. Self-control must be added to resist those. It comes through knowledge. Knowledge of the process (it’s powered by desire for an eternal prize), the prize (anything God promises), the pain (know which impulses must be resisted—acts of the flesh), the enemy (the flesh), and God (walk by the Spirit).
[1] The Greek preposition en, which becomes eg when it’s before a k. When en- combines with nouns of action or authority (like krateia), it often implies the scope of that action (power over the inner man) rather than just its location (inner strength). For example, en-nomos ("in law" = "law-abiding") suggests adherence within the sphere of law, not just "law inside."
[2] Neurologists talk about the executive function of the brain. There are certain regions of your brain that light up when you are regulating your emotions and taking control of your impulses. But it’s more than just your brain. There is an executive part of your heart and soul too. There is a part of your spiritual being that has the power to take control of the other parts of your being.
That term the neurologists came up with is actually pretty accurate—executive function. They’re off track if they think it’s only a function of the brain. It’s a nonphysical nonmaterial entity that uses certain parts of the brain. Of all the various parts of your inner man—heart, soul, spirit, mind, will, emotions, desires, attitudes, motives, appetites (your inner man is even more complex than your body and brain)—of all those interconnected nonphysical parts, there’s one part that’s the big boss. It has the power to take control of the other parts or to give control over to them. It’s the part of you that can say to your bodily impulses—“Okay, you have the con. I’ll let you control the ship for a while.” And it has the power to take control back.
[3] Some Christians might be uncomfortable with the very term “self-control” because we put our confidence in God, not in ourselves. But self-control is a biblical term and it’s an accurate term. We saw in Titus 2 that it’s God’s grace that teaches us to say no. But the Spirit doesn’t say no for us. He teaches you how to say no, and you’re the one who actually says no. God works in you to will and to act, but it’s you who’s doing the willing and acting. Satan is in the mix, tempting you, but it’s you he’s tempting. It’s you who either gives in to the temptation or resists.
