SE110302
CHARACTER UNDER CONSTRUCTION
1 Self-Control
INTRO:
Who said the following?:
"With all the power that a President has, the most important thing to bear in mind is this: You must not give power to a man unless, above everything else, he has character. Character is the most important qualification the President of the United States can have."
It was Richard Nixon, in 1964. That was 10 years before he resigned the Presidency to avoid being impeached amidst the shame of the Watergate cover-up.
Who said the following?:
"Undeniably, character does count for our nation, and this week we celebrate the importance of character in our individual lives. Core ethical values of trustworthiness, fairness, responsibility, caring, respect, and citizenship form the foundation of our democracy, our economy, and our society."
It was President Bill Clinton in a speech during National Character week, October 1997. That was exactly two months before Monica Lewinsky scandal broke out.
I bring you back to these two key moments in our national memory, not because these two men were evil or because they were the victims of right wing or left wing conspiracies. I mention them because they were victims of something much more serious: tragic lapses in Character.
Let’s define our terms. Character is not success, or talent, or even reputation… it’s who we are when no one’s looking. It’s the strength of your moral sense under the surface, away from the public eye. That’s character.
- Character is confronting an old fear, a bad habit, an intimidating person,
- Character is doing the right thing, even when the wrong thing is legal or acceptable to others.
- Character, is enduring a short term evil because it will yield a long term good.
Character is our world’s most pressing need. When polled in the Washington post, in 1998 Americans said something is seriously wrong with our nation’s moral compass.
Two questions were asked:
- first, regarding morals and values are things in this country going in the right direction or have they gotten seriously off track. 76% said seriously off track.
- Second question: are you more concerned that the country will become too tolerant of behaviors that are bad for society or that the country will become too Intolerant of behaviors NOT harmful to society. 66% said we’re getting too lax
We know something’s wrong, but most of us don’t know what to do about it. We just know that lack of character is killing us… It’s…
- at the root of failed marriages which are at the root of a whole generation of brokenness and pain.
- Lack of character caused Watergate, Filegate,
- Lack of character spawned the Enron scandal, the Savings and Loans scandal, which cost billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.
- Lack of character has caused environmental disasters,
- has drug out wars that should have ended and restrained wars that should have been fought.
- It has caused the epidemic of battered wives and children.
- It’s somehow behind a national sexuality that seems out of order
- It’s spawned a whole generation of people who mistrust all institutions, church, government, family and business.
Our world is crying out for strength of character! Now, let me quickly state that no matter how wonderful your character is, it will never be wonderful enough to earn God’s approval. Heaven cannot be earned because God’s character is above any standard of character that we can ever attain in this life.
This will be amply illustrated on the fourth week, when we talk about a most important character trait to God: Faith - which is a sort of lynch pin for the full development of truly sterling character. But to the extent that we get on that plan, the world will be a lot better place.
The best way I could think of to encourage the development of each character trait we’ll talk about, was to illustrate using two people from the Bible who show the two sides of a character virtue: one where it’s present and once absent.
SAMPSON
For self control the first guy’s name is Sampson. Sampson was born during a time when the Jews had no king and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Without a king to hold them accountable, they needed their own strong moral sense IE: character so they would hold THEMSELVES accountable.
But that didn’t happen. There was a lot of freedom and no responsibility. So God allowed that nation to be ruled by the cruel Philistines for 40 years. After that period of discipline, God had a plan to rescue his people.
He sent an angel to a childless couple to tell them that they would have a baby the following year and this baby must be treated special. No strong drink, no fancy or harmful foods. He must be totally dedicated to God so no razor on his head and the result would be, Sampson who have amazing physical strength and would become a national deliverer, as an invincible warrior.
After he grows up, we find him traveling and he sees a beautiful woman who was a Philistine. Sampson knows God has forbidden the Jews from marrying foreign spouses so their hearts would not be lured away from devotion to the one true God. His parents plead with him to not do it. But Sampson says:
"She’s the one I want, go get her for me."
In other words, I want what I want and I wants it now! No waiting, no control of my sexual desire or my desire for marriage. Instant gratification because I have a craving I cannot - I will - not deny it.
When the Bible talks about self-control it uses a word that means to "rule the appetites of your body." The great irony in Sampson’s life is that the very body that God wanted Sampson to harness and use to deliver his people, eventually was too strong for Sampson himself and became the death of him.
He went ahead and married that Philistine woman and at the wedding reception he presented all the Philistine wedding guests with a riddle and a bet. If they could guess the riddle, he would pay 30 garments, if they couldn’t - they would pay Sampson 30 garments. At first no one could guess the riddle, so someone blackmailed Sampson’s fiancé to get it out of him.
Now Sampson hadn’t told anyone the riddle - not his bride to be or his mother or father. Probably because he didn’t trust his new Philistine in-laws - they didn’t fear God and they didn’t have rules like the Jews did about telling the truth and keeping promises and against bribery.
So he tried to keep it from her. But she manipulated and cajoled, and through tears and fits and nagging, finally she coxed Sampson to give up his secret.
Friends, I want you to observe Sampson’s downward spiral, that all comes from a lack of self control. He couldn’t control his sexual desire and was marrying a woman he shouldn’t marry, and now he couldn’t control his tongue and keep a secret.
So he told his wife and she told the others and Sampson lost the bet. The next day, he exacts vengeance on the Philistines by destroying all their crops. You see any self control there? They in turn kill his bride and her family and start a war with the Jews to get Sampson. But Sampson overpowers a whole company of Philistine soldiers because of his amazing strength.
See, his physical ability bails him out, but does he learn to control his body? No. He continues his downward spiral: next we see him hooking up 20 years later with a prostitute in the land of the Philistines. His body is still not under his control, it rules him. And it would have killed him, but again he escapes ambush because his great strength.
Next we see him fall in love with another Philistine woman, Delilah. Again his sexual passions overcome his better judgement, this is not good marrying material. She’s an easy target for blackmail. And Sampson again without any verbal self control, tells her the secret of his strength, this long uncut hair.
With that… Delilah betrays him for money as she cuts his hair in his sleep, and he’s made a slave to the Philistines who pluck out his eyes and make sport of him in their temple.
Friend, this is how a lack of self control works… you let your passions and appetites rule in a little area, and then you cannot take back that control in another area where the cost is greater. Until you can’t say no to anything, you’re helpless and led around by your appetites which have you by the nose ring.
A modern example of Sampson are some professional athletes. They’ve been gifted by God with such amazing physical skills, they can subdue any foe with these strong, coordinated bodies. But some never learn to harness that power through self-control - look at them belittle their opponents, show them up.
We think that’s a little area, but then we hear almost every month that another one has lost control off the field and the lack of self control is tanking them:
- Jason Kidd basketball star admitted to beating his wife
- Shawn Kemp has 7 children by 5 different women
- Warren Moon football great admitted to beating his wife, later divorced
- Ray Lewis all star linebacker involved in triple homicide
- Charles Barkley throws a man out of a barroom window
- Randy Moss, last month drove his car at a police officer dragging her a hundred feet.
Like Sampson, these guys are so used to their strength bailing them out: their money buys friends and acquittals. But like Sampson, there comes a day when their strength fails them, and the check comes due.
Friends, is your body under your control? Or is your body in control of you? Are your passions under your control? Or are they in control of you? Is your tongue under your control, or is it in control of you? The Bible says:
James 1:26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.
Some people think it’s a sign of strength to let their sexual passion or their tongue run wild. You’re a person to be reckoned with. The Bible says the exact opposite:
- Prov 29:11 A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.
- Prov 5:8-9 Keep to a path far from immorality… lest you give your best strength to others… and at the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are spent, you will say, "How I hated discipline!"
JOSEPH
That’s what’s written on Sampson’s tombstone. But there’s another guy, Joseph who has something different written on his. The son of Jacob, the father of the Israelite nation, he lived long before Sampson… he was sold into Egyptian slavery by his brothers.
Once there, things turned out OK for Joseph because God blessed him. His master, Potiphar, noticed that everything Joseph was in charge of prospered under his diligent care. So Potiphar put him in charge of everything, turning the administration of the whole household over to Joseph. All Potiphar had to worry about was eating three meals a day, Joseph did everything else.
Now Joseph is noted in the Bible as a strikingly handsome man. And Potiphar’s wife took notice of him. She became infatuated with him. So she found a moment when they could be alone and she says, "come to bed with me!"
She just bypasses coy approach and goes for direct. The Bible summarized Joseph’s response in three words:
But he refused.
That’s it. He said no. He has this woman throw herself at him and he said,
"no, I won’t do it. I won’t sin against God, and I won’t violate my master’s trust." Eventually the seduction increased in intensity, she physically grabbed him and he fled.
Now, compare this response to Sampson’s and ask yourself about the difference character makes. Sampson’s body was so in control of his spirit that he went looking for sexual trouble. Sexual trouble comes knocking uninvited at Joseph’s door and yet he resists. God blesses him for it, though in the short term, it hurts.
Joseph is a man of self control in the little things, he controlled his anger at being sold into slavery, he disciplined his life into a controlled regimen so he could be perfectly trusted, and when the real test comes you know he’s going to pass because he’s brought his passions under control in the little things.
With Sampson, you know he’s going to fail the test because his given is passions free reign in the little things. He meets a prostitute, you know he’s going to sleep with her. He meets a treacherous woman, you know he’s going to spill the beans.
And at the end of the day, Sampson has some short term pleasures and some long term pain. He died with his eye’s gouged out in disgrace. Joseph became 2nd in command of all of Egypt.
CONCLUSION
Now, I tell these stories to renew the desire in you and me to want to live lives marked by self control. Chances are most of us already want this, but we find ourselves saying, I can’t do it. My passions, my sexuality, my tongue, my body hungers they rule me. So how can I have self control when I feel powerless?
Three things for you to apply first to your mind, then to your body and then to your spirit.
1. You need a change of mind. You must accept the idea that your mind was meant to rule your body. Some of us need to eject the false idea that we are merely a bunch of atoms and that our passions are who we are as mere animals… so giving in to them is natural and good.
Jesus once looked at his disciples and noticed their lack of self control, and he said, "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." And by that he meant there’s a part of us that wants to tell our bodies to do the right thing, the godly thing. But then our bodies do not want to cooperate. So rather than give in to this reality, or grow numb, or use that as an excuse and say, it’s too hard, you’ve got to stay sharp mentally, Jesus says.
Your mind was meant to rule your body. St. Francis of Assisi had a saying, he called his body, BROTHER ASS. Which is to say, my body is my pack animal, given to me as a gift, meant to do work for me. But something is seriously wrong when my body calls the shots.
Go back to Sampson, God meant for him to use his body as an instrument of his righteous judgement. His body was good, it was a gift. It was meant to carry a load. Instead, his body became in charge, telling him where to go and what to do… and his strength was wasted.
Friend, maybe you have to have a change of mind. To say, no I will run the show. God made my mind to be in control of my passions. And if I’ve surrendered the leadership role, it’s time to take it back and stop making excuses for why brother ass is in control.
2. Your body needs to be trained by new habits. If re-trained with God’s help, our bodies become great pack animals capable of amazing amounts of good works: They can get up earlier, their sexual passions can be restrained and channeled properly, their enjoyment of food can be managed so as to not self destruct and become less useful and more of a burden to you.
However, your body will rebel mightily to be subjected to new habits because our flesh is part of a fallen world. It exerts a powerful southward pull on our lives. If we understand how powerful that is, we won’t let our bodies into certain settings, we won’t let it look at certain things.
What people tend to do once they start to seek self control they say, "oh, my mind is strong, my mind is calling the shots, so I can put my body at risk." No! Go back to Joseph.
What did he do when a beautiful woman who was not his wife made sexual advances towards him? Did he stand there and say, "my mind is strong. Maybe I’ll just see if we can be friends." No! He ran. He got his body out of a situation where it’s weakness would overwhelm his mind.
We have to do the same. Once your body is in a compromising situation, it’s too late. You’ve already lost. Once you’re
- surrounded by those friends,
- watching those websites, or movies,
- at that restaurant,
- once you’re talking about that person,
- once you’re in the mall, you’ve already lost.
You’ve got to get your body out. New habits. So you can’t go here or there, you can’t do some things others do with impunity. Does that make you weak? That makes you strong! You’re the person of great character.
3. Finally, your spirit. And this is the most important application because no matter how much your mind changes and your body changes it’s habits, if our spirits are still cut off from God, we’ll be fighting a losing battle. We’ll want to do the right thing, but be helpless to carry it out.
BUT, we can gain a NEW power by getting a renewed spirit within. If you accept Christ as your leader and forgiver, the Bible says, God comes by his Spirit to forgive you and personally live in you… and this same Spirit brings with him the power to display new fruit of godly character.
Self Control is one of those things. If you become a follower of Christ today, it will no longer be a matter of HOW DO I GET SELF CONTROL. You’ll ALREADY have it, by the Holy Spirit who lives in you. The question will be, are you taking hold of the self-control God has already given you?
Taking hold of it means you reach out by faith and say, I am under self control, because God lives in me. I have the resources already here to say, NO or say YES. I have this power, not by willpower but by God himself. I just need to grab hold of it. When my body rises up and demands to be in charge, I pray and ask God to strengthen my mind to lead, and to subdue my body daily.
Paul the Apostle said.
No sloppy living for me… I’m staying alert and in top condition, I subdue my body, it’s not going to overtake me. I won’t be caught napping.
Friends, I maintain that most of our problems with self control, after we become Christians have nothing to do with a lack of power. Christ followers HAVE power totally available to them. It’s that they do not access the power they have because there’s something we don’t want to give up.
Let’s not blame God friends. He’s given you a solution for you mind, your body and your spirit. The question now is all in your camp… will you take him up and become a man or woman of character?
