2Pe 1:6 ...and with knowledge self-control...
I made at least two big mistakes approaching this subject. One, I thought, "This is my WORST problem. Who am I to talk on this?"; and two, I said last time, "This is the ultimate in you-do-it."
It's easy to feel empty on this virtue when you've been looking at Joseph, and Daniel, and Jesus as examples. I doubt I'd have been smart enough to run from Potipher's wife, frankly. Not sure I would have looked at a plate of roasted pheasant and said, "May I please have celery and green beans?" And I'd be willing to bet I would have had to stop and think when James and John wanted to blast that village in Samaria with fire from on high. But here's where that is wrong thinking on self-control.
You see Moses and anger issues- issues that left at least one man dead, and himself shut out from the promised land literally at the door. And Moses was described thus:
Num 12:7 Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house.
Num 12:8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?"
Yes he failed at self-control- and he paid a price. And yet, God spoke up for him.
You see David- he abandoned self-control in the matter of Bathsheba and her husband. He paid for it, not only with the death of a child, but with the one big red mark that the Lord marked against him...
1Ki 15:5 because David did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
And how about Peter? Where anger overcame Moses and lust took down David, fear took down Peter:
Mar 14:29 Peter said to him, "Even though they all fall away, I will not."
Mar 14:30 And Jesus said to him, "Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times."
Mat 26:74 Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, "I do not know the man." And immediately the rooster crowed.
Mat 26:75 And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, "Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly.
But for all their failing here, they still were reconciled. Moses finally reached the promised land on the Mount of Transfiguration; David was promised that the Messiah would come from his bloodline; Peter was given charge of "My sheep." That takes care of my first mistake. God will restore us when self-control fails; but it comes with a price. And it does.
But what about mistake #2- don't we HAVE to work at self-control? I believe that in various ways, Jesus is teaching me this week that there is a problem of perspective here. Part of it came to me when I listened to a message on this passage:
Mat 16:5 When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread.
Mat 16:6 Jesus said to them, "Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees."
Mat 16:7 And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, "We brought no bread."
You see, they had seen Jesus MAKE bread from nothing, not once but twice- and never considered He wasn't concerned about physical things. He was talking about the things that lead a man astray from Himself. We may fail at self-control- but where is our HEART at?
At this point, I want to look at two more bad examples. The first came to me in last week's sermon. Nebuchadnezzar had just saw Shadrach, Mesach, and Abed-nego supernaturally saved from his fiery furnace. But there was a part of this he didn't grasp:
Dan 3:28 Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king's command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.
Blessed be God. But, in case he can't handle things himself, and needs MY help...
Dan 3:29 Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way."
If no other God can do this, why would He need the decree of man? But Nebby was about to get a lesson in this:
Dan 4:30 and the king answered and said, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?"
Dan 4:31 While the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, "O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you,
Dan 4:32 and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will."
And after the 'seven times' had passed, Nebuchadnezzar accepted that God needed no help:
Dan 4:34 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
Dan 4:35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?"
Dan 4:36 At the same time my reason returned to me....
Nebuchadnezzar's self-control fail was in pride. And in a most horrifying way, he learned the thing I missed- self-control is A GIFT FROM GOD. I could work at it the rest of my life, and I won't get anywhere. I need to stop 'bringing the bread', and learn how to access the gift.
Then this morning as I type, I saw another example- Solomon. God had asked Solomon to name a gift, and He would give it. Solomon asked for wisdom, with a very good motivation- to rule this people well. But he would have been better off asking for self-control; for no sooner had he received all the gifts God gave with that wisdom than:
- He acquired horses and chariots from Egypt, which Moses expressly forbid kings to do in Deuteronomy 17;
-he acquired more wives than is readily believable, which was the NEXT thing Moses forbade;
-I'm guessing he didn't do the third thing Moses required- make for himself a copy of the Law, or else he wouldn't have done things one and two;
-and so many other self-glorifying things, such as building himself a house to rival the Temple for God, and stiffing Hiram for the bill:
1Ki 9:10 At the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the LORD and the king's house,
1Ki 9:11 and Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold, as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.
1Ki 9:12 But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, they did not please him.
1Ki 9:13 Therefore he said, "What kind of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?" So they are called the land of Cabul to this day.
"Cabul" meaning "good for nothing". (And apparently, over the years, this description passed on to us in the word Galilee.) And for all this self-glorification, at the end of his life, he spent 12 chapters of our Bible looking it all over and seeing it was "Vanity, and a chase after the wind" (see many spots in Ecclesiastes). His wisdom served him a handful of nothing without self-control. Joseph had self-control; he died second in command of the greatest nation of the world at the time. Daniel had self-control; he died second in command of the greatest nation of the world at THAT time. Solomon died, and all he built fell apart in one generation.
Lord, I ask you to teach me your gift of self-control, and what it REALLY means.
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