Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and I want to welcome our listeners on Apple and Spotify, and those of you enjoying this on our YouTube video podcast format. On today's episode, we're finishing the self-control series.
I've got six bricks for you for building a life of self-control. and they are from a book that I've read before the series. I've been in it a little bit during the series, and it's one that I'm going to keep on my shelf for years to come. The book is called A Man's Greatest Challenge.
It's by an author named Dai Hanke, and in a particular chapter, he talks about being from Wales and visiting castles growing up, and these towering castles with all of their strength and how they were formed long before modern machinery could fabricate stone. in mass. So these castles were being built in those times, long past, brick by brick.
There's no shortcuts, no mass production, no quick fix. It was brick by brick. I'd recommend the book to you.
Again, it's called The Man's Greatest Challenge. It's by Di Hanke. I picked it up at Grace Books when I was in California not too long ago, and it has been to the point.
It's a perfect book for men on the fly. You can read it. It's got a ton of scriptural encouragement. And in particular, he walks through six bricks in the final chapter.
And I want to pass those along to you because brick by brick is exactly how self-control works. The Holy Spirit bears fruit in our lives and we don't become perfected in a day. Self-control is not mastered after reading a book, even a good book like Hanky's. It's not mastered after listening to this series.
but rather God strengthens you and I brick by brick, day by day, completing the work that He began in you until the day of Christ, just like Philippians 1.6 tells us. And so these six bricks will serve as a summation to really all that we've already talked about and what we've been through in this series. And the first one is alertness.
Alertness. 1 Corinthians 10.12, if you think back to the earliest... things we covered in this series, it's a verse you need to keep very close in the forefront of your mind. Let he who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
And I was really encouraged by what Hankey had to say in his book. One of the reasons in particular is because something I was telling our church recently, and I've thought this for years and experienced it for years. When I read it in his book, I laughed out loud because I thought that's exactly what I go through. He was talking about his most vulnerable time in the week and when he needed to be most alert.
For him, and I would relate to this, it's after a long day at church. Now, he described it as being, and it was that classic like Welshman descriptive language. He said he's physically smashed, emotionally drained, and spiritually spent. Now, I would say I'm not often physically smashed after church. I don't get...
You know, a case of the Mondays, really, I usually work Mondays. I don't take Mondays off. I like to keep going.
But I would say I tend to be this way. Oh, the sermon is delivered. And even if I'm on a spiritual high or I feel amazing about what God did and I'm super excited and I'm highly encouraged, there is this fleshly impulse that says, oh, preached it, kind of the monkeys off my back, and I can breathe.
Because there's this spiritual weight that you carry leading up to a sermon. I'm not making myself out to be, you know, like pastors, sometimes we can throw pity parties and we want everybody to know just, oh, carrying the spiritual load. It's so much. I just, oh, my life, my life.
It's not that. It's just, there is this thing that is coming. Sunday's coming, we would say.
And preaching the sermon is like unloading this weight. It's a spiritual weight. And when you deliver it, you've done your duty. You've discharged it faithfully. For me personally.
That's the danger. That's when my flesh says, oh, finally, I'm going to put my feet up. That's right when I tend to let my guard down. For you, what is it? Is it after a long day of work?
Is it after some high success, some low value with trials? It could be for you the turn to social media, TV binging, gluttony with snacks, or just neglecting your family in the name of exhaustion and being drained. Maybe it's this entitlement, like I need my nap and I need my this and I need my that. And well, what if you don't get those things?
Are we going to be dealing with a grizzly bear? Whatever the case, we all have those times. What's yours?
We need to be careful when we succeed because Satan wants us to think we've arrived. We need to be careful when we hit a trial because Satan wants you to think that nothing matters anymore. Who cares if you sin? Stay alert at all times. When you or I say, ah, I just need to put my feet up.
I deserve it. We finally arrived at this moment. That's when we need to keep our spiritual antenna up. Number two, the brick of brutality.
You're like, what? Brutality? What do you mean by that? I've been calling this one warfare mentality. Romans 13 verse 14 says, make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.
What Paul is saying is you and I, we need to view sin like our military views a terrorist. You don't befriend it. You don't entertain it. You don't empathize with it. You certainly don't ignore it.
You'll go to war with it. I love the John Owen quote. He famously said, be killing sin or it'll be killing you. And we ought to take the advice that was written in the cover of John Bunyan's Bible.
It said, this book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book. You and I need to be brutal with our sin. Even though God is gracious with us, the sinner, we think about sin like he does.
Even though he loves us, he does not love our sin. We deal with it strongly. Sinners get mercy. I'm glad for that.
My sin should not. Your sin should not. I read this from Ed Welch recently on addictions.
He says, there's a mean streak to authentic self-control. There's a mean streak to authentic self-control. I like that.
I've seen it in my own life with my close friends as well, two of which are former alcoholics, now sober many years. They battled alcoholism for years and they didn't do it by kind of playing patty cake with their issues or addictions. They had a mean streak about it.
They got dead serious about what alcohol was doing to their life. And the only way to kill it was through Christ and a mentality of brutality against their addiction. They didn't take the passive approach. They went to war with it and cut it out altogether. What's yours?
Obviously, the Bible is not. saying that it's a sin to drink or have a glass of wine, but for them, the addiction to alcohol meant they're going to war. What's yours? What assaults you?
What comes after you? What attacks you? Go after it. Brick number three is the word.
Psalm 119 verse nine gets posted, I believe, almost every day or just about every day from my friend, Johnny Artavanis. He posts, how can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to your word.
This is the cry of the psalmist and everyone who wants to live with self-control. Brick by brick means word by word, line by line, precept upon precept. Psalm 119 verse 10, the verse after, let me not wander from your commandments. This is what we should be crying out to God.
And how does he accomplish that in our life? Through the word. The more I know the word and I've treasured it in my heart. I will not sin against God.
Or if you do, you fail or you falter. How quickly do we repent and we turn to the Lord? Why?
Because the Word of God has taught us to confess and repent very quickly, to keep the account short, not to allow these things to build up. If you're going to win the fight against sin and you're going to battle self-control or battle for self-control rather, you need the Word of God and you need an armory of truth in your heart. Brick number four, prayer. One of my favorite Spurgeon quotes, I'd rather teach one man to pray than 10 men to preach. Why?
He knew the power to the Christian life and to Christian ministry and in the war against sin and for endurance through trials was prayer and prayer and more prayer. In the Lord's prayer, it's Jesus who models this for his disciples saying, lead us not into temptation. but deliver us from the evil one. Signifying the way we battle temptation is by seeking his strength during times of weakness and temptation. So without prayer, you and I were powerless in the battle against temptation and in our quest for self-control.
Brick number five, discipline. If you need a solid focus on this and you haven't done this yet, go back to the previous episode on lessons. from the Apostle Paul on self-control. We took a good look at this man of action who was very much human like you and I. We know that without action, results don't come.
And I'm not talking about salvation. I'm talking about spiritual discipline. You cannot say, and I cannot say, I need to love my wife or my husband, or, you know, God will do it.
I don't need to do it. I just trust in his grace that it'll all happen. Listen, God gives commands and through his grace, we have the ability to do them.
But there's none of this sit idly by and, you know, God's going to do it. Hyper-Calvinistic view of sovereignty. No. 1 John 3.18 says, little children, let us not love in word and spirit.
speech. That means don't just be a talker, be a doer. John says, but in deed, meaning through your deeds, your actions, and in truth.
James says people are delusional who hear the word, but aren't doers of the word. Faith produces action. A genuine real tree produces genuine, real fruit. Christians are people of truth. And we put that truth into action.
Discipline is a brick that will enable you to build a life of self-control. You got to take action. It's not going to be easy. If it was, everybody would have it.
There's a reason why many people don't have self-control in the world today. And it's because it's hard. Athletes need it to succeed. Runners need it to complete their marathon training.
Climbers need it to reach the peak. Christians need discipline to battle the wiles. of sin. And finally, brick number six, zeal.
Hankey calls this passion, and I don't mind his term either. It's the quality of waking up each day with a drive and a purpose to replace the worship of self with the worship of God. Bad habits got to go. Good habits are the ones I want to employ. I want to seek out that which is good and noble and right and lovely.
I want to set my mind on things that are above. worldly pursuits give way to godly ones. And if I had to summarize self-control issues, I would agree with Hankey when he writes a lack of self-control is a worship issue, friend.
It is. In Mark 8, verse 34 to 35, Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself. Let him take up his cross and follow me. And Jesus goes further. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it.
Jesus called his followers to lay down their life. He called them to have a zeal and a passion for his kingdom and his will and his purposes, not our own. Self-control, it's a worship issue.
Ultimately, Who's on the throne? You or Christ? Not just overall.
I know you'll say he is, so would I, but moment by moment. When no one's watching and you might think, ah, who would know? It's Christ on the throne. Would you deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him?
That's how I want to end this series. The secret to self-control, no secret at all. You need the gospel. and you need the power of salvation at work within you. And in response then to Christ and His grace, you and I, we deny ourselves, we take up our crosses, and we follow Him above every other pursuit.
I pray that is what you determine to do today and every day moving forward. I hope this series has been a blessing to you. As a heads up, The next one, which starts in the next episode, we do this every single Monday, may require some tissues.
I'm not just saying that. The next series is on suffering and loss. We're spending three weeks with Tim Challies, a dear brother and a good friend in the Lord.
He's going to be talking about suffering, loss, grief, and the hope of Christ in the midst of it all. His precious son, Nick, was 20 years old when in November of 2020, the Lord took Nick home to himself. Tim will open up about that and much more and offer biblical perspectives on suffering, how to walk with people in that.
For those who are in it, certainly he'll give a great deal of biblical wisdom. We're going to talk about... trials, God's goodness, God's gifts about sovereignty, and how even in the midst of the most terrifying loss, the thing that us as parents, if you are one, have nightmares, or I just would never want to lose a son. He says, even in those moments, those seasons of sorrow, you can draw closer to the Lord than you ever have.
I know that series will bless you, and I look forward to digging in with Tim and you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching.
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I'll be back. next Monday with Tim Challies and another episode starting a new series on suffering and grief. Keep on living for the gospel.