Self-Control | Pastor Adam Peterson

So we are in a series called Juicy Fruit, and if you're brand new, don't worry, I will explain this fun AI image to you in just a little bit. Let me welcome everybody that's online right now. So here's what we know, and we've been told this by you, that sometimes you're not able to be here because you're traveling on vacation. And so welcome to the online family people that are on vacation, but they're still on church with us today. Let's go. And then for those of you that are joining outside of Jacksonville, Florida, we're grateful to have you here with us. And then come on, Rise Church family, help me welcome all the men and women in the correctional facilities. Come on, you are our church family. We are so, so grateful for you. This is our summer series. If you're new to our church, my name is Adam. And really what we've been doing throughout the summer, we're in week five today, is journeying through what the Bible would call the fruit of the spirit, meaning this, there are some things that God wants to do in your life. So let me start by saying this, if you're here today in this room, if you're sitting out in our overflow room or you're watching online,

and you've never given your life to Jesus Christ, and what I mean by that is this, if you have never recognized in your heart that you are a sinner in need of a savior, that is your first step. And here's the really good news. You're a great sinner. Jesus is an even better savior. And the moment you call on him to come into your life, you get grace, mercy, and forgiveness to cover all of your sin, wash it clean, and restore a relationship to God in heaven. Got about 17 people clapping. So what I'm praying is this, that as a church, we understand the value and the importance that the gift of salvation is something we can't earn. It's something we don't deserve, but it is life-changing. And if you've never made that decision in your life, I'm so glad you're at our church today. I'm so glad you're watching online. I pray that today you hear the love of God for you and you realize that is what I have been missing my entire life. But if you are a follower of Jesus, you have called upon him to come into your life, here's the beautiful thing that happens instantaneously, that when you call upon Jesus to save you, he does just that, forgives you of your sins.

Come on, one more time, let's make some noise. And then he puts his very presence in your life through the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit goes, all right, you've been rescued and forgiven of your sin, let's get to work. Because there's some stuff in you that needs changing. Anybody know your life needs changing? All right, if you don't know that, it needs changing. And the Holy Spirit says, there's some fruit I wanna start producing in you, and Galatians chapter five gives us that list. The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives. Now, we tried this at the 8.30, and it worked. So we're gonna try it here. I know you're a smarter bunch than the 8.30 crowd, so come on, work with me. We're gonna read these fruits together. If you're with me, say yeah. Yeah. The way we say it at Rise Church is this, if we all do it, it won't be weird, all right? So you're not gonna be the weirdo. If we all do it, it won't be weird, we'll just be normal. All right, the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives. Here we go. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Come on, give yourselves a hand. That was good.

I'm not even gonna try it with the 11.30. It would just go off the rails immediately. The Holy Spirit looks and goes, let's get to work, because there's some things I wanna produce in you, and the things that he's gonna produce in you, the Holy Spirit of God, the God's very presence, is actually gonna make you more like Jesus. That's what the word Christian means. The word Christian means to be Christ-like, like a little Christ, like your life looks like Jesus, not because of you, but because of the Holy Spirit's work in you. And we've been coming around this idea that the fruit that the Holy Spirit produces, it grows from a life that's rooted in Jesus. Jesus himself in John chapter 15 said, I'm the vine, you're the branch. When he said he's the vine, what he was implying was he's the one that's rooted. He's the one where the life comes. You're the branch. And as long as you stay connected to him, the vine, you're gonna produce fruit, because the fruit giver is connected to you, that fruit's gonna come in your life and through your life because of Jesus Christ. You can't produce it on your own. And last week I landed with this, the deeper the root, the sweeter the fruit. And that's what we want.

We want the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives, not just for us, but so that we can be a blessing to every. body around us can I get a better amen and we're in week five which means if you're new to our church you can go online and get caught up in past messages if you want to but what we're doing is just walking through each of these week by week and today's fruit is the fruit of self-control raise your hand if you know you need this fruit all right and if your hand didn't go up I'll raise it for you you need this fruit let's start here just so we can clarify some things right off the rip it is the fruit of self-control not the fruit of control some of you think you have the fruit of controlling others that's not from God all right the fruit of control is from the devil we are not called to control other lives matter of fact the Bible never speaks about that but it does talk about us having self-control now let's also establish this it has the word self in it so you might think this is something that you are doing you're not it's something the Holy Spirit is giving you the power to do okay this is not a self-help I gotta be better no this is the Holy Spirit going I'm gonna give you the strength you don't have it so I'm gonna give it to you so that you can do it and then last but not least we're gonna practice self-control right now in this moment by not elbowing our neighbor the entire message going I hope you're listening right now self-control Holy Spirit help us tuck those elbows in help us not like we're not doing any of that we're gonna let the Holy Spirit bring us some self-control if you're ready say yeah three areas that we're gonna look at self-control the first one is this whoo come on somebody somebody wanted to elbow right there in that moment that was not the time we're gonna trust that the Holy Spirit is gonna speak to that person in Jesus name the temper and the tongue how many of you know you have a bad temper at times how many of you know you can say the wrong thing at times how many of you have had somebody else's temper affect you negatively how many of you have had somebody else's words affect you negatively we're all in the party and so

what we're saying is this Holy Spirit I recognize this in my life I know I need some work because here's the reality your temper in your tongue have the ability to wound and destroy sometimes most of the time the people closest to you and so we're gonna look at one verse of Scripture for just a little bit to unpack this and I don't want to promise you anything but this is gonna be potentially one of my shorter sermons don't amen that because there's gonna be some reflection time at the end James chapter 1 and if you've ever wondered is God real just take the book of James James is the brother of Jesus okay imagine your brother growing up looking at you going I'm the Son of God you would think you're crazy James did not believe that Jesus was Jesus until later on in his life and he realized man my brother growing up he was who he said he was he wasn't just a normal brother he was the Son of God and James writes some powerful words and in James 119 he says this and James is kind of like if you read the whole book of James he's kind of in your face a little bit but he starts this one by just going my dear brothers which is like him kind of rubbing you on the back my dear brothers and sisters he says take note of this now here's the reality should we take note of everything that's in God's Word absolutely but sometimes like a parent you got to slow down just a little bit go look at me look at me look at me look at me that's what he's doing right now pay attention to this this is important everyone well what does that mean everyone it means everyone it means all of us should be quick to listen slow to speak and slow to become angry when you do math and I don't want to take too many of you back to math class because some of y'all it's been a while but when you do math certain times there are formulas that you have to apply to be able to get the right answer James lays out a formula he says being quick to listen plus being slow to speak equals slow to become angry this is the only way this formula works now I know that sometimes being quick to listen is one of the hardest things to do that's why we need self-control can I get a good amen why do we need self-control when it comes to being quick to listen because we got some stuff that we need to say we got some thoughts we've got some

opinions and I think my opinions are pretty good so I think you should listen but what James says is this hey before you talk you need to listen I heard Rick Warren say God gave us two ears in one mouth because we should listen twice as much as we speak being quick to listen means I'm actually listening I'm not doing the fake listening thing where I'm pretending like I'm listening but I'm really formulating what I'm gonna say I'm actually really listening I'm slowing down because the reality is this. We do this backwards. We're not quick to listen. We're slow to listen. We're not slow to speak. We're quick to speak. And when we operate in the opposite, if we do it backwards, we actually are gonna be quick to get angry. My wife will come to me from time to time. We're going on 20 years of marriage. Come on, somebody, let's go. You're like, 20 years? You're so young. What'd y'all get married at, 14? 20 years of marriage. It took me a long time to realize that sometimes she doesn't want me to fix her problems. She just wants to tell me her problems, which is a problem for me, because I'm a fixer. You tell me your problem, girl, I will give you 10 ways to solve it. So I would not really be quick to listen.

I'd be hearing the problems and I'm formulating the problem solver. I'm fixing the equation already and I'm ready to let it rip. And I finally found out, sometimes I just need to show some self-control and use the spiritual gift of shutting up. Any men know what I'm talking about? It's a trap, fellas. She doesn't want you to fix anything. So what I'll do now is I'll listen, really listen, listen, listen, listen, and then I'll wait. And then she'll come and go, so what do you think? And then I'm like, oh girl, I got some thoughts. But I've got to let her know that I'm really listening to her. I'm not just thinking about the next thing to say, because sometimes when I'm just firing off what I think is the answer, like that's not what she wants in that moment. And then it builds to the two of us probably becoming angry at each other. And in our lives, we got to figure out how do I allow the Holy Spirit to give me self-control to where I really slow down and listen, to where I think about what I'm gonna say before I say it so that the anger doesn't just get produced. And here's a thought that I came across this week in studying, often it's actually not our actions but our reactions that are sinful.

Anybody know what I'm talking about? Let me unpack this for just a second. Somebody says something to you, you don't like the way they said it. Somebody says something to you, correcting you for something you did and you don't like the correction that they brought to you. You didn't necessarily do anything to start the deal, but now because of what they've said, now you're responding in a certain way. So because you didn't slow down and really listen, or maybe they approached it the wrong way, maybe they were wrong, but the way you responded was even more wrong. This is what I find in my life all the time. This is actually what I really find in my life as I parent my children. I bring some correction, they don't like the correction, they start firing something back and now it's on. And that wasn't me punching my kids, that was just me saying, we're happening. Your reactions sometimes are what's causing more conflict in your relationships because you're not quick to listen, you're quick to speak, you're quick to maybe even defend yourself. How many of you know that you have a tendency to defend yourself? You don't like admitting that you're wrong, raise your hand. Some of you can't even raise your hand

because you don't like admitting that you're wrong. But here's what James goes on to say. You gotta be quick to listen, you gotta be slow to speak because that's how you're gonna be slow to get angry because human anger does not produce that same production that the Holy Spirit wants to produce fruit in our lives, it does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Human anger doesn't help, it never will. The moment you feel angry about something and it starts vomiting on other people, you just made the situation worse. My son just graduated high school, he's always been that smart kid. Man, just, I hated it. Like, because I wasn't a smart kid growing up, anybody know what I'm talking about? I wasn't allowed to have anything less than a B but I had to bust my butt for Bs, you know what I'm saying? Like, this kid never opened a book, drove me crazy. A's, A's, A's, A's, every once in a while, B. But a couple years back, a couple years back, there was one class that he was struggling in and I'm just like, one of these things is not like the other so what's going on? So I said, hey bud, talk to me about this class. He goes, well, the teacher, Dad, he's not really helping me with this and he's not doing this and he does this,

this is how he, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, you gotta talk to him. He said, I've tried. I said, well, let me talk to him. So I type in an email, hey, Noah's kind of struggling in this class. Could you give me some things to help him with it? Blah, blah, blah, could you slow down with him? Da, da, da. And he shoots back to me a response. You ever gotten one of those emails? one of those text messages from somebody and you weren't ready for it or you wrote and you were like oh they're gonna understand what i mean in this moment and what they write back you were not expecting and you i don't even know how to explain i can still go back to this moment and remember how it felt but i i don't know where it started maybe in my toes but anger i just like anger rage just like oh like i'm just sitting here reading this email and i just feel like my blood i just like oh and so i just start just start firing back another email and i'm about to hit send and the holy spirit said you better not anybody ever done that sometimes it's therapeutic just to type it out but you better be careful you don't hit that send button i started to delete delete backspace backspace backspace and i just sat there for a moment and i was like i don't even know how to respond to this and so i just wrote back i would like to set up a meeting that the two of you the two of us could sit down and talk for how to help my son he said anytime mr peterson blah blah blah blah i never scheduled the meeting you know why because every time i wanted to i didn't trust myself i was so mad at the response he sent to me that i was like i can't step into a meeting with this guy because i don't trust how i'm gonna look at him face to face and how i'm gonna respond and so in that moment i didn't even realize what that was but that was the holy spirit going self-control bro you got some issues that you need to figure out yeah he's a terrible teacher i got that but you get to choose how you respond that's the holy spirit giving us self-control why because human anger never works human anger on our end it's not producing godliness in our lives and people in your life

don't need your anger it's going to destroy them it's going to wound them it's going to hurt them they need more of god in you so holy spirit self-control over our temper and our tongue if that was a word for you today say amen that was a word for the person beside you just wink at me all right here we go secondly self-control over our health and our wealth not going to spend a lot of time here don't want to offend anybody let's just see what the word of god says first corinthians so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do do it all for the glory of god let's talk about health for just a moment you ever been at a meal with some friends or family members and somebody starts praying over the meal and their prayer sounds a little something like this god thank you for this food thank you for the hands that blessed it we pray that it would be nourishing to our bodies and you got one eye open you're like that's fried that's all all of it's fried i like to think i don't know this to be true it's probably not true but i like to think god's up in heaven going listen i'm the lord and i can do all things but even i can't make fried food nourishing to your body i'll be honest with you and i know i'm joking but i think this is real this is very real i think some of us are going to stand before god in heaven one day and he's going to look at us and go i had 10 more years for you but you ate like garbage your health the way you eat what you put into your body how you exercise how you don't exercise how you stay in shape like that's one of those things let all that you do do to the glory of god we can exercise self-control when it comes to our health and that's not going to get a lot of amens but that is true you know what i don't trust myself in also is not just parent teacher conferences i don't trust myself at buffets i don't man i don't go to buffets anymore you know why because your boy can throw down man at a buffet i will overeat i will overstuff i will make that restaurant lose money they will look at me and go sir you have to leave now because i will eat man i love food how many of you have ever had a bad day and you're like i'm gonna treat myself on the way home come on raise your hand yeah yeah yeah and you you have a bad day and what do you treat yourself with something unhealthy probably and here's what i'm saying is yes you deserve a treat every once in a while but some sometimes we need to make sure we're exercising self-control when it comes to the food we're eating. Just because I can eat it doesn't mean I should. And there is some health in our lives that God wants us to honor and glorify Him with.

And I know you don't hear this preached a lot in church and everything, but come on follower of Jesus. Let's honor God with our health and be as healthy as we can. Go for walks. Push the plate back every once in a while. Cut out the sweets. It's getting personal, right? I was good with the walks, pastor. I was all born with the walks, but when you said push back the dessert, I'm out. Hey, self-control is possible even in the area of your health. And then let's talk about wealth for just a little bit. Because some of us are not honoring God and showing self-control when it comes to our wealth. And there's two sides of the coin. There's greed, and then there's waste. Greed says, I want more for myself. Waste says, I don't care how I spend my money. Now, newsflash, it's not your money, it's God's. And He has asked you to be a good steward of the money that He has entrusted to you. So I would simply ask you this, are you? Because if you're greedy and you only want more for yourself, or you're wasteful and you just spend your money on whatever, it's going to keep you from becoming the generous person that God has called you to be, and to honor Him with your finances. And if you're like, are you telling me how I should spend my money? No. God is. This is not a suggestion in the Bible. It is a command. And how you manage the resources that God has given you shows how much you honor Him. Some of you, you just have no self-control when it comes to how you spend your money. You prioritize things like coffee, coffee, fun drinks, food, fast food, clothes, new vehicles, new hobby stuff, trips. Are any of those things bad? No. Do you know when they become bad? When you prioritize them and you give nothing to the kingdom of God. And self-control means I'm managing how I spend my money here, so that I can honor the kingdom of God and the king of kings and the Lord of lords here, so that His kingdom can advance. So all I would say is this. I call it coffee math, fast food math, whatever your thing is that you like spending money on. Add it up. It adds up quick. Well, it's only five dollars here. It's only six dollars here. Well, when that happens two or three times a week, that adds up. Take it through the month. Take it through the year. Do the math. It's not a lot. Yeah, well, if you held off on that and you

showed some self-control, you would be able to be even more generous when it comes to the kingdom. And let me say this about Rise Church right now. In this specific season, we have more people giving in our church than we ever have before, which thrills my heart, which means our church is walking in more obedience than we ever have before. Get on, baby. Let's go. All right, last one. Simple desires. This is a big one. This is the one we can all relate to. Galatians 5 says it like this. So I say, walk by the Spirit, which just simply means to walk with the Spirit, to walk with God, to walk in His presence, to be in His Word, to spend time in prayer, to seek Him in your life. If you walk by the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. That's all the sinful desires that our flesh feels. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict. They're in conflict with each other so that you are, here it is, not to do whatever you want. You are to exercise self-control. So here's the reality. You ready? Before Jesus, sinner. Before Jesus, really good sinner. Before Jesus, did whatever we wanted to. Jesus comes and He sets us free from that, and now He calls us to follow after Him. So the Spirit now calls us to follow God, but our old sinful desires call us back over here, and they're at war with each other. They're at conflict. God's calling over here. Sin, the world's calling over here. And which one are you gonna give in to? Self-control looks on and goes, I don't need that. Self-control is saying no to the temporary. and yes to the eternal. You tracking with me on this? Self-control looks at the temporary fleshly sinful desire and go, no, I don't need that. It looks good. And I remember what that felt like, but it left me empty and broken every time. I'm saying yes to the eternal because God, your way is better.

Amen. Amen. Woo. Woo. When I was in elementary school, some of y'all might remember this. We had the DARE program. Anybody remember the DARE program? It's when a police officer would come into your elementary school and he'd teach you about drugs, which I always thought was crazy because as a third grader, I wasn't smoking crack, man. I wasn't. Didn't even know what it was, but they were coming in there telling me, don't do it. Heron, get away. And you know what they would say to you? You know how you don't do drugs? You just say no. When that drug dealer would come up to you as a second grader, you just looked at him and go, I don't know what you're talking about, but no, right? Just say no. Self-control isn't just saying no. It's not willpower. It's spirit-filled power. It's when those fleshly desires, that old life that you live calls out to you, you look and go, by the power of God, no,

because I don't really want that. What I really want is you, Jesus. Now, the world would say, man, do whatever feels good. Do whatever you want. Can I share with you something? If you do whatever you want, you're gonna wreck your life. How many of you did whatever you want at some point? That is not gonna work. Do whatever you feel, it's fine. Listen, if I did whatever I felt like doing, I would not be qualified to be your pastor. Come on. Self-control is submitting and surrendering how I feel and what I feel like doing to the Lordship of Jesus. When we call Jesus Lord, he's not just Savior, we call him Lord, it means this. I want you to control my life. I want you to call the shots. I want you to sit on the throne. I'm putting you in charge. And all the things that I feel like doing, I'm gonna surrender them to you, because your way's better. And I want what you want, because I've been down that road, and I don't wanna go back to it. Romans 8 says it like this. So letting your sinful nature control your mind, it's gonna lead to death. But letting the Spirit, the Holy Spirit control your mind, it leads to life and peace.

Why is he talking about the mind? Because that's where the battle starts. Evan, you can join me up on the stage. The battle, hear me, it always starts in the mind. It's a thought. It's a feeling. And you remember that old way of living, or the enemy puts something in your path and you think about it, it starts in your mind. But here's the reality, the more you think about it, eventually you're gonna act on it. And that's when the sin enters in. To set your mind on the sinful nature, it's gonna lead to death. But to set my mind on the Spirit, it's gonna always lead me to life. How does that play out? What does that do? Let me walk you through it, okay? I don't know what your temptation is. I don't know how the enemy attacks your sinful desires, your flesh. I don't know how it plays out. But for all of us, it's the same idea, just in different realms. You ready? It's the enemy going, hey, you remember how good that was? You know how fun this would be? You know how much pleasure that would bring you? And if you entertain it, you will act on it.

So what do you do in that moment? You pick up the weapons that God has given you. And you start to go to war. I'm talking battle. I'm talking fight. Don't just sit there and go, oh man, oh, I don't know what to do. No, no, no, you know exactly what to do. God, right now in this moment, I choose not to set my mind on that. I choose to set my mind on you. I'm gonna open up your word. I'm gonna read what it says, that everything from you is good and true. I'm gonna put on a worship song right now and start praising God for how much he's brought me out of and where he's taken me. I'm gonna hit my knees right now and call out to God for his strength in my life. You gotta go to war every time I give in. To the sinful nature in my mind. because I didn't pick up any weapons to fight back. I'm sure the same can be said of you. And God is telling us, I've got victory that is possible. You just got to call on me. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to set my mind on things that lead to death. I want to set my mind on things that lead to life and peace.

Can I get a better amen? Last thought, and we're going to close. Self-control isn't about restriction, it's about freedom. Self-control from God isn't him looking at you going, well, you can't do that, you can't do this, you can't do that. It's not restriction. God's not trying to keep you from having fun. He's trying to keep you from destroying your life. And the self-control that he wants in your life is for you to be able to say no to that, so you can say yes to him, so you can walk in the freedom that he has available for you. So here's how I want to close. We're going to take about a minute. And I want you to look inward, and I want you to ask the Holy Spirit, where do I need self-control? What is the area of my life that you have been trying to get a hold of that you need, that I need you to continue to work on? Is it your temper and your tongue? Start there. Start there for the sake of the people in your life. Start there. Is it your health and your wealth? Is the God like going, hey, we got to get some things in order in your life? There's nothing wrong with that.

Praise God. Is it some sinful desires? And you probably already know what that is. I want to pray for you. And then I want you just to pause. And what we're going to do is we're going to say, Holy Spirit, speak to my heart. Convict me, correct me, and lead me to Jesus. When he convicts you, if there's something you need to repent of, that if you have been living in sin, repent. God's not trying to beat you over the head. He's trying to pull you back to go, hey, all that stuff's going to lead to death. I got life and peace for you. And repenting means this, God, I'm so sorry. I'm turning back to you. Let's pray. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that you make us more like Jesus. Because that's what we need. Less of us, more of you. That's what the world needs. Less of us, more of you. So work in our hearts. Even if it wasn't something that was even talked about today, God, work in our hearts. Lead us to you. I'm going to give you about 30 seconds to a minute just to reflect and let the Holy Spirit speak to your heart.

Amen. We believe you're speaking and we choose to listen. Thank you for your leading because you're bringing us back to you, Jesus. Making us more like you. That's our heart's desire. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen? Amen. Amen.