Better #2 - Self-Control
Message Description
Dr. Kurt Bjorklund looks through the book of Proverbs at the idea of self-control and 10 walls we should secure in the pursuit of self-control.
Message Transcript
Good morning and welcome. It is indeed good to be together. As you just heard, we are excited about a potential opportunity just to see a campus potentially emerge in the Turtle Creek, Wilmerding, Pitcairn area known as the Tri-borough. As you heard on that little video, this is really not an area that church planters and church strategists say that's where you should go. Part of the reason for that is is that it's generally a fairly under-resourced area, but because of the friendship with some people who have done some great social ministry in that space and the conversations that ensued through that, we feel that this could be a great opportunity for us as a church just to put a gospel believing, proclaiming church community in a place that doesn't have anything like Orchard Hill in that immediate context. We just hope you'll pray about that in the days ahead.
I also just want to take a few moments to talk about the giving that many of you did and participated in at the end of last year or pledges into this year with our year end giving initiative. Joel and Brady will each talk about it at the respective campuses that they serve, but here in Wexford, in many of you have participated. In fact, we exceeded our goal in terms of number of families and individuals who participated financially and in terms of the financial commitments. I just want to say thank you to those of you who prayed about that and participated. I know that we do this on an annual basis, but I know that I and the leadership here never take it for granted, the participation and the investment and the belief in what God is doing. It is because of that investment, that belief that we hopefully will be able to at some point this year explore something like this, this campus maybe in the Tri-borough area, or to explore other things that God has before us and are able just to continue to do all of the things that are here.
Again, just wanted to say thank you. Good job. As a church, that's just a good indication of health for us as well. Let me just take a moment and pray, and then we'll move on. Father, thank you just for the generosity of people in our Wexford campus and our Strip District campus and our Butler County campus and just for what you're going to do in the year ahead, what you've been doing. Father, as we're gathered today, I pray just that you would speak to each of us. If I've prepared things that don't reflect your truth, I pray you'd keep me from saying them, and if there are things that would be beneficial that I haven't prepared, I pray you'd prompt me and I would follow your leading even in these moments. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Last weekend we began a new series that we're calling Better, and it's a little different than the way that we often teach here at Orchard Hill in that this will be more of a thematic study of the book of Proverbs rather than what we often do, which is work systematically through a text, what's known as more expositional teaching. We're looking at these themes. One of the things that I said is that I have a concern by just titling something Better that the inferred message could be that if I do things better, if I'm better, then God likes me more, but ultimately the message of Christianity is not do better and God likes us more or we have things that are better necessarily because of that. Because of grace, Jesus Christ has done enough. He's done all for us, and we come and bring our emptiness to Jesus. That is the message of Christianity, but that doesn't negate what the book of Proverbs does.
That is Proverbs teaches us that there are some choices we can make and that some choices are better than other choices and that they will have a positive impact in our lives. Today we're going to look at the issue of self-control. If I were to choose a single verse, and we'll look at lots of verses, but if I were to choose a single verse that articulates this in Proverbs, that self-control is better than indulgence, I think it would be this verse. Proverbs chapter 25 verse 28 says this, "Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control." What the image is here is maybe lost on us as modern people where cities don't have walls for their survival, but in the ancient culture to which this was written, walls were substantial because what walls did is they allowed you to secure your town at night so that they kept people from coming in and ransacking and taking what was valuable to you and what you needed to survive.
When the text says that to live without self-control is like a city without walls, what it's saying is that if you don't have self-control, it's like being vulnerable to being ransacked and losing what is most valuable to you. Now, that doesn't negate the grace of God, but what it again is pointing to is this idea that we need to be self-controlled in order to secure some things in our lives. What I'd like to do with that imagery in mind is talk about 10 different walls that we need to secure in our lives. These are samples from Proverbs. We could probably talk about 20 or 30 different walls that would be significant to secure, but I've chosen some that I believe are some of the prominent themes of Proverbs, and we'll move through that fairly quickly because what I want to get to after we've talked about some of the places we need to be self-controlled is how do we actually do it.
How do we build self-control into our lives to eliminate some of this vulnerability? Here's the first. The first area in which we need to build some walls is what I'm going to say is the area of our money. Proverbs says a lot about money. In Proverbs chapter 24 verse 27 it says this, "Put your outdoor work in order and get your fields ready first. After that, build your house." What that is saying when it says build your fields up before you build your house, field before houses, it's saying put your income before your expenses. A lot of times where we lack self-control, where our impulses get the better of us, is that we want to have something before we've earned the capacity to have it or we've set something in motion that will pay for it even if we don't have the money today. What that means is that all of the credit that we've been given can cause us to put ourselves in a place where we're in financial peril because we've spent more than we have the capacity to pay for.
I saw a stat recently that said the average American has $38,000 of personal debt, not counting mortgages. In other words, a mortgage is seen as an appreciating asset, the idea that that if you buy this and it will go up in value. What that's saying is that the average American, for things like vacations, things like cars, things that depreciate, has $38,000 worth of ongoing debt. What Proverbs is simply saying here is that that's not the path to freedom. It's not the path to a life that is invulnerable because if you're vulnerable to earning pressures, then you're vulnerable. Self-control in the area of money. Here's the second area that we see in Proverbs in which walls are wise. That is in the area of our sexuality.
Proverbs has a lot to say about sex. It speaks about it in chapter five, chapter seven, at the end of chapter six. There's a section about it in chapter two, and there's probably some other places where it's sprinkled throughout. What it says is this. Proverbs chapter five verses three through five, it says, "For the lips of an adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she's as bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps lead straight to the grave." I mean, that's pretty intense if you read that. You may say, "Why does it pick on the adulterous woman and not the adulterous man?" The answer to that is Proverbs was actually written to young men as an instruction book, and so most of the references tend to be geared to the male gender, but I think it's very fair today to say that it is something that is available and accessible and utilized by both genders.
Here's what Proverbs is saying, is that God has a plan for our sexuality. His plan is that a man and a woman marry and are monogamous throughout their lifetime. God, who created sex, gave us sex, says, "This is my plan," but what happens for many people inside the church, outside the church, is that we instead say, "Well, sexuality is an impulse. It's a drive that I need to get met in some way. If I don't happen to have that scenario, then I'm going to meet that desire any way that I can." What it misses is this idea that our sexuality is given to us by our creator and that it's best utilized in the context of a covenant relationship where you've said, "I give myself fully to you economically, socially, sexually, where I'm not just being used or using somebody for my sexual pleasure, but saying I don't want to be vulnerable to you in any other way."
Paul David Tripp writes about this, and he says this. He says, "In a culture that looks at self as ultimate, God is absent, and pleasure as the highest experience, itt is no wonder sexuality has become such a dominant theme." Here's what I would say. I've explained it this way before, but sexuality is probably a lot like fire. Fire is a good thing, a beautiful thing when it's contained in the bounds for which it's intended. You can cook with it. You can have a nice fire and set ambience. In a fire ring, you can warm yourself from it, but when fire gets outside of its bounds, it becomes devastating. What Proverbs says here is that self-control, building walls, will keep you from letting what's significant to you be ravaging in your life, be something that's devastating in your life.
I know if you're here, especially if you're maybe young and you're not convinced of the truthfulness of scripture, you may say, "Come on, this seems really archaic," but Proverbs was given to us to say, "Here's wisdom for how you live your life." What you know is that the times that many people feel most alone is when they tried to meet their aloneness by hooking up with somebody and after the hookup, they feel even more alone than they felt before they hooked up because it's not God's plan. We need to build walls in the area of money, in the area of sexuality, I would also say in the areas of our health. This is number three. Proverbs 23 says it this way in verses 20 and 21. It says, "Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor and drowsiness clothes them in rags."
What that is saying in essence is that when we indulge our desires, our fleshly desires for food, for drink, that it actually leads to poverty. Now again, you may say, "Well, okay. Is that really true?" Well again, Proverbs is generally true, but what that saying is that more than even just poverty, what happens when we indulge ourselves or don't take care of ourselves physically, that we end up not having the capacity to do the things that we want or need to do later in life. You've probably heard this said, but a lot of people when they're young trade their health for money. In other words, they work a lot and they do things that aren't necessarily in their best interest in terms of fitness. Then, when they're older, they would trade a lot of that money back for health. Proverbs says take care of your body.
I also say this. Proverbs talks about building walls in the area of our commitments. This is Proverbs chapter 22 verses 26 through 27. It says this, "Do not be like one who shakes hands in a pledge or puts up security for debts. If you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you." Now, traditionally, this has been understood as talking about the idea of co-signing for notes, putting up a pledge. In other words, using your name for somebody else. When somebody says, "Hey, would you co-sign with me?" don't do it unless you can pay for whatever you're being asked to co-sign. I think that this actually has a bigger connotation because what it's talking about is using your name, your credibility for somebody else. What happens when we don't have self-control is somebody will utilize our name, and we won't want to say no, and our name or our image or our word will be used. Then when that person doesn't come through, we're stuck.
Now, certainly there's a time to say, "You can use my name, my credibility. You can use my credit," but what this is saying is be careful because people are unreliable. It says if somebody can't pay, the future is unknowable. Even if the person's reliable, they may not be able to pay. If you aren't careful, the consequence can be unbearable. It says you won't have a very bed to lie on. In other words, creditors will come after you. The discipline here of self-control is to say, "Whenever I'm putting my word forward, I have the capacity to back it up. As soon as I don't have the capacity of back it up, I go and I seek to renegotiate as quickly as I can rather than simply saying I'll indulge the moment and do what's easy and just say go ahead." Here's another thing that we read. This is number five in terms of an area to have self-control, to build a wall. That is in the area of our acquaintances.
Proverbs chapter one verse 10 says this, "My son," again addressed to young men, "if sinful men entice you, do not give in to them." If you read the verses that follows, it says that they say, "Come, we'll lie and wait for somebody, and we'll take from them." There was probably a couple of things going on here. There was an enticement to friendship, to saying, "I want to be part of something." There was an enticement to adventure, and then there was probably an enticement to some kind of gain. What happens is the Proverbs say, "My son, don't give into this because there's a chance that you will have people in your life who will try to encourage you to do things that are against the things that are best for you, and those acquaintances will actually damage your future." In fact, I've heard it said, and I think it's true, that if you want to see your future, you can tell a lot about where you'll be based on the people that you're spending the most time with.
In other words, if you want to be somebody who has a strong marriage and you spend a lot of time with people who don't have strong marriages, chances are that that may impact you. Now, that doesn't mean you don't have friends who haven't had that, but it means if you want to know how to be single and do it well and you spend time with people who are single and don't do it well, that is going to influence you. If you're young and you're running around with people who say, "I don't care about the word of God or what God wants," that qualifies as Proverbs 1:10. "My son, if sinful people entice you, do not give in to them." If you're here and you're dating somebody who says, "Look, we don't need to worry about God's standard in the area of sexuality," and you care about it, you should break up with that person this week because if not, what you are doing is you are in essence saying, "I'm not going to build a wall in this area of self-protection by God's standard. I'm choosing to do what I want to do instead."
That's what Proverbs is saying here. Again, what we tend to do is we tend to say, "I want the easy path." I think there's also an indication, number six, about having self-control around the area of our anger. Proverbs 17:9 says, "Whoever would foster love covers an offense, but whoever repeats a matter separates close friends." Sometimes when we're hurt, we want other people to hurt, and so we keep bringing up an offense instead of covering the offense, instead of choosing love. Proverbs chapter 14 verse 17 says this. It says, "A quick-tempered person does foolish things, and the one who devises evil schemes is hated." In other words, sometimes it's our anger that will get the better of us in our minds, and then we give into it. The quick-tempered person, it says, does foolish things or the person who keeps bringing it up because they're angry and doesn't want to forgive, seeks revenge, ends up losing friends, losing acquaintances.
Managing, having self-control around the area of anger is like putting a wall up so that we don't do things or say things that we wish we wouldn't do or say. I don't know if you've ever had this experience of saying something and as soon as the words come out of your mouth you're like, "I want to grab those and bring them back," but once you've said them, it's actually too late. They're gone. You think, "If I could just bring those back." A lot of times, what that is, is it's our anger that causes us just to get to that point where we say, "I'm just going to say it," but self-control in that area is something, again, that Proverbs speaks about. Here's one you may not expect, number seven, and that is self-control in the area of self-promotion.
Proverbs chapter 27 verse one and two says this, "Do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring. Let someone else praise you and not your own mouth, an outsider and not your own lips.: What this is simply saying is be very careful when it comes to name dropping, achievement announcing, the kinds of things where you're saying, "Look at what I've done," because what most of us want on some level is we want other people to validate us, to tell us that whatever arena we think is important to us, that people think we're okay. What Proverbs is doing here is it's saying let other people praise you rather than seeking to promote yourself because as you promote yourself, you'll actually find that the opposite is true. That is people will think less of you.
I don't know if you've ever seen these bumper stickers that some people have, "My kid's an honor student at, you know, such and such a school." I don't know if you've ever seen those. When those first started coming out years ago, I remember thinking, "Really? Like you got to put that on your car and drive around with it in the window saying, 'My kid's smart.'" Then somebody came out with a bumper sticker, "My kid could beat up your honor student." I always thought that was kind of funny. Now, if that's your bumper sticker, I'm sorry, but here's what Proverbs is saying. Be very careful with self-promotion because the more you self-promote, the less honor you'll actually have. That's what it's saying to us.
Here's another one, Proverbs 17 verse 22. This is number eight, and I think we need to build walls in terms of negativity in our lives. Here's what we read, says, "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Now, certainly if you are here this weekend and you're feeling a crushed spirit, maybe you've been through something hard, maybe there's things that haven't worked out, I don't think this is saying just fake it. There are times that a crushed spirit will be our reality, but what this Proverb is saying is that to the degree that we have a choice, a cheerful heart actually is positive for us versus a negative crushed spirit. I don't think this is a speak it into existence kind of thing as much as this is just saying this is just a reality. The more you choose to be positive and to look at things in a positive light rather than in a negative light, the more cheerful you will be.
There is a book that came out several years ago. It was a marriage book. It was called The Love Dare. The idea was that if somebody was in a relationship that was struggling, one person could read this, especially if the other person didn't want to be part of the solution, and apply some of these things and they could help. One of the first days, I forget if it was one or two, was decide for the next 30 days that you will not say anything negative to your spouse or about your spouse, period. Here's what people found as they would do this. They would find they didn't have anything to say about their spouse because they had gotten so used to nitpicking and then complaining to their, you know, their sister, the guys at work, the different people that they're working with, that their whole dialogue had become negative. When they would start to not say those things, that they could actually see some of the positives.
Now, that's one particular example, but the point is the more you allow negativity and pessimistic views and critical words to come from your mouth, the less cheerful you will be. This happens in families. It happens at work where somebody starts to say, "Well, that person," and all of a sudden the whole dialogue becomes, "Well, that person is this, and that person can't, and I don't like that person." Now, certainly if you're in a leadership role at work, you have to do legitimate evaluation in terms of people's ability to do the job or follow through. There's a time for that. I'm not saying that we never have any of that. I'm talking about the overarching approach that says, "I know who they are, and I've decided, and I'm just going to speak negatively." What happens when we do that is we end up with a crushed spirit because then we're so depleted by everything else around us.
Here's number nine. I'm just going to call this ease, talking about walls, places we need self-control. Proverbs chapter six says it this way, "How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man." There's a tendency to choose the easy way instead of the more challenging way, and certainly that makes sense in a lot of instances, but what Proverbs is talking about here is that when we do that, we become a sluggard and what a sluggard is, Proverbs 20 verse four, is somebody who won't plow their fields in autumn. In other words, they say, "It's cold. It's inconvenient. It's hard. I don't want to do the hard thing. I want the easy thing," and it says that these are the people who experience poverty. In other words, they refuse to take responsibility.
It's not just somebody who won't work. It's somebody who won't take responsibility or who demands authority without responsibility. That's what that's talking about. What Proverbs does routinely is it says that on balance, the harder you work, the more diligent you are, the better things come to you, but the more that you are choosing the path of least resistance, the more your walls, so to speak, are broken down. Proverbs 18:9, "One who is slack in his work is a brother to the one who destroys." Sometimes things in life that are worthwhile are just plain hard. We live in probably a culture in the history of humanity that has things as easy as it's ever been. I mean, just think about meals. In ancient days when this was written, if you wanted to eat, you had to go grow something, catch something, kill something and then figure out a way to start a fire and and cook it and bring it to fruition.
I mean, it was a deal today, if you want to eat, if you live in America, you can have one of these 30 second microwaveable meals. You stick them in the microwave and then you go, "What's taking this thing so long?" That's not saying that microwaveable meals are bad. I mean, they're not good, but it's not saying that they're negative. It's saying that we're so used to ease that sometimes saying, "What is hard?" Let me give you another area of this. This is Proverbs 22 verse seven, actually verse six, not seven, "Start children off on the way they should go and even when they are old, they will not turn from it." Now, if you were here, we talked about the reality that Proverbs is not a written guarantee, meaning in every instance that everything works out this way. In other words, when Proverbs says, you know, the person who works hard will have success, sometimes people work hard and don't have success. Some people don't work hard and have lots of success in terms of finances.
What this is saying is that from a parenting standpoint, the bigger the investment you make in your kids when they're little, the better they'll do as they age. Here's the challenge. If you're a parent, the choice of ease of indulgences, "I don't want to get off the sofa. I don't want to deal with that attitude today. I don't want to have to correct them again because they'll be upset with me," as opposed to saying, "I'm going to do the challenging harder thing." What self-discipline is it's saying, "I'm not going to indulge myself right now, but I'm going to build a wall instead of creating vulnerability in an area that is important to me." At our Wexford campus, my wife and I will be doing a little class on parenting and some of the principles we'll draw will be from Proverbs. It'll start at the end of this month, be just four simple Wednesday nights. You can sign up online or at the info desk at any of the campuses.
The hope, just if you're a parent, is that all of the investment you put into your kids is something that as Proverbs 22:6 will say. As they age, they'll come back, and some of us have had kids that have made bad choices, horrible choices. Our hope is that the investments we've made when they're little will still be there and that at some point they will find that path again. That's what Proverbs is talking about. There's a writing, this isn't about parenting, but talking about emotional intelligence, that says one of the reasons that many people have more success than others is something not along the lines of our academic intelligence, but emotional intelligence. What they say is that the people who have greatest success are those who are able to delay gratification, who are able to say, "I'll pay first and play later rather than play first and pay later." What that is is it's a willingness to say, "I'll do the hard things first."
One more. This is number 10, Proverbs 28 verses 13 and 14. I'm just going to say we need to build walls around the area of denial. It says this in verse 13 and 14, "Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Blessed is the one who always trembles before God, but whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble." This is obviously talking about a relationship to God, but it's saying if we don't come to a point of acknowledging our sinfulness before God, if we never say, "I'm wrong, and I bend my knee to the God of the universe," that we will have a hardened heart and it will lead us away from what matters most. This isn't just true of our relationship with God, that that's where we find mercy. This is true in human relationships as well.
What I mean by that is often what damages relationships is the inability to look at ourselves, own something, and say, "I'm sorry," but when we say, "I'm sorry," what we've done is we've said, "Here's a place where I messed up, and I am sorry, and I want to make this right." What often keeps us from it, and the texts alludes to it when it says, "The people who conceal sins don't prosper and that the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy," what we see is that often when we don't, we live in shame. What shame is is it's that feeling that says, "If you knew, if you really knew, then you wouldn't think that way about me. It isn't just shame, but sometimes we run. What we do is we try to get away from somebody who knows, who saw, who we wronged even because we don't want to have to face them and feel what we're feeling.
What we end up doing is we end up, again, taking the easy path, at least initially, instead of the harder path of of saying, "I was wrong," and we end up with a vulnerability where some of the things that were important to us cease to have a role in our lives. Now, my guess is, just as we've talked about this so far, that most of us probably at this point feel like we've been drinking from a fire hose. What I mean by that is you say, "Okay, 10 things, too much, too much self-control. I can't be that self-controlled in all those areas," on and on. Now, some of us are overachievers, and we're like taking notes, and we're saying, "I'm all over it." Part of what I hoped would happen just as we talk through that list is that you would actually feel a little overwhelmed, that you would actually say, "Oh my goodness. I don't know that I can do all that consistently."
Now, my guess is that there were one or two areas that were probably specific to you, where you said, "That's an area where I really could use some more self-control." Let me just show you something that Proverbs says about self-control. This is Proverbs four verses 23 through 26. It says this, "Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free from perversity. Keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead. Fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet, and be steadfast in all your ways." It says, guard your heart, I'll come back to that in just a moment, watch your lips, guard your lips, don't have perverse speech. Proverbs also at one point says be careful of not saying too many things because the more things you say, the more likely you are to sin because a lot of our self-control centers on things we say.
Watch your eyes because your eyes will guide you forward. If you start to covet or long for something that isn't the best thing, that will be an issue. Watch your feet, the positions or the places you put yourself if you want to be self-controlled, but here's the key. What does it start with? Guard your heart. Here's why I think this is the key. Most of us end up doing exactly what we really want to do. Let me say that again. Most of us end up doing exactly what we really want to do. Just think about dieting. I mean we're in January. How many people have said, "It's January and I'm going to do X"? It's, you know, middle of January, and probably some of us have done it and some of us have said, "Well I don't really want to do that today. I'm taking a day off. It's the weekend." The weekend starts on Thursday.
What ends up happening is we do what we want to do. In other words, the way to to to get self-control isn't to simply make a checklist and say, "I'm going to try." I'm not saying a checklist is bad or or trying is bad. What I'm saying is it's ultimately a heart issue. It's ultimately a worship issue because if we don't say, "I want what God wants and God knows best and God's wisdom is best," then what we will do is we'll say, "Well, okay maybe that one, maybe this one," but according to Proverbs we'll be like a city without walls, vulnerable. When we say, "I'm guarding my heart. I'm choosing to worship Christ as ultimate," then what happens is we begin down a process of saying, "What matters most is my affection and my allegiance to Jesus Christ."
Here's another thing. What self-control does for us, the lack of self-control, is it actually points us to our need for a Savior, to Jesus Christ, because a lack of self-control might be just simply a discipline issue in some areas. In some issues, it's a sin issue, and saying that we need a Savior doesn't mean that we still don't want to be self-controlled because there can still be consequences, but every time that we lack self-control in an area, every time we're overwhelmed and say, "I can't do all of that," what it does is it helps us say, "This is exactly why Jesus died and exactly why I need a Savior because he's done for me what I can't do." If I want to build walls for my life, then what it necessitates for me is that I would say, "My heart is being guarded first so that I want what God says for me," rather than putting that aside.
By the way, in the New Testament, the word self-control is used in several places but most prominently in Ephesians five, which it's listed among one of the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and self-control. When it's listed as a fruit of the Spirit, what that means is it's a result of God's Spirit living inside of us. In other words, God's Spirit living inside of us, what it leads to is character transformation. The way you know you have God's Spirit living inside of you is not because of some experience. It's because of the character transformation. It's because you're loving, you're kinder, you're more full of self-control, you have greater peace, greater joy than you had beforehand.
Here's the real kind of push of this, and that all of these things point us to our need while at the same time saying it's what God does inside of us because all of us at some point say, "I haven't been loving. I haven't been joyful. I'm not fully self-controlled." What happens is as we realize that and worship the one who's done it on our behalf, then our heart begins to change. That's where we start to say, "Now I'm living with love, joy, peace, patience, self-control as part of my life." Guard your heart and then pay attention to your words, your eyes, your steps in regard to any specific area that you find challenging. You'll find that you can construct barriers so that you're not vulnerable for the destruction that Proverbs warns against when you're not following it. Here, the ultimate destruction is also in view.
That is of saying, "I don't need a Savior. I don't need to admit anything." See, what we see here is that we need to come to Jesus to have safety from the ultimate destruction, what the Bible calls hell. That comes through acknowledging our need for a Savior and our inability to save ourselves. Father, we thank you just for the word that is before us. God, I ask that not just that you would help us to be more self-controlled, but you would help us to run to you and to your Son Jesus Christ, who has done for us what we can't do, and as that fills our heart, it would change our motivation. God, for any of us who are gathered today, who maybe today for the first time, have really recognized that there has been a lack of self-control, that it's been sinful, I pray rather than despair, there would be a recognition and an invitation to you to save them through the work of your Son Jesus Christ. We pray this in his name. Amen.
