The Struggle for Self-Control

1. The Struggle for Self-Control • Victory is in Jesus, and in Him, alone. • We will never master self without surrendering to Jesus by doing what the Holy Spirit reveals.

2. Romans 7:24-25 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

3. Romans 8:1-4 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesusfrom the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

4. The Struggle for Self-Control • Victory is in Jesus, and in Him, alone. • We will never master self without surrendering to Jesus by doing what the Holy Spirit reveals. • Christ lives in me if, and only if, I am living "by faith in the Son of God."

5. Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

6. The Struggle for Self-Control • Victory is in Jesus, and in Him, alone. • We will never master self without surrendering to Jesus by doing what the Holy Spirit reveals. • Christ lives in me if, and only if, I am living "by faith in the Son of God." • One must be baptized into Christ, in order to live in Him.

7. Romans 6:3-6 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

8. Romans 6:12-15 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

9. Romans 6:16-18 Do you not knowthat if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedientfrom the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

10. Romans 6:19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now presentyour members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

11. The Struggle for Self-Control • If we are to maintain self-control, therefore, we must strengthen the "power of the will." • This is done by sheer determination or "making every effort."

12. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

13. The Struggle for Self-Control • If we are to maintain self-control, therefore, we must strengthen the "power of the will." • This is done by sheer determination or “making every effort.” • Each athletic contestant knows that only one person can win. • When Paul says, "So run, that ye may obtain it," he seems to be implying that we ought to live our lives as if only one person were going to make it to heaven. • Wouldn't this result in a great deal more effort on the part of every person?