June 1, 2012
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control. -- Proverbs 25: 28 (NIV)
Self control. One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit and probably the one that is dealt with the least because it is the one we often struggle with the most. Our flesh is always very reactive. We see things and we react. We feel things and we react. Sin finds the soil it needs to grow within our reactive nature. Instead of being a slave to our reactive flesh we need to be a slave to a proactive Holy Spirit inside of us. Fruit doesn't magically grow. We have to cultivate it. We have to nurture it. We have to grow it. What does David teach us in the Psalms?
How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. -- Psalm 119: 9-11
Living according to the Word of God. Seeking God with all of our heart. If we were honest we would have to admit that while we may pay lip service to these concepts we often fall way short of the mark. The Word of God is there for us so we know exactly how God wants us to live. Not because He is a mean God with rules but because these standards will prevent us from experiencing so much heartache in our lives. David says here that he must hide the Word of God in his heart so that he might not sin against God. That is because the Word contains all of the instruction we need to override the flesh reactions we will face. Self-control starts with knowing what God has said. Remember what we are supposed to do with our thoughts:
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. -- 2Corinthians 10: 5 (NIV)
Look at what God says we are to do -- we have to take every thought and make it obedient to the Word of God. Remember -- sin is looking for our reaction! The devil lives in our reactions. When we hide the Word in our heart we are planting the seeds of self control.
We water those seeds through an active prayer life. I do not mean the pre-scripted prayers we are used to but genuine God-seeking prayers offered up continuously. The Bible says we are to pray without ceasing. In everything we are supposed to pray. We are supposed to develop a God-consciousness. That is a conscious sense of God in everything that we do. Instead what we see to often is God lingering around in our sub-conscious level. If someone brings Him up we can talk about God. We have faith but we do not have an active relationship with Him that is constant. Thus when we are faced with our reactions we have just our flesh and own strength to fight them off with and too often we lose those battles. Then our reactions get us into trouble and THEN we go to God in prayer. God would actually love to be involved before we find ourselves in trouble. That would be proactive instead of reactive. That would be exhibiting self-control. We plant those seeds of self-control by reading His Word and hiding it in our heart -- that means committing to it. We water those seeds by developing a God-consciousness where God is not the after thought but rather, the only thought. The last thing we need for the harvest of fruit is light. Everything that grows needs light. For us as believers it takes on extra meaning:
Don't team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? -- 2Corinthians 6: 14 (NLT)
Light is not meant to live with darkness -- it was meant to expose it! But today we see far too many Christians teaming up with the world. I am not just speaking about marrying an unbeliever -- which God clearly warns us not to do. But beyond that who are we spending our time with? What TV shows to we relate to? What do our kids see us watching and listening to? How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live in darkness? Without self-control? Very easily. We can then tend more to the things of the world than we do to the things of God. We may have planted the Word correctly in our hearts and watered it sufficiently with prayer but without the light of Christ to illuminate it for us it can lay dormant while we play with the things of this world.
That brings us back to the key verse for today. A man who lacks self control is like a city with broken down walls. This has three correlations for us. First of all this is a city that is in disrepair. It is a poorly maintained city. How many poorly maintained spirits do we have sitting in pews every Sunday? How often are our spiritual lives in utter disrepair; where we cannot seem to get victory over anything that comes against us? Saved by the blood of Christ but circling the same mountain year after year -- unable to walk in the victory that is so often preached from the pulpit. A poorly maintained Spirit in disrepair has its roots in poor self-discipline.
Secondly, a city with broken down walls is exposed. Its defenses are laid bare for all to see. How sad is it that so many Christians live their lives just like this. Exposed to the world and the heartache that it brings. Unable to cover ourselves. Unable to protect ourselves. The world sells a victim mentality on nearly everything and too often the church buys into it. Of course when a city has no defenses it leads to the third correlation -- it is easily attacked. A city with broken down walls is a sitting duck. It is a target with a big bulls-eye in the middle of it. How many Christians are walking through their lives with the same bulls-eye on their back -- begging for the enemy to attack? We see it all the time. Christians going from one battle to the next -- one valley to the next. Like a city with broken down walls they are ripe for those attacks because they are not defending themselves with a disciplined life.
That is what this all comes down to. Self-control is one of the best ways to defend ourselves against the attacks of the enemy in this walk. We need to know what God has said to combat the lies of the enemy. We need to hide His Word in our heart -- planting the seeds of self control. We need to water those seeds through an active prayer life where God is considered in our decisions, not just our problems. We need to expose these plantings to the light of Christ, making sure we surround ourselves with the things of God not the things of this world.
When we do this there is a harvest. When we plant in faith
and cultivate in earnest, there is a harvest. The Prophet Nehemiah went back to
Jerusalem to rebuild the great walls there that had fallen into disrepair. The
attacks from previous enemies had completely devastated the walls and they were
now mere rubble. Sometimes this is how we can find our spiritual condition.
Lying in ruins all around us. But after Nehemiah oversaw the rebuilding of the
walls and Jerusalem was repopulated he did one thing. He read the Word of God
to the people who now were going to be living there. The very first thing he
did was read the law to them. Remember, whenever Israel or Judah were defeated,
scattered, or carried off into captivity it was because they lacked self-discipline.
They would follow the foreign gods of other countries, ignore the true God's
precepts, and live devoid of justice and fairness. Nehemiah makes the point
that the foundation of this new Jerusalem would have to be based on nothing but
the Word of God and their future success would only go as far as their
self-discipline to that Word would take them. We are no different. Power in the
Word to defend the city we have set up. Victory in our self-discipline to plant
the Word, water the Word and give it the light it needs to grow within us.
Amen.
Rev. Anthony
