The Truth About Self-Control

Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness,
self-control; against such things there is no law.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX_oy9614HQ

It sounds so simple and straightforward, perhaps even commonplace. 

It’s not a flashy concept or an especially attractive idea. It doesn’t turn heads
or grab headlines. It can be as seemingly small as saying no to another Oreo,
French fry, or milkshake — or another half hour on Netflix or Facebook — or it
can feel as significant as living out a resounding yes to sobriety and sexual
purity. It is at the height of Christian virtue in a fallen world, and its exercise is
quite simply one of the most difficult things you can ever learn to do.

Self-control — our hyphenated English is frank and functional. There’s no cloak

of imagery or euphemistic pretense. No punches pulled, no poetic twist, no
endearing irony. Self-control is simply that important, impressive, and nearly
impossible practice of learning to maintain control of the beast of one’s own
sinful passions. It means remaining master of your own domain not only in
the hunky-dory, but also when faced with trial or temptation. Self-control may
be the epitome of “easier said than done.”

It Can Be Taught
“Marshmallow man” Walter Mischel is an Ivy League professor known for his
experiments in self-control. Nearly 50 years ago, he created a test to see how
various five-year-olds would respond to being left alone with a marshmallow
for 15 minutes with instructions not to eat it — and with the promises that if
they didn’t, they would be given two. The New York Times reports, 
Famously, preschoolers who waited longest for the marshmallow went on to have
higher SAT scores than the ones who couldn’t wait. In later years they were thinner,
earned more advanced degrees, used less cocaine, and coped better with stress. As
these first marshmallow kids now enter their 50s, Mr. Mischel and colleagues are
investigating whether the good delayers are richer, too.
Now Mischel is an octogenarian and freshly wants to make sure that the
nervous parents of self-indulgent children don’t miss his key finding:
“Whether you eat the marshmallow at age 5 isn’t your destiny. Self-control can
be taught.”
If It’s Christian
Alongside love and godliness, self-control serves as a major summary term for
Christian conduct in full flower (2 Timothy 1:7; Titus 2:6, 12; 1 Peter 4:7; 2 Peter
1:6).

7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
6 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.
12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly
lives in the present age,
7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 
6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 

It is the climactic “fruit of the Spirit” in the apostle’s famous list (Galatians
5:22–23) and one of the first things that must be characteristic of leaders in the
church (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8).
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness,
self-control; against such things there is no law.
2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable,
hospitable, able to teach, 
8 but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

Acts summarizes the apostle’s reasoning about the Christian gospel and
worldview as “righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment” (Acts
24:25). And Proverbs 25:28 likens “a man without self-control” to “a city broken
into and left without walls.”
25 And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, “Go
away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.” 

28  A man without self-control 

is like a city broken into and left without walls. 

For starters, the idea of controlling one’s own self presumes at least two
things: For the born-again, our hearts are new, but the poison of
indwelling sin still courses through our veins. Not only are there evil desires to
renounce altogether, but good desires to keep in check and indulge only in
appropriate ways.

Christian self-control is multifaceted. It involves both “control over one’s

behavior and the impulses and emotions beneath it” (Philip Towner, Letters to
Timothy and Titus, 252). It includes our minds and our emotions — not just our
outward actions, but our internal state.

Heart, Mind, Body, Drink, and Sex

Biblically, self-control, or lack thereof, goes to the deepest part of us: the heart.
It begins with control of our emotions, and then includes our minds as well.
Self-control is often paired with “sober-mindedness” (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus
1:8; Titus 2:2; 1 Peter 4:7),
2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable,
hospitable, able to teach, 
8 but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.
2 Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. 
7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 

and in several places the language of “self-control” applies especially to the

mind. Mark 5:15 and Luke 8:35 characterize the healed demoniac as “clothed
and in his right mind.”
15 And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and
in his right mind, and they were afraid. 
35 Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons
had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 

Paul uses similar language to speak of being in his right mind (2 Corinthians
5:13), as well as not being out of his mind (Acts 26:25).
13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 
25 But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words. 

And Romans 12:3 exhorts every Christian “not to think of himself more highly

than he ought to think,” but to exercise a form of self-control: thinking “with
sober judgment.”
3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,
but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 

Self-control is bodily and external as well. The apostle disciplines his body to
“keep it under control” (1 Corinthians 9:25–27).
25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an
imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body
and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others
It can mean not being “slaves to much wine” (Titus 2:3–5).

3 qOlder women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, rnot slanderers sor slaves to much wine. They are to
teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-
controlled, tpure, uworking at home, kind, and vsubmissive to their own husbands, wthat the word of God
may not be reviled.

And in particular, the language of self-control often has sexual overtones. Paul
instructs Christians to “abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you
know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of
lust” (1 Thessalonians 4:3–5).
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know
how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; 

In a charge to women in 1 Timothy 2:9, self-control relates to modesty.

9 likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with
braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, 

And 1 Corinthians 7 presumes some lack of self-control in married adults that

might give Satan some foothold were they to unnecessarily deprive their
spouse sexually for an extended time (1 Corinthians 7:5). God has given some
the calling of singleness and with it, “having his desire under control” (1
Corinthians 7:37); others “burn with passion” and find it better to marry (1
Corinthians 7:9).
5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer;
but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 
37 But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under
control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well.
9 But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. 

The question for the Christian, then, is this: If self-control is so significant —

and if indeed it can be taught — then how do I go about pursuing it as a
Christian?

Find Your Source Outside Your Self

Professor Mischel preaches a gospel of distraction and distancing:

The children who succeed turn their backs on the cookie, push it away, pretend it’s
something nonedible like a piece of wood, or invent a song. Instead of staring down
the cookie, they transform it into something with less of a throbbing pull on them. . . .
If you change how you think about it, its impact on what you feel and do changes.
This may be a good place to start, but the Bible has more to teach than raw
renunciation. Turn your eyes and attention, yes, but not to a mere diversion,
but to the source of true change and real power that is outside yourself, where
you can lawfully indulge. The key to self-control is not inward, but upward.

Gift and Duty

True self-control is a gift from above, produced in and through us by the Holy
Spirit. Until we own that it is received from outside ourselves, rather than
whipped up from within, the effort we give to control our own selves will
redound to our praise, rather than God’s.

But we also need to note that self-control is not a gift we receive passively, but
actively. We are not the source, but we are intimately involved. We open the
gift and live it. Receiving the grace of self-control means taking it all the way in
and then out into the actual exercise of the grace. “As the Hebrews were
promised the land, but had to take it by force, one town at a time,” says Ed
Welch, “so we are promised the gift of self-control, yet we also must take it by
force” (“Self-Control: The Battle Against ‘One More’”).

You may be able to trick yourself into some semblance of true self-control. You
may be able to drum up the willpower to just say no. But you alone get the glory
for that — which will not prove satisfying enough for the Christian.
We want Jesus to get glory. We want to control ourselves in the power he
supplies. We learn to say no, but we don’t just say no. We admit the
inadequacy, and emptiness, of doing it on our own. We pray for Jesus’s help,
secure accountability, and craft specific strategies (“Develop a clear, publicized
plan,” counsels Welch). We trust God’s promises to supply the power for every
good work (2 Corinthians 9:8; Philippians 4:19) and then act in faith that he will
do it in and through us (Philippians 2:12–13). And then we thank him for every
Spirit-supplied strain and success and step forward in self-control.
8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you
may abound in every good work.
19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. 

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in
my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to
will and to work for his good pleasure.
Christ-Control
Ultimately, our controlling ourselves is about being controlled by Christ.
When “the love of Christ controls us” (2 Corinthians 5:14), when we embrace
the truth that he is our sovereign, and God has “left nothing outside his
control” (Hebrews 2:8), we can bask in the freedom that we need not muster
our own strength to exercise self-control, but we can find strength in the
strength of another.
14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 

8  putting everything in subjection under his feet.” 

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see
everything in subjection to him.

In the person of Jesus, “the grace of God has appeared . . . training us” — not
just “to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions,” but “to live self-
controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:11–12).

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce
ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,

Christian self-control is not finally about bringing our bodily passions under
our own control, but under the control of Christ by the power of his Spirit.
Because self-control is a gift, produced in and through us by God’s Spirit,
Christians can and should be the people on the planet most hopeful about
growing in self-control. We are, after all, brothers of the most self-controlled
man in the history of the world.

All his life he was “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has
been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 

“He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).
22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 

He stayed the course even when sweat came like drops of blood (Luke 22:44).
44 And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the
ground. 

He could have called twelve legions of angels (Matthew 26:53),

53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? 

but he had the wherewithal to not rebut the false charges (Matthew 27:14) or
defend himself (Luke 23:9).
14 But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. 
9 So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer.

When reviled, he did not revile in return (1 Peter 2:23).

23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting
himself to him who judges justly. 

They spit in his face and struck him; some slapped him (Matthew 26:67).
67 Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him,

They scourged him (Matthew 27:26).

26 Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. 

In every trial and temptation, “he learned obedience through what he

suffered” (Hebrews 5:8),
8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 

and at the pinnacle of his self-control he was “obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a
cross. 

And he is the one who strengthens us (1 Timothy 1:12; Philippians 4:13).

12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing
me to his service,
13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

In Jesus, we have a source for true self-control far beyond that of our feeble
selves.