Introduction

Discover how self-control through faith differs radically from the world’s pursuit of victory at any cost. In this powerful message, Revd. Mark Fletcher explores how Christian self-control isn’t rooted in self-reliance but in surrendering to God’s transforming love, finding true peace and lasting glory that no Olympic gold can provide.

The beginning of next year, one of the greatest sporting events on Earth will take place not far from here, just over the mountains in Milan and Cortina. It will be the 2026 Winter Olympics. Anybody taking part by the way? Well I wouldn’t put it past you. The Olympics are wonderful. They are the pinnacle of sporting achievement. The greatest athletes at the pinnacle of their physical and mental capacity compete to win the greatest prize of all. They dedicate themselves in order to train and to win an Olympic gold medal is to attain something approaching immortality. The Olympics are deeply inspiring. Heroes are born, legends are forged. The limits of human potential are pushed and we are all inspired to be better. You might know they date back a really long time to 800 BC and they’re sort of an expression of this classical philosophical ideal of physical and mental excellence.

Plato said, the first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself. And for that philosophical tradition, the foundation of all other virtues is that self control. So that brings us to this, the final in this Autumn series on the fruits of the Spirit, and at the end of that wonderful list, the fruit that we’re looking at tonight is self-control.

And I think self-control is a really significant theme throughout scripture. And in fact, that picture of athletes competing for a prize is one that the New Testament echoes in terms of our life of discipleship. You are like athletes running in a great stadium. Roared on by a crowd striving to run the race that God has set before you.

And self-discipline, self-control is essential in that. And it is a gift of fruit of the spirit. Paul writes to a young Timothy saying, for God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control. By the spirit of God, we can overcome our fears. We can be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This is our calling. And in fact, the opposite is also true because a lack of self-control is seen in scripture as potentially ruinous. So the proverbs say like a city whose walls are broken down is a person who lacks self-control. It means that being the whim of your emotions and your fears and your compulsions and your reactions, it means you struggle to trust God and his timing and his purposes and you struggle to put others before yourself.

Self-control is an essential fruit of the spirit in our lives. However, there is a vital difference between that sort of classical ideal of self-control and a biblical ideal of self-control, and it is no accident that Paul, when writing this list places self-control at the very end of the list. For ancient Greek philosophers, self-control is the foundation of all virtue. You need to master yourself in order to live a good life. For Christians, the fruit of the spirit are not based on self-reliance, but on a reliance on God. The fruit of the spirit are a consequence of God at work in us by His spirit, and that’s essentially important.

Because for all of the glory of the Olympic ideal, it comes at a very high price. You may be able to win, you may be able to compete, but it does not equip us well for life. The British athlete, Adam Petey, was a phenomenon. He won Olympic gold in 2016 and again in 2020 he broke world records and a host of other titles.

And yet his all consuming drive to win broke him. He knew how to compete and how to win, but he did not know how to live. And all of his success only isolated him from others and left him full of anxiety and self-doubt. He said remarkably, a gold medal is the coldest thing that you can wear.

Christian self-control comes not from dominating ourselves and others. It comes from giving ourselves to God. Did you hear in our reading? Therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Holy and pleasing to God. Great athletes sacrifice everything to win the greatest prize.

But there is a danger in almost every field of life that the thing that we value the most highly becomes an idol to us. It’s true of glory and success. It’s also true of fame or wealth or status. And the thing about idols is they always let us down. They always fail us. No, the Bible says no, offer yourself first and foremost to the only one who is worthy of that sacrifice, the only one who will not let you down. And so in verse two, he says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I feel like that sort of classical philosophical ideal of winning at all costs endures in our world. In its obsession with success, with proving that you are better than every everyone else with its elevation of the self, but you know that those things are cold and isolating and short lived.

They isolate us from others and from God. The margin between triumph and failure on the athletic track can be one 10th of a second. And victory in that world is only for the very few. And so scripture says to us, do not conform to that pattern. Do not conform to the pattern of this world. To be a Christian is not to seek fleeting worldly glory, but glory that lasts.

Verse three says: For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought. Christian self-control is different because it’s rooted not in the elevation of the self, but in humility. It is discovering that your worth in life is not based on being better than everyone else or the glittering prizes that you win, or being in the spotlight, but in discovering that you are a child of God.

Scripture says, place God at the centre and there you will discover your true worth and identity. You will find your perhaps small, but eternally significant, place in the purposes of God and in seeking the good of others. Now we are not all called to be Olympians, but we are called to run the race set before us with endurance.

So what does Christian self-control look like? Well, it is distinct because it is founded on faith. You know, it’s not us that wins the victory, but Christ who has won the greatest victory on our behalf. We trust, not in ourselves and our own strength, but in God and what he has done for us. The Psalmist says, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted amongst the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. For us, self-control is founded on a willingness to bow our heads and our hearts to God, to seek his will for our lives, to root ourselves in His word. To be not only hearers of the word, but doers of it, and to be formed by that word day by day.

Just as an athlete is formed by their daily training, we choose God and his rule for our lives. We say, not my will, but yours. And we are willing to trust in him and his timing and his purposes. To be patient, knowing that he has our best at heart. We live often without knowing, but we live by faith. So Christian self-control is rooted first and foremost in faith, in a trust in God. But it is also rooted in love.

I’m struck that self-control is a sort of inner discipline. It is an ability to still, the noise and the demands of this world and the fears and anxieties of our hearts, and to be still and to know that we are loved and that we matter. Again, the psalmist says, I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother.

And in the presence of God, day by day by the Holy Spirit, we find that belonging that our hearts desires. We find that peace, that contentment, which is so elusive in this world. We sit quietly in the presence of God and discover there that we are loved. I’m struck that so much of our lack of self-control comes from impatience.

It comes from struggling with the things that we desire and don’t have, or perhaps it comes from our pain or discomfort. And we act impulsively because we find it so hard to sit with those things that we do anything. And all too often our impulsiveness compounds the problems. Do you have a place where you take your fears and your pains? Take it to the Lord, be still in his presence, find peace there, know that you are loved.

That’s the kind of self-control that we are called to.

Blaze Pascal once said, all of humanity’s problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room with God. Take it to the Lord. Be still in his presence, and know that you are loved. So in 2022, Adam Peaty took some time off from competing for the sake of his mental health. And in 2023, he became a Christian.

And, he said, for me, the only fulfilment, and remember, this is a man who won multiple gold medals for me, the only fulfilment and the only peace is every Sunday at church. Isn’t that wonderful? And he is not alone. I don’t know if you’ve noticed how many elite sportsmen and women are Christians, because for all of the glory of that world, it’s very hard to live in a place where there is only fleeting success and so much potential for failure.

Sport is a wonderful thing, but lasting glory is not found in sporting triumphs. It is found in bowing our heads and our hearts to God. And that’s what self-control means. It means presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice and being transformed by the renewing of our minds. There we find our true identity as a child of God.

There we discover that we are beloved and eternally valued, and there we discover a prize greater than any that this world can bestow. And so by the way, the foundation of all Christian virtue is not like in the classical world in self-control. No. I think the preeminent fruit of the spirit, the fruit that perhaps all of these other fruit of the spirit are elements of, is love.

The foundation of all Christian virtue is love. And so we are called to root ourselves day by day in the love of God. To still ourselves in his presence, to hear his word, and allow that to be our strength and our consolation. And then we discover that the greatest prize, the prize for which we strive day by day is greater than anything this world can bestow. Because it is the glory of God himself. And so we run the race with self-control, seeking the glory that only God can give. Amen.