What Is Self Control?

Introduction

For people who lived in the ancient world, the walls which surrounded their cities served as their primary defense against their enemies. If a city was attacked, the inhabitants of that city would retreat behind the walls and close the gates, and there they would be safe and protected from the invaders. In fact, as long as they had a supply of water and ample food supplies, and as long as the enemy was unable to breach the wall, a city could hold out indefinitely even against a far superior force. In fact, if you’ll check your history, am I not on? Now I am. Should I start over again? If you’ll check your history, you’ll find that there were sieges that lasted for years and years that were never successful because the enemy was never able to breach the wall.

And so they were the main line of defense against attack. For that reason, it’s not surprising to find that ancient cities were typically constructed with massive walls surrounding them, especially the larger cities, the capital cities of the empires. It is said that the ancient city of Babylon had walls that were so big that there was room on top for two-way chariot traffic. Think about how immense such walls would be. At the same time, it is also easy to understand that no greater harm could befall a city than for something to happen to the walls, for some breach to be made, for that security to be compromised, because once the enemy had found a way to get through the walls, then the primary defense had been lost, and the city was now vulnerable.

And again, typically, if you go back in history, you’ll find that once an invader had gotten past the barrier of the wall, it was just but a short matter before the city would fall. I don’t want to talk to you tonight about ancient architecture. But I say those things to you tonight because I want you to appreciate the backdrop, the historical backdrop, against which this statement is made by the wise men in Proverbs chapter 25 and verse 28. He said, like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control. I don’t know that you and I read that verse and find ourselves as struck by it as the people of ancient Babylon or the Israelites of old would have been struck by it.

You see, we don’t think about walls for our protection. We think about F-16 fighters and aircraft carriers and tanks and things like that. But to the people of that day, that said a lot.

It said that a man without self-control was vulnerable, easily attacked and overcome by his enemy. Said such a man was one whose destruction was near at hand. One writer commenting on this verse made this observation. He said that the inner man is like a city full of life. We are each called upon to keep order in our own cities. And if we do not respond to the call, the result will be riotous confusion. I want to suggest to you this evening that the scenario that he describes in that statement has been played out over and over again in the human experience. We see examples of it in the scripture.

It was his passion for money, his uncontrolled passion for money that led him to commit the greatest crime of human history, betraying the Lord. It was David’s failure to control his sexual passions that not only led to the sin with Bathsheba, but to a host of others as well, including murder. It was the darkest hour of his life, a blot on what was the record of a rather godly man. But it was a problem and a failure that was rooted in his own lack of self discipline. There are great examples from history. Alexander the Great, a noted general, was appointed regent of Greece at age 16, had destroyed Thebes by the time he was 21. He had subdued Babylon by the time he was 25, and by the age of 33 had conquered essentially the civilized world.

But before his 34th birthday, he drank himself to death. Here was a man before whom no army could stand, who could who could subdue all of the empires of the world, but he couldn’t subdue himself. Beyond these notable examples from the Bible and from history are the far more personal struggles that no one will ever write about in a book. But they’re the ones that go on in our hearts and in our lives. Some of us, unwilling to control our passion for alcohol or cigarettes, or food, destroy our health and our happiness. Others of us refuse to subdue our temper. And we allow that problem to wreak havoc in our lives, in our homes, in our marriage relationships with our children, on our jobs, and in the church.

There are men and women like David who refuse to subdue their sexual passions and destroy their families. There are young couples who refuse to subdue their desire for material wealth and charge themselves deep into debt and put terrible strains on their relationships and cause for themselves great anxieties, and you can just go on and on down the list. Problems like these and countless others, problems that make us feel like our lives are out of control, but ultimately are rooted in the same foundation. The absence of self-control. Good news is that the answer to those struggles lies in the development of that all-neglected and yet so essential biblical virtue of self-discipline. And I’d like to spend some time thinking with you tonight about how we can develop that more in our lives.

1. What Self-Control Is: Good Self-Government

I want to talk to you a little bit about what self-discipline or self-control is. To be honest with you, it’s one of those words you feel kind of silly defining. What is self-control? Well, that’s what it is. It is control of self. It is the ability to restrain ourselves, to moderate our passions, to discipline ourselves, or my favorite phrase. It is good self-government. If you’ll go back to that quote we read a minute ago, that the inner man is like a city. And when in our hearts there are all these passions that have to be moderated, governed. And over those weird who exercise good, wise government. Now that’s what’s supposed to happen. The reality is, is that’s not always what happens. In fact, probably all of us have some aspect of our lives where we have trouble exercising good self government, where we wrestle with self discipline.

I mean by that that sometimes we struggle with being more ruled by our passions and by emotions of the moment rather than by our principles, to state it another way. Sometimes we know what we ought to do. We just have trouble making ourselves do it. Especially in circumstances where the emotion is high and the passions are high. And there is that battle that is waged within us between passion and principle. Haven’t you been there? Haven’t you wrestled with that? Ever been out on a little two-lane highway? And maybe you’re driving along, doing the speed limit, doing a little better than the speed limit. But you’re out there going along, minding your own business, and all of a sudden from behind you, you see this car rushing toward you.

Driving 90 to nothing, flies right up on your bumper, and you can tell this guy wants to go. Maybe the traffic’s bad, and he can’t get around you, and he’s got to sit behind you and wait. And you can look in your reveal view mirror and you can see this guy’s getting agitated. And maybe he honks and flashes his light, as though you could do something about it. I guess these people anticipate we all all just pull off and let them go, and there might be something too. But maybe finally there’s a break in traffic and he’s able to whip out and get around you and cut you off, pull him back in, and just takes off down the road. Something like that ever happened to you.

I want to tell you, there are some of us that just about the time that guy’s rear bumper clears the front of your car. There are some of us that little hear a little voice in our head that says, hit the accelerator. And if this guy wants to know about tailgating, we will show him how to tailgate. Right. And there’s another voice we hear in our head that says Jesus wouldn’t do that. And that’s not how a Christian would behave. And besides, it’s kind of dumb because you’d probably just mess up and get in an accident or something. So y’all just keep your cool and not worry about it and move on. And all the time your foot’s thinking about what it’s going to do. And there is this battle that wages within us between passion of the moment and principle.

I want you to understand that what self-control is, is self-control decides who wins. It is the power in that circumstance to be ruled by your principles rather than your passions. To do what you know you ought to do rather than maybe what you want to do in a given situation. I think it is interesting. There are at least two words in the original Greek language. That modern translators render self-control or self-discipline. I want you to think with me about these for just a moment. The first word is a word that’s found, for example, in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 2, describing the character of an elder. And we talked about this word when we studied their qualifications a month or so ago. In my translation, it is the word rendered prudent in that verse.

But there are other translations. The NIV, for example, renders the word self-control. And that’s certainly part of the definition of that word. It’s included in the meaning of it. It’s talking about a person who is level-headed and who uses good judgment, and it’s emphasizing the importance of the sound mind in exercising good self control. I think many translations render the word sober. And what it’s telling us is that in this matter of self-discipline, there is a need for good judgment. But that’s not the only word. There is another word, for example, in Galatians 5 in verse 23, as Paul is listening to the fruit of the Spirit, the very last one he mentions in verse 23 is self-control. That’s a different word. A different Greek word.

And yet it too is rendered self-control. And interestingly, A.T. Robertson in his word pictures of the New Testament defines that word as meaning one holding himself in. I like that. Have you ever been so angry that you thought you were going to explode? But you were angry with your boss? And you knew that if you exploded, you would probably lose your job. So what did you do? You held yourself in. It is a word that refers to the inner strength that is necessary for one to curb his passions and to control his desires. It’s one of the fruits of the Spirit. If you look over in 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 6, it is in Peter’s list of things that we are to add to our character.

I have to admit, the first time I studied this matter of self-control, that really baffled me that you would have two different words that have clearly different connotations, but both translated self-control. But rather than seeing them as distinct, I think the important thing is to link them together, and when you do, you see a beautiful picture of what biblical self-control is all about. It starts with a sound mind. It starts with good, level-headed judgment. And I tell you why that’s essential. Folks, you can’t ever do the right thing in any given situation unless you first know what the right thing is to do. The sound mind is the mind that’s driving along down the highway and goes through all that mess with the fellow that tailgates and then cuts him off.

The sound mind is the mind that knows I shouldn’t hit the accelerator. But I’m going to tell you, there’s some people in our culture who haven’t learned that. And for all they know, the thing to do is to retaliate because that’s what they’ve learned. They have a mind that is unsound. We’re going to do the right thing in any situation. We’ve got to first know what the right thing is. But I’m going to tell you, if that’s all there was to self discipline, we’d be missing something. And every one of us understands that because how many times have we been in a situation where we knew what the right thing was to do? But we did something else. You ever been in the argument with your spouse?

And been thinking to yourself, I really shouldn’t use my cool and go off at them. And then did it anyway. Was the problem that your mind wasn’t sound? No, the mind was right there. It knew what the right thing was to do. You see, that’s the other part of this. It’s that inner strength to hold yourself back and moderate your passions that was missing. Inner strength gives us the power to do the things that our sound judgment tells us we ought to do. Now, the key to developing self-control is learning to develop in those two areas. And we won’t spend a little time talking about that tonight. But before we do so, let me suggest to you let me make the case for why it’s so important for us to do that.

2. Our Problems Are Rooted in Lack of Self-Discipline

Why do we need to develop these virtues of soundness of mind and inner strength so that we’ll be able to live a disciplined life? Why is that so important? Let me give you three reasons. Number one, it’s critical critical because so many of our problems in life are rooted in our lack of self-discipline. And I don’t think we appreciate that sometimes. Sometimes we look at our problems as our problems, but we’re not digging down and finding out what’s the source of the problem. And one of the amazing things I discovered when I began studying a subject was you know what? Sometimes more of our problems get back to this than we realize. I didn’t start studying self-control because I thought I had a problem with it.

Somebody asked me to preach about it in a meeting. That’s why I started studying it. But to my amazement, I discovered that a lot of my struggles were just about the absence of self discipline. Can I give you some illustrations? A lot of people’s financial problems are about a lack of self discipline. Now, I need to attach a disclaimer to that. I’m not saying anyone who has financial problems is undisciplined. I mean, if you’re taking good care of yourself and scooting right along and paying your bills, and all of a sudden you get laid off and can’t get a job for a year, you’re probably going to have some financial problems that don’t have anything to do with a lack of self-control. And I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think that’s what gets a lot of us into trouble.

See, a lot of us, especially us young couples, we look at our mother and father and all the things that they have, and we think, I would like to have that. I’d like to have it right now. And you can get it right now. I don’t know about you, but I probably get 50 or 60,000 worth of credit card offers in the mail every day, every week, don’t you? And for 18% interest, they’ll loan you the money to get all the stuff your parents accumulated over a lifetime. And there are a lot of young families that have bought into that notion and have charged themselves deep into debt and have a house full of stuff that they can’t pay for. What is that about? Brethren, when we’re spending more than we’re taking in, it is undisciplined living.

It’s a lack of self-control. Saying no to what I want sometimes. Problems in a lot of our homes are rooted in a lack of self-control. Some homes are troubled because husbands and wives don’t subdue and control their tempers. Or they don’t control themselves so as to fulfill their God given responsibility. Or like David, they don’t control their sexual lust, and that creates problems in the home. Sometimes our problems on the job can be rooted in a lack of self-control. You know, sometimes folks just don’t have the discipline to get up in the morning and get into work on time. And when they’re at the job, the discipline to do a good job as God expects of us, you know, over in Colossians 3. And verse 23, Paul would say, Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive reward of inheritance.

It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. He said, When you work, you work like you’re working for Jesus. Take some discipline to do that. To have a good work ethic. To give a full day’s work. A lot of times our spiritual problems are rooted in a lack of self-discipline. Why don’t folks study the Bible more? Would you just acknowledge that, as brethren, we’re just losing our passion about that generally? Is it because, is it because our mind is not sound about that, that we don’t know that we ought to study God’s word? I had never met a Christian who said, I didn’t know I should study the Bible. No, it’s not. The problem is not knowing better. It’s the discipline to turn off the television and go study, isn’t it?

3. We Suffer the Unhappiness They Bring

My point is that an awful lot of the troubles that complicate our lives actually have a common song. We’re just not disciplined in our living. But let me add to that, secondly, that with those troubles will come the added benefit of the unhappiness they bring. Anything worse or stressful than financial problems? Than getting to the end of the month and having more bill than check? And trying to figure out how you’re going to pay that? And figure like you’re feeling like you’re getting deeper and deeper in a hole and don’t know how you’re going to get out. You see, there are all those wonderful benefits of undisciplined living. Are there anything more stressful than family conflict and strife? Or more embarrassing that creates more regret than the uncontrolled temple.

4. Nobody Can Be a Disciple Without Self-Control

So many of our problems are rooted in a lack of self-control. And as a result of that, number two, we suffer the unhappiness they bring. But let me tell you the third reason this is so essential, folks, and that is because nobody can be a disciple of Jesus Christ without self-control. Turn, if you will, to Matthew chapter 16 for just a minute. In Matthew 16 and verse 24. Jesus would talk about what was involved in being his disciple. In Matthew 16 and verse 24. He says, if anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. I want you to notice that Jesus says that these are the essential characteristics of the true disciple: the denial of self, the taking up of the cross, and the following.

I want you to appreciate we can’t do even one of those, much less all three without self-discipline. In fact, this first one, to deny self. I mean, that is in essence the heart of what self-control is: the ability to say no to what my passions may otherwise want me to do. To take up our cross, to daily bear the burdens and responsibilities of being a Christian, to follow Jesus, to let his direction determine my path. It takes discipline to choose his path as opposed to another. Self-control is essential to do all of those things. And yet the ability to do these things is the mark of true discipleship. See, brother, when we speak of living by our principles rather than our passion for the Christian, the principles are God’s.

The principles are what we derive from His Word. The challenge we face of being a Christian is every moment of every day to bring our lives into line with His will, which is the essence of what self-discipline is. You know, in Romans 12 and verse 17, Paul would say, never pay back evil to evil for anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as depends on you, be at peace with all men. He would go on to talk in that context about doing good toward our enemies and treating our enemies kindly. But I tell you something, it takes self-discipline to live that principle when you’re driving I4.

5. We Develop a Sound Mind by Studying the Bible

Self-control is not an optional virtue that some possess and others don’t. It is an essential part of the Christian character. Without it, we cannot serve Jesus. If it is so critical, then let me suggest to you tonight some things about how we develop it in our lives. I want you to remember that we said self-control essentially involves these two biblical concepts this sound mind that in any situation can see the right thing to do, and this inner strength, this power to do what our sound mind tells us to do and overrule our emotions and our passions, even in difficult moments. How do we develop the ability to do that? Let’s start with the first one. Where does a sound mind come from? I want to give you a radical concept that you’ve perhaps never even thought of before in your whole life tonight.

We develop a sound mind by studying the Bible. Isn’t that revolutionary? Folks, it just doesn’t get any more simple or honest than that. If we want to know what the right thing to do is in any situation, what Jesus would have us to do, we’ve got to spend some time figuring out what he said. In Psalm 119 and verse 11. The psalmist said, Thy word have I treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against you. It is God’s word. Here’s the key. Treasured up in the heart. That helps keep us from sin. How do we develop a sound mind? We need to spend some time with God’s word. I think that is especially true when it comes to dealing with areas of our weakness.

For example, if I’m struggling with controlling my temper, then one of the things that I need to be doing is I need to be spending some time with the book figuring out what God has to say about the temper. And there’s a lot in there. I need to be finding all the passages that I can. Go back to the library and put out a concordance and find all the passages you can run down that deal with controlling the temper and the ill effects of an uncontrolled temper and principles that help us to develop that in our life. The scriptures have a lot to say about that. And we need to find, if we’re struggling with that, everything we can on those subjects. In fact, what I would suggest is find those passages and make you a list and start committing them to memory.

Memorize. Why? Because the next time I come home from work and I’ve had a bad day and I’m ready to lose my cool with my wife or my kids, and I’m just on the verge of doing it, guess what’s going to come to mind? A soft answer turns away wrath. Proverbs 15 and verse 1. All those passages that I’ve been thinking about and reading it, all those passages will start coming to mind. And if nothing else, right at that moment when I’m about to lose my cool, I’ll know what I ought to do. Because that’s a sound mind. Can I gripe for just a minute? We don’t do enough of that kind of Bible study. I suspect. I mean, we open our books when we come to assemblies like this and follow along with the passages, and then we go home during the week and we pull out those lesson sheets that we’re given.

Some of us do. And read the passages that we need to read to answer the lesson sheets. And maybe we, even if we’re really dedicated, we get out those family devotionals and we read some passages with our kids and do that kind of thing. But you know what we don’t do enough of? We don’t do enough Bible study for the purpose of personal character development. Figuring out what my weaknesses are. And letting God’s word guide me to deal with those. And we need to do more of that, brother.

6. Inner Strength Comes From Counting the Cost

But at last, a sound mind is not enough. Because as we’ve said, sometimes we know what we ought to do, and we just don’t do it. The second thing we need to develop is that inner strength. Sound mind, we’ve got to spend some time with God’s Word. But what about this strength? Where does this power come from? To do what our inner strength tells us to do. I tell you, I really struggled with this one. In fact, what really bothered me, as I could see it in my life and talking to other folks, I knew it was true in them too. What bothered me was is that there are some things about which you and I have great self-control. There are some things in our lives, and I bet it’s true of everyone in this audience.

You could look at this facet of your life, and you can say, boy, when it comes to this, I do a great job without self-control. And then you look over here and you say, but I’m a disaster with this. Maybe I’m a guy that can keep the books and balance the budget, and I know how to handle my money right down to the last penny, but man, I just lose my cool and act like a turkey. Why is that? Where do we get the strength to overrule our passions, especially in areas where we seem to struggle? I suspect that at least part of the answer, I should have revealed this earlier. I left the point off. I suspect that to some degree that strength comes from spending some time thinking about the price we pay when we do not exercise self-control.

Let me see if I can illustrate that way. About five years ago, maybe a little longer than that, maybe six years or seven years ago. I began to realize the need in my life to get my physical body into better shape. I won’t tell you how much, but at that time I weighed quite a bit more than I weigh now. And decided if I was ever going to preach about self-discipline, I’d better start learning to practice it a little bit. So I had a friend of mine encourage me to go to a local gym and start working out. I’d never done anything like that before in my life. And I mean, I was just like a kid lost in the woods the first time I went in the gym.

And I had my friend with me, and he showed me around and he got me over to this treadmill. And he was showing me how to run these. These things, the first time I got acquainted with them, absolutely fascinated me. Because it’s not just a belt that turns on which you run. I mean, they have a display on the front of this thing that tells you your life history. It’ll tell you everything, it’ll tell you how fast you run. It’ll tell you how far you’ve gone, either in miles or kilometers if you’re so inclined. It’ll give you what elevation you’re running at, which for me was always flat. I don’t believe in running in hills. I’ve never lived in the mountains, so I didn’t see the need.

And I’ll tell you something else I discovered about these wonderful machines. It will tell you how many calories you’re burning as you’re running. In other words, you can just click it over there to calories, and you can watch the problem is about this same time they also passed a law that says all the foods that are sold have to have a calorie count on them. So my brain started hooking up, kind of like this chart calorie counters and calories on the box. I started looking at what I was eating. Just so happens as all that was coming together in my mind, but they were also delivering the Girl Scout cookies that we had ordered.

In fact, my typical routine was that when those would be delivered, I would take the box, which has two tubes in it. I’ve spent some time with this. And you get a big enough glass of milk, you can sit down in one sitting, you can go through a whole tube. I’ve done that. But this time I looked at the side of the box before I did that and discovered to my dismay that one thin mint Girl Scout cookie has about 60 calories in it. I can’t figure out how they got that much in one cookie. And then I started doing the math of how long I would have to run on that treadmill to burn off one Girl Scout cookie. You know what? I took that box and I walked over to my wife and I said, have the teenagers over tonight and get rid of these cookies.

I don’t want them.

What happened? Used to be when Girl Scout cookies would come, I’d sit down and bend, but then within 36 hours in our house, they’d be gone. What changed? I began to count the cost of what my lack of discipline would cause. I didn’t want to spend 16 hours on a treadmill working off a couple of boxes of thin mint girl scalp cookies. It wasn’t, listen to me, it wasn’t worth it. You see that. I don’t know that this is all of the answer, folks, but I think it’s a big part of it. I think we find the strength to resist our passions when we’ve stopped and counted the cost for what we will pay when we don’t. The trick is to take that process and put it to work in areas of life where we struggle.

I think sometimes the reason we struggle is because we’ve not done the math. For example, if I have trouble controlling my temper, I need to sit down with pencil and paper and start weighing the cost of what that uncontrolled temper, or the price I have to pay for that uncontrolled temper. Let me tell you one thing about it. An uncontrolled temper is a sin before God that will condemn our souls. We need to say that. Because that’s so. One of the things I need to appreciate is if I’m a hothead, that’s not just how my personality happens to be cut. That’s a sin. And I need to deal with it. Or my soul’s going to be in jeopardy. I need to think about the way it hurts my spouse.

Because typically people with uncontrolled tempers take it out on the people who are dearest to them. And it hurts my kids. And it affects me at work. And it hurts my relationship with friends. And it wreaks havoc in the church. And sometimes it makes me look really foolish. And you sit down and you start making a list of how much that uncontrolled temper costs, and I tell you what we’ll discover. It’s not worth it. If I have trouble controlling my passion for work, some of us are workaholics. We’ll set aside everything else in our life to be committed to what we’re needed to do at our job. And what we need to appreciate is that’s undisciplined living, and we’ll pay a price for it. It hurts my family.

When I choose my work over them. It means I’m missing the opportunities to nurture my relationship with my wife and my children. It means I’m not able to be there to instruct them in the things that they need from the Lord. To be an example before my family. It means I hurt myself. You can only be a workaholic for so long before physically and emotionally, you’re going to burn out. And it robs me of time for spiritual things. It makes me an ineffective worker in God’s kingdom. It means the church is missing my contribution and the peace that I can add to the puzzle to make our work successful. You sit down and you start putting pencil and paper to it, and you’ll discover that to be undisciplined about my work ethic, being a workaholic, costs too much.

It isn’t worth it. Even if it’s something as simple as studying God’s word like I need to.

We won’t have spiritual insight to guide our own life. Although we may be professed to be a Christian, if I’m not spending time with God’s book in practicality, I’m no better off than the rest of the world out there who doesn’t care about Jesus. It doesn’t do any good to say I serve Jesus, but not to pay any attention to what his word says or spend time learning what it says. I’m as much in darkness as they are. And it opens me up to the danger of being deceived. You put pencil and paper to it. And when we neglect time in our lives to come to know God’s word and are undisciplined in that aspect of our life, we will pay a price. And it’s not working.

We need to take that same process and apply it to whatever area of our life is trouble. If you’re struggling with an addiction to cigarettes, you’re going to pay a price for that. It’s going to cost you something. If the problem is overeating, you’ll pay a price for that. If the problem is sexual passion, you’ll pay a price for that. I tell you what, when I say sit down and put a pencil and paper to it, brethren, I literally mean that. Get out a sheet of paper and run through the list of the penalties you suffer in whatever area you’re struggling with discipline. Sometimes we’re just not thinking about that. And if we would stop and do it, I tell you, we’ll find the ability to hold ourselves in and resist the temptation to be undisciplined in our living.

Conclusion

I’m convinced that it is carefully weighing the consequences of failure that go a long way in helping us to find the power to do what our sound mind tells us to do. Take out your songbooks, if you would, please. And turn to the number that Bruce has selected as the invitation song. When you’ve done that, if I could have your attention back for just one more minute, it would be to say to you that what we have described this evening is certainly not, at least in some respects, the easiest way to live. It’s easier when you’re angry to lose your temper, at least at the moment. It’s easier when you’re tempted sexually to follow your passions. It’s tough to reign them in. But you know, we can’t always look at things in terms of the moment.

In terms of the big picture, the only life that is pleasing to God is one that is characterized by discipline. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s the only one that’s really happy. Really contented, really fulfilled. I would challenge you this evening to ponder in our own lives. What areas are troubled by a lack of self-discipline? To study the Bible passages related to that weakness. To consider what that’s costing us. And to pray for the help of God. And developing a greater discipline in those areas. If you’re here tonight and you’re not a Christian, perhaps you are facing the greatest test of good inner self-government. As you look into your own heart and you know that your life is not right with God, if Jesus came, you wouldn’t go to heaven.

To know that within that inner man, that inner city that we’re governing, nothing is right because things aren’t right with God. Maybe you’ve learned enough to be sober in mind and you know what you must do to bring your life in line with his will. The only thing you’re missing is the inner strength to budge from that pew tonight and get yourself right with God. To do that, I just urge you to count the calls. What are you missing? If your life’s not right with God. If you’re subject to his invitation, come right now. As together we stand and while we sing.