Kings Road Church

Speaker	Download as mp3	Play in browser
Ron White		Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

1 Introduction
There are few more beautiful sights than apple trees in autumn laden with fruit. There are no more beautiful lives than those bringing forth a huge crop of the fruit of the Spirit. This morning we conclude our series on the fruit of the Spirit and I pray that we
Shall all want to become more fruitful in our lives. Indeed as Jesus said “This is to my Father`s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. “ (John 15:8.)

2 Gentleness
Gentleness is better translated meekness. Gentleness is often coupled with humility. They are key elements in the character of someone who is truly gentle. But aren`t meekness and humility for pathetic people, the hopeless non-achievers of this world-for losers? Meekness and humility are not forms of weakness but require great strength of character as I hope will become apparent.

Meekness and humility are identical twins, but as with twins they have their distinctives. A meek person is someone who is much more concerned for the rights of others than they are for their own rights. A humble person is someone who does not worry about their own status. They have a servant heart. They do not act out of pride.

Old Testament. Do you know who in the Old Testament was the meekest man in the world? Here are some clues. The first thing that he did was to murder someone in a brawl. That was not weak, but was it meek? His next major action was to help out some young ladies. The girls were taking their sheep to be watered when a bunch of shepherds attacked them to drive them away. This man singlehandedly defended the girls and drove their assailants away. That was not weak, but was it meek? Later we read that this same man went right up to one of the most powerful emperors of his day and in the emperors own palace, told him, eyeball to eyeball to release loads of his slaves. That was not weak, but was it meek? All those actions took enormous courage.

Very few men would have attempted one let alone all three. Let`s face it most of us would prefer to keep our heads below the parapet. But it took a real man`s man to do all these things. On each occasion he risked his life. Who was he? He was Moses. In Numbers 12:3 we read that Moses was the meekest man in the world. Did his actions belie his label? No! Because in each situation he used his physical and moral strength and the force of his personality to defend the rights of others and not to advance his own interests. Indeed he jeopardized his own interests. The book of Hebrews tells us in chap 11:24-26 that Moses “He chose to be ill-treated…rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin…He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt..he was looking ahead ..he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.”

Bearing in mind that Moses was schooled in Pharaoh’s court where, I am certain, that character development in meekness was not on the agenda, how then did Moses become the meekest man in the world? Because he was sure of his identity in Christ. His identity was not derived from his privileged position in Pharaoh`s court, or his sense of mission to save an enslaved people, or even the fact he knew that he was personally called by God but from his knowing Christ. It was for the sake of Christ, he saw Christ, the invisible one. The Bible urges us to fix our eyes, our hearts and our minds on Christ. Gal 2:20 was, in effect, lived out by Moses: “I am crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”.

New Testament Let us turn to the New Testament. It is interesting that in the Gospels the only references to meekness in the teaching and life of Jesus are in Matthew`s Gospel. That in itself is significant-why? Matthew is the gospel of the King. A king who fulfils all the Old Testament criteria for the coming Messianic King, yet is rejected as king by the Jews but acknowledged as the king of the Jews by gentiles. Psalm 45:4 tells us that the ideal king is to ride forth in majesty “because of truth and meekness (AV)”.The ideal king is Jesus, in whom all the scriptures are fulfilled. Let`s turn to Matthew`s Gospel [page 968]. In 5:5 Jesus tells us in his Sermon on the Mount “That blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”. That turns the world`s values upside down. According to the world`s view it is the aggressive, the ruthless self-seeking, power hungry megalomaniacs alone who can win the world. They forget who rules the world. They also overlook what the scripture says. It says “inherit”. An inheritance can only be received when someone dies. Christ has died and risen again. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Ruler of the Kings of the earth and the Father has said to his Son “I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession (Ps 2v8)”. Let`s move on in Matthew. In chapter 11vv28-29[Read it.] Later in Matthew we read in chapter 21:5 that Jesus within a few days of the cross riding in triumph on a war horse? No! On a donkey and the Bible prophecy made some hundreds of years beforehand is fulfilled. [Read it.] Jesus himself is the exemplar of his teaching the realism of which he demonstrates to be true, no matter what the world says.

No more vivid and instructive picture of what meekness really is can be found than that which Paul paints in his letter to the Philippians 2:1-11 in which Paul urges us to be like-minded [v2]. Jesus, though fully God, set aside all his rights as God the Son, creator of the universe to become perfect man. He had no regard at all for his status and died that appalling death on the cross.

That is all we have time for this morning on gentleness as a fruit of the Spirit. It is an indispensible quality that will only be reproduced in our own lives as walk in the Spirit and find our identity in Christ. If you do not find your identity in Christ you will find it very difficult to cultivate the fruit of gentleness ie meekness, because you will always have to assert yourself in order to prove yourself. But if your identity is in Christ, then you will having nothing to prove, but only to maintain your relationship with him.

3 Self Control
God made us a little lower than the angels but if we allow our appetites to control us, if we are driven by our glands, then we can end up a little lower than the animals. Men of God, called by God and mightily gifted by God have ruined their lives, their testimony and their ministry because they lacked basic self-control.

The Bible tells us about Samson. He was endowed by God with supernatural strength. As a young man he was attacked by a lion, and tore it apart with his bare hands. On another occasion he seemed utterly helpless, he was bound by strong ropes and the Philistines were rushing down on him to kill him. He flexed his muscles the ropes snapped as if they were no more than spiders` webs, he picked up the jaw bone of a donkey (no mean weapon) and killed a thousand of his enemies. Possibly his only regret was that there were not more Philistines to fight. However, the devil had a plan, there was one area in Samson`s life where he had time and again showed lack of self-control. Why risk thousands more troops which Samson will always be able to slaughter? No! Where 10,000 men would easily lose, send instead a much more effective and deadly weapon. Send in a raven haired, doe-eyed beauty-woman! Samson had time and again failed in the area of sexual temptation. Sure enough he failed again and before long she had him wrapped around her little finger and coaxed him into betraying the secret of his strength. And that was the end of his ministry as a deliverer of Israel. He was easily captured by his and Israel`s enemies. His captors gauged out his eyes and took him off to do menial slave work in Gaza and that is where he ended his days. Ironic isn`t it that because he never had the self control over what he allowed his eyes to rest on, that he should lose his eye sight. If God were to strike every Christian blind who refused to exercise self-control over what he allowed his eyes to view, I wonder how many Braille Bibles we would need. David said “I will set before my eyes no vile thing (Ps 101v3)”. Perhaps that is a scripture we should put on our televisions. The great news is that Jesus wants to set you free.

There are others areas of life where we need to exercise self-control. Some people really struggle with a terrible temper. They have an uncontrollable temper, they fly into rages, often loved ones are on the receiving end, and violence can be involved. In last week`s Gazette there was an article about help for the victims of domestic violence. Over 500 people have used a local help line since it was started in July, 13% of whom are men.

Jesus is ready this morning to set you free if you have problems of self-control.

Do you know the origin of one of the contributory factors to the on-going Middle East conflict? It stems from one man who nearly 4,000 years ago failed to control his drink. He simply failed to say “No”. The man was Lot. Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed by God`s judgement and Lot and his two daughters barely escaped with their lives. Their home destroyed they end up living in a cave. The daughters fearing they had now lost all chance of having a family of their own, instead of trusting God hatched a plot of their own. They got their dad drunk and then got themselves pregnant by him. Lot was so drunk that when he came to the next day he did not even know that he had been involved in incest. It is disturbing to think this could have happened a number of times before the girls conceived. The children out of these drunken incestuous liasons became the founders of the Moabites and Ammonites which have been throughout history a cause of a huge amount of suffering to Israel. One problem for those who develop a dependency on alcohol is that they completely delude themselves into thinking they are in control. They are not, drink is in control of them. It is essential to exercise control now, not later.

Some folk cannot control their spending and have got themselves into debt. They are terrified of opening letters for fear it is another demand for payment. They fool themselves into thinking that if they leave it alone then perhaps the problem will go away. Debt is one of those problems that does not solve itself with time. An article in the FT recently pointed out that a debt of 1cent with an interest rates of 10% a day would in little over one year amount to a sum equal to the whole of the American economic output. It is terrifying to think of. Again if this an area where you are battling for self control get help sooner or later.

Conclusion

Are you sitting there thinking this sounds great but I can’t do it? I have tried and tried but I just keep on failing. I try to exercise self control and for a little while all seems well. Then a little voice inside me says “Oh come on it is not such a big deal, do it again, no one will know and does it really matter anyway. You fight it at first but it keeps on. At the same time the desire in you is growing. Then you give in. What was a little voice now becomes a screaming accusation of guilt. You have done it this time. Call yourself a Christian. Do you think God will forgive you yet again? In fact you should just give up.

Here is a massive encouragement for you. Look at what Galatians 5:24-25 which says “Those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” If we now look back to Gal 2:20 we read “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God.” If we turn back to Romans 6:6 we read “We know that our old self (ie our “sinful nature”) was crucified with [Christ]”.

What are these verses telling us? They are telling us that if we have truly repented of our sins, that is if we have made that decisive turning away from our lives as non-Christians and have put our faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God who died for our sins on that cross to remove our guilt, then something else happened at that time. When we put our faith in Christ we were born again, we receive the Spirit of Christ and get an entirely new nature. From then on there is a conflict between the old nature, the one we are born with, and our new nature, the one we receive when we believe in Jesus. This conflict is unrelenting.

How can we make sure that we win it, and win consistently? The first thing to do is to recognise the truth that we have been crucified with Christ. This is something that God has done for us in Christ. We do not do it. God has already done it for us; it is part of the package of salvation. As Paul says in Romans 6:11 “Count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” “Count yourselves” ie take it as a given, accept it as an accomplished fact. Sin then has no authority over you. You do not have to obey its demands. Sin will of course try to take control but it has no more authority over you then the law of the land has over a corpse. Just suppose that Vladimir Putin of Russia was to declare on television tonight that he has now taken over the UK and that from now on he is its President, that we have to do as he says and start paying him taxes. Well he would be laughed at. He has no authority whatsoever to say such a thing. He may decide to launch an invasion and seize control by force. Well that is very much the position for the believer regarding sin. Sin has no rights whatever over us, but that does not stop it attacking us. The first and essential step in dealing with any sin, especially besetting sins, the ones that have hitherto always overpowered us, is to recognise that sin has no authority, no rights over us.

The next step is the one Paul tells us about in Gal 5:24. We are to act on the fact that we have been crucified with Christ and to cooperate with God in that fact and to confirm it by ourselves crucifying our sinful natures. It is a little like someone giving us a cheque for £100,000. We could say that is wonderful and leave it on the mantelpiece. We might then think, well as wonderful as having that cheque is, it has not made the slightest difference in my life, in fact I might as well not have it. Which would be true, you have to cash the cheque then start spending the money for it to make a difference. So with the cross, you accept what God has done for you in the cross, that you have been crucified with Christ then you start working from that position. It does not matter in the slightest what you feel like. You get on and do it.

In appropriating to ourselves what God has already done for us in Christ we need to remember that crucifixion is:

• Pitiless, never feel sorry for your old self. Do not for a moment entertain the thought that you should, as it were, ease the nails. There is only one outcome and that is death. The old nature is not to be coaxed into reform, it is to be crucified.
• Painful, accept that it is not going to be an easy ride. Our flesh will revolt and struggle, it will take time, crucifixion was painful and slow, but allow only one outcome, the death of our old nature.
• Decisive, there is to be no debating of the outcome. We take our stand on what God has done for us in Christ and as decisive as Christ’s death on the cross was, so is our attitude towards our old nature. There is only one acceptable outcome: it has to die.

But, it does not stop there. You may be asking “Isn’t this all terribly negative? Well read on in Gal 5:25. Look what it says “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Go back to 2:20 “Nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me”. And in Romans 6:12 we read that we are to reckon ourselves as being “alive to God in Christ Jesus”. Being crucified with Christ is the negative aspect, the positive is that we have the Spirit of Christ in us, that we are led by him and our job is simply to walk in step with the Spirit, doing in each situation what he wants us to do.

What are you going to do this morning? Are you going on living as a failing Christian, are you going to keep on in the hopeless cycle of defeat, repent, being forgiven, defeat repent forgiven. Or are you going to take a decisive break with that? Are you going to be pitiless towards your old nature? Are you going to accept for yourself what God has already done for you in Christ? Recognise that you have been crucified with Christ, that you have the Spirit of Christ in you, that your identity from now on is to be who you are in Christ?