Which of the following would you prefer - you could have one marshmallow now, or, if you waited a wee while, you could have two? Here’s a video where young children were given that choice...
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The marshmallow test was first conducted in the 1960s, to see if nursery age children had any self-control. And the idea is simple - you can either have a small reward now, or a greater reward after a bit of a wait. Some had no self-control, immediately grabbing whatever was on offer there and then. But others reckoned that the ‘later’ reward was better - delayed gratification to use big words - and used a variety of strategies to try to keep them from the temptation of the one marshmallow.
So how would you get on with the marshmallow test? And how is your self-control? When we think about our daily life, there are lots of opportunities to exercise self-control (or not). There’s the whole realm of money - when payday comes, do you splash out, treat yourself, not thinking that you’ve got a whole week or month for the money to last. I used to work in a corner shop when I was growing up, and one of our colleagues would nearly have blown his week’s wages on sweets and crisps before he’d even left the shop on payday!
Perhaps you struggle with self-control when it comes to food, or drink, or some other substance. And so, perhaps you’ve given up something for Lent, and now two and a half weeks in, you’re either managing fine without it, or else you’re having withdrawal struggles. I heard recently of the Catholic Bishop of Cork in the 1950s, Cornelius Lucey. He decreed that during Lent, his people should only eat one biscuit with a cup of tea. So fairly quickly afterwards, a bakery in Cork produced what they called ‘Connie Dodgers’ - enormous biscuits, so that you were still only eating one biscuit!
Perhaps your self-control is lacking in other ways, and there’s a particular temptation or two that you always fall for; a particular sin that you indulge in, and then feel awful about afterwards. Perhaps you think like Oscar Wilde, who famously said, ‘I can resist everything except temptation.’
This morning we’ve come to the last of the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit. We’ve covered love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and now we’re looking at self-control.
Like so many of the others, self-control is a quality that some people have, and that everyone can work on. The researcher from the Marshmallow Test tracked the lives of the original group of children, and could trace the patterns of their life based on how they reacted to one marshmallow or two. And it might be that in some areas of life, you’re very self-controlled and in other areas of your life you’re not as self-controlled. And you could, quite possible, try really, really hard to be more self-controlled, just by your own effort.
But that’s not what we’re thinking about, and it’s not what I’m recommending. You see, the self-control that we’re thinking about today is part of the fruit of the Spirit - it’s something that the Holy Spirit is growing in us as he helps us to live for Jesus and become more like Jesus.
We see this spiritual self-control as Jesus determined to live a perfect life of obedience to God’s law - Jesus was so self-controlled that he never did anything wrong in what he said, or thought, or did. Can you imagine that? But on top of that, Jesus determined to go to the cross. He controlled himself to fully obey. As Hebrews says: ‘Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God.’ (Heb 12:2)
You remember the one marshmallow or two? The great reward for Jesus was fulfilling the Father’s plan, and bringing us to share in his salvation. That’s why Jesus endured the pain and agony of the cross. That’s how self-controlled he was.
And that’s what the Holy Spirit wants to grow in us. It’s the image of the athletes who are currently preparing for the Olympics - if they go ahead this summer. As they get up at 5am and run or row or life weights; as they spend hours in the gym doing all their training; as they eat very carefully designed meals that will give them all the things they need to perform to the best of their abilities; they have their eyes on the end goal - standing on the podium and receiving the gold medal.
Imagine how much they might rather stay in bed when their alarm goes off. Or how much they might like to finish at the gym early and just watch a boxset on the sofa. Or how much they would want to have a big bar of chocolate or a big fry-up. But they control themselves, they discipline themselves, with an eye on the future glory.
And that’s what the Spirit is doing in us. It’s why, when Titus is on the island of Crete, helping to establish the new churches, he is to teach the people to live in the way that matches up to the gospel. Now, you can decide yourselves whether you’re in the older or younger categories, but older men, younger women and young men are all explicitly urged to be self-controlled. And (in case you think the older women don’t have to be), they are to do things that would be the same as self-controlled.
At another of these Family Services we looked at Titus 2:11-15, when we thought about goodness. But look again at verse 12 to see how self-control fits into God’s purposes. We all naturally live for ungodliness and worldly passions. But God’s grace helps us to say no to them, and instead to say yes to self-controlled, upright and godly lives.
Grace helps us in two ways - first, because our past has been dealt with. All those times when we didn’t have self-control, all those sins we’ve committed - Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all our wickedness.
But grace also helps us by pointing us forward. What is the reward that we’re looking forward to? What will be better than whatever we’re tempted to do here and now? we’re waiting for our ‘blessed hope - the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.’
That’s what we’re looking forward to; that’s what drives us in our choices, and helps to keep us from temptations - one day I will see Jesus, face to face. And in the meantime, every day from this day until that day, we have the Holy Spirit living in us, producing his fruit in our lives as he takes control of us, and we gain control over ourselves.
Perhaps there are things you want to say to the Lord - things you want to say sorry for; struggles that you need his help with; so let’s take a moment or two to do that before I pray.
This sermon was preached at the Family Service in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday morning 15th March 2020.
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