The Power of Complete Self Control

Hello, my name is John Humenik and I'll be your host tonight. I'm excited that you'll be able to join me as I teach on the topic of the power of self-control. I'm— oh, I'm sorry. I'm excited that you're here. I'll— we post daily contents on, um, teachings and on your identity in Christ and the prophetic. Today's teaching starts with King Solomon's From Proverbs 25:28, like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control. And I want to talk about the importance of this verse as it relates to self-control and how we manage our life on a day-to-day basis. So when we think about self-control, the, the very first thing that you want to understand is that it is very important that you manage the day-to-day tasks under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And this is really important because there is no moment in your life where you should really lose control, that whenever you're operating under the spirit of holiness, under God's Spirit, you're operating in a very focused area that allows you to be very successful and not have moments of stress. What Solomon is saying here is, is that when you're operating in a spirit of chaos, you're really going to struggle very quickly on how to deal with problems on a day-to-day basis, storms on a day-to-day basis, tribulations on a day-to-day basis, and that, that can really wreck your life. Amen. It's think about the context that Solomon is talking about this. You have this situation where you have a city with walls, and in ancient times, if you had a large city with a lot of inhabitants, a city wall was the best defense that you could have against an attacking army because you would want to have a city high up. You want to have it difficult to bring siege machines and lots of people. You would have moats and all kinds of defensive structures, but ultimately, a wall prevents people. From getting in. And so now think about this from the perspective of what he's saying is if you lose that city wall, what happens? Guess what? Now the invaders can come in uninterrupted and just create pure chaos. And that's a challenge because in that culture you wanted to be safe. You didn't have back then lots of people with police forces or military forces. You did have military, but it wasn't like it is today where you could rapidly move from location to location. If an army moved up on an unsuspecting city, they could sack the entire city, take everything, and what would happen is, guess what? The city would be destroyed before any help comes. Today, if you have a police force across town, they can come in cars, they can come in helicopters. It, it doesn't take them very long for to be able to move many, many miles And if you needed a military force, you could bring in fighter jets. And so this is the context of what Solomon is trying to do. He's trying to put people in a posture where now you're starting to understand the very difference between what self-control brings and what chaos does to an exact— an existing city. It is just the total opposite. And so it's so important in order to be able to operate in this context of self-control, in this context of love, in this context of hope, because without it, it is just the exact opposite of control. It's just pure chaos. And so I want to take a moment for those people who are new to my channel. If you haven't been here before, take an opportunity to subscribe and click on that notification bell. Feel free to— feel free to chat hello and your name. If you get this livestream after the fact, it's perfectly fine to, you know, do some comments. We want to be able to contribute to the ministry and get to know people as they, as they come on board. And so when you start to understand how self-control works in your life, it's important to note the effect that it has on your day-to-day walk with Christ. Imagine if you lacked self-control whenever you got hungry. Imagine that if you decided to have business meetings at 1 o'clock and you, you didn't get a chance to have lunch at noon, and how your Low blood sugar can make you cranky. Imagine putting your kids to bed and you're tired from a long day of work because you overworked yourself, and now you have to put a cranky kid to bed, how that would affect your day. Imagine a friend in need coming to you in the middle of the weekend and he or she is struggling and you're exhausted from taking your kids all over the place for sports and all these other activities, and now your friend needs you and what happens? You can't be there for them. And so, So in that moment, what you're dealing with is the inability to operate in a truly self-controlled manner, because it's very important that you're able to do that because people are counting on you. God is putting you in positions for you to be successful in life. He wants you to be successful. He wants you to be his hands and feet on this earth. He wants you to be able to bring a beautiful word of advice, edification, something that just helps lift something up. And helps lift someone into a place of hope and of joy. And whenever you don't have that, when you're struggling with self-control, God's not going to trust you to put you into those situations where you will ultimately fall apart, where you can't speak those words, where you can't control your emotions, where you can't control those things. And it becomes this vacuum of inability to accomplish anything. And what ends up happening is there's a lot of emptiness. And so what we want to do is talk about that you do have all the power and all the control you need through the Holy Spirit. It starts with 2 Timothy 1:7, one of the most legendary verses in the entire Bible. It reads, for the Spirit of God does not make us timid but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. In some translations like the King James Version, it would be a sound mind. And so what you start to see— or in the context of timid would be fear— so what we see here is, is that God is speaking to you and saying, one, you're not supposed to be timid and, and cower away from situations. You have the spirit of power. You have the spirit of truth. That's who the Holy Spirit is. That's how he's described. And you also have the power of a sound mind, of self-discipline, being able to operate very well in all situations at all times. And I want to make sure you understand That it doesn't come from you. This is not something that is, uh, some spiritual elite, some super Christian, someone who is going to be able to be set apart. No, it's through surrender, it's through obedience, it's through humility and dropping back and allowing the Holy Spirit to operate in those moments of weakness. That's the essence of what Jesus talked about when he said, when you're weak, I'm strong. When you're able to push aside all of the flesh and crucify it and take your will and replace it with Jesus's will. What you're doing in that very moment is you're becoming unconquerable. You can live life in the ability where you can never lose. You will never have an opportunity to fail because who is fighting your battles is the Holy Spirit. And who's the Holy Spirit? the most powerful person on this earth. And now what you see is, is that God will guide you into a season where you might be struggling, where you may have to stretch your faith and wonder, what is really going on here? How do I make it through this season? I, maybe I've lost a best friend, I've lost a parent. Maybe you've lost a loved one, maybe a child, a pet, and you're just crushed, or you're moving. What we see here is, and studies show, That a death of a family member or a move are the 2 of the most stressful things that can really impact your life. And I, and I can attest to that myself so that I know, because I've been through both situations, and there can be devastating and it can be crushing. But what happens is, is God moves in those moments of weakness and of depth of despair, and he lifts you up and powers you forward. That's because He's greater than every single problem you can experience. He is all-powerful. He's all-knowing. He already knows what you're trying to accomplish in your life and allows you to do it regardless of your own weaknesses. Think about that. Let me repeat that. Even though you are not capable of accomplishing something, God can and still do it through you. It's an amazing thing. It's what God talks about. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I know people like to say that that verse is taken out of context and that they, that they want to be able to— that it doesn't apply to all these things. But go back and read the chapter, read the whole book, and you'll start to understand it means exactly that. There is no situation that God will allow you to go into that you can't completely conquer through the Holy Spirit. That's the essence of how it works, is self-control comes through humility, through the Holy Spirit. And it really sets the stage for you to be very successful in life because now you have the perfect God guiding you through every single situation and really preventing you From making mistakes. And so we're going to go through about 6 Bible verses today, and I want to talk about the very important things that matter in your life and how to use self-control to your advantage in life. So number one, you've got to be able to control your mouth. That's the essence of what all this starts. And it's some— for some people, it's very difficult because they like to respond. They like to, you know, snap back. If you're one of those people that want to be able to be quick or get the last answer in, and what you see a lot of it is, is that you see a lot of those people primarily either extroverts in conversation because they're used to talking over each other, or you have introverts in private conversations and they feel like things are getting out of control or they're losing, they're losing the conversation. And so they try to, you know, overexert themselves. So what is SOM? 141, verses 3 through 4 says. It says, set a guard over my mouth, Lord. Keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not let my heart be drawn out to what is evil so that I take part in wicked deeds along with those who are evildoers. Do not let me eat their delicacies. So what the psalmist is saying in this moment is guard his mouth, guard his lips. Don't let me repeat what the other evil people are doing. Don't let me gossip. Don't let me speak out against my brother or sister. Don't let me tear them down with my words. Don't let me eat from the same food that they're eating because it's just poison. That's what it is, and it destroys relationships. Guarding your mouth is without a doubt the one of the most important things you do, because the power of life and death is in the tongue. We've seen it. We've seen people speak things as if they aren't, okay, so that, so that they are. So what happens is, is that what you're doing is, is you're— you see a situation that doesn't exist, and then you speak it and say, I want to change that situation. What people don't realize is that God gave us the ability to be thermostats in the room. So if you see a situation that's going sideways and people are angry, you have the ability to speak to that situation and turn it for good. At the same time, you can take a tranquil situation and wreck it and turn it into bad. And that's what God is doing in this very moment, is, is he's saying to literally place a guard. Imagine if you had like a piece of armor and there's a guard over your mouth. If you look at like football players, they wear a mouthguard. Boxers, you know, they have a helmet with a face shield. Think of it from that perspective where you're literally locking down your mouth and your lips and you're reserving what you say until the Holy Spirit moves you into action. And that is really important because as you continue to watch over what you say, how you say it, The tone in which you say it, it changes all those things. This is the thing that when you start to understand and you hear God, the small still voice, the reason why God whispers to you is it takes the tone out of the conversation. If you ever notice how God speaks to you, is there's never emotion attached to it, because if he attaches emotion to it, you will resonate. In a way that you don't want to be resonating. You'll literally vibrate. You'll feel the power of God through his voice, and it will shake you to the core. Now, if you flow in the prophetic, you're going to feel God's emotion. You're going to feel God's anger. You're going to feel God's heartache. And, and especially if you're an intercessor where you, you feel the, the, the emotion being put upon you because God wants you to feel what he feels in order to conjoin with him and move forward. And I can tell you, because I have been through those experiences myself, they are— they can be completely overwhelming. They can like literally wreck your days. Like, I had an opportunity to experience a very vivid and very powerful dream earlier this week, and it wrecked my day. I don't think I recovered to almost like 2, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. It just is so powerful. So that's why when God speaks to you, it's this gentle, still voice. It allows you to feel and experience these things in a profound way without having all of the tonality and the voice hit you with it. And so now imagine if God speaks to you like that, then how are you supposed to speak to others? You must carry that same respect. You must carry that same structure with others. Because as you're speaking to people, they're reading your facial expressions, they're reading your tone, they're reading the firmness or the softness. Even the words you say can really, uh, can be twisted in a way where people, if they're very defensive, they'll just find a way to twist even the most beautiful words. You could say, I love you, and then they can turn around and say, well, didn't you love me yesterday? Why didn't you say that yesterday? And so that's the difference of having self-control and not having self-control, because chaos can break out at any point in time, and it really can change the situation in a very negative way. So we got number one: control your mouth. Number two is focus on listening. So we're going to go through a lot of the senses here. So we have James chapter one, verse nineteen. It reads: My dear brothers and sisters. Take note of this: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. And so this is a staged verse because what we see here is it's multiple stages. So let's start with— let's start unpacking this and talk about first quick to listen. James doesn't say be quick to respond, be quick to ponder. He said, be quick to listen. Think about that. He didn't even say be quick to think. He wants you to be attentive to the person at hand because the person at hand wants you to be present for them. They want you to be there for them. There are a lot of people out there that really struggle and really have issues and need someone to be able to talk to and express their concern. And so it's so important that you are able to really sit down and just listen to what the person is going through and understand the challenges that they're having for that day. Because sometimes at the end of the day, they don't even need advice. They just want to get it off their chest and talk to someone. That's why you should be quick to listen. Now, what's the second part of that verse is then slow to speak. He didn't say not to speak, but he did say to be slow to speak. So what we're doing is, is we're posturing our heart to listen to the people, and now what we're doing is, is then responding accordingly, generally when there's big gaps in the conversation or if there are questions being asked, whether hopefully not rhetorical but something that you can address. And that allows you to Basically endear yourself to the person. It allows you to relate. If you can't relate to a person's problems, it's very difficult for you to have good, vibrant relationships with them. That's why Jesus spent so much time with the disciples. We know that he spent time away from them, but he needed to spend time with them. And he, even in the extent of him being the greatest teacher, we see him Sitting at the feet of people. We see him talking to the elders when he's 12, but still sitting and listening. And so Jesus, this great teacher, would sit in the presence of his Father and just pray to him and get filled up and be able to operate in the spirit of power. But then he was always slow to speak. He didn't jump down people's throat. He was always correcting them when they needed correcting, because he knows, because he knows that if they're on the wrong path, He has to be able to speak to them in a way that, that would resonate. And I know a lot of people heard that, that message and really turned their, their hearts towards God. And so at no point in your conversation should you really ever become angry. This is one of the things that I will say, that if you're new to Christianity or you're struggling with anger, there is nothing you should be quick to anger. Even when Jesus saw the, the tables, uh, in his Father's temple, around his temple, I'm sure he was not quick to anger but thoughtfully figured out how am I going to manage this, and then did the work and cleared them out. There's only 2 times in the Bible Jesus got mad, and both times were because they had turned his Father's house, as he described it, into a house of robbers where they were stealing from people They were taking advantage of people. At no point was he ever truly angry at anyone. He had that righteous anger, but at that same time, it happened and then it was over. And so, and that wasn't even in a conversation. That was a reaction to people's posture of their hearts and taking advantage of people. Because what they were doing was, is people would come up and they would need— they, they would not necessarily, because they're coming across the, the nation of Israel. So what happens is, is they're coming over for the Passover feast, one of the feasts where men have to be present, and they're not going to carry, you know, their sacrifice hundreds of miles or tens of miles. So what they'll do is they'll take money and they'll purchase an animal at the temple and then sacrifice it there. So what happened was, is they had too many animals there polluting this holy and consecrated place, and then they were charging them too much. And so this is the situation Jesus is in. So he's reacting to a very bad situation appropriately in order to properly respect his Father. I mean, look what happened with Uzziah. Uzziah got comfortable around the Ark of the Covenant, and whenever the Ark of the Covenant, uh, stumbled, he touched it, and, and then God struck him down. And you, you don't want to ever get comfortable with God, and you want to manage your self-control in that same way. You want to be able to have vibrant conversations with people. But when— in order to have a vibrant conversation with them, you got to be a good listener, and you have to be able to speak correctly, with wisdom, with knowledge, with understanding. But then it's really not supposed to be a dominating conversation for you. And so that's the essence of number 2, which is focus on listening in your life and be a great listener. Now, number 3 is, is being able to maintain your self-control in even the most difficult of So now let's look at how Jesus did this. Matthew 27:12-14. The background is, is he's on the way to the cross. He's before Pontius Pilate. And listen to what happened. He says, when he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, don't you hear the testimony that they're bringing against you? But Jesus made no reply, not even a single charge, to the great amazement of the governor. Now, if you've not really understood or studied ancient Israel at that time, this was a very common practice where you would be accused, and especially when you're accused, uh, on the, on the way to being executed, what would happen is, is that you would defend yourself. Now imagine if you're caught up in that situation, you could potentially be in a frantic situation where you're like, no, these charges are false, I deny them, their witnesses are lying. These are false charges. And you go on and on and on because what happens is, is that if you don't successfully defend yourself, you're gonna die. That's what happens. That's what happened then. And you know, those deaths were horrible. They weren't, they weren't these quick deaths. These were very painful, potentially could be multiple days. And when, especially through crucifixion, most people didn't die the first day. It would take days and days and days. So you would have— you would be suffering an excruciating death for up to 48, 72 hours. No one wanted to go through that. So now picture yourself, you're in this situation where Jesus is before Pilate, and Pilate is saying, what do you say to defend yourself? No one else is here. He doesn't have an attorney. He doesn't have a group of folks that are, you know, local counselors that are there to help him. He's just there by himself. The disciples had left him. And they had run off. And Pilate's looking to him and saying, "Are you going to answer their charges?" And Jesus is silent. He doesn't say anything. And so what is he showing? What is he emulating for us in that moment is epic self-control. Jesus before Pilate showed that even at the most difficult time of your life, you are able to maintain a high degree of self-control that you don't do the things God doesn't want. You to do. Jesus knew he had to go to the cross. He knew what he needed— he knew what he needed to say in order for that to happen. But at this moment, Jesus knew that the chief priests were going to manipulate the crowd and get him to the cross. So ultimately, it didn't matter what he said. He wasn't going to be able to make himself innocent, nor did he want to. So Jesus was able to just Show the depth of humility, saying, I am going to maintain my control in this great moment of turmoil, and I am going to act out the way that my children, my brothers and sisters, should operate. That's the essence of what we're talking about with number 3, is that there is very— to be honest with you, there's very little situations in life that I can think of that would put you in a posture where you would need to lose your self-control, even in the context of self-defense. And we know that God talks about this, that no No weapon formed against you shall prosper. So unless God has commanded you to go out to battle and defend your country, and even then you have to be under the greatest level of self-control, you have to understand is that there's really no moment in your life where you're going to be stuck, where you can't stop and think and say, hmm, what should I do? There really isn't. God is greater than all things. He's never going to put you in a situation where you can't overcome it. And so, and even if he does, he's going to give you the Holy Spirit to push through. So there's really no situation where you have to get into a spot where you lose your self-control and become problematic, cause issues, and just become undone, whether that's emotionally or physically or mentally. And what it talks about further in the Bible is, especially in Titus chapter 2, and we're going to take a couple chapters out of Titus chapter 2, but that entire chapter for the most part talks about self-control. It's a powerful chapter that really hits home on a lot of different things. But the, the, when we talk about number 4, is, is that specifically the Bible says men need to be under self-control. It says in Titus chapter 2, it says in verse 2 and verses 6 through 8— I'm going to go ahead and read those verses— it says, teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance. The endurance part is very important. Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled in every thing. Set them as an example by doing what is good. In your teaching, show integrity, seriousness, and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. So let's unpack this verse and really talk about what it means in the context of men, because what we see here is, is that Paul is writing to Titus and covering multiple layers of men, both younger men and older men, and he gives different pieces of guidance based upon their age. So what he's saying about older men is, is that he, he actually gives a huge list. He starts off with being temperate. And what we've seen is— I've seen in my life, as I've seen a lot of cranky old men and people that are just been You know, the world has rubbed them the wrong way. They're done with life. They just want to go. They just want to go to the grave, and they could be cranky and very difficult. What God is saying is, is that as you age, you need to age like wine. You need to get better. It's not something that you're supposed to regress. You're, you're supposed to be temperate and relaxed and calm in all situations. Think about it from the perspective of someone who may be 80. Or maybe in the 70s. They've seen a lot. If you're in your 70s now or in your 80s, you've seen a dramatic amount of difficulties in your life. You've seen stock market crashes. You've seen the oil crisis. If you're old enough, you may have even seen a world war. And those situations should teach you to be temperate because you're— you would have seen and known that even in those great moments of trials, That God sees his people through. So there really is no reason for you to be not self-controlled. You should be able to be temperate in those moments where you're not getting too hot and getting upset, or too cold and regressing into like almost like a muted emotion state. And what Paul continues, he talks about being worthy of respect. As you age, you should be treated with respect, but you also have to act like that you deserve that respect, because your actions should represent how you operate. You should give respect to people, and then in turn they should give it to you. You should be worthy about it. You should have right— you should live a righteous life. You should live a holy life. You should be able to operate not in sin, both publicly and privately. It should be a part of who you are. The fruit in which you operate should always be good. And that's how you know— you know the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is look at their fruit. Look at what they're doing. Look at how they're operating. Because if you see everyone around them thriving, then you know that they're operating good fruit. But if you see people around them struggling and falling apart, well, guess what? That's bad. And so that's the essence of what Paul is talking about here to Titus, Be worthy of respect. Be worthy. Have people around you that respect you because of the things you've done for them. You deserve that same reciprocal action back to you. And so he then talks about the third thing is being self-controlled, and that's kind of the essence of what we're talking about. And he says to be sound in faith. This is a really interesting way of operating because he's talking about sound in faith. There's a There's an interesting aspect of those words because he wants you to be being able to have a depth of faith that's sound. And when you think about it from an English translation in today, that means very sure. You're sure in your faith. You're able to walk out these moments of what other people would consider despair, and you're like, no, my God is greater than this. If you see the economy falling apart, you're going to operate and say, no, my, my Father has unlimited resources. I don't operate on the world economy. I operate on his economy. It doesn't matter what my checkbook says. It doesn't matter what income is coming in. I know who my God is. I know who my Father is. And so when you're sound in your faith, you're not shaken by the events of the day, the news, and all the terrors and And even if there's trouble that's stirring around you, because even in the Bible says that the diseases won't come near you. You'll have a thousand fall by your side, ten thousand by your right side, but it will not come near you. That's when you think about that and you try to create a picture of that. It's literally meaning it's on your feet. It's by your feet. You could have ten thousand people. Fall dead right next to you, not miles away, not in another country, not halfway around the world. He's talking about you're seeing this happen, and even in that moment, God's got you in a protective bubble. That's what he means about being sound in your faith, that even though the world is falling apart around you and people are running around hysterical and talking about things that are total nonsense, You see God, you walk that out, and your, your faith is unshaken in those moments. That's what it means. He continues and talks about in love. And so this whole Fruit of the Spirit series is talking about love, because Fruit of the Spirit is singular, it's not plural. Everything branches off of love. So when we talk about the, the Fruit of the Spirit, we start with love. But every single thing that comes after it actually is attached to love. And so what he's saying is, is that every single thing that you do needs to be done in love. That's how you maintain your self-control. This is the one thing that I even remember telling someone recently about, that you can't get to self-control unless you do the other things. You can't get to self-control if you're not loving. You can't get to self-control if you don't have peace, if you don't have joy, if you don't have faithfulness. if you don't have gentleness, if you don't have kindness. Self-control is the last of the fruit of the Spirit, but the reason why it is is that because you have to have all those in advance in order to have it. This is the verse that shows you that, and you have to have it in, in endurance. That's the, the last part of that first sentence. What Paul is saying here is, is that self-control is an element of being able to endure Situations. Now, we've talked about patience, but this is different. Patience is being able to just not rush a situation. There may not necessarily be a negative emotion around it. Endurance is different. Endurance is being able to literally deal with a situation that may be negative and causing negative emotions and pushing through and maintaining That proper self-control in those moments of weakness. Now think about that. If you are struggling, let's say for example you may have, uh, and you're wrestling with, uh, an illness or a disease and it's wrecking your body, but God says no weapon formed against you shall prosper. So you're declaring that. You're declaring that God has a hope for you, that he loves you, and he has a future for you. This is not going to be— I— this is not going to be the last say on my life. And now what happens is, is God is saying that if you endure in faith, in love, this situation through self-control, that's a great test of your faith. That is a great test of your character and being able to manage what God is asking you to do. So all of these things These things he's attaching to the older men. It starts with being temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and endurance. These things are important as you're older because as an older man, that's what you have to endure. You've endured these things, you've been through these things. He's saying keep going. And then he talks about the younger men, and what he's dealing with the younger men is, is he's talking about being self-controlled, being— having a great example, showing integrity, seriousness. A lot of people that are younger are just all over the place and struggle with trying to actually take their life seriously or their relationship. It talks about having sound speech, and so that they can't be condemned. And so if anyone tries to oppose them, they'll be ashamed because their, their character is is just of the highest standard. It becomes so high that even when someone comes and brings a slanderous tone against you, no one's going to believe them. That's the essence of older men and younger men operating under the, the, the umbrella of being self-controlled. So let's move on to the next one, is women also need to be self-controlled. And Paul talks about this in a couple places, and Peter does too, but we're going to take the one from 1 Timothy chapter 12, 9 through 10. It says, I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or even expensive clothes, but with good deeds appropriate for women who profess to worship God. Now, we talked about that you can wear your deeds Uh, like you can wear your clothes. Uh, if you missed that teaching, what it basically means is, is that you can carry your life in a way that people recognize you by your actions. So when you love people in a way that just changes who they are, they recognize that no different than they would recognize a shirt or a pair of pants or a hairstyle. That's— they recognize you. So what Paul is saying is, is make your deeds so apparent that it becomes who you are. That's the essence of beauty. So Paul is talking about the inner beauty is so important. Now I want to make sure we understand something. In a lot of Christian circles, it talks about women should not care about their outside. And don't misread what Paul is not saying when he's saying with this verse. The— that women and men— this is for both of them— men and women have the Christian glow. And when you see men and women operating the Christian glow, they're beautiful, they're handsome, they stand out. So what God is saying is not to go the extra mile and try to over— like, overdo something. What he's saying is, is my glory shining through you will make you beautiful, will make you beautiful on the outside And on the inside. Don't try to become more than what I need you to be. He's saying you're a treasure, women, you're a treasure. And so what you see here is in society today, and I've noticed it throughout society, and you can see it. Go look at the clothes that young girls wear. Go look at the clothes that teenage girls or young women wear, and it's always revealing. They can't find anything That is really modest unless you really look for it. And what does that say about society? What it's saying is, is it's taking this treasure and exposing it to the world. And anything that's valuable requires work. And you think about it, if you want to go dig for diamonds, what do you have to do? You got to bring in expensive equipment and mine. Gold is the same way. Sure, you can mine gold from a stream, but that takes forever. It there is an element of value that's placed in a— where you actually have to work for it. And that's the essence of what God is saying, is that women are a treasure and that they should be respected as such. So don't try to expose the treasure to someone else. Wear your deeds in an appropriate manner so that that represents who you are, and you don't need anything else. You don't need to attract the people that would be interested in you because of just the physical aspects. Attract the people who are interested in the internal aspects, and the external will take care of itself automatically. That's the power of this verse. That's the power of self-control in the lives of women. Because it's important, because a lot of women need to have attention. They need to have the support. They need to have Relationship and companionship. It's part of their DNA. It's part of how God made them. And God is saying, don't chase those things that I didn't make you to do. Chase me. Chase my fruit. Chase these things that make you set apart. And when you do that, you will then become so attractive that it will be the right person for you. That's how you should walk your life out. Remember, women, that there's nowhere in the Bible that says God is preparing your husband, your future husband, especially for those who are single, for you. It doesn't say that in the Bible. That's not how it works. If you're married, the, the wives love to try to transform their husbands, but that's not how it works. Women, you're transformed for your husband. Your husband is transformed for Jesus. And so what you're— you're both supposed to point to Jesus, and when you do, you can come together. That's what this is saying. God is saying, be transformed for me, be transformed for your husband if you're married or you're about to be married. And then while your husband's being transformed for Christ, everything will come together. And that's the power of what Paul is talking about in this verse. To Timothy, he's saying don't expose something that wasn't meant to be exposed. What he's saying is, is keep the things that are precious hidden. Keep the things that are important away, and allow your actions. Allow who you really are. To to be what you need to be. So the last verse that I wanted to cover in today's teaching is to complete the marathon of life. This is our eighth and final Bible verse, and it's very powerful because the Bible talks about do not be weary in doing good. And as you get older, your life can to a degree feel like it's starting to drag on. You can be in a situation like where. where days can be either overly rushed or they could be overly slow, and, and life starts to just dissipate and fall apart. You lose your meaning, you lose, uh, who you are and what you're trying to accomplish in life and what the meaning of life is for you. And that can be a really difficult situation to be in. And so let me talk from 1 Corinthians chapter 9, uh, verses 24 Uh, through 27. Do you know that in a race all runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in games goes into strict training. They do it to get the crown that will not last. But we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like someone who's running aimlessly. I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. So let's start to unpack what Paul is talking about in this verse. And what we see here is, is he's first telling you that you should be chasing the gifts and the prizes Jesus has in store for you. This was a kind of an interesting revelation that God gave me, if I remember correctly, was yesterday. And one of the things he was saying was, is that have you ever noticed how people Love to live a sinful life, and, and then all of a sudden their life turns around at the end, and they, they either get saved or they're already saved, and they're like, well, I don't want to live like this. I want to get back to righteous living, and then they go to heaven. God told me a beautiful revelation. He said those people miss out on so many blessings in heaven because what they've done is they've spent their life. Uh, edifying and gratifying the flesh, and their reward was here on earth and not in heaven. I want you to ponder that for a moment. Ponder that thought. Mm-hmm. If you have walked out a holy life with God from a young age and you've been blessed that way, and you continue to run this race, this marathon of life, in a way that's respectful and honored God, you have stored up so much treasure in heaven, so many crowns, so many things that it will be unfathomable. That's how the kingdom operates, okay? If you— God gives you little and you've done a lot with it, he's going to give you more. And eventually, when our time is up, he's going to reward you in heaven with the fruit of all of that work and all of those things. And he will put you in charge of many cities if you were in charge of few. That's the essence of what Paul is talking about here, is don't chase the worldly things in this world. Don't chase the things that will gratify your flesh. Don't chase the things that tickle your ears or, you know, itches your thoughts and becomes a part of your biases and attracts you. Paul is saying chase Jesus, and don't stop. Don't get weary in chasing him, because there's going to be days where you don't want to get out of bed. There's going to be days where you don't want to go to church, or you don't want to go to work, or you don't want to take your kid to their sporting event, or you don't want to go out with your friends that night and, and just have a nice dinner with them. You're going to want to just stay at home and avoid them. Don't do that. God is saying, push through. Push through because I am able to strengthen you in those moments and allow you to receive those things that are there. And so, and he talks about, well, well, how do you do that? It's no different than an athlete that trains, that they go into training, they actually train, and Think about it from the perspective. If you've played any type of sport or you've done any type of like competitive things, whether it's chess all the way to professional football, you've had to practice, and you don't necessarily start off good when you start. Even those that are really good, what they're like these elite athletes who are kind of naturally come to them at that point in time, the they still have to work, and you see that like what the greatest athletes. in every sport did is they've succeeded because of their work ethic. That's the essence of what they've done. And it's not a work ethic that lasts a month or a year. It's the life of their career and their lifetime. Let's just look at a couple examples. Let's look at Cristiano Ronaldo. Look at Tom Brady. Look at Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. Take anyone, Jerry Rice, take an elite person that's in their space today or in the past and look at their training regimen that they did. Look at Antonio Brown from the Pittsburgh Steelers, the wide receiver. In his time, he was the greatest wide receiver in the NFL. Look at Jerry Rice, timeless. Even when he injured himself, he came back from injury in the most profound way. Michael Jordan. Kobe Bryant. They would practice hours before a game. They would practice hours after the game, and if they lost, they practice even more. Look at like Tom Brady in his fitness regime and in the TB12 stuff that he puts out there. He was relentless in how he trained himself. He played well into his 40s. Elite-level football that broke records. That's what separates great athletes from elite athletes. The difference is the elite athletes will put in the time, will put in the energy that goes way beyond what the average person or even others will do. They will dedicate their lives in such a way that sets them apart. That's what Paul's talking about here. He's saying run this race with that same level of vigor, that same level of intensity, that same level of work ethic, because the essence of our walk with Jesus is that we don't get more of Jesus. We don't get more of the Holy Spirit. There is no junior Holy Spirit when you're saved. Okay, there isn't. It's not how it works. If you're saved as a 6-year-old and you're saved as a 60-year-old, You get the Holy Spirit. There is no dividing up eternity, no dividing up infinity. Infinity is infinity. That's how it works. You got the Holy Spirit. You have everything that Jesus had inside of you. The difference is, is how much does the Holy Spirit have of you? How much does Jesus have of you? So what Paul is saying is, in your walk, being self-controlled, being disciplined, being able to walk through life, what he's saying is, is that You must continually yield yourself day in and day out. Some days it's super easy. You can give him everything. You can put everything on that sacrificial altar, pick up your cross, pick up your cross, chuck it into the fire, and then take on Jesus, sacrifice your will, pick up his, and move forward. You can do that. That's part of your walk. There are days that comes super easy. What Paul is saying is what happens on the days when it isn't. What happens in the days when you're looking at your checkbook and you're like, oh man, I am completely out of money. I don't have a job. Where is my next meal going to come from? Where is my next mortgage payment going to come from? Where is my next car payment from come from? Do I need to go out and get a loan? Do I need to start begging? Do I need to go on welfare? Do I need to do something that isn't aligned with God's will? What God is saying is in those moments In those moments of desperation, of anxiety, he's saying, put them on the table, burn them up. I got this. That's what he's saying. He's saying endure in those moments. Maintain an essence of self-control where you are struggling so desperately to try to control the situation, where you are incapable of bringing it to closure. He's saying lean on God, lean on him, trust him, grow that faith, stretch that faith. Because what happens in that moment is you're yielding to the Holy Spirit. So guess what happens? The Holy Spirit has a little bit more of you. The next day, yield a little bit more. Guess what? Jesus has a little bit more of you. And what happens is, is that as you continue to yield, as you continue to be humble, as you continue to give more— when you want to control something so desperately, but then you give it to Jesus, When you give it to the Holy Spirit, guess what happens? You have a God who's perfect, a God who's all-powerful, all-knowing, and can do whatever he wants. And he can move in that space of faith and wreck the things that are causing you trouble and bring you to a point and elevate you to the point of being able to move out of that season in a profound and powerful way. That's the essence of self-control. That's what Paul's talking about. If you maintain a depth of endurance that you're constantly training yourself over and over again, what happens is when the situation comes again, you're like, oh, God's got this. This will— this is— this is an easy thing. And that's the essence. It's no different. Imagine if you, you watch people playing soccer. And you start to see when they're kids, they, they learn how to dribble and they learn not to use their toe. That's what they spend all their time in— how to dribble, not look at the ball, don't use their toe when they pass or shoot, and try to not chase the ball. That's how they start off playing soccer. And then you watch them a year later and now they're learning, oh, okay, now let's start to operate like a team and being able to move together and to stay in our own lanes. And and what you happen is you see over the years they start to learn how to move, how to pass, how to cover for each other. And ultimately, what you start to see is this team develop, and now it becomes you're part of a unit, and you're part of this unit, and the unit works together. And as the unit becomes stronger, it becomes undefeatable. That's the what God is saying is that you're a unit. You are one of four persons. You've got the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and you. There's four of you, and that's how God wants. to operate in this self-controlled unit where you— 4 of you are working together to move the kingdom of God forward in your life. And he will conquer things. He will level mountains. He will fill valleys. He'll take a mountain and then fill that valleys in front of you, and everything will be straight and flat because you're operating in his will. When you're self-controlled and you're yielding yourself, and the more of you gets Basically, yield it to the Father, yield it to the Son, yield it to the Holy Spirit. There's nothing that you can't do. There's no tribulation, there's no, um, storm, there's nothing. Because what happens is, is that you've built up a lifetime of success. Imagine if you lost your job recently and God gave you a new one. Now you're going to know, oh wow, anytime I lose my job, God's going to give me the next one. It may not come as fast as the last one, but it'll come. Imagine if you got sick, and we've— a lot of us have had to deal with the pandemic in these last 4 years and just deal with all the pain and suffering. But you know that when the first version of the pandemic hit, it was the hardest, and then the second one was pretty bad, but it was a little less, and then the third one was okay, but you still moved on. It doesn't make the, the situation any less lethal, but what you see here is, is that God is going to protect you. You know that no weapon formed against you is going to prosper. So you know that this first situation might have been difficult, but God was good. That second situation came, but God's still good. Third situation came, God's still good. And so what you do is you build this mental awareness of self-control in those moments of desperation where you want to try to fix the situation immediately, but you're like, no, God's got this, and you move on. And every time it happens, you're like, no, God's got this, and it becomes less and less of a problem until it disappears. And then the next thing God will work on, and he'll continue to put you through this— these things, these tests and trials, because he wants to grow you. Because the more self-control you have in those moments, the greater your faith can be. And the greater your faith, guess what? The greater God can operate in your life and in the life of others. It talks about the righteous. The righteous who pray can availeth much, that the power that's packed in a righteous person's prayer is legendary. It is overwhelming. When you have control, self-control under the Holy Spirit, you are able to accomplish so many things that people can't understand. I'll even give you an example even from our ministry. When we looked at being understanding and how to operate under self-control, God has guided this ministry in a very powerful way. When we started last year, we were projecting, uh, hundreds— a couple hundred thousand views for an entire year. Now we get that in a week. Think about that. That's how God levels you up. It— that's how he works. He takes your plans and says, this is what you want to accomplish in a year? Great, good. We'll build you up. The 3 of them, the 3— the persons of the Trinity will build you up. And guess what? What you thought you could accomplish in a year, you're going to do in a week. And in the future, it'll be a day. It'll be an hour. That's the essence of how God works. When you're surrendered and you're under the self-control of the Holy Spirit, God can move in ways that you would never understand. There's, there's nothing that I'm doing in this social media ministry that separates me from everyone else. I am just doing my part. I'm doing my natural, giving God the opportunity to put his super on top of it and allowing him to do the things I can't do because he can. He's, he is omniscient, omnipresent. He can do all those things. When I'm sleeping. Think about that. He's operating when I'm sleeping. He's operating when I'm awake. He's operating when I'm away from the computer. He's operating when I am on the computer. Because I have self-control that I'm not trying to dictate the essence of how things are working. I'm just doing the part that he's asking me to do, yielding it to him, and saying, go do the rest. That's the essence of self-control. When you boil down all of these topics that we talked about, because we talked about that control, having self-control is the opposite of chaos. That that also self-control is being able to have it because you have it through the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit, so you have all the power and control you need. You control your mouth. You control your ability to listen and hear. You listen. You you emulate Jesus in those dark times, and. That you focus on being a man the way God describes it, and if you're a woman, the one— the way God describes it, and you'll be able to complete this marathon of life. And you're running this really long race with God under control. These blessings flow in a most powerful way because what happens then is you're operating under the kingdom principles, under the kingdom of God. And when you do that Everything else aligns up in, in just in the most powerful and amazing way. So I just wanted to thank you for joining me on this teaching. We here at John Humenik Ministries have a very exciting vision for 2024. We are going to go out there and preach the gospel to the world before the rapture. That's a huge vision. We're going to continue going forward. But God also laid in my heart to be able to raise up 1,000 churches and dramatically expand their social media ministry. And so we would love you to partner with us. And if you feel so graced to give us a one-time donation or become a monthly partner, you can do that by going to humenik.com/give. It's spelled H-U-M-E-N-I-K.com/give. And there you can set up a payment. We also support PayPal and other means. If you want to mail us a check, you can go ahead and mail it to our address. They're here. You can go and expand the kingdom through the work that we're doing. 100% of the proceeds go back into the ministry to spread the gospel throughout all the world. Thank you and God bless.