I will not live my life by my will. (Galatians5:22-23)

I will not live my life by my will. (Galatians5:22-23)

Do you believe that your personality can be changed by Holy Spirit.

When people believe Jesus, the evidences of faith must be revealed in their life.

When you believe Jesus, the evidences of faith must be revealed in your life.

One of that is hearing the voice of the Lord. The Lord really comes to you and speaks to you.

When people see it they can know whether you are true believer or not.

Someone had a sheep that was baby, the mother sheep died during gave birth the lamb. So the owner grew it in his home. Then the lamb became a sheep so that he couldn’t grow it in home anymore. Because the lamb made mass his garden so he decided to send the sheep at the pasture. So he sent the sheep at the pasture. But after a month he missed the sheep. So he came to the pasture to meet his sheep. But so many sheep were there, so he couldn’t recognize what is his sheep. So, at the out of fence of the pasture, the man called loudly the name of sheep which was called since baby. Then, two sheep among of many sheep ran to him. Then really one of both was his sheep truly, and the other one was its mate. So he really was glad to see it again, and he could realize and sure that, “My sheep listen to my voice”(John10:27). “Oh, it is right and true”

The sheep listen to the voice of its shepherd. If you are sheep of the Lord, you must hear the voice of the Lord.

Maybe some of you are little bit confused that listening to the voice of the Lord.

‘Am I listening to the voice of the Lord?’ like this.

If some of you think like this even though you are here in the church to worship the Lord, it’s miracle.

Listen carefully, now you are here, itself is that you are listening to the voice of the Lord until now.

If the voice of the Lord didn’t guide you as far as here in the church to worship Him, there is no one can come here in the church to serve Him.

Yeah, you might say, “Because of my boyfriend, I’m here”.

God called you through your boyfriend.

If you are truly the people of Jesus, there is the voice of the Lord in you.

And, the other evidence is obedience. Actually, listening to the voice of the Lord is obedience.(explain about Hebrew ‘shema’)

The outstanding distinguishing of believer is obedience.

And then, there is one more. It’s the fruit of the Spirit. 

The fruit of the Spirit is the change of the personality.

There are fruit of nine. It’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control(Gal5:22-23). Actually, all of these are the nature of Jesus.

You received Jesus in your heart and your life, so Jesus became your Lord and King, so that your nature is changing now.

So when you bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit is certain evidence that Holy Spirit is in you.

It is truly happen to all of you, because you believe in Jesus

Today, I want to share about self-control.

It is most important among the fruit of Holy Spirit.

Actually, I already say that the nine of fruits of the Holy Spirit are one nature of Jesus.

Self-control means that, “I will not live my life by my will anymore.”

What does mean that you receive Jesus?

It means, “I will not live my life by my will anymore.”

That is, you received Jesus is the self-control.

I will not live my life by my will…

Now, Jesus is my master, my Lord, and my king.

Living life what Jesus reign is the self-control.

Romans 6:8, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him..”

We believe Jesus is we die with Jesus and also we live with Jesus.

All of you are precious. Because you are the people that live with Jesus.

The people who live with Jesus in his heart..it’s different with other religions.

We are not the people those who do right work, but we are the people those who live with Jesus in our heart.

Jesus came in us….that make us special people. 

Jesus is in me, so that I can’t live my life by my will is self-control.

Biggest problem in our lives is living by our will.

Living what I want, it is that destroy my life.

So when you were young, you might had learned a lot that you can’t live by your will from your parents. During you grew up, you might had had a hurt in your heart because of that.

But I can see that when you got marry, and you have children, you are also doing same. Right?

Because if children, specially, little children do by their will, must get accident and get hurt.

In sight of adult, can see it. that’s why parents don’t allow that children do by their will.

But children don’t want to that, so they want to get out of their parents. Because they want to do by their will.

Even we also have this nature.

But this nature what I want to do is the nature of sin.

Adam and Eve took and ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge(of Good and Evil) even though God said, “Must don’t eat”

Why? It’s simple. They just want to eat.

They couldn’t control themselves, so they ate, so that all humanity entered into the sin.

You know that?

The blessing after you believe Jesus is that you cannot live what you want.

You feel stuffy?

But you should receive this as your blessing.

Ruled over my by Jesus is the true blessing.

Think about marriage.

What do you think that when your brothers and sisters get marry together?

Whenever you see couple on wedding, are they looks good, and happy? Or looks sad?

You know? Actually, marriage is banding each other.

One guy and one lady they live freely but when they get married, it means only one lady for him as wife and only one guy for her as husband.

And they must live together, and they must use together one room.

Can you imagine that someone, stranger, girl or guy lives in your home and your room with you, it is okay for you? Do you feel comfortable?

For me, I feel very terrible and stuffy. 

But we think about that in married situation very feels good. Right? That’s why people get married each other even though it is not comfortable.

Why? Because they love each other.

Jesus came in my life and he became my king might be terrible when I don’t love him.

Jesus come in my heart means we cannot deal even our emotion. We cannot hate people, we cannot get angry for a long time, we cannot grumble about something.

We should always rejoice and give thank for everything….

It is not easy, and not comfortable all the time.

But remember that only this can rescue us. The Devil always say to us, “Do what you want”, “Be honest about your human nature and do”

But It’s not gives us freedom, instead, when we follow this we will be seized as slave.

If we live to follow our nature, we must be seized with Satan.

It’s same way when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Knowledge tree.

“Taste it as you want”

There is same temptation to us from the Satan.

But Jesus who came in us has told us, “Don’t do what you want”

He said that there is the thing that you have to keep.

He said do self-control.

We need to self-control about even good thing also.

Maybe you might not understand that. You might ask to me, “Of course we need self-control about bad, but why we should do self-control about even good?

But even about good, we should be ruled by the Lord.

Sometimes, our decision is looks right and good. And we feel it’s really the work for God’s glory.

But strangely, God doesn’t allow what I want, but he commands us to do what I don’t like.  

You know even love, we need self-control.

For parents loving children are not bad. Right?

One old man, he is church elder, he had only three daughters.

But could have one son when his very late age.

So, the baby very lovely and cute to him.

So he every day call to his wife, and ask, “how is son?”

One day, he couldn’t see the son at home, so he was very surprised and went out of house to search the little son. But when he could see the son were playing out.

At that moment he heard the voice of the Lord.

“ Are you looking at who? The son belongs to who? Entrust your son to me”

He clearly could hear the voice of the Lord, at that moment he was shocked.

And he could feel that his son was idol to him but he couldn’t know that himself until God worried about that. So he repented to God. And he stopped to worry about his son.

Loving is good, but we should be ruled over by the Lord about that.

Our whole life also must be ruled over by the Lord.

So that we can live wonderful life by God’s plan.

But if we don’t ruled over by the Lord in our life, we must fall into the crisis situation.

One more thing we should know.

After sermon, someone might think that, “Oh, really important to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit as Christian, oh, I must bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit.”

Then this moment when you think this, you might experience very serious disappointment.

Because, it’s the fruit of the Holy Spirit, but you want to bear it by yourself.

We cannot bear the fruit by ourselves. Our effort cannot bear it too.

If you can by yourself, it’s your fruit.

The fruit of the Holy Spirit means it is God’s work, it’s not my business.

So how we can bear it?

It is that fix your eyes on the Lord.

And when we fix our eyes on Jesus, then, the Lord will bear the fruit through me.

It is principles to bear the fruit. Fix your eyes on Jesus 24 hours day by day. 

Self-control is same. We can’t do that by our effort. You already did it many times but you failed. Right?

Self-control is that fix my eyes on Jesus fully.

If we don’t look at him, there is no way to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. But if we are looking at him, there is great change in you.

Now if you are having disappointment because you couldn’t live to bear the fruit, please remember this. Even though you cannot living the life, but if your accepting Jesus was true, and your heart about bearing the fruit is true, so you want to live well your life as the born again honestly, you are in bearing the fruit. Surely, you are in the process. Can you not feel that?

I’m sure that there are small changes in your heart. Carefully, pay attention and see in your inside.

There is no apple tree that can produce finest apple to eat from the beginning. It needs time to bear fine fruit.

Look at Jesus continually and deeply every day and every in your time. Then finally you can make fine fruits. God will make it in you.

Let’s pray.

Lord, we thank you, because we believe and sure that you are making change in our heart.

Lord, please do your work more in us.

Please bear the fruit what you glad.

We are only looking at you alone.

Please use us, make us your witness.