Self Control Is Our Firewall - Kevin Brechbill

The subject I have chosen to speak on is self-control. Now, the title I've chosen, "Self-Control is Our Firewall," and if you know what went down at Brechfield Trailers the last week, there might be a connection there. So I would like to expand this idea on the value and the virtue of this character quality of self-control. And I would like to start with a couple of verses in Galatians, and I'm going to read four. Galatians 5:22, it says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step or walk with the Spirit." Now, the two things I want to point out in those verses are when we think of self-control as being a character quality, there is no law. In other words, there's no limits and limitations as to how big and large that you can expand your ability of your self-control. And the second thing I want us to look at is in the last verse I read, and this is an interesting—I found this very inspiring.

In the last verse, it says, "If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step or walk with the Spirit." So we hear a lot about living by the Spirit, but do we hear a—what do we do about keeping in step or walking with the Spirit?

As I said before, it says that there's no limits in this thing of self-control. I believe that self-control is—we're called to become self-controlled, and it's our responsibility to learn what self-control is. In Proverbs 25:28, I want to look at a verse that I find very interesting in this thing of self-control.

It says, "A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls." Now, just stop and concentrate on that verse.

The King James Version says this way, "He that hath no rule over his spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls." So what can we learn by this? A man without self-control or has no rule over his spirit is likened unto a city broken down and without walls. Think about this.

Is it not true that whether a city succeeds or fails depended on its walls in ancient times?

Let's think about a city without walls.

What's a city without walls? The people are vulnerable. The people are weak. The people are fearful. They're without protection.

There's no safe place and protection for the people to succeed and thrive in. Like, where do you go to succeed and thrive? A city without walls is unhealthy in every way.

Think of one positive thing that a city without walls in ancient times—what was one positive thing? Little to none. Now, let's think of what do cities with walls represent? They represent strength. They represent protection. They represent stability. They represent security and success and opportunity.

And most importantly, they represent a thriving people inside. The most important thing that a city wall represents is the health of its people. It's the magnitude of what city walls represent. The secret that city walls represent is its health of the people inside, which is more important than protection from the evil coming from the outside.

City walls give opportunity for the people inside to thrive. That is why cities sacrifice massive amounts of money, servants, soldiers, slaves, and time to build and expand and strengthen their city walls.

It's for the people to expand and to grow and to thrive on the inside. The city's success of its people rise and fall on the quality of their wall in ancient times. I would like to suggest to you that self-control is likened to city walls.

And self-control is equivalent in value as walls were to the people in cities of ancient times.

He that hath no rule over his spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls. I believe that self-control is one of the character qualities that God wants and asks us to develop. I don't know if we recognize how God looks at this character quality.

He's wanting and waiting for us to develop this firewall, if you will, of self-control. If I implement or engage the firewall of self-control—think about this. If a temptation comes my way and I engage self-control, it prevents me from falling into hurtful lust. If someone strikes me on the cheek and I engage the firewall of self-control, it prevents me of responding in a fit of anger. Proverbs says that whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. If you can have self-control, if you can rule your spirit. I believe that self-control is the firewall that prevents and keeps you from doing evil that comes from within.

Not the evil that comes from without, but the evil that comes from within. I think it's one of the greatest weapons of all time. Think about it. When you're tempted with any kind of ungodly passions—anger, lust, bitterness, jealousy, discontentedness—self-control is the firewall weapon that allows us to checkmate it. I'm not sure how to communicate this thought, but when you meet someone without self-control, it's like they have no margin for error. They have no bandwidth. When you have not developed the character of self-control, you easily fall prey to impulses that often lead to sin.

Most people, when they think about city walls, they think about protection. City walls represent a whole lot more than just protection. It represents the health of its people inside. City walls speak volumes about its people and about the city. The strength of its people and protection from evil, both. It's twofold.

The firewall of self-control is how well do you rule yourself. Your city wall of self-control reveals the health of you, the health of your spiritual journey, the health of your mind, the health of your heart, the health of your soul.

It determines your success on many levels. It determines your health. It determines how strong you are. It determines whether you will withstand evil and protect good. It determines your sustainability. It determines your longevity.

Cities actually spend a significant amount of time on their walls. Without walls, cities are broken. Without self-control, Christian people are broken. I believe that self-control is one of the character qualities that bring protection to your city, to you. I think it protects you from the wiles of the devil. It protects you from temptations of sin. It protects you from the distractions of the world. Self-control is like the firewall of protection between you and everything that is evil.

Romans 12:21 says, "Do not over—I'm sorry, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

I believe that self-control is a character quality that you need to overcome evil with good. Remember, the success of the city rises and falls on the city walls.

Its strength was in the size of its walls. What is your bandwidth of self-control? What is your height of self-control? What is the thickness of your wall of self-control? How well do you defend and stand against temptation? How well do you say yes to the things that are good and right?

Without self-control, you don't have the space for you to stay on the inside and develop and grow in other things. It gives you that space. If you have no margin for error, you spend all your time doing that.

Can you say yes and execute on promises?

I believe your wall or bandwidth of self-control is a structure that God has given us for our protection and expansion personally, like spiritually. Your city wall of self-control represents all the things that you control. Just like city walls, they represent the things inside the city of what they control. Your self-control represents what you control. Anything outside of the city's walls you have no control over.

Whatever you don't have self-control over is wild and uncontrolled. Whatever you keep inside the city walls, you cherish, you care for, you love, and you take ownership of it.

I believe that the health of your person, both spiritually and physically, is directly connected to the firewall of self-control. Let me give you a personal example. I know where this is going. This week, many of you know at Brechfield Trailers that our website was hacked.

I think this started last Friday. Jason knows that one. Anyways, we came in one morning and our website was down. And it had all these pictures of these Chinese pictures and Chinese writing all over it. We couldn't get in. I mean, it was gone.

Josiah spent years building this thing and there we sit. And actually, it's kind of a scary thing when all of a sudden you realize how dependent you are on your website. I mean, everything gets—it's like this hidden thing comes down over you. But the thing I find interesting is after—it's a long story and I can't explain it all, but they put our website in all these different locations, five different locations, trying to find one that wasn't affected. Took everything out of it. It just came down to the basic website. And we started running malware. I think we had two of them running, if I remember right. And out of that, there were 49 viruses just in the main part of the website.

When we brought everything else into the website, didn't it jump to 12,000 viruses? We had 12,000 viruses on our website.

Now, what I find interesting is our firewall wasn't working.

But this is what I noticed. All of the energies of Brechfield Trailers went to build that firewall back up. We couldn't get anything else done. I mean, everyone was just running in neutral. All the energies—Jason, Josiah, they had other teams working on it.

But that's what happens when you don't have self-control. You have no bandwidth. You have no firewall. And when you have no margin of error, you put all your energies into making that, creating the firewall, and you have no time to grow on anything else. And too many Christians haven't developed their self-control to have a firewall so that they actually have space and a margin of error to grow inside them.

You spend all your time fighting when one thing goes wrong.

I learned one thing this week. When your firewall is broken, your city wall is broken. You can't focus on anything else. I want to go to another verse in Corinthians 9:25. It says, "Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath or crown, but we an imperishable wreath or crown." Now, think about this. An athlete is willing to exercise self-control in all things—that's a pretty strong statement—for a perishable crown.

What does this verse imply to us as Christians?

Are you willing to exercise self-control in all things to receive an imperishable crown? Are you willing to exercise self-control in all things, or do you limit yourself? Learning to roll yourself, like the athlete learns to roll himself, is one of the most demanding exercises we have to learn.

But when you succeed in this exercise of self-control, it comes with outstanding benefits, out-of-this-world benefits. It's the only way to win the crown is learning to exercise the character of self-control. And only then will you be able to win the prize and win the crown. In 2 Timothy 1:7, it says, "For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and of love and self-control." There's three pillars: power, love, and self-control. God has given us a spirit. The first thing he tells us about this spirit is what it is not. It's not a fear.

It doesn't represent itself in a fear-like way. Its functions are not fear-like. Its mode isn't fear. It doesn't run, react, or look fear-like. Next, he tells us what this spirit that God has given us, what it embodies. It embodies three things: power, love, and self-control.

God tells us to imitate him. These are the three pillars that we need to build on to represent God: power, love, and self-control. I think we hear a lot in our day about the Spirit of God has given us power.

And we hear a lot about the Spirit of God has given us love. How much do you hear that the Spirit of God—the third pillar is self-control? "Why call ye me Lord, Lord," he says, "and do not the things which I say? For the Lord that loveth—I'm sorry, for people that loveth with their lips but have their heart far away from the Lord is another people and trust in another and have willingly sold themselves to another. But those who perform the commandments of the Lord in every action—" there's that athlete in every action—"by doing what he wishes and consistently naming the Lord's name and by testifying by deed to him in whom they trust, that they are those who have sacrificed—I'm sorry—crucified the flesh with the affections of lust.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. He that soweth his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

I think when the lips and the hearts are united, it's self-control. Or at least that's one of the character qualities.

And I'll just close with three other scripture verses. In 2 Peter, it says—there's a whole list of stuff—and it says, "And knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness." Self-control is part of the building blocks that we need to become godly and to make godly decisions.

Now, the opposite of this is in 2 Timothy. It says, "Heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, those without self-control, brutal, not loving good." The people that are not of God's kingdom are the ones without self-control. The people that are a part of his kingdom have self-control.

And I'm just going to close with this verse in Revelations 3:21. It says, "The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne."

If you conquer and become self-control, you'll get to sit with the God of the universe. And I think it's a beautiful thought. But we got some work to do before we get there. That's my thoughts. Any other thoughts before I close? I want to thank you a lot for that.

I thought it was interesting what you said about Brechfield Trailers and the firewall being broken down, how it affected everyone in Brechfield Trailers. And this week, it just hit me. Every action that I made affects the body of Christ.

And I was thinking about how you said the walls, the self-controls with the walls, the boundaries, the safety for us. And I think it's also the safety for the church. And I was just—I'm really, really glad you shared this because it's like, for me, I found the missing link for church. And yeah, you hear a lot about people imposing rules as the safety network. But I can't think of a safer place that I'd rather be with people who are disciplined and have themselves governed and are self-controlled by their own. They are self-controlled. And to me, that just—to me, it sounds like a safe place. So I really want to thank you.

That was—I felt like it was—put a missing link for me something else. I want to thank you. It's always time. I don't think we can hear that enough on the need for that. And I was very impressed with the way you handled the crisis at Brechfield Trailers. I wasn't there at work. I wasn't in your home. So I don't know. But just being around you the rest of the week, I wouldn't have known this tremendous crisis was going on.

You were very—went along with me very smoothly and all of that. So I want to compliment you on that. Jason and Josiah took the brunt of it.

I was very grateful to have them helping. All right. Anything else? Yeah. I like the way that you talked about the three pillars and how I wouldn't say necessarily equal with all. I don't know if there's a greater range or less than there. But I like the way self-control is incorporated. There is one of the three pillars.

And it's just how it really does touch every aspect of your life. The way you talk about it touches your health, your attitude, everything. And it's a great starting point for everything that someone doesn't like about their life falls back on their self-control.

And it's something that I think we really have to work for and work into this. Every opportunity has to be self-control, even if it's not on a big thing because all those things add up. Especially if you've been undisciplined with your whole life and you struggle with self-control in a particular part of life, we need to work on self-control ever as hard as we can. And continue to fight for having more of it so that we can have victory and conquer those areas of our life where we really struggle with it. Very critical.

Yeah. I'm challenged. And I've had these thoughts. I don't know if I can explain it.

For me, self-control starts at 6 o'clock in the morning when my alarm goes off. And I'm making that choice to either get up or just to lay there for a while because I just don't really feel like it.

And I was thinking about this thing of time, this willingness to restrict ourselves to time limits. There's an excuse I use sometimes, and I hear it a lot, where I'm a spontaneous type of person. And that's a lot of times an excuse not to be self-controlled. It's an excuse not to restrict yourself to a schedule or time or commitments that you know you have to have something done at a certain time, and you procrastinate or whatever, and then all of a sudden, you spontaneous about it. And I'm careful with that. I want to be careful with that. But that's where it starts with me.

Willingness to say, "At this time, I do this. At this time, I do this." And giving myself time slots and learning to restrict myself.

Maybe just defining itself. But that's where it starts with me. I think I've been challenged. I've actually found that the more self-control I have, the more I actually get accomplished. The spontaneity thing is kind of a little bit of a joke.

It doesn't produce the outcome that you prefer. Yeah. I'm like. Yeah. I struggle in the area of self-control. And I was listening to a couple of things from this guy, Jocko Willink, which is a US agency on discipline. And one of his sayings was, "Discipline equals freedom." And me struggling with discipline, it's like, "I'm disciplined for freedom." But if it is the walls of that city, and actually from the outside, then people within those walls are free.

They have experienced a bit of freedom because they're not worried about the threats from outside. So kind of that helped tie that together for me a little bit because I don't naturally equate discipline with freedom. But it is true. It is true. It really is. I'm coming to a similar conclusion.

For me, it came to my mind to deal with gymnasts. And I would admire gymnasts who do these fantastic stunts on just an old balance beam. You can have a little form of floor and stretch it out between two concrete blocks and execute some of the most fantastic, exhilarating things.

And a lot of the people that do that are these little girls. And it just occurred to me once, "I don't have the freedom to do that." I can't do those vaults and somersaults and handstands because I have not applied the discipline.

That's true.

I'm going to try my discipline somewhere elsewhere.