Conquering the Battle of Self in Youth

by Steve Damron (1993 Graduate, Youth Pastor, Fairhaven Baptist Church)

I would like to start this discussion on self by looking at what others have said on this subject.

Self-Control

"Conquer thyself. Till thou hast done that thou art a slave; for it is almost as well for thee to be in subjection to another's appetite as thy own." -Burton

"He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears, is more than a king." -Milton

"Most powerful is he who has himself in his power."

-Seneca

Self-Denial

"The greatest hero is the man who is master of himself. The greatest battle is the battle which is fought within, fought to victory. The greatest character is the character which is built on will power. The highest form of education is an educated will, a will to be right, to do right. Test yourself at the point where you have the least suspicion of weakness. Be master of yourself."

Selfishness

"Sordid selfishness doth contract and narrow our benevolence, and cause us, like serpents, to enfold ourselves within ourselves, and to turn out our stings to all the world besides." -Walter Scott

Children need to rule themselves. Here are some general references in the Bible concerning self.

Proverbs 16:32, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city."

Proverbs 12:15, "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise."

Jeremiah 17:5, "Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord."

Proverbs 23:1-3, "When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat."

Romans 13:14, "But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof."

I Corinthians 9:25, 27, "And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.... But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."

Man in himself thinks he knows what he should do, but he is wrong. We like to talk about ourselves. We like to encircle the world around ourselves. But self is no good, and there is no good in self. We talk about it all the time, but many times we don't see it in our own actions. We see it in teenagers, but we let it go. Most of the time it is because we are that way also. We think that we are good, that we are wise and have wisdom.

This world says that self-esteem is the ultimate, but the Bible says that in ourselves is no good thing. We need to put "self" under.

Scripture indicates that our view of self (flesh) is a foundational truth in our life!

Mark 12:29-31, "And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."

All the commandments can be wrapped up in two. Jesus says, "Love God and love your neighbor." Where is self there? Our view of self and how we approach ourselves can be seen here in these two commandments. Self-will goes against God and says, "I don't want to obey you." God says to love Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Put self under. Self-will says that you don't need God. It is self-control and selfishness that must be put under when we have to love our neighbor as ourselves. We don't want to do that.

In Galatians, Paul makes a list of the works of the flesh. All of the items listed demonstrate a lack of self-control in some area. We must bring our self, our flesh into subjection. In the training of young people, instructing them in the need of self-control is vital. We need to have a home that is not self-oriented. What does that mean?

How can we teach this to our young in our homes? One man speaking in the late 1800's on self-control and children mentions this: "A child's first struggle with himself ought to be in the direction of controlling his impulse to give full play to his lungs and his muscles at the prompting of his nerves. As soon as the nerves make themselves felt, they prompt a child to cry, to thrash his arms, to kick, and to twist his body on every side, at the slightest provocation - or at none. Unless this prompting is checked, the child will exhaust himself in aimless exertion, and will increase his own discomfort by the very means of its exhibit. A control of himself at this point is possible to a child, at an age while he is yet unable to speak, or to understand what is spoken to him. If a parent realizes that the child must be induced to control himself, and seeks in loving firmness to cause the child to realize that same truth, the child will feel the parent's conviction, and will yield to it, even though he cannot comprehend the meaning of his parent's words as words. The way of helping the child will be found, by the parent who wills to help him. To leave a child to himself in these earliest struggles with himself, is to put him at a sad disadvantage in all the future combats of his life's warfare; while to give him wise help in these earliest struggles, is to give him help for all the following struggles."

As soon as a child is able to understand what is said to him, he ought to be taught and trained to control his need to cry when he experiences physical pain. When a child has fallen and hurt himself, or has cut his finger, or has burned his hand, it is natural for him to shriek with pain and fright, and it is natural for his parents to take care of his pain. But even at this time, a parent has a duty of helping the child to gain control over himself, so as to repress his crying within reason and not to thrash around wildly because of pain or because circumstances have not gone according to plan.

It is almost humorous in the area of sports. When certain people come to you, you would think their leg got chopped off, but nothing is really wrong. Where does that come from? Some of that comes from their childhood training. As a child, they were allowed to thrash around uncontrollably. I'm sure that EMTs could tell similar stories about people who did not have self-control. Because they couldn't control themselves when an accident occurred, they went crazy. Some people even lose their lives because they have no self-control when it comes to extenuating circumstances. This is part of training our children. You might say, "That is carrying it too far," but someday there will be a bad circumstance; and if we have not taught them to control themselves, they won't even be able to think.

A child can come to exercise self-control under painful circumstances. His parents can enable him to do this. If he is not trained to control himself, he will be hopelessly controlled by his nerves.