Admit
Notes
Transcript
I stand before you today as someone who is addicted. I’m addicted to a lot of things. You all know about my ice cream addiction. We joke and laugh about that. But, we could talk about my desire to please people. We could talk about my past with pornography. I actually had to go through an addiction recovery program.
I am a broken, sinful man. I am addicted to things that I shouldn’t be addicted to.
Now, don’t get on the edge of your seat thinking that I am about to confess something that removes me from ministry. Nothing like that.
But, I am here to confess that I am not perfect, that I am a sinner in need of God’s grace.
And I am here to confess that I worship in a community that is not perfect and is desperately in need of God’s grace. That’s this church.
And I live in an area that is not perfect and is desperately in need of God’s grace. That’s every community here in Northeast Nebraska.
So many people want to move to rural America. They think that it is a quiet peaceful place to live. They think that small-town America has preserved the ideals and culture of the bygone years. Andy Griffith and Leave it to Beaver. Many in small-town America, refusing to acknowledge what has happened, will be the first to attest to the wholesomeness of their area. They tout that their community is great for raising families. They sigh over their slow life, unlike their second cousin, who is slowly dying from city life. They are grateful for the low crime rates and the ability to interact intimately with community members.
Unfortunately, these claims are just veneers over the truth. Rural areas are becoming the new inner city. They are experiencing lower incomes, high unemployment, high poverty, and increased stress. These conditions contribute to higher substance abuse, including alcohol and drugs. Domestic abuse is rampant.
Sadly, these facts translate over to the schools. Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, pre-marital sex, and other escapes are the norms. Latchkey children are in the majority. Most students come from broken families. There is so much pain and hopelessness. This next generation thinks that religion is a hoax because they see the hypocrisy of their parents, among other factors.
Adding to the rot under the veneer, mental health problems are likely to occur at a higher rate. The number of suicides in rural America has been climbing. Depression is the norm.
If a visitor stays in small-town America for some time and digs into the culture of the community, they will see the bi-polar truth. They will hear what people say and know the surface-level goodness of the area. But they will also see the pain, chaos, immorality, and hopelessness under the surface.
Neligh has a problem with addiction. So does Oakdale, Clearwater, Elgin, Brunswick, Creighton, Vedigre, and Plainview. And so does Calvary Bible Church.
We are all addicted to something. So, for the next several weeks, we are going to talk about addiction.
Now, I should probably define addiction for you.
A good Psychological definition would be:
“a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence.”
When we hear addiction, we could probably picture the drug addict and reflect on what they go through in withdrawal. And we like that picture. Yes, it isn’t pleasant, but it removes itself from most of us. We’ve never gone through that. Some of us have gone through experiences like it, but we have left that behind. And, now we are on this side of it. We are clean.
Or are we?
I have to push back on that good psychological definition. You see, addiction is about slavery. And sometimes the chains of slavery are invisible.
A better definition of addiction is:
“The devotion of a person to something, whether to sin in general or food, alcohol or wealth in particular, so as to become dependent up on it. A person will never be satisfied in such a state of slavery.”
We are all addicted to something. We are all in the chains of slavery to something. How do I know this? Because all sin is addiction.
Sin
Sin
Let’s talk about sin.
What is sin?
We could use a good theological definition:
“Actions that violate the law or moral standard of God.”
Or maybe a good pastoral counseling definition:
“Transgression of God’s will. This can manifest in words, deeds, or thoughts.”
But, instead of devoting ourselves to academic definitions, let’s explore what the Bible says.
Let’s go back to the very beginning of time.
God creates Adam and Eve, places them in the Garden of Eden. I’ve referred to this event enough, you all know it.
But, he places them there and gives them one rule:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
God is in relationship with his creation. He spends time with Adam and Eve. He provides everything that they need, physically and emotionally. He even protects from harm, saying “don’t do this or bad things are going to happen.”
Life is good. Until that fateful day.
What happens?
Adam and Eve eat the fruit.
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
They sin. They violate the Law of God. They transgress his will.
But, why did they sin? Did they just wake up one moment and say: I’m going to break God’s law?
No, they had a nice little chat with the serpent.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Adam and Eve were convinced that God was holding back on them, that God wasn’t actually supplying everything that they needed, so they had to supply for themselves. And this thing, this fruit was promising to supply what was lacking.
So:
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
We know that result of that day. Relationships all around where shattered. The marriage relationship, humanity’s relationship with each other and the rest of creation, and ultimately, the relationship with God. All this brought pain upon pain and ultimately death, physically and spiritually.
And from that day on, humanity has been doomed to sin. The Bible describes it as chains and slavery.
Paul writes simply:
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Peter writes more indepth. The context is false teachers.
These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.”
Everyone who has born into this world is slaves to sin.
Paul writes earlier in Romans:
As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
“Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
We must sin. We have an overwhelming desire to sin. And we reap the consequences of it. Every time we break one of God’s laws or transgress his will, we experience the pain. Sometimes it is immediate. Sometimes it is later on. But, the pain always comes.
Addiction
Addiction
Okay, before I get carried away, I need to talk about addiction. Because sin is addiction.
Why do we sin?
Yes, we are compelled to sin because of our nature.
Paul writes:
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
We have a sinful nature and therefore what we do is tainted by sin.
But, why do we sin?
Because we believe that it will give us something.
Maybe we believe that it will give us pleasure.
Like the author Hebrews says:
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
Sin is pleasurable and we believe that the pleasure will be enough to satisfy.
Maybe we want power, or we want to boost our ego. Maybe we want to have escape from the pains of this life.
Maybe we want closeness with someone else. Maybe we want to feel accepted or wanted.
Maybe we want to accomplish something and we think that this sinful path is the only way to accomplish it.
Oh, there are so many excuses we give for sin. But, it comes down to it, we believe the lie that is offered that the sin that is before us will actually provide what only God can provide. And we say: No God, I don’t want your provision, I want this. I want rest from this. I want acceptance from this. I want a sense of self-worth from this. I want escape from this. I don’t want it from you.
So, we place our hands in the bonds to this substitute of God and become its slaves.
Because the moment we sin in that way, we do experience what it promised, but not enough.
Adam and Eve did experience an enlightening. They experienced the knowledge of good and evil, and they and all humanity were doomed to living the evil in absence of the good.
In the same way, we are doomed, once we step into a relationship of dependency on something other than God, to serving that thing.
That’s one reason why I will not drink alcohol. There is nothing Biblically wrong with drinking alcohol. There is something wrong with getting drunk, because we are giving our faculties over to something else’s control, and the Bible says: don’t get drunk.
There is nothing Biblically wrong with drinking alcohol. However, I know my history of addiction and I do not want to get addicted to something else. So, I don’t drink.
I don’t want to put my hands in another set of chains.
I still struggle with addiction. When I was in my recovery program, I told people that I was in it because I was recovering from pride, people-pleasing, and pornography. All were of equal importance in my mind, because each issue was interrelated with the other. And those desires still pop their heads up, whispering that they can provide something that only God can provide. And it is hard to fight those, and leave pride, people-pleasing, and pornography behind. Because sometimes, those lies are so easily believed.
I still struggle with addiction, because I am still a sinner and I meddle in a whole bunch of other sins, like impatience, hypocrisy, self-dependence, lust. I could keep going. Each sin creating a dependence that rips me away from God, a dependence that I yearn for.
We could talk about sexual addiction, substance abuse, alcoholism, technology abuse. But, the answer is all the same. The thing promised something that only God could provide, and we grew dependent on it rather than God.
And we reap the result of that brokenness, through broken relationships and pain. Ultimately, through death, physically and spiritually.
Admit
Admit
We are all sinners. We are all addicted to something, because we all sin.
One of the chapters that was instrumental in my understanding God’s grace is Romans 7.
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
The thing about sin and addiction. Once our hands are in those chains, we cannot break them. It is impossible for us to get out of the chains that bind us.
Paul calls out:
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
The irony of sin and addiction is that we can readily get ourselves into the chains, but we cannot get out of the chains. The more we struggle against them, the tighter the bonds happen.
Did you ever play with those Chinese fingertraps? The harder you pulled or struggled against, the tighter they gripped the finger.
If you don’t know what I am talking about, picture a pool of quicksand. If you ever get stuck in quicksand, you will find out that the harder you struggle, the harder you try to work, the faster you will sink.
Fingertraps and quicksand are the same, you can’t struggle your way out, you need stop. The moment you stop, you have a chance of getting out.
Sin and addiction is the same. We cannot work our way out of sin and addiction. None of us can muster enough self-control and wherewithal to struggle our way out of it.
So the first step of getting out of addiction is to stop fighting and instead to admit the reality:
We are powerless over our addictions, brokenness, and sinful patterns—that in our own power our lives are unmanageable.
As Paul wrote:
For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
I cannot get rid of my sin on my own. If I keep trying to will my way to perfection, that’s an exercise in futility. I’ll just get more and more into sin and addiction, because by trying to work my way out of it. Instead of depending on God and his ways, I am depending on myself and my ways. Pride.
We have to admit that we are powerless over our addictions, brokenness, and sinful patterns—that in our own power our lives are unmanageable.
Who do we admit this too? Well, we have to come to the point that we admit it to ourselves. We cannot live in self-delusion. Since we are all sinners, we are all addicted to something, we must believe that ourselves, and if we refuse to believe that, we will never change.
But, we also have to admit it to God. We have to confess to him the truth. We have to acknowledge that we understand what he says is true. That we are sinners and cannot do anything about it ourselves.
We should also admit it to others around us. That our lives are a mess because of what we have done and there is nothing we can do about it. So many of us what to keep up a facade, to pretend that we have everything okay. When we will not change until we start telling the truth to those around us.
I know most of ya’ll’s junk. You just don’t know each others. The amazing thing will be, when each of us starts opening up and we realize that we are all the same, desperately in need of help. And we start seeing God’s help together. And people on the outside start seeing something different in us.
Paul cries:
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
Then he says:
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
There is hope. Once we Admit, we can step into Belief. But, that is for next week.
Until then, may we speak the truth, admitting that we are powerless—that in our own power our lives are unmanageable.