Step 2 Toward Recovery | Believe in a Greater Power

Speaker 1 00:00:03 Well, hey everyone. Welcome to the Pursue God podcast. I’m Pastor Brian, and I’m joined today in the studio by a couple more pastor friends Pastor Eric Sittard, pastor Mark Alstrom. And we’re talking today about the second step toward recovery, right? We’re going through the, the 12 steps of aa, but we’re doing it from a biblical point of view. And today we’re gonna get to step two before we even name step two. Maybe we could back up a second and, and get a reminder of what was step number one, and then let’s name step number two.

Speaker 2 00:00:38 Yeah. So, uh, step number one was, um, we admitted that we were powerless over our addictions and that our lives had become unmanageable. So this step two that we’re coming to is, is now we faced that, we faced that idea of powerlessness, um, and now we need something. And so step two actually says, we come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.

Speaker 1 00:01:06 Okay? Now, spoiler alert, we’re gonna be talking in this podcast about that power being God, right? The God of the Bible. We’re gonna get into why we can trust that God, why we can trust the Bible. We’re gonna talk about Jesus. We’re all that stuff. So for people who are, who are maybe a little bit ignorant to Christianity’s full disclosure, we’re gonna talk about the power that set you guys free from your addictions, and we’d love to hear your stories a little bit too. Before we get to all that, how would a non-Christian, a non-biblical, just a secular, how would just a typical AA group deal with this one? I’m, I’m really asking for myself here because I read this and it’s obvious to me that the greater power is the God of the Bible, but there’s also, you know, like a light bulb above your head that is a power that is a little bit higher. So how would a, how would a non-Christian, this distinctly non-Christian group, do this step? I think in today’s world, that seems to be so irreligious.

Speaker 3 00:02:06 Yeah. I’ve heard, uh, people use the acronym g o d, which is, if you don’t have a God, just use good orderly direction, right? And so some kind of feeling or sense inside, some kind of moral sense inside that, what’s the next right thing? Choose the next right thing. They used to always say that a lot. And, and so I think, yeah, the, the reality is, is that in the steps, the guys that created the steps, um, are believed to have come from a church and, and Christian background. And so a lot of, a lot of, in these steps, you’ll see this, this higher power talk and God, God talk. And, um, it’s, it’s debatable who knows how much, how much, uh, faith they had or how Christian they really were. But, um, this is, this is something where they, they wanted to open it up, up to more than just church people.

Speaker 3 00:03:01 And so they started using this higher power language. And then, so nowadays, uh, they’ve become more and more secularized the AA meetings, na meetings, and now they’re just encouraged to find some kind of power, some kind of concept of something that you can give over your, uh, your worries, your anxieties, your cares, some kind of belief that you can just give over things and accept the things that you can’t control type of mentality. And so there, there’s some kind of, uh, draw to making up your own God. I mean, what would you say about that, mark?

Speaker 2 00:03:39 Yeah, I think that’s exactly what it kind of comes down to. Um, it, it’s making up your own, God. It’s, it almost reminds me, um, as I think about the, the people that I met in some of these secular groups that really had no belief or faith in the God of the Bible that we believe in. And, and it’s, it really just seemed like, it’s like an imaginary friend and mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it just comes down to, um, as I, for myself, um, I, I did do that, um, as a, as a younger person. Um, I was in a treatment center when I was 17 years old. And that’s, that’s pretty much what I did, was made up my own God in my own mind. And as I, as I got older and, um, these steps really didn’t work for me. I realized why, um, that’s because I didn’t really discover who my higher power is, cuz the rest of the steps, they just don’t work without, without really knowing who the higher power is. And so we’ve, we’ve learned through our lives, um, and through, through seeking truth that that is the god of the Bible. And so we just kind of cut right through, um, all of that and just say, our higher power is the God of the Bible.

Speaker 3 00:04:54 And they really, they really did get, you know, they really did get some things right if you think about it, because we are spiritual beings. I, i we have a soul and a spirit, and we were created, the Bible says, with eternity in our hearts, you know, in Ecclesiastes, we were created to know that there is a cre. Um, and so they, they got part of it right when saying, you, you should seek the spiritual side of your life when trying to get free, uh, from this, this habit, this addiction that has control over you. This is beyond what you’re physically capable of doing and, and what you can do in your own mind and your willpower. So, so they did, they did get some things right that were headed the right direction. But today we’re just going to, you know, boldly say that the God of the Bible is our higher power, uh, you know, not just the light bulb above our head. And, and, and the steps are not the Bible. Um, but they are, they are good practical steps that people use that, that we use to, uh, move forward our, in our recovery and to build a bridge to people who might be in a secular type of a group, but yet haven’t quite grasped the God of the Bible or Christianity. Yet we use these steps as a bridge to say, Hey, we have this in common, but, but let’s talk about this, this spirituality that you’re being directed toward.

Speaker 1 00:06:25 Yeah. You know what it reminds me of in Acts chapter, uh, I think it’s Acts 17, is that where Paul is at the Acropolis and he’s walking around in this, you know, Greco-Roman culture and, and their, you know, everyone’s got their ideas. This is where the philosophers came and they said, Hey, here’s my idea of God and here’s my idea of God. Here’s my, well one of those, one of those, I guess there was a statue or an altar to one of these gods that the, that was just an unknown God. And the inscription read something like to an unknown God. And basically the idea was that the philosophers were saying, look, we recognize in a polytheistic culture that Rome was, we recognize that we might have missed one <laugh>, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> that we might have. What’s interesting about that is there was a, there was a humility that acknowledged that they might have missed one.

Speaker 1 00:07:12 And what I love about that, and re listeners can go read this for themselves, but Paul says there in Acts 17, he says, the, the God that you don’t know I’m going to declare to you today, I want to share with you who that God really is. And then he just started preaching to them the gospel, which is what we’re gonna do today. We’re going to do the same thing to, to the listener who is, you know, who’s on step two in a, maybe in a group using the tools@pursuegod.org. Or maybe you just found this, this podcast, and you’re saying, I want to be freed from this addiction. I’m, I’m, I I recognize step number one that I’m powerless. I’ve tried to do it on my own and I can’t. And I would just say, maybe you tried to do it with another power and you didn’t try it with the God of the Bible.

Speaker 1 00:07:59 And so give it a shot. Give it a try. Because today we’re gonna declare to you that God, we wanna show you who he is in God’s word. And we do believe that that greater power can restore anyone to sanity and can, can be that missing link. And, and, and it, and it happened for you two guys, mark and Eric. It happened for me, not necessarily specifically with an addiction, but God’s completely changed my life. I think he’s actually spared me from addiction personally. I attribute that to God. I attribute that to the higher power cuz I’ve got a lot of addiction in my family. My, my dad grew up in it literally in a tavern. His grandpa, his, his father, my grandpa, uh, ran a tavern on the south side of Chicago. And so most of my, most of my extended family on that side of the family are alcoholics.

Speaker 1 00:08:47 And by the lit, really honestly, by the grace of God, I’m not an alcoholic. And by the grace of God, my dad’s not an alcoholic. You know, the God of the Bible was the higher power that spared my dad in that environment, growing up in that environment, literally growing up in a tavern. And yet my dad was spared. And and my dad is just an awesome guy, an awesome dad. And he broke that chain. He broke that, that cycle. I dunno if you guys believed that, that alcohol can be generational, it can be like a generational curse. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, my dad, my dad broke that curse at least for his, his branch in the family tree. And I’m, I’m very grateful for that. And it’s not, cuz my dad is a great power, it’s because of the power behind my dad.

Speaker 4 00:09:29 Yeah, that’s good. That’s really good.

Speaker 1 00:09:32 All right, so let’s talk about that. God, the God of the Bible is the higher power. That’s our claim. That’s what we’re gonna be talking about in this episode. How do we know this is, if I were out there listening and I didn’t grow up, grow up in church or whatever, I’m just a guy that wants some freedom. How do we know that we can even trust the Bible? Let’s just start with that. If we’re saying the God of the Bible, is that higher power, how do we know we can trust the Bible?

Speaker 2 00:09:57 Well, we can. I I mean, there is so much evidence, <laugh> for the Bible. It’s, it’s been, it’s been tested, you know, time and time and time again. And, and, and honestly, as time goes on, we’re actually finding more and more evidence for the, the Bible being valid, for it being true. And so really what it comes down to, I think, you know, for me and for a lot of people, am I really willing to seek out truth? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, do I really wanna discover truth? Because, you know, when I was younger, I, I really didn’t, I wanted to make up my own idea of God. Because you know, if, if I, if I discover the validity of the Bible, and I know, and, and I come to know how, how true it is, now I’m accountable to that. Now I’m really accountable to, to the God of the Bible. And I think it’s, it, it’s, it’s easier to make up my own God because then I can continue, uh, excusing certain behaviors and keep living, you know, certain ways that I want to live. So, uh, for me, I, I, I just, I think it, it came down to when I was desperate enough to really seek truth, I found it.

Speaker 1 00:11:11 You know, it’s interesting, mark, you say that cuz g Jesus said this and John said, and I just recently really connected the dots on this, and John seven in the, in the, in the New Testament verses 1617, Jesus said this, he said, my message is not my own. It comes from God who sent me. And then look at what he says next. He says, anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or is merely from man. So he listen to think about what he’s saying there. He’s saying, if you’ve already decided, if you’ve already made the decision, I don’t care about God. I don’t care about what he says, I don’t care. I I don’t care if he has demands or commands for me in my, I don’t care if he has a claim on me and how I live my life.

Speaker 1 00:11:56 I don’t care if you’ve just determined you’re gonna be an atheist and you are gonna be against, you’re gonna be set against God. Jesus is saying, you will never know whether God’s word is true, because the, it’s, what it’s saying is, if you’re unwilling to submit, if you’ve already decided I’m unwilling to submit to God’s will, your pursuit is over before it has even started. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But, but the other side of that is, if you’re willing to come to God on his terms and take him at his word, then Jesus promises, you’ll discover truth, which I think means you’ll also understand that God’s word really is true and authoritative in our lives, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so I love that passage again, go read it for yourself, uh, to the listeners, John seven versus 16 and 17, I think it talks about the kind of the preconceived notions that you come to the Bible with.

Speaker 1 00:12:47 If you’ve already decided that the Bible’s a is just a fake book, a fable, then, then, okay, then probably you can stop listening to this podcast. But if you are willing to do the will of God, if you have a, a, a humility, which is what I think step two is all about, is what I can gather. It’s about humility. Step one was your powerless. Step two is something or someone else isn’t powerless. Right? And so you have to trust in that thing. So if you’re unwilling to give God or the Bible a chance, then you, you’re probably gonna stay in your addiction.

Speaker 3 00:13:21 Yeah. You know, one of my favorite definitions for humility is being teachable. Okay? And so, um, to be teachable means that you’re gonna admit that you don’t know everything. But, but so you can, there’s things for you to learn and someone out there can teach you. And, and we’re saying that, uh, the Bible and Christianity can teach you about this spiritual life that the steps they’re talking about, but don’t actually get to. And that’s why we’re looking at the steps with a, a biblical worldview, right? Th th this is the idea of being open-minded is saying, I don’t know everything. I need to quit being so stubborn and, and, and say, okay, this, and this is how it happened for me, really was I grew up in, in a Christian home and I had a zeal for God. And, but then as I grew older, I kind of, I fell away and fell into my own passions and living worldly and into my addiction and everything.

Speaker 3 00:14:22 But there was that seed that was planted when I was young. So that finally when I got to this place of brokenness in the first step, you know, um, I got to this place of brokenness and I, and I kept seeing this word God over and over again and higher power. And it was like I had this decision to make, okay, well, uh, there’s, you know, I, I believe in Jesus. I believed in Jesus as, as a young kid. Let me find out more about him. Let me go see what the word, what the Bible has to say about him. And that is truly when my mind changed, when I was open-minded and, and even willing enough to actually pick up this book and start reading it. Um, I started to discover, man, this God is amazing, you know, he loves me and He’s, he’s done all this stuff for me that we’re gonna get into.

Speaker 3 00:15:14 Um, but, you know, go going back to the premise of, you know, why can we trust the Bible? Um, there, and, and you guys have brought up evidence. Um, but first you gotta come to it in humility, right? Being teachable, being willing. You have to admit that you’re broken enough to say, look, all the ways I’ve tried, everything I’ve believed in has got me where I am today. And so what do I have to lose to pursue God, honestly? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I’ve almost lo most people are in a place where they’ve lost everything. What do you have to lose to go and pursue God? Yeah. Right. You know, that’s good. And so, so we look at the Bible and yes, there is a lot of evidence. We have a, a, you know, in, uh, what topic is it in? Pursue God, topic two, right? Yeah, that’s right. Topic two in the pursuit, um, on pursue god.org is, is why the Bible? Why do we trust the Bible? There’s historical evidence, arche archeological evidence. There’s, uh, you know, manuscript evidence, you know, dead Sea Scrolls, all of that that we can get into. It’s, it’s, it’s pretty fun stuff. If you’re kind of geeky about it.

Speaker 1 00:16:17 Well, let’s just be geeky for just, yeah, maybe we should put a timer on this, right? But let’s, for five minutes, let’s talk about some of these proofs, right? Some evidence. Cuz to me, this matters. I, you know, I, I don’t want to be duped. I don’t want, so there might be people listening who are saying, come on. It’s just, well, it just doesn’t make sense. I’m a, I’m a math guy. I have a master’s in math. This stuff matters to me that God’s word is reliable, it’s trustworthy. It’s, it’s, there’s, there’s more. To me, if I think about it as like stacking up bricks on a, on a table up. I’m stacking up this brick, and here’s one brick historical evidence, here’s another brick textural evidence. Here’s another, another. Brick, personal evidence, archeological evidence. We keep stacking these things up at some point and now stack up the stuff that disproves the Bible.

Speaker 1 00:17:04 And those stacks aren’t even gonna be close. The, the evidence to, to me, you can’t prove faith. Faith is not provable. Any faith isn’t provable. Right? But to me, there is, it is. So, I’m so convinced that God’s word is reliable and accurate and that we can trust, we can go to God’s word, which is a good thing, cuz otherwise what is, what do we have our, our word, our opinion. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it’s so nice to know that God’s word, which has been around for thousands of years, really stacks up. And here’s a few things. Let’s talk about historical evidence. Ancient manuscripts and archeological digs have stacked up in favor of biblical reliability. So here’s how manuscripts work, okay? Um, when I say a manuscript fragment, we’re talking about, um, writings from, uh, you know, ancient writings from a long, long, long, long time ago, right?

Speaker 1 00:17:59 That are copies of the New Testament or, or the Old Testament. When we say manuscript or manuscript fragments, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about copies. Now remember, they didn’t have copier machines, so these were written out by scribes, but they got lost and, or, you know, people got conquered or weather destroyed ’em or whatever. So we only have so many fragments left of this manuscript evidence. But consider this, this is really interesting. Um, I wanna relate it to like Aristotle’s writings. Okay? Today we have, let’s, let’s, let’s do the math here. We have 49 copies of Aristotle’s writings in existence. That’s it. 49 copies of his writings. That sounds pretty good, right? To think about. They didn’t have copy machines back then, but Aristotle was important enough that that 49 of those copies are still around. I mean, maybe those numbers, there might even be a few more.

Speaker 1 00:18:49 I don’t know. I’m not really up on all the archeological digs in the last few years, but let’s say 49 copies. All right? The next one is doing better. Homer’s The ID is one of the best in terms of ancient writing. It’s one of the best out there. They have 643 copies in existence of homers. The id I remember reading that in high school. Okay, so 643 copies of that. That’s pretty good. I mean, to think that they went through that, that’s a lot of copies of that, of homer’s writing. But consider now the New Testament. The New Testament has almost 5,700 Greek copies in existence. And we’re just talking about Greek copies. So we go from the second best on the list. The silver medal goes to Homer’s Iliad at 6 43. And the New Testament wins the gold at 5,700. That’s crazy to me. And that’s just Greek copies. If you think about all the other languages, air, Aramaic and Hebrew, whatever, Latin over 19,000 copies in other languages. So it’s not even close when you look at the manuscript evidence. The Bible really is reliable. Now, go ahead, mark. Did you wanna say something?

Speaker 2 00:20:05 No, yeah, I was gonna say, you know, that’s some of these things, you know, we, I don’t know if we share them enough sometimes because it is, it’s overwhelming the amount of manuscripts we have that really, they prove the validity of it too. I mean, we talk, you know, we talk about, you know, the amount of manuscripts. There’s, but there’s a separation of time between manuscripts too that we found, right? Like the Dead Sea Scrolls and, and matching up these, these books to see just how much they, they stayed true over time as well. Yeah. And so there’s just, there’s just so many things that when you actually really go and start to study some of this stuff and really look it up, it it, it does, it just keeps, keeps stacking up higher and higher and higher, like you said.

Speaker 1 00:20:49 Yeah. So, Eric, what were the Dead Sea Scrolls and how does that, how does that fit into this, you know, proving the reliability of that manuscript evidence? Can you explain that to us?

Speaker 3 00:21:00 Yeah, I don’t exactly know what the year is. The, I don’t know if you have it in

Speaker 1 00:21:04 Your 47.

Speaker 3 00:21:05 Okay. 1947, there was a, a cave, uh, called Kuron mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, where they had actually found these pieces of pottery that were in near, uh, near the Dead Sea, which is in Israel. Okay. Where they found, uh, a bunch of different manuscripts and, and, uh, pieces of manuscripts. And then we were able to, uh, go and match those up with, um, contemporary or, you know, different translations of the Bible that we have today. And we were able to find that, that they’re, they’re accurate all the way up into, you know, the 99th percentile in some of ’em. And, and we have portions of, uh, the, the book of Isaiah, let’s say, which is, they’ve dated that to about 200 ad it was really written in 500 ad but this copy was written in 200 ad and the portions of this scroll or of this, this piece of Isaiah actually match up with the Bible that we have today, but also tell us of the, the predictions of Christ’s death. And so, so that kinda leads into another part of why we believe the Bible’s true is because there are, we have, we have manuscript and historical evidence with pieces, pieces of, of papyrus or whatever they’re written on with words of prophecy that actually came true 200 years later. You know, so the historical evidence in that alone, we, we can prove that they were written. Uh, even secular scholars will admit that that was written 200 BC mm-hmm. <affirmative> and then, um, about talking about Christ who later comes, you know, ad

Speaker 1 00:22:54 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. You know, what’s interesting is when they, when those Deads Sea scrolls were first found, um, non, non-Christian pundits said, oh, this is gonna finally take down Christianity. They said, when we, when we fi finally figure this out and dig into this, we’re gonna see how much the text has changed, right? Because the oldest copies of, say for example, Isaiah that we had before the Dead Sea Scrolls that we discovered in 1947, the oldest copies were 800 ad mm-hmm. <affirmative>. That’s a lot. That’s 800 ad that’s 800 years. I mean, that’s, well, that’s even more than that. Cuz Isaiah was written in the, you know, 800 BC so that’s 15, 1600 years. So that’s, yeah. You know, I think it’s legitimate to say, how do we know that it didn’t change over all that time? So think about that. The, the mare tech that we had for Isaiah 800 AD and then the Dead Sea Scrolls were dated back the, the, the scroll of Isaiah, which we have almost the full scroll of Isaiah.

Speaker 1 00:23:56 That’s what we’re bringing that up. It wasn’t all the Old Testament, but I, it, it was fragments of the Old Testament, but almost an entire scroll of Isaiah. So we can compare that, that was dated to about one 50 bc We could compare that to, to the Macri text from almost a thousand years later. So think about that a thousand years difference between the, the previous one that we had that was the oldest and now this new one that we found mm-hmm. <affirmative> and their 95% identical. And the reason for that is because, well, there’s two reasons. One, Jewish scribes took it seriously. So the process that they used to, to translate and to make sure that they were doing it just right was a good process. But number two, and I would say more importantly, is because the God who authored the Bible wanted to make sure that we had the right text. He wanted, he, he protected, I believe God, the God of the Bible, protected the Bible all these years so that we can talk here today on this podcast and point people who have an addiction today point people to the God if, if God is powerful enough to, to oversee and protect his scriptures for thousands of years, he’s powerful enough to, to help somebody in their, out of their addiction.

Speaker 3 00:25:10 Yeah. I would say it even, you know, the, the other way around. If, if God is powerful enough to create the world and be able to, you know, be sovereign over his creation, then he’s also powerful enough to preserve the scriptures. You know, if, if we believe there’s a creator and he had that power, then certainly has enough power to protect a book. Right.

Speaker 1 00:25:33 <laugh>. Yeah. Amen.

Speaker 3 00:25:33 Brother and a soul. Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:25:35 Oh, that’s, that’s, and that’s what we’ve seen, right? I mean, I, I look at that, you know, I hear that when we, when we talk about this and, and it’s just, I mean, that is miraculous, isn’t it? I mean, when you really think about it, thousands of years, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, and, and we still have the text <laugh>, it’s, it’s remained the same. That’s, that’s divine intervention there mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, you know, there’s just, there’s just so much, so much evidence there. And, you know, another thing that I, I really, for me, I think I, I look at it is something that I think a lot of people do, the changed lives. Mm. The changed lives that we see is, is evidence because there’s just no other explanation. And we read about people, like for me, I look at Paul, I look at the story of, of Paul, you know, Saul to Paul, um, and just the, the complete change of direction in his life.

Speaker 2 00:26:33 You know, he was persecuting Christians and wanted to destroy that movement mm-hmm. <affirmative> and for him to, to become such a different person. I mean, he was so full of hate mm-hmm. <affirmative> really, and, and I mean, he’s going and hunting Christians down to, to preaching First Corinthians about love. Mm. I mean the, the things that Paul says about love. And that right there is, is an example of changed lives. But, but for me, I, I remember personally, um, at, when I, when I came to step one, when I really admitted my powerlessness, and I started looking at this kind of step two here, um, I started thinking about the people I knew who had faith. I knew that they had faith in the God of the Bible. And there was just something that just started to click as I started to think about these people. And, and that, that right there, it, it’s, that’s just further evidence.

Speaker 1 00:27:32 Yeah. The changed lives aren’t just the changed lives of his followers 2000 years ago. It’s you two guys, it’s me. It’s, it’s the guys you thought about, right? Mark that, and I guess some people might say, well, I know some Christians, and they’re, oh yeah, they’re losers and they’re not, their lives aren’t changed. And so I, I, I guess I would, I dunno what you would say to that. I would just say, well, we’re, we all have feet of clay <laugh>. Nobody’s, nobody’s perfect. But man, I hope that some of the people who are struggling with addiction right now listening to this, I, I pray that you have a godly man or woman in your life that you can look to and say, mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there is some, there is something different about you. And God has done a work in you. Because I believe that, that God wants to do that in the listeners today.

Speaker 1 00:28:14 I think God wants to set people free. Um, yeah. So that personal evidence is, is huge. I mean, think about this, the, the 12, the 11 disciples, Judas is dead at this point. He’d hung himself. Um, after you betrayed Jesus, Jesus goes to the cross, what happens? They all bail on him. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I guess the beloved disciple, John was the only one who was there at the crucifixion. So one out of 12 is even there. And, and you know, Peter Deni famously denies him three times. Everybody else scatters. Everybody is just scared. And I mean, I’m not trying to point fingers, maybe I would’ve done the same thing, but, but what happened that every one of the, except for, except for John who died of natural, natural causes and was exiled to the island of Patmos, where he wrote the book of Revelation, aside from him, every single other disciple of Jesus ends up dying for the cause. So what happened? What, what happened between when they bailed on him, when he went to the cross and died on the cross, to now within years, within gener, within months or years, they all end up not just following him and preaching the message and starting the church in his name, but dying for that faith when they wouldn’t even stand by his side when Jesus was dying. What could have possibly happened in those three days? Eric, do you have any suggestions for what might have happened? Well,

Speaker 3 00:29:42 The <laugh> yeah. The reality is, is they must have seen the risen Lord Jesus. They must have seen a man rise from the dead and come tell them all right, now, go do this hard thing that you’re gonna do. You know, follow me, uh, go make disciples, go teach people about me, baptize them, go all over into the world and do that. Right. And so they saw a man rise from the dead and he just, he fulfilled everything that was written about him in, in the prophecy of scripture. And again, all of his followers were Jewish, Jewish at the time. And so they would’ve known about these prophecies of the, the promised one, the Messiah. And, but they were, they, they were a little bit thickheaded until finally he had to all the miracles he did. And finally, the, the, you know, the last one of, of, uh, him rising from the dead after being crucified, and then he sends the spirit to them, and then, yeah, they go to the, they go do what he said to do.

Speaker 3 00:30:40 You know, they go and turn the world upside down. So much so that if you look at world history and you look at the way that things operate just all over in the world, even how we keep track of time and our calendars and all that type of stuff, it is all centered around the, you know, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. You know, the holidays that we celebrate. And so certainly Jesus made a huge impact on the world, um, you know, practically that we can see. It’s, it’s tangible. One more thing, cuz we were gonna quit being geeky. It seemed like you guys were getting to the more, you know, the feelings and emotional parts, <laugh>, I just wanted to be one more, one more quick thing. Okay. And then we can move on from the Bible. I mean, we, we don’t have enough time to tell you everything about the Bible, but just some more numbers is, you know, the Bible is 40 different authors mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Speaker 3 00:31:32 66 books written over, uh, a time period of what, 1500, 1500 years. Yeah. Uh, written in three different languages on three different continents. But it still tells, with all those different variables, still tells this one amazing, cohesive, coherent story of the God who created the world. And, and men and women fell away from him and he sought, sought to save them and to redeem them. And he put this plan in place by, uh, sending his son Jesus Christ, the man who was God in the flesh. He dies on the cross raises from the dead and then now says, go and make disciples. That’s how the church started. And, and that is what the Bible is all about.

Speaker 1 00:32:23 And so let’s talk about that Jesus, because Jesus is that higher, well God, let’s say God. And really God is, you’ll have to, people have to listen to our Trinity podcast if you wanna learn more about how God is one being and yet three persons, God the Father, God the Son, Jesus God, the Holy Spirit, and God is our higher power. But specifically, let’s talk about the person of Jesus. Uh, because again, I think it’s really important for, for listeners to hear this. If you want to have, if you want to tap into that higher power, who can save you from your addiction. Let’s go back to the ancient teachings about Jesus. There are five teachings in the early church on the person and work of Jesus. You can find this in the New Testament book of Acts chapter 10. And let’s just go through these kind of one by one guys. And I want you to apply these statements to men and women who are struggling with addiction. The first statement, I think this was Peter who preached this message, Peter said this, there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all, there’s peace with God. Why do we need peace with God? Doesn’t God just love everybody? Aren’t we just all God’s children? Why do we need peace with God?

Speaker 2 00:33:39 Well, I think, um, of course, yeah, God, I mean God created all of us, right? He created everybody, but he wants peace for us as well. Um, and I think the peace that comes is in knowing that he is God. That he is the higher power that we’re talking about here. That he, he does the work, Jesus Christ did. The work that we couldn’t do, uh, because especially as addicts, I mean, I think the, the, the debt of sin that we have racked up mm-hmm. <affirmative> is, is just, it’s impossible. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there’s nothing that I ever could have done to make up for all of that, that I did and there, but there is a piece that comes in knowing that yeah, there isn’t anything I can do, but Jesus did do it. He paid for my sin. He did that out of love. And there, there, you know, once that that burden is taken off of me, there’s, there is a sense of peace. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 3 00:34:45 Yeah. We, like you said, you know, we, we sinned against God. We, we went, turned our backs on him. Right. And, and so as I said before, God created the world, but we, we fell away and we went, wanted to go our own way, trust our own opinions, our own ideas. That’s what sin is. Um, we became, the Bible says enemies of God. Right. And so we’re at war with God in our, our sinful nature where we’re wanting to live however we want. We’re at war with his words, with the way he wants us to live. We’re at war with him. And so that word peace there, you know, I think what he’s getting to is that we are all, um, you know, kind of stuck in, in this place of we’re gonna have to face our opponent at the end of, at the end, end of the day, we’re gonna be, be judged. And why not settle for the peace treaty, right. The peace treaty that he sent when he sent his son. He’s saying, I can, I can take care of all this. Uh, there is peace for you in, in Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 00:35:51 Yeah. I don’t think you have to be an addict to understand what the opposite of peace is. Right. The opposite of peace is war is, or to borrow a word from step one is an unmanageable life. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> the opposite of of peace. I think you just have to be married to understand the opposite of peace. Right. <laugh>. Because when you’re married, you know, for us, we, you know, when we’re at, when we’re not, when we’re not right with our spouse, you could tell, you can feel it, she can feel it, you can feel it. It’s just not right. But man, when that, you know, another word for this is reconciliation. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> when that reconciliation comes, and now finally, and a lot of times it’s because she finally admits she was wrong and a and asks, you know, apologize. Right. Isn’t that how that usually worksSpeaker 3 00:36:36 After several weeks? Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah.

Speaker 1 00:36:38 But, but what? No, that’s not usually, usually the, the man has gotta admit that he was wrong. My wife is always quicker to apologize than I am. I admit it. But man, when we can, when we finally have peace, oh it’s, it’s got, it’s such a great feeling. So peace is a relational word. And, and, but it’s not just a relationship between us and our spouse or us and our kids or us and our parents or whatever. Which again is a big word for an addict cuz I think addicts are not at peace in relationships. No. Wouldn’t you say?

Speaker 2 00:37:07 Not at all. No. Yeah. Our addictions, you know, while we’re talking about our relationship with God here, man, they affect all of our relationships. There is absolute chaos in every relationship in our lives it seems because of <laugh>, because we’re not at peace even with ourselves. Right? Yeah. And, and so it just trickles into everything.

Speaker 1 00:37:29 But this is what I love about this is that, is that again, Peter said there is peace with God through Jesus Christ because the very, the f the answer to this is to first be at peace with God. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> the answer to this is to be reconciled with God. And, and which is why I think it’s important that we’re being very specific about step two, that higher power that can save you. First of all, you need to be reconciled to that higher power. First of all, you need to be, you need to come to peak, come to this place of peace with this higher power. And what you’ll find out, and I think the other steps will prove this out, is then eventually you get to be at peace with yourself and with your spouse and with your parents and with your kids and with you know everyone else in your world as you make amends.

Speaker 1 00:38:14 So now, but it’s gotta start with that peace, with that higher power is that we get right with God first and then we can actually get right with ourselves and we can get right with the people around us. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But it, that relationship with God is more important than most people understand. Two more things. Okay. So that’s the first teaching is about about peace. The second we’re gonna kind of jump through the jump past these second two teachings from Acts chapter 10. Second thing Peter says is that Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. Okay? So what he’s trying to, what Peter’s trying to do is to say, I want to re, I want to make sure that you understand who Jesus was while he walked on this earth. Probably most listeners have a sense for that mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Speaker 1 00:38:56 For who, what Jesus has done. But the operative word there is he was healing all who were oppressed and he can heal the addict. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that’s good news. The third thing Peter taught in Acts chapter 10 is that they put him to death by hanging him on a cross. But God raised him on the third day. Again, that’s so important to understand and I think everybody probably knows if you grew up in America, you know the story, the Easter story, that Jesus died on a cross and the Bible claims that he rose from the dead three days later. Right. We of course believe that that’s true. So important because if Jesus didn’t conquer sin and death, then he probably can’t conquer our addiction. Right?

Speaker 3 00:39:37 Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, and that death on the cross, just, you know, to be clear, and I think we’ll talk about it again next week, but just understanding that that’s what gives us that, that peace, first and foremost, it wasn’t just Jesus coming, but it was actually the sacrifice of him dying. That cross was something that he didn’t deserve. He lived a sinless life. He did not deserve to go die on that cross, but he took our place, the place in which we deserve. We deserve death for all of our sin. He took our place and he exchanged his, his righteousness for our sin. That, that day when he hung on that cross. And that is why it is important that we believe in Jesus. We need that exchange with God, right? Yeah. That’s,

Speaker 1 00:40:24 Yes. And that’s what the prophet Isaiah was talking about, 800, you mentioned this earlier, Eric, 800 years before the death of Christ, Isaiah in the Old Testament, Isaiah 53 prophesy that this would happen. And I’m gonna read some of this cuz this is, it’s crazy to read this again. Remember in the Deads Sea stroll, the Deads Sea Scrolls verified this mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Because there was a copy of this in the Deads Sea Scrolls. And it read like this unjustly condemned, he was let away, no one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong, he had never deceived anyone. And it says there that he was buried like a criminal. Right? Again, this is, this is in Isaiah chapter 53, 800 years before G this actually happened in the New Testament.

Speaker 1 00:41:17 He was put in a rich man’s grave. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which is what happened. And I love what verse 10 says. It was the Lord’s good plan to crush him, to cause him grief. Yet when his life has made an offering for sin, he’ll have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. That’s a prophecy about his resurrection. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So here, Isaiah 53, prophesize, which again is more proof, this is textual proof that the Bible is true, is you’ve got prophecies like this that get fulfilled like to the detail 800 years later in the person of Jesus Christ. And the point, the the point to all of that is again, that, that the word God’s word can be trusted. But even more than that is God’s son can be trusted Jesus in what he did because he died on the cross, he rose from the dead. And then the fourth thing that Peter says in his sermon, and this is connected, he says, Jesus is the appointed one by God to be the judge of all the living and the dead. I think this is a message a lot of churches miss nowadays, that God is going to judge us. We are going to be judged for our sins. But the, again, the good news is like you said, Eric, Jesus paid for those sins on the cross, but only for those who would trust in him.

Speaker 3 00:42:29 Yep. So we have one more, one more point to this, right? Was that, so one more point that that point says, everyone who believes in Jesus

Speaker 1 00:42:38 Will have their sins forgiven through His name, through

Speaker 3 00:42:41 His name. So again, this goes back to why Jesus is our only hope. Um, because the sin problem that we have cannot be dealt with, um, on, in our own power. This is why we need a, an, a power greater than ourselves and, and really that power, the only power that can take care of our spiritual issue, which leads us to do the physical things that we so detest like addiction. Um, our hope is found in Jesus. He can help us. He’s the one who can relieve us of our, our burdens. He’s the one who we need to come to in humility. And he was the example to that.

Speaker 2 00:43:24 Yeah. I, I think, you know, for me, when I really came to understand the truth of, of Jesus’ death and resurrection and, and it, it started to hit home for me because I was so oppositional to Christianity. I was so oppositional to Jesus. And, and what the Bible says is, yeah, he, but he still died for me even when I was mm-hmm. <affirmative> his enemy when I wanted nothing to do with him, Jesus still died for me. And, and for somebody to, to love me that much on a personal basis, that’s, that is who I want judging me at the end because I’ll come to him and say, you’re right. Yes, I I am guilty. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I am guilty, but thank you for what you did for me. And you know, he, he just, he takes that burden, that burden away.

Speaker 1 00:44:19 Yeah. And that’s what he says. Let me read one more verse. Matthew chapter 11, verse 28. Jesus said, come to me all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you you rest. He says, take my yolk upon you. Let me teach you because I’m humble and gentle at heart. And you will find rest for your souls. For my yolk is easy to bear and the burden I give you is light. Amen. You know, the image there is of like these two oxen, what they would do back in Jesus’ day is two oxen would be yoked together to pull the plow. But what they would always do is they would put the stronger ox with the weaker ox so the stronger ox can kind of carry the load for the weaker ox. And that’s what Jesus is referring there to.

Speaker 1 00:45:06 And so Jesus, not just some light bulb above your head, Jesus is the higher power step number two, we come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore a insanity. And our contention and your stories bear this out, Eric and Mark, our contention is that greater power is Jesus the God of the Bible. And in the next lesson, in step number three, for anyone who hasn’t done that, we’re gonna give people an opportunity. We’re gonna talk about, okay, well how do I, how do I hand that over to him? How do I, how do I trust in Jesus? You know what, Peter was preaching about an Acts chapter 10 at the end of the day. He said, turn to Jesus, turn to Jesus and he’ll set you free. And so for people maybe who have never done that before, we’re gonna get into that in the next lesson.

Speaker 1 00:45:56 So the next lesson I would argue is probably the most important lesson of these 12 steps. Because if you don’t come to Jesus and say, I need you, um, trusting in you to save me and rescue me, not just for my addiction, but for my sins in general, um, then, then I think there’s really, there isn’t hope. But if you turn to Jesus, then there is hope. So guys, thanks for talking through this important step number two, two with us and we’ll see everybody next time for step number three. Again, if you wanna find all of these resources, you can find them all online@pursuegod.org slash recovery.