Speaker 1 00:00:02 Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Pursue God Podcast. I’m Pastor Brian joining the studio again today by Pastor Mark, pastor Eric. And we’re talking today about step number four as we’re going through the 12 steps to recovery. If you want to use this with your family, with your small group, or with a mentor, you can find it all at pursue god.org/recovery. Again, we’re in week number four out of 12 weeks. Mark, why don’t we start today by summarizing the first three steps and maybe kind of help us to understand what those three are about and what the rest of ’em are about?

Speaker 2 00:00:35 Okay. Yeah. So in step, uh, step one, uh, which is we admitted we were powerless over our addictions, that our lives had become unmanageable. We kind of came to this realization of just how <laugh>, how messed up and broken we are, and how lost we are. Um, and then we, the next week, uh, we did step number two, uh, which is came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And that’s really recognizing that there is hope, that there can be a hope, and, and that hope is God. And, and so we, we spent a lot of time talking about God, God talking about the God of the Bible, which is who we believe is our higher power. Um, and then, uh, last week we talked about, uh, step three, which is really what we consider the biggest step, which is make a decision, or it’s titled it’s framed. Um, we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. And really when we talk about that, what I like to think is this is the step of surrender. So these first three steps are really, um, coming to the realization how lost we are, how much we need God, and then becoming willing to give our life over to ’em. And they’re really kind of the framework that is needed to go into the rest of these steps.

Speaker 1 00:01:56 And the rest of the steps then are about doing the actual work, right? So, so the folks that have been listening to this so far saying this, look, this has been great information, guys, but what do I actually do? What do I actually do to get out of my addiction? We’re finally ready to talk about that. So, Eric, what is step number four?

Speaker 3 00:02:17 Well, step number four says that we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. And so, uh, you’re right, just like what you just said is actually getting to the work. You know, steps one through three are the, um, what, what is wrong with me and how do I solve that problem? And now the rest of it is the how, how do we apply what we’ve learned about humility, about open-mindedness, about willingness, about surrender? How do we apply it? And step four then really starts us off in that journey of recovery, um, trying to help us understand who we are and why we are the way that we are, because maybe we have a, a little bit of clean time right now. And, uh, if we don’t want to relapse, then we’ve, we’ve gotta get to the core of the issue. And, and the core of the issue is what’s going on in our hearts.

Speaker 3 00:03:14 Things that’s happened to us in our past. We do things sometimes and we don’t even know why we have feelings and, and emotions, and we don’t even know why we have those. And we need to learn how to react to those. And so we’re gonna talk about that in a lot of the steps coming, coming up. But specifically for a moral inventory, um, I like to think of it like this. Here’s a good example. If you were a business owner, right? You, um, you gotta take stock of what you have, what you own. You go into your business and you have a, uh, you regularly have employees take inventory for you of, of your goods, right? Of your valuable goods, um, and, and of your junk, right? And sometimes the junk gets in the way. And so you gotta do some spring cleaning. You gotta, you gotta clean things out so that you can store more goods and, and, and continue operating a healthy business, right?

Speaker 3 00:04:11 And so, taking inventory of what you have, why you have it, is it useful? And do I need to get rid of it in a business, is the same way that we should operate as, as human beings, men and women in recovery. We look inside of ourselves and we say, w what’s going on? You know, what are some of my character traits? The emotions that I have, the thoughts that I have, some values, beliefs, morals, cuz it’s some moral inventory, right? What do I have going on inside of me? Um, and where is it taking me? Do I need to make some changes to become more efficient? Do I need to get rid of some old baggage? And and so part of, uh, what we say in step four is that our secrets keep us sick. And when you, you do the work of doing a moral inventory and we’re told to do it daily, but doing a moral inventory is helping us, um, be real about ourselves, be real about who we are, and it helps us to get our secrets up and out onto pages so that we can process it and so that it’s no longer secret anymore.

Speaker 1 00:05:18 Okay? Can we, can we do a little bit of that right here? You guys in your safe place? Enough <laugh>. Eric, you got a coffee in your hand? You’re ready for this cuz we’re gonna, we’re gonna model a little bit of this for our listeners. I’m gonna ask some questions. You can find these questions, by the way, at pursue god org slash recovery. Again, we’re on lesson number four and we’ll make sure that these are available there for you. Question one, have you ever had any broken relationships? If so, describe them. Describe how they hurt others or how they hurt you. Describe ju any grudges or anger or resentment that you have had over those relationships. Man, that’s a, that’s a pretty piercing question right out the gate.

Speaker 2 00:06:02 Yeah, I know, I know. For me, I think <laugh>, I don’t know if I really knew what a healthy relationship was before. Um, <laugh> accepting Christ and giving my life to him and, and working these steps, you know, really embracing this, this life of recovery. Uh, because it, it did come down to really digging in and, and recognizing how much I let you know, my emotions, um, past hurts and, and things just ruled me. They ruled me and they ruled the way that I interacted with people around me. So I, I think, you know, you could prob probably talk to pretty much anybody, um, in my circle. And they would tell you that my relationship with them is far different than it was years ago, um, before I, um, took this journey. It, and, and that’s really where, um, this step is so crucial because we really start to get into why, why do I operate this way? Um, how do I react when these certain feelings come up? And, and so, yeah, I, for me, pretty much every relationship I had was, was pretty broken and messed up

Speaker 1 00:07:19 Cuz it’s how you did relationships. You didn’t know, like you said, you didn’t know a better way.

Speaker 2 00:07:23 I didn’t.

Speaker 1 00:07:24 Yeah, yeah. You didn’t know the healthy way. By the way, we’ve got all kinds of content on relationships and healthy relationships that pursue god.org. If you go to the life category, there’s a whole segment on relationships cuz it’s important. But a lot of people, I’ve noticed you guys maybe can speak to this more cuz you work with, not only have you, do you have recover, are you living in recovery and freedom from an addiction, but also you work with a lot of men and women who are struggling with addiction. So do you think that a lot of, a lot of those folks that one of the triggers for them was a resentment or a bitterness or something that happened in a relationship, whether with mom or with dad or with a friend or a boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever?

Speaker 3 00:08:06 Yes. Yeah, you’re exactly right. And you know, right when you said that, you know, obviously I, you know, think biblically, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so I have vi bible verses on my brain. And, um, one is, is that not to let a root of bitterness grow up in you. And, and usually because of that, um, it causes you to act outwardly when you have bitterness inwardly. And that’s exactly what we’re doing with the moral inventory is to the, to daily look at our hearts and say, you know, why am I acting out? Why did I used to act out? Why did I try to self-medicate and, and then try to correct those behaviors, right? And so, um, in, in, in my own life with working with other people, certainly, you know, relationships were a trigger. We’ll talk about triggers, and I think we have talked about ’em a little bit, but, um, yes, broken relationships not, aren’t always just because, just because we, um, were using, but it’s also because we didn’t know how to do relationships in a healthy way. Right? We didn’t know how to forgive. We didn’t know how to let go, right? And so

Speaker 1 00:09:18 And so then drugs come in because it’s like an anesthetic.

Speaker 3 00:09:22 There

Speaker 1 00:09:22 You go, right? When you’re, when when, if I go in for a surgery, I’m kind of a woos and I don’t want to have to go through the physical pain, so whatever they’ll give me, I’ll take it. You know, they’re like, Hey, we gotta, we gotta clean your teeth. I’m like, can you put me under for that <laugh>? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I’m not that bad. But you get the point, right? So what we’re, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to anesthetize our pain, physical pain when we go in for surgery. And I think what happens, I don’t know what the percentages are, but I would, I would venture to guess that a large percentage of drug addicts, it started because they were anesthetizing their pain, not physical pain. They were anesthetizing their emotional pain, their relational pain. They don’t, they didn’t maybe know how to talk it out or maybe they wanted to talk it out, but mom or dad wouldn’t or whatever. And so the, as a result, they’re saying the easy route then is just to numb the pain so that I, I don’t have to feel that hurt, that pain.

Speaker 3 00:10:23 Yeah. Yeah. And I guess I’ll just be a little bit more, um, you know, transparent. And I think that what happened in my life, part of my story, we’ve, we’ve gone over a little bit, bit of it, but not all of it. But certainly when I was taking inventory, you know, back in my teenage years, you know, one of my first go arounds in going through some these steps and stuff, um, you know, what had had come out was that, yeah, there were things that happened to me in my past, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I was, uh, uh, sexually abused by a neighbor of mine, and at a young age, probably 8, 9, 9 years old, I don’t know. And, and I never really let that out. I didn’t tell anybody. Um, and so, uh, I think I hear that same story a lot from people. Um, there’s, I mean, that happens to, I’ve heard one out of every three people in the world.

Speaker 3 00:11:17 Um, but that’s crazy. I’ve heard that same story from a lot of people that come, come into recovery that they were abused emotionally, physically, sexually, or, you know, things happened to them that they didn’t necessarily have control over, and then they didn’t have healthy families in place or whatever to be able to process this stuff, to heal from this stuff. Not a lot of people know how to deal with recovering from issues like that, let alone, you know, drugs and alcohol. Right? Right. And so, so it seems like people like me, w it was easier for us to venture our way into, like what you were saying, self-medication mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? To, to deal with pain and hurt and not have to talk about it. And, and hopefully again, that’s what the steps for, is to actually get it up and out and, and, and deal with it,

Speaker 1 00:12:06 Right? Because otherwise you’re gonna just go back to it if you don’t deal with some of those root issues that are at the bottom. This kind of the seed of the addiction, again, not to, not to release anyone from owner owning, owning their addiction, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you don’t, I think part of, part of the, I think part of the victory to, uh, victory over addiction and drugs is to just own it. To own your stuff. And so right now, maybe something really bad happened to you that wasn’t your fault, but you still, you still have to be willing to face it, uh, face it in the mirror and say, I’m gonna put this on the table. I’m gonna deal with this because I’m not gonna let it control me anymore.

Speaker 2 00:12:45 Yeah. I think really that’s what this step is about. This is about taking ownership now of, you know, all, all the things that I’ve experienced, you know, may maybe, you know, I, I, I have some brokenness, some, some hurts from my past, but I am still responsible for the things that I’m doing. And I think it’s, there’s a reason that these steps go in a particular order mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Because I think the first three steps are huge. We can’t do this step without the first three steps. And I think a big part of it is humility. We learn humility in the first three steps. And this step is all about that. Because we couldn’t, I don’t think I would’ve been able to really look at myself and, and the things that I’ve done, um, and the way that I, that, you know, my, I operate through my feelings and, and all these things without having that sense of humility. Um, but I think what it really comes down to is, um, am I, am I willing? So in step three, we talk about willingness, right? So hopefully I’ve, I’m at that willing stage now where I’m really willing to be brutally honest with myself. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there you go. In this step.

Speaker 1 00:14:03 Yeah. And so, yeah, you mentioned willingness and humility, and I think for some people listening, it might also take some, a pretty good dose of courage, right? Yeah. To be brave enough to deal with it. Cuz the easier route definitely is to stuff it, you know, to think, Eric, of your story, it would’ve take, it would’ve taken quite a bit of courage for you to go to mom and dad and say, Hey, I need to talk about this and help me to, but you, you were probably feeling shame, you’re feeling confusion, all kinds of things. And the simpler thing, and I can relate to this, the simpler thing is just to bury it, is just to stuff it right. Instead of to let it get out on the table and really deal with it, and in a healthy way that leads to victory, long-term victory.

Speaker 1 00:14:52 You know, when our kids were little, um, they’re very lucky that their mom is a counselor. She has a master’s in counseling psychology. And so they would’ve been so screwed up if they only had me as a dad. And I know a lot of people, that’s what they have. They just have a mom or a dad and or they have two parents that love them, but don’t maybe have the skills to know how to identify what’s going on in their life. I just was talking to a guy the other day who said his son, uh, ended up on drugs. He was taking heroin, and he didn’t, he wasn’t clued in enough about drug to know even what to look for. But now in retrospect, he’s like, I feel so foolish that I, I didn’t realize it. I didn’t, I couldn’t recognize the signs of it.

Speaker 1 00:15:32 So it’s not that parents aren’t necessarily, you know, parents aren’t evil. Parents are broken and imperfect, but parents might not be able to draw these things out and help us to take a fearless moral inventory and really be honest. But my wife did a good job with that, with our kids, you know, from an early age. She would get them talking. She would say, use your words. She used to say that all the time. Use your words. I don’t, you know, I can tell you’re frustrated. You’re throwing something right now, right? As a kid, that’s what you do. It’s, it’s a tantrum. Well, as an adult, maybe you don’t throw tantrums anymore, but you’re a, again, you’re anesthetizing behavior is to, is to go to your drugs, right? Or even pornography, which is, which acts like a drug, right? It’s this soothing drug. It, it meets this need in the short term. Instead of using your words, going to somebody and saying, Hey, help me to process this. I, you know, I need to, I need to think through what’s really at the root here. And so that’s why this fearless moral inventory is so important. So how about this second question. Have you ever felt self-righteous? Explain, explain when, explain the circumstances and explain whether it was justified in your own mind or not.

Speaker 2 00:16:47 Yeah, I actually, I’ve shared this story quite a few, few different times. Um, because <laugh>, we’ve gone through these questions in our recovery groups. And, and this one always comes to mind. I, I have, um, somebody very close to me who, um, her, uh, her husband cheated on her. And, um, I, I confronted him very angrily. I showed up at his work, um, threw all his stuff off his desk and, and, and just screamed in his face. And it was, you know, it was just this anger. I felt protective, you know, I felt angry. And, and I lashed out. And a few years later, um, I myself am the one who has done the exact same thing to my wife. And, and it’s, it’s interesting how in the moment I felt so self-righteous. Um, but when all of my stuff, my, my issues, my sexual addiction, all this stuff came out, man, it, it was a whole different perspective on it. Because when I’m seeking help and forgiveness, how can I do that when I’m not willing to forgive others?

Speaker 1 00:18:00 Hmm. Yeah. So that reminds me of this question. Um, describe the faults that you most detest in others, because have you guys seen that, I know this is true for me when I see it in my own kid, the faults that I detest the most in my kids are the ones that I hate in myself. Is that a, is that a, an, an addict kind of a response?

Speaker 3 00:18:24 Yeah. I, I actually deal with that. There are things about me that, um, I’ve had the hardest time controlling or getting over. Uh, sometimes it’s respect for authority. It’s, um, talking back, you know, and, and then, yeah. And, and, you know, a lot of people want their kids to be just like, like them. But for me, when my kids act, act like me, it enrages me. And then all of a sudden I get self-righteous, you know, answering this question. Like, why would you, why would you act like that? You know, the better ways to be like this. And then he points it out to me, well, you do that. And I’m like, well,

Speaker 1 00:19:05 Shut up. Yeah.

Speaker 3 00:19:06 <laugh>, uh, well, yeah, that, that’s a different story, right? <laugh>, like, you’re supposed to submit to me. I don’t have to submit to anyone. And, and so yeah, I’m definitely, there are times when I’m self-righteous and not a good example to the, the people I’m teaching, including my kids.

Speaker 1 00:19:23 So let’s, let’s go through it kind of a list for the listeners out there. Maybe you can write these down again, you can find ’em online at the series page, um, some traits that you might despise in others, and, and then think about if you despise them in yourself as well. Let me just read it. You guys just go ahead and stop me when I hit one. That might, that might really, uh, touch a nerve for you. Selfishness, cowardice, dishonesty. You guys good so far? Huh?

Speaker 2 00:19:51 <laugh>? Well,

Speaker 3 00:19:52 I could, I mean, we could stop at every single one. Yeah, we could stop at every one of those.

Speaker 1 00:19:56 Let me, let’s do five at a time then. Okay. Selfishness, cowardness, cowardness, dishonesty, fearfulness.

Speaker 3 00:20:03 Well, I, well, I just, yeah, I’ll stop you and be self-righteous right now and say, say, honestly, all of those traits do bother me. I, uh, um, and, and it’s because I don’t like them in myself. I don’t want to be any of those things. I don’t want to be selfish. I don’t want to be a coward, and I, I don’t want to be fearful. Um, and so sometimes I go outta my way to try to prove that I’m not that. Um, and, and in doing so, shaming other people that are like that, um, when in reality I’m probably inside, you know, facing some kind of fear, you know? And I’m trying to be manly and strong on the, the outside when really there’s things going on on the inside of me. Um, yeah.

Speaker 1 00:20:55 Well, what about, how about, um, controlling, manipulative, possessive, right? These are things that I’ve noticed in some of the loved ones in my life who are, um, who have struggled with addiction. I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of manipulative, controlling, um, dishonesty. Like we already mentioned that there’s a lot of that. What’s that all about? Why, why is that a common trait for an addict?

Speaker 2 00:21:28 Well, I think because we’re <laugh>, we’re hiding. And so you look at things like, you know, manipulative, that was, that was always a way of, of trying to, you know, hide the truth. It, it’s tied in with dishonesty. Um, and, and really it’s, it has something to do with trying to, you know, control my environment, trying to control people around me, um, because that I didn’t, that’s what I needed. That’s what I needed in order to stay in my addiction, to stay in my little safe space. And, and so it’s, it’s funny because every single one of these that we read over, I, I think about, yeah, man, how much I despise this in other people. And that, I think if you’re gonna go through this list, I think you almost need to, to, to look at it first of which of these do I despise in other people?

Speaker 2 00:22:23 Don’t even worry about myself just yet, right? Just go through and check through which ones do I despise in other people, and then go through and look at which ones I despise in, see in myself. And I found it’s, it’s almost always the exact same ones. One of the funniest things to me now is I look at some of the people in my life that I struggled, I had the, the hardest time with. I really struggled to have, um, a good relationship with. And it was because they were so much like me in this regard. It was, it was so many people that, you know, were selfish and dishonest and, um, hypocritical. I couldn’t stand people who, who were that way. And yet, I don’t know of anybody more hypocritical or judgemental than myself.

Speaker 1 00:23:15 Yeah. The one, one of ’em that jumped out at me was hypercritical someone that is just always critical of other people. Is that, is that something you guys have seen a lot e either in your own lives or with some of the folks that you’ve been helping?

Speaker 3 00:23:29 Well, I mean, I, again, that’s, I, I despise that. I try not to be hyper critical. I may, maybe it depends on who, who maybe, um, I think a lot of these that we’re talking about esp, that one, and then, you know, being controlling and possessive, all of that kind of stems from, um, fear. And it stems from being insecure. I mean, and I think that’s one thing that all of us addicts probably have is insecurity because of the things that we’ve done. We’ve done the shame that we have. Um, we’re, we’re insecure about who we are. Therefore, we believe that we have to run around and control things. We believe that we have to manipulate. We believe that we have to, um, you know, be super hy, hyper critical of everyone else so that they know not to be like that. Right? It’s cuz we’re, we’re so aware of our own insecurities that, especially me, I, I’ve been an insecure man for a long part of my life.

Speaker 3 00:24:33 And, and so hopefully, you know, this is where our faith comes in, going back to the surrender and what God did for us and how amazing he is, and that he loves us in spite of us, and in spite of all the things that we had done, um, he’s forgiven us. He’s set us free, put us on a new path. And so, uh, it all boils down to where I think fear, fear and insecurity comes from, is lack of trust. <laugh>. I, and, and that’s where we, our higher power, God has to come back into this. How much do we trust God? How much do we trust him that he’s gonna deal with other people and their issues? Why do I gotta be a hypocrite? Or why am I so sensitive? What to what, what the way that people are, um, when I only need to worry about myself.

Speaker 3 00:25:22 And so, being hypercritical comes from me not trusting that God’s gonna work on them like he’s working in me. Controlling people is again, me, me not trusting God that he’s going to do what he’s gonna do to teach them, to guide them, to lead them. And so when I don’t trust God, I become controlling. When I don’t trust God, I become manipulative. Instead of being empowering, instead of being, um, you know, gracious, I think out of fear and, and not trusting God. We think that we have to control people with our words, with our actions, with our leadership. Um, and, and certainly, you know, again, that’s why this is good to do an inventory mm-hmm. <affirmative> daily, right?

Speaker 1 00:26:07 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But here’s the irony, and maybe you guys can help with this, is in order, I think the, the person who’s gonna struggle the most with taking a, what is, how do you say it? A fearless, I like that word, A fearless, a searching and fearless moral inventory. The people who are gonna struggle the most to do that are people who are insecure. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Because they’re gonna be afraid to do it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they’re gonna, no, I don’t want to face the mirror. I don’t wanna put those things on the table. I don’t want to have to admit to these things. Yeah. So what hope is there for the person who’s listening to this, who, well, if they’re still listening, I guess there’s a little bit of hope because the truly insecure people turned it off already by now,

Speaker 2 00:26:50 Right? Yeah. Well, I think that’s fear, I think is probably the greatest driving factor of addiction. I think as addicts, the, the thing that, that we’re most afraid of when we’re living in our addiction, it’s not of the consequences that I experience in my personal life. It’s not the, the pain and suffering that I cause myself or my loved ones, the people around me. It’s of being found out. That’s the greatest fear of, of being found out for who, who I’ve really been the type, type of person I’ve really been. The, the things that I’ve done, the thoughts that I’ve thought all of these things. It’s, and so fear just rules the addict.

Speaker 3 00:27:34 And this is where we have to go back then. If we can’t make it to, to taking an inventory, then we have to go back to step three, which is surrender, right? Which mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Because if we’ve surrendered our lives over to the will and care of God, and we believe that the God of the Bible forgives us, he knew all of our sins and our faults, and we confess those to him, and he says, I know all of your, everything that’s going on, on the inside of your heart, I know everything that’s gonna happen. Luke 12, two, which is part of our, our lesson. It says, nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden. That will, that will not be known. And so we’re not gonna be able to keep these secrets forever. Um, and if we go back to step three, we’ve already acknowledged these things. If as far as where we’re accountable to the Lord for forgiveness, and if he knows everything that we’ve already done or are going to do, then we’ve gotta go back to surrender and trust that if I do this work of a moral inventory, um, this is going to honor God. This is gonna help me, this is gonna help me to be honest with him and myself continually so that I can quit being sick so that I can, um, be accountable for the way that I am and hopefully change it, hopefully for the better.

Speaker 2 00:28:57 Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that’s, that’s huge what you said there, Eric. It’s, if I’m not really ready to, to tackle this yet, then I do need to go back to step steps one through three mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, and get to that point of surrender. I, I think of that, that word surrender, right? It, it’s really kind of counterintuitive to us, um, as, especially as,

Speaker 3 00:29:17 As controlling people

Speaker 2 00:29:18 As, yeah. Like, we don’t want to think about surrendering. But that’s, man, that’s where I finally, I give up on doing this, the way that I’ve been doing it. I finally realize, I, I don’t know how to do this anymore and I can’t do this anymore. I give it up and I give it to you. You know, give it up to you, God. And, and that’s where, um, the fear is lost is, is when I finally am willing to surrender and let God take over.

Speaker 1 00:29:49 Yeah. And so from my, from my perspective, then that was step three, right? Surrendering. But then step four is still a little bit of a baby step, even though we’re actually finally starting to move forward. It’s still a baby step because you’re just, you’re just taking a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself. You’re not broadcasting it, you’re not bringing anyone else in on it. You’re, but that’s the first baby step, really, is to have, if you don’t have the courage to face up to this for yourself, or we would say with in between you and God, right? Then you, you’re not gonna be able to go on to step five. You’re not gonna be able to go on to step six, step seven, some of these other ones where it’s, it is eventually gonna start involve involving other people. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, step four is just, you gotta get real with you and you gotta let God search you.

Speaker 1 00:30:37 I like, I like how David said it, Psalm 1 39, it almost makes it sound like he’s an addict, right? He says, search me God and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. That’s a pretty bold prayer. That’s a pretty fearless prayer to say, I’m exposing myself to you, God, uh, go ahead search me. Cuz the truth is God already knows. So it’s not like he needs your permission. He already knows what’s wrong with you. You’re not gonna say something to God in prayer and he’s gonna be like, oh, I had no idea, Eric, that you were struggling with that mark that you were, he’s gonna, he knows already, but there’s something therapeutic, isn’t there? There’s something therapeutic about saying, God, I give you permission. And then the God of the universe says, oh, thank you very much. Thanks for the permission. I could have done it if I wanted to. But you’re not doing it for his sake. Really. You’re doing it because it’s gonna be part of the step. It’s gonna be one of the steps toward your freedom and toward your victory.

Speaker 3 00:31:42 Yeah. And that’s where and why, you know, God has to be a part of every step we take in recovery and including this one. We’re asking for help in this situation. If God knows everything that we’ve already done, he knows our hearts and he knows what’s best for us, and the path moving forward where David says, the way, lead me in the way everlasting. If God knows the best way for us, then we ought to ask him for help. And remember, when we trusted in Jesus and we surrendered to him, and we had that defining moment that we talk about that faith moment, the Bible says that He gave us his spirit in us to help us, to counsel us along the way. And part of what the Bible says the spirit’s job is, is to convict the world of sin and including us. He convicts us when we’re wrong.

Speaker 3 00:32:29 And so we’re asking for the power of the Holy Spirit in this daily inventory to say, reveal to me, God, reveal to me my sin, reveal to me my insecurities and my hangups and my issues because I want to deal with them. And trust me, God wants us to deal with our issues more than we want to, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> so much so that he takes it upon himself to take care of our biggest issue for us, which is a sin between us and him, and then, um, moving us and guiding us with his spirit to follow after him.

Speaker 1 00:33:06 So what’s the payoff for someone who’s listening to this and they’re on the fence, they’re like, ugh, I, you know, they feel a little bit drawn to do it. You, you’ve almost got ’em convinced, right? You’re, you’ve gotta, you, you’ve got ’em at the five yard line, now they’re at the two yard line. Those last, sometimes those last two yards are the hardest two yards to get, right? So what would you say to them? Why, why should they, why would they, why should they bother? What’s the value in bothering to take this fearless moral inventory and do the hard work?

Speaker 2 00:33:37 Well, I would say if, if, um, we’re not willing to take this step of really discovering ourselves the way that we have always operated, we’re gonna continue to do what we’ve always done. Um, cuz even if you’ve kind of gone through, you know, step one, two, and three, maybe you feel like, like Eric was talking about, you’ve got maybe a little bit of clean time. Maybe you’re feeling, you know, like, I’ve got this now <laugh>, but I still have all those same defects of character, those, you know, all, all those, those ways of operating through my feelings and utilizing different behaviors, those things, I, I haven’t really, haven’t really looked into those much yet. And if I don’t bring those to the light and face them and recognize them, then you’re, it’s just gonna be a cycle. I’m gonna go back to doing things the way I did before and, um, and I’ll, I’ll be coming back to steps one, two, and three all over again.

Speaker 1 00:34:43 Yeah. It, to me, it, it strikes me that this is a lifestyle change, right? It’s not, it’s not that you’re gonna do this this one time and get it over with, like, ripping off the bandaid. Is it, isn’t it true? I mean, you guys speak to this, isn’t it true that this is a whole new way of thinking? This is a whole new way of being, a whole new way of transparency that now the first time might be hard, right? And the second time might still be hard, but over time it becomes part of your self culture. It’s just part of how you operate that you’re going to be honest. You’re going to, you’re going to be transparent, you’re gonna be vulnerable. You’re go, you’re going to admit when you’re wrong, first of all, to yourself, right? You’re gonna stop lying to yourself about what’s at the bottom of who you are. Not j forget about, about your addictive behavior, just who you are. So this is a great, this is a great tool for anyone. And I would say if you had this skill, if you had the skill, the skill to be really just brutally honest with yourself and with others, then you probably wouldn’t have gotten into your addiction in the first place.

Speaker 3 00:35:55 Yeah. And, and to answer the question, you know, what, what are we gonna gain? Why bother? I think that what’s gonna happen is we’re gonna turn into the people that we want to be, you know, instead of the person that we’re shame, shame filled of, of being, right? And so the person that we want to be is the person that God wants us to be, to be honest, to be transparent, to be humble, to be willing, right? And so to get there, it’s gonna take some training, it’s gonna take some work, uh, going, going about it by going on the inside and digging up and getting it on the outside so that we can see it so that it’s no longer a secret inside of us. So there’s a quote in the, in the big book I wanted to read. It’s pretty profound. It’s, it’s, it’s what we’re talking about.

Speaker 3 00:36:46 It says this in, and, and I’m talking about the big book of aa, the Alcoholics Anonymous book. Um, we’ll have little quotes from from this, from time to time. It says this, in this book you read again and again, that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves. We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self will has blocked you off from him. If, if you have already made a decision and an inventory of your gross handicaps, you have made a good beginning. That being so you have, you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself. And so that’s, that’s really what we’re talking about, is swallowing and digesting big chunks of truth about yourself that maybe you haven’t processed yet. And those hopefully are going to help us to start, be the honest, um, humble, willing people that we want to be, what other people want us to be, and ultimately what God wants us to be.

Speaker 1 00:37:47 So here it is. One more time. Step number four, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Again, to find the video, to find this podcast, discussion, questions, and all these other resources we’ve been talking about. If you want to use these with your family, with your small group or your mentor, you can check it all out at pursue god.org/recovery. Again, this is lesson number four, and join us next week where we’re gonna cover step number five. We’ll see you then.

Speaker 1 00:00:02 Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Pursue God podcast. I’m Pastor Brian, joined again in the studio by Pastor Mark, pastor Eric, and we’re talking about steps to recovery from addiction, whether porn addiction or drug addiction or alcohol, any kind of addiction at all. I guess you could be addicted to shopping, you could be addicted to sports if you wanna have recovery, if you wanna have victory. We’re talking through the 12 steps of aa. And today, guys, we’re on step number five. And before we get to step five, it’s rooted really in step four. It sort of comes out of, naturally flows out of step four, which was what we talked about last week, which was what? Taking a moral inventory, right?

Speaker 2 00:00:43 Right. Yeah. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory is what step four says. And it’s really kind of digging into, you know, not just admitting our addiction, but admitting all of the, just the, the really bad behaviors, the ways that we, um, interact with people and things. And, and just digging into just ki, you know, just to say it, digging into how messed up we really are. And, and so now we’ve kind of, we’ve dug all that up, um, and we’re ready to do something with it. And that’s what step five is. Step five is now we’re going to get that out. Okay? And so step five says, we admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. So we’re gonna take our, our moral inventory, and we’ve, we’ve kind of been admitting it to God because God hopefully was helping us through step four. Um, and as we’re going through step four, we’re, we’re facing it ourselves. So really, the biggest part of this step is admitting this to another human being.

Speaker 1 00:01:48 Yeah. And we’ll spend a lot of time talking about that here toward the end of our time. But let’s, let’s deal with that first one, admitting it to God. I would imagine someone out there might say, I don’t want to admit this to God, because their picture of God is that he’s this cosmic kill joy, that he’s gonna be angry, he’s gonna be upset. He’s never gonna forgive me. And so, you know, we’ve made those secret about this. We’re talking about recovery from the vantage point of biblical Christianity. So why don’t we spend a little bit of time making sure people understand who God really is?

Speaker 3 00:02:26 Yeah. And I think this is very important because if we don’t have a, a right view of God, um, then how do we get rid of our, our shame and our guilt? How can we be forgiven? Um, and so that’s where this leads us to, is if we think God is the, is he is just ready to judge everybody for everything they’ve done, which in a sense, he is going to do that one day, but for now, we have the chance at free grace, free forgiveness, and that is in the person of Jesus Christ. Right? And we’ve covered this in, in the last couple of steps, but just to, to rehash this, you know, God loves us so much that he sent his son to come down to be like us, to suffer along with us, and then to die for us so that we could be forgiven. Jesus is the sacrifice for our sins. God wants to forgive us. And that is exactly what he does in sending his son down. You know, John three 16, the, the most famous verse, right? Does anybody know that I, I’m not gonna say it, but I’m testing you guys. Well,

Speaker 1 00:03:37 You’ve already said it. Yeah. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that whoever would believe in him would have eternal life. But that verse is talking about believing in Jesus. And I, I could imagine an addict could be out there saying, well, it’s, I believe in God, and that’s the problem. I believe in him. And, but what I believe about him is that He’s mean. What I would believe about him is that he wants to zap me. Bec maybe because you had a dad who was like that, or a mom who was like that, or some authority figure who was like that. And so your picture of God is, has been sort of compiled over the years by the responses you’ve gotten from authority figures in your life. And maybe those haven’t been great responses. So you have this picture of God that he’s a mean cosmic killjoy.

Speaker 1 00:04:22 And, and again, we want to tell you that that is not the biblical picture of God. One of my favorite Bible verses is First John chapter one in verse nine. And this is in the New Living Translation. Now, for those who are new to the Bible, first John is right toward the end of the Bible. It’s, it’s right before the Book of Revelation, which is the, the last chapter in the, or the last book in the Bible. And in first John, John writes this, I love this. He says, if we confess our sins to him, which is what we’re talking about today, right? First of all, you’re gonna confess it to God. The Bible says, if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful. He is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. We could spend the rest of the hour talking about this wonderful promise mm-hmm. <affirmative> from God’s word. But, but just sort of, why don’t we boil it down? What does this mean for the addict when he approaches God with his list of, of sins from his moral inventory?

Speaker 2 00:05:23 Well, it means exactly what it says. He’s, he’s faithful. We’re not faithful <laugh>, but God is faithful. And He’s made these promises throughout his word, that if we confess, if we, if we turn to him, that he will forgive us. And so I think, um, if we don’t have, you know, like a, a right view of God, then, then, yeah, this is gonna be a tough step. But that’s why it’s important for us to have a correct view of God, because he didn’t, you know, send Jesus down to die and suffer in our, our place for nothing. You know, that was for something and that means something. And, and it says that in, in Romans. It says, no matter what we’ve done right, it says, if we confess and, and, and believe in Jesus, no matter who we are, we can be forgiven. And, and I just think if we really have put our trust in God, if we’ve really embraced, you know, steps two and three and come to this, this faith and made that decision that this, this step is going to be something that we’ll be able to do and, and believe in, I, I would say if we’re coming to this and we’re struggling to confess to God because we, we still feel like he’s not going to forgive us, we probably need to go back to step two and, and three again.

Speaker 2 00:06:43 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 00:06:43 <affirmative>. Yeah. Yeah. Getting to the, the reality about what the Bible does say about Jesus. That’s step two. Step three is finally surrendering your will in life. Having that moment of faith, believing what he said and what he has done for you is true, no matter how you feel, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so now we’re at this point where, um, we need to trust God that what he says he’s going to do. And right here, it’s a promise. It’s a pretty simple one. If you confess, he will forgive. You can take that to the bank, right? And so I think a lot of us, and, and here’s the issue is that in order to move past this step, right? This is why everything is in steps. Um, we’ve gotta get rid of some of the shame that we have lingering that maybe came out in our step for moral inventory, right?

Speaker 3 00:07:33 And shame in the past has caused us to go relapse and self-medicate. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. We, we feel shameful. And then we get into this cycle of feeling guilty. And what do we do when we feel guilty? We use, and how do we feel when we use, we feel guilty. And so then what do we do? We go use again. Right? And you get stuck in this cycle, and this is to break that cycle and to really trust God. We gotta get rid of the shame and guilt that causes us to keep going out and using again. And, and ho. So hopefully we will receive and trust in this forgiveness that he promises when we confess.

Speaker 1 00:08:10 Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. Cuz that verse, again, we could spend so much time on this verse, it says, if we confess our sins, he’s faithful. So you, like you said, Eric, you can take, take it to the bank. And he does two things for us. Number one, he forgives us. And again, some addicts maybe haven’t really ever experienced forgiveness, like what God gives. Maybe the forgiveness that they’ve experienced is sort of conditional and well, I, I forgive you, but, but maybe you have a spouse or a parent or a kid or somebody, a friend who just wants to kind of throw it back in your face the next time you screw up. But that’s not the kind of forgiveness God gives us. You know, he talks about as far as the east is from the West, which if you think about that, there’s, that was an, that was a way to talk about infinity, right there.

Speaker 1 00:08:58 You can’t measure the distance between east and west. You really can’t. And so he’s saying, as far as the east is from the west, the Bible says, so, so has, that’s the distance that God has thrown your sin from him. So that’s the kind of forgiveness that we’re talking about that some people maybe have never experienced. But it’s not just that he’ll forgive us when we confess. That’s the first thing. The second thing in that verse is that he’ll cleanse us. And that’s, I think that’s something that you guys have probably experienced, right? If you don’t get past step four, you’re not really going to, or step five, I guess you’re not really gonna have victory because like you said, this shame cycle is gonna just keep you in bondage to your addiction.

Speaker 3 00:09:44 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that word cleanse just reminds me of what exactly, you know, part of our goal is, and what we’re trying to do is to get clean and stay clean. And it’s so cool that this says that he forgives us, then he cleanses us, and then with that, we are positionally clean with God. Now, let’s take that a step further and stay clean, right? And so how we’re gonna stay clean is to continually remember that we don’t have to fall back into the shame, but we can admit it to God. And I, I think this a lot of people struggle with, but you don’t know what I’ve done, right? Yep. You don’t know what I’ve done. Well, we’ve already talked about, you know, God already knows everything. He knows, you know, past, present, and future. He knows what’s in our minds and our hearts. I mean, he knows everything.

Speaker 3 00:10:33 So the the reality is, is if we’re not confessing things to God, he, he’s, he’s, he’s not sitting there saying, man, I wish they would just tell me what’s going on in their heart and their mind, and then I could help ’em. He’s like, no, if they would just be real, as we talked about last time, if they would just be real, I could, I could get this up and out, I could clean them, I could set them on a new path. But I think the thing that keeps us from even wanting to admit it to God is because, you know, the next point then is admitting it to ourselves, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we’re in denial sometimes, and we can’t even admit it to God because we haven’t even got to the place where we’re ready to admit again that we have a problem. And this mirrors basically step one all over again, getting out of denial, moving into reality, admitting that we have a problem. We’re gonna constantly be coming up against this test of humility and yeah. And so getting, uh, real with ourselves helps us to get real with God.

Speaker 1 00:11:39 Yeah. So that, and the verse for that is just one verse in front of the verse we just read. So we just read one John one, nine and one John one, eight. Man, this is so pertinent to the topic at hand, right? For addicts, it, it says this, if we claim we have no sin, we’re only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. Is that a, is that a verse for a, for addiction or what? I mean, it’s a verse for every human being, but it, it really does fit, especially people who’ve struggled with addiction. Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:12:11 Well, I think this, this connects the addict to the rest of humanity, right? Because addicts feel like, you know, no, there’s, there’s no, I’ve done too much. I’ve, I’ve done so much worse than anybody else. And you know, what the Bible says is we all sin, we all fall short of the glory of God. And if we claim otherwise, it says right here we’re, we’re fooling ourselves. Right? We’re deceiving ourselves. And so I think these two, um, confessions to God and confessions to ourself, they really go hand in hand. You know, they kind of, they kind of almost are in sync with one another. Because as we go through step four through our moral inventory, I think we’re, we’re, it’s like we’re writing it down and we’re starting to see it. We’re starting to see the real, I’m starting to see the real me as I’m documenting all this stuff, and I’m going through it, and then I’m coming to this process of, wow, okay, so this is, this is the real me, this is who I’ve been, you know, we’re we’re, and we’re telling it to God who already knows, right?

Speaker 2 00:13:12 We’ve talked about, he already knows everything. And so really, when we’re not admitting to God, it’s the same thing as we’re not admitting it to ourselves either. We’re just, we’re trying to live in denial. Um, but like it says, you know, he already knows everybody falls short. Um, and, but he’s faithful, he’s faithful to forgive. If we’ll just get it out there, we’ll just open up about it. We’ll just be real. It’s really, it’s the basis of a relationship is being real, being genuine, being honest. And so it’s impossible for us to really grow this relationship with God if we’re not gonna be real.

Speaker 3 00:13:50 Yeah. And you know, going back a little bit to talk about that crazy cycle, the shame cycle, the guilt cycle that causes us to keep going back into addiction. It’s interesting to me that actually these verses one John eight and nine, and then if you look at 10, it almost is a reiteration of eight. And so it talks about mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, if we say we, we have no sin, we’re a liar. And the truth is not in us, but God is faithful and just to forgive us from all unright and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then it goes on to again say, you know, if you say that you don’t have a sin or, or sin, if you’re not a sinner, if you can’t admit that you’re a sinner, the truth is not in you. Right? So it’s like, and we talked about this in group a couple of weeks ago cuz we were going over this step, and it’s almost like a sandwich, you know, of sin and, and God, the good stuff’s in the middle <laugh> like an Oreo or something.

Speaker 3 00:14:45 But, but thinking of it like now, the new cycle is based off of these verses, instead of shame, using shame, using shame, now it’s admitting I’m a sinner, receiving grace, but falling again and sinning, but then going back and receiving grace again. It’s the new cycle that Christians ought to live in, which is constant humility and repentance. And part of repentance is confession, turning and, and, and following God and believing the truth about him. So our new cycle then, instead of shame, use shame use should now be admit our sin, receive forgiveness, but then admit

Speaker 1 00:15:29 Our sins.

Speaker 3 00:15:30 Admit our sin again. Because the reality is, is he’s talking to Christians here. Yeah. And, and even Paul says it about it, you know, we, we looked in, in step one that he’s still struggling in this flesh that he has. Why do I do what I do? Um, I don’t want to do these things, but somehow I keep doing them. You know, the things that I hate. Well, we as Christians are gonna continuously sin and struggle and that’s where we need to keep going back to the source of grace, forgiveness, and cleansing.

Speaker 2 00:16:01 Yeah. And that’s where, that’s where the cycles broken, is by what Jesus did, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because, you know, while we were still sinners, it says he died for us, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so that’s, that breaks that shame. He says, no, there is no shame. I already, I already did this. I already paid for this before you even came to me, before you even wanted me. I already did this for you. And that right there, that’s that love that breaks that shame cycle.

Speaker 1 00:16:31 Yeah. That’s good. And, but it is true that for, I, I’ve never thought about this passage like this before, Eric. I like that it’s a, it’s a sin sandwich <laugh>, or maybe it’s a confession sandwich, right? That because I, but it’s because it’s true for every, for every human being. If you, and I’m, I’m a little bit of a perfectionist, so, so for me, it would be helpful for me to hear that I’m going to mess up again

Speaker 3 00:16:59 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 1 00:17:01 And so, so you can kind of almost expect it. I’m gonna mess up again. Well then what happens when I mess up again? He’s faithful in just mm-hmm. <affirmative> to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so, so we, we don’t have to fear the shame cycle anymore because ge like you said, mark, Jesus broke, he broke the cycle. He broke the curse because of his nature. Because his nature is to be forgiving his nature. He doesn’t want to smite us. He doesn’t want to wipe us out. He does. He’s not just wait happily waiting to destroy us. He, he gets great. His heart is to, is to free us. His heart is to help us. It says that Jesus said, my yo my yoke is easy and my burden is light. You know? And so the picture there is he’s in the yoke with us, right?

Speaker 1 00:17:54 They’re two oxen in, in the yoke and he’s the stronger oxen. That’s what they would do, is they would put the strong ox with the weak ox. And that’s why his yoke is easy, is because he’s carrying the burden with you. Uh, because he did the work on the cross already. And so for some people listening today, this is also new to them. That’s why every week we keep emphasizing the gospel. Like you shared earlier, Eric, that, that this is not some side issue what Jesus did on the cross 2000 years ago. This is the main issue. This is the thing that some people are missing, which is why that the higher power is, is the God of the Bible. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> not just a light bulb above your head. Like the higher power is the God of the Bible. Why? Because this God forgives you and this God has done everything needed in order to forgive you and set you free.

Speaker 3 00:18:41 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And and that’s why, you know, there’s, there’s kind of a nuance to the idea of calling ourselves addicts. And I think we talked a little bit about this, but just being honest about our sin problem and our sin nature, um, helps us to remember who we are and who God is. Um, we are, you know, sinful people that have been saved by grace and saved by the love of God. But I still am not perfect. And me remembering that I have a certain sin that draws me and pulls me away, you know, I have a certain temptation that others might not have in the world. Everybody in the world, as you said, this connects the attic to the whole whole world. Cuz all of us are sinners. But I have a unique one that other people don’t have that’s maybe I want to get loaded or, or watch things.

Speaker 3 00:19:38 And some people have self-control in that area, but don’t and others. And so, but we have to, this is going back to the, you know, admitting it to ourselves. Admit who we really are. We, we have a weakness. You know, Paul admitted that he had a weakness, you know, the thorn in the flesh story. He’s like, I want this gone for me. Why am I like this? But God says, you know, my grace is sufficient for you. You know, and so we live with this weakness and I’m okay with that. And he was okay with that. And we as recovering addicts should be okay with that. We have a weakness when it comes to certain temptations, admitting that more and more to ourselves is going to help us set the right boundaries in our lives as well.

Speaker 2 00:20:23 Yeah. In fact, you know, Paul, Paul talked about he’s, he’s boasts in his weakness. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> <laugh> because that’s where Christ power is, you know, made even bigger. It’s, it’s in our weakness. And, and so yeah. That’s why, you know, we talked, uh, a few weeks back about, you know, I, I don’t claim to be an addict for, you know, to just wallow in that, for me, it’s part of my, my testimony. It’s like, this is what God did for somebody who, who’s done everything that I’ve done, um, ran as far from God as I, as I possibly could. And then God still wanted to rescue me from that. I mean, that, that to me, that that’s one of those things that really won me over to Jesus.

Speaker 1 00:21:07 Yeah. And I praise God for both of you being pastors at our church, cuz I, I just feel like it makes our church stronger, that we’ve got some guys that have, have real experience in this that have, have, that have actually experienced victory. And so I think it gives great hope to not just people listening to this today, but people that show up to your churches and, and hear you teach and see a transformed lives. And it should give hope because God is the god of hope. And it, you know, it strikes me that, go back, going back to this verse, verse John one, nine, the only person then that this doesn’t apply to is the person who doesn’t confess. That’s why this step is so important. So if you, if you want forgiveness, if you want to be cleansed from wickedness, you have to humble yourself and confess, God doesn’t promise that to you unless you confess.

Speaker 1 00:21:57 That’s why this is so important. This step is so important. So confess it to God, confess it to yourself, be honest with yourself. But this third one’s really important as well. And we wanna spend a little time on this cuz I think this is where the rubber meets the road. The third part of this step is to confess it to someone else. Now, typically in aa, they would, would that, would that typically be a sponsor? You’d be confessing this, you’d be actually sitting down with a sponsor. Um, we would use the word mentor with a mentor and actually say, here it is. Here’s my, here’s my list, here’s my moral inventory and I’m gonna put it all on the table. Is that how it works?

Speaker 2 00:22:36 Yeah, that’s, that’s typically how it works. Um, you know, in, in the secular, secular groups, but in our groups as well. And, and we, um, you know, at at Alpine church, we, we, we use the word mentor. It’s pretty much the same as a sponsor. But we, you know, we have mentors for people in all walks of life, not just addicts. Um, so that’s what we would call it. But yeah, there’s, there’s something important here about admitting to another human being about getting this out there. We’ve gone through and we’ve, we’ve looked at everything we’ve done. We’ve admitted to God and to ourself. Now we need to really, we’ve humbled ourselves before God. Now we need to humble ourselves before, you know, people around us as well. And there’s something powerful about this. There’s something freeing about getting our secrets out. In fact, we, they say in AA a lot, you know, our secrets keep you sick.

Speaker 2 00:23:35 And they really do. They’re, they’re part of the shame. You know, we talk about that shame cycle that was broken. When that’s really broken is when we’re really ready to make this, this step, take this step because, um, shame is what prevents us from being willing to confess our sins to one another, which we’re told in the Bible to do is to confess to one another. Um, and so there, there is a, a huge thing with this. And, and for me, um, this kind of came in steps in, in waves. You know, I, I really, I didn’t really embrace this completely the first time around. And it’s actually what ended up pulling me back into my addiction was that I didn’t get it all out. I didn’t confess all of it. Hmm. Um, and so when I really, really hit rock bottom and I came to the place where I was desperate enough and I really started going through these steps, that’s where I came out with everything. I unloaded all of it. And there’s never been a more freeing point in and a more <laugh> scary point in my life than that. But, but it was, it was so freeing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 00:24:42 Yeah. There’s something interesting about the idea of confessing to another person, talking to another person, getting your stuff up and out to a tangible person. That’s the scary part of the, this entire lesson, I think, um, because to God and to yourself, okay, that’s an internal battle. And, you know, God is, is through prayer. And, but then you get to this tangible person part and you’re wondering, you know, what do they think about you? Uh, you’re, you’re worried about, um, what is this gonna do if I reveal my, are they gonna tell on me? Are they gonna tell other people? Uh, are they gonna just slam the door in my face and not give me time or attention? And the reality is, and we’re gonna get to talking about how to pick the right mentor then. Um, but before we do that, I just want to say, uh, it’s interesting to think back, and I don’t even know the history. You might Brian, cuz your wife’s a counselor, but the history of how long, um, the profession of, of a psychologist or whatever, or counseling, you know, one thing that’s always fascinated me, I’ve always wanted one of those weird looking couches. You know, you see in the movies that people lay on

Speaker 1 00:25:57 <laugh>, the cha the

Speaker 3 00:25:58 Cha lounge, the cha thing, and they, they, they go into this office, the guy or the gal lays on that thing and then they, like, they’re asked questions by the counselor and then they just reveal all we need to get one of those here maybe or something. <laugh>. I mean, what is with that really

Speaker 1 00:26:15 <laugh>? So what you’re, let me see, let me see if I can hear what you’re saying. So Eric, you’re saying, uh, if I’m reading between the lines, that if people were, were better at confessing their sins to pe to just regular people in their life, that maybe that profession wouldn’t even exist?

Speaker 3 00:26:32 Well, yeah, that’s probably true. But since, yeah, since that, uh, we can’t do it, then we’ve gotta pay people that we think that as, as long as they take our money, they can’t judge us. Cause <laugh> Right. They’re getting paid for it. So

Speaker 1 00:26:48 <laugh> Well, but no, that is, that does kind of come to the question of who should I confess this to? Cuz when you, you know, mark, when you shared this, what this was like for you, I’m thinking, man, does that put pressure on the person who’s hearing your confession? Does that, is that person supposed to give you counsel back? Or are they just listening to your confession? Because they might not know what to say to it?

Speaker 2 00:27:10 Right. Yeah, no, I, I think that somebody who’s experienced in this is who you’re looking for because really the purpose of this, it’s not, it’s not really to counsel. It’s not to give advice back. It’s really just to listen. Because the purpose of this step is to break free of those secrets. It’s to break those, the secrecy chains that you’re

Speaker 1 00:27:33 Wearing. Yeah. So you’re not, when you’re, when you’re doing this, it’s not a counseling session. You’re not asking for them to give feedback on it. No. You’re just unburdening your soul, so to speak. Exactly. And, and just letting it all hang out.

Speaker 2 00:27:47 Right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 00:27:48 And again, that has been a historical, uh, thing that has been portrayed on by the media, by different religions. Even practice this. Right. You know, you have a place where you can go into some kind of a box looking thing, <laugh> and confess a

Speaker 1 00:28:05 Catholic confessional.

Speaker 3 00:28:05 I still, I haven’t done that either. I, I, I need to go to that. And I also need one of those chairs. I mean, we’ll, we’ll

Speaker 1 00:28:12 Get you that, that would be awesome. We need to get you a cha lounge and a, and a bo and a confessional box, whatever they call that

Speaker 3 00:28:18 <laugh>. Yeah, that would be cool. But I, you know,

Speaker 1 00:28:21 It’s a strange Christmas list, Eric. Yeah, that

Speaker 3 00:28:24 Is.

Speaker 1 00:28:25 Okay. So for you, mark, when you did this, uh, you said when you first did it, you weren’t completely honest.

Speaker 2 00:28:34 No. Well, and for me it’s, you know, I had to do this with my wife because she was the one who, um, was the victim of, of my sexual addiction, a sexual addiction. Um, and so, yeah, the first time, the first time I really did this, I admitted as much as I could without feeling like it was gonna be the end of it all. Uh, there were a, there were a few things that I, that I held onto that I knew if I told her that was gonna be it, there’s no way. And I thought I could, I could just carry on, right. That those things could just be dead and buried and they’d never resurface. And I could go on and live this life, but man, no, those secrets, they just wait on me. They weighed on me. And that sh and when I, you have secrets, you have shame.

Speaker 2 00:29:29 And so eventually I fell back into my addiction. And so when I did that, um, and I was just so lost and broken that I wanted nothing to do with secrets anymore. I didn’t wanna live this life anymore. And I was willing to, to do whatever it took. I was willing to tell, tell her everything, even knowing that there’s no way she could take that. There’s no way she could forgive that. Um, but I had to, I knew that I had to for my own soul. Like, I just, I couldn’t do it anymore. I just couldn’t. I knew that my relationship with God was not gonna be where it needed to be. And it, and it was, it was killing me.

Speaker 1 00:30:12 So what was the end of that story? How did your wife respond to the full weight of those secrets?

Speaker 2 00:30:18 It was, it was rough. Um, I, you know, I, I confessed to an infidelity and knowing that there was no way she was gonna be able to get over that, and she knew that, I knew that she, she didn’t even really say much. She just left, um, went and slept in another room. I was planning to pack my bags the next morning, um, and leave because I knew that that’s what she was gonna want. Um, I just, I just prayed. I spent hours and hours praying and gratefully she was doing the same thing mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And in the other room, God was just, man, he was just building her up her broken heart. He was just kind of holding it back together and giving her the strength to come in and forgive me. And it was just, I, to this day, I, I, there’s no greater miracle I’ve experienced than that.

Speaker 3 00:31:21 You know, that, that kind of sh is a great story. Um, and a lot of us, you know, have experienced stories where we were afraid to share what we were gonna share to the person. And that, that’s kind of making amends, which we’ll get to in some later steps. But we’re afraid to share some things because we’re worried about the outcome. Thank God that your wife was a Christian, you know, so that she knew that the, our God is a forgiving God. And that was probably a lot that had to do of, of, of her conviction to forgive you. And so that’s awesome. That reminds me of, of James chapter five, verse 16, um, that applies to this very point here that kind of commands us then. And he says, therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. And, you know, for you, it sounds like that that was part of your journey is confessing to her as a fellow believer. And you guys were praying and she was praying for you and praying for herself. But this also applies to us as we’re trying to pick a mentor, then pick a sponsor, pick a mentor as pick someone that we’re willing to ask, uh, for prayer for ourselves even,

Speaker 2 00:32:43 Right? Yeah. Oh yeah,

Speaker 1 00:32:45 Yeah. Mark, would you say, would you, you know, for someone who’s listening who has, they’re just a little bit further back on the road from you and they’re, they’re really starting to think about, uh, they’re probably breaking out in sweats right now, thinking about confessing this to their spouse. Would you recommend that your spouse is the one, is the first confidant the first mentor that you tell all to? Or is there someone else that would be better just as a general rule?

Speaker 2 00:33:12 Yeah, I, I would say, you know, my experience was probably the exception to the rule. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, I, I think for the most part, cuz it did, like, like Eric was talking about this, this goes into step nine of making amends. Um, and, and so they kind of went hand in hand there. Um, but yeah, this is, this is something that you need somebody who’s gonna be a trusted individual who’s willing to just listen because this, the point of this step is to get it out there. Um, now there will be a time where we come to the step where we need to make amends mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and that’s gonna be, that’s gonna be frightening in itself. But, but no, I, it’s, it’s gonna be a case by case basis. You know, you’re gonna need to really seek some wisdom in, in who and how you’re going to get this stuff out there. So, no, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t say that your spouse, if, if you’ve had an infidelity, um, I wouldn’t say your spouse maybe would be the first person that you open up to about it. They might be. Um, but that’s gonna, like I said, that’s gonna take some wisdom. Um, I, I would seek counsel from a few people and, and, and do a lot of praying to God about

Speaker 1 00:34:24 It. Yeah. I would imagine for some spouses, they don’t really, it, it might not be helpful for them to have all the gory details. I know that for Tracy and I, when we’ve worked with couples in dealing with infidelity, we, we usually encourage the, the, uh, the person who stepped out on the marriage to tell all to somebody, and that the spouse knows that somebody knows everything. Because I think that’s part of building trust up mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Yeah. But not every spouse probably can handle that, can handle all the details. Right. Um, but, but it, it’s helpful to know that there’s someone, and that, and what I would say on, I mean, you guys can correct me if I’m wrong here, but we also say is, is that the, the spouse needs to know who that confidant is, and that spouse can ask the confidant has that person’s number, can ask them anything. There’s no secrets there. But it kind of puts it a little bit more in the spouse, in the, the offended spouse. It puts it more in her hands to know what she’s really ready, he or she or here is really ready for. Would you say that that would be a smart step in this particular area?

Speaker 2 00:35:31 I would think for this instance? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it, it, this would, this would be a, a different kind of circumstance than, you know, a sponsor for other addictions? Maybe? I don’t know. Eric, what would you say with, with another addiction?
Speaker 3 00:35:44 No, no. I would say, I mean, in a, in a situation where my spouse was, you know, relapsing and I had to call her sponsor and say, you know, what’s going on and, and talk about it. And we had to kind of develop a plan together. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but that’s because I had a lot of, you know, I have a background in addiction and stuff as well, but, um, there are certain things that should be kept confidential. And only if, um, the person that’s confessing is willing to, to give it, then, then you could say to your, your mentor or sponsor, okay. You can share that. But again, finding a mentor that can be trusted is going to make it easier for the person to be able to confess all the things that they have, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and even us, right? As pastors, we kind of have a rule.
Speaker 3 00:36:43 Um, we don’t necessarily share, we don’t share people’s things that they, they confess to us. Right. There’s a, like, one exception to that rule is that if, if someone’s in immediate danger and there’s, you know, abuse involved or whatever, but with a mentor, um, they probably have the same, the, the same accountability if some, if they hear something like, like that, right? If someone’s in immediate danger, somebody’s, you know, could be physically hurt or whatever, then they’ve gotta do something. But ultimately we do want to find someone, um, that understands the story first and f first and foremost. That’s why we should find someone that’s been through what we’ve been through mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because then they can first not be shocked by it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, you know, I tell people all the time, like, you can, you can say whatever you want to me, but, uh, there’s a good chance that I’ve probably done a lot more worse things than you have <laugh>. And that’s oftentimes how I get people to warm up, like in groups or in one-on-one mentoring or counseling. So you don’t

Speaker 1 00:37:48 Need the cha lounge, you don’t need the fancy

Speaker 3 00:37:51 Pouch. Well, not anymore <laugh>. Not anymore. I, I mean, I still want, but he still wants it. I still want to do it. I mean, I still, I confess regularly to p god, myself and other human being <laugh>. Yeah. I’d just like to do it from a couch every once in

Speaker 2 00:38:04 A while. <laugh>, you just wanna be a little more

Speaker 3 00:38:06 Comfortable or in a box <laugh>, you know? But, but no, I, this is, I was gonna say this actually too is this is why probably when you meet recovering addicts that they seem like they don’t have a filter. <laugh>, <laugh>, they seem like they’re just willing to share all, and it makes a lot of people uncomfortable because we know that confessing is better than holding it in, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so we’ve gotten to this point where it’s like, well, I don’t care what anybody thinks about me anymore. You know, I’m gonna share because number one, God thinks the world of me, he died for me and he loves me. Uh, so who cares what everybody else thinks. But number two, if I keep this in, um, then I could stay sick. And so we’ve gotten used to confessing probably sometimes to the wrong people at the wrong time, <laugh>.

Speaker 3 00:38:55 And we could, we could learn to, uh, get, get better at that. But, um, in, in, as we’re talking about finding a mentor, this is again, the, this is the step where we’re saying, if you don’t have one, you should find one. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> at your local church, Christian Bible believing church. Um, you should find someone that has gone through some of the same things that you’ve gone through, but they have more time than you clean. And they’ve, they’ve, you see the power of God working in their lives and they’ve been transformed. Find someone that has what you want, um, in a lifestyle and in the victory in the same category of sin that you struggled with. That’s gonna be the best case scenario to find a mentor like that.

Speaker 1 00:39:43 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. This is something I’ve, I’ve asked you guys before, I want to hear your answer again, but it is, it, you know, you say that, so I haven’t had an addiction, I haven’t had an addiction like you have Eric. So is it, is it true, do you think, from your perspective, is it true that I would not be a good mentor for you in the area of addiction?

Speaker 3 00:40:04 Yes. Yeah, that’s true. I mean, there’s a lot of things that you do understand. I mean, biblically, you know, you can, you can understand just the, the nature of man and, and sin and all that type of stuff. But, uh, and, and, and you would be a, a good mentor, you know, on the backup or just one of many mentors, right? Because I also believe, you know, the Bible says that in the abundance of counselors mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there is victory, right? Right. And so, um, but finding a particular one that can relate to you is going to be the best start, um, on your road to recovery. But having multiple people, people that can teach you about the Bible, people that can teach you about marriage and, and other practical things in your life where, where you would be a good mentor to that. But as far as taking someone through the steps and calling people out and, uh, stuff like that, I think you need to find someone who is a recovering addict.

Speaker 3 00:41:03 And I, there’s something that’s said a lot in like, secular meetings and, you know, this mysterious ability that us addicts or recovering addicts have that I know that I have. Um, and I don’t know, I don’t think it’s necessarily anything spiritual, but people call it a sixth sense. Um, like I can just tell that I can, I can kind of almost predict when a person’s gonna relapse, but I can certainly tell, I can just, just go walking around, you know, in my city or in the grocery store or whatever, and I can pick out people that are using, you know, that might be on something or are in the middle, uh, in between getting clean and sober. It’s just this weird thing that I can look around and I can, I can tell, I don’t know, maybe it’s called a BS meter or something like that, <laugh>. But I can just tell, um, when people are using and that type of person that can call you out, because that’s a lot of what we’re gonna need eventually is to be like reminded of, Hey, you’re not being truthful to this idea that you’re a sinner, so I’m gonna have to remind you, you know?

Speaker 2 00:42:12 Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s like <laugh>, you’d call it a BS meter. I think it’s true. I, you know, I can tell in my group when, when new people come, I can almost tell instantly if they’re being real or not. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, it’s just, I can just tell, you can see that level of vulnerability and desperation, and you can tell when it’s not there. You can tell when they’re, they’re just putting up a complete front. Um, and yeah, I think it is, it’s just something because we’ve done it, because we’ve tried to pull the wool over people’s eyes. We’ve tried to manipulate and lie our way out of everything. We’re just, we’re experts at it. So <laugh>, you want an expert to, to solve a, a

Speaker 1 00:42:57 Problem. Well, and I think that’s helpful to hear. I, you know, I, I was naive years ago in ministry, I just thought, oh, I could help anyone. I could help an addict. And I, I learned pretty quickly that I don’t, I, you know, I would take it at face value if an addict said, no, no, they’re doing great. I would take it at face value. And I remember a, a an old friend who, who sat down with me with a guy who was struggling with addiction, and his interaction with this guy was so different than mine. And I, I said to him afterward, I said, John, how did you, why were you so straightforward and blunt and rude and <laugh>? And he’s like, he was like, he, because he was lying <laugh>. And he totally, he had that sixth sense you’re talking about. And I didn’t at all have that kind of discernment with this guy. And, and John was right. John was, he was dead on and he helped that guy to victory. That guy is still living in victory today. And I thank God for John’s influence in his life. Cuz if it was just up to me, uh, I don’t think I could’ve really helped him. And I think it’s important for people to hear that. So if you’re listening right now, and you’re now, I think you could probably confess to someone who might not eventually be your mentor. Right? Is

Speaker 2 00:44:13 That true? Yeah. Well, yeah. And I think, you know, you talk about being, you, you can pastor somebody, right? You know, who’s su struggling with an addiction. You can, you can lead that person to salvation. Right? Right, right. Um, but as far as really solving the issue of addiction, I mean, there’s only so much you’re gonna be able to, able to do. Yeah. Without having some, um, experience there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 00:44:34 Which I, which we’ll talk about more later because that’s part, that’s the, that’s the, the bright side of this as well. That means that people like you have a real calling on your life to help people, and it’s part of your healing as well to help somebody else. We’re gonna get all into all that as we continue on in our Steps of recovery series. So let’s read it one more time. Step number five to recovery. Mark, what is it we

Speaker 2 00:44:59 Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs?

Speaker 3 00:45:05 Hey, I’m feeling a little bit convicted before we end here. I just need to reiterate that BS actually stands for Bull Sauce <laugh>. We’re not, we’re not promoting any swear words or language. We’re, we’re trying to get holier here, just so you guys know.

Speaker 1 00:45:19 Thank you for that confession. Yeah, right there, <laugh>. That was good. Uh, so anyway, uh, if you want, if you’re listening and you want to use these resources in a 12 steps group or with a mentor or the family member, we encourage you to check it all out at pursue god.org/recovery. This was step number five, and join us next week as we talk about step number six.

Speaker 1 00:00:03 Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Pursue God Podcast. I’m Pastor Brian, joined in the studio today, again, by Pastor Mark, pastor Eric. We’re talking about step six on the way to recovery. We’re going through the 12 steps of AA and applying it to scripture because we wanna help people to have victory over their addiction from a biblical point of view, and God wants to give people victory. So, mark, why don’t we start by reading step number six, and we’ll spend some time today looking at some scripture that’s connected to this, and we’ll even connect it to some of the other steps we’ve talked about.

Speaker 2 00:00:38 Yeah. Step number six says, we’re entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Speaker 3 00:00:46 Yeah. So what we’re gonna be looking at today, it sounds like it’s pretty close to the moral inventory that we just came off of, uh, two sessions ago. And some people might be asking, well, it seems like these steps are starting to be redundant, maybe. And so just a little clarification is that how these steps work, first of all, um, are kind of a, a rehashing or an unfolding of the first three steps. You know, admitting our powerlessness, realizing there’s someone who can help us, and then surrendering to God, uh, who is the God of the Bible, and Jesus specifically as our higher power. Right? So the, that’s the first three steps, and then now we’re learning things about ourselves. You know, the moral inventory that we took in step four and then finding a sponsor and, and sharing that with, with him is step five.

Speaker 3 00:01:42 Now we’re at step six where we’re digging a little bit deeper, getting specific about habit and lifestyle and character defects and traits that we have that, that don’t line up with our new life. Right? The Bible says this in, uh, second Corinthians chapter five, verse 17. It says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation. The old has passed away, and behold the new has come. Um, and so that is the struggle that we have in the Christian life, and even in the Christian recovery life is, you know, we surrendered back in step three to the God of the Bible, who is our higher power. Um, but does that take care of all of our problems and issues that we have,

Speaker 1 00:02:32 Right? Yeah. The, if that verse is true, I could hear some people saying, well, good, I’ve, you know, maybe a few weeks ago, I surrendered to Christ. I became a Christian, I committed my life to Christ. And so then the old is gone. The new has come, right? It’s all done. The work is completed. So why do I need to work the steps?

Speaker 3 00:02:51 Right? Yeah. Yeah. And, and well, the reality is, the spiritual reality to that is, is before we came to Christ, we w all we knew was our old nature, which we’re gonna find out. You know, the Bible calls it the flesh, right? All we knew was our own flesh, our own desires, our own willingness to satisfy ourselves that we were slaves to that. That’s all we knew. And so then becoming a Christian, the Bible says that we add a new nature onto us. It’s a spiritual nature. And so now all of a sudden, we have this fork in the road problem every day is now I’ve gotta learn to decide between two natures that I have in me, this internal battle, this internal war. And so, I, I think that step six is gonna help us identify what are those things that we used to do, our old habits, our old ways, our old lifestyle, our character defects, and let’s identify those for what they are, and then find out what does God want us to do, and how does he want us to live in the new nature?

Speaker 1 00:03:58 Okay? And so what we’re gonna do today then is we’re gonna take a look at Galatians chapter five. So if you’re listening at home and you’re not on driving on, on your way to work, pull up a Bible app or a Bible. Turn to Galatians five in the New Testament. I’m reading from the ESV today, and it says, Paul says this. He talks about what you were just explaining, Eric, this, this battle between what he is gonna call the Spirit, that’s God’s spirit, which is in us as Christians. And then the, the thing that wars with the spirit, which is he calls the flesh or your old nature, your old way. He says in Galatians five 16, but I say, walk by the spirit, right? Right. Which is what we’re talking about. Walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. So we see the, this war for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. So what is this passage saying, guys? It’s saying that there’s this battle, even for a Christian, that there’s this battle. You’re not a robot. You can still sin, you can still make the wrong choice.

Speaker 2 00:05:11 Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s what it comes down to. It’s, it’s, it’s making that choice and it’s, it’s, um, developing these new patterns of behavior, because that’s what it really comes down to, is these things have come out. You know, we identified in step four, basically, you know, our, our, our moral failings, you know, the different sins that we just practiced, um, over and over again. Now we’re getting down to the nitty gritty of, well, what’s leading me to that? Right? These sins are the outcome, um, of something. In fact, it, it says in, in verse 19, here, um, and the N lt version, it says, when you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear. So these are the results of living in that flesh, of following these old patterns of behavior. And so that’s, that’s where it really comes down to. We’ve got a new nature in us now. Now, am I gonna let that grow me? Am I gonna start to learn how to live in that more than the flesh? It, it, it’s a decision, you know, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, which nature am I gonna, am I gonna feed right now?

Speaker 1 00:06:22 Yeah, that’s a good way to say it. You know, which wolf are you gonna feed? Because the one you feed is the one that thrives. And so, again, we wanna make sure people understand you as a Christian there, like, what was it, second Corinthians five 17. You haven’t, you’re the old is gone, the newest come kind of <laugh>. It’s in, in seminary. They said it’s the already, already, and the not yet, you’re already fully righteous in the eyes of God because the blood of Jesus, uh, has cleansed you from all unrighteousness, and you are forgiven. That is what has already happened in the eyes of God. You are his son or his daughter, and you are perfect. But what the not yet part of it is here on Earth. You still struggle with sin here on Earth. There’s still this battle. And that’s why Paul is saying in Galatians five, that you have to choose to walk by the spirit. You’re, you’re not a robot. It’s not gonna automatically happen. You have to choose to walk by the spirit, or you can choose to follow the, the works of the flesh. And so let’s go, let’s look at the list in verse 19. The works of the flesh. The flesh are these, let’s go over a few of these at a time. And guys, I’ll let you speak to this with addiction in mind. He, he starts off, mark, this, these first three are for you, sexual morality, impurity, lustful pleasures.

Speaker 2 00:07:46 Yeah. Those were, those were the things that ruled my life. And I’m sure a lot of you out there who have struggled with some form of sexual addiction or pornography, um, these, these are the outcomes. These are the results of the life that we’ve been living. And they really are. I mean, they’re these chains that weigh us down. Even even people who haven’t accepted Christ yet, they recognize that these things are wrong. Because, you know, like, like, like it says in the Bible that, you know, God’s written his law on our hearts. You know, there’s a reason all this stuff is done in the dark. There’s a reason that that guys are looking at pornography, you know, by themselves alone, keeping it all hidden. And, and it’s because, you know, we’ve, we’ve let our flesh take over. Our flesh has led us to this way of life. And so as we get into this step here, we’re, we’re recognizing now these, this is the way we’ve been living now, what are the habits that have been leading me to these things?

Speaker 3 00:08:49 Yeah, mark, I’d also like to say though, that we we’re trying to get out of these, these thinking errors. Again, as new Christians or, or people that are now wanting to live their life surrendered to Christ, and his word and what it says, we, we, we are coming out of a way of living that had these thinking errors that knew its own morality, right? And we say so, so all of us have made excuses for why we did what we did, right? As watching, watching porn or, you know, sleeping around or whatever. It, it, those excuses in your head are, well, that’s what they’re doing in Hollywood. That’s what they do in watching these movies. Those guys are manly men. And, and if I’m gonna be, uh, a regular manly man, then I ought to act like that, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, or everybody’s watching porn, right? Everybody’s doing it. It’s not bad, man. I’ve heard excuses about porn. People would say, well, it helps us get in the mood. Or it’s, it’s just, I’ve had, I’ve had even women say that it’s, it’s a beautiful, um, expression of what it is to be human in its fullness, you know? And those are thinking errors that is called what the meetings used to say, stinking thinking, right? We gotta change those thoughts.

Speaker 1 00:10:07 Yeah. What are some of the other lies? Uh, mark, I think you’ve shared in past episodes that there were some other lies in your own mind when you were, when you were engaging in some of that stuff in the, in the shadows, right? And specifically about pornography. I think one of the lies you said was, look, it’s, it’s for, it’s for the benefit of my marriage, or it’s, it’s better than the alternative, right?

Speaker 2 00:10:29 <laugh>. Yeah. That’s, that’s the funny thing. That’s the, that’s the stink and think, and we’re talking about is, you know, if I’m, you know, looking at pornography, at least I’m not going and, and cheating on my wife, but what, what, what does Jesus say? Right? Yeah. Anyone who looks upon a woman with less has already committed adultery in his heart. Yeah. And that’s really what it comes down to, is it, it is. It’s, it’s progressive. Um, you know, and fact, that’s what happened in my life was it was progressive. And I did end up, you know, stepping out of my marriage, you know, later on. But it’s because Jesus recognizes that He, he, he’s trying to explain to us, it starts long before the act, it starts in your heart. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 1 00:11:12 So that’s good. All right. So those are the first three items on the list, and then in verse 20, the next two, and Eric, you get to unpack these. He talks about idolatry and sorcery and sorcery. Is that even a thing today? Is that something we even need to talk about for people who are struggling with an addiction? I mean, can you, are, is this about Harry Potter, or is this something else? What’s going on here?

Speaker 3 00:11:35 Well, yeah. Oftentimes when you think about sorcery, you think about a, a little, uh, wand that those little crooked sticks and, you know, some kind of, uh, witchcraft or sorcery and, uh, that’s happening in, in Harry Potter. And certainly, I, I don’t want Harry Potter, but I don’t think that that’s exactly what this is talking about. I think that, um, this is the root word, or the, the, the, the word for sorcery in the original Greek, which wa, which the New Testament was written in, is this word called phar Makia. And so faria is where we get, so the, the English language takes a lot of its words from these different, um, different languages, including Greek. And so this is the word where we get pharmacy, and that means, you know, drugs or place that dispenses drugs. And so, if you look back at the history of some things that are going on in the Pagan Church at the time, um, they are using sorcery, or not just the Pagan church, but in the pagan world, people are using sorcery as a way to get visions, to talk to their gods, to have pleasure, to have all these orgies and things that they were doing.

Speaker 3 00:12:54 They would use this as a, as a, a way to enhance things, right? To, to make their sin funner and better and, and more pleasurable. Um, so that is one way to interpret that word, pharmacia. And so basically what they’re doing is they’re, they’re using drugs and partying, like, like today. So we think that, you know, things are different today. Well, these, this bible that was written, these words that were written about 2000 years ago, still speaks to us today. And to our sin, the specific sin that we’re talking about of, of addiction over drugs and alcohol and what you used earlier, you know, sexual sin, that really speaks to me when talking about, uh, needing to stay away from the works of the flesh. My flesh naturally desires to not want to be sober minded, like the Bible wants us to be. I want to be loaded.

Speaker 3 00:13:47 I want to be out of my mind, not in my right mind. That’s what my flesh wants sometimes. And people who struggle with addiction. And so, um, this is one of those works of the flesh where I’ve gotta get out of those, those lies that I tell myself like, Hey, life would be better. I could be more social if, right now, sometimes for me, you know, one of the struggles or triggers that I have is to go on vacation, going on vacation, sitting on the beach is one of my favorite vacations. And I thank God that he created all these awesome places in the world, and that for me to have the ability every once in a while to go see them. And, but it seems like on commercials, on movies and everywhere else, it’s like portrayed that it’s only best when you’re sipping a drink or when you’re having some kind of substance to relax even further. And, and us as addicts, we say that, we say that in our minds, like, this is gonna help me cope. This is gonna help me relax. This is gonna take away my stress, my anxiety, all the above. Again, those are thinking characters errors, character defects that we’re trying to recognize and hopefully be ready to remove those, start having a willingness to think in a different way.

Speaker 1 00:15:04 Now, what about, what about idolatry? Because some people would say, well, I mean, we don’t have idols, right? When you think about the Old Testament or the New Testament idols, were wooden statues. So let’s give a different definition of, of an idol for modern day, because I think there’s a lot of idolatry in our culture, and I think for, for addicts in particular, you need to be aware of what that would maybe mean today. So an idol is anyone who takes the place of God, right? In the, in the Old Testament, when someone would think about, uh, when Moses went up to get the 10 Commandments, and he was up there a little too long, and the people were starting to get a little, a little worried, and is he ever gonna come back? And they said to his brother, Aaron, make us an idol. And he did. He made this golden calf for them so that they could worship this golden calf. That’s such a great example of an idol is taking the place of God in your life. So how does that relate to an addict? How do addicts use drugs almost like idols in their lives?

Speaker 2 00:16:07 That’s exactly what it is. It’s, it’s taking the place of, of God, because not only is it that’s what, you know, we turn to, whether it’s, uh, you know, drugs, alcohol, uh, you know, sex, these things, it’s not just that we’re, we’re turning to them to cope with things like when we are, you know, feeling like we, we want to, like Eric’s talking about going on vacation. Like, you know, this is gonna enhance things. This is gonna make me relax, it’s gonna make me feel better. Maybe I’m stressed. You know, I, I, I, we turn to these things. But I think the, the, the other side of that, of I, of having an idle is how much time, effort, energy are we spending on that? That’s, that’s taking the place of God in the same way as, you know, the, the comfort and, and things that we’re seeking from it.

Speaker 3 00:16:58 Yeah. I think, uh, all humans were created to worship something. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> or someone, um, ultimately created to worship God. It was built and put into our hearts. You know, the Bible says, in Ecclesiastes eternity was, was put into our hearts, right? And so we all fall, fall into wanting to worship something or someone. Um, and when it’s not God, it is everything else. It, it could be our family. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it could be, uh, some kind of hobby that we have. You know, one thing that I did when I came in, into recovery and out of addiction, was that I started to idolize the gym and body building. And I was willing to do unhealthy things even towards that, so that I could, uh, because that was the one thing that I placed in priority, probably above God. And a, again, all humans, even Christians, are guilty of doing this from time to time. And so this is what gets us back to needing to make that choice every day, uh, first acknowledge our, our character defects, and then say, I wanna start walking by the spirit. What does the spirit say? Because I make idols out of, you know, one of my favorite theologians says that we are a, a factory of idols. Mm-hmm. We just churn ’em out over and over and over again. Things that we want to put in high priority over God.

Speaker 1 00:18:25 But it’s, your story’s interesting, Eric, because I think people with addictive personalities are probably more prone to idol idolatry, like you said, because you, you need something to focus on, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you need something to obsess over, and that’s idolatry, essentially. Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:18:44 And I think that’s the point of this step right

Speaker 1 00:18:46 Here Yeah. Is because

Speaker 2 00:18:46 If we don’t, if we don’t narrow in on these things, on these character defects, we have, we are, we, you know, we call it, you can call it like transfer addiction, where you’re just gonna move from one thing to the next. Like, Eric, you were talking about the gym body building that became your idol, that became your addiction. I think those are almost synonymous words right there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? I idolatry and addiction, because it does, it’s something that you end up worshiping. And we see this all around us. We, we know people in our lives, and we’ve been those people who have just an unhealthy obsession with something. Maybe it’s a hobby, maybe it’s sports. And that’s, that’s the whole point here, is we need to get down to the nitty gritty, figure out these character defects we have, because otherwise, we’re just gonna move from one thing to the next, to the next.

Speaker 1 00:19:35 That’s good. All right. So we’ve, we’ve talked about sexual sin, we’ve talked about idolatry and sorcery or pharmaca, and the next four items on Paul’s list in Galatians five 20 are character defects that I would say I would categorize as those are related to relationships. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that’s about, some of these other ones might have been just your own issues that’s inside you. But these next few are outside of you now. He talks about hostility, quarreling jealousy, and outbursts of anger. Let’s unpack those for a minute here.

Speaker 2 00:20:11 Well, I think those are probably really familiar to the addict, because the addict has, um, our relationships are far more broken than other people’s. And when you don’t know how to have a relationship, um, you only know how to have a relationship with yourself, with your own selfish nature. These are the things that come out because you don’t really care about anybody else but yourself. And, and so that’s when, as we’re reading through this list, that’s what I think of is these are the ways that I, I reacted in my personal relationships without even realizing why or, or why I was operating that way. And it wasn’t until, you know, um, getting some help for my addiction gi giving my life to Christ, and having that new spirit put in me that I started to see this stuff for what it really was. And it was, it was just, I had no idea how to love other people, how to have a relationship with other people. And all I knew was how much I love myself <laugh>, and how much I wanted to care about myself.

Speaker 1 00:21:19 Yeah. I think that, that, even when you said that, I think I need to add a fifth thing, then, uh, you know, as you continue to read that in Galatians five, Paul calls it selfish ambition, right? That you’re focused. It really is. You’re just seeing the whole world through the filter of what’s best for you, what’s in it for you, right?

Speaker 3 00:21:38 Yeah. Yeah. And one of the ones I was zeroing in on is, uh, outbursts of anger. Um, how many times have I seen, I mean, have we all seen probably someone triggered to go use again, because they got so angry they couldn’t control themselves, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they couldn’t control themselves, and so they needed something to go calm them down. Or it’s, they get so angry that they say, all right, you, you hurt me. I’m gonna hurt you. I am so angry that I’m gonna get back at you by getting so wasted and causing chaos, because that I, we did that in our own lives. And I’ve seen that happen as, uh, working with addicts is they’re hostile, destructive cause strife, you know, through the, because that’s how they know how, that’s how we used to know how to deal with things, was, you know what, this is how I’m going to cope. I’m just gonna go cause some chaos somewhere and, uh, use. And so that’s what we’re trying to prevent. And again, coming back to this list is humbling ourselves and saying, okay, I’m recognizing this, God, I don’t want to be this way anymore because this keeps leading me down the path that has, has gotten me where I’ve been my whole life. I don’t want to be this way.

Speaker 2 00:22:53 Yeah. In fact, as you’re talking about that, it’s almost, I’m sure you’ve seen, you know, as you’ve been helping people, but the, that’s a red flag when anger is coming up in, in a recovering addict, um, when, or, or dealing with something really difficult, like, you know, maybe death of somebody close to ’em. It’s, that’s, that’s a time where, you know, it, it’s so, it’s so harsh in that moment that, um, it’s a danger zone. It’s a big time danger zone. And we’ve, I, I know we’ve both seen, uh, people who have a lot of clean time, um, and because they’re not recognizing the danger that they’re in because of the situation going on, that they end up relapsing. So I, I think, yeah, this is, while this is the, this is the result of living out that way, these things can come out and they can also bring us back into that way

Speaker 1 00:23:49 Of life. Well, anger for me, I know in my life when I, when I am be, when I, as I’ve become more self-aware of my anger or the, the little brother of anger, which is frustration, frustration usually is what happens for me first. But at some point, if, if when it boils over, it becomes anger for me. Tell me this is how it is for a typical addict. But for me it’s because I feel like I can’t control something I, I don’t have control over. I’m trying to control something and I can’t control something, whether it’s someone else, whether it’s something in me, whether it’s a situation that’s happened to me that’s spun out of control. And so I would imagine for an addict, then, when, when you realize you can’t control something, then you just say, okay, I’m gonna have to cope with it, then Yeah. I’m gonna have to cope with my inability to control this thing. And my coping mechanism is drugs or alcohol.

Speaker 3 00:24:44 Yeah. Yeah. And that’s where I think it’s a good time to insert the serenity prayer, because Right. Because that’s a new way of coping and dealing with things first through prayer. But second, what the serenity prayer has to say is, um, God, grant me the serenity, the peace help me to be able to have peace, to accept the things that I cannot change, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> the courage to change the things I can, and then the wisdom to know the difference between those two. And I think for addicts, we, yeah, we want to control things. When things don’t go our way, we throw a fit. Much like toddlers, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, and, and sorry addicts. I know you’re like, Hey, man, that makes me angry. Well, I can say that because I still act like that sometimes. And every human being does. I just think the toddler is the best example of some of these flesh things, because a toddler is not as spiritual as an adult ought to be. You know, they, a toddler portrays a lot of the characteristics of the flesh other than some of those, these, these deeper ones that we talked about at the beginning. But some of this other stuff, like, they’re a good example because they’re a product of the flesh. They haven’t quite yet been transformed by the spirit, like, by, like, hopefully we have. So we’ve gotta learn how to cope with acceptance, with humility, um, and with self-control.

Speaker 1 00:26:15 Okay. The next two on the list go together. And I think it, again, it relates to everybody, but we’re talking to addicts in particular, and they are dissension and division ba basically, uh, promoting chaos in relationships in your life rather than peace. You create dissension and division. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, does that ring true for you guys at all?
Speaker 2 00:26:41 I, I think for addicts it does, because <laugh>, I, I think it’s the chaos that we are experiencing our own lives. We want everybody else to experience it as well. You know, it’s almost this, this thing of just, well, if I have to live this way, I want everybody around me to be living the same way. I want them to experience the exact same misery that I’m in. That’s, that’s what I think about when, when we read these.

Speaker 3 00:27:08 Yeah. And I think it plays out of another character defect would be being a manipulator, manipulating, you’re trying to get people to see things your way causing divi divisions. Maybe you’re trying to, uh, get power in a situation, or maybe you just want people to like you more than the other person likes you. Maybe, um, you want to cause chaos in a situation so that the attention isn’t on you, but it’s on other people fighting against each other, right? So there’s this manipulative spirit in divisive people. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> for sure.

Speaker 1 00:27:47 Well, the next one on the list relates to another one we haven’t talked about envy. And earlier in the list he talked about jealousy. So let’s spend a minute on that, because here’s what’s, there’s a couple of addicts that I know in my life that as I’ve evaluated, and I think they’ve come to the same conclusion, what kind of got them into it in the first place is they were comparing themselves with other people over time, and they, they felt like they didn’t measure up. So again, there’s some envy and jealousy there, and what their coping mechanism, instead of, I’m gonna, I’m gonna just, uh, be who I am, who God made me to be. I’m going to maximize my own gifts. Instead of doing that, they compare themselves with other people. They feel terrible cuz they don’t measure up. And so again, coping mechanism is, they go, you know, they go into, uh, they go into tailspin and, and use drugs mm-hmm. <affirmative> to anes anesthetize those feelings.

Speaker 3 00:28:44 Yeah. It’s, you know, when we look down our, down on ourselves so much, and there’s shame and guilt, uh, we look around at people that are getting praise. We look around at people that are doing well for themselves. And so automatically with our stinking thinking, we start to make justifications and excuses why we are not that way, or how they grew up with the silver spoon and they had all the opportunities and we didn’t. And so I think envy is, is the root of those thoughts. I thi I think when we, uh, we start to, uh, make justifications why we are we, the way we are, um, we’re, we’re looking at people in jealousy that we want to be like, but then say, well, they’re that way because this, and I can’t because of that. Right? And so we ought to be able to see people for who they really are.

Speaker 3 00:29:40 Yes, we all have a, a different upbringing in life and different opportunities. That fact is true, but we don’t have to be like everyone else. You’ve gotta be comfortable in your own skin. Right? And that’s where, again, envy is such a lie thinking that we have to be like a certain person out there in the world, like, like the YouTube, you know, influencers or, or people, uh, that you look up to even, you know, you don’t have to be like them. God created you unique. Be comfortable in your own skin and accept the things that you can’t change. Hmm.

Speaker 1 00:30:13 Yeah. That’s good. Well, the rest of this list, then, as he finishes off, and I’ve gotta say, this isn’t a comprehensive list. It’s not like Paul’s writing this saying these are the o only these whatever, 11 or 12 things, only these things are sinful things. This is just a representative list. But I think it’s been interesting yeah. To go through it. But he finishes the list now with something that Eric, maybe you, you can speak to. He says, he says drunkenness wild parties and other sins like these. So, you know, we started with sexual sin and now we’re finishing with your good old standard drug and alcohol sins.

Speaker 3 00:30:55 Yeah. And I, again, I think, you know, society in the world at large kind of glorifies, you know, parties, wild parties and, and drunkenness and the excess, doing things in excess. Uh, I think another one on this list could be, you know, gluttony, you know, overeating some of these bad habits. But definitely, uh, I, you know, I used to think that that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re a teenager. And when you turn 21, that’s your second license. That’s the license to go sin <laugh>, you know, that’s your license, the license to go party. Um, and so legally,

Speaker 1 00:31:32 Yeah, well, I never thought of it like that. It’s your second license. Yeah.

Speaker 3 00:31:36 <laugh>. Yeah. You can drive and then you can go drink, you know, and, uh, and honestly, it’s, it, there’s, now I want to say this, all right? Like, first and foremost, I’m not condemning drinking or, or having glasses of wine for the person who hasn’t, that that wasn’t their addiction. If you’re addicted to substances and alcohol, then alcohol’s a drug, all right? Just like a pain medication is a drug. And if you abuse things like that, then I don’t think that you can make, um, an excuse to be able to socially use those things anymore. I go to the extreme and I, I say when I go to the hospital and uh, and they want to gimme a pain reliever, I say, no, I don’t. I rarely, if ever try will take like an ibuprofen not to be legalistic. And I know that ibuprofen doesn’t do anything to you, but I just don’t want to take anything.

Speaker 3 00:32:38 Cuz that was, was one of the major issues I struggled with was pain, pain, pain, medication. And so I won’t do that. And, and while alcohol and I, I partied a lot wasn’t my major one, although I did do a lot of, and it led into the deeper, heavier stuff, um, I still say to myself, I’m not gonna drink because it might lead me to be, I don’t want to be out of control. I want to be in my right mind. I want to be sober. I don’t want to give my life over to things. Now saying that I think that there are people out there and Christians out there that can’t handle having a few drinks socially, Jesus turned water into wine. I’m not condemning, I’m not condemning, you know, alcohol by itself is not evil. It’s just the use of it and how we abuse it is evil, right?

Speaker 3 00:33:26 And even good medication and pharmaceuticals aren’t expressive or expressly evil. Uh, but what I am saying in what this is saying is that to get drunk is to give over the, your, the control of yourself over to a substance that is evil, that is wrong. And that ultimately leads to, uh, terrible consequences that, like, even in Ephesians chapter five, Paul says, don’t be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. Um, and I think there’s a, an amazing contrast to that. Going to, going back to, you know, uh, pagan practices where they would use wine and drugs to be able to feel a certain thing or worship in a certain way, or to have, when it talks about wild parties here, it’s probably, again, possibly referring to the orgies that they used to have in these pagan churches. And they would use, uh, getting drunk and, and, and sorcery and all that to be able to enhance and promote, uh, the way that they’re living. And Paul is just saying, look, this is the way the world lives. They say, all this stuff is right and good, and you should do it, but God says, this isn’t the way I want you to live. This was your old way. I have a new way for

Speaker 1 00:34:44 You. It’s interesting that your examples here from 2000 years ago are related to both of your addictions. It’s a, it was this combination of drugs, alcohol and sexual immorality and impurity. But what Paul says, uh, again, at the end here of this section in chapter five, Galatians five, verse 21, he says, let me tell you again as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God. So he’s, he’s not saying, well, that’s no big deal. It, he’s saying, no, this is a real indicator that you have not given yourself to Christ, but that instead you are, you are just living for yourself. You haven’t surrendered, you haven’t truly come to Christ, you’re living for yourself. I mean, when I, when I hear those stories, Eric, it makes me think of just this unhinged self-centered life, which is really what addiction boils down to.

Speaker 1 00:35:43 It’s, you’re not thinking about God, certainly you’re not thinking about your family, your brothers, your sisters, your mom, your dad, your kids, your wife, whatever you are just simply feeding your own desires. And Paul says, those that kind of living, uh, people who live like that will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then he, and then he pivots, and I’ve gotta just read the rest of this cuz I don’t wanna leave it on the negative, and we’ll talk more about this next week. Of course, yeah. In step seven. But he says this in verse 22, but the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives. Now, notice when he talked about the work of the flesh, he called it the work of the flesh. But when he talks about the Holy Spirit, he’s talking about the product of the Spirit. So in other words, the spirit in you eventually produces this even though your flesh is trying to get you to work for something else. So I think it’s interesting, the different words that he uses there. He says, the Holy Spirit produces fruit. And here’s the fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control, which is the one I was thinking of, Eric, when you were telling your story that you, that you’d say when you go to the hospital, I don’t want any drugs. Right? That’s self-control, which is the opposite of being controlled by your flesh and your base desires, right?

Speaker 2 00:37:05 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And I think that’s, you know, you talk about this being fruit. This is, this is stuff that comes out as we, as we learn to live this different life, right? As we start to, you know, gain some of these spiritual disciplines and we give more and more of our time and our energy, our mind, our heart over to God letting him transform us. This is the stuff that comes out of it. And it’s not just, it’s not an immediate thing, right? It’s not a flip of the switch. Suddenly, you know, I’ve got, you know, gentleness and self-control. This takes time and it takes leaning into the spirit to produce some new habits, some a a new way of living that these things will finally, uh, come out of.

Speaker 1 00:37:52 But I think you have to be militant about these, what do we call ’em? Character defects. And Paul says it like this in verse 24. He says, those who belong to Christ have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature. The thing on that first list we talked about, they have nailed those things to his cross and crucified them there. And I think he’s using that language on purpose. You have to be serious about, about killing those, uh, those character defects, which again, we’ll talk more about next week, how to actually do that. But he says in verse 25, since we’re living by the spirit, let’s follow the spirits leading in every part of our life. So there is this, there’s this bow, there’s this kind of push and pull this, this balance between we’re we’re being, we’re being militant about the character defects in our lives. We’re nailing them, we’re crucifying them. But then on the other side, the positive side, the Holy Spirit, like you said, mark, that’s fruit, <laugh> and fruit. Fruit doesn’t grow overnight. Fruit take, it takes a while to nurture that and allow that to over time be produced in your life.

Speaker 3 00:39:00 Yeah. I want to read something that I wrote in the original article for this, uh, talking about fruit. It says, before God came into our lives, we may have resembled a dying tree with withering leaves our character defects like rotten fruit. Now with Jesus, he can make us a life bearing tree, able to grow up into the sky with strong branches that bear sweet and tasty fruit, good to all who come near, let us learn to seek new life from God and keep in step with his spirit along the way. I think that that’s a good picture. Uh, we, we once were a dying unattractive tree, but now we have this beautiful tree in mind that God is, uh, planting in us with the seed he planted in us, in the spirit. And he wants that to grow up. He wants it to grow up and come out and be a wonderful, beautiful tree that, that can give sustenance in life to even and pour into other people. And I think that’s what these fruits are doing, is they’re, they’re, uh, out of us is coming all kinds of good relational habits, relational skills, uh, self-control, things that we need to do to battle against the flesh and ultimately our addiction. And that’s where we need the spirit’s help on this. And that’s why we say we, we are becoming entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Speaker 1 00:40:24 So let me finish this episode by reading Galatians five from the Message Translation. Now, we, we started with the E S V and then we shifted over to the N L T. Those are great translations. Sometimes when you read it in another translation, it really comes alive. And the message is one of those translations. It, I don’t really use it as a study bible, but I do, it, it, you know, Eugene Peterson, who did the translation, does a really good job of capturing some of the imagery in the language. And I love how he, it explains everything we just read in Galatians five. So this is literally the same. It’s not gonna sound the same. Yeah. But listen to this as we close, uh, as we close this episode, Galatians five, from the message translation, he writes, it is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time.

Speaker 1 00:41:11 Repetitive loveless, cheap sex, a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage, frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness. Trinket, gods magic show, religion, paranoid loneliness, cutthroat competition, all consuming yet never satisfied, wants a brutal temper, an impotence to love or beloved divided homes and divided lives, small-minded and lopsided pursuits. The vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a, into a rival, uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions. Hmm. Ugly parodies of community. He says, I could go on. And then he writes, this isn’t the first time I’ve warned you. You know, if you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom. But what happens when we live God’s way, he brings gifts into our lives much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard. Things like affection for others, exuberance about life. Serenity, we develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart.

Speaker 1 00:42:21 And a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things in people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. And so since this, this is the kind of life we’ve chosen, verse 25, the life of the Spirit. Let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. So that’s step number six on your way toward addiction and recovery. Next week guys, we’ll talk about step seven. And step seven, as I understand it, is actually related. It’s the doing part of step six, right? Yes. So step six and step seven go hand in hand. So we’ll see everybody next time.

Speaker 1 00:00:03 Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Pursue God podcast. Today we are in steps to recovery. Step number 10. I’m Pastor Brian, joined once again by our panel of experts, pastor Mark, pastor Eric Geis. Today, step number 10 is gonna be about maintenance. It’s about, it’s kind of like about the new normal, isn’t it? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Well, mark, why don’t we start by reading step 10 from the big book,
Speaker 2 00:00:27 Step 10. Step number 10 says, uh, continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admit it.
Speaker 1 00:00:36 So this is about like, I like this word maintenance. This is about, this is how it’s going to be from now on. I can’t just, I can’t just buy a new car and then never maintain the car, never get an oil change, never check the brakes, which is what I, by the way, what I hate about cars. I hate maintenance. I hate doing maintenance. And maybe some people today are, are thinking the same thing. Wait a second, I’m, this isn’t just go through the steps one time, check it off my list, and everything’s good now. And I, and I’m never gonna go back to addiction.
Speaker 3 00:01:10 Yeah. And if you look at the step that you’ll see some, you know, similarities to step number four, personal inventory. And the keyword here is we continued to take it. Okay? So this continuation of the principles that we’ve learned, um, putting them into practice, you know, and so, so for us, again, we’ve gained this new spiritual life. We’ve, we’ve been forgiven, set free, we’ve got a new way of living. Um, and a lot of that requires humility and taking a personal inventory and being willing to admit when we’re wrong. And, you know, make amends quickly. Now, like when we hurt people, we can, we can quickly do it instead of waiting years down the road, you know, like we did this first time handling it. Now we’re gonna try to maintain all the things that we’ve learned about, um, in our faith.
Speaker 1 00:02:06 So Jesus was asked by a bunch of religious leaders and Pharisees, they said, Jesus, what’s the most important rule in the rule book? Essentially? And Jesus’s answer is brilliant. He said, he said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength. And then he said, love your neighbor as yourself. And, and what I think he’s pointing to is that God is interested in the whole person. He said, love God, love your neighbor. Love yourself. So what I see in that are three things, and we’ll talk about that today when it comes to maintaining, being a healthy person and emotionally healthy spiritual person. God says, you need to have spiritual health, love God. You need to have relational health, love other people, and you need to have emotional health, which is loving yourself. And really, it’s all three of those things you need to, if you can’t love yourself, it’s really hard for you to love other people.
Speaker 1 00:03:05 And if, and none of that is possible if you don’t have a right relationship with God. And we’ve talked about this over the last 10 weeks, that really, you know, step number one was about recognizing God’s part in this whole thing. If you’re gonna be a healthy person, then God has to be involved in, in other words, there needs to be a, a healthy, what do we call that? Vertical relationship, a relationship with God. And then that healthy vertical relationship impacts our hor horizontal relationships with friends and family members and parents and spouses and kids and all that stuff. But, but really, if we don’t go all the way and, and, and learn to love ourselves, not in a, not in a selfish way, but in a godly appropriate way, if we can’t love ourselves, if we can’t forgive ourselves, then we can’t love and forgive and, and ask for forgiveness from our neighbors, from our friends, the people that we’ve offended like we talked about last time. And again, none of this happens if we don’t recognize that God loves us and we’re his children.
Speaker 3 00:04:05 Hmm. Yeah. So, hitting on that first thing that you talked about, loving God, you know, we’ve heard that often love God, love others as ourselves. And the question probably pops up, and this, I love to answer it. Maybe I’ll ask Mark, how would you answer? How do I, how do I love God?
Speaker 2 00:04:23 Well, we love God by, um, this new life that we’re living. We live a, we live a life to honor God. Um, and I think when we’re talking about this, I think it’s, this is recognizing that there’s an order of things, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we talk about love, God love others as ourself, and we need to love all three. Um, but, but if once they get out of order, that’s, that’s when things start to get hairy.
Speaker 1 00:04:50 Well, and that’s, that’s addiction. Uh, that’s sin in general, but that’s addiction is, it’s flipping that thing upside down. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And all we’re doing is loving ourselves and not, not the way God wants us to, but really all we’re doing is we’re putting ourselves first. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And when you put yourself first as a habit, as a rule for your life, when you put yourself first, you won’t get to those other two things. You won’t be able to love your neighbor, and you won’t be able to love God because you’re, because you’re at the center of your life. You’re on the throne of your life, which is addiction. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which is sin. Right. And so God says, yeah, love God. Get a, get a right relationship with God, then you can have a right, right. Relationship with people and, and you’ll learn then that you can have a right relationship with yourself.
Speaker 3 00:05:31 Yeah. And how I would answer, how do I love God? You know, it’s what you said was true. We, we, you know, we live the life he called us to live, find out how to honor him, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> like God loved us by coming and, and dying for us, and graciously forgiving us and blessing us. Well, we’re not, God. We can’t do those things back to God. <laugh>, I can’t die for God, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, no, he, he, he loves me with the love that I almost can’t, can’t give to him. Um, and so the Bible kind of is clear, how do I love God by following his commandments, by, by being a doer, not just a hearer only, right? Like not just a receiver of love, but actually loving God back. He’s explained to us is by following him, going to his word, seek out what it says, and just do it.
Speaker 3 00:06:26 Being obedient. He, he wants us to be obedient to him. And, and that kind of goes to our, our first point, spiritual maturity. Like if we’re, if we’re gonna be right with God and continue to maintain our, our spiritual, uh, relationship, it requires us to be humble and look in the mirror every day. That’s kind of the part of the step that says, taking the personal inventory. We’ve gotta be constantly evaluating ourselves in position to God. Like, am I sinning against him? Have I, am I doing things that please him? Now, we need to, again, remember, we’re not working for God’s love. He, he gave us the love that we can’t give back the free gift, we accept it. But he says, if you, if you wanna love me back, if you want to appreciate me for what I did, then follow me. And I love how James puts it here.
Speaker 3 00:07:20 Uh, if we wanna maintain our spiritual maturity, he says this in James chapter one, verse starting in verse 23, for if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it’s like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself walk away and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and you do what it says, and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. If you claim to be religious, but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself and your religion is worthless, basically, he’s saying here, you know, take inventory by how you love God, by looking at how do I follow his word? Do I look at his word and, and forget what it says, and then go live a completely different way? Am I just a hearer that comes and sits and listens to sermons and hears people and reads the word, but it never actually comes out of my life? Uh, that’s, that’s what I think. Where we’re going with this is maintaining our spiritual maturity by using humility in the word of God to say, will I follow it or will I go my own
Speaker 1 00:08:25 Way? And the psalmists pray to prayer in Psalm 1 39, I love this passage, Psalm 1 39, verse 23 and 24, he says, search me of God and know my heart. What a what a bold prayer. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> right to say, I want to be known by you, God, I want to expose my, my stuff to Jesus says, try me and know my thoughts. You know, which a lot of addiction, a lot of that stuff is originates in your head. You’re thinking the wrong thoughts, and, but you’re never being accountable to God. You’re never opening yourself up to God. That’s why addiction continues. But so what a great prayer for an addict. Search me on God and know my heart, try me, and know my thoughts. And then he says, and see if there’s any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. That’s a great prayer to pray every single day as you’re trying to maintain your victory.
Speaker 2 00:09:14 Yeah. I think that’s exactly what that is. That that is taking a daily, uh, personal inventory, right? It’s, and this is, I think, you know, we talk about living this God honor, God-honoring life. And I think what that really means is we want to continue to be transformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus, right? Like, that is the goal here. Um, and in order to do that, it, it’s not a, a one step quick fix thing. This is, this is something, it’s, it’s a lifelong process because, you know, as much as I’d like to think differently, I am never going to reach that final goal here in this life, right? But, um, it’s, it is a lifelong process. And so I think that’s why the verbiage here in the step, you know, it says continue to take personal inventory. It doesn’t say, go back and do step four again. Go back and do another inventory, and then you’re done. It says continued. Like this is a new life that we’re living now, and we should be growing and learning. And like Eric was talking about, we should be digging into the word and, and learning better ways to honor God with our life. And in doing that, in digging into the word, I think it’s gonna give us better clarity on having our, our order of things correct in loving God, loving others, loving ourself.
Speaker 3 00:10:41 Yeah. And then, you know, another verse that pops in my mind, Galatians five talks about if we walk by the spirit, we won’t gratify the desires of the flesh. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and the, we’re trying to, you know, Paul says, kill the flesh. We’re, we’re trying to get rid of our old man. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> our old nature. How do we do that? We walk by the spirit. How do we walk by the spirits through spiritual disciplines? You know, we, we do things like read the Bible, pray fellowship, um, all of these things, right? Bible study and, and discipleship type, spiritual disciplines. That’s why it’s called discipleship, because it’s disciplined following God. And I love the, you know how James is saying, like, when you look at the word, use it like a mirror. How do you, how do you measure up? How do you look at this when you look into the perfect law of Christ? Um, his love, his grace, his patience, his, his maturity. He’s ultimately, like you said, the measure of a man, the most mature, godly, manly man, whoever walked the earth. Um, men and women ought to be trying to be like Christ. And that’s his goal, as, as that’s how we love him back, is we just look into his word and do what it says.
Speaker 1 00:12:02 So again, we can talk about all that on the spiritual plane. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, and we, we could even, I think we can lose people sometimes, because they, some people say, well, how does that actually apply then to my, to those other two things? How does that apply to my relationships? How does that apply to my emotional life? Right? So, love God, spiritual love your neighbor, relational love yourself emotional. And I think a good way to maybe frame this is in what, what’s called emotional intelligence. E your eq, your emotional quotient. It’s not just your IQ that matters, which is great news, by the way, because not everyone has, IQ is something you can’t really change. You’re born with a, a with the ability to process, uh, intellectually or, or to not process as well as the next guy. But EQ is different. Eq emotional quotient is something you can actually grow in, you can develop, you can get better at.
Speaker 1 00:12:59 But it takes, it takes work. It takes being aware of it. And so let’s talk a little bit today about the, the five traits of emotional intelligence, the five markers of emotional intelligence. I’m gonna read them off and let, and then let’s kind of apply it to the person who is trying to grow in this, is trying to become a healthier person, spiritually, emotionally, relationally. Okay? The first three are about your own emotions. It’s about, about the first three are a little bit more directed toward you. I would call those emotions. And the last two are directed toward relationships. So number one is self-awareness. An emotionally intelligent person is self-aware. They can recognize their own emotions. They can express their emotions. They can understand why they’re feeling, how they’re feeling. I wanna talk about this for a minute with you guys number, but let’s just go through these real quick.
Speaker 1 00:13:54 Number two is self-regulation, managing your emotions. Number three is motivation. That’s directing your emotions toward a goal. So the first three are about your emotions, being aware of your emotions, managing your emotions, and then directing them toward a, a healthy goal. The last two are about relationships. It’s the number four is empathy. That means recognizing emotions in another person, which is really important. That’s especially important when it comes to what we talked about last week about making amends is recog, you know, reading the room and recognizing how someone’s receiving what you’re saying if they’re ready for it. Or are they defensive? Are they not ready for it? That’s called empathy. And then the fifth one is social skill, and that’s managing the emotions in your, in your spouse. So, so let’s kind of unpack these with the recovering addict in mind. Who’s saying, I want to be a healthier person. I want to be healthier spiritually, but I also want to, to be healthier emotionally and relationally self-awareness. Let’s start with that. Recognizing your emotions. Why is this hard? I think in particular for addicts to be self-aware?
Speaker 3 00:15:03 Well, I think that we have been afraid of emotions for our, our entire lives. And so dealing with emotions hasn’t been something that is natural or that we’ve spent a lot of time doing. Again, the self-medication aspect and running from emotions, not really understanding emotions, you know, not, I remember the first six months, I, I was clean and I see this in, in everybody. You know about the first year you’re clean and sober from alcohol or, or whatever it is that you’re, you’re trying to not do anymore. And you’re just like an emotional basket case, <laugh>, you know, like, you’re crying, you know, what is this fluid coming out of my eyes? <laugh>, you know, what is going, what is, yeah, <laugh>, what is going on here? You know, you’re asking people something wrong with me. Do I need to get on medication? And, and honestly, that’s normal.
Speaker 3 00:15:59 That is so normal because you’ve been su suppressing your emotions with so much like, you know, dopamine and serotonin and all this, all of this, you know, uh, stuff outside of your body, putting it into your body. You’ve been suppressing it so long that finally when you get clean, your body naturally wants to repair itself, including your brain, you know, and all the things that comes from, you know, emotions come from our, our minds, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And we call that also the heart. But, um, your body’s trying to repair itself. And so there, there’s hormones involved and, and you’re trying to get back to this, this maintenance level that we’re talking about, like a, a good baseline. And we don’t even know what our baseline of emotion emotions is. Therefore, and, and regardless of being able to try to understand what I’m feeling, I remember, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:16:52 Being in, in counseling again, where they’d give us this sheet, and you guys have probably all seen it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, maybe it was in elementary school or wherever, but it’s the sheet of all these different, and now it’s their emojis, you know, that’s like the smiling face, the sad face, the crying face. And it would have a label above it, like sad, mad, irritated, depressed. And they’re all these different feelings. And the counselors would always say, you know, every day we had to have a journal. And one of ’em was, write how you feel and then write some thoughts. And oftentimes people will, they’ll confuse thoughts and feelings and, and people use this, uh, you’ll hear people all the time. And, and it really is a pet peeve of mine when people say, I feel like, you know, um, that’s not the right thing to do. Or I, I feel like I just want to do this, or whatever. And it’s like, nah, it’s not a feeling. And I remember my counselor used to get mad at me, like, no, that’s a thought. Tell me, are you sad, mad, <laugh>, angry, depressed, whatever. Identify the
Speaker 1 00:17:56 Emotion. So the emotion behind the thought. Yeah, exactly. Or underlying the thought. Now, again, I, maybe even today, some people are listening to this saying, I’ve never really even considered, you know, go back and maybe we should identify a few emotions. Cuz when people think of emotions, they think of sad or mad. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that’s what most people think of. There’s so much more Oh yeah. To emotions than sad and mad. There’s so much more that can underlie your addiction. Because what’s happening is there’s something you feel deep down that you don’t want to deal with. You don’t want to be self-aware about it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you don’t want to be honest about it. You don’t want to put it on the table and dissect it and look into it. You’re too afraid to do that. And so what do you do? You, you, you do drugs. You, you, you, you go to that anesthetizing behavior that is just, that it’s an anesthetic so that you can’t feel it. You don’t, well, that’s kind of the root of so many addictions is you just don’t want to feel, you don’t want to deal with your feelings. You don’t want to face your feelings. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And we’re saying, you gotta stop that. Right. So what are some of those feelings that underlie so many addictions?
Speaker 2 00:19:06 Well, I think there’s, there’s a lot of it. I mean, there’s the anger, the sadness. There’s depression, there’s, uh, hurt. There’s just shame. God, there’s shame and Yeah. And insecurity. Yeah. And those things like we’re talking about, we’ve been so used to, um, <laugh> trying to numb those feelings that, you know, I I, I was, I was laughing, Eric, when you were talking about people who are fresh in recovery and you see just so many raw emotions coming out of ’em. I would say the other thing I see is this panic <laugh>, like, you see this panic because like, they don’t know what to do with this. They, they just don’t, you know, I think we’ve both been there. Like, you don’t know what to do. It’s, it’s just this panic mode. And so this is really important in understanding the, that these emotions have always been there. You’ve just masked them all this time. Now we’re gonna learn how to acknowledge those emotions and deal with them.
Speaker 1 00:20:05 Yeah. So acknowledging them is the first thing that’s hard enough. Being self-aware. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, recognizing your note, your emotions, naming them. My, I, my daughter or my wife used to always say this to my daughter and son when they were little and they would, they would lash out. Think about little kids. They la they only, they, they don’t, they can’t manage their emotions, which is the second thing. They can’t regulate their emotions. They have to learn to regulate their emotions. But what would come out, especially with my son, is he would have outbursts of anger, but it was because there was a, an emotion beneath it. That, that he would mask it with this other emo a more manly emotion. He would, anger would mask the other emotions, insecurity, unworthiness, whatever. Disappointment, shame. And so Tracy, my wife, would always say, Hey, use your words. Use your words.
Speaker 1 00:20:56 And I think that’s what this first one is, is use your words. And some people don’t have the vocabulary. So you guys helped with some of those, some of those emotions. Use your words, name your emotions, recognize what those emotions are. Be honest, don’t be afraid of ’em. Be honest about ’em. They’re not you. They don’t define you. You don’t have to be defined by those emotions. But you will be, if you don’t acknowledge them, if you don’t use them, everybody else can see that you’re insecure or that you feel unworthy or that whatever, that you’re angry. Everybody else can see those emo how about you Be honest with it. And then what you can do is you can move to the second thing, which, which is to begin to regulate. Which is to begin to say, okay, now that I know what this emotion is, let me think about what the healthy way is to express this emotion. You’re not trying to stuff it, you’re trying to express it in a healthy way that’s called self-regulation.
Speaker 3 00:21:42 Yeah. And let’s just be clear, the reason why we’re talking about emotions is because they affect our recovery. Right? If we’ve been masking and, and trying to suppress them. And now when they pop up, um, you know, two things is, one is we want to stay clean and sober. We want to avoid relapse. And so it’s gonna be helpful to us if we can identify, regulate, maintain, and learn how to deal with our emotions. And then secondly, it’s going to help our relationships. We just dealt with lessons eight and nine, making amends. We don’t want to go breaking our relationships after we’ve just made a lot of them better. And so, uh, we’ve gotta learn to handle these emotions before they start affecting our, our recovery and our sobriety. And so one of the things that I like to do in, you know, in relationships well and, and personally, um, is yeah, think about what, why am I having all these thoughts?
Speaker 3 00:22:46 You know, I’ll have negative thoughts, right? And, and it’s always getting what you said, Brian, get, let, let me get to the root of the feeling or the emotion to why I’m having these thoughts. And oftentimes, you know, for me, you know, one of the feelings that I have that like has overwhelmed my life is security. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so those insecure thoughts, well those insecure feelings will turn into to thoughts, you know, may maybe even like paranoid thoughts, like, this person doesn’t like me, they’re planning on doing something to hurt me or against me, or, or whatever. Right? And then if I don’t deal with that because it’s an emotion, then it’s a thought, then it’ll turn into an action. If I don’t deal with it before it comes to an action and identify what it is, then I’m probably gonna act out, do something weird, hurt people or possibly relapse. So it’s
Speaker 1 00:23:42 Important. And I love how, uh, you know, Eric on staff, I think I’ve shared this on this podcast before, but I gotta brag on you again in, in terms of self-regulation. So we were in a staff meeting one time and I had shared something that made you feel insecure. Now, you didn’t say something in the middle of staff, but you called me later that day or maybe the next day. And I appreciate that because this is a great example of self-regulation. You didn’t just let that feeling fester, that feeling of insecurity fester. I remember you actually called me and said, when you said this thing, it made me feel insecure. That was so refreshing to hear. And what we were able to do, you and I both is we were able to, to nip that feeling in the bow. I was able to clarify what I meant by what I said.
Speaker 1 00:24:25 You said, okay, I see. And now you were able to move forward that didn’t have a grip, a grip on your life that didn’t, that didn’t become, that root of insecurity, didn’t grow into something else, which I’m sure 10, 20 years ago it might have done just that because you wouldn’t have regulated that emotion in, in a healthy way. You didn’t, you didn’t have this new way of living, but now you do. And you’re so much healthier as a result, you’re a healthy person cuz you’re committed to regulating those emotions and dealing with them when they come up instead of stuffing ’em. And
Speaker 3 00:24:57 You know, I don’t want to sound, I’m not trying to like sound prideful or anything, but, but you, what’s crazy is that people that have been through recovery and addiction, having to deal with these things, actually, uh, it might put you up, you know, a give you a leg up on the rest of society because the rest of society struggles with these same things. That’s so true. They’ve been, they’ve been ma maybe they didn’t have as bad of addictions or maybe they, it was food or, or some other thing that they’ve used. But like the rest of society struggles with being able to name their emotions. And so actually, because I’ve, because I’ve been trained and disciplined in this way, you know, not always because I chose that, but because this was the path that God led me down. When I am super clear about my emotions, I think a lot of people are like, whoa, this is intense. You’re weird man. Like
Speaker 1 00:25:53 <laugh>, but you, but it’s true Eric. Yeah. Eq EQ is more of a predictor of success in the workplace than iq. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. It’s true. Which is which I, to to me is, I’m, I’m with you. I think a lot of people with who have gone through recovery, your life is just starting because you are learning. If you can do this, step 10, if you can learn to maintain healthy emotions and relationships and in this healthy spiritual life, you have a, you really do, you have a leg up in, not just in your relationships, but you have a leg leg up in the workplace, you’ll end up being successful because these are tools that you can use in your careers.
Speaker 2 00:26:32 Yeah. Well, and it’s funny that, that you mentioned that cuz I was, I was just thinking earlier about, about this step, what this step really is, you know, it’s, um, continuing to take personal inventory is because we want to be transformed, right? And so what came to mind for me was Romans chapter 12 verse two, which relates to the world as well, says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And that’s really what this is about, right? It’s not operating the way that we always have, not operating the way that the world does. We need to learn to operate in a different way. Now, we used to be ruled by our emotions. We thought we weren’t, we thought we were like stuffing them or hiding ’em, but they ruled us. Like when those tough emotions came along, it, it totally, uh, derailed us. We, and so we would, we would go back to our addiction to try and, and so our emotions ruled our lives. Now we don’t want to be ruled by them anymore. So we need to be aware of them. And now we need to know how to handle them differently.
Speaker 1 00:27:46 Yeah. And that really leads us to this third mark of an emotionally healthy person. And its motivation. It’s directing your emotions toward a goal so that you have this growth mindset, which I, which I do think is something I notice in people who’ve, like you guys that have had victory over addiction is you guys direct your emotions. You said, I am gonna, I’m not gonna, the emotions aren’t gonna be a neutral thing anymore. Um, I’m gonna utilize my emotions and I’m gonna direct them toward a goal. We’re gonna set goals now and we’re gonna move forward. We’re gonna advance, we’re gonna have victory in our emotional lives. We’re not gonna let them control us. We’re not gonna let them, uh, be triggers for more addict addictive behavior. We’re gonna direct it toward a positive goal.
Speaker 3 00:28:30 Yeah. Let’s, let’s not forget that emotions aren’t bad <laugh>. Even the, the seemingly negative emotions are not bad. They were given to us by God. We were created with emotions. All right? Now, some of them have been used for bad and d we’ve dealt with them in, in, in wrong ways. But God himself is an emotional being and he has righteous anger even, you know, like I can use anger for good now, you know, like for justice, right? I can fight for, for something that angers me in, in a positive way. It can compel me and motivate me to want to, to change myself. Or it can compel me and motivate me to want to, um, stand up for a cause, stand up for something that I believe in. You know? And so anger, um, I, I was just reading this in our lesson, Ephesians chapter 4, 26 through 27, be angry and do not sin.
Speaker 3 00:29:27 That means that there is a, a way to be angry but not have it be negative, you know? And then it says, don’t let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. That kind of goes back to if we don’t deal with it, it will, will manifest itself in the negative way. But if we can control, if we can gain, um, management over our emotions, and that’s what I think emotional intelligence really is. If we can gain management over our emotions, we can use them for what they were meant for.
Speaker 1 00:29:59 Okay? So those are the first three out of five. Self-awareness, self-regulation, and then self-motivation around your emotions. And then that leads, I think just naturally leads to the last two, um, elements of an emotionally healthy person. Cuz an emotionally healthy person isn’t just healthy emotionally, they’re healthy relationally. So the last two are about how your emotions and you handling your emotions well, how that actually begins to impact your relationship. So number four then is empathy. Empathy, empathy is like the other side of self-awareness. Self-awareness is recognizing emotion in you. Empathy is recognizing emotion in someone else. And this is what I love about emotionally healthy per people, is once you deal with your emotions, well now you can be like, oh, cool, now I can start helping someone else. Now I can start recognizing when I see anger or insecurity. And I would imagine people in victory, people who have recovered from addiction, are recovering from addiction are really good with empathy. Because you guys can recognize in an addict, I’ve heard you guys say it throughout this podcast, you could, you guys can recognize in an addict an emotion because you’ve been there, you’ve, you’ve dealt with it, you’ve been honest with your own emotion. So you recognize it in someone else probably before they even recognize it in Ms. Hills.
Speaker 2 00:31:20 Yeah. Well we can, where does it say that in the bible? That, you know, we can comfort in the same way we’ve been comforted mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> like that. That’s a, that’s a true thing. And um, as you’re talking about this, I remember, um, this, this being something that was a bit of a transformation in my life is actually having empathy for people because I did not, I had no empathy for people. Um, and so as I’ve grown in my relationship with Christ and I’ve, I’ve, you know, learned to be more emotionally intelligent, learning about my own emotions, I’ve actually, it’s, it was almost involuntary. I started to have empathy for people, you know, that I never did before. And it was, it was kind of the same thing. It was like this panic mode thing again. Like, why, why am I feeling this way? <laugh>, you know, why do I feel so strongly? Yeah. Um, but that is, that that’s a good thing. You know, that is a, it’s, and it’s been something that has been growing in me. I’m still growing in that area, but it’s definitely a new development.
Speaker 3 00:32:23 Yeah. I would say I certainly can spot and name my emotions and I can name other people’s. I can pick those out really well. Um, I think one of the areas I struggle with is empathy. Um, in not, like I have levels of seriousness in my mind, degrees of, you know, and, and oftentimes I probably approach it maybe in a selfish way, but I think, man, I went through this, you know, I was able to endure through some crazy consequences and discipline. And, and so sometimes I’ll have that same, i’ll, I’ll think, think that towards some people, like, why can’t you get through this?
Speaker 1 00:33:09 Like, suck it up buttercup.
Speaker 3 00:33:10 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:33:10 Like, that’s interesting. So because you’ve been there. Yeah. It almost co That’s a good point cuz empa this, the fourth thing is empathy. It’s not just recognize cuz you can recognize emotions in someone else and not have empathy, but that’s not, that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about recognizing emotions in someone else and really, really saying, I feel, I feel badly, like I feel for you mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:33:34 <affirmative>, right? Yeah. And, and that’s something that the Lord’s helping me with. Uh, I mean, I, I try to search the scriptures and look at Jesus life, you know, I try to, I try to pick out, because that’s the thing that motivates me the most. I’m, I think, you know, when talking about all this, like even with personalities, I’m more of a more logical than, than I am emotional. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know? And so for me, what ties to my emotions has to be some kind of information or truth. You know, <laugh> some kind of logic, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so I search the scriptures and I try to find the way Jesus modeled empathy, you know? And, and certainly he was, he was very gracious to people, you know, the woman who was caught in a, caught in adultery, right? He’s, he, he basically defended her in front of everybody, but then he says, go and sin no more.
Speaker 3 00:34:29 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so there’s always two sides I think to, to, it. It’s, it’s, let’s not just be empathetic and not bring up the truth part. And so, so for me, I’m still processing how to do that, especially as a pastor. I want to be both to a person and sometimes one, it’s, it’s the right truth at the right time type of a thing where it’s like right now the person just needs to, and that’s, that’s where God has grown me even in ministry, is when I’m talking with someone. And I, I know there’s a truth behind this that needs to be learned. The the reality is, is I need to be patient with that truth. Knowing my personality, knowing that I can say, here’s the solution, I want to fix the problem. Sometimes they just need some compassion. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, so and so God’s been training me like, I don’t have to solve all the problems right here in this one conversation. I can be compassionate, I can have empathy and just feel with them. And then knowing that in the future it’s gonna lead to truth, it’s gonna lead to life change. And it’s, it’s gonna lead to accountability.
Speaker 1 00:35:39 So then there’s one more, there’s a final, there’s a final skill when it comes to eq and it’s called, we’re just gonna call it social skill. And social skill is like the other side of number two. Number two is managing your emotions. Social skill is managing the other person’s emotions. And this is tricky because you can’t really, man, you can’t really, you can only clean your side of the street, right? Like we said in the last episode, you can’t, you can’t make someone be an emotionally healthy person. But the ultimate sign of an emotionally healthy person is that you’re doing everything you can to help them manage their emotions. So you’ve learned to do it for yourself. You’ve managed your emo own emotions. And now, now that you can recognize someone else’s emotions, you can actually be part of the solution for them and, and help them lovingly help them manage your emotions.
Speaker 1 00:36:30 And the best example of this for me is again, what my wife would do with our kids, when they were little, she would help them manage their emotions. She was really good at that. A lot of parents don’t know how to do that cuz I can’t even manage their own emotions. But think about it with kids is that’s part of the job of a parent, is to help them to grow, to be an emotionally healthy person. I want to help you to identify your emotions and I want to help you to manage your emotions and I’m gonna do it with some empathy. And so this, this is the, this is sort of the pinnacle of an emotionally healthy person. When I see this in people, I’m like, that guy has it figured out because he doesn’t just manage his own emotions, but he can diffuse a situation Hmm. That’s managing someone else’s. That’s, that is social skills diffusing a situation instead of like adding fuel to the fire mm-hmm. <affirmative> in a, in an, in an emotionally intense situation. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:37:21 <affirmative>, I, I think that’s probably, that’s probably the majority of what I end up doing in mentoring is helping somebody else manage their emotions because of the people that I end up mentoring who have generally gone through a lot of the similar things that I have mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I’ve, I’ve learned to recognize those emotions that I have there. I have that empathy and then, um, and that’s what they need more than anything is to be helped in managing those emotions that they have. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:37:51 <affirmative>. Yeah, that’s a good point. And, and again, in your life, this is such great proof that, that you, you know, you probably couldn’t have imagined doing that five or 10 years ago. No. But here you are because you, because you’re a, you’re a healthier person and you’ve committed to the maintenance and self-care now, and this is the ultimate way of making sure it takes in your life. Now you’re helping someone else. Yeah. And it’s helping you too. It’s growing, it’s growing your EQ every time you sit down with someone and help them manage their emotions.
Speaker 2 00:38:24 Yeah. It’s one of those things that is the beautiful way that God works, right? Is is, um, using everything, even the worst things that we’ve gone, gone through for good. It, it’s, it’s, I remember the first time that, that, um, somebody came to us for marriage, uh, mentoring and first off it was the most humorous thing to me. <laugh> somebody who pretty much destroyed their marriage. Yeah. Uh, but then, yeah, that was just something that just, um, was overwhelming to me was that God was going to use that for something good. And it was amazing.
Speaker 1 00:39:01 And we’ll get to that in the next couple of steps as we’re kind of winding to a close here be because I think as, as we’re finishing up these 12 steps, we’re gonna see that if you don’t get in the game and help someone else, then you can’t, you can’t ever fully be confident that your recovery will take and that you’ll live, live in victory. And this is a principle we see in scripture, right? Jesus. Jesus walked with the disciples for three years and then he left. He said, I’m not gonna just, I’m not gonna, it, it’s not gonna just end with you being takers all the time. It has to end with you being givers. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so he sent them out and he sent them to go make disciples. And he, and he told them, now you do what I’ve been doing with you.
Speaker 1 00:39:47 And, and that’s really how victory gets cemented in our lives. And we’ll talk about that in these next couple lessons. So today was step number 10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, we promptly admitted it. So it’s about maintenance and continuing to move forward and be a healthy person spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. If you wanna talk about this topic, you can find a video to go along with it, discussion questions, and so much more at pursue god.org/recovery. Uh, use it for your family, your small group, or one-on-one with your mentor or your sponsor. And join us next time where we’ll talk about step number 11.

Speaker 2 00:00:03 Well, hey everyone. Welcome to the Pursue God podcast. I’m Pastor Brian, joined in the studio by Pastor Eric, pastor Mark. Guys, we’re on step 11 on our Road to Recovery, 11 outta 12. So we’re almost there. Mark, why don’t we start by reading Step
Speaker 3 00:00:18 Step 11 says, uh, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of his will for us, and the power to carry that out.
Speaker 1 00:00:31 So this one’s obviously about prayer, right? And so we’re waiting till we’ve talked about prayer all throughout the steps, asking God to remove our character defects, like coming to God with humility, asking him with, with help in our inventory. You know, we, in step three, we prayed a sinner’s prayer, you know, to, uh, ask God to forgive us and to tell him that we believe in him, to surrender to him. And so we’ve talked about prayer all throughout this, but this is really, um, as we’re coming to the close of the 12 steps for, for the person who is got some clean time now in recovery, and this is like, like we talked about last week, part of the maintenance routines. This, we like to call ’em the spiritual disciplines to help you stay in contact with God because God is ultimately the power that’s gonna help us through
Speaker 2 00:01:26 This. I can imagine some people are listening to this saying, you know, I don’t know if I’m qualified to pray a lot of times when, I dunno if this happens to you guys, pastors, but a lot of times when I’m at a, at a, at a meal, at a dinner with a bunch of other people, and it’s time to pray over the meal, everybody looks, looks at me and expects me to pray. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, and I used to be like, come on, somebody else pray. But now I don’t. Now I just say, I am a professional <laugh>. Please don’t try this on your own. You know, this is very dangerous. No, obviously I’m joking and everybody laughs. But that is what some people think about with prayer is they’re, they think, I don’t, I don’t think I’m qualified to pray. And I don’t know. Mark, what would you say to that, to the person who’s new to this, or maybe, maybe they’ve gone to church for a while, maybe they’re new to church even, but they’re coming o they’re coming into recovery and they feel almost disqualified to pray. And and I think we should probably maybe address that first and foremost.
Speaker 3 00:02:25 Yeah. I think that’s probably undermining exactly what the gospel is all about, <laugh>. It’s, none of us are qualified for much of anything. Yeah. It’s, it’s Jesus that qualifies us, right? It’s, it’s his qualifications. And so, yeah, I think sometimes, you know, there’s, there’s a difference between praying and public, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and then praying in, in private a lot of times. And, and hopefully as we grow in our prayer life, that’s kind of what’s happened with me, is that my private prayers have have grown closer to my public prayers. They have grown together, uh, because of doing it over and over and over again. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so there really isn’t the, I think sometimes we’re thinking too much when it comes to prayer, right? When, when prayer is really just, I want to, there’s, there’s things that I want to say to God, and there’s things that I want to, uh, you know, align my, my thoughts and my will with him. And, you know, sometimes we just overcomplicate it.
Speaker 1 00:03:26 Yeah. And prayer takes faith, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because we’re talking to someone that we can’t see or touch or feel, you know? And so, um, we’re doing this out of faith, uh, believing, right? Believing that this is good, believing that it’s going to do something, um, that, that God will actually answer our prayers, that’ll he’ll hear us. And, and my experiences is that, you know, God answers my prayers now, not all the time and not all the time in the ways that I want him to mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but man has it been amazing to pray and to consistently pray or persistently pray about a certain thing and, and get answers. Right? Not an audible voice, but like God lines things up and just answers these prayers where, you know, it’s him doing that. Right? And so you do have to experience it is an experiential thing. It’s a faith thing, and you just do it.
Speaker 1 00:04:24 And it, you know, it does take some brain and some logic to, to think about it, but you also just have to start experiencing it. That’s part of having a higher power. And, and God, the God of the Bible is just having faith to do what he said to do. And, you know, at the end of this lesson, we’ll talk about how Jesus told his disciples how to pray. Um, it’s interesting. If you think about prayer, there are all kinds of religions all over the world that have some kind of form of prayer. Because I believe that humans were, were built, you know, with the eternity in mind, with a, a spiritual aspect to them. Everybody wants to pray. There’s a d there’s a desire to do it. Um, and we’re just following that desire along with the truth that we have.
Speaker 2 00:05:09 Yeah. In fact, the disciples, like you mentioned, and again, we’ll get to this at the end, so make sure to listen all the way through to the end, we’re gonna talk about the Lord’s prayer. Jesus gave his disciples the Lord’s prayer because they said, teach us how to pray. We don’t know how to pray. Jesus didn’t say to them, too bad, guys, you’re not spiritual enough. I guess I picked the wrong people, that that almost qualifies them to pray. Because prayer is about coming to God and recognizing he’s God, and you’re not recognizing you have a need that he can fill. So really, the only disqualification for prayer is the person who’s arrogant, the person who thinks they have it all together, and they don’t need any help. Well, that person’s not gonna pray anyway. Jesus said, let the little children come to me for, for of these is the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker 2 00:05:51 So what, that doesn’t mean we need to be naive coming to him. That means, that means the most basic thing about kids is that they’re dependent. They come to their parents saying, I can’t do this. I need you to help me to do this. And so that’s what qualifies us to pray. And prayer is just not, you know, there’s no form, no major formula. We’re not gonna give you any of that today. There’s not a right or a wrong way to do it. It’s just conversation with God. So if you know how to have a conversation with somebody, then you can pray because you’re having a conversation with God. That’s what it is.
Speaker 1 00:06:20 Yeah. And he, he talks to us through his word, through the Bible, and we’ve talked about that and how important God’s word is. He talks to us through that, and we get to know him through reading about him and stuff. But, but we communicate to him through prayer, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and then he does answer back through our spirit and faith and everything. But it’s just one other way to be in contact with God. And that’s really the first point, is staying in contact with God is the best way to grow in your recovery. Um, Jesus himself, he used this analogy, I love it, uh, about vines and branches and fruit, um, talking about, you know, taking, taking like maybe cultivation or agriculture, uh, which would’ve been a huge part of the culture back then. And, and, and using it as an analogy, if you think about a, a branch, um, a branch really doesn’t do anything.
Speaker 1 00:07:20 It’s just nutrients pass through it to, to have fruit hang off of it. Where do those nutrients come from? They come from the root, right? The, the, the, the base of the plant, right? And so all the water and the nutrients flow through the roots up through the base of the tree and to these branches, and then the branches bear fruit, okay? And so, in the same way Jesus is teaching his disciples and people a lesson, he wants us to remain in contact with him. That’s the only way we’re gonna, we’re gonna bear fruit. We’re gonna grow in recovery. So in, in John 15, four, he says, remain in me and I will remain in you for a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the bine. And you cannot pro, you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. So let’s talk about that. What does that mean to remain in Christ or abide in him?
Speaker 3 00:08:14 Well, yeah. That’s what this whole step is about. I think we, we began this step clear back, uh, in step number three, right? Where we, we decided we were gonna, you know, give our will in our lives over to God. This step is about living that out and growing in that, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And as we, you know, you talk about this analogy that Jesus uses, I think it’s really, it’s powerful. I, you know, I think about, I, I was just, actually just the last couple weeks I’ve been out pruning all of my bushes and trees and everything, right? And, and snipping all these branches off and pile ’em up, and, and within a week they’re dead. They’re completely dead. They’re dry. And, and I actually used them for firewood. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> that, I think that really is a really good analogy, because that’s exactly how this works.
Speaker 3 00:09:04 And I think you and I have probably seen time and time again, the attic that comes to faith gives their life to Christ, but doesn’t practice this step that, that their recovery, um, their relationship with God, it just fizzles. And they get caught back up in their addiction, and they don’t understand why. It’s like they, they can’t even see anymore. It’s like they, they’ve been blinded once again. And so that’s where the, it’s so important to stay connected, because that’s where our recovery came from, right. From the start, was from him. And we need to keep that connection and grow that connection.
Speaker 2 00:09:44 Yeah. You guys, we, we need to remember at the end of our podcast, I want to ask you guys this question. How do you actually pray? Let’s make sure to give people real specific examples. How long do you do it for? Where do you do it? Are you on your knees? Are you standing up? Are you holding hands with your spouse? Like, I want to talk about the real details. Cuz again, I, I always think about the person who’s new to this. They probably have a picture in their head of what prayer is. Maybe they see a monk in their head, and you’re chanting in a, in a big, in a big cavernous, you know, chapel. Hmm. So I want, I want to make sure that we get really practical by the end of this, but we’re not gonna do it just yet. We need, we’ve got some other things to talk about with prayer, but let’s make sure to do that. And, and on that note, I, I was looking back at the way this step is worded, it said, sought to through prayer and meditation. So let’s, before we continue on in prayer, let’s just make a comment here about meditation. What is meditation? And is, yeah. Is that a biblical thing? Is this something that Christians should do? Because when we think about meditation, you might be thinking about Buddhism or something like that.
Speaker 3 00:10:52 Well, yeah. It says in the word to meditate on his word. Right? So meditation, I, I simply think it’s, it’s thinking about that’s what meditation is. Yeah. It’s spending time thinking about these things. Yeah. Thinking about the things that we’ve read, thinking about the things that, that we, we know about God, or even just thinking about the things that he’s done in our lives. Yeah. You know, that I think is meditation. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:11:15 It’s
Speaker 1 00:11:15 Good. Yeah. And I think that there are always counterfeits to the real thing in, in just about every kind of practice, religious practice or, um, you know, kind of discipline that people do. I think there’s always, there, there’s these counterfeits to the things that are real. And so there’s a lot of different ideas of meditation out there and what it is. Um, and some of it might have some, some semblance of maybe what that might look like. You know? Now I’m not talking about, you know, humming or buzzing or anything like I did earlier. That was just a joke. I, but, but what you’re saying is right there is, is a sense in which, where we focus on something mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we think about the words of God or, or whatever it is that we feel like God is saying, you should be praying deeply over.
Speaker 1 00:12:05 And sometimes there’s so many distractions in life, you know, uh, that we need to get to a place of solitude. We need to get to a place where nobody is, we don’t have any sound. We can be alone. We can actually focus, get away from all of our electronics and even the voices and, and just try to shut out even even the thoughts in our head. And just focus on one thought. You know, God says, think on, on the good things, those things that are lovely and pure and honorable. You know, like, think on good things and the good things are the things of God. And so we’re, we’re just practicing focusing at a deeper level. I think that’s what meditation is. Christian meditation.
Speaker 2 00:12:48 Okay. Now, I didn’t, I didn’t prep you for this question, but I believe you guys are gonna have a biblical answer to this. Cuz the question then is, what’s the difference between, say, say eastern meditation, Buddhist meditation? Cuz you know, Jesus was Middle Eastern, right? So I guess you could say, is he talking about Eastern meditation? Right? What’s the difference between Buddhist meditation and Christian meditation? Let me ask the question another way. What is, from what you guys know, I know you’re not students of this, but what is Buddhist meditation about at the root of it? What’s, what’s nirvana about? What is that all about?
Speaker 3 00:13:24 Well, from what I’ve learned and understood, it’s about emptying your mind. Yeah. Right? Like, and when we empty our minds, <laugh>, that’s a dangerous place.
Speaker 2 00:13:32 Amen. Brother. I knew you’d have the good answer to this. Yeah. Yeah. Christian meditation isn’t about emptying your mind. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> Christian meditation is about what?
Speaker 1 00:13:41 It’s about renewing your mind, renewing your mind, getting it focused. Yeah. Filling it with God’s, God’s way and God’s word, not your own ideas and other That’s
Speaker 2 00:13:49 Right. World’s ideas. And so that’s the, you know, I, growing up, I used to think meditation was a bad thing, but then you’d read it in scripture, it said, meditate, I meditate on your word every day, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I delight in your law. But every time the, the biblical authors talk about meditation, they’re talking about meditating, thinking, like you said, mark thinking deeply on God and his truth and his way in his will, which is completely different than just trying to clear your, clear your mind. Right. And, and not think about anything. And that’s, that’s the main difference. So mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I’m with it. This step eleven’s great, as long as you understand what we’re talking about when we say meditation. So we saw it through prayer and meditation. Anyway, thank you guys for going on that little excursion with me. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, let’s get back to talking about prayer in particular. So, prayer should be about asking God to make us better people by knowing and doing his will. Um, it’s not about getting God to do our bidding. Right. It’s not about, it’s not about putting ourselves on the throne and having God serve our every need. That’s what I think what a lot of people think about when they think about prayer. They think about demanding this and that and the other thing from God. But that’s not what Christian prayer is either.
Speaker 1 00:15:02 Yeah. He wants us to align our wills and hearts with his will and his heart. That’s, that’s what I think a lot of people miss about what, what prayer is, is we’re asking God what he wants from us, and we’re asking him for power to carry that out, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we’re asking f from him the things that we can’t do on our own. Right. That’s the whole reason that we need him. He’s a higher power, greater than us. Right. The only God, and he’s our only hope, as we’ve talked about, he’s taken care of our sin problem. And so in prayer, we’re going to God and saying, okay, you can do this. I can’t do it. God, I trust you. You’re reaffirming your faith to him over and over again. You’re, you know, and, and, and you do ask for things sometimes also in prayer.
Speaker 1 00:15:50 I mean, and we’re gonna see that that’s modeled. But, um, Jesus also modeled this submission in prayer. This, you know, I, I have all these ideas and feelings and, and beliefs about what I want to do or where I, where I want to go. But I just want to stop for a moment and say, you know what, Lord, I’ve gotten ahead of myself too much. I’ve gone my own way too much. What do you want me to do? And it’s interesting, even Jesus himself, God in the flesh, while he was walking on earth before he was going to be crucified, he was in the garden of Gethsemane and he was going through all this anguish and pain, knowing he was about to be crucified, knowing he was gonna have to go through just the heaviest trial of his entire life. And he probably in his humanity, wanted to get out of that.
Speaker 1 00:16:44 He probably thought, you know, there could have been some thoughts, like, I could, I could zap this guy and I could, I could, you know, fly away somewhere far away, <laugh> and I could get away with this. Right? Like, like what we do, we think in our minds, well we could, we plan all these plans out and, but here’s what Jesus says. And I I have it in the King James version cuz it just, I’m sure even non-believing people probably have heard this before. That’s why I like, I love the wording of it. It has so much flavor to it. It’s in Luke 2242, Jesus says, he says saying, father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. He’s saying, God, if, if I don’t want to have to go through this, they called it a cup of suffering, remove it from me. But if it’s your will that I have to go do it, go through this, then I want, I want your will. Like show me your will. I’m willing to follow you. I am willing to go your way instead of my way. I think that’s just such a strong example about, you know, kind of what
Speaker 2 00:17:50 Prayer
Speaker 3 00:17:51 Should be about. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what our model is. Jesus modeled it for us right here. Like you said, that that’s powerful. That is powerful because we all feel that way. I I, I have my own ideas and I don’t, and he had to, he had to suffer more than any of us could, can ever really understand. Mm. Right. Taking on the wrath of God that, so that we wouldn’t, but, but he finishes that. It’s, it’s kind of this, it’s this moment of him being really genuine and vulnerable where he says that, you know, if this could be removed from me, I I would really like that. But at the end of the day, your will be done. It’s the, and he modeled that for us because we all, like you said, Eric, we all have our ideas of the life we wanna lead the things that we want to do. But we’ve made a commitment going through these steps, accepting this new way of life that now we’re going to accept God’s will for us. And this is about that. This is about that ultimate submission to this new life that’s going to gonna lead us away from death, away from darkness.
Speaker 2 00:19:05 Yeah. This is a, a tweetable quote. So everybody get ready to write this down and tweet this out. Here it is. Remember, God will only do what his will is for your life. So aligning your will with his is the best bet to get him to come through. I don’t know which one of you guys wrote this, but this is so good. I I’m gonna read it again. It’s that good. Remember, God will only do what his will is for your life. So aligning your will with his is your best bet to get him to come through. This is so good to realize cuz a lot of people think that, okay, I’m trying to get him to cha align his will with mine. I want to get God to, I want get, I wanna get God to see it, see things my way. God, this is what I want.
Speaker 2 00:19:51 This is what I want you, won’t you give me what I want. That’s actually not what prayer is about at root. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> prayer is just like you read in, in that, that King James verse that you read, which by the way makes you sound so much smarter <laugh> when you read the King James, that was so good. That was, that was wise of you. But Jesus himself, who is God, Jesus himself said, I wanna do your will not mine. Your will be done. Not mine. That’s such a great example for us to say in my prayer time, my daily prayer time, I’m tr what I’m trying to do is align my will with gods. And then, then what’s gonna happen, you can take it to the bank that your prayers are gonna be answered. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right? Because you’re aligning your will with Gods. A lot of times when your prayers aren’t answered, it’s cuz you’re not praying according to God’s will, but you might not realize it.
Speaker 2 00:20:36 So that’s really what this is about. It’s about aligning your will with God’s will. And remember, power to follow God comes from God. And so prayer is asking for just that. It’s, you’re just asking for God to give you the strength and the power and the ability to continue to follow him. And you better believe that is, that’s God’s will for your life. God wants you to follow him. He wants you to honor him. He wants you to make better decisions. God wants you to have victory over addiction. Right. God wants you to continue to every single day to have one more day under your belt of being clean. And so you’d better believe that that’s God’s will. Whenever you’re praying that you, you can take it to the bank that you’re praying God’s will. Well that power to follow him, it, it comes from him. You can’t, you can’t, um, generate, you’re not a power generating mechanism in yourself. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, God’s the one who gives you the power. And that’s why you need to learn how to pray.
Speaker 1 00:21:36 Yeah. We’re only, you know, we’re only conduits. Right. Vessels. If you think about, back to the branch analogy, right. We’re the, the conduit of of the power and the nutrients that actually goes to bear the fruit. Right. And so, so yeah. We’ve talked about prayer should be, um, asking what God’s will is. And prayer should be about asking him for power to do God’s will basically. Right. We need, cuz we’ve never been able to do it before, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> like even in our addiction, you know, we had a conscience. I mean, it was seared, but we would do all kinds of things and, but we had, we had thoughts of wanting to be better, wanting to be healthy, wanting our families to be functional and everything to go well. But we could never do it on our own. We needed God and his power. We needed him to step in and supernaturally change us from the inside out.
Speaker 1 00:22:34 And, you know, it reminds me of where I think it’s, it’s in Ezekiel and Jeremiah talks about this new heart and new spirit that I’m gonna put in you so that you can follow my decrees and obey my commands. Like we need God’s spirit in order to actually follow God. It’s such a, an interesting thing. I don’t think a lot of people understand it. I think a lot of people think that, you know, religion religiosity is with Christianity and other religions in general. But that it’s just something where you follow a bunch of rules and, and eventually you make it to some nice place in the afterlife. But really a relationship with God is something that he actually empowers you to have. He empowers you to do the things he wants you to do. It’s not left to your own willpower. It’s, it’s his power.
Speaker 3 00:23:27 Yeah. I mean, we were lost before we came to this faith. Right. We tried doing it our own way and we were, and it failed time and time and time again. And so that’s where we came to this place where we recognized in step one, our powerlessness mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right? And so we know we don’t have the power to do it. Now, this step here that we’re coming to after we’ve gone through all the steps that we’ve gone through, uh, now we want this. It’s like, it’s clarity. It’s clarity of his will for us and his strength. And that’s what prayer is all about. It’s, it’s leaning into that, that clarity, um, and that strength that we need because we have to live this new life, like I said before, this new life that, that we have, you know, stepped onto this new path. We can’t walk it on our own. We need him to light the way and we need his strength to push us through.
Speaker 2 00:24:26 Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about how Jesus answered the disciples when they said, Jesus, teach us how to pray because we don’t know how to do it. We don’t know how to pray. Remember they were fishermen, they were tax collectors. They weren’t the, the smartest people in Jesus’s culture. They weren’t the leaders, they weren’t the politicians, they weren’t the business the big time business owners. They weren’t the tycoons of industry. They were just regular guys. Fishermen, tax collectors. Okay? They were, they were what? Blue c blue collar workers, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. They weren’t even white collar workers. I think, I guess you could say Jesus was colorblind
Speaker 3 00:25:01 <laugh>. Okay. Dad joke in the ear right there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:25:06 I’ve been waiting to, I have not heard that one. I’ve been waiting for that joke for a long, long time. Okay. So they came to Jesus. They said, Jesus, we’re not the, we’re not the sharpest tools in the shed. Teach us how to pray. And Jesus said this, Matthew five, starting in verse nine. He says, pray like this. This is called the Lord’s Prayer. And I know that in a lot of groups you guys use this, right? A lot of recovery groups talk about, so this is familiar to most people. We’re gonna break it down as kind of a pattern for prayer. He said, here’s how to pray our father in heaven, Hollywood, be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our deaths as we forgiven our debtors.
Speaker 2 00:25:42 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. What a great prayer for someone who is trying to have sustained recovery in their life. We’re gonna break it down with a simple little acronym that I learned what y years and years and years ago. I still use this to this day in my prayer time. I use the Pray ACR acronym, P R A y. Remember, prayer isn’t just about asking, that’s the A. We’ll get to it. There are other things in that too. The P stands for praise. And that’s what Jesus is talking about here when he says, our father in heaven Hall would be your name. He’s saying, I praise you, I worship you. So it’s kind of like with your, with your wife. If you’re gonna have a conversation with her, you better you. I hope your relationship with your wife isn’t just all about asking, asking, asking you the dishes.
Speaker 2 00:26:33 Did you, did you, can you, can you do my laundry? Can you, can you scratch my back? Can you get my, you know, it’s, could you imagine a marriage where the only kind of communication you had with your spouse was just asking for stuff? No. You better husbands, you better praise your wife as well. You better tell her how good she looks. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I, I don’t mean to demean what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about the God of the universe. Yeah. And starting with praising him before we even ask him for a thing. Cuz it’s not about what he can give us. It’s about who he is. He’s worthy about praise.
Speaker 1 00:27:08 Yeah. And that word halloid, it, it really, it means let his name be famous. Like make him famous over all the earth. Like by your actions, by your words. Tell tell his name to everyone. Let him be known how for how great the works he’s done. This is what we should want to do. Right. This is what, what he is teaching us to tell God like, you should be famous for who you are. You’re the father of heaven. Like, we, we love you, we praise you. And I, I do the same thing as Brian does. I use the same acronym. He’s the one who taught it to me many years ago. And it just, it’s, it just keeps me organized. I’m not the most organized person in my own life, but I think our natural reaction is to go to God with asking and demanding.
Speaker 1 00:28:00 You know, I remember again, back in, in my recovery or in my active addiction days, you know, the, my my go-to I would pray when I was like, you know, struggling. But it would always sound like, dear Lord, please don’t let this cop that’s pulling me over. Take me to jail this time. I’ll do whatever you want, <laugh>. I’ll do whatever you want. <laugh>. And it was always like, I’m trying to bargain with God. You know, I’m trying to make a deal. God, if you get me out of this one, um, Lord, I will, I’ll do something for you. You know, and I, and I never kept my promise either, you know, which is a bad thing. I think we’re doing a sermon on that soon vows, you know, or whatever. But I would always try to, I would, uh, anyways, I would always try to like, he was like my get outta jail free card. It was like, bail me out father, you know, heavenly Father, come, come bail me out of whatever situation I’m in. And and sometimes people only go to God, um, when things are bad or when they need something. And this prayer kind of teaches us, no, there should be like a, a regular discipline, you know, a regular discipline mm-hmm. <affirmative> instead of just reaction.
Speaker 3 00:29:12 Yeah. And I think the praise part comes out of, you know, when we, when we see what God has done in our lives, that becomes an automatic thing to want to praise him. Right? So thi this is something that will come naturally, but sometimes we, we skip over it, right? Like, like my, my wife for example, you talk about we need to praise our wives. Well, I know how amazing my wife is so I can praise her now, am I praising her <laugh>, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, am I doing that? So I think it’s just consciously doing it because it’s not hard to do this. It really isn’t right. When we know who God is, it’s not hard to praise in, right?
Speaker 2 00:29:50 Yeah. So some practical ways to do that. I, I think one of the ways that I like to do that is to read the Psalms during my prayer time. You know, the psalms are, a lot of those psalms are psalms of praise. So that’s literally what I’m doing. And, and so I’ll read them aloud in my prayer time. Let’s get practical here as we go through this. So for me, I have my, I every mor my prayer time every morning I go into my office, close the door, put on some work, good worship tunes, and I just spend some time in prayer. And so, again, the praising part is I’ll just, I’ll just sing along with, with the song. I’ll just praise God along with the recording. I’ll open up the psalms, I’ll read some psalms out loud to God that that’s great. For new people who are new to this that maybe don’t know how to do it, just, just read aloud the way that David did it, you know, 2,800 years ago. That’s a great start. And you, and pretty soon you’ll learn how to do it yourself. The way to do it is just to tell him what you’re thankful for. Tell him that’s praise, is thanking him for stuff. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:30:53 <affirmative>.
Speaker 2 00:30:53 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Tell him what you’re thankful. Be specific name it, name the things that you’re thankful for. These are all great ways to praise. How are some ways that you guys like to do the pee? The praise?
Speaker 1 00:31:05 Yeah. I, uh, how I start my prayer off is, I, I like d I like to be in the dark. And so I’ll, I go by the fireplace and I’ll get a little grandma blanket on me and, and praise God, praise God. I’m gonna praise him right now for the invention of a cell phone so that I can actually read in the dark with, I can use my Bible app because I, I use my Bible app. I have it on dark mode on the Bible app, so it doesn’t blind my eyes. And, and I, I start, I start by reading his word, um, and ingesting it. You know, just really trying to, what is, what is this passage saying to me? And it’s just, it’s amazing when I read God’s word, even though it’s a story I’ve read or heard time and time again, it’s just, it’s, it’s like living and active and it speaks, you know?
Speaker 1 00:31:54 And every time I read God’s word, like the major theme of his word is God’s glory. You know, he is doing something that is amazing, miraculous. And, and, and he is the one who should just get the glory out of every amazing story of salvation. And so I let the word kind of speak to my mind and then I’ll start by saying thank you. Like recently it was, you know, Jesus said that he had revealed, he had, he said, Jesus prayed this prayer. And he says, thank you Father, that you’ve re revealed these, or you’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent. And you’ve, you’ve, uh, revealed them to infants. You know, you’ve revealed them to basically the unwise people. And, and so I, I’ll start off saying, God, thank you that man, you’ve taken a person who was foolish to the world. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> an unwise person who’s made a lot of mistakes and bad decisions. Thank you. That, that you’re using me now. It’s just amazing that, how, how could it be that you, you love me out of all the people out there in the world like you, you cleaned me up and you changed me. So I like to praise him first and foremost for the work that he’s done in my life.
Speaker 2 00:33:07 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. That’s good.
Speaker 3 00:33:09 Yeah. I would say I, I’m probably pretty similar too, because, you know, we have <laugh>, we’ve both come from places that were really, really bad places. And, and so that’s, that’s where I, I am with it too. I, I have so much to praise him for. Um, and I just want to say y you know, a lot of people who are listening right now might feel this intimidation about prayer like we were talking about earlier. Um, and I felt that too when I first began. The first thing that, that, uh, when my addiction came out, you know, I, all these things were revealed to my wife and we, she stuck with me and we were trying to work through it. One of the, one of the biggest things was that we made a commitment that we were gonna start praying together every night before we went to bed.
Speaker 3 00:33:59 What we did is I would pray one night and she would pray the next night. And, you know, right at the start, it was really awkward cuz I hadn’t really prayed in front of anybody before. Never. But man, it became so powerful and this praise that would come out from just, just him gifting me with the fact that my wife wanted to work through this mm-hmm. <affirmative> that she wanted to stick around the fact that he was rescuing me from this life that I’d been living. Uh, it, and then, and then being able to pray for my wife. It just, I, it just began to transform our whole relationship. Our relationship became focused on and centered on, on God instead of just, you know, on ourselves or each other. It, it just changed everything. So, um, yeah, that’s just something, it, it was really awkward at first, but man, it became one of the most powerful things in my life.
Speaker 2 00:34:55 Yeah. That’s a, I think that’s a good reminder for people who are listening to this saying, I’m not sure how I’m gonna apply this. And I hope, I hope that you do apply this in your, in your lives and in your marriage. Like you’re saying, mark, it could be powerful and you might have to, you might have to sort of push through some of the awkward, like you said. And, and on the other side of it, there’s a real, a real, uh, blessing, a real gift that that is in store for you. So that’s the p the praise in the Prey acronym. The next one is the R and that one stands for repent. So you praise and then you repent. Jesus said to pray like this, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. So to me, this is, this, this seems to be a just a great one.
Speaker 2 00:35:39 We’ve been talking a essentially we’ve been talking about repentance a lot throughout the, the, these steps, right? That this is something you have to acknowledge, you have to speak it, you have to, you have to repent to others. And we’ve talked about also repenting to God, telling him, I’m sorry I did this, forgive me. And then repentance then really is about making up your mind to go the other way mm-hmm. <affirmative> and to do something else. I always like to say this about repentance. If you can learn to repent to God, if you can learn to say in your prayer time, God, you need to show me what I need to repent of, which is what I do at this point. This is where I’ll journal. I have a little prayer journal and I’ll actually write down some of the things I feel like God is saying to me.
Speaker 2 00:36:21 Cuz I might not even be necessarily fully aware of what I need to repent of. But as I’m spending some time in prayer, maybe an incident comes up in the day or the day before, and all of a sudden I feel this sense of, oh, I messed up there. And what I like to say to men especially is, if you can learn to be open and vulnerable and honest with God and repent to God, man, is that gonna make your other relationship so much better? Because it’s not gonna be, it’s not gonna be an your spouse’s problem anymore to try to get you to realize it. If you can have this tender, humble heart before God and learn to repent on a regular basis, then you’re, then you’re gonna be a lot easier to live with. And it’s not gonna take your wife telling you what you need to repent of, let God tell you. And then in your, in your marriage, you can just get to the fun stuff. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:37:14 <affirmative>. Yeah. And again, you know, for me how that usually comes out again is God’s, God’s word convicts me, you know, through the, the spirit takes the words that I’m reading in the morning and I’m, I’m saying, okay, how do I measure up to your word? Like in this story, who am I? You know, who am I? Am I the sinner? Am I, am I the person that would be prideful? Am I the, the the one who told a lie or the adulterer? You know, there’s always this comparison game that I think I can do with God’s word. It’s like a mirror we talked about in se several lessons ago. It’s like a mirror. You hold up to yourself to see who you truly are, you know, when you’re taking an inventory of yourself. And so I use God’s word to, to help, help dig out those deep rooted, uh, sins that I haven’t repented about yet or ask for forgiveness for.
Speaker 1 00:38:10 And I name ’em, like you said, like, like naming the praises. I’ll name it out loud, like, Lord, forgive me for, and I know God. And, and here’s the interesting thing about repentance and asking for forgiveness. It’s like we go back to one John nine, right? It says, if you confess, he will forgive and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. And so that’s what I, I believe in my prayer, in that repentance time is I’m gonna actually confess it then to God. I’m not gonna just say, God, forgive me for being lustful and then move on. I’m going to say, what was the, the instance where I had that thought in my mind, right? Where I actually played something out in my mind that was sinful and I’m gonna name it. I’m gonna name, if I know the person’s name, name that right? If I, if I was mean to one of my sons, or, you know, exacerbated or caused them to, to, to be angry with me because I lashed out in anger or something like that. I’ve gotta say those things so that I can get it up and out again. We talked about our secrets keep us sick, but if we confess them, we can have that confidence knowing he’s gonna forgive. And I do that every single day. Every morning I get to have this time of praising and then repenting. And when I get to do that, I can start the day feeling so much better that I’m not hiding anything from God.
Speaker 3 00:39:38 Yeah. I, this is where we are doing our daily inventory. I think that’s, yeah. This is where we’re letting him, because I’ll have a bunch of things in my mind too. Like, so it’s funny when you’re talking about this, I’ll have all these things in my mind of, oh, I gotta, I definitely need to repent for this and pemp for this. But then as I’m doing that, it’s almost like he, like, God’s like, whoa, what about that? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, what about, you know, <laugh> like, he, he starts to reveal more things and you’re just like, oh yeah. Like, and it’s just funny how that works. It’s, but yeah, this is the daily inventory and it has to be done through prayer. It really does because there’s, otherwise it’s just things are gonna get missed. And we, we might not even end up taking him to God. You know, this is, this is the time for that. And he’ll reveal what needs to be revealed if we’re really, um, repentant in a repentant state of mind.
Speaker 2 00:40:32 Okay. So you’ve, you’ve done the first thing, you’ve spent some time praising God, then you’ve spent a little time repenting, letting God reveal your heart, letting God kind of convict you of your sin, your repenting of it. And finally, now I like to say you’ve kind of earned the right now to ask for some stuff. Hmm. Right? So remember this is the, the a is what most people think prayer is all about. It’s, it’s not really all about this. It’s, it’s just one component of it. But it is, it is part of it. God does say to us, yeah, ask, he says, you know, he says, ask for your daily bread. Right? Give us this day our daily bread. That’s a really practical thing that he’s giving us permission to ask for. It’s, it’s not selfish to ask God for daily, for our daily bread.
Speaker 2 00:41:24 Um, and so what are the, what are some of the things that you have on? This is where I like to get to my prayer list. Literally keep like a bunch of lists that I go through and pray. Honestly, most of the things on the list are names. Most of what I ask for are names. I’m asking for God to move in this person’s life or in that person’s life. I’m asking for God, I, I pray for you guys as pastors on at our church. Um, this is what I, this is what fills my list up as people. I’m asking God to, to do a work in people, to continue to use you guys in ministry to, uh, you know, as, as we meet people at our campuses, at our churches, you know, I, I write those names down and I pray for those people. I pray for those needs. There’s this an addiction here. There’s this, this wayward child over here. So these are the things that are on my list. What are the, what are some other things that people might find on their prayer list to be asking for?
Speaker 1 00:42:19 Well, I mean, you know, going back to praying for God’s will, um, you know, but I have my, when I align my will with his will, there are things that I want to do that I think he wants me to do. You know, and a lot of my prayers have to do with future vision type stuff. You know, like, what do you want me to do? And God, will you do this? Is this the way that you want me to go? And as I said earlier, you know, one thing that’s on my mind right now, as I said earlier, God answers my prayers. Um, again, not all the time, not as if I’m something special, but just the fact that I know that he answers his children’s parish, because I get to see it all the time. You know, just recently, um, one of our churches, um, I was building a relationship with another church, you know, five years ago.
Speaker 1 00:43:11 And I’d been praying and praying and praying, Lord, would you, cuz the church that we were at, um, that I used to be the pastor of, uh, we had like a smaller building and it was like we were all, I was always looking for future. What are we gonna do down the road? What are we doing? And I was thinking of building relationships here and there, whatever. And there was a lot of kind of dying churches in the area where we were at, but we were a thriving church. And I thought to myself, well man, one of these churches, you, you’d think they’ve got these paid off buildings, you’d think that they’d just, you don’t want to give us one or something. You know, my wife’s like, you’re crazy. You know, <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:43:47 <laugh>,
Speaker 1 00:43:48 That wasn’t the first time she said that. <laugh>. Yeah. And I’m like, and I would just be, you know, a building relationships, yes. But then going and praying on it. So doing work towards vision and then coming back and praying, okay, God, like you’ve, you’ve opened some doors. I’m trying to seek your will. I’m trying to, to be aligned with you. I’m following you. Um, so is this something that you would want to do? Because it’s on my heart. There’s this desire on my heart and I can’t get rid of it. So Lord, I can’t do anything else. You’ve gotta make this happen. And it’s just so amazing. Recently, you know, as you guys know, um, the, the church now recently just like really quickly handed us over the deed to the whole property and everything. It’s like a miracle. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 00:44:37 And I, and it’s just those things. And I have bigger things than that, that God has answered prayer for. I mean, we recently had a baby, all right, this is really practical. And there were little complications throughout the pregnancy where it was like, God, we need you right now. You know, like we, we, we, he was, he was two weeks late and, and, and it was gonna come to the time where either major surgery was gonna happen to happen. If he wasn’t, if, if he wasn’t gonna come out. And like, you know, not too long after we prayed, she started going into labor and then there were little complications along the way. And every time we prayed, God would just answer the prayer and help us out every single time. And, and, and it’s just so amazing. God does want to give us things. Yeah. He does want to bless us. He does want to show us that he’s there and that he’s, that he’s the owner of this whole thing. He owns the whole universe. And, and so we can ask for a little bit of it.
Speaker 2 00:45:35 <laugh> Luke Levin. Luke Levin says, what father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent. Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion. If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father, who’s not evil give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So this is God’s heart toward us. God wants, he wants a relationship with us. And some people listening might not know that God, they might not realize that that’s how God is. And maybe that’s hindered your prayers. I want you to know you can go to God and you can ask him, and you can build this relationship with God through prayer, praising, repenting, asking. And then finally coming to this last thing, which for me is my favorite part of prayer every day is yielding.
Speaker 2 00:46:22 The why stands for yielding. Remember, Jesus said, pray like this. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So that’s about yielding to his kingdom, not trying to get him to yield to you. And we’re gonna stop and listen and yield. And that’s what we have to remember to do. So I, for me practically, guys, I, I wanna hear what, how you guys do this. But for me, practically this means again, I, I’ll have some worship music on. And now this is just me trying my hardest just to be quiet and not to talk and not to bring all my idea. Cuz for me, I always have all these ideas. A lot of times I have to write ’em down to get ’em on a sheet of paper so I can get em out of my head. So I can just really do this last little bit, which is just a practice listening to God and list listening for his still small voice, listening for his prompting.
Speaker 2 00:47:13 For me, a lot of times for me, this ends up in, he, a name will come to my mind that I need to call someone I need to call reach out to someone. I didn’t pray for that day, but as I’m yielding to God, he, this is where, not all the time, but every once in a while I feel like, I feel like, like God speaks to me and gives me some marching orders. And sometimes it’s just a matter of just, just stopping quieting myself and, and listening instead of talking. What does yielding for you guys look like?
Speaker 3 00:47:40 Well, I think yielding for me, it’s, um, <laugh>, like I’m in the opposite situation is, is Eric, right? Like we, you know, our, our campus, we’re renting a building right now, we don’t have a, a permanent location. And so, you know, that’s part of my ask a lot of times. But the yielding is understanding, you know, trying to, trying to pray to God that, you know, I know that you’ve got a plan here. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And my plan isn’t always your plan, so I’m trusting you. Um, just give me, you know, kind of the, the clarity, the peace to know that you’re at work here. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think that’s a big part of yielding and I yielding is what this step is really all about. You know, praying for knowledge of his will for us. Like you’re talking about the listening, trying to, trying to, you know, try to figure out what is his will, you know, really listening to that and then the power to carry that out. That’s, that’s what it’s all about. So that’s kind of, that’s where my asking and yielding is right now.
Speaker 1 00:48:43 <laugh>. Yeah. I, I keep thinking about the traffic signs that say yield on him, and nobody knows what that means. <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:48:50 <laugh>,
Speaker 1 00:48:52 I think it just means wait for a second until you get assigned to go ahead. Right. <laugh> basically, right, like in a roundabout or something, right? Yeah. They’re, you, you got these yield signs in the person who comes up. They’re supposed to wait until they have a, a safe, uh, time to actually venture out. And I think, so for me, that’s how I do it. A lot of my prayers are, I’m praying when I feel like God is pressed upon my heart, the passions that I have. Maybe it’s visions that maybe through, I’m not saying like vision as far as looking into the future and, and how God wants me to do my work or, you know, love my family or disciple someone or build relationships or whatever, make connections. I’m looking at that. Um, and then I’ll say, okay, but I’m going to wait until you give me a sign.
Speaker 1 00:49:42 You know, I’m gonna wait until something happens to where it’s beyond the shadow of a doubt that you’re saying. Yes. And so many times in my life I’ve done that, especially like moving, you know, moving my family, moving, um, houses and big life events and stuff like that where it’s like, I’m not gonna just up and make, you know, change my job and move and do all these things without first praying for, you know, months before I ever became a pastor. I, I remember praying for months, we went on a, a retreat. Me and my wife went to, you know, park City, stayed in the hotel and we, we, we sang worship together. We read God’s word together, we prayed together and it was so amazing. Um, we were praying together and we were asking God and, and we were just waiting. And there was this time where all of a sudden my wife goes, what does James four 14 say?
Speaker 1 00:50:40 And I’m all, I don’t know why, you know what, why are you saying that? Like, we didn’t read that Nothing came out. She’s like, I just feel like this verse is being, God’s putting it on me right now with James four 14. And we go and read it, you know, and it’s, it’s talking about what is your life? It’s but a mist. It’s but a vapor, you know? And, and, and he’s like, don’t ma basically the gist of it is don’t make all these plans without the Lord being involved, you know, without waiting on him. If the Lord wills it, then you can go right. If, if not, it’s a sin, basically. So if we don’t wait on him, and we, we venture out, um, and do do the things without it being clear, oftentimes we can make the wrong decision. And that’s really what I think, you know, prayer is all about, especially this la last part, you know, yielding to the Lord. We wanna listen and humility and patience. Yep.
Speaker 2 00:51:33 Yeah. And listen how Jesus said it, somebody pointed this out to me years ago. He says, your kingdom come here will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So the question is, how is God’s will done in heaven? Hmm. And it’s done perfectly in heaven, right? His, he, he speaks and everybody listens. No, there’s no sin in heaven. There’s no rebellion in heaven. So his will is done perfectly in heaven. And that’s what Jesus is telling us to do. He’s saying, that’s how I want you to pray. He, he says, I want you to pray, God, I want your will to be done in my life, in my marriage and my family, and my ad, in my addiction, in my recovery. I want it to be done the way that it will be done. When I’m, when I’m done with this earth, I want it to be done like it’s done in heaven.
Speaker 2 00:52:18 I want it to be done perfectly. Now, it might not be done perfectly, but that’s your heart. That’s, that’s what you’re doing. You’re saying, God, I want to yield to you and your will and your way. And I think the biggest question people will probably ask is, well, how do you know? How do you know if it’s God’s will? How do you, cuz a lot of people have, uh, paralysis by analysis. They, they just, they stop. They, they just won’t take any steps. They won’t step out in faith ever because they’re waiting for just the perfect sign. So maybe Eric, how does, how did your story end? You had this perfect weekend away without the kids. I think nine months later you had added another child. <laugh>, do I have the math right? I
Speaker 1 00:52:56 Don’t know. I don’t
Speaker 2 00:52:56 Know. Yeah, it’s gotta be close. I
Speaker 1 00:52:57 Dunno, that’s what’s
Speaker 2 00:52:58 Happened. But <laugh>, but, but tell
Speaker 1 00:52:59 Me, me
Speaker 2 00:53:00 <laugh> tell me, Eric, how did you know, how did you make the decision to, you did end up well eventually going to the next campus.
Speaker 1 00:53:09 Well, yeah, and it’s, it’s because God speaks to us in multiple ways. I mean, not just a, I mean, it’s the still small voice. It’s through his word and it’s through his people again, you know, the Christian trifecta, God’s spirit, God’s word, God’s people. And I had, you know, an overwhelming number of people, everybody actually saying, you should, you should do this. You know, you should go. I, it was undeniable through prayer, through reading of the word, and through even the guy who’s the new pastor now, I remember him and I was telling him about my, my fears with it. And it was the weirdest thing. I had just read the story about, um, Peter stepping out of the boat in faith to, to, to grab Jesus’ hand. And Mike wouldn’t have known about that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But then that day he says, maybe you just need to step out of the boat. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is, yep. That’s God. You know, <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:54:08 Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2 00:54:09 Yeah. And sometimes you do, sometimes you, you know, for us, when Tracy and I were praying about whether to move out to Utah, to go to plan a church, which is a, you know, 1400 mile move, and just a scary thing, honestly, we didn’t have this great vision from God. We didn’t, we just, we felt like after we prayed about it and thought about it and talked about it, we just felt like, let’s do it. Who says the default is to stay? Who says the default answer is to do nothing? I think the default answer is to go, Jesus said, go make disciples. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So the default answer is to go, is to go do something. And so, so for some people listening, they have to, again, we’re not, when we’re talking about yielding to God, we’re not always talking about big decisions. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, making big decisions in your life.
Speaker 2 00:54:55 That’s the examples we’re talking about now. But for a lot of people, it’s just a matter of God, I want to yield to you. I want to yield to your way. I want your will to be done in my recovery. I want, I want one more. I want one more good day. I want to be able to trust you one more day. And then tomorrow I’m gonna yield to you again. I’m gonna yield to your way instead of trying to get my way and try and trying to fulfill my needs with this addiction the way I would’ve done it before. So for a lot of people listening, that’s really what we’re talking about. Yielding to God can be in the big stuff. And it can be in the little stuff. It can be in the day-to-day choices. And it can be in this, these big huge decisions that, that change the course of our families and our lives. It can
Speaker 1 00:55:37 Be both. Yeah. And there’s a lot of decisions that a person in recovery’s gonna have to make. I mean, there may be relationships that have to be cut off. There may be you may need to move out of a situation or out of a city even, or change jobs. So many different things that, that you’re gonna have to yield to. And so yeah, what we’re really talking about is, is prayer, um, staying in contact with God. Right? That’s, that’s the whole point of all of this is we’re gonna grow in our recovery. The more we stay in contact, constant contact with God. And as we do that, we’re gonna seek his will and not our own. And then we’re gonna start to have his power to carry that out. And when we’re doing God’s will, we’re recovering from our sinful nature.
Speaker 2 00:56:29 Mark, you wanna read that step one more time? Eric did a pretty good job. Me, uh, reciting that one, but read it one more time and let’s close out this episode. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:56:37 It’s sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of his will for us, and the power to carry that out.
Speaker 2 00:56:47 All right. Well this was step number 11. If you wanna find these resources for your family, your small group, or your mentor or sponsoring relationship, you can find all of it at pursue god.org/recovery. And guys, we got one more. Next week we’ll talk about step number 12.

Speaker 1 00:00:03 Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Pursue God podcast. I’m Pastor Brian, joined in the studio again by Pastor Eric. Pastor Mark. Guys, I’m excited for today, but I’m also a little bit sad because we’re, we’re finally in week 12 of our Steps to Recovery series. We’ve been going through the 12 steps of aa, and it’s been really fun for me to do this with both of you guys. Um, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna miss you. I’m really gonna miss you.
Speaker 2 00:00:27 Yeah. I don’t know what we’re gonna do without you,
Speaker 1 00:00:31 <laugh>. Well, you guys have, you guys made it without me for a long time.
Speaker 2 00:00:35 We can write letters, <laugh>,
Speaker 1 00:00:37 We can fa we’ll fax each other. All right. So we, I’ve been poking a little bit of fun at the 12 steps. I mean, I love the 12 steps are awesome. They’ve changed a lot of lives, yours included. But we’ve talked a lot about how some of them feel a little bit repetitive to me. We’re not gonna really go through all the 12 steps in this final episode. We’re gonna talk about step number 12, but this is the step that might be my favorite of all the steps, because I really believe in this step, in general terms, in the Christian, in the Christian life. You know, Jesus talked about going and making disciples. We, one of the things we really believe [email protected] is that, um, God calls us to be full circle followers of Jesus. Not just two thirds followers. Not just people who trust Jesus.
Speaker 1 00:01:24 That’s the first thing. And who honor God in your lifestyle. That’s the second thing. But we believe that you haven’t really experienced life to the full, which Jesus talks about in John 10 10, until you make disciples, until you pass it on, until you help someone else to pursue God. In other words, a pursuit of God. At the end of the day, surprise, surprise isn’t just all about yourself, a pursuit of God. Actually, Jesus had this in mind. All along. A pursuit of God is about other people and your impact on other people. And would you guys say that that’s true for recovery? That just maybe the reason God allowed you guys to have an addiction in the first place is so that you could sit here in this podcast so that you can run the groups that you run and you can impact other people that in, in, in other words, almost God, maybe even allowed that to come into your life so that he could get glory out of it through your experience, which is so much better than my experience in this area. You guys have obviously helped far more people with recovery than I ever have. And a big part of that is because you’ve experienced it, right?
Speaker 2 00:02:32 Yeah. That’s, you know, a pretty deep, um, topic, you know, or, or, uh, way of thinking that you just brought up. And one of the things that kind of compelled me to go on further and continue to pursue God and find out all that his word had to say, and all that he wanted me to do was out of curiosity, but even more out of a love and wanting to be obedient because he had done so much in my life. And, and so, yeah, thinking about how did this all come about? You know, the Bible says that he uses all things together for good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. And it’s like, if God knows everything, he knew that I was gonna become an addict. And, um, he takes the broken things and he changes them into beautiful things.
Speaker 2 00:03:21 And, and so many people have asked me before, like, if you could go back, would you change things or, or do you regret the things that you did? And I, I guess I would say I regret sin. You know, I’m repentant of sin. I don’t, I hate sin. I don’t like that. I want to go my way and not God’s way. But I would also say that I’m not sure if I believe that there was any other way that was laid out for me to do. Um, because of the path that I went down, the people that I’ve been able to impact. Um, just today I had a meeting with a guy and was able to share my story, and it caused him to open up and tell me things, tell me things in our first meeting ever that he probably hasn’t told people that have that, that tried to meet with him for years.
Speaker 2 00:04:13 Hmm. Because he felt comfortable with, you know, how extreme my story was. And, and, and you know, how transparent I was about my life. It, it, it helped him. And I’ve been able to do that in, in my ministry and in helping people pursue God and, and leading people through recovery. Um, and honestly, the way I actually got into ministry, probably one of the most successful parts of my ministry was when I followed God’s calling to start these recovery groups and to take the 12 steps and look at what the Bible has to say. That is something that God, um, really used in my life and has been extremely successful, even though I didn’t want to do it at first. I wanted to be a normal person.
Speaker 1 00:05:00 <laugh>. Well, you were the, you’re not normal Aaron <laugh>. And I’m very thankful for that. Mark, what are we talking about here? What, what exactly is the final step? What exactly is step number 12?
Speaker 3 00:05:11 Yeah. Well, we’ve kind of been dancing around it, but this is really, this is kind of the culmination of, um, so step three was about giving our will and our lives over to the care of God, right? And we talked about that being pretty much the most important step. Hmm. This is kind of the culmination of that. This is what we do after we’ve really fully given ourselves over, is now we are a servant of Christ. Hmm. Um, and so step 12 is, uh, here’s what it says. It says, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs. So this is, and I know that’s why you like this step so much. Yeah. Brian, this is, this is disciple making, right. It really is in, in recovery. This is disciple making. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:06:02 <affirmative>. And here’s why I love it so much. And I just learned this statement from you, mark. So I might butcher it. You might have to correct me, but I’m gonna try it. You said you can’t keep something unless you give it away. Did I say it right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it’s, that’s an AA thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. And we, [email protected]. We’ve said that for years now. We just haven’t said it so beautifully as that. You can’t keep something unless you give it away. And I really believe it that when you, you know, your journey is incomplete un unless you start helping somebody else on the journey. And I would imagine guys, that some people might listen, be listening to this podcast, and maybe they’re still working the steps, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, maybe they’re still back at step three or four or five, so they’re not quite here yet, but they’re getting a preview of what they’re eventually gonna be at. I would imagine, tell me if this is true, that there are a lot of addicts that are saying, you’re crazy. There’s no way, there’s no way I’m qualified to help somebody else. What would you say? Have you ever seen that attitude? And what would you say to it?
Speaker 3 00:07:03 Well, that’s the attitude that I had. Um, <laugh>. I think we all have that. And I don’t think it’s even just addicts. I think, I think we all feel unqualified to help somebody else in the pursuit of God. But the beauty of it is, is that it’s not, it’s not us that’s really doing the work. We’re kind of the mouthpiece. Um, it’s the spirit that is really gonna lead somebody to Christ. And that is where that, you know, that takes some of the burden off of us. But this is really, man, there’s nothing, there’s nothing sweeter than seeing somebody walk this same path that you did and finding this new life as well. Like, there’s just, there’s nothing like it. And this, this step, it’s, it’s huge for us because, you know, I think we start these steps and, you know, in kind of a selfish mindset of, I, I need to do this for me and this step, it’s still got that selfish mindset to it of, I need this because I need to do this in order to stay sober. But it’s the, now it’s the first time that we’re able to finally start looking outside of ourselves a little bit.
Speaker 2 00:08:13 Here’s something that I want to say that’s on my heart right now too with this step is, is that this, this step’s about, you know, giving us a new purpose in life, um, helping us to refocus on what we’re called to do, what we were made to do. And, you know, for so many addicts, we’ve wondered what we’re supposed to do with our lives. We’ve had dreams, we’ve had aspirations, we’ve failed. We’ve, we’ve tried things and, and, and hurt people. And, and that might be a part of the reason why we self-medicate. But, um, at the end of the day, I know that probably a lot of you, if, if you’ve had this spiritual awakening that we’re talking about, you know, um, that you felt a pull on your life to do something great, greater to step outside of yourself and do something greater, not for yourself, but for, for the Lord.
Speaker 2 00:09:06 I know that, that, that was on my heart since I was a little boy. I, I had, um, faith as a little boy, uh, and I always had God with me. Even when I was using, um, in the back of my mind. I had always, I always knew the gospel. I knew the power of God. And, and I would have these, these fights, you know, this war inside of me. Like, I don’t want to be doing this, but I feel, I feel shameful, or I’m, I’m just gonna forget. And, but there would be times even when I was using or hanging out in the wrong crowd, that somehow, you know, I would be witnessing, um, while using with people, which is interesting. You know, it’s probably what they did back in the sixties when in the Jesus, the Jesus
Speaker 1 00:09:50 Movie, I love you, man,
Speaker 2 00:09:51 <laugh>, but, uh, I, you know, I would get clean and then I’d be like, on fire and I’d want to tell everybody about God. And then somehow I’d fall back into it and feel shameful. And eventually I started to understand, um, this, this freedom, this love that Jesus had for me, and that, uh, he wanted to save me for a purpose. Not just, not just save me from my addiction so that I could go on to be a normal person. No, he wanted to save me to go be radical. He wanted, he wanted to. And, and so I say that cuz I wanna spark something in the people that are listening too, is we set it before way back at step one. Don’t continue to just label yourself an addict, you know, a hopeless addict. You can be a, a victorious addict. You can be, um, a child of God.
Speaker 2 00:10:46 You can be someone that you never thought you could be because you have God with you, God on your side. I’ve done things that I never thought I’d be capable of doing or able to do or qualified to do. But because the Lord wants to use me and use you for a purpose, um, he’s, he’s, he’s going to qualify you in ways that you didn’t even think were possible. And so I just, I just want to encourage people to, um, dream about what you can do, but not for yourself, but for the Lord and for other people.
Speaker 1 00:11:21 Yeah. There’s another saying. It goes something like this. God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called. And so everybody listening right now, if you’re at step 12, you’re called, you have a calling on your life to help someone else. You know, in the broadest sense, there’s two types of people. There are people who live for themselves, and there are people who live for someone other the than themselves, right. In the broadest sense. And I think one of the core observations that I’ve had about addiction is it’s very self-centered. It’s living for yourself. And so you need, I like your word radical, Eric. I think people have to have to be radical. You can’t, you can’t just pick this middle ground and say, I’m gonna just, I’m gonna just hang out here in the middle. Most people who are addicts can’t function like that. That you’ve got, you’re, there’s something about addicts, I think guys where it’s, there’s a little bit of an abandon to an addict.
Speaker 1 00:12:16 There’s a, there’s kind of an extreme personality for an addict. That’s kind of why I think maybe you, you kind of almost need, a lot of times you need the substance to get, to get enjoyment out of life. Almost like a a someone else might not need that. They might not live on the, on the extremes. They might live a little bit more in the middle. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I would say I probably live more in the middle in my life. But I, what I love about you guys and other people that I’ve, that I’ve known that have come out of addiction is there is like an abandon to them. They take the way that they’re naturally wired, and then God uses it in incredible ways. And, and, and that’s, that can happen for everyone listening to this today. God calls you and a and a key to your, to your recovery and your continued freedom is helping someone else. If you don’t help someone else, you’re probably not gonna keep your, your sobriety. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right?
Speaker 2 00:13:14 Yeah. And so that’s our first, first point in in step twelve’s lesson today, is that a person who is spiritual, quote unquote spiritual now has new and powerful tools to live a purposeful life. You know, if we look back at, at where we’ve come, you know, in all of these steps, right? We had, um, times of humility, we had times of getting out of denial and recognizing there’s a power great in ourself. And that’s, that’s the Jesus of the Bible. And, and learned how to surrender. And, um, asked him to help us take an inventory and get rid of some of our character defects. And, you know, so we’ve understood the gospel. We’ve understood, you know, how he’s called us to live this new life now that we have the spirit now helping us, right? We have God’s spirit dwelling inside of us. The Bible says in Ephesians chapter one, when you believed the Holy Spirit came and resided in a person now.
Speaker 2 00:14:13 And so that’s kind of what this step, you know, reminded me, says, if after having a, a spiritual awakening, well, yes, of course. We were born again as the Bible says, you know, made new by the Spirit regenerated. And after having that, now we’ve got, we got not just, I mean we, it says tools. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but really, I mean, we have the, like we have the ultimate power tool <laugh>. We’ve got, we’ve got the Holy Spirit, God himself residing in us. And with that comes all of the fruits of the spirit we’ve talked about in, in, in all of these steps. You know, with the Holy Spirit comes all of these giftings and abilities. And along with how God made us to now go and, and use them for another purpose. You know, we used our craftiness, our shrewdness in a worldly way back in the day. And, and we used it to go get our fix. But now God’s gonna take that along with combining his spirit with us to be able to go do great things and, and, and wise things. And even, you know, it just reminds me of the parable of the shrewd manager, you know, where we can even be, um, wise in that way, but to build God’s kingdom and to help other addicts and, and other people in general, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 3 00:15:36 So Yeah. Yeah. We don’t go bury it in the field, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. That’s exactly. Um, but no, it, you know, you talk about we’ve got these new and powerful tools, and I think that’s something that a lot of people don’t, don’t really grasp, grasp the things that we, we end up learning when we go through these steps. Unless you’ve really gone through these steps. I mean, being able to be brutally honest with yourself, being able to, to, uh, make amends to people. I mean, the, these are things that don’t come natural to us. Mm. And so I think these are really powerful because we’ve learned how to, um, break ourselves down really, you know, look, you know, through, look at ourselves through God’s eyes and, and see where we fall short, but also how to have real better relationships with the people around us. These are, these are powerful tools that we’ve learned through the spirit who has worked through us through these steps.
Speaker 3 00:16:38 And it does, it, it it’s given us this, this way now that we do have, we can live this purposeful life. And I love when you, when you mentioned that earlier, Brian, about, um, he doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called. And it, and it totally reminded me of when Eric, I’d been coming to your group for, I don’t know, a year or two, and you wanted, you wanted to start another group, and you asked Charissa and I to lead it <laugh>, and that’s exactly where I was. I remember saying something to you like, are you sure? Are you sure about that? And that was the statement that you said to me Exactly. Word for word. And I, and that stuck with me. And it was just, I, I just went, I just went with it. I just trusted that God’s gonna, God’s gonna do something. I trusted you, um, first and then, you know, I I, I learned to trust in God with it. And he did, he, you know, used an imperfect broken person like me. And, and, um, I’ve, I’ve helped people the same way that, that you helped me. And that’s, that’s the beautiful part of all this. Well,
Speaker 1 00:17:43 Really, I think what people need to know is availability is way more important than ability. And so, so I think Mark, for you, you, you were available and God used you, you know, not just to lead the group, but you’re leading a campus now, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you, it kind of fell on your lap that, that we had a need at one of our campuses at church. And, and I, I, I still remember when Eric said, Hey, I think you should have Mark be the pastor of that campus. And I said, really? He said, yeah. He, he loves Jesus. He, and it’s really what, what Paul talks about here in Galatians six one, it’s, this is what it means to be spiritual. Right? Paul says, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.
Speaker 1 00:18:28 Keep watching yourself, let you two be tempted. So it’s the sense that I get when I read that is that there’s a responsibility on your life when you’ve been aw. Like the, like the step says when you’ve been awakened, when you’ve had your spiritual awakening, when your eyes are opened now. And you know, the crazy thing about God opening your eyes is when he opens your eyes, he gets the focus off of you and onto other people. And that’s really what gives you the freedom to serve other people and to overcome maybe your insecurities or, right. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because the question you asked Mark, when, when Eric said that the question you asked was coming probably from a place of, I don’t view myself that way. I don’t think you got the right guy. It’s, it’s really a question. Any kind of security gets us to focus on ourselves. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and our inabilities. Where, where, where the more we, the more spiritual we are, the more connected to the vine we are, the less we focus on ourselves, the less we get kind of caught up in our own heads and afraid to step out and do what God is calling us to do. So I think you’re very spiritual. You know, I don’t know if Sharise would call you very spiritual or not, but mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:19:36 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:19:37 <laugh>. But to me that just means connected, connected to the vine and just flowing out of that relationship that you have mm-hmm. <affirmative> with God rather than flowing out of the natural stuff that you, that we’re also used to flowing from.
Speaker 2 00:19:51 Yeah. And I, I think, yeah. The idea of Paul saying you who are spiritual should restore, you know, is, is kind of this idea that now that you’ve gotten to this place of maturity mm-hmm. <affirmative> and have had life change, it’s almost, uh, a calling right? To now, you need to go help your brothers go, help other people go restore other people in a, in a gentle spirit, go love on them, be Jesus to them as Jesus came to you through another person, probably Right? As we go out there and we’re, we’re making disciples, sometimes the only Jesus people know are, are the people that are representing him. And that’s what it really means to be a Christian. Uh, Christian means little Christ. We’re going out there into the world, and those of us who are call themselves Christians, should go and help our brothers and sisters back onto, onto the right path.
Speaker 1 00:20:48 So guys, is there a temptation for someone who’s getting to the end of the steps? Is there a temptation for people to say, you know, thank you aa, thank you, God, thank you, Jesus, but I want to be done with this. I don’t really want to run in, in these circles anymore. I don’t, I don’t want the label. I don’t, I don’t need the label. I’m over it. I’m good. Are there people that would sometimes say that just, just to say, I just want to be out away from this world and just live, like you said, Eric, live like a normal person now. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I’m not a recovering addict, I’m just a normal, I just wanna live a normal life.
Speaker 2 00:21:26 Yeah. I did that. I mean, after a couple of years of being clean and, and, and going through some of this stuff and then, you know, kinda moving on and getting into, you know, serving and living this stuff, stuff out. Um, except for, um, doing it in a different way, I, I thought to myself, yeah, you know, my story is just a little bit maybe too radical or extreme. The world might not be able to handle it or people might not be able to to hear it. And, and so I’d like to explore, you know, that, you know, getting rid of that part of my life and kind of starting over new, and, you know, and, and I remember, um, you know, I think it was for a year or two, I didn’t have anything to do with recovery. And I remember it was, it was just like this, this internal struggle and pain that I was in.
Speaker 2 00:22:23 It was like, I, I knew God was wanting me to do something with my story, but I didn’t want to. And it, and it was almost like I w he was, he was, you know, causing me to suffer until I would, um, seek what he wanted for me to do. And, and that was when, like what I said earlier is we started these recovery groups and, and started going through these lessons, uh, in a biblical way. When I surrendered to that, finally I was like, okay, I guess I can’t get out of it. <laugh>, I guess I can’t escape my past. And, um, now I realize that my past is not mine to even escape. You know, I think it’s, this is, if I believe that God was, you know, in a, a lot of that and he was, he was sovereign and all of that, then what am I doing when I try to forget it and, and just kind of shove it under the rug and, and worry about people hearing about my story?
Speaker 2 00:23:23 I’m basically stealing God’s glory. Hmm. You know, because you read these stories in the Bible, like, there is not a single normal person in the Bible. I mean, honestly, every story is like this extreme radical God performing miracles changing people. I mean, I don’t know if you know any of normal stories in the Bible, but I mean, when I read that thing, it’s like, oh my gosh, this is us. You know, like mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, and so those stories were written why to Glorify God and to show how powerful he is. And so I think our stories too then are, are similar, not the same thing as the word of God, but similar in the fact, in, in the sense that God is still working today, miracles out in people’s lives, and we are walking witnesses of the power and glory of God. And so when I, again, like you keep saying, Brian, I’m making it about me, my insecurities, you know, the things that, the things that I did, I don’t want other people to know, and I just, I want to be done with it. Um, that’s, that’s a selfish way of thinking. Again, we gotta change our mind and go back to how is my life gonna glorify God and not myself?
Speaker 1 00:24:36 Second Corinthians one says, says it like this, verse three and four, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort. Now, pay attention to that word comfort, cuz you’re gonna hear it a lot here, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Now, nothing like the extra spiritual version there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I’m sure the NLT said it a little bit better than that, but <laugh>, this was a good translation. It, you know, that’s, that’s what he, that’s what Paul’s saying there, is that God gave you, I mean, really, if you read between the lines, you get, you were given your affliction so that you could be comforted by God so that you could comfort someone else with the comfort that came from God. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So the comfort that you got, you get to pass on to the next person.
Speaker 3 00:25:34 Yeah. And I think, you know, you’re, you’re talking about the, the temptation to, to just be done, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I think almost everybody who goes through these steps, how’s that temptation? And when you read these verses right here, man, it should take us right back to remembering where he has comforted us, where he has rescued us from. And that right there, I mean that, how could we not want to help offer that to other people mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and, and that that’s really the beauty of it. He did, he did it for a purpose. And, you know, when we were talking earlier about, you know, w would you, would you wish that you’d never, you know, had this addiction or something? And I, you know, there, there are things that I wish I hadn’t had to go through mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but I wouldn’t, I, I would rather be nowhere else than I am right now.
Speaker 3 00:26:34 And whatever God did to bring me here, I’m grateful for that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and, and yeah, this is, this is powerful. This is, this is now, it gives a purpose to what we’ve gone through. Just, just, um, being rescued from it and then trying to shove it in the past and forget about it. Well, what purpose does it serve? It’s, it’s nothing. It, it, it served no purpose. Now it can serve a purpose. Like, like Eric, you were talking about earlier. God works everything for good, for those who love him. You know, it says in in his word, and this is one of those things, he will use this for good. And it doesn’t have to be a waste. So we shouldn’t waste it. And if we don’t take this out and use it, if we don’t do step 12, go out and comfort people offer, offer, you know, the way that we’ve been helped offer that to other, other people, man, then we’re, we’re wasting it. We’re wasting what we’ve
Speaker 1 00:27:28 Been given. That’s a good, that’s a great word. Don’t waste your addiction. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, you, you, it is a waste. It was just, it was just wasted on you if you don’t, if you don’t help someone else to experience the recovery that you’ve experienced. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:27:43 <affirmative>. Yeah. It’s also a humbling thing too. It’s, you know, rem when you’re sharing your story a lot, you remember where you came from, so then the glory goes back to God and not yourself. Because that’s one of humans’ biggest problem, especially addicts, is pride. You know, you start to all of a sudden, you know, uh, get some success and get some blessing from God, and, uh, things are going well for you. And, and the natural response is to say, man, I got this thing licked. I’ve done a great job. I’m an awesome person, man. I am gifted. I have all these talents. I don’t know why people wouldn’t want to, you know, listen to me. Right? And, and, and that’s what will happen. I, I promise you, because I’ve had those thoughts in my mind, and I’ll just be honest, is, is that if I start to forget where I came from and all that God did in my life, then I start to again, go back to the selfish way of thinking, thinking that somehow I got myself out of this. Right. Like, and, you know, wanting to put on a, a fake face for everyone else. And so we need to share our stories to help other people and to also remember where we came from too.
Speaker 3 00:28:58 Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:28:59 <affirmative>. Now you say, the last thing you say here in this topic, Eric, is that the last step is really the first step back to the beginning, but with a new perspective. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 00:29:10 Well, because this is something people will always say, well, where do we go from here? You know, we is is after I go through the 12 step, is it done? Like, do I get to graduate and, and not do anything, not go to groups, not be accountable to anyone anymore. And I say, no, no, I’m sorry. You know, I’m sorry, but you’re now on a new trajectory in life now. Um, take all the things that you just learned and go back through ’em again with another person. Hmm. You know, take someone else through it with you, because it’s kind of like reading the Bible. You know, you, every time you read through it, you, you glean something new. You get something that you never had before. Right? And so, again, um, trying to go back and practice all these principles in your own life, um, and then being reminded of, you know, how you answered these questions. And when you take another person through it, you can help them by sharing your story all over again. Taking someone else through it, um, is going to be, um, what we say we used to say is, we mature by helping others. If you want to keep growing, you’ve gotta help other people and help them the same way that you were helped. So if you were helped by these 12 subs, take ’em back through it, right?
Speaker 1 00:30:31 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, Jesus said it like this, but we gotta, we gotta end on this verse when we’re talking about step 12, it really kind of comes all the way back to Matthew 20 eight’s called the Great Commission. When Jesus Co mission means He, he wants us to go on mission with him co mission. And he says in verse 18 of Matthew 28, all authority in heaven on Earth has been given to me. And then in verse 19, he says, therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, son, holy Spirit. And teaching them to observe all the commandments that I’ve given you. And behold, I’m with you always to the end of the age. I love that passage. We could spend the next hour talking about it. But first thing that jumps out at me is he said, he says, the reason I want you to go is because I have authority.
Speaker 1 00:31:17 So he’s, it’s not an option. He’s saying, go do it. If you’re my follower, go make disciples. And, and what is, what does it mean to make a disciple? It means to teach them to observe everything I’ve commanded you. So, like you said, right, Eric, everything you’ve learned, every all the tools and tricks and tips that you’ve learned over these 12 lessons, go teach it to somebody else. And then I, I can almost see the disciples, cuz remember they were just fishermen and tax collectors. They were just normal guys. Right. We’ve talked a lot about normal guys here today. They were just normal guys. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and nothing special about ’em. No special training, no special qualification. They weren’t Pharisees, they weren’t trained in the Torah, in the Old Testament law. You could, I could tell, I could just see it. If we could see the picture of this, I could see when Jesus is giving this commission to them, I could see them just saying like, what are you serious us?
Speaker 1 00:32:13 I could see probably fear, anxiety coming over their faces. Probably like some people today listening to this saying, I don’t know if I buy this one. I bought the first 11, but I don’t, I think I’m gonna return number 12. I don’t like this one. And that’s why I think Jesus ended in verse 20 with this. He says, behold, I’m with you always to the end of the age. Hmm. You, you know, you’ve had a spiritual awakening. Jesus is with you. You’re not going in your own strength. You’re not going in your own power. You’re not going with your own own comfort. You’re going because you’re, you’re going cuz Jesus said to, and you’re going with him, he’s going with you. He’s gonna be with you even as you go and help someone else.
Speaker 3 00:32:48 Yeah. And you’ve already seen at this point him working. You’ve already seen him rescuing you from, you know, traits and behaviors and fear and all these things that you were ruled by. So you, I mean, by the time you get to this step, you already see the miraculous work that he can do. And I think, you know, we talk, you, you were just talking about the disciples and what normal guys they were. Well, Peter, the fishermen, right? Who, like you said, he wasn’t a pharisee, he wasn’t this religious, uh, teacher. Uh, he goes, and in the book of Acts, he actually, he, he basically takes them through all of their scriptures and teaches them the gospel that was, that was, you know, wrapped through the whole story of the Bible mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I mean, that was for somebody untrained to be able to do that, to teach that.
Speaker 3 00:33:43 I mean, that, that’s the kind of stuff that God does mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I know I’ve seen him do it in my life. I know you’ve seen him do it in your life. I’m sure Eric and you, Brian, where it, you know, he will give you the words, he’ll speak through you. There are times where I, I, I didn’t have any knowledge of something that I was discussing with somebody. And somehow he, he was able to just give me the words to say, Hmm, I’ve seen it many, many times. And, and so that’s, that’s where this really is. It’s, he will be with us. Mm-hmm. He will. And we’ve already seen it, and he’s gonna continue to do it.
Speaker 2 00:34:19 Yeah. Let’s back up real quick. In Peter’s life, um, he’s such a great, um, example of probably a modern day addict. You know, he, he was zealous, he was passionate, he was bold. He was an extreme guy, but he was always up and down and up and down, right? He w he wanted to be committed and faithful. And he says, Lord, I would never, I would never desert you, even if all these other guys, if the, the the 11 desert, you, I’m not gonna do that. And, and what does he do? He, you know, he deserts Jesus and denies him three times as he got arrested. Uh, he was scared that he was gonna be harmed. And so he falls back and is, is, is acting and cowardice. And, and then when Jesus is resurrected, um, he, he, he comes and meets his disciples on the beach.
Speaker 2 00:35:07 And, and Peter decides, I’m just gonna go back to what I’m comfortable doing, what I know. Right? I’m gonna go back to the thing that I was doing before Jesus called me. And, and, and Jesus calls him and he says, Hey, you’re not catching any fish out there. He is like, why don’t you throw the net on the other side? And, and Peter’s like, well, hey man, I’m a fisherman. I’ve been doing this for a while, <laugh>, you know, I mean, if I the fisher, if they’re not on this side, they’re not on that side, right? And, and so Jesus says, no, throw the net on the other side. And Peter’s like, all right, I’ll do it. And, and they end up catching this huge catch, you know? And it’s like, it’s almost as if Jesus is saying, I control those fish. You know, I, I’m the one who has power over everything.
Speaker 2 00:35:54 And I told you that you are gonna be a fisher for of men. When I first called you, I told you that I was gonna change your life. You’re, you’re trying to go back to the old way of living. But here I am now, come and sit down and eat with me. And then he, he restores him by saying, do you love me? And he says it three times to try to, to, to offset the three times that he, that he denied him. And he says, do you love me? Okay, then go feed my sheep. You know? And so then I, I believe Peter, you know, was able after that to, after he was restored by Jesus, by the grace and love of God, like to know, all right, I know my purpose now. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> like he’s, he’s taught me for three years and I’ve, I’ve stumbled and I’ve fallen back time and time again, but I know what I’m gonna do.
Speaker 2 00:36:42 So much so that I’m willing to go die for, um, telling this message that he wants me to tell to the ends of the earth, to go make disciples, to be fishers of men. And he’s such Peter’s, such the, you know, such a great example that I, I feel like I can, I can relate to him out of everyone in the Bible mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, because he had this zeal and passion to go and he, he changed and he was radical. And like you said, he preached the sermons and he was basically the leader of the disciples. Mm-hmm. You know, when he went on. And, um, God used a broken man to go do great things. And it’s because Peter was willing to take this great commission seriously. And so for us as addicts, um, and this is, this is what I’m gonna say, like, don’t have a peter moment and go fall back into what you used to do using, or or another way of life, a selfish way of life, because you’re, you’re fearful.
Speaker 2 00:37:37 I mean, so many times people get to this step, or even in Christianity when you’re called to make disciples, it’s like, ah, I don’t know if that’s my purpose. I mean, that’s like the pastor’s purpose, you know, that, that like the, the holy people’s purpose, that’s their purpose. But for me, no, I’m, I’m supposed to, you know, I look out to the world and I’m supposed to have the white picket fence and have all the items and the, you know, the house and the, the, the family and just, that’s what I, that’s what people start to idolize, you know? And, but the Bible says, you know, I know all the things that you need. Seek first the kingdom of God, and I’ll add these things to you. And so he’s calling not just addicts, but everybody to a radical mindset of, will we be kingdom minded and trust that God along the way will give us that abundant life.
Speaker 2 00:38:27 But first, and this is what I tell addicts all the time. Like, they, we get to this step and they’re like, okay, we’ve had some clean time. We don’t need to come to groups so much anymore. And, and you know what I usually see, it’s like almost every one of those people ends up relapsing again. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And this right here is, is really the, the way to not relapse. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. It’s, if you start going and helping other people and, and living out that commandment that Jesus gave every one of his followers, um, he will do a work in you that, that he had never done before. Because that is the purpose in which you can’t have, um, continuous power flowing into you and not have it being poured out into other people. Like we are a vessel, we’re a conduit. And so God promises to pour into us as we pour into other people.
Speaker 2 00:39:26 Somebody gave me this amazing analogy about the Dead Sea. Um, he said, somebody said that there is a, there’s another bo body of water in Israel that’s like, um, is it the Sea of Galilee? The Sea of Galilee in the Dead Sea actually come from the same, uh, source of water. So why is the Sea of Galilee so rich full of fish and life and all that, the, you know, the same place where Peter was gonna catch that big catch. And the Dead Sea basically has no life in it. It’s because the Sea of Galilee has it, it has, it flows out, it has water coming in, and it has water coming out, and it’s a continuously fresh body of water. But the Dead Sea, it ends there and nothing comes out of it. And so for us, do we wanna be the Dead Sea or do we want to be the fresh sea, the, the, the sea that has life and, and, and growing in it and able to supply the needs of other people? Like do we want to be that or do we want to become the salty dead sea that has nothing in it? We’ve gotta be pouring into other people if we want to be healthy
Speaker 1 00:40:38 <laugh>. That’s good. Mark, let’s finish by reading step 12 one more time.
Speaker 3 00:40:44 Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Speaker 1 00:40:53 So find all of these conversations, all 12 steps [email protected] slash recovery. Use it in your recovery group. Use it one-on-one to disciple somebody. You can find all these podcasts there. You can find some videos to go along with it, discussion questions. It’s all there. And so much more at pursue god.org/recovery.