The Reality Choice
by Beverly Marshall-Goodell
Romans 7:14-20
July 12, 2015
We are not God.
We may wish we were God;, we may think we can save ourselves,
but we aren’t and we can’t.
Do you ever stay up late when you know you need to sleep?
Do you ever eat more than your body really needs?
Do you ever feel you ought to exercise, but you don’t?
Do you ever know something is wrong, but you do it anyway?
Well, then you qualify as a member of the human race.
One cause of the problems we human beings encounter
is our tendency to do wrong.
Another is our desire to be God.
The Apostle Paul understood this problem with our sinful nature.
Please follow along on the screen as we hear from Romans 7:14-20.
Scripture-Romans 7:14-20
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand
what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want
to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in
me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the
desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the
evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no
longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
Prayer
Holy God, we want to make the first right choice for healing and spiritual health today.
We realize that we are not you, yet we try to control our problems, our pain, our image,
and even other people.
Forgive us, we pray, and help us gather up the pieces of our broken lives
and let you begin the process of mending us. Amen.
Message
Joe grew up with an alcoholic mother who struggled with bipolar disorder.
His family moved around a lot, because his mom was married five times,
and she had numerous boyfriends.
They got by on welfare and food stamps.
When Joe was fourteen years old, his little sister drowned.
That was the day Joe started using alcohol and drugs to deal with his emotional pain.
He joined the navy after high school, but he continued to party every night,
went AWOL for six months, and received an “other than honorable” discharge.
His life was in a downward spiral for the next few years.
He was involved with drugs, sex, lying, cheating and stealing.
Joe knew he was in trouble, and he even visited church that specialized in
reaching people with substance abuse problems,
but he continued to use the drugs, and even attended worship while he was high.
It was not until Joe developed a lump on his neck and learned he had Hodgkin’s disease,
a kind of cancer, that he finally hit rock bottom.
-1-
The Reality Choice
by Beverly Marshall-Goodell
Romans 7:14-20
July 12, 2015
Only then was he ready to make the first healing choice.
In twelve-step programs, the first step says,
“We admitted we were powerless over our addiction;
that our lives had become unmanageable. .”
This is what we will call the Reality Choice.
It is only when we realize that we are not God, and admit that we need God,
that any of us is able to begin to heal from what sins overwhelm us.
You may not be addicted to drugs to alcohol.
You may not have turned to a life of crime to support your sinful habits,
but all of us must eventually face the consequences of our sinful human nature.
For most of us, the real cause of our problems is our human nature.
We are self-centered, and we willfully choose things that aren’t good for us.
Even after we have asked Christ into our lives,
we can’t trust our human nature to lead us out of our problems.
As long as we persist in our desire to be God, we will continue to make poor choices.
Trying to be God was the sin of Adam and Eve, and today people still want to be God.
The first step in AA is always the hardest, and the same is true for the first healthy choice.
Until we recognize that we are not God,
we will continue to suffer the consequences of our poor choices.
This brings us back to the beatitudes from Jesus’ sermon on the mount
that I introduced last week.
You may have heard it as:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” or “Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor.”
Admitting our need for God is what it means to be spiritually poor.
As long as we continue to play God by striving to control everything ourselves,
we will end up facing the consequences the four consequences of our problems.
Those consequences are: fear, frustration, fatigue, and failure.
Let’s look at each of these consequences in sequence.
The first consequence of playing God is fear.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam said to God, “I was afraid because I was naked, so I did.
When we play God, we become afraid someone will find out who we really are.
We don’t let anyone get close to us, because we fear they will reject us.
We believe others will only like the false image we project,
and not accept that we are not perfect.
We think we are not lovable as we are, as God created us.
We refuse to accept that we don’t need to be perfect for God to care about us.
So we hide in various ways.
We make excuses for our sins and misbehaviors.
“I need the drugs or alcohol to relax.”
“The company doesn’t pay me enough so it is okay to steal from them.”
We allow ourselves to be defined by our sins.
“That’s just the way I talk. Everyone knows I don’t mean anything by it.”
“I need to eat this to keep up my strength.”
-2-
The Reality Choice
by Beverly Marshall-Goodell
Romans 7:14-20
July 12, 2015
The second consequence of playing God is frustration.
Have you ever seen the game called Wacka Wacka?
You use a big mallet to beat down these moles that pop up.
When you whack down one, three pop up.
When you whack those down, five more pop up.
The game is a parable for life.
When you whack down one addiction or compulsion, another one pops up.
It is frustrating that you can’t get them all knocked down at once.
When you pretend you are God, you pretend you can handle your problems on your own.
In Romans 7:23 the Apostle Paul wrote these words about his frustration:
“…I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind,
making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”
The third consequence of playing God is fatigue.
Denial requires a tremendous amount of emotional energy, yet it is common stage of grief.
Likewise over involvement in our hobbies can become just as addicting as drugs.
If you are in a constant state of fatigue, you might ask yourself,
“What pain am I running from or what problem am I afraid to face?”
Finally, playing God is one job where failure is guaranteed.
Proverbs 28:13 tells us, “No one who conceals transgressions will prosper,
But one who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”
We need to honest and open about our weaknesses and fault.
So, what is the cure for our problems?
The cure comes from admitting weakness with a humble heart.
The first step in overcoming our hurts is to admit we are powerless to change the past.
The first step to overcoming our hang-ups is to admit we are powerless to control others.
The first step to overcoming our bad habits is to admit we are powerless to cope with them
on our own.
We all need a source of power beyond ourselves, and that power is God.
God’s grace has the power to heal us, enabling us to change,
but our pride can get in the way of accepting the help God wants to provide.
Choosing to admit we can’t save our ourselves, is humbling, but necessary,
if we are to receive the transformation God is offering us.
The allure of sin is powerful.
Whether you are seeking to let go of a someone else’s hurtful words,
your own poor self-image, or habits you recognize as sinful,
you cannot expect to do it alone.
Let God be God for you.
Prayer
Almighty God, we realize that we need your help if our future is to be better than our past.
We have tried and failed to control our pain, our image, and even other people.
Today, we humbly ask for you to take all the pieces of our unmanageable lives,
and being the process of healing.
Give us the strength to choose life and health instead of sin and death. Amen.
-3-
The Reality Choice
by Beverly Marshall-Goodell
Romans 7:14-20
July 12, 2015
Benediction
We are not God.
Pretending we can cure our own sins and heal ourselves, will never work.
May we go forth this day, admitting our need for God in Christ to save us. Amen.
-4-