“The Road to Recovery”
Part 1 - “The First Step to Freedom”
Texts: Matthew 5:3; Isaiah 57:14-19; Romans 7:14-25
Thesis:
All of us are broken by sin and unable to heal ourselves. Only when we
realize we are powerless over sin, can we humbly receive God’s healing
grace and begin the process of recovery.
A father was trying to take a Sunday afternoon nap in his living room but his little boy
kept bugging him – “Daddy, I’m bored.” So his father, trying to make up a game,
found a picture of the world in the newspaper. He cut it up in about fifty pieces and
said, “Son this is a puzzle. I want you to put it all back together.” He laid down to
finish his nap. In about 15 minutes the little boy woke him up – “Daddy, I’m done. It’s
all put together.” “You’re kidding.” He knew his son didn’t know all the positions of the
continents and nations so he said, “How did you do that?” The boy replied, “Dad,
there was a picture of a person on the back page and when I got my person put
together the world looked just fine.” [More Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks, pp.66-67]
This morning I’m starting a series based on The Celebrate Recovery program called
“The Road to Recovery.” It works to help you put your person – your self – back
together. It’s amazing how much better the world looks when you are whole yourself.
So I’m going to be talking about how to handle and overcome the hurts, the habits,
and the hang-ups that are keeping you from being the whole person God has created
and redeemed.
God spoke through the prophet Isaiah to the people – “I have seen what they do, but I
will heal them anyway! I will lead them. I will comfort them. I offer peace to all near
and far.” (57:18-19a, NLT) In this wonderful promise from God there are 5 parts to
the recovery that God wants for your life. First, if you have been hurt, God says “I
want to heal you.” If you’re confused, “I want to lead you.” If you’ve ever felt you
were helpless to change anything, “I want to help you change that.” If you’ve ever felt
no one understands your problem, “I want to comfort you.” If you feel anxious and
worried and afraid, “I want to offer you peace.”
Friends, we live in an imperfect world with imperfect people. The Bible says, “All have
sinned.” That means, we’re all broken. We’ve all hurt ourselves and one another.
So, this series is for everyone. Everyone here needs recovery, unless you’ve lived a
perfect life. But if you’re like me – an imperfect sinner – if you’ve ever been hurt, if
you’ve ever had a hang-up or habit you’d like to get rid of, you need recovery. What
do you need recovery from? Take a look at the list in the insert – and I’m sure there
are others. The good news is that regardless of the problem you struggle with, the
process of recovery is always the same.
The principles for recovery are found in the Bible. In 1935 two men formulated, based
on scripture, what are now known as the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. These
12 steps are used by hundreds of other recovery groups. Millions of Americans are in
a recovery group every week. Celebrate Recovery incorporates the 12 steps into 8
principles based on the Beatitudes in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. These principles
are summarized in the word, R.E.C.O.V.E.R.Y. We’ll take a letter each week and
look at eight steps on the road to recovery. I’ll begin this fall with the first 4 and
complete the process in the winter.
The “R” in RECOVERY stands for REALIZE. I need to realize I’m not God – I admit I
am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong things and my life is
unmanageable. Do you ever stay up late when you know you need sleep? Do you
ever eat or drink more than your body needs? Do you ever feel you ought to exercise
but you don’t? Do you ever know the right thing to do, but you don’t do it? Do you
ever know something is wrong, but you do it anyway? Have you ever tried to control
somebody or something and found it was uncontrollable? If your answer is yes to any
of those questions, welcome to the human race – We’re all in need of recovery.
Scripture says the cause of our problem is our sinful nature. Our sinful nature gets
you and me in all kinds of trouble. I do things that aren’t good for me even when they
hurt me. And I don’t do things that are good for me. I respond the wrong way when
I’m hurt and it just increases the hurt, rather than lessening it. I try to fix problems and
often when I fix them they are worse than they were when I started.
We will always have this sinful nature with us, even after we have become a Christian.
Paul understood this. In Romans 7 he said, “I don’t understand myself at all. For I
really want to do what’s right, but I can’t. I do what I don’t want to do but what I hate.
I know perfectly well that what I’m doing is wrong, but I can’t help myself. It’s sin
inside me that’s stronger than I am, that makes me do those evil things.” (Vv. 15-17)
So, the first step to recovery is you must understand the cause of this problem, then
the consequences of the problem, then the cure.
Now, I’ve already said the cause of all my problems is my sinful nature but there’s
another way to put it – I want to be like God. We say, “I don’t want anybody telling me
what’s right and what’s wrong, I want to decide what’s right and what’s wrong. I want
to be my own boss, live my own way. I don’t want anybody telling me what to do with
my life.” That’s called playing God. What it says is, “I want control.” And the more
insecure you are, the more you’re driven to control.
This is humanity’s oldest problem. In the beginning, God put Adam and Eve in
Paradise and they tried to control it. God said “You can do anything you want to in
this wonderful Paradise except one thing: Don’t eat from this certain tree.” The
Tempter said, “Eat this apple (or whatever it was) and you will be like god.” What did
they do? They ate the fruit of that tree. That’s been the problem from the very start.
I want to be God. I want to run my own life. I want to be in control.
So, how do we play God? By denying our humanity and by trying to control
everything for selfish reasons. Control is the real issue. Specifically, we try to
control 4 things. First, we try to control our image. I want to control what other
people think of me. I don’t want other people to really know what I’m really like. So,
we play games, we wear masks, we pretend. We want people to only see certain
sides of us and we hide the other parts. That means we deny our weaknesses and
our feelings. I’m not angry – I’m not upset – I’m not worried – I’m not afraid – I’m not
sad. We don’t want people to see the real us. They might not like us. So we try to
hide and control our image.
Next, we try to control other people. Parents try to control kids; kids try to control
parents. Wives try to control husbands; husbands try to control wives. People try to
control other people. There are politics at work and even in the church. We use a lot
of tools to manipulate each other. We use guilt or fear. We use praise. Some use
the silent treatment and others use rage to control. We try to control people.
Third, we try to control our problems. We use phrases like: “I can handle it, it’s not
really a problem.” That’s somebody trying to play God. We control our problems. I
don’t need any help and I certainly don’t need counseling. I can quit any time. I’ll
work it out on my own. But, the more you try to fix your problem yourself, the worse it
gets.
Finally, we try to control our pain. We spend a lot of time and energy running from
pain – trying to avoid it, deny it, escape it. People try to escape it many different
ways. Sometimes we try to escape our pain by eating or not eating. We try to
escape our pain by getting drunk or by smoking or by taking drugs. We try to escape
our pain by getting in and out of relationships. Or you develop some kind of
compulsive habit to try to control your pain – I have to watch how I use computer
games. Or you become abusive and you get angry with other people or critical and
judgmental to hide your pain. Or you get depressed. There are many, many ways
we try to control our pain. Pain comes when we realize in our quiet moments we’re
not God and we can’t control everything and that’s scary.
The first step to recovery is to realize that we’re not God – we’re not in control. We’re
not going to get well on our own. Face it – don’t deny it.
So, what are the consequences of trying to play God? First, fear. When I try to
control everything I get afraid. Adam said, “I was afraid, because I was naked and so
I hid.” We are afraid somebody’s going to find out who we really are, that we really
don’t have it all together, we’re not perfect. So I don’t want to let anybody get real
close to me because they’ll find out I’m scared inside.
Second, frustration. It’s frustrating trying to run the universe. It reminds me of one of
the games I liked to play at Kennywood – “Whack a Mole.” These things keep
sticking up and you hit them with the mallet. The moment you hit one down another
pops up. That’s life. We whack down one compulsion and another one pops up.
We whack down one problem and another one comes up. It’s so frustrating because
you can’t get them all knocked down at the same time. Paul realized this. “It seems to
be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.
Something else deep within me... is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes
me a slave to sin.” If you’re frustrated, it is a symptom of a deeper problem that you
have not dealt with. The root issue is – You’re not God. You’re trying to control
everything and it doesn’t work.
Third, fatigue. It’s tiring playing God – trying to control everything, pretending you’ve
got it all together. Denial takes a lot of energy. In Psalm 32, David said: “My
strength evaporated like water on a sunny day until I finally admitted all my sins to you
and stopped trying to hide them.” Most people try to hide their pain and run from the
pain by keeping busy. You work yourself to death at work. Or you get some hobby
or sport and it becomes a compulsion. Or you get involved in religious activities –
church activity can hide your pain. If you’re in a constant state of fatigue, always
worn out, ask yourself, “What pain am I running from? What problem do I not want to
face up to that motivates and drives me to work so that I’m constantly tired?”
Finally, there’s failure. When you try to play God you’re guaranteed to fail. Proverbs
28:13 (GNB) “You’ll never succeed in life if you try to hide your sins. Confess them.
Give them up. Then God will show mercy to you.” You need to be honest and open
about your weaknesses and your faults and failures. Here at Apollo we’re working to
become a safe place where we can talk about real problems, real hurts, real hang-ups,
real habits, and not face judgment. We are a family of fellow strugglers. There’s not
a person in this room that has it all together. One of the hopes I have as we explore
this recovery process is how we can be a support to one another as we look at our
faults and failures.
The first step on the road to recovery is to admit my powerlessness. The Bible says
that in admitting my weakness I find strength. This is not a popular idea in
self-sufficient American culture which says; raise yourself up by your own bootstraps;
be independent; be a Lone Ranger. But this is the essential first step to healing.
Admit you’re powerless to do it on your own. You need other people and you need
God.
Admitting I’m not God means recognizing three important facts of life – and this is the
first step to growth and maturity. I admit that I am powerless to change my past. It
hurt. I still remember it. But all the resentment in the world isn’t going to change it.
Next, I admit that I am powerless to control other people. I try to get them to do it my
way. I use all kinds of little gimmicks, but it doesn’t work. I am responsible for my
actions, not theirs. Finally, I admit that I am powerless to cope with my harmful habits
and behaviors. Good intentions are not enough. Will power is not enough. We
need something more than will power. We need a source of power beyond ourselves.
We need God.
James says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (4:6) Grace is
the power to change. Grace is the power God gives to make the changes in my life
that I want to make and God wants me to make. For you to recover from the hurts,
hang-ups, and hassles in your life, you need God’s grace. How do you get it? Only
one way – humbly admitting you need it and humbly receiving it.
This morning I invite you to ask yourself – what needs changing in my life? What hurt
or hang-up or habit have I been trying to ignore? For many this step will be the
hardest.
I pray that you won’t deny the problem. “My problem is not that bad.” That’s called
denial. How bad does it have to get before you admit that you need some help?
How bad does that hurt, that relationship, that pain, that problem, that memory have to
get before you admit that you need help? Unfortunately it is human nature, that we
rarely change until our pain becomes greater than the fear of change. We don’t
change when we still believe we can control things. We change when we feel the
heat –
the marriage starts falling apart or the kids start going off the wrong way or you have a
health scare. Save yourself some pain – start your recovery now. Someone has
said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, but God shouts to us in our pain.” Pain is
God’s megaphone. How’s your pain level? It’s a warning light. Pay attention.
Maybe you’re saying – “That’s fine, but I can solve my problems; this series on
recovery is for somebody else.” That’s also denial. Unless you’ve had a perfect life,
there are some things you need to deal with. Perhaps you’re already working on your
own issues. Wonderful! Celebrate Recovery can support that process. But, unless
God is at the center of the process, it will fail. You can’t be healed until you face your
faults and admit – I’m powerless.
Friends, whatever your hurts or habits or hang-ups, God wants to heal you. I know –
I’ve been working the process since July. Join me in this healing process. Join me
on the road to recovery. Amen
[modified from Rick Warren sermon in Celebrate Recovery materials]