Twelve Steps To Recovery Part 5
Scripture: Hosea 11:8-11; Amos 7:7-8; John 8:3-11
Introduction
To date in this series we have discussed the first four steps in the twelve step process. We began by admitting that we were powerless over our dependencies and that there was a God greater than ourselves who could restore us to sanity. After reaching that point, in step three we made the decision to turn our lives over to the care of God, a conscious choice that was made freely. In our last step, step four, we took a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. I hope that each of you are being active participates in each of these steps. As we continue working our way through these twelve steps, I want to remind you that this is an individual process that each person must go through on their own. I cannot sit back and evaluate you and tell you what you must do, this is for you to decide. As we move on to step five it is time to begin making our confessions to God. Also in step five, you should shared your addictions (or bad habits if that’s how you refer to them) with someone you know and trust – I will explain why later. In my previous message I told you the story of the Jewish nation returning from exile and how they took their own inventory of their lives? They confessed to God and each other their sins and together made plans that led towards their restoration. This is where we are today.
I. God’s Unending Love Give Us Courage To Confess
Confession, especially as it pertains to our addictions, is hard. As a matter of fact, it is so hard that when we seek out help we tell the person just to pray for us, for our strength to overcome without sharing exactly what we are dealing with. To complicate this further, we are so ashamed of what we are dealing with that we do not want anyone to know – so we suffer alone without support. Why are we so hesitant to confess to one another what we are dealing with? Why do we get so nervous at the very thought of “sharing our business?” As long as I can deal with my business privately I do not have to worry about what someone else may think about me. My reputation is critical to who I am so I cannot risk messing it up. Consider this story that I heard a comic tell. “There was a man on his death bed that called his wife to his side. He knew he was dying and he needed to confess. When his wife got to his side, he told her, ‘Sweetheart, I need to confess to you. I have not been faithful to you. I needed to confess that before I died.’ His loving wife looked at him and said, ‘Baby, I know you have not been faithful to me and that is why I poisoned you.” This is the root cause of why we are not willing to confide in one another. The fallout could be a lot worse than the confession itself. This, however, is not the case with everyone you confide in so you must choose the person carefully. It is also important to note that this is not true at all with God. God will not condemn you when you come to Him confessing your addictions, He does the opposite. He scoops us up in His arms, reassures us that we are going to be fine and then proceeds to help us work through them. Consider the following story of His love:
“How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned over within Me, all My compassions are kindled. I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst and I will not come in wrath. They will walk after the Lord, He will roar like a lion; indeed He will roar and His sons will come trembling from the west. They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria; and I will settle them in their houses, declares the Lord.” Hosea 11:8-11
In these verses we find God reaching out to Israel. Although they deserved His wrath, God made the decision that He would not deliver it. God wanted them to understand that He was the God of unending love. To prove that point, He calls on His prophet Hosea. Hosea was a prophet during the time Israel was rebelling against God. God used Hosea’s life to demonstrate His unconditional love for us and His people. If you go back to the beginning of this book, you will find that God told Hosea to marry a prostitute. Unlike us, who would question whether or not we were really hearing from God, Hosea did it. Hosea married her, loved her and devoted himself to her. Now understand this, because God was proving a point to Israel through Hosea’s life, both God and Hosea knew up front that his wife would not be faithful to him. Sure enough, after she had borne him 3 children, she went back to prostitution and in time became enslaved, no longer a free woman. In response to God’s command, Hosea then redeemed his wife from slavery and restored her to the family. God intended this demonstration of unconditional love to be a symbol of His own love for the people of Israel. As in the verses we read, God is reaching back out to Israel, ready to restore her to His family.
We may be sorely aware of the deep shame, trouble and pain that we have inflicted on our family when we were controlled by our addiction. Hosea understood this also. He was a prophet in Israel when he married the prostitute and he was still a prophet when she went back to prostitution. Can you imagine how he looked to those around him? He could have refused to take her back, to forgive her, to restore her, but he followed God’s plan. We may be afraid to admit the exact nature of our wrongs because we don’t understand how God could love someone who is so bad, but God does. He is not like we are. If we are asking how God could love us, read the first part of verse eight of chapter eleven. It says “How can I give you up……” God is not looking for a reason to come down on us; He is asking us the same question He asked Israel – “How can He give us up.” Imagine being in a love relationship where the one you love asks you “How can I give you up?” after you have done something horrible to them. Can you feel the love that would flow from your heart towards them? This is what God is constantly asking us even though Satan is telling us that God has no reason whatsoever to forgive us. There is absolutely nothing we can do or confess to God that would cause Him to stop loving us.
II. The Plumb Line
When I was younger, I worked in construction off and on during the summer with my grandfather. My grandfather was a carpenter, mason, electrician, plumber, a “jack of all trades” of which some he mastered. Anyway, I remember one house we were working on and were building the foundation. My grandfather would take a string and tie it from one end to the next creating a straight line. Based on the line created by this string, he would begin building the wall. That string ensured that the wall was straight. I was amazed at how he did that and knew it was a gift from God since he never finished high school. Through out the building of the wall with the line in place, he would hold up a leveler to ensure that everything was where it was supposed to be. His string gave him the guide that he needed to make sure the walls were straight. Well, in step four we were supposed to do some soul searching – evaluating our morals. In taking this inventory, the problem that often arises is that depending on what standard we use, we may or may not confess (or bring to the surface) everything that is hidden within us. The kinds of instruments we use to measure our life will often determine the kinds of problems we uncover. If we use faulty guidelines, as in the world’s standard of right and wrong, we will not make accurate assessments of where we are. When our assessments are off, we will not be progressing through the recovery program as we should be. Let me give you an example from the Scriptures.
“Thus He showed me, and behold the Lord was standing by a vertical wall, with a plumb line in His hand. And the Lord said to me, ‘What do you see, Amos?’ And I said, ‘A plumb line.’ Then the Lord said, ‘behold I am about to put a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel. I will spare them no longer.” Amos 7:7-8
This is what the prophet Amos recorded in his vision, God was getting ready to test His people according to His plumb line. As with my grandfather’s use of the string, a plumb line was a length of string that has a weight tied to one end. When the string is held up with the weighted end hanging down, gravity ensures that the string is perfectly vertical. When held next to a building, the plumb line provides a sure measurement by which to check whether or not the structure is “in line” with the physical universe. A building in line with the plumb line will be sturdy and function well. If the building’s walls are out of line, they are not straight and will eventually collapse. The same holds true in the spiritual realm as we see in Amos’ vision. If we are not using God’s plumb line, His Word, to determine what we should be removing from our lives, we could leave some very serious addictions hidden, only to surface later alive and well. Just as we cannot argue with the law of gravity, we cannot change the spiritual laws revealed to us in God’s word. We should measure our life by the plumb line of God’s word. When we do that, we can be sure that our soul searching and subsequent confessions will cover what needs to be covered. It is crucial that we admit to God, ourselves and someone else the exact nature of our wrong. This can only be done when our wrongs are identified by God’s word and not that of this sinful world.
III. Don’t Let Shame Keep You In Bondage
I shared with you earlier that we often try and deal with our addictions alone, in private. We do this to save our reputations and to not endure any fallout that may come from our confessions. The problem is that when we are trying to deal with our addictions alone, it does not work. That is what we realize in the very first step, we cannot do it and we need God. The driving force behind our trying to handle our problems alone is shame.
Wednesday night at Bible study we had a conversation about shame. Shame is a very powerful force in our lives. Remember when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden and was walking around naked? They had no concept that they were naked until after they ate the forbidden fruit. It was only then that they tried to make something to cover their nakedness. We also talked about babies and their lack of shame. They have no problem walking around the house or anywhere else naked. Why? Because they have no shame. Shame is something that we learn as we get older. It would be perfectly fine for a baby to be changed or even naked in public. But let a grown man or woman change their underwear in public, they would be taken away for a mental evaluation. This is due to our sense of shame. Shame is a painful feeling of guilt for improper behavior. When we have done something that the world defines as improper or bad, there is a feeling of shame. The opposite is also true. In our world the standards have become so low that people today are not ashamed of a lot of things that they do versus 50 years ago. That is why we need to line up with God’s plumb line versus the standard that is set forth in the world. Let me share this with you about the world’s standard, just so you can see this clearly. The sensitivity around shame has gotten so bad that there are Christians who are “ashamed” of being called a Christian. Imagine that, a Christian being ashamed of being called a Christian. They are ashamed because of the so called “negative” impressions that Christians have these days. You see, there are Christians out there doing things that the world does not approve of – actually taking a stand against sin, so the world ridicules them. When the ridicule starts, other Christians distance themselves from the very title of Christian preferring the safety net of being “religious”. But let me return to how shame keeps us in our addictions.
It is this feeling of shame that causes us to stay in bondage to our addictions. We do not want our addictions becoming public and bring shame on us and those we love. Although this will be hard, the time has come for us to at least put the shame aside and come clean before God. God already knows about our addictions so it is okay to come clean before Him. Consider the following story from the book of John, the eight chapter.
“And the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery and having set her in the midst, they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?’ And they were saying this, testing Him, in order that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And again He stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And when they heard it, they began to go out, one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the midst. And straightening up, Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?’ And she said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go your way. From now on, sin no more.” John 8:3-11
I am sure that most of you have heard this story of the woman caught in adultery. Can you imagine how she felt, first being caught in the very act, and then being paraded through town by a group of men desiring to kill her for her actions? Her sins were now being displayed in public. Shame has kept many of us in hiding. The thought of admitting our sins and revealing ourselves to other human beings stirs up feelings of shame and the fear of being public exposed, just as this woman. We do not know what Jesus wrote on the ground, many believe that it was what He wrote that made the accusers leave. Some have theorized that He wrote down some of the sins of those who were present condemning the woman. Whatever He wrote, what we find is that Jesus is someone we can safely bring our sins to. When the accusers had left, the woman was left alone in Jesus’ presence. Jesus told her that He would not condemn her but that she should go and sin no more. It was legally right for this woman to be stoned for her sin, but Jesus pardoned her just as He pardons us when we repent. Jesus is not waiting to condemn us, but to forgive us. When we choose to confess our sins to another individual that we trust, this individual should be someone who is not “surprised” by sin and will not be waiting to condemn us. We have all had experience with or known someone who was “surprised” by someone else’s sin. They usually make remarks like “Why, I’ve never heard of such….Oh my God, how could they?” These individuals may not be the best choice. But if we truly find someone who understands how Jesus handled sin, that person would not “support” us in the sin, but would be an encourager of us coming out of the sin while not condemning us during the process. Shame can trigger addictive behavior and we need to be careful about whom we choose to confide in, beside Christ.
Conclusion To Step Five
I am sure many of you are thinking that there is no one on the face of this earth that you would want to confess your sins to, let alone your real addictions and I understand that completely. But in order to fulfill step five and start walking towards that recovery that we so desperately need, we must do this. Start off by confessing to Christ. Get it all out with Him, being totally transparent. Then pray and ask God to show you the person that you can confide in that will support you through overcoming the addiction without condemning you. If we are continually faced with condemnation, we will choose to keep our addictions private and live the life that is “acceptable” to those around us. God does not want us living in bondage; that is why He sent His Son to free us. There is freedom that comes when our addictions are released. Once you have at least confessed them to Christ and exposed what was hidden, you can move towards step six; having God remove all of our defects of characters?
May God continue to bless you.
