It was either the spring of 1968 or 1969 because at the time my mom was teaching kindergarten at a church about a half-mile from our home for two years before it went into our public school system in 1970. But it was spring because it was also baseball season.
Now normally we would play either in my backyard or in the field behind a neighbor’s house (which was fenced off a few years ago by order of the EPA because it was the well field where the water pump stations were located for our section of the housing plat we lived in.) Rarely did we play baseball in the front yard because of the large picture window in the living room.
But that would change on this May afternoon. There were only two of us, my neighbor Frank and me, playing that afternoon. Frank was pitching and I was hitting.
A foul ball hit down the third base line went into the street. A hit directly over Frank’s head would go into my neighbor’s unfenced side yard. A fowl ball down the first base line went, well, toward the house… and the picture window.
I foul tipped one down the first base line and through the picture window that my mom was sitting in front of dressed up, reading the evening paper and getting ready for the kindergarten graduation ceremony that evening! She got a glass cut on her leg and I think the baseball hit the paper she was holding and landed on the floor in front of her.
You’re out! Ball game over! In the house I went. Waiting for my father to come home. I think that was the only time I remember her saying, ‘Wait till your father gets home!’ So I waited… under my bed… in fear and trembling.
I apologized for my actions and I was very humble when I did so because I knew that punishment and discipline would come quickly. I do not remember what the punishment and discipline was, but I am sure that it involved no more baseball in the front yard.
(Now I also broke a neighbor’s collarbone in what would be our last game of tackle football … but that is another story!)
(Slide 1) This morning we continue our study of 12 steps to God’s way of living with an examination of Step 7 – We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings. The key word for this step is humility. And our main text for this morning reveals the impact humility has on our relationship with the Lord.
Let’s take some time to compare the attitudes of these two men and the difference it made to Jesus. (Slide 2) First, is the Pharisee who said:
I am not a sinner like everyone else
I never cheat,
I don’t sin, I don’t commit adultery
I fast twice a week
I give you a tenth of my income
Pretty confident this guy is. He had done quite a bit of good over the years. Probably highly thought of in his local synagogue. A leader perhaps.
(Slide 3) Then, there is the ‘Dishonest’ Tax Collector who said:
… • I am a sinner
Be merciful
Is there any hope for this guy? He seems pretty ‘far away’ from the standards of the Pharisee. He has nothing good to brag about! He has not done a good job of getting things right. How can God help him?
What a contrast between the two! One felt sure of his spiritual condition because he had done the necessary things to be ‘spiritual.’ The other one was just the opposite. He felt so sorry for his sins, his defects of character that he simply begged for forgiveness and threw himself on the mercy of God.
What was the difference between the two? The attitude of humility is the difference. To be humble is not to be a groveling fool with no dignity. I like what has been written about the core principle of humility in some of AA’s material. It is ‘a desire to seek and do God’s will.’
The tax collector wanted to seek and do God’s will which involves being truly repentant of one’s shortcomings. The Pharisee thought that he was okay because his behavior was right but his attitude was warped because, as anyone who has overcome an addiction can tell you, an attitude of self-sufficiency or self-righteousness will quickly get you in trouble. (Slide 4) Jesus makes that clear in his concluding statement, “For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored.”
(Slide 5) One of my favorite verses is I John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
How then do we experience the freedom that comes from letting go of our defects and allow the Lord to remove them? How do we become pure on the inside.
Marty Grubbs offers us three important actions: The first is one that has already been mentioned: We must be humble.
(Slide 6) A moment ago, I put up this slide. It is a picture of Jesus caring for some children. In Mark 10:15 Jesus is quoted as saying: (EXTRA CLICK) “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
Humility characterizes children. It creates openness to new things and new experiences including faith and the possibility of changes. Doubt and cynicism come with growing up and we sometimes look at children and wish that we could be that humble and hopeful. They see the glass as half-full instead of half-empty.
A danger in this step is that we will succumb to self-pity and give up the quest for a deep and meaningful change. Humility is not about beating ourselves up. It is about coming to the Lord, as we are, with an openness to change and a sincere honesty for change.
(Slide 7) A second thing that we must do is be specific. In Philippians 4:6 we read “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
The more specific we are in our prayers about our defects and sins the more clarity there is in life. A general ‘I’m sorry’ is sometimes not enough to truly experience a greater peace. We need to take the listing of defects we made in Step 6 – those attitudes, habits, and emotions that plug us up; keep us from experiencing the life that God has for us – and begin to name them out loud to the Lord in prayer.
Listen to two prayers and see if you can ‘feel’ the difference. ‘Father, forgive me for my sins. I confess that I lied today and I need to make it right. But it’s hard. Amen.’
‘Father, forgive me for lying to Mike today. I told him that we would meet for coffee to go over the new plan and then made up the story about a phone call I needed to make. I am tired with all of his problems that he shares every time we meet. I need to make it right tomorrow. Please help me to. Amen.’
Can you feel the difference between the two prayers? God, I believe, hears both prayers and truly knows our hearts. However, the specific ness of the second prayer allows us to have more openness and honesty about our situation that is critical for us to admit to and thus make changes that we need to make.
(Slide 8) The third thing is that we must have faith. In Matthew 17:20 we read “Jesus replied … ‘I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’”
This is a great verse to remember when it comes to our ruts that makes life very difficult for us… and others. But who or what do you and I have faith in? Our first answer usually is who? Slide 9 (Be honest here.) In ourselves. Luck. Fate. Circumstances.
What about in God and His ability and plan to rid us of our defects? What does Step 7 say? We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings. We must have confidence in ourselves, we must be aware of our circumstances, we must accept that the consequences of our actions are out of our control, but we can only ask God, humbly and honestly ask, to remove our shortcomings. He has the power to do it! We have role (a vital role) to play in this step of asking God for help and letting go of our shortcomings. But in our own strength we cannot make these changes only the Lord can.
And it may take a while. But, Keith Miller gives us a very vivid reminder of how we can keep asking God to remove these defects. He quotes the Step 7 prayer from AA’s ‘Big Book’ which is, “My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.”
Then he goes on to say, ‘whenever I notice a compulsion or character defect operating in my life (be it the desire to overeat, drink, resent, work compulsively, or control people) I say the words, “I am entirely ready to have you remove these defects of character.” I imagine picking up the character defect as a poisonous snake, putting it in a sack, and setting the sack on a conveyor belt going up to God.’
Miller goes on doing this over and over as necessary because he knows that ‘if you take the defect out of the sack and start tying to deal with it in your mind, it will win almost every time.’ He concludes by saying that over a period time ‘I’ve noticed that some of them are gone and others hardly ever show up.’
Maybe you don’t want to handle a snake. Call it ‘baggage.’ Visualize the bag with the name of whatever shortcoming you are aware of (envy, jealousy, lust, impatience) in big letters on the side of the bag. Visualize yourself placing the bag on the conveyor belt, letting go of it, and watching it ascend heavenward to God who will deal with it.
Scary? Hard to do? Yes it is! But, how much baggage do we carry around from our pasts that we need (and want) to let go of?
(Slide 10) Now we come to a step in which the ‘rubber begins to meet the road’ Step 8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. The key word for this step is forgiveness.
Last week I spoke briefly of the importance and healthiness of forgiveness as we dealt with confessing our shortcomings and sins. But why is this step so important? This step is about our relationships that have been wounded by us.
Here are four important reasons (Slide 11) from Marty Grubbs that he calls ‘the benefits of relational repair’ this step helps us achieve. (They sound familiar.)
The first benefit is Physical health. Last week I shared Psalm 32:3 ‘When I refused to confess my sin, I was weak and miserable, and I groaned all day long.’
Our bodies are affected not just by the foods that we eat but also by the relational choices that we make as well. Some people know how to ‘pull our chain’ and if we were to have our pulse and blood pressure taken when they did so, we probably would have proof of the physical effects of conflict.
The second benefit is Emotional health. (Slide 12) In Job 5:2 we read, “Resentment kills a fool and envy slays the simple.”
Study and after study and survey after survey of the workplace proves this benefit, generally from the negative side. Working with people is stressful and difficult at times. Family life can be fractured and even broken when confession and forgiveness are not practiced. Circumstances can create havoc. On Thursday night I heard from a former parishioner who said that her husband had just gotten home from work – unemployed. It was, according to her, either be fired or resign! Her words on the computer screen were words of concern and stress.
This verse of scripture says it plainly and simply. Resentment and envy eat away at our relationships, our souls, and our bodies! They are acids.
The third benefit of this step is Spiritual health. (Slide 13) In Matthew 6:14-15 we read, “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Does this verse say that God can’t forgive our sins? NO! It says that if we will not forgive, God will not. Why is this? One commentary on this verse said this: ‘When we don’t forgive others, we are denying our common ground as sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. God’s forgiveness of sin is not the direct result of our forgiving others, but it is based on our realizing what forgiveness means. It is easy to ask God for forgiveness but difficult to grant it to others. Whenever we ask God to forgive us for sin, we should ask, ‘Have I forgiven the people who have wronged me?’ The need to forgive frees us from the anger and resentment that blocks God’s love and care from changing our defects and hearts.
The fourth benefit is Relational health. (Slide 14) In Luke 6:31 we read ‘Do for others as you would like them to do for you.’ And in Ephesians 5:21 we read, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
I do not know of anyone who does not want to have good relationships with other people. Some of us are not ‘people persons’ but this does not mean we do not have people we care about.
A willingness to repair damaged relationships is an important sign that we are willing to take this step to God’s way of living and there is one word to describe why this is important and necessary – grandiosity. (Slide 15)
In his book, Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller says some very pointed things about a rut that all of us can get ourselves into. He says, ‘The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is about me…. I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and lows of resisting their habit, and to some degree I understand them because I have habits of my own, but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.’ When I first read those words I was stunned. And I was stunned because I knew that it was true of me as well. Too often I am preoccupied with myself and my agenda.
(Slide 16) There are four hindrances to relational repair that all begin with the same word: Self-deception, Self-image, Self-defense, and Self-protection. They really need no explanation because we are all familiar with them.
Donald Miller speaks of grandiosity in his statement about ‘self-addiction.’ Keith Miller calls grandiosity ‘pretending to be more than we are.’ All of us deal with this character defect. And it needs to be given to God and let go of.
(Slide 17) In Luke 9:23 and 24, Jesus said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life.”
(Slide 18) Which bring us back to our main text. Luke indicates that Jesus told this story for two reasons that describe two important barriers to taking these steps. ‘Jesus told this story to some who had great self-confidence and scorned everyone else.’ In giving up ourselves and following Him, God does not expect us to become robots or groupies.
He expects us to become the ‘us’ that He always wanted us to be, the ‘us’ that He created us to be. But our grandiosity has kept us from that and it has created some relational problems that need to be addressed and dealt with. It is what kept the one in the dark and away from God. It creates our ruts.
We cannot get around this eighth step (and the ninth one as well). It may take us a while to sort through who we really need to make amends to and who we don’t. But the willingness to let go and make amends is something that has to take place in our hearts and wills.
It took courage for the collector to be honest about his life. But God honored that honesty. He wants to do the same for us.
So, how do you take this step? (Slide 19) Two things: 1. Make a list. 2. Pray for courage. (To be thorough. To be willing.)
If you have worked the first seven, you will probably have a good idea on who you need to consider making amends to. Start writing names. (In two weeks, we will look at the ninth step and the importance of making amends at the right time and in the right way.)
Pray for courage because one needs it to start this process. That is why the word ‘willingness’ appears in this step. Pray for willingness to start the process and ask God for help. He will give it to you. Amen.
Sources;
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions by AA 1953. Page 72
Keith Miller, ‘A Hunger for Healing,’ 1991, pages 123, 124, and 119
Comment on Matthew 6:14 is from Quick Verse Application Bible Software
Donald Miller, ‘Blue Like Jazz,’ 2003, page 182
If you would like the PowerPoint slides for this sermon, please e-mail me at pastorjim46755@yahoo.com and ask for 012906 svgs
