There is a true story about a guy named Burnell. This incident happened while he was in basic training in the army. A friend of his persuaded him to help him in embarrassing the Inspection Officer. This Inspection officer enjoyed going over locker and person effects with a white glove. He seemed to overreact at ever infraction.
Burnell’s friend asked Burnell to help by agreeing to respond with the words ""Patrick Henry sir in 1776." to what ever this inspector shouted out. So while the soldiers were standing at inspection and the inspection officer seemed especially intent to find some infraction of the rules. Burnell’s friend hollered out "give me liberty or give me death". Immediately the Inspection Officer cried out “who said that." Burnell replied "Patrick Henry sir in 1776."
The entire troupe of soldiers fell all over themselves laughing.
Let me tell you about my home town. I was born and raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Here is some history. Prior to WWII, Los Alamos was a summer boy’s ranch. During WWII, it became a major scientific research base. It was run by the Army Corps of Engineers and its existence was a highly classified secret.
After WWII, the base began a slow transition toward becoming a town. One of the biggest problems was that the government owned all the land, and they were very slow about selling off blocks of it to private citizens. For example, nobody in the whole town owned their own home until the early 60s. Everybody leased from the government.
Because of the lack of land for private development, we didn’t have things that other towns took for granted. When I graduated from high school – there were over 400 students in my graduating class- , Los Alamos had 17,000 residents. Still, there was only one movie theater and that had only one screen. There was one bowling alley, but it was booked every evening for league play.
Going out to eat was a real problem. There were a couple of fancy places. For a casual evening out, there was a Pizza Hut. There were some rather unusual alternatives. That was a government engineering group that worked around the clock, so their work cafeteria was open for dinner. In typical military style, this facility did not have a name, just a letter. "Where are you going for dinner tonight?" "We’ve got big plans. We’re going out to the S-Site cafeteria." Another place where we went was the cafeteria at the hospital. Philomena, the cook at the hospital, commuted each day from Espinola and made the best Mexican food in town. For the teens, there was one KFC and one Taco Bell. Those were the only fast food places in town. A lot of kids went to the little diner at the drug store because it was an easy walk from the high school.
This was before video games. It was before Al Gore invented the internet. We were in the mountains and the closest TV stations were in Albuquerque, one hundred miles away. With a really good antenna you could get the 3 networks and PBS, but most TVs got two fuzzy stations.
Everybody, but especially teenagers, had to find something to do. Besides sports, the schools offered a Chess Club, an Opera Club, a competitive Slide Rule Club, and a Bridge Club. It will give you an insight into my personality to know that at some point during my school career, I was in each of those organizations. Now, to be fair, I joined the Opera Club as a way to meet girls. The ratio was about 5 girls for every guy and it was effectively better than that because I got the distinct impression that most of the other guys in the group were not interested in meeting girls. I joined the competitive Slide Rule Club to impress the girls, but, to be honest, that really didn’t work out very well.
Given all of that potential for excitement, it is amazing to realize that many of the teenagers in that community were bored silly. It is axiomatic that kids with nothing to do will get into trouble and kids in Los Alamos did. We had horrible problems with alcoholism and drug abuse among the high school population.
During my early experience as a new Christian, an astonishingly large number of the kids I was running around with were kids who had turned away from drugs and toward faith. There was a prayer meeting or youth group going on somewhere in town every night of the week and we knew where they all were. We had to. Every couple of weeks there would be some kid who was struggling with a desire to smoke something, and we would haul him off to that evening’s prayer meeting instead.
During those years, I heard so many sermons and meditations on Galatians 5 that I thought it was one of the most read chapters in the Bible. It isn’t, of course, but it is a text to which people recovering from addiction often turn.
When I think of this passage, I still think of it in King James.
Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
We are talking about a Paradox. Christianity asserts that true freedom comes from following the direction that God sets for us, while acting on our whims is the road to slavery. How can we say such a thing?
Peter talks about this too. In 2 Peter 2:19 Peter says that we are slave to whatever masters us. So what is it that masters us?
It is amazing how strong a hold that bad habits have on us. Paul says in Romans (7:15) I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
Bad habits trap us slowly. They are insidious.
Have you ever seen an elephant at a circus? If you notice, when they are not performing they keep them tied up. They tie a rope around one of their legs, and secure the rope with a stake. But if you have ever looked at the rope, it seems that it would be simple for the elephant to break it. And the stake is not hard to pull up. If a person can do it easily, how simple should it be for the elephant? Yet the elephant never tries.
Here is how that happens. When the elephant is young, the trainer uses a strong chain around the elephant’s leg to restrain it. The young elephant pulls against the chain again and again, but to no avail. Eventually the elephant gives up. Once that happens, the trainer can replace the heavy chain with a simple rope, but the elephant doesn’t even bother to test its strength. The elephant’s spirit has been broken and it has been enslaved.
We are slaves to our bad habits. Daily practice year after year has made them hard to break. Bad habits are comfortable beds. They are easy to get into, but hard to get out of.
I am almost embarrassed to preach about this problem. Obviously, I struggle with my weight. Who am I to advise you about being strong in conquering your addictions to things that harm you? When I speak about it, the best that I can hope for is that some will say that I should listen to my own sermons. Others will say that I am simply a hypocrite.
Still, if I were avoid speaking about these issues, I would be failing in my obligation as a pastor. I must speak the truth and offer the challenge, even if it is an area in which I struggle myself. In truth, the fact that I struggle here simply makes clear that I am not some sort of divine minister who is different and apart. I am a flawed person struggling just as you struggle. Don’t look to my strength. Look to the support that God offers.
Gluttony can be a particularly difficult addiction. One particularly telling example of this comes from fourteenth century Belgium.
Let me tell you the true story of a Duke Raynald III. Raynald lived a life of indulgence and was obese. His Latin nickname was Crassus, which means, “fat.”
One day Raynald and his younger brother, Edward, got into a vicious fight and Edward planned and executed a triumphant revolt against Raynald. Edward took his older brother into custody but did not take his life. Edward decided to construct a room around Raynald in the Nieuwkerk Castle and promised his brother that he would enjoy freedom once again when he was able to leave the room.
Now for the average Joe this wouldn’t have been much of a challenge, because the room Edward built had a number of windows and a door of near-normal size. Neither the door nor the windows were locked - - they weren’t barricaded. So you’re getting the picture by now: In order to experience his freedom again Raynald needed to loose weight. But his brother Edward was no dummy, because he knew just how to keep Raynald imprisoned. Every day he would send Raynald an assortment of tasty foods. And what took place is just sad: Instead of dieting his way to freedom, Raynald grew more overweight and he stayed in that room for ten years until his brother died. But by that time his health was so awful that he also died within a year. We can say that Raynald III was a prisoner of his own appetite for food.
I ask you. Was Raynald free? He did what he wanted to do. When given the choice, he chose to indulge his appetite at the cost of greater freedom. I think that we can agree that he was enslaved. To whom was he enslaved? – His lesser but larger self.
Do our indulgences of ourselves harm us?
How many marriages have been lost to bad habits?
How many families have been divided because of habits?
How many jobs have been lost?
How many relationships have been destroyed?
How many minds have been wasted?
Are these the consequences of freedom?
In early 1988 Charles and Diana, Prince and Princess of Wales, and some friends took a skiing trip to Switzerland. The shocking news came one afternoon of a terrible accident caused by an avalanche in which one of the prince’s lifelong friends was killed and another seriously injured.
How did it happen? A day or two later the press reported that the prince’s group had chosen to ski out on slopes that were closed to the public. One of them observed, that’s where the optimum fun and excitement were to be found. But it went beyond the margins of what was wise and prudent. And the avalanche exacted its price among those who went beyond the fences. The result? Several broken worlds.
The royal party was free to do things that were forbidden to others. What do you think of their freedom? Was it a privilege to be desired?
Like the prince and his party who could not stay inside the fences, all of us become curious enough at times to edge out to the fences and see what’s on the other side. Yet the consequences are too often the same. The boundaries are often the boundaries of prudence and good sense. When we see freedom as license to do whatever we please, it is only a matter of time until our privilege leads to our destruction.
There is an order to the world. When we live in harmony with that order, when we keep our impulses in check, when we live according to a higher standard, we find fulfillment and satisfaction. When we pursue the vagaries of our own impulses, habits, and desires, we reap the consequences of pain and discord.
As Thomas Nelson said, "The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom but its Master". [Warren W. Wiersbe, The Integrity Crisis, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991, p. 22.]
But it is a grave error to think that this passage is a set of rules about what we should not do. That would simply be creating a new law to follow.
What Galatians says is what we talked about last week. It is about replacing that which is against our true nature with that which is in harmony with our nature as children of God. What is supposed to characterize our lives? Paul tells us. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
The most successful approach to recovering form a bad habit Is the 12 step program that was developed by AA to combat alcoholism. People who are not familiar with AA are often surprised to find that it is based on a growing faith in God. Much of what follows comes from a web site called 12step.org.
[The following comes substantially from www.12step.org]
The 12 Step program has its origin in the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) in the 1930s. The major text for A.A. is called "Alcoholics Anonymous", also known as "The Big Book". …. .. The Big Book is an account of Bill Wilson (Bill W.), Dr. Bob and friends and how the formation of A.A. came about and how it worked for them. The book is primarily biographical in nature and lays out the 12 steps in the context of the lives of those in A.A.
The 12 step program as it has been propagated since the days of A.A. is about finding freedom from the pull of addictive behaviors. That may sound like a simple thing to some people, but anyone who has battled addictive behaviors knows that in practice it can be anything but simple. It can be difficult, frustrating, confusing and sometimes life-threatening or lethal as one tries to battle the sly ways of their addiction. …. The 12 Step program, worked well, can bring order, simplicity and clarity to the recovery process and make it easier to experience the serenity and strength that comes from true recovery.
It is nowhere evident, at least in this life, that our Creator expects us fully to eliminate our instinctual drives. So far as we know, it is nowhere on the record that God has completely removed from any human being all his natural drives.
Since most of us are born with an abundance of natural desires, it isn’t strange that we often let these far exceed their intended purpose. When they drive us blindly, or we willfully demand that they supply us with more satisfactions or pleasures than are possible or due us, that is the point at which we depart from the degree of perfection that God wishes for us here on earth. That is the measure of our character defects, or, if you wish, of our sins.
If we ask, God will certainly forgive our derelictions. But in no case does He render us white as snow and keep us that way without our cooperation. That is something we are supposed to be willing to work toward ourselves. He asks only that we try as best we know how to make progress in the building of character.
1. We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable
2. [We] Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
3. [We] Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God
4. [We] Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
5. [We] Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
6. [We] Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
7. [We] Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
8. [We] Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
9. [We] Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
10. [We] Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
11. [We] Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out
12. [We] Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs
[The preceding came substantially from www.12step.org]
There was a popular bumper sticker a few years back that said “God is my copilot.” Not long after a new bumper sticker appeared that said, “If God is your copilot you are in the wrong seat.” We will only achieve self fulfillment when we surrender control.
Where is true freedom found? It is not found in the blind pursuit of our own desires. That path leads to slavery and self destruction. True freedom comes, only when we realize that God has shown us the best way to live.
