Counseling the Addict Inside of You: Part 1

0:57He has granted to us everything we need for a life in him, a life of godliness. It's on that basis we'll launch this study. And here in a few moments, I'm going to come back up here. But what I intend to do over the course of this series is bring up a fellow Brother in Christ, really, God has done an amazing work in his life over the last couple of years. Somebody who has struggled with alcohol, addiction, here among us. And I've asked him to come up and tell his story here tonight, just for a few minutes.

1:58I asked him to take about 20 minutes and share a little bit of his story just so that you can start getting to know him. And I intend to have him back up here as we go through our study. I've asked him to answer four questions, or really tell us four things. First of all, I've asked him to tell us about your struggle with alcohol. Tell us about the impact your addiction had on those around you.

2:34Tell us how God brought you out of your addiction. Tell us how you would characterize your life now. I'm very thankful for the brutal honesty and vocal clarity of Kevin Hester. He is sincere, and I witnessed a great work of God in our midst. And I want you to hear a little bit more about his story tonight. Kevin, why don't you come on up? Good evening. Am I on? A little bit different up here. I'm a little bit nervous, but I think God will get me through this.

3:36Just a fair warning, I may get emotional while I'm talking about a few of these things. Thomas, thank you for the opportunity to do this. My hope is that the things I have to say, is that better? Thank you. I'm hoping that after the things that I have to say, the story that God has given me, that it'll help sanctify others and hopefully bring others out of the same misery that I've been in in part of my life.

4:10So the first question, what did my alcohol addiction look like? I started drinking beer at about 13, 14 years old. I can't really remember exactly, but I know it was before 15. I think my heavy use started when I was about 15. Along with using drugs. And I think at that point, I know at that point that a lot of other sin entered my life. If this makes sense, the alcohol was opening the floodgates for the rest of the sin.

4:50At 16 years old, I went to an inpatient treatment facility for, I think altogether, about a year, a little over a year. After that, nothing really changed. What it kind of looked like to others may have looked a little bit different for a little bit, but up here and right here, nothing changed. I drank heavily along with using drugs and things like that until I was 23 years old. I was actually living here in town at 23, and the Holy Spirit led me to a church. I started to go to that church, and after a couple weeks, I became saved, or so I thought.

5:39From that point forward, I went through cycles of light, moderate, and heavy drinking, and back and forth between those different things. For the next 16 years, I did that. Light drinking, heavy drinking, abstinence, moderate drinking, things like that. The rest of my sin and life and my life during that 16-year period flourished. It's the best way to describe it. It caused several tragedies, including multiple arrests. A few weeks ago, my little girl, Ellie, it's better with me.

6:36She asked me how many times I've been arrested, and I told her I didn't know because it was too many to count. Other tragedies included being court-martialed in the Marine Corps before I got out. And then the final tragedy was my wife taking the children and leaving me. And most of you all don't know that this occurred less than two years ago. In the end, towards the end, and I think this is important to kind of paint a picture of what my life looked like.

7:32Where that sin led me. In the end, I was drinking during the work week, excuse me, during the work week, I was drinking about 15 beers a day after work. On the weekends, I was drinking upwards of about 60 beers or so between Friday afternoon and Saturday night, you know, so I could get to church by Sunday morning. It caused me to not really care about anything else but my addiction, but my sin. There's a lot of other words. I'm not going to spoil the whole topic. I've started reading that book that Thomas recommended. It's really good.

8:23So I don't want to spoil it for anybody, but there's some other words that can be used to describe all of this, many other words. But the bottom line is that I allowed sin to get a foothold in my life at 13 years old, and I continued down that path, and it led to enslavement and tragedy. The second question Thomas asked me was the impact that it had on others around me, or something along those lines. The biggest thing that it did was it destroyed many relationships that I've had. Over the years, and others were severely damaged. You know, one of the biggest ones was obviously my marriage, my wife, my relationship with my wife.

9:16It caused me to put others in physical danger. It hardened my heart against everyone around me. And at times, a lot of times it made me a hypocrite as well. My sin caused others pain. And the closer that person was to me, generally the more pain it caused. Pretty sure Joelle would agree with me on that one. I mentioned this before, it allowed all kinds of other sin to take hold and to enter my life. I think the biggest thing that hit home to me looking back, unpacking this, I've been working on this for the last few days, trying to gather my thoughts. My wife had to watch me.

10:21She had to watch me love something else more than her. She had to watch me love something else more than her. God. And she had a front row seat to it. I came across something. In fact, I'll come to that in just a second because it ties into this next part. On the subject of impacting others, the last point was that I severely neglected my wife and children. My children right now are 9, 5, 3, and 2.

11:04So Ellie got a front row seat to this for a number of years, and the other three saw a tidbit of it or nothing at all. But there's good news. It's always good news, right? So the next question: how God brought me out of this. First word that popped in my mind is love. God loves me, even as a sinner, to send His one and only Son to die on a cross for me. Now He did, He showed that love to me in several unique ways. But bottom line is, God allowed a tragedy to occur that then set in motion a group of good men that. Came around me and spoke his truth to me to get my attention. And that's, in a nutshell, how God brought me through it. It didn't happen overnight.

12:15And those group of men, good men, were in this church. They came along beside me and around me, dropped everything, everything they had going on to help me. And in fact, one of them told Joel a couple months ago, and Joelle mentioned to them that it was just truly amazing the efforts that they put forth trying to help me. And their response was, Joel, it was that important. God revealed the truth. God revealed the truth that what I was doing was sin.

13:00And that's what it really boiled down to with me starting to starting to down the road of healing, down the road of not doing what I had been doing anymore. The alcohol wasn't a problem. The sin was a problem. And the sin led to other sins, and those led to other sins. And I'm convinced that God had been preparing me for some time. To reach this event of a tragedy and good men stepping in around me to help me out.

13:41At that moment, that was March 21st of 2020, right, baby? That was the last day I had a drop of alcohol to drink. So I went from 15 during the week, 60 on the weekend to zero. And what really did it was through the truth that those men spoke to me, I went out a couple nights later. My family and I went out to our property out in the country and we lined up all my beer cans and we shot them all. And I confessed to the Lord in front of my family of my sin. I repented of my sin, which at that moment I had just come to realize that was a turning, repenting, is a turning from my sin to the Lord.

14:40And at that very moment, God instantaneously, and I confirmed this with my wife last night. She agrees. He instantaneously replaced my heart of stone with a heart of flesh and completely. Removed my desire to sin. There's my answer to that question. Alright, my thought that I had earlier that I told you I'd get to in a second. I came across a list. This is a list that I wrote on March 21st, 2020, of the big giant areas of sin in my life, the categories of sin. There's 24 items on this list, ranging anywhere from drunkenness to anger, to laziness, to envy, to pride, to rage, and everything in between those.

15:51The list isn't important. What is important is that I came across this Friday afternoon. I showed it to my wife last night and asked her, I said, baby, look through this list and let me know what on this list I still need some significant work on. And she looked back at me and said, you don't struggle with any of this stuff anymore. The reason I share that with you is for my last point on here that God removed my desire to sin.

16:24And he did that through repentance and obedience. The fourth question is: How do I characterize my life now? First word that came to my mind was joy. I don't know if that even sums it up, but my life is joyful. My home is joyful. Joelle and I went through a biblical counseling resume with Thomas Matthew and the McGees, who were our advocacy couple, immediately following March 21st. It took about five months or so to get through. And afterwards, our last assignment was to do a 30-day devotional after that five-month period. And one of the questions we came across was: reflect back on your last fight and discuss it, or something like that. And we immediately looked at each other with tears in our eyes because we couldn't remember our last fight.

17:33It's amazing what happens, and I wouldn't have been able to describe this until being on this side of the fence, but it was amazing what happens when a husband and father doesn't bring sin into his home. And it's pretty darn important. Some other things that describe my life now, I'm free. I'm not captive to sin anymore. Doesn't mean I don't come across or doesn't mean I don't sin at all. I don't actively live in sin. I don't have to actively live in sin. God changed my heart to be able to identify when I hit those little speed bumps so that I don't have to fall off cliffs anymore.

18:28God also took my shame. I hope this is evidence that He took my shame, that I'm willing to get up here and share this stuff. A lot of y'all heard this whole story before, one-on-one. This is the first time I've done it publicly in the church for the whole church body. But He really did. He took my shame and He brought me out of my darkness. And I'm on fire now. I love this church. I love what this church did for me. I love what I mean, God's church did for me. And of course, now I just want to get back and do what I can to be a member of that body and a part of that body and play my part.

19:22I'm more than willing to answer anybody's questions. Not right now. I don't think we're doing QA right now. But please feel free to come to. To me one-on-one, please feel free to come talk to Joelle. We're more than willing to talk about this stuff. It's important. And I know from experience, when sin is in any one of our lives and we're any one of us are actively living in sin, it is absolutely dangerous. And it's, I mean, if Satan can get us alone, he can take us down.

20:03So there's safety in the herd and God's body. There really is. So I think that pretty much sums it up. Thank you so much for listening to my story. And hopefully, like Thomas said, he'll bring me back up. And I plan on sharing some more details at some point. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Again, go back to 1 Peter, 2 Peter 1. I want to again read these words: 1 Peter 1, verse 3, seeing that his Divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. He has given us everything, everything we need. If you are in Christ, you have everything needed for a life of godliness.

21:21You have it all. I think one of the things that we deep down struggle with is we really don't want godliness. And there has to be a change of heart. The heart of stone has to be removed. A heart of flesh has to be given. And so that's where we start. And so, what I want to do, thank you, Kevin. Thank you for being so brutally honest. Thank you for standing up here as a testimony to the goodness of God and what He has done and for sharing so many details. And I look forward to hearing more.

22:10But what I want to do is start a series that will start going through this spring about overcoming addictions. And the heart of this, you can see it in the Subtitle up there: How to Counsel Yourself and Others Who Are Struggling with Life-Dominating Addictions. I don't think I have to give you too many statistics. I think you look around, we all can identify with addictions. We see them all around us, we see them all around us, we see them in us, we see the tendencies of addiction within our own hearts.

22:55And one of the purposes for this study is: I would love to see this church be a church of counselors, being able to truly give counsel one to another, biblical counsel, not something you've picked up on the street out there, but stuff that you've picked up from God's word. Counsel, truth that pierces the soul, that revives the heart, and sets a person on fire. But before you can counsel somebody else, you really have to learn how to counsel yourself and how to counsel the addict.

23:56I'll put that word in quotes for now. The attic inside of you. How to counsel yourself. I'll give you a preview of what this looks like. Well, first of all, I'll give you a couple of resources. One of the books, like last year, we went through a book during the spring series, and this year I'll also suggest a book, and I will loosely take thoughts and themes from the book and articulate them up here as best I can. I usually try starting very diligent, and then I try to end up jumping on a text and going. But I'm going to try to stay, I'm going to certainly cover the breadth of the core concepts in this book, Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave by Edward T. Welch. If you're around the biblical counseling circles, this is a very wise man, a loud voice among these, and has written a wonderful book about dealing with addictions. And so many of the thoughts and themes will parallel this book. And so I encourage you to get it. We've ordered quite a few of them. They'll be in the Resource Center. But I encourage you to get it and just pick it up and start. Reading you second, I recommend a paper, Repentance: Seeking God's Glory Through Self-Confrontation.

25:42Listen, we've got to become people who can really confront ourselves. If you do a good job confronting yourself, you make everyone else's job a lot easier. And you would love the body, you love your spouse, you love each other, you love your children, you love your friends if you will confront yourself and know how to do it effectively. And that's one of the best ways you can serve people is to confront yourself. And then I've got a third resource. This is a conference message called Crafting Temptation and Repentance Plans to Help Addicts.

26:27It's very important that we get our, we take the truth and we're diligent to deal with it. Look, we face temptation. We face it all the time. It's all around us. What's our plan? How do we turn away? Repentance is turn away and to keep turning away, keep turning to obedience, keep putting off, keep putting on. And there's got to be a... An idea, a plan, diligence, and not just, yeah, I've got a problem. I think a lot of people get to that point. Yeah, I've got a problem.

27:11But are you willing to come up with a repentance plan, a strategic plan that understands that temptation is out there and how to not fight the battles. A lot of battles for temptation we don't even need to show up for. We allow ourselves to get caught up in them. We get lured away. I'll tell you, most of the best way to win some of the battles is don't even show up. Don't even get out there. And so you need to develop. And Keith Palmer, those of many of you know him here in these parts.

28:02He's been here. Anyway, so those are some resources. Who should attend this study? Well, this study is for anyone who agrees with one of these following statements. I want to overcome my addiction for addictions. Is that you? Do you have an addiction? You do. Do you want to overcome it? I want to help a person struggling with addictions. Well, if that's you, then you should come. I want to relate well to those who struggle with addictions that I do not struggle with.

28:47I think sometimes we have a hard time, like, why in the world does that person struggle with that? What are you thinking? That doesn't even make any kind of sense. Well, it's very important that we relate well to those who struggle with addictions that we don't struggle with. And there's a way to understand. And so, if that's you, if you want to relate well to those who struggle with addictions that you don't fully understand, this is for you.

29:20And fourth, I want to effectively counsel myself in all manners of life and godliness. If you want to be able to self-counsel yourself in all manners of life and godliness, then I encourage you to come. And invite somebody. Tonight, we'll start getting this thing in gear next time. Not next week. We have a special speaker coming in. He's going to talk to us about some mission work happening in Chile. But then in two weeks, you'll see that's.

30:02After the Praise Sunday, we'll be in high gear on this. So, not too late to pick up a book, not too late to start reading, not too late to invite people, all of that. I hope you'll attend. Coming back to 2 Peter 1:3, again, the premise that God, in His divine power, has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. He has. Are you ready to walk in godliness? And that's where the repentance comes in. Are you ready to turn away and turn to?

30:44Do you want godliness? Listen, if you're in Christ, you've been granted everything pertaining to life and godliness. I want to, before I go much further on this, I want to go back to 2 Peter and look at these first eight verses. You know me, I don't like just to take things out of a context. There's a context in which these words came and come to us, and they are very profound. Let me just read to you verse 1, verse 2: Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind.

31:30As ours by the righteousness of God and Savior Jesus Christ. Well, first of all, just notice in verse 1 that this is a faith received. So a call to counsel yourself is a call to receive the same kind of faith that the apostles had, that they came to understand to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours. Wouldn't you love to have a kind of faith like Peter had? I mean, after he got it? Well, that's what he's, and this is, he's writing this to those who have received such a faith. Look at what he says in verse 2. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Grace and peace be multiplied to you. So a call to self-counsel is a call to experience grace and peace.

32:38And look at where do we find it? Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God. The call to counsel yourself is a call to know the God of the Bible, to experience true grace, true peace. What it says in verse 3, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. He's given us, see, his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. No one's lacking. And where does that come from? Through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory. So to self-counsel is not only to know the God of the Bible, but to know the Christ revealed in Scripture.

33:44Grace and peace is multiplied. Everything you need for life and godliness comes by knowing Christ. I anchor my thoughts here. Isn't that great? That if you're struggling with an addiction and you want to get rid of that addiction, know that it's a call to know the God of the Bible and to know the Christ that he has revealed to us in Scripture. It's a call to know Christ. Don't waste your time. Addiction. Work through it. As John Piper might say, right? Don't waste your addiction.

34:47Look at verse 4. For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Wow, what a statement. For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises. Words you don't really see too much put together. Precious and magnificent. Precious, high value, magnificent, huge, like a great mountain, magnificent, but also precious like a diamond. A mountain of a precious diamond. His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature. So the call to counsel yourself is a call to know the God of the Bible, a call to know the Christ he has revealed in Scripture, so that you know the words of God. You can be a partaker of the same nature that he has.

36:11And having become a partaker of the divine nature, guess, look at the consequences of that. Having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust, the corruption, corruption that is in the world by evil desire. Evil desire. Look at our world. You know what's really messed our world up? Evil desires. It's epidemic. That is what corrupts. That is what corrodes. That is what destroys. That is what sets nation against nation. That is what sets husband against wife. That is what sets brother against sister. And on and on.

37:01We see in ourselves corruption. And you follow your sins, you will end in death. There will be a collateral damage. It moves from temptation to conceiving sin. That sin grows. Whatever you feed continues to grow. It grows and grows, and it will have you, as God once told. Famous murderer named Cain. Sin is crouching at your door. Its desire is to have you, and it will have you if you do not turn to God. And look at verse 5. Now, for this very reason, also, applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Having escaped the world, the corruption that is in the world by lust, because you are now been a partaker of the divine nature, for this reason, now you apply diligence.

38:38You've put off. Now put on. Put on moral excellence. Let that occupy your time. And to your moral excellence, knowledge. Knowledge, self-control. Self-control, perseverance. Be diligent in these things. Perseverance, godliness. Godliness, brotherly kindness, brotherly kindness, love, self-sacrifice, you'll never run out of things to do. And if these are yours and increasing, you will neither be useless in the kingdom of God nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, if we sum this section up, the call to counsel the attic inside of you is a call to receive the faith from above. That's where it starts: receiving the faith from above, a faith.

39:48Experience grace and peace by knowing the God of the Bible, by knowing the Christ revealed in the Scripture, knowing the promises Jesus has made for you. The call to counsel the attic inside of you is also a call to become a partaker of the divine nature, to escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desire, and to grow in fruitful service to Christ and to others. What a promise. Your life will count. Be diligent in these things. But it starts with the true, genuine faith.

40:38Mere moralism doesn't do it. You need to be born from above. How are you born from above? You come to the cross. You believe Jesus is God's Son, come in the flesh, who went to the cross for your sins. That means you must agree with Him about sin. Listen, we minimize sin, and when we minimize sin, guess what? We minimize the cross. Our deepest problem is sin. Something we're all addicted to. Sin and self. Really, we're addicted to self, and that's called sin.

41:28But wow, we can come to the cross. We can have our burdens removed. We can be that heart of stone can be taken out, as Kevin so beautifully stated, and a heart of flesh, a heart that cares, a heart that loves, a heart that seeks after good things. That's what we need, and that's where it starts. So, I hope that you will join us. Spring series, and looking forward as we jump into this a little more specifically and develop some of these practical plans for waging a strategic campaign against the corruption in the flesh and put on the divine nature and diligence in those areas.

42:32Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for the work of grace that continues to go on all around us. As kingdom comes and as kingdom goes and as things happen around the globe, you are active, touching lives, changing hearts, rebuilding homes, strengthening your church all around. Father, and for this we are very grateful. And we want to have you first in our lives. We want to know how to strategically put off all those things that we are addicted to, that offend you. Lord, that is our desire. And as we look at the words that we saw tonight, Father, we know that you've given us everything pertaining to life and godliness. You already have. By your divine power, you've already given them, and help us to. Walk in those. Help us to realize that, not just in our mind or in some theological statement, but in our practical, day-to-day life and the way we talk, the things we do.

43:49Thank you, Father, for this day, this beautiful day. Thank you for the fellowship we have with one another. Thank you for the work of grace that's happening in our lives. And Father, go with us this week. Bless our occupations. Bless our homes. Forgive us. Bless us. And make us more like your Son. In His name we pray. Amen.