Counseling the Addict Inside of You - Part 5

1:44One of the first steps we decided to do is to identify addictions. You've got to be able to identify your addictions before you're really going to deal with it. What are my addictions? Basic questions. And we spent a good time dealing with that. Good definition of addiction at Welch is addiction is bondage to the rule of a substance, activity or a state of mind, which then becomes the center of life, defending itself from the truth so that even bad consequences don't bring repentance and leading to further estrangement from God. So it's the rule, it's bondage. It's bondage to the rule of a substance or a state of mind, an activity that then becomes the center of life.

2:41What are the causes of addictions? Of course, in addictions, they can be any addictions themselves can be anything from substance like alcohol, it can be substance like food, it could be an activity, it could be a state, a disposition, it could be Quite a large spectrum of things that can become the center of our life. What is the cause? What is the ultimate cause of my addictions? Well, it's misplaced worship. Boil it all down. Addiction to anything other than God Himself, I guess you can wouldn't put Him in that, wouldn't express it like that, but addiction to anything is really a worship disorder. It's putting something above God, and namely yourself as the one to be pleased. So ultimately, it is a worship disorder, misplaced worship, worship that's out of place.

3:49So then the question becomes: how do I confront my addictions in a biblical manner? How do we confront them in a way that the Bible has given us to confront this misplaced worship that manifests itself in pursuing a substance, an activity, state of mind? Well, and as we one of the important things to do is to first need to understand the main message of Scripture. If you're going to deal with sin and addiction in a biblical manner, you need to understand the Main message of Scripture. And as I mentioned last time, you need to know what the main message of Scripture is not.

4:39It is not just overcoming your addiction. It's not, your addiction is merely symptomatic of your greater problem. So the main message of Scripture is not figuring out how to get a better cabin on the Titanic, not moving from third class to first class. It's not about just the whole, you've got a much bigger global problem, and your addiction is an indicator that you've got a global problem. And so we need to deal with that addiction in a biblical manner. But first of all, understand it's not just about how to overcome your addiction, it's about recognizing the worship disorder. And so the biblical message, the main message of Scripture, is about restoring the worship of the true God in your life.

5:45And so in our study of addictions, we're really studying how does one go from a state and a cruel bondage under the rule of a substance to the good bondage. Under Christ. And how do we do that? So, really, that's what the main message of Scripture is: is learning how to come under the yoke of Christ and then walk under that yoke. And that is the biblical expression of freedom, being under the rule of Christ. So, the overall purpose of Scripture is to glorify God by revealing, exalting, and promoting Christ-like godliness in us. That's ultimately what the Spirit of God is doing, promoting Christ's likeness in us.

6:48Ephesians 5:8 speaks about the rule of the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, the idea coming under the control of the Spirit of God. That's what Scripture wants, and this is who Christ was. Christ's likeness is fundamentally being ruled by the Spirit of God. It's very important as you face your addiction that you do so in gospel truth. Because without the gospel, we hate ourselves instead of our sin.

7:29And without the gospel, We're motivated, as Keller says, through all sorts of awful fear and pride to change, and it doesn't really change our hearts, it just restrains our hearts. So, all this modification, all these changes, just because we get so tired of our sin, if it's not driven by the gospel, we can learn to hate ourselves and only modify our behavior, not deal with it according to the grace and forgiveness that's in the gospel. Listen, God loves us more than he hates our sin, and that's saying a lot. He hates sin, he is perfectly holy, and yet he pursues a relationship with sinners. And so, without this gospel truth, you could just learn to hate yourself.

8:32It's tragic that after all the years that Judas spent with Jesus, he didn't get it. He didn't understand the nature of Christ, he didn't understand the nature of God, and so that in his sin it crushed him. So, guilt, Peter denied him as well, wept bitterly. Peter knew something different about Christ. It's able to experience gospel forgiveness. And so the gospel calls us to come to him. Jesus Himself says, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And that weariness and heavy laden includes sin.

9:24Come and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That's Christ's invitation, gospel truth, coming to him in our state, in whatever state of deficiency, which is plenty and deep, he invites us. 1 Peter 2:10 says, For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. You had not received mercy, now you have received mercy. And so, without the gospel, we can learn to really hate ourselves, but with the gospel, we can understand biblical forgiveness. We can receive forgiveness, and we can then walk as one who has received mercy, taking the yoke of Christ upon us and learning from him.

10:26This certainly applies to the totality of our life. Lives and certainly to our addictions. So, as we confront addictions, there's two plans we need to come up with. First, we need to develop a repentance plan. Still doing review. This is all review to refresh your memory. We need to first develop a repentance plan because we need to recognize that, yes, sometimes we fail. And we need to have a robust repentance plan in place that deals with failures, that can withstand our failures.

11:07So, not as an excuse to go and fail, but recognizing what do you do when you do fail? Well, a repentance plan. We looked at this last time. One of the first things you need to do in a healthy, robust repentance plan is agree with God. A biblical confession begins with an inner agreement with God about what sin is. Let's call our sin what He calls sin. And let's also deal with the guilt of our sin. Let's confess that I am a sinner. I sinned.

11:43That's where a repentance plan begins. You've got to agree with God about what sin is and your personal guilt. It's not his fault, not her fault, not society's fault. It's not, you can go on down the list. This situation, it's not God's fault. It's another one we throw in there. No, a repentance plan begins with a definition of what sin is and a confession and ownership of your guilt. And the rightness of God's just judgment. And also, agreement with the grief that my sin has caused. Not just that, what my sin has caused me, but what it has caused God, what it has caused others. And to be very honest, an agreement. If there is no agreement here, you don't have a repentance plan. But it begins with agreement with God. Second, a repentance plan involves confessing your sin to God and to receive His forgiveness. Whether it's a sin of commission, something you did that was wrong, or a sin of omission, something you didn't do that you should have done. Confess your sins to God and receive His forgiveness. I think a lot of people struggle right here with receiving forgiveness. I want you to know one of the things I love about God, about Jesus' teaching about God. He teaches us to pray. He says, Pray like this, Father, forgive us, for we are also in the process of forgiving others. It's an interesting dynamic.

13:31Forgiveness. How do you know you've been forgiven? One of the best ways is to look into your own heart and say, Are you forgiving others? Lord, forgive me. Listen, if I can forgive others, if I am diligent to make sure I am not holding anything against anybody else, guess what this does about my knowledge about my own sins? Listen, if I can let things go, I know God has let my sins go. One of the tragedies that I've experienced is trying to counsel somebody who's struggling with something who can't seem to forgive. Nothing worse than when an addict is tied up in unforgiveness. Let me tell you: the reason I'm an addict, it's because. It's because. And I am still angry at this person for turning me on to this drug or this whatever. And listen, unforgiveness is a tighter bondage than some of the worst addictions.

14:56Scripture is very clear: if you are not in the process, Of forgiving, you are not being forgiven. The reason why so many people cannot forgive is because they haven't been forgiven. But listen, a repentance plan begins with agreeing with God and then confessing your sins and then receiving His forgiveness. Listen, He says if you confess your sins, He will forgive. So be forgiving and know that you are being forgiven. It's the truth of Scripture. And then confess your sins to the one you sinned against and ask for their forgiveness. A good repentance plan. I sinned against, I agree with God, I confess my sins to God. And then I'm going to confess to the ones I hurt in the process. And make restitution when that is possible. Make restitution.

16:09One of the robust repentance plan involves repentance with restitution when possible. Fourth, confess your sins to one another. And this is the idea of confessing your sins to those who. Can help you in the process of overcoming the sin. This isn't saying, okay, go down to the corner of the street and just start confessing your sins. There's appropriate places to do so, and there's inappropriate places to confess your sins. But the idea here is confess your sins to one another, to those who can help you in your war with addiction. Fifth, take steps to radical amputation. Radical amputation. That is, a repentance plan begins with agreement with God, confessing of sins, a thorough confession, and then it takes a commitment to not going back down that road again. Adjusting, change, and developing steps to make sure that you don't go down that road again.

17:27And this is where Jesus is very clear on this matter. Remember, his yoke is easy, and his burden is light, and he's telling you how to come out of addiction. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you, for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. A lot of people say, well, He doesn't really mean that. Well, of course, he's using metaphor, but he's saying, do whatever is necessary to make falling into sin an impossibility. That's what he's saying. Be aggressive. Be committed.

18:22And so take steps to radical amputation. That's a robust repentance plan. We looked at that last time. So we want to develop a repentance plan. Second, we want to develop a temptation plan. And that becomes one of the key aspects of what we're going to talk about tonight: developing a temptation plan. You develop a repentance plan for the times that you sin, but you develop a temptation plan. Like, okay, now I'm stepping in to take Jesus up on the radical amputation, and now I want to develop a temptation plan.

19:05And so, with that, I'm going to ask Kevin to come up and talk for a few moments, and then I'll come back up here. I've asked him to talk about some of the changes that took place in his routine as he came out of his drunkenness. Come on up. Good evening. Thank you, Thomas. So temptation plan. Thomas had given me a couple questions to answer to kind of help organize my thoughts. I'm not a professional at this.

19:56First question was the general times that I was tempted with drunkenness. And a few of my thoughts, I guess to sum it up, it was all the time. But specifically, after work was a big one. Times of stress or conflict, mostly conflict at home. Days off of work, any time I was out in the woods, so hunting, camping, working outdoors, social functions or celebrations. So as you can see, my drunkenness had, I guess, grown into every aspect of my life. So the real answer to that question is every time. About the only time I did not drink was at work for obvious reasons. But I'm sure if I would have continued down the path, I can guarantee you it would have led to that.

21:00Second question that I was asked to answer is through what avenues did temptation come. Drinking had become and drunkenness had become a staple activity in my life. Most activities either revolved around me drinking or I avoided them if drinking was prohibited. And that included people and activities. I was reminded this afternoon that, for example, Joelle's family and my own family, parents, siblings, her parents, siblings, did not like being around me when I was drinking. So I just avoided being around them so that I could drink.

21:53And then there were a few times that I tried to refrain from drinking when I was around them. And you can ask my wife, please do, if you have questions. But I was miserable to be around in those moments. And then also different places. I avoided, I just told my wife this afternoon, she had no clue of this. She used to suggest, and this was a couple of years ago before Cracker Barrels started serving alcohol. She would always suggest going to Cracker Barrel to eat, and I would make some kind of excuse. Excuse to suggest another restaurant because I knew Cracker Barrel didn't serve alcohol. And she never knew that. But that was my main motivation. And I would do that a lot with her or family members, things like that.

22:45I avoided church. I avoided functions that didn't include alcohol. For example, I didn't mind going to an AM tailgate, but I really didn't want to go to my kids' soccer game because it was inappropriate to sit at Central Baptist and with a cooler of beer. They frowned upon that. And as sad as that sounds, you know, I did go to LA's soccer games, but there were probably some that I made what sounded like a legitimate excuse to not go, and that was a real motivation in my mind.

23:23And then other functions, like I mentioned, family functions, church functions. You know, we love the young families group at the church. And in the past two years, I have not missed an evening unless the whole family was sick or something like that. Before two years ago, I mean, we'd miss, we'd make one out of every three or four because it was typically because I just wanted to stay home and drink instead. The next question I was asked to answer was: how did you change your rules? Routine in order to lessen or remove the temptation.

24:04First and foremost, I gathered up all my beers and destroyed them. Some of you heard me a couple months ago. We lined up all the beers, shook them up, and shot them as a family. My wife and children. I'm very proud to say that at the time, my three-and-a-half-year-old son hit the first one he was aiming at. And along with that, I confessed and repented in front of my family. I really think, I know that that was the start of everything, was the confession and repentance to the Lord. But I think what made that more meaningful and, I guess, easier to follow through with, might be the best word to use, was that I did it in front of my family, the people that I affected the most with my sin and bringing sin into the home.

25:04I asked men around me, men in the church and a few men outside of our church to help hold me accountable. And one of the things that came to my mind this week was in order to do that with an addiction, whoever it is, whether it's another individual within the church or outside of the church, you got to tell them what you're doing and why. You're doing it. You know, I asked now, my CFO at the company, his name is Mark. I asked him to help hold me accountable. And I gave him the phone number of someone within the church that was also holding me accountable. But I told Mark why I was not drinking and basically told him the whole story. Look, Mark, I've been living in drunkenness. It's a sin. It's destroying my life. It's destroying my family. It's leading to my death. And that's why I'm stopping.

26:06It's sometimes a humbling conversation, but I think humbleness is a key aspect to all of this. And of course, it's something that the Lord grants us and walks us through as well. I also gave permission to my family to hold me accountable. They didn't need permission. My family does not need permission. Nobody's family needs permission to look at them and say, you're sinning, stop that. But I think for me, it meant something to audibly give them permission to do that. And I think it meant something to them as well. And that included my children. It was not in a way of putting a burden on my children to hold me accountable, if that makes sense.

26:57But it did mean something, especially to L.A. She was seven years old at the time. And I think it meant a lot to her, and I think it still means a lot to her that she has daddy's permission to hold daddy accountable if he's sinning. Oh, the last thing that's kind of funny: to change my routine. Every evening when I got home from work, what I used to do is reach in the fridge, grab a beer, open it, and sit in my chair and drink it. Instead, I grabbed a root beer. And I did that every day for like two or three weeks. And it was like strange. I couldn't even say a word to the family until I got my root beer and sat in my chair and drank it. And after about two or three weeks, I quit doing that. And I think that was just part of helping me break the physical habit, if that makes sense. So I know it kind of sounds silly, but I think it helped a little bit with me.

27:58And now I enjoy root beers and sunkiss on a regular basis. Yeah, we ran out of sunkissed last week. That was not good. Last question was: what advice do I have for others? One of the big things that I was told, well, I guess, first of all, the things that I was told by the men at this church that were helping me through this and their wives were helping us as a family through this. One of the biggest things that I remember that I was told is, I don't have to sin anymore. Through Jesus Christ, I don't have to sin. And that still sticks with me today. It's not difficult for me to not drink.

28:47It's not a struggle. But I'm still reminded of that every now and then, and that applies to all of us with everything. Through Jesus Christ, we don't have to sin anymore. I guess more advice that I have. Thomas mentioned it tonight. Russell mentioned it to me last week on a totally different topic. Amputate your sin. That's, I guess, the biggest piece of advice. Don't try to reduce or phase it out. I spent 16 years trying to do that. It doesn't work.

29:27That's not how repentance works. The Bible doesn't say a little bit at a time, try to not sin as much. No, it says repent and sin no more. And so that would be my advice: amputate it, whatever that means. So essentially, repent and stop. Seek accountability within the church body. And through that, ask men and women to pray for you and ask for encouragement. I had so much encouragement. From these men and their wives, and from others that came alongside of us through all this.

30:11And that again requires humbling of oneself to ask for help and to ask for prayer and ask for encouragement, ask for accountability. It's not, I don't think it's very worldly to ask for accountability. I'm not sure. And then I replaced the hunger that I had with a hunger for God's Word. Again, Joelle and I talked about that this week. Replacing that hunger for self-seeking behaviors or feel-good behaviors with a hunger for God's Word. His word, his teaching, that was one of the biggest things for me as I started feeding my spirit rather than feeding my body. I think there was something said about that earlier today or maybe this morning.

31:12But feeding my spirit instead of feeding my body. And my body seemed to my body was satisfied at that point, if that makes sense. I do have a scripture I'd like to read that I came across this morning. Excuse me, Proverbs chapter 3, verse 7 and 8. Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. My focus through my drunkenness was not on God.

31:56And I can tell you, I can testify to this scripture that God has given me healing to my body and refreshment to my bones through repenting of my sins and following him. It is absolutely incredible. I love life. And please ask me, I'd love to elaborate. My wife and I both, if anybody wants to talk privately about this stuff, I just enjoy life. I enjoy every second of it, even the bad things. It's because you can see God in it. And at the very least, something bad happens, and God just sanctified me with it. And that's so cool. I never experienced that before two years ago.

32:51So I hope that helps as far as giving some of my examples to ultimately. Build a temptation plan. Thank you very much for allowing me to speak. Thank you. Well, thank you for that. Kevin? I noticed a pattern. They clap for you when you come down and rightfully so. So I want to talk to you about a temptation plan. I'm going to talk to you about some of the basics. First of all, you need to understand that you are in a war.

33:421 Peter 2.11 says, Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. See the war there, there is the fleshly lusts that are waging war against the soul. Your soul, your fleshly lusts are waging war against your soul, your being. 1 Peter 5 says, Be a sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. You're in a war. You have an enemy he wants to destroy.

34:26And so you need to understand the dynamics of the war. Are in. So, in our time tonight, we'll talk a little bit about some of these basics and then we'll follow it up at another time. But as I said, you are at war. What are the objectives of war? Well, the objectives of war typically involve destroying the enemy, but also destroying the culture that produced your enemy. That's one of our struggles today as a country. We're talking about war.

35:05How do you even, what is the objective of war? Well, it's one thing to defeat the enemy on the battlefield, but you want to destroy the culture that created that enemy. And if you don't have that as your objective, you're really not ready to go to war. But war is fundamentally about destroying the culture that produced your enemy. And so you think about you're at a war, your fleshly lusts are at war with your soul. They are waging war.

35:41And they are out to destroy you. Your sinful addictions are against your whole being. They're at war with your whole being. They intend to overwhelm you, overwhelm your soul, capture it. Take it prisoner and ultimately destroy it. I'm going to talk about what that means. Genesis 4:7 is God is speaking to Cain, telling him what is what sin is doing. Sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you. It wants you. Sin is there, and it wants you, and it wants to destroy you, but you must master it.

36:34Tell you how yielding to temptation destroys you. These lusts that are at war with your soul. How, if you develop a pattern of yielding to temptation, I want you to know how that destroys you and what it does to you. It destroys your whole being. First of all, yielding to temptation destroys your conscience. What it does, yielding to temptation sears your conscience. Because in order to yield to temptation, guess what you have to do? You have to run over your conscience. You have to learn to sear it and silence it so it doesn't function like it's supposed to.

37:25Yielding to temptation destroys. Your understanding. So, yielding to your fleshly lusts will darken your understanding of the world and yourself and God. Yielding to temptation destroys your judgment, makes you unable to judge things correctly. Fleshly lusts perverts and twists and warps your judgment. I mean, you can't think properly. Sometimes when you're reading through the first couple of chapters of Romans, you realize that when God gives a people over in judgment, what he does is he gives them over to an inability to judge correctly and do things that are proper.

38:23Yielding to temptation destroys your memory, it fills it with all sorts of unclean things, bad recollections, and all that. Yielding to temptation destroys your mind. And what it will do to your mind, fleshly lusts will either cause your mind to excuse your sin or to condemn you for doing it. I mean, it will have a powerful impact on your mind. Your mind will go down a path of learning how to. Excuse sin or destroy you, condemning you.

39:09Your mind will not function properly if you go down a pattern of yielding to temptation. Emotions. Yielding to temptation will destroy your emotions. They will not work properly anymore. Fleshly lust brings shame and running away from God. That's the opposite of what faith does. Faith runs to God. But yielding to temptations will defile your emotions and bring about departure from God or the opposite, either way, or a celebration in sin. Your emotions will then begin to celebrate sin and grow hostile to anyone or anything who stands in the way of your sin.

39:59So your emotions get defiled when you yield to temptation. This is all destroying the person. You are a person. You are made in the image of God. You have a body and you have a soul. And fleshly lusts seek to destroy you, the whole person, and it will have dimensions in the physical body. It will. Erode, destroy. But it's destroying a lot more than just your physical body. It's bringing down the person. Your imagination will be destroyed.

40:48Fleshly lusts defile your imagination. Your creative faculties, which God placed there as an image-bearer of God, you are a creative being. But when you yield to temptation, what happens to your imagination is you begin using your creative facilities or faculties to inventing evil and to doing all kinds of harmful realities, coming up with ways and schemes to get, to promote, to advance your idols, yourself that you serve. But it turns your creative faculties into inventing evil and elaborate schemes.

41:42Yielding to temptation destroys the heart. It hardens it, makes it impenetrable to the Word of God. Yielding to temptation will destroy your will. You'll learn the pattern. Fleshly lusts drive the will, and it drives the will away from God. This is how it cuts you off from life. This is the culture that your enemy despises you because it despises God. So it seeks to cut you off, drive you away. And that's what yielding to temptation does.

42:32It impacts the will. Whether it's envy, covetous, revenge, retaliation, or whatever it is, the last thing a fleshly lust does is submit to the will of God. It destroys you. There's not a faculty of your being that will escape the ruin and devastation that a routine of fleshly indulgences will bring. There's not a faculty that will remain untouched. There's not a relationship that you possess, that you have, that will not be negatively impacted. It seeks to destroy you as an individual and as a person in connection with other persons.

43:23You're at war. Your fleshly lusts are at war with you. To destroy. And the result of those who do not abstain from fleshly lusts is that they end up abstaining from following God. You're going to either abstain from fleshly lusts or you're going to abstain from following God. Choose today: who are you going to serve? God or the gods of the earth? The gods of your own making, gods of your own pursuits. Jesus said the same thing so many ways. You cannot serve two masters.

44:09But its desire is to cut you off from the source of life. That's what temptation does: cuts you off from the life giver. Listen, and I've said this before: your lifeline is not your computer. Your lifeline is not even your eye. Your lifeline is union with God. I have counseled people involved in addictions and certainly in the area of pornography, and I can't tell you how many times I hear this. Yeah, but my computer is my lifeline.

44:52It's my lifeline. It's not your lifeline. It's not. Your lifeline is union with God, and that computer. Is coming in and destroying that. And yet you can't seem to part with it. Jesus is very clear. No, there is life out there without a computer. It's great if you know how to use it and can be radical in your amputation and get the good benefits out of it, but that's not your lifeline. And we play around with sin so much, we think somehow our life is tied up with other things. It's union with Christ. That's life. And anything that cuts into that union needs to go.

45:43You should only let it back in if it can stay radically amputated. You get the benefits. But listen, we don't default that. We say, you know, I'm going to keep it in my life and just figure out how to. And I appreciated what Kevin just said. You cut this stuff off. Don't play around with this. You are at war. Its desire is to destroy you. Your lifeline is not your addiction or the means that cause your addiction. Your lifeline is union with God.

46:23So the basics of a temptation plan begin with putting distance. 1 Peter 2:11 says, Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul. Same verse, it's waging war. So, what do you do? You abstain from fleshly lusts. Abstain. The word is put distance. What is that? That's a whale. I can remember one time fishing off in the ocean, several days out in the middle of the Pacific, not in the middle, but several days off the shoreline.

47:19And I never saw the captain get afraid. It's actually two times. One time, somebody had to cook bacon in the microwave. I told them not to bring bacon. They decided to make bacon in the microwave, and they put it on a metal rack and caught the microwave on fire. And, of course, the captain, hyper about his boat, comes running down, and he was angry. He wasn't really scared. He was just angry. Don't like this place on fire. We go down. Okay, we've got that.

47:58But there was a time when I actually. Saw him get scared. And we're up there on the top, and we're looking out, and he's always looking out for things. And I thought, oh, this is great. And all of a sudden, this whale right in front of the boat, one of these humpbacks, one of these big old things, just jumps and passes in front. And I'm like, man, that was so cool. That was cool. Everyone's like, yeah. And I looked over at the captain, and it's like all the blood had just come out of him. And he said, I hate it when those things get that close to the boat. I'm like, now I do too.

48:36When the captain gets afraid. Well, that's an image of a whale right in front of a boat. Here's, just to give you a scale, there's a picture of a boat and a whale surfacing right by it. One hit, and that boat goes down. And the scale. And so understand that what you want to do, and so what he's up there, I thought he's out there just, he's looking for whales so that he could keep distance between him and whales and any other things that would cause problems. He's not up there. I'm trying to see dolphins.

49:21He's looking for whales. He's looking for that which would sink the ship. And he wants to put distance between him. Him or the boat and that which would sink it. And so the basics of a temptation plan is putting distance, putting distance. That's the secret. No secret. It's revelation. Abstain. Put distance. Second element of a temptation plan is changing your routine to remove temptation's access to you. Changing your routine, study your routine. Third, changing your routine to add actions of righteousness. Remove, there's an amputation, there's radical amputation, and then there's radical additions. New routine. New routine.

50:27As Kevin was just talking about, I'm just going to be able to get you started on, get you started thinking about this. But this is basically what a temptation plan is: putting distance, changing your routine to remove temptations, and changing your routine to add acts of righteousness. But just to get you started, by way of introduction, and our time's just about out, but just to get you thinking about a strategy for. Developing your own temptation plan. First of all, become familiar with the pattern or the routine of your addictions by asking the following questions. Get to know the pattern of temptation in your life. It's pretty predictable. It's got a routine. Ask yourself what? The what question? What? Identify the specific addiction. We already covered this. You need to identify the addiction that you want to deal with. Second, when? When does this temptation typically come around? There's a time of day.

51:39You can expect that you're going to be more tempted. Time of day, time of week, time of month, maybe it's payday, maybe it's a game day, maybe it's a holiday. There is a pattern that shows up in your life, and it progresses. But there is a pattern when temptation shows up. Where? Where's the physical location? Where are the typical places where you're tempted? It's pretty easy as you start answering these questions. There's a time it happens, there's a place it happens. There's usually people involved. Who? It's the what, when, where, who, how, all those basic questions. People. What people are around? Who are they?

52:30That kind of thing. Who are you not around? How? What are the means of the temptation? What are the objects? What are the instruments that are involved? What's the money trail? All this kind of stuff. Sanction it. I mean, we're at war. We're not at war, right? But we sure are cutting off a lot of funding, right, to supply Russia, right? But you have this money trail. And so you're going to need to, first of all, change your routine that puts distance between you and temptation. You're in a war. There's a way that the forces come against you. There's access points. Know where they're coming from. Know when they're coming from. And then cut off all of temptation's access points.

53:27And this is the spirit of what Jesus is saying: radical amputation. Cut them all off. Know you're in a war. Your enemy is advancing. Comes at certain points, certain times. Be ready. Make it impossible for him to do so. And we're going to stop there. It's 7:15 and we need to end, but we'll pick it up here next time. Heavenly Father, thank you for. For your goodness to us. Thank you for truth in your word. Thank you for the great work that you have done in people's lives and how you deliver and how you set people free. And Father, we thank you. And help us to be wise. Help us to study our own hearts, our own ways. Help us to recognize those places and areas where we yield to temptation and help us to put distance between us and those points. Be with us this week, we pray, and thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.