Counseling the Addict Inside of You: Part 4

1:30Bondage to the rule of something else other than God, something that plays upon your body, something that plays upon your interests, something that plays upon your mind, bondage to the rule of a substance, an activity, or a state of mind, which then becomes a center of life, becomes the chief when push comes to shove. And it defends itself from the truth so that even bad consequences don't bring repentance. It might bring remorse, but those are typically over the consequences. True repentance, even bad consequences aren't powerful enough to bring about a change of life, a change of mind, a change of thinking.

2:25Instead of looking for truth and assessing self properly, it defends itself against truth and so leads to further estrangement from God and from others. When we set ourselves up as the one to be pleased rather than God, there is relational carnage. First with God and of course with others. See that early in the book of Genesis. When we exalt ourselves, there is relational conflict. What are the cause of our addictions? What is the ultimate cause? Well, we get it. Misplaced worship. Ultimately, the cause of addiction is misplaced worship. It's elevating self as the one to be pleased above God. It's bowing to self rather than bowing to God, whether it's a substance, whether it's a feeling, whether it's whatever, a sensation, whatever it is, food, substance, whatever. Ultimately, when we set ourselves up as the one to be pleased, we worship ourselves.

3:56So then we need to shift gears a little bit. We've identified them, we understand the ultimate cause of addictions. So now we've got to get real and confront them. We've got to confront them in truth. And the question becomes: how do I confront my addictions in a biblical manner? And to begin with, we need to understand the main message of Scripture. What does the Bible have to say about my addictions? What does the Bible have to say about overcoming my addictions? Well, first thing you need to understand is what the main message of the Bible is.

4:40And to do that, you've got to understand first what it is not. What the main message of Scripture is not. It is not about how to move you from third-class to a first-class cabin on the Titanic. The Titanic's going down. The Bible isn't about, the main message isn't for you to have a better life here and figure out, even though ultimately you're going to spend eternity separated from God. It's not about just changing cabins. Listen, if you go through this life, and if you're able to get through your childhood and adolescence and adulthood and middle age and old age without knowing you need God, you have missed it. It's like life's a journey. This whole pilgrimage through life should teach us at least one thing, and you should pick it up pretty quickly. We need God.

5:53We've got a problem. And so the message of the Bible isn't just about. How to live better while you're sinking. So, the main message of Scripture is not just about overcoming your addictions. Your addictions are merely symptomatic of your greater problem. And it's that greater problem that the Bible is addressing. The Bible has no message to unbelievers except to be born again through faith in Jesus Christ. That's the main message of the Bible. If you are not a believer, then it doesn't, it's not about, okay, how do I get out of this bad addiction? Well, if it's not going to be this addiction, it's going to be another addiction because your addiction is just symptomatic that you've got a chronic worship disorder.

7:00You need to replace, you need to have God in the right place. And so, if you're not a believer in Christ, the Bible's message is for you to be born again through faith in Jesus Christ, to come to Him, understand who He is, understand what He's done for you, understand His desire for a relationship with you, understand that He has paved the way for you to truly be acceptable. Before God in union in this life and the life to come.

7:39So, what it is, what is, we understand what it's not, what it is. The main message of the Bible is about restoring the worship of the true God in your life. And it's an ongoing activity. It's an ongoing growth process, restoring the worship of the true God in your life. Yes, instantaneously, as you come to Christ, you are put in the body of Christ. You are transformed. You're given a new nature, a nature that is not content in worshiping self, but a nature deep down that has a fundamental shift. It's like, you know, I need God in my life. I want to worship Him. There's a change of desire, a desire to have Him first place. And so, when we do fall into sin, or when we give way and give ourselves over to sin, we don't feel the same way about it anymore because there's a new nature. And you need that new nature, or none of this will ever make sense. You need to be born from above. You need a clean spirit. You need to desire the things of God. Otherwise, this is never going to make any sense.

9:00And so there's no room for two gods on the throne of your life. And that's what the Word of God comes to point out and correct. So what is the main message of the Bible? Well, it comes down to recognizing your misplaced worship, desiring to give God his rightful place in your life, agreeing with God about your sinful choices, confessing your sin to him, asking for his forgiveness, experiencing his forgiveness, and worshiping him by loving him supremely. That's where the Bible takes us, to restore the worship of God in the hearts of people.

9:52So it's, and then having transformed and renewed, it's about putting on Christ-likeness, correcting the worship disorder, and moving us from a place of loving ourselves supremely to loving God supremely. That's what the Bible's about, a worship change. Now, if I articulate it like this, what is the purpose of Scripture? What is the purpose of Scripture? The overall purpose of Scripture is to glorify God by revealing ignorance. Exalting and promoting Christ's likeness in us. That's the purpose. That's what it does.

10:38The main message is to restore the worship, true work, the worship of the true God in the hearts of men. When you understand the purpose, how this is done, it's by revealing Christ, by exalting Christ, and by promoting Christ's likeness in us. First, by understanding who Christ is, then in the salvation moment, being placed in Him, being in union with Him, and then promoting Christ's likeness, not just saving us, but then sanctifying us. That's what the purpose of Scripture is.

11:28The purpose, the Scripture loves Christ because the Spirit of God loves Christ. And the most precious gift we could ever have from our Heavenly Father is His likeness. That's what He's pleased to give. That is the best gift, is His likeness. And so, think about as we relate this to. Addictions. Ephesians 5:8 says, Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. And the idea there is control. The word control.

12:14Be controlled by the Spirit. Do not be drunk with wine. That is, don't be controlled by wine or any other substance or any other frame of mind or any other thing, but be controlled by the Spirit. Come under the influence of the Spirit, of the Spirit of God. That is that restored worship. Coming under His influence. No one has dealt more, no one has been tempted more in the area of fleshly appetite than Christ. And then Luke chapter 4, just look at one of these. Let me just read to you chapter 4, verses 1 through 4. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, he became hungry. And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by on bread alone. So here's the temptation. This is a legitimate fleshly need. The Spirit of God leads Christ into the wilderness. And I want you to see that. Verse 1, Jesus full of the Spirit. He is controlled by the Spirit.

13:54And he is being led around by the Spirit in the wilderness. It is the Spirit who is moving him into this temptation. 40 days, tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they had ended, he became hungry. I imagine so. You talk of, some people think, well, you can't really, you don't really know what I'm going through. You don't understand my cravings, my desires. Listen, go 40 days without food. And let me tell you, you'll be hungry. Things start looking good just after a couple of days. If you've ever gone a couple of days without food, the things you wouldn't imagine that sound good all of a sudden look really good. I can remember one time doing a fast many years ago when I was young and really serious about the Lord. So I was fasting and it was about day 30. And I mean, a piece of toast looked so good, and a hot dog with cheese on it just looked incredible, you know, and stuff. I'm like, wow, now it's. But you can think about after 40 days. And this is a legitimate fleshly need. The body needs food to survive. And so you think about the temptation here.

15:30He's hungry. And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell the stone to become bread. And so not only is he totally hungry, he has the ability to use his power and in a second, in a flash, have anything he wants. So the ease, the accessibility to supply, and it's legitimate, right? It's a legitimate need. But instead, he waits. He says, no, man's, even in this condition, he's saying the final rule of life is not the fleshly appetite at all. The final rule of life is God Himself shall not live by bread alone.

16:30And he's content to wait on God. Listen, we couldn't follow Christ if he had turned the bread or turned the stone into bread. Why? We don't have that power, do we? No, we don't. We have to wait upon God. And we have to look for God for supply. Here's Christ, the most intense, fleshly, human craving, a legitimate one. And I want you to see one thing else after this. Look at verse 14. And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. So, this is the one in chapter verse 1. He's full of the Spirit, controlled by the Spirit. He's led around by the Spirit, and now He has withstood temptation, and now He's the one who emerges in the power of the Spirit. Having been tempted, He emerges in the power of the Spirit.

17:38So we need to confront our addictions, and we are well equipped. We are forgiven in Christ. So He's taking care of all the failures of the past. He desires we're in union with Him, and He knows our temptation. He knows He's been through it. On a level that we can't imagine. He promises to be with us and teach us and lead us. We're in good company. We're not to serve two masters, we're to serve him. And so we can go into confronting our addictions with all the resources we need.

18:34So I want to take a moment, and as we get really practical with this, we need to start flying lower to the ground, so to speak, and develop a real repentance plan. There's a couple of aspects, and how do we confront our addictions? The first thing we need to do is develop a repentance plan. So I've asked Kevin to come up and speak for a few moments on a repentance plan. Good evening. Thank you, Thomas. All right, so on a repentance. Plan.

19:32A little more about my journey, and I've got some scripture I want to share as well. My journey, on my journey, the road started with the depravity of my actions. And in the beginning, I was trying to figure out: was what I was doing actually since. Of course, being familiar with Scripture, I had some men in the church help me to look there first. So I'm going to read Galatians 5:19 through 21. Verse 19, now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarned you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

20:49I also looked in 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10. Verse 9 says, Or do you not know that the unrighteous will Will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor ephemerite, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor defilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. So I wrestled with this wrestled with whether I agreed with God and whether I agreed with him that my actions were sin.

21:37Because if I agreed with him that my actions were sin, that would mean I would also have to agree with the that my sin was wrong. And if I agreed that my sin was wrong, that meant that I would have to accept the truth of the consequences of my sin, which according to these two verses, these two passages, meant that I would not inherit the kingdom of God. And according to Scripture, the alternative to that means death. And not just death, but an eternity in a lake of fire and brimstone. I was actually talking to my son a couple days ago about this. He's five, those of you that don't know him. And he asked me, he said, Daddy, what's brimstone? I was like, well, dang. So I. Tried to explain it to him, and I explained how fire burned hot, but then other materials burned even hotter, and and all of a sudden he just gets this light bulb that goes off. And he looks at me and goes, You mean like lava?

22:45I don't know if anybody played the lava game as kids jumping from the couch to the coffee table and all that. It made it made me think of that. And I looked at him and I said, Yeah, Clayton, I think it it would be a lot like lava. I don't know about y'all, but uh I don't want to live in lava. Um and uh at that point in my journey when I when I walked through this to look at um whether I was going to agree with God that what I was doing was sin, whether I was going to agree with him as far as that I was wrong and agree with his consequences that he lays out in scripture. Um there was a term that that was thrown out to me, or or I wouldn't say thrown out, used very uh uh very purposefully with me, and that that term is a watershed moment. Um that was my watershed moment in my journey is when I started looking at these things um and realized this is this is for real. This is serious. Um now the thing about it was that I had believed in Jesus Christ for 16 years.

24:04In my mind, there had to be something missing. And so, looking at scripture again to see what was missing, I came, and this was pointed out to me this week as well. Came across Luke 13:3. And then the second part of that verse, Jesus says, unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Then he said it again two verses later: Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. I was not confused about God's promise. I was rebellious.

24:53God did not want my mere obedience. He wanted my brokenness. He wanted my brokenness and sin. Which meant he didn't want me just to stop drinking. He wanted me to repent of my sin, repent of my drunkenness. I had never had clarity on this in 16 years. But the interesting thing about it is you read the New Testament and repentance is all over the place. I don't know how many times Jesus said those words: repent, repent, repent.

25:30Therefore, at that point in my journey, in my mind, I had no other choice. I went to God, to Jesus on my knees. I confessed my sins to him. I confessed to God that I agreed with his judgment. I agreed with his consequences, and I agreed that my sin was wrong. I also confessed the same things to my family, to my wife, and my children. And for the first time ever, I gave Jesus my whole heart according to his whole testimony.

26:17God had been waiting, patiently waiting, for me to repent. The requirement of repentance, again, is all over the New Testament. The four gospel books are littered with it. There's a ladybug crawling on your Bible. Sorry, I get distracted easily. The four gospel books are littered with it of Jesus commanding sinners to repent. And Mark 1:15 Jesus says this and saying, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.

27:15That kind of sums it up for my journey right there. For 16 years, I only had half of it. And then at that point, about two years ago, in fact, two years this month, the second half of that in Scripture was revealed to me. I did everything I could think of to turn away from my sin and turn to God. You know, the definition of repentance, to turn from sin to God. I could go into a lot of details. I'll just kind of hit the highlights, and then if anybody has questions, please approach me afterwards. But I did so with the help of some men within the church and a couple of men outside of the church.

28:05And I've told this before. At that moment, I took all my beers, lined them up, shook them up first, lined them up, and shot them with my whole family. And that, to me, was step one. Part of my issue is alcohol, get rid of the alcohol. You know, next logical thing was don't bring any more in the home. Don't put any more in my mouth. When it came down to it, it was fairly simple. And for the first time in my life, it was easy.

28:38Because through repentance, God picked me up and carried me through it, which had never happened before. I was reminded this week that belief in Christ is a changing of the heart and mind. I was also reminded that repentance is also a changing of the heart and mind. And it requires both, and Jesus lays it out pretty clearly that it requires both for us to reach salvation. And that's what God requires. But I encourage you, don't take my word for it. I know that sounds strange for me to stand up here and say that, but pick up God's word, read what it says, read what Jesus says, and make sure I'm not misleading you.

29:44That's how I found it, along with the help of some men. And I encourage everybody else to do the same. Again, I spent 16 years listening to man's marshmallow gospel. That's what I like to refer to it as of just say the magic words of I believe in Jesus and you'll be saved. Well, you know, if y'all read, if we read a little bit more of the passage that Thomas just pointed us to when Jesus was tempted, guess what? The devil knew this scripture, too.

30:22So, and I'm pretty sure he knew who Jesus was. So, I don't think that's, and in fact, I know that's not the only requirement to reach salvation. The Bible tells us Jesus said to repent. And if we don't, we die. And that's about as simple as it gets. So, I appreciate your time. Again, please, please ask me questions afterwards if you all have any. I'm an open book. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Okay, so let's start developing a repentance plan, a robust repentance plan. I think we need that in place before we even start developing a temptation plan. That'll come next. Get ready, but Before we do, I just want to comment on some of the challenges to a hearty repentance plan or a robust repentance plan. There's a couple of challenges to it that we face. Number one, there has been a theological debate over repentance. Kevin has articulated some of that.

31:55There are schools of thought that absolutely repudiate repentance in conversion. And because of that, it has left a landscape that minimizes repentance altogether. When you start saying, no, repentance really isn't necessary for the gospel. That, no, you can, it's just believe and you're in. But that whole idea of believe isn't complete. You have to, to believe the gospel, to believe the good news, you have to turn away, you have to cease believing the bad news. You have to, at some element in your life, some aspect, realize and accept, turn away from and embrace the gospel.

32:50And so what's happened in this debate, it rages on, still does, but what happens is it minimizes repentance. So instead of us advancing in, okay, let's get robust in our repentance, let's get better at repentance, we've done the opposite. We've stayed kind of in the middle of the fence, well, maybe repentance is necessary, maybe it's not repentance, maybe it's not necessary. So we've got an evangelical landscape that really hasn't advanced much in repentance or churches. We relegate the concept of repentance to second place. So that impacts us even here, like in developing a robust repentance plan. You need to be repenting and you need to get good at it.

33:45That's what the scripture wants. It's to get good at it. The second challenge we have to a hearty repentance plan is we are not naturally good repenters. We are good at justifying our sin. We are good at blaming others for our sin. We are good at excusing ourselves for our sin. That's what we're good at naturally. We're not naturally good at repenting. Only a work of grace can transform us into good repenters. The whole idea of repenting is the same concept as picking up your cross daily and following Christ. It's the same concept. You must die to yourself. That's the picking up your cross. Well, repent. Repenting is just that. It's turning away from yourself, turning away from what you naturally want to do and excuse and blame.

34:39So we're not naturally good repenters, so that's going to stand in the way. Third is we fail to study carefully and imitate the biblical examples of repentance. Failing to study carefully and imitate the biblical examples of repentance. And so that's what we want to do tonight, real quickly. We want to look at David's example of repentance in Psalm 51. You remember what happened in Psalm 51? Well, you can see the Psalm, you can turn there. That's a good place to be. We'll be there for a little bit. Psalm 51.

35:14But in the title, it says, A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. So you guys know the sin of Bathsheba. David, he eyed this woman. God had given him a very faithful military personnel. And David took his wife. And if that wasn't enough, David had him murdered. And then Nathan the prophet comes in to say, David, this is what you did. I mean, it's about the worst crime.

36:00That you can find, I would say it's the worst crime we have in the entire Bible, except for Judas, perhaps. It's that awful. And so here's David. This Uriah the Hittite had been very loyal, very faithful, over-the-top faithful and loyal to David. And he sinned against him in a horrific way. So as we look through the Psalm, we see David dealing with this and repenting. He gives us a great example of what repentance is, and we can develop a repentance plan in our own lives from it. Number one, he acknowledged his transgression and sin. In verse three, for I know my transgressions and my sins, my sin is ever before me. He's like, he's saying, I know my transgression. I know where I crossed the line. I'm not trying to defend that anymore. He acknowledged his transgressions. Transgressions were for crossing the line. Sin is the general term for sin and wrongdoing, and it is missing God's mark.

37:31And so he acknowledged it. Second, he recognized against whom he sinned and the rightness of God's judgment. Look at verse 4. Against you, verse 4, you only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge. Now, that's an that always kind of bothered me. What do you mean, against you and you only I have sinned? What about Bathsheba? What about Uriah? How can this be a true statement? David says, Against you and you only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Well, you know, the answer is very simple. The command not to commit adultery was God's command.

38:28It was his law that was transgressed. He didn't transgress Bathsheba's law. Yes, he sins against Bathsheba, but that's not what he's bringing. He transgressed God's law. That's the infraction. Against you, it was your law I have sinned and done what is evil. It is your standard of righteousness that I have violated. Uriah and Bathsheba happen to be victims of my self- Worship. And then he goes on to say, you are right, justified when you speak, justified when you judge me, because your standard of righteousness I have violated.

39:21So he acknowledged his transgression and sin, and he recognized against whom he had sinned and the rightness of God's judgment. Third, he exhibited godly remorse. David allowed the Spirit to convict him, and he experienced a healthy brokenness over his sin. Verse 8, he says, Make me to hear joy and gladness. Let the bones which you have broken rejoice. David is not trying to push away the conviction of the Spirit, but he is saying he is welcoming it.

40:02Verse 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. It's your law I broke. I have sinned against you, and I am broken over it. I am convicted. What I did was so wrong. And I'm not trying to excuse it. I'm not trying to blame anybody else for it. I have crossed the line, your line, your righteousness. Line, and I am truly sorry. Fourth, and this is where the Psalm begins. There's a formal request of forgiveness.

40:45Verse 1, Be gracious to me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the greatness of your compassion, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. So there is a formal request. There's an acknowledgement. There's an agreement with God, acknowledgement, sin, there is godly remorse, and then there is a formal request. But there is also a desire to truly change. Verse 10: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Create in me a clean heart, God. Renew a right spirit within me. I have had the wrong spirit. Put in me the right spirit.

41:48And it's not just to a steadfast, it's also to sustain. Look at verse 12: restore to me the joy of your soul. Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Renew the right spirit and sustain me with that right spirit, is what he is saying. I don't ever want to go back to this ever again. That's what David's saying. Put in me a right spirit. Give me a clean heart. You know what a clean heart is? One that moves by the breath of God. That's a clean heart.

42:33Renew a right spirit within me and sustain me with a willing spirit. I don't ever want to go back to this again. I don't ever want to do this again. That's David's example of repentance. So now let's condense this into a repentance plan for the addict inside of you because you know what? We need one. Whenever we sin, we need a robust repentance plan. We need to know what to do. We need to have it mapped out. And the scripture gives us a very clear one. And so we need to have that. Because sometimes we do fall. And the addict does rise up and says, I will be exalted. And you need to know what to do when there is failure.

43:30We need to have a repentance plan. First of all, agree with God. Step one, agree with God. Agree with God about what sin is, using biblical terminology. Spent some time on that. Agree with God about my guilt of my sin. Don't worry about anybody else. You look at your sin and you own it. My guilt for my sin. No blaming. No excusing. It's the environment. It's that person. It's that person. It's this situation. It's that situation. No. Agree with God about the guilt of my sin. If you will be diligent to really look, listen, this is not scary. This is good. This is the way of renewal and the abundant life.

44:26Agree with God about the rightness of God's judgment on my sin, even when that involves lasting consequences. And sometimes we sin, and sometimes there's lasting consequences. And sometimes we have to live with those consequences. And sometimes those consequences can be daily reminders of our sin. But we agree with God about the rightness of God's judgment, even if that involves lasting consequences. We need to agree with God about the grief of my sin has caused. This is what we have to mourn. My sin has caused grief, grief for others. It has wreaked havoc in other people's lives. It has wreaked havoc in the world.

45:24It's wreaked havoc in my own life. But grieve. Grieve. Matthew 5:4 says, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And the idea of mourn, grieve over sin. Grieve. Mourn it. We are to be people who mourn over that which is to be lamented. We are to be people who celebrate that which is to be celebrated. But we are people who are mourned. And one thing: my sin causes pain, not just for me, but for others. It's costly. And we should legitimately mourn.

46:13We need to agree with God because a biblical confession begins with an inner agreement with God. To confess literally means to say the same thing. We need to be saying the same thing as God. We need to put ourselves out of our Own situation and look upon our sin with God's eyes. According to His Spirit, let His Spirit convict us. And second part of the repentance plan, you need to confess your sins to God and receive His forgiveness. You need to confess your sins, whether they be sins of commission, something you did wrong, or something, an omission, something you should have done. You failed to do that was right. Commission is doing something wrong. Omission is neglecting to do what you should have been doing.

47:09And then receive His forgiveness. 1 John 1:9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Do you believe that? Are you willing to say the same thing about your sins as God says about your sins? If you will agree with God, if you will confess your sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You know why so many people live under a yoke of sin? It's because they never really confess it. They never really agree with God over it. They've got all kinds of sophisticated ways to justify, blame, excuse, deny, because that's what we're good at. We're not good repenters.

48:04Third, you need to confess your sins to the ones you sinned against and ask for their forgiveness. Obviously, there's the collateral damage of our sins, David's sin. But I think about our sins, and I appreciate what Kevin said. He confessed his sins. I mean, how much more graphic can you get? What a family moment. Let's get all the beer cans out here. Let's shake them up. Let's put them out there and let's remove them. Let's confess this is wrong. Boy, our kids are never going to forget that.

48:43But it's a public confession. You know, it's confess your sins to the one you sinned against and ask for their forgiveness. And let me tell you something. When you do that, it breaks the power. Someone comes up to me and has a problem with gossiping or slandering somebody, and they come into my office and they vomit their slander against somebody all over me, and then a little bit later come back to me and say, You know, Pastor, I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. It's not me you sinned against.

49:20You need to go confess that to the individual you just slandered. That will be such a painful process. That I promise you, that person will think twice before sinning like that again. Confess your sins to the one you have sinned. It destroys the power of sin in your life when you confess it to the right places. Luke 17, 3, be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times a day saying, I repent, forgive him. I love the next verse.

50:14The disciples are like, Lord, increase our faith. Who can do this? But don't you love that this is the God of Scripture coming to us and saying, this is what I want from you. Why? Because this is what he does. This is what he does. This is who he is. And so you confess your sins, and we are to forgive. We are to forgive. But wow, think about what this says about God and his heart. I mean, we fail. We fall a lot.

50:56Get up. Sinned against you again, God. Repent. Repent. Repent. That's where he wants us coming. Number four, confess your sins to one another. James 5:16 says, Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. I also appreciate, and Kevin didn't bring it up tonight, but he also went and told some important people in his life, specifically some of his co-workers, about his repentance from his drunkenness. And that too is putting barriers. And we're going to talk about that next time. This was going to be about a month before we meet again.

51:54And then take steps to radical amputation. Matthew 5:29. 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. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off 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 go into hell. Jesus is very serious about what masters you. What are you going to worship? Who are you going to worship? Are you going to use the members of your body in their self-worship, or are you going to render the members of your body to worship God? Worship. It's all about worship.

52:47And so, as we look ahead, first step in confronting addictions is developing a repentance plan. And the good news about the repentance plan is there's forgiveness, there's renewal, there's life. You have a heavenly Father that stands ready to forgive and forgive and forgive and to walk through this with you. See, without the gospel, we hate ourselves instead of hating our sin. But with the gospel, we can hate our sin. And we don't have to be mastered by it. So the first thing we need to do is develop a repentance plan. Second, we need to develop a temptation plan. It's going to happen again.

53:35This isn't rocket science. It's going to happen. You're going to live in this world. And what David was saying, Lord, put in me a right spirit and sustain that right spirit. I never want to go down this road again. I do not want to render the members of my body to dishonor you. I want the members of my body to bow down in worship of you. I want to use them. Look, we don't have very long on this earth. God didn't put you here on this earth just so that you could waste your life, waste your worship in serving yourself.

54:15And so we need to come back to this in about a month, we will, with the keen view to developing a temptation plan that cuts off the access points, that destroys the culture of our addictions, so it does not have any power over us. But that'll wait. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for just the good news of the truth that you call us out of our darkened ways into your glorious light to experience the freedom that the children of God have.

55:09Father, we thank you that you freed us from the guilt of our sin, but you didn't just stop there. You have freed us from the power of our sin. And you have freed us to walk in true liberty, in union with you, experiencing life. With you and the way you want us to go through life. So, Father, thank you for the joys. And, Father, we thank you for the truth. And so, Father, go with us now as we leave this place. May you be exalted in our routine this week. In Jesus' name, amen.