Embracing Vulnerability: The Path to Healing and Hope

I kind of want to start this morning by kind of sharing a kind of a synthesis of experiences. My wife and I spent several years in Santa Cruz. We actually really enjoyed it. For those of you who know us, you might think that's kind of strange because my wife's from Oklahoma and I'm from Wyoming and we're, we are country folk and you wouldn't expect to find country folk, especially happy country folk in Santa Cruz. But for some reason it was, it was a good fit. We really enjoyed our time there. When we lived in Santa Cruz, you'll still see some homeless folks in Santa Cruz, but it was nothing like it was in the 90s when we were there. It was, it was probably had one of the largest teenage homeless populations in the country. [00:00:00] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


Daisy was a homeless teenager. She'd been on the streets in Santa Cruz. She found herself in Santa Cruz because it's got beautiful weather. And there's a lot of other teenagers like herself that hung out there and didn't have a place to stay. And they just kind of had each other's back. And sometimes, you know, you slipped inside, sometimes you're out. But there was other young people to do it with, so it wasn't so bad. At least not at first. But as time kind of went on, life, it was overwhelming for Daisy. The romance wore off. Nights started getting cold. The lack of food started bothering her. It's just, it got scary because not everybody, not everybody homeless is scary. But some people who are homeless or not homeless that prey on the homeless are scary. [00:01:17] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And so we talked through this and she shared and we prayed for her. And then for whatever reason, Daisy kind of reached the end of her rope. She had nothing left that she could do. And so she did, in her mind, the unthinkable. She called her mom. And she did not get what she expected. She expected a lecture. She expected indifference. She expected her mom to pretty much communicate, nice to hear from you, but I got somebody else more important in my life. But instead, she got a mom in tears who had been searching for her daughter for months. A mother who realized that her daughter was more important than her. And she got a mom in tears who had kicked him out a long time ago and was just happy that Daisy called. [00:03:29] (62 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And we're coming together here for several weeks now, and we're looking at the principles behind a power that changes people. We know it changes people. This program, the 12-step program, is used throughout the world. And what professionals cannot do, what multi-million dollar conglomerate health agencies have not been able to do, these 12 principles have had much more success than everything else combined. And so we're going to take a look at these. But let me just tell you up front, we're going to go back to the source. When we look at these. Okay? Because the 12-step, somebody, it wasn't just a couple guys and gals who got together and said, you know what, we need to recover, so let's come up with, you know, 12 how-tos in order to help people recover. [00:05:31] (62 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


Step one, if you went to any kind of 12-step program, would say this. We admitted that we were powerless and that our lives had become unmanageable. Now, depending on the program you go to, let's say you went to AA, Alcoholic Anonymous. Okay? They would add, we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. If you went to Overeating Anonymous, we admitted that we're powerless over food, and then our lives become unmanageable. Whatever anonymous program you go to, they just put in the thing. It could be anger. It could be relationships, pornography, body image, gambling, tobacco, the Internet, shopping, video games, adrenaline highs, fantasy, just always living in a fantasy world, making money, or the opposite, just plain laziness. Whatever it is, whatever it is that's got this grip on your life, they would say, hey, we admit that we are powerless over this thing, and that our lives have become unmanageable. [00:06:53] (61 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


The Bible's actually not one book, it's 66 books. One of the authors is a guy named Paul. He writes a letter to a church in Rome, so that's why we call the letter Romans. Obviously, when he wrote a letter, it was just a letter. It didn't have chapters and verses in it. But in order for us to find our way around, we put chapters and verses in so we could. So we're going to read Paul's letter to the Romans. Part of it, if I was pointing to that paragraph in his letter, I'd say Romans chapter 7 verses 14 through 20 that read like this. It'll come up on the screen. We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. [00:11:59] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


Now, let me just, again, just for clarification, some of you hear that word sin, and instantly, again, you're thinking of rules, the Ten Commandments, and you disobeyed, and so, you know, you got a lightning bolt coming to you. It is so, it's so much bigger, and it's also so much simpler, and it's so much more fundamental. See, God, God created you and I to be in a beautiful, intimate, unashamed relationship with him and with others. That's how he created us, and anything that breaks that relationship, either with him or others. Yes, alcohol is a problem. Getting drunk is a problem, but it's really not the problem. The problem is, is that alcohol, the problem is, is that bad relationships, the problem is that selfishness separates you from the God you love and separates you from the people that you want to be accepted by and that you want to have a relationship with that you need. [00:14:52] (71 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And so, when he says here, it's no longer I myself who do it, but it's sin living in me. He says, there's a nature of me that seems to always resist the very thing I want, and that's what he identifies as sin. I know. I know, verse 18, I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my sinful nature, for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Now, many of you, of us, let me change that. Many of us avoided church for a long time because we thought church was for a place that people went to who desired to do good and did it. You're wrong. Just like we were wrong. And still are, a lot of us. Church is a place for people who desire to do what is good, but they cannot carry it out. [00:16:54] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


Like I mentioned earlier, one of the fundamental principles of the first step came from the Beatitudes. I know that's a fancy word, so just let me explain this. Jesus gave a sermon. It's one of his most famous sermons. You can find it in a letter called Matthew, chapters five through seven. It's called the Sermon on the Mount because he gave it on a mountain. We're creative that way. We're creative that way. And he gives this sermon. And the interesting thing is the sermon starts out with a series of blessings, but they catch you off guard because of what they don't say. Because you would think that Jesus would say, blessed are those who go to church. Blessed are those who read the Bible. Blessed are those who make the right decisions and say no to them. That's what you would expect it to say. But it actually almost seems to say the opposite. It says things like, blessed are those who mourn. [00:18:32] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


and it kind of leaves you scratching your head, and here's the first, the very first blessing he gives in this sermon, is this, comes from Matthew chapter 5, verse 3, it says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, now again, this, this, we had to leave the original crowd scratching their head, because what he's saying is this, think of what you think a spiritual person is, somebody who's right with God, right, blessed are those who aren't that, blessed are those who, who are like, it's kind of like, I wish I had a bank account like that, but my bank account's here, blessed are those who wish their spiritual life was here, but are really here, and then he says, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of heaven, that's, that's where God lives, he says, for these people who wish they were here, but are really here, they're so blessed, they get to reside with God, what, again, let me, let me go to Eugene, Eugene puts it this way, I love this, he says this, you're blessed when you're at the end of your rope, with less of you, there is more of God in his rule, when you finally get to that point, when you're like, I wish I was, but I'm not, I'm at the end, God goes, great, I'm ready to do it, it's a spiritual principle, that the first step is you're powerless, and your life is unmanageable, but there are, there are some hindrances here, there is a challenge here, right, there's, there's, there's several things that we have to admit, there's two things here specifically we have to admit, we have to admit, A, that we're powerless, and B, that our lives are unmanageable, we have to, we have to admit that we're in utter defeat, that we're bankrupt, that we're hopeless, that we've hit bottom, there is nothing in us that's going to make this better, ouch, [00:19:30] (126 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And people who have experienced power that has changed them started in a place by saying, you know what, I'm going to go against everything I've been taught. I'm going to go against my own nature and begin to embrace the fact that I am powerless and life is unmanageable. And it's that hope, when they begin to see the lives of others who do that, that begins to settle in. that drives them to the change that's always eluded them. Because there's help for the hopeless. [00:26:25] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)