Perseverance and Community: The Journey of Faith

A black belt is just a white belt that keeps showing up. Black belt is just a white belt that keeps showing up and our you and I are invited on The Greatest Adventure the greatest opportun that has ever been offered to human beings and that is to become followers of this man Jesus. [00:01:46]

Bill W and he was a utterly hopeless alcoholic and I won't go into the details of that part of his story but uh the utter hopelessness is a real important part that we'll take a look at as we're on this journey together and he had promised a hundred times that he would quit he had lost money he had lost jobs he had lost friends he had lost everything. [00:02:27]

At a point where he had become utterly hopeless one day he was visited by a friend eie T and eie had had even a worse Drinker than a drinking problem than Bill had but on this occasion um his eyes were clear and uh his face was bright and he and when Bill offered him a drink he said no I'm not drinking it. [00:03:02]

Bill thought well good more for me but then when he asked him why eie said that he had found God and Bill had no use for that at all except that he was so desperate EBY had become part of a group that was called the Oxford Group we'll talk more about them the Oxford Group was an attempt to recapture following of Jesus in concrete ways in the modern era. [00:03:27]

My depression deepened unbearably and finally it seemed to me as though I were at the bottom of the pit I still gag badly on the notion of a power greater than myself but finally just for the moment the last vestage of my proud obstinacy was crushed all at once I found myself crying out if there is a God let him show himself I am ready to do anything. [00:04:30]

Suddenly the room was lit up with a great white light I was caught up into an ecstasy which there are no words to describe it seemed to me in the Mind's Eye that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing and then it burst upon me that I was a free air slowly the Ecstasy subsided. [00:05:06]

I lay on the bed but now for a time I was in another world a new world of Consciousness all about me and through me there was a wonderful feeling of presence and I thought to myself so this is the god of the preachers a great peace stole over me and I thought no matter how wrong things seem to be they're all right things are all right with God in his world. [00:05:32]

Bill W went back to the Oxford Group because a single experience uh can be a gift from God but it's never enough and he began to learn how do you follow Jesus and uh then he met another man we'll talk about that story and then a group of people and uh over time uh fol who had been utterly helpless in their addiction discovered that if they were to seek after God with a certain kind of intensity in a certain kind of way and do it together that they would receive power. [00:06:11]

There are two ingredients that everybody needs if we're going to enter into that kind of life and one of them is we need a fellowship we need a community and then the other one is we need a way of life and so what happened for Bill W and other people is that they discovered from the Oxford Group a way of life now eventually Bill wrote These down in what are called the 12 Steps. [00:06:58]

You'll notice with these 12 steps you can read about them online if you want to and make them available today a real real important uh aspect of them they are written in the past tense these are not uh uh rules you know do this today it's very easy for somebody to write down this is what you ought to do this is not what happened here what happened here was Bill W and then Dr Bob and then another man and then another till they were about a 100 discovered that they found God when they had a way of life that made sense. [00:08:14]

They love that book of James and they love that connection between faith and works and it was from the book of James that a a kind of a mantra developed and to this day at the end of AA meetings very often after people say perhaps the Serenity Prayer or the Lord's Prayer they will join hands with one another I do that with you right now and they will chant together keep coming back it works or keep coming back it works if you work it. [00:11:23]

A black belt is just a white belt that keeps showing up. That's the the journey it starts today keep coming back it works if you work it. [00:11:56]