I want to start out this morning by, I guess you can say, making a small confession. When we used to have cable, my wife and I used to enjoy watching Gordon Ramsay. He is a chef with a little bit of an attitude. And one of the things that we liked watching was his Kitchen Nightmares, probably because you got to see a little bit more of the human side of him, not just the brash side of Gordon.
The premise of this show was that Gordon would go into a failing restaurant and he would kind of evaluate what's going on. He'd make some suggestions, he'd change the menu, and try to turn the whole thing around. One of the first steps in almost every episode when he would go in is he'd go back into the kitchen and he would take a look around at all what's going on. And then he would walk into the refrigerator.
The refrigerator pretty much was always an indication of the help that the restaurant needed. You'd walk in, there would be too much of some kind of food and too little of others. There would be old, disgusting food that just kind of made your stomach turn. And, of course, he would be really dramatic, bringing it out and saying, "What's this?" and all that, and "Gross!" And I wouldn't eat off, you know, off anything here and yada, yada, yada.
The point was... The point was that that was one of the first things that he addressed in turning around the restaurant: their inventory and how they took care of it, how they took stock of it, and how they treated it.
And the interesting thing is that today we find ourselves looking at an inventory. We're talking about the power to change. And we're looking at what's traditionally known as 12 steps, but really we're looking at the biblical principles behind the 12 steps. Those that formulated the 12-step recovery program in all its different forms actually started in a Bible study called the Oxford Group. You can someday kind of check out your history on that. And they came up, out of that Bible study, with 12 principles that they saw in God's word that would help move somebody from a place where they were desperate in need to where they actually had the power to change.
And so we are on the fourth step. Let me just kind of review here the first few. The first one is that we admitted that we were powerless and our lives had become unmanageable. In other words, you can't really tap in, you can't really change unless you understand you have a problem that you can't change. As long as you feel like you can do it, you'll continue to try to do it. So the first step is to say, "I'm powerless."
The second step is that we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And that is good news because no one wants to be left in a place of powerlessness. So the second thing is, "All right, so I'm powerless. Uh-oh, but there's hope because there's a power greater than myself that will restore me to sanity."
And the third step, Tim did a good job of recognizing that I'm powerless. I've talked about this last week. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. And this is a pretty vital step because every time they do a survey of, let's say, America, we find that 80-some-odd percent of the people believe in God. You could say that's the second step. They believe in a greater power.
And yet, most of us don't live that way. And I'm not talking about most of us not living good moral lives. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about if there's a real God with real power, there should be a real change in people. And most people do not live as if there's real change in their lives. And part of the reason is, I believe, they haven't really fully made this step. They believe in God, but they haven't decided to give Him their will.
Now, I would point out to you that the thing about step three is the key word here is "made a decision." You don't just all of a sudden turn it all over. It's you make a decision that, "Okay, I'm willing to begin to turn it over." Because step four really is the process of beginning to turn it over. So you don't have to be all in, but you have to be enough in to say, "If I believe you're there, if I know I can't do it and I believe you can, then maybe I need to give a little over to you so you can do what only you can do."
Another way to kind of look at step three is through the prayer. And the prayer is, "This is what I desire. Not where I'm at, but what I desire." The third step prayer, one of them goes like this: "God, I offer myself to you to build with me and to do with me as you will. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do your will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help. Your power, your love, and your way of life. May I do your will always."
That doesn't mean I'm ready. It doesn't mean like I can do it. It means this is my desire. I've made a decision to begin to say, to pursue your will and allow you to do in and through me what I cannot do myself.
One more note on this step. I came across this quote out of the AA Big Book. That's the kind of the book that describes this process that the founders wrote. It says this: "We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our creator."
See, for a lot of people, this is a step away. Second, this is very anti-American, right? Because Americans are all about, "I'm independent and I can do it." We're a can-do kind of country. And it seems like weakness for you to say, "I can't" and to turn your will over to someone else or something else. And it says, he says, "We don't apologize for this." He says, "We can laugh at those who think spirituality is the way of weakness. Because paradoxically, it is the way of strength. The verdict that ages is that faith means courage."
You can just look around the world now at those who are dying for their faith to see this. All men of faith have courage. They trust their God.
For those of you who are really keyed into music, you may be familiar with Garth Brooks. Garth was a very popular country singer, late 80s, early 90s. And he has a song called "Standing Outside the Fire." The whole point of this song is that sometimes we elevate, you know, like Mad Max is coming back, that kind of character. We elevate the James Dean kind of character. We elevate the lone wolf, you know, that no woman can tie down kind of a thing.
And his point is, that's really not courageous. That really isn't living. Those who are truly courageous are those who are willing to put their fragile hearts, to put their trust in the arms, in the heart of someone else. That takes true courage. And those who are standing outside the fire in their independence and toughness, they're really not that courageous. It's those who stand inside the fire.
And that, in essence, is what this quote is saying. It's saying it takes great courage. It takes more courage to say, "I'm going to let, I'm going to trust God," rather than say, "I'm going to trust myself."
Interestingly enough, the fourth step doesn't go where we would expect it to go at this place. Because I would expect it, the first three steps, "Okay, I get it. Let's say I'm an alcoholic, okay, or I have anger issues. I get it. I'm powerless. Obviously, I wouldn't have come if I didn't realize I was powerless. I get that. Step two, I have to breathe a power greater than myself. Again, I kind of get that. If I'm powerless, I need something to help me. Step three, I made a decision to turn my will. Okay, that makes sense."
Now, I would think step four would be, "Now that you know you can't and something can, and I turn my will, step four is, don't do it." That's what would make sense to me. Just say no.
And the interesting thing is step four doesn't do that. Step four says, "All right, now it's time to take an inventory. It's time to open up the refrigerator. The refrigerator of your heart. The refrigerator of your soul."
Step four says this: "We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our lives. Of ourselves. A searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."
Again, the big book describes it this way. It's kind of giving us an analogy, much like what I just started with. "A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke." This, by the way, quote is in your book, your notes. "Taking a commercial inventory is a fact-finding and fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock in trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsaleable goods to get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values."
And again, that's the thing about the show about Ramsay. That's exactly what they do. If you have all the spoiled food, you can't fool yourself. You're throwing money away. If you have all this or not enough of that, don't fool yourself. That's a symptom that your business is in need.
And then it says this: "We did exactly the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. First, we searched out the flaws in our makeup, which caused our failure." Again, we opened up the refrigerator of our lives and said, "Hey, honestly, what's going on here? What's spoiled? What do we have too much of? What do we have not enough of?" We took honest stock of our soul, honest stock of our heart.
The interesting thing is that many folks who have been through this process have a similar experience. And the experience is that for most of their life, they were under the impression that it was certain that drove whatever it is that they're having a problem with. "It is because of him. It is because of what happened when I was a kid. It's because I can't find a job." They always thought it was because of these conditions.
The interesting thing is many of them found that if they could just correct this belief, if they got a different job or finally found a job or they got out of that relationship or they supposedly got over whatever happened to them in the past, they thought that it didn't. It didn't.
And the similar experiences that they found, that they always thought it was about those conditions that need to be changed. It never occurred to them that the change happened in themselves. But those were the conditions that had to be changed in order to move forward.
The 12 by 12, 12 steps and 12 traditions says it this way: "So these desires, these are natural human desires for the sex relation, for material and emotional security, for companionship are perfectly necessary and right and are surely God-given." That's exactly what scriptures teach. They are God-given. It talks about the Lord providing these needs. It understands that's what we're made for: community. We are made to enjoy the beauty of this earth. We are made to be in intimate relationships.
Yet it says these instincts, so necessary for our existence, often far exceed their proper functions. Powerfully blind. Many times subtly, they drive us, dominate us, and assist upon ruling our lives. This is the way the enemy works. It's not that he just brings bad into your life. He takes a little bit of good, and he twists it.
It's just like if you take the right amount, if you take the recommended dosage of a medication, it helps you. You take too much of the medication, and you cause more harm than good. And many of us have taken these things that are natural, that God has given us within a certain, if you would, heavenly prescription. And we overdo it. We abuse it.
Nearly every serious emotional problem can be seen as a case of misdirected instinct. When that happens, our greatest natural assets, the instincts, have turned into physical and mental liabilities. Step four is our vigorous and painstaking effort to discover what these liabilities in each of us are. Step five is that each of us have been and are.
So simply put, 12-step sponsorship puts it this way: "We prepare an inventory of who we are, identifying the characteristics we want to keep and those we want to change. We take an honest inventory of ourselves."
And again, this comes right from God's scripture. In 1 John 1:9, he writes this: "If we confess our sins." Now, I just want to expand your thought of sins because a lot of us, when we think sins, we think of the Ten Commandments and the hot political issues, okay? But in the Bible, the word sin is actually an archery term. So anything outside the bullseye in archery would be considered a sin.
And what it's saying is that we confess that our relationship with God and our relationship with each other isn't hitting the bullseye. It's so much more than just do's and don'ts, right? It's the way that we were designed, the way outside of the prescription of God, that that's our lives.
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins. He'll forgive us, and he'll purify us from all unrighteousness." But here's the deal. We must be willing to lay it out before him. We must be willing to say, in honesty, "Here it is."
I want to kind of expand on this. I'm going to use Eugene Peterson's kind of take on verses 8 through 10. This, again, is in your handout. He says this for verses 8 through 10: "If we claim that we're free of sin, we're only fooling ourselves. A claim that is errant nonsense."
In other words, if we can't see the brokenness in our lives, we can't be healed. We're fooling ourselves. On the other hand, and this is the verse 9 I just read, "If we admit our sin, we make a clean brush of them. He won't let us down. He'll be true to himself. He'll forgive us our sins, and he'll purge us from all wrongdoing."
What I love about this is it's not just about forgiveness, but it'll actually transform, change your life. So it's not something that you're shackled to anymore.
"If we claim," verse 10, "that we've never sinned, we are out and out contradicting God. We make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God and, quite frankly, our ignorance of ourselves."
That's what's so powerful about the cross. What's so different about it? I'm going to talk about this at the very end of the message. But God didn't just erase to say, "Hey, I won't hold you accountable to sins." He held every sin accountable on the cross.
But here's the thing. In order for it to be forgiven, in order for us to be done, we have to bring it out and get it to Jesus in the first place. Not generally, but specifically. And this is a tough, hard step. Both in the program, for those who have been in the program, and quite frankly, those of us in church really avoid this.
And so we pray a general prayer: "God, forgive me." Generally. But we're not specific. We do this thing with our kids. This may sound familiar. But I have one kid that insults another kid. Goes for the jugular. You know how that, they know how to push each other's buttons. And so they start fighting.
And, you know, in our home, it's usually go to your room, take a time out, cool off. And then, of course, at first it's fine. They defiantly go. And then, of course, the room's no fun because it's just them. And they want to come out.
And so we do this thing where you have to apologize. And, of course, being like us, human, they come out and go, "I'm sorry." Right? And we go, "Uh-uh. Uh-uh. That won't work."
And we say, "You're sorry and be specific." Because you're really not sorry. I mean, the only thing you're sorry for is you ended up in your room. That's what you're really sorry for. You're not really sorry that you insulted them, that you called them stupid or whatever it may be.
And so they're supposed to go, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wanted that thing, you had it, and I decided what my wants was more important than your wants. And I diminished who you are by telling you that you were stupid."
We asked them to be, now they never, by the way, do it that eloquently. Let's just be real here. But that's the intention. Because it's more than just words. It was really, really hurtful.
But if you just leave it at, "I'm sorry," you never really get down to the depth of how impactful it was. And so this step forces us to be specific. And it forces us to identify our character defects and list past behavior that has caused problems that, quite frankly, we want to forget.
It brings us face-to-face with those who really are, who we really are, and what we've done. It describes our identity. It describes our addiction and compulsion in vivid detail and forces us to face the need for change. None of us want to do that.
And, by the way, especially those of us in the church, right? Because we're supposed to supposedly have it together now. I don't know where we got this idea because it's definitely not in the Bible. The Bible's pretty clear that we're messed up. Our greatest heroes are murderers. I mean, really, go back. David was a murderer, an adulterer, and a murderer. Peter denied that he even knew Jesus to a little servant girl.
The Bible is filled with folks like you and me, even after they experienced Christ, right? Remember Peter? He was eating fine with the Gentiles, and then his Jewish brothers show up, and he's just like, this is a grown man all of a sudden back in high school, and he wants to sit with the cool kids, and he pretends the nerds aren't there anymore.
We are in desperate need. Twenty years after following, thirty years, fifty years after following Jesus. 12 Step Sponsorship says this: "We've embarked on a program of action that will restore us to sanity." That restoration, however, depends on our willingness to look at ourselves realistically and to endure the pain associated with facing what we have become.
Because here's what we know. Most of the things that drive us, most of the things that are the roadblock are things that we use to cover up pain. And we're like, "I don't want to go there." But until you go there, you'll keep covering it up with shopping, with anger, with drugs, with pornography, with whatever it may be, self.
One way or the other, you're going to deal with the pain, either by numbing it or dealing with it. The thing about numbing it is, it's a lifelong process. It doesn't go away. It's like the ostrich, right? There's something wrong. I'll just put my head in the sand.
It says, "That fantasy of some easier, softer way that will allow us to avoid the pain has kept a number of us from completing the step and from maintaining our recovery." A lot of folks come in, they're excited. First three steps, they see that other people have hope, they have hope themselves, but they get caught up right here.
Because no matter, this is the interesting thing to me. No matter how messed up your life is, we are afraid to admit our lives are messed up. Even though everyone else sees it, right? Everyone else sees it. And everyone, by the way, who you think their life is together, just talk to their family, right? My kids will be more than happy to tell you how messed up my life is, right? None of us, we're all in the same boat.
Romans, this won't come up on the screen. You just might have to make a little note of this. Romans chapter six, verse 17 and 18, I'm going to read to you. It says, "But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted."
Verse 18: "You have been set free from sin." The issue here is freedom. The issue here is freedom. See, here's the thing: those things, whether it be what somebody else did to us, whether it be a poor decision that we made, whether it be an addiction, whatever it is, those are all chains. They're all things that chain us, that enslave us.
And through the cross and the resurrection, God says, "I can free you." But here's the deal: you must name the chain. You must name the chain in order to be changed. I should write that down.
And so for many of us, many of us have been churchgoers, churchgoing, God-loving folks, but we keep just going, "God, just generally forgive me." And we refuse to acknowledge these chains, and we're still chained up. It's not God's deal. God wants to free us from that. But in order to free us, we need to acknowledge the chain is there in the first place.
That's what this step is about, acknowledging that the chain is there. Now, I want to talk a little bit about how this step works, but let me just tell you up front. This is very involved. It takes weeks, some people a couple months to do. So there is no way I'm going to adequately cover this. I'm just going to give you a glimpse at what needs to happen.
And then if this is something that God's stirring in you, I'll give you, I've already given you the resource that you can go, and you can do that. Plus, we can connect you with some other people that might be able to help you if that's what you need.
So I want to talk a little bit about this. God so leads you. So this comes from 12-step sponsorship. This is to teach those who are helping other sponsors, is what they call them, to go through this. The fourth step has been taken when sponsees have met the following conditions.
All right, first one, they have completed a written inventory that they regard as fearless and thorough. Fearless meaning, "I'm finally going to talk about those things that I refuse to talk about." And let me just tell you how this normally works, okay? People usually go through once, maybe even through twice, writing the inventory. And when they get to the end, they're like, "Oh, it's done," but something inside them, in their gut, the back of their head, however you function, goes, "Uh-uh, uh-uh."
If people are brave enough to do this at all, "Uh-uh." And they got to go back and go, "Oh." Fearless and thorough. I mean, literally, you start with, "Okay, zero to five, is there anything I remember? Five to ten." And then the closer you get to whatever age you are, you get every year, and maybe even every month, depending on the nature. It's very thorough.
Second, they have listed and analyzed their resentments. And this is really what trips a lot of people up. As a matter of fact, in the program, it says that resentment is the number one offender. And basically, just think of it this way. Resentment is those hurts that you're holding onto. Resentment is hurts that others have done to you that you're holding onto.
It says this in the 12 steps and 12 traditions. Unfortunately, I don't have this on the screen, but just listen. It says, "We also clutch at another wonderful excuse for avoiding our inventory. Why do step four? Our present anxieties and troubles, we cry, are caused by behavior of other people. People who really need a moral inventory. They're the ones that need the inventory, not me. They're the ones with the problem, not me. If so and so hadn't, then I wouldn't. It's their problem."
We firmly believe that if only they'd treat us better, we'd be all right. Therefore, we think our indignation is justified and reasonable, that our resentments are the, quote-unquote, "right kind." We aren't the guilty ones; they are. And the problem is, as long as it's about them, we never move on.
Which is why a lot of folks get stuck right here. Whether you're working the steps or whether you're going to God and saying, "And God, will you change and transform my life to be like Jesus?" Because this is what Jesus says to us, Matthew 6, verse 14: "For if you forgive men and women when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you."
But there is this direct link in relationship. As long as I'm holding out, making it about them, I won't deal with me. I will always make it about them. And therefore, they have eternal power over my life. Not because they're exerting power. I'm out of that relationship, maybe. There's distance.
But I know 50, 60, 70, 80-year-old men and women who are still, their lives are still ruled by the hurt that they received when they were little children. And I don't want to minimize the hurt. But what I want to do is maximize, do you really want to live that way? I mean, there's been some horrific things done to people. And we're not saying those aren't horrific things.
We're not saying those people don't need. As a matter of fact, one of the things that people experience as they go through this is they realize that the people who perpetrated that are just as sick, if not sicker than they are, but they begin to see it as a sickness. And rather than unforgiveness, they begin to say, think of it as somebody with cancer. And they're beginning to have broken hearts for those sick folks.
And that helps them begin to release and move on themselves so that they can forgive. That's what the Bible says. The Bible says if you come with a gift to the altar of God to worship Him, but you have something, unforgiveness between you and another brother or sister, what? Leave your gift, go take care of that, then come back.
So let me tell you this. If the only time that you have to make amends with someone, to make something right with someone is Sunday morning, don't come here. Go make amends. Get your heart right. Forgive so that you can come and receive what God has for you.
When was the last time a pastor gave you permission to miss church? We make sure to write these resentments on a piece of paper. And there's actually a form for this. I'll refer you again to the resource to do this. But you write down the person or thing for whom the resentment is held. You write the cause for the resentment, how your life was hurt.
And you just do this systematically. And then after that's all done, you go back and say, "Did I have any part in this?" And even sometimes your part isn't in anything you did wrong. Your part is in how you're holding on to it. We admit our resentments. We deal with unforgiveness.
Next, part of step four is you've listed all your fears. What is it that I'm afraid of? Why do I think I have these fears? Because you're afraid of what you can't control or what's going to happen to you. So you take a list of your fears.
Next, they have reviewed their sexual conduct over the years, looking for the ways in which they had been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate, and identifying those whom they have hurt. This is a powerful wound in all of our lives. We have all mismanaged our sexuality. Every single one of us.
And I'm not talking about, for those of you who don't normally do the church, I'm not talking about all the moral voting issues and the prudence of the church. I'm not talking about those things. I'm talking about those things that you know where you've approached this intimate relationship of trust, of giving in sexuality, and you've made it about you and your needs and covering up your inadequacies and so on and so forth.
You don't need to deal with my standard or God's standard. Just deal with your own. You'll find plenty there, but it's an area we need to look at. Next, they have described how each of the seven deadly sins listed in the 12 and 12 apply to them, including the sin of grandiosity.
Here's the seven deadly sins that will come up on the screen: Pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. You go through each of those and say, "Okay, where in my life, five-year segments, one-year segments, has pride showed up? Greed, lust, anger, gluttony." That's one of mine, right? Envy and sloth or laziness. And you'll see there's a lot of overlapping here. This is thorough, though. This is thorough.
Next, they've included somewhere on the inventory all the people they have harmed and the behavior that has caused the harm. And some of this may have already arisen, but you're specific. You just go through, again, your entire life and you go, "Okay, where, you know, I remember when I picked on little Susie in fifth grade," right? It seems like a little thing, but you start there because you'll be amazed at how some pattern starts to show up.
We ignore the other person's role when we're doing this step and creating the problem. We ignore the other person's role when we're doing this step and creating the problem. And it concentrates solely on our own role. We take responsibility, whether our responsibility is 2% in the way that someone was harmed or 99%, we take responsibility for it. It's not about them; it's about us.
Next, we list our assets, the things that are great. This isn't just about, you know, just walking in the refrigerator and just seeing all the spoiled food. What's good? What is God giving you? And for a lot of this, there's so much garbage in the fridge. We don't understand. There's some good stuff, too.
Romans 12 says this: "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought." In other words, watch the self-grandiosity, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Sober judgment also says, "But don't think of yourself way down here." Because God values you. He's created you with a purpose, with certain gifts.
Do not only think highly of yourself, but don't think lowly of how God created you. Because He doesn't create junk, right? He does not make mistakes. He created you to be something special.
Now, maybe not the way you define special, right? I mean, I don't know about you, but when we were all growing up, we were all going to be actors and singers, and we all wanted to be the star, right? I'm assuming if you're in this room, you missed the mark. I did.
But that doesn't mean that God didn't have another plan. And actually, a better plan because, quite frankly, most of our stars are in therapy themselves because they don't feel very star-like.
The last two are kicker. They have not kept any secrets. And that's what I'm saying. You get done with it, and you go back through. You get done with your confession, and you go back through. "Okay, what?" And here's what's important to know about step four. Step four is just between you and God. You absolutely, positively need to do this and keep it in a place where nobody else will see it.
It is not for anyone else's eyes at this point. It's just between you and God. But here's the thing. You'll want to keep it from yourself. God already knows. But you'll want to keep it from yourself. What is that thing? And what you'll find is when you see the pattern in your life, there'll be something. There'll be something either at the beginning that caused it that you don't really want to admit to. Right? Sexual abuse, maybe. Or any kind of version of abuse usually is what it is.
Or there'll be something in the middle, or maybe even recently, that all this pattern led up to you doing something that if anyone knew, no one would ever speak to you again. And you just don't want to deal with it.
Okay? But in order for this to be effective, I was told at the first service, there's a saying in the program that says, "If half measures would work, we would have never entered into recovery." So you got to go all the way.
Because if you don't name a chain, you can't be changed. And lastly, they have not left anything important out of the inventory. It's kind of the same thing.
I want to just stop and reflect here just for a second and just say this is the heart of experiencing what we call the good news, the gospel, what happened on the cross and at the resurrection.
You see, in Romans, the writer Paul talks about how we are made right with God not by what we do, but by what Jesus did. And he talks specifically about the cross. See, God didn't just say, "You know what, I'll just forget about it." Because if he did, he couldn't have been, Romans chapter three, verse 26 says this: "He did it," meaning God, "to demonstrate his justice at the present time."
Justice means this: if you did something wrong, there was payment for it. So God is just because He didn't just wipe what you and I did underneath the rug. He poured out His wrath, His anger, His just rage on Jesus on the cross. It was paid for.
And therefore, God is just because He took care of it. Of course, you can only take care of what you take and put on the cross. And then it goes on to say, "So as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus."
In other words, not only was He just because He put all our sins upon Jesus, but Jesus was God. And He's the one who Himself paid the price for us that we couldn't pay. And then, of course, Jesus rose from the dead, showing that He's got the power. All that death, all that sin that was piled on Him could not hold Him in the grave.
And so what it says is now we have a power to change. We don't have to be chained to the past. We could be free to live a new life that He can do in us. And that is proven by the resurrection, which no one else can claim, by the way. That's the good news.
And then he goes on to say this: "Where there is boasting," in other words, can we go around saying, "Hey, look what I did?" I mean, that's the kicker about AA. You can't go around. Why? Because it was a power greater than you. You finally said, "I couldn't."
"Where there is boasting, it is excluded on what principle? On that of observing the law?" In other words, were you able to do it because of your good works? No. But that of faith, for we maintain that a man or a woman is justified by faith apart from observing the law, apart from getting their life together.
Because Jesus did for us what we could not do ourselves. That's the good news. And our part is just to make a decision to turn our will over. And that's beginning by saying, "All right, let's just get clear on how I don't deserve this."
Now, I want to be clear here. This is not about shame. This is not about making you feel guilty. It's the opposite. It's about taking your shame, taking your guilt that you've neglected, putting it down and taking it to the cross and nailing it, if you would, to the cross.
And now your shame is taken care of. But unless you name it, unless you put it there, you'll hold on to it. And what baffles God is God said, "I'll do it. I'll live this life. I'll go through this torture."
And many of us go, "Okay, God, I get it. But you can't forgive me for this. I'm going to hold on to this one." And you can't forgive me for this. And you can't forgive me.
And God's like, "Okay, I get it. You can't do it yourself. You feel like you're unforgivable in this area. Let's just start with you just saying what it is. Let's just agree that it's there."
And then His power can begin to flow.
So what now? What do we do now? What do we do in response to this? Well, two things. First of all, pray. The prayer is right there in your notes: "God, give me the strength and the courage to see what I need to see about myself. Remember what I need to remember and do what I need to do to complete my four-step inventory, or just to be completely honest with what I need to confess."
This doesn't have to be an official four-step, but it should be a true confession of how we fall short of His glory. And then second, write a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself. And I'll just tell you right now, you're going to need help.
You're just going to need someone to encourage you. It's just between you and God, so you're not going to need somebody at this point to tell or to process with, but you need someone to encourage you through this.
And so again, there's a link right there on the back of your notes. You go to that, it explains how to do this, how to take the moral inventory and everything in detail. And it's free online. You have to pay for a book or anything. And it'll kind of guide you to do this.
I want to leave you with these verses out of Acts chapter 19. Now, let me just set the scene for you. The church is growing and the word is spreading. And there's a specific situation where people were kind of following Jesus and they saw some of this power happening and they just tried to haphazardly tap into it.
And they find out Jesus' name is something to be taken serious. His power is something to be taken serious. And this is told throughout the whole region. And then something new happens. Speaking up in verse 17, when this became known to the Jews and the Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear. And that's really respect.
And the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Now notice this next part. Many of those who believed, in other words, they already had put their faith in Jesus. They already committed to following him, but something changed. Many of those who believed in Jesus now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.
A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to 50,000 drachmas. It means a lot of money. In this way, the word of the Lord spread widely. And notice this: "And grew in power."
How did it grow in power? People finally said, "You know what? I got to get it all out. I got to get it all out. This Jesus thing's a big deal." And when they were able to do that, a power flowed that never flowed before.
If you want to receive the power to change, I want to encourage you by the power of the Holy Spirit and the strength of God in you to begin to take the step.
Let's pray and then reflect on that.
Father God, I thank you. I thank you that you take us just as we are. That you know us greater than we know ourselves. You are not surprised by the ugliness of our lives. You are not surprised by the inadequacies, dear God, of our emotional state, of what we think and what we do.
You're well aware, dear God, that just by our own standards, not yours, just by our own standards, we come up short. We need to be forgiven for, that we may receive your forgiveness. Help us be courageous.
In the name of Jesus, who showed the ultimate courage on our behalf, we pray, amen.
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on Jan 29, 2025
