This is the fourth of ten sermons on Living the Christian Life. So much of the time, we know just what we are to do as Christians. We know very well we are to do all of these things. But the problem is how.
That is the subject of this sermon series. It is a sermon series on How to live the Christian life. We’ve covered kindness, developing patience, and loving deeply. These sermons are now posted online at the sermon blog listed on the front page of the bulletin.
Today, we’re going to cover how to break addictions.
Our Romans reading today was written by the Apostle Paul under the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. Paul was soon to head to Rome, to meet with a group of Christians. In Rome, there were already some thirty Christians that Paul knew, and at least three house churches – we know this from Chapter 16 of this letter. With Paul, sending greetings, were many other Christians. And so, Paul was writing this letter to the Roman Christians to help them better understand how salvation occurs, how salvation is available to all men and women, and how Christ’s sacrifice allows people to break free from slavery to sinful behavior and to now be able to live a new, joyful life, free from the bondage that previously held people.
What is sinful behavior?
There are several aspects to this. Sinful behavior is the behavior that takes us away from a relationship with God our Father. Augustine of Hippo defined sin as being lost far, far from home. To a certain extent, sinful behavior is behavior which goes against the Law that Moses brought from God. But Paul points out that even if we are not Jewish, even if we do not know God’s Law that Moses brought, we have our own standards of right and wrong behavior. And we cannot live up to even that standard. So in another way, sinful behavior is that behavior of ourselves that either we consider wrong, perhaps shameful, or it is behavior that harms us and our relationships with other people, and especially our relationship with God.
Do you need a list of sins? I could give you a list, but that list would be my list. And then, you would be free to argue with me over what should be on that list and what should not be on that list. Instead, I will go back to what Paul wrote and point out that you have a list of actions you consider sinful. Some of those things you have never done and probably never will do. But many of those things are actions you have done, often do now, and will likely continue doing tomorrow and next week. It is those actions that you think are sinful that will destroy you. Those recurring actions - those sinful addictions - go far beyond the list of actions that the news media commonly list as addictions, which usually includes alcohol, nicotine, and opium-based painkillers. Sinful addictions include all those actions you would like to stop and that is what I’m going to talk about today. It is those addictions, those bad behaviors that you want to quit doing and yet can’t seem to stop doing that I’m going to talk about today, because these are the addictions that destroy your soul.
I have gone through breaking a host of addictions in my life. For six months almost 30 years ago, I had a recurring kidney stone – the urologist prescribed Tylenol Codeine #4 tablets. I’d feel the stone moving, take two tablets, lay down, and take a nap 6 inches above the covers. Nothing wrong with that, right? But I grew worried that I was getting addicted to the painkillers and that my desire for the painkillers was causing the pain. Thankfully, shortly after becoming worried about that possibility, I passed the stone and poured the pills down the toilet, and since then I’ve taken a single Percoset when I was recovering from surgery about 7 or 8 years ago. I've been wary of painkillers ever since - and this has been born out by recent research that says a person can become physically addicted to opium-derived painkillers in as little as a couple of weeks - even though many doctors will still give a 30-day prescription for them.
It has been much more difficult for me to break other addictions. I have been addicted to video games, to sweet tea – you laugh, but it cost me $10,000. I have been addicted to the feeling of power that you get when you always have the right answer in class before anyone else has a chance to even put up their hand. I have been addicted to various televisions shows and to winning arguments and games at any cost – In college, I once refused to trade any properties in Monopoly because I had the green property set and no one else could make a set, upsetting a half-dozen of my friends. I have been addicted to salty foods, and to Little Debbie Fudge Rounds.
So what is your addiction? What do you deal with that hurts your friends and family and yourself?
How do we break addictions? What you are about to hear comes from four sources. I’ve been to several seminars recently on addition. I’ve learned a lot from the Alcoholics Anonymous organization about how they approach the issue, the twelve-step approach that other addiction organizations have adapted for their addictions. I’ve had my personal experience. And there is the teaching of Holy Scripture.
"So what does this have to do with me, pastor? I’m not an alcoholic and I’m not a drug addict."
What are you struggling with? What do you do daily or weekly that you wish you didn’t do? What do you do daily or weekly or monthly that leads you to break the law? What do you do daily or weekly that has messed up your life or the lives of those around you?
When I was in college, I had a problem with video games keeping me from studying. It may have dropped my GPA by a half-point. When I was single, I had a problem drinking too much Coca-Cola, which meant I was too exhausted in the evenings to keep my apartment any where near neat. My friends made fun of the mess. When I was living in Atlanta, I was so addicted to operating my business that I didn’t take any time off and grew burned out and exhausted and ignored my kids.
Driving too fast, drinking too much sweet tea, eating out too often, buying music CD’s every week, ordering pizza, playing Candy Crush – You name it, I’ve probably had to break the addiction.
The first step to breaking free is that we must recognize that there is a problem. It is a systematic problem in our world and therefore it becomes a systematic problem for each of us.
Our society wants to encourage addictive habits. We all know that alcohol and nicotine are addictive, but do you realize that most large soft drinks have as much caffeine as a cup of coffee? Why? It’s addictive! (The chart is based upon an 8-oz cup size. Soft drinks are sold in 16, 20, or 32 oz bottles.)
Chocolate activates the same receptors as marijuana does in the brain. And while neither is as addictive as opium-based drugs, they are both mildly addictive.
Sugar makes you feel high and that’s why you want sugary drinks and sweets, especially when you are tired. And we know that too much sugar leads to Type II diabetes.
Anger and fear generate adrenaline and for some people this is addictive. That’s why there are thrill-seekers who ride roller-coasters and jump out of airplanes. What you may not realize is that the very same effect is happening in your body when you watch scary movies, when you watch suspenseful crime shows – and when you watch the evening news shows that give you “today’s thing to be scared of”. It’s actually addictive to get angry over politicians and to get fearful about the world. And so we watch more news shows.
If you are stressed, shopping might be relaxing, at least as long as you have money. I used to buy a music CD every Sunday afternoon when I was single. I kept this habit up for about four years. Do the math and see how much money I spent. Some people tell me beer relaxes them, others smoke pot, still others watch football. Some garden and others go running. The runner’s high has been talked about for fifty years.
Our world wants to make sure you fall into addictions. Have you noticed the design of the new game apps, like Candy Crush. I KNOW many of you played the game – you sent me the requests for gifts all the time! Just like a good slot machine, you get small rewards almost constantly and every once in a while you get a big reward - you complete a level. And so you keep playing to get those big rewards. You’ll even pay to keep playing!
"OK, Pastor. So I’ve got some addictions, but are they are problem?"
Your addiction is a problem if participating in the activity endangers yourself or others, or if it is becoming more important in your life than your relationships, than your job, than your relationship with God. If you don’t recognize that your addiction is a problem, you won’t try to break it. So here’s some information you can choose to listen to from the addiction scientists to decide if you have a problem.
First, if you are breaking the law to enjoy your addiction, you are endangering yourself and your family. Breaking the law runs the chance you will be arrested and convicted, leading to possible loss of your job, loss of your children, a significant loss of income. It doesn’t matter if you agree with the laws or not: you have a problem. For example, if you really think pot-smoking is safe or even good for you, move to Colorado. You won’t be arrested there. But in our state, you are endangering your freedom and your family’s livelihood if you smoke pot. And this applies to many different addictions, including gambling, pornography, computer hacking, and especially drinking and driving. If you drink and drive, you are breaking the law, so no matter how safely you drive, you are endangering yourself and others because you may be arrested. If you are underage for the activity that you are doing, you are endangering yourself and others because you may be arrested. This applies to many, many different addictions.
For example, let’s say you like to look at pretty women. That’s fairly normal. Women also like to look at handsome men. People do this all the time at beaches and in other public places. But if you are peeking in windows at night, if you are filming women secretly, if you are you are breaking laws to see women, you have a problem.
Any use of illegal drugs is an addiction, because you are breaking the law and thus endangering yourself and others even if you only use the drug once a year – or even once.
So anytime you indulge your addiction and it breaks the law, you have a problem addiction.
A second way to tell if you have a problem addiction is that you may be exceeding healthy standards. Let’s look at alcohol. We’re going to use alcohol as an example because it is common, a lot of studies have been conducted on alcohol, and the Bible actually talks directly about alcohol.
The Bible does not teach that drinking alcohol is sinful. Wine was commonly drunk by people in ancient times and Paul even recommends it to Timothy at one point for his regular ailments. However, the Bible does teach that getting drunk leads to problems and often to sinful behavior, and that being a drunkard is a problem strong enough to disqualify a person from church leadership. The original Greek tells us that an overseer in the church should not be a person who “lies down beside a wine jug.” And our science backs this up. A little bit of wine appears to be healthy, but too much alcohol causes all sorts of physical health problems – ask a doctor - in addition to the problems it causes to relationships. So how much alcohol is too much?
According to the seminars I’ve attended, taught by addiction specialists, you are in danger of becoming an alcoholic if any of the following is true:
First, if you binge drink. Binge drinking is considered to be more than 5 drinks (including beers) at a time, more than twice a month. Binge drinking means the alcohol is controlling you rather than you controlling the alcohol.
Second, the addiction specialists say that 14 drinks a week – that’s averaging two a day – is the limit for men and 7 drinks a week – that’s averaging one a day – is the limit for women. If you are drinking more than this, you may have a problem and probably should cut back, if only for health reasons.
In another type of addiction, the doctors tell us it is unhealthy to sit for more than two hours at a time. So if you play video games for four hours solid, if you look at Facebook literally all evening long, if you watch television for more than a couple hours at a stretch – you have a problem. So our second way of knowing that we have a problem is when we go over a healthy line.
The third way you know that you are having a problem is when you declare you won’t perform your addiction and yet you do. You come home on Friday and tell your spouse – “No Facebook this weekend.” An hour later, you’re on Facebook with no good reason – you have a problem. You say you won’t eat chocolate and you eat. You say you aren’t drinking at the party tonight and you drink – you have a problem. I’ve had this problem with several of my addictions – that’s when I know I’ve got a problem. In fact, a good way to check an addiction is to see if you can go two weeks without using. That is a good start – but it isn’t a sure proof that you are free – it’s just a good start. If you can’t stop for two weeks, you’ll know for sure you have a problem.
A fourth way to know you have an addiction is when multiple people tell you that you have an addiction. One person may be off-base, but when multiple people who care for you tell you that you have an addiction – listen.
The fifth way to know you have an addiction is when trouble begins happening in your life because of the addiction. You miss school in order to video game. You miss church because you drank too much last night. You don’t pay the electric bill because you "needed" to buy another set of clothes. You flirted too much with the waitress and it caused a huge fight with your wife. You gossiped too long and too loud and your boss gave you a reprimand because of it. Oh yes, gossip can be an addiction. You had to repair the hole in the wall where you punched it last night because you were angry. And you can’t stop.
The twelve step programs tell us that there are three beginning steps to breaking any addiction:
First, you must recognize that the addiction is a problem. Specifically, you recognize that you are powerless to stop the addiction - that your life has become unmanageable because of the addiction. Take a minute to think about your addictions. Are they controlling you? Are they problem addictions?
Second, you recognize that God has the power to handle the addiction. And this is exactly where our Romans reading steps in….Listen to Paul’s argument.
"Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."
Paul is saying our baptism unites us in a spiritual way with Christ, so that our old self is dead and we are ready to live a new life in Christ. When we were baptized, we spiritually died and then came back to spiritual life with the Holy Spirit now energizing us.
"For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin."
Paul is saying that with this baptism death-and-resurrection, we are free from the slavery to sin. A dead person can no longer sin. Our new rebirth resets us, we are rebooted, free from the virus of sin.
Skipping down a bit…Paul continues….
"When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
When sin controlled us, sin paid us with death. Now that God controls us, God pays us with eternal life.
In Star Trek, there was an episode where one of the regular characters was possessed by an alien energy being which was slowly killing that character. The doctor figured out that the only was to get rid of the alien was to kill the character. So the crew killed their friend, the character. The alien left the ship quickly. But then, the doctor brought the character back to life, free from the control of the alien.
It is somewhat similar to us with addiction. The only way to remove the slavery of addictive sin from our character is for us to spiritually die. When we voluntarily “die” by giving control of our life to Christ through baptism and the receiving of the Holy Spirit, the slavery to sin chains are broken, the sin leaves, and now God can bring us back to spiritual life and give us an eternal life.
Which leads to the third step in the process…
We must turn our lives over to Christ.
How simple! Yet how difficult!
I love my mother. My mother is now 81 years old. As a state senator covering four counties near Parkersburg, she drives all over the state – last year she also drove to Dallas, TX and back. She regularly logs around 30,000 miles a year. And she drives. Not my dad. No one else. When Mom, Dad, Saundra, and I go out to eat, Mom drives. Total control of the wheel. My dad and I learned many years ago that even if we get to drive, Mom still won’t give up control of the wheel – she’ll just reach out for it if she gets scared.
And that’s how we all are with our lives. Few people want to give up control of the wheel of our lives to Jesus. Fewer still want to really give up control and not reach out to grab the wheel when we get scared.
But that’s why we continue to have problems. That’s why we have addictions. We have addictions because we tell Jesus – "Jesus, you can drive on this street of our lives, but not on that street, and certainly not on the four-lanes." We will always have problems with addictions as long as we don’t employ Jesus as our full-time chauffeur. We really need to move to the back seats of our lives, sitting in the limo in the seat that faces the rear. As long as we insist on driving or even sitting beside Him in the front seat, he’ll never be able to take us away from the bad parts of town, to the truly beautiful spots, to the wonderful roads high in the mountains that we are too inexperienced to drive over, but that He has driven over many times. We need to take the third step – to say, "Jesus, you have total control of my life."
Now the scientists, the doctors, the folks at the rehab centers – they have given us all sorts of good research about what keeps us addicted. They point out that some addictions are addictions which calm us down when we are too excited or tense or stressed. And some people drink or smoke pot or play video games to calm down. I’ve learned to read the Psalms and to pray.
Other research shows us that some addictions are addictive because they give us a wonderfully pleasurable high, and some people will do almost anything to repeat that high. Because of that, today you can go to Mon General Hospital and they will give you a drug which block the receptors in your brain which makes you feel high. Then, you don’t have any wish anymore to drink or shoot heroin or take pain pills because you simply can’t get high off of anything anymore. I prefer to watch someone come to know God, or hear someone tell me of discovering a new, deeper relationship with Christ, or see someone listen to the Holy Spirit and begin to blossom like a huge rosebud opening up.
Still other research shows this: Twelve-step programs only work for about a quarter of people - the quarter of people who truly turn their lives over to God. The spiritual part is not optional. Twelve-step programs are still the most effective thing going, because they are based upon Holy Scripture, they use the power of God – not our own feeble power – and they substitute an eternal life-giving relationship with God for the relationship with Satan that would lead to your early death and eternal demise.
To break free of any addiction, admit it is a problem you are helpless to handle, recognize that God and Christ are ready and able to step in, and turn your life’s control over to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
And you will live abundantly and eternally.
According to the seminars I’ve attended, taught by addiction specialists, you are in danger of becoming an alcoholic if any of the following is true:
First, if you binge drink. Binge drinking is considered to be more than 5 drinks (including beers) at a time, more than twice a month. Binge drinking means the alcohol is controlling you rather than you controlling the alcohol.
Second, the addiction specialists say that 14 drinks a week – that’s averaging two a day – is the limit for men and 7 drinks a week – that’s averaging one a day – is the limit for women. If you are drinking more than this, you may have a problem and probably should cut back, if only for health reasons.
In another type of addiction, the doctors tell us it is unhealthy to sit for more than two hours at a time. So if you play video games for four hours solid, if you look at Facebook literally all evening long, if you watch television for more than a couple hours at a stretch – you have a problem. So our second way of knowing that we have a problem is when we go over a healthy line.
The third way you know that you are having a problem is when you declare you won’t perform your addiction and yet you do. You come home on Friday and tell your spouse – “No Facebook this weekend.” An hour later, you’re on Facebook with no good reason – you have a problem. You say you won’t eat chocolate and you eat. You say you aren’t drinking at the party tonight and you drink – you have a problem. I’ve had this problem with several of my addictions – that’s when I know I’ve got a problem. In fact, a good way to check an addiction is to see if you can go two weeks without using. That is a good start – but it isn’t a sure proof that you are free – it’s just a good start. If you can’t stop for two weeks, you’ll know for sure you have a problem.
A fourth way to know you have an addiction is when multiple people tell you that you have an addiction. One person may be off-base, but when multiple people who care for you tell you that you have an addiction – listen.
The fifth way to know you have an addiction is when trouble begins happening in your life because of the addiction. You miss school in order to video game. You miss church because you drank too much last night. You don’t pay the electric bill because you "needed" to buy another set of clothes. You flirted too much with the waitress and it caused a huge fight with your wife. You gossiped too long and too loud and your boss gave you a reprimand because of it. Oh yes, gossip can be an addiction. You had to repair the hole in the wall where you punched it last night because you were angry. And you can’t stop.
The twelve step programs tell us that there are three beginning steps to breaking any addiction:
First, you must recognize that the addiction is a problem. Specifically, you recognize that you are powerless to stop the addiction - that your life has become unmanageable because of the addiction. Take a minute to think about your addictions. Are they controlling you? Are they problem addictions?
Second, you recognize that God has the power to handle the addiction. And this is exactly where our Romans reading steps in….Listen to Paul’s argument.
"Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."
Paul is saying our baptism unites us in a spiritual way with Christ, so that our old self is dead and we are ready to live a new life in Christ. When we were baptized, we spiritually died and then came back to spiritual life with the Holy Spirit now energizing us.
"For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin."
Paul is saying that with this baptism death-and-resurrection, we are free from the slavery to sin. A dead person can no longer sin. Our new rebirth resets us, we are rebooted, free from the virus of sin.
Skipping down a bit…Paul continues….
"When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
When sin controlled us, sin paid us with death. Now that God controls us, God pays us with eternal life.
In Star Trek, there was an episode where one of the regular characters was possessed by an alien energy being which was slowly killing that character. The doctor figured out that the only was to get rid of the alien was to kill the character. So the crew killed their friend, the character. The alien left the ship quickly. But then, the doctor brought the character back to life, free from the control of the alien.
It is somewhat similar to us with addiction. The only way to remove the slavery of addictive sin from our character is for us to spiritually die. When we voluntarily “die” by giving control of our life to Christ through baptism and the receiving of the Holy Spirit, the slavery to sin chains are broken, the sin leaves, and now God can bring us back to spiritual life and give us an eternal life.
Which leads to the third step in the process…
We must turn our lives over to Christ.
How simple! Yet how difficult!
I love my mother. My mother is now 81 years old. As a state senator covering four counties near Parkersburg, she drives all over the state – last year she also drove to Dallas, TX and back. She regularly logs around 30,000 miles a year. And she drives. Not my dad. No one else. When Mom, Dad, Saundra, and I go out to eat, Mom drives. Total control of the wheel. My dad and I learned many years ago that even if we get to drive, Mom still won’t give up control of the wheel – she’ll just reach out for it if she gets scared.
And that’s how we all are with our lives. Few people want to give up control of the wheel of our lives to Jesus. Fewer still want to really give up control and not reach out to grab the wheel when we get scared.
But that’s why we continue to have problems. That’s why we have addictions. We have addictions because we tell Jesus – "Jesus, you can drive on this street of our lives, but not on that street, and certainly not on the four-lanes." We will always have problems with addictions as long as we don’t employ Jesus as our full-time chauffeur. We really need to move to the back seats of our lives, sitting in the limo in the seat that faces the rear. As long as we insist on driving or even sitting beside Him in the front seat, he’ll never be able to take us away from the bad parts of town, to the truly beautiful spots, to the wonderful roads high in the mountains that we are too inexperienced to drive over, but that He has driven over many times. We need to take the third step – to say, "Jesus, you have total control of my life."
Now the scientists, the doctors, the folks at the rehab centers – they have given us all sorts of good research about what keeps us addicted. They point out that some addictions are addictions which calm us down when we are too excited or tense or stressed. And some people drink or smoke pot or play video games to calm down. I’ve learned to read the Psalms and to pray.
Other research shows us that some addictions are addictive because they give us a wonderfully pleasurable high, and some people will do almost anything to repeat that high. Because of that, today you can go to Mon General Hospital and they will give you a drug which block the receptors in your brain which makes you feel high. Then, you don’t have any wish anymore to drink or shoot heroin or take pain pills because you simply can’t get high off of anything anymore. I prefer to watch someone come to know God, or hear someone tell me of discovering a new, deeper relationship with Christ, or see someone listen to the Holy Spirit and begin to blossom like a huge rosebud opening up.
Still other research shows this: Twelve-step programs only work for about a quarter of people - the quarter of people who truly turn their lives over to God. The spiritual part is not optional. Twelve-step programs are still the most effective thing going, because they are based upon Holy Scripture, they use the power of God – not our own feeble power – and they substitute an eternal life-giving relationship with God for the relationship with Satan that would lead to your early death and eternal demise.
To break free of any addiction, admit it is a problem you are helpless to handle, recognize that God and Christ are ready and able to step in, and turn your life’s control over to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
And you will live abundantly and eternally.
For more information on twelve-step programs nationwide, try this link. For more information in or near Harrison County, WV, come visit us at the Quiet Dell United Methodist Church any Saturday evening at 8 pm. We're located at I-79, exit 115, 50 feet east of the exit. Turn left at the BP-7/11 store and follow the access road back to toward the interstate.
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