The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
Galatians 5 (works of the flesh)list of works of the flesh used to illustrate what step one looks like when examining sin in one's life
1 Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
2 Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing.
3 Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
4 You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace.
5 For we, through the Spirit, by faith wait for the hope of righteousness.
6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love.
7 You were running well! Who interfered with you that you should not obey the truth?
8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you.
9 A little yeast grows through the whole lump.
10 I have confidence toward you in the Lord that you will think no other way. But he who troubles you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.
11 But I, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been removed.
12 I wish that those who disturb you would cut themselves off.
13 For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.
14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
15 But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire.
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness,
21 envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,
23 gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
24 Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
26 Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.
list of fruit of the Spirit used to illustrate what sanity and wholeness under God looks like in step two
1 Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
2 Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing.
3 Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
4 You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace.
5 For we, through the Spirit, by faith wait for the hope of righteousness.
6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love.
7 You were running well! Who interfered with you that you should not obey the truth?
8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you.
9 A little yeast grows through the whole lump.
10 I have confidence toward you in the Lord that you will think no other way. But he who troubles you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.
11 But I, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been removed.
12 I wish that those who disturb you would cut themselves off.
13 For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.
14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
15 But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire.
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness,
21 envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,
23 gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
24 Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
26 Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.
humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, resist the devil who prowls like a roaring lion, referenced as the passage preached at the fair connecting to step four
6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time;
7 casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you.
8 Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
9 Withstand him steadfast in your faith, knowing that your brothers who are in the world are undergoing the same sufferings.
10 But may the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
11 To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.
Paul's 'what a wretched man I am' used as a biblical parallel to step one and step two
1 Or don’t you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives?
2 For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband.
3 So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man.
4 Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God.
5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring out fruit to death.
6 But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.
7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin, except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting, unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”
8 But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead.
9 I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
10 The commandment, which was for life, this I found to be for death;
11 for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.
12 Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good.
13 Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful.
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin.
15 For I don’t know what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.
16 But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good.
17 So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.
18 For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good.
19 For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice.
20 But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.
21 I find then the law, that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present.
22 For I delight in God’s law after the inward man,
23 but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, the sin’s law.
without faith it is impossible to please God, he rewards those who earnestly seek him, used to support step two
6 Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.
used to support the step five practice of confessing sins to another human being
1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you.
2 Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten.
3 Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days.
4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.
5 You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
6 You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you.
7 Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receives the early and late rain.
8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
9 Don’t grumble, brothers, against one another, so that you won’t be judged. Behold, the judge stands at the door.
10 Take, brothers, for an example of suffering and of perseverance, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
11 Behold, we call them blessed who endured. You have heard of the perseverance of Job, and have seen the Lord in the outcome, and how the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
12 But above all things, my brothers, don’t swear— not by heaven, or by the earth, or by any other oath; but let your “yes” be “yes”, and your “no”, “no”; so that you don’t fall into hypocrisy.
13 Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praises.
14 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord,
15 and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
16 Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.
17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months.
18 He prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
19 Brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back,
20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
benediction: God comforts us in all our troubles so we can comfort others, the more we suffer for Christ the more God showers us with comfort
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort;
4 who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, even so our comfort also abounds through Christ.
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This message was the fifth installment in Pastor Mark's series on the 12 steps, read through a biblical lens. After two weeks away delivering his daughter to Auburn University, he returned to walk the congregation through Step Five: admitting the exact nature of our wrongs to God, to ourselves, and to another human being. The whole sermon made the case that this kind of honest confession is not a Catholic invention but something Scripture calls every believer to practice.
What was said
Pastor Mark opened with a quick review of the ground already covered, because a month had passed since the last installment. Step One is the recognition that we are powerless over our sin, what early AA literature called "deflation at depth." He warned against staying there, because a person who only sees their own powerlessness and stops there lands in depression, anxiety, and remorse with no way out.
Step Two is coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. He acknowledged that lifelong churchgoers hear "higher power" and immediately think of Jesus, and he said that is exactly right. The point is that sanity, understood as complete wholeness, is what God is offering, and its shape is the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Step Three is the decision to turn your will and your life over to God's care. Pastor Mark was careful to say that making the decision does not instantly produce righteousness, but it is still a real and necessary act. He used Jesus in the garden, "not my will but yours be done," as the pattern, and he pressed back against the idea that "as we understood him" means you can invent a God to your own taste.
Step Four is the searching and fearless moral inventory. He put the vice list from Galatians 5 on the screen precisely because church people who are confident they avoid the obvious sins can miss the relational ones: enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalry, dissension, division, envy. He said several people from the earlier session had photographed that list because they wanted a grid to examine themselves honestly.
Step Five is where the sermon landed: admitting to God, to yourself, and to another human being the exact nature of what that inventory turned up. He went directly to James 5 to answer the Protestant objection, pointing out that James tells believers to confess their sins to one another so that they may be healed. Confession to God, he said, is agreeing with God, and First John 1:9 is the mechanism by which he forgives and cleanses.
Pastor Mark read at length from Michel Quoist's poem "Sin," which traces the arc of a believer who sins, feels the full weight of shame and isolation, and then hears God say to get up quickly, because it is not falling that is the worst thing but staying on the ground. He used the poem to illustrate that God's response to honest confession is not rejection but restoration, and that the goal is not merely to lose the feeling of guilt but to have the actual guilt removed, which is what the cross accomplished.
He closed by pointing to the men's and women's Thursday studies as real places where Step Five can happen, where confession to another person is possible inside a community of trust. The prayer of a righteous person, he noted, is powerful and effective, and God's people become righteous not by starting out that way but by receiving the righteousness Christ gives to those who are humble before Him.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
The pastor described 'deflation at depth' as a place of complete humility where a person admits they are powerless. When have you experienced a moment like that, and what did it take for you to get there?
The sermon drew a contrast between the two lists in Galatians 5, the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, and called them as stark a contrast as you will ever see. Looking honestly at both lists, which items on either side do you find yourself most drawn to or most resistant to acknowledging in your own life?
Speaker 1How are you? All is well? Yeah. Good. Glad to be back and thank you all.
Brad did a great job the last couple of weeks and I was just telling somebody that when we were planning on taking Pascal, our daughter to college, we did get her delivered to Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama about an hour from where I grew up and we got her delivered. But when I offered or asked for for the elders, I said, which one of y'all would like to preach while I'm gone? And Brad volunteered that he would, and I told him I was gonna be gone on the August 4. He said, I think I have a two part series on suffering. And I said, okay.
I wouldn't announce that the first week, but he did and he did a great job with both of them. I really appreciate having a deep bench here where we have others that can bring the word and bring it to bear on our lives and it's really great and gracious for us to be able to spend a little time getting Paschal set up at Auburn and and then lingering a bit before we before we came back. Empty nest is a different experience for us and she's our only. So, she starts classes tomorrow. That'll be a slightly different experience than than we have had and that she has had.
But I'll ask you if you would stand and we will sing He Keeps Me Singing. He Keeps Me Singing as I go.
Speaker 2There's within my heart a mellow deep. Jesus whispers sweet and low. Fear not, I am with thee. Peace be still. In all of life's ebb and flow.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know, fills my every longing, keeps me singing as I go. All my life was wrecked by sin and strife. Discord filled my heart with pain. Jesus swept across the broken strings, stirred the slumbering courts again. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know, fills my every longing, keeps me singing as I go, feasting on the riches of his grace, resting beneath his sheltering wing, always looking on his smiling face.
That is why I shout and sing. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know, fills my every longing, keeps me singing as I go. Though sometimes he leads through waters deep, trials fall across my way. Though sometimes the path seems rough and steep, see his footprints all the way. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know, fills my every long heat.
Keeps me singing as I go on
Speaker 1the last. That was the last. That was the last. Actually, last one says, soon he's coming back to welcome me far beyond the starry sky. I shall wing my flight to worlds on own.
I shall reign with him on high. Amen. Alright. Count your blessings. Hymn number seven eighty six.
And I say hymnals and I know you don't have one. They're up here up front if you wanna see your part. You're welcome to come get a hymnal anytime. So, hymn number seven eighty six. Count your blessings.
Speaker 2When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed. When you are discouraged thinking all is lost. Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord have done. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God hath done.
Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God hath done. Now, a second.
Speaker 1Are y'all serious? Count your blessings. It's like, if is it just bubbling up in you? Do you have one to count? Do you have one at the top of your head?
What is it?
Speaker 2A new friend.
Speaker 1A new friend. Fantastic. That's great. Next. My wife.
My wife. Fantastic. That's good. I'll say same thing. My wife, I'm glad for my wife.
I'm thankful for that. Anybody? This church. Yeah. This church.
Amen. God is so good. He's so good. Yes. You can't be grateful.
What's that? Judy Basie. That's right. That's something to be thankful for. You can't be grateful and anxious at the same time.
Think about that. You can't be grateful and anxious at the time. God knows that and he says in Thessalonians, this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus that you be grateful. So, as we're going through it, you don't have to yell them out anymore but as we're going through it, think about some that we're going. Here we go.
Second verse.
Speaker 2Are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy? You are called to bear. Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly. And you will be singing as the days go by.
Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God have done. When you look at others with their lands and gold, think that Christ has promised you his wealth untold.
Count your many blessings money cannot buy. Your reward in heaven or your home on high. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God hath done. Count your blessings, name them one by one.
Count your many blessings, see what God hath done. So amid the conflict, great or small, do not be discouraged. God is over all. Count your many blessings angels angels will attend. Help and comfort give you to your journeys in.
Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God hath done. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God
Speaker 1Amen. Y'all can have a seat. I have a few announcements. Woah. Hey.
There it is. First b, camp out. There's another one. We did two this summer. The last one showed me that this is a great place to get together.
Palisades, lake, there's a nice flat plane, great place to park RVs, park a tent, sit around a campfire, make some s'mores, that sort of stuff. So Mike, Demetrius, and Brian McCooey have been the two organizing this event. They even got porta potties last time and promised they would again. It makes it a lot easier on a camp out if you do those sort of things. So August twenty third to twenty fifth, Palisades Lake.
For more information, you can talk to those guys, but it's coming up. That's next weekend. So, Friday, Saturday, Sunday at Palisades. If you want more information, you can talk to the office. All bills in the FBC Benevolence Fund.
So, First Baptist has a benevolence fund. Most of y'all know what that is. It's an item of local benevolence. When somebody comes in with a need, your donations through the Community Foundation go to helping to meet those needs. So usually, usually, a dollar in through the community foundation for First Bees benevolence funds comes out the other side.
A dollar goes in, a dollar 50 comes out. So that's a pretty good return on an investment in helping people and be in hands and feet of Jesus trying to if somebody lacks for a car part or if they need a hotel for the night or that sort of thing, we are able to say yes to those sort of things. The giving season is August 9 through September 13, so we're in the midst of that. If you wanna do that, you can give on our website through Old Bills. Coming up soon.
So this is a couple of weekends away. August 31 through September 1 in Bondurant, Wyoming. Down in Bondurant, the Bondurant Fellowship which is a sort of a church plant in itself and a lot of folks who live down there, who come to church here are trying to get a fellowship going and so, the journey through the Psalms, worship hootenanny twenty twenty four is happening. August 31 through September 1. First beads, 09:00 band will be playing on Saturday night down there and then I'll preach a little bit about Psalm 67 and we're working on getting that done.
Danny Ortley, some of y'all will remember Danny Ortley from years past having sung here. Danny Ortley will be playing the Saturday evening after we finish up and he'll be playing here on that Sunday. He'll be doing the music here. Danny's great. So journey through the Psalms, worship Hootenanny, August 31, September 1.
If you wanted more information about that, you can call us or you can call Dancey Tolleson and again, nice plane of a place that you can tent camp or you can camp out with an RV down there for the weekend. And this is the third annual Women of Legacy luncheon in Jackson. It's a summertime event, 08/26/2024. It's at PCJH, so Presbyterian Church of Jackson Hole in South Park Loop Road. I believe that Sherry Turpin and the Turpin family are helping to organize in this event.
But August 26, ladies luncheon. Women of Legacy luncheon in Jackson, eleven to one, August 26. And I think oh, yeah. If you would like to get the first be in the Bible emails, is all of us, there are there are a bunch of writers, 25 to 40. We've had writers that are writing up a little bit on a bit of scripture every day.
We're going through Romans right now. If you want to receive those emails, let us know and we'll send them
Speaker 2to you. And if you
Speaker 1just want to get the kind of weekly bulletin emails, you can let us know that too at first b jackson dot org. And I think that really is the last one, isn't it, Nick? Okay. So would you stand with me? And we're gonna sing I think we're gonna sing sanctuary.
Or are we, Nick? There we go. I think I I clicked when I shouldn't have. Sorry. Lord, prepare us.
Sincerely, Lord, prepare us to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. Amen. Lord,
Speaker 2prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true with thanksgiving. I'll be a living sanctuary for you. Key change. Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true with thanksgiving. I'll be a living sanctuary for you.
I'll be a living sanctuary for you
Speaker 1Amen. Amen. Change my heart, oh God. The sermon today is this goes along very very well with the sermon content for today. We're asking that God would take all of the areas of our life that we really are powerless over and that he would take those and change our hearts to make us more like him.
Speaker 2Change my heart, oh God. Make it ever true. Change my heart, oh, God. May I be like You are the potter. I am the clay.
Mold me and make and is what I pray. Change my heart, oh God. Make it ever true. Change my heart, oh God. I be like
Speaker 1Y'all can have a seat and Imma invite the ushers to come forward or the the usher at this point. There it comes. Yeah. Would y'all pray with me? God, I'm so thankful to be here.
I'm so thankful to be here. I was thankful to be gone. Lord, when we wake up in the morning and we have breath in our lungs, may we ever be praising you and grateful for the day that you've given. Your word says that your mercies are new every morning and lord, I feel that. So, thank you for that.
I also ask lord that we'd be a part of the gospel moving forward. I know that plan a is willing and obedient, humble servants that are just willing to carry you forward with us. To be able to have a heart that is so full of you that it comes out of our mouth. Lord God, would you use our lives and our words to promote Christ, To let him be known where he's not known, in families where he's never been considered, in places where he's never his name's never been uttered. God almighty, would you just use us to carry forward your good gospel?
I pray that you'd use the funds that are placed in these plates to do that. I pray that you would use the metaphorical other gifts and resources like our time and our consideration and our prayer and all of those things that you would use that in your kingdom purpose of advancing the news that Christ is good and able to save. He's mighty to save. In Jesus name, we pray and we live and move and have our being. In Jesus name, amen.
Speaker 2Wow. Wow.
Speaker 1That makes me wish I hadn't given up on piano lessons. Golly. That was so good. Thank you, Judy. What fun.
What fun. This morning, this was in the first service. Don't forget this covenant ceremony again. Do you all know John Daly? John Daly has been coming for a couple of years now and he came to be a member of the church.
I'm letting you know, John Daly, Jen Green's dad for some of you, came this morning to be a member at First B and what he had to say, the little blurb that he said was so helpful and so cool to me. I just wanted to share it with you. He said, I'm thankful for the joy present here. I'm thankful for the word being presented here and I'm and I'm just thankful for being thankful basically, which is all good. It's just really really good.
So thank you for being a part of that. We covenant with him to do the best we could in Jesus name to encourage him in the faith and allow him to encourage us in the faith too. So that's the covenant ceremony. I'm going to stop right here and say again. So, if you just a little bit of a review, I've been gone for two Sundays and Brad did sermons on suffering.
I told him, I don't think I'd announce that second one on suffering but you know, that's just the way I think. He did and he did a great job on both. I was able to watch both of them from the road but I'm very thankful to have a deep bench and have elders here willing. If you go back to the week before he preached those two messages, it was at the fair And I covered first Peter five six through 11. That was the portion of scripture.
And really that portion goes along with the series that I've been doing on the 12 steps. So I'm going back to the series on the 12 steps. We're up to step five today. I have a friend here in Jackson who is a counselor. He is a pastor.
He is a preacher. But his job like normal he's by vocational. His job is doing drug and alcohol counseling. And if somebody asked him what he does, what do you do? He goes, fifth steps.
Fifth steps is what he does. His main thing that he does in ministry is when people have come through the first four steps and they're ready to turn something over to God. He's the one that listens to that. He's not a priest and he knows that he's not a priest. He can't absolve and he knows that but he is one of the people who will listen when people are ready to turn over their stuff to God and to themselves and to one other human being.
And that's what we're getting to today is step five. But I wanna do a little bit of a review. I was trying to make a biblical case for and at intervals. So we did this one step one and two the first week. We did step three in a week and we did step four.
And then I've been out of here. So it's been a month since we heard, I thought I'd review. I also want to make a case for this. So, I've been in church my whole life. I've listened to, I don't know how many thousand sermons.
I've prepared more than 500 that I've presented here and did more than that. I haven't heard anybody do a series on this in church before and I know that we get a little bit. Anytime that I get anywhere away from scripture, I feel like I'm standing on uneasy ground. So I'm making the case that this is all scriptural. I will mention it as best I can.
Some of the places where Christians have trouble with 12 step programs, I don't think there's enough understanding. So I'm trying to present it as this is what we preach anyway. Step one, we admitted that we were powerless over whatever our problem is. In AA, they would say, we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. I would propose to you that we all have a problem that we cannot overcome.
It's a sin problem. I heard that from the back row. It's a sin problem and we all have that in common whether that particular sin is in common or not. One of the reasons why AA works so well and has historically worked so well is because they're linking together over a common problem. We admit it.
We were powerless over our problem, whatever it is individually, but the we admit it. Wait a second. Is that we collective? It helps. It helps.
We are the body of Christ. It helps if we can be together on this. But really, what precedes step one is having had a spiritual awakening. That's the way every one of these starts off. Having had a spiritual awakening, we admitted that we were powerless over our problem.
We began to see it for what it is that we lacked in a way that we could not make up for, that our lives had become unmanageable. What the early earliest literature from AA called this is deflation at depth. To be completely, instead of puffed up by knowledge, puffed up, it's to be completely deflated at the depth of the heart level in all humility admitting that you're powerless is a very difficult thing for a human being to do. And but it it takes that. Before God, he resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble.
This is the place of recognizing your lack. It is a very humble place and I'm asking you do not stay here long. If you stay deflated at depth and you don't get to step two, then it's really problematic. It can be a place of depression, a place of horrible anxiety, a place of regret that and remorse that is very very hurtful, but you're still powerless. Now the second step actually, let me go through this.
It's funny because I talked to Pascal. She was here for all of these others and Tanya and Pascal said, are you really gonna read read that list again? I said, I kind of kind of afraid I have to. If you're wondering what step one looks like, it's when you look at your life and you see the works works of the flesh are evident, Galatians five says. The works of the flesh are evident.
Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, those all seem to go together. That's kind of carnal stuff. You can look at your life and see that I did have, I do have people that come forward and say, I'm struggling in this area and it's that's the area. Praise God that you're struggling, first of all, and that you recognize that you're struggling and that God can restore you to sanity. That's the next step.
Sexual and morality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, putting anything ahead of God is idolatry. Sorcery, trying to manipulate the spiritual realm to get what you want. Sorcery. Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, all seem to go together. Those are relational sins, relational difficulties, and the works of the flesh, We have such a strong hardwiring to be us and them and this is wrong and sinful.
Jesus says, what are we to do for our enemies? And it's love them and pray for them. When he prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies, he's making enemies friends by dissolving these sorts of relational works of the flesh. Drunkenness, orgies, things like these. Now, this is a representative list.
I do not think it's an exhaustive list. The reason I don't think so is because if you look at the Bible, there are several other vice lists and there they are. That's all of them in the New Testament. According to Paul, if you look at Jesus speaking about him, he elevates lust to adultery. He elevates hate to murder and so there are more.
But this again, representative list, I think it's helpful. I think it's really helpful as church folk who see ourselves as super holy to see that, you know what? There's some stuff on the list that I should be struggling with instead of embracing, instead of nurturing, instead of holding on to. So step one is a good place to start but don't stay there long. I admitted I'm powerless over my stuff and I came to believe or we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves, a higher power and I know Christians that have been in church your whole life.
I know that you hear higher power or power greater than ourselves and you just go, it's Jesus. It's Jesus. It's Jesus. Yeah, we just sang it. Yes, it's Jesus.
Okay? But there's been enough of a history of enough people that have been hurt by other people that can we let it be for just a little bit? We can't believe that a power greater than ourselves. There is something out there that's more than me and I do believe it's Jesus. I do believe it's God the Father.
I do believe it's the Holy Spirit. But we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. At the place of absolute deflation at depth, we hit a place of willingness, belief. Sorry, the Oxford comma was not in there and I copy pasted. I prefer the comma.
Willingness, belief, comma, and seeking. This is the place. Okay? Of willingness, belief, and seeking. I believe that there is a higher power.
Even if I, in humility, don't know who he is or what he is at this point, I know that I'm powerless, but I must be willing to believe and seek after him. Now, that's super scriptural. Seek first God. Seek first the kingdom of God. All these other things will be added to you.
There's a place of willingness to believe that is helpful. As long as you're in a place where you feel like you're powerless and so is everybody else even God, it's a terrible place to be. Step two is coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And then step two, this is what sanity Sanity is not just mental. Sanity is health, complete wholeness.
This is what wholeness looks like. Under the higher power, under the Holy Spirit, Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. And in Galatians, those two things are in stark contrast, black and white, and just as bigger contrast as you've ever seen. Those two lists, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control is where we want to be living life and that's what God is offering. So, in step three, lord, I've messed it up.
If I keep doing what I've been doing, I'm gonna keep getting what I've been getting. I realize I'm powerless. I believe that you could restore me to sanity. This step three is saying, I'm gonna let you. Okay?
We made a decision to turn over our will and our lives over to the care of God. Now, Jesus in the garden, we see him saying, if it's possible, this is what I want, not to have to do this but your will not my will be done and that was the place that made the difference for everyone who would ever trust in Christ. That made the difference. That was the way. God's will is different than our will.
And for folks who've been in church our whole lives, sometimes we forget that. We've made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. Now, this third one is a decision to surrender. It is a volitional act and making the decision does not immediately make you righteous. Does that make sense?
It does impute the righteousness of Christ. I I get that in the gospel when you surrender, you are made whole. Yes. But you're going to be walking out something and and there are some changes that God wants to make. He's doing that by you accepting his will and his way for your life.
The decision to surrender is really really helpful in the process of step three is to make a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of God as we understood it. Again, there it is. It's a statement of humility. You can't just make up a God that is of your own liking, of your own taste, and live after that. That is a form of self righteousness that puts you on the throne and you are powerless over your problem.
There is a higher power and it's not you. To make a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand him is a humble place of submission to the will of God. Not my will but yours be done Lord, is a great place. Now, as we understood him, does not mean you can make up your own God. It's not a smorgasbord effect.
I like a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I don't want you this. It's more, God, I'm turning my will over to you and the way you've revealed it. Now, in the pages of scripture, this comes out all the time. I've got notes up here.
I've got notes and notes and notes. I was considering well, I'm making a biblical case. Maybe I already used the Bible. Psalm fifty five one through five. Listen to my prayer, oh God.
Don't ignore my plea. Hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I'm distraught. This is a recognition of powerlessness, it sounds like. I've got enemies because of what my enemies say and because of the threats of the wicked, they bring down suffering on me and they assail me in their anger.
My heart is in anguish within me and the terrors of death have fallen on me. Fear and trembling have beset me. Horror has overwhelmed me. I am powerless over this but he's reaching out to God who is higher. Romans seven.
Paul's had this great theological treaties through the first five chapters and then he starts to get real personal in six and in seven. Chapter seven, he gets really personal. It says, what a wretched man I am. Who is gonna rescue me from this body? I am powerless.
This body that's subject to death. Thanks be to God who delivers me through Christ Jesus our Lord. He goes step one, step two. I'm saying, don't stay in step one long. It's depressing and it's overwhelming.
But God being able to restore you to sanity and you letting him is right there. One of the early early founding members of AA spent a lot of time on Psalm forty two one. In the reading that I've done is, just as the deer pants after the water, it is my soul deflation at death that is longing after you. I'm willing to believe and I'm willing to seek. So God, I'm turning it over to you.
I want that water. Without belief, without faith, it's impossible to please God because anyone comes to him must believe that he exists. This is step two and that he rewards those who earnestly seek after him. Seek first his kingdom, his righteousness. Anyone chooses to do the will of God will find out whether the teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.
That's Jesus. Step four, and this is where I left you actually. I did hint at step five because it felt a little weird to just leave you for a month. Right? Step four, the last time that I preached on this, it was from this platform a month ago.
And step four is having had a spiritual awakening and understanding our lack and understanding God's goodness and deciding that I want your will lord. Step four is self examination. It is looking at yourself in the mirror soberly and seeing what you see really made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Now, for somebody that has one major problem that's caused it's a besetting sin that's causing them all the difficulty, it's sometimes it's kind of easy to see that. You have a bunch of people say, good grief.
Man, Ray, you're an alcoholic. You know, and you have people telling you that and you recognize evidence of it. Maybe that one thing is the thing but a fearless and searching moral inventory make uncover more than that one thing And as church folk and we know the hot button sins that we're not that we're supposed to avoid. And if you're sitting in church and you go, well, I don't drink and I don't cuss and I don't chew and I don't run girls that do. You know, I don't run with girls that do.
I've covered the basis. Right? A searching and fearless moral inventory in light of scripture, that's why I put that list up there. Here it is. We'll reveal something.
I promise you it will. So if we take this seriously, and actually last time I did this, I saw people taking out their phones and taking a picture of it. Several people have asked me, hey, can you send me that list? It's available. It's in the New Testament.
You know, I I can print it out for you if you ask me to. And I was thankful that people said took it seriously and said, wanna do a fearless and searching moral inventory, but I don't know what I'm looking for. Why? Because we don't have any righteousness of our own. God gives us his righteousness as we are humble before him.
We look into these lists and we see things. So it might be that you look at this list and you say, oh, step five, we're gonna give that over to God. That's what we're going today. This is what we're doing today. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being.
And I know because I've been in church my whole life. I've been Protestant my whole life. I've been Baptist my whole life. I know that you're fine with admitting it to God and I know that you're fine with admitting it to yourself but I can see it. To another human being up, that smacks of popism, it smacks of Rome.
I don't like the confession of stuff before man that really bothers me theologically that's inaccurate. It's still helpful. James five. James says, therefore, based on everything else in James, confess your sins one to another. Find somebody that's trustworthy and confess your sins one to another.
The fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much. If you've got somebody who's seeking after God and seeking to live life sober as we'll call it, they're seeking to live after God and walk in his righteousness and his victory and you find that person you say, I'm struggling with this x y z, whatever it is. It's helpful to you, it's helpful to them. Now, admitting it to God, it's kind of tantamount to admit it to yourselves, isn't it? We have blind spots.
We don't always see it. That's the reason that I put the list up there is to help us to see it. It's a grid through which we can view this. Confession is this point. Now, confession admitting it, you could say confess right there.
Admitting it is the same thing. To admit it to yourself, to God, and to someone else is to confess. Now, there's the list. I know you can't read it from there. I'll I'll kinda go through a representative little example here in just a minute.
But confessing it to God is agreeing with him. In first John one nine, Bob's favorite verse, the mechanism. I was sitting and listening to the the study the other day and I heard Bob's voice and I said, this is gonna hit first John one nine in five minutes. It is the mechanism. It is very helpful because to agree with God about what he calls sin in our lives, to agree with him is the mechanism whereby he cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
He forgives us our sin and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. So if I'm looking over this in step four and I'm thinking, I'm going to do a fearless insertion moral inventory. I won't read the whole list, but let's say in my examination of myself, I see, you know what God? I have been overtaken with stupid and senseless controversies. And I didn't realize it.
And I'm telling you, I know it. When you agree with God about what he calls sin, he forgives it. Now, the goal of therapy in many cases in modern life, the goal of modern therapy is to get rid of a guilty feeling, but the goal of God is to get rid of guilt. That's why Christ died on the cross. He gets rid of the actual guilt.
Eventually, the guilty feeling goes away. The reason for presenting first Peter five six through 11 at the fair was to cover this point. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. Stay sober, stay vigilant, resist the devil because he's prowling around like a roaring lion, he's seeking someone to devour, he is your adversary, he is like a prosecutor that knows that you're guilty. The only issue is you have already been forgiven when you agree with God about your sin and he throws it as far as the East is from the West.
He remembers it no more. It clears up the past and the guilt is gone whether the devil is trying to shame you or not. The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, convinces of righteousness, takes it to the cross and expiates that sin. Throws it as far as the East is from the West, God will never remember it again and you have to deal with your life before him in humility from that place forward. If you hit something like I've been overtaken with stupid and senseless controversies, you might also say, and this other place, it's filled with a morbid craving for controversy.
God, I didn't even realize it. I honestly thought I was seeking after you. But really, it was just that I was swollen with conceit. I've been faithless. I've been heartless.
I've been ruthless. I have been acting like all that I hate. I've been filled with enmity and strife and jealousy and fits of anger and rivalry is envy, Lord. In dissensions and divisions and envy and it's ugly and I don't like it and I recognize that that's how I have been. God says, you're right and you're forgiven.
I'm imputing to you the righteousness of Christ and you can walk in it but you have to rely on me. For various people, the list will be different obviously. But it's really nice to have a framework to look at, you know. Step five, admitting it to God. And honest being honest with yourself and being honest with God is really really helpful for any type of good spiritual growth.
To be honest with yourself, look in that mirror, see what you really see, assess it soberly and go to God and he forgives and he builds up and to another human being. Now, I have a poem right here. I've read this poem before but it's been several years. I put these words on the screen. If you want the slides for any sermon, just let me know and I'll send them to you.
But this poem has been really helpful for people who have been caught up in some sort of habitual sin. And Michel Coist is a French cleric who died in 1997, I think. But he wrote this sin from the perspective of I have sinned and I recognize I can't do anything about it. Right? So I'm gonna read it.
I'll flip through the slides as I go. This is not scripture. It is the thoughts of one man as he considered his own sin. Now, what he typically does, I have a whole book that's called prayers and it's poems but they're prayers and he puts out there what he prayed and then he composes what he believes God has responded. And I think that it's thoroughly scriptural especially in this case, but it's also poetic.
So here it is, Michelle Koist's sin. I have fallen Lord. Once more, I can't go on. I'll never succeed. I'm ashamed.
I don't dare look at you, Lord. And yet, I struggled. I struggled lord for I knew that you were right near me. This sounds like a Christian, doesn't it? It is a Christian.
It's somebody who's dedicated to live and following after Christ but he still sees sin in his own life and yet I struggled lord for I knew you were right near me, that you were bending over me, that you were watching but temptation blew like a hurricane and instead of looking at you, I turned my head away. I stepped aside while you stood silent and sorrowful like the spurned lover who sees his loved one carried away by the enemy. When the wind died down as suddenly as it had arisen and when the lightning ceased after proudly streaking the darkness, all of a sudden I found myself alone and ashamed and disgusted with my sin in my hands. This sin that I selected, the way that a customer makes his purchase, this sin that I have paid for and I cannot return for the shopkeeper is no longer there. This tasteless sin, this odorless sin, this sin that sickens me, that I have wanted but I want no more, that I have imagined and I sought after and I played with it and I fondled it for a long time, that I have finally embraced while turning coldly away from you, Lord.
My arms outstretched and my eyes and heart irresistibly drawn. This sin that I have grasped and I have consumed it with gluttony, it's mine now. But it possesses me as the spider web holds captive the gnat. It's mine. It sticks to me.
It flows in my veins. It fills my heart. It's slipped in everywhere as the darkness slips into the forest at dusk and fills all the patches of light and I can't get rid of it. Do you all hear step one? I can't do anything about it.
I'm powerless. I can't get rid of it. I run from it the way one tries to lose a stray dog but it catches up with me and it bounds joyfully against my legs and everyone must notice it. I'm so ashamed that I feel like crawling to avoid being seen. I'm ashamed of being seen by my friends.
Isolation is one of the devil's tricks. It's so nice to see we we have admitted it. We have turned to God. I'm ashamed of being seen by my friends. I'm ashamed of being seen by you, lord, for you loved me and I forgot you.
I forgot you because I was thinking to myself and one can't think of several persons at once. One must choose and I chose and your voice and your look and your love hurt me. Now, wait a second. That's hard but from the perspective that this guy is, the devil is on him and we've got a choice and he's looking at it and he's feeling hurt by God. Your voice, your look, and your love hurt me.
They weighed me down. They weighed me down more than my sin. I feel so ashamed. Lord, don't look at me like that for I'm naked and I'm dirty and I'm down and I'm shattered with no strength left. I dare make no more promises.
I can only lie bowed before you. That's the bowing of the knee, the humility to say, you're right. I'm wrong. I want your will for my life. And it's absolutely humiliated in this case.
And then God's response, come son, my child. Look up. Isn't it mainly your pride that's wounded? You fell short for yourself, but you're being honest with yourself about it. You're being honest with me about it.
Come child, look up. Isn't it mainly your pride that's wounded? If you love me, you would grieve but you would trust. Do you think there's a limit to God's love? Do you think that for a moment I stopped loving you?
But you still rely on yourself, son. You must rely only on me. When you make that decision to turn your will and your life over to Christ, over to God, you will have times where you falter and you try to do it on your own. He says, you still rely on yourself, son. You must rely only on me.
Ask my pardon and get up quickly. You see, it's not falling that is the worst, but staying on the ground or my translation right there is wallowing on the ground. Right? Get up. He has the way of making it and this is that mechanism.
If you homo we all know means the same and then means to speak or to say the same as God. When we recognize, I have fallen short in this area. God says, yes, you are forgiven. He's faithful and he's just. He will forgive us that sin and it opens the door for him being able to more fully purify us from all unrighteousness.
If he showed us all of our sin all at once, I think it would overcome us. The hardest
Speaker 2time
Speaker 1in my life is when I saw more of my sin than I had ever seen before at one time. Don't stay there where you realize your powerlessness. Move on to his goodness and allow for his will to replace your will. Confessing the sins to him and to ourselves is important. It's primarily about agreeing with God and that helps.
And then, the confessing your sins to each other and pray for each other. The men's study on Thursdays or the ladies study on Thursday nights, that is a place where you can get together and you can discuss stuff like this. The fellowship time out here mostly is fun but there's also that's a group of people that we should be able to trust one another with our burden. So therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that we might be healed. All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.
This is the continuing body of Christ. So, let's be sharing our burdens and bearing one another's burdens. The prayer of a righteous people and there are no righteous people starting off, God has imputed and given his righteousness to those who will be humble before him. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. And I think that's the last slide, which dovetails nicely with the last song.
The last song is Cleanse Me. There are four verses in this song. And these four verses are if I can find it. Yeah. There are four verses and it takes you through some of the steps.
Honestly, it's really helpful. You're asking for God to search you and see if there's any wicked way in me and then get that out there. Agree with him about it and allow him to bring you through and allow his will to take over and it builds from there. Now, in the first service, I asked the elders to come forward. I'm I'm I'm up here.
I'm one of those elders but if you feel that the the altar is a place where you need to come and kinda do some business with Jesus, it's always open. I know it's not culturally the thing in Jackson for people to do but where I'm from, it's normal to have kind of an altar call. You can come speak to me. I'll turn off my mic and stop singing. They'll keep on going.
You can come up and pray upfront for something that God is showing you that is in your life that doesn't need to be in your life But I won't say, I'm here not just now. I'm here all week. Listening out for that. We have elders that are here that are ready and willing and trustworthy to receive you. But would you stand with me?
And as we sing this song, may it be our prayer like it was for David. Psalm one thirty nine twenty three says, search me, oh God, and know my heart today.
Speaker 2Search me, oh God, and know my heart today. Try me, oh, savior. Know my thoughts, I pray. See if there be some wicked way in me. Cleanse me from every sin and set me free.
I praise you, Lord, for cleansing me from sin. Fulfill thy word and make me pure within. Fill me with fire where once I burned with shame. Grant my desire to magnify your name. Lord, take my life and make it holy divine.
Fill my poor heart with thy great love divine. Take all my will. Step three. My passion, self, and pride. I now surrender, Lord, in me abide.
Speaker 1And then the future.
Speaker 2Revival comes from thee. Send a revival. Start the work in me. Thy word declares, thou will supply our need for blessings now. Oh Lord, I humbly feed.
Speaker 1Can I pray for you? I also have second Corinthians one three through five but I wanna pray for us first before I get to that benediction. Lord God almighty, I pray that as we consider this individually and collectively that you would use the new insights and then perhaps a new method for understanding our own lack and your goodness and our need to turn over our will to you even after we've known you for this long, Lord. I pray that you'd use it in a new and different way this week that we would see things that would bring us into a greater relationship with you and put us in a place of being more useful for all of those around us. In Jesus name, amen.
And the benediction is this, all praise to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us all in all of our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they're troubled, we'll be able to give them the same comfort that God has given us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ.
In Jesus name, may that be the case that we have grace to share.
