referenced as the basis for confessing sins to one another
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.
cited as the Old Testament background Jesus gave Nicodemus about being lifted up so that those who look will be saved
1 The Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the South, heard that Israel came by the way of Atharim. He fought against Israel, and took some of them captive.
2 Israel vowed a vow to Yahweh, and said, “If you will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.”
3 Yahweh listened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. The name of the place was called Hormah.
4 They traveled from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom The soul of the people was very discouraged because of the journey.
5 The people spoke against God, and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, and there is no water; and our soul loathes this disgusting bread.”
6 Yahweh sent venomous snakes among the people, and they bit the people. Many people of Israel died.
7 The people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against Yahweh, and against you. Pray to Yahweh, that he take away the serpents from us.” Moses prayed for the people.
8 Yahweh said to Moses, “Make a venomous snake, and set it on a pole. It shall happen, that everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.”
9 Moses made a serpent of brass, and set it on the pole. If a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked at the serpent of brass, he lived.
10 The children of Israel traveled, and encamped in Oboth.
11 They traveled from Oboth, and encamped at Iyeabarim, in the wilderness which is before Moab, toward the sunrise.
12 From there they traveled, and encamped in the valley of Zered.
13 From there they traveled, and encamped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness, that comes out of the border of the Amorites: for the Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.
14 Therefore it is said in the book of the Wars of Yahweh, “Vaheb in Suphah, the valleys of the Arnon,
15 the slope of the valleys that incline toward the dwelling of Ar, leans on the border of Moab.”
16 From there they traveled to Beer; that is the well of which Yahweh said to Moses, “Gather the people together, and I will give them water.”
17 Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, well! Sing to it,
18 the well, which the princes dug, which the nobles of the people dug, with the scepter, and with their poles.” From the wilderness they traveled to Mattanah;
19 and from Mattanah to Nahaliel; and from Nahaliel to Bamoth;
20 and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the field of Moab, to the top of Pisgah, which looks down on the desert.
21 Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,
22 “Let me pass through your land. We will not turn away into field or vineyard. We will not drink of the water of the wells. We will go by the king’s highway, until we have passed your border.”
23 Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his border, but Sihon gathered all his people together, and went out against Israel into the wilderness, and came to Jahaz. He fought against Israel.
24 Israel struck him with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, even to the children of Ammon; for the border of the children of Ammon was strong.
25 Israel took all these cities. Israel lived in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all its villages.
26 For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab, and taken all his land out of his hand, even to the Arnon.
27 Therefore those who speak in proverbs say, “Come to Heshbon. Let the city of Sihon be built and established;
28 for a fire has gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon. It has devoured Ar of Moab, The lords of the high places of the Arnon.
29 Woe to you, Moab! You are undone, people of Chemosh! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to Sihon king of the Amorites.
30 We have shot at them. Heshbon has perished even to Dibon. We have laid waste even to Nophah, Which reaches to Medeba.”
31 Thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites.
32 Moses sent to spy out Jazer. They took its villages, and drove out the Amorites who were there.
33 They turned and went up by the way of Bashan. Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.
34 Yahweh said to Moses, “Don’t fear him, for I have delivered him into your hand, with all his people, and his land. You shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”
35 So they struck him, with his sons and all his people, until there were no survivors; and they possessed his land.
used to introduce the bronze serpent analogy in connection with step seven and humility
1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
2 The same came to him by night, and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.”
3 Jesus answered him, “Most certainly, I tell you, unless one is born anew, he can’t see God’s Kingdom.”
4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he can’t enter into God’s Kingdom.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Don’t marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’
8 The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but don’t know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus answered him, “How can these things be?”
10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and don’t understand these things?
11 Most certainly I tell you, we speak that which we know, and testify of that which we have seen, and you don’t receive our witness.
12 If I told you earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13 No one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.
14 As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
17 For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him.
18 He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.
19 This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil.
20 For everyone who does evil hates the light, and doesn’t come to the light, lest his works would be exposed.
21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God.”
22 After these things, Jesus came with his disciples into the land of Judea. He stayed there with them, and baptized.
23 John also was baptizing in Enon near Salim, because there was much water there. They came, and were baptized.
24 For John was not yet thrown into prison.
25 There arose therefore a questioning on the part of John’s disciples with some Jews about purification.
26 They came to John, and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, the same baptizes, and everyone is coming to him.”
27 John answered, “A man can receive nothing, unless it has been given him from heaven.
28 You yourselves testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent before him.’
29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. This, my joy, therefore is made full.
30 He must increase, but I must decrease.
31 He who comes from above is above all. He who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.
32 What he has seen and heard, of that he testifies; and no one receives his witness.
33 He who has received his witness has set his seal to this, that God is true.
34 For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for God gives the Spirit without measure.
35 The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand.
36 One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobeys the Son won’t see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
quoted to connect the spiritual awakening of step twelve with receiving power from the Holy Spirit and being sent as witnesses
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”
quoted to illustrate boldness in witness and great power in testifying to the resurrection
31 When they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were gathered together. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.
32 The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul. Not one of them claimed that anything of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.
33 With great power, the apostles gave their testimony of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Great grace was on them all.
quoted to connect step twelve service with presenting bodies as living sacrifices and renewing the mind
1 Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
2 Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.
mentioned as a source for the principles of love underlying the twelve steps
1 If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love is patient and is kind; love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud,
5 doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil;
6 doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part;
10 but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.
12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.
13 But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This message brought a ten-week series on the 12 steps to a close, moving quickly through all twelve steps before handing the floor to a guest speaker whose own story put flesh on everything that had been taught. The two voices together made the case that the path of recovery and the path of Christian discipleship are, at their root, the same path.
What was said
The preacher opened by acknowledging that the steps have been covered so many times they feel repetitive, but said that was the point. A friend once told him that if you get enough of this material into your head, you keep trouble out of the rest of your life, and he said he has found that to be true. So he moved through all twelve steps at a deliberate pace, not to introduce them but to press them deeper.
Steps one through three set the foundation: admitting powerlessness, coming to believe that a power greater than yourself can restore you, and making a daily decision to turn your will and your life over to God. The preacher stressed that surrender is not a one-time event but a daily orientation, and that God will not improve a life the person is unwilling to hand over.
Steps four and five drew out the long list of vices named across the New Testament. The preacher read the entire list aloud, noting that the sins people assume are the big ones are usually not their own. The inventory is of yourself, not of everyone around you, and admitting wrongs to God, to yourself, and to another person is what breaks the cycle.
Steps six through nine are about what happens after the inventory: being entirely ready for God to remove the defects, humbly asking him to do it, identifying the people harmed, and making direct amends wherever possible. On restitution, the preacher was honest that most sins against other people simply cannot be paid back, and that this is one of the most frustrating things about sin.
Steps ten, eleven, and twelve are where the recovered person lives going forward. Daily moral inventory, daily prayer for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out, and then carrying the message to others. He connected step twelve directly to the Great Commission, and said that to have had a spiritual awakening and keep it to yourself is not coherent with what the awakening actually is.
Before the guest speaker came forward, the preacher read a list of principles drawn from everything preached across the ten weeks. The list pulled from the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the fruit of the Spirit, and the book of James, covering things like rigorous honesty, patience, humility, confession, forgiveness, and service. He described it as representative, not exhaustive.
Stoney Vance then shared his own testimony, describing a cancer diagnosis in 2009, the beginning of drinking to manage pain during chemotherapy, a near-death experience on an operating table in 2012, and a crisis in 2019 that finally brought him to the end of himself. He said alcohol was never actually his problem; the things on that vice list were his problem, and alcohol was what he used to medicate them. He closed by inviting the congregation to write down what God is working on in them personally, fold it up, and give it over, describing it as a step four and five in miniature.
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 preacher said that admitting powerlessness over a besetting sin is the necessary first step, but that many people resist it by thinking 'I've got this.' What makes that admission so hard, and what finally moves a person to get there?
The vice list read aloud covered a lot of ground beyond the obvious big sins, including rivalries, empty words, morbid craving for controversy, and gossip. Which items on that list surprised you or hit closer to home than you expected?
Yep. Thank you, Jennifer. Sorry. Everybody, would you stand with us? Would you stand up and we're gonna sing, When We All Get to Heaven.
Thank you, Jennifer, for filling in, and we are praying for Judy. Judy kinda called in sick today. She was up all night. She said, not feeling well, and I'm thankful that you're here to help out. When We All Get to Heaven, hymn number seven seventy two.
Sing the wondrous love of Jesus. Sing his mercy and his grace in the mansions bright and blessed. He'll prepare for us a place when we all get to heaven. What a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory.
Let us then be true and faithful, trusting, serving every day. Just one glimpse of him in glory will the toils of life repay. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be when we all see Jesus. We'll sing and shout the victory. Onward to the Christ before us, Soon his beauty will behold.
Soon the pearly gates will open. We shall tread the streets of gold When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus,
Amen. A wonderful grace of Jesus. This is a fun one, three thirty eight. There are parts and there are all kinds of bouncing around. If you know your part, sing your part and I'm gonna be looking for mine.
Wonderful grace of Jesus.
Wonderful grace of Jesus, greater than all my sin. How shall my tongue describe it? Where shall its praise begin? Taking away my burden, setting my spirit free for the wonderful
Amen. I miss Scott on the last part of that song every time. Y'all can have a seat. I have a few announcements and they are these. Awana is happening tomorrow night.
It's a regular club night. So not crazy hair, not faking injury, not what you wanna be when you grow up. Just regular, normal Awana night. Kids club starting at 05:45 if you're a volunteer or your family. There's supper available at 05:15.
Woah. It's Operation Christmas Child time. We're gonna watch a video for a second. Casey's gonna announce. We're Child is to be share the gospel with children around the world.
Every shoebox gift is delivered with a verbal and written proclamation of the gospel in more than a 100 countries every year. This is an evangelism project, and it all starts with a very simple shoebox gift.
Volunteers are really the heart of who we are and what we do. When
we pack the boxes, it's a reflection, a little glimpse of God's love that we're pouring out.
When you pack the box, pray. You never know how God is gonna use that box. They go by plane. They go by riverboat. They go by motorbikes.
These shoe boxes go to children's almost isolated areas of world. Your shoe box goes from you filling it full of
Okay. So it's shoebox time. So we have shoeboxes in the foyer there. All the information is on a poster back there with gift ideas. You have a label inside your box for what age you want to pick.
Everything is pretty self explanatory. We're just giving the boxes away for people to go and shop and fill these boxes so kids can experience that. That video really pumps me up that they go all over the world to deliver these presents to kids who may not get a present. So, we're going to have this out. They are due November 17, so you just have a little less than a month to do this.
Also, I'm doing this, helping Diane in the office. We're gonna pass these around too. These are for our church directory. If your name is not on here and you want it on here, please put it on the back. And if your name is already here, please check the information to make sure it's correct.
Thank you. Thank you, Casey. Yeah. Pass those around. And the pictures, you all know the good picture is horizontal and the bad picture is vertical.
And do you all know that horizontal is this way? Because we're getting a lot of them that are this way. So horizontal picture is preferable because it makes more sense in the directory. And next week, Virgil Boss. We're doing a memorial celebration next week.
It'll be down the hall after this service. There's Laurie and Virgil. Oh, so sweet. But it'd be nice to be together in memory of Virgil boss next week, 12:30 in the Fellowship hall, just casual dress, food will be provided, and it'll just be after this. It's fairly informal, but we want to celebrate Virgil.
So November 10 is potluck for connect hour. Now this is a different way. We have not done this before. So normally, a family or a small group or something does the in between time, and we're going try this. November 10 is potluck for connect hour.
There was nobody that signed up for it. I'm I'm guessing. I'm not really sure. But I think that's what happened. But we want to just go full on potluck for the connect hour.
I'm imagining we're going to be overflowing, but I love it. So volunteers are still needed for the other weeks. If you'd sign up, we'd appreciate it. If you have a little something that you want to bring, November 10 is potluck for connect hour. Rock of Ages.
Anybody have anything else that I've forgotten? Omissions, deletions, corrections, suggestions. What's that? Oh, we went to see Roseanne this week. The staff went down and visited Roseanne and it was fantastic.
I think the Rock Springs, I would have not thought of it as a place to retire, but it is. At the Deer Trail Assisted Living Community, things are going very very well for Roseanne. We had a ball visiting her. Would you stand with us and we're going to sing Rock of Ages? And Blake, I think we're going to skip the fourth song.
Okay? Alright. Here we go. Three forty two. Amen.
And y'all can have a seat. I had a little preview of what's gonna happen in this service because I was at the first service, so I thought we'd take a little extra time right here. Would y'all pray with me? I was overwhelmed with the goodness of God this morning when Carl called on me to pray for the operatory prayer or the worship through giving prayer. I was just overwhelmed with the goodness of God.
How he's given so many good gifts. Lord God Almighty, we we are recognizing that you are the giver of every good and perfect gift. We're acknowledging that you are the that you are the king of all, Lord, of all creation, that you are the creator of everything that is, that there's nothing that was made without without Christ. So to Christ, Lord, we acclaim and glorify you through him. In Jesus name, Lord, pray.
I'm just overwhelmed by how good you are. May all of the good gifts that you've given, all of your love and your mercy and your forgiveness and your grace, May they be ours in such measure that they would overflow onto the community around us. That the way that you have forgiven us, Lord, we'd be forgiving others. I I think we hear often the hurt people hurt people quote. It's hurt people do hurt people, Lord, but forgiven people, forgive people.
May we lay down everything that we're holding against any other and pursue peace. In Jesus' name, Lord, I ask your blessing on this offering that we would be doing with it as a as a congregation, as a church body, that we would be doing with it your will and in your way. Show us your way, and allow us the privilege and the power to walk in it. In Jesus name, amen. Thank Jennifer.
I appreciate that. So we have been through these so many times now. It feels very repetitive to y'all and I know that. Today, I'm gonna run through them quickly. I want for these to be so deep into what...
Into our minds. There was a fellow that told my friend six and a half years ago, if you get enough of this in your head, you'll keep booze out of your belly. And I thought, is that real? I'll tell you what, they work. They really do work.
Step one, we admitted that we were powerless over whatever it is that was our problem. Now, alcohol in Alcoholics Anonymous is what they'd say right there. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol. But whatever it is, we are all different, and God has wired each of us differently, and the fall has drawn us away from God in different ways. It's all sin, but we admitted that we were powerless over whatever our problem is, that our lives had become unmanageable.
And until you get to the place of realizing you're powerless over your besetting sin, and that your life really is unmanageable, as long as you think, I got this. I've got this. I can handle this. You're not going to get any better. It's going to continue to be a besetting sin.
So admitting that you're powerless over the problem, that your life is unmanageable, that's deflation at depth. And I always say, don't stay there long because there is a higher power. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. You see the capital p on power there? Yes, it's God.
Yes, it's Jesus, Christians. I know that. But when you're just starting out, especially if you have church hurt in your past, sometimes it is best to start right here. And if for an alcoholic, they go into a room in a church basement somewhere you could smell the coffee, you could smell the cigarettes out the door, and you go in there, and those people keep getting together and they keep staying sober, that is obviously a power that's greater than yourself, if you realize that you're broken and powerless over it. So we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to wholeness or sanity.
That is a willingness, a belief, and seeking what that is. And then, step three is knowing that I can't and knowing that this power can, I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God? This is a daily sort of thing. It helps to say, you know, I'm just not going to drink today. Right?
But what is God's will for me today? We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. That decision to surrender is very important in our sanctification because if you are unwilling to surrender your life, God will not improve it for you, if you're unwilling to surrender. So making a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him, which is a statement of humility. It's recognizing that we as finite people do not completely understand an infinite God, but as he will show and reveal himself to us and reveal ourselves to us and allow us to see clearly, we will turn our will and our way over to him.
In step four, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, not just of everybody else. And I have been using this self examination. If you don't know, I was just talking to somebody between services who was trying to help a friend, and they have rejected the scripture, the friend. If a friend rejects scripture and has nothing to go on, then what do you go on? I mean, we don't even live up to our own standards.
We made a searching and fearless moral inventory recess. I'm assuming y'all showed up for church this morning, that y'all have not rejected scripture. If you wanna see the list of vices given in the New Testament, I think they're in canon order even... Maybe not. These are the things that are listed in Galatians and in Timothy and in first Peter and in several other places, James, and these are the list of vices.
And so, I have not read them since I think step four or five. We're going over them, but I'm gonna read them again right now. Okay? Here we are. I know you can't read them from where you are.
If you think there are a few, say there are four or five sins that you just think are the biggies. These are the ones God really cares about, and these are the ones that are what's wrong with our country. And you think those five, those are probably not your five because you're seeing everybody else's stuff. The list is up here though and it starts off with sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, rivalries. It made the list.
It's one of them on the list. There's so much us and them in our world. I I put it... You know, my daughter just started at Auburn. I put on this shirt this morning and I thought, is this too Alabama?
I mean, really? Isn't that pitiful? But it's true. That's what I thought. Because us and them is a very big thing and deciding on which team you're on is the way we do life a lot of times.
Rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness. There it is. Orgies and things like these, sexual immorality. That hits the list a lot. Paul does classify that as different because he says it's a sin against your own body.
You're rewiring yourself towards an aberration. Adultery, homosexual activity, idolatry, thievery, greed, drunkenness, again, reviling, swindling, lying, reviling. I think of the two thieves that were on either side of Jesus when he was crucified and it says while they were on the ground that they were reviling him. They were reviling him, both of them. But then when those crosses were stood up, there was one of them that quit reviling him.
That's a very powerful testimony of somebody reviling is on the list, making fun of, swindling, lying, evil talking, fornication, vulgar talk, empty words, empty words, disobedience, anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive language, quenching the spirit, despising the words of the prophet, self indulgent, double tongue, conceited, wicked or wickedness, filled with a morbid craving for controversy, an eagerness to be rich, overtaken with stupid and senseless controversies, constantly looking for controversy. Hit the list twice already. Quarrelsome, wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy filled, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, gossip, slander, God hate, insolence, hardiness, boastful, inventing new ways of doing evil. Every time you log on to a computer, do you see a new way someone's come up with to be evil? It feels like you do.
Sometimes you just get a text and you think, I know this is not true, but man, they've come up with a scam. Inventing new ways of doing evil. Rebellious toward parents, foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness, ruthlessness, lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhumane, implacable, slander, profligates, brutes, haters of the good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, love, lovers of pleasure, and hypocrisy. Those lists, I read it out loud this time because I got another list I'm working towards at the end. Okay.
Step five. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. This helps and it cannot be overstated. Confession is good for the soul. Confession to God, obviously, speaking to him and agreeing with him.
If we homologue o say the same thing as God about our sins, he's faithful and he's just and he will forgive us. And the great promise there is he'll continue to purify us from all unrighteousness. If you will be humble before God and agree with him, he will show you even more of the impurity so that he can deal with it. And it helps if we confess to one another from the book of James. We were entirely ready to have God remove all the defects of character.
If you do a fearless in search and moral inventory, and you've already admitted it to God, why in the world would you want to hold on to a defect? It's... We were entirely ready to have God remove the defects of character, but we still often want to just say, God, let me just have this one. This is my precious one. Just let me hold on to this one.
I really... I don't drink. I don't I don't run with girls who do. I I don't do all of that other stuff, but Lord, let me hold on to this one. I do like a good tasty little nugget of gossip.
Can I just hold on to this? This can just be mine. That's the way everybody knows me anyway. Oh my goodness. We're entirely ready.
If God reveals it to you, he's ready to take it from you. Are you entirely ready to have God remove the defects of character? This is conviction of sin and a readiness to change. Step seven, humility. We humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings.
I went to Jesus speaking to Nicodemus in John chapter three and he gave that weird example from Numbers 21. He said that God had made a way. You remember when the people were surrounded by snakes, fiery snakes it says. They're surrounded by snakes and their snake bit. And God made a way.
He said, Moses, make a bronze serpent, put it up on a pole. Anybody who looks at it anybody who looks at it will be saved. And that doesn't make any sense, by the way. Jesus said in exactly the same way, I'm gonna be lifted up, and the ones who look to Jesus will have their sins forgiven. So we humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings.
Humility, submission to the way of God because it's the way of God, and rebirth. And I will say, these 12 steps are the gospel path. They really are. Admitting our powerlessness, we need you God. We recognize that you are and we surrender to you.
Show us how you want us to be and we will do that. We're ready, Lord. I humbly submit and that's the place of rebirth. We made a list of all the persons that we had harmed. If you look at the list that you made in four, you've admitted it already, you have to know that there are consequences to sinful actions.
A lot of our sins are against God, but most of them are against God and other people. So horizontal and vertical. Willingness Right? To make amends is important. So if you were going through and you found that these are your sins, there are people that get hurt when we revile.
There are people that get hurt when we use abusive language, when we're so conceited and filled with morbid curiosity for controversy, that we become abusive and harsh. We made a list of all the people that we had harmed by doing those things, and we became willing to make amends to them all. So we try to clear up the past by apologizing and changing our behavior going into the future, being humble in the present. Step nine is putting that list to use by making direct amends wherever it's possible, except when to do so would injure them or another person. Now, this is important that you have somebody to kind of walk with you through this because it's pretty easy to hide behind that last statement.
Oh, I think it might hurt them if I were to really cop to what I did. Oh, I think it might hurt my wife or my family or whatever. You really need to be very careful about hurting people, but you don't need to be so careful that you don't make any amends. Does that make sense? Okay.
Good. I'm glad it does. I'm trying to do this in a hurry because you got a treat today. Restitution. That is about paying back.
Now, are some sins that you can do against other people you flat cannot pay back for. That's one of the most frustrating things about sinning against people is there's nothing you can do. If you kick somebody's dog, there's no way to pay back for kicking somebody's dog. Right? If you steal something, by all means pay it back.
Pay it back with interest or do like Zacchaeus and pay it back four times. But you can't pay back for most of the sins that we commit against each other. That's restitution. I also said living in 10, eleven and twelve, living in 10, eleven and twelve, all those others get us to this place where we are living in 10, eleven and twelve. Step 10 is really a restatement of four and five.
It's continuing to take personal inventory, that deep personal inventory, fearless and searching moral inventory. And when we were wrong, we promptly admitted it. And I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, that it's good to do that and keep short accounts. Daily, look at your life and see if you see anything. And even if you're in the middle of an argument and you realize you're wrong, admit it promptly.
It's helpful. Step 10, daily corrective action. God honors that sort of discipline to admit it when we're wrong. Step 11, and we're only up step 12 and this is it. Next week, I'm going back to doing what I love.
Okay? Next week, we're going to expository preaching. I think we're doing the book of I might hit Obadiah. I don't know why, but Acts is my plan. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, another statement of humility there.
Praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. It really helps you stay in your lane if you individualize this and say, Lord, I am praying only for the knowledge of your will for me and the power that I need to carry that out, walking daily. Living in 10, 11, and 12. Praying only for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out. It really keeps you from focusing on other people.
It's focusing on living a humble life in your own heart before God, and then he will reveal to you what it is that's yours and what's not. Prayer, guidance, growth, and power, the early literature says about step 11. And here we are at step 12. So I mentioned that I myself have never been to a meeting. I've not even been to an open meeting.
I probably should have right by now, but I haven't. I've been there before they start and after they're over, and I talk to people on their way home from meetings sometimes or on their way to the meetings, but I myself haven't been to one. Can I ask you all right now, since we started step one, have you all had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps? I have. I have.
And I've been going through them for six and a half years, or some of you who've been going through them for thirty years, forty years. But since I started really examining it and looking at the list and thinking, I've had a few different moments where it's been a spiritual awakening for me and I'm so thankful for that. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others. This is often known as the service step because it's about having had a spiritual awakening yourself, then carrying that message to others. For Christians, this is the great commission.
Freely, freely, you have been given, you have been saved, and you freely, freely carry this message forward and give. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, not always possible, you can try. I tried last night, late last night, to carry this message. Was rejected. We tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.
Awakening, witness, and the practice of the principles. The principles are great. Awakening is great, and your witness is great. Now, I'm going to go through them one at a time really quickly, and then then the treat. Awakening.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. Acts one eight, but you will receive power. That's the awakening we're talking about. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and revealed to you these things, and you shall be my witnesses. So it's it's both really.
It is it is you will receive the power, you will have the awakening, and you'll have the mandate to go. Be my witness in Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, and as far as remotest part of the earth. Acts four thirty one to 33. We're going into Acts, so I've been reading Acts a lot lately. It's just popping off the page.
This is the place where they had gathered together and it was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak the word of God with boldness. Acts four is a lot about boldness. May we go and spread this boldly even though they're warned that they would be jailed again. And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul and not one of them claimed anything belonging to him as was his own, but all things were common property to them and they with great power, the apostles given testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
The message was going forward and abundant grace was upon them all. Romans one... Twelve one and two. Therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God. That's your spiritual service of worship, 12 steps.
The twelfth is a step of service and this is what it looks like. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The concept of the brain science these days, they're rediscovering stuff that the scriptures have said for millennia. The renewing of your mind, neuroplasticity is possible. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Second Corinthians five seventeen. If anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation, spiritual awakening. The old things have passed away, behold the new things have come. Ephesians three twenty and twenty one. Now to him who's able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.
We are limited and powerless and God is not. He's able to do more than we could even imagine according to the power that works within us, the Holy Spirit. To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. So witness.
I've already mentioned you will be my witnesses because the Holy Spirit has directed you, transformed you. You will be my witnesses. We tried to carry this message to others. Jesus, all along his ministry was telling his disciples, follow after me and I'll make you fishers of men or fishers of people. James two twenty.
Now that you know and you've had a spiritual awakening and you know the truth of the scripture and you know the truth of what's going on, are you willing to acknowledge that? And yet foolish person that faith... Oh, but are you willing to acknowledge, you foolish person, that faith without works is useless? To know and have had the spiritual experience for yourself but not be willing to share it doesn't... That that's not copacetic.
That doesn't go together. I'm not gonna read that. That's too small. But I am reading Acts right now and it's popping off the page. So this is where Paul got a chance to witness.
Here it is again, second Corinthians five twenty. Therefore, y'all, we've had a spiritual awakening and we are ambassadors for Christ as though God himself were making the appeal through us. We're begging you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Freely, freely you have received, freely, freely give. And to practice these principles in all of our affairs.
Now here I'm talking about my list. What are the principles? What are these principles? Now since I've been preaching this, I think I've done 10 sermons. Two of them I had double up.
You know, I did two at a time. I've done 10 sermons on these 12 steps. What are these principles? Well, if you read the early literature or if you just kind of know scripture and you're reading through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, you come across a lot of references to the Sermon on the Mount. You come across a lot of references to 10 commandments.
It's a good starter kit for how the principles go. First Corinthians 13, what is love? The book of James comes up a lot because it's so practical. And the four absolutes. The four absolutes, you'll find them in my next list up here.
That was just what those guys that got together in Akron, Ohio in the late thirties saw as the things that were really really helpful to practice four absolutes. And then there are plenty of other biblical sources. So I went back and examined everything I've preached in the last 10 sermons about this. And I went through the stuff and I came up with this list. I I went through...
So the 10 commandments, the sermon on the mount, the... All of those things. I used the fruit of the spirit at the very beginning too. If you need the list, I know they're too small to read for you all. I'm going read them out loud.
You can watch the YouTube if you want to, and you can ask me and I'll give you both lists. No problem. I have a couple of copies of the first list up here, leftovers from the first service. I'm going to read this list too and then I'm going to introduce you to somebody. This is the list that is the principles that you can practice in all of your affairs.
First of all is relying upon God. You can't. He can. Let him. Being rigorously honest, eliminating selfishness, eliminating egocentrism, eliminating resentment, eliminating jealousy, eliminating envy, recognizing it honestly, and then eliminating it from your life by the power of God.
It's possible. Practicing patience, eliminating fear, practicing patience, practicing tolerance, practicing kindliness, practicing understanding, practicing love, practicing forgiveness, being helpful to others. Some of the most helpful people that I have ever met are people who've come through a recovery program. They just see it as the way to live life. It's beautiful.
Humility, forgiveness, service, confession, restitution, reconciliation, seeking guidance. The 10 commandments. If I had to summarize, I'd say putting God first or putting God in first place, rest, honor your parents, eliminating murder, eliminating adultery, eliminating theft, eliminating lying and covetousness, honesty, purity, unselfishness, love, patience, kindness, generosity, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper, guilelessness, guilelessness. Don't be so crafty. Sincerity, love and service, patience, seeking the wisdom of God, avoiding temptation, telling the truth, avoiding anger, studying the word and doing it, helping the unfortunate, loving your neighbor, avoiding adultery and killing.
That sounds like an understatement. Don't know avoiding adultery and killing. Those are biggies. Yeah. Those are on almost everybody's list.
I would take Jesus's example of that. Avoiding murder and killing is avoiding... I mean, adultery and killing is avoiding lust and avoiding hatred. Backing up the faith with works, bridling the tongue. Do you recognize the book of James?
Avoiding envy and strife, avoiding lying, avoiding selfish lust, avoiding pride, submitting to God, purifying hearts, being humble, not speaking evil of another, doing good, avoiding greed, avoiding grudges, avoiding false oaths, relying on prayer, confessing faults, a readiness to share the truth, humility, compassion, meekness, spotless conduct. And you think, spotless conduct, come on. But it is possible to walk in victory. It really is. It really is.
Hey, step 10. When you're wrong, promptly admit it. That's spotless right there. It helps. Spotless conduct.
Making peace with enemies, harmonizing actions with God's will, overcoming resentments, making restitution, avoiding retaliation, conducting your prayers and your good works anonymously, not to be seen by men, forgiving, seeking God first, utilizing self examination, doing the will of God, and being rigorously honest. I think that that first list was representative, not exhaustive, and so is this one. There are other good things that come out of it, but these are the principles that we should be practicing. And I'm going invite up a guy named Stoney Vance. And I've told you all that I have never been in a meeting myself.
I started this whole series with a story about a guy named Ron. This is not Ron. I couldn't catch up with Ron. Stoney's gonna have to do. Okay.
Thank you, Stoney.
Good morning. Yeah. We're good. We're good. Okay.
Can I have the ushers come up? The the previous service, the ushers got their steps in. Alright. We're gonna hand one of these out to each and every single one of you. Yeah.
Come on up. Anybody who wants to volunteer, come on up. You don't have to be qualified. Hand out a slip of paper. Just one each.
Yep. Although, I don't know. I suppose maybe maybe they got a lot to write. That'll be fine. That's not a problem either.
Okay. So the first service was... Kinda went a little off track from what I intended, which I actually kinda like. But this particular service, I want to... I I think it's absolutely wonderful that you guys have a pastor that pastor Ray is is brave and courageous enough to take you guys through these steps.
Okay? So what we're going to do is we're going to complete this out here. The interesting thing was I got to sit in at the 09:00 service when he did his step 10, and I was sitting in that seat right there. And I felt God was telling me, he says, go tell Ray you're gonna preach step 12. I'm like, God, you clearly don't understand how this works.
You you don't go up to a pastor and say you're gonna complete the sermon series that you've weighed on his heart. And he's just like, you know what happens when you don't do what I say. And I'm like, well, that is true. And so I waited for as long as possible thinking that I'd miss it, but but Ray ended up having some scheduling stuff, and so here we are. I I ended up asking him.
I said, you know, Ray, God... I feel like God has something that I'm supposed to share, and and we got a chance to share our own testimonies and everything, his experience with working these 12 steps in mind. And what we're going to do here is we're going to have ourselves our own little meeting. Okay? And so in this meeting...
And you guys, I'm assuming, kinda know the gist. Hi. I'm Stoney, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Stoney. We're gonna do this one more time.
Don't worry. The first service had a little hard time getting getting some traction too. Oh, yep. Sorry. Hi.
I'm Stoney, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Stoney. You guys did better than the first service. Awesome. Awesome.
I'm gonna start off with what I was. Okay? Now first service, I'm gonna qualify this, and I don't think that's necessary here. I made everybody raise their hand for three minutes. Okay?
And and the reason for that, I will explain here here in a second. But I think I can probably use another example of this when when we get there. So what I'm gonna start off with was basically my recipe for evangelism, starting off with what I was. In 2009, I was diagnosed with cancer. I was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia.
When I went into the doctors, they found that I had been and I did not like going to the doctors. Funny enough, I'm married to one now. I did not like going to the doctors, so I put it off. And what happened was I had pneumonia. It wasn't going away.
They took an x-ray in my chest. They found five masses all over the place. One of them was on my heart. The doctor said, Stoney, I don't think that I'm going to see you this time next year. And that was back in 2009.
Clearly, I'm here. My oldest daughter, who's sitting right there in the brown jacket. Yep. She was 0.5 old. So brand brand spanking new life walking into.
And then at that point in time, we're gonna fast forward. And if you ever wanna get the fill ins of this kind of stuff, I will help you out with that. You should just come and see me. In 2012, I was on an operating room table at St. Luke's Hospital being operated on by Mayo doctors to get the tumor over my heart out.
It was not what they thought it was. When they removed it, I bled into my chest cavity. My blood pressure dropped to zero, and this is where the three minutes come into play. Two minutes and fifty six seconds, I had no heartbeat. Now here's my analogy on that.
If you don't think that two minutes and fifty six seconds is too long, try staring at the sun for that long and see what happens. It it it has effects. Set a stoplight for that long. Watch your microwave for three minutes. And if you aren't impatient, brew a cup of coffee.
Three minutes. That's a while. Right? Okay. So, obviously, still still around.
2015. I'm gonna back up a little bit. In 2009, I was going through radiation and chemotherapy. In that time, the pain was excruciating, excruciating for me. I look back at me and I say, Stoney, you are a wimp.
The reason why I say that is because I caved. At that point in time, I've been a believer for for a number of years. I went to Bible college. I was a pastor of a church. I went to the liquor store because I hadn't slept in nine days.
I went to the liquor store and bought a very expensive bottle of whiskey because I didn't know what I was doing. And I drank it, and I slept like a baby. And I did the same thing night and the next night and the next night. And fast forward to 2015, I was in remission, but I didn't stop drinking. I kept drinking.
2019, we are living in Florida. My in laws are about the only people in Florida that actually have carpet inside their home. Everybody else has tile because of the humidity. And being such, my wife came home from work early that day, and she found me on the shower floor with a knife in my hand. I was done.
I was done. I couldn't... It's not that I didn't want to. It's not that I didn't want to stop. I knew I had a problem.
I knew I've known I had a problem. Every single thing that I did to fix my problem, though, was not working. I used her as a solution to to abstain from drinking. I tried keeping busy. I tried doing this.
I tried doing that. You guys hear the common word in all of that? You guys are awesome. I. I tried.
I tried because that's what I was. When she found me on the shower floor with a knife, I went to a facility in Florida. They call it Baker Acted, seventy two hour hold. And to fill in... Not to fill in all the gaps right here and now.
You can come and talk to me. That's a that's a that's a relationship conversation there. But God. This is the next part. I was but God.
Now I need to find where but God did. Psalm 51 verse 17. The sacrifices the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh, God, you will not despise. I had...
Number one, I had people praying for me. My family was praying for me. I lost them. Lost every single one of them. I was homeless.
I was familyless. They did the best thing that anybody has ever done for me, and I feel like people are sitting here right now. And you have somebody, not necessarily yourself, you have somebody right now that is in your life that is struggling with this, and you're just sitting here going, I can't do this anymore. Take courage. Don't enable.
The best thing that ever happened to me was them dropping me out of their hands and into God's. I was homeless. I was family less, and the only person that I could rely on and had to rely on was this. And I sunk into it because it's the only thing. It's the only thing.
I surrendered. I had people praying for me, which prepared my heart and softened it. Yes. My name is Stoney. There's a reason for that.
Stoney heart. You're not supposed to want a stony heart, but now my heart has been circumcised to where you can say, well, I want a stony heart, and you can be like, no. God's gonna take that out of you. But when you see me, I want you to have a heart like me, which is a repentant heart. I exhausted every single option of self.
That was number two. I had nowhere else to turn, and number three, I surrendered to God. I was but God and now. Now I'm a business owner. I own more businesses than I can even count.
I own a barbecue business. Yes. I said barbecue. It is almost lunch. Boy, you're getting there.
I'm a practice manager of my wife's practice, which is gonna be opening up in in in Pinedale here soon. I'm a pastor of a church down in Pinedale. Yeah.
I'm
an author of a book that will hopefully be coming out next spring if everything goes right. We have so many things going from self and then God taking out and burning down every single thing that was stick built in my life and not built with gold and jewels and silver. That's what Paul says to build with. Not with two by fours, but with concrete. What do those three things have in common?
They're inflammable. Because he goes on to say, for when the tests and trials and the fires and trials come and they scorch your world, the things of God will remain. I was left with just the foundation of Christ, and and Paul says that that's that's secure. Your your foundation in Christ is secure, but what you build with on top of that, build with the good things. Guess what?
You gotta work for those things. I don't know if you guys... Is it harder to dig a mine, or is it easier to saw lumber? What's gonna go up faster? What's more expensive?
It takes time to build a life that is is something that can withstand even the hardest storm. Now I'm talking about now. It's a little bit harder to blow the shingles off of my house than it was twenty years ago. That's where I am now. Where I am now is I rely...
I live in steps 10, 11, and 12. When I struggle, and I do. When I struggle, I'm repentant. I hit it right then and there. If I let it linger through till the...
Till till nighttime, I'm a mess. You can ask my family. They're just like, have you repented, like, in the last three hours? Because, you know... They know if if I don't do my devotional in the morning, you know, his mercies are are renewed every morning, daily, know, transforming my mind.
If I don't give him my first fruits in the morning... I mean, she just said it yesterday. She's like, I felt bad for robbing you of your devotional time. She's like, I knew it was gonna be a rough day. It wasn't that bad.
The point that I'm trying to make is that I have built my entire wall in my life now around using the things of God. So if I were to not continue to sow into that, everything comes crashing down. All of those attributes that were up on the the screen earlier, the attributes, not not not devices, the attributes, all of those that were up there, you work and you sow those, you build those, every single nail that has one of those into your life. And guess what? Doesn't matter what the storm is, and guess what, guys?
It is an election year. We've got storms going on. Right? You put those... You build with those particular types of things, and all of a sudden, it just doesn't really seem like the wind blows quite so hard.
It doesn't seem like Murphy follows you around quite so much. The point that I am trying to make here is that you have to start somewhere, and usually it's brokenness. And that's exactly where God wants you. So we're gonna have an opportunity right here, and I wanna say thank you very much for letting me share with you guys. That's my my opportunity to have a meeting.
But here's what I want you guys to do. Can we throw up your your Johnny on the spot last time? Can we throw up the vices one? The... Yeah.
Nice. I know you probably can't read those, but the truth is you probably need to read those. You know exactly what God is working with you right here and now. And there may be a lot of these that you've dealt with, but I can tell you that alcohol is not actually my problem. These were my problem.
Alcohol is what I used to medicate myself from those problems. So what I'm going to ask you to do right now is not put your name on those pieces of paper, but write down what God is working with you on. The things that... And I've been praying for you guys ever since the... Ray made the mistake...
I mean, the... Gave me the honor to let me come up here and and speak to you guys. I've been praying that God would be working on you with something that you've been burying down deep. And I know every single person in here has that, And it has to be your inventory, not your neighbors, not the person next to you, yours. Write down what it is you're working with.
Fold it up, and then I'd like to ask the the ushers again to come up or volunteers or whatever to snag... Did I keep them last time? I think I did keep them. I think they're right over here. Yeah.
Okay. We're gonna grab the offering plate here. Oh, no. I didn't grab them. We need the offering plates, basically.
Pass them around and drop those in there. And what those are... And I didn't really have a chance to mention them last time. What those are are those are seeds for good fruit in your life. Those are the...
Basically, by not planting, I want you to take those bad seeds that you're tempted to plant and put them in there so you don't plant them into your life. My backpack is full, like, full. It can handle all yellows, but it is stuffed full with papers. And I'm gonna take them, and I'm gonna pray over them. I'm gonna pray dangerous prayers over them.
Why? Because a lot of times we lack the courage to pray dangerous prayers, kinda like praying for patients. I'll pray for it for you. Don't worry. Because avoiding that is what kept me drunk, is what kept me depressed, is what kept me angry, is what kept me ashamed, is what kept me...
Every single thing on that list, probably times three. This is your opportunity to walk forward in your own steps four and five. And your name's not gonna... I suppose you could put your name on it if you want. That's fine.
I can get more specific with that dangerous prayer. I'd put my name on it, but you don't have to. I just wanna know what it is. What it is can I pray for? And God knows exactly what you wrote down.
Your fingerprints are all over that card, and he gave you those. And if you guys don't mind, I'd like to end in prayer, if that's okay. Father God, Lord Jesus, we just come before you right now, and I just... First, I wanna pray over Ray, Lord God, and I thank you so much for his faithfulness and his his desire to to reach out with this particular form of discipleship over his flock, Father God. Raising them up to where those that go through this, Father God, can become true, true champions of the faith, Lord, bricklayers, people that the world can be built on and other people could be built on top of it, Lord.
And I thank you so much for his faithfulness. And, father, I pray over first b, Lord. I pray that you would give it the stability that this entire town needs, father God. And I pray that you would plow, that you would root out a new branch of the Snake River right across here like in Psalm one where where we are supposed to be planted by the river, but this is a spiritual river, father God. I pray that you would put it right through Jackson, father God, and that people would begin to plant next to that kind of of moisture, that that that drought proofing.
And I just thank you so much for these folks, and I just pray that that we get to build a relationship in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. And as a benediction, have, from Colossians three seventeen, Whatever it is that y'all do, whether it's in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Giving thanks to God, the father through him. Lord, would you do that this week? I thank you for Stoney, for his testimony here today, for his witness where he lives every day and in Jesus name, I pray that you would use us likewise.
Going forward with all of your good gifts to give them away. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.
