The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
Isaiah 25:1Opening call to worship: 'Lord, you are my God. I will exalt you. I will give thanks to your name for you have worked wonders, plans formed long ago with perfect faithfulness.'
1 Yahweh, you are my God. I will exalt you! I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago, in complete faithfulness and truth.
If we are living by the spirit, then we also should be walking by the spirit, framing the sermon's theme of walking daily by the Spirit rather than by behavior modification.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
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.
Jesus in the upper room discourse saying it is to the disciples' advantage that He leaves so the Helper, the Holy Spirit, will come to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I don’t go away, the Counselor won’t come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
8 When he has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment;
9 about sin, because they don’t believe in me;
10 about righteousness, because I am going to my Father, and you won’t see me any more;
11 about judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged.
Referenced as the promise to write God's law on hearts and give a heart of flesh rather than stone, pointing forward to the new covenant.
1 “At that time,” says Yahweh, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.”
2 Yahweh says, “The people who survive the sword found favor in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.”
3 Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness.
4 I will build you again, and you will be built, O virgin of Israel. You will again be adorned with your tambourines, and will go out in the dances of those who make merry.
5 Again you will plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria. The planters will plant, and will enjoy its fruit.
6 For there will be a day that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry, ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion to Yahweh our God.’”
7 For Yahweh says, “Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations. Publish, praise, and say, ‘Yahweh, save your people, the remnant of Israel!’
8 Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, along with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together. They will return as a great company.
9 They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won’t stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn.
10 “Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’
11 For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.
12 They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd. Their soul will be as a watered garden. They will not sorrow any more at all.
13 Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance; the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.
14 I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says Yahweh.
15 Yahweh says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”
16 Yahweh says: “Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work will be rewarded,” says Yahweh. “They will come again from the land of the enemy.
17 There is hope for your latter end,” says Yahweh. “Your children will come again to their own territory.
18 “I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned; for you are Yahweh my God.
19 Surely after that I was turned. I repented. After that I was instructed. I struck my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.’
20 Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still earnestly remember him. therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him,” says Yahweh.
21 “Set up road signs. Make guideposts. Set your heart toward the highway, even the way by which you went. Turn again, virgin of Israel. Turn again to these your cities.
22 How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth: a woman will encompass a man.”
23 Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Yet again they will use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I reverse their captivity: ‘Yahweh bless you, habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness.’
24 Judah and all its cities will dwell therein together, the farmers, and those who go about with flocks.
25 For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.”
26 On this I awakened, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.
27 “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of animal.
28 It will happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant,” says Yahweh.
29 “In those days they will say no more, “‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
30 But everyone will die for his own iniquity. Every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge.
31 “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says Yahweh.
33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
34 They will no longer each teach his neighbor, and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh;’ for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest,” says Yahweh: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
35 Yahweh, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar; Yahweh of Armies is his name, says:
36 “If these ordinances depart from before me,” says Yahweh, “then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me forever.”
37 Yahweh says: “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they…
If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead you will be saved; everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
9 that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.”
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him.
13 For, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
On the night Jesus was betrayed He took bread and the cup, instituting the new covenant in His blood, read during communion.
23 For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread.
24 When he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in memory of me.”
25 In the same way he also took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in memory of me.”
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Pastor Josh opened a new series on the 12 steps and their biblical foundation, starting with steps one and two. He made the case that genuine transformation comes not from willpower or behavior modification but from admitting powerlessness and turning to God. Communion followed as a natural expression of that same posture of dependence.
What was said
Pastor Josh set the table with Galatians 5:25, the idea that if we are living by the Spirit, then we ought also to be walking by the Spirit. He located the series in that tension: people who have accepted God's grace and then try to work it out through their own effort, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. The 12 steps, he argued, are not heresy but a sequential, biblically grounded way to move through that tension honestly.
He told the story of a man he called Ron, who wandered into the church office one Friday morning, having been steadily drunk for twelve years, nearly blind from time stranded in the Oregon desert, and living in his van in the Ranch Home parking lot. Ron had been told by the one person he trusted to walk until he found someone who would tell him about Jesus. That single moment shaped everything Pastor Josh said afterward, because what Ron needed was not a quick sinner's prayer but a long road, and the steps ended up being part of what that road looked like.
He walked through the Roman Road, Romans 3:23, 6:23, 5:8, and 10:9-13, not as a closing formula but as a framework that mirrors the logic of the steps themselves. All have sinned. Sin carries a consequence. God made provision through Christ while we were still in the problem. Calling on Him is available to anyone.
From there he moved to Jesus' words in the upper room about the Holy Spirit, specifically that the Spirit would convict the world regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment. He connected that to Galatians 5:19-23, the works of the flesh set against the fruit of the Spirit. The list of works, he said, is a representative sample, not an exhaustive one, and everyone in the room has something on it even if it is not the most obvious one.
Step one: we admitted we were powerless over our problem and that our lives had become unmanageable. Pastor Josh was direct that this is not just for people with a drinking problem. It is for anyone who has tried repeatedly to stop something and cannot, whose thinking has become consumed by it. Getting to genuine, honest admission of that, he said, is fertile soil.
Step two follows immediately from step one: we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. He addressed the language of "a power greater than ourselves" plainly, noting that many people have been hurt by Christians or churches and need room to approach God at the level of their actual honesty before they can go further. What matters is that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, and nothing is impossible with Him. The rest of the steps, he said, will come in the weeks ahead.
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.
Pastor McDaniel shared that Ron's trusted friend told him to 'get up from where you are and walk until you find somebody that'll tell you about Jesus.' Who has played that kind of role in your own life, and what did it mean to you at the time?
Pastor McDaniel said that for Ron, it was probably going to take a long time to find a way out because it took a long time to get into that shape. How does that idea sit with you when you think about your own struggles or the struggles of people you love?
Speaker 3This is Lisa. Right? I heard the news like Whatever.
Speaker 1Check. Check. Ready when you are.
Speaker 2Good morning. First b, Jackson, Wyoming. Thank you for being here. It's a beautiful, beautiful day. I am not Carl Clemmer.
He is away enjoying some family time, but we're gonna do our best. Why don't you guys stand and, and we'll sing. We'll praise God. Here's an encouraging word from Isaiah 25 to lead us into worship. It says, Lord, you are my God.
I will exalt you. I will give thanks to your name for you have worked wonders, plans formed long ago with perfect faithfulness. Amen. Would you join us in singing Evidence? I've seen the evidence of your goodness all over my life.
Speaker 1Amen. Y'all can have a seat, have a few announcements. First BBQ. Oh, were y'all here for the last one of these? It was fantastic.
That was so much fun. And it's happening again next Sunday, July 14. We're planning a couple more throughout the summer, but July 14, next week, right out here in between services around 10:00, it'll start and we'll go till around eleven something. That's the way it goes. And it was so much fun.
First b b q meat and breakfast, brunchies stuff. Brunchy doesn't sound very good to me. It was really good. Alright. Really, really good.
That's happening. Games, food, fun, fellowship outside next week on the green space. First week camp out is happening. Mike Demetrius, I saw him this morning. There he is.
That's one of the guys you can talk to for more information about the church camp out. You have anything you wanna say?
Speaker 2Yeah. We I think we have a spot picked up depending on the level of light.
Speaker 1Okay. Okay. That's good. July 19 through the twenty first. And then again, August 23 to twenty fifth down around Palisades.
You can talk to either Brian McCooey or Mike Demetrius. Right. There he is.
Speaker 2Come for the weekend, whatever.
Speaker 1Whatever works with your plans. Come come for the day or the weekend or whatever. So sound booth volunteers, we have Jeff up there this week and this is his solo. He's up there. Thank you very much for stepping in to do that, Jeff.
And if you feel like you have a specific propensity towards that sort of service, please let us know and we will train you. Sunday school grades three to five will not meet during the summer starting last week or today. Today is July 7. So third through fifth. Miss Crystal is gonna be teaching for the first and second kindergarten through first, second grade.
But if you wanted to go down, you could do that, but they're not meeting. The rest of the teachers third through fifth are not meeting for the rest of the summer starting today. Middle school, high school, Sunday school does meet during the 9AM service during the summer in the library. So middle school, high school, that's still going on. And that's it.
Is there anything else I've forgotten, Diane? No? I have one announcement. So I have one. And this is a prayer request to you and we're gonna pray together right now.
Do you all know the Griffiths, Josh and Keira, and Augie, and Kirier? They were involved in a car wreck. One car rollover car wreck south of Eden, Wyoming on Friday. And I went down Friday evening and stayed over. And Keira is fine now, released from the hospital.
Augie is fine now, released from the hospital. Kirier walked away just unclipping herself from her car seat. Praise God. Josh is still in the hospital at University of Utah, and he had a couple of vertebra fused in his neck. There's not any paralyzation.
He's gonna be fine. But I wanted y'all to know that so that you can be praying for them as a family, and you'd be praying for them specifically for God's healing journey that's in front of them. So would you pray with me right now? God, thank you for thank you. Thank you.
In Jesus' name, we ask for your healing hand, Lord, to be upon your people. I ask that it'd be a testimony to your good work, your finished work on the cross, Lord. I pray that we would be leaning in towards you. We'd be leaning in towards you for whatever you want for us. In Jesus name, I am so grateful, Lord, that that call was everybody is okay.
God almighty, would you work in our lives so that we'd be a comfort to those who are hurting? Would you work in their lives so that they can experience complete healing and get back to the road in front of them. In Jesus' name, I pray that you'd bless the Griffith family for all of the extended family and all the friends who have been impacted by this too. Lord, I pray that you would with your divine comfort draw us in close as a family of God. Amen.
Would you stand and sing with us?
Speaker 2Yeah. And occasionally, we will greet our neighbors. Let's do that this morning.
Speaker 1Good morning, How you doing, buddy? Good to see you. Alright. Oh.
Speaker 2We shout your name God, we thank you for your steadfast love that never ceases. Your love never fails, and it never gives up, and it never runs out on us no matter what we do. And we thank you for your grace and your mercy that you have on our lives. Help help us to extend that grace and mercy to those around us.
Speaker 1In your name we pray. Amen.
Speaker 2You can have a seat. We're, we're coming to the worship through giving part of the service. I'll invite the usher ushers to come on forward and pray with Ray, would you pray for us?
Speaker 1Sure. God Almighty, I come to you today gathered in your name. Here we are, Lord. Some of us perhaps seeking, but Lord, we're all here. We're looking for you.
We're looking for you to show up in our lives. And Lord God almighty, I pray that you'd make yourself available today for those who are reaching out. I know you do. You say everyone who calls out to you, you hear em lord. So, I pray that you would direct us in the way we ought to go.
I I pray for this offering, Lord, that it would be used to advance the good gospel, the news of Christ, the news of salvation available in Christ. We wanna see your will done on Earth in your way. Lord, would you direct us as a collective body how we do that? And individually, Lord, would you direct us from the moment we got we wake up in the morning that we would know we're walking with God confidence. We're walking a path forward with you.
In Jesus name, we ask your blessing on this. For those, Lord, who are hurt and ailing, we pray that we would be like a balm to them, that we would be able to help with the healing and help with transitions. In Jesus name, we come before you asking for you to do what only you can do but direct us to do what we should do. In Jesus name, amen. Amen.
Thank you, Ryan. Lisa. Okay. He might know what that says. Hey.
There are a few people to do. I I use this line in weddings a lot and it says this, if we are living by the spirit, you could translate it since if you want to. It's it's a rhetorical deal. If we're living by the spirit folks, then let's be walking by the spirit. And actually the way that it's phrased, I I did a kind of a in the word order.
If we are living by the spirit, by the spirit, then we also should be walking. So that's Galatians five twenty five. It is in a book where Paul is talking about, hey, you accepted God's grace and now you're trying to work it out through the law. You're trying behavior modification. Right?
You're trying to do it based on what I know I ought to do. Now, I'm gonna just aim for that. But if it is by grace that you've been saved through the spirit of God, then we need to be walking by the spirit daily walking close to thee. And that's the only way that we're gonna be able to get through this Christian life without just being pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of behavior modification. So step by step, I've been trying to preach this message for about two months now.
Since I finished going through the whole New Testament, I felt like I needed to do that first, as even handed as I could go through, and it took twelve years to go through the whole New Testament. But the thing that has been in my life since I've been pastoring here, the thing that has been the most spiritually helpful to me, as crazy as it sounds, to all of you who know how much we read and study the Bible and stick to what it says here. The most transformational thing I've seen in people's lives is them taking seriously the 12 steps. Are you with me? This is it's not heresy.
I promise it's not heresy. I'm gonna try to go and give you the biblical underpinning for the steps. But today, we're gonna cover steady as we go. We're gonna cover just the first two steps and probably the Roman road alongside that. Okay?
Before I do that, I'm gonna tell a story. So after I had been here for a very short while, maybe a year, maybe. It was a Friday morning. I was in the office early, which is kinda odd. Now it's really odd.
But at the time, I was there early. And a guy comes wandering through the door and pretty rough shape. And just a physical description. I'll call the guy Ron, that's not his name. Ron comes through the door.
And he stumbles in and and my light is on, so he comes in and kinda knocks on the door and and just or stumbles through the door, whatever. And he said, hey, can you tell me about Jesus? Now, for Baptist pastor, that's a pretty good softball right there, you know. That's like, what you're praying for is that somebody stumble in off the street and ask you to tell them about Jesus. I said, tell me your story, Tell me what what brought you to this.
And he said, I'm living in my van in the ranch home parking lot. I've been there for a while. Trying to work was hard. I've been drunk for the last twelve years. I was drinking before that, but I've been steady drunk for twelve years.
And I was left my wife left me in the truck in the middle of the Oregon Desert. And I was out there for several days, and I burned up my eyesight out there. And I am having a hard time. And he said, I called the only person in the world that I call her mom. She's not my mom.
And he told me a side story about his mom and that that was not a good relationship. It's tough. And he said, but this lady, I called her this morning and I said, I can't keep living like this. This is the end. I can't keep doing this.
And she said, Ron, get up from where you are and walk until you find somebody that'll tell you about Jesus. Just walk. There are churches there. I don't care where you are. There are churches there.
And so he walked from the ranch home parking lot, and he didn't find anybody. Just didn't find anybody. It was early. It was early before people get to work usually. And he came in here and he said, so that's why I said that.
Can you tell me about Jesus? Because the only person I trust in the world. And this guy's padded up pretty good. He had he had one in particular right here on the back of his neck, and it was in Chinese. And I he didn't look Chinese, you know.
And I said, what does that what's that say? He goes, it says trust no one in Chinese. And I said, you speak Chinese? He goes, nope. Do you go to a Chinese tattoo parlor?
He said, nope. I said, well, you trusted one somebody then. He inked the back of your neck with trust no one. He said, actually do trust this one person. I call her mom, she's not my mom.
But I called her this morning when I woke up and I said, I can't keep doing this. So it was either end it or I went with what she said. So here I am. So I could have done the Roman Road to salvation right there, I suppose. That's the the standard method.
Right? And I could have could have said, well, what you need to do, you need Jesus, pray the center's prayer. Here we are. Let's get down on our knees right here together. That was an easy one.
But the spirit, I don't usually blame the spirit for much, but it was obvious that that it wasn't a pray the sinner's prayer type thing. This is a long it took him a long time to get in this shape it was probably gonna take him a long way out. And I was going through the study of the book of John here. Right? We had started and I said, man, will you just hang with me?
Will you just hang with me? Can we can we just start getting together and just go through if your trusted one said, tell me about Jesus. I said, this is the best way I know how to get to know him. I'm a text guy, but this this text of the gospel of John is is straightforward and pretty simple. And he said, I burned up my eyes, man.
I can't read. I can't read. I can't read a Bible. There's not a large enough print Bible. I said, how big does it need to be?
He said, I can read signs when the letters are like this big. I said, I'll print you a gospel of John with letters an inch and a quarter high. And so the gospel of John is normally 22 pages, you know. But I printed him a book. It was 240 something pages long and printed it out on the printer.
And I said, I'll go through it with you. It'll help me because I'm preaching it to the crowd here on Sunday mornings. He said, man, I've I don't know about I don't know about this, but I trust that she knew what she was talking about when she said find somebody tell me about Jesus. You're saying this is the best way. He said, I'm gonna be here Sunday morning.
I have drunk my last drop. I'm not doing this. And that the promises kind of thing is pretty common when somebody makes up a decision like this is gonna be the thing that breaks the back of this. So that was Friday morning. And we don't ever when we help people out, we don't ever require of them that they come to the service.
We don't ever require them that they do anything in particular. But he's when he was leaving the door, he said, I'm gonna be here. What time is the service? Oh, we get that question a lot. Nine and eleven.
Okay. If you want less people, it'll be eleven. If you want more people to be the nine, I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna be there. What's your name again?
I told him. Alright, Ron. Well but and we he stayed. He told me. He stayed all morning.
And when he left here, he was he was not stumbling. He was bouncing out here. He was so excited and so happy. So I'm here finishing the sermon at Saturday night at 10:00 in the evening because that's what we do. And I got a call, and it was no caller ID, which means either jail or mental institution, I always take those calls.
Usually, it could be a salesman. There's one guy, Jehovah's Witness named Nelson. He looks I'm not joking. He looked up Baptist pastors and a list of us and he calls me, then he calls Carl, then he calls Mike. He's behind no caller ID.
He does it on his lunch break. It happens every time. He's trying to convince me my theology, my Greek is wrong. That's not the norm though. Usually, it's from the jail or it's from mental hospital.
So I I get the call and I can hear in the background. It's the jailer. Obviously perturbed and I can hear this in the background. And I thought, finally, she said, listen. I got a guy here named Ron, and he said that he promised you that he's gonna be in church tomorrow.
He said to call you at this number. This phone church phone number, you know. And she said, and he is literally beating his head against the wall. We don't usually go for people's requests like this, but I thought I'll try the pastor at church on Saturday night at 10:00 because he's not gonna answer. But I did and I said, well, can I come see him?
She said, the whole reason he wanted me to call is for tell you that he swore to you he'd be in church on Sunday morning, and I can promise you he will I said, can I come see him? So I went to see him, and he had a had a bloody spot right here where he'd been hitting his head against the concrete wall. And I know that there's nowadays, they put people down and, you know, put them in binders or everything, but he was doing that to himself. He had been mistreating himself for a long long long time and he had seen hope. And on Saturday, it was in January, so 17 degrees below zero, And he's living in the ranch home lot in his van.
So he cranks the van to keep warm. He was not driving anywhere. He wasn't even in the van when the police showed up. He was in the bathroom. That's why he parked where he parked.
There's another fellow there, but it was his van. Engine was running. That's driving. And so they took him in, which is reasonable. I'm not saying don't do that.
But it was one of those things where when he sobered up, he's probably gonna be alright. And he'd have some legal trouble for a while, but he'd he'd he'd get through it if he could stay. But he he had made the determination that he could get over this on his own. He just was introduced to Jesus really, just barely. We barely covered anything.
The first 18 verses are the most confusing verses in in John, and we covered that that day. And under his own power, but hopeful he left And he didn't make it a full day before it's cold, and he felt he needed it because he was been drunk for twelve years. He's going into DTs and having problems. And so he gets arrested. He's in the house in the jail for a while.
And I'm thinking, I'm not a lawyer, but this seems that feels like I could help get you out of this. You know? So I went to the arraignment and talked to judge, and the judge said, he really he needs help, but we don't have any beds available right now in Wyoming. We don't have anything. We have an inpatient that's good here, but that's not what he needs.
And so we're gonna hold on to him for a while. When they let him loose, they let him loose on there's program here in Teton County where you blow in the tube at 07:00 in the morning, 07:00 in the evening. And if you blow zeros, you get to stay out on your own recognizance. But if you blow hot at all, then you go back to jail. So he went in for one of those morning meetings.
And when he went in, he had some in his system. And they're like, alright. Well, this is in between. He'd been let loose. He was doing alright.
He's blowing clean every day for a few weeks. And then it comes upon him, and he's having a hard time. And when he blows hot, he thought the last time I was stuck in here, didn't have that 243 page gospel of John, and I didn't have my glasses, so I couldn't even read anything. So he got up from his chair while they were going to get the paperwork, sitting right there in the vestibule of the jail. And he got up and he went and he moved his van to somewhere where it would be safe.
He got his glasses and he got that Bible, and he walked back to the jail. But by that time, he had an APB out on him because he ran, which creates all kinds of other legal issues. And he ended up being in jail for a longer time that time. And I went and the judge said, Reverend McDaniel, are you here to speak character wise? I said, no, but I'm I'm here willing to take him to anywhere that would take him.
I've talked to a couple of places. There's a place in Riverton. It's called Set Free. It's church based, but it's a bed, you know, and I'm willing to take him to Riverton, Casper, wherever wherever we can get Salt Lake. And so he said, well, I'm releasing him to you.
Alright. And he went and he went through the program. He started the 12 steps. And he had a couple of flips here and there, but he bless bless God. He got clean and sober, and he did so by sincerely undertaking the steps.
And he didn't know Jesus. He came to know him in the book, you know, the in John, he came to know him. But the power of knowing the next step to take is really really helpful. When I'm trying to help somebody get through forgiveness, I have a little sequential model that I think is really helpful because we don't know the next step to take. So about two years after that Friday morning, he was in a program for the second time.
Took him actually, the first time was to Rivers and the second time was to Casper. And he stayed there for a couple of weeks. And then I heard from the place that he had left, and I I was kinda upset because I feel like, oh, he's on a bend or somewhere. But he was overwhelmed that he needed to patch up the relationship with his actual mother. And so he went to her before she died, and they were able to make their peace with one another, and it was really beautiful.
And so since then, anytime that anybody has there's never been another softball like that where somebody stumbles in. I haven't had another one of those. But I know a lot of people that when they get to the place of admitting they have a problem that they can't do anything about, it's fertile soil. It's a really really good moment. So if you're in that situation with alcohol, by all means, there are resources available.
I help. But our issue is our issue. We all have a different issue. I'm not so Southern Baptist that I will just decry that and nothing else, but we all have some problems. So Jesus on the role of the Holy Spirit Here we are at scripture.
Jesus on the role of the Holy Spirit says, I tell you the truth, this is in the upper room discourse. It's to your advantage that I'm leaving. Now that's hard to believe for those 12 sitting there, isn't it? No. We've been following you for twelve, for three years with the 12.
What is going on? I I don't. And he says, if I don't leave then the helper, that's the Holy Spirit, the paraclete will not come to you. But if I do go, I'm gonna send him to you and when he comes, he will convict the world regarding sin. There is something about the spirit of God that he is always moving and he's moving to convict of sin and to convince of God's righteousness and of judgment regarding sin because they don't believe in me.
That It's it's a lack of belief in God or lack of fear or reverence for God that allows us to believe that our sin is just okay. And regarding righteousness because I'm going to the father and I have been your example. Jesus is saying to them and he's saying to us, I have been your example of righteousness, but I'm going and you're no longer gonna be seeing me, so I'm gonna send to you the Holy Spirit and you will know internally when we go to communion in a few minutes. He says, this is a new covenant in my blood. That they've been looking forward to that new covenant for a long long time.
Jeremiah's day when he says, I'm gonna write my law on their hearts. It's gonna be I'm gonna give them a heart of flesh, not of stone. They've been looking forward to a time where it'd be internal instead of external. You're not gonna see me in regarding judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged. The devil has been judged.
He is going to face an eternity separated from God and his task is to try to take as many with him through deception as he can because the truth of God sets free, but the lie of the devil ensnares and holds on to us, enslaves us. And when we are ready to admit the problems that we have, and I'm using just a representative sample right here. It's it's a good succinct list right here of the works of the flesh and it's right before the fruit of spirit. And the contrast is, that's the greatest place in the Bible where that's the shortest version of this. The works of the flesh, the Bible says are evident and they are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy.
Drunkenness I've been talking about, but it's just a it's a good example because we all know somebody who struggles with that and no matter what they do on their own accord, they've been able to unable to set themselves free. But then, some of us have seen people who have hit upon these steps or the sequence or a complete surrender to God where it turns and they start living out of this other list. So drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. So it's a representative sample. It's not all of them.
I don't know what yours is. I don't I kinda know what mine are. I kinda. You know what? When you feel like you've got a handle on on what my thing is, you then discover that you got something else, you know.
And there's a progressive way that God reveals our own sin to us. And those the sequence of the steps is really helpful for that. So works of the flesh through the spirit, Galatians five nineteen through 23, immediately preceding by the way, Galatians five twenty five, which is if we're gonna live by the spirit, let us then be walking according to the spirit. So that's it. The Roman Road.
The Roman Road, I have been taught this so many times and I think of it and it's in my head. Romans three twenty three, we all have sinned. So when I say that I don't know what your problem is, I do know that you have a problem though. Okay? I do know that because all of us have sinned.
Romans six twenty three says, the wages of sin is death And so the Roman road is taking you from, okay, I have a problem and that problem has a consequence. Romans five eight says that God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, he made the provision Christ died for us. He made the way when there was no way. Romans five eight. Romans six twenty three says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Wait a second. The wages of sin is death and I'm a sinner, but he took that punishment and I get eternal and abundant life. Wow. If you confess with your mouth Jesus said, Lord, you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
This is a kind of a tool, you know, Roman the Roman road. Now, we've been going through in first being the Bible together. A lot of us have been reading each morning a couple of verses, a few verses. We're up to Romans chapter eight and we've seen all almost all those that I've mentioned. And it's an amazing way that God is kinda revealing it.
Right after somebody reads through the gospel of John and gets to know who Jesus is, I usually say, go to Romans. That's next. It'll give you some kinda practical understanding of God and of theology, but it'll also give you practical practical ways to go forward. So the Roman road points out that we all have a problem and it points out the solution for the problem. The first two steps is what I'm gonna cover today, and then we'll go to communion.
Step one. And there's a lot more to this. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is where this was first published. It's first practiced by just a few people who struggle with the same sin. It helps if you can find somebody who struggles with the same sin that you do.
And when God is setting you free, you encourage one another to come through it and come out the other side. So there are lots of other programs out there. Most of them recognize that the spiritual solution of the 12 steps is really helpful. So step one is this, we admitted that we were powerless over our problem, whatever that problem is. Specifically in Alcoholics Anonymous, it says over alcohol.
There are others over sexual addiction, over narcotics, over whatever. But whatever yours is, we admitted that we were powerless over our problem and that our lives had become unmanageable. For people who wanna be in charge and be in control, that's hard. That but it is the first step, you know, knowing that you have a problem is first step to solving that problem. I don't want for us as a church, as a people, or as an individual, I don't want for you to sit there and go, duh.
Yeah. Whatever. No. But I'm saved. I walked out.
I did the thing. Yeah. I believe you. But but do you believe that you're absolutely free from all sin? If there's anything that's left and if you don't think that, there's some stuff left.
Okay? If you get to the place of admitting that, hey, I've tried over and over and over to quit googling this sort of stuff. I've tried over and over to stop this thing that I do. I've tried over and over, and for some reason, it just keeps getting worse. My life has become unmanageable.
All I think about is that thing. This is really powerful. It's really helpful to get to the place of going, I can't do this. And then there's a black slide. And then the next step is immediately, since I can't do this and what do we call God?
The Almighty. So I'm not the Almighty. I'm pretty weak and feeble. Even even strong as I think I am, I'm still pretty weak and feeble. There are things that I wouldn't even dream of being able to do that I know God can do.
So step two is, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Is anything impossible for God? What we know of God is that he resists the proud who think they've got it all together, and he gives grace to the humble who admit that they have a problem that they can't do anything about. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves and if you see that and say, why don't they just say Jesus? Because a lot of people have had a bad experience with Christians, and a lot of people have bad experience with church or with Allah and mosques, and a lot of people have had a lot of bad experiences to open ourselves up, to admit our flaws and our faults, and to say, God, I don't understand you is a statement of humility to the level that I do understand you is the next step.
We'll get to that next week. But for this, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves, the Almighty could restore it's possible for him to restore us to sanity because nothing is impossible with God. We'll get to the rest of the steps next week or we'll get to a couple more of the steps next week probably. There is a way out. God is the way out.
I have some if you're like, oh, I'm already through one and two. I have the rest of them up here. Okay. Cheat sheet. Here they are.
Spoiler alert. But I think it would do us all a service. Like I started to say, about six and a half years ago, I had a friend come and said, I I got a problem. I got a problem. Never been willing to admit it before, always thought I could stop.
Could stop for a while, but hadn't been able to lately. And I'm I'm broken. I can't I can't do it. I knew about the big book, but I had never read it myself. I knew it worked, but I didn't have the alcohol wasn't my problem, so I never read that.
And so I said, I tell you what I'm gonna do. I mean, I know I overeat. Is that close enough? I know I have this issue. I'm gonna link that with with with yours, and I'm gonna pray about you every time I'm tempted.
Right? And I'm gonna try to walk with it through, but I'm gonna read that book too. So that friend started reading the book. I started reading the book and I was like, dang, this is really good. This is really biblical.
I've got a book in my office or my truck that says, the good book and the big book or the big book and the good book. So it's got all of the underpinning stuff if you need that because you've in church your whole life and you need it. But the good thing about it is, God says that everyone who calls on him will be saved. Right? He's he's laying it out there.
He's putting the cookies on the bottom shelf. He's saying, you can. You can. You can. But you have to trust me and not yourself.
And so what we're doing in communion this is where we're headed. What we're doing in communion is that old covenant where it was all on us was us pulling ourselves up by by our bootstraps. The law shows us how we fail and it has no power to make us right with God. It has no power to to forgive sin. It has the power to help us recognize sin, recognize our problem.
And Jesus is saying in this, he's saying, you know how that old covenant goes. God's gracious and he's merciful and he gave you some stuff to do, but all that stuff, all of that sacrifice, all that stuff that he gave you to do that actually comes to our brains pretty naturally. What what do I have to do? What do I have to do? Do?
Christ do have did it. He fulfilled it. And so we have to accept that and it takes it takes utter humility to do that. Now, I'm thankful for having the experience with Ron. I'm thankful for having the experience with my friend that I mentioned.
And since then, I've had a couple of folks that that we've we've gone and we've tried and we've done this. We've been to rehab four or five times. And eventually, they didn't get over it because they never got to the place of I've got a problem really that I can't do anything about. All of it was human effort in trying to do it. So old covenant was God's direction towards the new.
It was saying, I've made I I have made the provision. For those who were before Jesus, they had to look forward to Messiah because it's by Christ's blood that anyone who ever gets saved is saved. Okay? Beforehand, just the same way that we have to look back to that blood, they had to look forward to that blood. As we go into it, I'm gonna invite the ushers elders actually, elders to come forward.
And, Belisa, would you play something pretty? Oh, I knock stuff over. And would y'all just pray with me? God, I pray that you, by your spirit, would move in a mighty, mighty way to convict us of our sin, our problem that we honestly can't do anything about if we're straight up honest with you. Would you convict us of our personal sin?
I know that when Isaiah was overcome by your presence, Lord, in the temple, he immediately fell on his face and says, woe is me, I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst the people of unclean lips. His personal sin came about when he came into your presence. So that first step of recognizing it, Lord, I pray that you would reveal it to us by your spirit like you said that you would in that upper room. And Lord, I pray that you would also comfort us that you can restore our lives to wholeness and sanity.
You can restore broken relationships. You can restore peace in our heart. Everything else is counterfeit, counterfeit, Lord. Everything else is a counterfeit. We're looking for your peace, your comfort, your love.
We're looking for you to save us from ourselves. So at this table, upper room discourse, they just heard that and you said what you said about coming together and taking this in. I pray lord that you'd bless the continuation of that that's here today. It's an open table for anyone who's ever put their trust in you, who's ever admitted in humility their problem and look to you for their salvation and solution, for their cure. Lord God almighty, I pray that each one that partakes would be blessed with it, feel your presence in a new way, more profound, deeper way than we ever had before.
Lord God Almighty, I pray that you'd bless this little cracker representative of the body of Christ. He walked it out in the flesh, perfect record available to all who would put their trust in him. Thank you, Lord, for Jesus. Amen. On the same night that Jesus was betrayed, just that opening right there, on the same night that he was betrayed.
Human frailty, human ambition, human motivation. On the same night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread after supper, after he'd blessed it, after he'd given thanks, he took bread after supper and he said to his disciples there, this is my body which is given for you. Take this, take it in, and do it in remembrance of me. Thank you, God Almighty, that you made provision while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Lord God Almighty, thank you for that perfect life that was well lived as an example, but also as a perfect record that could be shared with anyone who put their trust in him.
Lord, we ask for your blessing on this this cup, this representative sample. It's a little plastic cup of grape juice, but it's representative of the blood, innocent blood that was shed by Christ on Calvary voluntarily, sacrificially. Every one of the sacrifices prior to that had pointed to this. It's the all sufficient sacrifice once for all. Thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus' blood.
Amen. In the same manner they had taken the bread, he also took the cup and he said to them there, and he says to us today, this is the new covenant in my blood. Thank you, Lord God Almighty, that you made provision, that you made a way. This is the new covenant in my blood. Take it, drink of it as you will, whenever you will in remembrance of me.
Amen. Would you stand with me and we're gonna sing the doxology. Would you hit a g so I don't start off way low? Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise God all creatures here below.
Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise father, son, and holy host. Amen. Would you go in the peace of God, our savior, and would you be a carrier of that to anyone in need? Amen.
