LETTING GO

The Road to Recovery—Part 3

Matthew 11:28–30

  This week I heard the story about a pet-store delivery truck going down the road. And every stop light he came to he’d run to the back of the truck, grab a 2x4 and start beating on the side of the truck. Nobody could figure out what he was doing, so finally somebody asked him, “What are you doing?” He said, “This is only a two-ton truck and I’m carrying four tons of canaries. I’ve got to keep two tons of them in the air all the time.”

When I heard that I thought, “That’s a picture of life.” Many of you out there beating yourself, trying to keep it all in the air from all crashing down. We have a tendency to get stuck in life. We get stuck in relationships. We get stuck with habits. We get stuck in grief when we lose a loved one. We get stuck in anger. We get stuck in our work, in a sexual relationship. And then we can’t get out of it and then on to a cycle. Once you get stuck, then you start feeling guilty that you’re stuck. You say, “I wish I could get out of this but I can’t.” And then you have a lot of guilt after you can’t get out of it and can’t change, and then comes anger and you say I should be able to change and you get angry at yourself. I ought to be able to get out of this. But you don’t. And then your anger turns to fear that I’m never going to get out of this. It’s got control of me. I’m going to end up in the hospital. Then your fear eventually turns to depression and you start feeling sorry for yourself and having a pity party and you resign, “I give up I can’t change.” And you start the cycle all over again and get further stuck.

How do you break out of that “stuckness”?

That’s what we’ve been talking about for a couple of weeks.

Step 1—Admit it, I’ve got a problem. Reality step.

Step 2—Hope step—Not only am I powerless but God has power and He is willing to help out. He knows my problems and cares about my problems and cares about me. He knows everything going on in my life. He’s offering to help me to change. And that’s the Hope step.

But it’s not just enough to know that God will help you. You got to take action. You’ve got to make a decision. You’ve got to walk across the line.

STEP 3—CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSE TO COMMIT ALL MY LIFE AND WILL TO CHRIST’S CARE AND CONTROL.

This step is based on what Jesus said in Matthew 11: “Come to me all you who are weary and overburdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus says, “Come to Me.” It’s God’s invitation. I will make your life easier. I will lighten your load. You will have relief. You will have release. You will have rest. You will have rejuvenation. Give Me control and care of your life and watch what I do. Life will get so much easier. Less stressful.

What a deal! Why would anybody turn that deal down? Yet some of you have heard this before and you’ve never acted on it. It’s like having an unopened gift. God says I want to give you this gift of relief and release and recovery and you’ve done nothing about it. What keeps us from taking this Third Step, this important step? What causes me to procrastinate giving my problems to God and to delay surrendering my life to the care and control of Christ?

I. WHAT KEEPS ME FROM DOING THAT?

1. Pride will keep me from admitting I need help. Prov. 18:12: “Arrogant people are on the way to ruin because they won’t admit it when they need help.” How many fathers will not stop to ask directions? Prov. 10:8: “The self-sufficient fool falls flat on his face.” Maybe you’re not ready to take this step. Maybe you’re not ready to say, “I give control and care of my life to Christ. I’m not ready yet to do that.” All you need is a greater dose of pain. God will gladly allow it to get your attention.

2. Guilt will keep you from taking this step. I may be ashamed to ask God to help me. Ps. 40:13: “Problems, far too big for me to solve are piled higher than my head. Meanwhile, my sins, too many to count, have caught up with me and I’m ashamed to look up.” Ever felt that way? I’m ashamed to look up. I don’t want to ask God for help. You know how many times I’ve asked God for help and I’ve made a promise and I’ve broke the promise? God if you just get me out of this … I’m embarrassed to ask God for help. You don’t know all the things I’ve done wrong. I couldn’t go to God and ask for help.” You’re wrong. Dead wrong. There’s no sin that God cannot forgive. And He wants to help you. Don’t let pride or guilt keep you from taking this step. He wants to forgive your guilt.

3. Fear. I’m afraid of what I might have to give up. Anybody who has been around Saddleback long enough they know my favorite story: The guy that falls off a cliff, half way down he grabs a branch. He’s hanging on for dear life. Five hundred feet down. Five hundred feet up. He cries out, “Somebody help!” He hears the voice of God, “This is the Lord, trust Me, let go and I’ll catch you.” He looks back down the five hundred feet down; he looks up. “Is there anybody else up there?” God is the last resort. I’m afraid to let go. Some of you are hanging on for dear life by that branch and saying, “This isn’t that bad. No problem, really, I’m fine.”

What are you afraid of if you commit your life to Christ? What are you afraid will happen if you give God care and control of your life? “He’ll turn me into a nun (priest).” You say, “I don’t want anybody controlling me.” Who are you kidding? You’re being controlled all the time. It’s just that you choose who you’re being controlled by when you let God control your life. You’re controlled by the opinions of other people. You’re controlled by hurts you can’t forget. You controlled by habits, hang-ups, by the way your parents brought you up.

Do you know what freedom is? Freedom is choosing who controls you. When you give your life in care and control of Christ He sets you free. He said, “Those who sin are slaves to sin, but if you know the truth, the truth will set you free.” Jesus says, “I set you free.” Bob Dylan used to say, “You’re going to have to serve somebody.” Even if it’s your own ego. Real freedom is choosing who your master will be. So what are you afraid of? What are you holding on to that you think, “I can’t let go of this in order to give my life to God?” A relationship, ambition, a habit, a lifestyle, a possession.

“How does a man benefit if he gains the whole world and loses his soul in the process? Is anything worth more than his soul?” No.

When you take this Third Step you give up everything and then you never had it so good. Because He takes what you’ve given Him, He turns it around, He adds new meaning, new significance, new vitality, gives it back to you in a whole new way.

If you’ve been afraid to open your life to the care and control of Christ that He might make you some fanatic, some nut, or something or I might have to give up ____________. Don[’t worry about the specifics of what you might have to give up. Don’t worry about that. If you focus on the specifics you’ll never make the greater decision, which is the step to recovery. Just come to God: “God I don’t even know what I want to give up but I do know I want my life to be under your control so God here is a blank check.” And give God a blank check. Here’s my life. Let Him take care of the rest. Don’t worry about it.

4. Worry. Keeps you from surrendering your life to the care and control of Christ. We confuse the decision-making phase with the problem-solving phase. Back in 1963 when JFK announced publicly, “We’re going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade,” that was the decision. Had all the problems been solved when he made that decision? No. If you’re a good manager you know you never confuse decision making with problem solving. If you confuse them, you never make the decision. You have to make the decision, then solve the problems. Kennedy said, “We’re going to go to the moon,” then it was NASA’s problem to figure out the problems ’solutions.

When I started Saddleback church thirteen years ago it was just Kay and me. I had no money, no members, no building. I didn’t know a single person in the valley. God had just said, “Go to southern California and start this church.” I didn’t say, “Now God, what I’d like first is a big building, maybe a tent, and give me about 7,000 people to fill it up with, and then I’ll consider doing it.” No. When I started it I only had one member, my wife. She didn’t like the first message. You make the decision and then you solve the problems. If you wait for all the stop lights to turn green first, you’ll never go anywhere. You can’t solve all the problems first. You make the decision. I open my life to the care and control of Christ. I’ve got doubts, questions, fears, worries. I don’t know how it’s all going to work out. But I know it’s the right thing to do. So I just do it.

In December, Kay and I decided to buy a house. We made the decision to move, to buy a house. That was a very easy decision. But was that all there was involved in the transaction? No. After we made the decision, we had to get financing, a rental truck to move, change of address … The problems are after the decision.

About thirty years ago I took this third step and said yes to Jesus Christ. “I don’t understand it all but if You’re really real, come into my life. If You can give me a better life than I’m living right now, do it.” I opened my life to the care and control of Christ. Even today, thirty years later, I’m still sending out change of addresses saying, “No, I don’t do that anymore. That’s not me, that’s the old me.” I’m still making change of addresses. Don’t let worry bother you and keep you from making the decision.

This is the most important thing I’ll say today: The Christian life is a decision followed by a process. Same with recovery. It is a decision followed by a process. All I’m talking about today is the decision. OK, let’s do it, let’s go for it. At Saddleback we have a process, the Life Development Process. It helps you become all God wants you to be. What we’re talking about today is just getting to first base.

In World War II the Marines had a definite strategy they used in the Pacific when they went to retake the Pacific from the Japanese. They used the same strategy on every island and it worked every time. First, the Marines would go to the island that had been taken captive, and they would start bombing it, and they would just pelt it with bombs and grenades and all kinds of explosives. That was called the softening-up period. Many of you are in the softening-up period right now. And all kinds of explosions are going off in your life that are just sending fragments everywhere and you’re saying, “This isn’t working.” You come to a point where you say, “Yes, I need something beyond myself.” It’s softening up your pride. “I need help. I need God in my life. There’s too much stress.” The second phase, the Marines would come in and establish a beach head, maybe only twenty yards deep and two hundred yards wide but they would just get a presence on the island. When they had established the beach head, had they completely liberated the island? No. They had just gotten in. From there they began to fight the battles. Sometimes they’d move one hundred yards forward and sometimes they’d get pushed back. And sometimes they’d win the battle and sometimes they’d lose it. But everybody knew that once they’d established a beach head total liberation of the island was inevitable, just a matter of time. And in the history of WW II once the Marines had landed and established a beach head they never lost an island. It was just a matter of time that the entire island would be set free.

When you make this step, what’s happening is God gets a beach head in your life. The Bible calls it conversion or being born again. It just means God gets a presence in my life. Does that mean everything in my life is perfect? Absolutely not. It means God’s in your life, He’s got a beach head and the rest of your life He’s going to be setting you free, little by little by little. It’s a process. So don’t worry about it. Just trust God.

Maybe you worry that in this battle you couldn’t hold on and hold out. God says Don’t worry. It’s not your job to keep it. He says, “I do the keeping.” “Cast all your anxiety on God because He cares for you.” He says, “I care for you. I hold you in My hand.”

When my children were younger and we’d cross a busy street I’d grab hold of their hands. As we were walking across the street they might, as little children, want to let go. But no matter how much they wanted to let go, I wouldn’t let go of their hands because I am a loving father. There are times in your life you make decisions, “God, I don’t think I want to be a believer right now.” It’s a little difficult holding up my ethics and I may want to struggle and let go of His hand but once you have grabbed into His hand, God holds on to yours. He won’t let go. It says in Timothy “He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” God’s says, “I do the holding on so you don’t have to worry about it.” Whatever God asks me to do, He’ll enable me to do. Philippians 1:6: “God who began a good work in you, will keep right on helping you to grow in His grace until His task is finally completed.”

5. Doubt. “I want to believe but my faith just seems so small.” You need to know the story of a guy named Jairus in the Bible. Jairus came to Jesus one day. “Jesus, I know You can heal people. My daughter needs to be healed.” Jesus said, “If you have faith then she will be healed.” Jairus was read honest. He said, “Lord, I’ve got a lot of doubts. I want to believe. Help me with my unbelief.” Jesus said, “That’s good enough.” And He healed the girl. Maybe you need to say like Jairus, “God I want to believe that you will help me with my life. Help me with my unbelief.” That’s good enough. Don’t you have to have a big faith? Look at what the Bible says. “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible for you.” It’s not the size of your faith that matters, it’s the size of what you put it in, the size of your God. You can have giant faith, put it in the wrong thing and get no results. Faith is not the issue. The issue is what do you put it in. A little faith in a big God gets big results. Don’t let any of these things keep you from taking this step.

I’ve asked Michelle and Zane Johnson to share their stories:

Zane: I am a believer struggling with codependency. Turning my life over to the will and care of God as I understood Him is a relatively new concept to me. It was through the tool of Recovery that God has shown me how truly wonderful a relationship with Him could be. I should preface this statement with some background of my life as it was.

I was raised in a Christian home. I went to church on Sundays, Wednesdays. I learned all the rules of being a Christian but never gave in to the idea of totally turning my life over to God. I wanted my cake and eat it too. Both my parents had to work to make ends meet. Me, being the youngest, I was off to day care. My mom was an authoritarian and very strict and the only way I could get the attention I craved was to mess up some task or chore and get in trouble somehow. I still, to this day, struggle from time to time with acceptance and approval.

As I grew older I found I could make friends by making them laugh and they think I was a funny man. I was always trying to show people I was worth something through my accomplishments. But my efforts always came up the same—short. In my relationships, I would try to mold the person I was dating into the ideal person who’d meet all my needs and make my life perfect and then we’d live happily ever after. This attempt at healing my pain always proved unproductive. As I grew older I found out I could sing and it was an attention getter too but it wasn’t enough. So I got into rodeo and of course, being who I was, I found the roughest event I could ride. For the better part of two years I rode bulls and this almost seemed to quench my hunger for attention. But I wanted the total package.

So with my buddies I hit the bars, night clubs, and all the spots “cool” people went to. I thought for sure this would be the great fix. It wasn’t until the spring of 1991 the tables had turned in my life. I had been attending Saddleback for quite some time off and on, and my conscious was telling me to start back to church on a regular basis. This was the year my life came crashing down.

A three-year downward spiraling relationship was coming to an end and I moved to another state to try to resurrect that relationship. It proved almost fatal for me. I came home broken and at the end of my rope. Then, and not until then, the Lord had me right where He needed me for healing. A good friend of mine who had compassion on me told me about Saddleback Celebrate Recovery program. And I came to see if this could help me out of the pit all of my best thinking had gotten me into.

Through recovery I have learned to view my past openly and, for the first time, honestly evaluate my part in the way things turned out the way they did. The program is a tool that God used for me to establish a relationship with Him. For the first time in my life I have a true working relationship with Jesus Christ. What I’ve learned about myself is that I was always trying to fill an emptiness deep in my heart. I am aware of destructive patterns that could possibly sabotage things in my life and I have my Lord Jesus to thank for this. Without Him I have no idea how far I could have been lost. Every day as the Lord grants them to me, I turn my life over to Him, spiritually, mentally and physically, asking for His will to be done, not mine. It’s not all roses, but I can truly say my life is the fullest and richest it’s ever been.

Michelle: I am a believer struggling with codependency. My life growing up was quite different from Zane’s. I grew up in a broken home that became an alcoholic home. I was abandoned either emotionally or physically by one or both of my parents. I lived with my mom and stepdad who were impossible to please. I tried everything to gain their approval by good grades and being a good girl, but I was never able to do enough to win their praises.

Since my parents were alcoholics they weren’t emotionally available for me. So I turned to my friends and boyfriends to get approval that I so deeply needed. I learned to become a people-pleaser. I found myself being used and abused by most of my boyfriends. And I felt in some strange way comfortable with that; I deserved that kind of treatment. I eventually turned to drugs to numb my sadness, and the only thing I found there was emptiness. I’d still be there trying to fill my emptiness with whatever I could find, but God had a different plan for my life.

I asked Jesus Christ into my heart in 1990 and I received a great deal of healing that first year. I was still operating under my old self-destructive patterns and I was filled with guilt and shame. I was still seeking out relationships with the same type of men. The more emotionally unavailable they were the more attracted to them I was. After another breakup I began to think there might be something wrong with me that’s causing this kind of treatment.

God used friends from this church to bring me to the first meeting of Celebrate Recovery. I fought the idea for a long time. I thought, “I’m in control of my life. I have a successful career. I’m a woman of the 90s,” and I didn’t need anyone. I related neediness to weakness. But it was the needs that hadn’t been met in the past that initiated my self-destructive behavior. I realize now that needs are the fuel for growth, the avenue to God. Conceptually, I accepted the idea that God needed to be in control of all aspects of my life, but I had to learn to become willing to let go of my will and humbly ask Him to take control. He has taken my hand and is walking with me through this program. I find myself tempted from time to time to take control back from God. That’s when I stop and remember to turn it over to Him. I can honestly say that Zane and I wouldn’t be married today if we hadn’t put our pasts in perspective and learned to turn our wills and lives over to God through celebrate Recovery.

Rick: Some of you say I’ve tried this before and it didn’t work. I’ve tried giving my life to God and it just didn’t work. My evaluation of that is that you probably didn’t fully understand what it all involved. You were involved you just weren’t committed. Like the kamikaze who went on 33 missions. He was involved but not committed.

II. HOW DO I TAKE THIS STEP?

What does it mean to take this step?

1. I accept God’s Son as my Savior. I need to be saved. I need help. I realize I need Him in my life. “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” What does it mean? It means committing as much of myself as I understand at this moment to as much of Christ as I understand at this moment. Is that good enough? That is good enough.

2. I accept God’s Word as my standard for living. From now on I’ve got a manual that I’m going to live my life by. Graffiti: “This life is a test, it is only a test. Had it been an actual life you would have been given an instruction manual to tell you what to do and where to go.” Fortunately we do have an instruction manual. It’s the Bible. God says this is your standard by which you evaluate life around you. Notice: “All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching the faith and correcting error for resetting the direction of a man’s life, training him in good living.”

3. I accept God’s will as my strategy, as my goal in life. God, what do you want me to do? The first question I always ask is “Lord, you woke me up this morning. It obviously means you have another day for me, a purpose for my life. What do you want me to do with it?” As David says, “I delight to do your will.” I seek first God’s will. “God, I’m willing to do anything, anywhere, anytime. I don’t even have to understand it but I’m living my life on Your terms because You made me for a reason. You have a purpose and I want to fulfill that purpose that You made me for.” And God’s will becomes my strategy for life, whether I understand it or not.

4. I accept God’s power as my strength. Philippians 4:13: “I can do everything God asks me with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power.” No longer do I have to rely on my own energy. Things work better when they’re plugged in. You get plugged into God, you’re not so tired all the time. God says, “I will give you My power to be all I want you to be.”

Jesus says, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door I will come in and fellowship with him.” Jesus says, “I’m standing at the door of your life and I’m knocking and I’m saying I want to come into your life,” but He’s a gentleman. He’ll not beat the door down. Step Three means to open the door. The key that unlocks that door is willingness. “Willpower is willingness to accept God’s power.” You don’t need willpower; you need willingness to accept God’s power in your life, go by His controls, His system.

Pilots, when they fly planes, fly always either by IFR or VFR. IFR stands for Instrument Flight Rules. VFR stands for Visual Flight Rules. Every pilot is flying by one or the other. IFR is when you taxi out on a runway, you might go over to the control tower, you submit to the controls of the system, you set your instruments, and it’s a done deal. You’re controlled by the instruments—a very safe way of flying. VFR—Visual Flight Rules—you just kind of taxi on the runway, look around, looks OK, and take off and just fly around and use your sight. VFR is fine as long as you can see everything—if it’s clear weather and not a lot of traffic. But one day, if you fly enough you’re going to eventually hit bad weather. You’re going to get lost in some clouds and at one point you have to pick up the microphone and say, “I need to switch over to IFR” and you submit to the controls of that channel. All airlines fly IFR. All pros fly IFR but a lot of amateurs fly VFR. The FAA says that a lot of these small plane crashes, many of those could have been prevented if the person in the cockpit, when they get lost in the clouds and weather had simply picked up the microphone and said, “I need help.” Are they going to do that? No. Think a pilot wants to admit he’s lost? Admit that he needs help? He wants to control it on his own, be his own boss, set his own destiny even if it does mean flying into that mountain or tree.

You have made it pretty well along to this point in life flying VFR and you’ve controlled everything but it’s an inevitable part of life that you’re going to have bad weather. You’re going to hit the tough spots. You’re going to hit the clouds where you flip upside down and you don’t even know which direction you’re going. At that point you’ve got to pick up the microphone and switch to God’s system. I surrender to the care and control of Christ or it’s an invitation to disaster.

It’s very important for you to let somebody else know of your decision and making this commitment.