Not Self-Help

Unstuck, that's the name of our series that we started last weekend here at TLC. My name's René, another one of the pastors here. And how beautiful was that, having Barbara sing with Trent? Man, I love that so much. Just beautiful.

Well, grab your message notes, look like this, and open your Bibles to Luke 15. We'll get there in a minute. But as you're getting all that together, I don't know if you've seen this classic YouTube video. A sheep is stuck in a roadside rut, and the owners come to save her. Watch what happens next. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Chauvins, how many of you relate to that sheep right there? Where are you stuck in a rut you feel like you're free for a second then you drop right back into it? Right? Drinking, smoking, using, shopping, gambling, worrying, controlling, gossiping, complaining, doom scrolling, pornaholic, phonaholic, gameaholic. Some of you are thinking all of the above. The good news is you really can get unstuck.

In this series, we're looking at the biblical principles underlying the 12 steps of recovery. And as I said last weekend, in my own life, although I don't have a chemical dependency, I found these 12-step principles, especially the Bible principles behind them, to be a really useful, you could call it a scaffolding for living out Christian discipleship in my own life. And what we're doing in this series is tying into a new book called Steps by John Orberg. It's available in our lobby bookstore for basically as cheap as we can sell it. We just want to get it into your hands if this interests you.

And in a couple of weeks, July 12th and 13th, the author, John Orberg, who's a friend of mine, is going to be here speaking in all of our weekend services as a part of this series. He's just going to continue this series when we get to those steps. And he will also be doing a recovery seminar after the 11 a.m. service in a couple of weeks on that weekend. You can get all the details at tlc.org/recovery. And we have a recovery table out in the lobby today. Those people will be happy to tell you all about John and that event and all about what we offer in terms of recovery here at Twin Lakes Church. All kinds of different recovery groups which have become a real gateway, an on-ramp into church life for so many people here at Twin Lakes Church. So that's going to be great.

Well, quick recap. Last weekend, we looked at steps one and two. Step one, we admitted we were what? Powerless, hopeless without God, that our lives had become unmanageable. Step two, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. You could summarize it this way. Step one, I can't. Step two, he can. And today's step three, I think I'll let him. Say these three steps out loud with me. I can't. He can. I think I'll let him. That's a summary of step three.

The long version in recovery groups is this. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Now, let's just kind of go through this for a minute line by line, and then I want to look at Luke 15 to see how you can see all of this in the parable of the prodigal son. It says, we made a decision. I want to tell you, it's decision time today. I mean, literally, I am going to give you a chance at the end of this service to make a decision to take the step of committing your life to God, to take this step. And we're going to take a literal step. I'm going to do what they used to call an altar call and ask you to come forward to do what? To turn our will and our lives over.

I love that wording, to turn it over. This is not a commitment to try harder, to double down on what already has clearly not been working. That's insanity. This is a decision to try something else, to turn it over. This is what you could call the commitment step. And you hear this word a lot in church, right? Commitment. But there is a problem with this word. When I was a kid, I grew up in a church where after pretty much every sermon, there was a chance to go forward and make a commitment, right? To come to the altar call and commit your life to Jesus or to recommit your life. And I did go forward several times. But looking back, I think I completely misunderstood what the Bible means by commitment.

And I actually think this is a very common problem for Christians and for people in recovery. My little theory is that it might trace back to the fact that in English, there are two competing definitions of the word commit. And they're almost the exact opposite. I mean, when I ask you right now where you're sitting, you don't have to shout this out, but in your mind, think about what does it mean to commit? How would you define that in your head? What does it mean to commit? You'll see that commit could mean to make a resolution, to make a vow, a pledge, a promise, to bear down, to try harder. I commit to trying harder this season. That's a very valid use of the word commit, kind of like the Raiders team motto, commitment to excellence.

And everybody who's laughing is a long-suffering Raiders fan, right? But this kind of commitment means I'm going to put my shoulder to the wheel. I'm going to try real hard. But there's another meaning to the word commit. And as I said, it's almost the exact opposite. Commit can also mean surrender, right? A complete turning over. Like, when my wife, Lori, went in for gallbladder surgery, and I probably should have gotten her permission before I shared this story, but I said, are you worried? She said, no, I commit myself into the care of the surgeon and the Lord. Now, what did she mean by that use of the word commit?

She wasn't on the operating room table going, okay, here's my gallbladder, doc. Going to try real hard to get it out for you. No. She wasn't even conscious. She had fully surrendered. She had entrusted herself to her doctor's care. She let go and let him. This second definition of the word commit is what the Bible always means when it uses that word commit your life to God. I am not committing as in doubling down on trying harder. This time I resolve. I will never ever sin again. I'm entrusting my whole life into God's care.

And many, many people, good people, well-meaning people, you know, church people like I was when I grew up in church, get these two definitions mixed up all the time. And looking back, what I was doing when I was coming forward at the altar call in the kind of church I grew up in, and I heard the pastor say, will you commit your life to God or recommit your life to God? What I was saying in my heart was, okay, God, I'm so stupid. I'm so stupid. I gotta try harder this time. That wasn't actually a commitment to God at all. It was a commitment to me. It was just a commitment to self-improvement.

There actually wasn't even anything religious about that commitment at all. It could have been a commitment I made on a sports team or at a self-improvement seminar. It wasn't spiritual, and it wasn't powerful. The kind of commitment the Bible talks about is, God, there's nothing I can do anymore. I give myself to you. Much later as an adult, I had to learn that. And you know how I learned that I'd gotten those definitions mixed up was when I wound up in the hospital with anxiety attacks while pastor of this church, and I couldn't try harder anymore. I couldn't even work anymore until I recovered that, and I discovered God loved me just the same.

And in fact, I discovered that God worked powerfully through that weakness in me and in the lives of other people, too. And so I made a little chart, the difference between trying and trusting, these two kinds of commitment. The difference is trying is really directed, but trusting is God-directed. The motivation behind trying is to really avoid pain and earn favor, the favor of God, the favor of the people around me and my church or whatever. The motivation behind trusting is gratitude to God for his grace and just love for God.

And the result, crucially, of trying is really a sense of burden and either guilt or pride. Guilt if you're not doing it well, and pride if you're momentarily doing well, right? But it's all so self-directed, self-motivated. You know, the rewards are about myself, whereas the reward for just trusting is a sense of freedom and kind of a relaxed confidence, because I've entrusted my life to God, and it's not a negotiation with God. I didn't entrust my life to God like, well, God, I'm going to take this step. If you make my life turn out the way I want, it's just, no, you know what? I am just committing my life to God, knowing that God will work even through my failures and difficulties to mature me.

That third step, what they call turning it over, not trying harder, is what we're talking about here. But you get to the next phrase, and you see a sticking point for many Christians, including me, when I first read the 12 steps, the next phrase that's used, to the care of God as we understood him. Now, what's that all about? Well, I did some research, and when this term was first coined by the founder of AA, as we saw last week, Bill W., it was in a church, Grace Episcopal Church in Manhattan, and it was not meant to convey some kind of a designer God you create who lets you do what you want and indulges all your self-destructive behavior.

It was meant as a response to all the people who were coming to those first AA groups who were turned off by church and turned off by religion and had been alienated from the God of religion probably because they'd been shamed by so many church people for their alcoholism, church people who just told them to try harder. Originally, this phrasing was meant to convey, look, you may have hang-ups with church. You may have questions about God or questions about the Bible. You can still start with the most basic idea of God, hoping to grow in your understanding. Does that make sense? You start with that.

Now, my question is this. Isn't that what we all do? None of us have perfect knowledge of God or the Bible or Christianity. None of us ever has no questions about God. Ultimately, we all surrender to the Lord as best we understand him, hoping for more clarity but also allowing for mystery. The fact is if you find Jesus so appealing or you find yourself so desperate, you do move toward God as much as you understand. Most people don't wait for every single question to be answered because then they'd never move in any direction. Really, this is how we make any decision. I mean, you got married to your spouse as much as you understood them. You know, you got on the route to come to church today as much as you understood it. That's always how we move forward.

And you see these first three steps in the parable of the prodigal son, a famous story that Jesus told. Now, I want to set this up for you a little bit because in the beginning of Luke 15, in verse 1, it says that Jesus was telling this story to two groups of people that were in his audience that day. One group were tax collectors and the worst kinds of sinners in that society, much like we have sitting in the front row here. No, just kidding. And in the second group were the hyper-religious, hypocritical, judgmental people, much like we have on stage here. No, just kidding about that too.

But Jesus tells this parable for both groups. And it's just genius, of course. That's kind of ridiculous to say. That Jesus, he was a genius. But Jesus tells the story. He says, there was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate, which is basically saying, Dad, I can't wait for you to die. I want my share of the inheritance right now. Now, culturally, that was a significant act of disrespect. He was dishonoring his father, which we know could have technically led to the father calling for him to be stoned to death. But what the father does next is even more shocking. He gives it to him.

So he divided his property between them. And not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country, and there squandered his wealth in wild living. Now, wild living, some Bible translations read foolish living, riotous living, parties and prostitutes. You get the idea. And then it gets worse. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. He's starting to get uncomfortable. But he's still not willing to turn around. So he tries to get a job. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.

Jesus is telling this parable to a Jewish audience. And of course, a pig is considered unclean, so low. He is hitting bottom, and now even the pig food becomes appealing to him. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. He's starving. Finally, he came to his senses. He has that moment of clarity where he sees his situation for what it is. And he said, how many of my father's hired servants have plenty of food, but here I am starving to death. And here you see him taking that first step, which I'll summarize here as admit. He admits his need. I am a mess. I can't help myself.

So I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. Now, his understanding of his father's heart is very incomplete. But as much as he understands his situation, my life would be better with dad. He believes the accurate thing, generally speaking. And that's step two. You believe. I believe my life would be better with my father. That is my only hope in my situation. You admit, you believe, and then step three, commit. A, B, C. Admit, believe, commit. This is how any forward progress is made, really, in any field, in any improvement. You admit, you believe, and then you commit. You take action.

So he got up and went to his father. You stop thinking about committing, and you just get up and do it. Admit, believe, commit. Problem. Many people, thousands, millions, even if they have come to the first step, my life is a mess. I am a mess. And even if they believe there's a God out there who could help me, are very hesitant to get to the commit, and I'm going to completely surrender my life to God. Even God as I understand him to be. Why the hesitancy? What often keeps me from taking this step of commitment is my view of God. I have to entrust my life to God? Well, what if I don't trust God? What if I think God is mean? What if I think God is unreachable? What if I think God hates me? Or what if I hate God? Or hate church?

There's an amazing picture of this story by Rembrandt. It's called The Return of the Prodigal. Very famous. Here's the back story. When Rembrandt was a young man, he was a lot like the youngest son in this story. In fact, he even painted pictures of himself as the prodigal son. Self-portraits. He painted this picture first. It's a picture of himself in a brothel drinking a gigantic glass of alcohol. Subsequent to the painting, he titled it Prodigal Son in the Brothel, but I'm not sure that the title wasn't sort of a religious sort of whitewash of just, I'm just going to paint my life right now. He went bankrupt several times from gambling debts and so on, so he had definitely lived that life of the younger son.

When he was older, he Renéwed his faith and began painting very touching biblical scenes. And this may have been the very last completed picture that he ever painted, the return of the prodigal son. And you can see the emotion, the love that the father has for that devastated young man. And in the story that this painting is based on, Jesus is painting a word picture of what the Father is like, and he's doing that for that first group of people who are listening to him, who are like, man, there's too much water under the bridge. God would never want somebody like me back.

And Jesus is teaching that God is first patient. Patient. Watch this. But while he, the son, was still a long way off, the father saw him. And the way I read this, the father didn't do this by accident. It wasn't like, oh, he's two blocks away. There he is. What do you know? He was still a long way off. This father was scanning the horizon. And when his son was, I mean, every day, hopefully. And then when his son was still a dot on the horizon, and he could tell by the way he walked or something, I think, oh, it couldn't be. I think that's him. He was patiently waiting.

It breaks my heart to hear people say, you don't know how many times I've walked away from God. God is done with me. No, he's not. On the authority of Christ's own parable here, you know what God is doing? He's patiently watching the road, waiting for you to come home. And then Jesus shows how the father is loving, so loving. He says, while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.

He ran to his son. When I was about 12 years old, my single mom, after eight years of widowhood, remarried, and my stepdad came with his stepson, Tim. Tim and I shared a room, and I still remember something that happened. When I was 13, he was 16. I loved Tim. I really did. But for a few years, Tim rebelled hard against my stepdad. He drank. He used. He bullied me at times. He would point to me and say, quiver. And if I didn't quiver like this, you know, he'd punch me. So I quivered. You think that's funny? No. But he got his girlfriend pregnant. He wrecked his motorcycle, all the things, right?

Now, I wouldn't have said I was a better human than Tim out loud because Tim would have beaten me up, but I sure thought it. And then one night, Tim totaled my stepdad's lovingly restored vintage VW Beetle in a single vehicle rollover crash over on Hicks Road in Las Gadas. And I still remember how my stepdad got the phone call from Tim. I crashed the car. And my stepdad said, and I was standing right next to him in the kitchen of our house in San Jose, he said, I'll be right there with the other car to bring you home. And I said, can I come too? Oh, I could not wait to see my stepbrother finally get his comeuppance.

Because I knew from the phone call that Tim was uninjured, but I did not think Tim would stay uninjured for very long. My stepdad was a career Navy man. He was tough. He was the first guy I ever knew who had a tattoo. We drove to Las Gadas. We saw the upside-down car on the road, the flashing light of the cop cars in the night. And my stepbrother, side of the road, head in his hands. And my stepdad gets out of the car. And I follow along eagerly. And then dad does something I will never forget. He goes to Tim. And he hugs him for a long time. And then he looks him in the eye. And he says, son, let's go home. And that's all. And I was so disappointed. I really was. But I never forgot it, and I replayed that scene many times throughout my life because in that absence of words my stepdad said everything he said I love you unconditionally, Tim. He said, I am not condemning you, Tim. He said, welcome home. And in that moment, I saw the love of the Father.

Jesus says this Father ran to his Son. Here's the miracle you discover when you come home to God. You may have been running for a thousand miles in your own direction, and you finally decide, you know, I think I need to come home to God. I guess I'll go a thousand miles back. What you discover is a thousand miles this direction you turn around and whoop, there's God. Oh, hi, God. Because when you turn around, God runs to you. It's always only one step back. And he threw his arms around him and he kissed him. This kid just came out of a pig pen. I would have at least hosed him down. Not this father. Jesus is showing God is patient and loving and lavishly gracious.

Watch this. The son said to him, and this is a speech he's been rehearsing for days, father I've sinned against heaven and against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. The father's not even listening. Quick bring the best robe and put it on and put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet. Get the best calf and prepare it so we can feast and celebrate. That's where we get the phrase, the fattened calf, right? Get the fattened calf and kill it. We're going to have a feast, a barbecue, for the son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found, so they began to celebrate.

You know what that son deserved in that culture when he returned home? He deserved death because he had shamed his family by what he has done. What does he get? He gets a party. That's grace. And we really deserve the judgment of God. But what we get is grace. God, because of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, chooses to freely lavish all his riches upon us. We're a co-heir with Christ, just like the prodigal in this story.

Now, wouldn't it be great if the story just ended there? But it doesn't because there's another son. And here's where Jesus makes this twist-ending pivot to that other group that's listening to him, the religious people, right? He's saying, you guys got the same problem. Because when this happens, the other son is out on the field working, and he hears all the noise, and he goes up to the house. What's going on? And one of the servants says, that's really cool. There's a big party, and your brother's back, and we're spending lots of money on this party. Come on in. And he refuses. The older brother became angry and refused to go in, and the dad comes out to him.

And the brother says, look, all these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Wait a minute, what's he talking about, slaving orders? He's the heir. He's not a slave, but he sure thought of himself that way. My son, the father said, you're always with me. Everything I have is yours. You're not a slave. You're an heir. I never saw you as a slave, but apparently you saw yourself as a slave. Look at the Rembrandt again. There's this party. The older brother's arms are folded. No dancing, no joy. I have been that other brother. And I mean literally judging my brother Tim and others like him for being self-indulgent. All the while I was self-controlled and obsessed with self-improvement and very self-righteous, self-indulgent, self-righteous. What's the common word? Self. Whether I'm the younger brother or the older brother, my problem is the same. It's self-direction. That's the problem. And my solution is the same, God-direction. Just surrendering to him, not going my way, but God's way.

Now, each week in this series, I want you to meet people from right here at TLC who have taken these steps so you'll know it's not just Sunday school propaganda. This is real. And today I want you to meet Troy. Watch this.

I was exposed to 12-step programs in Lake Tahoe and North Tahoe High School, actually. And they had little pamphlets of 12-step programs. Now, I didn't know I was going to need these programs because I was going to be a peer counselor in high school. But then I moved to Aptos High. And that's when I started, you know, experimenting with like marijuana first. And then, you know, I drank a little bit, but I wasn't really like an alcoholic yet. And then I started getting into raves and going to festivals and things like that. I hit several bottoms of, you know, going to jail and hitting homelessness and a lot of bottoms. And I started really wanting recovery when I had somebody die that I really cared about. And so when she overdosed, I just started taking the program Alcoholics Anonymous seriously and started working the steps with a sponsor and started asking for help and taking it and actually taking action. And I surrendered. I surrendered, like Pastor René said, surrender to win.

You know, I hit a spiritual and emotional bottom. So I surrendered and was willing to do what it takes. I'm kind of embarrassed maybe a little bit. It's my pride saying this. But my first meeting was in 1996. And did I get it? No. Was I ready? No. I still wanted to party more and experiment more and have fun and live, you know, Troy's will and do Troy's life. And that just got me to more heartache and pain. For me, it was just battling within myself, you know, of that. I had to let go of my own will, basically. I had to stop doing what I want when I want when I want it, you know, and stop being a little kid and start growing up and start doing what I think God wants to do and being an adult.

You know, not that I have to be all mature and boring and not fun anymore, but I need to do what I think God wants me to do instead of what I want to do, which is helping others, basically. You know, and, you know, think about other people other than myself. And that's really what step three is. If you're trusting God, if you're truly trusting God with everything, with your life and everything, you're going to not have fear of doing the next four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, you know, prepares you for those next steps.

For me, I never resented God because I knew that God loves me. I never had a hateful or revengeful God. God just wants us to come to him. And I think he's so loving and patient that he's waiting for people to see who he really is, which is Jesus Christ, I believe. For somebody who doesn't believe in God or doesn't know if God's real, I just ask you to just pray. Just pray blindly, just as if God is really real. And just say, dear Lord or God, if you're there and you're listening to me, please take away my fears in doing this step. And I want to give my life to you. I just don't know if I trust you yet. But just if you're really there, please answer me and let me know that you're really there. Amen. And that's what I'd say to pray for.

I mean, recovery is a journey within yourself and God. You know, it's just, for me, it's brought me 110% closer to Jesus through, you know, the 12 steps and going to church hand in hand. And through that, it's brought me to be, you know, the true Troy of who I'm supposed to be and who I'm supposed to be for God and help other people in life. That's a beautiful faith story.

And, yeah. As we wrap this up, my question for you is, are you ready to take this step? You know, this step that we've been talking about today. Remember, as Troy said, this is just one step. Taking this step doesn't magically make everything better in your life. But it's essential to start a new pattern of living. And that is encapsulated in steps four through 12, as we'll see in this series. And again, please remember, this is not a vow to do better next time. This is much, much more powerful than that. This is an unconditional surrender to God.

Where in your life do you need to say, I can't? He can. I think I'll let him. I invite you to turn your will in life over to the Lord today, maybe for the very first time, or maybe you feel like saying, I did that once and I backslid. The Father's waiting. Runaways can always come home.

Now, let me expand this a little bit because probably most of us here have already committed our lives to Christ. We're Jesus followers for many of us. That's why we're in church today, but perhaps there's an area of your life where you still need to surrender. You need to turn it over to let go and let God. I can't. I can't seem to stop drinking, binge-watching, binge-spending. I can't fix my family, even though I keep trying. I can't seem to forgive. I can't manage my temper. I can't stop worrying. I can't fix the world. Where do you need to say, I've been trying to control this thing, but this person, this area of my life, it's unmanageable. I can't. And I need to turn it over.

As I said earlier today, we're going to close today with what they used to call in church an altar call. And having explained how I misunderstood this, I hope you understand what this is. We don't do this often, but it fits today's theme so well of taking a step of just surrender. The steps here are going to be available for you to pray on your own and then return to your seat if you like, or the prayer team will also be standing here if you'd like to pray with somebody.

Sometimes taking a physical step that expresses an inward spiritual step is good for us because it gives us a moment to which we can point to and remember. So during this closing song, I'm going to just open up the altar for you to come forward. And please don't worry about anybody, what anybody else thinks about you. Because I know what might be going through some minds is if I go up to pray and all what I'm doing is letting go of my attempts to control my adult kids, but other people are going to look at me and think I had an affair or something bad. Don't worry about that. This is just a moment for you to let go.

So I'm going to invite the band back up, and we're going to do this during the final song. And I want you to look at the last verse in that parable, but we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. If that is God's response to you, what are you waiting for? Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer.

God, thank you so much for your love for us. I pray that this message leads us to you, Lord, and not just back to our own efforts to try harder. I pray this is a moment of surrender for people, maybe people who've been wanting to make this commitment for quite a while. I pray that in hearts all over this room, people would pray something like, God, I want to come home to you. I don't understand everything, but I want to come home. Forgive me of my sins. Thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross as a payment for my sins so I can have a relationship with you. I want to come home. Help me to do that today. I surrender to you as best as I understand what this is all about. Help me to understand it more. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.