Action Lesson

Hello, Celebrate Recovery. I am a believer in Jesus Christ, and it was my struggles with drugs and alcohol that brought me here. My name is Mack. Tonight we're going to be looking at the Action Lesson, and that Action Lesson in Celebrate Recovery starts with Principle 3, which says this, Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ's care and control. Happy or blessed are the meek, Matthew 5, 5. That ties in with Step 3 that says this, We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God. Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, because this is your spiritual act of worship, Romans 12, 1. So tonight we're going to be talking about action. And when I mean say action, I specifically mean the action that it's going to take for us to become more like Jesus, our higher power here at Celebrate Recovery. You know, that reminds me of the woman who had a heart attack and she was going in for surgery. And before she went in, she had a vision of God and she asked God, am I going to die during this surgery? He said, Oh no, you've got 30 more years. So she decides while she's under the knife, she might as well get some other things done. So she tells the surgeon, says, look, I want a facelift, a hair transplant, collagen, tummy tuck, whatever you can do to make me look better. Do it while I'm under the knife. He said, okay. Well, she gets out of surgery and the day comes when she's going home. She walks out the doors of the hospital and she's hit by an ambulance and killed. She gets to heaven and she sees God. And she said, Hey, I thought you said I had 30 more years. He said, you did. She said, well, what happened? He said, I didn't recognize you. Well, I know this. We all want to be recognized by God. So tonight we're going to talk about becoming more like Jesus. And to do this, we have no further than to look than the Beatitudes where Jesus said, you know what? I'm going to give you a good guide, a good roadmap to live where you can be blessed and even happy while you're here on this earth. And if we want to get right to the heart of the Beatitudes, we have no further to look than verse five, where Jesus says this, blessed are the meek. Now I don't know about you, but for a long time I thought that was blessed are the weak. Then I heard someone say this, that no Mac meekness is really strength under control. And I really like that because it sounded sort of manly, right? Strength under control. Well, now that I've grown older in my years and older in my relationship with God and my recovery,

I believe that real strength is really the principle we get from verse five, where it says we make a choice and that choice is to consciously choose to commit my life and my will to Christ's care and control. Because let's face it, we can show up at celebrate after week and we can look like everything is going fantastic and all the while be stuck in a cycle of failure that keeps us bound by things like guilt or fear or anger or even depression. So we're going to look tonight at a specific formula for getting unstuck in our recovery. Now to do that, we're going to have to get off our rear and get in gear because it's not going to be easy. Nobody ever said that recovery was easy, right? And it's not. We're going to have to take the action that it takes to become more like Jesus. And it's only in this action that we'll ever get past all those familiar negative barriers like pride and fear and guilt and worry and doubt. And when I say pride, I mean, it's that pride that when we come to celebrate recovery and we see other people with struggles, we're like, we weren't as bad as those people. Or fear, the fear that keeps me stuck. I mean, what will people think if I really admit that I struggle? I got news for you. We already know you struggle. Or guilt, the thing that takes me away from my relationship with God and with others. Or worry. What if I fail? What if I don't make it? What if I stumble? I got news for you again. We're all going to stumble at some point. Or doubt. Am I really worth the price that was paid for me? I don't know. You know, these can turn into a never-ending cycle unless I make the choice to take action and enter the battle which begins with my surrender. Boy, that's a pretty crazy place to enter the battle, right? I give up. Jesus is now you're ready. You know, today we are here to make a choice to break the cycle and form new habits. Good habits. And new habits are formed with this. They start with thoughts, those thoughts become words, then those words lead me to action, and that equals new habits. Thoughts, words, actions take me to new habits today. You know, one thing we have to guard ourself against, though, is procrastination. Don't procrastinate in making decisions and commitments

that would actually bring about the change you're looking for, that it actually can bring about the freedom that you came here for. Because when we procrastinate, we don't seem to realize that to not decide, well, that's really a decision. To not make a choice, that's really a choice. You know, putting off the decision to put on Jesus as your Lord and Savior, or saying, I'll do that tomorrow, I'll become more like him tomorrow, that's really making a decision not to accept him. That's making a decision not to become more like him. So it's time to make a choice to either get in Christ, or if you're already in Christ, to become more like Jesus. So how do we do this? Well, in a word, action. And of course, we've got an acrostic for that tonight. So we're gonna look at our acrostic, and the acrostic is for the word action. The first letter, A, stands for accept Jesus Christ as your higher power. You know, making that once-in-a-lifetime decision to confess that Jesus is the Lord of your life. Making that decision to establish that personal relationship that he so desires. Think about that, the creator of the cosmos, the one who speaks things into existence, desires a relationship with you.

Now is the time to commit all of your life to Jesus Christ. God is saying this, he's saying, do it today. Our enemy, Satan, says, oh, you can wait for tomorrow. In other words, when you get everything all together in your life, that's when you need to come to God. Well, Romans 5, 6 is gonna dispel that notion, because it says, while we were still powerless, not while we had everything all together, but while we were still powerless, that's when Christ came to die for us. Jesus died for us at the bottom, at the worst of who we were. Then in Romans 10, 9, it says this, if you confess with your mouth, this is not just a mental ascent, it needs to come out of here. When you confess with your mouth that Jesus, you are gonna be the Lord of my life, and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. How long does it take us to figure out that we can't do this on our own? We have to have help, and that help is Jesus Christ. Well, it's only after that we make this decision that we can, the second letter in our acrostic, commit. You know, whenever I hear the word commit, I think about the bacon and egg breakfast, and how there are two parties that are responsible

for making that breakfast possible, the chicken and the hog. The chicken makes a donation, but the hog, he makes a commitment. You know, God expects that same kind of commitment to us, that all-in commitment, that die-to-self commitment. I would venture to say that all of us here tonight have tried to run our lives on our own power, and we've found that to be less than successful. You know, when we start applying the principle of becoming meek, we change our definition of willpower. Willpower now becomes the willingness to accept God's power to guide our lives. We come to see that there's no room for God, listen to this, there's no room for God when we're full of ourselves. That's principle one, right, in the Beatitudes. Blessed are the spiritually poor. It's kind of like listening to the conversation between a man and God, where the man is telling God how worthless he knows he is, and how sorry he is for ever letting God down, to which God responds, you were never holding me up. You know, we need to pray the prayer that the psalmist prayed when he said in Psalms 143, 10, this, teach me to do your will, for you are my God, may your good spirit lead me on level ground. You know, I just wonder how many of us live our lives with extreme highs and extreme lows. God says, if you'll just follow me,

I'll make your path straight, I'll make your paths level, and I'll make your paths smooth. He says, if I bring you to it, I'm going to see you through it. And besides that, something I found out a long time ago, when I was worrying about things, I got nothing. worry about because God says, I'm either coming back or I'm coming through for you. One of the two. You know, one of the greatest things I ever heard in an AA meeting years and years ago was half measures availed me nothing. In other words, if you want a great recipe for misery, do things halfway. God says, I want your full wholehearted commitment. That takes us to the next letter in action, which is the T which stands for turn it over. Let God let go. Sorry. Let go and let God. How many times have we heard that in recovery? You know, what I love about this is it doesn't just say let go of some things to God. It doesn't say turn over only the big things to God. Proverbs three, six tells us this in everything you do, put God first and he will direct you and crown your efforts with success. I love that because it says in everything you do, that's all inclusive. That leaves out nothing in everything you do, not just the big things, not just the little things, but in everything. Jesus Christ wants a relationship with you, not just part of you, but with the whole you, he desires that relationship with you. So he says this, when you come in, when you came in tonight to celebrate recovery, he said, check your burdens at the door. Here's what I love about celebrate recovery. Celebrate recovery is a no guilt, no shame zone. It doesn't matter what you came here with. You don't have to leave with it. He says, you do your best. I'll do the rest. So what burdens are you carrying tonight that you need to turn over to Jesus that you need to check at the door? Because he says in Matthew 11, 28, this come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will promise you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So what are you holding onto tonight? That's just too heavy. If you have a burden that you can't carry, you're doing something wrong. You're trying to do it by yourself. I'll give you a clue. God told Adam in

the very beginning of the book, the second thing he told Adam was this, it's not good for you to be alone. You know, the reason a burden can be light today is that he gave us each other to help carry those burdens. He never intended for us to walk this life alone. The next letter in action is the eye. It's only the beginning. You know, it's in this biblical principle of meekness that we make the initial decision to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Then we can make the commitment to follow God's will. This new life begins with a decision and it's followed by a lifelong process of action, of work, of being a Christian. So know this, for as long as you're here on planet earth, you will be a work in progress. I know this because of Philippians 1, 6 where it says this, I am certain that God who began this good work in you, he's talking to me and to you, I'm certain that God who began this good work in you will continue his work until it is finally finished. And guess what? Then he gives us a completion date because he knew most of us would try to check off a bunch of things and say, I'm finally done. He said, nope, completion date is when Jesus Christ returns. Last time I checked, Jesus is not back. So that means all of us, senior pastor on down, have got to work, have got work to do in our lives. You know, taking the steps to turn your life over to Jesus is not the end of it either. That's not the end. That's just the beginning of becoming like Jesus. It's the beginning of an exciting new life, a life that we all live in a new way now. And that's one day at a time. That's our O in action. You know, if we remain stuck in yesterday or constantly worry about tomorrow, we will waste the precious time of the present. Listen to this. This was an epiphany when I first heard this. It's only in the present, that's today, that positive change and growth can occur in our lives. You know why? We can't change yesterday. There's nothing we can do to change one thing about yesterday. We can only pray about tomorrow, knowing that our future is secure in his hands. Jesus gave us instructions for living this philosophy in Matthew 6 34, where he says this, don't be Don't be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time. So don't complain about where you are. You know, if God doesn't deliver you immediately from something you're going through, a trial, a temptation, a struggle, guess what?

He's counting you worthy to do battle. And it may be even things you don't wanna do. Sometimes in recovery, in our life with Jesus Christ, we're asked to do things that are right and we still don't wanna do them. That reminds me of the two campers who were hiking in the woods. And one of them, as they were hiking, got bit right on the rear end by a big old rattlesnake. Well, his friend says, hey, I'm gonna run to town. I'm gonna find the doctor and I'm gonna bring him back. So he runs miles to town, finds the doctor. The doctor's in the middle of delivering the baby. He says, I can't leave, but it's real easy. Here's what you do. When you get back to your friend, you cut an X right where he got bit. And then you suck that poison out, spit it out. He'll be fine. So he runs back to his friend who is in agony right now. And his friend says, did you find the doctor? And he said, yes, I found him. What'd the doctor say? He said, you're gonna die. Because he simply didn't wanna do that, right? You know, if you're in a battle for God, it means this, you're doing something right. And even if he asks you to do something that you might not wanna do, do it anyway. Don't get caught up in complaining

and don't think of ways to get around what he's asking you to do when you know you need to do it. So God says this, it's a battle, don't complain. He says, here's what you do, fight. I'm counting you worthy. Do the next right thing. And by the way, how many of us have heard that in our recovery, do the next right thing? My question was, what is the next right thing? Well, I found that it's always the same thing for me, pray. Pray that God will lead you to the next thing you need to do. So when somebody says do the next right thing, pray about it. Believe me, if I could go back and change my past, I definitely would do that. I would spare my family from some of the things that the pain that was brought on by my drug addiction, but I can't change even one thing about my past and neither can you. You know, one of the coolest things ever, I was giving my testimony one time, my daughter, my oldest daughter was in the audience. Somebody came up to her afterwards and says, boy, I bet that was rough to live through. And she goes, you know, I don't know the man he was talking about. I just know the man that you know. You know what? When we start on this journey of recovery

and we start living out these principles, it can change even the way people think about the way we used to be. On the other side of that coin, I cannot live somewhere way off in the future, worrying about if this is going to happen or that's going to happen and neither can you. I've got to leave that up to God. But I can do things differently today. And I can, with Jesus Christ's guidance and direction, make a difference in the way that I live today. And so can you. We can make a difference one day at a time. That brings us to our last letter in our cross at the end, which stands for the next step. Here's how simple it is. Ask someone to show you, how do I become more like Jesus? It's that simple. We can't wait to tell you about Jesus, our higher power, our savior, our defender, our King, our friend, the one we talk about every week, Jesus Christ. We want to tell you more about him. All you have to do is ask. We don't want you to walk this road alone. And if you want this life, this hope that we've found, here's what you need to do. Ask yourself this,

do I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross and showed me he was God by coming back to life? 1 Corinthians 15, one through four. Can I accept God's free forgiveness for my sins? Romans 3, 22. Am I willing to switch to God's plan for my life instead of mine? Romans 12, two. Will I verbally confess my desire for Jesus to be the director of my life? Romans 10, nine. And lastly, will I clothe myself in Jesus and baptism? Galatians 3, 27. You know, if you're ready to become his, or if you're tired of being complacent and want to become more like the one we follow, take this action. Ask us about who delivered us. Ask us about the one who was raised from the dead and is alive today. Ask us about this one we walk with today, this one we put our hope in today. Ask us about who rescued us. Ask us about Jesus. We can't wait to tell you about him. Let's pray. Oh, Father, what an exciting new life this is. Thank you for allowing us to be. and your family and giving us the power

to take the action that it's gonna take, that it takes every day to become more like your son, Jesus. Give us that strength, Father. Thank you for this community of believers. Thank you for Jesus. And it's his name, Jesus, the one who created everything we say, amen. Thanks for being here with me this week.