Turn Lesson

Well hey everybody, my name is Johnny. I'm a grateful believer. I struggle with alcoholism and codependency and welcome to Celebrate Recovery. This week we're gonna go over one of what I think is the most important lessons in Celebrate Recovery and it's important because tonight is when we really decide what we think about God and if we're gonna trust him or not. So here's what I'd love for you to do before we jump in. Just take a breath with me. Just relax a little bit. Maybe if it doesn't freak you out too much you can even turn off your phone or at least put it on silence for the next few minutes because what I really will hope will happen is over the course of our time together you'll have the experience where you're gonna be able to really to tune in to what God has to say to you over the course of the next few minutes. So do me a favor, just take a deep breath. Maybe try to think about unplugging from all the stuff that happened today and just get ready to see if it's time for you to turn your life over to the care of God. We're gonna be talking about principle three and step three this week. Principle three says consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ's care and control. Matthew 5 5 from the Beatitudes says happy are the meek. Step three of the Christ-centered twelve steps says we made a decision to turn our lives and will over to the care of God. Romans 12 1 says therefore I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. What I'd love for you to catch from the way that those the principle and the step are worded is that it says that we turn our lives and our wills over to God and that order is important. A lot of people think okay I'll turn my will over to God but really we got to start with turning our lives over to Him. For you and I to follow God's will it starts with the decision to turn our lives over to Him. Now maybe you're someone who's already made this decision. You've stepped across the line, you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and if so that's awesome. But there's still that opportunity to turn our wills over to Him. But maybe you're someone that you've come to Celebrate Recovery for the last few weeks, you've

been coming for a while and you still haven't made that decision to turn your life over to Jesus Christ. Can I just tell you this? The real power of change, the real way to find freedom is found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. It's not really the steps and principles, it's not the participant guides, all of those things help us but what really changes us is having a relationship with Jesus. So we're gonna look at how to turn our lives over to Jesus. See what we want to do is we want to start and we want to give Him everything. We want to turn our very selves over to Him to give Him control. In principle too we earnestly believe that God exists, that we matter to Him, that He has the power to help us recover. But you know a lot of people believe in God or a God at least. If you ask a lot of Americans many of them will say, yeah I believe in God but this is more than a belief. This is about having a relationship. This is about trusting Him and giving Him all of who you are so that you can find freedom from your hurts, hang-ups, and habits. If there's somebody who's been in celebrate recovery for a long time and they found freedom I guarantee you it's come because of their relationship with Jesus. And when we live this principle we consciously choose to commit our lives and our will to His control. So how do we do that? How do we turn our lives over to Him? You know a lot of times people want to make this a whole process. They want to make it really hard to do. Well tonight's acrostic is going to help us see how we can turn our lives and our wills over to Jesus Christ. So let's jump in. The T in turn stands for trust. We need to trust God with our lives. Now I know you're watching this and you're saying, but Johnny I have trust issues. The reality of it is a lot of us have trust issues. We were raised in homes that we couldn't trust ourselves or our feelings or our caregivers or we've had relationships later in life and our trust has been broken. And so sometimes when we ask, when I ask you to trust God you might be thinking, man I have a hard time trusting anybody. But I want you to think about that for a second because the reality of it is we trust people all the time. Complete strangers. When you pull up to a red light you trust that the other people behind you are also going to stop. When you sit in a chair

you trust that that chair is going to hold you up. When you go to Starbucks late at night for a decaf coffee you trust that they're actually going to give you a decaf not a regular. I don't have that trust. I refuse because I've gotten the wrong kind of coffee too many times. But we trust people all the time in our lives. But when it comes to trusting God sometimes we can have a hard time. We have a hard time trusting God sometimes because we don't see Him. Right? Because we can't see Him it's hard for us to trust. Is He there? Does He listen? Does He care? And that's why things like reading our Bibles and praying and being in worship services and around other believers is so important so that we can have those experiences with God. Sometimes we don't trust Him because we haven't spent time with Him. It's hard to trust someone on a deep emotional level when we don't spend time with them. When we don't learn from them and they from us. And so sometimes we can have this Disconnect between us and God, because we haven't spent any time with Him. I would encourage you, if that's you, if you feel like, man, I would love to be able to trust God, but I don't know Him very well, to very simply just pray a prayer like, God, are you there? I'd love to get to know you more. The Bible tells us that when we draw near to God, He draws near to us. He's looking for us to come near to Him. Another reason some of us have a hard time trusting God, that is, is because we call Him Father. A lot of people have had a hard relationship with their earthly Father. And because we call God our Heavenly Father, sometimes you can think, well, I don't trust my dad, or my dad was abusive, or angry, or distant, and so now you're saying that my Heavenly Father is like Him. I want to tell you, your Heavenly Father is the perfect Father. In fact, He's the example that we're supposed to follow. And He is trustworthy. And what I want to do is encourage you that you can trust Him.

The way that we begin to trust Him, like I said a minute ago, is by spending time with Him. There's a couple ways to do this. The most simple way is to begin praying. Now, if you've never prayed before, it can feel really difficult. I remember, some of you are too young to remember this, because in the age of Snapchat and texting and all those things, asking somebody out is a little bit easier. But in my day, when I asked Jenny out for the first time, I had to get her phone number, and then I had to call her. And any guys my age, you remember this. You would practice the call. I would pick up the phone, and I would say, Hello, is Jenny there? No, that sounds too weird. And I would practice the conversation, until finally, I got through with that call. And now, we've been married so long, when we talk, it's no work at all. And sometimes talking to God can be like that, where we have stilted language. We think we have to make it sound really biblical, or we have to talk to Him in a certain way. But the reality of it is, is all we do is we just talk to God. Just tell Him how you're feeling. Let Him know what's going on. He already knows, but bring Him into the equation. Start by saying, God, I would love to trust you more. I would love to begin a relationship with you. Would you speak to me? Would you come near me? Open your Bibles and begin reading. In Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, the Gospel account,

to read first-hand account of Jesus, and see how trustworthy He is. Talk to other people in Celebrate Recovery, because there are times where they've trusted God, and He has come through. It starts with trusting God. And here's how I know we can trust God. When we breathe in our lungs, it's because God has given us that breath. He is trustworthy to show up for us. He loves us deeply. He has shown up for me over and over and over again. The Bible tells us that everything we have comes from God, all of it. Nothing we have is earned by us, but He gives it to us. Lamentations 3, 21 through 23 says this, Over and over and over in the Bible, it tells us that God is faithful, that He is trustworthy. Even when you and I aren't faithful, God remains faithful. In fact, who can you trust more than God? I'll tell you, no one. God is the most trustworthy being in the entire universe. You can trust God with everything you're going through. And like I said, if you haven't done this yet, talk to someone who has. Talk to someone who's walked with God and has found He's trustworthy, where they've needed His help, and He's come through. Talk to someone who has victory over an issue and has found how God has helped them in that moment. In fact, if you're someone who has trusted God, and someone talks to you in your group later on, would you share with them a victory you have about how God has come through when you've trusted Him, when you've needed Him the most? Now, I feel like I need to make this clear. In Principle 3, when we turn our lives over to Jesus, it's a one-time decision. If you've accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you're done. You never have to worry about that again. But some of you I know, like me, when I was younger, I always worried that I didn't do it right. I always worried that I said the wrong words or in the wrong order,

or that maybe I had done it wrong or not completely. And I just want to encourage you, this is a very simple thing. It doesn't take a lot of magic words or anything like that. In fact, it's just a matter of the heart. It's telling Jesus, I trust you, and I want to follow you. But I will say that if you think that once you do this, you're going to be perfect, you're going to be disappointed. Because as we follow God, we realize that on this side of heaven, we're never going to be perfect. But His trustworthiness, His faithfulness sticks with us even when we do the wrong thing. He still loves us. So maybe all you need to do is say something simple like, Jesus, I trust you. Or maybe even, I want to trust you. This is all a matter of faith. faith. And sometimes people think they have to have this huge faith in order to trust God, but really it starts very, very small. Jesus tells us that in the Bible, all we need is the faith, the size of a mustard seed, which is a tiny, tiny seed, and that he can do amazing things through that. So maybe you're even starting tonight and you're thinking, I want to trust you more. Help me trust you more. I want to believe, help me believe. But it's very simple. Sometimes I think it's too simple to do this and we want to make it more complicated. But Romans 10, 9 tells us that if you declare with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. In fact, the Bible goes on to tell us that while we were still sinning, in fact, 2000 years before you and I were ever born, Jesus died on the cross for us because he loved us so much. You can trust God with every part of who you are. And so it begins there. It begins with having that desire to trust him more. And then as you grow in your faith, as you find he's faithful and you trust him more and more and more, you'll see that you've never had a moment where he wasn't active, that you were always able to trust in him and that will grow and you'll trust him in more and more areas. It starts with trust. After we decide to trust, the next step, the U in turn stands for understand. Here's the deal. Relying on our own understanding is what got us into this mess in the first place. You and I like

to think that we have it all figured out. We have all this social media now. We've got 24-axis news. We have it figured out. If people would just listen to us, everything would go the right way. But then if you're like me, you look at your own life and you realize my understanding has gotten me in a mess after mess after mess. What we do when we turn is we exchange our understanding for God's understanding. Proverbs 3, 5-6 says, See, our understanding is earthbound. It's limited. It's finite. God's understanding is infinite. It's unlimited and it comes from the place of the maker of heaven and earth. The one who said, let there be light and created everything that we see. He has understanding that's timeless. You and I can only understand the window that we're in now. God understands all of it. I believe there will be a day when you and I are in heaven and God will show us things in our lives that at the time didn't make sense and we'll begin to see how he was working things out for our good. And so we exchange our understanding for his. Now this idea of wanting to have things go your way on your understanding is timeless. It goes all the way back to the beginning of Genesis with Adam and Eve. But there's this great book in the Bible called Job and it's a hard read. But there's this moment in Job where he's lost everything. He's lost his family. He's lost his wealth. He's lost his health. And he begins to ask God, God, where are you? What are you doing? Why would you let me go through this? And there's this very loving but firm answer where God basically says, hey, Job, where were you when I measured out the universe? Tell me if you understand. When I took my palm and I measured how far the stars would be from each other. And there's this moment of humility for Job where he's saying, I don't understand how things are working, but God, you understand all of it. In our lives, we often get frustrated that things aren't going our way. But when we understand that God has our best, that he's in control, our lives begin to change. He understands everything, even when maybe we don't. 1 Corinthians 13, 9-13 says, for our gifts of knowledge are only partial. But when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear. What we see now is like the dim image in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. What I know now is only partial. Then it will be complete, as complete as God's knowledge of me. Someday we will see Jesus face to face and everything will make sense. Right now, we need to trust him and understand that he knows what's best for us. This can be difficult. And that's why this is a turning. We're turning from our understanding and choosing to understand things or try to understand things his way. And when we can't do that,

we go back to trust and we trust that he has the best in store for us. So we trust him, we exchange our understanding, and the R stands for repent. Now, repent is one of these words that's been used in church circles that has become kind of this scary thing. When you hear the word repent, you might think of a preacher on the corner with a sign that says, turn or burn, and he's yelling at people, repent from your sins. And it's scary and all these things, but repent simply means to turn away. It means to turn away from the negative behaviors, to turn away from your sin. It means that we're going to choose God's way over our way. We're going to, we're going to go away from those things. and we're gonna trust Him. Now repentance isn't confession. Confession is a part of repentance. Confession is where we tell God I have done the wrong thing. We're agreeing with Him that we've sinned. Remember the Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God so that means all of us. So when we confess our sins we're coming to Him and we're saying you're right God I've stepped out of your plan and I've taken things on that I shouldn't or I've done things that I shouldn't or I've allowed things to happen that I shouldn't. That's confession. But that's not repentance. Confession is only a part of it. Repentance is saying and now help me to not do that again. I remember when I was active in my alcoholism I would go out for a night drinking and as I lay in bed and the the room would spin around me I'd say God if you get me through this I'll never do it again. That also wasn't repentance. That was me asking for a genie to make this thing go away because I knew in my heart that I was gonna go right back out there and do it again. Repentance is saying I'm sorry I'm wrong and I'm not going to do it again. Help me turn a hundred and eighty degrees away from that sin. I'm walking in this direction it's the wrong way help me turn back that direction and follow your way. Now this can be simple in this discussion but it can be hard in practice. That's why recovery is so important. That's why being in a group and sharing with people can be so important because they can help keep us accountable. You and I have the best intentions at heart but often our flesh the world and the enemy works against us and the thing that we don't want to do we end up doing over and over and over

again. You're gonna need help along the way. Mark chapter 1 verse 15 says this about repentance. Turn from your sins and act on this glorious news. Ezekiel in the Old Testament 1830 through 31 says repent turn away from your offenses then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you've committed and get a new heart and a new spirit. Romans 12 2 says it this way don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold but let God remake you so that your whole attitude of mind is changed. Now unfortunately I think most people repent out of fear of punishment. They think God's gonna punish me if I don't repent but we should repent because of God's grace. God gave us the gift of Jesus Christ where he hung on the cross paying for your sins and for my sins and so when we realize we've gone the wrong way repentance is not about don't don't judge me don't smite me don't you know hit me with lightning instead it's responding to that act of love and saying I want to walk in that way. We want to walk away from those sins and Paul talks about this he talks about the fact that he keeps doing the the wrong thing over and over and over again the thing he doesn't want to do. Sin is a part of our lives guys but we can turn away from it. Now like I said earlier we're never gonna be perfect this side of heaven and so when is it time to repent? As soon as you realize you've sinned. Sometimes I know for me I'll do something and I know it's wrong and I'll do it a little bit more and I'll do a little bit more and I think I'll eventually I'll repent but the best time to repent is as soon as you've caught it. It's sort of like if you're in a fight with somebody and you realize you're wrong the best time to admit it is right there. The same thing with repentance when we realize we've gone the wrong way begin to repent repent turn away from it ask God for forgiveness and ask him for the power to help you not do it again. Then when you've chosen to turn from your sin towards him he will joyfully give you what the last letter in this acrostic is and that's N and it stands for new life. A new life as a result of trusting Jesus Christ. The old ways are gone the new have come you have a brand new life in front of you. Is it gonna be a perfect life? No I wish it was. Is it gonna be a

life free of suffering? No but it's going to be a new life with new power to help you overcome your hurts hang-ups and habits. I know a lot of us look at life and we think things like you know the only thing in life or death and taxes those only thing we can count on or life is a death sentence or or you know there everybody you know life is hard and we just struggle through it to get through it and I know that many of us have had moments where we feel that way but when we turn to God we can find a new power and a new life. We're no longer bound by the old ways we're no longer bound by our hurts hang-ups and habits but we're free in Jesus. See God has declared you not guilty he looks at the sin of your past and he says I'm not gonna hold it against you. Romans 3 22 says it well now God says he will accept and acquit us declare us not guilty if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins and 2nd Corinthians 5 17 says when anyone is joined in Christ he is a new being the old is gone the new has come and so when we Step out into this, our life looks completely different. Now, it doesn't happen overnight. It's a process. And again, that's why it's so important to stay in community. God never meant for us to live this life on our own. He never meant for us to come to Him and then just live our lives with Him and God. And by the way, we can't do recovery alone. You can do steps one, two, and three between you and God. But next step, when we turn into principle four, you're gonna need people around you. It's so important that as you begin to live this new life, you surround yourself with other people who are trying to do the same thing. So trust God, exchange your understanding,

repent from your old ways, and receive a new life. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? But how do we do it? Again, this is sort of where people can get caught up. They think, okay, as soon as I get my life together, I'll turn to God. As soon as I get sober, I'll turn to God. As soon as I fix my relationships, I'll turn to God. As soon as I start controlling other people, I'll turn to God. No, we turn to God in the middle of all those things. In the middle of our mess, we go to God and we turn our lives over to Him. And so right now, wherever you're watching, this is the time. You might be thinking, when I get a little older or when I get married or when I have kids, no, right now is the time. And remember that verse we read earlier that if we declare with our mouth and believe in our hearts that Jesus Christ is Lord, we'll be saved. That's all it takes. So I know this is maybe weird because you're watching this on a video, but what I'd love for you to do, if you've never done this, I'd love for you to just quietly, between you and God, you may wanna close your eyes so you can feel like you connect with Him more, and just say to Him simply, if you're ready to turn your life around,

you can just follow these words. There's no magic in them. There's nothing special about them. Remember, it's a matter of the heart. But you might just say, Jesus, I'm ready. I'm ready to trust you. I don't understand it all, but I know you are the maker of heaven and earth. And so I wanna turn my life to you. God, please forgive me for the things I've done wrong. Help me to have the power to break free from my hurts, hangups, and habits. And give me that new life. Come into my life. Be my Lord and my Savior. It's in your name I pray, amen. If you've done that, if you just prayed that prayer, congratulations. You just did the most important decision you'll ever make by turning your life over to Him. What I'd love to do as we close is just take a minute to pray for all of us. And by the way, if you're watching this and you turned your life over to Him years ago, remember, turning your will over to Him is a daily occurrence. Every day we need to wake up and say, I'm gonna trust you today with my will. I'm gonna trust that you understand things better in my life.

Help me repent from when I've taken it back, and let me enjoy that new life. Let's pray together. Father, thank you. Thank you for loving us. Thank you that we can trust you. God, would you show each of us how faithful you are? God, we don't understand all of your ways, and sometimes we get frustrated by the way things are going, but we wanna accept your understanding. God, all of us have made mistakes. Would you forgive me for my sins? And forgive us as we turn to you. God, thank you for the life you've offered us in Jesus. We ask for you to allow us to live in that life full of freedom and grace. It's your name we pray, amen. All right, bye everybody. Thanks for joining us. Have a good week.