Expecting Perfection, Accepting Humanity

Part 2: Admitting Need – March 24, 2019

           Last week, I introduced a new series, “Expecting Perfection, Accepting Humanity.” This series has multiple goals in mind. The first goal is for Christians to learn to accept that we will never be finished products while we’re alive and will always be works-in-progress until we pass from this life by way of the grave or Christ’s return. The second goal is to see us launch a new ministry called Celebrate Recovery. Celebrate Recovery is a Christ-centered 12-step program for people struggling with hurt, pain, or addiction of any kind. It is a safe place for people to find community and freedom from the issues controlling their lives.

Our goal is to launch this ministry in the fall, but that is not set in stone. While fall is the goal, we’ll take our time to make sure we get it right. A tagline for Celebrate Recovery is freedom from your hurts, habits, and hang-ups. Whether our own or those of someone we love, at one time or another, in one season or another, we’ve all dealt with hurts, habits, and hang-ups that have negatively affected us.  

          Last week, I painted a non-flattering yet realistic picture of us as human beings. We are sinful, broken, and hopelessly lost apart from our Savior, Jesus Christ.  When we surrender our lives to him, we bring baggage with us, and that baggage needs to be unpacked and processed. The remainder of this series is about the choices we must make to unpack that baggage and deal with it in healthy, productive, and godly ways. We will look at eight choices…

1. Admitting need
2. Getting help
3. Letting go
4. Coming clean
5. Making changes
6. Repairing relationships
7. Maintaining momentum
8. Recycling pain

These choices and this series are based on the book, Life’s Healing Choices. (show book)

Today, we are considering choice number one, admitting need.

          I want to remind you that I am not talking about other people. I’m talking about us…all of us…and not just all of us collectively, but each of us individually.

          There isn’t one of us who has the right or the reason to think we have arrived and have it all together. We’ve all hurt ourselves, we’ve hurt others, and others have hurt us.[1] In Life’s Healing Choices, John Baker writes that each of our lives is tangled up with hurts that haunt our hearts, hang-ups that cause us pain, and habits that mess up our lives.[2] Some of these things are the result of what we’ve done while others are the result of things that have happened to us.

          We can’t control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we respond. I know that sounds trite and cliché, but it’s true. If we’re going to be more than conquerors as Scripture says, we must come to grips with who we are, what we’ve done, and what we’ve experienced. We must recognize that life adds a lot of stuff to our baggage that we hadn’t intended on packing. But it’s there, and we must deal with it. If we don’t…

• the baggage will get too heavy, and it’ll break us down,
• or we’ll try to leave it behind,
• or we’ll develop unhealthy ways of carrying it,
• or we’ll turn to unhealthy sources to help us cope with the struggle.
• It’s amazing how much effort we Christians put into pretending we’re alright when we’re obviously not.
• It’s amazing how much effort we Christians put into pretending we have it all together when we obviously don’t.
• It’s amazing how much effort we Christians put into projecting our issues onto others instead of owning them and dealing with them ourselves.
• It’s amazing how often we Christians quote positive Scripture and use the words as a mask to hide what’s really happening in our lives.

Chuck Swindoll offers this observation: There’s a mask for whatever the occasion…. Regardless of the truth, if we become skilled at hiding behind our guard, we don’t have to hassle all the things that come with full disclosure. We feel safe. What we lack in honesty, we make up for in pseudo-security.[3]

       The time has come to drop the mask and embrace honesty and transparency. It’s time to admit that we need help instead of pretending we’ve got it all together.

          There is a single root cause of our problems—our sinful, human nature. We cannot trust it. The prophet Jeremiah used the heart to talk about nature and wrote that “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV) Left to our own devices, we tend to do wrong, we want to be God, and we want to control life.[4]

We tend to do wrong

          In last week’s message, I used Paul’s words about himself to show that we tend to do wrong. He wrote, “I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway….” (Romans 7:18b-19, NLT)

          Paul shows that we need more than good intentions because we’re constantly fighting an internal war against our sinful nature. Left unchecked, that sinful nature will lead us down the wrong path time and time again.

We want to be God

          If this is the case, why do we follow our sinful nature down the wrong roads so often? It’s because we want to be God. We don’t say that, but it’s demonstrated in our desire to be in control. We want to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. We want to make our own choices, call our own shots, and follow our own rules. We don’t want anyone else telling us what to do.[5] In short, we want to be God.

We want to control life[6]

          And in our desire to be God, we seek to control life in at least four different ways.

1. First, we try to control our image. We want people to see only certain sides of us while we hide other sides. We deny our weaknesses and feelings. We don’t want people to see the real us because we’re afraid they won’t like us.
2. Second, we try to control other people…and sometimes we try to manipulate them.
3. Third, we try to control our problems. We like to pretend we can handle life alone, that we don’t need help. But the more we try to fix our problems by ourselves, the worse they get.
4. Fourth, we try to control our pain. We try to control it by
   • running from it,
   • ignoring it,
   • denying it,
   • reducing it,
   • or postponing it.

The trouble is that times come (often in quiet moments) when the full weight of our pain settles into our minds and spirits, and we understand that no matter how hard we try, we are not in control. Such times can heap fear upon fear and lead us to do unwise, unhelpful, unhealthy, and even ungodly things to as we try to cope with the truth.

          All these attempts at control have consequences. Here are four—fear, frustration, fatigue, and failure.[7]

Fear

          We want to exercise control because we’re afraid people will reject us, we’re afraid they won’t love us, or we’re afraid they won’t like us for who we are. Because we’re afraid, we try to project an image we think they’ll like.

Can I let you in on a secret? Everyone isn’t going to like you. That’s a fact, and you must learn to accept it and go on with life. I’ve lived more than 60% of my life in fear that people wouldn’t like me. I tried to be who I thought they wanted me to be. The trouble is that I wouldn’t ask them. I would read their actions and reactions for cues and then build an image. Sounds irrational and confusing, doesn’t it? It is. What’s worse is that living life this way causes you to lose sight of the fact that God created you to be you and loves you as you. He didn’t create you to be like anyone else on this earth. He created you to be like Jesus, but even in that, he expects you to be you while displaying the character traits Jesus embodied.

Another consequence is Frustration.

          Is there anything more frustrating than trying to exercise control in a situation where you don’t have control? It can make life feel like a game of whack a mole. Every time you’re finished putting out one fire another one starts. You’re constantly in motion but never making progress because you’re running in circles.

Another consequence is Fatigue.

          All that pointless running around is hard work that wears us out—

• mentally,
• physically,
• spiritually,
• emotionally,
• and relationally.

Besides running in circles like I just mentioned, people also run by constantly being on the go—work, volunteer organizations, hobbies, sports, church. The constant motion of life with its demands to always be in the next place for the next event or commitment means that we don’t have to slow down and think about or deal with the more important, deeper issues of life.

Another consequence is Failure.

          I can guarantee one thing—all these attempts at control will fail. There is only one person who can exercise ultimate control over life, and it’s not me, and it’s not you. It’s God, and we’ll be better off when we stop trying to control life and people and let him be God.

          I’ve painted a bleak picture for us again this week. I’ve diagnosed the sickness and now let me tell you about the cure. It’s counterintuitive but powerful. The cure for our problems is humbly to admit our weakness and inability. We must admit that

• we are powerless to do life on our own,
• we are powerless to control people or circumstances,
• we are powerless to get it right on our own.

We must admit that we need help. We need other people, and we need God.[8]

          Let me suggest three things we need to admit.[9]

1. I admit that I cannot change my past.
2. I admit that I cannot control other people.
3. I admit that I cannot cope with my harmful habits, behaviors, and actions.

Listen, good intentions don’t cut it. Willpower isn’t enough. We need something more. We need a source of power beyond ourselves. We need God because he made us to need him.[10]

If we don’t turn to God…

• we might break down,
• or we might walk out on people or life itself,
• or we might turn to unhealthy ways and sources to cope with life and its struggles.

There is hope. His name is Jesus.

There is help—the family of God.

No one needs to face life alone. Facing life alone is a choice, not an inevitability. To find hope and to get help, you must admit your need, and you must ask. You must humble yourself; you must bite the bullet, come clean, and put it all on the table.

Is it scary? Yes.

Is it risky? Yes

Is it worth it? Yes

You can’t learn that by listening to me or anyone else talk about it. You can only know it’s worth it by experience. I implore you today, admit your need and allow God to begin the process of healing, change, and restoration.

Each week, we’re going to ask you to respond in three different ways. We want you to pray about it, write about it, and read about it.[11]

(Piano)

Pray about it

This week, I want you to…

• Ask God to give you the courage to admit your inability to control yourself or your world.
• Pray that you’ll begin to depend on God’s power to help you make changes.
• Surrender control of your life to God and ask him to help you stop trying to control your image, other people, your problems, and your pain.

Write about it

Get a journal if you don’t already have one. This week, I want you to write about…

• …the people, places, or things you have the power to control.
• …the people, places, or things you have been trying to control.
• … how you try to control your image, other people, your problems, and your pain.
• …how the fear, frustration, fatigue, and failures of trying to control things has affected your relationship with God and others.
• …the specific hurts, habits, and hang-ups you have been denying.

 

Share about it

This week I want you to start asking God to guide you in knowing who to trust to share this journey with you.

Invitation to prayer (Kristin at the piano)

          If you’re ready to admit your need right now, I invite you to come forward and make that admission to God. If you’d like, one of us will also pray with you. If you need to talk to someone, we are available.

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[1] Rick Warren, foreword to Life’s Healing Choices, by Richard D. Warren and John E. Baker (New York: Howard Books, 2007), x.

[2] Baker, 1.

[3] Swindoll, Charles R., Dropping Your Guard, (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1983), p. 9.

[4] Baker, 14.

[5] Baker, 14.

[6] Baker, 14-15.

[7] Baker, 18-20.

[8] Baker, 21.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Baker, 23-25.