Freedom from Addiction Through Grace [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. The law was a gift from God because it's the revelation of God, and therefore the law is good. So everything that God has spoken, he has breathed out with his own breath, and therefore it is inspired and it is good.

But the law does not enable anyone to quit sinning. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series called Unleashed, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. You can find out more about it and even receive a copy of your very own for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer at pastoralan.org. Find out more about it and make your request or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Again, our website, pastoralan.org. More on this later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. And that good news is liberty from bondage. I want to show you this as we continue thinking about what real freedom is in this series we call Unleashed. And today we're going to get a deep look at this from Romans chapter seven.

But I want to end sort of I want to begin sort of from the ending. And that is by jumping to the very end of Romans seven and then the triumphant message of freedom that comes by the Spirit and by the grace of God in Romans eight. So let's just look starting at Romans seven twenty-five, the second part of that verse. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Romans eight one. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son and the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin.

He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. In order to be ordained in our denomination, the candidate has to appear before this body we call presbytery. It's pastors and elders and they meet together and they examine the new candidate.

And so there is a process you go through and it's pretty rigorous. Well the process includes at the very beginning when they begin to have their examination on what we call the floor of posterity, you start out by giving your testimony. And the testimony is a beautiful time someone telling their story in the Lord. But one occasion many years ago there was a young minister who came to be examined and he said something in the middle of his testimony I never forgot I thought was one of the funniest things I ever heard. His name was Howard Finkel and you you'd have to know that Howard spoke like this. He in everyday conversation he he was very careful about his enunciation even if you were having a cup of coffee in the hallway. Howard would speak like this. So it's kind of funny just listening to him anyway and he gets up there and he it's his turn to get in the microphone to tell his testimony and he begins like this my mother wanted when I was young my mother wanted me to be a doctor and my father wanted me to be a lawyer but I chose a different path and decided to be a drug addict instead. I couldn't stop laughing and the reason is not of course that in any way am I making light of addiction or those who've struggled with addiction and that's not what was funny at all. What was funny of course is that it seems ridiculous to say I chose to be a drug addict because on the one hand we would say nobody chooses to be a drug addict right you you you say that that's not exactly right yet on the other hand nobody else chose it for you right so it's it is one of those things like all besetting sin our addictions are complicated complicated and I want today to walk us through Romans 7 and back into this incredible triumphant trumpeting of good news in Romans 8 so that we can see in many ways the epitome of the biblical notion of freedom that we have been learning over a number of weeks because in the culture around us the idea of freedom essentially goes like this be free don't let anybody tell you what to do or who you are or what you should do cast off any such restraints and just look inside of you and do whatever you want to do as long as it doesn't hurt someone else that's freedom don't make too many commitments keep your options open and keep the way broad in front of you so you have many different choices and this is what freedom looks like but what we've been seeing from the biblical perspective is that the scriptural notion of freedom is entirely the opposite that instead the scriptural picture of freedom is that you will be most free not when you cast off all authority and all restraint but when you learn the sweetness of real submission submission to God who loves you who knows you who has the best for you that ultimately God designed us not to be free when we are in a mode of rejecting authority but to be free when we understand authority and are submitted to it we've seen that that the the gate to this freedom biblically is something that Jesus says is narrow and he's speaking of himself as the one savior of the world so it looks like it's very narrow but on the other side of it this gate opens up to expensive life we've seen that though it might look like that having less commitment is more freeing that actually more commitment is the avenue to real freedom and today we're going to see through roman seven and through some plain talk about addiction we're going to see this picture on display for let's imagine that there is some teenage young man who decides he's had enough of the parental constraints and rules at home and so he leaves home runs away and wants to be free pretty soon let's say that he meets someone who introduces him to heroin and he decides to give it a try i was shocked to read this week that one in four people that ever try heroin get addicted to it 25 of the time somebody takes heroin they're going to be an addict it is according to addiction center the most addictive substance on earth as an opioid it is part of this class of drug that has now brought an a nationwide crisis for us the opioid overdoses have risen so dramatically that it is now the leading cause of death of americans under age 50 and you can just see it just rising and rising it's a crisis in fact there's so many drug overdoses that for the last two years for the first time in a long time the life expectancy of an american on average has decreased because of so many overdoses and let's just say this young man who wanted to move out because he wanted to be free to do whatever he felt like doing now has become addicted to heroin and the picture you have there is of someone who wanted to be free to try and experiment and yet now finds himself in complete bondage to a substance that is that is so hard to escape you know it's interesting if we were to be just have a moment of unvarnished honesty in this room which we we won't do and i would never do this but and say how many of you have either been addicted to something struggled with an addiction now have someone in your family who has been addicted to something or a very good friend and it's impacted your life i would bet it would be every person in the room that's alan wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment that's alan wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series this is what the lord says i will restore the fortunes of jacob's tents and have compassion on his dwellings the city will be rebuilt on her ruins and the palace will stand in its proper place those timeless words from jeremiah 30 reveal the heart of god he loves to restore in ancient times cities would often be rebuilt on top of the ruins of the former city the new city would stand higher with safer walls and a greater perspective in pastor alan wright's eight message cd album out of the ruins you'll discover how god can rebuild your life gloriously out of yesterday's disappointments when you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today we'll send you pastor alan's messages in an attractive cd album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastor alan.org today's teaching now continues here once again is alan wright i want to talk some today about addiction from the perspective of roman seven but what i want to do primarily is try to expose what paul is saying in roman seven about the battle between the sin nature or what he calls the flesh and the spirit and show you that this whole matter is complex and yet there is a liberating simplicity that comes from the gospel it is it is the kind of of of scripture exposition that if you look deeply into it will nourish and help you and your understanding of how to help others and for some i believe it is an opportunity for freedom for deliverance let's start with this the context of roman seven really is everything that paul has been saying in romans chapters one through seven a series of chapters seven especially in these chapters five six and seven where paul has been essentially explaining this the law was a gift from god because it's the revelation of god and therefore the law is good so everything that god has spoken he has breathed out with his own breath and inspired and it is good but the law does not enable anyone to quit sinning in fact what paul has been arguing especially in chapters five six and seven is that the law not only doesn't empower you but it actually incites sin in this way it accentuates your sinfulness and highlights it it's like if i said here's the law do not think about a pink polka dotted elephant whatever you do don't think about a pink polka dotted elephant well a lot of you already broken it i just broke it myself i was just picturing a pink polka dot elephant but if i'd never said don't think about a pink polka dotted elephant then there's almost zero chance that anybody throughout this entire message would think about a pink polka dotted elephant so in the same way paul says the law introduced revelation from god but in so doing it pointed out how sinful we are it did not empower us and so the law serves paul says in romans one through seven this purpose to show you your sin and that you need a savior to liberate you and so in that sense the law is good and it all builds to this incredible crescendo in romans 8 verse 1 you need to know there is scholarly disagreement about what we're going to look at in romans 7 as to whether or not it is paul speaking about his pre-christian life or paul speaking about his life after he's been born again and filled with the spirit i waffle and am undecided because there's some things to argue in each direction but here's the thing that's important as we lay the foundation before we dig into romans 7 and that is that at the very least what you must understand as a christian is that you are no longer labeled a sinner but you're labeled a saint because you're in a new category as a christian you're now holy to the lord you belong to god and that's what it means to be holy so you are a holy one which is translated in the new testament a saint so you are a saint if you're a christian but you still sin because you still have remnants of a sin nature and part of christian growth is learning to live by the spirit and by the grace of god rather than trying to live out of the flesh and the sin nature and and just as you grow more and more i think one of the things god will do it'll be a great blessing to you is he'll increasingly hold you accountable and increasingly expose your own sin to you very quickly because the more you walk with him the kinder and kinder you notice the conviction of the holy spirit is i feel like i can't get away with anything so i was in texas this week i rented the car and when i was renting it it looked like as i was renting this thing the the best price i could get a kind of a regular car or a sports car the same price it said it would be a mustang or something like that and i said well that'd be pretty cool go drive me around a mustang but when i got the rental car they took out and showed me the brightest reddest shiniest camaro you have ever seen i was very worried the whole time because in the first place everything about this car was one giant blind spot there's a sliver of a windshield i guess they figure you're just going to be faster than everybody so you don't have to see anybody else on the road but it's not very conducive for driving around dallas city traffic on the interstates and so i was a little worried about that but what i was really worried about is i had heard that the police are more likely to give a ticket to somebody in a shiny sports car but i wasn't really about worry about that i just felt so much like an imposter that i was afraid i was going to get pulled and be given a ticket for impersonating a cool person excuse me sir i'm gonna have to give you a citation here because i know you're a pastor and you have no business driving a camaro like this but anyway i drove it around and then pastor chris came out and joined me for these these day and a half of strategy meetings and so i'm driving him around in the camaro i was very glad to finally be making the home stretch to turn this car in without a scratch on it and i was getting closer and closer to the alamo rental car return and all of a sudden in front of me on this very busy four lanes of traffic the lane the right-hand lane i was in was suddenly obstructed i can't remember if it was a work vehicle or a stalled vehicle and all sudden i had to stop and pretty soon traffic was piling up behind me and i'm looking in the rear view mirror remember major blind spot also and i'm trying to just find that moment i got plenty of speed to zing out around into the left-hand lane as soon as there was an opening but i had to wait a long time finally there came a small opening and i'm getting ready to zing out and the lady in the big suv behind me pulled out before i could pull out in the lane don't you hate it when people do that she knew i had to pull out and i was first in line and she pulled out and i had to wait a long time after that and i was so hopping man i turned to chris i said this is a good thing i don't have a gun right now and uh so we go pulling into the car rental place and i see pastor chris is laughing i said what he said that's the lady right there pulling in in front of you i said oh no oh no so we turned the car in and we get on the shuttle bus to take us over to the dallas love field airport and chris sits down on the shuttle one seat i seek two seats over from him and guess who sits down right in between us the lady and it turned out much to my conviction that she was in a hurry for her plane and she was very nice lady in fact she was nice enough she laughed at some of chris's corny jokes you know she's nice you listen to those juvenile jokes and laugh at them and i realized in the midst of riding over there of course that though it was rude of her to pull out instead of letting me come out that my murderous hatred towards her was a worse sin what i'm saying is that i feel like that that's a gift from the lord to me like alan this is the person you were getting ready to hate and now they're sitting next to you it's somebody's soccer mom and she needs to get home and so part of what we're going to see in roman seven is that no matter how long you walk with the lord you've still got this struggle and paul is going to make that plane for us so let's just dive in here to the romans chapter 7 starting at verse 15 romans 7 verse 15 he writes for i do not understand my own actions for i do not do what i want but i do the very thing i hate now if i do what i do not want i agree with the law that it is good so what paul's saying here is that if you say i don't want to covet anymore it makes me miserable when i sit here and compare myself to other people and i look at what others have that i don't have and i meditate on that it makes me miserable and i know it's wrong and i don't want to do that well what paul's saying is that that very thought process proved that the law do not covet is good something inside of you knows that it's good and you're agreeing that it is verse 17 so now it is no longer i who do it but sin that dwells within me for i know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh for i have the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out and this pretty much describes the struggle that we all experience yes i know there are those unusual cases where perhaps someone has a conscience that's just been seared or someone is just so bent on evil but for most people most of the time it's just like this a desire to do what's right but no ability to carry it out this is not a form of excuse or denial of course but just saying that there's a sin nature and there's some part of me that is unable to do what is right alan wright and today's teaching freedom from addiction through grace it's part of our series called unleashed and alan is back with us in the studio sharing a parting good news thought for the day in just a moment this is what the lord says i will restore the fortunes of jacob's tents and have compassion on his dwellings the city will be rebuilt on her ruins and the palace will stand in its proper place those timeless words from jeremiah 30 reveal the heart of god he loves to restore in ancient times cities would often be rebuilt on top of the ruins of the former city the new city would stand higher with safer walls and a greater perspective in pastor alan wright's eight message cd album out of the ruins you'll discover how god can rebuild your life gloriously out of yesterday's disappointments when you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today we'll send you pastor alan's messages in an attractive cd album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastor alan.org unlock the power of blessing your life discover god's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for alan wright's free daily blessing if you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement get alan wright's daily blessing it's free and just a click away at pastor alan.org back in the studio with alan wright and our teaching freedom from addiction through grace now i'm i'm a believer that even if we don't have one that may seem obvious or the the addiction of the day that we're talking about in the news cycle i strongly believe we all struggle with addiction of some kind it's some kind and you know i mean some people it's a chemical addiction and it's very clear others uh you can get addicted to certain behaviors or certain people or even certain patterns of living it's all all of that and this uh message is uh i think one that's so important because it's not a message about managing the addiction it's about the actual transformation that can happen in our hearts yeah that gets at the very roots of addiction and i think therefore it's just so important to say that the radical acceptance that we have of jesus and the help of the holy spirit that we're not merely limited to just psychological principles when it comes to the transformation of of our addictions and there is hope for every single person no matter how serious the addiction there is hope through the gospel of jesus christ today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries