Jesus Loves Addicts - Part B

As the addict learns of the love of Christ, and as the addict learns of the power of the Holy Spirit, and as the addict is surrounded with and interacts with healthy believers, they will discover a whole new life. You see, effectiveness in recovery is more than just saying no to the menace, it's saying yes to the maker.

It's the highest power. Addictions are rampant in our culture today, but real, lasting life change can only happen through the power of the Gospel. Today on Connect with Skip Heiting, Skip talks about God's redeeming plan for those battling addiction, and the vital part you play in that plan.

Before we begin, here's a resource that will give you fresh insight on what Jesus' resurrection means for you. It's pretty obvious that this world is filled with imperfect people, and that's on purpose. God is into restoring human beings.

You know, He could make perfect people and then populate Heaven with perfect people, but He doesn't do that. He takes people who are dinged up, who've been beat up, bruised by time, damaged by sin, and He does a full resto job on them. Complete restoration. Celebrate the joy and beauty of redemption with The Morning That Changed Everything with Skip Heitzig. This DVD collection of six hope-filled Easter weekend messages is our thanks to you when you give $35 or more today to help connect more people to God's Word and the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. Restoration is based on redemption, and redemption is tied to resurrection.

To give, call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, let's dive into today's teaching. We'll be in Luke chapter 4 and Matthew chapter 11 as Skip Heitzig begins the study. You know what the word gospel means, right? It means good news. And we as Christians need to remember that our message ought to be a message of good news for the life of me. I don't know how we managed to do it, but some of us Christians managed to make good news sound like bad news. You ought to become a Christian and have joy like me and have peace and meaning and zip and zing in your life.

No thanks. Next. It's good news and we need to give the gospel good news because you see the world has messages of bad news for these people. You were born this way. You'll never change.

That identifies you and that defines you and your addiction will always define you. We need to give them the good news. Good news is the gospel. What is the gospel by the way? Well the gospel according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 is very simple. It's the message that Jesus came, that he died, that he was buried and that he rose again from the dead and that he did it for you. That's the gospel. Somebody asked Charles Spurgeon one time, could you take everything you believe in or that Christians believe in and sum it up in a few words.

He said I'll give you four words. Christ died for me. That's the gospel.

That's the good news. He loves you. He has a plan for you. So notice it says that the Lord sent him, the father sent him to proclaim liberty to the captives. There's that word.

I just want to consider that word when we talk about addictions. Captive. Did you know the word literally refers to prisoners of war? POWs.

I have come to proclaim liberty to prisoners of war. Jesus has a special message to those who have been barraged by the enemy. Jesus has a special message for those who have been taken captive by Satan who are in bondage of addiction. I was reading this week the testimony of an ex-addict named Gary. Here's the story in a nutshell. When he grew up he said he was abused by his maternal grandmother.

That would tweak anybody. By age 12 he was drinking alcohol. He became addicted to it.

12 years of age. By 16 he was already on drugs, became addicted. One day as a teenager, as a mid to late teenager, he's in a car and somebody in a car, I don't know exactly who it was, but spoke to him a message. He said, Gary, I don't know why I'm telling you this, but I feel like I need to tell you Jesus loves you.

He goes, what? Jesus Christ loves you. Gary said, you know, it irritated me, but that simple message was so profound. Jesus loves an addict?

He said those words were a seed that began to break down my angry, hardened heart. So Jesus has good news for addicts. I've come to preach the good news.

There's something else. Not only does he have good news for addicts, Jesus has a good plan for addicts. I draw you back to verse 18 of Luke chapter 4. I want you to notice as you look at the text the relationship between two phrases, because it's an important relationship. Notice he says that he has been anointed, he has been sent to proclaim liberty to the captives.

See that phrase? But then notice a few phrases after that, to set at liberty those who are oppressed. To proclaim liberty? To set at liberty. To proclaim liberty is to preach, to herald, to make an announcement, to say something with your mouth.

But to set at liberty is something vastly different. In other words, I'm going to do for you what I proclaimed. In other words, Jesus is saying, I don't just have a nice sermon for addicts, I have a great strategy for them.

I have a plan, and my plan is to release them, to give them freedom from their addictions to break the cycle that they're caught in. Now how does he do that? How can he do that? How can God do that? Well I think you will agree with this statement. First of all, he can do anything.

Right? He can do anything. So how does he do it? Well, I have seen him, but again this is rare, I'll just say that he can take away a desire instantly. A lot of us would just love if he would do that with all of our bad desires. Just take it away. Just remove it.

I have heard the testimony of those who have been addicted to a variety of things tell me they no longer have any trouble with that issue anymore, they're not even struggling with it, they don't have a desire. I applaud that, I think it's wonderful, it's miraculous, it's not the norm. Usually the way he does that is supernaturally naturally. That is supernatural power that comes through natural processes. It's the principle of cooperation.

If you're familiar with your Old Testament, you know this principle. God tells the children of Israel, go in and conquer the land. Take it over. I'm going to give the land to you, I'm going to deliver your enemies into your hands.

Sounds easy, right? I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, I'm going to deliver, I'm going to give. But he also says, you need boots on the ground.

You need to take your sword out, you need to engage in battle, you need to march through the land, and as you cooperate with me, my power will give it to you and do it for you through a natural process. So I want to give you what I think is a healthy process that God empowers. From everything I've read and from those that I have spoken with who have in the past been addicted to a variety of substances, we need to take and isolate that addiction. So picture an addiction in front of you, however you want to picture it, whatever it is, and we need now to quarantine it, we need to isolate it, we need to draw a box around it.

The box has four sides. The first side we're going to call accurate assessment. You need to make an accurate assessment of your addiction. In other words, don't underestimate your addiction. It's a big deal. This is where many people fail.

Ah, it's not a big deal. I can stop anytime I want. They never do. It keeps going. The cycle continues, but they keep telling themselves, not a big deal.

No, accurate assessment. Don't underestimate your addiction. An addiction is not a typical challenge that everybody goes through. It is the struggle of a lifetime. In fact, there will probably never be a greater challenge in your entire life than that particular challenge.

All other problems will pale in comparison. Accurate assessment. One author who was once addicted wrote these words, early recovery is one big dramatic event. And your emotional cord is bouncing down the side of a mountain.

It's an emotional rollercoaster. The same phenomenon can be observed when someone tries to quit smoking. The smoker will notice that every time they try to quit smoking, all this drama pops up in their life. Why is this happening, they wonder? Why does all this drama suddenly show up every time they try to quit?

He answers it. You have been fooled by your addiction. You have been fooled by your addiction. Withdrawal from nicotine or drugs or pornography or food turns up the intensity, he says, on your life. Turns up the emotional intensity.

So an accurate assessment is the first side of that box. Let's draw a second side to quarantine addiction. We'll call this overwhelming force. Use overwhelming force. If you want to capture a base of your enemies, the best way to do it is by using overwhelming force. So if it takes 200 soldiers to take over an enemy base, bring 800. So there is no chance for failure. You will overwhelm the enemy with your force.

You will make sure that the job gets done. One alcoholic said that early on, he struggled with the idea that he was smarter than everybody else. He goes, yeah, I know there's people who are alcoholics, but I'm the smart one. I don't need the same kind of help they do.

I found this to be typical. So he was telling himself things like this. I don't need a real long rehab.

And I don't need to go to meetings that many times a week like other people do. And so he kept failing and failing and failing. And that cycle continued until somebody told him, a friend of his said, you don't need three weeks or three months.

You need a year rehab. And he was so beat up by failure, he said, you're right. And he went and he did it. And he said, it was the best thing I ever did. Overwhelming force.

I talked to a friend this week, a friend of mine who struggled for years with addictions to heroin and other substances. And as I was telling him, you know, what I have found and what I was going to say, he goes, yep, yep, yep. He goes, Skip, this is what I learned. You got to change your playground and your playmates. You need to get as many people around you as you can on a new playground that are the right kind of people to hold you accountable and to help you through this overwhelming force.

Now let's draw a third line on this box. Zero tolerance. Zero tolerance. You see, recovery is pass or fail. Everything else in life will depend on your sobriety. Relationships will depend on it. Your viability will depend on it.

Your effectiveness will depend on it. And so if this is an issue, you need to make an agreement within yourself that says, I can never use again. I can never take another drink. I can never watch that stuff ever again, no matter what. Zero tolerance. The problem with that is, if you have an addictive personality, you've said that a thousand times already.

And gone back and back and back and back and back. But that principle, along with the first two principles, all working together, will be of great strength and value and help. And now let's close this box in and quarantine it completely. The fourth side of that box, we will call highest power. Highest power. If you are familiar at all with the language of recovery, you have heard the term higher power. They say, well, you need a higher power in this.

And it's very sort of innocuous and nondescript. Just sort of pick a higher power and trust that. No, no, no. You need the highest power. And that comes only through one source, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And as the addict learns of the love of Christ, and as the addict learns of the power of the Holy Spirit, and as the addict is surrounded with and interacts with healthy believers, they will discover a whole new life. Let's see. Effectiveness in recovery is more than just saying no to the menace.

It's saying yes to the maker. It's the highest power. If you have a scientific background, you understand the principle I'm going to give you now, and that is that certain viruses die when you expose them to light. Certain bacteria will also die if they're exposed to the right kinds of light, like ultraviolet light. So, they're kept in the darkness. They grow and they flourish and they spread. But once you expose them to light, sunlight, in some cases ultraviolet light, it will kill them.

Addictions are like that. It's a virus that has to be exposed to the light to be cured. Listen to what Jesus said in John 3.

This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but men have loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. Remember the leper who came to Jesus?

I didn't say leopard, but the leper, man with leprosy. Walked up to Jesus, probably at the very end of his rope, and he said, If you are willing, you can make me clean. And Jesus said, I am willing.

Be clean. Every addict needs to come to Jesus and say, If you are willing, make me clean. And he will immediately say, I am willing.

And he might immediately remove the desire, but chances are you're going to have to go through this process. And you're going to have to isolate that addiction by accurate assessment, overwhelming force, zero tolerance, highest power. Jesus has good news for addicts. Jesus has a good plan for addicts. There's a final thing I want you to notice as we close, and that is Jesus has a good reputation among addicts. Would you turn now, and we'll close with this, Matthew chapter 11, just a couple verses.

Matthew 11. You know, I've discovered over the years in talking to people who have struggled with addictions of various sorts, that even those who are really down and out, they're okay with Jesus. No, some aren't, but for the most part, they just understand that Jesus is this compelling, loving figure, and they're drawn to him. They may not be too crazy about churches or church people.

In fact, usually they aren't because of their past experiences with such. But when it comes to the person of Jesus, Jesus has a reputation now as he did then. And I want you to notice that Jesus is speaking here in Matthew 11, 16 to his detractors. Matthew 11, 16, But to what shall I liken this generation? Children sitting in the marketplace and calling to their companions and saying, We played the flute for you, and you did not dance.

We mourned to you, and you did not lament. For John, Jesus says, that's John the Baptist, came neither drinking or eating, and they say that he has a demon. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, that's Jesus, and they say, Look, a glutton and a winebibber. You know what a winebibber is, right? It's a lush. It's an alcoholic. Can you imagine saying that of Jesus?

This guy eats too much and he drinks too much. Notice the next phrase. A friend of tax collectors and sinners, but wisdom is justified by her children.

Now, they meant it as a slur. Jesus accepted it as a badge of honor. I'm a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Now, I'm not here to exegete this entire text.

I just want you to notice this label. Because by this time, Jesus has already called a notorious tax collector named Matthew. Jesus has already gone to the house of Matthew and shared an evening meal with him and his buddies.

And according to one commentator, John MacArthur, he said at that meeting, that would include robbers, murderers, drunkards, and prostitutes. And it was probably, he said, because of that encounter in Matthew's house, that Jesus got this reputation that he mentions here. A friend of tax collectors and sinners. This is what it says in Matthew 9. Many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with him.

Luke 15, 1. Tax collectors and notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. And then there's the story of Zacchaeus in Jericho. Remember Zacchaeus, the short guy who climbed up the tree so he could see Jesus? And Jesus saw him and said, get down, let's go to your house and eat lunch. And they hung out together.

That's a paraphrase, by the way, of that text. And the crowd was not excited about that. The Bible says, the crowds were upset saying, he is gone to be a guest of a notorious sinner. You've got to understand that most religious Jews would never, ever conceive of socializing with that group of people.

But Jesus would, and Jesus did. He sat down with them, he ate with them, and he was known as the friend of sinners. And in that group were drunkards, alcoholics.

In that group were prostitutes and probably the men who were addicted to sex from the prostitutes. And there was Jesus among them. And so they thought, hey, I want to listen to him teach.

And they would often go to hear him teach. I just want to give this challenge to us, the body of Christ. The Bible calls the church the body of Christ.

I hope you understand what that means. We are the representatives of Jesus Christ as if we were the physical body of Jesus. So he has no hands, no feet, no mouth, but ours. So it's our hands that reach out to people in his name. It's our feet that go out to people and walk toward people in his name. It's our mouths that bring a message of hope and love and the gospel of good news in his name. We're the body of Christ. Jesus said, as I have loved you, you must love. We could do that.

You know, it is possible. We could actually become an army of love. Well, I mentioned that Webster defined addiction as a surrender of oneself to something obsessively, habitually. It is my prayer that more of us become addicted to Christ.

Addicted to serving our Lord and addicted to loving people in a transforming way in his name. Jesus began his ministry with the text we started out with. And John Wesley began his ministry outside the church walls with the same text. I thought it was only fitting to end this message and quote a hymn written by the brother of John Wesley, Charles Wesley, about that same text. The hymn was called, Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing.

And here's the little phrase. He breaks the power of canceled sin. He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest clean, his blood availed for me. The foulest clean, the addict, the prostitute, the criminal, the murder, all those that we have isolated in this series. He, his blood can make the foulest clean, his blood availed for me. As we take communion, we realize that what Jesus said fits us.

Poor, broken hearted, captive, blind. Yep, that's pretty much my testimony. His blood can make the foulest clean. And if he can save you, don't you think he can save others through you? Ah, he loves to do that. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Jesus Loves People. Now, here's Skip to tell you about how you can keep encouraging messages like this coming your way as you help connect others to God's love. When Jesus walked the earth, he was known for loving the most unloved and marginalized people in society.

And he does the same today through you and me, his people. I want to ask you to consider partnering with this ministry as we expand the reach of these Bible teachings to include folks who might not otherwise hear the life-changing message of the gospel. Here's how you can give right now. You can give online at connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Or call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Thank you. Tomorrow, Skip Heitzig helps you understand why both the wrath and love of God are integral to his nature and to your salvation. Jesus loves the broken, but he doesn't want them to stay broken. He's come to heal the brokenhearted, to fix them. So in every case, in all cases, it's always about change. Jesus came to bring change. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.