Jesus Loves Addicts

In 1 Corinthians, Paul says, All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by any. That's another description of it. When something masters you, you keep doing it over and over, and you seem to can't be able to stop. Addiction is always a present danger posed by our own nature.

The Bible calls it the flesh. Because of Christ, you can have victory over temptation, but that doesn't mean it'll be easy. You must be resilient and steadfast. Today we continue our countdown of Skip's top 40 messages on the Connect with Skip Heitzig YouTube channel. In the number 11 spot is his message, Jesus Loves Attics.

In it, Skip explains the message of freedom Jesus has for everyone who has ever felt the chains of sin in their life. But before we begin, we want to tell you about an exciting opportunity you have to encounter the roots of your faith in the land of the Bible. Skip has lived in Israel and led tours many, many times.

Here he is to invite you on his next tour. You know, there's always something new to see and experience in Israel. And I'm so excited to let you know that I'm taking another tour group to Israel in 2022. You're in for an incredible time as we travel throughout Israel and experience the culture that's so unique to that country. We'll start on the Mediterranean Sea and head north, seeing places like Caesarea and Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River. We'll spend several days in and around Jerusalem and see the Temple Mount, Calvary, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Mount of Olives, and much more. This remarkable itinerary is made richer with times of worship, Bible study, and lots of fellowship. Now, I've been to Israel a number of times over the years, and I can honestly say that visiting the places where the events of the Scriptures unfolded, where Jesus lived, taught, and healed, it just never gets old. I can't wait to see you in Israel. Start planning and saving now to tour Israel with Skip Heitzig. Information at inspirationcruises.com slash c-a-b-q.

That's inspirationcruises.com slash c-a-b-q. Now, we'll be in Luke chapter four and Matthew 11 for today's study, so let's join Skip Heitzig. My name is Davey. I'm an alcoholic. That's the title of a book that came out several years ago that dealt with teenage alcoholism.

It featured a 15-year-old boy who was an alcoholic. He was addicted. He denied that he had a need until someone else in his life, another young girl named Maxine, was also an alcoholic and was experiencing convulsions because of her alcoholism. She wanted help.

He did not want help. Again, these are kids who are dealing with the topic of teenage alcoholism. I want to talk to you today about addictions. Some of you might be thinking, why on earth would you want to talk about addictions from the pulpit in church? Well, in church.

Well, for two reasons. First reason is because it's not talked about in church. Churches usually don't deal with the topic. They don't deal with the issue.

Oh, they're good at marginalizing it and condemning certain behaviors but not dealing with it. And a second reason is because sin is never private. It always affects other people. Emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. When David's sin against Bathsheba was known, and it could even be seen as a sexual addiction, it seemed that in his life, it didn't just affect David and it didn't just affect Bathsheba. But the long tentacles of his sin reached further into the life of her husband Uriah, who lost his life because of it, into the life of Joab, David's general, who was jaded because of it, and even David's own children who had that father doing that thing as a role model for them, which ruined a lot of their own future relationships.

It's never ever done privately. Albert Einstein was the one who said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And though he was talking about science, what if we were to apply what he said to life, to our life? What do you repeat over and over and over again but you are expecting a different result? For some people, it's just one more drink. One more. Just one more. Then it's over. Then I'm done. Or one more hit. Or one more look at that stuff on the internet.

Then I'm done. For others, it's just a few more dollars and no one will even know it's missing. For others, it's just one more shopping trip. And for still others, it's just one more binge meal. Addictions have different colors, come in different flavors.

But that repetitive, ongoing cycle doesn't stop. Now, you probably may already know this, but the word addiction is not found in your Bible. Unless, of course, you have the King James Bible, the old King James Bible. I'm reading the New King James. It's not found in my version.

It's not found in any modern version. But it does appear once in the old King James Bible. But it'll surprise you to know that it's not mentioned in a negative sense but in a positive sense. In 1 Corinthians 16, Paul writes about the household of Stephanus. They are addicted to the ministry, he said.

Simply put, here's a family that is devoted to serving people. And he uses the term addicted. That's the only time you'll find it in the old King James version in a good sense, not a bad sense. Now, we know it today in a negative connotation, an addiction. Webster's Dictionary defines an addiction as a surrender of oneself to something obsessively and habitually. But the idea of addiction shows up all over the place in the Bible. In other words, different words than the word addiction. One of those words is found in our text this morning. It's the word captive or captives in the plural. Those who are held as prisoner by repetitive, ongoing behavior, they're held captive. Also, in 1 Corinthians, Paul says, all things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by any.

That's another description of it. When something masters you, you keep doing it over and over, and you seem to can't be able to stop. Addiction is always a present danger posed by our own nature. The Bible calls it the flesh. That's our old, our sinful nature. Our sinful nature, the Bible calls the flesh. So in Ephesians chapter two, verse three, Paul says, formally, we walked in the desires of our flesh, indulging those desires. 1 Peter chapter two, verse 11, abstain from fleshly desires which wage war against the soul. And in the book of James, he speaks about those who are carried away and seduced by the tempter living under their desires.

So what special word would Jesus Christ have for such people? What words of hope would Christ have for those who find themselves in addictive behavior? Moreover, what kind of role model would he have for us, the followers of Christ, and how to treat addicts? I want to begin with you in Luke chapter four. I've asked you to turn to Luke chapter four.

And I first want you to notice that Jesus has good news for addicts. In Luke chapter four, verse 16, we begin, so he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read. He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set a liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

Then he closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and he sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. This marks the beginning of Jesus' public ministry.

He is 30 years of age. He walks into the synagogue, a little group gathering. He had gone to that synagogue growing up all his life.

Now he's back. And he is given a scroll. He opens the scroll to Isaiah, we know it as chapter 61, and he begins his ministry by reading this text. What fascinates me about that is somebody else began their ministry using the same exact portion of scripture.

His name was John Wesley. It was April 2nd, 1739, when Wesley decided he's not just going to preach the gospel inside of a church where church people come, but he's going to take it outside the walls where the disenfranchised are, where the street people are, where the people who had never come to church hang out. And he writes in his diary, after his first message, he said, 3,000 people heard the gospel outside the walls of the church today.

And he said, I chose as my text the very text we are reading. So I find it fascinating that he decided to begin his ministry to the disenfranchised and the captive, much like Jesus did with the same text. Now look at verse 18 a little more carefully. And notice with your own eyes the description of the audience that Jesus was sent to. As you look at some of the words in that verse, I think you're going to have to agree, we're talking about the messiest bunch of folks that you could ever imagine. Look at them.

Look at the description. Poor, broken-hearted, captive, blind, oppressed. You know what? That describes us.

The whole lot of us. None of us came out perfect. We were all born flawed. I know your parents thought you were the greatest. When you were born, they said, look, she's perfect. All they had to do was wait.

Am I right? Soon, they would discover how flawed you really were. Soon they would discover as your human nature began to blossom. Oh, man, she's got that propensity.

He has that bent, that leaning. And then as the years went on, even you made that same discovery about yourself. As societal pressure and inborn tendencies worked together, you saw how flawed you really were. And for some people, that fleshly pull is so profound, it shows itself in what we would call life-dominating sins. Addictions. Life-dominating sins. What the writer of Hebrews calls besetting sins. Hebrews chapter 12 says, the sin which so easily besets us, ensnares us, entangles us.

That's an addiction. Jesus has a special message for such people. Notice he has come to preach the gospel. 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 first 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 the 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 four. 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 hand.

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. It's not a big deal. I can stop any time 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'll make sure that the job gets done. That's Skip Heitzig's number 11 message on our Top 40 Messages countdown. It's from his series Jesus Loves People. Find the full message and more of Skip's teachings, as well as full length sermon series anywhere, anytime, on any device at youtube.com slash Calvary ABQ. Now we want to let you know about a resource that will encourage you even more in your faith.

Imagine the challenge we faced. Skip Heitzig has taught over 3500 through the Bible messages. We had to pick the top 10 for a special resource offer.

So here's a sample of what we chose. Are we in the last days? Yes, but we've been in the last days for 2000 years.

The time between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ falls under the designation of the last days. This power packed set of Skip's top 10 teachings are messages you will want to hear and share. And one of the things I love about God is he's not complicated.

Most truth you will discover is simple truth, not simplistic truth, simple truth. When you give $35 or more today, we'll also include Lenya Heitzig's book, Reload Love, the history of a ministry that's been helping children victimized by terror on the front lines. Get Skip's top 10 messages on CD plus your copy of Reload Love by Lenya Heitzig today. Call 800-922-1888 to give or visit connectwithskip.com. Hearing the good news of Jesus can make an eternity of difference for someone who's never heard it before. You can be a part of sharing that life changing message with someone today when you give to keep these messages on the air. Help more listeners like you connect to our Lord and Savior when you give to keep this broadcast going strong. Just visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give now. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate or call 800-922-1888, 800-922-1888.

Thank you. Come back next week as Skip Heitzig shares another Top 40 message and reveals how you can experience true happiness today. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. 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.