The Church and Addiction Recovery
We finished last time with Galatians 6:1. About how God wants to use another Christian to restore you from your faults, and that a mentor fits that role.
But today we need to deal with a specific fault. We need to deal with addiction.
There are all sorts of addictions out there. There is alcohol, tobacco, drug, porn addiction, to name a few.
Generally the way addiction works is that you get involved in something that feels great at first but over time your addiction loses the ability to make you feel good, but by this point if you do not take part in your addiction you feel awful. This is what makes addictions so hard to break. To stop the addiction feels physically painful.
Although breaking free of the chains of addiction is hard, it is possible for every Christian to break the chains if they are willing to obey God's Word.
The first area of obedience is accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and personal savior. Has there ever been a time in your life where God has convicted you of your sins and you accepted his free gift of salvation? If you have an addiction in your life this question is paramount, because if you have never accepted Jesus as savior then you have never taken the first step of obedience.
If you have not accepted Jesus as savior then the good news is that salvation is a free gift offered to all and you can accept Jesus as savior today.
Furthermore God will often but not always take away a persons desire for their addiction at salvation. I have watched alcoholics and drug addicts quit an addiction cold turkey at salvation without any withdrawal symptoms. I have also seen alcoholics come to Christ and struggle with alcohol afterwards. Either way God is doing what is best for the individual. Have you put your trust in God?
The second area of obedience is the area of giving things to God. I am hesitant to add this point because so many people come to this place and never go beyond. God does tell us in 1Pe 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Whatever care you have in your life should be brought to God in prayer. If you are struggling with an addiction you should be praying about that addiction every day.
But don’t stop with talking to God about your problem. I have been in a place in my life where I thought I should be able to pray away all my struggles with sin. And because I struggled with sin I thought I didn’t have enough faith. That is not what God’s Word teaches. That is what Pharisees teach. If someone were to tell me they struggled with an addiction and prayed away the desire for the addiction I will happily admit they are a better Christian than me because that has not been my experience. My experience has been that when we obey God’s Word in our relationship with Him AND our local church we can overcome any addiction.
God greatly desires to use the local church play a part in pulling you out of your addiction. What father doesn’t want their kids helping each other out?
Which brings me to my third point, to obey your way out of an addiction you must confess your faults to another Christian. Jas 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
This verse shows some amazing things. First of all God expects you to confess your faults, including addiction, to another Christian. Then God expects you to pray about it together. Confessing your faults to another Christian is not about rejection God, but going to God as a team, as brothers and sisters in Christ. As you confess your fault to another Christian and both of you go to God about your addiction both of you will have a closer walk with God.
If you are a single person and you are struggling with an addiction and you have no intention of confessing that sin to another Christian because you don’t want to bother someone, then in truth you are hurting someones walk with God. Confessing your addiction to another Christian is an opportunity for you and another Christian to grow closer to the Lord together. Don’t rob another Christian of that opportunity.
Which brings me to my fourth point, God’s plan does not stop with two Christians praying together over an addiction. God’s Word says “Gal 6:1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”
If you have any fault, including an addiction, a mature (spiritual) Christian is directly commanded to restore you. They cannot restore you if they do not know about your fault or addiction. So you must confess it to them. But after the confession and prayer, the mature Christian should begin a process of restoring you to all you should be. Quite frankly this person should be in a position to become your mentor if they are not already your mentor because the restoration process will be an emotionally, and spiritually intimate process where they guide you out of an addiction into the good things God has for you.
That’s what a mentor does. When you are not all you can be a mentor fine tunes you into the best you that you can be. In the case of addiction a mentor guides you into replacing the addiction with good godly things. This is why we had to deal with finding a mentor before dealing with an addiction. Because most of the things a mentor will naturally do will be of immense help in dealing with an addiction.
Which brings me to our fifth point, addiction touches every area of our life, so God set up the local church, especially mentorship in the local church, to touch every area of our life. The Bible tells us in Galatians 6:2 “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”
Generally when someone is addicted to anything, they are not addicted to it for a day, week, month or year. They are generally addicted for years. The longer an addiction is in someone’s life the longer the addiction has to affect their life. At times you build relationships or destroy relationships because of your addiction. At times you go places or not go places because of your addiction. At times you do certain things because of your addiction or do not do those things because of your addiction. This process creates many wounds in your life. So when dealing with addiction you cannot just deal with the addiction you must deal with the wounds that addiction has caused. And God is telling us in Galatians 6:2 to share those wounds with other Christians. Allow them to help you bear the burden of those wounds.
Not only does addiction make you do somethings and stop you from doing other things, but there are many times when the realities of life push us toward addiction. Perhaps we had abusive relationships, or giant disappointments, or failures that affected our lives. Many times these wounds pushed us toward our addiction and we have never dealt with the problems. Over the years the scars have gotten infected and even though we are dealing with our addiction we must now deal with these problems. It is very easy to medicate away a problem with an addiction. But when the addiction goes away these problems are still on our heart. God directly commands you in Galatians 6:2 to share your burden with another Christian and allow them to help you bear it.
Your thinking that you don’t want to bother someone with your burden. But number 1 God directly commanded you to share your burdens with another Christian, and God directly commanded them to bear your burdens. When you don’t obey God in this area of your life, they have no opportunity to obey God. Your act of disobedience makes them disobedient.
Furthermore if you don’t share your burden they do not get the blessing of seeing your burden fixed. Perhaps that is one reason why God set up the local church to deal with addiction. Because when we take our addiction to the local church, or at least those we trust enough to share our addiction with, gets to see God move in your life. If you only share it with God then only you get the blessing, and God wants your blessing of restoration to be seen by more than just you.
Maybe a married christian can have their spouse obey James 5:16, Galatians 6:1-2 among many other Bible verses. But as a Single adult christian God has provided you the local church to obey these verses. And through obeying these verses have the ability to overcome any addiction.
Your relationship with the local church is of paramount importance. Maybe you are thinking you could not confess your addiction to anyone. That this is a secret that you are ashamed of that you believe that if you confess your addiction to someone bad consequences will happen. The reality of the situation is that you will not confess your addiction to someone you do not trust. That is why we must build a relationship with the people in the local church. It should be common that Christians trust each other enough to share their shameful secrets with one another in order to be healed.
What will you have to do to build enough trust with someone to share your darkest secret with them? That is what you will have to do to have a right relationship with the local church.
But today we need to deal with a specific fault. We need to deal with addiction.
There are all sorts of addictions out there. There is alcohol, tobacco, drug, porn addiction, to name a few.
Generally the way addiction works is that you get involved in something that feels great at first but over time your addiction loses the ability to make you feel good, but by this point if you do not take part in your addiction you feel awful. This is what makes addictions so hard to break. To stop the addiction feels physically painful.
Although breaking free of the chains of addiction is hard, it is possible for every Christian to break the chains if they are willing to obey God's Word.
The first area of obedience is accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and personal savior. Has there ever been a time in your life where God has convicted you of your sins and you accepted his free gift of salvation? If you have an addiction in your life this question is paramount, because if you have never accepted Jesus as savior then you have never taken the first step of obedience.
If you have not accepted Jesus as savior then the good news is that salvation is a free gift offered to all and you can accept Jesus as savior today.
Furthermore God will often but not always take away a persons desire for their addiction at salvation. I have watched alcoholics and drug addicts quit an addiction cold turkey at salvation without any withdrawal symptoms. I have also seen alcoholics come to Christ and struggle with alcohol afterwards. Either way God is doing what is best for the individual. Have you put your trust in God?
The second area of obedience is the area of giving things to God. I am hesitant to add this point because so many people come to this place and never go beyond. God does tell us in 1Pe 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Whatever care you have in your life should be brought to God in prayer. If you are struggling with an addiction you should be praying about that addiction every day.
But don’t stop with talking to God about your problem. I have been in a place in my life where I thought I should be able to pray away all my struggles with sin. And because I struggled with sin I thought I didn’t have enough faith. That is not what God’s Word teaches. That is what Pharisees teach. If someone were to tell me they struggled with an addiction and prayed away the desire for the addiction I will happily admit they are a better Christian than me because that has not been my experience. My experience has been that when we obey God’s Word in our relationship with Him AND our local church we can overcome any addiction.
God greatly desires to use the local church play a part in pulling you out of your addiction. What father doesn’t want their kids helping each other out?
Which brings me to my third point, to obey your way out of an addiction you must confess your faults to another Christian. Jas 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
This verse shows some amazing things. First of all God expects you to confess your faults, including addiction, to another Christian. Then God expects you to pray about it together. Confessing your faults to another Christian is not about rejection God, but going to God as a team, as brothers and sisters in Christ. As you confess your fault to another Christian and both of you go to God about your addiction both of you will have a closer walk with God.
If you are a single person and you are struggling with an addiction and you have no intention of confessing that sin to another Christian because you don’t want to bother someone, then in truth you are hurting someones walk with God. Confessing your addiction to another Christian is an opportunity for you and another Christian to grow closer to the Lord together. Don’t rob another Christian of that opportunity.
Which brings me to my fourth point, God’s plan does not stop with two Christians praying together over an addiction. God’s Word says “Gal 6:1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”
If you have any fault, including an addiction, a mature (spiritual) Christian is directly commanded to restore you. They cannot restore you if they do not know about your fault or addiction. So you must confess it to them. But after the confession and prayer, the mature Christian should begin a process of restoring you to all you should be. Quite frankly this person should be in a position to become your mentor if they are not already your mentor because the restoration process will be an emotionally, and spiritually intimate process where they guide you out of an addiction into the good things God has for you.
That’s what a mentor does. When you are not all you can be a mentor fine tunes you into the best you that you can be. In the case of addiction a mentor guides you into replacing the addiction with good godly things. This is why we had to deal with finding a mentor before dealing with an addiction. Because most of the things a mentor will naturally do will be of immense help in dealing with an addiction.
Which brings me to our fifth point, addiction touches every area of our life, so God set up the local church, especially mentorship in the local church, to touch every area of our life. The Bible tells us in Galatians 6:2 “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”
Generally when someone is addicted to anything, they are not addicted to it for a day, week, month or year. They are generally addicted for years. The longer an addiction is in someone’s life the longer the addiction has to affect their life. At times you build relationships or destroy relationships because of your addiction. At times you go places or not go places because of your addiction. At times you do certain things because of your addiction or do not do those things because of your addiction. This process creates many wounds in your life. So when dealing with addiction you cannot just deal with the addiction you must deal with the wounds that addiction has caused. And God is telling us in Galatians 6:2 to share those wounds with other Christians. Allow them to help you bear the burden of those wounds.
Not only does addiction make you do somethings and stop you from doing other things, but there are many times when the realities of life push us toward addiction. Perhaps we had abusive relationships, or giant disappointments, or failures that affected our lives. Many times these wounds pushed us toward our addiction and we have never dealt with the problems. Over the years the scars have gotten infected and even though we are dealing with our addiction we must now deal with these problems. It is very easy to medicate away a problem with an addiction. But when the addiction goes away these problems are still on our heart. God directly commands you in Galatians 6:2 to share your burden with another Christian and allow them to help you bear it.
Your thinking that you don’t want to bother someone with your burden. But number 1 God directly commanded you to share your burdens with another Christian, and God directly commanded them to bear your burdens. When you don’t obey God in this area of your life, they have no opportunity to obey God. Your act of disobedience makes them disobedient.
Furthermore if you don’t share your burden they do not get the blessing of seeing your burden fixed. Perhaps that is one reason why God set up the local church to deal with addiction. Because when we take our addiction to the local church, or at least those we trust enough to share our addiction with, gets to see God move in your life. If you only share it with God then only you get the blessing, and God wants your blessing of restoration to be seen by more than just you.
Maybe a married christian can have their spouse obey James 5:16, Galatians 6:1-2 among many other Bible verses. But as a Single adult christian God has provided you the local church to obey these verses. And through obeying these verses have the ability to overcome any addiction.
Your relationship with the local church is of paramount importance. Maybe you are thinking you could not confess your addiction to anyone. That this is a secret that you are ashamed of that you believe that if you confess your addiction to someone bad consequences will happen. The reality of the situation is that you will not confess your addiction to someone you do not trust. That is why we must build a relationship with the people in the local church. It should be common that Christians trust each other enough to share their shameful secrets with one another in order to be healed.
What will you have to do to build enough trust with someone to share your darkest secret with them? That is what you will have to do to have a right relationship with the local church.