Freedom from Addictions

Sabbath School Class Teaching Notes

(Larry Evans, Teacher)

For

March 12

Introduction

The word “addiction” conjures up in our minds many images such as druggies with syringes or alcoholics with bottles of wine. While these connections are understandable, we would like to suggest that they are short-sighted and even misleading. If I mention the word “car” do you automatically think of “flat tires”? Individuals with addictions are first people whom God loves and then they have an addiction. Unless we have walked where others have walked it is very easy to see the worst rather than the possibilities each person has. I would like to suggest that we begin our study and reflection on the subject of “Freedom from Addictions” with 1 Cor. 9:26,27 (Message)

1Co 9:19 Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people:

1Co 9:20 religious, nonreligious,

1Co 9:21 meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists,

1Co 9:22 the defeated, the demoralized--whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ--but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life.

1Co 9:23 I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!

1Co 9:24 You've all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win.

1Co 9:25 All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You're after one that's gold eternally.

1Co 9:26 I don't know about you, but I'm running hard for the finish line. I'm giving it everything I've got. No sloppy living for me!

1Co 9:27 I'm staying alert and in top condition. I'm not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.

Verse 22 is important. Without partaking of the lifestyle of those around him, Paul sought to first understand others – being sensitive to how did they get to where they are. Verses 26 and 27 remind us that everyone is in the race and a race doesn’t mean the person wins all the time. Some will stumble but they are still in the race. Ellen White makes it clear that “The Christian life is a battle and a march.” Neither a victory nor a stumble takes one out of the race. By definition an addict is someone who “devotes or surrenders (them self) to something habitually or obsessively. The battle in the race is to whom and to what one surrenders.

Reflective Questions

1. The Church should recognize that addicts of any kind are really beyond the kind of help it can offer. False

There are so many examples in Scripture of those who were reclaimed after what seemed to be a hopeless situation. Luke 15 speaks of the lost coin, the lost sheep and the lost son all reclaimed and illustrative of the power God has to save and what a surprise it was to some. If we ever get to the place where we think that any individual regardless of the “addiction” or sin is beyond the reach of God’s grace then we are the one with the bigger problem!

2. A little wine does not make an addict. True and False

Little can be gained in discussions about any addiction, as far as Christianity is concerned, without the sensitivity to “guarding the avenues to the soul.” For the Christian the issue is not just “health” but rather how whatever we think or do impacts our perception of and openness to spiritual things. See Proverbs 23:29-35. Note especially vss 33-35. A little wine or much wine would seem to violate the principle of caring for our bodies as the temple of God. (1 Cor. 6:19,20)

3. God invented sex. True (Matt 19:4-6)

That may be true but sin has taken that which is noble and holy and has attempted to turn it into something that actually leads away from rather than to God.

I met my first sex addict in my early administration. The person was a pastor who outlined for me the baby steps he had taken to lead him to seeing prostitutes and even worse. The agony he felt I will never forget. I still consider him a friend. The last I spoke with him he came to thank me for the stand I had taken and that he had become sober for a number of years. Yet he was quick to say that he was still an “addict” but now one under discipline and control.

4. It’s what you do not what you think that forms an addiction. False

Early inroads to immorality is often pornography which is now readily available. Pornography is often a link to sexual addiction both physiologically and mentally. It can destroy marriages but it can also destroy the individual. The example of Joseph when Potiphar’s wife attempted to seduce him saved not only him but his family and his calling to save the nation of Egypt. That’s what sin does. It is a block to the very potential that God has placed within that person. If only the counsel of Philippians 4:8 were followed.

5. After returning a faithful tithe the rest is yours to do as you please. False

Note 1 Cor. 10:31 – “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

6. If a person’s gambling addiction consistently brought in more than it lost, it would not be wrong. False

Profit is not the issue here. It is what is happening to the person. Money is the visible representation of a person’s life. The careless use of one’s money is a careless attitude towards one’s own life, its values and its mission.

7. “Stewardship” is just another word for the Church’s “love of money.” False

That may be the perception of some but it is certainly not biblical. Stewardship is only incidentally related to money. Stewardship has to do with how we manage life itself. A friend put it this way: “Stewardship is the most important aspect of the Christian’s life. It specifies and defines what a relationship with Christ is like. Without it every spiritual discipline is worthless and meaningless. It is foundational to living life on this earth and will be the model for life in eternity.” (Dick Hanson)

“Stewardship is an essential element of faith. Time, talent, treasure, and temple (the body) are given to human beings to test their loyalty to the Creator. The whole concept is heightened by the eschatological pronouncement of Revelation 14:7: “Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water.” This gives impetus, urgency, and timeliness to the doctrine.” (Charles Bradford)

8. The whole idea of using cosmetics should not occupy the attention of Christians living in the last days. True and False

One definition of cosmetics is: relating to, or making for beauty especially of the complexion: visually appealing.Do Christians really want to look poorly? There is a beauty that should be seen in Christians:

1 Peter 3:3,4

3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. 4 Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. (NIV)

9. Who we are is really in the eye of the beholder. True and False

Self-esteem built around what we or others see in us can be very limiting. But seeing ourselves as God sees us, as He intended us to be, is full of hope and possibility.

2 Cor 5:16-21

16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (NIV)

10. A true Christian cannot be an addict. True and False?

Experts in alcoholic addiction say that once an addict always an addict. If that is true then they could never be a Christian.

Rom 6:11-14

11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (NIV)

Concluding Reflection

It has been said that we are each of us the product of those who loved us or who have refused to love us. What is missing in this modern proverb is what God sees despite our weaknesses, failures and addictions. The Father of the prodigal ran to meet his “addicted” son and the Shepherd went in search of the one lost sheep. Both metaphors underscore God’s willingness to reclaim us from whatever is holding us back. Sin is terrible not because some abstract law has been broken but because an estrangement has taken place between us and God.

Perhaps no passage describes the inner turmoil of an addict wishing to break the hold of his or her addiction nor the joy when there is freedom from addictions as clearly as that described by Paul in Romans 7:21 -8:9

Rom 7:16 So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.

Rom 7:17 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help!

Rom 7:18 I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it.

Rom 7:19 I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.

Rom 7:20 My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

Rom 7:21 It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.

Rom 7:22 I truly delight in God's commands,

Rom 7:23 but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

Rom 7:24 I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

Rom 7:25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

Rom 8:1 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud.

Rom 8:2 A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

Rom 8:3 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it.

Rom 8:4 And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

Rom 8:5 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God!

Rom 8:6 Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.

Rom 8:7 Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing.

Rom 8:8 And God isn't pleased at being ignored.

Rom 8:9 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him.

There is hope beyond the addiction. Little room is left for judgment but there is a lot of room left for understanding and encouragement.

Eccl 4:10

10 If one falls down,

his friend can help him up.

But pity the man who falls

and has no one to help him up!

(from New International Version)