THE FIRST STEP TO FREEDOM

Realize I'm not God. I admit I am powerless to control my tendency to do wrong things and my life is unmanageable.

Do you ever stay up late when you know you need sleep?

Do you ever eat or drink more calories than your body needs?

Do you ever feel you ought to exercise but you don't?

Do you ever know the right thing to do, but you don't do it?

Do you ever know something is wrong, but you do it anyway?

Have you ever known you should be unselfish, but you're selfish instead?

Have you ever tried to control somebody or something and found it was uncontrollable?

If your answer is yes to any of those questions, welcome to the human race. We're all in need of recovery.

I. THE CAUSE OF MY PROBLEM: MY SIN NATURE

Proverbs 14 says "There is a way that seems right to man but it ends in death."

You will always have this sin nature with you, this desire to do the wrong thing. You're going to always have it with you till you get to heaven. And even after you become a Christian, you still have desires that pull you the wrong way. Paul understood this. In Romans 7:15 he said, "" I don’t understand myself atall, for I really want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead I do the very thing I hate. I know perfectly well what I'm doing is wrong . . . But I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things."

Does this sound vaguely familiar to any of you? I end up doing what I don't want to do and end up not doing what I want to do.

The first step to recovery is you must understand the cause of this problem. Why does this happen in my life? You need to understand the cause of it, then the consequences of the problem, then the cure.

1. We try to control our image. You want to control what other people think of you. You don't want other people to really know what you're like.
2. We try to control other people. Parents try to control kids; kids try to control parents. Wives try to control husbands; husbands try to control wives. People try to control other people.

3. We try to control problems, our problems. We're good at this. We use phrases like: "I can handle it, it's not really a problem." That's somebody trying to play God. "I can handle it, I'm O.K. Really, I'm fine." We control our problems:

4. We try to control our pain. Have you ever thought how much time you spend running from pain? Trying to avoid it, deny it, escape it, reduce it, postpone it. That's the first step to recovery. You're not going to get well on your own, face it. Don't deny it.

Four problems that always happen when we try to play God:

1. Fear. When I try to control everything I get afraid. Adam said, "I was afraid, because I was naked and so I hid." We are afraid somebody's going to find out who we really are, that we're fakes, we're phony, we really don't have it all together, we're not perfect
2. Frustration. It's frustrating trying to be the general manager of the universe.

3. Fatigue. It's tiring playing God. Trying to control everything, pretending you've got it all together, denial takes a lot of energy. In Psalm 32, David said: "My strength evaporated like water on a sunny day until I finally confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide them." (NLT).

4. Failure. When you try to play God that's one job description you're guaranteed to fail at. Proverbs 28:13 (GNB) " He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.You need to be honest and open about your weaknesses and your faults and failures.

Two ways not to react:

1. "My problem is not that bad." That's called denial. How bad does it have to get before you admit that you need some help?
2. "That's fine, but I can solve my problems; this series on recovery is for somebody else." That's called denial too.

The first step on the road to recovery is to admit my powerlessness

Admitting I'm not God means I recognize three important facts of life. Maturity comes when you recognize these three facts of life:

1. I admit that I am powerless to change my past. It hurt, I still remember it, but all the resentment in the world isn't going to change it. I'm powerless to change my past.

2. I admit that I am powerless to control other people. I try, I like to manipulate them, I use all kinds of little gimmicks, but it doesn't work. I am responsible for my actions, not theirs. I can't control other people.

3. I admit that I am powerless to cope with my harmful habits, behaviors, actions. Good intentions are not enough. How many times have you tried and failed. Will power is not enough. You need something more than will power. You need a source of power beyond yourself. You need God, because He made you to need Him.