Welcome From Recovery And Scripture

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Good morning, Northgate. It's a lot more people than morning service. So work with me. My name is Rob in Recovery, seven years, through the grace of God. Thank you, thank you. We're in the back. It's Monday, 6:30. You know, a lot of change happens in there. Come check us out. Don't be scared. Let me get in this scripture. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 3 through 4. Praise be to the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. This is the word of the Lord.

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Thanks be to God. All right. Thank you. And also just thank you to uh, I don't know if you guys notice, but every week we had somebody else in recovery. I mean, you're all in recovery right now. Um, but man, thank you uh to them, all of them who did that, including Rob. Just like we get to grab a little bit of their courage uh for being up here and doing that each week. Um, so thank you to them. And hey, guess what? We made it 12 weeks. Yeah. 12 steps. I mean, if you think about it, um, 12 steps, one very long, very honest,

Twelve Weeks To Step Twelve

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very uh occasionally uncomfortable summer. Well done. Uh, I want to acknowledge something before we go any further. If you've been with us this whole series, you have done something that a lot of people never do. You sat with hard things, you didn't scroll past the uncomfortable. Some of you said things out loud in like small groups that you had never said to another human before in your life. Some of you um texted me or a leader after Sunday and said, I think maybe this is the first time I've actually ever understood what grace is. And that's not nothing. Like I'm telling you, friends, that's everything. And if you're new today, welcome. You showed up for the finale. And honestly, that's kind of impressive, very efficient, very Bay Area, if you will. Um, we'll catch you up, but know this. This only makes sense if you understand where we've been. So let's just give you a quick version of where we've been because step 12 happens in the context of the 11 steps that came before it. So, week one, we said two words. I can't. We basically admitted that we were powerless and that our lives had become unmanageable. And we talked about how admission isn't defeat, it's actually the beginning of this very real change. Week two, we added three more words, but God can. We came to believe that a power is greater than ourselves and could restore us to sanity, which required most of us to admit that sanity was a goal that we hadn't yet reached. Week three was the decision step, I think I'll let him, where we turned our will and our lives over to the care of God, not just our big dramatic problems, like all of it, the whole operating system. I love how Justin, when he was here, he put it that we didn't just say Jesus take the wheel and sat in the driver's seat. We figured out how to get out of the car and go around and get in the passenger seat and actually let them drive. Week four was the one everybody dreaded, I think, the moral inventory, right? We made a searching and a fearless inventory of ourselves, and nobody loved it. And almost everybody said it was potentially one of the more clarifying things that they had ever done. Step five through seven uh was about confession and humility. Uh, we told truth out loud, admitting to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs, asking then God to remove our defects of character. And the word humbly shows up in step seven, and it shows up there for a reason. Step eight and nine were about making things right, where we made a list of the people we had harmed and made amends, and when it was possible, where it couldn't cause damage to another person. That was some of the hardest, I think, and most freeing uh work of the whole summer. Steps 10 and 11 uh were about maintenance and connection, um, continuing to take personal inventory, staying connected to God through prayer and reflection, not just coasting, not reverting, but actually living differently. And what does that look like on Tuesday? And now, step 12. The original text reads like this having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all of our affairs. So here you go. Three movements, one awakening, one outward turn, and one lifelong practice. Let's go. So, this phrase right here, spiritual awakening, I think has had a bad reputation in some circles. It sounds like something that happens like on a retreat, right, in the mountains after 48 hours of silence and a vision of a hawk, right? You're like, what is this? Or something that you describe like breathlessly on an Instagram uh post photo over a sunrise with no filter. Like, step 12 is not talking about that. A spiritual awakening in the steps language is actually simpler and more significant

What Spiritual Awakening Really Means

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than that. It's the recognition that you are not the same person who actually started this journey, that something has genuinely shifted at the level of who you are, not just what you do. And for us, uh, this awakening isn't simply walking to like a better version of ourselves. It's walking to the presence of Jesus and actually discovering that get this the God that we thought we had to work our way toward has actually been moving toward us the entire time. That the steps didn't save us, that Jesus does. The steps simply just gave some of us a way to finally stop running, uh, to stop controlling or hiding, pretending long enough to actually notice him. I can't, he can, I'll let him. And the 12th step says this. Now I'm gonna live like that's true. Orberg says in his book, a spiritual awakening doesn't have to be dramatic. It's simply the movement a person becomes aware that they are not alone, that there is a God who has been present all along. And that life lived in connection with that God is fundamentally different from the life lived on self-will alone. I mean, think about it, guys. Think about where you were in June, like not geographically, but like internally, right? Some of you walked into this series and you were fine, right? You you you came because somebody invited you or you were politely curious about this. Then week one hit you and you went home, you sat in your car for 12 minutes because something landed that you weren't expecting. Some of you came in actually knowing exactly what your step was. What step was? Well, you you'd been carrying it literally for years, the thing that you couldn't control, the pattern that was so difficult to break, the relationship dynamic that you just kept recreating no matter how many times that you swore you were done with it. And for the first time in a long time, you didn't have to pretend in a church setting. Some of you had serious theological objections, like about the whole enterprise, and you're still here, which means either God is real or our coffee is really good, possibly both. Here's how Paul actually describes this kind of transformation, not as this religious upgrade, but as something that happens from the inside, then out. He says this in the New Testament when he writes to the Romans, he says, Don't copy the behavior and the customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn God's will, what it is for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. So, this word right here that Paul uses for transform, it's this Greek word that's metaphor, which is where we actually get the word metamorphosis, right? This is what happens to a caterpillar. It's like not an improvement project. Uh, the caterpillar, when it goes through this transformation, is not deciding just to do better. Something literally changes at a cellular level. The thing that comes out of the cocoon is genuinely different than the thing that actually went in, right? How many of you guys have ever done the caterpillar experiment? Some of you guys? First service, everyone was like, What? What are you talking about? I was like, you get a stick and you get a caterpillar, and I was like, You didn't do that. You guys are missing out on life, I'm telling you right now. This is what the steps have been pointing towards, like all summer. Not a self-improvement metamorphosis. I want to be careful here though, because uh not everyone finishes week 12 and then feels like dramatically different. Some of you feel like the same person, just with like slightly better vocabulary for your problems, right? And that's also really valid. The awakening is not always like this moment. Sometimes it's a season. Sometimes you only see it in the rear view mirror. But here's the question worth sitting with today. Where are you different from where you started? Where are you different from where you started? Not where are you perfect, where are you different? Because different is what the steps are after. And if you're honest, maybe for some of you, something moved. I I talked to a a woman a few weeks ago who had been in the series from the very beginning. She said, I don't know if it really had a spiritual awakening,

Not Perfect Just Different

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nothing dramatic happened, but I noticed last week that I apologized to my sister, and I actually meant it, right? She's like, that's never happened before. And she laughed when she said it, and then she got quiet because she knew that was it. That was her awakening. Like, not a mountaintop and a phone call to her sister. It's a direction. And the awakening is not the destination, it's the recognition that you are finally facing the right way. So now here's where step 12 turns outward. And this is the part I think that surprises people. Because the natural assumption, I think, for a lot of us after doing this much personal work is that you're done. Like you showed up, you did the steps, right? You had the awakening. Now it's time to enjoy the fruits. But step 12 says, no, no, no, now go carry the message to others, not as a sales pitch or this religious recruitment drive, not as a way of making yourself feel better by fixing other

Carrying The Message Without Fixing

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people, but out of this simple, honest reality that you have something now that somebody else needs, and you know what it is like to not have it. Paul writes it this way. I think it's sometimes almost too practical to feel spiritual. This is what Rob read for us from 2 Corinthians. It says, All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all of our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort that God has given us. I mean, read that again slowly. God comforts us so we can comfort others. The comfort is not the finish line, the comfort is the fuel. I mean, this is one of the most distinctive ideas in the entire New Testament. God doesn't meet you in your brokenness just so you can move on and forget about it. His grace begins turning the places where you once needed someone into the places where you can now become someone for somebody else. Let me put it this way. Friends, your story is not just your story, it's someone else's map. Now, let me be direct about what this does not mean. This does not mean you need to get up on stage and share your testimony to 300 strangers. Thank you, Rob, for doing that. It does not mean you are required to immediately become a sponsor or counselor of a small group. It doesn't mean you need to walk up to hurting people and say, Have you considered the 12 steps by handing them a pamphlet? Right? This is what it does mean. It means you stay present. It means you lean in when other people lean back. It means you don't change the subject when the conversation gets real. It means you say the thing that nobody else in the room is saying, which is me too. Mine looks different, but me too. And I will not leave you alone in this. Paul again writes to the Galatians in chapter six, those who are spiritually mature should restore those who have stumbled. And he adds two words that I want you to notice. This is in Galatians chapter six. It says, Dear brothers and sisters, if any believer is overcome by sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other's burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. Those two words are there, gently and humbly. And humbly. Whether it's to be gentle with ourself or another human and humble about our story, not with an agenda, not with a scorecard, not with a barely concealed satisfaction of someone who's recently figured something out and they can't wait to tell you about it. Gently, humbly. Because you remember what it felt like to be the one. The one who needed someone to sit with you. One of the things that I think makes recovery community so powerful is something formal religion has struggled to replicate, actually. I think. The person who's been sober for five years doesn't sit at the front of the room and then lecture the persons who just arrived. What they do is they sit next to them. They get them coffee, they say, Hey, I know exactly what tonight feels like. And that's the whole message. That's the whole thing. I mean, if you grew up, some of you guys grew up in a version of Christianity where the goal was to just appear like you had arrived. You got to look right, you got to speak right, you got to volunteer enough, you got to give enough, you got to show up enough, right? Check all the boxes. And somewhere in all of that performance, the actual message got buried for you, for us. Why? Because the actual message is not that we're okay, it's that we're not okay. And God meets us there, anyways. And that meeting changes everything. That's what you carry. Not your success story, your your honest story. The one with the embarrassing middle, you know, that one and the surprising grace at the end. I mean, think about one person in your life right now who's carrying something heavy. Like, for real, just pause and think about this. One person who is stuck in the loop that you used to be stuck in. One person who is managing something that is clearly not staying managed. Like, actually picture them for a second. Don't move past this. Who is it? Son? A daughter? Someone at work? Someone whose marriage is just hanging by a thread? Somebody who keeps joking about the same thing that you know isn't funny anymore? Somebody who's exhausted from pretending that they're okay. Let me give you permission. You don't have to fix them. You don't have to preach at them. You don't have to walk into their life, you know, with all 12 steps laminated and ready to go. Maybe step 12 simply means you stop walking past them. Maybe you sit down, maybe you listen, maybe you finally tell them the truth about your story. Maybe you say, Me too. Mine looked different, but I actually know what it feels like to need help. Because maybe everything that God has been doing in you these 12 weeks isn't only about you. And let me just tell you this you don't need a degree to do this. You don't need the title and be a pastor. You don't need willing, all you need is willingness to be honest and to show up. That's what carrying the message looks like. So here's the last section of step 12. It's the one that might be the most important and the least glamorous. It's this practice these principles in all of your affairs. So all of them. So just to be really clear, everything, right? Not just in your quiet time, not just in like some small group that you're in, not just on Sundays when you're like in the spiritual headspace, right? In all of your affairs. Let me give you an example. In traffic on the 680. Yeah, I can tell you

Practicing Principles In All Affairs

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lots of stories about the hell I've lived in on there, right? Right. In the group chat, where your family starts to talk about Thanksgiving already, and somebody inevitably says something they shouldn't have said, and so now you're thinking it's canceled, right? In the performance review, in the dating app conversation that starts going sideways in the moment at 11 p.m. at night when the old pattern whispers, hey, guess what? I still got your number. The steps, my friends, were never designed to be this temporary intervention. They were designed to be this new operating system. And let me tell you the difference between an intervention and an operating system is that an operating system runs in the background all the time. You don't turn it off for the hard moments because it's already on. They are the path you walk every single day. Not because you have arrived, but because walking is the arriving. The practice is the transformation. So let me just be clear about something. I think that one of the most common failure points after a series like this isn't dramatic. It's actually really slow. It's quiet. People come to the end of like a spiritually intense season, they feel good. And then what happens is gradually, quietly, over weeks, months, what happens is they stop practicing. The inventory gets skipped, the prayers get a little shorter, the honesty gets a little more selective, the amends get postponed. And eventually they look up and they

The Slow Drift Toward Relapse

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realize that they're back at the same place that they started, wondering what happened to the person that they actually were in September. The steps actually have a word for this. They call it relapse. But it doesn't only happen with subsidence, it happens with every human pattern. Like the anger comes back, the control comes back, the shame comes back, the isolation comes back. Not because the awakening wasn't real, but because the practice got dropped. So, what does it actually look like to practice these principles and all of our affairs? Well, it looks like step one becoming a daily posture rather than a one-time admission. Like waking up and acknowledging today again that you need something bigger than yourself. And that's not weakness, friends, that's honesty. And honesty is literally the engine of everything else. It looks like continuing to take inventory. Step 10 said to continue taking in personal inventory, and when you're wrong, to promptly admit it. Promptly, I'm telling you, is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It doesn't mean eventually. It doesn't mean like when you feel emotionally ready, it means promptly, right? Because the longer you wait, the more you start to explain it away. You ever done that one? And the less it comes true. It looks like keeping step 11, this connection alive through prayer and reflection, not as a religious performance, but as a daily check-in with the God who has been with you through all 12 of these weeks. And I'm telling you right now, that relationship doesn't main itself. You tend it or it goes quiet. And some of you have experienced this. And it looks like staying in community. This is uh one I want to land on a little bit. Step 12 works in community. They were never designed these steps to be done. And solo practice. Bill Wilson, or also known as Bill W, he's one of the founders of AA, wrote that no one person can survive this alone. The early church actually knew the same thing. They didn't scatter after Pentecost and go practice their faith privately, right? It's just my private relationship. They stayed together. They shared meals, they confessed to one another. They prayed for one

Why Community Keeps You Steady

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another. In fact, the brother of Jesus writes it this way: confess your sins to Jesus. Excuse me, I just said the brother of Jesus. To each other, you should confess them to Jesus too. And pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has a great power and produces wonderful results. So confess to each other. Pray for one another. That's not a program. That's that's people. This is what the church is actually supposed to be. So I want to be kind of direct to all of you about like one of my hopes uh coming out of this summer. One of my biggest hopes for you is that you actually find a small group of people, if you're not in one right now. Like a group that's small enough out of these rows that turn into kind of a circle, that's small enough that you actually can't hide. Small enough that when you don't show up, people notice. Small enough that when uh you're honest, it's not this performance because everybody else else in the room is actually being honest. I hope that you find a step partner, like one person who'll just check in with you regularly, not a therapist, although therapy is also great. And if you've not tried it, I strongly suggest it. One person who like actually knows your story and then has permission to ask you the questions like, how's that thing going? Like, did you have that conversation? Are you still practicing, or did you just quietly stop? And honestly, I just I really hope you keep showing up here, not because we're the only place God shows up. It's not. But because this is your community. These are the people who've walked this with you. And there's something I really believe that gets built in the 11 weeks with shared honesty that doesn't get built in any other way. Don't walk away from it when the series ends. So we started this summer with five words. And I want to end with the same five words. Um, just said from a different place. The first one was, I can't, but God can. So week one, we said, I can't. That was an admission, a collapse, like it was a white flag, right? Twelve weeks later, I can't is a posture, not a defeat, but a daily orientation. Right? This decision to keep your hands open instead of white knuckling the thing you were never meant to carry. I can't tell you, wearing this little bracelet that we've given out how many times and through this summer, how freeing personally it's been for me to run into a situation or get up and be like, gosh, this is really kind of oddly freeing to be like, I can't. I literally can't. I can't control it. I can't. I already know I can't do that. So I'm just gonna say I can't. I already know I'm not strong enough to do that thing. So I can't, but I'm gonna find something. So in the week two, we said, but God can. And that was hope, right? But it was also uncertain and it was kind of fragile. And 12 weeks later, but God can, I really believe, as a testimony, not just a theological statement, but like a lived, shared experience. Like you've seen it, something moved, something shifted, something that was stuck, maybe got unstuck, not perfectly, not completely, but enough to know that this is what real, this is real and it's actually worth continuing. And then we want to give you a practical way to keep this actually walking out, to keep walking all of this stuff out. And so that's what you guys saw in the lobby. So when you're done today, um, out in the lobby, you're gonna find all kinds of things. Because kind of here's the deal. We just spent 12 weeks going through this formative, transformative space where we challenged ourselves, we challenged the things in us. Many of you guys learned, experienced the 12 steps for the first time, and you just thought that was for other people, and you didn't realize how much it spoke to you and actually dealt with a lot of your stuff, which is great. It's a win. But you dedicate

Ministry Fair And Next Steps

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all this time and it doesn't end. So, what we've done is out there, we were doing a ministry fair. This has nothing to do with volunteering. This is purely to get you out of rows and into circles because you've dedicated that kind of time. What would it look like if you dedicated another three, six, eight, twelve weeks to being in community and continuing this journey to live it out? So, out there is essentially what I call like a Sizzler's buffet. You remember the Sizzlers Buffet? Right? It's got everything, right? Everything for everyone. And that's exactly what's going on out there. It has everything. There's no excuse for you not to be able to get there's short-term classes about the Bible. There's stuff for so many men have talked to me. There's men's groups every there, and they're meeting here, different nights of the week. Men's groups around tables, um, women's groups, there's community groups. Those of you want to get into community groups at tables so you don't have to go into somebody else's house and wonder why it smells like that, right? We've all been there. Just being real. Uh, there's young adult stuff. There's stuff like we talked about for students, there's stuff for seniors. And yes, you're a senior if you take the discount. We'll argue about that later. Uh, there's stuff literally for everyone. There's so many of you, and I've I've loved carrying this with you, but so many of you like are just struggling in relationships and marriages and stuff. We got we got marriage groups, like whatever your life stage in, literally it's in the buffet and it's out there and an opportunity. And I really, really hope that you'll take advantage of it. Because not because finishing 12 weeks means like you've arrived, but because everything we've talked about is about this summer specifically, I think only matters if we practice it, right? And now before we close this series, I want to leave you with just this one uh final thing. So we've heard from Paul already, but Paul wrote this book to the Romans, and it's really thick and it's theological and it's robust. And I want to end with uh something that I feel like kind of lands this whole series because after the first seven chapters of Romans, uh it's the most honest and theological wrestling of all of scripture, really. He gets to this part in chapter eight. He says this I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Some of you guys

Nothing Separates Us From Love

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just need that. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today, nor our worries about tomorrow. Not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. Nothing. Nothing. Not the thing you came in here with in June, not the thing you discovered about yourself in week four, not the amends you still haven't made, not the pattern that came back, not the doubt, not the distance, not the years of trying and failing and then trying again. Nothing separates you from that. So here's where we land. Maybe you had a spiritual awakening, and maybe it was dramatic. I love that. Maybe it was also just quiet and you almost missed it. And maybe you're sitting here thinking, like, Lawrence, I don't think I've had a spiritual awakening. I'm still struggling. Like my marriage still feels broken. I'm still angry. I'm still carrying the thing I walked in here with 12 weeks ago. I'm not even sure I believe all of this yet. I would say, okay. Well, friend, maybe your awakening today is just simply realizing you want one. Maybe you're finally willing to admit that the life you've been trying to manage isn't staying managed. And remember where this whole thing started. I can't. That's enough. Because God can meet you right there. You are called to carry this, not as a burden, but as a gift you literally give away, because giving away is how you keep it. And you're called to practice this every day in some of your affairs. All of your affairs. All of your affairs. Week 12. I mean, 12 weeks ago, literally, we said, I can't. Then we learned, but God can. And then a lot of us said, I think I'll let him. And now step 12 gives us one more sentence. So I will live like that's actually true. Not perfectly, not without struggle, not without days where we feel like we have to start over, but honestly, humbly together, one day at a time. So, my friends, this is not the end of this series.

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This is the beginning of the rest of it.