Calvary Chapel Staten Island

Guest (Male): Andy Chrisman of 4Him has spent 40 plus years in Christian music and chances are he knows your favorite artist personally. Now he's bringing you their stories. Andy Chrisman in his new podcast, One Degree of Andy. He sits down with the voices behind the song for real, honest, and faith-filled conversations you won't hear anywhere else.

Guest (Male): That's a great question.

Guest (Male): If you love Christian music, this is your backstage pass, the One Degree of Andy podcast. Listen now to One Degree of Andy wherever you get your podcasts.

Guest (Female): Hello and welcome to God In Our City, the daily edition. Your host and Bible teacher is Pastor Dave Watson. Pastor Dave has been the pastor of Calvary Chapel on Staten Island for 35 years. In addition, he is the co-founder and president of the New York Institute for Biblical Studies, nyibs.net.

To receive a special downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, please go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That's calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Now here's Pastor Dave and our show.

Pastor Dave Watson: Good evening, everybody. Welcome again to God In Our City, the daily edition. As Ali said, I'm Pastor Dave Watson, the privilege of being the pastor of Calvary Chapel, one of the founders and the president of the New York Institute for Biblical Studies, nyibs.net, and the host of the show where I have the incredible privilege of talking to you, our amazing audience.

I hope you're doing well. I hope this week has been a blessing to you. We're talking about a delicate subject. We're talking about addiction and recovery. I know for some of you it's painful. For others of you, it's like people who are addicted are weak. People who are addicted, what's wrong with them? Why do we need this? For some of you, it's bumming me out, Pastor.

But I assure you, this is an important topic. Because of that, we have some resources we'd love for you to have. We have a study guide for this and every lesson. They're only going to be up another week or so. Make sure you get them. A study guide on iRecovery, which is our study this week. We also have the Book of Proverbs we'd love to give you, as well as a verse pack that goes with that so you can meditate on the Bible verses.

But this is a tough but very, very important topic. I think Proverbs gives us great wisdom on this matter. I've had the privilege of being a pastor now for over 40 years. I have seen the ravages of addiction, the ravages of drug use. It's very painful to watch. That's why perhaps I'm so passionate. I told you early on in my own family history, my dad had his demons, especially with alcohol, and essentially smoked and drank himself to an early grave.

Beyond that, because of the pastoral ministry I've been in, I've seen it and the devastation it causes. To pull a woman off the casket of her son who has died from an overdose is something I could go a couple lifetimes without doing again. It was brutal. The pain that was inflicted upon her because of an overdose, because of addiction.

To have a family having moved away to have to come back and bury their son, who they were just waiting for, just waiting for him to fall again, not knowing the next time would be his last. But such pain, such pain. Going to the funeral home and just seeing the pain. Having people within my congregation who had almost nobody in their life really, small amount of people in their life, great amount of clean time as they say, and then see them fall apart and be found with a needle in their arm or having overdosed in another way in an abandoned building.

Someone dying in a gutter because of alcohol. It's hard to see. I'm passionate about helping people get themselves out of that situation and into recovery because I know the pain that is possible because of that. I've been blunt with people through the years. I told one individual, "What do you want me to tell your kids?" And they said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, you're going to die. It's just a matter of time. What do you want me to tell your kids?"

And then I told the person not to call me again, speak to me again until he spoke to me from rehab. And that person's, by the grace of God, turned their life around. I've been hard like that with others or even harder with no success. So, I'm passionate about this. I hope I'm not boring you or messing with your head regarding it. But it's important and there's a lot of people addicted who need to move into recovery, a lot.

And we want to be part of their recovery as the church. So, let me just encourage you as you follow along here today to take this seriously and also think about who you know that needs help. Let's get into our text today. Let's jump in and look at our memory verse and our scripture reading. Then we'll pray and then we'll dig deeper into this issue of recovery.

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise." That's our verse for the day. It's our memory verse for the week. So, think through that, be thinking about that. And let's read and get into now our scripture reading, Proverbs 23:29-35.

"Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who tarry long over wine, those who go to try mixed drink. Do not look at wine when it's red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the end, it bites like a serpent, stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, your heart utter perverse things. You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast. 'They struck me,' you will say, 'but I was not hurt. They beat me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake? I must have another drink.'"

Father in heaven, through your Holy Spirit, teach us today. Teach us today, dear God. Help us to understand these issues with addiction and help us, Lord, to help people who are addicted. Help us, Lord, to become the people we need to be to help people in addiction. But Lord, if there's someone listening today who needs to get into recovery, please speak to them. Please speak to them in Jesus' name, Amen.

A reminder as we have walked through this that iRecovery requires some things of us. It requires choosing truth over deception. It requires choosing exhorters over enablers. We must pick people in our life who will really get in our face. And it also requires choosing reality over fantasy. There's trials with addiction, there's temptation with addiction, there's transformation with addiction. It makes us somebody we don't want to be and there's trouble with addiction. It can and often does destroy us.

Now we want to pull up and look at two more things it requires of us. But one thing that it requires of us, this whole idea of recovery requires choosing responsibility over blame, choosing responsibility over blame. I need to be someone who has a stand-up life is what I'm saying. Proverbs 28:13, "Whoever conceals his transgression will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy."

I got to stop hiding and pretending I'm okay. I need to be a stand-up person. Sadly, when I was in junior high, I had a language teacher who was an alcoholic. And he struggled mightily. But he tried to fake it and pretend he wasn't. And he did so for years. We would see him coming out of a janitor closet, hiding liquor in his sport coat. So, we knew as sixth, seventh, and eighth graders that he had a problem with alcohol.

The faculty knew, and if you got anywhere near him, you knew because he smelled like alcohol. Yet he didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to get help until they fired him. And it was an absolute mess. And it was humiliating to him in a small town that we lived in. His kids were humiliated. It was just horrible because he wouldn't take responsibility.

Our text tells us, "Whoever conceals his transgression will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes it will obtain mercy." There's an interesting verse in the Book of 1 John. It says, "If we confess our sins," it says, "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." That's 1 John 1:9. But that is a verse that speaks to the heart of this issue. It's saying the same thing about our sin that God does.

God calls our addictions sin. He calls alcoholism, that's a phrase we use, he calls that drunkenness. We try to make it sophisticated, put a veneer of sophistication on it. But in reality, if my drug of choice, the thing I'm using to ruin my life, is alcohol, I'm a drunk. That's what I am. And I need to get help. I need to admit my problem and get help. The freest thing that you can do, the thing that will free you up the most, is to take responsibility.

Often times, you've probably said it, I know I've said it, you say someone made you mad. Well, no one made you mad. You chose to get mad. "Well, they pushed my buttons." Stop it. Stand up, take responsibility. It is your fault. It is your fault. And that is true with addiction. It is your choice. If it's not your choice, then there's no way of getting out of it without someone doing something to you like giving you another drug or something because then you're dependent on someone else to help you get out because it wasn't your fault you got in.

Stand up, be a stand-up person. It's me. It's me. I'm the problem. And then there's the blame game. The text says in Proverbs 19:3, "When a man's folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord." Who does he blame? The Lord. "This happened to me, but God, you made me this way. This happened to me, but you brought this woman into my life, this man into my life. This happened to me. It's not my fault." No. It is the blame game. I must take responsibility over blame.

If you're just joining us, this is Pastor Dave Watson. You're listening to God In Our City either on 1place.com or on YouTube or Facebook or on 570 AM The Mission or someplace where you listen to podcasts. We're talking about iRecovery. We're talking about a series we call Living iSmart in an eStupid World. And we're stopping right here as we talk about this subject and we're really coming down hard on taking responsibility over blaming, being a person who is stand-up and refuses to blame others for what has happened or is happening in their life.

When we conceal, we don't heal. When we hide it, we don't deal with it, we don't heal. We just get to become more of a mess. We get to cause more damage. And sometimes what you do when you are addicted is you cause so much damage that it's almost impossible for you to recover your life back. The people in your life that love you, the people in your life who want the best for you, they're not God. They don't have unlimited perseverance and longsuffering.

There will come a point where you have so broken the trust that you have with them that they will have nothing more to do with you. They will wash their hands of you. God will never do that, but the people in your life who have stood by you, even after standing by you, will come to a point where they go, "Okay, that's good. I'm done. I'm done." Why? Because the person I'm dealing with doesn't want genuine help. The person I'm dealing with does not want to get out of this situation. Apparently, they enjoy the pain.

So, if that's you today, this requires choosing responsibility over blaming. Stop blaming the job, stop blaming the pressure, stop blaming your parents, stop blaming your family lineage. Stop blaming everyone but you. Look in the mirror and say, "It's me, it's me, it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer."

Also, iRecovery requires choosing not just responsibility over blame but accountability over isolation. Living without accountability is described for us in the Book of Proverbs, the 18th chapter, and the first verse. It says, "Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire. He breaks out against all sound judgment."

So, if and when I pull back and am to myself, I'm doing that for a reason. I want to do what I want to do, and I'm breaking out against all sound judgment. I want to do what I want to do. And living with accountability is the opposite. "Without counsel, plans fail, but with many advisers, they succeed." So, I need accountability. I need people in my life to help me to make not just good decisions but great decisions.

If I find myself pulling back and living in such a way that I am not getting the counsel I need, I don't want to hear what other people have to say. I want to only listen to me. There's another name for me when I do that. I am playing the fool. Why? Because I am setting myself up as the only authority and I'm not listening to what other people say.

We all need Proverbs 27:17 people in our lives. "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." I need somebody in my life, oh I need somebody in my life, you need somebody in their life who will say to us, "What are you doing?" who will be with us at a party and say, "Are you having a drink? What are you stupid? You're an alcoholic. Are you dumb?" We need someone who can say that to us. We need that level of accountability. We need that level at times of strife, someone just getting in our face.

iRecovery requires choosing responsibility over blaming it on somebody else, and it requires choosing accountability over isolation. Now we've talked about five simple truths here. Not the 12-step program I'm talking about. I have nothing against that. If you want to use that, please use that. But remember, recovery requires choosing truth over deception, requires choosing exhortation over enablers, requires choosing reality over fantasy, requires choosing responsibility over blame, and requires choosing accountability over isolation.

So, where are you at today? Why did God bring you along to listen to this message on God In Our City? Do you know someone struggling with addiction who needs to get into recovery? Heaven knows that there are enough different recovery mechanisms in our world today. There's 12-step meetings, there's 12-step meetings that are Christian. They're Celebrate Recovery, which is a 12-step Christian program. There are Christian rehabs. There are rehabs that will let you do it in a Christian way. And then there's just rehabs.

And there's enough people, enough resources out there that someone who wants help can get help if they'll admit where they're at. So, do you know somebody or, please, let's be honest today, someone listening today, you're in a bad spot. Your addiction is winning. It's been winning for a long time. And you need to get yourself into recovery, and you need to get yourself into recovery yesterday.

Look up the nearest Teen Challenge to you. If you're here in the city, call the Bowery Mission. If you don't get satisfaction there, call 718-720-5390, 718-720-5390. There are resources here on Staten Island in a Christian setting to help you. There are opportunities available to help you to get sober.

Get right with God first. If you don't know Christ as Lord and Savior, open your heart to Him. But please, please don't stop playing Russian roulette with your life. The truth is all but one of the barrels is loaded. You're going to destroy yourself. Please, I've seen it too many times. For those who love you, but most of all for yourself and for your relationship with God, get into recovery. Get into recovery today. Today.

Let's pray. Lord, we've had a tough conversation the last few days. And Lord, we just pray for the people who are listening. Lord, some have family members who need to get into recovery. Some have friends. Some, Lord, they themselves need to get back into recovery or get into recovery for the first time. Help them, Lord, to take the principles we've been talking about and apply them to their heart and life.

Lord, help no one that's listening today take this lightly or, Lord, brush this off. May this be a moment of change in their life. We bring them before you and we pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.

Thank you for listening. Tomorrow, we'll conclude our study here on iRecovery. Next week we'll talk about money, generosity, giving. And the following week after that, God willing, we'll begin our series on the Sermon on the Mount. Hope you've enjoyed our time together. Please go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc, calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Download our free resources. Consider making a gift to God In Our City. God bless you. Can't wait to talk to you again tomorrow on another edition of the daily edition of God In Our City.

Guest (Female): Thanks for listening to God In Our City with your host, Pastor Dave Watson. We hope the show was a blessing to you. Again, to receive a downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That's calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Please check out Pastor Dave's blog at nycshepherd.com. That's nycshepherd.com. Please invite a friend and join us every weekday for another edition of God In Our City.

Guest (Male): Andy Chrisman of 4Him has spent 40 plus years in Christian music and chances are he knows your favorite artist personally. Now he's bringing you their stories. Andy Chrisman in his new podcast, One Degree of Andy. He sits down with the voices behind the song for real, honest, and faith-filled conversations you won't hear anywhere else.

Guest (Male): That's a great question.

Guest (Male): If you love Christian music, this is your backstage pass, the One Degree of Andy podcast. Listen now to One Degree of Andy wherever you get your podcasts.