Addiction
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Introduction
Today’s ‘Big Issue’ is that of addiction. And what we’re going to do for the first few minutes is listen to some stories from real addicts and also from experts talking about addiction.
Cos when we think of addiction, in our minds, more often than not, we are taken to alcohol, or drugs, or cigarettes. Because that’s where we hear about most addictions. However, a quick google search shows that there are other addictions in the top ten that might surprise you...
Here are some of the top addictions...
TV, Internet - social media - Facebook etc., Shopping, Gossip, Anger, Food, Coffee, Gambling, Pornography, Alcohol, cigarettes, prescription drugs, Work.
Now, you’ll notice in that list that alcohol, cigarettes, gambling and so on - THE BIG HITTERS - are present, but notice the others that are there too...
TV, social media - how many times do you go to a restaurant or anywhere really, and everyone is on their phones.
And in this list as you look at it, there are some addictions that are sinful - the likes of pornography, gossip, drugs, if they’re illegal drugs.
But there are also some addictions that, in and of themselves, they aren’t sinful - such as, TV, food, shopping, prescription drugs, and so on.
And then again there are some addictions that aren’t going to affect your life terribly much, like coffee.
On the other hand, there are some that can seriously damage your life, like alcohol, gambling, even shopping.
Pause
So let’s hear a couple of real-life stories from people who were caught up in some of these things...
Work...
Over time, workaholics experience breakdown syndrome. They seem fine on the outside, but on the inside, it’s chaos. One study of employees at a large financial consulting firm found that people with a compulsive work mentality reported more headaches, insomnia, and weight gain. Worst of all, they had a higher risk of metabolic syndrome, which contributes to heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.
Gambling...
Soon I was regularly going to local casinos. I had a built in tolerance for gambling - quarter slots were not good enough, dollar slots were not exciting enough. Within six months of starting my gambling in earnest, I was playing $100 slots – the highest available - at $200 a pull. For me it was only about the high - the greater the risk, the greater the reward.
I could not lose money fast enough. Within six months of my intense gambling I had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I went through my home equity line, all of the credit I could get from my credit cards, and borrowed from anybody who would give me money - all under false pretences. I spent any money I could get so I could keep gambling. Money was my drug, and since gambling was how I got high, I would get it anyway I could.
Alcohol...
I went to Spain for 6 months – my university days are still a black hole full of twinkly lights – and was hospitalised with alcohol poisoning. Came back and got married to a heavy drinker, workaholic, who took care of the boring stuff – bills, housework etc. I was a charming wife – he never knew what he was coming home to. We had two beautiful children and drinking to party was no longer an option – so my secret drinking started. Hiding bottles, trying to hide the fact that I’d had a drink, sneaking extra drinks whenever we had company, stealing money for drink, making any excuse to buy a bottle. And it got worse. I started to feel ashamed – a quick burn that another drink would fix.
Pornography...
“Like many addicts, I learnt to hide my addiction. At first glance, I was a regular young adult. I had a stable job working as a counsellor and a sexual purity educator. I went to church every Sunday. I loved Jesus. In secret, I watched pornography and masturbated. The more porn I watched, the higher the dose I needed to get satiated. I would spend a whole weekend indoors binging on pornography, only leaving the house to attend church service.
Shopping...
For the past three years, Elenor, now 33, had been spending money the couple did not have on clothes, shoes and cosmetics she did not need, and which were now mostly hidden, unused, in wardrobes and drawers. ‘I was so anxious about making sure Richard didn’t find out what a mess we were in that the only thing that made me feel better was buying more things,’
And, by the way, a shopping addiction when you DON’T have money is devastating, but there are many who have a shopping addiction but who are so well off they don’t realise they HAVE an addiction.
Pause
Shopping…working…gambling…drinking… In every instance, these addictions are harmful - harmful to the person. Harmful to those close to the person. Families suffer…relationships suffer.
And in each instance of addiction, there is a similar goal - to get that ‘FIX’ - whether it’s the high from a drug, or the relief from prescription drugs, or the elation of winning big, or the feeling of importance being the FIRST person to spread the rumour… In each addiction there is a drive and a motivation for that FIX - the feeling that you’re after.
And it’s that FIX, it’s that feeling that controls the addict. It’s like they are under its spell - in it’s power, under its control. They’re like a slave to it.
Now, couple that with the feeling of shame or embarrassment that people have as an addict - that feeling of having NO control over it, and knowing that their addiction is harming them and their families, but they just can’t stop it... Couple the feeling of being under its spell and in its control with feeling embarrassed and ashamed that you are helpless to stop it and what you’ve got is a slave and a master - the addict being the slave and the addiction being the master.
Pause
Here’s a snippet I found online from a website on abuse...
Many survivors of sexual abuse feel ashamed, embarrassed or guilty and never report the abuse.
That phrase could be describing an addict.
You see, people who are addicts are slaves who are being abused by an abusive master - the addiction being the master.
The good news is that Jesus talked about this in Matthew 6 in his sermon on the mount.
He says, in verse 24...
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
And I would like to unpack this a bit tonight to see how we tackle addictions that we might be facing or how we approach those whom we love who are suffering addiction themselves.
First of all, as we look at this verse…the word SERVE in this verse doesn’t do the text justice. The word used in the Greek is the word doulos. It means slave.
So a better translation would be, no one can be a slave to two masters. This makes it better to understand, because a slave had no rights. They weren’t considered as people - they were “things”…tools that could be thrown out, beaten even killed if the master so desired. They had NO value at all, they had no control over what they did, and they also had no time that belonged to themselves.
It’s not like they could work during the day and have time to themselves at night - not for a slave. They had no time for themselves. The master was in full control of their slaves and every hour was under their control.
Now, once again, notice the similarities to addictions? People who are addicts are controlled by their abusive master - whether that’s the desire to win, the desire to get high, the desire to escape life, the desire for more stuff....
Addicts are controlled by these masters. And in the worst cases, these desires occupy every minute of every day - they have NO TIME for themselves - the main thing on their mind is where the next fix will come from. That’s all they can think about.
Addicts are slaves to an abusive master.
Pause
Next thing to notice from this verse is also in the Greek - so it’s hard to notice…the word for ‘master’ here is the word, Kurios - which is translated in the majority of verses in the bible as ‘lord’. It’s used of Jesus all the time. Jesus is Lord - Kurios.
So you can’t be a slave to two lords. There cannot be two lord’s controlling your life.
And the reason why we can’t be a slave to two lords is because you will love one and hate the other.
Now, this is a Jewish idiom - It’s not that you will love one and HATE the other. It’s you will love one MORE and love the other LESS. There’s competition here.
But the point is that anyone who is LORD over your life SHOULD have your 100% devotion and you should be giving 100% of your time to this master. They must have complete power over you and you must love that lord with everything you’ve got.
Remember Deuteronomy 6:5?
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
100% devotion.
And you can’t do that if you have another lord in your life. There’s competition for who you will serve.
Pause
Jesus then gives an example of not having two masters by saying you can’t serve (or be a slave to) both God and money. But that is just one example of not serving two master. You can substitute ANY other master in here. And addiction is an abusive master.
You cannot be a slave to both God and alcohol addiction
You cannot be a slave to both God and gambling addiction
You cannot be a slave to both God and gossip addiction
You cannot be a slave to both God and ___________
…Fill in the blank yourself.
Pause
And so, with all that in mind, the answer is simple but difficult. We need to serve only one master. We need to be a slave to only one lord, and that lord needs to be THE LORD, Jesus Christ.
Cos this is where I think we go wrong today…Jesus should be our Saviour and Lord...
But what ends up happening in practice is that we want Jesus to be our saviour - we want him to forgive our sins, we want to go to heaven when we die, we want all our wrong-doing cancelled out on the day of judgement.
So...
We want Jesus to be our saviour, but we don’t want him to be our Lord.
And if we go back to our verse in Matthew 6, we can see what that actually looks like in real life...
Cos, it means that we would be a slave to Jesus - we would be serving HIM and him ALONE all day every day. Every minute of every day we would be desiring HIM. It means that our time will NOT be our own - we will always by in HIS control and under his power.
It means that if we have Jesus as our Lord we must bow our knees and worship HIM because he IS our master.
And some people don’t want to do that - because it means surrendering all to Jesus.
However, when I use words like slave and master, it has a negative connotation.
But serving Jesus as our LORD is anything BUT negative, because he is in control of our welfare - FOR OUR BENEFIT. He is kind and loving and caring. His yoke is easy and his burden is light.
And the ‘FIX’ that we get from him - the ‘HIGH’ that we get from Jesus is one that beats any drug here on earth. And when we get to glory, in paradise, that experience will eclipse the effects of the strongest narcotic that man can make.
Pause
We need to have Jesus as saviour AND as Lord.
Cos when this isn’t the case, then we open ourselves up to an alternative master or lord, and that’s when addiction can step in.
So what we need to do is to surrender everything to Jesus and make him Lord of our lives. But can you let go of everything?
Pause
We read from Galatians 5 earlier, when Paul write about walking in step with the Spirit. In verse 1 of that chapter he says this...
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
In my opinion, addiction is a spiritual battle - a battle between our flesh and the spiritual forces of evil in the world.
Why do I say that?
Because the Devil does NOT want us to serve Jesus as our master - as our Lord. And so when we are serving our addictions as our lord then we will love one more, and love the other less. And the Devil wants us to love Jesus less.
Which is why we need the Holy Spirit - to help us to crucify the flesh, to help us to walk in the Spirit and to help us to STAND firm and no longer be burdened by a yoke of slavery.
Picture it like this - the spiritual forces of evil have you on the ground, trampled, beaten, lying in the foetal position with chains all over you. But when Jesus died on the cross he defeated Satan, and without Jesus we stay bound in chains, lying on the ground in the foetal position…but when we put our trust in Jesus, he breaks the chains - HE sets us free so that we are no longer bound by the chains of another master or lord and we are FREE to serve HIM.
And since our battle is spiritual, the ONLY one that can free anyone from addiction and break those chains of slavery is the Holy Spirit.
Willpower or a 12 step program can help, but if anyone wants freed from addiction then they need released from their abusive lord and they need to serve a new and better lord - our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And to do that we need the Holy Spirit, cos it’s a spiritual battle.
And so we need the Holy Spirit to help us, to enable us, to convict us that we need to break the chains of addiction and instead chain ourselves to Jesus christ, by crucifying the flesh and all its desires.
So to overcome an addiction, we need to first confront it - we need to admit that we have an addiction and then we need to call upon the LORD to free us from its bondage and to be Lord over our lives by surrendering EVERYTHING to Him - by giving HIM and him alone 100% of our devotion, love and by serving HIM only.
Pause
So let’s walk by the Spirit, as Paul says in Galatians, so that we don’t gratify the desires of the flesh. And if you know of someone who is caught in addiction and wants freed - pray for them. Pray over them and ask the Spirit to break the chains binding them to their abusive master and instead, bind them to Jesus Christ.
You cannot serve two masters. Jesus needs to be saviour AND LORD of our lives.
And regardless of whether you’re addicted to anything, is Jesus Lord of your life?
Pause
We are about to pray. And as we come to prayer, if you are in an addiction, or you can see the signs of an addiction starting, and you are wanting freed from it… I’m not going to ask you to come up to the front, because there may be a sense of shame or embarrassment, but if you want freed from your addiction you can get freed…but remember, to break from from that master, you need to fully commit to your new master.
Are you ready to do that? Are you ready to make Jesus your LORD as well as your saviour?
If so, as I pray, I want you to picture in your head, lying on the ground, chains around you - chains of addiction, that are binding you. And as I pray I want you to pray with me and picture those chains breaking, allowing you to stand up and to remain standing in the face of your addiction - FREED from your addiction.
Our battle is spiritual, so without the Holy Spirit, this is a battle we cannot win…let’s thank God that we have actually DO HAVE the Holy Spirit to fight this battle with us.
Let’s pray.