“I can’t stop drinking”

“Go to the doctor. Your liver's just so damaged. You drink any more, you're going to die. And those who could not drink alcohol or couldn't stop, now all of a sudden can stop. Now, to be honest with you, some can't even stop them. but a lot can. Cigarettes smoking. I can't stop. Go to the doctor, you've got lung cancer, you smoke again, you're going to die. And many are able to stop. Some again aren't able to, but many are able to stop. Well, let me tell you, the best people, the best churches,”

“and commonly cited triggers for relapse. Addiction thrives in isolation. Active addiction often leads to damaged relationship, burned bridges, a retreat from social connections. In early recovery, individuals might feel isolated even when physically around others, struggling to reconnect with healthy friends and family, are finding themselves alone with difficult emotions that they use substances and indulgences to avoid.”

“the flesh, because failure, defeat, leads to brokenness and bondage, to despair and to shame in so many of our lives. So let me start with what I would call a concept that we need to grasp, a concept for us to grasp, and that is the concept of what is the meaning of the word”

“and through the power of the Spirit living in you, you can live a new life and indeed live with hope for the future. Father, thank You today for the victory that Jesus has provided. But even as I thank You for that victory that we see and that we hear in Scripture, I pray that today, Lord, there would be someone here who would see and know that the battles and the brokenness and the bondage that have so often defined their life”

“quality. What do you know about an addict? They just want more, more. Alcohol, drug, whatever it may be, more, more, more. And the Bible tells us that for many people, money is just an addictive quality. It is something that we pursue more and more. Listen to Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verse 10. He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. That's a very simple statement, but oh,”

“Unfortunately, many children in the township are orphaned. They do not have a mom to take care of them. Not always because she's absent in body, but often because she's absent in mind. Many are orphaned due to the unhealthy addiction to drugs and alcohol plaguing so many single moms. These moms lose the ability to care for their children when their addictions take over their lives. And because of this self-destructive behavior, the defenseless babies are left orphaned on the streets.”

“frankly, when they have their alcohol and have their drugs, they seem like normal and nice people. You know, some alcoholics that I've known have been some of the nicest people I've ever known. But what they would not reckon with was that what they were using to help them normalize their life was actually something that was destroying them underneath the surface. And in just the same way that substance abuse does that to the body, greed and lust and hate and envy, these things do this”

“Never. Never will you be the exception to God's rule. You will just prove again and again the truth of God in your life. It happens every day to people who abuse alcohol. It happens every day to people who have substance abuse, to people who begin to gamble for the fun of it and just a little use of my money, and then they become a compulsive or ultimately an addicted gambler. It's true of people with envy and jealousy. It's true of people who are greedy for money.”

“and seeking to engage and to deliver those who are living out lies in their life. While the world wants to call every effort on our part to try to confront its wrong direction as a hate, the reality is many times it's nothing more than love being lived out. As a parent, there's no way I could watch a child that I love or a grandchild in my life begin to abuse alcohol and drugs and become an addict and that not provoke me to do everything”

“We can't do this alone. We all end up with the wrong identity because we try to do it alone. See, I wasn't always like this. I was a heathen. I was a liar. I was a cheater. woman I as an alcoholic, drug addict, sinner, rich, famous, privileged, saved by grace. It's not how well one sounds because it's not about me. It's about Christ himself. It's the”

“You hear so many stories about rock stars. Well, you know, we were like rock stars. And we were traveling like rock stars. Not all over the United States alone, but England, Iron, Germany, France, all over Europe. Now by the grace of God I was never addicted to drugs or alcohol. But if I had a problem in my life it was women. And God has a way of, well His timing is always perfect, He's God.”

“destroys them. And while we like to have the idea that people who are greedy are like the proverbial image of Scrooge, someone who is isolated, someone who is irritated, someone who is indifferent, the fact of the matter is there are a lot of people who are greedy that don't look anything like Scrooge. They're much more like alcoholics and drug addicts. People who,”

“Today, we're talking about what it means to have a growing dependence on grace. When it comes to dealing with the issue of the flesh, the way out, the way through, the way beyond is a growing dependence upon grace. I'll say more about that at the end of the message, but let me back up right now and just simply ask this question. How many of you have ever heard”

“and I will indulge my flesh in a wrong way. And Paul knew that this was what created, even though he'd had great experiences with God, that this created a daily need for dependency upon the grace of God, because there was a struggle going on inside of him. Listen to how he describes that struggle. Romans chapter 7 and verse 18. Romans chapter 7, or excuse me, Romans chapter 7 and”

“marginalize and would be a point of struggle for him. But whatever it was, Paul saw it as a providence that God was using something physically in his life in order to help him to learn dependency that was needed with God. But having said that, there is also a case to be made that when Paul”

“You can't just grit it out to be a good Christian living to follow Christ in this world. The only way that you and I experience the power of Christ is through a spiritual dependence that is built on the foundation of the grace of God that saves us and therefore becomes the grace of God that sustains us.”

“spoke of the thorn in his flesh, not only was he personally referring to a physical reality that created greater dependency, but that something else that Paul was referencing was what he did throughout all of his letters, and that was the fact that the flesh can so often be the tripping point of our walk with God. John MacArthur, in his commentary, so very well helps to clarify this. He says the phrase in the flesh could also be rendered for or because of the flesh.”

“We're looking at two sides of the same coin. There was a physical reality that limited Paul, but there was an internal frustration and struggle that could easily become indulgent in Paul's life, and he knew he had to depend upon the Lord to deliver him from it. So, a concept for us to grass, the flesh. Now let's move on to the second thing I want us to look at today, and that is a”

“can indeed be put away because of who Christ is and what He has done. I pray that here and now, in this moment, there would be someone who would call upon the name of Jesus that they might be saved, that there's someone who would be willing today to admit that they know that they can't fix themselves, but Lord, they're looking to you, they're depending on you, they're calling and crying out to you, and Lord, that's all that you ask, is that we would come in humility and in”

“Our religion is intended to teach us every day of our lives that we are dependent upon the same grace that saved us to sustain us and to keep us. This is how Paul Tripp wrapped that up. He said, real prayer is prayed in an attitude of what the Puritans called importunity, which is the condition of being troublesome or persistent”