Sanity | Wade

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what I'd do without relationship.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I told Colleen I was gonna come up here and like, you know, but then I really would have ended all the end if I had done that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But my prerogatives, how many of you relate to that song?

[SPEAKER_00]: How many of you have in some way former fashion said that, maybe not those are that words,

[SPEAKER_00]: about the way we live our life.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's my prerogative.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's my way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Matter of fact, for me, that's what got me to celebrate recovery was living my life my prerogative.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when I got ready to,

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't know where that I hadn't heard that song in years.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was, I was,

[SPEAKER_00]: I hesitate to say pray in about this lesson, but that song out of nowhere came into my head.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I thought, you know what, I'm gonna use that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I looked up what is my prerogative?

[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: When we say that, it's my prerogative.

[SPEAKER_00]: Google says, it's an exclusive right, privilege or power belonging to an individual,

[SPEAKER_00]: often used to assert authority over their own decisions, actions, or choices, without needing permission.

[SPEAKER_00]: It signifies that a specific action is within one's own power or authority.

[SPEAKER_00]: Man, if that does not define the way I lived my life for

[SPEAKER_00]: 10 years.

[SPEAKER_00]: My life was kind of like, uh, uh, I don't know why I'm picturing an Oreo.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there was there was Christianity, then there was that middle section of about 10 years where I said, it's my prerogative.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then now I'm back on the other side of the Oreo, trying to live Christianity again, feeling like I failed miserably half the time, but trying every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: So how does this mindset look, if it's my prerogative, if we're living a my prerogative lifestyle, in our past lives, it would've, if it feels good do it do what makes me happy, it just makes me happy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just doing, I just want to be happy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm living my life, it makes me happy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or,

[SPEAKER_00]: for us co-dependence, it makes them happy, you know, as long as she's happy, as long as he's happy, as long as whoever my bought whoever, then I'm going to live that way to keep whoever happy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I say for me,

[SPEAKER_00]: I still slip into my prerogative style of living.

[SPEAKER_00]: In my current, currently, in my present recovery, how it looks is me getting my feelings hurt or me getting angry because when my feelings are hurt, I quickly go to anger because that's the main thing to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: When a sponsor or an accountability partner calls me out on something, wait a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do write most of the time, who are you to judge me?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's my prerogative, I'm, this is between me and Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or that battle, we have in our minds over what to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we hear those key phrases whispered in our ear.

[SPEAKER_00]: I deserve this, or they owe me this, or this ain't fair.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're still going back or trying to slip back into that my prerogative attitude.

[SPEAKER_00]: So tonight's lesson is sanity, but you can't look at sanity without looking at least mentioning insanity and, you know, insanity, Alfred Einstein, or at least he's been given credit in reading for praying for this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm wondering, did Albert, or had I just not even say this?

[SPEAKER_00]: But at least he gets the credit for it's insanity is doing the same thing over and over

[SPEAKER_00]: zig-ziggler, however says, I got a better definition for insanity.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, thinking the same things over and over again and expecting different results because thinking always proceeds with action.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, come on, you had that brief second in your mind where you had the decision that might just like I do.

[SPEAKER_00]: That insanity that going back to the same thing over and over again.

[SPEAKER_00]: How many times I've done that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even even preparing this lesson.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm I'm I'm sitting right there just now and man this whole worship set was for me because even in preparing this lesson I have had old way thinking I'm not good enough you're not prepared enough you don't belong up there.

[SPEAKER_00]: and anything else that could be whispered into my ears I've heard, trying to prep for this lesson.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it happens in a very, I even, you know what, I even tried to talk, I didn't try to talk or into it, but I did throw it out there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, you wanna swap lessons because she's gonna be teaching in a few weeks.

[SPEAKER_00]: She said, I will, but, you know, it was that I don't want to, so, you know, she said I will, but I heard I don't want to real clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if insanity is doing the same thing over and over, I looked up sanity, you know, we hear about sanity and sanity.

[SPEAKER_00]: is defined by Google again, having a sound, healthy, and rational mind, characterized by the ability to think clearly, use good judgment, stay grounded in reality, and behave reasonably and function within society.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's really what we all desire, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to have a sound and help the rational mind, but man, we, so many of us have been stuck in the insanity cycle so long because it can become like, how in the world can I get here?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because even now, I still, this week, have found myself in that old school thinking.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it can happen at the driver.

[SPEAKER_00]: It can happen in the drop of a hat for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the way we get from the insanity of our old lives, of our old ways of doing things, to the sanity of having a sound mind, rational thought process is through God's word,

[SPEAKER_00]: and through our hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: Scott talked about it a few weeks ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our hope is in Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, Romans 12 too says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good pleasing and perfect will through his word that we rewire our thinking that we rework our brains that we get out of that same cycle.

[SPEAKER_00]: a thought that we found ourselves stuck in so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians 422 and 23 says, you were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.

[SPEAKER_00]: to be made new in the attitude of your minds, that again, is when we accept Jesus as our higher power, that we are to put off those old things that we are to

[SPEAKER_00]: take control of our mind in those times and allow Christ to show us the way forward in so many situations.

[SPEAKER_00]: Colossians three nine and ten says, do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed and knowledge in the image of your creator.

[SPEAKER_00]: the moment we choose Christ is our power.

[SPEAKER_00]: We start being changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a change the very moment we make that choice and then it is a continuing change.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't happen all at once you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: forgiven all at once, but he will start chipping away and working on us to work out this old lifestyle way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some people I have heard where they dropped a habit or a what a addiction,

[SPEAKER_00]: Immediately, they were able to just walk away from it, clean, never even consider going back to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then I see people who struggle and struggle and struggle.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't seem fair.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will tell you that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It does not seem fair, but I think I was thinking about this this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have pray so many times that the Lord is the Lord would just let me win the lottery.

[SPEAKER_00]: How much good I could do?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh God, I could change so many people's lives in your name, but he knows, he knows, and

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm having to accept the fact that I don't think I'm going to get to win it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, just like he knows those people with the truth with with true hearts that can handle a bunch of money at one time.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows people who will use it for his good.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows, you know, I don't know, I think I would, but he knows the truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: The truth, I don't even know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I only think I know, but he does know the truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: He also knows what each personal needs through their recovery and how it has to play out and work out so that when we arrive at that final day standing in front of him, he can say, well done.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows what it takes for each one of us, and each one of our recoveries is different.

[SPEAKER_00]: Principle two, honestly believe that God exists that I matter to him and that he has the power to help me recover.

[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

[SPEAKER_00]: Principal One, we realized,

[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, we don't have control over anything, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: We think we do everything we try to control, we really pretty much mess up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Principle two, now we believe that God exists, that He loves me, that He loves you, and He has the power to help me come out of my all way of thinking.

[SPEAKER_00]: Step two says, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restores to sanity.

[SPEAKER_00]: For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: His good purpose for you and for me is to have a sound mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: That we can think through, when we are struggling, when we get our feelings hurt, when we, when we get triggered in some way, his purpose for us, I'm telling everyone of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: His purpose for you is that you will have a sound mind, and that you can rationally think.

[SPEAKER_00]: And instead of going back to that old way of dealing with it, say Lord,

[SPEAKER_00]: help me in this moment because everything in me is screaming to do you fill in the blank.

[SPEAKER_00]: His purpose is that you will turn to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is his purpose for your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is his good will.

[SPEAKER_00]: His will for your life is that you will look to him for every single

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, y'all, when we accept that we are powerless and that our true hope is found in our higher power of Jesus Christ, then we will receive some gifts from Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have an across the night, of course, it was just the C.R.A.

[SPEAKER_00]: and across it for sanity.

[SPEAKER_00]: So on your fillings,

[SPEAKER_00]: Psalms 46 133 says, God is our refuge and strength and ever present help and trouble.

[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar in foam, and the mountains quake with their surging.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe,

[SPEAKER_00]: That's some pretty drastic language.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was thinking today, we won't fear if the earth give way, or maybe it's, if a loved one passes away, maybe it's a, if a loved one betrays us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe if our job fades away, that can feel like the earth dropping out from under.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or there's a war going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: The world seems like it's going chaotic.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything you see or here is just everybody screaming about how right or wrong they are about what's going on in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord is our refuge in our strength.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what he wants to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, when we are weak, he is strong.

[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing, he can't be strong for you if you don't turn to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can't be strong for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I turn to my old ways, if I go back to the old school thinking, the old school doing, he can't be my strength and me have it my way too.

[SPEAKER_00]: I say he can't, he won't.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the honest truth of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because,

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, even though all the way back in Dex, it is the 10 commandments says, you'll not have anything else, any other God before me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in reality, our old way thinking as our God, our control, our prerogative, I'm in control, same original sin that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing he gives us is acceptance.

[SPEAKER_00]: he accepts us just like we are.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have to prepare.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have to get it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't have to have my one year chip.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even have to have a 90 day chip or a 30 day chip.

[SPEAKER_00]: He accepts me even before I stand up to take that blue chip.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will accept me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will give me the strength to go take that blue chip.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will take me just like I am in any moment, as long as I turn to him, acceptance, except one another then just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God, Romans 157.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, this is a place of acceptance.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here at CR, I can guarantee you you, if you're not feeling accepted,

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to talk it out with someone because it is a trick that Satan's trying to play because there's not a single one of us in this room that can look at any of you and have any judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know what I've done in my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I know a lot of these people know what they've done in their life and they accept me so listen don't go out of here do not listen to that old voice because that is a voice that I hear I hear that a lot of times that low self esteem that oh so and so must be mad at me they saw me across the parking lot didn't even wave you know that crate that just

[SPEAKER_00]: ridiculous way of thinking that will be whispered in my ear to somehow calls me to feel unaccepted.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, it's CR just like with Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christ accepted us and we accept each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next is a new life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, this one is huge, all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Second Corinthians 5, 17 says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old is gone and the new is here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all, that is, that is huge for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I hear whispered in my ears so many times.

[SPEAKER_00]: what I've been and what I've done.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Christ says, I'm in you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, if you, if you were addicted to alcohol, I have heard it said that you will, you're supposed to always say I'm an alcoholic.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, you're a new creation in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: That may be a temptation.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I get that mindset, but listen, C.R.

[SPEAKER_00]: is different, your higher power is Jesus Christ, and he says, when you accept me, you're a new person that all life is over and done with if you walk out of it, you're finished with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's huge.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so thankful for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing is integrity, listen, if you choose Christ as your power, he will create restore integrity.

[SPEAKER_00]: Third John, four says, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, all we have to do is follow his leading, his guiding, and how do we do that?

[SPEAKER_00]: How do we hear his leading and his guiding?

[SPEAKER_00]: We pray, we get in his word.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talk to our sponsors, we talk to our accountability partners.

[SPEAKER_00]: we include people in our lives, we go to open shared group, we come here.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are the different ways that he can speak to us through people, through his word, through the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And listen, he will create integrity within you, even when you have thrown integrity out the window in your old life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because remember, you're a new creation now.

[SPEAKER_00]: I threw my integrity out the window at one point, I turned my back, but when I came back to him, he started rebuilding those things that I tore apart.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing is trust.

[SPEAKER_00]: Proverbs 3, 5 through 6 says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean out on your own understanding, my prerogative, and all your own understanding.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all your ways submit to him, and he will make your past straight.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's the answer right there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Submit your ways to him, and he'll straighten out your path.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, I, I say that as it's, if it's easy, I know it's not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't get me wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not standing up here, sometimes the road gets very curvy and

[SPEAKER_00]: It was my own way, it was my problem, and that I did not necessarily trust in the Lord on something.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing, the last thing, I believe in this is your power power.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, this is one of the biggest, this is the biggest choice you'll ever make in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you have not made it up to this point, is making Christ your power power.

[SPEAKER_00]: Romans 5 8 says, but God demonstrated His own love for us in this while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have heard that verse my whole life.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when you really stop and think about it, Christ died for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think of the worst place that you've ever been.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to cause triggers here, but you know what you've gone through in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think of what you've gone through.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think of the choices you've made.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever that spot is that you're most ashamed of, that's exactly where you were when God died on the cross for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not sitting in church on Sunday morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not, it's not the, I got my life together and I'm doing pretty good way that he died for.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the way that turned his back on Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the way that chose to live his own prerogative.

[SPEAKER_00]: Screw up his marriage.

[SPEAKER_00]: Screw up his family.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, throw integrity out the window.

[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of my friends turned their back on.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was that way that I hated.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the way that my family was ashamed of.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even some of my family turned my back on me.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was that way that Christ died for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even when I was in my worst sin Christ still loved me, he knew what I was going to do and he still chose to die for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is no other higher power that can help you in your recovery like Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Psalm 68, 19, says praise be to the Lord to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, not only did he die for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He came to this earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: He lived on this earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows what it's like to live on this earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he wants to help you with those things that you're struggling with.

[SPEAKER_00]: Naomi whom one seven says the Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble, he cares for those who trust him.

[SPEAKER_00]: First Corinthians 10 13 says no temptation, okay, hold on, before I read this verse.

[SPEAKER_00]: Please listen to this verse.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because so many times I see people struggle

[SPEAKER_00]: relapse.

[SPEAKER_00]: First Corinthians 10 13 says, no temptation has overtaken you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's set what is common to mankind.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God is faithful.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out

[SPEAKER_00]: y'all.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have read that verse so many times.

[SPEAKER_00]: So many times when I've used the, it's not fair, or whatever, it says, no temptation has overtaken you, Wade, except what is common to mankind.

[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, you ain't the only one in the world being tempted.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're not the only one in the world that's ever faced what you're facing.

[SPEAKER_00]: and God is faithful.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will not let you be tempted more than you can bear.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when you're tempted, He will provide a way out.

[SPEAKER_00]: He'll provide a way out.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's on us to find it's on us to look for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's on us to say God, what is my way out of this?

[SPEAKER_00]: God, I need your help to get out of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: God, I need your help.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because everything within me is wanting to go back to fill in the blank.

[SPEAKER_00]: He provides a way so that you can endure.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that you can pick up that 30 day chip.

[SPEAKER_00]: That 60 day chip, that 90 day chip, that 10 year chip.

[SPEAKER_00]: Temptation is not a CNL, Christ was tempted.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not, he's not shocked that you're tempted.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's not going to turn his back on you when you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me share.