Admit | Wade

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I know I'm loved, and y'all are gonna suffer the whole lesson.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tonight's the admit lesson, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Am I right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tonight is the admit lesson.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm fixing the admit something to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: In 1982,

[SPEAKER_01]: To 1986, I wore this, and I had matching ones for my wrist.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because believe it or not, I haven't always looked like this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was a strapping 185 pounds and played basketball, believe it or not.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I was a basketball player and every game.

[SPEAKER_01]: I get all different colors, but I chose the red white and blue because it just took me back to 82, so there's a lot of mission for the night.

[SPEAKER_01]: I might put that back on because I haven't burned enough up here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, tonight it is the admit lesson and personal forces openly examine and confess my

[SPEAKER_01]: Matthew 5-8 says, happy or the pure and heart.

[SPEAKER_01]: Step 5 says, we admit it to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed, James 5-16.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, admitting is a hard thing to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a hard thing to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of went into my work world a little bit on this.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you, some of you may have, there's no judgment there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not trying to point anybody out, but if you have ever had a criminal charge against you, you have been brought before a judge, most likely.

[SPEAKER_01]: are not guilty.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in the state of Georgia, there's three ways you can plead, you can plead not guilty, you can plead guilty, guilty means that the defendant admits to committing the crime as charged, or you can enter an offered plea, an offered plea

[SPEAKER_01]: offered probably named after the guy that first did it.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the way laws usually work.

[SPEAKER_01]: The defendant maintains their innocence, but acknowledges the prosecution has enough evidence to convict them.

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like in my life, and I feel like I'm probably not alone,

[SPEAKER_01]: try that with ourself, and we may even try that with God, but the admit lesson is fixing to tell you, God will not accept an offered plea.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're either guilty or not guilty, and if you are guilty, you simply admit it to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: to start a real recovery is beyond us with God, beyond us with ourself, beyond us with God, and acknowledge how we got ourselves into this place, which is our own selfish behaviors, and it meant the God we know he has a better path.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's all it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now a lot of times people say, man, you know, I can admit to God, I can even admit to myself, but man having to sit down and tell somebody, that's where people get really hung up.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's where they get hung up.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I've heard people that have actually gone through a step study, did the full

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I guess technically it wasn't a fool, moral inventory and sat down with someone and shared their story, but they still left parts out because they were too ashamed to talk to somebody about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: it's important to go back and do it again and do it completely and maybe you have never done it at all and probably right now you're thinking you're crazy I'll never do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we're going to talk about the things the reasons why is so important to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number one is if I admit my wrongs we lose our sense of isolation.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've said this before and there's, man, this is so true.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's so true for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I assume everything is true for me, it's true for everybody.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I'm no special person.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the very thing that Satan puts before me, and tempts me with, the moment I give into it, he's the very one telling me what a sorry person I am for doing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Immediately, it goes from, oh, and they know a big deal to, wow.

[SPEAKER_01]: You call yourself a Christian?

[SPEAKER_01]: We lose our sense of isolation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Beloved said, it is not good for man to be alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will make a help or suitable for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was it all the way back in Genesis 2018.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even before there was sin in the world, back in the Garden of Eden, God recognized that man did not need to be alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you sin, when I sin, the very thing that Satan is going to, the very reason why Satan tries to tell you what a sorry Christian you are or what a sorry person you are husband, father, wife, daughter, whatever, is because he wants you to withdraw.

[SPEAKER_01]: He wants you to cut the contacts.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it's all about.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why he wants to isolate us.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when we confess these things that Satan uses against us, that nobody could even ever love us.

[SPEAKER_01]: He tells you, nobody will ever love you.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to think horrible of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're probably kicky out of C.R.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're the worst person there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody's ever coming there.

[SPEAKER_01]: This done that kind of stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: the moment you confess that stuff and those people these people us people still love you that lies proven wrong Satan that that sin no longer has a hold on you Satan can't pull that string on you anymore you cut that tie you break that chain he knew all the way back

[SPEAKER_01]: that we need people, Satan knows we need people too.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why he tries to get us alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, we will begin to lose our unwillingness to forgive.

[SPEAKER_01]: How many times have any times have you looked at someone

[SPEAKER_01]: No one you're called up in a bunch of mess yourself, and you think, at least I'm not as bad as that person.

[SPEAKER_01]: At least I'm not as addicted, at least I'm not, I mean, they're a liar, at least I tell the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: I admit, I mean, we all do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: We look at someone else to try to make ourself feel better.

[SPEAKER_01]: does something against us.

[SPEAKER_01]: We want to hold on to that, forgetting all the things we done to all these people, to all of our loved ones.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we fail to forgive, but God says be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just this Christ God forgave you.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's Ephesians 432.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have to, we have to forgive.

[SPEAKER_01]: because Christ is forgiven us.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we are forgiven, we have to... Jesus told a whole parable about this very thing, about the master and this guy owed him money.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he forgave him of the debt.

[SPEAKER_01]: He could have thrown him in prison, but he forgave him the debt, but yeah, that guy went out and then he wanted to have some guy

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't expect to be forgiven if you're not willing to forgive.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, Christ lived on this earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: He knows it's hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of his very closest friends betrayed him.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Judas betrayed him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And yet he still loved him.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's easy to read that, it's easy to think about that, and think, oh, Judas, what a sorry person, you know?

[SPEAKER_01]: God love, Jesus loved him, just the same God loved him, the same person, still loved him.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't give up on him, Judas did what he did, but Jesus didn't quit loving him just because he did that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Never in there, does it say,

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus cursed him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus told him, you know, what a sorry person he was.

[SPEAKER_01]: He just told him, go do what you need to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even knowing what that was.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number three, we will lose our inflated false pride.

[SPEAKER_01]: When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, you can go all through proverbs, reading about pride.

[SPEAKER_01]: In reality, in reality, there's not one single thing that I have to really be proud of.

[SPEAKER_01]: Every thing that I have done,

[SPEAKER_01]: That's good, or right, has been prompted by Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's what's good in me.

[SPEAKER_01]: Left to my humanness.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whew, it's a bad scene.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Christ, I have no reason to be proud.

[SPEAKER_01]: Only Christ in me who works through me.

[SPEAKER_01]: forgiveness thing, at least I ain't doing that, at least I'm not over here doing this.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, now we are where we are and we work through what we work through and it's through all of us through Christ that helps us make it through these things.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number four, we lose our sense of denial.

[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 32 says, Blessed is the one who sin the Lord does not count against them, and in who spirit is no deceit, no deceit.

[SPEAKER_01]: The greatest lie that we can believe about

[SPEAKER_01]: is that we're okay, we don't really, we'll be okay, we don't really need, do we really need, save your, do we really need Christ?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a pretty good person.

[SPEAKER_01]: I do this, I do that, I help these people, I help this, I give this much money, I'm there every week, I'm

[SPEAKER_01]: None of that matters if it's not for Christ, not a single thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we deny, in reality, people have always heard that God helps those who help themselves, God helps those who help themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not in the Bible anywhere, all right?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: The only thing you can do to help yourself is to admit your need for Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's every bit of what you can do for yourself.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anything else?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just wasted energy.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can try to work hard, you can try to live right, you can try to act right, you can try but if you don't admit that you need Christ, that's it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, move it on, I'm going to give you three reasons or benefits for admitting all your wrongs and your sins to one another.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number one, we gain healing that the Bible promises.

[SPEAKER_01]: That scripture we read just a few minutes ago, James 516, therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

[SPEAKER_01]: The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of times we leave that part off.

[SPEAKER_01]: We start with so that you may be healed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, what does the scripture say right there?

[SPEAKER_01]: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't say forgiven.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've already taken care of that with the Lord,

[SPEAKER_01]: it's a healing.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's what I was talking about in the beginning.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a release.

[SPEAKER_01]: It releases you from those chains, from that bondage, from the sin that we all have given into those paths we've gone down, those things we're ashamed of.

[SPEAKER_01]: The sharing with each other is what heals us.

[SPEAKER_01]: The talking

[SPEAKER_01]: And listen, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

[SPEAKER_01]: That Jesus is taking, they're talking right there that if you're going to share this with somebody, share it with someone who is, what is it like, righteous who is right, righteous with God, and then it's

[SPEAKER_01]: That person's going to end up praying for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just a dump it on them and walk away.

[SPEAKER_01]: These people are, you're sharing it with each other, so you can pray for them, so they can pray for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it says right there, that this matters to God, that these prayers are powerful and effective.

[SPEAKER_01]: We gain the healing through sharing one another.

[SPEAKER_01]: If I sit down with Eddie and I confess to him something that I've done, I never have to worry about because Eddie's reaction, because I know Eddie and he's a righteous godly man,

[SPEAKER_01]: of most likely what everyone in here would be.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's not going to shun me.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's not going to tell me what a horrible person I am.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's probably going to share scripture of some kind with me, and then he's going to pray with me.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I never have to worry about someone finding that out again,

[SPEAKER_01]: how price feels and how most other people are going to react if they ever found that out.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it heals me.

[SPEAKER_01]: It heals my fears to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, we gain freedom.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then they cry to the Lord and their trouble and He saved them from their distress.

[SPEAKER_01]: He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness, and broke away their chains.

[SPEAKER_01]: John 836 says, so if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, we can try.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can try to shake off these chains if we want to, on our own.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus says, if the Son sets you free, you're a free indeed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus Christ is where we find true freedom.

[SPEAKER_01]: You might shake off a habit.

[SPEAKER_01]: an addiction.

[SPEAKER_01]: Most of the time when we do it under our own power, we pick up something else in its place.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can always tell, again, I'm not picking on anybody, but I don't know how many smokers I've seen quit smoking and buddy, they start putting on a pound.

[SPEAKER_01]: because they replace it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that simple.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't correct the reason why and that's just a superficial, really way of explaining it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we do the same thing with whatever habit, with whatever addiction.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we just try to do it on our own, most of the time we just replace it with something else.

[SPEAKER_01]: You might replace drinking, alcoholism, with gambling.

[SPEAKER_01]: You might replace gambling with acting out sexually.

[SPEAKER_01]: You got to get that healing.

[SPEAKER_01]: You got to get that true freedom which is found in Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what makes celebrate recovery such a great program.

[SPEAKER_01]: is because you're not left just to do it on your own.

[SPEAKER_01]: Christ says, I'm here.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll help you.

[SPEAKER_01]: All you gotta do is ask.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number three, we gain support.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we confess our sins, he is faithful in just, and we'll forgive us our sins, and purify us from all unrighteousness.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we gain his support.

[SPEAKER_01]: Galatians 6 2 says, carry each other's burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then Hebrews 3 13 says, be encouraged, but encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sins deceitfulness.

[SPEAKER_01]: That says it right there.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's all about sharing, being there with each other, sharing with each other, helping each other, supporting one another.

[SPEAKER_01]: See, I think, I think, I think we do a great job of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I really do.

[SPEAKER_01]: in this next hour going into open share time and listen if you if you if you just come for this hour I encourage you to step out step out tonight there's no no better time than the present step out tonight and try open share try open share group listen I'll tell you the

[SPEAKER_01]: for your first night of open share if you're just so nervous.

[SPEAKER_01]: When it comes to your time to share, just say, I pass.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just that easy, you don't... We don't hold you down in there and make you tell us something, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't hold you captive until you confess something or tell us, listen, you can go

[SPEAKER_01]: But what you will see is people loving on each other, caring for each other, and sharing each other's burdens.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I encourage you, if you've never been to shared group, open shared group, I encourage you to do that tonight.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what I want to tell you.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of these verses that we've read tonight talking about sharing one another, confessing the one another.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, Jesus did not write those scriptures for CR.

[SPEAKER_01]: He wrote that for all of that, all of that scripture that was written by all the different authors was not written specifically for C.R.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was written for the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: We ought to be doing that as Christians, and we ought to be doing that in the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: C.R.

[SPEAKER_01]: We just laser point focus on those things, because we know that's what will

[SPEAKER_01]: the trouble times that we may be facing, the trouble times that we have faced, that we may be in the middle of, or the trouble times that's coming.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's just the truth of life.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've either been through something hard, you're going through something hard, or there's something just on the horizon.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the way it is in this world.

[SPEAKER_01]: It just is.

[SPEAKER_01]: for the first time or I'm going to break that apart.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're here for the first time, there is an open share group for you right over in that corner.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to hear about it a little more in just a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: That would be where you go if you're here for the first time tonight.

[SPEAKER_01]: That group tonight is specifically geared to explain everything to you and to let you ask questions.

[SPEAKER_01]: I encourage you, if you, if you made it in here for the first time tonight, just go ahead and go in there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't dread all week next week having to do that part.

[SPEAKER_01]: Get it all out of the way tonight.

[SPEAKER_01]: Go in there tonight and find out a little more about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're here and you have never accepted Christ, there,

[SPEAKER_01]: is no better time than right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus wants you to come to Him right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't care what you were doing yesterday and hour ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't care what's going on in your life.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't care where you've been in your past.

[SPEAKER_01]: What was done to you?

[SPEAKER_01]: what you've done to someone that he doesn't care.

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to get any of that right before you come to him.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's the one that will help you get it right.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you've never accepted Christ, listen, there is nothing you can do greater for your life and for your recovery than to admit that you need him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to pray.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to pray and if if there's anyone who hasn't accepted Christ, I'm just going to say a simple prayer that you can pray right along with me.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you can accept Christ tonight.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the ultimate admitting.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the ultimate confessing.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the one that will change your whole trajectory of life.

[SPEAKER_01]: This will not hear.

[SPEAKER_01]: just pray after me, Lord, I confess right now that I have sinned, and I confess that I need you as my Savior.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that Jesus is your Son and that He died for me, and I ask that you would come into my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, I just thank you for this time tonight.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, I thank you for these people.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, admitting to someone else what we've done is really hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: Gotta pray that there's so many that have just gone through or are working through their moral inventory.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this may be right in front of them right now, waiting for them to go to someone and share this moral inventory.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, I pray for them right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: I pray that you would give them strengths to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I pray that you would give them peace because every step of the way between now and then, Satan is going to try to tell them they're crazy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so Lord, they're going to need to hear from you.

[SPEAKER_01]: but this is the right thing to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or we thank you for, first of all, we thank you for this time and worship tonight.

[SPEAKER_01]: We thank you for what you've shown us, what you've said to us in Jesus name our prayer.

[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.