Our scripture this morning is from Psalm 139. Before we read that, let me just remind us where we are. We've been looking at a series on the biblical basis behind the 12 steps of recovery that has been popularized by Alpha-Hawk synonymous. Our goal in this is not to exalt AA. Our goal is to understand the scriptures and how they speak to our lives. Psalm 39 is one of the biblical basis for step four. And so I invite you to turn to Psalm 139 as we read it in its entirety. O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in, behind and before. You have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It's too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you're there. If I make my bed in the depths, you're there. If I rise in the wings of the dawn. If I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me in the light become night around me. Even the darkness will not be dark to you. The night will shine like the day for darkness is light to you. For you created my innermost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in a secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me your thoughts, so God, how vast, is the sum of them. Where I'd account them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I'm still with you. If only you would slay the wicked, O God. Away from me, you bloodthirsty men. They speak of you with evil intent. Your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and that for those who rise up against you, I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Amen. Psalm 139 is familiar to all of us. It is a sum of David, and it is sometimes referred to as the pro-life sum, because of what the first 18 or so verses say. But we need to look at the whole sum this morning. And let me just share a little confession of my own. Frankly, this sum has always made me a little bit uncomfortable. It times I've been a little bit embarrassed. Now, you shouldn't be embarrassed by God's word because God's word is what's true. As the Scripture say, let God be found true and every man be found a liar. But on the other hand, it's always disturbed me when I got to verse 19 after reading these beautiful words of you, you've searched me and you know me and you've known me from all eternity and you've planned my life and my years. Then to read, if only you would slay the wicked, O God, away from me, you bloodthirsty men. They speak of you with evil intent. Your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord and of poor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them my enemies. Psalm 139 is really a cry of David for vindication against his enemies. David was struggling with what it meant to live in a fallen world. And if you think about it and if you're honest, David's words here reflect the way that you feel about your enemies too. But are we correct about that? Do you ever wonder if maybe your enemy is praying a similar prayer? If maybe your enemy is praying, if you would only slay the wicked, O God, in reference to you, maybe your enemy thinks, this is right, this is godly. What is Psalm 139 saying? It's really saying this. God, you know it all, I need you to show me myself because I want to love what you love and I want to hate what you hate. And all of us need to pray that prayer. So I want you to look at the wisdom of step four in the steps of recovery. Let's go back over that again. Step one was we would admit it that we were powerless over blank and that our lives had become unmanageable. And we said the one word that summarizes step four is the word honesty. Step two, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. We said step two is really summarized by the word hope. Step three, we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. We said that that is really the step of faith. But step four, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. And the word there is integrity. You've heard old fishermen say something like this. After God catches His fish He begins to clean them. That's in a sense what we find beginning in step four. And for the Christian step four is only possible after step three. Step three is the moment of faith. It's the moment when we surrender ourselves to the righteousness of Christ. It's the moment in which God credits us with the perfect righteousness and obedience of Jesus. Let me give you an illustration. Suppose I get up in the morning and I take my shower and I shave and I go to come downstairs and I'm dressed and ready to go out the door and Stacy says to me something like that shirt's not clean. Those pants need to be pressed before you leave or those two colors clash. Why does she say that to me when I'm about to walk out the door? Is she trying to mess up my day? Of course not. She says that out of oil did it to me because she loves me. But what are my ears inclined to hear? When she says that shirt has a spot or those pants need to be pressed or that doesn't match what I'm inclined to hear are the words you're not acceptable. My gut reaction is defensiveness. What's wrong with this? This looks fine. These pants look good. This shirt is clean enough. This match is well enough. My gut reaction is defensiveness because I'm wearing it. But suppose she comes to me and hands me a new shirt. Freshly-freshly-starched, new slacks, new socks, new shoes, and I put them on. And then she hangs up my old dirty mismatch, unpressed clothes, she hangs them up there on the wall and she says, now what do you think of it? Now look at those clothes from a totally different vantage point because something's changed. I can see the imperfections in that shirt that had a spot. I can see the trousers that needed to be pressed. I can see that those colors didn't match well. I can see it freely and I can critique them freely. Why? Because I'm not wearing that anymore. I'm wearing something better. I'm wearing something that's brand new. And so it is, from step three, we trust Christ. Jesus gives us His righteousness to wear. And when you're wearing the righteousness of Christ, you're in a position to look at what you have been wearing. That's what step four is about. We've made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Now, there are any number of Scripture passages we could have used for this sermon this morning. I chose Psalm 139, but there are others, Lamentations 3, verse 40. Let us examine our ways and test them and return to the Lord. Or Matthew 21, 12 and 13, Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling does. It's written, he said, that my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers. What was Jesus doing there? Why was he such a threat to them? Because, with the Pharisees, they prided themselves on being law of buyers. And here is Jesus cleaning out the temple. He revealed how unrighteous they really were. Money changers in the temple thought or felt that they were performing a service. After all, they exchanged money in the court of the Gentiles, people who would be coming from far away, proselyse to Judaism, who needed to purchase animals for sacrifice in the temple. They were exchanging money there in order to sell, buy and sell animals for those who needed them. They thought that they were doing a good thing. Jesus went in and cleaned house. He saw a different side of what was going on, different from the way they saw themselves. Jesus took a moral inventory that day and he found them lacking. Or, Philippians 3, I want to know Christ in the power of His resurrection, in the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death. All of us think, that sounds good. I want to know Christ in the power of His resurrection and so forth, but think about that. To experience the power of the resurrection in your life, you first have to understand what in my life is dead. Or 2 Corinthians 13. We use that as a call of worship to worship this morning. Exam in yourselves to see if you're in the day. Test yourselves. Do you not realize it? Christ Jesus is in you unless, of course, you fell the test. So what are we doing today? Today we're taking inventory or better yet. We're asking God to take inventory. Some of you operate your own businesses. Can you imagine a business that never took inventory? Can you imagine that? It would be doomed for failure. As we take inventory today, no one's inventory is flawless. All of us have missed the mark. All of us have done what we should not have done. We've all failed to do what we should have done. But I know for some of you there's probably a certain amount of resistance to this. And someone's probably thinking something like that. I'm not doing that. I'm not going there. I'm not engaging in those negative thoughts. I'm not going to engage in cycle babble or add to my shame. I came to church because I need to know that I'm a good person. What's past is past. I'm doing the best I can to obey God so there. I would say that that statement in itself is cycle babble. If you belong to Jesus, relax. Relax this morning because you're wearing his righteousness. If you're wearing his righteousness, your old righteousness is hanging up there on the wall. And now you can freely critique it without any fear of whatsoever. When I talk about taking moral inventory, I'm not talking about dwelling on the past in an unhealthy way. I'm talking about thinking about the past so that we can understand it. And God can begin to change us. Remember, according to Psalm 139, God already knows this about you. God's known this about you from all eternity. And so our prayer, I think, ought to be something like this. God, I ask for grace and strength so that I can come clean and face what you already know to be true. About me. Last week, we saw that part of the whole of addiction lies in our wanting to establish our own righteousness. We are sure that we can overcome this addiction. We are sure that we can overcome this particular bad habit. Yes, it's true, I am such and such, but I can stop anytime I want. What do we call that? We call it denial. And denial is actually a major part of being addicted because it's not rooted in the truth. This particular step of taking this fearless moral inventory asks us to be willing for God to reveal our sinful patterns and our sinful strategies. Do you know yours? I'm not just saying, do you know what you did this week that was wrong? I'm saying, do you understand your sinful patterns and your sinful strategies? See sin isn't just doing bad things. It's a failure to conform to God's commandments and God's perfection in thought, in word, and indeed. So it isn't just sinful actions that we need to look at. It's attitudes, thoughts, conditions of the heart. Let me tell you, your problem is not. I drink too much. I smoke too much. I smoke weed too much. I take pills too much. I charge too much. I gamble too much. I swear too much. I chase the opposite sex too much. Sin is a complex network of compulsive beliefs and behaviors. Sin is a complex network of compulsive beliefs and behaviors. Here's the point that I want you to get this morning. Our dictions are powerful because they promise a brief opportunity to forget, to punish, to avoid pain, to cure self-consciousness, to attain courage, to feel important, to manage your emotions, to feel holes in your self-image, to fit in with others, to prove that you can do whatever you want, to cure your loneliness, to become righteous, but they don't deliver. Let me read the underlying parts. Addictions are powerful because they promise a brief opportunity to become righteous, but they don't deliver. I'm saying that part of the whole of addiction is that you want something powerful in your life that makes you feel righteous, that makes you feel at peace, that gives you courage, that makes you feel important, that helps you manage your emotions, and so forth. You say, wait a minute, that's twisted. You're saying that when I do unrighteousness, that I'm actually trying to be righteous? No, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying in doing unrighteousness that you're trying to be righteous, I'm saying in doing unrighteousness, what your heart really yearns for is justification with a living God, forgiveness, a clean record. Addictions are powerful because they promise a brief opportunity to become righteous, but they don't deliver. You don't understand, pastor. I'm not addicted. I just like to drink. I just like to smoke weed. I just like to gamble, and sometimes I do do it too much, but I've never once pretended that it makes me righteous. Let me give you a little lesson here. The word for righteousness in Greek is the Greek word decayosune, decayosune. It not only means righteousness, it means a collection of things, it means righteousness, it means peace, it means well-being, it means quietness, it means rest, it means completeness, it means blessedness, it means something that has been set right. This is the word that we see most often in the New Testament, when the word righteousness is used, it's this word decayosune. It's the word that the apostle Paul uses in Romans 4 when he describes Abraham. Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as decayosune. It was credited to him as righteousness, that Paul continues to use this particular word throughout the book of Romans. Let me just turn there very briefly. Romans 4, verse 3, he uses that, and then look down to verse 8, verse 9. What shall we conclude then? Hang on just a second. Romans 4, not Romans 3. When it gets to chapter 4 and verse 7, he says, blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered, blessed is the man who sinned the Lord will not count against him. Is this blessedness? What blessed is he talking about? decayosune, is this blessedness for the circumcise, or also for the uncircumcise? We've been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness, under what circumstances was it credited, was it after he was circumcised or before? Paul makes it plain here that we could substitute the word blessedness for righteousness. This blessedness speaking of righteousness has been credited to us. Oh Romans 14, verse 17, for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, or 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, that is our righteousness, our holiness and our redemption. Therefore it is written, let him who boasts in the Lord. And so this whole concept of righteousness doesn't only mean righteousness but peace, a sense of well-being, quietness, rest, completeness, blessedness, something being set right inside of you. All of that is summarized by this word decayosune. Now let's look at some common addictions. Think about gossip. Gossip is a very common addiction. Why are we attracted to gossip? When you go through the grocery line at Kroger or at Publix, why do your eyes naturally go to the cover of the national inquire? It's because we are eaten up not just with gossip but with pride. We have an insatiable desire in ourselves to feel better about ourselves and so hearing or seeing or reading about the exploits or the misdeeds of someone famous is like literally a drug that has been injected into your system. This goes for reading it, it goes for hearing it, it goes for repeating it. Gossip is attractive to us because it makes us feel more righteous. It makes us feel righteous until we get caught gossiping, until the person we gossip about hears about it and then we feel worse and then we feel unrighteous. You know, somebody else's sin will not make you more righteous, anybody any more than somebody else's accident will make you a better driver. It's the same thing. So gossip is one. Alcohol is another. The man feels badly about himself, about his failures, about his lack of courage, so it goes and it gets himself really plastered. And under that state, he releases all the emotions that he's been feeling inside of himself, his own lacks, his own anger, he tells his boss off in this intoxicated state, at least in his mind or perhaps even verbally as he sits there, then he feels better for it. He feels braver because of it, but then when it goes home drunk, falling all over himself, his lack of control is seen by others, and now instead of feeling righteous, he feels unrighteous. He says, I'm so stupid. Now actually, stupidity doesn't go near far enough. Why did he drink like that? In order to feel numb, in order to feel righteous, let's take the next one, relationships, sex. A man feels inadequate about himself, and so do he goes to a bar and finds a woman willing to sleep with him. He rationalizes to himself, this will make me feel better about myself. This will make me feel more like a man, so he goes home with her, she's beautiful. And the time that they're together, he feels much better about himself. He continues to call her. He can't get enough of her. She doesn't reciprocate. She begins to not answer her phone, then he begins to harass her, to call her at all hours. He's obsessed about her. So she goes to the police and files charges and obtains a restraining order. When he hits the papers, his righteousness has become unrighteousness. Then there's gambling. A man gambles because he's bored. He drops a coin in the dollar slots. He wins a couple of small pots, the slot machine. There's a rush of adrenaline and excitement that he feels when he later stands at the roulette table. Other people are owing and awing, and now he feels really important because people are watching. Finally he sets him settles on the blackjack table. What a challenge. If he can beat the house, he will prove himself. He will know and everybody else will know that he's a big shot, and so he says those words that people say at the blackjack table. Hit me. There's a three. There's a seven. Hit me. And he's busted. And he loses his money. He is a filing bankruptcy and living on food stamps. And when that happens, his righteousness has become his unrighteousness. Take painkillers, for an example. A woman experiences severe arthritic pain and she's prescribed a painkiller that helps for a while with her arthritis. But she needs something stronger and she discovers by mixing the painkiller with alcohol, it really heightens the effects of the painkiller. And she feels better for a while than her prescription runs out. So she borrows from a friend. Then she learns of a coworker who quote, knows someone who can get it for her. It's not expensive. And after all, this is the same drug that's been prescribed by her doctor, but she uses more. And the cravings take over. And she needs more of the drug in order to feel at peace. You see at that point, the drug is her righteousness. It is her good news. It is her gospel. So she gets a bad batch. And she rush to the emergency room. The police are summoned to question her because they're seeking the supplier who got her that. And now henceforth, her name will be in the paper and she will have a record, not of her righteousness, but her unrighteousness. Then there's over commitment. You know, people get people get addicted to over commitment. They think, if I can stay busy, I won't think about the loneliness that I feel. But I'll feel the whole inside of me with activity, with people with approval. And I've had more than one person say to me, I can't say no. I can't say no when I'm asked to do something in the church. It doesn't God want me to be a servant. And after all, when I serve others, they see how wonderful I am. It makes me righteous. But then I can't pull it off. And then that shows my unrighteousness. There's food. People use food to fill the knowing emptiness inside of themselves to give them that sense of peace and tranquillity and righteousness. And when I'm full, I'm happy and satisfied and content. Food because my good news or the reverse, if I'm thin, people will think more of me. I'm trim and in shape and athletic people will think more of me. It will be my righteousness. But we're never satisfied because we never get enough. Here's a true blog from a public blog site. I don't know that I have an actual eating disorder. But a few years ago at about 40 pounds overweight, I decided that I would lose the weight no matter what. And I did just that. I ate either a bowl of soup or a slim fast bar a day. And if I absolutely had to eat something more, then I would purge it. In the beginning, I was in control of my diet, but after a while it took control over me. I of course lost the 40 pounds. Plus another 10 that I didn't really need to lose. I maintained my weight loss for a few years by eating one small meal a day or by vomiting if I ate more than that. But really, it was pretty easy. Everyone told me how great I looked. And actually, I actually felt good about myself for the first time in years. That was the great part. The bad part is the animal was wearing off the back of my teeth and my hair was falling out and my cheeks were looking sunk in. So this time last year, I decided to change my life and eat again. I tried to eat healthy, but my body wasn't used to it. And within three months, I had regained the 40 pounds. I'd still relapse at times and purge if I felt particularly guilty about eating a meal, but all in all, I've stayed at it, at least haven't gained any more weight, but I also can't lose it in a healthy way. I just don't know how. Every single time I eat, I want to purge every time. When will this ever be over? Ultimately, the person looks awful. You've seen someone with severe anorexia and sometimes even dies. And so what we naturally gravitate to as our good news, as our righteousness, ends up becoming my own eyeglasses. Then there's work. Work is where my friends are. Work is where people like me have worked. I'm a hero. People see how hard I work and they think, well, of me, they see that I am a good person. But the problem is that no amount of work, no amount of new sales, no amount of accomplishments or projects is enough, and we end up addicted to what people think of us. It works pretty well for a while until people find out that your wife isn't very happy, that your children have become rebellious because dad's never home. And then when your spouse files for divorce, your unrighteousness is exposed for everyone to see. Do you remember that quote that was on the screen a minute ago? These addictions promise righteousness. They promise decay, decay, or sooner, but they deliver unrighteousness. It's counterfeit. It's like being handed a counterfeit 20 or a counterfeit 50. It's counterfeit righteousness every time. This isn't just addiction. The Bible says this is the heart of idolatry. I find my good news. I find my righteousness. I find my peace, my strength, my joy in other things rather than in the living God. Each one of those addictions, and of course many others we could have used as examples, is a way to manage your life and establish your own peace, your own righteousness, your own sense of well-being, your own rightness, your own identity, your completeness. And each one of those is doomed to fail. Addiction is schizophrenic in a sense. It's an infection of the human heart. On the one hand it's voluntary. We're naturally inclined toward it. We want it. Our will is bent toward it. Yet on that hand we feel powerless and hopelessly out of control. Yet shrewdly calculating, victimized, yet responsible and mentally planning the next fix. The next hit. The next drink. The next affair. The next whatever your good news is. Now understand this. You and I can't change our desires apart from the living God. We cannot. And there could be no true healing until any of us until we see the sin beneath the sin. You think, just drink too much. Eat too much, smoke too much, gamble too much. No you need to see the sin beneath the sin. Real healing involves taking responsibility for our idolatry, for our wanting to be God, for wanting to manufacture our own righteousness and being then forgiven for the bad choices that we've made that they've been rooted in our own self-centeredness and our pride and our self-righteousness. Now if you've lived in the South for a while, as I have, you know how gracious southerners are. And southerners always walk up to one another and they say, hey, how are you? How are you? Now for the most part, if you haven't already discovered this, they probably don't want to know. They probably want you to say something like, I'm fine. It isn't the truth. When we say that alarm bells and whistles are set off inside of us because we're faking it. How do I know that? Because we all live in a fallen world. A fallen world where we struggle as David struggled in Psalm 139 with, how do I relate to this evil in the world? All this has brought us down to three questions that I want you to ask yourself. If you don't have a pen, I hope you will get a pen or a piece of paper. You'll write down these three questions. And to do step four, to take this searching moral inventory of yourself, I think there are at least three questions that you need to journal about. When I say journal, I mean not only write down this question but later on the week, think about this and jot down additional thoughts, feelings that you have about this. Here are the three questions. Number one, where have I been trying to establish my own righteousness and look good? Where have I been trying to establish my own righteousness and look good? Where have I been trying to establish my own gospel, my own good news? Number two, what have I been making my peace, my completeness, my joy, my satisfaction? Is it a drink? Is it a drug? Is it a person? Is it a position? Is it some achievement? What have I been making my peace, my completeness, my joy, my satisfaction? Question three. Who am I resentful towards? Who am I resentful towards? Yes. Who am I resentful towards? Because you see, that is your desire for rightness, for righteousness, for vindication. Who am I resentful towards? Where am I on a crusade to quote right the world? Someone says, I'm angry because he told my wife about my mistress. It's probably going to cost me my job and my promotion, my kids. What am I going to do to support myself? I hate it when my husband does such and such. I think I will just go charge something for myself. I think I'll go eat a box of chocolate. I will look for someone else who can make me happy. I'm angry at Mrs. Jones because she snubbed me and she asked her husband, my friend, who drank too much to leave. He's my friend. That lady is a gossip. This will cost me the friendship that I value the most. I'm mad at my employer. He's ridiculous in his expectations. He pays me too little. He asks for too much. I'm mad at my wife. She nags me. She belittles me. She reminds me about all the guys she could have married. She's so wrapped up in the kids that she has nothing left for me anymore. It hurts my pride. I'm lonely. I'm angry at my husband because all he does is work. I have to deal with these little health cats all by myself. I'm afraid at what I might do. I'm furious about these financial obligations. Now she wants a new house. We can't even pay for this one. If I say no, I will pay in other ways. It will make me lower in her sight even more than I already am. I'm mad at the way he says yes to whatever the children asked for. It makes me look like an evil witch to them. They go to him because he's such a soft touch. I feel so unvalued. Who are you resentful toward? Seriously, who are you resentful toward? Where are you on a crusade to write the world? Listen, the truth were known. Some of you have been angry. And bitter about things like this for years. That's another addiction. That's your desire for rightness, for an indication. Friday night, satan, I came back from seeing a movie together and we were driving right down here, Thompson Bridge Road. We're coming toward the bridge where it narrows to two lanes. Science says clearly keep to the right. We're almost to the bridge and suddenly at the last minute a car zooms by with almost no room to spare in order to squeeze in. So I say, do you see that jerk? I blinked my lights. I began to speed up to keep him from moving in and then a second car following him with even less room to spare is speed up. There is speeding up to pass and I'm blinking my lights and I'm just furious. I continue to blink them and stay see asks, don't you hate it when your wife asks these probing questions. Why are you doing that? And I say because he knows what he did and I don't appreciate it. And it's rude and there's more headlight blinking. Listen, this guy didn't just need a lecture. He needed a beating. And she says again, that probing sweet way. Did it slow us up that much? And I say, it's the principal. I hated him. I hated them. And if the truth were known, I wanted God to hate them too. The attitude of my heart was Psalm 139, if only you would slay the wicked. Oh God. Why do I react to it like that? Because he's going to get ahead of me. Because it was going to make me look bad. That's my desire for righteousness. That's my desire for decasune. Does life make you mad like that? If you get nothing else from today, understand this. That is the hot house where sin germinates and addiction breeds. Resentment and bitterness are the hot house where sin germinates and addiction breeds. As I heard it said just this week in the driving course, resentment is taking poison and expecting the other person to die. You say, that's insanity. Indeed. Some of you have experienced far worse than that. You've been lied to or abandoned or mistreated or abused, double crossed for sake. I'm not giving you a Southern, how are you this morning? I'm asking you this question, how is your heart? How is your heart? I challenge you to journal those three questions this week. Where have I been trying to establish my own righteousness and look good? I've been making my peace, my completeness, my joy, my satisfaction. Who am I resentful toward? Where am I on a crusade to write the world? Psalm 139 tells me that the sovereign God of the Bible really knows me, that he understands me. And that only he can search me and show me myself. That's where grace comes in. That's when we say, God, I need you to search a little more. I need you to search a little deeper. I need you to find those thoughts, those impulses of my heart that take me away from fellowship with you. I need you to show me how life's injustice really points me to you, Jesus, because I want to love what you love and hate what you hate.
And so in this fourth step, we can say the words with the Psalmist, search me your God and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting. Amen? Let's pray.