First Presbyterian Church
647 East Market Street
Akron, Ohio 44304-1684
330-434-5183

Food for Thought: Fessing Up

June 11, 2006

Dr. Mark Ruppert

Romans 8:1-1

Did you hear them?  Did you hear them roar this weekend?  Did you see them?  Did you see them riding those two wheelers throughout the city this weekend and join the some 10-14,000 others who were projected would come to the Mecca of A.A., Akron, Ohio?  This weekend is when loyal followers will gather in our beloved city to celebrate Founders Day to commemorate the 71st anniversary of Alcoholics Anonymous that was begun by Dr. Bob Smith and A. A. co-founder, Bill Wilson.  I was amazed to read the other day in the Beacon Journal that A.A. has more than 2 million members who gather periodically at more than 105,000 meetings.

It has been a while since I read the 12 steps to the A.A. program so I pulled them up on the Internet the other day.  Let me share them with you right now:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. 

As I read these 12 steps there are themes that jump out at me, themes like being honest with yourself, admitting one’s wrongs, humility in asking God to remove one’s shortcomings, repenting to those harmed and seeking to make amends.  You see for the recovering alcoholic it is all about getting real, making changes and “Fessing Up.” 

A number of years ago there was a black comedian by the name of “Flip” Wilson who had a T.V. show that was very popular.  During the course of the show “Flip” would portray the character known, as “Geraldine” and he would dress up in women’s attire.  It was quite a scene with “Flip” I mean “Geraldine” doing her thing which was to do something that was out of line and then to fall into her pet phrase, “The devil made me do it, the devil made me do it.”  

When I think back on Geraldine’s come back whenever she/he got in over her/his head it really became an excuse for doing what she/he knew was wrong.  We really are so good at passing the buck, and I have done it and you have done it.  Fessing up can be hard to do.

Maybe you saw the cover of Newsweek magazine last month that had on the front cover a picture of a man that people were celebrating the 150th anniversary of this fellow’s birth on May 6.  The front cover picture of the magazine had a picture of Sigmund Freud and these words: “Freud Is Not Dead.”  Freud was a psychiatrist from Vienna who redefined modern psychiatry and said that God was just a figment of our imaginations.  Freud was also the one who brought in the age of therapy and is said to have been one of the great intellectual influences that led to the sexual revolution of the 1960’s.  Now if you will, make a jump with me.

Here we have the fact that Newsweek tells us that “Freud Is Not Dead” and now jump to the recent Moussaoui terrorist trial.  Now I am not here to debate the life sentence instead of execution but listen to the top two factors cited by the jury for giving him a life sentence.  First, Moussaoui had an “unstable early childhood and dysfunctional family” life, and, according to the New York Times, he had “a hostile relationship with his mother that led to his being placed in French orphanages.”  Second, it was reported that Moussaoui’s father had a violent temper and physically and emotionally abused his family.  There were no other reasons cited by more than five jurors, but these two points were cited by nine of the twelve.  So you see, Freud is not dead and what we have, bottom line, is the excuse mentality where we blame somebody else for our actions and refuse to take personal responsibility.

Listen, I worked as a prison chaplain while in seminary and I can’t tell you over and over again the times inmates told me it was the other guy who did it and I am just taking the rap.  For years sociologists put the blame for crime on poverty, race, environment and a host of other factors but it seems that now scholarly studies are showing that it is, are you ready for this, caused by people making wrong moral choices and the lack of moral training during the morally formative years.  And so it is a bunch of bunk when people tell others that they don’t have to take responsibility for their own behavior.  The truth is, no, the Biblical truth is that we are all fallen creatures who are sinners who just happen to be responsible for our own sins, and Freud and his excuse mentality can go sink to the bottom of the ocean cause it doesn’t float.

Here in our chapter 8 from Romans the Apostle Paul addresses two contrasting ways to live out this earthly life.  There is the life in the flesh and there is life in the Spirit.
Paul uses the words “flesh” and “spirit” not to designate two parts of human nature but rather to represent two ways of living.

First, let’s spend some time talking about life in the Flesh.  If one lives in the flesh their life is dominated by selfish passions.  One is dominated by sinful nature that is influenced by rebellion and idolatry and the person turns in on him or herself where they become the center of all values.  It is, in a way, a life lived in self-idolatry that is self-absorbed.  This life in the flesh might be passion controlled, it might be desire controlled, it may be pride controlled, it might be ambition controlled. Life in the flesh might be whatever one’s heart is fixated upon that is void of Jesus Christ.

On the other hand there is the life in the Spirit.  Here there is a life that is set free from the chains of self and sin, as well as the law, that legalism that is filled with a bunch of laws, rules and regulations.

Life in the Spirit is where the person is living a life in submission to the God of Creation and freely acknowledges God’s lordship in His Son, Jesus Christ.  And it is this power of that lordship of Jesus Christ that has broken the bondage of being enslaved to self-idolatry and sin.  The person is now set free to bask in the new relationship with God and we are now seen as a child of God and not a rebel hell-bent on our own ways.  The person’s desires are not important, only serving and pleasing and worshiping God.  The person is God-focused, Christ-controlled, Spirit-controlled.

As you can see, these two lives are diametrically opposed to each other.  If we follow after the life in the flesh we are headed down a spiraling road that leads to ultimate death.  What happens is the life in the flesh takes us further and further and further away from God and we will eventually end up committing spiritual suicide and God will be viewed as unimportant or at worst, our enemy.

On the other hand the life in the Spirit is truly an earthly walk with God that only ends with death but then, that is when life, eternal life begins.

So in the end we have basically two paths to take: the path of the flesh and the path of the Spirit.  One brings death and the other brings life.  We have to take responsibility and say YES to God and living in the Spirit and NO to the world that is always about living in and for the flesh.  Or we can say YES to the world and think that the immediate gratifications will last a lifetime and satisfy our longings and NO to God.  And guess what?  We can’t put the onus on our parents or someone else, it’s about getting real with the sinful condition of this world, our sinful condition and saying I’m not going to buy into a dysfunctional society that likes to pass the buck but I’m going to get real and Fess UP, submit to Christ and His lordship over my life and get a real life, a real life in Christ.

It boils down to these words from Paul when he wrote in II Corinthians 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”   See, there it is in II Corinthians 5:17, the old fleshy way is discarded and the life of the Spirit is put on which can only lead to joy, contentment and a fulfilled life.  Let’s get real.  Let’s Fess UP and get on with living for Jesus.  Amen. 

Key Points

Introduction: Did you hear them?  Did you see them riding those two wheelers throughout the city this weekend join the some 10 to 14,000 others…?

Founders Day, Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson

The 12 steps

Themes like being ________ with yourself; ________ one’s wrongs, __________ in asking God to remove one’s shortcomings, __________ to those harmed, and seeking to make _________

“Flip” Wilson and Dr. Sigmund Freud

Romans 8:1-11

Two contrasting ways to live out this earthly life

Life in the _______

Life in the _______

Conclusion: II Corinthians 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” 

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)