I read a great book last summer called "How the Mighty Fall" by Jim Collins. It's a book about businesses and what is so powerful is that Collins talks about the five stages of demise that every company goes through that fails. What he points out in his book is that these are companies that went from hero to zero in a few years during the last decade. Motorola was number one in cell phones in the world in 2004 and today they are on the edge of bankruptcy. Rubbermaid in 2000 was a vital company and Rubbermaid is no more. The largest car company in the world right now is yet to be out of bankruptcy. What is so scary is the parallel of these five stages of demise and the company's failure to the parallel of our own spiritual and moral failures in our life. The worst fear I have is that I fail to be who God needs me to be and those who love me and depend upon me the most believe me to be. Do you ever fear that you will lose the trust of God and the people who love you and depend upon you the most? This last couple of weeks, if you are doing the Transformation Journal, we've been looking at Solomon's life. Solomon was this dude who was anointed by God, had all of this potential; and he wrote three books of the Bible, including Proverbs. In the third and fourth chapters we were reading about men and guarding our hearts, wisdom and lust; and the very thing Solomon professed, he didn't practice. David failed, but he repented and had a comeback. Solomon didn't have a comeback. He was at the end of his life, such a total failure building temples to pagan gods. Talk about lust, he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. I call that sexual addiction. I was even doing the math … Again, because there is some dysfunctional force in all of us, the worst thing is to fail spiritually and morally and lose the trust of God and those who depend upon you the most.

We are going to talk about flesh wounds, so open your Bibles to Romans. I encourage you to take notes in your Bible – my Bible is a notebook. I lose notes but my Bible is something I keep. Before we go there, we are dealing with unseen forces that would have us for lunch, so I want us to go to the Lord in prayer right now. "Father, in our head, there is nothing more that we desire than to make You number one. In our head, we desire nothing less than to be in full alignment with Your will and purpose. But it's our hearts, Lord, this battle that we don't understand and we pray that You deliver us and free us to be the people You've called us to be. And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen."

Romans 7:18-25, "I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. (In the Greek, sinful nature is in my flesh.) For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I don't want to do - this I keep on doing. (Can anyone relate to that? There's something in your life that you swore off of, but for years it continues to kick you in the behind?) Now if I do what I don't want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it's sin living in me that does it. So, I find this law at work: although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law (I agree with it); but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. (That's pretty strong language about this war going on inside of me and I'm a prisoner to something that I can't escape.) What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ, our Lord."

As I've read this passage through the years, it does several things. One is that it gives me hope and that Paul, who wrote this, had such a dramatic conversion experience when he met Jesus on the Damascus road. Paul used to persecute Christians and now he had this radical change, yet by the time he wrote this, he still had this battle going on that would derail his practice from his profession. I wonder, at age 58, I have been following Jesus for 40 years – why do things still kick my behind. The second hope that it gives me is that the realization that something is wrong is really a positive sign of the spirit's work in your life. If you're here and you're frustrated and you've got this sense of guilt and other stuff going on, that means that you have come into the light and the light is exposing darkness in your life and you are aware of it and you don't want it. When you are sitting here and you are comfortable, you've already been had. Recovery begins when you realize there is a destructive force at work in you that you are powerless to overcome in your own strength. It's important that we identify and name the source of this disconnect between our life profession and our life practice. The real problem is not external circumstances, not the economy, not my boss, not my spouse – but the real problem is me.

The Bible names two sources. The first is our heart. Jesus says that the heart is the center of addictive sin. Mark 7:21-23, "For from within, out of your hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, (In our culture you think well, I'm not involved in murder, but how did intelligent spiritual people ever buy into abortion. I know some of you have gone through this, I'm not condemning you in this, but I'm saying there is something wrong when we can say God created life and abort that life. Again, I'm not condemning anyone, but it's how we all participate in this.) adultery, greed, malice (Malice is not only the unwillingness to forgive, it is when you wish ill will on someone. That you wish they get their due. You don't want you to get your due.) deceit, lewdness. (We deceive those closest to us of some of the addictive stuff that we've got going on in our life.) envy, slander. (Gossip and slander are closely tied to each other because we plant negative thoughts about a person instead of speaking God's possibilities about that person.) arrogance and folly. (Folly is when we give our lives to something like prosperity, worldly success that ends at the grave with you instead of investing our lives in God's eternal purpose.) All of these evils come from inside and defile you." Your heart is your control center. It determines your life choices. It all comes from your heart.

Solomon wrote this, but couldn't follow it. Proverbs 4:23, "Guard your heart in all you do" We can't get casual with this heart thing because the second part of what the word says is "the heart is deceitful above all things." In other words, your heart lies to you. It rationalizes, excuses and justifies your decisions and actions. It will make you think that what you are doing is Godly. What that does first of all is it cheapens grace. Here's how that happens. That's okay. God will forgive you in the morning. Have you ever done that? How you rationalize. It's the same thing as the serpent's tactic with Eve. He came to Eve and said, "You've been a good girl all your life. You deserve to party a little bit. You need to get a little bad." Here's how Eve responded – she called evil for what evil is. We're too used to playing in the gray areas. If you're outside the will of God by a hair, that's evil. Anything that is not of God is evil; it's out of the pit of hell. So Eve said to the serpent, "You cannot partake of evil with good. You cannot bring evil into what's good. If you do, you're going to die." Here's how it cheapens grace: the serpent said, "God is not going to let you die. God will forgive you tomorrow." So we take verses like 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins." So, we get into this repetitive cycle of addiction and we leave out the second part of that: "And will cleanse us from all unrighteousness." The word of God says to pursue holiness which is Godly integrity for apart from holiness, no one will see the Lord. So not only does your heart come up with this counterfeit faith by cheapening grace, it demeans the meaning of faith. In the church, we've reduced that we're saved by faith and nothing but faith in Christ Jesus, but we've limited that to cognitive assent. It says you can believe in the Lord of heaven and still live like hell. Even the demons in hell believe in the Lord in heaven. You can believe in the word of God without obeying the word of God. That's demonic and it's why the word says, "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." Your heart lies to you. It cheapens grace and demeans faith. If I listened to my heart, I'd be divorced and in all kinds of stuff. Don't listen to your heart, listen to the word of God and submit to it.

The second part of this addictive cocktail is the flesh. Look at verse 18 again, "I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh." The flesh is that part of you, body, mind or strength that operates as an autonomous being apart from God. So any time, any moment, in any day when you are depending upon yourself or making a decision that is outside of God's will, that's walking in the flesh. You've all heard EGO stands for edging God out. It's when I know that's what the Bible says, but I'm just going to make an exception this one time. That's called walking in the flesh. What's so dangerous about walking in the flesh is that you can be religious and be in the flesh. You can preach a sermon and be in the flesh. Your can sing on the praise team and be in the flesh. You can tithe and be in the flesh. You can serve in mission and be in the flesh. But, you live under the control of the flesh. The fruits of your life will not be fruits of the spirit; the fruits will be of the flesh. When you are controlled by the flesh, self is the center of all of your decision-making process.

To the Corinthian church, Paul said "I can't speak to you as spiritual people." You are either in the spirit or in the flesh, there is nothing in between. And we can go to both places. The Bible uses the word that you are carnal, which means fleshly and he said you are like people who have never left spiritual babyhood. What you require because you are in the flesh is milk. Can you imagine that if my mom never quit giving me milk. No, you have to get on to solid food. Ellie is only 10 months old and she has been changed over to different kinds of food, so milk is not as appealing to her as it was. I'm learning a lot of what it means to be in this milk stage of life. It's called the oral stage. When you are in the oral stage, everything goes in the mouth. Everything is about your appetite. So Ellie can be sitting in my lap and she'll look at my pen and she'll take my pen and put it into her mouth. Appetite is totally irrational. We don't have any little kids at home, our youngest is 28, we haven't had any for years, so the next thing I know Ellie has picked up an ant trap from the floor - and guess where it's going. When you live by your mouth, your appetite, you have total disregard of the consequences. I'm not demeaning these folks, the governors, the Pennsylvania governor, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, all these governors, because except for the grace of God, there go I. But what happens is when you live by your appetite, you have a total disregard for what can happen next. That you could lose everything! From presidents to priests, this affects us all. There is this dysfunctional thing within all of us. You can lose the responsibility and trust given you by God. Can you imagine what that's like? What's worse, at least while you're on this earth, is you're going to lose the trust and respect of your family who depend upon you and love you the most. Once we give our lustful appetite a beachhead, they take over our lives.

The Bible is so clear about and names the four stages of the addictive cycle of sin. I want to look at those four stages. Next week we are going to talk about breaking the addictive cycle of sin in our life. Turn with me to James 1:13, "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone (So when you are tempted, it is not coming from God.); but each of you is tempted when you are dragged away by your own evil desires and enticed. (There is the first stage of the addictive cycle – it is enticement.) Then, after desire has conceived (That's the second stage: conception.), it gives birth to sin (Third stage is the birth stage.); and sin, when it is full grown, it gives birth to death." Let's look at those one at a time. Enticement. The word James uses there is the Greek word and it is a fishing word and it means bait or lure. How do you lure a fish out of its hiding place? How many fisher folks are here? I did a lot of that when my grandfather was still alive. I don't do as much anymore. I would spend two weeks at his house in the summer and we would spend them fishing. I learned you have different bait for different fish. I liked carp because they were big and they fought. My grandfather would say, "You can't do much with a carp." But, what he taught me was you can catch a carp almost immediately by mixing Wheaties and cream soda and make a ball and carp will bite that. But walleye, which is good eating, you're not going to get with Wheaties and cream soda. You have to use an Erie-Dearie lure with a night crawler on the end.

In the last few years, I have gone shark fishing about 20 miles out into the Gulf and within an hour we caught about four ten-foot plus sharks. This was a catch and release thing. They really give you a fight and they think they are so shrewd because they spend about fifteen minutes contemplating that bait. You're going to get into trouble when you contemplate the bait. In this enticement stage, the most important thing you can do is recognize the bait and be proactive and end the threat at the enticement stage. The longer you allow yourself to contemplate that lure, your heart will deceive you until you convince yourself that there is no danger. Next week, we will get more into Matthew 4 when Jesus was out in the wilderness tempted by Satan. It's the dry, wilderness times in our life when we can be most susceptible. Like in our marriage, we all go through dry times in different stages. During the boring times you are most susceptible. Notice that Jesus didn't contemplate the bait. There was no lag time between Satan's temptation and Jesus' response. That's critical. The longer you take to contemplate that bait, you're going to persuade yourself that you won't get caught and that you can take the bait, but avoid the hook. That's why you have to be proactive in that enticement stage.

Last Friday, Jonathan, Stacy, Carolyn and I went to celebrate my parents' sixty-first wedding anniversary. They live in Lebanon, so we met them at the Dayton Mall and ate at Bravo. The thing is, I don't wait until I get into a restaurant to decide how I'm going to eat. That decision was made a long time ago. Jesus had made the decision long before he was ever in the wilderness to be confronted with the bait. I don't wait until they bring the dessert tray to decide whether or not I will have dessert. That decision is made before I ever go into the restaurant. I'm leaving town this afternoon and will return Wednesday night and so I will be away from Carolyn for three nights. I don't wait until I find myself in a tempting situation to decide how I am going to respond. That decision has been made a long time ago. You don't go into a store and after you are in the store, then decide what you are going to buy. How many of you have gone into a grocery store and you haven't eaten that day? You come home with … always go after a full meal. This is the enticement stage where you have to be proactive and end the threat at the enticement stage or you will convince yourself that you can take the bait and avoid the hook.

The second stage of the addictive cycle is conception. It's when you commit the act. We've all been there. The first thing that happens when you commit the act, when you go against your conscience is guilt. You feel guilty and make all kinds of promises, "I'm never going to do this again. I promise, God. Just give me one more chance. I'll never, ever do it again." You start listening to your heart and here comes that old deceptive heart that cheapens grace and demeans faith. Your heart tells you "That's okay. God will forgive you again." It doesn't matter how many times that you sin, God is going to keep forgiving you. We forget to pursue holiness for apart from holiness no one will see the Lord. It cheapens and demeans faith that that's okay and all you have to do is believe in Jesus. You can believe in Jesus and still live like hell.

Now, we move to the third stage of the addictive cycle and that's the birth of a habit. The conception of an act becomes a habit because of our deceptive heart and once you are into a habit, you are a prisoner. The habit has you.

The fourth stage of the addictive cycle is called death. It is when you have become a casualty of war; this war between light and darkness and you are no longer useful for God's purpose. Have any of you noticed how there were commercials that Tiger Woods was in with other athletes and now he has been removed? The other athletes are still in the commercial. Are we seeing Tiger in any kind of ads? Are you going to buy a product because Tiger Woods advertises it? No. And we need to pray for his repentance and coming to faith in Jesus Christ. I'm not putting Tiger in any lower place than myself for we are all sinners who can only be saved by grace. But, salvation doesn't mean I'm saved to live like hell and go to heaven. It means that I am saved and empowered to live like the Lord Jesus. Death is that you no longer are useful for God's purpose and no longer a source of health and hope for your family and those who depend upon you the most.

Can you see why Paul is crying this out? He has failed in some major way and he has a habit going on in his life, so he yells out to God in verse 24, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" But, look at verse 25, "Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord." Please hear me: not only does God forgive you, but God chooses to forget, to remember your sin no more. But here's the best part: he delivers us from its power. The accuser will tell you that when you failed this past week, yesterday or even this morning, that you are still under his power. No. Last week, we talked about that, on the cross, Jesus said, "It is finished." Sin no longer controls me or defines me. We need to say that out loud. This past week, again, you failed in some way and the tempter is telling you you're caught, you're trapped, there is no other way. No. In Jesus' name, I've been crucified, dead and buried. I've been raised to new life. That's not who I am. That no longer defines me or controls me.

Next week, we are going to talk about breaking sin's addictive cycle in our life, including living in your new identity. Many of us are still dealing with our old identities. We are going to talk about our household of origins because some of us are still living out of those roles rather than our new role in Jesus Christ. And about not leaving any lag time. We're going to see how Jesus combated evil. Before we do that, we are going to pray the "hell" out of people. I hope you are praying for me – I am praying for you. You are sending Carolyn and me emails and we are keeping them on our computers. A mom sent us a picture of her son who is leaving for Afghanistan in four days – that's on our refrigerator. We're your pastors! We love you. We don't condemn any one of you. We struggle with the same stuff with which you struggle. We're here to pray the "hell" out of you and to let you see the inheritance that we all have together in Christ Jesus. The devil's trick would be to see flaws in each other and then what we do is slander and gossip. I'm not going to gossip about you, I'm going to proclaim God's future purpose in your life, because that's not who you are. That flaw no longer defines you or controls you. You are a new person in Jesus Christ.

I want to ask the lay pastors who are going to pray for people to come forward right now. This is so important. Someone told me in an email this week that Julie has been praying for them every day for the last four weeks. They came here and asked her to pray and they are seeing new release in their life. That was a powerful witness. There will be people who will pray with you after I dismiss you.

I want to remind you about the exit offering for Haiti. One hundred percent of this money will go to Haiti. Some of you think you don't have a lot. I like what George Clooney said the other night on TV, "A whole of a little makes a big lot." Whatever you can give on the way out for Haiti - do.

I love you all. Please, if you have a prayer request for Carolyn and me, email it to us and we will pray for you specifically.

God bless you.