Summary of David Powlison’s Plenary: ‘Escape to Reality’ (CCEF Conference Live Blog)
The worship on this wonderful Sabbath morning was great. Please click through to the Live Blog to see the words of the hymns (and a few links to Getty videos that I was able to find too–wow! that is a great fiddler!).
But the highlight was, of course, the “Sunday School” lesson taught by Dr. David Powlison and the “sermon” given by Dr. Tim Lane. (I put those words in quotes to be clear that, of course, a session at a parachurch conference–as wonderful as it is–is not the same thing as a local church service.)
Here are just a few of my notes from Dr. Powlison’s teaching:
I’m going to work this morning off of a wonderful passage of Scripture; 1 Cor 10:13-14. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability; but with the temptation, he also will provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee idolatry.”
Over the last few days, we’ve unpacked the first few clauses.
– The nature of the problem, what’s at stake; the perfect storm that overtakes us when we are seduced.
– We are all in this together. We may be very different; some addictions are soft; some hard-core. But they all have a fundamental commonality.
– God is faithful; He invades this perfect storm; He is faithful, merciful, a very present help.
Where I want to go this morning is that there is also this promise that right in the temptation, when on our own we feel beyond our ability, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape that you may be able to endure.
Endure does not mean just gut it out; it means to continue to go forward.Therefore, my beloved, lest we should think that we’ve been accused; rather, we’ve been LOVED … flee from idolatry.
What is the way of escape? The change process–the counseling process—is very hard to capture.
(Tara note: but then he went on and outlined 12 or 13 points that are SO profound and SO helpful–I hate to truncate them in this summary; but I find that a six-page-blog-entry is simply unwieldy and unhelpful. So here are just a FEW of his thoughts …)
It’s a funny sort of call. We are defined as sleepwalkers, drunks, blind and deaf and the call is, “Wake up! Arise! Look, see, you who are blind! Listen, you who are deaf!” “Come to! You are drunk, wake up!” “You’ve been dreaming; you’re in a nightmare; but you’re dreaming.”
It’s like Jesus saying to a man whose arm is withered, “Stretch out your hand.” There is a funny mix of God commanding the wake up and that He is the One who wakes us up.
1. You wake up to who you are. You realize that you are in a dream. You have been lying to yourself. You are a blind fool. It is crucial; the starting point … there is always some sort of wake up call.
2. You wake up to what is going on in your world. There is a wake up call to the real drama of life. Your life is about good and evil; love and hate; true and false. That’s what is playing in the theater every single day. In principal, there is no neutral ground. No middle ground. Purpose of your life is to go from darkness TO reality. You become a child of light. You wake up to the moral drama.
3. You wake up to the fact that you need exactly Who God is; Who Jesus Christ is. You need exactly the particular kind of things that God promises to give, be, and do. The key to your lock. Not some theory, but exactly the redemption of exactly the problem that you truly face. To be delivered from being a child of darkness, I need Who God is. I need God.
4. You realize that sin is serious and it is serious before GOD. This cuts through our tendency to see it only as bad for me, for my family, messing up my relationships and life. Sure. Fine. That’s a start. But it’s not just this has ruined my reputation and family. Sure. Fine. That’s true and it can be a little bit of a motive. But the actual change comes from realizing that it is serious before the One Who searches every heart and will recompense for what we’ve done.
5. Intercept the Death Spiral. There are all of these forces in us that go “in and down”. The incurving nature of the fallen human heart. We spiral in on ourselves: sin, guilt, suffering. There is a call to wake up and own up and start talking to someone other than yourself; start listening to someone other yourself. Make it out loud. There is so much goofiness that happens only in our head. Start talking, start listening; keep talking, keep listening. It seems like the weakest thing in the world; you’re in the grip of the human condition and God says, “Start talking.” God is there. He is listening. He bends his ear to us. Talk and LISTEN. A conversation happens that reverses that death spiral. God is listening. God speaks.
6. Ask for Help. We were never meant to change alone. Being honest to people can help to clarify; tell people what’s going on; tell someone your troubles; your sorrows. Francis Bacon’s essay on friends: “Those who lack friends to open themselves to become cannibals of themselves … This communicating of a man to his friends redoubles joys and cuts griefs in half.” Friends can’t make it all better or take it all away. But God has wired us such that change is an interpersonal process. You do not change on your own. You do not change on your own. You do not change on your own. James 5 says confess your sins to one another. Lay it out there.
The pastor who nurtured me for the first 15 years of my Christian life was passionate for people to act on the Word. Jack Miller: “If you have been convicted of something this morning, go tell someone.” Get it on the table. I need help. It’s a real thing. Would you pray for me?
7. Ask for Forgiveness. You have hurt people. Every single addiction; even the mildest people-pleaser who wants an easy life; views people as objects; you’ve lied to people; you’ve used people. Ask for forgiveness. That is part of our fleeing to light. Truly ask for forgiveness–the words you use matter. Not:
“I’m sorry it bothered you so much.”
“I’m sorry if I hurt you; I didn’t mean to hurt you.” (“You hypersensitive so and so.”)
“I’m sorry for using pornography because you were such a witch.”
Really asking for forgiveness: Name what you did. Name what it did. Express sorrow. Ask: Please forgive me.
“I was wrong to do this. It hurt you and broke trust. I am so sorry! Please forgive me.”
8. You Must Forgive. It’s a brutal world; everyone has their story; people let you down; you’ve let people down. You MUST forgive. You must seek forgiveness and you must grant forgiveness. Jesus is unrelenting. Even if they are dead, still your enemy, you MUST forgive in a vertical, attitudinal manner even if there is never a transactional forgiveness. The Lord’s Prayer says that you must forgive. Mark 11:25 “forgive.” Anything against anyone, forgive. You have to do it. Every alternative to forgiveness is evil.
9. Rethink the Problem of Pain. You have been, you are, and you will be faced with pain, hardship, trouble, disappointment, hurt. You have been and will be faced with seductions, lies, hurts. We live in a hard world. If you don’t think accurately about the problem of pain, you’ll never get it together. Man is born for trouble. All our addictions are attempts to make that not be so.
Where will you turn in the midst of trouble? If you rethink the problem of pain, it makes you rethink the solution of refuge. You take refuge from the pain of the world in your addiction; you take refuge in the Living God when you wake up. Psalm 46 “God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in trouble …” God is our refuge stands against every alternative refuge. What is your refuge? If you take refuge in yourself, you will die. Rethink the problem of pain and where you take refuge.
10. Rethink Pleasure. People get pleasure wrong. And whenever you get pleasure wrong (rest, happiness), you get your work wrong; your task wrong; why you are actually here on the planet. Consider reading my CCEF Booklet: “Pleasure.” It’s on the Sabbath commandment; how God designed us for labor and rest. But we do exhaustive over-work and then destructive escapism. We have to rethink pleasure.
(Tara side note: This is the BEST ccef booklet EVER. Ever! I couldn’t recommend any other resource more that his booklet, “Pleasure.” In fact, I think I have 5 or 10 (or maybe more!) copies in my office right now. If any of you would like a copy, please just leave a comment on this post and drop me an email with your mailing address and I’ll send out as many copies as I can. It is SO gospel-proclaiming AND convicting AND helpful. Absolutely my FAVORITE ccef booklet—and I’m not even sure they are producing it any more which is a TRAGEDY if it’s true. Oh–and don’t be afraid about SPAM. I would never give your contact information to ANYONE.)
11. Get Right Expectations of the Struggle / of the Change Process. Even if they stop sinning with ‘the biggie’ sin, people will fail. There will be ongoing failure. He finally stops drinking, but there is always something us — temper, not attentive to needs of others. There is always something. The change process is an increment of growth, and failure. Growth, and failure. Failure I didn’t even know I’d have. Growth growth growth. And then failure. We are always aware of the darkness and fight. And we celebrate evidences of growth like these:
– A decrease in how often you lose your temper. You still lose it. But you’ve gone from 60 to 5. Is that good or bad? It’s really good! But you really were awful. That’s really bad. But there’s a decrease in frequency, hooray!
A decrease in the intensity. No more foul words; but still an edge of hostility. Really good! And really bad.
A decrease in the duration. Before it was anger to anger; anger to anger. Now after 20 minutes, you start to regain your bearings. Is that really good? Really good! And … really bad.
An increase in your awareness that the promises of God truly are for the needy. For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity for it is very great. When you remember my sin, remember your mercy.