Celebrating Life in Recovery

Liquids

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), James Moon

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Series Code: CLR

Program Code: CLR000113B


00:01 The following program discusses sensitive issues
00:03 related to addictive behavior.
00:05 Parents are cautioned that some material
00:06 may be too candid for younger children.
00:13 Welcome back.
00:14 You know, I sometimes feel like
00:16 I have just no talent at all
00:18 but when I watch God work with somebody
00:20 that really is and you now, Jim, you are a songwriter
00:23 and pastor and so you use words in a number of ways
00:26 with music and in your sermons that are just amazing
00:30 because what I hear when you do that
00:32 is your own personal journey.
00:33 So we are gonna start this segment with a song
00:35 that you wrote one of my favorites
00:37 and so can you let us know
00:39 the journey of writing in the song
00:41 and then play it for us.
00:42 Sure.
00:43 Well this song is entitled love me Jesus
00:45 and the story behind the song
00:49 is after the experience with the kid calling the phone
00:55 and preaching the sermon and whatever
00:59 then I wanting to learn more about addiction.
01:01 So this guy at are one of our churches
01:03 was doing a 12 Step group.
01:05 He had been an alcoholic, he was 17 years in recovery
01:09 and he is leading this 12 Step group.
01:11 And so I go to the group and I was having
01:15 we are doing our group session
01:17 and I was really kind of down on myself that day
01:20 you know I'm not the pastor that I should be
01:23 or not a leader like this person or that person
01:25 I was kind of comparing myself and one of the things
01:28 I love is when heard somebody say,
01:29 comparison is the thief of joy.
01:32 And so my joy had been robbed
01:36 and Jack turns to me and he goes,
01:38 Jim, he says you are okay, you are okay.
01:42 Amen.
01:43 And just the way he said it, I heard God saying
01:47 I love you and I started to weep
01:50 because it was like you know I ultimately
01:53 I don't want to be a super hero I don't want to be in the dumb
01:56 I just want to be okay.
01:57 I just want to know that I am loved and I am okay.
02:00 I think its probably what we all want to know.
02:02 Amen.
02:03 And so then one morning I was just having my quite time
02:07 and this song just kind of came together
02:10 out of that quite time and as I was singing
02:14 and the words were coming I just started to weep again
02:17 and reminded me that experience with Jack
02:19 and its just kind of become my life song
02:22 and its called "Love Me Jesus."
02:24 Song is so anointed.
02:42 Oh, the words I long to hear
02:46 When I enter heaven's gate
02:51 And not so much wealth
02:54 As I have loved You all Your days
02:59 From Your very first breath
03:03 When they laid You in the grave
03:07 You've been my heart's delight
03:11 The one I died to say
03:18 Love me, Jesus
03:22 Not for all I do
03:26 For all that You is faith
03:30 I need amazing grace
03:34 Just love me, Jesus
03:38 'Cause my only hope of change
03:42 It's not so much well done
03:47 As Your amazing grace
04:01 And the words I long to hear
04:05 When I bow at Your feet
04:10 And not so much well done
04:14 As, my child, don't You weep
04:18 For my grace was sufficient
04:22 For Your every need
04:27 And now we have each other
04:31 Through eternity
04:37 Oh, love me, Jesus
04:41 Not for all I do
04:45 For all that You is faith
04:49 I need amazing grace
04:54 Just love me, Jesus
04:58 'Cause my only hope of change
05:02 It's not so much well done
05:06 As Your amazing grace
05:21 When you finally speak the word
05:26 Well done, my faithful child
05:31 I know it was Your grace
05:36 That brought me every mile
05:39 From my very first steps
05:44 To when I lay down my soul
05:48 It will have been Your goodness
05:53 Working in me, Lord
05:58 And I love you, Jesus
06:03 For all that you've done
06:07 For giving Your life
06:11 For giving Your blood
06:15 Yes, I love you, Jesus
06:20 'Cause You're my only hope of change
06:24 When You say to me, well done
06:30 When You say to me, well done
06:37 And when You say to me, well done
06:44 I'll say amazing grace
06:49 I'll say amazing grace
06:55 Good will have been Your grace
07:16 That's incredible.
07:18 You know, just that you know the words of that
07:20 as you know we are looking for that well done.
07:23 It's all that cool stuff but when we actually see
07:26 who are and the distance between what I am
07:30 and what God is gonna create is that we know its grace.
07:33 I mean, we really know it's the blood of Christ
07:36 and mercy of God and the grace of God that gets us there.
07:38 Amen. That's grace.
07:40 That's all it is. Amen.
07:42 I got to tell you a story about that okay thing.
07:44 I'm on my way from St. Louis to 3ABN
07:49 and I have two people that have never been here
07:50 and I'm excited that they are here all that kind of stuff
07:53 and but I pass the off ramp to go to 3ABN by two hours
07:58 so not just by a few minutes by two hours
08:00 and so now its really late at night.
08:02 We show up at this cafe and this woman is there
08:07 she is the only one in cafe
08:08 because its 2:30, 3:30 in the morning
08:10 and me and the two girls that I'm with were laughing out loud
08:14 and we are having a great time and we are talking about,
08:16 you know, how flaky I'm to pass by a couple of hours.
08:20 We are in a different state by the way
08:21 so we are no longer even in Illinois
08:23 and the waitress just look like
08:25 she was really stressed about something.
08:27 So I said, no one is here why don't you join us?
08:29 Why don't you eat with us?
08:31 And she sat down and she was really struggling
08:33 and she started crying.
08:34 We prayed with her, we talked with her,
08:36 we ended up going through this whole crisis with her
08:40 and then she laughed and I said you know what,
08:42 I'm gonna get back to 3ABN and they are gonna just,
08:44 you know, they are gonna say you know
08:45 I'm just flaky or whatever.
08:47 And she said I want you to know that you are okay.
08:50 And so when you said that even before the song
08:52 I just really know what it feels like to,
08:54 think you are not that she said you okay
08:56 I said can you write that down?
08:58 I was just joking, can you write that down for me?
09:00 And so she went in the bag
09:01 when she got our ticket down to page,
09:04 she went in the bag and with the sharpies
09:06 she wrote on a napkin.
09:08 You are okay and she handed it to me
09:10 and I have that in my office now framed, I'm okay.
09:14 And so even with the writing of that song
09:17 is that the message is that where Jesus
09:19 is because of His grace we are okay.
09:22 You know, really it is His amazing grace.
09:24 Amen.
09:25 And I love the hymn writer I can't get his name right now
09:28 when he says, "The best obedience of my hands
09:31 dares not appear before Thy throne.
09:33 But faith can answer Thy demands by pleading
09:37 what my Lord has done."
09:38 Amen, amen.
09:40 I don't have anything to bring in
09:42 but a broken life and He says I'll take it.
09:45 Hallelujah, I'll take it, that's what He says.
09:47 He delights in us and so when He says
09:51 you know we are okay He is saying, you know,
09:53 what you are just I delight in you.
09:56 I can't help myself. You are right.
09:58 You are right.
09:59 So you don't even I want to talk--
10:02 have you talk to us a little bit
10:04 about the way God uses music with you.
10:07 The way God uses words or sermons with you
10:10 in your recovery because it's sounds like--
10:12 it seems like I've known you for a while now
10:15 and every single time I see you sit down and--
10:17 and put a song together is God really has giving you
10:21 that as you have gone through this trail?
10:24 Yeah.
10:26 Yeah, I think you know sometimes I'm stressed out
10:29 or just often times I use to write songs
10:32 and during test week at school.
10:35 And started studying. Yeah, yeah.
10:37 It was just, you know,
10:40 I think what comes to my mind right now
10:43 just as you asked that question
10:44 is there is a young women named Bethany
10:49 and she gave me permission to share her story
10:52 if it would be helpful.
10:53 And she was going through a divorce
10:55 and she was working at the hospital
10:57 where a guy from our church worked in.
11:00 He was her boss and we are sharing
11:03 and Tim calls me up and says
11:04 and I just recently moved to this church.
11:07 Tim calls up and he says can you talk to Bethany.
11:10 I'm like what, I never met her but okay.
11:12 So you know she came to our house
11:14 so that we could just have good boundaries
11:16 and have the office door open and Ingrid was there
11:19 and when she came to the front door
11:22 she looked like she had been hit by a Mack truck.
11:25 I mean emotionally just I have never seen any.
11:27 Devastating.
11:28 Yeah, like she wouldn't hardly look in the eye
11:31 and was kind of skittish and wouldn't talk and,
11:34 so I said I just said that to her you look like
11:38 you have been hit by a Mack truck
11:40 what's your story?
11:41 And she said, I can't remember a time in my life
11:43 when I didn't feel depressed.
11:46 And I was like wow, I had read just recently
11:50 the story of David Brainerd,
11:52 John Piper has a series of biographical sermons
11:55 and I read that sermon and Brainerd
11:56 was this guy in the 1740
11:59 who had gone to one of the Ivy League schools
12:00 on the east coast got kicked out of school
12:03 because he had been critical with the faculty.
12:05 Jonathan Edwards had come to the school
12:07 and there had been a big rival and Brainerd hit criticize
12:10 the fact that because they weren't spiritual enough.
12:12 You know there weren't responding to the Spirit of God
12:15 and they gave him warning and then
12:16 they kicked him out of school.
12:17 Back then the only way you could be as a pastor
12:20 was if you had graduated from one of these schools.
12:24 Well, turns out he gets kicked out
12:26 he ends up having tuberculosis.
12:29 He battles with melancholic,
12:30 which is what we would call depression today
12:33 and yet he starts to write this journal
12:37 of his because God calls him
12:39 to be a like a evangelist or missionary
12:43 to the native Americans along the eastern coast.
12:46 And so he is going around he is keeping a journal
12:50 and hyper points out in sermons
12:51 that when William Carey went to India
12:54 he took two books, he took the biography
12:57 of David Brainerd and his Bible.
12:59 So he takes the biography of this guy
13:02 who is battling depression.
13:04 In fact Jim Elliot the guy from story
13:06 the end of the spear who lives with Elliot, book,
13:10 Through Gates of Splendor same story
13:12 once a movie, once a book.
13:13 Jim Elliot, Brainerd was instrumental in his testimony
13:18 of ministering in the mist of his depression
13:22 so I say to Bethany, I say Bethany well,
13:25 depression is not the worst thing in the world.
13:26 May be God wants to use your depression
13:28 to make you a blessing.
13:30 Amen. That's true.
13:31 Because we try to run from that kind of stuff
13:33 so what a gift to say maybe in your store room
13:38 God is gonna use.
13:39 So, then I played to her that song "Love Me Jesus."
13:42 And I played her the song
13:43 and she kind of did one of these.
13:45 She like cocked her head and said,
13:47 like, she couldn't believe it
13:49 and then she said will you sing that again.
13:51 So I had to sing the song two times
13:53 and then I said to her I said, I told her the story about Jack
13:57 and the 12 Step group and said Bethany,
14:00 I said you are okay.
14:03 Oh.
14:04 And so-- Amen.
14:07 You know, it's like God give us
14:08 these things like Jack sent to me,
14:11 you are okay not to--
14:13 it's like Jesus said freely you receive, freely you give.
14:16 And the greatest gifts
14:18 we can give one another are those inner personal
14:21 emotional blessings that somebody is giving us
14:24 when God is spoken through them to us
14:26 and then He creates and opportunity
14:27 where we can speak to another
14:30 like that whole play of forward concept.
14:32 Exactly, exactly.
14:34 And I think for a lot of us
14:35 and I love when you say that for a lot of us
14:38 is we see our struggles as something to run from
14:42 and when the Bible says, don't--
14:44 don't run too fast from your tribulations
14:47 from your struggles from this
14:49 because sometimes that really builds character
14:52 and helps you to see adopting yourself and others
14:55 that you won't see any other way.
14:57 But we don't like to feel that.
15:00 We don't like to, to look at our anger
15:02 or depression or any of that kind of stuff
15:04 and God says I promise you give it to Me
15:06 like you said earlier and I'll use all of it.
15:09 Yeah, absolutely. All of it.
15:11 He does, He totally uses every odds of hardship
15:14 we ever experienced.
15:15 You know, we-- we have talked in your journey
15:19 about the early stuff coming through that early stuff
15:23 and that shame how God opened for you
15:26 in understanding of people even in addictions.
15:29 So its like, you know, I have an understanding
15:31 of what's that like may be not in the same way
15:33 as someone else working through some of your anger
15:38 and you know and even the intensity of that
15:42 with your children and having to say
15:44 as do I want to be this.
15:46 Do you have anything to say about those two things?
15:49 About?
15:50 About the anger or the early yours the things
15:53 that you dealt with as far as
15:54 not allowing the devil to keep you in shame.
15:57 Well, I think you know I had an experience
16:02 just addressing both of those briefly.
16:05 I had an experience or may be about five years ago
16:09 where you know, I think for guys,
16:13 sexually related things can continue to be a temptation
16:16 and I go on the Victoria Secrets website
16:19 and it was very intense and I realize then after
16:24 like 15 years of ministry the intensity
16:28 that I felt physiologically was nothing like
16:33 what I feel what am with my wife.
16:37 It was almost like the difference between
16:39 a natural high and maybe methamphetamine
16:41 I've never done that but that intensity
16:44 was so intense it didn't feel natural
16:46 to what I experience in marriage
16:48 and all of a sudden I realized oh, wow,
16:50 you know that's why God is trying to keep us
16:53 from those things because then
16:54 if I'm comparing that pornographic experience
16:59 with the experience with my wife
17:01 I'm gonna think the experience with my wife fall short
17:03 when really there is so much more depth of intimacy
17:06 there then some like over the top rush its gone
17:12 and then you feel embarrassed or shame.
17:14 I never felt embarrassed or shame
17:15 when I had an intimate moral with my wife.
17:18 Right, and its real. Yeah.
17:20 And so, really, it's really tough
17:22 and I want to stay there for a minute
17:23 because for a lot of us men and women in sexual addictions
17:28 is that we don't realize that we are cultivating something
17:31 that will never happen in the natural.
17:34 It cannot happen.
17:35 There is no way to kick it up to that high.
17:37 It's a fantasy world.
17:38 It's a fantasy world not real
17:40 but we will hook us to the point
17:43 where we will never be able to meet that
17:47 and will always feel like somehow
17:50 if I wasn't stuck here I could have that.
17:53 There is always that breeding that dissatisfaction
17:57 that saying just says, absolutely,
18:01 you need to leave, you need to go somewhere,
18:03 you need to be online with something.
18:07 And the more we go somewhere the less
18:10 we feel fulfilled with somewhere
18:12 and the less we feel fulfilled with right here.
18:15 I mean it's like he has got us in a bind.
18:17 You know, we are not happy in the fantasy world,
18:19 we are not happy in the real world
18:21 and so we start to disperse.
18:23 And you know coming to the anger piece
18:26 which I still feel like that's something God's work in me
18:30 through I haven't arrived
18:31 and I'm sure after I get over anger
18:33 there will be something else.
18:35 Then you know that's true.
18:37 You are like come on,
18:38 where you get a little break in between.
18:40 So but you know what I realize about anger
18:43 is that there are times when I've got so angry
18:47 that Ingrid will say to be she is like
18:49 I'm not even gonna talk to you right now you are irrational.
18:52 And I realize that I really believe
18:55 and I'm read the studies to prove it out
18:58 but I think that anger can become like this addiction
19:02 and its like there is when you are upset about
19:06 something and then there is one just start to rage
19:08 and its like somebody filled a switch
19:10 and you don't feel like you can turn it out
19:13 and you just so just ticked off,
19:15 I mean I just a we have to go,
19:18 I have one of those days and Ingrid said something
19:21 and it wasn't really her fault.
19:23 I mean, but I was stressed out and I just triggered something
19:27 and I just started to lose it
19:29 and then we have this inner personal interaction
19:31 I started to lose it some more and then I had the kids
19:34 and I was trying to get house projects done
19:35 and they were constantly coming
19:37 and I was just angry all day long
19:40 and I was miserable and so--
19:43 So as anger that bad. What?
19:45 So as she or bad.
19:47 Oh, yeah, yeah, she was like you know
19:50 but fortunately I feel so blessed
19:52 because God has given me a wife
19:55 that she has a nose for dysfunction
19:58 she can smell it a lot mile away
20:00 so she protects me from people
20:01 who might try and manipulate me
20:03 but she also knows when I'm in my junk
20:07 and she can go you are in your junk
20:09 and you know get over yourself or get away are whatever.
20:12 Take a walk or whatever. I'm not gonna deal with you.
20:14 So, she really does pretty good at not engaging with me.
20:18 So you know for somebody that
20:20 deals with those kinds of things
20:23 what are the some steps that you do
20:25 to kind of get a grip yourself like when I start to...
20:29 Well, you know, I'm so learning those steps
20:34 I feel like but if I'm in a healthier place
20:38 I'll go away and pray you know,
20:43 I'm quite time one time
20:44 God gave me that in my journaling time
20:47 I was like when you get angry walk away and pray.
20:50 It's so hard to do. And you journal too?
20:52 Yeah, I do.
20:53 Look as I, you know, I watched you
20:55 not only walk away and pray but I watched you like journals
20:58 through where you have got in a few pages
21:00 on you know what was this all about
21:04 and where did God take you from there
21:06 and then you blog it and bless all of us with it
21:08 so in a sense that you use it.
21:12 And I-- I mean I remember one time
21:14 I don't remember what it was
21:15 but I was upset and I'm driving away
21:19 and I'm beating the horn on the car
21:22 and yelling and screaming words I want to say here to God
21:26 and just like so when I think that's viable
21:29 I mean you see David in the Psalms
21:31 and you know when he says, you know,
21:32 may their little ones be thrown against the stones
21:34 its not exactly like he is being a pansy or being nice
21:37 but I think God has big enough--
21:40 He just break their jaws
21:42 not break their teeth out of their mouth.
21:44 Yeah, so, Gods shoulders are big enough
21:46 that if we can learn to direct our anger towards Him
21:49 I believe He will do this exchange
21:51 where you know as we come to Him with all our junk
21:55 He will work this transformation in our heart.
21:57 And I remember Bengie Max and tell a story
21:59 of pastor meet about a girl that come to
22:01 and she said I just want to curse God to His face,
22:04 curse Him out and he said do it.
22:06 And so when she did that over about a year
22:11 God totally changed her where she says I want to pray now,
22:14 where she didn't want to talk to God before.
22:16 I love the fact that God you know
22:18 when you say just do it.
22:19 You know, just yell at God just take that to God
22:22 and we are afraid of all that kind of stuff
22:24 and even when you know God takes all of that stuff
22:27 that we are currently going through
22:28 don't think that you are vibe
22:30 don't think this is a destination here is that
22:33 you know we are a mess and God said
22:35 daily bring those things that you work with
22:38 because that's the best we can do at any given time.
22:41 I would like see if there's any questions in the cafe
22:43 because I know it's really funny because Brad,
22:45 you know you are my husband
22:46 I love you but you dealt with anger in your life.
22:49 You know, I absolutely have it you know that very well
22:51 because you do live with me.
22:54 Jim, I just want to start by saying
22:55 thank you for the song
22:56 because I was so blessed by that
22:58 but the anger thing has been something
23:00 that have dealt with in my life
23:02 and well I have got some victory
23:03 there are still some there.
23:06 In fact, last weekend an incident happened on my job
23:10 that it impacted my ability
23:11 to perform on my job a little bit
23:13 because anger came up
23:15 and Cheri and I even dealt with some stuff
23:17 last night is funny as it is.
23:19 I mean it so to speak with the idea of maintenance
23:23 you know on a daily basis or how can we move forward
23:27 and really deal with some and in hand
23:29 that's often a way that
23:30 its not our burden to carry any more.
23:32 Well, I think the one of the things
23:36 is just I guess saying to God in the Psalms
23:40 where David says, Lord search me and know me.
23:43 And I think when I try and rigid up
23:46 this is my personality
23:48 I kind of get over while I'm with it all.
23:50 So its like on a daily basis
23:53 we are not freaking out to say Lord,
23:57 just search my heart when we go to the word
24:00 if we are spending time
24:01 I recommend spending time in the word every day
24:03 and just saying Lord, you know where I'm at,
24:06 what my journey is,
24:07 where I met the recovery process
24:09 so You give me a word today that will minister to me
24:14 and the way that I need to grow
24:16 and also a word that will allow me
24:17 to minister to the people You put my circle
24:20 that I can help lift them up.
24:22 So search me know me and direct me
24:27 and then you know some of the other things
24:29 I don't know, I guess I just when anger comes up
24:32 I just go back to God and try and talk about it.
24:36 Sometimes it takes me a while
24:37 because I suffer righteousness in the sense of I'm right
24:40 and there are-- a mess its hatred
24:42 like get to that place where I'm just willing to say
24:45 you know I really screwed it up
24:46 by I was wrong and so you can pray for me
24:51 because I don't feel like
24:53 I have a whole lot of answers yet
24:55 I mean those are some of the things but I'm so.
24:58 What's really interesting to is that
25:00 that I love the fact that you said
25:02 you know with anger in and she is amazing
25:04 but she is been able to look at you
25:06 and say you know this is not my stuff
25:08 and I am not taking it on.
25:09 So giving people permission in your circle to know
25:14 that you know when you say that it does help.
25:16 May be not in the middle of my anger
25:18 but it helps me because I get it the fact
25:21 that you have those things
25:22 take a walk journal and grab your guitar.
25:25 Brad is a trumpet play, just do some screaming
25:28 high notes on your trumpet
25:30 you know do something that
25:31 actually takes you out of yourself.
25:33 Brad also you are cyclists
25:36 ride your bikes all kind of stuff with our anger
25:38 is that we got to do it that way.
25:41 But somebody said to me, you know,
25:43 Cheri, do you have anger?
25:45 I remember saying you know I don't think so.
25:47 And there was a council that said that
25:49 and they just looked at me and said oh, man,
25:51 she is so in denial with this.
25:52 So sometimes we don't even realize
25:54 that we are dealing with things
25:55 until God in His grace starts to show us.
25:59 But part of our journey,
26:00 part of our sanctification is God says,
26:06 "let me unfold this for you."
26:07 I want to say thank you being on the program.
26:10 I want to say to anybody watching
26:11 I hope you were blessed.
26:12 I would like and set it to close out the program
26:15 like we usually do.
26:16 I would like you to come in and bless us
26:18 with another one of your songs because you are--
26:21 I think God really speak through those.
26:23 And so I'm gonna close right now and say goodbye.
26:26 Always remember that God is crazy about you, me too.
26:28 We are gonna comeback listen to Jim singing
26:31 and then I'll see you next time.


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Revised 2014-12-17