Breaking Free

The following is a summary of Tim Lane’s presentation, “Godly Intoxication.” Tim is CCEF’s executive director. He also serves as a counselor and faculty member at CCEF and associate professor of practical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. Tim is the co-author of How People Change and several other books.

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Much of the conference has been spent talking about the first part of CCEF’s mission statement: “Restoring Christ to Counseling.” Tim Lane’s talk was about the second part of that statement: “. . . and Counseling to the Church.”

After all this talk about how we restore the gospel to a primary place in our counseling, we turn to the topic of how we make the church a place where this kind of counseling in the context of the local church. How do we make the church the default place where the addict goes for help?

Consider the atmosphere of a group like Alcoholics Anonymous. When a recovering alcoholic travels to a different city, he might make a call to his sponsor to find out where the local chapter of AA is. Why? Because the recovering addict has come to depend on the AA community for his continued sobriety and success in the struggle. Can the church become this kind of place?

Paul writes in Ephesians 5:18-21,

“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Paul is in the midst of a series of metaphors and descriptions of the church community, and here he speaks of it as a place where drunkenness is replaced with sobriety. In contrast of a life of drunkenness, where we have allowed our addictive substances and activities to master us, instead we are to let the Spirit continually fill us. The church is a community of individuals who can say, “I’m wide awake, wide awake. I’m not sleeping” (to quote U2).

What are the marks and and stimulatives of this new lifestyle of being filled by the Spirit of God?

1. A Church that Speaks

We are called to be continually “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” As we live together in community, the church is to be a place trafficking in conversations, a place to be heard and to hear. Our churches should be places of honest evaluation, even in the midst of sinful relapses.

As we learn to grow in grace, each disappointment, each relapse, each struggle to remain “sober” from our addictive tendencies, become redemptive opportunities, occasions for the goodness of the gospel to shine even brighter.

2. A Church that Sings

We need to become a community that worships. Paul calls us to live in a community where we are continually “singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart.” This means when we live in community that helps us to reorient ourselves vertically, towards our Father in heaven.

Sin is, at its root, a worship disorder. We don’t just spontaneously become angry, bitter, lustful, prideful people. These sins manifest themselves after moments, minutes, or days of quietly giving ourselves to false gods. Our addictions are not born in a vacuum. They surface as addictions only because we are addicted to ourselves: we have chosen to worship ourselves rather than God.

We worship ourselves into sin; we must worship ourselves out of it. The body of Christ does this together as we become a place where idol worshipers reorient themselves to worshiping the true God in all His glory.

3. A Church that Gives Thanks

Paul also calls us to a community of “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a call to radical contentment and gratitude. The community of Christ is to be a place where, in the moments of our lives, we can look at each person’s failures and successes, sufferings and pleasures, tragedies and celebrations as sovereign circumstances being used by God to conform us to the image of Christ. Because of this we can truly be thankful for everything that comes along in our lives.

4. A Church that Submits

This is one of the big evidences that the Spirit is at work. The last mark of the Spirit-filled life is when we are “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Do we live in a teachable community? Are we listening to one another? Do we know one another well enough to be able to speak with wisdom, encouragement, and correction?

The local church can become a place where people humbly open themselves up to the Spirit of God and allow Him to fill their hearts. Together, as we become a speaking, singing, thankful, and mutually submissive community, we will be a church filled with Spirit-filled believers.

A life filled with wine only leads to “debauchery.” This is the same word used to describe the reckless life of the prodigal son on his journey from home (Luke 15). When he finally came to his senses and came home, what prevented him from returning to that addicted life? It was the reckless love of the Father. This story is a timeless parable for the modern addict, for he knows that when he comes running to his Father’s arms, disheveled and smelling of the pig sty, he will be stay there because of the Father’s wild and unchanging love.