You Made It to Step 12. Now the Real Work Begins.

We made it. Step 12.

If your toes got stepped on along the way, if you felt challenged or even a little beat up, you're not alone. This has been one of the hardest series to prepare and preach, because it forces you and me to look in the mirror and focus on the things we'd rather ignore. But those ignored parts of us never get better on their own. They just don't.

So we cry out to the one who can save us, and we do the work.

The Man Nobody Could Tame

If you open to The Gospel of Mark chapter 5, you'll find yourself in the middle of what reads like a horror movie.

Jesus and his disciples have just survived a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee, the kind that nearly sank the boat (Mark 4). Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves, "Peace, be still," and everything went calm. The disciples weren't relieved. They were terrified. Because who's more powerful, the storm or the one who can stop it?

Then they make landfall in Gentile territory. In a graveyard. Next to a pig farm. And it's haunted.

There, a demon-possessed man comes running out of the tombs to meet them. He'd been living among the dead, breaking every chain they'd tried to restrain him with, crying out day and night, cutting himself with stones. No one could subdue him. He couldn't even save himself.

Sound familiar? Maybe not to that extreme, but this is Step 1 in the flesh: admitting we are powerless, and that our lives have become unmanageable.

When the man saw Jesus, he ran and knelt before him. And Jesus cast out the demons, sending them into a herd of nearby pigs that rushed into the sea. When the townspeople came out to see what happened, they found the man sitting quietly, fully clothed, and in his right mind.

They were more afraid of Jesus than they'd ever been of the demon-possessed man.

That's because Jesus was the one with real power all along.

The man, understandably, begged to come along with Jesus. He probably would have been among his strongest disciples. But Jesus said no. Instead, he gave him a different assignment: "Go home to your own people, and report to them how much the Lord has done for you."

That can be the hardest thing of all, going back to the people who knew you at your worst. But the man did it. A little while later, when Jesus returned to that same region, 4,000 people came out to hear him (Matthew 15, Mark 8). You never know how many lives your story can change.

What Step 12 Actually Says

"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all of our affairs."

You can substitute "alcoholics" for whatever you've wrestled with. The point is the same: once you've received something good, you give it away.

This is discipleship in a nutshell. As Jesus put it in Matthew 20, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. And before he ascended, he gave his followers this charge: go, make disciples, baptize, teach. Share the good news everywhere you go.

At the end of the day, we're just beggars telling other beggars where to find bread.

Bill W. and the Phone Booth

There's a story from AA's early days that illustrates this beautifully.

In the 1930s, AA co-founder Bill W. was on a business trip in Akron, Ohio. The deal fell through. He was lonely, tired, and feeling like a failure. His hotel had a fully stocked bar. He almost walked straight to it.

Instead, he turned around, found a phone booth, and started calling local churches, asking if anyone in their congregation was an alcoholic.

That night, he connected with a man who would become AA's other co-founder. And what Bill W. realized in that moment was this: I don't need alcohol. I need another alcoholic. I need someone who has wrestled with what I'm wrestling with. I need community, not willpower.

That's why these programs work. They shift the focus from the addiction to the relationship. We're all a bunch of misfits giving each other a place to belong. Shouldn't that describe the church, too?

Voices from the Journey

Recently, I invited three people from our congregation, Joe, Craig, and Cheryl, to share from their own experience with recovery. Here are some of the things they said.

On surrender: "All my life it was about my willpower," Joe said. "Then I found out that by surrendering, you win. I can't bear the weight of the world. I can do Joe, and that's a stretch sometimes. But surrendering to God's will is what's made the difference. I have more peace than I ever have."

On contentment: Craig, who described his spiritual awakening as slow and gradual rather than a flash of light, said the one thing he can believe today that he never could before is that there is such a thing as enough. "That's just an amazing thing, to know there's enough and I've got it."

On boundaries and family: Cheryl came to recovery not as an addict herself, but as someone who loved addicts. Through Al-Anon, she said, "I learned that I can say no, and not feel bad about it. You can love somebody without loving their addiction. It's hard. But it changed everything."

[for the full interview, go to tulipstreet.com/sermons]

Give It Away to Keep It

Here's the paradox at the heart of Step 12, and honestly, at the heart of the gospel: you have to give it away to keep it. Try to hoard love, peace, or hope, and it vanishes. Give it away, and you find you still have it.

Jesus said it this way: "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

The steps don't end at 12. You go back. You revisit. You keep practicing. And then you turn around and help the next person who's sitting in the tombs.

That's the life of a disciple.

Go home. Tell your story. Watch what God does with it.