Breaking Free | Pastor Gary Thomas

Breaking Free: The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Introduction: Dystopia Isn't Always External

We live in a culture obsessed with dystopian stories—disaster movies, evil tyrants, environmental collapse. We love narratives where heroes push back against chaos. But what if the real dystopia isn't coming from outside forces? What if it's the decisions we make, the dependencies we allow to seep into our lives, and the addictions that become the most ruthless tyrants in our own hearts?

James 1:15 tells us: > "Then desire when it's conceived gives birth to sin. And sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."

This isn't just spiritual language—it's real. Sin creates real dystopia: dystopia to our families, our health, our finances, our relationships, our reputation, and our peace. Without exception, all of us bring personal dystopia into our lives.

The Honest Struggle We All Face

Have you been in a moment where you know what God wants you to do, but you choose differently? Then you wake up afterward—not just ashamed, but confused. You cry out: "God, I despise this. I hate this. I know I chose it, but I don't even know why. If you leave me in this sin, I will be the most miserable person alive."

Every honest, sincere believer who knows the conviction of the Holy Spirit has prayed this prayer: "God, please save me from myself."

These dependencies and addictions are ruthless task masters. Isaiah 56:11 describes it perfectly: > "The dogs have a mighty appetite. They never have enough."

But here's the hope. Jesus said (John 8:34-36): > "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."

A Series Rooted in Scripture and the Twelve Steps

We're starting a new series this summer called Everything's Fine: The Lies We Tell Ourselves. It's a Christian view of the 12 steps used by Alcoholics Anonymous—not because these steps are Scripture, but because every single one of them is based in Scripture.

The 12 steps were developed by Bill Wilson, who was inspired by the Oxford Group (also called Moral Rearmament), a powerful movement of God in the 1930s. Frank Buckman, the founder, taught what he called the four absolutes: absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute love. The brilliance of his teaching was that word absolute.

Where does dystopia enter our lives? When we say: "I'll be 85% honest. I'll keep 15% of my life as a dark corner that nobody gets into." Or: "I'll be 85% pure, but give me this 15% to live in darkness." True freedom comes when we pursue these things in an absolute way.

Scripture Behind the Steps

Let me show you how deeply biblical these steps are:

Step 3 (I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God) connects to Romans 12:1: > "I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual act of worship."

Step 4 (I made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself) echoes Lamentations 3:40: > "Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord."

Step 5 (I admitted to God, myself, and to another human being, the exact nature of my wrongs) is rooted in James 5:16: > "Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."

Step 12 (Having had a spiritual awakening, I carry this message to others) is based on 2 Corinthians 1:4: > "God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."

Expanding Our Understanding of Addiction

You might think, "This series isn't for me. I could skip the next six weeks." But let me redefine what we mean by addiction or dependency:

An addiction or dependency is anything less than the glory and will of God that exerts power over us, that motivates us, and that ultimately controls us.

That's much wider than we might realize. Here are some of the dependencies we deal with:

Work and Achievement. Work is good, but it becomes an addiction when it's your identity. You ignore your health, your family, your integrity—all because you need people to know you're a success.

Approval Addiction. You panic if everybody doesn't like you. You're controlled by others' opinions, not by God's forgiveness. You spend so much energy managing your reputation.

Pleasure Addictions. Sex becomes an escape from pain instead of a tool for marital connection. Food becomes about filling an emptiness in your soul rather than feeding your body. As an introvert who speaks on stage, I know this struggle—sometimes I'm not eating because I'm hungry. I'm dealing with insecurity and fear about how my performance went.

Pain Addictions. Cutting, excessive tattoos—sometimes physical pain is used to numb deeper spiritual pain.

Substance Abuse. Whether it's pot, alcohol, or other drugs, we're using mind-altering substances to numb our pain.

Rescue Addiction. You have to rescue everyone around you—your kids, spouse, friends. Why? If you're so focused on rescuing everyone else, you never have to fix yourself. It's a way of controlling your own insecurity.

Romance Addiction. You always have to be infatuated. You think you disappear if somebody isn't romantically involved with you. You get into relationships that aren't good for you because you're controlled by the need for romance.

Physical Illness Addiction. Some people become addicted to feeling sick, using illness to get others' attention and care.

Exercise and Physical Conditioning. Both are good, but there's a difference between exercising to live and living to exercise. I've had seasons where I was sucked into marathons, and it made my wife's life miserable. I remember telling my kids to jump in the pool while I went to get my eight-mile run in after we'd already done a brutal hike. My daughter said, "Dad, no. You will die if you do this!"

Shopping, Cosmetic Surgery, Looking Good. You're more concerned about looking good than being good. Your identity isn't about bringing Jesus to others; it's about making an impression.

Academic Pursuits. Study and wisdom are good, but it becomes a dependency when you have to be the smartest person in the room. You think you don't matter if you can't answer every argument.

Religious Legalism. Religion is good, but it becomes legalistic when you think you do Christianity better than anyone else. You're not a brother or sister struggling together; you're competing.

Materialism. The dopamine hit you get buying something new, even if you don't need it—that's what keeps you buying.

Organizing and Cleaning. Organization is good; cleaning is great. But it becomes a dependency when clean floors matter more than a family that feels loved or neighbors that feel welcomed.

The Hidden Agenda Behind Every Dependency

Here's what's crucial to understand: Every one of these things has an agenda.

I learned this from someone who was addicted to pornography and now helps others get free. He said something chilling: "Porn has an agenda. It's not just providing you a service. It has a purpose—to take you somewhere."

What it does is get you in an excited state, then gradually introduce images or videos you would normally find appalling. But because you're already excited, you remain engaged. Your brain begins to connect excitement with seeing those things. And suddenly you think you like them.

It's trying to slowly reshape who you are into a person with disordered desires—a person you don't want to be.

Look at gambling. Instead of focusing on loving others and listening to God, your mind becomes consumed with odds and adrenaline. The dopamine hit comes from the fear of losing. You lose your bank savings and want a bigger hit—so you risk your 401k. You lose that and want an even bigger rush—your house. People will gamble with their children's educational funds because the agenda of addiction is dystopia.

There is an evil force behind these dependencies. This is spiritual warfare, not just psychology. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus said so. We're not fighting against flesh and blood; we're fighting spiritual forces.

Breaking Down the Lies We Tell Ourselves

Before we can find freedom, we have to identify and reject the lies:

Lie #1: "I can stop anytime I want to."

If you don't need to get drunk every Friday and Saturday, then don't. Take a couple weekends off and prove you're not dependent. Most of us can't.

Lie #2: "Things aren't that bad."

We slowly creep up and don't realize the dependency has gotten hold of us. I once heard a man on a plane arguing to sit between two women, claiming he was "V-shaped" and could fit comfortably. He said he used to be V-shaped ten years ago—now he was shaped like a W. We don't realize how deep we've gone until we take an honest look.

Lie #3: "I only practice my addiction because I want to. I control it."

No, the addiction controls you.

Lie #4: "When I get through this crisis, I'll stop."

Here's the truth: It's never easier for you to leave your dependency than today. Neurologically, the more you act out, the deeper the grooves in your brain become. You'll never be freer to leave than right now. Today is the day of salvation. The longer you act out, the harder it is to escape.

Lie #5: "My parent, child, or spouse is causing me to act this way."

The damage of this denial is profound. As long as we blame others, we don't deal with our own challenges. We let dependencies control us without even admitting they're controlling us.

Lie #6: "I had one victory, so it's not that bad."

I loved watching tennis in the 1970s and 80s. Jimmy Connors beat Vitas Gerulaitis 16 times in a row. Finally, in 1980 at Madison Square Garden, Gerulaitis won. At the press conference, he said: "I want the world to take notice. Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row."

That's how we act with our dependencies. We fall 16 times, have one victory, and say, "See, it's not that bad." But one victory doesn't erase the pattern.

The First Step: Admitting Powerlessness

Step One is this: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol. That our lives had become unmanageable.

This is where everything starts. Romans 3:9 says: > "We are all under the power of sin."

All of us. Not most of us—all of us. Romans 7:14: > "We are sold into slavery under sin."

Galatians 3:22: > "The scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin."

Prisoners means powerless. And there's only one path out—not through psychology, but through Jesus. We receive God's promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ.

Admitting our powerlessness is the first step to health. It's admitting: "If I'm left to myself, I will ruin myself. I'll take the good things of this world—work, food, whatever it is—and misuse it to numb my pain."

How Addictions Form

Your brain has a great memory and no morals. It knows where it found relief. When you feel pain and discover that some addictive agent provides temporary relief, your brain remembers. The next time you feel that pain, your brain says, "That's what you need." It doesn't worry about ethics or consequences—it wants immediate relief.

This creates a cycle:

1. Pain (which we all feel)
2. Finding temporary relief through an addictive agent (work, alcohol, shopping, gambling, whatever)
3. Negative consequences to our finances, relationships, integrity
4. Shame and guilt, which produce more pain
5. Back to step 1, as we seek relief again

The dependency bores a hole into our soul, making it worse and worse. And beyond the negative consequences it causes, consider what it keeps us from—life in Christ.

When you numb yourself to pain every time instead of processing it, you numb yourself to everything. You numb yourself to joy, to happiness, to God's conviction, to God's presence.

An unaddressed dependency is a choice to become a spiritual zombie.

In the inner city, we see people strung out on drugs—literal zombies. But in the suburbs, we're well-dressed, well-groomed zombies in a different way. Jesus wants us to be fully alive.

John 10:10: > "Satan comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy."

That's his agenda. He doesn't care what dependency keeps you from God.

But Jesus says: > "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

The Root: Independence from God

Step One points to sin at its most fundamental level: thinking that we can live independently of God.

If I think I've already arrived, if I don't think this series is for me, by definition I'm not going to address it. I'm not going to ask God for help.

Remember when Jesus described two people praying? There's the sinner living out Step One: "God, I'm so ashamed. I'm so sorry. I can't even look up to heaven." And the Pharisee: "God, thank you that I don't sin like that. I tithe. I fast. I study scripture."

Who did Jesus say went away healed? Not the person saying, "I don't need that." The person living out Step One.

Four times in Scripture, this is repeated: > "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

We demonstrate our humility by admitting our powerlessness.

This goes back to Adam and Eve. What were they really fighting about? Not the apple. The original temptation was: "You can be independent of God. You can be like God. You don't need God." That original temptation is our current temptation.

In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray: "Deliver me from temptation, for thine is the power." Notice—we don't pray, "Mine is the power." The word deliver implies we need a rescuer. We need Jesus. We can't do this on our own.

Step One Never Ends

Counselors say Step One is the most difficult, most denied, and most avoided step because it gets to the root cause: Are we depending on God or not?

And here's what matters: Step One doesn't end at Step Two, or Step Six, or Step Twelve. Step One ends when we die. We will never not be dependent on Jesus.

Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, was dying in a hospital. Knowing he was about to die, he pleaded with his nurses to give him a drink. They were horrified. He became verbally abusive and nasty. Why? Because his brain—that great memory with no morals—remembered this is scary, and here's how we find relief. To the end of his life, this was his struggle.

For many of us, if we've created deep grooves in our brains, we're going to deal with this again and again. We have to keep going back to God. But when addictions cause us to turn from dependence on ourselves to dependence on God, they can actually become a gift. They remind us that our hero, our savior, is Jesus.

Hope for Real Transformation

Change can happen. Not because you're going to try harder—but because you're going to learn to depend on Him and follow the steps accordingly.

I had a picture God gave me recently. Behind our church property, I filmed a video in March—dark, stripped trees. It looked dead. Like it was never going to change. Three months later, in June, the same place was filled with life, color, and green. Animals were back in the trees.

I didn't make that happen. I didn't plan it. I didn't do anything. God decided: Where there was death, I'm going to bring life—because that's the kind of God I am.

That's what He wants to do in this church and in your life.

I've seen this transformation again and again:

• People who wrecked their marriages now help other marriages come back together
• People stuck in addiction now help others get free from that very addiction
• People who brought such dystopia into their lives they didn't want to live anymore, now they give new spiritual life to people by the score

But this is just the first step.

Moving Forward Together

Next week, we'll go through Steps Two and Three. And we have a group called Regen where you don't have to do this alone. You can find it on our app or through the QR code.

Regen isn't just for those struggling with alcohol or drug addiction. The people who've benefited most are those dealing with success addiction, approval addiction, food, and so many other things. This isn't just listening to six sermons—it's finding a new path in life.

The purpose of this series is that we identify the lies, reject the lies, and stop judging each other. Your struggle is different than mine, but we're all the same in our struggle, and we're all the same in our hope: Jesus, not ourselves. We need Jesus.

A Call to Freedom

Maybe you're sitting here realizing: "I've got to identify these lies. I've got to stop lying to myself. I need Him."

If you're not even a Christian, this is the first step to freedom. Freedom is found in Jesus. This can be a new season for you—like moving from the winter of March to the spring and summer of June.

This summer can be different if you cast yourself on your Savior, Jesus.