I would like to draw our attention to Step 4 of the 12-

step program:We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of

ourselves.

Do you know why a fearless inventory is necessary?

I. Being honest with ourselves does not come easily or

naturally.

1. We don’t want to say, “I was wrong.”

2. We’ve been told “shame” and “guilt” are always bad.

3. We qualify and explain and blame.

Here’s what every single person who does that

eventually discovers . . .

II. Getting away WITH ensures that you will never recover

FROM.

Why do we do this? It’s insane.

III. The best explanation came from the lips of the Old

Testament prophet Jeremiah.

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.

1. There’s a difference between dishonest and deceitful.

Recovery begins with a fearless moral inventory. IV. Solution: a fearless moral

inventory of yourself . . . a heart-to-heart with yourself.

1. Telling ourselves the truth is liberating.

2. Telling ourselves the truth can be terrifying.

V. Let’s take inventory/Christians. So,

allow me to poke around a bit.1. Some of you are racists and you’ve never owned that . . . and that goes both ways. Don’t like white/black/ Latino.

2. Some of you don’t like rich people and you’ve never owned up to why.

3. Some of you adopted your parents or grandparents’ view of poor people. You’ve never felt compassion for people God feels compassionate about.

4. You don’t like gay people and you hide behind your Christianity. Jesus doesn’t like it when you use him as an excuse not to like someone he died for.

5. Some of you have never felt the full impact of appropriate shame. You’ve done things you should be ashamed of. And it is so painful, you’ve drugged it, excused it, martinied it, sexed it away. So you’ve never experienced forgiveness and you compensate.

Conclusion: Recovery begins with a fearless moral inventory.