Nearly two minutes into his now famous 15 minute TED Talk in London, British Journalist Johann Hari makes the shocking statement, “Almost everything we know about addiction is wrong.” He then goes on to share the most recent research, case studies, and example after example that builds up to his final concluding statement about addiction that drops like a major truth bomb on your mind. He says, “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.” In other words, Johann was saying that the deepest need we have in our hearts, which we use our addictions to meet, though they’re really poor debilitating substitutes, is relational connection with others. It’s actually these meaningful connections that so fill the need in our hearts that the addiction becomes unnecessary, resulting in sobriety. Now if you have found and are experiencing your Why for life in the love of Christ, then Johann’s conclusion should deeply resonate with what you see taught and revealed throughout all of Scripture in the light of the Gospel. For it is to the extent that we receive into our hearts the love of God that we have the capacity to love people through meaningful relational connection.

The sad reality and paradox is that though we live in the most digitally connected time in human history, we also live in the most relationally disconnected time in human history. Listen, we live in the midst of a global pandemic of loneliness. People are more isolated, addicted, and mentally ill then ever before, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. And though our smart phones can be useful tools, they have us constantly connected digitally, while leaving us increasingly lonely, self-focused, in denial of our hearts craving for real human connection and addicted. Some of the addictions we use as poor substitutes for human connection are mindlessly scrolling through social media, constantly checking to see if people approved of our post by liking it, spending large amounts of time gaming, binging large amounts of content while the practical necessities of life are left undone, viewing pornography, binging on anxiety-inducing conspiracy theories or constantly saturating our minds with the news, which is mostly bad news, to the neglect of saturating our minds with the Good News found in the Scriptures! And this is just scratching the surface of addictions. We still haven’t mentioned gambling, alcohol, people approval, sex, illicit drugs or food addictions, just to name a few.

The Good News is that when we replace these addictions with the love of Christ as the compelling Why for our lives, He invites us to follow Him into a way of life that begins to heal and address the root of these very issues! But how? Well, as we continue to journey through this series, let’s follow Jesus through the Gospels and the New Testament as He calls and surrounds Himself with disciples. We’ve already scene two new disciples, Andrew and John, respond in faith to the Good News about Jesus through the preaching of John the Baptist and then watched Jesus invite them into an abiding relationship with Himself. This was the early Judean phase of Jesus’ ministry that only the apostle John records for us in his Gospel, which will last approximately a year and a half. As seen in John chapter 1, it’s during this time that Jesus starts to draw a group of a handful or more of His first disciples. And this is where we need to slow down and focus our attention in order to answer the question: When the love of Christ is the Why for your life, then what’s the second step He leads your life into?

Well, if your heart is open, I invite you into a scene of Jesus’ interaction with His disciples in Matthew 13 that will highlight this step for us and thus lead us to the answer. This scene happens in the midst of Jesus sharing some of His most famous parables. Let’s pick up the story in verses 10, 11 and 36, which reads…