Run for Your Life: Building a Pure Church for the Next Generation | 2 Timothy 2:22 | Pastor Dave Hentschel

And as you are turning there, I want to uh share with you a story before I read the scripture for today.

The story I am going to share is quite sobering.

Several years ago, one of the most influential churches in all of America, Willow Creek Community Church, went through a crisis that not only shook their church, but really shook the entire evangelical world.

Its founding pastor, Bill Hybels, was a widely respected leader.

He had built a thriving ministry in the early 80s.

He influenced literally thousands of pastors and tens of thousands of people, and uh everything was going fantastic in their ministry there in Chicago until some allegations of sexual misconduct on his part surfaced.

At first, there were denials.

Then some more voices came forward, and then the pressure mounted, and eventually Heibels resigned.

What followed after that was even more devastating.

The entire elder board stepped down.

Many senior leaders in the church also tendered their resignation.

Trust in the church was deeply shaken.

Thousands of people left the ministry.

That church was never the same.

As we think about passing the legacy of faith to the next generation, we would be foolish not to think about this subject as well.

What happens when a church leader who's attempting to pass on a gospel legacy to the next generation ends up as they're running the race, tripping and falling in the middle of their race and getting disqualified?

Or to put it another way, what happens to a church's legacy when hidden sin is allowed to grow inside the church?

Here's the point I want us to really feel in our bones this morning.

That story did not begin when you and I heard about it in the public scandal.

That story began with private compromises years earlier that nobody knew about.

I'm convinced that no pastor and no Christian ever wakes up one day and decides to destroy their ministry and tear apart their marriage and their family and their reputation and their witness for Christ.

It doesn't start that way.

It starts small, it starts hidden, it feels manageable until it isn't.

And if this could happen to Bill Heibels, someone that I read his books and listened to his teaching and many people followed him.

If I'm gonna say that could never happen to me, then I'm a lot more vulnerable than I even realize.

The Bible says, take heed lest he fall, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall, right?

That's I think exactly why Paul writes to his young protege, Timothy, this sobering verse, chapter two in verse 22 of our book today, says this.

So flee, youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart.

Today we're gonna slow down and focus on something that we normally never do.

We're just gonna focus on one single verse because sometimes one verse rightly understood, rightly applied, is enough to occupy an entire Sunday sermon because mistakes in this area have devastating consequences for a church that's trying to pass on the faith.

Now, if this is your first Sunday visiting, you picked a doozy of a Sunday to choose to check out Millington Baptist Church.

We've been going through a series through the book of 2 Timothy.

Uh we're talking about passing on the faith, and Paul is writing to a young pastor, his protege, and he speaks here directly to something that's not really just a youth issue, though it starts there.

It's more of a human issue, isn't it?

That phrase youthful passions, sometimes translated youthful lusts, NASB, or NIV says the evil desires of youth, refers to many things, but it certainly refers to the issue of sexual integrity.

So when we talk about passing on the faith as a church, we have the call toward purity here and a call toward holiness here in a very important area for a reason.

This was extremely relevant in the first century, and it is massively relevant in our day as well.

In his excellent book, Unwanted, How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing, which I'd highly recommend, author and Christian psychologist Jay Stringer states that, quote, We are in the midst of a great sexual crisis in our culture, and there he starts with some pretty troubling statistics.

For example, right now 64% of 13 to 24-year-olds intentionally watch pornography at least once a week.

By the time children become teens and young adults, 62% of them will have received a sext, a sexually explicit image via text, and 41% of them will have sent one.

The pornography industry is rapidly growing.

One recent analysis by Maximized Market Research shows that the adult entertainment market is valued at more than 191 billion with a B dollars, with its growth expected to reach close to$275 billion by the year 2032.

In some estimates, the global pornography industry brings in more revenue than all U.S.

professional sports combined.

That's not true either.

In fact, 64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women admit to viewing porn monthly.

And it's not just adults.

The average respondent reported that they viewed pornography first by the age of 12.

It's not a fringe issue, though.

It's not somebody else's problem out there.

This is a problem in our homes.

This is a problem in our pockets.

This is a problem in our hearts.

And if we don't take it seriously, it has the power to cost us far more than we want to pay.

It may actually cost us our entire legacy as a church.

So today we're just going to talk honestly about sexual integrity, about how temptation works, and about how by God's grace we can walk in purity in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Are you ready for this?

You guys are awfully quiet today.

Please don't be acting like this is not a real issue.

Come on.

Let's deal with this issue in Jesus' name with Jesus love.

Now hear me clearly.

This is not going to be a message of condemnation.

This is a message of invitation.

Jesus is going to meet us right here, and he may want to meet you right here today.

So the title of my message is Run for Your Life.

And I mean that with all my heart.

Run for your life.

Building a pure church for the next generation.

We're talking about running.

You need to run in this area.

Three parts of the message.

First, we're going to talk about understanding the battle.

Number two, understanding God's strategy for the battle.

And then number three, understanding how to break the cycle, some practical pathways for freedom towards the end of our message.

We'll also have an interview with a resident expert in this area, too.

A lot going on today.

Let's pray and ask the Lord to help us.

Father, you are a good God and a holy God, and we need your grace.

So as we open up your word, we invite you to search our hearts, bring conviction where we need it, bring us hope where we may feel burdened and weighed down.

Would you help us to find your plan in this area for our lives?

Give us ears to hear.

Give us courage to step in and respond.

For we ask it all in Jesus' name and for his reputation and in his power.

For we say it all together saying, Amen.

All right, part one, understanding the battle.

How does lust actually work?

For this right-hand turn, I just want to go over to the book of James just to show you some insight into the issue of temptation there before we get to the 2nd Timothy verse.

And I want to share with you how this whole problem kind of begins, right?

So James chapter 1 speaks to that, verse 13.

James 1 · chapter mention

James says, When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me.

For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.

Pause right there.

That word for temptation is important.

It refers to an inner enticement towards sin.

I want you to notice that.

When it talks about this temptation, the word that he uses here in the beginning of this verse is the word when.

He does not say if you're tempted, if she's tempted, if he's tempted, maybe you'll be tempted, if perchance possibly you might face temptation, if you're one of the unlucky people that might get tempted in this area, no.

He says, when you get tempted, because it's a hundred percent guarantee you will be tempted in this area.

I want you to know something.

Now notice, secondly, that when it comes to any temptation, including sexual temptation, it is not God who is behind this temptation.

It is our own flesh.

God created man and woman, created sex, and he created it good, but it's good in a certain context.

You get outside of those boundaries, then it becomes destructive.

And that's what sometimes we deal with.

It's kind of like guardrails.

I personally like guardrail rails.

Last Saturday I was in Lynchburg, Virginia, driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is gorgeous.

You go up on that mountain and you realize there's no guardrails out here.

It's a beautiful view.

Sometimes I would pull over, sometimes I got, you know, looking out the window and realize, whoa, whoa, eyes on the road, it's a long way down there.

I I like guardrails.

Now, the whole point of a guardrail is to keep you from moving into an area of actual danger.

And the theory behind a guardrail is if you hit the guardrail, it might damage your car a little bit, but it's going to do a lot less damage than if you were to drive beyond the guardrail.

A guardrail is always there to protect you.

God, in his word, has given us guardrails to keep us from danger in a lot of different areas, but certainly in this area.

If you're a child or a teen here today and your parents have guardrails for you, thank God for that.

Now, one of the guardrails that God has given us in his word is what he has to say about this area of sex.

God creates sex, he says it's good, but it's reserved for marriage, one man, one woman for life within the context of a covenant relationship with one another.

Get outside of those guardrails, it causes all kinds of problems for you in your life and problems in society.

This is what James is trying to tell us.

So James tells us though God creates sex, he's not the one creating sexual temptation.

That's coming from inside of us.

Verse 14, James continues to say, but each person is tempted when they're dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.

Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it's full grown gives birth to death.

Notice a few things here in this couple of verses.

Those terms dragged away and enticed were the kinds of terms that you might find in the hunting and fishing industry.

Fish, look for the bait on the hook.

I mean, you know, how many fish would you catch if you had a bare hook?

Zero.

In this illustration, you're the fish.

Puritan Thomas Brooks, in his excellent book, Precious Remedies for Satan, Satan's Devices, says it this way: quote, Satan's first device is to draw the soul into sin by presenting the bait and hiding the hook.

To present the golden cup and hide the poison.

To present the sweet, the pleasure, and the profit that may flow in upon the soul by yielding to that sin, and to hide from the soul the wrath and misery that will certainly follow the committing of that sin.

Do not be ignorant of his schemes.

Now, no fish ever bites the hook because they want to have metal in their mouth.

They do that because something on the hook looks good, though it's not good.

And then after they bite, it gets out of control because you keep on going for the bait, even though you know it's sin.

And it leads to a cycle.

A cycle of lust.

Let me see if I can break it down for you.

Step one in the cycle is there's a desire.

There's something on the inside of me, on the inside of you that gets awakened internally.

The word for desires in James chapter one is the word epithumia.

It's really referring to lusts, ambitions, selfish ambitions, over-desires.

There's a disorderliness there to the desires.

It's a disordered affections, and I'll come back to that term later.

And then you move to step two, there's deception.

Hey, this won't hurt, or hey, I'm only gonna do this once.

And the crazy thing is, after years of taking the same bait, sometimes we see the same hook and we know it's a temptation, but yet we keep on going for it.

We keep right on nibbling.

It's crazy, right?

Pastor Dave, I can handle it, I know what I'm doing, I'm an adult, it's moderation, I'm not gonna get hurt, I know how far I can go.

That person's is deceived.

Number three, we get to the decision.

This is when you make a choice.

You choose to give in.

You lie, you cheat, you fudge, you you you indulge in some way, you take that forbidden fruit, you eat it, whatever it is.

And we cross the line into outward disobedience, and this is what the Bible calls sin.

And then we have the consequence of distance.

Sin always creates distance from God, distance because of shame, and sometimes distance horizontally in our human relationships.

And there's a loop there, and it continues to happen as you continue to feed these desires.

If a stray dog shows up at your house and you feed it every day, don't be surprised if it keeps coming back tomorrow.

What you feed grows, and what you starve weakens.

So, what that means here is every click and every look and every fantasy that you're uh that you're uh engaging in is training your desires.

And eventually, though lust promises life, the book of James says it actually brings you death.

Sin is not a game.

It's it has tragic consequences.

The scripture's not kidding around when it says the wages of sin is death.

Sin is destructive.

When it comes to sexual sin, there's all kinds of destruction that can come: emotional consequences, unwanted hurts, distance in relationships, even physical diseases that can happen to anybody.

There's really no such thing as a harmless sin.

Sin is why death came into the world.

Because the disease of sin brings decay wherever it spreads, it brings death.

The language reminds me of what Moses said at the end of his life as he warned the next generation to keep the law.

He said, I've set before you life and death, blessings and cursings.

Now choose life so that you and your children will live.

Now, before we go any further, some of you might be thinking, Well, I'm stuck in that cycle right now.

And let me explain why people get stuck in that cycle.

The reason is because acting out sexually can become an addiction.

And it works like any other addiction, really, but let me explain that further.

Here's a definition that I'm just gonna offer for the sermon today.

Maybe not a perfect definition, but this is what I came up with.

An addiction is a desire that grows so strong that it begins to control your life even when you know it's harming you.

Let me try to explain this with a visual illustration.

This is a picture of your brain.

Okay, it's not your brain, but it's a brain.

This is a brain.

And normally, when everything's functioning well, your brain has a base level of what we might call a feel-good chemical, and your brain experiences this base level as normal.

But when you do something enjoyable, when you eat something you like, when you get a Rhesus peanut butter cup, when you go engage in your favorite game or hobby, or when you ride a roller coaster, what happens is that level goes up.

And your brain experiences that as good and happy and exciting, and your brain remembers that so that you'll be more likely to do that again.

And then after the behavior's over, you throw the Reese's wrapper away and your brain goes back to normal.

Now the opposite is also true.

If you were to eat something that's spoiled, or you were to get sick, or you were to overdo it on the Reese's, well, that level's gonna drop.

And your brain is gonna experience that as bad or unpleasant, something to avoid, so that you'll do less of that.

That's the idea.

Now let's talk about addictions and pornography.

When someone views pornography, it floods the brain with an unusually high level of that feel-good chemical.

And it's not just pleasure, it's like a spike, a kind of artificial high, similar to a drug.

And your brain like recognizes this, and your brain goes, Whoa, like this is way too much of that feel-good chemical, and it actually adjusts and it starts producing less of that feel-good chemical naturally on its own.

And so when the high of pornography or any kind of drug really wears off, you get the low.

This is the low after the high.

You feel down, maybe even depressed, you crash.

Now, this is where it gets dangerous.

Your brain, over time, when you engage in an addiction, it starts to adjust this.

And because of that adjustment, you may do the things that you used to enjoy.

You may you may go back to the Reese's, or you may go back to a hobby or your normal pleasures, but they don't feel the same anymore.

What used to feel really great now just feels kind of average.

Like, okay, same old, same old, just kind of normal.

So your brain starts telling you, you got to go back to pornography.

And then over time, something else happens.

Even that high starts to feel just normal.

That's what we call tolerance.

It didn't start like that as an addiction in this way, but now your brain needs more or something stronger just to feel the same effect.

And now when you come down from the high, your normal starts to feel lower and lower.

So now you don't just want it, you feel like you need it, not to feel great, just to feel normal.

And at this point, you do almost anything to get that feeling again.

That's addiction.

And that's why it's so powerful, because it's not just a behavior, it's something that's reshaped how your whole brain works.

Pornography creates an addiction, and that's why you need to detox, just like from any other drug.

But it's not just pornography, it's any kind of sexual addiction.

There was a term.

The New Testament writers used a term to describe any kind of sexual immorality, and they they used the term pornea.

You can see where we get our English word pornography from that word.

But that didn't just refer to those kinds of things like images.

It referred to any kind of sexual activity outside of God's ordained institution of marriage.

So in the first century, that referred to things like fornication, sex before marriage, sex outside of marriage, adultery, cohabitation.

Back then they had polyamory, they had polygamy, homosexuality was rampant, pederasty.

There was all kinds of sexual deviances in the first century.

You think we've made this up in our generation?

Not true at all.

There's nothing new under the sun.

Everybody was sexual in the first century, and it was absolute chaos.

Let me tell you why this matters.

Sexual addiction is not just a bad habit, it rewires your desires, it isolates you and it pulls you deeper in over time.

And it becomes a stronghold, it becomes a bondage.

So, how do we break it?

How do we break the power of lust and pornea and things like sex addiction?

Well, that's point two.

We've now talked about understanding the battle.

Let's talk about understanding God's strategy because he gives us some insight into his solution to this problem in his word.

The key verse from today that I shared with you earlier, I want to go back to and look more carefully at this.

I see stuff in this verse that I've never seen before.

This thing is jam-packed.

Take a look at what he says here.

He says, flee youthful passions.

He uses the word youthful there on purpose, not so as to say only young people can commit these kinds of sins, but it's an adjective that describes the kinds of immature, childish, self-centered behaviors that characterizes somebody who's in their youth and still hasn't matured.

And some people still never mature past that.

But God's will is for his people to grow and to grow up and to mature.

And Paul's strategy to get there is he says, you need to flee.

He does not say manage it or negotiate with it.

He says flee.

The word means to run.

It means to run for your life.

It's so bad, you should run for your life.

And so that's the first practical principle that we learn from God's word today.

It's this don't fight.

Lust, but flee it.

Let's say that together.

Don't fight lust, flee it.

As hard as it is to hear that today for some of you, that's exactly what you need to do.

Flee.

This is how we relate to sexual sin.

We flee.

We often try to think that we're stronger than temptation.

But my brothers and sisters, some battles, some battles are not meant to be managed.

They're meant to be escaped.

The best way to fight any addiction, really, is to not ever start.

There's a powerful example of this principle from way back in the Old Testament, in the first book of the Bible, in the life of Joseph.

Joseph was a young man.

He was living far from home.

He was working in the house of this powerful Egyptian ruler named Potiphar.

Everything was going well with Joseph.

God was blessing him.

He was rising in his responsibilities.

And then comes this source of temptation.

Take a look at chapter 39, verse 6.

It says, So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care, with Joseph in charge.

He did not concern himself with anything except for the food he ate.

Now Joseph was well built and handsome, and after a while, his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, Come to bed with me.

Now Joseph could have justified this.

Nobody would have known.

He's far from his family, he's far from home.

She's the one pursuing him.

He's been treated very unfairly in his life up until this point.

He could have said, The heck with it, but that's not what he does.

Look at his response.

It says, But he refused.

With me in charge, he told her, My master does not concern himself with anything in the house.

Everything he owns, he's entrusted to my care.

No one is greater in this house than I am.

My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.

How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against my God?

Did you catch his reasoning there?

There's a marriage, and I'm going to respect that marriage.

And this is not just a behavior between human beings here.

I don't want to do this wicked thing against God.

Joseph understood this wasn't just about a moment.

This was about his relationship with his creator and his redeemer.

And then one day, as time passes, she catches him alone in the house.

Look at verse 11.

It says, One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside.

She caught him by his cloak and said, Come to bed with me.

But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.

Notice, what does Joseph do?

He literally leaves his cloak in her hand and runs out of the house.

He doesn't argue, he doesn't linger, he doesn't try to manage the situation.

He doesn't say, Well, let me first pray about this.

He doesn't say, Let me see how close to temptation I can get here with her.

No, he ran.

Sometimes the most spiritual thing you and I can do is run.

Don't fight lust, flee it.

This is what the scripture is telling us.

Look at what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew chapter 5 records this.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away.

It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, to stumble, cut it off and throw it away.

It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go to hell.

What we have here is radical amputation language from the Lord Jesus.

Now, Jesus is not calling us to self-harm, he's calling for rather a ruthless seriousness about sin.

If temptation lives in your pocket, don't be surprised when it wins.

So my encouragement here is to flee, to run.

Literally, run for your life.

Now let me pause here and just say a word to the parents.

Parents, please talk to your children about internet safety.

If your child has access to a smartphone or tablet, they have access to the internet, and the internet is not neutral.

If you will not disciple your children, believe me, the world will be glad to do that.

This is not about being controlling.

This is about you being responsible.

You're not invading their privacy.

You are protecting their future.

Put filters on their devices.

Do not allow unrestricted internet access.

And most of all, communicate.

Have an ongoing dialogue and conversation with your children about this area.

Don't just have one talk and never talk about it again.

Keep the lines of communication open with your child.

If your kids are very young, our kids director, Rachel Rickershauser, recommended two books that will help you in this area to have those kind of talks with your kids for different age groups.

If the child is four to seven, you would want to go with the first one and then six to eleven is the second one.

Those are some tools as parents that we can take advantage of.

But most importantly, create a home where conversation is happening, where honesty can happen without fear.

Because if the kids are afraid, they're gonna hide.

And so it's perfect if they live in a resign reside in an environment that has both grace and truth, and they'll come to you.

So back to the adults.

The first principle is not to fight it, but to flee.

But there's another principle I want to share with you this morning, and it's this, because it's not just about fleeing something, it's also about pursuing something else.

Fleeing is only half the battle.

If all you do is run away from something and you don't run toward something better, you're eventually going to run back.

So it's not just running away, it's always running toward.

Notice the verse, 2 Timothy 2, verse 22.

2 Timothy 2:22

What does Paul say?

Flee this, but pursue something else.

Pursue what?

Pursue righteousness.

Pursue faith.

Pursue love.

Pursue peace.

Righteousness, that's living before God with integrity.

Faith, that's trusting that God will provide all your needs.

Living a life of love that is not consistent with a life of lust and respect for another person is love.

We don't want to live in lust.

And then peace, this will bring you peace in your life with God and with others.

Lust will rewire your desires.

God wants to renew your mind in this way and have you pursue something else.

You may have trained your brain in one direction, but by God's grace, you can retrain it.

In fact, God made our brains with the kind of neuroplasticity that can actually be rewired.

There's a process that involves detox, but spiritually and even neurologically, you can break free from this thing.

Freedom is possible.

And so that's the second principle I want to share with you this morning.

Replace, don't just remove.

Can we say that together?

Replace, don't just remove.

You do not defeat lust by emptying your life.

You defeat lust by filling your life with something better.

The biblical solution to temptation is not like Bob Newhart, stop it.

The biblical solution to temptation is not just try harder, white knuckle it.

The biblical solution to temptation is not Nancy Reagan, just say no.

That is not biblical at all.

You're not Ulysses saying time into the Mast.

You're a Christian.

Those solutions are okay, I guess.

They're just very incomplete, and they will not last for you.

Those solutions involve willpower.

Have you noticed that your will lacks power?

Your will fatigu over time.

So instead, what you have to do is you have to go much deeper than the will into the realm that theologians call the affections.

The biblical reason for sin is always much deeper than the will.

It's a disordered love that's happening inside of your heart.

Notice the verse again, 2 Timothy 2.22.

He says, I want you to do this from a pure heart.

Do you see that?

Pure.

That's the word catharos, where we get our word catheter, like a heart catheter, something that's unblocked, something that's free from all corruption and sin and guilt, something that's blameless, something that's innocent.

So therefore, the biblical answer for sin is you've got to have a reordering of your heart, and you gotta find something that you love more.

In other words, the solution is a reordered affection.

And the new affection is your affection for God.

You see, the only way to break a desire in the soul is to show your soul a new and greater and more beautiful desire.

This is what Thomas Chalmers called the expulsive power of a new affection.

And that new affection, brothers and sisters, is for the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is why C.S.

Lewis famously said in his book, The Weight of Glory, quote, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not to be too strong, but too weak.

We are half-hearted creatures, he says, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

And then he concludes by saying, We are far too easily pleased.

God never wants to take something from you, he wants something for you.

Brother, you're not trading gold, you're trading tin for precious treasure.

You're trading sand to stand on a rock.

That's a good trade.

The reason you fall into temptation is not because you have these desires.

It's because you're far too easily satisfied.

Don't you see?

The whole reason you fall is in that moment you don't see the beauty of serving Christ.

You don't see that he's so much better than what you're tempted by.

And your whole problem is you don't see how wonderful he is.

See, just saying no to temptation will not do it.

You must say yes to the beautiful person of Jesus Christ.

The same principle is repeated elsewhere in the Bible.

Take a look at 1 Corinthians 6.

Again, Paul says this flee from sexual immorality.

Why?

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

So glorify God with your body.

Friends, if you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit has taken up residence on the inside of you.

God, the Spirit, lives on the inside of you because He wants to purify you and cleanse you and use you.

And it is a tragedy for you to yield to the lust of the flesh and become like any other person.

And this applies to the area of immorality, but it also could be more broad about areas like how you dress or the language that you use or things like that.

You've been called and you have the opportunity to honor God with your body in a crooked and perverse generation.

This is what happened.

Guys, this is what happened in the early church.

This is what they did.

There's a historian.

His name is Kyle Harper.

And he wrote a book called From Shame to Sin.

And he points out something fascinating about how the Christians, the Christians, completely changed the ancient world and the Greco-Roman attitude towards sex in the first 500 years of the church.

In the Roman culture, sexual immorality was rampant.

And they lived in something that's called an honor-shame culture.

In that culture, people did not primarily ask, is this behavior sinful?

Rather, they asked this question: Will that behavior bring me shame?

In other words, will I get caught?

Will this hurt my reputation?

But then the Christians came along and everything changed.

They literally changed the entire culture.

Jesus said, it's not just what you do, it's what's happening in your heart.

The question shifted from will people see this to does God see this?

And that didn't just change individuals.

That started to change towns and cities and the whole society.

It is because of the Christians that we now actually enjoy the basic sexual ethic that we have today in our society.

I know it's not perfect, but it's there as a baseline because of what the Christians did.

Faithfulness in marriage was all of a sudden elevated to a level that was unheard of before.

Exploitation and prostitution, which was everywhere.

The emperor was involved in this, very common, it started to be challenged.

Self-control for the first time became a virtue.

And every person, man or woman, was called to the same standard of purity before God.

That whole idea that we're responsible individually before God was like revolutionary.

And the church changed the world.

Because sexual integrity is not just about managing appearances, it's about honoring God from the inside out.

You can hide from people, but you can't hide from God.

And so the goal of the Christian life isn't just to look pure, it's to be pure.

And the early Christians took this calling toward purity very seriously, and they showed the world the beauty of marriage.

One man, one woman covenanted together for life, a picture of Christ in the church.

And that idea was so compelling that they changed everything.

One letter called the Epistle of Diagnesis tries to describe what's going on in the early church to an unbeliever.

And he says things like this there's something extraordinary about their lives.

They live in their own countries as though they were just passing through.

They play the role of citizens, but but they also labor as aliens.

Any country can be their homeland, but for them, their homeland, wherever it may be, seems like a foreign country.

Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them.

They share their meals, but not their wives.

They live in the flesh, but they're not governed by the desires of the flesh.

And the letter goes on and on and on to say about the impact that the church had on the culture.

We stand in their line.

Point three.

So we've talked about understanding the battle, and we've talked about understanding God's strategy.

The third thing I want to talk to you about is understanding how to break the cycle, some practical pathways to freedom.

I want to get really practical for a moment about protecting you from sexual immorality, because this is actually where a lot of people get stuck.

We talk about purity, we talk about fleeing, but then we leave here and the temptation is like still right in our pocket.

For most of human history, temptation had to come looking for you.

Not anymore.

Now it's always with you.

It's always private, it's always accessible.

But if we're serious about what the Bible says here, then we're gonna be needing to create some distance on purpose.

And that's not about legalism, it's about freedom.

And it's not about restriction, it's about protection.

So what does that look like?

Well, let me give you a few incredible applications that will help you.

Number one, it's gonna really start with your devices.

Remove access.

Lock down your phone.

Turn on the content restrictions, disable things like private browsing, remove any apps or access points that might lead you into temptation.

Things like Snapchat or even Instagram can have some harmful material there.

Lock that stuff down.

For some of you, that might even mean getting rid of your smartphone and getting a dumb phone.

It's called a light phone.

You can get that and do basic things like maps and stuff like that, but it won't allow you to access certain platforms that are problematic for you.

Because you don't fight sexual temptation with willpower, you fight it with boundaries.

The point here is don't pray for purity while preserving your own act open access to impurity.

If we're serious, if you're serious, if Jesus is your Lord in this area, you don't just need good intentions, you need wise boundaries.

Number two, add accountability.

Add accountability.

Your freedom does not come from isolation.

It is gonna come in the context of community.

Purity is not gonna be a solo project for you.

We need accountability.

We need a brotherhood.

We need a sisterhood.

We have men's groups here, we have women's groups here.

We would love to have you in one of those groups.

You need to join one because here's the thing you need to know: don't fight alone.

We need honest, authentic relationships.

People who confess their sins one to another and know how to receive a confession like that.

Notice that verse again, 2 Timothy 2.22.

Did you see this?

We're doing this along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

Did you see that?

We're not doing this thing alone.

We're together, we're allies, we're in the foxhole.

If you don't have one person in your life who really knows you and knows your struggles, you're toast, you're on an island.

This is your next step.

Not 10 people.

Find one trusted, godly person.

Say to them, listen, I'm going on a business trip this week.

When I get back, can you please ask me what I watched when I was out there?

Knowing that I'm gonna have to come back and talk to you is gonna help me fight temptation in this area.

You gotta find a brother or sister that can help you fight.

That's not weakness, that's wisdom.

Recently, Carl Lenz, former Hillsong pastor who stepped down because of sexual immorality, had a documentary that talked about his fall.

And I I found this to be really interesting in terms of a case story, a case study.

What he said was, while he was still involved in sexual immorality, he was still up there preaching.

And what he said was, right before I got up to preach, I would always tell myself, because I got this pang of guilt, oh, that was gonna be my last time.

I'm never doing that again.

That's gonna be my last time.

But then he would get up and then the cycle would start again, and and he kept on the downward spiral until eventually it led to his downfall.

See, he had good intentions, but he did not have wise boundaries.

You need a brother, a sister.

Deuteronomy says one can chase a thousand, two can chase ten thousand.

If you stumble in this area, that's where your brother and sister is gonna come in and really help you go to the next level.

Because here's another thing you need to know.

If you stumble, don't conceal it, confess it.

Let's say that together.

Don't conceal it, confess it.

The Bible's really clear that we are to confess our sins one to another, and sin grows in secrecy.

It's like that mold that grows behind your wall.

Mold does not grow out in the open, it grows in the dark places, it grows in the hidden places.

And by the time you see it, that damage has spread far and wide.

You got to bring that out into the light and expose it.

That's not gonna create your problem, that's gonna reveal your problem so that you can be healed of that problem.

But healing begins with honesty.

As one of my dear friends says, who's a recovering alcoholic, you're only as sick as the secrets you keep.

And you're only as strong as you are honest.

The book of Proverbs said this 3,000 years ago.

Proverbs 28, 13.

Whoever conceals his sins will not prosper, but who confess he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

The enemy's strategy is isolation.

God's strategy is community and confession.

So don't fight alone.

There's also some tools that can help you here.

I would strongly encourage you to download some kind of accountability software.

There's a lot out there.

One that's very popular is called Covenant Eyes.

What it does is pretty simple.

It monitors the activity on your devices and then it sends a report of your activity to a trusted person.

And it helps you live in the light rather than live in secrecy.

And here's the key: this is only gonna work if you choose someone you trust and actually want accountability with.

Right in front of you today, in front of your chair, you're gonna notice a QR code.

If you would just take out your phone right now, everybody just take it out.

I want you to test this to see if it works, if you would, even if this is not your struggle.

Just check this out if you would.

I want you to scan the QR code and let it take you to a website.

And when you get to that website, you're gonna see a blue button on there, and the button says Covenant Eyes.

Go ahead and click that button that says Covenant Eyes.

And if you click that, it will take you to not only the software that's available to download, but today I've arranged for there to be five free resources for you at the touch of that button.

There are five books there that are free depending upon your circumstance.

One of the books is for men, one of the books is for women, one of the books is for couples, one of the books is for parents, and one of the books is for church leaders.

So I want you to download the book that's most appropriate for you or a friend or a family member that perhaps you could share that with because that will be a blessing to them as well.

My encouragement is to download that.

It will be a great resource just to follow up after the message today.

Now, everything I've said kind of raises a very real question.

What does this actually look like over time?

What does it look like to fight this battle and find real freedom?

And at this point, I want to hear from somebody who spent years walking with men through this very struggle.

One of the most powerful ministries right here in Basking Ridge is Pause Ministries, and I've invited their founder to be with us for a few minutes today to have a short little time of interview during our service.

So would you welcome Dan Bove as he comes up to answer a few questions?

Dan and Deb Bove.

Founded Pause in 2011, and they have such a powerful ministry amongst men and amongst women who are dealing with not just this area but a lot of behaviors that can wreak havoc on relationships.

And it's so important that I wanted Dan just to come today, just to share a little bit about what you do.

So welcome, Dan.

Thanks for being with us today, brother.

Thank you, Dave.

Thank you for having us today.

So some people out there maybe have no idea who you are or what pause is, and I just want them to understand a couple things.

So let's start with this question.

What do you see as the root of pornography struggles?

Do you see that primarily as a sin, as an addiction, as a coping mechanism, or something else?

How do you view this whole problem?

Absolutely see it as a sin, Dave, seen throughout the Bible.

When you look at Galatians, uh it talks about the the uh uh acts of the sinful nature, first one that that's listed, spiritual immorality.

Let's talk about haughty eyes.

You covered lust today.

There's also idolatry and pride.

And all of those things are a part of porn.

Um, that said, porn is sin, why do people engage with it?

Um I think they start as a coping mechanism.

Uh it's a form of escape, it's a form of putting aside the chaos of life, isolating, and um just interacting with something that's not going to push back on you.

It's certainly about fantasy, being able to live out things that you can't live out in real life.

It's about control.

I can click this image, and perhaps if I click again, I'll find something more satisfying.

Click again.

That's what leads to the addiction part.

The more you go, the more frequency you have, the deeper you go, and that builds until you can't live without it, and that's when you're addicted.

That makes a lot of sense.

So tell us what your ministry does if if there's a person that wants to engage with the services at PAWES, what are the kind what's the process look like from day to day, week to week?

What does PAWES offer?

We offer Dave uh, you know, we believe that that uh each person's journey is different than the next.

There's no one answer for everybody.

So we meet with individuals, we offer group access, and we offer uh couples coming in and meeting with them because not only the man usually is affected, but the betrayal and the loss that the spouse uh goes through needs to be dealt with also, and we offer Restore Workshops, which is a four-day workshop where people come in and are in residence with us from for those four days.

We start at 7 in the morning, we go till 9 at night.

It's a deep dive uh emotionally into trauma.

Uh you know, we've had about 140 people go through this, Dave, and just under 50 percent, for example, experienced uh sexual abuse as a child or or young adult.

So we're trying to get at the trauma aspects of it, but we're also surrounding that with spiritual aspects so that the person can have the Holy Spirit enter into them and heal them from that uh trauma.

I think you had some scriptural foundations you wanted to share too.

Absolutely.

Uh, if if you believe that porn is sin, and it is, only God can heal sin.

So God is the center of our ministry.

The two scriptures that it's based on are uh um Mark 12, 30 and 31, uh love the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

For a person who's broken, that as yourself peace always gets pushed aside.

So we kind of go with this uh flow of God, self, and others.

Love God, God will teach you to love yourself, only then would you be able to love another in the unconditional way that God loves you.

Know God, God will help you to know yourself, only then can you know others.

You can only bring your true self if you know God first, then yourself, then others.

And the second scripture is trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Both scriptures include the heart as your sermon did.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will keep your path straight.

God needs to be in it.

Dave, we say uh in the ministry that it's not about recovery, it's about restoration.

Recovery is the baseline, that's the norm.

It's about restoration, being made into the person that God created you to be and finding that person again.

Awesome.

So, how do you balance grace and accountability?

How do you guys strike that when it comes to pause?

Someone comes to uh enjoy your services.

How do you think about those two things?

Interesting question, Dave.

Um It starts when a person enters the group.

We don't receive them as their behavior, we receive them as a person, a person who is broken, a person who is struggling to find their way out of sin and out of a behavior that has them living a life that's shrouded in in guilt and and shame.

And we try to remind them that you know when when God nailed sin to the cross with Christ, he also nailed shame and guilt with it.

And that all three are there.

When you accept the forgiveness of Christ, you accept the release of shame and guilt also, and it can lead you into a new life.

So the the first thing that we try to do is we don't use a sponsor model.

Sponsors are important, but our philosophy is that there should be a direct relationship with between yourself and God without a person in between that.

Now we use accountability horizontally, and there's plenty to be had, especially in in the groups and in community, as you suggested.

Um so you know that that that's a part of it, and the grace part comes from receiving them as Christ would receive us with open arms.

He wants us, he desires for us to bring our sin to him.

He already knows our sin.

He already knows our behaviors.

He just we just want to receive them in a way that Christ would receive us and show that same grace.

Great.

Well, we could talk all day, but maybe one more before we let you go.

What about relapse?

What if somebody comes, they experience pause, they have restoration, and then they have an experience of relapse.

How do you handle that?

Well, yeah, relapse is a real thing, Dave.

Uh this process of healing is not a linear process.

There are ups and downs and dips in it.

Uh so what we try to do is create an atmosphere where trust and truth and light are the purpose so that a person feels safe enough to bring darkness into the light, to admit their relapse, and we try to encourage them to look at what was going on.

Why did you relapse?

What were you thinking about?

What what kind of emotions were you going through?

What was going on in your life?

Because once the relapse happens, so much can be taken from it that can be used for when those same feelings come back again next time and you can flee from them rather than diving into them.

That's awesome.

Dan's going to be in the back with his dear wife Deb.

If you want to talk to them further, they would love to meet you.

There's some resources on a table back there.

And I would encourage you, everybody, to go back just to say thank you to Dan and Deb for an incredible ministry.

Appreciate how the Lord's using you, and thank you for saying yes to this important ministry in our area.

Let's thank Dan for being with us today.

All right.

Thank you so much.

As the worship team comes back up and we kind of wrap up our message today.

As the rubber hits the road, let me just ask you what is your next step from everything we've talked about here?

Maybe for some of you, you need to confess.

Maybe for some of you you need to go delete something.

Maybe some of you need to bring something into the light.

Make sure that you apply what the Holy Spirit is pointing out in your life in this area.

Don't try to manage this.

Run.

And run to the Lord Jesus Christ.

One more thing.

Some of you might be thinking, Pastor Dave, it's too late for me.

I've already failed in this area.

And I want to say with all my heart that that is not true.

This is not the end of your story.

I come against that message of condemnation in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.

The thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but our Lord Jesus has come that you might have life and have it to the full.

Jesus Christ forgives.

Jesus Christ cleanses.

Jesus Christ restores.

He does not stand at a distance.

He meets you right where you are.

Run to him.

In fact, let's pray as we close and prepare to sing in worship of God together.

Father, we thank you so much for your love for us.

We thank you that we can come to you honestly.

Lord, as we're about to sing a song that's really based on Psalm 51 and David and his sexual sin and everything that he had committed, we we remember the wisdom of bringing things into the light.

We remember his words, create in me a clean heart.

That's that spirit of repentance, Lord.

Not managing sin, just bringing it to you.

So as we sing today, help us not just to sing, but to make this our prayer.

Asking you, God, to do what only you can do to create in us a clean heart.

We come to you honestly to give us the strength we need to turn from our sin and the courage to walk in the light.

As we sing today, would you hear this as our prayer before we pray it in Jesus' name in everyone's head?

Would you stand as a prayer together?