Rodney Wright and John Begeman | Finding Freedom | May 17th, 2026

Good morning, good morning.

Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to be with you guys.

Uh, we're here from America.

This is my first time, so uh thanks for welcoming.

Won't be John's last time.

He will be back.

It's great to be in Kelowna.

Now, you guys live in a beautiful place, eh?

Yeah.

When you get to heaven and there's a long line, let all the people that live somewhere else get in front of you.

Because you guys got a little heaven on earth here, that's for sure.

So I would agree.

We are honored to be with you here today, and John's gonna just tell you where we're from and what we're about.

Yeah, Peter's our ministry started in Gresham, Oregon, just outside of Portland, Oregon in the 1990s.

Our founder, Dr.

Ted, and his wife Diane began seeing a problem within the church.

There was a Sunday morning where Ted was preaching up from a stage like this and simply said, if you were in the room and sexual brokenness is a part of your story, would you please come forward for prayer?

I would love to pray for you.

And in his recollection, it felt like the entire church came to the front.

And it felt like in this moment that the Holy Spirit said to him, Ted, this isn't just your church, this is my church.

Will you participate in bringing hope, freedom, and healing, which is the mission of pure desire for men struggling with pornography or women struggling with sexual addiction, as well as for spouses who've been betrayed, primarily through Jesus Christ.

And it's our honor today to get to lead with truly vulnerability, honesty, humor, and story, uh, because story has a powerful way of getting past our watchful dragons.

And sexuality, whether that's politics or money, can be one of those taboo topics that's hard to talk about.

So please hear our heart.

Uh, this is not a narrative of shame, but this is a message of compassion that says, wherever you are, you're not alone.

You're worthy of love, and your story matters.

And the redemptive power of the cross is on offer right here today in this room.

And so we'll start with this stat just to simply highlight uh the why behind what we're doing today.

This stat simply says that 75% of men and 40% of women in the church currently are struggling with pornography or some sort of compulsive sexual behavior.

Again, this stat simply isn't to shame, but just to say this is a pandemic issue, not just in our world, but also within the church.

I loved the songs this morning regarding we won't bow our knees to idols, we will stand strong and worship you.

And I feel like we at Pure Desire get to invite men and women out of bowing to idols and back towards rightful worship of God, not just finding freedom, but truly to your guys' language, discovering their purpose.

And so today, uh, we want to simply go first.

Who here knows Revelation 12, 11?

It simply says, and they overcame by the power of the and the word of their because they did not think much of their lives.

I think sometimes we miss that last part because we're like, yes, the power of Christ's blood.

And yes, maybe my testimony, but that might be a little bit uncomfortable because my testimony has some hard things in it, and it can be a hard thing to be vulnerable, but we simply believe that vulnerability is a superpower.

And so Rodney's gonna start today with some of uh a cultural understanding and a biblical understanding of sexuality and some of his own story.

Now we have two speakers here today, but we don't have twice the time to speak.

So I'd like to know what time I'm finished here.

Do we have a time?

Uh 25.

25, okay, great.

How many of you thought before you've been to church and you thought the preacher was done before the preacher knew he was done?

So I'll just look for a signal when you think we're done.

It's we we we're done here.

So I want to honor that.

Uh I just want to say this as we start here.

It's so great to see such a diversity here.

You know, John is 28 and I'm 58, right?

And so it's kind of great.

I get to see some tribal elders in the room.

And like me, uh, you know you're a tribal elder.

If you got gray hair, no hair, or you color your hair once a month, you're a tribal elder.

So it's any grandparents in the room here today?

Any grandparents?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like the grandparent saying, I'm a grandparent.

My uh wife is normally with me, but not today because we just had a granddaughter two weeks ago, uh, a little estie.

But uh, yeah, thank you.

She's pretty precious.

But uh the saying is the grandparent says, I've seen the lights of Paris and I've seen the lights of Rome.

But the greatest lights I've ever seen are my kids' tail lights taking my grandkids home.

You can spoil them and then send them off, right?

Yeah.

Can I get an amen, grandparents, right?

So I love that we're having this conversation uh in a broad setting with different ages and stages.

Our Barna study would say that uh 74% of John's generation would say, please talk about this in church.

We grew up with the uh internet and uh all the digital stuff coming at us.

Whereas Rodney grew up BI before internet.

Before internet, yeah.

I'm an old school school guy.

But our my generation, just a little bit older, would say only 30% want this conversation to happen in church.

Because we would say, what does this have to do with our faith?

And we think it has a lot to do.

And so thank you, Pastor Brody, for opening up uh your stage and Brian to let us be a part here.

Well, unless you think we're not uh biblical, let's start with the Bible.

Um, Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

If you have your Bible, you can open it or your device, or it's on the screen here.

Now I'm not gonna have time to get through the whole Bible today.

Though he would try.

But I would try, but Brody uh can pick it up next week here.

Uh but this this Hebrew text simply states in the beginning, God creates the heaven and the earth.

The word God here in the Hebrew language is the word Elohim.

Can you say that word with me?

Elohim.

It's here written in a singular tense.

In the beginning, Elohim creates the heavens and the earth.

Now, if you slide down that passage and get to verse 26, Elohim begins to speak.

The divine begins to speak.

And look at what Elohim says.

Then Elohim, God said, Let us make mankind in our image and our likeness.

So God created mankind in his own image.

In the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them.

God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and increase in number.

So this is part of the narrative that we've taken here out of the Genesis text.

That Elohim now begins to speak, but he speaks in a plural pronoun.

Interesting.

Uh my English teacher would be very proud that I've recognized this at this point in the sermon.

Uh, let us in our image and our likeness.

Who is this divine being that we call God?

Well, this is interesting.

Uh, in historic Christianity, uh, we know something is the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Right?

This is a doctrine that Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestants all agree upon.

How many think that's a miracle?

That we would all agree on one doctrine, right?

You know why there's so many different flavors of Christianity?

Because we all can't agree on stuff.

So we start our flavor, so to speak, right?

So Elohim, and I would just propose to you, I love talking about the Trinity, I think this is so beautiful, but they're mutually indwelling, and historical Christianity would always say there's no hierarchy in the Trinity.

They're mutually submitted one to another, they're mutually indwelling without losing their distinctiveness.

And they would say you can never part them from each other because they're one being in relationship.

So I would propose today that what's most true about God is relationship, and you and I are made in their image.

Now we know how this went.

Uh theologians argue with this, but I think creation went something like this.

The Trinity all gathered around and they took some dirt and they blew in it and they created Adam.

And they stepped back and they all said at once, hey, I think we can do better than this.

Some theologians believe had Eve been created first, us men would have never been created.

God would have said, you know what, this is as good as it's gonna get right here.

We've up with the model has been upgraded, right?

Any women power in the room here, ladies?

I am available to speak Mother's Day as well, so anyway.

But God created both male and female in the image of God.

They're both image bearers of the divine.

So sometimes I like to say this in church: you want to know what God may look like?

Just look at the woman sitting next to you.

Because she is an image-bearer of God.

And this is what I love about the teachings of Jesus, where in his culture women were less than, he was always elevating their dignity, honor, and worth as image-bearers of the divine.

We continue in this passage, and then God speaks, and he says that God blessed them.

I love that term, blessed.

It's the Hebrew word barach.

Uh, and that's the best I got in that Hebrew word, brach.

Kind of say that word with me, would you barach?

And it's the same word in Psalm 34 where the psalmist said, I will barach the Lord.

I will bless the Lord.

And now, here, the Lord is blessing his creation.

Well, the word brach in the Hebrew language means this: it means to kneel and adore.

God creates what he loves.

And he loves what he creates.

Now stay with me.

Don't throw me out as a heretic yet.

But I would propose to you that this is a God who deeply loves humanity.

This is a God who actually stoops to adore us.

You know why every knee will bow and every tongue will confess?

Maybe because we see them adoring us first.

And we're just responding to love.

Now, Rod, you're saying, wait a minute.

I mean, come on, we're supposed to kneel and worship God.

Are you saying God kind of worships us?

In this sense, to worship is to ascribe worth.

And God has such a high view of humanity that God became one of us in Jesus in order to redeem us.

And in Jesus, we see the God who stoops, who washes his disciples' feet, who stoops at the cross of laying his life down, right?

This is the heart of the God that I want you to see today in Jesus, that they kneel and adore you.

Some of us have been hurt by this world and by maybe sexual brokenness, and we feel worthless.

And today, just hear the heart of this minister.

You are worthy of love.

And I said, Rod, how do you know this to be true about God?

I said, Well, 35 years ago in Salem, Oregon, my daughter Whitney, was born.

And I was in the room when it happened.

And we gave birth.

Well, I say we uh loosely.

I was the support system there.

But when my daughter was born, I didn't physically get on my knees, but you know what I did?

I laid my checkbook right on her chest.

Now, a checkbook, guys, is a little piece of paper that there's a bunch of them in a book, kids, and they used to write on them, and anyway, it's kind of a currency, you don't know.

We didn't have Apple Pay back then, but anyway.

And I said to her, I'm all in.

Everything I have, I'll give for you.

There was a love that happened instantly.

Where does that come in the heart of this father?

It could it comes in our creator, how they love us.

And this is the message that we see in Jesus that we're worthy of love.

And I just want to start with that that you are an image bearer of God.

This is what's most true about everyone in this room.

You are an image bearer of God, Genesis 1, and you're worthy of love.

And I know that sin has affected us, and it's distorted our view to see ourselves for our truth, and it's distorted our view of God and our view of others.

But then God goes on in this passage to say, be fruitful and multiply.

And what he's saying is light a candle.

Hey, hey, hey, reproduce.

And today we're gonna talk a little bit about sexuality.

And I recognize in the room here today there's men and women who have been hurt by sexuality, whether it's abuse or rape or maybe abortion or funded, or sexuality has a lot of triggers to us, and today I just want to say I hold space for you today.

I'm not trying to be triggering in any way, I'm just saying I think we need a better narrative around this subject matter.

And you're worthy of love and healing, and there are people and resources that want to help you today.

And so, today there's no shame here, but there's just good news.

There's a better narrative.

And so our sexuality is such a wonderful gift, it's not a part of the curse.

And God gave us sexuality for procreation and for bonding and for pleasure, right?

God created this, it's wonderful.

Well, as I grew up as a young boy, I didn't see my sexuality as a wonderful gift.

I want to just tell you a little bit about my story here today.

I am the youngest of five kids.

Uh my mother just turned 97 on Mother's Day.

Um, I was born in Salinas, California on the Monterey Bay Peninsula, and was raised in the San Joaquin Valley of Modesto.

And my father was an Assembly of God minister, and in the 70s, he pastored a church of maybe over a thousand people in those days.

And if I could describe my father to you, he was a cross between Billy Graham, Ronald Reagan, and 10% John Wayne.

That was my dad.

You got a visual on that guy, right?

He was bigger than life to me.

And uh I had so much love for him.

He died four years ago as one of my best friends.

And uh, but as a young boy, growing up in the Valley of California, uh, six, seven years old, we were outside playing at a hundred-degree temperature.

I don't know what that would be in Canadian, but it would be hot.

Hot is the word.

Um, eh?

Hot.

And uh my brother and I were playing, 20 months older, and a neighbor kid in the 70s dared Ryan and Rodney to go streaking up and down the neighborhood.

Now, this was the 70s in California, so just give us a little grace here.

Uh and so I call my brother Dumb and I'm Dumber.

We're the original dumb and dumber.

And so we took a dare and started streaking up and down the neighborhood.

You can almost imagine this, Daddy, that you get a call and your two boys are streaking up and down the neighborhood, six and seven, right?

Obviously, yours are much more intelligent here in Canada.

I can tell that right now.

My mom's like, oh my goodness, get in your room.

I can't believe this.

And we got in our room on a summer day, and we were grounded till my dad came home.

When my father came home, he was a good man.

He was a good man.

But he was a workaholic, and he didn't always have a lot of framework to know how to communicate about healthy sexuality.

And so when he came into my brother's room, he said words like, This is evil, this is bad, this is of the devil, you've embarrassed us and the family.

And he said, Turn over your bed, pull down your pants, and I could hear him giving my brother a spanking and my brother screaming and crying in the other room.

And as a little boy, I thought, oh my goodness, all hell's about to break loose in my room.

I thought literally about going out the window.

And when my dad came to my room, he did and said those same words to me.

And as a little boy, six, seven years old, I had this thought about my dad.

He's not safe.

Whatever you do, when you make a mistake, don't let him know about it.

Because when you let him know about it, he pours out his wrath on you.

And then I took that thought of my dad and I projected it on the God that my dad would preach about on Sundays.

God's not safe.

When you make a mistake, God is just wanting to pour out his wrath on you because he's so disappointed in who you are.

In our line of work, we would say there was a traumatic experience, and out of that experience comes a lie that we believe about ourselves, about maybe other people, and maybe even about God.

Now, as a little boy, what my dad didn't have a training for, and that's why I want all of you to come to the training tonight.

We're gonna have a lot of fun and we're gonna laugh and we're gonna just it's gonna be super.

But what my dad should have done is said, Rodney, come here, sit on my lap.

Now, Rodney, nudity is always okay in the bathroom and in the shower.

Buddy, when you get in the shower, take your clothes off.

But Rodney, never in the driveway, or never uh in the front, in the front yard.

Now, Rodney, you're slow.

We're gonna go over this one more time, buddy.

One more time.

Driveway good.

Uh not good, sorry, I got mixed up there.

I'm still learning, but anyway, I'm doing better.

Uh shower good, driveway not healthy, right?

So as a young boy, I thought that somehow my body was evil, and somehow all my sexual feelings were lust and bad growing up as a young boy.

I didn't have a framework to see my sexual development as a normal part of how God made me.

So when I was exposed to pornography as a young boy, and I'm old, so the stuff I saw was chiseled on a rock in a cave.

But anyway, I didn't feel safe to go to that dad and say, Hey dad, I saw porn.

How should I navigate this?

Right?

Instead, that became a secret, and this is where pornography got its hold in my life.

I would pray and ask God to help me, and I didn't know how to get free from this challenge in my life.

I started confessing to my brother who was 20 months older, and that was helpful to me.

It relieved my conscience, but I just had this binge-purge relationship.

I went to Bible school and I thought, well, if I have a sexual problem, I'll marry this beautiful lady, Tracy.

She'll become my wife and I'll have an outlet for my sexuality, and then all my problems will be gone.

How many know if you have problems, just get married and they'll all be fixed?

Not.

In fact, marriage doesn't change you, marriage just reveals more of what it finds in you.

Hear me today.

So, young people, the best gift you give to your future spouse is your health.

You being a healthy follower of Christ in all areas of your life is the best gift because marriage will just reveal more of that.

So I shared with my wife aspects of my sexual history, but not about pornography, because my theology said God delivered me and I'm done and I'm free.

But I had what we call a binge-purge relationship.

I was a young youth pastor at a church in Portland, Oregon.

I had three kids, a newborn, and my addiction continued to grow.

I said, God, I'm praying, I'm reading the scriptures, I'm confessing, I'm doing everything my religion tells me, but I'm not finding freedom in this area of my life.

And I said, God, could you lead me to people and resources that can help me?

I was so desperate as a minister sitting on the front row of my church, God, could you help me?

And that Sunday morning, it was like God shined a light on our drummer in the church.

Now I noticed you keep your drummer in a cage here.

I'm not sure, is it I'm not sure of his story, Isaac?

Yeah, but anyway, Isaac, I'm praying you get let out sometime in that cage.

I'm not sure what's happening with him.

But I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me on that Sunday to say, Rod, go to that drummer.

And the drummer was a sexual trauma assessment treatment therapist.

And I felt the Spirit say to me, That drummer is gonna lead you to hope and healing and freedom.

And I went to that drummer.

I like to say I went on a Tuesday hoping to be fixed by Friday, so I look good on Sunday.

I wanted a quick fix.

And he began to share with me, Rodney, you have segregated your faith in your life, and you don't know how to integrate the way of God in your sexuality or even in some of the painful experiences that have happened in your life.

And he taught me something about holistic spirituality, and I just want to take you through this real quick.

Go ahead and put the pie charts, Deb, on the screen, if you would.

If our life is made up of different components, like activities, work, physical, sexual, emotion, finances, maybe church devotions, marriage, friends, our lives have different components, is what I'm saying.

Hey, you follow along.

And I thought when you come to faith in Jesus, that your spiritual life looks like the next pie chart.

Go ahead and put this on the on the screen.

That my spiritual part of Rodney was like we did today when we came to church, or when we worshipped, or when we gave, or when we read scripture and did devotions.

So I had uh segregated spirituality, that the blue was the spiritual part of Rodney, but all the green was non-spiritual, right?

And so he said, Rod, you've segregated.

This is how you could know that somebody who sounds so spiritual and authoritative and anointed on a stage, you later realize that they have parts of their life that are so maybe dark and evil and have really been broken and done things that have been really, really hurtful.

How could this happen?

It happens because of segregation, right?

And this is what he taught me.

Rod, all of life is spiritual.

This isn't just about going to church more.

This is about integrating the way of God in all areas of your life.

And I would propose for us in the faith, many of us haven't had a narrative of knowing how to integrate God in our traumas or losses in life and how to grieve and process those.

Or how to integrate God in our sexuality and how to understand and manage that in healthy ways because we don't have a lot of education and training and ways of talking about this.

Then he said something to me of Rod, you don't just have a moral problem, you have a brain problem.

And he started talking about the brain.

And then I thought to myself, I'm not only addicted, I'm stupid.

I don't understand a word he's saying about the brain, right?

And so this brain piece is so fascinating how God has wired us.

And I'm gonna let John talk a little bit about that brain piece.

Yeah, we'll take a look at this next slide.

Uh you'll see just a couple different dimensions of your brain.

So if you would take your hand and just put it on your forehead with me.

Right behind your fore your hand currently sits your prefrontal cortex.

This is where your logic, rational decision making, uh, and safety really occur.

This is the, even as I was running this morning, there's a sign on the road that said, look both ways.

This is your prefrontal cortex that says, This isn't safe.

I need to make a rational decision.

And then if you'll take your finger and just put it behind your ear, this is where your amygdala and your hippocampus sit.

This makes up your limbic system, which is your fight, flight, or freeze.

The reason we have the words hippocampus and amygdala on the screen is that the hippocampus is about memory, and the amygdala is about emotion.

And so the first time that you burned your hand on the stove, you have a felt feeling, right?

The heat and the pain, your amygdala, and you have that categorized in your brain as a memory.

And this is how, whether positive or negative, we can get stuck in past moments.

So we'll go to the next slide real quick.

Uh we have a couple different scans.

This first scan is the difference between a brain on cocaine, you'll see on the right, and a healthy brain on the left.

You'll notice that there's some coloring difference.

There's more red with the healthy brain, and there's less with the brain on cocaine.

That red is actually red blood cells.

This is healthy oxygenation of the brain, which allows for full functioning.

But then you have the brain on cocaine, and you see the rapid rate of deformation and the inability to think wisely.

The next slide, we've got a different scan.

Uh you'll see a healthy brain, that's the one with more yellow.

You then see a brain on heroin, and then you see a brain on porn.

Sometimes people ask us, does porn really matter?

Right?

Like everybody's doing it, it's everywhere, you can't even scroll on Instagram without seeing something sexualized or sexual in nature.

Does it really matter?

It's not hurting anybody.

What if these people are paid?

What if they're consenting, right?

Just some of the irrational arguments.

And I would say it's hurting you.

It's killing you.

It does matter for yourself, for your family, for your friends, for generations to come.

And then just to add some humor, uh, your brain on porn versus your brain.

And the reality is we all want to look a whole lot more like Legolas rather than the orc from Lord of the Rings.

Uh and just to jump in with a little bit of my own story, I grew up in South Dakota, and at the age of nine, uh, with the internet, uh I was exposed to pornography.

And my story of trauma and believing lies about God, self, and others revolved around this moment.

Uh, my mom and I were doing a homework assignment, and there was an image of a topless woman that appeared on the screen, and she quickly scrolled away, like any of you moms in the room would.

But I said, wait, what was that?

And she didn't know how to answer.

And so 30 minutes later, I went back upstairs and I found the exact same photo.

And as I did, she came up the stairs behind me to find me.

And if I'm being honest, she responded in a lot of anger.

And if I'm being honoring, she wasn't prepared or trained, like tonight, how to respond.

And so I walked away thinking that sex was bad, that if I was sexual, I was bad, and that if I was ever sexual again, I should hide.

But the reality is we are as sick as our secrets, but we can be as healthy as we are honest.

And spiritual power can flow in almost any place except where hiding is occurring.

The invitation of Jesus is to come and follow, to come and see, to come and be with, to bring things into the light.

So, but for me, at 13, I was handed an iPod touch, and addiction to pornography as well as masturbation use just continued, hiding behind closed doors while pretending to be the perfect Christian son in the second row as my dad was an elder at our local church.

At 16, my parents found out.

At 18, I went to a camp where someone talked about the rate of pornography use in the church.

And I'm like, this guy must be lying.

He's never been to my church, I'm the only one, and he has no idea.

And then that night we went to a room where a college student shut the door and said, Anything that's shared in this room stays in this room.

And I'm like, what is this?

Christian Vegas?

This is the scariest room I've ever been in.

Like, did my parents sign this waiver?

Like, what's happening?

And then he simply went first, which is Rodney and I's hope today.

That if we could go first, that maybe somebody or many in the room would get give be given the gift of going second.

He went first and named his story, and I was being convicted like none other by the Holy Spirit.

Like my heart's beating through my chest, like, oh my gosh, this is my story.

And I then shared, and five out of the six guys in the room had the exact same story.

And my heart was broke.

Because I thought I was dying alone for the last five years of my life, but really I was dying in silence because nobody was speaking about it.

Our silence around this topic isn't helping.

Unfortunately, it's often harming because of the deformation that's happening at such a rapid rate within our society.

To fast forward, I applied to become a missionary after college.

And they said, When was the last time you viewed pornography?

And I'm like, well, if you count what I saw on Twitter two weeks ago, two weeks ago, they said, John, you need counseling, which in my context was a swear word.

We didn't really do that in South Dakota.

That was for those people, not me.

And it was there that God began to meet me in my deep pain.

As I began to let go of these secrets that I had been holding and naming pain and watching Jesus walk into my painful moments and rewriting that moment, specifically with my mom.

And it was seven months in that she simply said, John, is there any trauma that I've caused in your life?

What a profound question as a parent.

And it was here that I said, Yes, but I love you and I've forgiven you.

And I walked her back through that moment.

And she simply said, John, would you forgive me?

I had no idea what I was doing.

And the reality is when we know better, we do better.

Which is why our entire invitation this Sunday morning is please, please, please join us.

Not just for you, but for the sake of the next generation, your kids or your grandkids or your friends.

We need to have a better conversation.

That was 2020 when I first joined a group, of course, where we are today.

It's been over six years of sobriety from pornography and over three years from sobriety from masturbation.

Just to say freedom is possible, and the deep work a part of it is really critical.

Because I had lies that I believed about myself, God, and others that were inhibiting me from showing up on a Sunday morning and being real with the people who loved me most.

And that's the invitation.

To be honest, to be healthy, rather than the secrecy that is simply keeping us sick.

And let me take you back to young Rodney at 28 years old, John's age, in that counseling office, where my therapist said to me, Rod, we're gonna help retrain your brain, and this is gonna take some time to do that, not just a day or a week or a month, but just time, because our brain is made up of tens of thousands of neurons that fire off and connect together, making synapses, and many times there's dopamine released in those synapses, uh, like having Aaron's dinner last night at his home.

I had a lot of dopamine going with that taco you made.

It was delicious, right?

And so, how our brains are wired, our brain can be rewired.

And I was really learning what repentance was in that counselor's office.

I thought repentance was coming to an altar, and nothing wrong with altars, I believe in this, but it was just telling God I'm so sorry, hoping to tip the repentometer that God would dole out a little forgiveness, and so Rodney could go forgiven.

Repentance, and I believe what that was was just godly sorrow.

Young Rodney was really, really sorry for the actions and what he had done, but I didn't understand repentance.

Jesus taught on repentance, like the first sermon he ever preached, Matthew 1, or excuse me, Mark 1, 15 is the scripture.

Jesus says, the time has come, the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe the good news.

And the good news is that God has come to help us.

That's the good news, right?

That God's not come to point the finger of condemnation and pour out his wrath on us.

Uh, how many know sin is the one that brings its wages, not God?

Hey, trust me, sin is the one that brings its rages and wrath, and God's not judging us with condemnation.

God's actually extending the hand and saying, I want to show you a better way, right?

He's inviting us into relationship.

So I learned that repentance is changing how you think.

The root word of repentance is metanoia in the Greek, and it means changing how you think, which it means taking a thinking air or a cognitive distortion about yourself, about God, or about others, and replacing it with the truth.

And this is the beautiful work of repentance.

It's the most positive word in the Bible.

Change your thinking about God.

Maybe some of us feel like God's disappointed, that we have been too wounded, that God doesn't kneel and adore us anymore, that somehow our worst day has kept God's love from us.

And when you realize that while we were yet sinners, God loved us.

God fully anticipated Rod Wright and the 1970s and 80s, those two decades.

It didn't take the divine by surprise.

And yet they fully anticipated and knew that I was worthy of love and worthy of redemption.

So I stand here today with over two decades of sobriety because of the grace and truth of God, because your brain can be renewed.

Your what we call your arousal template can be set right, and you can begin to treat yourself and others with dignity, honor, and respect sexually, because that's how God intended it to be.

And that's truly what we see in Romans 12, too, uh, that we don't have to be conformed to the world, but that we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Uh we think, wow, you were on to it way back then.

Neuroplasticity is right there in the Bible, uh, and we truly believe that science is just now catching up with what scripture has been saying the entire time.

Our minds can change, and repentance, specifically with others in relationship, is the vehicle for transformation.

This is why we love the work of pure desire, because they are clinically informed and study the brain, and they also are Christ-centered in our approach.

So they take both aspects and they educate us what I believe Jesus was talking about, holistic spirituality, right?

That's not a new age term.

That's Jesus saying, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength.

It's the integration of faith, of the way of God in all areas.

And again, this is where I just commend this fellowship, KCC, for hosting an event that we're gonna have tonight where we're inviting you into a relationship where we can get educated and give our kids something better than many of us did not get in this room.

And we can offer something better.

And to me, this is the this is the life God's offering us.

I love John 17, 3, when they were asking Jesus about eternal life, and look what Jesus said in the scripture.

Now, this is eternal life, that they would know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.

That eternal life is not about buying hell insurance.

It's not transactional, it's transformational.

It's the invitation into relationships.

Uh God's not saying bow your head, close your eyes, and raise your hand.

He's saying, Lift your head, open your eyes, and take my hand.

He's inviting you into a relationship where you can be seen, known, and loved.

And so many times in this area of our life, we're afraid if somebody really knew me or what happened to me, they wouldn't really love me.

I learned a little song as a kid, Jesus loves me, this I know.

Remember that song?

And I sing it now, Jesus knows me, this I love.

I'm known by my wife, Tracy, and my three kids, and my coworkers and my friends.

They they not only know my me on my best day, but they know parts of me on my worst day, and I'm loved.

And that's the body of Christ.

And I don't know where you're at today, I don't know just your framework where you're at today, but how about for the sake of the next generation, we do something better for them than many of us got?

If my dad were here in the front row and my dad was a front row guy, he'd be like, You go tell them, Rodney, we didn't know how to talk about this.

You go tell them, right?

He would just be saying, You guys listen to Rod.

He's got something figured out here, right?

Listen to what we're saying.

And how many?

I'm just gonna give you this question, this statement.

How many would agree with me here today?

Think about it.

If you agree, I want you to raise your hand.

How many of you agree with me that we should not let porn be the sex educator of our children any longer?

I'll wait, just raise their hand, right?

Look at look at this.

Wow.

Yeah, porn should not be the sex educator.

We need to give our kids a better narrative about their bodies, their sexuality, so they know how to understand it and now manage it in healthy ways, married or single for the rest of their life.

This is not just saving something before marriage, it's a stewardship issue.

And it's learning how to steward it in healthy ways, married or single for the rest of their life.

Well, tonight, typically my wife is with me, but she's not.

But John and I are gonna present uh my wife and I wrote a book.

So it's called uh How to Talk with Your Kids About Sex.

And my friend said it's really how to talk with your kids about anything.

Sex is just the hardest thing to talk about.

How do you create a healthy family system, even if you have some negative history?

And I found pure desire 15 years ago as a pastor in Court d'Alene, Idaho.

And what I love about it is we brought him to our congregation and we taught, and in a five-year period in our church, as I went first owning my story, um, we saw over 200 men and women get in these groups and find hope, healing, and freedom in a five-year period.

It was the most unbelievable thing I'd ever been a part of because it wasn't a strategy, it just came out of someone's vulnerability.

Somebody went first with their story and said, I was blind, but now I see.

And I invite you into this relationship.

And so eight years ago, I heard this crazy call of God to say, leave your church as a pastor in Court d'Alane, Idaho.

We're like Kelowna Jr.

in Idaho, right?

Court d'Alane, it's beautiful, and leave your congregation and come be a sexual missionary.

How many like that wasn't my childhood dream?

And it definitely wasn't my wife Tracy's dream.

We're gonna stand on stage and share our negative sexual history and invite others into health.

But I tell you, I'm not here out of obligation.

I don't owe God anything.

I am here today because this is exactly where I want to be.

I am here today in the grace and goodness of God and saying your mind can be renewed, your your wounds can find healing, you can you can see your sexuality is good, and you can bring dignity, honor, and respect to yourself and to others in your life.

And let's be a part of the answer instead of part of the problem in this world.

Right?

Amen.

So tonight, when we do this parent training, moms, dads, college kids, married or single, where whoever you are, get here tonight, and we're gonna really have a great communication around how we help the next generation.

And I have a little grandson, Louis Lise Abedio, nice Italian name, my grandson, Louis Lise Abidio.

He's four years old, and little Holland, she's two, and now little Estee, she's two weeks old.

And this grandpa is fighting for those kids.

Because I want them to be raised in a home where they understand what's good and healthy about human sexuality.

When they see what's dysfunctional, they can realize that that's unhealthy, and mom and dad become the safest people for them to go to, right?

And we're gonna give you a lot of resources and point you to a lot of wonderful tools today where you can begin to repent, change your thinking, and get a new narrative around the beauty of human sexuality, and offer this to your kids out of a place of vulnerability and healing, and know how to have age-appropriate conversations with your kids.

So we're really grateful that you're here today.

And John, any any concluding thoughts today?

Yeah, simply to say there's this quote that says, uh, the day goes to the best storyteller.

And the reality is that culture is telling a very loud story.

The question, I think, for us in this room is will we begin to tell a better story?

Because I think the good news isn't just good news about eternity, but is good news about today, and has a lot to say about our sexuality.

And I think Christ has the best story when it comes to human sexuality.

And so our hope is really that this parent training is just truly a training on regarding the narrative.

Can you come and join us tonight to form a narrative that you get to share with friends, families, kids, and others?

That we would be the safest, most trusted people for the next generation to come to, that we would take back control of the narrative from where the enemy is belittling us.

Like the enemy's attack on us, to what Pastor Brody had said last week, it's all about attention and it's all it's a battle for our minds.

And so we would just say, if if you're down, we'd ask you to come.

Like we need you, wherever you're at, we need you tonight to be part of writing a better narrative.

And with that, I'll invite Pastor Brody to come up to close us out in a word of prayer.

Thank you.

I'm really honored to have them here today and to be sharing this story.

And I I want to honor you as a congregation.

It's not an easy, uh easy talk to to kind of hold your breath and get through, but we do it for the sake of the next generation.

Amen?

And for ourselves as well.

Would you stand with me and uh allow me to pray with you?

Do you have a table out in the lobby as well?

You will tonight.

Okay.

So there are resources that will be available uh this evening.

Let's just bow our heads for a moment.

We want to thank you, Father, that you've called us to a place where we can look up and take joy in our relationship with you and celebrate our salvation and celebrate the wonder of your your creation.

We thank you, Father, that uh we are not alone, but that you've placed us in a community of faith to support and strengthen one another and become shield bearers and carry each other's burdens so that one wouldn't one wouldn't be able to have to carry it themselves.

You said when one falls uh and is alone, it's a difficult place to be.

But Father, where you're walking together, if you fall, someone is there who can pick you up.

And Father, today we just thank you for a church and community and instructors like like uh Rodney and John, Lord, who are there to help us, Lord, to instruct us and to teach us how to make that next step so that we can be successful and prosperous in our work and our soul would prosper.

Our soul would prosper and be in health, and we would find the peace and find the joy and be able to translate that, Lord, in not only into this generation, but into the generations to come.

And Lord, we thank you for your mercy.

Lord, even this morning, I'm just so aware in this moment, Lord, of your kindness towards me that drew me to repent and drew me into relationship and connected me to your heart.

And I want to thank you, Father, for that kindness and that heart, that, that, that reconciliation where once we were enemies, you've made us friends.

And Lord, we just want to thank you today for your spirit here, Lord, leading and guiding us.

Pray for this evening, Lord, that there be a grace and a mirth and a ministry, Lord, over every heart and soul, and over every family, and over every individual.

Lord, in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Let me bless you.

May the Lord bless you.

Just place your hand on your heart today.

May the Lord bless you.

May the Lord keep you.

May He lift up His countenance over you.

May He hold you close and may His peace be upon you.

The shalom of God over your mind, over your soul, over your body.

Amen and amen.

God bless you.

Have a great afternoon.

For those who see you this evening, bless you.