Christians, It's Time to Put PORN to DEATH! Here's How:

Putting Pornography to Death by Grace, Discipline, and Accountability

Is it really possible in this world to not consume pornography? Yes, it is. It's possible. You have to be very intentional. You said, by God's grace, you know, I don't want to watch porn today, right?

And I think you've had, by and large, victory over porn for a long time. You wouldn't be a pastor now if you didn't. I think some guys, in particular, maybe girls too, but I think some Christians feel like in this hyper-sexualized, hyper-pornified world, that is not possible.

It's not possible for me to not watch porn. They think, maybe like you did as a young Christian, I love Jesus, I'm going to follow him, but I guess this is just going to be a part of my life. If you put a gun to my head right now and told me to pull up porn, I would die.

I literally would not. If I want to download an app, I have to go to my wife and say, could you please put in the code? Because I don't have the code to download stuff. Are you Covenant Eyes? I have Covenant Eyes on here, the whole thing.

I have put up so much barbed wire in my life to where I could get to it, but it's really hard for me to get to. It's difficult for me to sin. You want to make no provision for the flesh in regards to its lusts.

And one of the ways you do that is by putting up all of the barriers, especially when you're sober-minded. You're like, how could I find porn? Even in our kids, I have six kids, we have TV, we have an Xbox, we have a smart TV, Xbox, we have computers in the house.

I have six layers of protection in our house to try to keep smut from coming in. And we still have to be on guard, right? But I mean, it takes work. Holiness does not just happen, right? So it requires discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.

The world is designed to make sinning accessible and easy and the pursuit of holiness very hard. But you can't do it alone. You need other people. So for me, community is essential. And I think that's very biblical.

These are written to the community, the church. We want to encourage one another day by day, as long as it's called today, so we not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. We need each other. I also don't want to say I have not arrived.

I walk scared in that sense, in a very real... I know my propensity. There have been seasons, and I'm happy to share at some point, there are seasons where, years ago, where I was very temptable. And I think there were reasons for that, that I didn't even know what I was doing at the time.

But you can fall back into it. Be careful. Does anyone think he stands lest he fall? Yes. So I don't want to come across as I've arrived. That is not the case. What I'm saying is I'm free right now. And it's such a sweet place to be.

And you do anything to keep that, because when you're free and holy, you are, in a sense, basking in the Lord. It's so sweet. I just never would have thought. I just never would have thought that I could walk with the Lord and not be having to lie through a microphone.

Like, it's so sweet. Jesus says, I give you these commands, your joy may be full. Like, there's real joy in Him. And I do want to give brothers and sisters hope. I think there is a way, and Jesus will help you.

You don't have to watch porn. You don't have to. You don't have to. You don't have to do what you used to do because you're not who you used to be. Romans 6 says you are dead, and now you're alive with Christ.

That really means something. It really, really means something. And I just think we've got to be able to know that. As a young Christian, I too struggle with addiction to pornography. And sometimes getting so close to the line, playing that Pharisee game, what can I get away with that isn't technically watching porn?

And I remember once I had about two years behind me. I was like, dang, I really don't have to watch porn anymore. I can have a healthy marriage, a happy family, a holy life. Imperfect in many ways. The Christian life that is portrayed in the New Testament is one in which there is a war that is raging for your affections, for your obedience, for your attention, for everything that you need brothers and sisters to lock arms with to navigate this warfare as your own mission for Christ.

Intentional Intrusive Relationships for Holiness

First of all, you want to ask God for and cultivate by his mercy relationships that are intentionally intrusive, meaning we are agreeing to help one another to heaven and to pursue holiness and to fight against sin.

Part of what that means is I'm going to share with you here's all the ways that I'm typically temptable. And here's times that I need you to check in on me. Here's all those kinds of things. I want to...

That's one of the things I would do with somebody who's in this kind of relationship with me. I want to train them to help me. I don't want to just expect them to ask me. I'm going to be like, let me tell you all the ways that I...

Because I've done this long enough now. I know how Satan's going to come at me typically. So I'm going to help you know that. I'm going to help you help me. Help you help me. Like this is very Jerry Maguire.

That's what we're trying to do. So that, I think you want to cultivate that. And then in that, you've got to walk in honesty and you've got to fight because honesty is really hard to do because darkness hates the light.

But light is sin's kryptonite. It puts the flesh. It really does. So confessions, I mentioned it. Like a typical confession of somebody who's maybe looked at... Let's say the last night, this did not happen by God's grace.

Let's say the last night I had looked at some pornography. A confession could sound like this. Hey, Sean, I want to let you know last night I was struggling a little bit with some lust, but praise God.

Praise God. I'm all right now. Things are better now. But I was scrolling a little bit and saw something with that. I deleted the app. I'm good. But I just felt like I needed to let you know. Like that, it sounds like a very typical kind of confession that you might hear.

A real confession would sound like this. Hey, Sean, I need to let you know that I sinned against the Lord last night. I was feeling sorry for myself and I opened up a social media app and I knew when I opened it that I was going to be looking for trouble.

And I started clicking on some things that I knew I could click on and I scrolled and I scrolled until I saw some nudity and then I clicked on it and then I looked some more and then I felt bad. So I deleted it and then I downloaded the app again and I did it again and then I deleted it and then I did it again and then I masturbated and then I didn't want to tell you any of that.

But that's what happened. Now that's a confession. Yeah. You could, you could, the first one is not really helping anybody. It doesn't help the person to help you and it doesn't help you to be honest before the Lord.

The second one is what actually happened and nobody wants to do that second one. But it's, and why not? Why don't people want to do it? Embarrassment. Yeah, man. It's humiliating, which is what we need.

We need humility. God is opposed to the property, gives grace to the humble. So if you want grace from God, if you want help, you've got to learn to walk in the light. And this is the question I ask God.

I'm like, who knows you? Like, I mean, really knows you. Three guys, Ben, Jason and Chris. And those guys know how my soul is. One of the most important things we've learned to do in these relationships is to confess our temptations, not because temptations sin, but it helps to, it helps to diffuse it.

So for instance, hey brother, I'm about to go home and I'm feeling really selfish. So would you pray that I would be kind to the children, that I would go in and serve my wife? And that if there's a, you know, that I would go in not selfish because right now I'm pretty self, I didn't need to die at the door because otherwise I'm going to go in kind of irritated.

And then just that it helps to dispel it. Or if I'm like, hey, I'm guys, I'm feeling tempted right now. Would you pray for me? Like if I, those brothers are going to follow up with me and that really helps to dispel and diffuse the temptation.

That's a huge, huge part of it. So let me give you an example of that. This was probably two years ago now, a year and a half or two years ago now. I had a social media app on my phone, which I typically don't have, but I downloaded to post it and had not intended to leave it on because I meant to do something evil, but had left it on, had not deleted it.

Anyway, I pulled into the church parking lot, opened my phone. I was going to check my email, saw the social media app, opened it up, started scrolling through and someone posted something that was, it was seductive.

It was not good. So my flesh, I scroll back down past it real quick. So my flesh says what? Oh, it's fine. You know, in the moment, in the moment, the flesh says, is that really what you thought that was?

Right. Like just, you should probably check. You should, you should take a look. So, so I grew up a little bit. I blocked the person. I deleted the app. I text my wife. I said, honey, I want to let you know.

I was just on social media. I saw something seductive. I didn't click at it or look at it, but I deleted the app, blocked the person, wanted to let you know. Then I copy and pasted that and I sent it to my, the three guys and I was free.

Like I didn't, I hadn't sinned. I, my flesh wanted to sin and I thought about it. And you know what? It's been hundreds of days since then and I have not regretted it once. Yeah. Like, but sin, if I had given in, I'd be like, oh, right.

It's totally different. But anyway, if I hadn't done that, like what happens if I left it on there? And then after lunch had a big lunch, kind of heavy, kind of tired. I'm going to start thinking about that and kind of code looking for it again.

But like, because I had made no provision for the flesh with the help of friends, cause they're all asking me, my wife's going to say, hey, how'd your day finish? My friends are going to check in later.

Hey, how's, how's it going? That I need that sort of help. Those kinds of relationships I need in order to make it home. Yeah. So I think part of the Christian life is first and foremost, have the right goal.

God's the goal. Purity is a means to see him. Then you've got to have the right help. You've got to have the friends around you who are going to lock arms and say, we're doing this together. Let's, let's pursue him together with permission slips extended and acted upon.

How are you doing? Yeah.