Highlight: Advice for Battling Temptation

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Stephen, do you guys have any advice on struggling with lust throughout the day or with avoiding looking lustfully at a modestly dressed women?

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You guys want to handle that? I've hurt your eyes. Okay, sure. Well I'd say

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Colossians chapter 3 was where I would always go. Colossians 3, the Apostle Paul says you've been raised up with Christ, keep seeking what is above where Christ is seated, and then he says therefore because you've been raised up, because you've been made alive, because you're alive with Christ, he says therefore put to death what is earthly within you.

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And one of the things that he names there of what is earthly within you is sexual immorality. He says which is idolatry.

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So the definition, and I said this to Brandon in the debate, definition for Paul of sexual immorality is it's actually idolatry.

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It's seeking worship and pleasure in something other than God. Sexual immorality is idolatrous.

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So here's the question you asked, Stephen. Do you love Jesus? Is Jesus your God? Is Jesus your

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Savior? Is Jesus who you worship? If he is, would you ever allow someone to push you to your knees to worship at the altar of a false

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God? I always like to throw it out like that. Let's imagine for a moment that Luke and Zach and I are out on the streets doing evangelism at a mosque, and then they grab us, and they pull us inside, and they try to thrust us to our knees and to confess that there is one

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God, Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. I'd like to think that all of us would say, no, do what you will.

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I won't bow at the altar of a false God. If somebody pulled us into the Mormon temple when we're doing evangelism and says, do these ceremonies, worship this

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God, I think, well, I know we would say, kill me. I die first. I'm not worshiping anything other than God.

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We all recognize in that context, and Stephen, if you believe in Jesus, I'm sure that you do, you would say, go ahead and kill me.

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I'm only worshiping Jesus. But Paul says sexual immorality is false worship.

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It's idolatry. Do you want to kneel? Do you want to bow at that altar? Because that's what we're really dealing with, with sexual immorality is ultimately idolatry.

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You have to kill it. Killing it has to look like really killing it. I think most of the time, guys, if we're honest with ourselves, we like to slap box our sin, right?

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We like to slap it. We like to poke it, right? And we like to keep it in our pocket for later, right?

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Let me just keep this here for later. When I reserve the right to sin, I'll keep it right here. In reality, you got to put it to death.

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What would it look like? Like last night, someone tried to break into my home. I caught them actually sliding the window open. My family's fine.

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Everything's fine. If he came back and got his arm in, trust me, he's not going to be alive. God's law allows for killing intruders like that who mean your family harm.

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So if there is somebody out there, if this wasn't random, if it's someone actually trying to harm my family, just know that we're armed to the teeth and everyone in my family can shoot and you came within 0 .5

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seconds of dying last night. But look, it's providential.

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It's providential. When someone was in my house last night, the alarm went off. I went, my family was awake.

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We're armed to the teeth. My son and I both came out with weapons. I went to that door last night. And I can tell you right now, when

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I saw that window open and I heard him sliding the window open, my gun was trained on the window and all

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I was waiting for was someone to put themselves through that window. I don't know what they mean to do to my family.

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What was I going to do with my gun last night when this man came in to do my family harm? What was I going to do?

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Use it lethally. I was going to kill him. Kill him. And listen,

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I didn't run into that back room with a banana. I didn't run into the back room ready to just slap him.

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I ran into the back room with a loaded weapon and it was aimed at the window. All he had to do was put himself through that window.

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And all I knew then is I have a duty to protect my family. And I was going to end his life. And that would have been the right thing to do as a father to protect my family.

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And that's what putting an enemy to death looks like. Ending it. Doing something to actually end it so it can't get up again.

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So when you talk about lust, what do you have to do to kill your lust? If you're struggling with the bombardment we get of all these women, you know, in all of our feeds, reels, shorts, all that stuff.

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If you struggle with it and you just can't stop yourself, then get it off your phone. Only go via a laptop with accountability next to you.

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With your wife next to you. With a brother next to you. To do what you got to do on your computer. I don't have TikTok on my phone.

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We have a TikTok account that we have people that only upload just to make sure people get the gospel on TikTok.

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When no one hangs out on TikTok, there's always accountability. I don't have it on my phone. Do you know why I don't have TikTok on my phone?

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Because I'm not giving the enemy a foothold. I'm not going to have that harlot woman calling me from her door saying, come inside, come inside.

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I'm not going to have it. And so I don't have TikTok on my phone. Why? To preserve my life. To guard myself.

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And so some guys might say, well, you know, I don't know how to handle this on my phone. Get covenant eyes. Get accountability.

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Put accountability so that your brother in Christ sees what you're looking at. Get that kind of accountability. It's, listen,

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I always put it this way. If you were in a counseling session with me over pornography and lust, right?

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While you're in the session, we're talking to each other about how to put this thing to death and we're in the word. Would you be struggling in the middle of our time together to like pull your phone out to like, you know, go to one of these sites?

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Would you? No. Why? Because right now you're under accountability. Right now you're focused on the Lord. There's accountability.

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There's safety there. And guess what? Here's a big word. There's freedom there. You're actually free with the accountability. You're enslaved without it.

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So get it off your phone. Kill it. If you can't have Facebook on your phone, get off your phone.

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Use messenger. If you have to talk through messenger, get it off your phone. If you don't, certainly I'd say don't put

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TikTok on your phone. Good grief. It's like, there's no way out of it. It's just blasting you with, with that stuff.

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Get it off your phone. There's nothing wrong with putting guardrails around yourself, recognizing I'm a sinner.

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I fall into sin. I'm going to guard myself with accountability. I can't have access to that. Like people like,

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I don't want to be like a child. Well, stop acting like one. You know? Every child needs training in some area.

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Exactly. So accountability. Like we have an account with Covenant Eyes through Apologia Church where,

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I don't even know how many men have accounts, where the church helps to pay for their Covenant Eyes because we believe very strongly in it.

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Like you need accountability. So we'll pay for your Covenant Eyes accounts. We do that as a church to help men. We have groups where men meet over this issue so that there's accountability with one another.

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But what does it like, look like to put it to death? You can't put to death drug and alcohol addiction in your life and keep hanging out the bars.

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If you're struggling with that idol, you can't hang out at a bar. You can't do it.

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If you struggle with a past, like going places that you shouldn't go, stop driving by those places.

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Take the long route. Go the other direction. Make it a rule for accountability. I won't even drive past my old stomping grounds.

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I had to do that when I came out of my drug and alcohol addiction. I had to specifically, I'd be having a great time of worship with God.

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My heart's changed. I love the Lord. I'm doing so well. I'm so grateful to God for redeeming me. And then I would go into this dark funk and I couldn't figure it out.

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Why? It's because when I passed by my old stomping grounds, all that stuff came back and I was struggling like I was fresh out of my addiction.

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I was struggling. So I had to take the long route. Added 10 minutes to my drive. I just didn't drive by my dealer's house.

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I didn't drive by the old places where I would party at the clubs. I just went the other direction.

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And every night I had accountability, a Bible study with my friends, my brothers in Christ, every single night for like a year at Starbucks where I knew

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I can't use today because I got to see those guys tonight at eight o 'clock and I can't come high.

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Yeah. All that's beautiful. Really powerful to, I mean, on the aspect of killing it, putting it to death, but at the same time too, don't forget, understand that you need to find the pleasures of God more satisfying than the fleeting pleasures of sin.

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So you need to be more satisfied in God than the false promise that the sin is offering you to find fulfillment there.

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And so just like Jeff was talking about with, you know, having the right weapon, the right tool for the job.

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The only way to drive that out is through the sword of the spirit. And so keep short swords and long swords in your pocket in terms of when it's time to go to war and fight.

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You know, if you live according to the flesh, you'll die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you'll live.

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So motivate yourself with righteousness. Understand that the pure in heart will see God. And so if you want to see

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God, if you want to have peace, vitality, joy in your Christian life, then you need to not make peace with evil, and that includes the evil in your own members.

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And so understand that there are eternal pleasures forevermore at the right hand of God, and it's much more satisfying than the pleasures of sin.

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That's not always easy to believe in the moment when you're struggling with temptation and up against it, but that's ultimately where it has to end is

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God has to be the most satisfying thing for you. Yeah, that's right. Pleasures of God by John Piper.

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Battling Unbelief by John Piper as well. Pleasures of God, John Piper, really important study.

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I don't think he even mentions sex addiction in there, drug and alcohol addiction. It is all about seeking pleasure in God.

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He got all of that from Jonathan Edwards. So it's old Puritan style thinking, and it's all biblical.