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March 20 - March 27, 2022
I have spent thousands of hours talking with hundreds of people who struggle with pornography. I have never met anyone who experienced profound change because someone told them how many billions of dollars are spent on pornography every year. I have never met anyone whose life was radically changed by hearing (again) how damaging the pornography industry is and how they desperately need to think differently about it. Rather, every person I have ever talked to who sincerely wanted help already knew most of this information. People who are trapped in the deceitful web of pornography do not need
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Whether you struggle with pornography yourself or are trying to help someone who struggles, I have good news for you: no matter how intense or long-standing the struggle, it is the work of Jesus Christ to set people free from such sin.
All those who look at pornography have only a fearful expectation of condemnation. Thankfully, Paul does not end there. He moves toward confidence in our Redeemer, Jesus. Jesus cleanses sinners. Jesus loves to cleanse those who love to look at pornography, and he loves to give them power to change. Our sinfulness does not get the final word. Instead, Jesus justifies, washes, and sanctifies us.
God works in us so that we desire him and work for his good purpose. As Christians, we are able to do the work of obedience, but all of our growth is empowered by God’s grace. Jesus gives us power to obey so that we can obey to the glory of God. Believers are called to lean on his strength, lay hold of practical means of grace, and take practical steps toward change.
I have talked with more pastors, parents, and parishioners than I can count who are disappointed in the books available on pornography. They are disappointed because many of the resources they turn to for help are full of shocking — sometimes even vulgar — language. The resource they turned to for help often provided further temptations for the struggle they were trying to flee.
We cannot attain purity and morality by using language that is impure and immoral. Yes, it is important to speak frankly about sin — to “be real” about the sins we commit and the temptations we face. However, it is possible to be frank without being filthy. With this in mind, I want to promise you I will use no language that is vulgar, crude, impure, or otherwise filthy in this book.
Every strategy you employ in your fight for purity must be grounded in the grace of God in Christ if it is to lead to lasting freedom.
Some of you will be so submerged in a pornographic lifestyle that the gospel teaching at the beginning will best take root after you have taken some steps to remove porn from your life.
doing so can create some space for you to be able to consider the gospel.
At the beginning of the journey, watching people commit acts of sexual immorality seemed fun, intriguing, comforting, and exhilarating. Now, the sin has bitten back hard. Their hearts are weighed down with guilt, their relationships are strained, their view of sex is corrupted, and their Christian witness is marred.
Perhaps you, like them, began to look at pornography with rationalizations that made a certain amount of twisted sense at the time. How bad can it be? It’s just this once, then never again. My spouse doesn’t seem that interested in me. It might actually help our marriage for me to have another sexual outlet. I’m sick of feeling lonely. I deserve this.
there is a danger that grace can become a topic we discuss rather than a power we experience. We can never be saturated with too much grace. The danger in our day is taking grace for granted and not considering how to make it practical.
Grace is not merely “unmerited favor” — that God has a pleasing disposition toward us; grace is also power. Grace is divine strength given to us so we can live in ways that please God. God is calling Christians to obedience in Romans 1:5. He is also promising that we will have the power to accomplish this obedience. God’s gift of grace is the power to obey.
through grace God forgives our sins.
The legal demand of our sin debt is divine punishment. Sin must be paid for. But here we discover a glorious truth: even though you and I are entirely and solely responsible for our sin debt, God makes provision for the debt himself by nailing that debt to the cross of Christ and satisfying its demands. When Jesus was crucified on the cross, he paid for all of our sin. Every instance of treasuring images of sexual immorality in our hearts, every eager glance at pornography, all of our lustful gawking — everything — is paid for by Jesus in his death for sinners.
Forgiving grace is only one part of the power Jesus gives. God’s powerful grace also gives us strength to live in new ways. Forgiving grace is wonderful and essential, but sinners need more than forgiveness. It’s not enough that our record of debt is paid; we also need grace to live like Jesus; we need grace that changes us so we can be like him in his holiness and love. In Romans 6:4, Paul declares, “We were therefore buried with [Christ] through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
They beg and plead for forgiveness after indulging in pornography, but they don’t know what to do next.
in addition to confessing sin and seeking God’s forgiveness, you need to pursue God’s powerful transforming grace by believing the good news and walking in faith and obedience to the gospel. God’s grace pardons you and forgives your sin, and God’s grace empowers you to live differently and be obedient to him.
You need to ask for forgiving grace after you look at pornography, but don’t stop there! Ask for God’s transforming grace, his power to change you from the inside out. Because God is faithful to his Word and his promises, over time you will receive God’s power to never look at pornography again.
God’s powerful transforming grace can give you a pure heart, and you can subdue your desires for pornography. You can honor your brothers and sisters in Christ when you look at them instead of dishonoring them. You can have all of this, and more. You just can’t get it in your own strength and effort. You need the powerful transforming grace of Jesus.
If you want to use Jesus’ transforming grace, you have to do something so easy that many people find it impossible. You have to believe it. Transforming grace works when you believe that Jesus gives it to you. The moment you believe in Jesus’ grace to change you, you are changing. The more you continue to believe it, the more you will continue to change.
Forgiving grace and transforming grace are crucial for Christians to embrace. Repentance is the way we grasp and unite these two essential aspects of God’s grace. In the aftermath of sin, we must learn to interact with God through repentance. In the Bible, repentance describes the process of moving from sinful living to obedient living.
When we repent, we must always take at least three clear steps. You can remember these three essential steps by using the acronym CAR.
Sinners need grace more than anything else, including the grace to recognize and admit our sin. We reject grace when we deny our sin, according to John. When you deny your sin, you deny yourself access to God’s grace. When you admit your sin to God, you access his grace.
every Christian who struggles with sexual immorality needs to humble himself or herself before God, telling God what he already knows.
The second step in the process of repentance is to affirm God’s forgiveness of your sin. John provides two directions to follow (see 1 John 1:8 – 9). First, he gives a command to obey: you must confess your sins. Second, he gives a message to believe: when you confess your sin, God is faithful to forgive and cleanse you.
When you dwell disproportionately on your sin and its consequences, however, you are neglecting God’s grace. There is a time and a place to be broken over your sin and to soberly consider its consequences (the next chapter is devoted to this topic). After you have confessed your sin, however, you must fight to affirm what God says about you. For all who confess their sin, God pronounces the verdict “forgiven” and “clean.”
While it may seem humble and modest to question God’s forgiveness, it is actually prideful and arrogant to refuse to believe what God declares to be true about you.
The third step in the process of repentance is to request Jesus’ grace to change. We have already seen the amazing power available to Christians in the work of Jesus.
Having confessed your sin and trusted in God’s forgiveness, you now need to ask God for the specific grace to be different.
It is possible to talk about how grace forgives and transforms us but never actually experience those graces.
We typically respond to moral failures with mental punishments.
Mental punishments are not helpful because they deal with sin in a self-centered way instead of a Christ-centered way. Meditating on how miserable and pathetic you are only perpetuates the sinful self-centeredness that led you to look at pornography in the first place. Condemning self-talk still has you standing center stage as you reflect on what you think about what you have done, and as you describe what you think you deserve because of what you did. It’s all about you. The problem is there is too much you in all this. You need Christ. And the only way to break the vicious cycle is to get
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God’s grace gives birth to hope. There is a good chance you’ve picked up this book in despair. Perhaps you recently indulged in pornography for the zillionth time and have finally had enough. Perhaps a spouse, parent, coworker, or law enforcement authority discovered your secret indulgence and now you’re in trouble at home, church, or work, or with the law. Regardless of your exact circumstances, you’re despairing that change can ever be possible.
Pornography is a plague that has destroyed countless lives and can also destroy yours. The sobering truth is that you do not have the resources to change within yourself.
No matter how terrible pornography is, no matter how much trouble you are in, no matter how flimsy and weak your resources are, you are never in a pit so deep that the grace of Jesus cannot lift you out. The great danger in your struggle is that you will devote all of your energy to thinking true and awful things about pornography and spend no time dwelling on the true and wonderful things about Jesus.
After years of repeated discoveries, Lisa’s initial discouragement had spiraled into despair, and now her despair had twisted into disdain.
People experiencing worldly sorrow are distressed because they are losing (or fear losing) things the world has to offer. The loss could be a reputation, job, money, family, sexual fulfillment, or even access to pornography — anything that brings security, comfort, or pleasure. Some of these things are good, and some of these things are sinful, but they are all things. A sad person consumed with worldly sorrow is concerned about losing stuff — no matter how honorable or dishonorable that stuff is.
A sinful heart that desires to look at pornography says, I will have whatever I want whenever I want it. I don’t care if it’s harmful, if it hurts God or those I love. I will have whatever I want.
Worldly sorrow is sad over losing the things of the world, while the focus of godly sorrow is God himself. Godly sorrow is pained over the break in relationship with God.
Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation without regret. Godly sorrow produces life. It marks a change from the sinful self-centeredness of viewing porn and the equal self-centeredness of worldly sorrow to a pure concern for God and living for his glory. The person full of godly sorrow has a heart that wants to please God rather than self. Godly sorrow motivates real and lasting change.
Worldly sorrow experiences sin, winces at the pain, and feels conviction — for a while. Worldly sorrow responds to that conviction by praying — for a while. Worldly sorrow is really determined to fight against sin — for a while. The problem is that this newfound conviction, this rededication to prayer, and this emotional determination are all short-lived. The pain of what you have lost (or the fear of what you might lose) fades away. You figure out that you can live without what you lost or else replace it with something else.
Godly sorrow gets busy and fervently seeks to fight against sin in a battle that lasts and lasts. Biblical remorse over sin extends far beyond a momentary wince of pain and a fleeting twinge of conviction. Godly sorrow is busy battling pornography weeks, months, and years after worldly sorrow has given up the struggle.
Worldly sorrow leaves and is quickly replaced by a renewed interest in porn. You find yourself on the pathway to indulgence again.
Eagerness to be clear of pornography expresses itself in two practical ways. First, you pursue accountability. You need help in a struggle that is impossible to fight alone. Accountability entails enlisting other Christians who can help you think about strategies you have not considered, who can actively check up on you, and who will diligently pray for you. Second, eagerly seeking to clear yourself means you pursue radical measures to ensure you have no access to pornography. This enslaving sin is only defeated by drastic measures to cut it off from all angles.
if your sorrow does not lead to opening yourself up to others and sealing off your access to pornography, then your sorrow is the kind of worldly sorrow that leads to death.
Godly sorrow hates the sin itself. Godly sorrow feels the horror of disobedience and weeps over the reality of a heart that chose transgression over faithfulness.
Worldly sorrow is sad because people know about your sin. Godly sorrow is sad because God knows about your sin.
In worldly sorrow you didn’t get earnest and you haven’t been eager to clear yourself from the sin. You may have made a show of change, but the substance never came. It didn’t take too long for you to go right back to looking at all the same stuff you looked at before. Now you’re living in fear that people will find out — or find out again — that you aren’t for real. All your effort is spent on not being caught. You’re trying to hide in the dark instead of exposing the darkness to light. This will never lead to lasting change.
Godly sorrow is full of longing and concern for restored relationships.
