Introduction:
A. The story is told of a man who was driving from Miami to Ft Lauderdale.
1. He needed to use the restroom, so he pulled into one of those rest areas on the side of the road.
2. He went into the bathroom and took the second stall, since the first one was taken.
3. Suddenly, he heard a voice from the other stall say, “Hi there, how is it going?”
4. The man thought to himself, “Okay, I am not the type to strike up conversations with strangers in bathrooms on the side of the road. But he didn't know what to do, so he finally said: “Not bad.”
5. Then the voice said: “So, what are you doing?”
6. The man thought to himself, “This is getting a bit weird.” But then he nervously replied, “Well, I'm going to Ft Lauderdale.”
7. Then the man heard the person in the next stall say, “Look, I'll call you back. Every time I ask you a question, this idiot in the next stall keeps answering me!!!”
B. Just like that conversation in the bathroom, the subject of today’s sermon might make us all a little uncomfortable.
1. As you know, we are in a series called “Extreme Makeover – God Edition” and we’re asking these questions:
a. Is profound life-change possible?
b. Can a person escape bondage to behaviors that destroy life and really become a new person?
2. We’ve been answering these questions with a big, faith-filled, “Yes!”
3. So far in our series, we have already looked at some truly enslaving things – like bitterness, anger, anxiety, and alcohol and drug addiction. If you missed those sermon’s they are available on CD and on our website.
4. Today we are going to tackle one of the most enslaving and destructive things of all – sexual addiction – particularly bondage to pornography.
5. Today we are looking for a lust makeover.
6. I must tell you that I like what I do for a living. I like being a preacher, teacher and spiritual shepherd.
7. Most of the time I enjoy preparing and preaching sermons, but this is a hard sermon to enjoy working on or preaching.
8. I wish it were a subject that we didn’t need to address, but it is one that we must address and regularly.
9. Let’s try to answer a number of important questions about this subject.
I. What Is Pornography?
A. Pornography is defined as “the commercial exploitation of sex, designed to stimulate sexual excitement.”
1. A simpler and more spiritual definition given by a preacher named Rick Atchley is: “The demonic union of the spirit of greed with the spirit of lust.”
2. And in this light, for the Christian, there can be no distinguishing between what some call softcore porn and hardcore porn, because they both take the spirit of greed and the spirit of lust, and with Satan’s influence, they bring them together.
B. Sexual temptation and addiction are not new problems.
1. The strongest man in the Bible, Samson, had a problem with this.
2. The smartest man in the Bible, King Solomon, was lead astray by these things.
3. And the man described as a man after God’s own heart, King David, took a big fall into sexual sin.
4. But even though sexual temptation and addiction are not new problems, it is hard to imagine a time when the marriage of the spirit of greed and the spirit of lust was more pervasive.
5. I can say that in my lifetime, right now, in this culture, the acceptance of the sin of lust has never been greater.
6. And behind this increasing wickedness is the exponential growth of the pornography industry.
C. Here are just a few of the disturbing facts.
1. Pornography is a 15 to 20 Billion dollar a year industry, just in this country.
2. To put that in perspective – that is more money than the revenue from the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball combined.
3. There are more porn outlets today than there are McDonalds.
4. Eleven thousand hardcore videos are produced annually in this country.
5. There are 200 thousand porn websites on the internet, and 200 new ones are added daily.
6. 50% of all search engine requests are for porn.
7. Here’s something scary – 25% of porn websites use popular names in their title bars such as “Barbie, Disney, Nintendo, Toys, and Games” so as to attract unsuspecting viewers.
8. One site I read about uses “the White House” in its name and some unsuspecting teachers have treated their on-line classrooms to a tragic surprise.
9. Organized crime controls about 85% of the commercial porn industry.
10. Surprisingly, the fastest growing user demographic of porn is women ages 25-50.
11. So, porn addiction is destroying not only men, but also a growing number of women.
12. What we have to realize is that the days of YOU looking for pornography are over. Today pornography comes looking for YOU. Via advertisements and unsolicited emails.
13. The internet has brought an interstate highway of pornography into every community, with exit ramps at every personal computer and even to some cell phones.
D. In today’s lesson we could examine the impact of porn on a number of levels.
1. We could look at its relation to criminal conduct – like drug use, rape and child abuse.
2. We could talk about the economic hardship it brings. As with other addictions, families get destroyed, bills don’t get paid, people loose their jobs and homes.
3. We could talk about the spread of sexually transmitted diseases linked to the industry.
4. Even if you or I didn’t have a Christian bone in our body, we would have sufficient reason to detest pornography.
5. But I’m choosing to believe that because you are here today, you have an interest in spiritual things.
6. So, I’m going to focus only on the spiritual impact of pornography.
II. What are the Spiritual Tragedies of Pornography?
A. First of all, Porn is a spiritual tragedy because it dehumanizes God’s children.
1. Sex is God’s creation intended to celebrate committed. married love between two real people.
2. Porn is Satan’s creation intended to denigrate the importance of commitment and the dignity of human beings.
3. Porn views people as things, not as living persons with souls.
4. Porn substitutes real relationship with a real person for isolated, self-absorbed worship of passion.
B. Porn is an injustice to people.
1. When we read the OT prophets we see that the wrath of God is stirred against those who would exploit widows, children and the helpless.
2. That’s what the porn industry does, it takes human beings and exploits them for financial gain.
3. Many of the women used in pornographic videos are drug addicts who appear in the movies for drugs. They live on the edge of poverty and as soon as they get a few more wrinkles and pounds, they are completely discarded.
4. UNICEF reports that one million children each year are forced into prostitution and used to make pornography.
5. There’s not a decent man or woman alive who holds their baby girl or boy and says, “I hope my child grows up to be involved in the pornography business.”
6. But while people do not wish that on their daughters, they pay to enslave someone else’s sons and daughters.
7. Because of all this, somebody somewhere is crying and their heart is broken over what has happened to their child.
8. See, that’s what porn does – it turns people into objects to be used for our gratification. And God hates that!
9. Human beings are living souls, and the Bible says we cannot love God without loving people.
10. That means that we believers should want no part of any activity that demeans and denigrates a human being.
B. Secondly, Porn is a spiritual tragedy because it demoralizes God’s church.
1. When I say demoralizes, I don’t just mean that it discourages God’s church, I mean that it diminishes the morals and values of God’s church.
2. A believer was once debating an atheist when he proposed a question: If you were driving in the worst part of L.A. at 2 a.m. and your car broke down, and you got out of the car and while looking under the hood saw 10 large men coming toward you, then would it comfort you to know that they were coming from a Bible study?
3. The atheist had to admit that it would be comforting to know that they were Bible studying men
4. You see, people who love the Word of God and come together to worship and call themselves the church are supposed to be a light of hope in a dark world.
5. The church is supposed to model values that reflect God himself.
6. Satan is determined to dull the witness of the church by diluting the distinctiveness of our holy values.
7. Sadly, the enemy has done great damage in his attempts to compromise the sexual ethics of the church.
8. Many Christians don’t live by God’s standards, rather they live by the standards of the world.
9. And I don’t just mean the magazines we buy or the videos we watch. I’m talking about the music we listen to.
a. Most music on commercial radio is a marriage of the spirit of greed and the spirit of lust.
b. Right now Billboard’s top 50 includes songs with titles like: “Talk Dirty”; “Drunk in Love”; “Blurred Lines”; and “Stay the Night.” Those titles are tame compared to the explicit lyrics in many of the songs.
10. I’m also talking about the TV we watch. Most primetime television today was considered obscene just 40 years ago.
C. What many of us consider normal we used to call obscene.
1. What we must understand is that our standard isn’t just to be a little more pure than the guy down the street.
2. As long as our music, movies, or magazines aren’t quite as vulgar as the worst out there, then we should consider ourselves holy, right? Wrong!
3. Our standard isn’t the guy down the street. Our standard is the character of God.
4. Our purpose is to be like Him!
5. 1 Peter 1:15-16, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
6. In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7, Paul wrote, “It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.”
7. An important question for us all is: Do we really want a holy life? A holy heart? A holy mind?
8. Would we like to be free from sexual impurity?
III. What Strategy Can we Employ to Have a Lust Makeover?
A. First, We must face the truth and stop excusing impurity.
1. Every Christian man or woman who is involved in pornography is a rationalizer.
2. We must tell our consciences some lie to justify what we are doing.
3. Some favorites are: “I’m not hurting anyone.” “It’s not illegal.” “My mate just won’t meet my needs.” “It won’t happen again.” “It wasn’t love.” “I’ve got it under control.” “It doesn’t affect me.”
4. All sinful strongholds are built on lies that must be admitted and uprooted.
5. Ephesians 5:3-6, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient.”
6. God will not lower his standards to accommodate our culture or our desires.
7. I remember watching the Wide World of Sports when I was younger. The show opened with a skier falling off the ski jump. His name is Vinko Bogataj of Yugoslavia.
a. He was the agony of defeat for 20 years. But here’s the rest of the story.
b. The man didn’t fall off the jump completely by accident.
c. There had been a delay in the competition and when they resumed jumping, no one realized that the track had gotten too icy.
d. As he went down the jump he realized that he was going too fast, and in an effort to slow himself he fell.
e. If he had gone off the jump at that speed he would have missed the landing area.
f. The place he would have landed probably would have killed him, so he made the conscious choice to try to stop his dangerous direction. Amazingly, he only suffered a concussion.
8. And when we find ourselves on the path of lust and pornography that’s what we must do. We must stop excusing impurity and do anything necessary to stop our dangerous direction.
9. The truth can hurt, but lies can kill.
10. So, we must begin by stopping the excusing of our sexual impurity.
B. Second, We need to Replace Impure Attractions with Holier Pursuits
1. Addicts need to be ruthless about limiting their opportunities to get their fix.
2. All people coming off addiction to substances must go through a period of withdrawal, which can be very painful. But during that time they must take precaution to stay away from access to their drug of choice.
3. Addiction to pornography is similar. It is not an addiction to a foreign substance, but an addiction to the release of an internal substance – adrenaline and other hormones.
4. The use of pornography causes a cascade of internal stimulants that create a sense of relief, excitement, power, triumph – much like the thrill a car racer feels as he drives the car.
5. When these pleasurable, relieving surges get grooved into associations with pornography, then the flesh gains control over the spirit, and the problem becomes addictive.
6. To break the cycle, first we must break the stimulus of the pornography.
7. We must be ruthless about cleaning it out.
8. We must get rid of anything that marries the spirit of greed with the spirit of lust – the music, the movies, the books and magazines, and certainly our access to it on line.
9. But we must take some action.
10. In Matthew 5, Jesus taught that we must not lust in our heart. If the eye causes us to sin, we should pluck it out. If the hand causes us to sin, we must cut it off. Obviously, Jesus was talking figuratively.
11. Colossians 3:5 says, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.”
12. You remember young Joseph in the OT? He’s my hero! What was his method of avoiding sexual immorality? When he was tempted he ran. That’s not a bad plan!
13. But we need to do more than just clean it out, we must replace it with nobler aims.
14. You remember the story Jesus told in Matthew 12, he said, “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.”
15. We need to do things like memorize Scripture. Good Scripture to memorize would include, 1 Cor. 6:18-20, our Scritpure reading for today from Titus. 2, “The grace of God teaches us to say ‘no’ to ungodliness…”, Phil 4:13, and Job 31:1, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.”
16. We can listen to Christian music and get involved in ministry that puts our attention on spiritual things and on others.
17. As we work on this, we must be patient and resist feeling totally defeated when you fail. It took a while to get ensnared and it will take time to overcome.
C. Third, We must Intentionally Pursue Community and Accountability.
1. We talked about this a lot last week as we talked about Alcoholics Anonymous.
2. We need to start some relationships that practice gracious accountability.
3. In what other arena of your life has God moved in isolation? God likely used people to bring you to Christ, to grow you in Christ and train you in Christ. So, isn’t it likely that God will use people to help us battle sin?
4. Community and accountability are God’s ways for producing purity.
5. Patrick Carnes, who wrote the book Helping the Sexual Addict wrote, “A sure sign of recovery is that the addict no longer has a secret life.”
6. The part of our life we have been keeping people out of is the very part that God needs to get into the most and the part that we need to bring some of God’s people into.
7. Every devise we own that has access to the internet should have accountability software (like X3 Watch) on it to help us avoid the temptations we face.
8. This software sends reports of the websites you visit to the accountability partners you set up to help you stay on the right path.
D. Finally, We must Embrace Christ as the Answer to Our Deepest Needs.
1. If we are having a problem with an addiction to pornography, then our biggest problem is not really with porn, our biggest problem is in our relationship with God.
2. Porn is how a person might be trying to deal with their loneliness, their insecurity, their insignificance, unworthiness or their boredom.
3. Those are all legitimate needs, but Satan has deceived many of us into fulfilling those needs illegitimately through pornography.
4. What we really need most is to experience the love of God.
5. Those who have struggled most with issues of impurity (and other sins for that matter) know how that Satan whispers in your ear, saying, “You are dirty.” “God can’t stand you.” “You don’t even belong in this room with other Christians.”
6. All of that is a lie. God loves you and me, regardless of who we are or what we have done.
7. And it breaks God’s heart that we don’t know how much he loves us.
8. When we realize and can internalize God’s love for us, then his love will meet our deepest needs and we will find it easier to let go of the things that hold us in bondage.
9. In Psalm 63:5, David said, “Your love is better than life.”
10. Our lives can be better because of God’s love.
E. Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that I need sermons like this as much as anybody.
1. Of all the issues we have addressed so far in this makeover series, this is the one where I have been more likely to fall than any other.
2. God has helped me to steer clear of this trap on so many occasions, and I thank him for that.
3. But there have been other times when I have succumbed to the lust of the eye and the lust of the heart, but I thank God for his mercy and strength.
4. As I said last week we don’t presently have an accountability group, but we are willing to start one.
5. Come talk with me if you would benefit from an accountability group or accountability partner.
6. May God give each of us the makeover we need.
7. May God help us be purer in heart.
Resources:
Based on a sermon series by Rick Atchley.
