Practical Strategies For Conquering Porn:
1. You have to want to break free.
- This will not happen by accident or without a struggle.
- It will be a battle.
- You have to be willing to do the work to get free.
2. Staying away beats willpower.
- A strategy for failure is to continue to put yourself in situations where the temptation is right in front of you and then believe that you will consistently resist by sheer willpower. That’s just not going to work.
- A much more effective approach is to think ahead of time about how to work things so that you stay out of those high temptation situations. I’m talking about considering the environment that you put yourself in and trying to avoid the worst scenarios.
- Some thoughts:
a. One way to think about it is to use the idea of guardrails.
- On a road, guardrails are there to make sure you don’t go off and crash into the woods. What I’m talking about here is along the same lines – setting things up so that you’re not dancing on the edge of the Grand Canyon.
b. Be wary of gateway images.
- Sometimes the temptation jumps straight into porn. Sometimes, though, it starts slowly and then ramps up.
- Maybe you’re on social media. You see images that aren’t strictly pornographic, but they are suggestive. A few clicks there leads from suggestive to racy. It leads there from racy to explicit.
- Twitter, Instagram, and other social media allow varying degrees of racy stuff. Sadly, you don’t have to be looking for it to stumble into gateway images that move you in a bad direction.
c. There are apps that monitor online activity.
- Sometimes we have to fight technology with technology.
- One promising app is xBlock Porn Blocker. It’s expensive ($29.99) but worth it if it helps you overcome this temptation. There are multiple other companies out there, like xxxChurch and Covenant Eyes. The point is that there are tech resources available to fight back.
d. Yes, you might need to go to a nuclear option in some cases.
- What do I mean by nuclear option? I mean that if the temptation is an incredibly strong one but you’re committed to overcoming the sin, there may be some radical changes you might have to consider to break free.
- That might look like taking out your home cable.
- That might look like getting rid of your laptop computer.
- That might look like disabling Safari on your cellphone.
- That might look like getting a different job if you can’t handle being on the road by yourself.
- “Those are big inconveniences!” Yep – do you want free or not? “Those are big sacrifices!” Maybe – do you want free or not?
3. Get an accountability partner.
- James 5:16.
- One of the reasons that porn thrives as a temptation is that it lives in the dark. We don’t talk about the problem of pornography much or even acknowledge that it is a problem. As I said in the first sermon in this series, this is a substantial issue in our culture and we are almost entirely ignoring it.
- Because of all that, most people who struggle with porn and would like to defeat it in their lives have never told another person that they have the problem. One of the leaders of the anti-porn organization xxxChurch says that it’s a constant refrain when people email them for help that one of the lines in the email is, “You’re the first person I’ve ever told this to.”
- I want to acknowledge right now that this sounds incredibly scary to many of you who want to break free. “Tell someone else? No way. I want to do this on my own.”
- It’s worth quoting that same leader from xxxChurch who also said that he’s not known anyone who has overcome this problem without having someone beside them holding them accountable.
- Yes, it’s embarrassing, but that shouldn’t be a stop sign.
- I want you to consider that the response might not be, “I can’t believe you did that.” But instead, “Thanks for your honesty. I struggle too.” Or “I’m glad you want to break free. I love that you’re ready to break free.”
- John Ortberg story: “Never been so proud of you as right now.”
- It might seem to be a horrible moment, but it might actually be one of the most freeing moments you’ve had.
- This is actually a Biblical concept. In James 5:16, we are instructed to confess our sins one to another.
- Why? Because God knows that confession helps break the power of sin. In fact, the call to confess our sins to each other is part of the famous verse “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” Maybe there’s a reason that’s in there? Maybe part of being righteous is being willing to confess our sins?
- Not just on this issue, but in general, this is something that we should be doing better at.
- Now, this doesn’t mean that we’re supposed to all stand up in church and blurt out the worst of what’s going on in our heart for everyone to hear. We need to have those trusted friendships within our church family where we know we will find love and accountability
- Who to ask?
a. You can ask a good friend, whether they struggle with this issue or not.
- Someone you know loves you and would be there for you.
b. You can ask someone you think is struggling with this too.
- If you have a good idea that you have a friend who wants to overcome this, that might be a good match.
c. If you don’t have anyone else, I would be happy to be your accountability partner.
- “I can’t tell the preacher!” Trust me, I’ve heard worse! And I’m your pastor – I’m not here because I want you to have the fake image of being a good Christian. I want you to achieve spiritual victory.
- And you will not be the first. I am already serving as an accountability partner to others.
- What does being an accountability partner look like?
a. You might be the person who gets the daily or weekly accountability email from the anti-porn app.
b. You might be the person who sends a daily text just asking if things are going ok.
c. You might be the person who meets each week for lunch to talk through the battles of the week.
- It varies from situation to situation, but the common denominator is having someone to walk through the battles with and hold you accountable for your actions.
- But couldn’t you just lie to your accountability partner?
- Yep – you sure can. Having an accountability partner works as well as you want it to. If you want to turn it into a sham where you lie to him while continuing the same negative behaviors, you can certainly waste everyone’s time and do that. But if you want to be honest and authentic and take it seriously, it can be a game-changer.
4. Use sincere confession to overcome setbacks.
- 1 John 1:9; 1 John 2:1-2.
- As you pursue this, you are almost certainly going to fail. Rare indeed would be the person who commits to overcome this problem and never backslides. I’m sure it’s possible, but it’s rare.
- The problem with backsliding on this particular problem is that it’s easy to slip back into a despair cycle. We try to do better. We mess up. We feel terrible about that. Feeling like a failure drives us deeper into negative behavior and we find ourselves in worse shape than we began.
- All this is why it’s important to acknowledge that our Father forgives confessed sin. 1 John 1:9 gives us the promise that He will forgive us when we sin. So don’t obsess over how bad you are and go deeper into sin. Confess how bad you and go further with God.
- 1 John 2:1-2 gives us further confidence that Christ has opened the door for our forgiveness.
- This is essential to keep us on track. It’s almost certainly going to be a road with setbacks. If we don’t embrace confession to God as part of the process, we’re going to fail.
- God wants us to get the victory. God had Jesus die so that we’d have a chance for the victory. He is for us.
- Now, you may notice that I put the word “sincere” in front of confession. I did that because it’s certainly possible to use confession as a black check to continue in our sins. That’s something that too many Christians do. We believe that we can use confession to make ourselves feel better even if we have no real desire to change our behavior.
5. Fill your heart with Christ.
- I spoke on this some last week, but let me reiterate the importance of having something in your life worth living for.
- Spiritual victory on this issue is not just about avoiding pornographic images. It’s about having a life worth living. It’s about having a Savior and Lord worth pursuing.
