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style, every home I was addicted to pornography from the fifth grade until I was 17 years old. And this was a private battle, a shameful battle, a guilty battle, and one that I feel like a lot of you guys may be fighting right now. Lust is something that buries you. It makes you feel shameful, it makes you feel awful. And I don't think people talk about it a lot. Honestly, I'm not coming at you from the outside. I was someone that was once within this battle that felt like a never ending shackle. And so today I kind of wanted to open up and talk about what lust is, what the Bible says about it, and how we can conquer it. You see, lust is an unrestrained craving for sexual intimacy or sexual desire. This whole idea of what is love? Well, in today's society, the movies push love as being sex, as how many women or men you can sleep with about that intimate bonding between a male and a female that you have in the bedroom. You know, dating used to be a euphemism 130 years ago for a sexual favor. And it's no coincidence that Satan wants to use sexual sin to pull you further away from the heart of God, to make you think that's what love is and not this. Now, lust as a broad term can be associated with a lust for this thing or a lust for that thing. But when we think of lust, we think of it in the context of sexual immorality. And I'm frequently reminded of what Jesus says in Matthew, chapter five about sexual immorality. Jesus talks about sexual sin in Matthew, chapter 5, verse 27, by saying, you have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery, one of the ten Commandments. And this is so important because Jesus is about to change the perspective. He says, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Jesus now takes lust from being a physical act to a heart issue. And that's exactly what Job is referencing in Job 31, verse one, when he's like, look, I've made a covenant with my eyes. Because Job had no idea why the suffering around him was happening. And he's like, look, God, I've made a covenant with my eyes. I ain't looking at other women lustfully. I ain't looking at my options right now. And, you know, let me level with you really quick. One of the reasons why I feel like lust is such a prominent, dominant sin and glorified sin in today's society, and something I feel like everyone struggles with universally is because at our fingertips through social media, we have an influx of options, an influx of personalities. We get to, like, build our bear online. We get to have our own build a bear online. When we look at, oh, I like this. I like that. Oh, I like that body type. Oh, I like this. Oh, you got to be hot. You got to have this kind of hairstyle. You got to have these kind of eyes. And this influx at our fingertips of options has caused our hearts to become deceitful. You know what's so crazy? Is that what I thought a while ago, you know, before I was a believer, you know, when I was 16 and 15 really struggling with sexual sin, I was just like, man, like, I have this desire to do sexual things so bad, and I've never had sex before. And I'm like, where does this come from? You know, people don't think when you see a pastor online and a pastor cheats on his wife, you know, a pastor doesn't just wake up one day and go, oh, my gosh, I feel like blowing my whole life up. A pastor doesn't just wake up go, yeah, I feel like ruining my whole life right now, actually. James, chapter one, verse 14 gives us the spiritual backbone of how sin births in our lives here. What he says, he says, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. Here's the reality is that you don't just wake up one day and Think of doing something crazy and blowing your whole life up. Sexual sin starts here with the eyes. Like Job said, what Jesus said, you thought adultery was just a physical act. It all begins in the heart. If you look at a woman with the intent of lustful desire, you've committed adultery in your heart. You know, we think the sin issue begins in the physical act, where Jesus is saying, actually, we need to kill the lust issue with the heart and the eyes. So a pastor doesn't just cheat on his wife one day by waking up and saying, oh, I want to blow my whole life up. It might have started by looking too long at a lady at the gym. And so you might be someone right now who's buried in sexual sin. And you're like telling yourself, man, like, I am buried by this thing because, oh, I'm having sex right now with a bunch of different people. Or, oh, I cheat on my girlfriend or boyfriend, or I cheat on my husband or my wife, when really it just started at looking someone too long on social media, or maybe it has to deal with the movies you're watching or the music you're listening to or where you're placed in your eyes. Jesus has given us a warning. And that's why later on in that passage, that same passage, he's like, look, gouge your right eye out if it's causing you to sin. You know what's so crazy to me is we blame the devil for situations that we put ourselves in. And y' all don't want to talk about it. Oh, no, the devil made me watch porn again. But you stay up till 2am scrolling on Instagram, scrolling on Tick tock, knowing you follow people you shouldn't be following, and it leads you to go click on that link and watch some explicit videos again. Oh, but. But the devil made me sleep with my girlfriend or boyfriend. But you spending the night at their house. Oh, the. The devil made me cheat on my wife or cheat on my husband, but you really linked up with them. You got in your car and you drove over there. Like you're blaming the devil for situations that you put yourself in. And that's why Paul writes in First Corinthians 6, Flee from sexual immorality. For some reason, when it comes to sexual sin, we like to flirt with it. We think for some reason that we could step in the boxing ring and go, well, you know what? I'm not in the bed with that person. But, like, I could go get coffee with them. Yeah, I'm in a relationship. I'm not sleeping with them outside of my relationship. But, like, I can. I can go on, like, a friendly lunch. Really? Really? You can go on a friendly lunch that in your mind, you're thinking about doing some dirty stuff with them? Flee from sexual immorality. First Corinthians 6 says, we got to run from it. Don't flirt with it. Don't get close to the line. Because the Bible would say, if you think you could step in the boxing ring with sexual sin, you already lost. He got you. This is why sexual sin is different than any other sin. The Bible says in First Corinthians 6 that it is a sin against your own, that you are devaluing the very temple that God has given you by saying, you know what? I want to gratify what my flesh feels, because I think this is what love is for. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. So when we gratify the flesh by giving into sexual desires and going out of God's design for what sex is, then we're devaluing the very body that God has given us and saying, you know what, God? I don't care what you think about my body. I don't care how you made it, or I don't care that you live inside of my body. I'm going to do whatever I want with it. And that's a scary place to be. And look, I get it. Like, I was bound to sexual sin from the fifth grade. I got exploited to pornography when I was in the fifth grade. I got exposed to it on the beach by a random person. And that led me down a trail of being addicted to pornography. And then it led me down hurting more people in my life, hurting girls, and going down this just trail of searching for love in that way, because that's what I thought love was. Look, love isn't a feeling. Love isn't sex. Love isn't a dopamine high you get by hooking up with someone. Love isn't booze. Love isn't any of those things. Love is sacrifice. Love is a choice. Love is Jesus. That's why First John says, if anyone does not know God, they don't know love. Because God is love. God is love. That's who he is. And he exemplified and displayed his love by dying on the cross. That's what love is. Now, sex. It doesn't have to be this bad, weird thing that we talk about as Christians, like, oh, sex is weird. Like, we can't talk about sex. Sex is beautiful. In the confines of marriage, when a man and a Woman come together and make a covenant before God, saying, in sickness and health and rich and riches are in poverty, I commit myself to you. In the confines of marriage, sex is a beautiful gift from God. God wants us to enjoy sex. So when God says, hey, guard your heart against sexual immorality outside of marriage. I mean, even within marriage, because we got people cheating on their significant others. But outside of marriage, we need to guard our heart. Because the way I design it, I'm not trying to be a cosmic buzzkill. God's not trying to be a cosmic buzzkill by saying, oh, you can't have sex outside of marriage. You can't do anything sexual outside. He's trying to protect you both physically and spiritually, emotionally guarding your heart by saying, hey, don't bind yourself to a bunch of random people. Save yourself for someone. But also physically, you can get diseases and die. So God's not trying to be a cosmic buzzkill. And to those of you who have struggled like me, because let me tell you something. Sometimes at night, I am still haunted by the mistakes I made. But this is where the grace of God comes in, where God wipes our slate clean. You know, in John chapter eight, the woman who was caught in adultery, he shows her grace on her sin. But then he says, what? Go and sin no more. The grace of God. God's love and grace for you despite your sexual mistakes is not an excuse to say, oh, I'm gonna go do it again. And sexual sin feels so shameful. But let me tell you something. If you feel tempted to blow your whole life up by biting into sexual sin, confess the temptation before you confess the shameful act. Because when you hide something in the dark, you give the devil a license to use it against you. And what Satan tries to do is he tries to get you to isolate. He goes, do that thing. Do that thing. Do that thing. Satan's whole plan to get you to fall into sexual sin is this. Hey, go watch that video one more time. I know you said you were going to quit having sex with your girlfriend or boyfriend, but just do it one more time. You've already done it so many other times. And then you bite into it and he goes, why'd you do it? And then you feel shame and guilt for doing that thing. So then the devil tries to get you to isolate. And when you isolate, that's when you get in your head. You have the devil, the real estate. And on that real estate, the devil begins to say, well, you already did it once. You might as well do it again. And then you continue to bury yourself in shame, guilt, despair, shame, guilt, despair, hopelessness. All of these things. When you know through godly community, you can lean on someone even though it feels shameful by saying, look, I made a mistake, or I feel tempted to do this thing. You make Satan lose his power grip he has on you with that temptation or sin struggle by confessing it out loud. When you confess even the temptation of lust, you make the enemy lose his power over you in that area because you're not letting him get in your head and get in your heart. And this is what's so important for us to understand about this whole thing. The reason why it's so hard for you to stop watching porn or stop sleeping with your girlfriend or boyfriend or stop cheating on your husband or wife is because you've tried to make sexual sin a boxing match that you can fight in your own willpower. Where Jesus shows us through Matthew chapter five. Like we said, this isn't a physical act you can fight. This is a heart issue. And the Lord has to do heart surgery on us. Hey, I want to talk about something really quick. The Bible says iron sharpens iron. It says confess your sins to one another so you may be healed. Scripture does not tell you to white knuckle your way through struggle alone. Accountability is not a modern idea. It's God's design. That is exactly what what Victory by Covenant Eyes is built on. It's not just a filter or a blocker. It's a full accountability system that connects you with a trusted person who walks alongside you, encourages you, and helps you build real and lasting freedom. Over 1.7 million Christians have already started that journey. If you were ready to stop fighting alone, download Victory by Covenant Eyes. Use promo code bryce30@covenant eyes.com for a completely 30 day trial. That's promo code bryce30 for a 30 day free trial. Link is in the description. All right, let's get back to the episode. So how do we defeat lust and sin? How do we defeat that? Well, here's the first step on defeating lust. That's looking at the obvious areas that are leading you into sin. And cut it off. If your right hand causes you sin, cut it off. For what does Jesus say it's better to enter the kingdom of heaven with one hand than to go to hell with two. Like we said earlier, stop blaming the devil for situations you put yourself in. If you can't stop watching porn late at night and you use your phone as an alarm clock, go buy AA batteries and an alarm clock. And put that in your room and charge your phone somewhere else. Because we know nothing else. Nothing good happens past 9 o'.
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Clock.
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Nothing good. And why is it that we try to sin in the dark, acting like that because the lights are off. That's going to hide our sin from other people seeing it. Because we can either humble ourselves before our sin and confess to one another and seek help and seek guidance with our heart health, or we can let our sin humble us. So first thing would be Psalm 139. Search my heart, God. Reveal the areas of my life that are causing me to sin, that are causing me to watch porn, that are causing me to cheat on my way, that are causing me to. To do this, and give me the strength to cut it off. Because not just the obvious areas, but praying that prayer, Psalm 139 is going to allow God to root out the areas of your life that maybe you don't see. There's some people you got to unfollow. There's some music you got to stop listening to. There's some shows and some movies you got to stop watching. There's got to be some people you got to stop hanging around. Who has a voice in your life right now that is influencing you to go have sex with a bunch of people and go watch porn because they say it's cool. They know deep down there's nothing cool about it. They're just trying to find a way to cope. Oh, see, y' all don't want to talk about it right now. Here's the reality. Do not surround yourself with people that agree with your sin. You're just trying to find a way to cope with your sin and ease the blow. That does not ease the blow. It builds unhealthy, ungodly habits that ruin you in despair. This is why I wanna point to Proverbs 7 really quick. This is so important in Proverbs chapter 7. You guys should read it on your own time. It talks about sexual sin in the context of an adultere. And this is what it says. With much seductive speech, she persuades him. Sexual sin persuades this man in the story. And Solomon is writing this as if he watched it with his own eyes. I saw a guy get lured in sexual sin and get lured into adultery. With her smooth talk she compels him. All at once he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag caught in a fast. I love this verse right here. Till an arrow pierces its liver. The guilt and the shame you feel from biting into Sexual sin is not worth the experience. And as a bird rushes into a snare, he does not know that it will cost him his life. Sexual sin will blow your whole life up. Your actions of watching porn or cheating on your significant other or sleeping outside of marriage doesn't just affect you in the moment. See, you think you convince yourself, oh, yeah, if I have sex with this person, it's gonna feel Good, yeah, for 30 seconds. And then after that, it's gonna affect your friends, your family, your reputation, how people perceive you, your relationship. In that moment, sexual sin will blow your life up. First step, search my heart. God, reveal to me the areas of my life, Give me the strength to cut it off. Number two, confess to someone about it. Not just anyone. I'm talking confess to someone godly friends or godly community who won't weaponize your struggles against you, who will actually come alongside you, check in on you, be with you, give you scriptural and godly encouragement. You give you godly strategy alongside the spirit of God to help you flee from it and create habits that keep you away from sexual sin. But the crazy thing about that is bringing in community is you have to be open and honest. You have to be willing to bring accountability in your life. And lastly, and I think this is the biggest step in overcoming sexual sin, running from it. Run from it. When I became 17 years old, that was the moment I became free, was trusting in Jesus. And I've been tempted to go back to watching porn since I was 17. But you know what the first month of me being a believer looked like? Trying not to watch porn when I felt tempted, it literally looked like throwing my phone on the other side of the room and running outside and shooting basketball. And that may sound so silly, but I knew I had to run. I threw my phone and I would run outside and shoot the basketball, or I'd run outside and see if my friends were available, if they wanted to hang out. Because I knew what it had costed me in the past was not worth what it costed me now. And if you follow Jesus Christ, you know that he is far greater than any other dopamine rush you can get from any sexual craving or desire. And so I want to pray for you that you understand that this freedom is accessible for you, that lust isn't something that just explodes, that it grows in your life. And we have to kill the root. Don't treat the symptoms, treat the root. What is leading you into the sin? God, give us the strength and let's cut it off. Lord Jesus, we love you. We thank you, God. Lust is such an overwhelming sin that conquers us. So, Lord, we need your help. God, give us strength. Reveal to us the areas of our life that are causing us to stumble. And God, give us the strength to cut it off in Jesus name.
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Amen.