In this episode of Becoming Whole Audio, host Josh Glaser discusses the importance of holding onto hope in the journey toward sexual integrity. He explores the questions of whether our hopes will be realized and if the journey will be worth it. By anchoring our hope in Christ and his kingdom, we can navigate the challenges with sobriety and trust in God's faithfulness. Join us in placing our hope in the secure promise of the kingdom to come, as we are cheered on by a great cloud of witnesses. Remember, it is worth it, and He is faithful.
Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here
If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.
In this episode of Becoming Whole Audio, host Josh Glaser discusses the importance of holding onto hope in the journey toward sexual integrity. He explores the questions of whether our hopes will be realized and if the journey will be worth it. By anchoring our hope in Christ and his kingdom, we can navigate the challenges with sobriety and trust in God's faithfulness. Join us in placing our hope in the secure promise of the kingdom to come, as we are cheered on by a great cloud of witnesses. Remember, it is worth it, and He is faithful.
Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here
If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.
Speaker 1:
Hey, dear friends, we are in the season of Lent. At least when I'm recording this, we're in the season of Lent and I think when this will drop, we'll be in Lent, which is really one of my favorite seasons of the Church calendar. I don't know what Christian tradition you're typically involved in, but there's something about the rhythms of the Church calendar that I think are so valuable and so important for us as believers that really connect us with the larger body of Christ, both around the world today and different denominations today, but also with the larger body of Christ throughout time, because the Church calendar is not something that's brand new this year. It's not the latest app. This is actually something that goes back. Actually, I don't know how far back it goes, but it connects us with Christians who have passed, who are no longer with us in this world, but who nonetheless, according to Hebrews 11, hebrews 12, cheer us on. They serve as part of the great cloud of witnesses, witnessing and testifying to the reality that all that we go through on this earth is worth it. What an important topic for Lent, when we prepare our hearts and our minds, our bodies, for the celebration, the observance of Christ's death and resurrection. Good Friday and Easter morning.
Speaker 1:
I want to talk today about hope, specifically hope. Let's just dive into thinking about hope in regards to our own journeys towards sexual integrity or our own journeys towards sexual wholeness. Whatever the reasons you listen to this podcast, you are likely dealing with either a family member who is wrestling with, or engaging in just diving into some type of sexual morality, either part of their owning identity that is connecting them to their sexual brokenness. They are engaging in sexual sin, maybe non-repentant, or they're engaging in sexual sin or haven't engaging in sexual sin and they are struggling not to anymore. Or you yourself are struggling this year listening to this podcast because your sexual behavior has been out of control. You've gotten twisted up as far as what your sexual identity is and you are looking for freedom. You're looking for understanding yourself and your journey in relationship to Christ and who he has made you to be and is making you to be, rather than to what the world says about you.
Speaker 1:
I know for everybody, in all the categories I just described, hope's a big deal, because where we put our hope is vitally important for us to have ongoing hope. All the pain points around holding on to hope are very real for every one of us I know for me and my own journey away from habitual sexual sin and sexual addiction, there were times where I was like, am I going to be able to make this? Am I going to actually ever change? Because I was doing everything I knew to do. I was even involved with regeneration and making great strides on covering reasons that I was engaging in the sexual sin, drawing near to Jesus, and I kept going back to this thing. Romans 7, that famous passage in Romans 7 where Paul says I do the very thing I don't want to do, and what I don't want to do I do. Man, that was like if there was one verse in Scripture that I could relate to, one verse in Scripture that I was like yes and amen, that was one of them, because it just rang so true with my experience.
Speaker 1:
Was there any hope? Is there any hope that things are going to get better, that my behavior is going to get better, that I'm going to understand myself as a man or woman and feel myself to be a man or woman after God's own heart rather than whatever the culture says about manhood and womanhood? And if you're doing the loved one, will that loved one ever change? Will they come back to Jesus? Will they return to our marriage and our home? Will they ever get better? Will they stop breaking my heart?
Speaker 1:
Hope is a big deal. Hope matters, and maybe I also need to just say right here at this point that we cannot do this journey without hope. We cannot do whatever the journey is you're on towards sexual wholeness in your life, your loved one's life. You cannot do this journey without hope, because the opposite of hope is despair. Despair is that sinking back into a failure to become, as Yoseph Pieper describes it. Despair is we will not grow to whom God designed us to be. I will not be able to walk in holiness. She will not ever return to the Lord. There is no hope, there is only despair.
Speaker 1:
And even as I say those words, I think you can probably recognize Maybe one of two things, or both. One is just how dark those words are. Despair is obviously of the realm of the enemy. The enemy wants us to despair. He does not want us to hope. And then the second thing you might recognize as I speak those words of despair is that they resonate with some of you. Some of you are like, yeah, that actually feels like words. I've heard they feel. I feel like I've experienced that even in my life. So I think that there are basically two underlying questions related to hope for every one of us, whether we face it or not, that we are all dealing with, and the two questions are this Number one will what I'm hoping for really come?
Speaker 1:
Well, what I'm hoping for really come. And then, secondly, will it be worth it? Will it be worth it? Well, what I'm hoping for really come? Will I ever really change? Am I ever going to have a day where I can go to the beach and not lust, or open my computer without getting sucked into porn, or see another man or another woman without feeling some level of same-sex attraction or temptation? Will my husband ever stop looking at porn? Will he ever stop treating me as an object? Will he return home? Will she return home? Will my son or daughter submit this area of their life to Jesus and come back to Jesus? Will what I'm hoping for ever really come? And then, second, will it be worth it? Will? Will. When it comes to pass, will it be worth all the pain and struggle that I've walked through? Or should I just call it quits now? Should I abandon hope and say forget it, I'm going to wash my hands, I'm going to hard my heart, I'm going to turn away, I'm going to shut the door. Great questions, great questions.
Speaker 1:
The truth is, when we're talking about hoping on a human level, hoping that a loved one will come back to Jesus, hoping that we ourselves will grow to a place where we are not struggling the way that we are today, the reality is that we can't answer the question. We don't know. We do not know, not this side of heaven at least. I think the next question that is so important for us to answer is where is our hope? Where are we putting our hope? Are we putting our hope in what we're seeing from our husband or our wife? Are we putting our hope in our prayers for our children? Are we putting our hope in our own capacity to do the recovery work needed to change our sexual behaviors and sexual arousal templates and sexual temptations? All of those hinge on human effort. They all hinge on some level on what we're doing and what we can see, and I'd suggest to you that if our hope is anchored there, then we are setting ourselves up for deep and long-lasting heartache and potentially wrecking our own faith.
Speaker 1:
Because when we put our hope in what we're going to see on this temporal plane, among human beings, when we do that, when we set our hope there, we are setting our hope on that which can be shaken, as the word of Hebrews says, and we do not want our faith or our hope anchored in that which can be shaken. Rather, we want to place our hope in Christ, we want to place our hope in His kingdom, because he and he alone is worthy of our hope. He and he alone is worthy of our faith. And this is what the writer of Hebrews is getting after in Hebrews 10 through 12, at least that saints of old, those who were not disappointed, even though they did not see what they hoped for, what they put their faith in, what they were aiming for this side of heaven, even though they did not see the kind of resurrection they hoped for, they were not disappointed because their hope was anchored not in this kingdom, not in this earth, not in this temporal plane that we're living on, but in the kingdom to come, in the reunion of heaven and earth, when Jesus returns. That's where their hope was.
Speaker 1:
Now, does that mean that we can't hope, that we should just, you know, leave a loved one who's walked away, or that we should stop our journey towards sexual integrity in our lives. No, no, no, absolutely not. We continue to do what we can do. We continue to pray, we continue to seek, we continue to knock, but our hope is anchored in Christ, not on this temporal plane. And unless this just sounds kind of pie in the sky, you know like, oh, I see you're just saying you know it'll all be worth it because heaven will be great. No, well, yeah, I guess you know. In a way I'm saying that. But more than that, this is the path that so many saints before us and so many saints presently have been on and are on.
Speaker 1:
We are not just putting smiles on our faces, showing up, you know, all cleaned up and dressed up on a Sunday morning and saying our hope's in heaven and all is well. We do this through blood and sweat and tears and pain and suffering. This is that we hold onto the hope of the Kingdom, because this world brings us trouble after trouble after trouble. So placing our hope in the Kingdom and the calm does a couple of things for us. One, it helps us to see our situation with a level of sobriety. So, instead of putting our hope in ourselves, we put our hope in Christ and his kingdom, and that lowers us down a peg on our own self-righteousness, our own confidence, our own egotistical pride and says you know, actually I don't know. I don't know enough about myself to make the claim that it's all going to be well with me just because of me. It also sets our loved ones down a peg. We don't know what they will do and we don't know that we can reach them. For those who are married to somebody who is acting out sexually, it helps you to see that person with a greater level of sobriety, so that you don't hold out false hope, so you can see their actions more than just their words, or their actions more than just your false hopes that things will get better, and make some sober decisions about what that means, about how you need to protect yourself, potentially protect you and your children. This is so important for us and it's hard. It's hard, but it sets our mind, lifts our eyes away from us, away from other humans, and places them on Christ. Lord, we trust in you.
Speaker 1:
One of my favorite passages I said this before Hebrews 11 is often called the Great Hall of Faith and it lists, just, saint after saint after saint, bible, figure after Bible, figure after Bible, figure of people who saw God's kingdom and saw some pieces of it, some foretaste of it, but did not receive the whole thing. Now it also lists that there are other people who saw great resurrection, great power chef, the mouths of lions raised the dead, but right next to them. It lists these people who experienced death and they wandered about without homes and they were not released from prison and they were put to death and they were mocked and they were beaten and they were tempted. These are our brothers and sisters in the faith, and let me just read this part of this passage from Hebrews 11. It says these are the saints of old. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
Speaker 1:
For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland I'm going to skip ahead here. They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, god is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. For people who speak thus, make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, god is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. Brothers and sisters, this is the path. This is the path.
Speaker 1:
Are we gonna grow in sexual integrity this side of heaven? Yeah, if you're doing the work, if you're praying, if you're pressing in, yeah, you're gonna grow. Are you gonna see all the success that you hope for, all the freedom you hope for? I don't know. I don't know. Can you abstain from sin? Absolutely, you can. That much I know.
Speaker 1:
You can abstain from sin, but will you have times where temptation just beats on you relentlessly? Possibly, possibly, but you can hope it will not last forever. Will your loved one return? Will your loved one repent? Brothers and sisters, I don't know. Can it happen? Yes, absolutely it can happen. Yes, absolutely it can happen. Will it happen? I don't know, but you can hope. Place your hope in the secure promise of the kingdom that is to come, that all things will be made new, that Christ will wipe away every tear from our eye. There will be no more sadness and no more mourning. How will that be true If everything is just in shambles here in certain areas of our life? I don't know. But we can trust Him.
Speaker 1:
And this brings us right to Hebrews 12. Where we are given the description of this great cloud of witnesses. And I used to read that passage about the great cloud of witnesses and think that the writer of Hebrews was saying don't sin, because there are a bunch of people watching, they're witnessing. But that's not what the passage is about at all. This passage is about they are witnessing to the faithfulness of God. They are saying it is all worth it. It is all worth it. You can do it because he is trustworthy.
Speaker 1:
Who's your favorite Bible character? That man or woman is cheering you on, brother and sister. You can do it. Keep pressing forward, keep placing your hope in heaven. It is worth it. He is faithful. It is worth it. He is faithful and he has not forgotten about you.
Speaker 1:
Jesus, you know that in this world we have trouble.
Speaker 1:
You told us, you promised.
Speaker 1:
You also said, lord, that we could take heart because you've overcome the world, and sometimes those two things together, lord, feel really hard to hold.
Speaker 1:
But, jesus, we do trust you. Help us in our unbelief. We do trust you. Lord, would you grow our faith and Lord, everywhere that we've placed our hope in you, would you secure it even more there? And, lord, every place that we've placed our hope in this temporal universe that we're living in, in a human person or in our own strength, god, would you gently but firmly remove our hope from those things and place them on you. God, I pray for more miracles in every life of every man and woman listening to this podcast. I pray for more supernatural power, the release of your spirit in their lives, more progress, more success, more reunion, more love, more freedom, more holiness. Yet, lord, in all the ways that we continue to move on that journey, and yet we've not seen those things in their completeness would you share with us your hope and increase our faith? I ask this now in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.