How training in hope brings sexual integrity

Your strongest sexual desires can feel like destiny, like a permanent label that tells you who you are and what you’ll always chase. We don’t buy that. James Craig sits down with Josh Glazer to talk about a different kind of change: not behavior hacks, not sheer willpower, but the slow, hopeful formation of what we love, what we long for, and what we reach for when we’re hurting.

We dig into how culture preaches “follow your heart,” and why that message often produces despair for Christians who feel divided inside. Then we get practical and biblical. Romans 5 gives a progression from suffering to perseverance to character to hope, and we connect that directly to sexual integrity, porn recovery, and unwanted sexual behaviors. Temptation itself can be a kind of suffering, and when we carry it alone, it grows heavier. When we bring it into a safe community, it can become the very place where hope is restored, and shame loses its grip.

We also talk about trauma, attachment, and why Jesus doesn’t avoid the tender places, using the woman at the well as a picture of Christ meeting us right where we’re most exposed. To close, we read 2 Peter chapter one’s growth pathway toward love and invite you to take one next step, not a perfect leap.

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review so more people can find honest conversations about sexual wholeness and Christian discipleship.

Resources from this episode:

You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

Transcript

Forming Loves For Sexual Wholeness

James 0:00

In You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith says, "Jesus is a teacher who doesn't just inform our intellect, but forms our very loves. He isn't content to simply deposit new ideas into your mind. He's after nothing less than your wants, your loves, and your longings." So listeners, do you want to become sexually whole? Do you want your spouse to have sexual integrity? Do you want your kids to grow up with sexual purity? And you need to shape your own and their own longings, their hopes, their loves. Your hopes, your loves, my hopes, my loves need to be shaped. I'm James Craig, a director of projects and a spiritual coach here at Regen. I'm joined by Josh Glazer, our executive director and a thought leader in applying a Christian anthropology to the minutia of growth and sexual integrity. Josh, thank you for paying me to say that. No, seriously though. That I, I had that, I have that in my own notes because it is important to point out what you've often done is you've taken Christian anthropology, often unaccessible to the average Joe Christian on the street, and applied it not just intellectually, but into the formation, into the, the, the roots of this ministry. You've been a part of that, and so I've benefited from that in Awaken, and I've seen my desires, my longings, my hopes form. So Josh, today I wanna, I wanna start by exploring that. How, how are our longings, our hopes, our loves, um, exploring how those shape our ability to become people of sexual integrity, uh, to become people of wholeness. And so I actually wanna pull out two passages today, which we'll do in just a moment. There's a, a, a incredible progression of hope passage in scripture. Some of you will immediately know what I mean, and some of you won't, and we'll get there. And there's a great progression of how do we grow in love in scripture as well. Um, but Josh, any initial thoughts in your own life, in your work here for, uh, two and a half, almost three decades at Regen on how we cultivate our hopes, our loves, our longings?

Joshua 2:19

Yeah, I mean, I, I think r- initially, even as you're talking about that, I think for a lot of our listeners who have been shaped by the culture, as you and I have, we have to work ourselves out of the reality that we have b- that we have been shaped by a culture that tells us that our longings are something that are innate

Longings Are Shaped Not Fixed

Joshua 2:37

and they, and they're- Hmm immutable. They can't be changed.

James 2:40

Oh,

Joshua 2:40

yeah. And, and in fact that the, the, the roadmap to happiness is to discover your longings and to just pursue them.

James 2:47

Mm-hmm.

Joshua 2:48

And I mean, that's, that's the... I think you've referred to it as the gospel of Disney. Just follow your heart. And, and-

James 2:55

Yep

Joshua 2:55

for Christians who recognize I have longings, I have desires that, that seem to fall outside of what I'm supposed to want, I think it can, instead of leading to hope, I think it leads to a level of despair. Like, "What's wrong with me? Maybe I'm not really saved. Maybe the spirit of Christ isn't in me." Um- I thought, I thought that I was supposed to be growing and wanting what God wants. And I think part of what James K.A. Smith is getting after and, and where we're going in this podcast, I, I think, is beginning to recognize some of the reality that our longings actually are, are shaped, they are formed, and we can actually do something about that. So if you're... For the listeners, because I know this is a hopeful word for you and me too in our lives, where you find the things you, you long for to be outside of the things that you know God wants for you, where your longings are not matched up with God's longings for you. Or maybe said a different way, where your, your longings aren't matching up with what you most deeply long for or you wish you longed for. Recognize or hear at least at the beginning that longings are something that can be developed, they can be cultivated, they can be shaped- Yes and reshaped. Yes. They can be redeemed. They can be baptized into Christ and raised up as something new. Mm-hmm. That's

James 4:12

how I think of it. I think you'll agree with this. It is a hopeful word, and I think you'll agree with this. Follow your heart- as it's conformed to the heart of Christ Jesus.

Joshua 4:22

Mm.

James 4:23

Maybe as isn't even the right word. Um, follow your heart conformed. The heart that is conformed- Mm to the heart of Christ is meant to be followed because you're actually following the heart of Jesus Christ, that you're, you're being led by the Spirit. But none of us come up, pop out of the womb... May- Josh, you actually have six kids. Any of your six kids, uh, pop out of the womb or enter your home, um, full con- fully conformed to the heart of Jesus?

Joshua 4:47

Oh my gosh, no. And, and, and their parents are, are, are still finding our longings, uh, duplicitous. I have, I have longings that, as our colleague Blake refers to it, it's the and-ness of I, I long for my sin, and I long for the righteousness. And, and so much of, of life is beginning to understand myself more in the latter and less in the former, and to reinterpret what the former means. Like-

James 5:15

Mm I

Joshua 5:16

mean, uh, sorry, I just used a lot of... That, that got too-

James 5:20

Former and latter

Joshua 5:22

Yeah, right. What I mean is, like, like, so for the listener who finds, "Oh man, I, I still desire porn," or, uh, "I'm, I desire a same-sex sexual relationship," or, "I'm married, but I desire, you know, a past girlfriend that I just ran into," or what- whatever it might be for, for you, uh, that, um, that tho- those desires mean, mean less about you than you might think.

James 5:48

Mm.

Joshua 5:48

Uh, and you can come to view them differently than the culture would have you view them. Yeah. The culture, I think, in many ways would say, "That's it. You gotta follow that." Um-

James 5:59

Wow.

Joshua 6:01

Yeah. So well said. Christianity's different.

James 6:03

Well, I heard you say in that, that the starting point with the shaping of desires is honesty. Mm. I, I think of the Romans 7 perspective of... I think of the Psalms, which our Anglican brothers and sisters would argue we should be reading through every month. All 150, by the way. They actually have

Honesty About Desire And Shame

James 6:21

an awesome breakdown. Maybe we'll put it in the show notes. I'll share sometimes with coaching clients, like, I want you to try reading the Psalms every day. Like, all the way through for three months in a row and see, see what God does through that. But there's this honesty inherent in the Psalms. There's this honesty in saying, "I do the very things I hate." That's, I'd say, square one- Of having our longing shaped. We gotta admit that we don't have the longings that we wanna have on some level. Mm. We don't have the longings for God, for His kingdom to the fullest extent yet. And admitting that starts, starts the journey.

Joshua 6:56

Yeah. And I, I'd actually... Like I was, I was meeting with a client, um, last week, and it was interesting 'cause he, he'd been doing pretty well with sobriety, and then he was ha- he had just a, a rough week and was not doing so great. And, um, and some of the way that he came back to our session framing that up, he was talking about just, you know, what that meant about him and not as far along as he thought and, you know, whatever else. And, and one of the reframes I, I just offered him, and I'm still getting to know him, but, uh, one of the reframes I offered him was like, "You know, but what does it say about you that you're here? And what does it say about you that you told me about this, about those falls instead of keeping them to your- yourself?" Because he had expressed that there was... He didn't wanna come and tell me that. He thought I would say like, "Doesn't seem like you're taking this very seriously," or something like that.

James 7:41

Mm.

Joshua 7:42

And I was like, "What does it, what does it say about you that you would, that you'd be honest with me when you expected that kind of res..." Like, 'cause I think the, the enemy so much wants us to read our desires and go, "This is the fullest truth about you," the sexual desires. "This is what's most true about you," as opposed to- Mm what about the part of you that's not okay with those sexual desires? What about the part of you that is willing to confess and be honest? Like, that says something. Or for some of you listening, what about the part of you that wants to want to be honest? Yeah. What does that mean about you? And, and, and what does that say about what you truly most deeply long for? And I guess, I guess, James, maybe, maybe you'll take us down this here in this, in this part of this conversation, but- I think we're kind of, we're kind of walking this knife edge here on the one hand of saying your, your desires can be formed. They don't just... You know, righteous desires don't just happen. But we're also saying on some level, because you're created by God, you have your deepest longings, if you get in touch with them, are actually God's longings for you because the, the topography of your inner terrain is designed by a God who didn't invite you into life that you have no desire for, or that you have no... Like, your makeup actually doesn't fit, right? Like, especially if you're in Christ. I don't know. It's like- I

James 8:58

hope I'm

Joshua 8:58

not confusing your, where we're

James 8:59

going with that.

Joshua 9:00

Well, no, there,

James 9:01

there's almost a paradox where on one hand, we can agree with G.K. Chesterton that the, the man knocking at the door of the brothel is looking for God. Like, wired as image-bearers, no matter how marred the image is, no matter how broken a man or woman is, at the absolute core of how we were designed by God is to long for God. That's the truest longing. And, and see if, let's see if we can hold these in tension. Maybe, maybe they dis- disagree too much with each other, or maybe they're an important paradox to hold both. Hmm. But as Au- Augustine says, St. Augustine, he says that, "My weight or my gravity..." Or sorry, he says, "My love is my gravity. My love is my weight." And so James K.A. Smith, again, picking up, um, he must be a, an Augustine scholar or something like that, but he, he says this. So hold, hold the Chesterton idea that our deepest desire on some level is God, but then listen to this as well. "Your deepest desires, desire is the one manifested by your daily life and habits. This is because our action, our doing, bubbles up from our loves, which is, we've observed are habits acquired through the practices we're immersed in. This means that the formation of my loves and desires can be happening under the hood of consciousness. I might be learning to love lots of things that I'm not even aware of, and nonetheless governs my life in an unconscious ways." So maybe there's layers, Josh. Maybe at the absolute core layer is this God-sized hole as Pascal talks about, is this I'm knocking at the door of God when I'm knocking at the brothel. But then a layer up, we can also be honest and say, "If I really look at my life, if I take an inventory- Mm my loves on that level are not really geared toward, toward life with God, toward, toward having longing after God." Is that, is that a paradox, or is that just two guys who would disagree with each other if they hung out together?

Joshua 11:01

I, I, uh, there's something in my wiring that, that, that believes that s- on some fundamental all truth like fits together even if it's a four-dimensional fitting that we can't quite- get our minds around. Josh is

James 11:14

playing 4D chess over here, guys. So

Joshua 11:16

get ready. No, I'm not. I'm, it's just, it's over my head is what I'm saying. But, um, I don't know if, I, I don't know if we were in, if these guys were in the room if they would be disagreeing. Uh, maybe they would, but, but I, I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't think fundamentally that there's disagreement between... Fundamentally I don't think that there's disagreement between our experience of ourselves and what is, what is always true about ourselves as God's created creatures. It just may be that we don't fully understand ourselves. So there is a level of humility required whenever we're looking under the hood of the human heart.

James 11:51

Mm.

Joshua 11:51

And certainly that's gotta be true in the realm of desire because- Yeah 'cause there is... I mean, e- everybody listening can relate with-

James 12:00

Mm-hmm

Joshua 12:00

longing for something and longing for something else- Yes that are diametrically opposed or that seem to be diametrically opposed.

James 12:07

Yeah.

Joshua 12:07

And everyone listening can relate with watching their loves be shaped by what they do, and finding out what they love by looking at what they do.

James 12:18

Mm.

Joshua 12:19

And, and so if that's tr- I mean, like, you know, w- why, why is it when, when I pick up my phone and scroll for two weeks that, you know, for the next two weeks I am pulled towards picking up my phone? My desires have been shaped by what I, what I did. And, and then when I look at what I did, it also reveals to me something of what I, what I truly love. So anyway, I'm, I'm getting us too, too, too much in the clouds I think, but-

James 12:54

Well, let's, let's talk about how s- Yeah some of the way scripture shows this is formed, because, uh, there is the up in the clouds, like, questions of what, how does this all fit together, and then there's the, like, can we actually apply some of the words of Paul? So I, I'm gonna actually pull from Paul, and then if we have time, from Peter, two, two great apostles, for how in some, at least some of our lungs are formed. The first is gonna be on hope. All right? So some of y'all will be familiar. This is Romans 5:1-5. "Therefore, since we've been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand." A little bit of a mouthful, but now we're in a relationship with God.

Hope That Outlasts Temptation

James 13:37

We're, we're connected to God. He goes on to say, "And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." So Josh, having had zero minutes to reflect on this passage, where, uh, I'm pretty sure, uh, volumes of books could be written on this. I mean, there have been actually volumes of books written on the, what's called the theological virtue of hope. What does it mean to grow in hoping in Jesus? What does it mean to grow as people of hope? But Josh, any, uh, let me, let me hone in this question. Any connection that you can immediately see between growth and hope and overcoming sexual brokenness, or walking in greater sexual integrity? Is there a connection that jumps out at you for that?

Joshua 14:43

Yeah. Right, right out of the gates, uh, and I was alluding to it before. If you, if you do not believe that you can be r- that your s- your sexual desire template, that the, the intensity of your desires, that your sexual behavior can change, y- you, you'll slip into a kind of despair and, and it will pull you down again and again and again when you're tempted. And for some groups in our, in our culture, it's more intense than others. Mm. So just two examples. If I'm a, a woman and I experience, uh, sexual desires for, for men, and I keep sleeping with men, and I know that, uh, that I gotta stop this, this is ridiculous, it makes me feel terrible about myself, and I don't believe that I'm worth more or that I can come to view myself as worth more, I can come to feel the love of God more than I feel the pull towards these things, then I'm gonna... At s- on some deep level, if not on an overt level, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be like, "You know what? Forget it. I'm never gonna be worth more and I'm just gonna keep going back and back and back to those horrible relationships." Mm. An- another example, the man or woman who experiences same-sex sexual attractions. Uh, if I don't believe that God has something better for me than what the world is offering in that realm, then I'm just gonna be like, "I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna... I c- how can I continue to pursue Jesus when what he's got for me at the end is just more suffering and loneliness and da, da, da, da, da?" Mm. Versus I'm gonna, I, I'm gonna grow in Christ likeness and see what the Lord has, and that, and believing that that hope is not gonna disappoint me is huge. Mm. And is huge for those around them too, like, to believe there's actually something better than the initial part of that journey towards sexual integrity for anybody, uh, that's hope and that's needed, right?

James 16:45

Yeah. Because w- without, without believing that our suffering can be transformed, can be redeemed, can be for a purpose... I mean, like you said, you, you painted a picture of how most of us feel, like we're, we're stuck. We're stuck and alone in this suffering. I'm adding that word, "and alone," 'cause I feel like there's something there too of like- I'm not gonna go into the factors that have impacted my desires, whether for same or opposite sex. That's really, really painful, and that's been a lonely place. There's ways that our desires have been malformed in pain, in abuse, in neglect, in loss. And so to, to, to even have a glimmer of hope that God might want to do more with my desires, even if our only hope, and this is a, a fine thing to have as your only hope, if your only hope is that he'll change your desires toward Jesus so that you desire Jesus, uh, that is enough to draw, to draw us so, so far. I mean, e- e- eternally, it draws us eternally into the life with God if we, if we hope in the power of Jesus. But so many of us are stuck in, "I can't face these things. I, I... This is suffering alone." I remember, Josh, uh, one of our Awaken leaders constantly tells or recalls that he stepped into Awaken maybe 15 years ago, and you were at the time coordinating an in-person group, and you heard this man's story, and you, you looked him in the eye and you said, "There's hope for you here." What that did was it told him, "I'm in the right place. Like, this isn't the kind of place where people like me are despised even though my sins are egregious, even though I've done all this stuff." And it told him he's not alone in that. He's not alone in his suffering anymore the way he has been alone in his struggle.

Joshua 18:42

Hmm. Man, I, I, yeah, I think there's something really im- I'm glad you brought up that, that point about not feeling alone. There is something... And, and anybody who's ever been in an AA group, an SA group, a GA group, an Awaken group, Pure Desire group, like, uh, an Oasis group, every... A Compass group, for that matter. Like, uh, you know, just the list goes on and on. Any type of support group, tho- like, once you've been in a support group and you hear somebody else who's even, even if they're just a step ahead on the journey talk about what it feels like, and to find, okay, one, I'm not alone, and two, uh, they are moving forward beyond where I, where I am. Like, there's something about the combination of those two things that does really feed hope-

James 19:29

Yeah

Joshua 19:30

in a helpful way.

James 19:32

It's caught in that sense. Our- Right imaginations are being sanctified because now I can imagine a future where I'm a little bit more like this person who's a little bit more like Jesus. Not that we're going after let me become Josh or let me become Kyle or anyone else on our team. I'm ge- I'm deposited some hope that if God did this for them, He might wanna do this for me, too.

Joshua 19:54

Well, and that, that might bring us into the realm of, like, the- Mm the, the value of pictures and images rather than just words. Like, the, the words, "Hey, you just have to have hope," don't really... I mean, I don't know about other people, but they, for me, they don't do a whole lot. Like-

James 20:10

Yeah

Joshua 20:10

but to have a picture, an image to help me hope. Like, whether it's a picture, an image of myself in prayer or of myself transformed or of somebody further ahead on the journey. And I'm not trying to de-relationalize, if that's a word, m- the idea of s- the value of relating with somebody who's further down the line, but I do think there's something about, like, the physicality, the, the, the visual nature of seeing this person-

James 20:35

Yeah

Joshua 20:35

who I can recognize is a little bit further down the road than me, and also f- feeling enough of them to know, and I also connect with them, I relate with them. They seem like me. There's something really powerful about that.

James 20:49

Josh, you notice, um, every, uh... I don't actually know grammar terms, but you notice everything's we and us? Paul's assuming-

Joshua 20:59

Hmm

James 20:59

community here. Hmm. And when we read this, when I hear this- Mm-hmm I hear, okay, I gotta suffer. I'm picturing myself just suffering alone. If, if, you know, if I can extrapolate that image, it, it's probably me just alone. Uh, and that's actually in some ways the greatest suffering, right, is when we're in pain and we're alone. And, and somehow that will lead to perseverance, somehow that will lead to character and hope. It's, it's almost like if I was a, a, a cowboy on the, on the, um, the edge of the known US- I'm gonna just go through all this stuff by myself and become a strong, strong man. But i- if, one of, one of the key, f- uh, paradigm shifts here is that as we learn more about trauma, trauma, it, it deeply impacts us. I- if you might even look at Romans 5, you're like, "I've been through betrayal," or, "I've, I- I've been through war. I've been through... I have all kinds of PTSD. There's real trauma that I carry in my body. How does this possibly apply? I've been through suffering. I don't need to find more suffering. I... Why, why don't I have hope?" Well, I wanna argue, or, uh, argue's the wrong word for that kinda conversation, but I wanna, I wanna advocate for the idea that trauma, according to the Life Model, according to Dr., uh, Jim Wilder, the psychologist who's behind the Life Model, trauma forms when we don't have an attachment with a strong enough brain who we're attached to in that moment to navigate the trauma. Mm. In other words, trauma forms when we're alone. And one of the things that I think is hidden behind this passage for our Western individualist eyes, we might have some Eastern listeners around the world, but for, for many of us who are listening, we might be picturing the suffering that we've been going through day in and day out. I'm alone after, when I'm tempted. I'm alone after I've given into my sin. I keep creating more suffering for myself. I was alone when I was traumatized as a kid. Whatever it is- We don't actually realize that Paul is talking to we. Mm. Paul is talking to us. Paul is talking to y'all. I actually pulled up the y'all translation, which replaces every you plural, which is just you in English, with y'all, right? Uh, nothing's different because I actually realized this is all we and us. So, uh, there's no second person plural here, in other words. It's first person plural. It's plural, though. It's us. It's a group. And Josh, I never even connected the dots that part of this idea of imagination and God sanctifying our imagination is I'm imagining a future that I see someone else having.

Joshua 23:28

Yeah.

James 23:28

I'm tasting it. I'm, I'm experiencing it. You're, you're kind to me. You've overcome something, and you're loved by God and you know it, and I can, I can grab hold of that a little bit. Yeah. I can suffer... If that person c- is willing to enter into my suffering, perseverance really does happen. Uh, I'm just picturing a group. I'm imagining a group like Oasis. Uh, Kyle, one of our staff, if she was leading your Oasis group and she's entering into your suffering, you are growing in perseverance when you're doing it- Mm together with Kyle and with other women in that group or in, in our Awaken group. Like, wh- when we enter in together, I think there's this in, in- incredibly important togetherness here that does produce perseverance, character, and actually gives, uh, the space for hope to grow.

Joshua 24:10

Yeah. Yeah, beautifully said. Okay, so two things come to mind for me. One is this is, this is part of why it can... it's so damaging or so... it can be such a heartbreak when we find a leader has been duplicitous and they, and we see that they fall because we... It's, it's not

Community Trauma And Real Connection

Joshua 24:28

just... It's a dashing of hope. It's a dashing of, of our own, our own becoming. Um.

James 24:36

Oh,

Joshua 24:36

yeah. And, and it, I think that, you know, that's another podcast I guess, but there'd be some medicinal prescription on, on where to go with that. How do you, how do you refine community that stirs hope as opposed to just kind of, you know, joining community or going it alone that kind of just moves away from the hope that that leader once embodied. And maybe part of it is grieving the loss of, of the hope they instilled and finding new hope. But the other thing that comes to mind for me, and I, I appreciate your, you're bringing this up because, um, I've been, I've been continuing to noodle on John 4, Jesus' interaction with the woman at the well. And the, one of the parts of the passage that's, that's begun to been reshaped in my own reading of it, there's a part in the, in this, in the storyline where Jesus is interacting with her and she's, it seems to be making some headway. And she's, she kind of has this religious kind of piece of the conversation she brings in, and then he says to her, "Go, go grab your husband." Um, oh, no, I know. He, she's just asked to give him, like, "Give me this water." And he's like, "Go get your husband." And, um, it can f- like from a, from somebody who's experienced aloneness, it can feel like such a, a casting back away from Christ moment. Like oh, now the truth comes out. Now she's really shamed. But I wonder if from the Lord's kind of four-dimensional perspective on things- Yeah some of what he's doing is, is going right to that relational circuitry in her life. Like, because she's been malformed in the, in, like in this r- this realm of relationship. She's known herself as somebody who's been cast out and cast out and cast out over and over again, and here she is talking to someone who will not cast her away, and he's, and he's bringing her right back to that place of trauma, right back to that place of wound- Mm like the, the, the, right into that place of the way that she has identified and understood herself for however long. And he's, he's not having this conversation with her in spite of that or away from that, removed from that. He's actually saying, "Let's go right back into that." And that brings us into that realm of suffering that you're talking about. Like-

James 26:44

Mm-hmm

Joshua 26:45

is, is there hope in this suffering? Yeah. As opposed to you gotta dodge it, you gotta leave town, go where nobody knows you, and that's where your hope is. No. Mm. The hope is right there. It's right in that space of what you've already known, and Jesus goes there with her, um, metaphorically at least in that conversation.

James 27:01

Yeah. Talk about true 40 chess. That's amazing. 'Cause yeah, that is Jesus' heart with us. He's wanting us to face our stuff with him. And Josh, that's, that feels so important in relation to the leaders falling situation.

Joshua 27:15

Hmm.

James 27:15

What can end up happening here, um, is we've so tied our hope to the people around us, and either by accident or they haven't or we haven't gotten it tied up to Jesus, uh, the, the, the hope has not been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. It's only been, "Okay, I can at least see that this is possible in this person, and now they might have fallen," or something like that. But this is blowing my mind, Josh. Mm. In Exodus 19, God wants all of Israel to come up onto Sinai with him. He wants them all to be a nation of priests. Hmm. In Exodus 19, I didn't realize... This is a thing I'm learning in school right now. I didn't realize that Peter's thing about having a kingdom of priests in, I think actually First or Second Peter, uh, which is where I was hoping to go in a moment, we might not have time today, but, um, the kingdom of priests idea was already in existence, but because they were so afraid of God on Mount Sinai, the people refused that call. In fact, we even see an echo of that or, I guess, a foreshadowing of that earlier in Exodus when Moses says, "I can't be the mouthpiece. I can't be the... I, I need, I need someone else." So even Aaron, his brother, becoming a priest was God saying, "Okay, if you f- if you can't handle the presence, I will, I will provide mediators." But the heart of God has always been to be connected to him. Hmm. And even some of us might be like, "Well, I come from more of a tradition like Cath- Roman Catholic or Anglican where we have priests, so are you saying... Are, are you kind of going against that?" In fact, Pope John Paul II, who we've learned so much from for theology of the body, he believed that we are all called to be kings prophet teachers and priests. Yes, there's a, an official class of priests in the Catholic Church. Yes, you might say there's kind of different levels, but we're all called, even for someone like Pope John Paul II, to be priests. In other words, what is a priest? Someone who gets you connected, someone who gets you connected to God. And so I, I think that that shows another dimension of this, Josh, that this is not just about Kyle or me or you entering into someone's suffering and helping them through it, as important and often a first step as that is, but the completion of that step is, how do I bring Jesus into this? Or, because Jesus is knocking right at that door, right? He, he was knocking at the woman at the well's door. He was trying to get her to face the thing that he knew he could touch with his love and heal. And so ultimately I love that you brought in the woman at the well because it, it reminds us to be a priest for, for someone, to, to point, is to point them back to God, to connect them with Jesus, not just connecting them with our own success or our own, hey, hope in what I've accomplished. It's hope in this God. And we all struggle with that. None of us does it perfectly, but that's, I think, a calling for all of us, pointing back to God.

Joshua 30:07

This isn't a, a leadership podcast, but I... It is a, it's a corrective for leaders who find that people are continuing to come and come and come to them, uh, for affirmation, for, um, I think the Lord is leading this way. I mean, and not that people can't seek godly counseling, that's, that's wise to do, but, uh, I think there is a, there is a space and place for leaders to help their people recognize where God is interacting with them directly. Like, almost like, you know, that, you know, y- hey, I'm, I'm gonna run next to your bike for a while, but, but we wanna get you to a place where, where you are not, not going it alone, but, but where you are beginning to recognize your place in the larger body, that you too have the Spirit of the Lord, and you too, um... And then, and because we're a body, there, there will... I mean, I remember one mentor of mine doing this, like where there, the, there was a season where he was calling m- me out to recognize the way that the Lord was, was speaking to me, and even identifying in me things that, that he recognized that he, he was limited in. And some of that was a little bit of a, a crash landing for us, honestly. But-

James 31:25

Mm

Joshua 31:26

but there was something really, um, nurturing about, about, about that for me that gave me some confidence that I, I can hear the Lord. Like, I can minist- I can-

James 31:36

Yeah

Joshua 31:37

um, and so, I mean, I don't, again, we're, 'cause it's not a leadership podcast, let's come back to the s- our struggles with sexual sin. And- Yeah you, you had mentioned a progression. Where's the progression? Like, tie us back into that then. Like, how do you- Yeah what does it mean to the listener who's, who's wrestling with unwanted sexual behaviors, um-

James 31:59

Yeah

Joshua 32:00

desires that they wish they didn't have?

James 32:03

Yeah.

Joshua 32:03

Like, where, give... Come back to the ground for us with this.

James 32:08

Yeah. So friends, there is suffering here. Like, the things that ultimately draw us to sexual sin, the things that keep us stuck in our brokenness are often pain points or wounds from the past. Whether or not they're legitimate traumas or wounds in the broader sense- Or even the wounds of not just things that have happened to us, the things we did not receive. And so I think part of what we're always inviting people to in recovery is, by God's grace, with loving others, again, priests, everyone trying to act as a priest of sorts, engage your suffering. Don't shy away. And now, that- that's not as simple as, hey, let's just take an inventory of all the ways we suffered and go at it systematically. It happens somewhat organically, but again, Paul doesn't say your sufferings.

Joshua 33:00

Hmm.

James 33:01

He says our sufferings. We glory in our sufferings. And so Paul has this perspective that you weep with those who weep. In other words, you don't shy away from mourning together. And so much of at least American Christianity, for all the good, there's so much good, there's also a huge aversion to this kind of suffering. We're so quick to put a Band-Aid, whether it's scriptural or advice or whatever else, on our sufferings. But when we glory in our sufferings, we don't shy away from them, and we don't shy away from other people's sufferings, and we do that together, that produces a true perseverance because I know now I am not alone in my sufferings. I'm not alone in the sufferings of giving into my sin and, and, you know, kind of self, you know, self-created sufferings of sorts, but I'm also not alone in the sufferings that make sexual sin so appealing. Hmm. That'll grow perseverance, and that kind of perseverance to increasingly be able to face sufferings, to face things that maybe we ca- I, there's literally things I'm aware of, Josh, right now, um, and things that I've known about for a decade now, ever since coming to Regen, that I still can't quite figure out how to face. But as God grows my perseverance, He's enabling me to face things that I haven't been able to touch yet. He knows by, by, He has the wisdom to say, "I'm gonna design the human brain to not be overloaded by suffering," because we can't handle all of our suffering at once. I do think it would, it would destroy us. But over time, as we grow in perseverance, we can face things, and as we're facing things, we have less of these gaping wounds in our lives. That character grows. That consistency of being able to show up. That... And this is part of why we do things like Awaken 360, our year-round men's group, because part of the perseverance is coming week in and week out- Mm and suffering through confessing sin, suffering through feeling the shame of, "Oh, I've, I'm not behaving quite as I want, but I'm gonna keep showing up, and I'm gonna keep looking at these other men and learning from them," and some of whom are further along, some of whom are less far along. That grows character. Again, we grow character in relationship. And so I think then that's where Paul, uh, ultimately at the end of verse four into verse five is we have a more sustained hope. A, a great marker of character is hope. I gotta share this real quick, Josh, because I, I was a couple years outside of my addiction, so I'd worked through so much. I'd grown in a lot of perseverance and character, and I was asking the Lord one day, uh, based on a book, "What's my biggest sin struggle?" And that's a funny thing, but the book was prompting it, and I, I was so used to thinking of my biggest sin struggle as my decade-long struggle with pornography. So what was gonna come up? I really had no idea. Out of left field into my mind comes the word despair Now, despair is a, is a, is, can be seen as an, an umbrella category of emotions, and emotions are not inherently sinful. But what God was saying to me was that, "James, you've got a generational struggle that you're contending with in hope, in truly hoping in me, in hoping that you will not be put to shame because my love has been poured out into your heart through the Holy Spirit who's been given to you." Now, I haven't done a, a ton of like super, super focused work on hope, but it comes up in so much of the Christian counseling and mentorship and other places where God's actually trying to still grow places of hope in my heart. And so by him pointing out that sin for me, because of my, uh, understanding of sin, I wasn't like, "Oh, I'm so ashamed now. I'm a, I'm a man of despair. What, what am I... It was more like, "Wow, God, thank you so much for loving me enough to show me something that I would have never thought of, and to show me a little glimpse of this is how it's affected your, your parents. This is how it affected their parents, and this is what you're contending with."

Joshua 36:48

Hmm. Man, uh, okay, you just went on for a good bit, and there's like so much I wanna dive into there. One, I just w- I, I need to call this out, so I'm gonna rewind the tape a little bit here. Uh, if you didn't catch it, James just referred to temptation, not just a m- a few minutes ago, referred to temptation as a kind of suffering. Yeah. So bearing through suffering together includes temptation together. We bear through temptation together. So in what ways do you experience your specific type of temptation, listener, as something to be ashamed of that you isolate and hold to yourself versus, you know, actually that's a kind of suffering that you're intended to, to share as a part of the we of being a Christian because everybody, everybody's experiencing temptation that they feel ashamed about. James, also interesting that when you asked the Lord what an interesting question, like what's my most serious sin, uh, I'm not sure many people would have the courage to ask that question, but nonetheless you did. Praise the Lord. And interesting that the Lord would bring up something, uh, first of all, when he brings it up, it's not a shaming word.

James 37:55

Yeah.

Joshua 37:56

But also just anecdotally it sounds like if there was a sin in your life that caused you more shame, that you felt more shame about, that sense of because I have this, this is, this speaks negatively to who I am, the most serious sin in your life was not that. Uh, how, how interesting. And I just think it speaks on some level, and this is another podcast too, of like- The enemy is such a jerk. Like, to try to- Yeah get our attention on something that, you know, this is, this is the worst thing. You s- you know, you're horrible, and it's actually not even the most serious thing. And the most serious thing w- to learn just in s- like, gives you hope when the Lord gave you the most serious sin in your life-

James 38:41

Yeah

Joshua 38:41

John,

James 38:42

hope. That's so much hope. And, and it was totally, like, revelation that this was underneath, this was hidden.

Joshua 38:48

Yeah, right.

James 38:49

All the time I was overcoming my sexual brokenness, I had so much lack of hope in God. And so yeah, there was such a sweetness to it, Josh. There was no condemnation about it. There was such a clarity, and there was such a... I would never have thought of this as my greatest sin struggle, that I was like, I'm pretty sure I just heard very clearly from the Lord something that He, caring, loving me, wants me to, to grow in. And so friends, we gotta wrap up. Josh, a- any, um, anything that I cut you off from saying just now before I kinda take us down, uh, land us a little bit? No, no, land the plane. I land the plane. Okay. So we didn't have time to get into this, but here's what I wanna do. I wanna ask Josh just to close us in prayer in just a moment. But friends, the other passage, one of the other great progression passages is progression in agape love. In 2 Peter 1, check out verses 5 through 7. So instead of

Growing Love Step By Step

James 39:40

us musing on it, reflecting on it, wrestling with it, I'm actually just gonna read this out to y'all, and I wanna encourage you, wrestle with this with the Lord. Talk to a friend about this. Um, refl- meditate on this. And, and biblical meditation, by the way, often included speaking out loud over and over passages of Scripture. It, it actually helps connect it in your brain sometimes when you speak it out loud. Sometimes when I'm meditating on Scripture, I read different translations. Whatever you wanna do, but, but sink your teeth a little bit into this, because just like there was a ton to unpack with that four-step progression of suffering, perseverance, character, and hope, there's even more to unpack with this, I think, nine-step progression, uh, to love. So Josh, I wanna just read this, and then I'd love just for you to pray in kinda closing. But again, inviting you, friends, to consider, God, how do you wanna grow my love? Maybe what step am I at? I, I, I imagine we're all at multiple steps at once, but God, what step do you wanna highlight to grow me as a man or woman of love, no matter why I listen to this podcast, okay? So starting in verse three, 2 Peter 1:3. "His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him, who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these, He has given us very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires." There's that word desire, and here's the progression, friends. Verse five, "For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness knowledge." And to knowledge, self-control. And to self-control, perseverance. There's that perseverance word again. And to perseverance, godliness. And to godliness, mutual affection. And finally, to mutual affection or brotherly love, agape love or charity, depending on your tradition. Finally, let me just read two more verses, verses eight and nine. "For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins."

Joshua 42:03

Hmm. Jesus, thank you that, um, for every man and woman listening, there's nothing hidden from your sight.

James 42:16

Let's go.

Joshua 42:16

And Lord, when you look on their lives, knowing yourself, knowing where you are in proximity to them, knowing that you're in them and around them and before them and behind them, Lord, there's no person listening for whom you don't have immense hope- Hmm Or where they are is not where they'll be. And how they know themselves today is just a, a glimmer, just a beginning of who they are becoming in you And Holy Spirit, we pray just as you did for James, that you would speak to each person listening

James 42:52

Mm-hmm

Joshua 42:52

And Lord, that you would breathe out upon them godly hope Yeah And Lord, that you would lead them in their loves, form them in their loves- That's good they might come to love you more and more and more, and find their love of sin decreasing and decreasing and decreasing. And Lord, we ask that for ourselves as well. Thank you, Jesus. We pray these things in your name, amen. Amen.