Dave Hentschel: And as you are turning there, I want to uh share with you a story before I read the scripture for today.
Dave Hentschel: The story I am going to share is quite sobering.
Dave Hentschel: Several years ago, one of the most influential churches in all of America, Willow Creek Community Church, went through a crisis that not only shook their church, but really shook the entire evangelical world.
Dave Hentschel: Its founding pastor, Bill Hybels, was a widely respected leader.
Dave Hentschel: He had built a thriving ministry in the early 80s.
Dave Hentschel: He influenced literally thousands of pastors and tens of thousands of people, and uh everything was going fantastic in their ministry there in Chicago until some allegations of sexual misconduct on his part surfaced.
Dave Hentschel: At first, there were denials.
Dave Hentschel: Then some more voices came forward, and then the pressure mounted, and eventually Heibels resigned.
Dave Hentschel: What followed after that was even more devastating.
Dave Hentschel: The entire elder board stepped down.
Dave Hentschel: Many senior leaders in the church also tendered their resignation.
Dave Hentschel: Trust in the church was deeply shaken.
Dave Hentschel: Thousands of people left the ministry.
Dave Hentschel: That church was never the same.
Dave Hentschel: As we think about passing the legacy of faith to the next generation, we would be foolish not to think about this subject as well.
Dave Hentschel: What happens when a church leader who's attempting to pass on a gospel legacy to the next generation ends up as they're running the race, tripping and falling in the middle of their race and getting disqualified?
Dave Hentschel: Or to put it another way, what happens to a church's legacy when hidden sin is allowed to grow inside the church?
Dave Hentschel: Here's the point I want us to really feel in our bones this morning.
Dave Hentschel: That story did not begin when you and I heard about it in the public scandal.
Dave Hentschel: That story began with private compromises years earlier that nobody knew about.
Dave Hentschel: I'm convinced that no pastor and no Christian ever wakes up one day and decides to destroy their ministry and tear apart their marriage and their family and their reputation and their witness for Christ.
Dave Hentschel: It doesn't start that way.
Dave Hentschel: It starts small, it starts hidden, it feels manageable until it isn't.
Dave Hentschel: And if this could happen to Bill Heibels, someone that I read his books and listened to his teaching and many people followed him.
Dave Hentschel: If I'm gonna say that could never happen to me, then I'm a lot more vulnerable than I even realize.
Dave Hentschel: The Bible says, take heed lest he fall, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall, right?
Dave Hentschel: That's I think exactly why Paul writes to his young protege, Timothy, this sobering verse, chapter two in verse 22 of our book today, says this.
Dave Hentschel: So flee, youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart.
Dave Hentschel: Today we're gonna slow down and focus on something that we normally never do.
Dave Hentschel: We're just gonna focus on one single verse because sometimes one verse rightly understood, rightly applied, is enough to occupy an entire Sunday sermon because mistakes in this area have devastating consequences for a church that's trying to pass on the faith.
Dave Hentschel: Now, if this is your first Sunday visiting, you picked a doozy of a Sunday to choose to check out Millington Baptist Church.
Dave Hentschel: We've been going through a series through the book of 2 Timothy.
Dave Hentschel: Uh we're talking about passing on the faith, and Paul is writing to a young pastor, his protege, and he speaks here directly to something that's not really just a youth issue, though it starts there.
Dave Hentschel: It's more of a human issue, isn't it?
Dave Hentschel: That phrase youthful passions, sometimes translated youthful lusts, NASB, or NIV says the evil desires of youth, refers to many things, but it certainly refers to the issue of sexual integrity.
Dave Hentschel: So when we talk about passing on the faith as a church, we have the call toward purity here and a call toward holiness here in a very important area for a reason.
Dave Hentschel: This was extremely relevant in the first century, and it is massively relevant in our day as well.
Dave Hentschel: In his excellent book, Unwanted, How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing, which I'd highly recommend, author and Christian psychologist Jay Stringer states that, quote, We are in the midst of a great sexual crisis in our culture, and there he starts with some pretty troubling statistics.
Dave Hentschel: For example, right now 64% of 13 to 24-year-olds intentionally watch pornography at least once a week.
Dave Hentschel: By the time children become teens and young adults, 62% of them will have received a sext, a sexually explicit image via text, and 41% of them will have sent one.
Dave Hentschel: The pornography industry is rapidly growing.
Dave Hentschel: One recent analysis by Maximized Market Research shows that the adult entertainment market is valued at more than 191 billion with a B dollars, with its growth expected to reach close to$275 billion by the year 2032.
Dave Hentschel: In some estimates, the global pornography industry brings in more revenue than all U.S.
Dave Hentschel: professional sports combined.
Dave Hentschel: That's not true either.
Dave Hentschel: In fact, 64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women admit to viewing porn monthly.
Dave Hentschel: And it's not just adults.
Dave Hentschel: The average respondent reported that they viewed pornography first by the age of 12.
Dave Hentschel: It's not a fringe issue, though.
Dave Hentschel: It's not somebody else's problem out there.
Dave Hentschel: This is a problem in our homes.
Dave Hentschel: This is a problem in our pockets.
Dave Hentschel: This is a problem in our hearts.
Dave Hentschel: And if we don't take it seriously, it has the power to cost us far more than we want to pay.
Dave Hentschel: It may actually cost us our entire legacy as a church.
Dave Hentschel: So today we're just going to talk honestly about sexual integrity, about how temptation works, and about how by God's grace we can walk in purity in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Dave Hentschel: Are you ready for this?
Dave Hentschel: You guys are awfully quiet today.
Dave Hentschel: Please don't be acting like this is not a real issue.
Dave Hentschel: Come on.
Dave Hentschel: Let's deal with this issue in Jesus' name with Jesus love.
Dave Hentschel: Now hear me clearly.
Dave Hentschel: This is not going to be a message of condemnation.
Dave Hentschel: This is a message of invitation.
Dave Hentschel: Jesus is going to meet us right here, and he may want to meet you right here today.
Dave Hentschel: So the title of my message is Run for Your Life.
Dave Hentschel: And I mean that with all my heart.
Dave Hentschel: Run for your life.
Dave Hentschel: Building a pure church for the next generation.
Dave Hentschel: We're talking about running.
Dave Hentschel: You need to run in this area.
Dave Hentschel: Three parts of the message.
Dave Hentschel: First, we're going to talk about understanding the battle.
Dave Hentschel: Number two, understanding God's strategy for the battle.
Dave Hentschel: And then number three, understanding how to break the cycle, some practical pathways for freedom towards the end of our message.
Dave Hentschel: We'll also have an interview with a resident expert in this area, too.
Dave Hentschel: A lot going on today.
Dave Hentschel: Let's pray and ask the Lord to help us.
Dave Hentschel: Father, you are a good God and a holy God, and we need your grace.
Dave Hentschel: So as we open up your word, we invite you to search our hearts, bring conviction where we need it, bring us hope where we may feel burdened and weighed down.
Dave Hentschel: Would you help us to find your plan in this area for our lives?
Dave Hentschel: Give us ears to hear.
Dave Hentschel: Give us courage to step in and respond.
Dave Hentschel: For we ask it all in Jesus' name and for his reputation and in his power.
Dave Hentschel: For we say it all together saying, Amen.
Dave Hentschel: All right, part one, understanding the battle.
Dave Hentschel: How does lust actually work?
Dave Hentschel: For this right-hand turn, I just want to go over to the book of James just to show you some insight into the issue of temptation there before we get to the 2nd Timothy verse.
Dave Hentschel: And I want to share with you how this whole problem kind of begins, right?
Dave Hentschel: So James chapter 1 speaks to that, verse 13.
Dave Hentschel: James says, When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me.
Dave Hentschel: For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.
Dave Hentschel: Pause right there.
Dave Hentschel: That word for temptation is important.
Dave Hentschel: It refers to an inner enticement towards sin.
Dave Hentschel: I want you to notice that.
Dave Hentschel: When it talks about this temptation, the word that he uses here in the beginning of this verse is the word when.
Dave Hentschel: He does not say if you're tempted, if she's tempted, if he's tempted, maybe you'll be tempted, if perchance possibly you might face temptation, if you're one of the unlucky people that might get tempted in this area, no.
Dave Hentschel: He says, when you get tempted, because it's a hundred percent guarantee you will be tempted in this area.
Dave Hentschel: I want you to know something.
Dave Hentschel: Now notice, secondly, that when it comes to any temptation, including sexual temptation, it is not God who is behind this temptation.
Dave Hentschel: It is our own flesh.
Dave Hentschel: God created man and woman, created sex, and he created it good, but it's good in a certain context.
Dave Hentschel: You get outside of those boundaries, then it becomes destructive.
Dave Hentschel: And that's what sometimes we deal with.
Dave Hentschel: It's kind of like guardrails.
Dave Hentschel: I personally like guardrail rails.
Dave Hentschel: Last Saturday I was in Lynchburg, Virginia, driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is gorgeous.
Dave Hentschel: You go up on that mountain and you realize there's no guardrails out here.
Dave Hentschel: It's a beautiful view.
Dave Hentschel: Sometimes I would pull over, sometimes I got, you know, looking out the window and realize, whoa, whoa, eyes on the road, it's a long way down there.
Dave Hentschel: I I like guardrails.
Dave Hentschel: Now, the whole point of a guardrail is to keep you from moving into an area of actual danger.
Dave Hentschel: And the theory behind a guardrail is if you hit the guardrail, it might damage your car a little bit, but it's going to do a lot less damage than if you were to drive beyond the guardrail.
Dave Hentschel: A guardrail is always there to protect you.
Dave Hentschel: God, in his word, has given us guardrails to keep us from danger in a lot of different areas, but certainly in this area.
Dave Hentschel: If you're a child or a teen here today and your parents have guardrails for you, thank God for that.
Dave Hentschel: Now, one of the guardrails that God has given us in his word is what he has to say about this area of sex.
Dave Hentschel: God creates sex, he says it's good, but it's reserved for marriage, one man, one woman for life within the context of a covenant relationship with one another.
Dave Hentschel: Get outside of those guardrails, it causes all kinds of problems for you in your life and problems in society.
Dave Hentschel: This is what James is trying to tell us.
Dave Hentschel: So James tells us though God creates sex, he's not the one creating sexual temptation.
Dave Hentschel: That's coming from inside of us.
Dave Hentschel: Verse 14, James continues to say, but each person is tempted when they're dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.
Dave Hentschel: Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it's full grown gives birth to death.
Dave Hentschel: Notice a few things here in this couple of verses.
Dave Hentschel: Those terms dragged away and enticed were the kinds of terms that you might find in the hunting and fishing industry.
Dave Hentschel: Fish, look for the bait on the hook.
Dave Hentschel: I mean, you know, how many fish would you catch if you had a bare hook?
Dave Hentschel: Zero.
Dave Hentschel: In this illustration, you're the fish.
Dave Hentschel: Puritan Thomas Brooks, in his excellent book, Precious Remedies for Satan, Satan's Devices, says it this way: quote, Satan's first device is to draw the soul into sin by presenting the bait and hiding the hook.
Dave Hentschel: To present the golden cup and hide the poison.
Dave Hentschel: To present the sweet, the pleasure, and the profit that may flow in upon the soul by yielding to that sin, and to hide from the soul the wrath and misery that will certainly follow the committing of that sin.
Dave Hentschel: Do not be ignorant of his schemes.
Dave Hentschel: Now, no fish ever bites the hook because they want to have metal in their mouth.
Dave Hentschel: They do that because something on the hook looks good, though it's not good.
Dave Hentschel: And then after they bite, it gets out of control because you keep on going for the bait, even though you know it's sin.
Dave Hentschel: And it leads to a cycle.
Dave Hentschel: A cycle of lust.
Dave Hentschel: Let me see if I can break it down for you.
Dave Hentschel: Step one in the cycle is there's a desire.
Dave Hentschel: There's something on the inside of me, on the inside of you that gets awakened internally.
Dave Hentschel: The word for desires in James chapter one is the word epithumia.
Dave Hentschel: It's really referring to lusts, ambitions, selfish ambitions, over-desires.
Dave Hentschel: There's a disorderliness there to the desires.
Dave Hentschel: It's a disordered affections, and I'll come back to that term later.
Dave Hentschel: And then you move to step two, there's deception.
Dave Hentschel: Hey, this won't hurt, or hey, I'm only gonna do this once.
Dave Hentschel: And the crazy thing is, after years of taking the same bait, sometimes we see the same hook and we know it's a temptation, but yet we keep on going for it.
Dave Hentschel: We keep right on nibbling.
Dave Hentschel: It's crazy, right?
Dave Hentschel: Pastor Dave, I can handle it, I know what I'm doing, I'm an adult, it's moderation, I'm not gonna get hurt, I know how far I can go.
Dave Hentschel: That person's is deceived.
Dave Hentschel: Number three, we get to the decision.
Dave Hentschel: This is when you make a choice.
Dave Hentschel: You choose to give in.
Dave Hentschel: You lie, you cheat, you fudge, you you you indulge in some way, you take that forbidden fruit, you eat it, whatever it is.
Dave Hentschel: And we cross the line into outward disobedience, and this is what the Bible calls sin.
Dave Hentschel: And then we have the consequence of distance.
Dave Hentschel: Sin always creates distance from God, distance because of shame, and sometimes distance horizontally in our human relationships.
Dave Hentschel: And there's a loop there, and it continues to happen as you continue to feed these desires.
Dave Hentschel: If a stray dog shows up at your house and you feed it every day, don't be surprised if it keeps coming back tomorrow.
Dave Hentschel: What you feed grows, and what you starve weakens.
Dave Hentschel: So, what that means here is every click and every look and every fantasy that you're uh that you're uh engaging in is training your desires.
Dave Hentschel: And eventually, though lust promises life, the book of James says it actually brings you death.
Dave Hentschel: Sin is not a game.
Dave Hentschel: It's it has tragic consequences.
Dave Hentschel: The scripture's not kidding around when it says the wages of sin is death.
Dave Hentschel: Sin is destructive.
Dave Hentschel: When it comes to sexual sin, there's all kinds of destruction that can come: emotional consequences, unwanted hurts, distance in relationships, even physical diseases that can happen to anybody.
Dave Hentschel: There's really no such thing as a harmless sin.
Dave Hentschel: Sin is why death came into the world.
Dave Hentschel: Because the disease of sin brings decay wherever it spreads, it brings death.
Dave Hentschel: The language reminds me of what Moses said at the end of his life as he warned the next generation to keep the law.
Dave Hentschel: He said, I've set before you life and death, blessings and cursings.
Dave Hentschel: Now choose life so that you and your children will live.
Dave Hentschel: Now, before we go any further, some of you might be thinking, Well, I'm stuck in that cycle right now.
Dave Hentschel: And let me explain why people get stuck in that cycle.
Dave Hentschel: The reason is because acting out sexually can become an addiction.
Dave Hentschel: And it works like any other addiction, really, but let me explain that further.
Dave Hentschel: Here's a definition that I'm just gonna offer for the sermon today.
Dave Hentschel: Maybe not a perfect definition, but this is what I came up with.
Dave Hentschel: An addiction is a desire that grows so strong that it begins to control your life even when you know it's harming you.
Dave Hentschel: Let me try to explain this with a visual illustration.
Dave Hentschel: This is a picture of your brain.
Dave Hentschel: Okay, it's not your brain, but it's a brain.
Dave Hentschel: This is a brain.
Dave Hentschel: And normally, when everything's functioning well, your brain has a base level of what we might call a feel-good chemical, and your brain experiences this base level as normal.
Dave Hentschel: But when you do something enjoyable, when you eat something you like, when you get a Rhesus peanut butter cup, when you go engage in your favorite game or hobby, or when you ride a roller coaster, what happens is that level goes up.
Dave Hentschel: And your brain experiences that as good and happy and exciting, and your brain remembers that so that you'll be more likely to do that again.
Dave Hentschel: And then after the behavior's over, you throw the Reese's wrapper away and your brain goes back to normal.
Dave Hentschel: Now the opposite is also true.
Dave Hentschel: If you were to eat something that's spoiled, or you were to get sick, or you were to overdo it on the Reese's, well, that level's gonna drop.
Dave Hentschel: And your brain is gonna experience that as bad or unpleasant, something to avoid, so that you'll do less of that.
Dave Hentschel: That's the idea.
Dave Hentschel: Now let's talk about addictions and pornography.
Dave Hentschel: When someone views pornography, it floods the brain with an unusually high level of that feel-good chemical.
Dave Hentschel: And it's not just pleasure, it's like a spike, a kind of artificial high, similar to a drug.
Dave Hentschel: And your brain like recognizes this, and your brain goes, Whoa, like this is way too much of that feel-good chemical, and it actually adjusts and it starts producing less of that feel-good chemical naturally on its own.
Dave Hentschel: And so when the high of pornography or any kind of drug really wears off, you get the low.
Dave Hentschel: This is the low after the high.
Dave Hentschel: You feel down, maybe even depressed, you crash.
Dave Hentschel: Now, this is where it gets dangerous.
Dave Hentschel: Your brain, over time, when you engage in an addiction, it starts to adjust this.
Dave Hentschel: And because of that adjustment, you may do the things that you used to enjoy.
Dave Hentschel: You may you may go back to the Reese's, or you may go back to a hobby or your normal pleasures, but they don't feel the same anymore.
Dave Hentschel: What used to feel really great now just feels kind of average.
Dave Hentschel: Like, okay, same old, same old, just kind of normal.
Dave Hentschel: So your brain starts telling you, you got to go back to pornography.
Dave Hentschel: And then over time, something else happens.
Dave Hentschel: Even that high starts to feel just normal.
Dave Hentschel: That's what we call tolerance.
Dave Hentschel: It didn't start like that as an addiction in this way, but now your brain needs more or something stronger just to feel the same effect.
Dave Hentschel: And now when you come down from the high, your normal starts to feel lower and lower.
Dave Hentschel: So now you don't just want it, you feel like you need it, not to feel great, just to feel normal.
Dave Hentschel: And at this point, you do almost anything to get that feeling again.
Dave Hentschel: That's addiction.
Dave Hentschel: And that's why it's so powerful, because it's not just a behavior, it's something that's reshaped how your whole brain works.
Dave Hentschel: Pornography creates an addiction, and that's why you need to detox, just like from any other drug.
Dave Hentschel: But it's not just pornography, it's any kind of sexual addiction.
Dave Hentschel: There was a term.
Dave Hentschel: The New Testament writers used a term to describe any kind of sexual immorality, and they they used the term pornea.
Dave Hentschel: You can see where we get our English word pornography from that word.
Dave Hentschel: But that didn't just refer to those kinds of things like images.
Dave Hentschel: It referred to any kind of sexual activity outside of God's ordained institution of marriage.
Dave Hentschel: So in the first century, that referred to things like fornication, sex before marriage, sex outside of marriage, adultery, cohabitation.
Dave Hentschel: Back then they had polyamory, they had polygamy, homosexuality was rampant, pederasty.
Dave Hentschel: There was all kinds of sexual deviances in the first century.
Dave Hentschel: You think we've made this up in our generation?
Dave Hentschel: Not true at all.
Dave Hentschel: There's nothing new under the sun.
Dave Hentschel: Everybody was sexual in the first century, and it was absolute chaos.
Dave Hentschel: Let me tell you why this matters.
Dave Hentschel: Sexual addiction is not just a bad habit, it rewires your desires, it isolates you and it pulls you deeper in over time.
Dave Hentschel: And it becomes a stronghold, it becomes a bondage.
Dave Hentschel: So, how do we break it?
Dave Hentschel: How do we break the power of lust and pornea and things like sex addiction?
Dave Hentschel: Well, that's point two.
Dave Hentschel: We've now talked about understanding the battle.
Dave Hentschel: Let's talk about understanding God's strategy because he gives us some insight into his solution to this problem in his word.
Dave Hentschel: The key verse from today that I shared with you earlier, I want to go back to and look more carefully at this.
Dave Hentschel: I see stuff in this verse that I've never seen before.
Dave Hentschel: This thing is jam-packed.
Dave Hentschel: Take a look at what he says here.
Dave Hentschel: He says, flee youthful passions.
Dave Hentschel: He uses the word youthful there on purpose, not so as to say only young people can commit these kinds of sins, but it's an adjective that describes the kinds of immature, childish, self-centered behaviors that characterizes somebody who's in their youth and still hasn't matured.
Dave Hentschel: And some people still never mature past that.
Dave Hentschel: But God's will is for his people to grow and to grow up and to mature.
Dave Hentschel: And Paul's strategy to get there is he says, you need to flee.
Dave Hentschel: He does not say manage it or negotiate with it.
Dave Hentschel: He says flee.
Dave Hentschel: The word means to run.
Dave Hentschel: It means to run for your life.
Dave Hentschel: It's so bad, you should run for your life.
Dave Hentschel: And so that's the first practical principle that we learn from God's word today.
Dave Hentschel: It's this don't fight.
Dave Hentschel: Lust, but flee it.
Dave Hentschel: Let's say that together.
Dave Hentschel: Don't fight lust, flee it.
Dave Hentschel: As hard as it is to hear that today for some of you, that's exactly what you need to do.
Dave Hentschel: Flee.
Dave Hentschel: This is how we relate to sexual sin.
Dave Hentschel: We flee.
Dave Hentschel: We often try to think that we're stronger than temptation.
Dave Hentschel: But my brothers and sisters, some battles, some battles are not meant to be managed.
Dave Hentschel: They're meant to be escaped.
Dave Hentschel: The best way to fight any addiction, really, is to not ever start.
Dave Hentschel: There's a powerful example of this principle from way back in the Old Testament, in the first book of the Bible, in the life of Joseph.
Dave Hentschel: Joseph was a young man.
Dave Hentschel: He was living far from home.
Dave Hentschel: He was working in the house of this powerful Egyptian ruler named Potiphar.
Dave Hentschel: Everything was going well with Joseph.
Dave Hentschel: God was blessing him.
Dave Hentschel: He was rising in his responsibilities.
Dave Hentschel: And then comes this source of temptation.
Dave Hentschel: Take a look at chapter 39, verse 6.
Dave Hentschel: It says, So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care, with Joseph in charge.
Dave Hentschel: He did not concern himself with anything except for the food he ate.
Dave Hentschel: Now Joseph was well built and handsome, and after a while, his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, Come to bed with me.
Dave Hentschel: Now Joseph could have justified this.
Dave Hentschel: Nobody would have known.
Dave Hentschel: He's far from his family, he's far from home.
Dave Hentschel: She's the one pursuing him.
Dave Hentschel: He's been treated very unfairly in his life up until this point.
Dave Hentschel: He could have said, The heck with it, but that's not what he does.
Dave Hentschel: Look at his response.
Dave Hentschel: It says, But he refused.
Dave Hentschel: With me in charge, he told her, My master does not concern himself with anything in the house.
Dave Hentschel: Everything he owns, he's entrusted to my care.
Dave Hentschel: No one is greater in this house than I am.
Dave Hentschel: My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.
Dave Hentschel: How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against my God?
Dave Hentschel: Did you catch his reasoning there?
Dave Hentschel: There's a marriage, and I'm going to respect that marriage.
Dave Hentschel: And this is not just a behavior between human beings here.
Dave Hentschel: I don't want to do this wicked thing against God.
Dave Hentschel: Joseph understood this wasn't just about a moment.
Dave Hentschel: This was about his relationship with his creator and his redeemer.
Dave Hentschel: And then one day, as time passes, she catches him alone in the house.
Dave Hentschel: Look at verse 11.
Dave Hentschel: It says, One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside.
Dave Hentschel: She caught him by his cloak and said, Come to bed with me.
Dave Hentschel: But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
Dave Hentschel: Notice, what does Joseph do?
Dave Hentschel: He literally leaves his cloak in her hand and runs out of the house.
Dave Hentschel: He doesn't argue, he doesn't linger, he doesn't try to manage the situation.
Dave Hentschel: He doesn't say, Well, let me first pray about this.
Dave Hentschel: He doesn't say, Let me see how close to temptation I can get here with her.
Dave Hentschel: No, he ran.
Dave Hentschel: Sometimes the most spiritual thing you and I can do is run.
Dave Hentschel: Don't fight lust, flee it.
Dave Hentschel: This is what the scripture is telling us.
Dave Hentschel: Look at what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.
Dave Hentschel: Matthew chapter 5 records this.
Dave Hentschel: If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away.
Dave Hentschel: It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Dave Hentschel: And if your right hand causes you to sin, to stumble, cut it off and throw it away.
Dave Hentschel: It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go to hell.
Dave Hentschel: What we have here is radical amputation language from the Lord Jesus.
Dave Hentschel: Now, Jesus is not calling us to self-harm, he's calling for rather a ruthless seriousness about sin.
Dave Hentschel: If temptation lives in your pocket, don't be surprised when it wins.
Dave Hentschel: So my encouragement here is to flee, to run.
Dave Hentschel: Literally, run for your life.
Dave Hentschel: Now let me pause here and just say a word to the parents.
Dave Hentschel: Parents, please talk to your children about internet safety.
Dave Hentschel: If your child has access to a smartphone or tablet, they have access to the internet, and the internet is not neutral.
Dave Hentschel: If you will not disciple your children, believe me, the world will be glad to do that.
Dave Hentschel: This is not about being controlling.
Dave Hentschel: This is about you being responsible.
Dave Hentschel: You're not invading their privacy.
Dave Hentschel: You are protecting their future.
Dave Hentschel: Put filters on their devices.
Dave Hentschel: Do not allow unrestricted internet access.
Dave Hentschel: And most of all, communicate.
Dave Hentschel: Have an ongoing dialogue and conversation with your children about this area.
Dave Hentschel: Don't just have one talk and never talk about it again.
Dave Hentschel: Keep the lines of communication open with your child.
Dave Hentschel: If your kids are very young, our kids director, Rachel Rickershauser, recommended two books that will help you in this area to have those kind of talks with your kids for different age groups.
Dave Hentschel: If the child is four to seven, you would want to go with the first one and then six to eleven is the second one.
Dave Hentschel: Those are some tools as parents that we can take advantage of.
Dave Hentschel: But most importantly, create a home where conversation is happening, where honesty can happen without fear.
Dave Hentschel: Because if the kids are afraid, they're gonna hide.
Dave Hentschel: And so it's perfect if they live in a resign reside in an environment that has both grace and truth, and they'll come to you.
Dave Hentschel: So back to the adults.
Dave Hentschel: The first principle is not to fight it, but to flee.
Dave Hentschel: But there's another principle I want to share with you this morning, and it's this, because it's not just about fleeing something, it's also about pursuing something else.
Dave Hentschel: Fleeing is only half the battle.
Dave Hentschel: If all you do is run away from something and you don't run toward something better, you're eventually going to run back.
Dave Hentschel: So it's not just running away, it's always running toward.
Dave Hentschel: Notice the verse, 2 Timothy 2, verse 22.
Dave Hentschel: What does Paul say?
Dave Hentschel: Flee this, but pursue something else.
Dave Hentschel: Pursue what?
Dave Hentschel: Pursue righteousness.
Dave Hentschel: Pursue faith.
Dave Hentschel: Pursue love.
Dave Hentschel: Pursue peace.
Dave Hentschel: Righteousness, that's living before God with integrity.
Dave Hentschel: Faith, that's trusting that God will provide all your needs.
Dave Hentschel: Living a life of love that is not consistent with a life of lust and respect for another person is love.
Dave Hentschel: We don't want to live in lust.
Dave Hentschel: And then peace, this will bring you peace in your life with God and with others.
Dave Hentschel: Lust will rewire your desires.
Dave Hentschel: God wants to renew your mind in this way and have you pursue something else.
Dave Hentschel: You may have trained your brain in one direction, but by God's grace, you can retrain it.
Dave Hentschel: In fact, God made our brains with the kind of neuroplasticity that can actually be rewired.
Dave Hentschel: There's a process that involves detox, but spiritually and even neurologically, you can break free from this thing.
Dave Hentschel: Freedom is possible.
Dave Hentschel: And so that's the second principle I want to share with you this morning.
Dave Hentschel: Replace, don't just remove.
Dave Hentschel: Can we say that together?
Dave Hentschel: Replace, don't just remove.
Dave Hentschel: You do not defeat lust by emptying your life.
Dave Hentschel: You defeat lust by filling your life with something better.
Dave Hentschel: The biblical solution to temptation is not like Bob Newhart, stop it.
Dave Hentschel: The biblical solution to temptation is not just try harder, white knuckle it.
Dave Hentschel: The biblical solution to temptation is not Nancy Reagan, just say no.
Dave Hentschel: That is not biblical at all.
Dave Hentschel: You're not Ulysses saying time into the Mast.
Dave Hentschel: You're a Christian.
Dave Hentschel: Those solutions are okay, I guess.
Dave Hentschel: They're just very incomplete, and they will not last for you.
Dave Hentschel: Those solutions involve willpower.
Dave Hentschel: Have you noticed that your will lacks power?
Dave Hentschel: Your will fatigu over time.
Dave Hentschel: So instead, what you have to do is you have to go much deeper than the will into the realm that theologians call the affections.
Dave Hentschel: The biblical reason for sin is always much deeper than the will.
Dave Hentschel: It's a disordered love that's happening inside of your heart.
Dave Hentschel: Notice the verse again, 2 Timothy 2.22.
Dave Hentschel: He says, I want you to do this from a pure heart.
Dave Hentschel: Do you see that?
Dave Hentschel: Pure.
Dave Hentschel: That's the word catharos, where we get our word catheter, like a heart catheter, something that's unblocked, something that's free from all corruption and sin and guilt, something that's blameless, something that's innocent.
Dave Hentschel: So therefore, the biblical answer for sin is you've got to have a reordering of your heart, and you gotta find something that you love more.
Dave Hentschel: In other words, the solution is a reordered affection.
Dave Hentschel: And the new affection is your affection for God.
Dave Hentschel: You see, the only way to break a desire in the soul is to show your soul a new and greater and more beautiful desire.
Dave Hentschel: This is what Thomas Chalmers called the expulsive power of a new affection.
Dave Hentschel: And that new affection, brothers and sisters, is for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Dave Hentschel: This is why C.S.
Dave Hentschel: Lewis famously said in his book, The Weight of Glory, quote, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not to be too strong, but too weak.
Dave Hentschel: We are half-hearted creatures, he says, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.
Dave Hentschel: And then he concludes by saying, We are far too easily pleased.
Dave Hentschel: God never wants to take something from you, he wants something for you.
Dave Hentschel: Brother, you're not trading gold, you're trading tin for precious treasure.
Dave Hentschel: You're trading sand to stand on a rock.
Dave Hentschel: That's a good trade.
Dave Hentschel: The reason you fall into temptation is not because you have these desires.
Dave Hentschel: It's because you're far too easily satisfied.
Dave Hentschel: Don't you see?
Dave Hentschel: The whole reason you fall is in that moment you don't see the beauty of serving Christ.
Dave Hentschel: You don't see that he's so much better than what you're tempted by.
Dave Hentschel: And your whole problem is you don't see how wonderful he is.
Dave Hentschel: See, just saying no to temptation will not do it.
Dave Hentschel: You must say yes to the beautiful person of Jesus Christ.
Dave Hentschel: The same principle is repeated elsewhere in the Bible.
Dave Hentschel: Take a look at 1 Corinthians 6.
Dave Hentschel: Again, Paul says this flee from sexual immorality.
Dave Hentschel: Why?
Dave Hentschel: Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
Dave Hentschel: Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?
Dave Hentschel: You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.
Dave Hentschel: So glorify God with your body.
Dave Hentschel: Friends, if you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit has taken up residence on the inside of you.
Dave Hentschel: God, the Spirit, lives on the inside of you because He wants to purify you and cleanse you and use you.
Dave Hentschel: And it is a tragedy for you to yield to the lust of the flesh and become like any other person.
Dave Hentschel: And this applies to the area of immorality, but it also could be more broad about areas like how you dress or the language that you use or things like that.
Dave Hentschel: You've been called and you have the opportunity to honor God with your body in a crooked and perverse generation.
Dave Hentschel: This is what happened.
Dave Hentschel: Guys, this is what happened in the early church.
Dave Hentschel: This is what they did.
Dave Hentschel: There's a historian.
Dave Hentschel: His name is Kyle Harper.
Dave Hentschel: And he wrote a book called From Shame to Sin.
Dave Hentschel: And he points out something fascinating about how the Christians, the Christians, completely changed the ancient world and the Greco-Roman attitude towards sex in the first 500 years of the church.
Dave Hentschel: In the Roman culture, sexual immorality was rampant.
Dave Hentschel: And they lived in something that's called an honor-shame culture.
Dave Hentschel: In that culture, people did not primarily ask, is this behavior sinful?
Dave Hentschel: Rather, they asked this question: Will that behavior bring me shame?
Dave Hentschel: In other words, will I get caught?
Dave Hentschel: Will this hurt my reputation?
Dave Hentschel: But then the Christians came along and everything changed.
Dave Hentschel: They literally changed the entire culture.
Dave Hentschel: Jesus said, it's not just what you do, it's what's happening in your heart.
Dave Hentschel: The question shifted from will people see this to does God see this?
Dave Hentschel: And that didn't just change individuals.
Dave Hentschel: That started to change towns and cities and the whole society.
Dave Hentschel: It is because of the Christians that we now actually enjoy the basic sexual ethic that we have today in our society.
Dave Hentschel: I know it's not perfect, but it's there as a baseline because of what the Christians did.
Dave Hentschel: Faithfulness in marriage was all of a sudden elevated to a level that was unheard of before.
Dave Hentschel: Exploitation and prostitution, which was everywhere.
Dave Hentschel: The emperor was involved in this, very common, it started to be challenged.
Dave Hentschel: Self-control for the first time became a virtue.
Dave Hentschel: And every person, man or woman, was called to the same standard of purity before God.
Dave Hentschel: That whole idea that we're responsible individually before God was like revolutionary.
Dave Hentschel: And the church changed the world.
Dave Hentschel: Because sexual integrity is not just about managing appearances, it's about honoring God from the inside out.
Dave Hentschel: You can hide from people, but you can't hide from God.
Dave Hentschel: And so the goal of the Christian life isn't just to look pure, it's to be pure.
Dave Hentschel: And the early Christians took this calling toward purity very seriously, and they showed the world the beauty of marriage.
Dave Hentschel: One man, one woman covenanted together for life, a picture of Christ in the church.
Dave Hentschel: And that idea was so compelling that they changed everything.
Dave Hentschel: One letter called the Epistle of Diagnesis tries to describe what's going on in the early church to an unbeliever.
Dave Hentschel: And he says things like this there's something extraordinary about their lives.
Dave Hentschel: They live in their own countries as though they were just passing through.
Dave Hentschel: They play the role of citizens, but but they also labor as aliens.
Dave Hentschel: Any country can be their homeland, but for them, their homeland, wherever it may be, seems like a foreign country.
Dave Hentschel: Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them.
Dave Hentschel: They share their meals, but not their wives.
Dave Hentschel: They live in the flesh, but they're not governed by the desires of the flesh.
Dave Hentschel: And the letter goes on and on and on to say about the impact that the church had on the culture.
Dave Hentschel: We stand in their line.
Dave Hentschel: Point three.
Dave Hentschel: So we've talked about understanding the battle, and we've talked about understanding God's strategy.
Dave Hentschel: The third thing I want to talk to you about is understanding how to break the cycle, some practical pathways to freedom.
Dave Hentschel: I want to get really practical for a moment about protecting you from sexual immorality, because this is actually where a lot of people get stuck.
Dave Hentschel: We talk about purity, we talk about fleeing, but then we leave here and the temptation is like still right in our pocket.
Dave Hentschel: For most of human history, temptation had to come looking for you.
Dave Hentschel: Not anymore.
Dave Hentschel: Now it's always with you.
Dave Hentschel: It's always private, it's always accessible.
Dave Hentschel: But if we're serious about what the Bible says here, then we're gonna be needing to create some distance on purpose.
Dave Hentschel: And that's not about legalism, it's about freedom.
Dave Hentschel: And it's not about restriction, it's about protection.
Dave Hentschel: So what does that look like?
Dave Hentschel: Well, let me give you a few incredible applications that will help you.
Dave Hentschel: Number one, it's gonna really start with your devices.
Dave Hentschel: Remove access.
Dave Hentschel: Lock down your phone.
Dave Hentschel: Turn on the content restrictions, disable things like private browsing, remove any apps or access points that might lead you into temptation.
Dave Hentschel: Things like Snapchat or even Instagram can have some harmful material there.
Dave Hentschel: Lock that stuff down.
Dave Hentschel: For some of you, that might even mean getting rid of your smartphone and getting a dumb phone.
Dave Hentschel: It's called a light phone.
Dave Hentschel: You can get that and do basic things like maps and stuff like that, but it won't allow you to access certain platforms that are problematic for you.
Dave Hentschel: Because you don't fight sexual temptation with willpower, you fight it with boundaries.
Dave Hentschel: The point here is don't pray for purity while preserving your own act open access to impurity.
Dave Hentschel: If we're serious, if you're serious, if Jesus is your Lord in this area, you don't just need good intentions, you need wise boundaries.
Dave Hentschel: Number two, add accountability.
Dave Hentschel: Add accountability.
Dave Hentschel: Your freedom does not come from isolation.
Dave Hentschel: It is gonna come in the context of community.
Dave Hentschel: Purity is not gonna be a solo project for you.
Dave Hentschel: We need accountability.
Dave Hentschel: We need a brotherhood.
Dave Hentschel: We need a sisterhood.
Dave Hentschel: We have men's groups here, we have women's groups here.
Dave Hentschel: We would love to have you in one of those groups.
Dave Hentschel: You need to join one because here's the thing you need to know: don't fight alone.
Dave Hentschel: We need honest, authentic relationships.
Dave Hentschel: People who confess their sins one to another and know how to receive a confession like that.
Dave Hentschel: Notice that verse again, 2 Timothy 2.22.
Dave Hentschel: Did you see this?
Dave Hentschel: We're doing this along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
Dave Hentschel: Did you see that?
Dave Hentschel: We're not doing this thing alone.
Dave Hentschel: We're together, we're allies, we're in the foxhole.
Dave Hentschel: If you don't have one person in your life who really knows you and knows your struggles, you're toast, you're on an island.
Dave Hentschel: This is your next step.
Dave Hentschel: Not 10 people.
Dave Hentschel: Find one trusted, godly person.
Dave Hentschel: Say to them, listen, I'm going on a business trip this week.
Dave Hentschel: When I get back, can you please ask me what I watched when I was out there?
Dave Hentschel: Knowing that I'm gonna have to come back and talk to you is gonna help me fight temptation in this area.
Dave Hentschel: You gotta find a brother or sister that can help you fight.
Dave Hentschel: That's not weakness, that's wisdom.
Dave Hentschel: Recently, Carl Lenz, former Hillsong pastor who stepped down because of sexual immorality, had a documentary that talked about his fall.
Dave Hentschel: And I I found this to be really interesting in terms of a case story, a case study.
Dave Hentschel: What he said was, while he was still involved in sexual immorality, he was still up there preaching.
Dave Hentschel: And what he said was, right before I got up to preach, I would always tell myself, because I got this pang of guilt, oh, that was gonna be my last time.
Dave Hentschel: I'm never doing that again.
Dave Hentschel: That's gonna be my last time.
Dave Hentschel: But then he would get up and then the cycle would start again, and and he kept on the downward spiral until eventually it led to his downfall.
Dave Hentschel: See, he had good intentions, but he did not have wise boundaries.
Dave Hentschel: You need a brother, a sister.
Dave Hentschel: Deuteronomy says one can chase a thousand, two can chase ten thousand.
Dave Hentschel: If you stumble in this area, that's where your brother and sister is gonna come in and really help you go to the next level.
Dave Hentschel: Because here's another thing you need to know.
Dave Hentschel: If you stumble, don't conceal it, confess it.
Dave Hentschel: Let's say that together.
Dave Hentschel: Don't conceal it, confess it.
Dave Hentschel: The Bible's really clear that we are to confess our sins one to another, and sin grows in secrecy.
Dave Hentschel: It's like that mold that grows behind your wall.
Dave Hentschel: Mold does not grow out in the open, it grows in the dark places, it grows in the hidden places.
Dave Hentschel: And by the time you see it, that damage has spread far and wide.
Dave Hentschel: You got to bring that out into the light and expose it.
Dave Hentschel: That's not gonna create your problem, that's gonna reveal your problem so that you can be healed of that problem.
Dave Hentschel: But healing begins with honesty.
Dave Hentschel: As one of my dear friends says, who's a recovering alcoholic, you're only as sick as the secrets you keep.
Dave Hentschel: And you're only as strong as you are honest.
Dave Hentschel: The book of Proverbs said this 3,000 years ago.
Dave Hentschel: Proverbs 28, 13.
Dave Hentschel: Whoever conceals his sins will not prosper, but who confess he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
Dave Hentschel: The enemy's strategy is isolation.
Dave Hentschel: God's strategy is community and confession.
Dave Hentschel: So don't fight alone.
Dave Hentschel: There's also some tools that can help you here.
Dave Hentschel: I would strongly encourage you to download some kind of accountability software.
Dave Hentschel: There's a lot out there.
Dave Hentschel: One that's very popular is called Covenant Eyes.
Dave Hentschel: What it does is pretty simple.
Dave Hentschel: It monitors the activity on your devices and then it sends a report of your activity to a trusted person.
Dave Hentschel: And it helps you live in the light rather than live in secrecy.
Dave Hentschel: And here's the key: this is only gonna work if you choose someone you trust and actually want accountability with.
Dave Hentschel: Right in front of you today, in front of your chair, you're gonna notice a QR code.
Dave Hentschel: If you would just take out your phone right now, everybody just take it out.
Dave Hentschel: I want you to test this to see if it works, if you would, even if this is not your struggle.
Dave Hentschel: Just check this out if you would.
Dave Hentschel: I want you to scan the QR code and let it take you to a website.
Dave Hentschel: And when you get to that website, you're gonna see a blue button on there, and the button says Covenant Eyes.
Dave Hentschel: Go ahead and click that button that says Covenant Eyes.
Dave Hentschel: And if you click that, it will take you to not only the software that's available to download, but today I've arranged for there to be five free resources for you at the touch of that button.
Dave Hentschel: There are five books there that are free depending upon your circumstance.
Dave Hentschel: One of the books is for men, one of the books is for women, one of the books is for couples, one of the books is for parents, and one of the books is for church leaders.
Dave Hentschel: So I want you to download the book that's most appropriate for you or a friend or a family member that perhaps you could share that with because that will be a blessing to them as well.
Dave Hentschel: My encouragement is to download that.
Dave Hentschel: It will be a great resource just to follow up after the message today.
Dave Hentschel: Now, everything I've said kind of raises a very real question.
Dave Hentschel: What does this actually look like over time?
Dave Hentschel: What does it look like to fight this battle and find real freedom?
Dave Hentschel: And at this point, I want to hear from somebody who spent years walking with men through this very struggle.
Dave Hentschel: One of the most powerful ministries right here in Basking Ridge is Pause Ministries, and I've invited their founder to be with us for a few minutes today to have a short little time of interview during our service.
Dave Hentschel: So would you welcome Dan Bove as he comes up to answer a few questions?
Dave Hentschel: Dan and Deb Bove.
Dave Hentschel: Founded Pause in 2011, and they have such a powerful ministry amongst men and amongst women who are dealing with not just this area but a lot of behaviors that can wreak havoc on relationships.
Dave Hentschel: And it's so important that I wanted Dan just to come today, just to share a little bit about what you do.
Dave Hentschel: So welcome, Dan.
Dave Hentschel: Thanks for being with us today, brother.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Dave.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having us today.
Dave Hentschel: So some people out there maybe have no idea who you are or what pause is, and I just want them to understand a couple things.
Dave Hentschel: So let's start with this question.
Dave Hentschel: What do you see as the root of pornography struggles?
Dave Hentschel: Do you see that primarily as a sin, as an addiction, as a coping mechanism, or something else?
Dave Hentschel: How do you view this whole problem?
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely see it as a sin, Dave, seen throughout the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: When you look at Galatians, uh it talks about the the uh uh acts of the sinful nature, first one that that's listed, spiritual immorality.
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about haughty eyes.
SPEAKER_01: You covered lust today.
SPEAKER_01: There's also idolatry and pride.
SPEAKER_01: And all of those things are a part of porn.
SPEAKER_01: Um, that said, porn is sin, why do people engage with it?
SPEAKER_01: Um I think they start as a coping mechanism.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's a form of escape, it's a form of putting aside the chaos of life, isolating, and um just interacting with something that's not going to push back on you.
SPEAKER_01: It's certainly about fantasy, being able to live out things that you can't live out in real life.
SPEAKER_01: It's about control.
SPEAKER_01: I can click this image, and perhaps if I click again, I'll find something more satisfying.
SPEAKER_01: Click again.
SPEAKER_01: That's what leads to the addiction part.
SPEAKER_01: The more you go, the more frequency you have, the deeper you go, and that builds until you can't live without it, and that's when you're addicted.
Dave Hentschel: That makes a lot of sense.
Dave Hentschel: So tell us what your ministry does if if there's a person that wants to engage with the services at PAWES, what are the kind what's the process look like from day to day, week to week?
Dave Hentschel: What does PAWES offer?
SPEAKER_01: We offer Dave uh, you know, we believe that that uh each person's journey is different than the next.
SPEAKER_01: There's no one answer for everybody.
SPEAKER_01: So we meet with individuals, we offer group access, and we offer uh couples coming in and meeting with them because not only the man usually is affected, but the betrayal and the loss that the spouse uh goes through needs to be dealt with also, and we offer Restore Workshops, which is a four-day workshop where people come in and are in residence with us from for those four days.
SPEAKER_01: We start at 7 in the morning, we go till 9 at night.
SPEAKER_01: It's a deep dive uh emotionally into trauma.
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, we've had about 140 people go through this, Dave, and just under 50 percent, for example, experienced uh sexual abuse as a child or or young adult.
SPEAKER_01: So we're trying to get at the trauma aspects of it, but we're also surrounding that with spiritual aspects so that the person can have the Holy Spirit enter into them and heal them from that uh trauma.
Dave Hentschel: I think you had some scriptural foundations you wanted to share too.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, if if you believe that porn is sin, and it is, only God can heal sin.
SPEAKER_01: So God is the center of our ministry.
SPEAKER_01: The two scriptures that it's based on are uh um Mark 12, 30 and 31, uh love the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_01: For a person who's broken, that as yourself peace always gets pushed aside.
SPEAKER_01: So we kind of go with this uh flow of God, self, and others.
SPEAKER_01: Love God, God will teach you to love yourself, only then would you be able to love another in the unconditional way that God loves you.
SPEAKER_01: Know God, God will help you to know yourself, only then can you know others.
SPEAKER_01: You can only bring your true self if you know God first, then yourself, then others.
SPEAKER_01: And the second scripture is trust in the Lord with all your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Both scriptures include the heart as your sermon did.
SPEAKER_01: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
SPEAKER_01: In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will keep your path straight.
SPEAKER_01: God needs to be in it.
SPEAKER_01: Dave, we say uh in the ministry that it's not about recovery, it's about restoration.
SPEAKER_01: Recovery is the baseline, that's the norm.
SPEAKER_01: It's about restoration, being made into the person that God created you to be and finding that person again.
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
Dave Hentschel: So, how do you balance grace and accountability?
Dave Hentschel: How do you guys strike that when it comes to pause?
Dave Hentschel: Someone comes to uh enjoy your services.
Dave Hentschel: How do you think about those two things?
Dave Hentschel: Interesting question, Dave.
SPEAKER_01: Um It starts when a person enters the group.
SPEAKER_01: We don't receive them as their behavior, we receive them as a person, a person who is broken, a person who is struggling to find their way out of sin and out of a behavior that has them living a life that's shrouded in in guilt and and shame.
SPEAKER_01: And we try to remind them that you know when when God nailed sin to the cross with Christ, he also nailed shame and guilt with it.
SPEAKER_01: And that all three are there.
SPEAKER_01: When you accept the forgiveness of Christ, you accept the release of shame and guilt also, and it can lead you into a new life.
SPEAKER_01: So the the first thing that we try to do is we don't use a sponsor model.
SPEAKER_01: Sponsors are important, but our philosophy is that there should be a direct relationship with between yourself and God without a person in between that.
SPEAKER_01: Now we use accountability horizontally, and there's plenty to be had, especially in in the groups and in community, as you suggested.
SPEAKER_01: Um so you know that that that's a part of it, and the grace part comes from receiving them as Christ would receive us with open arms.
SPEAKER_01: He wants us, he desires for us to bring our sin to him.
SPEAKER_01: He already knows our sin.
SPEAKER_01: He already knows our behaviors.
SPEAKER_01: He just we just want to receive them in a way that Christ would receive us and show that same grace.
Dave Hentschel: Great.
Dave Hentschel: Well, we could talk all day, but maybe one more before we let you go.
Dave Hentschel: What about relapse?
Dave Hentschel: What if somebody comes, they experience pause, they have restoration, and then they have an experience of relapse.
Dave Hentschel: How do you handle that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, relapse is a real thing, Dave.
SPEAKER_01: Uh this process of healing is not a linear process.
SPEAKER_01: There are ups and downs and dips in it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so what we try to do is create an atmosphere where trust and truth and light are the purpose so that a person feels safe enough to bring darkness into the light, to admit their relapse, and we try to encourage them to look at what was going on.
SPEAKER_01: Why did you relapse?
SPEAKER_01: What were you thinking about?
SPEAKER_01: What what kind of emotions were you going through?
SPEAKER_01: What was going on in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Because once the relapse happens, so much can be taken from it that can be used for when those same feelings come back again next time and you can flee from them rather than diving into them.
Dave Hentschel: That's awesome.
Dave Hentschel: Dan's going to be in the back with his dear wife Deb.
Dave Hentschel: If you want to talk to them further, they would love to meet you.
Dave Hentschel: There's some resources on a table back there.
Dave Hentschel: And I would encourage you, everybody, to go back just to say thank you to Dan and Deb for an incredible ministry.
Dave Hentschel: Appreciate how the Lord's using you, and thank you for saying yes to this important ministry in our area.
Dave Hentschel: Let's thank Dan for being with us today.
Dave Hentschel: All right.
Dave Hentschel: Thank you so much.
Dave Hentschel: As the worship team comes back up and we kind of wrap up our message today.
Dave Hentschel: As the rubber hits the road, let me just ask you what is your next step from everything we've talked about here?
Dave Hentschel: Maybe for some of you, you need to confess.
Dave Hentschel: Maybe for some of you you need to go delete something.
Dave Hentschel: Maybe some of you need to bring something into the light.
Dave Hentschel: Make sure that you apply what the Holy Spirit is pointing out in your life in this area.
Dave Hentschel: Don't try to manage this.
Dave Hentschel: Run.
Dave Hentschel: And run to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Dave Hentschel: One more thing.
Dave Hentschel: Some of you might be thinking, Pastor Dave, it's too late for me.
Dave Hentschel: I've already failed in this area.
Dave Hentschel: And I want to say with all my heart that that is not true.
Dave Hentschel: This is not the end of your story.
Dave Hentschel: I come against that message of condemnation in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.
Dave Hentschel: The thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but our Lord Jesus has come that you might have life and have it to the full.
Dave Hentschel: Jesus Christ forgives.
Dave Hentschel: Jesus Christ cleanses.
Dave Hentschel: Jesus Christ restores.
Dave Hentschel: He does not stand at a distance.
Dave Hentschel: He meets you right where you are.
Dave Hentschel: Run to him.
Dave Hentschel: In fact, let's pray as we close and prepare to sing in worship of God together.
Dave Hentschel: Father, we thank you so much for your love for us.
Dave Hentschel: We thank you that we can come to you honestly.
Dave Hentschel: Lord, as we're about to sing a song that's really based on Psalm 51 and David and his sexual sin and everything that he had committed, we we remember the wisdom of bringing things into the light.
Dave Hentschel: We remember his words, create in me a clean heart.
Dave Hentschel: That's that spirit of repentance, Lord.
Dave Hentschel: Not managing sin, just bringing it to you.
Dave Hentschel: So as we sing today, help us not just to sing, but to make this our prayer.
Dave Hentschel: Asking you, God, to do what only you can do to create in us a clean heart.
Dave Hentschel: We come to you honestly to give us the strength we need to turn from our sin and the courage to walk in the light.
Dave Hentschel: As we sing today, would you hear this as our prayer before we pray it in Jesus' name in everyone's head?
Dave Hentschel: Would you stand as a prayer together?