The Freedom Fight: Overcoming Sin Through Gospel Grace

• Pervasiveness of Pornography [00:04:32 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor cites Barna Group statistics showing high rates of pornography consumption among practicing Christians, particularly younger demographics, to illustrate the issue's widespread nature.
• Spiritual Freedom [00:01:00 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor defines freedom as a spiritual reality achieved through the cross, contrasting it with worldly bondage and sin.

• Sermon Illustration [00:01:26 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about his own lack of aspiration to be the 'porn guy' when he entered ministry 35 years ago, contrasting it with the reality that pornography addiction became a major obstacle in his church's discipleship efforts.

• Pastoral Charge [00:04:15 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor calls the congregation to recognize the severity of pornography's impact to create urgency in addressing the issue.
• Pastoral Charge [00:14:29 ▶️ 📄]

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:00:00] One more big shout of praise. Oh God, we're so glad we could come, we could come into your presence today.
[00:00:08] Lord, we love you with all of our hearts. We sing and we rejoice in you. In Jesus' name. Amen, amen.
[00:00:16] You guys can go ahead and have a seat. Good morning, good morning. Y'all look like you're pumped and ready to go.
[00:00:24] I love it, I love it. So most of you know I've been taking a little bit of a vocal break for few weeks or so. But just to warn you, buckle up because I'm coming back in full swing next
[00:00:36] Sunday. So you guys, just letting you know. Today, we are so blessed we have a special guest speaker with us, Ted Shimmer, who is the author of the best-selling book, The Freedom Fight. And in this book and in this program that God has given to him, they, together with all the
[00:00:57] pieces. They tackle one of the most pervasive issues and challenges of our time, and that is pornography. And so today, Ted Shimmer is going to come and talk to us about the topic of pornography. So would you guys do me a favor? Open your heart, put your hands together,
[00:01:15] and let's welcome Ted Shimmer. Thank you, Rob. Well, good morning, Lake City. How's everybody

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:01:26] it doing? When I went into the ministry 35 years ago, I promise you I had no aspirations to become the porn guy. And if my wife were here, she would tell you she had no aspirations to be married to
[00:01:41] the porn guy. But it was really birthed out of necessity. You see, in the early to mid 2000s in our ministry, we started seeing more and more student leaders being disqualified from leadership because of a pornography addiction. So much so that in 07, as a ministry, we identified pornography
[00:01:59] as the biggest obstacle, keeping us from fulfilling our mission of building spiritual leaders for Christ. Because we recognize that if our discipleship doesn't address this issue with real solutions that lead to lasting freedom, then we have a huge gap in our discipleship.
[00:02:17] And so it was in 07 that I kind of started my deep dive into this topic, learning all I could as I began to walk with different staff and students. And through the process, going through
[00:02:28] different programs, was trained as a certified sex addiction therapist. And through that process, we began to identify, hey, what are the principles that are biblically based, scientifically informed with brain science, gospel-centered, clinically sound and effective?
[00:02:45] And we started using these with our staff and students.
[00:02:48] And what we found is not only were they finding freedom, which is incredible in and of itself, but deep growth, life transformation was happening, frankly, at a level we hadn't seen before.
[00:03:00] And so we really felt compelled, hey, we need to put these principles in a more user-friendly format.
[00:03:04] So that's when we started building the website and the app, and we launched it in 2017.
[00:03:10] And that's the Freedom Fight, our porn addiction discipleship and recovery program.
[00:03:14] And I'm going to talk more about that program at the end.
[00:03:18] The writer of Hebrews says this, let us lay aside every weight in sin, which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
[00:03:30] God has a purpose for us to pursue.
[00:03:33] He has a race for us to run, to know Christ, to be like Christ, and to make Christ known.
[00:03:41] But notice what he says in this verse, that before we can run this race, we need to lay aside the weight that slows us down, the sin that is tripping us up.
[00:03:52] And for our generation, and particularly the younger generation, I don't know of a heavier weight or more entangling sin that is sidelining more of God's people than pornography, keeping them from running after God's purposes for their life.
[00:04:08] And so, as I mentioned, we're going to end our time looking at some real solutions to this issue and topic.
[00:04:15] But before we do, we need to understand some of the brutal realities of pornography's impact.
[00:04:23] Because I think it will give us a sense of urgency of why we need to address this issue.
[00:04:29] The first brutal reality is the most obvious.
[00:04:32] It's pervasive.
[00:04:34] The Barna Group did a study of practicing Christians and the amount of pornography that they were consuming.
[00:04:41] Now, they defined for their study a practicing Christian as somebody who says their faith is very important to them and they attend church regularly.
[00:04:51] So for practicing Christian men, ages 18 to 70, 78% admit to watching porn at least occasionally.
[00:04:59] And for the younger age group, those 18 to 43, it's almost nine out of 10. And for this younger age group, half of them are watching it weekly, daily, or more often. And it's not just a guy's
[00:05:15] issue. 34% of practicing Christian women ages 18 to 70 are consuming porn. And then check out that next for the younger age group, it doubles to seven out of 10. And that includes erotica, pornography in any form, whether it's images or written. Think about that for a minute. These are
[00:05:37] our future Christian husbands and wives, fathers, mothers, pastors, leaders in the church being discipled by porn. And porn isn't just pervasive in the church, it's destructive. When God was describing how fleshly lust impacts a person in 1 Peter 2.11, he used warfare imagery. And he says
[00:06:04] that fleshly lust, like pornography, wages war against the soul. You know, there was a study done out of the University of Oklahoma. It was a six-year study of 3,000 people, peer-reviewed, and it was looking at the impact of pornography. And the results of this study are essentially
[00:06:23] an illustration of this verse. And it really shows how pornography is waging war on multiple fronts.
[00:06:31] And the first is on spiritual growth. Any porn use, the study concluded, is associated with declines in religious commitment and behavior, like attending services, prayer, and an increase in religious doubts. So think about that for a minute. If you wanted Christians to be less
[00:06:52] committed to praying, going to church, and reading their Bible, and you wanted them to doubt more about their faith, just get them to watch porn. And that is what is happening. The study also found that pornography is waging war against marriages. In this study, if either the husband
[00:07:12] or wife started watching pornography, that couple was two to three times more likely to divorce in the next two years than the porn-free couple. It is waging war against godly marriages.
[00:07:26] But it's also waging war against kingdom service. And the correlation that was found is the more frequently somebody consumes pornography, the less likely they are to serve in their congregation.
[00:07:42] Because the reality is this, is when somebody is not experiencing the freedom that the gospel promises, their excitement for the king and his kingdom are diminished. But when people do experiencing the freedom that the gospel promises, man, they're excited for the king. They're excited
[00:08:02] to serve his kingdom. Porn is waging war in this area. And then finally, porn is waging war against godly parenting. Again, the correlation that was found, the more porn somebody watches, the less likely they are to talk to their kids about spiritual things. And so it really threatens
[00:08:23] the heritage of passing on a spiritual heritage from parents to children. So put those four areas that pornography is waging war against. And as we think about the impact of that, we're reminded of the fact that we are in a spiritual battle, and we have an enemy that
[00:08:44] is using pornography to reach into Christian homes and churches and capture the hearts and minds of a generation. There are a lot of college ministries that are involved, that use our program. And the crazy thing is, is every year the freshmen show up to college campus with deeper
[00:09:03] and deeper addictions to porn. And in the vast majority of situations, the parents have no idea that their kid has been addicted to porn for five, six, seven years because it's so easy to hide.
[00:09:18] Well, porn isn't just pervasive and destructive. It's also addictive. Dopamine is the pleasure chemical that our brains release when we experience something pleasurable that our brain wants us to remember and repeat. Drugs like cocaine artificially raise the level of
[00:09:35] dopamine in the brain, and so does pornography. This graph shows different stimulants in the estimated amount of dopamine they produce in the brain. Sex is the highest natural reward that our brains give. God wants us to remember and repeat sex. It's a gift to be enjoyed in marriage between
[00:09:54] a man and a woman. But you'll notice on this, hey, can I get an amen back there? Hey, someone's paying attention. That's what I like. But if you notice on this graph, there are three stimulants
[00:10:08] estimated to produce more dopamine in the brain than sex, and that's meth, cocaine, and pornography.
[00:10:16] Porn and sex are at the same level, but nothing compares to maintaining a dopamine high near its peak like porn. Most porn sessions last minutes, but hours long bend sessions are common and a person floods their mind with unnatural levels of dopamine. And those unnatural levels
[00:10:35] of dopamine have an impact. You know, addiction experts tell us that a person's addiction goes to a whole new level of depth when they start using their addictive substance to medicate the negative emotions in their life. So for instance, if I start using pornography when I get stressed
[00:10:59] and I do that repeatedly over and over, then the next time I'm stressed, you know what my brain does? It releases dopamine to start the craving to go down that porn pathway because our brains
[00:11:13] go into relief mode. Hey, I know where we can go to feel a whole lot better. And this happens at the subconscious level. We probably all experience this to one degree or another with stress eating that may, when we get stressed, hey, we maybe eat junk food or eat too much or,
[00:11:30] and we do that repeatedly. Then the next time we're stressed, all of a sudden we start craving that, that pant and, you know, a brownies or something. Multiply that by 10 and that's what an addiction, you know, to porn is like. And all of, you know, as we think of this, all of this
[00:11:50] unnatural levels of dopamine in the brain, it changes a person's brain. These are brain scans Dr. Lawrence Tucker took is, you know, the healthy brain and then the brain on heroin and the brain on porn. The front part of our brain is the prefrontal cortex. This is where we make moral
[00:12:13] decisions. This is where we have impulse control. These are the brakes. And when a person is using an addictive substance, whether it's heroin or pornography, this part of the brain doesn't get the blood flow. Therefore, it doesn't get the oxygen. Therefore, it's not operating effectively.
[00:12:31] I mean, the brakes are going out and the addiction is in the driver's seat.
[00:12:38] This is why people addicted to things can make such bad decisions.
[00:12:43] It doesn't mean they're not responsible for their actions because they are, but it does help explain how otherwise smart people can make such bad decisions around addiction, including addiction to pornography.
[00:12:55] And so, you know, as we, you know, and the other piece about, you know, the impact on the brain, and this is the scary part about pornography, is the adolescent brain is the most susceptible.
[00:13:12] There is a reason that we have laws against, you know, trying to keep the adolescent brain away from addictive substances.
[00:13:22] Because if somebody gets hooked on an addictive substance before they're 18, the chances that it becomes a lifelong struggle, go way up. This is why we have laws in place to keep addictive substances away from the adolescent brain. And yet, with pornography, most parents have no idea
[00:13:37] when they give their kid a phone or access to the internet that they're giving them access to one of the more addictive substances on the planet. And again, I'm here to testify, the vast majority of
[00:13:51] college students that are addicted to porn, their parents have no idea because it's so easy to hide.
[00:13:57] So if you're a parent in the room, we have some free resources to help you navigate this on thefreedomfight.org. And just, you know, equip yourself as you're helping your kids navigate this. You know, as we think about this topic, you know, and how pervasive, how destructive,
[00:14:21] how addictive it is, we would expect our spiritual leaders to be all over this, right?
[00:14:29] And yet that same Barna study tells us that only 9% of pastors have a resource to help their people find freedom. Lake City, you guys are part of the 9%. And so I hope you will encourage your
[00:14:44] pastoral staff for having the courage. Most churches don't want to touch this topic with a 10-foot pole. But yet, we have the gospel. We have the truth. We need to bring it into the light
[00:15:02] so we can deal with it. You know who else was a part of the 9%? The Apostle Paul. Because as you read the New Testament letters, Paul was regularly talking about the topic of sexual immorality,
[00:15:18] which in the Greek is the word porneia, which is where, of course, we get our word pornography.
[00:15:23] And for the Apostle Paul, this wasn't just a problem to solve, but it was an opportunity for deep discipleship.
[00:15:31] And so we're going to look at a passage out of Ephesians and look at how the Apostle Paul addresses this issue.
[00:15:39] Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do.
[00:15:45] Paul uses that phrase, you must no longer, because this was a current ongoing issue for the Ephesian church.
[00:15:52] He's telling this group of believers who lived in first century Rome, which was a hyper-sexualized culture, he's saying, hey guys, quit living like the lost around you. And now Paul's going to describe how they're living, and check it out, that many of the Ephesians were following. He
[00:16:11] says this, they have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality. The word sensuality literally means unbridled lust. Their unbridled lust is in control. And when that happens, look at that next phrase. They're greedy to practice every kind of impurity. They can't
[00:16:31] get enough of every kind of impurity. Have you guys noticed how the world has been losing its mind lately in the last several years around sexuality? That is the escalating nature of sexual sin. That's exactly what Paul is talking about in this passage. There's a greedy passion
[00:16:50] for every kind of impurity. Because when you reach a point of tolerance, you don't just need more, you need different. A little more deviant, a little more taboo, a little more forbidden.
[00:17:03] And for those who start chasing the dopamine high of pornography, they can find themselves watching things they never thought they would watch or doing things they never thought they would do. But that's where it leads. Every kind of impurity. But notice what he says. But that is
[00:17:17] not the way you learn Christ. This isn't who you are. If you have placed your faith and trust in Christ and been born again, you receive a new identity. This isn't who you are. And in this
[00:17:33] passage, the apostle Paul begins to unpack the pathway to freedom. But it's not just the pathway to freedom. It's the pathway to living the fullness out of our identity in Christ. And he uses the analogy of taking off old clothing and putting on new clothing. Because there are certain
[00:17:57] things that keep us stuck in our old lifestyle, keep us stuck in our old mentality, keep us stuck in our old identity that we need to put off. There are also certain things that we need to put on
[00:18:09] that help us stay connected and start living out of our true identity in Christ.
[00:18:17] And Paul gives the Ephesians and gives us, in this passage, six growth areas, six areas that we can grow in to find freedom, but also to live out of the fullness of who we are in Christ.
[00:18:31] And these six areas really are the foundation of the Freedom Fight program.
[00:18:37] And so we're going to run through these and look at the specific application that we can draw from these.
[00:18:43] The first, Paul says, put on holiness.
[00:18:48] To be holy means to be separate, to be set apart.
[00:18:51] And this is where we need to separate from sin.
[00:18:56] And in this, as we apply this to the area of sexual sin, this is where we help people lock up their devices to set up boundaries for triggering media.
[00:19:08] But it's not just taking those steps.
[00:19:11] It must be rooted in a heart that has a passion for holiness.
[00:19:14] As we grow in our heart to be holy because he is holy.
[00:19:20] And as we think about the second pathway that Paul talks about, be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
[00:19:31] We teach a tool in our program called BRACE, which is an acronym that helps people at the point of temptation build new neurological pathway in their brain. Because to find freedom, it's not enough just to avoid the old pathway.
[00:19:48] You must build a new pathway. And this is built on five biblical principles in brain science.
[00:19:57] And at the point of temptation, it helps a person connect with God, His Word, and His people.
[00:20:03] and it's been a powerful tool. Next, Paul says, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor. We are members of one another. Porn stunts a person's relational connections and causes them to isolate. A person isolates in order to act out, and then the shame that results usually keeps
[00:20:27] them in isolation. A porn or a sex addiction is classified as an intimacy disorder. People who don't have deep connections in real life are more susceptible to the fake intimacy of pornography.
[00:20:44] And so learning to connect is huge. And that's why in our app, again, that is free, we have daily check-ins so we can stay connected. We, with our accountability, we have an I'm triggered button
[00:20:56] so that at the point of temptation, instead of moving toward isolation, you can bring it into the light. And it's been a powerful tool to walk in the light with these temptations. Fourthly, Paul says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Paul, of course,
[00:21:17] here is talking about anger, but the principle can be applied to any negative emotion. You know, there's an urgency, he says, that we need to deal with our negative emotions. When we don't deal with our negative emotions, what do we typically do? We stuff it. We start to medicate it. We try
[00:21:40] to numb out. We try to distract ourselves from it. But following Peter's advice in 1 Peter 5, 7, cast your anxiety on the Lord because he cares for you. Learning to take our negative emotions
[00:21:55] and process them with God is huge.
[00:22:00] And so growing in emotional awareness and intelligence is an important part of the process because it really allows us to love God with all of our heart.
[00:22:10] Instead of us allowing a negative emotion to start moving us toward isolation and numbing out and, man, going to use porn or whatever it might be as a coping mechanism, man, we can take that as an opportunity for worship
[00:22:23] and to share our anxieties with God.
[00:22:29] Well, Paul goes on to say in the next verse, the truth is in Jesus.
[00:22:37] Put away falsehood.
[00:22:38] Let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor.
[00:22:42] Replacing lies with God's truth is a key to walking in freedom and living out of our identity in Christ.
[00:22:50] You know, trauma is a potent delivery system for Satan's lies.
[00:22:55] You know, even secular scientists will say, What makes trauma so long-impacting are the lies a person believes because of the trauma.
[00:23:05] Lies like, I'm worthless, I'm a failure, I don't matter, God is done with me, I'm hopeless, this trauma or abuse is my fault. But learning to replace those lies with God's truth is critical because those lies often lead to a shame identity, which often feeds negative
[00:23:29] emotions, which a person has learned to medicate and cope. And so learning to live out of the fullness of who we are in Christ is huge, which is Paul's last statement, put on the new self
[00:23:42] created in the likeness of God. Each one of these steps enables a person to truly live out of their identity in Christ. One of the saddest things about helping believers find freedom from pornography is to see how many believers are living out of a shame identity. Instead of living
[00:24:04] as a son or a daughter of the king, they're living in a place of shame. In learning to help people not just have the head knowledge about their identity in Christ, but to truly live out of
[00:24:21] their identity in Christ by faith. And it is powerful. The world tells us that our identity, our significance, our worth is something we must achieve by our performance, by impressing the right people. But the gospel tells us that our identity is something we receive. When a person
[00:24:43] puts their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, we receive a new identity. We receive a new worth.
[00:24:48] We receive a new significance. But there's a big difference in having head knowledge and living out of that as a lifestyle. And each one of these steps helps a person live in that reality. You
[00:25:03] know what's incredible about these six growth areas? Is that these six growth areas just happen to address the roots of a porn or a sex addiction. Think about that for a minute. What the Holy
[00:25:15] Spirit gave the Apostle Paul 2,000 years ago just happens to address this very modern issue of internet pornography addiction. Is God's word incredible or what? But the growth areas that Paul's gives address each one of those. God can and sometimes does give miraculous deliverance
[00:25:43] from a porn or a sex addiction, but for the vast majority, they don't get instant deliverance.
[00:25:49] They must outgrow porn by growing and developing in key areas of their life that address the roots of their addiction. And in this passage, the apostle Paul shows us how. And so if you want
[00:26:02] to take a deeper dive into this topic, I address it in my book, which we're selling out at the merch table. First third of the book, we look at the brutal impact of pornography on marriages,
[00:26:15] on a walk with God, on the brain. In the second two thirds of the book, we look at the six roots of a porn or sex addiction and how to find freedom. And we, in our program,
[00:26:27] our main program is a seven-month program that helps people find freedom. And we address each of these six roots of addiction. Because again, it's a growth model, man, helping people outgrow porn by growing in these key areas of life. And it's been incredible because those who finish
[00:26:47] the program, 86% find freedom when they finish the program and are committed to the process.
[00:26:52] hey this last slide is our last is going to be our last uh slide for the day and i'm going to pray for us but i want to encourage everybody here to take a next step we took select lessons
[00:27:07] from our seven month program and created a 30-day challenge and again this is on our app and website and it's free there's a qr code in the bulletin as well but i want to encourage everybody here to
[00:27:19] man, take the 30 day challenge. Now there's some of you here who will say, you know what, this isn't something I've ever struggled with. So this really isn't for me. But if we want to
[00:27:29] make disciples of the next generation, we all need to be equipped in this area. Whether we personally struggle or not, we all need to be equipped. And this is a great first step to be
[00:27:42] equipped in this area so that we can be a part of that 9% that we have something to say and lead people not just to freedom, but to fullness of life in Christ. And so I want to encourage you,
[00:27:54] man, sign up for the 30-day challenge, but also sign up for groups, because there's going to be groups, you know, women's groups, men's groups. You'll get a lot if you go through it on your own,
[00:28:04] but you get multiplied many times more when you go through it in a group. Hey, let me pray for us.
[00:28:13] Father, we do just praise you, first of all, that freedom is possible because of the cross.
[00:28:20] Lord, and we give you the praise.
[00:28:22] And Lord, we thank you for your word that you give us the pathway to walk in the fullness of that freedom.
[00:28:28] You give us the pathway to walk in the fullness of who we are in Christ.
[00:28:32] And I just pray you'd lay on each person's heart here, Lord, their next step in doing that.
[00:28:38] And we pray all this in Jesus' name.
[00:28:39] Amen.