Understanding Pornography

Before we begin our journey to overcome pornography, we’ve got to nail down what pornography is. Let's begin by recapping how pornography is defined and why it’s sinful.

In the ‘sermon on the mount’, Jesus re-defined sexual sin from mere physical interaction to issues of the heart.

Matthew 5:27-28
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

This teaching from Jesus enables us to put together a biblically informed definition of pornography. Simply, we can see that the action is ‘looking’, and ‘lustful intent’ is what makes this action sinful. Therefore, our consumption, through our eyes or ears of a woman or man, with the intention of lust, is committing adultery in the heart, and is therefore ‘pornea’ (sexual immorality).

In light of this our working definition for pornography is:

pornography; Any material which contains anything sexually explicit, created for the purpose of arousal, whether the medium be audio, reading, still images, videos or virtual reality.

(Write down some answers to the following questions in a journal or note on your device)

1: How does this definition compare with how you have functionally defined pornography up until now?

2: In light of our definition of pornography, what are some things that you may not have previously considered to be pornographic that need to be realigned with this definition? (eg; social media profiles, some movies/tv shows, youtube etc.)

3: Take some time to write down all the things you engage with that are pornographic. It could be dedicated pornography websites, certain tv shows or movies, Instagram, TikTok, some games, books or audio. Sift through everything in your life and ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind anything you might have left out.

Time to Clean House

After Jesus’ statement about lustful intent in Matthew 5, he makes a very bold statement:

Matthew 5:27–30
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

I believe, as do many others, that Jesus is using hyperbolic language here to make a point. Jesus wasn’t being masochistic, but rather is helping us to understand, and to PAY ATTENTION to the severity of sexual sin. He is teaching us that our attitude towards sin, specifically the sin of lust, should be that we deal very seriously with anything in our lives that leads us into temptation and the sin that can follow, even to the point of cutting out and tossing away anything that causes us to sin! In light of this we are going to do what Jesus has taught us to do - in response to struggles with lust and ‘pornea’, we are going to clean house, and cut off anything that causes us to sin.

Clean the house!

Firstly, go through your possessions and devices and delete or throw out any pornographic material you have and greatly limit your access to it where applicable. For a deep dive into how to do this watch the video on ‘bricking your phone’. Feel free to skip past the introduction and head to 2min50sec! This is also available as a podcast here if you’d like to listen to it later!

Boundaries

It’s time to draw a line in the sand. In addition to getting rid of all the pornographic material you have and limiting your access to it, it’s time to make some agreements with yourself about some wise boundaries that will help you not to fall into temptation as easily. It is important to note, however, that our boundaries are not all going to be the same, so in order to figure out what they need to be, let’s go through some more questions.

1: Boundaries around devices

What patterns do you see relating to what, when and where you are tempted on your devices?

This could be a combination of a device such as a laptop, smartphone or television (what), in the living room (where), after everyone else has gone to bed (when). For most people, pornography is being accessed in the bedroom, at night, on a personal device. A good example of a wise boundary for someone with this pattern might be to not allow devices in your bedroom anymore, getting an old fashioned alarm clock and charging your devices downstairs. What devices do you typically get tempted on and where are you usually tempted? Observe and write down any patterns and begin to form some boundaries and the connection points between these two things (ie: smartphone & bedroom, TV & nighttime.) What boundaries are you going to implement moving forward with your devices to help you not fall into temptation?

2: Boundaries around media

Another pattern of temptation may be that the pathway to pornography begins through social media or sexually explicit entertainment. If this is the case, it’s time to draw a boundary line. Going back to Jesus' statement in Matthew 5, If social media is causing you to sin, then delete it, it may not need to be forever, but certainly for a while. When I was going through this journey I deleted social media for about 12 months, and to this day many years later I still do not have social media on my phone. It really helps, trust me! Some of your favourite tv shows might need to go too.

What boundaries do you need to have with media in order to resist temptation?

After you’ve looked at the patterns of temptation and sin in your life and figured out some helpful boundaries, ask the Lord to show you any more boundaries you should have or areas to ‘clean house’, that you might have missed and see if He brings anything further to mind.

Accountability

Share your new boundaries and what you’ve done to clean house with your group or your accountability partner via message this week and ensure that you commit to remaining accountable to them when you cross your boundaries moving forward.

Accountability is such a powerful and helpful way to ensure you succeed in your journey to overcome sexual sin, or any sin for that matter. So take some time this week to find out what healthy, biblical accountability should look like through this video. This video is also available as a podcast which you can find here if you’d like to listen to it at another time.

It’s time for some hard questions…

In this week’s lesson Sam shared that the process of overcoming pornography in his own strength was similar to trying to hold a beach ball underwater, it’s exhausting and after some time, it inevitably pops back to the surface. Instead of trying so hard to keep it down and under control, what you need is to poke a hole in that beach ball and decompress it.

Your experience of this course will be just that, through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ we are going to poke a hole in the beach ball and see it slowly decompress as we get more and more transformed into the image of Jesus, have our minds renewed and healed by the power of the word of God through the Holy Spirit. However, before we see that beach ball popped, we need to let it go.

What does it mean to let the beach ball go? It looks like instead of holding down our issues and trying to simply ‘not sin’ we would relax and allow ourselves to face reality. This looks like taking a step back and facing the facts of our problem with ‘pornea’ (sexual immorality). So, the rest of this week’s lesson may be confronting, but that’s kind of the point. We are going to begin by asking ourselves the hard questions, and getting a better picture of how pornography is impacting our lives so that we can face reality, let the beach ball go and finally breathe.

We are going to look at 3 areas in which pornography will be primarily impacting our lives.

1: Ourselves

2: Our relationships with others

3: Our relationship with God.

In a moment have a think about the impact pornography is having in each of these three areas and write down everything that comes to mind. There are two reasons why it’s important to do this, one to break out of possible denial, and two, to give you hope. As you overcome pornography and allow the Lord to heal you, you will see God’s redemption in each of these areas, and it’s ok to get excited about this! In fact, it’s important!

As you think about each of the three questions, ask the Lord before you begin to write, “Lord, open my eyes to see how my sexual sin has impacted me in this area”

1: How has pornography or sexual sin impacted myself? (mental health, motivation, shame etc)

2: Where has pornography impacted my relationships with others? (broken trust, emotional pain etc)

3: Where has pornography impacted my relationship with God? (shame causing distance, lack of intimacy, consequences of sin etc)

Wrapping up…

Hopefully this lesson has led you to have a more realistic view of how pornography is impacting your life. Although it’s confronting to see so much that needs to be redeemed, it’s also encouraging to know that we have a redeemer!

Isaiah 44:22

“I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.”

For too long God’s people have been in the grip of pornography. God is, at this time especially, reaching out his hand to deliver people, you included, from its grip. It’s time to leave the bondage and to see redemption and deliverance in your own life, your relationships with other people and most importantly, your relationship with God. It’s time to get up, and join the procession of deliverance from pornography. It’s time to take the hand of God, that is outstretched toward you so that he can pull you out of captivity and into freedom by the power of the name of Jesus Christ. If you are ready to say yes to God and take his outstretched hand then let’s respond to Him in repentance. Repentance simply means to ‘turn around’ and to go in a different direction. It is time to turn from sexual sin, receiving God’s forgiveness and walk towards freedom in Jesus. If you are ready to do this then pray the following prayer sincerely from your heart to God.

God, I am sorry for sinning against you by engaging in sexual sin including lust and pornography. I am sorry that I have turned to pornography instead of you. Please forgive me God for both the sin of lust and of idolatry. I repent for my sin, I renounce my ways and I turn to you. I thank you that you have given me grace, through the empowering of your Holy Spirit to be obedient to you and worship you wholeheartedly and I pray that you would renew my heart with trust in you for all of my needs and a life of obedience to you motivated by love for Jesus.
In his precious name, Amen.

If you prayed this prayer and are ready to leave this place of bondage to pornography then, welcome to the Exodus and join the great procession!

This Week

Personal

Send a message to your group or accountability partner about how you went cleaning house and putting in place boundaries.
Spend time with the Lord each day, you can follow along with the daily devotional.

Spend time each day praying about what’s on your heart and what is coming up in this course
Spend time worshipping Jesus
Spend time reading and meditating on the word

If you are not in a group, have a think and pray about one person that you can ask to support you through the next nine weeks through prayer and accountability.
Watch the video or listen to the podcast on Boundaries (Podcast Linked Here)
Watch the video or listen to the podcast on Accountability (Podcast Linked Here)

Group

Have a discussion about new boundaries
Have a discussion about how pornography has been impacting your life and what change you want to see.
Discuss any questions that anyone might have to bring to the group
Pray for each other, minister to one another as the Holy Spirit leads you

Click through to access the first devotional for this week if you haven’t already done it.

Workbook: Coming Undone