Emily’s Sermon

Sermon

First, some background:

Working to be inconvenient:

Parents needed someone who was going to be less work (my siblings needed more attention than me

Being emotional support for them

Someone always had it worse than me, so why would I bring up what I was struggling with?

EXHAUSTING and ISOLATING

I need to take care of myself

Turned to porn when I was 13: “but at least this doesn’t hurt anyone. It doesn’t show, it’s not that big of a deal.”

Isolation combines with shame and becomes DEEP loneliness

I became so deeply insecure that I would constantly judge everyone around me to make myself feel better. I had nothing good to say about myself, so in order to “feel good” about myself everyone else had to be even worse.

I knew God COULD take care of me, but I didn’t know if He WOULD

I grew up with testimonies of people who had been saved from crippling drug addiction, gang members and ex-convicts whose lives had been completely turned around the moment they encountered Christ. I was a 14-year-old church girl who felt bad about herself. In my brain, I wasn’t worth the effort, and God should focus on the people who are actually struggling. There are people starving, dying, hurting, and I can’t even handle my own brain. Why would God help me?

Lack of trust meant no community, because I was terrified of people finding out about the “real me.” They say the real you is who you are when no one is watching, but I didn’t like who I was when I was by myself.

4 years later I had realized this, but I still couldn’t shake porn. I didn’t want to do it anymore; it made me feel gross and ashamed, but I just couldn’t get out of it. I thought that meant I wasn’t actually saved, or that I had done something too bad that God refused to get me out of this. Everyone else seemed to have these magical transformation stories, but I was just stuck.

God has saved you, don’t forget that. You struggle with sin, and always will, but you are not lost in it. You are being SANCTIFIED (the process of being freed from sin), but don’t forget your role. You bring the decision (EVERY DAY) and God brings the strength (bring in quote from Freedom Fight about the 2%)

So, You Wanna Quit Porn? Here’s some things you need to know:

1) It’s Gonna Take Time, and You are Going to Mess it Up

a. Addiction is incredibly complicated, and right now your brain is wired around the way that porn leads to the happy chemicals being released. Quitting porn means rewiring and restructuring your identity.

b. You need to have grace for yourself (1 John 1:9 – Jesus continually committed to remaining on the cross for you, and is continually committed to forgiving you)

c. It’s not just one emotional moment. It is a lifetime of committing

e. Hitting 6 months the first time, buying the ring, and then messing it up– the fact that you messed up doesn’t mean that hope is lost, or that you don’t want to quit anymore. Shake it off and keep going; you’re not the first person to do that

f. Romans 7:18-20 – “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

EVEN PAUL STRUGGLED WITH COMMITTING SINS HE DIDN’T WANT TO

g. Keep your helmet of salvation on: you are still saved when you fall to temptation. You are still beloved when you fall to temptation. You are still a worthy child of the King when you fall to temptation.

2) Figure Out Your “Whys”

a. “Why do I do this?”

“Find the cause, treat the cause”

b. “Why do I want to stop?

YOU ARE MADE FOR MORE THAN THIS: FIND YOUR IDENTITY

John 10:10 – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and life abundantly.”

We don't all need to be nuns. It's important that we remember the God created sex and he made it for our good and his glory. We were built to enjoy it most when we use it the right way in marriage, and it is never too late to start waiting for that. What John 10:10 shows us the everything good that God has made, Satan trys to twist and destroy. Porn is one of the ways Satan destroys what God made

3) I Beg of You to Not Try and Do This Yourself

a. James 5:16 – “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

b. Accountability is so important. Porn wants you isolated, God wants you in community. Break the barriers down and tell someone. Let them show you how loved you are.

c. I was alone in my struggle with porn for 3 years before I told anyone. “Girls don’t do that.” I didn’t see any progress until I told someone about it.

You don’t need to tell everyone. For almost 5 months of me quitting the only people I told were my best friend and my youth pastor. And I was TERRIFIED to tell both of them (re-enact telling Eva). (Talk about Jordan too?). But now I had a reason. I had a person looking me in my eyes and asking me whether I watched porn that week. I didn't tell everyone; I didn't tell my parents for 6 months and I didn't tell my small group leader for a year (you can do that if you feel comfortable talking to them, I promise they will still love and care for you and support you. But you don't NEED to)

The fear of talking about it is a real fear; I’m not here to dismiss it. But I promise you right now that your friends will not hate you for what you struggle with. I promise you right now that talking about it will make it better.

4) Pick Your Step One and Take it

a. When I first quit, going the rest of my life without porn seemed genuinely impossible. So I didn’t think of it like that. How do I do this week? (CF INSIGHT: “better than yesterday”)

Maybe it’s talking to someone about it

Not bringing your phone into your bedroom or the bathroom

Some weeks, I left my headphones in my locker at school so that I wouldn’t have them at home

“Phone sleeps downstairs.”

Whatever is going to help you, do that. I can’t prescribe the perfect thing that’s going to make you better. That’s not how this works. You need to want it enough that you take your steps. No one can quit for you

5) You Are Allowed to Celebrate Your Wins

a. It feels weird to celebrate spending a week, or two weeks, or a month doing something that you never should’ve done in the first place.

b. But you are celebrating living in the victory that Jesus died for and that is an INCREDIBLE gift.

Tie to the prodigal son (he was ready to grovel and be a slave in his father's house. But the father was just so excited to have his son home that he threw a feast and celebrated it. “And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.”

Recovery takes a long time, but it takes a lot longer if you don’t start. Keep moving forward and celebrate the steps you've taken

c. Cupcakes. Next week, you could be celebrating one week porn free, one week of getting back to the identity that you are meant to live in.

I can’t point to one moment where everything changed, and I used to think that meant I wasn’t a Christian. But somewhere down the line, that voice stopped winning. You put the work in every day to grow closer to God, to lean into Him, to trust Him with a little more every day. And one day, I woke up and realized I don’t question whether I’m saved anymore. And 2024 is set to be the first year porn will not touch since this whole mess started. Victory is possible for you, I promise. God can and God will help you.