36 - The Responsibility of Freedom

It's so important to look outside yourself. It's so important to take full responsibility of the freedom given at such a high price. There's one key to finally breaking free of a pornography habit or addiction. 

Email me at mike@menrestored.com if you'd like more information about my 90-day Exodus Freedom Journey pathway and cohort. It's built for men in ministry, just like you and also the Christ-follower still feeling enslaved by pornography. 

Together, let's reclaim your freedom! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone, I'm not sure if you're a man in ministry, but I want to invite you, if you are, and this is a problem for you, pornography. I want to invite you to this cohort that I have. It's safe and it's confidential, and you need that. You need a place to go to talk about this and to get some deep learning and brotherhood to fight together with other men. That's what I want to offer to you. Stay tuned at the end of the episode to find out how to be in touch with me so that you can learn more about this cohort. I don't want you to have to ever live in isolation like I was living for so many years as a young pastor. I want you to know that you don't have to be alone in this anymore. So I'll see you on the other side. Listen in and let's get into the episode. You are a man seeking freedom from pornography. You know what's at stake if you don't break free. Your marriage, your family, and your faith. Welcome to the Exodus Freedom Journey Podcast. Here you'll discover insights and tools to help you find lasting freedom. Starting in as little as 40 days, you are worth the fight. Your marriage is worth the fight. Your family is worth the fight. Together with God's mighty hand, let's reclaim your freedom. Okay, welcome to episode 36. We are almost there to finishing up this limited podcast series. It's going to have a total of 40, I think. I don't know if I'll add any more or not. Let me start by asking you a question. What if I could tell you there is a simple key for you to get out of this uh habit, this addiction? Okay? It's a simple key to help you. Now, this um episode, this lesson is about the responsibility of freedom. What do you think that responsibility is? Well, you're gonna have to find out when you listen. But that responsibility, well, I'll tell you a little bit, it includes making sure you're looking outward. It's making sure you're not just being the consumer all the time, because that is part of the problem of all this, is that the consumer mentality, the consumer mindset, and the consumer lifestyle, it perpetuates this problem or pornography, I should say. It just cycles on each other, right? They they have this horrible symbiotic relationship. I'm a consumer, I always need something, I always want something, and you know, pornography, you know, it it feeds that, and vice versa. So I'm gonna just tell you that there is a simple solution that you'll get in this particular episode about um how to live into this responsibility of freedom. So I hope you enjoy it. We're getting close to the end here, and these sessions I hope have been helping you. I'll see you on the other side. Welcome to session six here in this last module. I am so excited to be winding this down. I have a lot I want to say though, and I hope I can get it all said before the end of this module. With this particular session, though, I had trouble with the title. It's a longer title that I'd like to have, but the actual title is The Responsibility of Freedom. But the other side of the title that I wanted to keep, but I will just speak it here is The Irresponsibility of Slavery. The irresponsibility of slavery. So when you have freedom, you do have responsibility. Owning your story brings a sense of responsibility. It has to. And I've made a case to you, I hope, from the Bible, that you are redeemed, you have freedom, and you now have a responsibility to own that story to bring to the world. So I'm gonna go through these next number of sessions talking more about why this is important. Why is freedom in the responsibility of keeping your freedom intact? How is that so important? Why is that so important? So we're gonna go with that. It's just so important that you get that having your freedom is having responsibility. Having freedom means that you are responsible for keeping yourself free. But also, I want you to get this. You're gonna have to be responsible for someone else's freedom. Not in the sense that you choose for them. You can't do that. No one could choose that for you. No one chose it for me. I had to choose it for myself. And talking about in the sense, and we're gonna get there at the end of this session, as to why that is an obligation that we must have in our hearts and live out daily in our lives, that our story has that kind of power and has that kind of influence into at least one other man's life. I hope many more. So we're gonna spend and keep some time here in Galatians 5. I'm not gonna read the entire chapter, but Galatians 5 is a great place to contrast freedom and slavery. Slavery and freedom. There is an echo, it's not a direct quote from or a direct story connection to the Exodus freedom. However, uh, there is always a connection with slavery to that story. So, Paul in chapter 4 of Galatians connects the slave woman Hagar with the not slave woman, the wife of Abraham, Sarah. So there's a contrast between the slave woman. This is obviously long before the Exodus actually happens. So, however, I want to focus in on, and this is a beautiful verse for us to look at, Galatians 5, chapter 1. So look at Galatians 5, 1 with me. Galatians 5, 1 says, For freedom Christ set us free. Stand firm then and don't submit again to a yoke of slavery. I want to break this down for just a minute or two and talk about this verse. For freedom Christ set us free. That is a past tense statement. Remember, Revelation 12, 11, they overcame by the blood of the Lamb. That's an implication directly to the shed blood of Christ on the cross of Calvary. Christ set us free past tense. We are already free in Jesus. I cannot emphasize that enough. Our freedom doesn't originate with us. It's already been established at the cross. I can't tell you how much that should empower you to know that your freedom already has the fuel to cause your own freedom as you choose it. You are getting in this flow of the river of life, if you will, that is nothing but freedom in Jesus. We're going to talk more about what that means, though, and this is why I've entitled this The Responsibility of Freedom. Okay, so, but just get that right now in Galatians 5.1. Freedom happened at the cross. He set us free at the cross. Now the second part of that verse is, and don't be burdened down with the yoke of slavery. Did you catch in that last half of the verse? It's not even that subtle, but did you catch what it says? Don't choose that burden of slavery. Don't choose that yoke. A yoke is a burden. It's a wonderful reference, also, if you'd like, to when Jesus says, Take my yoke upon you in Matthew 11, 28. Come find rest in me. And Jesus is talking about that before the cross. But anyway, this is not that. This is a yoke of slavery, is what he's talking about. Try to get that picture here. There is a yoke, it is a device that burdens someone to something, or two people together, or somehow there is a burden that you cannot take away. It's putting two things together. It means that there is something keeping you from moving where you'd want to go. It's a yoke, it's a burden, it's a limitation. It's slavery. Okay? So the context here of Paul and what he's writing about in Galatians 5 is this slavery of what? Of legalism. People wanted to say, well, I get circumcised, therefore I'm going to be justified before God, among other things. That is a form of legalism. That's a form of trying to justify yourself before God, and you're never going to be done with that. Never going to be done with it because you'll always find something that you fell short of. And that's a form of slavery. So I'm going to take this idea of slavery, though, and use it and apply it to what we've been talking about here in this curriculum. I don't want you burdened with the slavery of a pornography, habit, or addiction. What Paul is talking about here, though, is this is a choice. That's what that second half of verse one is talking about. Don't be yoked to this slavery. Don't choose it. Don't choose this kind of slavery in Paul's case here in Galatians 4 and 5, this slavery of legalism. And I'm telling you right now, though, don't take this burden, this slavery, a pornography, habit, or addiction. Now you might disagree with me here. I believe that a pornography habit or addiction is fully a choice. You make a series of choices to get to where you are right now or to where you have gotten already. You made a first choice, however many years or decades ago, to consume that first pornography. It felt good. You enjoyed it, you wanted it back, so therefore you choose it again. Now at some point, it doesn't feel like a choice, does it? And why is that the case? Because that path in your brain, that pathway in your brain, is so worn out. There's no resistance, it seems like, to choosing that path. It doesn't feel like a choice. I am here to tell you, it's always a choice. And part of my work is to help you see that so that that spiral, that cycle, you choose to get out of it. You choose to leave that spiral, that cycle. So you make the choice not to consume, but to step away. And part of what I also want to offer, of course, is that you're never having to do that alone anymore. As long as you're part of this curriculum, you've got at least me, and I hope many other brothers who are behind the scenes praying for you, and you're staying connected to other brothers near you that can help you with this. You should not have to do this alone. In fact, I don't think God wants us to try to get out of this alone. There needs to be connection. One definition I've heard of, it's not really a definition of addiction, but one way that I've heard it said is addiction is the opposite of connection. In other words, so much isolation happens. So much isolation happens with just about any addiction, but especially with pornography addiction in a habit. It almost always happens in isolation. It almost always happens where you're just perpetuating being on your own by yourself. And I hope you don't take that into the recovery part of this. You should not have to go into this recovery out of this alone. This getting out of this slavery should happen alone. Now, this is what he's talking about. This is a slavery of choice. Now, this is a slavery that um is not imposed but chosen. Now, I'm going to step further back and talk about this idea of universal slavery, right? So I've already been talking about it, in fact, that there's also this idea that there is a universal slavery, if you will, to various things in life. And our focus with this particular curriculum and program is that slavery of a pornography habit or addiction. At its most basic level, slavery means that you are limited, you are restricted, you can't go certain places. You're under some kind of servitude. You're performing a task that you would rather not be doing, that you're being compelled to do. Now, again, this is a chosen slavery. The Bible has various means of it. Paul is talking about a chosen slavery here, right? Now let's think back to this whole thing, the Exodus freedom journey. We are talking about a slavery that was imposed upon the children of Israel over time. After Jacob and his descendants got settled there in Egypt, and the next generation came along, it says in the scriptures that there was a Pharaoh who didn't know Joseph. And that's the beginning of now they were getting enslaved. They were being enslaved by the Egyptians who were afraid. They were afraid of the Israelites multiplying all over the place in that land of Goshen. And so they became afraid of those Israelites because there were so many of them. And I suppose any nation, when there's another nation growing within their boundaries, I'm not in any way justifying enslaving a whole nation, but at the same time, it's not out of the realm of possibility that you could be afraid of this group of people that are growing not just into the tens, but to the hundreds of thousands of people and potentially even millions of people, all within your own borders. That's not a small army. Then that enslavement got imposed upon them. That slavery was imposed on that second, third, fourth generation. So by the time we had the Exodus come along, it was not a slavery that they chose. Now, remember, we talked about this. But the time came. It was an imposed slavery, but they had to choose freedom. Now, the difference I'm talking about here is that the slavery we're talking about is a chosen slavery. It is still a chosen slavery, but you also must choose freedom. So everything that had to happen on that first Passover, they had to choose to participate in. They had to get that lamb, they had to put the blood on their doorpost, they had to make that meal, they had to be ready and dressed to what? To go. They still had to choose to go with the multitude out of Egypt toward the promised land. So all of that was a choice of freedom. Ultimately, of course, protecting their firstborn, because the notice was their firstborn was going to be killed if it didn't have blood on the doorpost of their homes. And so that story of coming out of slavery flavors the rest of the story of redemption. Remember, that's not at the beginning of the Bible, but it's near the beginning of the Bible, but it flavors the rest of Bible and redemption history. There's themes of it all throughout the rest of the nation of Israel and all the writings, all the way down to what we have here with the Apostle Paul, in fact, all the way through to the book of Revelation, when the redeemed will be singing what? The Song of Moses. Clear reference to the Passover, when that happened, the Exodus, when Miriam and Moses sang their songs of redemption. We will all join in that. So let's look at another verse before we go to our last verse for this session here today, and that is go to Leviticus 26, 13. It's one of my favorite verses. I know I've referenced it at least once throughout this curriculum, but it's one of my favorite verses when it comes to, I want to talk about this freedom that God gives us. It's a great description of it. So it's Leviticus 26, 13. I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be their slaves. This is the last part. This last part is the most beautiful part. I broke the bars of your yoke. It enabled you to live in freedom. In another version, I think it's the New Living Translation says, so that you could live with your heads held high. Literally, it's so you can walk erect. And so this translation that I just read from takes a little bit of liberty with the translation, walking in freedom. I love the idea of walking with my head held high, walking fully erect, standing straight, standing tall. That's what I want for you. Now we've talked about story, and we've talked about a story that has a beginning and it has an end when there's a resolution to that story. The question that I want to ask you, the question that you need to sit with is how will you know when you are free? How will you know? And that's different for everybody. Will you find freedom when you've gone, say, a thousand days without consuming any pornography? Will you be free when you know that your thoughts don't wander off into sexual thoughts or temptations or fantasies? Is freedom for you when those thoughts come, you decide I'm gonna step off and get off this spiral? Is that freedom for you? Is freedom for you when you are with your bride, when you are uh intimate with her and you're making love to her or whatever it might be, your thoughts are only on fur in your present moment. You're not thinking of anything else because you haven't been consuming pornography. The metric is different for everybody, but there's a clear metric here. I brought you out of the promised land. You're no longer slaves in Egypt. Now, remember though, this we're talking a little bit different though when it comes to slavery. I don't want you to live in this chosen slavery. The worst kind of slavery is slavery, and you don't know you're a slave. And up until now, maybe you did not know that. Maybe you've never used that language. As you think about your life, though, why would it be that you didn't know you were a slave? Because you're building your whole life around getting your next fix. You're building everything in your day-to-day living around how can I get alone with some more pornography? How can I get some pleasure out of this? How can I get away from those people who might be prying in? You know, you're building your life. That's slavery. You were completely enslaved and you maybe didn't even know it. However, the second worst part of slavery is you're a slave, but you chose it and you also knew it. So, but that's one level better than not knowing it, right? It's better to know that you're a slave now that you know you can do something about it. When Moses came along, commissioned by God, Moses and Aaron, actually, both of them, came along and said, You no longer need to be slaves. Egypt needs to be setting you free. Pharaoh needs to be setting us all free, and we're gonna go ask him. So everything built up, and if you just read all through the plagues and everything up to that last one, they left with so much drama, not just the drama of the Exodus out of the land of Egypt, but also crossing the Red Sea, that drama as well. They got to a place where they could do absolutely nothing for themselves except wait on God and watch his power. So they did everything possible to get to that point. What about you? Do everything possible to get to that point where only God can come through. Where if he doesn't come through, it's a just a big failure. And again, that's different for everybody. I feel like myself, I'm failing myself and God if I don't finish and get this curriculum done so that the world can have it. You know, it's it's a big deal for me right now. And it's taken me all these months to get here, but I'm working on it. And I've made the decision that this is going to be part of my legacy to leave behind. And I'm not asking you to do that. I'm not asking you to build a curriculum. If you did, that would be great. Because there are going to be always millions of these men out there, Christian married men who are stuck in this slavery. There need to be more of us out there doing this. And again, your story has power. I believe that fully. All right, one last verse before we finish this sentence back in Galatians 5. Go to Galatians 5, 13. This is so good. Now, we started towards the beginning of this at Revelation 12, 11. They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. So we're gonna end this whole thing and I'll return to this verse again at Galatians 5.13. For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters, only don't use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another in love. I cannot think of any better verse to send you off with out of this curriculum as we go through these last sessions, than this verse right here. You are called to be free. Paul is saying, don't abuse your freedom. This is why I titled this Your Freedom Has a Responsibility. Your story has a responsibility. You have to know that. You have to know that your accountability goes beyond just you not messing up. Your accountability is out there to that next guy counting on you to come to him saying, I'm free. Would you like to learn how I got free? Would you like to hear my story? Now, what's the motivation? How should you do this? What is the reason why this should be a big deal to you? Look at the end of the verse. But serve one another through love. So he's saying you have freedom. Now your freedom has a responsibility to it. Your story has a responsibility to it. You ought to serve others in love. And that is the whole cure for the problem of this whole selfish habit. Love. Unselfish giving love that serves. You must be willing to serve that guy out there. Just recently, as I was wrestling through parts of this curriculum, I was also in my quiet times for myself, I was meditating on Calvary and the cross. And there was A line in the book I was reading, The Desire of Ages, which I highly recommend. The line was about the love of God that brought him there. And there's a beautiful line in a song from one of my favorite artists, Michael Card, and it says, His love would have held him there. He didn't need nails, he didn't need spikes. His love held him on that cross. And his love had his heart broken, and that's why he died so quickly, because of that deep love for humans, that deep love for the people who don't know any better. It is an eternal love that compelled Jesus to that cross. And it needs to be that same love from him down to us that compels us to look beyond our own pride in the shame to owning our story, to telling others of our story. Okay? Remember that, please. It needs to come from a place of love, not out of a legalistic obligation, not because you need to grit your teeth. I would never tell you to do that. You have to do it by choice, but I believe it is love that compels you to do it. It's love that compels me to stand here and build this curriculum to see you. I hope to see you maybe one day on a video call that I will see your face. Praying for you, I've prayed for you long ahead of time, praying that God's love would go ahead of me to meet you, so that I can find you in love to serve you. And again, I want you to take that forward. I need you to take that to the next guy. That's what this verse is all about. So as we'll finish this session here, I just want you to remember your freedom is a choice. Your slavery has been a choice, but your freedom is the better choice. Take that freedom and live in it responsibly. Please spend more time meditating on these verses in Galatians 5.1 and 5.13, but also look back at that beautiful verse in Leviticus 26. Take the time to meditate on what God has done for you, perhaps what this curriculum has helped you get to, to this place of freedom, and just know that you have a responsibility when you gain your freedom to help somebody else gain theirs. God bless. All right. Did you get it? Did you find that key, that one simple key? I realized that uh it was towards the end of everything. Hopefully it wasn't that long. It's only 20 minutes. Um, but did you get that key? The key is to love. There it is in Galatians uh 5.13. The key is love. And so when we learn that love, when I learn that love and giving myself away, like Jesus did, you just you gotta study the life of Christ to find out more and more about what that life was like. And it's why I just love the Bible, the New Testament, where Jesus gives everything away. He gives everything away. There's absolutely nothing more that he could have given. He's our example. And then the rest of the teachings, the people that you find in the Gospels in the New Testament, they're doing virtually the same thing. There's a few exceptions, but they're pretty much everybody's doing the same thing to serve God, to love others. It's why the church grew. Because people had a testimony. People were able to say, this is what God is doing for me. So that's the part that I want you to get. The key is love. That's the responsibility that we have. Hope that lands home with you. Now, if you want to continue this and do this uh in brotherhood, in fellowship, in the safety of a group of other men, especially men in ministry, if that's you, let's talk. Email me, uh Mike at Menrestore.com, and let's have a conversation. We'll get on a video call or just a regular phone call, and we can talk. All right, I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you for listening to the Exodus Freedom Journey podcast. Together with God's mighty hand, let's reclaim your freedom.