Self-Control for the Addicted

Porch, how are we doing tonight? Are we doing okay? Hey, it's great to see you. Thanks so much for being here. It has been an amazing evening already. I just have this sense in my gut, like, the core of my being, that God really wants to do something here in the room tonight. We're not just here to play Christian games. We want to meet with the living God. We believe he has spoken through his Word. So, I am so excited that you're here, truly.

And I'm so excited that you're tuning in wherever it is you are, if you're tuning in online with us right now. We say this here, and you've probably heard me say it before if you've tuned in with us. We truly believe God can meet with anybody, anywhere, at any time, whenever he so chooses, and that includes you. So, thanks for being a part of what God is doing here at The Porch. We think he has something special in store for you.

Special shout-out to all of our Porch.Live locations. We love those guys who are out there across the nation, particularly Porch.Live Scottsdale in the wonderful state of Arizona (we love them); Porch.Live Boise, which is awesome (things are probably getting cold up north); and then Porch.Live Fresno. We love all of our Porch.Live locations. Would y'all give it up for them really fast?

Well, several weeks ago, I got to do something that I thought I never would. I got to copilot a private jet. Now, admittedly, copilot is probably a little bit of a strong word, because I know nothing about flying an airplane. Yet, for all intents and purposes, that's essentially what I was doing minus any of the actual control of the aircraft.

I was sitting in the cockpit of this plane, and I was experiencing everything that the pilot was himself. Like, I'm sitting right there, and the plane's steering wheel is coming up through my legs. I can hold on to that thing. There's this dash in front of me and all of these meters and lights and different kinds of readings that I cannot make any kind of sense of, yet they're all right there in front of me. I've got the headphones on, so I can hear everything air traffic control is saying to us. I look to my left, and there he is, the pilot himself.

Like, this thing was awesome. I'd never experienced anything like it. The reason it was so great wasn't because I'd never been on a plane before. I'd been on a plane before. I've ridden on the big commercial airplanes. My granddad flew a little prop plane, so I'd been in that sort of situation before, but I'd never been in the cockpit of a private jet. Being in that environment changed everything for me, because the views are a little bit different from up there. Like, I'm sitting there, and I'm not looking out the side-view mirror; I'm looking out the front windshield, and I'm seeing everything that's happening.

So, we're sitting there, and we pull out onto the runway. We line up, and we get clearance from air traffic control to go for it. So, next thing you know, we're like a bullet, racing down this runway, and the lines in front of us are speeding by. This jet is accelerating so fast. It was the coolest experience. The next thing you know, he gently lifts us off the ground. It was the moment I'd been waiting for.

As we do, rain begins to pelt our windshield, because it was sort of a dreary day. The next thing you know, we get up into the clouds, and it's kind of a disorienting experience, because we're in these clouds, and we can't see anything. All we could see was the rain on the front windshield until we broke through the clouds and reached our cruising altitude. As we went from a pitched ascent to a flattened cruising altitude, we found ourselves facing the most beautiful of settings. I mean, this was the closest to heaven I'd ever seen before.

I am looking at white clouds beneath us, billowing across like bubble wrap, and then, as I'm looking around, I can see over to my right this massive storm cell and lightning cracking within it. Then, as I look over to my left, I can see blue where there was no blue before. This was the most amazing kind of scene. As I'm sitting there taking it all in, I start to pepper the pilot with my personal list of 20 questions, because this is the closest thing to flying I'm ever going to get, so I have a bunch of things I want to figure out.

As he was answering all of them, he said something that really stuck with me, so much so that I wrote it down in my notes, because I wanted to make sure I could share it with you. He said, "From the ground, it feels like the weather is always changing, but from up here, we know the sun is always shining." As he said that at 30,000 feet, I thought of you, Porch. You were on my mind as I flew in the cockpit of this plane, because I thought that's not just true to pilots; that's true to you and me.

For many of you here, it feels like the weather in your world is always changing. One minute, the weather might be beautiful. The next thing you know, it feels like a storm is shaking your reality, and then you're slipping into this sort of apathetic, moody, gray weather sort of situation. Yet, though the weather may always feel like it's changing in your world, you can be confident that the sun is still shining.

It all depends on your perspective, however. That's how you're able to discern the difference. Like that pilot, you have to get up to an altitude where you can see things as they actually are. You have to get up to God's altitude. You have to see from his perspective. As you do, you're able to make sense of whatever you're truly feeling in life.

That's what we've been trying to do in this series. If you're here for the very first time, we've been journeying through a series called 20/20, where we're trying to put your mental health into perspective. The way we've been doing it is through the book of Psalms. The reason we've been in the book of Psalms is the book of Psalms reads kind of like your personal diary. Not that you have a personal diary, but maybe you have a personal diary. It reads like that, though.

It's full of raw emotion, brutal honesty, impassioned pleas. That's the way the Psalms read out. It's like your diary in the sense that it is 100 percent full of emotion. Yet Psalms is unlike your diary in that it is also 100 percent full of truth. That's why it's the perfect place to process a proper perspective when it comes to our mental and emotional health. We can feel all of our feelings, yet we can bring those things, as the psalmists do, to God's truth, and he can speak into them, inform them, and ultimately shape the way we walk through this world.

So, what we're doing over the course of this series is framing it around the top five mental health challenges most common amongst Americans today. The first week was all about depression. The second week was all about anxiety. Tonight, we're going to be talking about addiction and indulgence. To unpack it, we're going to be looking at Psalm 141.

Let me just say this, because it's important to be said week after week. We know our depth up here. I'm not a doctor. There's no part of me that is trying to diagnose what you're dealing with. I feel very comfortable and confident to speak from the Scripture into a variety of situational sorts of circumstances, yet many of you here may find yourself beyond the bounds of a situational type of mental health challenge. You might be facing something clinical instead.

It that's you, I want you to know the truth of God's Word will be vital for your healing, but that doesn't mean it's mutually exclusive to the treatment plan or recommendations made by your doctor. The Scripture and your prescription can work in partnership together. They can be a part of your healing journey.

I also want to say that if you're here tonight and you would consider yourself an addict… Maybe you've been diagnosed as such or maybe you're self-diagnosed as such. I just want you to hear that nowhere in this message are you going to hear me say, "You just need to stop that," because that would imply that you have the strength to overcome your addiction all on your own. The truth is many addicts do not have the strength to do that. Instead, they need to rely on the strength of others.

So, I want to stand before you right now, and if that's you, I just want to plead with you. Would you let us be strong for you? Would you give us the permission to jump into whatever it is you're dealing with by visiting with us at the end of the night? You don't have to necessarily come down front. You can find anybody in a black shirt and lanyard and just grab them by the hand, and they'll know, "Okay. That means I probably need to visit with you in private, pull you over, and introduce you to someone on staff." We're really serious about helping you make good strides when it comes to the topic of your addiction.

Now, with all of that said, how do we get a proper perspective on addiction, on indulgence? First and foremost, we have to understand the problem of it. That's where we've begun all of these talks. That's where we're beginning tonight. We need to understand that addiction is a bigger deal and danger than most of us realize.

If you've been tracking the headlines, you may already know this, but in case you haven't, we are, according to many researchers, facing what they're calling an addiction crisis. According to Shatterproof, one of the leading nonprofit organizations that's committed to ending addiction in our country… Hear this. Nearly 49 million Americans… I repeat. Nearly 49 million Americans, ages 12 or older, had a substance use addiction in the past year.

Meaning, they rely on things like alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine, and opioids. They rely on all manner of different substances to provide them the kind of comfort they cannot find elsewhere. To put that into perspective for you (because 49 million may feel a little bit ethereal), that means nearly one in six people are living in substance dependence today, making it likely that you and I will encounter someone who either has or will have some sort of substance use disorder in their life.

Now, you may be sitting here and thinking to yourself, "But, Kylen, I don't struggle with that, so this doesn't feel relevant to me at all." Well, before you tune me out, that's only half of what we're discussing tonight. What you also need to know is that while there is substance use addiction, there's also something else called behavioral addiction. Track with me here, because this one is far more prevalent.

Behavioral addiction is like substance addiction except it's not being addicted to drugs or alcohol; instead, the individual is addicted to a particular behavior and the feelings that are evoked from that behavior that lead them to a place where they lack self-control. So, see if you identify, potentially. Behavioral addiction can include things like social media, pornography, cell phone use, video gaming, workaholism, food, compulsive shopping, exercise (Who would have thought?), self-harm, and gambling. All of these things can be damaging to your mental health.

Now, why do I share all that with you? Some of you are sitting here like, "Dude, just get into Psalm 141." We're going to. Just bear with me. It's important for us to understand this warning that none of us are as safe as we think we are when it comes to the topic of addiction. Do you think anybody ever intends to enslave themselves to some sort of indulgence? No! Of course they don't. Nobody is ever intending… "You know what? I think I'll be an alcoholic. That sounds like a nice way of living." Nobody is intending to do that.

We laugh, yet the reality is this thing comes for all of us in a way where it doesn't just suddenly show up; instead, it gradually creeps in. It's like the free app on your phone that you download because, "Ah, that thing is harmless," yet it's draining your battery, stealing your data, and waking you up at 2:00 in the morning. Like, that's what's happening. It has crept into your life under the premise it is harmless, yet it has actually come to disrupt everything about your reality.

So, we have to know what to do with it. Like, how do we actually move away from it? We're going to get to that, but what we have to understand first and foremost (and David actually shares this with us) is that addiction takes root because it appeals to your reward system. A really simple way of understanding that is it feels good to be bad. That's what happens.

Think of it like this. Not everyone who drinks, doom scrolls, or watches pornography does it because they want to be an addicted individual. No. They do it because they're trying to reduce stress, loneliness, and discomfort. A lot of people who work in high-stress, fast-paced corporate environments will find themselves using things like alcohol, prescription medication, and stimulants because they ultimately know what it takes to keep up in that environment. They're not doing it because, "Well, that's going to make mom proud." Instead, they're doing it because that's the price they have to pay to be productive.

Any procrastinators in the room? Why are you a procrastinator? Is it just because you want everybody to be waiting on you? No. Is it because you love to watch the world burn? (Some of you.) Really, the reason so many of you are procrastinators is because you're a perfectionist. You're trying to reduce the anxiety and frustrations you feel about completing a task that is less than the standard you want to achieve. Do you see how it works? It feels good, leaves you rewarded, to do bad. We see David wrestling with that very reality in Psalm 141.

Now, as we set this passage up, you need to know the context of it is debated. We don't necessarily know for certain what the situation around David is. Yet, as we read through it, you can sort of pick out some context clues to help you guess where he may be and what may be happening. Scholars land in one of two places. They either think he is being pursued by King Saul in his youth or King Absalom following his kingship.

Neither one of them really matter, ultimately, because what we can understand is they are both marked by a similar set of circumstances. The guy is being hunted down. Tough day at the office. Right? He's being hunted down. He's being pursued by attackers. His life is on the line. In the middle of that entire situation, he says in verse 3, "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity, and let me not eat of their delicacies!"

Do you hear the struggle in his voice? David is saying, "I want to sin! I want to get back. I want to dish back whatever has been dished out to me. I want to give them a dose of their own medicine. They're trying to pursue me and take me out. I want to pursue them and take them out, God. That's what I want to do. I'm praying to you because I actually want to sin. So, God, what I'm asking is that you would guard me from myself." That's what he's articulating here.

The problem with his indulgence is he wants to retaliate. He wants to indulge an evil desire against those who have been evil against him. The way he says, "God, would you guard me?" is threefold. He asks God, "Would you guard my mouth, would you guard my heart, and would you guard my desire?" Why is it threefold? Because that's the way it works. Remember? Indulgence creeps in. It doesn't just show up; it gradually takes hold.

It often begins with our words. He says, "…keep watch over the door of my lips!" Why does he start there? "Watch over my mouth, God." Because when we say out loud what we feel inside, it's giving our feelings an opportunity to become legitimized to the point that we identify with them. I'll give you an example of this.

I thought it was fascinating a year ago during the Paris Olympics. Olympians were regularly asked by reporters, "Are you nervous?" and they would regularly reply, "No. I'm excited." Which is fascinating…why? Because both nervousness and excitement are similar in terms of the physical sensations they produce. It gives you clammy hands, a sweaty brow, and a racing heart. That's ultimately what nervousness and excitement both do.

What these Olympians are saying is they want to positively identify with that emotion as opposed to negatively identify with that emotion. They're not willing to subscribe to the way the reporter is saying it. Instead, they want to reframe it so they identify with it. They know, "What I say is what I'm going to become. I don't want to be nervous; I want to be excited." Make sense? That's why you have to start with your words.

David is saying something similar to what we see in the book of James. We're not going to read the specific passage. You can go look at it. It's James 3:3-5. We learn that the power of the tongue is extreme. It's like a bit in the mouth of a horse. It's like a rudder on the tail of a ship. It's like a fire that can set the whole forest ablaze. It has great power to change the whole of something. So, too, does your mouth have that kind of power.

He doesn't stop there. It doesn't just affect your words; it affects your deeds. He says, "Do not let my heart incline to any evil…" In the West, when we read the word heart, we think Valentine's Day and the things we feel, butterflies inside, and love for other people. You know, we think it's all about emotion. The heart in the ancient Near Eastern mind was not about emotion as much as it was about action. It's the seat of the will, which is basically the place from which you make decisions in life.

So, David is like, "Hey, I don't just feel temptation to slander my enemies, to use my mouth to tear them down; I also feel the urge to retaliate against them, to take swift action, to dish back what they've dished to me." But he doesn't stop there. It begins with his words, it moves to his deeds, and then it creeps into his desire. He says, "…let me not eat of their delicacies!"

It's a really important part of the verse, because it tells us something important about the way sin works. Sin doesn't just want you to do evil; sin wants you to delight in evil. It wants you to love it. That's why it feels good to do something bad. Remember? Ultimately, it wants to appeal to your pleasure. It's a delicacy. It's a delight to the taste. That is really important, because it teaches us something we need to understand about indulgence or temptation or addiction.

Ultimately, we need to know it's rarely about the substance. Instead, it's about what the substance represents. What I mean by that is David was not just intent to take these guys out. He was willing to do that if it afforded him peace from his anxiety, freedom from their pursuit, and hope of a brand-new future. See how that works? He's not just focused on the substance; he's focused on what the substance represents. That's the way it works for everybody.

Whether it's behavioral or it is substance…pornography, excessive shopping, eating disorders, opioid addiction…it doesn't matter. Across the range of it all, it's never about the substance; it's about what the substance represents. "Oh, that gives me relief. That provides me comfort. I feel a sense of belonging whenever I do that. I get freedom whenever I find myself participating in that activity. I get validation. I matter whenever I do that." See how it works?

What if I told you you could find all of that and more without the substance? What if I told you there was a way to feel good by doing good? What if I told you there was a way to change your perspective altogether? Well, that's what the rest of Psalm 141 is all about, and that's what we're going to talk about, because if your problem is indulgence, your perspective can be self-control, just like David says. To show you how that happens, I'm going to give you four ways to control your cravings moving forward.

Let me be very clear. This is for the addict in the room, but this is for all of us in the room, because it never begins at addiction; it starts at temptation, and we have to deal with that. So here we go. Verse 1, starting at the beginning of the passage: "O Lord, I call upon you; hasten to me! Give ear to my voice when I call to you! Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!"

1. Pray before you do anything else. That probably feels classically Christian to you. You're like, "'You should pray first.' What a typical recommendation from the pastor." Just bear with me for a minute, because I understand. You're probably sitting there, thinking, "Okay. I'll write this one down, but I'm really interested in whatever he's going to say next." But this one matters because it sets up everything from here.

It's not just that he's praying. Yes, you need to know what he's doing, but you need to know how he's doing it. How does he do it? If you read it, it says he hastens. He offers like incense. He calls. He lifts his hands. Do you see that? There's an earnestness, a seriousness, an urgency, an intensity to the way he's praying. He is looking at his situation, and he's not thinking to himself, "This is the first step in the Christian formula for self-control." No. He's not doing that. He's looking at it, and he is making a 911 call to heaven.

He is dialing up God, and he is saying, "I need help! I am facing something that is ultimately alluring to me and alluring of me something I don't want to do. God, I'm being chased down, and I'm tired of it. I want to indulge the evil desire I have. I want to give in to the negative attitude I'm feeling. God, I need you to help me." He knows the temptation he's facing is so strong, so he prays, because God is stronger. That's why you pray. You realize, "I'm not strong enough. God is instead." That's where he starts. He starts by coming to God.

So, let me ask you. When you face temptation, where do you turn first? Like, whenever you sense yourself tempted with sexual desire, do you turn to God first or do you turn to your Explore page and just start scrolling, because, "Well, that's not porn," when in reality, it's just a slippery slope. It's going to move you right into that which you want to avoid.

Whenever you feel in yourself a temptation to just numb out, do you turn first to God or do you turn to some kind of mindless entertainment…scrolling, shopping, eating, gaming, or whatever it may be? Maybe it's not that. Whenever you're tempted by insecurity, do you turn first to God or do you turn to "How much money am I actually making?" or "What kind of body am I actually building?" or "How many followers am I accumulating?"

What is it for you? It could be any manner of things. Those are just three examples. There are so many more examples I could give. The point remains, nevertheless. If you're turning to some other place than God, you are turning to the wrong place. I want to love you enough to just say that. There's no other place where you will find the strength to overcome your temptation than if you turn first and foremost to God.

"How do I know that?" Because that's what Jesus said. He taught this to his own disciples in that moment of greatest temptation in the garden of Gethsemane. He looked at Peter, James, and John and said this in Matthew 26:41: "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Doesn't that resonate with so many of you? That resonates with me. "Watch and pray." Why? The spirit is willing. Like, "I don't want to sin, God." But the flesh is weak. You don't have the strength to make it through this temptation, but if you seek God, therein you'll find the strength you need for your deliverance. That's the first thing you have to know, but you have to come to him.

What if you prayed as hard before the sin as you pray after the sin? What would that look like? What would it look like for you to labor in prayer before as opposed to seek forgiveness following? I bet that would look radically different for so many of us. Listen. I get it. Some of you are sitting here like, "Tried that. It doesn't work." Listen. I've tried that. It didn't work. Do you want to know why it didn't work? Because I put up a haphazard prayer. It wasn't that God didn't show up after I prayed; I didn't show up when I prayed.

I was like, "God, this is going to be a tempting moment. Would you please meet me in it? Please deliver me, Lord. I love you." It made no difference, because I wasn't really looking for a difference. I wasn't really seeking God. What would it look like for you to pray with the kind of earnestness and seriousness that David did? I'm not saying prayer is easy, but what I am saying is sometimes you have to pray until you pray. That's an old Puritan expression, and I think it is so true to so many of us.

What does prayer do? It's not getting God on board with your agenda; it's you getting on board with God's agenda. So, sometimes, if your heart feels cold, you just need to start praying to him. You need to go into the closet, hit your knees, and start lifting up words, and you need to trust the fact that they're not just rebounding off the ceiling; they are somehow, by God's grace, making their way all the way to heaven's throne. That's what's happening in that moment. It's supernatural. It's the most supernatural of spiritual disciplines.

What would it look like? Do you feel like you have no power in the face of your sin? Do you want to know where powerlessness comes from? It comes from prayerlessness. So you pray. You pray before you do anything else. You have to come to him. That's the first thing. Let's keep going. We're going to go back to verse 3. He says, "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity, and let me not eat of their delicacies!"

2. Don't justify bad decisions. We already looked at these verses. David is literally saying in this moment, "I want to sin." Yet the amazing thing is, in the face of his desire, he does not make up any justification. He doesn't look at God and be like, "O God, do you remember that guy Goliath? Yeah, I was there for that one. No one else was willing to do it, but I stepped up, and I did it. You owe me this, God."

He doesn't come up with that kind of excuse. He doesn't look at God and say, "Uh, did you forget? You were the one who anointed me. I didn't ask for this, but you chose me to be the king of Israel. Now I'm out here in the wilderness. I'm running for my life. What's it going to look like for you to help me out for once?" He doesn't come up with all of these justifications and excuses. I love that he doesn't.

I'm also convicted by the reality that we do this all the time. We do come up with justifications for our sin. We give ourselves way too much credit. We'll say things like, "Well, I deserve this, God. Do you know how hard I've been working, how fast I've been going? Everybody needs something from me. What about what I need, God? I need a break. I need a breath. I need to catch an hour all to myself, God. I need this. I deserve this. I've earned this. I've worked hard for this, God. I deserve whatever it is I'm craving."

Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's "But this is only going to happen once. It's just one drink." "But, God, my birthday only comes around one time a year. I've been saving up. It's time to spend a little bit on myself." "God, my friends and I haven't gotten together in forever, and this is the one time we're all going to get together, so just this once, I'm going to bend the rules a little bit. I might make some compromising decisions. Who knows? We might get a little crazy."

Maybe it's not that. Maybe instead it's "Well, who's it going to hurt? Like, who's it going to hurt for me to stay up all night watching TV? No one is staying up and being impacted by that but me." Or "Who's it going to hurt if I make sexual advances via some sort of dating app? I don't know them. They don't know me. And who knows? Maybe I'll hit one and it'll go well." Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's your body. "God, I'm not hurting anybody when I hurt myself, so why does it matter if I do this if it only impacts me?"

Maybe it's not that. Maybe your excuse is "It's just not that big of a deal." Christians love this one. "I'm not drunk; I'm just a little tipsy." Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's "God, I'm staying sexually pure, but part of the way I pursue my personal purity is I've got to masturbate. How else am I going to get a sexual outlet, God? I can't be single forever. If you're going to call me to be single and you're not going to give me anybody to marry, then I guess this is the only way I'm going to be able to process these sorts of emotions."

Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's "God, I'm not hurting my witness. It's not that big of a deal. I'm not hurting my witness if everybody around me is saved." Oh my gosh. We justify our sin, our indulgences, and our addiction all the time, simply because it feels good to do bad things. Do you know what God has to say about that? He says in Galatians 6, "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life."

That passage is saying you cultivate whatever you tolerate. Whatever sin you're tolerating, that is the sin you're cultivating. So, what are you tolerating? Maybe it seems harmless right now, but I guarantee you it will not be harmless later on. I remember talking to a friend of mine. It was right after I made the switch from college ministry into young adult ministry. He said something that really stuck with me. It resonates to this day.

He was like, "Dude, young adult ministry is awesome. You're going to love it. It's amazing. But there's something you need to be aware of. In college ministry, you see the seeds of sin, but in young adult ministry, you see the fruit of sin." Why is that? Because if sin goes untamed, sin runs wild. It must be addressed, which is why I am pleading with you tonight to do something about it.

I am begging you. Don't just justify the struggle; mortify the struggle. Put it to death. Put it down. Nothing likes to die in this life. Your sin doesn't either. Yet I'm praying you would do something about it. Gosh, I'm praying you would do something about it. I'm running out of time, but I feel the need to keep pushing into you to not just indulge a bunch of religious activity but to literally lean into the spiritual reality that you have an enemy.

He doesn't want you to do well. He doesn't want you to experience life. He doesn't want you to find joy, so he will bait you, lure you, and take you into other places, promising you you'll find it there, when in reality, he knows it's not over there at all. Do something about it. Confess your sin. Get some friends. Wage war. Strengthen your weak knees. Go to battle against that which is going to battle against you, because you're already promised the victory.

You already know death is defeated. Why then would you fear? Go to work. Kill that which is seeking to kill you. You don't have to do it alone. David tells us that you get to do it alongside friends, which is where he goes in verse 5. He says, "Let a righteous man strike me-it is a kindness; let him rebuke me-it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it."

3. Find friends who will correct you. He tells us two really important things about combating our cravings in this passage. He tells us, first, you have to find righteous friends, and secondly, they need to interact with you in a righteous sort of way. When he says they need to be righteous, what does that mean? Righteousness in the Bible is equivalent to godliness, which we talk about a lot today.

So, it isn't just someone who claims to know God; it's someone who is seeking to become like him, who doesn't just say they've been saved by Jesus but is seeking to become like him. That's what you're looking for. You're looking for someone who is serious about pursuing holiness. Why do you want to find that, someone who wants to be separate from their sin? Because if they're so serious about being separate from their sin, they're probably going to be helpful to helping you separate yourself from your own.

When I showed up to Dallas, I did not have a barber. I desperately needed to find someone to cut my hair. So, what did I do? I looked across all the land for the best head of hair I could find, and when I found it, I asked that gentleman, "Where do you get your hair cut?" He told me where he got his hair cut, and that's now where I get my hair cut to this day. Why did I do that? Because there were signs of credibility in his life. Thus, I gave him dignity to speak into mine. Does it make sense how that works?

We do this in every area of life. If you want to get fit, you look to someone who's fit. If you want to get healthy, you look to someone who's healthy. If you want to get smart, you look to someone who's smart. This is the way we learn in life. If you want to combat your sin, you're going to need people who are serious about doing that themselves.

He also tells us how we should interact. He tells us we should interact in a way that's characterized by two different words. First, he says they should strike him, which is a little off-putting. Can we just admit that? I don't know that I necessarily want a friend to strike me…until you understand what the Hebrew means. The Hebrew tells us it's the idea of someone speaking with decisive impact. It would be the idea of when they speak, it's like they swing the hammer and, thus, they deal the blow.

That's what you want. You want someone that when they speak, it makes a material difference in your life. That's not the only thing, though. He says he wants someone who will rebuke him. Meaning, someone who will gently admonish him or correct him. You want someone who can do both of these things. You want people in your life who love you enough to tell you the things you need to hear, not the things you want to hear.

The Bible authenticates this kind of friendship. Here are a few verses just so you can take my word for it. Proverbs 27:6: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy." Proverbs 28:23: "Whoever rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than he who flatters with his tongue."_ Jesus even said this in Revelation 3:19 at the end of all time: "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline…" Isn't it interesting that that's what he says there? "I reprove them. I discipline them. I love them." "…so be zealous and repent."

I know these types of friendships have been some of the greatest gifts in my life. Whenever I've been in seasons of particular hardship and thus struggle, my friends and I have come together, and we have literally written questions we want the others to ask us. Why do we do that? Because nobody knows me better than me (minus my wife). I know myself really well. I know where I go whenever I'm tempted. I know what I do whenever I'm bored. I know what my inclination is when I'm tired. I know myself.

So, rather than someone trying to ask me questions and investigate what's going on, what if I just handed them the appropriate list of questions to interrogate me thoroughly? That would be the wisest thing for me to do. That would be the wisest thing for all of us to do: to look to a friend who is, again, godly. They are serious about pursuing Jesus, and they're willing to speak honestly with you. So, you give them a set of questions, and you let them investigate your life.

You have some risky conversations that are going to leave you exposed. Does it feel good to be exposed? No. But it is better to be exposed with a friend than safe in your sin. So, you find someone who wants to get into the thick of it with you. You find the godliest friends you can. You hand them a list of questions, and you give them permission to ask you all of them at least once a week. It'll be what David says. It'll be the kindest thing they can do to you. It'll be like oil on your head. It'll be honoring to you for them to do these things.

Okay, last thing. Let's keep going. Verses 8-10: "But my eyes are toward you, O God, my Lord; in you I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless! Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me and from the snares of evildoers! Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I pass by safely."

4. Pursue intimacy with God. By the end of this psalm, David's circumstances are not changed. He's not magically or miraculously pulled out of all the hardship he's facing. Instead, he is still in the midst of it. But rather than be where he was at the beginning, distracted by what everybody was doing, he's laser focused on what God is doing. He has set his gaze.

I love the way he says, "My eyes are toward you, O God; in you I seek refuge." If you walk into a room and see that which you want, you don't aimlessly move around. You're filled with purpose, so you pursue wholeheartedly. That's what he's saying. Get your eyes on God. As you do so, he'll take care of all of the traps and snares and nets.

What does it look like to get your eyes on God? I love the way Thomas Chalmers, who wrote The Expulsive Power of a New Affection, says it. He says, "The best way to overcome the world is not with morality or self-discipline." Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. "Christians overcome the world by seeing the beauty and excellence of Christ. They overcome the world by seeing something more attractive than the world."

So, how do you see him who is most attractive of all? How do you set your eyes and fix your gaze to behold his beauty? I'll give you two ideas very quickly. First, you avoid unnecessary temptation. James 1:14 tells us, "But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire."

I love the way John Owen says it. He says, "Know that he that dares to dally with occasions of sin will dare to sin." What does that mean? If you put yourself in a position to be tempted by sin, guess what's going to happen? You're going to sin. So, avoid unnecessary temptation. Like, if the gym or his cubicle or your run club or Netflix or your boyfriend's bedroom… I don't know what it is. If those places dare you to sin, if they tempt you to sin, don't go near them.

If you're in a spot where it's like, "But I can't avoid those situations. I can't avoid those specific settings," then guess what? You need to set some parameters. You need to put some rules on your life. You need to literally regulate your behavior. You treat yourself like a child. What do you do with children? You tell them what they can and cannot do, and you hold them fast to it. You get some people around you who will hold you fast to it as well.

One of the best things that ever happened to me was a group of friends in my life… They would ground me if ever I went against the parameters I set. Isn't that ridiculous? "Who do you think you are? You think you can ground me?" "Yeah, man. You gave us permission to." "Fair enough." You need some people who are willing to look at you, love you, and ground you from doing that which you should not do. You need some people who are willing to go the distance when you're not willing to go. You have to avoid unnecessary temptation.

Secondly, you have to pursue personal proximity. You have to take out the bad, and you have to replace it with the good. You have to seek Jesus. I know, as I'm saying all this, you're like, "Wow. That's all very profound." You don't need more complicated truth. You just need to apply basic truth. Basic truth says, "Get your eyes off the things that tempt you to sin, and get your eyes on the one who has saved you from sin."

Pursue personal proximity. That doesn't mean do a bunch of religious activity; that means to get close to Jesus. Do the things that bring you near to him. David says in Psalm 27:4, "One thing have I asked, that will I seek: to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple." All David wants is to see Jesus and seek after him, because he knows there's no one like that man. There's no one who comes relatively close in comparison. "I have seen in my God that which cannot be seen anywhere else, so I'm going to do everything in my power to get as close to him as I can."

For the sake of time, I can't deeply unpack for you how you do that, how to get close to him. You can take some guesses. It's going to mean you're going to read the Scripture. You're going to pray to God. You're going to confess your sin. You're going to get involved in community. If you want to unpack all that, we're going to have some people down front who would love to do it with you. There's nothing more important than this. You pursue him because he pursued you.

When none of us trusted God, he trusted God. He trusted God with his whole life. When none of us could be justified in our sin because we were all justifying our sin, he stepped into the story and justified us of our sin anyway. When all of us could not remain correct, he came and walked correctly in this life. He died our death, absorbing into himself all the wrath of God intended for us, yet, because he wanted intimacy with you and me, he burst forth from the grave. He rose from the dead, that any who would place their faith in him might have relationship with him forever.

Why do you pursue him? Because he pursued you. He came to save you from that which you feel like you cannot be saved from. He came to free you from that which you feel so enslaved to. He came to rescue you from that which you feel like has reigned in your life for far too long. Come to him, place your faith in him, and live a new life, beginning tonight. Let me pray that you would.

Jesus, thank you for this evening. Thank you, God, for these people. Thank you, God, for your Word. Thank you, God, that this is real. Gosh! You and I have been wrestling all day long that I don't want The Porch to be a place where we just do really good ministry, God. No. I want The Porch to be a place where there's power and impact and meaning and purpose.

God, I need The Porch to be a place where The Porch's name is not what's remembered but it's Jesus' name that is remembered. I want this to be a place where heaven touches down to earth; where we feel a transcendent collision, God; where the supernatural and natural collide into one; where, Jesus, we get to behold you as you are…not as we think you to be but as you are.

So, God, please, let these next moments matter. God, you could wash away the whole ministry. You could take away all of The Porch, but I'm praying, God, you would save these people forever, that you would give them eyes to see that which is most beautiful, and you would do that starting now. We sing to you, Jesus. We need you, Jesus, and we're going to respond to you. It's in your name we pray, amen.