Powerful Vices–and Your Way Out: Jonathan Pokluda

Okay, I've never done this on Family Life Today. I've done it as a preacher in a sermon. I've done it at a marriage conference.

We can remember from the stage. Never done it in the studio, and it may never work. We're going to try this. This is Family Life Today.

Have you ever done this? Oh, no. Everybody stand up, and I'm going to have to stay seated because I got to be on the mic.

Okay. You guys stand up. Oh, we're actually standing up. No, literally standing up. We're not going to be standing up long. I have a feeling. You're standing up, and hey, everybody in the production booth, Bruce, everybody's standing up.

So I've done this, and it's really interesting. JP, if you've never done this, you've got to do this in some sermon. But what I'm going to do, I'm in Exodus 20. I'm going to start with commandment number one of the Ten Commandments, and when you've broken a commandment, you sit. If you haven't broken this one, you stay standing. Exodus 20, and God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Here's number one.

You shall have no other gods before me. So JP went down. Ann went down. Is anybody standing? If there's anybody still standing, you know, I passed through 30 years. About every couple of years, I'd do it again, and sometimes it was for fun, but often I was teaching about something I wanted to illustrate. Most of the room is still standing after commandment number one.

Most of the room. And you know, as a pastor, I knew all you guys would go down because you understand commandment number one. But as we talk about your book today, why do I do what I don't want to do? They're thinking, oh, I've never worshiped Satan or I've never, you know, I've never worshiped Baal or, you know, sacrificed to some idol.

It's like, man, every pair of ears right now out there has had another God before God. What's that mean? Amazon Prime. To name one. Yes. To name one. Yeah.

Shoes. Anything that comes before God. Food.

Food is a big one. Yes. When I do it at the Family Life Weekend, remember, we do a session on Saturday morning where we're trying to help people understand without Jesus, you have no hope for your life or your marriage and you are a sinner. And often people look up at you like, well, the people sitting beside me, especially my wife, she's a sinner, but I'm not. And so when you do this, you're hoping them to go, wow. It levels the playing field. But the fact that people are still up at number six or seven is what you just said. They don't really understand. So as you write this book about replacing the subtitle, Replace Deadly Vices with Life-Giving Virtues, we have to at least admit we do do what we don't want to do, right?

That's right. Got to start there. Every human being that has ever lived with one exception has done lots of things they didn't want to do. And you see it in parenting so clearly. You know, the struggle is real.

It's just like, man, why do that? And you said food. That's a big one for me because I give up something every year and gave up sweets this year.

Wait, wait, wait. For the year. Yeah, for the year.

Not a week, not a month, a year. Yeah, so one thing every year to just fast from and so sweets this year. But here's the before anybody's like, wow, let me just tell you how many times I've put the cookie in my mouth or I'm halfway done with the ice cream and I realize, oh, oh, yeah, this year I gave that up. You didn't have your birthday cake?

No, I built in an exception. So on big celebrations, I can have a bite of something. But why do you do that? Just to practice the discipline. You meet people who are naturally disciplined.

I am definitely not one of those persons. I am naturally bent toward coloring outside the lines and skipping workouts and eating junk food. That feels like my natural inclination. That's why I wrote a book.

Why do I do what I don't want to do? It is a memoir for sure. Well, it's interesting as you know, we walk through the book and we talked a little bit yesterday about ancient vices and then you got modern, you call modern wars. We only hit one. You got ten. I know, I know. And we had a whole 30 minutes and we got one.

So we won't get all ten. And I would just say, get the book. It's really good.

And I don't say it about every book that I read, but it's really good. Let's talk about, you know, one that really affects all of us, but affects our marriages big time. Lust and the virtue is?

Self-control. Yeah. So let's talk about it. I know as I read your book and not all pastors are as honest as you are, you talk about your battle with love.

In fact, you say at one point, I read it out loud to Ann. I'm like, you say I've done coke, I've done alcohol and there's nothing as powerful as pornography. I've smoked a lot of weed, been drunk more times. So I became a Christian in my early 20s and there were lots of things that people had warned me. Hey, this will grip you. So many of those things I could pick up and sit down. You know, it wasn't like, oh man, I needed to do that again.

I can't wait to. Prior to marriage, I thought very, very naively, very naively. I know what you're going to say. I'll struggle with this until at least until I'm married, which is the biggest, most laughable joke in the history of history because all marriage does is it takes a giant magnifying glass and puts it on your struggles and singleness. I always say I've never met somebody with marriage problems.

They all have single people problems that they just brought into their marriage. That was certainly true with me when it came to lust and pornography. The problem with sin is when you feed something, it grows. And so this is the lie of one last time. We think, oh, I'm going to look at that one last time. I'm going to give into that one last time. What you don't realize is you fed that thing one last time. And so next time it's going to be bigger and stronger than the last time. So the next time is actually more difficult than the last time.

Our best move is to really think like, hey, my last time is behind me. Okay, so what does it look like for me to put these things in place so that I actually fight this because I'm blown away by how many men and women after a message on lust or whatever we're talking about that they will come up or I shared some of my story. They'll come up and they'll say, man, I'm really struggling with lust.

I'm really struggling with porn. And I'll say, well, how do you access porn? And they'll say my phone. And I'll say, well, where is your phone?

And they'll say what's in my pocket. And I say, oh, I thought you said you were struggling. There's I am. I'm like, no, you're not. You're carrying it around with you everywhere you go. Right? Like you hadn't begun the fight.

If this is the thing that you want to win. And if somebody goes, well, you're legalistic. I'm like, well, let's turn to Matthew five. Because Jesus says, if your eye calls you to sing, gouge it out. If your hand calls you to sing, cut it off. He's speaking of lust, by the way. I'm saying get rid of your phone.

And I think the point of his sermon, his preaching there is do what it takes. Make it difficult on you. Yeah, make it difficult on yourself. And so people will say, well, it won't help. I'm like, well, at least it will make it harder for you just to give into it than if you carry it around with you in your pocket everywhere you go. So that's where you start with self-control because you're sitting here with an iPad and a phone beside you. Yeah, that's true.

And it's true. And somebody would say, well, what about you? And I would say, man, there was a time where I couldn't.

So what does that look like? I almost never, almost never. And when I do it, I can explain why, but almost never travel alone. When I go into that hotel room by myself, don't cut on the TV.

If the hotel, and they kind of moved away from this, praise God. But if they have, you know, adult streaming, I'm like, hey, can you cut that off? And sometimes it's that awkward conversation in the lobby. We're like, oh, Mr. Pacluta, are you traveling with children? I'm like, no, just me.

Just the guy that wants to, you know, avoid all temptations as much as possible. I'm a little older, but I, you know, I travel with the Lions and I remember one time I called down to the front desk and did that J.P. I'm like, hey, can you turn off the adult channels in my room? And the lady at the front desk goes, why? I go, I don't want to watch them. She goes, well, just don't, don't watch them.

I go, I can't just not watch them. Please turn them off. But it was like this, I gotta ask you this though. You're a pastor. You've shared that here publicly.

I'm sure in your own church, a lot of pastors would never say this out loud that that's a struggle. Why do you do that? We could get to a, you know, perception management chapter. I've got a story. I don't know.

I'll tell this as briefly as I can. I was a seminary wanting me to speak on how to reach the next generation. And one time prior to giving a sermon, I was talking about how we need to be authentic, which is the virtue to perception management is authenticity. And I was talking about how one time I was going to preach, but the day before I was on Instagram, I clicked on a hashtag and it was innocent, but the next one wasn't.

I had intentionally clicked on a hashtag hoping to see something lustful. And so before I preached the sermon that had nothing to do with lust, I just confessed that to the congregation. And I said, guys, this is yesterday.

Man, I've got like shame has just beat me up today. I need to tell you this. And I'm so sorry because I'm going to tell you not to do the very thing that I did at some point. And I didn't give into it. I didn't act further on it.

The Holy Spirit in His kindness kind of awoken me to, hey, you need to flee now. And I did. But I had intentionally looked at something that I would say all of you should never look at. And I'm truly sorry.

Will you forgive me? I prayed and then I preached the sermon had nothing to do with that. That night, I had the longest line of people wanting to talk to me in any other time in the history of speaking. I was there. It was an evening message, but I was there till 11 p.m. when security made us leave. Eleven p.m. talking to people. They say, I can't believe you said that.

Me too. Wow, I'm struggling so much. Nothing to do with the sermon. I just given, right? So at that seminary that invited me to speak on reaching the next generation, I shared that story. And the feedback afterwards, and I'll never forget because I began to weep as I read, it said, you're a person in ministry. You need to present to be holy.

You need to give the perception that you are holy. You cannot use words like that mixed gendered audience. And that was some of the feedback I got. And I just began to weep because I thought you'll never reach the next generation. They do not want someone that presents to walk a foot above the earth and never struggles.

They need to know how you've struggled. Don't manufacture things. Don't say things for shock value. But be honest.

As I was driving here with my son this morning, we were talking about something. I just said, hey, your dad is always going to be honest with you. When you want to know the truth, find me or your mom and we will tell you the truth. And we'll tell you things that some parents will say you're not ready to hear.

But I want you to hear them from us rather than people who are trying to figure it out themselves. And I've made a lot of mistakes. If you ask me a question, I'm always going to tell you the truth. Here's a question I was asked last weekend, which I'd never been asked. And it's not that unique, but I thought, huh, do you remember?

You know what question I'm going to say? You were sitting there. Ann and I spoke at a Fellowship Christian Athletes football coach's marriage retreat in Branson, Missouri. And it was pretty cool because FCA now has a football division. I was a football coach and it was like our people. And the artist they brought in to lead worship, Michael O'Brien, used to be the lead singer of New Song.

That's phenomenal. And he sits at our table and he goes, I listen to you guys, family life, my wife. And he goes, I got to ask you something because we talked about struggles in our marriage.

And I talked about we put it in our book, Vertical Marriage, my porn struggle back 40 years ago. He said, let me ask you this. When is it needed that somebody steps into a person's life or especially a minister's life? He goes, it's good that you're honest and you share your struggle. But when is it a time when the elders or somebody should step in and say, OK, this is not OK?

You're doing it once every two weeks now or you're doing it once a month. What is the number that says, OK, it's really cool. You're vulnerable and authentic. And that's the counterpart to entitlement. But when is it we probably need to get you help? Yeah, I mean, that is a great question. I'm glad I didn't answer very well. So I want you to answer. Here's the deal.

I think when we talk about these things, there's what you say and then there's what people hear and then the gaps that they fill in. So somebody might be out there thinking, oh, man, this guy is still struggling with porn and he's preaching every week. It's like, no, if I'm regularly looking at pornography, I think I am disqualified for at least a season. Like there needs to be a long season where I'm getting help. I'm in recovery. I'm being ministered to.

I'm not doing the ministering. If someone's listening in ministry, I think that's true. And I'll say, consider all things. Consider what you're doing, where you're at. The bottom line is if this is a reoccurring deal where you're giving into it, you're losing the battle, get help. That's what I'm trying to say. There's no shortage of recovery ministries, church programs, pastors out there.

In every city in America, there's someone there that is going to want to come alongside you and help you. Get help. That's a difference between, man, this is not reoccurring. I'm fighting lust and, man, I made a mistake yesterday. I went too far and now I'm playing the game of how fast can I confess this? How quickly can I bring it into the light? I'm not trying to hide it from someone. I want everyone to know. I'm not concealing this.

Whoever conceals their sin does not prosper. But I'm saying, hey, this is what happened. And as you lead a church staff, you're confronted with this often because I have the kind of relationship with our staff where if they did something like that, they would shine a spotlight on it. And they say, hey, here's what happened.

And it's not a we don't shoot our wounded, but we say, okay, how are you doing? What led to this? Was this a coping from some experience? When was the last time? And we're trying to determine, hey, are you in a place where you can still minister to others or do you need a sabbatical or do you need for us to begin to meet and talk through recovery?

What is actually going on? Or do you need to move into another job where you get well for a season? And so there's a little bit of art, not science there. But I would not be afraid of doing hard things, right? Because God's going to bless obedience.

I mean, he blesses obedience. And I was actually, you know, as you were talking, JP, I was thinking all the same things you just said, in my opinion, apply to the marriage. If my husband or my wife has a struggle with it could be lust, it could be greed, it could be pride, any one of these, apathy. You know, how do you bring her in?

How do you bring him? Obviously, Monica has been part of your story, right? Yes, that and what I think about what we're going back and forth on, you know, just provoking thoughts. I think there's a lot of people whose marriage is hurting and they pull the curtains down, they pull the blinds down. We can't let them know how we're struggling. And so they get out there and it's all laughs and it's the Instagram highlight reel and all things are great and we're on vacation.

And then they get in the living room and, you know, they don't know how to speak to each other. Y'all are doing that thing, right? Art of marriage? Yeah.

What do you mean? You're in the art of marriage. I didn't know where we're at with it. But I'm so glad you're putting together that resource. That's going to bless people. And we've updated it and we're going to talk about that in our next episode.

Okay, great. Thank you for all you guys do to help people in their marriage. Because don't you agree that people are pulling the blinds down? They're saying, hey, I don't want you to know. Especially in the church.

And that's the perception management piece too. And I'm like, hey guys, wherever you're struggling, wherever you're doing what it is you don't want to do. Step one is like tell some other brothers and sisters, hey, I continue to do something I don't want to do. I continue to look at something, spend in ways, watch something, say things, respond in anger in ways that are inconsistent with what Jesus wants for me. And so start there. Like confession, you know.

One of the greatest gifts Dave gave me early on in our marriage, he was a young pastor. And I said, I don't know what to do. I don't know if we're supposed to hide our stuff.

I don't know if we're supposed to confess our stuff. And he goes, I'm an idiot. You can tell anybody you want that I'm an idiot. And you can tell them everything that I do that makes you mad or that I'm failing in. I was blown away by that.

Because you talk about not protecting your image. And I remember I've- So she went and told everybody. That's what she did. No, I had a small group of friends in the church. They were in the church and Dave was the pastor. But it was good because they realized, oh, they're just like us. They're walking that journey. And I think, too, I get kind of riled up when we're talking about porn. I have three sons. And I see this next generation of women and men being trapped. And it is going to demolish marriages if we don't allow Jesus to come in. Parents, kids.

Kids. As a mom and dad, we need to be praying, too. And asking God to protect our homes.

Being smart of getting devices out. But I don't think we should live in fear either. Because our God will battle for us.

And we've got to be consistent. And there's critics in the church that will say, oh, you're shaming them. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand. Jesus died to set us free. There's no shame. We're not dealing with shame.

We're talking about freedom. That's why I go first. That's why I talk about these things. People are like, I can't believe you said that word.

I'm like, no, no. I have found a freedom that's available to you and I want it for you. It's the enemy that tries to drive you to a place of concealing sin. And people say, well, in talking about it, you're inspiring people to conceal it.

No, no, no, no, no. I want to compel people to step into the light. God is light. He is health. He is forgiveness. He is grace. He is restoration, reconciliation, like regeneration. These are the things that God is about. He's about restoring you.

He wants to do that right now. My hope is always, whether I'm preaching a sermon or even a broadcast right now, my hope is two parts. One, that the listener or the congregant will go, wow, they're like us. They had the same conversation in their family room we had this week.

I can't believe it. The second part, though, because I think sometimes we end there. It's like, okay, that's my job.

I think the second part is that the person listening would go, but they know Jesus in a way I don't think I know. There's a victory that they're experiencing. There's a power.

They have both. I relate to them, but I also want the Jesus that they know that I don't feel like I know. Like they're inspired. They're inspired to chase after him like we're experiencing both sides of that.

Yes. I don't want this to be a love bombardment, but that's why I look forward to doing this with you guys so much. Because the country needs examples of people who are real. They follow Jesus, but they're honest. They're authentic and they know how to have fun. And they still love Jesus. They love God with other hearts and minds. And I'm not surprised that he said that to you about, hey, he gave you like, here's like tell on me, you know, because that's healthy.

And I'm not surprised that God would build what he's built around you to help other marriages because it's healthy. Hey, can we get one more? Which one are you picking?

Because I have one. Well, I mean, I want to hit drunkenness and sobriety, but that is the one. The last chapter, cynicism and optimism. And again, it may be just where I'm living, but the older I get, the more cynicism I've seen and sometimes I feel in my own heart. Can you talk to that a little bit?

That's a modern war that you say we fight. Yeah, I see it in our church and I think a health engine of the church are empty nesters. I think there are a lot of grandfathers becoming the kind of grandfathers they don't want to be where their grandchildren are like, hey, you know, Pops is grumpy.

You know, Gramps is grumpy. It's in all generations. I think it is definitely in the spirit of the air right now. Just cynicism, a critical spirit.

I don't think the Internet has helped us here. People go on threads and just and give full vent to their anger. It's ungodly. It is not what Jesus did when he was here on the earth. I mean, pick your fruit of the Spirit. Is it love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness or self-control?

It's none of those things. Because Jesus raised from the dead and gave us hope for eternal life and we're going to be with God forever and ever and ever and ever and ever in paradise. The way that paradise starts today, the way that eternal life starts today is living in this broken world with this incredible hope and optimism.

Knowing that God's going to restore it. And I meet a lot of Christians, I'm saying in air quotes, so-called Christians that live like God lost. And like he's not going to be able to put it back together and he's really stumped by their problems. And that's just not the God that we worship. And they just talk endlessly about the next generation and how hopeless it is. And it's the opposite.

And we bring it into our homes because we get cynical about our own marriage. He's never going to change. He's never going to change when we should be looking in the mirror and saying, what about me? It's not about her. It's not about him.

It's about me. God, can you change me? And there should be optimism there because that's what he does. Satan loves a critical spirit. And Ephesians says, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up so that it may benefit those who listen. And so I talk with my kids a lot, use words that bring life, not tear down, but bring life. And if you are just a little bit more thoughtful on anything that you want to be critical about, whether it's politics or the next generation or something that you see happening, church, you know, the music's too loud, whatever it is. If you're just a little bit more thoughtful and you go slow, there's a way to say that in the positive form.

And I'm not just talking about the simple compliment sandwich. I'm like, man, where can you speak words of life? And it's like figure that out, but use your words to build up, not tear down. So JP, come back tomorrow. Let's talk about the art of marriage. Can we please?

Yeah, let's do it. Amen. You know, if I'm honest. I have a tendency to be super critical with my thoughts and my attitude and of course my words, just what they were talking about there. I did stand up comedy for four years, and it's almost a prerequisite to have a critical eye on the world and other people.

So I really struggle with that. But hearing this conversation, especially what they were talking about there at the end, encourages me that God calls us to a better way of living by reflecting Jesus and being a life giving spirit instead of so critical all the time. It's so great. I love that conversation.

I'm Shelby Abbott. You've been listening to Davina and Wilson with Jonathan Pacluda on Family Life Today. Jonathan has written a book called Why Do I Do What I Don't Want to Do?

Right out of Romans 7 there. This is a book that helps you understand that practicing virtues is not just something that you do, it's something done in you slowly by the power of the Holy Spirit transforming you into the person you were meant to be all along. So whether you're 18 or 80, it's never too late to change, and this book will help you do that. This book by Jonathan Pacluda is going to be our gift to you when you partner with us financially at Family Life Today. So you can go online to familylifetoday.com in order to do that, or you could give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329.

Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And feel free to drop us something in the mail if you'd like. Our address is Family Life 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida 32832. Now if you know anyone who needs to hear conversations like the one you heard today, would you share this program from wherever you get your podcasts? And while you're there, it could really help others learn about Family Life Today if you'd leave us a review. Now right at the end of the conversation, Dave Wilson asked JP to come back tomorrow and talk about the art of marriage. So the art of marriage is a tool by Family Life that facilitates meaningful conversations and growth in relationships. So we are right now one day away from our art of marriage preview event.

So do you ever wonder what marriage is actually for? Well, we're going to have lots of guests, Dave and Anne, of course, Aaron and Jamie Ivey, and Jonathan Pacluda, to talk about the art of marriage tomorrow, November 1st. Register while there's still time at familylife.com slash coming soon, or you can just check out the link in our show notes. So we hope the preview event tomorrow night will be super helpful for you. Now on the program tomorrow, Jonathan Pacluda is going to be back talking about what the devil's strategy is in your marriage. You don't want to miss that. That's tomorrow. On behalf of Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.