S5 Ep13 Finally Free Continued part 2

Welcome to Man Talk, a ministry sponsored by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where we're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and to point men to their God-assigned roles. Now here's your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. Welcome back to Man Talk Radio Podcast.

My name is Roy Jones and I'm one of your co-hosts for the show. This evening we're going to be talking to you on chapter two of a book that we introduced last week. The book is finally free by Heath Lambert. It's a fantastic book and it comes at addiction and dealing with addiction from a very special direction.

It comes from a position of grace and forgiveness and receiving God's grace. What we would like for you to do is listen carefully as we go through this program. We want to share some things with you that we've drawn out of the chapters of this book. I think it will be very helpful for you.

Today we're talking about godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. With that, I'd like to welcome my co-host, Will Hardy. Thank you, Roy.

It's good to be here as always. The book I found the book a very practical book. It's an easy read. Men don't like anything real thick.

Yeah, it's very, very thin. The print's reasonably good size as well. It gives, I think, practical information. It also gives straightforward, as you stated, to the point. He talks about a lot of facts, talks about a lot of things that other men have gone through with respect to addiction and accountability groups and what works and what doesn't work.

It gives us a really, really perfect overview on how to approach the subject. If we truly want to be free, then we can be. Yes. Let's get straight into godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Let's define worldly sorrow first, Will.

We talked a little bit about that on the last program, but worldly sorrow is when a person really is ashamed of losing things of the world. When it comes to that, if they get caught, then they're afraid of what they might lose as a result of getting caught. Or if they do lose something, like they lose their job. Or they lose their family. They lose their wife. Exactly. They lose all these things, and now all of a sudden that brings about sorrow, but it really doesn't stop the addiction.

No, it doesn't. That seed is still planted there. We have to replace that seed with something that's really fertile from the word of God.

You make a good point. It doesn't stop the addiction. He talks about in his book that people, short term, will move away from whatever the addiction is, in this case, pornography. They may try to move away from it, but the worldly sorrow brings them back into the world versus godly sorrow, keeping them out of this addiction, or at least get them on a better opportunity for success. So if I'm in this, I get caught, I lose my relationship potentially with my wife, my family's upset with me, I lose my job, and then all of a sudden I'm sorrowful because of the things that have gone away. The relationship, the job, the cars, all those things that happen as a result of the impact. The flip side of that is, as I was reading the book, I found that even if you venture down that worldly sorrow path, that it could draw you to the godly sorrow path based on the things that you lose.

So a person could say, I've lost it all. Yes, let me turn to the Lord Jesus Christ because I know that he is able to do for me what I can't do for myself. So something came to mind, God just put on my heart just as you were speaking that, you know, as followers of Christ, we're always challenged and charged to share the gospel with others, right? And the opportunity to do that is great here in that if we ask somebody how they're doing and you sense something's wrong, there's an opportunity to start a conversation about what's bothering you. How are you feeling about things?

Have you been exposed to this? And then there's nothing wrong with asking that person, anybody, that question. Say, look, I've been doing some studies lately. I understand this is a huge problem in the church.

It's a huge problem outside the church. And you as my friend, I just want to be candid with you. Is this an area that you struggle in? And you know, and make sure it's coming from a position of love and say, I need to know if you are so I can pray for you.

I can keep you lifted up and keep you covered so that God can help you come out of this hole. You know, and what you say, Roy, is just as important as how you say it. Because if a person feel that they are under attack or if they feel like, you know, you're better than me and have such an attitude like that, then they may shy away. I've been meaning to talk to you about that. I always feel like I'm not as good as you. But you know, the whole idea, the whole idea though, is for us as men to be able to be open to other men. Because, you know, and you know, I've sat and I've watched our sisters at church and other churches. They just talk about, oh, today was so great, you know, and I went down to the hairdresser and we had this conversation or, you know, I cooked the pot roast and boy, it was so delicious.

And all these things, they could just start talking about things and, you know, the other sisters or sisters around them can say, yeah, you know, that's right. You know, it's, you know, if you do a little bit of this or a little bit of that, but men, we're a little bit hardcore or we hard shelled. I should say, when it comes to opening up to other men and really showing emotions or showing another man your heart, if you're engaged or indulging in something like this.

Well, it's a generational hardwire, right? That men are supposed to be strong, pull your bootstraps up, don't cry. You're responsible for it all, so you don't need anybody else to help you fix it. Go fix it, right? I couldn't help but laugh internally when you were talking about the beauty shop because I don't get to have any barber chair conversations anymore.

Used to when I was younger, we don't get to have those anymore. And, you know, the thing about it is, is when it comes to conversations, if a person who is maybe directed by God to share the gospel to someone, you know, in that sharing, you have to be able to know how to share. And see, everybody can't receive the gospel the same way. Because the message, even though the message of the gospel is the same, that how you deliver that message and how a person received that message is totally different. So we have to meet them just as Jesus did.

He met the people where they are. And when you meet a person where they are, I think you can have more communication and they'll start to open up with you and not be more reserved. And the other piece of that, and you're exactly right, is that it's your story. Absolutely. Because your story and your relationship with Christ is going to be what really entices the other person to learn more.

Because you're talking from a position of experience, right? You're not talking that theoretically, you're saying, hey, this is what my personal relationship with my Father is like with my Heavenly Father. And that means so much more, so much more than trying to take a script and share the gospel. Not talking about sharing scriptures, I'm talking about taking a script to try to present the gospel. Your story will speak much greater into other people's lives than something that's scripted.

Absolutely. And when Heath talks about godly sorrow, he talks about that aim. In other words, if you have a bow and arrow, you're aiming for the bullseye. And you want to hit the bullseye every time.

I'm just amazed when I look at the Olympics and I see archery, and I see these guys and ladies just shooting from such far distance and how concentrated they are on the mark, hitting that mark. And see, that's what we want to do each and every time we start engaging in a conversation with someone who might be indulging in pornography. We want to hit the mark. We want to hit a home run with them. And the only way to do that is to have them start opening up to us. And we don't need to beat them upside the head with the gospel.

No, no, no, no. But we do need the gospel message because without the gospel, there's no transformation. Right.

You know, there's no change in anyone's life. And then the gospel is the basis for the change because it's the basis of our moral standard, right? It's the gospel.

Absolutely. And so if we're basing everything on that, then the other stuff will flow through. And that's where we also, before we even start these conversations to our audience is that you need to make sure that you pray ahead of it. Especially if you know it's going to be one of those conversations that you kind of know the answer, but you want to confirm the answer. Be sure to pray ahead of any conversation that you have the opportunity to do that. And even during the conversation, you know, God's listening to you, God's watching. He's all over it. So just if you're having a difficult opportunity and within the conversation, just say, Father, I need you to help smooth this out and take me down the right path.

Give me the right words and he will. So what other things did you pull out of chapter 2, Roy, with respect to a godly sorrow? Well, it was truly a repentant heart. It truly was a repentant heart. And it was probably the single largest thing out of that for me was that I've hurt Father, that I've truly hurt him in this journey of sinful addiction.

That would be my first thing. No matter what, it spoke to me about other things. You know, this is not a struggle for me. By the grace of God, it's not a struggle for me in my life. But the other things where I've hurt God, just that godly sorrow and I thought, you know, the relationship of damage, not damaged it, but I've hurt him because of something I didn't do properly or because of something I said or something I missed.

And I think that was just for me personally was a huge, huge step that to be mindful. I'm the temple. He's in me and the Holy Spirit resides in me and we know all those things. But when you think about it, godly sorrow, then you think I've really hurt Father. I've really hurt Father and no more than we would want to hurt our parents or earthly parents right when we're growing up or even as adults. But I think that's the thing that struck me the greatest in the godly sorrow piece. You know, to our viewers, I want to say to you, do you let the chastening of God have the effect on you that it needs to have?

Because your father, everybody who was living had a father. And so that father maybe had chastened you when you did something wrong and what more will your Heavenly Father chasten you for the things that you might be indulged or engaged in? So receive that chastening.

When I'm chasing Roy, I love chastening because I know that I've got off course and I need to get back on course. God's pulled you back in line. And God said, I love you enough to chasten you, but you have to be willing and ready to receive it. So when that conviction come about face, I turn away from that stuff because I know that the Spirit of the Lord is speaking to me.

And if I continue to go down this road, I'm only digging a deeper and deeper and deeper hole. And damaging that relationship in that moment. You know, we had a gentleman that we prayed for last week, you know, one of our prayer chains that had a large tumor that shows up in his chest area. And they had actually were preparing to do, basically they had done all they could do.

And they said, we're so sorry, we can't do anything else for you. That it appeared that he was going to literally die. And then we got the word that this was going on. We put the prayer chain out with our men. And God, just for our audience's benefit, two days later when they were getting ready to take him through surgery to try to remove this tumor, the tumor was gone before they ran another scan to get prepared for surgery.

The tumor was gone. So God had answered all those men's prayers and his family's prayers. But the point I want to make here is that when he came out of this, he talked about the fear of God. Not from a condemnation or a disciplinary, but just a healthy fear and love for Father. And knowing because of the power he demonstrated in the removal of this tumor and the healing from prayer, the power that God had, it was just a healthy fear of Father that I need to make sure I'm doing all I can for the kingdom and for him and to honor him.

Just what an amazing thing it goes back to this piece about godly sorrow. We want to honor our Father. We want to please him. We want to love him because he first loved us. Amen.

All those things. Amen. And you know, again, to our listening audience, I would like to say to you that it's not the number of people who pray. Because all God needs is just that one faithful soul. But when you have a lot of people praying, it's okay. But it doesn't take two, three, four hundred people praying in order for God to get through and do whatever it is you as a believer have prayed to him for because he's always listening. That's right. And he's never on vacation.

And if my former boss were here, he'd say, unlike Roy, he's on vacation all the time. And I'm glad about it because there's times that I'm awake in the middle of the night and I keep a pad and pen by my bed on my nightstand. And I'm constantly writing things down as God gives them to me.

You know, I'm constantly saying, God, what is it that I needed to do today that I didn't get done? What is it that you were prodding me by your Holy Spirit? Because, see, as you stated, we are not under condemnation based on Romans 8.1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

And this is the beauty. See, no condemnation, but there is conviction. And what do we do, Roy?

We thank God for the conviction because it is the conviction that keeps us from going down the path of a pornography, of food, having addiction, of exercise, or anything like that that we can find ourselves indulged in. And we start giving attention to that rather than the Lord. And the relationship.

And so how does a person improve their relationship, Will, with Father? Well, and that's going to take us into chapter three. Yes. Because it's accountability. Now, Heath does a fantastic job.

I love this book. He does a fantastic job in approaching the accountability stages in that he first says that it's not the sole solution to an addiction problem, but it's a solution. So you have to you have to look at all of the things combined in order to come up with the solution that God, Heath is presenting, and God want us to go down as men. But he says it's a it's a solution, but it's not the solution, right? So what is it that we have to do when God says you have an issue? You're keeping me from showing you what that issue is.

You're still indulging in it. So this is where accountability comes in. So you need to get into accountability group to have accountability partner. And these men will hold you accountable. But as we go down and talk about the stages of accountability, Roy, then we'll see how Heath lays this out for each and every man who is suffering this problem.

OK, so one step in improving our relationship with Father is accountability. So it helps us challenge those areas of our life which aren't up to speed, right? That aren't godly, whether it be the discipline of reading or discipline of praying or the addiction issues that one may be dealing with, right?

So that's that's one way. The second way would be like we're talking about is in the Word with regular frequency, right? And I think we've done several of our Friday morning meetings around the number of times a person should be reading the Bible and what effects change, right? So if you're reading three or less times a week, there's no impact to your life. But if you're reading four or more times, it's like a 70% change in your walk with Christ, right? So that's something that you as our audience need to be aware of is that if you're not reading your Bible regularly, you're not being fed regularly. You're not being accountable regularly to God. And you're not going to be convicted like you would be if you're in the Word. And you're not going to be directed like you would be if you're in the Word. And that's something we talk about quite regularly.

And the other thing I think we've mentioned is obviously the prayer time, right? Just like you were talking about in the middle of the night. You wake up and you start having a conversation with God.

You literally are talking to Him. What's next, Father? What am I missing? What did I need to do that I didn't do? And I wake up very early before my alarm goes off, unfortunately, and my alarm goes off very early. And when I wake up, one of the things I do is I just say, Good morning, Father.

I've learned to do that and start saying, Good morning, Father. What are we talking about today? Because He's woke me for a reason earlier than my alarm clock was supposed to wake me up.

And so I enjoy those conversations. And you know, Roy, what we want Satan to say is, Oh no, his feet has hit the floor again. He's up doing something for Jesus. See, this is the beauty behind it.

We want to put the fear in Satan rather than Satan putting the fear in us. So when we get up, you know, and I'm the same way. When I roll out of bed, I said, thank you God for another breath. Now you've kept me here. Now I need to be working.

I need to be doing those things for you today. Put me in the path of someone who needs to hear the gospel. I remember I was going through the grocery store line. And there was a young lady there with a young child and she couldn't pay, you know, pay her bills. So she was putting things back. I was right behind her and just God just spoke to me. And I told the cashier to just go ahead and include everything, you know, in it. And God just, and she was so thankful. And I said, you know, God is able to do so much for your life.

This is what I shared with her. I said, God is able to do so much for your life. And this generosity and kindness that God is blessing me to show through you is his kindness.

It's not me. I'm just a vessel being used for the master. But that's the, that's the beauty. But you're a willing vessel. And you're an obedient vessel. And you have to be open to, again, that discernment.

A gentle nudge from the Holy Spirit. Because when it comes, you may not get another opportunity with this person. He may put you in line with another person, you know, but again, we still have to be open if he takes us there.

Yeah. So Heath goes down this accountability lane, Roy, and he talks about accountability with respect to having a mature person in the group. So what does maturity has to do with anything? Well, maturity is that person, not by AIDS, but that's been walking with Father and Jesus Christ for a period of time beyond probably the average time of the group, other members, right? So it needs to be that person that's kind of senior in their walk, in their understanding of Scripture, and their experience set that God has walked them through. That's what I think of when you say maturity in the group needs to be more mature individuals, not necessarily by AIDS. Although 80% of it may be by AIDS, right?

Just because of more senior, senior saints, if you will. But it's truly that, that's the way I see it. That's right. And you're right, because what a mature person, especially someone who had gone through, you know, and overcome, you know, the addiction of pornography, they understand all of the repercussions that can happen in and around them.

Yes. You know, within a variety of structures and how they got there is really not important at this stage because they're engaged in it. The problem now becomes is, will you be willing and will you have an open heart to accept whatever it is that God wants to deliver to you so that he can free you from the addiction? And see, right behind that mature accountability is having someone who is in authority. And see, the Word of God tells in Hebrews, you know, about that, you know, that obey those who have rule over you because they watch over your souls. And so he's talking about someone in authority. And see, when you're talking about a pastor, and I've been in that position more times than I can count, but when you're in that position, you're dealing with a variety of personalities. You're dealing with a lot of lifestyles.

That's right. You're dealing with a lot of people who are coming in with issues. You're dealing with a lot of happy people who want to share things about. So all these personalities are coming at you and as an individual who has authority and mature can enlighten the person who might be struggling instead of just going to an accountability group and all of a sudden reporting on the things that you've already sinned on instead of hitting those things off at the pass.

Don't get to the point to where you're engaging. When you have that urge, that's when you need to come and you need to talk to that brother, that sister, that mature Christian, or that person in authority so they can offer some guidance and give you some counsel that you need. Forgive us. I think that's one statistic we did not talk about in the previous show or this one yet is the women that are addicted to pornography. That number seems to be, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was in that 35 to 40 percent range of women are now addicted to pornography and regular visitors to sites and engaging in that.

Roy, when we talk about this, of course, we have to talk about Romans chapter 1, men with men, women with women doing those things, which is unseemly. When a person starts engaging in these things, there is a mental image and picture. When I talked to the young man at the summit and he was talking about his addiction, he said, this is the thing that draws me.

This is the thing that has me captive. And so what we talk about is he went forward and he said, look, you know, I know I've got a problem, but I never saw anybody. I never saw anybody who really gave way and said, yes, you do.

I receive what you're saying in reference to my issue and I want to be free from it. So I never heard that from him, although we gave him all of the information he needed, everything that he needed. And I shared with him, I said, now, as soon as you get that urge, when that urge come on you, give me a call. And I never heard from him, never heard from him. And he didn't give you his information either.

No, he did not. So he had no way to reach back, which is a great lesson for all of us, right? When you make that connection, make sure that you have a way to reach back to the person.

If someone's stepped out and said, hey, I need help. We need to do as believers in Christ, do our best to either get an email address or something. And these days, send me your V-card, right? Send me your V-card so that something certainly can be done as well. You know, we're coming to the end of the show here in just a few moments.

And so I want to, just any last conversations or any last thoughts you'd like to share with our audience? Well, you know, to the viewers, what I'd like to say is this, is that we are dealing with a global problem. It's not an American problem. It's not a Canadian problem. It's not a Venezuelan problem.

It is a global problem. And if you are engaged and indulging in something like this, and you're hurting your family, you're hurting your friends, you're hurting your church members, you're hurting your classmates. You're creating all of this hurt, this friction that's ultimately going to have an effect on the people who you are around. What are you going to do?

You're listening to me right now. What are you going to do? What steps are you going to take to free yourself? Jesus is waiting with open arms. He's waiting to free you and set you free from addiction. All you have to do is just take the step forward. Thank you, Will.

Amen. Folks, if you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email at info at talcum.com. Send an email to info at tawcm.com. If you're needing prayer, send us your prayer request. If you're needing some resources in your area, we'll network and find resources in your area.

If you're in our local area, we'll connect you with the right folks to help you through this journey. It's been great having you with us. Next time we come back together, we're going to talk more on Heath Lambert's book. One of the things we want you to be thinking about between now and our next show is, do I have someone I can share this book with?

Absolutely. Will, thank you so much for being here. It's great to see you again. Yeah, likewise. I look forward to seeing you again next week. Folks, you have a great, wonderful, and blessed day.

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