Not Even a Hint, with Josh and Shannon HarrisIndulge Your Senses?

Leslie Basham: Here’s pastor and author Joshua Harris.

Joshua Harris: The answer to escaping lust is not to lower your standards, but it’s to embrace God’s standard, which is not even a hint of sexual immorality or impurity. When you do that, it makes you realize that you need the power of God living in you and working in you in order to obey.

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Thursday, November 10. In 2004, Revive Our Hearts listeners heard a series on avoiding lustful temptation. Pressures to indulge in lust haven’t let up since then, so we thought it would be helpful to revisit this important topic in 2011.

Obviously, if you have young children, you want to use discretion about today’s subject. Nancy spoke with Joshua Harris and his wife Shannon back in 2004. He had released a book called Not Even a Hint. Since this conversation first aired, the book has been renamed to Sex Is Not the Problem, Lust Is. Let’s listen.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: I'm out of town this week getting ready to speak at a conference. And in the hotel where I am staying I saw a coffee packet last night that I think describes so much the spirit of our age. This particular coffee says, "Indulge your senses." And I think in so many ways that describes the way of thinking of the day in which we live.

We are here to talk this week about what happens when we do indulge our senses beyond what God has intended for our good, and how that can end up putting us in bondage, particularly in the area of sexual purity and sexual issues.

I am so thankful that Joshua and Shannon Harris are able to join us on Revive Our Hearts this week.

Many of our listeners will recognize the name Josh Harris who has written a number of books. I Kissed Dating Goodbye was the first and has been an extremely popular and helpful book on dating and courtship.

And then the sequel to that book, Boy Meets Girl, and then a more recent book called Not Even a Hint, and the subtitle of that book is Guarding Your Heart Against Lust.

Josh, I'm so thankful that you could be here today and your bride, Shannon. Thank you both for joining us on Revive Our Hearts.

Joshua and Shannon Harris: Thank you for having us.

Nancy: It is fun to actually get to meet you. People who have read your books, myself included, feel as if we know you. It's fun to meet you in person. And I'm so grateful to get to introduce you to our Revive Our Hearts listeners and particularly thankful that you have written this book called Not Even a Hint. Josh, where did the title come from and what are we talking about in this book?

Joshua: Actually, it was very difficult coming up with a title for this topic on lust because it's a topic that most people don't want to be seen carrying around. And so, as I was praying about it one day, I just began to recite Ephesians 5:3 to myself because I was memorizing that verse, "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or any kind of impurity or of greed because these are improper for God's holy people." So as I just let that verse kind of roll through my mind that phrase, "not even a hint" stood out to me.

It's just a wonderful reminder of what God's standard is for holiness and purity. And it really convicted me that so often that is not my standard. My standard is, “A little is okay,” or “This is not that big of a deal.” Yet that statement, "not even a hint of impurity" forces me to realize my need for God's help to live a holy and pure life.
 

Nancy: That’s right. Now you say in that book that some of us have what you called a "diet mentality" toward lust. What did you mean by that?

Joshua: Well, I think that we can often view lust like some people view chocolate. It's something they don't want to eat; they don't want to indulge in it. But every once in a while, a little nibble here or there isn't that big of a deal.

And so because they are mostly doing a good job and mostly obeying God, they will indulge their senses, if you will, in lust. And instead of viewing it as something that is detrimental, something that could destroy their lives and ruin their true joy and separate them from God, they view it as something they will take a peek at, they'll think about, they'll give into now and then.
 

Nancy: And when it comes to chocolate, that's one thing. But when it comes to indulging sexual desires outside of the parameters that God has defined for our lives, that's a whole different matter than just taking a nibble of chocolate.

Joshua: Exactly. And I think, sadly, we’ve degraded our understanding of sin and how serious it is instead of realizing that this is an offense against God, it's rebellion against Him. Ultimately, it's not going to lead to our joy. It's going to lead to dissatisfaction; it's going to lead to death.

Nancy: And isn't it amazing? It's really one of the lies of the enemy that he says, "Taste this," as he did with Eve there in the garden. He says, "You'll be happier; you'll be better off." And we wouldn't indulge if we didn't think indulging would make us happy.

But we end up, really, as even when you overindulge your physical senses, you end up sick to your stomach and really mad at yourself. You say, "I shouldn't have done that. I wish I hadn't." Invariably it is regret and shame where as the enemy says, "This is going to bring you happiness and freedom," and it is not so.

Joshua: In writing this book on lust, I have realized that the real power behind lust is that false promise. It gives us a promise that this act, whatever it might be, whether it's fantasizing about someone or something or looking at pornography . . . list whatever temptation you deal with. There is always this false promise that will this time really make you feel good, it will really satisfy you.

Shannon and I talk to a lot of couples who are in relationships before they are married. And it's that lie that, “We will just give in this one time,” and compromise physically in your relationship and it will be an expression of your love for each other and it will go away after you are married, and it will all be fine.

We challenge them, "Don't believe that lie because it won't satisfy and ultimately it will ruin your relationship. It will set you up for distrust and regret later if God does lead you to be married.”
 

Nancy: Shannon, you didn't come to know the Lord until after your college years. Sowas this standard, not even a hint of immorality, God's standard of holiness, was this something that was new to you when you became a Christian?

Shannon: Definitely. Obviously, even as Josh is speaking, coming to my mind was just thoughts of, as an unbeliever, I was very much giving into lust. I had several boyfriends and was giving into sexual sin. I didn't really think there would be any consequences to that sin.

Nancy: Did you even think it was sin? Or did you even think about it?

Shannon: I didn't really think about it. I think there was that innate sense though that, “This is not right. It is taking something that is good outside of the proper place.” I think there was definitely that sense of it. But I think that I was just so immersed in the world and so not thinking about anything but myself that it wasn't like I gave it a second thought.

Obviously, when I became a Christian, my whole worldview changed. At that point I immediately, dramatically changed the way I was living my life and refused to give into anything like that anymore.

Nancy: Was that because you began to get teaching that this was not God's plan? Is it just the work the Spirit did in your heart? How did you start to know what God's standard was for holiness?

Shannon: Well, the Bible obviously is very clear. I specifically remember reading a chapter in Romans 1:28-29 on how we will be given over to sexual immorality and God will let us go in our sin. And I felt convicted that that was speaking to me, that God had just let me go in my sin.

Then obviously, the work of the Spirit, that I just wanted to please the Lord now. And there are many verses about not giving into sexual sin until you are married. I think the Bible is very clear on that. I just wanted to please the Lord when I became a Christian.
 

Nancy: And let me just say, Shannon, that is such evidence that you are a child of God. We have so many professing Christians today, people in our churches, church youth groups, women in their 20s, older women who are indulging in sexual sin and not realizing that if they don't have a heart to please the Lord, then they have good reason to question whether they even belong to the Lord at all.

So it is such evidence that God really did bring you to faith because you were drawn to the Word, and you began to see that as the authority for your life and your lifestyle.
 

Joshua: And if I could just honor Shannon in that as well. That decision and that desire to honor God in that part of her life required breaking off old relationships. It required not hanging out with the same set of friends and going to the same places that she used to go.

I didn't know her at that point when she first became a Christian. But that's what takes place when you put your faith in God and you truly repent of your sins: You don't desire to be in those same settings that tempt you and draw you into sin. And she was fleeing those settings.
 

Shannon: And a word about the consequences . . . Back when I was younger, I wasn't thinking about any of those consequences. But then I met Josh. There was a time when we were actually sitting at a restaurant, and I’m having to pour out my past to him. It all of a sudden was very real and very tangible that my past did affect my future. There were consequences to the sin that I had committed previously.

I think it is easy in a moment to think, “This is never going to come up again. I can just do this, and there won't be any consequences.” But you don't always know what those are going to look like or how that is going to play out, but God's promises are true. He has good promises, but He also has the promises, “You will reap what you sow,” Galatians 6:7-8, and I definitely did that.

Nancy: We want to talk this week about how those who have violated God's standard can experience God's mercy and God's grace and God's forgiveness.

Shannon, you and Josh and I, all in different ways, are trophies of God's grace and pictures of His power to redeem. So we want people to realize that God can set them free from the bondage and the failure of their pasts. But we also want to leave that sober word that you just gave, Shannon, which is that the choices we make today do have consequences.

I think what we tend to do is we sow to our fleshly indulgence. We want to have it our way and live for the moment and live for the pleasure and indulge our senses and sow those seeds of indulgence and disobedience, and then pray for a crop failure so that we don't have to experience those consequences. And it is true that those choices do have consequences.

I received an email recently from a listener who said that she’s 34 and single. She said,

I struggle morally with my boyfriend and I cannot seem to get over that hurdle. This sin is devastating me, it’s devastating my relationship with God, and I so desperately need help in that area. But I have no one to turn to since my friends see nothing wrong with it. Please pray for me. I feel like I’m drowning.

I wonder if there were times as a teenager when perhaps you could look back and relate to what this listener said when she said, “It’s devastating me, it’s devastating my relationship with God.” If this a woman who comes to you, how will you encourage her?

Shannon: Well, I think it's wonderful that she is experiencing the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

Nancy: And isn't that a gift?

Shannon: That is a gift. And she is clearly experiencing that, and I would say that is wonderful. Just continue to foster that conviction and to ask the Lord to show her specific ways that He sees her disobedience.

If there are specific ways, I think what I would counsel her to do is to break up with this boyfriend. You cannot walk that line of obedience to God if you are toying with the very thing that is causing you to struggle. You really need to flee that temptation as hard as that might be.

I totally understand that they might have a long history together or that just the thought of breaking that relationship off would be extremely difficult, and I don't minimize that. But at the same time, in order for her to truly please God, I think that really is the only way to begin to live a life that is holy and pleasing to God.

She needs to immerse herself in a church and with friends that will encourage her in her convictions in obeying God and His Word.

Nancy: Shannon, when you first became a Christian and you had this past of immorality, sexual impurity, were there some a tough or radical decisions or changes that you had to make to begin to walk in purity yourself?

Shannon: Well, fortunately at the time, I did not have a boyfriend, but I did need to move. I needed to put myself closer to my local church where I would be surrounded by Christians who could build me up.

I moved in with a Christian family that went to this church. I definitely had to let go of friendships that I’d had, for a season. I am still in touch with them, and we are still friends. But for a season I really needed to just surround myself with Christian friends as I was growing up in the Lord.

Nancy: Josh, one of the things I appreciate about your message is that you communicate that there really is hope to be free from this, what you call, "a treadmill of shame and guilt." You really believe that even after years of sexual impurity, that there can be freedom for the person who is the child of God.

Joshua: That is the wonderful news, that Jesus has come and He has invaded this sinful world and made it possible for us to change by His death and resurrection.

Nancy: That's the gospel.

Joshua: That's the gospel, exactly. That's why it's such good news. I think that there are a lot of people (I would assume that this lady is a Christian and that she would call herself a Christian) who are not willing to take radical action to get rid of their sin. There can be a desire to turn away from the sin, but we don't want to completely break it off.

Nancy: Don't you think sometimes we want to be free from just the devastation and the consequences but not from the sin itself?

Joshua: That is exactly right. We don't like the feelings of guilt. She probably doesn't like going to church on Sunday and singing songs to the Lord and thinking about the fact that she slept with this man over the weekend.

But the grief is not over her sin against God. It's over, as you say, the consequences: the feelings of guilt and so on. And I would encourage people in that category, God offers freedom but we must obey His Word. We must flee youthful lust as His Word says. We have to run from sin and not seek to sort of stand up to it.

So I would agree with Shannon. There needs to be that time when that relationship is really brought to an end. That doesn't mean that a relationship like that couldn't one day be a godly one. But we have to make that decision, “I am more committed to obeying God than I am to anything else. And if that means this relationship will never be, then so be it. If this relationship could one day be brought around and be holy, great. But it must be pleasing to God before it moves forward.”

Nancy: We are really talking about the difference that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, between remorse and repentance. There is a big difference.

Joshua: There is that worldly remorse, worldly grief, that just leads to death. You feel sorry for yourself, you feel bad, you get depressed, and then you run back to your sin again for comfort.

What I have seen is that the answer to escaping lust is not to lower your standards but to embrace God's standard which is "not even a hint of sexual immorality or impurity" Ephesians 5:3.

When you do that, it makes you realize that you need the power of God living in you and working in you in order to obey because what we do so often is we set a standard we think we can meet. You know, "Well, we will only kiss," or "We will only do these things in our relationship." So we are not relying on God. We are relying on our own willpower, our own effort. And what ends up happening?

We mess up again. We sin again. And then we’ll come up with an even lower standard or do something else that is based on our own self, instead of realizing that God's standard is one that drives us to the cross, that drives us to grace, drives us to a need for His power working in us.

Nancy: It's only at the cross that a woman like this 34-year-old single woman or you, Josh, with your background or, Shannon, with your background, or me with my background, it's only at the cross that we can find forgiveness.

Shannon, did you struggle as you became a Christian, looking at the immorality of your past, did you struggle to experience a sense of God's forgiveness for your past?

Shannon: Yes and no. Yes in the sense that there was very definite regret; there was remorse toward God for how I had taken such a wonderful thing that was supposed to be a gift and was supposed to be a blessing. I realized that I had just taken that out of how God intended it and used it for myself and for my own pleasure.

When I read His Word and see how good it really is supposed to be and how good a God we serve and how He loves to bless us, I realize, "Oh, that was so awful. I just completely ruined a wonderful thing." So, yes, there was a lot of regret.

There was also that very real sense, though, that the Lord had cleansed me; He had made me a new creature. He had put His robes of righteousness around me and I was able to embrace that and accept that, accept Jesus' death on the cross for my sins. What more can I say to that?

Nancy: You know, God can't bless the sin of our past. But He can and He does bless a broken, contrite, and repentant heart. Psalms 51:17

I think one of the things about the gospel that is so wonderful and the power of the cross of Christ is that for the young woman who has given away her virginity, God can't give that back, but what He can give her is purity.

And God has given you a pure heart, and God has given Josh a pure heart. We are going to talk later in this series about the fact that immorality, sexual impurity is not just a matter of behavior and actions, but it goes deeper to issues of the heart.

That’s where God finds us all, needing to have purity restored. That comes as we acknowledge our failure; as we are honest with God about the standard that we have broken; as we call our sin what God calls it, not dressing it up, rationalizing it, or defending it because it's “not so bad as what everyone else does.” But we agree with God about the fact that it is sin and then call upon His grace, drawing upon His forgiveness that really can and does make all things new.

Father, what an incredible thing Your grace is and Your forgiveness and Your mercy, that You’ve shown us in Christ Jesus. I think about Isaiah chapter 1, verse 18, where You talk about the awful wickedness and sin of your people. Then you say, "Come and let us talk, let us reason together; though you should experience judgment," yet you say, "I will forgive you, I will cleanse you. Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow."

And so, Lord, we just come to You as cleansed and forgiven and very, very grateful sinners, having been made saints, having been made righteous through the blood of Jesus Christ.

And, Lord, thank You that You do bless and receive a broken and a contrite heart. And I pray that in every issue where You see things in our lives this day that are not according to the standard of Your perfect holiness, that we would be quick to agree with You, quick to acknowledge our sin.

Lord, that we would be repentant, not just remorseful but repentant before You, and that we would experience the fullness and the wonder and the joy of walking in forgiveness and grace before You. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Leslie: I’m so thankful for God’s forgiveness and the power He provides to say “no” to sin. Nancy Leigh DeMoss talked about that with Joshua and Shannon Harris in 2004. This important topic is still extremely important today.

Unfortunately, we won’t have time this week to bring you the complete conversation. When you order the CD, you’ll get an extra interview segment that we can’t fit on the air. You can order the series at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Nancy, in the interview we heard today, you mentioned a book Joshua had written and now the name is changed.

Nancy: Yes, that’s right, Leslie. It’s now called Sex Is Not the Problem, Lust Is. If the prayer I offered a minute ago reflects your heart, I hope you’ll follow up on today’s conversation by getting a copy of this really important book.

All of us are tempted by lust in some way, so we all need strategies and habits in place that will lead us away from temptation and encourage us to live lives of purity. This book, by Joshua Harris, will help you develop those habits by God’s grace and in His strength.
We’d like to send you a copy of Josh’s book, and we’ll put yours in the mail when you support Revive Our Hearts with a gift of any size.

Leslie: Ask for Sex Is Not the Problem, Lust Is when you call 1-800-569-5959, or visit our website. Make your donation there any time and you’ll be given a chance to verify that you’d like the book.

Both men and women face temptation, but sometimes it takes different forms. Joshua and Shannon Harris will be back to talk about it.

Joshua: Most people would say that women just deal with their emotions and fantasy and things like that, and it’s men that deal with these obvious ways. What was helpful for me in understanding that was I think many women who do struggle in those ways feel so ashamed because they feel like there’s something wrong with them.

I shouldn’t be dealing with lust in this way. So if I dealt with lust in the way women are supposed to deal with it, I’d feel okay, but because I feel like I’m doing things that are not what a woman is supposed to do, there’s even more shame, more secrecy, and unwillingness to open up to other women and to go to them and confess these things.

So they hide it, they keep it inside, and that only feeds the power of sin, because they’re not willing to walk in the light. I think that in a twisted way, as well, a woman’s lust can be expressed in this craving for power, in a sense. “If I dress this way, if I act this way, it gives the ability to get men to do what I want.”

As you can imagine, that just plays on the feeding of lust between men and women.

Leslie: "Saying No to Lust," next time on Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Revive Our Hearts, with Nancy Leigh DeMoss, is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.