What Can Pastors Do When People Say They Feel Addicted to Porn?

There are many Christians in our churches who feel addicted to sexual sin. The reality that in Christ the power and dominion of sin has been broken feels like a hollow truth that doesn’t map onto their experience. If someone tells you they are addicted to pornography, they are telling you they feel trapped. They literally do not know how to stop their behavior. The way this habit has rewired their brains and shaped their hearts makes it feel like, at times, someone or something else has taken control of their will. They will tell you in times of clarity that they hate their sin, that they’d do anything to be free from its bondage. But they’ll also tell you that when temptation rears its head, it is the only thing in the world that they want at that moment.

So how can pastors hold together the hope of the gospel of the crucified and risen Christ with the humble recognition that pornography and sexual sin have many members of Christ’s body ensnared, and they feel helpless to escape its clutches?

Well, first, recognize that the time it took to settle into well-worn patterns of sin will be mirrored by the time it takes to faithfully walk the narrow path of repentance. While some people feel that they became addicted to porn instantaneously, the reality is that a life of hiding and sneaking and escaping painful realities is something that develops over time, slowly ingraining worldviews, desires, and behaviors. This is why repentance is such a long journey: because it’s not about cutting out compartmentalized behaviors. It’s about doing all of life in a new way. And as pastors, I know you don’t always have the time to walk that long journey with someone. But please prioritize finding and equipping men and women who will walk with them for as long as it takes for them to experience sustained freedom.

Secondly, don’t view people struggling with habitual sexual sin as a project. They have stories to tell. They have hopes and dreams which have been dashed. They have questions and concerns about their relationship with God. They have fears of losing the people in their life that they have hurt. They have wounds and suffering that they don’t know how to deal with. We want to be moved by their pain. We want to rejoice in their victories. We want to grow to love them as Christ loves them. This kind of investment of your heart will guard you against becoming legalistic and harsh on the one side, and becoming apathetic and giving up on the other.

Lastly, in all that you do, from the practical boundaries a struggler needs to the good, other-person-centered works that they need to start walking in, because sexual sin is deeply self-centered, in everything, point them to the person and work of Christ. Help them to see that sexual sin is an issue of idolatry, and that their only hope for forgiveness, redemption, sanctification, and glory is found in their union with Christ. Help them to start to view all of their life, not just their sexual struggles, as an outworking of their walk with Jesus, where he is the means and he is the goal.