Joe Rigney - More Than a Battle: How to Experience Victory, Freedom, and Healing from Lust

Virtually all men I know experience both shame and hopelessness in their struggle with the rampant pornography pandemic in our world. Thankfully, Joe Rigney gives us all a clear, gospel anchored way to fight the fight and lay aside the weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us.

Bob Lepine , cohost, FamilyLife Today

Indulging in pornography is an international pandemic that will send you to hell. Is it worth it to pursue a fleeting pleasure that is God-defying, life-wasting, family-betraying, poison-injecting, mind-ruining, conscience-searing, and slavery-fueling? The wise advice in this book is a gift for two groups of people: those who are struggling and those who want to help.

Andy Naselli , associate professor of systematic theology and New Testament for Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis and a pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church

The problem is deeper than the problem. Thats the message of More than a Battle . Joe Rigney explains how our struggle with lust and pornography is in fact an expression of our original good desire for love, success, fulfillment, and happiness, a desire now twisted and distorted by the Fall. To address the whole problem, Rigney argues that we must both starve the sinful cravings by denying the temptations of the flesh, and feed the original good desire, by pursuing our earthly vocation and our spiritual duty. And all must be done in the desire and expectation that God will satisfy our greatest desires. More than a Battle combines this theory with practice, as it offers concrete suggestions for developing practices and habits that form lasting virtue. This is a book for all Christians currently fighting the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Steven Wedgeworth , associate pastor of Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Vancouver, British Columbia

To be confronted by ones sin is a severe mercy. There can be no repentance and no glory to come if we are not confronted by our sin, and yet the confrontation can be immensely painful. I hope that every Christian trapped in the mires of sexual sin has a mentor to guide them with the hopefulness, shrewdness, and graciousness Rigney displays in this book. More than a Battle is not just a helpful guide for Christians mired in sexual sin, though it certainly is that. Its also a perceptive study of the human heart that equips readers to understand their sin more carefully and to combat it more intelligently. It helps readers see that chastity is beautiful. And its a remarkable application of the gospel to the lives of sinful people. This will be a go-to guide for pastors, campus ministers, and lay people alike.

Jake Meador , author of In Search of the Common Good and editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy

Copyright 2021 by Joe Rigney

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-0877-0022-9

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Dewey Decimal Classification: 176

Subject Heading: PORNOGRAPHY / EROTICA / SEXUAL ETHICS

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Christian Standard Bible, Copyright 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible and CSB are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.

It is the Publishers goal to minimize disruption caused by technical errors or invalid websites. While all links are active at the time of publication, because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, some Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed and may no longer be valid. B&H Publishing Group bears no responsibility for the continuity or content of the external site, nor for that of subsequent links. Contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content.

Cover design and illustration by B&H Publishing Group.

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To the men of Cities Church

Acknowledgments

This book was born from relationships. It was born from conversations, counseling sessions, conference messages, pastoral interventions, small groups, friendships, and mentoring relationships. When I was in college, Bill Biggs played a pivotal role in modeling compassionate stability to me (before I even knew what that was). I heard David Powlison deliver a life-transforming conference message on Making All Things New at the 2004 Desiring God Conference for Pastors. In 2013, Bethlehem Baptist Church hosted the Pure Pleasure Conference for men. The conference was the brainchild of my friend Kempton Turner, who felt burdened over the devastation of pornography among the men at Bethlehem. Kempton delivered two powerful messages on fighting the pleasure of lust with superior pleasure in Christ. I was given the privilege of doing four follow-up sessions with men in which we sought to apply gospel strategies in the fight against lust. Those four sessions eventually became the heart of this book.

In 2016, I gave the same four sessions to the men at Cities Church. We incorporated the sessions into our discipleship structures in hopes of fostering a community of men who are able to help one another fight the fight of faith. The feedback from those sessions led me to believe that there might be room for a book designed to help whole churches approach the struggle against pornography and sexual sin in a biblically grounded, holistic, and practical way.

As the book came together, a number of friends offered insights and feedback on how to improve it. Some of them gave extensive feedback and offered help on the structure of the book itself. Im deeply grateful to Samuel James, Andy Naselli, Justin Dillehay, Clayton Hutchins, Zach Krych, Mike Schumann, Aaron Bryant, Devin Mork, Cody Sandidge, Josh Bremerman, Paul Poteat, Jeff Evans, and Greg Morse for taking the time to read through the project (in various forms) and help me make it better. Im especially grateful for the feedback of Warren Watson. Warrens approach to counseling has profoundly shaped my own, and his interaction with the book has brought out additional dimensions of soul care that I never would have recognized on my own.

As always, Im deeply grateful for my fellow pastors at Cities Church: Nick Aufenkamp, David Easterwood, Josh Foster, Kevin Kleiman, David Mathis, Jonathan Parnell, Mike Polley, and Michael Thiel. Serving alongside these men in ministry is one of the great privileges of my life. They have influenced all aspects of my ministry, and their fingerprints show up in a variety of ways throughout this book.

Finally, I dont have words to express my gratitude to my wife, Jenny. She was a powerful means of grace that the Lord used in helping me experience victory, freedom, and healing from sin. Her influence is everywhere in this book. Through her patience, grace, and wisdom, she has helped me know myself more deeply. More importantly, she has helped me know God more deeply. And that has made all the difference.

Introduction

If youre picking up this book, its likely because you or someone you know has a problem. That problem goes by various names: Sexual sin. Pornography. Masturbation. Lust.

I dont know what led you to this book. Maybe youre fed up with yourself and looking for anything to help you overcome an addiction to pornography. Maybe someone recommended this book to you. Maybe they even gave you a copy. Maybe youre in an accountability group that is going to work through it. Maybe youre leading a group like that and want to be better equipped to help men who struggle. Maybe youre a pastor who wants to help the men in your church grow in holiness and obtain victory over this sin that so easily ensnares (Heb. 12:1).

Whatever the reason, if you sincerely want to be delivered from the chains of pornography and sexual sin, or if you want to help those who are bound by those chains, then I believe this book can help. Ive used the strategies outlined here in my ministry for fifteen years. More than that, this book is the fruit of my own decade-long struggle with lust in my teenage years and Gods grace in delivering me from it. Let me tell you a little bit about that.