“For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.”
Titus 3:3
Do you consider yourself powerless over pornography? Do you look at your masturbation habit and consider it a compulsive behavior that you are unable to manage? Do you, in short, believe that you are a slave to sexual immorality? If you believe these things about yourself, then you believe the first lie of the Celebrate Recovery 12 Steps: “We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.”
Celebrate Recovery bills itself as a “Christ-centered, 12 step recovery program for anyone struggling with hurt, pain or addiction of any kind.” The movement is filled with sincere Christian leaders who mean well, but they are misguided. They say that your first step on the road to recovery from porn “addiction” is to admit that you are powerless over your sexual sin. They want you to believe that you are a slave. But if you follow their 12-step recovery model, you will be a rather unusual kind of slave, won’t you?
After all, no one forces you to pull out your smartphone and search for porn. No one stands over your bed and compels you to masturbate. No one forces you to take that second look. These are sins you do willingly. You “serve various lusts and pleasures,” as Paul puts it in his letter to Titus (Titus 3:3). This word “serve” that Paul uses here is the Greek word that’s derived from doúlos, a bond-slave whose rights have been assigned to his owner. A doúlos, in New Testament usage, is often a slave or servant who willingly gives over the prerogative to be self-governing. They have a master, but they serve that master willingly, freely, voluntarily.
What about you? No one bought you in a slave market. No one owns you. No one commands you to sin sexually. You are a slave without a master. Which means you have power over your sexual immorality. Your habitual sin is manageable. You have moral agency, self-control, willpower. And you have the Holy Spirit to empower you. As a bond-slave of Christ (1 Corinthians 7:22), you are free to forsake your voluntary sexual sins any time you please, and to serve Christ instead.
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