--- title: "Bold Men Workbook, Volume III" canonical: https://www.boldmen.org/books/bold-men-workbook-volume-3 type: Book publisher: "B.O.L.D. (Brothers Overcoming Lustful Desires)" --- # Bold Men Workbook, Volume III *Redeemed & Sending (Weeks 34–52)* URL: https://www.boldmen.org/books/bold-men-workbook-volume-3 Series: Bold Men Workbook Anchor scripture: 2 Timothy 4:7 Who it is for: Christian men walking out of pornography and sexual sin, in a small accountability group with a leader. Format: 19 weeks. Each week: a teaching, seven daily devotionals, a memory verse, group discussion questions, a weekly check-in, and space for a leader’s notes. The final nineteen weeks close out the year and turn the question around: you've walked this — who are you walking it out with next? Volume III covers what it looks like to actually trust a rebuilt life, what ongoing accountability looks like once the crisis has passed, and how to disciple another man through the same fourteen weeks you started with. Same weekly structure throughout. Finishes the 52-week arc started in Volume I — best read as the closing volume of the three. ## Contents ### Arc VI — Redeemed Desire - Week 34: What Sex Is For (Genesis 2:24-25) - Week 35: Eyes of Honor (Job 31:1) - Week 36: Marriage as Covenant (Ephesians 5:25) - Week 37: True Intimacy with Your Wife (1 Corinthians 7:3-5) - Week 38: Singleness & Self-Control (1 Corinthians 7:7-9) - Week 39: Rebuilding Trust After Betrayal (Joel 2:25) - Week 40: Guarding the Garden (Proverbs 4:23) ### Arc VII — The Disciplined Life - Week 41: Integrity When No One Is Watching (Psalm 101:2-3) - Week 42: Redeeming Your Time & Devices (Ephesians 5:15-16) - Week 43: The Body as Temple (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) - Week 44: Work as Worship (Colossians 3:23) - Week 45: Money & Contentment (1 Timothy 6:6-10) - Week 46: Anger & the Tongue (James 1:19-20) ### Arc VIII — Free Men Free Men - Week 47: From Saved to Sent (Matthew 28:18-20) - Week 48: Leading Your Home (Joshua 24:15) - Week 49: Fathering the Next Generation (Deuteronomy 6:6-7) - Week 50: Becoming an Accountability Leader (2 Timothy 2:2) - Week 51: Your Story as a Weapon (Revelation 12:11) - Week 52: The Race Finished (2 Timothy 4:7–8) ## Sample: Week 34: What Sex Is For “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” — Genesis 2:24–25 (ESV) ### The teaching For thirty-three weeks the work has been mostly subtraction. Cut the input. Starve the pathway. Flee the trigger. Say no, and say it again, ten thousand more times, until the no starts to hold. That work was necessary, and it is not over. But if no is the only word you ever learn, you will end up a sober man who secretly believes God is against desire, that the holiest version of you would be a man with no wants at all, a stone with a Bible in its hand. That is not the gospel, and it is not what God made you for. This week Arc VI begins, and the question changes. We have spent the year learning how to stop wanting the wrong thing. Now we ask a deeper one: what was the wanting for in the first place. The enemy has hidden something from you behind a decade of shame. Your desire is not the enemy. Your desire is a good thing that has been aimed at the wrong object for a long time, and God’s plan for that desire is not execution. It is redemption. ### Sex is older than sin Go back before everything broke. Before the browser history, before the double life, before the first image that hijacked a boy who did not understand what he was looking at. Go all the way back to the garden, before there was any such thing as shame. > “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” — Genesis 2:18 The first thing in all creation that God called “not good” was a man by himself. Everything else He had pronounced good, and good, and good. Then He looked at the solitary man and said, for the first time, not good. Sex, union, one flesh, the ache of a man for a woman: these were God’s answer to the first “not good.” They were His idea before they were ever your problem, drawn up in a garden with the dirt still fresh, with no shame anywhere in the design. Most men in recovery carry a buried theology that sex is a concession God makes to weak men. That is a lie, and it keeps you sick. He invented this. He looked at the one-flesh union and the verdict was not “acceptable.” It was “very good.” ### One flesh: a covenant, not a commodity Now look at the verbs. Leave. Hold fast. Become one flesh. That is not the language of recreation. It is the language of covenant: a binding, public, permanent joining of two lives into one. > “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” — Mark 10:8–9 Jesus quotes this verse and adds a line: God joins. The one-flesh union is something God Himself does. Sex is the sign of that covenant, the seal pressed into the wax of a vow. It says with the body what the vows said with the mouth: I am yours, all of me, only you, for as long as I live. The act and the covenant were never meant to be separable. The act is the covenant’s signature, which is exactly why pornography wounds you the way it does. Pornography is the theft of the sign without the covenant: the seal with no document, the bonding act ripped out of the only context that made it good. > “Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’” — 1 Corinthians 6:16 Think about how staggering that is. There is no such thing as casual sex, not with a stranger, not with an image, not on a screen at one in the morning, because the act itself is covenantal whether you intended it or not. It joins. It bonds. It was built to. That is why you do not walk away from years of pornography untouched. You have been making thousands of one-flesh bonds with phantoms and breaking every one. ### Naked and not ashamed The chapter ends with the line your whole recovery has been reaching toward. > “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” — Genesis 2:25 Total exposure, zero shame: a kind of intimacy most men here have never tasted, to be fully seen and not afraid, fully known and not hiding. That was the original design. Then sin entered, and the man and woman reached for fig leaves and ran for the bushes. Shame is not native to you; it came in the door with sin. The whole gospel is the reversal of Genesis 3, God coming into the bushes where you hide, to clothe you Himself and turn you back toward naked and not ashamed. The goal of your purity is not a man with no desire. It is a man who can finally be fully known without terror. ### You do not execute the desire; you re-aim it Here is the truth that changes everything about how you fight. Lust and covenant love are not two engines. They are the same engine pointed at two different objects. Lust is desire aimed at a person you have turned into a thing. Covenant love is desire aimed at a person you have bound yourself to honor. Same fuel. Same fire. Opposite direction. This is why willpower alone fails. God never asked you to feel nothing. > “For the grace of God has appeared … training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” — Titus 2:11–12 Grace trains. It does not amputate. The word Paul uses is the word for raising a child: patient, daily, formative. God is not killing the part of you that desires. He is raising it, teaching the engine over years to pull toward honor instead of toward a screen. Back in Week 21 we drew the line between sobriety and freedom. This is that same line, drawn through the center of your sexuality. Sobriety is a man white-knuckling a dead engine. Freedom is a man whose desire has been redeemed and re-aimed at what God built it for. This week, before you fix anything, tell the truth about what you actually believe sex is, and let Him begin to re-aim what the enemy has been stealing. ### Daily devotionals Seven readings for the seven days ahead. Take ten minutes each day: read the verse, take in the thought, and let the Spirit speak. DAY 1 — Not Good To Be Alone “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” — Genesis 2:18 The first “not good” in the Bible is not a sin. It is a solitude. Before anything had gone wrong, God looked at a man by himself and called the arrangement incomplete. The ache you feel for connection is not a defect; it was installed. The enemy has spent years telling you the desire is the problem, but the problem was always where you have been taking it. Today’s Prompt: What have you secretly believed about your own desire: that it is shameful or simply too much? Write the belief, then write what Genesis 2:18 says back to it. DAY 2 — Very Good “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” — Genesis 1:31 Before the fall, God surveyed all He had made, including the union of man and woman, and rendered a verdict: not “acceptable,” not “tolerable,” but very good. If you carry the buried belief that sex is a grubby thing God grudgingly permits, the first page of the Bible contradicts you in God’s own voice. Your shame about desire is not holiness. It is a wound, and one of the things He came to heal. Today’s Prompt: Where did you first learn to feel that sex itself is dirty? Name the source: a moment, a person, a silence, and ask God to start telling you the truth instead. DAY 3 — Leave And Hold Fast “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” — Genesis 2:24 Three verbs, in order. Leave. Hold fast. Become one. This is covenant language: a man binding himself publicly and permanently to one person, the one-flesh union sealing it. Pornography offers the seal with no covenant, the bonding act stripped of the binding vow. It promises union and delivers isolation, because the mechanism God built to join you to a wife was never meant to be spent on a screen. Today’s Prompt: Where have you been seeking the seal of intimacy without the covenant of it, chasing the feeling of being joined while avoiding the cost of being bound? Name one specific place. DAY 4 — The Sign Without The Covenant “Flee from sexual immorality. … You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” — 1 Corinthians 6:18, 20 Paul says this sin is different: it lands inside, not outside. You know this in your bones. It follows you home, sticks to you, rewires how you see. That is the design Paul named: this act reaches the body because it was built to bond. Your body is not yours to spend on phantoms. It is a temple, bought at a price you could never pay. Flee is not a prudish word. It is a rescue command. Today’s Prompt: Where, specifically, do you need to literally flee this week: a place, a time of night, a device situation? Name the exact escape route you will take the next time the pull comes. DAY 5 — Naked And Not Ashamed “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” — Genesis 2:25 This is the last sentence of the garden before the fall, and it names what every man here is starving for and terrified of: to be fully seen and not afraid. Total exposure, total safety. Then sin came, and the first instinct was to cover and run. Shame is not who you are. It is what happened to you. The gospel is God walking back into the bushes, clothing you with His own hands, turning your face toward the road to unashamed. Today’s Prompt: Where in your life are you most still hiding behind fig leaves: with God, with your wife, with your team? What would it cost you to step out from behind one this week? DAY 6 — The Engine, Re-Aimed “For the grace of God has appeared … training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.” — Titus 2:11–12 Grace trains. It does not numb. The verb is the one used for raising a son: patient, daily, formative. God is not draining your desire to zero. He is taking the same engine that pulled you toward a screen and teaching it to pull toward honor. This is why suppression alone never freed you. A dead engine is not a redeemed one. Lust and covenant love run on the same fuel; the only difference is the aim. Today’s Prompt: Name one desire you have been trying to kill that God may actually want to redeem and re-aim. What would it look like to ask Him to train it rather than execute it? DAY 7 — An Honored Bed “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled.” — Hebrews 13:4 The arc closes where the garden began: with honor. The marriage bed is not something the Bible is embarrassed by. It is something the Bible commands you to hold in honor, to treat as holy, set apart, worth protecting. Whether married or single, this is the direction your redeemed desire points: toward covenant, toward honor, toward a love held as holy rather than consumed. You spent years defiling it in secret. The path forward is not a smaller desire. It is a desire pointed home. Today’s Prompt: What is one concrete way you will begin to honor, not just avoid defiling, God’s gift of sex this week, in your thoughts, your marriage, or your singleness? Be specific. ### This week’s reflection Take real time with these. Use the lines or your B.O.L.D. journal. Bring your written reflections to the group meeting. 1. Write out your actual, operating theology of sex, not the right answer, the real one. When you are honest, do you believe sex is dirty, dangerous, a craving to manage forever, or a covenant gift God called very good? Where did that belief come from? 2. This week’s teaching said pornography is “the theft of the sign without the covenant.” In what specific ways have you felt the cost in your body of making one-flesh bonds with images and breaking them? Write it honestly. 3. Genesis 2:25, naked and not ashamed, is the intimacy you were built for. Where are you most still hiding behind fig leaves: with God, with your wife, with your team? Name one fig leaf you will step out from behind this week. 4. Lust and covenant love run the same engine, aimed at different objects. Name one desire you have been trying to kill that God may want to redeem and re-aim. What would it look like to let Him train it instead of executing it? ### Memorize this week “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” — Genesis 2:24–25 (ESV) Write the verse on a card. Say it out loud, three times each morning, three times each evening. By Sunday it should be in you. Try writing it from memory three times below as the week progresses: Tuesday: Thursday: Saturday: ### Group discussion questions Bring this page to your team meeting. Your leader will work through these together. Be honest. The group is only as deep as the bravest man in the room. 1. Open with check-in. Clear or hand. Brief context. 2. Be honest: when you read “your desire is not the enemy,” did it relieve you or unsettle you? What does your reaction reveal about what you have believed for years? 3. Where did each of you first absorb the belief that sex is dirty or shameful, or that it is just a craving to manage? How has that belief shaped your recovery? 4. The teaching called pornography “the seal without the covenant.” How does seeing sex as covenant rather than commodity change the way you understand what porn actually did to you? 5. Genesis 2:25: naked and not ashamed. Where is each man most still hiding behind fig leaves? Name one, out loud, in this room tonight. 6. Lust and love run the same engine, aimed differently. What would it look like, practically, for God to re-aim your desire rather than just for you to suppress it? 7. Pray over each man’s sexuality specifically. Ask God to begin redeeming desire, not deadening it. Bind every spirit of shame that has told these men that wanting itself is the sin. WEEKLY CHECK-IN — WEEK 34 Fill this out before the meeting. The leader will collect responses or ask men to share aloud. Days clear this week (out of 7): ____________ If there were setbacks, briefly: when, what triggered, what was happening in your life that day: What spoke to you most from this week’s teaching? What did the Holy Spirit press on in your daily devotionals? Specific prayer request for the week ahead: One specific way I am asking my brothers to encourage / hold me accountable this coming week: ### Leader’s notes — For team leaders only. Participants: skip ahead to next week. — Source: https://www.boldmen.org/books/bold-men-workbook-volume-3