All right, One of the things I would want to maintain is that
Christians aren't going to make any headway by trying to split
the difference between faith and unbelief.
If you have unbelief and faith and you split the difference,
you just get a muddled form of faith or a Christian.
What about? This idea of Jesus Christopher,
you don't buy it at all, I take it.
Well, I don't think he was the son of God.
He don't, no, I don't think his mother was.
I don't think his mother was a virgin and I don't think he died
and was resurrected. But it's also something that can
humble you if you think about it correctly.
It it makes you. It helps put everything in
perspective. Good morning.
How are we doing today? Man, it's good to see you.
Happy Memorial Day weekend. I think, I think we can say that
we get to celebrate a lot of stuff because of a lot of people
who sacrificed. And many of you have family
history of people who have done that and given the greatest
sacrifice for our country. And so that we can actually open
this Bible and not have an edited version of it and not
have to argue about whether or not we can read it with fear of
someone sitting outside saying no too far.
Can't talk about that. And that's one of the freedoms
we get to. So beyond your cookout that
you're going to have probably tomorrow, just remember that
that's actually about, you know, the the freedom to discuss
stuff, to disagree. I can disagree with my
government and not fear that they're going to come and show
up in my house and kill me. Amen.
And that's, that's a good thing. And I think that's one of the
freedoms we get to celebrate on the subject of apologetics, when
we talk about being able to not only articulate the faith that
you have, but the ability to give a defense for it.
And that's really what our series has been in the last
several weeks called liar, lunatic, or Lord.
And I'll just be blunt. I wanted to outsource this
message. I did not want to do it.
And God, I think really wanted me to do it.
So I'm I'm going to do my best. This makes me nervous what we're
going to talk about today. If you've been paying attention
to the God and where we're at, you kind of know where we're at.
It's that Sunday and it fell on Memorial Day week in which may
be the grace of God. I don't know, because you know,
you're all you're all the people who couldn't go to Pismo and
we're really glad you're here anyway.
But I'll I'll be blunt. This is personal.
I've been nervous all week and prayerful and and tactical in my
study. I feel like this is one of those
areas where we've got to be very gracious, but we've got to be
very clear and getting it right. And so I've read everything you
can find articles for what we're talking about, the art, the
arguments against that being the wrong view of what we're talking
about in the word. Done everything I could to
study. I probably put in about 27 hours
into this message this week, which is pretty abnormal.
It's about 12 to 15 more than I'm normally hitting on an
average week of study and prep time leading up to a message.
But I really wanted to read everything I could and study
everything I could. And I want to remind you of the
tone in which this entire conversation has been housed
while we're doing this series comes out of first Peter chapter
3, verse 15. And if we can in a second, can I
get some more house lights so they can read their Bibles and
so I can see them? Because right now you all look
like you're just in a dark room. And it scares me.
I want to see if you're gnashing your teeth at me.
I'd love to actually be able to see that it says this first.
Peter 315 In your hearts, honour Christ the Lord is holy.
Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you
for a reason, for the hope that is in you.
Yet do this with gentleness and respect.
So two things, we are to give reason for the hope that we have
and we are to be respectful and gentle in the way that we
articulate that. In fact, throughout this
message, I hope if you feel any kind of harsh tones there in the
moments where I'm talking about the church and any kind of
gracious tones are in the moments we're talking about
those who may not consider themselves a part of the church.
And so today I want to talk to you about the Christian
Christianity and the LGBTQ community.
So Christianity and the LGBTQ community, and in particularly
this perhaps is probably the issue of controversy of our
time. It is an ethical issue that is
personal in that we have family and friends and people that we
love and care for and would willingly do anything for.
Honestly, people who are better human beings than many of us
that are in this room, who are incredible philanthropist,
incredible contributors to our society, who identify within
this community. And so we we have this ethical
issue coming up. And I want to be very clear that
what I'm not doing today is trying to discern the goodness
or lack of goodness within a human being.
This is not a debate of good or bad.
Are they good or are they bad people?
That, that is not the debate that we are having.
In fact, I would submit to you that for many of my own personal
relationships with people from this community, many of them are
better than any of us ever thought about being as far as
human beings and philanthropists and humanists.
OK, Like way better, way better. We're tracking so far.
What we are trying to discern is what does the Bible actually
teach and say, which is actually one of the things that's under
attack. And there's a lot of discussion
around trying to essentially get to the real meaning or revision,
what has been the traditional meaning of what the Bible
teaches. So this is a personal issue.
I acknowledge that it is an issue that is usually addressed
in our conversations through lots of feelings and emotions.
But today, what I want to actually have is a scriptural
conversation as best as we can. And it's something that this
week I've been extremely prayerful, nervous, and detailed
in my study to prayerfully prepare for today.
And So what I want to do is break this up into two parts.
And this is probably going to be the most apologetic sermon we've
done in the series so far, because I actually want to teach
you how to have gracious and kind conversations about what
the Bible teaches and doesn't teach.
So I'm going to start out by talking about the mistakes the
church has made that I think have led to the cultural
landscape that we're in. And then I want to look at the
common disagreements or arguments towards the
traditional held view in most churches around the country and
around the world when it comes to things that are taught in the
Bible and what they mean within the landscape of today.
And SO2 parts, trying to spend about 10 to 15 minutes in the
first part, bulk of our time on the latter part, looking at some
of the defenses that are there. Are we tracking?
All right? With that in mind, let me just
go into the extreme. Some of the extremes that we've
seen within the church that have added to the problems, that not
helped with the problems, number one is involved, excuse me,
mistakes. The first two of these involve
extremes, extreme stances the church has taken that have not
helped the conversation. 2 extremes, number one.
The first extreme is in how we speak of sexual ethic issues in
public. The church has gotten it wrong
here because the church is often either silent or arrogant.
We either say nothing or we're the bullhorn.
We're silent or mute, saying nothing, meaning we try to
minimize what the Bible does say because we don't want to have to
deal with its tension that it brings into the room and into
the conversation. We call for love and
peacekeeping without without considering seriously the
warnings of the Bible teaching on issues that matter enough for
them to be recorded in Scripture.
I wanna say that last part again.
We we try to keep some kind of weird peace.
So we avoid it. We ignore it.
And in doing so we ignore things that the Bible thought was
important enough for them to be recorded in Scripture for us to
have to work through and talk about the tension of it.
Or the other extreme when it comes to Speaking of sexual
ethic issues in public is the church has been the other side
of it is we either been silent or we've been arrogant, arrogant
and boisterous. Meaning we are bullhorn
noisemakers who with no relationship, no empathy, no
compassion, no desire to actually study the scriptures
and reason through them. No desire to actually teach them
in a helpful way or point others to Jesus.
Carelessly stand up and create divisiveness that is not derived
from the Bible or Jesus, but out of the desire to prove a point
over actually making a difference.
And so we have this extreme culturally where we've got a of
people that are completely silent and a group of people
that are extremely loud. And the group that's extremely
loud all of a sudden represents everybody when it comes to the
Christian faith. And that, my friends, cannot
happen. There has to be a voice that
fights for the truth of the scriptures and the love that the
Savior called us to carry the message with.
This is something we must get right, not just in a issue, but
in all of these issues that we deal with as we confront a world
that is looking for truth. The second extreme that we've
dealt in that has not helped the situation is the extreme and how
we relationally engage people from the LGBTQ community.
SO1 extreme is how we talk about sexual ethics.
That's silence and arrogance. The other extreme is how we've
engaged people in relationship from this community and that is
the 2 extremes of affirmation or alienation.
So the the idea is you affirm everything and say nothing is
wrong or you have no community with them at all, or you
alienate them and isolate them. Which means there's no
opportunity for a relationship, community and gospel
conversations to actually take place.
So the affirmation side, essentially what I've seen them
do is they choose to minimize the authority of Scripture,
revision it or ignore it in order to affirm something that
we are sure based off a feeling and not the word of God that
Jesus himself would affirm. So the arguments usually go,
well, it's a different culture and time, as if this community
didn't exist back in Jesus time, as if there's as if all the
sudden this is a 20th century invention.
When in actuality, the struggles we have are the struggles we've
always had are the desires we have, are desires that have been
imprinted throughout generations, overtime, and
throughout the years. So we have affirmation.
The other side is alienation. Alienation is dismissing the
LGBTQ community because of a truth that we proclaim with no
compassion or desire to actually bridge into and understand the
hurts, struggles, and pains that they, as image bearers of God,
bear. It's proclaiming that,
proclaiming the truth with no desire to actually experience
the Holy Spirit's work in it to bring any kind of
reconciliation. So there's been two extremes
that the church has erred in. Arrogance and alienation and
silence. Or, excuse me, affirmation,
alienation and silence and arrogance.
Both wrong ways of addressing this topic.
Which then brings me to the third problem within the church.
And this is a human problem. But we can absolutely
acknowledge it within the church, and that is consistent
hypocrisy. Consistent hypocrisy to point
out other sins and not our own, to not repent, to make it
abnormal, to repent, to make it abnormal to acknowledge your
sin, to put on what we call church clothes and the church
face and that like everything is going well and to be passive in
our devotion to God. Consistent hypocrisy In Matthew
Chapter 7 versus 3 to 5 Jesus says this.
Why do you see the spec that is in your brothers eye but do not
sit notice the log that is in your own eye?
Or how can you say to your brother, let me take that spec
out of your own eye when there is a log still in your own eye.
Let me be very clear about this. Any time that we've in recent
years been confronted with someone who's had an ethical or
moral failure, the first thing that I do with our elders and
leaders is I get them in the room and my first words to them
before we say anything is repent.
Repent like we're seeing their sin publicly, but your sin is
still present in private. So before it becomes public,
let's put it out there publicly. Let's make it known in the world
that we ourselves are sinners in need of a Savior.
And in that way we can portray that it's OK to be at fault and
in the presence of God at fault and within the community of God
imperfect and still walking amongst God's people.
So our first step is always repentance before we go and
confront someone else. So many people read that they're
like Amen. So you call your sin and you
leave me alone. But that's not what the text
actually teaches. What the text says in verse 5
is, you hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and
then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your
brother's eye. What is it saying?
There is an accountability that I have to you that if I see you
professing to be a follower of Jesus and walking in sin and not
calling it sin or ignoring it or dismissing it, I have an
obligation to check myself and to put a mirror up through the
Scripture and look into my own life.
And then through doing that, humbling myself to the authority
of Scripture and the presence of God, and then to humbly and
lovingly confront you in your sin.
And this is a practice that does not happen in church in America.
You would rather them die. Then you have to have a
difficult conversation with many of them.
Well, this just do what you feel.
Do what you think is right. So we have extremes in how we've
spoken on the issues. We have consistent hypocrisy
that is risen in the church where we highlight other sin
while minimizing ours, which all that does is make us arrogant
clinging gongs according to First Corinthians chapter 13 and
the scriptures call us before confronting our brother with the
scriptures that we first confront ourselves.
So let me be very clear about Jesus in this story.
Jesus befriends sinners. That's Mark 213 and 17.
We see that as he eats with tax collectors and sinners.
Jesus has compassion on sinners. That's Matthew 936.
Jesus loves sinners. That's John 1513.
Every single one of us are sinners.
That's Romans 323 And within all of that Jesus calls all in sin
to repentance. That's John 811.
So here's the tension. Jesus loves you, He loves you,
but in relationship with him, he calls you to a better way.
Now, you never think that the way is better whenever you're
walking in something that's familiar or comfortable or
that's an actual desire of your flesh.
But the Bible is clear that Jesus's love is both love and
confrontation. It is love and a call to
something greater and it's not a call to something greater that
is derived from your own power. It is derived from the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is through the same power
that raised Jesus from the dead that fills us that then empowers
us to walk out what Christ has called us to walk out.
Now let me be very clear. I am shocked at how simple I am
and still filled with the Holy Spirit.
It is shocking to me how passive I can be about the things of God
and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
So let me be very clear to you, I'm not saying that the power of
the Holy Spirit means snap. Everything like Thanos's glove
is taken care of. Anything but that.
What I am saying is that Jesus love and Jesus call to holiness
does not lead you inadequately under sourced or underpowered to
take on that journey. You will fail, you will make
mistakes, there will be simple desires that will not go away.
The Bible doesn't promise that When you pray a prayer or people
pray of you, all of a sudden magically all of your sinful
desires go away. I am still shockingly sinful,
but I am filled with the presence of God and he is
empowered and called me, though it is difficult and sometimes
contrary to my first nature, the nature of my flesh, He still
calls me to this new creation to be in the person that He's
called me, to be laid out by the Scriptures and empowered by the
Holy Spirit. So let me take you through 4
common objections when it comes to this conversation that come
up. If you say you're Christian and
someone's looking to make a point and some of this culture
has been created by us and we've got to own that.
Four questions that come up. And I want to talk with you
through how we answer these questions with kindness and
grace. Number one, one of the first
objections to the Bible's teaching, the traditional view,
which is that the Bible teaches that the practice of any kind of
sexual, that the practice of any kind of sex outside of
heterosexual marriage between one man and one woman is sin.
Let me be clear. The Bible teaches that any kind
of sexual arousal or any kind of sexual interaction with someone
who is not your spouse, one man, one wife, laid out in Genesis
chapter 2 that that is sent so quickly.
We can go back to every single one of your wedding days and
know that though you were white, there was a different story that
could have been told. OK, got got quiet on there.
OK, here's some of the objections to that.
Number one, people will say, well, there's a lack of
Scripture addressing this issue, or Jesus never addressed the
issue directly, so why are you making a big deal out of
something that's infrequently mentioned throughout Scripture
or Jesus never directly talked about himself?
A couple things there. OK, every time I've ever heard
someone say that Scripture doesn't address this frequently,
it usually goes something like this.
Well, it's only written in the Bible 6 times.
So let me be very clear. Anytime someone begins an
apologetic with it's only written in the Bible, fill in
the blank. That should immediately raise a
red flag. Here's why the But the
scripture, whether it's mentioned once or 100 times, is
given to us as authoritative and is to hold with us a clearview
of who God is that's revealed to us.
So to dismiss or overlook a scripture is tied to the on the
basis of its frequency and it's mentioning within the Bible or
lack thereof is absolutely a terrible way to start.
We're already trying to revision and edit Scripture.
We're already trying to go, well, he mentioned money this
many times and he mentioned sexual ethics this many times.
So if he only mentioned sexual ethics this many times, the
money this many times, I'm going to go work on the money thing
and we'll just leave this one alone until you know, when Jesus
comes back. It's not how it works.
Now the six passages that are
described are called by a lot in the LGBTQ community, the clubber
verses the verses that people use as Christians to beat with.
Because we've not been surgical, we've instead been careless in
the way that we've taught and looked at them.
And we also haven't noted that in almost every single one of
them, it mentions a plethora of sexual sins beyond same sex
attraction in the text that we conveniently ignore and continue
to be promiscuous in our own life, which gives you no, which
gives you no footing our founding to have a conversation
with people when you're unrepentant about the sexual sin
that you're hiding in your own closet.
What about Jesus? Jesus doesn't mention
homosexuality when he's here. He doesn't talk about it,
doesn't call out to be a sin. That's a lie.
Let me answer that a couple ways #1 Jesus did address sexual
ethics, and in doing so, He addressed all of it in Matthew 5
and in Matthew 19. In fact, in Matthew 19, if you
look at it, Jesus says this. He answered.
Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning
made them male and female? Where does that language come
from? Genesis.
Where? Genesis 2?
OK continue with me or how can you say to your brother or
excuse me not there verse 5 and said therefore a man shall leave
his father and and his mother and hold fast to his wife and
the two shall become where does that come from?
What is Jesus affirming? The design of marriage and the
design of sex. Sex was created to be uniquely
shared within the constraints of heterosexual marriage.
Now, immediately. Everyone gets uncomfortable in
the room whenever we talk about that.
Why? Because that has been disputed
and argued against over and over again.
And then the argument comes back.
Well, Jesus never addresses it when actually he does.
You can't dismiss it. I understand.
Listen to me, this is personal to me.
I have friends that I love deeply, family that I love
deeply, and we have these conversations, but I do them no
disservice by trying to PC or politically correct Jesus and
give them some sort of pseudo savior I have to calmly and
gently walk through. I understand this is your desire
and understand that you believe Jesus didn't mention it so that
means it's not a big deal. But he actually did and that's a
lie that you read. In the book Jesus addresses
marriage and in doing so he addresses all sexual ethics and
and practices. In the text he addresses Genesis
2IN doing so he affirms the Old Testament teaching about the
design of human sexuality within the context of marriage between
one man and one woman. The second thing in this
response of well, the Scripture doesn't address this a lot or
Jesus never addresses the issue directly.
The second thing I like to say is this, Jesus is a member of
the Godhead. So even if you don't want to
come with me to agreement that Matthew 19 is Jesus addressing
sexual ethics, you can't separate Jesus from the things
that He said in the Gospels and the things that are taught in
the rest of Scripture. To do so is to make an argument
that somehow Jesus was in disagreement with the Father
about what was taught in the Old Testament and the Spirit was
what was written after his resurrection in the New
Testament. There's perfect harmony here
between Father, Son, and Spirit. Meaning whenever the Old
Testament was being written, Jesus was there and active, and
Jesus was there and active. Whenever we get Ephesians or
Corinthians or any of the other books that we read, that it's
not outside of the knowledge and authority of Jesus that the
Bible was written. It was within the authority of
the trial and God that we get the scriptures that we have.
So to make this argument that somehow by Jesus, not implicitly
without you having to work through Matthew 19 implicitly
just writing it out for us, meaning that it's somehow OK,
It's basically saying that Jesus is somehow greater or lesser to
that of the rest of the Trinity, which folds the entire Christian
faith in on his head. The last thing I like to say in
this argument in response to those that bring this up is
this. The Bible is a book of many
books, but of 1 main story. The Bible is a book of many
books but of 1 main story. So you cannot isolate the
teachings of Jesus from the teachings of the Old Testament
or the apostles of the New Testament.
Because it is through the Old Testament that we get to the
gospel in the presence of Jesus walking in history and in time
in the New Testament. And it's through his
resurrection and ascension that we then get the early works of
the church and the writings that lead us all the way up to
Revelation, which is the return of Christ when he comes back to
set everything that is broken right once again.
So these are arguments that though they may sound good on
the surface, you as a follower of Jesus should be able to
gently and kindly be able to ask to answer and respond.
Yes, Jesus addresses this. Yes, it is a big deal.
And no, it being mentioned only 6 times does not minimize its
authority over our life as a call for us to actually follow.
Do you know why that argument has so many, so much teeth?
Because in all the other things that are mentioned over and over
again in scripture, many of us in the church don't have heard
them and we don't practice them. So like, it talks more about
money. What are you doing with your
money? I mean, nice car, nice shot,
nice RV. Good to see that you're being
charitable to the poor. So all of a sudden your
malpractice becomes their reason for their continued malpractice.
I'm telling you that the only path forward with any kind of
voice, with any kind of reason in this conversation is going to
be your genuine devotion to God and your genuine repentance
before him. Because if we can't get, if we
can't normalize repentance here, then we cannot expect it to ever
become, to ever see revival out there, to ever see people who
are far from God coming in to a Savior who can receive us with
all of our. The second big argument that
comes up usually deals with Romans 1.
Romans 1 is one of those 6 verses.
I want to read it for you. But in Romans 1 verses 24 to 32,
Paul writes this. Therefore God gave them up up in
the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of
their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth
of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather
than the Creator, who is blessed forever.
Amen. For this reason, God gave them
up to dishonorable passions for their women exchange natural
relations for those that are contrary in nature.
And the men likewise give up natural relations with women and
will consume a passion for one another.
Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in
themselves the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see it fit to acknowledge God, God gave
them up to a debase mind to do what ought not be done.
He allowed them not to feel or experience conviction anymore.
Perhaps this is one of the graces of God.
And the common grace that we experience is that God at times,
whenever you refuse to acknowledge sin, a sin will give
you over to that sin so that you live in it without any kind of
conviction that wells up inside of you or cause you to anything
greater that the Bible would call greater through you.
And so you end up just ignoring it and living your entire life
blind to what God's actually called you to.
Verse 20. They were filled with all manner
of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.
They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.
They are gossip, slanders, haters of God, insolent,
haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice
such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give
approval to those who practice. And let me be very clear about
the context of Romans 1. Romans 1 is a big mirror that
catches everybody who is not Jesus in a moral conundrum.
So if you look at Romans 1 and you take that excerpt and that's
all you read and that's all you walk away with, you come out
arrogant but not holy. Paul's entire thesis from Romans
1/2 is to get us to Romans 323. Romans 1 and 2 is to say no
matter what your ethnic background is and no matter what
your sin desire is, you are all at the end of the day sinners in
need of a Savior. Romans 323 for all of sin and
fall short of the glory of God. Can we Amen that Amen.
So we're all on the equal playing field by the end of
Romans 323. That is context within that.
Now, here's some of the things that people try to do with
Romans One, to try and revision it.
And this is happening today in many churches.
Number one, I've heard this argument, read it in a book.
Paul is not addressing, and this is the argument.
Paul is not addressing monogamous homosexual practice,
but pederasty. What Paul is doing, it's the
argument he's not addressing like one man and one man being
married and living faithfully with each other and enjoying
that relationship and serving God together.
That's not what God is or what Paul and God ultimately through
Paul is addressing. Instead, he's addressing
something called pederasty. And I've seen this argument and
here's what pederasty was. It's very gross, but essentially
pederasty within the Roman culture was where a young 11 or
12 year old boy will be paired with an adult male to learn
about what it means to be a man in Roman society and that man
would then take advantage. This is pedophilia of that child
and would rape that child over and over again.
Now the art. This is absolutely condemnable
and disgusting and we can all agree to that.
Correct, But this is not what Paul is actually mentioning in
the text off of 2 clear context clues #1 he doesn't just mention
men but he also mentions women in pederasti was only practice
in between men and boys. It was not practice women to
women culturally. So to say that he's addressing
that issue is malpractice of the text because you're not seeing
that he also addresses it on either side of same sex
attraction. The second problem here, and
this is a big revisionist movement that's going on is they
try to say, well, that's what he was addressing when he's talking
about men and boys, but the word in Greek is men to men.
Two consulting, consenting adults who join into this
because of the desires that they have for each other.
So clearly put this as blunt as I can be.
It's just not there in the text. The, the, the out to give some
kind of out or to make some kind of it's not there in Romans.
One, you don't have to like it. It doesn't matter what we
necessarily think as far as opinions of it.
It's, it's just not there. I've studied it, I've read
everything I can read about it. I've read it in Greek, I've read
it in English. I read across multiple English
translate. You cannot get around what it's
saying. The second big argument, and
this is even a bigger stretch I think with Romans 1 is some will
argue that Paul was trying to directly call out an individual
and not call out others, that this is really in context just
Paul calling out one person. The problem is Romans 1 is a
mirror for all people and in other areas you have no
precedent where Paul is calling someone out where he doesn't
mention them by name. For instance, when Paul calls
out Peter in Galatians 2 chapter 2 verses 11 to 13, guess what he
writes in Galatians 211 to 13? Peter, like Paul wasn't very
southern. He wasn't passive.
He wasn't in the bless your heart cultural of going well,
you know, like I, I want to call this out, but I don't want to
call them out by like, that's not what happened.
The Bible. In the Bible, when they call
someone out, they wrote it in the letter.
So in order for you to make that argument, Paul would have to
break from his entire writing style that we have samples of
over the rest of the New Testament #1 and, and the
argument usually is something like this.
It's usually, well, what Paul was actually talking about was
an emperor named Gaius Caligula who reigned 4 years, who did,
who is known for explicit sexual misconduct.
And Paul is saying that this is who he's.
And some are saying this is who Paul is calling out, that he's
not calling out other people. The problem is there's no
precedent for in the scripture, and the argument just falls in
on its head. It takes more fate to jump there
than it does to read the Scripture and understand it at
face value. So you have Romans one.
It's one of the big objections to the traditional view, and
it's one that we need to be able to defend humbly and graciously.
The third big objection that comes up frequently is this.
I call it The Beatles theology. It's if two people are in love,
then shouldn't we let it be? All right, just let it be now,
stepping out of the what we're talking about at the moment,
right and same sex attraction, let me first just let me tell
you why I don't believe in let it be philosophy on just about
anything that comes from a human's mouth.
How many of you trust when your middle schooler comes home and
tells you that they're in love, that this is going to last?
But they'll tell you up and down, I'm in love with them.
This is this is it, you know, forever.
And they're up there in the room writing down, you know, J Rod
and Bon qui qui forever, like over and over again, right?
Because you know that within a few days of school drama, that
relationship will go from forever to tomorrow.
Now, let me be very clear to you.
There are many people who come into my office wanting to get
married and I'll look at them the same way that you look at
middle schoolers and high schoolers.
Why? Because I've been around you
long enough to learn that you're going to stand up here at this
altar on your wedding day and you're going to start going,
man, I love you more than the moon and the stars and money
and, and it doesn't matter what happens, girl, even if you get
chunky, I'm going to love you forever.
My love for you is unbreakable. It's unshakeable.
It's unlike any other love in human history. 3 weeks later,
you're in my office and you're like, I don't, I don't love her.
I think I made a really big mistake.
So forgive me if I'm a little cynical whenever you tell me
that your desire is unshakeable because I've seen human desires.
This is a human problem. Shake left and right and up and
down all over the place #2 within this argument, let me be
very clear. Many people will then recite an
argument or defense of this for Matthew chapter 22, verses 36 to
40. And it's this teacher which is
the greatest commandment in the law.
And he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your mind. Excuse me?
With all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind. This is the greatest and 1st
commandment. A second is like it you shall
love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend
the law and the prophets. So people be like Jesus just
said love. People just got to be loving.
It's a very interesting argument and what many people think is
that somehow the commandments or the Old Testament law gets
dismissed in the statement Jesus made.
But what he actually does is he sums up the entire 10
commandments in 2 verses or in a verse 2 statements.
Vertically love the Lord your God deals with commandments 1 to
4. You shall love.
No, you should have no other gods before me.
You shall make no idols. You shall not take the name of
the Lord in vain and keep the Sabbath day and make it holy.
That's the vertical commandment. So what is what is Jesus
essentially saying? Well, what's most important is
commandments one through 4 and then right on the heels of that
five through 10, because five through 10 deal with
horizontally you loving your neighbor.
What's 5? Honor your father and mother.
That's the moment every single one of us realized we were
sinners. You shall not murder.
You should not commit adultery. You should not steal.
You should not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You should not covet. Now how does this relate to same
sex attraction and being loving? It relates because though you
may have a desire or I have a desire, it doesn't excuse it
from the ethical law that God has given us.
You can't revision it, rewrite it, or write it outside of it.
You can't get around that. What's So the question we have
to ask yourself is this is can Jesus be loving and disagree
with me? Can Jesus be loving and call
what I desire sinful? These are hard questions because
you're trying what the key is. The key in the entire argument
in the discussion is you have to separate Jesus from the ethics
of the Bible in order for any of this to be able to stand.
Or you have to deal with the fact that Jesus love is the kind
of love that sees you in your desires that the Bible calls sin
and still comes and dodged for you anyway.
You have to deal with the fact that Jesus love sees you in your
faults and still chooses to invite you into community with
Him, sees you in your imperfections and still invites
you to follow Him, sees you in your doubt and still commissions
you. Though you are a hypocrite and
you were someone who falls short daily to, they'll still be
empowered by the Holy Spirit to go into the nations and proclaim
the gospel that is outside of us.
And it's good news for all of us.
So if two people are in love, then shouldn't we just let it B.
Well, the the problem is, is the scripture will call us in love
to teach the Bible. And that's problematic for some
of us that want to revision this and separate Jesus from its
ethics. The final objection is one of
the biggest ones that has a lot of credence on college campuses
right now. It was made famous in an episode
of The West Wing. Anybody ever seen The West Wing?
And it's essentially this question of why do you pick and
choose? Essentially, it's well, you're
going to highlight that part of the Bible and bring it up to
come after me, but you then ignore that part of the Bible or
you don't adhere to that part of the Bible.
So if you're going to ignore that part of the Bible, but
you're not going to know this part of the Bible, like why do
you pick and choose? Basically, it's a how did, how
dare you sit on a moral high horse and that like you can tell
me what's right and wrong. And this argument since first
year freshman in college, stuttering and stammering back.
And it all started at the end this episode of The West Wing.
And it's an episode where the president walks in and there's
this conservative reporter who's known for making conservative
thoughts and ideas and very terrible ways on an
argumentative and unhelpful ways on radio walks in.
Everyone stands up, but they make sure that she, this
character is sitting down. She idly enough has a southern
accent. I was offended at that, right?
So she stays seated. The president comes in and
recognizes her, ask her her name.
They have an interaction. He asked her if he she believes
that homosexuality is a sin. She quotes Leviticus 18.
And then the president goes off on this rent.
I want to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here.
I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery.
A sanction in Exodus 21 Seven. She's a Georgetown sophomore.
She speaks fluent Italian. Always clear the table when it
was her turn will be a good price for her.
While thinking about that, can I ask another, my chief of staff,
Leo McGarry insist on working on the Sabbath?
Exodus 35 two. Clearly it says we he should be
put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill
him myself or is it OK to call the police?
Here's one that's really important because we've got a
lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig
makes 1 unclean Leviticus 11/7. If they promised to wear gloves.
Can the Washington Redskins still play football?
Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?
Does the whole town really have to be together to stole my
brother John for planting different crops side by side?
Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing
garments made of two different threads?
Think about those questions, would you?
And immediately this gave ammo for the LGBTQ community to come
back and fire in an answer in a way that most Christians,
literally, you hear you have that come up to a especially a
freshman on a college campus. Usually the answer is so yeah,
yeah. And I don't really know how to
answer that question now. Let me walk you through how you
can graciously answer this question.
This comes out of Leviticus 1822.
That's what's highlighted. Why do you pick and choose?
That's where we see if you'll flip there with me.
Let me flip there really quick. Genesis X is Leviticus Numbers.
There we go, the Vicus 1822. This is one of the six that were
originally talked about. They're known as the club
reverses because we've been careless in the way that we've
taught them. And honestly, sometimes they've
been taught well and they're still not received because
sometimes it doesn't matter what you do when it comes to speaking
the truth. When we're confronted with the
Word of God, we either repent or rerun.
That's human nature, every single one of us.
When I'm confronted with the Word of God, I repent or I run.
It's one of the two. Leviticus 1822 it says this.
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman.
It is an abomination. So that's the quote, that's the
line there that usually leads into the pick and choose
argument and discussion. So how do you address this?
The first thing I do is I kindly point out their hypocrisy.
And this is you got to be careful about this.
But I point out to them, OK, you're saying I pick and choose,
but let me ask you this question.
Leviticus chapter 19, verse 11 says this.
You shall not steal. You shall not deal falsely.
You should not lie to one another.
Do you agree that those are good things?
If the answer is yes, then you pick and choose to.
Verse 12 You should not swear by my name falsely and so profane
the name of the Lord your God. I'm the Lord.
You should not oppress your neighbor or rob him.
Do you agree that that's good? If so, you just pick and chose.
The wages of a higher worker should not remain with you all
night until the morning. Verse 14 You shall not curse the
deaf or put stumbling blocks before the blind, but you shall
fear the Lord your God. I am the Lord.
Do you agree that that's a good thing?
If the answer is yes, then you pick and choose.
You should not do injustice in court.
You should not be partial to the poor or defer to the great.
Do you agree that that's a good thing?
And the answer is you pick and choose.
And some will say, well, I don't.
I don't believe in that Bible. That's not my word.
That's your word. I'm using your word against you.
You said you believe that. I don't believe that.
Here's the problem. You weren't born before the
Bible. And the way that we got to the
Christian, to the worldview and the ethics that we hold to
today, that it's not good to steal, murder and lie against
each other, You know where that came from?
The Bible, it was set in a Christian worldview.
Now some people argue that those are just things that we know
innately. I know this because I'm just a
person. I don't need the Bible to tell
me that's a lie. Still in Cheat and the answer is
yes. In Romans, one speaks exactly to
that because God wrote his moral law on your heart.
So even though you're trying to skirt around God, the problem is
the Bible keeps pinning you down and going, no, you cannot derive
this apart from my word and you cannot derive this apart from my
creation, me putting my a Maggio day on you, which has imprinted
you with these moments where you see injustice and go, that's not
right. That didn't come from your own
origination. It came from being made in my
image and having my law written on your heart.
So the first thing I like to do in the conversation is I like to
point out that they pick and choose, which then leads me to
the second part of the discussion usually, which is
this. I confess this.
I know why and how I pick and choose.
Do you I know why and how I pick and choose?
I know why we've decided not to greet each other with a holy
kiss beyond the complaints that we get in the complaint box,
right? I know why we don't put people
to death to plant crops side by side today.
I know why and how I'm picking and choosing.
Do you know why and how you're picking and choosing?
Let me explain how I know why and how I pick and choose.
I took this class called Hermeneutics.
Every one of your pastors had to take one of these classes.
Hermeneutics is a practice that teaches you the knowledge of
interpreting the Bible and understanding its literary
context both within the culture and today.
And when you study hermeneutics, took this from Doctor Minot, you
learn that there are three types of law in the Old Testament.
There's three types of law. There's moral law, civil law,
and ceremonial law. There's moral law, There's civil
law and there's ceremonial law. And you can deduct this very
easy by reading and actually thinking.
So as you read through this, what you discover is there's a
moral law. Moral law transcends time and
culture, and regardless of where we're at in history, it's true.
An example of this would be the 10 commandments, right?
Still true. I think we still agree that it's
true that it's not good to commit adultery, right?
Like usually your spouse doesn't come home and go been committing
adultery and like, oh, it's OK Culturally that's acceptable
now, even though statistically it happens more than it should,
right? Usually you're going to be a
little bit indignant. That's not right.
That's an injustice. Where does that come from?
Moral law. That's what God has written on
the hearts of humanity. The second kind of law is civil
law. That's a God-given law to Israel
in the Middle East within a set time period to teach them how to
function as a chosen people within the context of culture.
Civil law. God-given law to Israel in the
Middle East within a set time and period to teach them how to
function as a chosen people within the context of the
culture. It was God's way through the law
making them distinct amongst their neighbors.
How is a believer distinct amongst his neighbors?
Use your brains. How is a believer distinct
amongst their neighbors? If it ain't Jesus, it's probably
the Holy Spirit. This is the distinctive marker
for the believer making sense to anybody, outward appearance and
obedience to the law. This is how you kept it as a
distinct people from the rest of the world.
And we see that some examples of this are on the laws around
clothing and outer appearance. What you're to wear, not wear,
how you're to wear, not to wear it.
Single thread, multiple threads, one kind of content or multiple
like like this is all law. That was to distinguish Israel
within that. It's a cultural.
That's a cultural law within time and place with the civil
law. The third ceremonial laws, let
me explain this. These were given to instruct
Israel in their worship within the temple.
Some examples of these kinds of laws are purification laws, how
you had to go through a purification process before you
went into the temple, even some of the dietary laws and how that
plays into it, which actually is a civil law.
So you have civil, ceremonial and morals.
Is this making sense to anybody? OK, ceremonial laws, even if we
wanted to practice them, cannot be practiced today because
there's no temple to go to. The temple now is you.
God took what raised Jesus from the dead and put it in in you.
So there's no more temple that we're worried about cleansing
ourself up. However, there is a warning in
First Corinthians 6 that we're to have a high reverence for the
temple of God and what we do with it since God has put His
spirit inside of it. Am I making sense still?
Anybody still listening to this? So for the Christian believer,
we have now been filled with the Holy Spirit and we now have
become the temple. And as believers, we should
always want to discuss the Bible.
And the beautiful thing that has happened anytime this discussion
comes up is we've been given an invitation to talk Scripture
with people, which leads me to the third step.
And this is the most important step.
You point out their hypocrisy. You point out that you pick and
choose, but you have reasoning behind how you pick and choose.
It's not just what I feel is right or what I feel is wrong,
right? Which then brings you to the
third one, which is this. This is very important.
You ready? You get off your moral high
horse and you admit to them that you are a hypocrite.
This is the this is the difference between articulating
to make a point versus articulating to make a
difference. You get off your moral high
horse and you point out your own hypocrisy.
That means you call out your own sin.
You point to your desperate need for Jesus.
You point out your own desires that the Bible has called sinful
and your struggle to allow through the Scripture them to be
put to death. Got a myriad of pages here.
You communicate your need for a moral law and standard hear this
that exists outside of you so that you don't minimize your sin
while you amplify others. And you communicate your need to
know what God says is righteous and unrighteous because you are
a hypocrite. What does this do?
It allows us to be human. Some of the most painful
conversations I've had with friends and family members are
people who have same sex attraction and they wrestle with
what the scriptures teach and what that means for them and
this desire and they feel affirmed now by the majority of
the world. That's fine.
There's nothing that's there, but they still have this
conviction that they cannot rid themselves of.
And some people will call it from the world's perspective,
just built in guilt. Now let me be very clear.
Guilt is the same voice as condemnation.
Condemnation always tells you it's hopeless and there is no
hope. And a lot of my friends that
want to know the Lord or want to get, want to study Scripture and
get this right, a lot of them, they feel uniquely damned
because of this desire. Because the church has joined in
with the voice of guilt and condemnation instead of allowing
the Spirit to be the voice of conviction.
Because the voice of conviction is always an invitation.
And that invitation invites you to a new way of living,
empowered by the Holy Spirit. No, it doesn't immediately take
away every sinful desire. No, it doesn't mean that it's
just going to, that the desires you have just walk out the door
and leave you alone. Yes, it means that Jesus grace
is sufficient for you to meet you where you are and to walk
with you to the future that he defines and leads you into.
And it's such a painful conversation to have because I
want them to know that the grace I receive is not unique to the
grace that they can receive. It's not like the grace of Jesus
is deep enough to reach me and my own heterosexual desires and
the simple desires that the Bible calls simple sexually that
I hold to as well and have to repent of and acknowledge and
put accountability around my life in that that I'm no
different than you when it comes to my need for grace.
But the grace that reached me is a sufficient grace to reach you.
And it's so frustrating to connect the dots because there's
such a disconnect that seems to exist.
So if I could, I want to implore the church and the way that we
had these conversations with four takeaways, 4 steps that I
think we got to hold to. Number one, call out your own
sin. Until we normalize repentance,
we we should not expect us to have good gospel conversations
in the community around us. Listen, they're always going to
highlight the extremes and the hypocrites and the the loud and
the annoying and the boisterous in the news, OK?
But we are to be humble and repentant before God.
So let's normalize our own sin. Let's not normalize our own sin.
Let's normalize repentance. That could have been a bad take
away. Normalize my sin.
What did you learn in church? Today?
I'm going to normalize my sin. I'm sorry.
Call out your own sin. Let's normalize your penance in
this place #2 humble yourself before God.
When you're humble before God, you don't have to be arrogant to
others. There's nothing to prove my
identity and my value is rooted in my relationship with Jesus.
So I'm not trying to out noise you in an argument.
I'm not trying to win an argument.
I'm trying to love Jesus and follow him.
And I'm devoted to him before I'm devoted to the opinion of
man or the popularity of what people think about the message
of the gospel of Jesus. So call out your own sin.
Humble yourself before God #3 be loving by being truthful.
This is a tension we have to walk in.
Love and truth are not 2 coins. They're the same side of one
coin. I've heard many people go, well
I'm just being truthful when they yelled at them with the
bullhorn. You're not being loving.
You've missed an entire side of the coin.
It's through relationship around tables and in conversations that
we most often see change and transformation.
It's what Jesus did. It's why Jesus ate with sinners,
set with the ill repute, and was looked down upon for doing it.
But how did change happen? By Jesus yelling at a woman
walking to a well, or by him sitting at the well and
conversating with her? Many of you are into the
conversation. You had the relationship.
But if I can be very direct to you, you're a coward.
You're ashamed of the gospel. And that, my friends, is a bit
more heartbreaking thing than anything else.
At the end of Romans one, what does Paul say at the end of all
of this? From not ashamed of the gospel
of Jesus Christ, every word of it.
Yet for many of us we we've walked in extremes and
completely missed the point and rendered ourselves completely
ineffective. And we've called ourselves
loving to a community that we've not been truthful to.
And my friends that an eternity is not loving but it is hateful
#4 Daily fully devote yourself to God.
I was asked this question by someone very close to me who has
a family member who is in a same sex relationship and I love
their I love everyone in the family.
And they said how dare you tell me that if my family member
wants to be true to God that they can never have the kind of
relationship that you have in a heterosexual sense.
How dare you tell me that they've got to basically forsake
that if they want to live in obedience to God.
And with tears in my eyes, I look back and humbly
articulated, how dare you tell me that the Savior can't demand
that and even more from us. How dare you tell me that in the
scriptures it teaches that if your love for the Savior, isn't
it such a level that it looks like hatred for everybody else
in comparison? That that same Savior would not
call you to have desires that you call good that the Bible
calls sinful and call you to forsake and trust Him in those
desires so that he can lead you into who He's called you to be?
How dare you act as if Jesus deserves cheap devotion that
ends at the mark of your desire or ends at the of what you think
is good. How dare you tell me, not being
able to see all of creation and all of time, that Jesus doesn't
know what is best for his children and his people and the
best way to walk with them even in their struggles and in their
failures through His grace to the moment where they are
sanctified and glorified before God in the very end of times.
How dare you tell me that in temporary time He's not worthy
of forsaking all riches and all relationships and all things for
the pursuit of Him? How dare you tell me that the
Gospels taught anything less than that?
Because Luke 923 says that if anyone wants to come after
Jesus, he must daily wake up and die to himself, take up his
cross and follow him and follow him.
And how dare us as a church send that message out to the world
when we ourselves haven't been our own daggum niece and been
devoted in the same way. Have a friend who is in ministry
and he and I talk off and on and he approached me one day and he
said I don't know if you know this but I've always struggled
with same sex attraction. I said well it's kind of obvious
and we started laughing because we've been friends for a while.
He said yeah, you would think God when he gave me an
effeminate voice and kind of, you know, more effeminate kind
of mannerisms, they'd be at least giving me like a masculine
passion. His biggest passion in life is
cheerleading. He could out tumble any girl
I've ever met. We were talking back and forth
one day and I said, you know, like, do you ever feel like
Jesus is somehow like shortchanged you or given you a
an uneven deck? And in the fact that this is a
desire that you have and it's kind of public and a lot of
people recognize it and you know, they look at you and a lot
of people assume things about you and you know, you can't see
having to deal with that. And I'm like weeping, asking him
this. And he looks at me and says, I
would give so much more to follow the Savior that I read
about in the Bible. You have no clue.
It's my joy to lay this desire aside and pursue God.
It's my joy to know Jesus in that way.
And can I tell you the most marginalized voice in the world
right now? It's his voice because everyone
else gets a platform. But if you dissent from public
opinion and you speak up like he speaks up, you're you're soon to
be a part of the bigoted agenda when all he is is a fully
devoted follower of Christ. He loves the Lord and he's not
ashamed or cowardly enough to to hide in it.
Instead, he walks in the boldness of the light, allowing
Jesus to transform and change him into doing so.
I mean, he's he's a a great tool in the hand of God.
God used him for incredible things for his Kingdom.
But but we don't want to hear his voice.
We dismiss that voice publicly. Why?
Because that voice may challenge us in our belief.
That voice may call us to holiness.
That voice may bridge into a community that that we want to
deconstruct the bridge down to listen church.
We have no message if we ourselves are are not
acknowledging the hypocrisy of our own lives.
So today, as the band comes, I want to invite you before we
take communion, to acknowledge your sin before God, to humble
yourself before Him, to repent, to repent, to make it normal.
Why? Because the Savior died and bled
so that we in our struggles and in our weakness could, could
know that we can always come home.
No matter the details of the prodigal run, you can come home.
For those of you that are struggling with our living in
same sex attraction, I want you to know at Resurrection Church,
we love you. We love you, absolutely love
you. And I apologize on behalf of the
church for the stupid things we've said and done for acting
like this could be magically just prayed out of you.
No, but in the same breath, I pray that as we learn to, as we
love you, I pray that you would give us grace as we learn
together what the Scriptures teach and what they mean.
And together we could walk together.
You are absolutely welcome in this church.
There's a home for you here. And I promise you that week in
and week out, as we preach to the Bible, it the Bible is going
to disagree with everyone in here in the way that we live our
lives. But I also promise you as the
lead pastor that I will continue to take the stance as being the
lead repenter and I'll repent first.
I'll go first here. And in my brokenness I will
acknowledge it. And I will beg for God to
empower me to overcome my sin as He empowers you to do the same.
And it will not be easy, but I promise you I will not judge
you, but I will humble myself before the Lord.
And in doing so, we will walk together as He makes us into the
people He's called us to be by His power and not man's
derivative. My prayers that you find this
house to be a home, a place where you can come in in any
condition and know that you were truly loved by a Savior who
demonstrates that love by loving us while we were still in our
sin. It won't be easy, and the world
will try and pull us apart, and they will continue to tell us
that if we do not affirm, we cannot be family.
But I promise you that the blood makes us a stronger kind of
family than anything in this world could ever make us.
So Church, the whole church, Acknowledge your sin before God,
repent of your sin and may you find His grace to be deep and
wide to meet us where we are and a spirit to be strong enough to
meet us there and lead us to where we aren't.
In Jesus name, Amen. Amen.