SPEAKER_00: Look, I understand some of you don't like the Chiefs, and that's called jealousy.
SPEAKER_00: Because either you're a 49ers fan, which stops shooting your people.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, stop attacking your players, you'll be good.
SPEAKER_00: He agrees.
SPEAKER_00: Or you're a Raiders fan.
SPEAKER_00: And if that's you, my only word to you is okay.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, now we have that out of the way.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Caleb.
SPEAKER_00: And um, I am from Kansas City, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a Swifty.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully we can get that out of the way.
SPEAKER_00: My wife got me a shirt, a red shirt with a yellow letter in that said, not a swifty, but supportive.
SPEAKER_00: I refuse to wear it.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00: I live in Los Angeles with my wife and my son, who's in college, and my daughter who's in high school.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, glad to be with all of you.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and by the way, I love Pastor Nate.
SPEAKER_00: You guys love Pastor Nate if you're attending here.
SPEAKER_00: You guys love Nate.
SPEAKER_00: Man, Nate is a good dude.
SPEAKER_00: Nate is a good dude.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't I don't care what Jesus says about him.
SPEAKER_00: He's a good dude.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_00: Like, seriously, we met back in 2018 at Biola University and uh just stayed in touch.
SPEAKER_00: And just to let you know, if I live in this area, this is where I would attend, because this is a place where it's okay not to be okay.
SPEAKER_00: But all of us join together and we follow Jesus no matter where we are on the journey.
SPEAKER_00: So I pray that somewhere, somehow, you guys feel like if you're visiting, checking this out, keep on coming.
SPEAKER_00: This is a place where it's okay not to be okay.
SPEAKER_00: And uh God's word is also gonna be held up.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm on staff at a sister church down in Southern California called Shepherd Church.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're ever in Northridge, Chatsworth, San Fernando Valley, Simi Valley, I don't know why you would be.
SPEAKER_00: But if you are, you can come visit us at Shepherd Church.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so anyway, hopefully you will.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm gonna make a statement here.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you aren't gonna agree with it.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay for you to be wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I agree.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, nobody buys into my opinions like I do, and nobody buys into your opinions like you do.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I know about you, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So this is just my opinion, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I have never met a human being that is not crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I've never met a non-crazy human being.
SPEAKER_00: Every human, every Homo sapien I have ever met is insane.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't believe me, go to the airport.
SPEAKER_00: Go to the airport, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you an example, I'll give you an example.
SPEAKER_00: Those of you who are skeptical, obviously, I don't know if you've seen life or not, but you're skeptical.
SPEAKER_00: Here, here's how you can know I'm telling the truth.
SPEAKER_00: A couple years ago, I'm flying.
SPEAKER_00: I fly a lot for what I do.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't like flying.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not because I'm afraid to die.
SPEAKER_00: I figured it's a good way to go.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be memorable and you'll pass out before you hit the ground.
SPEAKER_00: So why not?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Death doesn't scare me.
SPEAKER_00: It really doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: My soul's prepared.
SPEAKER_00: Um, what I don't like about flying are the other people.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you like, Caleb, that's snobby.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
SPEAKER_00: It's called reality.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: It's because people forget they're around other people.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever met those people that forget that other people are around them?
SPEAKER_00: So I'm one time, a couple years ago, I'm sitting in the aisle seat.
SPEAKER_00: The lady is sitting next to me, middle seat, don't know who she is.
SPEAKER_00: We get to cruising altitude, and homegirl takes off her shoes and socks and starts clipping her toenails.
SPEAKER_00: Um like a wood chipper, just I've seen people do a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00: You look at my social media on Instagram, I have like three different collections of stories about weird things in airports and airplanes people have done.
SPEAKER_00: This time I said something, I just said one word.
SPEAKER_00: I looked at her and I said, Seriously?
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Is this bothering you?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Your toenails on my shoe.
SPEAKER_00: Said it wasn't there a few minutes ago.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Well, maybe I could do this when I get home.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I love that plan.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go with that plan.
SPEAKER_00: I love when a plan comes together.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, That's when I clip my toenails at home.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, people, I've been married 22 years.
SPEAKER_00: My wife has never seen me clip my toenails.
SPEAKER_00: She never will.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And then this lady says, I would never clip my toenails at home.
SPEAKER_00: I'll try that.
SPEAKER_00: Dude, listen, this is why we don't murder for two reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, that's who's waiting for you in the jury box.
SPEAKER_00: That's who's going to decide if you get the chair or not.
SPEAKER_00: The toenail lady.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're dealing with in this society right now.
SPEAKER_00: People are crazy.
SPEAKER_00: I'll go one further.
SPEAKER_00: People are messy just in who they are.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and what's interesting is we usually think people who are messy in the same ways that we are in their lives, you know, that they're messy.
SPEAKER_00: And we're really just transposing what we don't like about ourselves and other people.
SPEAKER_00: And today I want to come and talk to you about this question.
SPEAKER_00: How can we love people that are different from us, that think differently, that have different values, but more specifically, even with that, how do we how do we love people?
SPEAKER_00: And and I'll do you one better, how do you like people and even get along with people that have different views and identity and sexuality and gender than you do?
SPEAKER_00: Um, I know this is hard to believe, but people do disagree with you.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I understand nobody buys into your opinion like you do, nobody buys into my opinion like I do, but people do disagree with us.
SPEAKER_00: And we live in a society where dialogue is more and more of a dying art.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, goodness forbid, you disagree with somebody without it being called oppression or aggression or that kind of a thing, because it's not people.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this if if you deal with somebody where they say disagreement equals oppression, you're dealing with somebody who is an extremist.
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
SPEAKER_00: But yet God still calls us to love people, no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, while he was dying on the cross, said, Father, forgive them.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know what they do.
SPEAKER_00: The people that were murdering them.
SPEAKER_00: So I think you and I can do a better job at loving and forgiving people that disagree with us.
SPEAKER_00: So, how do we do that?
SPEAKER_00: I want to go to a time in Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: Um, that some of you may have read this story, some of you may not, but it's one of my favorite stories about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is in the middle of his ministry, and I'm gonna start out reading John chapter eight.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, God bless you and whatever happened there.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to start off reading John chapter eight, beginning in verse two and ending in the middle of verse six.
SPEAKER_00: At dawn he went to the temple again, and all the people were coming to him.
SPEAKER_00: He sat down and began to teach them.
SPEAKER_00: The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, making her stand in the center.
SPEAKER_00: Teach her, they said to him, This woman was caught in the act of committing adultery in the law.
SPEAKER_00: Moses commanded us to stone such women.
SPEAKER_00: So what do you say?
SPEAKER_00: And they asked this to trap him in order that they might have evidence to accuse him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me just set the scene for you, real quick, if that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: You have Jesus here teaching in the temple courts, the temple in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and he that would be like the church lobby.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's like a pastor Nate's out in the church lobby, he's preaching.
SPEAKER_00: And then you have all these people listening to him, and then you have the Pharisees and the scribes.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the Pharisees were like the celebrity pastors of the day.
SPEAKER_00: They're the ones who had the their, if today they were around, they'd have their podcasts and books and everything like that.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees, they like there were some 6,000 of them who lived in the land of Judea in Jesus' time.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the scribes or the teachers of the law in some translations are like the Bible college professors, the seminary professors.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and they hated Jesus because we learned in John chapter 1, verses 14 and 17 that Jesus Christ came full of both grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: That was in direct contrast to how the Pharisees led, where they controlled people through fear.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm gonna give you some advice if you ever want to win an election.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how you win an election today: just make people afraid.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you win elections today.
SPEAKER_00: Because when people are afraid, they are easy to control.
SPEAKER_00: That's how the Pharisees ruled religiously.
SPEAKER_00: And yet here comes Jesus full of grace and truth, compassion and conviction, love and principle.
SPEAKER_00: And he's different.
SPEAKER_00: And people are leaving them and going to Jesus and they're losing influence.
SPEAKER_00: They hate him.
SPEAKER_00: And so what do they do?
SPEAKER_00: They're always trying to trick him, and they find this woman caught in the act of adultery.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear what I said?
SPEAKER_00: They catch her in the act, in in the act.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, how?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I don't know, they're creepers, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so they take her and they drag her through town and they put her right in front of Jesus, humiliating her and everything.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, hey, Moses told us we could stone her.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
SPEAKER_00: They're trying to checkmate Jesus, catch 22 of them, because you know, they think, okay, if Jesus says stone her, he's keeping the law, the people will hate him.
SPEAKER_00: But if he says don't stone her, then all of a sudden he's not keeping the law, he's breaking it, even though the people will love him.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not familiar with reading the gospels, here's some advice again from me to you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever try to checkmate Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't go well.
SPEAKER_00: And so what I think is interesting is it does say different context, different time.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 22.
SPEAKER_00: God does say if you find somebody caught in the act of adultery, you take the man and woman, you put them on trial, and then if you want, you can stone them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, there's no trial, so they're not even following the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, where's the dude?
SPEAKER_00: Like, I checked, I actually had Pastor Nate check too before we came in here, and he is not in here, he's nowhere in here.
SPEAKER_00: And so what makes me mad is that just proves that they don't care about her or what she's been through.
SPEAKER_00: They are using her as much as the man who's having an affair with her was using her.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't care who you are, that's messed up.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's Jesus's response.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what your response would be if you would be like emotionally reactive, or you know, if you just bottle it all in like a psychopath, or you would just be indifferent or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Jesus does, it's weird.
SPEAKER_00: Um, then to verse six Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground with his finger.
SPEAKER_00: Now I've had people say, Caleb, don't call what Jesus does weird.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you do that?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not insulting him, I'm not saying he's a creeper.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying that's awkward.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't believe me, when was the last time you were in an argument and you said, hold on.
SPEAKER_00: Never, right?
SPEAKER_00: How about never?
SPEAKER_00: I'll answer for you.
SPEAKER_00: Never.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I tried it two or three weeks ago with my wife.
SPEAKER_00: We were disagreeing about something.
SPEAKER_00: And so I thought, okay, I'll write on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'm acting like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I figured one of us should.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, I did not say that.
SPEAKER_00: I am married to a Mui Caliente Latina who has that Latina fire.
SPEAKER_00: If I had said that, I would be the subject of a true crime podcast right now called Where's Caleb?
SPEAKER_00: And they would interview her and she'd be like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: He just went crazy one day and just left.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where he went.
SPEAKER_00: And so, like, I don't after 22 years of marriage, I try to learn to keep my mouth shut.
SPEAKER_00: I'm always good at it, but I would never do that.
SPEAKER_00: That would be a death penalty.
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of people try to figure out what in the world was Jesus writing on the ground?
SPEAKER_00: Was he writing like um verses of scripture or different sins?
SPEAKER_00: I think I found something that answers this question.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's all the way back in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: See if you can make the connection.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 17, 13.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, the hope of Israel, all who abandon you will be put to shame.
SPEAKER_00: All who turn away from me will be written in the dirt.
SPEAKER_00: Or that word in Hebrew for dirt can also mean mud, ground, sand.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: They have abandoned the Lord, the fountain of living water.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the Pharisees and the scribes, I think Jesus was writing their names in the dirt.
SPEAKER_00: And I think they knew that.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the Pharisees and scribes thought that they were so close to God because of what they knew, and this woman was so far away, and Jesus was telling them, God doesn't care what you know if you don't have any love to show.
SPEAKER_00: God could give a rip how much of this book you have memorized if you don't love people.
SPEAKER_00: Paul goes further and says that doing things like that without love is like a clanging symbol in the ear of God.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to annoy God.
SPEAKER_00: You've read the Old Testament, don't annoy him.
SPEAKER_00: And and that's what happens when we do things without love.
SPEAKER_00: And yet they don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: Because do any of us really get it when somebody first holds a mirror up to our face?
SPEAKER_00: I'll answer for you again.
SPEAKER_00: No, we don't.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 7, John 8 7.
SPEAKER_00: When they kept on questioning Jesus, he stood up and said to them, The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.
SPEAKER_00: And then he stooped down again and he continued writing on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's brilliant.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you why.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew after saying that they would never throw a stone for two reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, they believed back then what I believe, Pastor Nate believes, what the leadership here believes, that God is the only sinless being in existence.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody else has sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so if they picked up a rock and threw it at this woman after Jesus issued that challenge, they would be lying.
SPEAKER_00: And out of the 613 commands in the Old Testament that make up the law, God put lying in the top 10.
SPEAKER_00: Because lying breaks the relationship in some cases.
SPEAKER_00: It hurts the relationship.
SPEAKER_00: God takes it very seriously.
SPEAKER_00: But he also knew that they wouldn't throw a stone after his challenge because if they picked up a rock claiming to be sinless and threw it, and God is the only sinless being in existence, in that moment they're claiming to be God.
SPEAKER_00: And that's blasphemy.
SPEAKER_00: That's an automatic death penalty.
SPEAKER_00: And so the very rock that they use to throw at her would be used to throw right back at them.
SPEAKER_00: This is brilliant.
SPEAKER_00: Like I tell people, you know, unchurch people, unbelievers, I'm like, look, you may not believe in Jesus yet when we talk about this, but I'm like, you gotta admit, he's got mad skills.
SPEAKER_00: You do not want to get in an argument with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 9, it shows us the the result of this.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost comical.
SPEAKER_00: When they heard this, they left one by one, starting with the older men.
SPEAKER_00: Only Jesus was left with the woman in the center.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus stood up, he said to her, Woman, where are they?
SPEAKER_00: Has no one condemned you?
SPEAKER_00: No one, Lord, she said.
SPEAKER_00: And in just a second, we're gonna go through.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read the last part of verse 11 in just a second.
SPEAKER_00: It is one long line in the original language.
SPEAKER_00: It is and it holds a principle for how we can love people who are different from us, who disagree with us on this issue and on other issues.
SPEAKER_00: Here it is.
SPEAKER_00: It says this neither do I condemn you, said Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Go and from now on do not sin anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Neither do I condemn you, grace.
SPEAKER_00: Go and sin no more, truth.
SPEAKER_00: You see, like I quoted earlier in John chapter 1, seven chapters earlier, Jesus came full of both grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: And you see this when you read John's writings, like first, second, third John, uh Revelation and the Gospel of John, but especially Gospel of John, you see this grace and truth motif.
SPEAKER_00: You see it in John chapter 3 when he's talking to Nicodemus, the Pharisee, and he in his conversation, he begins with truth and he ends with grace.
SPEAKER_00: But then in the very next chapter in John chapter 4, when he's talking at this woman by the well in Samaria, he begins with grace and he ends in truth.
SPEAKER_00: And you see this grace and truth all throughout uh the Gospel of John.
SPEAKER_00: And it's within that that we find our principle of how we can love and even like people and disagree with them at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And and here's before I give the principle, here's kind of the best way that I can explain it to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a rubber band.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna categorize all of you here.
SPEAKER_00: I apologize, but I think again, this is real, okay?
SPEAKER_00: There are two kinds of people in this room.
SPEAKER_00: You're either all about the grace or all about the truth, naturally.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you may have learned to be all about both, but in your muscle habit, some of you are all about the grace.
SPEAKER_00: And we love you, but you're annoying.
SPEAKER_00: Now they're annoying too, but first the grace people, you're annoying.
SPEAKER_00: You're the ones who are like, you know, you send text with scripture verses, you're in a Bible study, you get to Romans 1 where it says the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, well, let's just skip over that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just, you know, why throw a what blanket on God's love?
SPEAKER_00: You're like, you know, my kids when we play any kind of card game or board game, the rules merely a suggestion until they start losing.
SPEAKER_00: Then the rules count and they make up new ones.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's like when you're all about grace without truth.
SPEAKER_00: There's no power there.
SPEAKER_00: It's weak and flimsy, like holding a rubber band from one side.
SPEAKER_00: But some of you, you're annoying because you're all about the truth without grace.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, okay, but you're still annoying.
SPEAKER_00: You know these people.
SPEAKER_00: These are the people when you play games, card game, board game, whatever, they're like, well, let's all read the rules first, because rules control the fun, and rules make fun more fun.
SPEAKER_00: You know, my wife will do that, and then I'm like, you know, I'm gonna sit the game out because after listening to the rule book, I I've had too much fun with that.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna go sit and stare at the wall.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we can only have so much fun in one day.
SPEAKER_00: Too much fun is not good, right?
SPEAKER_00: So you know these people, you've been in Bible studies with them.
SPEAKER_00: They're the ones where, you know, you're like, well, Paul said in Colossians, da da da, they're like, Philippians, he said that in Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: All right, thank you for your correction.
SPEAKER_00: Hope you get the stomach flu.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, no, these are these people right here, and you know these people, right?
SPEAKER_00: They're annoying, but they're weak and flimsy, no power.
SPEAKER_00: It's like holding a rubber band from one side.
SPEAKER_00: This is why it's ridiculous to take sides between grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: True Christians don't take sides, they stand for both.
SPEAKER_00: Because look, when you stand for both grace and truth, where does the power lie?
SPEAKER_00: The power lies in the tension of the two.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the principle that love is the tension of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: That tension that you feel between grace and truth, it's love.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, well, the Bible says this, but I'm struggling with this, and I like this, but I know I shouldn't.
SPEAKER_00: Or my friend is doing this, but Jesus said the opposite, and I love my friend, and I don't want that relationship to end.
SPEAKER_00: But over here, this is what Jesus said, or my family's doing this, and Paul said this, and you feel this struggle back and forth.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's felt it, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's lazy to take sides, spiritual laziness.
SPEAKER_00: When I see people take sides, here's what I think weak.
SPEAKER_00: It takes no effort on your part to be all about the grace if you naturally are all about the truth, but it takes all the dependence on God to be stretched towards grace if you're about the truth, or to stretch towards truth if you're about the grace.
SPEAKER_00: And look, if you don't like what I'm saying, you might want to consider another religion.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know if that's in the script, Nate, but let's find out.
SPEAKER_00: Like, seriously.
SPEAKER_00: Because you got tension all throughout your faith, you just don't realize it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you believe in one God and the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: Like, if you ever try to explain the Trinity to somebody, that's fun.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you believe that God is in control but allows us to have free will.
SPEAKER_00: How is that not tension?
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is fully human, fully God?
SPEAKER_00: That God wrote and inspired the Bible but used sinful people to write the Bible, there's no tension there.
SPEAKER_00: The virgin birth, Christmas, hello.
SPEAKER_00: What about anybody in here ever read Revelation?
SPEAKER_00: What about the wrath of the lamb?
SPEAKER_00: You ever seen a wrathful lamb?
SPEAKER_00: Me neither.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Is there no tension there?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you can be a good preacher and still have hair.
SPEAKER_00: Tension.
SPEAKER_00: So why do we get caught up in the tension of grace and truth?
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you why.
SPEAKER_00: Because grace and truth always have to do with your relationships, with your emotional attachments.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you probably never stayed up all night thinking, how can Jesus be fully God and fully human?
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: 100% and 100% should equal 200%, but God says they equal 100%, and I don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: What am I gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: But you probably stayed up all night worrying about somebody you love, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or somebody who passed away.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Emotional attachment, tension.
SPEAKER_00: Love is the tension between grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: So my question is this you're not supposed to take sides.
SPEAKER_00: The most Christ-like thing you can do is to stand for both grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: So, who is the person in your life that you need to live in the tension of grace and truth with?
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you about the people that I've lived my most of my life in the tension of grace and truth with.
SPEAKER_00: It's my mom and my dad.
SPEAKER_00: When I was uh two years old, my parents were both professors at the University of Missouri Columbia.
SPEAKER_00: They divorced and they both went into same-sex relationships.
SPEAKER_00: My dad never had a monogamous relationship.
SPEAKER_00: He stayed in Columbia.
SPEAKER_00: My mom moved two hours away to Kansas City.
SPEAKER_00: Uh she was in a 22-year monogamous relationship with a woman named Vera.
SPEAKER_00: My parents were on the board of directors for GLAD, Gay and Lesbian Awareness Against Discrimination.
SPEAKER_00: In the 80s and 90s, I grew up being taken to pride parades, marches, activist events, gay clubs, gay bars as a kid, house parties, campouts, everything.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what I learned that Christians hate gay people.
SPEAKER_00: If you are not like them, they will not like you.
SPEAKER_00: I learned that over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: I saw Christians in pride parades holding up signs saying God hates you, Jesus has no room for you, throwing water and urine on people in the parade, saying this is what Jesus really thinks of you.
SPEAKER_00: I saw young men in the 80s and 90s dying of AIDS in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, and their parents wouldn't even visit them because they were taking a moral.
SPEAKER_00: Stand.
SPEAKER_00: No, they were being morons.
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between the two.
SPEAKER_00: And if they did visit them, they wouldn't touch them or talk to them or anything.
SPEAKER_00: And I would ask my mom, why are they acting like that?
SPEAKER_00: She said, Caleb, they are Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Christians hate gay people.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not like them, they will not like you.
SPEAKER_00: And I never wanted to be a Christian because I thought if Christians are this bad, I can't imagine how awful Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And I think we underestimate how much our words and actions will either encourage or discourage somebody from following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so by the time I got to be 16, like I was living it up, partying, sneaking out at night, and I got invited by a Christian in my high school, another sophomore, to go to his house for a Bible study for Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought this is going to be perfect.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go as a ninja Christian and dismantle their faith.
SPEAKER_00: And that worked out real well, as you can tell.
SPEAKER_00: That was a it was a great plan.
SPEAKER_00: I showed up as an unchurched, unbelieving kid, you know, hardly ever been to church or hardly ever been to a Christian household.
SPEAKER_00: I walked in, they had a frame picture of a sheep on the wall.
SPEAKER_00: And then a lamb with a Bible verse.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, these people are weird.
SPEAKER_00: I'd never walked into a house and seen somebody frame a picture of a sheep and throw it up on their wall.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, was this, are these the animals they killed in the last Bible study?
SPEAKER_00: They sacrificed, are we gonna there's gonna be a chicken on the wall next week?
SPEAKER_00: Like I was terrified.
SPEAKER_00: Then my friend came up from the basement and said, Ah, we circled up downstairs, won't you join us?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, wow, this is like a horror movie.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, the beginning credits haven't even rolled, and I'm heading down to the basement.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's why I never go camping.
SPEAKER_00: I know what happens in the woods, okay?
SPEAKER_00: When you go missing, they look for you in the woods, nobody just comes out and says, Hey, everybody, just going for a walk.
SPEAKER_00: Same thing with basements, but we go down there and everybody circled up and they're reading from 1 Chronicles, and I didn't know the Bible had a, I didn't know God put a table of contents in here.
SPEAKER_00: And so I couldn't find First Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: So I just read a verse from like First Chronicles about some dude getting impaled.
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, what verse is that in Corinthians?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, it's uh something.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, What?
SPEAKER_00: You're not in Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Yes, I am.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to gaslight them, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: I said, First Chronicles, they're like, oh, you're in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, so is there a new one?
SPEAKER_00: Like, I didn't know we had updated 2.0.
SPEAKER_00: I just thought the Bible was a boring book written by a bunch of dead Middle Eastern people.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I thought.
SPEAKER_00: But I kept on going back, and here's what I learned that Jesus had very real expectations for how his followers should treat people.
SPEAKER_00: He had very deep theological beliefs, but he also had very authentic and personal relationships with people that were not like him, with people that the religious elite of his day would have nothing to do with, and they actually like Jesus back.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I can get on board with that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want a sheep picture.
SPEAKER_00: And I still don't have one, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Um reminds me too much of the silence of the lamb.
SPEAKER_00: So I end up, I end up like, I wake up and I keep on waking up that summer before my junior year, and I keep on thinking, man, I am I I might be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's just like, ooh, I feel weird.
SPEAKER_00: Get it off.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm starting to believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I knew that I would have to study what the Bible had to say about homosexuality, um, gender, identity, so on and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: And I came to two conclusions I still hold today.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you may agree, you may disagree, you probably agree with one of them, who knows?
SPEAKER_00: But I believe that God designed sex to be expressed in a marriage between a man and a woman, but my biblical beliefs are never the basis to mistreat anyone.
SPEAKER_00: That theological convictions are never like the catalyst to devalue another human being.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing you can have correct theology and be a heretic by how you treat other people.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's not love.
SPEAKER_00: If my view of marriage and sexuality makes me treat you differently, then I'm the creeper.
SPEAKER_00: And so, how did I come to that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I read verses, you know, that Paul wrote and verses in Leviticus about homosexuality, but really what got me was what Jesus said in Matthew 19 and Mark 10, when the Pharisees asked him, hey, well, what about what about um if if a woman can a man divorce his wife for any reason?
SPEAKER_00: That's what they asked him in Matthew 19 and Mark 10.
SPEAKER_00: Can can a husband divorce his wife for any reason?
SPEAKER_00: Because back then in the first century Palestine, uh, men could divorce their wives, husbands could divorce their wives, wives could not divorce their husbands.
SPEAKER_00: And so there was a lot of talk.
SPEAKER_00: There were Pharisees uh and rabbis who said that you can divorce your wife for any reason.
SPEAKER_00: Those guys were popular, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Over here, you had a few that said no, God only said a couple reasons.
SPEAKER_00: But you had men who are divorcing their wives left and right.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, you talk about the patriarchy today.
SPEAKER_00: Iwit did not hold a candle the first century Judea under the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, what it did to women was awful.
SPEAKER_00: So they asked Jesus, what do you say about this modern debate?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't even address the modern debate.
SPEAKER_00: You know what he does?
SPEAKER_00: He goes back to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: First, he quotes Genesis 1:27.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Have you not read from the very beginning that God created them male and female?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, that spiritually men and women are equal.
SPEAKER_00: We are equal in the fact that we are both made in the image and likeness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Even though we are sinful, we still bear that image.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, guys, you can't treat women like cattle.
SPEAKER_00: End of story.
SPEAKER_00: And then he quotes Genesis 2.24.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, a man will leave his mother and father, be united with his wife, and the two will become one.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had a chance to define marriage as anything else, but he says, no, go back to what God says.
SPEAKER_00: And I think today, if we went up to Jesus and if we said, Well, Jesus, what about, you know, same-sex couple, what about a couple living together?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on, I mean, you must have meant this.
SPEAKER_00: I you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I think he would do the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: He would ignore our question, and he would say, What does God's word say?
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing you can believe in God's word and not be a jerk.
SPEAKER_00: You can believe in God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, it might hurt somebody's feelings.
SPEAKER_00: Well, look, let the word of God hurt somebody's feelings.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean you have to.
SPEAKER_00: Word of God offends me all the time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm good at revenge.
SPEAKER_00: I got really good at it in college.
SPEAKER_00: And then, like, God's word says you can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, that's triggering.
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy it.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen The Godfather.
SPEAKER_00: I like it.
SPEAKER_00: But it's like, no, you can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: God's word offends all of us, and it should because we are sinful, broken people.
SPEAKER_00: And so I woke up one day and I just I became a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And um, I call my friend Greg.
SPEAKER_00: I've been going to his in my high school friend, I've been going to his dad's church in the evening for youth group.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Greg, I've turned Christian.
SPEAKER_00: What should I do?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, let's go eat Chinese food and I'll baptize you.
SPEAKER_00: Why not?
SPEAKER_00: It was back in you know the pre-COVIDs when we had buffets and they were good.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so we went, had that, I got baptized, and I was so nervous because I was a 16-year-old that now had to come out as a Christian to my three activist LGBTQ parents.
SPEAKER_00: And they kicked me out of their houses, both of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I talk or work with LGBTQ students, middle school, high school, I'm a high school volunteer at my church or college or young adults, some of them will say, You have no idea what it's like to be rejected by your family because of how you identify.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Actually, I do.
SPEAKER_00: I said, and the pain and hurt that you feel doesn't give you the right to return it on them or anyone else.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's what happens in a sick way, when you don't forgive, you are becoming like the people that hurt you.
SPEAKER_00: And you've got to let that go.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta drop the charges and put in God's hands and let Him take care of it, not you.
SPEAKER_00: And so eventually my parents let me back in because I think I'm adorable.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's why.
SPEAKER_00: But no, no, it's true.
SPEAKER_00: I I like my wife, she goes to the gym every day.
SPEAKER_00: She's hot, she's a hot, she's a hot Mexicana, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Hot Chicana.
SPEAKER_00: Like she she has a six-pack.
SPEAKER_00: I have a one-pack, as you can tell.
SPEAKER_00: Like, she was a kinesiology major.
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy Hulu and uh Paramount Plus.
SPEAKER_00: Um, gotta love those true crime shows, right, Pastor Nate?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I'm always and I used to watch the news all the time and I'd be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Now I don't.
SPEAKER_00: I watch true crime stuff and I'm scared all the time.
SPEAKER_00: So I mean, I'm not outraged, but I'm afraid.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh but anyway, so like I my wife will wake up in the morning, I'll already be awake.
SPEAKER_00: She'll look at me and I'll be like, Do you ever think God would bless you with this eye candy?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're the only woman that gets to wake up next to somebody that looks like a cross between Charlie Brown, Groo, Uncle Pester, and Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Evil.
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, You're crazy, Caleb.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let our kids hear you say that.
SPEAKER_00: But I love my wife, Amy, she's great.
SPEAKER_00: And um, anyway, so I went to Bible college.
SPEAKER_00: I met her um when I moved out to Southern California in 1999.
SPEAKER_00: I was on staff for 11 years of the church I'm on staff at now.
SPEAKER_00: We moved to Dallas, Texas, because everybody's got to live in purgatory at one point.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's very hostile.
SPEAKER_00: You have Jerry Jones there and Mark Cuban, and you have the Dallas Mavericks, you have the Cowboys.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's humid.
SPEAKER_00: I will tell you this: if your goal is to gain weight, go to Dallas, Texas.
SPEAKER_00: The the food is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you will hit your goal of gaining weight and then some.
SPEAKER_00: Um just letting you know, okay, if that's your goal.
SPEAKER_00: So we were there three and a half years.
SPEAKER_00: I was senior pastor at a church.
SPEAKER_00: My mom and dad, separately one another, moved down to our church to Dallas and started attending the church I was preaching at.
SPEAKER_00: And even though they knew what I believed.
SPEAKER_00: Like they're like, Can we come to your church?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you know what I believe about.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, all right, come on over.
SPEAKER_00: My church treated them better than I did.
SPEAKER_00: You know how annoying it is when people are nicer to your parents than you are?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, look, I said be nice, not that nice.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: But seriously, they treated them so well.
SPEAKER_00: And and they put aside their presuppositions.
SPEAKER_00: They treated them like people, not like evangelistic projects.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, we moved back to Southern California in 2013.
SPEAKER_00: And two or three weeks before we moved back at the ages of 6, 9, 70, my mom and dad trusted Jesus Christ and became Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And in the last, in the last three years, my mom and dad have both gone to be with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember um thinking they would not be there if it wasn't for a church where people were able to put aside their presuppositions and their politics and just treat people like humans.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing all of us have church hurt, all of us have been hurt by other Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know who God has used to heal me from my church hurt?
SPEAKER_00: The church?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know who God has used to heal me from the hurt from other Christians?
SPEAKER_00: Other Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I got that call, I was driving my kids to church, going to Saturday night service.
SPEAKER_00: They were going to student ministry, and the nurse called and told me my mom and died.
SPEAKER_00: She was in my uh airpod right here.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I didn't tell my kids till afterwards, but I parked, they went in, they went to student ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: It's surreal.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've had one of those moments.
SPEAKER_00: It just feels like everything's kind of moving slow.
SPEAKER_00: And so I got out, I went into the auditorium.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't crying yet, so I'm like, am I a serial killer?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not crying yet.
SPEAKER_00: What is going on?
SPEAKER_00: And then I walk in and everybody's praise and worshiping, and that's when the water works happen because I realized as I was listening to everybody else sing worship songs, that's what my mom and dad are doing right now.
SPEAKER_00: They are singing to the Lord, they're standing before the throne of the lamb.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Again, because there are some Christians who chose to live in the tension of grace and truth and not define somebody by something so trivial as sexuality, and chose to see who God created them to be, who and just love them no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: And that's my prayer for you.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I hope you keep on coming to this church.
SPEAKER_00: This is a messy grace church.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for you guys.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord, so much for.