The Life Challenges Podcast
Modern-day issues from a Biblical perspective.
The Life Challenges Podcast
The Neutering of Gender With Pastor Gregory Lyon
What happens when sex and gender get pulled apart, and families are left to navigate the fallout alone? We dig into that tension with Pastor Gregory Lyon, exploring a path that refuses to compromise biblical integrity while refusing to give up on people who are hurting. Starting from Genesis 1–2, we unpack why God’s design for male and female still frames identity after the fall, how cultural stereotypes muddy the water, and why clarity doesn’t have to sound like a hammer.
Greg shares the story behind Made Known—a ministry designed to serve strugglers and the loved ones who walk with them. The name says it all: wonderfully made, fully known. Most of the messages they receive are from parents and grandparents who love a child, fear saying the wrong thing, and want practical steps they can take today. We talk through the realities they face, from pronoun questions to whether to attend a ceremony, and how to keep a relationship open without erasing truth. Along the way, we draw on Dr. Mark Yarhouse’s three lenses—integrity, disability, and diversity—to explain why conversations stall and how to restart them with shared understanding.
This is a guide for anyone who feels stuck between conviction and compassion. You’ll hear why listening comes before correcting, how to avoid reducing a person to a single issue, and how to pursue heart change rather than mere behavior management. We also offer language and examples for parents who feel the urgency to “fix it now,” pointing instead to patient faith that trusts Christ with the work only he can do. If your goal is one more honest conversation tomorrow, this will help you get there.
If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help others find it. Ready for deeper support? Visit madeknown.net to connect with resources and a pastor who will listen.
The ministry of Christian Life Resources promotes the sanctity of life and reaches hearts with the Gospel. We invite you to learn more about the work we're doing: https://christianliferesources.com/
On today's episode.
SPEAKER_00:It's good for us to remember Genesis 1, right? That God created male and female. And when God created male and female, he didn't just create male and female bodies. He created male and female people with male and female roles. He distinguished between that. So if you want to distinguish between sex and gender, you see a little bit of that there in Genesis 1 and 2. That the person who was given this body was also given this gender role. The person who was given this body was also given this gender role. So when we say that God created male and female, we mean that in every sense of the word.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome to the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Our world today presents people with complicated issues of life and death, marriage and family, health, and science. It can be a struggle to understand or deal with them. We're here to help by bringing good information and a fresh biblical perspective to these matters and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
SPEAKER_03:Hi, and welcome back. I'm Christophe Otritz, and I'm here today with Pastor Jeff Samelson, and we have a special guest with us, Pastor Gregory Lyon. Welcome, Pastor Lyon.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. It's good to be here.
SPEAKER_03:We are really excited to have you on today, and we are going to talk about this topic, uh, the neutering of gender. And uh, I mean, I'm real interested, real fascinated as to where our discussion is gonna go today. Uh, but before we begin with that, we'd love to just have you tell us a little bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. First of all, pastor uh graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 2010 and um was assigned to a church in Sun Prairie with uh a growing church, growing community. I got along well with my associate and um decided to take a call. It was kind of a perfect situation for me, but had the opportunity to serve as a campus pastor at Wisconsin Lutheran College, which was a unique opportunity. So in 2015, I accepted that call and um have been serving here in that capacity for the last yeah 10 years. So, and then just recently uh got my counseling degree uh through Bethany Lutheran College and um have been working part-time for Christian Family Solutions in that uh counseling capacity as well. So, yeah, lots of experience with one-on-one ministry has really been the focus of the work that I've been doing.
SPEAKER_03:Can you tell us uh a little bit about this organization called Made Known? I think somebody who works at Christian Life Resources maybe had met you and um had kind of followed some of the work you were doing in that area.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so this was uh this was initiated by the Synod, uh by the the leaders of the Synod. And there was just a recognition that sadly, and I think we see this a lot in our culture, is the church is is losing people to the LGBTQ topic. We're just trying to figure out what do we do about that? Because we definitely, you know, we are we are not going to sacrifice the truth of what the Bible says. At the same time, are we communicating it in a way that resonates with families and resonates with individuals? So the synod at large said, can you just kind of do something about that? So in about 2020-ish, 21, uh, we measure everything by pre-COVID or post-COVID. I know it was post-COVID. I was I was tasked with leading a gender identity task force. And it was really just, what do you want to do? How do we want to get after this? How do we want to talk about this? Um, and that task force eventually shifted into the Wells Committee on Identity, Gender, and Sexuality. And one of the outcomes of that committee, which I chair now, is that we created a website. It's called madeknown.net. And I can explain the name a little bit. It's it's two things put together. One is wonderfully made, which we get from Psalm 139, where we're told we're fearfully and wonderfully made. The other is um taken from 1 Corinthians 13, where where Paul talks about this as we look forward to heaven, now we know in part, but then we shall know fully, even as we are fully known. And the reason we put those two things together is because I had the opportunity to talk with a number of God-fearing, Bible-believing people who are struggling with the topic of sexuality and gender. And one of the things that I heard was Psalm 139 is a beautiful passage and it and it outlines the beauty of God's good creation. But sometimes they felt like it was used as a club against them, almost as if to say, What's wrong with you? Don't you know you're wonderfully made? And and it it felt heavy. And they said, you know, what happens when I'm struggling with this? Is there a church that can hear me that I'm struggling with this? There's one thing to be struggling with it, there's another thing to be wholeheartedly fully embracing it, right? We're talking about those who are struggling. Does God see me in my struggle? Does God still know me in my struggle? The answer is yes, right? God always sees us in in the midst of our struggle. So we put those two together, wonderfully made and fully known, to highlight that it is true that we are wonderfully made, but we are also fully known as the broken people that we are forgiven through grace in Christ. So that's kind of the big picture overview of what that work has been like.
SPEAKER_02:What are the the plans going forward? I've I've I've been to the website. I, you know, there's some great stuff. I was just reading something by um uh pastor uh Professor Paustian, Mark Paustian. Yeah. It was just excellent. What more is going to be happening with the site or or the organization and uh what are the plans there?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, uh we actually just had uh a planning meeting the last couple weeks because we we boy, we were throwing a lot of jello at the wall just to see what sticks. And there's there's kind of two paths you can go with this. One is addressing the movement. And there's absolutely a movement going on, there's no doubt about it. And uh that movement can be a threat to our churches and our schools and all of those things. Another path is there are individuals who are struggling who don't identify with the movement. And we don't want to lose those folks either. So our focus has really been more towards that individualized side. What does individual support look like? So when we initially set out, I think we were hoping to capture the ears of some of those people who are struggling within the church. What has realistically played out is we've had a lot of parents that have reached out to us saying, what do I do? They love their child dearly and they don't, they don't know how to think about this. They don't know, you know, we're afraid we're gonna say the wrong thing and those kind of things. So we we don't want to lose sight of the individual, but some of our work is gearing more towards parents, friends, supporters, because those are the people who are largely reaching out to us. So, what does that look like? We do have a pastors network of about 25 pastors who uh for some folks it's just an initial contact. Those pastors are not there to replace your local pastor by any means, but maybe just somebody to connect with first. But then we want to do a lot of presentations. We have found over the course of the last year or so that people will reach out to us and say, can you present on that topic? And I think we'll see in this conversation as we move forward, there are so many facets to this conversation and so many directions that you could go with it. We're trying to give people a menu of things that they can choose from, who the primary audience is. So what we really want to do is get eyeball to eyeball with people to hear their questions, to validate their concerns and their frustrations. So we're we're leaning much more towards that area of presentations, eyeball to eyeball kind of work. Thanks.
SPEAKER_03:No, um really interesting. And uh, I mean, a couple thoughts when you were talking too, one being on just when you mentioned how people that are struggling, that you know that there are churches out there that will just be so accepting of them. But we're we're not that chur kind of church body or we're not that type of church, but we are we we do want struggling people. And I think sometimes we maybe um oh, uh I mean, maybe people that are struggling just think that since we're not the church that's accepting that we just don't want them. And yeah, and just being able to convey that message that uh we we do want you, even though you're you're struggling with this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I I think there's there's a reality within the church is that we want the church to be, as Jesus says, a doc um a hospital for the sick, right? But uh, you know, if I look at my own heart, my own personal sickness looks a lot better than somebody else's sickness, right? I can justify my own sickness as, oh, it's not that bad sort of thing. But I think once once you really get into the depths of gospel ministry and you start looking at the kind of people that that Jesus carried along on his mission, there's some tough stuff. If we're gonna connect with people in deep and meaningful ways, they might have some stories to share that are a little difficult. And that's certainly true in this in this LGBTQ community. So balancing that truth and grace is that's like the number one question we get all the time. And it's it's hard to just give a cookie-cutter blanket, this is how you do that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I know. And you know, the the other thing too that you said too about just parents reaching out to um uh um a couple months ago, we did a podcast with uh Katie Koblenz, and she had gone through the transitioning and then detransitioning and everything. And um, just kind of off camera though, or off the record, I guess, I was talking to her and she was just mentioning how I mean, especially grandparents too, are just reaching out to her and like how can I connect with my grandchild? And you know, just I mean, and and it just it does seem, I mean, I can just when you were saying too how parents were reaching out to you, it does seem, yeah, like that people that are connected to the church, like parents and grandparents, do want some type of advice, support, um, a place to go to be able to get that that community to help them communicate.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I I think um for so many, and I understand this, it comes from a place of fear. I don't I don't want to say the thing that's going to push my child away so I never get to talk to him again. But I also don't want to say the thing that's going to disregard what God's word says. So it's just this fear of of saying the wrong thing. And to some extent, I think some of our work is trying, maybe this is just more me personally, trying to help alleviate that fear that every single conversation we have, it lands at the foot of the cross. I have a pastor's daily prayer that I learned from my former associate. Um, he he gave it to me and I still have it posted in my Bible. It's called, well, it's called the Pastor's Daily Prayer, but it's from the the old 1941 Lutheran agenda. So it's got the old these and thou's in there, which uh for me sometimes it's like a warm, cuddly blanket to hear a few these and ths. But there's a portion at the end of the prayer, it says, and I might be paraphrasing, but give me at all times sound advice and just works. And wherever I speak or act wrongly, do thou set it aright, so that no one may through me suffer harm to his soul. And that prayer has always been helpful to me because what I've what I've taken away from it is I'm gonna do the absolute best I can with the conversation that I'm gonna have with this person. And I might screw it up and I might not say the right thing. And when that happens, where do I belong? I belong where I was at the first place. I belong at the foot of the cross. It's Jesus, make right what I make wrong. So I'm gonna do the best I can with all the information I have and all the wisdom that God has granted me. And I'm just gonna venture boldly into a conversation and trust that God can make it right in his way. Gosh, that's a scary thing though, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, yes, it is. Well, we want to talk about this topic of neutering gender. And when we talk about it too, how would you describe what's happening in our culture today with that topic?
SPEAKER_00:So, first of all, I'll say I am not a sociologist, and I I've talked to sociologists who have all the details of the historical situations going on here. But I think one thing that's happened is that we've come to a point where we've disconnected the concept of gender and sex, as if, as if these two are no longer related. Now, I I think there are some benefits to understanding that there are aspects of gender, like gender stereotypes that are culturally driven. Um, and and I can I can highlight some of those here in a minute. But to disconnect sex and gender, I think that's where we start getting into really tricky areas because when those two are no longer connected, then you then you no longer have a clear, definitive, objective measure of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. So, first of all, for those who maybe don't know, the concept of sex and gender as it's used now. So sex is your biology, gender is your the way you carry that out, right? And and I think when you separate those two, it becomes problematic. But now let me talk about the cultural aspect of gender. So when we talk about like what does what does a manly man look like, that would that would be an aspect of gender. And in order to define what a manly man looks like, there are some cultural aspects to that. In Scotland, a manly man wears a skirt. We call it a kilt, right? But that's that's definitive of what it means to be a man in that culture. So even in our culture, you might say that real men like blue and real women like pink. Well, no, that's not necessarily true, right? So I think sometimes we can fall into cultural gender stereotypes that are not always accurate. So if I'm a man who likes the color pink, that doesn't make me not a man. That's where I think sometimes in this culture we're we're separating those two out so much.
SPEAKER_03:That's a really good point. Where does maybe just this idea of men um, oh, I don't know, maybe men today like not being as manly or women trying to be, we would say, take on like more of those, maybe you're saying stereotypes, but like the the men manly type of roles, you know, where maybe I mean in in the workplace um or in other areas too. What is changing with all of that? And is that all part of this maybe this neutering of the gender?
SPEAKER_00:One thing I well, I should say this first. Personally, I have a really hard time with painting with broad strokes. So, you know, I'm hesitant to say, what's changing? Well, social media is changing and social media is uh neutering gender. I don't think that's untrue. But I think anytime you reduce it to a single reason why these things are happening, then you you can diminish the experience of any one individual. So I think that's an important thing. So when we're thinking about what's happening in our culture, we can do things like say, oh, it's all politics' fault, or it's all social media's fault, and it's um it's feminism of the 1960s and 70s that you know all of those things combined may be true. So I want to say that first. Secondly, I'll say this. Broadly, I think we may be going through some sort of identity crisis. And I don't mean just identity crisis from a uh gender and sex standpoint. I think we live in a culture that is craving an identity, like any identity. And if I can find an identity that helps me associate with people and helps me be accepted by a community and helps, you know, that's what I really want. Pastor Phil Hiebner wrote uh a book, Who Am I All About Identity, primarily towards teens. I think that's a really good book on that topic of identity. So I I think what you're seeing with gender, and and maybe I'm overstating the case here, but what you're seeing with some of the gender things happening is kind of a microcosm of what's happening more broadly.
SPEAKER_03:Um and when you were talking about identity too, that really seemed uh that that seems to make sense too. I remember hearing not too long ago, but just a a woman talking about uh her daughter and her daughter going through that I uh maybe we'd say gender confusion. And I think her daughter was maybe 13 or something, but just said that all of her friends, nobody wanted to just identify as just a regular female who liked boys. They all were trying, I mean, it was it was you that wasn't cool enough, or it wasn't you didn't stand out enough if you didn't pick uh a different letter, we would say, you know, maybe a letter of the alphabet or something that you would uh would I would identify with because that was really how you got your identity. And that just made uh quite an impression to me.
SPEAKER_00:I remember having a conversation too with the young girl, probably the same age, and I had presented at a church and they brought in their seventh and eighth grade confirmation class for the Bible study, because they just happened to be going through the sixth commandment at the same time that I was doing this particular Bible study. And she came up to me afterwards, she's she was a public school girl and just said, if I don't at least identify as bisexual, then I'm I'm an outcast. And so you just think through the immense amount of pressure that people are under to find a marker where they can be accepted. It just, you know, I I could have two reactions to all of that. I could be angry about it, but really it for me, it just it makes me sad. It makes me sad. I'm gonna add in one other thing here. We're talking a little bit more about the neutering of the gender. I think it's important for us to remember, though, that like the LGB, lesbian, gay, bisexual is different than the T. Yeah, right. Right. And I think that's an important thing for us to just continue to remember that those first three, those are all about attraction. Who am I attracted to? And and the the T has more to do with how I identify from a gender standpoint. But I've talked to a number of people who struggle with gender dysphoria, and and I remember having conversations with them, like, well, don't you care about the body that God has given you? And the response I got was quite surprising. Uh, one individual said, Well, of course I do. Why do you think I'm struggling so bad? And I'm like, huh. It just gave me pause to think through this is somebody who's taking the Bible seriously and is really struggling with it. So I had to change, kind of change my approach in that kind of situation. So I think there's there's a lot of a lot of stereotypes that we can put on people who are struggling with these that may maybe are not true.
SPEAKER_03:You know, when we when we talk about identity too, I think it is important to just talk about how scripture identifies male and female and why that is important, especially when we're talking about these different things.
SPEAKER_00:I think it's good for us to remember Genesis 1, right? That God created male and female. And when God created male and female, he didn't just create male and female bodies. He created male and female people with male and female roles. He distinguished between that. So if you want to distinguish between sex and gender, you see a little bit of that there in Genesis 1 and 2, that the person who was who was given this body was also given this gender role. The person who was given this body was also given this gender role. So when we say that God created male and female, we mean that in every sense of the word. Now, it's a really interesting thing for for some of you Lutheran nerds out there, if you're interested in reading the formula of Concord sometime. It's interesting to read Article I of the Formula of Concord, which is on original sin, article one of the formula of Concord with an eye towards this topic. Because one of the things that the reformers really highlighted is that God's good creation was not only a thing pre-fall, but God's good creation is still a post is still true in the post-fallen world. So some in this discussion will distinguish between, well, this was male and female pre-fall. Post fall, the rules are different and we don't know what it means anymore. Well, Article I of the formula of Concord would say, no, we do know. We do know. So, Jeff, I'm sure you just brushed up on that yesterday. Did you ring a bell to you?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, I'll say yes, it it rings a bell.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:No, that's it, it's it is so true. There's just so much all the arguments about male and female and such in the New Testament are grounded in Genesis one and two. It's it's not like it's something, oh well, everything's changed now. Well, no, it's it's still God's design hasn't changed. The change is what God's doing about the way we messed it up.
SPEAKER_00:You know, and I I think maybe that that brings me to another point, too, is so Dr. Dr. Mark Yarhouse is a name that a lot of people have come across in this in this general topic. And I I like to remind people that Dr. Yarhouse is a psychologist, so a Christian psychologist who holds a high view of scripture. But one of the things that he does is he lays the landscape for what's happening right now. And he doesn't always give definitive answers on what we should do about it, because most psychologists, most psychologists don't do that. He's a research psychologist, so I think he does a good job of laying out the landscape. But one of the most helpful things that I have found that he offered is approaching this discussion from three different lenses. And maybe, maybe some of your listeners have heard of this, but there's uh lens one is the integrity lens, lens two is a disability lens, and lens three is a diversity lens. So the integrity lens says I'm speaking about this topic from the viewpoint of this is what Genesis one and two says. It's biblical integrity, right? The disability lens says, I'm speaking about this from, I would say, like a Genesis three perspective. This is a result of a fallen world. The diversity lens would say more like look at the diversity of God's creation in sex and gender and all of those things. So the diversity lens is a little harder to get behind. I hear those with the disability lens saying, um, I didn't ask for this struggle. I didn't want this struggle. It is a result of being in a fallen world. And I can hear that. I can hear that, and I can understand what perspective they're coming from. So uh with one individual that I remember talking to, it was very clear I was coming from an integrity standpoint, and the other individual was coming from a disability standpoint. We weren't talking the same language. So we weren't, it it wasn't a fruitful discussion. It wasn't until we could make those distinctions about what perspective we're coming from, then we could have a productive discussion. But yeah, yeah, the the post-fallen world is definitely there in the um disability lens perspective.
SPEAKER_03:How would you have a meaningful discussion when you are in a different lens than somebody?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Honestly, like maybe that is part of the problem, you know, when we talk about like parents or grandparents trying to connect with their grandchildren that are going through this, or a friend trying to talk to another friend. Say you are in two different lenses. How do you go about that?
SPEAKER_00:I'll start with what may be the easier one, and that's the integrity lens and the disability lens. That's probably uh the easier one. Sometimes we like to make ideological arguments. So ideological arguments would what what is what is it that causes the thing to happen? In Christian circles, sometimes we'll get into this. Well, you chose this, right? And sometimes we can get into those kind of arguments, and and I think I think those arguments tend to be less than fruitful. Because now we're just arguing for the sake of arguing. So I I think if I'm coming from an integrity standpoint and somebody else is coming from a disability standpoint, arguing about whether or not they chose that disability probably is not going to be helpful. So at the very least, can I give them the respect of hearing out what their story is? Right? Can I can I listen to them? Because there are always aspects of their stories that are very informative in uh in in how they've been shaped and and where they are today. So I think it regardless of what lens you're coming from, we need to have deep understanding. And and I want to give you the respect of listening to you. I think another thing that can happen is um for integrity people, and I'll speak for myself on this, um I become so focused on I need to proclaim the truth of God's word to this person that I forget to spend time to listen. I have numerous examples of that in my own ministry where I fail to listen well. I proclaim the truth, and I will stand by the fact that I proclaim the truth. However, somebody once said to me, uh, there's no such thing as a wrong passage, but there are wrong times to say those passages. Right? So I think when we're when we're talking to somebody in a different lens, maybe it's even a diversity lens, maybe the way I need to position myself is I'm gonna be in the long game in this one with you. You and I are not on the same page right now. We don't agree right now, but I still care about you. I still love you. Now, for families, what that means and how they play things out and ask some of the really difficult questions like, Am I gonna use pronouns? Am I gonna go to weddings? And you know, those are some really big difficult questions. But I think it comes first from a place of deep understanding and love and care, um, not at the expense of truth, but because of the truth. Um, because biblical integrity is not just law, biblical integrity is also gospel.
SPEAKER_02:Puts in mind also just the need to particularly if you've been raised in you know the generations where this stuff was just if it was heard of, it was off in the distance. It was only the really weird people, it never never came close and have a really strong foundation in the scripture. But sex and all these things, it it skews things. You you don't think about it the way you think about other things and for people of certain generations and backgrounds and things like that. And it's just helpful, I think, if you're coming particularly from this integrity lens and you're dealing with somebody more with the disability lens, to think okay, this is this particular person's issue. This is the thing that he or she is struggling with, and there are reasons why he or she is struggling with it. I may not understand them, I may not relate to them at all, but they are really. Reasons. And if you think about it, well, what if 40 years ago you were dealing with somebody who was struggling to deal with the aftermath of growing up with divorced parents? If you are dealing with somebody who was dealing with uh alcoholism in their family, there are all sorts of things like that that are issues that people would be dealing with that complicate their lives and create all sorts of problems and questions and things that they're more likely to do than you are, and all things like that, that you would probably have the patience and the openness to say, I don't understand this. Let me listen, let me see how I can help. Many of us need to just kind of get beyond, you know, to take that next step and say, I need to have the openness necessary to listen to this thing that is so weird to me, the same as I would for other things, because it's just a different weird.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And and like I said earlier, my weird makes a whole lot of sense to me. Right? So yeah, I I thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:I think sometimes too, maybe it is a little hard to have a conversation. Um, because sometimes people just say, like, well, you know, I already know what you feel about this mom, or I already know, you know, that's like you don't like this lifestyle, or how would you maybe just let people know that you do want to hear them out? Um, because sometimes I think there is just that, like, all right, yeah, you you like you church people, you already have this way of thinking. And um, you know, how how do you kind of break that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think for me personally, I I I carry the the double struggle, if you will, of carrying the title pastor. And frankly, I don't get a lot of young people reaching out to me talking to me about this. And and I don't I don't know their reasons, but maybe in part it's because I'm pastor. But when somebody does, I think I try to position myself to remember they are sharing something deeply vulnerable with somebody that they don't necessarily know that well. And it's a scary thing to say something out loud when you don't know how you're gonna be received. So I often think of it in terms of the great honor that I feel that someone is willing to share this with me. And I'll vocalize that. This must have been really hard for you to share, especially with me. Thank you for sharing that with me. And and I I you could come out and say, Well, don't you know that Genesis, don't you know that you're wonderfully made, right? Like I said at the beginning. But one of the encouragements that I give to parents is maybe the goal of the next conversation that you have with your child is to have one more conversation. Right. I feel like every time we have conversations around these, there's so much riding on it. And and we feel like eternity is weighing in the balance. And to some extent it is, right? I understand that. But can we make it our goal to have just one more conversation, to keep that door open? I've also encouraged parents, yeah, sometimes you have to say the hard thing, but you don't have to say the hard thing every single time you talk, right? Sometimes you can just ask, how's work? You know, it's it's interesting. Um, I've I've heard people say to me, like, don't reduce me to my sexuality. And I'm like, Yep, I agree with that. So then in the way that I interact with you, I ought not to reduce you only to your sexuality or only to your gender. There's so much more to you. And I want to know those parts too. Right? I want to be there for you too in those parts.
SPEAKER_03:I think it's hard sometimes too, as as Christians, like when dealing with somebody who maybe has an open or public sin, because you feel like, okay, they they're probably getting affirmation of this sin in in their everyday life or by by people around them. I mean, I just think about even if we just like expand the conversation too, like just to people um living together outside of marriage, right? And so, you know, I I mean, sometimes I kind of feel like, oh, I need to, I mean, nobody else in their life is gonna say that it's wrong. So I need to tell them that it's wrong, or or we put that pressure on ourselves. And sometimes I think it is this with this or other, you know, or sexual sins too. I mean, how do you you strike that balance of wanting to wanting to to do what God wants you to do as a Christian, or wanting to tell people maybe their sin, but also striking that balance of maybe now is not the time, or I want to build that relationship, or or giving people more hope than um than condemnation, or I guess the that's maybe just the more gospel than law, or the that balance.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, and I think that that balance really comes out to every individual. So if you're the type of person that's ready to smack a Bible across the face of anybody who doesn't believe what you believe, then it might be helpful for you to spend a little bit more time reading about how Jesus interacted with sinners, right? And how does Jesus do that? Now, if you're the opposite and you're only thinking about how Jesus interacted with sinners, maybe you need to spend a little bit more time in the Bible seeing how did Jesus proclaim truth? How did he do that? So a couple of examples that come to mind for me are Jesus and the rich young ruler, right? And the rich young ruler came to Jesus and said, What must I do to be saved? And it says that Jesus looked at him and loved him and said, One thing you lack, right? He he loved him enough to point out the law to him. And then on the other side, you have the account of the woman in Luke chapter 7 who anointed Jesus' feet when she walked into Simon the Pharisee's house. And there's a really fascinating verse where it's verse 44 of Luke 7, where Jesus it says, He turned toward the woman and he said to Simon, which is a I I love nonverbal, sir. He turned toward the woman and he said to Simon, and he said, Do you see this woman?
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_00:So there you see Jesus proclaiming law to Simon at the same time that he's proclaiming gospel to this woman. So you see Jesus do both, is my point. And I think every once in a while we each need to do our own mirror check. Say which one am I more inclined to? Maybe I need to spend some time focusing on the other one. And I I would add this too. If you are a strong Christian household and you have a child or whatever that is struggling with their own gender or sexuality, I would strongly suspect that they know very well where you stand. And maybe you don't need to feel as strongly about proclaiming where you stand often, because they maybe already know that and know it deeply. So I don't know how to ultimately strike the balance because I don't know where where that one individual is, where that one parent is. I think this is what we regularly run into, though, when when I've done numerous presentations on this, people will ask general questions about their specific situation. And and one thing that I think is good for parents to know is there isn't always a straight, clear-cut, super obvious way to deal with this. It's it's just not that clear, it's not always that clear. God's word is clear. How I apply it, we call this a proper distinction between law and gospel, right? And that proper distinction is, man, it's hard. It's hard.
SPEAKER_02:I think part of what Krista's question was getting at, and part of what you're also relating in terms of the questions that you get from people, is it's very human thing to see a problem and think, I gotta fix this. And so we're looking for, you know, for I'm I'm the parent in that, you know, that situation. I'm I'm looking for, okay, what can I say that's gonna fix this? Or, you know, how can I do this? And you know, they're asking you then for the question, uh, you know, the question of, okay, you know, what what do I need to know so that I can solve this problem? And that's a good instinct. I mean, if something's wrong, you want to make it right. But we need to be careful to remember that uh a lot of the the fixes that we're looking for are things that really only God can work. Yeah, and and we're putting too much on our own shoulders, perhaps in pride, perhaps in uh a sense of urgency or s or weakness or or whatever. But we just need to remember that it's not gonna be entirely up to me because it's not within my power alone to do this. And so I need to have more patience and I definitely need to be putting a lot more trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I think just to piggyback on that um excellent point is also to understand what is the problem that we're trying to fix. I think of this in terms of you know, maybe uh a young teenage couple gets pregnant and has a baby. Is the fix that they should get married? In some cases, maybe, but in some cases that may be not the right approach. But from a Christian perspective, are we just trying to fix a behavior or is there something else going on here that needs fixing that we can't do? So uh I I also encourage parents along this way and and just my own self as I do my own mirror checks, is that fixing behavior is not the end game because the sin that runs rampant in our hearts goes a little bit deeper than just our behavior. And and if it was just our behavior, then the answer and the antidote to that sin is law, right? Um But Jesus didn't come just to fix our behavior, He He came because we have a sin that is our very nature, our very core. So I've heard numerous times a parent would say something like, uh, my my child just came out and I don't know what to do with it. Well, tell me a little bit about your child. Well, they've they've been an atheist for five years, and and and in the back of my head, I'm thinking, so now we have a problem? Like, yeah. And and that's that's it, I I wouldn't say that to the parent, but you know what I mean? It's like, I can deal with the fact that they're atheist as long as they're not X, Y, or Z. And and that that's not true. Parents struggle with that too. So I'm I'm not saying that um having an atheist child is an easier thing, but it's just that mentality, right? That we want to fix this behavior. And it's easier to overlook the underlying sinful nature that only Christ can fix. And you pray that the behavior follows, right? You absolutely pray that the behavior follows.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you very much. We are we're kind of out of time here, but thank you so much for talking with us. There really is probably quite a lot we could say on this topic, too. But uh we we really appreciate it. And if people want more information at all, would you suggest them going to the Made Known website or what's kind of the best way for people that would like more information?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, if you go to the Made Known website, up in the top right corner, there's a contact us page, and people will submit questions and there's also opportunities there to connect with a pastor. Um, and and yeah, you can get connected with us and actually have a conversation with an individual on this.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Well, great. Well, thank you so much. And we thank all of our listeners for joining us too. And please reach out to us uh at lifechallenges.us if you have any questions for us. And we look forward to having you back next time. Thanks a lot. Bye.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for joining us for the Life Challenges Podcast of Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it, and sharing it with friends. We're here to help. So if you have questions on today's topic or other life issues, you can submit them as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes at lifechallenges.us, or email us to podcast at ChristianLifEResources.com. You can find past episodes and other valuable information at lifechallenges.us, so please check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit ChristianLiferesources.com. A God gives you wisdom, love, strength, and peace of Christ for every life.
