SPEAKER_00: Well, hello.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to see you guys.
SPEAKER_00: If I've not met you, my name is Arlen.
SPEAKER_00: I am the uh campus pastor here at the Lawrence Campus about to serve as the outreach pastor for the church as well.
SPEAKER_00: But we are in the middle of a series called Uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, some weeks have lived up to the name of being uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: And last time I talked in this series, I talked on political engagement and not making idols of politicians.
SPEAKER_00: Um and today I have another softball, uh LGBTQ ⁇ .
SPEAKER_00: Um and so we're gonna have a conversation about this.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have a conversation about LGBTQ, also known as LGBTQIA.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I want to get ahead of it really quick.
SPEAKER_00: We're just jumping right into it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh today might be hard.
SPEAKER_00: Today might be hard.
SPEAKER_00: It might be hard in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_00: And it might be hard in some ways we were expecting, in some ways we weren't expecting.
SPEAKER_00: But if we are honest with ourselves, the world is having this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: The world is talking about this.
SPEAKER_00: And the church has not always had these conversations.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we've been nervous to have these conversations, and I actually think that that can be sad that we aren't talking about this, because we do talk about this stuff just out in the world.
SPEAKER_00: The world is having conversations about sex and marriage and purity and pornography.
SPEAKER_00: The world's talking about it.
SPEAKER_00: And so the church should have these conversations.
SPEAKER_00: And we should talk about marriage, and we should talk about purity and dating and lust and what it means to honor God with our bodies, and to talk about the difficulties that can come with some of this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Like we tell teenagers that they should take purity seriously, and we tell married couples that sex is a gift from God and it belongs within that covenant of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: We talk openly about how sexual sin can damage us in our marriages, in our relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes when it comes to talking about LGBTQ or LGBTQ IA plus, we can go silent.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think we should be silent on this one.
SPEAKER_00: Because the world is having this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Our kids are having it, our coworkers are having it, our neighbors, people in our own families are all talking about it.
SPEAKER_00: And so the question should not be, should we have this conversation?
SPEAKER_00: The question is how do we have this conversation with Jesus at the center?
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: And so if we are going to talk about something this important, uh, we need to hold two things together.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I titled this message uh loving in truth in grace.
SPEAKER_00: And we need to hold two things together, and that is truth and that is grace.
SPEAKER_00: And I have a few guardrails for us before we start.
SPEAKER_00: Today I'm talking to the church.
SPEAKER_00: For those who have called themselves Christ followers, if you are here today and you are not a Christ follower, I genuinely hope that you listen, and I want you to know we are genuinely glad you are here.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you hear our heart.
SPEAKER_00: Because the goal of today is not to beat anyone down, but the goal of today is to glorify Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: And to have honest conversations, and we want to build the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So let me pray for us, and then we're gonna jump in.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you so much for today.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that we get to be in this room together, that we get to have a conversation like this, that we get to find truth in your son Jesus together.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for your son.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that we get to magnify his name.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray in this moment that you speak through me, that my words are not my own, that they come from you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we are so grateful for all that you've done for us.
SPEAKER_00: We love you, and we pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's do it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk LGBTQ plus, sometimes known as LGBTQIA.
SPEAKER_00: And first, let's actually kind of define what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Um, this is an umbrella term, uh, and it covers a range of different like sexual orientations and gender identities.
SPEAKER_00: And the letters, when you hear them, commonly stand for uh lesbian or gay or bisexual, transgender, queer.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you'll see intersex or asexual in there.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and the plus is for other identities and experiences underneath that umbrella.
SPEAKER_00: And I say this because I don't want us to be afraid of the language.
SPEAKER_00: There are these words that exist in the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna hear them in the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: Our kids are gonna hear these words in school, coworkers use them, our neighbors use them, people sitting in this room know somebody that they love that probably uses one of these letters as an identity.
SPEAKER_00: And so, if we as a church are actually gonna engage the world around us, we need to understand the conversation that is happening around us.
SPEAKER_00: But understanding the terminology is not just the first thing that we need to do.
SPEAKER_00: We need to ask the bigger question.
SPEAKER_00: And the bigger question is this how does the church respond?
SPEAKER_00: Or how should the church respond to people that say, I exist in this community, how should the church respond to that?
SPEAKER_00: And before we actually get to how we respond to people, we need to understand what scripture actually teaches about human sexuality and God's design for marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to start there.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is where if we get ahead of ourselves, we can get in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Because we can start talking out of feelings, or we can start talking out of politics, or we can start talking from what culture says or what social media says.
SPEAKER_00: But as Christians, we shouldn't start there, we should start with scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible guides us, we don't guide the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's actually this kind of like I did a lot of study on this.
SPEAKER_00: There's this big debate that Jesus actually never said anything about this, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because he doesn't have a sermon titled LGBTQ.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's this debate that Jesus actually never said anything about this, but I don't believe that that is true.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I do believe that Jesus did speak to biblical sexual ethic, and I do believe that he did speak to marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where we're gonna start.
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to open up your Bibles, turn on your Bibles, however you want to get there, to Matthew 19.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna start in verse 1, and we're gonna walk through, but Matthew verse, or Matthew 19, starting in verse 1, and it says this When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went straight to the region of Judea, to the other side of the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
SPEAKER_00: Some Pharisees came to him, and they asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?
SPEAKER_00: Haven't you read, he replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them, male and female, and he said, For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.
SPEAKER_00: Why then?
SPEAKER_00: They asked, Did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus replied, Moses permitted you divorce to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard, but it was not this way from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another woman commits adultery.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples said to him, If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it's better not to marry.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus replied, Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.
SPEAKER_00: For there are eunuchs who were born that way, there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: The one who can accept this should accept it.
SPEAKER_00: So pause.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has been doing ministry, and these Pharisees come up, and they kind of do what the Pharisees always do.
SPEAKER_00: They try and trap him in questions.
SPEAKER_00: They try and trap Jesus in questions.
SPEAKER_00: And so this one, they come up and they say, Hey, I want to know, Jesus, what do you say about divorce?
SPEAKER_00: What do you say about divorce?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus doesn't just simply answer their question about this nuance that they're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: He actually takes it back to Genesis and he says, Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female?
SPEAKER_00: Now, this was not just like an innocent theological question.
SPEAKER_00: At the time, there was actually major debate among Jewish religious leaders on how divorce should be handled.
SPEAKER_00: One group taught that it would only be allowed for serious sexual immorality, and then another uh had actually taken that interpretation and they expanded it so much that divorce could be granted for anything that displeased the husband.
SPEAKER_00: So, like burnt toast and you're out.
SPEAKER_00: It was any and every reason that a divorce could come.
SPEAKER_00: And they come up and they say, Jesus, which camp do you fit in?
SPEAKER_00: Which side are you taking?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Let me take it back to the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: And in the beginning, there was a creator.
SPEAKER_00: And the creator made the male and female, and he says the man would leave his family and be joined with his wife.
SPEAKER_00: And what the Lord has brought together, let no man separate.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, Jesus is doing all sorts of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: He's doing uh just amazing things.
SPEAKER_00: One, he is affirming God's design for marriage.
SPEAKER_00: He does.
SPEAKER_00: He clearly states this is how it was meant to be.
SPEAKER_00: He also says, He did make them male and female.
SPEAKER_00: And he says that a marriage is a covenant between one man and one woman before God.
SPEAKER_00: And he sets the standard.
SPEAKER_00: And then he also refuses to let culture define that design.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees wanted to argue exceptions, and Jesus said, We're not doing that.
SPEAKER_00: We're actually coming back to the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: We're coming to how this started.
SPEAKER_00: And we're not arguing the loopholes that you guys have created.
SPEAKER_00: He just took them back to the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what he does with us too.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, if we're honest, we get caught asking, what's the loophole?
SPEAKER_00: What's the line?
SPEAKER_00: How far is too far?
SPEAKER_00: What can I get away with?
SPEAKER_00: But remember that Jesus' response was, What were you created for?
SPEAKER_00: We take you back to that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the posture that we have to have today.
SPEAKER_00: And so, yes, Jesus does affirm the biblical standard for marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't debate it.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This is what it is, this is how it was designed.
SPEAKER_00: And we submit to that design.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you actually read Spring Lake Church, we we have a statement on this on our website, and this is the position that we hold that marriage is between one man and one woman, and we believe that Jesus did affirm this.
SPEAKER_00: Again, because the Bible guides us, we don't guide the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: So if that is good God's design, the bigger question is, well, how what do we do when people live outside of that design?
SPEAKER_00: And I want to be clear here because if we do hold this standard, the same standard that Jesus holds, we should grieve when anyone lives outside this design.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: It should hurt our hearts when anyone lives outside this design.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible's sexual ethic isn't just uniquely restrictive to the LGBTQ plus people.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible's sexual ethic talks about premarital sex.
SPEAKER_00: And it's outside of God's design, adultery is outside of God's design, pornography is outside of God's design, incest, all of these things are outside what this was created to be.
SPEAKER_00: And within that biblical understanding of sexuality, we can then have a conversation, but we understand that if it is not within what God designed, that should grieve us and that should make us soft-hearted for people.
SPEAKER_00: Because we understand this isn't what it was supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: Look, not all these sins are identical in circumstance, but they are outside of God's design.
SPEAKER_00: But I think the church is like uniquely targeted LGBTQ plus people as though their sexuality is the defining sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to say this up front: sexuality is not what saves us.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody is saved because they got their sexuality right.
SPEAKER_00: We are saved by Jesus and Jesus alone.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us in our lives has desires or actions that have to be surrendered to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For some people, it's pride or greed or anger or addiction or gluttony or selfishness or unforgiveness, and we all need to come to Jesus as we need grace.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: So as we enter into this conversation, if you were with me when I did the politics one, we did a list of do's and don'ts.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what we're gonna do today.
SPEAKER_00: As we enter further into this conversation, I'm gonna give us a list of do's and don'ts.
SPEAKER_00: But before we even go into those, I want to say a few things.
SPEAKER_00: First, um, I am not a clinical therapist, nor am I a doctor.
SPEAKER_00: And so I do not understand all the reasons somebody may be experiencing same-sex attraction or struggle with gender dysphoria, and I don't claim to be an expert in those areas.
SPEAKER_00: The second is I do recognize though that the church has often done a poor job at teaching on this subject.
SPEAKER_00: And historically, the church has not done a good job at loving on people who identify within this category.
SPEAKER_00: And the third thing I want to say is if you are in this room and you do struggle with same-sex attraction or you do struggle with gender dysphoria, and you wonder if there's a place for you at this church, I need you to hear me, we as a church are so happy that you get to hear the name of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we want.
SPEAKER_00: We are so incredibly happy that today you get to hear the name of Jesus Christ because we think that that's the greatest thing this world has to offer.
SPEAKER_00: And so, church, the first do that we must always cling to is this do remember that they were made in God's image.
SPEAKER_00: They were made in God's image.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody was made in God's image.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever we have a rub with anybody, this is what we should always start with.
SPEAKER_00: They were made in God's image.
SPEAKER_00: Remember how Jesus took the Pharisees back to the beginning to affirm God's design for marriage?
SPEAKER_00: Well, in the same opening chapters within Genesis, it tells us something else.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 1, 27 says this.
SPEAKER_00: So God created mankind in his own image.
SPEAKER_00: In the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about what this means.
SPEAKER_00: God declares that humanity alone bears his image.
SPEAKER_00: And we are the only part of creation that uniquely is created in his likeness.
SPEAKER_00: And if we believe that God is who he says he is, that he is creator and sustainer of all these things, worthy of worship and praise, that every single person made in his image is then worthy of dignity and respect.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: They're humans.
SPEAKER_00: We're humans.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us are humans.
SPEAKER_00: And so no matter what somebody has done, no matter what they believe or what sexuality they practice, we treat them with dignity.
SPEAKER_00: And we see everybody as somebody who is made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: One of the most influential sermons I ever heard was this pastor, and he got up and he said something along the lines of, as long as I am the pastor of this church, I will do everything to make sure that we are not a church that looks down our nose at people who walk through the door.
SPEAKER_00: And then he said something that stuck out with me.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Because underneath every exterior, underneath every internal struggle is a soul that Jesus bled and died for.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we owe it to Jesus to treat people with absolute dignity.
SPEAKER_00: Before somebody struggles with same-sex attraction, before somebody is transgender, before they struggled with pornography, before they're addicted to substance, before they're angry, before they're divorced, before any decision that we disagree with, they're a person that Jesus died for.
SPEAKER_00: And if Jesus thought that they were giving were worth giving his life for, who are we to ever get to look down our nose at them?
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to agree with everything somebody believes to treat them with dignity.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: And we don't have to affirm every decision someone makes to love them.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to compromise what scripture teaches to make someone feel welcome, but we absolutely do have to remember who is sitting in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: A soul that Jesus bled and died for.
SPEAKER_00: And then that changes how we look at people.
SPEAKER_00: Which takes us into our next do.
SPEAKER_00: Do build relationships, not projects.
SPEAKER_00: Do build relationships.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna jump Matthew 9 for just a second.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 9, we're gonna we're gonna hang out here for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 9, starting in verse 10 through 13, it says this When Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came up and ate with him and his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And when Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
SPEAKER_00: On hearing this, Jesus said, It is not the wealthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
SPEAKER_00: But go and learn what this means.
SPEAKER_00: I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I have come to call the righteous, or I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: In this ministry, Jesus did something that the Pharisees were so baffled by.
SPEAKER_00: He ate with tax collectors and sinners.
SPEAKER_00: In side note, I think it's crazy that the stuff the tax collectors were doing warranted its own category.
SPEAKER_00: Next to sinners, but that's just me.
SPEAKER_00: But there's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And he's at dinner with them.
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisees' response was like, How could you?
SPEAKER_00: And I love Jesus' response because it's, how could I not?
SPEAKER_00: And what he does next is so profound.
SPEAKER_00: He actually quotes the Old Testament back to them.
SPEAKER_00: When he says, I desire mercy, he's quoting Hosea 6 back to them.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, an acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees would have known this verse cold.
SPEAKER_00: They were the experts in Scripture, and Jesus is not inventing some new ethic here.
SPEAKER_00: He's just modeling the standard that had been set before them.
SPEAKER_00: And there's two words.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I require mercy, not sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at these two words.
SPEAKER_00: Sacrifice represents religious correctness and purity and codes and rituals and the markers of what the Pharisees saw as a righteous person.
SPEAKER_00: But mercy in this moment is relational and it is costly, and it's not just a feeling, but it is an action towards one, and it is faithfulness and goodness.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing that I want to say this the Pharisees were not wrong that sin had been committed.
SPEAKER_00: They were just wrong about what God wanted them to do with that knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: They were casting judgment, and Jesus says, I want them to be healed.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I want for them.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what does this have to do with how we love people in the LGBTQ or LGBTQ IA community?
SPEAKER_00: Everything.
SPEAKER_00: The danger in this passage was not that Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners.
SPEAKER_00: The danger in this passage was that the Pharisees stood at the door judging what was going on.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, hey, you shouldn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus was confronting.
SPEAKER_00: But I think we've created a version of the same problem sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: I think that sometimes we've been afraid to associate with people within the LGBTQ community.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're afraid if we do befriend them or spend time with them, that we are affirming what they believe or what they do, and that's just not true.
SPEAKER_00: We sit with people who struggle with lust, and we sit with people who struggle with alcoholism, and we walk alongside people who battle with addiction.
SPEAKER_00: And in none of those cases do we say loving them means affirming everything that they're doing?
SPEAKER_00: We can love them without affirming what they believe.
SPEAKER_00: We can know their name and we can eat at their table and listen to their story and care about their life and still hold to what scripture teaches.
SPEAKER_00: Relationship with somebody does not erase Christian conviction.
SPEAKER_00: And so let me ask this: who's sitting at your table?
SPEAKER_00: And whose doorway are we standing in?
SPEAKER_00: Because mercy isn't the absence of truth, it's truth that walks into the room.
SPEAKER_00: And it sits with people and it loves people.
SPEAKER_00: And so let me ask this: do we know their name?
SPEAKER_00: Or do we only know their sin?
SPEAKER_00: Would we recognize their voice on the phone?
SPEAKER_00: Would we know what they take in their coffee?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what might scare them?
SPEAKER_00: Or what they hope for?
SPEAKER_00: Or what broke their heart last year?
SPEAKER_00: Or is the only thing that we actually know about them what we've condemned?
SPEAKER_00: Do we know them?
SPEAKER_00: As image bearers?
SPEAKER_00: Do we save our warmth for somebody that gets it right?
SPEAKER_00: And we withhold it from people who stand in front of us that might not be where we think they should be.
SPEAKER_00: Because if that's true, we've turned grace into something that they have to earn.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not grace, it's a fee.
SPEAKER_00: And so when somebody walks through the doors of this church on a Sunday morning, what happens first?
SPEAKER_00: Do we celebrate that they have an opportunity to hear the name of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: We should.
SPEAKER_00: We should celebrate that they have an opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: Do we thank God that they get to hear the truth of the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Or does the first move, even if it's unspoken, even if it's in just how we look at them, is our first move to think, well, now let me fix you.
SPEAKER_00: Because if that's the message we send, we told them the doctor doesn't actually want the sick, we've told them that the table has a dress code.
SPEAKER_00: This last summer I took my daughters to the Wisconsin Dells.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you've ever been to the Wisconsin Dells, it's a trip.
SPEAKER_00: It is it's fun, but a huge part of what you do is you go to water parks, and you're in water parks.
SPEAKER_00: And we went in June and we learned that Wisconsin doesn't warm up till July, so we had to go to indoor water parks.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're in indoor water parks this this for a few days.
SPEAKER_00: And when we walk in, uh it is loud and it's crazy.
SPEAKER_00: I've got two kids, I've got a seven-year-old, I got a two-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: And my seven-year-old looks at it and it was like Disneyland, you know, she just takes off and she's jumping in the pool, she's going everywhere, and we're like, hey, you're not the best swimmer, stay near us, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But she's just gone and she's having the most fun in her life.
SPEAKER_00: And then my youngest daughter just stands there.
SPEAKER_00: And she just looks at everything.
SPEAKER_00: And we try and take her into the water, and she's like, Nope.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm grabbing her by the hand and I'm trying to take her in the water.
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't move, she just stands there.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, how do you you take our oldest, you go swim, and I'll just sit with our two-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: And so we did.
SPEAKER_00: We sat on the side of the pool for about 45 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: I just sat with her on these chairs, and she just stared.
SPEAKER_00: She didn't move, she just stared.
SPEAKER_00: And then about 45 minutes passes.
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't look at me, she just gets out of her chair.
SPEAKER_00: And she does this.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just grab her hand and we walk.
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't say anything to her, and we walk right up to the edge of this pool.
SPEAKER_00: And she puts her toe in and she pulls it out.
SPEAKER_00: And then she just steps in.
SPEAKER_00: And my wife and my oldest daughter watch this whole thing happen and they start cheering.
SPEAKER_00: We look like lunatics in this place.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna lie.
SPEAKER_00: We just started like, woo-hoo! And we started clapping and going crazy.
SPEAKER_00: And then my oldest daughter's like, I finally have a friend to swim with.
SPEAKER_00: And so she gets up and she runs over and she starts trying to drag her through the water, and she's like trying to put her underneath all this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And we pulled her aside, we said, Hey, hey, hey, hey, sometimes, listen to me, sometimes the right move is just celebrate that she had the courage to get in the pool.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the right moves just celebrate the courage that they had to take the step.
SPEAKER_00: Celebrate if somebody walks through the door that they have the opportunity to hear the name of Jesus that day.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Learn their name.
SPEAKER_00: And save the water slide for next summer.
SPEAKER_00: But learn their name.
SPEAKER_00: Build a relationship.
SPEAKER_00: How are we doing?
SPEAKER_00: We're doing good?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go on to the don'ts.
SPEAKER_00: These are the harder ones.
SPEAKER_00: Don't confuse conviction with cruelty.
SPEAKER_00: Let's jump back into that first story in Matthew 19.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and he's establishing God's design for marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And I know some might be wondering, well, like, what happens if somebody genuinely does want to follow Jesus, but they do struggle with gender dysphoria or they do struggle with same-sex attraction?
SPEAKER_00: What hope is there for them?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus kind of gives us a part of an answer in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And after he raises a standard for marriage, his disciples respond very uniquely.
SPEAKER_00: They say, uh, if this is the situation between a husband and wife, it's just better to stay single.
SPEAKER_00: It's better to not marry.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, not everyone can accept that word, only to those whom it has been given.
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on, he talks about choosing a life of celibacy for the sake of kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to be careful here because Jesus isn't like specifically talking about same-sex attraction.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about celibacy more broadly, but his words carry an important implication for anyone that wants to follow Jesus, but does not exist in the covenant of marriage that God designed.
SPEAKER_00: And it's this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, this isn't something that everybody simply can do.
SPEAKER_00: It's only done by grace.
SPEAKER_00: And that matters because sometimes our response to sexual sin has just been, well, the Bible says don't do it, so just don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: It's there, it's clear, it's black and white, just don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: And technically, we stated the rule correctly.
SPEAKER_00: The standard exists.
SPEAKER_00: But church, don't skip discipleship in this.
SPEAKER_00: Following Jesus has just never been a list of things we're allowed and not allowed to do.
SPEAKER_00: It's a calling for people to give their whole lives to Jesus and to take up their cross and surrender their desires and their plans and their comfort and their pride.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it might mean somebody's surrendering a future that they thought were gonna have.
SPEAKER_00: And that can make discipleship costly.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to be careful not to minimize the cost of somebody else's obedience.
SPEAKER_00: If someone does wrestle with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria and they want to follow Jesus, they are not just simply giving up sex.
SPEAKER_00: They may be surrendering the possibility of a marriage or grieving a relationship or a future that they'd always imagined for themselves, wondering what their life might look like in 10, 20, 30 years from now.
SPEAKER_00: And that might be a really hard thing that they're wrestling with, and we don't have to change our convictions to acknowledge that.
SPEAKER_00: But if we're gonna tell somebody, follow Jesus, even if it costs you something, we should actually care about what it might be costing them.
SPEAKER_00: We should be aware of what we're actually asking them.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you follow Jesus, I mean you truly follow Jesus, you love Jesus, and you hold tightly to him, we know that it is the best thing this world has to offer.
SPEAKER_00: But to somebody who has not accepted Jesus, it can be scary because the cost is high.
SPEAKER_00: And so we don't get to minimize that in our conversations with people.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why Jesus' words in Matthew 19 matter so much, because he doesn't pretend that this is something anyone can just choose through sheer willpower.
SPEAKER_00: Not everyone can accept this word, only to those whom it has been given.
SPEAKER_00: There's grace involved.
SPEAKER_00: Look, Jesus was never married, and nobody looked at his life and calls it sad or incomplete.
SPEAKER_00: It was full and it was meaningful and it was deeply connected to God and to others, and it was fulfilled in love and purpose of his Father.
SPEAKER_00: There's this section in Luke 14 that I'm always reminded of, in which Jesus is surrounded by huge crowds.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of making discipleship sound easier, he tells them to count the cost.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, if you're gonna build a tower, you should probably know how much it costs before you build the tower.
SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna go to war, maybe you ask yourself, can I win?
SPEAKER_00: He said, if you're gonna follow me, be willing to give up everything.
SPEAKER_00: Because your life isn't about you.
SPEAKER_00: Following him does mean giving something up.
SPEAKER_00: For some it's money, again, for some it's pride or forgiveness or ambition.
SPEAKER_00: For some it's sexual desire.
SPEAKER_00: Every disciple surrenders something.
SPEAKER_00: Cruelty doesn't always come from holding that theological position, but it can come from minimizing the cost of obedience for someone else.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be willing to walk with them as they learn what it means to follow Jesus and sit with them when obedience hurts and listen to them when they're lonely and remind them that their identity is not found in whether they're married, single, straight, or gay, but their identity is found in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: It's helping them build a life that is so full of Jesus and community and friendships and service and love that their life is no longer defined by what they're missing, but it's defined by what Jesus has given them.
SPEAKER_00: And above all, it's reminding them that they are not expected to manufacture this life on their own.
SPEAKER_00: The grace of Jesus is not an optional accessory to discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: The only reason that discipleship exists at all is because of the grace of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last one don't compromise the truth to avoid offense.
SPEAKER_00: Don't compromise the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And this might feel like a tonal shift, but it's actually not.
SPEAKER_00: It isn't.
SPEAKER_00: Truth and grace don't compete.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they belong together.
SPEAKER_00: Go back to Matthew 19.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees came to trap Jesus in a conversation, to settle a cultural debate on their terms.
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't dodge the question, he didn't soften it.
SPEAKER_00: He actually went back to the beginning and he reaffirmed God's design for marriage, and it wasn't an answer built to make friends.
SPEAKER_00: It challenged the loopholes in culture.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure the disciples were very surprised.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure the Pharisees didn't love the answer that they got, but it was the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus spoke it.
SPEAKER_00: And if somebody might be offended by what Scripture says, it's not always our fight to have.
SPEAKER_00: It's our job to love them and to speak the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes truth can be offensive.
SPEAKER_00: I know I have read the Bible and I read a verse and I'm like, ah, don't like that.
SPEAKER_00: That's hard.
SPEAKER_00: That's convicting.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure everybody in here has read something in scripture, and you're like, ah, life would be easier if it didn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it can be if it can just be hard, but the truth is the truth.
SPEAKER_00: But notice Jesus, he didn't back down.
SPEAKER_00: He raised the standard in a room full of people trying to lower it.
SPEAKER_00: And then his own disciples were like, if that's the standard, it's better not to marry in two audiences with two very different reactions and one unmovable truth.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't chase either group down to soften his words, and he didn't say, well, maybe there's some exceptions, but he didn't ignore the weight of what he had just said either.
SPEAKER_00: He acknowledged it and he dignified that not everybody can accept this, and grace is required.
SPEAKER_00: And if Jesus was willing to speak the truth, so should we.
SPEAKER_00: But remember, we speak the truth in love and grace.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where conversations with LGBTQIA friends and family members and neighbors actually live, because we're not talking about some abstract debate here.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about people.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about people that we know and that we love and that carry real cost.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're not willing to sit with them in that, we're not actually following Jesus' example here.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we do have to say to somebody, I love you too much to not tell you the truth.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to be honest about what that love actually is, because if it is a love that genuinely wants to see what's best for them, amazing.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we can tell ourselves that's what we're doing, but really what we're trying to do is just get behavior modification out of them.
SPEAKER_00: Those can look identical on the outside with the words that we say, but inside they can be far apart.
SPEAKER_00: And if our love only shows up for somebody that agrees with us, it was never love in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I saved this one for last, because hopefully we've done the first three things.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen them in God's image, and we've learned their names, and we've talked to them, and we've built relationships, and we understand what their life is.
SPEAKER_00: And then we have a conversation that is rooted in truth and grace.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing, church, people don't care what you know till they know that you care about them.
SPEAKER_00: And nobody cared more than Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So let's show them Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Show them Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And to do that, this is the last thing, we're running out of time, I'm gonna speed through it.
SPEAKER_00: We hold truth and grace together.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say this.
SPEAKER_00: This is probably the hardest, one of the hardest things I'm gonna say today.
SPEAKER_00: Not everybody wants to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Not everybody's going to.
SPEAKER_00: And that's heartbreaking.
SPEAKER_00: We might want them to.
SPEAKER_00: But some people will hear this truth and they'll reject it.
SPEAKER_00: And we need to remember that our calling isn't to transform people into who we think that they should become, but our calling is to stay faithful to Christ while loving people deeply.
SPEAKER_00: We should not be surprised when the world behaves like the world.
SPEAKER_00: And people who don't recognize Jesus as Lord shouldn't be expected to live as though they do.
SPEAKER_00: Because our mission, again, isn't behavior modification, it's just introducing people to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And trusting the Holy Spirit changes hearts, and we bear witness to him.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have to be careful what we think our job is.
SPEAKER_00: Our job isn't just to make somebody sexually pure so they can meet Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Our job is to introduce people to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Introduce people to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has ever been saved by getting their sexuality right.
SPEAKER_00: They were saved by Jesus Christ through faith.
SPEAKER_00: And in Christ, because of Christ, those things then lose the grip that they have on us.
SPEAKER_00: That's the order.
SPEAKER_00: Come to Jesus, He does the work, not you do the work to come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We can't mess that up.
SPEAKER_00: So we have a responsibility to protect the church and sound doctrine and to teach what Scripture teaches, but hear me on this.
SPEAKER_00: You will never get somebody to fall in love with Jesus if you drag them kicking and screaming.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: Show them Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Love them.
SPEAKER_00: And so, church, I know that there's a lot of questions that I didn't answer today, and I'm sure you're gonna be like, well, what about this one?
SPEAKER_00: What about this one?
SPEAKER_00: If I would have sat with all of those questions, we'd be here till 2 o'clock, which is my dream, your nightmare.
SPEAKER_00: But I couldn't answer all these questions.
SPEAKER_00: So instead, I wanted to give us a framework for how to love people well.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we close, I want you to ask yourself this question.
SPEAKER_00: When some of these questions do come up, what response most faithfully reflects both truth and grace of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And what decision most faithfully points this person to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: And if you start there, I promise we're gonna be better equipped than any checklist I can make for you.
SPEAKER_00: Before we call others to repentance, we have to start with ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We need to confess where we might have been harsh, where we might have been silent, where we've mistaken winning arguments for loving neighbors, and where we've just loved being right more than we've loved people.
SPEAKER_00: Remove the log from our own eye before we can touch the speck in our brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Because the ground at the foot of the cross was never reserved for people who got it right.
SPEAKER_00: It just belonged to the people who were willing to admit that they didn't.
SPEAKER_00: So let's be quick to repent, quick to forgive, quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, be tender-hearted, but be firm in what Scripture teaches.
SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, let's go with hands that have been lifted in surrender so we don't point them in judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we genuinely believe that Jesus is calling people to surrender something, we better be willing to love them enough to walk beside them while they're surrendering it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: That's our calling.
SPEAKER_00: George, let me pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we love you.
SPEAKER_00: And I repent this morning, I repent of my own arrogance, of my own pride, of where I thought that I had all the right answers.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I I recognize I need you more than I think I need you.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I pray for people in this room, I pray that if they just are wrestling with you, I pray that they have a realization that you are the way, the truth, the life, that nobody comes to the Father except through you.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I pray that you just give us a courage to love people boldly and selflessly and wholeheartedly.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that spring like it's a church that sees people as though you've created them in the image of you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we love you.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.