SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.
SPEAKER_00: I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_00: Embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Today, be encouraged with a word from my guest speaker.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_00: This has been quite a weekend for a lot of us here.
SPEAKER_00: We've had Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Christopher Ewan and Angela with us, and we've been talking about holy sexuality and the gospel, and uh the clearest, most succinct presentation on the anthropology, oncology, biblical exegesis on same-sex attraction, homosexuality that's probably out there, probably nothing better than Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Christopher Ewan's story.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what you're gonna hear this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna hear uh Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Christopher Ewan and Angela are gonna share their story.
SPEAKER_00: And um Christopher's dad died about a year ago, but he's gonna be included.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you'll hear kind of the summation of that.
SPEAKER_00: But um the reason we've done this at the road is because I have such a deep conviction that we have to face culture, and we have to face these issues with intelligence, not just heart.
SPEAKER_00: Heart's great, and heart will get you in the door, but heart will not take you far if you don't have the brains to know how to talk about these things.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we've been doing.
SPEAKER_00: So these are big, huge issues.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I took pretty copious notes.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a pretty good note taker.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we did do audio, so you can access that if you missed.
SPEAKER_00: Um we didn't do video, but we did audio, and then he has notes that go with it.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, we'll get all that out to you.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to ask uh Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Ewan and Angela to come on up and let's welcome Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Christopher Ewan and Angela Ewen.
SPEAKER_06: And street aligned with globe.
SPEAKER_06: Well, at least that's what I perceived when I first passed through Ellis Island of New York City on October 30th, 1964.
SPEAKER_06: But I quickly realized how wrong I was.
SPEAKER_06: The first night I stayed at my friend's rundown apartment in the slum of Harlan.
SPEAKER_06: Even more surprising was the day after, October 31st, when little people were in customs, wear masks, and ring floor bells and said trickle tree.
SPEAKER_06: I said to myself, what have I got myself into?
SPEAKER_06: Angela, my colleague streetheart, came a few months later to America and we married the next year.
SPEAKER_06: I also assume just because we were in love, we will simply live happily ever after.
SPEAKER_06: How naive I was.
SPEAKER_06: So on that same year, May 15th, 1993, our son Christopher came home after his first year in dental school, he made an announcement.
SPEAKER_06: I am gay.
SPEAKER_06: Since our marriage was hopeless, I did not work as a team with my wife to face this enormous challenge.
SPEAKER_06: Not only did I not comfort her, but I also accused her of making our son gay.
SPEAKER_06: Christopher's declaration affirmed my belief that we should all go our separate ways.
SPEAKER_06: Let him be.
SPEAKER_06: Because there's nothing I can do about it besides, isn't it more important to be happy?
SPEAKER_06: But my wife responds quite differently.
SPEAKER_01: You would never think that three simple words, I am gay, could cause so much pain.
SPEAKER_01: I actually thought I could threaten Christopher with the automaton to choose a family or choose homosexuality.
SPEAKER_01: But Christopher already born into the light that he couldn't change, that he was born gay.
SPEAKER_01: So he said, if you cannot accept me, I have no other choice but to leave.
SPEAKER_01: Without any hesitation, Christopher picked up his bags and left.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing can describe how I felt at that moment.
SPEAKER_01: It was worse than receiving news of Christopher's death.
SPEAKER_01: He could have come me with a knife.
SPEAKER_01: It would have hurt less in my mind.
SPEAKER_01: Christopher, who was closest to me, and my last ray of hope had also betrayed me.
SPEAKER_01: I was at the end of my rope.
SPEAKER_01: As my world fell apart around me, I had no more reason to live.
SPEAKER_01: So I determined to do the unthinkable.
SPEAKER_01: I was going to end my life.
SPEAKER_01: Even though I was not a Christian at that time, I felt the need to meet with the minister who gave me a pamphlet on homosexuality.
SPEAKER_01: Then I bought a one-way and track ticket to Louisville, where I planned to say goodbye to Christopher for the last time before ending it all with only my purse and a pamphlet from the minister.
SPEAKER_01: I bought on the trend and thinking that death was the only answer to all my problems.
SPEAKER_01: Never be much a reader on the trend.
SPEAKER_01: I began to read the pamphlet, which explained the plan of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: That all of us are sinners.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, God loves us in spite of our sin.
SPEAKER_01: God opened the eyes of my heart.
SPEAKER_01: Then I realized that just as God loves me, in spite of my sin, I could love Christopher.
SPEAKER_01: In spite of him living as a gay man.
SPEAKER_01: After arriving in Louisville, I caught a number from the back of the pamphlet and was connected to a Christian lady who began to disciple me.
SPEAKER_01: For six weeks, I immersed myself into the Bible and felt as if I couldn't soak up enough.
SPEAKER_01: You see, I went to Louisville expecting to end my life.
SPEAKER_01: In reality, I did.
SPEAKER_01: One of my favorite verses today is Galatians 2.20.
SPEAKER_01: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live.
SPEAKER_01: But Christ lives in me.
SPEAKER_01: The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
SPEAKER_06: After six weeks, I got a phone call from the lady who was discipling my wife.
SPEAKER_06: The lady was very, very happy.
SPEAKER_06: She told me that your wife has surrendered her life to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: She has been saved.
SPEAKER_06: I was not very pleased.
SPEAKER_06: I told her this is not a good news.
SPEAKER_06: This is my worst nightmare because from now on she has God on her side.
SPEAKER_06: But I realized that her transformation was not only a Sunday-only change, but affected every aspect of her life.
SPEAKER_06: What she had was not religion, but an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: Little did I know, God also worked on me.
SPEAKER_06: So I started to go to church with her, and a friend of ours invited us to a Bible study called BSF, where we grow deeper into the understanding and love for God and his word.
SPEAKER_06: It was whilst studying the word in my church and in BSF, I also surrendered my life to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: God became the glue, kept our marriage together by drawing both of us to himself.
SPEAKER_06: This was God's way for preparing us for the difficult years ahead as our son walked further and further away from God.
SPEAKER_05: From my childhood years, I was like most other Chinese American kids.
SPEAKER_05: Obey your parents, do well in school, and of course, practice piano.
SPEAKER_05: I didn't fit in with the other American boys because I looked different, I acted different, and I had different interests.
SPEAKER_05: God had given me the gifts of music, of sensitivity.
SPEAKER_05: And Satan can't take with those God-given gifts, but it can twist the perception of them.
SPEAKER_05: And from a young age, I was viewed and ridiculed as being effeminate.
SPEAKER_05: The first time I remember having these attractions was when I was nine years old, after I came across pornography at my friend's house at nine.
SPEAKER_05: At that young age, I was confused and afraid of those feelings.
SPEAKER_05: Without any parenal guidance on sexuality, those magazines gave me a distorted view of sex, and they soon became my master.
SPEAKER_05: With pornography fueling my desires, I might first encounter when I was 16 years old, but I kept my feelings hidden through high school, college, even the Marine Corps reserves.
SPEAKER_05: In my early 20s, I no longer kept it a secret.
SPEAKER_05: I came out of the closet, I began living openly as a gay man in the gay community.
SPEAKER_05: I spent most of my free time in the gay clubs, and I went from relationship to relationship, seeking intimacy and happiness, which I found temporarily, but it still left me feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied.
SPEAKER_05: So I began experimenting with drugs.
SPEAKER_05: And to be clear, not all gay men do drugs.
SPEAKER_05: Some do, some don't.
SPEAKER_05: This is just my story, not everyone else's.
SPEAKER_05: But I also want to tell you that when you encounter Jesus, he's gonna impact every aspect of your life.
SPEAKER_05: So I began experimenting with drugs like my classmates.
SPEAKER_05: I didn't have much money, so I supported my habit by selling drugs.
SPEAKER_05: And I sold to friends, classmates, even a professor.
SPEAKER_05: I actually thought I could live this double life of being a graduate student by day and promiscuous drug dealer by night.
SPEAKER_05: But three months before I was received my doctorate, the administration of the school expelled me.
SPEAKER_05: So my parents flew from Chicago, where we were living, to Louisville, where I was going to dental school.
SPEAKER_05: And I thought they were gonna fight to keep me in school.
SPEAKER_05: My dad was a dentist.
SPEAKER_05: He knew the dean very well.
SPEAKER_05: All they needed to do was to threaten a lawsuit, and I would stay in school for three months and get my doctorate.
SPEAKER_05: Besides, isn't that what any good Chinese parent should do anyway?
SPEAKER_05: To my surprise, as we sat there in the dean's office, my mom told the dean, it is not important that Christopher becomes a dentist.
SPEAKER_05: What's more important is that Christopher becomes a Christ follower.
SPEAKER_05: And she said they're going to support whatever decision the school made.
SPEAKER_05: You see, my mom knew when it comes to her kids, nothing is more important than a children following Jesus.
SPEAKER_05: Even more important than education, even more important than career.
SPEAKER_05: But the sad reality is many people may go to church on Sunday and worship God, but then they'll return home and worship idols.
SPEAKER_05: The idol of education, the idol of career, the idol of their 401k.
SPEAKER_05: And in essence, we are sometimes forcing our kids to do the same.
SPEAKER_05: Are parents putting more emphasis on their children getting the homework done on a daily basis, getting a better grade, getting into a good school, all good things?
SPEAKER_05: Or should Christian parents be putting more emphasis, actually, the most emphasis, upon our kids following Jesus?
SPEAKER_05: Nothing is more important than following Christ.
SPEAKER_05: But to be honest, I was not happy about mom's decision.
SPEAKER_05: She wasn't on my side.
SPEAKER_05: I felt she was on the school side.
SPEAKER_05: So I moved further away from them, further away from Chicago, to the bright lights in the big city of Atlanta, Georgia.
SPEAKER_05: And there I quickly took her over the drug scene in the gay community, and I became a supplier to other dealers in over a dozen states.
SPEAKER_05: In addition, it was nothing for me to have multiple anonymous sexual encounters each and every day.
SPEAKER_05: Because according to the world, I had it all: money, fame, drugs, and sex.
SPEAKER_05: I had exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and I began worshiping and serving the creature rather than the creator.
SPEAKER_05: Because in my world, I had become God.
SPEAKER_01: Leon and I had no idea that Christopher was doing drugs, but we knew his biggest need was to know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_01: So I sent him Christian cards several times a week, and I filled them with encouraging words, scripture, and hymns.
SPEAKER_01: At the bottom of each card, I signed, Love You Forever, Mom.
SPEAKER_01: But little did I know, he never read them and simply tossed them into the trash.
SPEAKER_06: My wife and I knew the only way if we want to see our son, we have to fly from Chicago to Atlanta.
SPEAKER_06: So we did.
SPEAKER_06: Not even allowed us to call our friend to pick us up.
SPEAKER_06: Before leaving, I offered Christopher my very first Bible.
SPEAKER_06: Not surprisingly, he refused.
SPEAKER_06: But I left it on his counter anyway and walked out.
SPEAKER_06: We found out later he took my Bible, threw it into the trash.
SPEAKER_06: It was more than obvious that he was totally enrichable and completely hopeless.
SPEAKER_06: But my wife and I committed not to focus on our own hopelessness but on the promises of God.
SPEAKER_06: Along with over a hundred prayer warriors from our church from BSF, we cry out to God for our son Christopher.
SPEAKER_06: My wife began to pray a very bold prayer.
SPEAKER_06: Lord, do whatever it takes to bring this prodigal son to you.
SPEAKER_06: In her desperation, she fasted every Monday for eight years.
SPEAKER_06: Once fasted 39 days for our son Christopher.
SPEAKER_06: She would literally spend hours inside her prayer closet on her knee, reading the Bible, interceding for Christopher, and praying for herself, for me, and for many, many others.
SPEAKER_06: She wrote out some of her prayers, and following is one of those prayers.
SPEAKER_01: I was staying in the gap for Christopher.
SPEAKER_01: I was standing until the victory is won.
SPEAKER_01: Until Christopher's heart changes.
SPEAKER_01: I was staying in the gap every day.
SPEAKER_01: And there I will fervently pray.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, just one favor.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let me waver.
SPEAKER_01: If these get quite rough, which they may, I will never give up on that sun.
SPEAKER_01: Nor will you.
SPEAKER_01: Though the enemy seeks to destroy, I will not quit as I intercede.
SPEAKER_01: Though it may take years.
SPEAKER_01: But I give you my fears and tears, as I trust that every moment I plead.
SPEAKER_01: I prayed those prayers for eight years.
SPEAKER_01: And it seemed like I was not answering them.
SPEAKER_01: But during those years, God didn't answer my prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Just not in the way I expected.
SPEAKER_01: His answer for me was wait, be still, and know that I am God.
SPEAKER_01: Looking back upon those years when I prayed for change, God did bring change.
SPEAKER_01: The change was not yet in Christopher, but the change was in me and my husband.
SPEAKER_01: What God intended for that time was that we will be changed, that we will be transformed, that we will be trophies of God's mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Oswald Chambers said, we are not here to prove God answers prayer, but we are here to be living monuments of God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: As we live all those years waiting, we learn to walk and live as monuments of his grace as God drew us to himself each and every day.
SPEAKER_05: And this definitely was not an exception.
SPEAKER_05: But my parents were unwavering in their faithfulness to intercede on my behalf.
SPEAKER_05: Like the persistent widow, my mother bombarded heaven with her prayers.
SPEAKER_05: She knew that it was going to take nothing short of a miracle to bring this prodigal son to the father.
SPEAKER_05: And a miracle is exactly what God did.
SPEAKER_05: This miracle came with a bang on my door.
SPEAKER_05: I opened up my door, on my doorstep, were 12 federal drug enforcement agents, Atlanta police, and two big German shepherd dogs.
SPEAKER_05: I just received a large amount of drugs, not my largest, but they confiscated all my money and my drugs, and I was charged with the equivalent of 9.1 tons of marijuana.
SPEAKER_05: With that amount, I was facing 10 years to life in federal prison.
SPEAKER_05: I'd started with a bright future among society's finest in academia, and I found myself in the ditch among society's despised in the Latte City Detention Center.
SPEAKER_05: So I tried calling my friends.
SPEAKER_05: You know, those type of friends that say, whenever you need something, just give me a call.
SPEAKER_05: Those friends that get me more to trouble than anything else.
SPEAKER_05: What I didn't know was I had a praying mother at home.
SPEAKER_05: Watch out.
SPEAKER_05: And she knew that as long as I had those type of friends around, I would find no need for God and no need for my parents.
SPEAKER_05: Remember she loves bold prayers?
SPEAKER_05: Well, she prayed specifically years ago that somehow, some way, God would cause all of those friends to desert me.
SPEAKER_05: And on that day, not one friend answered my collect call.
SPEAKER_05: So you moms out there, beware of your prayers.
SPEAKER_05: They're gonna come true.
SPEAKER_05: So I was down to the bottom of the list.
SPEAKER_05: And I did not want to make that phone call.
SPEAKER_05: As I imagined an earphone I was gonna get on the other line.
SPEAKER_05: But mom's first words were son.
SPEAKER_05: Are you okay?
SPEAKER_05: No condemnation.
SPEAKER_05: No braiding words.
SPEAKER_05: Just words of unconditional love and grace.
SPEAKER_05: The Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 2, verse 4.
SPEAKER_05: That it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance.
SPEAKER_05: Notice how Paul isn't saying that it's God's anger, not God's wrath, but it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance.
SPEAKER_05: And even on that miserable day, God was pouring out his grace and drawing me to himself through the words of my mother.
SPEAKER_05: Actually, my mom was excited to get that phone call, if you can believe it or not.
SPEAKER_05: Because I hadn't called home in years, and she knew without a doubt that this was God's answer to her prayers.
SPEAKER_05: So she hung up that phone, fighting back the tears.
SPEAKER_05: She knew she had to do.
SPEAKER_05: Like that good old hymn that says, Count your blessings.
SPEAKER_05: Name them by one by one.
SPEAKER_05: No matter what storm she was going through, no matter what heartache she was enduring, she had to count her blessings.
SPEAKER_05: So she set the phone down, and next to the phone was a calculator.
SPEAKER_05: She tore off a little piece of the ad machine tape and she wrote down these first blessings.
SPEAKER_05: Christopher is in a safe place compared to before.
SPEAKER_05: And he called home for the very first time.
SPEAKER_05: As my years in prison passed, she kept adding to this list and counting her blessings.
SPEAKER_05: And when I got out of prison this list of blessings, it was longer and taller than she has.
SPEAKER_05: Both sides.
SPEAKER_05: Three days later, I was walking around the cell block.
SPEAKER_05: And I was doing everything that I could to stay to myself because I was not going to mingle with those really bad people, you know, those criminals.
SPEAKER_05: And I passed by this garbage can.
SPEAKER_05: And I thought, this is my life.
SPEAKER_05: I'm from upper middle class suburbs of Chicago.
SPEAKER_05: My dad had two doctorates.
SPEAKER_05: I was just three months away from receiving my only doctorate.
SPEAKER_05: I had it made.
SPEAKER_05: Now I found myself on the comedy trash.
SPEAKER_05: Something on top of the trash caught my eye.
SPEAKER_05: I bent over and picked it up.
SPEAKER_05: And it was a Gideon's New Testament.
SPEAKER_05: I took that New Testament back to myself.
SPEAKER_05: I opened up that good book.
SPEAKER_05: For the first time, I read through the entire gospel of Mark that night.
SPEAKER_05: Let me tell you, I wasn't thinking this is the word of God, and I certainly wasn't thinking this is the answer.
SPEAKER_05: I just thought that I've got an enormous amount of time on my hands and a better passage somehow.
SPEAKER_05: Some of you know, what we have in our Bibles is not just ink on paper.
SPEAKER_05: But what we have in our Bibles, ladies and gentlemen, is the very breath of God.
SPEAKER_05: And it is living and powerful and sharper than any double-edged sword, able to cut through the hardest of hearts, exposing my sin, my rebellion, and it wasn't a pretty sight, and I thought things could get worse.
SPEAKER_05: I was wrong.
SPEAKER_05: A couple weeks later, I was called into the nurse's office.
SPEAKER_05: I was handcuffed, my hands were chained around my waist, feet were shackled together, I shuffled into her office.
SPEAKER_05: She shut the door behind me, sat me down, and I knew something wasn't right.
SPEAKER_05: She was uncomfortably struggling with the words.
SPEAKER_05: She couldn't even give me eye contact.
SPEAKER_05: So she resigned to writing something on a piece of paper, slowly slid it across the desk to me.
SPEAKER_05: I looked down and I saw three letters and a symbol.
SPEAKER_05: It read H I V positive.
SPEAKER_01: A few days before Christmas, I received Christopher's phone call from jail.
SPEAKER_01: The noise in the background could not cover up his sad and hopeless words.
SPEAKER_01: Mom, I am H I V positive.
SPEAKER_01: His sullen and weak voice thrilled off as my body went limp.
SPEAKER_01: I felt easy, and the world around me seemed to stop.
SPEAKER_01: Ever since Christopher told us he was gay, I lived with this constant fear that one day Christopher was going to contract this deadly virus.
SPEAKER_01: My worst nightmare was now a reality.
SPEAKER_01: Christopher was sentenced to six years in vital prison, but news of his HIV status was like a death sentence.
SPEAKER_01: A verdict I could not accept.
SPEAKER_01: Hang up the phone, the pains of green torn in my broken heart like a knife.
SPEAKER_01: Endlessly, I stumbled up the steps and dragged my heavy body into my prayer closet.
SPEAKER_01: And at the cross, I fell to my knees, and steaming tears splur my eyes.
SPEAKER_01: This affliction was more than I could bear.
SPEAKER_01: In the silence of my sorrow, a melody began to play in my heart.
SPEAKER_01: The soft and sweet string of a hymn filled my ears and repeat over, over.
SPEAKER_01: It is well, it is well with my soul.
SPEAKER_04: When I with my soul, with my soul, it is well, it is well, my soul.
SPEAKER_05: A few days after receiving that devastating news, I was in my prison cell all by myself, just contemplating the mess that I've made of my life.
SPEAKER_05: I lie there on my bed and I look up at the cold metal bunk above me.
SPEAKER_05: There is graffiti, profanity, gang symbols.
SPEAKER_05: Someone had written something else in the corner.
SPEAKER_05: And it read, if you're bored, read Jeremiah 29, 11.
SPEAKER_05: For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_05: Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.
SPEAKER_05: Plans to give you hope and a future.
SPEAKER_05: You see, at the most hopeless point in my life, the Lord God was using the words penned by a prophet thousands of years ago to a rebellion, Judah, to tell me that if God could have a plan for Judah in exile, in rebellion, he may even still have a plan for me.
SPEAKER_05: I had no plan, no clue where that plan was going to take me.
SPEAKER_05: But God gave me enough faith, enough strength to get through that one day and the next and the next.
SPEAKER_05: My transformation was gradual.
SPEAKER_05: I wish I could tell you that.
SPEAKER_05: Like, no more problems.
SPEAKER_05: Far from the truth.
SPEAKER_05: God began convicting me of my idols, which for many, the most obvious was drugs.
SPEAKER_05: But within a few months, he delivered me from that addiction.
SPEAKER_05: God kept bringing my other idols, and there was this one thing that I felt like I just couldn't let go of.
SPEAKER_05: My sexuality.
SPEAKER_05: I was reading through the Bible, and it was so clear to me that God loved me unconditionally.
SPEAKER_05: But I came across some passages, three in the old, three in the new, that seemed to condemn this core part of who I thought I was, my sexuality.
SPEAKER_05: So I went to a chaplain and I asked him his opinion.
SPEAKER_05: I'm a brand new Christian.
SPEAKER_05: I know very, very little about the Bible.
SPEAKER_05: I need to ask someone who's studied the Bible, gone to seminary, the chaplain.
SPEAKER_05: And to my surprise, this chaplain actually told me the Bible does not condemn homosexuality.
SPEAKER_05: And he even gave me a book explaining that view.
SPEAKER_05: So think about it.
SPEAKER_05: With much curiosity, I took that book in the hopes of finding biblical justification for homosexuality.
SPEAKER_05: I had that book in one hand and the Bible in the other.
SPEAKER_05: And let me just tell you, from a human perspective, I had every reason in the world to accept what that book is claiming, to justify the way I had been living.
SPEAKER_05: But God's indwelling Holy Spirit convicted me that those assertions from that book were a clear distortion of God and his word.
SPEAKER_05: I couldn't even finish that book, and I gave it back to the chaplain, which meant I turned to the Bible alone.
SPEAKER_05: And I went through every verse, every chapter, every page of scripture looking for justification.
SPEAKER_05: I wanted to find any shred of evidence that might bless a monogamous same-sexual relationship.
SPEAKER_05: So I went through the whole Bible.
SPEAKER_05: I went cover to cover several times.
SPEAKER_05: I had time.
SPEAKER_05: I looked and I looked and I looked, and I couldn't find any.
SPEAKER_05: So I was at a turning point, a crossroads.
SPEAKER_05: Either abandon God in his word, live as a gay man, pursue a monogamous same-sexual relationship by allowing my attractions, get this, by allowing my sexual attractions to dictate not only who I was, but also how I lived.
SPEAKER_05: Or abandon pursuing a monogamous same-sexual relationship.
SPEAKER_05: How by freeing myself from my sexuality, by not allowing my desires to control who I am, and live as a follower of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_05: By God's grace, I followed Jesus.
SPEAKER_05: As the days and the weeks and the months of abstinence passed, I realized that my sexuality should not be the core of who I am.
SPEAKER_05: I told myself before, God loves me unconditionally, that's true.
SPEAKER_05: But as sinners, we want to add to God's truth.
SPEAKER_05: And I added, so therefore God doesn't want me to change.
SPEAKER_05: Similarly, to your friends who might say, God loves me just the way I am, so leave me alone.
SPEAKER_05: But after reading the Bible, I learned that unconditional love is not the same thing as unconditional approval of my behavior.
SPEAKER_05: Let me say it again.
SPEAKER_05: Unconditional love is not the same thing as unconditional approval of my behavior.
SPEAKER_05: My identity should not be defined by my sexuality.
SPEAKER_05: My identity shouldn't be grounded in my desires.
SPEAKER_05: My identity is not gay.
SPEAKER_05: It is not ex-gay.
SPEAKER_05: It's not even heterostructural for that matter.
SPEAKER_05: Because my identity as a child of the living God must be in Jesus Christ alone.
SPEAKER_05: God says, be holy, for I am holy.
SPEAKER_05: You know, I used to think to become a Christian, I had to become heterostructural.
SPEAKER_05: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_05: I need to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex.
SPEAKER_05: As a matter of fact, I was under the false impression that the more sexually attracted I were to lots and lots of women, the more of a Christian man I would be.
SPEAKER_05: But I realized that even if a man had opposite sex attractions, he would still need to flee temptation and resist sin.
SPEAKER_05: So heterosexuality, it's the right direction, not the right goal.
SPEAKER_05: Because think about this: God never commands us, be heterosexual for I am heterosexual.
SPEAKER_05: But neither did God ever say, be homosexual, for I am homosexual.
SPEAKER_05: They're both the wrong secular Freudian categories.
SPEAKER_05: Instead, God says, be holy, for I am holy.
SPEAKER_05: Thus, the opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality.
SPEAKER_05: That is not the right goal.
SPEAKER_05: But the opposite of homosexuality is holiness.
SPEAKER_05: As a matter of fact, the opposite of every sin is holiness.
SPEAKER_05: I don't need to focus upon whether I'm struggling, whether I'm tempted, but I just need to focus upon living a life of holiness and living a life of purity.
SPEAKER_05: Because change is not the absence of temptations, but change is the spirit-wrought ability to be holy even in the midst of temptations.
SPEAKER_05: Because the ultimate issue is not whether I'm struggling, not whether I'm tempted, but the ultimate issue is that I yearn after God in total surrender and complete obedience.
SPEAKER_05: As I began to live this life of surrender and obedience, God began to reveal his plan for my life.
SPEAKER_05: And he called me to full-time vocational ministry while I was in prison of all places.
SPEAKER_05: And I realized it didn't matter where I was, whether I was in prison or out of prison, because my call to ministry would remain the same regardless of the location.
SPEAKER_05: And with that change of heart, God did another miracle.
SPEAKER_05: And he shortened my prison sentence from six years to three years, which is almost unheard of in the federal system.
SPEAKER_05: So with only about a year left of my prison sentence, I knew that if I was going to continue on to ministry after prison, I'd better learn more about the Bible.
SPEAKER_05: So I called up, collected my parents, and I told them I think God's calling me to ministry.
SPEAKER_05: And then I asked them to mail me an application to Moody Bible Institute.
SPEAKER_05: But there was silence under the line because I think they both dropped their phones.
SPEAKER_05: They mailed the application into me to prison.
SPEAKER_05: I was really excited when I got it, tore it open and began filling it out until I got to the last page where they asked me for references.
SPEAKER_05: Not from anybody.
SPEAKER_05: These had to be people who knew me as a Christian for at least one year.
SPEAKER_05: I had some slim pickings in prison.
SPEAKER_05: But I was able to persuade a prison chap and a prison guard and another inmate to write my references.
SPEAKER_05: So amazingly, I was accepted.
SPEAKER_05: I was released from prison in July of 2001.
SPEAKER_05: I started the very next month in August.
SPEAKER_05: So imagine the surprise of my classmates when I answered their question: What did you do this summer?
SPEAKER_05: I graduated from Boudicture 2005, went on to my master's in GC 2007, received my doctorate in ministry in 2014, and then back in 2011, I had the wonderful privilege of co-authoring a book with Mom called Out of a Far Country, A Gay Stone's Journey of the God, A Broken Mother's Search for Hope.
SPEAKER_05: We wrote this together.
SPEAKER_05: She wrote chapter 1, I wrote chapter 2, she wrote out of the odd chapters, I wrote the even chapters, because we wanted to talk from our own voice, the same situation told from two totally different perspectives a parent, a prodigal, alternating narratives, interwoven chapters.
SPEAKER_05: And at the back of this book is a free eight-week discussion guide that actually several parents, several households are using at home with their kids from eight years old on up to use the story and the study guide in the back to learn and to talk about biblical sexuality.
SPEAKER_05: And also, several Christian schools are using this in their classrooms.
SPEAKER_05: Who thought that our testimony is now a textbook?
SPEAKER_05: Until we realize all the books that are being read to our children today.
SPEAKER_05: And they refuse to let parents know starting in the pre-K.
SPEAKER_05: You know, I'm very convinced that the job to teach sex education actually shouldn't belong in the hands of public schools.
SPEAKER_05: Amen?
SPEAKER_05: It shouldn't belong in the hands of Google or Disney or TikTok.
SPEAKER_05: Who holds the responsibility?
SPEAKER_05: Parents.
SPEAKER_05: But it's gotta be more than parents because it's all hands on deck right now.
SPEAKER_05: You know who else?
SPEAKER_05: Grandparents.
SPEAKER_05: Are there any grandparents in this room by chance?
SPEAKER_05: Let's see those hands.
SPEAKER_05: You know why I'm adding you to list?
SPEAKER_05: Right now, grandma, grandpa, maybe you have more of a listening ear to the grandkids than the parents do.
SPEAKER_05: Are we using it?
SPEAKER_05: Or are we wasting it?
SPEAKER_05: Are we just wasting it and just having fun with our kids?
SPEAKER_05: Or are we going to love them enough to use that opportunity to throw our grandchildren that are drowning in a tsunami of lies?
SPEAKER_05: Grandparents, do you love your grandchildren?
SPEAKER_05: Let's see those hands.
SPEAKER_05: How many of you love your grandchildren?
SPEAKER_05: Let's love them enough to no longer just have fun.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_05: They need to be thrown a lifeline.
SPEAKER_05: We need to save our youth.
SPEAKER_05: Amen?
SPEAKER_05: Let's save our youth.
SPEAKER_05: I think it's time that we take it back from the world.
SPEAKER_05: How many of you guys want to take it back from the world?
SPEAKER_05: Let's see those hands.
SPEAKER_05: Let's take it back.
SPEAKER_05: It's time.
SPEAKER_05: But I know some of you are like, okay, I want to take it back, but I don't know where to start.
SPEAKER_05: Like eyes are like saucers.
SPEAKER_05: Okay, I want to, but I don't know what to say.
SPEAKER_05: That's okay.
SPEAKER_05: You're not alone.
SPEAKER_05: I wrote my newest book called Holy Sexuality in the Gospel.
SPEAKER_05: It's for adults.
SPEAKER_05: It was named 2020 Book of the Year for Social Issues by Outreach Magazine.
SPEAKER_05: There's a free eight which discussion discussion guide in the back that actually parents are using to kind of get together as couples or even small groups or just groups of parents together to go through this.
SPEAKER_05: Because here's the issue when we think about sexuality and what we want to teach our kids, it sometimes goes like this don't do this, don't do that, don't do this.
SPEAKER_05: Important things to teach our kids.
SPEAKER_05: But we can't stop there.
SPEAKER_05: We cannot build a Christian life just on God's no.
SPEAKER_05: What is God's yes?
SPEAKER_05: Well, that's why I wrote my newest book.
SPEAKER_05: What is God's Yes along with God's No.
SPEAKER_05: When it comes to sexuality, it's chastity in singleness or faithfulness in marriage.
SPEAKER_05: And that is good news for all.
SPEAKER_05: I gave this a challenge in rural Oklahoma, and this grandmother she made a beeline toward a book table out there.
SPEAKER_05: Uh we have one out there, and she said, I need ten books.
SPEAKER_05: She said, one for myself, nine for everyone and my grandchildren.
SPEAKER_05: She said, I ain't taking no chances.
SPEAKER_05: But you know, as I thought about it, my newest book that came out, I was like, Well, you know, our kids need to have this theology of sexuality, a robust understanding of biblical sexuality.
SPEAKER_05: Because I wrote that book for adults, for young adults, for grandparents.
SPEAKER_05: But boy, we need something for the family.
SPEAKER_05: Because the key is not another program.
SPEAKER_05: It's good that the youth pastor might talk about biblical sexuality, but that's once a year.
SPEAKER_05: And I don't know if you know this or not, but a youth pastor does not replace the parent.
SPEAKER_05: Amen?
SPEAKER_05: Two of you heard that.
SPEAKER_05: Say that again.
SPEAKER_05: The youth pastor does not replace the parent, amen?
SPEAKER_05: And bless the youth pastor and the youth leaders.
SPEAKER_05: They're called to do their job to disciple your kids, but that should not be the primary place where discipleship occurs.
SPEAKER_05: Deuteronomy 6 says, Teach your children diligently.
SPEAKER_05: Are we teaching them diligently?
SPEAKER_05: And are we teaching them biblical sexuality diligently?
SPEAKER_05: Because I'll tell you who is teaching them diligently, not a biblical sexuality, but a non-biblical one, and that's the world.
SPEAKER_05: So if you feel nervous, if you feel scared, anxious, embarrassed, and you end up doing nothing, the world will happily do your job.
SPEAKER_05: So let's change that.
SPEAKER_05: So I thought we need something specifically for the home, for the parent, the child, the grandparent, the uh teenage grandchild to have these conversations at home.
SPEAKER_05: So the past three years, my team and my worship uh my our ministry team, and 36 professional animators, illustrators, sound engineers, videographers, many of them that.
SPEAKER_05: Did uh big projects like the Bible Project, they produce videos for that.
SPEAKER_05: We just produced this video series called the Holy Sexuality Project.
SPEAKER_05: It's a 12-lesson, 36 video, 270 minutes of content, including really high-quality animation, all customized with sound, etc.
SPEAKER_05: $1.2 million project that we're actually only offering for 20.
SPEAKER_05: Normally, something like this is like 200 plus dollars per license, but we want every family, whether you're a single mom, whether you're a grandparent, to be able to have one for your household to have the discussions at home.
SPEAKER_05: Because we're not having them at home.
SPEAKER_05: Teenagers don't feel free, they feel awkward.
SPEAKER_05: Two weeks ago, we got this email from a pastor that he said, I heard that this came out and you know, back end of June, and I got it immediately.
SPEAKER_05: I did 12 lessons every single day for two weeks because they said my freshman son and my junior daughter were about to start school, and they said, I need to get this done before the school starts.
SPEAKER_05: So they went every day, and the first lesson, which was my testimony, the son after lesson one said to his dad, He said, Dad, this is so awkward.
SPEAKER_05: I'm talking to my parents about sex.
SPEAKER_05: I get it.
SPEAKER_05: Some of you are probably like, that would be awkward.
SPEAKER_05: I get it.
SPEAKER_05: I'd say the same thing.
SPEAKER_05: At the end of lesson 12, at the end of the whole video series, the father asked the son the same, he asked the question, Do you still feel awkward talking to your parents about sex?
SPEAKER_05: He said, No, Dad.
SPEAKER_05: Not at all.
SPEAKER_05: We must tear down that wall of awkwardness, of fear, and embarrassment.
SPEAKER_05: Because when that wall is up, our kids are gonna drown.
SPEAKER_05: Let's have these conversations at home.
SPEAKER_05: Because silence is no longer an option.
SPEAKER_05: Amazingly, God has given us back the years that the locusts have taken away.
SPEAKER_05: My parents and I travel on the nation around the world for the past two decades talking about God's grace and truth on the issue of sexuality.
SPEAKER_05: And then if that wasn't a big enough blessing, God has a sense of humor because he's brought me back to Moody, where for twelve years I taught in the Bible to Marvin.
SPEAKER_05: So I went from prisoner to professor.
SPEAKER_05: How about that for a resume?
SPEAKER_05: But God has done far more abundantly beyond all that we have asked or thought.
SPEAKER_05: You know, looking as I shared my story, our story.
SPEAKER_05: I you probably haven't heard a story like mine before.
SPEAKER_05: It's not so common.
SPEAKER_05: They're out there, a guy who used to identify as gay and now no longer do.
SPEAKER_05: And that definitely is a big important aspect of my story.
SPEAKER_05: But that's not how I actually summarize my testimony.
SPEAKER_05: This is how I summarize it.
SPEAKER_05: I once was blind, and now I see.
SPEAKER_05: I once was lost, and now I'm found.
SPEAKER_05: I once did not believe, and now I believe in the Son of God, and his name is Jesus.
SPEAKER_05: That's my testimony.
SPEAKER_05: I know you guys have noticed this empty stool here.
SPEAKER_05: It's for my dad.
SPEAKER_05: Pastor Steve said one year ago, on July 3rd, my dear dad went home.
SPEAKER_05: He was very, very active.
SPEAKER_05: It's actually sudden, very sudden.
SPEAKER_05: My uh my mom and I, I have a policy, I don't travel alone, so my mom travels with me 60 to 70 times a year.
SPEAKER_05: My dad would join us on weekends 40 to 45 times a year, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ around the country and world.
SPEAKER_05: More than men half his age.
SPEAKER_05: If I ever get to 82, I want to be like dad.
SPEAKER_05: On July 1st of last year, my mom and dad were running errands and they were in the parking lot, and dad felt he hid his head really hard on the pavement.
SPEAKER_05: They rushed him to the hospital.
SPEAKER_05: By the time I got there, my dad was in and out of consciousness.
SPEAKER_05: The doctor pulled me aside, and I was like, we can't stop the internal bleeding.
SPEAKER_05: It's there's not much hope.
SPEAKER_05: And I said, Doctor, with all due respect, you're wrong.
SPEAKER_05: There is always hope in Jesus.
SPEAKER_05: And we believe in miracles.
SPEAKER_05: Do any of you believe in miracles?
SPEAKER_05: So we prayed and prayed.
SPEAKER_05: We got hundreds of people all around the world praying for dad.
SPEAKER_05: And 48 hours later, God answered that prayer.
SPEAKER_05: And he brought dad home.
SPEAKER_05: Mom and I were kind of saying our byes.
SPEAKER_05: My dad's heart was failing, his brain function was gone.
SPEAKER_05: And we were just before the shell of his body.
SPEAKER_05: And right before we were about to leave, mom took my hand, looked at me, and said, We're gonna tell everyone that Dr.
SPEAKER_05: Leon Yuan is not dead.
SPEAKER_05: He is now more alive than he ever was before.
SPEAKER_05: My dad would want every one of you in this room, young, baby, or old, to know Jesus.
SPEAKER_05: You know coming to church every Sunday does not save you.
SPEAKER_05: Having a godly spouse that gets you out of bed, pulls you to church, have parents that bring you to church every Sunday does not save you.
SPEAKER_05: Do you know that?
SPEAKER_05: Reading the Bible every day doesn't save you.
SPEAKER_05: But confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that he rose from the dead and you will have eternal life.
SPEAKER_05: The question for you this morning, actually, none of this matters.
SPEAKER_05: Everything that we said actually doesn't really matter.
SPEAKER_05: This matters.
SPEAKER_05: Do you know Jesus?
SPEAKER_05: Because if not, today's the day.
SPEAKER_05: Today's the day.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_02: We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_02: To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholt Online.org.
SPEAKER_02: God bless.