Not New Things (Issues Facing the Church) - Part 3

It's so weird to start a sermon without saying, "Turn in your Bible to..." I don't want to make a habit of not starting sermons with that. But I am continuing, this is our third part in the series called "Not New Things Facing the Church" or "Not New Issues" or whatever helps you understand the idea that there are things happening in the world right now related to Christianity that seem new and seem novel like they're a new threat. And this happens a lot. Things come in cycles. And then we get scared thinking, "Oh no, there's a new attack!" And then you find out that no, it's not new at all. It's something that's been going on for centuries. It's just repackaged in a new way. And we're going through that right now. And tonight I'll be dealing particularly with the idea of culture. I don't know if you know this, but the word cult and culture and cultivate all mean the same thing. The meaning of the word cult, I know we get the idea of some sort of religious fanaticism idea, but that's not its fundamental dictionary definition. The idea is that it's all cultivating. You cultivate a culture. You cultivate a cult. You cultivate an identity in those terms. And it's really hard to— I can tell you right now, this series has been already hard for me. I almost didn't want to do it. You might find this hard to believe, but I don't care all that much about my opinion. I want to know what the Bible says about things, not what I think about things. That may surprise you because I'm very opinionated, but I don't like preaching opinion. I like the safety net of preaching the Bible and not preaching my opinions. Now, a lot of times you're drawing conclusions based on your theology and how you arrive at your thoughts from the Bible, but I want to be able to get up here and without a lot of question or doubt say, "Thus says the Lord." That's what I want to say. I'm telling you that not just as a preacher, all preachers should preach the Word. I'm telling you that specifically insecure Johnny wants to be firmly planted on the Word because I don't want you to be making your life choices based on what Johnny says.

And with that comes the subject matter here, which is these are the issues that I'm talking about in these 5 messages. This is the 3rd of 5. These issues are issues that the church is facing out there that need to be discussed, but I would prefer to just preach Bible passages and deal with the issues as they come up in Scripture. But some of them have hit home. In fact, the last half of tonight's sermon have hit home. These are things happening and in discussion in our church privately. There are things that are going on behind the scenes, but there are things that need to be addressed. And the move of these things happening out there in culture that's being cultivated in the culture is creeping into the church, and it does behoove us as Christians to know what's happening.

So Christians can feel pressure to adapt to their culture. They can feel pressure. They have the pressure is if you're not going to adapt to culture and learn how to impact your culture, and learn how to belong in your culture, you're going to become extinct. You're going to become archaic. You're not going to be able to be relevant any longer. That's the kind of language we hear. And what ends up happening over time, and can happen, and in these situations I'm telling you I think it is happening, is that the more you try to adapt to the culture, to be acceptable to the culture, to be friendly and open and amenable to your culture, what ends up happening— and I'll try to defend this thought tonight— is that you end up adopting the viewpoints of the culture.

So here's something you don't hear a lot of. You don't hear a lot of people, and I say this a lot, but I hope it lands tonight. You don't hear a lot of the things in our culture taking from the church. There's not a lot of pressure for the culture to adopt the church's mindset. In other words, this pressure that we feel in the church to not be irrelevant, to not have an impact, to not have some sort of meaning out in the culture, That pressure only goes one direction. The culture is never asking how they can be more like the church. How can we adopt the Christians out there and have them feel welcome in the culture? They're not ever asking that. I actually think that's very telling, by the way. That's the kind of thing that I think if you're attentive to, you'll realize, hey, wait a second, why is the world never asking what I think? Why don't they care about my opinion? Why don't you hear unbelievers saying, hey, we need to make sure the Christians feel included in what we're doing? You never hear that. And I think that means something, that you never hear that. I think that tells us how the war is being waged with the culture.

So it is a very popular thought to think that Christianity should be evolving and adapting with the times. It's very— that you will hear that a lot if you're attentive. And it is true over the years, decades, even centuries, that Christianity does adapt and evolve with the times and loses its way. The issues that are before us that I'm talking about are not— I have to repeat over and over and over again as I talk all night. I might repeat this, what I'm saying right now, again later in the sermon. These are not things that the unbelieving world is doing. These are not things that megachurches are doing. These are not things that evangelicals are doing. These are not things that liberal churches are doing. The things I'm talking about are specifically targeted and directed at conservative churches. Churches like ours are having issues with these things, are adopting the philosophy of the culture in these areas specifically. And I'm saying it by way of warning. This is sort of like a State of the Union type thing to make sure that our guard is up and that we're careful and that we always maintain the idea that truth is our authority. The Bible is our authority, not the shifting sand and the wind of the culture. We can't be swept away with the culture. As much as we might want to have impact, might want to be relevant, as much as we might feel the pressure that our faith is outdated and becoming ineffective and like, oh, we need to belong, we're going to lose any sort of influence we have over the culture unless we adopt their way of thinking. Well, my argument tonight and the views that I'm going to share with you is if we adopt the culture, we will lose our faith. It won't go the other direction. It will not be the culture that's impacted by the church. It will be the church that adopts the viewpoint of the culture. And compromises some important biblical truths.

So I hope you're ready. The challenge, the first part of the sermon I can kind of go fast. I already am a little bit apprehensive, maybe even anxious that I'm not going to be able to clearly relay to you what I'm hoping to relate to you. So I'm going to ask God to help me with that. But the last half, I don't want to ruffle your feathers. I don't want to, it would hurt my feelings if you thought tonight that you personally are the target of anything I'm saying. It's not. This is warning. This is John the Baptist in the street kind of stuff that we need to watch out as a church and as Christians in general to not be influenced by the culture. This isn't me talking about your personal viewpoint of politics because I hate talking about politics. Frankly, folks, I hate politics. That's not just because I don't want to talk about it. I don't even like talking about it. I'm disgusted. And if you didn't know, I knocked on doors for the Republican Party. So I used to be very political. I used to have major sections of the Constitution memorized. I love our country, but I don't love the politics in our country. I'm kind of sick of it. I've lost the war of attrition. But I will be talking about things that are related to political viewpoints tonight. But I'm— please, if you think I'm arguing for a viewpoint, because I'm probably going to sound liberal politically to you, and I might sound too conservative politically to you on some things, okay? I don't care about those things. I care about what God says we're supposed to be doing as a church, that we do what the church is called to do.

Okay, I'm not as concerned with what you do as an American citizen. You're supposed to be a responsible citizen. I do love our country. I want you to be an active citizen, for sure. Be involved in that world out there. But I want to make sure we're clear that I'm making a line that churches in the history used to keep, which is the separation of church and state. And some of these things are blending now, and they're dangerous because they push us in areas I don't know that we're supposed to go as Christians. So I'll talk about that as we go.

Let's pray. Father, you know my heart here, and you know that I think that what we'll be discussing are things that we need to be aware of regardless of where we land. Father, we're supposed to be loyal to you. We're supposed to be loyal to what your word says. We are Christians before we are citizens or any other thing. And I would ask, Father, that the people who name the name of Christ and call him Lord this evening, myself included, that that idea of him being our Lord would be at the forefront of our mind. What is the most important thing to us as Christians? And I think the answer to that is to do what our Lord tells us to do. So please help us have that priority. And in these areas where I'm apprehensive and challenged to be able to communicate clearly, that if something is just an opinion, oh Father, you know I don't care about my opinions or want anybody to share them. I really do want us as a church, though, to be doing what we're called to do for you, to do what you invented church for. And sometimes these things can make those ideas hazy, and I would just ask for clarity that we would be a church that does exactly what you want us to do and only what you want us to do. And so help us with that, even with our time together tonight, in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, culture, cultivating the cult, is our culture currently out there in our world is not cultivated biblically. So I'm going to give you a few thoughts. And again, the first half of the sermon, I'm going to run fast. I can already see the clock and I'm anxious about it. I want to get to the second half because the second half is why this series happened. But in the beginning, I want to just say some things that the culture out there— I'm just going to say it as a matter of fact first. I'm not going to defend it. I'm just going to assume you agree with me on this, is that that culture out there is not biblical. Okay? The world outside of the church is not biblical. And there's a danger for us to try to have an impact on that thing out there called culture, to try to have our hands in it, to try to have our influence on it. And what I'm saying in the notes here is sometimes we feel the pressure that if we can't beat them, if we can't give outright biblical teaching, that maybe we can find some allegiances and friendships with them that will have some sort of impact and we can maybe push the world into a Christian direction.

Well, a bunch of passages here, I'm just going to read them. I'm going to suggest to you that that's not a worthwhile endeavor to try to get the world to think right. Jesus says in John 15, "If you," His believers, His people, "were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." Incidentally, that was first-century Judaism, not 21st-century Americanism. So in a place that should have been friendly to them, it wasn't friendly to them. 1 John, in fact, we're going to be there in a few weeks in this passage, "Do not love the world or the things in the world." 'If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.' So we're not to find our satisfaction in this world. We know that Demas abandoned the ministry of Paul for what? Because he loved what? This present world. So I'm just saying it bluntly and frankly and not going to try to defend it, that as much as you might try to find someone out there in the world that's friendly to the Christian cause, as much as you might think that what we need is allegiances in the world and in our country and in our culture, To have friends in our culture. You should have friends in the world, by the way. You should be friendly to the world. But what I mean is compatriots, people who are cooperative in our mission as Christians, to find allegiances out there. Remember, remember, remember that if they are not saying they are pro-Great Commission and bringing people to the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation, they're not doing the thing that God says we're supposed to be doing. So be careful to think that the most important thing is your political identity instead of your spiritual identity. Be careful. Because it's possible that you can think, "We need the world." And even if they are more close to us in political alignment, we might think the church needs the world. That is backwards. The world needs the church.

So the first thing I want you to say is be careful because if you try to join them, you might end up losing in the process. Our identity is in Christ, not in our culture. And ultimately, sometimes when you try to gain allegiances and friendships, you try to find common ground, you try to find common goals with the world out there, and even the conservative world and political conservatism, You might think, well, that's good because they kind of think like we do in areas, so if we join with them, we'll be okay. They used to call that syncretism. Nobody's using that word much anymore. Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight. Man, I wonder if people would say that in our day, because people seem to want to fight in our day for this world. And Jesus is saying right there where he could say it, where Jesus could conquer the world, right when he was being crucified, he could have conquered the world right then, could have called 10,000 angels, he could have defeated evil right then. But he says, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews because my kingdom is not from here."

Do you feel that way? Are you of the kingdom of America or are you of the kingdom of Christ? Where is your kingdom? I want to just say again, if you align yourself with a tribe, you're obligated to that tribe. If you join yourself with tribes, then you owe the tribe your allegiance. And if that tribe is not the people of Christ, you have to be really, really careful. And I use the example right now. It's a simple one. It's just one example. It's not the main one, but it is an example that I historically have been a Republican, right? I'm sort of leaning constitutionalist in these last years, the idea of maybe going a little mid-range libertarian or something like that. But the point I'm making is that I've always been a conservative in my political viewpoints, always. Even when I was a teenager and I first understood politics, I started off being conservative.

Now, the reason I bring that to you is because like most Republicans, I have always voted my party. Now, that doesn't— I'm not saying that that has anything to do with our most recent elections. But I am telling you, in the most recent election, one of the major things that our side, if you're on the Republican side, platform was on the subject of abortion. And so you're trying to fight for something that's a moral thing, and to try to minimize or eliminate abortion, the legalized murder of babies. I think everybody in this room and everybody that would be a part of our church or churches like us would think that that's a thing that we should all care about. But do you know right now, under your current administration, there are 14,000 abortions a month. And most of those are a mere telehealth appointment where the doctor just says, I have called your prescription in to the pharmacy, go get it. And murder that baby. And your current president thinks that that is a valid compromise right now. Leave it up to the states, he said. Not all states are going to think the same thing. It's up to the people and it's up to the states.

Now, I'm going to suggest to you that if you think that that is good enough, that's on you. But I'm suggesting that we Christians are supposed to fight for the unborn. And to say out loud, murder is always wrong. Always. It doesn't matter who's in the office. Murder's wrong. Murder of babies is wrong. And we need to stand for that and not worry about what it means to our political affiliation. Well, what if we lose the House? What if we lose the Oval Office? What if you lose babies and the image of God being blasted every day? So remember, they're not out there fighting for our Great Commission. But we might be fighting for their willingness to compromise politically. So be careful. That's all I'm saying. I'm not telling you to pick a— there's a better party out there. I don't think there's a better party out there, but just be careful. We're supposed to care most about biblical fidelity and the things that the Bible tells us to care about. That's supposed to be our operating principle, is what Scripture says, not what my party says, not what my tribe says.

So be careful because sometimes we compromise and are trying to get the better— the worst of evils. Isn't that kind of the way we say it? They say it often, the lesser of evils. And I understand that. I'm that way too, by the way. I still vote every election. But isn't it hard to vote these days? When was the last time you felt great about going to the polls? Finally, somebody I can care about and believe in, right? Some of you know I was friends with George House, who used to be our assemblyman. His son was my friend. And you want to talk about a man of God that would be easy to vote for. He was the real thing. He was the kind of guy you want in office who cared and had principles. And man, that was a long time ago though. That was a long time ago.

So be careful because we might be trying to compromise to influence the culture. If we could get our party in power, if we could get our people in the right places, then maybe we'll influence culture. Yeah, but you also might be careful to not join yourself with people who don't align with Scripture. Eventually, eventually all compromise leads to failure. The Bible does say honor the king without question. Peter tells us to honor the king. But that doesn't mean be wholesale in alignment with him. Eventually your king may abandon you. Remember when the people of Israel wanted a king and the argument was all the other nations have a king? And what was the warning about those kings? Why didn't the Lord say, okay, if you want a king, I'm gonna give you an excellent king that will always do the right thing? Do you want to know why? Because there is no such king. That's why. There is no such king that will always do the right thing except Jesus. And so when they wanted a king, they got it. And guess what they got? They got exactly what they asked for, a king like the other nations, right? So you had a guy like Saul and the kings that they've had. And then, of course, after the division of the kingdom, they had a whole bunch of bad kings. And eventually, over time, that kind of compromise where you're trying to get something politically accomplished, culturally accomplished, out there trying to make the world a better place, as it were, eventually, your philosophy and the thing you care about gets compromised all the way.

You have Judges ending. How did that cycle of Judges go, that 350-year period? We have a good one. Yay, yay, we got what we voted for. Oh, no, now he's a heathen and he's not listening to the Lord anymore. Yay, yay, we got a new one. This one will do it. This one will fix it. Oh, no, he's failed. Now he's ruining us and bringing us into idolatry. Yay, we got another one. This cycle of Judges, right? And then how did it end? That ended great, didn't it? After the period of the Judges, what was the last verse of the book of Judges that makes us so hopeful that when you give people what they vote for, things will go good? Did it go good for the people? No. In the end, they all did what was right in their own eyes, and that wasn't good. Do you believe that people are depraved and sinful? Then what would a group of depraved and sinful people vote for, something good or something bad? Okay, so we need to be careful and not find our confidence in groups of sinners and find our confidence in the Lord.

Now, why am I saying all this? Because you're in a time right now where people feel the pressure of our culture being ripped out from under us. And as a— can I say a proud American? I love our country. I really love it. When I tell you I love it, I mean I love our country. I'm telling you that. As dismayed as I am, and as much as I'm getting like pummeled to death and losing the war of attrition, I'm telling you I love our country. I love our armed services. I love our history. I love it. But It's a country full of 300 million or so sinners. And those sinners can't do the right thing unless the Lord Jesus is at the head. They just can't. And so please be careful to think that what we need as Christians is more of that in here. What we need is more of the Word of God out there. That's what we need. We should be trying to spread the Word of God.

Our culture is rebellious. I have the book of Romans here listed, but I want to get to the main meat of the evening. But where Paul talks about, well, multiple lists include disobedience to children. And why do I bring that up right now? Because it is a top-down issue that when you lose morals at the parental level, those morals trickle down to the children level to where now you live in a culture that's rebellious, it's autonomous, it's disrespectful. And if that's our next generation of kids who have no morals, no, What wisdom, no parental pointing them to the Lord, no amount of politics can fix the next generation if the next generation is taught the way they're being taught.

You don't hear repentance language in our world. You don't hear confession language in our world. You don't have men like Daniel praying for his nation out loud in our world anymore. And we think, well, if we could just get the right people in office. And then when I say we, I mean the conservative church has been thinking this. After we went through what we went through with the COVID mess and everything else and our rights being ripped from us and The division we have now in our nation, we think, well, maybe we just need to fight more politically. And I'm gonna tell you, you're gonna, that's a losing battle if you expect to change our world with politics and policy. The only thing that can change the world is changed people, and the only thing that changes people is a changed heart by the gospel. We need to think that the answer to our world's problems is the gospel. Jesus is the answer, and he's the only answer. That sounds almost childish to say. But it's their only reality.

You live in a world that is telling you, you have every right to be happy. You have every right to pursue your own pleasure. You have every right for you to be the center of the world. And as long as they're saying that out there, they don't have Jesus as the focus and they don't have the gospel as the main agenda. So our culture right now out there is not being developed or cultivated biblically. It's being developed mainly by man-centered pleasure-seeking happiness. And if your culture is not biblical, then it is certainly not righteous. I'll repeat that again. If our culture is not biblical, then it is not righteous. Because righteousness comes from the Bible. It comes from the Word of God and the influence of the Word of God. That might seem elementary to you, but follow me.

This is where we find ourselves. The things I'm going to say now are essentially the meat of the sermon. And these are the things that have been been sort of brewing for a while. The racial one has been brewing longer than the same-sex attraction issue. But when I talk about these things, I told you I would remind you. I'm going to reiterate. This is not about our personal viewpoint. This is not about us saying, "We in the church think this, but what Johnny is talking about are those things those people out there talking about, what's going on on the streets of Minneapolis."

It's funny, I know when I say that out loud right now, Minneapolis, somebody's going to hear this sermon probably in 6 months or a year, and they're not going to know what I'm talking about. You might not even remember what I'm talking about. Minneapolis is already out of the news, isn't it? See how fast the news cycle goes? Do you right now know what I'm talking about when I say Minneapolis? Yeah, but it was on the news just a few months ago, wasn't it? Because these issues come, and they come, and they fly, and they move, and they're going so fast that we don't even think about them anymore. So racial issues, cultural issues, those kind of things, you'll see in your notes that I have them infiltrating the church. The battles that are going on out there are not just going on out there. They're going on in here too, to where Christians are dividing over each other and fighting with each other over these issues. There are actually really well-known popular Christians, like people that used to have far reach that are in these areas. They're fully adopting politics. And I won't tell you what side they're adopting, but they're adopting the politics and making their ministry about those political issues.

And again, I'm not talking about the megachurches or anybody else. I'm talking about conservative churches. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, "For what have I to do with judging those who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?" Remember this context of 1 Corinthians 5? Sexual immorality had crept into the church. And in addition to that, he also mentions lawsuits and those things related to those things in the church. And what had happened was in that context, some of the Christians were taking their business, their law-related things, their legal-related things to the courtrooms of the world. And they were suing each other in the world. And Paul is asking the question, why are you taking things that could be settled internally with the Word of God to the unbelievers? Why would you try to fight your war and your battle out there when we have the Word of God? We have what we need to find peace with each other. So Paul is flabbergasted at that. He's incredulous. How could you let that happen? How can you Christians be trying to conduct your business out in the world?

Well, over time, If you care most about your rights, if you care most about your personal advancement, if you care most about you and then the other people that are like you, if you go back to my previous messages, the first message was about dismissing the Bible, sola scriptura, no longer thinking of the Word of God as your final word and final authority. The second message was about the implications of that, that that has an effect if your churches are no longer thinking of the Word of God in concrete terms as the absolute truth of God, then eventually you have to replace that truth with something else. You don't have to, but we do. By nature, when we dismiss the Word of God, we replace it with the word of man and our traditions and our viewpoints, and we essentially start governing ourselves. And we start telling ourselves as churches, we decide what we want. This is what's most important to us. This is what our mission will be.

So somebody might come along and say, wait, what does the Bible say your mission is? Well, the Bible says people being saved, helping people. We'll just use those vague terms, and then we'll say this is how we're going to do it. So we pragmatically say, this is what we should do in the church. And over time, the more you dismiss the Bible, the more you replace it with man's thoughts. And the more you replace it with man's thoughts, man's thoughts are, oh no, we need to have an impact on the culture out there. And the culture says this is important. And the culture says that's important. In order for us to meet those people where they are, I'll use the common language, in order for us to be what they need us to be, we will talk about and prioritize the things that the culture out there says are the priority. So then when they come through the door, they will feel that we understand them and we are a place for them and they can belong with us. Why? Because we're saying the same things that are important that they do. We're reflecting their culture. We're saying, "You think this is important, racial issues, sexual issues? So do we. We talk about them too. You think that the religious right is too conservative and rigid and ritualistic in their belief system? Well, we think that too. We're open-minded," which is exactly what the church Paul is talking to was like, open-minded. The Corinthian church was very open-minded. "Hey, I hear that there's sexual immorality in your church." I hear that a man has his father's wife, his stepmom is his wife. That's not allowed. How are you okay with that? And you know what the church said? Of course we're okay with it. We're open-minded. We're very liberal. We're very accepting of people of alternative lifestyles. We're not rigid legalists. So you can hear in the tone where I'm headed with this, or at least I hope you can.

Again, you ever notice in the Bible, that nobody is trying to influence the culture. You ever see any protests in the Bible? You ever see anybody trying to get the ear of the political elite in their culture? When the people are on the campuses, for example, at the Areopagus, Acts chapter 17, what was it that Paul told the people? Did he tell them, our culture's in trouble and we have the answer to fix our culture? Or did he say, I see what you believe in your culture, but what you need to believe is what God says. So the influence isn't, let's go into the culture and try to make the culture better. Try to make the culture more Christiany. Try to make the culture more like us. And it's certainly not invite the culture into our church and let our church become more like the culture. When you see people engaging with the culture in the New Testament, it's essentially telling them, stop being what you are as a culture and be Kingdom of God people.

So instead of going into the culture and trying to influence the culture for good and making an impact and making a difference out in the culture and making the culture better, We're supposed to be sharing the gospel and changing the people of the culture so that there are God-honoring people. What you do see, you don't see people trying to influence the king in the New Testament. You do see people fighting the influence of the culture in the church, where Paul is saying, that might be okay out there. It's not okay in here. Purge out the leaven. The leaven, I said. Leaven. You purge out lemons too if you want.

So this church had major trouble. Incidentally, the church also had other trouble too. In this church, it was sexual immorality, but the church we know in other times had had racial trouble. You say, "Wait, there was racism in the New Testament church?" Yeah, there was. Don't you remember that big problem with Jew and Gentile coming together for the first time? That was a racial issue, an ethnic issue, and they were having trouble getting along. That's where I saw the biggest use— I wasn't even a dairy farmer, and I heard the word homogenized over and over and over from pastor. He used that word every week because he was always talking about the homogenization of Jew and Gentile in the new church. Because Jews had trouble with Gentiles, and frankly, Gentiles had trouble with Jews too. So you have two peoples coming together for the first time in Christ, and they had trouble with it. Remember, some of those Jews are like, "They're eating meat sacrificed to idols. Is that okay?" And some of the pagans were like, "Hey, is it all right to do what they're doing? And is that all right to think what they think?" So those things have been around forever.

So here's what I'm gonna say. This is the part where it might be controversial to you, but again, I'm not talking to you about you. I'm talking and asking, are we okay as churches to try to fight the culture's battles on the culture's home field? Are we giving our culture home field advantage by having these discussions and having our arguments only be what they are arguing? So what I'm going to tell you first is our argument, what I think it should be as Christians, and then I'm going to tell you or ask you, is that the argument in our culture over issues like race? The racial inequalities and difficulties out there. And I'm going to say some things that you might not like, and that's okay.

The first thing, I'm going to read Acts 17:26. If you want to read any verse, take this one with you, read it tonight, or take it with you and read it at home. In that wonderful passage, by the way, that context of the Areopagus of Acts 17, Paul says this, "Jesus," or God, "has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth." and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings. How many bloods are there? How many races are there? Human, in the image of God, right? There's only one race. There's different ethnicities, we come from different backgrounds, those are all true, but there's only one race.

Paul goes on later in the same book to say, "Therefore, let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it." So instead of it being for Jews only, it's for everyone. So does everybody in this room agree that God saves people of every ethnicity? Okay, we all agree. Does everybody in here agree that there's only one mediator between God and man, and he is for all ethnicities? Okay, so we all agree that there's only one Savior. I think we all agree that there's only one race officially. Now, if you want to talk about ethnicities, I don't mind using the word race for that, but I want us to know better. I want us in this room to know that we're all the same, that there's no Jew or Gentile, there's no Greek, right, there's no barbarian, that we're all equal, okay?

I'm going to say all of that, and I'm also going to say racism is very real. Racism is a real problem. It is a real problem, and I find that people who say it's not a real problem are almost always Caucasian. Almost always. I can tell you a story with my own ears hearing someone in my family say terrible things about Hispanic people because they couldn't speak English. And I always wonder if that person were at Pentecost when everybody was hearing the gospel in their own language, if they didn't just shout out, "Hey, Holy Spirit, why doesn't everybody just speak Greek? Why is everybody speaking different languages?" You come to this country, speak English, like English might as well be American when English came from the country we left, right?

Here's what I'm driving at. You can be on one or two sides of this issue politically. You can be the side that says, because I'm not a racist, racism is not a problem. Or you can be on the other side of the aisle that says racism is the biggest problem and it'll never be fixed and we're all victims of racism. Or causing, or perpetrators of racism, right? Those two things can go either direction. I'm not here about the two extremes. I'm not here about the political sides of the issue. What I'm here to tell you is we Christians actually have the answer to the racism problem.

So the last thing we should do is be having the argument about racism on the grounds that other people have the argument about racism. So that if somebody says, "I don't think it's as big a problem as you think it is," I'm going to ask you, well, what would the answer be if it was the problem you think it is? What the Bible says. Or if somebody says, I think it's way bigger of a problem than you think it is. Okay, if it's way bigger of a problem, then what's the answer to the big problem? Because outside in the culture, the answer is the culture. It's politics, it's viewpoints, it's tribalism.

So I don't know what degree you think racism is big or bad. I'm telling you, there are racists in my family and it's a problem. With me. I found out that my family, back in my history— I didn't ever want to look in my history because I didn't care too much to find out about my grandfather. But once I did, I went and looked at the Sloan family history, and I found out there were slave owners. And I'm ashamed of that. And you say, you shouldn't be ashamed of that. That's something they did. No, I'm ashamed it happened in this country. I can't believe that happened here. And you say, but that's what's accepted. Well, did you know what's accepted in the Middle East right now? Does that make it okay? Okay. No, it is— it's a blemish on our record and we should hate it. Now, that doesn't mean we jump on board with every victim mindset and say everything's racism and everybody's a victim. No, I'm not talking about that. I'm saying if our discussion doesn't have any Bible verses in it, then we are on the enemy's home field. We're giving them the power in the discussion on either political aisle. I don't care about the political side.

I'm just saying I don't feel like I have the right to tell somebody if they've experienced racism or not. That's not mine to do. But what I can tell them is they're sinners and I have the answer for racism. I have the answer that we can be one in Christ. The answer is the gospel. So please, if you would, please, if you want to talk about racism out there in the culture, wherever you're at on the political spectrum, at the very least as a Christian, would you please shout from the mountaintops that God has the answer to it if it's real?

It's— I think it is real. My family very much has proven to me that there is a real thing called racism. You all know my story that is so important to me. When I was a young guy, 6 years old, my mother did not take care of me very well. I left my home many mornings, most mornings hungry, because if I didn't make my own breakfast, I wasn't going to eat, and my mom wouldn't put food in the cabinets for me. And so I would leave 5 and 6 years old, because I was 5 years old in the first grade. And I would leave my house hungry all the time. But at my house, if you know where my dad lives, it was that house where my dad lives. Some of you have seen that house. I would leave and you go, let's see, 1, 2, 3 doors down was my friend Santos. And Santos was my best buddy. And we did some crazy fun stuff together. We got chased by a dog one time and ran up on a car. And a guy yelled at us because we were on his car. And like, we're not getting down. This dog wants to eat us. But Santos's grandma spoke zero English. She's the kind of person that people say, why is she in this country? She doesn't even speak English. Abuela had no English, zero. When she saw the little güerito come into her house and he was hungry, she fed me and she took care of me. And I never forgot it, never. And I didn't know anything about race at that time. I didn't understand why she couldn't speak my words.

But I understood how wonderful tortillas with papas is, with butter. And Santos is embarrassed that she's bothering me, like, "Don't, leave him alone, leave him alone." He was embarrassed about his grandma because she couldn't speak English. And he felt like an outcast because she couldn't speak English. I'm like, "Shut up, man, she's taking care of me." And I couldn't believe that a stranger, a total stranger who didn't look like me and didn't talk like me, took care of me. So from very early, I saw racism and I saw its opposite.

This is why I love that we have different-looking people at our church. It's why I love that we can be friends with people of all races and creeds and that we shouldn't find reasons to divide and fight. We should be finding things that we have in common or learn about our differences and enjoy those differences. Most of you don't know this, but the Hispanic people in here do. My gente know this, what I'm about to say, that at our potlucks, whenever we have a potluck and there's new people, like let's say somebody invites a family member who's from the Mexican background, I'll always ask in a group of people, tell me what it is. Do you say caldo or do you say sopas? Now if you don't know what that is, that is two different ways of saying soup. But it depends on where you're from and how you were raised which is which. Okay? And it's funny to watch that I can almost start a fight with that. But the reason I do that is I want them to know I know it. I'm with you.

My next-door neighbor and I, you should hear the butchered language between my neighbor Solomon and me. You should hear it. His English is as bad as my Spanish. But we're friends and we look out for each other. And he knows I love him. His dad died not long ago and you know mine did too. And I didn't know, I thought his dad was doing better and I didn't get the report back that his dad had passed. I had seen that he had been gone, but I didn't know he died. And I was out there with my stupid broken Spanish just telling him I'd been praying for him and praying and I want him to be okay. And so when I hear people say, you just ignore all of that, it's not important, I am telling you it's important.

It's a real issue and we can be on the right side of it. We don't say deport them all. We need secure borders. Of course we need secure borders for safety. Before you say that, oh, if they want to come here, let them come here legally. Do you know that the average wage of a field worker in Mexico is $150 a month? Do you know that the first form you have to fill out to get a work visa is $300? So just to come here and try to work, it costs $300. And that's 2 months' wages. So just a little bit of empathy, a little bit of consideration. My friend's brother was killed by the cartels. Just a little.

I'm not saying let them all in, let's take care of everybody, welfare is the answer. No. But we can at least be compassionate people and careful in the discussion. It's a problem, but we don't want to argue the subject of race on the enemy grounds because we are on one side of the political aisle or the other. We want to argue for the gospel. If you have an illegal immigrant living next door to you, you can either call immigration or you could preach the gospel to them. You could do both if you want, but I'm talking about the gospel, the power of the gospel. Be a missionary. We know stories of sharing the gospel with illegal immigrants here in the States who were then deported and became pastors in their country. Neat stories like that. But please think of the gospel first.

Now the hard one, the difficult one, that one is actually the one I would be worried that you wouldn't necessarily align with me on, and that's okay. We can have different opinions. We all agree the gospel is the answer. Now this next one, this one is painful because this one has hit home. It has hit home a lot. I've had this discussion. So I want to try as hard as I can in the beginning here, and we're going to go a little long, I have to take the time, I'm sorry.

I want to, to the best of my ability, and I don't know that I'll be able to do it adequately. So again, I'm not talking about liberals, I'm not talking about unbelievers, I'm not even talking about big churches, I'm not talking about liberal denominations. Everything I'm going to tell you next is in conservative churches. Pastor Henrik knows Pastor Mark Smith. Some people call him Val, but Mark. By the way, his wife passed away if you didn't know that, his wife Pam. I found that out. That she had passed. But Mark was a sweetheart. He was at my ordination council. That's how we became friends. I got to preach in his church. Sweetheart of a guy. So his church just very much dealt with this to where he had to stand up in front of his church and say, you either vote this way on this subject and discipline this person out of the church, or you have to fire me. Those are your two options. Okay?

Here's the issue. Follow me. Please follow me. Put this in the frontal lobe. Right up here. What we're talking about is not the practice of homosexuality. 'Cause there are almost no conservative churches that believe homosexuality as a lifestyle or practice is allowed. Everybody, almost everybody, disagrees in the conservative theological world that the practice of homosexuality is sinful. Everybody, we all agree on that, right? So what I'll be talking about is not the practice of homosexuality. It's a move that has been happening over the last few years that the— there are people who are same-sex attracted. That's not the same as saying practicing homosexuality. They have the inclination, the involuntary inclination that they are attracted to people of the same sex. Okay?

And what is happening now with the move of these— there's a revoice in these things happening in a Presbyterian denomination where the pressure is on the churches to be accepting of people who are same-sex attracted so long as they're not practicing homosexuality. So the idea is now the definitions of things is changing in a way that the word attracted does not mean desire, and you change the meaning of the word attracted to mean involuntary choices in our minds, that we have no ability to control this attraction that we have. Therefore, because we have no ability to control it and we didn't choose it, it is not sinful. It's acceptable to the point where they're using language like gay Christian. Now, if I had told you, especially you with a little bit of gray hair, that in conservative churches a term called gay Christian would be acceptable terminology, would you have believed that 30 years ago? That is true right now. It's happening right now. And when I say conservative churches, I mean people that you might be surprised are sympathetic to these things.

Paul, I mean, Moses says so clearly that that God made them male and female. We all understand that the design of God's reproduction and family is a male and a female married together for a lifetime, and that we all understand that that is God's design. But did you know, maybe you do know this, that there have actually been scientific studies on genetics, biology, and homosexuality? This is a funny story I'm gonna tell you. It's not funny at all, but it was funny to me. It's funny in the ironic sense. That this happened in our church. Now, the people that I'm talking about are no longer at our church, but they were members of our church, very integral members of our church. I got a call, got a call from the family about the son because the son was starting to entertain that that son might be gay. Okay, they're feeling that they might be gay. And the most important part of this discussion, their friends told them they were gay. Okay, so their friends told them they're gay, so they must be gay.

To their credit and to that son's credit, he talked to me. I was thankful that he talked to me. So here's what happened. This is the craziest part of the story, is that I went to go do research. You might be surprised that PJ thinks what I'm about to tell you I thought. I'm going to confess something to you. That when I went to do research, I fully expected that the science was going to be pro-gay. Did you know that? That I was ready to make arguments against it. So I was preparing in case I ever got the argument that even science says homosexuality is normal and acceptable and the way things are in nature. That's what I was expecting because that's our world we live in. It so permeates our culture that I thought what I was gonna find out was that scientists think that homosexuality is natural. That's what I thought. So I was going to look up the arguments to prepare my rebuttal to the arguments. I wasn't looking for arguments against homosexuality. I already believe the Bible says it, so it's, I agree with what the Bible says. I wasn't looking for science to back me up. I was looking to be prepared for the argument.

But you know what I find out? A Harvard study of over 500,000 people. Harvard, half a million, proved there's no gay gene. That genetics has nothing to do with homosexuality. I was shocked at that. I thought maybe I was not looking at the right things, 'cause I was for sure they were gonna try to find some way to finagle the science to say that homosexuality was natural and normal, and that you're born with it. If I did it right before I came, I could do it right now if time allowed, but I asked, Google, is homosexual— are you born homosexual? And it says the science is undecided, that there are determining factors like environment and other things. Do you know what it doesn't say? Yes. In 2026, it still doesn't say yes, you're born homosexual.

So I expected to be ready to fight. Well, I don't have to fight. Science has proven to agree with creation. Now, why does all that come into play? Before I dig into the attraction idea, the argument against the attraction idea, I want to make sure we're clear on something. Before you get up in arms in this discussion, or before you settle on any side of any discussion, I want to make sure— what did we just hear this morning? If we say we have fellowship with Him, but we walk in darkness, what are we? Lying. Okay? If we say that marriage is important between God and a man— a man and a woman the way God says so forever, then wouldn't it make sense that we would live that in our lives, like marriage is important?

So before we start getting up in arms over what the world is doing with sexuality, we Christians should be displaying healthy Christian biblical sexuality. We should be displaying it in our marriages and in our life. So maybe we don't give unbelievers a reason to see what we do as unattractive. So we just celebrate 60-something years of marriage. That's the kind of thing we should be telling people. So I'm saying that to you because Marriage is under attack, not just sexuality. Do you know that divorces are way down right now? Isn't that good news? No, because now it's people just not getting married anymore. So yeah, divorces are down, but that's only because marriage is down. Do you know that monogamy is considered unnatural by most people? These are things that are basic to our faith.

So if I were to say it bluntly so that I can get on to the main point, we essentially have already lost the battle in our culture when it comes to marriage and sexuality. And so if you want to have a meaningful impact on the subject of sexuality and marriage, would you please commit to displaying biblical sexuality and marriage in your lives, in your families? Men, be godly men. Women, be godly women that have God-honoring marriages so that if you're out there in the cultural fight and it maybe starts to creep in your church, you can be ready to say, no, no, no, no, no, God's way is the best way. We believe it, we live it, we cherish it. Okay, now I'm going to give you a couple of thoughts. You already know the arguments, but I want to tell you really quickly how tricky the argument goes.

If you didn't notice, the word gender doesn't mean gender anymore. Did you all catch that? Right now, even by the way, if you Google it, you can Google this on your own time. If you Google what is gender, it's going to talk about gender that's accepted and adopted, not what you're born with. Okay, right now, Google is going to tell you gender is a thing that's optional. Okay? Now, all of us in here, the younger people are like, "What are they even talking about? Of course, that's what the world thinks." No, if you're over 30 years old and you were to ask what gender is, everybody would agree that it's not something that's assigned to you. It's something you are born with. It is a synonym for sex, male or female. Will all of the people older than 30-something say amen that you agreed that that's what we all used to think? Spanish. Okay.

So this idea that the shifting definition of the word gender for the trans movement, that idea that now it isn't something that you're born with, it isn't something that is a biological thing. Only sex is biological, but gender is optional. That is what's happening in the subject of same-sex attraction with not trans people, but people. And the word is not gender that's being manipulated. The word is attraction. The word attraction is being manipulated. And here's how it's being manipulated. The idea is this, and this was said to me just weeks ago, okay, in a private conversation about these issues with a family who's being impacted by it. The word attraction is not the same as desire. Didn't you know that? Attraction is not the same as desire. Attraction is involuntary. Desire is voluntary. Didn't you know that?

Here's the funny thing. I can tell you that old PJ used to play chess, and sometimes I still keep that chess player's mindset. If you search these things and try to do Google research and internet research and you include any language that's involved in the debate, for example, if you type LGBTQ in any search and then you search sexual attraction, you are gonna hear the arguments for that idea of attraction being a word that's changing its meaning. But if you're old PJ and you can know how to outsmart AI, you just Google, "What is sexual attraction?" And you ignore the debate and the homosexuality part of it, and you just ask, "What is sexual attraction?" Do you know what it's going to tell you? It's desire.

So out there in the world, they don't even have their things straight yet. They will. By the way, that's going to change. I promise you. The internet, when you search things, it's just an amalgamation of people's opinions. It's not a library. It's people's opinions. People upload stuff. You Google it. It comes to you what they uploaded. It's people. Just so you know, the internet is not an information resource. It's just a million bazillion people's opinions. But eventually, that's going to change. But it hasn't changed yet. So if you search that right now, you're going to find out that attraction and desire are still outside of the homosexual discussion. They are still synonyms. But when you're trying to get your agenda passed, you're trying to get people to see that it's okay to have an involuntary inclination to same-sex attraction. Then you need to redefine the word attraction. You have to fix your word problem. So attraction doesn't mean desire anymore. But it actually does mean desire.

I'm going to give you a few passages and I'll let you go. Here's the issue. You will hear people argue, if you get involved in any of these discussions, people are going to say, is same-sex attraction sinful? Then why is opposite attraction not? Right? So in other words, if I'm attracted to the opposite sex, isn't that also sinful because I'm not married to them? And I could be lusting like Jesus said not to lust, right? So can't I be guilty of lust? Yes, that's absolutely true. It is possible that in both scenarios, same sex, opposite sex, that you can be sinful in both. But listen carefully, it's a trick. Don't fall for the trick.

If you are opposite sex attracted, there is a possible potential, holy, sanctified, undefiled outcome that God designed. Between a man and a woman. So even though you might have a lust problem in this environment, if you do it right and are merely attracted and have your lust in control and not trying to think perverted thoughts and think sexual thoughts, there is a payoff that can honor the Lord in this environment. But over here, the attraction leads to an abomination if it's fulfilled. That means the attraction can't be sanctified. If it ends in sin, The means can't be sanctified. There's nothing that God would allow.

Is it okay to have murderous attractions? What is the behavior associated with covetousness? Do you want to know what the behavior is? Coveting. There isn't a physical behavior associated with coveting. It's all internal, isn't it? Now, granted, materialism and buying and hoarding and trying to accumulate, that is the behavior that usually is a result of coveting. But coveting is a desire of the heart, isn't it? Is coveting ever okay? That's a heart issue. So there's a bunch of passages.

Before the flood, the world is described this way: "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every—" before the flood, "every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Where was the sin? In the heart and in the mind. Now why is that important? Because God didn't wait for everybody to act in behavior on that intent to judge the entire world. He judged the entire world based on what was inside in their heart. May I say, their attractions. Okay?

Hebrews, "The word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open." to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. Wait, are you telling me that I have to give an account to God for what's inside my heart and that he might count it sinful? Yes, absolutely. So can you have sinful attractions? Yes. And may I ask, does it matter if they're voluntary or involuntary? That's a trick question because we're fallen in Adam, so everything we do is sinful. We're not neutral. There is no neutral in a depraved person. Nothing is neutral. We're against God. We're children of wrath.

So to say that we children of wrath can have this thing that is an attraction that is neutral and involuntary and can't be considered bad because I didn't choose it, it flies in the face of biblical thought. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? So to say that same-sex attraction is natural or something that I can't control is like saying murderous attraction is something natural and I can't control, and it's okay for me to have murderous thoughts. It's okay for me to have lying, deceptive thoughts. It's okay for me to have adulterous thoughts. It's okay for me to have covetous thoughts, as long as I don't act on it. So I can be a gay Christian, I can be a murderous Christian, I could be a covetous Christian, I could be a lying Christian. Do you see the problem with all of this?

Now, I do want you to notice nobody's making arguments for any of the other 9 commandments. Nobody makes arguments. I also want you to notice the same trend happened in the psychological and psychiatric world, too. You can ask me on your own time, separate from now. I got into a good fight with AI this week. I never used AI for me, but I decided to have a discussion with AI on this subject. And I think it's safe to say, and I have screen grabs to prove it if you need to see them, I won. And at the core of that win was this, that AI had to admit that the APA, the American Psychiatric Association, the change and shift in the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, from version 3 in 1980 until now in version 5, has made a shift. And nothing else in the DSM was shifted. There were no other changes that went from calling something sociopathic, which is what they used to call homosexuality, to now normalized. There's no other thing in the entire psychiatric world that changed from sociopathic to normal. Only this subject. And AI had to admit that that is because of the shift in morals in our culture, not because of scientific proof.

And you should have seen it when I brought in the genetic study of Harvard. The genetic study is hard science. So you tell me how you can say, with hard scientific data, that there is no pathology or biology that says that people can be born gay, There's no determined, absolute scientific proof that people can be born gay, but now that the APA and the Psychiatric Association and the mental health industry all say it's normal, which of those should I yield to? And it pretty much says, this is a dilemma, and your point is well made.

Now, I don't care that I beat AI. I care that God tells the truth, and that we as churches need to not go with the wind of doctrine out there in the culture. That we need to stop being moved around by what people are saying, and stop being told that we're discompassionate or evil because We judge homosexuality as sin and its desires as sinful. That doesn't mean that we can't be compassionate to people who come through the door. That doesn't mean that I haven't had meaningful, tearful conversations with gay people. Most of you know this. I went and walked right next door to my neighbor when he said boyfriend instead of roommate. And I looked him right in the eye and I said, let's have it. Let's do a social experiment. You and me, let's do it. You know I don't agree with your lifestyle. His dad's a pastor. You know I agree with your dad. Right? We both agree. You know what I believe, and I apparently know what you believe now. Can we still be friendly neighbors? Can we still have a meaningful conversation without you thinking I want lightning to hit you? Is that all right with you? Can we just be cordial to each other? And we are.

Saw him the other day, and I told him, hey, if you smell smoke, everything's okay, because we might build a fire to roast marshmallows in my backyard. We're still friendly. We still look out for each other. His dog got out. I texted him, hey, your dog's out. Right? There's no enemy. I'm not out there to kill him. I'm not waiting for the ground to swallow him open. We have a meaningful neighbor relationship. But I also told him the truth. I've had multiple conversations like that where nobody's gonna be able to accuse me of being a hardline religious right-wing person who hates people. They can accuse me of that, but they're lying if they say that. Because I want to be a good neighbor and a good friend and a good witness.

So don't fall for it that you only have two options. You have to compromise, show forgiveness, show compassion, and let people come through the door where they're at. And never ever judge them. That's what they think you are, is the religious right, and they don't want to come because they think you're the religious right. We don't need to compromise. It's not an either/or. We can be compassionate, kind, tell them about forgiveness while calling them to repentance and holiness. We can't keep compromising things to try to get. We have to tell the truth. And maybe the reason that we're not seeing more homosexuals repent is because we've been soft on the truth. Maybe we need to tell the truth more. Do you know that God hates this?

I have to tell you that I have always been surprised at that part of the conversation. I've always been surprised. I'm apprehensive. I'm fearful. I don't want to say it out loud, but I have to say it out loud because I'm a pastor and I got to be faithful and it's hard to tell the truth. And now I'm going to tell the truth. I need you to know that God doesn't agree with your lifestyle. Do you know that not one single person has ever said, "How dare you?" I have had multiple people say, "What do you mean? I thought it was normal." Yeah, I know you thought that because that's what the culture tells you to think. That's not what the Bible thinks. I didn't know the Bible didn't think that. It happens over and over. I've had multiple conversations where that story I just told you happened. Where I say, God hates homosexuality. The people, instead of throwing a rock at me, say, wait, what? I didn't know that. I thought it was acceptable. I thought if you loved each other, that's all that counted. Yeah, a lot of people think that, but that's not what the Bible teaches. Would you like to talk about it? I've had a lot of conversations like that. Have you ever had those conversations?

Does that sound like I'm being a right-wing religious fanatic jerk who hates people and wants them to go to hell? No, I want them to be saved. I feel bad. I was just saying that to you this morning. I feel bad that our culture hasn't given a better view of marriage so that everybody's looking for companionship and happiness and can't find it because of our broken world. And frankly, we Christians could do a better job of showing the display of love that Christ has for his church in our marriages so that when we say it, like I try to, 32 years, we don't have it, we're not perfect, but man, we're still hanging in there, you know?

So please don't fall for the When you hear compassion screamed and holiness whispered, watch out. When compassion is screamed and holiness is whispered, watch out. We need to be able to preach the truth, do it in a way that it's loving and that people see ultimately, is it hate if I want you to be saved and go to heaven and to be free from the idol of sexuality? Because that's what it is. It's the worship of sexuality instead of the worship of God.

I went long, I'm sorry. I knew I was going to, but next week we'll get back into normal stuff. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word that we can always count on, and the application might not always be easy, but we do know that your word is sufficient. Would you help us instead of following the trends of the culture, just stick to your word and be faithful to trust it and to believe that your word is sufficient for everything we need in our lives. And we'll thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.