11-8-2015 Bioethics Part 31

The speaker begins by praying for wisdom in discussing the topic of homosexuality and change. They acknowledge that talking about change is difficult and ask why it is hard. They discuss the idea that change is not just about stopping certain behaviors, but about a deeper heart change. They explore why it is challenging to talk about change with people who are same-sex attracted or in homosexual relationships, and how it can be perceived as hatred. They emphasize that everyone, including homosexuals, needs to change and that the primary change is turning to Jesus. They discuss what change looks like and the ongoing process of change for all believers. They also discuss the importance of following Jesus before speaking to others about change. The speaker then shifts to the topic of labels and identity, discussing the significance of names in the Bible and the temptation to take on different names or identities. They highlight how the fall into sin resulted from the temptation to change Alright, let's pray, get started. God, we thank you for this morning, for this opportunity, and we pray that as we study and think about who it is that we are, and how it is that we should live, that you would give us wisdom. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Last week we were looking at the topic of homosexuality and change. Why is it both hard and important to talk about the need for change? Any ideas? It's hard. Yeah, okay, great, because it's hard. What does that mean? Why? How is it hard? It's hard to do because, I don't know. Alright, because it's hard to do. Great, anybody else have any ideas? Anybody want to help Tim out? Why would it be hard? Why is it hard? Yeah, alright, so it's... Okay, so when we're talking about change, we're specifically talking about the Christian conception of change. Is it impossible to change? Really? You can stop. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sure. Okay, so there's a sense in which we can say people can change, right? People can quit drinking alcohol. People can quit beating their wives, right? That's like a possible thing that people could do, but we're not exactly talking about just stopping doing something. We're talking about real life change, which is possible, still not easy. Why is it hard to talk about change? Think about specifically, like, communicating with people who are same-sex attracted or currently living in homosexual relationships. Why would it be so hard to speak for the need for change? Okay, so the people who might not want to change, great. We can probably assume the people who don't want to change. Good. Okay. Yeah, so if it is hereditary and they're born that way, then if you're telling them they have to change, what are you telling them? Be someone different than you are to the core of your being, right? You're very genetic. Be not natural. Yeah, in a sense, you could say, if you are naturally attracted to people of the other gender, of the same gender, then you're telling somebody to be not natural. In a sense, it could be perceived that way. Any talk of change when it comes to this kind of stuff is perceived as hatred, right? Just like, you don't like me for who I am. As we've seen, like, that has nothing to do with it. Anytime you... That's applicable to all sin. If you can talk to somebody like, you should stop thieving, and they're like, well, I really like thieving. You just hate me. You're like, no, I just think thieving is wrong. I don't preach. I know. Good. Who needs to change? Everyone. That's right. So, everyone needs to change, including homosexuals, but not exclusively homosexuals. Everybody has the need for change. And what's the primary change that any human being, gay or not, needs to make? Yeah. Exactly. It's not even changing that behavior. The first and most primary change is that heart change, we could call it, or whatever, where one turns to Jesus. What gay people need is the same thing you people need, which is Jesus, right? It's whatever everybody needs. What does change look like? In the Christian sense of the term, we looked at a particular passage. What does change look like? Maybe just walk like Jesus with your mind in that direction, thinking like Christ. Thinking like Christ. Good. Walking in that direction. Anybody have anything to add to that? I think it's a pretty decent summary. Question for all of you. When are we all done doing that? When we're dead. That's right. So, are you currently, hopefully, as a Christian, in the process, you desire the homosexual to be on? Are you on that trajectory? Yeah, I hope so. Remember that you are not calling the homosexual to do something you're not currently doing. You are calling them to follow Jesus. Is following Jesus going to look different for person B than it is for person A, no matter what their thing is? Yes. They're going to have to die to certain things. Now, it is true. Everybody in here must avoid, if they desire to be a Christian, must avoid hatred. For some people, that's not a problem. They're just naturally very kind people. I'm glad those kind of people exist in the world. Then there's the other people for whom not hating either a particular group of people, a particular demographic class of people, a particular race of people, is for them, like, the hardest thing in the world to do. Calling's still the same. Following Jesus is going to be harder at some points for some people than others. But we are all in the process of change until the day that we die. So what you are doing when you're speaking with the homosexual, or anybody else, is you're actually calling them to pursue the same path that you are following. Right? However, what does that assume about you? Because you have a need and you're repenting. If you are not currently in the process of following Jesus and dying to self, then guess what? You are failing at being a Christian. And it is going to be extremely difficult for you to speak to other people about following Jesus when you're not following Jesus. So the encouragement is, you follow Jesus, and in following Jesus, then talk to other people. This week we're going to look at the issue of labels and identity. Per usual, our focus is on homosexuality, but in a very real sense, we're all taking a good long look at ourselves in the mirror. One of the greatest things about talking about a controversial or difficult topic like this is it gives us a really good opportunity to see both how we view that thing and how we view ourselves. We can talk a lot about change when we talk about the need for some group of people that we find it easy to talk about change with when we're actually looking at something like this, and then we can apply that to ourselves. Hopefully. It's not comfortable. Hopefully this talk about homosexuality has made you uncomfortable. That's my goal. It's to make you feel uncomfortable. Not about homosexuals, but about yourself. And I'm only going to continue to step up that game, particularly as we move forward and talk about how you and I should act as a church and as individuals. One of the things that you might have noticed if you have spent any time with the Bible is the fact that names have a very significant role to play. Not only that, but as we saw in the opening chapters of Genesis a long, long time ago, if you were here, the ability to name is the act of one who has authority. So, who's the first one who does the naming? God. That's right. God is the first one who names Adam. God is the one who has the right to name, the ultimate right to name. He will continue to name people like Abraham, Jacob who turns into Israel. There's all kinds of naming that God does, but God in those opening chapters of Genesis is not the only one that names. Who else does? Adam. What's the first thing that Adam names? By the way, I feel like someone's stabbing me in the back. I'm dying up here. What's the first thing that Adam names? The animals. That's right. Why does Adam name the animals? God told him to. And God told him to for a very specific purpose. That's right. God uses a passive technique to show Adam that the hippopotamus is not going to be his lover, or the giraffe, or whatever he's like. So, he's just seen all his animals pass before, but it appears that what's happening is that as he's looking and observing these animals, he's also seeing animals do what animals do to other animals of the opposite gender. Right? So, you just watch and he's like, huh, yeah, okay. And he's naming and then he seems to be dissatisfied with the fact that he doesn't have something like that, and then God makes for him that very thing that he sees in nature but doesn't have himself. And then, after Adam names the animals, who does he name? Eve. That's right. This naming will continue to go on and on. Everything at the beginning is awesome. Sin enters when there's a stab at name changing from somebody else. Go to the book of Genesis, chapter 3. Genesis, chapter 3. Well-known chapter. Verse 5. For God knows, we'll start up in verse 4, but the servant said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Here, what Satan is doing is tempting Eve to take another name for herself. You need to be like God. Right now, God is holding you down. Keeping the woman down. And that's a problem. You can be like God by just disobeying God, which is, of course, the root of every sin that you and I commit. God is an idiot. I know better than God. Watch this. So there's this attempt at, or an invitation to name change, making Eve see herself as less than and holding onto the promise of superhuman ability if she just would disobey. What's the result of this temptation that it is ultimately given into? Yeah, the fall for all humanity. Right. So the very first time that somebody's tempted to take a name for themselves, make a name for themselves, take on the name of God. I'm going to listen to Satan and do this. And what happens is, humanity enters into chaos and destruction, sin and death. It's what happens every single time you and I decide to do that. I said this when I was here preaching. I think if I were God, I would have just wiped everybody out. Right here? Like, okay, fine, you're done. I'm going to go to the antelopes and see if they can pull this off because clearly you human beings are useless. That's not what God does, though. What does God end up doing after humans fall into sin? He makes a promise to redeem them. Okay, he does make a promise to redeem them. In the midst of doing what? He covers them. Oh, yeah, that's all the nice part, though. He's doing all this in the midst of doing something. Cursing them. He's cursing them. That's right. So you're going to have pain and childbearing. You're going to be enmity with Satan. Hey, Satan, you're going to get your head crushed eventually. There's a little promise thing. Oh, and Adam, guess what? You're going to die. You're going to return to the dust because the dust you came from. And also you're going to sweat the rest of your life trying to live. There you go. You're welcome. Oh, and by the way, there's going to be tension between all men and women. Letting rebellion go is wrong, correct? It's something we all instinctually know to be true, whether we believe that when it comes to our rebellion or not. Usually we justify our own rebellion against God or other people. But we definitely look at your rebellion as wrong, especially if you're rebelling against me. Rebellion must be put down. And so God rightly does that. But he does not abandon humanity. And it's out of this massive humanity that we go and we have some things that are going on. We get humanity kind of flourishing outside of the garden. We have all kinds of crazy stuff happening. Very quickly, in the story of Genesis, you have humanity increasing in wickedness. People are dying. The wickedness is increasing. And God decides to wipe everyone out in the flood. He does that. Then after the flood, you have people that continue to try to make a name for themselves. This is the craziest part of the story. If you don't know the opening chapters of Genesis, you've never read it. After the flood, first of all, Noah, the one who was supposed to bring peace per Genesis 3.15, gets wasted and is drunk in a tent and as a result ends up cursing his grandson. Not exactly ideal. And then his sons end up having lots and lots of children. And those children are in this big group. And God says, Be fruitful, multiply and cover the earth. And they say, Screw that, we're going to build a city. They directly disobey God, build a city. And in that city, what do they end up building in that city? The Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel is not just a cool structure. The Tower of Babel is essentially them trying to storm the gates of heaven. We will get to heaven and we will bring God down. God does come down, doesn't he? He doesn't come down on the structure they thought he was going to come down on, though, he comes down next to it and looks at it and goes, Um, yeah, so I'm going to keep these people from destroying themselves, I'm going to change their languages and blow them out until they go over all the faces of the earth. And they do that. You go, cool. What's the next thing that happens, though, in the story? The story slows way down in chapter 12 as God again does something that we wouldn't expect. He calls out Abraham. Now, this Abraham, who in the beginning is named Abram, he's going to eventually get a new name, Abraham. Anybody know what Abraham means? You forgot, okay? It's Father of Many Nations. Now, this is laughable when it comes to Abraham because at the moment that he receives this title, Abraham is currently an old man married to an old woman who has no children and yet he is called Father of Many Nations or Many Peoples, right? And you're like, this is a joke. Abraham dies with how big of a nation? One child. That's it. He's got one child and the promised land that he's also promised, what's the only piece of the promised land he owns? A cave to bury his dead. That's it. And you go, man, what the heck is going on? But God is generally in the process of naming people this way. You and I don't end up knowing who we are until God tells us who we are. In today's culture, we kind of do the opposite, right? You and I have the right to name ourselves, to call ourselves, to label ourselves, whatever we want to be. In fact, we must do so because if not, somebody else might do it for us. So we must figure out who we are in this world. Would you say that on the whole, society, American culture, is comfortable with that? Or not? In fact, we all just kind of get to label ourselves whatever we want to be. Change the name? Yeah. That is what you hear in the media, right? I'm not, like, some big conspiracy theorist or something, I don't go there. What you read on the internet, this is kind of the news, this is if it bleeds, it leads, right? This is the kind of popular cultural narrative we have. However, if you've ever talked to more than four people, you will find out that people, while even possibly accepting of this, are not exactly comfortable with it. And it only takes about three seconds to figure this out. It goes a little something like this. Do people have the right to determine whatever they want to be? And what's the answer you will generally hear from the man on the street? Or the woman on the street? You can be anything you want to be. And you go, are you sure about that? And they would say, yeah, of course. And then you can say something like, oh, cool. So do you really think that adult men should be marrying six-year-old girls? And they'll say, of course not. Are you kidding me? But you said we could define ourselves however we want. And what you'll end up finding, I'm almost positive, is that in the vast majority of cases people are, in truth, uncomfortable with the way things are going because if everything is permissible, then what the heck is right? So while you have people go like, oh, I want to fit in, so I have to just buy into all of the things that are going on around us, I don't really know where the heck this is all leading and I'm kind of terrified of where this is going. We don't appreciate the idea that people just get to say whatever they want to say. And even if we do buy into that notion, you can go on any college campus, you'll find a whole bunch of unthinking young people who are totally into this idea that everybody can do anything they want until you talk to them about three seconds and they realize, oh, that's incredibly dumb. But they do understand it. They'll totally buy into it, the majority of them. Some people will continue to say, oh, I don't care, you can do whatever you want, as long as it's not against me or whatever. But we are, thankfully, uncomfortable with confusion and chaos. One of the biggest questions in the world is, what does it mean to be human? I remember a couple of years ago, we had a study on what is the church. At the beginning of that study, I said, does everybody know what the church is? Everybody was like, yeah, yeah, I was like, okay, good, give me a definition. And everybody just kind of sat there, and it's understandable because it's not exactly the easiest thing to define in the world. You're like, I kind of know what it is, but I just can't condense it down and put it into this tight little thing. Same thing when it goes to what does it mean to be human. What does it mean to be human? You were like, I mean, I'm human, you're human, we're just human. It's like whatever you are, like that, how about that, whatever you are. While we struggle, though, we do understand the importance of it. We seem to think, rightly, that it can't mean anything we want it to mean. But that still leaves a lot of questions. Can anything we want to be human, be human? No. And there does seem to be, in our quote-unquote advanced society, the blurring of the lines between what is human and what is not human. As a result of, and we looked at embryos for a long time, right? Are embryos human? You go, yeah, they are. Nobody denies that. Then you go, yeah, but what is it that makes it human? Is it only genetics, or is it potentiality? We saw all that kind of complicated stuff there. The more we learn, the more difficult what it means to be human becomes. Well, you have a machine that looks human and can learn and can express emotions, whether you understand those to be emotions or not. Is that then human? By the way, when our children are grown, and we're all old, right? And some of us are dead and gone, this is going to be the thing we deal with, right? Our machine is human. If things continue in the trajectory that they're going. They're already asking those kinds of questions. You and I don't have the same concept of naming as they did in the Old Testament, right? Anybody know, raise your hand if you know what your name means, supposedly. Of course, yeah, you made that up. Okay, good. Yes. Rational, that fits. Yes, Jake. Deceiver. Yep. Yep. Way to be, son. You and I don't put a lot of thought. I don't know if your parents did this. Maybe you did this for your children. I'm definitely not bagging on it. If you desire to do this, go for it. Some people put a lot of thought, not only into what they want their kids' names to be, but what they want their child to be. So they think, I'm going to give them the right kind of name. They read a verse in Proverbs about a name being of greater benefit than great gold or lots of silver. And they go, oh yeah, I've got to really pay attention to that name. Totally missing the point of that proverb, which that's not for today. But names are good things. But we don't typically have the same kind of idea about names as they did back in the ancient Near East. However, we do label people all the time, don't we? Give me some labels that either have been applied to you or that you've applied to yourself or that, you know, you think about other people. Just what are the labels that we put on people in society today? As basic or as complicated as you can get. And you don't have to tell me who the person is. Mom. Negro. Come on. It should not be that hard. Skid head. Dad. Drunk. Bum. I was expecting this to be like the wave of cacophony of sound coming my way. Y'all need to drink more coffee or something. Alright, good. That was really great. Huh? Student. Yeah. Fat. Smart. Idiot. Right. Slow. Anorexic special. Right. Retarded. Hero. Gay kid. Right. You and I hear these labels all the time. Correct? Where do we hear them? There you go. We hear them everywhere. Do we only hear them from other people? No. Who else do we hear them from? Our brains. Okay, good. So our brains. And our brains applying them to whom? Others. And ourselves. We can't even really stop from doing this. Right? Like if you really think about it, you probably give yourself labels at least what? 10, 20 times a day? I'm a genius. I'm an idiot. My goodness, I'm fat. I'm looking good. Right? By the way, that's all in one day. Right? And who knows how you wake up or go to bed. Right? The labels you get up with are rarely the labels you have on yourself when you go to bed. For some of us, it goes in a kind of steady trajectory every day. We either start well and end poorly or start poorly and end well. Some of us are just roller coasters the whole time. But labels are something that we apply to ourselves all the time. And when we look at other people, you can't help but just start labeling. Right? Right. It's what we do as human beings. And I don't think that it is inherently something wrong. Right? If somebody preaches a good sermon, you go, man, he's good at that. Okay, that's true or false. Right? So labels aren't inherently wrong, but we do it all the time. However, we often have a love-hate relationship with these labels that we either give other people or we take upon ourselves. A lot of times, though, we just are resigned to them. This is who I truly am. Right? Like your day can be wrecked by hearing somebody say something about you or hearing what somebody else said about you. Or your day can be made. Or your day can be wrecked by what you think about yourself. Or your day can be made by what you think about yourself. This guy, by the way, in just case you thought you in here this morning weren't particularly selfish, just focus on that fact for a minute. You can make yourself feel better or worse just by what you think about yourself when you think about you. Like that is the most selfish action on the face of the planet. We all do it. We're all insanely selfish. It's just some of us are more insanely selfish than others. Oftentimes, our perceptions, our self-worth and our sense of self comes from what we think about ourselves or what others think about us. Right? And if you disagree with that, just go back to what I said before about your day can be made or destroyed by what somebody says about you. Whether it's true or false. See, right? And the truth is that the falseness of it, according to you, is what makes the day or ruins the day. Some of us struggle with this more than others, but all of us struggle to find our self-worth in what others say about us. But, you see, in Jesus, you and I are renamed. Question, did Jesus take a name for himself? He took a lot of names for himself? He's given names, right. But did he try and set out to make a name for himself? No. Would you go further than that? Does he just, like, not take names for himself? Does he actively avoid taking names for himself? Good. Like when? Great. Yep. We've seen it. Mark, over and over again, he's telling demons to be quiet. So it would be very good for him, in a publicity-wise way, for him to take what the demons are saying about him. Good. Anything else? Great. Yep. Oh, yeah. Right. Yep. Multiple times they try and make him king. They force him to be king. When you have at the end of John, as we saw, when Pilate's like, are you the king? And he's like, look, man, you said it, but am I king of the man of this world? Over and over again, Jesus is seeking to avoid fame, prestige, and kingship, living humbly. Notice, in Philippians chapter 2, this plays off of this idea here. In Philippians chapter 2, some well-known verses, in verses 8 through 11, it says this. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. How is a name made for Jesus, according to this passage? By God, through the process of doing what? Dying, yes. And then the name that is put on Jesus is, big name, little name, big name, right? Like, over everything, it happens in the most humbling and weak action imaginable. By actively avoiding making a name for himself, a name is placed on him. This leads to something like Galatians chapter 3. Begin in verse 23. Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are also a guardian. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is therefore neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female, for you all are one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. Because of the work of Christ, what is now true of us? What is this? Okay, so we have put on Christ. Again, just think for a second, back to the Philippians thing, who is Jesus? Highly exalted above everything, right? That is what you have put on, that is where you now find your identity. And this group that has this identity stretches all the way back to whom? In the thought of Paul and Galatians. Abraham. Doesn't just start with you, right? Doesn't start with a bunch of hippies on a beach in the 1970s in California. The people of God go all the way back to who God calls out in Abraham, beginning in Abraham. Okay. Because of the work of Christ, you and I become sons and daughters. Notice, without distinction of social class, without distinction of gender, without distinction of culture. Paul's point here. This leads to the last passage I want to look at, which is in Colossians. Colossians chapter 1, verses 11 through 14. Morgan preached on this a few weeks ago. May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy. Giving thanks to God the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in life. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. God brings us into the kingdom of Christ. A kingdom of redemption and forgiveness. Now, it probably doesn't take you too long to just think about how this should radically reorient everything that either you believe about yourself or others believe about you. What does it matter what other people say if this is true? And if this is true, then we are truly different than anything anybody could ever tell us that we are. Oftentimes, we struggle with who we are as Christians simply because we only hear what others say about us or invent what others might be thinking about us or hear only what we say about ourselves. You ever do that, by the way? I'm not going to ask for a show of hands because that would be embarrassing for all of us, but, like, you ever catch yourself thinking about, like, what you think other people think about you? That'll make you go crazy real quick. I know he said this, or I know she's thinking this. And you kind of think about it for three seconds, and you're like, this is what crazy people do. Like, I think I might be insane. And you find where, like, you just get stuck in it, like, you can't even get out. It's a real problem. How does it go for us when we're fixated on what we think about ourselves and what other people think about us? Let's just have a little time in honesty. How does that go for you? Poorly. That's right. Do you ever find yourself, at the end of the day, like, focusing on what other people think about you, and you're like, this is great. I'm so happy I'm doing this right now. It's a good use of my time. It's like the only time during the day when railing, like, four hours of Netflix looks appropriate is when you find yourself, like, it's the only, because, you know, not to bash on anybody that does that. Congratulations. But, like, the only time where it's like, that would be a better use of my time is when you're sitting there looking in the mirror going, like, I hate you. Everybody else hates you. You know? Like, really? Come on, Spongebob is looking good right now. You know, this is ridiculous. We find ourselves doing it all the time. I've mentioned before that I am addicted. And I do mean addicted to productivity and learning. That might sound like a joke when it's compared to somebody who has, for example, same-sex attraction. Right? Like, oh, you have struggles with productivity? You know, I struggle with my sexual identity. Okay, that might sound like a joke, but first, my temptation to find my worth in my productivity is just as high. Just as high. Second, the discouragement that comes from failure is just as powerful. Oh, and by the way, in similar ways, oftentimes people who struggle with same-sex attraction feel like they can only fail because if they're ever sexually attracted to somebody, it's going to be somebody of the opposite gender. Or the same gender. And they're thinking in their minds it should be somebody of the opposite gender. Now, if you are sexually attracted to somebody of the opposite gender, did you win today? No. That's right. Thank you. Yes, no, you did not win today. You fell into sexual temptation. Doesn't matter the parts that the person has. Sexual temptation is the problem. But, oftentimes, people with same-sex attraction go, I can't do anything but fail. I feel the same way with productivity. You want to know why? Because I, just like you, only have 24 hours in a day. Which means that I will fail every single day because I have way more than I need to get done, at least I'm convinced I need to get done, than I have time in a day. I can't win. And on top of that, the fact that I'm a pastor, which means my productivity isn't only like building birdhouses or something, it's spiritual formation. That never goes as well as it's supposed to, ever. Therefore, I can't ever win. This leads to the third problem, it's dehumanizing in many ways. Both for the person who's same-sex attracted, and for me. I can't stop. Well, I have real trouble stopping. I have to force myself to enjoy vacations. I thank God for my wife, deeply, I thank God for my wife, deeply, because she kind of understands where this is coming from. But, like, can you imagine how absurd it would be? For, like, me, to be on vacation, and be like, oh, I really need to get something done right now. Right? And I have to force myself to enjoy myself. It is a joke. But it is real. Lastly, mine, as opposed to homosexuals, this is gaining, the idea of same-sex attraction is gaining popularity in our culture, mine is incredibly socially acceptable. My addiction is what made America great. Right? Self-starting, you go there and make something of yourself, people like me get put on the front of Time Magazine. There is a major distinction between the person who has same-sex attraction and myself. My problem is a good thing made an ultimate thing. Same as the homosexual. However, in my case, I just need to temper that down. Is being productive inherently a sin? No. Because slothfulness is also a sin. Do I need to temper my productivity? Do I need to tell the person with same-sex attraction they need to temper their homosexual behavior? Just don't practice that too often? No. That is not what I tell them. The person battling same-sex attraction needs to do the hard task of meditating on the gospel and seeing their worth in Jesus and not pursue same-sex attraction in any way, shape or form. Now you and I are going to talk over the next couple of weeks about how the heck that works. Because that is actually going to demand something from you and from me if we're going to say that out loud. And believe me, we have to say it out loud. It is going to demand things of you like this. You must not be afraid of deep emotional relationships with people of the same gender. Some of you are like, uh-oh, what is this? You mean I should be friends with gay people? We have people here who either one day or who are currently here and have the courage to come out about it and actually confess their sin to one another in order that we might pray for them. There is the very big tendency of you saying, okay, I am not going to hang around that person anymore. Why? I don't want people to think I am gay. There is a big one. Why else? That's right. Or you don't want them to kind of come on to you, right? I don't want to be around a gay person. They might get all over me. Which is like, first of all, thinking way highly of yourself, right? Like some gay person is going to be attracted to you, right? Your spouse is very attracted to you, right? So, like, you ain't that great. You are not God's gift to humanity. I am going to save that one for a couple of weeks from now. But, you and I have to realize that when we tell people of this new label they have in Jesus, and we are talking specifically about, this goes back to the beginning, right? What do homosexuals need more than anything? Jesus. We are now saying, how do we deal with same-sex attraction in the church? What we are saying is these labels that you put on yourself, these labels that come from the outside, right? This is who you are. This comes as a result of all kinds of things. Like, well, I just am only attracted to men, right? I've never had a legitimate relationship with women, right? You go, okay, I totally understand that. I've never been attracted to women. Okay, cool. Like, I get that. We are going to talk about how to deal with that stuff in relationships moving forward. But, these labels simply do not define us. This is a practical point we learned back in kindergarten, isn't it? Just because you feel like doing something doesn't mean you should do something. Right? Yeah, talk to the teacher in the room. That is not appropriate. You don't let your kids do that. You should not let your fellow church members do that. Particular sins for us may go way back. All the way back. I was born this way. I am convinced that there are those who have never been, at any point, attracted to people of the opposite gender. Ever. I know some of them. Met some of them. And they are not arguing that they should be. I am talking about celibate. We are going to talk about that next week. Same-sex attracted pastors. It's the way I've always been. I don't know why. It's just my deal. But, just because we've had a proclivity from birth doesn't mean that it's okay. And, in case you need an example of that, you all have had the proclivity from birth to do what? In a very broad sense. Sin. That's right. Now, those of you who don't believe that have just never had children before. You'll see. You'll see it quick. That does not mean that your sin is okay just because you felt like doing that from a very young age. This is true even of the person who is wrestling with homosexuality, or anger, or productivity. Every week, this gets back to all of us, same-sex attracted or not. The question for us is, are we excusing sin in our own lives as a result of these labels that we put upon ourselves that other people put upon us? Are you and I buying into the lies that we tell ourselves? Are we putting labels on other people, expecting them to live in particular ways? Lastly, the question is, are you and I finding our identity in Jesus? Are we resting in that truest truth of them all? Because if we are, then we will have powerful means by which we can take the believer who's struggling and say, look, come with me as I find my identity in Jesus. But if you're not, if you're just pointing and be like, you should go find your identity in Jesus. Like, I'm not doing that. They're going to have every reason in the world to be like, what? You're not doing that. The heck is it? Why should you do it because I'm gay? We all need to continue to remind ourselves of what we are in Christ in order that we can find our identity in him. Let's pray. God, it is so difficult to believe what you say about us because we hear so loudly the voices in our own heads, the voices of others that tell us what we should be and why we are the way we are. And I do pray that we ourselves would not buy into the lies. But that we would constantly focus on what we are in Jesus and that we would then help others to do the same. We thank you that we are not what we once were, though we have a long way to go. We thank you that in Christ we are new creations. We pray that that identity of putting on Christ, who did not seek a name for himself, for us to also avoid the real temptation to seek a name for ourselves and to identify ourselves as however we want. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.