Jackie Hill Perry at RockPointe Church

would it be weird if i kept my mask on would that that would be strange oh i haven't been on the stage in ages this is awkward um how are you y'all lights on i mean some of y'all likes what no no maxine i'm actually cause i genuinely want to know i was talking to a friend of mine uh her name is jamie ivey she lives in austin and she was telling me how she was flushing her toilet with snow water and so i just got real concerned for texas i was like y'all are living like colonists out here um but my name is jackie uh as she said i am from st louis originally i live in atlanta uh with my husband preston of seven years we celebrate our anniversary march 1st so that's going to be great because we get to go outside of our home to do it that'd be great we have three children our oldest is eden she's sixth our middle middle child is autumn she's two our youngest is i forget sage she is four months that's why i forgot uh i'm not getting the lick of sleep um but i i this night feels i don't know if it feels unique only because i haven't been in a church recently because of the pandemic and all those things um or if it just feels unique because i think one of the things that uh being away from traveling and speaking all what it does is i think it makes simple things much more um important and so this night feels important to me i think it's significant that god has given us the privilege of being able to meet together as christians and to be able to listen to god uh that's a privilege um that god the transcended one would be able to speak with us that's really important and so for that reason i want us to pray is that okay all right father thank you that you have been so kind to communicate to us thank you for giving us the scriptures so we know who you are you know what you think we know what you want us to believe we're not left without guidance we're not left without wisdom we really don't have to figure things out on our own and so i pray god that tonight you would be honored i pray god that you would be heard i pray that you would speak i pray that your spirit would do what you said he would do which is to glorify jesus i pray god that you would convict us of sin and that you would challenge us towards righteousness but i pray that at the end of the day that we would all leave with hope satan doesn't like hope and so i pray god that you would give us that in jesus name amen where do i even start my god can i just talk is that all right i ain't got no pulpit or no notes i'ma just i'ma just talk i promise it's gonna be as succinct as i can make it i understand uh that it's a lot of light skin saying to the room but i come i come from a context called black church and so when i ask you a question i really do want you to answer it um it's not rhetorical at all i mean i just want you to say something you can point you know put your foot up anything bounce your shoulders something uh man and i got lasik so my eyes are blurry i can't see 20 20 quite yet so i just need your help is that all right praise god from whom all blessings flow um my story i think is best if it starts with the story that begins all of ours which is genesis 1 2 and 3. um genesis 1 it says that in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth i've always found it very interesting that the bible the scriptures the way in which we understand who god is the the thing that we read to see uh god's self-revelation that the first thing that it wants to tell us about god is not that he's lord not that he's king not that he's omnipotent not that he's omniscient all of those things are good and true and doctrinal and orthodox but the thing that the scriptures tell us about god immediately is that he's creator in the beginning god created and i think that's important because for god to be the creator of everything it already establishes the precedent that everything that god creates then is automatically subject to him so before we even begin the conversation on sexuality we have to start with god himself um i think many of us we tend to want to start with the uh sex without starting with the creator of it let's get a framework and a fundamental understanding of who he is so then when we talk about that created thing we have some context for why we should treat it as he told us we should does that make sense uh in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth for god to be the creator of all things it already tells us that he must be omniscient he must be lord he must be king because he's ruler over all things that have ever been made god ends up making a man his name is adam by the way not eric and i thought that was funny uh he makes adam from the dust and then he breathes into his lungs and he he calls him a living being and then out of his rib uh he makes a woman named eve i've always found it interesting that you know the rib ain't had no sauce nothing it was just dry rub i don't know i'm not a fan of dry rub i like i like barbecue sauce on my ribs so he makes eve and gives her to the man and one of the the interesting things i think about before eve's creation is that god says that the man is not good for him to be alone when you read genesis 1 and 2 one of the things that you'll pay attention to is that god calls a lot of things good he looked at that and it was good he looked at this and it was good he looked at that and it was good and when you look at the hebrew it's saying that god judged it good that god didn't just see it and you know arbitrarily called it good he judged it as a good thing which is a caveat as to the things that we call good should be in alignment with what god calls good but that's another conversation for another day the thing is he says that it's not good for the man to be alone so god in his wisdom and in his sovereignty he doesn't ask adam what would make this not good situation good he doesn't ask adam for his advice even though he has dominion he doesn't ask adam for his opinion even though he has authority he he makes the i like you come on here i'm bringing you with me sir put you in my my left shoe um because my pocket it just felt weird to say that so i said shoot anywho he says it is not good for the man to be alone so god makes an executive decision by making the woman for to to remedy this situation god makes eve to be a compliment to adam she is like him yet distinct from him which shows that there is some beauty in diversity that that was a part of god's original design that the man should have something unlike him yet different from him so then even when you get into the conversation about homosexuality you can kind of start to see some glimpses about why it's a perversion and by perversion i don't mean that in a negative six i mean i mean different from an ordinary in the sense that different from the way god designed it uh so he makes adam he makes eve and everything is fine and everything is good and well then he tells them hey be one flesh do your thing name these animals have babies all that and then the serpent shows up uh he's a ruler thing because he shows up he doesn't introduce himself he doesn't ask e for her name he just immediately starts asking the question you ever have somebody come in your house and start asking you questions you ain't even say hi you ain't even take your shoes off and put it on the little mat you know walked in here and got covered all on the bottom of your soles all in my house i didn't know i was a comedian until tonight he says did god really say you shall not eat from the fruit of that tree context in genesis 2 god commanded adam hey eat from every fruit tree eat from everything in the garden but from this tree you cannot eat it god gave a law god gave a command but he gave them liberty first you can eat from everything you can have everything except this one thing so for eve to know the command means adam must have communicated it to his wife it's ironic then that satan would not address adam but eve satan comes to eve with a question did god really say that man shall not or that you cannot eat from this fruit or whatever and eve is like huh well he he didn't he said that we can't eat from the fruit of the tree and we can't touch it she's saying stuff god never said god never said you couldn't touch the thingy which tells me you're already unclear about the word of god anyway the interesting thing is as she starts to talk to satan it's less about satan's question and more about the motive he wants her to question the word of god because if she questions the word of god then she ends up questioning god himself she looks at the tree as she's having this conversation with herself and she sees nothing but good qualities in the thing that god said would kill her she looks at the tree and it seems good everybody say good good who was using that word before she looks at the tree and says that it's good for food a delight to the eyes and desired to make one wise she had an affection for something god told her that she could not have enter my story i'm born into a lineage of people who are prone to trust their affections over the word of god when i was born into the world the bible says that i was born in sin and shaped in iniquity so i was already born with a disposition that needed to be fixed uh my mother uh raised me she was a great mother uh a mean mama sometimes you know one of the mamas that don't explain why you're in trouble you should just curse you out what did i do just do what i said dude i did you didn't explain mama i'm just i'm just asking i'm an enneagram three i need you to explain to me i need some conversation here my dad was very inconsistent he was in my life when he wanted to be would show up then leave show up then leave and i think that definitely gave me a negative view of men because i never was able to observe um just care love nurture um even the lack of loving touch from a man was lacking the first time a man touched me was through sexual abuse um i think that really does a doozy on a young girl's mind when the first introduction she has to a man is through oppression through objectification growing up i started to notice around kindergarten first grade one of those years before i knew how to spell my name that i felt a same-sex attraction to the little girls on the playground and i didn't know what it was called i didn't know what to do with it this was early 90s so it isn't like i have you know all of the language that we have available to us today for me to take hold of and identify myself with it was simply something that i had in and of myself that i didn't know what to to do until i went to church is when i found the name and in church is when i was told that the phrasing of what i was feeling was called homosexuality and my issue wasn't with the title my issue wasn't even with the condemnation my issue was the way in which it was presented from the stage and the way the people in the pews kind of had this mob mentality towards those who would be considered homosexual which to me said oh christians don't like these kinds of people and if christians don't like these kinds of people christians don't like me so if christians don't like me how could i ever have the freedom to confess the way we talk about people matters because we want to create room for safety we want to create a space where people feel the freedom to bring what is in the dark into the light with us but i didn't have that so i kept it a secret for a really long time high school came uh i was doing me uh you know smoking a bunch of weed stealing clothes i used to steal clothes to have money to smoke weed i thought it was efficient you know you're like it's like a sinful stewardship kind of thing i just was a terrible person um and i went to church with my aunt merle my aunt merle if you follow me you've heard me mention my armor before she is one of the savedest that grandma intended she is one of the safest women i have ever known in my life to the fact i have never seen her knees every piece of wardrobe she has is a dress that goes right to her pinky toe it's tuesday evening and you still got a dress on on merle but what on merle showed me is that christians are different than the world i used to observe her life and it used to be so interesting how she did not respond in the same way everybody else responded how she she seemed to love god and delight in god in a way that seemed foreign to me and her example is actually what carried me into i guess god's uh use of other people and trying to convert me because i always remembered how he or how he changed her i thought about her when i thought about christians does that encourage somebody that you're an example for somebody or what it means to be like jesus high school's here i'm just out here doing me and i made the decision you know what it's it seems harder to be heterosexual than it would be to just be myself and so i made the decision to just you know be gay um and so i got on my space and i hit up this because y'all remember that you it even felt weird saying it myspace what is that archaic uh it was a social media platform by the way uh there was a guy named tom and he would always be in your top ten i'm sure he's working for facebook somewhere anywho i got on my space and i had a conversation with this young one young lady and we entered into a relationship that lasted about two weeks gay or straight you know when you're a teenager you don't know what you want and so uh we were together and then i got into another relationship with another young lady and we were together for two years and that relationship is when i transitioned into what in the black lesbian gay community is lesbian gay the black gay community is called a stud a stud is the woman who um kinda presents a hyper-masculine self and so you know i sagged my pants i wore boxers uh i wore oversized shirts i used to wear sports bras to flatten my chest my voice is already a little heavy so i had that unlocked um i would put my i would i would put my hair in the ponytail all these things and i think what's what's helpful for people to understand is that i do think that some of the gender identity issues uh within our world today are a consequence of our failure to communicate what real femininity and masculinity is and let me explain um growing up i was never the typical girl i didn't like pink still don't uh didn't wear purses still don't just do much baggage i got pockets um you know i didn't use extra s's when i talked all the things no that's what they say girls do right i didn't do all the things that they said women do and so what they called me was tom boy what they said was you're acting like a boy so then i start to think that my kind of femininity is not femininity at all i must actually be what you're saying that i am and we do the same thing to boys he cries and we say you're acting like a girl winning he's actually acting like an image bearer he's acting like a human and so why else do you expect or how else would you expect people to believe themselves to be if we have imposed these kinds of social constructs about gender identity that aren't even in the bible i think what would help our society is if we get a thorough theology of what it means to be a woman and not a theology of what it means to be a woman that describes women as people that cook or women as people with soft voices are women as people that wear dresses these that's why you when you see those who will become to begin to transition into a trans sense of self they will always become a hyper masculine or hyper feminine view of what they believe a woman is so if i have bigger breasts if i wear a dress if i wear long hair i am now a woman because i become what you told me women were so for me i was confused and so i put on these clothes because it felt like the most natural thing to do it felt like that was the way for me to truly be me it felt like that was natural in a sense but the weird thing is that god never let me enjoy it like i had a kind of happiness because sin is enjoyable but sin is not ultimately satisfying and so i think god was kind and gracious in a way that he never allowed me to escape my convictions um came to a point where it seemed like he wouldn't leave me alone anybody y'all ever it's like lord stop talking i just want to sin sheesh i know you died for it but gosh um i just couldn't i just couldn't shake them and i had this immense awareness of my distance between me and god and i really do think that that's the fruit of sunday school i'm not kidding you because i didn't know nothing about repentance or atonement or uh propitiation and all those things but i knew john 3 16 and i knew that jesus died for sinners and that small truth alone is the one truth that convicted me before i came to jesus and don't clap yet i ain't saved in this part um so i called my cousin keisha because she was the one christian that i knew that wouldn't immediately pull out leviticus 18 on the phone uh there's a lot of christians like that they don't know how to engage human to human they don't know how to engage human to human keisha i knew i would i could call her and she'd ask me about my day i knew i could call her and she'd ask me how i am i knew i could call her and just be that's not to say that she shouldn't bring out the truth but it did mean that i felt like her her aim with me wasn't to fix me but to love me and i think people sense that they sense when you're just trying to fulfill a christian duty rather than seeing them as a person because my identity was not primarily wrapped in my sexuality and that's why i think one of the problems i've seen and i've addressed it when i had conversation at college is campuses and they say hey jackie uh i have a gay friend and i need some advice what's their name huh what's their name eric why did you introduce them as your gay friend it tells me that's how you see them what do they like who are their parents where are they from what music do they listen to there's so much more to a person than who they have affections for and keisha she did that with me so she was the first person i called when i felt like god was getting on my nerves and i said keisha i feel like god wants me to know him but i don't want to know him i'm really enjoying myself like i don't want to be a christian because i thought christians were really boring people i just thought they could you know they go to church and they wear real long dresses and they they don't listen to secular music or beyonce or nobody they just they don't do nothing and uh she told me something really confusing she said you know what i pray for you because when you told me that you were gay i thought i did something wrong i thought i didn't tell you and for context keisha was about 20 years older than me um i thought i didn't give you the gospel enough i thought i didn't talk to you about jesus enough i thought i didn't give you enough bible she put all of the blame of my depravity on her works and she said she gave it to god and god said you know what i love jackie more than you do give her to me and what that did was it freed her from feeling like she had to make me be converted it put me in the position of god's hands where she could relax and i could be his and so she told me you know what i'm not worried about you god has you i didn't know what that meant i said what does that mean is it mean you're gonna kill me does it mean i don't i don't my understanding is dark according to ephesians i don't i don't know what that means and so i just took our word for it um about a couple months later i was in my room i'm 19 years old this is october 2008 and i'm watching mtv doing something very unspiritual and i felt is like making a band or something and the band was never made that's the interesting thing um i felt this uh strong conviction that was also connected to a thought and the thought was she will be the death of you i'm like whoa i wouldn't tell myself that i know the devil show ain't gonna convict me because he want me to stay here is this the lord speaking to me so i started to have this conversation with god and i tell the lord i don't want to be straight because i thought that coming to jesus was synonymous with heterosexuality because no one ever taught me that coming to jesus was actually synonymous with holiness they made it seem as if to be a christian was to be straight as if straightness was also morally pure i'll explain if i were to come to jesus to be straight i would not be coming to jesus for jesus i would be coming to jesus for an idol if i did not come to jesus for jesus i would not be coming to jesus for jesus and so many of us preach this kind of gospel this gospel hey come to god so you can get married hey come to god so you can have kids hey come to god so people won't talk about you being gay anymore that's not the gospel it's a prosperity gospel because i'll say it again it's a prosperity gospel because you want to promise people an easy christian experience that has all the trappings the marriage the kids all these things but how dare i offer up marriage as the goal in the aim of the gospel when marriage itself isn't even eternal but god is the marriage between the church and the lamb is and so gospel presentations must be come to god for god and when you come you will still struggle but when you come he will help you i don't have that framework yet so that's why my initial pushback to the call of god was a pushback because i thought he was calling me to be straight when he was actually calling me to himself so i said god i don't i don't want to be straight and i really sense the spirit of god saying just come to me and we'll work all that out i'm paraphrasing because i don't think god will say all that out but you know he might have he's a god that contextualizes and condescends for us and things um then i had another question to god i said i don't know how i can do this without you i tried to be holy i've tried to be pure i said the sinner's prayer on the back about 14 books about three times and it never worked and that's because i thought that i could convert myself that saying these words would make me born again that i could be my own that i could raise myself from the dead i tried to be a christian apart from faith in jesus righteousness and so i told god i think i think my hands were so empty and my options were so few that i didn't have any choice but to believe that he had to do it and so i said i i can't i can't do it but i have to trust you enough to believe that you can i did not know that what happened in that moment was repentance and faith it was repentance because i figured that if jesus was offering himself as the alternative to all my sin that he must have been the better alternative or the best alternative to everything that i love before him that's repentance because it's concluding and making a decision about my life that this is utterly worthless in my repentance then i turned i didn't turn 360 i turned 180 because it was 360 i'm turning in on myself i'm turning to legalism i'm turning the works i'm turning all these duties to try to earn my salvation but instead i turn to jesus in faith saying if you are who you said you are you will do what you said you will do which is save people like me for god so loved the world that whoever whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life in that moment the lord himself saved my soul i didn't even know it until i went to work the next day i used to work at wendy's i used to wear you know sour cream and chopped potatoes and uh chilis and frosties i'll give you the recipe if i had it i was at i was at work and i was behind the cash register and this young lady walked in and she was really pretty and i wanted to lust after her i wanted to behave in the ways that i typically did but for the first time in my life i was aware of god and it wasn't like before i didn't know god could see everything it was just that now this time i cared so conversion didn't remove temptation conversion imputed reverence cared about what god saw and i asked god for help i said lord because i ain't no no hymns no scriptures no nothing i said lord help me that's beautiful because i was engaging with the high priest before i knew that was even his name i was going to his throne of grace for help in my time of need before i even read hebrews and he helped me he helped me by helping me endure then eventually moving the story along i started to do poetry and i did this poem called my life is a stud and that night i meet this guy named preston and my poem is about my story about being a lesbian at some point his testimony is about him being a man that slept with everything that could breathe and had lip gloss and so we just became friends you know got a lot of baggage in our closets and we like to talk about it on stages apparently and uh i had no intention of being in a relationship with a man because i thought that i was of the sort that was called the celibacy you know um i just i just didn't i just i just wasn't there i just wanted to love jesus and that be that um but over the course of three years my life and my affection started to change towards him and it was weird because i thought i was thirsty i thought thirsty let me explain i thought i was making an idol out of him or something like i you know when you're in the world you just always got somebody to text i always got somebody you know cake with and do all these things and i'm just like i'm just lonely you know i've been killing the flesh so long i don't know what to do i just want somebody to roll my arm and i told the woman that was discipling me uh which is really important too i told her i said i i i think i'm starting to like president and i don't know if this is the devil trying to keep me from my purpose or the lord trying to do a new thing and she she did what good disciples do which disciples do which she said pray about it offered no real help at all pray about it all right and so i prayed about it for a year and i kept giving it to the lord and my affections kept increasing for him and it was the strangest thing in the world and i eventually told god i said god i don't know what your uh will is for being preston but if it's your will for us to be together then put it on his heart to pursue me but if it's your will that is a word for somebody uh but if it is if it is your will for us to be friends then give me the self-control to treat him like a brother and not like a crush two weeks later this man calls me on the phone nervous as a mug and preston is from the hood black boys from the hood only get nervous when the police is around they don't get nervous for no other reason so i'm like i don't know what didn't happen is he moving is i don't know is this rent knob dude and so um he said jackie i feel like god wants me to pursue you but i don't even know if you like me because i have an amazing poker face hello play me in spades any day you ain't gonna know how many books i got um i don't even know if you like me do you like me and i said i do like you and that started the beginning of one of the hardest relationships that i've ever been in in my entire life because my relationship with preston unearthed trauma singleness allowed me to conceal it forced out of me all these fears and all these things and all these wounds that i had to deal with but the interesting thing is that eventually when we got married it was funny how that somehow validated my testimony to people where when i got married it was now she's safe and she's really christian as if when i repented and believed in the lord jesus and started to bear the fruits of the spirit that that was not the evidence of my salvation it was again people exalting and esteeming my marriage with a person over my marriage with god preston did not make me saved preston is not my deliverance preston is an extension of god's good gifts towards me he is simply the means by which god specifically wants me to honor him but that does not mean that if some god calls someone out of a life of same sexuality that if they are single it does not make them any less useful and glorifying to god if anything we got a lot to learn from them because we all going to be single in heaven closing sanctification is hard and i think one of the things that i had to learn is that god really is stronger than everything that i'm tempted to leave him for because i think the world and the church sometimes does not give us a role but a robust i guess framework for not only the beauty but the power of god that in coming to jesus it isn't that i won't struggle it isn't that i won't be tempted it's now that i've been given a power over sin that i did not once have is that in my deliverance i am no longer a slave to my flesh but i am a slave to righteousness and i really do think that that's what the world needs to hear and see because perhaps our gospel presentations are not being believed because they don't see it in how we live if they don't see power in us when we say it it has nowhere to land and i think that's that's a really helpful thing for us to have so how do i close i think i want to close with something more egalitarian and saying not like complimentary in egyptian like the other use of the word which is everything anyway um whether a person is gay or straight everybody was made for god all things were made through and for him the problem is all of us like me like cain like abel like joseph like moses like joshua like david like solomon like samuel like isaiah like elijah like amos like peter like paul like pilate like bartholomew like solomon all of us are born not seeing god as the highest glory that there is we are all born satisfied with created things as our god instead we are all born wanting and delighting in broken cisterns that can't even hold water we are all born assuming that we can be made whole by things that aren't even whole in and of themselves we are born broken we are born distant i get it some of you grew up in christian homes but you are not christian just because you grew up in christian homes you are only christian when god the father or when jesus reconciles you back to the father through your faith in him that is what makes you christian not your location because of that because of our distance there is wrath god is holy therefore god is just god must judge sinners because god is good god does hate sin he does not delight in sin he does not take pleasure in sin and i think we should rejoice in that more because in a world in a society where injustice abounds we should delight in the fact that there is a god that will never look overlooked or wrongdoing that there is a god that sees sin and sees wickedness and he will never acquit it unless it's put under the cross we all deserve it but god in his love and in his grace sent jesus jesus is god in the flesh he came and he lived a life that we cannot live he never looked at a tree and thought it was good for food he never looked at a tree and thought it was a delight to the eyes he never looked at a tree and had an affection for a thing god told him not to have he loved his god his entire life even when satan came and looked for trying to tempt jesus to turn stones into bread jesus was fully satisfied in the word of his god to the point that he was willing to go hungry because he knew that bodily satisfaction is not what he needed to live but only god himself jesus is our model for righteousness and this jesus went to the cross on the cross our sins were laid on him our lying our ego our pride our arrogance our self-righteousness our racism our abuse our all the things that we want to talk about and don't want to talk about were laid on the lord jesus and then what was laid on him was god's wrath so that god would be the just and justifier of all those who placed their faith in the lord jesus but not only that jesus died and went to the grave if he stayed there me being up here and talking and possibly getting cold it would be a waste of time we would have no hope if he was still in the grave but it's because he rose from the grave defeating sin and death that i can then say if you believe on jesus you can do the same if you trust in jesus you can do the same you can have life over all the things that you may be enslaved to you might be thinking i'm good i read my bible i pray i even got a couple podcasts i give to compassion international every month many will say lord lord yes did not do all these good things in your name and he will say i never knew you so my plea isn't even for the one that same sex attracted my plea is for the person that is content without repentance my plea is for the person that is so satisfied with where they are with god that they don't even try to search they don't even try to seek there is no hunger for righteousness there is no thirst for holiness there is a complacency within the bible belt that i think is problematic and maybe i'm going on this tangent because the lord wants to remind you that he is worthy of your he has more to give you he has more to offer you you can have joy in jesus you can be happy in jesus and promise you you will have less burdens because of it come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and i will give you rest drunkenness sometimes is a is a fruit of your restlessness your anxiety is a fruit of your restlessness your pornography dick addiction is a fruit of your restlessness your adultery is a fruit of your restlessness put that on jesus and i promise he'll for you sorry for going where you didn't think i would go but i hope it encouraged you because i think god is real and i think god is faithful and i think god is worthy and i think god is true and all that he says applies to us today and forever more my story is not unique i just come in the lineage of all christians who have been reconciled to the father through the works of jesus christ and i just want us all to share in that same thing amen let me pray that was a little awkward god but it was good i pray for your spirit that he would do what he does that he would set people free that he would raise folks from the dead that he would renew minds that he would unveil eyes that people would experience power that people would experience fulfillment in you i pray for a thirst for your scriptures that there will be a hunger for the word of god i pray for a clarity in the scriptures that when spiritual warfare is keeping people from understanding keeping people from enduring in the scriptures god that you would give them the power to endure it to keep pressing until they see what you said god i pray for hearing that people would be able to hear you again god i pray for trust that people will trust you again i pray for freedom that people would feel the liberty that the spirit gives all those who walk in him god help us to love you above all things help us to love you and our neighbor help us to not be satisfied with little things that satisfy little god help us want more of you including myself we need you jesus we need you every day i pray all these things in jesus name amen

Channel: RockPointe Church

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Id: 4bt7pFqLZjM

Length: 44min 10sec (2650 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 15 2021