Panel Discussion: Kevin DeYoung, Justin Taylor, Jackie Hill Perry, and Josh Moody

<i></i> Speaker 1: Just want to thank you all for coming again. Josh Moody on my far left and Jackie Hill Perry. Speaker 2: And you already know Kevin Young Josh maybe will start with you. I read something earlier today from a pastor in England who struggles himself with exclusively same sex attraction but is walking with the Lord. Committed to lifelong celibacy and he said that that what he has heard through a lot of his life is just say no. Just say no to all of your sexual urges sexual desires. And on the other side the revisionists are telling him just say yes but he's saying that sort of polarity is is unable to call and that there's a different way. Mm hmm. Does that make sense to you and in what ways perhaps has the conservative church sinned. Speaker 1: If that's not too strong a word by giving a Just Say No ethic it does make sense to me that question you mentioned to me we were just the back earlier and I think Kevin touched on Romans chapter 1 and then as you close talked about the way in which you know we're all sinners we all need to repent verse things I'm working through Rose. Right now we got to Romans five after about ten years or so. And. Speaker 2: And it was really helpful for me going through rose chapter one and then getting to chapter two how he's laying the groundwork he's he's criticizing all the kind of things the Jewish people the time were criticizing the pagans for. Speaker 1: You guys are doing all these kind of things and they were Vienna and then he comes Chapter two he says and by the way you who are so religious you also are without excuse and I think that whole framework helps with the you know. How do you put it. People saying you know don't do it and other people saying do do it and I'm caught between other words you need somehow I think pastorally doctrinally and in a world view I think apologetically for those outside the church to humble everyone and until we are all humbled by the vision of who God is and the contrast of who we are then it's hard to get out of that polarity No. No. Yes. But once once you really learn you realize who you really are. Then you begin to move forward as a sort of faithful. I think that's the first of the things I could say but another one. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Can I just jump in and this is no new insight to me I'm just stealing. John Piper as I like to do because that's the first time you say it has done Piper said and then the next time is as one man once said and the third time is as I always say. Speaker 1: As I always say you need to fight the promises of sin with the promises of joy. So the texts that I've come back to so often been helpful for me in sexual temptation or desire is is Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God and I remember very vividly won't paint the whole. Picture but seeing out of the corner my eye. Speaker 2: Person dressed in a way that was not helpful for me to turn my head look and it was this verse that because because you think what how my heart was just say no hose is really gonna hurt me when the glance and here's here's a young woman and how is this really gonna do any damage to me you know five seconds fleeting whatever and I just thought of. Speaker 1: Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God and so I wrestled to believe that seeing God will be better than than seeing this out of the corner of my eye that there's a greater joy. It's not just saying no I'm not going to do then it's going to grit my teeth and bear it. But that there is a better joy that God wants to give us. And it's not only a joy that will be eternal so the joy lasts longer but it is a joy that even in this life will be better not without cost not without cross but that we believe God's promises and take him at his word such that we can accept. That too. You know as a married man for example to not glance over there and have five seconds of a fleeting pleasure of sin is going to provide more joy for me with my wife in the long run it's going to prevent me from falling in the sort of places I should fall. Speaker 2: God is after my joy. He's after our satisfaction in him. I think that's sort of what the the pastor is getting at the explosive power of a new affection that we need to be telling people with any manner of temptation or sin struggling. Don't just say no but say yes to something better. Jackie you have a passion for this subject and for ministering to people with same sex attraction. Speaker 1: Why. Tell us a little bit about your story and your background. Speaker 2: Yeah. Born in St. Louis a single parent household. Fatherlessness molestation early pornography. Just hoping to say it was in my life but also just inherited this position to do things that God wasn't pleased with. Speaker 1: I remember early on maybe first the second grade I remember having same sex attractions on the playground and the little like plastic cabins and stuff just really doing wicked things with kids that were my age of course. And as I grew. Older around 90 now around 16 or 17 is when I actually acted out on everything that I had been feeling for a really long time and it felt completely natural to me. I was like why haven't I been gay this whole time. I like boys or girls. But when I was going to church help children. Speaker 2: Until I was 9 I went to church. Speaker 1: I didn't necessarily understand what I was hearing or seeing. I think what was more impactful was seeing my aunt who took me to church her life and saying her love Jesus and read the Bible and seeing the Psalms which was so confusing. How are you singing this thing that doesn't even rhyme. Like Oh I get it. And so seeing that I think gave me some really early convictions on sin in general and so when I was at high school is when I acted out on the temptations and just kind of went full fledged I had to dress like a boy act like a boy. Speaker 2: Going to gay pride parades gay clubs along with another myriad of sins drunkenness weed addiction stealing all that type of stuff. But when I was 19 I felt God speak to me not like audibly or nothing like that but it was just I. Just randomly in my room I somehow saw the weight of my sin and that it wasn't a theoretical idea that God will judge it or that it was deserving of hell. It really was reality for the first time in my life. And but at the same time that I saw that my sin was deserving of God's wrath and that it was that it would ultimately kill me. Speaker 1: I knew that was in the Bible and it was like man if that's in the Bible and it's true then surely God's grace and forgiveness and kindness and mercy is true too. And so I just considered and weighed my options and saw that I did not have a choice it's either I choose Jesus or I choose that but in that I also knew that it was impossible for me to walk. Like Jesus without his help because I tried I did the city's prayer about 15 times and never worked. No offense to anybody that does it. Just didn't work for me. But. God converted me by his supernatural grace. I was in power to do all the things that he loves. Speaker 2: And so now I'm in a place where I have a passion to talk about it because I don't know if people truly believe that one god is better and two that he is actually genuinely sincerely able to save. Yeah. Speaker 1: Man when God converted you did you think these desires will remain and I just need to to live a single life or did you think right away. Maybe someday I'll get married. Did you have that desire. Speaker 2: I had a desire to get married. The idea of marriage but I did not desire me if that makes sense. Speaker 1: It's like I want to get married and I know I can marry a woman I really don't want to because women are really highly emotional and they kind of got on my nerves. I love them but this is like no man's and that gives us a sense of that. But at the same time I did not want to be the man. But I felt God leading me in the idea that if I if I am calling you to marriage in the future surely I will empower you and give you the affections and the that the desires you need to be with that man because that would be the means by which you glorify me. Speaker 2: And that was over time like I was a I wasn't in a rush to be in a relationship period because it was just too much stress you got call people and go on dates I'll take them. Speaker 1: And how long ago was that from when God spoke to you in that time. Speaker 2: She being the death of you to know about six or seven years. I was 19. I'm about to be 26 now. Speaker 1: Your story is and I hope we continue to hear more of it as we talk here. But it's an encouragement to all of us and I'm sure many people listening here that God does save and he does transform us. And I imagine as you talk to people who self identify as gay whether they self identify as Christian or not. My guess would be that that some would say you never truly were gay or that you are not heterosexual now. Are those the sort of things that you hear in terms of people questioning your story or questioning your transformation often. And it's interesting because. Speaker 2: To those same people is like I find it funny that they say that the church is judgmental but that's judgmental. You're saying that you know my experience when you don't you know look sad but also it reminds me of the scriptures when Jesus healed the blind man. Speaker 1: And like people refuse to believe it was like you were blind for real like ring your daddy and your momma proved it. It's like when a miracle in a sense is in front of you all you can do is accuse instead of just looking at it and being like OK what is God trying to teach me through what he's showing me let me believe in this God. So I think that's. I think that's just a sin nature is I refuse to believe that. Speaker 2: So let me tell you that your life we read a quote from the pastor that I mentioned earlier and if you can respond to this he says I've spoken to countless church pastors in their 40s and 50s who remain committed to what the church has always taught but nearly all of them have said that their children don't even get where they're coming from on this issue. This is a generation who are changing their minds on homosexuality today not because they're suddenly revising their opinion on the cultural context of Leviticus. The meaning of unnatural in Romans 1 the nature of homosexual practice in Corinth or the translation of Greek words in first Timothy but because they demand. Speaker 1: So my talk basically. Right. Speaker 2: They would not be persuaded by Kevin but because the demand just doesn't seem plausible anymore it's people not theology or Greek or Hebrew. There seem to be powering the rejection of the traditional Christian ethic agree disagree. I mean I increase my hour long firehose made a huge assumption it presumed upon people here that they were interested in arguments and following ideas and propositions and consistency and what scholars think I mean I quote what half a dozen revisionist scholars who said that the Bible teaches everywhere that same sex intercourse is forbidden. Speaker 1: But you're right that will not make a difference to a whole bunch of people. My oldest is 11 so we'll see what happens in the next 10 years. If he fits in that category I hope that he won't. But as you know one mutual friend of ours said to me one time he said Kevin you know the church hasn't you know we haven't lost this cultural argument. I thought you have your eyes open. He said no because the arguments haven't been made. We've lost a mood. Speaker 2: We've lost an aesthetic and how do how to combat that. I think here hearing stories like like Jackie's is a powerful powerful part of it. Speaker 1: We were just talking earlier just that are the dominant sort of ethic that people breathe in. It's not something they pick up from a book but is what hurts people is bad. And that's why there's some traction on pro-life issues. You can see an ultrasound you can hear women who have regrets. Speaker 2: There's some sense that yeah I can see a picture of a life and this is this is hurting someone. But on this it seems like all the Christian traditional position is doing is hurting people and we're just beginning to hear of maybe people who grew up in same sex households and how there were challenges there but it's going to be very difficult if that's the measure of plausibility and the arguments that when the day is just show me who is hurt more. That's where we're falling for for all of those reasons as you stated because people are not coming to this at a long line of syllogism Dick reasoning. But just because they see their their friend who's gay or they see stuff on Facebook and they feel like this just doesn't seem like a big deal and we need to much much we need to go much further back with people in our churches and in our kids and young people to give a whole reason why you should care what the Bible says about everything and why God is interested in our sexual organs and why what they aren't incarnation has to do with that in the second coming has to do with that we need a whole big picture otherwise it's going to seem like just a little strange add on that doesn't make any sense anymore and just how how do we instruct and persuade church and culture that that isn't moved by arguments even biblical arguments. Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's very hard. I was thinking as you were talking about two different women who've talked to you about these kind of issues and one was from a thoroughly known Christian background and basically through friendship with other people her age was introduced to Jesus met Jesus and sort of you know began to read the Bible after to figure out what the Bible said what Jesus is saying that well I'm following him therefore I follow that. And that's pretty much being her life story. And then another woman who came to talk to about these issues who came from a Christian background and wrestled and kept on wrestling these sort of issues. Speaker 2: And when I laid out as clearly and graciously as I could the sort of Bible's teaching on this and how we're all sinners how there is this power of Chrysler's this new joy. It was it just it just couldn't be heard. I think because of some of the cultural mood and I think that there's this idea that this is like a civil rights issue it's like the 60s civil rights and therefore you're on the moral side you'll be campaigning in a different way than the Bible speaks. So one of the key tactics I think the church has to make is to explain how actually it isn't a civil rights issue. And so yes stories and the church campaigning for other things that that the culture acknowledges really aren't civil rights things. Speaker 1: I think that can make quite a big difference. But it's that those two things always fascinate me because of the different trajectories that people have depending upon how they come into the Christian faith. So how do they get this open to any of the three of you people say you know Kevin Kevin's very impressive and obviously he's a smart guy and he uses big words and uses a lot of them. There have been a lot of people in which you agree with of course indubitably indubitably. Yes. But there have been smart people in the past who have given sophisticated arguments showing from the Bible from the original Hebrew from the original Greek that God wanted the races to be separated and justified all sorts of things like slavery the prohibition of blacks and whites into. You know we thought they were right back then they were sophisticated arguments they turned out to be wrong they turned out to be hurtful. In what ways I guess is gay rights not the new civil rights Oh. And. Speaker 2: I have some thoughts but I had ideas that spoke a lot of thoughts. Speaker 1: While you're coming up with better answers I'll just say it historically that's not quite true. It's certainly true that Christians have been wrong before. So. I'll concede that argue. If the argument is Christians have been wrong before. Yep. We could could be wrong again. But let's look at any any number of issues if we could be wrong but to say that Christians were for all of 2000 year history universally virtually unequivocally wrong on the same thing. Speaker 2: So there were there were popes all throughout the Middle Ages who were condemning slavery condemning the slave trade. Speaker 1: There was a period in our own history in this country tragically where many Calvinist Christians defended slavery and had Bible passages to do so but to to make it sound as if you know the church has just been benighted on issues of slavery or issues of race for 2000 years. Speaker 2: I don't think it is accurate and that's why on this issue it threatens not only our understanding of scripture but really the Catholic city of the church. That it's strange in a day where we want to talk about being multicultural one of listening to the global church we listen to the global church. The church in the West wouldn't be tearing asunder these various church communities on this issue because there has been a unique vocal speech on this issue from the church in a way that was never true about some of these other periods and in patterns where the church has gotten some things really wrong. I think I would add that I think in some ways it's mostly a sin issue and can be a civil issue in the sense of when people mistreat or disrespect or unkind to a person who is gay that's a problem that is a lie. Speaker 1: That's that's just not right. You know what I'm saying but at the same time. Me being black or somebody mistreating me because of my color or how that was in the 60s or whatever the case may be. That's not my color is not a morality thing that's just genetics. My mom was black and go back some of them might be some Indian in me I don't know but. That's like not a moral issue. And so I think the thing when I'm talking to somebody saying that hey God has beef with your behavior or how you choose to act out on your affections and then do nothing else cept the fact that God created you and he has the right to define how you should live period. Speaker 2: And I think people just don't like that. So we want to put all these other different titles on it to make it less than what it is which is that God is coming back. And. We need to get right. Know we read another quote this is from another English Pastor quoting lots of English policies. I mean that what. Speaker 1: I feel really at home from this. Speaker 2: This is from Von Roberts he says in resisting the sexual revolution have we not so exalted. Marriage and the nuclear family is something Kevin touched on that we have marginalized or ignored the Bible's vision of the church as God's family and singleness whether chosen or not as a positive vocation. Agree or disagree. Speaker 1: As the church idolized in our focus on the family and our desire to build up the family which has been under attack to some degree. Has that become an idol and a norm that everybody has to aspire to. Or they don't feel as if they're quite first class citizens in the church if they're not part of a mom and a dad and 2.5 kids. Speaker 2: Is there something to that. And how do we address that. Or is that the question. I mean I think I think he's saying something that's true. And there are lots of ways we could address it. So if if it is true in what ways I mean I think there are a number of pastors here and probably no pastors watching on video. In what ways can the church help to equip singles and not make them feel as if you're if you're right out of college we've got a place for you. Get you in the singles ministry hopefully get you married off as soon as possible. Speaker 1: Yeah but if you if it doesn't work. So to pretend like you don't exist. That's right. Christian reasonably attractive. Speaker 2: I think I think some of it is just teaching what the Bible says. And so sometimes I find it helpful to point out that Jesus was not married and yet fully was fully alive every possible way. And so you know living up to that example Paul's teaching in first Corinthians seven not idolizing marriage is the perfect place. But being real about what marriage is. I sometimes joke that when I do pastoral ministry with single people they're always desperate to get married and when I'm doing pastoral ministry married people they're always you know not desperate not to be married but that you know what the two to talk to each other sometimes you know. So I think there's certain teach what the Bible says a certain reality. I think ultimately holding up Christ as our ideal and realizing that you can be single and fully human and fully sanctified. Speaker 1: And that verse practical programs you can have as well. Speaker 2: We have that sort of things now. I think you know as a pastor just vocalizing it and not doing the things that I'm sure I've I've done inadvertently all the time or you know you talk to people and you talk to a single person like they have a disease you know. So Paul you're still single. Speaker 1: Really. Speaker 2: I mean I even wonder in some of the language I was using I'm trying to be pastorally sensitive that you know most people I know who are single would would want to be married but I don't know. Did I call I call it maybe a cross and it maybe doesn't feel like a cross to people wanted to think that it's something wrong with people and and just even as a pastor to be mindful I mean how many illustrations do I use about my wife about my kids. I think people are understanding and I mean especially if they're cute stories you know they they follow them. But to say that if you do too much of that it gives the impression that that's really what normal life looks like that's what normal Christians are like and some of you are just in that pre normal stage and you'll get there someday just to even verbalize that to the congregation even to apologize where we've fallen afoul of that I think can really speak powerfully to the single people in our church Jackie where there are some ways in which you felt like Christians sinned against you as you came to the Lord as you tried to be honest about your struggles. Speaker 1: And do you feel like in general the church is a safe place now for those who want to walk with the Lord want to follow Christian sexual ethics and yet are not feeling attracted to the opposite sex it's a lady question just then. Me personally I can't say that I felt. Speaker 2: Sinned against when I became a believer but I will say that the guys I know that have come out of the lifestyle are consistently sinned against. I had a conversation with a really close friend of mine who we were in the lifestyle together and he was telling me he he he's thinking of well he will propose to his girlfriend soon but he was confessing to her some of his temptations that he still deals with as a man who was same sex attracted yet still is attracted to her and loves her. And she completely rejected him. And he was saying like Jackie when you share your testimony people applaud you. He was like every time I share my testimony whether it's a pastor or my brothers they all distanced themselves from me. And I think that that concerns me is that somehow him being a male and having that testimony is worse than me being a woman and having that testimony. Speaker 1: And so I think as Christians and as a church there needs to be way more empathy in the sense of seeing that his sin is no different than yours. His struggles are no different than yours. They are the same. And I think if a man let's say a Christian is able to say OK I struggled with pornography you struggle with homosexuality it's the same. Therefore I will empathize with you as a brother and cry Say a man Let's pray together. You know like it's OK. Like in the fact that you're confessing it and broken over it should secure me even more. They're like is is normal. So I think that's. Speaker 2: Something that needs to happen. I don't even know if I answered your questions but he's doing wonderfully. Speaker 1: Yeah to to operate from an assumption that we are all sexually broken. It is not this category of those out there are sexually broken and were kind of sexually all put together and whole seems like a crucial assumption. And I'm glad you brought up the issue of empathy because is as I look out at the church people that are on the same team as me in terms of wanting to advocate for typical fidelity a lot of times are not. Giving the impression that they have much empathy at all in them to realize that something that I don't struggle with somebody me deeply struggle with. And as you mentioned not have consciously chosen it. You've written a little bit Kevin about the difference between sin and temptation. We know Jesus was tempted in every way that that we are and Jesus never once sinned so. Can somebody be tempted towards same sex attraction and sin and what difference does that distinction make in this whole discussion. Yeah. This is really it. And as you know an ongoing discussion in need of a lot of careful definition certainly biblically we must have some moral space between temptation and sin for the reasons you gave Jesus was tempted. Now theologians would differentiate the way in which Jesus was maybe tempted from external versus internal. There is a way in which we can speak of our being tempted in which what we really mean is sinful desires. But James one talks about temptation that gives birth to which conceives and then gives birth a sin and then leads to death. So there's some kind of progression there. So that does use his example I used earlier. So to see out of the corner of my eye I. Know a girl was washing her car and there's didn't didn't look for it then you know I don't have it I'm not spinning out scenarios of where I'm going and all sorts of but there's just that immediate temptation there's some sort of recognition apprehension this is pleasing to the eye to do I turn my head there's some moral space there between a temptation and then do I act upon that or not. So on the one hand we want to say that. Speaker 2: This mike is bothering me and we want to say that desires can be disordered desires Jesus taught you know the Sermon on the Mount that it's not just acting on the lost but the lust itself. And you on the other hand that there can be temptations that come to us and so is it possible. There's my phone of course it didn't help. Speaker 1: There we go. I passed the baton to those microphones are not distracting. Me. Speaker 2: Towards the end of your lecture your talk you described about how someone comes to you says you know pastor isn't the church meant to be a place the broken and you say yes absolutely. It's for the broken but it's for the broken people who want to be healed and are looking for help and I mean that you know within that distinction there's a whole sort of mental picture of various kinds of classifications. We could make to being tempted but wanting. To flee temptation you know rather than looking for temptation and then hoping it will go somewhere else. And I mean I think pastorally. What we want to. Speaker 1: Help people with is the person who comes and says I have these desires of persons of the same sex I didn't want them I prayed for ever that the Lord would change them he hasn't changed them I know that that is it's not right I know I don't want to act on it and I feel like a complete and utter failure and I'm full of shame all the time what do I do. I mean that's where we need all sorts of empathy. We need to help people see. There may be elements of that that are. Temptation not giving birth yet to sin. There may be desires that simply need to be confessed as disordered desires and laid before the cross and where all of us need to be aware of all sorts of desires we have that repentance is a daily act of Christian discipleship and I think that's where. Tone and that's where just some empathy can go a long way so that doesn't sound like where we're only shouting We're only trying to speak to Supreme Court justices. Yes and I meant to people speaking to all those things and I and I have before but we're speaking to that struggler that suffer that person looking for help they need something quite a bit more sophisticated. Jackie talk to us a little bit about finding identity in Christ because I think identity is a big part of this discussion and maybe even from your own experience of how you thought of your identity when you were in the gay lifestyle versus how you think of it now in light of the Gospel where. Speaker 2: You try to keep it short. So I have to keep you short don't keep it short don't keep it short. Okay. Long winded Jackie. So before Christ I think my identity was everything that I did everything that I felt. So I am a gay woman. I am a lead head. I am a clubber. I am disrespectful I am arrogant which in all reality that is what I was. I was a sinner but I think in Christ my identity started to shift when I started to allow God's word to define me in that how I felt about myself. And so for example I think. Speaker 1: A big struggle of those who come out that comes out come out of the lifestyle is they feel the temptations for same sex attracted and they tell themselves I must still be gay because this is how I feel right. But God says no you're my friend you're a saint. You are redeemed you are a Christian like your temptations no longer define you what I've done for you and your faith in that is what makes you new. That's what defines you. And so I think the reading of the scriptures and really believing what Jesus had to say about me is what changed me and ultimately gave me a lot of freedom because when I begin to continue to define myself by how I feel and my attractions and my affections it's completely and utterly discouraging because I'm so concentrated on the. The wickedness in me in that old person that I'm no longer like the lightning and finding hope in the fact that Jesus promised to help me when I'm struggling that Jesus said to every temptation I will give you a way out and that the light all the promises of God are like yes in Christ like that is so much hope for people for Christians for human beings. And so just digging into Ephesians 1 and like reading desiring God's sermons about it you know that our God is no. Doubt Piper no like one of the best people. Kevin Deandra Yeah. Like Ephesians when does it really jack me. Like. Like we're like yeah. So. Does it make sense though. Yeah yeah. Allowing the scriptures to define who you are and not how you feel about yourself because you will be very very discouraged. And even if even if if you do it to yourself. You'll ultimately allow the world to do it to you to. Whether you have friends in your circles that don't mean like just be you. Like if that's how you feel then that means that you is like you have to fight against those lies and say no because I repented and believe in God has changed me and filled me with his spirit. I am no longer that I am new and I will walk into this. So this may be the most controversial question of the night. But does godliness require heterosexuality. Speaker 2: In other words to be converted does that mean you have to be converted to having only desires for the opposite sex. Or else you're sinning or can somebody be a godly Christlike person experience same sex attraction and temptation and yet resolved by the power the spirit they will walk with Christ in faithfulness and not act on any of those desires. Speaker 1: To me I don't know what your answer will be. Speaker 2: That's a really easy question isn't it just. And I think that some of this comes back to tracing a really big biblical theology. So in a sense you go back to Genesis and you look at God's big picture about marriage and you have that as the template. And you go all the way to Revelation and you see that there's a celestial marriage at the end. And so that it seems impossible to doubt that from a Biblical framework that the template for sexuality marriage. Paul talks about is is a mystery it's a type. It's a sign pointing something to Christ. So that's the template. So. So the terminology heterosexual or homosexual I mean these are terminologies that have the all their loaded kind of semantic range that's defined by all sorts of cultural things that we could spend hours you know pulling apart and questioning and all that sort of thing. But you're talking about the template of marriage and scripture Genesis to Revelation that surely is the template on you know on the other hand you could say the same sort of question about something like ambition. Speaker 1: Would it be true that you know the only way for truly godly men to be completely like Christ is to have the kind of ambition that Philippians talks about well the answer to that would be yes and you know how many of us this sign of glory will be close to that. The answer that one not many are. So we have to hold out the template unashamedly both prophetically to the powers that be and pastorally at the same time as well as acknowledging that those in Christ defined identity defined by being in Christ and now have his righteousness at the same time are on a journey of becoming gradually more like they have been declared to be. Speaker 2: And that would be true in sexuality be true ambition be true and jealousy. So to add to that I would. I remember when I felt God leading me out of that lifestyle I immediately equated salvation with heterosexuality. God if you're calling me that means you're calling me to be straight. And. By God's grace I came to realize that when God is calling me. Speaker 1: If God is calling me out of my sin he's not calling me to this relationship or marriage. He's simply calling me to himself period to enjoy him to know him to love him and the outworking of doing those will result in holiness even in the midst of having same sex temptations. I'm still called to be holy. I may not be called to be married which I was. Glory be to the Lord. No offense that I think people I just love my husband but. I was concerned that but if I was it I would still be glorifying God. And my thing on this because I know that the aim is to simply know it. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah me. They said there's such loaded terms and they're relatively recent terms and they're all sorts of assumptions we have on the other side of. Speaker 1: Freud about conscious and subconscious and I mean one of my professors in college just sort of blew my mind. I just we always use that word and he said you know Christians and use that language until after Freud like who's Freud and what. That's just what we talk about. So all of these sort of what is heterosexual what is homosexuality. How does this work. I think the question you're getting at is what if a person their whole life when they see somebody of the same sex. That. Thing happens that spark that chemistry that. My noticing something in it you know that most people experience when they see someone of the opposite sex you're saying that that never happens with. Seeing somebody from the opposite. But happens that can I know of them in the room I know that that pretty woman is sitting next to me that whole thing. Yeah. I don't think we see in scripture that that. Has to happen for someone of the opposite sex in order to prove that one is redeemed. What we see is the outworking of that obedience. Now at the same time we want to hold out that as we've heard here powerfully tonight that those desires can change they can change slowly they can change quickly they can change dramatically completely partially. So those desires can change that. The desire is in some sense a not the way things are supposed to be God designing men for women. And there are all sorts of things about us that are not the way they're supposed to be that require a daily repentance and dying to self. Even when that Bach chemistry thing may not happen the way it does for most of our friends we need to be really sympathetic and challenging and understanding with our brothers and sisters who have that experience. All right. I have two more questions. One for you Kevin and then things one for you Jackie we haven't talked a lot about marriage. We've we've touched on it a little bit. I'm talking about so called gay marriage not opposite sex marriage. Speaker 2: What would you say Kevin to somebody here somebody watching who says I agree with every single jot and title of your talk. Speaker 1: I and I buy into all of the exit Jericho arguments every act of same sex intimacy sexual behavior is sinful. Speaker 2: It should not be done. It has no place in the church. But. Speaker 1: We're Christians we have to you know judgment begins with the household of God. It's not our place to tell other people who are not Christians that they have to conform to our ethic and who are we to deprive people of the joy of marriage even if we disagree with it. We live in a pluralistic culture. What are we. You know how are how are they harming themselves to to call it a marriage even if we don't agree with it why. Speaker 2: So a short way to ask my long winded question is can somebody believe that homosexual behavior is sin but that Christians should support same sex marriage. Well certainly people do and that run into those people are not in free only I agree with those conclusions that's what I believe as a Christian but that's not what some people believe and so you know they're simply different kinds of marriage just as you said. Now the way you said it you know and they can have this relationship and call it marriage which of course. Speaker 1: There is no law on the books in any state that prevents two people from having a relationship and calling it marriage. Speaker 2: The debate is whether the government will call it marriage and recognize it as marriage and privilege it as marriage with all of the rights there unto that. That's the question. Not a matter of I mean since the Supreme Court case in early 2000 struck down the Texas law. There's there's there aren't laws against sodomy. So we're dealing with whether or not the government will recognize same sex unions as marriage and there's all sorts of arguments that can be made why they shouldn't. And we as Christians should be concerned about that. And it's not simply to say well that's because that's our view as Christians is to talk about the well-being of children. It's to talk about whether or not that demeans all marriage because marriage has now become something constituent civilly different. So it's no longer the union of a man and a woman which is ordered around the raising of offspring but it is fundamentally a companionship chosen. And we're already seeing there's three parent laws in California. These are not slippery slope arguments these are logical deductions from presuppositions about marriage that if marriage is not fundamentally oriented around children around procreation around this conjugal differentiation and union then it becomes whatever two or more persons who want to make commitments to each other can make into those who on libertarian grounds and that's why we often find. Well look I want the government to get out of this. I want less government I want you know just let let people want to get married get married and say no it is ceding to the government actually a tremendous amount of heretofore unknown power and authority to redefine what marriage is. Because in the traditional view marriage is what's called a pretty political institution that is government recognizes marriage because government has an interest in preserving and privileging the marriage relationship. That's the that's the whole reason government gets into the marriage business because it has a vested interest in human flourishing and in the stability of society to see that as much as possible a mother and a father are the ones who raise their children. When government recognizes it as a pretty political institution that's one thing. But now we're saying marriage has no ordinance there is no is to marriage but it is what the government has now defined it to be. So it's actually giving to the government a tremendous amount of power to redefine our most intimate relationships and it's dangerous. Speaker 1: And if if we think that the grand bargain can be made whereby we'll sort of get out of the way on this and then we'll have a religious freedom. Speaker 2: I think sadly that will not be the case thank you. We've covered a lot of ground here tonight. Kevin's giving a really eloquent address on objections and X Jesus and we've gotten into politics we've gotten into some pastoral care issues just conscious of the fact that there could be somebody here. We don't know how long this video will remain online. Somebody who stumbles across this video who tends to think of church and Christianity as as mainly do's and don'ts and religious rules. And again you're a wonderful trophy of God's grace of being transformed by the gospel and I wonder if if you could summarize in a short amount of space what is the gospel you know where were gospel people were in a church here we're talking about Christian issues and I don't want this evening or this video to be done without being crystal clear on what is the gospel of Jesus Christ and what can it do to people who don't understand who God is and who need grace. Speaker 1: There's this thing I like reading Genesis because when the story of Adam and Eve because I see so much of my own sin issues in that one story which is a super deep but you see Adam and Eve and you see God being all wise and loving and caring and being the creator and being Lord and telling them hey just do do all of course obey me but just have fun have a joy have pleasure in me. But just just do not eat this one thing this one tree and if you eat of it you will die. Period. Then Eve don't know how long it took for her to just start trippin but she tripped. You know it's there but. It didn't take long for her to start having this conversation would say did it in this conversation. She started to doubt that God was what he said that he was and then he would do what he said that he would do. And she started to believe in put faith not only in Satan but in how she felt. And it boggles my mind how she saw this tree and God told her the day you either of you shall surely die. But somehow in her unbelief she saw good qualities and the thing that God said would kill her. And that is is is crazy and so she ate the fruit. Sin incidents of the world when she passed it onto her passive husband. And so now we all have this predicament where he was passive. We have this predicament where we find joy in all the things that are bad for us. We find pleasure in all the things that will kill us. And I think ultimately we don't see that none of these things will fully ever truly satisfy us in our minds we think they will but they don't. That's why we go to sleep as an unbeliever just super empty in some ways. But God is so gracious and so loving and so kind that he he he created us for him himself and he says you know what I'm going to send my son to live the life that you cannot live. And he's going to die. The death that you deserve. And on the cross he took the penalty of our sins on himself and resurrected from the grave with all power in his hand and commands us to repent and believe in his name. But all of that is real cute and theological. When you just kind of forget the fact that God made provision for us to know him to just know him. To know the creator of the universe to know the Lord of Lords the King of Kings know the God that angels stand before and can't even look at they just say Holy holy holy the Lord God Almighty God died for human beings that did not want him so that they may know him and enjoy him forever. And I think that's the beauty of the gospel that sometimes gets left out by a bunch of do's and don'ts because when you get to know Jesus you willingly and with joy want to do what he says do because you know that is a means by which you can know him better. And so that was that's that would be my encouragement is not that we're calling you to just stop doing all these things just for the sake of doing it we're saying once you see Jesus and once you see God and see that he is what he says that he is and that he will do what he said that he will do you will be happy in him. And even being happy in him doesn't mean that you will have suffering doesn't mean that you will have pain. It means that you have contentment and joy in the midst of it. Because one day will be free and happy and have no shackles on us forever in heaven. But until then we need to know God on Earth and spread his aroma to everybody. Let me pray. Speaker 2: Lord we thank you deeply. Everywhere the Jack you just said was true. Because though every man be a liar your truth free means we think you that you are altogether lovely. We think if you are powerful we think that you are holy that you are good that you are the only wise God we think you that you have stooped low sending your son Jesus to become man to face every temptation known to man and yet to remain sinless and to be obedient even to the point of death. Death on another tree and Darius triumphantly from the grave and to return to your right hand sending forth his spirit to change us to transform us to make us new creatures so that the old is gone the new has come. Let us pray for pastors who are here who are watching this that they would speak the truth boldly and with brokenness knowing that we are all fallen short of your glory. Pray for those Lord who are struggling those who feel ashamed of having these desires that they did not consciously choose that they would give anything to be rid of. You have given them this limb but I pray that they would walk faithfully carrying this cross and looking to you and to you alone. We pray Lord that you would create faithful churches not only in the United States but around the world and we pray that you would create safe churches not that rail against certain sins but know that your grace is sufficient that your word is true. And then the most loving thing in the world to do is to tell the truth in love with grace. Lord I thank you for Kevin. Thank you for Jackie. I thank you for Josh thank you for this evening that you have put together and we pray that it would honor and glorify your great name in Jesus. We pray a man.

Channel: Crossway

Views: 23,997

Rating: 4.9077568 out of 5

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Id: 9tZh-Nn9X-8

Length: 54min 11sec (3251 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 21 2019