Let us turn to the book of Deuteronomy chapter 22. And I shall be reading just one verse from chapter 22. That's verse five. Let us hear the word of the Lord. A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garments. For all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. I'll ask you to turn to the same text, good morning by the way, to the same text that we spoke on last week, Hebrews 13, 20 and 21. We spoke about these last week. We exegeted the text and today I'm going to take a very different approach as an application of the text, especially in light of our Old Testament text, which was in Deuteronomy. in light of the sexual revolution as we see it before our eyes today. So I grant that Hebrews 13, 20, and 21 do not directly relate to, in one sense, what we're talking about. And yet, as an application, it does so. And for various reasons, the Lord has put this on my heart in the follow-up to last week's sermon. So Hebrews 13, 20 and 21, and before we read, let's ask for the Lord's blessing. Oh Lord, we ask for a special measure of your grace on this day and now at this hour and now at this portion of the service, the reading of and the proclaiming of and the hearing of the word of God. We're called to be a set apart people, a different people, a people who listen to a different voice and help us on this day to understand that even to our good and to the world's good. So blessed with your spirit, your servant and your servants. We know that the flowers fail and fall and that we return to the dust, but the word of our God stands forever. May that be our confidence and our hope in Jesus name. Amen. This is the word of God, Hebrews 13, 20. Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. So to make you complete in every good work, do his will, working in you what is well-pleasing in his sight. Amen. I'm quoting now from someone who transitioned from female to male, lady to man. After my mastectomy, I felt sewn up, aching, ghastly. My sutures oozed blood, my abdomen was swollen and grotesque, my chest didn't feel at all natural. A disturbing, never-abating sensation of numbness and occasional pain had replaced what I had now realized was the natural feeling of my intact body. And almost immediately after the surgery, the dread of regret started to sink in. Whatever I thought I was getting into, I had failed to contend with the fleshly reality. End quote. I want to talk about the transgender movement today. But I want to be very clear up front. The point is not that you're good and they're bad. So yes, I want us to understand, number one, what is happening in the world around us. It doesn't hurt for preachers to actually talk about something that's before our very eyes, like to apply the word of God. And two, then I want to talk about this is how we're to think about our sexuality, biblically speaking, but then also in light of our text, in light of Hebrews 13, that God would work in us everything good, equipped to do good, to the end that we would be able to minister. And I quote from the missionary David Brainerd of the 18th century, my soul was full of tenderness and love. My soul was full of tenderness and love, even to the most inveterate of my enemies. I long that they should share in the same mercy, in the same mercy and love that God should do just as he pleased with me and everything else. That is, that he had received mercy, his desire was that those that he was ministering to would receive mercy. So that's our prayer for today. Also, so number one, the issue. We should grant that our human sexuality is deep and complex and that in man's fallen nature, which is common to us all, there is a certain brokenness to each of us, even in our sexuality. Some, a very small number percentage wise, are born even with the wrong body parts, if I can say that, or genitalia. And some historically, still a relatively small percent, struggled with what's been called gender dysphoria, feeling like if they are born biologically male as though they are female or vice versa. With that said, if anyone said a hundred years ago, that we should give puberty blockers to a child who's under 10 years old and begin lifelong hormone treatment beginning as a young teenager to someone, that person would be considered unfit to give medical advice. And I'm saying that, I think, in the most, I had something more harsh than that. Let's just say that they would be considered unfit to give a medical device. And today, to even challenge the new orthodoxy, like this is the way that you need to think, is to be shamed and shunned and to cancel, be canceled. So Richard Dawkins, some of you have heard of Richard Dawkins, you know who Richard Dawkins is, maybe, or at least one of the most famous atheists in the world, just asked a particular question about the matter and immediately they took his awards away and certain honors away from him in the last week or two. And I read I want to say it was before, last Saturday, a week ago this past Saturday night, that the NCAA, N-C-A-A, National Sports, College Sports, yes? Will not have championships in states where newly transgendered ladies, that is someone who was born male and now, quote, female, cannot, where they cannot participate in female sports, that is that if a state says that somebody who is male transitions, and in that state they say that That particular, this actually really confuses me as to what my boy, girl, and so forth, that if those individuals are ruled by the state that they can't participate in high school athletics, then the NCAA will not allow for championships, their activities to take place in those states. That is that if you don't think that men can actually transition to female, you're seen as a radical. That if you don't believe that those born as men should go into ladies' bathrooms or ladies' prisons, you are seen as someone radical and even a bigot. So in preparing for this message, and I've been thinking about it not just over the last six days, but maybe six weeks or even six months at one level, I saw a picture or a meme, but I'm still confused what a meme is. I realize that's the thing about memes. Of children crossing the street with a crossing guard there, like with a sign, walk, stop, or whatever they have, right? And the meme was that these individuals are too young to cross the road on their own, but they're old enough to change genders. Just picture that, right? Like there's something, like you say there's, you don't have to get a PhD to know, yeah, there's something wrong with that picture in a vivid way. And we have children being encouraged in this from kindergarten or pre-K, and then they're given drugs permanently to change them, some under 10 years old, and then surgeries to permanently change them. as teenagers and very young ages, when a large majority of these children who are struggling, a large majority, 80%, let's just say, 80 plus percent to 90% afterwards, that is that after X number of years, they say, well, on second thought, I got everything worked out. And you've got Like I said, a relatively small number historically, and that's increased by 4,000% in the day in which we live. So that those who, clinics and so forth, have waiting lists to get in for today's youth. And if parents even fight against it. So parents are fearful. So it's interesting that to the left, far to the left, at least of me, groups of people talking, parents who are struggling with their children with this, that they have groups where they talk, but they have to be sworn to secrecy because they're afraid if they're found out that they're actually challenging this, that they're going to somehow be canceled, whatever that might mean in their particular situation. And there are instances where parents have lost custody, and there's an instance in Canada where that someone is in prison because they didn't agree with their child doing what their child wanted to do. Subject for another sermon or a Sunday school is this idea of mimetic theory that we, nobody, people choose. We don't independently choose. We choose based on what other people choose and that influences us and then that influences the culture and that influences our, even the youngest of our our children. So I'm saying this because everybody knows that these things are happening, and we're all fearful even to talk about it. And as Christians, we need to think about it in a distinctively Christian manner. We don't start with Fox News. And I want us to be able to minister in a Christian manner. and to love in a Christian manner. So that we would be complete in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well-pleasing in his sight. So number two then, concerning our sexuality, since what we've just said, allow me to provide a brief summary of what the Bible teaches about these things. When I say a brief summary, I don't think, I think you've all heard these things before. But it's good to go over them and to make sure that we're mindful of them. God made them in the beginning male and female. God made them male, female. They are different. There are two, and the two work perfectly together. They come together as one, male and female. And Jesus affirms this. He says, haven't you read at the beginning, the Creator made them male and female? But there's this thing called the fall. The thing, not the best way to describe it. And everybody here has fallen, even with respect to their sexuality. In this sense, no one is quote straight. An unfortunate term, but for another time. All have fallen ashore, even in our sexuality, so we should not be on a high horse as we talk about this. We should not be, aka Luke 18, I'm glad I'm not like those other sinners. So I hope my tone, I want a humble tone today. I don't know if I'll succeed in that. And consider how the church is not without sin in these matters. For instance, there's a rather large Christian church, or denomination, however you want to speak of it, For decades, the church itself has abused children. And that's a stain on the Christian church. And in all of our churches, including Covenant and Calvary, There's struggles with lust and pornography. struggles in marriages over sexual matters. And I realize we always think of it in one, like on this side, like committing particular sins, but there are struggles in that in some marriages there's a lack of interest and a husband does not fulfill his duty to his wife or his wife does not fulfill, a wife does not fulfill the duty to her husband, which is a marital obligation with respect to the seventh commandment. So says Paul and not only Paul. So there's sexual fallenness in the sense of it being broad and varied and complex, and sometimes just particularly heinous. And the call then of the gospel is that everyone here is called to fight against that which might be, quote, natural to us. insofar as you lust after your neighbor's wife, you must fight. You must put that to death. And when you're married, those types of sins don't just, poof, go away. We fight against it in and through Jesus and with Jesus and dependence upon the Holy Spirit. That's what we're called to do. Every soul here today. And at the same time, even as we grant and we acknowledge our own sinfulness and fallenness and that all of us struggle at one level or in some sense, some more than others, we grant that and we bring those things to the cross and we know that daily and sometimes hourly and sometimes by the minute, we need to put those things to death and we acknowledge in that sense that sexual sin is all-encompassing. And at the same time, that doesn't mean that all things are equal or that anything goes in the scripture. Like, we're just all broken and let's just, that means that we shouldn't have any standards, there shouldn't be any judgments, there shouldn't be a right way and a wrong way to think of these things. That is that we should not be, we should not say that everything goes, and part of then what's happened is that there's a, yeah, as part of the sexual revolution is that the end of the sexual revolution is that there would be no repression. There'd be no suppression, that whatever it is that you want to do, then you should do it. If you have an urge, if you have an inclination, if you have a thought, then you must do it. And we need to take these mores, we need to take these standards away, and that everything would go. It would be sexual chaos, if you will, if I can speak. speak that way, so that no sexual urge is necessarily wrong. So if you go to Woodstock, you can sing. You can sing with, well, the Stones. I don't think the Stones were at Woodstock, but anyway. Let's spend the night together. And Lola. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Lola? Bravo if you don't. Who sang Lola? The Kinks in the 60s, talking about a cross-dressing individual. And perhaps not here, but, well, me here at least, but Pastor Tim, I'm sure, and myself, I've preached sermons, long series of sermons on human sexuality and how we are to think about it and what the Bible teaches. But we only read one verse here today that I'm going to reference, and that's Deuteronomy 22.5, the verse that says that a woman must not wear men's clothing, nor a man wear a woman's clothing. And you might ask, what does that have to do with what we're talking about? And the argument that I'm making or what I'm suggesting by implication is that, and I mean this is biblically legitimate, that you argue from the lesser to the greater, from the smaller to the larger. If you're not supposed to, if the Bible would forbid or discourage that men wouldn't put on women's clothes and women wouldn't put on men's clothes, then I would say that it would only follow, right, that it would only follow. that women shouldn't put on men's body parts, and that men shouldn't put on women's body parts. Aside from medical or wisdom, just if you wanted to, here's the short story, biblically, that God created us a certain way, and yes, people struggle in all kinds of issues with our sexuality and so forth, but that that God would forbid us to look to fix that which may be broken in some sense or fallenness in this manner. So for the second point, let me pause. and say that the point is that we would be complete in every good work to do his will, working any what is well-pleasing in his sight. I want to encourage you as parents, and then generally as a church, but as parents, that you would be speaking to your children about these things, that you would be age-appropriate. I'm not suggesting some weird, but that you would be talking to your children, that you would be talking to them about their sexuality, that you would be talking to them about what the Bible says about sex, that you would be in some way that they would know that mommy and daddy have a physical relationship, that they hold hands, and that it's not so, so crazy for daddy to kiss mommy in the kitchen. And it's okay if sometimes our children say to us, look, and all of this I know, that you could go too far, you could like, what is this guy saying? But they would hear, you would hear your children say, stop daddy, stop, don't do that, don't talk about that now. That they would know that God made us as image bearers. That includes our sexuality, and however awkward, however like, oh, I don't want to talk about this. I'm not just talking about the talk. I'm talking about life around the table. I'm talking about life in general, that we note these things, that we talk about them, that it's not something, oh, mommy and daddy aren't going to tell me, now I need to go find out someplace else. You think there's no curiosity there? And you know that other people are going to be talking, talking, talking, talking, talking. In fact, you can't, right, you can't now, you can't even read an advertisement or, it's everywhere. Make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well-pleasing in his sight. The last point today. To quote Brainerd again, my soul was full of tenderness and love, even to my enemies. I longed that they should share in the same mercy and love that God would do just as he pleased with me and everything else. That is, that God would convert them and help them. So the last point would be an encouragement. It's not to see everything in the world in which we live, in the crazy world in which we live, as wholly and only as political debate. Not wholly and only as political debate so that we're worked up in a fury and we cannot believe that somebody would say that. or believe that. And yes, I do think that we should, quote, argue politically and social policies. But the point that I want to make today, the point that I want to make today is that we would show love and have sympathy and compassion towards our fellow image bearers, our fellow sinners, even to those who are sexually confused. Make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well-pleasing in his sight. My soul was full of tenderness and love. My soul was full of tenderness and love." There are a lot of very, very confused people in our world today. There are a lot of very, very confused people in the city of Amsterdam. There are a lot of very, very confused young adults and young ones in the city of Schenectady. And can we have sympathy for someone who was told from age three or age 10, at no fault of themselves. They are, in one sense, true victims. They're victims of the system, if you will, and being falsely led from the earliest ages. I quote, I had this nagging feeling that nothing would ever be enough, that I could just keep cutting and cutting my body, but it'd still be the same, increasingly wounded me underneath it all. They are hurting. the wounded me. And my appeal then is for some sense of passion or compassion, I should say, and to know that those that we meet and those that we talk to and those who are listening to us as we talk and debate amongst ourselves, that they are more than political hot potatoes in a culture war. that they are more than political hot potatoes in a culture war, that they are individuals who have been made in the image of God, and they do not know where to turn in their darkness in a world filled with darkness. And yes, some should be warned, and we could preach a sermon on Matthew 18 where Jesus says, woe to you who cause these little ones to sin. A fearful text in our day. But my point And our point is to know that that young girl or to know that that young man is an image bearer of God, made in God's image, who has no home and who has no answers. And I say home in the sense of knowing where to go and where to think and how to understand life. It needs to know Jesus. It needs people to befriend her and to love her and to show her another way, not merely to condemn her and to tell her that she is wrong. Somebody can correct me, but I think Jesus said something along the lines of, be careful before you cast that first stone. I think that actually had to do with sexuality too, didn't it? Kira Bell is a young lady who actually brought suit against a British clinic, saying, how could you have done this to me when I was a minor? And she won the suit. And there are going to be a lot of lawsuits down the road. I quote her, I was an unhappy girl who needed help. Instead, I was treated like an experiment. And what I'm suggesting is we need to say is that you, Karabel, are not an experiment, but an image bearer of God, of the living God. And that we need to say with Brainerd, my soul is full of tenderness and love, even those who are confused. So that, I don't know that I've said it here, but in talking about homosexuality, at Calvary at least, we did a series, I think. And one of the things that we said was that however uncomfortable it might make you feel, that if a homosexual couple comes into your church, they should be able to sit in the pews and feel welcomed and feel the love of God's people. So too, in what we have before us today. We should be able to say to an individual struggling, forget about the politicians and the politics for a moment. You want community and you want wholeness, and I give you no pretended utopia, but I want you to know that my Savior ate with outcasts and with sinners. That my Savior ate with outcasts and sinners, and there is another way. Yes, it comes with cost. Jesus says, if you want to follow me, you should carry your cross. But it is better than any and all other alternatives. That nagging feeling that it would never be enough. No, that Solomon spoke about such a nagging feeling, that everything is like, Everything is like a vapor. Everything is meaningless. And he says, no, but there is a way to go. And that as you hunger and you come to Jesus, you will never hunger again. That as you thirst and you come to Jesus, you will never thirst again. That as you are tired and you are so tired working through in your mind that which you're struggling through, Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest. Take my yoke. And this Savior that I speak of, this Savior that I speak of is not some charlatan, not some huckster. not selling you something, not making money off you, but he loves you. And we know that he's not a charlatan, and we know that he's not a huckster, because he actually gave his life for people like you and people like me, who deserve not his love. So I invite you, friend, I invite you those who are struggling, to know more about this Savior, the Lord Jesus, that there is a God in heaven and that he is good. In fact, he simplifies things for us, so a lot of things just aren't on the table for discussion. That God is, he's given us an understanding of the world, he's given us an understanding of male and female, and he knows that there's brokenness, he knows that we struggle in such things, and he begins by saying, I am the one who has made the world and I have given you a way to live. And that might seem hard and that might seem difficult for many today who are struggling in the midst of the chaos in which we live, but then we can say and remind that this God is with you and he has compassion for you, even in your struggles, even when you can't make sense of that which is around you, that he is here and that he is here in Jesus and through Jesus. and that he leaves you not alone, but that as you come into the church body, that there should be love and prayer and acceptance and hugging, even as we tell them that this is the way of life, that this is the way of repentance that we all must walk through as we as we live in terms of Jesus. And yes, you're welcome at my home, dear friend, because you are an image bearer of God, and God has had compassion on me, a sinner, and has compassion on my brothers and sisters, sinners, even sexual sinners, some of them very confused. We're all train wrecks at one level. So I too want to show compassion to you, you who are struggling. and to give you hope and purpose, and to tell you about all that is good in and through Jesus, even in this dark world, even in the darkness of our souls. So my appeal is that we would be able to say that our souls were full of tenderness and love. And that's the message. May God help us in this help our world in this, and let's ask him to help us now. Lord, you have given us the straight way, the way of life, so may we listen to the straight way I say straight, even as I critiqued that earlier in the message. You have given us the way of life, the path of righteousness, O Lord, in and through Jesus. Help us to understand our own sexuality. Help us to repent where we need to repent. And help us to grow in our love for others and our ministry to them. And we commit to you now the preached word. In Jesus' name, amen.