a copy of God's Word with you. There should be a Bible in front of you. If you use an electronic Bible, would you please turn that on? We're in a series here in our church entitled Exposing the Lies that We Believe, and today may be the one that is actually most difficult for me to preach, not because the Bible is unclear on it, but because the nature of the subject is so pressing in our culture today How we respond as Christian men and women is critical and how it reflects on the glory of God cannot be understated or overstated. Today we expose the lies we believe about sexuality. I'm guessing that all of us in the room have become familiar with the acronym LGBTQ, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. The Q, if you're unfamiliar with what the Q stands for, the Q can stand for one of two words. The Q can stand either for questioning or for a term that when I was a kid was actually a pejorative. It was an offensive thing to say to somebody but no longer is. That word has really become an acceptable word and is the word queer. The letter Q can stand for either questioning or queer or it can stand for both. Well, what does it mean? Maybe you know what the other words in the LGBT acronym mean, but you're not quite sure what the Q means. In an article in USA Today, the writer said, queer means that you are one of those letters, LGBT, but you could be all of those letters, and not knowing is okay. The author goes on to write, questioning means someone who is figuring out their gender identity and figuring out how they want to identify their sexual orientation. This morning we are considering together as a group of Christian people who submit ourselves to the Word of God and to the authority of God in all things. This morning we are considering the lies that we believe about sexuality. And somebody asked, well, why today and why this subject? Of all the things that we could consider, the lies that we believe, why this particular one? I have two reasons to answer why today and why this subject. The first answer to that question is because the reality is this subject is everywhere in our culture. And I think we can agree on that. So for example, politically this week on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., Speaker Nancy Pelosi promoted a new bill which is intended to support LGBTQ rights. And she said on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, quote, this is not about tolerance. Tolerance is, she said, an offensive word. The reality is, when it comes to LGBTQ lifestyles, no longer is it acceptable simply to be tolerant anymore, as was the case not too far in the distant past. The reality is, all people, according to the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, must now conform and celebrate all sexual choices and sexual identities. Here in our own state of Minnesota, in the last week, there's been ongoing debate about legislation that would ban so-called conversion therapy. If you're not familiar with what that title, conversion therapy, means, simply, it would apply to biblical counselors who desire to show someone from the Word of God how they can be other than what they are at the moment. I could literally take the rest of the morning and tell you story after story or statistic after statistic of how literally we are surrounded by this particular subject. For example, you probably are familiar that the cities, the airports in San Antonio and Buffalo have banned Chick-fil-A. from their airports. Multiple colleges across the United States have either banned or refused admission on their campuses to Chick-fil-A. Why? Because they don't like their sandwiches? No. Because they don't like their ideology of Dan Cathy, the founder, who a number of years ago expressed his opinion about LGBTQ issues. I don't recall, I didn't ask our children when I was with them this weekend if they watched Arthur on PBS when they were kids. It's now into its 22nd season. Maybe some of your children watch Arthur now or in the past. The New York Times this last week published a story entitled, On Arthur, The Same-Sex Wedding. Are you aware that in the season premiere, season number 22, that Mr. Ratburn, teacher, ties the knot with a man named Patrick at a wedding attended by the students. Arthur says, quote, Mr. Ratburn is married. I still can't believe it. Francine responds, yep, it's a brand new world. I misquoted the episode's title. No, maybe I didn't. The episode title, Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone. From Connecticut to Iowa to Texas to California, transgender athletes are competing in events with their new gender and these males transitioning to females are demolishing previous records. It's everywhere. You are now familiar with a phrase called gender reassignment surgery. What I'm saying is we have to discuss this because it's everywhere in the culture. Not to discuss it is to be naive. In fact, there is no space where one is safe from the discussion of LGBTQ issues. And this has and will have greater bearing on Christians. Christian theologian, church historian Carl Truman, I enjoy reading him very much. In 2012, here is what Truman wrote. In this, on this particular issue, that's like, that's like a lifetime ago. 2012, where we are today compared to then, I mean, we are so far away from 2012. Here's Truman, quote, the beautiful young things of the reformed renaissance have a hard choice to make in the next decade. You really do kid only yourselves if you think you can be an orthodox Christian and be at the same time cool enough and hip enough to cut it in the wider world. Frankly, in a couple of years, listen carefully, it will not matter how much urban ink you sport, how much fair trade coffee you drink, how many craft brews you can name, how much gibberish you spout, how many art house movies you can find the Redeemer figure in, and how much money you divert from gospel preaching to social justice. Maintaining biblical sexual ethics will be the equivalent in our culture of being a white supremacist. Why am I preaching on this subject today? Because the subject is everywhere in our culture. So the church must speak to the issue. The second reason, the numbers really demand that the church speak to the issue. There's a research organization called the Public Religion Research Institution. They recently concluded a huge research project, over 40,000 interviews. That's a significant pool of people. And in that pool, just for our discussion today, here was one of their findings. Listen carefully. The issue of same-sex marriage is approaching consensus among young adults ages 18 to 29. 77%, more than three quarters, favor legalizing same-sex marriage, including nearly half who strongly favor it, 45%. Only 17% of young adults are opposed. But here's where it relates to our church. Even in groups most opposed to same-sex marriage, A majority of young adults favor this policy. 53% of young white evangelical Protestants, that's like our church, 53% of young white evangelical Protestants favor legalizing same-sex marriage. We have to speak to this issue because of what's happening in the church. If you were to survey church history, literally, from day one at Pentecost, as is revealed to us in Acts chapter two, until the mid-20th century, if you were to survey all of that, brothers and sisters, do you know that you would not find anywhere among nobody in the whole history of the church any LGBTQ expression or lifestyle which the church affirms. You can't find it in the whole of church history. Now, when you think about Christian church history and how much Christians over church history disagree about things, to say that they went 1,950 years in agreement on something is pretty significant. But the reality is, today, presently, I was talking with one of our students who is on a Christian college campus. She asserted this to be true to me, what I'm about to say next, is that a growing number of those who profess to know Christ accept, celebrate, and advocate for LGBTQ lifestyles. And they say that actually the lifestyles are in line with God's word. This is why the church must address this. The question that I want to know is, can we assert without question, can we say affirmatively, without any deviation, that God has a mind on sexuality? Can we do that? Not all Christians would say yes. In his book, Love and Delight, Peter Hubbard, pastor in South Carolina, a guy I've known for a number of years, tells the story of a man named Matthew Vines. Matt Vines was raised in Wichita, Kansas, in a very conservative Christian home, probably very much like many of our homes. Upon graduating from high school, he went to Harvard University, was accepted into that prestigious school. And in his first two years of campus, he would write later that he noticed how open and supportive the whole atmosphere was on Harvard's campus for LGBTQ students. This is in 2012. His first two years on the Harvard campus, though, created in his own disposition some real conflict about his own upbringing and his own desires. So at the end of his second year, Matt Vines left Harvard, and he spent the next two years researching what the Bible says about homosexuality. His conclusion? His conclusion was this to Bible-believing Christians. Quote, he writes, you are taking a few verses out of context and extracting from them an absolute condemnation that was never intended. But you are also striking the core of another human being and gutting them of their sense of dignity and of self-worth. You are reinforcing the message that gay people have heard for centuries. The message, you will always be alone. You come from a family, but you'll never have one of your own. You are uniquely unworthy of loving and being loved by another person, and all because you're different, because you're gay. So the question that I want to know, I want to know the answer to this, does God, have a definitive mind about all the words in the acronym LGBTQ. If God has a mind about it, then I want to know what it is, and as a preacher of the word of God, I am bound to declare it. If God does not have a mind on the subject, that I want to know that he does not think anything about it. And as a preacher of the word of God, I am not allowed to say, thus says the Lord. I'm going to ask for your aid this morning. When I'm preaching, I would ask you to pray. This is a subject that is difficult for me to enter into. I would ask for you to work very hard in following what the Scriptures say. Be as disciplined as you possibly can be in the consideration of the Word of God this morning. We're going to expose four lies. Here they are. The first lie that we will consider is this, that gender and sexuality are fluid. The second lie that we will consider is this, happiness and fulfillment are yours. When you follow your passions, or if you wanted to put it in a negative way, the lie would be this, to deny your feelings is to embrace misery. The third lie that we are going to consider this morning is they choose to be who they are, or they choose to be the way that they are. The fourth lie that we are going to consider this morning is the best way for Christians to respond is to keep distance. You have your Bible open to Genesis chapter one. Let's consider the first lie. Genesis chapter one, beginning of verse number 26. The Bible says, then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, He created them. Then God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. I want you to turn the page, if necessary, to chapter two, verses 24 and 25. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother, be joined to his wife. They shall become one flesh. They were both naked. man and his wife and were not ashamed." I hope that this particular point will be the shortest of the four that we discussed this morning, because I believe with all of my heart that God has been very clear on the subject of gender and sexuality. The lie says this, a person's gender, a person's sexual expression who a person should love, who a person should marry, are not binary. To say that it is binary is to say that there is a right and a wrong. The lie said there is no binary about this. The lie says that gender is subjective, depending upon the person. The lie says that sexuality also is fluid, depending upon the person. The lie says if you are biological male, but prefer being female, that's great. The lie says if you are biologically female, but prefer being male, that too is great. The lie says whatever you want to be, it's up to you. The lie says whoever you want to love, it's up to you. To say that gender and sexuality are fluid is a lie. And the Bible could not be more clear on this subject. Most Bible readers, whether they profess belief in the Word of God or not, those who read the Bible and say, what does the Bible say? Most Bible readers concede that the Bible speaks to the subject of gender and sexuality. They see, for example, in Genesis 1 that God made two genders. He made male and he made female. Most Bible readers concede the Bible speaks to the subject. However, many Bible readers will argue against what the text says by noting where it occurs. For example, many will argue that the Old Testament homosexual texts occur in the Old Testament law. And they therefore say that it is not applicable to those of us in the 21st century because we do not adhere to other expressions in the Old Testament law. So for example, we don't adhere to the prohibition about eating shrimp or lobster. We don't adhere to the prohibition in the Old Testament law about wearing clothing that is made of mixed fabrics. Therefore, why should we adhere to the Old Testament law, the argument goes, which deals with matters of sexuality. But the Bible has been clear on this. Consider first of all that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, God's condemnation of that wicked culture, occurred before the giving of the Mosaic Law. When we come into the New Testament and our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul condemn sexual sins, when they both do this, Neither of them appeals to the law of Moses, though it would be perfectly fine if our Lord did do that. They go one step beyond that and they point attention to the Garden of Eden, the fact that God created male and female. When we go back to the Garden of Eden, the Bible's story of creation of the world is true. So God made man and God made woman. And since then, God has made every individual in the world, either man or woman. God has done this. We cannot, as Christian men and women who love people, We cannot, as Christian men and women, who submit ourselves to the authority of the God of heaven, we cannot rejoice in someone's rejection of what God has created that person to be. The reality is this. When someone wants to reconstitute reality, that does not change reality. What I mean by that is this, when God creates a man, He builds into that man, into that man's biology, at every level, He builds into that man madness. Or the word that we would use, masculinity. When God creates a woman, He builds into her, into every level of her person, He builds into her woman-ness, or what we would call femininity. The fact that a man can change something superficial about his appearance, the fact that a woman can have reassignment surgery doesn't reconstitute a male as a female. It doesn't go back in time to the point of God's imagination of that person and the desire of God to bring that person to the world. It doesn't go back and make it so that God sees that person now different. than God created him or God created her. God is the creator and the designer of the whole of the human race. And brothers and sisters, God is the creator and the desire of every human being. Only God can declare and determine how we function. It is not the place of the clay to say to the potter, make me this way. Or to say to the potter, you made me wrong. I will make myself right. The first lie is the teaching of the whole word of God. Gender and sexuality are fluid. So someone responds, well, what am I supposed to do? Live miserably my whole life? Is that what I'm supposed to do? If I'm supposed to just accept how God has made me, now you want me to live the rest of my days and just live it out in a horrible existence? This leads to the second lie. In Genesis chapter 3, would you look at verse number 5? Genesis chapter 3, of course, is man's fall. The conversation is happening here between Eve and Satan. In verse 4, Satan just flat out lies to Eve and tells her, you will not surely die. In verse 5 of chapter 3, Satan says to Eve this, For God knows that in the day you eat of it, eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which God had told her not to eat. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. The lie that happiness and fulfillment are yours when you follow your passions, if you want to put it negatively, the lie to deny your feelings is to embrace misery, The lie says this, here's how you find happiness. Follow your passions, trust your heart. The lie says that we experience misery when we deny our feelings, when we deny our wants, when we suppress our appetites. This is, in fact, the devil's lie. What Satan told Eve way back in the Garden of Eden was, God does not love you. God is not good. What Satan told Eve was, why would God withhold from you what will make you happy? You really want to take that fruit, you know it'll make you happy if you take it, and God is telling you no. What kind of God is that who would say no to you if you want to satisfy your desires and your passions? You should be able to do what will make you happy. The lie says you will never be happy if you identify as male when you are biologically female. The lie says you will never be happy if you pretend to be attracted to men when in fact you are attracted to women. This is the lie. Brothers and sisters, I wish to remind us the devil is our enemy. He goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom He may devour. And the devil promises pleasure and fulfillment and happiness and advancement. And the devil promises sophistication and enlightenment and acceptance when we reject God's decrees and God's designs. We believe a lie, brothers and sisters, when we think that true freedom is when we get to be what we think we are. We believe a lie when we think if we satisfy our desires, then and only then will we know real happiness. But brothers and sisters, Can you remember what God says about creation? God's ways are not only right. God's ways are always good. At the end of every day, when God is done with His completion activities of the day, the Bible says that God looks and He declares it good. And at the end of day six, when God has completed his creation of man and woman, when God made two genders and only two genders, when God did that, in Genesis chapter one and verse 31, God declares it to be good. So I want to make this statement to you. When God did that, when God made those two genders, who were complementary to each other in their physical prospects, when God made those two genders and only those two genders, God made for humanity the highest possible good, leading to the highest possible happiness and fulfillment any human being could ever have. That's what God did. When God designed a male and a female to function physically in their intimacy in a complimentary way, when God did that, He made the highest possible good for humanity. And He made the only way for us to know happiness and fulfillment. God's ways are not only right, God's ways are good. But somebody responds, yeah, but it feels right to me when I do something different than what God says. And it makes me happy. It makes me happy as a female to be with a female. It makes me happy as a male to be with a male. It makes me happy though I am biologically male to identify female. It makes me happy though I identify female even though I am biologically male. All of this makes me happy. Look in your Bible in verse six of chapter three. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and she ate it. She also gave it to her husband and he too ate it." Do you see all those feelings Eve had? Do you see them? It felt right to her. But those feelings that Eve had were temporary. I say this as tenderly and as gently as I possibly can. The feelings of happiness and satisfaction and fulfillment and acceptance and enlightenment that a person feels when engaging in a way other than the design of the creator. is temporary. It is a happiness and a fulfillment that is outside of God's design and will not last. The first question you must answer when you consider this particular lie is, do you believe that God's binary design is uniquely or singularly good. Do you believe that? Or do you believe that there are other ways to attain good for you? The first two lies concern how a person thinks of self. The second two lies really concern with how we respond to the first two lies. I was just doing a little casual survey about these lies, and in surveying a number of Gen X and Millennials, this third one became the one that was the dominant one that they wanted to discuss with me. The third lie is this. They choose to be the way that they are. I am telling you that's a lie. Would you turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter one, please? This particular lie, again, addresses how we respond to the first two lies. This lie says this, and listen carefully, Christians. This says, I, who am not LGBTQ, this lie says, I am not like them. This lie says, my sin is not like theirs. This lie says they are defined by their sin, I am not. This lie says he's a homosexual, she's a lesbian, he's a trans. Of course, we would never allow that to be said about us. We would never allow someone to say about us, you're an anger, you're a pride. You're a covet. You're a lust. Romans chapter 1 is the text I'd like us to consider this morning. I will do my best to get through this as quickly as I can. Verse 18 says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power in Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. This latter part of Romans chapter 1, this text discusses homosexuality more extensively than any other New Testament passage. Homosexuality is not the overarching theme of this part of the book of Romans. This is not a treatise by Paul against homosexuality. Then what is it? What Paul was intending to do, beginning here in Romans chapter 1, Paul was intending to explain clearly the gospel. To do that, what Paul must first do is show that all people everywhere are under God's judgment and condemnation, and thus every person everywhere is in need of the gospel. The first verse that we read, verse 18, this text tells us that this is all about the wrath of God. God's wrath is His response to man's sin, all of man's ungodliness and unrighteousness, specifically man's idolatry. The wrath of God, Paul goes on to say, is seen on individuals like Adam and Eve and Cain. The wrath of God is seen in the expulsion from the land of the people of Israel. The wrath of God is seen in Noah's flood. The wrath of God is seen in the coming day of the Lord. God's wrath rests upon sinful people and all people are condemned without partiality. So Paul goes through this because he wants to explain to us God's grace in Jesus. There is only one way, Paul says, for people to be free, for them to escape the predicament of God's wrath. And that is by the work of Jesus Christ on His cross. So what will God do? Because man rejects God. So look in verse 24 then and let's pick up the reading. God gave them up. God gave up who? All of these people in verses 18 to 23, of which all of us are a part, God gave them up to uncleanness. And then he goes on in verses 24 to 28 to describe the sexual uncleanness of people. In verse 24, 26, and 28 is the response of God to man's sin. So these verses say that God gave them up, or God delivered them, or in verse 28, God gave them over. And the whole point of the text is this, that when humanity rejects God, God rejects humanity. And one of the ways that God judges humanity is to turn humanity over to its own sinful desires. He lets humanity have what it wants. but he does more than just turn us over to it, he actively hands us over to further acts of rebellion. He gives us up, he delivers us. That means he condemns us to a life of slavery to our own sinful selves. The Bible says we did this to ourselves and God has ensured we will not escape from it. And the giving over to sinfulness includes a whole list of sins. Look in verse 29. You are filled with unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-wit mindedness, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful. Verses 24 to 27. is a focus on sexual sin. Verses 29 to 31 is a focus on this whole expansive list of sin. The focus on the sexual aspect should not surprise us. Why? Go back to creation's design. If God created us and designed us and imagined us male and female, that when humanity rejects, it is going to lead to rejection in every other area. So listen carefully. Homosexuality is not named here because it is greater than any other sin. He names homosexuality here because it is the clearest evidence of rejection of God. Hubbard goes on to write in his book, Paul's point is not to rate homosexuality as a 10 on the sin scale, nor to warn the same sex-attracted struggler that he is approaching the last train stop on the track to hell, but to highlight the incongruity and insanity of idolatry. Do you see in chapter one, brothers and sisters, that Paul is showing us that we all have debased minds? Somewhere in verses 24 to 31, you are going to find yourself, and I will find myself, and I actually found myself many, many, many times. The whole argument culminates in Romans chapter three. When Paul says in Romans 3, there is none righteous, no not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They all together have become unprofitable. There is none who does good, not even one. Some of you are gonna have trouble with this, but you should give careful attention to the word of God. We are together in this brokenness. We were made in God's image, but by birth and by choice, we have all turned aside, every one of us. The image of God in all of us is broken and perverted. The Bible says about us we are dead in our trespasses and sins. The theologians put it this way, at the same time, we are both victims and villains. Victims in what way? victims in that some of us are more susceptible to certain sins than others. For example, I know some heterosexual people who are the meanest, rudest, most unloving people you would ever want to meet in your life. But they're heterosexuals. They're not tempted by anything in the LGBTQ idea. On the other hand, I know some homosexual people and those who identify with the LGBTQ acronym who actually are the kindest, most gentle, loving people you could ever meet. But they break God's law about sexuality. If you were ever to ask someone given to sexual thinking that is opposed to the Word of God how they got this way, or if you were to say to them, you're just choosing to be who you are, they would respond to you, I didn't choose this. This is who I am. They might even retort to you, when did you choose to be a heterosexual? But actually, I've had people who struggle with anger use the same line of reasoning. I say about their anger, and they'll say, hey, listen, I didn't choose to be angry. They'll say, I just can't help it sometimes. It just comes out. And my question is, what's the difference? What I am arguing is that Romans 1, Paul is teaching we are all victims of our broken condition received at our births. There are some in the gathering this morning, you are more given to lying than your sister is. There are some in the gathering who are more given to stealing than your cousin is. Some who are given to lying. Some who are given to losing your temper. There are some in the gathering who are given more easily to addictions. Some who are in the gathering who are more given to coveting or lusting. And there probably are some in the gathering who are more given to same-sex attraction than other people. And there are probably some in the gathering who are more given than what we would call gender confusion than others. Why is it that any one of us is more given to one of these things than another? And the answer, beloved, is because we are all broken. This is what Paul means when he says we are all dead in our trespasses. and sins. And yet, we are not merely victims. We are also villains. And so we justify our behaviors, right? When a man gets angry, he says, well, she just pushes my buttons. When someone is looking for gender reassignment, they say, well, I'm just doing what feels right for me. and we're doing exactly what Ephesians 2, 3 says. We are, quote, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. In other words, we're doing what we want to do. We justify it in whatever way is necessary, but in the end, we sin because we want to. At once, we are both victims and villains. This is what we all are. But this is not what we must continue to be. Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. You used to be a man full of anger, but God broke that in you. You used to be a woman full of spite and venom came from your mouth, but God broke that from you. You used to be given the same sex attraction, but God broke that from you. You really wondered about your own gender identity, but God freed you from that. Now you have been washed, sanctified. You have been justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. What is necessary for every broken human being is the work of Jesus Christ on His cross. You may be given to drunkenness, you may be given to anger, you may be given to covetousness or lust, you may be given to anything. The only thing that can break any of us in this way, the only healing comes from Jesus Christ and His cross. You may this morning be sitting in this worship service and have to battle while we are here together worshiping God. You may be here and you are battling same-sex attraction even as you sit in your seat. And there may be another person sitting a few seats away from you who is battling in this same worship service, not same-sex attraction, but battling fierce anger. There is only one remedy for both of those, and the remedy is the work of Jesus Christ and the ministry of the Holy Spirit to us in the Word of God. It is a lie to say they choose that way. We are both victim and villain at once. Remade, reborn. by Jesus Christ. The last lie is confronted by the life of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. Would you turn back to Luke chapter 7 as we bring this to a close quickly. Luke chapter 7 in verse number 36, we'll pick up the story there in Luke's gospel. Verse 36 says this, then one of the Pharisees asked him, that's Jesus, to eat with him. And he went to the Pharisee's house and sat down to eat. And behold, listen carefully to the description of this woman and what she does. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner. When she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and stood at his feet behind him weeping, And she began to wash his feet with her tears. And she wiped them with the hair of her head. And she kissed his feet and anointed them with fragrant oil. Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he spoke to himself saying, this man. Just hear. If he were a prophet, This man would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner. Every time I read that story in the Gospels, I am astonished at it. I don't need to tell you what kind of sinner she is, do I? Everybody knows? She comes where Jesus is, she's standing behind him, and she's crying. Why? My guess is, probably for the same reason you were crying when you were singing, living he loved me, dying he saved me, buried he carried my sins far away. Probably, something like that. There's something in the gospel that is moving her. And then what she does is almost unimaginable. The Lord's feet are dirty from being in a very arid climate, lots of dust, right? commonplace to clean your guest's feet. She comes in, his feet still have not been cleaned. She comes around him, she's weeping. She breaks open the perfume. Some of her tears go down on his feet. That's the moisture that she uses to wipe his feet clean along with the perfume that she's brought in. And then she takes her hair. And to dry the Lord's feet, she doesn't take a towel. her hair. Remember what kind of woman this is? She takes her hair and she dries the Lord's feet. And then the text says she kisses his feet. I'm amazed by that. The lie says the best way for Christians to respond is to keep your distance. Isn't this what the Pharisees said? If you knew what kind of woman this was, he'd have kept a long way away from her. Look what he's allowing her to do. How do Christians respond this way? Well, one possible way that Christians respond is they don't align with the haters. That's good. At the Gay Pride Parade, which will be in Minneapolis in June, there will no doubt be protesters there holding up horrible signs. God hates expletive, and others like it. So one response of Christians is to say, well, you know, I just stay out of it. I just avoid it altogether. I don't bring it up with my cousin. I don't talk about it. Stay away from it. Both of these extreme responses, the protesters, the avoidance, neither is the response of Jesus. Think about it, brothers and sisters. Over and again, we see Jesus moving in the direction toward the sexually sinful. Like the woman in Luke chapter 7. like the woman at the well in John chapter four. It is the response of the Pharisee that says, keep your distance. As Christian men and women, instead of keeping distance, our disposition should be love sinners toward Jesus. I have a question for you. Would you welcome at your table A person who is biologically male but identifies as biologically female, would you welcome that person at your table for the purpose of talking to them about your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Would you welcome them there? Would you choose to befriend a coworker whose LGBTQ lifestyle makes you really uncomfortable, but you choose to befriend for the purpose of talking to them about Jesus? Would you repent of any sinful language you have used about LGBTQ people? Would you repent of that? Would you repent of any acceptance of LGBTQ lifestyle because your acceptance does not move sinners toward Jesus? Would you show sympathy and compassion to someone in our church who is struggling with same-sex attraction, with gender identity, or with any other sexually sinful expression, will you move toward sinners, bringing with you the hope of the gospel and the love of Jesus, would you do that? Some of what we face in our culture is a problem that actually would have boggled the minds for most people throughout church history. But the core problem really is nothing new. There will come in our lifetimes new problems that present day people can't even imagine. The core problem then will not be new. The problem, humanity's broken. But humanity can be restored to God. by the person and work of Jesus Christ. Reject the lies about sexuality and believe the gospel of Jesus. Would you pray together with me?