Well, you've already been given the topic today. I do believe it is one that Christians avoid in our day and age, partly because of. the difficulty that we have in our society in relation to the pressures that we have upon us. So as we talk about gender and sexuality, let me just give you some statistics to help us understand a little bit of where we're at. And I don't want these to be boring. I just want us to understand kind of where we are. In 2011, According to polls, 3.8% of the adult population identified as what we would call LGBTQ. OK, and I think we all understand that term these days. Not going to go into a lot of detail. In 2023, there is a Gallup poll that said that 7.6% identified with that category. If you remember what the previous stat is, that means that 11 years it doubled. In February 2025, that number went up to 9.3% or 20% higher than the previous two years. So the trend is that more and more people are identifying with either a different gender or a different form of sexuality than heterosexual. Based upon those numbers, basically a third of them are homosexual and then 60% would classify themselves as bisexual, which leaves about 7.8% that would cover the other letters in that alphabet. And I don't say that in a derogatory fashion, I'm just identifying. So in all of this, what we need to understand is, and again, I'm not trying to be funny here, But chances are grandma and grandpa aren't the ones that are making these statistics go higher. It is targeted toward the younger generations. Now there are gonna be some aberrations, right? There's gonna be some 50 year old that's going to express themselves. But the bottom line is, it's our younger generations that are being attacked here. And it's our younger generations that are being indoctrinated. And so that's why we are presenting this, partly because it is a difficult subject to talk about. And as you know, there have been efforts made, not only as far as just the general community, but even when we're talking about workplaces and things, there are things that you can say that we might consider to be a normal opinion that can get you fired. So there are some realities here that we are dealing with. So as we move forward here, and we're going to have to go through somewhat rapidly, I just want you to understand there are some passages we're going to be looking at. We're just going to be taking snippets from them because they cover a lot of other things, but our guardrails, so to speak, are going to be this idea of gender and sexuality. And so that's where we're going to be focusing. When it comes to gender, and basically where we're at today, there is a gender dilemma. Sex, as in biological sex and gender, has been used interchangeably for many thousands of years. As a matter of fact, a synonym for sex is gender, but according to two thesauruses I looked at, there is no synonym for gender. In other words, there's not all these other words that mean the same thing. It's just your biological sex. However, in very recent times, the meaning of this word is being changed to suit the social preferences of the day. And that's one of the things that we have to understand, is that language changes based upon what? The message that people want to give. And so we've got to be careful. The concept of multiple genders was first floated by a controversial study in 1955. Now, that seems like a long time ago in some ways, but in other ways, that is extremely recent, especially when this did not take traction at all until very recently. So we have an emerging view of gender which is that there are multiple genders. Today there's a concerted effort to separate sex at birth, male and female, from gender. Gender is being touted as complex or personal to the point where these expanded gender ideas are now an expression of an individual's identity. So in other words, if we for sake of a better term, attack behavior. If we address behavior, we're not addressing behavior, we're addressing the personhood of someone. We also need to understand that in reality, there are supposedly over 50 recognized genders. Over 50. Some would say even as high as 100. You wonder why there are whole departments set aside for gender studies now, right? They've made a career out of it. This trend is primarily happening through the educational system as early as kindergarten. And of course, this message increasingly comes from the media and from social media. Here is a very recent picture headlining a video on CNN. It says, video, transgender 10-year-old fears being murdered because of her identity. So I have a couple of questions as we observe this picture. How does a 10-year-old know they're transgender? I'm asking a valid question. We're talking about children being sexualized. Okay, that's the first thing. Secondly, when and how did this 10-year-old's transition start? The other question is, is this a her? The answer is no. Is there anything that authenticates this little boy's claim that he is in danger of being murdered? Folks, I haven't seen anything like that on the news. I have never read anything that would say that somehow we're going to start murdering little children because they have gender dysphoria. The other thing I want you to notice here, and it's a little bit subtle, but it's important. The outfit of this staged interview is also telling. What 10-year-old chooses, and don't take offense, ladies, to dress like granny? She has a string of pearls on, and she has a wool overcoat. What's the point? This is the definition of a social construct. But we're being told that gender is a social construct. As in binary, male, female. Folks, this is a social construct. This child was made up. That's pretty awful stuff. But that's what we're dealing with. So what does God say about two genders? God created two distinct genders, or what we would call sexes, biological sexes. Genesis 1, 26 and 27. It's a key word there. had 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, God, he created them." Two very distinct genders. Matthew 19.4, Jesus reiterates this. And He answered and said to them, have you not read that He made them in the beginning male and female? Two distinct genders, but both created as equal image bearers of God. Two distinct individuals. but both carrying God's image. The two genders are complementary. As we go back to Genesis 2 again, verses 18 through 20, it says this, And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. Now, I'm just going to mention that basically God then had Adam compare himself to all the animals, And came back to the conclusion, right, for Adam in the bottom there in verse 20, it says, but for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him. Well, what came next? Eve. Gender is not, as some say, a cultural or social construct. Instead, God created two distinct but deliberately complementary persons for the express purpose of determining the basic course of humanity. And folks, that's the key to all of this. The unsaved world I'm not talking about everybody, I'm just talking about as a world system, they want to change the course of humanity. We had a president not that long ago that said, I want to fundamentally change America. He did a good job. I'm just being blunt. And his primary focus was social. I'm not trying to get political. I'm trying to say that it's not just one area of life here. It is pervasive. This is something that we as a country have even been exporting and forcing on other countries. So as we consider this whole area of gender, we'll talk more about it in just a moment, but we need to understand that it is, I never thought I would say this in my lifetime, but it is one of the most critical things that we're talking about that is involved in our society today. And then as we look at sexuality, We're going to stick with God's design at this point and go through some things. And this is going to be fairly rapid. I will tell you a couple passages we're going to be looking at, I will have kind of an end note type of thing. So even if you, I know some of you even take pictures sometimes of the slides, you'll have it. So don't feel like you're going to miss anything. Sexual relations are exclusively for marriage. They are reserved for marriage. Mary is between one man and one woman, Mark 10, 6 through 8. But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Any sexual activity outside of marriage is sin. Hebrews 13, 4 tells us, marriage is honorable among all in the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. As we consider that adultery is relations with another while married. Fornication is relations of any kind outside of marriage. So that's the general definition that we have there. Jesus also listed sins and included fornications, plural, in a list of sins that he gave. His intention was to cover all sins outside of marriage. There are some that basically say, and this is not necessarily our extreme focus today, that Jesus didn't talk about homosexuality, so really, you know, anything Paul says is kind of like just his opinion. And that's not true, because Jesus said fornications. He didn't talk about a lot of different sins. Didn't even talk about a lot of different sexual sins. But that defined all of it. It covered all of it. All marriage unions are before God. And frankly, they're before God regardless of whether a couple acknowledges God in any way or not. Because Mark 10 tells us this, and this is part of the passage that we were just looking at. But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh. So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. Now, there's different opinions on this. I tend to side with the fact that what we're really talking about is God joining them together as in this is the covenant of marriage and you have basically performed it. Therefore, you're married, right? And anybody who gets married is doing that based upon the pattern of God because he's the one who initiated it. As we continue with God's design for sexuality, sexual relations are primarily for what? And these are primary reasons for procreation, for having children. Genesis 1, 27 and 28, as we see and hear the same creation story that we had looked at before, God told the couple, be fruitful and multiply. By the way, was this before or after the fall? Before. They were told to be fruitful and multiply before the fall, which means that sexuality was potentially there prior to the fall. So what did the fall do? It corrupted that, it corrupted everything else. Along with that sexual relations are primarily to share intimacy in marriage. Notice we're focusing on marriage not outside of marriage. But from the beginning of creation, going back to Mark 10 again, God made them male and female. I just wanted to keep that in there, right? For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. So this is not a message on marriage. Okay, I want us to understand that. So we're not going to go into detail about that. But the point is this, is that there is supposed to be an intimacy that is involved in marriage. But anytime we are talking about sexual activity, right, there is, and I want to say it Since sexuality has been corrupted, frankly, there doesn't have to be intimacy. But oftentimes there still is. The problem is it's not the right kind since it's not in the right setting. So that's one of our dangers. And by the way, this is also from Genesis 2.24 as we're looking at what Jesus said. In several of Paul's letters he described the self-sacrificing devotion that each one in the marriage is supposed to have for one another, the husband for the wife and the wife for the husband. There's some very intimate conversation that is basically taking place there about how they are to be devoted to one another. So we have then, as we think about, okay, here's God's pattern for gender, here's God's pattern for sexuality. What about man's perversion of God's design? Perversion means to corrupt or to pollute something. A common phrase in legal matters is the perversion of justice. What's that communicating? That the legal process was somehow corrupted or altered, which compromised fairness and a proper judgment. So if we translate that over into sexuality, corrupting sexuality is having it being miscarried, gone about, done in the wrong way. God actually describes perversion, and what we're going to do is just, again, briefly, but importantly, go through Romans 1, a passage, and describe man's decline in and through sin. And we're going to see what part of this is. The first thing is that man has rejected God. Now, this is just Paul generally talking about mankind. Man has rejected God. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful." So in Romans 1, 18, and then 21, we see that they basically rejected God. But look at what happens. They became futile in their thinking. Because although they knew God, this is now 21 and 22, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts. This idea of futile means that they weren't thinking right, that they weren't coming to the right conclusions. It wasn't producing anything good. And their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. This is what sin does to us, folks. It alters our reasoning. How else can we be where we're at today in our society? We also see that worship was corrupted. 23 and 25 says, and out of Romans 1, and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. And by the way, that creature can be ourselves. All right? Because that's where we're at today. We are our own gods. So as we're looking at this, we see, first of all, they rejected God. They became futile in their thinking. Their worship was corrupted. What took place next as far as this declension, this decline, this aberrant behavior? They were given over to selfish sexual desires. Notice, given over to. In essence, God basically said, okay, if that's the direction that you want to go, you go ahead. And that's really what the Lord was saying. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lusts of their hearts to disown their bodies among themselves. Next they were given over to unnatural or homosexual desires. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lusts for one another. Men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. Romans goes on to say that they chose to not even know God. Remember, they had a knowledge of God, but they suppressed it. Look at this. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind and to do those things which are not fitting. So they were given a debased or corrupted mind as we saw in that passage. God gave them over to a debased mind. So there's just the summary of Romans 1. But if we think about this and just kind of wrap our minds around this for a minute, we can understand how our society has arrived to where it is today and how this pattern has corrupted people and nations and empires since man began to populate the earth. Man can never be right when he begins with rejecting God. It's just impossible. And rejecting God will result in moral decay. But the unrighteous will not recognize it without God intervening in their lives. Why? Because their minds are blown with it. They're not thinking correctly. This is often a blending of gender issues and sexual sins, but we can conclude that all of these sins are a result of man's decline. There are several lists in different parts of scripture, and we'll get into this in a little bit, but sexual sins are not the only sins. But at the same time it does show that there is going to be evidences when the farther away from God this is where these things happen. This is when things get bad when it comes to gender identity and when it comes to our sexual standards. I want to look at some biblical solutions. Your outline was just slightly off there based upon my modifications, so I just edited that. But as we think about these biblical solutions, really there is a matter of identity. The world says your identity is based upon a variety of things, primarily based upon a person's view of their gender and or their preferred sexual orientation. And I say and or because basically sexual orientation is commonly a part of that whole gender conversation. This is very telling and indicates that more and more people believe that gender is now a matter of behavior. not how we have been created. So there is a warning of improper gender identity that God gives us. He forbids one gender to act like another. A woman shall not wear man's clothing, nor shall a man put on woman's clothing. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord our God. That's from Deuteronomy 22.5. Now just very briefly here, I want to mention, I've been to other cultures where men wear wraps. To us, they would look like a skirt. Well, you know, if you literally go into the departments, right, to purchase things, there's the men's wraps and there's the women's wraps. They don't look the same. So there's always, even though, you know, fashion changes, things like that, there's always a way to identify with one gender or the other and make that clear. The problem that we have today is, with all of the mixing and all of the different things that you saw earlier, is that these are specifically trying to blur all of these things. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 also warns that the unrighteousness, part of that is to be effeminate. Okay, now, there isn't a, as far as I know in the New Testament, there isn't a side to that which is related to women, maybe because it was more so the men. But if you notice, some people will say, well, that effeminacy, that had to do with like temple prostitutes. And so that, you know, that goes back to false worship. Well, he already has idolaters in there. And it's mixed right in with the sexual sins. So I don't believe this is a typo on God's part. So part of this has to do with what we would call gender identity. The scriptures declare that we are to identify specifically with Christ, that our identity as an individual is in him. This is where the Christian receives their identity, who they are, not in themselves, not in their own expressions, but in who Jesus is. And we can see that 1 Corinthians 1.30 says this, and because of God, you are in Christ Jesus. You're in Christ Jesus. And by the way, It's not always the case, this phrase, but many times, if you look through the New Testament, you just look at this phrase. It's just beautiful what it talks about, about us being in Jesus. But then it goes on, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Huge words, right, which simply say this. We were declared right because of what Jesus did, we were set apart to God because of what Jesus did, and we were bought back from sin because of what Jesus did. Absolutely. And it's because we are in Him. We are identified with Him now, and not ourselves with our sinfulness. I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer even I who live. I added even, sorry. But Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Can that be any more clear, folks? We don't live for ourselves when we have placed our faith and confidence in Christ. And it's not that we're kicking and screaming. No. The Holy Spirit has worked in our life, and we realize, I can't live by myself. And frankly, let's just get off of the gender and sexuality for a minute. It's just sin. And we say, I can't keep going that direction. There is not just no future in it. There is a future of death and separation from God. And so because of what Christ has done for me, which we saw in 1 Corinthians 1.30, I am now living for Him. My identity is in Christ. And then Colossians 3, verses 1 through 4 tell us this. If then you were raised with Christ, that whole idea again of dying to self, but now being raised alive in Him, seek those things which are above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory." Elsewhere, the scriptures tell us that we are a new creation in Jesus, right? Paul also explains that, you know, something has to die to come back. I'm sorry, let me put it this way. A seed dies in order for life to come from it. Now that's more a picture of Jesus, but it's still the same idea. We have died to self. And these sins that we're talking about, they're pure selfishness because they're going against God's plan. What I want to share next is a pattern of godly conduct and again this is one of those passages we're going to go through fairly rapidly, we'll stick on some of it but I will give you a synopsis at the end. I want us to specifically apply this as we go through this, and it's going to be Ephesians chapter 4, to gender and sexuality, taking into consideration what God's commands are and how the world has rebelled. First, we are to grow or mature in Christ. And by the way, we read this earlier in the service, but I think it's important for us to identify some of these things. And he himself gave some to be apostles. and prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying, the building up of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect or mature man, to the measure and the stature of the fullness of Christ." So what's the goal? The goal is for all of us to be mature, we're to grow in Christ. Well, how are we going to do that? First, we need to reject false teaching that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried around, carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. Folks, this is revealing the heart of those who want to change yours. Who want to change the trajectory of individuals to reject Christ, to reject the truth in scripture, and to basically follow false teaching. Now, we think of false teaching as being primarily something that is trying to come in and corrupt the church. But if it's trying to come into the church, then where is it? It's in the world. All right. Part of this idea of a pattern of godly content is mutual support within the church. We had some evidences of that earlier today when Jess was even giving some announcements. Ephesians 4, 15 and 16, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head Christ. So again, what's the goal? To be like Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share. In other words, we are mutually helping one another to be like Jesus, and then it goes on, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Notice it starts off by speaking the truth in love, and then we see that everything is demonstrated through love. You need to keep that in mind. Then we're told really in this passage, stop living and thinking like the world, right? Because that's got to be a part of living godly. This I say, and we're talking about gender, we're talking about sexuality, therefore in testifying the Lord that you should no longer walk as the resident Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. Where did we hear that before? Romans. Paul wrote to another church saying the same thing. Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because the blindness of their heart, who being, and this is hard to hear, folks, but it's true, past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness. Folks, there is a bent here to sexual sins. Doesn't mean that that's all that's included there, but there is a bent to, when we're talking about lewdness and uncleanness, there is a bent to sexual sins. And so here's the point. When these folks are doing what they are doing, they're doing it out of, in one sense, ignorance, but that ignorance is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They want to be ignorant, but along with that, their past feeling. They don't have a conscience about it. I'm going to jump ahead for just a minute. Just be patient with me. I want you to see something that really shocked me. I'm a little better in better shape than I thought I was going to be at this point in the message. So I have something in reserve here. OK, so let me just jump ahead here for just a minute. All right. This is the book of Proverbs, chapter 30, verse 18 and 19, as we think of this idea of being past feeling, right? There are three things which are too wonderful for me, yes, four which I do not understand. The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent on the rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a virgin. So the picture here is there are these four things that I just can't wrap my brain around. This is Solomon talking about it. Actually, no, it's not. But anyway, it's in the Proverbs. And so here he's saying, all right, the way of an eagle in the air. This is the meaning behind this, folks. Can you trace out where the eagle has been? No. The way of a serpent on a rock. That's the best picture I can get, I'm sorry, and it's non-poisonous snake, nobody's gonna get hurt. But if a snake slithers across a rock, does he leave a trail? No. Yeah. The way of a ship in the midst of the sea. Does a ship, can you trace where it's been once it's been there? No. The way of a man with a virgin. Folks I used to think that this passage was talking about just the mystery of two people in love being together. What this is talking about is two young people having relations and acting like nothing ever happened. And you say, well, how do you take that from that? Because the last verse says, this is the way of an adulterous woman. She eats and wipes her mouth and says, I have done no wickedness. The reason why I believe God uses the woman as an example is because the woman is going to be much more careful about her body It's a different relationship than a man has when it comes to sexual things. And so we have the more sensitive person here who's basically saying, I didn't do anything wrong. It accentuates the whole point of this. Nothing really happened. Folks, what are we being sold today? Through the media, through the programs that are offered to us. Through education. I mean, when I was a kid, they were kind of pushing the fact and saying things like, well, you know what? The kids are going to do it anyway, so... Right? Of course, the whole time they were teaching us how to. I mean, just being blunt. Give me a second because I've got to get back to where I was. Okay, so we got to stop thinking, living and thinking like the world does, which includes saying, I haven't done anything wrong. By whose standard, right? But instead, we need to renew our thinking. Look at what this says here. But you have not so learned Christ. Remember that phrase? If indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him, heard him is the idea, he's called you, right? And as the truth is in Jesus that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Folks, we can translate this. It's a hard issue. We have to be renewed on the inside. It's not just changing things on the outside. It's not just acknowledging, OK, this is the wrong behavior. Now I'm going to modify that to somehow seem better or right or more moral. No. It has to come from the heart. And it has to come from hearing, knowing, and responding to the gospel. And then we live a righteous life separate from sin. And in addition to that, that you put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. True righteousness and holiness. So I promised you the list, so there it is. But as we think through this, folks, all right, we need to understand Speaking what affirms biblical truth and expressing those truths with biblical principles of love are what it is all about. What we say and how we say it must keep to the Bible to the standards of scripture. This is partly how we speak to one another in church but it should carry over in how we speak to one another in the world. speaking the truth in love. And folks, that's where I'm at today. You're not hearing me throw grenades and talk about how awful these people are or whatever. I think that what they are doing is awful. And to a degree, when it comes to how they are before God, they are awful, but so am I. The difference is that when God called me, I responded, and I can only explain that I don't want to do those things anymore. Right? Now, that's as a lifestyle. Am I tempted? Of course. Do I fall sometimes? Of course. But the bottom line is this, is that we need to renew our thinking and we need to live a righteous, separate life. Separate from sin. As we consider where we're at, folks, these types of sins highly offensive to God. They do terrible damage to relationships and they can destroy lives. Ultimately, unrepentant, they will destroy that person's life because they will be sentenced to hell. But sexual sins are just that, they are sins, they are offenses, they are examples of wickedness like any other sin. When you look at the list of sins, and I was focused today, but sometimes it talks about being a liar and it talks about treating your parents wrong and different things like that. And they're all mixed together. What's the point? The point is, yes, there are some differences when it comes to the consequences. There are some differences when it comes to their effect on society, right? If I were to, for example, not have any respect for my parents and treat them poorly, the ramifications on society would not be heavy. All right? That doesn't mean that the sin is right. It still means it's very wrong. But the ramifications are not going to be heavy. It could affect how, for example, my children might then respond to me or to others, right? But what I'm saying is it's limited. But when we're talking about societally just throwing off any and all standards of God's, there's going to be some significant ramifications. So I think that's sometimes why we have the reaction or see the reaction that we do. There are lies that were told, and I'm not going to go into deep detail here, okay, but some of this is just kind of like, just trust me on this, so to speak. There are statistics that they try to put out that talk about, you know, how homosexual relations, for example, are more stable than heterosexual relationships, and that's just not true. They talk about how fulfilling it is when someone who let's just say is 10 years old goes with what their minds now tell them to do and even to the point where they have a complete sex change so that they are now the opposite gender as far as what you can observe, right? And what we find out is that the vast majority of them, and by the way, these are the world statistics now, look it up. I'm not afraid of facts. The majority of them don't find the fulfillment that they thought they were going to. As a matter of fact, what is the trend now to de-transition? By the way, guess who is having some of the most pressure put on them? those who desire to transition. Why? Because it's evidence that Satan's works don't work. So what we need to do is to identify with Christ and be obedient to God in order to bring glory to him. And that also is for our best good. both now and for eternity. I know that for some of you, you may have friends and family who somehow sit in one of these categories and it can be very complex and it can be very personal. I'm not encouraging you to have some kind of either physical or verbal or whatever kind of battle with your friends and family. But what I am encouraging you to do is understand this, is that if you stand for the truth, right, those who are completely blinded to it are not going to appreciate it. But we speak the truth in love. Love is not. Love is not condoning. Love is not trying to come to some type of an understanding even as far as like, well, you know, I'm not saying that you can't accept them where they're at. We would do that with any non-believer. But what we've labeled here, right, are people who are past feeling, who are doing what they are doing because sin is what is driving them. They have not identified with Christ. It is a lifestyle. If you go to 1 John, 1 John tells us very clearly, we cannot sin as a lifestyle. Now, can someone have a different sin? And that lifestyle sin is just sitting in their hearts? Yeah. That's why this is such a difficult problem because if someone in your family says, hey, you know, I'm a man or I'm a woman and I want to live with somebody who's my same sex, right? And not just for rent, okay? Or, you know, I'm a man and I now want to be a woman or I want to, you know, express myself in some other way and vice versa and all this can go. Hey, as we're looking at that, that's very personal. That's out there. That's in your face. But understand what the purpose is. The purpose is to alter what God's will is. That's what sin always does. That is what it's always about. It is always plan B, and it's never a good plan. Ever. But I do understand how personal it is. I genuinely do. I was in Bible college working at a restaurant. It just so happened that it was in a part of the country where sexual sins were a little more pronounced than maybe they were here, oh my goodness, well, let's say a long time ago, right? So here I am, I'm in early 20s, and now I'm working in the prep area. In the prep area, I worked with Two lesbians and two homosexuals. And me. That's it. Just so you know, straight jokes, they're not very funny. I didn't get them. But they told them to me. They criticized me. I was a minority. All right? They knew what I believed just because I went to Baptist Bible College. And some of them were not happy working with me. And I would hear their talk and different things like that. This is that many years ago, okay? So what I'm telling you is that I genuinely cared about those people. Now, there were a couple of them that didn't care about me at all. But I did care about those people. And I treated them with respect. Why? Because they were and are creations of God. There is a dignity that is in every person regardless of how they are expressing it. But at the same time, I was not going to agree with their lifestyle. I didn't walk back and say, okay, how can I offend a gay person today? They sometimes were trying to figure out how they could offend a straight person. But anyway, you get the idea. The point is this. The point is this. I understand the personal nature of it. As far as our extended family is concerned, it's there. As far as other people that I know, it's there. We can't change our standards because someone else has chosen to live according to Satan's standard. I mean, just to be blunt about it. So we can't turn around and somehow secondarily identify with them or what are we doing? We're really denying God. Just like we would think about any other sin, abortion, lying, stealing, etc. It's very personal, I get that. But who made it personal? The world did. Why? Because they want to do what they want to do. Why? Because they're blind. Why? Because they've rejected God. And I can go right back to Romans and show you. So we know how they got there but we also know the general offer that is given to all people. Jesus said, come unto me, anybody, all you who are burdened and heavy laden with what? With sin. And I will give you rest. If we look at society, if we even maybe look at an individual in our family, or in our friend circle, or at work, or whatever, we might think this is insurmountable. You want to know in one of those passages, you want to know what a phrase in there says? It says, and such were some of you. Folks, I'm not making this up. In Corinth, you had somebody sitting in the pew there, right? Next to a former temple prostitute that they used to worship with. What's the buzz phrase now? Awkward, right? Talk about forgiveness. Talk about reconciliation. Talk about resisting temptation. That was a reality in most of these cities that Paul was writing to. We think we've got it bad. Man, it was worse. It was worse in Roman times. It was literally a part of the general culture. It was a part of their worship system in many cities. and it included fluidity, so to speak, in gender. So young people, I made no bones about it, this message is partly directed to you. But I will say this, if there is someone here, if you're struggling in one of these areas, I really tried to help you understand that we are going to approach you in love not condoning but in love. We want to help you through some of these things. We want you to first and foremost to know Christ as your Savior but certainly along with that we want you to identify with him. That is a singular thing that happens when we're saved, but that's also a process that we've already identified called what? Sanctification. When Paul talked about them falling into sin on occasion, it was some of these. And they had to come back from it again. So again, we're not condoning But there is a certain level of understanding that we're sinners. And I want to be very delicate when I say this, I don't have a can of worms. I just want to say there may be someone here who has been a victim of someone else's sexual sin. And if that is the case we may not be the best people to help you. But please understand we are here to listen. Just recently there was some bigwig pastor, I never heard of him because I'm just not into all that stuff, who had relations with an underaged girl. Large, you know. Televised ministry. It's not just out there folks. It's in amongst us. We see it and hear it all the time. It may make us sick. It may frustrate us. And it may even harm our witness to a degree. But again, it goes back to how damaging this is. So I just want to encourage us. Stay faithful. We are mutually in this together to help one another grow, to encourage one another, and to address sin in the best manner possible, whether it is something that you have done, are doing, or has been done to you. Not an easy message, folks, and it certainly is one that we, it'd be easier to ignore, but it's something that we need to address because there is a lot of pressure on our young people. I'll go back to our most recent stat. If 10% of the adult population in the United States is identifying as LGBTQ+, that is not 10% of people over 55. The stats, in other words, the stats are smashed much farther lower when it comes to, how do I say it? Sorry, I don't know exactly how to explain it. There's a lot fewer in the older age brackets, let's put it that way, meaning that the heaviest part or the farther younger you go. So college students today, it could be 25, 30% in order to make those stats work. That says polls, folks. That's me asking you, and you, and you, and you, and you all the way down the line, and you responding, and we just crunch those numbers. And that's just LGBTQ. How about just fornication, immorality? It's rampant. Pornography. All right, so again, we could go off on all kinds of tangents, but we have the answers to how we got here, and we have the answers to how we refrain from it and identify with Christ and grow in him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I just thank you for your grace in my life. And as I'm praying, I know that there are many in this room, hopefully every person, that can echo the fact that you made us a different person. That you changed our whole trajectory in life when you forgave us. When we responded in faith and we saw that what you did for us was yes, our salvation, our rescue, but it was also our restoration. It was making us alive. It was giving us spiritual breath so that we can now live by faith in and for the Son of God. Lord, I pray that through your grace, we will live obedient, vibrant lives, including helping one another do that. Lord, we pray for our society. We pray for those who are steeped in this philosophy and in even behavior that says that I can be and do whatever I want to be and do, and I have no regard for God. Lord we know that some don't even acknowledge who you are. They would even challenge your existence. Others would try to justify somehow their belief in you and their desire to live completely opposite of how you want them to live. Lord we pray that there will be a great awakening in this nation. We know, Lord, that there are those that we can focus and pick on because it's easy to identify them. But at the same time, we know that there are affairs going on, that there's all kinds of illicit sex that is taking place. There are whole industries that are just there to feed into and feed off of our lust, our selfish desires for pleasure. Lord I pray that you will preserve your church but Lord again that you will rescue people from just the frustration of this kind of lifestyle that there is no true satisfaction and they demonstrate that every day. So we pray Father, we pray again for salvation, we pray for forgiveness and we pray Lord that we will conform ourselves to the one that we identify with. And we identify with you because you first identified with us. And we ask all this in Jesus name. Amen.