We get ready to go into this
topic, I will tell you, this is. That we can stand upon the word
of God with a lot of us would have an opinion on this issue,
more sort of like what we did on alcohol and the consumption
of of alcohol, we have been told what to believe as a young child,
and we have never subjected our truth or our belief or our actions
as faith as Romans 14, 23 tells us is anything that is not a
faith is a sin. So if it's not born of faith that is sinful,
in other words, if we aren't are subjecting ourselves to the
holiness of God, to the will of God, to the word of God, we
are not doing what God requires of us, even if we're not partaking
of something that in itself might be sinful. The Pharisees did
that. They very much had a very moral
life. But that doesn't make them right or righteous, as you'll
see in the text, I'm going to be in Romans chapter one. I'm
going to be starting in verse 14. But I want you to close your
eyes. Let's do this thing this morning.
Close your eyes. And think about maybe. Just somebody, Matt, I don't
really want you to put a face to it, but think about, I mean,
you've ever you ever contemplated a group of people that you just
wish would get right and stop living a certain way, maybe it's
the homosexual community. And you think about the vileness
of their sin and the grossness of their attitudes. You think
about the gang members that roam the street or the people who
are depraved at heart so much that they've gone to alcoholism
or controlled substance abuse so that they might be okay in
the world. Or you think of the thieves who
rob banks. You think of those child molesters. You see and
you think in your mind's eye, you see, you watch the news and
you see the feeling that you have inside of your heart of
anger, frustration, Grossness. Discouragement. Now picture what you feel. And
now imagine what you would love to say to them if they came to
you and said, why is my life in such a mess? Where can I find
hope? What would you say? Or if some
of them were to join us in our worship service this morning
and they sat on the front row, smelling of their sin, what would
you want to say? Now open your eyes. That's that
foundation that I want us to move forward, because as you've
seen in the last four weeks, these topics, although they are
polarizing. They are subject to the glory
of God. They are subject to the holiness of who Christ is. We
are not to develop opinions based on our culture or our freedoms
or our laws. But we are to face our truth. on God's Word. And like last
week when we looked at abortion, I understand that on the Internet
that the latter part of my message is missing. Heaven forbid, I
went an hour and 21 minutes last week. Gerald said the computer
starts to smoke after that point. So it tore up the last end of
it. And the last part of that message was this, is that God
forgives. And you miss 15 minutes. If those people who are listening
to that, they miss 15 minutes of the true meat So I'll give
it up front this time. So just in case. Hold on. God forgives. God is a God who
forgives not because of our worth. Listen to me, church. God didn't
die for us because we were worth it. That's a lie from the devil,
it is not here. Listen to me, friends, beloved,
please. God killed Christ, because he
alone was the only one worthy to die for the sins we commit. Because of Christ's worth, he
had to die. Because God had to pour his wrath
on sin. And so Christ became sin that
we might not be held to the judgment of sin by faith in Christ. We'd be free from it. There is
something very grossly, disgustingly popular today that we think the
purpose of a pulpit is to draw the community. We think the purpose of the pulpit
is to help people feel good. Oh, we think the purpose of the
church is to help go out there and just love on everybody so
much that they just love the Christians. Do we know what true
love is? Love is this. Is it everything
you felt in your heart against the sin that you considered at
the beginning of this message against the sinners or the groups
of people that you might hold great animosity toward because
of their gross lifestyle? Think of how much that has multiplied
in the holiness heart, the holy heart and mind of God, and how
awful His wrath was upon His Son. And that's what we've been
saved from if by faith we receive grace through Jesus Christ alone.
The finished work of atonement, which means that we have been
made at one again with Christ. That from the foundations of
creation, God's eternal plan was to subject all things in
unity under the feet of Christ. And the mission of the church
is that we display the manifold wisdom of God, which is that
the cross is judgment for the world and that it is life for
the saints. And if there's any other mission,
we are doing the devil's work. Any other mission. Because the
message is clear. Why am I so upset? Right now
I'm not upset. Friends, this is the message
to me. I am excited that God saved me from the pit of hell
and from the depravity of my heart that still to this very
second I'm reminded of who I was just before I got here this morning
and who I was yesterday and I'm reminded of who I'm going to
be tomorrow. A lost, hopeless sinner that's been saved by grace
and made a saint. And if there's any other thing
that gives me joy in this life but Christ, friends, I'm lost. Let me rephrase that. If there's
anything that gives me joy above the joy that Christ gives, I'm
lost. It's not about getting a ticket
to heaven. You cannot come to faith. I've said this, I think
I've said this about twelve times in the last three months. You
cannot come to faith in Christ because you are scared of hell.
The only way to come to faith in Christ, the Scripture says,
is by repentance from sin. That godly sorrow in your heart
breaks you because Jesus paid for your sin. He took your place. Listen to the words of Paul.
If you've been in our study in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, these
words will be very, very clear to you. Do you not know that
the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be
deceived. Neither the sexually immoral,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,
nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were
some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the
Spirit of our God." Friends, this is probably one of the most
frustrating issues of our day in this area where we live is
what is the truth of homosexuality? What should the church's response
be? And quite honestly, we could sit here and we could philosophize
and we could talk and we could rationalize and we could do all
sorts of things. But here's the thing. First of all, if anyone
in here is struggling with homosexuality, anyone that will hear this message
on the Internet in any country, any state, any city, Do not take offense to this message.
Do not take offense to this message. I believe that this is a message
of hope. It's not that you, if you're
struggling in a gay relationship, in a gay lifestyle, it's not
to change your behavior. It's not the purpose of this
message is that you would become straight. It's not the purpose
of this message to change your lifestyle or your attitude, but
to charge you to listen to the words of God and to change your
eternal focus. which is marred by sin. And here's
the good news. Just as the lives of every straight
person in the sound of my voice is marred by sin. I have a few thoughts as we begin. As the state goes, as the law
goes, as the government goes, I believe everyone should be
equal. Everyone's equal as an American. We have certain unalienable
rights. We talked about those two weeks
ago. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. How egocentric
America is. How sick and sinful America is. That we put that in our foundational
documents. We have a right to live. We have
a right to pursue our pleasure. We have a right to be free to
do it. God bless us, please. However, sexuality has nothing
to do with legality. My sexual preferences or my sexual,
my heterosexuality should not have anything to do with the
rights I have as an American citizen. Neither should homosexuality.
This is ridiculous. Number two, as God's economy
of grace goes, the church is not in equal standing in marriage
with gay marriage. Did you hear that? The reason
people fight to have marriage in America, gay or straight or
any other type of issue, is because the church doesn't display the
manifold wisdom of God through the marriage covenant. And next
week I'm going to tell you this, is that sex is a picture of redemption
in the cross. Intercourse. You might not like
the way that feels, but it's the scripture. It's not my opinion.
And I'll show it to you next week. Talk about sexuality next
week. We have taken it and we have
destroyed it. We have taken what God has made good to be a picture
of redemption and we have made it perverted. And the church,
men, let me talk to men for a minute. Men, we have made marriage a
slave relationship. We have made marriage a slave
relationship. Church, seven out of ten marriages in the church
end in divorce. Five out of ten end in divorce
in the world outside the church. And yet marriage is a microscopic
picture of the macrocosmic reality of Jesus and the cross. And yet
we are ruining it because we're too freaking selfish to repent
and forgive. And so nobody would be trying
to get laws passed for equality in marriage if they saw a true
marriage because they would go, I can't have that. But the world's
doing better than the church in marriage. And the church,
in God's economy of grace, God's establishment of marriage is
never equal to the world's. And it's not the state of California's
job or right to define it. And it's not the voter's right
to define it. It's not the church's right to define it. We're to
display it. That's what's wrong now. We've been defining the
text instead of just displaying the Scripture. Any other, not even gay marriage,
but any other marriage outside of two believers, subject to
the authority of the church and to the Lord Jesus Christ, that
marriage is a sinful relationship and it's not truly marriage.
It's just some type of couple-ism or some type of union. So the
only true marriage is the marriage of two believers who are subject
to Christ, man and woman. That's the way it was supposed
to be. To support equality as an American
citizen is one thing, but to support equality in God's economy
for gay marriage and non-Christian marriage is blasphemy. That's
to take the very truth of the gospel and to flush it down the
commode and say, yeah, but you don't understand the times that
we live in. You know what Paul said to the Galatians? Be damned. Be damned if you do that. Chapter
1 is not my words. KJV uses that word. Let them
be eternally damned. We flashed it up a little bit,
and I'll be condemned. So when we look at this, we understand
that this is an issue, homosexuality is an issue that's polarizing.
Don't you feel a little frustrated right now? Feel a little edgy?
If we could take a vote, well, we could probably vote some things.
We could have some legislation right now, couldn't we? I hope you haven't tuned out.
Because here's the truth of it, is that the way we feel toward
people that are marred in sin and live in a sinful lifestyle,
especially the gay community, we're no different. We're no
different. We're no better than they are.
They're no more sinful than we are. Just because culturally
their sin just doesn't suit with us, does it? How many pastors get up and beat
their hands on their pulpits? Scream around and talk about
how awful it is, and you better turn or burn, baby! Well, preach
to myself, man. I'm getting a mirror. I say that.
I better say that to myself. Because my conceitedness that
you might not ever see is just as big a sin as homosexuality. That was a little poem, wasn't
it? Better write that down. We're no better off. See, we
look for things. As an introduction, we look at
homosexuality in view of being so vile that we forget where
we come from. We forget what God has saved
us from. We forget that we actually are born and still exist in a
natural, sinful state. That our body, our DNA, is equipped
to do one thing great, and that's to rebel against the holiness
of God. If you don't believe that, friends, you have not read
the scriptures in a long time. And you have to listen to me.
We consider the act of a homosexual lifestyle and their behavior
as something that needs to be changed. We preach change. Turn
away from this. Stop doing that. Get help. Go
see this counselor. Here's a book. And I'm not trying
to... Oh, please. And somebody's going to hear
this and they're going to slam me on my blog. I can already feel it. I'm not
preaching against ministries to homosexuals. I did it for
11 years. Ministered to gay men. for 11
years, never knew and I owed her that I would ever move to
this area and have a heart for the homosexual community. But we can't make them change.
Why would we preach change? Why would we preach counseling?
Why would we preach that when that's not going to change anybody? My dad's been in law enforcement
his whole adult life, since he was 18 years old. And the legal
system doesn't really reform many. It just gets them out of
the way for a little bit. Some, but not many. The truth is that the changing
only comes through the power of God. We've been saved from
our sin, which is no worse than the gay community. We have alienated
ourselves. The third thing I want you to
see, the church, the true church, has been alienated from the world,
which is a violation of Scripture. Gosh, we taught our children
today Acts 1-8. You know what that says? The Holy Spirit comes upon you,
you'll be given power, you'll be my witnesses. Where? In the entire world. Starting
at your hometown, moving out to the county, and going on out
to the world. You'll be my witnesses. We've stopped being witnesses
of the truth. We have made God out to be a
fool. We call God a fool the way we
act and the way we respond to the things that we say against
the sinful community and against the world. We have made God to
be a fool. And I'll prove that to you in
a few minutes. We've alienated ourselves, the true church, from
homosexuals, and in doing so, we've taken the gospel out of
their midst. You can't get saved through benevolence. You can't see Jesus through a
good embrace. You cannot find the truth of
saving faith except through the preaching of the Word of God
by the mouth or either the written text of the Scripture. Argue if you want to. I'd love
to talk with you. I'll talk about it as long as
you want to talk. And I will listen to any argument you want
to play. But it's not my opinion. And what I have to say today
is not worth listening to if it's not God's Word. And here's the worst thing about
what the church has done in our attitudes toward the gay community,
is that we not only have alienated the gospel, them from the gospel,
we have preached condemnation and given confidence and cultural
acceptance to sexual sin or any sin. This is not love. This is damnation. It is to preach damnation to
them. You're okay. We love you anyway. Come on in. That's the problem. The other side of that thing
is that... Let me just... I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let me just hush. No, I'll go there. One, people say, hey,
let's just embrace and forget about the gospel. Don't talk
about sin. And the other people say, hey, let's tell them that
all they are is sin. And let's just preach it against them.
Let's get them to change. Tell them that God hates them.
You ever heard that? You seen those idiots? I tell you, I used
to play a game when I was a kid. called Frogger. You ever played
Frogger? Now, see, those ring games were simple. They were
linear. They just went up, down, left, right. You know, you had
to jump across the highway, and if you didn't jump across the
highway fast enough, the truck would go... and that little dot
that looked like a frog, it was supposed to be a frog, just a
little dot, would go... and you'd turn into an X and make a little
funny squatting noise. Remember that game? Frogger...
Sometimes when I see these people standing there holding signs
talking about the hate of God to a homosexual community, I
want to play Frogger from the car perspective. I just want
to get them. I just want to run over there
and go. Now, the federal government's going to hear this one day and
some people are going to be mowed over downtown San Francisco and they're
going to come see me. I need to make sure I'm with
somebody at all times so I can have an alibi. But don't you
feel I feel like that I can't stand it when people use the
word of God in an ungodly way and they use the word of God
that doesn't reflect the heart of God or the nature of God at
all. God hates sin. But how old how pompous is it
for me to stand there and hold a sign to say God hates your
sin if there's not a mirror on it with a sign on my chest written
in mirror image that says God hates your sin. God hates all
sin. And if we aren't saved by grace,
we are going to be judged by God. And the wrath of God is
going to remain on us. See, we're born with it. And
we either are saved from it or it stays on us. We don't earn
it. We do earn it, but we don't find
it somewhere along in life and decide, ah, I'm going to choose
sin. We cannot not choose sin. Sin is in us. Scripture teaches
that. Paul says that sin has come from
Adam. And every person born from Adam
Now, no matter what you believe, you might believe all kinds of
liberal things about creation. You can believe whatever you
want, but you can't take away what that means. It means, flat
out, everybody from the very first human being is a sinner,
except one who was not born of Adam, but was born of God. And
the interesting thing enough is that Jesus didn't begin to
exist in the incarnation, in the conception. He was there
way before the beginning. In the flesh, Jesus walked. He gardened as a person. Jesus stood before Joshua in
the flesh. And then He became a baby and
then grew up again. Not again. He grew up for the
first time. If you don't believe in the eternal
flesh of Jesus, it's in the Scripture. Besides that. J.I. Packer. If you don't read him, read him.
Christianity Today, January 2003. He said this. There are ways of sin that if
not repented of and forsaken will keep people out of God's
kingdom of salvation. There are ways of sin that if
not repented of and forsaken will keep people out of God's
kingdom of salvation. Do we believe that sin alienates
us from God? Do we believe that the homosexual
community has just got this, they've got this corner on the
most vile sin that ever, you know, I often say this is that
the homosexual community has become the poster child for sin
in the church. And friends, I really believe that that's what we've
done. And I really believe that it's a sin. As the body of Christ,
it's a sin for us to have that type of attitude toward people
who are lost. Why, James? Why don't we just do that? Why
is that a sinful? Because what was Jesus' attitude
for the lost? Friends, He came to die for the
lost. He says, I came to seek and save the lost. I came to
die. I came to give my life. I came to be destroyed. And so now, let's look at our
text, Romans chapter 1, verses 14 through 32. Nope, it's sort of pieced together,
but I couldn't do it. I mean, this is too weaker, really. Paul's writing to the church
in Rome in verse 14, the middle of a thought there. Let's just
listen to what he says. I am under obligation both to
the Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
So I'm eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to
the Greek. For in it the righteousness of
God is revealed from faith for faith. As it is written, the
righteous shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who
by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known
about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for
his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the
world and the things that have been made. So they are without
excuse for although they knew God, they did not honor him as
God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their
thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be
wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and
creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up to
the lusts of their heart, to impurity, to the dishonor of
the bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth
of God for a life and worshiped and served the creature rather
than the creator, who was blessed forever. Amen. For this reason,
God gave them up to dishonorable passions, for their women exchanged
natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the
men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were
consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless
acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for
their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God,
God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to
be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness,
evil, covetousness, malice. They were full of envy, murder,
strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers,
haters of God. Insolent, haughty, boastful,
inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless,
heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree
and those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only
do them, but they give approval to those who practice them. I
pray God would bless the reading of his word. And friends, this
is just from an exegetical issue, hermeneutical issue. I will not
deal with this text correctly, completely. We're just going
to hover over the top of it. John Piper would cut my head
off. We're going to hover over the top of it. Romans 14, 1-14, I'm under obligation
to both Greeks and to barbarians. Greeks, those people in Athens,
those people who Rome sort of owned, and barbarians, those
people who spoke other languages from other nations, and they
actually sort of had an ongoing I guess you'd call it a joke
or a slur that they would speak in such ways that couldn't be
understood. They'd go bar, bar, bar, bar, bar. So they called
them barbarians. And so that's where the name comes from. Foolishness,
stupid, vile, vulgar. They just that's sort of where
it came from. And so here he says, I am under obligation to
Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
So I'm eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome. And so
Paul is saying, hey, those wise Athenians, and those foolish
barbarians, whoever they might be. And to you also, Rome, I
cannot wait to preach the gospel." Now, these are Christians. Listen,
Christians, this letter was written to the church, to those who were
saved by faith in Christ alone, received grace. These weren't
lost people. Paul didn't write any of his letters to lost people.
Keep that in mind. He wrote to the church, and he
says, I come, I want to preach the gospel to you. And he goes,
Woe to me! If I do not preach the gospel.
So I have a couple of questions. Where's that woe? Where's that
woe in the body of Christ today? Where's that woe? We get up and
we're OK and we're fine. We do our day and we go on and
we go to bed and we started over the next next day and we haven't
preached the gospel to anybody. Where's the woe? Where's the
gospel? Reminds me when I was a kid,
middle school, where's the beef? Remember that commercial? Is
it a Wendy's commercial? Where's the beef? Do you know
that the hamburger is going to be a little tiny hamburger on
that big old bun? And Wendy's had the square, you know, fill
it out, stick it out. Where's the beef? Where's the
gospel? So there's two types of gospel. There's that we're
preaching to the homosexual community today and to the world. There's
the bad gospel that says, God hates you. And then there's the
worst gospel. What's worse than that? The worst
gospel is, here's a tip. Let's just all get along. We're to preach the gospel. The
church is the gospel bearers. We are the gospel bearers. And
the mandate from Christ is that we don't make a fool of God. Do not make God out to be a fool.
Ephesians 3. Where do I get that? Here it
is. You're going to listen to me on 3 o'clock today. I'm going
to be in Religazine with Dion Evans, by the way. We'll be talking
about unity in the body of Christ racially. And I'm going to use
this text. It says, Of this gospel I was
made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which
was given to me by the working of His power. To me, though I'm
the very least of all the saints. So you want to argue that we
ought to forget about our sins? Paul never did, because it kept
him humble, and it kept him in check, and it helped him remember
that he was saved from a domain of darkness. He was forgiven, but he did not
forget. Don't fall for that worldly wisdom to ignore your past. Don't focus on it. It's like
when you're driving a car. Look in the rear view mirror
every now and then. To me, although I'm the very
least of the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles
the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone
Listen, what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God
who created all things so that I'm here? Let me let me put that
in our terms. God gave me spiritual, supernatural revelation of things
that he hid from creation start to present day. And now I'm going
to share with you what God's will is and what God's purpose
is for the world and for the church. And here it is. So that
through the church, The manifold wisdom of God might now be made
known. To who? To the rulers and authorities. And if the rulers and authorities
know it, who else knows it? Everybody knows it. What rulers
and authorities? In the cosmos. The word there
is the cosmos. That means every stinking person
in the world, in the universe, the cosmos. This was according
to the eternal purpose that He has realized in Christ Jesus
our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through
our faith in Him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I'm
suffering for you, which is for your glory." Man, I could just
stop and preach that text, but I won't. I'll move on. So either
we display the manifold wisdom of God, or we think we got it
better and we make God out to be a fool. You see the difference?
You see what I'm saying? Now, why? Where in the world?
I preached the gospel. But what is the true gospel?
What does Paul say in verse 16 of Romans 1? He says, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know what I think? We're ashamed of the gospel. I think we're ashamed of the
gospel. And I think we're going to pay for it. I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
Why? Because Paul says it is the power of God for salvation
to everyone who believes. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him
will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his
Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it. It's
a condition that you must believe in order to be loved, in order
to be saved, in order to have life. And the only way you can find
that out, the only way you can know what to believe in is to
hear the truth of the gospel. You can't see any aspect of ministry
and benevolence and love and rhetoric or anything else. You
can't see these things. We can't function that way as
a church. We can't say we're going to draw a thousand people
and hopefully we'll tell them that they need to experience
the life-changing things that Jesus can bring. We can't get
up and say, hey, have you experienced God? Because we've all experienced
God. As you'll see in a minute. We've
got to say, do you understand the truth of the nature of man,
the nature of God, and the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
and that you can only be saved through the truth of the gospel?
Are you going to believe that? Do you believe that, church?
Where is the gospel? Paul was not ashamed. Why do
we not believe in God's power, but in our wisdom? If we believe
in God's power, then why are we silent? Why are we stupid,
thinking we've got to do something else? This church growth junk
is driving me crazy. Because I visit these places,
and I've been a part of it. I'm not preaching this because,
ah, he ain't never had any experience. I've been there. And at the end of the decade,
you ask, and nobody can tell you anything. What's your testimony? Oh, my testimony, God's been
so good to me, and I have lived an old life, and my children
are blessed, and I'm blessed, and I've had a job. If that's
your testimony, this is about all you're going to get. That's
about all it's worth. That's rude. No, it's not rude.
If that's your testimony, friends, you got another thing coming
because Jesus saved you from sin. He saved you from the wrath
of his father. He brought his holiness and covered
you with it. That's our testimony. Everything
else, there isn't anything else. I can't think of anything else.
I mean, I could sit down and think of some things, but those
are the testimony of what God has done. What God has done is
that I deserve to die and to be eternally damned, and He gave
me life. And I wasn't looking for it.
I was running from it, and He gave me eyes to see. That's salvation. Don't believe the witchcraft
that you've heard your whole life, to say this prayer, read
this scripture, and come down the aisle, and you're saved.
Praise God. Harry Potter doesn't even go
that far. He at least points a line while
he does that. This should be our testimony.
Psalms 40. I have told the glad news of
deliverance in the great congregation. Behold, I have not restrained
my lips. As you know, O Lord, I have not
hidden your deliverance within my heart. I have spoken of your
faithfulness and of your salvation. I have not concealed your steadfast
love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. Oh, how
every pastor, how my prayer is that that would be my song. however
believer, that that would be the cry of our lips. That we
would not hide the greatness of what God has done and we quit
selling a cheap gospel and a 99 cent grace that Jesus has just
mapped to a great life. Paul said, I'm suffering for
your glory. Get over it. Praise God for it.
That's why I'm here. Jesus said, the world hates you.
Me, they're going to hate you. This getting along garbage in
the gospel, it's a bunch of crap. Except in the body of Christ.
That's another way we make God to be a fool when we don't get
along as Christians. In the marriage. In the church. We say, we thumb our nose up
to God and we say, you're a plumb fool. You don't understand what
I live with. You don't understand those people
that sit next to me in church. You don't understand them. Yes,
he does. And he crushed his son. for just
such sin. When we're ashamed of God, Christ,
the Gospel, what does it say, Mark? Jesus' words in Mark 8,
it says, Forever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous
and sinful generation. Of Him will the Son of Man also
be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with His
holy angels. I'm not saying you have to preach
the Gospel in order to be saved. I'm saying if you're saved, the
Gospel will come from your lips. How do I know? Because I study
psychology. I study anthropology. I know
that when something is passionate in our soul, we share it. How? Because I get talked to a bunch.
A thousand people a week. And you know what I hear? Hey,
have you seen that new movie? And for 30 minutes in the line
at Walmart, they'll tell you about it. See you with a book. Oh, I've read that book. Have
you read it yet? No, I haven't read it yet. What?
You haven't read it? I'm buying it. I'm at Borders. Have you
read the book you just bought? No, not that good. Yeah, I read
it and I'm going to buy it anyway. Oh, it's great. It changed my
life. You won't believe what you'll find in that book. Fifteen minutes. We're ashamed of the gospel,
I believe. And that's why we're not taking
it to the world. That's why the homosexual community
is not hearing it. Wisdom is the cross. Why do we think we
have wisdom above it? 1 Corinthians 1. But we preach
Christ crucified, a stumbling block for the Jews, and stupidity
to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and
Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Verse 17. For in the righteousness
of God, in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith
for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
We cannot show Christ to the gay community without sharing
Christ. Well, that's simple. Yeah, but friends, there's a
lot of evangelism going on today that's not gospel-centric, that's
not cross-centric. And when we catch somebody, whatever
we use to catch them is what we're going to have to use to
keep them. And that's why the people that I talk to in the
community and some people I'm even mentoring and discipling
right now that are even part of other churches, I refuse to
allow them to come and visit and spend time here. I can't
have them coming to be a part of our church because they like
me. It's wrong. And God may just want to use
me for a year to help them be a catalyst in getting the gospel
back into their congregation. Either through the conviction,
or through the power of prayer, the work of the Holy Spirit,
or firing that guy in the pulpit who doesn't preach the Bible. I'll tell you this, when you
preach the Word, Your numbers go down. The righteous shall live by faith.
We cannot show Christ homosexuality without sharing Christ. We must
love the world that He gave His only Son. Only by faith can one
be saved. But what are we being saved from?
Well, the negative issues here. Jesus came to rescue men from
sin's guilt, from sin's pollution, from sin's slavery, from the
punishment of sin, which is the alienation of God, which is being
subject to the wrath of God, and everlasting death to bring men into the state of
righteousness. We have the right to become the
righteousness of God and to a state of holiness, that we are perfect
one day. But until then, we get credit
for Jesus' perfection. That we have freedom, Galatians
5. Freedom. To live not as a slave to sin,
but as a slave to what? Say it. Righteousness. And blessedness, which is fellowship
with God. The love of God shed abroad in the heart, as Romans
5, 5. Everlasting life. Eternal hope. Why? Why do we have to preach this
message? Why do we have to share this message with a sinful world?
Because we can't just love everybody and let them go. That's like
when you sport fish and you catch that big 12-pound largemouth
bass down in Savannah, and you reel it in and you hold it by
the lip. You ever held a largemouth bass? Oh, it's really ugly. But
it'll mess you up. You have to hold it hard, hold
it firm, and you lay it by down in the water and you squish it
around and you let it flip on out. That's disgusting. Why? Because you catch that for the
price of the trophy for the glory. Or, you know, it's big enough,
man, you get your name on the front of, like, Redneck magazine. Why do we want to let it go?
Does that make any sense? That works for fishing and hunting.
Maybe take a picture, catch a bird, and let it go. But, friends,
when it's in God's economy, when we're subject to the wrath of
God, why would we let someone go back into it? I'm not saying
we don't show the love. We've got to be gentle and respectful
and loving and sacrificial when we share the gospel. What does
that mean? It means we've got to be polite.
We've got to care. A heart of caring doesn't rebuke
and condemn in such hateful terms, but offers rebuke and condemnation.
Not really condemnation, but offers rebuke and hope in the
cross. But why can't we just let Him
go, let God do His thing? We're just going to get along
and love everybody and vote yes, vote no, whatever, change our
dialogue, change our doctrine, we'll marry whoever, we'll do
whatever it takes. We can't do that. Verse 18, Because
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress
the truth. Interesting enough in the way he works unrighteousness
there, but the first section, he says that twice, but the first
section he puts ungodliness and unrighteousness. And to me, it's
sort of a reflection of the Old Testament, ungodliness and the
unrighteousness of the New Covenant. And then he boils it all together.
They're unrighteous to suppress the truth. But what can be known
about God? That's not fair. We've got to
tell them about God. We've got to tell them about
God's love. God is love, and the perfection of His love is that He doesn't
allow sin. What kind of a loving judge allows murderers to run
rapid? What kind of a loving judge allows
rapists and child molesters to just get off the hook? That's
not love. See, we don't even know what
love is. Love is perfect. God is perfect. God is love. So the perfection
of God's love is twofold. Judgment and grace. We don't know about God. God,
everybody knows about God. I love atheists. They're easy. They're easy. Especially if they're
philosophers. They're real fun. What can be
known about God is plain to them. Verse 19, because God has shown
it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal
power and his divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever
since the creation of the world and the things that have been
made. So they who the world, everyone in it is without excuse
for one cannot be saved. Verse 16, 17, outside the gospel
of grace. Therefore, they must be saved
because man by nature is a sinner and is condemned awaiting and
already sentenced judgment. We do not share the gospel honestly,
friends, because we do not believe in the severity of sin. We just
want people to look like us. You don't believe it? Judge yourself. Judge your heart. Why would someone
so dress this way? Why do them young people have
to dress with their butts hanging out? I ask the same question. And some of you may ask the same
question, why is he wearing black and white tennis shoes on the
pulpit? Why are you wearing what you're
wearing? We judge people. We judge sin
and we think other people's sin is worse than ours. We think
the gay community is just this vile thing. Oh, we're fine, man.
We're not fine. We're not any different. If you're
a Christian, you've been saved by grace. We do not share the
gospel because we don't believe in the severity of sin. And I
got the easy verses to talk about the severity of sin. John 3,
36, whoever believes in the Son of God has eternal life, but
whoever does not obey the Son of God shall not see life, but
the wrath of God remains on him. Romans 9, 22, what if God, desiring
to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured
with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
Now, I won't get into what that means right now, because it's
really a pretext. But we see His wrath displayed.
The wrath of God remains on Him. The wrath of God. These vessels
of wrath prepared for destruction. Ephesians 5. Let no one deceive
you with empty words. For because of these things the
wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 1 Thessalonians
1 10. And to wait for His Son from
heaven whom He raised from the dead. Jesus who delivers us from
the wrath that is to come. So we should preach the gospel
because all people are without excuse And that God is, is what? That He is. Sort of the way God answers.
Who should I say sent me? I am. I am what? I am. But knowing that God is does
not save anyone. Did you hear that? Knowing in
your heart of hearts And in your mind's eye, that God is, exists,
omnipotent, awesome, creator, love, that Christ is, doesn't
save you. Knowing that doesn't save you.
No more than the psychology books that I've read through the years
and the medical books that I've read through the years make me
a psychologist or a surgeon. But I can explain to you how
they do certain surgeries. Intriguing. Knowing doesn't save. Mind knowledge doesn't save. The fool says in his heart, there's
no God, the psalmist writes. They're corrupt, they do abominable
deeds. There is none who does good,
not one. Romans 2, 15, they show that the work of the law is written
on their hearts while their conscience also bears witness and their
conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them. See, friends, You don't see in the early church
the apostles or even Jesus going around and pointing to people
in their face and saying, do you know that that right there
is a sin? Do you know that you better stop
doing that? Sure, Jesus called out sin. Who
did He call it out to? The church people. You know why? Because that's our job. You know
what our job is for the world? They stand condemned already
that we go and say, hey, you know, you got sin. The hope is
Christ. For although they knew God in
that way, that general revelation, they did not honor him as God,
they did not worship him, they did not revere him, they did
not fear him, nor did they give thanks to him. But they became
futile. What is that? Useless, worthless
in their thinking. They became futile in their thinking
and their foolish hearts were darkened. It sounds like Ephesians
chapter 4. Claiming to be wise, they became
fools and they exchanged the glory, the heaviness, the awesomeness
of the immortal God for little images resembling mortal man
and birds and creeping things and animals. So knowing God does
not give us faith in Him, as evidenced by our desires and
passions. Gratitude revealed in worship,
or what I like to say, worth-ship, is the mark of a believer. What
does that mean? Well, if Christ is worshipped,
that means His worth is ultimate. In other words, His value, Christ's
value, is worth more than any other thing I have or could ever
hope to have. And so I will worship Him with
a heart of gratitude. If God and Christ is our ultimate
worth, we see that in Christ, or we find something else to
occupy our worthwhile living, which becomes idolatry, which
in just two weeks I will begin a series on holiness. Read 1
John and Isaiah 6, please. So therefore, because we do not
honor God, because the gay community, because the lost community, because
you and I in our sin do not honor God, we create idols in our hearts
because of that. Therefore, God gave them up in
the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies
among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God
for a lie. And they worshipped and served
the creature rather than the Creator. who is blessed forever.
Amen. Why do we expect behavior to
be moral among the world? Why do we expect unbelievers
to have moral lives when Scripture teaches that it is what unbelievers
do? Why are we trying to change behavior and pass laws that create
a culture shock rather than teaching the true changing power of the
cross? I would suggest it's because we don't truly believe in it. Put that shoe on and lace it
up, friend. When we're not satisfied with
Christ, we look for other lovers. We look for other means to be
fulfilled. Even if it means we point out the sin of other people
and expect them to change without the power of God. You can't.
Neither can I. This is being lost. And for this
reason, for this reason, they worshipped the law and they served
the creature. We look for other lovers. For this reason, God
gave them up to dishonorable passions. And here's a list of
some of those dishonorable passions. Women exchanged natural relations
for those that were contrary to nature. And men likewise gave
up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion
for one another. Men committing the shameless acts and women
and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. which is death. It's like if
I lie, or have a little arrogance, or hate somebody in my heart,
or get mad at the person that cuts me off on the highway every
day, or the person driving down the middle of three lanes. How
that works, I don't know. Or saying something off-color
to my children, or getting upset with my wife, or just when I'm
reading the Word of God, decide to close. I don't want to hear
that today, God. There's nothing different than
that in living into a gay lifestyle. Yeah. It's more obvious. It's more grotesque, if you would,
from a cultural standpoint. But is it really? Scripture teaches
that homosexuality is one of many sins. And that all of us
who are lost will partake in some of these sins. Let me tell
you, any man in here who is married, who felt in their heart at any
time that their woman had to give their body to them because
it was mandated by Scripture, sinned. That's what Ephesians 5 teaches. So we've got sexual sin if we've
ever thought that. If we've ever seen a good-looking woman or
a good-looking man, we thought, that is a great-looking person.
I wonder why they're wearing those shoes. we probably committed
adultery in our heart. When we look at our neighbor's
brand new truck, and we say, well, I'd like to have that,
we cuff it. We take a pen by accident from
the bank, and we just go, ah, heck with it. We've stolen. I
know that was a mistake, but we found it. Our consciousness
said, crap, I stole a pen. And we put it in our pocketbook.
or in our shirt. Just little things. Homosexuality
is sinful, just like other shameless or shameful acts. God turns over
those who are not living by faith in the grace of Christ to their
passions. Then their true nature reveals itself with acts of unrighteousness.
Remember, you and I were saved from the same. So, Paul here
deals mainly with the sin in the context there with sexual
sin, in the context of homosexuality, with that particular issue. And
so homosexuality is a sin, friends, one of many. One of many. Why is that? Because God ordained
the marriage as a reflection of the gospel. He created man
and woman to work together, not only in a cooperative way, but
in a physical way. I mean, to argue that is just
ridiculous. to argue the constructs of the
creation is just ridiculous. A man shall leave his father
and mother, he shall cling to his wife, and they shall become
one flesh. It's said in Matthew 19, 5, Jesus
says it, Mark 10, Paul in 1 Corinthians 6, and in Ephesians 5. As a matter of fact, in Ephesians
5, he says, the two shall become one flesh. This is the mystery
of God revealed to you. I'm saying that that means that's
the picture of Jesus in the church. It's not my... See, if there's
anything in the Old Testament that's revealed, the New Testament
reveals it. If it doesn't, don't listen to
people who say they know what it means. Okay? Well, that's what that means.
Where is that at? If it's not in the New Testament, it's not
there. That's called hermeneutics 101. It's what you learn the
first day in Bible college, is you don't interpret the text
except with the text. Period. There's a lot deeper
than that. But Paul deals with homosexuality
in the Church of Corinth in 1 Corinthians 6, 9. For do you not know that
the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, and not be
deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
nor men who practice homosexuality. There's a list of sins. There's
several lists of sins that Paul uses. Sexual sin is among those
almost all the time. Homosexuality is listed among
those. Yeah, there are arguments about homosexuality and gay sin
and the actual original text in the Hebrew Scriptures. We
can go into all that, but the bottom line is by its very content,
Paul, esteems marriage between a man and a woman, shows the
purpose of it, shows that it's a reflection of the glory of
the gospel of Jesus Christ, and any variation of that is sinful.
So before we even do a word study, let's just go from there. The
standard of God is that the marriage bed should be a picture of redemption
and unity. Sexuality. Any sexual act outside
marriage is a horrible reduction of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
of the gospel message, even our sexual sin. Sexual sin is body
worship. It's self-serving. It's self-fulfilling
satisfaction that comes not from the union that God has established
as a reflection of the cross and the union of all people who
come to faith in Him and His finished work, but for gratification
of the flesh. And I'll get into this. This
is a whole hour next week. And since they did not see fit,
look at verse 28, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge
God, He gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not be
done. When in full-blown sin, temptation and sin reigns like
cancer. It destroys the body and the
mind. And one cannot acknowledge God and come to repentance except
through Christ alone. Because until we come by faith
in Christ, that He is the only one who can save us and change
us, then we are lost completely in sin. No matter how bad, gross,
or exposed our sin is, or how simple, small, and hidden it
might be. Verse 29, they were filled with
all manner of unrighteousness. Listen to this list. Evil, covetousness,
malice. They are full of envy, murder,
strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanders, haters
of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedience
to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. The list
goes on and on and on throughout other parts of the Scripture.
Unrighteousness. Those who are lost, who are not
holy, who are not in right standing with God. Wickedness. People
who take delight in doing what is wrong, greed, covetousness,
desiring other things, overreaching, a hunger or craving for more
money or more stuff, no matter how it's obtained, honestly or
dishonestly. Ravenous self-assertion of matters
in sex also can be greed, depravity. This is the badness of the human
equipment. This is the badness of how we're
developed, of how we are. And the womb, we're born into
sin. It's hard to distinguish from wickedness, honestly. I
think depravity is what gives birth to wickedness. We love
what is evil. Envy, this is displeasure. When someone has something that
you want, you don't like them. When someone gets something that
you didn't get, you're frustrated. When someone succeeds where you
wish you could, you're bitter. Well, that's not me. Oh, really? Is somebody growing closer to
the Lord than you are and you hate them because of it? You're
always pointing out their sin? Your neighbor's house got a new
roof and you don't have the money to put yours on, so you frustrate
yourself? Murder. Envy leads to murder. Look at James chapter 4. Strife.
Quarrelsome. Awfulness. Deceit. This is lying and cunning treachery. Malice. Spite. The desire to
harm people. They become gossips. These are
people that murder other people with their lips, talk about them
behind their back, say, well, I can't believe what the pastor
said, or I can't believe what John said, or I can't believe
what Sarah said. Hey, did you know about this? Did you hear
about this? Hey, you need to pray for so-and-so. Blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah. This is what happened. That's gossip. That's not prayer.
God doesn't hear the lips of a person that prays like that,
who tells it all. Pray for James. Why? He needs
it. Ta-da! How simple is that? God knows
the hearts and minds of men. And here's the prayer you ought
to pray for everybody. What's going on? That God would be their ultimate.
That Christ would be their King. And that by His sovereign will
and power, the Holy Spirit, that they would be overpowered from
their sin and saved by grace by a holy God. Period. Boom.
What's a better prayer than that? They become slanderers. Haters
of God, insolent. They treat others with contempt,
like they are the only ones that ever did anything worthwhile.
Arrogant, supermen, superwomen. Boastful. Let me tell you what
I've done, because I am Superman, let me tell you about it. Inventors
of evil. People that, like, the mastermind,
the evildoers, like on the movies. The master criminals that get
delight in coming up with a new device that's going to overtake
the world. Inventors of evil, disobedient to our parents. Boy,
that's a hard one to swallow, isn't it? Senseless. They're void of understanding. Mental weakness. They're stupid
because they have all long been unwilling to listen to God. Faithless. They don't have a true covenant.
They don't have saving grace. They're not trusting in Christ
but themselves. They're loveless. They have no
natural affection for the lost or the saints. They have no natural
affection to lay down their lives for someone else. This will have been a good text
for last week. Loveless, how we can abort a child. Pityless. People without mercy. Ruthless. People that pass by and see people
in need and do nothing. Though they know, verse 32, God's
decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they
do not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice
them. Is that not the picture of America? Is that not the picture
of the homosexual issues that we're seeing today? Is that not
a picture of all what most churches and many churches, many congregations,
I'm going to stop saying churches, many congregations are doing?
They're allowing the world to infiltrate the message, and now
the message is changing. We're not going to say that because
it's not relative anymore. Friends, if the Word of God isn't relative,
then Jesus isn't the same. And if Jesus is not immutable,
then you're going to hell. That's what the Scripture teaches. The Scripture says that Jesus
is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And that His promises
are the same, that God's mercy and love and justice and wrath,
all of it remains. And by faith in Christ, you have
The fullness, the righteousness of God. And that doesn't change. And if anything here changes,
then that changes. It doesn't change. Although we
know that death is the benefit and the consequence of sin, we
still disobey and we yearn to please our flesh, don't we? Don't
agree with me? How many of you know or thought
that back in the 80s that saccharine was carcinogenic? You know what
I'm talking about? This report came out, don't use
saccharin, you'll get cancer. Dude, we had a massive saccharin
dumping at my house. Our neighbors, they're going
to kill me. I dip saccharin. Now they just
released a couple of months ago, it's not carcinogenic. How about
that? Now aspartame is. How about we just be moderate
in our sugar intake? Not only do we still disobey
and we yearn to please our flesh, but then we give approval to
those who practice them. We give attaboys and high fives.
Ah, there you go, dude. You got wasted last night, man.
Way to go. Wow. Oh, I know, man. I know how it is living with
a wife that's always running around on me. Why don't you run
around, too? You know what I'd do with that rebellious child?
I already did it. I killed him. Buried him in the
yard. Way to go. Sounds absurd, but that's what
we do. We give approval. We embrace it. Birds of a feather
flock together, as my grandmother Tippins always used to say. And
that's true. You want to find a drug dealer?
Find one. You'll find the rest of them. Want to find a drunk?
Find one. You'll find a line of them. Want to find people who do whatever? You can find them doing it together. But here's the hope. And this
is the hope we should be preaching to the, not only the gay community,
but to everybody. Romans 117, For in it the righteousness
of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written,
the righteous shall live by faith. Now, you know how that really
translates in the Greek? The one who by faith is righteous
shall live. Did you hear that? The one who By faith, what? Is righteous, shall live. So if you, by faith, trust in
Christ to make you righteous, you shall live. But if you think
you've got to muster up the belief to live the right way, then you
shall die. If you think you've got to live
righteously so that you can have faith, you're going to die. You've
got to have faith. Period. And only by faith can you be
righteous. Habakkuk 2.4, Behold, his soul
is puffed up, if it is not upright within him, but the righteous
shall live by his faith. I love that. The righteous shall
live by his faith. He who promised is faithful. We hold fast to the confession
of hope in Christ without wavering for he who promises faith. God
saves and He sanctifies those who trust in Him as their sufficiency,
as their supreme treasure. And He gives us the heart to
repent and the eyes to see so that we might believe that He
is everything we need. Sin exists because worship doesn't. Because Christ isn't worth much
to most. Can the Ethiopian change his
skin? Or the leopard change his spots? Prophet Jeremiah asks
in chapter 13, can you change who you are, transform
into something else? Then also you can do good who
are accustomed to doing evil. We can't do it. You're wrong, Jesus says, because
you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. What? You're wrong because you don't
know the Scriptures nor the power of the God. What is the power
of the God? The Gospel. Where do I get that? Verse 16 today. The power
of God is the Gospel. Romans 5. While we are still
weak at the right time, Christ died for the unrighteous, for
the ungodly. Romans 8. For God has done what
the law, weakened by the flesh, could
not do. The law cannot save us. Following the law could not save
us. By sending, how did He save us? What did the law could not
do that God did? By sending His own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, He condemned sin
in the flesh. Christ was condemned for us to
live. For God's glory. One of my favorite
passages of Scripture, 1 Peter 1.23, Since you have been born
again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through
the living and abiding Word of God. But to all who did receive
Him, John 1, Sonny Nights, who believed in His name, He gave
the right to become children of God. We can believe, we can receive
forgiveness and be made into the likeness of Christ by the
power of the Gospel, which is Christ Himself. And church, we
have an obligation to be the light in the darkness, not to
cover the darkness with more darkness. And we must preach
a true gospel. We must stand on truth. We must stand on the Word of
God. And we must call the church to repent, just as much as we
call the world to repent. For many, many, many, during
the latter few weeks of Jesus' ministry, the latter few months
and weeks of His ministry, walked away after years of following
Him around because His teachings got too hard. It was good as long as he was
feeding them and clothing them and all this. And then he started
saying, you've got to give me what you're not willing to give
up. Forget that. I'm out of here.
You've got to taste my flesh and blood. I'm out of your mind. I'm out of here. So how do we close this? We really
can't. The whole issue is that, man,
the church is messed up. We've messed up when it comes
to reaching the gay community. And we've got to repent as a
people. And we've got to be serious about
our sin and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because if without that, we're
lost. So I guess the invitation is
this. I guess it's the same invitation that you get every week. Have you seriously looked at
the sin in your life? Have you taken a good assessment,
evaluation if you will, of you? Can you see with odds of faith
the trueness of your sin and depravity? And do you have a
desire in your heart to be saved from God's wrath? If you do,
God is calling you to repentance. The Scripture says to trust in
Christ alone to save you. For His work on the cross is
sufficient. What He has done is finished.
And by faith we receive that gift. And then we are changed. Is that your heart this morning? Is Christ your treasure? Is He
your everything because He is the Lamb of God that takes away
the sin of the world? Or is He this treasure map that
you just look forward to getting something out of? If Christ is not your treasure,
the Scripture says to repent and be saved. Quit falling in
love with the day you got saved and repent. Quit falling in love
with the day you joined the church or the day you got baptized.
And just get right. How? By faith. God, make me right. Give me a new heart. Cleanse
me. Save me. I can't...