The Future of the Church and Homosexuality #1

Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green. founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hello, I'm Bill Wright. Thanks for joining us as we continue teaching God's people God's word. Don begins a new message today, so without further delay, let's join him right now in the Truth Pulpit.

Titled The Future of the Church and Homosexuality. And everything that has been said over the past two days informs what I'm going to say here. But I want to say a couple of things by way of preface. And that While we are particularly focused on the issue of homosexuality because it's the issue of our day in light of recent events at the United States Supreme Court and so forth, really, I also want you to understand that everything that I'm about to say today has a very broad application. If we wouldn't even have to talk about the issue of homosexuality at all in order for this to be directly relevant and particularly encouraging to you here today.

Because what we're talking about as we go through this is really rooted in the purposes of Christ for the church. And the purposes of Jesus Christ for his people are sure, they are good, they are certain. And when we belong to Christ, we have a bright hope, a bright future. And nothing that can happen in life, whether in your individual sorrows or in what happens in the world around us, can ever diminish the gleaming hope that is ours in our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing can take away, not death, not life, not angels, not principalities, nothing can take away from us the glorious future and the eternal love that God has set upon us in our Lord Jesus Christ.

And so, whatever is happening to us in life, whether in society or in your individual private life. Whatever is happening, there is a sovereign hand of a good God wisely directing your Christian life to accomplish His purpose in order to bless you abundantly in the end. And so, no matter what happens, no matter how dark the headlines might seem to get. Beloved, we always come back to the fact that we are secure in Christ, we are confident in Him, and therefore we live life from a position of strength and from a position of courage. We are not frightened by circumstances.

We are not frightened by hostile men. We do not shrink back from the challenges of life. Instead, we, as it were, we wave the banner of Christ all the more in the light of what's happening and we rally around the flag of the cross and we gather around our hope and we find encouragement to go forth and to be strong and courageous as Scripture calls us to do. And that's true. Generally, and it is true specifically on the issue of homosexuality.

Now, for those of you that are visiting, and I know that there are many visitors with us here today, and I'm certainly glad that you're with us, I want you to know in advance that this is not a typical Sunday sermon, what I'm about to do. I normally teach verse by verse. We're going through the book of Ephesians, and we normally go through a book verse by verse on Sunday morning. This is a little different because of the nature of our conference. It's a necessary conclusion to a series of messages that have preceded us over the past two days.

And so basically today what we're doing is that I just want to give you a sense of where we go from here as Christians. Where should the church at large go in light of what's happened over the past two weeks and the endorsement and the embrace, the legal embrace and the societal embrace of that which the Bible calls sin? I want to give you a couple of broad categories to think in. First of all, we're going to talk about what we cannot do, and then we're going to talk about what we must do. And so there's going to be kind of a two-part fold to this message, and there's going to be multiple sub-points within each of those broad categories.

And it's important for us to think in those kinds of terms, to think about that which is negative in the sense of that which we don't go down this road. And then also to embrace and to understand the positive: say, okay, here's what we do. follow. This is what we do pursue. This is what we need to go after.

And I feel a particular burden to say these things here. today because I'm not going to mention any names. But I am not satisfied with the response that has come to this issue over the past couple of weeks from some of the most prominent names in Christianity. I think they are too dark, they are too pessimistic, and they are not focused on the right issues. They still want to argue about the Constitution.

They are frightened by the thought of persecution. They are not giving the people of God a way to go forward with hope and boldness and a courage that is worthy of our Lord. And to simply be negative and to say, oh, this is so bad. And look at what's been taken away from us, and what about our religious liberty? And to simply decry the negative aspects of it is not a path forward for the people of God.

It is not spiritual leadership to talk in those terms without offering something constructive that people can rally around and go forward on.

Now, I believe in the days to come that these men will do better and that we're simply seeing an initial emotional reaction and that they'll rise to the occasion and vindicate the honor that their ministries have deserved over the past several decades. And they will rise to the challenge. But right now, I think that their steps are not all that they could be. And so for us here today, for Truth Community Church and for whoever would join in around this message in the days to come and other media, I want to lay forth what I believe is a roadmap, is an agenda for us to embrace and to follow. And that is attainable, and that we don't have to be discouraged or intimidated by what is happening around us.

Scripture has laid all of this out for us very clearly, long in advance. And let me just say and reiterate one more time. Even if you're not engaged on the issue of society's embrace of homosexuality, the challenges that you're facing in your individual life, in your family, in your work situation. These principles apply equally as well there as well. One of the things that's been impressed upon my own heart at going through this conference is that we don't need a special agenda.

To respond to the issue of homosexuality, there's not a specific, brilliant idea that we need to come and deal with this one issue as if it was any different than any other issue that we face. Beloved, Trust God, trust the scriptures and believe that what we have in Christ and what we have in His Word is sufficient for any challenge that we would face and that it is sufficient and we just apply the basic fundamentals of what Scripture says about trusting God and being faithful to Him and how we testify to Christ to a lost and dying world. We just keep doing what we've been doing all along. We don't alter our trajectory. The beauty of being anchored in Scripture is that you don't need to come up with anything new as circumstances change.

And That's what we're going to see here today.

Well, let's talk about what we cannot do. And again, just keeping this in the general focus of what we've been talking about over the past couple of days, as we address the future of the church and homosexuality, how do Christians, how should the church respond? To this situation, well let's lay out first of all what we cannot do. First of all, as we've seen from over the past two days. First of all, what can we not do?

First of all, we cannot approve homosexuality. We cannot approve homosexuality. We cannot bend on this issue as our society has done. We are not to follow the lead of the world into further darkness. To accept homosexuality would be unfaithful to Scripture.

It would be unfaithful to Jesus Christ, the One who has saved us from our sins. And that's about all that I'm going to say about that because the prior four messages have outlined why that is unthinkable for us to do. It is unthinkable for us to affirm people in their sin, to affirm them in darkness, to tell them that God is okay with you being gay. And then letting them just meander their way into eternal destruction. It is unfaithful to Christ, it is unfaithful to Scripture, and it is unfaithful to unsaved people to make such a statement.

And so, faithfulness to God and faithfulness to our fellow man forbids us from following the world and giving our stamp of approval to homosexuality. And so We will be faithful. And we won't even be unfaithful to homosexuals who need to repent and believe the gospel. When they tire of their sin, when they find themselves weary of the destructive lifestyle that they have chosen and pursued, when they are without hope, and when they are perhaps facing death and saying, What happens to me when I die? I need someone to save me.

Beloved, We as a church We as Christians, the scriptures will be there to offer hope, not having to backtrack on a compromise that we made under the influence of popular opinion right now. We will take the long-term view. We will trust God. We will not. Drink in.

the spirit of our age. We cannot approve homosexuality no matter what else we do. Secondly, What we cannot do. Secondly, We cannot stop. homosexuality.

It's not even what we're called to do. But we can't stop it. And I say this to help you have a sense of relaxing a little bit, maybe, of not being quite so uptight about what we see happening around us, because it's not within our power to stop this. surge of Sin in our society. As we saw last night, or as we saw yesterday, the messages tend to run together in my mind a little bit.

First of all, we need to understand that Romans chapter 1 indicates that we are seeing a judicial act of God upon our society, that He has given our society over to this depraved mindset as a judgment on our prior ungodliness. Romans 1:18 says that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Notice the order: there's an ungodliness that is followed by unrighteousness. And long before our society ever embraced homosexuality, there was a prior abandonment of the fear of God and the authority of Scripture. And what we're seeing now is just the outworking of the inevitable consequences of turning away from God.

There is no such thing as a righteousness that is apart from A fear of God. and the righteousness of Christ And so we must know the times and be sober in spirit. And as we see this unfolding and we're informed in our understanding by what Scripture says about these sorts of things. Rather than trying to rouse ourselves up and to stop sinners from sinning, which they do by nature. We need to realize, oh, the gravity of what we're facing, the gravity of what we are witnesses to.

of seeing God's hand being handing over a society unto judgment, and we are seeing it play out exactly like Scripture says that we would. Men pursuing unnatural lusts, and having that become predominant in our society. Beloved, if God is exercising judgment, we are not going to stop the progress of His hand. And what we do instead is we humble ourselves, we tremble before him, we plead for his mercy, we confess that we too are guilty of our own sins, even if we're not guilty of those of the society at large. We recognize the times and we're sober in spirit.

But we don't take upon ourselves an impossible burden of saying, I must somehow stop this. Besides We need to be realistic about the whole situation. The homosexual lobby is not going to go away. The fact that they have this Supreme Court decision in their hand is not their final destination. All this is going to do, in human terms, is simply embolden them to seek even greater gains.

And so, we're not going to stop that. The mere fact that we preach is not going to stop an entire sinful movement in its tracks, and it's not within our power to do that. And so, don't take on to yourself a burden and a responsibility that you cannot possibly fulfill. The homosexual lobby is not going to go away. And, beloved, as we think that way, As we understand that, I find it personally very helpful to understand and to realize that homosexuality was present throughout biblical times as well.

It's addressed in the Old Testament. It was present very prominent in the culture of the New Testament as well, in the surrounding culture. Did that stop the people of God? Did that hinder the advance of the purposes of Christ? Did it keep his church from growing?

No. No, quite to the contrary. In the midst of a pagan, depraved culture, the church of Christ was born in the book of Acts and grew and flourished. And so this is not a, they do not have a stranglehold on the Spirit of God in the movement of. what God intends to do.

It's helpful for us to realize that what we're seeing is nothing new over the course of the history of man. And so, while we grieve over what we see, we should not be shocked, and we should not think that it's within our meager power. To stop that which, to stop this growing snowball that's rolling down the mountain. It just doesn't work that way. And Rather than thinking that we should do something to try to stop it.

In political or legal means, we need to realize and humble ourselves and say, this manifests our weakness. This manifests how much we need to humble ourselves before God and to cry out for Him, for help, for mercy, for Him to act because it's beyond our power. And you know, I'll tell you. This is Just my judgment on the situation. The Church of God, the Church of Christ, the professing church, let's say it that way, the so-called evangelical church, it's evident that the professing people of God are not yet sufficiently humbled under what has happened.

Because there is not a sufficient humbling and a crying out to God in this. Rather, we're bemoaning our own personal loss, bemoaning the circumstances that we find ourselves, worried about the loss of our rights. And there is not that spirit of crying out to God in the midst of oppression that we've seen from the Psalms in our Tuesday night studies. And a crying out to God and a humbling that says, I am helpless in this situation. That's just that spirit is not animating the discussions that are about.

And so there's no reason to think that this is going to get better until the people of God seriously humble themselves under what's happening and cry out for mercy. We're still too convinced of our own strength and ability. And we need to abandon that. And admit our weakness before God, and admit our weakness before the powers that are at work. And to find ourselves humbly casting ourselves at his feet.

We can't stop it. And so While we grieve over it, we're not shocked and we don't try to take on that which is beyond our power to accomplish. Yeah.

Now thirdly, We said we can't approve homosexuality. We cannot stop it. Thirdly, I would say this, we cannot ignore it. And that's why we've had this conference this weekend. We cannot ignore it.

And frankly, I've had to come around to this position over the past many years. You know, I wanted to ignore it in my ministry. I would have preferred not to speak publicly about this issue because it's such a shameful and dark sin. And you prefer not to even inject it into the minds of people. at one level.

But This is the world that we live in. And even as parents with young children, I'm not saying that you should introduce your children to this at a particularly young age when they're barely old enough to read or write. I'm not saying that. But even as young families, we need to understand that this is the world that our children are going to grow up in. And we need to be somehow proactive in instructing them in righteousness because the world around us is going to be quick to fill in the vacuum if we don't.

We can't ignore it. We ignore it and you ignore it as parents to your own peril. And as a church, Just seeing the way that Christians are unsettled by this issue, seeing the way that proponents of homosexuality are perverting and twisting even the scriptures, trying to make them seem like they support the lifestyle that God so evidently condemns. We can't ignore it. We must rise to the occasion.

We must meet the challenge of our age. And face it, And we can't ignore it because the activists are aggressive, they're well organized, they're litigious, they are media savvy. As has been evidently displayed to us over the past several years. They have a sympathetic media. They have sympathetic politicians.

It is simply part of our world, and so we must deal with it. That's why we had this conference. And so we can't approve it. We can't stop it. We can't ignore it.

There's one other thing that we can't do. As the people of God. We cannot Fear it. We cannot be afraid. That is not worthy of Christ.

And that is not worthy. of our God. We cannot fear homosexuality or its advance in society. Why do I say that? Finally, we're going to turn to God's word here this morning.

Yeah.

As Christians, We don't live from a position of fear at all. That is not the call of God on our lives. Turn to the book of Proverbs, if you would, Proverbs chapter 3. And just reminding you of some very basic scriptural truth. Proverbs chapter 3.

Verses five and six. Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6. Says, Trust in the Lord. with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. Acknowledge him.

in all your ways, and he will make your paths straight. If trust is anything, it's a spirit of confidence and an absence of fear. And our confidence is rooted not in knowing how political events are going to unfold in the coming years. It's not known in confidence and trust is not found in the ways, the direction of society. We come back to our God.

We come back to Yahweh. We come back to our covenant-keeping, promise-making, and promise-keeping God who has said that He will be with us, He will watch over us, He will sustain us, He will keep us. And we rest in that regardless of what happens around us in our circumstances. We trust our God all the way, and we do not lean on our own understanding. And someone might say and might object, but this is really bad.

This is uncharted waters for our nation. Don't you realize what's happened to our Constitution? Don't you realize that we're under tyranny? Don't you realize that these people have other agendas planned? To which I say All right.

And you know what? I don't understand. I don't know where all of that's going. and it's not even relevant to the point at hand. Because we trust in the Lord with all of our heart, with an undivided heart.

With a purity of commitment and a purity of trust that is worthy of Him, that says, I will not accept fear, and in all my ways, even in these ways of the society around me, I will acknowledge His sovereign care over my life, and I will trust Him and not be afraid. This is basic spiritual life, isn't it? This isn't anything new. Nothing has changed in that regard. for us.

We cannot live in fear because we know the true and living God. He has commanded us to trust Him. He has proven Himself worthy of our trust. The outcome for us is going to be good in the end. There is no reason for fear.

And to be fearful Simply because society is degenerating around us. is ultimately to be unfaithful to God. Our Lord said, Be anxious for nothing. in Matthew chapter six. And he intends us to do that.

He intends us to obey him even from the depths of our hearts and to cultivate that trusting. Restful. Spirit that says, Though the waves are bounding around me, I'm secure. in the boat, because Christ is with me here. And when we manifest that kind of trust in the midst of the cataclysm that's happening around us morally in our society, we are manifesting the glory of God.

and not the spirit of our age. And so we don't give in to fear. just because of what we see happening around us. Further. Beloved, turn to Matthew 16, if you would.

Matthew 16. In Matthew sixteen, Jesus is talking to his disciples. And he had asked them. In verse 13, he asked them, he said, Who do people say that the Son of Man is? In verse 14, they give voice to the incredible confusion that was surrounding the ministry of Christ at the time.

They say, well, some say that you're John the Baptist, and others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And Jesus said, But who do you say that I am? Peter said, You're the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus blessed him. He said, My Father who's in heaven has revealed this to you.

And look at what he says in verse 18. I also say to you that you are Peter. And upon this rock, here's what I want you to see. Jesus says, I will build my church. In the midst of a confused and spiritually misdirected society, In the first century, and there was a complete misunderstanding of who Christ was around him.

In response to one man saying, Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus, in the midst of such seemingly meagre Reasons for confidence. says Peter, on the confession that you just made, I will build my church. Yeah.

Christ's power to build His church, to bless His people, and to establish His will is not contingent upon the opposition of men. He has the sovereign ability, the sovereign right, and the sovereign intention to build his church, and the fact that he will continue to do it in the midst of the society that we find ourselves in today is simply going to be a greater manifestation of his power. The victory is greater when the opponent seems stronger. It is a greater accomplishment to defeat the Green Bay Packers in football than it is to beat a junior high football team. And as men raise up.

With the impression, with the stamp of approval from the United States Supreme Court. And when they rise up with that level of approval. And authority, humanly speaking. And Christianity. deliberately, intentionally, Without any diminishment of his ability, continues to build his church, his power and his glory are going to be put on even greater display.

Trust God's word. Trust Christ when He says, I'm going to build my church. And if you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ today, you are included in His intentions. He's not only going to add people unconverted now to His church in the future, He's going to continue to build and sanctify you. He's going to continue to conform you to his image.

And that is his ability to do that. The power of the indwelling Holy Spirit is completely undiminished by what we're seeing in the homosexual world around us. And so why would we be afraid? Think about it this way. On what grounds?

In light of all that Christ has said and all of the promises and commands that He's given, trust in the Lord with all your heart. I will build my church. Nothing will separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And we just keep multiplying these great promises that our Lord has made to us.

On what ground would you enter into his presence and say, I'm aware of all of these promises, Lord, but I am afraid? I I don't think that you can pull it off. Every this is just this is too big even for you. Let's hold it up and view it for the. For the lack of faith and the culpable unbelief that that is.

Let's just take Jesus at His word. Why don't we? And He says He'll be with us, He will build us, He will keep us, He will deliver us safe to heaven. Let's just take Christ at His word and rest and be content in that. No matter what happens around us.

That is the kind of confidence and trust of which he is worthy. That is the kind of confidence and trust which is our prerogative as Christians to enjoy. To say just a little bit more. That's our duty as Christians, to trust Him triumphantly and courageously, even when circumstances seem to dictate to the contrary. But beloved, It doesn't take trust.

There's no victory. Of heart in trusting Christ when everything is lined up the way you want it to be in life. There's no glory in victory if your opponent forfeits. Is there? No, no, the victory, the glory is when you trust in the midst of opposition and come out safe on the other side.

The glory is found, though the victory is gained when you trust and you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know the outcome, whether homosexuality in society or the sorrows of your own life or the challenges that you currently face. Don't wait to trust God until you see how it comes out. Because that's not your victory. Your victory is standing up like a man and saying, I will trust the word of God solely on his own authority, no matter what I see happening around me.

That's the kind of Christians that we're going to be. Here at Truth Community. That's the standard. That's what we call ourselves to, because that's the call of the Word of God on our lives. And so We cannot fear.

To fear would be to betray our God. To betray our Christ, to doubt his word, to question his providence. And so we can't fear. No matter what happens. in the days to come.

Our God has the situation fully in hand. His sovereign rule has not been compromised. His directing providence. has not been shattered. We are in His hand.

where we are safe and where we ever love to be. Nothing has changed. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so we are not afraid as we look to the future. We can't be.

Now, before we go, I just want to send an invitation to you in this brief moment here at the end of the broadcast. It is a real joy and privilege for me to, week by week, meet new people who come through the Cincinnati area and stop by for a Sunday service or even a Tuesday evening Bible study at our location on the east side of Cincinnati. And I would invite you to do that. There are a lot of attractions that bring people to our region, and people often plan their trips around the opportunity to be with us on a Sunday morning service or on a Tuesday. And so, if you would come and visit us, I would love that.

But even more, make the opportunity, I'm very accessible at our church. If you do visit us, come and introduce yourself to me. I would love to meet you, have a Brief word of fellowship with you, and for us to be able to cement our relationship even more, going from the mere audio here to that which is face-to-face in person as we share in the joy of serving and knowing our Lord Jesus Christ. You can find the address and service times at our website, thetruthpulpit.com, and we would love to see you. Again, that website information is thetruthpulpit.

Yeah.

That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to the Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people. God's Word. Yeah.