The Future of the Church and Homosexuality #2

Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word. Today, Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time.

So let's get right to it. Open your Bible as we join Don now in the Truth Pulpit. Let's pivot into what we must do. What is the positive agenda for the Church of Jesus Christ in times like this? What is it that we as individual Christians should be thinking about and orienting our life toward?

in the days to come. I mean, think about all the constitutional things and all the political and legislation. And you know, are they going to sue pastors if they don't do gay marriage? What do we, what do we, what do we, what do we do? Beloved.

Listen. Strip all that stuff away. It's just external. Distraction. What we must do, this is point number two, it is not complicated.

It is not even unique to our day. We simply do what Christ has commanded his disciples to do. It's simple. In principle, there's nothing complicated for us to understand. What must we do?

I'm going to list out six items here. I gave you four things that we cannot do. I'm going to give you six items now that we must do. First of all, We humble ourselves. We humble ourselves in light of the world's fascination and approval of homosexuality.

We humble ourselves. This is very critical for us. And we tried to emphasize this to some extent over the prior two days. Beloved, it is easy for us On an individual or on a corporate level, it is easy for us to point out the sins of others. and ignore our own.

But as I've said to you many times over the years, and I will hopefully continue to say in the days to come. Yeah. Repentance for you is not a matter of repenting of the sins of society of which you're not personally guilty. That's not the spirit of repentance to say, oh, I reject the sins of my society. It's good that you do that, but understand that that's not personal repentance.

What about your own sins, the things that you are guilty of? Are you turning from sin in your own life? Your own anger, your own lust, your own deceit. And that kind of stuff. We have to humble ourselves enough to remember that we examine our own lives.

Even as we are discerning about the society that is around us. Look over at Matthew chapter 7. We must humble ourselves enough to confess our own sins in the presence of God. to examine ourselves And to remember our past. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7, verse 1, A word that I understand is greatly twisted against us.

By those who have no Part in the things of the Lord. But in Matthew 7, verse 1, we'll not worry about the misinterpretations that are thrown against us, and we'll just take it for what the Lord means for his people here. In Matthew 7, verse 1, he says, Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way that you judge, you will be judged, and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Or, how can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. We humble ourselves enough to examine ourselves And to confess before the Lord and before our others, not our individual sins, but you know, I'm a sinner too. I too need a Savior.

I too needed to be born again. And we examine ourselves and we realize that we ourselves, even as Christians, fall short of the glory of God. And so we don't simply go immediately to the attack on the sins of society. We start with ourselves and we look in the mirror, as it were, and say, Lord, forgive me. I am the man of unclean lips.

I'm the man of an unclean heart. I'm the man, I'm the woman of deceit. I'm the woman of gossip. And Father, I confess that and I humble myself before you and I ask you to forgive me for my own sins, for I have dishonored my Savior with my life today, the past week, the past month, whenever the last time was that you confessed sin in your own life. We humble ourselves and not simply lift ourselves up in pride because we're not guilty of the sins of the society around us.

There's plenty of sin in your own life to keep you busy. Confessing before God. how you've fallen short. And so we humble ourselves. even as believers.

along that line.

Now along with that, I want you to turn over to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter five. And there's different places that we could have gone to make this point, but I just want you to. to go to this text. Which we will get to fairly soon in our exposition of Ephesians.

Ephesians chapter 5, verse 6. This is incredibly humbling. Because Paul says, Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, meaning going back to verse 3 where he said, immorality, impurity, greed must not be named among you. No filthiness or silly talk, coarse jesting.

Verse 5: Know this with certainty: that no immoral or pure person or covetous man who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Paul goes on in verse 6: Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Watch where he goes. You don't see this coming.

He says, Therefore do not be partakers with them, for you. were formerly darkness. But now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. He reminds them of their prior unconverted past.

He says, You used to be the child of wrath. You used to be the one who was dominated by the devil. You used to be the one who was. dead in trespasses and sins. And now you are a child of light simply because God had grace and mercy upon your soul and brought you to Christ in order to deliver you from your sin.

Remember your own spiritual past. You formerly were darkness. And somebody graciously shared the gospel with you. Christ exercised power over your soul and saved you. And cleansed you from your guilt and forgave all of your sins and adopted you into his family, purchased you out of the market, the slave market of sin, and Paid the price for your redemption.

Don't you remember that? Do you remember? what Christ did, do you remember what your former life was like?

Well, remember that. Lest you become puffed up against the society that's around you. We proclaim the gospel as forgiven sinners, not those who are righteous in our own merit. We merely extend to unsaved people the same mercy that has already been shown to us. And we don't adopt an attitude of superiority.

We humble ourselves and realize, you know what, I was a sinner too. I needed grace myself. I still sin in my own life. And we humble ourselves. before God and before men.

Now Having done that, What else do we do?

Well Secondly, We teach the Bible. We teach the Bible. Go over to Matthew 28. We teach the Bible so that men will know the counsel of God. And wherever God gives us opportunity, we go and we declare His Word.

We declare the counsel of God. Whether it's over a cup of coffee in a restaurant, or whether it's in a conference like this, or wherever the Lord opens doors to us, we take the Bible and we unfold its meaning to men. Matthew 28. Verse 18 And there's a very important point wrapped up in this. There's a lot of important points wrapped up in this.

But just to remind you of this familiar passage, what is it that we do now?

Now that the world has changed around us, what do we do? What did Jesus tell us to do? It's not complicated. He says in verse 18, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. You go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

We won't do a full exposition of the passage here. Just simply note that Jesus said, You go and teach. You go into all of the nations, with all of their darkness, with all of their idolatry, with all of their sin, with all of their hostility. You go in my name, on my authority, and you teach what I said.

Well, we can do that, right? We've got a we've got a Bible. We can We understand the basic principles of scripture. We can go and do that. That's attainable.

That's something that we can do. And so Rather than being distracted off into some kind of political strategy to try to counter the events of the age, as the church, As Christians, we recognize the primacy, the centrality of Scripture in what we do. And it is only the scripture that has any converting power on unsaved men, anyway. As I've said many times, you can put up colored lights and you can roll out the fog machines and turn up the music and it's not going to do anything to a hardened heart. What pierces hearts, what converts men is the converting power of the scripture.

Whether they're reading it or hearing it proclaimed, that's what the Spirit of God, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. That is our only weapon against what is happening around us, and yet it is the all-sufficient weapon in the hands of God.

So we're we'll teach the Bible.

So that men will know the counsel of God. And here's the thing, beloved. Kind of kind of uh piggybacking on the thought of no fear.

Well, there's a positive side to that. And There have been times over the past several days That I I start to see a little glimpse into the spirit of what I'm about to describe. Turn over to Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1. Just after the book of Acts.

Romans chapter 1. As we teach the Bible. in these dark days. What do we expect? to happen.

What do we ex what's our anticipation? What do we look for? In the midst of this, Romans chapter 1 verse 14. The Apostle Paul said, I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians. both to the wise and to the foolish.

So for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you who also are in Rome. Why? 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. What do we do as we teach the Bible? We don't teach it in fear.

We do it with eagerness. We do it with a sense of expectation that God is going to bless the preaching of His Word done in faithfulness even in the face of hostility from the world around us. We teach the Bible with an expectation of blessing. We preach as though we are those on attack in enemy territory. Knowing that we have the firepower, as it were, forgive the military analogy if it offends you.

But we realize that we are going in strength and power, in the power of the Word of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit. And we are eager to do this in order to be faithful to God, to display His power, and to see His power operating in the hearts of sinners and seeing them turn from sin and believe in Christ. The very first thing that we want to do is teach the Word of God. In the power of the Spirit, in reliance on the work of God in the hearts of those who hear, with an expectation that we are going to see people turn to Christ even in this dark age. Paul said, I'm eager.

And right after that, he goes into, well, the wrath of God is revealed, and you see how it's unfolding and all of the wickedness in society. Before he talked about the wrath of God, he said, I can't wait to preach the gospel. I can't wait. to declare Christ to unsaved men. And I expect for God to show his power.

As we do. And so we teach the Bible. We, as it were. are are renewed and refreshed in our commitment to do just that, not shrinking away from it in light of what's happened. And so Do we see homosexuality flourishing and growing, gaining in greater power?

We're just driven back, and the waves simply toss us back more on the rock of God's Word, on the rock of our Lord Jesus Christ, where alone is our refuge, where alone is our power, and we pray. Preach it. God helping us without any compromise whatsoever, declaring the full counsel of God, knowing that it is able to sanctify people and build them up in Christ and to bring them to repentance. And so When I'm thinking rightly about it, I could not be happier. to be alive.

Today, in this society, I couldn't be happier to be a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ right now, today, in this era in which we live. And we should all feel that way about giving testimony to Christ in our circles in this age. And realizing that the worth of the soldier is proven in battle, not in times of peace. We'll rise to the occasion. We'll stand firm on the Word of God and we'll be confident of what He'll do over time.

to bless us as we're faithful to him. Like I said last night. To Luther, to Calvin, to Spurgeon, to Martin Lloyd-Jones. Battles were given to them in their era. In a sense, while we stand on their shoulders now, And their faithfulness lights our way.

Their teaching informs Our understanding of scripture. We stand on their shoulders, but we recognize that God did not give this day, this time in history, to them. He gave it to us. Yeah. And he gave it to us so that we would be faithful and that we would vindicate the word of God just like they did in their era.

And so we embrace it. God has providentially appointed us for exactly this time.

Somehow, in His wisdom and in ways that we don't understand, He has shaped you and me as Christians for exactly this moment in history. That is glorious. We have an occasion to rise to of our own. Luther rose up against the Catholic Church. We'll be faithful to God in our day.

Whether anyone notices or not.

So we'll teach the Bible. Thirdly, What must we do? We must be gentle before men. We must be gentle before men. Look over at 2 Timothy chapter 2.

It's not ours to be abrasive in spirit. Oh, we'll be accused of being abrasive simply because we speak the truth. But let there not be Truth to an accusation that we were quarrelsome in spirit as we did so. 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 24. 2 Timothy 2, verse 24: The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome.

But be kind to all, able to teach. Patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition. if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. As we teach the Bible, we're mindful of the spirit that God calls us to handle ourselves in. Not in an angry, contentious spirit.

But in a spirit of kindness, of patience, even when we are being wronged, and we anticipate being wronged in the days to come, we expect people to misrepresent us, to lie about us, to do bad things to us. And in the midst of all of that we will adopt the Spirit of our Lord who has gone before us, who stood before those who tried him, when they spat upon him, when they blindfolded him, when they beat him with their fists, when they thrust the crown of thorns into his head, when they nailed him to the cross. And there was an utter lack of a spirit of retaliation in him. He could say, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.

And so We recognize our responsibility to be gentle. Even as our Lord, was gentle and gracious to us in our sin and rebellion against Him. Wouldn't it have been awful, Christian? Speaking to those of you that know the Lord. Wouldn't it have just been awful?

If in light of your profane rebellion against God, kind of drawing upon my own personal history here. The way that you cursed the name of Christ, some of you. Right here. Curse the name of Christ. Wouldn't it be awful?

If Christ had retaliated in kind against your soul at that time, And had struck you down in accordance with the guilt that your sin deserved. And rather than showing you grace, he had exercised justice and judgment against you. Wouldn't that have been just awful? Those of you that drank in false religion and perpetrated it and propagated it and misled others. Wouldn't it have been awful if Christ had not been gentle and merciful to us?

What would have become of you? What would have become of me? If Christ hadn't been a gracious, merciful Savior, A precious Redeemer and Friend Who would have thought that a Lamb like that could rescue the souls of men?

Well If we've received grace like that, then it should manifest itself in the way that we go to lost people. express ourselves. We express ourselves with a gentleness and mercy that is tinged by the greater mercy that we receive from Christ ourselves. We remember that. And so we must be gentle before men.

And when we think about The realm of homosexuals. I believe that in time God will. display the fact that from this moment going forward, There was a harvest for the gospel of homosexuals waiting to be had. And if that proves to be true, as I believe it will, Certainly he's not done saving sinners, is he?

So he's not done saving homosexuals. When God saves homosexuals in the days to come, The glory of that will be awesome. And he will be magnified still more by his grace on those who rebelled. were gentle before men. Fourthly, What must we do?

Especially in light of what we just said, we must be ready to minister to repentant homosexuals. When homosexuals are converted to Christ, we will have to help them. Establish new life patterns and help them grow in Christ. As babes in Christ, we will have to nourish them and help them along. Just like, Christian, someone earlier in your life came alongside you in your ignorance and weakness and showed kindness and helped nourish you in Christ.

A pastor, a friend. In my case, an elder who came alongside and just spent time with just me. There was no one watching. And God bless Morris Robertson for the way he. For the way he poured.

A gentle Instructive spirit into the life of someone who had just come to Christ.

Well beloved, When a harvest of homosexuals converted to Christ. Is manifested and some of them come, then what we've received, we'll give to them as well. And they're going to need a special measure of help. As we've started to see in our families, you know, there's something about the nature. of the homosexual life that separates them.

From their family, that some of them are separating and they just seal off and they stop communicating. with their families.

Well, when they come to Christ, what's going to happen when those that they thought were their friends abandoned them? for that. What what's going to happen to them? They're going to have to find in us, in the people of God, those who are willing to patiently minister to them, to work through the outworking of change, to work through. To work with them and to be patient with them as they struggle and sometimes fail with the remnants of the temptations of their past life that enslaved them.

We're going to have to teach them what it's like to break off relationships, to change their cell phone numbers, to destroy homosexual material in their possession, and just in very practical ways say, This is how you do it. And in that we'll point them to Ephesians chapter 4. Look at there with me. Ephesians chapter 4. Verse verses twenty-two and twenty-four.

We'll have to take them to this passage. And say, in reference to your former manner of life, you need to lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. To tell them that God has given you a new mind in your salvation, He's given you a new nature. Live according to that, feed that new nature in Scripture, in prayer, in fellowship with God's people, and separate yourself from the prior relationships that led you into sin. For them it won't be easy.

For us it may not be easy. But we recognize that this is the privilege and opportunity of the church to. Welcome in new life, new babes, and say, oh, we have the chance to be the incubator in which their life takes root. And somehow I fear that. Not necessarily in our church.

But in churches in general, that that that we we must be Careful, we must be prepared in advance when this harvest of souls begins to come in. That we don't treat them like Jewish Christians tried to treat the Gentile Christians as though they were second class, although they were on the outside. They're second-class citizens in the kingdom of God. If Christ saves them, they're going to be equal co-heirs with Christ with us, regardless of their prior sin. And so we must be prepared.

to minister to repentant homosexuals. Fifthly. I'm almost done here. Fifthly, We must brace for persecution. And that's okay.

We realize that as we stand for Christ, As we teach His Word, as we declare homosexuality to be a sin that must be repented of rather than a lifestyle to be embraced. We realize that many will oppose us. We accept that. Scripture Tells us in 1 John chapter 3, says, Do not be surprised, brethren. If the world hates you.

And so we won't be surprised. We won't resent the trouble that that brings, but we will rejoice in what it means. Look at Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter five. Verses ten through twelve.

You know, people talk, there's so many people saying, oh, persecution's coming, it's going to be really bad, it's going to be really bad, and just whip us up into a sense of fear, and then sometimes tag on a request for donations at the end of the. At the end of the fear mongering, Well, what did Jesus say? about persecution. Verses ten through twelve of Matthew five. He said, Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

That word blessed, it means People like this are a privileged recipient of divine favor. Blessed are those who have been persecuted because you are on the receiving end of a grace of God. Verse 11, Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. When that happens, Jesus says. Be frightened and go into hiding.

For they are certain to win the victory over you. Wait, I wasn't looking at the page when I said that. Let's check against here. You know what? That's not what he said.

Look at this in verse 12. He said something completely different. He said, Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. If persecution comes to us. Then we should be positioned by a prior understanding of Scripture to realize that this is a grace from God.

That we don't go into heaven on a gilded carpet when our Lord suffered on Calvary in order to save us. We recognize it as a privilege to share in His sufferings, to be a fellow sufferer with Christ. To identify with the prophets who were slain and persecuted before the days of Christ, to identify with the shed blood of martyrs in the days following the apostles.

Sometime, if you have it on your shelf, just pick up Fox's Book of Martyrs and open it at random. And look at the Faithful record. of men who are forgotten by time now. And yet, there you read their words of simply wanting to trust Christ and be faithful and say, If you must take my head, take my head. Because I will trust My Christ.

Do you see how noble all of this is? We're being taught, we're starting to be conditioned by some Christian leaders to fear persecution and to be drawn into a sense of fear and And concern. Jesus taught us just the exact opposite. He said, if this comes to you, rejoice and be glad, because you are going to be identifying with the people of God. What happened to them happens to you.

Realize that you are in the flow of a noble heritage, and that's a great privilege to be in. And he says still further. He says, your reward in heaven is great if this happens to you. It's out of all manner of proportion that the little bit of suffering that you have here for the sake of Christ today, He multiplies in blessings. In the end.

He totally reverses the way that we are being said to look at our day and age right now. And so while we say, okay, this may happen. We say it not in fear, but in We say if it comes. We'll be confident. We'll rejoice.

We'll be glad. Because it'll be a signature mark that we do not belong to this world because they do not persecute their own. Why would they? You know, Satan doesn't divide against Satan. And so.

Lastly, In all of this, kind of a summary point here. Number six, we take heart. We take heart. We take courage. We stand strong.

We model to the world, we model to each other, we model to our children, we model to a future generation yet to be born what it looks like to be spiritual men in a time like this. June 24th.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time, and now, and forevermore. Amen. Christ will keep us. In this age. Christ will use us.

in the sage. Christ will bless us in this age. We know what we must not do. We know what we must do. And knowing that, we go forward in peace and confidence And unconquerable joy.

Let's bow together in prayer. Father, we thank you. that you have raised us up for such a time as this. We thank you for the certain expectation that you will prove yourself faithful to us in such a time as this. We thank you that our Lord Jesus has gone before us in the matter of persecution and suffering.

and come out safe on the other side, resurrected from the grave and now triumphant at the right hand of God. And we walk in his steps. Lord, if you would grant to us As Philippians says, to you it has been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in him, but to suffer for his sake. If you grant that to us, Father. We tell you now that we will humbly receive it.

We will rejoice in it, and we trust you even as we say those things, not knowing what the outward working of it might be. But we don't have to know the outward working, our God. Because we know you. We know that you're faithful. We know that you're good to your people, that you are always blessing us no matter what happens.

And so I pray for these dear brothers and sisters in Christ that are gathered before me today. And I pray, Father, that the security and the confidence to which your word points us. Would be the security and confidence which animates the spirit of their hearts both now and forevermore. Amen. 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.com.

Dot com. 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.