Hate-Filled Bigots and Hospitality

The Church has gained a reputation over the years as being intolerant, closed-minded, and bigoted. And to be honest, some of it is probably deserved. But what if there was a way to believe faithfully while still loving extravagantly? What if Christians were better known for the openness of their homes than the slogans of their picket signs?

This week's sermon comes with an added Q&A session with one of our Community Group Leaders, Jordan Surratt.

Hate-Filled Bigots and Hospitality

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in our sixth week, sixth and final week of our Theology of Sex series. I know many of you are thinking, man, I'm about sick and tired of talking about sex. So this is the last week.

We'll be spending any significant amount of time on that. But what we're going to say today really is a culmination of all the things we've said throughout this whole series. So this is more, maybe more than any other series. This series has kind of built off of what we said the previous week. Even the series where we walk just straight through books. This series has been basically we've got to get this concept so we can.

I'm going the wrong way. We've got to get this concept so we can discuss this concept. So we can discuss this concept. And we've kind of just built off of everything we've been saying. And so we're going to tag back to a lot of those ideas today as we talk through this issue. We're going to be discussing homosexuality and how we ought to respond and interact with that from a biblical understanding.

And so before we hop in, we're going to pray and then we're going to get started this morning. God, I pray that you would give us grace as we study your word. That you would help us to be gracious and loving to one another. And that you'd help us to really approach this difficult topic that is highly polarized in our culture. In a manner honoring to you and loving to others. And so God, I just pray that you'd bless us this morning as we as we seek to understand your will for us and your will for for your creation.

So God, we praise you and we thank you in Jesus name. Amen. So just just go with me for a second. Imagine remember back to middle school. For some of you that that's going to take a little more work for others of you. That was a couple of years ago, so it should be pretty easy.

Remember back to middle school and kind of just imagine for a minute that just kind of as as puberty began to hit you, which it hit people in different stages. And some people it was like it attacked them overnight and other people it like dragged it out for years. But just kind of begin to imagine with me for a second where you begin to just your body starts going through changes. So if you're a guy, maybe like your voice starts cracking. So like you're trying to talk and it just does that for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Which makes it really hard to like talk to humans without being made fun of and maybe maybe for girls like there's just maybe your parents began to let you I don't know like shave your legs or wear makeup. I don't know what happens with girls going through through all that. It was hard enough for me on my own. I wasn't trying to learn what was happening with y'all. But like you just you just begin to like the world just starts kind of changing around you.

And so for guys, maybe you spent way too much time looking at your armpits in the mirror to try to see if you were growing any hair like I don't I don't know. But just this stuff begins to change in you and you start realizing it's like in the movie Bambi where everybody gets Twitter painted in the spring. It was like suddenly in middle school all the guys started like you just started noticing the opposite gender. Like there was just this moment where it was just like there are girls here. And like I never really thought about how much that's going to impact the rest of my world. Like there was just kind of these moments.

But just imagine for a minute that when when that began to happen, when you began to have desires, sexual thoughts, when you began to have attraction to people in a whole new way, that it that it was the same gender. But just as that began to happen, you just began to find that I'm not attracted to what it seems like everybody else. Like I'm not I'm not experiencing the world the same way that everyone else is. So when I'm in the locker room changing and they're talking about the opposite gender, like I just I don't connect with that. And and I'm beginning to realize that my whole experience is just a little bit different.

And the amount of questions and confusion that would come along with that to begin to ask him, am I gay? What does that mean? Will I always be like this? Is there a way to to change this? Do I tell people what will they say if I tell them? How will they respond?

What happens to me if I tell people this? What happens to me if this is true? If this continues this way and just the amount of inner turmoil and pain? And confusion that just applies to all of life as you begin to try to just understand your place in the world, because because middle school and high school begin to be that anyway. Like you're trying to figure out who am I? Who am I going to be?

And you're basing that so much off of how people respond to you. So it's really interesting if you're around middle schoolers or high schoolers. They're a different person every time you meet them, because sometimes they're trying to be like, I'm going to be quiet and brooding. See how this works. Or I'm going to try to be a clown. I'm going to try to make everybody laugh and see if that works.

Like there's just this constant, I'll try to be really smart. I'm going to act like I don't understand anything. And you're waiting on your body to try to tell you, like, am I going to get really tall? Am I going to be athletic? Is this, like, what's going to happen here? And then add on top of that, I don't even understand my own sexuality.

And I'm beginning to realize that this puts me in a very small minority among everybody else around me. And then looking into our culture and realizing that it's so absolutely polarized. That on the progressive side, people who would refer to themselves as progressive, they're going to say, you need to just embrace your desire. You just, that's who you are. You found out your identity. You need to pursue that.

That's going to define you. And then on the other side of that, it's like this, maybe people made fun of you. Maybe people talked about you behind your back just based off of your mannerisms or the way you act in certain situations. And you begin to realize that there's not really a middle ground for you when it comes to culture. There's no way to just approach this in a non-polarized way. No way to process it in a non-polarized way.

And so when we begin today to discuss homosexuality, which has become absolutely polarized in our culture, we're talking about real people made in the image of God and loved by God. So absolutely loved by God that he would go to the cross and absolutely in a situation where struggling through. What does it mean to be safe? What does it mean to be me? What does it mean to be loved? What does it mean to exist with this?

And so as we talk about it today, I just want us to realize that we are going to discuss the logical end of it. We are going to discuss what the Bible says about it. But we also have to realize that we're talking about real humans, valuable based off of the fact that they were created in the image of God and that they're loved by him. And so we just want to be able to enter into it, understanding that. Now, the church has existed for over 2,000 years. Some would argue it was when Jesus kind of in Matthew 16 begins to say, I'm going to build my church on this, this proclamation of the gospel and those that proclaim it.

Some would say it specifically happened at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit filled 3,000 people and made them into the church. But it's existed for over 2,000 years and there has been agreement across the board with what the Bible says about homosexuality. Even as the church went Catholic and Protestant and there was Eastern Orthodox and like the church split at different times there, up until the last 30 years, 50 and maybe some really progressive circles, has there ever been any question of what the Bible has said about homosexuality? Now, there have been people who have outright rejected what the Bible has said throughout history and that's one thing.

But we've only recently begun to approach the text and say it doesn't actually say what we've always said it says. And so as we get into this this morning, I want us to realize that what we're going to do, I just want to walk us through what our plan is for today. We're going to lay some groundwork to try to even be able to enter into the conversation. We're going to spend a little bit of time talking about what the New Testament actually says about this and how we ought to understand that and some of the common kind of pushbacks on what the Bible says. And then we're going to spend a good bit of our time just talking to the church and how we ought to respond, how we ought to think and treat people.

But this issue has become massively polarized to the point that there's no way for me to say things in a way that everybody leaves happy. So welcome. It's not going to happen today. Do try to be a couple of caveats. I'm not trying to make any political statements. So if you hear some, that's just because it's become a very political conversation.

But I'm not making any political statements. I won't be endorsing any candidates or anything like that. Lord, help us with all of them. I'm not making any political statements. Anything I say will sound like I've said 12 other things. So just try to base it off of what I'm actually saying, not what it sounds like I could be saying.

And I've had to work really hard to just say what I've got here and not just things that pop into my head so that I can be as helpful as possible. Here's the other thing that we all have to realize. In our culture, on especially very polarized issues, what we're taught is if we disagree, you're against me. If we disagree, you hate me. Especially on this issue, this is dividing us. We're going to join teams.

And if we're not on the same team, then we're against one another. And can I just tell you, that's not helpful and it's not true. So we are absolutely able to disagree and still be friends. Absolutely able to disagree and still love one another. Still spend time with one another. Still hang out with one another.

And can absolutely disagree on very important issues. And still be gracious and loving to one another. And we even see in our culture where it's gotten to where if we disagree, I've got to call you a name. That we've just broken down what adult conversations should look like and how we ought to interact with one another. So, real quick, as we get started this morning, the Bible does teach that homosexuality is a sin. Now, we're going to go through and explain what the Bible teaches sin means so that we can better understand that.

But the Bible does teach that homosexuality is a sin. That homosexual Acts are a sin, more specifically. But before we hop in and start looking at some of this, I want us to see Romans 3. Because this is what we believe as a church. This is absolutely primary to us. So we're going to have it on the screen.

But you can jump to Romans 3, verse 23. It will be on page 611 if your Bible looks like this. Romans 3, verse 23. For all have sinned. Welcome. You're included.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. No one measures up. And are justified, made to measure up, made to be okay. By his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Whom, that's Jesus, God put forward as a propitiation. Which means a blood sacrifice to turn away God's wrath by his blood.

To be received by faith. That is what we believe. That is the primary message of the church. Which is that all of us fall short. All of us sin. None of us bring anything to the table.

And all of us are only made okay and only made right by Jesus. Period. That's what we believe. That's what we're here confessing. That's why we started the church a couple years ago. That's why I'm here.

If this weren't true. If it weren't true that sinners could be saved by Jesus. I would be doing something else. Probably more lucrative. Just guessing. I went to business school and tried to make some money.

That's what I'd be going for. Just letting you know. I might not make money, but I'd try. That wasn't helpful. Anyway. That's what we believe.

That Jesus saves sinners and that's all of us. That what we bring to the table is essentially nothing. Just our sin that made us qualified for Jesus to save us and die for us. That's all of us. There's not one thing that the Bible doesn't say. These are good people and these are bad people.

Or these are the people that God likes more. And these are the people that God likes less. What the Bible says is all have sinned. All have fallen short. And all are made okay only through Jesus. And his work on the cross.

That's the primary belief that we have. And in order for us to even have a conversation about this. We have to understand that that's what we believe. That's ultimate for us. Okay. The Bible in that way is very progressive and inclusive.

Everyone is welcome. Because everyone has fallen short. And everyone is a sinner. And it's only Jesus that makes us okay. I now have seven quick points I'm going to try to make. And I mean quick.

Because I've got way more other points coming later. Our culture has a track record of being unloving. To those who struggle with same gender attraction. To the gay community. We have a track record of being unloving. Hateful.

Our culture just in general has not treated them well. And that is not okay. Especially for the church. Those who claim to know and follow Jesus. Those who claim to believe what we just read. Which is that all of us are only made okay by Jesus.

All of us have. The only thing that we've brought to the table. Is what should exclude us. There's nothing that brings us. Makes us included other than Jesus. The church should be the absolute safest place on earth.

Because there are no disqualifiers. Absolute safest place on earth. To struggle with anything. And so where the church has responded poorly here. We ought to repent. We ought to look different.

Because it's Jesus that makes us okay. Two. Our culture sees sexuality as identity. Just to be helpful. This is a bunch of stuff we need to say. It's not in any kind of particular order.

And it won't necessarily be like. How does one connect to two? It probably doesn't. Our culture sees sexuality as identity. Meaning that whatever kind of sexual desires you have. That's who you are.

So when someone says I'm gay. They mean that as a. This is who I am. This is my identity. The Bible doesn't treat your identity that way. Your identity actually transcends sexuality.

It's much bigger than your sexual desires. Three. The Bible does not really speak to sexual orientation. Does not really speak to having a desire for someone else. We'll see where it kind of. It talks about it.

But it's not addressing that as sinful. To have a desire for someone else. To have a desire for the same gender. The Bible is going to specifically say. That homosexual activity. Is sinful.

So the Bible is going to say that. Having a thought or a desire for the same gender. It doesn't ever really get into that. It does say that lust is sinful. Which is where we have a thought or a desire. Heterosexual or homosexual.

And then we actually take active work in our minds. With that. So Martin Luther put it this way. When he's talking about sexual temptation. That you can't stop birds from flying over your head. But you can keep them from making a nest in your hair.

And that's the difference between having a sexual thought or a sexual desire. And lusting. Where lusting is where we actually take kind of an active part in choosing to let those thoughts grow. And take action in them. But the Bible isn't going to address desire as much as it's going to address action.

So the Bible isn't specifically after someone who has same gender attraction. As much as someone who Acts on it. Four. Sin is not just the bad things that we do. So we are tempted to think that sin is just my bad actions.

Sin is actually searching for satisfaction in anything other than Jesus. That's why we read Romans when we first started. Where we said that ultimately our biggest problem is that we've put something above Jesus. And that's what leads us into sin. Most of the time it's something good. Something applaudable.

Something that we would see value and worth in. And then we've begun to pursue that over and against Jesus. Here's the other thing. Sin is actually born in biblically. Like we're born sinful. I have an 11 month old.

I'm not going to have to teach him how to sin. I didn't explain to him how to throw a fit when I take my iPhone from it. I didn't explain to him to love my iPhone like a psycho. Like he just sees it anywhere and he's like, he'll drop whatever he's doing. He picks it up. And if I take it from him, he's like, why do you hate me?

And he falls in a little pile on the floor. And I just step over him and walk away. Nobody had to teach him that. We're all born with certain sinful proclivities. We're all born that way. So when someone says, I was born this way, I've always only ever had sexual desire for the other gender.

Christians shouldn't respond with, no, that's actually perfectly a biblical idea where it's like, yeah, it just doesn't mean what our culture means by that, which is if this is my identity, if I'm born this way, then ultimately it's okay. So I'll give you another example. My family filled with loud, aggressive people. Willing to be violent. Anna's family filled with quiet, nice people. That won't, like Anna, if you call her the wrong name, if you're like, hey, Susan, come here.

She'll, she'll, she just comes. Like she doesn't, she's not going to go, my name's not Susan. Like I've been around her before where someone called the wrong name and I've had to be like, her name's Anna. And they're like, well, I've been calling her this for a long time. It's like, well, that's really on her, but I'm sorry. You're going to have to change.

So I've had to do a lot of work to make Anna want to like assault me. Like I've gotten her there. It just takes a lot of work. I've had to be really active in my pursuit of making her that angry. But other people don't have to do that with me.

Like just my natural proclivity, like you can get me to where I don't want to talk and I just want to punch you pretty quickly. And that's in, that's born into me. But what I don't say is, sorry, this is how I am. Like, I don't, I don't get to do that as much as I would like to. They're all, all of us have some natural proclivities, natural desires that are born into us that are not God's good design. And all of us have to fight against that.

So when someone says I was born this way, honestly, we ought to say, yeah, okay. That makes sense. But that doesn't change what the Bible says. Sin is a big deal because it is always harmful. And when God addresses sin in us, it is not because he does not love us. It is because he does love us.

The primary place where we see Jesus, we see God actively addressing sin is on the cross. That's the primary place where God proclaims actively sin is horrendous. Sin is destructive. And I love you enough to work on it. So we don't believe as Christians when we say something is sinful, that we're against someone or attacking someone.

We're being helpful. When my wife points out sin in me, as much as I sinfully want to argue with her, she's actually doing that because she loves me. She doesn't point out sin in people she doesn't care about. She points out sin in me because she cares about me. And that's the way the Bible treats sin. So when the Bible says something sinful, it's not mad at you.

It's helping. Secondly, Jesus' primary place that he addresses sin is on the cross, which is where he dies to save us. So we can't act like him addressing sin is somehow hateful. It's actually the most loving thing he does. There are people in our church family who have varying levels of same-gender attraction. They have helped lead groups, served on teams, led teams, been a part of groups, and have been actively following Jesus and repenting of sin.

Absolutely believe that you can struggle with same-gender attraction. And be a spirit-filled Jesus follower on his mission for his glory, 100%. I have no doubt in my mind. Culturally, you're going to kind of be forced to decide where you land on this issue. There's not really a middle ground. So if your response is, well, I just don't care, culturally, they're going to say, sweet, you've joined this team.

There's not really a place where you can just say, doesn't matter to me. Culturally, you're going to kind of be forced to be on a team. And so it's helpful for us as Christians to study the Bible and decide where we land and be, to be as helpful as possible. Okay. Now I want to kind of move to the current discussion we've got going on when it comes to this.

We're going to look at three specific passages in the New Testament. So people bring up Old Testament. When it comes to homosexuality, a lot of people use what they call clobber passages, which is they just kind of go to this one passage and they act like, see, there it is. And they call it a clobber passage because they use it to like assault someone. That's not helpful. It is helpful to know where passages are that point to things, but not to use them aggressively to like Bible bullets to shoot someone.

Old Testament does address homosexuality. It does address, it'll say not to lie with a man as you would lie with a woman. Give specific instructions. And so people a lot of times will say, well, yeah, but there's a lot of stuff in the Old Testament we don't believe anymore. A lot of stuff in the Old Testament we don't follow anymore. We cut the, we cut our hair, we can get tattoos, we can eat lobster.

So obviously the Old Testament is just kind of discredited. There's a very long, helpful answer to that, that we're not going to get into because the New Testament talks about it. So where the New Testament does release us of some things like the dietary laws, it specifically continues to address other things like homosexuality. So we're going to spend the majority of our time focusing on the New Testament passages. If you'd like to have a discussion about the Old Testament passages, I'm sure Raz would love to talk to you about it, but I'll also talk to you about it if you want to. One of the other arguments, before we even get into, this is the kind of a prohibiting argument before we even get into looking at the Bible.

People say things like, it's 2016, aren't we over this by now? Or haven't we just progressed? Like there's this idea that progression of time just makes us better. And that idea came from Christianity and then got kind of co-opted and changed. So one of the things that you'll hear is just like, come on, like that's last century.

We're moving on. And the reason that that idea came around, historically people thought that that history went in a cycle. Christianity showed up and was like, no, there's a God who created everything. He has a beginning point. He has an end point. And he's working it towards something.

There's a redemptive history playing out. And so it's a Christian idea. Then the Enlightenment took it and basically just moved God out of it and said, as long as we move forward in time, everything gets better. Which once World War II happened, we should have gotten over, but we kind of haven't. We should have, be able to look at World War II and just go, no, time doesn't just fix things. All we've successfully done is figure out how to kill each other more efficiently.

But people still make that argument, which is really just a disconnect from what a Christian idea that God is actually working to redeem history. Also, people say things like, well, of course, Paul would say, that's who wrote some of these New Testament letters. Of course, Paul would say homosexuality is a sin because he wrote that such a long time ago. Meaning that the further you move back in time, the more prudish people get. Like, it's like you just go back and at some point you just, everyone turns into like a Puritan or a nun. Now, anybody who studied history doesn't really make that argument because the Romans and the Greeks, the Greco-Roman world was way sexualized.

Like massively. The reason Paul addresses it is because it was actively a normal part of life for them. And so he's going to address it. He's not addressing it because of course everybody agreed this was sinful because they were all old. He's addressing it because it was an act of practice going on. Okay.

The Bible clearly, directly, and repeatedly states that homosexual activity is a sin. None of these address same gender attraction as sinful. But there's been throughout history no real question about these verses. Go to Romans 1. We're going to spend a little bit of time there and then we're going to look at the other two where the Bible specifically addresses this. And I just want us to study them for a second and try to learn a little bit.

So Romans 1. We read this when we started this series. We read this a lot because this actually encapsulates sin for all of us pretty clearly. So we'll be in Romans 1. It's on page 610. If your Bible looks like this.

We're going to start in verse 18. 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 from his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and his divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in 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. So we're going to pause there for just a second to catch us all up. God made the world. We notice that there's a creator. He has designed the world to reflect him, to point back to him from the Grand Canyon to massive waves. It's to bring glory and honor to him.

And we reject him and worship other things. That's our primary issue for humanity is that we put other things above God. We'd rather have money. We'd rather have power. We'd rather have a relationship. We just raise up all these other things, pursue those as primary, pursue those as that is what fulfill me.

And that's the major issue. 24. Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them two dishonorable passions. So it's now talking about passions, desire for one another.

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, receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error. One of the results of this, and we talked about this in week one, is that we become overly sexualized, overly led by our lusts when we've begun to place something else above God, because it's easiest for us to believe that another human will fill this void. Money's great, but relationships hold more promise because we were made in the image of God.

So that's one of the things we talked about in week one. Specifically out of that, Paul's going to address that they exchanged natural relations with one another with the opposite gender for relations with the same gender. One of the arguments made against this passage currently is, first of all, it was saying that they weren't being true to themselves, that they were, it was heterosexual people who denied their natural desires for one another and pursued against their own natural desires, relationships with one another. Meaning that the biggest problem is not being true to yourself. The problem with that argument is that Paul says they were inflamed with passion for one another.

They burned with passion for one another. So it wasn't just their activity changed, but their desires changed. The second thing that is argued here is that Paul doesn't understand the concept of soulmates. Not the concept of soulmates, concept of orientation. That really the biggest problem is he didn't understand that people could actually be oriented in such a way to only be a desire of the same gender. The problem with that is in Plato's symposium, he talks about the idea of soulmates.

And when he discusses the idea of soulmates, we talked about this the other day for those of you who are looking for your soulmate, that originally the gods made people with two heads and four arms and four legs and then cut them in half and then you spend the rest of your time looking for your soulmate. So the problem with you looking for your soulmate is that this is a myth and it doesn't exist and you'll never find them. You're as likely to find a unicorn or Nessie. But in that myth, some of the people were male-male, some of them were female-female, and some of them were male-female. They had the idea and understood that some men were going to spend their life looking for a man and some ladies were going to spend their life looking for a lady.

They already had the idea and understood the concept of some people are just going to be oriented this way, directed this way, whether or not they use the language. So it was a familiar concept to them, but Paul's still going to say that this was a problem. Here's the biggest issue with us because we elevate your desires. One of our only hero stories left is the, everybody told you you couldn't be what you wanted to be and then you went and beat it anyway. Like that's one of our hero stories. Have you all seen previews for Eddie the Eagle?

Anybody seen previews for that movie coming out? If you haven't, this is going to be really hard for me to explain. Anybody seen it? Okay. It's about a really goofy, uncoordinated kid in England who wants to be an athlete, wants to go to the Olympics. The problem with Eddie going to the Olympics is that he's a really goofy, uncoordinated kid.

So there's no like real way he's going to do that because most Olympians are good at what they do and Eddie apparently is not good at anything. See how that works? Like, well, I'm not like going to go do the high hurdles or whatever. It's just not going to happen. So that's his problem too.

He's just, he can't. Then he finds out about the downhill super long ski jump. That's what it's called. Look it up. And decides he's going to do that because all he really has to do is like, bend, I don't know. It's probably way more complex than this, but bend and then not be afraid of dying.

I think that's basically the two qualifications. And the whole movie is that nobody wants him to do it because he's goofy and uncoordinated, but he does and does it anyway. And you can watch basically the preview and know what the movie is. And I still want to see it because that's our hero story. People told him he couldn't and they told him he couldn't and they told him he couldn't and they told him he was ugly and that was why he couldn't and he was uncoordinated. But then he can go do it anyway.

He's going to, he's going to thumb his nose at all of them and go accomplish it. And that's why when it comes to things like this, when it comes to your own personal desires, our culture just rallies around you and says, follow your heart, whatever you want to do. And if anybody tells you to stop and anybody tells you that you're wrong, you found your enemy and you found the person you've got to overcome so that we can make a really amazing movie about you. That's our cultural story. That's what we celebrate. And so when it comes to personal desires, we just come along and say, if you desire it, then it's real.

Pursue it. And if anybody tries to stop you, they're wrong, they're evil, they're against you. And you now know who your enemy is. The problem with that is that the Bible says that our passions and our desires and our heart are part of the problem. That our heart is actually deceitful above all else, that you've lied to you more than anyone else ever has. You've tricked yourself more than anyone else ever has.

And the other problem is it's just a small view of what passions are, how we associate our desires. Like we're really just saying, find something that you like, but we don't realize that's culturally connected. So let's take two men. One of them is an Anglo-Saxon way back in the day when they were super aggressive and right around just killing people. And the other person lives in Manhattan today. So another man lives in Manhattan today.

Both of them have the same desires. One of the desires is when anybody mouths off to them or stands in their way, they just want to harm them physically. Overly aggressive, want to harm people. The other one is they have same gender attraction. Now, in Manhattan today, the man who has both of those desires is going to say, my desires to harm people and crush my enemies is not me. And I need to suppress that and maybe get counseling because that's going to stand in the way of who I'm designed to be.

But they're going to look at their same gender attraction and say, this is who I am. This is what needs to be welcomed. And this is what needs to flourish because of our culture. But the Anglo-Saxon man is going to do the exact opposite. He's going to look at his desire to crush his enemies and go, that's who I am. Because his culture celebrates that.

And he's going to look at his desires for same gender attraction and say, I need to suppress this. This isn't going to help me. And so when we say, whatever desire you have, that's ultimate, we actually are taking a really small view of what desires, how they actually work as if we don't have competing desires. We're not understanding that our culture affects that. And the Bible says at the end of the day, your desires are messed up anyway. So you don't have to think about the logical stuff.

Just know your desires aren't helpful. You need to trust Jesus. Was that helpful? Okay. 1 Corinthians. It's going to be 10 pages over if you're in one of these Bibles.

This is another place that Paul addresses this. This is actually, we're in 1 Corinthians 6. We picked up right after this last week where Paul's addressing sexuality. Verse 9. Okay. We'll keep going, but we're going to have to come back to this.

A lot of times these passages get read wrongly as if the only thing that was written there was men who practice homosexuality. That's a long list. And that's just kind of stuck in the middle. What Paul's saying is all of those pursuing active sin are disqualifying themselves from the kingdom of God. They're not trusting in Jesus. They're pursuing their own desires.

They're idolaters and adulterers and sexually immoral, which sexual morality, we talked about it last week, is everything outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage as the way the Bible is going to hold up as the standard. The problem with us is that we want to point out one thing and say, see, see how that's a big issue? But we're not repenting of our own sexual sin. I'm acting as if my own heterosexual sin is okay or somehow blessed by God or somehow more acceptable than someone else who struggles with something else, and that's nonsense. But the Bible is going to list it as a sin with other sins that people struggle with and that Jesus redeems us from.

That's how he ends. Such were some of you, but you've been washed and sanctified by Jesus. It doesn't disqualify you from his love. It actually is what qualifies you. For Jesus to redeem you is your sin. And it lines up in these categories.

Now, people will try to argue in this one and in, even though there's some different words used, and in 1 Timothy, where we're going to go in a second, that we don't really understand what that word means, that it actually is referring to maybe pedophilia, or it's referring to unwanted sexual contact, or it's referring to promiscuous homosexual activity. The problem is there's not really, you're having to do work to make the text say that when the writing's pretty clear. And there's other issues with that that we'll see in just a second. So go to 1 Timothy. It'll be on screen, but if you want to flip over there, it's to your right, and it'll be on page 642.

Starting in verse 8. Now, we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down, for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane. For those who, okay, so basically Paul's going to say the law is good because we're messed up. That's what he's, that's the point he's making. The law is good for all of us who are rebellious, because it helps us change. It helps us see our sins that will be pushed to Jesus.

For those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. It accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. Again here, it does specifically in 1 Timothy and 1 Corinthians, although Romans addresses it, it does say men. Romans does address female homosexuality. And the men who practice homosexuality was a much bigger cultural issue for them. That's why Paul's going to keep bringing it up.

Because women didn't get to do what they wanted to, but men could do whatever they want. So that's why Paul's going to keep bringing it up. But sexual immorality basically covers everything outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage, which is the goal. And here's the thing. I have a friend of mine. His name is Thor.

And he is a PhD in linguistics. Thor. Which means that, first of all, he's one of these guys who's like so smart. He's kind of, kind of can be awkward at times. Because he's so smart and he approaches everything like from a really like mental place, he can say things that other people can't say. Because it's like, there's no way I could say that without like laughing or thinking about the inappropriateness of what was just said.

But Thor can. Like he can just talk about whatever because he's just so academic. He was a PhD in linguistics and he knows language. And they were doing a discussion at Midtown Fellowship, which is where I was training there. He was a pastor in training there. And one of the things he said is he can go into all these verses and he can dazzle you, his words, not mine, with the Greek.

And make it say basically whatever he wanted to say. He struggles with same gender attraction. He struggles with this on a very personal level and says he's studied all the arguments against why the Bible doesn't say this. But none of them hold up. As much as he would like for them to be true, none of them hold up. All of them are weak understandings of the text.

And he said it seems as if people look at these passages and say these are the pillars holding up this argument. And if we can just knock down those pillars, then we would have the ability to basically pursue long-term, loving, homosexual relationships. And the Bible could be on our team. So they basically attack these verses. And so here's what he had to say. And this is a transcript.

So it's a terrible run-on sentence. Don't get caught up in the grammar. It's a transcript. If it helps you to read it, read it. But if you're a grammar person, maybe just listen because this was said out loud.

And so I'm going to read what he says, though. Even if you were to somehow take out those verses by reinterpreting them. He's talking about these verses. Or even if the Bible had never contained any verses that mentioned it. The biblical position on this issue is not resting on those verses. It's not resting on a few specific prohibitions.

It's resting on this gigantic tree trunk of the whole beautiful picture of why God put gender in the universe. And what gender and complementarity do. And how that runs through everything and all of creation. And his desires for intimacy. And his desires for life. It's this much, much bigger picture of what the Bible upholds.

And what the Bible says is the center. And what we should be running to is so unambiguous and so clear. So what he's saying is even if you took these verses out. The Bible's picture of what sexuality was meant to be. What we talked about last week is so clear. One of the things he says is because people think this is the pillars that I've got to knock down.

He said it's actually way more. It's held up by this massive tree trunk of God's good design for complementarity. God's good design for gender. God's good design for marriage. And for life together. And for creation.

And for the multiplication of the human race. And so he says it's this tree trunk of what God's woven into creation. He said it's actually more like you're climbing out on a few limbs and trying to saw those off. But in order to actually have the Bible agree with homosexuality as a perfectly fine way to live. You'd actually pretty much have to cut down the whole tree. And then you'd be left with no gospel and no Jesus.

And no real understandable picture of what it was designed to be in the first place. So the Bible is clear. And it holds up for us a good design that we ought to pursue and understand. Here's one of the major problems. We immediately say okay but what about love? What about long term relationships?

What if it's a committed long term relationship? What if they're good to one another? What if they love each other more than... Like there's so much messed up heterosexual relationships. And there's so many beautiful, loving, gracious, caring gay relationships. That why can't this be good?

Why can't we just look at this and say this is okay? Here's one of the reasons we make that argument. And here's one of the reasons that's so hard for us to respond to. Our culture says we've all bought into the idea that happiness is primary. That the purpose of life is personal happiness. That's the goal.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We've enshrined it. And then we've all agreed that the best way towards happiness is a romantic relationship. So if we've agreed to that, that happiness is primary and the best way to get there is a romantic relationship. The most cruel, harmful, evil things we can commit in our culture is to stand in the way of that. To tell anybody what we just said.

You can't pursue this type of relationship. That's not okay. The problem with that is that the Bible doesn't agree with either of those first two statements. Doesn't agree that your happiness is the point. You're going to have a really hard time forcing that on the text. I know people do.

I know someone who's stood up before. I had a friend who was a part of a church where they used to stand up and chant, money come to me now. Because God wanted them to be rich. And that was one of the prayers they would say. Read the New Testament. The call to Christianity is take up your cross, deny yourself, come die.

You're going to lose your friends. You're going to lose your family. This is going to go terribly for you. And then at some point after you've been tortured enough, you'll probably die. And guess what? It'll all be absolutely worth it.

Come take everything that has ever been a part of who you are and how you define yourself and lay that down for the God who died for you so that you might have a better eternity. You might have a real hope in something that absolutely matters. Everything matters. Jesus is going to tell stories about a guy who finds a treasure in a field and sells everything just to get that treasure because of how much more immensely valuable it is than anything else. That's what the Bible is going to say, that your happiness here is not primary. God loves you.

He's for your joy and your ultimate happiness, but that doesn't happen here through finances or relationships or anything else. And the Bible is also not going to agree with us that romance is primary, that it's the primary way to get to happiness. The Bible is pro-relationships. It's for love. It's not against it. I don't think it's primary.

It never holds that up as this is the way to pursue life. So when Christianity says, no, you actually should deny yourself, you should not pursue these relationships, we're not disagreeing with anything else the Bible says because we don't believe that happiness and romance are primary. Okay. Church. Four things for us and then we're going to do some Q&A. Four things for us that we have to realize in order for us to love people well and to act in such a way that someone who's a part of our church family who struggles with this can actually be loved, actually be welcomed, and actually live long-term pursuing Jesus.

Here's some things that have to be true. Number one, we can't keep pretending that happiness and romance are primary. As a church, the church in general can't keep buying into that idea. We agree to that, that happiness and romance aren't primary when it comes to someone who's struggling with same-gender attraction, but then we act like that's primary in all the other things we say. So every time you come up to a single person and go, have you found anyone yet?

Just keep trying. They're out there. Maybe you should lower your standards. Oh, I saw you talking to that person. Every time we do that, what we're doing is coming alongside someone and going, just remember where happiness is found. Just remember what life is about.

And it's nonsense. The Bible doesn't back you up on that. Perfectly fine for someone to pursue a romantic relationship with someone of the opposite gender, but it's not held up as supreme. Every time we say stuff like, well, I just know God wants me to be happy. How do you know that? Where did you find that?

You mean here? I doubt it. You mean long-term? Sure, yeah. And we see that on Jesus dying on the cross and calling us into a mission that matters so much more than everything else. That's his pursuit of our joy.

But I just enjoy my relationship so I know that God wouldn't want me to break up because I'm like, every time we say this stuff, we're not helping anything. And honestly, one of the major issues that those who struggle with same-gender attraction in the church face is not the sexual desire. It's that they're staring loneliness in the face. It's the emotional side of, I just want to be connected to someone. I want to be known and loved and cared about. And the church says your options are be celibate or pursue a heterosexual relationship, which to a lot of people who struggle with same-gender attraction, that's not really an option.

And celibacy just sounds terrible, not because of the sexual nature of it, maybe for some, but for a lot of them it's just that I want to be lonely forever. And here's what we're saying. Look, we know that happiness is primary and that romance is the only way to get there. I'm sorry. God's got rules. And then we're like, well, people are just going to keep pursuing this stuff and they won't repent.

And it's like, well, we pointed them to something that wasn't true. We kept holding up something that wasn't real and then acted like we were exempt from this. This false belief, this romance idolatry. All of us need to repent of romance idolatry. Some of you have stayed in really bad relationships for a long time or relationships that are really good but are outside of God's good design. And you're not repenting.

You're not changing. And we're all called to. And we honestly need to regain the biblical understanding of friendship. So one of the things that the, if you go to GayChristianNetwork.com, I think it's GayChristian.net. So the first website I said wasn't true at all.

It's the Gay Christian Network. One of the things they point to is they say, see, in the Old Testament the friendship between Jonathan and David was actually a homosexual relationship. The reason they're saying that is because we fall really short of the biblical idea of what friendship is supposed to look like. We're also approaching that in a very Western way, which is non-emotional. So like when David and Jonathan like cry and kiss each other, we automatically make that really sexual.

Whereas for Middle Easterners, that's not weird. Not sexual. Like it can happen in a perfectly non-sexual context. Did y'all ever see the pictures of George Bush walking down the street holding that guy's hand in Iran or whatever? Because that's how they indicate friendship. So he was with another leader and he held his hand.

And I was like, I remember seeing that when I was in high school. I'm going, that's super weird. I think we just have to go to war. I'm not walking around holding your hand, buddy. Like this is weird because I'm approaching that from a very Western mentality. But the truth is that the scope of emotion found in the Bible and the ability to love someone in a completely non-sexual way we've lost.

And so what we say is, yeah, the only real way to have actual friends is to get married. Like that's the only way you can really know somebody and really have intimacy and really over the term of life. And it's like that's foreign from the Bible and we have to redeem our understanding of friendship. Number two, we are all called to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus. So when you're living with your girlfriend but you're having a fit about someone who's struggling with homosexuality, it's nonsense.

When you won't repent of your sin but the gay's better, nonsense. It makes sense. The way that we get to grow together as Christians is all of us are called to take everything that we hold dear, everything that we hold in our heart that makes us us, all of our uniqueness and say, Jesus, you're king. All of us. And so then when we look at those, our same gender attracted brothers and sisters and we say, yeah, it makes sense because they see it. They see that all of us are repenting of sin.

All of us are fighting our own proclivities. All of us are fighting against our own sinful natures and all of us are seeking to pursue Jesus and submit everything to him. But when we act like, no, no, no, no, I'm okay. My porn struggle is not an issue. I am kind of fighting or whatever. But the fact that I'm really greedy, the fact that I'm really selfish, this doesn't really matter.

But you, big deal. I'm going to skip all the other things in that list. Big deal for you. Big deal for you. We have to all surrender and all deny ourselves. I have to all submit our sexual desires to Jesus.

The third thing is that the church has to actually be family. We have to actually care about one another and spend time with one another, relate to one another. Because honestly, it's the emotional side. It's the loneliness. It's the lack of friendship that makes it so untenable. When we say, you just got to be alone forever.

But if the church is actually what the New Testament holds up, where it's going to hold up consistently the church as family over and above nuclear family, then we begin to open our homes and invite people in to those who struggle with same-gender attraction or just our single brothers and sisters to come celebrate Thanksgiving with us. Come celebrate, quote-unquote, family time. Because ultimately, biblically, we're all going to die and we're going to be a part of a family. And I'm not going to be married to Anna anymore, but she will be my sister for eternity. And we get to celebrate that now, that we've been made into a new true family where God, through Jesus, has adopted us to be brothers and sisters.

And so one of the ways that we get to help those who struggle with this is by opening our homes and treating them like brothers and sisters, inviting them out to coffee, getting a conversation going, talking to them, being their friend, playing laser tag. We have an actual eternal family. Here's honestly, the LGBTQ community has been beating the pants off of the church when it comes to community, to friendship. In a lot of ways, it's really beautiful. It's what God designed it to look like, for them to care about one another, to love one another, to accept one another, not accept their sin as the church.

We would accept them and help them fight their sin the same way we accept everybody else in spite of their sin because it's our sin that actually qualifies us for Jesus to save us. But here's the other thing going on in the LGBTQ community. In the U.S., the most likely thing to kill someone who's a youth, get grades 7 through 12, anybody, is suicide. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide than their heterosexual peers. This is according to the CDC. They did a study on 55 transgender youth and found that about 25% of them reported suicide attempts.

25%! The Trevorproject.com says that LGB youth are four times as likely as their peers and three times likely if they're questioning to attempt suicide. And we're the church saved by Jesus in spite of our sin. And they're not welcome here? Not loved here? We bring nothing to the table.

You aren't special. And then we're going to look and say, but my sin's different than yours. No. This has to be the safest place. The most welcoming group of people you have ever met. That's so wildly welcoming that it makes people uncomfortable.

That they don't know how to handle it. I know you disagree with me, but you've loved me more than anybody I've ever met. I know we're not on the same page here, but you won't stop calling me. You won't stop inviting me over for dinner. Stop being my friend. No.

That's what we're designed to be. The most absolutely overwhelmingly welcoming people because we know that nothing makes us special outside of the blood and savior. The blood of Jesus who saved us from our sin. So number four is we have to actually believe the gospel. You have to actually believe that it is Jesus who has saved you and has made you okay in spite of your sin. Not because of your specialness.

Not because of your good behavior. That your sinful desires aren't somehow different or better than someone else's. You have to actually believe that it's Jesus that saves us. And if we do that, if we actually believe the gospel, then we're free to love one another, to care for one another, to accept one another in spite of our sin. And then continue to confront one another in our sin because we care for one another. Free.

Okay. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to do some Q&A now. And I'm going to invite my friend Jordan Surratt. He's one of our community group leaders. He's going to come up here.

Help do some Q&A. Jordan struggles with same-gender attraction. He's going to help us as we talk about this today. So if you don't mind giving Jordan a hand. So this is my good friend Jordan.

He helps lead one of our community groups, the Pine Ridge group. Yeah. Jordan, real quick before we get into doing some of the other Q&A, I want to ask you a few questions just to help. People out here and talk about this a little bit as a church family. Can you tell people who you are, catch them up a little bit on your story, maybe just like the two-minute version of from when you were born to the moment you just sat down on that stool? That'd be great.

All right. Got to move quickly. All right. So I grew up in southwestern Virginia. It's kind of very super traditional, heart of the Bible Belt kind of area. And so I noticed that I started having same-sex attractions around seventh grade, so puberty time.

And I found myself just like, this is going to sound weird, but like looking at my teacher. And it wasn't like in a sense of, ah, I'm super attracted to him. It was more of like an interest. I didn't quite understand what was going on inside of me. And I noticed that like my peers, they would all be like starting to date girls. And I'm just like, I don't get that.

That doesn't make sense. But you kind of do. And so it would just be a little weird or whatever just growing up. But all through my middle school years, high school years, and even partly into college, it was just because of fear and shame and things like that, I wouldn't talk about it. And so the very first person I ever told, I think I was 18 and a half. And so I went basically the majority of my life.

I guess it is the majority of my life. Still keeping up with the half years at that point? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the first person I ever told was my cousin. That was after I started going to church. So I was already involved in a local church for about five to six months or so.

And I was just broken. And I could just feel God being like, you have to tell someone. You have to tell someone. I'm like, okay, the next person who comes up. And lo and behold, my cousin pops down in front of me. She's like, I got to tell you something.

I'm like, I do too. And so she was the very first person I told. Went off to college in Lynchburg studying religion, pastoral leadership. And I started opening up a little bit more as the years would go by. And then I moved down here. And I've been open with my community group, open with my friends, with Chet, with Matt, with Raz, and everybody else here that I love.

So you may have said this. Became a Christian in college? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my second semester of community college, I started following Jesus. Okay. And that's, yeah, about that time.

And during all that, like, I never really pursued a relationship with someone. I struggled secretly, and so, like, I couldn't have imagined, like, someone else finding out by me flirting with them. But, you know, like, I just struggled with things like pornography and masturbation and whatnot. Okay. Well, help us out this morning. Or help.

If there's someone in the room struggles with same-gender attraction or identifies as homosexual, maybe is a part of our church family, what would you want to say to them? How would you want to address them? Cool. Cool. Well, part of this is going to depend on where you are at in your own walk and how open you have been already. I found one of the most encouraging and helpful things to me, even though it was super hard, was just beginning to talk about it.

And so it would take years for me to really build up that courage. And I've been lucky enough to have never really had any kind of, like, anybody lash out at me or whatever. I've had a lot of people just like, well, I don't understand, and I'm really confused, and I have a thousand questions. But through them asking those questions and through them talking about it, it actually even helped me. And so my encouragement to you would be, if you are struggling with that, to find someone here. I think there's a ton of people in this room who love you and care about you and genuinely welcome you as family, as brothers and sisters.

And I think you're safe and loved and cherished. Cool. Another thing on that that I just want to help everybody here, when it comes to hiding sin or hiding any kind of personal struggle, if we don't talk to people, any people whatsoever, we kind of disconnect our ability to actually receive love. Because we'll always, when someone tries to say they care about us or say good things about us, we'll always just kind of discount it as, yeah, well, if you only knew. If you only knew the real me. And so there is something, too, when we're in sin or when we have particular struggles or whatever, being able to be honest actually opens us up to have people really genuinely care about us and us to actually be able to receive that.

All right. Okay. So I'm in a community group or someone out here is in a community group and someone in my group talks about this now, confesses it, says this is going on or I struggle with this or whatever. Help me, heterosexual white guy, respond well. Like how do we love people well in church family if that happens, if they talk about it? Yeah.

Okay. I want to break that up into two parts. Okay. One is short term and one is long term. Okay. You have to do whatever you want to with the question asked.

Yep. We'll do. We'll do. So short term, don't skip over it because you're uncomfortable. Engage them. Ask them questions.

Talk with them. Be like, what was that like? Like engage emotion. That's one of the hardest things for me has been just the emotion behind it. And check kind of talked about that a little bit in his sermon was just like the thing that hurts me the most is not me not having some sexual outlet. It is me more than likely being alone.

It is me more than likely not having someone who genuinely knows me and cares for me and understands me for who I am, which sexual sin and homosexuality or whatever isn't my identity. I am much more than that. But there are still some amounts of me being unknown, even now at this moment, because I'm constantly changing. I'm a different person all the time. But so ask questions like genuinely engage them.

Talk with them. And if you do, this is kind of going back to the second question. If you if you do open up, be willing to give some grace to the people that you're telling. So whenever I told my dad, he was just quiet the entire time and it took him a day to process through that. And he called me back. He's like, OK, you know, I got a ton of questions and we had like an hour long conversation, you know, but we be willing to give them grace because they're having to process through this stuff as well.

So that's kind of the short term. Love them. Well, love them. Well, hug them. Don't be afraid of them because they're terrified. I'm terrified.

OK, so ask questions. Yeah. Bring it up later. Yeah, I think that would be very helpful. OK, which is kind of the long term. You know, it's just like how if someone is like, hey, I'm struggling with a drug addiction.

You're like, OK, you don't mention it. Don't mention it ever again. You know, see how that's going to go for you. You know, that doesn't make much sense. So long term.

Yeah. Don't make everything about that. You know, I'm much more than my same sex attraction, but I struggle with same sex. Sex attraction. OK. And so long term, that would be talking with them, talking with me, talking with us, I guess I should say.

Loving us well. Inviting them into a family. You know, that's that's we already you know, we are a family so long as our faith is in Jesus. And so you are my brothers and sisters. I think for the longest time, like I wrestle a lot with this just imagery, this this picture of I'm a sheep who's outside of the flock and I'm really struggling, feeling like I'm part of the flock. And so that just that just makes it so much more easier for wolves to come in and snack snatch me, you know.

But I think that is just very common in people who struggle with same sex attraction. I've seen it so many times in a lot of my friends who I've spoken with who struggle with the same thing. They're just like, I can't tell anyone. You know, they don't I don't know what to do. I'm afraid. You know, it's just a consistent, constant fear across the board.

Even people who are proud, you know, they call it pride for a reason because they're ashamed and they feel guilty. One of the things you talk about being family, one of the things Thor has talked about before is that Kent Bateman is one of the pastors. He actually spoke here recently about going to planting in Knoxville, went to Thor and basically was like, look, I know you're kind of kind of pursuing celibacy, but I know you also have some desires to to be a husband, to be a father. Like that's part of what goes along with this. It's not just the sexual nature of stuff. And he was like, man, if you ever just get lonely, just come live with us.

Like he was about to get married to his wife, Anna, at that point. He said, just come. You can come live with us. You can help me father my children. You can help be a part of this this family. And and so there is room for that as you begin to build genuine, real relationships to just invite people in, divide them to be around, to be a part of your family.

The other thing, I think one of the reasons we don't respond when someone confesses sin is we don't know what to say, which actually means that we probably when we do know what to say are saying unhelpful things. And here's what I mean. When someone confesses sin and I'm like, oh, I got this because I've experienced that before. Mostly what I'm blasting them with is good advice. And so when confesses something I don't understand and I'm quiet, it's because I don't have any good advice. Our goal as a church family is to point people towards Jesus, which means that you get to respond to any sin because Jesus is the answer to all sin.

So let me just help you out there. If you're like, I don't have anything. Jesus, just Sunday school it. It's Jesus. Jesus is the answer. Like, just write that on your hand.

And someone confesses something. Go, let me tell you about Jesus. Like that's realize that ultimately it's Jesus that saves us and Jesus makes us OK. And you get to do that. You get to point towards Jesus in all of it, even if you don't know how to to be the most helpful there. And then, yeah, you can always ask questions.

I think that's a very helpful thing to say. OK. Yeah, I think that's what we'll take some Q&A kind of here together. And then appreciate you. Thank you for sharing all that with us. And we'll look at what kind of what's been sent in.

When it comes to the theology of sex, are there topics that are simply off limits for Christians? No. Let me caveat that, though. The short answer is no. The long answer is what's the point of talking about it? If your goal is, so Paul at one point talks about people having itching ears.

And I just think that's a helpful. If your goal is it just feels good to talk about sex stuff, you probably should stop. Like you should confess that to your group. And we should work on that together. If your goal is like I genuinely have questions. I want to talk about this.

There are words that are used in dirty ways, but they're also used to describe things. So like Miss Libby came up to me last week and was like, it's just so refreshing to hear a pastor say orgasm. And I was like, that's so weird that we can talk about this. But we're just having a straight up normal conversation about an actual thing that exists. And we have to use words to describe it. And so there are things you can talk about.

What's the point of saying it? Are you going for a flashbang or this will be exciting or something like that? So it's really more of a what's the point? So they're okay topics. What's the point? What's the context?

Why are you talking about it? Is it okay to discuss your marriage bed with someone other than your spouse? Okay. Okay. Yes-ish. Again, big question.

What's the point? What are you talking about? Like, are you just wanting to tell stories? Are you wanting to gossip? Are they sharing? And so you feel like it's your turn?

Like, no. How does your spouse feel about that? Have you talked to them? Are you talking to your spouse about your marriage bed? You probably should be having some of those conversations. But it can be very helpful to have some conversations that are, I need to discuss this with you.

I need to, I wonder if my heart's right here. I need to have some of these conversations that aren't detail specific, aren't any kind of, let me tell you, like, it's just, I need to talk about this for my own sake, for my own sin, for me to grow. And I'm trying to get some clarity on this, and I think that's okay. Some of it is you need to talk to your spouse. You need to talk about what they're comfortable with. And you need to not, the goal can't be, let me share stories or let me do this because it's, I think it's entertaining or interesting or anything like that.

It's got to be way more of a, I'm wanting to grow and I'm wanting this to be healthy, and so this is worth us having a conversation. Kind of how I say that, so. Can someone be in a long-term, committed, same-gender relationship and still be a Christian? I'm going to take a shot in the dark and assume you've maybe thought about this more. So do you want to give an answer to that, and then I'll kind of fill in if there's any.

The hard thing is, is I want that to be so true because of what we were talking about earlier. I don't want to be alone. I don't want to not have someone, you know, that I can talk to, that I can trust, that I can lean into. You know, it's just like, God, there's just this deep desire to just be with someone. And obviously with my heart, like, I have no desire to be with a woman, which means that my desire is to be with a man. But I can't just for biblical reasons, you know.

But in regards to this question specifically, yeah, there's the emotional side of it, and there's the, well, they love each other, and they're committed to each other. But in regards to any sin, you know, homosexual, heterosexual, it doesn't really matter. If you are a heterosexual couple who is living in a relationship outside of marriage, you're in sin. And so I think the real question behind this is, can, let me read it, can someone be in a long-term committed, unrepentant sin and still be a Christian? And I think the biblical answer is no. So I'll read things like when Jesus says, why do you say you love me, but don't do the things that I've commanded?

Or John in 1 John when he says, you know, if you're continuously living in sin, then you actually never knew Jesus. You never knew God. The love of the Father is not inside of you. It's not what we want to hear. It's not what I want to hear. But it's true and actually better.

Yeah, thank you. It's a massively difficult question. I agree with that. I think it's where we try to gauge it, where we try to look into a situation and say, well, is this person a Christian? How long have they been sinning? Do they know about the sin?

Because there's, like, ignorance. And I've had friends who became Christians and continued doing very sinful things until they got to that place in the Bible. And then they were like, oh, this is no bueno. And I didn't know. Like, and that's one thing. It's a, is it an active, unrepentant?

I know what the Bible says. I just don't care. I had another friend who said, well, I'll become a Christian. But if I become one, I'm not going to do that no sex thing. He wasn't married. And it was like, you don't understand what becoming a Christian is because you get a king.

That's not how you show up with a, all right, king, here are my terms. That's not how it works. And so I think, yeah, long, long enough term, unrepentant, unwilling to repent, non-wrestling with it, just I'm just going to do what I want to do here. The Bible is going to say, well, you probably never were. But can you be a Christian in sin?

Yeah. Can you be a Christian in struggle? Yeah. Can you be a Christian in fall on your face all the time? Yeah, that's why we're Christians. We're the first people who raised our hand and said, I'm really messed up and I need someone to help me.

So, yeah, that's helpful. One more thing. I think it's very telling because if someone has an idol in their heart, which is what they worship to be God, and then God confronts them on that sin, and they're saying, no, capital God, I'm not surrendering this idol. I'm not surrendering this lowercase g God. Then that's idolatry.

And it shows that they're not even surrendered to God to begin with. At least that's the way that I process through that. I think the Bible processes through it the same way. Yeah. Can someone who struggles with same-gender attraction be in Christian leadership? You're a group leader.

You want to answer that? Well, I'm a group leader. So I'm a group leader. Yes, the more the merrier. Can someone who struggles with any sin be a group leader? I hope so.

Yeah. Yeah, for real. For real. We are really – That would be a real short list of groups. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the question there.

So I think the key in that question would be the struggles with – so someone who's unrepentant, that becomes an issue. But someone who struggles with sin, that's every Christian in the room. Like that's everybody, every Christian should be fighting sin. And there would be no Christian leadership if you couldn't struggle with sin and lead. And so, yeah, I think the answer to that is are you fighting it, loving Jesus, hating sin, versus, no, just this is me. I've accepted it.

This is who I'm going to be, and I don't care what the Bible says. That becomes a problem. So, yeah. How should our beliefs on sexuality affect our politics? Okay, so just in general, whole theology of sex series and how should that affect politics? I said I wasn't going to say political statements.

I still don't intend to. I think you need to realize that your belief should affect your politics, should affect how you vote, should affect how you approach candidates, how you think about things. I think you need to also realize there is no political group that perfectly is backed up by Jesus. So when you read the Bible, you're going to see some things that are going to line up with our different political parties in different ways. And I think in America, especially during this time, we need to realize Jesus has an endless kingdom where he reigns supreme throughout all of eternity. And no political candidate is going to save us or fix us or make us whole or complete everything.

There was a Messiah. His name is Jesus. He will return and set up a kingdom that will last forever and you won't see a Messiah on any of the tickets. So, think about it. Have your beliefs affect your politics. If you're just like, no, I just don't even think about what I believe.

It's like that's a culturally given thing. That's foreign to the Bible. You should absolutely have what you believe affect how you vote. Christians are told, don't bring your Christianity into this room. And it's like, that's nonsense. Take it with you everywhere.

But realize that it's not ultimate regardless. But Christians should vote. And all the people you're going to vote for are going to have some things that are just completely messed up. Do you want to take this one? All right.

We're good. I'm going to pray. And Matt and Bianca are going to come back up and we're going to sing a little bit together. And so, I'll send it to you. Yeah, you can come on. No, we're good.

We'll move this and then I'll pray and we'll sing. Y'all thank Jordan again for hopping up here. Thank you. Father, we thank you that you're good. Lord, we thank you, Lord, that our sin qualifies us for you to be a very good and loving Savior. Pray, God, that you would help us to grow to be family.

To all of us repent of sin. For all of us to quit believing the lies about happiness and romance so that we actually, in our marriages, can just love our spouse well but without believing they're supposed to fill us up. That in our pursuit of relationships, we can love you more. And that in the midst of all of our life, we'll quit just believing the lie that you want us to be happy here in this moment right now. Rather than you want us to pursue you, which is an ultimate good. God, help us to believe the gospel.

And help us to love our city and our gay neighbors well. And all those in our church family who struggle with same-gender attraction. That they feel wildly loved and cared about and welcomed. Because you are our king. And we hold no other allegiances. In Jesus' name, amen.

Work, Enjoyment, and Savings (w/ QandA)

Work, Enjoyment, and Savings (w/ Q&A)

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

Good morning. We're in our fourth week of our money series, just talking about money. We're actually wrapping everything up today. I am the type of person, and you probably know someone like me, that talks to the television. So I talk to my television.

I respond to characters. And I don't do this in movie theaters and stuff, but mostly if I'm by myself, I'm going to interact with what's going on. And so I'll – like if I'm watching a movie and something happens that is just unbelievable. So like the movie Shooter, where he's like a really great sniper, and they explain that to us. He's a really great sniper. And then later, bullets don't hit him.

They didn't explain that to us. So like he can shoot really well, but then like 30 military guys are shooting AR-15s at him, and he's just like sitting on a hill. And so I'm like, really? Come on. Are we serious right now? And then he blows up a helicopter and runs into the woods, and that's the end of the scene.

Like we don't even know what happens. Like so I respond to my television, and there are two things that I respond the most to that I'll talk to my TV the most. Like that's sports, football, the sport. I talk to football, and I will talk to TV preachers. So when I'm watching football or a television preacher, I'm going to be talking to my television a good bit.

So I will yell. Like if it's football, I'll be like, yeah, come on. Let's go, son, especially if there's like a really good defensive hit. Like I will jump up and shout, which annoys Anna, but like I've got to. I will complain about what people are doing. And then when I'm watching TV preachers, I do the same thing.

So if they're saying good stuff, I'm like, come on. Yeah, that's right. Preach, preacher. Like I don't really do that, but I do talk to the television. And mostly though I get really angry at TV preachers. And so we recently had a son, and I have been catching up on all of my middle-of-the-night television shows.

So I don't know. So maybe me and one other insomniac who like you have insomnia, you have a problem with sleeping, you watch the shows that I've been watching recently. So if you get up in like the first shift with our son, because he eats every three hours, you get to catch up on like late-night shows. So like the late show, the late, late show, the later than the late, late show. Like the – you get to catch up on those. If you get the second shift though, it's like 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning, and nothing is on except for paid programming and television preachers.

I should watch paid programming, but I end up watching TV preachers. And if you watch TV preachers, you would assume 85% of the Bible is about money. Like that is what they talk about. So I'm watching a guy last night, and he has really cool hair. Because if you're going to be on TV and preach, you have to have really cool hair. It usually needs to start here.

It needs to be slick all the way back here. There needs to be some sort of throne that you and or your wife sit on or you and a panel of other people. And wife needs bouffant hair, and she needs to look – her face needs to look like she lost a paintball match. Like she's back here. There's usually a spinning globe. I don't know why there's a spinning globe, but on any of these shows, there's a globe that just slowly rotates in the back.

That's going on. And then what they do is they just talk about money. And they'll talk a lot about like sowing seeds and I didn't have any money and then I gave money and now I've got money. And look at my suit and then someone will come up and be like, I didn't have any money and then I gave money. And now God doubled that and then I paid back and he doubled that again. And now I'm super rich and that's what God wants.

And so if you watch them, you would assume that being rich meant that God loved you, God blessed you. Like if you are financially secure and stable, that is the sign of God's blessing. And that is incorrect. So having wealth can be a blessing and in the Bible it is a blessing. It is not the sign of God's blessing. And the Bible gives a lot of warnings against wanting to be rich, making that your hope, your aim, your goal in life.

So people react to that. They don't have TV shows because TV shows cost money. But the way they react is they say, no, you're holy and you're good and you love Jesus if you're poor. And that's actually a sign of God's blessing is to be poor and to give everything away and to eat dirt and crickets. And God loves you the most if you do that. And the more you smell because you haven't bathed, more holy.

Like that's like you have people that start pushing on this end. And the Bible also does not say that. It doesn't say that being poor makes you more holy. Actually, the Bible is going to kind of stand in the middle and give a lot of warnings towards wanting to be rich. And then give some teaching about that you're blessed if you're poor and that's okay. But there's not a rule of if you start having money, you have to give it all away.

There are times the Bible is going to tell somebody, yeah, you're rich and you need to give it all away. You're supposed to. But that's not the rule for all rich people. It's way more in the middle. And so what we're going to do today is we're actually going to spend some time. We're going to be in 1 Timothy chapter 6.

And we're going to look at just as practically as we can as we finish up this series. We're going to try to just run through some stuff really practically looking at money today. And then we're going to spend a little bit more time doing Q&A. So we've been having people send in questions about money. We're going to spend a little more time doing Q&A when we get finished this morning. But we're just going to take a minute to try to look at some real practical stuff when it comes to money.

So what we've been doing mostly for this series is we've been looking at more big picture. How should we view finances? So if I'm a Christian, if I say I believe this, if I say that I believe that Jesus was God who became a man, who lived perfectly on my behalf, who generously, blavishly poured out love and grace and gave up his entire life for me, and then is a king who rules over my life, that he rose from the dead, and he is the king of everything, if I say that is true, how does that affect how I handle my money? If I believe that there's an eternity, if I believe that my God is a generous God, if I believe that this is the truth, how does that affect my money?

And that's what we've been looking at. And today we're just going to try to kind of wrap up the series with some real practical teaching on how to handle money. And really what we've said in the first three weeks is give money away. And as Americans, we need to hear that. But you're not going to give all of your money away.

And so today we're going to spend some time saying, okay, what else do you do with your money? Like where does the rest of it need to go? And so that's where we'll be as we're in 1 Timothy, page 644, if your Bible looks like this. If you don't own a Bible, take this one with you. That's our gift to you. I'm going to pray real quick, and then we're going to hop in and read some in 1 Timothy.

God, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your love for us. And we pray, Lord, that you would speak to us, that you would give us freedom and wisdom when it comes to handling money. And we just thank you for the time we have together this morning. We love you, praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.

So we're going to be in 1 Timothy 6, 17 through 30. Raz, two weeks ago, spent some time here. We read through this text, and so we're going to read through it again. I'm going to quickly kind of recap some of the stuff he said because we're going to be looking at it from a different angle today. But as for the rich in this present age, okay, I'm going to stop there for just one second.

What Raz did was he explained to us that on the sliding scale of richness, and I'm going to swap. So I was poor here earlier and rich here, but we're going to swap that. Now this side is rich. Now this side is poor. So on the sliding scale of richness, down here you've got the poorest person in the world, probably in a third world country, probably lives in a garbage heap and picks around for food in that.

That's a real thing of children in our world live in garbage piles and look for food. So that's far end down there. Far end up here is like you've got your LeBron James, and then you've got the guy who pays LeBron James, and then you've got the guy who – Microsoft guy, Bill Gates, and then you've got like Warren Buffett. They're down on that end. And all of us are somewhere on this sliding scale. And as Americans, we're more towards this side of the scale.

But mostly what we do is we stand in line this way, and we say, I'm not rich because this person has more than me, and that's our logic. I can't be handling my money poorly. Look at how this guy handles his money. And I can't be rich because look at what that guy has and look at what my neighbor has, and so I'm not rich. And so what Raz said was, first of all, that logic doesn't make any sense. It's the same as saying I'm not full because you ate more than me, or I'm not wearing any clothes because you have on more clothes than I do.

Like the logic does – it's not sound, that I'm not rich because someone has more. And what he said was we needed to turn around, look this way, and realize how well off we are, how rich we are. And so as he walked through this passage, he was just trying to help us all see that really we all need to pay attention. So when it says to the rich, not many of us are like, shh, he's talking to me. I'm super wealthy, guys. Be quiet.

Like not many of us do that, but the truth is we're actually all very well off, and as Americans, for the most part, are more wealthy than many other people, and so we at least need to all pay attention and learn what he's going to tell them as he talks about finances. So as for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, which just means prideful, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.

Okay, we're going to stop there. For some of you, that really bothers you if we stop in the middle of a verse. So you see the 20 at the front of that, and you want us to read to the 21. The verses were added later to be helpful. We can stop wherever we want, and we stopped at the end of the sentence, and we're okay to do that, just so you know. Those are just for reference.

That's not how Paul wrote it. He didn't write and go, you know what, I'm going to add a little 20 here. He didn't do that. He just wrote a letter. So we're stopping at the end of his sentence, which is, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.

If you have struggled with, you know, you need to complete it, go ahead and read the rest of the sentence to yourself. I'm not mad at you. We're just not going to talk about it. The rest of the verse. So, okay, so Paul finishes this up, and he says, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. And so what he's saying is, Timothy, God has given you a deposit.

He's made a deposit in your life. And that includes everything. So when he's talking to Timothy, he's specifically talking about some of the gifts he's been talking to Timothy about, the responsibilities he has as being a pastor of this church. That's why he's writing the letter. But he's also including everything that's been given to him.

And so he says, guard the deposit entrusted to you. And so here's the deal. Timothy will one day stand before God and have to give an account for how he handled what he had been given. And so Paul says there's been a deposit entrusted to you. Handle it well. Guard it.

Defend it. Take care of it. Be wise with it. And that includes gifting. That includes ability, talent. That includes his finances.

That includes everything. He's to guard the deposit entrusted to him. And here's what's really cool that we need to all be aware of. Timothy will be held accountable for what has been entrusted to Timothy. And you will be held accountable for what has been entrusted to you. And I will be held accountable for what has been entrusted to me.

And so that's life, health, skills, ability, talent, finances, everything. There is a day when we will stand before our maker and we will give an account for how we handled what he gave us. Because everything we have is grace. It's on loan. Like you didn't pick the parents you have. You didn't pick the genetics you have.

You didn't pick the skills you have. Like I could work my entire life and will never play an instrument well. It will not happen. I cannot clap and sing at the same time. I was in a gospel choir. I proved that publicly.

I showed the world I can do one or the other. I can clap or I can sing. I'm not doing both at the same time. It's not happening. I didn't know we had to clap until the very end. They were just like, all right, now we're going to clap and sway during these.

And I was like, I've only practiced the singing. I needed an entire semester to work on this. Y'all are terrible, terrible people. But we've only been given so much. I had a college football coach. We had meetings with our head coach every once in a while.

And so I sat down in his office and he said, Chet, you have done everything that you can do with the potential that God gave you. He just, God sometimes gives more people more potential. Thanks. I think. What my coach said was, Chet, the best you could ever be is a four. And you're a four, man.

You nailed it. And you will never play. You will be a four and you will be on the bench. And that's okay because there are some people on our team that God gave them the ability to be an eight. And they're a six. And that's better than a four.

That's what he said. That's how the conversation went. I read between the lines. I knew what was happening there. It was also in his conversation where he was telling me that I would not be receiving any scholarship money ever from them forever for any reason whatsoever. So, yeah.

So, just so you all know, I reached my potential. Just so you know. But for some, but like we'll be held accountable for what we have. So, some people are like, what we cannot do. Timothy will be held accountable for what he has, what he's been given. What he cannot do is say, I'm not held accountable for what I've been given because Paul has more.

What I can't do is say, well, I can't waste this because he's, look at what he has. Look at how he's wasteful. Like, then mine doesn't count. We can't do that. So, we can't look at someone who has more money, more talent, more ability and say that, well, what I do with mine doesn't matter because they have more. It doesn't make sense.

We are all going to be held accountable for what has been entrusted to us. And so, specifically for us today, we're going to talk about money. That verse means everything. It is definitely more than money. It's not less than money. And since this is a series on money, we're going to talk about money, not your ability to play guitar or sing or serve or dance or run or whatever other talents you have.

And I don't know why all those are physical, looking at a spreadsheet. Whatever talents you have. We're not talking about those. We're talking about money. So, all of us will be held accountable for how we handle money. So, what we're going to do is take, as helpful as we can be, we're going to take a second to look at how we can handle money.

And so, we don't usually do this, but we've got props today to be helpful. I was really tempted to just stay behind the wall and talk for a little while, but that would have just been weird and only entertaining to me. So, these are five buckets on where your money can go. Taxes is one place your money will go. And we're going to talk through all of these. Debt is another place your money will go.

And some of you are already nodding. I can't see you, but you know. You know about that. You're nodding. Your heart is nodding. You know what's up.

Are these centered? Because I don't want to, like, make someone not be able to pay attention the whole time because they're off center. And I'll keep referring to them if you can't read the labels. So, this is a bag of golf balls, but it represents money. These are golf balls of money for everyone in here. This represents you will only ever make a limited amount of money.

You will only ever this month make a limited amount of money. You have a limited amount of money that will pass through your hands. And one of the things we've talked about is that everything has been entrusted to you by God, and you will be held accountable for how you handle it. However big your bag of golf ball money is, you will be held accountable for it. So, some of us need to be really excited. I'm kind of glad that my intelligence is where it is, and my amount of money I'll make is where it is, and my ability to play football is where it is, so I just have less to mess up.

I'll be like, yeah. I reached my potential. It was a three. Wasn't that great? Like, I had less to do, less to go for. So, some of us need to be real excited.

You're really mad you don't make a lot of money. Be happy. You have less to mess up. Okay, so, taxes. We will only talk about this for a second. These are five places your money will go.

They will fit into these buckets. Taxes, debt, saving, giving, and lifestyle. So, and every, that's it. That covers everything your money will ever go to. So, taxes. Some of us don't make much.

We're not going to pay much in taxes, but we have to pay taxes. Some of us make more. You will pay more in taxes. But you're going to pay taxes. The government is going to get your taxes from you. You do have one option if you really want to stick it to the tax man.

Again, don't pay your taxes. Then you'll get arrested. And then other people's taxes will have to pay for you. You'll get three meals and a bed. And you will doubly stick it to the tax man. Otherwise, you're going to pay taxes.

That's how that works. So, we're not going to talk about that anymore. The next one is debt. First of all, let me say this before we get into debt. Here's the first rule when it comes to handling money well. And we're just trying to be as practical as we possibly can be.

Rule number one, make a budget. Some of you need to be writing that down. You don't make a budget because you don't write things down. Now would be a good time to start writing things down. Write down, make a budget. Here's why you need to make a budget.

You will be held accountable for everything that has been entrusted to you. You will be held responsible for it. Now, the best way to begin to plan on how to handle it is by having a budget, which is just where you write down where your money is going to go. If you are in this room and consistently you get to the end of a month and you think, where did all of my money go? You need to make a budget. Because you either tell your money where to go or you will wonder where it went.

Those are your two options. You're either going to tell your money where to go or you just will be like, what? Where did I spend my money? And then eventually you start planning a budget and you're like, how much money did I spend at Taco Bell this year? Yes, a lot. That's really personal.

I'm just confessing. I spend a lot of money at Taco Bell. I like that place. Okay. So make a budget.

Have a plan. Write something down. It's very simple. At the top you will write down how much you make and then you will write down how much you have to spend and that's really it. You'll start walking through that. Some of you are like, I don't make enough money to have to make a budget.

All you really just said was, making a budget will be very, very easy for me. That's what you just said. So if you think, I don't make enough money to have to make a budget. No. You just said, making a budget is easy. Okay.

This much money. Rent. Food. I'm done. I did it. My budget is made.

The truth is this. Some of us think, I don't make much money and I don't handle it well now, but I will handle it better later when I get more. That's not how that works. Not really how that works with anything. So we as Americans believe that.

I'm a terrible boyfriend. I'll make a great husband. There's no logic in that. You will just have more to mess up. You will just be a terrible husband. That's how that works.

I've said this before, but girls, if you're dating a guy and he is a terrible boyfriend, do not think that marrying him will fix that. You will just be married to someone who is terrible and that will be your fault. Okay. That was for free. So make a budget.

Make a plan. Handle your money. Pay attention to where it's going. Tell it where to go. So that's step one when it comes to money.

Okay. Debt. The goal with debt is that we would not have any. The goal with debt is to get out of debt. That's the plan. So there are a couple of different types of debt.

Most of us can't pay outright for a house, so we'll get a mortgage. That'll put us into debt. Now, a house is different in some ways because it is a, and the word has just left my brain. It's an asset, but it's an appreciable asset. Thank you very much. That's the word I was looking for.

It's an appreciable asset, which means that if you buy a house now for $100,000 and 10 years later you sell it, it should still be worth $100,000 or more, which means that at any point you don't get upside down in it most of the time. And being upside down just means that you owe more on something than it is worth. So if you had to sell it because the mafia was after you and you had to move and you had to sell and run away, you couldn't because you owe more than it's worth. Does that make sense? But a house is an appreciable asset.

So housing debt is one thing. The biggest problem for us as Americans is consumer debt, which is where we go into debt to buy things that we can't afford for our lifestyle. Our lifestyle bucket consistently just pours itself into our debt bucket, just so you know. So you have a limited amount of money and you're trying to decide what kind of pants am I going to wear. So you have an option for Wranglers from Walmart.

You could go with pants from Old Navy and that's going to cost you a little bit more. Or you could go with something from Buckle. And then if you went with pants from Buckle, you don't have that amount of money. So what you're going to do is get a credit card that just says, I don't own money, but I will in the future probably. And so then you just pour a bunch of money in here. Some ladies get, what are they called?

Credit cards at retail credit cards. And then you think, oh, I need to get this now because it's on sale. And so you pay interest, which is money for nothing other than just having something now on something that's on sale. And so you take something that would be cheap if you had the money and you make it more expensive over time because you put it in your debt pile. Does that make sense? So the goal is get out of debt.

Now, student loans. Should I just put the whole? Okay. Student loans. We're done. That was it.

Y'all have a good day. Some of us have student loans. And here's the thing. We're Americans. The average American has about $15,000 worth of consumer debt. And then you start adding on student loans and medical bills and different things.

This is not feel guilty, feel shame. It is make a plan, make a budget, and let's work to get out of debt. If you are choosing student loans, like if you haven't made that decision yet, consider going in-state, consider going public, not private because you are going to add on extra debt that really isn't going to help you too much in the future when you can get the same kind of degree somewhere else cheaper. That would be my advice there. And don't use student loans to pay for expenses if you can help it and get a job. Otherwise, though, we have debt.

So the goal is make a plan to work to get out of it. Don't assume I'm going to be in debt forever. Psalm 22, 7, Proverbs 22, 7 says, The rich rules over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender. Some of you are working 40-hour-a-week jobs just to pay the lender, which means your job isn't so much for you as it is for the person you owe money to. You are a slave to the lender. That's how it works when we borrow money.

In some small fashion, we become a slave to the lender. And as Christians, we're supposed to be slaves to Jesus, which means that we shouldn't be in so much debt that we're not freed up to move and to do what God asks us to do. Not freed up to, if he tells us to go be a missionary in another country, that we can't because we have so much debt. So the goal would be get out of debt. Now, be honest with your community group about this. Be real with where you are.

We have people in our church family who are good with money. They know math. They think through things well. They can do spreadsheets and magical things with computers. And so we actually can help do financial counseling or have somebody from our finance team sit down with you and just help you make a budget. Like we want to be as helpful as possible.

But the goal with that would be to get out of it if you can. Savings. Okay. Savings is one of these where it's, we kind of want to stay in the middle. You can't go too far one side or the other. So here's the thing that you need to know.

Saving money is okay and smart. Proverbs 21. Yep, save some money. That's number three. And we can go back to that in a second. Proverbs 21.20 says, Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling, but a foolish man devours it.

Which just means that it is smart, wise, to save up. Because you're going to have emergencies, you're going to have problems, and it is foolish to just use all, to have your budget match your income. It is helpful to save some money. So, really practically, if you are in debt, pay minimum payments until you can get something into savings. Get an amount into savings so that if you get a flat tire, if your washing machine breaks, you don't have to go into more debt to pay for it. So get something into savings so you can handle emergencies so that you can then begin to work on your debt, and if something comes up, it doesn't derail you.

Have something in savings. And here's the thing. Timothy says this, and I think this is really beautiful and helpful when it comes to thinking about savings. Talking on verse 18, talking about the rich. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. Which means they have finances ready to share.

And then he says this, thus, so by being ready to share, storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future. Okay, what is storing up treasure for yourself for the future? I'll give you a hint. It's saving. That's what storing up treasure for yourself for the future is. That's savings.

That's all that is. So what he says is, people who have money, the part of the purpose of saving is to be ready to share. So that when someone in your group needs help, someone in your community group, someone you're in life with needs help, you hold your savings with an open hand. For people who have an emergency and you don't have savings, credit card is not your first option. Church family is. Our church is.

That's part of the reason we pull our money together is to help each other. It's part of the reason your community group exists. So don't just put it on a credit card, go talk to somebody. We should have people who save with an open hand ready to share. He also says this, verse 17, as for the risks in this present age, charge them not to be haughty nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches. Perfectly good to save.

Don't put your hope there. Don't have your life there. Don't have all of joy and purpose of life is in savings. And also for couples, saving is not automatically more holy, just so you know. So some of us feel really self-righteous because we like to save money and our spouse likes to spend money.

Both of them can be very selfish, self-motivated, chasing after what makes us feel good. So someone likes to be able to look in the bank and see money and that makes them feel comfortable. And someone else likes to wear shiny shoes and that makes them feel comfortable. And we're both chasing after the same thing. We just have a different motivation. But we should save some and we should save with an open hand and that's okay.

Okay. Giving. This is what we've talked about for a lot of weeks. We're going to skip over, but that's just, we're going to come back to it, but that's just meaning that you give money away. Doesn't help you. Doesn't go to you.

That's giving to the local church, giving to friends, giving to people who need help. Like some of your money is just not going to terminate on you. That's giving. Everything else goes into this bucket. The lifestyle bucket. And so some of us say, well, I really just pay my bills.

Yes. But you, through your lifestyle, have chosen what type of bills you're going to have. Does that make sense? So when you buy a house or rent a house, you're choosing what kind of life am I going to have? What kind of house am I going to have? What's my mortgage going to look like?

How big is this apartment going to be? What kind of internet am I going to have? Am I going to have Netflix? Am I going to have cable? Am I going to have direct TV? Am I going to get the Hoppa?

Like what's the plan? What am I choosing with how I'm going to live? Where am I going to get my purse? Walmart. Dugan and Burks. I don't know if that's the name, but Dooney.

Maybe her name's Dooney. Dooney and Burks. What's the one with all the really weird patterns on it that looks kind of awkward and like super colorful? What? Louis Vuitton and Prada. So like, yeah.

Where's that coming from? Like I asked Anna this stuff yesterday and I don't remember any of the words she said. Sorry. I should have been paying more attention. So, but like we make lifestyle choices. What kind of car am I going to drive?

Does it get me to and from work? Or does it tell everyone I'm awesome as I get to and from work? We're making lifestyle choices. Does that make sense? So everything else is going here.

So here's what you need to know. Question your choices. Jesus says that life is not found in the abundance of possessions. And when he says that, he is talking to Americans because we believe that. Millions of dollars are spent every year to get us to be here and to be here and to know that that's what makes us okay. That's what makes us good.

That's what tells the world we're fine. That's what communicates to the world who we are and what we care about and what we value. And that's how people know you. And he says that life isn't found in the abundance of possessions. Life isn't there. That's not where joy and freedom and fulfillment come from.

So, when it comes to the lifestyle bucket, the fourth thing we need to know is we think about money. So we need to make a budget. We need to get out of debt. We need to save some. We need to plan ahead, know that there's going to be a rainy day. There's going to be some problems.

We need to provide for ourselves and we need to enjoy. I'm going to read you all one of my favorite passages in Scripture that I just think is great. This is in Deuteronomy. So it's in the Old Testament law, Deuteronomy 14, and it just kind of shows us some of God's heart towards why he gives us things. You shall tithe, which means 10%, and it means set aside for God, for his purposes. You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from year by year, from the field year by year.

This is Deuteronomy 14, 22 through 26. I'm just going to read through it really quickly. You don't need to flip there if you want to. Write down the reference. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose to make his name dwell, so this is before Jerusalem, but that's where the temple is, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock. So meat, wine, oil, grain, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

So part of tithing was to enjoy it for the purposes of fearing God, knowing that he's the one who provides. But then he keeps going and it gets really cool. Fear the Lord your God always, and if the way is too long, so you live too far away from Jerusalem for you, so that you may not be able to carry the tithe, which, like, I have a ridiculous amount of wine and grain and goats that I'm going to have to take up there. When the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money, and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves, and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice you and your household.

That's cool. God says part of your money, part of the reason he's given you your money is to enjoy. He says bind it up, take it, go before him and in worship, eat, celebrate with whatever you desire. Oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink. Some of you are like, he told them to buy wine. What verse is this?

Like, I'm quoting that to my grandmother. Like, how's college going? I've been worshiping a lot. Sorry. What he says is that part of how you worship, part of how you celebrate, part of how you, you trust God and rejoice is by taking what he's given you and using it to celebrate, using it for enjoyment. So let me tell you this, part of your budget, even if it's very small, needs to be set aside for the purposes of enjoying it with worship.

So not just enjoying the thing itself, but letting it roll up and worship for a good God who provides for you and who invented that thing. God, creator of the universe, invented flavor. He made steak delicious on purpose. He made bacon more delicious and then he gave someone the idea to wrap bacon around steak. Can I get an amen? Somebody say praise the Lord.

This is real. Now, that's a real thing and we should sometimes order a steak and enjoy it and celebrate that we have a good God who blesses us, who we can trust, who even when money fills really tight, we should set some aside to enjoy, to celebrate that we have a good God who provides and cares for us. Some of us feel like we can't enjoy our finances because we're so worried and that's why he says, no, set some aside and celebrate and rejoice before me and enjoy it because I'm a good God who provides and takes care of you. That actually is in this passage that we read earlier in 1 Timothy. It says, verse 17, as for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, not to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

Which means that some of us, because we're unwilling to enjoy things, are putting our hope on riches and not on God who's provided you with the ability to enjoy something. Some of you are now going to pull that out on your spouse. See? I'm just worshiping. I'm just loving God. Like, I'm just, that's why I want to, like, and maybe you should.

Maybe y'all should have a discussion about the ability to enjoy your finances. Now, that probably was really helpful for two people who don't feel like they can enjoy their money. For everyone else, because we're Americans, that's not the goal of life. It's not just to enjoy, not just to celebrate, but we do have a good God who invented amazing things and invented flavor and enjoyment and roller coasters and all of that for us to enjoy and to celebrate and we should set aside money sometimes to do that. Should be okay with that. He invented gluten because he's a good and loving guy and you should partake.

So those of you who aren't actually gluten intolerant, stop promoting this gluten-free nonsense. I was at Raz's house the other day. He's gluten intolerant. He said, you want a cookie? And I said, sure, because I know what cookies taste like. And then he handed me a gluten-free cookie and I was like, this is not a cookie.

I don't know what this is and I'm very, very sorry for the way you have to live your entire life. So we have a good God who gave us things to enjoy and that's okay and we should. Now, this bucket, this one is the fun bucket. This is the one where a lot of joy is found in giving things away. And so, what we need to know, the last thing we need to remember and to hold, and this is what we've been talking about this whole time, is we want to give as much away as possible. We want to give as much away as possible and what I don't mean by that is wait till you're done with your whole budget, wait till you get to the bottom line and ask, how much of this can I give away?

No, when we set a budget, some of it needs to be towards saving and a lot of it needs to be, I want to make certain lifestyle choices so that I can give a lot away. Here's the difference between you and your neighbor if you are a Christian, just so you know. Your neighbor, for the most part, is going to be operating with these four buckets. Lifestyle, debt, taxes, saving. And there will be some giving. But for a Christian who knows that everything has been given to us generously from a lavish God, we automatically have places we want our money to go that our neighbors don't.

So if you live next to your neighbor and he makes the same amount of money that you do, it's quite possible that you should look like you make less because you automatically have places you want your money to go. You automatically because you know in response to God's generosity you have places where you want your money to go. And this is where you get to plot on people. This is where you get to have a lot of fun. This is where you get to find out about a need and sneak over in the middle of the night and stick money in somebody's mailbox. Do you know how fun that is?

This is where you get to send a certified check in the mail so it just shows up. There's no way like they just Wells Fargo sent me a check. Like what? Why would Wells Fargo do that? Like this is where you get to just go pay for things for people. This is where you get to just this is where you get to send some of your money for God's mission.

Some of you will never step foot in Africa. Some of you will never learn another language. Some of you have tried. It's not going to happen. You're American. You speak American.

You don't even speak English very good. You speak American. That's the way it is. But, so you're never going to translate the Bible into another language for a people group that's never heard it but you can actually send some of your money and get to be a part of that. You can actually send some of your money with a missionary and get to be a part of everything that happens in that country and when you get to eternity part of your money went ahead to that. You actually got to as Paul says here verse 19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

So what he says there is he's kind of a play on savings because he's telling them to save for the purposes of giving it away and what he says is that by giving stuff away that's actually a better savings account. You save it for a better future. You have a better savings with a better treasure for yourself for a better future and he's talking about eternity and some of us need to start sending some money on ahead to that better savings account. I'm going to tell you a story about a guy named John Wesley. John Wesley started like that's where the Wesleyan church comes from and the Methodists and I just wanted to tell you a little bit about what he did and this is the idea of giving as much away as you possibly can.

In 1731 John Wesley started doing ministry stuff and they paid him 30 pounds which is like English money and back in the day that was enough to live on but for our sake because we're Americans and we don't use pounds and the exchange rate has changed a lot so that 30 pounds I don't know buys you like a cheeseburger now. We're just going to say $30,000 because let's assume that's enough for him to live off of and we're just going to keep the ratio that way so where it's 30 pounds I'm just going to have three zeros and call it $1,000 so that we can actually pay attention to what's being said here. So they paid him $30,000 he decided looked at his budget looked at his lifestyle and decided he could live off of 28 so he gave two away $2,000 away that first year. The next year his salary doubled to $60,000.

So he gave two away $2,000 away that first year. The next year his salary doubled to $60,000. How sweet is that raise? Like your boss calls you in and they're like we're going to give you a raise this year we're going to keep up with inflation no your boss calls you in and says we're doubling down on you like what? That sounds great.

Most of us though would have our budget our lifestyle begin to expand to our new income. What he did was he was like well I can live off of 28 so the next year he gave away $32,000 over half of what he made he gave away do you know how much fun that would have been? Think of what the stuff he could do with it like he doesn't make a whole lot

Of money but now he's being able to go hey you're going on that trip yeah let me let me just pay for that oh you're going to go there and try to plan a church yeah let me just pay for your salary for a year like that's cool the next year they moved it up to 90 he still was like well I can live off of 28 so he gave away

62 In his lifetime he got to where he was making 1400 pounds so adding three zeros that's 1,400,000 he never got much over his lifestyle being 30 pounds he towards the end of his life was giving away 1,370,000 of a 1,400,000 salary now how much fun would that be because we believe no no no the fun would be with the boat that you got and the fun would be

With your beach house and he said no I don't want a whole bunch of stuff I want my money here I want to send as much ahead as I possibly can I want to leverage as much as I can possibly can he actually got contacted by the tax service because they just assumed he was under reporting his property tax because they saw his income and were like there's no way you only own the stuff that you're talking about so they actually

Contacted him and had to question him a little bit here's the thing this is where the fun is this is where the joy is so ultimately as Christians we want to try to get this one gone so that we're just working with these four we want to enjoy celebrate Christians aren't supposed to be unhappy grumpy people just so y'all know

We're supposed to throw the best parties like Jesus showed up to a party at Cana and he made the party better that's how that works Christians should throw great parties Christians should throw great parties I'm just saying that we should enjoy we should celebrate like we have

A son every time he laughs I don't smack him and say stop it God hates happiness we don't do that that's not how that works we're supposed to enjoy but we're supposed to make intentional lifestyle decisions so that we can put as much here as we possibly can we should save with an open hand we should pay

Taxes and not go to prison that's how we ought to handle our money as Christians we ought to have a budget we ought to have a plan because we will be held accountable for it now just because we always do this flip over to Ephesians chapter one I want us to help us see one more thing as we finish up our series

On money we're going to read from verse 3 to verse 14 and then I'm going to help us see how the gospel the truth about who Jesus is and what he's done for us impacts our money on both sides and I'll explain what I mean by that so we're going to read through this really quickly it's just a

Really awesome passage blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ if you have one of these Bibles on page 633 verse 3 through 14 blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly

Places even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace which means he just poured it out on us we didn't earn it

With which he has blessed us in the beloved that's Jesus in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses that's our sin according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight making known to us

The mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him things in heaven and things on earth in him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose

Of his will who works all things according to the counsel of his will so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory in him it affects our money on both sides which means

That as Christians we have an inheritance we have a salvation we have a better home that we're going to and that absolutely affects our money we have a generous God who lavished everything on us and that affects how we

See our money how we handle our money and what we believe it's for and how we handle our money will not save us will not justify us will

Not let us stand before God and say look at how well I handled my money I'm okay so we have a lot of freedom there aren't hard and fast rules on a

Lot of these things we have freedom to trust God and to know that if we mess up we get to repent and that

We've been saved by Jesus not by our ability to be smart with money we should try we will be held accountable for it but

We get to repent and we're saved by Jesus so there's a lot of freedom when it comes to money there's not a whole lot of

Tension and am I doing this right am I doing that wrong am I going to mess this up is he going to be

Mad at me we've been saved by how we see it but it also isn't used with this really clenched fist and this really

Terrible fear that we have a good God who wants us to enjoy things who's provided for us and we get to rest in

His ultimate sacrifice for us on the cross I'm going to pray and Matt is going to do Q&A to finish up this series

God I thank you for your grace thank you for how wonderful you are to us I praise you Lord that you made things

Good and enjoyable on purpose and I pray Lord that you would help us all to grow in wisdom and how to handle our

Money for your glory and for the good of those around us and for our joy we love you we praise you in Jesus

Name amen one more thing I will say questions on saving or giving or anything talk to us we do counseling on money and

Different stuff like that it can be really helpful as you try to think through some stuff part of the reason we do a

Song after the message part of the reason we are not doing that is the majority of our questions that you guys sent in

Were actually in this category and so we wanted to if you ask the question and you feel like we didn't answer it well

Or didn't go into the specific thing that you were asking just come and talk to us afterwards we'll try to clarify and go

More specifically into your situation but we do want to answer as best we can for everyone also if we say something that you're

Like I don't know that I agree with that don't but at least we know that we've clarified okay so I'm going to kind

Of take us through our questions and we've got a good bit so I'm going to walk through it pretty quickly all right we've talked a lot

About giving does serving count towards that or does it have to be money okay so serving and giving aren't like opposed to one

Another we are all supposed to do both when we should relinquish the things that we own that we get really attached to for

Some reason most of us seem less attached to our time and more attached to our money and so sometimes we say stuff like

I serve so I don't have to give and we're actually just defending our money and so the same way we tell someone who

Says I give so I don't have to serve we should all be doing both now some of us make more money and are

Gifted in giving and we'll give more and some of us make less money and we'll serve more but all of us are called

To both serve and to both give at what point does debt credit cards student loans mortgage etc. become sin or are they necessary

Evils yeah I think with credit cards that you probably should cut them up or freeze them in a block of ice specifically if you

Have a really hard time with handling them well and constantly putting things on them consumer debt mostly we should just pay for the

Things that we use there are some things like student loans like medical bills and mortgages that are a little bit different but everything

Else we really need to with our money with our time and just like the scripture you read the person who owes is a slave

To the lender and so if that is you if you are in debt be working be having a plan to get out of

It let your group in on that let other church family be a part of you helping you do that I get that we

Shouldn't go in debt but what about saving isn't saving a huge amount of money specifically to ensure a sum for retirement just as

Disobedient doesn't it show a lack of trust in the Lord's provision I think that it can show a lack of trust in the

Lord's provision I don't think it automatically does some of us like retirement is forced on us in America especially in certain vocations and

So having some money saved for retirement isn't bad the question is your hope there is that where your trust is is that the

Goal of life is to just enjoy to rest to retire then maybe maybe that is very disobedient and have you sat with the

Lord on it it doesn't I don't think it necessarily has to be and the Bible calls us to be generous and so for

The person who's in debt and for the person who just may be continuing to save the call is to be generous and so

The person who is in debt would be actively seeking to be out of debt so that they can be generous and the person

Who is saving is saving with an open hand realizing that at any point all of this belongs to the Lord and they can

Use it but it it's a heart level issue so absolutely every person on either side of that equation needs to sit and ask

The Lord where their hearts are and all of us have to save some so I get paid once a month so I don't

Just try to spend all of that or give it all away that day and then just hope that over the next three weeks

The Lord takes care of me part of us they are wrong I do think there is more of a chance that they would

Place their hope there so if you don't have much money it's harder to place your hope there because you don't have it does

That make sense so like when I don't have much money I'm not trusting in it because it ain't there so it's harder sometimes

If you have a lot of to to put more trust there although we do sometimes put trust and hope in the future money

We will make when we become awesome at something is it wrong to save invest for the future if you are faithful in giving to

Ministry and others I would say no just the way that question is worded if you are faithfully giving to ministry to our church to

Church family to others you have an open hand I would just encourage you that if you are saving and investing make sure that

What you are saving and investing you are also approaching it with an open hand too but I think someone who's faithfully giving and

Serving who's approaching things with the attitude of generosity that we've been talking about I think that's good yeah and I would add to

That that I agree with what Matt just said all right saving for future needs is hard I would rather just spend money got

Any tips on making myself save do it okay next question no put it in your budget early so go ahead and work to

Shrink your lifestyle your expenses and put saving at the top so have income giving and saving right off the top and then live

Off of 80% live off of 75% live off 70% if at all possible and that's the best way to do it and if

You have to start really really small $5 I'm going to save $5 from every paycheck so that you start building in the habit for

Yourself and then you can slowly grow that as that works more so some people have a really tight budget give away $5 save

$5 Change it to I'm going that's $10 does that make sense so on both giving and saving put it early in the budget

Don't wait to the end and then you'll actually do it should we strive to be debt free or should we carry some debt to

Minimize our taxes the person who asked this question is in a different tax bracket than I am yeah so we actually tried to

Look this up online because I have no clue about this question we sent Matt's dad a message and he's a CPA did he

Respond to that he did and said he would be willing to actually talk with that person specifically about the way you're looking at

That the Bible is going to say don't be a slave to the lender pretty clear on that but more specifically if you'd like

Some more information on that question we can get you in touch with him yeah so for all the other people that is not

A helpful answer but that's a very intense question that we did not know anything about and the Bible doesn't say much about that

Other than to pay your taxes and to try to stay out of debt next question can I spend anything on myself or should

I feel bad when I do that you should feel bad everybody else can spend money on themselves you are okay to spend money

On yourself obviously not all of it there but no shame no guilt it's not the goal of your money but it's okay how much

Is enough retirement savings cushion yeah that's a good question different people will tell you different things the guy who's on the radio all the Dave

Ramsey says you want to have three to six months of living expenses saved not income but living expenses in case you get hurt in case

There's something like that if you have an emergency he would tell you if you're trying to get out of debt to save a

Thousand dollars really quickly or save five hundred dollars really quickly and then begin to work off debt really that is the question to

Continually ask yourself given your lifestyle given what you need to continually ask is this enough am I putting too much here am I hoarding here that's the question

To keep asking versus that's what I would say and in the same way that we look at giving sit down with the cross not

A calculator be asking the Holy Spirit to reveal these things to you be talking with your group about them next question that we

Have we did math and we know when Jesus is coming back no I'm kidding yeah so here what I like about that question and

I think it's a little bit tongue in cheek whoever sent it in but I like the fact that whoever sent that in understands

That whatever they have saved when Jesus comes back or when they meet him no longer means anything or is worth anything so like

We said in the first week our money is kind of like playing the game uno when the game is over whatever you're penalized

For whatever cards are still in your hand like they were useless to you there's a story Jesus tells where a guy makes a

Lot and he says oh I'll just tear down my build bigger barns and God says you're a fool because you're going to die

Tonight and so yes saving for retirement is fine but always hold into your head I don't know if I'm actually going to make

It to retirement and the day I meet Jesus everything I have in a bank account no longer was useful to me was no

Longer helpful everything I gave away actually I sent on ahead I used to serve for his glory and for his name so just

Having that eternal perspective is important

Gospel Giving (w/ QandA)

Gospel Giving (w/ Q&A)

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here, excited to be in our third week of our money series. And so you knew it was coming. We're talking about money, so today we're going to be talking about tithing. I mean, you had to have been getting yourself prepared for this. And the funny thing is, I know our church family, so I know that some of you are like, yeah.

And some of you are like, I didn't know that was coming. I don't even know what the word tithe means. So we're just going to spend some time this morning, really. We're in our third week of this money series, and we're going to take some time to kind of ask some questions when it comes to tithing. And what we realized with money in general is that as a church, we're very much, we're going to talk about Jesus. We're going to talk about the gospel.

We're going to make much of Jesus every time we get together. We're a band that plays one song, kind of like Rush. But we're a band with one song. That's all we're going to talk about is Jesus. And as we're getting started, there were a lot of things we wanted to talk about, wanted to coach ourselves up on and understand. And then we just realized that we hadn't ever spent any time talking about money specifically, and that the Bible treats it very much as a gospel issue, as a heart-level gospel issue.

And so that we needed to spend some time talking about it as we talk about Jesus, as we grow together as Christians. And so today we're just going to be asking, what is tithing? Really, the word tithe just means a tenth. So it's an Old Testament concept, but tithing just means a tenth. So tithing is giving a tenth.

And most of the time when someone in a church setting talks about tithing, what they mean is giving a tenth of your income right when it comes in to the local church. And so really we're going to ask a bunch of questions like, is that a Christian concept? Is that for the New Testament? Is that just an Old Testament thing? Is it a flat 10% for everybody? Does it matter how much money you make?

Like, are you supposed to... Like, we just... There's a bunch of questions when it comes to this topic. And so we're just going to try to spend some time looking at those questions this morning and really trying to kind of dive into that. And here's the thing. We have a...

In our culture, we have a saying, put your money where your mouth is. And what we mean by that is, if you believe so strongly in something, if you're going to talk big game, we'll back it up. If you really think that you're telling the truth, back it up. And a lot of times that we mean money specifically, a lot of times we just mean like, you know, live that way. Or like if you're talking smack, you're about to fight somebody and they're telling you they'll beat you up. And you say, well, put your money where your mouth is.

You don't actually mean give me money. You mean let's fight. Let's do this. But I actually, I like betting. Confession time. If that's bad.

I don't do it a whole lot, but I do like betting because I feel like it makes trivial things more interesting. And so recently I lost a bet to Matt Freeman about... I lost a lunch. We bet lunch on it. We bet whether or not Cracker Barrel has omelets. And that was the bet.

And I know and love Cracker Barrel and basically have their menu memorized except for the low-carb stuff because why would you go to Cracker Barrel to eat anything low-carb? But we got into a discussion about whether or not they had omelets and Matt said they did and I said they didn't. And so we bet Egg Roll Station on it, which would be $6.26 because you have to pay cash and that's what you're going to spend when you go to Egg Roll. But anyway, we'll talk about that later. So we bet Egg Roll Station on it.

We went to Cracker Barrel and Matt said, can I get an omelet? And our waitress said, yes. And she was wrong. There are no omelets on the menu, which was really what I was trying to bet. But Matt got by on a technicality because our waitress said yes because she understands that if you have all of the ingredients, you can just fold it over and it's an omelet.

But I have had waitresses say no before because it's not on the menu. But anyway, I'm still bitter about it. I just need to get that off my chest. But we have this idea. We have this idea of put your money where your mouth is. And here's what the Bible is going to say.

It's actually going to say that you put your money where your heart is. That your money, that your treasure follows your heart and vice versa. So that if you move your treasure, your heart will follow. And if your heart moves, your treasure will follow. And so the Bible is going to say that to the extent that something gets your money in your budget is to the extent that you value it and really that you love it. And so some of you are thinking, okay, so I love carowinds 1%.

And it's like, well, not really that specifically. More, how much when you add up, how much you're willing to spend on vacations, how much you're willing to spend on cable or satellite, how much you're willing to spend on comfortable things in your house, like a really nice couch. Eventually, you begin to see that if you look at your budget, okay, I value comfort this much. Or you can look and, okay, I value control this much. Or my family, the way I think about my family, takes up this much of my heart. That's what the Bible is really saying when it comes to our money.

It shows us our heart. So any amount of discussions on the topic of money immediately get intense. You ever notice that? Like when you get into an actual discussion on money, you feel tense, the conversation feels tense, and it's because we're talking about heart-level things. So when you question your roommate's spending habits, and suddenly the conversation gets really like, whoa, I didn't mean for this to be this dramatic.

Or husbands, wives, when you say something really smart like, why on earth would you spend that much money on this? Are you crazy? And suddenly you've entered into a minefield, and you didn't realize how intense this was about to get. It's because it's all heart-level stuff. And so that's why, if you're hanging out with a church on Sunday, and it's like, we're going to talk about money immediately, you go, ugh. Because it's a heart-level issue.

So, with all of the questions that we have about tithing, what is it? How do we do it? What are the rules? How should we approach it? Where does this come from? Honestly, to really answer it, and to really have it take hold, we have to have a heart-level answer.

There has to be a heart, it's a heart-level issue, so it has to have a heart-level solution. Otherwise, we'll just have some information, but it won't actually change us. It won't actually move us, because when our heart moves, our wallet follows. And if we move our wallet, our heart will follow. And so really, for us to answer this question, we have to have a heart-level solution. We have to have a heart-level answer.

So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to hop into 2 Corinthians. Well, we'll be in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 today. That's on page 628. It's going to take us a minute to get there, because we've got to do a little bit of background work, but that's where we're going to land. So let me pray real quick for us.

God, we ask that you would lead us, that you would give us your wisdom, that as we study your word, you would help us to grow in what it looks like to follow and to submit to you. And God, we praise you, and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. So 2 Corinthians chapter 8, page 628, if your Bible looks like this, towards the back, if your Bible doesn't. And what we're going to be doing today is we're going to be talking through how are we to, as Christians, view tithing. And tithing, when we say that, what we really mean is how are we to view giving to the local church and giving towards mission kind of on a regular basis.

And the truth is, what we're going to see is that our giving should be based off of the cross, not a calculator. Then when it comes to the answer that is given in the text is that our giving is based off of the cross, not a calculator. And that's really, that it should be based off of the gospel. So where does tithing come from? Let's answer that question first.

Where does this idea come from? It begins in Genesis when Abraham meets a guy named Melchizedek. And Melchizedek is the priest of Salem, which ends up being Jerusalem. And he gives him 10% of everything he has. And so that's where the idea just kind of originates is that there would be 10% given to a priest, kind of a religious, someone in between you and God kind of thing. And then in Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers, it's taught as a part of the law.

So Numbers 18 and Leviticus 20 are basically going to say that you give 10% of your increase. So 10% of whatever comes in, and this would for them would have been goats, sheep, grapes, like whatever came in, you would give 10% to the Levites, to the priestly class because those are the ones that were running the sacrificial system. Those are the ones. And so they didn't get land. They were one of the tribes, but they didn't have any inheritance. And so you were to give it to them.

Actually, you were giving it back to God. And then God said, I'm giving it to them. And that's what Numbers 18 and Leviticus 27 says. Deuteronomy 12, 14, and 26 says that the tithe serves three purposes, still 10% off of increase. And what it said was, it's to go to the Levites, the priestly class, for them to do what they do in the temple. A portion of it is for you to celebrate.

So they were supposed to take the tithe and eat it in celebration in front of God to celebrate His provision. And if the temple was too far away, you were supposed to sell the stuff, take the gold, go to the temple, go to Jerusalem, buy whatever you wanted. It says buy meat, buy wine, wine, strong drink, and drink it and eat it in the presence of the Lord as a celebration. That it was a reminder of God's good things. And so for those who even didn't have a whole lot and were just getting by, they were still supposed to take a portion of their money just to celebrate with. And the other reason it exists was for taking care of the widow and the poor.

So that was the three reasons for the tithe in Deuteronomy 12, 26, and 14. 12, 14, 26, if you want to do that in the way Numbers go. Then we see a few examples. Second Chronicles, Nehemiah and Malachi are all going to talk about the tithe and how it works. Malachi, God's actually going to show up and tell him, you haven't been tithing and you've been stealing from me. You haven't been giving and you've been stealing from me.

And then he's going to do something that he doesn't usually do. He's going to say, test me. Test me and see. Apparently they weren't giving because they didn't think they could afford it. And what he says is, test me and I will provide for you and I will open the floodgates of heaven and I will take care of you if you'll trust me. Now, Old Testament's pretty clear on it.

It's 10% of increase. Most of the time when tithing is taught in the church, every time I've heard it, someone goes to the Old Testament and says, here's the rule. And so even as we were praying about it and talking about it, we knew we were going to need to address this issue and as we started working on it, we just opened the Bible and started reading everywhere they talked about the tithe. And the New Testament doesn't really talk about it. Doesn't come up. There's no verse in the New Testament that's like, it's not like in second opinions where it's like, hey guys, keep tithing like we used to.

Just pretend like the church is the temple now. You're welcome. Like the New Testament doesn't say that. Paul never writes it. Jesus doesn't really address it. Jesus talks about it twice while he's fussing at Pharisees.

So he's in the middle of yelling at people, which I don't know if y'all know, Jesus does that. He yells at people. So he's in the middle of yelling at people and what he says is, you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, which are spices. So he's saying, you tithe, you're so legalistic, you tithe out of your spice rack. So when they went and got spices, they would have said, okay, let me measure out 10%.

So if y'all have a spice rack, go home, measure out 10% and then you gotta bring it in little bags. But if a cop finds you with a bunch of little bags of spices, good luck. But just be careful on the trip. Don't drive too fast. But no, he says you tithe out of your spice rack and what he says is, this you should have done without forgetting the way to your things of the law.

And that's the only time Jesus addresses it. Paul never talks about in any of his letters. And so the New Testament doesn't really talk about it. And so for us, we have to look at the Old Testament and say, how are we to understand this as Christians? Because the law was given in the Old Testament and then Jesus tells us, Romans 7 tells us that he fulfilled the law on our behalf so that we're no longer bound by the law but we've been set free. We died to the law when Christ died for us and that we're now bound by the law of Christ.

And Jesus says he didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. And so there are certain aspects of the law that have been fulfilled and there are certain things that the New Testament clarifies when it comes to the law. And so the Old Testament law kind of breaks down into three things if you're trying to just do this really quickly and kind of look at it. They had civil law which was because they were a nation. Because the nation of Israel existed they had civil law which was like if my bull breaks out and kills your bull I've got to give you my bull. That's the rule.

And we have civil laws like you can't drive too fast. Look at the sign. Do what it says. And so the civil laws for Jerusalem don't really apply even though when we've crafted laws we look to see kind of what God thought was fair and we took some of those out but they don't really apply to us anymore because we don't live in Jerusalem. We live in the United States. So the civil laws aren't really for us as much and the tithing does kind of fall into that category some.

They had ceremonial laws which was how they related to God through the temple system. Through sacrifices through clean and unclean laws through some dietary laws and basically what that was teaching them was this. God is holy and you are not. He is clean and you are unclean and there are things that make you unclean and it was a consistent reminder of that and even when you were clean when you had done everything you had to do to be clean when you showed up at the temple you still needed a sacrifice. So God's teaching us in the Old Testament that the best of us still need Jesus.

Still need a sacrifice on our behalf. But the ceremonial laws don't really apply to us anymore because Jesus fulfilled that in his sacrifice on our behalf when he died on the cross when he rose again. So we're not bound to that anymore. And then there's moral law which is like the Ten Commandments. So moral law is just here's how humans ought to interact with each other.

Don't lie. Don't commit adultery. Don't covet your neighbor's stuff. Don't steal. And those still apply. Those are still things that we would look and say this is how God thinks we ought to interact with each other so we should still follow these.

And really when it comes to looking at the Old Testament you have to look at the context and you have to look at what the New Testament says about it. That's why people will say stuff like oh yeah? Well the Old Testament says not to cut the corners of your hair. Nice flat top, hypocrite. Or oh yeah? Well you're not supposed to eat shellfish.

Let's go burn red lobster to the ground. Like people accuse you of these things but they don't really apply anymore because Jesus has paid for and taken care of those aspects of the law. And there are certain New Testament passages that just say things like you can eat whatever you want. God declares it all clean. And that's why if you ever eat bacon praise Jesus. So there are certain things that when we're looking at how do we apply this and then the Old Testament speaks on it and teaches on it and then the New Testament is silent.

It begins to you begin to ask the question why? Like why doesn't the New Testament address this? Hebrews talks about it a little bit but all it's talking about is the story of Abraham meeting the priest of Salem. So why doesn't the New Testament address it? Why doesn't the New Testament talk about it? Why doesn't the New Testament say how we ought to handle it?

Because we've got a lot of questions, right? And nowhere in the New Testament which the New Testament is pretty straightforward on most things does it address it. And here's what I think as we began to read it and began to look at it here's why I believe that the New Testament when you see how the New Testament starts treating money the way the New Testament is going to talk about money post-cross it actually begins to make sense why tithing isn't mentioned. Why there isn't a rule given why 10% isn't there and here's a way to think about it. My wife and I just had a son his name's Archer he is two and a half months old I don't know if you know many two and a half month olds he's the best.

So just take the greatest two and a half month old you know just go a level up and that's kind of what Archer's like you'll get to kind of be able to imagine him now. Just kidding. Anyway no I'm serious but we have a two and a half month old and right around the time that Anna got pregnant Matt and Katie realized they were going to be having a baby as well and so everybody we were kind of wanting to see if it was going to be two boys or if we knew we were having a son if they were going to have a boy or a girl and once they found out they were having a girl Emerson Lane Freeman who when I wrote all of this that we're about to talk about I just assumed Matt and Katie wouldn't be here so some of this is going to get a little awkward for them because I felt like I had the freedom to say whatever I wanted to but they apparently don't have their baby when they're supposed to.

[QA NOTE — 2026-05-10] The remainder of this sermon is missing from the cleaned transcript because Whisper produced a single unpunctuated mega-sentence at the tail of the audio. The raw text in transcription_work/ contains the rest. Recommend re-running the cleanup with timestamp-based punctuation restoration, or capturing the missing portion manually from the audio.