Well, tonight we will be, as I said, beginning a short series here on human sexuality, the holy sexuality series, I've called it tonight, the issue of our identity. I'll be reading from 1 Corinthians chapter 6, 1 Corinthians chapter 6 is just a reading tonight for us and to illustrate the importance tonight of this. I can't illustrate the importance of this enough. I think it was illustrated in our our bulletin this morning. If you noticed one of Jordan Ryberg was interviewed for membership and the consistory it says has interviewed Jordan Ryberg concerning his doctrine and life and has accepted and has acted to accept him, her or them into communion in the congregation by way of forthcoming profession of faith. You all are stunned right now. That was a mistake, you realize, right? We believe in the right use of pronouns. So I just raised that tonight to say our elders must need some instruction. No, this is a form that we use and it got put into the bulletin. So I hope nobody took offense to that, especially Jordan and his mom who's visiting today I got to clear all that up so Jordan is a male just so you know okay tonight I'll be reading from first Corinthians chapter six first Corinthians chapter six and we'll be considering this this subject tonight beginning at verse 15 do you not know that your bodies are members of christ shall i then take the members of christ and make them members of a prostitute never or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her for as it is written the two will become one flesh but he who is joined to the lord becomes one spirit with him flee from sexual immorality every other sin a person commits is outside the body but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body or do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy spirit within you whom you have from god you are not your own for you were bought with a price so glorify god in your body and there will end the reading of god's word and the elders asked me to we sometimes when i've finished series i i surveyed them and asked them what do you think would be helpful to the church and they mentioned we've written this this catechism and may be helpful to go through some of that and so that was one of the intentions in writing it to be a help to us so that's what we're going to use as as sort of a background and a help to us through this it's now been translated I think into eight languages so it's it's been widely read and used and I thought if I'm going to write it and commend it I better teach from it myself and say that I have attempted to do some kind of preaching series through this. This is not easy to do, but I think it is necessary. The first question and answer are published for you in the bulletin tonight. I think next week we'll just set a bunch of these out if you don't have them, and you're welcome to look at that. Well, as I wrote this particular catechism on sexuality, I was asked many questions about, well, how could it be used, and have I done any sermon series on the subject and so here we here we go uh in the evenings we'll be working through some of this the goal of this is to help um all of us really it's to help grandparents who are struggled with this i've had i've had many grandparents come to me uh in the years recent years and say uh pastor i don't know what to do my my granddaughter is is involved in a same-sex relationship my uh my grandson is identifying in a way different than god made him and what do i do how do i handle this and we have parents who struggle with this who face this in the home and then we don't even recognize and realize how much this is being pushed on our children as they are being catechized daily in the culture on these issues that what we have faced is a sexual revolution that has come upon us you are a generation that is living through a moral revolution and that revolution has taken place it's an overwhelming subject to address tonight is simply an introduction to this and then we'll be looking at some very important questions and issues about about homosexual marriage and about transgender ideology and about what is a man and what is a woman all these questions that would um yeah get people a lot of trouble today to raise in the public square we'll be talking about some of that but what i feel is is we're dealing with even at this point it's just simply the tip of the iceberg um we have you know sometimes i come across and we have seen uh in in the world parents who after this all of this still think they can shelter their children from these these problems and that would be very ignorant to think and to continue to hold on to we cannot shelter our children from these ideas we have to figure out how best to handle these ideas these ideas and these things have come even into our christian schools if if we don't know that then again we're just not up at the times our christian schools are dealing with it it may not be that administrations are are of course allowing these things or teaching these things but at sort of the grassroots and at sort of the the home base you have you have families that see nothing wrong with this in the Christian school and you have families where their children are even practicing and pursuing in the Christian schools homosexual relationships lesbian relationships so this is something we have to address we have to take seriously the pressure for me because the subject is overwhelming would be just to avoid it I think i said to dr goffrey this morning i'm not overly excited about beginning this series tonight it's not the kind of series you're excited to to do i you know i would love to do something different but i think the time requires it i think it's important it's it's something we have to talk about and have to address so i'm going to give an honest effort here in this brief series to cover the core issues of the revolution and while providing us um a sound case i'm i'm praying of the goodness of God's creation order. Of what God put in the place from the beginning for our good. So that the human race would flourish. And that it would be healthy and right for our blessing. There's a biblical answer to all of this. And there's an answer that is found right at creation that is important. So that's what we've got to think about a little bit. So what I want to do tonight is sort of begin with this concept of identity to help us think about identity since that is really the core issue of the revolution in light of these categories that we all know well guilt grace and gratitude that's those are really important categories to work with to help us to understand these things and to figure out a way forward in these things in that sense it's not rocket science it's not rocket science and it has the goal then of encouraging us in the freedom that god calls us to enjoy as he made us and as he wants us to live out our lives as those who are subject to the king our lives are not our own we gave that up a long time ago our lives are to be lived in submission to the lord jesus christ bowing to his lordship and confessing him as lord overall because he is the king and we are his servants and that's where we are now as we look at this great subject well welcome to a june 2023 entire month now is set apart in our country to celebrate the lgbtq plus movement yes not just to accept it but to celebrate it you are not just to acknowledge it you are to celebrate it and you are to bow to it it's interesting month however maybe this is since this whole thing has really broken out in society this is the first time i think we're witnessing some real cultural pushback on this we're really witnessing some cultural pushback the movement has not been static what i mean is it continues to push full steam ahead full steam ahead in new ideals and new i mean that list of letters just keeps growing what's coming what's the plus what do we expect next i remember years ago james boyce and i i could have never imagined these things when james boyce wrote this i think he's been gone since around 2000 but complaining about the line of morality being pushed further and further back and he complained about it moving from adultery to new sexual deviations how far along ago was that does that seem that we're even talking about adultery anymore we don't talk about adultery we don't talk about premarital sex those things are seem minuscule in light of what now we are where we are and what we're facing ever since Obergefell happened people thought that the push to legalize gay marriage would be enough and that people could get back to normal lives in America well we should learn a lesson anytime there's deviance from the law of God on any form there is a sort of insatiable pursuit to the more extreme examples of of sin we've always said this that sin never stays where it is sin always takes another step if you ever read john owens great treatise on the mortification of sin he makes this great point in that work that sin sin is never satisfied with where it is in the moment it's always pushing and it's always going somewhere else and that's the realm that we're in in sexuality that now we're faced with the most perverse forms of transgender ideology so that now we have drag queens doing these things in front of children the most perverse forms of sexual deviance are celebrated in our society and i don't think there's a better place for parents to bring their children to hear about these things than in the church to have it combated and to have it addressed in a way from god's truth that helps to clarify all this madness that we're living in now you could pull up wikipedia you could post is not a beacon of light but if you did do that and you pulled up you pulled up wikipedia and you looked for definitions you'll get them and the average definitions that you'll get today some of the more common definitions are interesting as those definitions are constantly changing transgender they say is a general term that describes people whose gender identity or now notice this their internal sense of being male female or something else does not match the sex they were assigned with at birth so whatever your internal sense is whatever that internal sense is that governs your life as being either male or female or something else new category whatever that internal sense is it may not match the biological sex that you were given at birth and so now then if you go on they will present to you a new category by contrast the term cisgender describes people people whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned with at birth don't miss what they've done don't miss what they've done they have now brought you under the umbrella of an identified category of really identification when have you ever heard of the term cisgender before last week? That's you now. You're cisgender. And what that means is that's a strategy to create a category for those whom the doctors and identifying you as male or female happen to get it right. Because you choose to identify as the doctors named you biologically. But the goal in calling you cisgender is to have you affirm that by designating yourself that way, to speak of yourself that way, so that those other people who have a different category would feel validated you understand that when we use cisgender they're hearing oh good there's a group that recognizes other categories in the umbrella of sexual identity you're just one of those you're cisgender because the doctors happen to get it right when they looked at you and you came out and that's how you internally identify the good news in all of this is that there is a massive cultural pushback on this stuff and it does seem at the moment that in general the culture is saying this is just too far this is just too far they have pushed too hard and too far on these things against our children and there is praise i think we can give that there's a reaction against what is clearly madness in our society i think you see it with the matt walsh movie recently what is a woman that had millions and millions and millions of watches and it proved that the subject is heavy on people's minds right now that the culture war is about as fierce as it has ever been and that just that mere question what is a woman in that little documentary no one could answer and that's really troubling that's really troubling well I don't want believers to think that just or Christians to think that winning the culture war is what this is all about as important as that might be sure we want to see the we want to see sanity return into our laws and into the things that are happening and we want to see sanity in the judgments that are made by our leaders we want to see good and moral decisions that are made that that that people's lives would be properly protected that is absolutely true that's what we should want that's what we should pray for but what we have to see is that what is happening in america as christendom has ended is that the nation and the peoples of our country as this stuff isn't we're infecting all the nations it seems like that the nation is deeply seeking to fill this vacuum with another religion as christendom has died all of us are deeply religious taliban talked about this reformers all talked about this that in the heart of everyone is the the seat of religion and that no one is really a neutral figure when it comes to this that everyone worships something and the problem is that what we're dealing with is really a satanic assault against what the scriptures teach on basic morality and even what is natural as god made us as image bearers there is nature and there's grace but there is what is natural my concern is is that we have so many christians who have sort of turned away from this and not address this or buried their heads in the sand on these issues or they're compromised because of very real struggles in their lives whether it be familial struggles family struggles children's struggles on these issues that we simply just don't want to talk about it i think we saw this last week in the CRC, two weeks ago in the CRC Synod. A church in Grand Rapids ordained a lesbian deacon. And this made it right on into the Synod. And the Synod rightly so, in the last Synod of the Christian Reformed Church, had a good statement on chastity and what it means in the Heidelberg Catechism. And the Synod has really tried to uphold and maintain a biblical right stance on human sexuality and a minister gets up and then of course this is published all over cnn cnn gets hold of this you see the video right on cnn about the christian reform church last week and minister gets up and complains because now the church is no longer welcoming to lgbt plus people and this one pastor stood up in the middle of the senate and i'm leaving this synod in protest because we are no longer welcoming to these people whose son is a practicing homosexual. Well, are we welcoming to sinners? To repentant sinners? I don't think we've ever said that anyone who's living in open rebellion against God in any form should be comfortable in the pew. But this is familial. This is what shuts down discussion. These are the challenges that are in front of us. And I fear the greatest danger to the church is the lack of unity and the truth on this matter and that compromise will prevail because, as I said, there's no way to avoid these ideologies coming into and having to address them in our families and having to address them with our children. We have to be willing to say what is right and wrong to our children. We have to be willing to have the courage to say it. That's our calling in this life. So where do we begin with all this? Well, I want to encourage you tonight. The task, it may seem daunting and it may seem difficult, but we're the people that God has alive for this moment and we have to have confidence in that and that what our calling is is not unclear. And what I'd like to show you in this series is that no matter what kind of deviance and no matter what kind of ideologies, no matter how crazy it gets and what sort of terms are thrown at us and all the confusion and madness that continues to come as the letter soup continues to grow, that the Lord calls us to simply continue to testify to the truths that we have always known and believed and confessed. And to do it, yes, in love, but to do it. And so that's the challenge tonight. That's the key issue facing us where we begin is really with this subject of identity. Some have said, well, we're making too much issue of the concept of identity. But there are, and it's certainly a concept that I believe Scripture gives a lot of attention to. Who are you? Who are you? How did God make you? And for what purpose did God make you? What is the purpose for which God made you? And what is the purpose more specifically of how God made you as male or how God made you as female? See, this is going to take us on a lot of different roads here. It's going to help us with looking at the family and looking at marriage and looking at love in marriage and looking at God's design in all these things. But identity is sort of the key concept and the focal point of this movement and you ask why has that been front and center in all of this well you can read carl truman's excellent book to answer these questions that particular question about identity i think he has nailed it the smaller version is strange new world it's a really good book you can read it in a few days and i commend it to you he really does an excellent job in helping us think through the core issue when it comes to identity and how we have made ourself the center of existence in a narcissistic way. But our happiness and the pursuit of our happiness on our terms as the center purpose of our existence in this life. In the process, we have at the center of the universe excised God out of it. And we are the center. We are the sovereigns. We are the determiners of our happiness. We are the determiners of our fate. What I'm saying that is absolutely contrary, I guess, to the sort of humility that the Beatitudes capture this morning, didn't it? Blessed are the poor in spirit. The character of the Beatitudes and the characteristics of the people of the kingdom that jesus describes of those who are humble who are those who are submitting to and finding great delight in who god has called us to be well this is sort of the struggle today with me myself and i at the center and hedonism is the goal that follows making the happiness the self the happiness and center of the purpose of life and the universe and cutting god out of it we now have no foundation we are all wandering aimlessly with something to look to to worship now and you can just pick from the depravity of the human heart any sort of image you want they've been saying god is dead for how long in america well you need to find something to fill that void you're going to try to excise him out and what is the most powerful of all human desires that we have in this life well Freud convinced us it's sexual and that the center of people's happiness Freud said is the pursuit of your sexual happiness well if you have no center you have no foundation you have no defined purpose no understanding or clarity as to why you're made who you are what you are called to be and that is on a whim what you determine based upon your own sovereign will you can imagine the chaos and the confusion and the madness that's going to follow in a society like that. Just as we looked at last time with the temptation of Christ, Satan comes along in the wilderness and he says to Eve, Eve, you're not happy? Did God put you in an oppressive design as a woman? Did God, you could be your own God. can be free from this liberated from this defined by sexuality the way you want to be defined well there's the key the world is so angry at christianity right now really people are so angry at christianity right now when they hear christians say that sexual identity or that the pursuit of some sin in that arena is something that is not good for you and something that is against the will of God, do you understand why they're so upset about it? It's because all they hear is you attacking who they are. Because they've defined that. how do you even combat any of this where do you start well i have good news it's not really rocket science what we're facing is just another form of the lie of satan in the garden he's the same old dog with the same tricks he just knows how to recast those tricks and to use the same lies to seduce a new generation away he's a master craftsman of the lie why has the movement overtaken the whole world it seems because it's offered people a way of freedom and autonomy from god that's the lie at the beginning a powerful way for people to define themselves and to define their own lives and listening to the lie of the evil one to find happiness free of all these constraints that are put on us if you ever talk to somebody who's apostatized from the christian faith here's what you'll always get from them you know i grew up in an oppressive environment it was strict it had all these rules and i was put in a little cage and now my mind's broad now i'm open now i see that's right out of the garden that is tactic number one of the devil to make everyone think that they have been put in an oppressive design by God himself and that he's not very good and that all he really wants to do is take away your happiness and confine you down to rules and just say to you don't, don't, don't yeah, it's the kind of Christianity I don't like I'm out well that's that's the lie constraints to our happiness to which you stop and you say are people really happy in this they say this would be called transphobic today that after about year seven of having changed your sex you are really open to suicide now if this were a worldwide phenomenon before we just suppress transgender people why don't we see all these suicides before see well because the real unhappiness is cutting yourself out of the way that god made you and this is what we have to spend time thinking about. How do we help our children out of this? Well, I guess we could start to work toward a solution, and this, I said, is just the intro tonight. We have to show them, beloved, that the identity that we enjoy and that we have as those purchased by the blood of Christ is a far more blessed and happy way. than to entertain the lies of the evil one. Now I say that because I'm not sure Christians have always demonstrated the joy that they should in who they are. Who you are. It's the paradox, if you will, we looked at this morning of the fact that in brokenness there's true happiness. That would make no sense to people. But that's why they have to see it. And seeing ourselves and confessing sin and seeing who we are as God has defined us and seeing what the fall has done and then seeing the immensity of this enormous sacrifice that was made for us that somebody would be given from heaven who is truly God and truly man to forgive us and die for us. We should have the greatest joy and the greatest message for people today. Think about what Romans says. You just read over it. Whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. That's overwhelming. What does that mean? maybe i could speak to our young people here we constantly say you need to treasure your new identity you're being made into the image of christ when we look at jesus in his word we see the image of god in human nature in other words we see in jesus and we are given a clear idea of who we were created to be and what God is doing in renewing us. What that means is, is there's a great purpose that redemption has for our lives and it's that purpose that we need to capture. He gives you the privilege and tells you that he's committed to conform you to the image of his son. That's a true identity amidst all the false identities that are out there. There's a true one that's right here that you hold, that you have, that you've been given, that you've been predestined to be conformed into. I look at young people today and I'm heartbroken. I'm not so much talking about in the church. Though I think, how do you help young adults and young people appreciate what they've always known to be special? But I'm talking about when I go out and I look at young people walking around today on the streets and I look at them and they're lost. They're trying to figure out life and they have no hope. And so they're grabbing the drugs. They're going for all the perversions that they can. It's heartbreaking. Because I know what they need. And then I come back and think, well, what about our covenant children? Have I communicated to our covenant children how blessed they are to know Christ? To have Christ? to be made into His image? That He put His hand on them in baptism and chose them? Have I shown them how valuable that is? See, the way we're going to help people most is to value who we are. Who belong, what do we say? body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior who's fully paid for all my sins. Look at the zeal they have for false identities. They'll die for these identities. Look at them fight. Look at a small little portion of the population fight. Who's really transgender in proportion to the population? It's really, really tiny. Look at them fight. Look what they're accomplishing. If we woke every day asking God and treasuring, saying to ourselves simply what we know to be true, I belong body and soul and life and in death to my faithful Savior. And we ask that we would communicate that to our neighbors and think about that and showcase that. I think that would be a powerful witness in our moment. I think it would be a very powerful witness in our moment. He gave us His Spirit who dwells within us. And I'm a new creation purchased by the blood of Christ, paid for, atoned for, heaven reserved for. That matters. That matters. see i think this requires great awareness on our part of who god calls us to be as his children satan's great work has been in our age to blind people to sexual sin as a way of happiness and then to celebrate it as who they are that's the lie we know this pattern three things do we need to know as this little catechism i wrote taking based off the heidelberg you know they have no idea that what they're doing is wrong they have no idea they need to be set free from it and they lead lives celebrating the darkness of their ways well what's the answer from us well if satan has taken the issue of human sexuality and put it front and center, then translate. We have to be a people who show how great our unholy sexual desires and sexual sins are ourselves, being aware of it. We have to start by confessing our own sins, seeing the darkness of our ways. We have to look at what are the acceptable sins that are now, years ago, were bad sins that now are tolerated. We have to think about how in our marriages we love one another. How we serve one another. And when we see the larger sins of society, premarital sex, pornography, and adultery, we understand those sins, how that they lead somewhere, and we come to Christ ourselves and we show people the joy of what forgiveness means. We do what we do best. Listen, we do what we do best. You want to answer to the culture? You do what you do best. Confess your sins. Repent of your sins. Come to the Lord. Appreciate the gospel. Live by faith and trust in Christ, being justified and set free from all of this. And then in your lives lead a powerful witness of thanksgiving. That's not rocket science. That's what they need to see. Those three things. Those three things. That's a witness. Christ has delivered you, listen, from the most powerful sins in your lives. Do you believe that? Christ has delivered you from the most powerful sins in your lives. You're free. Do you believe it? And when you sin, you confess it. And you go to Him. And then you show people what it is to live thankfully. It's not a burdensome set of rules for us. That's Christianity misunderstood. We have a clear conscience. Our conscience has been cleared. And I guess what I'm saying tonight is the best answer to give just initially to the revolution is to live out in this arena of human sexuality to demonstrate the three things you know with confidence. You have an identity. You've got the best identity. You've got the only true identity. You are being conformed to the image of Christ. You belong to Him. If you demonstrate confidence in these things, fleeing sexual immorality, which is His will for you, I think you'll have a very good, successful witness to the most surprising of people in your lives. Matt Walsh went around asking the culture one question that no one could answer. One question. What is a woman? What is a woman? No one could answer it. The very end of the film, to give it away, his wife says, an adult human female. Now can you open this can for me? That's the end of the movie. It's a very effective ending, by the way. I have a question. Maybe if you guys would all help, we'll fund and do a documentary to the ends of the earth. I've got a really important question that I'm not sure anyone can answer. Why did God make you? Who are you? What purpose do you exist? For what purpose do you exist? I think I could do a documentary like that. I don't know if I want to do a documentary like that. I think I could do it. How many of us could answer that today? Well, in that old children's catechism, there's a really good question, isn't there? Why did God make you, boys and girls? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Well, put it in our terms. Why did God make you, boys and girls? To glorify God as He made you as either male or female and enjoy Him forever. And we value in our lives, as we value what Christ has done, then we really will demonstrate the purpose of our lives. Delivered from the lie of Satan. Loving our spouses. Serving them. Encouraging the singles among us. Well, look at that. Being willing to help those struggling with sin. Being willing to help those struggling with these sins. They're not just saying, sorry, that's just too perverse for me. Being honest about sin in our lives. Confessing and turning. Being free from hypocrisy. And maybe as the last question and answer says, as I wrote in the little booklet, which I haven't referred to, but this was the aim of the end of it for a witness. How do we love those in sexual sin? How do we do that? We should not avoid or shun those mastered by sexual sin. Instead, we should speak the truth in love. Speak the truth. That's the battle right there. Speak the truth about sexual sin, repentance, and faith in Christ. Give witness to the deliverance God gave us from our own sins and perform acts of kindness by our godly living we should seek to win our neighbors to Christ. And that gives us great purpose in this life. And by God's grace, may He give us success in these times. Not just to win a culture war, but to give witness to Jesus Christ of the salvation that the world can know through the freedom that He has achieved and won for us in His life, death, and resurrection which provides for us a true identity. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank You and help us. Forgive us for we confess, Lord, our own sins and weaknesses and yet we recognize, Lord, that You have set us free and You have given us life by the Spirit and You have given us a precious identity to be conformed to the image of your beloved Son in whom you're well pleased. Let us treasure this before the world and help us as we embark on this study that it would be helpful in our times to equip the saints in this place to be thoroughly equipped for every good work in addressing these issues to a generation that is absolutely confused and in madness over them. Asking that you would deliver people from the lie of the evil one and that you would again bring a reformation and that people would not just seek to expose the lies of the culture, but in exposing the lies of the evil one, they would then seek to come to the one who is the way, the truth, and the life by which people may be saved. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.