Last week, I began a series of teachings wrapped up in the subject of the gospel and our culture. The plan is to address on Sunday mornings a few issues with which we all seem to be faced, and about which we are often confused. The intent is to deal with a few specific topics this August, and from time to time pick this theme back up and deal with a few more.
This Sunday, July 31, I am addressing the gospel and the sexual identity crisis.
We had a group study recently with about 18 of our people, who together read and walked through a helpful book by Preston Sprinkle dealing with homosexuality specifically. I am one of these who advises reading the Bible far more than reading what someone says about the Bible or about subjects people address. That said, of course, it is healthy to read others’ struggles in certain issues. This book is worth reading, for sure, and it is helpful in navigating how we wrestle as God’s holy people with homosexuality, same-sex attraction, and same-sex marriage.
In my message on Sunday (which will likely become a two-part sermon), there’s no way I will be able to go into quite as much detail as the book does, but I am also going a bit more broadly—with much more of what is being presented in our culture—about sexual identity, gender fluidity, sexual immorality as a broader topic and, of course, sexual purity. I am coming at all of this using the verbiage of an identity crisis that mankind has now, and in reality has always had. We will walk through two major points:
- The world’s ERRANT messaging of our personal identity
- God’s words of an INERRANT path of personal identity through the gospel
My intent is to help us navigate these complicated waters to determine how we as a church body react to one another; how we as a church body react to the secular messaging; how we can raise our kids and grandkids in this complicated world; and how we live in a world and represent Christ in a complicated and searching world (that “doesn’t know their left hand from the right hand”—a quote from Jonah 4 I used last Sunday!).
These messages are actually not easy for me. But at the same time, I don’t believe they have to be difficult for us to wrap our heads and hearts around.
See you Sunday morning as we dive in!
