[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Way Community Church Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our mission is to show people the way to life with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Darahal and I am the pastor of the Way Community Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you would like to join us as a member or of you simply need prayer,
[SPEAKER_00]: or if you want to worship through giving, you can find the links and the transcription of this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we're going to conclude our series, where do we stand on the subject matter of sexuality?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to have a robust conversation about something that's very important to us as individuals and as a community.
[SPEAKER_00]: My hope is is that you can lean in and listen with an open heart, and that God will use this message.
[SPEAKER_00]: To encourage you along the way, you can follow along the transcript of this podcast, the study God's Word together.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Word of the Lord says of a new American standard Bible, the apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: After they had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That by my mouth, the gentiles will hear the word of the gospel and believe, and God who knows the heart, testify to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us, and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith, verse 22.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then it seemed good to the apostles and elders with the whole church to choose man from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, Judas, who was called our service in silence, leading me in among the brothers, and a senteness letter with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to the letter, the leader sent to the church to tell the church where they stand on his issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: The apostles and the brothers who are brothers to the brothers and sisters in Antioch Syria and Celicia who are from the Gentiles, greetings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since we've heard that some of our number to whom we gain no instruction have confused you by their teaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of setting your souls, it seemed good to us having become of one mind to select me and to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who risk their lives for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, we have sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will also report the same things by word of mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to light up on you no greater burden than these essentials like the Church of Essentials that you have stemmed from things sacrificed to idols that is from blood, things strangle and from acts of sexual and morality.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well, fair, well you may be seated,
[SPEAKER_00]: in the presence of the Lord, where do we stay in on sexuality, usually my approach is to try to use whatever I came with in my
[SPEAKER_00]: bag, so to speak, within my skillset as a communicator.
[SPEAKER_00]: To try to clarify, the truth of a biblical concept, so that when I share with you is something that you're able to receive, perceive, or conceive in the mind and heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a part of that is normally stories, and jokes, and analogies, and all of the above, which is true to my personality, and sometimes useful to help us absorb conversations.
[SPEAKER_00]: But today, I just want to tell you from the outset, I won't play in our crack at any jokes, tell me, any stories are using any analogies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's why, because this subject is too serious, and I don't want to crack a joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: that 30 people laugh at, while 30 people are traumatized by the joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my goal in this conversation is to be circumspect, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to put my finger right on the issue, and I want us to talk about it with some level of robust capacity, and I want us to layer this conversation because it's not a simple one.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the last two months, I've been given a saying formula, one, two, and three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we don't do that as well, we're just going to invert it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we don't start with three, then we'll go to two, and then we'll end with one stance on sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the first thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three different components of sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I say three different components of sexuality, here's what I mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean sexual orientation.
[SPEAKER_00]: sexual identity and sexual behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: The three are distinct.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if related, we wanna be broad enough as people and believers to have a conversation about each one and all three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause they are not the same, even though they're closely related.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I say sexual orientation, I'm using the phrase theology that the human rights campaign would define as an inherent or immutable enduring emotional romantic or sexual attraction to other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: The emphasis here is on what or who you are attracted to.
[SPEAKER_00]: moves the sexual energy you feel inside, it's that magnetism, that, that feels overwhelming.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in many ways, it can feel like it was chosen for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Orientation is essentially what arises you or what floats your boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sexual identity, though influence by orientation, is not necessarily the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, when it comes to sexuality, it moves from the heart to the mind to mannerisms, to actions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the heart of the issue of my sexual identity is who owns my feelings.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do these feelings come from?
[SPEAKER_00]: influenced or instigated these feelings, and how do I in turn manage or respond to them?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the heart of the issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mind of the issue, we talk about the brain now and it's wiring from experiences.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mind of the issue is wired by examples we are exposed to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chama, we have faced things that we see,
[SPEAKER_00]: what we tell ourselves about our sales and what we are told from others about our sales.
[SPEAKER_00]: The harder to issue his feelings, what do they come from?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I do with them?
[SPEAKER_00]: The mind of the issue is how we think in our sexual identities and fluids by examples, stuff we see, stuff we tell ourselves, true or not, and stuff people have
[SPEAKER_00]: mannerisms when it comes to sexuality is how we express through the way we move our body, the energy we feel inside as hard to describe.
[SPEAKER_00]: So mannerisms could include how we walk, how we dress, how we style our hair ourselves, how we show up in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll just
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the sexual energy you have if you have any at all, how it shows up in the way you present your vessel in public.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the reason I said if you have any at all because there are some who may not have much of any, you would be described as a sexual that just means so so you don't have any
[SPEAKER_00]: Leaning one way or another, you don't have a lot of magnetism or energy in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have a lot of feelings that you navigate, it's just something that's just not a wake in you for whatever reason, and that doesn't make you abnormal.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that's attached to trauma, I would encourage you to explore that, but if not, if it just be how you wire, for others of us, we know what I mean by orientation and identity and how it shows up in our expression.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, some would call what I'm describing as sexual identity, they would call it gender expression.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, I'm choosing to use this to two terms in a changeably.
[SPEAKER_00]: and scripture gives us insight to the fact that how you feel inside impacts how you dress outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a sexual energy connected to how you present your vessel, and that we should be aware of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what happens if my gender assigned at birth based on my physical features is male, but you feel the energy of the orientation that's trapped inside its female, how do your mannerism show up, how do you dress, how do you talk, how do you move, vice versa.
[SPEAKER_00]: right and then what if you know what if I agree with the gender assigned to me biologically and that emotionally I find there's congruency between my biology and my my energy so I show up as man because I feel like a man and I have male parts or vice versa I show up as a woman because I feel like a woman I have one of the parts and
[SPEAKER_00]: And so my masculinity or femininity is just an outflow of that energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Scripture is clear to us that how we present the vessel is something we should think about based on what's happening with the energy inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at Deuteronomy chapter 2, excuse me, 22, first five.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says a woman shall not wear a man's clothing or shall a man put on a woman's clothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does Deuteronomy acknowledging?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's acknowledging that you will feel is possible that you could feel
[SPEAKER_00]: that biologically you are one, but the expression is the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so be thoughtful about how you present the body and the mannerisms you present in your sexual identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peter said in 1 Peter 3, your adornment must not merely be the external.
[SPEAKER_00]: Braden Hare, wearing gold jewelry, or putting on a pair of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, that's not saying don't put on some good.
[SPEAKER_00]: They make you look good and feel good.
[SPEAKER_00]: What it's saying is don't just let who you are be completely external.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't let your whole identity be captured in your external presentation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be shallow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so be aware of how this sexual energy causes you to show up and dress and don't overdo it and putting too much value in how you appear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though you should address them and await that, that reflects how you feel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all picking on what I'm putting down?
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sexual behavior is a third component.
[SPEAKER_00]: orientation, identity, behavior, three separate, but interrelated factors of the conversation about sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as believers, we have to be broad enough emotionally and mentally.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we're going to have this conversation with people to know what's meant by each and be willing to talk about each independent of the other or all three together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you got somebody you really love and really love you, and they try to have a conversation about sexuality with you, you don't want to just open up the Bible and throw a verse at you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to be able to have a credible conversation?
[SPEAKER_00]: And no one's meant by certain terms, so you can navigate that conversation in a way that's loving and respectful and truthful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, when I speak about sexual behavior, I'm talking about the actions we take based on the orientation we feel and the identity we express.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sexual behavior is what you do with your body based upon how you feel in your body.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, even if a person is convinced that they have no power to choose their own orientation and identity,
[SPEAKER_00]: We do, in fact, have more power to choose our sexual behavior, especially as we become healthier people, especially as we mature.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we become healthier, we are more empowered to choose behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not just allow orientation and identity to make the choice for us, but health and maturity is a key part of that, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the enemy plays in this area.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's his playground, one or many.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's so easy to disorient.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the energy in me, if the electricity I feel, if the magnetism I don't think I can control, it's taking me one way or the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would then be more likely to believe I don't have the power to choose behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how does the enemy make us think?
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have power.
[SPEAKER_00]: The enemy will make us think that we don't have power to choose our behavior, moving forward, if somebody took that power of choice from us in the past.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if somebody took your choice, sexually in the past,
[SPEAKER_00]: The enemy would use that to make you believe you don't have the power to choose for the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're alone because of what that, the, the, the, the theft of your choice in the past put an energy in you that now creates a magnetism or an electricity that you don't think you control.
[SPEAKER_00]: So therefore the enemy will make you think you can't choose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was chosen for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other trick of the enemy is that we have no power to choose our behavior moving forward because the energy in us has rewired our brains to make it impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of us are aware of what you say and only sound possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can I have an orientation this way and identity this way but behave your separate?
[SPEAKER_00]: It almost feels like once my orientation is clear, once my identity is accepted, the behavior seems like a natural output.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you tell me that in a healthy dynamic, I can still choose against whatever energy or electricity I feel inside, here's a major key.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, if we can appreciate it in the context of spiritual health.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if you feel like you cannot choose your feelings,
[SPEAKER_00]: Being committed to Christmings that you can't choose, not to act on them, now let me get hit.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ring fell off while I was talking about sex.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so my commitment to Christ then is a choice I made, but here's the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you commit yourself to Christ, salvation is not magic.
[SPEAKER_00]: The water in that pool we baptize you in is only holy because what we use it to do, not because what we get it from.
[SPEAKER_00]: The water in that baptismal is the same water in the toilet stool, in the bathtub.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not magic water.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to get in there and all of a sudden, all your broken parts be fixed.
[SPEAKER_00]: What baptismal is a choice to say from this point forward, when life makes me choose, I'm going to choose Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to present to you that health is possible, and so is choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, first, that's lonely and sport.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three, two, eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, for this is the will of God, your sanctification.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, that you have staying from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel, in sanctification, and honor, not in lustful passion.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean possess your own vessel?
[SPEAKER_00]: That means I know the energy in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know the orientation and the magnetism I feel, but because I'm a touring in the things of God, I got me on the control.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the most passion?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't just let the electricity decide for me what I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just because I feel the electricity, don't mean I gotta plug in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that's what people do who don't know God.
[SPEAKER_00]: and that no one violate the rights and take advantage of his brother or sister in the matter, because the Lord is the wet church of Vinger.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what happens when somebody violates a brother or sister takes advantage, the Lord will avenge.
[SPEAKER_00]: In all things, just as we were also told you previously in solemnly warned you, for God is not called us for impurity, but in sanctification.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, the one who rejects this is not reject the man,
[SPEAKER_00]: but the God who gives the Holy Spirit to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what choice kind of make if I discern that the energy in me and the identity I've agreed with may be counter in some way?
[SPEAKER_00]: One choice you can make is celibacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Celibacy is a choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to me, because sex is not a need.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of y'all are like, real, maybe not for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sex is not a need.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean, Ralph?
[SPEAKER_00]: When I say need, I mean, how long can you live without it before you die?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, some of us are saying, if I try to dismiss myself in this area, it's going to feel like I'm dying.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to submit this to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I take water from you and you can't have no water, how many days until you physically, about three to five days, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Water is a need.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I take food from you and you have no food to eat,
[SPEAKER_00]: How many days can you survive before you physically food is enough?
[SPEAKER_00]: If in the middle of the winter, I take clothes from you and I put you outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: How long can you survive without clothes and shelter?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm not saying that physical needs are more important than emotional or relational needs.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm saying is a need is something you cannot exist without.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is possible to live a long, full, happy life without sex being a part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I noticed not an easy statement, because Jesus said, it would be said in Matthew 1912, for there are unix or people who are selling it, who are born that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, some people just born and they just never have really, they a lot of energy in the area, they have no interest, then there are some who are made
[SPEAKER_00]: They're also Unix who made themselves Unix.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would they do that for the sake of what church the?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the choice they made.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that an easy choice?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, because look what Jesus says.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one who is able to accept this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Let them accept it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which implies that the one who can't accept it.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, accept it.
[SPEAKER_00]: but there's power of choice there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only a cellopsy of choice, it's also the preferred choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes in the scripture, marriage is really, not even the first option, it's really like the, if you can't stick with the first option.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is your best bet.
[SPEAKER_00]: The live out what you can't control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at the first Corinthians 7 and 7 through 9.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, yet I wish that all men were even as I'm myself and what is he saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: Single, celibate.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, each has their own gift from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people are gifted from merit, some people are gifted for celibacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I say it to the unmarried and to the widows that is good for them if they remain as I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul said, new you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because once you bring in somebody else, your devotion is going to be split.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you take on that relationship, you are responsible for your part in helping to meet the knees of this person.
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't always just see marriages to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he says in verse 9, but if they do not have self-control, if you say, wherever I hear you, energy, orientation, identity, behavior, I can do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let them marry.
[SPEAKER_00]: for his bed at a married and burned passion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the other thing, he's not just a choice, he's not just a preferred choice, sell obscene with Jesus' choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: What if I tell you that Jesus is sexual identity and sexual orientation?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're so clear and powerful that Jesus chose celibacy even though he had attraction?
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of y'all like, not my Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you sure about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at Hebrews chapter four verse number 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our wet church but one who has been wet church tempted in some areas.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus tempted in all things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is sexuality a part of all things?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was tempted, so orientation and identity was clear, yet without saying, because he could control his behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: And his thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mighty God, we serve.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you know this is an area of weakness, and you talk to the Jesus about it, you talk to the somebody who understands a weakness.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean, Ralph, if you struggle, you're talking to a Savior who understands just struggle.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you got energy rushing through you, that's hard to contain, you're talking to a Savior who had energy rushing through him, but he can tell you that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you talk to him, talk to him honestly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think sometimes we try to sanitize our conversation with God, like God and God.
[SPEAKER_00]: talk to the lower, transparently, that's a real resource.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, those are three different components.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, here are two sexuality questions for the committed believer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you're not a committed believer, we can any get to this question.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not a committed believer, the first question is, would you receive the lower today?
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you are a committed believer, here are two questions in the area of sexuality that I'm going to encourage you to think through now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to ask them because I don't think I could be a good pastor, a good brother and Christ to you if I did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I ask you these two questions, you're not ready to deal with them today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just put them to the side until you're ready to deal with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I don't want to open up something that I can't help you close, but I also became
[SPEAKER_00]: If you know it's too heavy, just leave it where I lay it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna lower give you strength, come back and get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Question number one is your identity first spiritual or sexual.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the first question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the second question, a little heavier than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you introduced to sex?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what has been the biggest influence on your sexuality?
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, let's go back to question one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is your identity first spiritual or sexual?
[SPEAKER_00]: So glad that Adrian and Gray could have a detailed conversation about identity because sexuality is an important part of our identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the only part.
[SPEAKER_00]: and human beings are so complex that even if we share identity characteristics in common, none of us are exact same because we all have made up of different factors that shape our identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I said, let every man in his room stand to his feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you looked at all the men in his room and you started to make statements that you thought were true about all men, looking at the group of men in here, you were stumbling the stereotype.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you would miss that we only have one characteristic in common.
[SPEAKER_00]: We mean, other than that, we don't know the other layers of identity that makes us unique from each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Identity is very complex.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the question is, for how I show up in the world, what's all in there that makes me who I am?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's all in there?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if I were to describe myself, I would describe myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some factors, not all, because I don't have time to describe all.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm black, I'm a man, I'm from Atlanta, I'm hood, but I'm smart, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I love music, but not just one type of music.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love all kinds of music.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love gospel, I love CCM, I love the Lord He heard my cry, after church I listen to jazz, after that, I listen to airtime.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my sons right now got me listening to Ariana Grande and she got me in a choke hole.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, this shit's, she's good.
[SPEAKER_00]: All kind of music, my identity is so, so layering.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, some of you may not know about me by looking at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also happen to be the best space player that you never played against.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've said no jokes, this ain't no joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will take this Bible and this iPad off this table.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is called space and opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna take it out the pool pit first, mother bacon, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is called space and opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: My space partner is here, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: These are all my identities, parts of my identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: The question is not what's all in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: The question is, what's at the bottom of what's all in there?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because what's at the foundation of my identity is whatever other layer is built on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's have an honest conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to your identity, if you had a chosen to be a spiritual and sexual, are you a sexual person who got some spirit?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or are you a spiritual person who's navigating your sexuality?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: If my sexual orientation is the foundation of my identity, everything built on it will be influenced by it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if my spiritual identity in Christ as a committed believer is the foundation of my identity, every other layer of who I am will be influenced by that foundation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm your pastor, but I can't answer that for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, you gotta be honest with yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the base of who I am, which one is there?
[SPEAKER_00]: Which one is the foundation?
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, here's the second question.
[SPEAKER_00]: and what's been your biggest influence.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you had a healthy, grounded, and pure introduction to sexuality, you should consider yourself blessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's better than being born rich.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you had a traumatic cold, anti-climactic, a broke, introduction to sexuality, consider yourself normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying normal to call wrong right and right wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying normal to turn on the light in the darkness Satan trying to trap you in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now.
[UNKNOWN]: And now.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I say, and talk, I mean, you just, you just, it was nothing like you, you didn't know what the thing and it was nothing like you thought it should have been.
[SPEAKER_00]: From that point forward, Satan will use that to try to trap you in darkness.
[SPEAKER_00]: So me calling it normal, I'm not trying to minimize your experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to tell you, you're not the only one who was just called off guard by what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason I think this is an important question to ask if you can ask it is because your earliest sexual experience will level set your sexuality for the rest of your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does not mean you have to stay there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just means if you go move forward, you're going to always have to fight from there.
[SPEAKER_00]: If somebody showed you pornography as a child, and that was your abrupt, graphic introduction to sexuality, that don't mean for the rest of your life, you gotta be addicted to pornography.
[SPEAKER_00]: It mean for the rest of your life, you gon' fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can still choose what the biggest influence on your sexuality will be.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can still choose it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for some people that sound so far-fetched, remember I'm speaking out to committed believers who have a reasonable amount of spiritual health and maturity.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm doing is giving you back the agency that Satan is trying to take.
[SPEAKER_00]: You still can choose.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even if I can't change my earliest experience, even if I can't change my introduction, I can still choose the bigs and flaws.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moving forward, I can decide what's going to influence my sexuality and the most, because you may always have to contend with your early exposure to sex, but you don't always have to succumb to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's three different components.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's two different questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's one more, and I'm gonna let you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's our one position on sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: So normally, I do what's called inductive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I start with the thought, big idea, and then we walk it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today what I've done is called deductive.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've started broadly, and now we're homing in, and biblically, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I just flip my normal approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the one position of sexuality from the way community church.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would like us to read it together on the count of three.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, two, three.
[SPEAKER_00]: We believe that God created sex and sexually, in his intelligent design of the human anatomy, a male and female.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's intention was for procreation to be accompanied by pleasure within the marriage covenant between man and woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: saying distorts guys, gift of sexuality, culture over emphasizes sex, which confuses his purpose, priority, and purity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our hope in the gospel is a new identity in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy Spirit enables believers to crucify the flesh with his passions and desires.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, we are free from shame and free to reclaim Godly and healthy sexual identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the law first mentioned, which is critical to any credible conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to have a conversation about a subject, if it's a biblical subject, go back to the first time in the Bible it was mentioned.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's a non-biblical subject, go back to the first time this concept was published or written about to see who the progenitors of the thought are, feel the thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's go to the law first mentioned in the Bible as a later sex and sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we'll notice is that the law first mentioned proves that sexuality is a part of humanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a part of humanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, here's the first time sexuality was mentioned in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Genesis 225.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the man and his wife were both West Church naked, but they were not West Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are no body image issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no judgment of self, let alone each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes our sexuality issues not even are a partner, sometimes it's us.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are naked, meaning they are fully unclosed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is no shame attached to their sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's the first time saying, is associated with sexual violence?
[SPEAKER_00]: Genesis 3, 7, 3, 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the eyes of both of them were open.
[SPEAKER_00]: They knew that they were naked.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what did they do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now they're trying to cover themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cooler today, the man in his wife, heed from the presence of the Lord among the trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the Lord got called to them, to the man who said to him, Adam, where are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was, so I hid myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: God said, who told you that you were?
[SPEAKER_00]: You must have ate from the tree that I told you not to eat from.
[SPEAKER_00]: The moment they send, shame was attached to their sexuality,
[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't even aware to be ashamed of their bodies, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the first time sex is mentioned in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the Bible talk a lot about sex, and we don't talk a little bit about what the Bible talk a lot about for the next few minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first time sex was mentioned in the Bible, Adam knew his wife Eve or half sexual relations with his wife, he's Genesis 4 and 1.
[SPEAKER_00]: She became pregnant.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible talk about sex is all through, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But we learn from the outset is that sex and sexuality are from God, that's a major key.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sex and sexuality are from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean, real?
[SPEAKER_00]: The devil not good enough to create some like sex and sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: The devil is not even benevolent enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: to create sex and sexuality for the healthy, potentially, has, say you wouldn't even give you something so awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was God's idea, now that I did has been grossly distorted, because some of us only have negative feelings as it relates to the conversation of sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: So while we got to give me something I feel so terrible about,
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about God's original design.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all live in the current distorted reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you struggle to feel good feelings and think good thoughts on the subject of sexuality, just a sign of whatever the distance is being created between where God designed and what you'd experienced.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for his healthy potential, it was a gift from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now,
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible recores all kinds of sinful sexual acts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Bible don't record these things because the Bible approves of them or God approves of them, but they are recorded in the Bible because it tells the truth that when humanity gets far from God, we'll try anything and we'll do anything to each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a sign of our distance from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now,
[SPEAKER_00]: Being a pastor is most of the best way to describe it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a burden because part of the burden is I don't want the gap between Dr. Hall and Darrell to be that wide.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I'm standing before y'all, I don't want the real me to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: 50 feet behind it, really, that makes, that's duplicitousness, you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: But on a subject like this, I want to be as the real me as close to the past to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because as a pastor, it's I have to share what does say at the lower.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm convicted of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the truth, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this was just Darrell talking and we wasn't at church, I wouldn't say nothing to you different.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll just say different when I got to say it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not up here putting on what I'm about to share.
[SPEAKER_00]: I deeply believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wouldn't say anything different, I would just say it differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I filled the gap between self and office because of the sensitivity of what we talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all give it a no saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: So in an attempt to give grace in this area, my fear is that many people,
[SPEAKER_00]: in my spot, or with influence, have swayed away from the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm telling you this, I got friends who I know and love passes and preachers who would disagree with me vehemently on this subject.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I gotta be authentic too, not just my conviction, but what I say is very clear in God's Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, regardless of the modern mindset, I believe it's unloving to call wrong right and right wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: That it's not what I'm here to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm here to do is try to stand in this tight spot between truth and love and hold them both without letting anyone go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians 4, 14, and 15 says, as a result, we are no longer to be children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Toss here and there by waves and carried it about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people by craftiness and deceitful scheming.
[SPEAKER_00]: But speaking of what church, truth and love, we ought to do what, grow up in what all aspects.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got to grow up in this area.
[SPEAKER_00]: We ought to speak your truth and love.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't reach childish, because we don't know what to do with the feelings, the orientation, the electricity, or the energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't shy away from the tension, because we don't know how to handle it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I say truth, what I mean is, is a standard outside of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know I'm speaking to a culture or people who live in a culture that say, you know, I'm living my own truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: What that means is I'm living like for my turns and I decide based on my feelings, perspective, lens was right and wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I believe when it comes to the truth, there is a truth that is outside of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And once I'm introduced to it, I have to decide how I'm a relate to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love is this unconditional affection and goodwill.
[SPEAKER_00]: So true, then love means tell somebody what you need to tell them, but make sure you say it in a way you wish somebody say to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, when I look through scripture, here are the sexual acts and scripture that I believe is so clear that it is sin, that is in order to argue against it, you really twist in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to pick out one, because the goal is not to point out one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal is to us to find in which one may reflect us.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal is not to pick one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give them two, you're an alphabetical order.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sexual sense clearly addressed in scripture, an alphabetical order, adultery, beastiality, depriving your spouse for an occasion,
[SPEAKER_00]: homosexuality, incest, lust, prostitution, or sex workers, and rape.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are so clear, inscripture that it's not saying you got to agree with it, what it's saying is you can't change what this say it about those unless you've been to do some redaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Around here, we shouldn't be redacted.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is one I will put my finger on, and that is lust.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's because it's the only one that's not physical.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest of them require physical action.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lust is the activity of the mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says, just in case you think you better than somebody else because you ain't did to do physically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me go and show you how God sees this.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at somebody,
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's put them in your mind, God sees it as if you did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's not just what I do with my bodies, what I do with my thoughts too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not in true soft thoughts, cultivate it thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: In true soft thoughts, all the ones that come out of nowhere and you gotta fight them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cultivate it thoughts, all the ones you hide.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all picking it with them, put down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, all of these, I'll listen and scripture and it's clear that they are not of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, none of the above can stain us beyond what the blood of Jesus can't wash away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of these make you dirty that God don't want to do with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of these are unforgivable.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of them are impossible to rebound from.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of them put you so far away that you can't be brought in here, but we got to be honest about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm going to read one passage we're going to end with this, I'm almost done.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the passage I'm going to read has a term in it fornication or sexual immorality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of my colleagues on the moral liberal side of this conversation, who will boo me out of these seminaries for this sermon.
[SPEAKER_00]: they would take this passage and look at this worker fornication, the Greek-Tarmus Pornillo, or a variation of the word from which we get pornography.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they would look at it in his context and see that Pornillo means either prostitution or sex workers, or it means non-consensual sexual actions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And their argument is, simply, as long as the two people can sit, is not seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what the two people agree to do or however many people, long as they're consent, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have an honest conversation, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's consent, then it's cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I disagree.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a strange reading.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's looking for a loophole where it's not literally there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's making it say something, don't say.
[SPEAKER_00]: because of the general tenor of Scripture about the subject.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's a major key, we almost done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two people can't consent to do something that does not please God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just because we agree, don't mean God agree with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on man, come on now, and I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But just because we're on the same page or maybe we change God's script.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see this all through scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see people consent, but God didn't agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: And don't have nothing to do with sex.
[SPEAKER_00]: Adam and Eve both consented to eat that fruit.
[SPEAKER_00]: She ate the fruit.
[SPEAKER_00]: She took it and gave them to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did eat too.
[SPEAKER_00]: They consented that their consent changed God's commandment.
[SPEAKER_00]: The people at the Tower of Babel said, you know what, God told us to subdue the earth and fill it, no, we're gonna stay right here, we're gonna build a monument, tire greatness, we're gonna build a city that reaches the heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: God don't wanna come down, we're gonna go up the God.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all concentrated, did that change God's commandment?
[SPEAKER_00]: God came down to say, you know what, since all all are all consenting.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're going to do it, I'll tell you what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the NIS and Safari, this married couple in X, consented to lie to the Holy Spirit about some money.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what they said was that they sold their house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they came to church and said, we just gave our whole audit equity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything we made from the cell, we just gave to the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: But between each other, they lied and said, we're going to keep some on back.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're going to tell the church we gave it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: All they had to do was tell the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: All they had to do was say, hey, we saw our house.
[SPEAKER_00]: We made 250,000, but we only given the church five of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no, they want to look spiritual.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to look super-generous.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they consent it to the law to the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they both came in the church at separate times, told the same law and left the same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did.
[SPEAKER_00]: even Judah with Taimar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Judah, you know, Jesus coming from the tribe of Judah?
[SPEAKER_00]: That same Judah has sex with a sex worker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Him and a sex worker consented, he didn't know the sex worker was his daughter in law.
[SPEAKER_00]: So me all like, where is dead it?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not a religious book, this is a real book.
[SPEAKER_00]: They consented that only in God agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: For those of us who felt the charm of having our consent taken, I'm not talking about you, I'm praying for you, I agree for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about those of us who have taken agency, and we think our agency rivals God's authority.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are committed believer, what you do as a committed believer is say, Lord, my agency bows the need to your authority in every area of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I feel this energy inside that I need you to help me, we know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the passage and we've done.
[SPEAKER_00]: First, correcting in chapter six, nine through 20, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to invest in Northeast, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern, Northeastern
[SPEAKER_00]: You just misused what that list is for.
[SPEAKER_00]: That list is not for me to pick my favorite and build my sermon around it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That list is for all of us to see it in the whole my part of the intro.
[SPEAKER_00]: You pose a real list like that and say, ooh, I got like three of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all like Red of which three?
[SPEAKER_00]: The word by my three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where about two or three?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not supposed to read a list like that, so you see, see, see, see?
[SPEAKER_00]: You pose to read a list like that and like, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, but that's not it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The list don't stop there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go to verse 11, order the text don't stop there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Such, where some of you,
[SPEAKER_00]: But you were wash, but you were sanctified.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of y'all are in, why do we worship?
[SPEAKER_00]: I worship because I ain't who I were.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't spell worship, W-O-R-S-H-I-P.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spell worship, W-E-R-E-S-H-I-P.
[SPEAKER_00]: I give your glory, cause I ain't, who I want.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: All things are permitted, but I won't be mastered by anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: The energy in me won't control me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The magnetism I feel won't decide for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing's going to make my decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't be mastered by anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm almost done.
[SPEAKER_00]: First, start taking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Food is for the stomach, the stomach is for food, however God will do away with both of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord is for the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're doing the do, you can mistakenly think that's what you were created to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not your primary design function of your body.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of them, it's not the main one, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at verse 11, 14.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now God is not only raised the Lord, but we'll also raise us up through His power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you not know that true bodies are part of Christ?
[SPEAKER_00]: Shall I then take away the part of Christ and make them parts of our prostitute far from it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or do you not know that the one who joins Himself to our prostitute is one with them?
[SPEAKER_00]: For God says, the two shall become one flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the one who joins Himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: flee sexual immorality.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean, Ralph?
[SPEAKER_00]: If the identity and orientation inside tempts you to behave in a way that don't glorify God instead of trying to judge the rest of what was going on inside running from what's outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what you mean, Ralph?
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean, Ron?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Ron.
[SPEAKER_00]: Run like your life dependent on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're have how you're going to tell me to run.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause I'm running too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Run!
[SPEAKER_00]: Just run.
[SPEAKER_00]: When if you catch a with me, stop and catch a breath and before I catch you, run some more.
[SPEAKER_00]: When if you catch a with me and tackle me and try to drag me back to who I used to be, fight from that place, stand up, repent and keep running.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm almost done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but sexual sin is got a double impact because you sin against your own body.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 19, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God and that you are not your own.
[SPEAKER_00]: For you have been bought for a price, therefore glorify God in your body, amen church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen, get a load of handclap of praise.