In his sermon, Anthony Mathenia addresses the evangelical response to the LGBTQ movement, critiquing prominent evangelical leaders for their handling of same-sex attraction. He emphasizes the importance of biblical definitions when understanding and responding to the movement. Mathenia references Genesis 1:1 to assert that God created humans with specific intentions for sexuality, emphasizing that any deviation from these is a distortion of His design. He warns against two wrong responses: avoiding those in sexual sin or accepting their lifestyle without addressing their brokenness. Instead, Mathenia advocates for a compassionate approach, engaging with and helping individuals by lovingly sharing the gospel. He underscores that forgiveness and reconciliation are possible through Christ, urging Christians to rely on the sufficiency of the gospel to rescue the sexually broken. Mathenia concludes by reminding the congregation of God's provision and calling them to trust in His word for guidance on all aspects of life, including sexuality.

Good morning. I'm glad to have the opportunity to be here this morning. I'm actually really glad to be following Pastor Beasley. We only swapped a brief email. It was clear from the email that we were not going to be overlapping any at all with what we were looking at or the approach that we were taking to consider the LGBTQ movement, how we understand it and respond to it.

However, The direction that he took is a really important one to me, so it's really difficult for me to not at least begin doing something that preachers really aren't a fan of other people doing to us, and it is commenting on the topic that they just considered. But Scott made the order and he put me right after Pastor Beasley. So what I'm going to say is this, Amen. Amen regarding the same-sex attraction issue. I continue to be incredibly frustrated on the one hand and disheartened on the other with regard to how evangelicals, especially prominent evangelical leaders in our day are handling this important issue.

Time and again I hear references to works being promoted like this one. This is the title of a book that's been promoted. Among Reformed Baptist evangelical leaders, the same-sex attraction, the surprising plausibility of a celibate life. It sounds good at the outset, but why not same-sex attraction? The surprising plausibility of a big God with a powerful gospel that affects an altered life, one that's conformed to the image of Jesus, to the way that he made us with desires for the opposite gender.

Where are those books on the bookshelves of modern-day Christianity. Back to my notes. Again, to reiterate, amen. Can anything that comes from love be sin? Can anything that comes from love be sin?

This was a question that was asked to me As I sat at a Mexican restaurant across from a openly, not just professing, but practicing homosexual who had visited our church a handful of times, invited by a co-worker who's a member. Can anything that comes from love be sin? To which I said, yes, using your definitions. Definitions matter. They matter for us.

Definitions must be biblical. So in considering the LGBTQ movement for the few moments that we have this morning, understanding it and responding to it. First, understanding it. What is it? And why is it wrong?

I'm going to go to the scriptures to answer the question. In the beginning God, if you have your Bibles open to Genesis 1-1, in the beginning God. And if we begin there with our thoughts about any of these battlefields that we're looking at this weekend, then we have an advantage on the competition. In the beginning, God, the only sufficient starting place. Genesis 1-1 continues, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, God created man in his own image and in the image of God he created him male and female, God created them.

God created us, He made us this way. He formed man from the dust of the ground. He breathed into our nostrils the breath of life and we became living beings. After creating man, it was the Lord who said, it's not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.

God designed us and he fashioned woman for us, causing a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, taking one of his ribs, fashioning woman from the rib he had taken from the man, and he brought her to him. Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman. She was taken out of man. God said, for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

God blessed Adam and Eve and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over it. Marriage and Because sex is a good thing. It was instituted by God, given to us as His creatures at the very beginning of time. Right after creating man, woman was made and we were fashioned for each other. This is what God has said to us.

Not only that, he goes on, when God saw all that he had made, behold it was very good because he had made us right." And then God said, "'You shall not eat from the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, or touch it, or you will die." And the story has this familiar downward turn. The woman took from the fruit and she ate and she gave it to her husband and he ate and the Lord sent them out from the garden. And a few verses later, Cain rose up, the child of this first union, against his brother Abel and killed him. And I mentioned that which seems completely disconnected to point out how deeply ingrained sin is. In one generation it was doubting God, not believing God with regard to what he said of eating the fruit.

The next generation was murder. Man continued to multiply all across the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them. The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. And in the verse that we heard briefly expounded already, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart.

The whole earth was corrupt in his sight. It was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, it was corrupt, all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. It had spread. The Apostle Paul says it this way, through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin so death spread to all men because all sin.

Through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men. Sin in the very beginning broke us as humanity. We are broken physically, therefore we die. We are broken emotionally, intellectually. We don't think rightly about God.

We're broken spiritually. We're doomed to hell apart from Christ. But with regard to our specific topic this morning, sin has broken us sexually. God made us physical beings in the very beginning. That means we're emotional beings.

It means that we're sexual beings. That's the issue with the LGBTQ movement. We're seeing the brokenness of human sexuality put on display with lesbianism, women desiring other women, or those who are gay, men desiring other men, Or the bisexual, anyone desiring both men and women. Or the transsexual, a man who feels like a woman or vice versa. Or queer or questioning.

Just any non-normal thoughts, intents, or actions with regard to sex. Now God just didn't, God didn't just create us abstractly as sexual beings. He created us as sexual beings and gave us clear intentions and specific parameters regarding sex. Being an all-wise creator, he made us to enjoy the opposite gender within the confines of marriage. When sex is desired, pursued, or practiced outside of marriage, it is a distortion of what God intended.

And hear me briefly, self-sex included. Sexual perversion of many different types is increasingly visible in the culture in which we live, even celebrated in our day. Therefore, you and I must be vigilant to know what God says about sin, about sexual sin, even or especially sexual sin. Understanding the LGBTQ movement. This is what we must know about it.

It is sin. It's sin because God says so. It's contrary to the way he has made us. What about responding to it? I'm going to suggest two wrong responses that are likely for us as Christians and offer a right response.

What do you do when you have a neighbor who professes to be either LGBTQ or all of the above. What do you do when you have a cousin or a teammate? How do you respond? I want to use the parable of the good Samaritan as a baseline. A man fell among robbers, they stripped him and beat him.

You're familiar with the story that Jesus tells. They went away leaving him half dead. A priest was going down that road when he saw him. He passed by on the other side. A Levite also when he came to the place and saw him, he passed by on the other side.

Here's one possible response, a wrong response, passing on the other side, avoiding those who are in bondage to sexual sin. If our response to the sexually broken in our world is to pass by on the other side and simply avoid and ignore, then we are being unchristian. It is an unacceptable It is an unacceptable response, avoiding them. Another wrong response would be to take the response of the Samaritan and subtract a few things from it. Jesus continues in telling the parable, a Samaritan saw him, he felt compassion, and came to him.

Let's stop the story there. It's a wrong response. It's engaging him, being warm and hospitable at some level, but ignoring the obvious injuries, ignoring the brokenness, Ignoring the brokenness, pretending that it's okay. It's not okay. He's wounded.

He's sick. He's damned. So the first wrong response is to avoid them altogether. It's unacceptable and unchristian. The second wrong response would be to engage them and just be okay, ignoring the obvious injuries.

The right response can be summarized in this way. Love them, engage them, and help them. The Samaritan saw him, he felt compassion. He came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. And he put him on his own beast and brought him to an end and took care of him, recognizing the sexually broken as a damaged soul and applying the remedy, the remedy of truth, proclaiming Jesus lovingly, warmly.

The only hope for the sexually perverted in our world is the only hope for all who break God's laws. It's to realize that God is holy. He will rightfully judge all who have sinned against him by breaking his law. Like any other sinner, the sexually deviant must repent and receive Christ by faith and be saved from God's righteous judgment by trusting in Christ and the judgment that fell on him at the cross. When we come to Jesus, our lives, our hearts begin to be put back together and working in proper order again.

Christians should pray for the salvation of the sexually broken, the same as we would for anyone else. They were made in the image of God. And they're living in rebellion to the one who made him. We must avoid, at any and all levels, compromise of our witness for a socially acceptable opinion that is void of rationality, godliness, and biblical truth. Instead, we must stand firm in the word that God has revealed to us and patiently love the lesbian, the gay, the bisexual, the transgender, the queer.

We must patiently love them and pray for their salvation, being kind to them, being loving to them, and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to them because Forgiveness of sin is only in Christ. We must be convinced of the sufficiency and the power of the gospel to rescue the sexually broken. No sinner, not even the sexual sinner, is beyond the reach of Christ's love. You're not beyond his merciful reach. If you aren't beyond his merciful reach, no one is.

Surely we're convinced of that truth. God knows what we need as filthy sinners and therefore supplies all our needs and He does so primarily through the work of His Son Christ Jesus who is Lord on the cross. There's never been a greater need for all of humanity than for the forgiveness of sin. When we go back to the garden where we began and see God instituting marriage among humanity's first parents, All was well, but it didn't last all that long. Rather than following the clear-cut path for joy and eternal happiness in righteousness, an alternative route was taken.

One of serving self rather than serving God. And amazingly, in remarkable kindness, God didn't just cast us off, allowing us to go our own way, brushing us aside, But he displayed his undying love for us as his people by providing redemption and reconciliation for us. He accomplished this by sending Christ exactly what was needed, God provided, so that all who trust in Him, repenting of their sin, will return to that never-ending bliss that we were initially created for. The first great provision there in the garden before sin even enters in. It's not good for man to be alone and God-fashioned woman.

He provided what we needed even before sin. That's the first great provision, but then the greatest of all provisions. When we sin, Christ was granted. If we can trust God for the provision of our sin, for the blood of Jesus Christ to be provided for us so that we might experience redemption and reconciliation, surely then we can trust him with regard to his provision in every other realm of life. He made us.

He knows us. He knows what we need. Even with regard to our sexuality. He has determined who and how and when and within the which parameters and confines. We must rely exclusively on what our good and kind and gracious God has determined to be true for us on the pages of his word.

May God help us to begin in the beginning God and never get very far away from that great truth. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word that you've given us such clear truth about yourself and how we as your people ought to respond in light of who you are. Will you be merciful to us now, aiding us as we seek to understand and know you, especially as we seek to Preach and live in front of those who are sexually broken, who are rebellious towards you and who are in such need of grace and mercy from you. Help us to live on the truth as it is in Jesus and to proclaim that truth in kind love as well for Christ's sake.

Amen.