Ep.69 - When there is a Shooting at a Gay Nightclub

Over the weekend the nation was rocked with news of yet another mass shooting.  This time at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs.  The Christian community is often one of the first communities to step up and lead the way in response to such tragedies.  However, this situations like these can put the Christian church in an awkward spot since the LGBTQ community and the Evangelical community have traditionally been at odds.   In this episode, we take a deep dive into some relevant biblical takeaways to help encourage a healthy outreach to the homosexual community in response to a senseless tragedy like this shooting.  Take a listen and learn how the Bible allows us to condition our convictions without compromising in a spirit of connection and relationship.  Enjoy!

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Transcript

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right and welcome back everyone to another edition of the christening podcast thank you for tuning in as always appreciate you so much as those clicks and downloads and listens and all that stuff just uh Encourage me to keep putting these episodes out. Again, sorry for the hiatus. I did catch COVID. It finally caught me, finally grabbed me, and set me out for a couple weeks, and then it was just kind of trying to get my Legs back under me at work and stuff like that. I got whatever Deltacron or I made it through like two and a half years, no COVID. And then whatever this latest one grabbed me and it knocked me pretty good. But we're back. We're healthy. Praise the Lord. And yeah, I wanted to jump on in particular before Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Hope you guys are... Have wonderful plans to be eating a lot of food with some close loved ones and family, friends, all that good stuff. Hope you have a wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving. But it was important to me to get an episode out. I don't know if you guys knew. We typically don't share podcasters. We don't share download stats and all this. But I did want to share this one stat. It was a couple... I don't know, maybe over a year ago, there was a time when Colorado Springs was my number one city of most downloaded episodes or most downloads of the podcast. And that kind of struck my attention. It's usually my local, you know, Southern California, Coachella Valley area cities that top those lists. But there was a time when Colorado Springs outpaced everyone, and that is a shout-out to Mom and Dad, as they've been sharing the Christianing pod with. I know all their connections and friends out there, and they're very, very connected out in Colorado Springs, both in church as they... attend and have leadership, have had leadership positions at Woodman Valley Chapel, incredible evangelical church in Colorado Springs. So if you're ever in the area, it's a great, great church to go to and check out. But so I know they've, proud parents have been sharing my stuff out. And so Colorado Springs, I wanted to get an episode out as I know you guys are are reeling a little bit in the national spotlight which i know no city wants to be in the national spotlight because it means something tragic has happened in your community um and so since colorado springs kind of near dear to to my heart and not only did i live there for a pretty important season in my life wasn't long but it was important season as i um lived there and uh worked at Cook Communications Ministries, just kind of a pivotal season in my life, reset, and the Lord did a lot of good things there. Colorado Springs, not only that, it's the home of my parents. It's been an important place in my heart, so when I saw... that they were in the national spotlight for yet another mass shooting, this time in a gay nightclub. I'm not completely up to date, as I know anybody listening from Colorado Springs, you will have much more up-to-the-minute information on the details of that, so I'm not trying to get into all the details of that. Maybe some more stuff has come out as far as motive. Last article I read, motive wasn't completely clear, even though they were obviously primarily looking at it as a hate crime, or I forget the new term, bias-motivated, something like that. That was the main thing that they were checking out, but didn't have any... Proof at the moment there wasn't social media, there wasn't a manifesto, you know, things of that nature. So I don't know where that's all at today. As you guys know, the national media attention, it's a good 24 hours and then they turn the page. So unless you're plugged into the local media scene, you know, you're not getting all those kind of late-breaking details. But... I really felt like this was an important one to jump on and just give some perspective given the setting. And Colorado Springs, it's an interesting city for this type of tragedy to happen. Just quick background now, I'm not a Colorado Springs historian, but my parents have kept me in the loop and then I experienced it myself. Also working in kind of a Christian, a large Christian community. um corporation um because as you guys know colorado kind of i think naturally leans leans left politically you got you got boulder where i've spent time out there it's a very um liberal community very pro environments and you know kind of you know that that whole vibe i spent some time up there it's very true very people very very natural into into environments, things of that nature, and even down to Denver, and then keep going south. And then at some time, I believe it was like the early 90s, these large Christian organizations started putting their headquarters in Colorado Springs. And again, I'm not a historian, I don't know. The biggest, most noteworthy, at least in the 90s, was focus on the family. I don't know if that was always headquartered there or if that made a move, but the ministry that my dad was part of as a vice president was David C. Cook Publishing, and they moved to Colorado Springs, built a big kind of campus building and headquarters and that stuff, and they changed their name to Communications Ministry as they were branching out to other mediums and things of that nature, and I was In the mail room there, I was in some glorious job, but I delivered the mail to all the peeps. So I got to know a lot of people there. Great company, great time. So it's kind of weird, like south of Denver, kind of all of a sudden there's this explosion of conservative Christian transplants, you know, because all these organizations, obviously, if you're going to work it, focus on the family, you're going to work it. cook you're going to work at compassion international you know you're going to have a faith-based bend most likely um and that's how obviously these these corporations often hire and so all of a sudden they're just big it was kind of like the the christian west um and so interesting um just dynamics that that creates in a city like Colorado Springs where you have the the native population that's you know kind of a certain way certain world views things of that nature and then all of a sudden you have all these transplants with a very specific um world view and you know so I know that's I've been out of the loop um you know because I haven't lived there in a long time so I'm not in the day-to-day you guys my Colorado Springs audience you guys obviously know kind of you know, kind of the tensions that can pop up from time to time in that area. I am aware I'm still very close to a local pastor in the area, very close friends. And so there is kind of this hardcore conservative, you know, Republican kind of very strong, you know, political vibe. And then you have kind of your more native liberal leaning community Coloradans and then a lot in the middle you have kind of urban areas and then you have strong rural areas on the east side of the state so a lot of interesting dynamics and then here all that to say that here you got all of a sudden a big national focused moment as mass shooting which obviously I know everybody who is sane and has some level of of heart and compassion just we we just would love to see these these mass shootings end it doesn't matter where they're at um it's this is our second episode here cushioning podcast on a mass shooting as uh we spent some time looking at the uvalde uh school shooting and kind of responding to that now here we are at a at a gay nightclub which is it's uh It's an interesting one. You know, you wouldn't necessarily pinpoint a tragedy like that in a place like Colorado Springs, but hey, it happened, you know, and so just really my heart went out to Colorado Springs peep, you know, as I'm sure when it happens in your community and you're a Christian and maybe you're a known Christian, maybe you have a public presence in your community. People know you go to this church or whatever. Maybe you're a small group leader or, you know, like my dad was elder at a church at Woodman Valley Chapel. And, you know, so, you know, neighbors and your community starts to get to know you, you know, based on these faith roles that you play. And so here you are in a situation like that with this very high profile, tension filled, all kinds of culminating agendas, you know, kind of rest in an issue like this where someone takes the lives of people specifically in a gay nightclub. And, you know, so here you are as a Christian. Now, people are, you're going to be in a situation where people are going to press you to a certain degree to respond. You know, I'm sure, you know, I haven't, you know, kind of talk to anybody since the shooting there on the ground, but, but I will, but I'm sure, uh, churches like, um, church, my friend pastors, and then, you know, obviously Woodman Valley Chapel, uh, um, I'm sure there's, you know, you, you're compelled to make some, some public statements and, and to give some sort of It's your community that's grieving and hurting, and it's members of your community, whether they're Christian, non-Christian, or whatever. And so we Christians typically are in a position to where we need to give an answer. We need to give a response. So my heart was really going out to you folks, so I did want to get an episode out just for whatever help I can be from... you know, whatever I am, 1,500 miles away or 1,000 miles, I don't know what it is. It takes me about 21 hours to drive there. You know, just give some encouragement, give some word, give some perspective that might be able to help you as you move forward. And if you're not from Colorado Springs, you know, this was a big national story that's, you know, unfortunately more of these types of incidences are, it looks like they're just going to keep keep happening, you know, so kind of wrapping our heads around these types of situations. So again, the goal of Christianing Podcast is that we Christian well, that the true Christ, the true Jesus Christ is what is represented in our words and our actions in these types of situations. So that's the goal. That's the hope, you know, so there's a lot of places in God's word to go that we'll go to a We'll have some words of the day. We'll start with a word of the day, but then we'll go probably a couple other places. Just kind of asking the question, how can Christians appropriately respond to tragedies like this, to where something awful happens in a gay nightclub, a typical community that traditionally has been at odds with the evangelical church? And so that's... Sorry, my computer's kind of going crazy here. Hopefully everything's coming out all right. Another last disclaimer and then we'll dive in. I got four boys and my two oldest are back from college and they're all here today. And so trying to find a quiet, calm moment to record a podcast is nonexistent. So if you hear someone scream, it's just boys screaming. competing overly too hard at some video game or something. It's not some tragedy happening in my home. So anyways, so let's dive in. Let's see what kind of perspective we can give to how can Christians appropriately respond to tragedies like these that happen in communities that evangelical church hasn't traditionally engaged very well with. I think we can all kind of agree to that. And then there's this wide variety of perspectives on what type of engagement even should happen with the LGBTQ community. So we're going to go back to Romans 1, just to kind of set the stage as we're going to pull some perspectives out. And so Don't get scared away by this word, because there's something very specific that's been on my heart recently, and this will just help illustrate. I'm not going to take this chapter the way it's typically taken, so just stick with me here as we look at Romans 1, 18-21. Romans 1, 18-21. As Paul writes, So, The reason why I wanted to start there is, I think there's an aspect of this passage that we don't think about very often. Now, to be clear, Romans 1, the description of God's wrath, it's primarily so that we... even as saved individuals will understand what we've been saved from. So I want to make sure we all understand that. The primary, I think, use of these words by Paul is trying to, when he says, because right before this is the, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, the kind of what I call the thesis statement of the book of Romans, Romans 1, 16 and 17, And since gospel is good news, good news of salvation, good news of God's power, he starts with, what have you been saved from? We need to understand if we've been saved from what? Well, we've been saved from God's wrath. And so Romans 1 and 2 are supposed to be humility-driving verses, which we Christians often don't understand. So I want to make sure... you guys listening know that I understand that. But I do understand that there's two sides to this coin. So there is a side to the people being described in verses 18 to 21, who the wrath of God has been revealed against. And again, that's a position I don't want anybody on this planet to ever be in. I was in that position. And then by God's grace, I am now been covered by the blood of Christ. So So only by his grace have I been removed from this. But again, there's two sides to that coin. There is the repentant side of this. There are those that have come to this understanding that the Spirit has worked in their hearts and brought a humility like, whoa, I need salvation. And so they are on the humble side of this, quote unquote, or at least they should be if they're professing Christians. But then there is the other side. There is the other side that there is this going on. There are those that have not repented. And by verse 21, it says, For although they knew God, they did not honor him or give thanks to him, but became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. So the other side of this coin is there is a... significant contingent in the world, not just America, but in the world that is operating under this futile thinking and darkened foolish hearts. Okay? That's the part of this that we have to take into account to have a true Christian worldview. That this information will do one of two things. This book of Romans that helps us understand the gospel will do one of two things. It will... It will drive you either to repentance and justification by faith, but also sanctification and transformed lifestyle and better choices, all this stuff, and more humble thinking. But then it also reveals the fact that there is this other contingent in our world that live their lives in futile thinking and with a hard heart, is the word we typically use. So that's kind of what's been on my mind recently as I really listen to Christians grapple with, what do we do with these very progressive, radical elements of modern society? And how do we you know, just grappling, how do we engage? How do we love? Well, how do we showcase Christ? And there's all these internet debates, even within the church about what should be done, what shouldn't be done. Um, but so that's kind of the, the word of the day that it just kind of want hanging kind of over our head as just truth as, as, as God is revealing to us, this is the truth of the world you live in. There's going to be always going to be those that repent of their sin, of their darkened heart, of their futile thinking. But then there's always going to be this group that doesn't. We don't know. Only God knows where people lie in that. We just know as Christians that both exist and the evangelistic side of our calling is We want to put the gospel out because we know that there are going to be those that repent. There are going to be those that come to Christ. So we just want to put the gospel out as much as possible. So two big takeaways with Romans 1 in mind. And then we're going to dig into some sub points of the second takeaway here and go some other places. So the two big takeaways... that are on my mind right now, as I see Christians kind of floundering in, I mean, in a collective way, there are some, there's a lot of Christians that nail this and they just get this right. And they just, the spirit has just, just given them insight and compassion and they're engaging in gay communities and that with just incredible hearts and and relationship and gospel goodness you know and there's then there's a lot of christians that just have no clue and you know there's a lot of stupid things that are said a lot of hurtful things that are experienced and and things things of that nature i'm i pray i hope this the shooter did not have any sort of religious motivation again i'm That information may have come out by now, but I'm not aware. But I pray it does it because, again, it just shows another just glaring example of someone completely misguided, misdirected, misunderstood of what the Bible is actually after in the world and in culture. So two big takeaways. One, show up with your eyes open. Okay, so when we're responding to these situations... Number one, show up with your eyes open. I'll talk about what that means in a sec. And two, show up with convictions conditioned, but not compromised. Show up with convictions conditioned, but not compromised. And we'll really go in depth towards the end of the podcast in that. But first, show up with your eyes open. This is what I see missing here. oftentimes in the Christian understanding. Where we don't understand, we don't really understand the other side of the coin of Romans 1, where on, like I said, on one side you have the repentance side, the side that's going to hear the truth and they're going to come to Christ. We don't know who those people are. We just know that we need to throw out the gospel and the gospel will reveal them as they hear the truth, they hear the good news. And then there's the other side of the coin that there is going to be cultural forces that want to eliminate biblical perspectives. They want to stay futile in their thinking and hearts darkened. That's the lifestyle, the worldview that they're comfortable with. And in their world, in their mind, there's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong because... I don't want to derail this episode too much because I feel a little overwhelmed. There's so many directions to go here. But the morality, and maybe we'll get into that. Actually, we'll get into this actually a little bit later. So I'm not going to go there now. So when I mean show up with your eyes open, I think we Christians, we have... grandiose desires, which are wonderful, of building relationship and building trust within a variety of communities and just assuming that it's all going to go great. And if we just show love and we show that we're accepting and loving and da-da-da-da-da, then we'll get in there and we'll win everybody over by our niceness. And that's just... There definitely are times and situations where that is going to bear true. But you also have to have your eyes open to the other fact, to where there is this aspect of modern culture to where the Christian kindness is used as a weapon against the Christian community. Where we struggle as a community oftentimes with people thinking we're mean or people thinking we're We're not compassionate and it freaks out. We go online, we go on Twitter and we start beating each other up like, hey, why did this church say this? Because we can't handle the impression that we're mean or rude or whatever. And now there definitely is rudeness and there's definitely meanness that needs to be rooted out. I'm not trying to defend anything, but there's also this element of... of the culture that there's zero desire. As a matter of fact, the desire is to see the Christian church dismantled, to see it done away with, to see it just, I don't want to deal with these people that have this truth that they say, and it's against the way I want to live my life and the choices that I want to make. So there is this other side of the coin that you have to, when we engage in these types of situations, you have to understand that's going to be there. And please understand that your Christian ethic, your kindness, your compassionate self, there's going to be an element where that's tried to use against you to where you tried to be backed into a corner as being intolerant and bigoted and all this stuff to get you... Really, the goal is to get you to back off, to back out of the truth that you believe you found in Christ in the Bible. Now, I'm not going to rehash what... Oftentimes we get that truth wrong, so there's a lot of correction that needs to happen there. But our eyes need to be open that there is going to be, and you need to be really led by the spirit here, because there's going to be elements in these types of situations and conversations that zero desire to hear that they don't care if they don't want you around. They don't want your perspective. They don't, you know, so any engagement is just to basically discredit and get rid of you. So just be mindful of that. And we as Christians, we just have to be okay sometimes that we may not be welcome here. You know, it's just, there's so many competing worldviews in this world and There's just times where we don't have to be at war or angry. That's not what I'm calling for at all. But just understanding that the core worldview, the way that I've organized my life based on what I believe Scripture has revealed to me, is just going to be fundamentally at odds. And until either one of us completely revamps our worldview, it's not going to be a... it's not going to be a unifying thing. I don't mean individual relationships, because that's something different. I just mean corporate relationships, like this movement to this movement, the LGBTQ movement versus the movement of the evangelical church. So that's all. When I say show up with your eyes open, Just understand that if you're a well-meaning Christian, you're going to have a desire for people to know that you care and that you have kindness. Just know that there's going to be times where that's just tossed back in your face. Where it's just, well, I don't know, God of love, you don't love me. There's just so much more that needs to be engaged with in order to have real meaningful conversations around that type of stuff that you have to have two willing parties. And what I found is there's just a lot of times where it's just not two willing parties. And that's okay. That's not my responsibility to figure out. It's my responsibility to be kind, courteous, and as loving as possible. The Bible says, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men. So that's the charge. But But if someone's going to walk away, call me bigoted and intolerant, you know, because of some core gospel beliefs that I have, you know, sometimes you just throw your hands up and you don't feel like you have to answer, you know, for every single question and just understand that, yeah, for you to even understand what I'm saying, you would have to, you would have to Bring your mind to a place where you wanted to understand my perspective and you wanted to understand my worldview. And that just doesn't exist. That just doesn't exist. Again, read Romans 1, 18 through 21 again and ask yourself, people that are stuck in that mode, do they really want to know? And again, I'm not saying we don't try. I'm not saying we withdraw. I'm not saying we don't. Let the Spirit lead us into acts of kindness and all that stuff. But I'm just... I feel like we Christians, we're too sensitive to sometimes too. And we're too ripe for the grenade being lobbed at us. You guys aren't. You're not caring and compassionate. You don't represent a God of love. And we get... We change like... And this kind of leads into the second point where we change our convictions. We compromise our convictions in order to accommodate a group of people that want nothing to do with us. They want nothing to do with the worldview, the faith. They want to see it go. So those aren't the people that you want to be really testing your convictions with. if that makes sense, which sets up kind of the second big point where show up with convictions conditioned but not compromised. And that's kind of what I see happening is kind of when we show up in these situations, there's kind of two mistakes to be made. There's one, you show up with convictions, you kind of just... go hardcore and you become a jerk because you're standing up for your convictions and you make all kinds of mistakes when it comes to Christian compassion and humility and love and all that stuff. But you are, quote unquote, speaking truth, but you have no idea how. you know, kind of the background to the truth that you're speaking, the truth that's supposed to drive you towards humility, oftentimes that truth will arm people with pride. And that's just a complete misunderstanding of the word. But it happens a lot. So that's one mistake that we make when we show up with our convictions. We show up with our convictions in hand. And I've shared these examples where I saw the full page ad in my local newspaper with, you know, the Leviticus, you know, Homosexual sin is abomination and all this stuff. And we put our convictions on display, but completely miss the humility and all that. So that's one mistake. But now I'm seeing this other mistake where in order to avoid the criticism... you know, of CNN, you know, different, very national, of Hollywood, to avoid the criticism that gets heaped on the Christian church, we compromise convictions. And we start, you know, cherry-picking the Bible and being like, oh, I love this part, and this is the type of Christian that I believe God wants me to be. This part could hurt somebody, so I'm going to you know we're gonna skip through that part or we're gonna come up with some excuse me weird kind of interpretation or or conspiracy theory about how that aspect of the Bible has been you know shaped by men trying to you know hold on to their power and stuff things things of that nature so So that's the other thing that happens is we become so affected by... It's an onslaught at this point as overwhelmingly the modern American society does not agree with traditional biblical convictions when it comes to marriage. So this kind of issue that used to be the majority is now very much in the minority category. if you have any questions about marriage and who should be married and how the family should be formed and things of that nature, now you're full in on the defensive. And because of that, and our desire to be viewed as nice and to fit in and to keep our popularity of the Christian church, we compromise on certain convictions. And I'm not here to get into any of that. Maybe those are future episodes. But the two things that I really encourage anybody, if you're going to enter kind of this fray of evangelical Christianity, engaging in conversations of homosexuality, LGBTQ, things of that nature, one, have your eyes open and show up with convictions. But make sure they're conditioned, not compromised. And so that's what I want to get into for the last portion of this episode. Number one, what do I mean by convictions that are conditioned, not compromised? And then what are those conditions? And there's three conditions that we'll walk through. And basically, convictions are things that we believe the Bible is just clear about. We believe that Jesus Christ... One of my favorite verses when it comes to marriage comes in the Gospels. I believe it's Matthew, I want to say 18. I could be wrong and it's obviously in a couple other spots. But where Jesus is asked about divorce and he articulates a clear conviction about marriage. And he just kind of, he gives his summary of He gives his summary statement of what marriage is, what it's about. He doesn't attack other views of marriage. He just affirms, says, as you've read, boom, Adam and Eve joined, became two, became one flesh. What God has joined together, let no man separate. And And clearly he articulates gender, he articulates what a marriage actually is, what causes it to be marriage. And then the fact that once you've consummated marriage, that there's no separation to it. So this divorce concept, why are you asking me about divorce? It doesn't exist. That's a whole other conversation. But my point is, is Jesus just articulates, that's a great example of a conviction, right? I'm showing up with my conviction. those convictions, meaning engage with them different ways in order to build trust and relationship. And so I just want to read kind of one of the big conditions that we have as Christians comes from 1 Corinthians 9, 19, which gives us freedom to not compromise on our convictions, but get to we have freedom in how we present them and how we engage with people that may be on different sides of our convictions. You know, so this is a famous verse, but it's very important. 1 Corinthians 9, 19 through 23. For though I'm free from all, I've made myself a servant to all that I might win more of them. So... Verse 20, we'll keep going. To the Jews I became as a Jew in order to win the Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law, not being outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel that I may share with them in its blessings. So with that, it's a great declaration of freedoms and permissions that we have when we're going about the world and coming across people that may not understand where we're coming from or what our worldview is all about and convictions that we have. And that's what Paul's getting at. He's like, to this group, I appeared as though I was part of this group. To this group, I appeared as though... But notice that he makes statements that I didn't compromise. He said... to those under the law. I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law. I mean, I didn't compromise, but my engagement, my appearance to these folks was one that was very connectable, able to build relationship and connections. So with that in mind, there's three conditions that we can carry with us when we bring our convictions into these types of situations. So, condition number one, walk in a spirit of evangelism, not discipleship. I'll say that again. Walk in a spirit of evangelism, not discipleship. That's what the Apostle Paul is getting at. In 1 Corinthians here, it's very clear. He talks about winning more of them I do it for the sake of the gospel that I may share with them in its blessing. When you're in the mode of evangelism, there are different freedoms available to you than when you're in the mode of discipleship. Discipleship, we have clear biblical boundaries on how we... how we engage with one another. That's where we don't want to cause one another to stumble and things of that nature. When you're in a spirit of evangelism, according to a biblical worldview, people are stumbling all over the place. There's nothing I'm going to do to encourage them to stumble. I'm not saying we condone everything or we encourage it. That's not the point. But we don't have to have such such strict guardrails on when we are walking in evangelism. Now, the key to that is make sure you're truly there to evangelize. Make sure you're showing up with a heart of evangelism, which a lot of modern American Christians don't, and they just use evangelism as a banner when they have really no intention of really ever... sharing the truth of God's word of the gospel at any point in the relationship. That's another thing which we won't get into, but that's important to note. So we can show up with a spirit of evangelism and we can have true care and concern of matters that are concerning to the community that we're connecting with. We don't have to We don't have to bring some moral absolutism to the situation because these are people that... And this is where we kind of get goofed up is when it comes to sexuality and marriage, really for us Christians, the only sense of morality comes from Christ. That's... There is a secondary argument that I hear. People like Ben Shapiro, he's a conservative Republican kind of talking head guy. He's a Jew. So obviously he's grounded in some biblical understanding. But he makes this case of marriage between man and woman strictly for the good of overall the health of society. I'm not getting into that. So I'm just sharing that as an example that There may be some secondarily kind of moral arguments that you want to make when it comes to marriage and sexuality. But when it comes to us Christians, our morality when it comes to marriage and sexuality is all bound up in Christ and the gospel. So if you're dealing with a community that doesn't have that as a value, doesn't have upholding Christ as a value, Well, bringing in some moral fervor is just, it's useless. It's pointless. You don't have to. That's one of the freedoms that you have, according to 1 Corinthians 9. I don't have to make some, I don't have to feel like I have to stand up for some moral arguments when it comes to who should be married to who. I can leave, that's one of the freedoms that we have. We can leave that aside because you're dealing with a community that doesn't, have a high value on glorifying Jesus Christ. If the value exists at all. I'm not saying that there's not gay people that really want to have a relationship with Christ, but I'm saying by and large when it comes to the whole movement, glorifying Christ is not a thing. It's just not a thing in the LGBTQ movement. So since For Christians, the morality of marriage is all bound up in Christ. You don't have to feel like you have to defend some moral argument for marriage. You can leave that aside, and that gives you an avenue to just connect and build relationship. You don't have to tell people they shouldn't be married or you don't believe in it. It's fine. Remember, you're in the spirit of evangelism. You don't have to moralize this thing. Now, spirited discipleship, when I'm having my counseling conversations with young Christians that they have given their life to Christ, they have adopted glorifying Jesus Christ as the primary value of their life, well, then we have a different conversation. We have a different conversation. But I'm free from having to work through all that. That's some of the freedoms that I have. So that's a condition I can put onto my conviction. I can walk in a spirit of evangelism, not discipleship. Second condition, walk in a spirit of humility, not superiority. That's so, so important. And that's one of the ones that we shouldn't screw up. but we often do as Christians. That's one of the ones that kind of really compassionate, well-meaning, loving Christians have the hardest time with the evangelical church. And, you know, the fact that we oftentimes collectively, we do show up with a spirit of superiority being like heterosexual marriage is better than homosexual marriage. And, and it's just, that's, That ain't it. That's not it. So again, that's a condition to our convictions as we do believe that Jesus definitely, clearly in the Gospels, supported male-female coming together to joining as one flesh, that that is the marital union that he blessed and made sure to use as the example when he was questioned on different things. So So that's conviction, but that doesn't then mean that if you're in a heterosexual marriage, you're superior to those in different marriages. That's not at all the take that we bring. So we walk in humility because of Romans 2.1. Where it says, therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourselves because you, the judge, practice the very same things. And that is just a couple sentences after he used homosexuality as an illustration of how depraved humankind can be. And then he turns around just a couple of cents later and says, you can't judge. You practice the very same things. And that's our humility comes in the fact that Homosexual sin, heterosexual sin is all the same at the foot of the cross. It's all the same. So we all are walking together, understanding that if you're a human being alive today, you have misused sexuality. You have misused gender ideologies. It doesn't matter what side of that coin you're on. If you're on a heterosexual, homosexual side, like The overall point of Romans was to make sure everybody included themselves in the need for Christ. That's the whole point. So we walk in a spirit of humility with members of the homosexual community because it's like, you and me, we're the same. You and me, we're the same. There's no superiority here. Your sin needs to be forgiven and redeemed through Christ, just like mine. Just like mine. So there's a clear humility that needs to be, that's how we need to show up. And unfortunately, we often don't. So that's another condition to the conviction that you need to bring with you. The third and last, and then we'll let you move on with your thanksgiving. Walk in a spirit of collaboration, not condemnation. Walk in a spirit of collaboration, not condemnation. And what I mean by collaboration is every movement, every people group in the world, we're ultimately looking for the same thing, and that's human flourishing. Now, we all are misguided in how to achieve that, even us in the Evangelical Christian Church. We We go after idols all the time as we're trying to achieve our version of human flourishing. And every people group in the world has their own issues with that. But it's this collaborative point that can be the centerpiece of any engagement with a community of people that may have a differing worldview than yours. You can show up with a sense of, I'm after what you're after. And that's human flourishing. I'm after your community experiencing the best it possibly can experience in the world that we live in. And I hope you want the same for me and my community, my evangelical community. What you'll find oftentimes isn't true. And that's why I say, come with your eyes wide open. There are people that don't want you to flourish. They want to see you eliminated you know so you have to be sober to that fact but um walk in spirit of collaboration not condemnation and i just bring us back full circle to romans 1 18 for the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men i don't know about you um but this is kind of bible speak the wrath of god is the opposite of human flourishing the wrath of god is what is what removes us from the flourishing that existed in the Garden of Eden. It was the wrath of God that came after the first original sin that then caused Adam and Eve to have to leave the garden where everything flourished. Every plant grew. Every plant bared fruit. There was no disease. They got removed from that situation. So Again, we're showing up with a spirit of evangelism, so there's a collaborative vibe that we can have. What ultimately is best for your community? Now, there's most likely going to be very differing opinions on how to get to human flourishing, and I get that. That's where you have to be led by the Spirit. You have to... You have to walk very gently in love, but I can't give you an answer for every single situation. But all I can say is in these conversations, I've had success. And what I mean by success is walking away from a discussion or an engagement where the person walked away feeling affirmed, valued, and cared for. And we walked away with a trust that had been developed and a relationship that had been developed. Now, we still may have walked away with completely different approaches as to how to get to the flourishing we all desire, but that spirit of collaboration as opposed to, well, until you fix your life and figure it out, your community is going to always struggle, da-da-da-da-da-da. That would be kind of an example of a spirit of condemnation where it's like, until you figure yourself out, you know, it's just, it's not going to happen. As opposed to the spirit of collaboration is like, hey, I don't know. I want to be, I want to be here with you in this. I want to, you be you and let's, Let's come together. Let's build some trust. Let's build some connection. And then let's just see what happens, because ultimately, I want what you want. I want your flourishing to happen. And let's see where this thing goes, so to speak. So anyways, walk in that spirit of collaboration. And we know as Christians, it's ultimately avoiding conflict. wrath of god and that's a whole another you know topic that christians often don't understand is you know what the wrath of god really is what it entails and you know maybe we'll dig into that in a future episode but uh i think i think that's plenty for today um again my prayers go out to you folks in colorado springs uh prayers go out i know i have um uh gay friends that, that listen in to the podcast, um, from time to time. So, so my heart goes out to, um, LGBTQ community, obviously as you're, you're facing, you know, it's, it's, it's the same kind of type of feeling, you know, that I feel when I, I see someone break into a church and shoot up, uh, people just, just attending a worship service or something like that. It's, you know, I can, I can definitely identify with one another on a certain level. level and and it's just it's all bad it's all wrong you know nobody should ever step into any place where people are just there going about their lives and try to try to take take life it's it's just wrong it's terrible um and so my heart goes out prayers go up and and i would love to be a part of whatever i can be a part of to to see this stuff kind of get moved out of out of the world, you know, and I believe Christ is the path. I really do. Just read the gospels. You will see a Jesus that reacts to violence in a very unorthodox way. And it's pretty inspiring. So he will continue to be my model there. So I think that's it for now. You guys have a wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving. I love you all. Until next time, Christian Well, my friends, have a great, great

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week.