WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.400 Many women were talking about power, sex, and Hollywood from Romans 1 and today I want to 2 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:12.160 talk about the unnatural passions that's mentioned in verses 26 and 27. 3 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:24.160 Kind of bring you up to speed on the other episodes. I've been talking about how God gives 4 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:28.560 us over. He lets us have what we want and it always begins with suppressing the truth. 5 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:36.480 It leads to futility in our thinking. It also then leads to images in our life, lusts of our hearts. 6 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:41.760 Talks about worshiping the creature rather than the creator in verse 25 and this is what Hollywood 7 00:00:41.760 --> 00:00:46.080 is built on. Hollywood is built on image. Everything's about image. I was listening 8 00:00:46.080 --> 00:00:53.840 to a broadcast yesterday and one of the leading comedians in Hollywood was saying how everything 9 00:00:53.840 --> 00:01:01.120 in Hollywood is basically fake. I remember listening to a podcast with a producer, 10 00:01:01.120 --> 00:01:06.320 a Hollywood producer, a very famous producer, probably a year ago and he was saying look 11 00:01:06.320 --> 00:01:13.520 everything that we do in the movies is fake. Everything is false. If we gave you the real 12 00:01:13.520 --> 00:01:19.200 thing it'd be too boring. So we always have to make stuff up to make it interesting to people. 13 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:25.040 Life's boring basically and we're creating movies that are exciting. So everything about 14 00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:30.560 Hollywood is about image and so that's what Paul's saying here. He's saying look, 15 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:33.920 you suppress the truth, you're going to start to have futility of thinking, 16 00:01:33.920 --> 00:01:39.680 you're going to start going toward images and the lusts of your heart. You're going to start 17 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:46.480 worshiping images and people and that's been true especially in Hollywood now for years and years. 18 00:01:47.360 --> 00:01:53.920 Really starting in the 40s, I would say the 40s is when the motion picture industry really took off 19 00:01:53.920 --> 00:02:00.720 and kind of this idolatry of image became a part of America. But what I want to talk about today 20 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:08.639 is unnatural passions. Verse 26, for this reason God gave them up to vile passions 21 00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:14.400 for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 22 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:22.880 Likewise also the men leaving the unnatural use of the woman burned in their lusts for one another, 23 00:02:23.680 --> 00:02:29.280 men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their 24 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:35.200 error which was due. So to use a psychological or sociological term we're talking about 25 00:02:35.200 --> 00:02:43.920 homosexuality here or some would say same-sex attraction. God's design from Genesis 1 and 2 26 00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:52.160 Ephesians 5 and so many other passages is that a man would fall in love with a woman, a woman 27 00:02:52.160 --> 00:02:57.280 fall in love with a man. God's guardrails with that they would fall in love and have a family. 28 00:02:57.920 --> 00:03:04.080 That's the biblical worldview of marriage and sexuality that sex is between a man or woman, 29 00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:11.280 a monogamous relationship who are married. But now we're talking about unnatural passions, 30 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:22.080 that's the word he uses and he talks about this way in which the natural is taken over 31 00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:30.960 with an unnatural passion because of the futility of our thinking. Augustine the great philosopher 32 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:38.400 and patriarch of the church said and by the way Augustine admitted that he had a homosexual 33 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:45.680 relationship with a man before he got saved he said quote I contaminated the spring of male 34 00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:54.000 friendship with the dirt of lust. Thomas Aquinas in the 12th century said the vice of homosexuality 35 00:03:54.000 --> 00:04:01.680 is against nature and a slap in the face of God end quote. Rosaria Butterfield former lesbian 36 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:07.120 and professor at Syracuse University has said quote homosexuality is not the core 37 00:04:07.760 --> 00:04:14.960 of our rebellion against God, a desire to be like God is. So what she's saying is homosexuality is 38 00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:22.480 not the worst sin, the worst sin is our desire to be God in and of ourselves. A desire to be the one 39 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:29.600 who gets to declare good and evil, play judge rather than be judged, a desire to use God's 40 00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:35.920 creation for our own gratification rather than with the pleasure and for his glory. 41 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:44.080 So it's with a heavy heart that I share some of these statistics because God loves all people 42 00:04:45.200 --> 00:04:50.400 but God so loved the world everybody that he gave his only begotten son and he loves the homosexual 43 00:04:50.400 --> 00:04:56.960 and he loves him or her who are caught in the grip of this unnatural passion. 44 00:04:56.960 --> 00:04:59.840 The American Psychological Association 45 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.720 and acknowledges, quote, higher rates of anxiety, mood, 46 00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:08.460 and substance abuse disorders, and suicidal thoughts 47 00:05:08.460 --> 00:05:14.800 among people ages 15 to 54 with same-sex partners, 48 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:18.440 and higher use of mental health services in men and women 49 00:05:18.440 --> 00:05:20.780 reporting same-sex partners. 50 00:05:20.780 --> 00:05:26.040 One study showed that 40.2% of homosexual men 51 00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:30.360 consider suicide compared to 7.2% 52 00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:33.160 of the heterosexual population. 53 00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:34.840 Men and women, that's incredible. 54 00:05:34.840 --> 00:05:40.080 Six times higher rate of suicidal ideations 55 00:05:40.080 --> 00:05:44.840 among men who are involved in homosexual relationships. 56 00:05:44.840 --> 00:05:47.120 I will share statistics we have from the Alliance 57 00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:49.720 of Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity 58 00:05:49.720 --> 00:05:52.080 in Researching Homosexuality. 59 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:56.600 It consists of a strikingly greater incidence 60 00:05:56.600 --> 00:05:59.360 of a wider range of mental health disorders 61 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:02.480 among homosexual men and women, specifically 62 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:07.880 substance abuse, depression, and suicidal ideations, 63 00:06:07.880 --> 00:06:11.680 but also extending to pathological risk-taking, 64 00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:14.360 high breakup rates of relationships, 65 00:06:14.360 --> 00:06:16.960 and sexual addiction. 66 00:06:16.960 --> 00:06:18.520 Here's a census of the data. 67 00:06:18.520 --> 00:06:22.360 So I have pages and pages of information, 68 00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:24.640 but I've tried to synthesize what 69 00:06:24.640 --> 00:06:26.880 I've found into just a few parts as it 70 00:06:26.880 --> 00:06:30.400 relates to these unnatural passions of homosexuality. 71 00:06:30.400 --> 00:06:35.000 Despite the AIDS risk, homosexuals repeatedly 72 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:38.680 continue to indulge in unsafe sex practices. 73 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:41.080 Homosexuals represent the highest number 74 00:06:41.080 --> 00:06:45.080 of STD, or sexually transmitted disease, cases. 75 00:06:45.080 --> 00:06:49.040 More than one third of homosexual men and women 76 00:06:49.040 --> 00:06:51.000 are substance abusers. 77 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:53.760 Homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals 78 00:06:53.760 --> 00:06:57.160 to have mental health concerns, such as eating disorders, 79 00:06:57.160 --> 00:07:02.880 personality disorders, paranoia, depression, and anxiety. 80 00:07:02.880 --> 00:07:05.600 Homosexual relationships are more violent 81 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:08.920 than heterosexual relationships. 82 00:07:08.920 --> 00:07:10.480 This is really, really interesting. 83 00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:11.880 Catch this. 84 00:07:11.880 --> 00:07:15.920 Societal bias and the discrimination 85 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:19.600 that's involved with homosexual men and women 86 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:22.840 do not, in and of themselves, contribute 87 00:07:22.840 --> 00:07:27.520 to the majority of homosexual maladaptivity. 88 00:07:27.520 --> 00:07:30.560 Lesbian women are 19% greater risk 89 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:34.120 of getting syphilis than heterosexual women. 90 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:38.360 San Francisco, one of the most openly gay cities in America, 91 00:07:38.360 --> 00:07:40.320 compared to the national average, 92 00:07:40.320 --> 00:07:44.080 have twice the rate of infectious hepatitis A, 93 00:07:44.080 --> 00:07:47.080 three times the rate of hepatitis B, 94 00:07:47.080 --> 00:07:52.120 and 22 times the rate of venereal disease. 95 00:07:52.120 --> 00:07:55.680 The British gay lifestyle magazine called Attitude 96 00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:58.800 recently discussed the worrying high rates 97 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:03.280 of mental health and dependency problems among gay men. 98 00:08:03.280 --> 00:08:09.360 The gospel message is not, let the gay become straight, 99 00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:12.400 but let the dead, and that's all of us, 100 00:08:12.400 --> 00:08:15.360 become alive in Christ. 101 00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:19.360 So the statistics show that suicidal ideations 102 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:22.800 among gay men and women has very little 103 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:25.040 to do with the societal views. 104 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:27.400 Because if we look at society today, 105 00:08:27.400 --> 00:08:30.040 and I don't have all those statistics here today, 106 00:08:30.040 --> 00:08:33.960 but the incredible number of acceptance 107 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:37.039 within our culture toward homosexuality 108 00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:39.159 over the last 10 years is amazing. 109 00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:42.559 And yet, the suicide rates have only increased. 110 00:08:42.559 --> 00:08:48.040 Because it appears from the studies that have been done 111 00:08:48.040 --> 00:08:49.960 that men and women, as we all know, 112 00:08:49.960 --> 00:08:51.480 are longing for relationships. 113 00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:54.040 We're all longing for connectivity. 114 00:08:54.040 --> 00:08:59.000 And yet, within the unnatural passions of homosexuality, 115 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:01.160 those relationships are short-lived. 116 00:09:01.160 --> 00:09:01.840 They just are. 117 00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:05.320 The average relationship for a homosexual man 118 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:07.240 is less than three years. 119 00:09:07.240 --> 00:09:10.400 And for lesbian women, it's just a little over three years. 120 00:09:10.400 --> 00:09:13.600 So the breakup rate is astounding. 121 00:09:13.600 --> 00:09:18.680 And that most of the suicidal ideations 122 00:09:18.680 --> 00:09:22.240 in homosexual relationships are due to the breakup rate 123 00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:24.400 within those relationships. 124 00:09:24.400 --> 00:09:28.760 In the introduction from a book called Heavy Burdens, 125 00:09:28.760 --> 00:09:32.480 Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience 126 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:37.360 Harm in the Church, author Bridget Rivera, 127 00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:39.600 who describes herself as a lesbian who 128 00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:43.400 follows what's known as a traditional sexual ethic, 129 00:09:43.400 --> 00:09:48.040 choosing celibacy as a vocation instead of marriage, 130 00:09:48.040 --> 00:09:52.640 describes some of the pain the gay community often experiences 131 00:09:52.640 --> 00:09:56.320 in overt and subtle ways within Christian churches. 132 00:09:56.320 --> 00:09:58.360 From the introduction, she writes, 133 00:09:58.360 --> 00:10:01.120 the people of God represent. 134 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:05.780 the hands and the feet of Christ to a broken world, bringing God's healing touch to you 135 00:10:05.780 --> 00:10:09.200 and to me and every person we meet. 136 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:14.100 As the body of Christ, we incarnate the goodness of the gospel. 137 00:10:14.100 --> 00:10:21.080 We represent a life-giving Savior who doesn't rest with the 99 sheep out of 100. 138 00:10:21.080 --> 00:10:27.820 He goes out, He searches, and He rescues, saving the smallest and most insignificant 139 00:10:27.820 --> 00:10:29.700 members of His flock. 140 00:10:29.700 --> 00:10:33.100 He isn't happy with saving most of the flock. 141 00:10:33.100 --> 00:10:38.520 He works until every last one of His sheep experiences the love and the care and the 142 00:10:38.520 --> 00:10:43.060 mercy of His fold, Matthew 18, 10 through 14. 143 00:10:43.060 --> 00:10:50.140 He'll ask us about the one, and He'll want to know how we treated the one. 144 00:10:50.140 --> 00:10:55.580 And on that day, He will declare, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, 145 00:10:55.580 --> 00:10:59.060 you've done it to me, Matthew 25, 40. 146 00:10:59.060 --> 00:11:05.620 LGBTQ people are the one, but how exactly have Christians treated them? 147 00:11:05.620 --> 00:11:09.900 What is it like to be LGBTQ in the church? 148 00:11:09.900 --> 00:11:14.220 Why is it like that, and how can we change? 149 00:11:14.220 --> 00:11:16.300 So men and women, this is a struggle. 150 00:11:16.300 --> 00:11:20.220 If you're a Christian here, or if you are struggling with same-sex attraction, that's 151 00:11:20.220 --> 00:11:21.740 the question. 152 00:11:21.740 --> 00:11:24.460 We are called by God to reach out. 153 00:11:24.460 --> 00:11:29.220 We are called by God to go after the one, even those who have same-sex attraction. 154 00:11:29.220 --> 00:11:32.580 And in our church, we have a number of men and women that struggle with this. 155 00:11:32.580 --> 00:11:37.980 We have a number of men and women that have come out of the same-sex attraction world, 156 00:11:37.980 --> 00:11:43.580 some of which were actually prostitutes, prostituting themselves actually in Hollywood. 157 00:11:43.580 --> 00:11:45.580 And so they're set free now. 158 00:11:45.580 --> 00:11:48.500 They're walking in a new freedom that they have in Christ. 159 00:11:48.500 --> 00:11:50.180 But this is the battle, right? 160 00:11:50.180 --> 00:11:52.020 This is the fight that we have. 161 00:11:52.020 --> 00:11:58.060 And so I want to say to all of those that are listening that have that struggle, I ask 162 00:11:58.060 --> 00:11:59.880 for your forgiveness for the church. 163 00:11:59.880 --> 00:12:03.220 We haven't done a great job in loving you. 164 00:12:03.220 --> 00:12:10.380 And yet Romans 1 is also clear that God gives us over to the lust of our hearts, even to 165 00:12:10.380 --> 00:12:13.980 unnatural passions, but there's hope. 166 00:12:13.980 --> 00:12:16.100 New life comes in Christ. 167 00:12:16.100 --> 00:12:17.100 That's the point. 168 00:12:17.100 --> 00:12:23.660 We're all in this power, sex, and Hollywood because the reality is the first word I use 169 00:12:23.660 --> 00:12:24.660 is power. 170 00:12:24.660 --> 00:12:30.140 And the power of the gospel is this, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it 171 00:12:30.140 --> 00:12:36.980 is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for 172 00:12:36.980 --> 00:12:37.980 the Greek. 173 00:12:37.980 --> 00:12:43.340 For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the 174 00:12:43.340 --> 00:12:46.180 just shall live by faith, everyone. 175 00:12:46.260 --> 00:12:52.700 So whether we come with opposite sex attraction, whether we come with same sex attraction, 176 00:12:52.700 --> 00:13:03.700 whether we come as one who is a thief, a liar, a fornicator, one who struggles with jealousy 177 00:13:03.700 --> 00:13:08.020 and strife in our lives, all of us are born with sin. 178 00:13:08.020 --> 00:13:11.420 All of us are born natural adulterers. 179 00:13:11.420 --> 00:13:14.900 So when I hear men and women say, well, I was born this way, I say, well, I agree. 180 00:13:14.900 --> 00:13:15.900 So was I. 181 00:13:16.620 --> 00:13:22.460 I wasn't born with the same struggles that you have, but I'm still born with, I think 182 00:13:22.460 --> 00:13:26.860 you could say unnatural passions of adultery because God's natural passions is for us to 183 00:13:26.860 --> 00:13:32.260 fall in love with one person, get married, have a sexual relationship and intimacy within 184 00:13:32.260 --> 00:13:33.940 that marriage. 185 00:13:33.940 --> 00:13:37.620 That's why it says, and he created them male and female. 186 00:13:37.620 --> 00:13:40.580 And in that creation, he gave us his guidelines. 187 00:13:40.580 --> 00:13:44.140 He said very clearly, therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother, be joined to 188 00:13:44.140 --> 00:13:46.700 his wife, they shall become one flesh. 189 00:13:46.700 --> 00:13:49.720 And they were both naked, the man and his woman, and they were not ashamed. 190 00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:54.340 So a shameless marriage is a marriage where we're walking in the truth of God under the 191 00:13:54.340 --> 00:13:58.020 guard rails of the kingdom of God. 192 00:13:58.020 --> 00:14:02.620 And so we all are born sinful. 193 00:14:02.620 --> 00:14:04.420 That's the whole book of Romans. 194 00:14:04.420 --> 00:14:06.540 That's the best, the Bible, man. 195 00:14:06.540 --> 00:14:09.940 And I've been, and I've had my struggles too. 196 00:14:09.940 --> 00:14:14.460 And if I'm not careful in what I look at, if I'm not careful in who I talk to, who I 197 00:14:14.460 --> 00:14:18.620 hang out with, I can get myself in a whole lot of trouble for sure. 198 00:14:18.620 --> 00:14:23.500 But walking in the truth of God and walking in the abundance of God, that's the power 199 00:14:23.500 --> 00:14:24.780 of the gospel. 200 00:14:24.780 --> 00:14:25.780 And it's by faith. 201 00:14:25.780 --> 00:14:27.180 We walk by faith. 202 00:14:27.180 --> 00:14:31.000 So that's the point today is that walk by faith. 203 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:37.020 Don't find yourself in those unnatural passions, but go after the supernatural way. 204 00:14:37.100 --> 00:14:41.580 Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. 205 00:14:41.580 --> 00:14:47.700 The way, the truth and the life is following hard after Jesus and going after him. 206 00:14:47.700 --> 00:14:49.420 I pray you'll do that. 207 00:14:49.420 --> 00:14:53.860 And in our next episode, we're going to talk about one more aspect of this journey. 208 00:14:53.860 --> 00:14:57.780 And that's what I call the dopamine fix in a debased mind. 209 00:14:57.780 --> 00:14:59.620 So check us out in the next episode.