LGBTQIA | Loving in Truth and Grace | Bellevue | August 30, 2026

Well, good morning.

It's good to see you guys.

The beard is back.

I'm back.

It's awesome.

We are in our final round of the Uncomfortable Series.

But if I've never met you, my name is Arlen.

I am one of the pastors on staff.

My official title is Lawrence Campus Pastor, but I do a number of things around here and just honored to get to be with you today as we do finish up this series.

And last time I was here, I I talked through politics and not making idols of the politicians.

But today I am talking about LGBTQ Plus, and sometimes also known as LGBTQIA.

And I'm going to get ahead of this really quickly.

Today's gonna be hard.

Today is gonna be hard in a lot of ways.

Because if we're honest, this is a conversation that sometimes the church has uh kind of been silent on or nervous to have.

Uh and I do I think that that is a miss, honestly, because uh the world talks about things like sex all the time.

And the world is talking about uh all of this stuff all the time, our kids are talking about it, people in the world around us are having these conversations, and so the church should be having conversations.

And the church does talk about the importance of marriage, and they talk about how sex is a gift from the Lord, and these are good things that we should be talking about, that we should be instructing the church on.

Because again, the world is having conversations around us, and so we do need to have a conversation around LGBTQ and LGBTQIA plus.

And so the question is not, should we?

The question is how do we have this conversation with Jesus at the center?

Amen?

How do we have this conversation with Jesus at the center?

Because that's what I want to do today.

And I don't want to avoid hard parts of Scripture, I don't want to avoid the standard that has been set before us by God, but I also don't want to have this conversation in a way that turns people into political talking points or theological debates, because today we are talking about people.

Talking about people who bear God's image, people with stories, with questions, who have experienced real hurt, people who need Jesus, just like I need Jesus.

And so if we're gonna have this conversation, if we're gonna talk about it, we have to set a few guardrails before we do this.

And that's why I've actually titled this message, Loving in Truth and Grace.

That is what I want us to do today, is talk in truth and grace.

And so, uh, guardrail number one, I'm talking to the church today.

That's who I'm talking to.

I'm talking to the church, for those who have called themselves followers of Jesus Christ.

And if you are here today and you are not a follower of Jesus, I just want to say I'm so happy that you are here.

And I hope you hear us, and I hope you listen in, because uh I hope you hear our heart.

Because today's goal is not to beat anyone down.

Today's goal is to build the church.

So let me go ahead and pray for us, and then we'll jump in.

Lord, thank you so much for who you are, for the way that you love us.

Lord, in this moment I pray that we are a tender-hearted church, that we are a church that shows the truth of your son Jesus and models the grace that you have given us.

Lord, I pray in this moment I pray that you speak through me, that the words that are taught today come from you in your spirit.

Lord, I pray for those in this room that don't know you, that they have an encounter with you.

I pray for those around the world that don't know you, that they have an encounter with you.

And I pray that all churches model just the loving gift that is your Son Jesus.

Lord, we love you, and we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right, so first thing we're gonna do as we start this conversation.

Uh, we need to uh like understand what we're actually talking about.

And so LGBTQ plus, otherwise uh sometimes known as LGBTQIA, is an umbrella term.

It's this umbrella term that covers a range of different sexual orientations and gender identities.

Um and the letters commonly stand for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.

And if you see the I, it's for intersex, and the A is for asexual, and then that plus is for just different expressions and experiences that exist underneath that umbrella.

And I say this for a reason, uh, because I think it's important for us to actually understand what we're talking about.

If we're gonna engage the world around us, we should understand what the world around us is talking about.

But understanding this terminology doesn't mean we're automatically accepting every belief that's attached to it.

And so the big question that I want to answer for us today, as we do have this conversation, is how should the church respond?

How does the church respond when we find ourselves in conversations or we're asked about LGBTQIA?

And before we get to how do we respond to people, we need to first understand what scripture actually teaches about human sexuality and God's design for marriage.

And I want to start there with what scripture says, because if we don't start there, sometimes we can start with our feelings, and sometimes we can start with our own opinions, and we can start with what social media might say, or what a politician might say.

But as Christians, we shouldn't start there.

We should start with Scripture because the Bible guides us, we don't guide the Bible.

Amen.

And so there's a theological argument uh that exists right now within uh different Christian circles that Jesus was silent on this issue.

Uh, and I don't believe that that's true.

I think that Jesus, though he never preached a sermon titled LGBTQ, I do think he speaks very clearly about God's design for marriage and sexuality.

So that's where we're starting.

So go ahead and open up to Matthew 19.

We're gonna start in verse 1.

You can turn on your Bibles however you want to get there.

We'll also have it on the side screens, but we're gonna be in Matthew 19 today.

Um, and it says this in verse 1.

It says, When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan.

Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

Some Pharisees came to him to test him.

They asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?

Haven't you read, he replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

So they are no longer two but one flesh.

Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.

Why then, they asked, didn't Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?

Jesus replied, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard.

But it was not this way from the beginning.

I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery.

The disciples said to him, If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.

Jesus replied, Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.

For there are eunuchs who were born that way, there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are those who chose who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

And the one who can accept this should accept it.

And so here's what's happening.

Jesus has been traveling, doing ministry, and the Pharisees come up to him and they say, Hey, uh, we want you to weigh in on this debate.

And what was going on culturally is there were two Jewish schools of thought when it came to divorce.

So one school held like the traditional, that if it was sexual immorality, divorce was allowed.

And then the other school was teaching that a man could give his wife a certificate of divorce for any and every reason.

Basically, it was if it displeases the husband, so like burnt toast, you're out.

That is what this school was teaching.

And so these Pharisees come up to Jesus and they try and trap him in this conversation.

They say, Which camp do you exist in?

Which camp do you fall into?

And so Jesus, I love how he responds because he doesn't like jump into the cultural debate.

How he responds is he says, Well, let's actually take it back to Genesis.

Let's take it back to the design.

Let's talk about what marriage was designed to be.

And there he says that God made them male and female.

And he says that in this they will come into a relationship before God.

And he defines this as marriage.

And it wasn't just some innocent theological questions that they were asking, they were trying to get him to weigh in on the culture of it all.

And Jesus says, I'm not doing that.

I'm gonna teach what is true.

And so Jesus does two things.

First, he affirms God's design for marriage one man, one woman in covenant relationship before the Lord.

He says, This is what a marriage was supposed to be.

This is what a marriage is in the eyes of the Lord.

One man, one woman in covenant relationship before the Lord.

And then the second thing that he does is he refuses to let culture define that design.

Right?

The Pharisees, they were trying to argue exceptions, but Jesus reminds them there is a design.

And they wanted to debate the loopholes.

And Jesus says, there aren't any loopholes.

And I think sometimes if we're honest with ourselves, we we sometimes try and do that.

Like, what's the loophole?

What's the loophole here?

What can I get away with?

How far is too far?

But Jesus will always keep bringing us back to what were you created for?

And that's the posture that I want us to have.

And so, yes, Jesus does affirm the biblical standard of marriage.

And he doesn't debate it, and he says, God designed it, and we submit to that design.

And that's actually where we stand as a church.

In fact, uh, we have a statement on our website that says this very thing that we believe that marriage is between one man, one woman in covenant relationship before the Lord, and largely because of the words of Jesus.

And so if that is God's design, again, the question then comes well, how do we as Christians respond to people who exist outside of that covenant?

And I want to be clear because if this is the standard that we hold, that Jesus holds, we should grieve when anyone for any reason exists outside this design.

Amen?

It should hurt our hearts for people.

We should want people to exist within what God has designed.

Because the Bible's sexual ethic isn't uniquely restrictive to LGBTQ people.

It says premarital sex outside God's design is a sin.

It says adultery is outside of God's design.

Pornography is outside of God's design.

There's biblical standards across the board.

And while these things might not be the same in circumstance, they are all outside God's design.

And I think sometimes as a church, we've uniquely targeted the LGBTQ plus people as though their sexual sin is the defining sexual sin.

But I want to say this sexuality is not what saves us.

Nobody is saved because they got their sexuality right.

We are saved because of Jesus Christ.

Amen?

We are saved by Jesus Christ.

Every single one of us has an area in our life where our desires and actions have to and must be surrendered to Jesus.

And for some people it's sexual sin.

For others, it's pride, it's greed, it's anger, it's addiction, it's gluttony, it's selfishness, it's unforgiveness.

And we all must come to Jesus in need of grace.

And so as we enter this conversation and how do we respond?

Um, if you were with me for the politics one uh politics discussion, I did the do's and the don'ts.

We're gonna do the do's and the don'ts again.

And so we're gonna walk through the do's and don'ts.

But uh, I want to say three quick things before we jump into this.

Uh, first, I am not a doctor or a clinical therapist.

And so I do not always understand the reason someone may experience same-sex attraction or struggle with gender dysphoria, and I am not gonna pretend like I do.

But second, I am gonna say that I think the church has not always done the best job, and when I say the church, I mean the church at large has not always done the best job at teaching on the subject, and historically, uh, we have not always done the best job at loving on people in the LGBTQ community.

And third, I want to say this if you are in this room and you wrestle with or experience same-sex attraction or struggle with gender dysphoria, and you've wondered whether there's a place for you in this church, I need to say this.

We see you, and we are so incredibly happy that you get to hear the name of Jesus Christ today.

Amen.

So let's jump in.

The first do.

Do remember that they were made in the image of God.

Do remember that they were made in the image of God.

Remember how Jesus took the Pharisees back to the beginning, back to Genesis, uh, when he was affirming God's design for marriage?

Well, in the same opening chapters, it gives us Genesis 127.

We can pull it up uh here, and it says this.

So God created mankind in his own image.

In the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them.

And so God is declaring that humanity alone bears his image.

We're the only part of creation uniquely created in his likeness.

And if we believe that God is the creator and sustainer of all things, that he is a God worthy of worship and praise, and then we believe that somebody was made in his image, we should give dignity and respect to all of humanity.

Amen?

We should see people made in the image of God.

Those aren't earned things, they're default.

We don't respect people because we agree with them, and we don't give dignity because they might share our politics or convictions or live the way we think that they should live.

We respect people and we give dignity to people because they were made in the image of God.

And so no matter what somebody has done, no matter what they believe, we should see them in the image of God.

One of the most influential sermons I ever heard was this pastor and stands up before his church.

He says, Hey, as long as I am the pastor of this church, we can never be a church that looks down our nose at people who walk through the doors.

And then he goes on, he says, Because underneath every external sin and underneath every internal sin is a soul that Jesus bled and died for.

Every single person is a soul that Jesus bled and died for.

And so we owe it to Jesus to treat people with absolute dignity and to see them in the image of God.

And if Jesus thought that they were worth giving his life for, we can not be the people that look down our noses at them.

We don't have to agree with everything someone believes to treat them with dignity, and we don't have to affirm every decision someone makes to love them, but we absolutely do have to remember who is sitting in front of us a soul that Jesus bled and died for.

Amen?

Let's go on to the second do.

Do build relationships, not projects.

Do build relationships, not projects.

We're gonna shift to Matthew 9, starting in verse 10, really quick, and we're gonna hang out here for just a second.

Um in Matthew 9, uh it's it says this While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.

And when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with the tax collectors and sinners?

On hearing this, Jesus said, It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

But go and learn what this means.

I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.

And so here's what's going on in this moment.

In Jesus' ministry, he would often do things that were surprising to the Pharisees, and this was one of those moments.

And so Jesus is sitting at this table and he's having dinner with the tax collectors and the sinners.

And first, I just want to say I think it's kind of humorous to me that the tax collectors were up to something so bad that they got their own category.

But they are sitting with Jesus at this table, and the Pharisees walk in and they say, Hey, how could Jesus sit with these people?

Doesn't he know that these are bad people?

And I love Jesus' response to this, because Jesus' response is, How could I not?

How could I not have dinner with these people?

I want to have dinner with these people.

I want these people to have salvation.

I'm here for them.

That's why I'm here.

He says, How could I not?

And then he does something so profound.

He actually quotes the Old Testament back to them.

Hosea 6, 6 says, For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, an acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings.

The Pharisees would have known this verse cold.

They were the experts in scripture.

And Jesus isn't inventing some new ethic here.

He's just modeling the one that existed.

And so there are two words that get used, sacrifice and mercy.

And this word sacrifice in this moment represented like religious correctness or purity or codes or rituals or the markers of righteousness in the Pharisees' eyes.

But mercy is relational and it's costly.

And it's not a feeling, but it's an action of love and care towards someone and its faithfulness and its goodness.

And so here's the thing the Pharisees were not wrong that sin was happening.

They weren't wrong that sin had taken place.

They were wrong about what God wanted them to do with that knowledge.

Sin had happened, but Jesus says, I'm here to sit with them.

And I'm here to love them.

And Jesus is exposing their own self-righteousness.

And so what does this have to do with how we love the LGBTQ community?

Everything.

The danger in this passage wasn't the tax collectors, it was the Pharisees watching from the door, judging what was going on.

And this is what Jesus was confronting.

And I think sometimes we've created the same version or same version of this problem.

Where we've become afraid that if we associate with someone in the LGBTQ community, we have somehow affirmed everything that they believe.

But that's not true.

We sit with people who struggle with lust.

And we walk with people who are battling alcoholism or addiction.

We walk alongside people who have been hurt or damaged their marriage because of adultery.

And in none of those cases do we say loving them affirms what they do.

And so we can love somebody without absolutely affirming everything that they believe.

We can know their name, we can eat at their table, we can listen to their story, and we can care about their life and still hold what scripture teaches.

Relationships don't erase conviction.

And so let me ask this: who's sitting at your table?

And whose doorway have we stood in pointing the finger?

Because mercy isn't the absence of truth, it's truth that walks into the room and loves people.

So let me ask this.

Do we know their name?

Or do we only know their sin?

Would we recognize their voice on the phone?

Would we know what they take in their coffee?

Do we know what broke their heart last year?

Do we know what their hopes and dreams are?

Or is the only thing that we know about them, the thing that we've already decided, is the worst thing about them?

And are we saving our warmth for a version of them that we hope they one day become?

Because if we are, we're telling them that grace has a fee.

Jesus walked into the table, walked into the room and sat at that table.

So let me ask this if somebody from the LGBTQ community walks through the doors on a Sunday morning, what's the first thing that we do?

Are we happy that they get to hear the truth of Jesus that day?

Do we show them love and care?

Do we thank God that they are there?

Or is our first move, even unspoken, even if just how we look at them, do we say, now how do I fix you?

Because if that's a message that we send, that's the doorway.

And so this last summer I took my two daughters, so I've got a seven-year-old and a two-year-old, to the Wisconsin Dells.

Um and the Dells is a trip, let me tell you that.

It's a it's an experience.

And so we go to the Dells.

Um and a large part of what you do in the Dells is you swim.

And we went in June, um, and we are still a little new to Wisconsin, so we didn't understand fully that it's still cold in June.

And so we go to the Dells, and instead of getting to swim outside because it was like 55 degrees, we go into this indoor water park, and it's it was impressive.

I'm not gonna lie, it was an impressive water park.

And we walk in and there's lights and sounds, and kids are screaming and all sorts of stuff, and people are running around.

And my oldest daughter, my seven-year-old, looks at it and she's like, Yeah, this is it.

And so she starts running, she just takes off, and we're like, get back here and stay, stay where mom and dad can see you.

And we're kind of trying to chase her around, but she's just wanting to swim and play and have a good time.

My two year old had a very different reaction to this indoor water park.

She walks in and it was a little overwhelming for her, and she just starts looking around.

And her eyes get so big.

And she's surprised at what's going on.

And I try and get her into the water, and so I grab her by the hand, I'm like dragging this kid through this water park.

And I take her to the water and I put her in.

She's like, nope, nope, nope.

And so I look at my wife and I say, hey, Addie, take our oldest, go swim, have a good time.

I'll sit with our youngest.

And so we do.

We sit on the side of this pool, I kid you not, for about 45 minutes.

I'm sitting in this chair, and right next to me is my daughter, and I try to talk to her, and she doesn't say anything.

She's just staring.

She's just looking at the water.

And after about 45 minutes, not saying anything, she just stands up.

So I look at her and I take her hand and we walk to the pool.

And we stand on the side of this pool and she puts her toe in and she pulls it back out real quick.

We stand there for another few minutes, and after a few minutes, she just goes, and she jumps in.

And when I say she jumps in, it's like an ankle's worth of water.

But she jumps in.

And then my wife and my oldest daughter see this.

And sometimes we can be loud as a family and we see this and we look like lunatics in this water park because we're like, woohoo! And we just start celebrating and going crazy and just cheering, what's going on?

And then my oldest daughter takes a little too far.

And so she runs over and she's like, I've got a friend to play with.

And so she grabs her and she's like dragging her through the water and putting her under all of these uh things and water spraying everywhere, and we pull my oldest aside and we said, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Sometimes the right move is just to celebrate she had the courage to get in the pool.

Church, sometimes the right move is just learn their name.

Sometimes the right move is to love them.

Save the water slide for next summer.

But we can love people well without changing what we believe.

Amen?

How are we doing?

Those are the do's.

We doing okay?

Those are the easy ones.

Let's go to the don'ts.

Alright, the first don'ts is this.

Don't confuse conviction with cruelty.

Don't confuse conviction and cruelty.

Let's jump back into the first story, Matthew 19, where Jesus is talking to these Pharisees and he establishes God's design.

Again, reminder one man, one woman in covenant relationship before the Lord.

And some people might be wondering, well, what about somebody who genuinely wants to follow Jesus, but they do wrestle and struggle with gender dysphoria or same-sex attraction?

What hope is there for them?

Is there hope for them?

And Jesus actually gives kind of like a roundabout answer to this.

As he's raising the standard for marriage, his disciples respond and they say, hey, if this is the situation between a husband and wife, it's actually better not to marry.

Meaning, if this is the standard that actually really exists, this is a hard standard to meet.

So it's probably better if I don't do that.

And Jesus then says, not everybody can accept this word.

And I want to be careful here because Jesus isn't exclusively talking about like same-sex attraction or the LGBTQ community.

He's talking about celibacy more broadly.

But his words do carry an important implication that if anybody does want to follow Jesus and they find that they cannot exist in the standard in God's design, then that is not something that they get to do.

And he states that.

And it's something that can only be accepted through grace.

And that matters because sometimes our response to sexual ethics has often been, well, the Bible says don't do it.

So just don't do it.

And technically, we have stated the rule correctly.

But church, let's not be a church that skips discipleship.

Because following Jesus isn't just about a things we're allowed or not allowed to do.

He calls people to give their whole lives, to take up their cross, to surrender their desires and their plans and their comfort and their pride to follow Him.

That's what makes discipleship costly.

And we have to be careful not to minimize the cost of somebody else's obedience.

Because if somebody does experience same-sex attraction and believes that they want to follow Jesus, it means it's going to cost them something.

They're not simply just giving up sex.

They might be surrendering the possibility of marriage or grieving a relationship or a future that they might have imagined for themselves or wondering what their life might look like in 10, 20, 30 years from now.

And we don't have to change our convictions to acknowledge that.

In fact, I think we should acknowledge it.

Because if we're going to tell somebody, follow Jesus, it's going to cost you something, though.

We should actually care about what it might be costing them.

Because pointing at the Bible and running away isn't discipleship.

We should walk with people.

And if you follow Jesus, and I mean truly follow Jesus, you walk with him hand in hand, you know, I know, we know that it is better than anything this world has to offer.

Amen?

It is the greatest thing ever to walk hand in hand with Jesus Christ.

But to somebody who does not walk with the Lord, it can be a daunting and a scary thing.

And that's why Jesus' words in Matthew 19 matter.

Because he's not pretending that this is just an easy thing for people.

He says, not everyone can accept this, but only those to whom it has been given.

There's grace involved.

There's a section in Luke 14 in which Jesus is sitting with a large group of people and they're talking, and instead of minimizing discipleship and making it sound easier than what it is, he actually gives two examples.

He tells them, if you're going to build the tower, you sit down and you find out, can I afford to build the tower?

Count the cost.

And then he says, if a king is going to go to war, the king should probably ask himself, can I win this war?

But he tells all the disciples, he tells everybody, following him will cost you everything.

It will cost you everything.

Discipleship is costly.

Every disciple surrenders something, and cruelty doesn't come from holding this theological position.

Cruelty comes when we minimize the cost of obedience for someone else.

We need to be willing to walk with them as they learn what it means to follow Jesus, sit with them when their obedience hurts, listen to them when they're lonely, remind them that their identity isn't found in whether they're married or single or whatever they whatever's going on, that their identity is found in Jesus Christ.

Amen?

That their identity is found in who Jesus has called them to be, and that we help build a life alongside them that is so full of Jesus and community and friendship and service that their life is no longer defined by what they're missing.

But it's defined by what Jesus has given them.

And it's reminding them that they're not expected to manufacture this life on their own.

The grace of Jesus is not an optional accessory to discipleship.

It's the only reason that discipleship is possible at all.

And so we must hold firmly to what scripture teaches about marriage and sexuality, but we cannot become careless about the people that we're asking to live that out.

The last don't.

Don't compromise truth to avoid offense.

This might sound kind of like a tonal shift, but it isn't.

Truth and grace don't compete, they belong together.

Go back to Matthew 19.

Again, the Pharisees come, they come up to Jesus and they try and trap him and settle like this cultural debate on their own terms, and he didn't dodge it, he didn't soften it.

What he actually did was he told the truth.

And he went back to the beginning.

And he challenged the loopholes and he set the standard before them.

And he raised the bar in a room full of people that were looking to lower it.

And Jesus held this conviction and he told the truth.

And then when he told the truth, the disciples were like, hey, if this is the truth, this is a really hard truth.

And he says, Yeah.

It is a really hard truth.

That's why not everybody's going to want to accept it.

And Jesus did not compromise the truth.

And if Jesus is unwilling to compromise the truth, so should we.

Amen?

We shouldn't compromise the truth.

But Jesus also didn't compromise his compassion.

And he showed compassion.

And he never asked us to choose between truth or grace.

He simply just embodied both.

And that's where conversations with our LGBTQIA friends and family members and neighbors actually live.

Because we're not talking about some abstract debate here.

We're talking about people.

People that we know and people that we love who carry a real cost.

And sometimes as we begin to build relationships with them and we love them, that love will eventually lead us to saying, I love you too much to not tell you the truth.

I have to tell you the truth.

But if we're honest with ourselves about where that truth comes from, what kind of love that actually is, sometimes it's a love because we just genuinely want what's best for them.

We want them to know Jesus.

But sometimes we say it's love, but really it's just behavior modification.

We just want them to look like we want them to look.

And we have to be really careful because outwardly they can sound the same, but inwardly they are worlds apart.

Because if our love only shows up when somebody agrees with us who's never love in the first place.

And that's why I saved this one for last.

Because how this lands depends on whether we've actually done the first few things.

See them as humans who have dignity made in God's image.

Learn their names, not to be cruel to them, and to love them compassionately, and then we get to speak truth into their lives.

But people don't care what you know until they know that you care.

And nobody cared more than Jesus.

So let's show them Jesus.

Amen?

Not some pretend version of him, but an authentic Jesus.

So in all things, we have to hold truth and grace together.

And this is probably the hardest thing I'm gonna have to say today.

This is probably the hardest thing I've said the last few weeks.

Not everybody wants to follow Jesus.

And that's heartbreaking.

And it should break our heart.

We want them to.

We genuinely should want people to, but some people will hear this truth and they'll reject it and they'll choose what they want.

But our calling isn't to transform people into who we think they should become.

Our calling is to stay faithful to Christ while loving them deeply.

And so say this: we cannot be surprised when the world behaves like the world.

And we cannot be surprised when people who don't recognize Jesus as their Lord and Savior don't live like Jesus is their Lord and Savior.

And so, yes, the church does have a responsibility to protect sound doctrine and to teach what scripture teaches, but we are not the Holy Spirit.

We don't transform hearts, we don't manufacture repentance, we speak truth and we love people and we invite them to the table and we point them to Jesus and we trust that the Spirit is going to do what only the Holy Spirit can do.

And so I know there are a million questions that I did not answer today.

And if I chose to answer some of the questions, I would be here till four o'clock, which would be fun for me and uh not so fun for you.

Um but instead I want to give us a framework.

And so when you find yourself in conversations, I want you to ask yourself these questions.

What response most faithfully reflects both the truth of Christ and the grace of Christ?

And what decision most faithfully points this person to Jesus?

Because if you start there, I promise you, you will be so much better equipped than if I just gave you a checklist.

Because I think sometimes we've forgotten a role.

We've convinced ourselves that our calling is to drag people to Jesus kicking and screaming.

That's not our calling.

It is our calling to share the gospel with anybody and everybody that we come in contact with.

But if we're going to ask people to repent, we should remember how.

And let us confess where we've been harsh and where we've been silent, where we've mistaken winning arguments for loving our neighbors, where we've loved being right more than we've loved people.

And we have to be a church that's willing to remove the log from our own eye before we get to touch the speck in a brother's, because the ground at the foot of the cross was never reserved for people that got it right.

It was offered to people who were willing to admit that they didn't.

And so when we engage with the world around us, we engage with the world that have hands that are lifted in worship, so we can't point them in judgment.

And we love people faithfully and point them back to Jesus.

Amen?

That was a quiet amen.

Church, go repenting as though you've been forgiven, loving as though you have been loved.

Hold truth and grace together, just as Christ held them together for us.

Amen?

Let me pray for us.

Lord, thank you for this opportunity as a church to be together, to make much of your Son Jesus together.

Lord, I pray that you give us people in our lives to have the truthful conversation with.

Lord, I ask that you give us an opportunity to lovingly share the gospel.

Lord, I confess my own and add just my own inability sometimes to do what is right because of my just human nature, my fallen nature.

Lord, I confess where I have fallen short.

I confess where I've been arrogant, where I have been unloving.

And Father, I ask that you just continue to transform my heart for people that don't know you, that are far from you, and you give me a desire to love them and to share the truth of Jesus with them.

Lord, we love you.

And I pray this over this church.

I pray that Spring Lake is known for loving you above all else.

We pray all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.