Unshaken | Finding Stability In An Unstable World (Sept. 19, 2021) Mike Armstrong

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, good morning, and uh welcome uh to uh to everybody here, everybody watching uh at home, welcome to you as well.

Looking forward to uh getting into God's word here in just a second.

Just I got one quick announcement to add before we uh jump into that.

Uh we have uh step one happening right after the service here.

For those of you who signed up, just FYI, new location.

It's gonna be happening like on the other side of this wall, right here after the service.

So if you walk out this way and hang a left, um you can go and you'll see it there, and we'll walk you through it.

Uh, what our what it means to be a part of our church, what our church is excited about, what we're passionate about, and I want to front load to you what God's doing here.

So uh excited to uh to meet with some of you there after the service.

All right, so Romans chapter one, Greg mentioned it.

Uh so thankful to have him back uh leading us again today.

Uh great to have him back in the house.

But Romans chapter one today is where uh we are going to be.

So get your Bibles uh turned over there.

Okay, now in the last, I don't know, two years or so, I feel like I've had more intense conversations with people, uh, believers and non-believers, uh, who are very concerned, very anxious, uh, angry, even depressed, I would even say, uh, by the state of the world.

Yeah, I've I've had more of those kind of conversations in the last, I feel like, year to two years than I've had in my 15 plus years of vocational ministry combined.

And never in my lifetime have I seen our world so mired in strife, it seems.

Right?

Just rage even, people losing it online and losing it in public even.

Uh there's confusion out there about what to believe and what is happening.

There is stress that is that is peaking.

Okay, whether it's about uh COVID, right?

All things COVID and all of the different responses and opinions about that, about the politics that are enmeshed with that, or the way the media is handling things and driving us to certain opinions and saying, you know, they've got an agenda, all of that.

Okay, but it's not just about that, I would say.

It's things like how society is just full, full on plunging into an extremely dangerous do what feels right mentality and approach to things like sexuality and gender.

You see things online and you're like, what?

What is happening there?

Right?

Or it's people trying to figure out how to handle themselves when it comes to issues of real actual racism.

Right?

It's out there, it exists.

It exists inside of us at times as well.

Okay, or or also I would add, um, people frustrated with the the culture's propensity to label everything racism.

Right?

It's it's all racism, even things that that aren't.

But our world these days, uh, I mean, it's gotten to the point to even engage on this, even bring this up.

Even what I just literally said, okay, it gets you branded a white supremacist.

Right?

It gets you, it gets you canceled, it gets you shut down.

Right?

There's just this grow, I mean, I've just looked at a couple of topics here.

There's a growing sense among people that you just can't speak up anymore about anything.

You gotta be so careful how you might say things, uh, an opinion that you might have, a biblical one.

You can't disagree with anybody without being told that you hate them, without being, again, canceled or deplatformed or ostracized or lose your livelihood.

It really just seems like the train of our society has come off the proverbial tracks, so to speak, even more, even more uh than usual in recent days.

Okay, the problem though is that when a train goes off the tracks, it typically slows down and comes to us to a halt.

But it feels like it's just kind of picking up steam, doesn't it?

It's getting like more out of control and more kind of wild.

Okay, so so all of this that I just kind of touched on there and more is why I've been just feeling for a while now like we need to tackle a series like this.

The world is churning right now.

It is boiling, it is it is spilling over, there's no question about it.

And to be able to be real honest about that, so are we.

I know that because I've talked to so many of you.

You've heard me talk as well.

Okay, but as Christ followers, right, as the church, we have to keep our wits about us.

We have to.

We have to understand what on earth is going on here from a biblical worldview.

Okay, we have to keep our eyes fixed on Christ to the madness.

Or listen, we're gonna get swept away.

And honestly, some have, and some are, and some will.

We're in desperate need as individuals, as families, as a church, to humble ourselves before God, maybe now more than ever, at least in my lifetime.

Okay, and we have to love.

That's the other thing, too.

We have to love.

Can I remind us of that?

We have to love the Lord through all of this.

We have to love each other through all of this.

There's so much division going on.

We have to love the world as well.

As crazy as it might be, as tempted as you might be to like, whoa, I'm backing away from all this.

Right?

I'm lighting a match, throwing it on the bridge, I'm out.

We gotta love them too.

Again, as crazy as it all might be.

Okay, so one of the things I've been laboring over in the last little while here and thinking about today's message, especially and the rest of the series, is that I think I'm trying to strike the right tone here.

I'm trying to strike the right balance between being honest, okay, being upfront with you all about some of these things, but being truthful about the issues, but without without fear-mongering.

Right, our media has a corner on that market already.

Right?

I don't I don't want to terrify everybody.

I don't want to freak everybody out.

I don't want to send everybody to the pit of despair.

Okay, not at all.

But at the same time, we have to focus on some of these things.

We have to understand some of the issues and some of the problems and look at the scriptures.

And so, with all of that, I present to you what is likely the darkest sounding outline that I have ever written.

Okay?

Okay, but don't worry, we're also gonna get ourselves to, I think a good place with this.

We're gonna get ourselves to plenty of hope, okay?

We're gonna get ourselves to joy, that's what we want.

We've got spiritual vitality for us and our loved ones, okay, today, and certainly we're gonna talk about a number of things in the weeks following.

Okay, so let me just read you the outline because it all flows as kind of one sentence, and then I'm gonna pray.

But here it is.

Our world is going crazy because the rejection of God and his truth has provoked his wrath, seen clearly in the moral deterioration our society is experiencing.

Like that's so heavy, right?

That really is.

But again, take heart, all right?

Take heart.

There's hope.

We're gonna we're gonna see the hope baked into even a passage like this.

So I don't know about you, but I'm feeling like we need to pray.

Okay, let's pray.

God, we come before you and man, I know our hearts are burdened, our hearts are heavy, I know mine is, I know many of us are.

I know that um in a group this size, we're gonna be, you know, on different sides of various issues.

And and Lord, I pray that we would not we would not let these things divide us.

I pray, Lord, that we would love.

I pray that we would give room for people to have different opinions than us.

Lord, I pray that we would also understand the issues.

I pray that we would dive deep into them.

I pray that we wouldn't just take, you know, a newscaster's word for it or something we read on Twitter as gospel truth, Lord.

I pray that we would we would look at your word as truth.

And so, Lord, as we are so confused and so uptight and stress is rising, God, I pray that you would bring us comfort today.

Even a passage like this that just gives it to us.

God, I pray that in that we would see your love.

I pray that we would see your kindness.

Lord, I pray that you would teach us, you would instruct us, you would bring stability to us, that you that Jesus Christ would be glorified.

Help us now, we pray.

In your name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, so unpacking this outline a little bit here, here's the first thing.

Hey, our world is going crazy.

Agree, disagree?

Agreed, yeah, like agreed.

World's going crazy because the rejection of God and his truth has provoked his wrath.

Okay, provoked his wrath.

Now you may be wondering, like, why Romans 1?

Like, why would you find this place as a place that we need to talk about today?

Well, uh, because personally, Romans 1, this passage, has brought me a ton of stability during these days.

It's brought me a lot of calm to my frayed nerves, to be perfectly honest with you.

And sometimes my my angstiness, my my fearfulness in my emotions over the last year or two.

Because what it does is it just shows us here that how much God loves us.

That's what I think we see in Romans chapter 1.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

He loves us enough to help us understand why the world is at times a dumpster fire.

Right?

Why it is like that.

You and I don't need to be and shouldn't be, surprised.

We shouldn't be confused by what's going on out there.

Because this passage uh tells us straight up here's what's going on, here's what's gonna happen, here's where it's going.

It's just razor-sharp clarity for us.

We need to have this locked in.

As people are talking to you and they're fearful, point them to this passage as well.

Learn to understand it and encourage others with it.

So let's start in verse 18, okay?

Romans 1, verse 18.

Romans 1:18

We're gonna go down to the end this morning, but here's what it says.

Starts off nice and light, okay, for the wrath of God.

Okay, there we go.

The wrath of God.

Okay, so wrath is God's God's intense displeasure towards sin.

Intense displeasure.

Okay, so for the wrath of God is revealed, okay, meaning that it's it's poured out.

We're seeing it.

It's revealed from heaven against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their, notice this, by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

That's a really key line here.

It's important.

We're gonna come back to that.

But keep going.

Verse 19 says, for what can be known about God is plain, meaning it's obvious.

Okay, what can be known about God's existence is is obvious to them, meaning the unbelieving world, okay?

Because God has shown it to them.

Verse 20.

It says, for his invisible attributes, remember we've been talking about his attributes over the last series, over the last couple of months, actually.

Okay, it says, for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived.

Okay, clearly perceived by people ever since the creation of the world.

How?

In the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse.

Okay, so what this is saying so far is that humanity has brought about God's wrath and we deserve it.

Yeah, that's rest easy in that.

Right?

It has.

It's brought about God's wrath.

We deserve it.

These verses tell us here that God has made his existence known.

Okay, creation itself, it says the things that have been made in verse 20, right, it is God's plain or obvious way of declaring to the universe, of declaring to mankind that He He exists.

I am real.

There's a creator.

Right?

You and I, we consider a bunch of things.

We can we consider the complexities of the central nervous system.

Okay, that sentence right there is as far as I could even explain it to you.

Okay?

Like the the central nervous system is wild.

You think about the complexities of that.

Or or the intricate shifting of seasons and and weather patterns that that we can set our watch to every single year.

Right?

Or the solar system.

Right?

How that operates, how that functions with such a precise and perfect balance.

Everything's spinning and moving around perfectly, just as the as the Lord created it and is holding it up.

Okay, all of it and so many more examples that we could go through are God's way of whispering and honestly sometimes shouting and declaring to us that He exists.

Okay, the problem though is that man or men or men and women is what it's saying, due to our unrighteousness.

I'm speaking generally here of the world, not talking specifically of the church, but but because of our unrighteousness, we've suppressed all of that truth.

Everything that God is declaring to us, we've we've pushed it away.

We observe the power, we we observe the awesomeness of nature, we we observe the impressive abilities that God has given men, and we fail to accept, see or surrender ourselves to the truth that there's a divine being behind all of it.

Okay, but realize here, it's not due to a lack of smarts.

God gave us amazing brains.

It's not due to um a lack of awareness that we that we fail to miss this.

It's not it's not like anyone can can claim to have a legit excuse for denying the existence of God.

It says that we are without excuse.

We're without excuse.

And it's because man has, remember, we come back to it?

We have suppressed the truth.

So God has told us time and time again, He's shown us in creation, this is who I am.

There's there's so there's so many truths about God and about the world that we have taken and we've said, no, you know what, I don't I don't want it.

I'm gonna push, I'm gonna push it down.

We're suppressing it, we're keeping it from coming up and leading us.

Right?

So so as a as a nation, not as a nation, as as humanity, we we've pushed this down so far.

We've rejected the Lord over and over and over and over again.

Truth is, and people don't believe in truth anymore.

Or or they say they do, but it's my truth, your truth.

Believe your truth, live your truth.

It's people just doing whatever they want and rejection of God's truth.

Like that's what that's what's happening here, and that's a huge problem, and why we are where we are now.

Okay, so understand, this is uh an intentional, willful, deep in our hearts, full-scale rejection of God, which has provoked him to reveal his wrath on the world.

It's deserved and it's necessary.

Why is it necessary?

Well, because God is good.

Because God is just, he has to deal with the problem of sin, he has to deal with evil, he hates evil.

Now, verse 21, take a look, it dives even further into what happens as humanity rejects God and his existence and his rulership.

It says, for although they knew God, it's not talking about like an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ, it means that they were they were aware deep down, we're hardwired with within that he exists.

So we knew somewhere within us that there is a God.

Although they knew God, they did not honor him.

Meaning worship.

We don't love him, we're not worshiping him.

So we didn't honor him as God or give thanks to him.

There's no gratitude for who he is and what he's done.

But they became, look at this word, futile.

Futile in their thinking.

Okay, futile means useless.

We become useless, we have futile in our thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Man, what a verse that is.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools.

Okay, verse 23 says, and exclaim and exchange the glory.

Remember, we talked about glory just last Sunday.

We've exchanged the glory of God, the beauty of God, as we defined it very simply.

We've exchanged his surpassing greatness, you know, of the immortal God, it says, for something far, far inferior.

It tells us there, images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

It's talking about idolatry.

It was John Calvin that said our our hearts are idol factories.

Our hearts have exchanged worship of God who is truly awesome, and we've replaced that with things.

Like in North American culture, many of us, you know, we don't have idols literally in our house that we that we bow down to.

But we have we have vehicles that we think are awesome.

We have the latest iPhones that we think are awesome.

We worship being on social media and showing everybody how awesome we are.

We we there's all kinds of money, like there's there's all kinds of things that we worship.

These are the idols of our day.

See, I've I found this passage though so so helpful and actually reassuring to me because it gives such a clear explanation as to why the world is going so crazy.

Right?

And and and people, and people everywhere have lost their minds in in so many ways.

And that's because we we we literally have.

Like we've actually lost our minds.

We we become futile in our thinking, useless.

Right?

Our our thought pro uh processes are are corrupt, they're messed up, right?

They really are.

Their foolish hearts were darkened, it tells us.

They claim to be wise.

How many people fronting themselves as experts on things?

Right?

Everyone's an expert now.

Claiming to be wise, they become fools.

Right?

We have you know all of our theories and our explanations as people for the existence of the universe, and we call it evolution, and we call it all kinds of other things, and you know, it all just kind of came out of a big pile of goo, and here we are, and it's so complex, and wow, isn't that neat?

Everyone in the, you know, the world has their solutions for how the world can improve and become better, and if we would just do this and we would just do that, listen, it's all foolishness.

It's all foolishness.

The Bible tells us this.

You know, now don't allow yourself to get caught off guard by all this or or despair here.

Because again, God is, you know, he's given us these verses to help us understand why things the way are the way that they are.

You don't have to wonder what's going on out there.

Like Romans 1 tells us very straight up.

Okay, on top of that, keep in mind that Paul wrote this like almost 2,000 years ago.

Okay, so while things like COVID and Trudeau and CBC's agenda and you know, all those narratives being shoved down our throats all the time, well, those things didn't exist way back then when this was written.

Similar attitudes did.

Worse tyrants existed.

Absolutely.

All those kind of things, those injustices, all the nonsense, it's it's it's always been there and it always will be there until Christ returns.

So I think we can take at least some measure of comfort.

And I think allow ourselves to just kind of calm down, take a deep breath here a little bit, and have some clarity, knowing that God is letting us know here that it's always been the common experience for Christians to feel the way that we're feeling when we survey the culture or observe the crazy landscape of our day.

That's a common experience.

In Canada and the US, we have lived fat and lazy for way too long.

And now we're just starting to see like some things that really aren't very great.

And in many, many, many generations before us have seen all of this, and let's be honest, way worse.

Way, way worse.

Right?

We're to use our the insight and the understanding we get here from Romans 1 and God's word and use these verses to prepare ourselves for whatever's coming, to prepare our families, our kids.

Man, I've been thinking about our kids so much, have you?

Like, what is the world that our kids are living in and are gonna be growing up in?

To prepare our families, to prepare each other.

You know, on one hand, to simply know that what we're experiencing is the wrath of God being revealed.

We can explain it that way very simply, which again, though, is admittedly kind of freaky, right?

I think it's okay to admit that.

You know, as Christians suffer the residual effects of a world that's rejected God, but not to stay in that place.

To then ready our hearts and ready our minds and strengthen our spines and our volition for whatever's ahead.

To be resolute here, to be unwavering going forward in our commitment to the Lord through his Holy Spirit's power.

That's what we're gonna need in copious amounts.

And to stand for Christ.

We're gonna be tempted to cave.

We already are, be tempted to cave on truth.

We're gonna need courage, we're gonna need, we're gonna need wisdom.

Okay, more on those things and coming messages in the next few weeks.

We'll get into more of that, don't worry, but for now, let's keep going here.

Okay, our world is going crazy because, again, the rejection of God and his truth has provoked his wrath.

Here's the second thing.

Seen clearly in the moral deterioration our society is experiencing.

Okay, so again, remember, man has suppressed the truth.

Okay, we've done that, we've done that in all kinds of different areas.

We've we've suppressed God himself, we've we we've suppressed his existence, his ways, which is you know, quite actually caused people to lose their minds.

We don't think straight anymore.

We don't have the ability to really do that.

And you know, it's caused God to release his wrath, which again we deserve, mankind does.

Now, verse 24 and and onwards gives us uh a snapshot really of what this ends up looking like.

Okay, and heads up, warning, it's not real pretty.

It's just a steady progression of moral deterioration that ultimately cripples society's ability to function properly.

Okay, take a look at verse 24.

It says, Therefore, God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts, to impurity, to the dishonoring of their body uh bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie.

We've exchanged that and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen.

Verse 26.

For this reason, God gave them up.

Notice that's the second time he uses that phrase.

God gave them up to dishonorable passions.

Okay, and here's some examples for us.

He says, For their women exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

Okay, so we're we're talking homosexual relations, just to be clear here and up front about that.

Okay, then verse 27 continues, it says, And the men likewise gave up natural reactions with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men, and receiving in themselves, this is an interesting phrase, the due penalty for their error.

Okay, what that little phrase there at the end likely is referring to, I actually like what the ESV Study Bible says about it, but it's likely referring to some kind of you know emotional or spiritual or physical damage that is actually done to themselves when people pursue these passions and these shameless acts.

Now, I want to say a couple of really important things here.

Okay, first of all, it's it's clear that the Bible addresses and condemns homosexual sin.

Okay, it does.

In the New Testament.

And another passage would be 1 Corinthians 6.

You can write that down and read it sometime.

I'm kind of amazed, though, over the last number of years, how many professing believers deny the New Testament's teaching about these things.

You know, or they say things like, well, you know, Jesus never mentioned it directly and explicitly, and so therefore it's it's okay to go in those directions.

Okay, but let's not remember who wrote the New Testament?

Jesus.

Right?

He wrote it.

Right?

You know, the triune God inspired human authors to put to pen to paper and give us the scriptures.

Okay, so let's not let's not forget that.

And it's in Genesis where we see that God's design and his intention is that sexual relationships be between husband and wife.

He created two genders, man and woman.

And the rest of the scriptures all the way through are consistent with that teaching.

Okay, what we see here in Romans 1 is that homosexual activity or passions, passions meaning giving yourself over to that, pursuing all of that, okay, it's the result of ultimately denying God's existence and suppressing truth.

This is what God says.

And deep down I think we we know that, and yet some are like, I just want to do what I want to do.

I want to live how I want to live.

Again, it's a result of our fallen human nature that that some people struggle with.

Just like how some people struggle with anger or or gossip or any other litany of sins more than others do.

And so I want to encourage us here to hold the line on what the Bible uh says about all this.

And cling to 2 Corinthians 6, verse 11, where you know, after listening homosexuality in a list of various sins, he says, such were some of you.

2 Corinthians 6:11

Talking to the church, such were some of you.

How encouraging is that for those who battle this, showing that the Lord redeems, right?

He transforms sinners with all types of struggles, including this one.

Okay, and I want to say this too, because this is also important.

Okay, the the more the more the world rejects God, the more Christians and and and churches are gonna be faced with LGBTQ issues.

And I will be the first to admit, as a pastor, that we have not really done historically a good job of this.

As the church, we've been brutal.

We've been horrible, we've been judgmental, we've been we've been mean and cruel.

Okay, we tend to, as the church, fall into one of two ditches.

I talk about ditches a lot.

Because I see people swinging pendulums and falling into ditches one one way or the other.

Because it's easy to do.

Okay, one ditch that we fall into with this is the harsh ditch.

Harshness, where we're insensitive to people that are wrestling and struggling with this, we're ungracious, we're incredibly self-righteous in our condemnation.

Right?

How many heterosexual people, Christians, have condemned homosexuality, yet they are deeply entrenched in pornography?

Hypocrites.

Right?

And we've done this over for decades.

Sometimes we're just flat out mean and we reject those that that battle in this area.

I want to give you a quick example of how I saw this happen once.

It was bad.

I remember it was uh 2003.

Okay, I was at a I was at a men's conference, massive men's conference.

I won't name which one it was, but um I was uh I was 22 at the time, uh, which means I knew nothing.

I had like no discernment in life.

Um I was just trying to figure some things out in terms of my Christian walk, just started you know to get the the gears turning in in terms of following Christ.

And that was, you remember 2003, for those of us who are old enough, remember that was when Ontario was looking to legalize same-sex marriage.

Okay, and and it was it wasn't happening yet.

And I remember uh some leaders got up on the stage and they were, you know, have they had a petition where we could sign to to not see this go through as a country.

And you know, I don't have a problem with petitions, I feel like I've signed a hundred of them in the last like six months.

Okay, but but but the way that it was being handled was ugh.

Okay, and and the guy stood up there, and at one point, I mean, picture a room with like 800 men.

Okay, the guy's up there and he's he's ranting and he's raving and talking about the evils of it, and he's doing all of that stuff, and then at one point he yells out, it's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

Okay, and what was the response?

The response was laughter, the response was cheering.

And I remember sitting there being like, this ain't it.

Like it was the cringiest moment ever, and just an example of how we have we have marginalized people that genuinely struggle.

My first thought, even as a dumb 22-year-old, was like, man, how many dudes in here right now are wrestling with this very thing, and now they'll never open up to another Christian?

It was it was disgraceful.

Right?

This is the kind of example of the ditch we tend to fall into.

It was harsh.

We can fall into that ditch, I'm sure some of us tend to.

Okay, or we can fall into the other one.

I'll call it the progressive ditch, where we deny what God's word says.

We deny the truth of it.

We we love to redefine sin.

We all say, well, did God really say?

Guess who else said that?

He was a snake, literally, he was in the garden.

Satan, I'll just say it.

Satan said that, right?

But we like to do that.

Well, did God really say, we like that, well, does this verse, well, yeah, but what about this context?

And what about, I've heard people say, what about David and Jonathan?

Their relationship.

Like they were friends, that's what the Bible says.

Okay?

Drop that.

That's a bad argument.

Okay, but we we love to just because we want to feel comfortable about certain things.

We we we want our preferences to be okay, desperately, we want that.

Instead of surrendering to the Lord.

I mean, I have had conversations with parents who once held to what the Bible says about these things, only to completely reverse course.

Why?

Well, because their their son or their daughter comes out, shares with them that they they struggle with same-sex attraction.

And tell them, tell their parents, I'm going in this direction.

And the parents, as in some misguided attempt to love them better, they're like, I'm gonna affirm everything that you're doing.

I'm I'm gonna go after all of that, and I'm gonna support you all the way.

And and people have completely turned their backs on the church.

Some are extremely vocal and anti in all of these things.

Pastors, even, are doing this now.

Right?

A guy like Josh Harris, some of you have heard of him, the I kissed dating goodbye guy.

Like he's gone completely reversed.

And many of us, many people, are doing that kind of thing.

Listen, the path that we're to take as believers is to hold to the truth of the scriptures and show immense grace.

Like that's it.

Jesus came full of grace and truth.

We are to be like Christ, be truthful and love people that are battling.

Okay, understand that the more that the world rejects God, the more the church is going to be dealing with and facing these messed up and hurting people, which any heterosexual person in the church is too.

We're all messed up.

Do we know this?

Or is it just other people that we look down our nose at because their struggle is a little different than ours?

We're all a disaster and need Jesus.

We really are.

Just in different ways than maybe those who struggle with LGBTQ issues, you know, gender confusion, all of that.

So listen, I want to encourage you here.

I know I'm getting fired up, but I want to encourage you to prepare yourself for the right response if or when someone should be so so bold and courageous to let you in on their struggle.

You actually have to think about that and prepare yourself for if maybe one of your kids or a neighbor or someone in your small group, somebody in the church comes to you and says, Listen, I am I am battling with this.

If you're not prepared for that, your jaw's gonna hit the floor.

Guess what kind of message that's gonna send?

What, you're that messed up?

Right?

Do you re- do we really wanna be sending that kind of message as the church?

Do we wanna be like, oh, well, you know, I well, I don't know, I don't know if you're really sure what to say, but um, yeah, let me I'm gonna try and get a pastor to pray with you.

Like that that's probably not the greatest reaction either.

We need to appreciate the honesty that people want to show.

We need to give them, which church needs to be a safe place to wrestle through this stuff.

It really does.

And I'm afraid and fearful and saddened by the fact that we have not made church a safe place for people to wrestle.

Not just with this, with a lot of things.

Less of the shocked reaction.

Much more grace, much more love, much more moving towards the person in relationship.

Not, ooh, that person's a leper, send them outside the city.

No, move towards them, encourage them.

You don't understand and have the same battle, sure, but it doesn't mean we're to, you know, stay away from me.

Leper.

No, patience.

We need to be patient with people.

Why?

Because we need people to be patient with us too, as we all grapple and struggle.

We need to be kind.

Not nice Canadians, I hate that word, I've said it so many times, kind.

Biblically, kind and full of truth as well.

Listen, the world needs us on this.

If it's not the church, who's it gonna be?

Now, listen, we gotta keep going here, of course.

Verse 28, look at it with me.

It says, and and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, okay, so just full on denial.

Notice again, God gave them up.

Okay, so third time he uses those words.

God gave them up to a debased mind.

Debased means immoral.

God's given them over.

We suppress the truth so long, he's like, all right, I'll let you walk down that path.

Let's see how that works out for you.

He's given us over to a debased mind.

It says, to do what ought not to be done.

And it says there in verse 29, they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness.

All manner.

And it gives us like a junk drawer list of various sins that we can expect to see as people succumb to a debased mind.

Take a look.

Evil.

Okay, that's just very general, of course.

Evil, covetousness, malice.

Malice is an intention to do wrong, an intention to do and commit evil.

It says they are full of envy, murder, strife.

Strife is conflict.

Right?

It's just something like Twitter.

You go on Twitter just constant back and forth.

Right?

It's constant strife.

It's deceit.

It's maliciousness.

Maliciousness is intentional harm.

We see people intentionally harming each other.

It says they're gossips.

Verse 30 says, slanderers, haters of God, insolent.

Insolent means like this incredibly rude arrogance.

It says that they're haughty.

Haughty means like this superiority complex.

I'm better than you.

I've figured this out.

This is what we're gonna see.

It says boastful, inventors of evil.

What a line that is.

We like God gives us order.

It's like they can just make up stuff now.

How many of you have like seen those TikTok videos of people online spouting off about the next gender?

No, and like redefining it, and there's like a hundred of them now, and and they're there's they're making stuff up.

It's inventors of evil.

It says that they're disobedient to parents.

We've probably all seen that.

You just see here that there's this there's this disrespect for authority that's that's deteriorating quick.

The school now has more power than you do as a parent.

Right?

Kids have more authority than you do.

They can make, they can do gender reassignment surgeries.

Parents have have little authority in these things.

This is dark.

It says that they're foolish, it says that they're faithless, they're heartless, they're ruthless.

Verse 32, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.

They not only do them, it says, but give approval to those who practice them.

Right, I got ahead of myself earlier, but this is the like live your truth part.

Oh, that's great.

You're you're sharing us your, you know, your warped vision of how you want to live your life and go do things.

Live your truth, man, go do it.

I'm giving you approval.

I mean, we could probably spend all day talking through the various ways that these sins are manifesting in our world and are creeping into our churches and they're poisoning hearts and minds and destroying lives.

Okay, at this point, though, again, is that humanity's rebellion, wide-scale rejection of the Lord and of objective truth, it just seen so clearly in the world, right?

And the way that society is just disintegrating morally.

So listen, I've said a lot.

We're just kind of scratching the surface here on where I hope we go.

We're gonna be talking about over the next little while.

This is likely the heaviest of them.

Okay, going forward, we're we're looking to get into the Lord's sovereignty and how he's still on the throne despite all of this and despite what we see and we experience.

We're looking at how do we prepare ourselves a little bit better to be able to face some of these things as the future unravels?

How do we prepare our children?

We're gonna discuss the importance of having an eternal perspective, not having our eyes glued on the here and now, but like on what the Lord is actually doing throughout eternity.

We're gonna talk a lot about the unity of the church, so many different opinions and values on things like vaccines and passports and all kinds of stuff.

So, I mean, I think lots of good stuff ahead.

But for now, I think we need to pray.

I think that's been on my heart for a little while here.

I can just imagine I've been thinking and praying for you already throughout this week of just like this is landing on you like a massive tidal wave, I'm sure, and there's grief that you're experiencing.

As you think about all this, it's heavy.

And so we need to pray, and we're gonna do that right now.

We're not gonna end in song like we've been doing over the last little while, but we're just gonna pray, you know, individually or in your families, in your little groups.

You can move your chairs around if you need to do uh all of that.

And you don't have to whisper, you don't have to be super quiet here.

It's okay if if you're loud.

Greg's gonna come on up and and he's gonna play on the guitar as we're doing this, but take the next, you know, five, ten minutes, whatever it is that you need to pray.

And we're not gonna have everything on the screen for you.

Uh you can pray.

I'm sure there are lots of things that are weighing on you right now, and you're gonna know how to pray.

If I could give you a couple of things we need to pray for the world.

Okay, that's very general.

We need to pray for our country.

There's an election happening tomorrow.

Okay, get out there and vote.

I will say that.

Make sure you do your study and do your research and understand what all the platforms are talking about here.

Not just the one or two or whatever that keep getting shoved at.

Understand what's going on so you can make an educated decision.

Right?

Make sure that we vote.

Pray for our country in this.

A huge, huge election, I think.

We need to pray for ourselves and our own spirits, our own hearts and all of this.

We need to pray for our kids, again, our our marriages and our kids, our families.

That's been that's been on my mind so much these days.

We need to pray for all of that.

We need to pray for our church, certainly.

For the unity of the church, banding together.

We're gonna need each other more than ever.

We've gotten away for way too long to be able to live individualistic lives, let's be honest.

So many of us come home, we drive in our garage, close the door, don't talk to anybody.

We live life on social media, it's not life.

Right?

We know people very surfacey, it's not gonna cut it going forward.

We're gonna we need each other.

We're gonna need to be real here, we're gonna need to be honest.

We're gonna have to take off the masks, all of them, I hope, someday.

But I mean, the the the ones that are masks over our souls, we need each other.

Pray for these things.

And pray for our world, pray for our for our culture, pray for our town.

We love this town.

We love the towns that we're we're we're we live in, that we're surrounding.

Pray for that.

The Lord would use us powerfully.

I'm gonna pray and close us and then launch you into prayer, and then we'll go from there, all right?

Let me pray.

God, we thank you for this time.

Thank you for this word, Lord.

I know it hits like a sledgehammer.

But God, we thank you for it because it gives clarity.

Lord, some of us probably, I would imagine, just need a wake-up call.

We've got our heads in the sands here, in the sand.

And it's been la la la, ears plugged, going around, doing whatever we want.

Lord, it's it's it's that's headed nowhere good.

So help us to be aware, help us to be alert, give us sound minds, Lord, give us soft hearts, Lord, give us humility, give us strong spines, Lord.

This is what we need.

I need this.

My family needs this.

All of our families need this, Lord.

Our church needs it, our world needs it.

Lord, we submit the the election that's happening this week uh to you, God, and know that you are on the throne no matter what.

God, would you move and would you work for your glory through all of that?

God, would you work in New Market and help us to make deep connections with people?

Help them, help us to have the courage and the boldness to show them what is true, to give them words of life, to show them that Jesus Christ wants to save us from all of this nonsense, save us from ourselves.

Lord, I pray in all of this we would be filled with faith.

We'd be filled with with joy, even, Lord.

Joy that surpasses the understanding that we're that our eyes see.

Lord, would you do this again to the glory of Jesus Christ?

We pray all this in your name.

Amen.