WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.860 The scripture reading comes from Genesis chapter 1. Please follow along the screen, the bulletin, 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:10.480 or your own Bible. Starting in verse 26, we read, 00:00:11.419 --> 00:00:18.620 Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the 00:00:18.620 --> 00:00:24.420 fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, 00:00:24.420 --> 00:00:31.920 and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. 00:00:32.620 --> 00:00:39.939 In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. 00:00:40.680 --> 00:00:48.900 And God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it. And in verse 31, 00:00:48.899 --> 00:00:56.659 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came, and then morning, 00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:04.659 the sixth day. This is the word of God. Okay, great. Thank you, Betty. Let's pray together as we 00:01:04.659 --> 00:01:12.120 respond to God's word. Heavenly Father, we need you every hour of every day. 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:20.840 God, our lives have been made by you, created by you, for your glory, and our good. And Father, 00:01:20.900 --> 00:01:26.820 we come to you this morning, because you are the one that not only knows us the best, 00:01:26.900 --> 00:01:32.300 but you love us the most. Father, as we look at this passage, and as we look at this topic, 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:39.600 we ask for your wisdom. We ask, Christ, that you really will help us to get clarity, and to think 00:01:39.599 --> 00:01:46.219 through these things, with the mind of Christ. God, this is a topic which is not just academic, 00:01:46.219 --> 00:01:53.560 and theoretical. It involves such deep pain, and trauma, for so many people. And we pray, God, for 00:01:53.560 --> 00:02:00.280 not only clarity of what your word says, but the accompanying grace that you offer. Jesus, 00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:05.579 you came to our world full of grace, and truth. And we pray that we, as a church, will be the same. 00:02:05.579 --> 00:02:09.539 And so we ask this morning, God, for your spirit to be here. We ask that you speak to our hearts 00:02:09.539 --> 00:02:15.520 and minds. And God, as we say all the time, if there's anything that I say which is not of you, 00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:20.539 and doesn't correspond with your will, Lord, I pray to fall on deaf ears. God, we want to know your 00:02:20.539 --> 00:02:26.319 will, your word, your mind this morning. As we pray this in your wonderful, and your gracious, 00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:29.359 and your tender name. Amen. 00:02:31.799 --> 00:02:38.340 Laura Perry grew up in a home in the middle of the U.S., the Midwest, a home that by all accounts 00:02:38.340 --> 00:02:44.479 looked like a very healthy and happy home, but was deeply broken inside. When she grew up, 00:02:44.699 --> 00:02:50.180 she had two brothers, and it was obvious that her mom, with whom she had a very broken relationship, 00:02:50.799 --> 00:02:54.919 favored her brothers. And her brothers got all the attention, and she was sidelined. 00:02:54.919 --> 00:03:02.079 And so from a very young age, she couldn't help think, if only I was born a boy, I would have been 00:03:02.079 --> 00:03:09.060 loved and accepted in this family. Soon after that, at the age of eight, she was molested by another boy 00:03:09.060 --> 00:03:15.279 at a similar age, and she became hyper-sexualized. And so she soon was addicted to pornography. 00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:23.799 In high school and at college, she was extremely sexually active, finding people online, anyone that 00:03:23.800 --> 00:03:28.719 she could sleep with. Whether she knew them or not, she would drive across the state to find them, 00:03:29.140 --> 00:03:36.219 and engage in sexual encounters. But ironically, she says the more that she threw herself at people 00:03:36.219 --> 00:03:41.939 sexually, in order of looking for love and affection, the more they treated her like trash. 00:03:43.020 --> 00:03:48.439 And so being anxious and depressed, thinking that, realizing nothing was satisfying her, 00:03:48.439 --> 00:03:54.680 she hears about this thing called the transgender identity, and what it means. And she remembers her 00:03:54.680 --> 00:04:01.840 childhood fantasies of thinking, if only I was a boy. And she starts to wonder, maybe the problem is 00:04:01.840 --> 00:04:07.360 that actually I'm a man trapped in a lady's body. And so she explores this for a couple of years, 00:04:07.439 --> 00:04:14.180 she goes to some support groups, she eventually socially transitions to a man. And in 2009, 00:04:14.180 --> 00:04:23.160 she starts hormone treatment, her shoulders broaden, her voice breaks, she grows facial hair. And later 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:28.819 on that year, she goes for surgery. She has a double mastectomy, she legally changes her name, 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:37.100 she legally changes her sex from female to male. And in her mind, Laura is dead, and Jake is now 00:04:37.100 --> 00:04:43.939 alive. And so Laura transitions to Jake Perry. We'll pick up on that story a little later. 00:04:44.180 --> 00:04:49.040 As we've said this morning, we are talking about transgenderism. We've been looking at all these 00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:54.060 big topics in the Bible. And there's so much to say, you're going to need to try and stay with me. 00:04:54.100 --> 00:04:59.199 I'm going to see how much we can cover this morning. I want to say just by way of introduction, 00:04:59.420 --> 00:05:06.220 a couple of things. The first thing is this. The subject or the topic of transgenderism is a very 00:05:06.220 --> 00:05:14.500 complex subject. It's extremely complicated. And Andrew Bunt, who's from the UK and dealt with 00:05:14.500 --> 00:05:20.940 this quite a lot, he writes and he says that while transgenderism is one of the most prominent topics 00:05:20.940 --> 00:05:26.020 in our culture at the moment, it's also one of the most complicated. And in order to partake of this 00:05:26.020 --> 00:05:31.820 conversation, we need to grapple with theology, what the Bible says, but also things like biology, 00:05:31.819 --> 00:05:39.019 psychology, medicine, philosophy, psychology, and politics, all while keeping in mind that the 00:05:39.019 --> 00:05:45.079 people we're talking about are not just issues. They're real people that are made by God, created 00:05:45.079 --> 00:05:51.240 by God, loved by God, and who are experiencing considerable distress. And so it's a very, very 00:05:51.240 --> 00:05:57.819 complex topic that can go in many directions. The second thing to think about is the diversity of 00:05:57.819 --> 00:06:03.800 people's experiences. Preston Sprinkle says, if you ask 12 different people about their experience 00:06:03.800 --> 00:06:08.839 of transgenderism, you're probably going to get 15 different answers. And he's not trying to be funny, 00:06:08.939 --> 00:06:13.740 but what he's saying is that you can't just pigeonhole and say, well, all transgender people are like this. 00:06:14.159 --> 00:06:20.600 There's a wide diversity of experiences of trauma, of background, of reason, of understanding of what 00:06:20.600 --> 00:06:25.399 people, why it's brought people to where they're at. And the third thing to say by introduction 00:06:25.399 --> 00:06:32.779 is that while we can talk about transgenderism, actually, it's not really an issue or debate or 00:06:32.779 --> 00:06:39.019 principle. This is actually a topic about people. It's about people that are dearly loved, that are 00:06:39.019 --> 00:06:45.639 created by God. And while this can be new to us, and we're trying to understand the concept, what we 00:06:45.639 --> 00:06:52.079 need to be absolutely clear on is that this whole topic is about people that God made and Jesus went to 00:06:52.079 --> 00:06:57.919 the cross for. And so we've got to really personalize that and realize that this isn't just a policy or 00:06:57.919 --> 00:07:04.180 debate or an issue. This is people that we love. It could be family members. It could be people here 00:07:04.180 --> 00:07:08.579 this morning. And then the fourth thing I want to say is that we might be tempted to think, oh, okay, 00:07:08.599 --> 00:07:14.099 this is a Western issue, right? But here in Hong Kong, we're a conservative culture. But it'd be good to 00:07:14.099 --> 00:07:20.039 realize this is front and center in what's happening in the young people of Hong Kong ourselves. I just 00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:25.960 had to say to some friends this morning that we're saying at a school here in Hong Kong, kids aged nine 00:07:25.960 --> 00:07:30.819 and 10 were being taught in the classroom. There are 16 different genders that you can choose from, 00:07:31.240 --> 00:07:36.140 and you need to choose what is your gender, nine and 10 years old. And so right here in our city, 00:07:36.220 --> 00:07:44.000 this is very current and very real, okay? So that's by way of introduction. Four things I want us to look at 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:50.839 today. Firstly, what is transgenderism? Secondly, what does scripture say about gender and humanity? 00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:57.759 Thirdly, what does the gospel say about our identity? And fourthly, what does all this mean for us as a 00:07:57.759 --> 00:08:04.639 watermark family? Okay, so firstly, what is transgenderism? Let's try and understand the concept a little bit. 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:09.620 In order to understand it, we need to understand a bunch of terms. And there's four terms I want us 00:08:09.620 --> 00:08:18.220 to think about. Sex, gender, gender dysphoria, and transgender. So what do these terms mean? Well, 00:08:18.420 --> 00:08:27.060 up until about the 1970s, generally as society, we use the word sex and gender interchangeably. Okay, 00:08:27.060 --> 00:08:33.279 it was seen as the one and the same thing. I'm a male sex, I have male masculine gender, okay? Or female, 00:08:33.460 --> 00:08:39.159 female gender and sex. We use those terms interchangeably. But in the last 50 years, that has changed. And 00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:45.399 there's a distinction now in our language, we talk about sex and gender. Sex is the biological 00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:53.000 reality of your body, whether someone is biologically male or female. Men have XY chromosomes, 00:08:53.480 --> 00:08:59.500 women have XX chromosomes. These result in physiological and hormonal differences in men and 00:08:59.500 --> 00:09:04.779 women. And what that means is that our bodies, right from the way that our bodies look and our 00:09:04.779 --> 00:09:09.860 reproductive organs, right down to the cells in our body, there's a difference in the physiological 00:09:09.860 --> 00:09:15.419 makeup of the human body. Okay, that's pretty straightforward. No one really disagrees with that. 00:09:16.139 --> 00:09:21.980 Second thing is gender. Now, like I said, up until 50 years ago, gender and sex were considered the 00:09:21.980 --> 00:09:28.139 same thing. But now, when we talk about gender, it's much more complicated. And Mark Yorhaus, who is 00:09:28.139 --> 00:09:34.860 really an expert in this, defines gender as referring to the psychological, the social, 00:09:35.259 --> 00:09:41.919 and the cultural aspects of being male or female. So it's not so much a physiological body, it's the way 00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:48.039 that we think and feel about ourselves, both personally, but also in the way that we relate to 00:09:48.039 --> 00:09:54.580 others. So the psychological, the social, and the cultural aspect of being male or female. And there's 00:09:54.580 --> 00:10:00.340 three things that we need to think about this. There's gender identity, so which is how do I feel 00:10:00.340 --> 00:10:06.020 about myself personally? I may be biologically male, but how do I think about myself? Do I think 00:10:06.020 --> 00:10:12.360 of myself as male or female? That's gender identity. Secondly is gender expression. This has to do with 00:10:12.360 --> 00:10:19.680 things like dress code, the way you act, the way you express your gender. And then the third thing 00:10:19.679 --> 00:10:24.919 is gender roles, which is a culture's expectations for how males and females should act. 00:10:25.399 --> 00:10:32.179 Okay? Now, like we said, we've often thought of these, or let me say it this way. Up until recently, 00:10:32.620 --> 00:10:39.179 up until this generation, we've always believed as a culture and society and humanity that biological 00:10:39.179 --> 00:10:46.379 sex and internal gender go hand in hand, that they're connected. And that gender follows on from sex. 00:10:46.379 --> 00:10:53.360 If your biological sex, the genetic wiring of your body is male, your gender will follow on from that. 00:10:53.799 --> 00:11:00.919 Okay? But as Andrew Walker points out, one of the things that's changed in our generation is that 00:11:00.919 --> 00:11:06.039 for the first time in history, we've disconnected these two and said these two things need not be 00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:12.059 the same. You can be biologically male and your gender can be female. Okay? So that's an important 00:11:12.059 --> 00:11:19.839 distinction. Third thing is gender dysphoria. Now, what happens is when somebody experiences the deep 00:11:19.839 --> 00:11:25.859 distress or the inner anguish or anxiety that people live with, when they feel there's a disconnect 00:11:25.859 --> 00:11:34.359 between my biological sex and my internal gender, that disconnect produces this deep anguish or anxiety 00:11:34.360 --> 00:11:41.519 that's known as gender dysphoria. Okay? So, um, now there's two important things to say about gender 00:11:41.519 --> 00:11:48.360 dysphoria. The one is gender dysphoria is an experience, not an identity. It's not a label. 00:11:48.680 --> 00:11:54.399 It's not who you are. It's an experience that you go through. Okay? And when, if you, if somebody 00:11:54.399 --> 00:11:59.180 experiences gender dysphoria, this doesn't make you a transgender person. It just means that you have 00:11:59.180 --> 00:12:03.920 the experience of gender dysphoria. So it's an experience, not a label or an identity. That's important. 00:12:04.360 --> 00:12:09.240 The second thing to note is this. Those who experience gender dysphoria, like we've said 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:15.879 before, are real people with a real medical or psychosomatic condition. So it's tempting sometimes 00:12:15.879 --> 00:12:21.860 to think of people that experience gender dysphoria as weirdos or freaks or perverts or child molesters 00:12:21.860 --> 00:12:28.180 or something like that. And that's really not the case. People experience gender dysphoria are real 00:12:28.180 --> 00:12:34.259 loved people of our family. It could be a brother or a sister, a son or a daughter. It could be a member 00:12:34.259 --> 00:12:40.899 of a church, a colleague that you work with at night of Monday to Friday. These are real people that we 00:12:40.899 --> 00:12:48.039 love and care about. Anybody can experience gender dysphoria to varying degrees. Okay? So sex, gender, 00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:55.419 gender dysphoria. Now, as a result of this dysphoria, this deep inner conflict between the biological sex 00:12:55.419 --> 00:13:02.439 and what people feel internally, some people believe that only by living as the opposite sex or living 00:13:02.439 --> 00:13:09.620 as the sex that my internal state identifies with, can I be fully human, fully alive, fully free? Can I be 00:13:09.620 --> 00:13:16.919 the person I was made to be? And such people then transition and take on or live as that gender. Okay? 00:13:16.919 --> 00:13:24.240 So I may be biologically male. I feel internally female. And as I choose to live as a female, that then is a 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:27.939 transgendered person. And again, there's three things we need to know about this. Okay? 00:13:29.079 --> 00:13:33.959 There's about a hundred things we're going to learn this morning. Okay? Three things. Now, there's three ways that we 00:13:33.959 --> 00:13:40.539 can transition. Some people transition socially. That means that they dress according to the gender that they identify 00:13:40.539 --> 00:13:47.399 with. They maybe take on that name, take on those mannerisms. Their behavior accords with that gender identity. 00:13:47.740 --> 00:13:55.199 Social transition. Some people transition hormonally. So they'll take on certain hormones that will cause 00:13:55.199 --> 00:14:02.439 their body to change shape and look like the gender that they identify with rather than their biological body. 00:14:02.899 --> 00:14:08.459 So a lady will take testosterone hormones. It'll make their shoulders broaden, their voice break, 00:14:08.460 --> 00:14:14.680 grow facial hair, etc. A man may take more estrogen and his body will change accordingly. 00:14:15.460 --> 00:14:20.460 And then thirdly, some people will transition surgically. They'll go for medical, surgical intervention 00:14:20.460 --> 00:14:28.620 to look like the gender that they identify with. Okay? So I don't know if that brings any clarity at all. 00:14:29.280 --> 00:14:35.100 Sex, gender, gender dysphoria, transgender. Okay? So that's the first thing. Second thing. 00:14:35.100 --> 00:14:42.240 What does the Bible say about gender and humanity? Now, again, to answer this, I want us to think about 00:14:42.240 --> 00:14:47.840 it in two ways. What does the Bible say generally and what do we say specifically? Firstly, generally. 00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:54.120 When we think of these massive topics like marriage and sex and gender and who should I marry and who 00:14:54.120 --> 00:14:59.379 should I love, we've got to answer a couple of questions. And I want to give us three questions. 00:14:59.379 --> 00:15:05.080 This is from Andrew Walker's book. We're going to answer the question of authority. Who has the right 00:15:05.080 --> 00:15:11.259 to tell me what is right and wrong? The question of knowledge. Who knows me the best and knows what's 00:15:11.259 --> 00:15:18.919 best for me? And thirdly, the question of trustworthiness. Who loves me enough and wants the best for me? 00:15:19.439 --> 00:15:25.580 Okay? So who has the right to tell me what to do? Who knows me the best and who loves me the most? 00:15:25.580 --> 00:15:29.940 Now, I want us to think about that because what culture you come from, you're going to answer 00:15:29.940 --> 00:15:35.340 those questions differently. If you're from a more Western culture, you grew up in America or Canada 00:15:35.340 --> 00:15:41.400 or South Africa or something, how do we answer those questions? We answer them with respect to myself. 00:15:42.379 --> 00:15:47.620 I have the ultimate authority of my life. I know what's best for me and I love myself the most and I 00:15:47.620 --> 00:15:53.840 know what's best for me. Okay? Me, myself and I. If we come from a more Asian or traditional culture, 00:15:53.840 --> 00:15:59.660 if I'm allowed to comment, because, you know, I'm Asian, really. I identify as Asian. 00:16:00.899 --> 00:16:06.820 If you come from a more traditional culture, how do we answer that question? It's the family, right? 00:16:07.320 --> 00:16:11.700 My family has authority to tell me what's right or wrong. My family knows me the best. My family 00:16:11.700 --> 00:16:15.300 loves me the most. And so depending on what culture you're going to come from, we're either 00:16:15.300 --> 00:16:19.360 going to get that answer by looking internally at ourselves or by looking to our families. 00:16:19.360 --> 00:16:26.440 Christianity comes along and says, while your family probably has the best intentions, your 00:16:26.440 --> 00:16:30.800 family doesn't have perfect perspective and you don't have perfect perspective on yourself, 00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:37.560 but there is a God, a creator, sovereign God who created the world and so he knows how to 00:16:37.560 --> 00:16:43.440 operate. But he also knows you the best. He knows you better than you know yourself. But 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:47.659 he also loves you enough to go to the cross and to die on the cross for you. And therefore, 00:16:47.659 --> 00:16:51.679 if you really want the answers to these questions, you've got to find out what does God have to say 00:16:51.679 --> 00:16:58.379 about it, okay? Vaughan Roberts, who himself lives with same-sex attraction, says it like this, 00:16:58.459 --> 00:17:03.620 because God created the world and because God is sovereign, and I would add because Jesus loved you 00:17:03.620 --> 00:17:09.480 enough to go to the cross for you, obedience is always the wise thing to do, no matter what the cost. 00:17:09.480 --> 00:17:16.880 It is never wise to go against God's will, because to go against God's will is not only disobedient, 00:17:16.980 --> 00:17:22.860 it's foolish. It's the most unwise thing that you can do, okay? So that's generally. So now, 00:17:23.039 --> 00:17:28.059 specifically, what does God say about gender and humanity? And that's where we come to our passage 00:17:28.059 --> 00:17:36.620 today in Genesis chapter 1 that Betty read to us. And I want us to notice four things from this passage, 00:17:36.619 --> 00:17:45.959 okay? The first thing is this, God's world has a coherent and a clear design. One of the fascinating 00:17:45.959 --> 00:17:51.679 things about Genesis 1 is there's this constant debate, right, in Christian circles between 00:17:51.679 --> 00:17:57.079 Christianity and science. We often think, you know, science has disproved Christianity. And people often 00:17:57.079 --> 00:18:04.259 look at Genesis 1 and say, we know the world is 3.46 billion years old, how can you say the world is only 00:18:04.259 --> 00:18:09.460 made in six days, okay, et cetera, et cetera. But one of the things that's fascinating is Genesis 1 00:18:09.460 --> 00:18:16.279 accounts for the creation of the world, but it's like one page in your Bible. There's not a lot of 00:18:16.279 --> 00:18:23.579 detail here. And I think what that tells us is Genesis 1 is not meant to try to give us all the details 00:18:23.579 --> 00:18:29.099 about how the world was made. What Genesis 1 is trying to tell us is firstly, who made the world, 00:18:29.099 --> 00:18:34.619 that is made by the sovereign God. It's not an accident. It's not a matter of chance. And it's 00:18:34.619 --> 00:18:40.879 made with a clear and coherent design. As we read Genesis 1, one of the things you'll notice is that 00:18:40.879 --> 00:18:49.119 nothing is arbitrary in God's design of the world. The world is made in these epochs that are not random, 00:18:49.259 --> 00:18:54.819 but are ordered. And each element of creation is unique and important, but it also has its corresponding 00:18:54.819 --> 00:19:00.200 pair. There is morning and there is evening. There is heavens and there is earth. There is the sun and 00:19:00.200 --> 00:19:07.339 there is the moon. There is this orderliness to creation. And at the climax of this, God says, 00:19:07.439 --> 00:19:12.819 this is good. He's pleased with his diverse but perfectly ordered creation. And then the pinnacle 00:19:12.819 --> 00:19:19.859 of creation comes to humanity. And there we see again this order, this diversity, the complementarity 00:19:19.859 --> 00:19:26.139 of humanity, but this order to God's creation of human beings. There is male and there is female. 00:19:26.699 --> 00:19:33.859 Different, complementary, but not interchangeable. And the complementary nature of humanity, male and 00:19:33.859 --> 00:19:42.279 female, that male and female are equally important, equally valuable, necessary for God's world, is 00:19:42.279 --> 00:19:49.479 described as being very good. Okay? And what this means for us is in our discussion is that part of God's 00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:58.480 ordered, coherent design for the world is that sex and gender is binary, male and female, and that they 00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:04.099 are not, our sex and our psychological gender are not disconnected from each other. There's a 00:20:04.099 --> 00:20:10.400 compatibility, there's a congruence between the two. And this is part of God's good, coherent, 00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:16.180 ordered design. There's not a confusion or a mismatch. Our gender and our sex are not arbitrary, 00:20:16.180 --> 00:20:20.140 but are connected together, but are connected together, and they correspond in God's good, 00:20:20.259 --> 00:20:26.120 coherent design. Okay? That's kind of a general overview of Genesis 1. The second thing we see 00:20:26.120 --> 00:20:34.700 from Genesis 1 is this, that our feelings do not dictate our ultimate identity. Okay? Or another way of 00:20:34.700 --> 00:20:41.920 saying that is that identity is not self-assigned by how we feel. So we live in an age where what we feel 00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:50.039 is true generally trumps what is actually true. Do you remember a few years ago, Oprah Winfrey, 00:20:51.440 --> 00:20:55.960 it was some big awards, I can't remember if it was the Golden Globes or something, she stands up and 00:20:55.960 --> 00:21:01.019 in her acceptance speech, she says, I just want to say to you, the most important thing about you is 00:21:01.019 --> 00:21:05.940 your truth. And we all clapped and applauded and said, yes, yes, yes. Because we live in an age 00:21:05.940 --> 00:21:12.600 where what I feel to be true, what is true for me, is taken as being ultimate reality. Now, we can 00:21:12.600 --> 00:21:18.720 understand that because feelings are really profound, right? What we feel is very deep. But 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:24.259 Christianity says that your identity is not found in how you feel about yourself, like modern secular 00:21:24.259 --> 00:21:29.240 culture says. Your identity is not found in what your family says about you, like traditional culture. 00:21:29.240 --> 00:21:35.539 Christianity says that your identity is found in who you are in relation to your maker, your God. 00:21:36.519 --> 00:21:41.620 And as human beings, our identity is partly found in the fact that we are made in God's image. 00:21:42.140 --> 00:21:46.779 So look at Genesis 1 with me again. You should have it in your bulletin. Look at verse 26. 00:21:47.779 --> 00:21:54.279 It says, God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. So he created man in his image. In the image 00:21:54.279 --> 00:22:01.200 of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. God saw everything that he made, and behold, 00:22:01.779 --> 00:22:10.299 it was very good. So Christians believe that our primary identity is not found in our social 00:22:10.299 --> 00:22:14.539 construct. It's found in who we are to God. Now, what does that mean that we are made in God's image? 00:22:15.579 --> 00:22:21.879 To be made in God's image means that there's something uniquely precious, eternally valuable, 00:22:21.880 --> 00:22:28.320 and dignifying about every human being just by virtue of the fact that you are made in God's image. 00:22:28.860 --> 00:22:36.300 So irrespective of your race, your ethnicity, your culture, your gender, your religion, what you believe, 00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:42.740 what agenda you identify with, irrespective of any of those things, your being a human 00:22:42.740 --> 00:22:50.700 confers upon you a dignity and a value and a worth which is given to you because written into your DNA 00:22:50.700 --> 00:22:56.240 is the fact that you carry the family genes of the sovereign God, the creator of the world. 00:22:57.100 --> 00:23:03.799 And every human being is infinitely, sorry, the infinitely wonderful and glorious God, when he 00:23:03.799 --> 00:23:10.200 looks upon you, he sees a part of his nature inside of you, and he's very pleased with what he sees. 00:23:10.759 --> 00:23:17.400 Okay? So there's something eternally precious, eternally valuable about the fact that you are you. 00:23:17.400 --> 00:23:24.460 You're not an accident. You're not an evolutionary byproduct. You are uniquely valuable, not because 00:23:24.460 --> 00:23:29.500 of what you've done, or what you've achieved, or what status you've achieved in society, or in relation 00:23:29.500 --> 00:23:34.600 to anyone else, but purely by the fact that you are made in God's image and God breathes you into 00:23:34.600 --> 00:23:42.900 existence. Okay? Does that make sense? Now, what that means is that you are not primarily what you feel 00:23:42.900 --> 00:23:48.300 about yourself. Now, we're of course not saying that feelings aren't important, or that they're not 00:23:48.300 --> 00:23:56.640 a very real experience or part of you. Feelings are very real. And if you feel this dysphoria between 00:23:56.640 --> 00:24:03.259 your biological sex and your gender, that's very real, and we're not saying that's not important. 00:24:03.259 --> 00:24:11.879 But that's not ultimately who you are. Your primary identity is that the God of all creation looks at you 00:24:11.879 --> 00:24:23.740 and says, my precious child that is made in my image. Because your ultimate identity, the identity that you 00:24:23.740 --> 00:24:31.420 need to live out in order to be fully human is who God has said about you. Now, I want to say this very carefully, 00:24:31.420 --> 00:24:37.000 because this can sound mocking, and I really don't want to come across like that. I want to be careful 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:43.580 about this. But I want us just to think about the logic that says you are who you feel yourself to be. 00:24:44.460 --> 00:24:49.120 Do you remember a few years ago, I think it was 2015, there was a lady called Rachel Dolezal in the U.S. 00:24:49.120 --> 00:24:58.000 who was a white Caucasian lady who said that she was African American or had a colored heritage, right? 00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:04.160 And she was actually the president of a chapter of the North American Association for the Advancement 00:25:04.160 --> 00:25:09.700 of Colored People. Okay? So she was president of this organization that helped black African Americans 00:25:09.700 --> 00:25:16.220 advance their cause, right? And she said that she was, her parents, her father was African American, 00:25:16.220 --> 00:25:23.980 and so she was black by, you know, biology. But what actually emerged is that she actually has no 00:25:23.980 --> 00:25:30.299 African American heritage at all. Her parents are two Caucasian people. She is 100% white Caucasian. 00:25:30.920 --> 00:25:34.319 And so when this emerged, there was a whole big uproar about it. And then she said, well, 00:25:34.380 --> 00:25:40.259 I'm actually transracial. I identify as a black person. This is who I am. And there's an uproar because 00:25:40.259 --> 00:25:45.319 a bunch of the African Americans in America said, you can't just claim that identity because that's how 00:25:45.319 --> 00:25:50.460 you feel. I mean, we appreciate that you want to advance our cause, but just claiming that you 00:25:50.460 --> 00:25:57.920 think of yourself as a black person doesn't make you a black person. And this is true that if I say 00:25:57.920 --> 00:26:06.120 to you, I am, you know, a 56-year-old Chinese lady, and I really feel like that, as much as Hong Kong's 00:26:06.120 --> 00:26:11.960 my home, and, you know, we love Hong Kong, and, you know, I think of myself as Chinese as much as 00:26:11.960 --> 00:26:19.759 possible. The reality is how I feel about myself doesn't make that real. And of course, this can 00:26:19.759 --> 00:26:24.019 get absolutely absurd. There have been stories of, you know, 50-year-old men saying, I'm a six-year-old 00:26:24.019 --> 00:26:29.059 girl and going to kindergarten, or 16-year-old girl saying, I'm a cat trapped in a lady's body, etc. 00:26:29.240 --> 00:26:35.920 It can get absurd. But the point is, how you feel about yourself is not ultimately who you are. 00:26:36.500 --> 00:26:41.940 That's not your identity. Your identity is that you are assuming made in God's image, that God's 00:26:41.940 --> 00:26:46.860 God looked before the creation of the world and said, in this age, I want there to be a man, a lady 00:26:46.860 --> 00:26:52.799 called Dwight, or Claire, whoever, and I've made you in my image, and I love you. That's who you are. 00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:58.360 That's your identity. As powerful as feelings are, they do not determine who we truly are. 00:26:59.140 --> 00:27:05.519 Third thing we see from Genesis 1 is this. Our physical bodies are an important element of who we 00:27:05.519 --> 00:27:11.920 are. Now, this is interesting. In the first century, there was a kind of ideological, 00:27:11.940 --> 00:27:19.480 philosophical movement called Gnosticism. Gnosticism essentially says that the physical world 00:27:19.480 --> 00:27:26.360 is part of, or put it this way, Gnosticism essentially says there's a disconnect between 00:27:26.360 --> 00:27:32.100 the material and the immaterial world. And the material world is part of this broken, corrupted, 00:27:32.299 --> 00:27:37.820 evil system. And the immaterial world, the spiritual world, is good and healthy and God-honoring. 00:27:37.819 --> 00:27:43.139 And the gods, whoever they are, are interested in the immaterial world, but our material physical 00:27:43.139 --> 00:27:48.159 world is all going to burn, and who cares about it anyway? And this thinking really influenced 00:27:48.159 --> 00:27:52.419 the church in the first century. And so if you'll remember, two weeks ago, Chris was speaking 00:27:52.419 --> 00:27:59.299 on sex from 1 Corinthians 6, and the Corinthians say this, food is for the stomach, stomach is 00:27:59.299 --> 00:28:04.839 for the food, the body is for sex, sex is for the body, what's the big deal? And what the Corinthians 00:28:04.839 --> 00:28:10.500 are saying is, if I love God with my heart, who cares what I do with my body? If I love 00:28:10.500 --> 00:28:14.779 Jesus with my heart, and my heart loves Him, well, my body I can do whatever I want with, 00:28:14.819 --> 00:28:20.740 right? And Paul writes back and says, no, your body is an important part of who you are. It's 00:28:20.740 --> 00:28:25.480 not your ultimate identity, but it's an important part of who you are. And Paul writes and says, 00:28:25.539 --> 00:28:31.939 your body is not just this empty shell that houses your soul, it's actually your body is part 00:28:31.940 --> 00:28:36.580 of your worship. Remember, he says it's a temple. What you do with your body is actually important 00:28:36.580 --> 00:28:43.160 in your relation to God. Remember in Romans 12, we looked at it for six weeks. In view of God's 00:28:43.160 --> 00:28:50.660 mercy, Murphy, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, not just your hearts, 00:28:50.740 --> 00:28:55.420 right? Jesus doesn't just say, just offer your hearts. Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. 00:28:55.420 --> 00:29:01.620 And we see it again here in Genesis 1. Look at it with me again. Genesis doesn't say, 00:29:02.080 --> 00:29:06.900 God created mankind in His image. In the image of God, He created them, full stop. 00:29:07.720 --> 00:29:13.519 The author of Genesis specifically goes on to state, the binary nature of our sexed bodies, 00:29:13.940 --> 00:29:20.220 male and female, is a part of what it means to be made in God's image. If you are a female, 00:29:20.220 --> 00:29:26.980 you are made in God's image as a female. If you are a male, part of your being male is the fact 00:29:26.980 --> 00:29:33.500 that you are made in God's image. In other words, our sexed bodies are good and are part of what it 00:29:33.500 --> 00:29:40.299 means to be made in God's image, a part of who we are. Our sexed bodies are not unimportant or 00:29:40.299 --> 00:29:45.839 superfluous to who we are, and they're not unimportant or superfluous to being made in God's image and to our 00:29:45.839 --> 00:29:52.199 identity. And so what this means is that when someone seeks to change their body, either through 00:29:52.199 --> 00:29:58.539 hormonal treatment or surgery, to align with an internal sense of my gender identity, that's not 00:29:58.539 --> 00:30:04.359 inconsequential. That's deeply, deeply traumatic because what we're seeking to do is to manually 00:30:04.359 --> 00:30:11.799 override a core part of who we are. One of the things that I didn't know until the last few weeks as I've 00:30:11.799 --> 00:30:17.639 been reading up about this is the massive number of people that have transitioned sex from one to 00:30:17.639 --> 00:30:23.460 the other, either hormonally or surgically, and have come to realize it didn't change who they were. 00:30:24.359 --> 00:30:30.639 And the deep trauma and the deep anxiety and the deep distress that they feel before stays with them. 00:30:31.819 --> 00:30:37.240 Earlier we spoke about Laura Perry. I want you to carry on listening to what she says here. She says, 00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:43.380 after my surgery, I really liked the results. I liked how I looked physically. 00:30:45.759 --> 00:30:52.200 Okay, that's not the best photo, right? But that's her driver's license. That's Jake's driver's license. 00:30:52.660 --> 00:30:57.039 After my surgery, even though I liked the results and I liked how I looked physically, I realized surgery 00:30:57.039 --> 00:31:02.759 hadn't made me a man. I was legally a man. I could look down at my ID card and say that said male, 00:31:02.759 --> 00:31:09.359 but I was still the same person. And that was devastating to me because I really had believed that I would 00:31:09.359 --> 00:31:18.440 become a man. Friends, one of the things that parents are often told is that when kids struggle gender 00:31:18.440 --> 00:31:23.640 dysphoria is that if you don't allow your kids to transition, they will become suicidal and they may take 00:31:23.640 --> 00:31:32.059 their own lives. What we're not told is that the anxiety, depression, and suicidal rate after transition 00:31:32.059 --> 00:31:38.659 does not change. In one of the most comprehensive studies on transgender identity and sex reassignment 00:31:39.399 --> 00:31:49.119 was done in Sweden over a 30-year period. And they found that people, they studied people that had sex 00:31:49.119 --> 00:31:57.299 reassignment surgery 10 to 15 years afterwards and found that the suicide rate for those that had 00:31:57.299 --> 00:32:03.779 undergone sex reassignment surgery maintained 20 times higher than that of their peers. 00:32:04.639 --> 00:32:10.200 In other words, we told that I must do this in order to become myself. Otherwise, there's no point 00:32:10.200 --> 00:32:17.460 in living. But friends, almost, not all, a lot of those that have gone through this will tell us that it 00:32:17.460 --> 00:32:24.019 hasn't solved the problem. It hasn't changed them. And the anxiety and the trauma that are within them 00:32:24.019 --> 00:32:32.220 remain the same. So what does all this mean? Well, Dr. Paul McHugh, who is Distinguished Service 00:32:32.220 --> 00:32:38.559 Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins University School of Medicine, and probably the world's foremost 00:32:38.559 --> 00:32:44.039 authority on gender dysphoria, he sums up 50 years of work like this. He says, 00:32:44.039 --> 00:33:05.240 And what Dr. McHugh is saying is that because sex change is actually physically impossible, 00:33:05.240 --> 00:33:11.259 impossible, it doesn't provide the long-term wholeness and happiness that people with gender dysphoria 00:33:11.259 --> 00:33:18.299 seek and need. Friends, this is incredibly important, but it's not popular. It's hard to hear. 00:33:18.900 --> 00:33:24.960 Because God has made you and I in His image, because of who we are and our gender and our sex is part of 00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:33.120 who we are, our sex beings is not disconnected from who we are. And we can't just change our biological 00:33:33.119 --> 00:33:39.919 sex to correspond with an identity without going through deeply traumatic experiences. Ultimately, 00:33:40.079 --> 00:33:45.939 our identity is found in who we are in God. And so that leads us to the fourth thing, which is this. 00:33:47.619 --> 00:33:53.459 Genesis 1 and 2 paint this amazing picture of creation, unbelievable picture. But when we look 00:33:53.459 --> 00:33:57.859 at the world around us, and when we look at the world inside of us, the world is not as beautiful as 00:33:57.859 --> 00:34:02.959 Genesis 1 and 2 paints. The world is deeply broken. And in fact, it's not long that we get into reading 00:34:02.960 --> 00:34:09.059 the Bible that we see why. And the reason is because in Genesis 3, the fall occurs. Humanity rebels 00:34:09.059 --> 00:34:15.300 against God, sin enters the world, and as a consequence, all of the world is broken. Isaiah 00:34:15.300 --> 00:34:20.599 describes it like this, that rather than the world being this lush garden of delight, it is a desert of 00:34:20.599 --> 00:34:27.420 thistles and thorns. Isaiah says, rather than the world being this lush garden of beauty, it is a desert of 00:34:27.420 --> 00:34:33.079 despair. And what the Bible says, and this is so important in order to understand our world, 00:34:33.460 --> 00:34:39.099 that the effects of the broken fall of the world around us are not just out there, but are actually 00:34:39.099 --> 00:34:46.240 inside of us. And the consequences of this are massive. One of the consequences is that all of 00:34:46.240 --> 00:34:51.260 our relationships are flawed and broken. Our relationships with God, our relationships with each 00:34:51.260 --> 00:34:57.620 other, but also our relationships with ourselves. All three of these relationships are flawed and 00:34:57.620 --> 00:35:03.520 are broken and need redemption. But because our relationship with God is broken, what that means 00:35:03.520 --> 00:35:10.120 is that our identity as His children made in His image, that too is damaged. And so now as human beings, 00:35:10.220 --> 00:35:16.020 we no longer find our identity in who we are in God. We find our identity by looking around us to people 00:35:16.019 --> 00:35:22.039 and society, but also looking inside of us to ourselves. And we find our identity primarily in 00:35:22.039 --> 00:35:27.599 saying, who do I feel that I am? Who does society say that I am? And so what that means is that the 00:35:27.599 --> 00:35:32.759 anguish and the agony and the intense discomfort and the disconnect that people feel with their bodies 00:35:32.759 --> 00:35:38.519 is not because you're a man trapped in a lady's body or a lady trapped in a man's body. It's because 00:35:38.519 --> 00:35:43.139 we live in a broken world where sin and suffering abound, where relationships with others, with 00:35:43.139 --> 00:35:51.980 ourselves and with God is deeply broken. The world creation is broken. But of course, that's not 00:35:51.980 --> 00:35:58.239 the end of the story because Genesis 3 ends with a promise. And it's a profound promise. It's a promise 00:35:58.239 --> 00:36:05.059 of hope. Genesis 3 ends with a promise that there will come a person, a human being born of the woman. 00:36:05.719 --> 00:36:11.960 And this human being will overcome the brokenness and the fallenness in our world. He will overcome sin 00:36:11.960 --> 00:36:18.539 and suffering. And he will do so by initiating healing in our broken world. But Genesis warns that 00:36:18.539 --> 00:36:24.960 this person will pay a high price to bring healing and redemption to our world. He will overcome brokenness 00:36:24.960 --> 00:36:30.780 by taking on the brokenness of our world. He will overcome sin and suffering by taking on sin and suffering 00:36:30.780 --> 00:36:36.780 himself. He will be wounded and crushed even as he crushes the brokenness of our world. 00:36:36.780 --> 00:36:44.300 And of course, as we read our Bibles, we discover this person is Jesus Christ. And so Jesus came 00:36:44.300 --> 00:36:49.940 as a man to defeat and push back darkness and brokenness by going to the cross and taking upon 00:36:49.940 --> 00:36:55.780 himself the brokenness and the sin and the suffering of humanity and of this broken world. 00:36:56.540 --> 00:36:59.940 And so that leads us to the third thing, which is the hope of the gospel. 00:36:59.940 --> 00:37:06.519 If sin marred and damaged our identity as God's beloved children made in his image, 00:37:07.320 --> 00:37:12.679 Jesus Christ's work on the cross came to restore that and to bring healing and hope by giving us 00:37:12.679 --> 00:37:18.280 a new identity and a fuller identity. And I want us just to think for a few minutes about this identity 00:37:18.280 --> 00:37:24.360 that Jesus Christ gives us in the gospel. At the heart of the gospel, at the heart of Christianity, 00:37:24.720 --> 00:37:29.539 is the gospel tells us that you're, let's just think about this for a second, okay? If you've been a 00:37:29.539 --> 00:37:35.659 watermark, you would have heard this a few times. The heart of Christianity says, in the gospel, 00:37:35.960 --> 00:37:42.199 Jesus Christ gives us an identity. It says you're his beloved sons, daughters, God's beloved sons and 00:37:42.199 --> 00:37:50.199 daughters, not based on your performance, not based on what you do, but based on Jesus' performance, 00:37:50.860 --> 00:37:58.480 okay? Christ's opinion of us, which is the only opinion that really matters, is not based on your 00:37:58.480 --> 00:38:04.780 success or your having life together, but Jesus' performance on the cross. In the gospel, God 00:38:04.780 --> 00:38:11.240 accepts us because of what Jesus did on the cross, not because of what you've done. And what that means 00:38:11.240 --> 00:38:18.099 is that Jesus Christ will give you the only identity in the world which is received and not achieved, 00:38:18.760 --> 00:38:24.639 okay? Every other identity is based on how well you do, how good a son you are, how good a daughter 00:38:24.639 --> 00:38:29.199 you are, how well you do at school, how well you do at college, where you raise in society status, 00:38:29.319 --> 00:38:35.879 how well you do at work, where you progress in the career ladder, whether you are conformed to society 00:38:35.879 --> 00:38:42.359 stereotypes of a man or a woman. Every other identity that you get is conferred upon you by 00:38:42.359 --> 00:38:47.179 your performance. It's achieved, it's earned, it's merited. Jesus Christ comes and he says, 00:38:47.179 --> 00:38:53.519 I'll give you an identity which is not achieved, it's simply given by grace. And what that means 00:38:53.519 --> 00:39:00.480 is it's an identity in which God calls us beloved sons and daughters, but it's an identity which is 00:39:00.480 --> 00:39:08.300 unshakable and no one can take it from you and it's open to anyone. Friends, you may be here this 00:39:08.300 --> 00:39:16.059 morning and you feel like you don't measure up. You're not who your parents wanted you to be. 00:39:16.059 --> 00:39:22.579 You may feel like a failure. Jesus Christ comes and says, you're my beloved 00:39:22.579 --> 00:39:33.360 part of my family. God the Father looks at you and calls you son, daughter, chosen, loved, not because 00:39:33.360 --> 00:39:40.019 of what you've done, but because of what Jesus has done on the cross. But the other thing it means is 00:39:40.019 --> 00:39:46.860 this, that the gospel says that the ultimate validator of your identity is God. And that means 00:39:46.860 --> 00:39:52.659 that no human being, no community, no family member, no cultural trend, not even your own feelings, 00:39:53.219 --> 00:39:59.199 holds the power over you. The person that has the power to validate you also has the power to 00:39:59.199 --> 00:40:07.619 invalidate you, to manipulate you, to abuse you. If you find your identity in society or anything that 00:40:07.619 --> 00:40:14.339 society promises you, you're handing the power of your life over to those people. In the gospel, 00:40:14.539 --> 00:40:19.119 God is the one who validates your identity. Jesus says, I died on the cross and God says, it is well 00:40:19.119 --> 00:40:27.599 accepted. It is finished. And that means that God in the Bible, he'll never invalidate you. He'll never 00:40:27.599 --> 00:40:33.679 abuse you. He'll never take advantage of you. He'll only ever love you. So to those of us that struggle 00:40:33.679 --> 00:40:38.519 with our sexual orientation or our gender identity, to those who felt like you should have been born a boy 00:40:38.519 --> 00:40:43.679 instead of a girl or vice versa, I know those feelings are deep and I know that they're really real. And the 00:40:43.679 --> 00:40:49.699 trauma you've experienced runs incredibly deep. But I want to say to you that changing your body to align 00:40:49.699 --> 00:40:56.619 with your gender identity is not the answer. Having hormonal treatment is not the answer. Having surgery or 00:40:56.619 --> 00:41:03.319 medicine, philosophy, meditation, experimentation is not the answer. The answer is found in a person. 00:41:04.239 --> 00:41:09.879 The answer is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. The answer is found in Jesus Christ who allowed his own body to be 00:41:09.879 --> 00:41:16.579 mutilated and ripped apart on the cross because he so loved you. The answer is found in the one who went to the 00:41:16.579 --> 00:41:22.759 cross for you because he doesn't hate you and he doesn't want you to hate himself. Friends, Jesus Christ claims to 00:41:22.759 --> 00:41:28.679 have all authority because he created the world. But Jesus Christ also claims to know you the best and knows what's best 00:41:28.679 --> 00:41:34.799 for you. But Jesus Christ proved his love for you by going to the cross and dying for you. And therefore, 00:41:34.960 --> 00:41:40.679 he's trustworthy. And you may say, but I've done all this stuff. I've changed my body. I've taken all this 00:41:40.679 --> 00:41:46.839 treatment. I've done all this stuff that I know God doesn't like. How will God ever accept me? Friends, 00:41:46.879 --> 00:41:52.159 this church is full of people that have done stuff that God doesn't like. That's the whole point of the 00:41:52.159 --> 00:41:57.480 gospel. That God doesn't accept us on the basis of what we've done, but on the basis of what Jesus has 00:41:57.480 --> 00:42:03.079 done. The identity and the grace that he gives us is not something you can earn or achieve. It's a gift 00:42:03.079 --> 00:42:08.960 that you receive by grace. Friends, the trans community, they will accept you, but they won't heal you. 00:42:09.440 --> 00:42:13.839 They won't heal the trauma in your heart. Jesus Christ will accept you, but he'll also heal 00:42:13.839 --> 00:42:18.639 the deep trauma and the wounds that you carry. Friends, maybe you've been told, 00:42:18.639 --> 00:42:25.500 because of your gender dysphoria, only by living as the opposite sex can you truly embrace yourself. 00:42:26.159 --> 00:42:30.759 Friends, only by embracing Jesus Christ can you truly embrace who you were meant to be. 00:42:32.359 --> 00:42:36.759 And so the gospel comes and he says, your identity is not what you feel. Your identity is not what 00:42:36.759 --> 00:42:41.440 people say about you, what your parents say about you, what society says about you. Your identity is 00:42:41.440 --> 00:42:47.279 what Jesus Christ says about you. And he says that if you come to him, if you know him, if you allow 00:42:47.280 --> 00:42:52.960 yourself to be loved by him, he'll confer upon you an identity that no one can take from you, 00:42:53.040 --> 00:42:59.700 that is unshakable, that is rooted and grounded in an eternity because he went to the cross for you. 00:43:00.519 --> 00:43:06.100 Friends, Jesus Christ loves you more than anyone in this world will ever love you, 00:43:06.640 --> 00:43:09.280 and he'll never give up on you. 00:43:09.280 --> 00:43:12.780 That's the gospel. 00:43:15.160 --> 00:43:18.360 Fourth thing is this. What does this mean for us at Watermark? 00:43:19.980 --> 00:43:26.880 Well, very simply, the gospel tells us that all human beings are equally valid, 00:43:27.620 --> 00:43:34.160 equally deserving, of equal dignity and respect, irrespective of your theological view, 00:43:34.159 --> 00:43:37.859 worldview, your worldview, your gender, your gender identification. 00:43:38.819 --> 00:43:43.359 What the gospel tells us is that every one of us, from the preacher in the front, 00:43:44.019 --> 00:43:47.219 the transgender person in the third row, to whoever's in the back, 00:43:48.019 --> 00:43:52.940 every single one of us are fallen sinners and in need of God's grace, 00:43:53.460 --> 00:43:56.980 but desperately loved by God at the same time. 00:43:56.980 --> 00:44:04.860 And what that means is that the gospel doesn't allow for any bigotry or judgmentalism. 00:44:05.800 --> 00:44:07.360 Do you remember the story in Luke 18? 00:44:07.639 --> 00:44:10.440 Jesus tells this parable, and he says two people go to a temple. 00:44:10.579 --> 00:44:12.300 There's a Pharisee and a tax collector. 00:44:12.940 --> 00:44:16.860 And the Pharisee goes in, and he sees the tax collector, and he prays like this. 00:44:16.900 --> 00:44:19.579 He says, God, I thank you that I'm not like that man. 00:44:20.800 --> 00:44:25.480 And Luke tells us that Jesus told that story because that there were people around them 00:44:25.480 --> 00:44:28.539 who trusted in themselves and treated others with contempt. 00:44:29.500 --> 00:44:32.599 And what Jesus is saying here is that if we look down on others, 00:44:32.659 --> 00:44:36.360 if we look at others in society and say, well, God, I so thank you that I'm not like them, 00:44:36.699 --> 00:44:39.059 what that means is that we haven't understood the gospel at all. 00:44:39.619 --> 00:44:41.519 We haven't understood God's grace at all. 00:44:44.280 --> 00:44:47.740 When Jesus was asked what's the most important of all the commandments, 00:44:48.099 --> 00:44:50.619 600 commandments in the Old Testament, Jesus says this, 00:44:50.760 --> 00:44:53.679 love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and strength. 00:44:53.679 --> 00:44:56.440 And secondly, love your neighbor as yourself. 00:44:57.159 --> 00:44:59.000 And how does the Bible define that love? 00:44:59.139 --> 00:45:01.879 Remember Paul's description in Corinthians 13? 00:45:02.719 --> 00:45:03.319 Remember what he says? 00:45:03.419 --> 00:45:04.139 Love is patient. 00:45:04.960 --> 00:45:05.819 Love is kind. 00:45:06.859 --> 00:45:07.719 Love does not boast. 00:45:07.819 --> 00:45:08.539 It is not arrogant. 00:45:08.759 --> 00:45:09.899 It is not self-seeking. 00:45:10.480 --> 00:45:12.559 It is not irritable or resentful. 00:45:13.419 --> 00:45:15.199 Remember how Paul starts off, and he says, listen, 00:45:15.500 --> 00:45:18.159 if I speak in the tongues of men and angels, 00:45:18.719 --> 00:45:20.139 but if I have not love, I'm nothing. 00:45:21.119 --> 00:45:23.400 If I give of my body to be burnt as a martyr, 00:45:24.019 --> 00:45:26.440 but I do not have love, it's all meaningless. 00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:29.940 If I give away all my money, everything I have to the poor, 00:45:30.339 --> 00:45:33.139 but I do not have love, it's all in vain. 00:45:34.420 --> 00:45:37.359 When Paul was writing those words, he wasn't writing a wedding sermon. 00:45:37.839 --> 00:45:39.440 He wasn't talking about romantic love. 00:45:39.500 --> 00:45:43.119 He was talking about the love that's meant to exist between human beings like us. 00:45:43.119 --> 00:45:48.839 And what the Bible says is that because all of us are sinners in need of God's grace, 00:45:48.960 --> 00:45:51.239 but all of us are sufferers in need of God's love, 00:45:51.819 --> 00:45:57.059 there's no room for anyone to look down upon others and say that I'm better than you. 00:45:57.980 --> 00:46:03.259 And so what that means for us as a church family is how do we know that the gospel's really got a hold of us? 00:46:03.559 --> 00:46:05.659 How do we know that we really believe the gospel? 00:46:05.659 --> 00:46:13.599 We'll see it in the way that we patiently, graciously, gently, compassionately, 00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:20.139 tenderly treat the LGBT community in our city and in our church. 00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:26.079 That those who grapple with gender dysphoria or those that have transitioned to an alternative sex 00:46:26.079 --> 00:46:32.399 will come into this church family and be met by love, not judgmentalism. 00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:37.220 It means that we'll treat every person who walks into this family with dignity and honor, 00:46:37.760 --> 00:46:42.180 knowing that they are made in God's image, beloved sons and daughters in a sense, 00:46:42.700 --> 00:46:46.920 and that this church will be full of grace and truth just like Jesus. 00:46:48.400 --> 00:46:54.480 I want us to close off by watching a short video, I think it's three minutes long, 00:46:54.539 --> 00:46:58.139 three or four minutes long, of Laura Perry, the lady I start off with in the beginning, 00:46:58.300 --> 00:47:01.940 and I want us to see her story and how it ends, and then we'll go to communion. 00:47:01.940 --> 00:47:03.300 So let's watch that now. 00:47:04.440 --> 00:47:07.019 After the surgery was over, I quickly forgot God. 00:47:07.099 --> 00:47:07.940 I forgot my prayer. 00:47:09.179 --> 00:47:12.659 Even though I was really excited about the results and I liked how it looked physically, 00:47:13.320 --> 00:47:15.800 I realized that my surgery hadn't made me a man. 00:47:16.260 --> 00:47:20.119 I was legally male, and I could look down at my license and my birth certificate, 00:47:20.179 --> 00:47:21.019 and it said male. 00:47:22.079 --> 00:47:24.579 I still am the same person just without breath. 00:47:24.579 --> 00:47:30.000 And that was devastating to me because I really had believed that I would become a man. 00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:37.219 I had hardly talked to my parents in years other than I would call them for an occasional birthday 00:47:37.219 --> 00:47:39.340 or something like that where I felt obligated. 00:47:40.079 --> 00:47:43.179 But one day my mom asked me to make a website for her Bible study. 00:47:43.679 --> 00:47:47.639 And I didn't have any interest in the Bible, but I thought, okay, I'll make a website for you. 00:47:47.639 --> 00:47:52.579 And as I began to read her notes, I was blown away by what I was reading. 00:47:52.779 --> 00:47:55.879 And I thought, I have never seen the Bible like this. 00:47:55.940 --> 00:47:58.159 I had always thought of the Bible as God's rule book. 00:47:58.500 --> 00:48:00.699 I'm seeing the character in the heart of God. 00:48:01.259 --> 00:48:07.339 And I began to see a loving and faithful God, not the angry, judgmental God that I had always seen before. 00:48:07.340 --> 00:48:11.500 I called her one day, and I said, Mom, you've got to explain some of this to me. 00:48:11.640 --> 00:48:15.400 And I was so curious, I called her again the next day and again the next day. 00:48:15.420 --> 00:48:19.900 And all of a sudden, I went from never talking to her to talking to her every single day. 00:48:20.220 --> 00:48:24.960 And I would call her after work, and I just couldn't wait to talk to Mom at the end of the day. 00:48:26.360 --> 00:48:32.079 And then one day, something had happened, and I don't remember what, some kind of crisis had come up in my life. 00:48:32.300 --> 00:48:33.579 And I'll never forget that day. 00:48:33.620 --> 00:48:35.640 She said, Honey, you just need to trust the Lord. 00:48:35.639 --> 00:48:43.239 And I was like, I was blown away at that moment, because I had never heard my mom say that. 00:48:43.980 --> 00:48:45.839 And I said, Mom, what has happened to you? 00:48:45.879 --> 00:48:48.639 You are a totally different person from the one I grew up with. 00:48:49.960 --> 00:48:52.500 And she had been so radically transformed. 00:48:52.900 --> 00:48:57.559 And it was at that moment that I knew the gospel was true, that I knew that Christ was alive, 00:48:57.859 --> 00:49:04.319 and that there was a transforming power, because I could see how my mom had just been totally changed. 00:49:04.320 --> 00:49:09.100 And so that night, I prayed, and I asked the Lord into my heart. 00:49:10.059 --> 00:49:12.500 But I really wanted to be a man of God. 00:49:12.580 --> 00:49:14.519 And I thought, this is great. 00:49:14.600 --> 00:49:17.000 Now I can find my identity in Christ. 00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:25.340 But I thought I could still stay as a man, because as much as I had realized I couldn't be a man, I could not face being a female. 00:49:25.539 --> 00:49:32.059 There was so much pain attached because of what all those guys had done, all the lies I had believed all my life. 00:49:32.119 --> 00:49:35.059 I felt like it was a shameful thing to be a female. 00:49:35.059 --> 00:49:44.420 But after about a month of just crying out to the Lord, night after night after night, I had a clear vision of Jesus Christ himself getting down on one knee. 00:49:44.799 --> 00:49:47.739 He reached his hand into the pit, and he said, Do you trust me? 00:49:48.840 --> 00:49:54.519 And I remember at that moment thinking, If I take his hand, he's asking me to leave everything. 00:49:54.519 --> 00:49:57.880 But I knew it was my only way out. 00:49:58.099 --> 00:50:01.000 I knew I was never going to have peace if I didn't. 00:50:01.699 --> 00:50:02.360 And so I did. 00:50:02.460 --> 00:50:03.380 I took his hand. 00:50:03.539 --> 00:50:13.840 I walked away from my entire identity, my partner, my job, my financial security, the life that I had built for myself, and left it all to follow Christ. 00:50:13.840 --> 00:50:24.200 The next morning when I showed up at the Bible study, they surrounded me with more love and joy and hugs than I've ever felt from women in my life. 00:50:24.420 --> 00:50:29.460 They were so overjoyed at seeing their prayers of years answered. 00:50:29.860 --> 00:50:35.340 And it was at that moment that I was flooded with love from women, and I felt loved as a woman. 00:50:35.740 --> 00:50:40.480 And it was like that transgender lie just broke, and I knew I was not meant to be a man. 00:50:40.480 --> 00:50:48.199 So many transgenders I know get to a point where they realize the same thing I did, that it's not real. 00:50:48.559 --> 00:50:53.000 And you keep drifting through life, thinking this is the best it's ever going to get. 00:50:53.059 --> 00:50:57.039 You have no idea the life that God has for you. 00:50:57.400 --> 00:50:59.320 You can change your outward appearance. 00:50:59.559 --> 00:51:00.559 You can change your body. 00:51:01.039 --> 00:51:05.300 But ultimately, you are who God created you to be, and you were put on this earth for His purpose. 00:51:08.920 --> 00:51:09.320 Great. 00:51:10.480 --> 00:51:15.960 I know this is a massive topic. 00:51:16.599 --> 00:51:26.699 And to be honest, as I've read tons of books, or a couple of books, and tons of articles, and watched stories and testimonies, 00:51:27.860 --> 00:51:34.039 one of the things that's happened in my life is I've grown with this real compassion. 00:51:35.300 --> 00:51:36.639 Our world is a broken world. 00:51:36.639 --> 00:51:39.519 And our city is full of so much pain. 00:51:40.679 --> 00:51:43.619 Friends, there may be some of us here this morning that carry pain. 00:51:43.699 --> 00:51:44.699 It could be associated with this. 00:51:44.799 --> 00:51:46.319 It could be associated with something else. 00:51:48.559 --> 00:51:52.480 Our world is broken, but Christ has come to bring healing. 00:51:52.480 --> 00:51:59.280 You've got to know the profound love of Christ for you. 00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:01.820 Not just generically for people. 00:52:02.619 --> 00:52:03.460 For you. 00:52:04.820 --> 00:52:07.480 Christ went to the cross for you. 00:52:08.400 --> 00:52:12.960 If there was no one else in the entire world, He would have still gone to the cross for you. 00:52:12.960 --> 00:52:16.000 Had his body broken for you. 00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:16.019 Had his body broken for you. 00:52:16.019 --> 00:52:17.019 Absolutely. 00:52:17.019 --> 00:52:18.460 Finally. 00:52:34.599 --> 00:52:35.059 Whatcha bet Fiore?