My goal today, as I mentioned last week, is to do something rather different. Normally we go verse by verse through the Bible, and we are doing a study of Genesis. And occasionally, there comes a time where you cover a topic by going verse by verse, and it really needs to be fleshed out a little more, or maybe something that is prominent in the culture that relates to exactly what we have taught in the passage we have been teaching.

So, we’ve been teaching through God’s creation. And last week we got to verses 26-31 of chapter 1 which talk about the creation of man and woman. And just because we live in the climate we do, the idea of maleness and femaleness is not understood like it once was. And so because transgenderism was an issue, I wanted to take a Sunday to do something rather abnormal—something I don’t prefer doing, but something I think is necessary pastorally—and that is to talk to you about transgenderism. I want to do it from a biblical worldview.

I could do this from a political point of view, but that would be nothing different from what you’re used to hearing. I could do it from a psychological point of view, but I’m not a psychologist. I could do this from a number of different viewpoints—a cultural standpoint, a historical standpoint.  I’m not going to do that because, really, all of those things bow the knee to the biblical viewpoint.

So the biblical viewpoint about what God says about male and female is the important one. The important one. We could talk about how transgenderism effects athletics, how it affects schools, how it affects the arts. We could talk about a number of different viewpoints. I’m simply going to be a pastor who goes to the Bible and talks about what it means to be man and woman and what the results and consequences of that are. 

So my goal today is to offer a biblical viewpoint of manhood and womanhood. And I want to give you two overarching points that we’ll put everything else under. First, how to understand transgenderism biblically—specifically male and female roles. Secondly, how to respond to transgenderism biblically. See the differences there? How to understand, but then as Christians, how to respond to transgenderism biblically.

1.  How to Understand Transgenderism Biblically

This is a definition of transgenderism from an LGBT website, and so I want to use their own words to see what they mean when they say this. I think it is fair to represent someone you disagree with by their own definition rather than setting up a straw man and tearing it down. So, let’s hear what they say about what this means.

“Transgenderism is an umbrella term to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth.”

One transgender advocate and entertainer said this, “There’s a gender in your brain and a gender in your body. For 99% of people those things are in alignment. For transgender people they are mismatched. That’s all it is. It’s not complicated. It’s not neurosis. It’s a mix-up. It’s a birth defect like a cleft palate.”

That’s them speaking in their own words about what it’s like to be transgender.

Now, I think it’s important to give some other definitions just so we know what we’re talking about and what we’re not talking about.

Gender identity: “Gender identity is a person’s sense of their own gender. Whether male or female or something else.”  So it’s how they feel. Do they feel like a man? Or do they feel like a woman? That’s the term “gender identity.”

Gender dysphoria: “Gender dysphoria is when the feeling of what someone is doesn’t match up to their biology or biological sex.” So, they may be born biologically a man, but they think that they are a woman. That is called “gender dysphoria.”

And I’m not making any value judgements on these right now. I’m not saying they are right or wrong. I do believe they are not right, but I’m just trying to give you the definitions right now so we know what we’re talking about. Next …

Gender reassignment: “Gender reassignment is another way of describing a person’s transition. To undergo gender reassignment usually means to undergo some sort of medical intervention, but it can also mean changing names, pronouns, dressing differently, and living in their self-identified gender.” So, it could be a person born female transitioning, medically speaking or even in what they call themselves, into a male. Those are some definitions.

Now to be clear, if a person is born male, for instance, and thinks that they are wired female (we’ll mention later how that is not a right viewpoint) … but if they think that way, we’re not saying that it is sin necessarily if they feel a little different, if they feel a little funny. It’s sin when it’s acted upon and really removed from the authority of God’s word.

But everyone’s got sinful temptations and thoughts, so to think that I could be tempted this way (I feel the pull there), but I’m not going to give into that. That’s not sin. That’s fighting temptation. So to just have the thought that, yeah, I might be feeling this way or that way—that’s part of the fall. To act upon that and to own that and to be something other than what God has created you to be would be sin because of how God has created the world.

So I’m giving you some subpoints here as well under “How to Understand Transgenderism Biblically.” First, what is it? Second, some other definitions. Third, I want to look at God’s standard. And this is where we go back to Genesis 1, where we were last week.

Genesis 1:26-27 and 31:

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ³¹ And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

So God creates two distinct genders—male and female. And God looks upon male and female and says, that’s very good. Genesis 2:18-22, you’ll see specifically how God did this.

Genesis 2:18-22:

¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” ¹⁹ Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.²² And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

That, by the way, is a poem. When Eve is created, and Adam looks at her, he becomes Shakespeare all of a sudden. This is good. I agree with you, God. This is very good. And he becomes a poet. This is a big deal in the created world. This is a big deal before Genesis 3, before sin. Man created. Woman created. This is good. Adam knew it. Eve knew it. God knew it.

Everyone knew it before the fall. God makes woman as a complement to man. Equal with man in importance, equal with man in what the mission was to be. He gave them different roles, different biology, different make up. And their biology is their gender. Eve looked like a woman looks. Adam looked like a man looks. Their biology is their gender. So, gender, in God’s eyes, is a good thing. Even distinctiveness in gender, differences in gender, is a good thing. There’s nothing bad about this account.

To quote Kevin DeYoung … DeYoung writes this, “Dividing the human race into two genders (male and female, one or the other, not both or not one and then the other) is not the invention of Victorian prudes or patriarchal oafs. It was God’s idea.”

Now, some people might say, but God made me to be something inside that I don’t look like on the outside. That’s the argument. God made me to be something inside that I’m not on the outside. Then I would say this based on the biblical text. Since the fall, there has always been a fallen-ness in our minds. There has always been compromise or sin or wrong thinking in our minds. Just because we think it, or hold it as a position, doesn’t mean we are right.

The standard as to what is right and wrong is what God says, not how we feel. We have desires and passions constantly that wage war against our soul. People who are transgender in that sense are no different than any of us. We have passions and desires that wage war against our soul. 1 Peter 2. Even Christians—if you have a changed heart and a changed mind, you still have the flesh in you, don’t you? You still have the passions that are not in line with the standard of God.

So, we understand that. When the transgender person says, I’m conflicted. We understand being conflicted. Look at Paul in Romans 7. There’s conflict in his mind there. So, we understand that. But does it mean that what we feel is always the right thing?

We know that God says not to marry an unbeliever. But yet sometimes you can have Christians trying to make compromises and say. but that person really loves me, I’ll be happy, so I’m going to do it. Right there, what they feel and what they want takes the place of the authority of God’s word. The authority of God’s word bows to what we feel or what we want or what we hope for.

We know that God says that we should not speak too much in certain situations, yet sometimes we let our tongue get a little loose, and we say things that we shouldn’t say. So there’s a conflict with what we believe in our mind and what we actually do. We understand the conflict of the mind. Our minds are always warring against our souls as unbelievers.

As believers, there’s still a battle going on. It’s not the same as before. And really I think that this argument (I’m different inside than what I look like outside) is really an old argument. It’s old school Gnosticism: the idea that physical is bad and spiritual/mental is good. So that what I feel inside is more important than what I look like outside. That’s the argument because physical: bad, spiritual: good. But that’s not true biblically.

God cares very much about physical things. We all are born with a mind that goes astray. Once Adam started having children after Adam and Eve sinned, every single person was born into an environment of sin where the mind was not set on the things of God.

Now, man and woman may have intelligence. Look, unbelievers do amazing things. This is not saying that we don’t have intelligence. What we’re saying is the mind of fallen man can be intelligent while not being sanctified, can be smart without being holy and pleasing to God. So there are good things that the unbeliever can do in society. We praise the Lord for those things. Modern medicine is one of them. Building codes is another. There are a lot of things that mankind has done, but that doesn’t mean that his mind is, in that sense, holy before the Lord.

Every single redeemed person—that’s us, if you’re a Christian—has desires that can be sinful. But what does a Christian do? Seeks to bring them into conformity to the will of God; takes those desires and places them under the will of God, not over the will of God; under the word of God, not over the word of God. We don’t make allowances for us to be outside the will of God because it feels good. And by the way, just because something feels good, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing.

This really comes down to a problem of authority. This is the heart of it all. It’s a problem of authority. Turn to Genesis 3, which we will get to, but just to highlight this. The temptation of Eve by Satan is to remove her from the authority of God. It’s to take God’s authority and to allow her to come out from under it and really to put herself in the authority of God. He said something, but he is wrong.

Genesis 3:1-5:

¹He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” ² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, ³ but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Do you see what’s happening here? The serpent and also Eve remove themselves from the authority of God. And by the way, Adam will come next, and he’ll do the same thing. Remove themselves from out of the authority of God and God’s Word. The beginning of sin is to question God’s Word, is to believe that what he says is not true for you. It’s the beginning of sin. It’s a problem of authority.

Turn to Romans 1 if you will. And by the way, if you are sympathetic to the transgender position, I would encourage you to listen to the end here. We’ve got some things to talk about after just simply defining that transgenderism is wrong. I want you to hear the whole picture.

This is speaking of what the world looks like under sin. Paul writes om Romans 1:21-24:

²¹ For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

            Now, let’s stop there for a moment. Do you see what’s happening here? The mind is talked about, isn’t it? Wisdom is talked about—human wisdom. So, human wisdom says, this is truth.  But really it’s warring against God’s truth, and so it’s not truth. It’s man-centered truth that’s warring against the truth of God. So it’s really having this idea that we know wisdom. The Bible (old, ancient) … “you don’t know what it’s like to be me”—my feelings, my truth supersede what the Bible says. This is clearly talked about in Romans 1.

²⁶ For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; ²⁷ and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

So, you can hear people making the arguments that are contrary to the Word of God. And the Bible doesn’t say, well, you’re a brilliant human being so you must be right. The Bible says that all unbelievers have a debased mind, have a mind that does not honor God. And that’s simply what the Bible says. That’s not just what some preacher is saying this morning. It is what the Bible says. The mind is not working the way that it was intended to work. The mind is not seeking to honor the Creator; it is seeking to honor the creature, to do what the fallen creature wants.

In the Bible, the Creator has the right to prohibit adultery; the Creator has the right to prohibit homosexuality; the Creator has the right to prohibit lust, unbiblical divorce, wearing the clothes of the opposite gender—just like he has the right to prohibit anger, impatience, covetousness, pride and hatred. The Creator is the one with the rights. The Creator sets the terms.

We’ve all got a submission problem apart from Christ. Every one of us has a submission problem apart from Christ. Christians still struggle sometimes to submit to the word of God. But the difference is, a follower of Christ whose heart has been changed, who has received a new birth, says I know what wars against God, and I want to keep that in subjection and follow him because I trust him. That’s the Christian standpoint.

The worldly standpoint is, I feel this; therefore it’s right—even more right than the word of God. But feelings have been corrupted with the fall just like everything else. Feelings are not pure. Thoughts are not always right. The word of God is pure. The word of God is true. The word of God gives life. And that’s the fifth sub point I want to make.

Following God’s ways are good. God’s commands are not meant to really make you feel horrible. God doesn’t give commands to make you have a bad day. God gives commands for you to have life and to enjoy blessings. His commands and obedience to his commands are tied to blessing. Children, honor your father and mother. You’ll live long in the land. It’s good to honor your father and mother. That’s the way God works. When he commands something, it’s good to obey it.

The lie from Satan back in Genesis 3 and beyond is that if you do something other than what God says, you’ll surely be happy and free. And as soon as they sin, there is a death sentence on them in Genesis 3. That’s a lie from the pit of hell that to do something other than what God has said is going to be good for you.

Listen to Psalm 119:67-68: “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. You are good and do good; teach me your statutes.”

Part of what it means to be a Christian is to believe that when God commands something, it’s good to do. He is not just at a master. He’s a good master. He’s a good father. He’s a good shepherd. He’s a good guide. He’s a good teacher. Our God is a good God. When a parent gives a command: no you can’t eat that bag of candy, they’re a good parent. So God is not keeping us from something, he is causing us to live to something—to be alive, to experience his blessing.

2.  How to Respond to Transgenderism Biblically

What do we do as Christians?  I’ve got four things that we do. I believe that these are all based on Scripture. How do we to respond to transgenders biblically? With truth. We respond with truth. Now, let me just say this. I’m talking for 45 minutes to you. There are a lot of questions and “what if?” and “what about this or that?” I can only do so much. So we’re not hitting everything. But please come ask questions if you’ve got questions. But let me now continue here.

How do we respond to transgenderism biblically? We respond with truth. We have to first abandon this idea that if we are followers of Christ, the world is always going to love us. I don’t think any of you would say that’s how I think, but sometimes that’s how we act. I don’t know why they’re so upset with me, I just spoke truth to them. That’s why their upset at you. That’s why. There’s an actual spiritual war going on.

So we have to abandon this unbiblical idea that the world is always going to like us or approve of us. The fact that we can do what we can do here today is abnormal in human history. It’s abnormal according to the upper room discourse, when Jesus was saying in this world you will have many troubles. It’s just going be part of the plan, part of the deal. So abandon this unbiblical idea that the world is always going to like us.

Now, throughout history, if Christians hold to a view of something that the world does not like and becomes increasingly agitated by, you will find some “Christians” who will cave into doing what the world will approve of. We’ll kind of try to stand between both sides. Read the Old Testament. God never wanted Israel to have one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God.

You stand with God. Christians compromise when they seek the approval of the world rather than the approval of God. I’ll say that again. Christians compromise when they seek the approval of the world rather than the approval of God. When we slowly adopt the world’s views, we’re abandoning God’s clear will.

Just resign yourself to this fact: You just can’t have it both ways. We have to stand for truth. If every other Christian in your family starts to say that sin is okay, you be the one that doesn’t because God is a holy God. He calls you to be holy like he is holy. So we must respond with truth not giving in. Truth could cost us money at some point, could cost us jail time at some point, could cost us our lives at some point. Do we move to the side of error for the sake of comfort? We can’t. We stand for truth.

Secondly, how to respond to transgenderism biblically. With grace. We are told by our Lord to give grace to people. You know what grace means? Undeserved favor.  It means to treat people better than they deserve. You know why? Because that’s what God did for us. We can never say, I don’t deserve this. We don’t want what we deserve. We do not want what we deserve. That would be an eternity in torment, separated from God, because we have offended him on numerous occasions. We will never get that as Christians—ever. He has given us so much grace, and he calls us to give grace to those who are outside the faith.

Listen to Colossians 4:5-6:

⁵Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. ⁶ Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Listen, the ultimate goal in holding to our biblical worldview is not to demonstrate that we are right, but to see people turn and call on Jesus as Lord. We don’t hold to a Christian worldview on transgenderism and on the distinctiveness of men’s and women’s roles so that we can say, “see, we’re right.” We hold to that view so that we can see people come to Christ and worship him in the way that he’s created them.

That’s the goal. More people praising our Lord, not more people thinking we’re just right. Under this idea of being gracious, can I plead with us to stop being snarky with people? You know, if you read social media or watch people who believe or have the worldview that we have, if you watch or listen to them speak, sometimes it’s rather embarrassing.

You hear people who have the opposite view from us—who believe that you can create your own gender and gender is a social construct. It is not something that is reflective of your biology. It’s just whatever you feel you want to be that day. We see people that hold those views, and yet, we just don’t agree. That’s so far from reality. And that’s concerning, and that causes some angst.

But to be honest, as a Christian, what causes me more angst is when Christians on social media are so snarky and mean-spirited toward those people.  Why does that cause more angst? Because we should be different. We have the mind of Christ. We’re to respond to people in sin like he did.

There’s a video of a man who went around a college campus. I don’t remember the exact verbiage, but the idea was, do you believe that you can be anything you want—man or woman? All these students were saying, yes, I do. He said what if I call myself a 6’8” Chinese woman? And the students kind of chuckled. He’s making a point, and I get the point he’s making.

But to go on social media and to just repost that, and to say, pfft … c’mon, what am I? A 7’2” Chinese woman? Let me ask this question: What in the world does that do? When did someone who is struggling with this idea of who they are inside compared with who they are outside see something like that on Facebook and say, you know what, hearing that snarky comment makes me believe that your God is a good and holy God, and I can run to his arms for forgiveness and mercy and he can change me. That has never happened in the history of social media. Ever! So let’s stop it.

That’s not what our Lord did. Our Lord’s strongest words were for the self-righteous religious group. You don’t see our Lord blasting the tax collectors, making fun of the prostitutes. Do you see him doing that? He didn’t do that. We can be right in the wrong way. Let’s stop being snarky. Snark doesn’t bring people into the kingdom of God. It repels people.

Third way to respond to transgenderism biblically. Respond with truth, respond with grace, and respond without hypocrisy. Respond without hypocrisy. We cannot believe that the sins of others are worse than our own. We all sin against the Lord in different ways. We have nothing that he hasn’t given us. Our right standing before God is because of what he’s done.

1 John 4:19, we love because he first loved us. He initiated it all. In the past, and even currently some in the church have turned a deaf ear to spousal abuse, unbiblical divorce, anger, gossip, and many other sins. And the world sees that clearly. Why in the world do you have this crusade against transgenderism calling it sin (which it is, and we need to say that it is), but why do you let so many other horrible things just go unnoticed? Why do we wink at so many things?

That’s why we’re here in this place. We’ll always talk about sin. We have to. It’s our enemy. We want to kill it. We want to identify it. We want to glorify our Lord, so we’ll talk about it all. Additionally, sometimes in the church … And I’m not saying this is you; it could be, perhaps—maybe, maybe not—but just additionally, we as a church universal have turned the mission field into the enemy. The mission field is not the enemy.

It would be good sometimes to stop watching political talk shows because it makes you think that people who think different from you are the enemy. They’re not the enemy. They are the mission field. And they’re just like we were when someone came to us with the gospel of Christ.

Remember the disciples who wanted to know if the Lord wanted them to call down fire from heaven because people weren’t believing in him. Remember that? Jesus didn’t turn and say to them, you know, you guys nailed it. Let’s get ’em. We do speak of a coming judgement  (Revelation 19) but for now, we are ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5). There is a judgment coming, and it’s on God’s watch, not ours.

There is a warning to articulate. You rebel against your Creator, there will be a judgement. But good news! I can tell you how to be reconciled to that Creator. That’s our message. So please, do not just major on the sins that other people commit while minoring on our own. That’s hypocrisy.

Fourth, how else to respond to transgenderism. With hospitality.

I’ll give you a scenario. A typical Tuesday night in Prescott or Chino Valley or Dewey or Paulden or Prescott Valley and you’ve got Christians sitting in their Christian homes watching their Christian things, eating their Christian food, wearing their Christian clothes.

And you’ve got people who are not following Christ, who are rebelling against God and his will eating their non-Christian meals and wearing their non-Christian clothes and things like that. We’re not here on this earth to keep them out of our lives. That’s called heaven, and that will come in God’s timeframe. We’re called to engage people, to be ministers of reconciliation.

If you’re here today and you’re sympathetic to the transgender movement or maybe even have these feelings yourself and think that it’s okay, let me say this: You may think that we are a hateful group. And if we believe that there is a way to be right with God that leads to eternal life and that you can have that, and we don’t share that with you, then you might be right. But we’re not a hateful group because we do share that with you. We’re trying to be a help. Whether you agree with that or see it or not, we are trying to be a help.

But the call for us is to show hospitality. And that means even spending time with some of these people should they cross our paths. Some of you are feeling very uncomfortable right now, and that’s okay. That’s Christianity. It’s not always comfortable, is it? The foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Our Lord wasn’t always comfortable, and we aren’t either.

Turn to Luke 5 if you will. The religious crowd of the day in Jesus’ time thought about tax collectors and prostitutes similar to how we often think of people who are homosexual or transgender. Keep them away from us. They’re clearly out of God’s will. We don’t want our kids—or we don’t want to be around them ourselves. We don’t want anything to do with them. That’s how the Pharisees treated tax collectors and prostitutes.

Jesus actually went and told a tax collector, “Follow me.” The idea being, you’re going to be with me a lot. We’re going to be spending time together for a long time. Jesus called a tax collector into his immediate company. Now again, we have to get back to the first century mindset. You don’t do that if you’re right with God. You don’t bring tax collectors into your company if you’re truly right with God. Jesus actually taught the opposite. No, if you are truly right with God you actually do that.

So Jesus calls Matthew, formerly known as Levi, to himself.  Look at Luke 5:27-29:

²⁷ After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” ²⁸ And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. ²⁹ And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.

So, here’s the idea. Levi comes to faith in Christ. He’s been a tax collector. I mean the lowest of the low. Levi is called by Christ, becomes a disciple of Christ, and what does he do? He throws a party at his house for Jesus to be at. And he doesn’t say, okay, Jesus, we’re going to keep out all of my horrible friends where I came from, and we’re going to invite all the top people in the Synagogue.

Levi (Matthew) doesn’t do that. He throws a party for Jesus, and who’s there? The tax collectors and, as Luke calls them, all the others.

³⁰ And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

Canyon Bible Church, do you want to hear what your Lord says next? Listen to your Lord.  

³¹ And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

There it is. You want to be like Jesus? Go to the sick. Don’t go to the ones that don’t think they need salvation. Go to the sick. Religious people (and I use that term in a negative sense) have always wanted to avoid sinners. Christ-like people have always pursued them. Always.

We’ve got a sister in the faith who I’ve told you about before, Rosaria Butterfield, formerly a lesbian professor, who was won to Christ by the hospitality of a Christian man and his wife. And our sister, Rosaria, has really challenged me the past few weeks. And I want you to hear her because I would love her to challenge you, too, in what she says. Listen to this.

Engaging in radically ordinary hospitality [let me stop there—this idea that Christians welcome people into their environment for the sake of loving them as image bearers of God and bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to them—hospitality] means we provide the time necessary to build strong relationships with people who think differently than we do, as well as build strong relationships from within the family of God.

We do both. It means that only hypocrites and cowards let their words be stronger than their relationships making sneaky raids into culture on social media or behaving like moralizing social prigs in the neighborhood. Radically ordinary hospitality shows this skeptical, post-Christian world what authentic Christianity looks like.

When you spend time with someone because they are created in the image of God, and because they are made in the image of God but they have marred his image because of sin like we all have, when you spend time with those people (created in the image of God although marred by sin) for the sake of letting them know that they can be reconciled to their Creator, when you show them love and common grace just like God shows them, you are showing them what God is like.

They have a garden. And you know what God does for them in their garden? He brings rain. And he gives them jobs so they can have food. He allows their children to go to schools. He gives them air to breathe. Our God is a gracious God to all mankind, not just Christians. He’s gracious. And when we interact with people who might be transgender or something else—we interact with them and we’re polite to them and we’re kind to them—we can do that as a representative of God.  This is what my God’s like.

We can do that while at the same time not endorsing or condoning their sin. There’s nothing in Luke 5 that says Jesus says, you know what? I mean, my Father is a God of love—who cares how you’re living? Don’t worry about it. Jesus never did that. In fact, sometimes, he would heal people and say, go and sin no more.

Jesus never compromised holiness while he reached out to people. We don’t need to think that if we reach out to people, we’re compromising on holiness. No, maybe we’re actually being holy by being like our Lord. Holy, after all, means separate. We’re different from how the world thinks. The world wants to separate from Christians. I hope Christians never want to separate from pursuing the world with the gospel.

Again, that’s why we’re here. We’re his representatives. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you. The question is, do we want comfort or effectiveness? If you had to put one of those two words over your house, over your Christian life (I’m pursing comfort on earth or I’m pursuing effectiveness on earth), which would you pick? Only two options: comfort or effectiveness. I hope the Christian would say, I want to be effective.

I want to something for my King. I want to live like he wants me to live. I’m going for it. It’s uncomfortable for us, but we’re going to have them over to our house for dinner. Why? Because the Son of Man left heaven to come to earth to rescue us. That’s why we have them over for dinner. That’s why we sit down and have coffee and interact with them as people. Not endorsing their sin (calling it what it is), but being kind and gracious to them and showing them what our King is like.

One of my favorite proverbs, Proverbs 14:4, says it well. “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean.”  Some people just want a clean manger—no manure, no trash, no hard things. Just let me walk into my manger, and let me see a spotless floor, not a speck of hay out of place. “[B]ut abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.” The Holy Spirit inspired that proverb and said that if you want to produce something, you’re just going to have oxen, and sometimes it’s going to be messy. But guess what, you’re going to produce something.

So, comfort or effectiveness? I vote effectiveness, and I think you do to.

What would I say to the Christian if I could summarize all of this? I would want you to see three things.

See transgender people as image bearers made in the image of God—more valuable than the giraffe made in the image of God. Now at this point some of you might be thinking, you did a bait and switch. You talked half the time about transgender people, and you talked half the time to us. Yes. Because the church hasn’t done this well. Sometimes we don’t know how to interact with sinners.

This week if you go out to eat and someone who is transgender comes to take your order, what are you going to do? Frown at them? Move to another table? How in the world will that help? Avoid them? Ask for another server? If you ask for another server, you might get one that apparently isn’t transgender, and you might be comfortable with that, but maybe they’re an angry person. Maybe they’re going to school to become a CEO so that they can have this lifestyle of women, cars, boats and things like that. Are they in that sense better than the transgender person?

Both are separated from God, both are living contrary to his will. So why do we make the distinction? Both, in a sense, need us. They need us. They need our Lord, and we may be the only picture of him that they ever see. So when they come to say, may I get your drink order going, we can smile at them and say, thank you, I’ll take an Arnold Palmer, and keep them coming. Thank you. Please be polite. Leave them a good tip. Let them see you praying. Maybe the Lord opens up a door to interact with them and talk with them. Why? Because they’re people created in the image of God.

If you read John 3 and I ask you, does God love the world? What would you say? Yes or no? Yes, he does. So we can love them too while not agreeing with how they live, while being heartbroken over what they’re determining to do.  We can show them love and dignity.

So see transgender people as image bearers.  Secondly, see yourself in the past as being right where they are. See yourself in the past before you came to Christ as being right where they are.  They’re rebelling against how God has made them. That’s the same thing we did when we started to disobey our parents at six months old or whenever it was. We also have rebelled against God. All of us have. So see yourself in the past as being right where they are.

Thirdly, see yourself now as Christ’s ambassador. See yourself now as Christ’s ambassador. That’s what we are called in 2 Corinthians—ambassadors of God. Ambassadors go into a foreign nation and announce terms of peace. They announce what the sovereign in their own nation wants them to tell this group that they are speaking to. We’re ambassadors.

DeYoung writes again: “After all, the goal is not to build a wall to keep people out of the church, but that God might build up his church in truth and grace that we can welcome people in, calling his image-bearers to embrace the life that is truly life.” When I highlight that DeYoung quote, it is not a political statement. I’m not making a political statement about a wall. What I’m highlighting is the fact that the church is not to build walls between us and the unbelievers. We go and pursue them. Invite them into the kingdom of God.

Now, if you’re a person sympathetic to the transgender movement, I want to say a few things to you. Ten in fact, and I’ll do it in 45 seconds.

1. You matter to God.
2. You therefore should matter more to us than you do.
3. Some of us Christ followers are understanding that we need to show you more and more dignity. Our God says that you are an image-bearer
4. The Bible teaches that you are currently engaged in sin.
5. We know sin better than anybody else. We were once held captive to it. We have all marred the image of God ourselves.
6. The Scriptures teach that Jesus came to free those who were and are held captive to sin.
7. The Scriptures call on all people to be willing to forsake their sin.
8. The Scriptures call on all people to embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Master. He is the one who died for their sin, paid the penalty for their sin and has the power over death. Three days after he died, he was raised to a new life. There is life in following him.
9. Part of following Christ is believing that all of his commands are for our good. All of his commands are for human flourishing, and we hope that you believe that.
10. We hope that we can demonstrate to you the grace and truth of our Lord so that you would see him more clearly. Ultimately, our prayer is that you would be fascinated by him. And we hope that we don’t get in the way, but we hope that we accurately reflect him.

People are being saved out of transgender environments, homosexual environments, environments where they are angry, self-righteous and proud. People are being saved out of these environments all the time because the gospel is powerful. Christ is powerful. He changes lives. He’s changed mine.

Yesterday there was a report on NBC about a march. Everyone is having marches these days. Right? March for this. March for that. There was another march, and it wasn’t a very big march. It wasn’t a very big group, but they were there. It was led by a survivor of the Pulse Nightclub shooting. Remember the shooting at the club in Orlando a couple years ago, a gay nightclub?

Well, this march was led by one of the survivors, Luis Javier Ruiz, and he was joined by a few dozen others at a so-called freedom march in Washington DC. Yesterday, those who were in attendance celebrated no longer identifying as gay or transgender.

Ruiz said this: “I don’t want to tell everyone it’s a gay to straight thing because God is not calling me to that.” Ruiz told NBC News. “I feel that I want to live a life of purity. I feel that through loving Christ, he will walk me out of any situation.”

So, it’s not just going from gay to straight. It’s about being in the kingdom of God and walking out of darkness into light. And he’s saying he knows Christ can bring him into that. A few dozen people showed up at the event on a cloudy Saturday, celebrating freedom from homosexual and transgender lifestyles by the grace and power of Jesus Christ, according to the march.

Jeffrey McCaul, a former transgender rights activist and organizer of the event, shared his story which seemed to have taken a sharp turn from his day of LGBTQ advocacy. McCaul says, “Everyone has marches—all kinds of views and opinions.” McCaul said, explaining his decision to hold the event, “I don’t really know about a march for people coming out of LGBTQ community to follow Jesus, so I wanted to do that.”

McCaul said he struggled with his sexuality at a young age and felt a strong tug toward what he called a feminine identity which led him to living as a woman named Scarlet for two years. That changed, he said, when God spoke to him and said, you will live for me. It reminds us of the apostle Paul, doesn’t it? You will be my witness. You will live for me.

This is what it’s all about—living for the glory of our Creator. Whether you’re caught up in a transgender lifestyle, whether you’re caught up in a lust-filled lifestyle, whether you’re caught up in a self-centered or pride-filled lifestyle, whether you’re caught up in a lifestyle full of anger or rage or whether you’re caught up in a lifestyle characterized by any other sin, the invitation is the same. Confess who you are to God and turn to follow him. The prostitute, the person who is transgender, the self-righteous moralist, or the tax collector—the invitation is the same. Turn to him. I will finish by reading you this. Luke 19:5-9:

⁵And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” ⁶So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. ⁷And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” ⁸And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” ⁹And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.”

Why? Why did that happen? Jesus tells us.

¹⁰  “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Let’s pray.

Lord, I want to offer you a bold prayer request and ask that you would allow us to be brought into the company of people who struggle with this sin. people who live loving this sin who do not want to live the way you’ve created them to live. Bring us into contact with them. If we are a Bible church, we must be an evangelistic church. If we are Christ followers, we must follow you in this way.

We’re going to need wisdom. We’re going to need compassion. We’re going to need the right words. We’re going to need the ability to be kind without compromising, so basically, we need you. We need your strength. We need your resources. We need your Spirit.

Father, give us a testimony in the years to come. Give us a testimony where we can say that you used us to be instruments. You did all the work. You get all the glory. If, for whatever reason, you used us to be instruments, to communicate your life-giving gospel to people who are caught up in darkness and death. Lord, if we are uncomfortable this morning, continue to teach us in the weeks to come through your Word. Continue to focus us on your Son and how he lived and what was important to him. Father, help us. We pray all this in the name of Christ, amen.