For God So Loved Homosexuals and Murderers | Kingsmen

Kingdom Mindset, Spiritual Warfare, and Living Sacrifice

Welcome to the Kingsmen Podcast, where we are reclaiming biblical manhood by training and equipping men for the work of the kingdom. I'm your host John Moffitt, I'm the pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and one of the hosts of Theocast.

If you didn't listen to last week's episode, I encourage you to go do so. Pastoral response or thoughts on transgenderism, or transgender, whatever. You can go look it up. I want to continue this today's thoughts, but I'm asking you, please, before you shut this off and before you comment, hear me all the way out.

It's gonna sound like I'm a pacifist. I'm not. I just want you to hear the biblical arguments for what I'm trying to make, because I think it'll help us in understanding our purpose in this life and our purpose in this world.

One of the most important parts about the title of this podcast, which is Kingdom, is to help people think in a kingdom mindset. The way in which the Bible describes it, there's the kingdom of dark and the kingdom of light, and we are obviously a part of the kingdom of light.

The Word describes this world underneath the rule and the reign of the evil one. Jesus even describes him the God of this world. So there's definite influence, and that influence of Satan is in direct opposition, and often persecution, against those who are advancing the kingdom of light.

And there's this whole entire battle, this cosmic war, that's happening. And this is why Paul says things like in Ephesians 6, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, and there's a spiritual war that's happening.

Part of this spiritual war, Paul describes us as our part in it. In Romans chapter 12, we know this verse if you've been around Christianity for a while, and the way he describes you as an individual, part of God's kingdom, being God's child, he says that you need to present yourself as a living sacrifice.

It's interesting how he uses the word present. Like, you walk before God with the awareness of, like, wow, my life is to be used and spent for God. You know, Paul even describes that using Old Testament sacrificial language.

He's like, I'm gonna be poured out as a drink offering for God. There is a significant purpose and use for you and your body. Now, here's where we might disagree on what the use of your body is for. We are being told that if we stand up for Christ and we preach the gospel, we will be persecuted.

We will face persecution, even death. But that part of our life seems so foreign for us in the United States, and we've lost the mission that our life should be spent, possibly even killed by those we're evangelizing.

We've twisted it into the exact opposite of that, where we're actually trying to suppress and bring guilt and shame and even death upon those who need to hear the gospel. Let me give you an illustration.

Missionaries, Persecution, and the Cost of Evangelism

We celebrate and write biographies and movies about missionaries who go to thorough countries and they die sharing the gospel. They're speared to death, cannibalized, and we are thankful that there are men and women who are willing to go into thorough countries where the gospel has never been advanced and give their life for the advancement of the good news.

That these people who rape and murder each other and cannibalize each other might be able to be set free from the bondage of their sin and not be judged by God when he comes back and receive the eternal joys of grace.

Man, we give our money towards that. We love it. But when it comes to the United States, somehow that changes. We then, well, I mean there's this whole mentality of don't tread on me. There's a whole mentality that it's me and mine and my protection and you can't touch it.

As a matter of fact, it's my God-given right to take your life if you try to come and mess with my stuff. And somehow we've manipulated the Word of God into the mission of Christians is to protect themselves from the world.

Now, I agree. You should protect yourself from the ideologies of the world and the sexual passions of the world. Stay away from them because they will destroy you. But the concept that we need to push back and violently push back against anybody that would oppose us and oppose us with great opposition to the point where there might be persecution and that's not normal and God does not want his children to be persecuted is actually not biblical.

I'll give you some examples. I mean, going back to Romans chapter 12, this is why it's like you have to present yourself as a living sacrifice. Do you realize that Jesus in every New Testament writer mentioned suffering for the sake of the gospel?

Like physical suffering. That if you preach this message and you stand up for the truth of it and you try and liberate people, those people will most likely take your life. So it is interesting that if we stand up for the morality and the truth of the Word of God and the world hates you, you shouldn't be surprised by that.

I find it interesting, this story, we all know the story of Stephen when Stephen is stoned and he's sitting there and he's preaching the truth. Who's standing by holding the coats of the men who stoned Stephen?

We all know this story. It was Saul. Who did Saul end up becoming? Paul. What's interesting is if Stephen changes his tactic and he doesn't preach the gospel but he ends up defending himself and tries to take their life or whatever tactic you might use, you miss the whole point of the story.

This world is not one that we are trying to transform and preserve. How many times does both Peter and Paul and James point us beyond this life? I mean, I just can't help but think about 1st Peter when he says, set your hope fully on what?

The grace that is to come. That means you're not thinking about preserving this life. You're like, my life is expendable. My life can be spent. It can be taken. It can be sacrificed. And for the glory of God.

This is why it was, listen, the church has been struggling with this for a long time. This is why the church, when Paul shows up, it's like, look, I want to be a missionary. They're like, yeah, we don't know about that.

Paul was literally killing Christians. He was imprisoning them. You know, when we think about, I'll change this over to transgenderism. When we think about what the world is trying to do to our kids and do to people who are innocent and there's all kinds of crazy things that are happening in our world that is not acceptable and not good.

Paul the Murderer Turned Missionary

And we should hate it. And it's, it's everything that is opposite of who God is. The gun, the sword, prison can't change the heart. It just can't do it. But the gospel can. The gospel absolutely can. And we think to ourselves, we, we hate and we say vile things about what the world is doing.

Well, that's exactly, I mean, Paul was the worst amongst the worst. He wasn't just killing general people. He was going after the Christians. And God ends up using a man who was a murderer, who was involved in killing a missionary named Stephen.

God ends up turning him into being a great missionary, one of the most prolific writers in the New Testament. I do not think that's ironic. The man who watched Stephen sacrifice his life for the gospel then wrote Romans 12 1, present yourselves as living sacrifices, to whom Paul ended up dying for.

And as far as we know, most of the disciples did. They understood their life was to be spent for the sake of the gospel. I just, I think it's something that you, we've got to stop and think about for a moment.

One of the great tactics of Satan is to get your eyes on this world. And thinking that this world is the greatest hope that we have, and we need to preserve it, and we need to do something about changing it.

I believe in the sovereignty of God, and I also believe in God's sovereignty and his decree. He is using governments as frail and messed up as they might be. He hands them the sword to suppress evil so that we can do our job.

Our job is not to suppress evil. Our job is to take the kingdom of light, the sword that he has been given to us, and we're to take it and advance it into the kingdom of darkness so that eyes can be opened and that hearts can be renewed.

So I just want to challenge all of us to start thinking about our lives in such a way where, if you're getting on the internet or even in your local communities, and what you're most concerned about is the moral failure of your country and those people around you, and you are using hateful language, and you're not using compassion, and you are somehow judging these people.

What have we done? We have no right to judge. We are sinners who received grace, who have then been commissioned. He says, you're ambassador. You're now ambassador on my behalf to go implore people to be reconciled to God, and you're gonna die doing it.

You're gonna die doing it. I like how he says in Corinthians as well, he says that we represent our bodies as—he goes, you've been bought with a price. You've been bought with a price, and I now own you.

I own your body. Sometimes we think of that in maybe an upside-down way. I love who he's writing to. He's writing to the Corinthian church who have morally really messed up. He's like, your body, which you're using for sexual deviance and for all kinds of horrendous ideas, he goes, I purchased that even though it wasn't worth purchasing.

I purchased it, and what you used to use for evil, we're gonna now use to save people. Through your body, through your mind, your eyes, your mouth, your hands, your vocal colleagues, you're gonna now rescue people from the kingdom of darkness, and you're gonna sacrifice yourself doing that.

Enduring Everything for the Elect

I just want to read you one more verse here. I think it's helpful. This is 2 Timothy 2, and verse 10. This verse has really helped me in understanding when Paul talks about being a living sacrifice. We're not just sacrificing ourselves as, you know, we're trying to be morally upright people.

There's a purpose behind what we're doing. He says it this way, therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

Your life, your whole entire life, according to Paul, is to focus on what the mission of this life is about, which is to help spread the news of the gospel that to whom God is going to save is going to be saved by you, be the ambassador, you being the mouthpiece, and you're gonna have to do it sacrificially.

You're gonna have to lay your life down. This is why he even says in Philippians, he goes, don't be surprised if you are going to face...no, actually he says it this way. He says, not only that I chose you for salvation, but I chose you also to suffer for my sake.

So being a part of a Christian community and being a part of Christ comes with that is suffering, sacrifice. Why? Because we're in a world as aliens rescuing people out of that world. So I just wanted to challenge all of us as you guys become disdained and you think about what the world is doing, you need to continue to hate the sin.

It's damaging, it's horrendous, it's hurting people, but be careful because what can end up happening is we will share the gospel with what we call the white-collar crimes, right? The clean crimes, the clean sinners who aren't that bad, who just, you know, they're not going to church on Sunday and they're washing their car instead.

They need the gospel. But the predator, the Jeffrey Dahmers, those who are on death row, well, they deserve to be there. Whoa, what do you mean they deserve to be there? We all deserve the same. Do you realize that everyone goes to the same judgment?

They all go underneath the wrath of God, period. There isn't wrath of God 20 and wrath of God 100%. There's wrath of God. You're either under his wrath or you're under his grace and there isn't 20 grace and 100 grace.

So remember that we have the joy and we have been called to lay our life down so that every sinner, no matter how bad they might be, can be set free and enjoy the true love and grace of God. Now that's radical.

Grace for Murderers, Sinners, and the Self-Righteous

Yeah, that sounds radical and yeah, I can understand how if you are self-righteous that you're not going to want to hear this. If you have a problem with rapists and murderers being saved by Jesus, well then you have a problem because Paul was saved by Jesus and Paul was a murderer and I'm so glad that God saved Paul and I'm so glad that God saved me and he can save anyone in the world through the power of the gospel.

How about we use our bodies for that instead of condemning people and judging them where we're not the judge? Now, I got one thing I got to say, okay? Well, what are you saying, John, we shouldn't have military and we shouldn't have the police?

Absolutely not. Those are instituted by God. I'm thankful for them and we have many Christians who are participating in them. God has ordained means to suppress evil in this world and I think we should vote and I think we should participate in ways that help suppress that evil because that allows us to continue to preach the gospel.

We want to preach the gospel, but let's not forget that the world has gone to hate what we're doing. Let's not try and change the world by using the law. Use the law to expose their sin, but you have to give them grace because every sinner, every sinner has been called.

Here's the last thing I'll say. When Jesus says that if you believe, that if you believe has nothing to do with your former performance. If one sees they are a sinner and they believe that grace can sufficiently save them through the work and person of Jesus Christ, no matter what their past is and no matter what they've done, God's grace covers their sin.

So think of that before you judge someone next. We'll see you next time.