- 00:01
- So in the last video I was in a bit of a rush, someone was coming over and I needed to get that taken care of and so there was something
- 00:09
- I didn't really address that I would like to address and it's a tough question.
- 00:16
- It's a tough question, if you didn't see the last video you need to go see what John MacArthur said. And basically he answered a question that was sent in to Grace To You as to how a
- 00:28
- Christian parent should respond to an adult child who professes themselves to be homosexual.
- 00:38
- And what he did is he made differentiation between one who professes to be a Christian and one who does not, as that differentiation must be made.
- 00:48
- And then addressed the one who makes a self -profession of faith within the context of church discipline, specifically 1
- 00:56
- Corinthians chapter 5 when we looked at that text. But as I've thought about it, I realized that what really bothers people,
- 01:07
- I think about what Dr. MacArthur said, is that it requires us to have a fundamentally different view, not only the nature of the church which
- 01:18
- I did address, but likewise of the primacy of the
- 01:24
- Lordship of Christ in our life than most people actually have. On the screen you see the words that Jesus gave in Matthew chapter 10.
- 01:40
- For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter -in -law against her mother -in -law, and a man's enemies will be the members of his household.
- 01:48
- An Old Testament fulfillment text which Jesus interprets in the words of, he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.
- 02:09
- He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for my sake will find it. This is obviously the radical reorientation of Christian discipleship.
- 02:22
- Now once again, I can't even begin to address those who are anti -Lordship, easy grace people because they're so far off biblically from the gospel here that these words don't make any sense to them within their context.
- 02:39
- So leaving that false view aside, what we see here is a call to all believers and that to be a
- 02:48
- Christian, to take up one's cross, to follow after Christ is a radical, involves a radical reorientation of everything in our lives.
- 02:58
- Not only inwardly as we consider our own hopes and dreams and our possessions and our relationships and everything else, but all the relationships we have outside of ourselves, including father and mother,
- 03:14
- Jesus says the gospel will divide. The gospel will radically change your relationship with other people.
- 03:24
- And here's an example of it. Yes, you call for repentance. If your adult child who professes to be a
- 03:32
- Christian, and of course, as Dr. MacArthur said, if he doesn't profess to be a Christian, well, it's obviously just further need for evangelism at that point.
- 03:40
- But if this person professes to be a Christian, and I'm assuming that, and I think
- 03:47
- Dr. MacArthur was assuming this too, that the person saying this is not saying, please help me.
- 03:53
- I don't want to experience this. I don't want to experience these same sex attractions.
- 04:00
- Would you help me to live a holy life? Would you help me to reorient myself along those lines?
- 04:06
- The assumption that I had, and I think that Dr. MacArthur had, is that we're talking about someone who says, I'm a homosexual, and I am going to allow myself to be defined by my desires, and I am not going to change.
- 04:19
- It is in that light that his words are to be understood, and that all of us must agree that the words that he gives, as harsh as he may be, are not as harsh as what
- 04:30
- Jesus said. And so, in that context, the gospel divides, just as it would divide us between anyone who would, for example, live in any type of open sin, unrepentant, a husband who abuses his wife or his children, a husband who engages in heterosexual adultery, whatever else it might be, who's stealing from his company and will not stop, all these things would likewise be unrepentant sins, though none of them would be the same thing as being so changed inwardly as to create this kind of a perversion of one's relationship.
- 05:23
- But the point is this, as hard as it may be, there would come a time when one would have to, one would just be forced to put the relationship of the lordship of Christ before any other relationship.
- 05:48
- And if you have a father, a mother, a son, a daughter who refuses to follow the lordship of Jesus Christ while claiming to be a follower of Christ, there comes a point in time where separation is necessary.
- 06:10
- That's what 1 Corinthians 5 says, that's what Matthew chapter 10 says, and there's no way around that.
- 06:19
- The only way to get around that is to abandon the lordship of Christ, which is exactly what we see in the liberal denominations today.
- 06:26
- The lordship of Christ has no meaning in those denominations where his word is no longer considered authoritative.
- 06:34
- And so taking up the cross is a radical thing.
- 06:41
- The world can't understand it, we should recognize that, we should understand they can't understand it.
- 06:46
- These liberals who mock what Dr. MacArthur said, they don't understand the concept of taking up the cross.
- 06:53
- But we need to understand it and we need to be able to enunciate it to others that we have a requirement, we have a duty that is incumbent upon us because of the price that has been paid for our very souls.
- 07:10
- We belong to someone else, we have bowed the knee to the lordship of Christ and that lordship has responsibilities in this world.
- 07:22
- Hopefully we'll understand that, hopefully this has been a useful addition to what we already said in the previous video.
