Hey Church Fam,
Last Sunday, I preached Matthew 7:1-6, and in it Jesus talked about the ways in which we judge others that are sinful and ways that can be loving and build up his kingdom.
I threw in a point of application about Pride Month and how this passage can help us think through some of the judging aspects of it, but I thought it could be helpful to also just throw out a general encouragement to you as a pastor, especially for those of you who are in the cultural trenches. We need the Lord’s help from his word for how to navigate this month and every month as our culture seems to slide deeper into the celebration of sin.
Last month, Pastor Sam and I got to attend an evening service at a church like ours, and one of their pastors shared some pastoral encouragement for his members, guiding them through how to think about living in the world during Pride Month. It was then created into a blog, (click here for the blog post itself if you want), but here below are the points from that talk and the blog. I hope this helps to hid God’s Word in your heart for the moments where you need it with family, friends, in the office, at school, etc.
Always know I and the other pastors are here to give counsel and pray with you through these hard situations we’re put in because of pride month, especially. As I said in my sermon, remember that this world is not our home, Christ will build his church, and we have all the hope in the world that the gospel can work wonders if you share it and live it out.
Love you, church. Below is what I pulled from the blog post.
Paul
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1. IN EVERYTHING YOU DO, LOVE—Mark 12:29–31
Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
For starters, don’t take love for granted. That’s easy to do when fear dominates us.
Therefore, remind your members that loving God and loving our neighbor should animate everything we say and do this month. We stand up for truth for love’s sake. We swim upstream for love’s sake. We share the gospel for love’s sake. We say, “No, I can’t do that” at work for love’s sake. We turn the right cheek to those who strike us on the left for love’s sake.
We, as pastors, can’t tell them everything they will need to say at any given moment at work or school. But we can tell them they must always love—both God and their neighbor.
2. DISTINGUISH GOD’S LOVE FROM THE WORLD’S LOVE—John 14:15, 21, 23, 24
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. . . Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. . . If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.
Just as quickly as you encourage your church to act in love, pastor, remind that that love, in the Bible, always works together with righteousness, obedience, and truth. Love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth,” Paul remarks elsewhere (1 Cor. 13:6).
You have to say this because today’s culture has completely swallowed hell’s view of love: love means whatever you want it to mean. People might use the words, “God is love,” but what they really mean is, “Love is God.” That is, our views of love, whatever they happen to be, define all reality and morality.
Yet that’s not real love. It’s a fake and a liar. Real love always points people to the God who is love, and anything that draws people away from this righteous and holy God is not love but is a deceiver.
So encourage your members to love, but also teach them what love is. Help them not to be fooled.
3. NEVER LIE—Exodus 20:16
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Many situations at school or work will place your members into situations where lying might seem like the easy road out of a dilemma. Remind them that Christians should not lie. Short-term gains never outweigh long-term compromises. Scripture’s positive command to speak the truth in love doesn’t mean we have to speak up at every moment in which we could. Sometimes silence is acceptable. Yet Christians must never lie.
4 & 5. NEVER AFFIRM EVIL—Ephesians 5:11 & Romans 1:32
Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them (Eph. 5:11).
Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (Rom. 1:32).
An everyday rationale Christians offer for going with the cultural flow is, “Well, not everyone here is a Christian, and we shouldn’t impose our morality on them.” That counsel can be correct sometimes. Yet just as you should never lie, so you should never participate in the unfruitful works of darkness, and you should never give approval to anything that provokes God’s judgment.
Just because your classmates or colleagues decided to approve sin doesn’t mean you should put your hand to doing the same. Abstain. Pull back. Keep your hands off anything that might commend sin and provoke God’s end-time judgment.
Once again, it may be challenging to know where the line is between abstaining and commending, as well as when to actively “expose” what’s sin. Still, our first task as pastors is to teach these basic principles.
6. REMEMBER WHAT YOU WERE BUT ARE NO LONGER BY THE GOSPEL—1 Corinthians 6:9–11
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Sometimes our moral compasses get a little wobbly. For all of us “wobblers,” Paul’s words here set the record straight and put steel in our spines. It draws clear moral lines for our members, and also reminds them of the gospel.
Remember, your members still struggle with the temptations to do the very things listed here, such as sexual immorality, greed, or reviling others. Some will struggle with feelings of attraction toward the same sex, or even like they’re in the wrong body. For this latter group, put yourself in their shoes for a second: if they would only tweak their theology, they could be hailed as heroes by our culture.
Instead, we must hail them as heroes, since they’re exercising extreme faith to follow Christ. Remind everyone of God’s law, but also remind them of the gospel of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. We’re no better than anyone on the outside because we’re all here by mercy and grace. Our worth and value and righteousness and hope is vicarious, imputed from Christ. What a gracious and loving Savior he is!
7. DO NOT PASS JUDGMENT ON ONE ANOTHER—Romans 14:13
Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.
We must consider three kinds of judging during times like Pride month. First, we don’t want to wrongly judge what’s right and wrong, as with the false prophets who said, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace (Jer. 6:14; 8:11).
Second, which is another version of the first, we don’t want to overlook our own sins while condemning others, as with the Pharisee in Luke 18 who prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men.” In that regard, check out Jerry Bridges’ Respectable Sins.
Third, we don’t want to wrongly condemn our brothers and sisters when our consciences draw different conclusions amidst some of these tough situational dilemmas. So often, the path to apostacy is not denial of the faith per se, but a fracturing of church unity under pressure that slowly erodes faith.
Some convictional disagreements between Christians should split churches. But pick carefully. Paul lists “sexual immorality” and “idolatry” in his list of “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5. Yet he also includes “dissensions” and “divisions” in that list.
In the month of June, pastor, encourage your members to reach out to an elder if they find themselves in a brutal dilemma at work or school for which they need wisdom. Yet also teach them how to expect some differences of opinion at church regarding how to navigate a culture enamored with the LGBT+ agenda. Teach them to do this in the unity of the gospel, lest any of us “destroy the one for whom Christ died” (Rom. 14:15).
CONCLUSION
When the challenging work or school dilemmas come, it won’t always be clear how all of the above texts apply. And sometimes, it might feel like one text commends one path while another text commends another path. Choosing the best course of action will require much wisdom as we study the Scriptures and discuss our dilemmas together.
Thanks be to the God who promises wisdom when we ask (James 1:5).