The Pastor’s Piece – May 22, 2022

The Pastor’s Piece

FCFI

May 22, 2022

Occasionally, when a member of our church is moving out of the area, they will ask me what they should look for when they are searching for a new church? I always tell them one of the first things they should look for is to see if the people are carrying their Bibles into church with them on Sunday. If they are, that most likely means the Pastor uses the Bible to preach from, and they are turning there to follow along as he preaches. I would have to wonder why one would even go to church, if they weren’t being taught out of the Bible? 

There is a lot of unrest in our country today. The leaked Supreme Court ruling of the possibility of Roe being overturned is causing an uproar. Protesters are voicing their opinions at every turn. Last week at church, I put a picture up on the screen of a young lady at Monroe High School in Monroe, Wisconsin who was being mocked, ridiculed, and bullied because she refused to walk out of class and join her classmates in protesting the apparent Supreme Court decision. She was singled out and shamed because, in her words, she doesn’t believe a mother should have the right to kill her own baby. 

This week I received a text message with this headline: “Harlem School Board bans ‘Gender Queer’ book.” (Harlem is a Rockford, Illinois high school). The story from Rockford news station 23WIFR reads: “It’s an opposition that turned a Harlem High School board meeting into a battleground Monday night, as divided crowds argued the availability of a book on sexual orientation and gender indentity in the school library. ‘Gender Queer’ is one of eight books brought to the board’s attention. Some community members say their children are being wrongfully exposed to pornographic language and pictures. ‘It’s porn. We’re talking incest, molestation and pedophilia,’ (said one parent). (The book is) (a)n autobiography about a journey of gender identity (and) pictures of sexual acts (which) draws the bulk of the ire. Some call the content indecent…”

We live in an era of confusion regarding human sexuality, gender, life, death, marriage and morality. This is what our parents and grandparents saw coming, but no one expected it to arrive the way it has. 

In the Bible, in Colossians, chapter 1, in speaking of Jesus, the Apostle Paul writes: “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created by Him and for Him.  He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

Our society has lost its view of God. He no longer exists in the eyes and minds of the gatekeepers of our community. We have excommunicated the One – the only One who can hold us together – Jesus Christ the Righteous One. 

What can we do? W ell, we can ignore these issues and hope they go away or at least stay away. Or, another option is that we can accommodate them. Our mindset could be, as things change in our culture we need to change to keep up with the times so let’s sit back and reconsider marriage, and sexuality, and abortion, and all of those issues. 

Historically ethics were what determined morals. What we’re doing now is changing the ethic to accommodate the morals. 

We’re in a revolution – a cultural revolution is what is taking place all around us. Revolutions are not looking for toleration. They are not looking for accommodation. In a revolution, the whole purpose is surrender – surrender to the ones making the movement. As a result of that surrender, you celebrate what you previously condemned and you condemn what you previously celebrated.

So how is a responsible Christian supposed to respond? Well, we need something to guide us through this anarchy that is entering our culture and all the confusion that’s taking place. Our resource for whatever we’re dealing with is the Word of God. We’ve got to know what God says about the sanctity of life, the sanctity of gender, the sanctity of family, and the sanctity of marriage. Genesis, chapters one and two give us the first principles of the foundations of life to get us started right out of the chute, and they tell us how we can begin to address ethically the matters of our culture starting with God’s Word. 

The answer to issues in our culture is the gospel. It is the double cure. It cures us from sin’s power and sin’s shame. God did much to save you to set you free. Jesus became for you what He had never been – the Son of Man – without ceasing to be the Son of God – to make you what you could never be. It’s unbelievable the joy that comes.

(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin)