MCC Podcasts
Working It Out - Laws-That-Give-Us-Life
We look forward to learning from you Holy Spirit, from you, we look forward to learning. Open our minds and quicken our ability to think. Build your filters in our ears and in our heads so that we hear what you actually need for us to hear. Let me pray that in the name of Christ, amen. In January of 2011, one of the issues of the Wall Street Journal ran an article entitled Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior. It was written by an author named Amy Chua based on her book called The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and in that book she extols the all work, no play regime of her teenage daughters and the things she does to ensure without question that they will in her measure be superior children and to make sure that they have success in life. Her definition of a superior child according to that article which is based on the book, that child produces high grades, works hard and is talented on either the violin or the piano. And in getting there, here are some of the rules, there are no play dates, no excuses for being less than number one in every single one of your classes except gym and drama. Why she leaves out my two top classes, I'll never know. There are no sleepovers, no TV, no computers and no say, absolutely no say in the way your free time and extracurricular activities are chosen. And she readily admits that her children by design according to her strategy are pushed until they succeed, nothing less than perfect is acceptable in her way of raising kids. My mom had a much less complicated group of list of mom laws, they were pretty basic. Make sure you get the dogs fed, try to stay out of trouble, that was a hard one, that was a hard one. Stick up for your brother and sister, that was one of my mom's mom laws. So I didn't get in trouble if I had gotten in a fight, I got in big trouble if my mom found out that my brother was picked on and I didn't get in a fight, if you know what I mean. Stick up for your sister and brother. She had a big rule, she put it this way, when your room is a mess, close the door so I don't have to look at it, that was her idea of straightening up. And then she had this really peculiar rule, mom gets a kiss and a hug anytime she asks for one, even if your friends are watching. So you know before I was old enough to drive, I'd be going to high school and mom would drop me off at high school and I'd try to sneak out of the car, no, no, no, come on back over here, oh mom, I'm a freshman now, you know, you and your mother are kissing a hug, my friends are watching, okay, give your mother a kiss and hug anyway, that was one of her rules and yes and that's my dear mom, who's with the Lord now, is my first mother's day not being able to call her so I figure I'd call her out a little bit, give her a bad time in front of all of you, isn't she cute, there's a neat mom. Just make sure the dogs are fed. Here's a question for this morning, are Amy Chew's laws too severe? Or my mom's mom laws too lax because this is important because we know that when we are introduced to a set of standards, whether they come from our mom or our dad or our job or the Lord, if those standards seem to be too severe, people fall away. But if they're too lax, people fall off, yeah, we work best when we have clear guidelines for how, where to live, clear guidelines for what brings us help. But when even good guidelines are presented and they seem to be presented with some severity, not with love, not with any gentleness or compassion, just kind of with strength and strength only, people fall away, that's just too severe, but when they're not clearly presented at all, we floundered, don't we? I mean, that's really the truth of it. One thing we all agree is that some, especially when raising children, and we are the children of God, some standards, some clear guidelines, some statement of mom law is required in order for us to do well. And we would say that a parent who doesn't offer at least something like that to their children, gives them no guidance, no direction, sets no trajectory, has no sense of right and wrong or a behavioral covenant in the family at least, and something about here's how you function in society and here's how you treat people, and in some guideline and some value system, a parent that isn't offering at least something along those lines is considered derelict and his or her duties. I think we would all agree on that even before we define those things and we'll have significant difference of opinion about those things. In other words, when it comes right down to it, though we may differ on the specifics, deep down we know that when it's presented to promote our best interest, law is good. Now, I'm going to use law interchangeably with words like standard, guideline, absolute. You can put all of those in there, Paul, in this text we're going to look at uses the law because he's just responding to a group of people who are misrepresenting the law and using it in the wrong way and he says, "Yeah, but it's actually a good thing, the law is good and here's why." And that's what we're going to look at this morning in this next section of 1 Timothy. We're in chapter 1 verses 8 through 11. In fact, would you stand with me as we read the Word of God? This is an increasingly delicate text with what nowadays would be considered by many to be actually offensive language, but I'm going to read it just like it was written and then we're going to dig into it. He says in response to the wrong use of the law, we know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous, but for lawbreakers, rebels, the ungodly and sinful. Anybody reading themselves into this? You should be because we pretty much all qualify. Just for the unholy and the irreligious, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, I can't think of a time I wanted to kill my father and mother, but I do remember them threatening to do that for me every once in a while. The laws for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and purgers, and it is for whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine that confirms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me, Paul says, "Though difficult and increasingly difficult to read in our times, hear me now, may God yet at his blessing to his holy word, his fully inspired message to us." Yeah, go ahead and take your seats. So the law is good, guidelines are good, standards of behavior are good, clear trajectory in life, clear sense of what's appropriate and inappropriate, acceptable and not acceptable to use terms that I'll focus on today, healthy and not healthy. Those clear standards are good. And I want to just visit a couple of reasons that that's good that Paul presents today. Here's the first one, and it comes in the first part of that first verse, of verse 9, one of those early verses, the first half of verse 9. The law is good because it's given to us in order that we might thrive. It's given with the right intent. In fact, when we see the purpose of the law, we also see the intent of God giving it. He has an objective for it, and he has a heart that motivates the giving of it. It says there in that verse, the law is good if one uses it lawfully. You have Paul with a play on words here. He's responding to people who have used the law for the wrong reasons. They were sitting down, looking, opening the scrolls and talking about the law, looking at genealogies. If you were here last week, you heard this already, and then doing all sorts of investment of meaning into what they were reading. Well, this name must stand for this, and this name must stand for this, and they got very creative about the meaning that they assign to what they were reading there. And they were entertaining themselves with their creativity. And the challenge was to see who could be the most creative with what we're reading here. And Paul's saying, "Man, all that results in is more speculation and a challenge to be more creative than the last guy. It doesn't change the way anybody lives. It doesn't touch anybody's life. That was not what the law was for. And so using it like that, the law is no good. So if you use it for its intended purpose with proper respect for it, and understanding the intent of it, and that God's desired outcome for it, it's very good. The law is good because it's given to us in order that we might thrive. It's good because it's offered for its intended purpose. Verse 5 that we dealt with last week reminds us of what that intended purpose is. It says in 1 Timothy 1, 5, "The goal of this command," which is a reference to the law that Paul was teaching, and the guidelines that he was presenting for life. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. So it comes from love to us to help us thrive. And the goal of it, the goal of teaching it, is for a changed way of living, a loving way of living. That's the intent. You know, many of us have seen or experienced people who seem to have rules just for the sake of rules. I mean, they have standards, there are rules, and you can't figure out what sense that rule makes. Anybody besides me notice that every once in a while? I worked in Chicago. I love our denomination, but I don't love some of our rules. We had a, what do you call it, an employee handbook. And there were rules in there that obviously were put in there because somebody got somebody else upset in 1940. There was a rule in the employee handbook that said you're not allowed to park your fishing boat in the parking lot at the office. Somebody parked their boat. Somebody couldn't get a parking space, which was not, it was hard to find those in Chicago. And I'm sure that whoever couldn't get the parking space had access to the edit button on the employee handbook, came up and wrote the rule and probably sent out a memo. There was a rule there that I hated. It was a rule that said you have to wear a tie to work. I think ties are evil things. So I started, first I wore a coat and tie. I mean, the first day on the job I wore a suit. And then I got down to a coat and tie, and then I decided I just don't want to wear a tie anymore. It's like 90% humidity outside and you got this window unit in my office and I'm dying in here. And so they weren't going to change the rule, but it was a rule. We couldn't figure out why they had that rule in these days. So we couldn't change the rule. So we went to some of the guys that had sympathetic hearts and says, look, on Wednesday, I'm not going to wear a tie. Why don't you not wear a tie? And we'll get him not to wear a tie. We'll tell her to quit wearing a tie. We'll just all not wear ties on Wednesday and see what happens. And so we kind of tiptoed into work with, you know, a dress belt like this and no tie. Nobody said anything. And so we noted each other, hey, Thursday, same thing. Friday was casual day. Why do we have that rule? Every other day you have to wear a tie, Friday you can wear blue jeans and no tie. Sometimes you just in situations where it seems like the rules for the sake of the rule, there's no logic behind it. You know what I'm talking about? Why is that guideline in place? Of course, we're all aware of rules that seem to have as their only purpose for existing the oppression of people, the unhelpful use of power, rules discourage people and control people and keep them down so that somebody else can stay afloat in justice. Sometimes sees rules thrown out there, but God's law isn't about control. God's rules aren't about keeping us down. God's rules are not about cutting the legs out from under us or taking away our free choice or turning us in the robot. God's law is good because it's given in order that we might thrive. It's about helping us to be free. It's about allowing us to soar. That's why it's good. You remember Jesus saying, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me two ways of saying the same thing. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls when you take my yoke upon you. For my yoke is easy. My burden is light." In other words, my yoke is the kind of yoke that was made just for you, just to fit you. It's not the kind of yoke that will rub you raw. You know the yoke when you put over the auction and it helps them stay together and helps them plow a straight field. But if you get the wrong yoke on the wrong animal, it rubs them raw. You're always fixing their sores, they're pain, they can't really do their job. Jesus is addressing a couple of things here. First of all, the idea that I crafted you in a certain way to live with a certain set of standards. And when you live with that set of standards, you flourish. And when you disregard that set of standards, you're wounded. It's not good for you, it's not good for your community, it's not good for your future, it's not good for your relationship with me, nothing. He also in there, inherent in that statement is this, and this addresses something that we need to wake up to. We live not just outside of the church, but even Christians, followers of Christ, somehow live with this idea, or at least a suspicion, that we actually have the choice of whether we're yoked or not. It's like we get to choose, do I want to wear a yoke of a teacher, or do I just want to not wear anybody's yoke? And that's fallacious. Scripture assumes, presupposes, teaches, and then goes on teaching after that, that we don't, human beings are fooling themselves when they think that they have the option to be on yoke. You're going to wear somebody's yoke. Bob Dylan had it right, I've said this before. It may be the devil, and it may be the Lord, but you're going to serve somebody. Remember that? You're going to say, "Yes." We don't get to choose whether we're yoked or not. We get to choose who's yoke we're going to wear. Jesus is saying, "I give you the law, and it's good. I give you my teachings, and they're good. They make life worth living. They actually are where you find freedom. When you know the sidelines, you have freedom to run within them." "Choose my yoke," he says. Choose my teaching, it's good. The law is good, because it's given to us an order that we might thrive. Now, it is not popularly received these days, increasingly even those who follow Christ are a little suspicious of some of the things His word teaches us, but it's still good, and it's where life is. Food is good because it's given to people who need it so that they won't die of starvation, and water is good. It's given to people who need it so that they won't die of thirst, and law is good, and it's given to people who need it in order to keep us from dying of what I call a misapplied freedom of choice. We are given the freedom to choose. Listen, we don't get the freedom to choose whether or not we wear a yoke. We really just get the freedom to choose which yoke we wear. That's the way we're created. So law is good because it's given to us with the intent not that we be held down or oppressed but that we thrive. That's one of the reasons law is good. Now we get into the more delicate portions of this text, and I'm not apologizing for them. This is word of God, but I'm sensitive to how hard they're going to be. This text is for some of us who are seeking Christ together to hear. I said last week that this was a sermon that addressed the topic of human sexuality and it is, but it's a sermon that addresses more than human sexuality as well. In fact, it's really about the many ways that we as human beings choose to reject that yoke that gives us life and choose in favor of it a yoke that rubs us raw. It's a sermon about all the ways sin seems to have to bring us down and to break our knees. It's about how badly we need standards, truth, things that are going to be the same tomorrow as they were yesterday. And even if you drift from them, you can come back to them and know that hasn't changed. This is still healthy and this still isn't, according to Scripture. Now you can reject Scripture and of course the logical argument breaks down and we're all free to do that. All I'm doing is saying, let's be clear about what word of God teaches us about what's healthy and clear about what it claims is teaching and why. It teaches the law is good in part because all of us actually need it in order to thrive. So the law is good because it's given with the right intent that we might have life and it's good because all of us actually need it in order that we might flourish. We need law because, as I've said, sin seems to have an unlimited number of options in its goal to destroy lives. And in addition to that, we seem to have a natural propensity to cooperate with that unlimited number of options. I don't have to learn to be rude. I have to learn to confront my rudeness. I don't have to learn to be self-absorbed. I have to learn to be generous. I don't have to learn to be greedy. I don't have to learn to be lustful. That chip was planted in me and watered well somehow and not always in a healthy way. What I have to learn is how to corral things that seem to drive me, especially when they drive me away from what God says is healthy. We seem to have some kind of different levels and different levels of maturity and different levels of ability. We seem to have a natural propensity to kind of like to swim in the gutter and to get out from under the yoke that at least Scripture says is good and healthy for us. We need this because there are so many options for breakdown. What Paul goes on to say after verse 9 is, as I've already read, I'll read it again. The law is for the unholy, irreligious, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, and I'm assuming he's talking there about those who as heterosexuals are sexually immoral, there's plenty of that in the church. We're just not as exercised about it as we are about same-gender sexual activity, but he says the law is for those who are practicing homosexuality, for slave traitors, so you have a reference there to oppression, for liars and those who, and purgers, those who speak falsely about others, and then he has this et cetera clause, and whatever else is contrary to Soundrock Doctrine, it's like Paul is saying, look, if I haven't identified your propensity yet, you fill in the blank, there's an et cetera clause. There are nine of these lists like this in Scripture, and here they are. You have a list something like this one in 1 Corinthians 5, 1 Corinthians 6, Galatians 5, Romans 1, Romans 13, Colossians 3, Ephesians 5, 2 Timothy 1, I think that's 1 Timothy 1, I'm sorry, I typed that wrong, and 2 Timothy 3, 1 Timothy 1 is the one we're focusing on right now, and 2 or 3 of those, I think 3 of those different lists have some sort of an et cetera clause, like in case I've missed anything, you fill in the blanks. I got interested in this this week, because I'm thinking, look at all the ways sin has to bring human beings down. Look at all the ways, if I'm staying in the context of what Paul's arguing, the expressions and applications of what the Bible would argue are brokenness have a ripping us away from the life God crafted us to live, keeping us from flourishing. And so I took all those nine lists and compiled the different statements, the different expressions of sin, and after I got up off of my knees because I realized that I'm so aligned with so many of them, and have to do battle with so many of them, I took them and then I tried to categorize them, and I came up with seven categories, which is interesting, because after the fact, I realized, wow, Proverbs kind of has seven categories, and they're pretty close to this, and then we were out the dinner with some friends the other night, and one of them said, you know what, I wonder if those would all fit somehow under what, under the classics, seven deadly sins list, and it gets pretty close. I came up with these before I started thinking about those others, that you basically have seven categories. I call them sins of addiction and indulgence, sins of aggression, sins of division, sins of insecurity, so allowing your insecurities to cause you to act. And sins of theology, so that's where you're misrepresenting who God is, or worshipping a false God or something like that, and sins of the tongue, which is one that probably all of us could work on, where when you say something that just carves somebody up, it's not edifying, it's not helpful, it's just hurtful. And then I thought, well, I wonder if there's anything behind how often Paul mentions different sins, and I think there probably isn't, that's probably driven by the context. So the Roman church may have needed to hear some different things based on what it was struggling with than the Corinthian church, and it may just be that there are several churches that have the same struggle, and that's why something gets mentioned more often in the compilation of lists than others. So that's probably what's true. But I did find it interesting that three or four of these showed up in four or more lists, drunkenness, greed, and let's see what each other one there is here. Drunkenness and greed certainly showed up in three or four more lists, coveting and disrespect for parents, swindling or cheating or deceit of somebody in a business deal. You know what that is, right? That's when you're doing a business deal and there's a gray area and you can leave something out and make the sale and make half a point more than if you told them about it. That's an example of this, swindling or cheating or taking advantage of information you have over somebody else, deceit, and then being a reviler, some sins of the tongue. Those things show up in several of the lists. Do you know which sin application showed up most often? Idolatry, probably because some of these expressions of brokenness amount to idolatry in the apostle size. For instance, one of the references brings up greed and then goes so far as to say which is idolatry, ultimately, worshiping something other than God. But when you compare that to what we find, say, in Proverbs, Proverbs 6 says, "There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a person who stirs up dissension in the community, dissension among sisters and brothers." So when you look at the Proverbs list and the compilation of Paul's application, remember Paul's saying, "These are things that are not consistent with God's law, they're contrary to it, and they will not bring you life. Watch out for these. These are not good things to practice." And then you have a parallel statement in Proverbs, and then theologians and historians over the years have boiled down things to the seven deadly sins list, the latest version of the seven deadly sins, lust, gluttony. I was petitioning to remove gluttony, but it just keeps sticking around like the results of it. Lust, gluttony, and things related to that, this overindulgence, my spiritual director and I lately are working on the theme, that the working on this question, is there a doctrine of enoughness? When is enough enough? That would be related to that deadly sin. So lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. You see some correlation between the different categories that Scripture offers. All of that to just reinforce the point that the law is good because all of us actually need the standards the law offers in order to thrive, in order to have a life that's halfway healthy, because sin has an unlimited number of options to tear us down, derail us, and break us. We also need that law. So I'm still talking about my second and last point, that the law is good because all of us actually need it in order to thrive in a couple of subpoints, and one of the reasons we need the law clearly stated, unchangeable in order to thrive, is that we as Christians, let's challenge ourselves here now, we tend to rank our sins, letting some slide and then focusing exclusively on others. Now I have to offer a statement of caution right here. I am not attempting nor do I believe to argue that, well because there are these other sins, sin doesn't matter because there are these other expressions that we practice, this expression of brokenness is okay and should be minimized. I'm not saying that, that's, you know, well, well, Josh got to stay out late, how come I can't, and it's irrelevant, it's not a logical argument, right? But the fact is, Christians need God's law to be clear and unchangeable, God's guidelines for health because we tend to rank them and here's the point, Paul doesn't rank them. Paul says these are all destructive, these are all contrary to the way God designed us and wants us to live. The sexual challenges and the challenges of greed, they're equal, that doesn't mean we minimize one because the other one exists, it does mean though that we say, look, we all fall into the place where we need mercy, every single one of us has an expression of brokenness that tends to take over and we're not going to justify sexual brokenness and expressions of that like inappropriate heterosexual activity which I would define and I think scripture defines as any sexual activity outside of the marriage which is for a man and a woman. We're not going to justify that because there are these other sins that are also there too and we don't focus on those or same sex, same gender sexual activity, homosexuality. Bible never anywhere that I can see, I'm sure it doesn't, says that that's an acceptable practice that brings health to people. God's clear about that, this is not what I designed you for. He's also clear about the fact that I still love every single human being I ever created and hope that they can have access to a loving, caring community that will walk with them through whatever it is they're struggling with. Same as we would walk with somebody who had an affair in their marriage as part of our church and all of a sudden they dare to walk back through the back doors. I hope we're not a community that says get out of here, go get clean first. I hope we're a community that says on the one hand, yep, that was a screw up, that's not going to work out well. There's a big mess for us to clean up and while we're saying that, we're grabbing two mobs handing one to that person and carrying one ourselves saying let's address this together. We're not changing the truth, we're not going to adjust the x-ray because you didn't like the diagnosis but we are going to look at the x-ray together and try to deal with this. That's the approach we're looking for. We need the law because the law speaks to us about ourselves as well as to other people and significant challenges in our community. I love for you to walk away today knowing this. What does Marin Covenant believe about sexuality? Well because the Bible teaches it pretty clearly, here's where we are. Sexual activity is for marriage. Marriage is between a man and a woman. It's pretty clear in Scripture. So any other expression of our sexual desires is not what God has in mind for us and it doesn't lead to anything good. It's fun, it's tantalizing, it's temporarily desirable and exciting. It always leaves wreckage everywhere. And the exploration of same gender sex, man I want so badly for us to be a church that is sensitive, understands our culture, gets the fact that gay and lesbian friends that we might have don't agree with us on the fact that that's a choice over the way they were created. We can disagree about all that stuff but folks, we're Christians. We ought to be able to disagree with somebody profoundly and still very lovingly and still have a relationship that's redemptive. We ought to be the kind of people who can say we can learn even from people with whom we disagree and that one's never going to change here, that position. But what I do hope will keep evolving and keep changing is our sense of community as a community of an open door that we're loving. See here's the deal, that list is not prioritized. These are all equally destructive sins. So it's inappropriate for the Christian church to bold print one's sin and not the other. So how do we fix that? Not by taking away the bold print. We add bold print to everything. Say, hey, this stuff is rocking our world. This stuff is all breaking us. It's raping our culture. It's killing our children and it's killing me. Let's find a clear standard of God and live toward that and then help other people live toward it too. You know, you can disagree with your friends at school and still love them on this issue. Feels like such an outcast, you know, and who are you? When were you born? Man, don't you know this? I hear this argument a lot. What are you thinking, Greco? It's 2012 and I want to say, yes, so it's 2012 and we're doing the same things we were doing in '12 and the same truth that we had in '12. Jesus was a master at this, wasn't He? The woman caught an adultery, she was guilty and He somehow makes space for her to keep seeking Him and opens a door for a friendship and doesn't compromise what was true in her life one bit. How did He do that? And how do we do that as a community? That's the challenge for us today. We don't do it by changing what Scripture says about sexuality or about kindness and openness and grace and mercy. Greed, then, is not less destructive than murder. Can you catch that? Because these lists are not prioritized. They're equal sign there in terms of destructiveness. Dishonesty in a business deal is not less destructive than having an affair. It's equal sin, equal expression of brokenness. The list is not prioritized. Gossip is not less destructive than the practice of same gender sex according to this text. We are all expressions of a violated standard of God, and the standard was given in the first place to give us life, not to keep us from having life. So we need this law because we tend to rank our sins, and conveniently we tend to rank those sins in such a way that somebody else looks worse than we are. Let me just be straight up with you. I still struggle with anger, and when I was young, it took a long time for me to get the sexual lust thing in line. My first couple of years as a Christian, I felt out a lot. That took a while to change that. In my heart, I knew this must change. I'm convinced this lifestyle has to change. It's like, switch on, switch off. How do you change that in two months? So man, I know what the struggle is like, and I have different sins that I tend to align with that when they call. I lean, I list a little easier than one other, and some it's like they might as well not say anything. I don't feel any temptation at all. And all of us do. I'm not afraid to stand up and say that because I'm a man redeemed by Christ in need of Christ, been changed by Christ, still being changed by Christ, still need mercy, still want grace, and increasingly I want to offer grace, and I have this heart for people who would say, we don't agree with you at all. It's true what we read about Christianity. We define Christianity as one way, the people who hate gays and lesbians. I want to say, no, we disagree with gays and lesbians. We don't think the practice is healthy. So what's new? We disagree on what store we should shop at, too. It doesn't mean we can't ever talk to each other, they're not quite the same. If you catch the vision, here's the question. Are we going to be just another church that says change or don't come at all? Or are we going to be on the other hand, another church that says truth doesn't matter, we'll change it so that you can feel comfortable here and just not mention those things? Or will we rise to the challenge of being kind of church that has a huge intellectual emotional and sociological and certainly theological demand placed on it, that knows how to be welcoming and affirming to both people and truth, to both truth and people. That's the difficult road. That's the road where you make mistakes and you look back ten years later and say, "Oh, boy did I miss that one," but I think it's the road on which you find Jesus, if I understand his life at all. We're not changing what's true and we're not throwing away anybody who doesn't agree with us. All fall short of the glory of God, all have sinned and all have access to the redemptive power of Jesus. Brendan Manning, I love the way he put it, he said in "Rag him up in gospel," he said, "The church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners," a community where people can come to find an honest, clear diagnosis. You know, the doctor doesn't say, "Here's the diagnosis, but if it's too harsh for you, let's just not even talk about it." No, here's the truth. What do you want to do about that? In a hospital, you get an honest, clear diagnosis, but they don't say to you, no, but you stand outside until you get well and then you can come into the hospital. In fact, sometimes when they invite you into the hospital, you put other patients at risk because they're all, I mean, they say the worst place, the easiest place to go get a bad disease is in a hospital. Stuff floating around in the air there, the church has to be a hospital for sinners and may I remind the church, we're Christians because there was a door open to a hospital for us someplace. Caution us, never forget where we've come from and occasionally where we go back to. Never forget grace, never forget brokenness. We should be the first ones saying, "Come here and figure this out with us." We'll learn from you, but we'll teach you to. It's important that we make those standards clear. Am I supposed to finish at noon in this, oh boy, we're still going to do communion. We're going to be about 10 minutes late, so make sure you get down to get your kids if you have to. Listen, it's a bait and switch to say, we didn't make those things clear because it's a bait and switch to say, "Come join us to our financially wealthy friends," without also letting those friends know what we believe the Bible teaches about generosity, but it's a sacrilege to say to them, "You can't come at all until you get that all straightened out." It's a bait and switch to say, "Come join us to you who are our gay and lesbian friends." We have some gay and lesbian friends seeking Christ in our church. It'd be a bait and switch to not tell them what the church believes about sexuality, to say, "Come and be a part of us," without making that clear. But it's a sacrilege to say, unless you first agree with us, you can't come at all. Do you understand the tension the church is in? It's like truth pulls us one way, love pulls us another way, the challenge to reach your community for Christ pulls us both ways. It's a bait and switch to say, "Come join us to you who are spiritually eclectic," what we've come to call "moren spirituality," without also saying and letting you know what we really believe Jesus teaches about spirituality, the exclusivity of Christ, but it's a sacrilege to say, "Unless you first agree with us, you can't come at all." The law is good. When it's offered with the right heart for the right purpose, it's good. You know why else it's good? Because we need it to thrive. We're dead without it. [BLANK_AUDIO]