Grace For The Journey

It is no secret that there is a massive revolution taking place in Western culture.

It’s known as the Identity Revolution.

Namely, a revolution that

Is seeking to redefine

The self in ways never

Imagined in human history.

And like all revolutions, the language within the revolution is also changing.  Make no mistake, we are in the middle of a language war in Western culture.  Whomever controls the narrative, will control the culture.

The self is now largely an experiment in Western culture.  It is an individual project. We’re told that our identity is a personal and private choice made only by us.  We’re told that the self is fluid; and that it cannot be defined by anyone outside of our own sphere – and most certainly not by God!

It took a long time for this radical notion of the self to develop in history.  Numerous cultural and historical factors have given birth to this new concept of identity.  You have . . .

• The rise of Darwin’s theory of evolution,
• The emergence of existentialism,
• And the rise of modern psychology and psychiatry.

You can’t have the modern notion of the individual and of the self without the looming influence of figures such as Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, or Jean Paul Sartre. You also have the arrival of the sexual revolution which has redefined virtually everything.

Today we are being confronted more and more with the following occurrences:

Hannah Holloway says, “I never really thought to myself, yes, I am a girl.  Or, yes, I am a guy.  I’m Hannah.”  Hannah’s story along with several others was reported in a recent edition of the Kansas City Star in the Arts and Culture section.  The Star devoted three full pages to the issue of gender identity.  Hannah and others want to be classified as nonbinary.  So, she doesn’t want to be called by the pronoun “she” but the pronoun “they.”

Another article discusses how the definition of transgender has continued to evolve.  Kasimir Hazelwood thinks “normal” is a meaningless word.  Hazelwood identifies as androgyne, someone masculine with feminine qualities.

Rogers claims to be “genderfluid.”  That means sometimes Rogers feels like a male and other times a female.  V is open to any sexual orientation and dates both men and women.  “I like the label queer,” says V, “because it is not clear cut.”

So, now the new controversy in our culture is gender identity.  This minority group is clamoring for gender neutral public restrooms, unisex locker rooms, and the right to identify however they choose on legal forms.  Some applications provide the choice “Male,” “Female” and “Other.”  Facebook now allows you to choose, “him,” “her,” or “their.”

How many others are there, you ask?  According to an ABC report they have identified at least 58 gender options.  They include bigender, pangender, transgender, Agender, intersex, Cis, Trans, and something called two spirit.  Don’t you miss the days when life was simple?  When there were just boys and girls.

All of this has led to a new definition of the word “safe.”  The word safe used to refer primarily to physical safety.  But the landscape has changed.  If you look at modern uses of the word safe – especially in education at every level – what you discover is that safe now means something very different.  Safe now has a meaning related to emotional safety or psychological safety.  The kind of emotional well-being that is now considered a fundamental human right.

SO … What do we make of all this?

I don’t claim to understand this confusion.  I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist.  I’m a pastor/preacher.  So, but I do have the only reliable source to go to – I will offer a simple Bible explanation.

In a word, the Identity Revolution

Is rebellion against what

God has said in His Word.

The Bible teaches – a very unpopular thing to say for sure – that identity is not something that we manufacture on our own.  Identity is something that God defines.

We are

Who our Creator

Says we are,

And here

The Bible is very clear.

It tells us that every human being is born with a two-fold identity:

1) They are precious, being created in the image of God – either as male or female.
2) They are born into corruption and sin due to Adam’s rebellion.

Gender crisis and confusion exists because people have strayed away from God.  They have lost their spiritual identity.  And they have denied the Creator and His purpose for their lives.

Our society is on the fast track to becoming like the pagan culture Paul described in Romans chapter one. “…They knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Professing to be wise, they became fools,  and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man — and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things” (Rom. 1:21-25)

The Bible says that in the beginning God created the first pair “male and female.”  He pronounced a blessing upon them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply.” (Genesis 1:27-28).  Later when Jesus was asked by the Pharisees a question relating to marriage,Hhe responded this way.

“Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

The Bible does not give us free rein to choose

Our sexual preferences and gender identity.

Our culture has taken something simple, and obvious, and made it so complex and complicated that it goes beyond the absurd!  Yet, “enlightened” educators, politicians, journalists and sadly some church leaders, nod with some kind of knowing empathy that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, feelings, behavior and sexual identity or preference.

Our culture has lost its way.  The real crisis today is a crisis of values.  G. K. Chesterton was right when he wrote, “The danger when men stop believing in God is not that they’ll believe nothing; but that they will believe in anything.”

The solution is not to seek our gender identity, but to seek God.  To desire spiritual communion with Him.  And to accept who He created us to be.  These are undisputed facts according to God Himself.   What the gospel offers is a chance to have a new identity in Christ.  This is available to anyone who will own up to their sin (repentance),  humble themselves before God and admit their need, and receive God’s gift of life (abundant and eternal) by asking Jesus to be their Savior and Lord.  The gospel says that the only way to find peace with God, self, and others is to admit and confess that He was right after all when it comes to who you are.

Parents, preachers and Bible teachers must now emphasize to a new generation influenced by the confusion of their culture, that God created us.  He made us male and female.  He gave us distinct gender roles.  And that our body does not belong to us, it belongs to the Lord.

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey …

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”