Transgenderism and Loss of Reason 11/30/22
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The loss of reason paves the way for all forms of darkness in culture.
The loss of reason paves the way for all forms of darkness in culture.
In Groups:
Read Romans 1:18-32.
What are some similarities you see between Romans 1 and our culture today?
Read Romans 1:25. What does a culture look like when Romans 1:25 happens? (Romans 1:26-31 is your answer.)
2. Does anything alarm you about vs. 28? If so, what?
3. According to vs. 32, approval of unrighteousness leads to what (2:1)?
How can we guard one another not to approve sin?
4. Read Daniel 4:32-34. In vs. 34, Daniel says that Neb’s “reason returned to me, and I blessed the most high.” What is reason? what are some examples in our culture where we have lost our ability to reason?
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I love It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s my favorite movie of all time and I’m talking about it before it’s even December 1st.
A man lives his life denying himself his desires.
Everything he wants to do, he never gets to do.
But along the way, he loves people and invests in them.
In the end, when everything in his life has come apart, those people he has loved so well step up for him.
Everyone he served, come to serve him.
It’s a magical story rooted in selflessness.
In more recent years, though still old to all of you, In Tolkien’s world of Lord of the Rings.
The evil ring must be destroyed, but to do so requires a great sacrifice.
The smallest man in the room stands up amidst lots of chaos and egos and says,
“I will take it… I will take the ring to Mordor.”
Such acts of Selflessness are noble.
Selflessness cuts through all of the cultural baggage we carry today.
The opposite of selfless is selfish and I would argue is the root issue of our culture today.
It’s the root issue of mankind.
Doing what I want to do because I want to do it. … Selfish.
Jesus said in John 15:13 “13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
We read that and must remember Jesus’ act for us right?
That he did this?
That he laid down his life. This is love. God’s perfect selfless act of restoration for all who would believe.
But what happens when a culture strips love of any meaning.
What happens when a culture flips love from selflessness to selfishness.
What does a culture look like when selfish people do selfish things all the time?
When selfishness is worshipped and becomes god?
It looks like us today.
My main point tonight is this:
The loss of reason paves the way for self-worship and all forms of darkness in culture.
We are going to flesh out what that means tonight as we go along.
Transition:
Tonight I want us to look at two things as we conclude our worldview study.
The rise of Self worship
The sin of the LGBTQ movement
The way back to reality.
The rise of Self-Worship
Lets start by looking at Romans 1.
When you looked at Romans 1 today, what were some things that jumped off the page to you?
There are many things but I want to point out a few today.
Romans 1:25 “25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”
The worship of self will lead to an infinite number of sins.
What is the root of lying? Why do we lie?
To hide the truth that we don’t like.
To protect ourselves.
to prevent facing consequences for something we know is wrong.
What is the common denominator in all of these things?
SELF.
to hide myself
to protect myself
to not have to face consequences for my decisions.
The worship of self rules the day.
That is what’s going on in Roman’s 1.
This leads to evil.
What are things that are evil? That go against God and his word?
Vs. 26-27 - Homosexuality is evil.
covetousness, hate,envy, murder, deceiving, seeking conflict, gossiping, speaking falsely about someone, hating God, and on it goes.
You can see a list of things God clearly calls sin in Romans 1:26-31.
Here is what we must do with that list then as believers.
We must recognize evil. We must call it what it is: EVIL!
Calling out the evil we see in the world doesn’t mean we ignore the evil in our lives.
It means both/and!
I shouldn’t ignore the evil around me because I sin too…
It’s because I sin too that I should call out the evil around me.
Romans 1 gives us a clear picture of what happens to a culture when we don’t do that.
Evil rules the day.
When evil rules the day...
2. This leads to the LGBT movement.
“Marriage is not a matter of contract. It is not even a matter of honesty. It is a matter of honor.”
GK Chesterton christian philosopher, writer, and theologian from the late 1800s early 1900s.
What is a woman?
What is a man?
What is Gender?
The answer to these questions is blurred today in our culture.
But the answer to these questions are not blurred biblically.
Gen. 1:27 “27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
The first proclamation God makes in Genesis 1 about humans is their sex.
You are male… You are female.
Now, I’m not going to get deep into this today but here is what I would like to say to us today clearly.
The root of gender confusion in our culture is self-worship.
People want to worship themselves.
They want to do what they want to do.
They want to reject God’s design and as Romans 1 says, serve the creature rather than the creator.
And what happens when the self is continued to be worshiped and the creature is elevated about creator?
We go insane.
Our culture loses the ability to reason.
What is reason?
The power to think by the process of logic making correct judgments about reality.
As Christians, we must rebel against this culture movement.
How do we do that?
We must accept that some people are not reasonable. They are not thinking clearly.
Now I’m not on any social media outside Twitter ok.
So I’m not calling you out…
but here is one simple way to leave in reality.
Don’t put pronouns in your bio on social media.
Don’t call anyone out in here if you do...
But y’all… How out side of reality are we living if we can’t even kindly refer to one another as he/him or she/her.
It’s insanity. It evil let lose.
It’s Romans 1.
The return to sanity is not for those in the LGBT movement to return to their original gender as God made them, but it is first to accept God made them.
Anyone who rejects GOD MADE ME is susceptible to believe anything!
When we accept the creature over creator.
When we worship “I made me” over “God made me...” We reject reality.
As believers, we must be the bedrock of sound thinking, reason, and clear thinking.
As the culture goes insane, we must not go with it, but we must be a rock standing firm.
What are some other ways we can live in reality and not follow the LGBT movement off a cliff?
Finally tonight,
3. We need a way back to reality.
Bonhoeffer Illustration:
One of my heroes is Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
A German Theologian who stood firm in Germany through out the rise of Hitler and was hung in a concentration camp 2 weeks before the end of the war for being part of the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler.
In his biography, the author writes,
“He was thinking about the deep call of Christ, which was not about winning, but about submission to God, wherever that might lead.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Following God and His will for his life, no matter the cost, could be the one sentence that would sum up Bonhoeffer’s life.
2. Daniel 4:32-34 “32 and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” 33 Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws. 34 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;”
In Daniel 4, King Nebby thought he was something.
He thought His kingdom was the greatest on earth and He had really made a name for Himself
*there’s that word self again*
His selfishness then leads to God humbling him.
And how does he do that?
Neb becomes the first furry!
God sends him out to live in the pasture.
Yet notice vs. 32, “And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you...”
For 7 years! He lives this way!
A man who loses sight of what it means to be made in the image of God!
Who worships self.
How does he come back to reality?
vs. 34… “My reason returned to me, I blessed the most High, and praised and honored Him who lives forever...”
He worshiped the creator over the creature.
That is the way back to reality.
Knowing that He is God and we are not.
CLOSING:
Lots of people want freedom in this life.
But they think freedom is jumping out of an airplane, feeling the rush of the wind all around you…
but they never realize they jumped without a parachute.
Reason is jumping out of the plane with God as our parachute, carrying us through the danger, through the valley of the shadow of death, to sit down and eat with Him like Psalm 23 talks about.
Psalm 73:24-26 “24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Like Bonhoeffer, we all need to realize that God is God and we are not.
I just want to live my life in submission to God.
I want to do what He wants me to do.
I want to reject selfishness and live for Christ.
What do you want from this life?
How will you stand against the forces of evil in this world if you are not submitted to Christ?
God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
May we all say that in the freest country on earth that is going down fast.
ANd may we all say that if we were thrown away by mankind rotting in a jail cell somewhere.
In the freedom of life or in the bondage to man, God is our strength.
He is our portion
He is our purpose
He is the author of life.
Let’s worship Him alone.