The Unrighteous Will Not Inherit the Kingdom of God

where salt is needed, where we need to be salt. At the very end of my sermon last week, I said, if we're to be salt in this world, what it means at its most basic foundational level is that we have to love God more than we love this world. If you love this world more than you love God, you can't be salt. You won't be salt. Because the world is in opposition to God. And friendship with the world is enmity with God. And so from the very beginning of our discussion, I want us to realize that there cannot be peace with God and peace with the world. There's going to be conflict. There's going to be disagreement. There's going to be danger. And it would be better that we would fear God and have conflict and danger with the world than with a holy God. You can't fear God in the world. And here's the other thing. With regard to the world and regard to God, they both offer both blessings and curses.

In the very beginning, God said to Adam, do this and you'll live. Do this and you'll die. And the world, in her way, offers us these same terms. If you do this, you'll have our approval. But if you do that, you'll have our reproach, or worse. And so we have to have it fixed in our minds from the very beginning that we can't have both God's blessing and the world's blessing. Nor will we have God's curse and the world's curse. We will love one and we'll hate the other. And so my goal this morning is to take these truths and apply them to a particular issue and help us to see first what the Scripture teaches on it and then how we ought to conduct ourselves, what we need to believe, and then how we ought to act, how we ought to behave, what we ought to do in response to what God has said. Our text this morning focuses on a number of sins that prevent people from inheriting the kingdom of God. As we read our text, I want you to think about something. As we read each sin and its mention, I want you to consider what the world's disposition toward it is.

And the reason I want you to consider the world's disposition to it is that God's view of these sins is the same across the board. That any who practice any of these things won't inherit the kingdom of God. And so God doesn't waver or waffle in his disposition toward these sins, but the world does. The world has different views of these things. And so I want you to start thinking, what's the world think of that? What's it say about that? How's it, does it approve? Does it not approve to what level on a scale of 1 to 10? Where is it at? Our text this morning is 1 Corinthians chapter 6. We're going to be reading verses 9 through 11. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Paul writes, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, if you were able to track and do what I said toward the beginning, as we go through this list of sins, and I said, what's the world's disposition toward it?

You would say generally bad. None of these things does the world say, this is great, we think it's wonderful, it's all as it should be. And depending on the particular sins, you'd find varying degrees of disapproval. Consider what it would sound like if you were to say fornication is wrong. Just out in public. It's not good to have sex outside of marriage. You certainly would have some people who would say, well, I think it's fine. But if you followed up and you said, would you like your kids to do that? I think generally the response would be, well, no, I don't think I would, or at least not much of it. There'd be some sense of which they'd say, yeah, that's probably not very good, not the best for them. The same could be said of drunkenness. Inevitably, there'd be someone who would say, I think it's great. People should be able to do whatever they want, and if they want to get drunk all the time, good on them. What about stealing or lying? You start to understand that there would be some level of

of disapproval, even from the world, regarding these things. And also there'd be those who would try to justify them and say, no, these things are good and fine. We ought to be teaching people to do them, and I'd even like my kids to do them. But even the world would look at them and say, what'd you just say? And here's the danger. The danger is that we would share this sentiment, the world's sentiment toward these sins. In the beginning of our text, Paul asks a question. Do you not know that the unrighteous won't inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. And what he's getting at here is the temptation that you or I would face to have the same disposition toward this stuff as the world, which is, yeah, I mean, yeah, and nothing more. But the world's position on these issues doesn't agree with God's view of them. And if this is as far as we go in our opposition to these things, then we're in agreement with the world. And the Apostle James tells us that friendship with the world is enmity or hatred toward God.

We can't serve two masters. And so we have to see from the beginning, as God speaks to us through the Apostle Paul, that if we don't view these things the way that he views these things, then we're in danger. We're in danger of being deceived and ultimately in danger of participation in them and being excluded from the kingdom of God. And so Paul begins, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? And by this question, we move... from our preferences and our thoughts of things. If we were to go and ask the world, what do you think about this? By what standard would they judge it? Well, the same standard that you or I would judge it. How we feel about it, what we think about it, who we know who's been like that. If we were to take drunkenness as an example, some people in the world would be like, meh. And other people would be death on it. Who would be death on it? Well, the people who've had a negative interaction with a drunk.

whether that be in their family or someone in their family was hit by a drunk driver. You have this group MAD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. What would they say about drunkenness? Well, they'd have a very, very low view of it and willing to tell you about it. But even their opposition to it is based on their experience with it. And had they not had that experience, they may not have that same disposition toward it. But this question that Paul asks moves away from our preferences and away from our own thoughts. and places this question in the context of heaven and hell, the kingdom of God and inheriting it. If we were to restate Paul's sentence here, the language would be something like, it is impossible for those who do these things to go to heaven. Impossible. Unable to happen. In the following verses, Paul goes on to describe what this unrighteousness, it's a category. Don't you know that those who practice unrighteousness won't inherit the kingdom of God? He's going to go on in the next couple of verses to describe what that unrighteousness is.

But I want to explain something to you about righteousness before we get into the particulars. Righteousness, we always speak of this in terms of, it's easy to talk about in terms of our relationship with God or with Jesus Christ, but I want to talk about righteousness just as a subject. Because righteousness exists in every economy. There are things that justify you. There are things that make you right. There are things that gain you approval. This is how we would talk about it with relationship to God. What gains us our approval? What justifies us? What settles the conflict? But this discussion doesn't just happen in relationship to us and God, but also all around us. Take, for example, going on an airline flight. It's gotten much harder over the years to be able to get on an airplane, especially after 9-11, right? There's this whole section there, TSA, Department of Homeland Security, and they reserve the right to do whatever they want.

to make sure that you're not dangerous. And if you have any hope of getting on an airplane, you have to jump through all kinds of hoops. I remember hearing, you know, in our parents' day, if you're around my age, that your parents would go to the airport, they would walk up to the terminal, they would give money, they would buy a ticket, and they would go walk and get on an airplane. And that was it. They didn't have to plan ahead of time. Didn't have to do anything. They could just show up and buy an airline ticket and get on. No one questioned anything. Just, here you go, go ahead.

It doesn't quite resemble our experience these days now, does it? What do we have to do? We have to buy a ticket ahead of time, unless you want to pay a lot, a lot of extra money. When we show up to the airport, we have to have ID. And you better have the right ID, or you aren't getting on. And if you're going too far away, you better have a passport. And it better not be expired. What if you have a last name like mine? I always dream of going to the airport with a turban on. You know? Just showing up, let my beard grow out and just be this big burly Arab show up in there, tie a red and white tablecloth around my head. Just see what they do. Because they're looking at you. And you might have a ticket, and you might have your license, and you might have your passport, and you might have checked in on your fancy little smartphone with your app. Here I am, Delta. Here I am, Southwest. I get the good seats, all that. And if you show up and they look at you, and they won't tell you they look at you, but they look at you and they're like, something's up. Sir, would you please come over here?

after you walk through the metal detector and all the stuff. And they reserve the right to take you aside and examine every bit of you. And I'd submit to you that this is a process of justification. This is a process of approval. And there's all kinds of hoops to jump through. And if you fail to meet any one of them, you get to stay where you're at, and you don't get to go where you want. This is righteousness. And if every box is not checked, you're not righteous. You're not approved. you can't get on the airplane. So God has righteousness. He has standards. Airlines, they have standards. They have righteousness. And so does the world. The world has righteousness. It says this is what the righteous are like. This is what the righteous do. This is what the righteous say. This is who they are. There's always a system of righteousness, of acceptance and admission. And anyone that doesn't meet the requirements is rejected. And this rejection,

from the world, which is the world saying to you, you're not righteous according to our standards, paralyzes Christians in fear. Paralyzes them. Paralyzes us. Paralyzes me and you. What will they think? What if I transgress their law? What if I say or do something that's out of accord with the rules? Yet Paul says, the unrighteous, according to God's standard, these are the ones who will not inherit the kingdom of God. So the question to us is, which system of righteousness do we exist in? Which system of righteousness do we care to meet? Where are we willing to be rejected? What consequences or curses are we willing to accept as ours? Remember at the beginning, I said you can't have the blessing of God and the blessing of the world. Each one of us will choose whose righteousness we want, whose standard we'll meet.

This question that Paul asks them, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, is a rhetorical question. He asks a very similar question in the book of Galatians chapter 3, verses 1 through 3. He says, you foolish Galatians, who's bewitched you? Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? You saw this thing. Who has fooled you? This is the only thing I want to know, want to find out from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? Whose standard of righteousness in the Galatians context are you going to obey? Are you going to obey the gospel and meet its standards? Or are you going to obey the Jews and meet their standards? Are you going to be circumcised? It gets down to the flesh. What are you going to do with your foreskin? How are you going to live? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? And so this question Paul asks, either as an example in Galatians or here in 1 Corinthians, it's a rhetorical question.

It's meant to be a chastisement. If you were to go to your child and say, son, what are you doing? You're not asking the question because you didn't see what he's doing. You're asking the question precisely because you saw what he was doing. And he was doing something foolish since you say, son, what are you doing? Who has misled you? What are you believing? Whose approval do you want? Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? It's meant to be a jab, a poke, a goad to the heart of the Corinthians. And what this means to us is that the question of which system of righteousness we'll choose is a very real one. We'd all like to sit here and go, oh, well, I want to serve God. And if that's what you say, I say praise the Lord because you wouldn't even say that much if he hadn't given you some grace. That's good. You have to start there. But there's a danger that we would be deceived. There's a danger that we would conflate God's view of things and the world's view of things, that we'd mix them together.

and come out with some mess. And that's what Paul's trying to strain out right now. The world's standards from God's standards. The struggle's very real for us, and heaven and hell hang in the balance of our decision. Therefore, we must know and believe what God has said. We can't serve him if we don't know what he said. Now, at this point, we could go a number of directions. There's a big, long list of sins up here that prevent, Those who practice them from getting into the kingdom of God. These are sins. And I will tell you, this is not an exhaustive list. I don't want you going through and going, well, Paul didn't list my sin up there. I say, go read the rest of his epistles. There's plenty more of them that fall in this category. But these are the ones he listed of the Corinthians precisely because these are the ones they struggled with. These were their sins. So we could go a number of directions.

But I want us to remember the purpose when we started out this morning. In all of these sins Paul lists, where is the greatest pressure in our society being applied to Christians today? Where is the salt needed? Another way of asking the question. And in this list, I'm convinced that if I hadn't put it up in front of you, and you had any familiarity with this list, which sin would you pull out of it? And say, that's a bad one. It's all over our culture. That's the one that's coming at us. from all around. It is the sin of homosexuality. And all of us want to be like, I don't know if I can, yeah, you can say it. Not only here, but my goal is by the end of it, you'd be willing to say that outside of these walls. You could think of it, now in case you wonder if I'm right, think of it this way. Which of these sins would bring you into the most conflict in the world if you opposed it? I think drunkenness is bad, and I really think adultery shouldn't happen. Most people would say,

Yeah, you're right. It is bad stuff. But if you said that same thing about homosexuality in our day, all hell will break loose. You'll lose your job. Soon enough, you'll go to jail. Yesterday, some of you are aware, there was a pride parade downtown. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people coming and celebrating the sin and the sins that fall in the same category with it. And so there were a group of... Christians, friends of mine, that were there yesterday preaching. And it was my hope to be able to go with them, but my schedule was such that I wasn't able to. But I've spoken with some of them and heard about what happened while they were down there. Things happened that ought not be spoken of. But their description of it was with regard to how they were treated, not with what was going on around them, but the way they were treated. They had drinks thrown at them. They had people trying to break their equipment.

They had people spit on them. They had people cuss them out. And the government officials, the police and the fire department, didn't do anything to stop them. That was the bad side of it. And what you see in that sort of interaction is the opposition between God and this world. Those men and those women who were down there proclaiming the gospel yesterday went into the eye of the storm and said, those who do such things are not going to inherit the kingdom of God. And they said many more things that we'll get to later. And the thing that you never find out in these sorts of events is that there are always people who are thankful. You think it's all just the nasty and the miserable and the painful, and there is that. It's unavoidable. But there are also those who are there who are thankful. One account I read was of a young man, teenager, drugged down there by his mom. Didn't want to go to this parade, but was drugged down there. And he listened and he listened, and eventually he came over to them and thanked them. Thank you for your right.

Thank you for saying these things. It's necessary and good. So the question, one way we can process this issue is to ask, was the preaching and the witness at the parade yesterday in line with what God has said? Is that a good thing to do or a bad thing to do? Is it appropriate? Should we be doing it? As I'm talking about it, I realize you all feel the same pressure I do, which is, is this like some sort of manipulative, backhanded thing where you're telling me I should have been there? Not any more than I'm telling myself that. But every one of you, whether you even knew about that or not, is aware of the pressure. You can't help but see it in the news, right? Everyone loves Wendy's. Why does everyone love Wendy's these days? Because Wendy's is supporting adoption and not abortion. And all Netflix and all the rest of these places are opposed to abortion. There's all kinds of pressure put on Christians at these points. We'll come to abortion another week. But there are all kinds of pressure being put on Christians to bend to the world's view, to bend to the system of righteousness that the world offers.

And yet to do that is to lose your saltiness and to become worthless. So I want to take just a little bit of time now, and I want to read a couple of things that the Scripture has to say on the issue of homosexuality so that you have some firsthand experience, if you haven't already, with God's view of this thing. I want to start with Genesis chapter 19. This is the account of Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm not going to read you the whole chapter, but the whole chapter deals with it. I'm going to read the first five verses. It says, Now two angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, bowed down with his face to the ground, and he said, Now behold, my lords, please turn aside into your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise early and go on your way. Which may sound like a nice greeting, like come here, we're being hospitable and all of that, but that's not Lot's only motivation. That's not even his primary motivation. He knows his city and he knows what their sins are.

And he says, you need to come to my house and you need to be protected and you need to be safe because awful things happen in this city at night. The angels said, however, no, we shall spend the night in the square. Yet he urged them strongly. So they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread and they ate. Sounds pleasant. Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter. And they called to Lot and said to them, where are the men who came to you tonight?

Bring them out that we may have relations with them. And to each of you, as you have understanding, you know exactly what's being said. The sin at this time in this city was such that when visitors came, it was their practice, their habit, to greet them in the way that they want to greet these men, to bring them into the city. That's the level to which their corruption has risen. Locke goes outside of his house. He pleads with the men of his city, even offering his own virgin daughters to them instead of these men, and they refuse. And because of the sin of this city, the angel tells Lot, you need to get out of the city with everyone that you love because God's going to destroy this place. And don't even, as you go, don't even look over your shoulder or you'll be kaput. And Lot's wife looked over her shoulder and that was the end of her. Some fond memory of life in the city.

Maybe her children and grandchildren who didn't make the trip. Later on in Isaiah, the prophet speaks of the sins of the nation and compares it to Sodom. And he says this in chapter 3. He says, For they will eat the fruit of their actions. Woe to the wicked. It will go badly with them. For what he deserves will be done to him. So Isaiah takes the sin of his day and he says they sin in the same manner and with the same vehemence that the men of Sodom did. You could see it in their faces, how hard their mind was set on corruption and wickedness. They don't even conceal it. And as a result, he says, woe to the wicked. It will go badly with him for he will deserve.

for what he deserves will be done to him. But did you catch in the middle of it what he said of the righteous? Can you imagine living in Sodom or having Isaiah speak this way? Living in a society where such condemnation and such warning was necessary? What a terrible time to live. Wouldn't we like to just go away and not be party to this sort of stuff? But in the middle of the warning in Isaiah, he says to them, say to the righteous that it will go well with them. That they will eat the fruit of their actions. And you see in this warning the contrast between the wicked and the righteous. Between the salt, those who love God, and those who don't. And you see that even in such miserable times, the righteous are not abandoned by God. They're not left to be consumed and destroyed without a hope. But the wicked will go to destruction. Also speaking of homosexuality, first in the Old Testament, Leviticus 20.

Verse 13, it says, If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. A detestable act. Could you imagine? It's hard enough to think in these terms. Could you imagine speaking in these terms? And yet this is the way Scripture speaks of this sin. The language of Scripture is not something that we ought to seek to replace with more palatable, agreeable words. Scripture is clear in that this sin is detestable. In other places, an abomination. In Romans chapter 1, 21 to 28, it says, and the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions. For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. And in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another.

men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind and to those things which are not proper. Now why am I reading these things to you? There's a couple of reasons. One, I want you to know what God says about them in his own words. Not that he wrote in English, but that these are the words in our language that most clearly describe God's view of it all. In both Isaiah and in Romans, there's imagery of those who engage in such things receiving in their own person the due penalty of their error, the destruction that comes along with this. And so if we're tracking with Scripture's teaching on this issue, it's impossible for us to plot out a faithful way to talk about this sin without being absolutely opposed to it in the strongest terms possible. This is how the Bible speaks of this sin, and there's no way to mitigate it. And so what I've done at this point...

hopefully in your minds, is laid out the conflict. And you feel the tension between the world and its system of righteousness as regards this issue and God's view of it. And if you're like me, you're sitting here going, I wish I could just go in a corner and not have to bear this tension and this conflict for various reasons. One, because for my own part, as I look at my own life, I see my own unfaithfulness. and unwillingness and hardness of heart as regards these issues, to speak and to act in a way that honors God over men. So it makes it very difficult to know how to talk about it, how to be salt about it. I'd like for us to consider now Paul's address to the Corinthians concerning this issue. What he says in verse 11 is, such were some of you. And this is the first step in our help, in helping us to process these issues. And you might sit there and be going, I'm not homosexual. And I say,

Okay, you're not homosexual. You're not tempted that way. It's true. A lot of people aren't. So are you free of any responsibility as regards this issue? Are you any of those other things in the list? Were you any of those other things? And which one of us is going to sit here and say, nope? And so the first thing, when you face up to the tension between God's view of these sins and the world's view of these sins, is you have to see yourself in it. Not over it, not apart from it, but right there in it. Where are you? Who are you? What have you done? What are your dark thoughts and your temptations that you don't speak of? What sins are in your closet? This used to be the sort of sin that was culturally expected to be kept in a closet. But which one of us doesn't have sins that we prefer not to see the light of day?

Which one of us doesn't have sins that we are convinced in our minds that if we go on practicing them, they will bar us from the kingdom of heaven? That if we fail to repent and to trust God and to turn away from our sins, at that very point, these first few verses are for us. And so Paul, in an effort to steal their nerve against these things, says to them, such were some of you. It's another way of saying, you don't be proud. You don't look down on this. You hate it, but not as though you're exempt from it. Your own knowledge of your own sin is the filter or the lens by which you ought to view other people and their sins. And what I mean by that is, but for the grace of God, what leg up do you have on a homosexual, an unrepentant homosexual? What makes you better than them? What makes your sin any less damnable? And you say, there isn't. There isn't.

And I say, good. You've gotten your feet onto the right starting line now. The words of Scripture ought to be so sweet to us. Paul's words here, simple words, such were some of you, are meant to be a comfort and a strength and a sea wall against the waves of Satan that he'll throw at you. Such were some of you. What's that mean? You're not anymore. You're not anymore. Does it mean that you're completely and entirely free and all done and glorified? No, that's not what it means. Not yet. Not yet. Such were some of you. And it's meant to be a strength to you. When you look at your own sinfulness and you see your own depravity and you go, such was I, but God saved me. What mercy. What kindness. From the God of heaven and earth who made all things to look on me, a sinner, and say, forgiven. Free.

The reason I say all of this to you at this point with regard to this sin is because there's a lot of pressure regarding homosexuality against what I just said, which is, such were some of you. Is it possible to say of someone tempted and given to homosexual sin, such were some of you? Or is it hopeless for their sin? Are they excluded from this promise from Paul? Such were some of you. Are they the unclean such that they can't be washed? And they can't be sanctified and they can't be justified. No. And it's a lie straight from the mouth of Satan that's promoted by our culture that we would believe such things. That we would be deceived or cowed into a position that says, there's no hope for them. Because if there's no hope for them, there's no hope for you. But if there is hope for you, then there is hope for them. And everyone else who struggles with their sins such as they are. Can you imagine going to...

An adulterer and saying, there's no hope for your marriage. You're an adulterer and you're just going to keep at it. Is that the message of the gospel? Is that grace and mercy and forgiveness and newness of life through the shed blood of Jesus Christ? Anyone would say, no. Then what good is it to say it? What good is it to say to someone, there's no hope for you? Have you not been in your own sins in such a place as to despair? and say, I think there's no hope for me. I've fought and I've struggled and I've fallen and I've tried to get up and I've fallen again and I'm tired of getting up and I don't know that I can. And if someone came to you at that point and said, all of your inclinations and all of the weaknesses of your heart and mind are true, what hope do you have? It's now become a free fall into the pit of hell with no parachute.

With no hope of reprieve. And what I would submit to you is that those who struggle and who are tempted and who are given to homosexuality, in their minds, many of them, live their lives just as I've described, without any hope in this world. And each one of you in your own way has experienced that. Perhaps not with homosexuality, but with other sin. And you go, what hope do I have? And I say to you, you have the hope of Jesus hanging on a tree, dying. To free you from the wrath of God. And you have the hope of being freed from those sins that you've committed. You have the hope of being freed from the desire toward those sins. And who are we to withhold this hope? It is the only hope from those sucking and tempted by homosexuality. Can you see how there's no salt in withholding this? There's no love in it. There's no love for God and there's also no love for your neighbor. And so you say, what do I do?

Where do I go? What do I say? You're telling me the sum of everything you're saying, Pastor, is you're thrown to the wolves. If you go out there, you're going to get your head bitten off and you're going to be laid waste. And I say the words of Isaiah are for you. It will go well with you. It will go well with you. And you'll eat the fruit of your actions. As you seek the blessing of God, in this area, not in the areas without cost, but in the areas with cost, you will find God's blessing. You will find his grace and you will find his mercy for you, not just for the people you speak to. So what does it look like to be salt? To sum up, what does it look like to be salt as regards homosexuality? A couple of applications. The first is maintain the yuck factor. I haven't said anything about that yet. But if you're to be faithful, to God and not to the world in this regard. You have to maintain the yuck factor. And what I mean is, you have to retain your opposition, the grossness, the hatred for it. The yuck. That's disgusting. Because that's how Scripture speaks of it. It's detestable. It's an abomination. It's indecent. It's gross immorality. And you say, well, if I do that, aren't I just...

The guy, am I not just a clanging gong? And I say, no. I didn't say how you live out your yuck factor yet. I'm just saying you can't be faithful if you aren't repulsed by the sin. And I say that to you particularly because there's lots of pressure on you from our society to remove that. Lifelong, monogamous, having children, raising them, going on vacations, living together. It's unfair that we can't file our taxes together. There's lots of pressure against. Your bones saying, no, that's unnatural. That's not how God made it to work. Alexander Pope once said, vice, sin, sinful desire, vice, is a monster of so frightful main, and by main he means appearance. Vice is so ugly to look at, as to be hated needs but to be seen. But to be seen too often, familiar with its face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace. And what Alexander Pope is describing here is the process of inoculation. You and I are being inundated with the normalcy of homosexual sin. And there's an effect. There's a reason. It's a good game plan. If you want someone to become used to something, you just cover them up with it. Okay? Which one of you could go out in the sun and not have the sun affect your skin? Right? You could say, I'm going to put on my...

My sunscreen, I'm going to wear my hat and my glasses and my long, you know. But the sun will affect you, won't it? You say, well, it won't burn my skin. And I say, okay, well, does it make you tired? Put on all your sunscreen and wear your long sleeves and wear your hat and sit in the shade all day. Are you not exhausted after a day of being out in the sun? Has it affected you? And every one of us says yes. If you were here building picnic tables a couple of weeks, by 2 o'clock in the afternoon, we're all kind of like, because the sun had worn us out because we had been exposed. And whatever measures we took against the sun, didn't remove all of its effects. And so when you're exposed to something, whether you want to be, even whether you work against it, you have to realize you're being affected by it. And so you have to take proactive measures against it so that you don't succumb to it. You have to maintain the yuck factor. If you spend too much time consuming the normalization of homosexuality, you will come to believe that it is normal. And this is why Paul warns us not to be deceived.

Our duty as Christians is to get our understanding of normal from Scripture and not our culture. We will never be able to be solved in this culture if we take our cues from the unrighteous, if we operate in their system. That's the first application. The second application, as I mentioned already, you need to remember your own sin. It's very, very easy. You don't even have to try to look down on other people's sins. It doesn't even take effort. You don't have to think about it. You just do it. Isn't this the way with kids? He lied. He steals. He's lazy. If you just let them play all day, they would just tell you about everybody else's sins and how terrible it is. And if you have kids, you know when you go to them and they say, he hit me. You say, okay, why'd he hit you? I don't know. So then you go and you get the kid that hit him. Why'd you hit him? Well, he hit me first. Oh, son, did you hit? Well, yeah, I hit him. Ah, what happened here is you've forgotten your own sin.

And there's a direct correlation between your ignorance regarding your own sin and your condemnation of others. Remove the log from your own eyes so that you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brothers. Don't you ever forget where you came from and who you were apart from the grace of God. Don't ever forget it. It's the quickest path to being ungracious and unloving and unchristian and savorless salt is to forget your own sin. The final application is to trust God and his word on this issue. You've got to choose who you're going to trust. Every one of us is choosing who we trust. On this issue and a whole host of other ones. Who do we trust? Who's our authority? Whose righteousness do we want? Whose approval are we seeking? Whose blessing do we want? You trust God and his word. You say, but, but, but. And I say, but, but, but. Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. It'll go well with the righteous. And they'll eat the fruit of their actions.

You trust God. And when your heart fails and your spirit fails, you trust God. And when the consequences come for you trusting God, you continue to trust God. He sent his own son in this world to save poor bankrupt sinners who hated him. That's you. And that's me. And that's still his work and still his business in this world. You trust God. You take him at his word. And you love sinners the way he does. And it'll go well with you. Let's pray.