Rev. David Holwick W Hot Potatoes, #1
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
July 20, 2014
Genesis 1:26-27
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I. It is the latest hot topic.
A. Time magazine proclaims it is at a tipping point.
1) The issue is the transgender movement.
a) It is my first in a series on Hot Potatoes Christians
have to deal with in modern society.
b) You may think it is a pretty bizarre topic for a sermon.
1> You probably don't personally know a transgender
person - they themselves estimate they are less
than one-half percent of the population.
2> But a far larger number feel their image of their
sexuality does not fit society's standard.
2) It is the next logical step.
a) Homosexuality is considered already settled.
b) Transgender is a deeper shift away from a Christian
understanding of life and sexuality.
B. It started slowly.
1) The ancient world had examples of men who acted as women,
or women who acted as men (=Amazons).
a) They would change their outer appearance with makeup
and clothes, often very convincingly.
b) The modern innovation is to have radical surgery and
lifelong hormone treatments.
2) George Jorgensen was the first transgender celebrity.
a) He became Christine in 1951 after surgery in Denmark.
b) A few people had had sex-change surgery before then
but they did not go public about it.
3) Cher's daughter Chastity became a guy named Chaz in 2010.
a) Her transformation has been played out in several
Reality TV shows.
4) Bradley Manning is the soldier who turned over a vast trove
of intelligence data to Wikileaks.
a) After his arrest he announced he wanted to be a girl
named Chelsea.
b) He is in Leavenworth Prison, but this week he began
getting sex change treatments at government expense.
c) Because changing your biological gender to whatever
you want it to be, is now considered a right.
C. What is a Christian to make of all this?
1) For many, it is a sign that Jesus must be coming soon.
a) It seems like a direct assault on the Biblical worldview.
b) Where does it end? If you can change your sex, can you
change your species?
1> (Charlie Sheen and his "tiger blood.")
2> He was making a joke, but others have been serious.
2) Transsexuality is the epitome of radical individualism.
a) They are saying "I can be anything I want to be."
b) The latest trend adds - and you have to accept my view
of me, or else.
c) Are they right? Are the most basic aspects of our
identity negotiable?
II. How the Bible handles gender.
A. God created humans as males and females.
1) Both together are "man" or "mankind." Genesis 1:26-27
2) Jesus affirmed this in debates on marriage. Matthew 19:4
a) Concerning divorce, he referred to the Genesis passage
about God's creation of humans as male and female.
3) Even the Apostle Paul, who many consider anti-woman,
recognized the distinction, yet interdependence, of
men and women. 1 Cor 11
4) The whole Bible teaches respect for gender distinctions
and roles. They are God's gift to us.
B. The Bible does not specifically mention transgender.
1) The closest it comes is Deuteronomy 22:5, which forbids
wearing the clothes of the opposite sex.
2) That is why previous generations didn't want women to wear
pants. (None of you are, are you??)
3) That verse is really dealing with transvestitism, which
is different that transsexuality.
a) Transvestites want to dress like the opposite sex.
b) Transsexuals want to BE the opposite sex.
III. Does God make mistakes?
A. Life is not always as cut-and-dried as Christians want it to be.
1) Consider hermaphrodites, people who are born with
characteristics of both sexes.
a) It is very rare - perhaps 1 out of 1,000 births.
b) Doctors usually make a decision to go with the dominant
characteristics.
1> Sometimes they go with the easiest surgery.
2> (case of boy transformed into a girl after birth).
2) Even chromosomes have variations.
a) You are probably familiar with XX (female) and XY (male).
b) There are also XXY and XYY.
1> Usually it makes little difference to the person.
B. Some believe these variations invalidate a divine plan.
1) Instead of God making two sexes, they say Nature has
created a continuum with many variations.
2) Birth certificates in California and Germany now allow
a third option for sex, such as "undetermined."
C. Exceptions don't make a rule.
1) Most variations don't make an outward difference.
a) Most transgendered people have normal chromosomes
and organs.
2) The real issue is psychological.
a) They may genuinely feel they are different but it is
a mental issue rather than physical.
On June 12, psychiatrist Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins
Hospital wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.
He argued that policy makers and the media are not helping
the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right.
He said it is a mental disorder that deserves understanding,
treatment, and prevention.
McHugh said "the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken
-- it does not correspond with physical reality" and it
"can lead to grim psychological outcomes."
Johns Hopkins Hospital was the first U.S. medical center to
do sex-change surgery in the 1960s.
They did a follow-up study on patients and found their
satisfaction with life was no better than those who did
not have the surgery.
The hospital discontinued transsexual surgeries.
A long-term Swedish study in 2011 revealed that, beginning
about 10 years after gender reassignment surgery,
mental difficulties ensue.
Transgendered people who have had this surgery are 20 times
more likely to die from suicide than the non-transgendered.
40% have tried to commit suicide and 50% report depression.
McHugh says sex change treatments do not change men to women
or women to men.
Instead, it makes them feminized men or masculinized women.
Transgender surgery solves nothing.
This was reinforced with me when I heard an NPR show this
week that interviewed a woman transgendered to a man.
It sure didn't work on radio - she sounded exactly like a
woman throughout.
Gender confusion has always been with us.
But studies that track children who report such confusion
have found that 70 to 80 percent of them later lose those
feelings.
#64445
Those Ohio parents who want their 10-year-old son to be
treated as a girl by his school are doing him no favors.
#63448
IV. It is not a laughing matter.
A. We may disagree with their premise but we must love their souls.
1) Many of them testify of tortured feelings and constant
rejection, even by people who claim to be Christians.
2) Many Christians should be able to relate to their struggles,
even if your struggles have not been about your sexual
identity.
3) We should never treat anyone as a freak.
B. What would Jesus do with them?
1) He would not embrace their agenda, but he would embrace them.
a) He hugged lepers and outcasts.
b) He did not condemn an adulteress. John 8:11
1> At the same time, he did not condone what she did.
2> He told her to leave her life of sin.
2) We must hate the sin but love the sinner.
C. What will you do?
1) Modern Christians cannot hide from this issue.
a) Antoine Conroy - a form was circulated at work that
required everyone's signature, focusing on
discrimination against homosexuals.
(There was no mention of discrimination against
Christians.)
b) My daughter Sarah's college, Gordon, may lose its
accreditation because they will not hire homosexuals.
2) Should the church cave in?
a) Some are saying the church will lose the Millennial
generation, those in their 20s, if we don't change
our ideas on sexuality. #64453
b) But liberalism has caved in on sexuality and their
churches are still in decline.
3) We must speak the truth, but always in love.
a) We can't compromise our message but we need to share
it better.
1> It is not enough to lay out our convictions.
2> Can we love these people like God wants us to?
3> Accept them as they are, and let God change them
into what they can be.
b) We probably won't convince society.
1> We must be prepared to be aliens and outcasts.
V. God made you the way you are.
A. Accept yourself.
1) You have value just as you are.
2) You don't have to be like anyone else.
3) God made you the way you are, for a specific reason.
a) You may spend your whole life finding out what that
reason is.
B. Everyone is broken somewhere.
1) You are not trapped in your body. You are trapped in sin.
2) We are all sinners with warped ideas about sex and
everything else.
3) Jesus came to make us whole.
a) He did this by allowing himself to be abused by humans.
b) He never gave in to their hate, but conquered them
with his Father's love.
C. God loves us and wants us to surrender to him.
1) He accepts you as you are right now, with all your flaws.
2) He will help you to love yourself, and to be transformed
into a new creature.
a) Not by a surgeon's knife, but by the Holy Spirit
on our souls.
b) Has he changed you?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#63448 “Transgender 10-Year-Old, Jackie, Born A Boy, Happier As A Girl,”
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/transgender-10-year-old-j_n_943654.html>;
August 31, 2011.
#64445 “Gender Reassignment,” Penna Dexter, Baptist Press,
<http://www.baptistpress.org>; June 19, 2014.
#64453 “Do Evangelical Churches Have To Accept Gay Marriage To Attract
Millennials?” Napp Nazworth, Christian Post Reporter,
<http://www.christianpost.com/news/do-evangelical-churches-have-to-accept-gay-marriage-to-attract-millennials-123119/>; July 11, 2014.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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