Carlos Horazo

Every show is a sermon. Every show is literally, whether you like it or not, discipling your kids world

Pastor Paul Cunningham

says, I was born this way. Christ says, you can be born again another way.

Carlos Horazo

Righteous anger is something you possess. Sinful anger is something that it possesses you. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the live free podcast. My name is Carlos Horazo and today I am here with the one and only Pastor Paul Cunningham. The expert tattoo whisperer and more Greek speaking theologian.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Wow, you're really setting me up big for a big letdown. I feel like in a little bit.

Carlos Horazo

Yeah, man, this is going to be a good episode.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

How are you, man? I'm doing awesome, man. Pastor Josh is on vacation. Hope he's having a good time.

Carlos Horazo

Okay.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

But man, I'm so good to be with you and I was actually thinking about you yesterday, man.

Carlos Horazo

Okay, tell me about it.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah, it was the first game, the NBA Finals was on there. And so I don't know if you know, but like when people come and visit and they haven't seen us before, I know you're going to show us a few people who have been visiting us. They're always like, man, Carlos is really tall. He's like Victor Wimanyama. And so, yeah, do you know who Wimby is? I do, actually.

Carlos Horazo

My fellow French brother.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

I was like, man, I feel like Carlos is the Wimby of our church. If you are just joining us on Spotify or something, you don't have video, may want to go over there and look. But yeah, the wonderful AI Tim Duncan over here. I mean, Tim Duncan is awesome too. I'm just saying, you tower over everybody else in the lobby the way Wimby towers over everybody on the court, man.

Carlos Horazo

You know, that's kind of how I feel sometimes, especially when I travel, like overseas, I genuinely feel like, you know, just two heads taller.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah, man.

Carlos Horazo

Hilarious, man. It's. It's a last weekend or this last week, Pastor Mike bro started us off with a brand new sermon series and Fuego. We're going to talk about that in just a little bit. But we're excited because today we're going to be addressing a couple different topics. James 1:19. Talking about anger, especially unresolved anger. We're going to go today in this episode, Pride Month, responding to some of the most common arguments people have that people use towards Christians, basically to say, hey, actually you're wrong and I'm right regarding LGBTQ ideology. We're going to be debunking questions such as the word homosexuality. Paul wasn't in the Bible until 1946. I want you to explain that.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Okay.

Carlos Horazo

I want you to explain that in just a little bit.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Okay.

Carlos Horazo

Other questions, such as it's inconsistent to follow Old Testament Bible on same sex relationships, but not in other Levitical prohibition

Pastor Paul Cunningham

the Bible, like eating, for example, shellfish.

Carlos Horazo

Are you.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Are you a shrimp eater, Carlos?

Carlos Horazo

I am, actually.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

You hypocrite.

Carlos Horazo

We're going to some things today.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

You hypocrite.

Carlos Horazo

We're going to figure that out. The Bible only condemns exploitative same sex relationships, not consensual loving same sex marriages like we have today. That's what some people will say. And if we have time, we're going to be talking about Sesame street and their ex post about LGBTQ promotion for kids.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah. And just talking about how do we equip parents to have these conversations with their kids because the world is already having those conversations with them.

Carlos Horazo

Hey, last episode we had something very significant happening.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Okay.

Carlos Horazo

We hit 1 million subscribers. We did, bro. So first of all, a couple of things on this one. Thank you to everybody that has been sharing, honestly liking commenting. This is a big deal. Obviously. You know, again, we have a little 100,000 thing over there, but a million is a big deal. We appreciate that. One thing that I think, I don't know if we've done a great job on this, Paul, and I think we could do better, is that ultimately the views and the streams and the traffic on social media, I mean, honestly, one, that's been insane. But two, it's great. But ultimately those numbers are people and stories.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yes.

Carlos Horazo

And we are all about people and stories. We love getting emails, letters, bro. We get to hear literally every single week in the lobby here in our campuses. We get to hear story after story of life change, of what God is doing and how God is using this podcast. And we love that we get to do that. I got a couple stories because this is what we're celebrating right here. We got Trey and Allison from Missouri. This is literally this last weekend, by the way, Trey got a tattoo, Tetelestai. And so he missed you. You should have fact checked that, making sure you get that at that point,

Pastor Paul Cunningham

it would have been too late. Sort of been awkward if it was. Yes.

Carlos Horazo

It's right there. You can tell him if you got it right.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Did he get it right? Exactly right. Exactly right.

Carlos Horazo

Trey, we're good. They visited from Missouri. They just literally flew in to say hi. We have Jed and Wendy. Jed, they drove three hours to come to church. Jed hadn't been in Church for 19 years. Got hooked on the podcast. God's doing something in his heart and he's back home. So welcome, Jed, man, we love that you're here. And then last story here, we got Ernie from New Mexico. My friend Ernie, he was involved in Mormonism, and for many years, he started listening to Lake Point church online sermons. Joined the podcast regularly as well. Joined a life group online for Lake Point. He gave his life to Christ. He drove last weekend with his life group and his family to Lake Point campus to get baptized. There was a whole party thrown. And so, man, we had the opportunity to celebrate our brother in Christ getting baptized.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

I was there and got to meet him that weekend. Such a good guy. His family was there and just the joy on their faces, man. And like, to your point, we don't want people to misinterpret us when we celebrate the million because it's really not about building our kingdom or our platform. Really, really, for us, it's. Man, we do unashamedly want to reach as many people as possible with the gospel and help form biblical worldviews in as many people as possible. Zero apologies, but. But what fires us up is not a view count or how many subscribers we have. It's the story. So even like yesterday, I think the three or four of us were texting each other additional stories that we were hearing from people. That's what we, like, fires us up. And that's what we live for in terms of what we're seeing God do here.

Carlos Horazo

Yeah, man. So, Juan, thank you. Because this is not just something like, you know, a small group of people does. This is literally like a group, group, team effort. But ultimately, it's not about 1 million. It's about one more. And we'll say this often, man, we want to get one more. We are passionate about sharing the gospel. Praise God for YouTube and all these social media things. People will ask me, oh, I didn't know you love YouTube so much and social media. Honestly, I don't. I just. I just, like, I'm passionate about sharing our faith and I just want people to understand what the Bible teaches. And so praise God that we get to be a part of what God is doing through Lake Point in this season and through Live Free. Hey, if you. Speaking of things happening in the church, if you are a young adult and you're looking for so not Paul and not me, and you're looking for community,

Pastor Paul Cunningham

there's a reason I wear a hat. There's a reason I wear a hat.

Carlos Horazo

That's a joke.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's Terrible.

Carlos Horazo

If you're a young adult and you're looking for community, something to do this summer beginning June 2nd. So this already started at the Rockwell campus. Every Tuesday night we have college nights and this is an opportunity for you to come hang out, meet new people your age. And our very own Paul Cunningham and yours truly will be joining one of these for a live Q and a on stage July 28th on Tuesday. So we love if you're in the area, we'd love to see you. Come say hi. For more information text the word events to 20411. If you are part of the Live Free nation and you're outside of the DFW and you are ever here we again, we love to come meet you, come say hi. Find us in our first time guest tent. We love we have a gift for you. We do a hat giveaway every single week, Paul. And we have a ladies version and a man's version. So text the word hat or not text, drop the word hat in the comment section on YouTube or Spotify to participate in this giveaway or you if you don't win. People keep asking about this. If you don't win, you can just go purchase it online. Yeah, go to Live Free that shop or text the word had to 20411 by the way, we're working on this merch shop and this is kind of, this is new. This is not available yet. First, first look, this is not available yet. But we got this coming soon.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Dude.

Carlos Horazo

For your gym.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's awesome.

Carlos Horazo

So if you want to get inspired and put this in your home gym, you will lift three times as heavy if you have this right here.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Scientifically proven.

Carlos Horazo

That's right.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

You can have Carlos's muscles.

Carlos Horazo

And then. Well, trust me, I'm not sure that's the most. That's the best incentive for people. Paul, I was going to say Paul might be able to sign it for you and it's going to be great. Are you lifting in this season?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Well, I am a runner. I do run, but I'm lifting actually more than I was, man. I stepped on the scale a month ago and a wall of shame hit. And then I saw a video of ourselves and I was like, okay, I counted out on the scale and I saw it on the video. It's time to get back in shape, man. So I'm lifting and doing some running about 10 pounds down. Got got a few more to go, man.

Carlos Horazo

And I did, I did, I did legs literally like Monday and I think I overdid the weight. I Did deadlifts. And, man, I've had, like, a very sore lower back for the last couple of days, man. I'm feeling like. Like I'm 42 or something. You know, I'm like. Like I'm Paul Cunningham or something. Or Josh Howerton.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

So, speaking of anger in the Bible. Speaking of anger.

Carlos Horazo

Yes, yes. Last thing. Hey. To find our daily Bible reading plan, plus the weekly sermon, plus an early release of this episode, you can download the Lakepoint church app, text the word app to 20411, or go to Apple or Google Play store.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Man.

Carlos Horazo

Ready to talk about the sermon?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

I'm ready to talk about the sermon. Carlos, man, can I ask you a question?

Carlos Horazo

Yes, you can ask me. I will allow it.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Thank you, sir. What did you think of this sermon, man? How did it hit you, man?

Carlos Horazo

It was good. First of all, shout out to Pastor Mike.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yes.

Carlos Horazo

New sermon series and fuego always kills it. That's a. That's a killer tit.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

What does it mean for our non Spanish speakers? Yeah, of course.

Carlos Horazo

Thank you for asking. It means on fire.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Okay.

Carlos Horazo

Yes, I'm sure you know, as Pastor Mike addressed it this weekend. Yeah, on fire and fuego. I like this. It's pretty. It's pretty hot, you know, and so that's. That's actually not a great joke.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

It's okay. I was gonna let you pass on.

Carlos Horazo

So, man, we. We went. James, chapter one, verse 19. So if you haven't listened to the sermon, you can go back and check it out on YouTube. So James, as you know, we know it was written by Jesus's little brother, James. I didn't know this, but first of all, if you think about James being Jesus's little brother, if you think about that, like, he literally grew up with Jesus, right? And so whatever you see him writing, like, he's not just saying in a theoretical way, like he. He witnessed it, he experienced it himself. The Gospel of John tells us in John 7:5 that at some point, James didn't even believe Jesus was the son of God, obviously, because what would it take for you to believe that your brother was God incarnate? A lot like a resurrection is what it would take. So here is James, and he's writing about Jesus, and obviously he's speaking from what he's seen. This is perhaps one of the earliest, possibly Paul, one of the earliest books in the New Testament that we have. Some people believe it was written between 44 and 62 AD, which is literally like 10 to 30 years after Jesus was resurrected. And so let me just Take a moment. So James, chapter one, verse 19. This is what it says. Just, you know, as we, as we chew on this a little bit, know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Again, James is probably thinking, man, I saw my brother Jesus live this out, and he's saying, this is what we need to be as followers of Christ. And if you think about it, Paul, this is like, this is literally the absolute opposite of what we see in our social media culture today. Like, identically the opposite. We say we ought to be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. But today our tendency is to be slow to hear, quick to listen, or sorry, quick to speak and quick to anger. Yeah, like that's literally X all. All your X feet is that. And, and this reminds me of this other verse that is connected to this, that, honestly, if you think about it, this is probably one of the most relevant Bible verses for our time today, and most people don't even know about it. This is Proverbs 19:11. It says, A person's wisdom yields. It is to one's glory to overlook an offense. The Hebrew word for glory in this verse here means beauty, honor, splendor, something admirable. And so if you pay attention today on social media, what people find as glorious is honestly just being offended by everything. So this is how you monetize platforms today. You are angry, you have outrage, you are triggered. And if you are that, you will get a lot of attention. But here the word is saying, hey, when you overlook an offense, it is to your glory. And so, in other words, not every battle is worth fighting for. And now, again, this does not justify what they did or what they said. It frees you from what they did and what they said. And so if you're a Christian, wisdom is being responsive, it is not being reactive. In fact, the Bible says that literally, if you're easily offended, you might not have an offense problem, you might have a wisdom problem. Because the more easily offended you become, the easier you are to control. And if people can control your emotions, they can control your reactions. And we have a term for that. It's called rage baiting. Yeah, and so if you think about it, Jesus also said in Matthew, chapter 5, verse 12, Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. And then he says, rejoice and be glad. That should be your response. Which means that oftentimes being offended is inevitable, but staying offended is a choice.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's good.

Carlos Horazo

And so somebody else also said, if you are on a continuous search to be offended, you will always find what you're looking for. Bro, that is so true. So this would be, you know, as we meditate on this and I'm just gonna ask you a couple things here in a second. This is something that I would say to our friends right now, listening. And I say this with love. Stop wasting your time being offended by all these small, worthless, insignificant things. Your calling us a Christian is much, much greater than that. And perhaps, yes, I understand you were offended, but sometimes the most mature and spiritual thing you can do is surrender that to the Lord, let it go, brush it off, give them grace and move on. The world will call that weakness, but the Bible calls that glory.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Amen, man. A few things there I love before we maybe jump into. You know, we talked about maybe the three types of anger in the Bible, but few things you said stick out. Number one, love your tie in. And you maybe didn't even realize you're doing it between Proverbs and James because many scholars say that the book of James is actually a form of New Testament wisdom literature. That a lot of how James writes is these kind of short sayings which sometimes like for example, if you read the apostle Paul or Peter, they're writing sustained arguments, very logical. Whereas James will kind of hit some stuff, move on to another subject and he repeats the same subjects over and over again, much like the book of Proverbs. And so I just love that connection there, that how both Proverbs and James has stuff to say to us also just observations on our culture. Like I was reading some research coming into this week of literally the rates of self reported anger have never been higher. And part of that is because it is the best way to what you said to drive attention or to gain attention. People call it rage baiting or farming. Obviously you see this on social media where sometimes people will say stuff that I don't actually think that they believe. I think they're saying it just because they will get a reaction in the same way. What's interesting is you know what the leading cause of anger now or one of the leading causes of anger is in terms of what they see on social media or the news. No politics.

Carlos Horazo

Shocker.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

I know, right? I know everybody always blogging politics would have thought, who would have thought? Who would have thought. But if you actually look, it's crazy how much it has increased and part of that is even like this is actually, I'll just be honest. One of the things I get frustrated by politicians on either side of issues here in America is that I feel like so many of them, instead of giving us a vision worth living for and building towards, they give us something to be angry at. Because if they give us something to be angry at, we can be angry at this. And this person is my enemy. And it gets me angry and it gets me motivated for a short season. But then we never actually can cast a vision of what we're building towards and a vision worth living for. And so that's just, I think all your tie ins there are just amazing. For me, this was a very personal subject. Just open it up. Before we jump into some of the theological stuff. Anger has been something I know again, I wouldn't call it a generational curse. We had that conversation. A mother's womb. I mean, you can, but I will say it's a generational curse stronghold. This has actually been one in my family.

Carlos Horazo

Interesting.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah, it's been one in my family. My dad has been very open about the struggles he had with anger. My dad was a pastor and so he had two big moments in his life that really convicted him of his anger issues. One was he was yelling, I believe, at my brother. And I mean just really tearing into him. And just for clarity, my dad was no way physically violent or abusive. He just, he had a very sharp tone and sharp tenor in his voice. And so he was yelling at him one time and then all of a sudden the door swung open and he see himself in the mirror across the hall and just saw how awful his, his face looked. And that was just a moment of like, okay, something's got to change. Another moment kind of like that. We were in the car and you know, it's always really peaceful in a car ride with, with family when you're on long car trips and road trips, especially back then when you didn't have iPhones or iPads or anything except books on tape. Do you ever have those growing up, Books on tape?

Carlos Horazo

I don't know.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Cassettes.

Carlos Horazo

Do you know what those things are, cassettes now? I have no idea. What is that?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Moving on. Anyways, I'm getting angry. No, but no. So he was getting really mad.

Carlos Horazo

This is when you as a kid,

Pastor Paul Cunningham

you're saying, yeah, me as a kid, my brother and I in the back, we're making a lot of noise. He's getting really angry and yelling at us. Well, what he does not realize is that we had a tape recorder in the back. Oh, wow. And we had been recording everything. And so all of a sudden, we weren't doing this to him intentionally. Like, it wasn't like a ploy or conspiracy. We just were recording while he was doing this. We play it back, and all of a sudden we push play and he hears himself yelling. And it was just a huge convicting moment for him. And sure enough, though, for me, growing up, I was exposed to some of that. But then for me, on my own, and I've got to own my own stuff. It's like we talked about a month ago. I can't blame that on my dad. I make my own choices, and I'm in charge of my own emotions. I found anger to be something that I've really struggled with in my life. And not a righteous anger that we'll talk about in a minute, but a sinful anger. And so to your point, this seems like one of those innocuous topics, but actually, I think it's something that we're all wrestling with. And I just shared that to say, hey, even me, it's been a battle that I've had to fight and I continue to have to fight it. So that, to your point, I don't let anger control me and that I'm not his puppet.

Carlos Horazo

That's right.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah, man.

Carlos Horazo

That's good, man. Well, let's talk about that for a second, because, you know, you're right. It is really. It's a real thing. And it's one of those things that I don't know that we talk about it enough. Not all anger is the same.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's right.

Carlos Horazo

So, in fact, I've heard Paul, there's three types of anger. Tell me about it.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah. So in the Bible, you really have three different types of anger. Divine anger, human sinful anger, and then human righteous anger.

Carlos Horazo

Okay, say that one more time.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

So divine anger. And then when it comes to human anger, you have righteous anger and sinful anger.

Carlos Horazo

Okay.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

And so not all anger is bad. Not all anger is bad whatsoever. Sometimes people can approach this, maybe one of two much of a ditch, two ditches on one side of one ditch would be all anger is bad. But that's not true. We see God has anger, and that's not a bad thing.

Carlos Horazo

Honestly, a lot of Christians think that, right? Because, like, hey, we're supposed to be nice. We're never supposed to get angry about anything. And you know, when somebody is angry, be like, oh, how unchristlike.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah. Scripture literally says, be angry and do not sin.

Carlos Horazo

Okay.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

It doesn't say don't sin by not being angry. It just says, it's like, basically, you can be angry and not sin. It's possible for that to happen. So on one side is people who think it's all bad. The other side, people maybe who think it's just totally neutral, it's just an emotion we feel. Whereas actually in Scripture, it seems like it is an emotion, but it is not a neutral thing. It's a very dangerous thing. And it seems like most of the time, anger in Scripture is more of the sinful variety, so we got to figure out how to navigate it. So let me walk through these. Let me really talk about divine anger and how it's maybe different than ours. But then I think it'd be helpful for you and I then to spend a few minutes juxtaposing righteous anger versus sinful anger so that people can kind of know, okay, if this is an emotion that can be good or bad. Well, which is it? Like, how do I know if this is something I need to repent of or actually if this is maybe something I need to lean into because it might be right for me to feel this way? So when we talk about divine anger or God's anger, we have to be careful not to think that God has emotions like you and me. Our emotions go up and down depending what is happening to us or around us. God isn't like that. You can't make God have a bad day.

Carlos Horazo

Hmm.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

You've never encountered God on a day where he's having a bad mood. He's not like that, where his emotions are fluctuating up and down based on what's happening to him. Because think about it. He knows everything and he knows everybody. And so if that were the case, literally inside of him, and at any time would be all these conflicting emotions. That's not how God is. Instead, when we. When the Bible talks about God having emotions like anger, that's a way of kind of saying and expressing, hey, this is God's unchanging character that's being expressed in a way that we can experience in time or in a way that we can understand. So again, it's his unchanging character, but expressed in a way that we can experience or understand in time. And so when it comes to anger, that is God's holy and just opposition to sin and evil. And by the way, he's opposed to it all the time. So it's not like God's like, all right, I'm cool with sin. I'm cool with sin. Oh, you pushed me over the edge. Now I'm angry. No, he's always opposed to it, but there comes times where we feel that or that he expresses that in scripture. So let me put it this way. When I get angry, something outside of me is changing my emotional state. When God is angry, he is expressing his unchanging state against sin. Does that make sense?

Carlos Horazo

Yeah. And by the way, some people don't like to hear that God gets angry.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah.

Carlos Horazo

It is because he's good that he gets angry.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Exactly. I was gonna say three things. A few things keep going.

Carlos Horazo

Yeah. Because if he were to see something that is evil and he would be indifferent or not angry towards it, that would not be okay. That would not make him good. Yeah.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Like, I mean, if we. If you met just a person on the street or just even someone you knew who they. They looked at injustice in the world and they felt nothing, you would actually be concerned about their character.

Carlos Horazo

Yes.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah. We usually call these people sociopaths.

Carlos Horazo

Yes.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

And so the idea of not like it's actually a good thing that God gets angry at things. In fact, let me. Let me hit some points, though, to kind of maybe get some guardrails in terms of what we mean by God's anger and what we don't mean. God's anger, kind of, to your point, is not the opposite of love. It's actually the expression of his love against everything that destroys what he loves. Okay, so let's put it like this. If God loves children, he must hate child abuse. If God loves truth, he must hate lies. If God loves justice, he must hate oppression. So it's not the opposite of his love. It's actually the expression of his love against anything that destroys what he loves. Okay, so that's point number one. Point number two. God's anger. Anger is always perfectly and holy and justified. So God has never once overreacted, ever. I don't know if you've ever overreacted to a situation, Carlos, but I sure have over the smallest of things.

Carlos Horazo

Perhaps I have.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah. Whether it's driving in traffic and I get mad because someone is driving, God forbid, five miles under the speed limit.

Carlos Horazo

Never in marriage, though. 100%, but driving, perhaps.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

I just want to be like you one day, Carlos.

Carlos Horazo

No, obviously that's not true. If somebody didn't understand that's a joke.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

But now he's never reacted. He's never once regretted a word that he spoke in anger, anything like that. Every ounce of his anger is perfectly calibrated to the evil that deserves it.

Carlos Horazo

Wow.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Okay, so that's A big thing to know is he's always perfectly angry and it's always perfectly justified. So God doesn't overreact to a situation. He's always perfect in how he reacts. Number three. And this is a really important slow

Carlos Horazo

to anger, by the way.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yes, that's where I was going next. Okay, go ahead, man. Is God's anger is slow. Okay, that's a really important one. Because sometimes. Yeah, when people think about God's anger, they can kind of picture like just God in heaven getting ticked off at every little thing. No, no, no. One of the most repeated descriptions of God in scripture is that he is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The wonder of scripture isn't that God gets angry at sin, it's how much he's willing to endure before he shows his unchanging anger towards sin. He's actually so patient all day, every day. Like, just think about this for a second. Everything in creation does whatever God tells it to do. And so when he said, let there be light, there was light. When he wanted the waters to part the Red Sea so the people could walk through it parted. When Jesus wanted the water to stand firm under his feet so he could walk on it, it stand firm. Everything in creation does exactly what God tells it to do, except for one thing. Us. We're the one thing in all creation that has the audacity to tell God no. And billions of people every day, all day, are doing that all day. And so it's a wonder that he is as patient as he is. But he is because he loves us. Because I'd like to remind our listeners, in case that hits you hard when you're listening to this, we are also the one thing in all of creation that God had the audacity to die for. He is patient. He's abounding love. So I don't want to get picked. I want people to kind of hold this intention. God hates anything that destroys what he loves. So he hates sin, but he loves us sinners and is so patient with us. Anything to add in terms of divine anger? Anything that. Anything you'd color in?

Carlos Horazo

Yeah. Paul, what's the best picture of God's anger displayed in Scripture?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

It's a great question. It's also coincidentally, the best demonstration of his love.

Carlos Horazo

There you go.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

And that's the cross.

Carlos Horazo

That's right.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

The cross is simultaneously a picture of how much God hates sin and how much God loves us.

Carlos Horazo

That's right.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

He hates it so much that it took the death of his son to atone for it. And yet he loves us so much that he sent his son to be the atoning death for us.

Carlos Horazo

Yeah. At the cross, Jesus took upon himself the wrath of God, the righteous, holy, perfect wrath of God that you and I deserved in our place for our sins. And we would, theologians will call the great exchange. I believe it was Martin Luther and Jesus's righteousness was given to us, and our sin was placed on Jesus. He who knew no sin became sin so that we would be called the righteousness of God.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's right.

Carlos Horazo

There you go.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's right. So here's what this sets up. Now as we begin, we're going to spend some time just juxtapose and kind of contrast. Then human anger that's righteous versus that sinful is because if God can be angry and God is righteous, therefore there is such a thing as righteous anger. That, by the way, because we're made in God's image, we can have. But again, scripture seems to make it seem like most of the instances of human anger are more sinful. But the question is, okay, how do I know the difference? How do we know when the anger I'm feeling over what's happening to me, around me is justified and righteous, or if it's sinful and if I'm overreacting? So we're just going to kind of juxtapose these kind of take some turns back and forth. Carlos, you want to lead us off?

Carlos Horazo

Yeah. So this is really practical. So now that we know. Thank you for letting us know, Apostle. Well, God gets angry, and when he does, he's always righteous and holy and perfect. That's not always the case with us.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's right.

Carlos Horazo

And so like we said, usually it's not the case, especially when you're driving or especially in marriage. That tends to happen. That's a different podcast. But here's what you need to ask yourself. Whatever we're about to share right now, this is basically to help you. Basically ask, hey, is the anger that I'm feeling right now righteous or is it not? So here's the first thing I would say. Righteous anger is about God's will, so it's centered around God. Sinful anger is about my will, and it's centered around me primarily. So, for example, righteous anger is because God is dishonored, people are harmed, evil is celebrated. Sinful anger is because I was inconvenienced or I was embarrassed, or I was contradicted, or I was ignored and I didn't get my way. Sometimes it's not righteous anger. Sometimes it's your pride. And so you want to ask, ultimately, am I angry because of God and his righteousness or am I angry because of me and my pride? Go ahead. Next one.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's good. Yeah. Number two, righteous anger is proportionate. Sinful anger is exaggerated. So righteous anger fits whatever the offense is like. It's good if you get angry at injustice or awful things in the world. Again, if you didn't ever feel any anger, I would be concerned with you. But sinful anger turns minor frustrations into major offenses. So again, this is a very obviously exaggerated thing I'm about to say, but I think it proves the point. Getting angry over child abuse is proportionate, by the way. That includes if the child abuse happened to you. It is okay to be angry about stuff that happened to you if it's a violation of God's will. And that is so getting angry over things like child abuse or things like that is totally proportionate. Exploding because someone drove solely in front of you is not. Is not. I have a moment like this, for example, where I was angry one morning about eight, nine years ago. My kids were smaller and trying to get them out the door to school. And sometimes that's like hurt herding and wrangling cats, man. And so, like, I'm trying to get them. We're running late and we had a small dog named Bear, which is kind of funny because he was small dog and named Bear, but the kids wanted to name him Fluffy and he was already a small dog and I said I would never have a small dog, so we were going to give him a manly name.

Carlos Horazo

Okay, go ahead.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah. How dare you. I feel like you're rage baiting me this entire episode on purpose, man. I'm just giving you a hard time. I'm just messing with you too, dude. All in love. So anyways, I'm trying to get them out the door and we're running late and I gotta get to work as well after I drop them off to school. And then Bear starts hiding underneath my son's bed. And it was a hard bed to get under. And so I get him out and then I'm trying to get the kids to get something and then he hides back under the bed. This happens three or four times and eventually I just get really angry and I'm screaming at the dog like it was the worst offense in the history of humanity. And then my kids, it was terrible. But then I look at my kids and they look scared, bro. Oh, wow. I looked in their Eyes and they looked scared. And it was just, it was actually, it was reminded me of like my dad had that moment and then I had that moment that was actually one of the first moments about eight, 19 years ago I was like, okay, I gotta get some stuff has gone awry. I gotta get manga control. Because the point there was like being a little frustrated would have been okay in that situation. But the fact that I deal with that, it was exaggerated. So righteous anger is proportionate. Sinful anger is exaggerated. Next one.

Carlos Horazo

Here's another one. I would say righteous anger is slow to rise. Sinful anger is quick triggered, right? And so as Christians, man, we want to be wisdom says we should be responsive, not reactive. The Bible says God who is perfect is because he's our standard, he's perfect. He only has righteous, perfect anger. And yet he is slow to anger. And so we want to be more like him. So we want to be slow to anger, not quick to react. Let's keep going.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's good. Righteous anger seeks restoration. Sinful anger seeks punishment. And so if you actually look in Scripture, oftentimes when God anger is expressed, especially in the Old Testament, there is punishment that is involved, but the purpose is always towards restoration. And scripture talks about how God would say I am wounded you so that you may be healed. Or he sends them into exile, but so that they may return. So they may realize the consequences of their sins, but eventually repent of those sins and return. And so now that there's no punishment, it's just, that's not the end. God's end is towards restoration. Whereas oftentimes we, we just want people to be in trouble and get in trouble and to be punished for what they did. We don't care so much that they repent of what they did and they're restored to God and restored to relationship with. So like here, here's, here's maybe a good question to ask. Would I be disappointed if the person in question that I'm angry at genuinely repented and was restored? Would I be disappointed? And if I would be, that's probably a good indication that at this point I just want them to be punished for whatever they did. I don't want them to be restored from what they did.

Carlos Horazo

That's good, that's good distinction. Here's, I would say another one. Righteous anger remains controlled. Sinful anger controls you, right? And so the Bible speaks about being sober minded and it also talks about self control, which is the fruit of the spirit. And so here's what I would say it righteous Anger is something you possess. Sinful anger is something that it possesses you. You gotta watch out.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's good. Keep going a couple more. We'll do these quickly. Righteous anger produces productive action. Sinful anger produces destructive reaction. And so think of it this way. Righteous anger asks, what should be done? Or how can this be made right? Like, even if went wrong, how can we put me. How can this be made right? Again, going back to the idea of restoration, sinful anger asks, how can I vent and how can I get even? So again, let me just be very clear. We are not saying that, especially if something happened to you, to those you love, you have no place to feel mad about that or upset or wrong. No, you do. But then you have to ask yourself, man, do I just simply want to get even and vent about what they did or whatever happened? Do I want it to be made right? Which, by the way, may mean that they have to face consequences. But these are some of the tough questions you have to ask yourself to really parse out. Man, is my anger still a righteous anger that's reflecting God, or is it a sinful anger that's centered around me? I think we got one more, right?

Carlos Horazo

Yeah, we got one more. So I would say righteous anger addresses the issue and then surrenders it to God. Sinful and anger, on the other hand, becomes bitter. And this is basically, there are some things that perhaps when we get angry, we try to control. And ultimately it is not up to me to control. It's up to me to surrender it to the one who should be controlling that. That's. That's God. And so only God can change somebody else's heart. Only God can change somebody else's soul or feelings and handle your situation. And so when you have righteous anger, you understand, okay, I did my part. I need to address what I need to address. And then the rest is up to God versus sinful anger becomes bitter because you're still trying to control the thing that's really not up to you to control.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's good. I have a thought, but I'm going to actually say, because in the coming weeks, we're actually going to have a week that focuses on forgiveness. But I think this is a very big part of it. So I'd say if this is an issue for you in terms. Terms of something that's happened to you that you're still having trouble, trouble letting go of, I believe the next week or two, we're going to be talking about forgiveness. But let me do this before we move on and do A pivot into talking. Helping our people think through Pride Month. And how do they. How do they think through some of the accusations that are sometimes made? Maybe. How do they talk to their kids about it? We've actually got a table that we can put up on the screen that really puts all these things together of. Again, just running briefly through these again. So you got righteous anger and sinful anger. Righteous anger is about God's will, is proportionate. It's slow to rise, it seeks restoration, it remains controlled, it produces productive action, and it can let it go. Sinful anger is about me and my will. It's exaggerated, it's quickly triggered, it seeks punishment. It controls you. It produces destructive reaction, and it becomes bitterness. And so I think what we would just say to our listeners, when it comes to anger, God wants you to live free of anything that is holding back from everything that he wants for you, and that includes the anger that might be controlling you. If that's you, here's the good news, is that any day is a great day for us to repent, to give him the anger that we've been harboring, to ask him to help us release us from it, and then to move on into a new day.

Carlos Horazo

Let's go, man. Well, that's a good word.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah, man.

Carlos Horazo

I think one of the things Pastor Mike also addressed this last weekend is that anger, he said, said. And I've heard they say this before, but I thought it was interesting. Anger, he said, is a secondary emotion. And so behind that anger, usually there's something else. And honestly, like, if you think about it, many times, when there is anger behind it, there is pride. And that's kind of what we want to be addressing right now as we start the month of June. Let's talk about pride, man. Well, hey, Live Free Nation. Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. But the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church Online. Every weekend, we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform. And it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all over around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start church Online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend and now enjoy the podcast.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Okay, man. That was a great segue, by the way.

Carlos Horazo

Did you like it?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That was such. I was like. I was like, where's he going with this? So. Well, man.

Carlos Horazo

Well, you got to figure out a way to connect both conversations. That was not the easiest one.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

No.

Carlos Horazo

But, hey, so we are in June. June, Paul, and another one. It feels like every year there's just something different to kind of tackle regarding Pride Month.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yep.

Carlos Horazo

So if you don't know this, in 1999, President Bill Clinton became the first US President to officially declare June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month via presidential proclamation. And later in 2009, President Barack Obama expanded it to include the bisexual and transgenderism side to it, the entity. And then in 2021, Joe Biden was the first president to add the plus. And today, the official acronym in the United States for this is LGBTQI plus. Now, if in Canada, because we have. We got some Canadian listeners live free. Let's go. In Canada, the official acronym is 2SLGBTQI plus, which includes the 2s at the beginning, which means two spirit. And this basically just means some indigenous people, for it's an indigenous concept. Basically, those who have both masculine and feminine spirits are 2s, or perhaps a third gender. So, anyways, we're not going to explain that right now.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

I don't mean to be offensive, but this is starting to become like trying to memorize the number PI, where it's like, there's so many. I'm not getting a little out of control. It's like, okay, sorry, like, what was that again that Canadians say?

Carlos Horazo

Yeah, two SLGBTQI plus and sure.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Okay.

Carlos Horazo

So, yeah, all this to say this conversation is interesting because I remember again, back in the day, seeing some of the. The rise. I was in college and, you know, again, this is like 2011, 2012, and, you know, fast forward till today, some of the. When you look around, just even paying attention on social media, some of the responses regarding just the overall Pride Month idea seems to be changing, Changing. And so it's interesting, there was this article that was going around right now, Trinity, if you can pull it up. This is basically a Gallup article. It says, US Support for LGBTQ plus issues remains down from peak. And so what it basically says is, for two decades, the approval for LGBTQ ideology has risen consistently. It's been kind of. Kind of rising. It peaked around 2015, which is, interestingly enough, when Obergefell happened and then it plateaued. But then now check out the other image. Now it's going down. And so same sex marriage support has gone from 71%, but now it's like 65. The belief that gay lesbian relations are morally acceptable is now at 62%. That's the lowest since 2016. Moral acceptance of changing one's gender has dropped across every political group since 2021.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Wow.

Carlos Horazo

It's at like 38 again. And some people are asking, like, what, what's happening? What's changing? And we don't. We can talk about some theories would think, well, maybe it's because of the explicit sexual LGBTQ content and gender transition marketed primarily towards kids. We're going to talk about that in just a second. Perhaps it's because biological men identifying as trans are using women's spaces or at least pushing for that. Biological men competing in women's sports. That's been also a conversation in the last couple years. Gay couples adopting children via surrogacy. That's a big deal. And by the way, we are working on getting a friend of the podcast, Katie Foust, to join to have a conversation about that very soon. And so people are kind of thinking through, perhaps even people that are not even Christians are kind of going through some of these conversations and being like, well, like something just feels off here. Yeah, there's a point where you're like, you know, some pastors have described it as the devil has overplayed its hand. And so, Paul, I want to ask you, because we're about to dive into some of these conversations, especially things that people will say to Christians like, oh, wait, you're misguided it because of. And then, you know, they'll use the Bible or they'll kind of, you know. We're going to talk about that in just a second. But I want to ask you, man, before we do, would you be able to share with us a br. Like an overview of what does the Bible actually say regarding this topic?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah. And before I do, I think it may be important just to add this is on the went, man. Let's. We can celebrate the fact that the tide, at least for now, seems to be turning.

Carlos Horazo

Yes.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

And that's something to celebrate.

Carlos Horazo

That's right.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Because it was skyrocketing up and to the right the entire time and then now it's plateau and it's dipping and that's something to celebrate. But one of the reasons then we're talking about it because people Say, well, then why are you guys talking about it? It looks like it's finally going down again. It's like, no, no, we've got to keep doing it because we have a long way to go to turn back the tide of how far it advanced. Also I've got another graph for us that shows though, another way to think about this to say, well, we still have more work to do. So this is opinions about sexual relations between two adults, the same sex, done by Ryan Burge does great stuff. If you're not following him on social media, give him a follow. He gives great stuff. And so what this is charting is basically the opinions based on your faith and then within Christianity based on the different denominations of faith. And so everyone but evangelicals over the last 40 years have switched from not supporting it to supporting it as a majority, some more than others. But we can see an evangelical back in the 1970s and 1980s, 85% of evangelicals would have said it was always wrong and only six would have said, I mean, yeah, it's always right. But now today it's 63% who would say it's always wrong and 27% who would say, no, it's actually always right.

Carlos Horazo

That's interesting.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

And evangelicals, that's a loaded term, but basically like the type of people who would go to Lake Point Church and churches like ours. So we can't assume that everyone who is a Christian still believes what God has to say about this. So this is partly of why we're going to continue to talk about it, because we don't want to assume. And then number two, for those who already do believe what we believe, the Bible says we want to help you respond to. That's why we're doing this. But that being said, to your question of maybe just giving an overall thing, I narrowed this down to really four statements. And then maybe I'll go back and I'm going to do the four in a row and then I'll go back and maybe give a little bit of detail on a few of them, kind of four principles. And not just about same sex attraction or same sex relationships, but really about sexuality in general. Okay, principle number one, the one who designs is the one who decides. I'm going to come back to these and explain a little bit more. So the one who designs is the one who decides. Number two. Number two, sex is a God given gift designed for a God given context. So we've now established the one who designs is the one who decides. Number two, God is the one who designed sex, so he gets to decide what context it is used in and is best expressed in. Point number three, that context that he's designed it for is marriage between one biological man and one biological woman. Point number four, humans are free to ignore God's design. We can, we can completely disregard it, but we are not free to redefine, rebel against it without facing eternal personal and societal consequences. So we can reject that design. But in the same way that if I reject the design, like sometimes the joke I'll make and it's silly, but like my lawnmower has a fan at the very bottom of it, has a bunch of blades that I could hang on my roof and use as a ceiling fan, but it wasn't designed for that. So if I try to use that way, some serious consequences could result from that, especially if I'm under it when it falls. So that's the idea. We can reject go cross design, but you are not free to reject that without facing eternal, temporal, and then also societal consequences. Let me, let me go back to

Carlos Horazo

this something you just said, because honestly, this is because people think, well, eternal, sure, but what about now? You're including like your life here and now as well.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Oh, yeah.

Carlos Horazo

And, and this is again, this is an idea that you see in scripture all throughout, that every time God says don't, he means don't hurt yourself.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Exactly.

Carlos Horazo

Generally speaking, when it comes to this conversation, after years of data, because we have more and more and, and studies show today that people that choose to as LGBTQ cons, you can literally research this, consistently show higher rates of depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, self harm, suicidal thoughts, and more like, that's just, this is what data is showing more and more and more. And some will say, well, it's actually because of discrimination. And yet today, even in the most progressive countries with full legal equality, high social acceptance, we're talking Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark over where like literally these countries, like there's like an over 90% percent population support above the population supports gay marriage. People in same sex relationships still in these countries have more than double the suicide rate of people in opposite sex marriages. And so to your point, Paul, Jesus said, man, I came so that you can have an abundant life.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yes.

Carlos Horazo

The Bible says man obeying God's word brings blessing. And the Bible also warns that disobeying the word of God results in pain, hurt, confusion and death. And so God's ways and God's purposes are better.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Exactly. Yeah. And just going back through and highlighting a few of those principles again, like the one who designs is the one who decides. It's just this simple idea, like a right understanding of gender and sexuality actually doesn't begin with humans. It begins with God. It begins the one with the one who made them. So there either is a creator who purposefully and authoritatively orders reality, and that includes our bodies and our sexuality, or there is. If there is, we have to ask ourselves, not what do we want to do with our bodies, but what does he want us to do with our bodies?

Carlos Horazo

Different question.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Exactly. Because I guess you could almost put it this way. The two questions I have to ask is, who designs me and who owns me? And actually, it's not me who owns me. Scripture says no, like my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and that I was crafted, knit together by God, God owns me, changes it.

Carlos Horazo

When you ask the question, whose body is it?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Exactly.

Carlos Horazo

Is it my body? Is it God's body?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah. Am I or am I stewarding the body that God gave me? And then skipping into number three, that the idea of the context of marriage between one biological man and one biological woman. We're going to hit some of this in the details when we respond to some of the objections. But you see this clearly, obviously, at creation, the idea of male and female, he created them. And then Adam and Eve have their marriage and they begin their life together. But then that design is reaffirmed through throughout all of Scripture. If you go to the gospels in Matthew 19, where Jesus is asked about marriage, he could actually, he's asked about divorce. He simply could have said, what man is, what God has brought together. Man not tear asunder, man not separate. But he doesn't. He actually backs up and he establishes his hey, in the beginning. And then he talks about God created Adam and Eve to be together, male and female. He created them. So he establishes the definition of what marriage is, and he maintains the same thing that started all the way back in Genesis. So that's the pattern we see in Scripture.

Carlos Horazo

Wow. Okay. So before we dive in, because we're going to go through these quick, one thing as well, to keep in mind, just to add to what you're saying, Christians are called to do two things. One, we are called to hold fast to what is true. And two, we are called to love our neighbor.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yes.

Carlos Horazo

And so again, I'm saying this because some people say, well, that's obvious. Well, you know, the reason I'm saying this is because some Christians today, they will ignore what the Bible says about sexuality, to quote, unquote, love their neighbor, while Other people will hold on to what the Bible says about sexuality, but they fail to love their neighbor. And so we're called to do both. It is true that you can love and serve someone without approving everything they do. Jesus did that and we must do the same thing. It is also true you can disagree with someone and still love them. Jesus did that. And guess what? We are called to do the same thing. And so let's start with some of these. Paul, let me ask you this man. Here's probably one of the most popular one. Jesus never talked about homosexuality, Paul. And by the way, we have a meme here. The theologian Stephen Colbert says, I would like to read to you what Jesus said about homosexuality. I'd like to, but he never said anything about it. And he's got his Bible.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah, I mean, what's the deal? I mean, I guess it's just over. He never talked about it, so we can't say anything. Yeah, a lot of people will use this line of argum, we've hit this recently. But you also would see this like James Talarico, this is a whole big thing that he does, not just with same sex marriage and attraction relationships, but also with abortion. Well, Jesus never said anything about it. And the inference, here's what I want people to get. The inference is that, well, if Jesus didn't condemn something, he condoned it. If he didn't condemn it, well, then he condoned it. But there's a lot of problems with that. Four big ones I want to hit and I'll try to keep this tight. Number one, this objection is an argument from silence, which is a logical fallacy. It assumes that the absence of evidence is the presence of fact. So maybe, let's put it this way to kind of help people understand why this is a silly way to argue. It's like saying Marco Polo never mentioned the Great Wall of China. So obviously we conclude that the Great Wall of China didn't actually exist because he never said anything about it. Or let's actually just use. You don't have to put the meme back up there. But like, if I was with Colbert right now, I'd say, okay, so can you flip to the passage where Jesus speaks against child abuse? I'll wait. Can you flip to the passage where Jesus speaks against incest or bestiality? I'll wait. He doesn't. And I doubt that Colbert would say, then he condones those practices. And so by the way, the meme,

Carlos Horazo

I don't know if he actually said that, just to clarify, but yeah, but

Pastor Paul Cunningham

still, anyways, and here's the thing is an argument from silence doesn't say much. It doesn't. And so Jesus was silent on a lot of things we have to ask. Well, why didn't he address them? This brings us to point number two, the objection forgets Jesus cultural context. So Jesus ministered mainly in the area of Judea and there was widespread, not even widespread, there was universal agreement on things like incest, idolatry, same sex relationships, and that's that they were sinful. So I mentioned a second ago, idolatry. Jesus never said anything about idolatry. But if you go to the Old Testament, it's this, the biggest sin that God consistently punishes them for and demonstrates his anger towards. As we were talking about earlier, about his sinful. Right, I mean about his righteous anger. But Jesus never mentions it. Does that mean that he was okay with it? That all of a sudden, oh yeah, go and worship idols? No, of course. It just means he didn't have to because that wasn't the sin that the cultural context he was in was struggling with. He spoke to the sins they were struggling with. They universally believed that same sex acts and relationships were sinful, so he didn't address them. Number three, the objection forgets Jesus identifies. If Jesus was God and the Bible is the word of God, then everything the Bible has to say on same sex acts and relationships are Jesus's words.

Carlos Horazo

There you go.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Including if they're in Leviticus. If he is God and the Bible is the word of God, those are his words. And then finally, number four. Actually, let me recap. So number one, the objection is an argument from silence. Those are not strong. Number two, the objection forgets his cultural context. Number three, the objection forgets Jesus's identity. And number four, the objection forgets Jesus's definition. Definition of marriage. As I said a minute ago, he made it clear in the book of Matthew what marriage is. It's between a man and a woman. And I actually heard this from Pastor Josh once. I thought this was great. I don't have to say everything. Something isn't if I have a clear picture of what it is. So if you go into a crowded room, he doesn't have to say, that's not my wife, that's my wife. That's not my wife. All he has to do is say, that's my wife, that's Jana. In the same way, when Jesus says this is what marriage is, he then doesn't have to spell out everything that. So those are a few thoughts, set

Carlos Horazo

me up on the next one.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

All right, so I got a picture for you. This is the next argument I think is best represented in this picture. I think we'll blur part of it out because it could be a little bit offensive. There's a sign this person is holding at a rally. It says, love is too beautiful to be hidden in the closet. So this is this idea. Carlos says, man, like, God is the God of love, and a God of love couldn't and wouldn't be against relationships that are built on love, even if they happen to be between two people of the same sex. What would you say?

Carlos Horazo

Well, let me tell you a story.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah. Come on, man.

Carlos Horazo

So my wife is from Michigan.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Okay.

Carlos Horazo

I was born and raised in El Salvador. Different culture. Obviously, I didn't know. So when I came here, I had to learn some things. One, I had to learn how to speak English. Not so important. And then two, well, you know, I learned before, but then working on. Still working on today. Well, I had to learn some of the cultural expressions, cultural ways here in America. Here in the American way. North American, United States. Different conversation. I try to.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Try to focus here, by the way, bro, real fast, dude, like, if any. If anyone was listening to you, they would all think English was your first language. You're incredible. Keep going. Keep going.

Carlos Horazo

So when we first started dating, I didn't know that here in the US and you can tell me. Maybe this is a northern thing. It was a thing. When you first start dating, you don't just say I love you just like that. Like, when you say I love you, you. It's like a moment, like, you. You got to be ready, and it's like a big deal. So I didn't know that. So I started dating. You know, I'm just trying to be affectionate. I. I use my words in life kind of. You know, it's kind of what I do. And so when we started dating, I literally. I think it was like a week into it, I said, hey, Brooke, you know, she's my girlfriend now. And I said, hey, I love you. And she's like, what a week? Like, what's going on? And, you know, I'm just so confused because, like, one, I. I want to be affectionate to her, so I know what love means. And I just kind of. I'm using that word. And I was. My girlfriend. So what do you. What do you want? Like, you like. Well, you know, I don't know what people say. And two, I was confused because she. She hadn't said that to me before. As well. And I'm like, well, we're dating. And like, I'm kind of waiting for her to tell me that she loves me, you know, like, what's going on? I heard her say, like, literally like the day before that she loves to eat pizza or whatever or like, you know, and so what's going on? And, and so here, here's what I learned. We were using the same word, but we meant different things.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's good.

Carlos Horazo

So when it comes to this conversation and when people say things like, man, I got a of lot. Love can't be against a relationship of love. We need to be asking who gets to define what love actually is. The Bible teaches that God is love, but love is not God. And so if God is love and you're a Christian, then here's what you do. You trust what God says that God that love is. And so you, you trust God to define what love is. And so what we don't do is we don't take our own personal experience or what culture is saying today, and then we project that onto what we, God should bless and how we think God should be. Here. Here's what you do. If you're a Christian, you trust God to define love for you. And by the way, he does in his word, and more so than in his word through the person of Jesus Christ when he gave his life at the cross for you and I. Now that's the first thing. Number two, ultimately, the whole ideology of the LGBTQ movement, it boils down. It boils the definition of love down to attraction, feelings, and destroy desires. So love in the Bible is not defined as attraction, feelings, and desires. Love happens in the Bible in spite of attraction, feelings, and desires, which is a very different definition of love. And so if a married man sees another woman and feels desire, attraction towards her, he cannot say, love is love, or, man, I was just born this way, or this is how I truly feel inside. Sorry, it's just gotta. This is what I feel. You can't say that. That, that, that's not love. We would call that lust.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah.

Carlos Horazo

A lot of what our culture today calls love is actually lust. And there's a difference. Lust is self centered. Love is sacrificial. Lust happens because of emotions and feelings. Love happens in spite of emotions and feelings. Love is always asking man, how will this benefit or affect me? Love is asking, how is this true? How is this honoring? How is this glorifying God? And so to the answer, or if somebody were to say, hey, a God of love can't Be against relationship of love. One, let' sure that we are in the same page regarding the definition of love and how we define love. And two, God is love. He defines it. And what our culture calls love might be actually attraction, feelings and desires and even lust. But I would argue it's not really love.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah, when I A couple things. Number one, amazing, amazing response. Just a couple of things. When I hear things like this, a good couple things. Hey, if I apply the same logic to other things, does it hold up so that same thing with the argument of silence? Well, hey, if I apply that to other issues which I know that the people over on the other side would think we're wrong, would they be willing to stand on that same argument? They wouldn't. Same here. And by the way, what I'm about to say is probably to many people going to be incredibly offensive and if we need to edit it out, we can. I'll defer to you afterwards. So if someone were to say this, if someone that was from a same sex relationship asked this and I'll say this, this is not a question that if you don't have a great relationship with, you shouldn't ask them. But like what I would really want to ask them is okay, would you be willing to apply this same standard to an incestuous relationship between a brother a sister? Now again, I'm telling you right now, if for those listening I would not actually ask that to people you know or definitely not a stranger you don't know because it's not going to go well. But that's what I want would want to ask them. And that may sound like for someone here, like that's so offensive and you're such a bigot. Well, I say, well hey, why are you so narrow minded that a brother and sister can't love each other romantically? Aren't you the biggest bigot in the room now? In other words, because I think because, well, what if they actually do romantically love each other? Why would you have a problem with it? And people want to pretend they wouldn't, but they do. And other people I think to your point, basically I'm using this to prove the point. We know that romantic love, while a thing that God has created, is actually not always right in every context and there are lines we should not cross. What happens though is people want to draw the lines where they want to draw the line instead of where God wants to draw the line and has drawn the line. Another thing on this next, yeah, just

Carlos Horazo

one thing on that. The heart wants what it wants is what people say. Yeah, man, sometimes the heart wants something that is hurtful to you.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Exactly, exactly. I'm going to read a quote and then we can go on to the next one and then it'll help me commend a book that I'd recommend to people. It's just a good resource, I think. Rebecca McLaughlin, who wrote this book, does the Bible affirm same sex relationships? Incredible book. What I love, by the way, is she is married to a wonderful husband, but she is very honest that she has struggled with same sex attraction in her life. And so she is not writing this from someone who doesn't know what she's talking about, but she basically goes through and examines a lot of the claims, even some of the ones that we're talking about today and answers them. And she has this quote on this question that I think is so good. Deep, enduring, sacrificial love between believers of the same sex is not only affirmed but commanded in the Bible. But it finds its right expression not in the exclusive bond of marriage, but in the inclusive bonds of friendship. So to your point, I'm really backing up what you're saying, which is the idea of, yeah, we are called to love each other. God loves relationships of love, but not every type of love. For every type of person and every type of situation. Situation. God wants us to have deep, meaningful friendships of love. In fact, you could argue it's the only one that is not option in the Bible. I don't have to get married, but I am commanded actually in a sense to have friendships and to love people in that way. And so, man, we for sure want to have relationships of love, but only within God's parameters.

Carlos Horazo

Yeah, but Paul, did you know that the word homosexuality wasn't actually in the Bible until 1946? And you know what? I also have a video to prove it.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Okay, prove it to me.

Carlos Horazo

Trinity. Play that video. Oh, the word homosexual was never in the Bible. It wasn't in the Bible till 1946. And the Word it replaced translates to pedophile.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Wonder why they did it? Must be a mystery.

Carlos Horazo

What say you, Paul Cunningham?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

I say that that was really cringy and kind of weird that you would use like a children's musical rhyme to make the.

Carlos Horazo

It was a bit odd.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

It was a bit odd. It's a weird choice, but okay. Yeah. So the argument here that this person kind of cringily made via a weird song is that before 1946, the word homosexual wasn't used specifically when it says that they're referring to First Corinthians 6, 9. I'll read it for us. And I'm going to read the one that would say homosexuality in it. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who homosexuality. Real quick, when it says that they will not inherit the kingdom of God. This doesn't mean if you've ever struggled or ever stumbled. This is talking about people who are unrepentant lifestyles and they're not turning away from these things. So what people like the woman in this video are saying is that, hey, that word homosexuality was not in the Bible until 1946. And that is correct in the sense of the word homosexuality. That as a term was not in the Bible. So the question then is the idea there, let's put something to rest. That was probably the silliest argument in, in the entire video and that is actually that this word or this verse is referring to child exploitation or child molestation. That is literally completely made up. There was actually a word that Paul is writing to the Corinthians. So very much in the heart of the Greco Roman world, there is a word that would have been used for that. And the idea is that often at that time men would have younger boys that they would have same sex relationships with in an exploitive and molestation way. That word word is. Two words. Pais, which is child or boy, and then erastes, which is lover. And so if this is what Paul wanted to talk about, he had a word that they all would have known and would have said. He does not use that word. Instead he uses a word called arsenokoites. Arsenic is actually a word. Arsenicotae, I'm sorry, is a word that he made up by combining two words, arson, which means male or man. And by the way, that can refer to male males of any age. Although typically if it is a child, it would be if it used pais or paida and then coite, which means bed. And what Paul is doing here is he is deliberately referring to the book of Leviticus where prohibitions against same sex activity are found in Leviticus 18:22 and in 2013. So these two words. So a little context for people who haven't heard this in previous episodes. The original Old Testament was written Hebrew. It was at one point translated into Greek and that's called the Septuagint. And so the New Testament is written in Greek and Paul here is using arson. And koite, which are both words found in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, which are explicit prohibitions against men sleeping with men. And there is no hint whatsoever in the Hebrew of this being about exploitation of children. It literally says do not lie with another male as you you would with a woman. So this is what Paul is referring to. It is not about child exploitation. It is about same sex behavior.

Carlos Horazo

So the English word homosexuality was not found in the Bible until 1946. But the. Obviously the concept, the concept which, in which the Bible was not written in English but in the original language has been there since day one.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yes. And I have seen other videos. She didn't do it in this one. I've seen other videos and other posts on this where they're like, oh, before 1946, people thought this was exploitation of boys and it had nothing to do with same sex action. That is literally a made up lie. That it isn't until very recently that this view has been put forth. That if you go through church history, they always use. They'll actually talk about the sin of sodomy here, which is a reference to Sodom and Gomorrah. They'll talk about same sex activity. They knew what this was talking about. Plus, here's what I would even want to say. Okay? Like the point they're trying to make here is that the Bible actually isn't against same sex acts and relationships. Like that's what she's trying to say. It's like, oh, this was made up. It's modern people against it. The Bible wasn't against it. Okay. And that it was just invented in 1946. If that's true, then why has every Christian and Jew before 1946 believed it was wrong?

Carlos Horazo

There you go.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

If it wasn't created until 1946, then why until recently did everyone before then believe it was wrong? What do they get from Scripture? Yeah, why? And it's because they knew exactly what it was talking about. It's only recently that people have made up this made up thing.

Carlos Horazo

Yeah, set me up for the next one.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

All right. All right, I've got a video for you. Oh, we got our next one. I'm actually going to hold off on what it is, but I've got a good video because we get things like this all the time.

Carlos Horazo

You don't know if you're going to get a meme or a video. Go ahead.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

All right. Questioning my faith in Christianity right now

Carlos Horazo

due to three main factors. Now, this all started because one of

Pastor Paul Cunningham

my pastors mentioned Leviticus when he was mentioning why homosexuality is a sin.

Carlos Horazo

Now, Leviticus also mentions that it's an abomination to eat shellfish, to wear mixed

Pastor Paul Cunningham

clothing, and to work at all the Sabbath.

Carlos Horazo

All Christians I know do these three

Pastor Paul Cunningham

things without a second thought. So first off, looks like that guy's in the Carlos Harrazo workout plan.

Carlos Horazo

Oh, my gosh. Okay, well, just, just.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Sorry. I'd like to make you blush as much as you can. You don't blush as much as me, but I need to.

Carlos Horazo

I. I'm inspired. I need to go to the gym.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

There you go. There you go. We can do a workout after this. All right, so this is, this is like basically represents this question. People will say it's inconsistent to follow the Old Testament on same sex regulations and prohibitions, but not on shellfish. Why are you against same relationships but you're fine with eating shrimp. What would you say?

Carlos Horazo

I would say a couple things. One, to this guy, you got to share the, the routine lifting routine. That's one, two, man. Good job in talking, you know, listening to your pastor, Talking to your pastor. Well done. I think it's a good question.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yes.

Carlos Horazo

So thank you for sharing that Ute. Is it inconsistent to follow the Old Testament law on same sex relationships but not on shellfish? No, it's not inconsistent and we're going to explain why. There's three types of, of laws in the Old Testament. There's the moral law, set of laws, there's ceremonial or purity laws, and then there's the judicial or civil laws. Moral laws, Basically anything regarding morality, do not murder, steal, adultery, etc, ceremonial or purity laws. These are laws that at the time governed Israel's worship and religious rituals. And this includes dietary laws like shellfish, pork, etc. Purification rituals and more. The judicial or civil laws, these related to property boundaries or inheritance law or things that pertain to Israel being a nation under God as a theocracy. Hebrews says that Jesus actually fulfilled all sacrificial and ceremonial laws. We would include the dietary laws right there. So that's one. Judicial or civil laws were given to Israel as a specific nation under God. We are not in that same context. So again, we just. Christians don't follow those. And then third thing, we will say we do keep the moral laws because they reflect God's unchanging character. And when you look at the New Testament, we see those moral laws reaffirmed and so do not. Murder is reaffirmed in the New Testament. Sexual morality is reaffirmed in the New Testament. Marriage and gender are reaffirmed in the New Testament. Again, God's moral character does not change. So no, it's not inconsistent to believe and uphold those and then not necessarily the other ones.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's exactly right. I like to think of it like this is the moral laws in the Old Testament are like a mirror that reflect God's unchanged, changing character. But then you have to your point, the ceremonial laws and the purity laws, which include not just laws about shellfish, but these are also all the commands about sacrificing animals and having to do all those kinds of things, those are more like a telescope that we're looking ahead to Christ because then Christ, that's the whole point in the book of Hebrews, is that Christ fulfills that by becoming the ultimate sacrificial lamb. And he fulfilled all the law, but then he ultimately fulfilled it by dying for those who break the law, which includes, by the way, you and me.

Carlos Horazo

That's good.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

And we need to make sure and say that at some point in this conversation though we're interacting a lot with the same sex arguments. We are just as much sinners in the eyes of God whom Christ died for on the cross and we needed it just as much.

Carlos Horazo

We'll get there in a second. But yes, go ahead.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

So again, the moral laws like a mirror that reflects God's unchanging character. Then the ceremonial laws look ahead. Now another clue I think that is in scripture, specifically in Leviticus, that helps us know that same sex prohibitions are moral laws. And we're not just making this up. In Leviticus 18:22, which the verse there says, shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. So very clear. Again, the idea of, oh, that was about sexual exploitation. You have to be really far fetched. And until recently, no interpret it that way. So very clear. If you go back to the start of the chapter, it says this. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you lived. And you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statues. And then it goes on in the chapter and it talks about all of these things that they are not to do and to do with their bodies. And so in other words, it's juxtaposing how he wants them to live based on how lived in Egypt and how people lived in Canaan. In other words, this wasn't just about, hey, you don't eat shrimp because that'll keep you distinct. This was saying hey, how they lived in Egypt and how they were living in Canaan is abhorrent to me. I don't like it. And I want you to live in a different way. And then at least same sex practices in those. In other words, God is giving his universal standard for all times in all places in Leviticus. This is a standing moral law that has not changed.

Carlos Horazo

We got one more, and then we're going to talk about kids shows like Sesame street and Barney and Looney Tunes doing lgbtq. Yeah, we got a Barney screenshot there. So here's the last one, Paul. Here's a photo. This is a photo of a gentleman saying, 21, I accepted myself the way God made me. And so basically the. Yeah, God made me this way. That's what people will say, Paul, God made me that way. And so what say you?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah, God made me this way. And why would God give me desires if he didn't want me to act on them? Is the idea. Here's what I would say. That is that since sin entered into the world when Adam and Eve sinned, every single person has been born with a sinful orientation. Notice I did not just say every single homosexual person has. I said every single person, including you and I, were born with a sinful orientation called a sin nature. It leads us to have desires that are contrary to what God wants us to desire and to do, and then to act on those desires and to sin. And so specifically talking about sexuality, I was born with a sinful heterosexual orientation. And here's what I mean by that. It's not that being a heterosexual is sinful. It's that from. I was born with desires to not do things that align with God's design. So when I was a teenager and some of those desires that they began to awaken, I wanted to do things that God wanted me to wait and do only in the context of marriage with my wife. And if I just said, well, but these desires are from you, so it can't be sinful for me to act on them, that would not have been an excuse for me then to act on him. I would have actually been sinning in the eyes of God or taking it out of sexuality. Sometimes people, because for whatever reason, maybe it's in their family lineage or whatever, they're born with more of a predisposition, or you could say an orientation towards becoming an alcoholic. We would not say, hey, it's okay for them then to go and become an alcoholic. No, we'd say, hey, you still have the responsibility to say no to that. So basically what I'm saying is just because you were born with things, certain desires, doesn't mean those desires are good. Since the Fall, people are born with what's called disordered desires. And part of coming to Jesus is both saying, hey, I'm bringing you to the sins I've committed and saying, hey, thank you, Jesus, for dying for these sins. Would you cover over them? But I'm also bringing him all of my desires and saying, hey, change my desires. So the world says, I was born this way. Christ says, you can be born again another way in another life that I want for you. And me coming to him and saying, give me those desires. Give me this new life. That's right. What would you say?

Carlos Horazo

Yeah, I would say, man, if we, you know, just seeing that photo of this guy turning 21 and saying, oh, man, I, I, I realized I'm this way. Number one, if I have a friend who, you know, maybe like this guy, and they don't know Jesus, my first priority right there is not necessarily to convince him on my worldview on sexuality. If I have a friend who doesn't know Jesus and they're coming out or kind of celebrating the new identity, my first priority is to share the gospel with him and say, man, you know what? Let's set aside what you believe about sexuality and what I believe about. Let's put that aside right now. I love you. You were created by God for God to be in a relationship with God and for the glorious purposes of God. And yet you and I are sinners. I fell short of the glory of God. That's Romans 3, and God loved you that while we were still sinners, Christ died for you in your place. And if you trust in him, he can give you a new life. You can be, be born again. Just not just regarding one particular side of you, but literally, like, your whole life.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah.

Carlos Horazo

And so I'd start there. And I think that's a mistake that I think a lot of times when some Christians have conversations with non believers that are proclaiming or sharing their LGBTQ identity or how they relate to that identity, I think the temptation is to try to persuade them on that issue first. But how about we adjust, address the main issue? Is that what you said, Paul, we are all sinners. And so if I had that conversation with that person and he said, man, okay, I'm in. I would say, man, would you like to give your life to Christ? And if he says yes, then once he is a believer, then I'd say, great. Praise God. Now let Me tell you about that new identity that I was talking about. You are no longer defined by your feelings.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Hmm.

Carlos Horazo

Jeremiah 79 says that your heart is actually deceitful, which means that your feelings are real, but they're not always reliable. And your feelings will lie to you is what it means. And so what you want to do now that you're a Christian, you want to ground your identity not on something that comes and goes or changes with the times. You want to ground your identity on something that will be like an anchor to your soul. And that's not your feelings. That's who God says you are. And your identity is that you are a son and a daughter of God. And. And. And once you trust that that is true and that he's a loving father, you're going to trust that his ways are better than yours, including what God says about your identity regarding your sexuality, which, by the way, your sexuality is not your identity. And. But God has a plan for your sexuality, and it's a good one. And his plan is infinitely better than your plan. And so the invitation is for you to trust him that his plan is better. And if you do, and he becomes your heavenly father, your decisions, your relationships, your lifestyle, what you do with your attractions, who you marry, how you view your sexuality, your gender, your identity, everything in your life should flow downstream from that truth and your relationship with a loving God who is your father. That's what I would say.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That's so good. Like, even to summarize what you just said is it is possible for someone to live in line with God's design for marriage and sexual sexuality and yet fall short of God's ultimate design and that's relationship with Jesus Christ, that the goal is simply to not get us and any of us again, whether heterosexual or homosexual, it's not to get us not to sexually sin. It is actually like, our greatest need is to live in a relationship with and in submission to Jesus Christ. And so I just. I think that was such a helpful reminder for Christians of, hey, let's not lose the main point here.

Carlos Horazo

That's right.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

That ultimately we want to point people to and take people to Jesus Christ, who can change their life just as much as he changed ours.

Carlos Horazo

Somebody once said, man, homosexuality is not new. Right? We. Homosexuality has been a thing for, like, literally thousands of years. But some believe that it is the first time in history when homosexuality and all this LGBTQ ideology has been called progress. And so we didn't cover every single one of the things that people will say, but what we would say is, if you're listening, be careful in whom you will put your faith and trust in a secular narrative of the world or the biblical narrative of the Word. Because whatever you decide, whichever you put your trust in, that will determine the outcome of your life. Deuteronomy 30:19, 20 says, this day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you. That I have said before you, life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God. Listen to his voice and hold fast to him. Now, having said that, real quick, very brief, Paul. Literally, like this week, this tweet went super viral. Sesame street posting Happy Pride Month from Sesame Street. Join us in celebrating and uplifting the lgbtqia. Plus, see, they got all the letters. Members of our community, hearts of all colors. Now, obviously, people see this and they're asking one. This is not new. Obviously, every single year we have other samples if Trinity, if you want to pull. We got Looney Tunes here. Happy Pride. Get your dragon. We got Bugs Bunny, we got Peppa Pig. Again, here to celebrate love, let's go to. There's another one. Okay. Pixar. We're just trying to tell our stories like everybody else. That's it. And we're not going anywhere. Okay. Or. And then we got Blues Clues here with a drag person. And so people were asking, man, these shows, a lot of these shows are actually geared towards toddlers of, you know, ages 2 to 5. Why are we kind of pushing for teaching them towards something related to sexuality at that age? And again, it went super viral. What do parents need to know or keep in mind when it comes to this conversation?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah, I'll start us off and I'd love to hear just any thoughts of wisdom you have. I mean, one, and it really just speaks to the images we just showed. You need to talk about God's design for sexual sexuality early and often. The world is and is going to disciple your kids in it, whether you like it or not. And so the best is actually to do it early and often in age appropriate ways. And there's great books and resources. We're, I think, going to put some links to some of them in the show notes and everything in the guide. But, yeah, talk about it early and often because you don't want to have to kind of make a comeback on this. You'd rather get ahead and begin forming in them a healthy sexual view of how God designed things to work. And that's the other thing I would say then is when you're actually beginning to this with your kids and talk about is the point is to give them a vision for healthy sexuality. In other words, it's not just saying, hey, this is bad, or don't do this, but rather kind of what I did at the very beginning, Carlos, when you asked me, hey, what does the Bible have to say about this? Paint them a positive picture of God's good and beautiful design. And then, yeah, you may have to contrast that with what the world has said. So those are just a few initial things. I'd be interested to hear the specific details you have. But one is, man, if you are not talking about this with your kids, kids early and talking about it often, I would say get on that right now. But it's both. It's early and often from a young age in age appropriate ways. But then also don't assume that just because you've talked about it once, you never have to talk about it again because they're getting bombarded with it, not just in June in a very intensive way, but throughout the year repeatedly. And so talk about early and often. Number two, as you're talking to them about it, don't simply just focus on what God doesn't want us to do. Instead, give them a healthy, positive vision for what he does want them to do and what he has crafted us and made us for. For.

Carlos Horazo

That's right. Yeah. I mean, every show is a sermon and every show is literally, whether you like it or not, discipling your kids. And so your, your job as a parent is to calibrate the conscience of your kids, teaching them how to think. The Bible says woe to those that call evil good and good evil. Right. I think that's in many ways a lot of these shows are calling good evil and evil good. It is is our responsibility as parents to say, hey, let me teach you how that is a lie. The Bible says that Satan is the father of lies. The Bible is true. And so we want to use the word of God, what is true, to teach our kids what to identify as. Like, that's true, that's not true. And so therefore, just something to keep in mind also, you want to ask if that is the case when you watch a show, when you see an episode, we do this at home, we will ask, hey, is this normalizing, glorifying, something that God calls sin? And if it is, man, I'm just not sure that I want that for my family. And so again, just something to keep in mind. Any other thoughts on that?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Yeah, just A few things, I mean one, even off of what you just said, if you go back to Deuteronomy, that passage you mentioned, it talks about how teach these things to your children when you get up and then also when you go down to sleep, but then also as you walk along the way. And I kind of like to think of that as hey, at home. And both in the morning and at night night it was kind of speaking in the totality of your day. At home there's structured times where we can be discipling our kids and getting into God's word together. You can use the app even if your kids are older. We've heard more and more stories about people listening to the podcast as a family than discussing.

Carlos Horazo

I love that man so much.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

It's a great thing. So honestly, even like watching this together, if your kids are probably a little bit on the older range, shout out to those people.

Carlos Horazo

I talk to families all the time, literally parents, dads, sons, parents, mom, kids, like all together as a family. I love that.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

In addition to our podcast, there's other great ones specifically on issues of sexuality that again, it can be great to listen to. So in other words, don't think you have to be an expert on that Is actually one thing I'd say is like, hey, lean into that. But then to your point, it's also when you're. I mean it talks about as they're walking along the road and ard they'd be like, hey, as you're driving in the car and if there is a huge mural or a thing on pride month or something like that, or if they see something on tv, you could choose in that moment to like the they don't see it, but they do see it and they probably have questions about it. Bring it up to them in a non awkward and non defensive and non attacking way and be like, hey, what do you think that means? Or like hey, what does God's word have to say about this? So that'd be one thing I'd just say is just to highlight that a few other things like don't give away your authority as a parent. Don't give away your authority by either delegating everything to a TV show or to things they're listening to or to whatever or to their friends. You maintain authority as their parent and that includes then helping create clear boundaries. Boundaries of the things that they can watch and consume and the friends that they have is a crucial one. It's an absolute. Do not delegate your authority on this with that. Do watch their Friends and influences. Watch the people they're hanging around with. Watch the things that are influencing them. I'm not trying to advocate for bubble wrapping our kids and not letting them be exposed to anything or to be friends with anyone who doesn't completely agree with this. But do watch who are the closest people in your kid's life? Are they leading your kids closer to God's design or further away from it? If further away from it, you're going to need to help them set some good boundaries because your kids aren't going to set it for themselves. Last thing I'll say is this. And it really, I think, is out of how you began the conversation. In general, teach your kids how to both know and share truth and show and share love and grace of both. And so we don't want to disciple our kids to know a lot about the truth and not about what's wrong and why we don't believe that and then also go out and be jerks to those who disagree with us. We want to disciple ourselves, our kids, to know the truth, but then also to share the truth. Jesus, his love with people.

Carlos Horazo

That's right. On that note, Pastor Paula, would you pray for us?

Pastor Paul Cunningham

I'd love to. Father, we thank you for the chance to get to talk about these things. We thank you for the fact that you are a good God who gives good gifts to us. That Lord, you have designed us as humans. You've given this incredible gift called sexuality. And that's weird for some people to hear, but you have. But you gave it for the God given context of marriage between a man and a woman. And Lord, I want to pray that you would call more people to that and back to that, away from the false counterfeits that are out there in the world. God, I want to pray that you would help us to, as Christians be people of truth and people of grace and love. Not an either or, but a both. And so God, as we encounter lies that are told to us, I pray that you would help us to take them captive to your truth that is found in your word. But I also pray, Lord, as we interact with people who are same sex attracted or are in same sex relationships, would you help us to show the same level of love that you did towards us as well? God, we want to pray over our anger. Lord, I pray that you would continue to help us become people who are not controlled by our anger, but rather can control it. Lord, help us to look at the things that break your heart and may it break our hearts. But Lord, help us also not to be people who go past what your anger calls for. Continue to stop us and make us whole. And help us to live free in the lives you created and saved us. To live. In your name we pray. Amen.

Carlos Horazo

Amen. Live free, brother.

Pastor Paul Cunningham

Live free.