Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Last Monday, the Canadian Parliament amended the national Criminal Code to include a new law that imposes up to five years in prison for any individual who “promotes or advertises conversion therapy” or who “causes another person to undergo conversion therapy”.

Conversion therapy is defined as “a practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual... change a person’s gender expression so that it conforms to the sex assigned to the person at birth; repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior… or repress or reduce a person’s gender expression that does not conform to the sex assigned to the person at birth.”

Canadian pastor Andrew DeBartolo writes in a letter shared by Pastor John MacArthur:

The definition is intentionally broad, and it can clearly be used against any preacher or elder who either speaks against homosexuality/transgenderism or who counsels a person to obey Christ and abandon their homosexual/transgender actions and lifestyle.

This means as of January 8, 2022, it will be against the law to preach, teach, or counsel regarding God’s design for marriage and sexuality…

He goes on to write:

On January 16, 2022, faithful men across this country (and many in the United States as well) will be preaching on God’s design for marriage and a biblical ethic of sexuality.

We will be doing so illegally, declaring to the State that there is one God and one Lord over His church, and that Christ alone gets to both define marriage and dictate what is required in the pulpit.

We are honored that our American brothers will be joining us in this.

(John MacArthur, Retrieved 01/05/2022 from https://www.gracechurch.org/news/posts/2307)

Here in the United States, we are not quite so far down the road our Canadian brothers and sisters are, but we can see them from here.

Several states, including New York, California, Nevada and New Jersey, have already passed laws banning “conversion therapy”, opening the doors for suing a church or pastor who declares the Biblical message that gay, lesbian and transgender individuals can repent, believe the Gospel, obey Christ and abandon their sinful and destructive actions and lifestyle.

And so, in solidarity with our faithful brothers in Canada and the faithful congregations they minister to, this morning we will join them to "confront, in a spirit of love and mercy, the damning sins legalized in our culture, and... proclaim the gospel of salvation that is now criminalized” in Canada.

(MacArthur, ibid).

Our text this morning speaks directly to the situation our Canadian brothers find themselves in:

1 John 2:3 (ESV)

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.

These faithful pastors are keeping Christ’s commandment to “make disciples of Canada, teaching them to obey all that He has commanded” (Matt.

28:19-20)—they have assurance that they have come to know Him, because they are teaching what Jesus taught, they are faithfully proclaiming the message that we proclaim today as well:

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the ONLY HOPE to save SEXUAL SINNERS

One of the first objections we must address as we take up this subject is the false and misleading statement that “Jesus never spoke about homosexuality”.

The objection says that while the Old Testament was full of “hateful and bigoted” attitudes, such as prescribing the death penalty for homosexual behavior in Leviticus 20:13:

Leviticus 20:13 (ESV)

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

that Jesus never repeated this condemnation.

And so the attempt is made to separate Jesus’ teaching from the Old Testament, that He did not say that homosexuality or any of its related sins was wrong.

But to say that is to ignore Jesus’ attitude towards the Law of Moses.

He says clearly in Matthew 5:17-18:

Matthew 5:17–18 (ESV)

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Jesus affirmed and endorsed every last stroke of the Law of Moses—every “jot and tittle of the Law” as the King James so memorably puts it.

Every last word of Moses’ Law—including the law that calls homosexual behavior an abomination and demands its perpetrators be executed—Jesus openly endorsed.

If Jesus Christ were preaching in Canada this morning and said that He completely and totally endorsed and upheld every word of the Old Testament Law (including the abomination of homosexual behavior), He would be culpable under the Canadian Criminal Code.

And His faithful followers are today take seriously John’s words in our text:

1 John 2:6 (ESV)

whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

But that is not all, is it?

It is not just that Jesus is “on the record” endorsing the Old Testament Law’s characterization of homosexual sin as abominable and worthy of death.

Because as we have seen repeatedly through our study of 1 John, Jesus is the God Man, fully divine and fully human.

Which means that He did not just endorse the Law of Moses, He authored it.

He is the Eternal Creator God, YHWH Himself, the One Who made His covenant with His people Israel.

He is Himself the One who has authoritatively spoken His will regarding sexual identity, roles and conduct.

He spoke His righteous commands in the Old Testament, and as we will see shortly He spoke unequivocally about sexual morality in the Gospels as well.

And so we start with this foundational truth:

Jesus Christ AFFIRMS in the New Testament the BOUNDARIES of sexual morality that He ESTABLISHED in the Old Testament

With this context in mind, then, it becomes clear as we read our text this morning:

I. Don’t say you KNOW CHRIST if you WALK in sexual sin (1 John 2:3-6; Matt.

19:4-9)

Look at verses 3-6:

1 John 2:3–6 (ESV)

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.

Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.

By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Both in the Old Testament that He established and affirmed, and in the New Testament where He taught clearly and plainly about His will for sexual morality, Jesus Christ has made His commandments clear.

And so when you ignore or flout or disdain or despise His will in this regard,

You are not KEEPING His COMMANDMENTS (Matthew 19:4-9)

Turn with me to Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 19 (it’s on page 824 if you’re using the pew Bible).

In this chapter Jesus is responding to the Jewish religious leaders’ attempts to catch Him in a theological trap, asking Him about His views on divorce.

As part of His response, Jesus not only answers their question, but He also clearly and effectively addresses every element of the various types of sexual rebellion that we see around us today.

Look at verses 4-9:

Matthew 19:4–9 (ESV)

He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?

So they are no longer two but one flesh.

What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”

He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Jesus taught that there are only two genders— “He who created them from the beginning made them male and female).

Those who insist that “gender” is a “spectrum” of nearly-unlimited possibilities, as well as those who claim that they can change from one sex to another as “transgender” individuals are rebelling against God’s design.

Jesus taught that the structure of a family is to be “a father and a mother”: ‘(“…a man shall leave his father and mother....”) - Those who claim that a family can be any combination of any group of people that they wish—two daddies, two mommies, etc., are rebelling against God’s design.

Children are meant by God to have a father and a mother.

(And for those of you who have had the role of a single parent forced on you because of the fallen world we live in, you know firsthand how much better God’s design of a father and a mother together is than the state you are in now, don’t you?)

See here also that Jesus taught that one man shall leave his father and mother and marry one woman.

Gay marriage, lesbian marriage, bisexual marriage, group marriage and any other so-called “marriage” that our rebellious culture claims to invent is not marriage at all.

Any definition of marriage outside of one man marrying one woman is rebellion against God’s design.

Jesus taught that marriage is to be reserved for one man and one woman—and that marriage is meant to last for life: “So they are no longer two but one flesh.

What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate”.

The so-called “serial monogamy” of our culture, of multiple marriages and divorces throughout one’s lifetime is a rebellion against God’s design.

Jesus taught that any sexual activity outside of marriage is "immorality”—it is a cancellation of the marriage covenant, that frees a person to divorce a spouse guilty of sexual activity outside the bonds of their marriage.

Any sexual activity that takes place outside or alongside the bonds of the marriage covenant is rebellion against God’s design.

You cannot say that you know Christ if you are not keeping His commandments regarding sexual morality.

you cannot say that you know Christ if you walk in sexual sin, because to do so means that

You are not WALKING in His WAY (1 John 2:5-6)

1 John 2:5–6 (ESV)

but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.

By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

You cannot say that you know Christ, or that you belong to Him in salvation, if you consistently and continually by the pattern of your life oppose and repudiate what He says.

You cannot, in short, call yourself a “Christian” if you insist on walking the opposite direction that Christ did—calling beautiful what He calls abominable, claiming that He was silent where He spoke plainly, denying what He affirms and defending what He denounces.

You cannot say you know Christ if you walk in sexual sin.

And in verses 7-11 of 1 John 2, you are warned:

II.

Don’t say you LOVE OTHERS if you AFFIRM their sexual sin (1 John 2:7-11)

Look at verses 7-8 with me:

1 John 2:7–8 (ESV)

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.

The old commandment is the word that you have heard.

At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

When John says that he is writing an “old commandment that you had from the beginning”, he is referring to Jesus’ commandment to love one another:

John 13:34 (ESV)