GFK048: LGBTQ+: Help your kids be light in the darkness

[00:46] The Cultural Issue: LGBTQ+ and Parenting
[01:59] Addressing LGBTQ+ with Children: A Parent’s Responsibility
[03:34[ Marriage and the Creation Account
[05:30[ The Cascade of Sin and its Consequences
[13:06] Speaking the truth to our children about cultural changes
[15:07] Guiding children to love others while speaking the truth
[22:23] Love Pursues Those Caught in Sin

Transcript follows (not corrected)

The Cultural Issue: LGBTQ+ and Parenting

[0:46] Godfrey and Kids and the Parents Who Raised Them. I’m Cary Green. And I’m Mindy.
And we love talking about parenting because we actually loved being parents.
We’re still parents, so we love being parents.
Children are such a blessing. Yeah, they really are. And there really is a big issue in our culture and our day that we need to talk about.
You know, you hear people talk about, we need to talk about the big pink elephant in the room.

[1:09] Well, this one’s not pink. This one’s rainbow colored.
Because the whole issue of LGBTQ+, as you know, it’s just almost all that is being said, all that’s being talked about culturally speaking, and is being pushed from those who are proponents of it on everybody, as if this is a thing that you’ve got to accept or you’re not a good person.
It’s sad how it’s gotten into the schools, into the churches.
Psychologists and scientists are saying their opinions on it, and people are even believing that it’s a biological thing, and they’re thinking that, I can’t help it.
So there’s just all of these lies that are being told to our culture and very sadly to our children.

[1:55] And we need to do something about it. We as godly parents need to do something about it.

Addressing LGBTQ+ with Children: A Parent’s Responsibility

[1:59] Yeah, we need to be able to address this with our children primarily so they are not led astray.
And so before we jump into all the things related to this, let me just make sure we’re clear on our terms.
LGBTQ+, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite, queer, and then the plus is so they can add anything else that they feel like they want to add at any, point, which I could see going to be ciality and all kinds of terrible things. It’s leaving room intentionally for this to grow. And so all of those things, though they are very different in terms of defining what those terms really mean, are all being lumped into this one category and being pushed as a category, as a realm in which you must accept or else you’re infringing on someone’s civil rights and you’re not accepting their identity.

[2:55] All of that is just tragic because those are not what’s going on at all.
Right. The world is being convinced that this is an identity issue when actually it’s not. It’s a sin issue.
That’s right. And we want to quickly build a case for that from the Bible. We want to talk to you first of all about the issue of sexuality in general. All these are sexual issues. Sexuality in biblical terms is only appropriate in the context of a marriage relationship. We’re all somewhat familiar with the Ten Commandments. One of those is you shall not commit adultery. Well, what is adultery? Let’s just walk through the terms for a minute.

Marriage and the Creation Account

[3:34] Adultery is sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage. Well, biblically speaking, what is marriage? It’s the vow made before God between a man and a woman.
And where do we find that? We find that in Genesis at the very beginning of God’s word.
Yeah, so when God created the world and he created humanity, he created Adam and Eve, a man and a woman.

[3:58] There wasn’t a man and a man, there wasn’t a woman and a woman, thank God, because then we would have no other human beings on the planet. You see, there’s just logic to this. There’s a created order, which we must observe. And so, from what we’ve just described, you can see homosexuality is ruled out, lesbianism is ruled out, bisexuality is ruled out. Those are not permissible in God’s economy. And God, the creator of humanity, calls them sin.

[4:25] So, to be clear, what we’re talking about is in Genesis 2, verse number 18. It’s a little bit of a narrative here that’s being given to us. The Lord God said, it’s not good that the man, okay, a male, should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. And so, skipping ahead to verse 21, So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed its place up with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man He made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She, she, not he, shall be called woman, because she was taken out of a man.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become on one flesh.
So it’s pretty clear from the narrative God himself has given us from the creation account.
He made a man and a woman, and he created marriage to be the union of a man and a woman.

[5:26] So, how did things like homosexuality and bisexuality and all that stuff come about?

The Cascade of Sin and its Consequences

[5:30] Well, Romans chapter 1 describes what I often have called the cascade of sin.
It talks about what happens in the progression of sin as we begin to turn our hearts away from God and we prefer other things to God. This cascade starts to happen and things start out bad and they get worse and they get worse and they get worse. Well, Mindy’s going to read to you from from Romans right toward the end of that cascade, some of the things that it describes that we’re talking about here.

[5:59] Chapter one of Romans verse 21 says, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Okay, let’s stop for a moment and look what’s happening.
Thinking is being affected.
So people are not thinking straight and their hearts are being affected.
So that’s a sin issue, but I think there’s also an implication that there’s emotion involved here.
Things are getting twisted in the psyche, in the emotion, and in the spirit.
So continuing. Verse 22 says, claiming to be wise, they become fools.
And that makes me think of all these quote unquote experts, the psychologist, the scientist, you know, even the governmental leaders.
Everybody is spouting off the quote unquote facts that they think is wisdom, or the parent who says, my two-year-old boy just, you know, they’re acting like a girl all the time.
We as Christian parents need to realize that kind of talk is what sin does.
It’s the power of sin in this world that is making our hearts foolish, our thinking futile.

[7:13] That’s very good. It’s really tragic when you think about the language that’s being used to talk about this, saying, I identify as such and such, a woman, a man, a non-binary, which means not man or woman. Identity is identity. You don’t get to choose that. That seems like a logical thing. But as Mindy’s read here, something’s happened in the psyche. Something’s happened in the spirit that causes foolishness to become quote-unquote wisdom when you move into this realm.
So continue reading. Verse 24, therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Okay, God gave them over to the lust of their hearts, that’s defined in scripture as a sin, and to impurity, so there’s something Something going wrong here, something that’s impure is happening.
That’s how God defines this process. And it’s dishonoring.
And it’s dishonoring to not only God, but themselves as well.
Yeah. And we might wonder why is it just running rampant now?
Well, it’s because he’s allowing the sinfulness to compound and get worse and worse.

[8:27] Verse 25 says, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions, for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.
And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.
Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Now let me point out a few things here.

[9:02] The root issue was they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, started pursuing something God says is not true.

[9:11] And as a consequence of that, they began pursuing unnatural things, things God did not create to be that way.
And it created indecency, it created shameful behavior, It created consequences of various sorts.
Now, we’re talking about all this in the realm of what God says is true so that we can just get our brains around the issue from a biblical standpoint.
Christians.
Who believe what the Bible teaches must understand this is simply what the Bible teaches.
Now, you’ll have some scholars, quote unquote, liberal scholars, people who don’t really believe in the miracles of Jesus or that Jesus was really God, you know, some of the foundational doctrines, they will come and they will make arguments that, well, the Greek word or the Hebrew word doesn’t really mean that, it means this, and we don’t need to get into a linguistic lesson here, But the reality is those words simply don’t mean what they say they mean.
Right.
They mean what they sound like they mean, which is this is improper behavior in God’s eyes.
Let’s just have common sense when we study God’s word. Yeah, amen.
But sadly, in our world today, we aren’t seeing a lot of common sense.
And verse 28 explains why.
It says, they did not see fit to acknowledge God. God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

[10:37] They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness. And it continues on.
But here we are in a world, people are behaving so ridiculous, so foolishly, it’s shocking.
And it’s because God has given them over to a debased mind. They’re crazy in their thinking.
Yeah. And crazy may sound like a strong word, but I can’t think of a better word.
It’s that something’s gone wrong in our thinking.
Where we think a man can decide to be a woman and a woman can decide to be a man. I mean, that.

[11:10] Just the funniest thing to me is thinking, you know, 200 years in the future and someone finds your skeleton and does a DNA test, they’re gonna definitively say you’re a man or a woman.
They’re not gonna say you were a Q.
Your biology states what you are.
Yeah, exactly. And sadly, those people that do have those operations have many consequences and hardships in their body physically after that.
But those things are not being talked about.
You know, it’s all being shaded to favor that perspective or that opinion.
Now, all of this is kind of just the groundwork. We just want to get the biblical reality out in front of us so we as Christian parents can say, here’s the truth.
Now the issue is, how do I effectively, wisely, with the power of the Holy Spirit, communicate these truths to my children in a way that helps them not be deceived?

[12:10] My first suggestion in this is that you begin talking about it when there’s a need to begin talking about it.
And sadly, that’s at a younger and younger age because movies, animated movies, children’s TV shows, children’s books are being written intentionally to normalize these kinds of things for children, to make them think from a very young age, it’s normal for someone to choose their gender, you know, all those things, when it’s not normal at all.
You remember in Romans 1, it said to do what should not be done.
These are wrong things.
So our first goal is to communicate to our children the mindset in the heart of God.
If you think about it, God knows all of the ugly details of this sin in people’s lives, things that we don’t even want to know.
It would turn our stomachs.

Speaking the truth to our children about cultural changes

[13:06] Amazingly, He still loves them. That’s right.
So let’s not be afraid to speak the truth to our children about what’s going on in the culture.
It might be your five-year-old kindergartner who comes home and talks to you about their friend who is a girlfriend, says that they’re a boy now.
And you’re like, oh my goodness, I’ve got to talk about this now.
But don’t be afraid because God knows the sin of this generation, and He hates the sin of the generation, but he loves the people.
And he will show you how to help your child love their classmates, love the world, but hate the sin at the same time.
That’s right. And the scenario that you brought up, I think, is a perfect one to talk about because we may feel like, well, this is a quote unquote innocent child we’re dealing with.
We don’t want to make them feel bad. We don’t want to hurt them by the way we teach our child about this.
And I wanna encourage you parents as Christian parents, first and foremost, be more concerned about the truth, and communicating the truth to your child than you are about a person’s feelings.

[14:12] That person is a victim, that person’s being deceived, that person, the best thing for them could be to have their eyes opened.
So, hearing the truth, while it may hurt in some way, you may have to tell your child the truth and they may speak it to that other child. I mean, you know how kids are, they just say things.
Trust God with all that, that’s okay. You’re doing your job as a parent to equip your child with the truth.
And I love the emphasis Mindy was giving on that.

[14:39] You wanna teach your child how to be gracious in the giving of the truth, how to love the person, without compromising the truth.
Right, you really need wisdom from the Lord, so seek him for wisdom.
Ask him, how should I guide my child in this?
That example I gave you about the kindergartner, it’s not best for you to tell your child, We’ll go tell them tomorrow that they’re wrong.

[15:04] You know that that’s not going to go anywhere, and it’s probably going to bring, could even

Guiding children to love others while speaking the truth

[15:07] bring a lawsuit on you from the parents. I don’t know. I mean, let’s not be afraid of that, but let’s be wise in how we guide our children. Tell your child the truth about it, but then, encourage your daughter, go to school tomorrow and just love them anyways, because they don’t know Jesus. Love them like Jesus loves them. And you don’t need to talk to them about that.
You know it’s not true, just still be friends with them and, I mean, guide them in what’s appropriate. Maybe you have a teenage child who has a friend that’s struggling with their sexual identity. You can help coach your teenage child of how to speak to their friend so that they could tell their friend about Jesus and what Scripture says is true. So there’s many scenarios, but let’s not be afraid to help guide our children in how to love and speak the truth themselves.
Yeah, and anything fundamental to all this as a wise parent is utilizing situations outside of a hot-button issue to teach the truth and the right worldview ahead of time. For example, when your kids are in Sunday school and they’re learning about the creation account, that’s a favorite Sunday school story that everybody hears.

[16:22] Have conversations with your kids about, isn’t it great God created men and women, boys and girls?
And there’s special things about boys, there’s special things about girls.
And isn’t it great there’s only boys and girls, there’s not other things?
Just help your kids think it through, the reality of what God did in a way that they can just accept it.
Yeah, that’s just reality.
So that when these other things come up, something in their own heart and mind is going, this feels off. Something’s not right here.
I think because this is such a hot topic, people are very sensitive and they don’t want to offend.
This can be really a hard thing. We want to encourage you parents to not give into fear and to think about, you wouldn’t hesitate to teach your child how to share, or to be loving to their classmate who has a certain handicap.
Maybe there’s a classmate that comes to school in a wheelchair and your child comes home and tells you how people are making fun of them.
Well, you would very quickly wanna tell them how Jesus loves them and how they should love them, and that’s not nice.
I don’t want you to be that way. I want you to be kind to that kid who’s in the wheelchair.
You’re not afraid to do that, and you know the right and the wrong of that.
So ask yourself, are you believing the right and the wrong of this issue that’s going on today?

[17:48] Are you believing what Scripture says about it? I mean, you yourself as a parent need to come to that conviction and allow God to give you confidence in what His word says.
So that when things come at you and you’re trying to lead your children, you’re not going to be holding back truth and good instruction that they need to hear because you’re afraid, of what is the parent down the street gonna do to you because you told your child the truth?

[18:19] Springboarding off of the example you gave, there is a spiritual handicap that’s going on there.
It really is the same thing.
There is a disability, there’s a bondage, a blindness, a spiritual entrapment that that person is in.
And in the same way that we would respond to the child in the wheelchair, we respond with compassion to this person who’s trapped by the enemy and deceived in the way that they think.
And we want to communicate that to our child. We want them to respond in like manner, to this friend at school, to be a blessing to them and not a potential bane and feeling of condemnation.
And that leads me to just bring up what I think we really need to be thinking about this whole thing.

Viewing those in confusion with compassion and offering light

[19:04] People who are in this place of confusion are there for a reason.
They’ve had hurts in their life, they’ve had wounds and bad circumstances and wrong indoctrination.
They’ve been told the lies. They’ve been told the lies and they’ve swallowed them.
They’ve bought the lies and they therefore are victims of the enemy.
They’re not the enemy.
And so we need to be moving forward with our children with that mindset, teaching them how to think that way.
Not just that the things are wrong, though they are, but also, and the way to help this person is to pray for them, is to love them, is to treat them kindly anyway, and to be a light to them who are trapped in the darkness.

[19:50] I just had this picture come to my mind of what’s going on. We as Christians in this culture that we’re living in right now, the world is telling us this is the way to go.
And so everybody’s going down this path, and we are seeing that down the path, they are falling off of this cliff to their death.
And everybody’s saying, no, this is the way to go, and people are running that direction, and they’re just continuing to fall off the cliff.
And so we as parents, wise parents, need to diligently teach our children what’s true so that they won’t go down that path.
But we also need to have compassion on the world in teaching our children rightly, the truth will start spreading.
Because when our children are adults, they are gonna be spreading that truth to their children.
And I’m hoping and I’m praying by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can turn this mindset around, that we can stop these lies and our world is not gonna be so caught up in this LGBTQ mindset thinking that it’s right.
We as Christians, we need to think about it, that let’s stop the flow of this flood.
So that it doesn’t destroy more people. And part of that is through our children.

[21:08] Yeah, yeah. That may sound like a daunting goal, a daunting ambition that we can stem the tide and turn the boat around, so to speak.
But remember who we serve, King Jesus, who transforms human heart and holds the course of history in his hands.
He is not impotent in his ability to bring about transformation in the lives have even the most lost person.
There’s a song I love from the 90s, even the hardest heart can be changed in a moment, by the power of love, the power of Jesus’ love. And so we need to hold out that hope for ourselves and for our children.
And besides all that.
Stupidity just doesn’t work in the end. You know, it practically, it just doesn’t work.
It’s going to lead to terrible results, which people eventually abandon.
You know, the ones who God’s working on their spirit, they abandon it because it’s not meeting that need they thought it would meet.
And sadly, there may be lots of pain and bad choices by that time that have left permanent scars.
But aren’t we all scarred? Aren’t we all broken? We need Jesus even then.
And so we as the church need to be there with the truth when those people are ready to turn, and ready to give their hearts to something real.

Love Pursues Those Caught in Sin

[22:23] Part of loving those people who are caught in this sin is we need to pursue them. Love pursues.
So maybe encourage your child to invite your friend over to have a play date after school.
And you can be right there and you can love on that child and help them to see what it’s like to be in a Christian home. Or even you as a parent, if you have friends who are believing, these lies, you pursue them. Don’t be afraid of them. Don’t just smile and wave and go about your day, but pursue them, love them, show them that they matter, and God will eventually show you how to speak truth to them when it’s fitting, when it’s time for them to listen.
Yeah, I love that mindset. It’s very similar to what the Apostle Paul described in telling his own story. He says that because he was a persecutor of the people of God, I mean, can you think of a worse sin, going against God’s people and killing them and throwing them in jail because you think they’re wrong? He says because he was that person, he considered himself to be the worst of sinners, and yet Jesus pursued him.
Jesus intentionally met him on the road to Damascus and intentionally brought him to a place of repentance so that he could transform his heart.

[23:44] We need to be those kind of ambassadors of Jesus, pursuing those who are wounded, pursuing those who are trapped in sin.
It may feel uncomfortable, may feel impossible, difficult, whatever, but we need to not listen to our feelings. to listen to the truth of what God’s word says.
Yes, because he will give us the strength.

Be Bold and Compassionate in Speaking Truth

[24:04] So there we are. We’ve talked about the rainbow elephant in the room.
And we, most of all, just want to encourage you as parents.
We serve a mighty king and we don’t have to be afraid.
We don’t have to be timid. We don’t have to be mealy-mouthed with our kids and not speak the truth to them.
We can be bold and confident and compassionate at the same time.