Video Transcript: Gender Discernment

Henry - Welcome back. This is our last presentation in our discernment,  Christian discernment class. And we're not even into a PowerPoint here. Shortly  we actually have a class on this whole thing. We don't want to take away the fire out of that class. Right?  

Steve - And it's, it's a difficult topic. And so with a little trepidation, we're doing  this short little introduction to it. What we say could be misunderstood, or we're  not telling the whole story, because this is we have a whole class on it. So  what's the topic?  

Henry – Gender. You know, I can't imagine thinking about this earlier ministry  and the middle of our ministry 10 years ago, but today, gender is a discernment,  right?  

Steve - You know, when we grew up, gender was just a grammatical thing, he,  she, it, masculine, feminine. Knowledge and learn all the different languages  and so on, it was like it didn't, it didn't have a relational, or sexual component to  it, right. But now, gender is filled with all this controversy in our culture, at least  in the West, but I think it's going around the world, certainly in Europe, but it's  going to go worldwide. And so we thought, you know, let's address it. 

Henry - you know, in many ways too what's obvious. Even to Christians, is not  necessarily obvious to their children, if they go out to a secular university, right.  So it discernment process, to affirm or confirm your sex, at birth to your gender  

identity, as you grow up in healthy ways to do that, throughout the Christian's  childhood and  

Steve - some of you right now we're going to why are we even talking about the  whole LGBTQ thing, lesbian, gay, trans, bi, trans, and queer, all those terms that are being thrown around, and all the, you know, the woke culture, all the conflict, hurt and pain. This is the topic that we're talking about. And, and, you know, as  

you were saying, Henry, this may not even be that big of a topic for your family.  But in your ordinarily, you'd probably not be topics, but your kids are going to  school, and they're being challenged, you know, the sands of culture are shifting on this. And so we thought, you know, this is an area, you really have to have  some wisdom about, right. And the wisdom helped you to discern what to do  and how to think. So we thought, well, let's talk about this. 

Henry - So here's a couple of changes that are occurring in when we grew up  the sex of the child, male or female, and there were occasional anomalies where it was unclear, and that would have been on transgender biological situation, like for, you know, a child born with two genitalia. You There was there ordinarily it's 

male or female, right. So my entire childhood, I grew up, I was born a boy, my  gender was Boy,and those match up your gender and the sex were the same.  And the and many of you have experienced that as well. But today, I guess it  started in the 1950s. There were starting a, like your gender and your biological  sex, do not necessarily match up at all right?  

Steve - that gender is a social construct. In other words, it's determined by  culture, by the things around you by your unique makeup, or mainly, you  determine who you are, for various reasons, you discern it. Another decision that you are responsible for. And it can and it has nothing to do with the sex that  you're born with. Right. So you can be born a male, but you can identify as a  female, or you can be born a female and you can identify as a male. So that was that's one layer of it, but now it's being pushed even farther towards there are no gender. There's no gender neutral, that's the queer, the LGB T, Q, Q, and then  Q+ and the  

Henry - Q+, basically, there is no gender, but then you have to just serve you  have to discern an individualistic interpretation of what pan gender, you discern  you want to be and it becomes a whole pronouns they and other things. So  without getting too much in depth, we ask you to pray about this. And to not go  on to an offensive against anybody who may identify this way. But for yourself,  ask yourself, God, why am I here, even my very identity, and for male and  female, right?  

Steve - And part of it too is, again, the queer is everything's fluid. And it can be  male, or even be female, that you can be one you can be the other, you can be  none, you can be your unique person. And in some ways, as Christians, we  affirm Yeah, we are all unique, we're unique children of God, it's not our sex that  tells us who we are. Our sex is not our gender is not our primary identity, being  one in Christ. So, first of all, as Christians, we don't, you know, we don't make  this the number one topic, our whole identity and who we are. And that ends and to understand others who are, you have to understand that some of this is a  result of taking God out of the equation. So once you take God out of the  equation, then who am I,  

Henry – And that's a good point Steve, in some ways, if you discern, that God is  glory to your life, his narrative of creation of male and female is a large influence as you affirm the confirmation of your gender, right?  

Steve - And it's easy for you to do because you have this connection to God, the creation, and you have you and accepted authority in your life, that you are not  the center of the world, that you are not your own authority. So in some ways, 

when you accept Jesus as your savior, it's relatively easy to fall into the biblical  narratives. Now, imagine people that don't have that, right. Okay. So in some  ways, we have to be sympathetic, we have to be compassionate with people  that are that are willing to be wise in the way you act toward an unbeliever, be  salt. They're struggling, because the God piece has been taken out. And if the  God of piece was taken out of our lives, we'd be struggling right along with them. Right. So we have to have a measure of compassion in this direction. So people are trying to figure out who they are without Christ. And you can see the  confusion, I guess.  

Henry - So we have so many students at CLI and so many staff, volunteers, and this discussion has gone around, and some of the things that has fascinated in  discernment, so to discern ourselves, and who we are a child of God, who  served God Himself, the narrative that makes sense for our life, the roles that  God has, you know, male or female. That's a boundary Yes, but it's freedom.  Because I really do feel that if you didn't have God in your life, you would start to have to make a lot of decisions on how I can secure my identity and figure  things out.  

Steve - Yes, and you can see, you know, there, I guess, up to 50 pronouns Now, other than he, she, there's they, there's Z, all these different things. And part part of the motivation for all of this is people don't want to be pigeonholed, right?  They, they want to be unique people. So as Christians, we come and say, 50,  there's more than 50. There's 8 billion, because God creates each one of us  unique. Gifts each one of us uniquely gives each one all the stuff we've been  talking about gives each one a unique calling. And so in some ways we can  affirm what the culture is taught, or at least their desire, their desire is to be  somebody, right? And they're feeling like if I'm just labeled a he or she, I'm just  one of 4 billion, I'm just nothing. So it's, so you can see that desire to be  somebody and that's what the Christian narrative gives. Right? So we have to  be patient, we have to be gracious, we have to discern our own you know, we  have to discern our own walk with God, our own calling, or we too, will be  following. 

Henry - children, to know that they live to please the Lord and to grow and talk  about these issues without getting where there's no dialogue and no discussion.  So we do have a class on this so without saying too much more we do believe  that in today's world, we have to teach the discernment of gender.  

Steve - So do we have to thank people for being a part of this? Is this our last  one? It is our last one. So hopefully, you've enjoyed this together we've enjoyed  doing it. 

Henry - And it's actually one of the most enjoyable class that we've done and it  was fun to think about this subject. And the option of a mini course to sort of get, here's just a subject to talk about. And maybe some of you might want to do a  sermon series. And this could just give you a few ideas, you can jump off there  and do a lot more than what we can even cover.  

Steve - Please try some of these things. We've made a lot of suggestions. And  or maybe we've triggered some thoughts in your mind and things that you could  do. But try them out or otherwise you're listening and enjoying this. But it'll soon  be gone. You have to put it into practice.  

Henry - Let me close in prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this discernment  Christian discernment. We've covered a lot of subjects. But help us Lord just  want to glorify you. Help us want to live in grateful service. Help us to discern  

our calling and be aware of the presence of evil and stay close to you,  vanquishing the foes. We pray, Lord, that you will bless us and keep us. May  your face shine upon us and be gracious to us. In May you be glorified in our  lives reflect your glory. In Jesus name, amen. Amen.