 Welcome, welcome, welcome. Another edition of Hope Today. We are so glad that you have tuned in and we've got an action packed half hour. So lock and load for the next 30 minutes. It's gonna be great. You are gonna be so blessed. I'm J. Anthony Gilbert here with the incomparable Pastor Amy Schaefer. Good to be with you. J, we're anxiety, depression, race, marriage, politics, sexuality, transgenderism, suicide, alcohol, pornography. It's everything that the church should be talking about, but there are such hot topics, we just kind of stay away from them. But our guest today, he has brought it, Mike Novotny in his new book, Taboo, what the church should be talking about. But J, we're pastors. Come on. I mean, these are topics, subjects that actually are addressed in the Bible, that there are biblical truths to all of these taboo topics. So I'm excited to dive in and hear what he has to say. I'm gonna digress just for a minute. I was just thinking, do you remember back in the day with real life 360 when I first got my start? You said it had been a while. I remember coming back here in 2015, I was here with Pastor Amy and we did a, there was like two segments back in the day. And so this is pretty cool to be back in our program. Yes, and we've covered so many different things into what she mentioned. There are a lot of different taboo subjects that are out there, but it shouldn't be taboo for the church. It really shouldn't. It should be something that we are addressing. And listen, later on in the program, you're gonna wanna stick around because the hard questions pastors had done a recent segment discussing, is it okay to attend a gay wedding? So listen, we're gonna be talking about a whole lot of other stuff. It's gonna be great. You need to let everybody know, because like I said, the next 30 minutes or so, it's gonna be off the chain. Well, here's the thing. If the church doesn't talk about it, then the world or culture drives the narrative of that topic or that value. So honestly, it's time that we get our courage back. We get the brave code on. And we step up to the plate and we talk about these things that are in the Bible. Are you afraid, Jay? I'm not afraid. If y'all don't know me by now, you better ask somebody. I do not mind getting... I think that's our job though, Pastor Amy. I think, like you said, at great point, if we don't speak to it, who's going to? And so what happens? The world lies in deception. The world lies in all sorts of lies and falsehood. And I love the statement that says, for evil to triumph, good men and good women just simply have to do nothing. Just simply do nothing. But that is not us here today. And I hope it's not for you. These are not subjects that we wanna shy away from. They're subjects we wanna delve into. And our guest today, Pastor Nike Novotny. He has not stepped back. He has brought everything to the table and the kitchen sink to talk about issues that everybody else is talking about. So why shouldn't and wouldn't the church also talk about these subjects? So, Pastor Mike, welcome to Hope Today. Hey, Amy, thanks so much for having me. In your new book, Taboo, which I love the title, Love That These Are Topics, Christians should be talking about, but don't. Man, you went for it. Why did you write this book about Taboo? What was your motive? Because cancel culture, I mean, media, I mean, is it setting yourself up or are you really going to address these with a spirit of love and truth? Yeah, the truth is I have a big stock share in a deodorant company. So I just thought, you know, if I talk about this, I'm gonna make some serious money as people buy some extra old stuff. No, actually, the motive for the book, it came out of my own story that I grew up in the church. It was a great gospel preaching church focused on Christ. But there was a Taboo sin that I was hiding in my life that I never talked about. And that Taboo sin was a personal struggle with pornography. And so I prayed about it. Man, I repented. So I've never wept so much about any sin in my life. I went to church every Sunday. I was in my Bible every day. But the one thing that I never did for a lot, a lot of years was actually talk about that Taboo subject with another person. Not my friends, not my pastor, not my parents. And who would've thought? Not much changed for me. But the day, that's kind of the first line of the book, that it was in April 24th. I still remember the day when I stepped into the light of honesty and confession and I talked Taboo with another Christian and there was something so fundamentally different about that moment, when the guilt and the shame and the old habits changed in a really profound way. So that's what I noticed. It's not easy. It's not comfortable. If you had an abortion, if your marriage is just stuck, if you're struggling with your own gender or sexual identity, if you drink three glasses of wine after work, I'm not trying to say any of that is easy to talk about, but I have tasted and seen that on the other side of that mountain of awkwardness is a really green pasture with quiet waters and a lot of Jesus and a lot of blessing. I love that throughout this book, as you are addressing these really Taboo topics in our world, you went after it with a balanced perspective. You came from different perspectives and then you came with the biblical truth and I didn't feel like animosity as I was reading it. I didn't feel like, oh, I could pinpoint this pastor in one area or another, but I felt like you just really tried to balance it out with truth and with grace. What is the goal of this book for you? Well, yeah, thank you for saying that. I think you described exactly what I was going for. So before I preached what three or four separate sermons on a series called Gay and God, I had a chance to sit down and interview pastors in my community who said homosexuality is okay or it's sinful. I met with gay LGBTQ leaders in my community. Other people had raised gay children. I studied every passage on the subject, read books on both sides. So I really wanted it to be faithful and biblical. I didn't wanna be ashamed of a single verse, a single word that Jesus said, but I also didn't just wanna come in and drop truth bombs as if this wasn't a real deep, like visceral and personal struggle for a lot of people. So that was my hope. The whole book is meant to be like a John 1.14, be full of grace and truth. Say everything the Bible says and say it with gentleness and respect. And so in every one of those topics, those were like the two goals, two boxes I was trying to check every time I got up to preach or to write. You know, we have several programs on this network that we do hear and we do address these taboo topics. And you know, we have a question and that you know, I'm on a program with five women and we all have just a minute or two to address the, these cannot be addressed in a minute. Can you kind of explain that viewpoint? We're sitting down with somebody at lunch. They bring up a taboo hot topic. How do we approach that as a believer that that's healthy and not toxic? Yeah, unfortunately we live in kind of a Twitter Christian world where we feel like we need to have the, you know, the one thing I'm gonna say that's gonna seal the deal. And what I just noticed in my own congregation is that we really needed some time to sit down as a church family and go deep on some of these things. So you can't just say one line about is okay for a Christian to drink alcohol or can a Christian get divorced? I mean, there's so many nuances and questions and what abouts that I've just learned that we're probably not gonna change people's minds with some one line zinger on social media. But if we can sit down like with our people whether it's our kids, our small group, our church on a Sunday morning and really go deep with compassion and like dissect the Bible passages. I really see that you can make some great progress and people can come to a really good biblical agreement, but it doesn't happen in a second or a minute or 20 minutes. It really takes an hour, two, four, six, 10 and hope we can get away from this like fast, not fast, you know, fast spiritual food mentality where I'm just gonna boom, I'm gonna change you. I'm gonna fix you. No, you're gonna need a little bit more time than that is kind of my experience. There are so many questions that I wanna ask you about from your book. We do have an election coming up this year and I've been sitting in meetings this past week with pastors and they all are, they almost have a spirit of fear moving into this election year because we know all of the crazy stuff that is going to be happening. How do Christians address politics? You pretend you have COVID and just hide for the next 10 months. That's my plan. Oh man, yeah, so there's two chapters in the book that talk about a biblical view of politics. Maybe I'll just share this really fun fact. The apostle Paul, I believe his longest letter out of all the letters that he writes is the letter to the Romans, which was like the ancient, what Washington DC of the first century, the political hub of the ancient world. And in that letter, it's a long one, Paul writes 16 chapters. He does address politics, but do you know how much time he spends addressing politics even to those people living in that very political place? Like, not even a whole chapter. Romans 13 is a famous section on the governing authorities, but Paul spends maybe two paragraphs on politics just so we have the basics of it. And then before that section at the end of Romans 12 and after that section for the rest of Romans 13, do you know what he talks about? Loving your enemies. Like keep burning coals on their heads so that if they speak disparagingly aggressively towards you, they're gonna be ashamed of their behavior. He said, let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love other people. It doesn't answer every political question we have about voting and, you know, stances and policies, but that just like Paul was, politics existed in his day and he knew there wasn't an importance to it, but he just overwhelmed it with a message of patience, love, Jesus, sin, grace, repentance, discipleship. And to me, that's such a good model so that, you know, all the fruit of the spirit doesn't get stripped off of the Christian tree here in 2024. Pastor Mike, I gotta bring it right to you, man. I'm gonna ask you this question. Do you believe Christians, pastors should be involved in politics? I'm not talking about just voting, telling people who to vote for. We also understand that whole faster there, but just in general, what are your views that we'll find in that book on how should we deal with this as the church seeing the political structure of how it is in America? Oh, we have three hours to answer that question, Jay. Is that right? Am I seeing the clock? No, that's three minutes. I think we can and should be involved in, you know, just think of if your children or best friends or parents are being raised in North Korea or Russia. I mean, we know that politics matters in a huge way for human flourishing. But I also believe that the Bible has a different expectation for what should happen in the church and what should happen in the state. And that it's really easy to get that mixed up. I mean, I honestly don't want as passionate as I am about Jesus, I don't want the government making up laws that line up with the Bible that you have to believe in Jesus or you have to go to church or you have to read the Bible. I don't think cops should legislate morality or the human heart or my motives like the scriptures would. And so I think there's a place for it, but we have to be really careful that we don't try to like have a second version of the church that it just exists within the state. And that's a tension, that's a really messy tension. I think the state should strive for justice, protecting the innocent, punishing the guilty, but God did not give the state to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the church's job. I try to unpack that in those chapters of the book. Mike, after your interview, we're talking to the hard questions pastors and they are addressing, should I attend a gay marriage? And you have several chapters in this book that deal and really dive into the subject and topic of homosexuality, transgenderism. What would you, you have an acronym, L-G-B-T. I would love for you to share that acronym and really just talk about how we approach the topic of homosexuality as a Christian. Yeah, yeah, so L-G-B-T for me stands for love first, gospel second, Bible third and trust last. So the Bible, that's the part of is it right or wrong? Is it sin or not? And that's really important. We need to uphold biblical standards, whether it's easy or not. Like we're gonna preach the Bible, but what I found to be super effective, whether I'm preaching or talking to someone face to face, is that if I start with just unconditional love, like God loves the whole world. He loves gay people, straight people, bi people, trans people. Like I'm gonna show respect and patience and kindness to people who are like me and who aren't like me. I'm gonna start there. Then I'm gonna get to the gospel. I mean, if I'm gonna call someone to repentance of their same sex relationship, I want them to know that if they lose that, but they get the gospel, they get the forgiveness of sins, they get eternal life in Jesus. Like they have gained an eternity of joy and happiness. I think of the parable of the hidden treasure. You know, man found a treasure in a field and it was so good that once he found it, he gave up everything he had in his joy so that he could get his hands on that treasure. You know, so I wanna start with, I'm gonna love you well. I'm gonna tell you what's so great about Christianity, the gospel, I'm gonna get to the Bible. Hey, here's what God says is right or wrong. I'm gonna call people to repentance. And then T, I'm just gonna trust that if I've done that, whether people believe me or reject me, whether they say thank you for sharing that or you're bigoted and homophobic, like I can just trust that I've shared the message in a way that Jesus would and I've done the best that I possibly could in God's eyes. That's so good, Pastor Mike. Can you take this last minute and can you just pray for those that are either struggling with one of these taboo topics, maybe anxiety, depression, suicide, pornography, and just pray for freedom for them and also a boldness for Christians in this hour. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to quote the prayer that Jesus prayed. His death is approaching in John 17 and he looked up to his heavenly father and he said, father, sanctify them by the truth because your word is truth. And I think that's our boldest prayer for everyone listening, for our family, friends, our culture. God, we wanna be set apart from the lies and the deception. We wanna live in your truth, your forgiveness, your salvation, your guidance. So God may be done among us. That's our prayer. That is so beautiful. Thank you so much, Pastor Mike, for being on Hope Today and for this incredible book taboo. This would be an awesome gift for every graduate of this spring. They can come to Hot Topics with the biblical truth. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me, Amy. Coming up, the Hard Questions panel tackle a difficult question about whether it's okay or not to attend a gay wedding. But first, let's check in with Sydney and see what's coming up on this week's edition of The Glory Hour. Hey, Hope Today family, I am super excited for my conversation today on The Glory Hour. Be sure you don't wanna miss it talking about living a life on purpose with Miracle Reed. When I think of the things that are transpiring right now in my life currently, I consider the capacity that God has given due to being yielded and surrendered to God. I open my eyes sometimes and I wonder how am I able to do everything that I'm doing in a day? And then I think about how we all have been given 24 hours in a day. There's no one, there's no creation, there's nothing that exists in the world that does not have more than 24 hours. And I recognize that moving forward in purpose and moving forward in our calling has everything to do with tapping into the capacity that comes from God. Join me for this special one-on-one conversation with my sister because she is dropping some true glory gems that are gonna uplift you, change your life, challenge you so you can walk in the fullness of all you are called to be because you know what, now is the time for us to walk in the fullness of our callings and our destinies and authority through the power of Jesus like never before. So be sure to tune to the Glory Hour on Cornerstone Telstra Network's YouTube channel and also you can check us out now on Spotify. We're streaming on Spotify, so can't wait to see you there. Love you all, see you on the Glory Hour. Welcome to a special segment of Hard Questions. Recently a prominent pastor said it's okay to attend the wedding of a gay family member. There was much discussion in the Christian community. So I'm bringing the question to the pastors here. Is it okay to attend a gay wedding ceremony? Real quick before we get in, it was Alistair Begg. He opposes the same-sex marriage, but he talked to a grandmother who, and he counseled her to go and maybe bring a gift to open her up to the Gospels. So let's start with Pastor Glaze. Well, you know, I wanna say that I appreciate the wisdom of these brothers that sit around here because we've had this question before. And when we had it, at that time, my position was I didn't necessarily see anything wrong with going to attend, as long as you let them know that you didn't approve of it. But just listening to these brothers and prayerfully considering it, they opened my eyes to see that this is not a marriage and that this is something that God does not approve of. And if God doesn't approve of, by your presence there, you would be showing your approval, which means that that's something that God doesn't want you to do. Okay, all right, I'm gonna go over to Ray. This is Alistair Bank. He's kind of from here. Yeah, it's my wheelhouse song. Yeah, and he's one of the ministers that we would look up to as a reformed Presbyterian minister, but I believe he's profoundly wrong on this. It's not a question of love. You can't love someone who is inherently doing something that God hates. Do we love people who are in sin, in the sin of homosexuality? Of course, do we wanna do good to them? Of course, do we wanna help them and give the gospel to them? Yes, but the marriage is a lie. The marriage is an abomination. You can't support it. You can't go and to a marriage, which inherently God has not married them. And you're a witness when you go to a wedding, you're a public witness. That's why you have, you know, in the presence of God and these witnesses, you're bearing false witness to God. God has not joined them in heaven. Therefore, any minister that joins them on earth is lying. And so this is why it's such an abomination. It's not that you're hating the homosexual, homosexual marriage, it doesn't exist. So to go to that wedding, bears false witness of God and you're not loving that person. You should show that person that God's word is above everything else and that's how you love them. All right, Ray? You can cross it around for me. You can cross it around for me. You can cross it around for me. Well, I agree with everything that they're saying and I would not go and support that. I think one, think about when you usually go there, they'll ask if anybody opposes this. You need to stand up and say, you can't support it. To give them a gift and to try to celebrate a union that is false. Between a man and a woman, it's the only place another expression of God can be created. Two men and two women will never be able to have a family of their own ever. You can, I don't care how much you want to. Their love is not strong enough to defeat natural law. So it's important that we understand. I totally disagree with that. I've dealt with some of this stuff in my own family and I won't attend. I won't call a girl that wants to be a man in my family a man. They said, well, call me Jim. No, if your name is Jane, I'm gonna call you Jane. Now, if you don't want me around, that's okay, but I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you what's not true. So I don't believe by also a statement, talking about how it's love for them. It's not the best thing you can do is oppose what God said to oppose and let them know because if you keep condoning it, they may never be reached. Is it, is it though? I mean, are we just shutting them off further by just sort of confirming that there's no love coming from the Christian community? But if we don't tell them, if we don't tell them that then they're not gonna be able to know. And once again, it goes back to the question we had a while ago about the Watchmen. You know, we have to be Watchmen as believers. Openly, Duke is better than secret love. In every case, in every case, when I have, when people that I know, solid Christians, when they made their stand and turned, these were to love ones and say, we love you so much, but we cannot condone this. In every case, there was an amazing turnaround and a setting of free. In every other case where the patty cake, we wanna go play cake, we know, again, we are left with a standard. It's not our standard, it's God's standard. So do you not see anyway, cause I'll be honest with you, I'm sort of on Alistair Begg's side with this. I'm like, I wanna be, he's trying something to open them up to the love of God and to be open where everything they've learned to this point is to be shut off to Christianity because of how condemning it is. All that's happening is more condemnation, you know? But it's not, it's not that Christianity condemns, there's a standard. The marriage is the sin. Like if someone was going to join a murderer's guild, would you go and celebrate their joining of the murderer's guild? I understand. That's the thing. I still wanna love the person, I still wanna witness to them, but I can't be part of them joining them, you know, a wicked. So it's the actual attending. It's not like going to a party. This is, you're going to- Yeah, a birthday party is a different thing. They're going to a marriage that's a lie. How can you be part of a lie? No, I get that. I get that part of it. I'm just always thinking, what's the key? Where's the key to open their heart? I think we also have to look at the fact that there's a lot, that sin is so, it's part of Romans one. So we have to look at that as well. It's a deeper thing that's going on there. And then think about, what do you tell them when you go to them? Congratulations? Yeah, that's right. What do you do? Who are you guys best? What do I tell you? Them keeping their vows. You know, you're taking a vow to be your husband, to be your wife. Is it good if they keep their vows? Or should they break their vows? You know, like all of that. It opens up another question of then, what do you do moving forward as they come to family gatherings? Different things. It's an interesting, but I do agree that the marriage ceremony is a different thing. Well, it's a tremendous question to ask and just so glad that these pastors are here with their wisdom to answer it. Wow, you know, talking about taboo topics. Thank God for Christians and a television network and programs and pastors that aren't afraid to dive into what people are actually really going through in culture, that they really do have these questions. You can see hard questions on Thursdays at 2 p.m. and 9 p.m. and Sundays at 4 30 p.m. right here on Cornerstone TV. You can also watch sister to sister on Wednesdays who also dive in. Listen, I've got to do the shout out for the sisters. Okay, that's just part of who I am. Well, you know, Pastor Amy, I think another thing about this subject is nowadays when you mention cancel culture and all of that, if you disagree with somebody, it's considered hatred now. I think that's one of the things that the church about whether it's dealing with, obviously we don't believe in homosexual marriages. We don't believe in transgender. We don't believe in abortion. All those things, we don't believe in that. But nowadays though, if you disagree, it's called hatred. It's not just like, why disagree with you? And if you take a look like we go back to the Super Bowl, he gets us and all those things that are happening and they're making it seem like he understands like we're on a different page than what Jesus is. And so I think that's one of the things that the church is really battling with is the fact that because we don't agree with things, we're considered bigots or hatred. You know, I had a phone call last year from somebody who used to come to our church decades ago and this gentleman said, you know, can I come to church? Absolutely. You know, I'm living a homosexual lifestyle right now. Am I welcome to church? I said, absolutely. Of course. The third question was, do you affirm what we're doing and would you marry us? I tell you, whew. Yeah, yeah. I mean it's real. And you're just like, man, I love you. Jesus loves you. I don't affirm that. But man, if you knew the goodness of God, if you're welcome in church, you know what? I mean, this is where the rubber meets the road and we do have to stand up. And I love the acronym that Pastor Mike gave earlier in the interview, LGBT, love, gospel, Bible and trust. I mean, I think that we can't go wrong, Jay, if we're speaking the truth with a spirit of love wrapped all around it because the world doesn't need more condemnation, hatred and anger. What they need is Jesus and what they need is the love of God. They need to see their value and identity in Him. Amen. That's so good, Pastor Amy. You know, if you're watching right now and you're battling with that, we just have to get to the bottom of it. Right now, and you're battling with that, we just pray for you that God will not only give you boldness, but that He'd fill you with grace and truth. That is so vital. We all need that. Yes, we have to stand up and you know, listen, it's hard to be bold in this day and hour. You have to have the fire of the Holy Spirit within you. And so right now, I just pray that God's blessing would be upon you, that not only would you be filled with all knowledge, with all peace, but with boldness and with love, that you'll be able to share that your words will be like fire and that the people's hearts will be like grass. If there's ever been a day and an hour, ladies and gentlemen, that we have to stand for truth, it's now. But we have to remember, Jesus will never anoint you to destroy what He died for. And so that's why His love must be shown in the midst of all truth. So go and be bold, but share the truth in Jesus' name. God bless you. On tomorrow's Hope Today, giving God an opportunity to fulfill His dream for our lives. Hollywood film producer and author Mark W. Cook gives advice to men on how they should include God in every area of their lives that will bless both them and their families. That's tomorrow on Hope Today. 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