 I usually don't respond to comments that are on the YouTube channel. I just don't find it to be super beneficial. That's a boundary that I've put up. But I saw one comment yesterday that kind of blew my mind. It was on a short that I had posted maybe a year ago, but it's still super relevant to our time. And so today I want to actually address this comment. We'll watch the video that it was made on as well, because I think it highlights a greater responsibility we have as Christians and how we approach the LGBTQ community and how we shouldn't be approaching that community. So if that interests you, stick around. Be sure to subscribe because I'm putting out new videos like this all the time. But let's get into this comment itself. This is kind of like something that really caught me off guard. I usually don't look at comments too often, but here it is. I'm actually really disappointed in you here. Well, not the first time somebody's been disappointed in me. We as Christians should not be letting LGBT in our homes, lives, churches, jobs, etc. The Bible is very clear about these types of people that they are and how they turned out that way. Read Romans one. Well, I'm very familiar with Romans one, but I almost wonder if this was somebody from Stephen Anderson's church, which is the church of the fellow that I'm going to respond to or that I did respond to that we'll watch right now. This was the video that the comment was made on. No homos will ever be allowed on this church as long as I'm the pastor here. Five or 10 years ago, a lot of the stuff that I preached, people thought it was too radical. Now, to me, LGBT stands for let God burn them. Right. But he said, well, it's LGBTQ. Well, then you could say, let God burn them quickly. There are so many people out there giving Jesus a bad name. We're already on thin ice talking about LGBT issues with unbelievers. But with preachers like this running amuck, it forces us to do a lot more untangling. Yes, God is holy and just, but he is also merciful, gracious and loving. He demonstrated that love when he sacrificed himself on the cross for us. We need to stop condemning other people as if we're not sinners ourselves. The fact is, without God's grace, we would all rightfully receive God's wrath. Here's the good news, though. God wants to give us new desires, a new heart. He wants to give us a new identity where we no longer identify with who he once were. But now we step into who we now are in Christ. I don't know about you guys, but that's a pretty good video. A pretty good video. I fully endorse what I said there. I also have much more of a puffy beard in that video as well. Do you guys think I glue up or glow down? I don't know. OK, let me know in the comments down below. Please don't actually, please don't. I think that this this guy is probably from Stephen Anderson's church. And he's saying, OK, you know, we shouldn't be letting these people in our houses and our homes and, you know, they're going to indoctrinate our children and all this kind of thing. And I'm like, OK, it's one thing sending your child to a public school where, yes, they're teaching this type of ideology and I am not for that at all. I'm going to be homeschooling my kids, but it's very different being hospitable, welcoming these folks that identify with these different, you know, sexual identities into your church, into your communities, into your home. I think that is a huge aspect of what it means to be a Christian. Like the idea that you wouldn't invite these folks anywhere and you'd keep them out and you push them away from all these things is so antithetical to the message of Jesus. One of the things that's been really helpful for me in navigating this topic in this issue and in relationships that I have with folks that identify within the LGBTQ community is the distinction between acceptance and approval. So approval here is basically like the progressive Christian or the secular culture approach to these things. It's to say, you know what, love who you want to love as long as it's consensual, I couldn't care less, whether it's polygamous or, you know, whether it's, you know, two dudes or, you know, it's OK. We don't care. We fully support you because that is the definition of love is to bring our approval to every behavior. So that's what they believe, right? But what I embrace is this idea of acceptance. I accept people where they're at. I accept people because they are made in the image of God. I see their dignity and their worth. But I don't approve of their behavior. There's a distinction there because I believe in order to love somebody authentically, in order to love somebody truly and biblically, we can't be an approval of something in their life that is harming them, right? And that's just a basic like level one one on one and how to love somebody. You think about a friend, right? You have a friend and this friend is maybe they're smoking cigarettes. Maybe they're getting drunk on the weekends. Maybe they are, you know, doing things to, you know, just in their life that are really irresponsible or really damaging to themselves. And you as a friend, you're going to say, hey, friend, I love you. I see your dignity and worth. And I know, you know, I see that you're created in the image of God. And all these things are very true. But I also don't approve of that behavior that you're doing. And as your friend, that's why I want you to actually change this thing. That's why I want you to seek something better, right? I want you to be free from, from this kind of lifestyle. Similarly, when you're looking at somebody within the LGBTQ community, I would say, hey, like, friend, I know that this is kind of where your desires are at. But I also know that God calls us each and every day to submit our desires to him to pick up our cross and follow Christ. It's this idea of dying to self each and every day in pursuit of him. And so, yes, there are things that you're going to need to lay down, right? But they're going to be better for you. You're going to be better for it. And so that's a distinction here between acceptance and approval. I accept you. I love you, but I don't approve of this lifestyle. One of the reasons I was so taken aback by this comment was because I believe that hospitality is powerful. And not only have I seen that in my life, but I've seen it in the lives of other people. One of the books that I have been reading and that I really enjoy is called The Gospel Comes With a House Key. And it's the story of Rosaria Butterfield and how she went from a lesbian professor to a Bible-believing Christian woman who married a man. And like, how amazing is that? It's absolutely just mind blowing how God transformed her life. But God did that through the means of a Christian family that she was constantly engaging with, that invited her into their home, that weren't kind of, you know, turned away by the fact that she was this kind of lesbian professor and very progressive and they weren't scared. They were like, oh, we got to keep this woman away from our house because she might be, you know, going to start indoctrinating us or something. They're like, no, no, no, we want to invite you into our life so that we can be a real witness to you about what it looks like to follow Jesus and the story, the book is powerful. I really encourage you to pick it up. But it just testifies once again to the fact that hospitality, when we are echoing the what God calls us to, what Jesus calls us to, when he talks about Matthew 25, you know, when you do these things for these people, you do them for me when you welcome somebody into your home, when you give them something to eat, when you give them something to wear, you do these things for me. And in hospitality, it's this idea of sacrifice, sacrificing our own convenience, our own comfort in service of somebody else to provide and to make them the guests in not only our homes, but our communities and our churches as well. So many folks from the LGBTQ community have such a negative, have had such a negative experience in so many churches. And it's not just because they enter churches that called their lifestyle sin, even though that's definitely a part of it for some folks, but also just maybe treated with some sort of hostility. I just want it to be, I want my church to be, I want my home to be a place where they know that they are loved, that even though I may disagree with the way they live their life, they are fully accepted because I see the image of God within them. And I want them, I want them to be at peace. I want them to find Jesus and experience the freedom and forgiveness that he has for them. There's a massive element here that we need to understand our own sin before God. We cannot be standing on our high horse. I can't be standing on my high horse and saying to these people, like, you're so sinful, you choose to be in this lifestyle. You're wicked. And I am this great person and, you know, I condemn you, but I'm not recognizing the sin within my own heart. I am how I approach people, how I want to be approaching people with humility, with grace, with compassion, with understanding. I was exactly where you were. Maybe I wasn't into the same temptations, but I was in the lust. I was in the greed. I was into covetousness, into pride. And so I know where you're at here. And I just want to tell you that that, you know, I'm a beggar and I was looking for, you know, bread of life and I found it. I was thirsty. I was looking for living water and I found it. And I want to share that with you, that there's a better way, that there's life, that there's redemption, that there's freedom, that these things, these lifestyles, these passions that you think will satisfy you, they will leave you high and dry, they will leave you empty. And what I want to welcome you into is rest, into grace, into peace, into a right relationship with God, because right now we're, you know, without God, we're under the wrath of God. We would rightfully deserve his punishment and eternity in hell for our sins against God, but God and his grace loved us while we were still sinners. While we hated him, he welcomed us into his home. He was hospitable to us when we were the worst of the worst. We smelled like absolute trash, and yet he welcomed us in. And that's the same mentality, that's the same hospitality that we should be showing other people that we disagree with to say, hey, I want to welcome you into my home because God has welcomed me into my home. And I want to welcome you into my family because God has welcomed me into his family. Thanks guys for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, as always, subscribe because I'm putting new videos out all the time. I love you guys on Patreon. Thank you for supporting my mission. It is a huge help. This is what I do as my job. And so you help support not only my ministry, but my family and the fact that I can continue to make this content, equipping people to follow Jesus daily. So if you want to get access to all sorts of exclusive benefits and things that I offer there on Patreon and just generally support what I'm doing, click the link in my description and sign up today. Until next time, God bless.