Simple Faith with Rusty George

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Rusty George
Sometimes as leaders, we think there's no way someone could do the job as well as we can. It can be easy to feel like we have to have our hands and everything for our church to succeed. But as we all know, that couldn't be further from the truth. No one accomplishes anything great alone. Great leaders delegate. And if you're listening to this podcast, I know you want to be a great leader at your church.

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Rusty George
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00;00;40;23 - 00;00;59;03
Rusty George
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00;00;59;13 - 00;01;20;20
Rusty George
To help you figure out where to start. BELAY's offering an exclusive leadership toolkit. Free to our listeners. With this toolkit, you'll learn the necessary steps every leader needs to accomplish more and juggle less. Just text Rusty. That's hour USD 255. One, two, three. To get back to leading your church. Well with BELAY, no one can do it alone.

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Rusty George
Great leaders delegate. Get the support you need to get out of the administrative weeds and back to growing your church with BELAY.

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Intro/Outro
Welcome to Leading Simple with a rusty George. Our goal is to make following Jesus and leading others a bit more simple. Here's your host, Rusty George.

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Rusty George
Hey, welcome to episode 247. There are no more controversial issues in our culture right now than the issue of sex and identity. People are wanting to know, what does God say about this? What is the Bible say about this? Are the things that we read about in the Bible just ancient literature and really not applicable to today? And the interview we get to have today is with an individual by the name of Sam Allberry who asked the question in his book, Why does God care who we sleep with?

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Rusty George
Well, this conversation is one that we're having around real life right now, and you can check out our resources and our conversations also on our website, Real Life Church Board. It also reminds you possibly of a conversation we had last month with a guy by the name of Beckett Cook and his struggle with same sex attraction and wondering what God has to say about that.

00;02;37;10 - 00;02;58;05
Rusty George
And so I think you're really going to find today's episode really, really insightful and helpful from Sam. And I think this is going to be one you want to share with somebody else as well. So I want to thank BELAY Solutions for supporting this podcast and excited for you guys to hear my conversation with Sam Allberry. Sam, already, thank you for joining us.

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Rusty George
Judging by the accent, you're not from around here. Tell us where you're from. Yeah, I'm from England.

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Sam Allberry
It's my my dirty secret. So, yeah, I grew up in the UK, and I've just recently moved here to the States.

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Rusty George
Okay. Are you now you moved to Nashville, correct?

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Sam Allberry
That is the one. Yeah.

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Rusty George
Okay. Do you say y'all yet?

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Sam Allberry
No, I feel like that would. That would, I would have my UK citizenship canceled or something if I say that out loud.

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Rusty George
Yeah. I don't know if you can say y'all with a British accent.

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Sam Allberry
So no, it be y'all.

00;03;26;13 - 00;03;34;21
Rusty George
All. Yeah. Just doesn't work. Okay. I think the question everybody wants to know is, is the miniseries the Crown accurate?

00;03;36;03 - 00;03;41;15
Sam Allberry
It's based on truth, but it's it's obviously been a bit of dramatic license. Okay.

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Rusty George
So I was talking to a guy in an airport one time who was from across the pond, and I said, do you guys get as obsessed about the royals as we do over here? And he said, Not at all. We just don't care. Is that true?

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Sam Allberry
Yeah, probably broadly true of the UK. I mean, we'll watch the crown. It's interesting, but I think it's I think we're less fascinated with the royals because we've always had them. Okay. And so it's kind of like it's always there. So you don't think about it. Okay. Cause for you guys, the royal family is more of a novelty.

00;04;09;22 - 00;04;13;11
Sam Allberry
It's more of a kind of like a specialism of the UK.

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Rusty George
It is. That's all we can give it for you.

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Sam Allberry
It's exotic to have a royal family. For us, it's just a bit normal and boring.

00;04;19;24 - 00;04;38;08
Rusty George
Right. Okay, Well, I'm just fascinated how they've divided up what we do with one person, the presidency. And you guys get them in two different groups. So very fascinating. Okay. Well, that's a conversation for another time. Sam, you're a pastor now in Nashville. Correct? Tell us what what your world looks like. You travel around, you speak, you write.

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Rusty George
What's what's your job look like?

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Sam Allberry
Yeah, I mean, broadly, my my calling is to serve the church that I felt that from really just around the time I was converted, that the Lord put it on my heart to serve the church and to do whatever I can to encourage the local church. And in recent years, that's that's involved both local church ministry and then trying to serve the wider church, speaking into certain issues, writing on certain things.

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Sam Allberry
So it's probably half and half local church ministry and then these other things.

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Rusty George
Okay. So were you talking at all were you speaking at all about the issues? We're going to talk about today before you wrote your book, or did that kind of launch you into the stratosphere?

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Sam Allberry
Yeah, I was. The book came out of doing that ministry and having those conversations and hearing what people were asking and seeing where some of the needs were.

00;05;31;00 - 00;05;56;10
Rusty George
Okay. So I want to just direct our listeners to the Real Life Church weekend part three of Sex and Theology, where Sam shares his personal testimony of growing up, realizing that you dealt with same sex attraction and then trying to figure out where's your faith lie with all that was Jesus, like with all that. And so then this book comes out that you wrote, Why does God care who I sleep with?

00;05;57;04 - 00;06;10;23
Rusty George
Before we get into all the other questions I have for you, will you sum up that book for us? And yeah, pretty much the entire process of your life and about you know, 2 minutes. So, you know, just your wrestling and all of that. And what led you to write that?

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Sam Allberry
Yeah. So there's a few things. There's a sort of personal reason for writing it, wrestling with my own sexuality and trying to think through as as a disciple of Jesus, what to do with that and what he's calling me to. But there was also a sort of a pastoral reason, seeing a lot of confusion in the world around us, a lot of questions in the church about sexual issues and some of the stuff going on in culture around us.

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Sam Allberry
So that the book came out of a a real burden to try to present Jesus teaching on sexuality to a to a world that is quite skeptical about it. Right. And that kind of book, in a nutshell, would be the good guys who we sleep with because he cares about the people doing the sleeping. He cares about us.

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Sam Allberry
Right. And he's he's created sex to be a profound thing, a meaningful thing. And therefore, it matters how we do it. Our sexuality. And it would be uncaring of him not to bother with who we slept with, Right?

00;07;10;22 - 00;07;26;28
Rusty George
Not to have an opinion. Yeah. Okay. So help me identify how the church has stumbled in having this conversation because I never grew up hearing about it. I mean, we see the radicals on TV, you know, that are just acting horribly in the name of Jesus. So how has the church kind of messed us up?

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Sam Allberry
Well, you allude to two ways just in that in the way you frame that one way is that we've often not talked about it. And, you know, I've had different reactions when I when I've taught on this. But I remember someone very early on when I started to speak on they're saying to me it's improper to speak of these things in a church.

00;07;47;18 - 00;08;06;04
Sam Allberry
And I, you know, I thought about and thought, well, actually the Bible talks about it says the Bible talks about it. We're meant to be discussing it. So we mustn't be more prudish than God is. And if God has given us in his Word teaching about this issue, then we must talk about it in church on a Sunday.

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Sam Allberry
But I think you're right. There have been some unhelpful ways Christians have spoken about this issue, sometimes in a very judgmental way, sometimes singling out particular sexual sins as if they are the, you know, the big bad sins of the world. And kind of excusing some of our own ones.

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Rusty George
Right.

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Sam Allberry
So we do need to speak about it, but we need to speak about it in a way that reflects the balance of proportion of Scripture in a way that, you know, just reflects the fact that all of us are broken in this part of life. All of us need the grace of Jesus. And the Gospel is Jesus has come for sexual sin us, which is all of us.

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Sam Allberry
So I think that's the thing that that's most cheered me as I've thought about this, as I've wrestled with various temptations myself, is Jesus grace really is sufficient. Sometimes we can we can think about our own sexual struggles and think, you know, I must now have surely crossed the line where Jesus is just like I'm too much for him to handle or, you know, just too many temptations, too much mess.

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Sam Allberry
Right. But he there is always more grace in Jesus than there is in in us. And it's grace that changes us. Hmm. We're not the same people when we walk with him.

00;09;23;22 - 00;09;53;26
Rusty George
It seems like in the church today and in culture today, there is this desire to kind of. Can't we all get along? In other words, surely monogamous, married homosexual couples, same sex attracted. God's okay with that. I mean, obviously the promiscuity, the kind of rampant sexual partners and lifestyle that we, you know, have all heard stories from or maybe some have experienced.

00;09;54;01 - 00;10;09;24
Rusty George
Okay, that's outside of God's boundaries. But surely the monogamous married that kind of relationship, you know, What do you say to that? How did you wrestle with this and come out on the side of. No, I don't think so. While others wrestle with it and say, oh, I think he's fine with that.

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Sam Allberry
Yeah, well, ultimately, God God is the one who gets to say what he's fine with. And and we've got to keep coming back to Scripture. And it is crystal clear in the Bible, God's God's design for sex is for it to be within the context of a male female marriage. There's no avoiding that. But it is it's the consistent teaching of the Bible.

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Sam Allberry
It's been a consistent understanding of the people of God for for 2000 years of Christian history. So it's it's quite a new thought to say, well, faithful same sex relationships can be blessed by God, that that's not something the church has ever taught until now. So you've got to wonder why we're suddenly saying that's okay now in the Western world at this point.

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Sam Allberry
So we've got to we've got to let the Lord himself and the authority of Scripture be what determines what determines our beliefs. But I think the other thing I'd say is, you know, to say, well, as long as it's faithful and monogamous, it's okay. I'd want to say, well, why is that the boundary? Hmm. What about those who who want to say, well, we're a faithful throuple?

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Sam Allberry
Hmm. What's wrong with that? Or for people who say, Well, actually, I feel a sense of spiritual fulfillment in promiscuity. Hmm. So it feels arbitrary that we're saying, well, as long as it's a faithful, committed partnership. You thinking, well, why there?

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Rusty George
Right.

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Sam Allberry
And it's just a reminder that all of us are drawing the line somewhere. So the idea that, you know, people like me are have got a narrow, you know, restrictive view of sexuality. All of us have a restrictive view of sexuality. All of us are drawing a line somewhere. Mm. The question is, do we have a way of explaining and accounting for where we do draw the line?

00;12;04;10 - 00;12;27;29
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. And for me, I hope where I'm drawing the line is. Is following scripture. Mm hmm. And if it isn't, I want to be corrected on that. Mm hmm. But that that, to me, has got to be the authority if we just try and sort of, you know, triangulate where we think the Bible is and where where culture is and where we can get away with, you know, not not annoying too many people in our culture, then the goalposts will always be shifting.

00;12;28;02 - 00;12;54;29
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. And the Christian sexual ethic has always being countercultural. Mm hmm. There's some amazing stuff that's been written recently on on just how radical the Christian sexual ethic was in the Roman world, just how countercultural it was then. Say, it's always been countercultural. We don't need to worry about the fact that, you know, so many people in the Western world today think the biblical sexual ethic is so harmful and dangerous.

00;12;55;10 - 00;12;57;21
Sam Allberry
It's always been that out of sync with culture.

00;12;58;14 - 00;13;01;29
Rusty George
I had a conversation on this podcast with Sean McDowell.

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Sam Allberry
Yeah.

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Rusty George
Just a brilliant mind. But I asked him, what's the difference between the apologetics that you deal with versus what your father dealt with? Judgment?

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Sam Allberry
Oh, gosh.

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Rusty George
And he said, Well, my father had to prove his Christianity. True. I have to prove his Christianity. Good.

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Sam Allberry
That is exactly it.

00;13;17;29 - 00;13;32;00
Rusty George
And I think where our culture is wrestling with is, well, if God made me this way, then why would he tell me? No, that doesn't seem very good. That's the whole house of cards comes down. What do you say to that?

00;13;32;21 - 00;13;54;27
Sam Allberry
No, Sean's exactly right. When I was when I was at university in the in the mid-nineties, people didn't want to be Christian because I thought we were too good. Hmm. People do want to be Christians now because they think we're bad. That that is flipped significantly. Mm hmm. And to that point of. Well, God made me this way, so surely I should live the way that I am.

00;13;55;18 - 00;14;14;18
Sam Allberry
You know, one of the extraordinary insights the Bible gives us is that we are both created by God and affected by sin. Mm hmm. So I can't just read off from everything that I am now how God made me. Because there are lots of things that feel native to my heart, instinctive to me, that are not from God.

00;14;15;14 - 00;14;38;01
Sam Allberry
I have all kinds of crazy impulses. I can't say well, because I'm, for example, I can be an irritable driver. I can't say, Well, God made me irritable and therefore you have to affirm my irritability. Yeah. We are all a mix of being created in the image of God, and I'm being fallen and tainted by sin with a product of both Genesis one and Genesis three.

00;14;38;14 - 00;14;59;14
Sam Allberry
Hmm. So if I. If I only think I'm the product of Genesis one, then I won't know what to do with the very things within me that I know aren't right. Hmm. And we all have that. We've got to account for that somehow. And similarly, some Christians talk as if we're only a product of Genesis three, and we need to know, you know, God has made every one of us in his image.

00;14;59;14 - 00;15;33;13
Sam Allberry
There's something precious in every single person that we encounter, including ourselves. You see, it's the is the answer to the charge today that the Christianity creates self-loathing. It doesn't because it actually it. Christianity gives us the safety to recognize our sinfulness and our brokenness within that wider framework of we're made in God's image. And as Jesus says, we're worth more than many sparrows to him, which means we can look at our darkest aspects of our nature.

00;15;33;13 - 00;15;46;10
Sam Allberry
We can look at those things in the eye without actually being overwhelmed by them. Mm hmm. And knowing that Christ has come, you know, specifically for sin is specifically for for poor, messed up people like us, too, to make us whole again.

00;15;46;20 - 00;16;08;14
Rusty George
That's really well said. I've never heard that distinction before between Genesis one people, Genesis three people, as opposed to both of them together. That's really well said. I need to chew on that. Okay. For our audience that know people or perhaps are people that struggle with gender dysphoria or same sex attraction, you know, and they're wondering, I don't see the goodness of God in this.

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Sam Allberry
Yeah.

00;16;09;07 - 00;16;10;11
Rusty George
What would you say to them?

00;16;11;14 - 00;16;36;24
Sam Allberry
Yeah, I get that. That is part of the human experience for everyone in one area of life or another. For many of us, it won't be in gender dysphoria. It might not be in same sex kind of sexuality. But all of us feel that feels some way in which what God has for us cuts across something that feels very deep within us.

00;16;36;25 - 00;16;55;23
Sam Allberry
Jesus talks about all of us needing to deny self and take up our cross. Mm hmm. In other words, there's not a person on the planet for whom the teaching of Jesus doesn't feel at some point like it might kill us. Mm hmm. Like he's actually taking life away from us. Hmm. But that's the case for every single one of us.

00;16;56;11 - 00;17;29;08
Sam Allberry
And what we begin to realize as we as we go on in the Christian life, is those very times when it feels like Jesus is taking away what we need to live. Looking back on it, we see a very differently. We realize, actually, Jesus is is giving life to us, not taking it from us. So for the friend who's wrestling with with gender identity, wrestling with their sexuality and Christianity might feel just inconceivably difficult, I'd want to say you're not alone in feeling that way.

00;17;29;08 - 00;17;50;20
Sam Allberry
Jesus expects us to feel that way, and yet his claim is that what he has for us is actually unfathomably good. Mm hmm. And the invitation of Scripture is taste and see that the Lord is good. Mm hmm. So let's look at the message of Jesus and see if we can't deduce how. Actually, he's. He's inviting us into fullness of life.

00;17;50;24 - 00;18;11;12
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. It's just a form of life we haven't conceived of before, because it's. It's life on his terms and not our own. Mm hmm. But it's on the terms of someone who. Who knows way more about this life stuff than we do. Mm hmm. And so where we're actually putting ourselves in the hands of the expert on being a human, we just don't.

00;18;11;15 - 00;18;12;21
Sam Allberry
We're not very good at being people.

00;18;13;09 - 00;18;13;24
Rusty George
That's true.

00;18;13;27 - 00;18;21;23
Sam Allberry
He's. He's the master at it. And so his way seems so out of kilter with our ways, because we we're not very good at this stuff.

00;18;21;24 - 00;18;22;07
Rusty George
Right?

00;18;22;21 - 00;18;25;12
Sam Allberry
We don't know what's best for us, But he does.

00;18;26;25 - 00;18;50;08
Rusty George
So for those that are thinking, boy, okay, I get that he knows best, but I feel like that's a huge sacrifice of me to make to give up this idea of being in a marriage or a relationship, having a family, those kind of things you've chosen to become or to be celibate. So you're living as a single man.

00;18;50;08 - 00;19;01;07
Rusty George
Society might look at you and say, Well, you're missing out. I mean, how do you juxtapose that with what God is a good God knows what's best? I mean, are there times that you wrestle with that? Oh, of course. Yeah.

00;19;02;04 - 00;19;26;04
Sam Allberry
As does every Christian. Okay. You don't have to be single to wrestle with that. I mean, marriage for my married friends is is not always a walk in the park. No. There are seasons when married people wrestle with God's teaching to know. I think what we what we all come back to as Christians is that we always get far more from Jesus, even in this life, than we give up for him.

00;19;26;27 - 00;19;45;29
Sam Allberry
So, yeah, there's there's things I have to say no to because of my allegiance to Jesus. But Jesus is so good that He He never says no to something without saying a much bigger yes to something else. And so if there are some things I don't get to have now, there's a whole bunch of other stuff I do get to have.

00;19;46;25 - 00;20;21;29
Sam Allberry
And in in passages like Mark 1029 and 30, Jesus says that, you know, whether we leave behind fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and homes and lands for his sake, we receive a hundredfold, even in this life. Mm hmm. And he gives us a richer form of the things that we've left behind. So we're never it's never a bad deal relationally to follow Jesus because we're folded into his family and he puts around us people who become mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters, which is where the church comes in.

00;20;21;29 - 00;20;45;24
Sam Allberry
And this is this is another area where we have where we have fallen short of what we need to be because the church is meant to be a living advert for the goodness of the teaching of Jesus. It should be the case that people can look at the life of a local church and say, You know what, I will have more love there than if I follow my own instincts.

00;20;46;16 - 00;21;12;16
Sam Allberry
Hmm. Which is that's the challenge for us. That's the vision. Jesus gives us as the church. And that's part of his apologetic by this. Will all people know that you're my disciples by your love for one another? So Jesus is never because God is love. Jesus is never actually inviting me in to less love. He's inviting me into better love because he, again, he's better at this stuff than we are.

00;21;14;07 - 00;21;21;11
Sam Allberry
So I don't get the kind of love that I thought I wanted and needed. Right. I get a different kind of love that turns out to be much better.

00;21;21;24 - 00;21;36;16
Rusty George
That's interesting. Becket Cook, who we were talking about before, we have record said something similar because the question is always, well, you know, don't you think God wouldn't want you to be lonely? That's what everybody always says. And he said, I'm not lonely. I'm in a relationship with the creator of the universe.

00;21;36;26 - 00;21;37;08
Sam Allberry
Well, yeah.

00;21;37;22 - 00;21;39;02
Rusty George
So there's a there's a greater good.

00;21;39;02 - 00;22;07;12
Sam Allberry
He's discovering there is and not. And the great thing is not just with the creator of the universe, but with his people, right? No, we're we're not designed to be alone. But our culture has such a narrow, constricted view of what not being alone has to look like. Right. We have a very narrow view of intimacy where basically we've we funneled all of our emotional and relational needs into having a romantic and sexual relationship.

00;22;07;12 - 00;22;07;20
Rusty George
Right.

00;22;08;04 - 00;22;32;01
Sam Allberry
Whereas the Bible actually has much broader categories of intimacy, of community, of family. Mm hmm. That we can be invited into and we can get to experience and enjoy. You know, it's interesting. Jesus is in John 13 when he speaks about no greater love has any one than this that he lays down his life, his friends are coming and exactly how he wants that.

00;22;32;04 - 00;23;05;06
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. That's approximately what he says. It's interesting that when Jesus is looking for a superlative example of love, he turns to friendship. He doesn't say, you know, no greater love has involved for this than a husband who does this for his wife. He talks about what someone would do for a friend, which, again, makes us think should make us think, okay, have we are we missing out on some of what the Bible gives us in terms of healthy, deep relationship through friendship?

00;23;05;12 - 00;23;09;15
Rusty George
Right. Okay. So we've talked about how the church has gotten it wrong.

00;23;09;21 - 00;23;09;27
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm.

00;23;10;10 - 00;23;18;06
Rusty George
How is the church gone to Right. Give me some examples from your own life or other people that you know that have been taken in by the church. Gosh, they've done it well.

00;23;18;13 - 00;23;50;06
Sam Allberry
Well, many examples. I mean, the churches I've had the privilege of being a member of over the years have been great places for me to be at. They've been places where I found community. I found love. I found encouragement. I know of so many other people who are alive today because of their local church. I think of my church in Nashville and people who have found such deep community, their.

00;23;50;17 - 00;24;08;20
Sam Allberry
And churches get it right. When we when we keep holding to what the Bible says, even when there's there's huge cultural pressure not to to think, okay, we're just going to stick with Jesus here and and keep trusting him, even when it means that we're seen as being the bad guys. That's. That's the church getting it right. Hmm.

00;24;09;10 - 00;24;32;21
Sam Allberry
But we've got to make sure we're getting it right relationally and not just confessional. Mm hmm. And making sure that we really are providing the kind of community that makes the world around us look and go. Hang on. We. We can't write these people off. Mm hmm. Because look at what's going on there. Mm hmm. And I've seen wonderful examples of that around the place.

00;24;33;09 - 00;24;56;02
Rusty George
Hey, let me interrupt for just a second. You know, Easter is coming fast, and we have put together a daily resource. 28 days to Easter that you can easily get at real life church dot org. You can check that out there. Also at my web site, Pastor Rusty George dot com and on our real life church app. We'd love to have you follow with us as we have a reading every single day which gets us ready for Easter.

00;24;56;09 - 00;25;21;08
Rusty George
All right. Back to the show. When it comes to what's the most loving thing to do or as some say, what does love require of me in this situation for the church to do it best? Are there Let me ask it this way. Do we use their pronouns? Do we accept various terminology? Do we? If somebody is already married, do we just accept them as is?

00;25;21;09 - 00;25;32;27
Rusty George
I mean, these are questions churches are having. Where do we draw the line? You know, where do we take a stand? As some like to say, We don't like that language around here, But tell us from your perspective, what's the most loving thing to do?

00;25;33;08 - 00;25;50;09
Sam Allberry
Well, at the risk of sounding simplistic, but the most loving thing to do is to is to bring people under the words of Jesus. We want people to come to know him. I don't want someone to feel as though they've got to change their life in order to come to know Jesus. Yes, we come to know Jesus. And He upends our lives.

00;25;50;09 - 00;26;15;15
Sam Allberry
He changes our lives. So we want to pull people in to hear the message of Jesus. And as as Lord willing, they do so. And if he if they start to respond to him in faith, then, yeah, we want to help them on their journey of discipleship. We want to do that gently. We don't we don't expect people to be sanctified overnight.

00;26;15;15 - 00;26;32;10
Sam Allberry
We we're slow to change. We want to be patient with one another. God's very patient with us. Mm hmm. So I think if someone is beginning their walk with Jesus, we may be aware of, okay, at some point they're going to need to sort this out and this out and this out and this out and change that and that and that.

00;26;33;03 - 00;26;58;16
Sam Allberry
I don't want to overwhelm them by giving them a list on day one of You've got to break up with this person. You've got to reconfigure that relationship. You've got to change this kind of language. I do want those things to happen. Mm hmm. But I do want to be kind of patient that actually, you know, we take one step at a time in discipleship and to journey with people as they begin to.

00;26;58;21 - 00;27;19;05
Sam Allberry
To have Jesus put their lives back together. Mm hmm. When it comes to things like use of pronouns, that kind of thing. I guess different Christians will have different feelings on this. For me, if someone is not a believer, I want to be as flexible as I can. Mm hmm. Because, again, I want them to come to hear Jesus.

00;27;19;11 - 00;27;47;17
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. And if. If one of us is going to be uncomfortable because of terminology and language, I would rather be me. He's uncomfortable, because then again, I want them to. I want to remove anything that would keep them from hearing the message of Jesus. I'm not going to pretend I agree with them. Mm hmm. So there have been situations where I've said to someone, for example, on the issue of gender identity, where I said to someone, you know, we're going to say that we land in quite different places on this.

00;27;49;06 - 00;28;08;11
Sam Allberry
I want to give them notice that, you know, I don't want them to feel like I'm being disingenuous. Mm hmm. But I do want to be hospitable. I do want to be flexible where I can be. Mm hmm. We're conscience allows. Because, again, I want to draw people into a friendship where they can hear the message of Jesus.

00;28;08;11 - 00;28;33;06
Sam Allberry
And I don't want to imply that a condition of beginning that that friendship with me is. You've got to accept everything on my terms. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So but then once someone has kind of crossed the threshold, come into the life of faith, for example, if there's a same sex couple who have been married, then yet as part of their discipleship, they will need to end that marriage, because in God's side, it isn't a marriage.

00;28;33;12 - 00;28;56;29
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. But I might not say that to them on day one. Mm hmm. You know that the spirit is the one who convicts of sin. He's. He's better at it than I. Than I am. Mm hmm. It doesn't mean I never raise issues with people, but it means I sort of want to, again, help people take their first steps and not try and put everything on them on day one.

00;28;56;29 - 00;29;20;19
Rusty George
Right. That's well said. Okay. Let's talk to parents out there. They're struggling because their kids are. It's it's almost a fad. Their kids are coming out or they're declaring non-binary or bisexual or pansexual or whatever. It's almost for them to think that you're just heterosexual. That's boring. So kids are coming out that way. What do you tell parents?

00;29;20;20 - 00;29;27;10
Rusty George
How should they react to that? What should be there? Their way to show love on those matters?

00;29;28;00 - 00;29;53;05
Sam Allberry
Yeah, I think I mean, because of what you've just said, that there is in some cases, some freshness to this. Not in every case, obviously. Mm hmm. But because there's such cultural cachet and identifying as binary as non straights is, you know, I think if a child says comes out and makes that kind of declaration, I think a good thing to say as a parent is what you you know what you mean by that.

00;29;53;12 - 00;30;15;14
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. Because they may just mean, you know, I feel a bit different. They may not actually mean as much as we think they might mean. Mm hmm. And to to bear with the fact that for some, this will be more of a cultural thing than an actual thing. Mm hmm. Not to. Not to panic. Mm hmm. And as you said, to keep.

00;30;15;19 - 00;30;40;15
Sam Allberry
To keep showing love. Christ, God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So it can sometimes be the reflex of a Christian parent. If if a child starts to journey in a in a a disobedient way, you know, starts to step out into a lifestyle that is not compatible with the Christian faith.

00;30;41;03 - 00;31;02;19
Sam Allberry
It can be easy for the parent at that point to immediately put them in a distance. Mm hmm. And sort of act in a okay, you've blown it with me now. Kind of. Why? I think we should be doing the opposite. Mm hmm. And keep showing people the heart of Jesus himself towards sinners. Right. Not approval. Right. But not rejection, either.

00;31;02;28 - 00;31;26;06
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. When. When Jesus had those meals with Levi and Levi's friends, Jesus could be friends with people without agreeing with them. Mm hmm. And he could differ with people without rejecting them. Mm hmm. And that. That is not the grammar of the culture we live in now, because we've. We've turned friendship into affirmation. Mm hmm. And disagreement into rejection.

00;31;26;15 - 00;31;48;09
Sam Allberry
And we come. That's not how we do things as Christians. Mm hmm. So there may be a lot of patience required of a parent. It may be very, very painful not to overreact. To be patient. To try to listen as much as possible, understand what the child is, is saying, trying to discern what might be going on under the surface.

00;31;48;09 - 00;31;51;09
Sam Allberry
And just to keep reassuring them that, yep, you're not going anywhere.

00;31;52;04 - 00;32;11;04
Rusty George
Do you know a lot of couples wrestle with this with their kids? Do they put restrictions on them? Like, okay, we're going to process that together. But as long as you live under this roof, you're not going to date someone of the same gender or you're not going to go to this place or you're going to have to go to church with me or various, you know, rules like that.

00;32;11;04 - 00;32;17;23
Rusty George
I mean, I think we all grew up in homes where some of those things were very, very helpful. Some were a little bit over the top. Yeah. What do you recommend there?

00;32;18;13 - 00;32;42;14
Sam Allberry
Yeah, it was so depend on the situation and the family and that, you know, I can't possibly be prescriptive on that. But yeah, it helps to have some boundaries in place that, you know, there's a reason that children are subject to their parents. But the parents require wisdom to know what boundaries to put in place because law doesn't change hearts.

00;32;42;20 - 00;33;09;12
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. It can restrict it can restrict certain forms of behavior. But but adding rules is not going to make someone a Christian if the heart is straying from Jesus. Mm hmm. So it's worth thinking through. What do we hope the goal of such rules to be? And a, maybe we can we can mitigate some some kinds of damage that will come from certain forms of behavior.

00;33;09;19 - 00;33;35;12
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. But actually, that isn't the solution. That may just be the least worst way forward is to put a few restrictions in place. But we we don't want to put so many restrictions in place that actually we drive that child away. Right. And again, that's a wisdom issue. And that's where we take James one verse five to the bank where we promised if we ask for wisdom, God will give it to us.

00;33;35;12 - 00;33;57;23
Sam Allberry
Because I'm sure for so many parents, there must be a near constant feeling of I just I don't know what to do here. Right. Do I come down on this? Am I flexible on that? Do I let this go? We need we need wisdom from above. Right. But our heart is always we want our child to know the grace of God.

00;33;57;23 - 00;34;21;08
Sam Allberry
In Jesus Christ, it's grace that teaches us to say no to our godliness and Titus to not law. It's grace. So we want. We want our kids to be tasting the grace of Jesus at every single step. So I can think of parents. I know where they they said to their kids, okay, we're going to give you freedoms in these areas, but we still want you to come to church with us on a Sunday.

00;34;21;15 - 00;34;42;16
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. So we can't tell you who you can and can't be friends with? Mm hmm. But we do want you to keep coming to church and. And. And hearing the word of God. Mm hmm. Again. But exactly where you draw which lines will vary from. From household to household. Know, I can see the wisdom of thinking, okay, we're going to allow you a certain amount of latitude.

00;34;42;21 - 00;34;49;06
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. But we want you to keep hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd. Mm hmm.

00;34;50;04 - 00;34;56;29
Rusty George
Okay, let's flip that question a little bit. How old were you when you felt like. I think something's different here?

00;34;57;18 - 00;34;58;18
Sam Allberry
I was about 15.

00;34;58;19 - 00;34;59;04
Rusty George
Okay.

00;34;59;05 - 00;35;12;09
Sam Allberry
I was a slow learner. I mean, and plus, I was thinking this in the early nineties. If we didn't have all the categories of Right sexual identity that we have today. So I was having these feelings. I didn't really know what they were for the first couple of years.

00;35;12;10 - 00;35;21;04
Rusty George
Right. So talking with your parents, was that something that was the last thing that you did or one of the first things that you did?

00;35;21;04 - 00;35;24;07
Sam Allberry
One of the last things that I did because Complex, I didn't understand it myself.

00;35;24;09 - 00;35;24;29
Rusty George
Okay.

00;35;25;22 - 00;35;33;24
Sam Allberry
I certainly didn't want to talk to anyone else about it, not just my parents and talk to my friends about it either. Okay. Until anyone about it for many, many years.

00;35;33;28 - 00;35;34;16
Rusty George
Okay.

00;35;35;28 - 00;35;56;24
Sam Allberry
And I wasn't someone who was was a Christian at that point. So it's not as if it was my my Christianity that was was keeping me kind of quiet on this. It was just confusion. It was again, it was the early nineties where, you know, I feared there would be rejection if people knew what I was what I was feeling.

00;35;56;29 - 00;36;13;20
Sam Allberry
So my, my plan was when I was a high school beginning to wrestle with this. Well I'll, I'll just wait till I go to university. I'll apply to a university in some other city. And then I can maybe explore these things when I get there. And then no one at home will need to know. Mm hmm. That was the plan.

00;36;13;20 - 00;36;24;14
Sam Allberry
I ended up coming to Faith before I got to university, so I'm very thankful for that. But I didn't process this with anyone until several years into my Christian life. Yeah.

00;36;24;29 - 00;36;37;14
Rusty George
Okay, so what would you now, in hindsight, tell yourself or what would you tell a, you know, adolescent that's wrestling with these things? How would you encourage them to processes and who to talk to?

00;36;37;16 - 00;36;57;18
Sam Allberry
Yeah, well, I would I would I would say to them, you're not on your own in feeling this way. And for many people, it feels like they are they feel like they must be the only person they know who exists, who has these feelings that want to say you're not on your own. And to have someone older and wiser that you can talk to.

00;36;58;03 - 00;37;14;24
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. There may be some peers around you who would be great friends along the way, but I think you want someone who you know is going to be wiser than you. Mm hmm. So if there's a if there's a trusted leader in the youth group. Mm hmm. Someone like that in a church, you can open up to.

00;37;14;24 - 00;37;16;24
Sam Allberry
That would be a really wise thing to do.

00;37;19;04 - 00;37;38;21
Sam Allberry
That stage of life, you know it. We don't always feel comfortable as teenagers going to our parents first. Parents get that as well. Right. But. But someone like a trusted youth leader, I think would be would be great. And just to realize, again, it's good for someone else to know what you're going through, that that's the case for all of us.

00;37;38;22 - 00;37;42;29
Sam Allberry
We're not designed to to deal with our battles on our own, right?

00;37;43;00 - 00;38;03;23
Rusty George
Definitely. Okay. So you have a chance to tell your story. And a lot of churches, a lot of places. I'm sure there's a little bit of. Here we go again. You know, but in that process, you talk to a lot of people after you share your testimony, what are the common things you hear from people? What are they relieved?

00;38;03;23 - 00;38;08;15
Rusty George
Do they feel like, oh, somebody else gets it or is it? What are the questions they are wrestling with right now?

00;38;08;24 - 00;38;23;09
Sam Allberry
It's a range of things, as you would imagine. I get a lot of people are saying, you know, my son, my daughter, my best friend, my uncle has come out. What do I do? Mm hmm. So it's close to home for a lot of people today.

00;38;25;24 - 00;38;45;17
Sam Allberry
A lot of my best friend is now in a gay relationship and wants me to go to the wedding. That kind of issue comes up a lot, and a lot of people share their own stories and say this has been an issue for me and I've never really know what to do with it or I've never really known if this is something I can talk about with other people.

00;38;46;24 - 00;38;58;12
Sam Allberry
And occasionally I'll get someone who feels very differently to me, who will say, you know, this is such a repressive way to live or whatever it might be. So you get you get a mix for sure.

00;38;58;20 - 00;38;59;26
Rusty George
What do you say to that question?

00;39;00;29 - 00;39;19;15
Sam Allberry
Well, it depends. I'll ask them why they think that. So I was actually interacting just online with someone yesterday who who said, you know, something like God loves you because of who you are. Hmm. And I wanted that. And I said to them, well, actually, what's what's better than that? Is God loving me because of who He is.

00;39;19;21 - 00;39;43;03
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. Because that's just a firmer foundation. Mm hmm. I can build my life on that. Mm hmm. If God loves me because of who I am, that feels like a very unstable foundation. Because I'm not always entirely sure I know who I am. Mm hmm. And what if I change who I am? What if God likes me as I am right now, but I'm a slightly different person than the is time?

00;39;43;03 - 00;40;03;20
Sam Allberry
You know, It makes it less secure. Mm hmm. So it depends. It depends what it is. But but normally, part of that part of the assumption behind much of where our culture is now is there's a fear of missing out on love. Mm hmm. And I get that. Mm hmm. Which is why I want to say to people.

00;40;04;22 - 00;40;26;16
Sam Allberry
Absolutely. And the greatest form of love is the love we have from Jesus. So in as much as you fear out on love, don't miss out on the. The deepest, richest kind of love there is. Mm hmm. That, you know, the fear of missing out of love is actually the reason to come to Jesus, not the reason to go away from him.

00;40;26;17 - 00;40;28;09
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm.

00;40;28;12 - 00;40;46;11
Rusty George
28 years later, after you made this decision of I, I, I believe I'm same sex attracted. And now you have chosen a life of celibacy. You're following Jesus. How do you see Jesus now differently than your early years? What are you learning about Jesus?

00;40;46;14 - 00;41;16;11
Sam Allberry
Oh, gosh. Over life's first started following Jesus. I knew I needed him. I knew he was the one who could forgive my sins. I knew he had laid down his life for me and that was that was more than enough to draw me to him. But I think what has deepened since then is, is if I can put it this way, I came for the forgiveness, but I've stayed for the forgive a and I've realized actually, Jesus himself is the prize.

00;41;16;19 - 00;41;37;29
Sam Allberry
Mm hmm. And he is not just the one we need in the sense of to get us out of the fix we're in. He's the one we need in terms of that which our hearts most deeply long for. All of us. I would love the 18 year old. Me too. To get to get in on that from the very beginning.

00;41;37;29 - 00;41;41;29
Sam Allberry
It took me a while to learn that. That he's just more beautiful than you. Than you think he is.

00;41;42;25 - 00;41;57;22
Rusty George
That's amazing. If we had a keyboardist here that could start playing and I could sing a song I think would be beautiful. But same. I've never done this before, but I just. I don't know. I feel like maybe this is the right thing to do. Would you. Would you pray for us?

00;41;57;26 - 00;41;58;13
Sam Allberry
I would love to.

00;41;58;14 - 00;42;10;08
Rusty George
And would you pray for those out there struggling with this issue, feel like they're alone and the families out there that don't know how to help their kids wrestling with this and. Yeah, you know, all the gamut. So I'll just I'll let you take it from here.

00;42;10;09 - 00;42;40;01
Sam Allberry
I'd love to, Father. We we do pray for everyone who's listening to this conversation. And we particularly think of those who are dealing with struggles in their own hearts or dealing with the pain of people around them, wrestling with these things. And Father, we remember what Christ said of himself that a bruised reed he will not break. I mean, thank you that Jesus is tender with us in our pain.

00;42;41;04 - 00;43;19;07
Sam Allberry
He doesn't stomp all over our wounds. He's not emotionally oblivious to where we're at. He Is able to feel deeply for us and to be gentle with us. And he is the one we can trust. Our. Our deepest bruises to say, Father, help. Help us to know that about Jesus. Help us to have confidence in him on that front so that when we bring all our wounded, broken friends to Jesus, we we can be sure we're doing the right thing for them.

00;43;19;07 - 00;43;47;22
Sam Allberry
And if we're wrestling in our own hearts and dealing with any kind of despair, any kind of darkness, to know that actually Jesus is the safest place to come to, that He himself is not unable to sympathizers, as the word tells us, but he lived on this world. He experienced pain and distress of this fallen world that he suffered not just for us, but with us.

00;43;48;20 - 00;44;10;14
Sam Allberry
So help each of us, Lord it in any of our our trials and difficulties, in any of our heartaches to come again to Jesus to find help and grace from Him. And we thank you that He is the kind of savior who wants to help us, who wants to draw near. He's not freaked out by us. He doesn't withdraw from us.

00;44;10;14 - 00;44;29;12
Sam Allberry
He's not intimidated by us. He's not disgusted by us. The areas of our deepest need and of our greatest shame. He wants to be most present. We rejoice in that, Father, and we thank for him. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen.

00;44;30;29 - 00;44;50;06
Rusty George
Well, that was just such fantastic stuff from Sam. And I'm so grateful for his heart for the church and for all people and their quest for understanding God's purpose for not only sex, but their identity and where those two things intersect. I think you're really going to be blessed by Sam's work. Make sure you check out his website and check out his books.

00;44;50;28 - 00;45;17;15
Rusty George
Just really, really great stuff. Hey, next week we take out a little bit lighter of subject matter. We bring back our Major League Baseball scout, Marty Lamb, who's been a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers for the last quarter century. He's an incredible individual, a great follower of Jesus, and happens to really be passionate about baseball. And many of the players on your Dodger baseball team, he found.

00;45;17;19 - 00;45;35;10
Rusty George
So he's going to be back to give us some insight into the Dodgers season. Can't wait to hear from him. This might be a podcast that you want to share with somebody. Make sure you pass it along. And for everybody listening and invites you to subscribe to the show. So you make sure you get every podcast we put out quick and easy to wherever you get your podcast.

00;45;35;12 - 00;45;38;03
Rusty George
Thank you so much for listening. And as always, keep it simple.

00;45;38;20 - 00;45;52;10
Intro/Outro
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00;45;53;00 - 00;46;03;27
Intro/Outro
[Outro Music] Let’s just breathe...

00;46;05;00 - 00;46;30;06
Rusty George
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00;46;30;20 - 00;46;39;16
Rusty George
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