{"id":1357,"date":"2015-06-27T20:03:16","date_gmt":"2015-06-28T01:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/?p=1357"},"modified":"2015-06-27T20:03:16","modified_gmt":"2015-06-28T01:03:16","slug":"marriage-and-gender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/2015\/06\/27\/marriage-and-gender\/","title":{"rendered":"Marriage and Gender"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In light of the Supreme Court decision this week, I will take a week away from our Romans series and preach Sunday, July 5 on the implications of biblical truth for marriage, identity, and gender. We&#8217;ll consider implications for us as families, as a church, as citizens of the Kingdom of God, and as citizens of a secular state.<\/p>\n<p>Note that our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/about-our-church\/statement-of-faith\/\" target=\"_blank\">Statement of Faith Governing Teaching<\/a> &#8211; which all DGCC elders must agree to without reservation &#8211; says explicitly that God appointed the first man and the first woman &#8220;different and complementary roles in marriage as a picture of Christ and the church.&#8221; From the beginning, God defined marriage as one man married to one woman as long as they both live (see, among others, Mark 10:2-9). That has not changed, and will not change.<\/p>\n<p>So let us respond to these cultural shifts and legal decisions with:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>prayer, for our country, our children, our witness, our lost friends and family;<\/li>\n<li>confidence, that God is in control of all things, and is working all together for the good of His people and the glory of His Name;<\/li>\n<li>firmness, knowing that &#8220;the grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of our God will stand forever&#8221; (Isaiah 40:8);<\/li>\n<li>loving witness, for those who differ with us on these issues, together with all our neighbors, co-workers, families, and friends;<\/li>\n<li>boldness, knowing that if God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31-39);<\/li>\n<li>joyful perseverance, knowing that hardship, trials, and even possibly persecution may well come in the future over these very issues\u00a0 &#8211; but if we suffer for His sake, we are blessed (Matthew 5:11-12, Acts 5:40-42, Hebrews 10:32-39).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Do pray also for me as I prepare this sermon.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, I recommend you read these posts on this issue:<\/p>\n<p>From John Piper: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desiringgod.org\/articles\/so-called-same-sex-marriage\" target=\"_blank\">So-Called Same-Sex Marriage: The New Calamity<\/a><\/p>\n<p>From the <a href=\"http:\/\/erlc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission<\/a> of the Southern Baptist Convention, but signed by a wide spectrum of evangelical leaders: <a href=\"http:\/\/erlc.com\/erlc\/herewestand\" target=\"_blank\">Here We Stand: An Evangelical Declaration on Marriage<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In light of the Supreme Court decision this week, I will take a week away from our Romans series and preach Sunday, July 5 on the implications of biblical truth&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,17,23],"tags":[474,845,980,1106,1107,1390,1525],"class_list":["post-1357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-family","category-reading-recommendations","tag-erlc","tag-john-piper","tag-marriage","tag-one-man","tag-one-woman","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}