For context, this was a sermon I gave to my church’s high school youth group as part of my homiletics class. Hope you enjoy.

Begin by reading Psalm 56.

For those of you who don’t know, a couple of years ago I went back to college to finish my degree. I am majoring in Christian Counseling, online at Manna University in North Carolina. As part of my studies, I am taking a Homiletics class, which homiletics is the preparing and delivering of sermons. For my final sermon, it is less of a sermon and more me sharing what it was that made me feel called to ministry. For that, I will go back to when I was a high schooler just like you guys.

I went to Ripon Christian like many of you do and I attended this youth group at Escalon. I can tell you when I was in high school, I did not care about school, or grades, and I didn’t have any desire to go to college. I just wanted to go to work, get married, have a family, provide, and maybe make enough to have a boat one day if I am lucky. I worked for a year or so after high school at my family’s building materials business. I wasn’t finding much fulfillment in that and felt a little left out seeing that many of my friends did go to college and it looked like they were having fun. So, I went to Grand Canyon University for one year, changed my degree like 6 or 7 times, and ultimately left because I couldn’t justify putting myself in that much debt if I had no vision for my life.

I came back, kept working, found myself in a few different jobs, not happy with any of them. I got married in 2017 to my wife Katie, who deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for the completely treacherous roller coaster I have put her through, and we had our first child in 2019, my son, Jack. Then came 2020. The beginning of Covid. For those of you who don’t remember, that was the year you all got to stay home from school. Everything shut down. During that time, I lost my job and found myself not providing for my family. I tried selling salsa to get by during that time and that worked for a few months. Ultimately, I wound up farming almonds for a local farmer.

For those who have never almond farmed, much of it is going up and down rows, back and forth for ten hours a day. Personally, I loved that part of it. I listened to so many podcasts, audiobooks, and sermons during that time. Sometimes, I would get through a whole audiobook in one day. While all this is going on, covid is still plaguing our society. You had to wear those dumb masks everywhere you went, some businesses closed down, at this point I think our church started meeting in the parking lot.

While I farmed, I learned a lot about our culture. I learned that the freedoms that we pride ourselves on in this country are not as concrete as we thought they were. It is really easy to take them away when the public is convinced it is in their best interest to give them over. Founding father, Ben Franklin once said, “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

I learned like many of our country’s elites were forcing us to stay six feet apart, wear masks, and demanding we get vaccinated, all while Gavin Newsom and some lobbyists were having a dinner party at the French Laundry, London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, was found clubbing with no mask in a tightly packed club downtown, and the mayor of Austin went on vacation to Mexico while his city was on strict lockdown. The people putting these rules in place “for our safety” did not believe themselves to be in any real danger. Then they allowed bars and strip clubs to be open, yet the country’s churches were not gathering.

I learned that George Floyd had more than three times the overdose level worth of fentanyl and yet the officer who was attempting to arrest him in the manor of which he was trained got arrested. And it was because of this incident that Black Lives Matter got to burn many of our major cities down. Yet churches would not gather. BLM also supports a woman’s right to murder her child, even though 40% of the black children conceived since 1960 have been aborted. Today in the black community, there are 335 abortions to every 1000 births. Black Lives Matter is in favor of the wiping out the very race it claims to support.

Speaking of abortions, if we include Catholics on this stat, more than 53% of the women who have had abortions in this country were Christians. Which is more than the 45% of Christians who think abortion should be legal in most circumstances. In other words, there are more Christians who have had abortions than there are Christians who approve of abortion. The fact that there are any Christians who approve of abortion shows their biblical illiteracy, and the fact that there are more still who agree that it is a sin, but still chose to have one, shows that there has not been enough evidence from the church that grace is greater than shame. We are so afraid to hurt feelings in the church, but the reality is when we don’t preach or talk about these issues from our pulpits we are doing a great disservice to these women. Many of whom feel ashamed, abandoned, and feel like abortion is a better option than confession and repentance. We are abandoning them to deal with their sin and their shame alone and in private, as opposed to having a body of believers praying for her and helping her raise her child in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Instead of believing Jesus when he says, “This is my body, broken for you,” women believe that, “This is my body, my choice, now I must break you.”

Nearly ten years ago was the last time this was poled, but in 2014, 54% of the country’s Christians were accepting of the homosexual lifestyle. I’m sure if they conducted that pole again that number would be much higher. Over 45% of the LGBT call themselves Christians. The LGBT persuasion has doubled with each generation landing itself at 1 in 4 of Gen Z’ers identify as part of the alphabet mob. Why is this important? Because the Bible is clear that the people who align themselves with LGBT acronym will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. “⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous^[b] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,^{[c] 10} nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 If we are to truly love our brothers and sisters struggling with homosexuality, we ought to deliver to them a message of repentance and forgiveness not a message of affirmation and welcoming.

I haven’t even mentioned the rise of pornography usage within the church, or transgenderism, or climate change, or how less than 10% of Christians have read the entire Bible. Most people hearing this think I am just yammering on about the culture instead of focusing on the Bible. The funny thing is, the Bible has a lot to say about protecting our children (Mat 18:10), about babies both in the womb and out (Psalm 127), about sexual immorality (1 Cor 6:9-20), about homosexuality (Rom. 1:18-32), about men’s and women’s roles (Eph 5:22-33), and about being led astray by false doctrines (2 Tim. 4:3-4). And I only picked one verse for each example. There are many. So then they might accuse me of being a legalist. To which I would reply it was Jesus who said that if you love me you will keep my commandments (John 14:15). Still, from behind many pulpits across the country we hear crickets on these issues, including our own if I am being honest. They only want to “preach the gospel.” But how effective have we been delivering the gospel when the world around us has been increasingly on fire? How can we effectively deliver the truth of God’s forgiveness if the world doesn’t know what it needs to be forgiven from.

When we consider all the cultural rot going on around us, it is evident that the world around us is going to hell. It has me wondering if Christians even give a s***. Or are they more concerned with the fact that I just used a naughty word? To which I would ask who the real legalist is. Are Christians just scared they living out their faith might mean they have to give up their modern comforts and conveniences?

In Canada, according to Bill C-4, it is illegal to use the Bible to defy the gender, LGBT, and critical theory when from a pulpit or counseling session. If your child came out as homosexual and you took them to scripture to show them what God has to say about sexuality, the government can come take your kids. Those who tried to defy the governments orders were arrested or had their bank accounts frozen. Many pastors in Canada have already been arrested. If you think America will never get there, you are being foolish. Especially here in California, we have senators and representatives that are constantly putting up bills that mimic Canada’s. We can only hold out for so long. In Michigan, it is already illegal to misgender someone. Say goodbye to your freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The Bible does not permit you to go along with someone’s gender confusion. Are you prepared or even willing to stand on biblical principles with the threat of tyranny around the corner?

If you were like me, and all you wanted with your life was to have a family, send your kids to a Christian school, maybe have some land, or a boat, know this; all that can be ripped away from you because of your beliefs. It is not wrong to want any of those things, but you don’t get to keep any of those things without fighting for them. So you have to decide, are you going to fear God or fear the world? Fearing the world will only end you in despair. You might have pleasures here on earth, but you will not inherit the Kingdom of God. The Bible is clear that we will be persecuted for our beliefs. Jesus talks about it in Matthew 5 on the Sermon on the Mount and Peter’s first epistle is all about suffering on behalf of our faith. But every time the Bible talks about suffering or being persecuted on behalf of our faith it points to the hope and the joy we can have because heaven is what awaits us when we get there.

I don’t mean to alarm you, or discourage you, or fill you full of fear. But these are the facts that made me realize that my loves were not in line with God’s loves. My desire for a wife, kids, and a boat are not enough to battle the darkness in the world. If we don’t battle the darkness, we will be giving ground to the devil and so many souls will be lost. I know you are just in high school and you just want to have fun, but if you aren’t preparing yourself now, digging into scripture now, when the rubber hits the road, are you going to stand up for your faith? Will you be among the great saints who stood up to the darkness of this world? Take heart Christians! Christ has already overcome this world!

If you haven’t made the decision to follow Christ yet, I want to invite you to be set free from your sin. It is not an easy walk, but it is worth everything. Even amidst conflict and pain, a Christian can experience hope, joy, and peace. I want you to have that peace. With the world, there is no peace, there is no hope, there is no joy. There is only darkness. Christ died so that you could be free. Submit yourself to him and live so others can experience that freedom. But no one can experience that freedom if they do not repent. Christians must live their lives with such a contagious joy so that when they say “repent” people do because they realize that repentance and forgiveness from Christ is the key to their joy. My challenge to you is this: Make Jesus Lord. Lord of your sports, Lord of your schoolwork, Lord of your search history, Lord of your social media, Lord of your love life, Lord of the law, Lord of the nation, Lord of your life. All authority belongs to him. We must therefore go and make disciples, no matter the cost.

Bibliography

Akhtar, Asim. “50 Shocking Statistics on Bible Reading Trends 2024.” AtOnce, n.d. https://atonce.com/blog/statistics-on-bible-reading.

Avery, Dan. “Nearly Half of LGBTQ Adults Are Religious, U.S. Study Finds.” NBC News, November 29, 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/nearly-half-lgbtq-adults-are-religious-u-s-study-finds-n1249273.

Ayubi, Zahra. “Opinion | Religious Women Have Abortions, Too.” NBC News, January 21, 2022. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/religious-women-have-abortions-too-many-faiths-affirm-abortion-rights-ncna1287846.

Brown, Lee. “San Francisco Mayor London Breed Breaks Mask Mandate at Club.” New York Post, September 17, 2021. https://nypost.com/2021/09/17/san-francisco-mayor-london-breed-breaks-mask-mandate-to-go-clubbing/.

Franks, Gary. “Franks: High Abortion Rate Strikes Blow at Black Community.” Boston Herald, January 28, 2022. https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/01/28/franks-high-abortion-rate-strikes-blow-at-black-community/.

Kortsmit, Katherine. “Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2018.” MMWR. Surveillance Summaries 69, no. 7 (November 27, 2020). https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.ss6907a1.

Lahut, Jake. “Austin Mayor Urged People to ‘Stay Home’ from a Timeshare in Cabo San Lucas, Where He Flew in on a Private Jet for a Vacation with Eight Others, according to Report.” Business Insider, December 2, 2020. https://www.businessinsider.com/austin-texas-mayor-cabo-vacation-stay-home-coronavirus-video-2020-12?op=1.

Liles, Jordan. “Did Gavin Newsom Dine in Napa with Lobbyists during COVID?” Snopes, March 16, 2021. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/newsom-french-laundry/.

Statista. “LGBT – Americans Who Identify as Homosexual, Bisexual, or Transgender, by Generation 2017,” August 29, 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/719685/american-adults-who-identify-as-homosexual-bisexual-transgender-by-generation/.

Statista. “Percentage of Women Who Received an Abortion by Religion U.S. 2014,” 2014. https://www.statista.com/statistics/656640/abortion-distribution-united-states-by-religion/.

Team Crowder. “SHOW NOTES: Media Is Lying to You about the Chauvin Trial – Louder with Crowder.” www.louderwithcrowder.com, April 7, 2021. https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/show-notes-chauvin-trial-media.