Truth and grace on the transgender issue

The transgender issue is quickly gaining attention in our culture. I addressed it when I began a preaching series titled "Gender, Sexuality, and the Purpose and Power of God" June 1. The text that morning, Gen. 1:26-27, says God made man -- which refers to human beings not just males -- in His image and closes with these words: "[M]ale and female He created them."

God has not changed. He still makes each of us either male or female. And we are to embrace how He has made us. Yet, as a race infected by sin, some people identify themselves as a gender different than their biological sex. As the transgender movement gains acceptance, increasingly confused children and adults find encouragement to believe they should live as a gender different than that given by God and even to change their bodies to fulfill that identity.

The Southern Baptist Convention, meeting this week in Baltimore, approved the first resolution in its nearly 170-year history specifically on the transgender issue. You can read the entire resolution here. It is a statement filled with both truth and grace:

-- It affirms gender "is determined by biological sex and not by one's self-perception."

-- It expresses "love and compassion" to people who struggle with a conflict between biology and gender identity.

-- It invites all transgender people to trust in Jesus and welcomes them "to our churches and, as they repent and believe in Christ, receive them into church membership."

-- It recognizes transgender people as image-bearers of God and denounces abuse directed toward them.

-- It also opposes efforts to change a person's "bodily identity" by gender reassignment surgery and other treatments.

I made some of the same points near the close of my June 1 sermon. Based on my manuscript, I put it this way:

1. We should not be surprised that such misguided thinking as that of transgender people is found in human beings. They, and we, live in a fallen world where the sin nature blinds us and causes us to believe lies. But we also should not surrender on this reality of Scripture and creation: God has made us male and female.

2. We should not see those who have what is described as a gender identity disorder as mutants or freaks. They, like all other human beings, are made in the image of God.

3. We should love, care for, serve, evangelize -- and hopefully -- disciple them. They, like all other sinners, need the gospel. And once they have received the gospel of Jesus, we should help them see, as Russell Moore has said, that part of repenting and following Jesus is not rebelling against their Creator but accepting the gender they were given by God.