Like I do sometimes, I'm going to share with you something newsworthy that today,
I believe, leaves a question or a thought that will then transition into our sermon.
Online this week, it caused a little bit of a viral firestorm when a person by the name of Eli Erlich came onto the scene,
not for reasons that most people would appreciate.
Eli Erlich, and you'll have to forgive me, I actually don't know if it's a man or a woman because this person identifies as transgender.
Eli Erlich, this person's online posts were discovered and then shared and then reposted and a huge debate came out because in response to some recent state laws,
such as this, where Alabama passed a law that forcibly does not allow minors to undergo transgendered transitioning procedures.
So if you are younger than 18 in the state of Alabama, you cannot get the medications or the surgeries or whatever the case may be that falls under the umbrella of transgendered care.
There are other states that are following suit and Eli's response to this is something like this.
If you live in any of the states that are banning trans health care, my trans friends and I are sending out prescribed testosterone and estradiol and another name of a medication I cannot pronounce to those who are now unable to get prescriptions, no questions asked, direct message me for details.
Upon further investigation, they found that this individual in 2021 had listed 11 mantras of theirs that they were living by, number six of which says redistribute your extra hormones to people who cannot access or afford them.
This individual has doubled down on it.
Saying this, there are over 20 states trying to criminalize hormone therapy, particularly for trans youth. So my friends and I had an idea sending out our extra prescriptions around the country. If you need hormones, I'm working with a distribution network to get you access. Everything is free. No questions asked.
We have hundreds of doses of testosterone, estradiol, and so on available right now. All are prescribed by doctors and unused. Each package comes with information on dosage, obtaining blood work, and etc.
I realize this is only a band-aid solution. We need full access to affirmative medical care from professionals immediately. However, missing a dose of these hormones can be devastating. These laws are outrageous and I can't wait for them to be overturned. In the meantime, direct message me if you need these hormone replacement therapies or if you have over prescribed hormones you'd like to send out.
Further posts of his make clear that he's not just simply talking about sharing with his close family or friends. He will put in the postal service these prescriptions, these unused pills, and mail them not just inside the United States, but even to Canada or to Mexico. He advertises to all over North America.
This is concerning on a couple of levels and this is why I would encourage parents, soon to be parents, grandparents, we need to actually be very active in knowing what's going on in our youth lives because this is being done for at least a couple of years now, at least advertised, without parental knowledge or consent, without prescription, without a doctor's visit, without the necessary blood work.
Someone just contacts this individual on a direct message and says I need this and they mail it to them. The prescriptions that he is offering to mail out are highly restricted in terms of their distribution on top of you are not allowed to just share prescribed medication, certainly not through the mail, certainly not over international borders.
There is all kinds of illegality that this individual is offering and promoting and trying to share and participate in and as of yesterday their account was still online.
They had not been censored by our social media platforms even though, like I said, this has been a week long firestorm that's growing because it's very concerning. A lot of these medications, if you take them really at any point, but certainly if you are young and developing, you are almost certainly guaranteed irreversible kinds of effects on the body.
Maybe the young child later in life changes their mind or comes to a different understanding of their identity and then it's too late. This is very risky, very dangerous behavior and I think we should know about it.
I think it points out a couple of things, but what I want to highlight because this is the transition into our sermon, I think we would be naive to think that they have not been reached out to and asked for medications to be mailed out.
I think we would be naive to think that they are offering something that has not been accepted or taken advantage of. I think that we would be coming up short in asking the questions, why do some youth feel the need or even some adults feel the need to reach out to someone in an openly illegal manner to get some medical care.
And I'm sure there are a couple of answers for it, but I believe that one reason is too often well-intended people are very unkind to those who are going through something.
I think we are. I think often youth are struggling with their identity or struggling with who they are or struggling with where they fit in the larger picture and adults are often dismissive.
I believe that to be the case too often. I believe it to be the case when people or Christians or maybe you interact with a Christian and you say I'm really struggling with this, it's interrupting my sleep, I don't know how to relate, I'm bothered by it, I can't seem to get over it.
And Christians, well-intended, are dismissive or they will say well let's just pray it away. Excuse me.
I am a very strong proponent of the power of prayer. I am a very strong proponent of some ideas you work with the best that you can and maybe sometimes with my kids it's appropriate to be dismissive or to recognize it for what it is which is just the imaginations of a youth.
Okay, now sometimes you make that. There are other circumstances when it's a deeper need and we come up short in our response.
And when you habitually come up short in your response and boys and girls don't know where to turn, the world has many avenues for them to turn to. Some more harmful than others, most probably not the best solution if you know what I mean.
And I point this out again, one I think we should be aware of what our kids are going through and what is being offered out there. This is very dangerous kinds of stuff that's being offered online unchecked so far by legal means.
But then I also think it raises the question are we responding appropriately to people who are struggling? Are we as Christ's ambassadors responding to boys and girls and men and women like Christ would?
And so that leads us into today's message. Let us pray and let us jump in. Heavenly Father I pray that you would be with us today as we open up your word.
I pray that you would be with me and let the words that come out of my mouth be a proper representative of what you would like spoken.
Lord I pray these things in Jesus name, amen and amen.
Last time I was here we looked at Matthew 21, specifically Jesus cleansing out the temple the second time, towards the end of his ministry, the shadow of the cross was looming before him.
He turns over the tables again, chases out the money changers, he chases out everything and they run because Jesus was an imposing figure in that moment.
His divinity as Ellen White says it flashed through his humanity and these sinful hypocrites couldn't stand in the presence of his holiness.
And so they fled before him and who was left because they came back to see what was going on after we left and they saw people being healed, they saw the children crying out,
Hosanna to the son of David and we walked through that.
Today we turn our attention to Isaiah because it is the verse that Jesus mentions when he says it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer but you make it a den of robbers.
So we are going to look at Isaiah 56.
While you are turning to Isaiah 56 we are going to talk about the Statue of Liberty.
I would like to go visit the Statue of Liberty, I don't know if it is reason enough to go to New York City, but I would like to see the Statue of Liberty.
I think that would be neat. Get on the ferry, ride the boat out there, walk around the island, be a part of the groups that go up into the Statue.
I think that would be neat. It is a definite historical landmark for our country and it means something important.
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal, neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City.
This copper statue was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States.
It was dedicated October 28, 1886 during a ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland.
The statue is a figure of Libertas, which is a robed Roman Liberty goddess.
She holds a torch above her hand, we know what she looks like.
She holds in her left hand a tabula ansata, which is inscribed July 4, 1776, our Declaration of Independence date.
A broken shackle and chain, I actually didn't know this until recently, a broken shackle and chain lie at her feet as she is walking forward.
Apparently she's in motion in this statue.
The broken shackle and chain commemorate the recent national abolition of slavery.
I didn't know that until recently. That kind of makes sense given the timing of when it was gifted.
I think that's a wonderful thing to permanently put on display.
If you've got a Statue of Liberty, that needs to come with it given the timing of when it was gifted.
After its dedication, the statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States.
It is seen as a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea.
The welcome to immigrants is because of its close relationship to Ellis Island.
I believe, I have to remember, I believe the Statue of Liberty is just south of Ellis Island.
Together the two islands make up a national park.
Ellis Island is where we get the immigration thought.
Prior to 1890, states, rather than the federal government, regulated immigration.
And in New York State, Castle Garden, which is now Castle Clinton, was the immigration station from 1855 to 1890.
Approximately 8 million immigrants passed through its doors, mostly from northern European countries.
This constituted the first large wave of immigrants to settle and populate the U.S.
In the 1800s, rising political instability, economic distress, and religious persecution plagued Europe,
which fueled the largest mass human migration in the history of the world.
Around 1890, they realized that Castle Garden wasn't equipped enough to handle everything,
and so that led the federal government now to construct a new station on Ellis Island.
They started receiving immigrants January 1, 1892.
A teenage girl from Ireland, Annie Moore, accompanied by her two younger brothers, was the first immigrant to be processed there.
And over the next 62 years, more than 12 million immigrants would arrive in the U.S. via Ellis Island.
That's a lot of people, given the time of history that this was taking place in.
That's a lot of people.
The U.S. to this day continues to be the number one country in the world with regards to immigration numbers,
and that also includes taking in refugees.
The United States takes in more refugees and immigrants than the next several handful of countries combined.
There is something about the United States where people want to be here.
I'm grateful for that.
I think that's led us to be kind of this mixing of people that really is kind of enjoyable.
You get to experience all these different cultures and even languages and so forth.
If you just travel around enough, maybe one day I'll get to travel around enough, but I know it's out there.
Jesus, God, had the same thing in mind for the Israelite nation.
He intended his people to be where immigrants came to.
He intended the Israelite people to be that welcoming representation of liberty, of freedom,
of a proper order, of being led by God and in a loving and kind and freeing way with justice and proper worship
that didn't involve human sacrifices and degradation and debauchery.
God intended the Israelite people to be welcoming to all.
That was the intent.
Unfortunately, the Israelite people understood that to mean we need to also look like them.
And so rather than being the light in the world, they adopted the practices of the surrounding nations.
If you join us on Wednesday, we're going through for our prayer meeting, we're going through Amos.
Amos deals a lot with God's judgment on his people in how they were worse than their surrounding countries.
So they didn't only just bring it in, but they went a step further.
Isaiah 56, though, this comes after a couple of chapters talking about the compassion of the Lord,
talking about his forgiveness, talking about his plans for the nation.
And he's talking about, I'm bringing you back from captivity.
I'm bringing you back into my fold.
I'm going to rebuild you again. And then here's an ideal for you.
Isaiah 56 and verse one, Thus says the Lord, Keep justice and do righteousness,
for soon my salvation will come and my righteousness be revealed.
God had an expectation that his people would practice justice, not just claim justice or preach it.
They had to put their words into action. Do righteousness.
Don't just say fuzzy, warm things. Put it into practice.
There's a lot of cries for that today. When we look around, I would say that the story I shared with you about Eli Erlich is not just.
I would cry for justice in that we don't need to be grossly violating international laws.
And national laws. I think we should have a cry for justice. People are going to get harmed.
He goes on from there. Blessed is the man who does this and the son of man who holds it fast,
who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, keeps his hand from doing any evil.
And then here we go. Isaiah 56 and verse three, Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,
The Lord will surely separate me from his people.
Traditionally, the foreigner that would be the non-Jew, the non-Israelite was excluded from certain religious practices.
They couldn't go all the way into the inner borders of the sanctuary or the temple.
They were not fully recognized in all the rights and honors of the Israelite people.
And now God is is hearing them say these things.
The Lord let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say these things.
Once I come into his people, they'll kick me out.
Now, we we often find ourselves in the trap of not listening to the foreigner, the people that are new to our church.
And by new, we can mean that in a couple of different ways.
Maybe they weren't Adventists and now they are Adventists.
And then we think that they have to be Adventists for 15 years before we'll actually recognize them.
Maybe they need to or the person new could just be for our local congregation.
Maybe for Ringgold, they've come from another church in Chattanooga or Michigan or the West Coast or fill in the blank.
And they moved here. Some circumstances brought them here.
Now they are new. Now they would be a foreigner in this context.
And we withhold certain things from them for far too long.
They're not really us until they've been here for five years, seven years, ten years.
Even if they faithfully attend, even if they faithfully tie, even if they faithfully participate in in our churches activities and they pray with us and they invite us to their homes and so on and so forth, we still say,
Yeah, but you're not actually we've been here for 40 years and you've only been here for six.
Have we ever heard that kind of mentality amongst God's people?
Yes, unfortunately, so.
I would encourage us to take the approach.
That when the foreigner comes to us who has joined themselves to the Lord, joining yourself to the Lord, joining yourself to a body of believers, to the body of Christ isn't about.
I'm going to change them to be like me.
It's I am now becoming more like Christ.
When they've joined themselves to the Lord, we should recognize that into them and not only affirm it, but then also allow the participation, allow the worship, allow their voice to be heard, allow.
Allow them to well, maybe you didn't grow up here, but now you're a part of the Ringgold Church or now you're a part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
I would say that when someone comes to us that rather than giving a reason for them to look elsewhere for belonging, maybe they find themselves struggling to belong.
We actually pause long enough and say what's causing those thoughts?
How can we help?
How can we shift from not belonging to belonging so now we don't look at you as an invader who might take my seat in a pew?
But now you are a part of our church family.
Now you're one of us.
Because like like the question I raised with those who who might be seeking other means of getting their medication, maybe they just haven't been given enough deeper attention.
Maybe they've been dismissed too superficially, and maybe we do that with people who haven't been here for decades.
Maybe.
God in this clearly says the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to minister him to love the name of the Lord to be his servants.
This is verse six.
Everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane and holds fast my covenant.
These I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings, their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
God's holy mountain is Mount Zion, my friends.
The foreigner that has joined themselves to God, either a non Christian or a non fill in the blank or just someone that's not a when God recognizes them, he is promising them a spot on his holy mountain.
Who are we to get in the way?
He recognizes their sacrifices, he recognizes their faith, and he recognizes their their yearning to be a part of his people.
Who are we to get in the way?
It's not only the foreigner, though.
In verse four.
For thus says the Lord or I'm sorry at the end of verse three of the line that we didn't read and let not the eunuch say, behold, I am a dry tree.
For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant.
I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.
I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
Unix the physically maimed and it wasn't only in regards to what's special and specific to a eunuch.
There were other physical maiming that you could experience either by choice.
Believe it or not, the Bible references a eunuch by choice.
I don't understand that, but a eunuch by choice or those forcefully made into a eunuch.
Whether you are physically maimed by choice or otherwise in the Old Testament economy, you were considered ineligible, less than, not quite fully man.
Even if it was forced upon you and you can include in these ranks, Daniel and the three Hebrews.
The Bible tells us that they were a part of the eunuchs in Nebuchadnezzar's court.
I don't think we would look at Daniel and go, that's less of a man.
I don't think we would look at the three Hebrews and question their faith.
But at this time, the eunuchs, their physical, their emotional, their spiritual mutilation.
Was counted as reason enough to cut them off from God's people.
How do we deal with people that are physically struggling, emotionally stunted,
psychologically confused or going through shadowy things?
Do we unfairly and unkindly withhold participation or acknowledgement?
Are they less than in our lives?
Do we count them among the sons and daughters of God or yes, but only just?
Not all the way.
I wonder about this sometimes.
When it comes to certain handicaps that's very personal to me, given my family dynamic
and the exposure that I've had in my youth and my young adulthood.
There are men and women, boys and girls who because of their maladies, often not of their own choosing,
believe that they can't fully participate in a church service.
I am thankful that when we put in our pews, the handicap cutouts were not all the way in the back corner.
We put them in the middle on purpose because people who need perhaps a wheelchair spot,
we want the idea that you're in the middle of us, you are right with us, tangible, not just words.
We mean it.
They are not others or less than or something where they're always up here or always back there, right there.
We want that sense of belonging for those brothers and sisters.
But why would the eunuch in this say, behold, I'm a dry tree?
Well, a eunuch was not going to have any descendants.
They were not going to have a name carried on after them.
They were not going to have a legacy.
They were not going to be a participant in the family tree of humanity.
It was them.
And that was the end of that branch.
So when God is saying I will to the eunuchs, I will give in my house and within my walls,
a monument and a name better than sons and daughters, he is taking the human level of status or definition of status.
At that time, family progeny.
He's taking the human definition of status and he's throwing it out the window and saying in me,
I can elevate you beyond anything that human humanity offers you in me.
You will and can have a legacy in me.
Your name is not going to die out when you connect to me and you are a part of you are grafted into the Jesus Christ family tree.
Your branch doesn't end with you.
It carries on.
I can grant you something higher and more noble.
Do we offer that to the struggling in our society when they come through those doors
and they want to find something bigger and better and grander and high and lifted up?
Do we take the time to listen to them on a deeper level and introduce them to Jesus who can raise them to a higher level?
Do we take the time to do that?
Because I would propose to you that until we do, until we are welcoming to the foreigner and we know what I mean,
and we're welcoming to the eunuch and we know what I mean, until we do that, this will not be a house of prayer.
Until we do that, we cannot come into this house of prayer and be reverent.
When Jesus is talking to the scribes and he's referencing this, he is bringing out this very point.
The leaders, the lofty, the proud and the hypocritical thought that they understood reverence and belonging,
and they thought that they had everything ready and really they were looking for a reason to exclude and not include.
They thought they believed that reverence was X and Jesus is directing their mind to hear and saying,
this is not a house of prayer until you are doing these things.
Are you welcoming to the foreigner?
Are you welcoming to the children who will sometimes say, praise God, a little louder than the elderly ears like?
Are you welcoming to healing that takes place when sin-sick and broken people come here?
Or do you expect them mended out there and coming in perfect?
That is not going to happen, my friends.
The world cannot mend.
Like my bandaged finger, out there it will always come up short.
It's not a real band-aid.
We need to be introducing people to he who can bind up the brokenhearted and heal those spiritual wounds.
That needs to be this place if we ever want it to be a house of prayer.
And before we continue this conversation of what is reverence in God's house of prayer,
we need to be able to let this be God's house of prayer.
I'd say open the doors and let the sin-sick in.
I say open the doors and let those challenged boys and girls come in.
Let the, and I understand what I mean by this, let the confused, let the struggling,
let the saddened and the disheartened, let the ones who can't find a family in their own blood relatives find a family here.
Let those who feel like they need to seek out illegal means to something,
find a family that will pray and work and connect them to healthier resources.
We can do that here, are we?
I'd like to challenge us to be working towards that end.
I'd like to challenge us to be working towards the biblical definitions of a house of prayer.
I'd like to challenge us to welcoming the foreigner, to welcoming the eunuch.
Because in verse eight, our scripture reading for today,
the Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel declares,
I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.
Are we declaring, come out of her, my people,
and find your place here in the Ringled Seventh-day Adventist Church?
We will welcome in the outcasts if you think you're an outcast somewhere else.
We will welcome the outcasts.
When we welcome the outcasts, we are moving in the direction of reverence towards God.
When we welcome in the outcasts, we are recognizing the image of God imprinted on every person that walks this green earth.
Coming back to the Statue of Liberty,
it was not originally intended to be a symbol of welcome and liberty to immigrants.
It was a gift.
Just a fun fact, the thickness of the copper is, hold on, I know what to relate it to,
the thickness of the copper is three thirty seconds of an inch.
That's the thickness of the copper.
Just so you know that it's two pennies thick.
You can take two pennies, pinch them together, that's how thick the copper is.
This statue was not originally that, it was a gift.
It has now become a symbol of hope and welcome.
A significant and notable help to the statue's identity and fame is a well-known poem
that is now permanently featured on the island.
And you're going to recognize at least the last portion of this poem.
The New Colossus is a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus.
She wrote the poem in 1883 to raise money for the construction of a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty.
In 1903 the poem was cast onto a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal's lower level.
Here's the poem.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, that's the Old Colossus,
with conquering limbs astride from land to land,
here at our sea-washed sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch,
whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name, Mother of Exiles.
Her beacon hand glows worldwide welcome, her mild eyes command,
the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
Keep ancient lands your storied pomp, cries she, with silent lips.
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
And I get that this is a plaque on a statue in a bay of a Greek goddess.
I get that.
I also don't know why God's people can't say,
give me your tired, give me your poor, give me your sin-sick, give me your confused,
give me your rejected, give me your outcast world.
We will take them in, and we will lead them to Jesus Christ.
And in so doing, in so doing, we will make this a house of prayer,
and we will be reverent before the God of heaven.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for your word.
I want to thank you for your instruction and guidance.
Lord, I pray that we not only become more intelligent by studying it,
but I pray that you imprint it on our hearts and let it affect our outlook towards others.
I pray that you would move among your people and that we might have eyes like Jesus,
a heart like Jesus, and that we might make efforts towards others like Jesus,
for he first made that effort towards us.
And who are we?
Lord, we thank you that you call us your sons and daughters,
and I pray that we would serve others as you have served us.
This we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.