I Have Some Questions, Part Four Series

Hey. We’re in a series that we’ve called "I Have a Question," and, boy, are your questions great; overwhelmed by ’em. Thousands already have questions. Let me tell you what to do for this coming week. We’re gonna extend this series two more weeks. Let me tell you what’s happening. E mail me at pastorgreg@seacost.org.

Next week, the topic will be, The Church, what does God say about the church. How ’bout Seacoast specifically, any questions you have about that, me, staff, whatever? I can tell you a couple a questions I’m gonna deal with. I’ll try to get to as many as I can. One of ’em has to do with women in ministry, how does seacoast feel about that, and what does the Bible say and how do justify your stand according to the scripture. So that’ll be good. And then there’s another question -- the questions have been fun. All the questions are good. Some questions come with attitude. Do you understand that?

There’s one, and you’re probably either here in this service or in the earlier service because almost every week you’ve texted in the same question and it says this. It says, "What percentage of our hard earned tithes goes toward paying Greg’s mortgage payment?" I thought -- when I looked at it, I thought, "That’s attitude." And then I thought, "No. That’s fair question. Let’s talk about that. So we’ll talk about those types of things: How do we pay the pastor? What does the Bible say about it: Hey, we’ll talk about anything around here. We’re not afraid of the questions. Not hiding anything.

So if you have questions about church, I’d love for you to e mail ’em in this week. And then the following week, I’m gonna do something I’ve never done. It’ll be a little scary for me, fun for you guys. I’m not gonna put any preparation into the weekend message. It’s gonna be the last week, so it’s gonna be a free for all. You get your fat little thumbs going on your texting, and I’ll answer as many as I can just live, just right off the cuff, and we’ll go from there. It may be a great week. If it’s not a great week, it’s your fault. The questions are bad.

This weekend, I want to talk a little bit about relationships, and specifically, because a lot of questions are sexuality as it relates to relationships. Today, I’m gonna tell you up front, I’m gonna say some things that may very well -- probably will offend some people, okay, ’cause this topic, you can’t talk about the questions I’m gonna talk about -- it doesn’t matter which way you come down on ’em that somebody doesn’t get offended. That’s not my intent. I will use some words I don’t normally use. That’ll be kinda fun. And we’re not gonna do anything just be crass. In fact, the questions are really, really good. They really area. I’m sarcastic and humorous. That’s just kinda how I do.

I’ll let you know when I’m being humorous because some people have sent me e mails and they don’t understand humor. And so what I’ll let do is I will let you know when humor is happening. And I don’t wanna take anything lightly, because every question has context, okay? We don’t -- I mean some questions you just ask just for fun, but every question has context. There’s a human relationship behind it. There’s’ a human component. There’s people, "I want to know." And so we’ll handle it in that way.

My question is -- well, let’s just read some questions. Can we do that? That’ll be fun. Here we go.

"I have attended Seacoast several times and I’ve enjoyed it a lot. Your note about relationships brought up a couple questions I have. I went to a single women’s Bible study with Seacoast once, and I guess I just have some questions. Some of the girls in the group were living with their boyfriends. I’m so glad that Seacoast does not push these couples away. But I was just wondering what stance the church takes on that and homosexuality." Lot of questions on that. These are just -- I’m just gonna read you a few that we thought were representative of just a whole lot more.

Here’s another one. "As a new couple with a history of sexual sin in previous relationships, how do we not have sex before marriage?"

Now this one was interesting. This one was texted last week, I think. "Is cheating on your boyfriend really a sin since we are not married?" Let me just give you a rule of thumb on answering that one. Any sentence with the word "cheating" in it, is probably not good, okay?