What God Has Against the Church #9 - Washed and Waiting
Message Description
Senior Pastor, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund, continues the message series "What God Has Against The Church" teaching from 1 Corinthians to discern God's truth about human sexuality in today's culture.
Message Transcript
Let's pray together. God, as we gather today. I ask that you would meet with each of us. God, some of the words that we just heard read in First Corinthians six are words that make us uncomfortable, words about our sexuality. And God, I pray that as we talk today, you would meet each of us. God, if these are personal issues, deeply personal, I pray that you would work in our lives and hearts. If these are our issues that maybe touch our lives through family and friends, I pray you would work in God, even if this seems maybe not directly personal right now. I pray that you would still speak into each of our hearts and lives. And God, I pray that my words would reflect your word in content and in tone and an emphasis. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
The series that we've been in has been called What God Has Against the Church, and we've been working through the first several chapters of First Corinthians, and these chapters are a corrective from the Apostle Paul to the church at Corinth. And today we come to a section that is pretty intense, and it's intense because of the words that are used immediately when you're here, and it says that there are a group of people that will not inherit the Kingdom of God. And then it lists these ideas, these sins, that no matter who you are, you at least have some moment where you say that makes me a little uncomfortable. At least it does me. And if it doesn't make you uncomfortable, maybe it should make you a little uncomfortable.
I saw an article recently. It was in Newsweek. It said that 30% of young adults inside the church self-identify as being LGBTQ in their orientation. And it said 40% of young adults in the population. Now, I don't know who they're interviewing because when I meet young adults, I don't meet 40% that hit that number but that's pretty amazing. And when you come to this passage, one of the things that you can't do is not talk about homosexuality because it's right there in the text, it says men who sleep with men. And so if ever there's a time for the church to talk about, it's right here in this passage. And again, I know that this makes some of us uncomfortable, some of you will not like what is said here today, no matter what I say about this. But we are going to address it.
But also, the whole of these verses in this idea of a group of people that are said that will not inherit the kingdom of God and how to understand that because whether you are personally affected by same-sex attraction or not, you find yourself on that list at some point. And so, we will get there as well. But before I jump into this, I want to just give you a little bit of background. And the reason I want to do this is so that, you know, as I come to talk about this today, I don't come just merely as somebody who studied the Bible and said, you know, here's where I land, that would be enough. But I want you to know that I have some backstory on this issue. That means I've thought about this deeply, emotionally, and personally throughout my life. And so, this is something that I've wrestled with in many ways.
So, I was born to a young single woman and was placed into the foster system immediately upon birth and then adopted into the family that I grew up in. That's where I got my name. Kurt Bjorklund grew up in the Bjorklund house. I had a sister who was four years older than me who was also adopted into our family. And so, we grew up brother and sister. And my sister, from pretty early in my life, would tell me that she was attracted to girls, not to boys. And so, from a very young age, I remember just having these conversations with my sister. I watched her go through middle school and high school because again, I was a few years younger and I watched the challenges that she went through in the culture to say, how do I navigate the fact that I am same-sex attracted?
And yet at that time at least, it wasn't celebrated the way that it is today. And what I mean by that is, if a young person comes out in their high school today, a lot of people are like, you're so brave. When my sister came out it wasn't like that. It was all of the prototypical kind of things that you would hear. So, I watched that, and then I watched her go through having a partner and then a life partner and then a wife. And I watched her go through not just becoming somebody who says this is who I am, but identifying so strongly with the LGBTQ movement that it became probably the defining characteristic of her life that the most important thing about her to understand her, was to understand that that is who she saw herself to be. She died about seven years ago. And I had a lot of conversations with her over the years around this issue. And I watched just kind of how it impacted my family of origin, her life, and beyond.
And so, what I'd like to do today is look at this text, First Corinthians six, nine through eleven, and ask and answer four questions. And so, the first question that I want to ask and answer is, does the Bible teach that homosexual acts are sinful? Does the Bible teach that homosexual acts are sinful? Now, notice how I phrased that. I didn't say same-sex attraction. I didn't say any kind of homosexual orientation. I said homosexual acts are sinful. Is that what the Bible teaches?
And certainly, First Corinthians six, nine through eleven is one of the places that it's really hard to argue with the fact that the Bible seems to include homosexual acts in a list since it's right here, just very clear. He says that you will not inherit the kingdom of God if these things are true. And he says, what, sexual immorality, so sleeping with somebody who's not your spouse, adultery. Idolatry, which by the way, is kind of the catch-all that catches all of us in this room. Just, so we're clear on that. If you have anything that you ever prioritize over God, that's idolatry. So, you know, you have a day where you say, you know what, God's nice, but today it's all about my kids or today it's all about my house. Today it's all about something. My job, whatever it is, that's idolatry. He talks about slander, running people down, drunkenness, greed, meanness. But right there in the middle of this list is men who have sex with men. So it's pretty hard to argue with this right here.
But here's what's happened in our culture and in the church, and that is we've developed what I call kind of a WebMD mindset when it comes to theology. And here's what I mean when I say a, my mindset is this, and that is if you ever have a little ailment, what do you do now? The first thing you do is you go and you look up WebMD, and if you like what it says, you stick with it. If you don't like what it says, you go to another website and you keep going to websites until you find one that you actually think, oh, this is what I think. And you become in a sense, somebody who says, I'm going to choose my expert to listen to. And as long as I find an expert I like, then I'll say that's the one that I agree with.
And the reason I say that's become a theological mindset is what people do today is they say, well, I can find some biblical scholar somewhere who says that the Bible doesn't actually say that homosexual acts are sinful, despite the fact that you read it right here. And it's pretty plain, it's hard to even argue with. And so, what people will do is they'll say, but I agree with this because there's somebody over here who thinks this. And the offshoot of that is a lot of times, instead of bending our knee to Scripture, what we tend to do is we tend to say, let me find Scripture. Let me interpret Scripture the way I want to interpret it and find somebody who agrees with me rather than saying this is actually what it says so that I feel justified in my belief.
So, let me just take a moment and walk you through some of the objections to this idea that homosexual acts are sinful. Now, again, understand, and I'm going to come to this, that I'm not singling this out other than the fact that this is actually a debate people don't actually debate. Is greed sinful, is drunkenness sinful, is adultery sinful? This is the one that people debate. So, that's why I'm taking some time on this.
This is a little chart that I saw printed a while ago. I don't expect you to read this. I'm just showing you that I indeed have this chart. And this was one of these things I read. “So, you still think homosexuality is sinful, and therefore gays shouldn't be allowed to marry?” This is how it's titled here. I wouldn't use that language, but I'm reading you this chart. And the way that this works is if you say yes to this question, then if you follow the flow chart down, they have all these objections. And then at the end, it says, “Have fun living your sexist, chauvinistic, judgmental, xenophobic lifestyle choice. The rest of culture will advance without you.” Okay. That's that. So, the way it's positioned is you're either chauvinist, sexist, or you're all these things. And then on the other side, it says this. If you come down saying no to their objections, it says this, “Congratulations on being part of civilized society.” So, the juxtaposition and you know this, if you've kind of followed the conversation is you're either with it or you're somehow an archaic, sexist, chauvinistic person if you believe differently.
And here are their objections. Here's what they say. Again, this is all on this little flowchart. But I like it because it gives you a sentence and it gives you the breadth of argument. So, I'm just going to tell you what they say and then give a response. It says, “Because Jesus said so.” So, that's the first reason that you might say, yes, it's sinful. Homosexual acts are sinful. And then what they say is, “It's not true. Jesus never uttered a word about same-sex relationships.” So, their assumption is therefore that shouldn't be a reason to say that same-sex acts are sinful and they're absolutely right. Jesus never did say a word about same-sex relationships other than this, and that is, he affirmed the creation mandate about marriage, where Jesus quoted Genesis two and said that a man and a woman should leave their father and mother be united and become one flesh. But apart from that, this isn't actually a good argument. And here's why Jesus never said anything about rape. He never said anything about incest. He never said anything about bestiality. And yet there is nobody I know who would say Jesus thought those were all great. You don't have to directly say something about something in order to have a take on it.
Here's the second thing that they say. Some people would say, yes, homosexual acts are sinful because the Old Testament says so. And here's their one sentence response. It says, The Old Testament said so, said also that it's sinful to eat shellfish, to wear clothes that are woven together with different fabrics, to eat pork, and then their question is, should we still follow Old Testament laws? Now, the argument here again makes some sense because when you read the Old Testament Holiness Code, which is Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, which is where some of the teachings about same-sex attraction in the Old Testament comes from, what you see is you see some statements that are made that say, here is something. And then a little while later you read something like don't have mixed your fabrics. And you say, well, how do these things work together?
Let me just give you a really quick explanation of what is called ceremonial law. In other words, in the Old Testament, the law that we say was for the time but is not binding today. And then there are some parts of it that we say no, that continues to have a fact. Typically, the way that it works and this is just my own little rubric, but I've seen it to work most of the time, is if something is rooted directly in the character of God, in creation order, or is repeated in the New Testament, then it transcends kind of the ceremonial law. So, when something like don't eat shellfish appears, it isn't really rooted in created order. It's not really in the character of God, and it isn't repeated in the New Testament. But when Leviticus eighteen verse twenty-two talks about how when a man lies with the man, it's in the word that's used there is detestable before God. It's part of a broader section about sexuality that is rooted in the idea of creation.
Sexuality is a gift to people between a man and a woman. By the way, if you weren't here two weeks ago or didn't hear the message two weeks ago, listen to about the first third of the message. I talked about the Christian perspective that sex is beautiful in God's eyes because sometimes it's easy in the church to talk about what isn't. And I'm not going to go back and repeat that. But sex is something that is God's idea, and it's his good and beautiful gift when it's used in the way that he intends.
So, the next thing on the chart is the idea that the New Testament says so. Here's what it says here. Here's their response. “The original language of the New Testament actually refers to male prostitution, molestation or promiscuity, not committed same-sex relationships. Paul may have spoken against homosexuality, but he also said that women should be silent and never assume authority over a man.” And then he says this, “Should modern-day churches live by all of Paul's values?”
So, they actually have a couple of arguments here. One is that has nothing to do with this issue. They say, let's just throw in women under authority and say, well, if you don't believe that, then you shouldn't believe this, which has nothing to do with this, by the way. And that is a topic that we will address. It comes up in First Corinthians eleven, by the way. We won't touch that today. This is enough, I think. But here's the other thing. When this little chart, this little sentence says that the New Testament actually in the original language refers to male prostitution, molestation, or promiscuity, they're actually referring to First Corinthians six, nine through eleven, where it says men who have sex with men in the Navy, the older NIV, the NIV had a revision in 2011. So, the versions before that said male prostitutes and men who lie with men.
And the reason that it's different is because there are two words here in the original language that point to this. One is a word that means soft or effeminate. And usually, at least in the broader literature, it had a reference to the idea of the passive partner in a homosexual relationship. And then the second word actually had the reference to the active partner in the homosexual relationship. And my point is just this, and that is to simply point to this and say this is referring to not a monogamous relationship. Therefore, it's not valid. It misses the entire point of this and doesn't understand how this language works. And not only that, when you look at this and again, this list, you don't look at this and say, well, because greed had a different shade of meaning, it doesn't have any implication today. This is the only one that people try to pick out.
Here's their next objection. They said, “Because God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” And then they say this, and again, this is them, I would not use this kind of phraseology. They say, “That was when the earth wasn't populated. There are now 6.7 billion people. And so procreating isn't nearly the issue anymore.” But in terms of creation, again, if you go back to Genesis two, what we see is that God created a man and a woman and said it is good for them to come together. And then they add this. They say, “Because,” another objection, “The Bible clearly defines marriage as one man and one woman.” And their simple statement was wrong. “The Bible also defines marriage as one man and many women, one man and many wives and many concubines, even if taken by force.” And certainly, they're alluding here to some of the Old Testament, where you have polygamy that seems to be not just practiced, but even approved in some ways by God.
And that's a strong objection, actually. Other than this, again, when you go back to the creation statement, I believe that God's original intent was not that people had multiple spouses and concubines, but that there was a union between one person and another, a man and a wife. And then they talk about how it is for some people, just something that disgusts them, which isn't really an objection, but they don't actually use what I would say is one of the more strong objections to the fact that homosexual acts are thought of as sinful in the Christian church.
And that is most people who are practicing homosexuals would say this, and that is I was just born this way. And since I was born this way, it must be God's intention and it must be okay. This was my sister's position. I remember very clearly sitting with her one afternoon and we were talking about it, and she said to me, “When did you first become attracted to little girls?” And it sounds bad to even say it that way. But at the time I was a young boy, so it wasn't as bad. I told her and then she said, “Well, that's when I was first attracted to little girls.” And what she was saying was, it's always been true, it's the way God made me. Therefore, it can't be a mistake. It can't be wrong. And that is one of the more common objections.
And here's what's true. Remember I talked about this WebMD mindset. What you can do is you can go online; you can find studies that say that people who have same-sex attraction have been born that way. And that it is an irrevocable quality. You can go online and find studies that will tell you about people who changed their orientation, who end up moving from one side to the other throughout the course of their life. But here's what I think is definitive isn't just that you find a study. And the only reason I can qualify this study is because they can point to different things. But here's what Romans one says verses 26-27. It says, “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lust. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
And so, what that's talking about here is that God has a created way that there's a natural function, and that people have been given over to an unnatural function. And again, I realize that in the broader debate that this is probably considered the most inflammatory or insensitive thing, but I just simply want you to grapple with Romans one more than even my words, because this ultimately is just simply saying that if you take the Bible seriously, you have to deal with the fact that the Bible makes it clear that homosexual acts, not orientation, not same-sex attraction, homosexual acts are sinful.
Now, here's what I just want to be clear about and that is a lot of times when somebody says that people are like, well, that feels hateful. It feels mean to say something else is sinful. But here's the truth, to say something sinful doesn't mean that you're calling yourself better or that you're somehow demeaning somebody else. All you're doing is saying that God has a different way, a better way. And in fact, I would say that people often who are part of the LGBTQ community will not hesitate to say that somebody who holds the position that I'm talking about here today is sinful, hateful, and unloving. And what are they doing? They're saying you're sinful if you hold a different view. And my point isn't anything more than to say, it's not hateful to say to somebody, I disagree with your interpretation.
Now, here's a second question, and that was probably the longest of the questions and that is if you are heterosexual in your orientation, in your proclivities, what difference does it make what you believe on this? Several years ago, there was a pastor who had been invited to pray at the inauguration of an incoming president. And when it got out that he had been invited, people went back and scoured the church's website and they found a message where he basically said, I think that homosexual acts are sinful. And, of course, what happened was very quickly, the LGBTQ community said this person can't pray at the inauguration. My chances now of praying at the inauguration in the future are gone. But here's what he did. He came out shortly thereafter, and he tried to distance himself from the past kind of message. And he said this has not been an emphasis of our ministry, my ministry. It’s not what I'm about. And I totally understand what he was trying to do. And what he was trying to say is, look, yeah, I kind of believe this. I believe a bit, but this isn't what I want to be known for.
But here's why I want to just talk about this for a moment. When you read through this list of sins in verses nine through eleven, to simply say I'm going to ignore one of these, I'm not going to speak about it although we have a concern maybe that speaking it puts us at odds with the culture. What it does is it says, I'm going to be selective either by disagreeing with what Scripture says or by simply being silent and saying, I'm not going to say anything about this. But what I believe is true is that you can't be faithful to what Scripture says and call good what the Bible calls sin. You can't be faithful to what Scripture says and say, I'm going to be completely silent on something that the Bible calls sin.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not advocating that you run around saying sin, sin, sin everywhere you see it. But what I'm saying is there is a time to say this is sinful. Let me take it out of this analogy into something else. So I believe that the Ten Commandments have a forward-moving kind of bindingness to them, meaning they're repeated in the New Testament. They're rooted in the character of God. So you don't just say the Ten Commandments is ceremonial law.
One of the Ten Commandments is in Exodus 20:7. And it says, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain...” Okay. So, what does that mean? That means that I believe that to use the Lord's name in vain is sinful. Pretty simple. Pretty straightforward. Now, there are a lot of ways you use the Lord's name in vain. You can use it as a cuss word. You can use it flippantly. You can use it to try to elicit something for yourself. But here's what I can tell you I don't do. I don't walk around and like when I hear somebody drop a curse word with God's name, I don't go sinner. I don't think we need to pass laws to make it illegal for somebody to curse and use the Lord's name in vain. But it doesn't mean that I don't believe that or that I'm a hater because I believe it. And the reason that this is important is because if you or I, if you are faithful to Scripture, say, I'm going to simply ignore this issue, never speak about it, never talk about it, what happens is you move into a place where your very silence in a sense is accommodating this issue because you're afraid of being called a hater.
I don't know if you've seen this, but in Canada now, there's a new law about conversion therapy. Conversion therapy is something that happened 20-30 years ago that was pretty odious. People would try to convert people from their same-sex attraction with all kinds of mechanisms. But now in Canada, they've taken this idea of conversion therapy and moved it into the idea if you simply say that you believe that this is not God's design, that it's sinful, that they can put you in jail. Now, that shouldn't totally shock us with Canada right now with what's been going on recently there in terms of seizing bank accounts and stuff. But this is actually headed to an issue of free speech. This is headed to an issue of being able to express religious beliefs.
There is a pastor in California who talked about this not long ago, and as he was talking about it, he was talking about this issue of conversion and how Christians are not necessarily talking about conversion therapy. And I think he kind of confused the two. But when he was talking about conversion, he said, of course, Christians are trying to convert people. The whole point of talking about sin, any sin, is to help people be converted to Jesus Christ and his message on YouTube was pulled down because of his hateful rhetoric, quote-unquote. And again, my point is just to say, why does this matter? It matters if you're heterosexual simply because you want to be faithful to what the Bible says.
So, that leads me to a third question, and that is, what are the implications of ongoing unrepentant sin? One of the questions that should come up, if you've been tracking with this, is you read this and you say, well, why are we talking so much about men who have sex with men? There are the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, greedy, drunkards. Let me make sure I get them all, slanders and swindlers. And it says they will not inherit the kingdom of God. So, in one sense, you read this and you say, who of us has any chance and why would we ever talk about somebody else's sin when we have plenty to talk about in our own lives? And I believe that.
But this idea of not inheriting the Kingdom of God is repeated in First Corinthians fifteen, verse fifty. Here's what it says, “I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” So, what’s that saying? That we, by saying I'm not same-sex attracted or I don't act on it, don't inherit the kingdom of God, we inherit the Kingdom of God because we're washed. This is what First Corinthians six says we're justified and we're sanctified. It's Jesus’ work on our behalf that makes us right with God. Now, some of us, what we'll do is we'll say, okay, well, if that's true, then I have nothing to say to anybody else about any of this.
So, let me just talk for a moment about living with unrepentant, ongoing sin in our lives, any unrepentant, ongoing sin. Now, just to be clear, sometimes it's easier to talk about sexual things here than it is greed. Like greed is on this list. And here's why. Greed is hard to talk about in the same way. How many pairs of shoes do you need to own and how nice do they need to be before it becomes greedy? I know that's a real question. Like, that's hard to say. Is it 100 pairs of shoes? Is it 50? How many putters do you need to own before you're like, I've got a greed issue with putters? But there's no question when it comes to our sexuality.
So, let me just give you an analogy about ongoing sin versus episode sin. And the reason I'm driving at this is, it says, as such were some of you, the implication here is that when this is a settled lifestyle, when there's no being washed, being justified, being sanctified, when there's no transition, then we at least need to ask the bigger question.
So, my name, given name from my adoptive family is Kurt Bjorklund. I don't know if you've ever Googled yourself just to see what comes up. I did it a while ago. I was the number two Kurt Bjorklund on the search engine. Here's the guy who was the first one. This Kurt Bjorklund evidently lives in London, and he's like a managing partner at Premier or something financial. He gives papers and lectures to the World Economic Forum. He's like some kind of financial genius. Okay. At least that's what it appears from my quick Google search. I was a little disappointed that I was second to him, but I was second.
So, let's just assume for a moment that I get a call and it says Kurt Bjorklund. I say Yes. And they say, we would love for you to come to London and present a financial paper sharing your financial expertize to a group of economists in the world. And I was like, oh, I'd like that. And so, you know, I puffed my hair a little, get a little gray, get a really expensive suit so I can look like that. Kurt Bjorklund and I show up and I give my paper, and they're like, oh, that was pretty good. I get a check, I fly home, and I'm thinking, that's awesome. What a good side hustle. And then I get another call and I say, yes, I'm Kurt Bjorklund. Why, yes, I would like to fly to Zurich and present another paper to World Economists, and it keeps happening over and over again, and I keep doing it.
Now, what is true in that scenario? What is true is that I am lying but there's something more going on now. I'm living in such a way that everything about my life is somehow compromised because as long as I have something in the books and I'm planning to go again, that's an unrepentant, ongoing sin. What I'm doing is I'm saying I can't actually live in integrity while I'm doing that. And here's my point. When this passage says such was some of you, but you've been lost, you've been sanctified, you've been justified, what it’s saying is not that we won't struggle with greed, with sexuality, with slander, with drunkenness, but what it’s saying is if it becomes a settled issue in our heart and in our soul, that what we're doing is we are actually now living in a way in which it's questionable whether or not we've actually experienced the grace of God.
And I realize that's hard not just when it comes to same-sex attraction, but to any of us who are choosing something that we know is not what God has. And the point of this passage, I don't think is ultimately to single out same-sex attraction. It's just stated here, just like it is kind of the other issues that are raised. The point of this is to say you are not what you used to be because of what God has done in your life. And that is something that we can celebrate
And this raises one more question, and that is how can someone be satisfied relationally while holding to a biblical perspective and being same-sex attracted? And this is a question that in many ways is maybe one of the harder questions. Again, I just go back to my sister and in essence, if she were to have said, you know what, I believe that the Bible says that same-sex actions are sinful and I'm not going to act on it, you'd be saying, well, you don't get your life partner, your wife. And so, some people have stepped back from this and said, I just don't think I can say that to anybody else.
But here's what we see in First Corinthians 6:9, it uses this phrase, but we've been washed. And the title that I chose today is Washed and Waiting. And I chose that because there's a book that came out a few years ago called Washed and Waiting. It's a New Testament professor who is same-sex attracted, who wrote it. And I don't love everything about the book because he sees his same-sex attraction as an immutable quality. But I love his chapter that's called “The End of Loneliness.” And he uses this rubric from First Corinthians six that we've been washed. And then he uses the rubric of waiting that he gets from Romans chapter eight. And here's what he says in Romans eight, is the waiting part. This is verse 22. He says, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth right up to this present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship the redemption of our bodies.”
Here's what he does is he talks about how he had come to a point of saying, I believe the Scriptures forbid me to act on this, but this is what I am. And who I am is, he says, I've had to learn to live with the tension of I've already been washed, but I'm waiting for what God is going to do.
And here's just a few of the things that he says. This is actually a letter from a friend to him, and here's what the friend says. “The ancients did not contain this.” Meaning that the ultimate fulfillment is marital love. Because what we tend to do is we say marital love is everything and there's no other way to live a satisfying life. And so, his friend writes this and says, “This isn't what the ancients contended, but that there was something more.” And then it says this, “And neither does the Bible. The Old Testament suggests that there's a love between men that's then found in marriage. Second Samuel one, twenty-six. “But so does the New Testament. According to Jesus, there's no greater love than the sacrificial love of one friend for another.” John fifteen, thirteen. “Is it not peculiar that in writing the greatest discourse on love found in the New Testament, Paul chose to put it not as is with his discussion on marriage in First Corinthians seven. It's not even mentioned there, but in the context of spiritual gifts in First Corinthians 13, and even when agape love is discussed in the marital context of Ephesians five, it is sacrificial love. This is the model for marital love, not the other way around. Marriage is a venue for expressing love, which in its purest form exists first and foremost outside of it.”
And here's what his point is in writing about this is he says what I had to come to see is that my ultimate waiting is actually, and my longing, is pointing to something so much greater than physical intimacy with another person here on Earth. And so, I've been washed, and I'm waiting. Here's how he describes it. A little later, he says, “Coping with loneliness” and I'm going to use the phrase same-sex attracted Christian, “requires a profound theology of brokenness. I think alluding to Romans eight 23, we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoptions of sons, the redemption of our bodies. Richard Hayes sketches the outline of what such theology might look like homosexual Christians who battle constant loneliness are summoned to a difficult, costly obedience while groaning for the redemption of their bodies.” Again, Romans eight, twenty-three. “Anyone who does not recognize this as a description of the authentic Christian experience has never struggled seriously with the imperatives of the gospel, which challenge and frustrate our natural impulses in countless ways.”
Now, here's what that's pointing to. It's easy to read this passage and say this is all about homosexuality, but if you are a person who has passions, there are times that your passions, your desires will seem to contradict what is taught in Scripture. And every person of faith has to walk through the idea of saying, will I listen to and bend my knee to what God says and say that's best? Or will I say, right now I need to be fully satisfied because I can't wait. But what that does is it says, God, I don't believe you're really good, or that there are other ways to experience the richness of your love.
In a sense, if we were to say, what does God have against the church when it comes to this, I think sometimes the churches are not bold enough in saying what truth is. But I also think we could say that the church is not great at loving people where they are and so in a way, the challenge as a community is to say, how do we say what the Bible says? We don't want to call good what the Bible calls sin but how do we love people so well, so thoroughly, wherever they're coming from, whatever situation they've been in, to say this is a place where you can experience community. And yes, it doesn't replace intimacy, physical intimacy with somebody but what it does is it provides the context of love. And my hope is that the church, the broader church, although it won't be applauded by culture for saying some of the things that the Bible says, would also be known for being radically loving and radically caring of individuals.
I mentioned my sister and how it impacted me. One of the things I saw was I saw my sister walk away from the church, walk away from a relationship with God because she felt like the church didn't engage her and love her where she was. Now, there might be other factors in that but my hope, again, is that as a church, we'll be able to say we want to be radical in love. And radical in saying we will continue to say what the scripture says. If you're here and you personally are somebody who's same-sex attracted, I just want you to know that you are somebody that has immense value to God and to the people of this church.
And if you're here and you're somebody who says, look, I'm kind of adjacent to people who are in that and want to live out, and I'm not sure I like what this church stands for in this or what this church says. I just want you to know that as a church, we're committed to loving all people, but also to saying what the Bible says, regardless of how it lands.
And if you're a person who says, yeah, I do believe this, but I hope we don't talk about it for a long time again, I understand. But I'd also just say to you that you can be part of the solution in how you interact with people. By being able to articulate a position in a way that is both loving and truthful at the same time.
God, I pray today that you would help this community of faith to be a place that never shrinks back from what is taught in your word, but also a place that recognizes that every single one of us cannot inherit the Kingdom of God by our own efforts, that if it isn't our sexuality, that there's greed, idolatry, slander, drunkenness, misdirection to gain an advantage, something that's part of our back story, our history. And God, I pray that we would be a community of people who say such were some of us, but we've been washed, we've been sanctified, we've been justified, and we're waiting for the ultimate redemption from our sinful patterns. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for being here. Have a great day.