The Gospel & Homosexuality

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If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it.

Open up to 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

1 Corinthians chapter 6.

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

And if you're our guest today, we are in a series where we're kind of looking at our core values.

We have four core values as a church.

They're gospel, community, mission, and blessing.

And everything we do kind of flows through those through through those four filters.

We kind of ask, how does this communicate the gospel?

How does this facilitate community among us as a church?

We don't want to just come to a building with a bunch of strangers, stare at the back of their heads, and then leave and go to Lupe Tortilla and have those delicious beef fajitas.

Amen?

If you're going there, I'm available for lunch.

Anyway, uh, and so we're kind of like, hey, what do we mean when we say that?

So we're unpacking, we're taking like this month the core value of the gospel.

And we're looking at different topics through the lens of the gospel, like the good news of the Bible.

And we did the gospel in parenting, then we did the gospel in money last week.

You had the pirate preacher.

Uh, he talked about the gospel in time.

And today we're going to talk about the gospel in homosexuality.

How does looking at this through the lens of the gospel?

What does that mean?

And before I read the text, I want to give you six introductory thoughts.

Uh, and I and I want to slow down after the first service, somebody said, Hey, slow down on those introductory thoughts.

You went too fast.

Uh and so I want to slow down and be intentional.

Just six things to keep in mind and remember.

Number one is that unrealized desires are not unique to homosexuals.

Unrealized desires, you say, Well, what do you mean?

I had conversations all the time, uh, and they're not conflictual.

I don't yell, I don't scream, I don't just this past week, somebody asked me, Oh, you were gone, how was your vacation?

I wasn't on vacation, you losers.

I was spent the week with 600 teenagers.

You come at vacation, and every one of them wants a piece of the old man.

That's why my back went out.

They're like, hey, you play basketball?

Yes, and I'll slaughter you, okay?

And so uh, but it was great.

But I had conversations, uh, I got conversations last week.

A guy, my brother lives a gay lifestyle.

What do you think about that?

It doesn't matter what I think about, what does the Bible say about that?

What do you understand the Bible to say?

Well, I don't know if the Bible, I mean, God's a God of love, and I'm like, oh, here we go.

And so after the conversation, the guy said, So you expect my brother to live his whole life and and not act on these desires?

And I said, You act like homosexuals are only people who have unrealized desires.

I said, heterosexual people that are married have unrealized desires.

He goes, Well, what do you mean?

I said, Are you married?

And he goes, Yeah, and I go, Do you get everything you want?

Well, no, you have unrealized desires.

Most of you in this room have unrealized desires.

I got sick after I got back from camp.

I and my I got sick, my back went out, I was in bed for three days.

After about day two, my wife came up on me.

I woke up, I was sleeping all the time.

I woke up, it's like three o'clock in the afternoon, went back to sleep, woke up, it was seven o'clock, everyone was gone.

I was like, did the rapture come?

I mean, hello.

And I was like, because here's my unrealized desire of the week.

I want my wife to be at my beckon call.

I think that.

I'm not kidding.

When I'm sick, I think my wife should just give me a bell and I ring it and she comes running.

We used to have a bell like that.

And I rang it one time too many.

And so what am I saying?

I'm just saying this.

We can't fall into the trap of acting like, oh, the Bible and Christianity kind of picks on homosexuals.

No, it doesn't.

Everybody in the world has unrealized desires.

I I threw my friend Julie Foster under the bus.

I said, hey, I have a beautiful, red-headed single girl in my church.

You don't think she has desires?

You don't think she wants to be married?

You don't think she wants to sometimes just be with a man?

Don't you think she just, you know I mean, single men in my church who want to be married, they have desires.

So the first thing I want to say by way of introduction is that uh unrealized desires are not unique.

Matter of fact, I would say this: that living with unfulfilled desires is not the exception of the human experience, but it's the rule.

You're gonna live your entire life with some desires that are never gonna be satisfied.

And that that's that's just life.

That's not a bad thing.

Because here's the deal we cannot be fully satisfied until we get to heaven.

You're not gonna be.

And I'm not gonna be.

And my wife's not gonna satisfy me because if I look to my wife to satisfy all my needs, that's not marriage, that's idolatry.

Second introductory thought is the Bible describes homosexual behavior as unnatural.

And you say, well, that's a big deal.

That's a very big deal.

Let me say it again, I'll unpack it.

The Bible describes homosexual behavior as unnatural.

What do you mean?

Well, some have kind of spun this to say unnatural might refer to what is unnatural to me.

In other words, to people themselves.

Uh, the words in the Bible for natural and against nature, they don't describe our subjective experience of what feels natural to us, but instead they refer to the fixed way of things in creation.

Let me say that again.

When the Bible talks about this is natural and that's unnatural, when it says homosexuality, men exchange natural relations with women for unnatural and they were inflamed with lust for one for another.

No, because what happens is a homosexual community will say, Well, my natural, I was born this way.

Thank you, Lady God.

Uh I was born this way, and so what's natural for me as a man, as a gay man, is to love another man.

Well, the Bible says natural is not your subjective experience, okay?

Or what feels natural to you.

Instead, natural is the fixed, refers to the fixed way of things in creation, the way God designed it to be.

So that's why I say the Bible describes homosexual behavior is unnatural.

Third introductory thought.

Our identity is not found in what we desire.

Our identity is not found in what we desire because all of us have desires that are warped as a result of our fallen nature.

Let me say that again.

All of us have desires that are warped, that are sinful.

Anybody this week have a sinful desire that you were tempted by besides me?

Can I see your hand?

Hold it up real high.

Look around.

No, leave it up.

Come on, grandma, stick it up.

Look around.

Yeah, that's just that's just life.

You say, what do you mean?

Because desires for things that God's hear this, beloved.

A desire for things that God has forbidden are a reflection of how sin has distorted me, not how God has made me.

Does that make sense?

Uh I committed gluttony last night.

Robert and Sherry said, Yeah, heard any sermons about gluttony lately?

Uh-uh, uh, you say, how do you know when you commit gluttony, when you eat so much, you're sleepy, you committed gluttony.

And last night the Zigners, Robert and Sherry, had the whole staff and our wives over to their house, and she made chicken enchiladas.

I hadn't eaten much in the past three days.

I was famished, and I ate a whole one of those oval platters.

It wasn't a place like a platter, like an oval Chinese thing.

Just loaded it up.

And after I ate, I was hungry.

I went back and got more chicken enchiladas.

And I ate a whole second plate, and my wife's kind of looking across the room like, easy big boy, you're gonna stroke out.

And I got in the van to drive home, and I thought, man, I am so sleepy.

I don't usually I spend Saturday night, I kind of spend the last part of Saturday night praying for the day, and I was like, geez, I'm so sleepy, can we just go to bed?

It clears the bed, he said, You're sleepy because you ate too much.

So I had a I had a desire for more enchiladas and I acted on it.

That's a small example, but you see, our identity is not found in what we desire.

So I'm not gonna go tomorrow and say, hello, my name is Glutton.

Desire for things that are forbidden are a reflection of how sin is distorts us, not how God created us.

Fourth introductory thought context doesn't determine morality.

Context doesn't determine morality.

You say, What do you mean?

Uh a lot of people in the gay community say, well, you know, we're not having a bunch of one-night stands living wild.

We're in a monogamous, faithful relationship.

Robin Roberts, great example.

Good morning, America host.

Sweet lady, nice lady, does a lot of good things.

She's in a long-term relationship with another woman, and everybody's like, well, you know, she's monogamous and faithful.

That's different.

No, it's not.

That's like me saying, Hey, I'm having an affair with just one woman and I'm faithful to her.

Does that no longer be does that all of a sudden not become adultery?

See, you you can't apply that.

You can't one of the principles of truth is universality.

You can't say that's what I mean when I say context doesn't determine morality.

Faithfulness demonstrated in a sinful relationship does not make it less sinful.

Fifth introductory thought is it inconsistent application of Old Testament laws.

There's a sentence you didn't get up and think you'd hear today.

What do you mean?

Uh inconsistent application of Old Testament laws.

Uh when you get in a conversation with someone about the topic of homosexuality, they're gonna pull up Leviticus and say, Oh yeah, well, Leviticus forbids that.

And by the way, I'll get to that in a minute.

Um yes, when you say, well, Leviticus forbids it, but also forgids you wearing like a linen and cotton blended shirt and not eating pork and this, that, and the other.

But here's the thing to realize: Jesus came.

So don't when you have a conversation about homosexuality, don't start at the edges, which is where most people start.

We start at the edges and try to work to the center, and you never get to the center.

Start at the center.

Here's the center of the discussion.

Jesus Christ died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of humanity.

That means my sin, the sin of the homosexual, of the idolater, and the fornicator, and the adulterer, and everybody else.

That's the heart of the gospel.

Because when we start out here about what we think about it and all this stuff, we never get to that.

We get bogged down in all this extracurricular stuff.

But but you get in a conversation with someone and they'll say, Well, you Christians pick and choose what Old Testament laws you want to apply.

You want to apply the law of homosexuality, what the Bible says, because if you if you really believe the Bible, the Bible says you should stone us.

And and do you wear blended fabric shirts and do you eat pork?

Yes.

Friday afternoon, I met my friend Charlie at the Perry's and Katy and had the pork chopped Friday lunch, and it was delicious.

And because I've been sick and not been eating much, that's now twice I've used that lie.

I ate the whole thing.

Which I never do.

Usually, if you've had the thing, it's that thick, okay?

It's like a roast, and you just eat a little bit of it and bring the rest home.

Ate the whole thing.

And Charlie even looked at me like, dang, dude.

And that was like it was like a calf rope.

And I was like, mmm, done, winter.

And he's like, I'm gonna need a box to go.

And I tried to, you know, I've been sick.

I'm gonna ride that thing to sway back.

I've been sick.

That's him.

My back went out, it hurt my back, couldn't stand up.

I just he said so what is the deal?

Here's the deal.

Jesus said, I've not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law.

Here's how you get it to the center.

Jesus came to fulfill the law.

So that's why in Acts 10, you see, Peter has this vision of the sheep coming down, it's full of all these unclean animals that the law, the Levitical law says are unclean.

And he hears God saying, Rise and eat.

I fulfilled the law.

You're not hung up on all that stuff trying to keep the law to make yourself right and right with God.

The way you get right with God is through a relationship with God.

Because Peter's like, I'm not gonna eat any of that.

That's unclean.

He goes, It's all clean.

It's all clean.

Rise and eat.

You say, what do you mean?

Inconsistent application of Old Testament law.

The dietary laws of the Old Testament have been fulfilled by Christ's coming.

So that law is no longer in effect.

But the sexual ethic of the Old Testament is repeated in the New Testament.

For everybody.

For everybody.

That's why the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, he says, hey, you know, it's God's will that you should abstain.

1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

You should possess your vessel in honor and sanctification, not in passionate lust like the heathen who do not know God.

And we'll read in just a minute in 1 Corinthians 6.

He spells it out.

So it's repeated, and so therefore it's still in effect.

Last introductory statement is simply this is that homosexuality renders the cultural mandate an impossibility.

Homosexuality renders the sec the cultural mandate.

What is that?

It's Genesis 128, where God says to Adam and Eve, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

Have dominion and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Just start with the first thing God said: Be fruitful and multiply.

In a homosexual relationship, how does that happen?

How do you multiply?

How do you fill the earth and subdue it?

Now, I tell you all of that just so you have an informed perspective because here's the thing that we do often when it comes to this conversation.

We raise our voice.

We get real shrill and you don't have to do that.

Your sin's no different than that sin.

And so let me read now 1 Corinthians chapter 6, uh, starting in verse 9.

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

This is what the Bible says.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you.

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

I want to say three things that I think that the Bible says.

And the first one is simply this is that homosexuality is not unique.

Homosexuality is not unique.

And what I mean by that is we've kind of allowed this to erode into this discussion about victims and victims' rights, and what we're missing is that there's nothing unique about this particular sin.

You say, What do you mean?

There's eight other sins listed there, and none of them have a political action committee and lobbyists in Washington, and none of them have really creative, funny writers in Hollywood writing the gay agenda into every sitcom in the world, okay?

I asked the first service and they're like, no, but we got some, by the way, I wasn't kidding.

I did get my AARP card in the mail this week.

Uh I turned 50 next Saturday, and those cats are on it.

And I opened that up and I was like, throwing that away, and my wife said, You get a discount with that.

I dug it out of the trash and said, I'd be writing them a check for$16 to get my membership.

Uh and you say, what what do you what do you mean?

It's it's not unique about this.

Well, there's eight other things listed here, okay?

And and homosexuality has kind of become this popular cultural thing.

It's kind of hip because it's everywhere.

You can't turn on TV, they don't have a gay character in something.

But I asked the the first service, does anybody remember like back in the 70s, uh, the sitcom uh Hotel Baltimore?

Anybody remember that?

It was the first sitcom that had a gay character.

Billy Crystal played a gay bellhop in this thing.

And I remember as a little kid, my family was not a Christian family.

My dad was hard, old school, was a boilermaker at a power plant, wore the red bean work boots with his pants sucked down inside of them.

Uh and my dad wasn't necessarily a very moral man.

He was consistently unfaithful.

But I remember that show came on, and my dad said, Get up and turn the TV, boy.

And I was like, that's right, we did not have a remote.

I was the remote.

And I looked at my dad and I said, Well, this is that new show they've been advertising.

And my dad said, I don't want that in my house.

You get that in your house, you get that in your head, and pretty soon it's in your life.

And I had no idea what my dad was talking about, but I knew that my dad, who who's pretty shady morally himself, I was like, Wow.

Okay, maybe this is why'd I tell you that?

Because I called a buddy of mine the other day and he uh uh at night and he said, Hey, uh, can I call you back?

Uh-uh, uh, uh, uh, I'm in the middle of something.

I said, Yeah, call me back.

And I said, uh, um, you don't have to call me back if you if you got like something going on.

He goes, No, I'm watching Modern Family.

I'll call you back when it's over.

And some of you are like, Oh, you're not going there, are you?

Look at me.

No.

I'm just saying this.

This is how the gay agenda is very subtle.

See, they make entertaining what the Bible says is offensive, and then you're no longer offended by it.

And by the way, you're no longer offended when sit comes when two people that aren't married hook up in bed.

That doesn't bother you either.

See, God says, My people have lost the ability to blush.

We've kind of lost that sense of sensitivity.

We've been kind of dulled in in that area.

And and I just want to say, here's the deal.

When I say homosexuality is not unique, the Bible's against sin in whatever form it manifests itself.

Be it drunkenness or idolatry, because here's the deal.

If there's something unique about homosexuality, what the Bible says which means what the Bible says about it does not apply to that, then there's got to be something unique about drunkenness, too.

Or being a thief, because he says thieves.

Can you imagine if all the writers started writing in all the sitcoms that there's a thief that stole stuff and sealing wasn't bad?

See, we we we give grace to this sin of homosexuality.

We don't give it to anything else.

We give this cultural grace, which is no grace at all, it's just permission.

But the Bible says in 1 John chapter 3, about verse 8, the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

The reason, the incarnation, God put on flesh and came into the world to destroy the devil's work in whatever form it manifests itself.

Because here's the reality the fall, and because Adam and Eve sinned, and sin came into the world, you hear that we live in a fallen world.

What does that mean?

That we were all born by nature sinners, and sin manifests itself in different ways.

For some people, it's homosexuality, for some people, it's drunkenness, some people, it's idolatry, some people, it's a lot of different things.

Some people, it's same-sex attraction.

They just they live with a sense of sometimes I find myself really enjoying the company of someone who's the same sex as I am.

I gotta be careful about that.

That's called SSA.

And there's I know people that that love Jesus and they struggle with that.

What does that mean?

It's the same thing as the guy that's my I have a friend that used to be an addict.

He goes to the doctor, and his doctor said uh wrote him a prescription not long ago for Vicodin.

And he just handed it to the lady at the front desk and said, Don't let me leave the building with that.

And she said, Oh, is it the wrong thing?

He goes, No, it's the right thing.

I love that.

I love Vicodin.

I've had an affair with Vicodin before.

And the lady's like, I am so sorry.

No, it's not you.

It's me because I'll abuse this.

I'll get it filled here, and I got I got people I can go to.

I can get this thing filled five times before the sun goes down today.

Don't you want to be that honest about your depravity?

Some of you are like, Well, no, I take the Vicing in.

See, there's there's nothing unique.

And each instance where the Bible directly addresses homosexual behavior, it condemns it.

The consisting, the consistent teaching of the Bible is clear.

God forbids homosexual activity.

But it doesn't stop there.

Uh it's worse than many people think.

God's opposed to all sexual activity outside of a heterosexual marriage.

What does that mean?

If you believe the Bible, that's a big gift for a lot of people these days.

In Matthew 19, Jesus basically says there's two options: there's heterosexual marriage, man and a woman, and there's celibacy.

That's your two options.

So if you're single and you're hooking up, you're in that category that God says is sexually immoral.

Not because God hates you, but because God loves you.

You say, Well, what do you mean?

Uh the Bible says that the wages of sin is what?

How can you watch somebody destroy themselves and say you're loving them?

And the Bible speaks out to dissuade us, to say, hey, you know, Ezekiel 33, Ezekiel tells the story of the watchman, and God says to the watchman, hey, if you see it coming and you don't sound the trumpet and warn the people, uh, the sword's gonna come and it's gonna take their life, but I'm gonna require their life, their their blood on your hands.

It's not unique, beloved.

That's the first thing the Bible says to us, because there's eight other things listed here.

And see, if if homosexuality is no longer a sin, then you can't say adultery is a sin.

You're starting down a slippery slope.

Second thing the Bible tells us is that homosexuality is a gospel issue.

It's a gospel issue.

What do you mean?

When we say that it's a gospel issue, here's why.

Paul's talking, he says right here in verse 9, do you not know that the unrighteous, the akidas in the Greek, the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Do not be deceived.

Why does he say that?

Because we're deceived.

We think that somehow you can live an unrighteous life.

And let me just let me just say, if you're in this room and you've stole your entire life and you you never stop stealing, you're a thief your entire life, or you're a swindler, you're a crooked businessman, you're cooking the books, you think you're getting away with something.

I'm gonna tell you, you're gonna stand before God and he's not gonna let you into heaven.

If you live in adultery, if you're a man or a woman that's deceptive and you live a secret life and you got it going on, and you just think, hey, this is this is a 21st century.

I'm a sexually liberated person.

You're gonna stand before God with no hope of inheriting the kingdom of God.

Because that's what the Bible says.

And so it's a gospel issue.

Why is it a gospel issue?

Because The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Well, how do unrighteous people, which all of us by nature are, how do we get into the kingdom of God?

How do we get into heaven?

We become righteous.

How do we become righteous?

Through putting our faith in Jesus who died to make us right with God.

That's the good news of the gospel.

That's why we say it's a gospel issue.

Your only hope is the gospel, the outworking of which will include a new identity and repenting of your former lifestyle.

You say, Well, I don't know about that.

Well, let me just ask you this question: if a person is unrighteous, according to what the Bible says, and you tell them they don't have to repent of their sinful lifestyle in order to go to heaven, then on what basis do they get into heaven?

If a person by nature is unrighteous, which all of us are.

That's not just germane to the homosexual.

The Bible doesn't pick on the homosexual.

But if a person by nature is unrighteous, which by the way, I told the kids last week at camp, that was news to them.

I told them one night in a sermon, I said, man is born incapable of heaven.

And they're like, oh, what?

So I'm standing in the line to get Frito pie.

How long has it been since you had Frito pie?

And that's why I got sick.

We had chili at every meal.

And this guy behind me said, Hey, can I ask you about something you said last night?

Sure, sure.

And he said, uh, I mean, I mean, you you said that man's born incapable of going to heaven.

I mean, you really believe that?

And I'm just like, I mean, I wasn't at a bar.

I was at church camp.

I would expect that at a bar.

I haven't been to a bar in a while, but if you're going, I want to go.

Just seems like it's a fun environment in there.

But I'm at church camp with church kids.

And I mean, what ensued was a conversation where they were like, Yeah, yeah, because we went back to our cabin and talked about you.

Okay.

What's I supposed to do?

I mean, I mean, I just, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, it's a different day and age.

And I said, no, the Bible says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So while I'm talking to them, I'm kind of praying in my spirit, and I pretty clearly heard the Holy Spirit break off some old school vanilla ice lyrics and said, I light up the stage and wax a chump like a candle.

And so I was like, Lord, is that what you want me to do?

And he said, Yes, proceed accordingly.

And I said, So if man's born capable of getting to heaven, what does God look at in man that says, Because you did this, I'm gonna let you in?

And if you can get to heaven any other way besides through a relationship with Christ, and the fact that Jesus says in John 14, 6, I'm the way, the truth, and life.

No man comes to the Father except through me.

If there's a way besides Jesus, then the Bible is flawed and we should quit reading it.

And they were all nodding like, okay.

What's the problem with that?

See, here's where we are, okay?

Uh Max Stiles uh made this great distinction.

He said, here's how you lose the gospel.

We we are in the process of losing the gospel.

It's no longer good news because there's no bad people.

No one sins anymore.

Nobody.

Just I'm a good person.

So I said to those kids in line as I'm scooting up to get my Frito pie.

So you guys believe that basically you're good people by nature.

Oh, yeah, we're good people.

And I'm just thinking, man, what church are you guys with?

And by the time I got to the line, I just I couldn't eat.

I just ate a salad and went and walked to my room.

And I just felt I just feel lonely sometimes.

I'm like, God, am I the one person in the world that believes the Bible?

This is lonely down here.

I feel like a unicorn.

Here I go, kids.

It was just, golly.

I mean, where's the people gonna come up and go, thank you for teaching us the Bible?

It was my maid.

That lady that works there and cleans the room.

Came up to me and said, I came to service last night.

That was the Bible you preached.

Don't get discouraged.

I was like, oh, thank you, Lord.

I was starting to think I'm missing it here.

Why are you telling us this?

Because the homosexuality is a gospel issue.

I said, on what basis?

I said, here's the deal: we're losing the gospel.

Max Dow says that one generation believes the gospel, that'd be our grandparents.

And then one generation assumes the gospel, that would be our parents.

And then the next generation confuses the gospel, that'd be us.

That'd be us.

We've confused the gospel.

It's this Oprah, Joel Osteen, self-help, kind of humanistic therapeutic deism, you know, hey, just, and here's the last step: the next generation loses the gospel.

We're raising our kids.

There can be a generation that has no gospel, no fixed point of truth to look at and say, hey, this is what the Bible says.

And I'm a Christ follower, so that's that that's real to me.

That's not restrictive.

That's not God hating on me.

That's not, you know, God kind of keep me from having fun.

That's the Bible informing me about who I really am.

We've confused the gospel.

You say, well, what do you mean?

I'll give you right out of the headlines this past week.

Uh the Presbyterian Church, USA, voted for their clergy to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies.

If you saw that, big headline.

Because the gay agenda is very, very popular in America.

They're very organized.

They're kind of like, we're going to make this normative.

And we're all sitting around kind of going, well, we don't want to not be politically correct.

And so I've got friends of mine who think I'm like a dinosaur.

Can I just tell you this?

They just think, McClennon, you're old school.

You need to get hip.

You need to just, I mean, come on, dude.

You're a smart man.

You don't believe all that stuff, do you?

And so, sure as the rain, my phone rings.

Hey, you got a minute?

And I'm like, oh, I know it's coming.

Oh, you just see Belton, you know, the Presbyterian Church USA.

What do you think about that?

What I think about that, I think those people just bound all those people over to hell.

Dang, McClendon! I mean, come on, man, that's so harsh.

I'm not harsh.

If you believe the Bible says, I said, I'm gonna preach this in my church next Sunday.

I said, the Bible says that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.

In other words, they're not gonna go to heaven.

And so, how can you say you're loving those people if you say, we'll do your wedding, we'll do your ceremony, we want you in our church, by the way.

The Presbyterian Church USA, the denomination has declined by 32% since 1999.

People are leaving in droves, and so they've broadened the path that leads to destruction because they want to perpetuate the institution.

They want to say, hey, everybody, if the people believe the Bible are leaving, we need some people to fill the seats.

And I said, if you believe the Bible, then all they did was vote to confirm those people on the way to hell.

Well, man, that's that's just harsh.

No, I'm gonna submit to you, my friend.

I'm standing out there swatting mosquitoes.

I said, I'm gonna submit to you, my friend, that what happened, what what they did.

They're not loving those homosexuals, they're not loving the gay community, they're hating them.

Where do you get that?

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13 that love rejoices in the truth.

How are you rejoicing in the truth by watching people persist in a lifestyle that the Bible says is unrighteous?

How can you say you're loving them?

See, that's the upside-down world we live in where love is hate and hate is love.

And you gotta ask yourself, are you willing to endure that tension?

I love what John Stott said.

He said this: he said, the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.

Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be.

That's what we've done.

We've put ourselves where God deserves to be, as the as the one who defines right and wrong.

But man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be.

But God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.

That's why it's a gospel issue.

Because God sacrificed his son.

It's not a new issue, by the way.

This is Jude chapter, I mean, verse 3 and 4.

Jude says, Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write, appealing to you, to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation.

Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.

It's not a new thing.

We live in a day and age, we're losing the gospel because we pervert the grace of God into sensuality.

Third thing the Bible says is that homosexuality is not inescapable.

You still with me?

1 Corinthians chapter 6, look at verse 11, after he says, Don't you know the unrighteous not inherit the kingdom of God?

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

He gets to verse 11 and he says, And such were some of you.

Hello.

What does that mean?

That means in the church at Corinth they had uh sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, uh men who practice homosexuality, thieves, greedy, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers.

I mean, can you don't you want to be a part of a church like that?

And by the way, you are all around you.

Remember what you were like before you before you were converted?

Remember what you were like before the grace of God found you and unwell.

Remember how immoral you used to be?

That's a weird question, isn't it?

A guy asked me on the phone, that guy was like, dang, you're just harsh.

He said, Well, how are you getting ready to preach that?

And I said, I'm remembering.

Just uh, I'm remembering my sin.

It kind of depresses me.

He goes, What does that mean?

I don't mean sin like in general.

I'm remembering and I'm seeing in my mind specific things I did when I was lost that were horrible and horribly immoral.

And I said, it just makes me ashamed of myself.

He goes, Well, what's that got to do with preparation for preaching?

I don't want to get up and act like it wasn't the grace of God that changed me.

And so when Paul writes about this church at Corinth, and he says, hey, you're drunkards and revilers and swindlers, and he says, and such were some of you.

That's why we say homosexuality is not inescapable.

He says, but you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.

Here, let me close this morning with this from Titus chapter 3.

Titus 3 · chapter mention

Tell me if this sounds like anybody you know.

We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures.

Can I see your hand?

Hold it up.

Okay.

He says, Hey, we ourselves, this is Paul, wrote 13 books of the New Testament.

We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

But when the goodness and the loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared, He saved us.

Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

I want to draw your attention to that sentence, and I'll be done this morning.

About three sentences in.

But when the goodness and the loving kindness of God our Savior appeared.

But when the goodness and the loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, I also had friends that called me this week and said, Hey, what you preaching on this week?

And I told them, You better stay away from that.

That's a political hot button.

And I just said, It's not a political issue, it's a gospel issue.

One of them finally just said, Well, why why are you gonna kick a hornet's nest?

And I and and and I say I reference this, and so I might as well tell you, I talked about you behind your back, might as well tell you to your face.

I said, Because my people, everybody in my congregation is gonna have a conversation before they die with somebody that either knows somebody or has a family member or or that lives a homosexual lifestyle, or to somebody themselves that lives a homosexual lifestyle.

I said, they work with people that live in that lifestyle, men and women all over our city are actively practice that lifestyle.

Why would you tell them?

So why are you gonna talk about that?

Because they're gonna they're gonna like think, oh I said, here's why.

Because when people that live that lifestyle talk to people in my church, I want them to walk away and say, the goodness and loving kindness of God appeared to me today.

I had lunch with Bill from accounting, and he knows I'm gay, and he didn't call me names, he didn't make me feel bad.

I just felt like the goodness and the loving kindness of God just washed over me.

And he just made me think, he said things that made me think.

It wasn't a debate, he wasn't trying to win an argument.

He was just the most merciful man I've ever been around in my life.

And I think I want to go to his church sometime.

Which I also got asked that this week.

So what would you do if if if if somebody in your church, I mean, if if gay people start coming to your church, and I said this, I said, all the gay people in my city are welcome at my church.

And all the people in my city that struggle with same-sex attraction are welcome at my church.

Well, how can you say that?

Because I trust my people.

They're some of the most loving, accepting, Bible-believing, God-fearing, authentic, down-to-earth people.

And I trust them.

They'll be very loving, very accepting.

Well, what if people come, gay people start coming, they start acting out, start like getting affectionate and stuff.

And I said, that's where it's kind of hard for us to believe that this is really normal because heterosexual people don't do that.

And if you want everyone to think this is so normal, why do you got to act abnormally?

Why do you got to come to churches and have kiss-ins?

Which is what it's called.

And the guy's like, Oh, that's a good point.

I said, You see me kissing my wife in public?

So, why do we talk about that in our church?

Here's why.

Because you just saw it right up here in this baptistry.

This is what happens when the goodness and the loving kindness of God is experienced.

And God so trusts you to represent his goodness and his loving kindness.

That's why we talk about this topic.

Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

Because you're the means through which the world is going to taste and see the goodness and the loving kindness of God.

Depart now.

And don't do it, just be.

Be the goodness and the loving kindness of God in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.