Christopher Yuan - A Christian Response to Homosexuality

the following has been recorded at cairn university any reproduction of this recording without the express permission of the university is prohibited our speaker this evening has taught bible at moody bible institute in chicago for over 10 years he's a frequent conference speaker he and i were talking before this event about his speaking schedule and he's he's all over the place he's in churches and he's on college campuses and in other venues speaking on faith and sexuality and this speaking ministry has allowed him really to to address uh many many people on five continents he's a he's a graduate of moody bible institute where he teaches and also wheaton college graduate school and then his doctorate is from from bethel seminary he's an author he's co-authored with his mother their memoir which is entitled out of a far country a gay son's journey to god a broken mother's search for hope and if i'm not mistaken those copies of that book are available in the lobby and that that book has sold over a hundred thousand copies it's been translated into seven languages he's also author of giving a voice to the voiceless and his latest book is entitled holy sexuality and the gospel sex desire and relationships shaped by god's grand story so please join me this evening in welcoming dr christopher yuan [Applause] would you pray with me father we thank you today for every good and perfect gift lord we praise you that you are the one that guides us into truth lord thank you for revealing yourself through your son lord help us to be salt and light in a world that desperately needs to hear more about your son jesus we praise you lord when we ask this in the powerful name of christ amen we live in a world of infinite shades of gray not just 50. our world celebrates ambiguity sexual freedom has essentially become the religion of the land and yet since the fall event of adam and eve the human heart had set itself in defiance against god's perfect ways this idolatry of sexual freedom yet is on a collision course with the gospel as my life was on a collision course with the gospel so i wasn't raised in a christian home my parents raised me with very traditional chinese values obey your parents do well in school and practice piano i had the secret that i kept hidden though through high school college even the marine corps reserves in my early 20s i no longer kept it a secret and i came out of the closet and i began living openly as a gay man i'm from chicago i was going to school in louisville kentucky pursuing my doctorate in dentistry and after a year i went home and i broke the news to my parents told them i am gay amazingly through that crisis my mother came to faith we were not christian then with a few months my father did as well well i wanted nothing to do with her crazy religion went the opposite direction i spent most of my free time in the gay clubs i went from relationship to relationships seeking intimacy and happiness which i found but it still left me feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied so i began experimenting experimenting with drugs now to be clear not gay men all gay men do do drugs not all gay men are promiscuous some are some are not but unfortunately that is part of my story and when i tell you it i have to tell you my whole story i have to be honest about it but i also want to remind people that when you incarnate encounter christ he will impact every aspect of your life so i began experimenting with drugs but like my classmates i didn't have much money and if i was going to do drugs i needed to find a way to support my habit and i did that by selling drugs and i sold to friends classmates even a professor see i actually thought i could live this double life of being a graduate student by day in a promiscuous drug dealer by night but three months before i was to receive my doctorate the administration expelled me so i moved from chicago uh from from louisville on to atlanta georgia where i kept doing what i knew how to do best which was sell drugs well i went from not just selling drugs but to be a supplier to dealers in over a dozen states you see i also spent most of my free time and i uh it was nothing for me to have multiple anonymous sexual encounters each and every day because according to the world i had it all money fame drugs and sex i'd exchanged the truth of god for a lie and i began worshiping and serving the creature rather than the creator because in my world i had become god my parents had no clue that i was doing drugs but they knew my biggest need was to know jesus christ as my lord and savior so they tried to reach out to me with the love of christ and i wanted nothing to do with it they came to visit me one time in atlanta and i told them to get out before my dad left he gave me his bible and i told my dad i don't want your bible he left it on my kitchen counter anyway and walked out the door and as soon as they left i took my dad's bible and i threw in the trash i wanted nothing to do with god and certainly nothing to do with the bible and after that visit it was more than obvious to my parents that i was totally unreachable and completely hopeless but my parents committed not to focus on the hopelessness but upon the promises of god and along with over a hundred prayer warriors from their church from their bible study fellowship group they began to cry out to god for me my mother began to pray a bold prayer god do whatever it takes whatever it takes to bring this prodigal son to you in her desperation my mother fasted every monday for seven years and once fasted 39 days on my behalf she would spend hours every morning in her prayer closet reading her bible on her knees crying out to god she knew that it was going to take nothing short of a miracle to bring this prodigal son to the father and a miracle is exactly what god did this miracle came with a bang on my door i opened up my door and on my front doorstep were 12 federal drug enforcement agents in land line of police and two big german shepherd dogs i just received a large symptom of drugs not my largest but they confiscated all my money and my drugs and i was charged with a street value equivalent of 9.1 tons of marijuana with that amount i was facing 10 years to life in federal prison i had started with a bright future among society's finest in academia and i found myself in the ditch among societies despised in the atlantic city detention center so i tried calling home dreading making that phone call imagining the earful that i was going to get on the other line but my mother's first words were son are you okay no condemnation no berating words just words of unconditional love and grace the apostle paul says in romans chapter 2 verse 4 that it's god's kindness that leads us to repentance notice paul isn't saying that it's god's anger it's not god's wrath but it's god's kindness that leads us to repentance and even on that miserable day god was pouring out his grace and drawing me to himself through the words of my mother actually my mom was excited to get that phone call if you're gonna believe it or not because i hadn't called home in years and she knew without a doubt that this was god's answer to her prayers so she hung up that phone fighting back the tears she knew she had to do like that good old hymns says count your blessings name them one by one no matter what storm she was going through she had to count her blessings so she set the phone down and next to the phone was a calculator and she tore off a little piece of the adding machine tape and she wrote down these first blessings christopher is is in a safe place compared before and he called home for the very first time as my years in prison pass she kept adding to this list and counting her blessings and today this list of blessings is longer and taller than she is both sides three days later i was walking around the cell block and i passed by this garbage can and i thought this is my life i'm from upper middle class suburb of chicago my father has two doctors i was only three months away from receiving my own doctorate i had it made but now i found myself among common criminals trash with my head down i was about to pass by that garbage can but something on top of the trash caught my eye i bent over i picked it up and it was a gideon's new testament i took that new testament back to my cell i opened up that that good book for the first time i read through the entire gospel of mark that night but you know i wasn't thinking this is the answer i simply thought that i've got an enormous amount of time on my hands and to better pass it somehow but as many of you know what we have in our bibles is not just ink on paper but what we have in our bibles ladies and gentlemen is the very breath of god and it is living and powerful and sharper than any double-edged sword able to cut through the hardest of hearts exposing my sin my rebellion and it wasn't a pretty sight and i thought things couldn't get any worse i was wrong a couple weeks later i was called into the nurse's office i was handcuffed they sat me down and i knew that there wasn't something there was something not right the nurse was uncomfortably struggling with the word so she resigned to writing something on a piece of paper and slowly slid it across the destiny i looked down and i saw three letters and a symbol it read h iv positive days after were dark and lonely i was sentenced to six years better than 10 years to life but news of my hiv status felt like a death sentence one night i was laying in my bed and i noticed in the metal bunk above me somebody scribbled something and it read if you're bored read jeremiah 29 11. for i know the plans that i have for you declares the lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future you see the most hopeless point in my life the lord god was using the words penned by prophet thousands of years ago to a rebellious nation israel to tell me that regardless of who i was and what what i had done in my past he still has a plan for me i had no clue where that plan was going to take me but god gave me enough faith enough strength to get through that one day and the next and the next my transformation was gradual god was convicting me in my dependencies obviously drugs but within a few months god delivered me from that bondage god kept bringing my other idols and there was one that i felt like i just couldn't let go of it was my sexuality so i went to a chaplain and i asked him his opinion and to my surprise he actually told me the bible doesn't condemn homosexuality and even gave me a book explaining that view so if you think about it with much curiosity i took that book in the hopes of finding biblical justification for homosexuality i had that book in one hand and the bible in the other and can i just tell you from a purely human perspective i had every reason in the world to accept what that book is claiming to justify the way i had been living but god's indwelling holy spirit convicted me that those assertions were a clear distortion of god his word and his unmistakable condemnations against same-sex relationships i couldn't even finish that book and i gave it back to the chaplain which meant i turned to the bible alone and i went through every verse every chapter every page of scripture looking for justification i wanted to find any type of a positive information for a monogamous same-sex relationship so i went through the whole bible i went cover to cover several times i had time i looked and i looked and i couldn't find any which meant i was at a turning point and a decision had to be made either abandon god in his word live as a gay man pursue a monogamous same-sex relationship by allowing my attractions to dictate who i was or abandon pursuing a monogamous same-sex relationship how by freeing myself from my sexuality by not allowing my desires to control who i am and live as a follower of jesus christ my decision was clear and obvious i followed jesus as the days and the weeks and the months of abstinence passed i learned that my sexuality shouldn't be the core of who i am i told myself before god loves me unconditionally and that's true but don't we as sinners like to add to god truth i add it so therefore god doesn't want me to change similarly to your friends who say god loves me just the way i am so leave me alone but you know after reading the bible several times i learned that unconditional love is not the same thing as unconditional approval of my behavior my identity shouldn't be defined by my sexuality my identity shouldn't be grounded in my sexual desires my identity is not gay is not ex-gay is not even heterosexual for that matter because my identity as a child of the living god must be in jesus christ alone god says be holy for i am holy i had thought that if i were to become a christian that i would have become a heterosexual which meant the more sexually attracted i were to lots of women the more of a christian man i would be but i realized that even if i had opposite such attractions i would still need to resist temptation i would still need to flee and and run and resist my sin nature so heterosexuality is actually not the goal besides if you think about it god never said be heterosexual for i am heterosexual but neither did god say be homosexual for i am homosexual rather god said be holy for i am holy so therefore the opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality that's not the goal but the opposite of homosexuality is holiness as a matter of fact the opposite of every sin struggle is holiness i don't need to focus upon whether i'm struggling whether i'm tempted but i need to focus upon living a life of holiness and living a life of purity because change is not the absence of temptations but change is the spirit rod ability to be holy even in the midst of temptations because the ultimate issue is not whether i'm struggling not whether i'm tempted but the ultimate issue is that i yearn after god in total surrender and complete obedience as i began to live this life of surrender and obedience god began to reveal his plan for my life and he called me to full-time vocational ministry while i was in prison of all places and i realized it didn't matter where i was whether i was in prison or out of prison because my calling would remain the same regardless of the location with that change of heart god did another miracle and he shortened my center from six years to three years which is almost unheard of in the federal system so with only about a year left my prison sentence i knew that if i was going to continue on a ministry after prison i better learn more about the bible than just prison religion so i called and collected my parents told them i think god's calling me in a ministry and i asked them to mainly an application to bible college in chicago but then there was silence on the other line because i think they both dropped their phones mailed the application into me to prison i was so excited toward organ began filling it out until i realized i needed references not from anybody but these had to be people who knew me as a christian for at least one year i had some slim pickings in prison but i was able to persuade a person chaplain a prison guard and another prison inmate to write my references so amazingly i was actually accepted i was released from prison in july of 2001 and i started the very next month in august 2001 so imagine the surprise of my classmates when i answered their question what did you do this summer i graduated uh 2005 went out to my master's in exegesis and then finished my doctorate of ministry in 2014 and then back in 2011 i had the incredible honor of co-authoring a book with my mother called out of a far country a gay son's journey to god a broken mother's search for hope so we wrote this together she wrote chapter one i wrote chapter two she wrote the alternating she wrote the odd chapters i wrote the even chapters because we wanted to tell you from our own voice how you can have the same situation told from two totally different perspectives apparent to prodigal and how god in his power and his grace brought our family all back together my book now has been used by several christian high schools to help our youth to understand this concept of biblical sexuality not just tell but show my newest book called holy sexuality and the gospel it digs deeper into this concept of biblical sexuality i introduced this concept of holy sexuality in my first book and i knew that i i needed to flesh that out more and so so that's this the culmination of that because oftentimes when we hear about biblical sexuality it's sometimes don't do this don't do that don't do this and those are important things to recognize but we can't build a christian life on god's no what is god's yes when it comes to sexuality it's holy sexuality is quite simply it's quite simply chastity in singleness and faithless in marriage and that is good news for all amazingly god has given us back the years that the locusts have taken away my parents and i we travel around the nation around the world as a two-generation ministry talking about god's grace and god's truth on this issue of sexuality but how do we do a better job at engaging on this topic of sexuality so there's a book that's called unchristian written by david kinnaman and gabe lyons and they asked young americans what do you think about christians and what they found was that we are viewed to be quite negative we are not viewed in a very positive light by far i mean it was everything was negative we are viewed to be confusing not accepting boring and sensitive out of touch too political hypocritical judgmental and actually at the very very top of the list you know what it is we are viewed to be anti-homosexual it doesn't say anti-homosexuality kind of against the topic but it says that we are viewed to be against gay people and that is wrong the gospel is not against anyone it's for people turning from their sins and turning to christ but it's still for people and so should we be for people but unfortunately people's perception is their reality so how can we do a better job at engaging on this topic well there's four things that i want to send in my talk around four and they're going to be four c's first and if you would like my notes i can give you maybe a shortened url some of you are taking notes it's just my last name yuan the number two dot us slash cr and that that can give i can give it out to you maybe at my book table later as well but first thing is we need to make sure that we have the right attitude so we need to be convicted that means we need to be convicted about our own sin first i lived as a a gay man for many years and i felt christians were telling me that somehow this is the worst sin that gays and lesbians deserved a hotter place in hell that jesus had to hang on the cross a little bit longer for gays and lesbians it's sin but it's not the worst sin but sometimes we treat it like it is people say it's an abomination and that is true but if you read the whole bible and by the way i'll just be honest with you i believe the whole bible i i just laid it out on the table i i'm coming out i leave the whole i believe the whole bible okay i know that might sound shocking to you but i do proverbs it says there are six things in lord hate seven that are an abomination you know what what's listed there things like pride dissension so when was the last time your friend was a little bit prideful and you say you are abomination maybe we should so we want trivialized sin that really grieves god's heart and you might think well you know i can't help it it's so much in our face today makes me feel uncomfortable it even grosses me out to the point where people because of that disgust look upon look with disdain upon those in the gay community and i think that that feeling that some might have should actually be a reminder for themselves that that feeling of disgust for this particular sin is truly just a fraction of what god feels when he looks at their own sin and maybe even more so our sin so this is not the worst sin but our sin is just as odious just as bad in god's eyes than someone else's sin so we need to be convicted about our own sin this is not the worst sin and our sin is just as otis in god's eyes because when we realize that when we're convicted about our own sin you know what that leads to humility and i think humility is a great place to start for anything second we need to be consistent first consistent regarding relationships so we have placed so much emphasis upon what is your relationship status i mean if you think about if you're a group of strangers you got around a circle and you talked about introduce yourself oftentimes it's my name is such and such this is my job i'm married i have kids etc and then if you're single it's just this is my name and this is my job we have looked at marriage and put it over against and above singleness so marriage is good singleness is not and we treat people who are single as if there's something wrong with them especially single adults over 30. we treat singleness like it's a bad thing and you might say okay i see that but what does this have to do with my gay neighbor a lot because god's will is that he's not that he shouldn't be in a same-sex relationship but he can't do that unless he first puts his faith in christ but his faith in christ would lead him to not be in a same-sex relationship so if he's not in a same-sex relationship then what does that like mean practically that he wouldn't be in a relationship that he would be single for a period in his life if not an extended period in his life and if so do we have a healthy place for singles to thrive in christian community today not really we treat singleness as if it's equivalent to loneliness that's what my gay friends tell me what you're saying is your god wants me to be lonely for the rest of my life and what they're doing is they're equating singleness with loneliness but actually it's not equivalent you know why i can say that because i know some people who are married and they're still miserably lonely so it's not marriage that security loneliness is it you know what security loneliness i'll tell you it begins with a relationship with god that is a cure to loneliness not another person but we treat it like that is the cure-all that you will be just so happy that you succeed in life we teach it to our kids fairy tales how do all fairy tales end well first they get married and then they live happily ever after what are we teaching our kids you know once you get married it's the end of the story like nothing happens nothing significant happens we don't get a 10-year check-up for a 20-year checkup hopefully they're still living heavily ever after actually hopefully they're still married but the real lesson is it is not marriage that should bring you ultimate content contentment it is the lord jesus christ who should bring you ultimate contentment whether you're married or whether you're single but we have this impression that we have elevated marriage higher than it ought to be you know and we need to lift up the beauty and gift of marriage but i think we've done that at the expense of singleness so now singleness at best is a consolation prize i'm sorry you're single i have a friend who was a missionary in china for five years went to china as a single lady savior five years came back to the u.s when she was back on furlough she was able to see several of her friends that she hadn't seen in a while and when she connected with them it will all ask her similar questions like how was chyna what are your future ministry plans and then they will get to personal things like are you dating anyone have you met anyone special in your life and each time she said no not yet do you know how some of her friends responded to her can i pray for you it was as if she had cancer singleness is not cancer it's not a curse but we treat it like it is we treat it like the unbearable burden that needs to be fixed that's why we tell our single friends i want to fix you up with someone think about the words we use maybe singleness is not something that needs to be fixed especially in light of the fact that our own perfect savior was single we need to look to the word of god to see what god's word says about singleness you know in 1st corinthians 7 paul spends an entire chapter talking about singleness saying that not only a singleness good he actually says that it's a gift truly a gift but let me give you some advice for those of you in this room that are no longer single i would not keep reminding your single friends that this is a gift most singles that i know don't appreciate that verse they don't like that verse i don't know what paul's talking about when he says it is a gift because it doesn't feel like a gift and i understand that as a single man singleness is not easy but having spoken to a couple married people i hear that marriage can also be not easy at times but with those difficulties come blessings in the same way singleness is not easy but there's also some blessings that come with it but why is it then we only focus upon the enormous blessings of marriage and the enormous challenges of singleness see how this historically inconsistent and unbiblical we can all agree that marriage is a gift hallelujah when it comes to singleness we don't say the same thing about singleness we don't say oh yeah singleness is a gift instead you know what most people say singleness it's a calling right i mean it's a calling you know not just a calling it's a calling you know it's you have to make sure i've even had people you know tell someone else to be like are you sure you better fast and pray about this you know it's not easy you have to be like superman or wonder woman to be single which i don't know if you've noticed most of the superheroes are single and their love interest is their weakness right i mean again what are we teaching our kids here no wonder why they're so confused you know and the most of my christian friends are married they're happily married even but they tell me marriage takes work giving of yourselves not easy loving unconditionally not easy paulie even goes on to say in ephesians 5 husbands lay your life down for your wife so do you know what i say tongue-in-cheek about marriage i say marriage that's a calling seriously right singleness that's a gift i don't have to lay my life down for anyone yet but i'm not saying that marriage or singleness is better than the other i'm simply looking at the full counsel of god and recognizing that godly marriage and godly singleness are actually two sides of the same coin we should no longer only emphasize one over against the other because to be honest we're not ready to address this issue of sexuality until we first redeem singleness so we need to be first consistent about singleness second or about relationships second we need to be consistent regarding sexuality what is god's standard when it comes to sexuality because oftentimes we treat that heterosexuality is the goal that that's god's standard and here's the logic people will say homosexuality is not god's will that's true the behavior is sin the desires is rooted in our sin nature so it's not god's will so therefore they say this is not god's will so therefore heterosexuality must be god's will but let's break that down a bit a bit let's define heterosexuality heterosexuality means being attracted to some of the opposite sex being sexually intimate with some of the opposite sex that's a pretty broad definition so broad that i could be sleeping with half a dozen women and that could be considered heterosexual i could be a married man and i'm cheating on my wife with another woman that's also considered heterosexual i could be an unmarried man but i have a living girlfriend we've been together for a couple years actually more than a couple years and we have a couple children together those three scenarios that i gave you aren't heterosexual but sinful in god's eyes god would never use a category and say this is my standard when it included sinful behavior so what we first need to do is we need to break out of this paradigm that is built on secular anthropology heterosexuality homosexuality bisexuality is the wrong framework we need to set it aside and use a biblical one so if it's not heterosexuality it's not homosexuality then what is it god is calling us to holy sexuality and what is holy sexuality when i read through the full counsel of god there's actually only two paths for god that god has laid out for us to live regarding our sexuality first if you're single how do you live faithful to god you live faithful to god by being sexually abstinent or if you are no longer single and you're married and when i say marriage i'm just i'm just using the biblical definition of marriage the only definition throughout in the bible for marriage which is between a man and a woman so if you then are no longer single and married on the other path how do you live faithful to god you live faithful to god by being faithful to your spouse of the opposite sex so quite simply holy sexuality is chastity in singleness and faithfulness in marriage chastity and singleness and faithfulness in marriage and what i realized is that these two paths there was not one term that included that was inclusive for both of these definitions both of these paths so i created a term and i call it holy sexuality and actually what i like about that phrase is this applies to everyone doesn't matter if your man or woman doesn't matter if you're young or old doesn't matter if you have opposite sex attractions same such attractions or both we all need to pursue holiness you might think that's fine but my gay friend you know only has that one on that one option to be single for the rest of their life not necessarily so i have a friend who helps illustrate this point he lived as a gay man for many years comes to christ stops um and stops pursuing same-sex relationships but he had no interest in the opposite sex so he wasn't he was just gonna be single for the rest of his life and he was okay with that then um he was part of a great church that were like his family he became really close friends with a young lady who was a new christian but she never wrestled with same-sex attractions and yet she was sexually active before she came to christ she had several boyfriends she even had a few abortions when she came to christ because some of the some of those relationships were a bit toxic she had committed to not dating because she really wanted to focus on a relationship with god so the two of them felt really close felt like they were became best friends well after some time of being best friends he began noticing some things about her that he hadn't noticed before like her hair she smelled good and she had curves he says puberty is hard going through one strike going through puberty twice he got up enough courage asked around on a date after some dating he asked her to marry him and on their wedding night he told his new bride he said honey i can't explain this i'm not attracted to any other women i'm only attracted to you that is holy sexuality it's given by god not based upon our own works not based upon our own efforts not even based upon our own desires holiness is given by god holy sexuality chastity and sinless faithfulness in marriage so we need to be consistent regarding relationships regarding sexuality and third regarding change what does change look like because we think change to be gay to straight or we think change means like if a person still is tempted in that way hasn't really been really changed well do we apply that principle of change for any other sin struggle save a friend who was a drunk he comes to christ stops drinking but after years of sobriety he admits he still has an urge to drink but he doesn't would we tell him you haven't been changed would we tell him we need to lay some hands on you you need some deliverance i hope not because the manifestation of god's grace is more evident in his life because he says no to his flesh and says yes to god so change is not the absence of temptations change is not the absence of temptations we think that we won't be tempted but be reminded my friends that jesus was tempted in every way so change is not the absence of temptations but change is the spirit rot ability spirit rod ability to be holy even in the midst of temptations because god's faithfulness is not shown by taking us out of our struggle or temptation god's faithfulness is shown by carrying us through it that's how god works and this is important because i think for a while regarding change regarding sexuality what does that look like is it orientation change or not we have put ourselves we have diagnosed this improperly we have treated this more as a developmental disorder or a psychological disease and not diagnosed it as how god does because when we tr when we diagnose this as a psychological disorder or a developmental disorder then we are going to treat it as such what do i mean by that some of you might know what i'm talking about but some of you might i don't know what you're talking about you may have heard it said in the past that the root causes of homosexuality are an absentee father dominant mother or abuse in one's childhood how many have ever heard something like that before i would say that is probably the main go-to especially among christians and let me tell you why that misses the mark first of all again i told you before i believe in the bible anyone else believe in the bible i mean is there anyone all right we are we're all coming out okay we all believe in the bible surprise it's going to be a big surprise to the world we i believe in the bible the bible is really clear that this is that this behavior is sinful so if i'm gonna call when i'm if i'm gonna try to look for the root cause of any sinful behavior i'm not going to be looking to one's past as the root cause not to say that things in my past affect me of course they do they can influence us i see those more as a catalyst less than a causative agent they're an influence but influence is not the same thing as a root cause when we point our finger from our own sin struggle on our past and our upbringing you know what that is that's freud not scripture and sometimes i fear as christians were more busy following sigmund freud than jesus christ certainly those things affect us and certainly we need to resolve these issues but never think that resolution of things in your childhood will make you sin less that's a lie somehow resolving things will make you not struggle with your present trials will come i think that comes from the bible trials will come and why is this important because we have diagnosis more as a psychological disorder than what the bible calls it as sin and you know what the root cause of sin is there's only one our sin nature and that seems like i'm oversimplifying thing and i'm not but when you we recognize the true problem the diagnosis is sin you know what's the true treatment of sin jesus christ the problem is sin and jesus is the answer and how this affects us is actually there's been some consequences of that wrong thinking i know of no other sin where we have placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of parents name any other sin where have we blamed the parents for that particular sin i don't know of any other and maybe you might be a parent of a prodigal someone who identifies as lesbian or gay please hear me this is very important hear me if you hear nothing else hear this it's not your fault it's not your fault perfect parenting never guarantees perfect children look at adam and eve didn't they have a perfect father yes or no you tell me yes oh they did did they have a perfect environment yes they still rebelled what makes you think dad what makes you think mom you could do better than god you know the job of a christian parent this is important the job the primary job of a christian parents is not to produce godly children you can't do that that's not your job parent to produce godly children we hope for that we pray for that but that's not what you can do you know what your job is your primary responsibility is not to produce godly children but to be a godly parent you be godly you point your children to christ you try to influence them all you can but guess what let god be god if you can take a hardened heart and turn it to one that bleeds for god then you're god so do not just as you can we can't take all the glory for a child who's serving the lord can we we can't do that we can't take all the glory for a child serving the lord turned out well in the same way we can't all take all the blame for when our children walk away from god so we have to diagnosis correctly sin is a problem sin is a problem christ is the answer so we need to first begin with conviction being convicted we need to be consistent in three ways regarding relationship sexuality and change and then third we need to be compassionate i've been teaching at moody for 11 years and every semester i have students that confide with me they're wrestling with their sexuality and a lot of times because they haven't told anyone they struggle with depression even thoughts of suicide so this is an issue between life and death for some so how can we be more compassionate place because to be honest i think the safest place in the world should be the body of christ should be the church are we safe so how do we do that well first expect that this is present here in our own pews and our own small groups in our own homes not be surprised that some of us are actually struggling with you know temptations people are sometimes shocked when they find out that the really good friend that they grew up with has same such attractions they tell me because of their shock they tell me i don't know how that happened they came from a good home they had you know christian parents they were even homeschooled and now what i was i want to ask them wait are you really saying that if someone comes from a good home they have christian parents and they're even homeschooled that they're somehow exempt from struggling with sin is that what you were was that what you were saying okay newsflash i'm sensing in this room i mean there's a good group of us here i bet there's probably i don't know maybe four or five of you maybe more here in this room right now that's struggling with sin don't raise your hand i don't want to embarrass you right i don't want you to stick out we're all struggling with sin if we're really honest we're all struggling with what's the body of christ are we a group of people who've got it all together don't have any problems we meet once a week we sing kumbaya is that what we are or is the body of christ a group of people who are broken and needy and we know we desperately need christ i'll just be totally honest with you i am broken and i need christ anyone else out there that can relate to that in any way in shape or form so let us all hand in hand walk to it together to him not because i can fix you but i know someone who can and his name is jesus so we need to just expect this is present here second know your position and that means when i say position i mean what is our main goal that we want to communicate what is our main goal in our relationships what what is it that we want we're like oh that's easy you know tell them this is sin that's not going to save them even if we convince this them some that this is wrong and even if they begin like stop not sinning or they would stop sinning that's not going to save them my biggest takeaway my position my goal is this that my hope my desire is that people would fall in love with christ and surrender fully to the lord that's what i want it's about full surrender in union with christ that's my position that's my goal third maybe you have a friend who've you always wondered whether they're wrestling with us and you want to ask them you know are you is this something that you're you know struggling with i want to be there for you so how do you ask don't imagine if someone came up to you out of the blue and ask hey um do you have same-sex attractions awkward just letting you know i don't know how you can make that any more comfortable so instead what you can do is tell them you know i thank god for you and i just want you to know nothing can change my friendship and my love for you and when you say that you just created a safe space and invited them in so you know we we should be doing that actually with all of our close friends fourth we need to be a place a group of people who says no to joking no to the gay jokes and as adults maybe you we not might not bully but i think we especially christian adults will still say a gay joke or two could be a hand gesture could be talking with a lisp but you never know when someone might be an earshot of that joke so let's just be a people group of people who say no and this is there's nothing christ-like about that so i started off with being convicted being consistent in three ways regarding relationship sexuality and change third being compassionate and lastly we need to be complete and this is complete in our message complete and what we communicate to others we focus upon god's truth why because it's the truth that sets us free so what is the truth when it comes to this oh that's easy you might say i i got this it's easy it's a sin anything more no no it's a sin okay i mean yes that's true but when we only say that and nothing more that's equivalent to giving someone a one spiritual law tract you guys know the four spiritual laws like when i talk to the kids anymore they're like four spiritual laws you know i'm like gospel tracks gospel tracks yeah paper paper you know so you guys know what i'm talking about right four spiritual laws right well this is not the four spiritual laws you know what this is the one spiritual law that goes something like this you're a sinner and you're going to hell sorry in case you didn't know that's not good news that's all bad news right i mean i mean that's if that's all you say but actually if you think about it that's basically the message we've been giving to the gay community you're a sinner you're going to hell there's no hope for you it's no wonder why the gay community want nothing to do with christians because we have not been giving them the good news at all we've been telling them the bad news only we have not been telling them the complete truth we've been telling them an incomplete truth and when you tell someone an incomplete truth that's just as harmful as telling someone a lie so what is the complete truth in first corinthians 6 paul says do not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of god and then he lists 10 sins and in this list of 10 sins are two greek words that focus upon homosexual behavior sometimes people look at these verses and say look gays and lesbians won't inherit the kingdom of god when they say that you know what they do conveniently forget about the eight other sins because if we look at all ten sins none of us should inherit the kingdom of god bad news but you know i praise the lord that paul did not stop there he goes on to say in one of my favorite verses of the bible first corinthians chapter 6 verse 11 that says such were by the way what what tense is that word word past tense such were some of you but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified in the name of the lord jesus christ and the spirit of our god actually that isn't good news that's amazing news that is news that we can declare on the rooftops to anyone who needs to know about jesus christ so our message must be redemptive it needs to focus upon the good news that we have in jesus christ because you know our prop our friends in the gay community our loved ones in the gay community their main problem is not their sexuality you know you know what their biggest problem is their need to fully surrender to christ my biggest sin was not being in the same sex relationship that was not my biggest sin my biggest sin was unbelief that is what separated me from god and too often we make these peripheral things the primary thing there's one only primary thing and that is faith in christ so how do we do that how do we make that primary how do we be redemptive i'm going to give you some practical things here at the end and again if you'd like my notes you can uh get it from me my my the short url where you can get it is my last name yuan the number two dot us slash cr and i can give that to you at the ncr standing for christian response but i'm gonna give some practical things here on how do we minister be redemptive and i'm going to break it down to two groups first group christians who have same sexual practice how do we minister to them well and others who don't know christ or they say they do but they have a distorted view of the gospel and think that this is okay where we would share them the true gospel so let's for focus on the first group say say you have a good friend that actually confides with you that they're wrestling with their sexuality do you know what to say or do first thank them thank them that they trusted you with this really intimate private matter thank them don't freak out ask them open-ended questions like tell me more what does this mean also ask them tell me how does your faith fit into this second tell them that they're not alone many people think that they have to go through life all alone and that no one will ever understand them and tell them i don't know all there is to know about this but i want to learn and i want to walk with you to jesus third and this could be one of the most important things here at the end third remind each other that our identity needs to be in christ it's not helpful to use secular worldly terminology that has been conflated with personhood what i mean by this the terms gay the term straight the term by no longer mean these are my attractions that i have regardless of whether i'm having sex or not that that is no longer what it it that's not only we can't be naive to think that's all it means i'm rejecting those terms because we have taken these terms to talk about not what we feel not what we do but we have taken these terms to describe and hear me to describe who we are that is why i reject it there's only one thing that i'm going to identify as and that is a follower of christ nothing else i don't walk around and say hi i'm a male christian who cares you know and i'm chinese if you haven't noticed that yet i'm chinese i don't my chineseness is important to me and and it is actually it is an essential part of who i am but even that is a far second or third or fourth before my main identity in christ you know i i love words and words matter adjectives modify nouns right adjective modify nouns and when you take an adjective and you modify a noun what you're essentially doing is you're limiting the scope of that noun so you have a a maroon chair whatever color that is you have a a wood stage right you have a stage or you have a wood stage right then it narrows it down i'm a christian i don't want there to be any permanent modifier before my main identity in christ and neither should neither should any of us we are christians i hated labels all my life i didn't like i was called all different kind of names not only according because i was chinese but because i was you know they call me gay i i never liked those terms and i still don't really like terms but if i'm going to have one it's one that's bought by the blood of christ so that's who i am and we need to keep reminding ourselves because guess what the world likes to take away that who we are that identity fourth we need to be realistic be realistic don't give these false promises that oh it's so easy just pray really hard and you'll have no more problems no you know you start praying you start turning to god and it gets harder then fifth don't focus on the externals how people walk or talk or they're dressed to their you know how long is their hair it's i mean that is not as important as heart change i do believe that once heart change comes then behavior change follows but we we sometimes focus so much on behavior change and we don't focus upon the heart change true change is from the inside out and that's how the gospel work and yet we sometimes focus so much on trying to change clean people up first and we ignore the heart sixth encourage god honoring healthy relationships in the body of christ what i need most is to learn how to love man the way that god intended i need to love other men that's non-romantic non-sexual and the best way that's done is not actually in friendships but in family what's the family how does the new testament talk about the family the church this is where i kind of i think a lot of people are talking a lot about friendships about covenant friendship spiritual friendships but i think that is done completely ignoring the most important context that we have in this world today and that's the body of christ so we have to have healthy relationships in this what i call the spiritual family so how do we then so that's ministering to christians who have such attractions how do we share christ with those in the gay community let me first tell you a few things that you should not do as you reach out to those in the gay community those who don't know christ or hold to a false gospel say that i could be gay and christian that's i will share them the true gospel as well i put them in the same group first things that you should not do first do not compare this with an addiction pedophilia or murder this is not a good way to try to win people to christ second don't use these two words lifestyle or choice i never used those words as a gay man years ago you know why i had the wrong identity this was not something that i did this is not my choice this is not my lifestyle what was it this is who i was and up until someone is able to separate their sexuality from who they are they won't understand when when you're when you're using those terms and some can even be offended so i wouldn't use those words when you're talking to your gay loved ones or trying to reach out to those in the gay community uh third don't say love the sinner hate the sin do it but don't say it fourth don't feel the need you have to debate at on every occasion actually most of the time you probably don't have to especially when it's someone who's who god has not really softened their heart yet if you look at the example of jesus he did not answer every question so what should you do we'll finish with this we need to pray pray and fast i have the blessing that i as a i'm a single man i never travel alone as a policy so my mother travels with me she's outside in the book table so you have to say hi to her but she's my she's my prayer warrior how many of you guys have seen the movie war room the movie war room was was turned um into a book kendrick brothers wrote and produced war room then they gave it to an author chris fabry to write the book so the book in the movie came out around the same time when the book came out we got a copy of it and we opened it up we saw that the author had dedicated the book to my mom do battle for people who aren't able to battle for themselves second we need to listen don't be quick to speak but be quick to listen third be intentional don't be afraid to invite your gay neighbor over for dinner like we need to really encourage people to do this because people are afraid and they think if i invite my gay neighbor over for dinner if i have if i have my lesbian daughter over for dinner am i condoning their sin and that's a really good question but last time i checked we usually have sinners over for dinner nothing new right nothing nothing new you're just eating with them you're not sitting with them right that's a big difference um fourth we need to be patient persistent it's gonna take time for people to turn around it took me eight years i know people who have been praying for decades lastly be be transparent meaning just talk about what god is doing in your life because you can open up your bible and they're going to run but they can't argue with how what god has done in your life lately you know i would never consider the gospel if i didn't say the gospel lived out of my parents lives i didn't pick up the bible from the trash can if i didn't see the bible lived on my father's life my mother's life i didn't leave pursuing same-sex relationships because my parents convinced me they were sinful no i left it because they showed me something better in his name is jesus our job as followers of christ is to show a dying world out there that no matter what they're clinging to all the fool's gold in the world job career money children family not only is jesus better than all of that but following jesus is best so may we be a people that live our lives in a way that it is without question that not only is following jesus better but it is best let's pray father we thank you for today we thank you lord god that we can gather and talk about you lord thank you for the freedoms that we have here that we rejoice in them now and who knows they may go later but we have them now and there's this window lord god where we have this ability to talk to others i pray that we would not squander this lord i pray that when persecution comes lord that you that we would be strong that we would be able to shine christ whatever the circumstance we praise you god we love you help us to love you more than life and we ask this in jesus name amen we don't have quite as much time for public questions as we anticipated but we do have some time and so if you have a question there are microphones in both of the outside aisles and you can feel free to make your way up to those mics and ask dr yuan a question uh the only guidance i would give is it's a question and not not a speech so uh you're welcome to do that and i'll actually ask a question while we're while we're waiting for anyone who might be interested um doctor yuan you you in in the wake of the landmark uh obergefell supreme court decision you co-wrote something with rosaria butterfield it was kind of a theological reflection on gay marriage yes and so i wonder if you could just share a little bit about that because some of the themes that you mentioned tonight yeah seem to touch on that yeah it's um we heard a lot of people that were responding to it some that were celebrating you know what they call marriage equality others that were grieving the loss of this uh the definition of marriage and what we found was that both were kind of just over emphasizing marriage and we want to help people to realize that it's good but it's not the best so we wrote a response and it's just called something greater than marriage i wrote it with my good friend rosaria butterfield you can find it online maybe i'm i think i might even have it back in the book table but that just helps us to frame things correctly that it's uh marriage is good and the world has bought into that like if i don't get married then i have no value i have no dignity um i have no purpose and we know that that's just simply not true it's only christ that gives us those things the mics are open the time is short so if there are any questions make your way to the mic so that other people can hear what you which you have to ask maybe they want to just talk one-on-one with you i don't know here we go here we go thank you so much for sharing your story um one question that i had and it relates to what you're saying is in a conversation with someone who is embracing uh same-sex lifestyle when you do get down to just what the bible teaches when you get to that point in the conversation and and you're saying you say to this person you know i'm i'm sharing the truth with you but but i'm doing this out of a heart of love right and they respond with kind of what you're saying like this identity piece well how can you how this isn't loving because it's against me and who i am yeah like how like what might the conversation look like in trying to like can you explain that to someone is there a way to do that winsomely because yeah just yeah i i think what i find is if they know you're an evangelical christian they're going to probably already know or assume that you believe that this is sin and they will probably try to pin you down you may try to avoid it or we may try to bring that up but but i think it's okay to deflect jesus did not answer every question and i'm not deflecting to try to avoid i'm only deflecting to try to to deflect to what's more more important deflection to avoid things i think is incorrect but to deflect to deflect to something more important i think is very biblical and that's what we want to do we want to deflect away from this question on morality because morality is just legalism i mean it's it's to put morality first is legalism that's what i mean morality is good but to make more put morality first above faith is legalism and so we need to then put faith first the world they don't understand faith so they're going to not understand so all they see is morality so we want to deflect from morality to faith but to talk about faith well it's faith in what right you don't just have faith for you don't have faith you have faith in something so if we're going to deflect a faith then we'd have to talk about that's something that something is god and the son jesus christ so we need to i'm going to deflect to god the existence of god i mean actually you have much more conversations that are broader that don't the reason why i'm going to deflect to this is not only because this is more important but also this is so intensely personal to them because when you say this is sinful behavior they do not hear that what i'm doing is sinful behavior and you know instead what they hear is what you just said is my whole person is reprehensible because they have the wrong identity so i think it's it's important to talk about gout or to talk about well tell me more about who you are is your i mean you say being gay is who you are so does that mean that's that's all like that's completely your sexuality or and tell me more about when you say being gay what exactly do you mean by that other than you say that's who you are but i mean how would you define that and any definition for sexuality has to have uh the aspect of desire or feelings or attraction so i mean in other words it's saying so in other words you're saying that your feelings or desires are who you are like i think a good evangelist is a person who asks good questions makes other people to think that there are some holes in their world view and the more that we can kind of begin poking holes in the world view uh in a non-combative way just in conversation because asking questions is i think a pretty disarming thing to do you know tell me more about you you know tell me so when you say who you are you know when you say being gay what does that mean to you i know what that means for me but i i i for me i know what that means but what does that mean for you you that's that's quite simple ask good questions don't so flip it around like actually i think i think a good evangelist is a good apologist you know i i don't really separate the two i think a good apologist is not one who gives good answers a really good apologist is one who knows how to good ask good questions so i think in a very disarming non-combative way is actually just help people ask good questions to make them to think about their own world view that they're basing everything on is actually not as solid as they think it's it's a little bit of quicksand thanks so much you're welcome dr yuan thank you for your testimony tonight i would like to know there's so many you mentioned ambiguity and fifty shades of you know yeah different hundred grams today yeah yes it um how do there's so many different solutions and voices out on this subject topic right now um how do you feel about the re-voice movement what do you think of in terms of how they're trying to answer this question yeah so revoice if you're not familiar uh is a two-year conference um started by nate collins who i know he also went to moody bible institute where i went um good guy and um but it's out of a group called spiritual friendship which is uh the kind of the uh the leader i guess the the more well-known person is is wesley hill who's also an author who's written um a washington waiting and spiritual friendship and he's actually local here oh i'm sorry the other side of the state um the pittsburgh side and he teaches at trinity school of ministry in englekin a conservative anglican seminary so spiritual friendship nate collins re-voice uh would be people who would say um they they would call themselves gay they would call themselves gay christians but recognize that that term gay could uh mislead and so they need another modifier for that modifier so they call themselves gay celibate christians um they would also uh be proponents for um that people who have same such attractions or what they say who are gay um there's there's two more things one they believe that that same sex relationships sexual relationships are sinful um but uh and so then god calls them to a life of celibacy second is they think that the a key answer to that need for intimacy uh is spiritual friendship and that's from a 11th century cistercian english monk who wrote something called de spirituali amniti which is a latin thing on spiritual friendship that's the name yeah about spiritual friendship is what he wrote about so where i think they have a lot of good things to say where they're not trying to sugarcoat things and wash washing waiting was helpful to help people see that it's not all roses it's it's difficult it's hard and um i think west west is wrong honestly was very helpful i i think where where i would differ is first wes and and and nate would they believe that when they say gay they don't mean they they will say when i say that when they say gay they say i i'm just talking about these are strong attractions that i have but i don't think that this is who i am and i'm not saying that i'm acting on this um that's fine that they say that and i'm glad they do say that however the way that gay is used today by everyone else that i know of um by everyone outside the christian world uses gay a certain way and and also the world sees is that they see gay as an ontological category not as a category of experience so that i think is naive to think that we can sort of just limit the scope definition of words on our own just a certain group can say i think the word mean this way and then i think that that kind of magically changes the definitions of words that that's not how uh etymology works uh second i think this concept of celibacy is not a concept we find in scripture celibacy could be used synonymous with chastity but celibacy actually also means more it's defined as a lifelong chosen vocation the bible actually doesn't talk about that in first corinthians 7 even actually celibacy has never found the bible it's not a it's not from a greek word it's from a latin word and even the latin word for celibacy and celibate is not found in the latin vulgate which is quite interesting uh celibacy doesn't occur uh really in mainstream especially until later in the medieval period in roman catholicism uh so it's really rooted in church history which i think there's a lot that we can learn from church history but also there's a lot that we need to become critical of in church history so just because it happens in church history i'm not just going to buy it i need to compare it to scripture third thing is this concept of spiritual friendship which i think can be helpful but what i've seen in the past 10 years after spiritual friendship has come out is what you see now in many communities is that gay celibate men will come together and they will all live together and they form these kind of spiritual friendship groups which i've i don't know how many stories i've already heard over a dozen over the past 10 years where these you know and they live together they do everything together they even go go to gay pride together but they say i'm gay and celibate where a lot of times they say i fall in love with my best friend so the key here is is gay sanctifiable or or not because i think for revoice and spiritual friendship they will say being gay uh can be sanctified there's aspects of being gay that are good and what they're confusing is this concept what they think because i've read their writings is they they see that their being gay can be part of or or their the act of being friends is also part of them being gay that's why they say so being gay can be good but then they conflate being anyway it's kind of messy that's why it's getting ambiguous but here's my issue with that is simply being a same-sex friend a man and a man being friends that's not part of sexuality because if that were a part of sexuality everyone in this room would be gay or bi my mother desires to have the best you know to uh have a really good friend with with women that does not make her a lesbian so we've we can't over you know generalize the meaning of this um and so the way i see my same sex desires that are sexual and romantic aren't something that i need to say are good but i need to mortify here's paul says i just want to use really biblical terms um so that's why also i think revoice borrows too much from um kind of identity politics and use it like intersectionality which i don't think is helpful uh in intersectionality is important a framework to think about race and all the different layers of of uh you know kind of discrimination however where that leads to is elevating all these aspects of discrimination and to keep us as victims when i read the scriptures we may be persecuted we may be victimized but jesus never leaves us as victims he leaves us as victors amen and that's where i really struggle with revoice is the conference ends begins and ends as victims and there's no hope so it's not something that i would uh suggest thank you yeah you're welcome uh thank you for your time tonight you're welcome um so as a local pastor and working with youth ministry as well something that i've observed is really two different perspectives on this issue um generationally yes and i find myself often feeling like i'm mediating or between the two um and so some practical things that i've noticed and a question maybe you could give some advice on are situations where for instance parents are divided on if they can attend their son or daughter's wedding because of their stance on the subject and then another question just to follow up with that is if you'd have advice for somebody who's working as a leader in the church on what we could do better or what we could um be teaching or speaking to our congregation to really be able to be the church and be the light in this world where i think identity is really confusing so when it comes to marriage i believe that it is helpful especially parents to be on the same page when it comes to this there's a reason why we're we're called to be one flesh and especially it might seem behind the scenes and no no no husband and wife is going to be agreeing on everything but i think um that we should try to make that more behind the scenes struggle and what we're putting forward to others is we're unified front and i think that's important especially on this so there needs to be a lot of praying and fasting through this it's very difficult the marriage question is not an easy one especially when it's you're the parent because it could be a make or break in the situation many times just to make a break if you don't go that's the end of the relationship end and and i know and that's true some some you know that are experiencing over a decade of of no communication after that decision it's there's two main things that are at stake does their loved one know what we believe and their loved one know that we still love them if you don't go it's clear what you believe but it could be misunderstood that you love them if you do go it's clear you love them but it could be misunderstood what you believe so i think in this situation i'm not going to say you need to go or shouldn't go but i do believe that you need to pray and fast seek god's will on this it's obviously a sin to be in a same-sex relationship or to be in a same-sex marriage but presence does does that equate to celebration or condoning or being a part of that sin or not and i would say if you pray and fast and god is telling you not to go i would not tell that person through an email or phone call or a text i would actually tell that person face to face so do all you can to go go to them even if it's long distance does presence equate acceptance in most situations yes when you go to a wedding you're there to celebrate but not always like in-laws we'll be at weddings and they don't always you know they're not always sometimes they are not always uh an acceptance but they're present again i'm not saying that and there therefore you can i'm just simply saying we need to think through this but also think through the very clear way that the bible talks about weddings in marriage it's a very very strong metaphor throughout scripture the bible begins in genesis one and two with a what i mean i see genesis 2. that at the end that's a wedding ceremony those are vowels you know that adam's making um it's very covenantal language genus revelation ends with the wedding supper of the lamb and throughout the old and the new i mean the old yahweh is the is the husband of a rebellious israel and in the new testament you have christ who's the groom of his perfect bride the church so you have a lot of this imagery uh that it we should not trivialize something that the bible really holds up as as special especially it talks about our relationship with god so i i'm very cautious about how we would do this but i so personally i i don't know if i would be able to go to an actual ceremony but i know people who would not go to the ceremony but maybe maybe go to the reception that could be possible um reception is not exactly the same thing um it's a free meal you know why not take advantage of that especially if you're a you know college student um and uh but there would be aspects of the ceremony i would think this through ahead of time that i would just not participate in the toast um to the couple because that's obvious anything in my actions that would give the impression that i'm condoning or accepting or celebrating it i wouldn't do a toast going through the line my words i wouldn't say you know congratulations i could say i love you i'm glad i get to be in your life i would not get them one gift with a couple get them two separate gifts for the individuals where you can affirm the person as opposed to infirm the couple the pair um you could get them my book they could read it god could use it you never know yeah so there's different options so the other part is how for the church i think we need to talk about this more um from a redemptive perspective not just that this is sin but how do we share christ so people can see grace and truth um i think using stories of people who who have journeyed out of this uh i think having a place where parents can come together either anonymously or you know where they can have find some support for this but not making that the only place where they can go but having that is kind of like a an icu that then put them bring them back to uh kind of the normal regular life of the church um but um yeah i think having being able to talk about this more and discuss it i think is especially in these contexts and i mean so my newest book i'm going to say that again but that that was really written potentially for the local church that um i think often times uh groups whether it was in the past the the exodus groups or even sometimes kind of spiritual friendship groups they tend to whether it's intentional or not end up devaluing the primacy of the bright not only christ well i'm not saying that they're you know devouring the primacy of christ but they're devouring the primacy of the local church because i mean i put christ and the body of christ is the same you can't say you love christ and not love the body of this right they go hand in hand uh so that's why i think it's really important uh so this book i wrote that very intentionally like the study i have a study guide in the back that many churches are going through so that and several small groups are doing that in their churches going through an eight-week study guide that really helps them to reframe this not just on homosexuality but on sexuality in general for everyone thank you you're welcome we're overtime and so we are always grateful to welcome any of our guests including all of you and we're grateful to welcome dr yuan this evening so let's thank him thank you

Channel: Cairn University

Views: 24,428

Rating: 4.7642584 out of 5

Keywords: cairn university, christopher yuan, christianity, homosexuality

Id: tk4gqp4qTk8

Length: 88min 13sec (5293 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 02 2019