Love is Love: What Does The Bible Say About Homosexuality - RE:LATIONSHIPS

well good morning First Church and welcome to the fourth week of our series refresh renew and restart relationships and I'm just so excited to be continuing this conversation with you and if you didn't know the last three weeks actually I was laying the foundation for this week's message and the main points of last the last three weeks of messages are actually the main three points that I have for this week so a lot of you guys are like oh that's great I'm out of here I don't need to hear it but no I'm gonna contextualize them in a way that will impact you for this message so if you miss those and you're watching online I'll encourage you to check out those messages first and if you're here today and you haven't heard or seen those there's gonna be a lot more insight from those messages so you can watch those when you get home but this week I want to talk about love is love God's love for the LGBT community and I just think that because Jesus invented modern love as a matter of historical fact the way that we see it today I think it's gonna be really cool to learn about how he teaches us to love the LGBT community now last week my main point my main verse was John 13:34 if you remember a new command I give to you love one another just as I have loved you so you must love one another and today I just I want to love one another and we live in a world that is so polarized you know last night we had the White House press Correspondents Dinner that was a total dumpster fire and just a demonstration of the fact that man it's really hard to love one another we have a lot of political extremities and I think both ends of the political spectrum have a tendency to dehumanize people that disagree with them right I mean the left sees the ride is a bunch of hateful close-minded intolerant bigots and the right sees the left is a bunch of entitled hateful lazy intolerant fascists right and in the part that blows my mind is in both of these different communities there are people who love Jesus and our master and Savior calls us to love one another in spite of our disagreements living in the middle politically I think is increasingly difficult and dangerous I think people say well you're either for us or against us and yet the middle is exactly where Jesus lived in his day there were two political parties right the Pharisees and the Sadducees and they actually made the Democrats and the Republicans look like best friends they hated each other they didn't just fight and have attack ads they actually killed each other and Jesus in the midst of this says love one another and it's so interesting because the Conservatives in his day and age would call Jesus someone who cared too much for the poor and was all about handouts and immigration and the fundamental liberties aswhat a fundamentalist who hated government and ultimately they both would crucify him people from both ends of the spectrum would mock him at his death and push for his crucifixion at his trial and in return Jesus said Father forgive them see he really taught us what love is he says when people disagree with you when people hate you you still are called to love one another he literally as a matter of historical fact invented the selfless sacrificial love that we know in the modern era and I want you to know that first Church chooses to embody that love for all people including lesbian gay and bisexual people no matter your perspective or issues in your life whether you're divorced addicted widowed or depressed you're loved and welcomed here no matter what you identify as sexually whether that would be lesbian gay bisexual straight or other you're welcome and you're loved here and no matter if you hate God or you're not sure about God or you are part of a different religion or you love Jesus from Scripture I want you to know you are loved and welcomed here I want to speak to people online just for a moment and I know that you guys probably haven't seen the messages from the last few weeks so I'm going to just reiterate for you Jesus changed the world with his love and Christians as a people group have consistently been the most persecuted people group around the world Hitler Stalin Mao Zedong Pol Pot the most famous atheists ever killed more Christians together than any other people group and yet they responded with love okay Christians were the first to care for dying Muslims Jews Buddhists and others during a Black Plague in Europe and they invented hospitals when every other people group said sick people are cursed by God Christian said we care for the sick and the dying because we love one another because that's what Jesus calls for us to do Christians invented orphanages to love one another the Red Cross schools colleges and modern science to love one another that's what God calls us to do regardless of how people treat us and listen I've had people online threaten my family try to kill us we've had to ask for police protection at her house and workplace I've had P mock and humiliate me because of my perspectives and I want you to know because I love Jesus I'm going to do my very best to love one another and to respond with love but listen Jesus also taught us in 1st Corinthians 13 that loving one another means rejoicing with the truth and this is a big deal I think the modern perspective love is love takes that little factoid out loving somebody doesn't mean agreeing with in affirming every single life choice they make just to make them happy real love Jesus who invented real love taught us that love rejoices with the truth and today that's what I want to do I want to rejoice with the truth and listen even if you disagree with me you're still welcome here no matter what you say I will always do my very best to dignify you and if you're not a Christian I want you to know there's a lot about this talk that's gonna apply to you but there's also a fair amount that will not and I just I want you to understand that and I always tell people that God is not concerned about you stopping sinning in your life first and foremost that's why he sent Jesus to die for us and I want you to know no matter what issue you're facing whether it's addiction pride anger or sexuality God wants your heart first and His Spirit helps us with obedience after we give him our heart so we're gonna love one another today and week 1 of this series I laid a foundation for the whole thing which comes out of Matthew 6:33 and that says seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you and we talked about priorities and we said look if God is real he's who were gonna seek first we're gonna seek God first because that's the only thing that would make sense right if he's real he's the foundation for every other area of our life we build our entire lives around the reality of God if he actually exists and I've also shared with you most of our church knows this but I want to remind you online that I don't have enough faith to follow any other world way because God clearly is a God of Bible first off we know that's true because something doesn't come from nothing right we see the universe around us we know that something started it then we know that intelligent design doesn't come from no intelligence this is called a fine-tuning argument but you can google it online Christopher Hitchens famous atheist said this is the most compelling argument for theists and I really think it is a great great demonstration of the reality of God's existence and finally we know that 456 precise fulfilled biblical prophecies don't happen by chance and because of that I believe that the God of the Bible is the one true Living God and the only way to heaven and listen that's a big deal I don't have enough faith to be an atheist I come from a long line of Buddhists and atheists and I can't follow that dogmatic religion because I can't plug my ears and close my eyes to the evidence because I know that God is real listen my feelings don't change who he is if he's real if I don't like the bad things happen to good people or I don't like his narrow definition of sexuality my dislike of that isn't going to change his nature he is who he is and so today I want to seek God first above all else I want to learn what he teaches us about sexuality and I'm gonna reveal some things about my life in my family this week that I never shared this is actually a deeply personal issue for my family and I and there been a lot of comments that people have made online about previous sermons I preached on this I'm saying here's another heterosexual man with no concept of the reality of this struggle and now this is actually a personal issue for my family and myself and I think we're finally ready to share a story I'm just so thankful for Jesus who's walked in love beside us in this whole process and for the first time ever my brother and his wife agreed to share their story about this we put together a ten minute video where he's going to talk about his perspective and and struggle with this issue and I'm just so excited for our church to learn from this because I think it's the most gospel centered presentation of this issue that I've ever seen so let's go ahead and check out that video when I was growing up if there was anything that it was okay to make fun of it was people who behaved like the opposite sex that was clearly explained at school clearly displayed in the way friends treated one another and the same was consistent at church another thing that was clear was that it was it that everyone believed it was a choice that it was something that homosexuals chose to do I felt extremely loved at home I had parents who fostered a really great family environment around this time I did notice another particular attraction it might have even been described as a desperation for approval but maybe even an interest in other and it wouldn't be just any guys would be particular men even as I entered high school the the interest in men and the disinterest of women still was just a passing phase I was sure I couldn't possibly be gay gay people chose to be gay people who were homosexuals constantly lived in sin that's all they wanted they were ardently against God and I still love God that couldn't possibly be me probably unlike most people have us in this stereotypical story I felt extremely loved at home I had parents who fostered a really great family environment so the first person I came out to is my father I was very comfortable talking to him he always was willing to process with me difficult things and so one day I came to him and I said dad I think I am attracted to men and that I'm not attracted to women and I'm not sure what exactly that means but it's something I need to process my dad's response was great he said you know son first of all I'm proud of you that you are comfortable enough sharing with me I know that you love the Lord and that you want to honor and obey Him in this as well as everything else I don't really know what the answers are but I'm wanting to explore with you but if it's something you ever want to talk about you should always feel free to bring it up with me and I love you it was a huge weight off my shoulders to finally be able to share with somebody of course throughout this whole process I had been ardently praying and asking God why I was experiencing these things asking God to heal me of these simultaneous with this point pretty much everybody had finished going through puberty I was in early high school eventually though I thought maybe the way that you start being attracted to women is by physical intimacy said that ah maybe I just need to kiss somebody so finally I started to develop one of these crushes on a girl who I was in our social circle we eventually did start dating a couple months later it was New Year's Eve and she was making it pretty clear that she was wanting to be kissed at midnight and so I kissed obviously was very meaningful to her and for me her tongue tasted metallic and I felt clearly it was not my cure so in continued conversations with my father we decided maybe a Christian counselor would be a good next step I think this particular community was incredibly well intentioned my first concert was a very loving woman who strongly believed in prayer ministry but at that time is pretty widely believed that this was an illness and then you treat it and then you get better from it unfortunately none of it caused me to change and of course that's a bit disappointing and you start to wonder what what's what's wrong with me throughout this period I was remarkably happy I finally had friends at school I loved God I felt like every day was the best day of my life so this wasn't all-consuming anyways I entered college and so for the first time I had really deep and meaningful friendship these are ones that I still have to this day and that I highly value and they were the first time that I was with other men that I felt comfortable enough to share this part of me with them if you ever have a friend come out to you I can pretty much guarantee you that they are most fearful is not that you'll reject them outright it's that you'll treat them differently that you'll start to hold them at arm's length that you'll start to distance yourself or the relationship will somehow be fundamentally changed these friends responded an amazing manner they if anything we became closer because I had shared they just all said we're walking this path towards trying to understand how we follow Christ most consistently and most holy together and we know that the right thing is to deepen your relationship with God and as you walk this path like we want to walk it with you and as we try to abstain from sending sexually with women we were happy to walk with you as you try to abstain from any sexually with men and that was helpful and meaningful so I went to the I was at Wheaton College and I went to the library and for a the first book that I pulled out ended up being in affirming the gay lifestyle it went through each of these six passages that I had discovered earlier and kind of talked well if you look at the context in this manner there's a way to interpret it that it is not sinful to enter into monogamous same-sex marriage for a lifetime and so you know I big part of me wanted to believe that this was true and yet when I got to the end of the book something felt fundamentally empty about it I ultimately came to the conclusion that if had really intended for us not to be able to earth to for us to be able to live in same-sex marriage he is the ultimate worst communicator of all time it took some PhD theologian an entire book to convince me that it might be okay if I was willing to contort things in in this manner to believe this then why does anyone read the Bible so I actually came out of it with the opposite belief of the intent the attention of the author I was reading throughout this period I had a lot of good conversations with my dad that were they were helpful and we kind of discussed well what if this doesn't change what are viable life paths one of these we remember talking about marriage what is what is the required element of a marriage he asked you know is marriage something you want do you want to have kids someday do you want something different and a nice and I said I really did and so we discussed you know what what is necessary for a marriage if you if your physical attractions don't change can you still be married I realized that the thing that I wanted most was to have a shared history with someone over a period of a lifetime we also talked what might it look like to be single I think one thing the church does is over emphasize married life own obviously Jesus Paul or single they are extremely meaningful ways to live fulfilling and well lived single lights and it's not like that shouldn't even have to be said in college I continue to date on and off with very little successes I even was engaged once before the girl was amazing but every time the rubber hit the road it was it was clear that she felt fundamentally rejected by me but after that relationship was over I began to really visualize myself as being single for the rest of my life and I got to a point where it was actually an exciting thing just the amount of opportunity that was available to me and freedom that was there but um that didn't end up being what happened for a New Year's resolution I agreed to go on five first dates that year and so fortunately one of those was Alyssa my name is Alyssa Hill I'm married to ena we've been married almost five years when I first met Enoch he had planned our first date to be at a bookstore we talked about things that most people probably don't talk about on the first date I just was surprised at all the things that we could connect on for a first date and so at the end of the date Enoch told me he said I'm gonna call you in a few days and I'd like to ask you on another date but you don't don't feel pressure to answer right now and I immediately said yes at the end of that date he said I have something that I need to share with you but I'm gonna wait till our third date and on the third date he shared that he is same-sex attracted which was a surprise to me so we continued dating and dating was kind of challenging actually really challenging because it was different than any other relationship I had been in I knew in my head that this was not very typical and it didn't really make sense for me to be dating someone who was in us who had a same-sex attraction but in my heart he knew it was right which is the strangest thing and also as we dated I typically met an extremely emotional person and during our dating relationship I was a rock I had a stability and a piece and a calmness it was it was the Lord giving me a peace and just the strength we ended up getting married and I will say that for us getting married was awesome we've come to sort of a functional understanding of what Enoch struggle looks like in our marriage to the point that we don't have to talk about it every day Enoch is an amazing husband our kids love him he's an amazing dad seeks to point them to Jesus even when they're little our son is 1 and our daughters three I guess all that to say like were five years in to this marriage were seven years into our relationship and God has done amazing things he didn't fix you know you know I still struggles with this but he's made it workable for us like we can delight in each other so I'm excited to see what what God is gonna do in the next 50 or 75 years of our marriage it's been a huge blessing to be married to Enoch and I wouldn't trade it for the world so as far as my story from this point on though I feel like I've done everything to try to be changed I am still attracted to men and I'm not attracted to women and despite that I am fundamentally one of the happiest people I know and I feel that choosing to value my relationship with Christ above all the other things has consistently led to the path of most joy not only I don't believe that someday I will experience joy though the situation's might be difficult or complex I'm happy right now I'm honestly one of the happiest people I know there is nobody I know that I would rather be the church is progressing in its understanding of people who have experiences like mine I don't know that the churches that choose to hold a traditional interpretation of Scripture have a reasonable positive narrative for people who seek to do the Lord's will but find themselves continuing to be attracted to men of the same sex I think the church can do better at this to provide positive narratives to provide insight into stories of this is what your life can look like following God and continuing to be attracted to the same sex doesn't have to be a hush-hush tragedy where you just who somehow embraces celibacy and look forward to dying and someday being in heaven when Jesus died on the cross he brought God's kingdom to earth in the present and though one day all things will be made new there is joy to be had right now and whether that's getting married or being single or whatever it is like it doesn't have to be the consolation prize I'm so proud of my brother and his wife for taking what I think is a huge huge risk and I know I probably under focus on this issue as a church and a big part of that is because I'm afraid and I've received a lot of hate because of holding a perspective on this from people who disagree with me but I'm just thankful for my brother who had the courage to put his career literally on the line and receive hate from both ends of the spectrum to love people and both of us have experienced that the people get most upset about this usually aren't lesbian or gay people and they're usually grateful for that narrative the people who get most upset about this are usually people who have taken an offense on behalf of somebody who's strong with this and I'm just grateful for him to love people and showing narrative that I think is really positive and god-honoring and I I never talked about the second week of the series I never talked about the main point that I made when I talked about mate selection but that's really kind of foundational today and that says in Luke 2 14 28 but don't begin until you count the cost and Jesus challenges us to look before we leap relationally he challenges us to think about the decisions we make in regard to our dating and sexuality before you jump count the cost and want to love all people in this church and I definitely in every other area of sin has spoken the truth and have helped people count the cost right because we love people and we talk about how straight couples living together before marriage actually increases divorce rates and decreases marital satisfaction we love people enough to say hard things we challenge parents and say hey look at your kids and don't just say oh my kids are sexually active they're making decisions that are harming their future relationships they're making decisions that will increase the chances of an affair and lower sexual satisfaction challenge your kids to walk in Jesus's plan count the cost of not walking in Jesus's plan this isn't just what the Bible says this is what research tells us right God doesn't give us commands because he hates us he gives us commands because He loves us and how many people do we know who have lived the dream right drugs sex rock and roll the whole nine yards and at the end of the day we know that it doesn't lead to satisfaction right if you consider yourself lesbian gay or bisexual I want you to know that you are loved in this church and even if you never change and you always continue to live in that lifestyle and reject what we think as God's teaching in this area I want you to know you're loved and welcomed here but we will always rejoice with the truth we will always rejoice with that and I want you to understand I want you to count the cost and I shared this last year we're gonna include this link in the description to the talks last year's talk where I included all of the sources for this but we know that for lesbian gay people the suicidality rate is about 30 percent or more that's ten times higher than it is for the straight population and we know that depression rates skylock rocket in the lesbian gay lifestyle life satisfaction drops and we know there's a bevy of recent studies that one I have he recited from 2008 but there's many many more that are now saying discrimination doesn't account for the disparity in mental health of LGBT people that's a big deal because for years we just thought well it's because of discrimination but as we're seeing today no its intrinsic to the lifestyle gay men experience a life expectancy that's shortened by 8 to 20 years and overall life satisfaction drops and lesbian homes experience the highest levels of domestic view abuse and violence of any demographic in American society according to the Journal of violence and victims this is why Jesus says don't begin until you count the cost out of love for us I think there's this big myth for people outside the church they look at Christians and they say all Christians just love to hate people sin and hate them and hate who they are and they secretly love it when people go to hell but that's never been God's heart that's never been our heart you see as Christians the reason why sin breaks our hearts is because sin breaks people we look at people that we love and people that we care about we say you know what we love you so much we don't want God loves our Heavenly Father loves us so much he doesn't want his children to make choices that will hurt us because we love people right what I love about first church and Jesus in general is we say that no one is perfect and everyone is welcome you don't have to believe before you belong here I know that some of you you don't agree with what I'm teaching I want you to hear from the bottom I heart the only reason we talk about this is because we love you and we want you to see and experience the very best life that God has for you and God calls us to count the cost with their lives especially when it comes to our sexuality and I love that my brother counted the cost he's fundamentally one of the happiest people that we know that he knows every single day he's like so fun to hang out with because everything he does he's like this is the best ever best day in my life it's like let's bring Enoch here because he's gonna make a bad situation a good one but I love that he counted the cost and he looked down a lot of different roads he's single gay married he looked at the risks and he looked at his love for God and he made a decision that ultimately I think has turned out to be a really good one now I have to say something specifically to people online there's gonna be a lot of parsing and mincing of this talk just like there have been of our past ones and a lot of people like to bring up some explanations for the six passages that prohibit gay sex and the one passage that prohibits lesbians sex in the Bible and these can be explained away individually as a condemnation of pederasty of a condemnation of sexual Idol idol worship and a condemnation of prostitution but in reality all of these passages are linked together in a network okay Paul in Corinthians and Romans is clearly referencing the Levitical passages and what he's doing is he's using them in a way that makes their prohibition of the act of gay and lesbian sex undeniable in Scripture and recently there have been some really compelling popular speakers like Matt vines that some of you guys are gonna cite and tell me to watch which I have and I can just tell you that he is ultimately ultimately very persuasive but academically dishonest and even affirming serious theologians know that you have to fundamentally reject the authority of Scripture or reject the transcendency of scripture through time to believe anything other than a traditional interpretation of it on this issue and in other words the Bible says gay and lesbian sex is not God's best for your life and if you are a Christian here there is no doubt what God is calling us to he's calling us to submit to his plan and purpose for our lives and listen I know that there's a cost to every choice that we make but I also thank God regularly for the choice that my brother made in his life because of the joy that it's brought him and I want to make a note to Christians here okay in the room this is for you guys you need to hear this this is a big deal okay for Christians I feel like I feel like what we do is we we hear that someone struggles with this issue and we're like you understand you know you understand God's and it's like whoa whoa slow down slow down okay I want people first and foremost to know that they're loved by our community I want this to be a place where people can process God safely and understand the context of following Jesus in their own life I thank God that my parents had the courage and patience to allow my brother to walk through a difficult process as he thought what does it look like to follow Jesus I do believe that same-sex attraction not acted upon physically or mentally is not a sin it's the result of a fall now if it is acted out mentally or physically it's clearly shown through Scripture by Jesus the Apostles and the prophets unilaterally to not be God's best but again if our first gut reaction is anything less than love and compassion for some but he created in the image of God I think we need to take a good long look in the mirror and recognize God's compassion for us in our own lives the key passage that I have today is from a Matthew 11:28 29 it says then Jesus said come to me all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart and you will find rest for your souls I want to ask you as a church are we humble and gentle at heart for people who disagree with us is that like a benchmark of our community is this a place where people who disagree with us can find rest I want to be a place where all people experience the humble gentle heart of Christ and I think part of the reason why each story is so powerful to me is because he's my only brother and I love him and respect him deeply but also I think the reason why he was able to choose such a courageous path is because my parents chose to be humble and gentle at heart with him they embody the love of God with him and they said hey we love you ok love rejoice is with the truth but at the same time we're gonna be humble and gentle at heart I want that to be our community I want people to be able to come out here and be loved and and I want to patiently walk beside people safely as they contextualized what it looks like to follow Jesus in their own life now I'm I wish that we had a single narrative here today as well and I just want to emphasize as Enoch said at his video that had he chosen the single life there would have been wonderful blessings in that as well I think many Christians are choosing the route of singleness just like Jesus and Paul did and there's good in that I feel like in church we idolized this one path and God actually tells us in Scripture that singleness is more admirable than marriage that's wonderful now the last story I want to share with you guys today is my wife's story and I said this issue was deeply personal for us and it is I'm so proud of my wife I love every part of her and what she's going to share with you is something that she has never shared with really anyone but me before today this is kind of a big deal I guess there were a few people who saw this video to approve it before it was shown this is the first time even members of my immediate family had been able to see this and I'm just proud of her courage as well and I want you to check out her video right now go ahead my story begins when I was really little I had very sexual dreams at a very young age most of my sexual dreams were actually women on women even at young ages seven or eight eventually I asked a couple family members about it and I distinctly remember them laughing at it and that was a really defining moment for me because I remember thinking well that is laughable like I am laughable I became sexually active at a really young age and it was always with guys I remember thinking that my identity was going to be in my sexuality well I went off to college and I did the whole college and drinking thing and I remember one night my best friend and I were walking through a dorm room and they had this huge flat-screen TV and on it was just this huge image of pornography and it was one of the first images that I ever saw this specific image was women on women and I saw it and I remember we walked by it but after that point because it was one of the only sexual images that I had ever really seen in the light I remember that is what I would think about that was what I would be thinking about with all my boyfriends that would be man just the image I would go to I really think that if I hadn't seen that pornography in that dorm room I don't know if this would necessarily be something that I would have ever really struggled with I know that I had those dreams as a kid but I feel like that image of pornography is what really unleashed those sexual desires and those images and cultivated that same sex attracted nough sin but interestingly enough when I became a Christian when I surrendered my life to Christ I remember thinking what if this is who I am what if this is this is what I've been thinking what if this maybe I am attracted to women maybe this is my sexual identity I knew instantly after I gave my life to Christ I didn't like the feeling I remember yeah just being traumatized by it I remember knowing that it was a sin knowing it wasn't right and it's so interesting because before I gave my life to Christ I never questioned it I didn't think it was bad but instinctually once I got the holy spirit it was automatic knew it wasn't okay and I just going into a huge just time of searching and time of man really trying to figure out yeah what does God say about this like is this okay is this Who I am and I remember meeting a woman out for coffee and just she's the first person I ever even told that I was struggling with this and that I was wrestling with these thoughts and I remember her looking back at me after I told her everything and thinking she was gonna reject me and tell me you know I'm defective or like I even thought maybe she'd be like well maybe that's who you are maybe you should go date women I really didn't know what she was gonna say but she just looked right at me and she's like Kristin God doesn't make mistakes he made you a woman and he did not make a mistake when it comes to this like this is not who you are and I can't tell you how much that statement meant to me because I was crumbling at the seams and I I knew in the depth of my being that that was God's truth that that was who I was and I'm not saying it's a sin to be attracted to the same sex the sin comes when we cultivate and indulge that desire with thoughts and actions my mentor helped me see that in my circumstance I cultivated a desire in this way but I know so many people can relate to my story so many people man have struggled with what I struggle with I just want you to know he can use you he wants to use you to do greater things and you could ever imagine he to use you to go and rescue people and to go and proclaim how good he is and if it isn't good yet God isn't done yet hi really enjoyed that first video and I thought it was great because it opened up our heart to the joy of seeking God first but I think this video connects with me and probably my whole generation here today because the majority of the younger generation is dealing with sexual struggles because of pornography and sexual trauma that's just a real thing statistically in our lives and I want to make it clear Enoch was born with a same-sex attraction struggle but Kristen had it cultivated and I'm not saying that God would never answer Enochs prayers to change his desires but I will acknowledge that I think it's very rare for someone with his experiences to see change and I think in the 80s and 90s the church exaggerated how easy that would be as if it was something that could be fixed like he said in his video that's not the case but I have seen people born like Kristen with a heterosexual desire that has been cultivated towards a gay or lesbian desire like my wife and what I see is people like run into that this is who I am now this is my identity and decades later they discover well maybe this isn't Who I am and I'm confused about who I actually am and what's happening I think the fundamental lie is that our sexuality is our identity that this is who we are I think that's because our society fundamentally worships sex we say sex defines a sex is the most important thing in life and to me that's kind of a silly notion because how much of our lives do we actually spend in the act of sex like not not actually that much I mean it's surprising that we would say this thing defines us when it really isn't like the end-all be-all of our life I think becoming a Christian means allowing Jesus to define us which is a fundamental rejection of the supremacy of all other sexual identities I don't identify first as a father or a husband or a steelworker identify as a follower of Christ because I see God first and his righteousness and I believe that all the other things in my life will be modified according to his plan in his supremacy listen as Christians here's my main point today we seek God first not our sexuality it's just such a big deal for us I think we live in a society where you know that shouldn't need to be said but it it's true I think it's very likely that my brother would have been actively in the gay lifestyle I think my wife would have been actively bisexual and I've not shared my full struggles yet and maybe in a few years I will but I think I would have been hyper sexual but because we follow Christ we let him define us and in his own way he's brought joy and healing and freedom to each of us and enix and Christians struggle that's still a part of their identity I think the myth is like oh well it's been fixed now there no no no this is a daily struggle you understand I don't think it's like gay and lesbian people have a fallen sexual identity I think all people have a fallen sexual identity that's a part of the fault and all of us everyday if we're Christian choose to walk in righteousness here we choose to allow God's plan and God's love and God's mercy to give us victory and I know for my wife and brother they have to ask God for strength to have victory each day and each of them is one of the most fundamentally joyful people I know listen following Jesus is Enoch said it's not a grit your teeth and bear it until Jesus returns kind of thing it's the joy of relationship with Christ today it's not some hush-hush tragedy our source and life of joy becomes Jesus and I think everyone here today can relate to sexual struggle we live in a society that is just being rocked by continuing revelation of powerful people and role models that we respected who ended up getting washed up into inappropriate sexual things because it's a struggle that we have and today's message is for all people with the fallen sexuality and last time I checked that's everyone I just want us to corporately seek victory in Christ together and that might not be like complete freedom from any sinful desire but I think it can be a victory over a fallen desire because God's love is great this is why he told us come to me all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens we'll give you rest take my yoke upon you and let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart and you will find rest for your souls I just know that there's some of you who are weary and you're carrying heavy burdens today regardless of what the issue is I want you to know that we have a God who loves you and is humble and gentle at heart maybe there's some of you here today you've got some sexual trauma in your past from something that maybe someone did to you and you carry just a lot of burdens from that or maybe it was something that you did to someone or yourself and you carry a lot of shame and guilt from that there is nothing that can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord no matter what your past is God's love is unbreakable for you listen when you repent when you ask him to forgive you when you make him the leader and forgiver of your life teaches us that his Spirit comes to partner with us and he helps us have victory over that there was a time in my life I thought man I'm never going to be able to have victory over fallen sexual desires but by the power of God's Spirit day by day and when I do what my wife does what my brother does what his wife does we just pour out our heart to him daily God is a God who can take it I pour out my brokenness to him I say God I need your help like I'm struggling I love you I know that I'm weary and I'm coming to you this is what he tells us to do listen church is not a place for perfect people it's not this whitewashed place where people come and smile and say God is blessing our socks off it's a place for everyday normal people with normal struggles and normal hurts habits and hangups to come to a God who cares and loves and redeems and we say Jesus I need you in my life will you forgive me will you transcend my weakness and turn it into a victory and a strength right now at a moment of privacy and concentration I want to ask cats to bow and eyes to close every single one just out of respect for your neighbor I know there's some of you here today man you're walking in brokenness you feel weary and you're carrying heavy burdens what'd it look like for you to turn that broken area of your life over to Jesus what would it look like for you to say Jesus I want your victory in my weakness I'm just submitting to your redemption what if we sought that together as a church if you're here today and you've been withholding that area of your life from Christ you just want Jesus to come in and bring healing to a place of brokenness in your life would you lift up your hand right now so yeah pastor that's me I see that him I see that hand I see that hand I see that hand nobody else I see that hand back there we just pray for our church right now let me pray for you guys Lord Jesus I just lift up everybody in this room but especially people struggling with sexual brokenness Jesus I ask that you would bring healing to dark hurting places you are the God who transforms you are the God who raised Jesus from the dead would you bring healing to brokenness here today I thank you for your love and mercy I thank you that your plan is for our best today I asked it as a church we could boldly love one another with grace mercy compassion strength and boldness in the name of Jesus all God's people said amen and amen we give a round of applause for what God is doing in our community

Channel: First Church

Views: 24,715

Rating: 3.7204161 out of 5

Keywords: First Church, First, Church, First.church, DeMotte, Wheatfield, Indiana, Jasper County, First Reformed Church Of DeMotte, Sermon, Reformed, DeMotte Church, Wheatfield Church, Churches, LGBT, Gay, Lesbian, Pride, homosexuality, affirming church, affirming, love is love

Id: k52WoXBCesU

Length: 39min 16sec (2356 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 29 2018