Jesus Loves Homosexuals - Part 2 - Part A

We may disagree about the use of spiritual gifts in the church. A lot of churches disagree. We may disagree about the timing of the rapture and end time events. But this is one issue we cannot disagree on and here's why.

Issues of sexual morality are not secondary issues. According to what we just read, those who practice these things will not what? Will not inherit the kingdom of God. Scripture says, Joyful are those who obey God's laws and search for Him with all their hearts.

They do not compromise with evil and they walk only in His paths. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares how you can build a healthy balance between loving others and standing firm in God's truth. And at the end of today's program, Skip and his wife Lenya invite you to show God's love to a group of people who have been victims of a particular kind of hate.

There is a school also in Nigeria where at least one of the parents of the children have died, sometimes both. And we're going to get to be able to build a playground for them. So God has just, it's been a miracle that He's opened the door.

We've met people on the ground. And so really pray for us, you know, because we are so prayerful about the world that God will give us not only the open door, but safety that we'll be able to do all these things. Thanks Skip and Lenya.

Be sure to stay tuned after today's message to hear the full conversation. Now we want to tell you about a resource that will give you more insight into God's extraordinary love. People everywhere have a deep God-given need to be loved. But sadly, sometimes the people who need love the most are the most rejected.

Here's Skip Heitzig. We all crave love. We will do sometimes almost anything to get it.

To know that we are loved by somebody else unconditionally. No one did that better than Jesus. He loved the worst of sinners.

He loved the best of saints. Jesus showed the love of God in human flesh. We want to give you a glimpse of God's relentless love for all people, including you, by sending you the Jesus Loves People four booklet collection by Skip Heitzig. All four Jesus Loves People titles, including Jesus Loves the Broken, are our thanks for your gift of $25 or more today to help connect more people to God's love through His Word.

Visit connectwithskip.com slash offer to give online securely or call 800-922-1888. Okay, we're in 1 Corinthians chapter six as Skip Heitzig starts today's study. In Jordan, a friend of ours who's a part of this fellowship is the chief archaeologist of the dig of historical Sodom in the Bible. And I've read about it, and I've seen articles about it, even documentaries on his day, but I've never gotten to see it. So you just have to imagine the kind of excitement as he would bend down and point to a layer of ash that that dig along with soil samples of the area give evidence to an event that happened an airburst event of incredibly high heat at an incredible velocity that they have tracked that decimated the city in an instant. It was so exciting to see that with your own eyes, something the Bible says happened. At the same time was incredibly sad to see exactly what the Bible said happened.

It was very sobering moment. And I was standing there thinking of a lot of the texts that are familiar to most of us about Sodom and Gomorrah. Even Jesus spoke about those two cities. But one that came to mind is out of the book of Jude. It says don't forget the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and neighboring towns which were filled with sexual immorality and every kind of sexual perversion. Those cities were destroyed by fire and are a warning of the eternal fire that will punish all those who are evil.

Very, very sobering moment to see that in the ground. We have been and are dealing with a very, very controversial subject of our time. And we have decided to put it in the positive. Jesus loves homosexuals. But it was Ruth Graham before she died and went to heaven who used to say to her husband Billy Graham, if God does not judge the United States of America, he's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. Why did we choose the list that we have chosen?

The people that are on the list that you see week by week and the little runners that play in the video. People have asked that. Are you suggesting that homosexuality and terrorism are the same? Or are you saying that those who are divorced or who have addictive behaviors are equivalent to murderers?

No. The reason we have picked the list that we have picked is simply because we've discovered that the church historically has been very good at alienating those groups of people and not really great at showing compassion to them. One church, for example, puts out signs like this. God hates fags. Fags die, God laughs. That's a smidgen of what they put out. We thought this is a better message to get out.

Jesus loves homosexuals. Last week we had such a message that we had such an overwhelming amount of positive feedback at how helpful it was. And we want to reinforce today some of what we looked at last week. But we're aware of something that has been happening in our culture for some time. We know that homosexuality as a topic is the cause du jour. It's the cause of the day in our culture.

From elementary school curriculum to films and movies to talking points of politicians in every political cycle. There is a massive effort to redefine and reclassify what has traditionally been viewed in homosexuality or as homosexuality. And the redefinition is it's not a sin. It's a very, very acceptable and normal lifestyle.

In fact, even a noble lifestyle. Because after all, the person who is discovering this about himself or herself is simply living in a more honest way and living as God has made him or her. And just like you would never tell a left-handed person to become a right-handed writer, you would never tell somebody who has a leaning towards something sexually to prefer anything but that.

And so the message of that community and politicians and curriculums and movies, et cetera, is we will not change our behavior. So you must change your classification of our behavior. You are free to see what we do as an alternate lifestyle. You are free to see it as a sexual orientation.

You are free to see it as a genetic predisposition or as personal preference. But one thing you cannot, you must not see it as is sin. Don't bring God into this. You see, that's the problem I've had with any lifestyle chosen by anyone is usually God is the very last person anyone thinks of. And so I'd like to look at 1 Corinthians chapter six with you today and share with you three truths. These are true about all people from all walks of life who have come to Christ. Everyone is on a list. Everyone has a past. Everyone can have the best.

Everyone can have the best. Let's look at our text together in 1 Corinthians, the sixth chapter. There are only three verses. Verse nine, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals nor sodomites. Before you nod too much, look at the next verse.

Nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed. But you were sanctified.

But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God. Boy, that is quite a list. When I was a kid, they told me Santa Claus was making a list and checking it twice. It's what I didn't like about him.

I was glad the day I found out he wasn't real. What a list this is. This sounds like God's blacklist.

This sounds like a roll call for the hall of shame. What's up with this list and those that are mentioned on it? Well, what you have here in these verses is a summation, a conclusion to the previous chapter of this book, chapter five and the beginning of chapter six, where the apostle Paul addresses immoral behavior in the church at Corinth. It is not an exhaustive list of sins, but it is a typical list for ancient Greco-Roman culture and especially the city of Corinth to whom Paul was writing. These things were rampant in that culture.

Corinth was a very permissive society. It was a very sexually promiscuous society, very similar to our own. Years ago in the Victorian era, when Charles Haddon Spurgeon addressed his congregation, he said on one account, all sorts of hearers come to this place and they will be the first to say, the preacher should not mention such a subject as fornication. My answer to that remark is, then you should not commit such iniquity and give me a reason to speak of it. Well, that's how Paul felt when he wrote this letter.

This kind of behavior was so mainstream to Corinth that he highlights it in two chapters of his book. And what he's really saying in these verses is, this is what you guys were. This is what you used to practice. This is your life BC, before Christ. But now you've come to Christ and now you're changed. And so he makes the list and everybody's on some list. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

But let's briefly look at it. First on this list is fornicators. You'll be familiar with the term when I say it in Greek, pournas. It's a general term for sexual immorality.

We get the term pornography from pornoi or pournas or porneo. And in this context, it seems to refer more specifically to sexual relationships outside of marriage. People who shack up, live together, enjoy sex before they get married, which by the way, is one of the characteristics of Western culture.

When was the last time you ever saw a film that didn't have this as the norm? It's just what everybody has done. Don't even blink an eye at it. Next on the list is idolaters. That's the worship of any false god or any false religious system.

It is essentially at its root putting anything before God. Adulterers is next. That specifically refers to those who are married engaging in sex outside of the covenant relationship of marriage.

It's what we saw last week with the woman caught in adultery in John chapter eight, who was brought before Jesus. But look at the next two words. Nor homosexuals, nor sodomites. Now this wasn't referring to people who lived in the city of Sodom at that time.

This word had become a term synonymous with a lifestyle that was once prevalent in that city. This is not how all translations render what we just read. The old King James Version puts it, nor those who are effeminate, nor abusers. The English Standard Version says, nor those men who practice homosexuality. Now these two words, interestingly enough, are actually technical terms for the passive and active roles in a homosexual relationship. Now why would Paul be so dramatic, you might say, or be so descriptive in mentioning these things? Well, here's why.

It's very easy. That was what was prevalent in that ancient culture at Corinth. According to New Testament scholar William Barclay, Socrates was a homosexual and Plato was probably a homosexual.

William MacDonald, another scholar, says he definitely was. And his writing, the Symposium of Love, was an essay glorifying homosexuality. Fourteen of the first fifteen Roman emperors were homosexuals. Caesar Nero, who was reigning in Rome at the time of Paul's life and a lot of his writing, had a boy named Sporus, whom he castrated so that that young boy could become the emperor's wife. And when Nero died, that boy was passed on as a possession to one of his successors, named Otho, for the same exact purpose. So that is why Paul brings it up.

This was rampant in Greek and Roman culture. But let me ask you this question. Why do these things top the list?

And I think I have an answer for it. Because though there are other sins in life and in this list, these represent a moral divide when it comes to sin. A moral divide.

You say, now wait a minute, Skip. Aren't all sins equal? Well, in one sense, all sins are equal. But in another sense, all sins are not equal. All sins are equal in that any sin will separate you from God. So all sins are equal in their spiritual consequence, but not all sin is equal in its moral equivalence. None of you think that all sin is equal.

None of you do. Lying to someone isn't the same as killing someone. There's a moral difference. They are not morally equivalent.

And the Bible would indicate that there are degrees of reward in heaven and even degrees of punishment for those who don't receive Christ. In John 19, verse 11, Jesus said, to Pontius Pilate, the one who delivered me to you has the greater sin, as if held to a higher culpability. In Matthew 23, verse 23, Jesus said to the Pharisees, you pay tithes of all of these different plants, but you have neglected the weightier matters of the law. And according to first Corinthians chapter six, the chapter we're studying, sexual immorality is one sin that you commit against your own body. Paul says, this is a bit different. Look at verse 18 of chapter six. Flee sexual immorality.

Every sin that a man does outside or is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. So here's the deal. You and I may disagree over a lot of different secondary issues. We might not agree about the mode of baptism. Some of you think that you should be dunked backwards. Some of you think you should be dunked forward. Some of you think you should be sprinkled.

Some of you think you should be firehosed. I don't know, but we may disagree on that. We may disagree about the use of spiritual gifts in the church. A lot of churches disagree. We may disagree about the timing of the rapture and end time events, but this is one issue we cannot disagree on.

And here's why. Issues of sexual morality are not secondary issues. According to what we just read, those who practice these things will not what? Will not inherit the kingdom of God. So now the apostle ties morality with entering the kingdom of God. As if to say those who practice that lifestyle are simply giving evidence that there's not a change in their life brought on by repentance. According to Sean McDowell, who wrote a terrific book called Same Sex Marriage, he says there are five general biblical truths about homosexuality.

Let me run through them quickly. Five general biblical truths. Number one, there is not a single passage in either the Old Testament or New Testament that will support homosexual behavior.

Not one. I mentioned there are seven texts last week. Genesis 19, Leviticus 18 and 20, Judges 19, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy chapter 1. Not one of those texts will support homosexual behavior. Here's the second general truth. Not until the mid 20th century did a single church leader or Jewish leader affirm homosexuality. That's how recent it is.

Historically hadn't happened till mid 20th century. Number three, every regulation in the Bible concerning marital relations assumes male female sex. Number four, every wise saying like in the book of Proverbs assumes male female sexuality. And number five, the 10 commandments assume heterosexuality.

Honor your father and your mother. It assumes that. You shall not commit adultery. It assumes that.

You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. It assumes heterosexual behavior. So God indeed has spoken on this issue. In fact, he spoke on this issue in the very beginning book of Genesis chapter one. When God said, let us make man in our image. It says, God made them male and female. Why male and female?

Why so unique and why highlight the uniqueness? Because he then stated his goal for humanity. He said, be fruitful in what?

Multiply. Now I don't think anybody's going to argue that it takes a man and a woman to make more people. If you're going to be fruitful and multiply, it assumes a heterosexual relation.

And then the pattern is given in the very next chapter, chapter two of Genesis. For this reason, a man will leave his father and his mother and be joined into his wife and the two shall become one flesh. There's leaving, there's cleaving, and there's weaving. You leave one relationship of dependence.

You are glued inseparably to another, and then you become one. You weave your lives together to the production of offspring. Now, in having said that, the critics will say about what I just said, this. They will say, well, that example in Genesis is only an example, only one example of marriage. It doesn't tell us how we are to live today. Well, Jesus has a response for that, and I'm glad that he does. Because a few thousand years after all of that took place in Genesis, Jesus comes along and he says, have you not read that he who made them in the beginning made them male and female and said, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined into his wife and the two will become one flesh? Therefore, what God has joined, let not man separate.

And he said, so they are no longer two, but one flesh. I mean, no disrespect in stating what I have just stated. I mean, no lack of love. I love you. And if you are gay, I love you and God loves you. But I will say that when it comes to all love, all respect on a human level, even with wife and kids, even with other believers in church, I love God more. And I must fear and respect God more.

I must, as it says in the book of Acts, obey God rather than men. That's Skip Hyten with a message from the series Jesus Loves People. Now let's go in the studio with Skip and Lenya as they invite you to show God's love to a group of people who have been victims of a particular kind of hate. Lenya, there are millions of children sadly around the world who have become victims of a very particular act of hatred. That is terrorism. It's not going away.

It seems to be increasing. But you are on a mission. God gave you a vision for this some years ago, and I've been so proud of the way you have obeyed Him and the success God has given you to change parts of the world that have been impacted by terror. And you are on a mission to share God's love with these kids and bring them physical aid, physical help. Tell us more about what you're doing with Reload Love.

Well, I'm very excited. When God gave this vision, we didn't know where the people were that we would reach that are impacted by terrorism. And the Lord led us to Burma and then, of course, Iraq and Jordan and other countries. And there's been countries that we've prayed about for a long time because we know there's terrorism there, but we don't know how to get there. One of those is Nigeria.

Nigeria has a group of terrorists called Boko Haram, and they are just running through the jungles, raping, pillaging, ruining villages, and it's dark and it's awful. And so, we've been asking God, how can we get in? How can we find partners? And the good news is we have found some. And one of the partners is this Holy Ghost church, and they have been given a piece of property and they want to build a soccer field there. And they have people to train the kids in soccer, but also coach them in life and discipleship. So, we're thrilled.

There is a school also in Nigeria, where at least one of the parents of the children have died, sometimes both. And we're going to get to be able to build a playground for them. So, God has just, it's been a miracle that he's opened the door.

We've met people on the ground. And so, really pray for us, you know, because we are so prayerful about the world that God will give us not only the open door, but safety, that we'll be able to do all these things. And then also, if you want to donate, you can donate to reloadlove.com, and you can help us on these missions to help the least of these, the little children. What a great report. This is the first time we've been able to hear and announce that Nigeria is going to be open for some of this work, and we can't wait to partner with those churches. Also, it's reloadlove.com.

Yes. God bless you. Thanks, Skip and Lenya.

We hope you enjoyed getting to know Skip and Lenya through this conversation. Now, we invite you to help keep these teachings coming your way as you connect more listeners like you to God's Word. Just call 800-922-1888.

That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares how you can find freedom from sin and hope and joy in Christ, even if you have a past full of mistakes and failures. Be sure to join us. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.