My Son Demands to Be Affirmed in His Homosexuality, What Do I Say to Him?

My son demands to be affirmed in his homosexuality.

What do I say to him? That's just one of the things you could use some counsel on? Feel free to give us a call at 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on one of our social media sites, and you're always welcome to email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com.

First up today, here's a voicemail from one of our listeners named Sue Ann. And I want to get a better understanding of what that means to a believer versus an unbeliever. As a believer, I know I am saved, and there's no more condemnation that my sins are fully forgiven. On the flip side, for unbelievers, my understanding is that they indeed will be judged on every thought, word, and deed, and their ultimate destination is hell rather than heaven. I'd just like an expansion there, whether, from the believer's side, will I still undergo some type of a review process where God will frown on me, at the same time assuring me that I am going to the correct place?

Thank you for your time. Well, thank you for that question, and I love the way that you've put it. I mean, when we think about the final judgment, it is clear that at the final judgment, when we're standing before God, there is going to be a detailed accounting. Every thought, every word, every deed, our motives. I mean, it seems like when Jesus describes the judgment, you talked about the fact that, you know, even our words, by your words you'll be justified, by your words you'll be condemned.

That's what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 12, verses 36 through 37. The end of Ecclesiastes, the very end, the last couple of verses say that every deed, even the secret deeds, are going to be taken into account. So it's not just what we do that other people know about, but the things that we've done in secret. And not just the things that we've done, but the things that we've said even.

Every careless word that we've spoken. And so you begin to see, one, why it's so impossible for us to be justified on the basis of our works. I mean, if God is considering all these things, then who of us can stand in His presence and say, yeah, I'm worthy of this.

I merit my everlasting life. No, all of us, I think, at the judgment would be undone were it not for the justifying work of God through Jesus Christ in forgiving our sins and counting us righteous in His sight, solely for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone. And so what's going to happen for us as believers at the final judgment?

How do we make sense of this? I think that the words of Jesus in John chapter 5 are key here, and I've gone to this text many times. It's a passage that I am so comforted by when I think about the final judgment. Jesus, speaking about the final judgment and the resurrection of the dead, said in verse 24 of John chapter 5, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life. Now, I don't think that means that we're not there at the final judgment. We are, and the Bible makes that clear in places like Acts chapter 17, Paul preaching to the Areopagus.

But what is Jesus getting at here? It's that there is no condemnation for us. We don't enter into judgment in the sense that we're condemned for our sins.

Why? Because our condemnation was dealt with at the cross of Jesus Christ in Jesus. We have died, and in Jesus we have been raised again to new life, awaiting that final resurrection and vindication of the people of God, of the believer. And so you don't have to be afraid. In fact, John says elsewhere in 1 John that we can have confidence in the day of judgment because the love of God has been perfected in us.

And so that's something that we give thanks for. I don't think that it's going to be a situation where it's like we're just made to feel a bunch of shame for all the things that we've done wrong during our lives. And then God says, okay, but I'm just going to still let you in, that kind of a thing. No, we've already passed from death to life, Jesus says, and we are going to be judged. We're going to stand before the Lord, but that's going to be not a condemnation, but a commendation for the lives that we've lived, seeking to know the Lord and to love the Lord. And God is going to say to his beloved children, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master. Thank you for that question. I'm so glad there's not going to be an instant replay like the NFL, because that just would not be over.

On the jumbotron, that kind of a thing. It's like, Lord, please, no. No, thank God for Jesus, our perfect high priest and advocate who loves us and is paid for our sins. Amen. Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our phone lines are open for the next 20 minutes or so. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, feel free to give us a call. 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Love to get your question. Let's go to Trent calling in from Florida.

Trent, what's your question for Adriel? Hey, so I had a question about getting married as a Christian. I'm 20 years old.

I'm a young man. I became a Christian a couple years back and recently I was diagnosed with PTSD and it makes my life very difficult. And, you know, I have friends who tell me that, you know, that God needs to heal me to the point where, you know, I guess to a certain point where then I would be able to be married, like, you know, I need to be fixed first before I'm able to lead a woman and a family. And yeah, people just tend to put requirements on marriage in that way.

And I just want to know if there's any any truth to that at all. Hey, Trent, thank you for that question. And God bless you, brother, as you seek to love and follow Jesus and you have this desire to be married as a young man.

I think that's a good thing, right? That's something that God has placed in you. And so I do pray that the Lord brings the right person in your life in his timing and that during this season, the Lord grants you contentment, continued maturity and growth in him as you seek to be a man of God and someone who's going to lead a family well.

May the Lord bless you in that pursuit. You know, there are people that will say, you know, you usually, you know, you'll get married when the Lord has really, he's done that work in you and you've matured enough. And God brought the right person in my life just when I, you know, really had overcome this issue or that issue.

The fact of the matter is everybody has a different story. I think what you should be doing is pursuing maturity in Christ, seeking to be healthy in all things in mind, body, and spirit, getting the care and help that you need and that you should get when you're wrestling with something like this, like PTSD, which is serious. But I don't think you should view it as, okay, if I do these things, if I check these boxes, then God is going to bring someone in my life.

You just never know how the Lord is going to work this. I think you have to be focused on, God, what do you call me to do as a young man right now? What does it mean to take responsibility to flee sexual immorality? As Paul tells Timothy, to pursue godliness, holiness, righteousness with all those who call upon the name of the Lord from a pure heart. And that's what you want to do. Be committed to those things. And as you're committed to those things, make your request known to the Lord.

Say, God, you know that this is a desire that I have. What I will say is we're never going to get to the point where we've arrived. I'm sanctified to the point where now it's like, God owes me a wife or I should get married. The fact of the matter is, even when you enter into marriage, we're still sinners and we're still sinners in marriage. And so if we're looking for this perfect level of sanctification before we get married, well, that's just not going to happen. But at the same time, if there are unhealthy habits in our lives that would be harmful and are harmful to ourselves and could be harmful to others, well, then I think those are things that we want to deal with and we want to address.

We want to get that care and accountability and support from the local church and from others as well. And I think as you do that, you're continuing to mature and to prepare yourself for whoever it is that the Lord may have for you. And now, Bill, with your expertise, I want to I just want to get your thoughts to thinking about PTSD, how we can encourage our friend Trent. Well, Trent, hopefully you're getting some treatment for that, as Adriel said, because I think that's really key. If it's causing things like, you know, severe nightmares or some other type of issue in your life right now that's impairing your either your work or your relationships, then by all means, you need to get some help for that.

Not sure what caused the PTSD, but it's something you want to get resolved. But I like what you said, Adriel. Really, it's pursuing godliness and not just for Trent, but for the woman that he might want to pursue. I know when I was single and considering marriage, I found that in Galatians, the fruit of the Spirit was a really good guide for me on when I was looking for a possible bride.

I wanted to find somebody who manifested those fruits. And if not, maybe she wasn't somebody that God had in mind for me. Yeah.

Yeah. And practically speaking, Trent, I think in terms of that pursuit, it looks like are you plugged into a local church, man? Are you are you there and committed? Are you growing in your understanding of God's word, growing in the grace and the knowledge of Christ day by day? Are you building those habits into your life that are going to help you to continue to mature as a man and especially as a man of God? Are you working hard?

I mean, just all of those things. Don't be lazy. Don't just sort of sit back and wait for someone to come into your life.

I would say no. Grab the bull by the horns. Pursue the Lord with all your heart and pray about this. And also, if you come across someone who you feel like, man, this is a godly woman who I'm interested in, you know, invite her to coffee and have a conversation and get to know her in all purity and with good intentions. And may the Lord bless you in that and appreciate that you reached out to us. God bless. You know, I tried that myself. My wife doesn't drink coffee, so it didn't didn't really work out for me. It really built.

Is that true? I mean, me and my wife had plenty of coffee meetings. I was for me, it was the hardest thing to get her to like, can we go out to dinner? I'm done with the coffee thing. Like, let's let's go out to dinner.

I want to I want to, you know, wine and dine you. That kind of thing. Eventually we got there for a while.

It was Starbucks and the the pumpkin, you know, muffins or whatever that. Oh, yeah. This is core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our phone lines are open if you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life doctrine, theology, maybe something going on in your life that you'd like to discuss with Adriel and be asked for some prayer. We're open to hearing from you.

833-THECORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. By the way, our phone numbers are on our website at corechristianity.com.

Let's go to Brian calling in from Missouri. Brian, what's your question for Adriel? Yeah, I got a question. For some reason, a lot of Christians believe this, and I don't know where they're getting this idea from because it's not in the scriptures, but a lot of them believe that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were actually married. Could you explain that, why they believe that?

Yeah, man, there are a lot of strange things that Christians believe, Brian, that are not found in the scriptures. And so you have to ask yourself, where are we getting our information from? Is it popular media?

What is it? Because you're absolutely right. When you read the New Testament, Jesus was not married to Mary Magdalene. He wasn't married. And so where are people getting this information? There are some ideas like this that were floating around in what were basically gnostic circles. It was this sectarian group that was not identified with the church, that had broken off early on, I mean, after the time of the Gospels, and was saying all sorts of odd things. And of course, this idea was popularized in more recent times.

I think it was the Dan Brown novel that came out. This is sort of this bombshell revelation, this idea that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. But that's just to sell books. What we need to do, Brian, and you know this, is we need to understand who Jesus is, not according to some popular book today, not according to what they say on the National Geographic channel or the History channel around Easter time. We need to understand who Jesus is according to his word. Let him reveal himself to us through Holy Scripture. And what we find as we read the Gospels, as we read the Epistles, what we find is that that idea is just out there.

It's not true. And so what we need to recover is that solid grounding in Scripture. And I would just encourage you, as you have conversations with people, to have them answer that question for you.

Where are you getting your information from? Are you getting it from the Word of God? If not, then you should be really careful about what you're saying and what you're embracing about Jesus, because it's not true if it's not founded in Scripture.

So well said. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adrian Sanchez. We have some great Bible studies here at the Core, and they will help you grow in your faith and understand God's Word more clearly. Our latest is on the book of Daniel, and it's actually one that Adrian will help to write himself.

I'm holding a copy of it right here in my hand. These Bible studies that we've put together here at Core Christianity are one of the ways we want to help encourage you in your relationship with the Lord, but also one of the ways we want to come alongside local churches. I'm the pastor of a local church. We have Bible studies that we do throughout the year, and resources like this can be really helpful for a group of believers to sit down and go through and do the discussion questions and have some edifying conversation. So if you're interested in the book of Daniel, going deeper in the book of Daniel, get ahold of this resource over at CoreChristianity.com. What a great Bible study for you to learn more about Daniel and his life and some of the things that he faced and his journey there.

We'd love to get that in your hands. You can find it at CoreChristianity.com forward slash Daniel, again, CoreChristianity.com forward slash Daniel for our brand new Bible study on the book of Daniel. Let's go to a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners.

This is from June. My question is, what do I say to my son who is gay? He is demanding to be affirmed for being gay. And I, as his mother, tell him that Romans 1 says that he cannot enter the kingdom of God if he is homosexual, and for that reason, he will not talk to me or have any contact with me. I was wondering if this is a place for a mother to take a stand the way I do, or if, as his mother, I should not say anything to him about what the Bible says about him being gay.

Thank you. Oh, June, I'm so sorry to hear about the family rift. And of course, our Lord Jesus said that he didn't come to bring peace but the sword, that through his Gospel, through his message, there was going to be division even in families, even in households, that the word of God is sharp.

It cuts right down the center at times, and many people have experienced what you're experiencing. It might not be the exact same situation, but you want to follow the Lord, and you know that there's nothing more important than walking with Christ, embracing his grace, his forgiveness, and that we cannot have the peace that God promises us in his word if we are living in sin and rejecting his word. You want that for your son because you love your son, and regardless of the decisions that he makes or the feelings that he has, you ought to love him, and you ought to be a good mother to him, and I think that you have been not.

I think in a situation like this, you ask, do I just not say anything, and do I just affirm him in his decision? No, I don't believe that that would have been the right answer either, and I think that that's actually not the loving thing to do, and so you're trying to walk the fine line of holding fast to what the word of God says and loving a person, the whole person, their soul, and that doesn't look like just affirming them in whatever they want to do. I know that that's what many people think love is today. You know, if you love me, you would just let me do whatever I wanted, and you would affirm me, and you would celebrate what I was doing.

How dare you not celebrate it, right? We see that as well, but that's just not the right definition of love. That's not the biblical definition of love, so I think you have a very difficult calling in one sense here to hold fast to Christ, not to compromise what you believe, but at the same time to exhibit love towards your son and to say, look, I love you. I'm never going to stop loving you regardless of the decisions you make, regardless of whether or not you're, you know, if you're gay or straight, but I also want you to know that the most important thing in life is a relationship with Jesus Christ, and if we're choosing those things that are contrary to his word, if we're rejecting Christ, well, then we're not going to have ultimate peace and hope, and that's what I want for you because I love you, and so I would encourage you to continue to reach out to your son, to have conversations, to do everything that you can to communicate your love and support for him in the sense that you're not just shutting the door in his face or saying I don't want to have anything to do with you, but not support in his sin because that's what it is, and you quoted Romans chapter 1. You also think of 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and there are too many Christians who are basically saying, you know, we need to rethink those verses.

The church, the way the church has understood those verses for 2,000 years, we really need to rethink those verses. We can't talk about this as sin anymore. We have to be faithful to the word of God, and at the end of the day, the good news is there is hope for all of us as sinners, including your son, and so pray for him, and may the Lord do a mighty work in his life through you, through your prayers, through your love, through your commitment to him, and through your commitment to the truth. May God bring him around. Thank you for giving us a call. June, thanks so much for calling, and we'll continue to pray for you and your son and that whole situation.

This is Core Christianity. By the way, we're going to be recording a second episode of the Core today after our live program ends. You won't hear it on the air because it'll be recorded, but you can still call in. If you weren't able to call in with your question during the live program, feel free to call us any time in the next 35 minutes or so. Here's the number. It's 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Israel calling in from Indiana.

Israel, what's your question for Adriel? Yeah, I actually just heard you give an amazing answer to the mother with a gay son, but my question is, I wrestle with that, and I'm a believer in Christ Jesus, and I know with all my heart that it is wrong, but I was taken advantage of when I was a kid, and I'm constantly praying and praying and praying and asking, you know, Lord, help me. It feels like, and I've been doing that all my life. I'm 41 now.

It's like it's not breaking, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I seek the Lord day and night. I bend the knee. I read the scriptures. I know what it says, and it's like something, like I don't know what he wants me to do, because I have in my heart the desire to marry.

I want to marry someday, but I feel like I can't because I have these, you know, my desires are mixed. Israel, my brother, God bless you. You're in the fight, and you're doing the right thing, and just because you're doing the right thing doesn't mean it's not going to be a fight.

It's not going to be a struggle. We are in a war against the passions of the flesh, and we have different temptations to sin, and sometimes those temptations are brought about by ways in which we've been sinned against, and so I'm so sorry to hear about the experience that you've had, but I'm grateful to hear about the fact that you recognize what sin is and that you also know Jesus, and so I think first and foremost, recognizing that's your primary identity. You are united, Israel, to Jesus Christ by faith. You have died with Jesus and been raised with Jesus through his death and resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit. You are a new creation, but that doesn't mean you're not going to battle with the passions and the lusts of the old man, and so what we're called to do is we're called to confess those as you do, to mortify them truly, to put them to death. Colossians chapter 3, verse 5, put to death, therefore what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and so those disordered desires, those disordered sexual desires, that's something we confess to the Lord, and you're forgiven. You're embraced as a child of the true and the living God. You confess those as sin. You receive his grace and his mercy.

You pray that the Lord would continue to mortify those and that the Lord would bring the right person in your life and guide you and help you in this, and I just want to take a moment to pray for you as well. Father, we lift Israel up to you. We thank you for his commitment to follow you and to serve you, and we ask that you would pour your Holy Spirit out upon his life, that he might grow in grace and holiness every day and that you would put to death the sinful deeds and desires that he experiences, that he might love you more and more. In Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program, and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.