Homosexuality and the Bible - 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 - Let's Be Clear

Hey, if you have a copy of scripture, you can turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 this weekend. And let me just go ahead and say this, all right? I know that the last couple of weeks at Mercy Hill have been super heavy, okay? So I decided we needed a breath and do a little bit of a lighter topic today. So we're talking about homosexuality, all right? So, you know, in all seriousness, guys, this is what this series is about. It's heavy, I understand that.

All right, it's part of the deal. Christian, you know, it is coming upon us to not be, as Proverbs 25 says, a muddied spring. Instead, we wanna be cold and clear water to thirsty souls. And here's the thing, in order to do that, we've gotta be willing to speak what is true, but to do it in a way that is endearing and that shows the brokenheartedness we have over our own sin first, before anybody else's.

And this is the thing. I mean, we live in a culture, right, where people either wanna say nothing about many things that the Bible says, or they wanna save them through a megaphone, the implication being, we're holier than thou. And we've gotta try very hard to have a brokenhearted posture that says, wait a minute, the Bible is clear about a lot of things that the culture is confused about, but you know what?

I've been confused many times in my life. I've been right on the wrong side of many of the issues that we're gonna talk about or could talk about, right? So there's gotta be a humility that comes with, yes, the Bible is clear and true, and we wanna step into that truth and stand on that truth, and we wanna do it in a way that invites broken people in to hear, hey, we're just one, man, we're one beggar trying to show another beggar where to get bread, okay? That's who we are. And so we're gonna get into that 1 Corinthians 6.

Hey, before we do that, though, I gotta say this. Guys, Families Counts kicked off this week, all right? Families Count, the class that we do, a lot of you are like, man, what is that? Okay, Families Count is a class we kicked off in the spring.

This is amazing. It's a faith-based, gospel-centered class that helps parents who are either in danger of losing their children to the foster system or have already lost their children to the foster system. This is a class that they can complete in order to help the process of reunification.

And I want you to think about this. This is done in partnership with DSS. Now, they're not forced to take this class. There's a myriad of classes that they can take, but the fact that one of them is offered that has a faith-based, we're the only church in the state that has this partnership with their DSS, okay? Now, there's five or six other churches that we're blazing the way for, and we pray that it's gonna go statewide, and we want it to go viral, okay? We're hoping this will happen because we've seen the fruit. Guys, last spring, five families entered this class with us, and all five of them graduated.

Can we praise God for that, all right? Families coming back together or kids not being taken out of the home. And this class started this week with us, some of our awesome volunteers, some of the people that are coming into the class. Five families are represented in this class.

15 kids are represented in this class. And listen to me, there is a place for you to be involved. All right, now, I know if you wanna, we want everybody to be in prayer for this.

Guys, you know the vision here at Mercy Hill. We wanna, I mean, our chosen ministry, we wanna build families through adoption, but we want to help restore families through foster care. When we're thinking about engaging with the foster care system, it is always with reunification in mind, if possible, okay? And so for us, there is an opportunity for you.

Some of you might be thinking to yourself, man, foster kids and the system, and it's such a big thing. How could I ever be involved? I'll tell you how you can be involved. You can make dinner, you could do childcare, you can help go give rides to some of these people that need rides to get back and forth from the classes and all of that.

You can be very involved if you're leading a group, if you're in a group, maybe your group can go serve together, maybe your family can go serve together. I mean, we're trying to do this thing right. We want people, the word to get out, where they're voluntarily picking our class over all the other classes, okay?

You know how you do that? Their kids have a really great experience that when they come, they not only get a meal there, but then we pack up a meal so they have one for later in the week. I mean, we wanna go above and beyond. Rides are an issue, no problem, we'll come and pick you up. I mean, that's the type of heart we wanna have towards this ministry. And so if you can be involved, we want you to be involved, and that's how to do it right there. You can screenshot that. It's a crazy long, because it's not on our website, okay?

Signing up to volunteer and all that. There's this long kind of URL, and so you can click that. What do you call those things? A QR code, okay, yeah.

You can do that, or you can just go to our Connect page and we're gonna have it up there for you. All right, 1 Corinthians chapter six. Guys, standing on the truth involves truth-telling. Standing on the Word, standing firm, it's being a truth-teller with a broken heart, a truth-teller with a posture and an attitude of I struggle with many things, and if it was not for the grace of God, I would not be where I am, I would not be in the family. If it was not for the grace of God, I would be without Christ and still in sin, and this is the heart posture, all right? So with that in mind, I do wanna go ahead and just give you the big idea, and I'm gonna go straight to the heart of it today, okay?

All sexual immorality, including homosexuality, is sin, but God is gracious to forgive. Now let me tell you something. Christian, sometimes we find ourselves in a world that we don't understand, okay? And I'm gonna tell you why. The world has taught our kids, it has taught the generations for years and years, and many people might be under the sound of my voice right now when you're looking at this and you're like, man, I don't know how I can get there with you. I'm gonna tell you why this is so hard, okay? This is a little bit philosophical, but I'm telling you, I think this is it, that in our culture, we have kind of this ethos of you are your feelings.

Now I could try to trace that all the way back to Rousseau for you, okay? But I'm telling you that's where we are. Where we are is at my innermost, what I think about truth, myself, my identity, not influenced by the outside.

I need to keep the outside influences out. I don't need to be shaped, I need to be affirmed in what is in me, that whatever I feel at the most bottom level of who I am, that is who I am. Why is there so much of this that is connected to sexuality? Because so much of our innermost, deepest feelings are around our sexuality, and so our sexuality becomes the self.

That's what it is, and here's what's hard. Christian, you have said to some of your friends, or even your family, and you believe this in your heart, and if you're not a believer, you're struggling with same-sex attraction, you're struggling with homosexuality, man, I want you to understand maybe why you get the reaction that you do. From your family, or from a Christian you're talking to. Christian, somebody has told you that they struggle with this, and they're just gonna go for it. And when you were telling them no fight against that, you didn't realize, in their mind, you are erasing them. Now you're not really doing that.

That's not what you're doing, you know why? Because you come from a worldview that's shaped biblically that says, wait a minute, the deepest part of who I am is not who I am, because the deepest part of who I am is deceitfully wicked and sinful. The deepest part of my feelings are something that I need God to curb, and change, and move.

See, we're coming from two totally different places. But what I want you to see is this, especially if you are someone who is struggling with homosexuality, you're struggling with same-sex attraction, you're in a same-sex marriage, you're in a relationship, you're trying to walk with Jesus, you're trying to figure out what all that is. The one thing about Christians is this, okay? Christians do not reduce you to your sexuality.

We don't. Your sexuality is a part of who you are, a part of who you are. But it's not all of who you are.

You are so much more than that. And we get that from the scripture. We get that from a God who has imprinted us with his Imago Dei and has given us such purposes in life.

Y'all, we are, and we believe that you are, created precious children in the image of God with agency and potential, that God has plans and purposes and spiritual giftings that he wants to bestow upon you. He has relationships and friendships and a church family that are meant to enrich your life. He wants more for your life than personal gratification. He wants God-glorification. Way bigger deal.

Way bigger deal. And so, Christian, here's what I wanna say to you. And then I wanna talk, listen. If you're here and you are struggling with this issue or if you're here and you have friends that are, family that are, man, I hope that what we can see is this posture today of do we come with a message of I know it may feel like something is being taken away, but actually God wants more for this community. And is that shining in the way that we talk about it?

I made this statement the other day. I'm telling you, when we talk about this, do we sound more like a talk radio or more like the Bible? Do we sound more like compassion and care or do we sound like this is a political issue?

Man, this is not a political issue. It's not us versus them. Y'all, it's us for them. Some of them are us.

Do you know how many personal conversations I have had with parents in this church that are walking through this with an adult child? People in this church that are struggling and fighting against the temptations that they have in this area because they're faithfully walking with Jesus and just like I struggle with different temptations and you struggle with different temptations, this is a temptation for them that they are struggling against. It's not us versus them out there, y'all. They are us. There are people that are here, that are struggling and that are touched by this issue. Does our tone reflect that?

I pray that it does. But listen, if you are struggling today, I wanna tell you this. Man, we love you enough, I love you enough to tell you that God doesn't want less for you in your sexuality. He wants more. He wants more for you. He wants wholeness. He has plans and purposes for you. And I want to, and I want us to be a church that will put our arms around you, have you come into our community, teach you what that means, okay?

It's not us shouting something somewhere. Man, it's us inviting you in and saying look, I'm telling you that the lifestyle that you are living, if it is contrary to the word of God, it is not wholeness and it is not God's best for your life. And that's the heart that we come from.

All right, so let's dive in. First Corinthians chapter six, verse nine says this. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. Now, 1 Corinthians six lays out a plan for, and this is what it said, attaining an inheritance which is the kingdom of God. All right, now what does that mean? I think a simple way to say that is it's getting a chance to be with God in glory, new heavens, new earth, heaven, kingdom of God. What happens when you get an inheritance? You take full possession of.

When my grandfather passed away, I ended up with a gun rack, a stuffed bobcat, which is incredible, okay, and a Remington 1120-gauge shotgun that every single one of our, every one of the, he had three shotguns, I hung over his chair my whole life and he had three grandsons and so we all three got a shotgun. The idea of an inheritance is something that is being passed down to you that you take full possession of, right? And what he's setting up is this idea that there is an inheritance, the kingdom of God, something that we get a chance to fully step into, new heavens, new earth, eternity, God, the whole deal, and the question is, well, who gets the inheritance? And he sets up this dichotomy, if you look back with me again in verse nine, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, verse 11, but then he goes on to say this, but as such were some of you, but you were washed, sanctified, and justified.

Now what is he getting at? The world, I think a lot of times, looks in at Christianity and they say, well, you know, you're trying to get people to be good. Oh no, that ship sailed, okay, no, no, no. All of us are squarely in the unrighteous camp, okay? Even the list that is here, I would be hard-pressed to find anyone in our church that hasn't gone against this, even just this listing at some point in their life, and probably many points, right, in their life. No, no, no, it's not about good people, bad people.

What did he say? It's about unrighteous versus washed, sanctified, justified. And in other words, this whole thing has got gospel all over it from the jump, okay? Right from the beginning, it's not set up for you and your works to go out, be a better person, man, I'm gonna stop sinning in this way, and I'm gonna turn my desires off for this thing over here and all that, no, no, no. It's set up like this, man, there is an unrighteousness that we need to be washed and sanctified and justified from. We don't get into possession of the kingdom because we're good, we get in possession of the kingdom because we're washed. Sexual sin, lust, homosexuality, the college party life, or what did he say here?

I mean, he gets into greed and swindling and all this kind of stuff. It's like, man, every one of us at some point has stepped over lines like this in the scripture. It's not about being good to overcome that, it's about what Christ has done. And what has Christ done? We just sang it, we had our hands in the air, many of us, I am washed in the blood of the lamb. Probably the weirdest statement for somebody who's never been in a church, okay, that's weird, all right?

But let me tell you what it means. What it means is Jesus in perfection went to the cross, he was the only one who could, and he died so that I wouldn't have to die spiritually. Okay, and one day he's gonna come back and death physically will be no more as well. He has, and this is what we say, there is a fountain filled with blood, we're washed in the blood of the lamb. What that means is that God has taken the good work that Jesus did on our behalf and he has applied it to us so that for the times that we cheated each other, that we had sexual sin, that we turned to idols, that we were drunk on either alcohol or technology or power or success or whatever it was, this is all the things that are in this passage, for all those times that we did that, we did contrary things to what God had designed for us in his world, for all of that, there was a penalty to be paid, it was death. Jesus paid it, so what is left for us is life if we would trust in him.

Now that's what it's setting up. So do the people that are characterized by these sins, not that they fell into them, but they're walking in them, are they going to inherit the kingdom of God? Well what he's saying is no, why? Because they're not demonstrating that they have been washed or they have been justified or they have been sanctified. The implication here is you have people that will not even struggle against the sins in their life because they don't have the Spirit in them. They haven't been washed, they don't have the gospel to look back to and they're just living in these sins.

Now, those people will not inherit the kingdom of God. And what he's saying is this, sexual immorality in any form is among those sins. What is sexual immorality? Sexual immorality, you could say it like this, is any form of premarital or extramarital sex. Now we could get into 75,000 definitions and I think we're gonna understand what this means. Biblical concept of marriage which Jesus affirmed in Matthew 19, right?

What did he say? A male, one man, one woman, they come together, the bond of marriage, covenant, marriage. This is what the Bible's talking about when it says marriage. Anything outside of that, the Bible is gonna say is sin. And what we have seen is that homosexuality is in that listing, all right? Now that's just, it's just clear.

It's what it says. Now he said men who practice homosexuality with men. Okay, Romans 1 26 says this. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchange natural relationships with those that are contrary to nature.

And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. This is what the Bible is trying to get us to see, okay?

That there is a design, there is a life, a purpose, there is a goodness of God that he has given us in terms of life before him. And just like greed or swindling or sexual immorality or idolatry in a temple that probably is talking about has something to do with prostitution or something like that what it's saying is homosexuality fits in to that camp. And it's not something that God wants for us as a good father of his children. And that's what it says.

I mean as clear as it is. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality, thieves, greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Now one of the things I wanna say here is that there are two extremes, all right, that we go to. All right, the first extreme is there are some people that get upset with a listing like this, not the only time the list like this shows up in the Bible. They get upset like this because they're like how dare you put homosexuality on the same par as like greed and what they mean by that is it's way worse, okay? And some of you maybe have been around that.

Especially in the south, you've been around preaching on this where it's like man, you know, it's an inordinate amount of preaching on this issue. I mean it's every single week it's gonna come up and it's like what's being set up is that there's some kind of super sin that has to do with homosexuality. I wanna tell you, that's not what this passage is getting at at all. The fact that it's fit into a list is trying to get you to see that this is one form of many rebellions that come from humans deciding they're going to define what sex and marriage are going to be for them. It's an example of sexual immorality. There's a lot of examples of sexual immorality. This happens to be one.

Here's my point. Man, I think some people, you know, I think of the young guy who wants to beat his chest and say well, I don't struggle at all, you know, with this, this is like the super sin. I don't struggle at all with homosexuality and you wanna say well, how's monogamy going for you? How's the pornography thing going for you?

You know, how's the lust of the flesh, the eyes, how's that going? Like we don't beat our chest because we don't have one of these manifestations. What we do is we beat our chest the other way like the tax collector and sinner that's saying God, grace on me because I have these other areas in my life that are just as on par with this. There are other areas of brokenness and rebellion in my life, even sexual rebellion and brokenness in my life that are just as on par with this. So some people don't like the fact that this is in a list because they wanna set it apart. Of course, other people don't like it in a list because they can't believe that the Bible would equate homosexuality with any type of sin at all. They look at this list and they say how can this be a sin like something like greed or swindling or sexual immorality and of course, what we have to say here is, y'all, it's not singled out in the list but it is in the list, right? So what is the Bible saying very clearly? It's not super sin, it's something worse and then something else but it certainly is sinful.

It is one of the manifestations of the rebellion in a broken world. And really to come to any other conclusion in that is to try to do hermeneutical, I know it's a big word, gymnastics, okay? What that means is I'm gonna try to go to the Bible and interpret it some other kind of way because I don't want it to say this and that's what happens a lot. One of our guys was showing me some stuff on, it was a TED Talk and this guy's gained some steam, I'm not gonna name him but his whole thing is going around and showing how the words of the Bible aren't the words of the Bible and they don't mean what it says and goes back into all this, tries to do all this history and all that kind of stuff and I mean, you're just kind of listening and you're like, man, I'm seeing the gymnastics that we're trying to be done to get away from the clear teaching of the Scripture and here's how he starts his talk. He starts his talk by saying that he always felt that he was inclined toward homosexuality and by the time he got in seminary, he knew that he himself, this is how he identified, was a homosexual. I wanna be as sensitive as I can be but church, you've gotta understand, we've gotta have maturity about this. Y'all, the story always kinda goes that way and what I mean is this, I have never in my life met somebody who was doing a back flip to get away from what the Bible said here without having a personal story first. You say, well, what does that mean? Well, what it means is, what's driving what? See, for me, and I don't mean that they necessarily struggle with it themselves with somebody they love or, you can say it like this. Let me say it another way, okay?

I haven't seen someone come to the conclusion that the Bible doesn't teach what it clearly teaches on this without them desperately wanting it to say something it doesn't say. Is that better? Does that hit a little better? Okay, maybe y'all follow me a little better with that, okay? You know, and I can say this, man, I can say this with integrity.

I don't really have a dog in the fight, okay? My life, in some ways, would be a lot easier if the Bible just said, ah, y'all just do whatever you want. You know what I'm saying? In terms of just like, we're living in this moment of this is kind of a tough issue. Like, if you came to me and you're like, well, you just want it to say that. It's like, really? Really, you wanna be the one that stands on a stage and says what I'm saying right now? Like, I really want it to be that way? Or is it possible that it just sort of is that way?

And it actually is clear. And so what I wanna say is, and I know there's gonna be people, we've had college students, that kind of thing. I mean, I know you guys are gonna be at Clifton, High Point.

I've had college students here teaching like this and here's what they do. They immediately will go to another couple of churches in our community and here's what they're doing. They're going to go find somebody that will tell them what they already really hope the Bible says but it doesn't say that. And here's the thing. For us to put our head down and to go along is not love if the Bible actually says what it says.

Because God is not doing this because he's a mean God up in heaven that doesn't want your life to be awesome. Man, he's a good father who has said what he has said for a particular reason and that is he wants to bring about human flourishing. Guys, this is not a political issue.

It's not a fist pump issue in the air because we're going to win an argument. Man, we have people in this church right now who for years, man, they have laid their life down. They have been a living sacrifice in this issue. Man, they feel like they struggle. They're gonna continue to struggle and they need brothers and sisters in Christ that will come alongside of them in that struggle.

Not to put their head down and become a muddied spring and just say, well, just go along. You know, Rebecca McLaughlin who wrote Confronting Christianity, she made this point about the Church of England in 2023, comes out and they kind of bless same sex marriage and all this kind of stuff and here's what she said. She said, you are hurting the very people you're trying to help because what you're doing is you're taking people who have faithfully struggled and wrestled with their inclinations, with what they naturally feel, they have wrestled with some of that if they do struggle with same sex attraction and now you're taking away all of the church's firepower to help them continue to struggle in terms of community, in terms of people that come alongside of them, right? And so I think for us, man, we've just gotta be able to say, listen, the world wants to tell you your feelings are all you are. That's what the culture says and whatever you feel, that's what it's gotta be and the church has gotta say, especially in passages just like this, no, how you feel is not all of who you are. Many of us have natural inclinations about many things and that doesn't mean that that's who we are. I mean, I think about this and you know, you think about any child that you've ever been around, what is your whole life if it is not trying to curb their natural inclinations, right?

Somebody takes something from them, they wanna hit somebody else upside the head and it's like, well, you can't do that, why? I feel that way. Well, we all know, right? We all know that that's not who you are. It's not who you're gonna be. You're not instinctually driven. You have the image of God.

You can choose against feeling and decide maybe to lay your life down and maybe give God your purity. You know, I think about this a lot with the areas of culture that we're in right now and what you can see and you see it all over the place, you know? You see it in every, I've said this before, you see it in every single Disney movie that's ever come out. I mean, you know, it's, I remember my kids one time, first Pocahontas, now this, okay? So there was, Pocahontas, I tore my shirt, everything. I heard them singing about all their songs, about, you know, the gods and the trees and all this stuff. Well, then they watched Moana, okay?

I don't know if you guys have seen that one. Like, what's that about? They're like, oh, little demigod, steals the heart of the world. Her name's Te Fiti and now there's black decay that's going everywhere until they can restore the, you know, the heart of the world and all that.

I'm like, again, rip clothes, throw dust and ashes and all that kind of stuff. But what's the whole movie? The whole movie is, man, I'm the one who can fix, there's a longing in the sea and the magic and all this kind of stuff. And every person in my life is standing around me and they're all the problem, my dad especially. They're all the problem, they don't understand, why? Because I am whatever the truth at the innermost bottom of my heart and self is, that's who I am.

And we see this play out all over our culture. But one of the things that Christians have got to understand and if you're struggling with homosexuality today, you're struggling in one of these sin issues today that we've been talking about, you've got to understand, there's really a worldview question at the bottom of all this and that worldview question is, are our hearts deceitfully wicked or are our hearts innately pure? You got to decide because if they're innately pure, then what you need is a cultural savior that will stop trying to change you.

Maybe they'll affirm you. But if actually at the bottom of our heart is a sinful inclination, then we need a savior who will come and not leave us the way that we are. And that goes for every single one of the areas that we struggle in.

Guys, let me apply this a few different ways and we're gonna be done, all right? Repent of sexual immorality, including homosexuality and trust God's grace. At the end of the day, this comes to a lordship issue. It's really no different than what I talked about with marriage last week. I know a lot of people don't like the roles in marriage that God has set forth, but they are for the flourishing of a marriage. A man would lead his family in selfless love. A wife would follow, serve the vision that her husband is setting forth for the family and children would flourish.

This is what God has ordained in order that we're not stepping all over each other. And I told you last week, I said, hey, Anna and I have been married for 18 years, four kids, by no means got it all figured out or perfect. But I will say this, if we've done anything right, it's at the early part of our marriage, we had to ask the question, who gets to decide what this looks like? And it's not me and it's not Anna, right? Well, we've gotta go to the Word and say, this gets to decide what this looks like in our life in marriage.

And really the issue is no different here. It comes down to a lordship issue. You know, who are we going to say gets to decide what marriage is gonna look like? What to do with my inclinations towards even sin? What sin is even going to be?

Who gets to decide what is good? What I wanna call you to do is see that the Scripture is clear on these issues and I wanna call you to sit under its lordship today, God's lordship through His holy Word in terms of telling us what He desires. And repent of sexual immorality, including homosexuality and trust, God's grace in our life.

All right, so let me apply this a couple different ways and we'll be done, okay? The first one is this, are there areas in your life that you are struggling with sexual sin? Some of us might have said, well, man, the homosexual thing, I've never struggled with that. Okay, well, what about the other areas? I mean, 1 Corinthians 11 shows that homosexuality is a manifestation of a bigger problem.

The bigger problem is that we have kinda decided for ourselves that we will take sex for our own personal gratification instead of using it for God's glorification in marriage the way that He decides. What about other areas? Maybe there's areas of pornography, maybe there's things that are in the dark that people don't know about.

Maybe there's something of, maybe you're not married but you're living with someone. And I mean, I don't know what comes to your mind today, but what I would tell you is this, look. And such were some of you, that's what it says in verse 11. And such were some of you, but you were washed and sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Here's the point that I wanna make. Man, I'm praying that coming out of this sermon, there's gonna be a bunch of people who are squarely in that camp, and such were some of you. Were some of you. Now, I know, of course, we're gonna apply this, we're talking about homosexuality, but this is so much bigger than that in terms of 1 Corinthians 6. What areas of your life have you struggled in in this, and where is there repentance?

And can you see that Jesus Christ has come to wash, sanctify, justify? He can free you from these areas of your life. And you know what that does in your life? It gives you a whole brand new attitude and tone when you're talking to somebody who actually is struggling with maybe a transgender issue or a homosexuality issue. I mean, it gives you a whole new tone about the way that you would engage with them.

You know why? Because you remember your own sin, and you know what that was like. One of our awesome volunteers here, staff person here, she's a little bit older. In the 90s, she was working in a different place, and the person that she worked with was a homosexual-out kind of guy, very open with it and that kind of thing. Now, she was a Baptist believer, okay? And they had some differences and all that, but she, I believe, because I know her, I don't know if she would say it exactly this way, she understood how sinful she was before Christ met her.

Right? That informed the way that she worked with this guy and formed a friendship with this guy and loved him over the years. She moved, and when she moved, he came to her, and he said, hey, I've always appreciated the way you've treated me. And two and a half years later, now she said, this is in the age of the 90s with no internet and no cell phones. It was a great feat to find someone's phone number back then, okay?

And this guy, from three states away, finds her phone number, she can't believe it, calls and devastating on the phone, but he tells her, he says, hey, I have AIDS. But I knew if I called you, you would pray for me. You do not form a relationship with someone that is not of your own, same worldview, same beliefs, same, it is hard to form that kind of relationship with someone without an awareness of your own sin. Because you stopped lording it over them, right? And you have, but for the grace of God, go I type of attitude. Man, is that characterizing us. The second thing I wanna say is this, the second thing I wanna say is, we need to be charitable in the far-reaching applications around these issues.

I'm gonna go, I might post on this or something later this week, I don't have a ton of time on this. All I wanna say is this, y'all, the Bible is so clear about what God says about sex and marriage, but there are a lot of issues that we face that we need to be charitable with one another on. Because it ain't that clear. And there ain't nothing like a Christian to choose where they're gonna become dogmatic, okay? I mean, it's like, okay, can I work for a company that donates $100 million to GLAD or not? I mean, there are gonna be Christians that are like, how dare you support darkness and evil in that way?

And there's somebody else that might say, well, it seems like they might need a missionary in that company. You understand? Like, we can't hold these things over each other.

Can my family go to Disney World or not? Well, you can make your own decision about that, okay? I'll tell you what I'm gonna do, but, you know.

You know what I'm saying? Like, we just, we gotta be, Romans 14 says this, and now I gotta move on. Be convinced in your own mind. There are things that are closed-handed as they get, and I'm gonna tell you, sex and marriage is one of those. The Bible begins with a marriage and ends with a marriage. You cannot understand the theology of the Gospel if we lose our complementarian theology, if we lose our theology around marriage. I don't think you can understand it in the way that it is meant to be understood, okay? Doesn't mean you can't be a Christian or be saved.

I'm just telling you, you lose some stuff when you start losing this. And so we gotta stand there. But there's a bunch of other ways that it works out that's kinda hard, and we need wisdom, and we need to pray, and we need to be charitable with one another, all right? The third thing I wanna say of four is this, all right?

Number three, we need to make biblical marriage shine. Okay, so I think for some of us, it's like, man, you know, we can, I mean, you're talking to a guy that at 12 years old had his church take him to a Marilyn Manson concert and protest, okay? Seriously, all right? We wanna, we kinda wanna shout sometimes. And it's like, no, I'm not saying we don't stand. I mean, I want people to know exactly where we stand on this and we have a, you know, we have a statement of faith, and I mean, it's very clear, okay, even where we're at. But at the same time, it's like, if you're gonna put your money in actually trying to change culture, what about making biblical marriage super attractive to the outside world?

Because what they have is the stereotype of it. And what if we have a chance to come in and say, all that energy that we wanna pour into decrying, not that we don't stand, but what if we pour some of that energy into taking on our roles and playing them and playing those parts and leaning all the way into them? Guys, this is one of the things that when you think about homosexual marriage, that is just one of the devastating parts of it. Because by definition, it either erases a man's role or it erases a woman's role. And in biblical marriage, you don't get to delete a man. You certainly don't get to delete a woman. In a marriage, there's two of these that come because they're indispensable and because they're both important. And so you can't just do away with one. And I understand that people can play this role or that role, I'm talking about intrinsically, man, husband, father, dad, man, wife, mother, you know, loving servant in the home, woman.

You can't just dismiss one of those. So what if we play our part in those roles so well that people are drawn in? And finally, the last thing I'll say is this. Y'all look at verse 11 one more time.

And such were some of you that you were washed and you were sanctified and you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Listen, if you are struggling with this or if you are the parent of a child that is struggling with this, man, let me talk to the parents first, okay? Because I know some of you. If you're there, everything that I'm about to say for that person that is struggling is what you, I pray, will be praying for your child. Man, you need to be open with other people, don't hide this. Man, we wanna come alongside of you. We wanna pray for you in this. We wanna love you through this. But what I pray and hope, I hope that your hope for them, let me just ask you this, parent, is your greatest hope that that child would get straight or that they would get saved?

You see? Like that needs to be the hope. And let's pray to that end that God would be glorified as a sinner repents. And I hope that they can feel that from you. But let me talk to you and I'll be done.

If you are one that is struggling with this today, man, I want you to hear this. God can save you and redeem you. He can.

He can. And you say, well, does that mean it fixes me? Is that what you're trying to say? Or heals my inclination for this or that?

And the actual, the answer is, man, I don't know. There are people who have been saved that still struggle with the same temptations the rest of their whole life, but God is right beside them to give them the grace to fight against it. That's what he could do for you. Man, Jesus Christ is a son of God who loved you enough to die for you. And that shows us two things.

First, here's what it shows you. There is no sin that is too much. I don't know what kind of lifestyle you've lived. I understand there are people who come out of this lifestyle and there's been some level of discretion and monogamy, just like there is in a heterosexual past.

But there's some people that come out of this lifestyle, just like some people coming out of a heterosexual, crazy sexual past. And man, it's crazy. Looking back on it, it's like, dude, it was crazy. It was reckless.

It was unhealthy. And maybe if that's you and you're coming out of that, you're like, can Jesus even forgive me with all the places I've been and the people I've been with? And the answer is yes.

Yes, he can. That's the answer, that he went to the cross knowing every single situation you were gonna have yourself put in. And he died for you anyway. Man, there's nothing too dirty for him.

There's nothing too over the top for him. Man, he loves you. He wants to use your story. Man, he wants to have purposes and plans that only you are going to be able to accomplish in this life.

He wants that life for you. The second thing I would say is this. All right, so can I be saved? The answer is yes.

Hey, God's kingdom is worth denying yourself in this life. It is. Man, people, I've gotten flak from this in the past.

I'm gonna tell you something. Sometimes in the culture we act like people with same-sex attraction are hypersexualized. That's wrong, we shouldn't do that. But you know how we do it in the church? Sometimes we buy into this concept that someone who is same-sex attracted is feeling a temptation that a single heterosexual person that is not married is not feeling. Okay, you know how I know the same-sex attracted person can keep fighting that fight?

It's because I look at a thousand other single people that are doing that. And you say, well, they can get married. No, no, no, you only get to get married if somebody will marry you, okay? And my point is this. My point is this, I know that's a little bit funny, but this is real talk. There are many people, Christians, probably over the course of history, like millions of them, that desired marriage but died single.

What was it incumbent upon them to do? Hand God their virginity, hand God their purity, and say, God, even this was worth laying down for you. For the same-sex attracted person, you're not in a different situation than that in terms of that aspect of your life.

Are you in a different situation in terms of social pressures and the way people feel about you and all that? Yeah, I understand, and that's complex. But in terms of just your inclinations towards sexuality, by God's grace, you can fight against that. And I pray that you will and that you will see his kingdom as worth doing and worth that fight.

You know, the Bible said here that you're washed. You know, we have baptism coming up here in a couple of weeks, and I wanna call you. Man, maybe today, you give your life to Christ.

You give him that fight. Maybe in a couple weeks, you get baptized. Let's pray. Father, we come before you, heavy topic, heavy sermon, culture. But God, I pray, Lord, that the saints would be encouraged and God, those that are struggling in this area that are saints, God, that they would have a renewed sense of a fight and strength in them, God, that they would be willing to confess and talk to others about this. God, they would continue their fight. But Lord, I pray for those who are not believers. And this is an issue that is standing in their way. Lord, I pray that the truth of your word would overwhelm them. God, in the beauty of your gospel, what you're willing to do for them, God, it would woo them and pull them towards you today. In Christ's name, we pray, amen.