Addressing the Heart of Same-Sex Attraction #2

Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word. Today Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time. So let's get right to it.

Open your Bible as we join Don now in The Truth Pulpit. Point number three, we can title it this way and this really gets to the heart of it and this is where we do the hard work on this topic. Point number three with an exclamation point says, but I didn't try to be this way. I did not choose to be this way is what you hear homosexuals say. They say I was always this way. I was different from the youngest age. I didn't choose it.

This is just who I am. Now what shall we say to that? The implication, the unspoken assertion in that is that therefore I am not responsible for my immoral heart because I didn't choose to be this way.

Therefore God can't judge me because this wasn't an act of my volition. What shall we say to that? This is a very important point. Again it's not too much to say that the very essence of what Christianity is is at stake in this very point. The truth is just the opposite as is so often the case. Prevailing conventional wisdom is usually an expression that the truth can be found biblically in just the opposite direction and it's just as true here. Listen to me very carefully as we do some heavy theological lifting here. The fact that those desires come so naturally and so easily simply shows how badly sin has infected the human race. In Romans chapter 5 verse 12 Paul says that that just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned. When Adam fell sin entered into the human race and had a contaminating effect on every aspect of human nature and as men have propagated since Adam that that nature that sinful nature is passed along from generation to generation. We're sinners not simply by what we choose to do. We are sinners by nature. We inherit a sinful nature from our parents who received it from their parents and on back it goes. And when Adam fell into sin, beloved, he brought a whole host of evil upon the human race.

We inherited a guilty nature from him that is corrupt and perverse and cannot be reconciled to God unless a man be born again. Now why is it that some people feel same-sex attraction so early in life? Well why did you feel sinful motions in your heart in early in your life? Why were you a liar from the earliest age?

Why were you angry and why did you strike out at your siblings and and hit them? Your parents surely certainly didn't teach you to do that. I didn't sit down with my daughter and say here you know what honey come here sweetheart I want to teach you something. Let's put aside the little bear book. I want to teach you to lie and and let me just teach you how to lie.

When you get in trouble say something that isn't true and maybe people won't know. You don't teach your children that. They just naturally know how to do it.

Why? Because they have a sinful heart from birth that teaches them to sin, that teaches them to lie, that teaches them to be angry, that teaches them to be selfish. And when they act on those sinful desires they develop sinful habits that gradually take control of them.

No one has to teach them. They received a sinful nature at birth and it expressed itself in their sinful behavior. Some lie, some do other things. Listen to me carefully. This is so very important. This next section.

I actually everything this weekend has been important okay let's not I'm not setting it against each other. This is just so this is just so important because it's so hard to respond to this. You can't respond to that argument without really sound theology. But really sound theology helps you understand what's going on. Look, the fact that sinful desires come naturally is not unique to homosexuals. Anyone who has raised children understands this. You understand this from your own personal experience that you found yourself in anger, in lust, in sinful behavior and no one had to teach you how to do that.

You just naturally knew. Children naturally get angry when they don't get their way and it's not because someone taught them to be naughty. They just are naughty.

It's not genetic in a physical sense. They're born with sinful hearts. Now, beloved, watch this really carefully. Pay close attention to this because there is a lot of important direction that hinges on what we're about to say right here. And this applies not only to to homosexuals, this applies to all of us. This convicts all of us. The fact that sin comes naturally to you does not excuse your guilt. Rather, to the contrary, it proves your guilt. It manifests your guilty nature, the fact that sinful desires and sinful behavior come so readily and so easily to you. It proves your guilt.

It doesn't excuse it. Jeremiah 17 verse 9 says, the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it? It's a statement about human nature and so taking this general truth that applies to all men and then making specific application in the realm of homosexuality, beloved, without being taught to do so.

Some people rebel against God's will for sexuality even at an early age even though no one taught them to do so. And, beloved, as those who are committed to upholding the authority of Scripture and vindicating the holiness of God, we must stand on this principle that I'm about to say right here. You're listening, right? I can tell everybody's locked in.

That's great. After all this time, you're all locked in to hear this statement. Sin does not become righteous simply because it comes naturally. And so to say I didn't choose this proves nothing. It says nothing about what is righteous and about what God accepts or what God condemns.

It says nothing about that. If it was just a matter that natural behavior was automatically righteous, parents would have no grounds to discipline their children for tantrums and lying and all other manner of childish foolishness and sinfulness that manifests itself. Because the child's response, if he had the mind to say it was, this just came out of me. It's just natural. This is who I am. I'm an angry child that throws tantrums when I don't get my way, therefore you can't correct me.

Please. None of you would parent that way. None of you would accept that as a premise. You understand intuitively, instinctively, apart from biblical revelation. I've got to stop that or that's going to become a problem. I can't have my kid lying to me all the time.

I can't have him hitting his little brother with bricks, even though it comes naturally. And so what makes homosexuality different? How is that any different than what we're talking about here? There is no distinction.

There is no difference. And so, beloved, and I understand that there's just a head-on collision with the spirit of our age with what we're about to say here. And praise God that we can have a head-on collision like this. You know there's a reason why you stop and look at car accidents. There's something fascinating about it.

When a collision takes place, the aftermath is something to be seen. What do we say in response to the homosexual who justifies himself by saying, I didn't choose to be this way? This just comes naturally.

It's just who I am. What do we say to that? Homosexuals have completely misunderstood and misinterpreted the spiritual significance of their experience. They think that the fact that they didn't choose this means that therefore it must be okay. That is wrong.

The Bible says no, that is the incorrect way to understand your existence. Rather, their desires manifest and show forth a corrupt nature. Those who desire homosexuality as the favored orientation of their life, to use their terminology, they are guilty even if they did not consciously choose it.

God will hold them accountable for their sinful nature because God is an omniscient God who looks on the heart, who says, I have commanded and set up one way for sexual expression to be taken and it's in a monogamous marriage. And if you are oriented toward wanting something different than that, then your whole heart is out of order. Your whole nature is corrupt and you can't excuse it any more than my kids could excuse.

Yeah, I lied, but I'm pretty good at it because that's what I do. And none of my kids are like that, but some of them have been like that in the past. Homosexuals, in other words, bringing all this together is, and this is what I would say to those of you watching on the live stream who are about to throw a brick through your computer screen because you're so angry with what I just said, but understand that what we're saying here is that homosexuals are no different than the rest of us. We're all like this. We all naturally knew how to sin. It's just a question of the symptom that expressed that, the manifestation of it, whether it's a proud spirit or an angry spirit or a lying spirit or a homosexual spirit. We're all condemned by the same thing that we have a sinful nature that manifests itself in sinful desires.

This is the testimony of Scripture which we must uphold because it is the authoritative Word of God and we can do no other. But we're not targeting homosexuals by saying this. They're just like the rest of us. It's just a different manifestation of the same fundamental spiritual problem. What can we say about homosexuals?

Say the same thing about every one of us. Humanity is born into a condition of slavery. We were born as slaves to sin. In the Gospel of John chapter 8 verse 34, Jesus said that truly, truly I say to you everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

Now that standing alone might sound rather depressing, but you know what? Sin is like that. Sin is enslaving.

It is a task master. It owns sinners. We are a slave of sin. And here's the thing that that Scripture leads us to.

It is shocking if you're not familiar with biblical teaching. You react against it, I understand, but the testimony of God's Word stands is that you can be a slave of something without even knowing it. Men are slaves of sin without even being aware of it. It is a silent owner of men and we're born into that condition and then as we grow we choose sin of our own volition and the problem just multiplies and the chains get wrapped tighter and tighter around the soul and around the man until he realizes that this alcohol owns me, this sexual sin owns me, this anger, this bitterness owns me. I can't get free from it. I can't choose anything differently and that's precisely the point. That doesn't justify your condition. It shows how guilty and corrupt and helpless you are.

It's a pretty bleak picture, isn't it? In Ephesians chapter 2 verse 3 Paul says, we all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest. You see part of the problem, part of the problem going and just addressing this at an even broader level, part of the problem over the past 50 years is we've all been conditioned through our public exposure to public education, if that's been your experience, to cultivate, to think good thoughts about yourself as if the worst sin that somebody could commit would be to have a bad self-esteem. And so you're the greatest. You can be whatever you want to be. You can be president if you want to be, never minding that there's 320 million people in the United States and we're currently on what our 44th president? Count the odds on that. And then just this this whole idea of human capacity and be what you want to be.

Just set your mind to it. Well look that all sounds good and appeals to the flesh but it's just a horrible depressing lie. We're slaves to sin Scripture says. We're blinded by the devil. We are we are mastered by our own corruption. And rather than justifying our existence by that, we simply realize that we are helpless and condemned before a holy God who does not accept our self-esteem movement, who does not accept our excuses Romans 1 says they are without excuse and on and on it goes.

Is there an answer to that enslaved condition? What are we to say to this? Well in the context of our conference tonight I'll frame the fourth point like this. What this tells us is is that homosexuals need the gospel. Homosexuals need the gospel. If sin has a hold on you don't try to justify it.

Don't try to excuse it. Don't multiply your sin by twisting the Word of God around to try to make it fit your human experience. That's the wrong response and only drives you deeper into sin and guilt.

If you find sin coming naturally to you, if it is the defining nature of your existence, rather than justifying yourself, what this should do is cause you to flee to the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy. For he alone is the one who has conquered sin with his death and resurrection at Calvary. You see Christ didn't come simply to relieve us from the penalty of sin with his life death and resurrection. Christ came to liberate us from sins enslaving power and when you deny the guiltiness of sins enslaving power you separate people from the saving power of Jesus Christ.

You condition them to think that they don't need it because their inner man is immune from judgment. That's not true and no one should be standing on a platform professing to represent Christ and say what your inner man is like doesn't matter just don't get into the external stuff because that inoculates people from the penetrating power of the gospel which alone can save them. And so rather than justifying ourselves in our sin we should acknowledge it and say I am I am mastered by desires that I have no control over I need someone to save me.

Oh Jesus would you exercise your saving power toward me because I want to be free from this monster that is inside me. That's the only way to respond to sin and I don't know maybe if it maybe if I hadn't preached four times in the past 24 hours I would be more animated about what I'm going to say but but people people to deny to contradict what we're talking about here is to eviscerate the power of the gospel. It is to seal people off which from that which alone can save their souls. It is to condemn them to being in the chains and dungeons of their own experience and their own wicked desires.

It's to tell them that that's okay and that is a manifestation of God's saving grace that you're still in that condition and that you have that corrupt nature unchanged and that that's okay. You know what it's not okay and in saying this I'll say the same thing I said last night I don't hate you by telling you this I did not become your enemy by telling you the truth I do not become anyone's enemy by pointing out their sin and then pointing them to Christ as the one who can liberate them and save them and deliver them from their sin. The gospel is good news the gospel says we recognize you in your enslaved condition and there is one greater than sin there is one with power over sin who can deliver you and set you free. You see beloved what's at stake in this homosexual discussion is the very throbbing heartbeat of gospel truth and and to to twist things and to pervert the gospel and to pervert the scripture in order to avoid offending homosexuals is to commit treason against God and to sign their souls to hell because we tell them you don't need the gospel so much after all. And those Christian leaders all refrain from naming names I don't know why but those Christian leaders who are leading the church down the path toward affirming these things their judgment before God is going to be especially severe. Much of the whole nature of professing Christian leadership needs to profoundly repent for affirming people in their slavery rather than dealing honestly with Scripture and dealing honestly with their souls and pointing them to Christ. I'll make you a promise as a pastor of this church no pastor who compromises on the that issue on this issue of what we're talking about this weekend in this particular message no pastor like that will ever stand behind this pulpit ever as long as I'm here and that'll just be one simple way that we distinguish our testimony from the rest because we realize that so much is at stake there are eternal matters and eternal souls that are at stake in this. We can't we can't trivialize this.

We can't play games with this. Good gracious Christ went to the cross to save people like this and would we would we cloud the cross would we hide the cross in order to avoid giving offense to men no we will will not do that and so to you who are homosexual by nature to you those of you who are bitter by nature angry by nature we say the same thing to one and all all of us are in this sinful soup together and you must confess your sin and repent or you will perish even if you have never acted on your sinful desires. In Matthew chapter 5 the Beatitudes and the sermon on the Mount I've said this so many times those three chapters in Matthew are so crucial and they explain so much for us and give so much clarity to us. Matthew chapter 5 verses 3 & 4 one day I'll actually preach on this and you'll be shocked well I finally got around to it but Jesus said in verses 3 & 4 blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted in other words acknowledging a spiritual bankruptcy that that in my soul I'm bankrupt there is no good thing that is within me and and I have no control over sin rather I am owned by say principle of evil that is greater than I am that's what Jesus is describing here a humble spirit that says there is this wickedness in me and I mourn over it I want to be free from it rather than saying I proudly acknowledge that my heart is oriented toward rebellion against God look beloved you want to know how to recognize a Christian I'll give you another way a Christian is somebody who desires righteousness that he lacks rather than someone who desires sin that is forbidden a Christian desires righteousness that he lacks rather than sin that is forbidden look at Matthew chapter 5 verse 6 blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied what are they saying except that I want this sin but I'll not act upon it that is the exact opposite of what Jesus describes the repentant heart looks like the repentant heart says I want to be righteous I want my desires to be righteous I hunger and thirst and long after that which God affirms and commands rather than saying I long and hunger after that which God forbids is that this this turns the whole nature of Christian righteousness on its head if we yield on this point and so being mindful of the fact that this is a conference primarily directed to the church to strengthen the church beloved what I want you to see is when you encounter that in conversations you have to stand firm on this point to affirm someone who is advocating their so-called gayness and saying I'm a gay Christian to affirm them in that is to lock the key of their damnation and to throw away the key rather than offering them the key of the gospel that would open the door and free them from their deception and their sinful desires we cannot do that and be faithful to Christ we have to love people enough to let them hate us for telling them the truth if that's what it takes so what do we say then if we don't affirm them in it what do we say look over at Mark chapter 8 Mark chapter 8 you know I said this on one of my facebook posts recently and I'll try to repeat it here if I can remember it I have a friend who's a Navy SEAL used to be a Navy SEAL he's now a pastor smart bright committed guy and I love to talk about military tactics with him it's just it's just interesting to hear how a a trained guy like him thinks through military matters and military maneuvers and he told me one time that when when a seal is ambushed by an enemy here's how they're trained to respond the temptation might be to run to try to get away from that seals do the exact opposite they pick up their weapon they train it on where the fire is coming and then they fire and fire and they just go toward right toward where the action is they walk into the attack firing their weapon rather than running from it and by doing that you take away the the element of surprise and violence and and you take control of the situation by using your weapon against the hostile force well this is a picture of what the Christian Church needs to do in response to this issue that is impressed upon us the exact wrong thing to do is to affirm these so-called gay Christians in their assertions that they make about themselves rather what we should do is point them to what Christ himself said what did Christ say rather than justifying sinful desires Christ calls us to deny them to reject them you say but but this is who I am and Jesus says I understand that and I offer you salvation and in mark 834 he says Jesus says I'll forgive all your sins I've paid for the debt of sinners at the cross with my own blood my own righteousness will satisfy God if you put your faith in me he says he's a perfect Savior who will save any sinner who comes to him but he says don't don't trivialize who I am and don't magnify who you are in mark 8 verse 34 he says if anyone wishes to come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it and so with this philosophy of gay Christianity being foisted upon us and us being called to affirm that and to not question anyone's salvation claim in light of saying I am a gay Christian what we don't do is turn from that and yield the ground to those who would assassinate the gospel by what they say and teach rather we go straight toward the issue and we say you say that that's who you are well and good no matter who you are Jesus says if you want to come after me you deny yourself and take up your cross and come after me we don't affirm them in it we say if that's who you are then here's what you need to do you need to deny that you need to reject it you need to repent of it and come after Christ because that's the only way that he'll receive sinners you can't hold on to sin with one hand and receive Christ with the other you must receive him with both hands empty rejecting yourself and receiving him saying there are no preconditions I receive you I deny who I used to be for the sake of receiving you as my Lord and King we say to all men everywhere not simply homosexuals turn from your love of sin turn from your desires for sin come to the Lord Jesus Christ and make this the day of your salvation let's bow together in prayer our father we see these things from your word and we humble ourselves before them we're not singling out any particular group of humanity we all acknowledge that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God we all acknowledge that we need a Savior we all acknowledge that we had to leave our own individual sinful past behind in order to come to Christ and to receive him and so we haven't we haven't tailored the message we haven't made it more difficult our father we haven't placed demands on one group of humanity that aren't applied to others the demand of Christ the call of Christ is the same to all men and father I pray that the Christian leaders who are who are leading people away from your truth I pray that you would stop them in their tracks and either make them repent or somehow silence their ministries that the corrupting diluting influence of their words would no longer have an effect on your church and father I pray for those that struggle with these homosexual desires and and don't know what to do with them and find themselves captive to forces that are greater than themselves father I ask you to have mercy on them to show grace to them to help them in their helpless condition open their eyes to sin and then open their eyes further to Christ and turn their hearts so that they would risk willingly receive a gracious Lord who is able to save them from the penalty of sin and also deliver them from the power of sin father I pray that for some in this room who don't know Christ father for those of us that do know you we thank you that you've done that work in our hearts we take no credit for it we did not save ourselves we're not more righteous than others we are the privileged recipients of divine favor through your grace and we thank you for that and we ask you for the grace as a church and as individuals to be faithful to stand firm on the gospel to not be swayed by the spirit of our age because father ultimately we don't care what this age says about us we don't care what media folk would say or what those that are hostile to truth would say about us we only care what you think what matters to us is is only what Christ says to us when we see him at his judgment seat and he rewards us for our lives Lord while that day seems remote sometimes and it's certainly unseen that's the moment that we're living for that's the moment that we long for Lord Jesus to look in your face and see a countenance of approval from you toward us individually and that we would enter into your heavenly kingdom with the glorious sense that you approve of how we lived our lives here when we were saved by your grace that we responded to your grace with a faithfulness that is befitting of your grand and glorious character the world would turn us away from that would tempt us away and so Lord we ask you to preserve us and to keep us to guide our steps in such a a divinely powerful way that you lead us not into temptation not into the temptation of compromise or sin or disloyalty but rather instead that you would deliver us from evil and deliver us from the evil one who is the father of all these lies father I beg you on behalf of these gathered in front of me that you would work with power in their lives over time and in a sustained wonderful way so that when time is done and life is over they would find that you are granting them at that great moment a wonderful blessed full and safe entrance into your heavenly kingdom Lord we've asked for a lot with that prayer and yet we know that you are able to do exceeding abundantly far beyond all that we ask or think and so our asking hasn't exhausted or limited the the the extent of your power or your intentions for us father go supernaturally and eternally greatly beyond everything that we've asked and accomplished so much more than we could think simply because father we've appealed to your grace and mercy in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and it's in his name we pray amen now before we go I just want to send an invitation to you in this brief moment here at the end of the broadcast it is a real joy and privilege for me to week by week meet new people who come through the Cincinnati area and stop by for a Sunday service or even a Tuesday evening Bible study at our location on the east side of Cincinnati and I would invite you to do that there are a lot of attractions that bring people to the to our region and people often plan their trips around the opportunity to be with us on a Sunday morning service or on a Tuesday and so if you would come and visit us I would love that but even more make the opportunity I'm very accessible at our church if you do visit us come and introduce yourself to me I would love to meet you have a brief word of fellowship with you and for us to be able to cement our relationship even more going from the mirror audio here to that which is face-to-face in person as we share in the joy of serving and knowing our Lord Jesus Christ you can find the address and service times at our website the truth pulpit calm and we would love to see you again that website information is the truth pulpit calm that's Don Green founding pastor of truth Community Church in Cincinnati Ohio thank you so much for listening to the truth pulpit join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's Word