The Future of the Church and Homosexuality #2

Homosexuality was present throughout biblical times as well. It's addressed in the Old Testament. It was present very prominent in the culture of the New Testament. Did that stop the people of God? Did that hinder the advance of the purposes of Christ? Did it keep His Church from growing?

No. Welcome again to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and as Don continues to teach God's people God's Word, he'll be concluding a message titled, The Future of the Church and Homosexuality. Last time, Don laid out some can't do's in confronting the issue.

We're now ready for some must do's. But first, Don's here to share a word about our current series, The Bible and Pride Month. Well, Bill, we are undertaking a month-long series of messages here on the Truth Pulpit to counteract the existence of Pride Month. You know, in my opinion, Bill, the Pride Month is the most ridiculous and destructive propaganda campaign that has ever been perpetrated on the American people and beyond them to the entire world.

It started with the acceptance of homosexuality, moved to the mandated acceptance of homosexual marriage, from there to the promotion of transgenderism, to the infliction of transgenderism on children, to the current grooming of children through the appalling existence of drag queen hours. You know, it seemed to me that there needed to be someone saying something each day in opposition to Pride Month in response to all of those things. So my friend, as you listen today, all that is being promoted here on the Truth Pulpit this month is designed to bring a biblical perspective to help you process what you are seeing in the world around you. Our goal is to be a voice in the wilderness of opposition to it all one day at a time. And so I trust it will help you see things clearly from God's perspective and that you will be encouraged to speak boldly for Christ in your circle of influence. Thanks for being with us today on the Truth Pulpit.

Thanks, Don. And friend, let's get right to it as we join Don Green in the Truth Pulpit. Homosexuality. What is the positive agenda for the Church of Jesus Christ in times like this? What must we do? I'm going to list out six items here. I gave you four things that we cannot do.

I'm going to give you six items now that we must do. First of all, we humble ourselves. We humble ourselves in light of the world's fascination and approval of homosexuality. We humble ourselves.

This is very critical for us. Beloved, it is easy for us on an individual or on a corporate level, it is easy for us to point out the sins of others and ignore our own. Repentance for you is not a matter of repenting of the sins of society of which you are not personally guilty. That's not the spirit of repentance to say, oh, I reject the sins of my society. It's good that you do that, but understand that that's not personal repentance. What about your own sins, the things that you are guilty of?

Are you turning from sin in your own life, your own anger, your own lust, your own deceit? We have to humble ourselves enough to remember that we examine our own lives even as we are discerning about the society that is around us. Look over at Matthew chapter 7. We must humble ourselves enough to confess our own sins in the presence of God, to examine ourselves and to remember our past. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7 verse 1, a word that I understand is greatly twisted against us by those who have no part in the things of the Lord, but in Matthew chapter 7 verse 1 we will not worry about the misinterpretations that are thrown against us and we will just take it for what the Lord means for his people here.

In Matthew 7 verse 1 he says, do not judge so that you will not be judged, for in the way that you judge you will be judged and by your standard of measure it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye and behold the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite.

First take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. We humble ourselves enough to examine ourselves and to confess before the Lord and before our others, not our individual sins, but you know I'm a sinner too. I too need a savior. I too needed to be born again. And we examine ourselves and we realize that we ourselves even as Christians fall short of the glory of God.

And so we don't simply go immediately to the attack on the sins of society. We start with ourselves and we look in the mirror as it were and say, Lord forgive me I am the man of unclean lips. I'm the man of an unclean heart. I'm the man, I'm the woman of deceit.

I'm the woman of gossip. Father I confess that and I humble myself before you and I ask you to forgive me for my own sins for I have dishonored my savior with my life today, the past week, the past month, whenever the last time was that you confessed sin in your own life. We humble ourselves and not simply lift ourselves up in pride because we're not guilty of the sins of the society around us.

There's plenty of sin in your own life to keep you busy confessing before God how you've fallen short. And so we humble ourselves even as believers along that line. Now along with that I want you to turn over to Ephesians chapter 5. Paul says let no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things, meaning going back to verse 3 where he said immorality, impurity, greed must not be named among you, no filthiness or silly talk, coarse jesting. Verse 5 know this with certainty that no immoral or impure person or covetous man who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Paul goes on in verse 6 says let no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Watch where he goes, you don't see this coming. He says therefore do not be partakers with them for you were formerly darkness but now you are light in the Lord walk as children of light. He reminds them of their prior unconverted past. He says you used to be the child of wrath. You used to be the one who was dominated by the devil. You used to be the one who was dead in trespasses and sins. And now you are a child of light simply because God had grace and mercy upon your soul and brought you to Christ in order to deliver you from your sin. Remember your own spiritual past.

You formerly were darkness. Well remember that lest you become puffed up against the society that's around you. We proclaim the gospel as forgiven sinners not those who are righteous in our own merit. We merely extend to unsafe people the same mercy that has already been shown to us.

Now having done that what else do we do? Well secondly we teach the Bible. We teach the Bible. Go over to Matthew 28. We teach the Bible so that men will know the counsel of God and wherever God gives us opportunity we go and we declare his word. We declare the counsel of God whether it's over a cup of coffee in a restaurant or whether it's in a conference like this or wherever the Lord opens doors to us we take the Bible and we unfold its meaning to men. Matthew 28 verse 18 and there's a very important point wrapped up in this. There's a lot of important points wrapped up in this but just to remind you of this familiar passage what is it that we do now? Now that the world has changed around us what do we do? What did Jesus tell us to do?

It's not complicated. He says in verse 18 all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth you go therefore and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I commanded you and lo I am with you always even to the end of the age. We won't do a full exposition of the passage here just simply note that Jesus said you go and teach you go into all of the nations with all of their darkness with all of their idolatry with all of their sin with all of their hostility you go in my name on my authority and you teach what I said.

Well we can do that right? We'll teach the Bible so that men will know the counsel of God. The very first thing that we want to do is teach the Word of God in the power of the Spirit in reliance on the work of God in the hearts of those who hear with an expectation that we are going to see people turn to Christ even in this dark age.

And so do we see homosexuality flourishing and grow and great gaining and greater power? We're just driven back and the ways simply toss us back more on the rock of God's Word on the rock of our Lord Jesus Christ where alone is our refuge where alone is our power and we preach it God helping us without any compromise whatsoever declaring the full counsel of God knowing that it is able to sanctify people and build them up in Christ and to bring them to repentance. So we'll teach the Bible.

Thirdly what must we do? We must be gentle before men. We must be gentle before men. Look over at 2 Timothy chapter 2. It's not ours to be abrasive in spirit. Oh we'll be accused of being abrasive simply because we speak the truth but let there not be truth to an accusation that we were quarrelsome in spirit as we did so. 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 24. 2 Timothy 2 verse 24. The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome but be kind to all able to teach patient when wronged with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil having been held captive by him to do his will. As we teach the Bible we're mindful of the spirit that God calls us to handle ourselves in not in an angry contentious spirit but in a spirit of kindness of patience even when we are being wronged and we anticipate being wronged in the days to come. We expect people to misrepresent us to lie about us to do bad things to us and in the midst of all of that we will adopt the spirit of our Lord who has gone before us who stood before those who tried him when they spat upon him when they blindfolded him when they beat him with their fists when they thrust the crown of thorns into his head when they nailed him to the cross and there was an utter lack of a spirit of retaliation in him. He could say father forgive them they don't know what they're doing and so we recognize our responsibility to be gentle even as our Lord was gentle and gracious to us in our sin and rebellion against him. And when we think about the realm of homosexuals I believe that in time God will display the fact that from this moment going forward there was a harvest for the gospel of homosexuals waiting to be had and if that proves to be true as I believe it will certainly he's not done saving sinners is he so he's not done saving homosexuals when God saves homosexuals in the days to come the glory of that will be awesome and he will be magnified still more by his grace on those who rebelled.

We're gentle before men. Fourthly what must we do in light especially in light of what we just said we must be ready to minister to repentant homosexuals when homosexuals are converted to Christ we will have to help them establish new life patterns and help them grow in Christ as babes in Christ we will have to nourish them and help them along just like Christian someone earlier in your life came alongside you in your ignorance and weakness and showed kindness and help nourish you in Christ. Pastor a friend in my case an elder who came alongside and just spent time with just me there was no one watching and God bless Morris Robertson for the way he poured a gentle instructive spirit into the life of someone who had just come to Christ. Well beloved when a harvest of homosexuals converted to Christ is manifested and some of them come then what we've received will give to them as well and they're going to need a special measure of help as we've started to see in our families you know there's something about the nature of the homosexual life that separates them from their family that some of them are separating and they just seal off and they stop communicating with their families. Well when they come to Christ what's going to happen when those that they thought were their friends abandoned them for that what's going to happen to them they're going to have to find in us in the people of God those who are willing to patiently minister to them to work through the the outworking of change to work to work with them and to be patient with them as they struggle and sometimes fail with the remnants of the temptations of their past life that enslaved them. We're going to have to teach them what it's like to break off relationships to change their cell phone numbers to destroy homosexual material in their possession and just in very practical way say this is how you do it and in that we'll point them to Ephesians chapter 4 look at there with me Ephesians chapter 4 verses 22 and 24 we'll have to take them to this passage and say in reference to your former manner of life you need to lay aside the old self which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth to tell them that that God has given you a new mind in your salvation he's given you a new nature live according to that feed that new nature in scripture in prayer in fellowship with God's people and separate yourself from the prior relationships that led you into sin for them it won't be easy for us it may not be easy but we recognize that this is the privilege and opportunity of the church to welcome in new life new babes and say oh we have the chance to be the incubator in which their life takes root and somehow I fear that not necessarily in our church but in churches in general that that we must be careful we must be prepared in advance when this harvest of souls begins to come in that we don't treat them like Jewish Christians tried to treat the Gentile Christians as though they were second class although they were on the outside they're second class citizens in the kingdom of God if Christ saves and they're going to be equal co-heirs with Christ with us regardless of their prior sin and so we must be prepared to minister to repentant homosexuals fifthly I'm almost done here fifthly we must brace for persecution and that's okay we realize that as we stand for Christ as we teach his word as we declare homosexuality to be a sin that must be repented of rather than a lifestyle to be embraced we realize that many will oppose us we accept that scripture tells us in first John chapter 3 says do not be surprised brethren if the world hates you and so we won't be surprised we won't resent the trouble that that brings but we will rejoice in what it means look at Matthew chapter 5 Matthew chapter 5 verses 10 through 12 you know people talk there's so many people saying oh persecution is coming it's going to be really bad it's going to be really bad and just whip us up into a sense of fear and then sometimes tag on a request for donations at the end of the fear mongering what did Jesus say about persecution verses 10 through 12 of Matthew 5 he said blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven that word blessed it means people like this are a privileged recipient of divine favor blessed are those who have been persecuted because you are on the receiving end of a grace of God verse 11 blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me when that happens Jesus says be frightened and go into hiding for they are certain to win the victory over you wait I wasn't looking at the page when I said that let's let's check against here you know what that's not what he said look at this in verse 12 he said something completely different he said rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you if persecution comes to us then we should be positioned by a prior understanding of scripture to realize that this is a grace from God that we don't go into heaven on a gilded carpet when our Lord suffered on Calvary in order to save us we recognize it as a privilege to share in his sufferings to be a fellow sufferer with Christ to identify with the prophets who were slain and persecuted before the days of Christ to identify with the shed blood of martyrs in the days following the apostles sometime if you have it on your shelf just pick up foxes book of martyrs and open it at random and look at the faithful record of men who are forgotten by time now and yet there you read their words of simply wanting to trust Christ and be faithful and say if you must take my head take my head because I will trust my Christ do you see how noble all of this is we're being we're being taught we're being we're starting to be conditioned by some Christian leaders to fear persecution and to be and to be drawn into a sense of fear and concern Jesus taught us just the exact opposite he said if this comes to you rejoice and be glad because you're going to be identifying with the people of God what happened to them happens to you realize that you're in the flow of a noble heritage and that's a great privilege to be in and he says still further he says your reward in heaven is great if this happens to you it's out of it's out of all manner of proportion that the little bit of suffering that you have here for the sake of Christ today he multiplies in blessings in the end he totally reverses the way that we are being said to look at our day and age right now and so while we say okay this may happen we say it not in fear we say if it comes we'll be confident we'll rejoice we'll be glad because it'll be a signature mark that we do not belong to this world because they do not persecute their own why would they you know Satan doesn't divide against Satan and so lastly in all of this kind of a summary point here number six we take heart we take heart we take courage we stand strong we model to the world we model to each other we model to our children we model to a future generation yet to be born what it looks like to be spiritual men in a time like this. Jude 24 now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory blameless with great joy to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory majesty dominion and authority before all time and now and forevermore amen Christ will keep us in this age Christ will use us in this age Christ will bless us in this age we know what we must not do we know what we must do and knowing that we go forward in peace and confidence and unconquerable joy. The Bible and homosexuality has been the subject of Pastor Don Green's attention for the past few broadcasts here on the truth pulpit frankly it's not an easy topic to tackle in today's cultural environment but God's Word does not change just because society does the truth remains the truth protests to the contrary notwithstanding well right now Don's back in studio with a resource offer to help you as you relate what you've learned to others well let me just remind you one final time that you can go to our website and get a complete series of our study the Bible and homosexuality that contains a lot of material that we didn't have time to broadcast on the radio here's Bill to help you find that free resource that we really want to share with you just visit the truth pulpit dot com there you can also find a link to Don's Facebook page and much more that's all at the truth pulpit dot com I'm Bill Wright inviting you back next time as Don Green teaches God's people God's Word from the truth pulpit.