9-27-2015 Bioethics Part 26

The speaker starts with a prayer and discusses the current cultural revolution regarding marriage and homosexuality. They argue that God has the right to determine what we can do with our bodies, as they believe our bodies are loaned to us by God. They also emphasize that practicing homosexuality is a sin, but it is not the only sin mentioned in the Bible. Repentance is necessary for all sins, including same-sex attraction. The speaker addresses objections that same-sex attraction requires more costly repentance than other sins, and emphasizes that all sins are costly and should not be compared. They also discuss the importance of showing people that their identity is more than their sexual orientation and that their identity comes from being made in the image of God. The passage in Mark 8:34 is mentioned, highlighting the need to deny oneself and follow Jesus. Let's start off with a prayer. Father, I just pray that you'd be with us this morning. You guide our conversation and you edify us so that we can be the people we need to be today with issues that are becoming more and more complicated and counter-cultural in the world we live in. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. So, unless you've been living under a rock the past six months or a year, you realize that we are living in very interesting, just kind of sexual and moral revolution in the culture. And one of the main issues that's really been coming up around this has been marriage as an institution and homosexuality in particular. So, a question I want to start off with, which may seem kind of no-duh at first, but I think it's something we really need to think of is, does God have the right to determine what we can and cannot do with our bodies even if we are not hurting anyone else? Yes. Why do you say that? When you say our body, it's not our body, it's His body. Yes. Okay. That's really good. C.S. Lewis has a great illustration about this and it's in Book 3 of Mere Christianity. And he's talking about the difference between buying a boat and renting a boat. And he says that if you buy a boat, essentially you can do whatever you want to with that boat as long as you are not running into other boats with your boat. However, if you rent a boat, there are lots of things you cannot do with that vessel. And as Christians, we believe that our bodies are loaned to us by God for His glory. Therefore, God can determine what we can and cannot do with our bodies. In a moment, we're going to talk about how acting on homosexuality is indeed a sin and how the Gospel relates to homosexuality. But before we do, I just want to make one thing very clear. Even though practicing homosexuality is a sin, let's remember that this sin is not in a category of its own. But according to the Bible, it's just one sin out of a number of sins that if we don't repent of, it's going to lead to the judgment of God. So, I'll turn to, if you've got your Bibles, 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9-11. So, 1 Corinthians 6, starting in verse 9. 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 the 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, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, what are some stuff we can learn from this passage? Is there anything that you think is relevant at all that comes to your mind? The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, which means that there is an inheritance to be had for, apparently, the righteous. Yeah, absolutely. So, there's an inheritance to be had for the righteous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's really good. Yeah, there were people who had previously been practicing homosexuality in the church of Corinth. So, yeah, this is a sin, but it's not in any way a sin in its own category. Basically, the gospel is for people who struggle with same-sex attraction, too. So, that's really good. What else? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's not the only issue mentioned here. We have the opportunity to be huge hypocrites here. Especially, I can think of a lot of people, like good friends of mine, who, if they were in here right now, would be like, Yeah, we should totally be doing a Sunday school against homosexuality, but they would not be in any way trying to deal with the sin of their own life of greed or drunkenness or any of the issues here. So, yeah, we have to group them all, not group them all together, but we have to realize that they're all sins. Anything else? Is it the salvation that comes through the justification like Andrew mentioned? Is it the same for all these different kinds of sins? Yeah, we're going to get to that more in a minute, but yeah, absolutely. So, Paul says at the end, Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, from this sentence, do we conclude that these Christians are still practicing homosexuality? Yeah, no, of course not. As always, becoming a Christian involves repentance. So, what is repentance? Yeah, absolutely. It's a turning from your sin and turning to God. As we're about to see, Jesus is very serious about repentance. I'm going to get you to read a passage from Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Each of them is talking, or Jesus is talking about repentance. In Mark 1, verse 14, it says, Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe the gospel. Matthew 4, verse 17 says, From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And Luke 24, verse 46 and 47 says, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. So, these are just a few sections from the New Testament talking about repentance. If we wanted to go over everything the New Testament said about repentance, we could literally be here for a few hours. But the bottom line here is this, Jesus says that if you're going to become a Christian, you have to repent. So, how does repentance relate to people who are struggling with same-sex attraction? Is the repentance of someone who struggles with same-sex attraction unique from the repentance of somebody who struggles with something like, well, regular sex attraction outside of marriage, or greed, or anything like that? The thing that's the same is the repentance of lust. Yeah. That's not, that shouldn't be condoned. Yeah. Anything else? Yeah. So, has anybody ever heard anybody object to this sort of thing? No, like, I've had conversations with a few of my friends who struggle with same-sex attraction, and they'll say something like, it's not fair for you becoming a Christian, didn't take that much. But for me, if I'm going to become a Christian, I'm either, A, going to have to stay single for the rest of my life, or B, marry someone of the opposite sex who I am not attracted to at all, or attracted to not even nearly as much. So, how should we respond to that kind of objection of somebody saying, my repentance is more costly than yours, therefore I shouldn't have to do it? I would say that when you say that my choices are more costly than yours, it's only because, you know, his costs are front and center, they're not yours. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And the same choices have to be made on either side about something that's actually huge to the person who's undergoing that battle or that temptation. So, it's a different, they're both sins, it's just different kinds of sins. And they're both, the person who's dealing with having to repent of these things are costly, are really costly on both sides. So, this is a false sense of, you know, because in my own perspective, you have this false sense of everybody else's battle. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I guess it's kind of prideful if you're saying I struggle with this more than you struggle with greed or self-image problems or – just fill in the blank there. So, yeah, for the people that make this claim, I think there are two major things to consider. Number one is the extent at which our culture equates sexuality with identity. So, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not using the term gay this morning. I'm using the term same-sex attracted because in our culture, typically if somebody says I am gay, they're talking about one of the main ways that they view themselves as a human being. For instance, as Sam Albury, who's a Christian who I read a lot, and we're all reading a lot, me, Jeremy, and Morgan, to prepare for this Sunday School series. He's a Christian who struggles with same-sex attraction, and he says in one of his books, My sexual attractions are not fundamental to my identity. My sexual attractions are a part of what I feel, but they are not a part of who I am. In short, I am far more than my sexuality. So, our culture, we're hypersexual. We equate our sexual orientation with our identity, and it isn't healthy, and we don't really do this for anything else. For instance, if you've ever eaten with me at the Meeks, then you know that I can put away some serious barbecue. However, if you came up to me and you go, hey, Braley, who are you? If you were to mention yourself to me, one word I would not say, carnivore. For instance, I'm a student, a valet, and I exercise for fun, but if you went up to me and said, who are you? I would not say I'm a valet, I'm a student, and I'm a weightlifter. They're a part of me, but they don't really get to the heart of who I am as a human being. So, as Christians, I would say that our main challenge in dealing with people who struggle with same-sex attraction is to show them that they are more than their sexuality. So, I guess we need to be able to show them and find ways to love them in ways that show them that their identity doesn't come in their sexual orientation, but rather their identity comes in them being made in the image of God. Number two, turn your Bibles to Mark chapter 8, verse 34. This may be the shortest Sunday School we've ever had. Starting in verse 34, Jesus says, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would lose his life will save it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. So, what is Jesus' point here? What is he trying to say when he says, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Seek his will for your life. Yeah. So, how does that relate to someone saying, as we were talking about a minute ago, someone saying, like, it's not fair that you're calling me to give up all this stuff to become a Christian. For you, becoming a Christian wasn't that hard, but for me, I have to give up so much. How does that relate? Yeah. Yeah. When you said this, and you said deny yourself, a couple of other thoughts that I got, but basically, like, you were saying, you know, feelings, you know, the feelings, the things that you do, those things are, like, the things that you do, the things that you feel are, like you said, basically, like you said, these things are things that you can actually live with in terms of the feelings, things that you do, but they are not tied to who you are. So you can let those things, or deal with those things in such a way that they're not, when you said let them go, deny yourself, that's what he was saying, let these things go in order to, because I was thinking about the rich ruler. You know, he had done a lot of things, you know, he was a lot of things, and Jesus basically told him the same thing, to give up what really, in his mind, was his identity. Yeah, absolutely. And let you follow him. Yeah. The very same thing, so this thing that he's been attached to for so long, he, you know, God calls him to let those things go, and make a distinction, that he can do those things, but let those things go in order to follow him, so I don't know. Yeah. I think one really big thing that we should learn, and this has happened to me, in people saying, like, you're expecting me to give up so much, for you becoming a Christian, isn't that hard? I think that says a lot more about us than it says about the person who is considering becoming a Christian. Like, nobody should ever be able to look at my life or your life and say, like, being a Christian isn't that hard for you, you don't have to give up that much. Like, I think that really says a lot about the way we're... Wired. Yeah, the way we're wired, and just the way we're living, like, amongst non-believers. We need to be upfront from the very beginning, and say that, like, following Jesus isn't, like, another thing you can slot into your life, but rather, like, following Jesus is the thing, it's going to take everything from us. Jesus doesn't say, like, deny part of yourself. Jesus says, like, deny yourself at the deepest level of who you are. Like, kind of like you were saying, He's not just saying, like, give me a little bit, but at the very deepest level of who you are, deny yourself and follow me. Yeah, and as you were saying, for the person struggling with same-sex attraction, them denying themselves looks different than me denying myself. Us denying ourselves may involve not lusting at people of the opposite gender, being generous with our money when we desire to spend it on ourselves, or not gossiping and talking behind people's back when we would really like to. So, yeah, it's repentance, it's just a different area of our life that we need repentance of, or repent of. So, yeah, the bottom line is this, to follow Jesus means to deny yourself daily, pick up your cross daily, and die to yourself and live for Christ daily. This looks different for everyone, because we struggle with different things, but following Jesus requires everything from all of us. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning, thank you for letting us all have this opportunity to get together and worship you and talk about things that we need to know about so we can live as better Christians in the world. Be with us in the rest of this service. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.