As a youth leader in our church almost every week I face questions from the 9th grade youth about homosexuality. I wish I were exaggerating. It seems that our culture is so obsessed with homosexuality that 15 year old boys find themselves constantly facing this issue. Any attempt to discuss their faith at school leads peers and teachers alike to confront them about homosexuality. Our culture has become prideful, nay I would call it arrogant, about this issue. Anyone who does not think that gay marriage is “OK” is characterized as a hate monger. Anyone who suggests that God is not “OK” with homosexuality is vilified.
This past weekend, at a youth group retreat, our speaker asked the boys to list the sins that they had trouble believing were wrong. In response, as has been the pattern for weeks, regardless of our intended topic of discussion, homosexuality was immediately raised. One boy said that he knew that God wanted people “to be happy” and so he couldn’t see any reason why God would have any problem with a same sex couple. If that made them happy we “shouldn’t judge them”. In fact they should be “able to marry”. He figured that would be fine with God.
Here is the “truth bomb” I shared with the boys: The lie in this line of thinking is that God is primarily concerned about our happiness. He is much more concerned about our character. God is trying to conform us into the image of his son Jesus Christ. God desires that we would become mature and holy, which means that we are set apart to do his will. Jesus was sinless and holy and is our model. Jesus did not live a “happy” life. Consider the incredible suffering that Jesus had to endure. Likewise Job was a blameless man in God’s eyes (Job 1:8). Job’s story is another case study in suffering. In fact in Hebrews 12:5-11 we are all warned to expect to suffer: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” 7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
So what does suffering have to do with marriage? The point is that marriage is not simply about happiness! God did not ordain marriage for our selfish pleasure. This is another lie. Marriage is difficult on purpose. Marriage is not about finding the person most compatible with you so that you can make each other “happy”. Men and women don’t think the same; we are fundamentally different. Marriage is a tool that God uses to transform us. It takes a great deal of love, sacrifice and suffering to make a lifelong commitment to another person and keep it. In fact God knows that we need Him to have a chance of truly loving another person our entire life. The idea was not to give us a pleasure partner so that we didn’t need a relationship with Him! The idea was to draw us back to Himself as we recognized that we couldn’t live out our marriage covenant without Him. In fact to make sure this was the case, God cursed marriage and placed an inevitable power struggle at it’s core (see Gen 3:16).
This is where same sex marriage falls short. If I marry a person who thinks like me, has the same lust, and desires like me, who enjoys the same brutish TV, movies, and sports like me, where is the incentive to grow and change? Where is the need to sacrifice my selfish desires? Without restraint it can become a formula for a lifestyle of unrestrained hedonism. More than that, God ordained that married couples would have children so that we would further subjugate our selfish desires and learn to love our children sacrificially. There is nothing quite so powerful in transforming and maturing an adult as the drive to help our children to know God and follow Him.
I want to stress that before Jesus saved me I was very liberal and thought that being gay was basically OK. I saw it as an acceptable choice. Not one that I was personally drawn to, but also not one that I would have said anything against nor thought much about. Knowing God personally has led me to a deeper understanding of the purpose of life and this has led me to understand that being gay is a poor choice because God has a bigger better plan for each of us.
Now I am going to surprise most Christians. I do not think that choosing to be gay is “forbidden”. We are no longer living under the law. Paul, when talking about prostitution says: 1 Cor 6:12 “Everything is permissible (allowable and lawful) for me; but not all things are helpful (good for me to do, expedient and profitable when considered with other things). Everything is lawful for me, but I will not become the slave of anything or be brought under its power.” (Amplified version). Paul does not appeal to the law to exclude prostitution on the grounds that it violates a commandment. He could have done this. Instead he appeals to the conscience. He says that everything is permissible, but not everything is good. We are united with Jesus Christ spiritually therefore we should not unite ourselves sexually with a prostitute (1 Cor 6:15). In Romans 1:26-27 Paul describes the sinful and shameful nature of homosexuality and connects it with idolatry. People who forget about God and chose not to worship Him make this choice. God’s son and God’s word are not ambiguous about the sinfulness of homosexuality. It is certainly not a choice I would want for my children.
So how do we treat people who are gay? How do we treat people who chose not to worship God? How do we treat prostitutes? Jesus was a friend of sinners (of all types). We should be too. We are called to be a witness to the goodness and love of God and to invite people to know God. Do we judge Christians? Yes we do, but Jesus was clear that first we take the plank out of our eyes and recognize our own sin first. Ultimately, once we get our bad motives out of the way: maybe pride and a desire to feel superior, or perhaps our own same-sex attraction (that more than likely we find disturbing) and acknowledge that we are selfish sinners too and in need of a savior, then we can try to help others to find Him too. Primarily we pray and ask God, by his Holy Spirit to transform everyone we witness to into the image of Jesus. Paul is very clear that sexual sin of any kind is destructive (1 Cor 6:18-20). Everyone who desires to live a life pleasing to God will ultimately be lead away from sexual sin. I am confident of this. However, this is the work of the Holy Spirit, and will happen at the pace and timing of the Holy Spirit.
Do I support “same sex marriage”? No. Not that I want it to be illegal. Regardless whether it is legal or not, I do not think it serves the true purpose of marriage. Two people should enter into marriage with the intent of knowing God better and being transformed to be more like Jesus as they fulfill God’s command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth together (Gen 1:28). If this were the heart desire of a same sex couple, I would advise them not to marry each other. At the same time let me state clearly that I don’t like legislating morality. If someone doesn’t have an interest in knowing God, why should we legislate who they can have sex with? At a deeper level, God gives us the freedom to make poor choices so we can honor Him by learning to make good ones. My preference is to let same sex unions be legal with all of the financial benefits of a marriage without children. The key to me is for our society to continue to value speaking the truth about homosexuality in open dialogue.
1 Cor 6:9-11 “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. 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.” (NIV)
Atheist to Elder 