Latest / Reformed Thinking / God’s Design, Sin’s Deception, and Gospel Hope: A Biblical Response to Homosexual Acts
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome back to Reform Thinking. We are cracking over the subject
- 0:04today that, let's be honest, makes most people want to run
- 0:06for the hills or at least change the channel.
- 0:08Yeah, good to be back. But if you are here, you know we
- 0:11don't do fluff. And you are right.
- 0:13We are looking at a stack of sources today that tackled the
- 0:16single most volatile issue in the modern church, sexuality.
- 0:21We are breaking down a Reformed biblical theology of sex,
- 0:24marriage and identity. And before we get into any of
- 0:28the notes, yeah, we have to kind of look around the room.
- 0:30Culturally, the ground is just completely shifted.
- 0:33It used to be that, you know, sex was something you did.
- 0:36Right, an action. Now the culture says it's who
- 0:39you are. It's not just an appetite, it's
- 0:41the absolute core of your identity.
- 0:43That is the shift. That's the whole thing right
- 0:45there. The message out there is that
- 0:47your sexual desire is the truest, most authentic thing
- 0:50about you. So if you deny that desire, you
- 0:53weren't just exercising self-control, you are like
- 0:56denying your own existence. And that pressure is massive.
- 1:00Yeah, it is. It pushes the church to
- 1:02compromise, to soften the edges of the text, or maybe more
- 1:06often, just to stay quiet so we don't get cancelled.
- 1:08But silence isn't really an option, is it?
- 1:11So just to Orient everyone listening, we are approaching
- 1:14this from a very specific spot on the map.
- 1:16We are both Protestant Christians.
- 1:18We hold to Reform theology and the Westminster Confession,
- 1:21right? So we aren't looking at this
- 1:24through the lens of what's pulling well on Twitter or what
- 1:28the latest sociological study says.
- 1:29And that's key. The whole premise of this deep
- 1:31dive isn't what is popular, or even what makes sense to a
- 1:35modern Westerner. The question is, what does the
- 1:37text say? And you know, underneath that is
- 1:41the real question, who has the authority to define us?
- 1:44Is it the self or is it the creator?
- 1:46That's the question. So our mission today is to walk
- 1:48a line that feels very thin these days.
- 1:51Clarity and compassion. Clarity because we believe God
- 1:55has spoken, but also compassion because this is an abstract
- 1:57philosophy. We were talking about real
- 1:59people, real pain, and, you know, friends and family we
- 2:02love. Compassion is key, but we have
- 2:05to define it correctly. I think true compassion isn't
- 2:07just nodding along with whatever someone feels is right for them.
- 2:11If a bridge is out, compassion is putting up a barrier, a
- 2:14warning sign, not waving someone through because they really,
- 2:18really want to drive that way. That's a great analogy.
- 2:20So we are analyzing source material that serves as a
- 2:24biblical response to homosexual acts, viewing them through that
- 2:28classic lens of creation, the fall, and redemption.
- 2:31OK, so this isn't just a quick chat.
- 2:33We're doing a deep dive into the specific arguments.
- 2:36We're going to look at how we read the Bible, those specific
- 2:39verses people always fight about, the shellfish objection,
- 2:42which we will definitely get to, and then finally, the gospel
- 2:45hope. It is a lot, but it is
- 2:47necessary. All right, let's start at the
- 2:49very beginning. Part 1 is the Hermeneutical
- 2:51Foundation. Now that's a $10 word.
- 2:54Hermeneutus just means how we read.
- 2:56Why does this matter so much at the start?
- 2:58Because I hear people say all the time, well that's just your
- 3:00interpretation. Or the Bible is an ancient book
- 3:02written by guys who didn't know about DNA or orientation.
- 3:06Right. And that's where the Reformed
- 3:08method starts, with sola scriptura.
- 3:10The Bible is the final Court of Appeals.
- 3:12It's the ultimate authority. We don't ask what the culture
- 3:16thinks is plausible. We ask what God has revealed.
- 3:19And a key role here is what theologians call the analogy of
- 3:23faith. OK, break that down for us.
- 3:25What does that look like in practice?
- 3:27It just means scripture interprets scripture.
- 3:29It's the idea that the Bible isn't a random collection of
- 3:32disjointed fortune cookies. It is a unified Canon, one story
- 3:36from Genesis to Revelation. So you can't pit the loving
- 3:40Jesus against the mean Paul. Or the Old Testament against
- 3:43them. Exactly.
- 3:44The clear passages help us understand the tricky ones.
- 3:47And the other side of this is that we have to resist what you
- 3:50might call novel revelations. The church can't just bend to
- 3:54the spirit of the age. If the Bible is God's breathed
- 3:56out word, it stands over us. We don't stand over it.
- 3:59So we aren't looking for loopholes to make things
- 4:02comfortable for our time. That's not the goal, no.
- 4:04Now, the notes make a huge point here, that the prohibitions
- 4:08against homosexuality don't just pop up out of nowhere in the law
- 4:11books like Leviticus. They start way, way back in
- 4:15Genesis. This is the creation ordinance,
- 4:17and it's so important. Think of it as the why before
- 4:19the what. If you skip Genesis 1 and 2, the
- 4:22rules that come later on look completely arbitrary, just
- 4:24random. But the design, the blueprint,
- 4:27is established in Eden. So Genesis 1.27.
- 4:31Right there, male and female, he created them.
- 4:34This binary is not an accident. It's not a social construct or
- 4:37some quirky result of evolution. It is presented as part of the
- 4:42imago dei, the image of God. The difference is part of the
- 4:45glory. And then in Genesis 2.24 we get
- 4:47the definition of marriage. A man leaves his father and
- 4:50mother and holds fast to his wife and they become one flesh.
- 4:53I'm going to circle that phrase 1 flesh in a ROM com.
- 4:56That just sounds like we really really love each other.
- 4:58But historically, theologically, it means something much more
- 5:01specific, doesn't it? It is much more specific.
- 5:03It's not just about emotional closeness.
- 5:06One flesh requires complementarity.
- 5:09Think of it like a lock and a key, or maybe a violin in a bow.
- 5:12It implies 2 distinct different halves, man and woman, forming a
- 5:16new unified whole. So it's a union that's about
- 5:20more than just the two people. Yes, it grounds sex in a kind.
- 5:23It's not just a physical act for pleasure.
- 5:25It's a covenant ceiling act that is organically, by its very
- 5:29nature, oriented toward life, toward fruitfulness.
- 5:32The theological term is teleology.
- 5:35It has a purpose. Sex has a specific function
- 5:37built into it, mutual help, intimacy, and the legitimate
- 5:41increase of mankind. So the argument from the sources
- 5:44is that homosexuality contradicts the structural
- 5:47design of humanity, like trying to put diesel in a gasoline
- 5:50engine. That is the analogy.
- 5:51It's an attempt to join what God has not designed to fit either
- 5:55structurally or covenant Lee. So from this perspective, it's
- 5:58not just breaking a rule on a list, it's acting against the
- 6:01very grain of the universe God created.
- 6:03OK, now here is where a lot of people push back and it's a big
- 6:07one. They say, well, Jesus never
- 6:09mentioned homosexuality. He talked about money, he talked
- 6:12about divorce, he talked about pride, but he never once said
- 6:15the word gay or homosexual. That is a very, very common
- 6:19objection, and it sounds really convincing on the surface, but
- 6:22it rests on a complete misunderstanding of how Jesus
- 6:26taught. You have to look at Matthew 19
- 6:28when the Pharisees came to test him about marriage and divorce.
- 6:31He didn't quote a poll. He didn't talk about cultural
- 6:34norms. He appealed directly to Genesis.
- 6:37He said. Have you not read that he who
- 6:39created them from the beginning made them male and female?
- 6:42And for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and
- 6:45be united to his wife. He went right back to the
- 6:48blueprints. He went to the factory settings.
- 6:50He treated the creation design as the normative standard for
- 6:53all time. So to receive Christ is to
- 6:56receive his definition of marriage.
- 6:59He didn't need to list every single possible sexual
- 7:01deviation, bestiality, incest, homosexuality, because by a
- 7:05following the one true standard of one man and one woman for
- 7:08life, he implicitly ruled out everything else.
- 7:11So he validated the positive, which automatically excludes the
- 7:16negative. Exactly, he didn't have to give
- 7:18a comprehensive list of don'ts because he gave the one
- 7:21comprehensive due. OK, that makes sense.
- 7:23Let's move to Part 2, the Old Testament.
- 7:25We have to talk about Leviticus. This is usually where the
- 7:28conversation gets well, it gets heated.
- 7:30Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13. The big ones.
- 7:34These are the texts that explicitly prohibit a man lying
- 7:38with a male as with a woman. And the sources bring up some
- 7:40specific Hebrew terms here that are really important.
- 7:43One of them is Tueva, which is usually translated as
- 7:46abomination, right? And this word is a major
- 7:49battleground. Critics will often say, look,
- 7:51toeva just means a ritual impurity.
- 7:54It's in the same category as eating the wrong food or
- 7:57touching a dead body. It's only about, say, Pagan
- 8:00temple prostitution or idolatry, not a loving, committed
- 8:03relationship. So that's the argument that this
- 8:05is about ritual, not morality. Yes, that it's part of the
- 8:09ceremonial law, but the sources refute that pretty strongly.
- 8:13If you look at the rest of the Old Testament, in Proverbs 6 God
- 8:15lists 7 things he hates. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
- 8:20hands that shed innocent blood. He calls those things Tueva.
- 8:24And those aren't rituals. Not at all.
- 8:26Those are deep moral evils. Lying and murder are always
- 8:30wrong for all people at all times.
- 8:33So when Leviticus uses that same word for homosexual acts, it's
- 8:36placing them squarely in the category of moral holiness.
- 8:40It was about separating Israel from the practices of Canaan and
- 8:43Egypt, sure, but because those practices were morally repugnant
- 8:47to God. OK, and there's another word,
- 8:48Mishkov, right? Mishkov literally mean lying
- 8:52with. It refers to the biological act
- 8:54itself. The text describes a man
- 8:56mimicking the sexual union of male and female with another
- 8:58male. The prohibition is against.
- 9:00The ACT generally doesn't have any qualifiers.
- 9:02It doesn't say don't do this if it's exploitative or don't do
- 9:05this if it's in a Pagan temple. It just bans the ACT itself.
- 9:08OK, pause there because this is the gotcha moment everyone waits
- 9:11for. I can hear the listener right
- 9:13now saying OK, you guys are quoting Leviticus to ban gay
- 9:16marriage, but are you wearing a polyester cotton blend shirt
- 9:19right now? Did you eat bacon for breakfast?
- 9:22Did you plant two kinds of seed in your garden?
- 9:26It feels like we are just cherry picking the rules we like and
- 9:29ignoring all the weird ones. It feels that way, absolutely,
- 9:32and if you don't have a framework for how the Bible is
- 9:35built, it looks like blatant hypocrisy.
- 9:38But the source material points to the Westminster Confession to
- 9:41give us a kind of decoder ring for this.
- 9:43You have to view the Old Testament law like a like a
- 9:46three layered cake. You can't just slice it all
- 9:48vertically, you have to distinguish the layers.
- 9:50OK, walk us through the layers. How do we know the difference
- 9:52difference between the bacon rule and the adultery rule?
- 9:55Well, the reformers distinguish between the moral, the civil,
- 9:59and the ceremonial law. Layer one is the ceremonial law.
- 10:03These were things like dietary restrictions, the sacrificial
- 10:06system, and temple rituals. They were object lessons.
- 10:10They pointed forward to Christ, and they separated Israel as a
- 10:13distinct nation. So the shrimp and the pigs and
- 10:15the mixed fabrics. Shrimp, the pigs, the fabric,
- 10:18all that stuff. These were teaching tools like
- 10:20shadows. But when Christ came, He
- 10:23fulfilled them. He is the substance.
- 10:26He was the ultimate sacrifice. In Mark 7, Jesus declares all
- 10:30foods clean. In Acts 10, Peter has that
- 10:32vision where God tells him what God has made clean.
- 10:35Do not call common. So those laws are explicitly
- 10:39repealed in the New Testament because their job is done.
- 10:42OK, so the ceremonial law is the shadow and Christ is the
- 10:45substance. We don't need the shadow anymore
- 10:48now that we have the real thing. What about the civil law?
- 10:50The. Civil law governed Israel as a
- 10:52theocratic political state. They had laws about putting
- 10:56fences on your roof and specific penalties for theft.
- 10:58We aren't ancient Israel. We don't live in a theocracy.
- 11:01So for example, we don't execute people for breaking the Sabbath.
- 11:05Those laws expired along with the nation state of Israel.
- 11:07That leaves the moral law. The moral law.
- 11:10This layer reflects God's own unchanging character.
- 11:13It's summarized nicely in the 10 Commandments.
- 11:15Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal.
- 11:19These things are wrong because God's nature is life, giving,
- 11:23faithful, and just. They are always wrong.
- 11:26But here is the $1,000,000 question.
- 11:29How do we know which bucket the sexual prohibitions fall into?
- 11:33Why aren't they just ceremonial cultural habits from that time?
- 11:37That is the crucial test, and the test is this.
- 11:40Does the New Testament repeal it or repeat it?
- 11:43The New Testament repeals the dietary laws explicitly.
- 11:45It's very clear. But it repeats and actually
- 11:48intensifies the sexual prohibitions.
- 11:51It carries them straight over into the church.
- 11:53Therefore, sexual ethics are part of the moral law.
- 11:56They aren't ceremonial shadows that disappear.
- 11:58They are consistent from creation through the law and
- 12:01into the teaching of the apostles.
- 12:02That is the key right there. It's not picking and choosing
- 12:04based on what we like. It's applying the logic of the
- 12:07New Testament itself to the Old Testament law.
- 12:09It's letting script scripture interprets scripture.
- 12:12OK, Speaking of the New Testament, let's go to Part 3,
- 12:14Romans One. This is usually considered the
- 12:17heavyweight text on the subject. It is.
- 12:19Romans 1.2627 is the clearest, most sustained treatment in the
- 12:24New Testament, and you have to see the context.
- 12:26Paul is making a universal argument about humanity's
- 12:29suppression of the truth. He describes this great
- 12:32exchange. People exchange the glory of the
- 12:34immortal God for idols, worshipping the creature rather
- 12:38than the Creator. And Paul draws it Direct Line
- 12:41from that spiritual idolatry to sexual confusion.
- 12:44He does. He says that because of this
- 12:45idolatry, God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
- 12:49And he gets very specific. He mentions women exchanging
- 12:52natural relations for those contrary to nature and men
- 12:55abandoning natural relations with women and being consumed
- 12:58with passion for one another. Now that phrase against nature
- 13:02or paraphism that triggers a lot of people today and you can
- 13:05understand why they say, well, it feels perfectly natural to
- 13:07me. My nature is to be attracted to
- 13:09the same sex. If if I'm Born This Way, isn't
- 13:11it against nature for me to force myself to be straight?
- 13:14And that is where we have to be really, really careful with our
- 13:17definitions. When Paul says nature, he isn't
- 13:20talking about your personal subjective instincts or what
- 13:24feels innate to you in a fallen world.
- 13:26He's talking about the functional design of the
- 13:28Creator. He's looking back at Genesis
- 13:30again. So nature as in the nature of a
- 13:33thing. The nature of a thing as it was
- 13:35designed it means against the plumbing, so to speak, but also
- 13:38against the teleological purpose of the body.
- 13:40It's acting contrary to the manufacturer's instructions.
- 13:43So it's an anatomical and structural distortion, not a
- 13:45commentary on how strong the feeling is.
- 13:48Exactly right. The source argument is that it's
- 13:50not just about exploitation or power dynamics, which were
- 13:53common in Rome. It's about the ACT itself being
- 13:56a fundamental misuse of the body.
- 13:58Just because the desire feels stronger, innate doesn't mean it
- 14:01aligns with the design of the machine.
- 14:03OK. Then we have First Corinthians
- 14:056.910. This is that famous list of
- 14:08people who will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
- 14:10And there are two Greek words there that we really need to dig
- 14:13into, arsenicoitai and malakoi. And honestly, Arsenicoitai
- 14:17sounds like a detective story waiting to happen.
- 14:20It really is. It's fascinating.
- 14:22Scholars have puzzled over this word for a long time, because as
- 14:25far as we can tell, Paul might have actually coined it himself.
- 14:28It doesn't appear in any other Greek literature before this
- 14:31letter. So he just made it up.
- 14:32Well, he constructed it. He built it, and this is where
- 14:35it gets so interesting. He combined 2 words directly
- 14:37from the Septuagint. That's the Greek translation of
- 14:40the Old Testament that Paul and the other apostles would have
- 14:42read. He took arsenos, which means
- 14:45male, and quayton, which means bed, right out of Leviticus
- 14:4920.13. Wait, hold on a second.
- 14:52So he took the very verse from Leviticus.
- 14:54You shall not lie with a male arsenos as in a woman's bed.
- 14:58Coyton smashed the two keywords together and made a new noun out
- 15:02of. It precisely he created a
- 15:04hyperlink in his text by using that specific custom built
- 15:09compound word. He is explicitly footnoting the
- 15:12Law of Moses. This detail just completely
- 15:15destroys the common argument that Paul was only talking about
- 15:17Pederasti, the Roman practice of older men exploiting young boys.
- 15:21Because the Greeks already had a word for pederasti, right?
- 15:24They did. Pederasti's Paul knew that word.
- 15:27He didn't use it. He used a word that deliberately
- 15:30recalls the general blanket prohibition from the moral law
- 15:34of Moses. He's essentially saying,
- 15:36remember what God said in the law That still applies to us in
- 15:39the church in Corinth. That is a massive insight.
- 15:42It really connects the dots right across the Bible.
- 15:44So what about the other word, Malakoy?
- 15:47Malakoy literally means soft or effeminate, and in the context
- 15:52of ancient sexual practices it was a common term that referred
- 15:55to the passive partner in a male homosexual act, while arsena
- 15:59koitai refers to the active partner.
- 16:00So by using both, Paul covers the whole act.
- 16:03He covers the whole spectrum of the ACT.
- 16:05He closes any potential loopholes.
- 16:06It implies that both the instigator and the consenting
- 16:09participant are acting outside of God's design.
- 16:12There's no way to read it as only being about coercion or
- 16:14abuse. It's tough to hear, but the text
- 16:17is incredibly precise. Which brings us to Part 4.
- 16:20And this is where the rubber really meets the road for a lot
- 16:22of listeners. How do we think about sin,
- 16:25identity and temptation? Because the common narrative,
- 16:28the thing you hear everywhere, is I was Born This Way.
- 16:32And this is where a robust biblical doctrine of sin is just
- 16:35vital. We have to distinguish between
- 16:37temptation and transgression. Temptation itself is a
- 16:40battlefield. Jesus was tempted in every way,
- 16:43as we are, yet he was without sin.
- 16:45So the mere presence of a temptation, A stray thought, a
- 16:48flash of desire isn't the same thing as committing the sin.
- 16:52But Reformed theology goes a bit deeper than that, doesn't it?
- 16:55We believe in original sin. Yes, the Westminster Confession
- 16:58in chapter 6 teaches that we are born with disordered desires.
- 17:02The fall corrupted human nature at its root, so just because a
- 17:06desire feels natural to our fallen selves or innate, doesn't
- 17:10mean it's good. We are all born with sinful
- 17:12propensities toward pride, anger, greed, and, yes, sexual
- 17:16disorder in all its forms. So the argument I didn't choose
- 17:18these feelings is probably true for any given sin.
- 17:21It is likely very true for most people, but that doesn't
- 17:24validate the feelings or the actions that come from them.
- 17:27I didn't choose to have a sinful temper, but that doesn't make it
- 17:30righteous for me to scream at my kids.
- 17:32We don't judge righteousness by what feels innate to our fallen
- 17:36nature. We judge it by God's unchanging
- 17:38standard. In a strange way, the Born This
- 17:41Way argument actually confirms the doctrine of total depravity.
- 17:45It doesn't negate the call to Holiness.
- 17:48That leads right into the whole question of identity politics.
- 17:51Yeah, the sources we're looking at are very clear about
- 17:54rejecting the label gay Christian.
- 17:56And I know that sounds like semantics to some people, but
- 17:58words matter here, don't they? Words matter immensely, and this
- 18:01isn't just a preference, it's a deep theological stance.
- 18:04Our identity, biblically speaking, is federal.
- 18:07OK, federal identity. That sounds like government
- 18:09paperwork. Unpack that for us.
- 18:11Think of it like citizenship. In the Bible there are really
- 18:13only two nations or two teams you can be on.
- 18:16You are either in Adam, which means you are defined by sin,
- 18:19death, and the old world, or you are in Christ, defined by
- 18:23justification, new life, and the new creation.
- 18:27Those are the only two defining identities that matter in
- 18:30eternity. So using a besetting sin as an
- 18:32identity marker, like an adjective you put before the
- 18:35noun Christian, is problematic because it's like you're trying
- 18:38to mix passports. It fundamentally contradicts the
- 18:40new nature. A believer may struggle and
- 18:43struggle profoundly with same sex attraction, absolutely, but
- 18:46that struggle is a vestige of the old man, the flesh.
- 18:49It is not who they truly are in Christ, their true core identity
- 18:54as a child of God, a new creation.
- 18:56Calling yourself a gay Christian is like defining yourself by the
- 18:59very thing Christ died to free you from.
- 19:01It anchors your identity and your brokenness rather than in
- 19:03your redemption. That is a heavy distinction, but
- 19:06it clarifies why the language is so contested.
- 19:10But we have to pivot to the hope, or else this is just a
- 19:13crushing weight of law. Part 5 is the Gospel solution,
- 19:16and it pivots on one little phrase in First Corinthians and
- 19:206.11. And such were some of you.
- 19:22That one word were he's doing a lot of heavy lifting in that
- 19:26sentence. It is the central pivot of the
- 19:28gospel. It's beautiful.
- 19:30Paul lists all those sins, thieves, drunkard, swindlers,
- 19:33and the sexually immoral. And then he says that is your
- 19:35past tense. And he lists three things that
- 19:38happened to make that true. You were washed, you were
- 19:41sanctified, and you were justified.
- 19:43Let's break those down. Washed.
- 19:44What does that mean? That is the cleansing from guilt
- 19:47and shame. It's the stain of sin being
- 19:49completely removed by the blood of Christ.
- 19:51That is the progressive, ongoing renewal of your heart and
- 19:54habits. It's about breaking the power of
- 19:56sin over your life. It's the process of becoming
- 19:58more and more like Jesus day by day.
- 20:00It's not instant. And justify.
- 20:02That is the legal verdict. That's what happens in a moment.
- 20:05You are declared righteous in God's courtroom, not based on
- 20:08your performance, but based entirely on Christ's perfect
- 20:11merit. Even while you still struggle,
- 20:14the judge slams the gavel and says, innocent, pardoned,
- 20:17righteous. So what does realistic hope look
- 20:21like for someone who is a Christian but deals with same
- 20:24sex attraction? Because I think some people hear
- 20:27such for some of you and they think it means poof.
- 20:29I prayed a prayer and now I'm heterosexual and I'm going to
- 20:31get married and have 2.5 kids and a dog.
- 20:33And that is a dangerous over promise.
- 20:35The church has really hurt people by promising that the
- 20:39sources are very careful here. Realistic hope is not
- 20:42necessarily orientation change. For some, God and his
- 20:45sovereignty might grant that. But for many, maybe most, the
- 20:49struggle with the temptation remains until glory.
- 20:52The hope is holiness. Holiness, not necessarily
- 20:55straightness. Exactly.
- 20:56It's what the old preacher Thomas Chalmers called the
- 20:58expulsive power of a new affection.
- 21:01Your love for Christ becomes so much greater that it pushes out
- 21:04the power of lesser sinful desires.
- 21:07So the goal isn't a change of orientation, the goal is
- 21:10chastity. Precisely.
- 21:12The goal is obedience to Jesus, and that means one of two paths
- 21:16for every Christian either faithful heterosexual marriage
- 21:19or God honoring celibacy. Sanctification is a war, not a
- 21:23magic ZAP. It involves mortification,
- 21:26actively killing sin, and vivification, actively living to
- 21:29Christ. It's a long obedience in the
- 21:31same direction. Which brings us to the Church's
- 21:34role in all this. Part 6 is pastoral application.
- 21:37How do we treat the weary St. The person who loves Jesus, who
- 21:41hates their attraction but still feels it every single day?
- 21:44We treat them with immense compassion and patience.
- 21:47The church is supposed to be a hospital for sinners, not a
- 21:50museum for perfect people. We need to come alongside them
- 21:53and assure them that if they are fighting the sin, they are not
- 21:55defined by it. The struggle itself is often
- 21:58powerful evidence of the Holy Spirit at work.
- 22:00If you were happy in your sin, you wouldn't be fighting it so
- 22:03hard. But the church has a really bad
- 22:04track record here historically. It does.
- 22:07We have to repent of homophobia in the true sense.
- 22:10Mockery, slurs, coldness, treating people like projects.
- 22:13We cannot treat this sin as somehow grosser or more serious
- 22:17than our own acceptable sins of pride or greed or gossip.
- 22:21And the sources talk about the need for the new family.
- 22:24If we were telling people they can't have same sex romantic
- 22:26relationships, we can't just leave them in isolation.
- 22:29This is absolutely crucial. If we tell someone no to a
- 22:33forbidden form of intimacy, we must be ready to say a loud yes
- 22:37to godly forms of intimacy. Jesus promised that those who
- 22:41leave things for his sake will receive a hundredfold brothers
- 22:44and sisters and mothers and children.
- 22:46The Church has to actually be that family.
- 22:48What does that look like practically?
- 22:50It means celibacy should not equal loneliness.
- 22:53If a single person in your church feels isolated, the
- 22:56families in that church are failing to be the family of God.
- 22:59We need to invite them into our homes, into the messiness of our
- 23:02lives. Share holidays, carry burdens
- 23:04together. It's about deep non sexual
- 23:06friendship and kinship. That is a challenge to every
- 23:09single listener. Invite people to dinner.
- 23:12Make them part of the family routine.
- 23:15Now, there's a serious note in here about the sacraments,
- 23:18specifically fencing the table at the Lord's Supper.
- 23:21This is standard Reformed practice, we warn the
- 23:24congregation before they take communion.
- 23:26But the distinction here is vital.
- 23:29We fence the table against the arrogant and the unrepentant,
- 23:33those who are living in sin and calling it good.
- 23:36We do not, and we must not fence it against the struggling St.
- 23:40So if you are struggling with a sin and you are repenting of it,
- 23:43even if you failed this week, you need the meal.
- 23:46You need the meal. It is food for the weak and
- 23:48weary, not a reward for the strong.
- 23:50But if you're affirming your sin, if you're wearing it like a
- 23:52badge of pride and have no intention of turning from it,
- 23:54the Bible says you eat and drink judgement on yourself.
- 23:57That is the line repentance versus rebellion.
- 23:59We're coming to the end here, and I want to address the
- 24:02biggest objection we hear in the culture, the one on every bumper
- 24:04sticker. Love is love.
- 24:06It's a powerful slogan that sounds good, but it's
- 24:09theologically hollow. Biblical love is not just
- 24:11affirmation of desire. Love seeks the true ultimate
- 24:15good of the other person under God.
- 24:17If I see you walking toward a Cliff edge, love isn't saying
- 24:20you do. You live your truth.
- 24:22Love is shouting stop, you're in danger.
- 24:25So warning someone about a collapsing bridge is love, not
- 24:28hate. Exactly.
- 24:29We cannot redefine love to mean supporting someone and something
- 24:33that God's Word says destroys them.
- 24:35True love tells the truth. That brings us to our summary.
- 24:38God's design is good. That's creation.
- 24:40Sin is real and is broken. Everything.
- 24:42That's the fall. But grace is greater than our
- 24:45sin. That's redemption.
- 24:46That is the whole story of the Bible in three acts.
- 24:48So here's a final, provocative thought to leave you with The
- 24:51Gospel actually shuts the door of the proud to the people who
- 24:54want to keep their sin and justify themselves.
- 24:56But it flings the door wide open to the humble, to the broken.
- 25:00The question isn't why is God so restrictive.
- 25:02The question really is why is God so merciful to invite any of
- 25:05us in? Amen to that.
- 25:07We are all just beggars showing other beggars where to find
- 25:09bread. Thanks for listening to this
- 25:11deep dive. It's heavy stuff, but we believe
- 25:14it's hopeful. We'll catch you next time on
- 25:16Reformed Thinking.