Sunday, April 20, 2008

Sitting in the Kitchen: Homosexuality

This week's topic is an especially sensitive topic for a lot of different reasons. I would echo again that my approach has been to deal with all of these issues from a biblical perspective and that I am not trying to convince everyone to agree with me. Instead, I am trying to generate a biblically-based conversation on these issues. If you would like to listen to this sermon, you can go to www.fbc-elon.org/podcast. It will be available online by Monday afternoon. Anyway, here is an outline of some of the points of my sermon.

  1. Romans 1:18-2:3
  2. I understand Scripture to teach that homosexual behavior is a sin. Romans 1:18-2:3; 1 Timothy 1:10-11; 1 Corinthians 6:9; Jude 7
  3. Romans 1 identifies homosexual behavior as sin because it is an act of living by one's passion and lust rather than the revealed will of God.
  4. Jesus' silence on the issue of homosexuality can be interpreted as acceptance of already biblically established standard of homosexual behavior as sin. Leviticus 18:19-30; Leviticus 20:13
  5. Romans 1 identifies plenty of other sins that are a result of living by one's passion and lust: envy, murder, disobedience of parents, gossip, etc. While it is biblical to say homosexual behavior is a sin, it must also be considered that it is not "the great sin" or the only sin.
  6. John 8
  7. Is it judgmental to say that homosexual behavior is a sin?
  8. Jesus' response to the woman caught in adultery: he states clearly that she has sinned, he acts in a way to open the door for repentance and new life, he speaks from a position of humbleness.
  9. We should not respond to homosexual behavior as if the homosexual is the only sinner. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." We must deal with the sin in our own life before addressing the sin in someone else's life.
  10. We should not destroy the sinner with the sin. We should minister to any sinner, including ourselves, in a way that holds open the door of repentance and new life.
  11. "Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saves a wretch like me." Why does the church often feel it must choose between a message of God's grace or a message of the reality of sin. We need to reunite these two messages.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good sermon - but what of the struggle about the cause of homosexuality? If, as many argue, it is at birth, does that make a difference?

Mark said...

My response to this question comes back to my point that Scripture's voice indicates that homosexual behavior is a sin. I do not know enough about the science either way to talk knowingly about the idea of whether or not one is born with homosexual desires. However, if this is the case, I would say that one can also be born with heterosexual desires. The question becomes how one acts on those desires. There are proper ways to act on these desires and there are improper ways that allow these desires to take me down a path God does not intend. I think that the issue returns to Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane - "Not my will, but thine be done." I know what my will, left to my own desires and intentions, might be. However, I am called to bring my will into line with the expressed will of God.

Bardgeist said...

Greetings Mark. And may the Lord's peace and blessings be with you this beautiful spring day. Thank you again, for bringing prayerful perspective to modern issues. It is doubly challenging to address the hard questions of daily life in the midst of an election year. Your last recent sermon on "Sitting in the Kitchen: (with) Homosexuality" raises the rustle-in-the-pew factor for all of us. Why? Because the imprint of a good throwing-stone is often still in our palm from a quick judgment on many social issues, before we knew what took hold of us. By shining scriptural light on the "elephant in the living room (kitchen)" you shine it upon ourselves. When Jesus knelt down and paused with the punishing crowd, He didn't draw a line in the sand, but a circle. As He did time after time, His actions welcomed and included all for forgiveness. Many times it needs to generate from within our own hearts, much like the very first greening rustle of a new spring.
Blessings, Stephen Uzzell