Before I continue, I want to make something incredible clear. I am by no means any better, or less in need of a savior than any person who adheres to homosexual activities. In fact, homosexual behavior is not some greater sin, but rather a sin resulting from a greater condition. This condition entered the world through Adam and Eve. God did not create sin, but rather created Adam and Eve with the potential to fall. And ultimately as a result of Adam and Eve's fall, sin entered the world, and in all creeping things that creep. So, just to be clear, I hold my homosexual friends to the same standard I hold myself to... because we both suffer from this condition of sin. We are not called to treat our homosexual friends any different than our non homosexual friends. But, that does not exclude them either, from being called into Church discipline. Matthew 18:15 "If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother" the goal of this is to bring your brother or sisters sin to restoration.
The bible clearly teaches from beginning to end that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Genesis 2:18 Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." 2:19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 2:20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 2:21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 2:22 The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 2:23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." 2:24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 2:25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
So, why have so many people who claim Christianity to be true insist on siding with culture. Ravi Zacharias said it this way, "I have little doubt that the single greatest obstacle to the impact of the gospel has not been its inability to provide answers, but the failure on our part to live it out." The Church has become complacent on ideas that are counter cultural. To the Christian, the bible should be his or her ultimate authority. But if you ask the common church goer today to give a brief overview of what it means to be a Christ follower, and be prepared to be shocked about how little they seem to know. A couple of days ago, I had the privilege of reading Martin Luther King's letter which he addressed to his clergymen while he was imprisoned in Birmingham. I was in tears at points when he talks about the complacency of the church.
Here is a brief look at what he had to say, "Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.
There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust."
Have we become a "irrelevant social club with no meaning"? As a Christ follower my plea to anyone who claims Christianity is pick up your bible and examine what the spoken word of God says. If we continue to bastardize the truth of the gospel, I'm uncertain that we ever really truly understood it. The reality is that even an atheist, pantheist, buddist, and agnostic can live as a cultural Christian. But, to live under the authority of Gods spoken word, only a True Christ follower can assert. So as a group of believers we need to be ready to step aside from the culture, and suffer for what the gospel teaches us. Lets stop living as cultural Christians, and start living as biblical Christians. Paul says it best in Philippians 3:7-21
3:7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 3:8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 3:9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 3:10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 3:11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
3:12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 3:13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 3:14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; 3:16 however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.
3:17 Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. 3:18 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, 3:19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 3:21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
May all glory be to God on High
JD
