Biblical Perspectives on Sexual Ethics and Identity

When it comes to sexual ethics in the Bible, we have to understand that they are rooted in creation. They are rooted in creation in God's ordering of creation in creating man male and female, man and woman. And Jesus appeals to the creation ordinance, the apostles in the New Testament appeal to the creation principle or ordinance pertaining to all matters of sexual relations and the sexual identity. [00:00:31]

Homosexuality, we need to understand that homosexual sin is sin, homosexual activity is sin, homosexual lusts are sin, homosexual desires are sin, and that's how the Bible speaks of them. The Bible doesn't whisper about them. The Bible speaks very plainly and very clearly about them; in fact, so clearly that throughout the Old Testament, we can see this in Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, Genesis, later on in Judges, but we also see it in the New Testament in Romans 1, in 1 Corinthians 6, and 1 Timothy 1, that it is made very clear that homosexual activity is sinful. [00:01:18]

In truth, that homosexual sin is understood by not only Christians, but I would even argue that it's understood by all human beings to be essentially inappropriate, to be essentially wrong, because by the light of nature I believe that human beings know that homosexual sin is against nature. And that's, in fact, the language that the Apostle Paul uses in Romans 1 when he speaks of homosexual sin, men with men, women with women, as a sin that is contrary to nature. [00:02:48]

What we need to understand very clearly as Christians is that we don't want to give into the sociocultural influences of our day to make it seem okay to identify as a homosexual. The reality of it is is that no one should identify by their sin. We don't want people to identify as an adulterer or as a drunkard. We want to identify by who we are. We are either in Adam and in sin or we are in Christ and we are justified and we are in grace. [00:04:12]

It's not them getting cleaned up or changing their lifestyle that gets them saved. It's not them getting cleaned up or changing their lifestyle that makes them justified before God. It's only their faith in Jesus Christ and trusting Him, and that faith in Jesus Christ means repentance and it means rejecting and leaving that homosexual lifestyle and recognizing and repenting of it as sin and recognizing that they need the righteousness of Christ and to live in the righteousness of Christ. [00:06:09]

We used to speak of besetting sins and we all have besetting sins, and all of our sins are besetting, but it is true that each of us has certain proclivities or desires towards particular sins. It might be arrogance. It might be pride. It might be sexual lust, but some might have a certain proclivity or desire for whatever reason towards homosexual lust, homosexual sin. And what they have to do is recognize it as sin. They have to repent of it as sin, confess it as sin, and consecrate their themselves, their hearts, their minds, their eyes to a new way of living rejecting that sin. [00:07:30]

What we do not want to do and what we cannot do is water down the very clear biblical ethic and biblical truth about my sin, your sin, and about homosexual sin. It is sin and we cannot water it down. We cannot make light of it. We must call it what it is, because if we make light of sin, then we'll make light of the grace of God. We have to have a proper regard for our sin, so that we can have a proper regard for the grace of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and why He came and why He died, dying for those who sin like you and me, dying for those who sin in different ways. [00:08:55]

I want to hate my sins more than I hate the sins of those who sin differently than I do. And that's not easy to do. Our tendency is to hate everyone else's sins more than we had our own sins. And I want to hate my sins more than I do the sins of everyone else, even though some of those sins are contrary to the nature of who we are as men and women as God made us. [00:09:39]

I have heard this. I have not witnessed this, but I have heard this that there are in fact pastors that have, sort of, sought to develop an entire vocabulary of words and terms that they use in replace of the word "sin," and they have developed this vocabulary in their preaching and their teaching using words like "mistakes," "shortcomings," "issues," and all the rest, rather than using the word "sin," because the word "sin" offends people, I mean has a tendency to offend people when you tell them that they're sinners. [00:10:19]

Some of the people I worked with, who identify as homosexuals, they have often told me, they said, "You know what? I have never met a Christian like you because you tell me the truth. You tell me that you think I'm wrong. You tell me that you think I'm in sin, but you are one of the kindest people to me." And I have names in my mind right now that I can go back and refer to of women and men that I've known and I still think of and I still pray for, but I think that we can be kind and I think we can be gracious and I think we can also preach the truth and speak the truth with clarity and conviction. [00:14:00]

I have met many, many people who identify as homosexuals, who are in homosexual relationships. You know, where we live here in Central Florida, we come across people all the time who are in relationships that are of a homosexual nature and, you know, at different gyms where I work out or at restaurants where I go, I've known a lot of people, I've worked with homosexual people, and what I have sought to do is I have sought to help them know that I love them, that I care about them. I have sought to help them understand the gospel and the hope that they have in Jesus Christ, and I have also sought to explain to them and to make it clear to them that I believe that their lifestyle is sinful and wrong, but ultimately what I want them to know is that it's not them getting cleaned up or changing their lifestyle that gets them saved. [00:05:35]

I got to preach the entire gospel to him and explain to him what I believe. So, in one sense it is easier for me, but people don't always know I'm a pastor. That sometimes comes up a year or two or three afterwards. There are times that people hear the gospel from me when they don't actually know I'm a pastor and sometimes they don't find out till a year or two later. [00:12:57]