Pastor Al Q&A - Homosexuality

Your thoughts on homosexuality and how God views that… Is it something a person can turn away from, or is it always a part of them?

I think, believe it or not, these two things are related: rolls of marriage and homosexuality. Turn with me to Romans, chapter 1. I'm gonna start reading in verse 18. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which is known about God is evident within him, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculation, and so their speculation. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed animals, and crawling creatures." So here's the basic problem. What is it? Man doesn't honor God, but elevates himself as God, and worships himself and creation rather than God Himself. Okay? So if we talk about this, what is God's desire for relationship with us? He is God; we're His people. He has authority and loves us; we follow Him and honor Him. That's the relationship He wants to have.

What happens in this relationship? It gets thrown upside down, doesn't it? We become God, and God becomes nothing. That's what he's talking about here. Now, do we do that today? Yes. Every time you sin, you do that. You say, "What I believe and what I want is more important than God." That's the root of every sin; it's "better" than God. It's a corruption of that whole thing.

Now, notice what he does. He says that the wrath of God is poured out on people because of that. Here's what verse 24 says happens to them. "Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurities so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions. For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. In the same way, the men abandoned the natural function of a woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error." Now, God gives them over to homosexual behavior as a statement of His wrath. Why? Why does He pick that to do that? Why not… something else? Like, make them all blind, or stupid, or whatever?

Men together can't be fruitful?

That's true, men together can't be fruitful. But, think about this basic structure. Now, let's go back to marriage. What's the basic structure of man and a woman? Why are we created like that? Why did God create us like, two different sexes? To show the relationship between God and man, mankind. Right? Male-female pictures a relationship between God and mankind, an appropriate one. Now if I exchange, and I mess up that relationship with God, so that I'm worshipping man, instead of God, what am I doing in the picture? It's a picture of homosexuality, isn't it? I'm worshipping myself, rather than the one that created me. So, it would be like the woman worshipping herself, instead of worshipping her husband (that is, having a relationship with her husband), she has a relationship with herself. See that parallel?

So, if we denigrate God and don't honor Him, put Him in His right position with us, He will pour out His wrath, and the consequences will be how we physically live out our sexual lives. Instead of living them out heterosexually, that expresses an appropriate kind of relationship between God and man, we will live them out in a corrupted way, where man is worshiping himself is like man making love to himself, which is profane. That's why homosexuality is a curse of God upon people. As a culture degrades and quits honoring God culturally, God inflicts it with ever-increasing amounts of homosexuality, as a direct result. Now here's the point: human sexuality is, in the Bible, consistently, a picture of worship. It was created, in that marriage relationship, to picture worship.

You can see that both negatively and positively. Negatively, what did they call it when the people worshiped idols in the Old Testament? Idolatry and harlotry. That is, you worship all these other idols, it's like having sex with all these other guys. That's the picture, the relationship that's there. It's also used positively in Song of Solomon as a picture of a relationship between a man and woman; it's a picture of God's love for His people. Why is worship pictured in sex? Because worship, at it's root, is to be the enjoyment of the wonder of God. That's what He designed it to be. That in relationship with Him, he calls us into a relationship with Him where we can enjoy Him and delight in Him and take pleasure in Him. That's what's at the root of worship. That's also what's at the root of sex, isn't it? It's an enjoyment between two people, of intimacy together in their relationship, that they have pleasure and joy in.

Now, if we then corrupt the picture of Christ and the Church, God and His people, God and mankind, then we'll also find that reflected in the reflection of that in our marriages. So that, if we say God is not God, man is God, we will have homosexuality. Cause that's what is reflecting that reality in our lives, in our culture. Okay, make some sense? So, it's really not so much that God has cursed an individual with homosexuality as he's cursed man with homosexuality, the same way as we have various other curses in our lives, individually, some worse than others. We have the corruption of sickness. We have the corruption of immorality in cultures. We have some cultures that are much more self-destructive and some that are much more healthy. God inflicts a group of people because of the group's mentality.

Now, that also doesn't excuse the individual from his actions. For the Bible describes this as profane. Homosexuality is not necessarily a conscious choice that people make. It can be caused by a number of factors in their lives as they come into that situation, but it is a sin to engage in it, because it ultimately is a profaning of God's intention for us. It's an unnatural, ungodly profaning of God's natural order. And so, even if we had some inclinations that way, we should not do that, any more than you, at this stage in your lives, should not be engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage.

How many of you have an inclination towards sex? Come on, at least the guys can raise their hands. Yeah, we're all inclined, sexually, aren't we? Sure we are; it's a good thing. And you should not be ashamed of your sexuality, and you should not be ashamed of your sexual desire. God has created that for you. He wants you to have that. He designed it. He has put it within you. What does He ask you to do with that? Be a steward of it to His glory; manage it. Sometimes difficult to do, isn't it? Sometimes difficult to do. But it's a great gift that requires great care to manage it carefully. So I might have desires and have to limit myself from engaging in those desires because I don't have the appropriate expression of it in marriage. Why do I have to have it in marriage? Because if I have sex outside of marriage, what does it say about the reflection that marriage is to be between God and His people.

Kind of like a one-night stand.

You think that's how God treats you? No. Do you think that's how He wants you to treat Him? No! That's what you're saying when you have indiscriminate sex, is you're reflecting on God, He's not worthy of being faithful to, and He's not faithful to us. That's why He calls it so seriously a sin. It's one of those great sins that brought death in the Old Testament. Why does God see that as so important? Because it impinges His honor. So, sexuality is bound up in this whole picture of who God has made us to be and what He intends that to say about Him and what He intends that to say about us and what He intends that to say about salvation, His overall purpose.

You want to know why God says, "Don't have sex until you're married"? There's the root of it, is because it dishonors Him, ultimately, in worship. And so, then He has created us in such a way that we are to function, healthily in sexual relationships, within marriage only, and not any other way. That's why there's disease. That's why families get broken up and destroyed by adultery. That's why there's all kinds of pain and difficulty. That's why if you have indiscriminate sex over and over again you lose the ability to really bond with another person the way you're supposed to. There are all kinds of consequences for indiscriminate sex. Why? Because it's out of order with what God intends. And that's what He intends us to do. So, marriage is bound up in that. Homosexuality is bound up in that. Worship is bound up in that. And our view of God is bound up in that. Don't think that you can play with that and escape unscathed. You cannot. God won't allow it. He has not designed you to be able to function that way in a healthy way.

And I hope that you do not discover that. I hope that you're wise enough to say, "You know, I don't want to say that with my life. I'm gonna live a life of integrity and care about what God is like and what He's doing in my life and what He's saying to me." Okay? Follow-up questions? Anything about that? That's a big mouthful. Yes.

Isn't sex supposed to be like a gift to exchange between the couple after marriage?

Yes it is.

You kind of give away your virginity before you do that, that's almost like chipping away at a little bit of treasure, that is your virginity.

Yeah. It's not as if that's an impossible situation to mend, but it's one you have to mend. And so, why do that? Why give away what belongs to the person you're going to want to give your whole life to forever. And so, that's very wise. It is a gift. It's a blessing. It's a wonderful thing that God has designed to bind people together really tightly in wonderful, joyous, pleasant way, if done in a way that pictures the right picture, Christ and the Church. If you do it some other way, it's destructive and can lead to all kinds of horrors and difficulties.