In this episode of Real Christianity, I continue my teaching through the book of Romans, but today is a unique episode. Today I teach on the Bible s central passage regarding homosexuality. This issue, as you know, is plaguing the modern church. So stay tuned to hear what scripture has to say about how Christians should respond and engage with the LGBTQ community. All that and more coming up right now.
00:16:12.900Now, homosexuality, according to Romans 1, is, number one, a prime result of godlessness.0.72
00:16:19.840Number two, it's the ultimate physical and emotional outcome of a person who rejects God and worships self.0.90
00:16:28.400Number three, homosexuality is one of the central manifestations of God's grace being removed from a person's life for their atheism and idolatry.0.82
00:16:39.800Number four, and this is my final point, is that homosexuality is the consequence of giving the0.90
00:16:47.520worship and servitude that is due to God to idols or to self. And so, in other words, homosexuality0.92
00:16:53.580is the breaking of God's design for human fruitfulness. That's really what we're going to1.00
00:16:59.180get to at the core of this message. John Piper once described it this way, and I want you to
00:17:04.340pay attention. This is a little bit of a heavy quote, and I need you to kind of stay along with
00:17:08.740me because there's some big language here and I'll take it slow, but I want you to grasp this
00:17:12.620because we're going to unpack it here shortly. He says, quote, God and humanity in covenant worship
00:17:18.860are represented by male and female in covenant sexual union. Therefore, when humanity turns
00:17:28.380from God to worship self, God hands us over to what we have chosen and dramatizes it by male0.56
00:17:37.740and female turning to images of themselves for sexual union, namely their own sex.0.94
00:17:44.320Homosexuality is the judgment of God, dramatizing the exchange of the glory of God for images of0.89
00:17:51.260ourselves. Did you guys grasp that? That is a magnificent explanation of the theological1.00
00:17:59.440and the spiritual complexities of homosexuality. We have to understand that God is a God of0.98
00:18:06.300symbolism. We learn about God through symbolic means. I'll explain what I mean there. He knows
00:18:15.620that we are a forgetful people, and he's built in physical practices or physical symbols to remind
00:18:21.620humanity of spiritual truths or our spiritual roles. In scripture, husbands and wives represent
00:18:28.240Christ and the church. You know, it's the earthly role play, if you will, of the heavenly realities
00:18:38.420of the gospel. That's what marriage becomes in a male and female traditional heterosexual view of0.76
00:18:44.940marriage. Ephesians 5, 22 through 30 tells us that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved
00:18:49.800the church, and wives are to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ. And so
00:18:56.140when this occurs physically in our lives, we more fully understand the beauty of the gospel. When we
00:19:01.440see this and it plays out, it manifests in a physical dimension, we get to understand the
00:19:06.560spiritual realities. So again, God's given us these physical roles that teach us spiritual truths.
00:19:11.900It's a symbolic meaning there that we understand that represents the gospel. So when marriage is
00:19:17.820ordered according to God, according to the way that he has laid out in scripture, humanity can
00:19:24.300fulfill God's command to be fruitful and multiply. However, when humanity rejects God's purpose for
00:19:29.600marriage and the design and structure for male and female relationships, uh, and, and people pursue
00:19:35.160self, God hands these people over to themselves. Now, essentially what the Bible teaches here is
00:19:41.620that in a sense, God's saying, you want to worship God, I'll put you in a relationship that magnifies
00:19:47.640the gospel. But if you want to worship self, I'm going to put you in a relationship that magnifies
00:19:52.960self-worship. It's essentially what is being said by here and also by John Piper. In short,
00:19:59.880homosexuality is the ultimate expression of sin-centered self-love. It's the ultimate1.00
00:20:05.160expression. Do you understand that? It denies God's design for otherness. It denies God's design
00:20:12.500for the male and female compatibility. And instead, what it does is it chooses to magnify
00:20:18.860the selfish passion of, quote, more me. And it says to their partner in a homosexual relationship,
00:20:26.220I don't want the opposite of me. I want more of me in you. And that's really what's happening.
00:20:32.220It's dramatized selfishness. As Piper said, it's the perversion of the natural order.
00:20:36.980It's suicide of reproduction and the rejection of the spiritual purpose that God has placed
00:20:42.560for divine or for intimate love in marriage. It's much more than what the culture has made it out0.54
00:20:49.440to be. It's much more than a sexual deviation. There is so much thick theological depth here
00:20:56.180that we need to understand. So catch this with me. The marital drama that's played out between
00:21:02.060a husband and a wife that's supposed to magnify the divine love that is seen and captured and0.98
00:21:09.200experienced in the gospel between God and his people has now been perverted in homosexuality.0.92
00:21:15.760Okay, in the same way that God shows us the beauty of the gospel through heterosexual marriage,0.94
00:21:21.320God in his judgment shows us the vileness of self-worship through homosexual union.0.91
00:21:27.340It's a very deep and complex topic here, but this is what Romans 1 is talking about.1.00
00:21:32.560So when we exchange the way of God for the way of self, again, God dramatizes our desire for self.
00:21:38.260he gives us more of it in someone else. He gives us more of it in our own selfish desires.
00:21:44.360Piper says, quote, God decrees that this disordering of our relationship to him
00:21:50.120be dramatized in the disordering of our sexual relations with each other, end quote. Okay,
00:21:57.620so homosexuality, it's just, again, it's much more than a dysfunctional sexual orientation0.67
00:22:02.600between two people. It's the physical manifestation of self-worship. In context with our passage0.81
00:22:09.280in Romans, it's the ultimate physical result of turning away from God. That's what this passage
00:22:15.460is saying. You want to reject God in creation. You want to reject God in your desire to worship
00:22:21.060idols and worship self. God is going to pull back. He's going to hand you over to these
00:22:24.680sexual impure desires, and that's going to further be handed over to a degrading passion.0.99
00:22:31.240that degrading passion will manifest itself in homosexuality. That homosexuality will manifest0.99
00:22:36.280itself in a depraved mind. And it just goes down in this, again, self-appointed, self-afflicted0.99
00:22:42.280problems of sin. And so it's a very complex issue that we need to pay attention here.
00:22:48.040In an issue of Table Talk magazine produced by Ligonier Ministries, one theologian said,
00:22:53.080quote, what are we to think of a passage like Romans 1, 26 through 27? The Bible defines
00:22:59.840homosexual desires as, quote, contrary to nature, not an equal alternative orientation.0.89
00:23:06.260Homosexuality is a, quote, dishonorable passion that, quote, consumes men and women, leading to0.96
00:23:12.840shameless behavior. The strong emotional pull of lust and the affection shared between persons0.99
00:23:19.880in a homosexual relationship, whatever those affections may be called, cannot properly be
00:23:25.400called, quote, love. After all, love, quote, does not rejoice at wrongdoing, 1 Corinthians 13, 6,
00:23:34.480and homosexuality is wrongdoing, end quote. This is complex and powerful stuff for the church to
00:23:41.520understand. So now, having said all of that, having said that, I want to be very clear here.
00:23:47.440I am no greater or wiser or better than any single person in the LGBTQ community whatsoever.
00:23:55.400I'm simply redeemed. I've simply been saved. I'm not redeemed because of anything that I did.
00:24:01.240I'm not redeemed because of anything that I chose. I'm not redeemed for any of that besides the
00:24:05.540simple fact I'm redeemed because someone decided to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with me.
00:24:11.300I was convicted of my sin. I repented of my sin and I trust in Jesus Christ alone. And so I was
00:24:18.640just like every human being that was born in sin and lost. I needed to be born again. I was an
00:24:25.380enemy of God, but now I'm his son. I was addicted and broken and lost, but now I'm found. I'm found
00:24:32.940because Christ found me. The sheep don't look for the shepherd. The shepherd looks for the sheep.
00:24:38.340So every human being, as I said, is born sinful and lost. And it's why Jesus in John 3, 3 commands
00:24:44.860that we must all be born again. If you want to enter into the kingdom of heaven, we must be born
00:24:49.540again. So many people in the homosexual community say, I was born that way. I go, yes, I understand0.96
00:24:54.140you were born that way. You were born that way with these dishonorable and broken desires.
00:24:59.480I was born that way with dishonorable and broken desires, and that's why we must be born again. So
00:25:04.800again, whether you are living a homosexual lifestyle, if you're gay, lesbian, transgender,
00:25:10.180whatever that may be, what I would just suggest you to do is come to Christ, lay your pride at
00:25:16.200the foot of the cross, repent of your sins, and believe in Jesus Christ. This is something that
00:25:22.940we all need to be considering. So we need to work on exchanging our desire to serve self to serve
00:25:30.160the creator. That is exactly at the core of the gospel. We need to be seeing that our desires for
00:25:35.700self are wicked against a holy God. Our worship is only due to the creator. The only reason we
00:25:42.220have that impulse to worship in us is because God has given it to us to maintain our relationship
00:25:47.720with him. Now, this is the message of scripture. This is what scripture teaches on the issue of
00:25:52.760homosexuality. It's not difficult to understand, but it is difficult to swallow. When we are
00:25:59.140fallen, when we are lost, we don't have the understanding, the Holy Spirit guiding us
00:26:03.160and giving us comprehension of scripture. These are offensive statements. This is hate speech to
00:26:08.620the culture. Nevertheless, the only way that God saves people is faith comes by hearing,
00:26:13.380hearing by the word of Christ. We need to get out there, preach the gospel of Jesus Christ
00:26:17.080to individuals in the LGBTQ community. Let them know that God is in the business of turning his1.00
00:26:22.480enemies into his friends. And we know that God loves saving people, giving them that new birth,
00:26:29.000changing those affections, changing those passions. We know that Jesus, when he comes and rescues a
00:26:33.860life, doesn't just change what we do. He changes also what we want to do. He changes those
00:26:39.140affections. That's exactly what needs to occur with those people who are struggling with the
00:26:43.680sin of homosexuality. On that note, thank you guys for listening to this episode. Let me close in0.81
00:26:48.400prayer. And then I'll close with just a quick message. Father, we thank you, Lord, for your
00:26:53.040word. We thank you that you have not left us with no clarity. We thank you that we're not here
00:26:58.680guessing what you want us to do and how you want us to live. We thank you for this passage of
00:27:03.860scripture that is stern and clear and gives us boundaries on how we can honor you with our
00:27:09.440sexuality and how we can honor you with our worship. Lord, we ask that anybody who's listening
00:27:14.040to this right now, whether by video, whether by podcast, Lord, that you would bless them with the
00:27:18.280wisdom of understanding. Anybody that's struggling with these sins, that you would bring conviction,
00:27:22.700that you would give them the new birth, that you would save them and rescue them and bring them
00:27:26.820into your kingdom, Father. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen, guys. Well, thank you guys for listening
00:27:32.840to this episode of Real Christianity. I hope today's content was edifying for you in your
00:27:37.480walk with Christ. That is the goal here at relearn.org, is to bring Christians back to the
00:27:42.640Bible, to look at the scriptures, not through the lens of our emotions, but to look at it through the
00:27:47.060historical, cultural, grammatical context of the scriptures, and to really bring you back to a
00:27:52.880journey of biblical truth and sound doctrine. Lastly, I'd like to ask you guys, would you
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00:28:36.320forward slash donate. Again, my name is Dale Partridge. Thank you for listening to this
00:28:40.460episode of Real Christianity, and we'll see you next week.