Kennystix's podcast
Discerning the Will of God Concerning Homosexuality and Marriage
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God Ministries is available at www.desiringGod.org. Lord, we've said it in a dozen ways this morning. We've sung it that we want to be holy, pure, faithful, righteous, not conform to this age, transformed, renewed, and we say it again. If there's any in this room, Lord, that doesn't want that, I pray that by the time we're done you will have landed on them with a sweet, powerful longing like they've never had before to be pure. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God, to be holy, to be righteous, to be clean before you, to walk uprightly. So, Lord, now I pray that as that longing is increased, you would satisfy it because the Word of God has that power. Keep me faithful to the Word. Sanctify them in the truth, Jesus said, your Word is truth. And so turn longings into reality now by your Word, I pray, through Christ, amen. Let's start where we left off on June 26, Romans 12 verse 2. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And you remember I said this verse, don't be conformed to the world, is one side of attention, a paradox in which all Christians live. The other side of the tension is found in texts like 1 Corinthians 9, 22, where Paul says, I have become all things to all people. Don't be conformed to this world, become all things to all people. Another place where it's found is 1 Corinthians 10, 32, give no offense to Jews or Greeks or the Church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many that they may be saved. So there's a tension here. Don't be conformed to this world, and don't give a fence. Don't be conformed, but try to please. Don't be conformed, but become all things to all people. I call these two sides of the Christian life, the pilgrim side and the indigenous side. Remember, those terms taken from Andrew Walls, Professor of Missions at the University of Edinburgh. Pilgrims, sojourners, the Bible calls us, exiles, they don't fit in. They're out of step, they're out of sync with culture. On the other hand, indigenous, taking on in some measure the culture, that's the tension we live in. I summarized it like this. If you only conform, then you're not salt and you're not light, and if you don't conform in some measure, the salt will stay in the salt-saker and the light will stay under a basket. Yes, we are indigenous, but we are strangers and pilgrims. Yes, we confront the culture. There is confrontation. There is also missionary adaptation. Yes, there is separation from the world, but also cultural participation. Yes, we are in the world, but no, we are not of the world. Yes, there is a sense and a measure in which we become all things to all people, but we are not to be conformed to this age. And I gave you four reasons why this tension exists. One, creation is the Lord's and it is fallen and in need of redemption. Two, Christ was incarnate, clothed in human flesh. One of us crucified as an unwanted pilgrim. Third, conversion to Christ is by grace alone through faith alone, apart from any works of the law, and immediately followed by a Holy Spirit wrought process of sanctification whereby we become more and more like Him. And fourth, the kingdom of God is already here in Jesus Christ, and it is not yet here in consummation. And for those four reasons, we are pilgrims and we are indigenous. And we live with the tension, tensions in families, tensions in the own our own soul, tensions in churches, tensions in culture as to what this thing called Christianity and its radical witness should look like. Now, my aim this morning is to apply all of that to homosexuality. I must be brief and limited, and I can't say everything that needs to be said, and that makes me glad that there is an internet and a website called DesiringGod.org because all my other sermons on homosexuality, which say so many more things that I would like to say this morning, can be heard or read at no cost, go there, especially go there. If you're a member of this church to read this, the elder approved position paper, just a sheet called Beliefs About Homosexual Behavior and Ministering to Homosexual Persons. I love that document. I love the way it came into being. Joe Hallott, some of you remember Joe, he came out of homosexuality, had AIDS, lived with his 10 years, died of AIDS, married, and helped me craft that document so that it combined both biblical conviction, which he had very deeply, and sweet personal compassion, which he devoted his whole remaining life to while he had breath to those struggling with homosexuality. And now his wife goes on in that ministry, it's a beautiful thing. Now I was on vacation and went to at least five different churches, and on the July 4 weekend, heard a sermon that dealt with this in a way I would never want to deal with it, which is why I stress that document and its flavor, its taste, its ethos, and the feel that it has about combining strong biblical conviction and sweet personal compassion towards those who struggle with this, because they didn't get it. At least this pastor did not communicate it. And I just cringed in that service thinking if anybody is here who's hanging in the balance wondering, "Am I a homosexual person or am I heterosexual person?" That difficulty would have received no sense of empathy whatsoever. And I hope that the person I have in mind in Scotland right now will give us permission to share with you something in the star this week, because I just have so many testimonies and personal things I would love to say about this and can't fit them all in. But there was an email we got at DesignGodMinistries a couple of weeks ago from a fellow who went online in a night when he was just about to go over the edge on a homosexual thing. And he for some reason found us on the internet and listened to one of the homosexual sermons that you may have heard on the radio a few weeks ago where I was dealing with the issue and the story he tells in that email of what that did for him and what it on continues to do, I want you to hear that story, because it'll give you hope in a lot of ways. And if any of you is here and in the secret of your heart, maybe you haven't told anybody, maybe they only a few know, you don't know who you are. I just want to encourage you. You do not have to settle for an identity. One of the things Joe Hallott would never let me do is use the word homosexual as a noun. He insisted on using the phrase homosexual person, person first. And this thing raging inside disordered is not who you are in Christ. That was a very powerful lesson I learned. I want you to learn it. It does not have to mark your whole being. So that's the balance I long for and call you too. And I'm going to say some things that the world simply does not believe is possible. And some of you may be in that category, I don't know. But here's the first one. I believe it is possible to describe homosexual behavior as sinful, perverse, abnormal, and destructive to persons and culture. And at the same time, both in our hearts and in our behavior lay down our lives in love for homosexual people. The world does not think that combination is possible. In fact, I'm going to take it further and make it even harder to believe. I believe that biblically, we must believe that homosexual behavior is sinful and harmful in order to love homosexual persons. Because 1 Corinthians 13, 6 says love does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Therefore, if you deny the truth that homosexual behavior is sin and harmful, you cannot love homosexual people, no matter how tolerant, warm or affectionate or compassionate, you feel. It won't be biblical love. And those are hard things for the world to believe. They will call this sermon hate speech. And someday, if God doesn't move, put me in jail for it. So I will assert it. Not only is it possible to believe that it is necessary to believe that if we are to love homosexual people. So our goal at Bethlehem is the balance or better perhaps to just say the integration and combination of strong conviction about what God has said concerning homosexual behavior and deep, sweet, personal risk-taking lay down your life compassion for those who may not want you at all. But some do. Now, the question why are you dealing with this here in your pathway through Romans is answered by a phrase in verse 2. So if you're wondering why are you talking about this now, there is a political motivation for this. I want to address the issue of marriage and I'll get to it. But if you ask why now, why not later or earlier, it's because of verse 2 and a word in verse 2. It says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that," and now note this phrase, "by testing you may discern." That's one Greek word. "By testing you may discern." And that word occurs again back in verse 28 of chapter 1, which is about homosexuality. That's the link that I saw and felt this is the time, this is the place. Paul forges the link. I don't have to do anything artificial here. It's there. Let's go back and read Romans 1 28. In fact, I invite you to turn to Romans 1 because we'll spend the rest of our time there. Since they did not see fit to acknowledge that's the word that is translated from the same Greek word as behind by testing you may discern. It may seem strange to you that they translated so differently, but if I paraphrase it, I think you'll see why. Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. So I would paraphrase that something like this. Since they did not see fit by testing to discern, understand, know, acknowledge, and approve God in their minds. This is a very big word. It's a rich word. It's hard to translate a word like this in just one little word. It means not only test and not only prove and not only discern, but it means approve. It means you come through a testing and proving process to an approving, and that's the idea here. They didn't approve to have God in their knowledge. Now, once you see that link, an amazing light is shed on the meaning of the renewal of the mind in Romans 12, too, isn't there? Be renewed in your mind. Have a renewed mind. Mind is where knowledge is, and you go back to 128, and it says they didn't want to have God in their mind, in their knowledge. They didn't approve, so I draw this out. At the foundation of discerning the will of God, you must discern the worth of God. And until you have a mind that discerns, tests, approves, embraces the worth of God. As your infinite treasure, you won't make any headway to having a mind that can discern the will of God what is good, acceptable, and perfect. Foundational to discerning will is discerning worth. God's got to be the son in the solar system of your life. If you are to discern the orbit of the planets, of your emotions, and your thoughts, and your actions, and your attitudes, only when that massive, I've been reading about it in world, uh, National Geographic, only when that massive, weighty, blazing, bright, hot, son of glory, is at the center of the solar system of your mind, will all the planets of your life get into right orbit. When he starts to be removed, and this dreadful exchange happens that Paul talks about, the planets start banging into each other, marriage problems, emotional problems, work problems, everything's to be chaotic, and God belongs blazing at the center. Now, the most profound and remarkable thing to see is first that this is about homosexuality and then that it's about God. Let me just read verses 26 and 27 so that you see that it's about homosexuality. Who's he talking about when he speaks about giving them up in verse 28, answer verse 26, "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions, for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error that is unbelievably contemporary." The most profound and crucial thing to see now in relationship to homosexuality and having God in your mind as infinitely valuable is the link with this terrible exchange that happens in verse 23, look at verse 23. They exchanged, it's just people outside Christ, they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man. You know the most commonplace in the modern world where that image is seen in the mirror and the sex of the person in the mirror is the same sex as the person in front of the mirror. And I'm pushing you to see the profundity of Paul's analysis here. The exchange of God for an image like myself, he traces out into homosexuality and he uses the very word, look at verse 25 to see it again in the spiritual sense. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, what lie? Me at the center and worshiped and served the creature and our favorite creature is the one in the mirror rather than the creator. In other words, Paul treats the unnatural exchange. They exchanged woman, exchanged man for another woman, man, exchanged woman for another man. Same word, exchange, exchange. And he's tracing it out from verse 23, 25 into 26 and 27 to show that the exchange at the level of God going out of the center and myself coming into the center has a cultural and personal fallout with an exchange of sexual orientation and passion and behavior. This is very profound and we need to understand the way Paul links it. Distortions at the theological level work themselves out eventually into distortions at the sexual level and homosexuality is only one of them. So I conclude from this little analysis and I invite you to the internet to hear two messages on this text. I conclude that the renewed mind that Romans 12, 2 calls for don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. The renewal of the mind is first and fundamentally a reversal of the exchange of God for me or anything else. It's a reversal. The glory of God exchanged for the glory of man is the fundamental flaw of human minds that results in all other bad thinking and bad behavior and bad feeling. That is the fundamental renewal that has to happen and then once God is back at the center with the blazing glory satisfying the soul we can make some progress at discerning what is the will of God in sexual matters and all other matters and we can begin to be conformed and I just want to recognize that I don't have a simple snap the finger solution to our distorted emotions and affections in these matters. I don't think homosexuality is unique in its distortion of God's created order. There's so many others. There's not a person sitting in this room who's not distorted in emotion, relation, mind some of which will be overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit in this life and others as it says in Romans 8, 23 you will groan with to the grave and it's the groaning and the battle and the holding on. Isn't it amazing that it says we just think of it in terms of homosexuality. We who have the first fruits of the Holy Spirit groan inwardly as we wait for our adoption the redemption of our bodies. You feel the groaning right to the grave but not yielding. I've got a flawed psyche. I've got emotions that are all over the map. They're genetically determined and they're family determined and they're situationally determined and I'll fight them all the time and expect to fight to my dying day against the parts about me I hate. So don't think that either it's a quick fix or it's not Christian. That's not the alternative. Now I promised you that I would try to relate what we're saying here to the political situation which we find ourselves which is really quite a supercharged situation because not only do you have the marriage issue in front of us but it's a political year in which these candidates don't know what to do. Neither side knows what to do. What to say about these things it is so volatile and so I would like to say some things that might provide some help. There are two biblical reasons why there is no such thing as homosexual marriage. There are two biblical reasons why and I do not say should not be but cannot be reason number one Jesus affirmed God's created will for marriage when he said this in Matthew 19.4. Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh so that they're no longer two but one flesh what therefore God has joined together let no man separate that's the Bible's teaching and assumption cover to cover marriage is one man one woman becoming one flesh by covenant and sexual union. I'll say it again the meaning and the definition of marriage is one man one woman becoming one flesh by covenant and sexual union that is marriage anything else isn't marriage that's reason number one why there can only be heterosexual marriage and here's the second reason the Bible is very clear in Romans 1 26 and 27 that homosexual behavior is dishonorable shameless and contrary to nature and the Bible is very clear that marriage is to be held in honor is not shameful and is not contrary to nature therefore they can't be the same and for those two reasons I say very clearly unashamedly without fear of any biblical contradiction there is no such thing as homosexual marriage no matter what the state says and we'll go to jail before we'll say or act otherwise now we live in a land that for the time being is a constitutional democracy it's a remarkable experiment on the face of the world never was anything like this before in the history of the world before 1776 it may last it may not maybe the craziest experiment that ever landed on planet earth to think that people could govern themselves but it's it's there for for the time being called it a constitutional democracy which means let me read the first sentence of the Constitution to you because it's so shocking and so so unheard of in history you just take it for granted like there isn't any other way to be and it never was heard of before it happened here we the people of the United States and I'm gonna leave out all the in order that so they're really quite remarkable we the people of the United States do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America that's absolutely unheard of we the people ordain our laws we make our laws well that's been the experiment for a couple hundred years it's worked pretty well the way we do it is we have three branches of government we have the legislative branch with the senate in the house which are charged to represent us we elect those people they go represent us and then they they make laws it's all they do is make laws and then we have the executive branch and they're charged C2 if that those laws get carried out justly and then third we have the judicial branch so that when they're conflicts there's a body that can provide the definitive interpretation of the Constitution as to whose claim to be legal is true that's the way we do it it's worked pretty good not perfectly by any means to establish justice for all but pretty good and now what has changed in the last 50 years dramatically it's been a longer time than that in coming what has changed so dramatically that governs and defines the situation in which we find ourselves is the concept of meaning and truth once upon a time in America and around the world when i was in high school and college this was just changing it's called existentialism in those days the change it's got other names now relativism postmodernism doesn't matter what you call it's been around forever i'm reading the fourth century night right now to get ready for my talk on Athanasius at the pastor's conference it's all over the fourth century unbelievable how the Arians argued for the non-deative christ in exactly the same ways that people argue today there's nothing new under the sun but what is remarkably urgent in the change is that once upon a time historical scholars judges and pastors were charged with the responsibility of finding fixed meaning in ancient texts a historical scholar reading an essay a judge reading the constitution and a pastor reading the bible their job was to have integrity and go there and find not create find meaning that had been put there by authors and then when they found them to tell people write books preach sermons issue law decrees to others and then explain and argue on the basis of historical and grammatical basis why they're seeing in the text of a meaning is in fact what's really there that's gone that's just gone it's gone at the university it's gone in the supreme court and it's gone in thousands of seminaries and pulpits and this is I mean great big remarkable hermeneutical books historically legally theologically will be written to justify the departure and make it sound oh so creative and new and fresh and you the simple lay people know exactly what the truth is because you write letters to people and you sign contracts on houses and you know beyond the shadow of a doubt the bottom of your heart the top of your head if somebody takes the word I write no and creatively makes it mean yes something fraudulent has happened and it is incredible how in university scholarship and in legal talk and in theological writing and preaching that simple reality is blew away it is a simple matter of the golden rule will you treat and author the way you want to be treated and if you write a note I love you please meet me at five I'm sorry you don't want that to be taken to mean I hate you don't come and I'm not sorry that's that's lacking in integrity that's fraudulent to take a document and pay no attention to what the author meant oh this is huge in the world of american post modernism today I preach hoping and longing that you won't just make my words mean anything but say what did he really mean by that before you write me a note and say that cannot be it may be dead wrong but you got to know what I mean and that's the way you want to be treated I tell you there are so many professors and universities that are going to have a hard time giving an account to the living god for why when they signed off on a contract at home they expected the bank to hold fast to those words and when they took an essay written by somebody in the 18th century they didn't give a rip about what that person intended to communicate just turning into a political thing to advance their cause that will not cut it at the judgment day believe me well that's where we are and now let's get right to the point of the Constitution the Constitution of the United States of America is being amended today it is not a question of whether to amend the Constitution the Constitution is being amended the courts are finding there what never was there in any of the author's mind by the wildest imagination or stretch and this kind of creative interpretation is producing creating out of nothing a definition of marriage that has never existed in the history of the world it takes your breath away it absolutely takes your breath away what is what can be done in public in America without anybody saying the king has no clothes on are we going to stand in awe of this scholarship and this court they've got no clothes on and so the question is will it be amended by the means established by the Constitution itself with three fourths of states giving a cent or will it be amended by the creative interpretation of the courts claiming to find there what never has been nor could be dreamed to be there by those who wrote this document I do not have a lot of hope on either side of those and I just want you to know you're free to move on this so I asking closing what should Christians do and my answer is be a pilgrim and be indigenous live in that tension and I'll try to say a guiding word on each side first be indigenous that is be involved in the process of law making you're indigenous you're here we should pray and work to keep our culture it's customs it's laws influence it shape it so that it reflects as much as possible the revealed will of God even if that reflection is only external only dim and only embraced from unbiblical motives I'll say that again be involved in the process of our democratic law making with a view out of your worldview to shaping culture as best you can into conformity with the revealed will of God even if it means that that will be a dim only external and embraced with bad motives now at this point a person would ask and they should why do you impose your Christianity on everybody that's the question you'll hear it's calculated to use a negative word like impose and it's just the use of language is very finesse today to make true answers impossible many times but there is an answer to this a very easy answer in fact all laws impose convictions on everybody all laws impose somebody's conviction on everybody in the culture that's the meaning of law law means we impose on you not over 55 cut the grass behind your garage don't shoot squirrels with BB gun inside the city limits there are all kinds of impositions on your behavior everywhere hundreds and hundreds of things constraining your life based on convictions that somebody was able to persuade the legislature to enact second statement all convictions come from worldviews all of them not just Christians all convictions that get enshrined in laws come from worldviews so that somebody argues for one law or against the one law they argue for reasons they give reasons those reasons are in their worldview they say that's a battle of because and the because is their worldview now here's the key to vote for a law is not a vote for the worldview behind it that's absolutely key to realize in our democratic pluralistic process otherwise this experiment called America will be impossible let me give you an illustration there is a group called atheists for life meaning their pro-life they might argue something like this i'm not sure how they argue this just my guess if i were an atheist the way i'd argue i would say since there is no god the highest most sacred value in the universe is human life therefore don't kill it in the womb then along comes a christian who says there is a god in the universe and we are created in his image and therefore humans are of tremendous significance in the world in their capacity to worship god don't kill them in the womb and they both want exactly the same law coming from radically different worldviews and a vote for that law is not a vote for either worldview that's the way laws in america come into being a convergence of enough varied pluralistic groups thinking that a behavior would be good for the culture and suddenly there's a law and those worldviews informing that convergence are all over the map and the point is be involved at that level close with a pilgrim word while you're involved at that level speak your worldview jesus must be spoken about christ crucified must be announced let's talk about what governs us and when somebody says well why should i vote for that just because you think it's true because there's a god i say that may mean that may not be why you should vote for it i'm commending this out of my worldview i think you will find over time in history that two men two women killing babies this not going to be good for us there are so many articles this one i'm not taking this approach this morning i've read so many articles that have such good arguments as to why the impossibility of homosexual marriage would just be bad for us people from all angles are writing why it would be but i want to say a pilgrim will say i'm a christian and god said don't do this somebody in our cultures got to say god says no matter whether people believe you're not but god says and so pilgrims do that and then lastly i want to try to articulate the flavor of your political engagement because i'm not happy with a lot that i see in the evangelical world's engagement politically so let me try to close with a taste and a flavor of what i think pilgrim involvement in politics pilgrim indigenousness will feel like look like we do not smirk at the misery or the marie making of immoral culture we don't smirk at the misery or the marie making of immoral culture we weep know any good conservative talk show host at weep name one being pilgrims does not mean being cynical that's the name of the game the salt of the earth does not mock rotting meat it tries to preserve savor and when it can't it weeps being christian pilgrims in american culture does not end our influence it takes the swagger out of it this is so many strutting conservatives including our president and strutting democrats can say no wrong can make no mistake i've got all the answers strut strut strut that is not the demeanor of an evangelical pilgrim who knows he's fallen knows he's broken it is possible to lead in strength with humility a sense of brokenness a sense of fallibility we don't get cranky when evil triumphs we don't whine when things don't go the way we want them to in our culture it isn't our culture heaven is our culture we're not hardened with anger we understand what's happening now why because we saw it happen two thousand years ago we hear just like they heard for three centuries the imperial words of the lord jesus if they hated me they will hate you love your enemies pray for those who persecute you be like your father in heaven he makes the sunrise on the good and the evil and he causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust if you love only those who love you what do you do more than others even the tax collectors do that if you greet only your brothers what do you do more than others even the gentiles do that you must be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect his way was so different than the seeming pervasive evangelical conservative strutting swaggering cocky cynical way help me create this i mean there are many of you the way ahead of me on this i have to bonk myself over the head all the time in order to live up to my own standards back in those days in the first century it was a time for indomitable joy brokenhearted indomitable joy joy because the earth is the lord's and the fullness there of he's going to bring it out folks it's going to be a new heaven and a new earth only peace only justice beauty purity everything we sang for is going to come true someday on planet earth with jesus raining with absolute joy over everything beautiful that's joy and brokenhearted because we're not there yet we're both heaven bound and earth caring aren't you not just heaven bound and to hell with the earth jesus will not meet you at the gate if that's been your attitude he won't meet you gladly he'll say why that was my earth i had given you my will i had given you my law i know it can never be perfect but i sent you there to be salt and light brokenhearted joy long suffering mercy so last sentence if that's going to happen if we're going to be engaged as pilgrims and indigenous we've got to have a renewed mind the essence of which and the foundation of which is reverse the exchange of the glory of god for what you see in the mirror let's pray father i want to pray again now for those in the room who struggle with who they are in terms of sexual identity and i plead lord that you would grant them the spiritual ability to say my essential identity is in jesus christ i am a new creature i am in christ all that i should be and i will in practice become more and more that way even if i must groan with the conflicts of my heart till the day i die and then to die will be gained and in a moment in the twinkling of an eye we shall be changed don't let them grow weary in the battle i pray all of us have battles i need your help in mind they need your help in theirs lord we want to be wider than snow because the great old prophet said though your sins be a scarlet they shall be wider than snow thank you for listening to this message by john piper pastor for preaching at bethlehem baptist church in many apless minnesota feel free to make copies of this message to give to others but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission we invite you to visit desiring god online at www dot desiring god dot org there you'll find hundreds of sermons articles radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at no charge our online store carries all of pastor john's books audio and video resources you can also stay up to date on what's new at desiring god again our website is www dot desiring god dot org or call us toll-free at one eight eight eight three four six forty seven hundred our mailing address is desiring god twenty six oh one east franklin avenue minneapolis minnesota five five four zero six desiring god exists to help you make god your treasure because god is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him
John Piper | What is wrong with homosexual marriage? Is it possible to believe this and still love homosexual people?