We only grasp the gospel when we understand, as Paul did, that we are the worst sinner we know (1 Timothy 1:15), and that if Jesus came to die for us, there is no one that he would not die for.
When we realize that, we’ll cease being a Pharisaic teacher of the law and we’ll become a gospel witness. We’ll start loving our neighbors as people made in the image of God and feeling compassion for them in their weakness. We will see in the face of every sinner a reflection of the corruption that afflicts our own hearts, the fruit of the rebellion we have participated in.
3. We’re wrong if we assume it’s hard for LGBT people to get to heaven.
Let me say something very clearly: Homosexuality does not send you to hell.
I know that because being heterosexual doesn’t send you to heaven. What sends you to hell is refusing to allow Jesus to be the Lord and center of your life, regardless of how that manifests—whether it’s in your refusal to let Jesus be Lord over your sexual life or in your refusal to obey him with your money or your right to control your career.
It’s not where you express your rebellion that matters but that it exists.
Rosaria Butterfield, a former practicing lesbian and professor of literature and women’s studies at Syracuse University, says that the pastor who led her to Christ refused (at first) to argue about her lesbianism. He told her that according to Romans 1, the real issue was who got to call the shots in her life. How she defined herself. How she sought fulfillment.
Romans 1, Rosaria explains, revealed her heart. She goes on to say that in Romans 1, Paul shows us that we all go through what Eve went through in the Garden of Eden. We have to ask: Who gets to declare what is good? and What is Lord in my life—my desires or God’s Word?
She says in her book, Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert,
“Homosexuality is not the core of our rebellion against God; a desire to be God is. A desire to be the one who gets to declare good and evil, ‘play judge rather than be judged.’ A desire to use God’s creation for our own gratification rather than with pleasure, for his glory.”
And that means that repentance for the gay or lesbian person looks fundamentally the same as it does for the straight or religious person: “God, I’m sorry for elevating my desires over your will, for attempting to define my identity apart from your design for me, for seeking satisfaction in self-fulfillment rather than from giving glory to you. I recognize Jesus is Lord and turn over control to him.”
That’s what repentance looks like for a gay, straight, rich, poor, young, old, Jew, Gentile, black, or white person. We all come to Jesus in the same way.
The good news is that Jesus came to save sinners—all kinds. And that should inform us when discussing homosexuality. As the church, this truth should define the way we interact with gay and lesbian people as we communicate to them: God loves you. We don’t believe your sexuality defines you. We love you, and we want to talk with you with a spirit of grace.
This article about discussing homosexuality originally appeared here.
