Home Youth Leaders Youth Leaders Blogs Missing Worship: It is Much Bigger than Homosexuality.

Missing Worship: It is Much Bigger than Homosexuality.

With all the conversations around marriage, civil unions and homosexuality on the news, in the White House, on blogs and coffee shops, I need you to know that much much more is at stake.

Let me explain.
“In the beginning, God.”  There it is.  We start with God.  He is the all-powerful Creator and Sustainer of all things.  He is separate from everything else.  The best we can come up with about God are the characteristics and actions we find in the Biblical Scriptures as well as a living and breathing personal relationship with Him.  He created time, light, water, vegetation, animals and the grand crescendo, he created human beings made in His image.  You and I are made by God.  Not a product of chance or evolutionary process, but with an overwhelming amount of Love from the Lord.  You were created by a very personal God. 

But why?  Why did He create YOU? 

Don’t miss this…

For His glory.
Not ours.
His.

We were not made for us.  Read that again.  The end game of life is not you.  We were made by Him, for Him and for His purposes.  You are not your own.  We were made to worship God, not just in songs on Saturdays or Sundays, but with every area of our lives.

For His glory.
Not ours.
His.

If you miss this point, you miss everything else in life.  You will miss a whole lot more.

All this creation was good and got very good when he created people…two people…named Adam and Eve.  A man and a woman made with different biological makeup, but in the image of God with the capacity for feelings, emotions, desires, dreams and the like.  Before the events of Genesis chapte 3, all of these God-given areas were completely lined up with giving God glory.  Adam and Eve understood.  Adam and Eve got it.  They had unbroken fellowship with God giving Him worship with their lives.

And then it happened.

God told the only two human beings (a man and woman) not to do something.  He said not to eat from a tree.  THE TREE. There was only one like this one.  It was the “Tree of Good and Evil.”  If they eat the fruit off of this tree they would be like God in the sense that they would know “good and evil.”  Notice they could look at the tree, climb on the tree, walk around the tree, but they could not “taste” of the tree.

But, they did.

They sinned against the all-powerful Creator God of the Universe.  He told them not to eat from it and they did.  As a result everything, yes everything was messed up.  The universe was spiritually, emotionally, and physically depraved in all sorts of ways.  Adam and Eve were told they would die if they ate of the tree and indeed they died in regard for their relationship with God and life just got much more difficult.  Now their appetites after eating from the wrong fruit were opened up to other sinful behaviors against God.

The rest of the Old Testament is this struggle for all human beings to grow closer to God, giving him glory.  The struggle is over whether to worship Creation or the Creator.  Human beings are part of the creation.  God is the only one worthy of our worship, but we struggle.

Fast forward in the Bible.

In the New Testament, Paul shares at the beginning of a deep theological letter all about worshipping the One True God that as a result of the fall of mankind into sin against God in Genesis 3, people have been acting out their separation from God and sinful behaviors in all sorts of depraved ways.  Here are a few exerpts from what Paul says in Romans chapters 1 and 2 about people giving into depravity and not to worshipping God.

“18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

God hates that we worship anything but him.  This sinfulness in man causes his real wrath to come against people.  He is entitled.  He is God and wants us to freely worship Him, but we struggle. 

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”

People worshipped idols or created things instead of God.  It is still happening today.  People who do not worship the One True God are by default worshipping God’s creation and this makes God angry.  Like a Father cares and longs for his child’s love, so God wants all of the love and worship directed back to him and him alone.  Afterall, He is the Creator and Sustainer God.  He is worthy of it all.

24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.   26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

As a result of man not worshipping God completely, God said, “Okay. I love you, but if that is what you want to do, I will allow you to do it even though it hurts my heart deeply that you choose the creation over the creator.”  So, God “gave them over” to all sorts of depravity of sin including homosexuality – men with men and woman with woman.  God promises that when people do not worship Him and Him alone that one day “they will receive in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”  That day will come if we don’t turn in repentance to God. 

28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

People were allowed to pursue their sinfulness against God which starts in the “mind”.  All sorts of perversions and depravity happened, not just homosexuality.  They were wicked, evil, greedy, murders, creating strife, deceitful and malicious.  They gossipped, slandered, hated God, were insolent, prideful and the rest.  All of these characteristics are in people who are not fully giving glory to God in full worship.  Homosexuality is one of many areas that cuts off worship to God.

The God who created every human being is calling for every human being to repent of their depravity and return to a right relationship with God.  We can all remain “stubborn and unrepentant” (2:5) or we can wait for God’s anger, wrath and judgement.  We all fall short of God’s perfect standard, that is why we all need God.

How can a loving God not just let us worship His creation, live in sin, be whoever we feel like being?  Because he wants us for his own.  He wants to get back in right relationship with humans like he had with Adam and Eve in the garden.  He wants us to show our love to him by obeying what He says in the Word of God (Bible).  He longs for everyone to believe in Jesus Christ who took all of this depravity on Himself and died on the cross for our sins so we could be back in right relationship with God.  This is the only answer to missing worship (John 3:16; 14:6).

This is all much bigger than one sin: homosexuality. 
It is about them all including homosexuality. 

It is about giving all of our lives in worship to God.  Paul continues in Romans by saying we should all offer our bodies as “living sacrifices…as our spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1-2).  It is amazing to me that it is our bodies that we give over to lusts of all kinds and it always starts in our minds.  Therefore our thinking needs to be in line with God’s desires found in the Word of God.  Our emotions will catch up. 

Please listen.

 The only way this can happen is with a surrendered heart to Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God who longs to be your Savior and Friend.  He can rescue you from all of this if you ask Him to.  He can make you healthy and whole in every area of your life.

Blessings to you as you give God all the glory and renown he certainly deserves in all areas of your life.

If you would like help becoming “sexually and relationally whole”, please contact Living Hope Ministries.  I have heard good things about this ministry.
What do you think?