Rania Sayegh – HOPE house of prayer and exploits June 30 arab Christian living in Israel prophetic insight into what the Lord is doing in the Middle East
Last week
We began and I asked a series of questions
Does God love everyone? Is there anyone God does not love? Did Jesus die on the cross for everyone?
Then I asked why He did this
Jesus bottom line was
Luke 19:10 “for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
What compelled him to do this?
John 3:16,17
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Last week we mainly dealt with our hearts
- We must always affirm God’s love – Jesus was always touching the lepers, tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, those in need of love and forgiveness
His love was always radical and extreme and he places this challenge on us
John 20:21
“As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”
Jesus sends us to do and be exactly like Him in all things. We must love just as radically and extreme…First
We also learned that we must extend grace especially when people don’t understand
-People need hope and they need love regardless of the nature of their sin
– we can’t look for people to be changed from the outside in but instead from the inside out
– we need to remember God’s great grace on our own lives
Romans 5:6
“When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.”
We all came to Christ with our own bag of messes and Christ reached each of us when we too were helpless to do so
- Jesus affirms God’s plan for human sexuality
Jesus knew the woman at the well was in sin but he started out loving her then explained to her that God’s plan for human sexuality is for one man and one woman
Genesis 2:24 “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
That is the highlights from last week and this is where we begin today
Jesus approached a Samaritan woman and enemy of the Jews, asked for a drink, told her about the life she could have believing in the Messiah, that God had a plan for her life
Please don’t ask me…“Why do you condemn homosexuality when God obviously made gays and lesbians and that He loves all people the same?” Part 2
4) Telling the truth about God’s will
You may have noticed that I have not gone into the Biblical condemnation of gay life…there are two reasons for that first I wanted to establish that God’s idea of sexual relationships is established by Jesus that it is between one man and one woman any other form is wrong…I think it is important that we make the case for Biblical sexuality rather than simply against homosexual sex
Second, those who see this issue differently often try to explain away the texts that do seem to prohibit sex between members of the same gender. Therefore we risk getting embroiled in the particulars of interpreting those texts instead of putting the issue back into the broader context of God’s stated purpose for sex.
However, in the interest of completeness, we do need to look at some of these scriptures not in order to condemn homosexuality but to be faithful to God and His Word
While Jesus did not openly condemn homosexuality you can not make the argument because he did not condemn it that He thought it was OK otherwise the old testament standards against bestiality, pedophilia, polygamy, slavery, child trafficking, or even the new testament oppression of the Roman government you would need to presume he thought were OK.
Jesus held a strong standard for sexuality
The apostle Paul set the standard high speaking specifically about same-sex acts Romans 1:24-27
Therefore 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 about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual 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 shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Paul also lovingly and clearly warns about same-sex relationships in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The apostle Paul makes it clear that some in the church had practiced these things not just sexual sin but drunkards, slanders and so on but where all able to stop.
One of the arguments for homosexuality is as we see in the question that some are born this way…I don’t want to get into the argument but let’s suppose that they are right just for a moment…I am not saying I agree with it but I will for the sake of argument
If someone has a desire toward homosexual behavior it doesn’t mean that they need to follow up on it. Many people have desires for things for food if it is not curbed they can become a glutton and obese and it kills them. For recreation and they can become a hedonist and put all focus on pleasure over productive activity and they either become obsessed or lazy or both. Desires can be from God but they must be disciplined to function to be God honoring
Secondly, if someone says they were born this way
Then it should also be true that someone that is a pedophile or drunk, or who has uncontrollable anger, or a liar too are born this way. Someone may have a tendency to act this way but that does not mean they have to fulfill those tendencies.
This logic played out then justifies the homophobe as well because they could say they too were born that way and there should be no disgust with a person who hates homosexuals.
We all have tendencies to sin in one direction or another. We all have areas of weakness in out lives but God wants to strengthen us in those areas to cause us to overcome
We see in this last scripture even if we totally fail in these areas that Paul shows us we don’t need to stay that way we can choose to walk away.
When you recognize that anything in your life is a sin. It is hindering your relationship with the Lord and you must overcome it.
Last, temptation in itself is not sin
Some people may be more inclined to be tempted in the area of homosexuality but just because someone feels the temptation does not mean they need to surrender to it.
The Lord will give us the strength to overcome because he understands temptation Hebrews 4:15,16
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Whatever we need to overcome any temptation he will give it to us if we cry out to him.
5) Grace is available to anyone who is willing to come to him
Jesus ends his discussion with the woman, with this… John 4:23-26
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
One of the absolutely most broken women in the Bible is one of the very few who Jesus reveals himself to why?
Because sometimes those who we would regard as not worthy, or those we would dislike the most are the ones most hurting and most willing to impact the world…he who is forgiven much loves much
If you hate homosexuals or lesbians you are violating Jesus’ heart but to allow them to continue in their sin is also to hate them because you are allowing them to go to hell.
If we are not intentional about loving all people despite their sin preferences then how will they see Jesus in us!