I saw a church's website recently, who's hosting a woman who travels the world talking about homophobia and the Church.  The church is holding this conference as a means of kicking off their new acceptance of gays/lesbians in their community. 

The bio of the woman states that she'd grown up a Christian and understood homosexuality as a sin.  So when her daughter announced that she was gay, her mother rejected her because she recognized such as sinful.  Several years later the daughter committed suicide.  So after much healing and such, the mother has since been traveling everywhere preaching about accepting gays/lesbians, parents not rejecting them, and how it's not a sin to be gay.

The problem I have with this is that I think she's still confused...confused on how she sees sin, how she sees sinners, and how she recognizes God's views on homosexuals (Christians also may have a misconception of how to see gays).

First, should parents reject their child if they turn out being gay?  No, of course not!  If your child was sleeping around with somebody of the opposite gender, would you reject them?  Probably not.  Would you support their sin?  Hopefully not.  Let me explain this in the sense of evangelism:

If you were to reject every sinner out there, not have anything to do with them, and stay away from them completely, then how would you share and introduce Jesus with such who do not know Him?  You might as well be a monk, isolated in Christian surroundings and never get out into the world. You'd HAVE to socialize with sinners somehow if they're to come to know Jesus.  The same goes for people who are gay.  You can't ex-communicate them from the family because of their sin, for how else will they then come to know Jesus (soon or down the line)?

One might say, "but the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5 that you should not associate with people who indulge in sexual immorality."  Yes, this is true, but notice also that Paul said in verse 10, "(I'm) not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or the idolaters.  In that case, you'd have to leave this world."  Paul was talking about people "who claim to be believers", but are sexually immoral or greedy, idolaters or slanderers, drunkards or swindlers.  "With such people, don't even eat with them."  Why? Because they're not living as people of Christ, and such behavior has the threat of behaving as yeast in bread, or food coloring in water.

The problem though is when people who claim to be believers, including the Church (and/or denominations), confuse people and their sins.  I have a Pastor-friend who used to always say, "Love the sinner, not the sin."  God doesn't hate gays...He hate's their sin.  God loves the sinner, but hates their sin.  But when churches love the sinner and celebrate the sin, they're moving away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and moving towards the gospel of cheap grace (similar even to that mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5:1-3).  They're telling them not only that they accept them as people (which is good), and that Jesus died for them also (which is also true), but that they're also accepting their sexual sin, calling it "something they were born with" and can't help from doing or being...they're actually proud that they're accepting somebody who sins as such, and instead of addressing the sin, they ACCEPT it, even creating an excuse for the sin, and justifying it!

Understand, God's grace is costly...so costly that it cost the life of God's One and Only Son.  If Jesus' dying on the cross simply just opened the doors to Heaven for all to enter, regardless of whether or not they know or have accepted Him, and if all Jesus had to do was die, being the perfect sacrifice, then He didn't have to live 33 years, appoint 12 Apostles, teach others the ways of God, insist on the repentance of sin and a change of heart, call forth the Holy Spirit, resurrect, train and disciple people...nor would God have had to give the Jews the Law through Moses.  Instead, God could've allowed His people to continue in the ways of the Egyptians.  In fact, God could've just left them in Egypt, for what's the point of having His own people if they're not going to resemble Him any?

Here's the thing, and it goes with anybody who's sexually immoral, not just gays/lesbians: You need to choose which you want, God or sin...a life of Godliness, or a life of sinfulness.  The Bible has (and the Church was supposed to have) mapped out what sin is.  God loves people: red, yellow, black, white, brown, gay, straight, etc.  What He does NOT like, even HATES, is sin.  Sin SEPARATES us from God's presence...sin is what caused our separation from Him in the first place, and is why Jesus had to come and die.  But in order to accept Jesus, you must also follow Jesus.  And to follow Jesus, you must leave your old life behind, completely surrendered.  Accepting Jesus does not allow you to insist on your own terms.  It's either follow Jesus, or don't, there's no in-between.  You must be willing to give up life as you know it if you wish to follow Jesus and/or be called a Christian.  But if you insist on continuing in your sin, then you cannot follow Jesus, and cannot call yourself a Christian...you're like the man in Luke 9:61 who said he'd follow Jesus if only he could first go back and say goodbye to his family, and Jesus said, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God."

So parents: don't reject your children because of their sexuality or sexual immorality...but do make sure that you reject their sin and address it as such.  There is a difference in the two, and only one of these is loved by God. 

Churches: stop justifying the sin of sinners.  You're to be like the hospitals of sick people.  But if you never treat their illnesses, then you're not fulfilling the purpose of existing.  So love what God loves, but hate what God hates, and don't rename the sin to make it sound natural (renaming a computer virus may cause it to be dormant, but it still needs to be removed).  Sin is sin, and God's grace is costly.

---Pastor Andy G.

If you'll read my other blog, you'll see that I really despise the idolatrous religion of "Liberal Christianity".  But what I also despise is when people, whether liberal Christians, non-Christians, or even real Christians, use Scripture out of context.  And this post is in response to the argument of judging.

Up until the other week, my wife and I had been shopping for a good, used car.  We'd gone to a good number of dealers in the area, some a little distance away, but all major dealerships.  But the problem wasn't the selection of cars...the problem was the sales people, for we'd hoped to be working with somebody we could get an honest deal from.  You're probably chuckling now about how foolish we were to think this, and you'd be right to do so, for in our search, we'd quickly come to learn that every used-auto salesperson was a liar, schemer, trapper, and they all played the same game...basically, Satan's tactics.  They'd also use the same common terms, they'd claim they're trying to help us, when they're really just interested in how much money they could get from us. Some were 'smooth-talkers', many played a version of good salesperson, bad sales manager, and they'd all claim the lowest prices, even thought we'd found several better priced deals all over the internet.  Actually, to help myself from falling into their traps, I actually convinced myself that all dealers are either demons, possessed by demons, or are to just to be recognized in the same category, for they behaved in that same way in the sense of trying to influence our thoughts about what to buy, trying to get us to do what we don't want to do, trying to persuade us into believing that it's OK to do so, playing on our emotions, and lying and making false promises to our faces.

Now I ask you, are we wrong to judge used car salespeople as dishonest people who are just out to make a profit?  Should we just give over our money blindly to the best-sounding deal, trusting that this car really is a great deal?  Should we not use wisdom, prayer, patience, research and judgment in deciding on such a huge investment?
Do you really think that though they act like they're trying to befriend you that you'll hang out after you buy a car from them?  Do you think they'll even acknowledge you on the street and invite you to their cookouts at home?  Do you really think they expect to even see you again except for when you bring your car in to their garage for expensive or routine repairs? 

Are they not just trying to make money off of you...because that's what they do.
Look also at some Pastors of big and famous churches, or churches where lots of money's coming in: Big cars, big homes, fancy clothes, bling, kids go to expensive schools and give off rich-kid images...if the Pastors a man, then his wife's all decked out in nice clothes, expensive accessories, and their faces usually have so much makeup on that you'd never recognize them with it off.  Yet, even though their fruit don't match that of Christ, the reason they have all that money and stuff is because when they speak, people listen and believe them.  And the message is often so smoothly communicated that people don't realize how non-biblical it is...and it makes sense because they don't know any better anyway.  I knew a kid once who spoke of this one guy who spoke so persuasively, sounded so holy in his speech, that he had everyone believing that he was so much more blessed.

They're not in it for your sake, they're in it for themselves.

Paul often reminded his readers that, unlike other speakers, he doesn't charge them anything.  Instead, he made his living by making and selling tents honestly.  Others, on the other hand, talked with fancy speech because it helped to persuade people into believing their lies.  Paul spoke with simple, easy to understand, straight-forward, every-day words.  "I don't use persuasive speech," he said, "unlike these others who are trying to lead you astray."

People believed the false teachers over Paul, even when these false teachers tried to discredit him as an Apostle.  They didn't care about the Christians who they preached to, they even required a fee to speak, for their speaking was their way of making a living.  If they weren't believable, they starved.  Yet, people believed their lies over God's Truth, which was taught to them with simple words, for free, by Paul.

Why do people continue to believe the wrong, the lies, the deception?  Used Car Salespeople:  The fact that they all continue doing / saying the same phrases shows that it works!  People actually believe them.  Their trickery is fooling people into buying cars, and they, like leaders of cults, false teachers, false prophets, false miracle-workers, etc...are getting rich off of us!  Is it wrong to judge for ourselves if this is right?

People always use the Matthew (7:1-6) text, "Just not lest you be judged" and say that Jesus is telling us not to judge one another.  But they leave out the part that's DIRECTLY AFTER, which says, "“Don’t waste what is holy on people who are unholy.  Don’t throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you."  But wait...how will you know what's unholy unless you first judge for yourself?  How will you know who the pigs are if yoiu don't first judge them?

Luke goes another route in chapter 6 (:37-45) when he tells of Jesus saying, “A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit.  A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thornbushes, and grapes are not picked from bramble bushes.  A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart."  Now how would you know if evil flows from somebody's heart unless you judge for yourself by their actions?  How could you tell if they produce good fruit or bad fruit?

We need to judge people and their actions to see what type of fruit they bare.  But by what standards do we use?

Jesus didn't come here to be glorified, but did hope more people whould believe and belive in Him.  Remember, Jesus said that He didn't come to be served, but to serve, and gave a great example of this service.  Jesus also came for the sake of us.  Nobody goes through what Jesus went through for themselves, but only for the sake of others.

Jesus was speaking the Truth.  He backed up His claims with proof, and more than enough witnesses, yet the people in his own town refused to believe Him, and actually became offended.  Paul spoke the Truth of Jesus for free with simple speech, yet the churches preferred to believe the liars with fancy speech.
What standards do we use to judge if somebody's from God or Not?
What standards do we use to judge if somebody's being honest with us or not?
What standards should we be using?  (Because a lot of the false stuff's getting through, and a lot of the Truth is being rejected.)  Why?

---Pastor Andy G.

You know, it's funny that if somebody is to understand what Christmas is and why we celebrate it, they have to understand who Jesus is and why God sent Him.  In the past, I'd done a series about why we celebrate Christmas.  The first week I explained to my students why God sent Jesus.  The second week was about what kind of a world Jesus came into and why it was the perfect time.  And the third week I talked about the background of Mary and Joseph (prophesy, messenger to Mary, I think one year I explained a possible connection of Mary with Sarah, how Joseph was going to SECRETLY divorce her and why, etc. 

Before and in the beginning of Seminary, I attended a non-denominational church that originally didn't celebrate Christmas because neither the date nor even suggestion to celebrate Christ's birth is actually mentioned in the Bible.  They figured that since it was one of the events whose date was not mentioned, that we shouldn't celebrate it at all (or always celebrate it, which makes sense, but also runs the risk of pushing it aside as something minimal).  They actually thought it was a sin to celebrate Christmas!  But after doing these lessons with the students in my later churches (different denominations, too), I realized that in order to celebrate everything Jesus did by coming to us, especially when you look at how intensely the world waited for Him, celebrating His coming would only make sense.  And when you look at it this way, then Christmas can only be understood as the time that Christians (not to be used in a generic sense) celebrate the coming of the Messiah, the Savior that God promised from the beginning! (It can also be backed up by John 3:16-17, as well as many others).

So now when somebody asks me why we celebrate Christmas, after knowing all this (everything we went over in Sunday school), I think the only thing we can honestly say is that we are celebrating the long awaited Messiah who God promised to send, and SENT, in order to reconcile our relationship with Him, as it was in the beginning.  Then this could set in as a basis to explain more about who Jesus is, why He came, who sent Him, what we did, and what He did about it, etc.

What an awesome holiday!  To think, we get a long break from school, work, etc. in order to celebrate the coming of our Savior!  How similar to the Exodus this is, for we were once slaves, and now God has rescued us!

Wow, you know, I have to wonder: if everybody understood what Christmas is really about --and accepted it-- if Philippians 2:9-11 would actually come about? 

Blessings to you in this Christmas season!

---Pastor_Andy   :}>+-