Homosexuality Series

Pastor Ted was the founder and senior pastor of a 14,000 member church in Colorado Springs, who, in November, was accused of homesexual sex and drug use by a male prostitute named Mike Jones. Pastor Ted immediately denied those accusations, and later admitted that many of them were true. In a letter to his church, he wrote,

“I am so sorry for the circumstances that have caused shame and embarrassment for all of you.... The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality, and I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.... The accusations that have been leveled against me are not all true, but enough of them are true that I have been appropriately and lovingly removed from ministry.”

Just last month, a member of Ted’s counseling team, Tim Ralph, stated that Ted Haggard is “completely heterosexual.”

Tonight, we’re beginning a series on Untouchables. Over the next 3 weeks we’ll be discussing some tough topics, and tonight, we’re talking about homosexuality. (clip from Dawson’s Creek-jack reads poem)

I met Brad when I was working at Chili’s. He was a bartender, and I was a server. We had a casual relationship, and I guess I considered us friends, but it started to get weird when Brad would start hitting on me at work. He would ask me to hang out afterwards, and would sometimes walk by and touch me, and it was awkward. It wasn’t long after that that I realized that Brad was gay. I told him I was a Christian, and even though we were friends, he would make fun of me. He’d make snide remarks about Jesus that weren’t appropriate, and honestly offensive, but I still tried to witness to him. I’d tell him that Jesus loves him, and has a plan for his life, but he didn’t care. He knew about Jesus, but was happy with his alternative lifestyle. After I quit that job, I never saw Brad again. I had hoped that he found Jesus, but I suppose that I’ll never know.

I had made up my mind about homosexuals. There’s much debate about whether or not they are born that way, or if it’s wrong to be a homosexual, or even if you can be a “Christian” homosexual. Hopefully, we can help you make up your mind, by getting into what the Bible has to say, but before we get to that, let’s define homosexual. A homosexual is “noun1. someone who practices homosexuality; having a sexual attraction to persons of the same sex.” This is not the same as someone who believe they are actually a person of the opposite sex. That’s called gender identity disorder. Gender identity disorder (also known as transsexualism) is a condition in which a person has strong and persistent cross-gender identification as defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). That is, the person experiences feelings that he or she is, or should be, the other sex. These feelings are of sufficient intensity to cause clinically significant distress or social impairment. The disorder occurs in males and females and is independent of sexual orientation. The status of this disorder is in flux. Sex change through sexual reassignment surgery, hormonal treatment, and lifestyle change are options favored by some individuals.

I made a brief comment during our sex_ed series about Adam and Eve. God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. It’s a funny comment, but true, nonetheless. Genesis 2:18,22-24, “the Lord God said, “it is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” “22Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’, for she was taken out of man.’ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” So, God’s plan from the beginning was for Adam to have a helper suitable for him, and so He made a woman. God didn’t make Adam to be homosexual. God created men and women to be married to each other, to become one in Christ. That means the man is enhanced and fulfilled by his wife and the wife is enhanced and fulfilled by her husband. This was and still is God’s plan for men and women.

Leviticus 18:22 Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. [NIV]