Real Christianity is Accepting

By Ps Rob Buckingham

Bayside Christian Church

99-101 Argus St, Cheltenham

http://www.baysidechurch.com.au

(transcript of message shared 17 October 2009)

Prayer. Heavenly Father, we just want to thank You for all that You are and all that You have done and are doing for us. Lord God we are forever grateful and we love Your word, Lord God we know Your word describes itself as a hammer that comes and shatters hardness of hearts and preconceived ideas, so we pray tonight that by the hammer of Your word that You will challenge us and change us from the inside out. We pray in Jesus’ name amen.

We’re going to continue the series tonight of ‘Real Christianity’, this is part two of ‘Acceptance’ and this series is based on a book called ‘Unchristian’ by David Kinnaman, and I encourage you to get a hold of it. It is a summary of research that’s been done in America by the Barna Foundation into young adults and thousands of young adults between the ages of 16 and 29 were interviewed for this research to find out what they thought of the Christian faith, and the number one word that kept on coming through, time and time again is that people outside the church, look at the church, and think we are unchristian in our attitudes, and that concerns me and scares me in a good way, to make sure that we at least as a church can show our community and show our city that church has changed, amen, and that God is not presenting the attitudes that are sometimes presented by the church or by Christians.

There are six main areas that came up as points of scepticism raised by those that were interviewed. One of them was that they often viewed the Church as hypocritical or Christians as hypocritical and we touched on that last week, and if you miss that message I encourage you to get a hold of the CD from our resource centre, because it was a really good message wasn’t it? (laughter) Is that proud? I had lots of wonderful feedback so, many of you thought so, and I taught last week about ‘Real Christianity is Transparent’. Transparency being the opposite of hypocrisy, and I encouraged each and every one of us to just be real. Let’s not pretend that we’ve got it all together, because we haven’t, and it’s when we pretend like we’ve got it all together and then people see that we haven’t got it all together that’s when they say ‘ah look, a hypocrite’. But if we’re just the real deal and we don’t pretend anything, then people won’t be surprised when they see the flaws in our lives and in our character and so on and so forth, because we never ever presented ourselves as people that are perfect and have it altogether. That’s a summary of last week’s message.

The second point of scepticism is the one we’re going to touch on tonight, and that is that often the church is viewed as anti-homosexual. Number three, we’re going to look at ‘We’re often too focused on getting converts’, ‘We are accused of being too sheltered’, ‘Too political and judgemental’. So there’s some really good messages over the next few weeks but tonight ‘Real Christianity is Accepting’, answering the accusation that Christians are anti-homosexual. Interestingly enough this was the number one point in research. This came out top of the list in the research done by David Kinnerman as a negative perception of the church that we are anti-homosexual, and I’ve got to say that does describe a lot of the present-day church. You’ve only got to go on to the Internet and Google certain words and it will bring out particular websites that are put together by so-called Christians. There is a website, and this is absolutely horrible, that is called ‘God hates fags.com’ and if you put that in your search engine it will bring up the Westborough Baptist Church, and I want to say it is not a Baptist Church, okay, and I’m sure the Baptist Churches in America must be absolutely horrified by this group of people. They’re the ones that are out picketing, they were the ones picketing Heath Ledger’s Memorial, they are a small group of about 90 or 100 people but they’ve sponsored that website. They’ve got another website called ‘God hates America’, I mean, a great message! And I went on there the other day just to research for this message, and it had a little caption saying ‘God hates you’. Well that’s life changing!

Christian’s criticism of gay people doesn’t just drive a wedge between the church and the gay community, we’ve got to understand that many people that are heterosexual in our community are not anti-gay, so when they hear an anti-gay message coming from the church it actually drives a wedge between Christianity and them as well. So this is a highly destructive message.

I have put a disclaimer in your notes – this message is not about making a moral statement on homosexuality. So if you’ve come along for that tonight you’re going to be really disappointed. I think there’s been enough said on that subject, quite honestly, and tonight I hope to bring a refreshing and Biblical approach to this subject. This message tonight is all about developing a real Christian attitude to the GLBT community. Now let me just tell you what those letters stand for. This is actually a fairly well-known term, particularly amongst the gay community, but many other people might not know about it. GLBT. G stands for gay and it talks about guys whose sexual orientation is towards the same-sex. L stands for Lesbian and it’s about ladies who have their sexual orientation toward other women. B stands for bisexual. There are people who find themselves equally attracted to both genders and then the T stands for transgender. We had a speaker here recently, Sy Rogers, who shared his testimony, and if you missed those messages we encourage you to get the CD of his testimony. And he found himself transgender. That is someone who feels like they’re the wrong gender locked in the wrong body, so he as a man felt like he was a woman locked in a man’s body. And that’s different from someone who would describes themselves as gay or lesbian.

So tonight is about developing a real Christian attitude toward these four groups of people within our society. In this message I want to answer three questions. Question number one is ‘Are homosexual’s greater sinners. Are homosexual people greater sinners than heterosexual people?’ ’Did Jesus die for homosexuals?’ question two, and number three, ‘How can I be a real Christian to a gay person’?

Let’s answer the first question, let’s go to Genesis 19 together (people cheered?) and we can read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, just to inspire you. You see the church’s anti-homosexual stance comes from a belief, quite often, that often homosexuals are greater sinners than others. Is this the case? And sometimes this perception is taken from Scriptures or stories like the one we’re about to read here in Genesis chapter 19: 1- 11 about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. ‘The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city’, which inferred that he was one of the leaders of the city, the elders of the city would sit in the gates of the city and that’s normally where they would conduct their government business. ‘When he saw these two men he got up to meet them and he bowed down with his face to the ground “My lords” he said “please turn aside to your servants house, you can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning’. That was nice wasn’t it? He was being very clear with his directions, you can come and stay but I’d like you to leave early. ‘No they answered we will spend the night in the square but he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and they entered into his house. He prepared a meal for them, taking bread without yeast and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom, both young and old, surrounded the house. They called to Lot “where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them”. Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said “no my friends, don’t do this wicked thing. Look I have ..’, this is horrendous this next bit, ‘look I have two daughters who have never slept with a man, let me bring them out to you and you can do what you like with them”. What sort of dad was this? I’ve got three little girls and that would never cross my mind. “Let me bring them out to you and you can do what you like with them, but don’t do anything to these men for they have come under the protection of my roof’. What you’ve got to understand here, background wise church, is that hospitality laws back in those days was so strong that it would have been a greater offence for him to allow the two guests to be violated than for his two daughters to be violated, okay? So maybe that puts it into some sort of perspective to you, but I find this horrendous, that a father could ever offer his daughters in that way. And verse nine says “Get out of our way”, they replied. And then they said “This fellow came here as an alien”. Which means from a different part of the country, not from another planet. “and now he wants to play the judge. We’ll treat you worse than them”. They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door, but the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door, and then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old with blindness, so that they could not find the door’.

I want to ask you a question to night. What do you normally think of if someone were to say to you, ‘What is the sin of Sodom?’ Just out of interest, and if you’ve read my blog on ‘Compassion Fatigue’, you will know the right answer to this question. But just out of interest, normally, if you were asked what was the sin of Sodom, who would think homosexuality? Just honestly. So that’s probably maybe 50 to 60% of the gathering here tonight.

Go with me to the book of Ezekiel if you would please. Ezekiel 16 and here it tells us what the sin of Sodom was and why God destroyed this city, and this might be an eye-opener. Ezekiel 16 : 49 & 50, ‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom’, so it’s about to tell us what the sin of Sodom is, look at what it says, ‘she and her daughters were arrogant overfed and unconcerned. They did not help the poor and needy, they were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen’. That’s the sin of Sodom. Let’s think about those things for a moment. These guys were haughty and arrogant. I’m not asking for a show of hands here, but anyone ever committed those sins? Overfed. In other words these guys were gluttonous. They had lots of food in their bellies and plenty left over and they were unconcerned. What an interesting word that is, they were unconcerned. Particularly when it came to the poor and needy. It says here they did not help the poor and needy. They were unconcerned. They looked at the plight of other people and went ‘So what. I don’t care anything about that’. So I want you to see this. These guys had lots of food, lots of resources, they were lazy, they had lots of time, they had lots of opportunity. There were poor and needy all around them, and they decided to do nothing about it. My goodness, that sounds like a lot of the Western world to me, right there. I’m just grateful that we actually don’t live in a time of judgement. Praise God. Otherwise God would have to apologise to Sodom and Gomorrah for judging them of the same sin that most of the Western world commits, and dare I say a lot of the Christian Church. I praise God that we as a church have a heart of concern for the poor and needy, and we do a lot of stuff, collectively, as a community of Christians so that we are not committing this sin.

But this is why God judged those cities. They were overfed, unconcerned, lazy. They had lots of resources, they had all of the ability, but they didn’t care, and God said ‘I hate this. I’m going to wipe these guys off’. And then they did detestable things. That refers to idolatry first of all, and they were morally disgusting. And let’s think about it, we’ve got a bunch of guys here, it says ‘all the men in the city’, so I don’t know how many people in the city in Sodom, but there could have been hundreds or thousands of men, and they wanted to gang rape these two guys. That to me, that’s pretty morally disgusting and I don’t think I would have an argument from most of the GLBT community on that either. Most people would look at that and go ‘oh my goodness, that is morally disgusting’. And then they were offered these two women as a substitute! That is morally disgusting.

I want to put a little bit of perspective in here tonight, because in the entire Bible there are 8 references to homosexuality, and there are over 2000 references to our responsibility to help the poor and needy. Just a thought. Just a bit of perspective. So why does it become such a big deal to us?

There are degrees of sin. John 19 verse 11, Jesus answered Pilot, He’s talking to Pontius Pilate here and He said ‘You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above’, see Pontius Pilate had just offered to .. he said ‘I’ve got the power to let you go Jesus and to not punish you’. and Jesus said ‘You would have no power over me if it were not given to you by Heaven, therefore, the one who handed me over to you’, that his Judas, ‘is guilty of a greater sin’. I want you to see that the Bible does talk about degrees of sin. Matthew chapter 12 verse 31, Jesus said ‘I tell you every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven man but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven’. I did a whole message on that a few years ago. Its ‘Answers to searching questions’, number six, which deals with what the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is all about, so you can get that message if you are interested in that topic.

There’s one sin that is unforgivable. 1 Corinthians 6:18 to 20 talks about degrees of sin. It says ‘Flee from sexual immorality all other sins a man commits are outside his body but he who sins sexually sins against his own body do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy spirit who is in you whom you have received from God you are not your own you were bought at a price therefore honour God with your body’. So there are degrees of sin, but nowhere in the Bible or does the Bible state that homosexuals are worse sinners than anybody else. That’s question one.

Question two. ‘Did Jesus die for homosexual people?’ Well first of all I want to say, every one is a sinner. Anyone want to argue with that? Everyone is a sinner. The word sin means ‘to break the laws of God’. Basically it means to fall short of perfection. It’s what Romans 3:23 talks about, it says ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’. That in Scripture is an archery term. In the Greek language to fall short, it’s like, if I were to set up a big archery target on the wall and I’ve got my bow and arrow and I try and pull the bow back to fire the arrow to hit the target, but it doesn’t matter how hard I try the arrow always falls short of the target. That is the way the Bible describes every human being, we have all sinned, we have all fallen short of the standard of God’s character. That’s what the word Glory there means, it doesn’t matter how hard we try we can’t hit the standard of the character of God, we always fall short of perfection, and if you know yourself at all well, you will know how true that is. I know that in myself I never ever hit the mark when it comes to the Glory of God or the standard of the character of God. The book of Romans is all about convincing the whole world that we are all sinners. In Romans chapter 1 he talks about all the Gentiles falling short of the Glory of God, that all the Gentiles are sinners, and I can imagine the Jewish readers going ‘yes of course we always knew that was the case’. Then in chapter two he talks about all the Jews being sinners as wel,l and all the Gentiles going ‘he, he, you too’, and chapter 3 he says everybody is a sinner, and that’s the black background that he puts in place and then in chapter 4 and 5 and 6 he starts to put the gem of the Grace of God on that black background and it shows up beautifully, and it shines brightly. So everyone is a sinner, homosexual, heterosexual, somewhere in the middle, whatever. Jew, Gentile, gay, straight, whatever, we’ve all missed the mark. Every one is a sinner.

Secondly, everyone can be saved because that what I just said to you right there, that’s the bad news, but the good news is this, everyone can be saved. John chapter 3 verse 16 ‘For God so loved the world’ and I’ve bolded some of these words for you to really stand out. The world – does that leave anybody out? No! ‘God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son that whoever’, I love that word. That’s kind of all-inclusive right? Isn’t it? Anyone here who is not part of whoever or whatever? ‘That whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life’. This is the good news. Romans 1:16, and this was our theme Scripture last year, ‘I am not ashamed of the Gospel’, why ‘because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes’. Romans 5:8 ‘God demonstrates His own love for us in this, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us’. That’s a great Scripture for people. I’ve had people who say to me ‘When I get my act together I’ll come to Jesus’. You will never get your act together. ‘When I get this area in my life sorted out and when I get clean enough to come to church and come to the Lord’, my goodness, we would all have to resign wouldn’t we? We’d all have to not turn up. In one of my blogs I wrote about putting a booth at the front door of Bayside Church so that we can maybe interview people before we let them in. ‘What’s your deal, what’s your sin? No sorry, that’s a sin, you’re not allowed in this church, only perfect people are allowed in here’. This would be a very empty auditorium and you wouldn’t even have a preacher. Romans 10 ‘For Christ is the end of the law so there may be righteousness for’, Who? ‘For everyone who believes’. Romans 10:11 to 13, ‘Anyone who trusts in Jesus will never be put to shame for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on Him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’. 1 Timothy 1:15 Paul says ‘Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’. All of us, He died for us and everyone is accepted in Christ. Ephesians 1:6 talks about ‘the praise in the Glory of His Grace by which he has made us accepted in Jesus Christ’. It’s wonderful, you and I, if we’ve accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, you have been made accepted and acceptable in His presence. It’s such good news. So did Jesus die for homosexuals? Absolutely!

Thirdly and finally ‘How can I be a real Christian to a gay person?’ You see, our attitude toward gay people changes when we get to know them. It’s easy to stand from a distance and condemn what we don’t understand, or condemn what we don’t know, but then you meet somebody and you hear their story and suddenly your heart is softened toward that person, it’s called compassion. I love that all the way through the new Gospels Jesus looked at people in need and in strife. People that were disenfranchised and from the mainstream of society and He looked at them with compassion and His compassion made Him do something to make a difference in that person’s life.

Here at Bayside Church we have quite a few people that I have spoken to over the years who have GLBT friends relatives. There’s at least two people here in this church who have transgender relatives. There is a couple in our church who have a grandson who used to be their granddaughter. There’s a lady in our church who has a sister who used to be her brother, and I’ve met these people and their delightful people who God loves and Jesus died for. And suddenly you start changing. When I mentioned last week that I was going to be preaching on this subject, the number of people who came up to me ‘Pastor Rob I’ve got a gay cousin or I’ve got a gay workmate, would they be able to come to the church?’ and I’m like, ‘absolutely’. ‘Would this message be appropriate for them?’ Totally. And maybe, just maybe some of you guys have turned up tonight, and I just want to say as the Pastor of this church, you are welcome in Jesus name to be here with us, here tonight and any time you want to come, all right, you are welcome here (people clap).

And so, so many people, you’ve got GLBT sons, daughters, relatives friends and acquaintances, at work, at school, at university, and how can you be a real Christian to them? That’s what I want to share with you for the rest of this message tonight. Everyone knows somebody, whether you know it or not, because about 3% of our society fall into this category. So how can I be a real Christian to a gay person, first of all you need to get rid of false assumptions and generalisations, okay, and I’ve listed five of them here in the notes.

Number one false assumption is that ‘homosexuals are incapable of acting morally’. That’s an assumption of generalisation. You will find morality and immorality in every section of our society. Okay, yes, there are immoral gay people, yes there are immoral straight people. Yes there are moral gay people, and yes there are moral straight people. So to say all homosexuals are incapable of acting morally is a false assumption and generalisation.

Number two, ‘Homosexuals are an organised movement with the purpose of subverting conservative Christianity’. That is a false assumption. Yes there are some gay people who are antagonistic to Christianity, but many who are not. The GLBT community is not the enemy of the church, and even if it was Jesus encouraged us, in fact taught us to love our enemies and to do good to them.

False assumption number three, ‘Homosexuality is a simple issue’. Let me tell you, you’ve probably discovered this already, but human sexuality is not a simple issue. It is highly complex. So we’ve got to avoid simplistic answers. We see the classic example of this recently in our news with the South African athlete Caster Semenya, who is a lady, but runs like a guy and looks like a guy, and this poor person has been embarrassed and criticised in front of the world media for being a hermaphrodite. Caster Semenya did not think one day ‘I think I’ll be a hermaphrodite’, she was born that way, with both male and female sexual organs. And I’ve heard her speak and she often talks about God and the love of God and so on and so forth. Does God love Caster Semenya any less because of the way that she was born? Absolutely not. Does Jesus love her? Yes. Did Jesus die for her? Absolutely. Please don’t tell me this is a simple subject. And so to make generalisations is often highly unhelpful.

False assumption number four, ‘It is best to avoid any friendships with homosexuals’. I love Jesus. Your probably glad to hear that (people laugh) and as we read about Him in Scripture the people He hung out with and He always got into trouble for it He was not afraid to hang out with all kinds of people, the religious people were scandalised by Jesus’ choice of relationships. Have a look at some of these scriptures here. Luke 7:34 and 35 ‘He said the son of man came eating and drinking and you said here is a glutton and a drunkard a friend of tax collectors and sinners but wisdom is proved right by all of her children’. You see Jesus acted in a particular way. I taught a 12 week series a few years ago called ‘Let’s party’ and part of that series was looking at the way Jesus related to people. Invariably you’ll see Jesus mixing with people around food and drink, He just hung out with them. But the religious establishment looked at Him and criticised His behaviour. ‘Look at that guy He is a glutton and a drunkard’. Now Jesus was neither, okay, because gluttony and drunkenness are both sinful behaviour and the Bible tells us that Jesus never sinned, okay. But He was guilty by association with the people that He hung out with. The tax collectors which was a kind of a generalised group for the up and outs, for the wealthy simple people in society, and then the sinners which were the kind of down and outs, kind of the poor and simple people. The people that were normally shunned by the rest of society. and here’s Jesus with the up an out and the down and out. And He was criticised by the religious establishment as a result. But He says there ‘wisdom is proved right by all her children’, in other words those who are truly wise will really understand why Jesus did what He did. They’ll get it. You hang out with people that the rest of society kind of looks at or that the church looks at them and goes ‘ooh, don’t like those people, or ooh those people are very simple people’. You hang out with them the religious will always get angry with you, but those who understand, the wise, they’ll get it and they won’t criticise you. In Luke 15 verse 2, again that accusation ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them’. Oh my goodness, really Jesus, didn’t you know, tut-tut. Matthew 9:11 to 13 ‘When the Pharisees saw this they asked His disciples, “why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners”, on hearing this Jesus said to them “it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick, go and learn what this means”’, and the church needs to learn what this means. ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice for I have not come to call the righteous but sinners’.

Same deal with the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8. I just absolutely adored that story you know. Here’s Jesus teaching first thing in the morning and the religious establishment bring this woman that has been caught in the very act of adultery, and push her in front of Jesus and in front of this whole crowd, and it infers in the story that she is inappropriately clad. Like they didn’t even give her enough time to get dressed, they just caught her. The whole thing was a massive set up to trap Jesus and Jesus was not going to have any of it. You see you needed two or three witnesses to condemn someone under the law, and so Jesus just bobbed down and He wrote in the sand, and they continued to hassle Him. I reckon He was just writing down all the names of the girlfriends of the Pharisees, and they continued to have hassle Him, and they said ‘what do you say’ and He came up and He said ‘okay those of you who are without sin you cast the first stone’. And the original Greek actually is stronger language, ‘those of you who are without this sin’ i.e. adultery, ‘then you cast the first stone’, and they all just dropped their stones and walked away. The Bible says ‘from the oldest first’, because they had committed adultery more often than the younger ones, they walked away and then Jesus said to her ‘where are your accusers’ and she said ‘I have none’. Jesus called a miss trial by his actions. ‘I have none’ and then He said ‘neither do I accuse you, condemn you or judge you’ and then He said ‘now go and sin no more’. They were His last words to her not His first. And He gave her the possibility of not living a dubious life anymore, because of His love and Grace and acceptance. And that’s what the church needs to offer to everybody in Jesus name. You can’t influence people if you don’t mix with them, so mix with them.

False assumption number five, ‘Homosexuals choose to be that way’. Who would choose to be that way? I want to read this to you. This came through on one of my blogs from a guy, he says ‘I’m a gay man that came across this interesting post from Facebook. I for one don’t understand why on earth a gay person would even want to step into a church, ‘you Christians’ can’t even make up your mind if you like us or not. Some totally hated us, some accepted us with conditions and some want to bring us to Jesus hoping one day we’ll change. None of you however can say that I am accepted just as I am. All of you have passed judgement and think there is something wrong with me in the first place. Now don’t get me wrong most or all gay people already know that the church hates gays so it’s not a big surprise to us, and it’s nice that some Christians are saying nice things about gays, but really actions speak louder than words and there aren’t any actions at all from the church are there? I’m also a bit disturbed by some people calling homosexuality a wilful sin. I don’t quite understand that comment. I have been attracted to the same sex for as long as I can remember. I never made a wilful choice to like guys over girls. Do Christian guys make a wilful decision at one point in their life to prefer girls over the guys? For me being with a woman wasn’t an option, it wasn’t a wilful act and with the pain and suffering I had to endure when people made fun of my sexuality, why would I wilfully choose that kind of life? You Christians have absolutely no idea. You talk about love and it can be packaged so nice and sweet, but when you have a taste, you realise that it’s full of conditions. Love with conditions is not love, well not to me anyway. But I’m not the one claiming to be the experts, you are. P.S. If you guys are so into your Bible then why don’t you also follow the other commandments in it, like, not allowing women to speak in the church (laughter) doesn’t the apostle say that somewhere in the new Testament’. I’m like ‘ooh yes’ he got us there. But you see when you take another look at those scriptures about women speaking in the church you realise the context and the culture and all of that, and sometimes I think it might just be a good idea if we took another look at the 8 scriptures that talk about homosexuality and maybe we will do that on another occasion.

How can I be a real Christian to a gay person? Number two ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. Go to James chapter 2 with me please versus 8 & 9, ‘If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture’, I love that terminology, the Royal law. This is the law of laws he’s about to reveal here, and it’s found many times in scripture. ‘If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture what is it? ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. You are doing right, but if you show favouritism you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers’. Favouritism, that’s when we say as Christians ‘I find you easy to love and lovable and so I’ll love you, but I find you difficult to love so I’m not going to try and love you’. And when we show favouritism we sin. The royal law of Scripture is love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus described what neighbour is when He told a story of the good Samaritan. The guy that got beaten up, a Jewish guy who got beaten up and left for dead and neglected by his religious leaders was looked after by a Samaritan person. Now the Jews and Samaritans hated each other. Samaria was built and born out of an unholy relationship between King Ahab and Jezebel, you can read about it 1 Kings or 2 Kings, one of the Kings, and read about it there. And so you can understand why Israel absolutely despised Samaria. So the Samaritans hated the Jews and the Jews hated the Samaritans and so Jesus couldn’t have used a more volatile illustration than this one. Who is my neighbour, your neighbour, is the person that you can’t stand when they are in need. Help them. Love your neighbour as yourself, that’s the royal law. See that Scripture cuts through all homophobia, preconceived ideas and so on and so forth and Jesus says ‘reach out in love to all people including those that you may naturally find a little difficult to love’, that’s what it means to love your neighbour.

And so to finish up tonight how can I love my GLBT neighbour as myself I’ve given you seven ways, let’s touch on them really quickly.

Number one, ‘Engage in meaningful friendships’. David Kinnaman in ‘Unchristian’ says this ‘When we get to know and love homosexuals, because they are people, perhaps they will grow to love and appreciate us and may be even listen to what we believe’. But we don’t do it for that reason.

Number two, ‘Asked questions, listen, hear their story don’t just judge because of preconceived ideas’. If you know someone that falls into this GLBT category, why don’t you catch up with them for a coffee and ask them to share their story with you, and compassion will rise in your heart.

Number three, ‘Show empathy and compassion’. Dietrich bon-Hoffer, the World War 2 German theologian, he was killed by the Nazis for standing up to Adolf Hitler, he said this ‘Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do and don’t do and more in the light of what they suffer’. Let me tell you people that I know in the GLBT community have suffered greatly. In fact an acquaintance of mine from Sydney sent me this on Facebook during the week. This statistic, ‘the highest rate of suicide out of any group in Australian society at the moment is among GLBT youth who come from a faith background’. That’s staggering. That should fill our hearts with compassion and love and grace. Young people, during their teenage years, when they discover that their sexual orientation is same-sex, not opposite sex, and they can’t reconcile it with their faith, and invariably their church or religious group kicks them out or at least shuns them, and then they end up taking their lives. That’s the number one group of suicide in our society. Church that’s got to change and we as a Church have got to reach out to these precious people.

Number four, ‘Don’t make derogatory statements’. We had a guy come here years and years and years ago, an American evangelist, and I’d asked him here to share his testimony cause his testimony was amazing, but during his testimony he made a derogatory remark about homosexuals, and I think he was trying to be funny, he said ‘God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve’, and some people laughed, and he didn’t know that in our church that night a lady in our congregation who had been building a long term relationship, friendship with a lesbian lady had shared the Lord with her, got her to the point when she was really interested in the things of God, ready for a Church experience and she was sitting in the crowd that night. They both left and I tried my level best to convince her that that was not my attitude or the attitude of this church, but we lost her. That breaks my heart. Don’t make derogatory remarks and tell jokes about people, any people, accept the Irish (laughter) or the Kiwis, you deserve everything you get including your fush and chups (laughter).

Number five, ‘How can I love my GLBT neighbour?’ Number five, ‘Be kind, gracious and loving, just like God’. What a bizarre thought! Romans chapter 2 verse 4 ‘Do you show contempt for the riches of God’s kindness, tolerance and patients, not realising that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance’. Where did the church ever get this so wrong? What’s God like? Well kind, patient, tolerant. What are His people like? ‘ah don’t ask’. 1Corinthians 13 versus 4 to 8 ‘Love is patient, love is kind, it is not rude’.

Number six, ‘Don’t do the work of the Holy Spirit’. Our job is to love people, the Holy Spirit’s job is to change people. John 16 verse 8 ‘He the Holy Spirit will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgement’. This is a key area, let me tell you, this will take the pressure off you right here, because so often as Christians we feel we should go in to a particular situation where someone is not living as we think they should be living, and we go in with judgement, and we go in with conviction, and we start telling them what they can do and can’t do, ‘It’s all right, stick around me and I’ll sort you out’. And were not even sorted out ourselves. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job. Our job is simply to love and accept people the way they are. Sorry if this is bizarre to anybody but I just get this.

Number seven, ‘Look for opportunities to serve’. Remember that true connection to people and to Christ happens most often when we love and serve them. If our concern is that loving and serving them might somehow condone their behaviour, we probably do not love people the way Christ does. This mob in America, this Westborough Baptist Church, the ones that go around picketing Gay Mardi Gras with the most horrible placards, I don’t want to be associated with that, but I do love the Church in Sydney that went to the Gay Mardi Gras with bottles of water, with labels that said ‘God loves you’, on it. I wouldn’t mind doing that here, what do you reckon? It would be good. Which one do you think would be the most attractive for people to come to Christ? Bayside Church creating a community of people where everyone is welcome and worthy.

I’ve put some resources in your notes that will help you further with this subject, ‘Unchristian’ of course by David Kinnaman, ‘Love is an orientation’, I’ve just finished reading that. It’s by Andrew Marron. He and his wife have a ministry to the gay community in Chicago. It started, he was a self-confessed homophobe, typical American football jock and his two closest friends came out to him, and he talks about, this subject changes you when you get to know people, and God has now called him into a ministry to the gay community in Chicago, and his book ‘Love is an orientation’ is the testimony with some really helpful stuff in that. A couple of CDs by Pastor Rob Buckingham ‘Unashamed to accept’ and ‘Unashamed of the gospel’ part 3. Sy Rogers CDs, get online to Sy Rogers.com, the Marron foundation.org and my blogs on baysidechurch.com.au, is ‘Chooses anti-gay the acceptance controversy’ and ‘Love the sinner, hate the sin’, which is one of the most horrendous things you can say to people.

I want to finish up tonight and I know I’ve gone a little over time, but I don’t want to skip this. I’ve a young guy who has recently started coming to Bayside. I’ve asked him to share a little bit of his testimony and he’s written it down for me and I’m just going to read this to you tonight before we finish up. He says here ‘I grew up my whole life at the same church and only left that church once I moved to Melbourne. I attended Sunday school nearly every week and even did Sunday school exams every year growing up. When I was about 14 my church decided to start an evening service for the growing numbers of young people and I was one of the founding members that started this off. I was involved every week either playing clarinet or bass guitar or running the sound or media equipment. I knew from when I was as young as eight or nine that I was not attracted to girls like my friends were and growing up in church I knew that being gay was definitely wrong. I didn’t even realise at the time, but I would never admit it to myself let alone anyone else that I was struggling with my attraction to other guys. I hid it even from myself and this led to me hiding small bits of my life more and more. Then I started lying to cover up the parts that I was hiding and before I knew it this struggle had become a way of life that meant that I was living in two worlds covered up with lies. At about 24 and after dating 2 great Christian girls I realised I could not deal with this on my own. I’d gotten in online dating sites trying to satisfy a want that I didn’t want to have. I started counselling sessions, this, other than costly, did not help at all. I decided to do Cleansing Stream, which I did three times, and I got a lot out of it. It really enforced my relationship with God and confirmed my faith, but it did not help in any way with my attraction with other guys. I then heard about a councillor who was highly regarded and gifted in deliverance ministry and I started seeing her once or twice a month for about 18 months or more. This I found very beneficial. The power of God became ever more real to me. I became aware of spiritual gifts I never knew I had. I started seeing prophetic visions over my friend’s lives and also speaking in tongues, but even still my attraction to other guys did not decrease, if anything it only increased, and I felt more and more alone and discontent that I could not find anyone to love. Previously I had prayed that God would change me and he was always deathly silent on this prayer, so I prayed something different to my usual prayers, I prayed that God would open my eyes up to what He wanted in this area of my life. It came to me to stop fighting the struggle, so I prayed that God would guide me and if I wasn’t walking in the right path that God would show me, and I have felt great peace in this area of my life ever since. However this stirred up a whole new part of my life that I had always felt safe and secure before. Where I’d previously always been accepted and affirmed and loved for all that I was and supposedly wasn’t, I was taken out of ministry, opportunities for missions work were now taken away and I felt dreadfully alone for years, and I often still do now. Coming to Bayside, ever since I walked into the building and met Pastor Rob I knew I had found a place that would love and accept and affirm me for who I am, and a place that I really could in all honesty say felt like home’.

It’s a great story isn’t it. Amen.(people clapped). Hallelujah, lets bow in prayer shall we church. Hallelujah, wonderful Saviour. I just want us to sit in His presence just for a minute or two tonight and allow the Word of God to settle in your heart. Whatever you think of homosexuality remember that every person is loved by God and every person is loved by Jesus and when He was on the cross He died for every person and that our calling is to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. It’s just as if they were us. Lord God I pray help us as a church to reach out to everyone with your love and grace, with your kindness, with your tolerance, with your patients. Lord God I pray, forgive us and forgive the Christian Church for giving this world the notion that You are anti-homosexual. Lord God I thank You that You are not anti-anyone, that You are for us, for You so loved the world that You gave, that whoever. May this truth settle in our hearts and change our lives and through us change the lives of others, we pray in Jesus name.