Lions! Tigers! And Gays! OH MY!! Part 3

No Where To Go.  No One To Trust

Jesus said, to the Jewish leaders:

 Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? ³⁷ Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. ³⁸ But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”

John 10:36-38

We keep expecting LGBT people to believe what we say, but we can’t show them how God administers the life giving gospel of the life, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to them.  Jesus doesn’t do what we do today.   Jesus  points to the work of the Father in and through him, and says, “Look at the works only God can do, and believe me, because the words I speak and works I do prove each other!”

The only people who believe Jesus are the tax collector, some Roman soldiers,  half-breed Jews (Samaritans), and prostitutes:

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³² For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

Matthew 21:31-32

The irony here is  these religious leaders of Jesus’ day are actually very moral and upright, but the prostitutes and tax collectors truly are not.   They do not go near tax collectors and prostitutes.  They can’t free prostitutes and tax collectors from their sins and give them new lives.  All the religious leaders can do is look down their noses at all those sinners, and put them out of the temple and synagogs.   Funny, Jesus comes along and a man can hardly find a hooker or a Jewish tax bully anywhere he’s been teaching and healing!

LGBT people should never do what we tell them to do.   If after 45 years we don’t know God’s answer for homosexuality then no one should believe us.  Is Matthew Vine an evangelical and a game changer?   Yes, I’d have to say he is, and why shouldn’t we consider him one of us?   He’s showed as much knowledge and ability to bring gay people to the homosexuality overcoming power of God as John Piper, Al Mohler, John MacArthur, Mark Driscoll, Rick Warren.   And look at Rob Bell, he’s way out ahead of the curve.  He says he’s for love no matter what it looks like.   And why shouldn’t Bell and Vine hold to their positions on homosexuality?   Who among evangelicals knows how God desires to work freedom and change in the lives of sexually broken people??   Christians can’t show LGBT people the world overcoming work of the Holy Spirit because they think it’s easier and just as acceptable to God to stand against sin.   The thinking goes something like this:

“If I stand across the street with a picket sign at a Gay Pride Parade that should be sufficient to show God I’m against sin.”

 Few of us ever go among the sexually broken.  We’re all  afraid of being judged by the religious leaders of our own day.   We’re also concerned that people might start getting the idea we’re gay if we start hanging out with gay people.  Christian guys are afraid if they reach out to help a gay guy, the homosexual will develop a crush on them.   (I’ve had to explain to more than one Christian man, that gay men have standards and exceptional taste, so very few Christian men are in danger of attracting a gay crush).    No one who has the cure for a terrible disease wastes time condemning the illness.   Jesus wasn’t afraid the sinners he hung out with were a threat to his way of life or thinking.   Jesus didn’t hesitate to go to the worst of sinners.  Jesus brought the cure to the world and he didn’t sit around ranting or raving about Nero (Obama to many of today’s Christians).   Jesus came to find what was lost, and to offer eternal life.  If after 45 years you’re still standing around like the religious leaders of Jesus day,  condemning sinners and excommunicating them, then how can you possibly expect  people to trust us?

I’ve had many many Christians tell me I should be among LGBT people, because my story of God’s work in my life is so powerful.  I can’t go to gay people and tell them how God changed my life.   Where would I send them after I told them how great God’s salvation is??   I’ll tell the gay people and the Church will simply prove me wrong.   All my life I’ve watched Christians destroy the faith of others because they show no love, no understanding, no faith that God will change the sinner.  they don’t reach with love and faith that God can overcome sins.   I’ve watched Christians do it time and time again, someone reveals they are gay and they are shunned, refused opportunities to work in their church.   And God help the sexually broken persons who showed any kind of interest in youth or children.  People who’re living lives which bear good fruit for all to see have received death threats if they get too close to children/youth ministries.  There are so few safe places, in the Church,  for people struggling against same-sex attraction.

People who leave homosexuality are in danger from the LGBT community, but the Church hasn’t offered a safe place for them to remain safe and pursue the life and freedom God will freely give them.  The Church is as dangerous a place for those dealing with same-sex attraction as the LGBT community is.   No one is going to listen to a voice which offers life, relationship, peace and eternal life, if all the evidence proves  those words false.

The Church had better stop worrying about Obama’s executive order and start learning about God’s orders.   If, increasingly, no one can tell the difference between the traditional evangelical and the Matthew Vine kind of evangelical then that will be all the proof God will need, and he will start believing there is no difference between the two parties.  God overcomes, the Church…er, perhaps I should say church (lower case “c”) because the evidence of God’s overcoming power is lacking.   Great is the wisdom of God!   When we stand before God we’ll either be conformed to the image and likeness of Jesus, or Matthew Vine, or Fred Phelps.   God isn’t going to have to point any fingers, he’ll see Jesus or he won’t.