Gospel & Culture: Idolatry & Homosexuality

This series was prompted by the growing friendship between the church and the world.

In our first sermon in the series we said: Friendship with the world is never small

James 4:4–10 (ESV)

4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

This friendship between Christians and the world is resulting in a church that bears very few distinguishable marks from the world.

In the world people lie, gossip, act out of anger, bear false witness about one another, think and act selfishly, etc.

Sin in all of its forms is tolerated more and more by the church… which means that Christians are looking the other way when their brothers and sisters sin and hoping they do the same for them.

The modern church has moved away from the call to persevere in holiness and has replaced with a push to persevere in happiness.

But you cannot persevere in holiness without the encouragement and rebuke of your brothers and sisters.

Living by faith means living faithful to Christ and His Word.

Listen to a lengthy reading from Hebrews 10

Hebrews 10:19–39 (ESV)

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. 26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. 35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. 37 For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; 38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

In the book of Hebrews God calls Christians, the church, to live by faith, and that means by being faithful… and yet we have reached a point where Christians will tolerate each other’s sin.

Tolerance places friendship and worldly reputation over faithfulness to God.

And it’s my experience that those who tolerate sinfulness consistently put some kind of idea of friendship over faithfulness.

Tolerance leads to the affirmation of sin and the encouragement of ungodliness.

Why would I say that? Because James 4 says that friendship with the world is the same thing as becoming an enemy of God. You just can’t make tolerating sin anything different.

Jesus never said don’t help each other pursue holiness, He just said to take the log out of your own eye before you point out the splinter in your brothers eye.

Jesus also leads us to be a people of grace. But, not the kind of people who abuse grace by continuing to sin or overlooking the ways that others in and hurt the body or one another.

Romans 6:1–7 (ESV) says, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.”

You might be wondering why I am going this direction with the sermon… I announced a few weeks ago that I was going to speak to some of the major cultural issues of the day, and mentioned that I would preach a message on a biblical view of homosexuality and transgenderism… and we will get there today.

But…

The more I prayed, studied, and truthfully because of some things that I have experienced personally this past month, I felt like the Lord opened my eyes to a major problem plaguing the church… in fact I think its a systemic issue in the church and its the issue of worldliness in the church.

One of the systemic issues in the church is the worldliness of the church. And I believe that when I say that many of you probably jump to the big major cultural issues of the day. But, I submit to you today that The greatest evidence of worldliness in the church is the ease by which we point out the sins some and dismiss the sins of our friends.

James 2:1 (ESV) says, “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.”

The world plays favorites, and picking favorites is all about you and not really about them at all. The church that picks and chooses what sin is ok and what sin is not ok has already conformed to the way of the world. It’s my experience that those who are showing partiality have a hard time seeing it, so you may have to point it out to one another, and if you do that do it gently… and do it privately.

The church that says my friends can sin, is the church that picks favorites for selfish gain… and this often happens under the guise of grace. But real grace confronts and walks with one another through repentance and toward transformation.

Romans 12:1-3 (ESV) says, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”

You may not struggle with homosexuality or gender dysphoria, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t sin. And, I don’t think our church struggles to point out a sin like homosexuality, adultery, etc. But, I do want to encourage you to not lead our church to hold hands with the world by tolerating or affirming sin, instead to lovingly lead and serve one another in the direction of holiness and faithfulness.

With all of that said… we are not speaking to homosexuality and transgenderism this morning because we are without sin. Instead, we are speaking to them with a full acknowledgment of our own sins, but also for the sake of making sure that we know what the Word says so that we can be faithful to the Lord right now and in the future.

I mentioned that sin in all of its forms is tolerated more and more by the church because of the pressure from the world to conform to its values over the Word of God.

No one can deny that over the last 30 years there has been a push to accept, affirm, and promote homosexuality in our culture.

According to the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology we have seen a rapid rise in the percentage of Americans who identify as LGBT, and the increase is the highest in the younger adult generations. Close to 20% of American adults under 30 identify as gay.

Researchers are noting that the rise in identification is much higher than the rise in actual activity. In 2021 researchers noted that LGBT identification was almost twice as high as the percentage of people participating in LGBT sexual behavior.

The fact that more people identify as LGBT than participate in LGBT relationships reveals the pressure of the world to conform and the significance of identity.

The Bible assumes that you can and will become oriented or identify with anything that you continually give your heart, mind, and body too.

Very quickly on the heals of that statement, I don’t want to oversimplify or ignore the many complexities that are at play here. John Freeman writes:

“We are the product of complex interactions of many factors over many years. Why are some prone to any number of psychosocial persuasions, including anger, depression, or chemical dependency? Here is the answer: we do not always choose our struggles or temptations, although we bear responsibility for what we do with them. They develop in us through a complicated interaction of temperament, internal and external influences, and our own hungry, broken, and sinful selves. We easily and by nature cooperate with these influences so that habits of heart and behavior become strong and ruling. In one sense, we are the sum of thousands of small decisions we have made. We have cooperated with our cultivated desires. So, despite the external factors that may have been in play in the development of those temptations we find particularly enticing, we are still responsible for leading godly lives, including in the area of sexuality.” - John Freeman

It’s this truth about our nature to orient or identify ourselves that is at the root of homosexuality and even transgenderism.

Idolatry is the root of homosexuality and transgenderism, because it’s at the root of all sin.

Romans 1:16–32 (ESV)

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Idolatry is an exchange of worship and service of God to self.

Romans 1:25 (ESV) says, “… they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”

Idolatry is “The substitution of man-made deities in place of the one, true God of glory.” (Ligonier article)

“Idolatry starts in the heart: craving, wanting, enjoying, being satisfied by anything that you treasure more than God.” - John Piper

The Bible is abundantly clear on sin, and this includes homosexuality. “Homosexual behavior is clearly condemned in the Bible. Leviticus 18:22and 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 are just two of the many biblical passages that call homosexual acts “sins.”

Homosexuality is idolatry that denies the truth and rejects God’s authority.

Leviticus 18:22 (ESV) says, “22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

1 Corinthians 6:9–10 (ESV) says, “9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

Homosexuality is sin and affirming it as good in the eyes of God is a denial of the truth and rejection of God’s authority.

“To say homosexuality is a viable lifestyle is to deny the Lord’s authority over what is right and wrong, and therefore, to worship a false god in His place.” (Ligonier)

The current trend among many Christians is to present homosexuality as good and as something to be pursued with God's blessing. But, this isn’t true and claiming that God wants monogamous relationships, and that Scripture is referencing something other than a meaningful relationship is false. It’s not just that God speaks against a fling, it’s also that God condemns that which denies his plans and his authority.

We cannot separate the covenant of marriage from the command to be fruitful and multiply.

And we cannot deny that the fall of man has led to the distortion of sex and sexuality. Homosexuality isn’t the only sexual sin that distorts God’s design and plan, but it is a sin that our present culture and even some in the church are seeking to affirm and claim as good.

Christians find their identity in Christ, not our sin.

Romans 6:8–14 (ESV)

8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Christians are people who turned from idols to serve the living and true God

1 Thessalonians 1:9–10 (ESV)

9 For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

This applies to those who are struggling with the sin of homosexuality and it applies to those who lie, gossip, and slander.

If you identify as gay, then to be saved you must turn to Christ to find the freedom of forgiveness and the power to live for Christ.

I am not claiming that this is easy, but I am claiming that it is worth it.

Christians continually repent from their sins as seek to live in the grace and freedom of God.

If you identify as a Christian, then you must continue to put to death what is earthly in you.

Colossians 3:5–11 (ESV) says, “5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”

Repentance is an ongoing practice that Christians do with joy because of the cross of Christ.

"Repentance is killing that which is killing me without killing myself.” - Tim Keller

So, what about the fact that Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone?”

John 8:1–11 (ESV) says, “1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

Anyone who says they know what Jesus wrote in the sand is speculating… and instead of pretending to know what he wrote, I would rather point out what He actually said.

Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you…” Does this mean that he accepted her adultery and condoned it? No, Jesus made it clear in his ministry that he came to save… and because the world already stood condemned. John 3:17 (ESV) says, “17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Jesus came to save, but from what? Sin… and how? The cross… for those who believe. John 3:16 (ESV), 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Do you believe? If so, Jesus has a word here in John 8 for those who believe… he says,

Jesus says to stop sinning and serve Him.

It’s true that Jesus called those without sin to cast a stone… so we are not casting stones… that is to bring the consequence of sin to bear… and there is a day when the one without sin will cast the eternal stone and judge all who have denied him and death will follow him.

How do we respond? The way that Jesus responds to us.

(So, how do we relate to someone who is gay?)

The same way that Jesus has related to us… Jesus has been gentle and lowly to us… so let us be a people who are kind, hospitable, and loving to everyone who is in a besetting sin.

Do we condone sin, no. Would this whole conversation be less hypocritical in the eyes of the world if we encouraged one another to stop lying, gossiping, slandering, cheating, stealing, coveting, etc? Absolutely.

If idolatry is the root, then….

Consider your own life

If idolatry is the root, then each one of us can consider our lives. Do you have a besetting sin? One that you constantly struggle with… if so turn to Christ and serve Him and not your self and your sin.

Consider what motivates your toleration and affirmation of sin in others

If idolatry is the root, then we must also consider why we tolerate and affirm sin in our own lives and in the church… the solution is to turn to Christ and encourage one another to turn from our sin and toward Christ.

Go and sin no more

This is a matter of idolatry as identity or Christ as identity…

But, for all of us Jesus’ words “go and sin no more” should ring loudly in our minds and hearts and bear fruit in the form of repentance and faithfulness in our lives.