Sermon Tone Analysis

MBC - 8~/15~/2004 - Pastor Doug Thompson

*/“The Bible and Homosexuality - Pt.1”/*

(What about same-sex marriage?)

Romans 1:26,27

 

In our study of Romans, a letter that was written almost 2,000 years ago, we come this morning to this passage.

As we read it, notice how profoundly relevant it is to us on August 15, 2004--

 

Ø      ROM 1:25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.

Amen.

Ø      ROM 1:26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,

Ø      ROM 1:27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

Ø      ROM 1:28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper. .

.

*Intro:* The relevance of this issue.

Ø      Friday’s PD - Headline: *High Court voids SF gay weddings.* . .

/Court’s decision brings tears, cheers./

“The state Supreme court on Thursday voided nearly 4,000 same-sex marriages sanctioned in San Francisco this year and ruled unanimously that Mayor Gavin Newsom overstepped his authority by issuing licenses to gay and lesbian couples.”

Ø      Then right next to this is a picture of Gov. Jim McGreevy of New Jersey who announced on the same day in a press conference that he was resigning as governor because he, a married man with two children, had been having an affair--with another man.

Ø      Inside on p.8, a story about the Vatican shutting down one of its seminaries in Austria for widespread homosexual conduct and rampant pornography, including child pornography.

People look to the church to see what it says about these issues.

A few months ago, when Mayor Newsom began marrying homosexuals on the steps of the courthouse in SF, Larry King immediately pre-empted his scheduled program to put together a panel (including John MacArthur and Max Lucado) to talk about the relationship between religion and gay-marriage because people are curious: “What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

What does God think of gay marriage?”

And if people know that you are a Christian, people are going to want to know what /you /think, and they are going to ask you.

Are you ready?

When that happens, you will have the incredible opportunity to represent the Lord Jesus Christ and the Word of God to someone--or to misrepresent God and His Word.

I want us to be prepared to /speak/ clearly and truthfully on this issue because we /think/ clearly and truthfully.

And the only way we can think truthfully about homosexuality and gay marriage is by knowing what God’s Word says.

We are in the midst of a moral and spiritual hurricane that makes Charley look like a summer breeze!

And the only apologetic against homosexuality that can stand up in this storm, is the Word of God, /not /your feelings or my feelings about gays or gay-marriage, /not/ statistics and studies and anecdotes, /not/ pragmatic arguments for why monogamous heterosexuality works better than the alternatives.

You will get blown over if that’s all you have in your arsenal.

We must be armed with the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.

And we’re just going to get started this morning.

There is much to say and this is a sensitive issue.

Almost everyone of us here knows a friend, or a family member or someone we work with who is a homosexual.

This isn’t some abstract issue for us.

We read this passage in Romans and names and faces come into our minds.

We want to be able to do what Paul tells us in Eph.4:15: “speaking the truth in love.”

We want our conviction to be balanced by our compassion.

So this morning I want to talk about the need for us to think biblically on this, and then I want to answer the question, “What does the Bible say about same-sex marriage?”

(Pray?)

 

*I.

The battle for our truth.*

* *

Pontius Pilate was way ahead of his time.

2,000 years ago, he asked the cynical question that defines our age: “What is truth?”

“Is there any such thing?

If there is, how can you know what it is?

Doesn’t everyone have their own truth?”

Most people didn’t ask those kinds of questions 50 years ago.

But there has been a radical shift in the concept of truth in our culture.

It’s the shift from modernism to post-modernism, for those of you who are familiar with those terms: people used to believe in such a thing as objective truth.

Now they disagreed and argued about /what/ was true but at least they believed there was something to argue about.

That’s changed.

Today, many people don’t believe that absolute, objective truth even exists.

Listen to this statement by a college professor:

 

Ø      “Every individual’s beliefs, values, lifestyle, and perception of truth claims are equal.

there is no hierarchy of truth.

Your beliefs and my beliefs are equal, and all truth is relative.”

But did you know that according to a recent study, 57% of kids brought up in Christian homes would say they believe the same thing!

We have been infected, folks.

The average person on the street in Middletown probably can’t spell “postmodernism,” but he or she probably has bought into it because they probably believe that /truth is relative, ethics are situational, and authority is always to be questioned./

Ø      Let me illustrate it this way: You take someone who is, oh, say, 50 years old.

When that person was a child, the majority of people believed that it was living together out of wedlock was immoral, and homosexuals were deviant, immoral perverts.

Maybe they couldn’t explain why, but they believed there was a right and a wrong.

But today, 40 years later, ask this person about these two situations, and what answer are you likely to get? “Oh no, these things aren’t immoral or sinful, it just depends upon the people and the situation!”

And this battle for truth is at the heart of the debate over same-sex marriage.

Let me explain:

 

It used to be that when a judge went to the Constitution, he was trying to find the meaning that the authors intended.

He wasn’t trying to create meaning, he naturally assumed that the authors knew what they wanted to say, and they tried to express it as clearly as they could.

Ø      But we have fallen so far from this idea of truth that today, people feel free to see their own meaning in the Constitution and in the law, their own interpretation--and that’s just as valid as anyone else’s feelings about it.

So if you happen to be the Mayor of SF, you can interpret the Article I, Section 7, subdivision (a) of the California Constitution to sanction gay marriage, and you can just ignore Proposition 22 of 4 years ago that said that marriage between one man and one woman--and you can still smile at the cameras and say that you are upholding the laws--and call yourself a practicing Christian to boot!

Here is the point: The Constitution is being amended today, whether we like it or not!

Because the idea of absolute truth has been abandoned, they are free to create a definition of marriage that has never existed.

So the question is not /whether/ the Constitution will be amended concerning same-sex marriage, the question is will it be amended by a constitutional convention, or through the backdoor by creating a meaning that the authors would never have imagined in their worst nightmare?

* *

*II.

The key to discerning truth.*

So what are Christians to do in a world where the most basic words like “truth, right, wrong--marriage” lose their meanings?

Pilate asked “What is truth?” and Jesus gave the answer in Jn.17:17: “Thy Word is truth!”

We must know the truth, believe it, love it, and declare it!

And when it comes to this cutting edge issue of homosexuality and gay marriage, we can’t fight relativism with more relativism, we must meet it with the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.

 

“Now, you’re not saying that when someone asks us about homosexuality or same-sex marriage, all we should say is, “Well, the Bible says!” That’s exactly what I’m saying!

And I’m saying, don’t say anything else!

The minute you start giving the results of studies you have read, or quoting biologists, or whatever, you are playing the game according to their rules--you have caved in.

And eventually you will lose the argument when they come up with another set of statistics!

But the Word of God will stand.

“But they don’t believe the Bible.”

Since when does that stop us from using it?

Of course they don’t believe it if they are unbelievers, but what is the only thing in the world that will make believers out of unbelievers?

“The imperishable seed of the Word of God.”

I want to show you how the Word of the God is the key to discerning truth in this issue.

Look with me at:

 

Ø      ROM 1:26  For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,

Ø      ROM 1:27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

Ø      ROM 1:28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,

 

Homosexuality is a result of people who don’t see fit to acknowledge God any longer.

Now pay close attention to what I say here: there is one Gk.

word behind “see fit,” and it is the word--doximazo_--meaning “to test for the purpose of giving approval.”

It’s the word used in 2 Cor.13:5: “/Examine/ yourselves to see if your faith is for real.”

Peter used the word of trials /testing/ our faith to see if it’s genuine.

Paul used it of /testing/ Deacons to see if they should be approved for that office.

But how is it used here?

It says that these people put God to the test to see if He met their specifications for a God they would like, and He didn’t, /so they have disapproved of God!/

He isn’t worthy of “having in their knowledge.”