The Chapel - Rediscovering God Changes Everything.

This is the easiest and hardest question that we ever get! It is easy because how The Chapel feels about homosexuals is informed by how God feels about homosexuals. He loves all people so we love all people. Forgetting for a second that God loves perfectly and any person loves imperfectly, our response to people is informed by and growing in a devoted, selfless, committed love. And, on the whole, we need to get a ton better at it. As we do, we believe that God will use the loving hearts of his people to create accepting, safe, comfortable environments for all people to pursue God. God loves homosexuals.  Jesus died for homosexuals. The Holy Spirit encourages and inspires homosexuals. His Church is trying to do the same.

The hard part comes in a response to the “issue” of homosexuality.  We believe that the Bible teaches that there are a huge number of sins. Sexual immorality is one of these general categories and it includes the specifics like adultery, masturbation, incest, bestiality, orgy, pre-marital sex, lust, pornography… Well, the list is long. And it does include homosexuality. So, in one sense, we need to be the people who own our sin and seek to find ways to turn away from it and live the dream that God has in mind for us. We do that in a contrite prayer of genuine repentance before the cross of Jesus.

But my gay friends turn our conversation here in an important way. They share with me some version of the following thought: “If God made me this way, how can it be wrong?” What an incredibly powerful wrestle this can become! The distress in their voice while asking tells me that they want to know who they really are. And that becomes the really hard part of this discussion.

On one hand, no person, gay or straight, needs to convince me that they carry the seemingly innate spirit to rebel from God. No one needs to point out that they fall short and occasionally violate the heart of God. On the other hand, who you are is so amazingly much more than your sexual preference. We all suffer from “identity mix-up”. Between nationality, upbringing, career, education, religious affiliation, sports teams, shopping preferences, and family identity, we can quickly assume that we just are certain things. And our actions, allegiances, habits, and community form around them.

I have a friend who is a lawyer first, then a father. I know a guy who thinks he is, at his core, an addict, then a salesman, then a Christian. Some people at our church think it is more important to be gifted spiritually than to serve generously. Others think that a life devoted to Christ should not affect the family budget. Even more work tirelessly to portray an image of a super-Christian while pride is polluting the inside. And sin is at the heart of all of these mix-ups. So it is with homosexuality. Its grand deceit is that it tempts people into thinking this is just who I am. It isn’t. Who you are is determined on a way different level.

First you are a valuable, unique, intentionally designed creation of God. You are pure and perfect in your created form, in God’s very own image. Further, you were sent to this world on an incredibly important mission. This mission is the fuel for life and it brings significance and meaning into all you do. It starts as a personal pursuit of God and, once connected, it sends us into our lives to represent his love, grace, forgiveness, and Truth into our world.

But, we are also broken. We let pride guide us and sin tempt us. And that glorious intent is marred. So part of our identity is acknowledging that we cannot fix our condition alone. We need something, someone to restore us. 

I don’t pretend to think that Jesus will instantaneously shift one’s sexual inclinations from one to another. And I pray for my gay friends to understand how to unhook from a deception about their true identity. But I do know something about our community. At its very core we need to be a people who pursue God – who believe him when he says he has “good” in mind for us and long to see him transform our lives. In Jesus terms, I am a murderous, adulterous, thief because I have let anger, lust, and greed live in his place in my heart. No one is worse off than any other. So allow The Chapel to be a place where no sin defines a person, where our identity is found in his eyes and not in the “condemnation of the clean”, where we live for a hope that extends long beyond our impulses and lifestyles.