The Christian Response to Gay Marriage

The big news today is the Supreme Court’s ruling that all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation, may legally marry in every state across the nation. The issue of gay marriage has been a divisive issue in our nation. It’s more or less been Christians against everyone else. I’ve heard a lot of comments and opinions on both sides of the issue, and now that the matter has been settled in the legal system, here are some things that Christians need to remember and understand about our response to something like gay marriage.

The U.S.A. is not a Christian nation.

I hate to tell some of you, but the United States is not a Christian nation. I’ve heard countless times that this is a Christian nation and it’s one nation under God and we need to put God back in schools and everything else. Let’s get some facts straight. The United States is not nor has it ever been a Christian country. Christianity just happened to be the majority religion for a large chunk of the nation’s history.

The U.S. is a nation founded on religious freedom. There is no official religion in the United States. The whole reason people came over to this region of the world was to escape some form of religious persecution. Granted, most of that was based on whether you were a Catholic or Protestant and what the ruling king at the time followed, but the whole point of the First Amendment is to ensure that everyone can freely practice there religion, not set up a master religion to judge over all the others. Heck, even the founding fathers weren’t all Christians. Some were deists, rationalists, and so on.

We want to fight about legal issues and say that the Ten Commandments should be in front of court houses because that’s what our country’s laws were based on. News flash. Most other faiths speak out against murder, theft, lying, and the like. Those aren’t exclusively Christian. In fact, they’re Jewish. And the ones that are exclusive—like love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind—aren’t a part of our law.

So when we’re arguing about laws in our country, let’s remember that it’s a nation for all people, not one religion.

The Church is still the Church.

Jesus is still Jesus. Christians are still Christians. Non-Christians are still non-Christians. And Wile E. Coyote will still never catch the Road Runner. Nothing has changed about the church, folks. In fact, this may actually be a good direction for the church. Being in a “Christian” nation has made the church complacent anyway. Just because the laws aren’t “on our side” (which is a ridiculous thought to begin with), it doesn’t mean that the purpose of the church has changed at all.

Look, the Hebrews spent hundreds of years as captives to Egypt. The nation of Israel lived in captivity to the Babylonians and the Assyrians. The first Christians lived under Roman rule. None of these people lived under a government that was run by their faith, and guess what? Their beliefs still lived on. In fact, the church under Roman rule began, exploded, and thrived. And it still happens today. Some of the best stories of how the Gospel has changed lives has come from countries who actually have anti-Christian laws. Places like China and Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Maybe this trend in government is the wake-up call we need as Christians to truly understand that our nation is not comprised only of Christ followers, especially here in the South. People need to hear the Gospel.

Love triumphs over hate.

“Love Wins” is trending as I type this. It’s true, and we need to remember that. Jesus told us that we will be known by our love. I see a lot of hate out there. I also see a lot of love. We should see more love. We need to stop and ask ourselves if the actions were are taking are the response of a loving God.

I know this brings up the issue of homosexuality as sin. A couple of thoughts:

First of all, people who are not followers of Christ don’t care about sin. What I mean by this is that telling someone that they’re going to hell because of their sin doesn’t really affect someone who doesn’t believe in hell. Take Jesus’s example. Jesus never told people to fix their lives before they could come to him. No, he said that the sick are the ones who need a doctor. He established relationships with these people first, then told them to go and sin no more.

Secondly, for those who would bring up the issue of people who are homosexual and profess to be Christians. That’s a separate matter that requires a person to be convicted about their own personal sins. I would, however, pose some questions in response. Can a true follower of Christ still struggle and knowingly commit sins like anger, envy, and pride, his entire life and still be forgiven of that sin? And are these sins any lesser sins than others? Is a person who spends her entire life in sin but professes faith in Christ just before she dies any less forgiven than someone who did his entire life? I recall a parable from Jesus about some workers and their wages.

As I’m preparing for a sermon I’m preaching this Sunday, I’ve been reading through Acts and Paul’s life. Paul was guilty of so many sins, terrible ones at that. Yet, he was forgiven for all of them. He also spent much of his ministry preaching on how salvation is based on faith. A lot of arguing I hear seems more like works-based salvation talk.

Jesus’s sacrifice covers over a multitude of sins, and I don’t recall seeing a list anywhere in the Bible that explains which sins will be forgiven and which ones won’t. There’s only one place where Jesus said a sin wouldn’t be forgiven, Matthew 12:31,32: “Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” Being so far gone that you can’t tell the difference between good and evil and attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan. That’s a sin that can’t be forgiven. Everything else is covered by the blood of Jesus.

Here’s my response: Instead of sitting around pouting and complaining that the government is against Christianity, forget about the government. It’s not their job anyway. It’s not one nation under God. It’s one nation that contains a group of disciples under God.

It’s our job to go out and take the good news of Jesus Christ to those who need to hear it. It’s our job to give hope to those who don’t have it. It’s our job to introduce people to a relationship with God.

In life, you’re either moving toward God or away from him. Let’s help everyone we encounter move toward God.

How to Get Past Being Hurt by the Church

If you’ve been involved in a church for any significant amount of time, then chances are this has happened to you. Regardless of the size of the church and the people in it, at some point you have probably been hurt by someone in the church. It could be something a church leader said. It could be a congregant passing judgment on you. Maybe you were even asked to leave a church for some reason or another and it put a bitter taste in your mouth.

Regardless of what it is, these things happen often. People experience hurts feeling or more at the hands of Christians. Christians and non-Christians alike have experienced this. This has led to criticisms of the church such as “Christians are hypocrites,” “Christians are nothing but self-righteous judgmental people,” and so on. Many people have left the church altogether because of this. Some just can’t seem to find a local church that’s not that way. Others even become adamant antagonists toward the church.

There is a different way, however.

I’ve been in that boat. I’ve been hurt by church people in the past. I’ve had strong church leaders that I looked up to do things that I knew were not in the will of God. It really hurt, and I held onto it for a long time. I even questioned whether or not it was worth it to be involved in church anymore. Let me tell you, it sucks to be there. And if you’ve been there, you know what I mean. Especially if you’re a follower of Christ who is trying to live a godly life, and you know that being in church is a part of that.

But like I said, there’s another way to deal with it, one that doesn’t involve turning your back on the church. It is possible to get over the hurt that someone in a church has caused you and still be a faithful member of a church congregation. Here are a few thoughts to keep in mind if or when you are hurt by a church and feel like giving up:

1. The church is run by people.

Duh, right? It’s a simple statement, but it carries so much significance behind it. The church is run by human beings, and we all know what human beings are. Flawed. Every person sins, whether they are the preacher of a church of thousands or serial killer.

The problem that we have, and it comes from multiple ends, is church leaders and Christians in the church are, in a way, put up onto a pedestal. Because some guy is a leader of a church that thousands of people attend, there are higher expectations put onto him. And that is rightly done. James even tells us in his letter that those who teach are judged with greater strictness. This is just the natural consequence of being a leader: you are judged with a higher standard.

The problem with this is that we’ve taken this to an extreme. Leaders are not just held to higher standards now. They’re held to perfection. Christians expect the Christian life to be a perfect life. And when they’re shown to not be perfect, they are crucified for it. A preacher has an affair or steals money from the church or whatever, and what happens? He loses his leadership position, yes, but what about after that? They go into hiding and aren’t seen in a church. The godly people that were his friends suddenly aren’t so close anymore. Where is the forgiveness and rehabilitation Jesus taught? Where is the godly love from his Christian brothers and sisters?

The other side of the problem, and potentially more hurtful, is the judgment that non-Christians often experience. My mind immediately goes to a conversation I had with a student of mine this past year. He asked my thoughts as a Christian on homosexuality. As the conversation went on, I found out that some Christian students at the school had been calling him some very derogatory names because he’s homosexual. This, paired with churches like Westboro Baptist Church, propagates a theology that says God hates sinners.

This is a problem.

Nothing could be further from the truth. God loves sinners. It’s the whole reason Jesus died on the cross. Additionally, it’s not our job as Christians to be judge and jury. Paul even mentions this in 1 Corinthians 5:12,13: “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from among you.’”

Did you catch who Christians are supposed to judge? Other Christians. But not from an arrogant pedestal.

Our jobs as Christians in the church is twofold: to love those outside the church, and to build up those inside. I think a lot of times we get that wrong. And it does a lot of damage to others in the name of Jesus. And if it’s happened to you, it doesn’t have to be the end.

2. Remember, not every congregation is the same.

This can be a tough one. It’s hard not to generalize an entire religion based on a smaller entity of it. We’ve done it with the Islamic faith. People hear Muslim and automatically think terrorist when, in fact, many Muslims are just as peaceful people as anyone else. If I’m not mistaken, I recall a few events in history when Christians went on killing sprees in the name of Jesus (i.e. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials). Does this mean all Christians want to burn people at the stake? Not at all.

Just because one church congregation has done damage to your life, it doesn’t mean another one will. Think of it this way:

If I was hurt by a church congregation and then used that to say that I would never attend another church, it would be the same as if I dated someone when I was 16 who cheated on me and I said I would never date anyone ever again. I know some people who have said that, but I haven’t seen it last. We know that people are different, and so we’re willing to take a chance with another person because we realize the next person will not be the same as the previous one. This next one could work out.

The church is the same way. One congregation may have done something to you, but another congregation may have just what you need. To those who are not Christians, I say not all churches are judgmental and condemning. Many of them are very much accepting and loving and work to help show Christ’s love. To those who are Christians, I say there are places to find forgiveness, even for the greatest of sins.

3. Faith should be based on Christ, not Christians

This may sound strange, but it’s probably more common than you realize. I know from experience. I had someone who was a tremendous influence on me as a teenager and had a significant impact on my life. Years later, events transpired and I subsequently lost a lot of respect for that person. What I didn’t realize was how much it shook my faith. I struggled for a long time with it. And I mean a long time.

The problem, I realized, was that I had built much of my faith base on that person rather than on the life and death of Jesus. It’s so easy to do, though. Especially with “celebrity” preachers. I think about Rob Bell and Mark Driscoll. Both preachers had huge followings, and still do, but then something happened that the church community didn’t agree with. The aftermath for each was that a lot of people essentially denounced them, people who were diehard followers of these guys. They just went the complete opposite direction.

The issue there is that people became followers of the preacher, not what he was preaching. When this happens, this preacher becomes an idol. You can love the sermons and books and wisdom that a preacher puts out there. Just make sure your still following Jesus, not that person. And just because they do or say something you don’t agree with, it doesn’t mean that other things they have said are false.

All said, the church is the church. Everything is not going to be perfect. It’s never going to be. But it’s all we have. Jesus left us the church when he went back to heaven for a reason, and we shouldn’t completely disregard that. It’s probably the closest thing on earth we have to heaven.

I mean, my wife and I have hurt each other’s feelings in the past. It probably won’t be limited to the past either. My closest friends and I have as well. But we didn’t give up because the end result was the most important thing, the relationships we had with each other. And the end result of the church is a relationship with God.

Besides, I seem to recall Jesus spoke about forgiveness. He spoke a lot about forgiveness. We expect to be forgiven when we mess up. We also need to be forgiving when churches mess up, too.

The God of Second Chances

He was supposed to go east. He was supposed to go to the largest city of the greatest empire and tell them that they were living the wrong way. He was supposed to be God’s mouthpiece to a depraved city.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he hopped on a ship and sailed the opposite way. He fled from his calling, but that was only the beginning of his story. A huge storm appeared and threatened to sink the ship, and it was his fault. So the crew threw him overboard, and then a giant fish swallowed him, took him back east, and threw him up onto the land.

The story of Jonah is familiar to a lot of Christians. We all know about the big fish that swallowed Jonah and swam him across the sea. We’ve all probably tried to image what it would actually be like to sit in the dark stomach of a fish for three days, thinking about how gross that would be. We know that Jonah did eventually go to Nineveh and preach the the Assyrians there, and they did repent and turn to God.

What we don’t often pay attention to is Jonah himself. Jonah was a prophet, an Old Testament man of God. His job was to do the will of God, and he didn’t. God comes to Jonah in chapter 1 and says, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” Instead of doing what he’s supposed to, he runs away.

As Christians, how many times have we done the same? We profess to be followers of Christ, but when he asks us to share the Gospel with someone else, we tuck our tails and run the opposite way. We’re all guilty of this in one way or another, and there are several reasons for why we do this. We’re afraid of being rejected, or maybe being ridiculed. We don’t think they will listen. We don’t know what to say. We don’t know all the answers. There are plenty of reasons we come up with to not do this.

We may be tempted to think Jonah was afraid the king would kill him or something, but if we look at chapter 4, we see the truth behind Jonah’s rebellion. When he finally goes to Nineveh, we see that he was angry that Nineveh repented. He even gets angry with God: “Is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.”

The real reason that Jonah is mad is because he doesn’t think that the people of Nineveh deserve to hear about God. He has a bit of a perception problem. Think about it. The Assyrians have come in, taken over Israel, and carted most of them off into captivity. Certainly there are some bitter feelings toward the Assyrians on Jonah’s part.

But how many us would be any different from Jonah?

There’s a second part to the Jonah story, though. The fish vomits him up onto land, and God says, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”

Notice anything?

Jonah is in the exact same place he was in chapter 1. Notice that God doesn’t say anything to Jonah about running away. He doesn’t reprimand Jonah for disobeying. He simply restates his request to Jonah.

There’s a worship band that I love, Rend Collective. They have a song on one of their albums called “Second Chance”, and the last line of the chorus is, “a second chance is heaven’s heart.”

God is a God of second chances. He doesn’t hold our failures over us. He doesn’t fling down a lightning bolt to smite us. Even in the Old Testament, where God is supposedly a God of vengeance and wrath, we see this kind of love. Jonah got his second chance. Nineveh got their second chance. We all get our second chance.

We may fail. We may stumble. We may rebel. But God is always there to help us back up. Every new day is a second chance for us.

Next time you think someone deserves a punishment or that “evil” people deserve to die, just remember that we all deserve that. If God is willing to give us a second chance, shouldn’t we do likewise to others?

Careless Words

Recently, a woman from East Point, GA was arrested for something she posted online. On Facebook, she posted a status threatening cops nationwide. Race issues aside, this scenario reveals a pretty common issue that social media has brought to our culture—the abuse and misunderstanding of the first amendment.

As a high school teacher, I’m very familiar with this attitude. I hear students all the time saying degrading things to others and justifying it with, “I’ve got the freedom of speech.” They don’t understand why they get in trouble for their rude comments. What they, and apparently many others, don’t understand is that freedom of speech is limited when it interferes with someone else’s personal freedoms. You can’t just go around making threats and not expect repercussions.

As Christians, however, we are held to an even higher standard of living. Jesus says in Matthew 12:36,37, “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Wow.

We will give account for every careless word we speak?

Every careless word.

That seems a bit harsh, doesn’t it?

That’s talking about a lot more than threatening someone else. But what does Jesus mean by careless words?

Like many other issues that Jesus teaches about, it all has to do with the heart. A few chapters later in Matthew 15, Jesus says, “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.” In chapter 5, he says, “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

The problem we tend to have with this issue of careless words is that we focus on the words, not the heart. We put taboos on certain words in our culture but fail to acknowledge the intentions behind the words. Most of our taboo words originally had normal meanings and connotations. At some point, though, they became taboo because they were connected to derogatory meanings.

The same is true of Jesus’s statement. The original Aramaic phrase raca, translated as “You fool!” in our translations, is a derogatory phrase. What Jesus reveals here is that it’s the intention behind those words that is sinful. It’s the same as when he says that a man who looks at a woman has committed adultery. Once you’ve committed it in your heart, you may as well have followed through with it because it’s all sinful.

We have to be careful about the things we say to other people. It’s not just about four-letter words that we utter; it’s a deeper issue, an issue of the heart. Saying derogatory things to others is not just an anger issue, it’s a pride issue. When we degrade people, we are essentially saying that we are better than them. If we’re talking like this, then we aren’t uttering the godly things we should be. We are conceited rather than loving.

As James poses, “Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?” You either have one or the other, but you can’t have both. You’re either offering uplifting words or derogatory words.You’re either known for being an encouraging person or a jerk. And as we’ve seen from Jesus, derogatory words reveal a deeper sin issue.

I have to admit that I’m often guilty of careless words. Not necessarily the four-letter words either. Others words, like “stupid” and “idiot” and the like. I have said things to others in moments of anger that still hurt years later. I’ve carelessly thrown around degrading phrases, often times under the guise of a jest.

Yet, we constantly justify this kind of talk by making the excuses that they aren’t cuss words or that we were only joking. But we’re called to a higher level of living. One that goes beyond the mere following of rules, one that follows the rules of grace, one which Paul clarifies in Ephesians 4 when he tells us, “Let no corrupting talk come our of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

We should be building up others, not tearing them down, believers and non-believers alike. And that’s not always easy to do. People are fallible. They make mistakes. They hurt us. They wrong us. Intentionally and unintentionally. And we often hang onto those feelings and wait for the perfect moment to strike back. But just a couple of verses later, Paul encourages us, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

It’s not enough to simply not say the few words our culture considers taboo. We have to rid ourselves of the sinful intentions inside our hearts. Otherwise, they begin to take root and poison our lives. We have to dig those roots out and get rid of them.

Maybe you’re in that same boat. Maybe you say things that you end up regretting later because of the effect it has on others. If that’s the case, don’t try to just clean up your tongue. Dig deeper down and find whatever bitterness or anger or hurt that is the real cause of it. Get rid of that and the tongue will then tame itself.

I Give Up: What It Means to Be a Living Sacrifice

In my early 20s, I underwent an identity crisis, like many young 20-somethings tend to do. I was just out of college, alone, and without a clue about what I was doing with my life. I entered into a career I had spent four years studying yet felt completely out of my depth. I felt completely lost, and that lost feeling seeped into my faith.

It’s difficult to describe what was going through my head, but I felt like everything that I thought was faith was nothing more than a cheap imitation. Worship was just a thing I did on Sunday morning because I was supposed to. I felt empty, like I had been living a lie up to that point, just going through the motions. In reality, that's pretty much what I was doing. Looking back, I see that it was really a maturation of my faith.

Essentially, what I realized was that I was right. My faith was a cheap imitation. I had effectively been imitating the faith of others that I knew. Much like a young boy imitating the actions of his father, I watched the people I considered spiritually mature and simply imitated what they were doing. While there’s is nothing inherently wrong with this initially, at some point faith has to grow. It has to become your own. The author of Hebrews explains it perfectly:

“for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:13,14 ESV).”

Milk is good for infants, but at some point, a child has to stop living off of milk and move on to solid food. The child needs something more that will provide the sustenance it needs to live. We would laugh at an adult who only drank milk. We would cook him a steak and tell him that he needed some real food.

In the same way, we cannot merely imitate the faith of others. It’s only a starting point. New believers need mature folks to show them how faith works. But just like learning anything else, there comes a time when we have to let go of the people we cling so tightly to and make a go for it on our own. Daddy has to let go of the bicycle sometime.

And that’s the point I reached one night while lying in bed. I had come to a breaking point and was ready to give up. I was tired of what I considered the "politics" of Christianity. And I was done with it.

“I can’t do this anymore. I give up. If this is what it means to be a Christian, then I’m out.” I vividly remember having this argument with God at 2 o’clock in the morning, and I was literally screaming at the darkness.

It turns out that this became one of the rare times when I felt like I heard God audibly talking to me. Maybe audibly isn’t the best way to describe it. It was more like a crystal clear thought in my head, but it wasn’t my voice. And it was a simple answer.

“You’re right. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about you and me.”

It wasn’t about what I was doing. It wasn’t about who I was imitating. It wasn’t about whether or not I looked like a Christian. It wasn’t about ministry plans, preaching calendars, or the next youth event.

It’s all about the vertical relationship between God and me. Everything else follows naturally.

Once that thought struck and sunk in, everything changed for the better. I stopped trying so hard, and I encountered a completely new way of life: worship.

Ask anyone today what worship is, and most people will respond something connected to singing songs at the beginning of a church service. This is a gross misunderstanding of the idea of worship.

So what is worship? In the first verse of Romans 12, Paul tells us to “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Living sacrifices.

That’s worship. But what does that even mean? Isn’t a sacrifice something you kill? And I thought we weren’t under the Old Testament law anymore.

We have to keep reading through Romans 12 to find the answer. “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another (Romans 12:4,5 ESV).”

To be a living sacrifice means that we give up who we are for the body of Christ. It means that we have to die to ourselves, to our desires, to our selfishness, to our personal agendas. Instead, we take who we are and give it up for God, in order that he may use us for his purposes.

One of my favorites truths of life and God and faith that I’ve come across is this idea of worshipping as a living sacrifice. When I stumbled across this truth, I realized that God made me who I am for a reason. Then I realized that God wouldn’t create people who couldn’t worship him in the way they were created. He made me to love music and art and nature, and so those are the ways that I end up worshipping him best.

Paul expounds on that thought about one body and many members in 1 Corinthians. The foot can’t say it doesn’t belong to the body because it’s not a hand. The ear can’t say, “I’m worthless because I’m not an eye." Likewise, the eye can’t say to the ear, “You’re worthless and unnecessary because you aren't an eye.” Everyone has their own role to play and their own personality to go along with it.

That’s the beauty of God’s creation. Everyone can worship him in any number ways. Scientific people can worship him through science and logic. Creative people can worship him through creating. Talkative people can worship him through talking. Logical people worship him through the logic of his creation while experiential people worship him through the simple experience of his creation.

That’s why we can’t completely worship God through imitation. When we try to do that, we worship in a way that isn’t made for us. A Lee-shaped piece can only fit in a Lee-shaped hole. Anything else is uncomfortable and doesn’t fit right.

I have a tattoo that I got shortly after my night in utter darkness. I got it to remind me of that night. It's just one simple Hebrew word that means "surrender", or "give up" in my terminology. It's a constant reminder for me to give up myself in all that I do for the glory of God, which is my act of worship.

So what is worship? Much of it is dependent upon the individual, but for each one of us, worship is offering the person we are for God. Being who we are for the glory of God, that’s worship. Whether it’s through song or story or athletics or landscaping or mechanics or computer science. Worship God as your own individual living sacrifice.