romans 1 verses 24 through 27 therefore god gave them over in the lusts of their heart to impurity that their bodies might be dishonored among them 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 for this reason god gave them over to degrading passions for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural 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 receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their air father i pray for your help now as we together apply our minds to this portion of your holy word that we would humble ourselves before it and that we would bow down and worship the god revealed in it and that we would take upon ourselves the light burden and the easy yoke of following jesus here i pray father for a gift of prophetic insight for myself so that i speak words that would be appointed for the people that are in this room and i ask father that you would protect me and us from error and that you would fill us with love and that you would fill us with truth and that you would fill us with courage and boldness and righteousness and that you would work a reordering of our sexual lives wherever that's needed to the glory of your son thank you so much for your promise to never leave us or forsake us but to help us i pray in his name jesus amen now i confess that my main aim here in these two messages on this text is not to persuade you that homosexuality is wrong it is wrong to do homosexual acts but you can believe that and not be a christian so what does it profit if you know everything in the world that's wrong and lose your soul my aim is a lot higher than that my aim is to alter the way you see reality and to put god and his glory back at the center of reality the universe of your soul and the universe of society and the universe as a whole was made to have the glory of god as its center with all of the planets of our passions orbiting in their proper place held there by the gravity of the glory of god so my aim is to re-establish the centrality of the glory of god at the center of the solar system of your soul and of this society that's my aim the murder of matthew shepard in laramie wyoming was committed by men who exchanged the centrality of god's glory for the satellite of self-exaltation and self-exaltation of every kind and self-determination in your sexuality or in your hatred or in your lust for power or greed self-exaltation and self-determination can never hold the planets of the lusts of the heart in their proper orbit one thing can hold the planets of passion in their orbit and that is the glory of god i saw this this week as i read the news and listened in romans 1 28 to 29 you might want to look at that verse 28 just as they did not see fit to acknowledge god any longer in other words they they didn't approve to have god in their knowledge any longer god gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper being filled with all unrighteousness wickedness greed evil full of envy murder so there's the answer murder where does murder come from murder comes from a mind that no longer wants god butting in no longer has god as the sun in the solar system of its manifold passions holding them all in perfect orbits of beauty by his immense weight and gravity but have sold him out you see it in verse 23 they exchanged the glory of god for images you see it in verse 25 they exchanged the truth of god for a lie and then you see it again in verse 28 they don't want god in their knowledge anymore and from that root flows all the disorders of the universe all of them all the disorders come sexual social physical emotional they come from the exchange of the glory of god for other things the human race has exchanged the glory of god for other things and put satellites light satellites of their own making with no gravitational pull at the center of their lives and society and these little man-made values these little man-made satellites have no power to hold anything in orbit everything is flying out of orbit into destruction in our society and in our own souls where god almighty and his glory has been replaced that's the point of this text that's the point of last week's message that's the point of this message that's the point of every message i preach wherever the glory of god is displaced by human creations or human beings the passions of life the values of life disorder and eventually fly into oblivion and self-destruct we saw more last week something more stunning in this text namely that this disordering that comes from the removal of the sun of the glory of god from the center of the soul and the center of society when you remove the weight of the glory of god and put weightlessness in little man-made satellites at the center the disordering of the solar system of the soul is a judgment from god we saw that last week every time this text says that humans exchange the glory of god it follows it by saying god gives them over god gives them over to the disordering of the solar system of their sexual lives and every other branch of their lives verse 24 let's just see these three again verse 24 therefore god gave them over in the lusts of their heart to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored that's a judgment from god that our bodies would be dishonored in our fornications and adulteries and homosexual activities verse 26 for this reason god gave them over to degrading passions and then he articulates in verses 26 and 27 what those are then in verse 28 a third time god gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper and what he means by those things which are not proper are what we've seen sexually in the first several verses and then next week we're going to move into the next text and we'll see 21 not next week is missions week we skip over two weeks 21 more sins listed in verses 29 30 and 31 that flow from the exchange of the glory of god for other things and nobody escapes those 21 nobody heterosexual homosexual male female old young religious irreligious they're all there we're all there as it says later chapter 3 verse 9 both jews and greeks all are under sin as it is written there is none righteous no not one the root of all our problems underline the word all i mean it without exception the root of all human problems is the exchange of the glory of god for other treasures and god hands us over to the fruit of that exchange in ten thousand troubles in our lives the effect of those ten thousand troubles should be repentance and worship not rebellion and atheism and what a tragedy that all the ten thousand troubles into which god hands us because of our exchanging his glory for other things would cause many people to deepen their guilt rather than fleeing from it by rebelling against the god who brought it upon them we said last week in passing even physical diseases and natural calamities are owing to this judgment of god which is very relevant now this week as we talk more in detail about the origins of homosexuality i don't think anybody knows to what degree homosexuality is rooted in genetic or hormonal conditions what would it imply if it was proven as it may well be proven that there is a genetic predisposition to homosexual behavior the answer is is that it would prove very little morally if nature itself is disordered because of our sin and if nature itself from the genetic dna up must be redeemed and fixed in its brokenness to locate the origin of anything there proves nothing with regard to its moral standing among us i want you to turn to chapter 8 while i lay the biblical foundations for this because this is of massive importance not just with regard to homosexuality but with regard to all of life and its terrible troubles and pain and burdens and tragedies and calamities i want you to i said at the beginning my aim is to change the way you see reality well i tell you romans 8 20-23 is a massive world view changer i hope that god will grant you the grace to be open to these four verses and let the massive truth deliverance from god land in you on you take root in you and help you understand the origins of all disorderings in your life wherever you are disordered and everybody is disordered okay verse 20 of romans 8 the creation was subjected to futility not willingly but because of him who subjected it in hope now stop there and think with me creation all creation from the galaxies to the atom has been subjected to futility things don't work the way they were originally designed to work they break and they're futile kidneys break mental stability breaks sexual ordering breaks winds rains rivers volcanoes bacteria viruses swiss air jet electrical wiring brake linings heart attacks in 86 year old men driving through crosswalks while blind students are crossing the street wild white blood cells trisomy of the 21st chromosome 10 000 heartaches in a fallen world creation was subjected to futility question by whom let's read the answer at the end of verse 20 by him who subjected it in hope now that's not man and that's not satan that's god god subjected creation to futility because of the exchange of the glory of god for our own wisdom when adam and eve sinned and the point of this futility that we see in our own bodies in our own families in our own children in our own society in our own broken cars and plumbing and nature the point of all that futility is to dramatize the horror of the exchange if you look around on this world and you want to scream at the pain and the suffering scream at your sin scream at the exchange the universal not an exception in this world not one in this room the universal exchange of the glory of god as our treasure and our passion and our life tell me about it tell me about your home life tell me about your love of christ tell me about how you're rearing your children tell me about your love of money tell me about how you've got it all together and christ is supreme in your life at the center holding all the planets of your passions in perfect orbit tell me about it and i'll rip this page out of my bible we are sinners to the core all of us apart from sovereign grace our hearts are so rebellious against god we are corrupt down to our fingernails and this exchange of the glory of god for what we want without any holy desires has brought upon the world a futility that witnesses every day to the magnitude of the importance of the glory of god and the horror of exchanging that glory for anything which every person has done ever since adam and eve hope for what he did it in hope he subjected it in hope for what let's read verse 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption there's another label for the word futility slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of god for we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now now stop there the reason he brings in this image of the pains of childbirth is to illustrate the point of hope he compares this the upheaval of this planet i mean how easy it would be for all of us to document the the agonizing upheavals as though the creation is a woman pushing and pushing and pushing till all the blood vessels in her face break to bring forth something good he says that's that's the way the planet is that's the way paul looked at this upheaval of misery something awesome is coming [Music] and we christians our job is to declare in the world what's coming and how you can be a part of it and not be swept away in destruction and remarkably paul poses and answers the crying question that we raised briefly last week namely if all this misery if all this disorder if all this pain if all this upheaval if all this dysfunction of mind and family and body and nature is judgment because of an exchange that surely we who've been adopted and justified and forgiven and loved by almighty god surely we will be given escape from it surely i mean does he love us haven't our sins but forgiven are we adopted in the family of god look at verse 23 it says though he heard us crying and not only this that is not only does the whole creation groan but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the spirit that's born again god adopted justified people having the first fruits of the spirit even we ourselves he repeats it you see the point we ourselves even we ourselves as though no no paul you can't mean that i do mean that even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting for adoption as sons namely the redemption of our body that is one of the most important verses in the bible to understand life to understand pain to understand brokenness in families don't you every week say how long how long how long am i to deal with this pain in my children in my body in my mind in my background in my seemingly hopeless future on this earth how long oh lord don't you find every week something like that or if you have love in your heart at least when you watch television kosovo or bosnia or ethiopia or somalia you cry out along the lord till the baby is born what this text says is that we saints that is we who have laid hold on jesus for hope and salvation have all of the effects of judgment turned into means of grace that's the meaning of romans 8 28 just a few verses later everything is working together even the pain and the horrible things for the good and the holiness and the redemption of the children of god and the other thing this verse implies is that we are saved in stages we have forgiveness of sins now we will have freedom from all sinning later we have reconciliation with god now we will have complete intimacy with god later we have the first fruits and the down payment of the holy spirit now we will have the full harvest of his power and presence later we have some healing now from all our sexual disorders and other things some some and we will have full wholeness later we see his beauty through a glass darkly now we will see face to face later we have peace with god now we will have perfection later and therefore he talks about waiting now with patience he has doesn't need to wait with patience but if you don't have what you want you wait for it with patience now the point of all this this morning is that the physical social personal origins of homosexual disordering of our sexuality has virtually no bearing on whether it is good because in a world where everything is disordered dna is disordered hormones are disordered families are disordered nothing would be right or wrong because everything is rooted in disorder physically based things may be good or bad depending on this naturalness now mark this this is crucial what is natural is not what is rooted in fallen nature like cerebral palsy what is natural is what god ordained to be before the fall that's natural we must as a people and a society have a higher criterion of natural or good than what springs out of our fallen brokenness examples physically based aggressive tendencies may lead to violent behavior but we don't combine condone them physically based lethargic tendencies may make a person lazy and neglectful but we don't condone it frenetic tendencies rooted in all kinds of things in our hormones may make for disruption and workaholism but we don't condone it addictive tendencies may lead to alcoholism or bondage or gambling or deadly smoking we don't condone it a low frustration threshold may lead to outbursts of rage we don't condone it strong sexual desires may lead to lust pornography fornication adultery polygamy we don't condone it when sin permeates all of nature which it does rooting anything in nature proves nothing all of life is disordered we need a higher norm than fallen nature to decide what is good and what is natural now what i want to do with the rest of our time is lay out for you some practical words of counsel as best i can for personal dealing with homosexual desires then families and then society very briefly here they are these are just bullets things that we need to highlight and pass over all too quickly and i do it because i know i need to be practical and yet to be practical is to be selective and to be selective is to lay yourselves open to omission and distortion and so here goes the risk seven words briefly to those of you who have homosexual desires number one acknowledge the presence and the pain of a disordered sexuality with all the ambiguity of where it came from much like other disorders and disabilities and do not define your god-given personhood by your disordered sexuality i am almost unwilling to use the word homosexual as a noun because i don't want any human being to define his or herself him or herself as a homosexual i think that's wrong i think we should say i'm a person created in the image of almighty god with some disordered sexual desires that happen to be homosexual that's the way we should talk about ourselves not i am a homosexual person personhood is profoundly deeper than our sexual desires hetero or homosexual desires second observation put your faith in christ alone for the forgiveness of all your sins and for the gift of god's righteousness and for the fulfillment of all his promises to you the only sinner who can successfully battle his sins is a justified sinner which means we fight against our sexual sins heterosexual and homosexual from a relationship not for a relationship third begin to reorder your entire life around the centrality of god's glory as the highest treasure of your life homosexual sinning like all other sinning is an echo of the exchange of the glory of god for other things so restore the son [Music] of the glory of god at the center of your soul and you will find that the planets of passion begin to assume a wholesome orbit that's the function of the weight of the glory of god fourth resolve to live a chaste and if necessary celibate life by the power of god's spirit with the confidence that if god does not heal now he will heal later and all of your patience of purity will have been worth it oh may god make singles and married people at bethlehem passionate for purity above passion for sex of any kind fifth seek wholesome friendships with both sexes especially in groups and here i lay the responsibility mainly at the feet of the church we must become a place where this is more possible and probable than it is we don't do very good do very well at this so i call upon us as a people especially families listen families especially families let us go out of our way to have people over for meals and gatherings of all kinds in natural ways and let us do things in groups the more we do things in groups instead of pairs the more opportunities there will be for wholesome togetherness of all our people apart from sexuality and that's so needed got to do that more six i probably don't need to tell you this that there are ministries like outposts here in our cities that have insights and experiences and encouragements and biblical counsel from a depth of awareness that goes beyond what most of us can bring and that may be something that some of you i know have and might want to yet find helpful in your life and finally for the persons take a bold and compassionate stand for truth the way joe hallett did and hold up god's purpose in heterosexual marriage for what god designed to be namely a display of christ and the church in our culture now a few words to parents parents of older children who have homosexual desires and parents of little children who might number one for parents of wayward children this is more painful than a child's death because when a child dies there usually isn't the compounded pain of guilt and failure and shame how many of these feelings that you parents have with wayward children are legitimate nobody knows but god that is how many mistakes you really made nobody knows that but god and the solution to your survival and your hope is not to figure that out the solution is the gospel that there is forgiveness for all of us parents no matter how many mistakes we've made there is forgiveness in trusting christ for the righteousness that is not our own secondly if we know our shortcomings and what parent does not know his shortcomings in raising our children confess them confess them to your children get on the phone today and call california or go to your six-year-old or your 17-year-old and say god has convicted me i've made mistakes would you forgive me i tell you the power of forgiveness the power of forgiveness sexually in every other way is immense number three if you have grown children with homosexual desires love them pray for them speak biblical truth to them when they will hear you fourth in the fellowship of the church search the scriptures and seek counsel from other wives christians concerning the incredibly complex painful issues of how to go on relating to your christian if they will not repent but go on living in sin that's one of the most difficult painful i have had some of you tell me stories that absolutely boggle my mind i don't know what to do i don't know what to say and you don't know what to say and all we can do is pray and say god i don't know how to relate to this person look what they're look at the pinch they're putting me in if there's there's damned if i do damned if i don't there's no way out of this thing god is very wise very patient very kind and we need to help each other through those seasons those christmas seasons those holiday seasons those times there's just no seemingly right thing to do that we can figure out and fifthly for you younger parents who have little children and i'm one of them though i'm 52. i hope i can bring talitha up to be heterosexual girl now what does that mean the healthy sexuality of our children hangs in huge measure on the attention the teaching the touching and the loving that we give our children i say this especially to the fathers in the room experience shows the bible shows and psychology shows that dads dads are more important than moms though moms are infinitely important if you can get bigger than infinite dads are more important than moms in both the healthy female sexuality and the healthy male sexuality of the children and to you single moms with pain and with weeping we say dads men of this church we got to be that for their kids we must be that for these kids growing up in single parent families they must have strong loving tender interested male men are there any other kind in their lives i have done my best if you ask the question what do you mean healthy male sexuality healthy female sexuality i mean far more than whether you are homosexually driven or heterosexually driven i mean things like i did my best to write in this little book which is in the bookstore what's the difference manhood and womanhood defined according to the bible i tried to answer the question what do you answer to a child say 12 or so what does it mean mommy to go up and be a woman and not a man or what does it mean daddy to go up and be a man and not a woman and if all you can talk about is plumbing at that moment you're going to fail them you're going to fail them because manhood and womanhood mean more than different biological plumbing it means something very profound so i encourage you to read this go to chapter 17 of recovering biblical manhood and womanhood and read rearing feminine girls and masculine boys by the psychiatrist from the university of south carolina who spent most of his adult career taking five-year-old boys who act like they're homosexual and by counseling their parents by the time they're 15 have them straight and happy and healthy and whole things can change and finally i close with this i know it's late and it's the last message i'm going to talk about homosexuality for probably years to come so please be merciful to me and ask for nursery mercy this takes three more minutes socially these are the really volatile questions today right turn on the radio this morning what did i hear on public radio it's all about these issues and so i need to say a word about this i don't have the answers here but i have one or two things to say i mean homosexual marriage domestic partners housing employment parenting adoption education diversity training in schools multiculturalism and all these inflammatory things that everybody's going to run into if you live in the real world each of them requires serious reflection and there are no in my mind easy answers we need serious reflection not sound bites or shrill slogans and here's my question and you'll hear all the questions within the question how does a democratic constitutionally governed society determine its values shape its laws around those values preserve the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness while limiting destructive behaviors protecting minorities from majority hostilities these questions are hard proof texting doesn't solve them they require extensive reflection and sober thinking and i would simply give you one closing guideline and one closing declaration here's the guideline normalizing wrong behavior or endorsing wrong behavior and dulling the reflexive recoil from wrong behavior is in the end harmful to persons and destructive to society let me say it more specifically the normalization and endorsement of homosexual behavior will profoundly weaken the fragile norm of long-term committed heterosexual marriage and child rearing which are essential for a free society and for the avoidance of totalitarian force now i need an hour on that sentence but i'm not going to give it to you because i have to share with you the burden of thinking i can't do all your thinking for you i can only point you in what i think to be a biblical direction here's my closing declaration god has not called us to win elections he has called us to win souls and hearts and minds god has not called us to control congress but to preach the gospel he has not called us to be safe but to tell the truth he has not called us to avoid conflict but to love everyone so speak the truth in love and trust your cause to god and keep the glory of god at the center of your soul so that the planets of passion in your life will find their proper orbit now let's pray father as we close i ask that the way we see reality the way we order our universe and the way the planets of passion fly in our souls would be changed according to your word and that marvelous balance of compassion and conviction of love and truth would be sustained in our people and that we would stay on the quest of folding persons in your image with homosexual desires into our fellowship folding them in loving them drawing them into our family circles and that we would in the public sphere acknowledge the complexity of these things and the difficulty of these things and begin to think and talk and speak the truth everywhere don't just stand for benediction my benediction is simply the god whose glory is valuable beyond all treasures would re-establish himself at the center of your solar system so that all the planets of your lives would come into beautiful orbit and all the people said amen you're dismissed