Episode 6 Part 1 - Is Homosexuality A Sin?

Back at it again. This is the Point Taken Podcast. This is the podcast where we make and take spiritual and biblical questions and chat it up.

My name's Hunter Wilson. I'm the host of this podcast, Point Taken. To my left is Pastor Josiah Shipley.

How we doing? Hello, friends. I'm doing good, man. That's not enough. You didn't say it. Oh my gosh.

I do have to do this every time. Guys, I'm really happy to be here. I'm just so excited. It's so fun.

You enjoy doing this, right? I enjoy doing it. If you didn't enjoy it, I'm not going to enjoy it.

I'll be up at three and I'm still going to enjoy doing this right now. That's exactly right. To my right is, as always,

Andrew Cook. How we doing? Doing good. Welcome to Shoulder, everybody. Yes. I'm glad to be back on the

Point Taken Podcast. Welcome to Shoulder. Just going to make sure I do that twice since you didn't say welcome back,

Shoulder. Yeah. I did that by design. I know. So I fixed it. Well, let's go ahead and introduce our guest because you're being rude.

You are being rude. Our guest today is Brother David. How you doing, brother?

What's up, Brother David? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Good, man. Brother David, we have our friend

David here today because we are talking about a very important topic, a very special topic.

A topic that may be, can I say it, controversial, as the English would say, controversial.

We are talking about homosexuality. We're talking about, is homosexuality sin?

We're talking about the effects of homosexuality in politics, in the church, in the world. This is a topic that is either skimmed by or skipped over by Christians or the worst case scenario, completely given up on.

But it needs to be talked about. It needs to be spoken about, and you need to know where you stand on these things because they weigh so heavily in everybody's lives.

So I'm going to open up the floor today. We're going to start it off with what is something that you can say about God, a reason that we should love

Him a little bit more? Pastor Josiah. Brother Andrew, music minister here, has been opening up services the past couple of months with an acapella chorus, and he chooses

I Love You Lord some of the time or Amazing Grace or whatever. But when we sing that song, I Love You Lord, you know, I love you

Lord and I lift my voice to worship you. So there is a sense in that we worship

God simply for who He is because He's God. And yet, even then, the psalmist tells us to love and delight in the things that He has done.

One reason that I love God and one reason that I encourage others to is because most of our experiences in love, you know, are two -way streets.

Well, God says that we love Him most when we obey Him. And speaking as someone with young children, that is how they show me the most love and honor.

And it is the fact that not just that when I mess up, God still loves me, but it's that He started loving me before I ever started loving

Him. We love Him because He first loved us.

What's so amazing about God's love is it doesn't have to be reciprocated in order, it doesn't diminish

His love for me. While I was still a sinner, Christ died for me.

That type of love, that selfless giving love is the highest of all.

And so I encourage people to recognize that Jesus is not your boyfriend. He's a sovereign

God of the universe who chose to unwillingly give Himself for someone He loved before they ever loved

Him. In fact, Romans 3 says, while we were God haters. So that's something that humbles me all the time.

And I encourage other people with that. That's awesome. I guess we'll just go down the table.

My reason to love God a little more is the realization of His faithfulness.

And it's something I've been harping on just about every time I'm asked about God, I just I'm going to harp about His faithfulness to me because of my unfaithfulness to Him.

It has been made perfected in my mind, just how faithful He is. We listened to a song this morning.

We had a little worship morning in our college class, and it goes, faithful, you are faithful. Your love will always find me.

Your love will always find me. And I think that this is so incredible, the type of God that we have.

And I was going to speak to your point that He does not wait for us to fix ourselves.

He does not wait for us to clean up and look better and presentable before He dies for us.

Then we had a listener question about forgiveness a couple episodes back. How do you forgive somebody who continually sins against you?

Well, it's the same way that Jesus forgives us and how we continually sin against Him. We never asked for forgiveness before He died.

He died for me while I was still, I was the one killing Him. He said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

So the faithfulness of God, I've been struggling with my faith, not in my belief, but in my faith that He will provide.

I wouldn't have said it in those words until I was convicted. But I realized like, man, like, where did it go?

Like, faith, because that's not something that I've struggled with very much in the past.

God has blessed in abundance in my life with faith. And I realized, man, I'm having so much anxiety.

And I'm like sticking my hands in a situation that I can't control, which is life.

And I'm just having all this anxiety. And then when I realized you have no faith, when the

Bible says, oh, ye of little faith, it literally is talking to you and you specifically, because you are pathetic right now.

I said, dang, I said, dang, and then God's going to turn around, convicts and then provides.

He convicted me and then He immediately provided for me. And I said, man, now I feel horrible because I was like, how have

I forgotten the love and the faithfulness of my God just because my life isn't easy?

That's the point of faith. It's easy to have faith when everything's working in your life. So that's just something about God to make you love him a little more is that he loves you even when you decide to shove him off.

Yeah, exactly. I think for me, I would say one reason to love

God more is his sovereignty. Kind of to your point, Hunter. I know

I was given some information from just talking to somebody the other day and talking about economic problems that we're probably going to be facing here soon and political problems that we're, all the stuff that we see constantly going and just all kinds of crazy stuff that potentially will happen in the near future.

And you go back to the scriptures and it says, if God pays attention to the sparrows, they never worry about where they're going, they don't worry about food.

They just, they know that they're going to be taken care of. How much more would God care about you than a sparrow?

So, knowing that, that God is an active God, not a God of, let me back off and let, as some belief systems would say, oh, well, there's a

God, but it doesn't really matter because it doesn't affect me in any way. Yeah. Sure. But you have that assurance that God is sovereign,

God cares about his children, and that he's going to take care of us. And another thing to think about is, had it in my head and then it left.

I love when it does that. But anyway, sovereignty is one thing that you can love

God more for because he promises, that's what it was. There it is. Sorry. So, since we are talking about homosexual, homosexuality, the rainbow is a symbol that God will not flood the earth again.

Another part of that covenant that was made between God and Noah was that the seasons would continue to change.

As long as the seasons changed, he would remember his promise he made to Noah. So as we are shifting into fall right now, you can look out and go sovereignty of God.

That's so true. Never. Wow. He never stops. He never goes back on a promise.

I love that because it shows another way that you can remember to be grateful to God.

You can look at God and blame God for the great things and say, the seasons changed.

I love that. Blame God for the great things. Blame God for the great things. It's his fault. Yeah. It's your fault.

All that is good comes from God. I mean, that's awesome. There was a meme that it was like, it was a guy,

I guess it was supposed to be Noah and God and a cloud. And it said, oh, that's a beautiful rainbow. And then it goes into all the science, like God goes into all the scientific stuff.

He's like, I'm never going to do this again. So that was kind of funny. Anyway. So yeah, that's, that's, that's my, my, my take on it.

Nice. Well, mine with the season changing, that was my first thing of why we should love God a little more.

It's coming, it's becoming fall. It's not going to be as hot outside. It's my season pumpkin flavors and we just love it.

But, but no. Well, the season is not the pumpkin flavor. No, no, no, no. I'm, I'm your basic white boy.

I love my pumpkin spice, but I like to buy pumpkin pie. I just don't want pumpkin drink.

I've never liked anything pumpkin other than carving them up. Oh no. It's the best thing. Anyways. No, it's literally not.

That would be steak. But anyway. I work at a steakhouse. So he's got to be, he doesn't pass it as high.

I think he's got to be. He doesn't, but I'm gonna let him have this one. Okay. Okay. But no, um, my reasoning as to why we should love

God a little more is, uh, it's honestly his, his plans are always greater. They're always better.

And, um, and I, I know for me within the last month, uh, he's definitely shown his plan and with my whole move and everything coming up in about a week and a half, sorry, but uh, it was just, if you got 30 pieces over, you'd do it too.

I don't have. It was a Judas reference. Cause 30.

All right. Go ahead, David. Um, anyways, uh, you know, it's just one of those where, where I, I'm a planner.

And so I've, I've had my plan to stay in Memphis a lot longer. Um, and then it kind of just like you get that call to go, but I had no means to no reason for it, no ability to, and then literally within two days had everything straightened out because God, God's sovereign and his plan is perfect.

And so it was just one of those, his, his plan is the reason why I love him a little more. If you follow through with his plan, things are going to go great for you.

So that's awesome. Yeah. All right, guys. Well, I think we should open up, uh, since we do have our friend

David as our guest today, uh, before we get into the conversation, I'd like to ask if you're comfortable sharing at all your testimony or how you got here and why you're like, so why are we have you on the podcast?

What, what has God done in your life? All right. Yep. So, um, the why I'm on the podcast,

I guess it's the easier way to say it. I'm the ex -gay. We have ex -everything in this church.

Ex -convicts, ex -drug addicts, ex -gays. I was thinking the new Marvel comic that's gotten the most buys,

Wolverine and the ex -gay. But no, um, after like growing up in and having that mindset and then, um, going to college and being out on my own and then experiencing the lifestyle and then realizing that it's just not fulfilling and coming, well,

I shouldn't say ever leaving the faith, but coming back to the basics of it and getting your mind straight, kind of, well, technically getting everything straight, uh, it, uh, it works out.

But, um, but no, that's just one of those, uh, that's why I'm here to share my testimony about it and my thoughts because you've been, you've been here for a year, just only a year.

I know. Yeah. So we've had David with us for just about a year. Sorry to see him go in a week, but we wish him the best, but we're going to be talking about, we figured we'd bring him on today because he has a good head on his shoulders, knows what he's talking about, about this stuff.

We wanted to open up our conversation with the basic question, is homosexuality a sin?

Uh, this is a huge debate, believe it or not, uh, in the world today. Is it a sin?

Is homosexuality a sin? Uh, brother Andrew, do you want to start us off on that one? Uh, it is.

Okay. You know what? That's a good take. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Episode over.

All right guys, if you liked this episode, find us on YouTube, like, comment, subscribe.

Point to a thing. Oh yeah. Yeah. Right there. There's a link. Right there. There's a link to, we can't point at a link.

Like they can't. Yes we did. We did last week. No, you would point at a name. Yeah. Address, link. Wrong.

It's the same thing. It's a whole different thing. Say that again. I thought it was the same thing. Okay. Your address. He's the guest. He's right. That's what you said.

No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no. Remember earlier? It's not in the video. It's up in the thing. He said, link it up in the thing or it'd be down below. Hold up five fingers.

There we go. Dislike. All right. So we can start with Pastor Josiah just because I feel like I'm not going to start off.

I want Pastor Josiah to start off. All right. So it's homosexuality. It's homosexuality. Yes, I did start. I did answer the question.

The answer is yes. Of course it is. Guys, if you liked this episode, please. So there's no but to that statement.

The answer is yes. It's a sin. It is no higher degree of a sin than any other sin.

So all sins are not equal in their present physical punishments that they bring about.

We all understand that. So there is worse physical consequences to the sin of rape, obviously, than there is the sin of stealing a candy bar.

But as far as eternal separation from God, as far as breaking God's law, the book of James says, if you have broken one of his laws, you've broken all of them.

You've broken the law of God. So this whole, you know, as you kind of got to,

Hunter, we tend to be on this pendulum in the church where either homosexuality is such a grotesque sin that it is unforgivable that God could never fix someone like that, that that person should not be a member of a church, something like that.

Or we're on the other side of, well, God would never be against love, right?

It's funny. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, including to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

So let's look at just that one sentence in the Bible that's re -quoted in the New Testament by Jesus, by Paul, by Peter, a man, not a boy.

Shall leave his father, mother, including to his wife, the woman. Okay? So we have two consenting adults.

Sure. Heterosexual relationship, not polygamous, one man, one woman equals two, not six, not seven, two.

And then equals one. Right. And the two will become one flesh. That one sentence gets rid of basically every sexual sin that there can be.

And we're all guilty of sexual sin. Jesus made this more clear than ever. What do you say?

You did not commit the letter of the law of sin of committing adultery, but if you have lust in your heart for her, you have already committed adultery in your heart.

That's what he said. I call those the one -ups. Yeah. And, you know, exactly. Jesus, yes.

Jesus came in and said, all right, so this is what it says, this is what it actually means. So the simple question is, homosexuality is sin, yes.

Should it be treated as a greater sin than others? And I'll say this and I'll pass it off to someone else and then later

I've got a passage we can read. This is why we have taught here for a while now what the word struggle actually means.

And if you're listening to this right now, I would encourage you to pull out your phone, please, and type in the word struggle and see what the definition says.

And I can tell you what it's going to say. It's going to say to make a violent or forceful effort to break free of restraint.

And as I've said before, there is no shame in a young man struggling with pornography, so long as we all have the same definition of the word struggle.

If he's making violent effort to break free from struggling with addiction, struggling with homosexuality, struggling with, it doesn't matter what you put in that blank.

If there's a struggle against it, that's called sanctification in that you are more holy than you were yesterday.

That's called taking up your cross and following me daily. That's what I'm saying. It's those who do not struggle.

That's why it's the most overused word in the Christian language because most Christians say it. They really just mean I do it. They don't mean struggle.

If someone is actively struggling with sin, the book of Hebrews says, you have not resisted yet to the point of shedding blood.

The struggle is actually a godly thing to do. And that's kind of what David was getting at a minute ago.

But yes, it is a sin. And it's just not any worse than gossip or slothfulness or gluttony.

And I'd say a trap a lot of people fall into is, to your point, de -equalizing it, homosexuality with heterosexuality,

I believe both hold the same potential for sin. Oh, of course. Yeah, of course.

Right. I've been asked a whole lot of times, and I've found like, dude, how do you answer this and show love?

And the best way I've found is it's like, I'm gay, do you think I'm going to hell?

Is that a sin? Does God forgive? And I was just like, currently, you're on your way to hell, not just because you're gay.

It's because you have not accepted God's grace and salvation. It's not because of which sin you're struggling with.

It's because all have fallen short of the glory of God. And until you accept

God's gift and call upon the name of the Lord, you will not be saved. What you just said right there, our rebellion all comes out in different ways.

How it comes out is different based on different things. The most unloving thing you could ever do to someone is not tell them they're in rebellion and on the way to hell.

And then actually tell them that their rebellion that is fast -tracking them to hell is actually godly.

You woe to them and call evil good and good evil. That's the most unloving thing you could ever do to somebody is telling people who are living together outside of marriage.

It has nothing to do with forbidding them. It's just saying, hey man, I love you. Why don't you come over to my house? By the way, you're calling yourself a

Christian. This is something you need some help with and I can help you. Right. Right? That's the most loving. The unloving thing would be to tell someone, hey, there's nothing wrong with your gossip.

There's nothing wrong with your thoughtfulness. That'd be the unloving thing. That's exactly right. If we could visualize sin, if we could see sin the way

God sees it, I feel like we'd have a lot less of an issue calling it out. Because it's literally, and this is the

Sunday school version of it, but it's literally like you see somebody stabbing themselves and thinking they're fine.

What are you going to say? Right. It's like, yeah, that's fine. You're totally good.

Oh, now you're crawling. You're bleeding out. I don't want to offend you. So I'm just going to, yeah. Yeah. That's okay. Right. But the thing is the

Bible is supposed to be offensive to those that don't follow through with it. Right. It's offensive to all of us when we're not obeying it, including myself.

It's supposed to be. It's offensive and it sounds foolish. It's foolish to those who don't have this. We've shared the analogy of the doctor.

Okay. And I don't want to cut you off. No, you're good. The doctor is a perfect example of this. You have a man who is having some abdominal pains.

He goes to doctor number one. Doctor number one gets the scans and it is absolutely cancerous.

And the doctor knows that treatment's got to be started now. It's advanced now.

He walks out there in the waiting room and the guy's there with his family and goes, man, I hope you got some good news for me because I really can't take any bad news right now.

Okay. And the doctor, doctor number one says to him, uh, Hey man, you're totally fine. It's just stomach cramps.

It'll go away in a couple of days. Do whatever you're going to do. Now we all know what's going to happen to that guy in a couple of weeks.

Okay. So the guy ran up and hugged him and said, thank you so much. You've made my day. God bless you.

You must be an angel sent from heaven. The guy, just to make sure, goes to a second doctor, gets an opinion and the doctor walks in there and says,

Hey man, news is not good. It's cancer. But if you get treatment now, I can help you. You're going to go through a rough time next six months, but you can live.

The guy starts throwing stuff, throwing chairs in the waiting room, tearing down pictures and said, how could you tell me that? Now which doctor showed love?

The second one. The one who told the truth showed love. That's the idea of what you're saying.

If we saw sin, how God sees it, how the Bible describes it, it's not a shameful thing.

It's a, Hey man, I love you enough to tell you the truth because if I lied to you, you will be deceived.

Yup. And that's the idea of what you're getting at. And it will partly be my fault. That's what the book of Ezekiel says will partly be in my hands.

Yup. Your blood's on my hands. And the way I've found to do that in love is to stress the point, okay, you deal with homosexuality.

Cool. I deal with lust. Tell me the difference. Right. Yeah. There's not. Right. Yeah. There's like, if you want to rank sin, uh, you can be a

Pharisee and that's on you. Jesus wasn't a fan of them, you know what

I'm saying? But like, I'm not going to say that your heterosexuality is worse than my, I mean, your homosexuality is worse than my heterosexuality when

I don't control it. Yeah. Exactly. Right. If I decide to, uh, let sin run rampant, then sin is sin is sin is sin.

And it doesn't matter what you label it. Uh, and I think the important thing is I feel like people get too caught up in the label.

Oh, go ahead. No, no, dude. I was just going to say, it's like the, um, you've got to stop scraping that thing.

I know. Um, it's like shacking it ain't hacking it. Yeah. That's how Pastor Jeff says it.

That's what Pastor Jeff says. Yeah. Yeah. That's, there's no difference. There's no difference. There's no difference in that.

And the guy who watches porn, like it, you, you're doing what you shouldn't be doing.

God has a specific written out plan of how you should, how it's supposed to work.

I mean, even the word in the new Testament, sexual morality, pornea, P O R N E A.

Okay. They don't try and hide it. Yeah. Yeah. Pornea, pornea, that word means any sexual activity outside the

God created bonds of man, woman, marriage, a man, a woman marriage. So adultery, literally any, any sexual sin outside of that is what

Jesus called sexual morality. Think about it for a second in Deuteronomy where everything start, he write, they write everything out.

Like this is what you should not do. This is abhorrent. They're still talking about that in the new Testament.

Oh yeah. It's like, so it's, it's been laid out. Yeah. It was laid out a long time ago. And yet, and we definitely see it today, but even in new

Testament still, they can't, we can't follow it. We just can't follow it. They can't, we can't, they can't.

I say we, because we're the same, if not worse. So I think that goes, to say about your thing earlier, you said, how can

God be against love? I was like, well, that's a fallacy. Right. God is love.

Yeah. What you are defining as love is a twist of love.

So in the same way that porneia is anything that is outside of the bonds of, or the bounds of what

God created, God created sex. He created it and he created it as a non -sinful good thing.

Exactly. And then, so if I were to say, well, then that means that no version of sex is a sin.

It's a little uneducated, it's a little, you can twist these things.

And David, jump in when you want to, but Harry Potter does not get to decide who he is.

J .K. Rowling does. Word. Okay. He, J .K. Rowling, Rowling? Rowling?

I don't know. She's pretty hated right now. Well, anyway, she is the creator of Harry Potter.

She defined who he is. Okay. J .R .R. Tolkien defined who Gandalf is. I'm a nerd. I'm sorry.

We can make an argument about George Lucas, but let's move on from that for a minute. My point being is God is the creator of marriage.

He gets to define the bounds. He gets to define it. We don't get to take what the creator made of it and say, well, really it's this.

We don't get to take it. We could use any number of movies we want to. The creator of that character defined how that character would be.

God is the creator of marriage, so he gets to define the bounds of it. And when any of us in any way go against that, yes, it's sin.

There's forgiveness for it, but not in spite of, but in fact of repentance. And I think that's kind of the point.

Exactly. Yeah. So let's share some scripture. I feel like if we're going to be talking about is something a sin, is something not a sin, we should have something to back it up.

Oh, do we have to read the Bible from it? Yeah, I believe so. That's not necessary. He didn't say that. That's not necessary.

Obviously, the one everybody would understand or at least have some type of knowledge of is Levitical law.

It says man shall not lay with another man, this is an abomination, whatever. Oh, I'm sorry.

I misquoted that then. It was Leviticus. Yes. I said that. I am so sorry. I knew what you meant. Yeah. Well, for fact -checkers, it was

Levitical. I thought maybe it said it in Deuteronomy and that's what I thought it said. Yep.

Well, Moses wrote all of them. He does that. Right. It's true.

It doesn't matter when he said it. So I got a couple. I'm going to start with Jude chapter one, verse seven.

In the same way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them committed sexual immorality and practiced perversions, just as the angels did and served as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

If you know about Sodom and Gomorrah, it's very clear exactly what it's talking about.

Obviously, I do believe that there are other sexual immoral things that, I mean, it's got to be 99 .9

% chance of other sexual immorality things happening there, but it is speaking about homosexuality.

Yes. We are literally talking about Lot walks into the city, not Lot, the two angels walk into the city, just two new dudes walking into the city and the entire city, it does not say a few men from the city, it says the city came out to meet them and demanded they come out and have sex with them.

And so you put that in perspective and you say, what type of place is nowhere on this earth currently?

We have some messed up stuff that's on this earth currently, but nowhere can you go and all of the men have had so much sex with each other that they will know and they're looking for new people to come in and everybody floods and not trying to buy him a drink, not trying to compliment anything.

You just described the gay community, in all honesty, like if you're new to any area in town and you go into the gay bar and you will be flocked because you're the new blood and it's, it's a conquest for other men to see how many times they can get you or stuff like that.

Is it a trying to seduce or is it a like, come on, grab, let's go.

It can be either one in all honesty. Okay. It can be either one. It's sickening.

It really is. Yeah. Well, that's where Sodom was, right? In this, in the point that Lot, while those angels were under his protection, it was

Lot, he had two daughters and he had those two angels. They were banging at the door, let, bring them out so that we can have sex with them.

Lot's a coward. Lot comes out and says, no, how about I give you my daughters instead?

I was like, okay, Lot. And they were just like, no. And since you're trying to stop us now, we're going to have sex with you instead.

And uh, did you, did you read that? Did you know that? Yes. I recently read, re -read that again and said, oh,

I didn't even know that Lot was in danger in that situation. Yeah. You tried to stop us. Yeah. You tried to stop us.

Now it's going to be you. And so the angels pulled them back. So that's what that's referring to.

Do you have a verse as well? Yeah. I've got a couple. I mean, Leviticus makes it clear. Romans one makes it clear.

Sure. Romans one. Yeah. And Romans one, by the way, it includes the, the male aspect of that and the female aspect of that.

Uh, mine is first Corinthians six, but this goes, darn, that's what my next one was going to be.

Do you want to go bro? I would like, uh, for David to read it. Oh, I've got my

Bible. Okay. That'd be awesome. And I've just got some comments because I felt like, yeah. How about, um, chapter six, nine through 11 brother chapter six, nine through 11.

Cause I, cause I feel like it speaks to about his situation. I think it's one of the best.

I think it's awesome. Ooh, it's going to be hard reading with a boom mic in front of me. You said chapter six through 11?

Chapter six, nine through 11. Alrighty. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, revilers, revilers, uh,

I have a different translation, uh, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God and such were you some of you, but you were washed and you were sanctified.

You were just defied in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. Amen. I love that.

Last part. May I? Yeah. You got my phone if you want it. So what I love about this passage, and I want everyone listening, especially those who are caught off guard, but caught off guard by us even talking about this, but the spirit is convicting you so you haven't turned it off yet.

Please listen. Sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, anyone practicing homosexuality, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, swindlers, that list,

I imagine had every single person, including myself in the forehead with at least one of those and every single person and listen to what

God says in such were some of you, man, but you were washed.

You were sanctified and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the spirit of our God. First John does the same thing here.

It's not that those who are washed never commit these sins again. It's that that is no longer their identity and they do not.

As first John says, that says here, practice these things, practice homosexuality.

That is no longer your identity. There is a, a, a mode, a, a pattern, a, a, what do you call this?

You're moving upwards. Okay. It is a pattern towards holiness and away from that.

Such were some of you see, it's not just that I struggled with, let's say greed.

It's that you were greedy. It's not that this person here struggled with sexual, he was sexually immoral.

Such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified and you were justified in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. I would point out that it doesn't say such are some of you.

My point in saying that is what is that as we go back through struggling is the most sanctifying thing you could ever do.

It's those of us who, this was our identity and we still struggle with it daily as first John says, but we're moving in the right direction now.

That's what Paul is getting at here is your, but yeah, that's one of my favorite passages on this topic because it, you keep saying identity, but for me, and then for first and foremost, as someone who grew up with that lifestyle in the, in the back of his mind, my identity has always been

Christ. I've always claimed that as my identity. And it's the one thing that when I see another Christian who says like,

Oh, I'm a gay Christian, your identity is not in your sexuality. It's in, it's in your relationship. And so for you to sit there and say like,

I am this and, and, but you act and you behave as if your identity is, is your homosexuality.

Your identity is not in Christ. You're not saved. And you're the issue. You're the problem. And you're right.

Why we're doing this podcast, like in all honesty, that is so huge because I think you're so right.

There's so many different things if we're going to talk about a culture, man, that are going on that are caused by people finding their identity and worthless thing.

Yeah. It's like, my identity is the color of my skin. God. Dude, what?

So anybody who says anything about the color of your skin has attacked you as a person and who you are, therefore you're going to go off the rails.

My identity is my sexuality. Really? Of all things, it's going to be, but you're going to preach is not your business.

What I do in the bedroom, but then make it public, but, but my entire identity, who

I am is what I do in the bedroom. I was like, when you find your identity in worthless, stupid, childish, immature things, you will become worthless, stupid, childish, and immature.

My identity is not my last name. It's not the things

I like to do. It's not the people I like to date. It's not the color of my skin. It's not the place where I was.

It is. I am a child of God. Yes. And if you are not a child of God, I highly suggest you find your identity in something a lot more valuable than your pastimes, right?

Because you will always be offended. You will always be angry. You will always be attacked and nobody will have freedom to say anything around you without you absolutely folding over on yourself.

But the people who are like that, to me, the issues with you and your mind, because for me,

I have the saying, I always like to say, offense is a position on a team. Everything else about it is just a state of your own mental being.

For you to sit there and claim like you're offended about something, no, you're not offended. You just don't know how to cope with somebody having a disagreement with you.

There is no such thing as offense. It's all mental. We can have a disagreement.

We can have a conversation and stuff like that, but you can't sit there and push your ideas as law when they aren't.

It's amazing. And the church folds like lawn chairs on this. Yep. Or what did

Pastor Jeff say this morning? That's what he said. Like a Walmart. A $5 Walmart, like a folding chair.

I can think of somebody in my brain, and I can also think of somebody

I've read before, not someone I know. And I'm not mocking,

I am waking people up, I hope, or the Word of God is. Well, the

Holy Spirit told me, that's okay, I've never felt convicted about this. So let's just use homosexuality, for example.

I can think right now of a minister, in name only, over 45 ,000 people, he's a homosexual.

He's a pastor. And he said, well, I've never felt convicted about it, and the

Holy Spirit told me it's fine, and that Romans 1, this is a quote, Romans 1 and Jude and Leviticus are not talking to me, they were talking about other people, it wasn't applying to me.

Until he hasn't read his own Bible. Well, John 3 ,16 wasn't talking about you either.

Romans 10 ,9 was not talking about you either. And this is what the person who was debating him asked.

If someone came to you, a man, and said, hey, I'm having sexual relations with a woman who's not my wife, and told you that the

Holy Spirit, with tears in His eyes, full sincerity, the Holy Spirit told me what I'm doing is okay.

What would you tell them? You were wrong. Do you hear the silence? Because that's what the homosexual pastor, he had no answer.

He had no answer. It's a double standard. Yeah, he couldn't. It is amazing what we will fold on to not hurt someone's feelings.

Votie Bauckham once said, Christians believe in the 11 commandments.

The 11th one is thou shalt be nice, and the first 10 don't matter. Wow. Yeah. And the point being is, the guy was saying, and he was being genuine.

I'm not saying, genuinely, I feel like this is fine. So when the question was asked, what if one of your congregants told you that?

Hey, you know what? I'm really struggling with coveting, but the

Holy Spirit told me it's okay. So, you know, what's that? And he said he basically couldn't answer.

That's the point. The standard is so double in that we go back to the original thing.

We don't have to be hateful. We don't have to hold up signs that says God hates gay people or anything stupid like that.

What we do is we proclaim the love of Christ and the whole counsel of God, even the parts that make some of us, including myself, and certain pastors, uncomfortable.

If you can read the Bible and you are never upset by it, you're never convicted by it,

I struggle to understand if you're really reading the Bible. Because there are days—Brother Jeff always says the Bible should even make you glad, mad, or sad.

Right. And if it makes you mad or sad, that's where repentance comes in. Every single day you read the

Bible, oh, amen, amen, amen. That has nothing to do with me. Whenever I read about being a father or a husband or a pastor,

I'm like, okay, I'm not doing that one, right? Not doing that one, right? Let's write that one down. Oh, not doing that one, right?

Let's write that one down. Ah, I did that one. I did that one. I have not made it an idol recently. Recently.

And it's because I read it last week and I was doing that one. That's right. Well, I think we'd be remiss if we didn't at least tackle one last part of this conversation.

We are running short on time, so this is such an encompassing topic that we could go on and on and on because there are so many different angles.

Oh, trust me, I've like five sermons written just about this on my own accord. It's so easy because we know there are so many arguments.

We know that there's so much hurt about this from all types of communities.

This is a difficult thing. So I wanted to talk about the difference between practicing and non -practicing.

So could you give me your opinion on that and where you fall in? Well, I guess

I could say I was practicing from the age of 18 to about 22. Actively.

I grew up in a strict Christian family, so this was a no -no topic. And when

I had the feelings at the early age of 13, I definitely wasn't going to talk about it.

Because at my home church, it was, you're going straight to hell. And everything I kept hearing, especially from my family, was, oh, it's homosexual, they're held down.

There was no saving grace for whatsoever. God's blood stops short.

It's just not powerful enough to save that one. Grace does not extend that far. So naturally,

I go to the world's largest Christian university and actively took part in every sinful thing that I could.

And just kept getting further and further away. I was having a meeting with Pastor Jeff when

I first got here, and I told him, homosexuality is more of an addiction. My first crush was a female way before I had the feelings.

But when I got out and I was on my own and I had that first taste of it, it was fun, and it was exciting, and I wanted to keep going back, and it was addicting.

And it was having to break that notion of, like, this is who I am, this is what I want to do, and this is what I like kind of thing.

And so I was heavily practicing it, like going out, hooking up, all the stuff that went along with it, the drugs, the drinking, and all that fun stuff.

And eventually it just got to a point where it's like, it's too much. It really was. I never liked partying.

I don't like clubs. That's not my scene. The gay scene is definitely very open. I mean, yay, loved one, gay rights, everyone gets equal marriage, but it's just a piece of paper, and the bedroom door is wide open for everybody else in the community to come and go as they please.

That's not what I want. I want monogamy. I want, in all honesty, I want a wife. I want my family.

And so that's what I've been wanting, and it's trying to get that mindset back to it. And so for practicing and for not practicing,

I'm not a practicing homosexual now. Will not practice. Nice. I refuse.

It's just one of those. It's freeing on the other end of it. It's reversal.

Like you think you're free to do whatever you want, and then you go and you do it, and it's fun. But then it does more damage, and when you come back out of it, it's more freeing in that end.

But yeah, it's just more freeing because you have less people that you're trying to please. I love that because do you know that you're quoting scripture?

Yes. That's incredible that you come to that conclusion because it is biblical.

They will preach freedom, like come and be free and do these things with me.

That rhymed. You are bound by your promise to God and by his statutes.

But in John 5 or 1 John 5, it says his commands are not a burden.

Yes. His commands are not a burden. And when I read that, I said, oh, hold on.

Perception? Yes. Switch. It's not a burden, but it's a signal of my freedom because when

I read in Ephesians 2, I know that I live in a world that is dominated and ruled by the ruler of the atmospheric domain,

Satan, and that I am a slave to my desire.

I am a slave to my sin. I am a slave to all that until Jesus Christ frees me.

Then I say, if you were to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

If I confess with my mouth, in other words, choose and say, Jesus is

Lord. What's Lord mean? Master. I am a slave either way. I'm either a slave to myself, which brings destruction, or I'm a slave to my

Savior that brings eternal life. Well said. That's right. I think that's so incredible that you came to that conclusion and said, man, it is freeing living under what

God says to do. It's not a burden. But for me to get to where I was, it was a lot of on my own time and having to research and look into things on my own, because in just the areas where I was and the locations

I was at, I never had the people that I could go to with the struggle of homosexuality and talk to them about it, because it was either

I would be written off or I was not allowed at the church. I had a church down here.

The church right before this one, I auditioned for the worship team. I signed the contract and everything, and in the contract it stated that I would be a contract for the worship team.

Like you're getting paid or something? It was going to be a paid position, but I had to actively live a

Christ -centered life. And I'm like, okay. Haven't I already signed that contract with God?

And they didn't allow me on because I looked that way or I dressed a certain way or I had little tendencies of homosexuality to me.

I talked with my hands and stuff like that. That was why they didn't want me on the worship team. I might not help other

Christians, even though I am a Christian myself who had struggled with this. And so it's that sort of stuff where even—

You don't uphold their reputation. But at the same time, this was coming from the pastor's wife who had sexual relations before marriage and has a kid who doesn't look like her.

So it's like one of those where I'm like, you're pointing my sin out that I don't even take place in, yet you still have someone around you indicating yours.

I left the church and quickly found this one, and it was like, oh, thank God. It's a godsend, literally, because in my time here at Witten, within the year,

I guess I should say, I started here in August. I'm leaving at the end of August.

And so it was one of those— Around March was when that definite decision, like mental change happened where I was like, okay, this is definitely something that I can live without in terms of sexuality.

And having to navigate life that way. My struggle necessarily after the whole breakdown of I'm not going to live this lifestyle was more or less like, how am

I going to not be lonely? It's like you jump from one struggle into another struggle.

A hundred percent. I love being around people. I want to be around people.

I want my family. And so how do I have that and have these desires that I feel like God wants me to have and navigate this loneliness in this time of season?

And so it's having the people around you. And this church was definitely one that focused a lot on the sin in general.

I mean, the first Sunday I was here, Pastor Jeff said, the old ladies in the back gossiping is no different than the homosexual.

I was like, ooh, this is my church. But that was when he had said that.

That was the first time I'd ever heard it coming from a pastor. And I was glad to know that he just put me on the same level as everybody else because I've been looked down upon my entire life because of this one thing that I've never wanted.

And so the mental thing is having to fix that and having the right people in place for it.

And that's definitely here at Witten. I know there's other churches around. I know my home church back home in Pennsylvania where I grew up from, if I had ever said anything about it, they would have kicked me off the worship team.

I would have never been allowed. My family would have stopped going. That's just how it is. And that's a Methodist church. And they're opening and accepting of that lifestyle now.

They still would shut me out. So it's like, okay, whatever. But I love your perspective of what you said. As you said, you have to jump into one.

You go from one struggle and you have to jump headfirst right into another one. And I love what that says about not only just what it says about you, but it speaks so much to the struggle of the apathetic, the depressed, the anxious.

Because I know exactly what you're talking about. It's like, I know I have this wall in front of me. I know that it's right to get over that wall.

But as soon as I get over that wall, there's another one. So it's easier. Why would

I climb the first one if I'm still trapped by the other? And you have the idea and it tempts you.

What's the point? You hop over the wall to then have to go here to then get over this wall to then go here.

Correct. So you're slowly going higher. That's what I was trying to say. That's what I like because it says it.

Once you know that, it gets easier. But when you don't know that at first, you just think it's a pit on the other side. Why should

I climb this? I'm happy over here. Well said. Love that, dude. That's awesome. And I guess one last little thing before we close out.

Practicing and non -practicing homosexuality in the church. I think it's important to note that when people say, should homosexuals be in church leadership?

Should homosexuals be in church leadership? The answer is yes. Should practicing homosexuals be in church leadership?

No. The answer is no. The difference between practicing and non -practicing. If you are a heterosexual who lusts after women, am

I practicing this non -marital lust? As in, am I going out and sleeping with women?

Am I shacking up before marriage? Am I watching pornography and doing all these things? That's what practicing is.

So I mean, the standard doesn't change. Correct. If you have a church leader who is currently committing adultery, that person does not need to be in church leadership.

Agreed. If that person repented from that and they are time removed from that and they have moved past that, that doesn't disqualify them from church leadership.

But if they are actively currently committing adultery, there's no difference. It's the exact same thing. That's exactly right. And it goes right back to the point, as a

Christian, do not fall into the trap of getting tied up in labels. Right. Stop labeling the sin and stopping there.

So people who are not Christians hate on Christians and hate on the church and ultimately will hate on Jesus and God because they will say, well,

Christians say that homosexuals can't lead in church. They can't be church leaders.

Practicing ones can. Correct. Correct. Just the same way as practicing adulterer who is straight should not be a church leader.

Right. So stop being twisted on label and start being understanding of what is sin and you need to stop accepting sin.

Let's call sin, sin, but let's call all sin, sin equally. Correct. I go as far to say the gay couple that comes to church together, once they get convicted, you should see the separation between the two of them.

It's universally with all sexual sin, as we said. Love it.

All right. Guys, great podcast. Yep. If you liked what you heard, if you want to hear more, let us know.

You can always email us at listenpointtaken at gmail .com. That's listen, I think, pointtaken at gmail .com.

Send us an email. Let us know what you think. Also, comment below on the video. What are some things about the homosexual debate, homosexuality debate that you want to hear about, that you want to talk about, that you have questions about, that you didn't like what we said, that you did like what we said.

Let us know. You can also find us on Instagram, and you can send us a private message on there, and we will answer your questions, and we will try and talk about it again.