Something TERRIFYING Just Happened in These Churches… | Voddie Baucham

The Problem of Jamming and Church Exclusion

The next tool they use is jamming.

Why is it that in the majority of American churches, single people feel isolated and not included and alone? Because the dominant paradigm is get married and have kids. That's the pathway to a meaningful life.

And just to be super clear, I'm really pretty sure that Jesus doesn't share that view. He didn't get married, right? I mean, just like historical fact number one. Do you think Jesus did not have a meaningful life?

Do you think Jesus actually didn't think meaningful life was possible because he didn't have sex and he didn't get married? We laugh at it because all of a sudden we realize it's so ridiculous. He had probably the most meaningful human life that a human has ever had.

But somehow we don't compute that. And so we end up creating churches where people who are not married feel second class and where people who are gay feel even more ostracized because where do they fit, right?

Singleness, Sexual Orientation, and the Image of God

And so here we're right to it. In Jesus' view, there are multiple ways that a human can image God's love. What does a life of singleness, whether you're straight, whether you're gay, doesn't matter. What does the life of singleness dedicated to Jesus lead to?

You have enormous amounts of time and resources free now to dedicate to serving others, to loving others in the name of Jesus. And the history of the church is marked by incredible, incredible heroes and heroines of the faith who have done that.

And their lives were not diminished in one bit. And so if I'm a follower of Jesus and I sense the high calling to not be married and to give my life, sexual orientation doesn't matter, he's calling me to not have sex with people of the opposite gender or the same gender.

It doesn't, he doesn't highlight one as more than the other. It just says sex has its place within the covenant symbol making of the image of God. It's not the only way to symbol the image of God, but it is that way.

In Messiah Jesus, there is no male or female, no slave or free, no Jew or non-Jew, no gay, no straight, just beautiful humans made in the image of God who are deeply flawed and who all need God's grace.

Whether Someone Can Be a Gay Christian

Can someone self-identify as gay and be a Christian?

Someone can identify as someone who is struggling with same-sex attraction.

You will struggle. And some people will call those, will identify that as gay Christians. That's what they will call themselves. You don't have a problem with that. I have a big problem with that.

You do have a big problem with that. And I'll tell you why. So you say you're a gay Christian, you know what you're doing? You're putting on the wrong team jersey. It's a paradox. And you're going out on the field and you're playing and you're confusing everybody.

You may be a Christian who struggles with same-sex attraction. You may be a Christian who struggles with any manner of sin. But as soon as you embrace an adjectival modifier and claim that as your identity, you are not identifying fully with Christ.

And here is what you are saying. You say you're a gay Christian. You are saying, Holy Spirit, don't touch me there. That's off limits.

That's my identity. And the way they talk about jamming is that they want to eliminate and reverse what they call psychic rewards.

Pastoral Complications and the Ethics of Quitting

No, honestly, I wish God would have made it so much simpler. There was like A, B, C, or D, like frick, there he is. As a pastor, like, so what do you think about gay men? I don't know. And you're welcome at Transformation Church.

Friends is in the title. Transformation, you can be here. I mean, had the love that most Christians don't have. Would do anything for people because the truth of the matter is he wants a close relationship with God.

So the way that they explain jamming is this. You equate being against homosexuality with being part of the KKK or skinheads or neo-Nazis.

Will a gay person be accepted into heaven as you see it? Well, I believe they will.

I think I have an important voice, but I'm very, I think I've been good. I think part of my, if you want to call it success, is I've stayed in my lane and my lane is lifting people's spirits. And there are issues that good Bible-believing people see on both sides of the fence.

So that when people think about homosexuality and they think about whatever their biblical position on homosexuality, their biblical position on gay marriage. And trust me, I've talked to enough LGBT.

They are not all the same. Oh, for sure.

But how do we, first of all, has your thinking evolved on this?

Evolved and evolving, evolved and evolving. That they automatically have a check. They're jammed, right? It's like you've got a machine and they throw sand in the work so that the machine gets jammed and it doesn't work.

Figure out how to get straight people as excited about serving and engaging as the gay men and women I know, we would have a volunteer backlog. That's my experience in our churches. Well, a gay person, I'll just read it to you.

A gay person, when I say gay, men and women, okay. A gay person who still wants to attend church after the way the church has treated the gay community. I'm telling you, they have more faith than I do.

They have more faith than a lot of you. A gay person who knows, you know what? I might not be accepted here, but I'm gonna try it anyway. Have you ever done that as a straight person? Where do you go that you're not sure you're gonna be accepted and you go over and over and over and over?

Only your in-laws house. That's the only place you go where you know you're not completely accepted, but you go over and over and over and it's because you have to. But other than the in-laws, what environment do you continue to step foot in knowing at any moment you may feel ostracized?

No place, I'm telling you, the gay men and women who grew up in church and the gay men and women who've come to faith in Christ as adults who want to participate in our church, oh my goodness. I know 1 Corinthians 6 and I know Leviticus and I know Romans 1.

It's so interesting to talk about all that stuff. But just, oh my goodness, a gay man or woman who wants to worship their heavenly father, who did not answer the cry of their heart when they were 12 and 13 and 14 and 15.

God said no and they still love God. We have some things to learn from a group of men and women who love Jesus that much and who wanna worship with us. And I know the verses, I know the clobber passages, right?

We gotta figure this out. And you know what, I think you are.

The Sin of Quitting and the Problem with Softening Sermons

So now you have to stop because you feel bad about believing what the Bible says about homosexuality. This is why, for example, if you wanna see jamming at work, what you do is watch a sermon by a pastor.

I would rather you keep cussing and not quit growing than thinking that the whole point of the Christian faith is behavior modification. Rather you, now this may separate some of us because some of us may be so addicted to the gospel message of quit sinning, quit sinning, quit sinning, quit, quit, quit, quit, quit.

But today I wanna talk to you about the sin of quitting. The sin of quitting. Did you know that quitting is a sin?

On homosexuality, most guys will spend the first quarter to a third of the sermon softening the blow. Are gay people going to hell?

No, not because they're gay. Everybody, we go to hell because we choose to reject the grace of God. The only way you can go to hell is if you're just a gay person. Except Christ. Jesus Christ. He's going to heaven.

Okay. Without a doubt. Okay. Fair enough.

Listen, I don't hate gay people. I have family members who are gay. I have friends who are gay. I just want you to, again, the first quarter to a third of the sermon is trying to soften the blow. They do it in a way that they would never do a sermon, for example, on drunkenness.

You don't start that by saying, listen, I don't hate drunks. I don't hate drug addicts. I have family members. I have friends who are drug addicts. Adultery. Listen, church. I just want to say up front, as I preach this message, I don't hate adulterers.

I love adulterers. God loves adulterers. I have friends who are adulterers. Family members of mine who are knee deep in adultery. So as I preach this sermon, I just want you to keep that in mind. God loves adulterers.

You see, we laugh because it's ridiculous. But sermons on homosexuality start like this because we've been effectively jammed.

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