Washed & Waiting

Yesterday we continued our Elephant in the Church series by addressing homosexuality. You can listen to the message HERE.

One of the books that helped me most in preparing this message was actually one that I picked up just last week at the Story conference in Chicago. It's called Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality by Wesley Hill.

It is a powerful and moving story of struggle and faithfulness. 

Hill was raised in a loving Christian home, but at the age of 13 began experiencing homosexual desires. However, Hill has remained committed to Christianity’s traditional position that sex is intended to be experienced only within marriage between a man and a woman. 

Part-memoir, part theological reflection, Hill shares the struggles that gay Christians face as they seek to live faithful to God’s “no” to homosexuality. Hill places his struggle within the larger story of struggle that all of us are called into as we follow Christ. The message of what Christ has done for us on the cross reminds us that all Christians, whatever our sexual orientation, will need to pick up our own cross and follow him. We must die to our natural desires and affections and come into conformity with Him.

He quotes New Testament scholar Richard Hays who says that all Christians, including homosexual Christians who battle with constant loneliness, are “summoned to a difficult, costly obedience while ‘groaning’ for the ‘redemption of our bodies’. Anyone who does not recognize this as a description of authentic Christian existence has never struggled seriously with the imperatives of the gospel, which challenge and frustrate our ‘natural’ impulses in countless ways.”

Romans 5:12 says "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned." Since Adam’s fall, we are all inclined to reject God, to act selfishly, to hate our enemies, to lie on our taxes, and to cheat on our spouses. Homosexual desires are no different than any of these. In fact, I would argue that the cause of all sin may be said to be “genetic” or inborn in that it is a result of our fallen human nature. 

Salvation is about being delivered from these fallen desires and given a new Spirit-empowered desire to pursue God.

Some of us come to Christ with a propensity for alcoholism, fits of rage, chemical dependency, a domineering personality, or the constant need for attention. When we come to Christ we are called to put these things to death and follow Him. Does this mean the struggle is over? Hardly. It is a slow and arduous process that ultimately will not be complete until Christ's return.

Hill considers himself a gay Christian who each day takes up his cross and willfully chooses to live a celibate lifestyle, anticipating a day when all things will be made new (Romans 8:23). 

Comments

[steven]

difficult word...solidly biblical.

[Steve]

well put Cuz...

[Dean]

Good helpful stuff for Pastors, Paul. Thank you!