Sermon Transcript
Well, hey, part of me, most of me, loves church. And by church, I mean the church at large, Christianity in general, not our specific church, although I love our specific church too, that’s cool. And then part of me can be irritated, a little irritated with church, probably because I see in myself the same irritating behavior that I see in other Christians, so then I get irritated because it reminds me of me, I guess. The part of church that I love is that it’s the place where we learn about Jesus. We learn of the God who comes to rescue us even though we are terrible sinners.
The God who, as someone smarter than me has said, the God who sees us to the bottom and loves us to the sky. The God who knows everything about us And yet, for some reason, He still wants us. I love that about church. I love it. I cannot hear it enough.
The part of church that can irritate me is when we pretend that we don’t need that amount of grace. We put on a show and we try to get other people to believe that we actually live respectable lives. But we know that that is not true, right? Because we know that even those closest to us would probably run for the hills if they saw the depths of what was in our hearts, what we have done, what we would do if we could get away with it. And that is why we cover up.
We want to hide ourselves. That is why we don’t want people to see us to the bottom. Because we don’t want to be rejected. But as Christians, we should understand we are on equal playing field with everyone else. We are all pretty messed up, and our only hope is Jesus.
But nobody wants to admit that to others, including me, I don’t want to admit that, and that inconsistency is what irritates me. So, can you see the glaring contradiction between believing my sin is so bad that God had to die in order to pay for it, We believe that, while simultaneously we walk into a church and act like, I’m fine. I actually don’t have any issues at all. My life, my morality, my relationships, my ethics, all that, it’s going pretty okay. No prayer requests for me this week.
I’m good, I think. But, Even though I’m saying that, I also believe somehow that my sin is so bad that God had to die to pay for it. I mean, like, come on now, right? It’s one or the other. It can’t be both.
And if we are willing to walk into a church and call ourselves Christian, which means that we believe our sin is big enough that God had to die to pay for it, then let’s be willing to walk into the same church and say, without God’s supernatural intervention, I would be irredeemably broken. So, with that, let’s grab our Bibles or our sermon note sheet or look up on the screen for today’s Scripture passage. We are in 1 Timothy continuing our series Think Biblically. We will be in 1 Timothy for the next several months, so if you haven’t left a bookmark there already, this is the time to do it. 1 Timothy chapter 1, verses 8 through 11, we know that the law is good if one uses it properly.
We also know that the law is not made for the righteous, but for the lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly, the sinful, the unholy, the irreligious, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality. For slave traders and liars and perjurers and whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God which He entrusted to me. So, this morning we are going to see what the law tells us, what the law doesn’t tell us, and finally where the law points us. What the law tells us, what the law doesn’t tell us, and where that points us. And then after that, we’ll look at the one thing that you want me to talk about from verse 10.
You’re wondering how I’m going to handle. So, if you are someone making a decision about having children with you in worship today and you want to pull them out before I handle the one thing in verse 10 that you’re wondering how that’s going to go, there will be a clear opportunity to exit. But I’ll tell you, If your kids are like 12 or older, this is just pastoral advice, you don’t have to take it, I would strongly recommend that they stay in here. FYI warning, I will be real about everything. I will be real.
But their world is real and you want them to be prepared. Okay, without further ado, what the law tells us. The job of the law is to show us what we have already said this morning, that we are quite a mess. That is not your fill in the blank if you’re type A, just wait for it, it’ll be up on the screen. Paul says in Galatians 3 that the law was given to us because of our transgressions.
In other words, it wasn’t given to us because we are righteous. The law is given to us because we are unrighteous, which is what he says here, the law wasn’t given to the righteous, but the unrighteous, the ungodly, the sinful, the lawless. God didn’t look down on Israel Israel and say, y’all are doing great. Let me give you a law. He looked down on Israel and said, oh my, you guys don’t know your right from your left.
You’re just like all the nations around you. You need to know that you are seriously blowing it. The law shows us that we are not as we should be. It exposes our weakness. It shows us that we have failed monumentally, which shouldn’t be any surprise if we have one ounce of self-awareness, because we cover and we hide and we twist the facts to make ourselves look better.
We wouldn’t do that unless we had something to hide. The law is meant to humble us. That is its purpose, to show us who we really are. Now, laws in other religions have a different purpose. Laws in other religions, not Christianity, are like a benchmark to hit in order to earn a prize.
Yes, you’re falling short of good karma, or nirvana, or enlightenment, or the 5 Pillars, but just try harder and you’ll get there. To which I would say, this might surprise you that I would say this, but I would tell you, go for it. If you aren’t a Christian already, try to obey one religion’s laws. Just give it your best shot. You pick whichever one you want.
And leave nothing on the table, though, okay? I mean, really put forth as much effort as you possibly can to follow whatever it is that they say to do. And then, when you fail, and fail, and fail, and fail, and fail, and fail, and fail, maybe you’ll realize what the law was telling you and Christianity about yourself, was actually right all along. You are unrighteous. You are unholy.
You have fallen short. The law tells us that we are lawbreakers, ungodly, sinful, unholy, irreligious, father killers, mother killers, murderers, sexually immoral, liars. To which we might want to say, Wait a minute there. I’m not that bad. I mean, liar, okay, but I’m not a murderer.
So ease up there, law.
Listen, I’m sure you could construct some type of exception to this, but if you look at the people in the world who you consider the most evil and you believe that there is no way that you could ever do what they do, You might be kidding yourself a little bit.
If you had their same circumstances, if you had their same temptations— do we pick our temptations? I mean, we can do things to fuel them or we can do things to starve our temptations, but do we pick them to start with? If you had their same opportunity, if you had their same power, if you had their same lack of accountability, if you had no threat of punishment, you might be surprised at what you are capable of.
I have thought on multiple occasions, this is confessions of a true pastor, I guess, while driving I have thought, you know, like I see someone put on his blinker to change lanes like up ahead of me and then someone roars up from like half a mile behind to block this guy from getting over into the lane, you know, just somebody being mean or aggressive, selfish to other people on the road. It doesn’t even have to be against me. It doesn’t, like, I don’t have to be a victim. I just, like, see it happen. You know what I’ve thought then?
I’ve thought, God, it was a wise move on your part when you didn’t give me superpowers.
Like, if I had super strength or if I could, like, move objects with my mind and I saw someone, like, speed up to 100 miles an hour to block somebody else from changing lanes and I had super mind powers, I’d probably just hurl that car into outer space, right? Like, your selfish attitude on the road is not good for anyone. We voted, okay? Nobody wants this. The world would clearly be a better place without you, 100% agreement, everybody that just saw this happen.
So you’re out of here, pal, like, enjoy your journey to the sun.
Now, that’s kind of funny. I guess, right? But what does a police detective call that? Motive. I’m only missing means and opportunity, right?
What if I had means and opportunity?
What if you had the power, the lack of accountability, no threat of punishment or retribution? What are the depths of depravity that you would plunge into? And if you think that you would stay squeaky clean, you don’t know your own heart.
The law tells us about that. The law tells that— the law tells us that about ourselves if we allow it to search us. The law tells us that we are not as we should be. Okay, next, what the law never tells us. The law never tells us that we are righteous.
The law never gives us a pat on the back. It never says, there you go, you did it, you were good today. It never says that. Romans 3:20, no one will be declared righteous by observing the law. Galatians 2:16, no one will be justified by observing the law.
Galatians 2:20, if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing. The law will never tell us that we are righteous or good, either in whole or in part. It will never tell us that we are partly good. There is no applause from the law ever. If we think that we are doing all right, we have missed the law.
If we think we are doing all right, do you know who we are? We are the Pharisee in the parable that Jesus tells of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Jesus gives this illustration of a Pharisee and tax collector who both go up to the temple to pray. The Pharisee says, God, I thank you that I’m not like other people, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give away a 10th of my money.
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but he beat his breast and he said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Jesus says, I tell you that it’s this man, the evil tax collector, rather than the good Pharisee who went home justified before God. Jesus finishes the illustration by saying, all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. So, if we look at the law and we feel, exalted, if we look at the law and we feel justified, if we look at the law and we feel like, I’m doing alright, we’ve missed it.
If we look at the law and we feel humbled, if we look at the law and we ask for mercy, we’re on the right track. That leads to our final point before we talk about what you really want me to talk about. Where does the law point us? The law points us to Christ. The law makes it abundantly clear we have no righteousness of our own, and therefore, we need an alien righteousness.
That is what theologians call it, a goodness that comes from outside of us to be our goodness for us. The law shows us that we are in trouble and points us to Christ to cling to Him. We sometimes sing, dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne. Do you believe that? Dressed in His righteousness alone?
None of ours? Zero? We contribute nothing? Do you feel like without Christ there is no righteousness for you?
If not, the law still has work to do in your heart. That is how law and gospel fit together. Law exposes need. Christ fulfills need. This is part of his point at the end of our passage, verse 11, talking about conforming to the gospel.
Law, I messed up. Gospel, Christ comes to rescue me. See how those fit together? If you don’t think you’re messed up, why does Christ need to come rescue you? If you look at law and say, I’m doing all right, then there is no need for gospel.
So, try this out. If you’re in an accountability group with other Christians, I mean, if you’re not familiar with what an accountability group is, sometimes Christians get together and basically confess our sins to one another for support and encouragement. But oftentimes those meetings go something like this. One person asks, how was your week? How are you doing?
And the other person says, oh, it was okay. I think I’m actually doing all right this week. Instead of that, instead of lying, how about you be honest and say something like, this week The law revealed that I willingly contribute to the work of Satan in the world. I daily assist him in his schemes to shackle humanity in the painful consequences of sin. And given the right circumstances, I’m not sure I’d be much different than Hitler.
I’ve never had absolute power like he did, but the little power I’ve gotten, I’ve seemed to use for my own benefit. Every inclination of my heart is evil, Genesis 8:21, but thanks be to God, to God who sent Christ to pay the price that I owe and give me a goodness that is not my own. Thanks be to God that Christ came to rescue sinners exactly like me. That’s law pointing to gospel, finding our righteousness not in our actions but in Christ’s gift of His righteousness to us. As Christians, we should be the most secure the most emotionally stable people in the world who can deal with suffering and loss and failure better than anyone else because we believe that we have an unshakable worth and value, but that it’s not ours, which means our value and worth are never in jeopardy of being lost.
And at the same time, we’re completely humble about it because, again, it wasn’t ours. That’s why we sing, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. But how quickly we forget that and we build our hope on our own righteousness, and then we either consider ourselves better than others or we fall into despair when we fail.
Now, for the matter that you’re really curious how I’m going to handle, and if you wanted an opportunity to pull your kids out, this is it. Okay? However, again, I’d say like kids who are like 12 or older, maybe reconsider. You still have a few seconds to get out. I’ve got a couple like more paragraphs here before we get into anything.
First and most importantly, whoever you are, whatever your temptations are privately or publicly, whatever you are doing, Whatever you have done in the past, whatever you would do if you could get away with it, Christ died for you.
God loves you.
We are glad that you are here. We want you to know that above all other things. And I would say, in fact, please do me a favor. If you don’t feel loved or welcomed as a result of this message, would you let me know? Would you call me, send me an email, stop by the office, something?
Just let me know because I want you to feel loved and welcomed. But please listen to the whole message, okay? Don’t bail early and then say, I wasn’t loved. I’d say stick with it, just the whole message, and then let me know. If necessary.
There is zero room for moral superiority in Christianity, zero. And I’ve done my best to show that by saying every single one of us is completely flattened by the law. Again, the law teaches us that we are all in error, that we are all unrighteous, that we all need a Savior. One of the areas in which the law shows us that we are in error is how we handle our sexuality. Which, of course, all of us have erred in that arena in some way.
All of us deal with some kind of temptation in that arena. Jesus says lust is the same thing as adultery. These verses mention sexual immorality, which is just everything not with your spouse. You’re like, well, I don’t have a spouse. Well, then it’s everything, right?
That’s what that is. And that includes any kind of, like, image or fantasy. Then in addition to that, in addition to those things, the Bible says, Well, you know, don’t do it, it’ll harm you, it’s not what God wants. These verses and others like them throughout the Bible show that homosexuality is another way in which we err.
In the last couple of decades, there’s been massive efforts to define exactly what do we mean by homosexuality and exactly what does the Bible say is good and not good. And I’m glad for that. Anytime we dive more into Scripture to figure out exactly what it’s saying, we get more truth. Not less. So, look as long as you need to into any of these matters and trust that God will lead you to the truth if you are seeking it.
The problem with the amount of literature that has been produced in the last couple of decades is that it’s very challenging to cover every nuance of what people might think on this subject. So, today, because we can’t address everything, we’re only going to stick to what we know from the one passage that we’re looking at and not cover, like, the entire biblical landscape. So, first topic to cover, what does it mean to be gay or homosexual? What are we even talking about? The gay community itself would define the term as someone who experiences physical, sexual, romantic attraction to someone of their same gender.
And that person experiences very little or no attraction to someone of the opposite gender. And most people, this is helpful too, most people who have had these feelings have tried, at least to some degree, at some point not to have these feelings, but they still do. Feelings might not even be the best word for it because it seems to be like a good bit deeper than feelings. There’s something much more all-consuming than just feelings, but I don’t have another word, so forgive me. And that’s a helpful window into what people experience who define themselves as gay.
I will try to add to that throughout the rest of our time that it’s probably useful and definitely biblical to consider those feelings, even as all-consuming as they are, as a type of temptation instead of thinking of them as, oh well, that’s just the way that I am. And we will work with that throughout. So, second topic to cover, because not only do we need to cover what people think, we need to cover what people think that Christians believe, even if no Christians believe it. So, for instance, people ask, do gay people automatically go to hell regardless of where they stand with Christ because they have these feelings? For the record, I have never met a Christian who thought that.
But I have met plenty of people who thought that Christians thought that. So, to answer the question directly, no, gay people do not automatically go to hell regardless of where they stand with Christ because they have these feelings. No, that would be ridiculous, like so completely theologically incorrect I’m kind of sad that we even need to spend time on it. If that were true, none of us would have any hope whatsoever. Right?
Because all of us have desires. Hello! All of us have desires, some of them really deeply ingrained desires that if we were to act on them, we would be going against the way Scripture tells us we should live. And that is simply what we call temptation.
All of us have powerful feelings that seem natural to us that we didn’t really go searching for, There’s this desire, maybe it’s an overwhelming, all-consuming desire, but it just came upon us and it feels like it’s totally the right thing to do, but God through Scripture says, don’t do it.
That’s temptation. That’s what temptation is.
All of us have that. And all of us, right? Come on, all of us act on our temptations from time to time. Don’t we? And all of us trust in the grace of Jesus to rescue us when we fall into our temptations, or when we choose to fall, kind of seems like we’re a victim in the process, but sometimes it’s like, I’m going there, right?
All of us do that. And then afterward, we’re like, I’m going to trust in Jesus’ grace to rescue me. So the first hope, and I pray it feels like a hope to offer you, if you define yourself as gay, if you have feelings of attraction for someone of your same gender, the first hope to offer you is that you are not alone in this human experience. You are not alone. I know being in a church can make you feel like you are some kind of untouchable outcast leper beyond redemption, and that is our fault.
And I am sorry. It’s not true. You are actually no different than anyone else. Welcome to the club of humanity that fights temptation, and please feel welcome in this church. So, no, dealing with temptation does not send someone to hell because we all deal with temptation.
But here’s the deal, just because no temptation has seized us except that which is common to man, 1 Corinthians 10:13, That does not mean that it’s okay to act on that temptation. Just because we have desires that feel really natural to us doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea to follow through with them, right? I’m going to follow my heart. Well, the Bible says your heart is wicked above all other things, right? I don’t want to follow my heart.
I want to follow Jesus. I want to follow what the Bible says to do because God loves me and He knows what’s best for me. The gay person, just like the straight person, says— has to say no when God says no. And even deeper than that, while temptation is not sin, just let that sink for a second. While temptation is not sin, because remember, Christ was tempted.
So even though temptation is not sin, We still need to fight it. When Christ was tempted, what did He do? He fought the temptation. He didn’t embrace the temptation. He didn’t ignore it.
He didn’t say, well, this is who I am and this is the way that it’s going to be. He said, no, that’s not what we do. We push against it. We run from it. James 4:7, resist the devil and he will flee from you.
You say, but Dan, that doesn’t make it go away. That doesn’t make the desire go away.
I know.
I know it doesn’t. And I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t make the desire go away. The desire may never go away. I’m still dealing with a lot of the same temptations I dealt with 25 years ago.
You could tell a similar story. I told our first service they’re probably still dealing with the same stuff that they had 50, 60, 70, 80 years ago.
Right? But that doesn’t mean that we should give up the fight. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to surrender to the temptation.
All right, next question. Does the Bible really say not to act on homosexual desires? You might wonder, like, hey, I know the version you quoted in the bulletin translates the word that way, but is that actually the right translation of the word.
Yes, it is the right translation.
In this particular verse, I’ve heard all kinds of claims, such as Paul is the only person to ever use this word, so we have no idea what it means. I’ve heard this verse is talking about temple prostitution or kidnapping and rape or small boy slaves. But that it’s not talking about 2 people in a committed same-sex relationship, or if it is, there is no way to prove that it is. I’ve heard, I’ve heard all of that. So here’s the whole story.
Please go fact-check.
Yes, Paul is the only one to use this word. That’s true. But he actually does that from time to time. In his letters. He takes a noun and makes it a verb, or he takes 2 words and squishes them together, or he uses a word in a context that nobody has ever used that word before.
And in those other instances, we don’t really question what it means. In the case of this particular word for homosexuality, Paul pulled it from 2 words in the Old Testament book of Leviticus and made it one word. He just smushed them together. And they’re actually right next to each other in Leviticus 20 and just a couple of words away from each other in Leviticus 18, so it’s not even a made-up word. He just took 2 words and made them one word.
In both places, Leviticus 20 and 18, it instructs, you shall not lie with a man as with a woman. And Paul takes the word for man and he takes the word for lie and he just puts them together.
So it’s clear what he means. You shall not lie with a man As with a woman. If you are more astute, you might ask, wasn’t the Old Testament written in Hebrew and the New Testament written in Greek? Then how was it that Paul pulled Greek words out of the Old Testament that was written in Hebrew? Great question.
There was a Greek translation of the Old Testament that was assembled hundreds of years before Paul and was commonly used in Paul’s day, and we know for a fact Paul had access to this translation because other times that he quotes Scripture from the Old Testament, he is quoting verbatim what that version said and not verbatim of what like a Hebrew version of the scripture said at the same time. So we know he had it, we know he used it. He pulled those 2 words out of Leviticus 18 and smushed them together to make his compound word saying man sleeping with a man. Again, it’s very clear. So some people want to push back on that and say yes, but just like the Bible says not to have sex until you are married if you are straight, This would be the same thing.
Stay celibate until you’re married, but it’s okay after that. Well, first of all, that assumes a definition of marriage that the Bible doesn’t, but we’re not developing all of that today. Again, we can’t do everything. All we need for today is this verse. So, looking closely at the prohibition in Leviticus 18 that Paul is quoting, well, give us all the answers that we need, which some of you might even want to contest looking at Leviticus because you say, well, we don’t follow other things out of Leviticus, why do we need to follow this?
Totally true that we don’t need to follow other things out of Leviticus, that would be a whole different sermon or lesson, but if New Testament authors quote it and say for us to do it, then we need to follow it. Like, 1 Peter quotes Leviticus by saying, be holy as God is holy. We still do that. Nobody argues with whether we should do that or not. Peter pulled it out and used it, makes it applicable for us today.
So, back to the prohibition in Leviticus 18, which is absolutely relevant for us because Paul quotes it and says it is relevant for us. In the case of, do not lie with a man as you do a woman, marriage does not make the action permissible because it’s the action itself that is a problem. Not simply the relationship status of the people who are involved. For heterosexual sex, the action is never the problem. If you go back and read Leviticus 18, you’ll see that.
There’s one exception, and you’re like, what do you do with that? That seems like the action is the problem. Are we still supposed to follow that or not? I don’t know, you figure that out on your own, okay? But almost always, it’s not the action that’s the problem, it’s what the relationship status of the people are that are involved in it.
I mean, read Song of Solomon, okay? The Bible loves sex. God invented sex. The problem for heterosexuals has to do with what type of relationship do the 2 people have. So if you read Leviticus 18, don’t lie with another man’s wife.
See, sleeping with somebody isn’t the problem. The problem is that it’s somebody else’s wife. Then he lists a whole bunch of other relationships, your sister, the daughter of your son, on and on, and you’re like, geez, this is getting uncomfortable. Comfortable. But the problem for heterosexuals is always what type of relationship do you have with this person?
And in Leviticus, it’s one, you need to be husband and wife, and two, you can’t be relatives of each other. So, don’t marry a relative because then you’d really be in a quandary if you’re married to somebody but you can’t have this type of relationship. Whereas with homosexuality, the problem is with the action itself. Do not lie with a man as with a woman.
Period. It doesn’t say, don’t lie with somebody else’s husband. There is no relational component at all. It doesn’t matter who this person is in relation to you. Don’t do it.
We can’t say the prohibitions in Leviticus are only in reference to idol worship either because the actions listed don’t somehow become permissible if they aren’t connected to idol worship. Like, don’t sleep with your father’s daughter. Well, what if I am sleeping with her, but it is not part of a worship act to a demon god? Can I sleep with her then?
No, still don’t do it. What if I marry her? No, still not okay. She is still your father’s daughter. Marriage doesn’t make any of those actions permissible.
And removing them from idol worship, if they were ever connected there in the first place, doesn’t make it permissible either. Final point on marriage does not make permissible. There are 2 words in the 1 Timothy verse, sexual immorality and homosexuality. So, sexual immorality is, again, anything not with your spouse, and we had a whole sermon on that if you really want to go look that up. And again, someone could say, well, hey, these 2 men are married, so it’s okay.
But Scripture has actually given us a second word here to account for that scenario. Even if they consider themselves married, even if they want to claim like, hey, we’re not committing sexual immorality because it’s with my spouse. All right, I’ll grant you that, but you’re still in error of this second word, sleeping with someone of the same sex.
So, next pushback. If this really is what the Bible says, why should we listen to verses out of the Bible at all? Don’t we all just pick what’s right and wrong for ourselves anyway? It’s a totally fair question. And I had all kinds of answers for you, like nobody really believes in relative truth.
I was going to point— I was going to prove that to you. And there’s no such thing as right and wrong unless there is an external lawgiver, so if we want to claim there is anything that is right and wrong in the world, we need a God and that means He is the one that sets it. I have quotes from atheists to back up all these claims. It is not just me who thinks this. Not to mention there are times in history when a culture deviated from what Scripture said to do and then the chaos that ensued.
So, if you are interested in any of that, come talk to me, I guess. Those are fine reasons to listen to God. But you know, at the end of the day, the one reason why we should listen to what Scripture says, And the only reason that you’re actually going to listen to what Scripture says, it’s Proverbs 3:5, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. That’s why, because we trust Him, because He’s God and we trust Him, that’s why.
Final thought this morning. If you are somebody who feels pretty beat up by what Scripture says not to do, gosh, all of us can relate to that.
All of us should be able to relate to that. That is the law’s job. To expose our failures. If you feel beat up, welcome to the humanity club again. This is what the law does to us.
It’s what it’s supposed to do to us. I’ve had gay people tell me, Dan, you’re telling me that I need to reject who I am.
And my response is always, the law’s job is to show all of us that we need to reject who we are.
If you think you have been a Christian for a long time and you don’t think that you have to completely reject everything that you are in order to follow Christ, you have missed something.
That is all of us. And the gay person understands the law better than you if that is the case.
The law shows us we forsake ourselves completely and embrace Him. We forsake all of who we are and we take on all of who He is because ourselves are unworthy, but He is worthy.
But you have to let the law get you to that step.
Don’t walk away before it leads you to where it is supposed to lead you. Let it take you till you find your righteousness in Christ completely alone and not in what you’ve done or would like to do.
2 people went up to the temple to pray, one a devout churchgoer, the other a practicing homosexual sinner.
The churchgoer prayed to God and said, Thank you for not making me like gay sinners and other vile heathen. I have kept your law.
But the gay sinner stood at a distance and wouldn’t even look up to heaven.
He beat his chest and said, have mercy on me, O God, a sinner.
I tell you, it was the second man who went home justified rather than the first.
Let’s pray.
Jesus, You’ve called us to forsake everything that we are and follow You.
That’s the best decision we could ever make, Lord. But we are all scared to forsake who we are because it’s all that we know. Let us see You and Your righteousness as worth it.
Let us see Your goodness as something that we want, and help us to let go of every fiber of ourselves that we want to cling to. We ask those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
