My Response to the Sermon of a Gay Friend

This is my response to the sermon of a gay friend:

Thanks for your invitation to hear your sermon. I’ve always admired your willingness to reach across the aisle, especially to someone like me. And of course, it remains the prayer of both of us that someday we will be sharing the same pew.

Let me just address what I think is your main point of contention against “conservatives.” You are somewhat dismissive of us because of the flaws that you perceive in us – this includes Luther and Calvin – namely, our need for certainty and “simple answers.”

To this, I must plead “guilty as charged.” Consequently, my prayer is that He would constrain me from construing His Gospel according to my needs and proclivities. I experience the internal demands of my own agendas and this troubles me as it should.

However, we can turn the tables on this score. Aren’t we ALL driven by these needs and desires? Couldn’t I say this also about your entire sermon? Wasn’t it an attempt to justify YOUR lifestyle? We might even take this a bit further and ask why is it that homosexuals are preoccupied by this one issue?

Of course, the answer is very apparent. Your lifestyle is in conflict with not only your conscience but also with Scripture. Therefore, you are coerced to endlessly and futilely try to resolve this ever-present tension.

We all do this in one way or another. I certainly did! In this regards, I have to thank God because of my decades struggle with depression that had so humbled me, so that all I want now is His truth:

·        He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (Deut. 8:3)

I therefore thank God as King David had:

·        It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. (Psalm 119:71)