The Untouchables – Homosexuality Part 2 Series

“the Untouchables – Homosexuality Part 2”

Gladstone Baptist Church – 10/9/06 pm

Tonight I want to continue the series I started last week when we began to talk about Homosexuality. If you weren’t here last week, we were confronted with the fact that as Christians, we are often guilty of condemning other people’s sin, while downplaying our own sin. We affirmed that homosexuality is sin – it is a symptom that we have replaced God in our lives. But homosexuality in God’s eyes is no different to any other sin – whether it be murder, gossip, disobeying parents, pride or deception. We have a morality scale, but God doesn’t.

Too often we as Christians will condemn other “bad people” for their sin and gloss over the sin in our lives. This is what we do with homosexuals. We condemn their sin, but we conveniently ignore the sin in our own lives.

We looked at Rom 1:21-32 last week quickly and saw that ALL sin was a consequence of us rejecting God. We have ALL rejected God and we have consequently ALL have sinned. We all stand before God condemned for that

The challenge left for us was to recognise this and to be consistent in our condemnation of the sin we see around us. Too often we take a moral high ground on some issues, yet sweep other issues under the carpet. As Christians and followers of Christ we need to commit to condemn ALL sin as being wrong – whether in other’s lives or our own. But what does that practically mean in terms of relating to people who like us are sinners. Should we condemn everyone we come into contact with? No we shouldn’t condemn people. We maintain our stance that sin is wrong and no amount of public pressure should change our condemnation of it. But we should never, ever be condemning the people committing the sins – because that is God’s job – he is judge over all. We condemn the sin, and leave condemning the sinner to God.

When we relate to any sinner (homosexuals included), it must be with compassion and grace.

Philip Yancy in his book “What is So Amazing about Grace” records his experiences in helping his friend, Mel White, a prominent Christian writer in America, deal with his homosexuality. He writes …

“At one point, a TV interviewer asked Mel’s parents on-camera, “You know what other Christians are saying about your son. They say he’s an abomination. What do you think about that?”

“Well,” the mother answered in a sweet, quavery voice, “he may be an abomination, but he’s still our pride and joy.”

Homosexuals, just like everyone alive on this planet are sinners. God hates the sin of every sinner. “All have fallen short of the glory of God.” But somehow, God still loves us anyway. He loves us as people because he created us. We need to love others in exactly the same way, accept them as they are and allow God’s Spirit to work in them and convict them of their sin.

So that is where we got to last week. This week and next week, I want to talk about some of the myths about homosexuality – because often we are uninformed when we talk about homosexuality and we need to be informed if we want to help them.

S1 - Run a quiz about Homosexual statistics & information.

But before I do, I want to give you a bit of a quiz … On the back of your sermon notes are some questions … I want you to answer … I’ll even let you work together with the person next to you if you like.

1. Which of the “uniforms” below is not an outfit worn by The Village People?

a) Policeman b) Indian Chief c) Doctor d) Biker

2. Homosexuality is genetic

a) True b) False c) Don’t know d) What’s genetic

3. According to statistics, what percentage of people in Australia are homosexual?

a) 1.2% b) 2.1% c) 4.9% d) 9.8%

4. Which TV show / Movie does not feature a homosexual relationship?

a) Will and Grace b) Legally Blond 2 c) Queer Eye for the Straight Guy d) Brokeback Mountain

5. In the Netherlands where same sex couples are allowed to marry, the average length of a relationship between two men is

a) 9 months b) 1.5 years c) 4 years d) 9 years

6. What percentage of homosexual men have had sexual contact with ‘casual partners’ in the previous 6 months

a) 27% b) 58% c) 70% d) 78%

7. What percentage of homosexual men admitted to having between 11 & 50 sex partners in the previous 6 months.

a) 6% b) 16% c) 26% d) 46%

(Only 21% were in monogamous relationship which in part explains the high percentage of STI’s within homosexual populations)