Sunday 11 • 10 • 18

And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy. Every one of you shall revere his father and his mother. You shall keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal. I am the Lord your God. When you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted. It shall be eaten the same day you offer it or on the day after, and anything left over till the third day shall be burned up with fire. If it is eaten at all on the third day, it is tainted. It will not be accepted, and everyone who eats it shall bear his iniquity because he has profaned what is holy to the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from his people. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edges, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. You shall not steal. You shall not deal falsely. You shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am the Lord. You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. — Leviticus 18

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Father, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts would be pleasing and acceptable in your sight. You are our rock and our fortress and our Redeemer. Amen.

Today we're going to talk about sex, obviously, from that passage. I'm not going to be graphic or use shocking language, but I am going to be as direct as this passage is. If you have a person under five feet tall who needs to leave this room because you're not ready to have this conversation, this is your fair warning moment.

The Holiness Code

Last week and this week we are in a section of Leviticus that is called the Holiness Code. We've been working our way through probably what is one of the most difficult books in the Old Testament—one that a lot of people trip up over and say, "I just can't read this stuff." As we've walked through it, we've come through the sacrifices, then the laws for the establishment of the priesthood, then the clean laws, then Yom Kippur—the day of Atonement—and now the Holiness Code.

The Holiness Code prescribes two specific things. One is care for the most weak and vulnerable members of society in Israel, and the second is all these prohibitions against sexuality. Sex with other people's spouses is off limits. Sex with family members is off limits. Sex with animals is off limits. Polygamy is off limits. That's a particularly hard one because we read about the kings of Israel who engaged in polygamy. I just want to make sure you understand the difference between these two things. Even though the Bible describes that, it's very clear that the Bible doesn't prescribe that, and what they were doing was wrong. Over time, that was completely weeded out of the people.

Of course, this passage famously mentions a prohibition against homosexuality and uses the language of abomination to describe that—verse 24 in this passage. I just want to point out that's not the only thing that's described as an abomination. There are a number of things in this passage, but we're going to focus this morning on this prohibition against homosexuality. We're doing this for a couple reasons. It's not because it's any more or less sinful than anything listed in this passage, but I think there are a few other questions that are bounced around within the church about how we think about this.

And to be fair about the gravity of those issues, the way that this feels like a war where there are real casualties, the way that many of you are affected by having family members, good friends, yourself who struggle with homosexuality. I just want to be really careful, and I think it's appropriate for us to address, and I think it would be frankly irresponsible for me to skip over this passage. So I want to do so in a way that's loving and careful and clear and kind.

I want to ask you, though, if you have a really hard time. And I want you to know I care about that. And it's really heavy for me to talk about these things. And if you want to talk to me after the service, I'd be more than happy to talk. I just ask you to stay. Because one of the real challenges in our culture is we don't listen sometimes when we disagree. So would you hang in for this morning?

How These Words Land in Our Culture

Let's start with how these words that you just read go down in our culture. You know how they go down in our culture. The comedian Nick Offerman from Parks and Rec fame calls Leviticus the most messed up book in the Old Testament. And he shifts from comedy to something serious when he describes it. He says:

I believe it's none other than the Lord God Almighty who instructed us to love thy neighbor as thyself. Wise words from the King of Kings. Unfortunately, he spoke that phrase smack dab in the middle of the book of Leviticus. The flagrant double standard espoused in Leviticus should surely be enough evidence for us to take the Bible's trustworthiness out of the equation. When I am instructed by the all knowing Jehovah to profess an ostensibly equal brotherly love within the same pages where I'm instructed to murder my fellow man or woman for engaging in a love act, I can't help but look elsewhere for guidance. I am choosing to enlist instead the book of my own common sense.

I mean, on some level, after hearing this passage, do you resonate with that? Do you have some sense of like, what? This is hard. And as we read this material, this stuff goes down really hard in our culture to talk about these things.

So here's my outline for this morning. I'm going to go just two points. The yeah buts. And then grace goes there.

The Yeah Buts

The yeah buts. I preached a whole series on homosexuality in the church a couple years ago and I'm not going to repeat that material this morning. But I decided instead to actually frame this in terms of people's objections to what is the historic classical position of the Christian church—that homosexuality is a sin. And I'm doing so in the way that this conversation actually happens, which is with a lot of objections that go like this: Yeah, but...

That's what the yeah buts are. And I'm going to go through several of these.

Yeah, but you Christians make such a big deal about sex.

Yes. Because God does. God makes a big deal about sex. The God of the Bible, no matter what you've been told, the youth group is pro sex. Like two thumbs up sex. God is all about this.

There is an entire book of erotic love poetry in the Bible—the Song of Solomon. You don't see young men reading this aloud, right, because it was salacious material. See, God is pro sex. Human sexuality is His idea. He was the one who came up with the penis and the vagina. Those were his ideas. He thinks those are great. Those are beautiful parts of his creation. He's not prudish about that. It's not bad. It's not dirty. It's not embarrassing, no matter what your family said.

We make a big deal about sex because God does. But at issue—really at issue—is that God says there's a right context for sexuality, and there's a wrong context. Sexual union throughout the Bible has always been complementary, exclusive—a one male, one female for life arrangement. That's what's laid out for us in Scripture. And it's those things because all of those things tell us something about God.

God uses sexuality as a parable. Man, sexuality is a parable, and it tells you a story about what God is like. God is not a he; God's a we. God is complementary unity. That's what sexuality is. In its best form, it's complementary unity. It's also about joy and ecstasy because that's what a relationship with God is like. It's meant for our joy and our overflowing of our joy cups. And sexuality is to picture those things.

That's why people don't like the Bible's sex ethic—for there to be a right way to use this and a wrong way to use this. There's a way in which God says, this brings flourishing and life, and this brings destruction.

Remember the background of this entire book. This passage came to a group of people who had been slaves in Egypt for four hundred years. The real context I want you to know about is that they are a rescued people. Their rescue comes before their laws. Their deliverance comes before any instruction.

This is incredibly important. We as Christians never lead with our sexual ethics. We are never like, "Hey, you gotta agree with us about sexuality, and then you can become a Christian." That is not the order. We don't hold out a holiness code for unbelievers and say, "Perform and God will accept you." That is always wrong. Christian sexual ethics, the way we understand Leviticus—this is not the center point of Christianity.

If you're here this morning and you're not clear on this, let me say this: The center point of Christianity is Jesus died, raised, and ascended into heaven. Son of God, Savior of sinners. We would never say, "Hey, what do you think about our sexual ethics?" No, we would say, "Hey, decide about Jesus. If Jesus is not who He says He is, who cares what the Bible says about sexual ethics? It doesn't matter because the center point is Jesus." Deliverance is prior to holiness. Justification is always before sanctification.

But What About the Hypocrisy?

You might say, "Yeah, but you Christians make homosexual sins such a bigger deal than heterosexual sins." To that I have to say, I agree. If you read Leviticus 18, and it's hard to read, and we jumped between parts of it—the percentage of this that's about homosexuality is so small compared to all the heterosexual sins that are listed in this passage. I think it's a fair objection that many people in the homosexual community say, "Y'all are hypocrites about this." There is so much hypocrisy in Christians about this subject.

And yet, here's why I'm giving this so much airtime this morning: We're not in a culture that really says, "Hey, incest is okay. Zoophilia is okay." But this is the big elephant in the Christian room. To be fair to the immensity of the debate, that's why I'm giving this so much airtime today, but this always needs to be said: There is no inherent righteousness in being straight. Being straight doesn't make you more holy than someone who's gay. That is not the center point.

Being gay isn't what keeps you out of heaven. What keeps a person out of heaven? Rejecting Jesus as Savior, not submitting your life to Jesus as Savior and Lord—that's what keeps a person out of heaven. There is no inherent righteousness in being straight. There is no inherent evil that keeps you away from God and out of heaven from being gay. It's about Jesus. It's about where you stand with regard to Him.

But Who Is the Bible to Say?

The main objection I hear all the time is this: "If two people love each other, and they are committed to each other, who is the Bible to say that it's wrong?"

To which we have to say two things. One is that not everything we love is good for us. Have you seen people who have flushed their life down the toilet around things that they love, and they don't want to give up, that are just self-destructive? We've seen people pursue things that actually end up with their harm. So are we always the best arbiter of what is best for us? The answer is clearly no.

The second is this: If God designed a human being, then God knows best how a human being is to function. You know that little book that's in your glove compartment of your car that you never read? It's called the owner's manual for your car. Let's talk about the owner's manual. Let's pretend the owner's manual is the law of your car. It tells you when to rotate your tires, what grade of gasoline to use, what kind of oil to use in your car, towing capacity—it tells you all those things. It's the law of the car.

Now you can choose to violate the law of the car. You can put syrup in your gas tank, but it's not going to work right. God is the one who writes the law because God is the maker of the car. He says this is what's best. So one writer, Stanley Howard, says this, and I think this is really helpful.

He says, Christians do not believe we have a right to do whatever we want with our bodies. We do not believe we have a right to our bodies because we're baptized. When we're baptized, we become members of one another. Then we can tell each other what we should and shouldn't do with our bodies.

He had a colleague at the University of Notre Dame who taught Judaica studies. He was Jewish and always said that any religion that doesn't tell you what to do with your genitals and your pots and pans couldn't be interesting. I love that phrase. That is exactly true.

In the church, we tell you what you can and can't do with your genitals. They are not your own. They are private. Those are countercultural words, aren't they? I mean, in this day and age in America, we think our bodies are our own business, thank you very much. Christians, a lot of times, think my body is my own business, thank you very much. But his statement about pots and pans and genitals finds its origin right here. Haven't we been reading all about pots and pans? All the food laws, and now all the laws about your genitals. You know, like, who is the Bible to say? God. It's His Word. He wrote the owner's manual. He has a right to say because He made them.

The Objection: Interpretive Disagreement

Yeah, but that's your interpretation. I know scholars who say the Bible doesn't oppose homosexuality, and that's an objection that's very specific to this passage. There are a lot of people who look at this passage and say this, but if you think about it, that's actually a kind of an odd objection.

It's essentially saying that the critic is arguing if someone has a different view on a particular passage of Scripture, that view must be equally valid as any other view. Well, let's put that to a test. If you have a doctor who comes with a biopsy and finds a little lump, and the doctor comes back with the test results and says, "I think this could be dangerous. I think this could be cancerous." And you want a second opinion, you go to another doctor and they say, "Well, my perspective is, it's probably just a cold." You'd think, that doesn't sound like crazy science. That view just because that person says it doesn't mean it's equally valid. We don't do that in any other part of our lives.

After thousands of years of consistently affirming that homosexuality is wrong according to Scripture, suddenly in the last twenty years there's been an explosion of progressive scholarship who says you need to know the backstory to this passage. There are several passages throughout Scripture that say the exact same thing, but there are new perspectives on these passages that say there's a backstory that you don't know that I know. What I found studying this personally is that those are what's called eisegesis. They are reading into the passage a context for which there's no textual evidence, but they say, "Okay, well, maybe this is what's going on. This is what influences these people to say this."

Things like this: The Bible is written at a time when the writers had no category for monogamous consensual relationships. That's just absolutely not true. Or the sin in these passages, particularly in Genesis and Judges, is really about a lack of love for the stranger. That's a read in. There's no evidence for that in those passages.

I'm really thankful for one progressive scholar who's pro-gay, Luke Timothy Johnson, who actually calls everybody to account for intellectual honesty. This is what he says:

The task of interpreting the Bible demands intellectual honesty. I have little patience with efforts to make Scripture say something other than what it says, though through appeals to linguistic or cultural subtleties. The exegetical situation is so straightforward. We know what the Bible says. I think it's important to state clearly that we do in fact reject the straightforward commands of Scripture and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions could be holy and good. And what exactly is that authority? We appeal to it explicitly to the weight of our own experience.

What I appreciate about that is he's just saying, "Hey, this is what I'm doing. I'm saying I don't like what the Bible says, and I'm appealing to the authority of myself. I'm just being honest about that."

I wish there was more consistency in that because there's a lot of confusion now about what we do with the Bible, as if it's been really, really fuzzy. And the reality is it's been really, really clear until about twenty years ago.

And we say all the opinions are valid. Okay. Yeah. But number five, yeah. But if you're going to take this instruction about homosexuality as applicable to us today, I hope you don't have any shirts with two kinds of thread in it. That's forbidden in Leviticus 2. I've heard that a lot. And because the next chapter, Leviticus 19, has prohibitions about sowing two types of crops in the same field or wearing a poly cotton blend like wearing a shirt made of two kinds of threads. People are like, yeah, look, this is all ridiculous. Don't you see that? And you Christians don't even do it anyway. And so I'm like, man, that's important.

So people assume, hey, we're really being inconsistent if we hold up one thing and reject another. And, you know, and also ascribe to this motives of homophobia, preferences, hypocrisy. And I've got to say, those things are real, but not always in informing our biblical understanding. So let me think about it this way. Let's say you're going to pack a number of college students. Y'all all like to sit right here together, okay. So let me pick on you. You had to decide from your home what you're going to pack from home and take to college. And you didn't take everything. You took a lot of things, but you didn't take everything right when you moved out of your home into college.

How do we decide in the modern church what we pack from the Old Testament and say, this is still applicable for us today, and we're going to, and what other stuff we're going to say, no, we're going to leave that at home. How do we decide what we take and we say, we still need to observe this, and what we reject?

Here's the thing. The lazy approach, and I'm going to call it lazy on purpose, the lazy approach is to dismiss all of it out of hand as old fashioned and outmoded. Why do I say this is lazy? Because Jesus didn't do that. Jesus, in Matthew 22, when the religious leaders questioned Him about the Old Testament, He underscores the Old Testament. He says they say which commandments are greatest? He says two things: you're going to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Deuteronomy 6

And then he says you're going to love your neighbor as yourself.

Leviticus 19

That was the next chapter. Chuck preached on it last week. So clearly, Jesus didn't say leave it all at home. The funny thing too is no one says all that love your neighbor as yourself stuff—we shouldn't obey that. That's in the same book about not eating shellfish. No, we like that one, right? That fits our cultural context, and we're happy to keep that one. So let's be consistent and let's ask how do we decide what we pack and what we leave behind.

Here's the thing. And here's where my analogy breaks down about you college students, okay, ready? Because when you pack to go to college, you decide what gets to go and what you leave at home. Here's the thing, though, with us and the Old Testament. We don't decide. God decides. And we have to use a lot to discern that. But we don't decide.

How We Discern What Applies Today

Here's how we discern that. And I'm using that word on purpose. It's a big, really important word. How do we discern?

One, we don't follow the commandments as they come from the Old Testament, which have been expressly fulfilled in Jesus. That's why there are no goats up here or sheep or cattle. I am not cutting anything's throat. We're not burning anything or having sacrifices, right? Those things were fulfilled by Jesus explicitly. The book of Hebrews. Go read it.

Second, we don't follow commands that Jesus told us expressly not to follow anymore. So the clean laws with regard to diet in Mark 4, in Acts chapter 10, those have been expressly fulfilled by Jesus. You don't need to keep doing those things. Instead, we look at those things, even like the poly cotton blend and the crops in the field, those are no longer laws for us to follow, but principles for us to obey, okay? Those don't have the binding authority in a literal sense. Instead, they're like parables. They show us what principles to follow today. Hey, so wearing mixed threads, not a concern for us, but seeking purity in all we do? Yes, essential. You see the difference between those two things?

Third, we don't follow commands that apply to Israel as a nation anymore, as a geopolitical body. The Church of Jesus Christ, thank the Lord, doesn't have the authority to execute people. I'm so glad of that. That was supposed to be funny. I'm sorry. I know this is heavy. I'm trying to lighten the mood a little bit, okay?

And fourth, this is the big one. We let Scripture interpret Scripture. If it's not repeated in multiple places in the Bible where you cross reference and you say, okay, what is this saying? And is this repeated? Is it underscored? And how do we understand this? Then we can assume that it doesn't apply.

When you take the Bible's consistently positive stance toward heterosexual lifelong union, which is said in multiple places, and you look at that, you're like, is there a reason to overturn this? And even Jesus' words in Matthew 19—He doesn't say homosexuality is wrong, but He says, this is what marriage is. One man, one woman for life. He does say that. And when you put those things together, here's what we say: There is no compelling reason to believe that the Bible's perspective on exclusively heterosexual, monogamous, lifelong covenant relationships has changed.

The Discrimination Objection

And finally, six: "Yeah, but why would you do this sermon?" I think this is probably the best objection. The only thing you're going to accomplish is more discrimination. Can we just be fair? If you don't think the gay community is heavily discriminated against, you are hopelessly naive. There's a lot of suffering in the gay community. There's a lot of suffering at the hands of Christians. And so it is really fair to ask what good can possibly come from your church underscoring that the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin. Why would you do that?

And I just want to be really careful here. This is why we did the sermon last week. I actually reordered the passages and asked Chuck to preach chapter 19 before 18—about loving your neighbor before we talked about homosexuality—because those things need to be held together.

I just want to say this and be really transparent as a pastor: It's really hard for me and it's really hard for our church to hold out what we consider to be a truthful biblical ethic in a way that's loving in this cultural climate. And here's why. Because anytime a church or a pastor says, "Hey, homosexuality really is a sin," that sounds in our culture like hate speech, and it's interpreted as such. And I just want to challenge that because I think in our day, any kind of disagreement, any kind of saying a particular act is a sin, is viewed as hate speech. But disagreement—saying something is wrong—can't be in and of itself hate speech. Because we have a God who comes to us and says there are things in your life that are sinful, that are wrong. And then He goes and sends His son to the cross for it. We can't view that as hate. We can only view that in the lens of incredible love and kindness and grace. Truth and grace can go together. So do we really want to say you can never say something's wrong?

I admit declaring homosexuality is a sin, as Scripture does, carries a real danger of more discrimination and even violence coming from that. But here's what I want to say: It doesn't have to go there. In fact, grace can go there.

Grace in Truth

There's a story in John chapter eight—a very famous passage—where Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees. They bring to Him a woman who's been caught in the act of adultery. And they're ready to kill her, as was the law in Leviticus. And they want to see what Jesus is going to say: "Hey, are you going to pick up a rock and help us out? Are you going to uphold the Old Testament? Or are you going to deny it? Jesus, what are you going to do?"

And Jesus famously says, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." They drop their rocks. They drop the rocks and they walk away. And I think it's a really helpful picture for us as the modern church of how to hold these things as a community with regard to sexual brokenness and sexual sin.

So I want to highlight a couple of things with regard to our posture.

First is this: Jesus is always ready to indict religious hypocrisy. The Pharisees bring this woman to Him, and the question all the interpreters ask is: Aren't there two people involved in adultery? She can't do that by herself. What's missing in the story? The dude. Where's the dude? They're ready to kill her. Where's the guy? And He confronts their hypocrisy.

I think the same thing is true for the modern church. I know the gay community says, "It's not fair. We can't hold up homosexuality as a sin because it will inevitably lead to violence, to discrimination of some kind." And I think they're wrong about that, but I understand why they feel that way. Because the gay community has not heard followers of Jesus Christ lead with "I'm a sinner." They've heard "I'm right."

Christians, we gotta be really careful. We are very good at soft-pedaling and downplaying our own sinfulness. So here's my call: Put away your double standards. Put away your homophobia. Drop the gay jokes. It's not funny. They're wrong.

Second, Jesus opposes violence in any form toward those that we would say were wrong in any way. And in other times and places, we wouldn't have had to say that explicitly.

But today, in this culture, I have to say it: violence is always wrong. Violence is always wrong. Jesus never condones it.

Third, Jesus upholds truth. Listen to what he says to the woman: "Go and sin no more." He doesn't say it's no big deal. I think this is amazing. He says that's wrong, and there's an invitation in that. There's kindness in that. He justifies neither the woman's behavior nor the Pharisees' behavior.

And fourth, Jesus upholds grace. Jesus offers forgiveness, acceptance, hope for change, and it's always in that order.

You have to be careful. We have to be really careful when we talk about repentance within the gay community. And I think sometimes Christians have been really harsh about this. We've said, "Okay, you know what? Our goal is this: You would never ever have a sexual thought about someone the same sex anymore." To what other sin do we hold that kind of standard? Do we say that to those who struggle with greed—you can never have a thought about greed anymore or you can't come take communion with us, you can't be part of our fellowship? No, we would never say that.

Repentance and transformation of a gay person does not mean you suddenly start lusting for the opposite sex, you get married and have two or three kids and move to the suburbs. That's not what the plan is. What does it mean? This is what repentance means: you come and you submit your sexuality to Jesus, which is what we ask everybody to do. All of us come and submit your sexuality to Jesus and ask him, "How can I be faithful here?"

Walking the Tightrope

Brothers and sisters, we are trying to walk a tightrope as a church. And this is what I mean by this: a tightrope is a balancing act between two things. You can fall off on either side.

On the one hand is the traditionalist "truth without grace" perspective of so much of the church that's beaten up the gay community and hurt a lot of people. Truth without grace. "That's wrong, you're wrong." And the problem with the traditionalist view is it can hold up heterosexuality as a precondition for grace with people. Man, we know that is really wrong. We don't put conditions on the gospel. We say come to Jesus.

The other side—the accommodationist view—you can fall off this side too. It's grace without truth, which says, "You know, it's okay. God just accepts it. It's fine." But the problem with that one is it's also a false gospel—a Jesus who accepts you but never has an agenda in your life to change you. How sad. I know we've been handed a gospel that says Jesus accepts you and loves you, and man, he's got a powerful plan to make you into a glorious new creation. That is true, declared over you, and is going to be true from the inside out. That's awesome.

So here's how we know we're walking the tightrope. And remember, how comfortable it is to stand on a tightrope over time, right? This is a hard place to stand. But here's how we'll know we're doing it: if we have lots of friends and relationships with those in the gay community, and we pursue, pursue, pursue.

Second, we get into difficult conversations, and we don't chicken out when it comes to this subject. We hold up truth and grace together. We say, "That's how God relates to me. I invite you to know him."

We have a community where people struggle with same-sex attraction, and there are a lot there are people in our congregation who do. And if they're okay and they don't come to community group, and other people kind of say "yuck" under their breath—we're a community where we say we're all strugglers.

And finally, this means we have to require it. It really requires us to step closer to Jesus and draw closer to the heart of our savior, to really walk with him and really know grace and truth. That's a really hard place to be.

May God give us incredible grace as a community to live with faithfulness and deep love. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.