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Rev. Mark Jamison

Multi-Media Youth Bible Study:
Part 4 - Sexuality, Idolatry, and Disbelief

GOD’S GIFT OF SEXUALITY

God made you either male or female as a gift to you. It’s a gift because you did nothing to cause yourself to be born. And before you were conceived, you didn’t get to pick whether you were going to be a boy or girl. So you being a female or a male really is a gift to you. You’ve already heard that God made a man and a woman to have a sexual relationship in marriage. But all of us are sinners (Romans 3:23). The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 shows what being a sinner means. Adam and Eve didn’t want to trust and depend on God for all they needed. They didn’t trust God’s words as gifts to them and follow his directions. Instead, they believed the serpent, who convinced them God wasn’t trustworthy. Adam and Eve wanted to run their own lives. They fell into sin and took the whole human race with them (Romans 5:12 & 18).

Adam and Eve had it so good depending on God, but they threw it all away. They rejected his gifts. It is almost like they slapped God in the face. It’s similar to the story of the young man who got a brand new car as a high school graduation gift. But he didn’t like it because it wasn’t the hot new sports car he wanted. So he told his father that it was a lousy, stupid gift. He would sell the new car, take the money and put it towards the sports car he wanted, and then make payments on the rest of what he would owe on the sports car. By rejecting his father’s gift the graduate got himself into debt.

Some people as sinners have done a similar thing with the gift of being male and female. God has made us to have sexual relations with someone of the opposite sex, the husband or wife you will one day marry. But some people, as you know by now, have sex with people of the same sex they are. They ignore what God has told us as far as satisfying our sexual desires are concerned.

Since God made a man’s sex organs to fit nicely into a woman’s sex organs, when people have sex with others of the same sex, it is like Adam and Eve rejecting God. Remember the high school graduate who didn’t want the car his father gave him?

GAY SEX AS SELF LOVE AND IDOLATRY

All of us as sinners sometimes love ourselves more than we love God. We want to do what pleases us more than what pleases God. We are bound to do that because we can’t always help what we want to do. You don’t always choose what you want to do. If you got mad at someone at school on a certain day and wanted to hit or scream at that person, you probably didn’t choose to do that ahead of time like when you first got up in the morning. Those desires just came over you. You didn’t ask to have them, did you? That is why the Bible calls sin as a form of slavery. You’re not always free to pick what you want and desire. Those who have sex with people of the same sex are doing the same thing. It is more important that they satisfy their own sexual desires than follow God’s plan for sex.

When what we want and do becomes more important than what God wants us to do, the Bible calls that idolatry, the worship of idols or false gods. In Bible times, non-Jewish people and non-Christians would make false gods out of wood, metal, or stone. But a false god or idol doesn’t have to be a non-living object like in the Bible. Satisfying our sexual desires by having sex with someone other than a husband or wife is a form of idolatry.

Again, what makes having sex an idol is that it becomes more important to us than what God wants for us. Sex is only one area of life where sinners fall into idolatry. People can make a false god out of money, possessions, food and drink, and even relationships if those things become too important in their lives.

Another term for idolatry and having false gods is self-centeredness. When people are self-centered they are only concerned with their own wishes, wants, desires, and thoughts. Toddlers who will knock down another toddler and take away his or her toy have often been called a clear example of self-centeredness. But you’ve got to cut a two-year old a little slack. A child that young is still learning right from wrong.

Some adults though, who do know better still act in that same kind of way. One of the most famous stories about this in the Bible is II Samuel 11 and 12. King David pressured Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, one of David’s top military commandeers, into committing adultery with himself. Finally, the King had Uriah killed in battle so he could have another man’s wife all to himself.

There is also something very self-centered about gay sex. That is because God made men and women just enough differently from each other that husbands and wives have to be unselfish sometimes if they are going to make their marriage partners feel loved. Men and women generally don’t think the same way or express their feelings in the same way. You don’t want to generalize too much about this. Not all guys like hunting, fishing, and watching football. There are some ladies who also love to do those things. Not all ladies love to sew, cook, or make frequent shopping trips. Some guys do all those things as well. But there have been enough scientific studies on the differences between men’s and women’s brains to show God didn’t make men and women totally alike. Guys generally have an easier time understanding how other guys think and feel than they do women. The same is true for women understanding other women better than men. To love someone of the opposite sex then takes more unselfishness than loving someone of the same sex. A husband who really wants to watch a football game may have to give that up for a wife who has no interest in football and really needs help around the house. If the husband makes that sacrifice his wife will feel very loved by him. Jesus said in Luke 6:27-36 it is easier to love those who love us or are good to us. It is also easier to love someone who is just like us – a person who thinks like us or who likes the same things we do. But it’s tougher to love someone who thinks and feels differently than we do. And the tougher it is to love someone, the more unselfish you have to be to love that person. If two people who really loved politics and political parties got married, it would be easier for them to love each other if they both loved the same political party.

God put husbands and wives together so they could balance each other out and be good at different things. Combined together, husbands and wives make good teams, and they need each other.

For these same reasons, gay sex is a form of self-love. It’s easier to understand and perhaps get along with someone of the same sex than someone of the opposite sex who thinks and feels differently about things. But easy, comfortable, and convenient love with a person of the same sex is not what Christ calls the best kind of love that God made us for. God made us for unselfish love, and he showed it in Christ. Christ not only loves sinners who think and feel differently than he does. He even loved his enemies. When he was dying on the cross he asked the Heavenly Father to forgive the people who were killing him.

Hopefully, you can see now gay sex is wrong because it’s not what God made men and women for. It is misusing God’s gift of being a male and a female. It’s wrong because it elevates the satisfaction of personal desires above what God plans for us. That makes it idolatry. Finally, it is wrong because it is a self-centered form of love.

THE CHURCH’S RESPONSE TO GAY PEOPLE

What can be done for gay people? Romans 6:1-14 makes it clear Christ can and will free people from their sinful desires and temptations, including gay sex. Sexual sins are no worse than other sins. Christ died for all sins. We can tell gay Christians that Christ’s death gives them forgiveness for their sins, and that he promises them he will help them and keep them from having gay sex. We can also pray for them.

Not all gay people who give up gay sex will fall in love with someone of the opposite sex and marry that person. But that is true whether or not a person is gay or straight. God doesn’t give the gift of marriage to everyone. Not all married people are given the gift of children. As to why God gives different gifts to different people, only God himself knows that. God as the giver of all gifts has the right to decide who gets what.

People can have happy, satisfying lives without having sex. Many people through the centuries have done just that. God gives people who don’t get married the power to live lives without sexual satisfaction. Those who say that isn’t true or that God wouldn’t deprive people of sex just because they aren’t married are turning a gift of God into a false god or idol.

Some gay people say they can’t help having desires for gay sex. That may be true. But if a gay person says that to you simply tell the person we have all kinds of desires we don’t freely choose that God wouldn’t want us to act on. A person may not be able be able to avoid the desire to shoplift or beat up someone else, but it wouldn’t be right if that person went ahead and acted out those things.

Most of all be a friend to a gay person. Don’t avoid gay people. Don’t tell them they’re terrible Christians. Christ died for their sins as well as yours. Just keep promising them Christ will free them from giving into temptation, and that he forgives their sins.

MULTI-MEDIA YOUTH BIBLE STUDY

Augsburg Lutheran Churches is creating a multi-media Bible Study for Youth on the subject of Sexuality and Homosexuality. This article on Sexuality, Idolatry, and Disbelief is Part 4 of the series. Two other articles from the series are included in the Table Talk sections of this issue of The Crux of the Matter.

Part 3: "Law and Gospel: Sin and Forgiveness," appears in the first Table Talk section.

Part 5: "Christ’s Peace: Silencing the Accusing Voice," appears in the second Table Talk section.

Three more articles will appear in the next issue.

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