GYC SE 2010: Infinity - The Pursuit of Excellence

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GYC Southeast

God Invented Sex

Alan Parker

Nicole Parker

God Invented Sex Part 1: Biblical Theology of Sexuality

God Invented Sex Part 2: Someone I Love is Gay

God Invented Sex Part 3: Sexuality--Struggling and Striving

Lord Jesus, this is such an important topic because we know that you love homosexuals.

Teach us, Lord, how we can best reach out and minister to serve our fellow men.

Open our hearts to your word and to your great love for us.

All right, I've titled this Someone I Love is Gay because that was the title that first came to my mind and it just seemed right.

I remember the first time I ever heard about homosexuality.

I was this little kid, and I saw something on TV about 2 people who were getting married that were same sex.

And I thought, well, that's kind of peculiar, but I guess if that's what they want, OK.

Anyway, but It was never really a topic that interested me.

Until 1 day, when 1 of my friends sat down and talked with me, and he said, you know about me, right?

And I said, I know almost everything about you, yeah.

What do you mean you know about me?" He said, you know I'm gay.

He said, I've been praying for years for God to take this away from me, but he doesn't.

At that moment, homosexuality changed for me because I had a face.

And he's still living a lifestyle that he knows God doesn't want him to live.

But we stay in touch and I know that God is working in his life.

And true Christians, true followers of God, will love them too.

I want you to know how important that is because there are so many people in the world that don't.

And the media paints us as Christians, as these homophobes who hold up signs saying, God hates gays and worse.

When my friend told me that, I didn't know what to say to him.

And I told him the first thing that came to my mind.

I said, if that's your problem, it's my problem too.

I have no idea why God has allowed you to have homosexual feelings.

I have no idea why he hasn't taken it away from you.

But As long as this is your struggle, it will be my struggle, and we will go through this together.

We will figure out why this has happened to you and how God can set you free.

That's what I told my friend, and that's my commitment still, to understand.

So I've researched this tremendously, And I know there are people who see things very passionately on different sides.

I've spent lots of time talking with people on both sides of the fence.

But I see clearly from research, from science, that what the world tells you is not necessarily true.

There's another side to the story and that's why we need to say something.

We need to show that Christians do not have to say God hates gays in order to stand up for truth, to stand up for why the Bible says what it says.

Sooner or later someone you know and love will need to come out to you.

That's the first reason why it needs to matter to you.

This week, as Monday was National Coming Out Day, 1 of my friends celebrated by coming out to me.

I probably have at least 10 homosexual friends along the way here and there.

He knows I'm a person who will love him and accept him.

And together, we will work through figuring out what's at the root.

We already got a long way in just a short conversation understanding what was going on in his mind.

He shared with me some of the things that happened in his childhood, how he longed for love from his father.

Last year, I had a student here at Southern share with me.

She had come here, wonderful girl, passionate to follow God, and spiritual leadership here.

On the outside, everything looked perfect.

But her life, her relationship with God had started to fall apart.

And as her relationship with God fell apart, she got into what the world calls a codependent relationship with another girl.

We call it an idolatrous relationship according to the Bible.

And that idolatrous relationship had become sexual.

She came to me because she knew I was a safe place.

You need to be a person who is known as a safe place because there are people in your life who you don't know about who need to be able to talk.

It's not 10% of the population as the Kinsey Report says.

That was based on studying in prison, you know.

How many guys, if you're going to interview a whole bunch of guys in prison, say how many of you have ever been involved in sexual activity with the same sex in the last few years?

Well, that's the only thing that's around and these are perverted guys.

But that's also fluctuating because people change.

But the thing is, there are people in your life that you need to be able to be there for.

The girl who came to me from here at Southern, I was able to counsel with her, spend some time.

In just a few hours we untangled what was going on in her heart and her mind, the pain that she had been through in her life and how it had driven her to this.

She was able to reconnect with God and she said it was a much deeper relationship with God than she had ever been able to have before because she hadn't been able to allow him into the deep places in her life, these areas that were hurting so much.

And through the tears and prayer and journaling and understanding God's love for her in new ways for the first time she was delivered.

That's not just a strange thing that happens to 1 person in a million.

There are 3 men who are going to be sharing their testimonies this afternoon for you to tell you how the Lord delivered them.

But there are many more, many, many more.

They just don't tell you Because who wants to be labeled, right?

Nobody wants to have everybody look at you and go, oh, you were gay.

Well, we're not going to marry you, right?

You need to know what to say when someone comes to you as their safe place.

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Series

God Invented Sex

God Invented Sex Part 2: Someone I Love is Gay

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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