GYC 2013: Before Men and Angels

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Gay Puzzle: Loving Gays to Christ

Michael Carducci

01-Knowing the Difference

Ronald Woolsey

02-Can ‘Born-a-Gay’ Be ‘Born-Again’?

Wayne Blakely

03-Loving All God’s Children

04-Exploding the Gay Myth

05-The Lost Father

06-Turn Around: Q&A

This message was presented at the DYC 2013 conference, Before Man and Angels, in Orlando, Florida.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.dycweb.org.

I want to introduce you to somebody that had an opportunity to witness.

Please keep the volume down because I really want Tiffany to share this before we begin.

We have a lot of questions And you have submitted over 90 questions for us to answer, and we want to address them as quickly as possible.

So if I could have your attention, if we could fill in the chairs quietly.

Father in heaven, Our gracious Heavenly Father, I thank you Lord for the opportunity that you have given to us to speak to an innumerable amount of young people and people Lord that have come far and wide to hear a message of salvation.

And so Father as You have been working this week, we have been touched by the way that you have used us to actually reach out to other people.

And so Father, as we go into our program, I pray, Lord, that you will anoint us, that you will feed us, Lord, because we are hungry for ways that we can not only relate but also touch the hearts of our gay brothers and sisters and I pray Lord that as we speak Lord that it will touch not only their heart but our hearts as well.

Convert us Lord, change us Lord so that we can change the world is my prayer in Jesus name, amen.

So Tiffany share with us if you would the situation that happened for you.

Just wanted, hey, just wanted to share with you guys a divine appointment that I had while staying here at GYC.

So I checked into the hotel at the Hilton and they mistakenly put my luggage on the wrong trolley and it went up to somebody else's room and my luggage was lost for a couple of days which was a little rough.

But God turned that trial into something beautiful for him.

I'm like, hey guys, what's happening with my luggage?

I don't really want to wear the same thing for the next 5 days.

And 1 of the security officers was like, it's totally our fault.

We found out that we put your luggage on the wrong trolley.

We'll take you into 1 of our retail stores there in the hotel, and you can pick out whatever you wanna wear for tomorrow.

And as I went in there, we started talking a little bit, myself and the security officer, as I was shopping, about his own religious experience.

And it was really amazing, because he was telling how he was really struggling with his walk with God and he was feeling like he was just so far from God.

And he had all these questions about Christianity and why is it so hard and why does this have to be a sin?

And then he specifically asked me about homosexuality.

And he said, what would you do if you were a mother and you had a daughter who was homosexual?

And what's crazy is that That day, I think it was Thursday, I had come to this meeting and I heard the, I saw the presentation about all the myths and all the facts about homosexuality.

I was like, Lord, I can't believe we're doing this.

I'm like, okay, let me try to remember everything that I learned at that meeting.

And because I heard Daniel's testimony and I saw the presentation, I was able to share with him the way Daniel's mother treated him when he shared that, hey, I'm a homosexual mom.

And the mom was like, I still accept you and I still love you, but I'm not condoning what you're doing.

And I shared that with this guy, and he finally started to see God is really a God of love.

He's not a God that's trying to impose something difficult in your life, and this is, you know, you have to do this just because it's the right way.

It makes your life harder, and it's not healthy for you.

And as I shared this with him, I could see from his face and his encounter that he was seeing that God is actually God of love.

And So I praise the Lord for that divine appointment.

I plan on giving him a great controversy tonight before I leave.

And I'm so thankful for these presentations.

And I said to the Lord, I said, God, if you had me, you know, missing my luggage for the last couple of days just so I could meet this security officer.

Praise the Lord, but I'd really like to have my clothes back.

And praise the Lord, yesterday they went through all the videotapes and they found my luggage, and so I'm really thankful that I have my clothes back too and that God worked that out for good.

Okay, so while we have another minute, this is awesome.

We are running so tight and we have worked feverishly to try to compile the questions.

1 of the things I want you to know, If we haven't answered your question in this session, we've answered it in our previous sessions before.

So if it doesn't get answered in this session, we really encourage you to listen to all the sessions and your issue will be addressed.

This was actually emailed to me today of a young person that's here at GYC.

She says, you know the appeals, I'm sure you've heard them, if you've been to GYC before.

The preacher stands up and calls you to give your life unreservedly to God, to dedicate, to spend time in his service and in his word and maybe you respond.

But there are some of you that have gone up to those appeals responding to the Holy Spirit's working and have gone home and slipped right back into the sins that you had before.

Life was sometimes a spiritual roller coaster.

I made many commitments to God and felt that the blessing of God in a mighty way, but Christ did not have all of my heart.

Truthfully, I never made the wholehearted surrender.

I would return from GYC and other conferences and then slip back.

In the midst of attending GYC conferences, being blessed with a wonderful family, and serving in ministry, and even continuing a semblance of personal devotions every morning, I held on to an unhealthy friendship with another female college student, and was bound by the cords of passion and secret sin and masturbation.

It was after Christmas 1 year when my friendship with this girl turned sexual.

Not only was I enslaved with secret sin, but my unconverted heart had wandered far from God to make another woman an idol in my life.

But praise God, he didn't leave me there.

Into the depths of my soul, he shined light and began to pull me out of the hole of the pit where I had fallen.

He brought conviction to my heart that my course of action was wrong and was leading to the grave.

I knew something had to change and came to the decision point where either I would leave Christ for my friend and be eternally lost and choose Christ and lose an unknown number of earthly friends and benefits.

I chose life, which at the time felt like death, which in a way it was a death to myself.

In my Bible I read that week from Ezra 9 and 10, the story of Ezra's return to Israel and his discovery of how the leaders and people had all taken foreign wives from the land.

Ezra prayed earnestly to God for the sins of the people, saying, oh my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to you.

My God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads.

In the next chapter, the children of Israel gathered together and wept bitterly about their sins.

1 of the leaders stood up and said, we have sinned against God, yet there is hope in Israel in spite of this.

Let's put away our wives as God has commanded.

Arise, arise from this matter is your responsibility.

This was the voice of God to me at that time saying, put away the sin in your life, put away the sinful relationship with your friend.

I did not want to end the relationship, but I felt compelled and the strength of God was with me.

I began to read steps to Christ and read how God gives the gift of surrender.

Every desire for truth and purity, every conviction of our own sinfulness is an evidence that His Spirit is moving upon our hearts.

I claim the promise in John 15, 3 that says, you are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

The desire of ages says, do not wait to feel that you are made whole.

Believe his word, and it will be fulfilled.

Put your will on the side of Christ, will to serve him, and in acting upon his word, you will receive strength.

Whatever may be the evil practice, the master passion, which through long indulgence binds both soul and body, Christ is able and longs to deliver.

He will impart life to the soul that is dead and trespasses, Ephesians 2 verse 1.

He will set free the captive that is held by weakness and misfortune and the chains of sin, Desire of Ages 203.

God has continued to work in my life and I now have a peace and joy that no 1 can take from me and which I would not trade for anything.

God has removed the attraction for other women from my heart and has given me a desire to serve him for the rest of my life.

Praise God, I have gained the victory over secret sin, masturbation, I am truly free.

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Series

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Gay Puzzle: Loving Gays to Christ

06-Turn Around: Q&A

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

01-Knowing the Difference

58m

02-Can ‘Born-a-Gay’ Be ‘Born-Again’?

55m

03-Loving All God’s Children

54m

04-Exploding the Gay Myth

1h

05-The Lost Father

1h

06-Turn Around: Q&A

1h 16m

Sound Doctrine