How Should the Church Respond to Sexuality and Identity?

What about the homosexuals, gay marriage, and the transgendered? How should the Church respond?

We need to go beyond the surface implications of sexuality and “choice,” and base the discussion on our true identity in Christ vs. the manifestation of the sin nature. All of us were born with tendencies and perceptions that have been shaped in us by our environment, families, schools, music, and other social and moral boundaries that are constantly changing.

As the Word declares: “As (a man) thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). The combination of our own fears and insecurities plus the pressures of peers and society serve to fabricate an identity that we adopt. Once we have settled on an identity, then we look for a support group and a philosophy that strengthens or excuses that identity.

Our goal as ambassadors of Christ is not to comfort the lost in their darkness. That is not love. Love wants people to discover who they were created to; and what their spiritual DNA truly is. If our love only tolerates the choices of the lost, then do we really love them with the love of God?

Those who declare that they were “born this way” are right! We were all born separated from the life of God and His purpose for us. Whatever the manifestation of our lost identity might be, we all were born that way. That is why Jesus said, “You must be born again” (John 3:3-8). Paul said, “put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). Love wants men and women to discover the new man, that is, who they were created to be.

Let’s reach out to all men and women. But in our reaching out, let’s be sure that our goal is a discovery of their true identity in Christ.

The identities that many have adopted in a world of darkness can never satisfy. The gospel message reveals who we were created to be.

Jesus is not a homosexual or a transgender. God created us male and female. Sin has stirred that pot. Society seeks to magnify the confusion, but the gospel can and should untangle the damage that sin has done and set all of us free to discover our true identity in Him.

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John 8:32).