My friend Dave will be ordained a deacon in his church this weekend. Denominationally speaking he is Presbyterian and will become a leader, (an elder, as they’re called), just at the moment of confrontation between the homosexual movement within the church and the scriptural church, the “Body of Christ”. He will require much wisdom in this position.
I want to believe that as individuals, homosexuals have the same access to God’s grace as any other sinner in the world, but like any other sinner saved by grace, they do not have a right to leadership roles in the church while they defiantly and deliberately live lives of sin.
When a person is saved by grace, they are changed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I have an expectation that the indwelling spirit will translate that change to the outer life in obvious and observable ways. The indwelling Spirit will provide the individual with the power to throw off the old life, to put it to death, as it were, and to be raised up in a new life that has the power to reject the old, sinful ways in which we used to live.
When a practicing homosexual thinks they have a right to lead the church just because they are outwardly pious, they have ignored the scriptures that define the “practice” not the “orientation” as sin. They are not living in or by the Spirit, but in the flesh. When the church, the “Body of Christ”, is directed by the flesh it becomes idolatry, not the way, the truth, and the life that it was intended to be. Without the Holy Spirit, the church ceases to be the living representation of Christ in the world. Instead, it becomes just another dead religion. A source of stench and corruption. I’m praying that the Lord will grant my friend, Dave the wisdom, mercy and grace of language to glorify the God of all creation in the spiritual battle that looms before him.
