One of the most common questions I get in our day and age from Christians is they’re asking, how do I love my friends who identify as LGBTQ without compromising truth?
I think typically we give this kind of plastic answer of, well, you love this sinner and you hate the sin. But honestly, I don’t think that answer is very helpful, and I also don’t think it’s biblical.
You know, we really never read that in scripture where Jesus said, well, love the sinner and hate the sin. But what we do see Jesus saying is saying, love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And that is such a, a common phrase in Christianity. It’s repeated over and over and over again. It actually was, uh, the bedrock teaching of Judaism as well. But because it’s so common, I don’t think we really dig into it and apply it to a practical question like this. So, for me to love God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength means that I worship him as God. It means that I don’t have the right to rewrite, uh, the Bible based on what I think is just and fair. It means that I humble myself before his lordship. And when it relates to sexuality and some of the questions around LGBTQ, it means even though I might not be able to explain it or understand it perfectly, I yield to what God says about the purpose of our gender and sexuality, which means I can’t just go along with what the world is saying on these topics.
Uh, but then Jesus turns around and he says, A second commandment is like, it says, love your neighbor as yourself. And that means that, all right, I’ve got to humble myself in front of my friends and in front of the people that I work with. I’m not better than them because I love God, but I’m just like them. And so I wanna extend the same kindness. I wanna extend the same grace. I wanna extend the same friendship that I wish they would extend to me. And when we take those two teachings together, it really gives us the wisdom to know how do we navigate these issues without just agreeing to get along, but also how do we not engage with people in a way that feels judgmental or hypocritical, but really just loving them as they are? How do we love our LGBTQ friends? We love them the same way we love all of our friends through our heart for God, we, we cling to biblical truth on every topic, not just this one, but we also walk with humility to know that hey, we’re as broken as anyone and we need God’s kindness and grace as much as anyone. And we look to extend that grace and to love people well, regardless of what kind of struggle they might be living with today.