Jackie Hill Perry and Laurence Koo tackle some of the most pressing questions surrounding faith, sexuality, and discipleship. No small talk here—just honest answers about the reality of same-sex attraction, the cost of following Jesus, and the beauty of surrender.
Whether you’re a pastor, parent, friend, or someone personally navigating LGBT questions, this is a must-read conversation.
Prefer to listen? Listen to the full episode here.
Jackie (00:00.11)
I think when you identify yourself by your affections and by your passions and by your desires, you end up giving them more power over your identity than they deserve. So when you even ask the question: is being gay wrong? I think that’s what I hear, is identity, rather than asking the question, is being tempted by homosexual… like, what does it mean to be tempted by homosexuality?
Juli
Hi friend, thanks so much for joining me for another episode of Java with Juli. And if you have been with us the last few weeks, then you know we are in a series really looking at what it looks like to surrender our sexuality to the lordship of Jesus. Today we’re going to talk very practically and specifically about what that journey looks like if you are fighting a temptation that won’t go away, particularly around maybe same sex attraction or just unwanted sexual desires.
So to help me unpack this topic, I’ve invited author and speaker, Jackie Hill Perry and my friend, Lawrence Koo. Now, Jackie Hill Perry is a well-known author and teacher. Lawrence is actually a board member of Authentic Intimacy. He works with the Navigators Organization, both in the United States and in the Netherlands, where he’s actually from. And the conversation that you’re gonna hear today with me and Jackie and Lawrence was recorded at our Reclaim Conference last year.
Both Lawrence and Jackie have been very open in their ministry sharing about the temptations that they’ve experienced with same-sex attraction as well as the ministry that they’ve done with other people. So that’s going to be fleshed out in our conversation today. But before we head there, I want to ask you, has Authentic Intimacy or Java with Juli been a blessing to you in your own journey with Jesus? Has it been something that’s helped you find healing or freedom?
Juli (02:01.134)
If the answer is yes, would you consider partnering with us as a monthly donor. This ministry and podcast is listener supported and so in the month of July we are looking for 200 individuals who will step up and become a monthly donor. Just even giving a gift of $10 a month makes a difference to us. And if you feel called to become a monthly donor, we would like to say thank you by sending you a copy of the book Surrendered Sexuality. Please just go to our website, Authenticintimacy.com/give to sign up in that way.
All right, I can’t wait to share this conversation with you and I hope you enjoy the panel discussion that I had with Lawrence Koo and Jackie Hill Perry.
Juli (02:41.762)
All right, we are going to field your questions as we’ve been talking about around LGBT issues and a few things I want to say out of the gate about these particular questions. Some of the things we’re facing in today’s day and age are just new. And the church is trying to figure out what does love look like, what does truth look like. We can’t ask our grandparents how they dealt with transgenderism because they didn’t.
These are such new experiences and questions for us that I really believe we need to give each other a lot of grace as we seek the Lord. And even among us, there might be some nuance of disagreement, and that’s all part of pursuing God’s truth and giving each other grace in the meantime. Another thing I want to mention is that I know in this room there are individuals who are walking this right now and struggling with it in real time, battling it, confused around being gay.
We know there are people in this room who have loved ones, children that are struggling or maybe really buying into what the world is telling them about sexual identity and gender identity. So this is a safe space to ask some of those questions and also us knowing that this represents like real time pain and struggle for many of you. But I couldn’t think of better people that we could have up here than you two.
So we’re gonna dive right in and, um I guess the first question I would ask, and this is for both of you, because you both have been vulnerable at different times today and also in your ministries, people want to know, is your same-sex attraction gone? Did those desires go away?
Lawrence
They haven’t with me, at least. No, I think that’s a current and very current experience. It has never changed. My experience even kind of like, there’s this journey into what intimacy looks like. And I think that sometimes just enforce the idea of like, I desire to have someone that I can be with. And that never changed.
Lawrence (04:48.77)
And that’s fine with me. I surrender that to Jesus and I can live in that. That’s not my identity. But I also cannot deny that that is a reality for me.
Juli
Thank you for being open about that.
Jackie
Yeah, it’s a temptation that comes. doesn’t carry the same degree of weight or frequency that it once did. I was telling Preston one time that I think there are some struggles that you just got to strangle that thing, you know? And I think when you just strangle it, and that’s a very descriptive and probably graphic term, but I mean, what do we mean by put to death, if not strangle or kill or, you know, and so I think some things when you strangle it and you put it to death consistently enough, it does lose some of its strength and some of its power. And so I think in recent years, things like pride and greed and anxiety have had more of a temptation on my heart and my affections than lesbianism.
And that’s not a flex, that’s to say my heart is so complicatedly wicked that when one part eases up, a-whole-nother part is exposed. so there we are.
Juli (06:09.038)
Amen. That’s true of all of us. All right, this one is one that you may be able to speak to directly, Jackie. What do you do when you experience same-sex attraction and you’re in a heterosexual marriage? Again, you can speak from that personally, but also just ministry-wise.
Jackie
Yeah, so I think one of the kind of cool parts of me and Preston’s relationship is that even how we met was us telling our stories. So context is we met when I got saved at 19, got into doing poetry. I was at an event in LA. I was 20, wrote this poem called My Life as an Ex-Stud. He was about 23. He was doing a poem called Soul Ties because I was sexually broken in that, you know, I was out here doing my thing. He was sexually broken in that he was sleeping with every woman that could breathe and had lip gloss on. And so… So we met telling our stories to hundreds of people in a poetry lounge in LA, you know? And so that already set the stage for us knowing each other on that level. So that created a level of transparency and honesty.
I think for us, I’ve come to see that some of my temptations, and I’m working through this so I could be wrong, are also rooted in not just abuse or fatherlessness, but also even like attachment style. And so I’ve been working through like how that shows up. And me having conversations with him about, think I’m having difficulty attaching to you in this way. And I’m being tempted to attach to these people in this way. How can we develop our intimacy where my impulse is to move towards you rather than to be tempted to move towards them? And so we’ve been working on how to lessen the temptation by increasing my desire for him more than the temptation wants me to desire that. Does it make sense?
Jackie (08:11.13)
It does, and thank you for saying that. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, the more I work in this field, the more I’m really starting to see, I think a lot of it is attachment. But we just don’t have the language for how do you attach to someone and not sexualize it. And so particularly I think with teenagers and middle schoolers and young adults, like we’re wired to attach in friendship and it gets sexualized and then you’ve got to sort of unlearn how do we untangle all that. I think a lot of it is really rooted in attachment which we don’t spend enough time talking about. So yeah.
Okay, many of my closest friends identify as LGBTQ. Now that I’ve fully accepted Christ, how can I encourage them to do the same thing without coming across as judgmental?
Lawrence
Yeah, I would say exactly how you have met Jesus and His love and His acceptance and His embrace for you. That’s exactly what your LGBTQ friends need too from Jesus. And we talked about knowing God’s love, knowing His mercy and His grace and His greatness and how big He is. And I think that is a gospel that everyone, doesn’t matter, who, LGBTQ or not, everybody who doesn’t know Jesus needs to know that. And I don’t think that their sexuality should be in the way of us communicating that first truth and love for them that their father wants to be in relationship with them.
Juli
Beautiful. Thank you. And Jackie, you got your Bible out, so you’re ready to drop a word.
Jackie (09:49.492)
Yeah, and then you made me anxious because I couldn’t find it fast enough.
Juli
I know how you read that tiny print. Just wait 10 years.
Jackie
But my mind went to where Paul talks about how we are to be good servants and how good servants basically, when we communicate truth to opponents, our people who oppose truth or the gospel, we do it with gentleness and respect. But the emphasis is that you do it. You do teach the truth. You do communicate the gospel. But you do it with a character that does not undermine the truth you’re trying to convey. But I also think we have to consider our environment, and the fact that we are in the last days and a part of being in the last days means that people will be lovers of themselves and a good deflection against hearing teaching that doesn’t, like a good deflection is to call it judgmental when in fact you might deliver it as lovingly as you can, as lovingly as it might actually be and they still won’t receive it.
And so I think in your mind, don’t even say, how do I tell the truth without my friends considering it judgmental, but rather, how do I tell the truth in a way that honors God? That changes your whole motive, because you can’t appease people, but you can please God if you have Him in mind.
Juli (11:12.174)
Flat out, the gospel’s offensive, which is why Paul said I’m not ashamed of it, because we can shirk away from it. This is a short question. It might seem like a simple one, but I don’t think it is. Is being gay bad? So let’s unpack that a little bit.
Juli (11:34.414)
Because I have thoughts if you don’t, so go for it.
Lawrence
So many in that question, there’s so many things to unpack. What does it mean for this person that they say is being gay? So what does that mean? I think there’s so many in our language right now, especially when I came to America too, there’s so much in language here that’s being assumed, that is being kind of read into. I think what Jesus would approach is like, what does that mean to you? So what’s the definition of that? And what does it mean to be bad?
I don’t know if Jesus walked around and says like, you’re bad and you’re good, you’re bad and you’re good. What I see Jesus doing in John 10 is like thinking through like, hey, the enemy comes to destroy life and I come to bring fullness of life. And that’s how he defines and that’s the paradigms he moves into relationships with people. And so I think that question in itself allows me to actually ask another question and another question about what do you mean by that?
Jackie
You might have disagreement here, and I’m okay with that. I don’t prefer the use of the word “being” because I think that is one of the reasons why our generation is struggling to the degree that it is, is because we are taking ownership and are identifying by temptations first and foremost before we are deciding to identify by the fact that we are made in the image of God.
Because in Genesis 1-27, it says that we are made in the image of God, and this is why that is important. Because if I am made in the image of God, it means I was made for somebody. So it gives me a signpost that I am a created thing made for a creator. If I am made for the creator, then he is Lord of the body. Which means that if ever I experience passions or desires that oppose His law, oppose his goodness, oppose his worth, I am to surrender those passions under his lordship so that he gets glory from this body. I think when you identify yourself by your affections and by your passions and by your desires, you end up giving them more power over your identity than they deserve. So when you even ask the question, is “being” gay wrong? I think that’s what I hear is identity, rather than asking the question, is being tempted by homosexual… like what does it mean to be tempted by homosexuality? What does it mean to be tempted by lesbianism?
I think what it means to be tempted is that after an image barrier, you’re also a sinner made in the image of Adam. And so you are experiencing now what it means to be broken by sin. And so that’s why you have to be born again, which does not mean that you won’t experience those temptations that we are as we already established, but it simply means that you’ll be a new creature and you’ll have power over those temptations again and again and again. So I just want us to get beyond wanting to be identified by how we feel more than we are identified by our savior.
There is so much power in recognizing what it means to be united with Christ, that I am a new creature, that creature, that I am a saint, that I am a bride, that I am new, that I am holy, that I, like, read Peter, read the epistles, look at what He calls us. I just, I don’t know, that “being” word triggered me.
Juli
You said, we would disagree with you. I stung. Yeah. We like it when you’re triggered. hurt. Yeah, I couldn’t agree with more.
Jackie (15:12.221)
Does that make sense when I’m trying to say?
Lawrence
I think there’s so much, I think where sexuality has become identity and that’s kind of the water that we’re swimming in. And that’s something that has just increasingly come on us. And I think that’s kind of what you’re saying of like, how do I identify as brothers? I would say, son of the father, that’s my primary identity. But I think the freedom that the Lord had for me was to say, you determine what your core identity is, and I identify myself as like I’m his son, Jesus is my brother, and I am representative now of his kingdom that’s coming. And that defines everything. And so then we kind of don’t have to go into that identity play of sexuality and all of that, what I think the world around us is doing, and trying to put us in that position to fight that in that sense.
Jackie
Because can I speak to an implication of this real quick?
Juli
No. I’m teasing, of course you can.
Jackie (16:09.736)
1st Corinthians 6, 9, it says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? And then I’ll just read it. I’ll just say the text. Do not be deceived, neither sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality will inherit the kingdom of God. Okay, so if we identify ourselves by our passions, then when we read texts the wrong way, we might think that just experiencing the desires means that I deserve hell. But when you read the text and see that it says men who practice–are enslaved to–homosexuality are those that won’t inherit the kingdom of God, then you realize that just because I experienced the temptation does not mean that I am excluded from knowing Christ. And I think it’s that identity part that has even affected the way we read the text. Where we read the text wrong, like, oh, God hates gay people. But it’s like, no, God has issue with sin. God loves people. I feel like I’m not making sense. So I’m gonna just stop talking. I just realized, I guess I want us to parse it out and not.
Juli (17:22.892)
No, and if you don’t mind if I jump in here for a minute. Please don’t. You know, the translation you read says that those, “who practice homosexuality”, most of us will read a translation that says “homosexuals”. And the translation you read is actually more accurate. So it’s only been since like the 1860s that we even had the word homosexual or bisexual or heterosexual.
Juli (17:51.416)
Like this is brand new that we are now defining ourselves by our sexual attractions. And so I think we’ve got to go back to say, did people experience same sex attraction before that? Absolutely, 100%. But we were never meant to identify ourselves by who we’re attracted to. But that is, again, the water we swim in. That’s the reality we live in. And so even some of you, when you hear a term like same sex attract, you’re like, what in the world does that mean? We use language that assumes identity. So I told you this question was short, but there’d be a lot to unpack. And that’s one of the reasons these conversations are so much more complicated than just, yes, it’s good, no, it’s bad, that sort of thing. God wants to do a deeper work. So I appreciate you both kind of fleshing that out. And we could probably spend the whole hour on that, but we do have some other questions.
Juli
Okay, this one is, Lawrence, I’d love for you to speak to this. What does it mean that we are sexual people? Specifically, how does our sexuality contribute to who we are day to day? What does that even look like, I think, particularly outside of the context of marriage?
Lawrence
Yeah, I think our sexuality is such… I think it communicates to us our desire for God. I think our sexuality is meant to be kind of like an incarnational part of our lives where we reflect Christ and the church. That’s what Ephesians 5 says. And I find it so beautiful that even in our sexual struggles and temptation, it actually reflects to us how much we long for Jesus. G.K. Chesterton says, every time a man knocks on the brothel door, he’s actually looking for God. And so there’s so much in our sexuality that points towards Jesus, but it’s distorted and that’s why we kind of like, point it towards things that doesn’t fulfill us. But I think that’s ultimately what it points towards. And that’s why I think it’s so strong in us, I think that’s why that’s the story of our sexuality, that’s the Lord made it so beautiful.
Lawrence (19:57.784)
because it wants to point to Him. And that’s also why the enemy took a party on this because He attacked it on every level. And that’s why we’re here, because we experience that. But in the creation and how God created it, it points towards Him. And that’s why we’re all sexual. That’s why we express that in different ways wherever we’re at.
And this is why we’re in this journey of healing and restoration because that’s what God wants to redeem it, not deny it, but redeem our sexuality.
Juli
Amen. All right, I’d love for you both to speak to this. Have you ever seriously contemplating just not doing this anymore, like going back, jumping off the journey of following Jesus?
Lawrence
Jumping ship on Jesus?
Juli
Yeah, just walking with sexual integrity, speaking on this, you both speak very publicly on this topic.
Lawrence (20:57.39)
I don’t never ask for the Lord to kind of like, I would love to publicly display all of my vulnerability. No, I think there’s two questions in this. Would I jump ship on Jesus? I can’t, almost anymore. I’m just gripped by His love and His redemptive story, not only in my life, but what I’ve seen in so many lives of people that he touched and how he wants to use my broken story in that too. Yeah, 2 Corinthians 12, 9 is my life verse. My grace is sufficient for you because my power is made perfect in your weakness. And that’s why the Lord has called me. It’s kind of like, I want you to put your life on display for me.
Juli
Amen.
Lawrence (21:48.566)
And at the same time, life is hard. Life is lonely. I talked about it this morning, moving to the US, it’s been one of my most challenging places. And it’s then easy, the route of wanting to walk away from it, because the temptation to quick-fixes is still there for me as well. I don’t want to elevate myself above anyone else, that I’m like, you know, that I’m not vulnerable for that.
But I think the experience of His love so deeply and just that all, not just for myself, but what I’ve seen, I’m part of this kingdom and I want to live, I live in that eternal perspective. So because of that, I can walk that journey of suffering and kind of walk that narrow road what you talked about so beautifully this morning too. But that takes sacrifice.
But yeah, I can be honest in the sense of like, yeah, those are both together in the same time, living in a certain tension. But thanks to the Lord and the Holy Spirit, it’s like, He’s alive and kicking, and He’s there. And so I trust Him with my life in that.
Jackie
I haven’t been tempted to walk away because of sexual temptation, but I did have a test at some point recently, just due to the cost of ministry, where I said, you know what, wonder, you know how people talk about burnout. I don’t know if it’s so much burnout all the time. I just think it’s the weight of the call and what it costs to carry a cross and to keep dying, you know, privately, publicly, all the things. And I was talking to, I think I was talking to Megan about it. I was like, I think what happens when people leave the faith is that the Bible talks about how the flesh and the spirit are at war with each other. And I think a part of the deception is, is that when you leave the faith, it seems as if the war has stopped. And so it comes across as if life has become easier now.
Jackie (24:00.874)
That’s the tension is that when you are fighting for Christ, truly, when you are pursuing holiness truly, you know in your heart of hearts there is no peace outside of Him. You know that there is no satisfaction outside of Him. You know that there is no authentic joy outside of Him. And so you are fighting to love Him above all things, and you are unwilling to let go of His hand even when you know it would be easier to do so.
And so the test was me to say, do I really believe that? And I said, yeah. Because I just agree with Peter when Jesus said, do y’all want to go too? And he like, where else we gonna go? You have the words of eternal life. And I just, I get that it is difficult and I do understand that it’s hard, but I think we have to believe that there really is no other option except Christ.
Juli
Amen. Sometimes, I don’t know about you, but sometimes it feels like being in the middle of we’ve left Egypt, but we’re not quite fully in the promised land. There’s a part of you that’s like, I want to go back. We had onions and leeks back there. But it’s like, do you really want to go back to slavery? But yeah, that’s a real tension.
Juli
This is a very practical question. With same-sex attraction and bisexual attraction, how do you navigate emotional boundaries like that attachment in your friendships? Because you need intimacy and you need attachment, but there’s always that danger zone.
Jackie
Yeah, I think one, you got to be honest with your own heart. You have to be brutally honest with your own heart and your own needs and knowing when you are putting too much of your own emotional, mental needs on another person. First and foremost, your primary emotional, spiritual, mental needs, all of that weight needs to primarily be on the Lord. Primary attachment.
Jackie (26:03.466)
Secondly, some of that weight needs to be on your spouse. And so for me, I’ve tried to practice putting emotional stuff on the Lord first, casting those cares on Him, going to Him in prayer, going to Him when I’m stressed instead of, you know, I could easily text somebody and be like, hey, da da da da da da da da, putting those emotional burdens and weights on a person before I go to the Lord.
But after I go to the Lord, making sure that I’ve also let my husband into my emotional world before letting others into my emotional world, just as a guard to myself to not get in a habit of letting others know more about my emotional self and my mental self before my spouse knows. I just think it’s unhealthy to create a habit where there is more intimacy with other people than I have with my spouse. You know what I’m saying?
Especially as women, because we’re… Men are emotional to you, y’all just emotional in different ways. So that’s how I’ve put boundaries around stuff. It’s it’s guardrails with who do I talk to first, who do I talk to quickest, who am I most honest with, who am I most vulnerable with, who do I cry to? Like, it’s just all of that, giving all of that to them first and then everybody else second.
Juli
Okay. And Lawrence, you are not married, so what does that look like for you?
Lawrence
Yeah, I learned for me is a healthy boundary not to put all that emotional weight of my soul in sense only on one person so that I would spread it out on multiple friends so that I think that keeps it healthy in a sense of like even when someone cannot respond to me in a particular way, that I have multiple people around me that can enter into these spaces so that I’m also not attached only to one particular person, which I think is, can be a danger for me in the sense of like, it’s too, yeah, I can get emotionally attached to one person specifically. So I learned to really spread that out over a community of people. Not too big, but I think that’s been really helpful for me.
Juli
Okay, good. I think it’s also helpful to have eyes on your relationship. Yeah. know, anything that feels secretive, like this is just us, male, female, whatever, that’s a danger zone. We’re meant to be in community.
All right, here’s another question. Why is God’s designed for marriage between a man and a woman? And I’ll just tackle this one briefly. Some people will ask that. What if you have a covenant between two women or two men? And we see in scripture from the very beginning, the pattern is gendered.
And we see in Genesis, a man will leave his father, his mother, united to his wife. And that’s repeated throughout scripture. Jesus repeated it. And then Paul, I think, really fleshes this out for us. We talked earlier about how sexuality is God revealing himself in his covenant relationship. And that covenant relationship in the metaphor is gendered. Like, Jesus is never called the bride. He’s a bridegroom. The church is the bride.
And I know that freaks some guys out. You guys can get over it. Like, we’re all part of the bride here. But there’s something that is lost when we take gender out of the revelation that God has given us in the covenant relationship between a man and a woman. So that would sort of be my theological answer to why that’s so essential to God’s design for marriage. You guys want to add anything to that or go on to the next one? Every time you grab your Bible, I don’t know where you’re going.
Jackie
It would only be a note. I would just say read through the book of Ephesians in one sitting and make note of how one of the aims of the gospel in particular is God uniting people and things that should not be one and making them one as a means of showing forth his wisdom and glory.
Jackie (29:55.154)
Gentile and Jew, male and female, slave and master, like you see this uniting of forces that have enmity because of sin, but because of Christ, there is this beauty and this oneness that takes place. And I think a lot of times when we get to Ephesians six, we separate Ephesians six from marriage. We separate Ephesians six from what is happening. Like Ephesians six is to help us to understand like, no, we have all this stuff working against the unity of marriage and male and female and all the things. So I think that’s the beauty of the gospel is that male and female shouldn’t work, but it does work. It was made to showcase the gospel in a really, really cool, beautiful way. It’s weird because men’s hands are calloused and they leave the milk out on the counter after pouring the bowl of cereal. I’m not sure quite why they don’t ever remember to put it back, but… maybe that’s a part of the sanctification process, you know? Things like that. I’m sure you don’t do that.
Juli
Okay, this is a great question. I’m curious how Lawrence, chose celibacy. Jackie, you pursued a biblical marriage. What do those decisions look like?
Lawrence (31:11.182)
I don’t think that was a one thing decision. I’m like, okay, I’m choosing celibacy. I think the choice of celibacy for me was the choice to give myself away to Jesus and his body. And honestly, I think that’s the same choice that a person in marriage takes as well. And that was a continued process of like, because I was, at the start, I had a very different expectation of what life would look like.
And so I think I, it never came to a point where I would say, this is going to be celibacy or… But I came to a conclusion already, a homosexual relationship, that was out of the equation from the start. To enter into a marriage with a woman was something that I’ve explored that was not there. I have a lot of stories in how dating worked in that sense, and it was just interesting for me to learn that and gradually. And I think it was the Lord that brought it to me, like, these are the two gifts.
I want you to be able, like I always say, if that’s the two gifts, I’m willing to receive it, and I think one would be more challenging for me than the other. And to a point, I think I did think, when I had this beautiful picture, I think I was in the midst of my 30s, and when it came dawned on me that a life of celibacy and giving myself fully to Jesus and a church, and that is an equal representation of marriage that I see.
I said to Him, I want to live that out because there’s not a lot of examples of people who live that out and I want to try to be one. And I think that was a decision. But then I all kind of said a little bit sneaky or whatever. I said to the Lord, but if you want to give me the other one, I do want to receive it from you, although I think it would be hard. So that’s how I approached it.
Juli
Yeah. Beautiful.
Jackie (33:06.862)
Yeah. I kind of wanted to be single and because I thought it would be easier to just kind of you know kick it with the Lord you know preach here and there you know have an apartment to myself with a king bed that just seemed great to me, and I met Preston when I was 20 and we started a friendship there was no I didn’t have any romantic attractions or anything like that again. You know, he was a man with sweaty hands and a beard and things like that. And I was just, it was just, he became a very good friend.
In his friendship, he started to undo a lot of the assumptions that I had about men. And I saw that there was a kindness and a compassion to him that started to soften my heart in a way where it became less about his masculinity and just more about his character. I just loved his character, which started to give me a love for his manliness. Does it make, like I loved who he was, which started to help me love what he was. And so in that, I started to pray and I was like, Lord, I don’t know what you doing. I don’t know if this is an attack from the enemy. I don’t know if this is warfare. I have no idea. I don’t know if this is Ephesians six at work in my heart. And I was like, but if it is for you, if it is for Preston to pursue me for marriage, then put it on is hard to pursue me because I’m not finna pursue him. That’s just not what this is about. I pursue women. I ain’t finna pursue no man. And so, um…
That’s what I’m not going to do. And so he called me. I didn’t know that at the time he had been fasting for two weeks for God to reveal to him who his wife was. And while he was fasting, the Lord told him that his wife was Jackie Hill. And so he called me and said that I want to pursue you. I don’t know if you’re my wife. He didn’t tell me the whole truth. He was like, I don’t know if you’re my wife, but I want us to move in the direction of marriage. And so it was very clear to me that we were called to one another.
Jackie (35:11.468)
It was… I knew it would be disobedience profound disobedience not to marry him. And so that’s, that was why it was a decision. I knew we were meant to glorify God together.
Juli
You know what I love about both of those stories is they weren’t based on this is what I thought would make me happy. You know, yeah. And yeah, a lot of us sort of get tricked into marriage by this is what I think will make me happy or even we default to singleness because this is what I think is going to make me happy. But you two have lives that have been so surrendered that it’s like, how do I follow Jesus? And when we really do seek him that intentionally, He will call us and we’ll be sure of that calling. So thank you for that testimony. We need more of those.
All right, we’ve got one more question and this wraps up a lot of questions that people are asking about: how do we love LGBTQ individuals? How does a church become a place where we welcome LGBTQ individuals wherever they are in their walk with the Lord without seeming like we’re aligning with that whole embracing it?
We have questions about what if it’s my own child? How do I love well while also standing true? So just what wisdom do you have on the shifts we need to make as followers of Jesus Christ in loving well and standing on truth?
Jackie
Mine is more of a strategy. This is a big question, one that I think we’ve answered a lot over the last 10 years. But it’s just a strategy, and I’ll tell it with a story. I was in class and a young guy came up to me and he said that his father-in-law is a gay man and how every time him and his wife, you know, have dinner with his father-in-law, he he talks about his partner and all the things and he read my book.
Jackie (37:02.964)
So my classmate read my book and he was like, do you have any, you know… advice on what I should do. And I said, he was like, should I talk about, you know, first Corinthians or Leviticus? And I’m like, probably not, you know, probably not the way in. And I was like, have you ever broached the question about what he thinks about God? Just… or his favorite color, like even before we get there, like how like what’s his favorite coffee, like stuff like that, normal stuff. But eventually getting to the point of what is his larger framework of God?
Because I think sometimes we move to the sexuality question really quick when I think the question of what do you think about God actually can open you up to have a thousand discussions that might draw them to the Lord in a way that you actually never first saw. Because what they think about God is driving how they behave sexually. And so I just think that’s a really interesting strategy that could help.
Juli
It is as ultimately about God. Yeah. yeah. Thanks.
Lawrence
So many thoughts. think in my experience, I think it comes to the question why has sexuality become such an identity giver for people? And I think it’s because there’s so much value in sexual identity and belonging right now in our world around us, even in the LGBTQ community, because I see that a lot of people haven’t found that somewhere else. And so if they don’t have any spiritual identity and, identity is not in family anymore because of our broken families, because of fatherlessness, because of all the things that are going on in our culture. We’re starting to identify with who we are because that’s a self-created value that we all have created for ourselves. And we do that all the time. And sexuality is one of these options. And that’s why it’s also fluid, because it can change, because I have to be unique. That’s why it’s a plus there, too.
Lawrence (38:59.366)
And I think the tendency for us as followers of Jesus is I think to judge that in some level of like, why can’t you not just be like this and do like what we think? But when I see Jesus looking at the crowd in Matthew, and he sees that search for identity, and sees like there’s sheep without shepherds, he has compassion on them and then says, where are the people, my people, that will go out and reach out to them?
And so whatever our truth is, a heart in that sense, or it’s a heart in the sense that we have compassion on them. See how wary they are, how searching they are, how openly actually spiritually they are. And I think the strategy, what Jackie says, is so important that it doesn’t start necessarily with their sexuality, but like with their relationship with God. Who is he to you? Do you want to be in relationship? He doesn’t reject you. I don’t reject you.
And there’s so much rejection, I think, in the LGBTQ community, because honestly, I see it in myself. I rejected myself first. And the projection just goes on and on. And I think what helps so much is giving the power of rejection to them and say, I will never reject you. We can disagree on things. That doesn’t matter to me. But I want to be your friend. I want to be in relationship with you. And I think that Jesus also want to do that.
Lawrence
You can disagree on certain things, but he wants to be in relationship with you. And so, one of my other friends says, like, when a person asks, like, what do you think about homosexuality? What does the Bible say about these things? And I’m like, that’s such an interesting theological question. You know, I don’t talk about theology with people that are not my friends. So can we have lunch first and tell me your story so that we can become friends? I think that’s the route to do, how do we win people’s hearts? How do we have compassion?
And then I think what I’ve seen also in discipleship, we have to help people if there’s this sexual identity that has been, there’s so much value and belonging in it. It’s so hard for them to, for us then to say, you have to give that up, that we can say, can I help you in your spiritual identity, what it means to be a daughter or son of the father so that he loves you, so that your spiritual identity becomes so strong that there is then, you can’t deny and renounce any other identities that you have embraced for that. But in the middle of that process, as we say, like the Lord takes his time with that sometimes, it’s a messy process. And can we embrace as a church that mess and walk with people in patience and compassion?
Juli
Boy, thank you. All right. Hey, I, yeah. I really feel like we could talk to you two all day long. And so you all are probably like, why did we save this one to the last? We should have been doing this all day. But this is just a taste of the ministries that God has given each of you. And just thank you. Thank you for not just coming and sharing, but you’re sharing out of the place of your own surrender, your own journey, your own love for God. So can we thank Lawrence and Jackie for their time? Thank you all.
Juli (42:27.564)
Well, friend, I hope you have enjoyed that conversation with Jackie and Lawrence. I know I walked away from it feeling very convicted and encouraged by their dedication to Christ. It really encouraged me in my own walk with the Lord. And if you would like to follow up further with Jackie, she has written a number of great books, including Gay Girl, Good God. You can check her out on her podcast. She’s written some Bible studies. We’ll drop a link in our show notes. Or you may consider picking up “Surrendered Sexuality”, and going on that journey of what it looks like to surrender your sexuality to the Lordship of Christ. You can find that at Authenticintimacy.com or wherever you might purchase a book. And I want to thank you again for joining us today. We look forward to a conversation next time where we will continue to dive into what it looks like to be fully surrendered to the Lordship of Christ.