Jay Bakker - A Love That Restores

The reality is that life is messy, says Jay Bakker in an interview with ThinkFwd host, Spencer Burke. We can respond out of fear and avoid both people and life, or we can follow the gospel and live lives full of love, grace and hope. Bakker wants to follow the second path. Speaking from personal experience, he says pastors need to be transparent—not to condone sin—but to live in reality and help people see that because life is messy and we have sin and problems—that is why we need redemption.

Part of loving people is practicing restoration and forgiveness. Jay learned a lot about forgiveness from his parents. In fact, he says, I thought they were idiots for being so forgiving—for the people they forgave. I would say, Where is the justice? when they would forgive.

But when Jay took some personal hits for taking a stance on gay and lesbian issues, saying he did not think a person could change their sexuality, he began to study and pray about it. He became more and more convicted that we are called to forgive, to love, and to restore people.

Gods restoration is better than new and not limited or constrained like peoples restoration often is—a reality of our human natures. But thankfully, Gods mind doesnt work like ours, and Bakker encourages us to follow in Gods example where love covers a multitude of sins, and casts out fear.

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[JG129]

Such a cool guy!

[RobertAdams68]

Jay is a man who demonstrates the true gospel of God's unconditional love and grace! Thank God for men like him!

[Marshallcodystamps]

@RobertAdams68 2 Timothy 3:5-Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

[toddallenhooper]

We are all called to love each other and encourage each other. The Bible, God's word, says what it says. Read the word, it talks about sin, it talks about homosexuality. We are to repent of it, turn from it, back to God and He will restore us. We all have sin that we struggle with, whether it be homosexual tendencies, heterosexual promiscuity, or glutony, or drug abuse. Sin is sin, no more, no less... I don't judge, but God's word judges us all...

[toddallenhooper]

@MartinKronback Good for you for following God's Word to YOU Martin! God bless you!

[MartinKronback]

I am a post gaylife celibate man. I can't agree with what Jay is saying. Homosexuality is sin. I still love homosexual folks as much as he does!

[BillKiernan]

@GoodSeedFellowship who knows, all depends on if you think what he supposedly commands in the bible is a reflection of how his mind works or not

[GoodSeedFellowship]

@BillKiernan How does God's mind work?

[70sRob]

I agree with Robert Adams - Jay is a great man who carries on his mom's message of love =Thanks you Jay

[BillKiernan]

@GoodSeedFellowship i was actually referring to how repulsive the god you worship is.

[GoodSeedFellowship]

@BillKiernan AMEN! WOW, I AM AFRAID FOR THE YOUNG GENERATION! IT SEEMS LIKE THE SO-CALLED CHRISTIANS ARE BECOMING MORE AND MORE SELF-GRATIFYING THAN SELF-SACRIFICING! HAS CHRISTIANITY NOW BECOME A TYPICAL RELIGION OF SELF INDULGENCE AND PRIDE? GOD HAVE MERCY ON US ALL!

[GoodSeedFellowship]

@mojomike Ok. I'm trying to understand. If I personally want to love God, and marry an man, (I am a man) then it's ok because I love God, and believe it's ok to live with a man, have sex with him, and have a family with him? Is that how Jesus wants us to witness the gospel and the relationship between the father and the son? To me this is VERY CONFUSING AND PERVERTED! I understand that ALL HAVE SINNED, but are we supposed to continue to do things that the bible say is not right because we love?

[GoodSeedFellowship]

@Rleesawyer LOL!

[Rleesawyer]

Great content...but the interviewer's constant verbal nodding response drives me NUTS lol

[shill700]

somehow he reminds me of Robert Kennedy - the way he talks

[mojomike]

Jesus and Paul point to how to live our own lives, walk our own personal walk of faith - not how to judge others. "A tree doesn't eat its own fruit, it gives it away." Brilliant statement of power and grace. "By grace are we saved through faith, and that faith is not our own work, it is God's gift, lest anyone should have cause to boast." If gay men and women had to "give up" being gay to accept the Lord, that would be a human work and incompatible with God's grace. Keep up the Good Work, Jay.

[BillKiernan]

"luckily we serve a god whose mind doesn't work that way." the god in your mind maybe. the god of the bible is quite clear about what he thinks of homosexuality. what a joke.

[BillKiernan]

He just can't take that additional step and realize the imaginary friend he's talking about isn't real. 

[nnnjordan]

Great video, but the interviewer needs to stop responding every 10 seconds. Nice guy, super annoying on video.

[DerrickthePinecone]

@Azzenstudent Who said anything about loving one's neighbor? I love everyone. I hate sin; not the individual. There's a vast difference. God is perfect. It's only obvious that God didn't create people to be homosexuals; that comes from the perversions and lies of satan. God created man for woman and woman for man. Period. The curtain drops right there. People are denying God if they say anything differently, because this is what GOD'S WORD says! God said it. Not me.

[Azzenstudent]

@DerrickthePinecone God said love your neighbor. You must have love confused with hate. Fundie nitwit.

[DerrickthePinecone]

@Azzenstudent Well, friend, I'm just speaking the truth of what GOD says about the matter--it isn't I that is saying that it's an abomination; God says it. I do not understand why this cannot be clear. If one a true follower of Christ, then how can people have the conscience of knowing that homosexuality is an abomination to their Creator? Divorce isn't homosexuality. In that matter, read Corinthians about it. The fact of the matter is that HOMOSEXUALITY IS AN ABOMINATION TO GOD. He says it is!

[Azzenstudent]

@DerrickthePinecone selective reading of the Bible would lead someone to think that some sins are worse than others. Like the sin of homosexuality somehow being worse than your judgment of others. Jesus abominated divorce. Do you? Or are you one of those pseudo-Christians who just makes it up as he goes along?

[jblake1222]

Jay Baker is so bold and right on. I appreciate his love and him showing Jesus' love for people. That is the toughest thing, showing Jesus' love.