 Can you be gay and a Christian? Can you be part of the LGBTQ community and still call yourself a Christian? And if not, why did God even make gay people in the first place? In today's video, I'm going to answer these questions and more as I interact with a video from TikTok by young man named Matthew. As always, let's dive in. So one thing people say to me often is Matt, how can you wear that cross when you're openly gay? Pretty much how it goes is they ask, am I wearing this cross for show? And then I say no because I actually do believe in God and pray every night. And then they're like, oh, have you read Leviticus? And Leviticus is the part of the Bible where it says that homosexuality is a sin. Okay, so he says he's a Christian, but how he defines that is that he believes in God and he prays every night. We're going to talk about that more, but what does it truly mean to be a Christian? He refers to the verse in Leviticus, let me read that for you so you can get a little bit of context of what he's talking about. Leviticus 18 22, it says, you shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination. So then I get shamed for being openly gay and also, yeah, I believe in God and I'm Christian. How can I quote unquote reconcile being Christian and gay? Here's a controversial take, though. I don't really reconcile it because I'm just Christian, I believe in God, and I'm also gay, because in the same way that most of you I assume are straight, it's the same way that I'm gay in that I was born this way and this is the way God made me. Okay, I have two questions. The first thing is, what does it mean to be a Christian? The second one is, does having desires that feel innate justify our embrace of them? This young man claims to be a Christian, but it doesn't sound like he has an understanding of what that really means. And I don't blame him because within modern Christianity, there are so many different versions of what it means to be a Christian or how to become a Christian. Say this quick prayer and I will ask Jesus into your heart or just kind of believe in Jesus and it'll make your life better. Get baptized, recite this verse. So what does it mean to really be a Christian or become a Christian? For you guys out there, it's important to be aware that people within the Bible don't call themselves Christians. Believers in that day were known as those who belong to the way. It's riffing on what Jesus said and what he said in John 14-6. It says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus is the way. So they belong to the way. Later on, as the church rapidly expanded, people would align themselves with certain political groups or certain movements or whatever else. And so for Christians, they called themselves Christians because they wanted to align themselves with Christ, indicating that they believed he was their Messiah, the Messiah. So instead of getting just our personal subjective opinion about what it means to be a Christian, well, I pray or I believe in God. What does the Bible say about what it means to be a follower of Christ? Well in Acts, after Jesus ascension, Paul and Silas were on a missionary journey. They freed this woman from demon possession basically and they caused a lot of havoc because of what was going on, what the miracles that were they were performing, they were locked up, they were put in jail. Then all of a sudden an earthquake happened and after this earthquake happened, their shackles were released. The jailer came in, he was expecting to see everyone gone and he was about to kill himself because he knew that the penalty for his letting all these prisoners go was going to be death anyway. But then all of a sudden he sees Paul and Silas and he says these amazing words. The jailer called for the lights and rushed in and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said to him, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. Okay, it could be seen as basic stuff, but believe in Jesus, put our faith in him. But here's the other side of that coin. When Jesus preached, he said, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Wait, wait, so what are we repenting for though? And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is at work in the sons of disobedience. The reality that every Christian has come to understand and that they need to come to understand is that we are sinners before God slaves to sin without hope. The truth is on her own, we wouldn't repent, but that is a gift from God that he grants us repentance to say, God, I'm sorry for my sin. Lord, please forgive me. Okay, second question. He feels like he was born this way. Why was I born this way? If I was born this way, that shouldn't I get to act on what I feel? To give you a good answer on this, we need to go back to the beginning, the very beginning. When God created everything, he called it good, but man rebelled against him. We didn't want what he had to offer. Instead, we played into the lies of the evil one and we sought something that God didn't want for us. So what does this mean for us and this young man in particular? What implications does this have? Well, through Adam, we've inherited this sin nature. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned. This base level idea that just because we have the desire to do something or that something feels innate to who we are gives us the right to do it. That's just wrong. The truth is, is that what God has created has been corrupted by sin. That means that we don't desire what we ought to desire and that we don't love what we ought to love. We don't love what God loves and we don't hate what he hates. We don't desire what he desires. We can't justify acting on every desire that's flowing out of us simply because God made me this way. The truth is, sin has corrupted our souls. Okay, now we're getting to the nitty gritty because I know what you're asking. You're saying, Isaac, well, you don't believe every desire is wrong because somebody that wants to be married, you know, if they're a man to a woman or a woman to a man, you think that's great and that's awesome. Why can't a gay person just marry who they want to marry? They don't have any place to, you know, pour out this desire in their heart in a way that God wants. It seems unfair. Let's watch on and I'll answer that. And then when you factor in how sexuality works, it being a hormone that your body releases when you see something that you're attracted to, it makes me ask the question, why would God make my body release this hormone if that hormone being released is going to innately condemn me to hell for eternity? Now, in response to that, people may say, oh, you might have been born gay, but you're not supposed to act out on those feelings because that's when you commit the sin. What I would say to that is our benevolent God would not make people have the capacity for love and then in the same vein tell them that them expressing said love is a sin. Right, but here's a point of clarification. That's a result of the sin nature, not God's design. So maybe you're in the same boat as Matthew here. You would say that, yeah, I'm attracted to the same gender. What am I going to do about that? One of the key issues is that you're connecting your identity with something that God calls an abomination. We all experience temptation to one degree or another and in different areas. We have the temptation to find pleasure in something other than God. It's really not about trying to debate whether the Bible supports this lifestyle or not, or, you know, this identity. The truth is, is that when you look in the Bible, it's really clear. The question is, is will you surrender your desires to God? This is when clinging to the words of Jesus becomes so essential and he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Now to go back to the question that might still be on your mind, isn't it unfair? Like straight couples get to marry who they want to marry, but folks that have this desire towards the same gender, they can't get married or they can't express this and still call themselves Christian because God said it's not okay and that just seems unfair. There are certain burdens that people have to bear based on their temptation. Like and in this context, it is challenging. I'm not going to say that it's not. It absolutely is. I know people that are kind of trying to navigate their way out of this lifestyle and follow God and try to deny their desires in this area and pick up their cross and follow Christ, but it is challenging and you need to rely on God for strength and yeah sometimes God does a miracle and he changes people's you know hearts and their desires and all of a sudden they want to get married you know and like that's amazing right? But some are just like they just don't have that desire and so they stay single and that's kind of their path and I know that's hard to say but I want to be honest with you and I want you to count the cost but I want to tell you it's gonna be worth it. It absolutely is. Jesus on the cross experienced humiliation, pain, punishment and dying in order that you could live and that you could submit your life to him as an offering of your love and your thankfulness and your gratitude. The Bible calls it presenting ourselves as living sacrifices. Because one of the biggest lessons that at least I've learned about Christianity is that the world needs more people to spread more love and not hatred and yet it doesn't compute in my head that God would make a certain group of people to have the capacity for love and yet tell them to not act on said love. God calls us to love everybody. There's no restrictions on that. When we're talking about romantic and sexual love yeah God did give most people the capacity to receive that kind of love and to want that kind of love but not in just any way that we want it. Adultery sleeping with someone that's not your spouse when you or they have a spouse that is off limits. Fornication sex outside of marriage. Off limits. Porn or masturbation. Finding selfish sexual pleasure in isolation. That's not good and there's more parameters but it just goes to show that God is no stranger to drawing boundaries around a good gift that he's given us. He wants us to use it in the way that he designed. And when I say love this is really deep stuff but when I say love I'm not talking about like a sexual type of love. I'm talking about a genuine connection on a romantic level but also like a friend sort of kindness and compassion level that goes beyond like the trivial stuff that hookups and hookup culture you know sort of perpetuates throughout society. Notice the conflations of different kinds of love there. He says that you know there's a certain group that's ostracized and pushed away that they can't experience love. Well no they can it's just not in the way that you want it. I've heard many people come from that lifestyle and talk about that desire for love and wanting to feel connected and feeling especially a part of that community and how affirming it is and people are just like loving on you and it's great. But ultimately it's a lie because it's not founded in who God is. You can't know love apart from God because God is love and I've heard enough stories and ultimately just looking at the word of God and where sin leads you to say that it will not fulfill you. It will not bring you this love that you think it will when you open yourself up to receiving this love because you feel like you have the capacity for it. When we are not orienting our lives in the way that God designed we're going to end up empty. This was a little bit deeper than I expected but last thing I'll say though is we'll all find out God's judgment when we die. So until then I'm going to live my life the way I believe God wanted me to live it and what's the point in life if you're not going to live it at all and a part of that is I'm not going to bottle up who I am and who I want to love because a few people say I'm going to go to hell for doing it. So I choose not to do that and live my life in fear. I choose rather to live my life with love. That sounded corny but it's true I guess. So yeah. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God do not be deceived neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves nor greedy nor drunkers nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God but this next part is so crucial I want you to pay attention and such were some of you but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. God transforms hearts he transformed mind he can do it for you to ask him today ask him for his grace ask him to grant you repentance ask him to give you faith in him and he will. Thanks so much for watching this video if you enjoyed it give it a like down below and subscribe because I'm putting out new videos all the time. A huge shout out to everyone on Patreon it is because of you guys that I can continue to make the content that I do in equipping people to follow Jesus daily. God bless and I'll see you next time.