It is no secret that one of the most explosive topics of our day is sexuality and gender. For many decades, there has been a concerted effort to change the narrative about the norms regarding sexuality and gender. Those efforts have been largely successful in silencing Christians, and especially preachers, from speaking with clarity on these issues.
For about 20 years, I was one of those preachers. So why did I choose to reverse course?
It was my church’s fault. They made me do it. I’m not kidding.
My Fatal Mistake
A few years ago, I sent out a survey asking what questions our church family had about faith, the Bible, Christianity, and life in general. I designed the survey with a number of commonly-asked questions and you could choose from that extensive list. I took the top ten questions from that survey and preached a message on each one, starting with the 10th most-asked question leading up to the #1 most-asked question.
But the survey had no questions about sexuality or gender. None. Why?
Because I was a coward.
Preaching about sexuality and gender in our cultural moment is kind of like sticking your hand into a blender and turning it on. Who knowingly does that? Who wants to offend people? Who wants to get hate mail? Who wants to be misunderstood? Yes, yes. Better to preach about having your best life now.
We received hundreds of responses to that survey, and scores of people wrote in specific questions. None of the write-in questions earned a spot in the top 10, but they did help me form groups and categories.
The number one category—by far—from the write-in questions was around the topic of sexuality and gender. I realized that I could not ignore the honest questions from our church. I knew that at some point I had to address their questions.
Nearly a year and a half after I sent out that survey, we jumped into the deep end of the pool. It was all their fault. They asked for it.
“The number one category—by far—from the write-in questions was around the topic of sexuality and gender.”
Why Did They Ask For It?
Why was the issue of sexuality and gender the number one category of write-in questions? Maybe it is because the surrounding culture is talking about this topic all of the time—whether in TV, movies, stand-up comedy acts, schools, at work, music, or social media. The issue is ubiquitous.
And yet, the one place it’s rarely talked about is in church. I think that’s why the people in our church asked for me to speak about it.
With all of the things our culture is saying about sexuality and gender, perhaps people were wondering what the Bible had to say, if anything, on this subject.
When it comes to sexuality in particular, many people in our culture assume they know the message of the church: Don’t do it. Stay away. It’s dirty. It’ll put your eye out!
Comedian Don Schrader quipped, “To hear many religious people talk, one would think God created the torso, head, legs and arms, but the devil slapped on the genitals.”
“When it comes to sexuality in particular, many people in our culture assume they know the message of the church: Don’t do it. Stay away. It’s dirty. It’ll put your eye out!”
Coming Clean
When I finally got around to preaching on these topics, I knew I had to acknowledge my virtual silence from the pulpit. I knew I had never really spoken about these subjects in any substantial way. The congregation also knew.
So I decided to come clean.
I asked for their forgiveness.
And I publicly repented. Yes, repented.
I admitted to them that, over the past couple of decades, I bought into the thinking that because sexuality and gender is such a sensitive topic, the best approach was to have those conversations personally and privately and not from the stage.
My thinking, I confessed to them, was that it was not helpful to address these topics from the stage because of the extreme sensitivity of the topic and the range of emotions and experiences of people in the room. There is no way, I thought, to address every concern and bring nuance to every situation. By preaching on such a volatile and painful topic, I was bound to hurt feelings, cause more pain, be misunderstood, or get myself or our church cancelled and into a public-relations nightmare. I mean, isn’t it better to avoid all of that and just address it with people face-to-face so that you can hear their stories and respond on a case-by-case basis?
No. Not really.
“When I finally got around to preaching on these topics, I knew I had to acknowledge my virtual silence from the pulpit.”
Why the Change?
So why begin speaking about it now? Well, I blamed them. I told them it was their fault because of how they responded to the survey from nearly 18 months ago. This was all tongue-in-cheek, of course.
There was more to it. There always is.
I explained to them that in the New Testament, the terms “pastor” and “shepherd” are used interchangeably. Therefore, a pastor’s job is much like a shepherd. We are to guide the people under our care, guard and protect them from spiritual danger, help them grow strong in their relationship with Jesus, and feed them spiritual truth and nourishment from God’s Word.
I drew their attention to 2 Timothy 3:16-4:5, an important passage of Scripture directed at pastors. To a young church leader by the name of Timothy, the apostle Paul would write:
“All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, CSB)
“All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness.”
All Scripture (not just parts of it) is valuable and profitable for every area of life. It guides us, shows us the ways of God, rebukes us when we’re off track, corrects our wayward thinking—which left alone always leads us away from God. Always.
“I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word.” (2 Timothy 4:1-2a, CSB)
He doesn’t say, On the really difficult and sensitive issues, just have conversations with people.
No. He says, in essence, Because the Scripture is so profitable, you’ve got to preach it—publicly, not just privately.
And he then continues…
“…be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching.” (2 Timothy 4:2b, CSB)
In other words, Paul was saying to pastors: When you feel like it and when you don’t. When it’s easy to and when it isn’t. When it costs you dearly, and when it doesn’t. When it’s popular and when it’s not. When people reject its message, keep preaching the Word. When people threaten you, keep preaching the Word. Never stop preaching the Word!
“When people reject its message, keep preaching the Word.”
Now, according to the inspired words of Paul, why will preaching the Word take great patience?
“For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear.” (2 Timothy 4:3, CSB)
This reality is true in every generation, not just ours.
But for our generation, it is especially true because of the access to the tens of millions of voices via social media, YouTube, and the internet. The spirit of the age is simple:
You just keep clicking and swiping until you hear something that makes you feel good and aligns with what sounds good and what you want to believe.
If the pastor of your church says something you don’t like, go find yourself another church. Better yet, just abandon the church all together and follow your own path. Be true to yourself.
And then Paul adds this heartbreaking statement.
“They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:4, CSB)
“They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths.”
People will reject the Truth that comes from the very God who created them, loves them, and wants the best for them. Instead, they will turn to “myths.” The Greek word Paul uses for “myth” refers to something which is fabricated by the mind in contrast to reality. Those ideas can contain much logic and reasoning imbedded within, but it’s a myth or fallacy nonetheless.
The word also referred to a line of reasoning to make someone or some idea appear to be wise or enlightened in order to deceive people and lead them away from truth and reality.
Whoa! At that point, I had to get really honest with the people. I told them that regarding the topic of sexuality and gender, this myth-making is happening in our culture in spades.
But Paul wasn’t done. He continues with his command to Timothy (and to all pastors)…
“But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:5, CSB)
In other words, Paul was saying: Timothy, when things get crazy and everyone has lost their minds and their grip on reality, you need to exercise self-control. Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. When the attacks come at you—and they will come—stick with it and endure the hardship. You are a pastor, a shepherd, a leader of God’s people. Do. Your. Job.
“But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
The Moment of Truth
Most preachers aren’t known for exegeting a passage of Scripture that totally “outs” them. But I just explained to them a passage that clearly exposed my failures and cowardice. So I confessed to them:
“This passage, inspired by God himself, should stop every pastor in his tracks who, like I did, bought into the idea that not preaching in detail on the topic of sexuality and gender was a better, more effective approach in our modern era. And in so doing, as your shepherd, I left you to the wolves when it comes to this topic and area of your life.
So I repent, and I ask for your forgiveness.
But more importantly, I repent before God and ask his forgiveness. Why?
Because my calling is from him.
And even though I am accountable to good and godly people around me, at some point they may desire or approve of something which God does not. And so my ultimate accountability is to him.
And so today, because you asked for it, and because its my job, we’re going to spend several weeks talking about sexuality and gender from the scriptures.”
“My ultimate accountability is to him.”
And We’re Off!
And with that confession and public repentance, we launched into what I had planned to be a four-week message series. Why four weeks? Because I didn’t think three was enough and I thought that anything more than four weeks would tank our church. Just being honest.
After getting a lot of feedback from the first message, I realized that four weeks wasn’t going to be sufficient. My four-week series outline had holes in it. So, for the first time in my 35 years of ministry, I made a decision to extend a series of messages. Because of our preaching schedule, after the fourth week, we took a break and did a pre-planned three-week series on a different topic with a different preacher. And then we came back to the sexuality and gender series.
So, it so happened that the second half of the series was how we launched our “back to school” ministry season. You read that right. Most churches have an inviting series planned to coincide with people being excited about coming back to church after summer break. Generally, pastors try and plan for something that will be easy for people to invite their friends to come to church.
Our invite was not that appealing: “Hey, come to church this week to hear part five of a series our pastor is doing on sexuality and gender that he really started nearly eight weeks ago. It’s going to be awesome!” The series ended up being nine weeks long. Each message was about 50 minutes in length. I wrote out the sermons and preached from a manuscript. It was rough.
And I wouldn’t advise anyone to follow that exact plan. But I would advise you to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
“And with that confession and public repentance, we launched into what I had planned to be a four-week message series.”
How Did People Respond?
So how did people respond? Well, just about how you think they would. There were a number of people (and families) who were angry and left the church right away. There were people who refused to come to the series and then returned after it was concluded. I had friends with whom I’d been in small groups who lasted a couple of weeks, and then they disappeared without a word, never to return. It was difficult.
But…there were people who repented and gave their lives to Jesus and were baptized into him.
One transgender man repented and went back to living as who God created her to be. She jumped into a small group for the entire series and was so thankful that we were talking about this topic. Her entire support structure was from the transgender community, and she became a powerful witness to them.
We had another woman who was essentially living as a prostitute, and she repented and was baptized into Jesus.
Another couple living together repented and separated and began to honor God by living sexually pure.
There were other encouraging stories like these.
But here’s the scary thing.
Had I not repented and changed course, they probably wouldn’t have, either.
How many more people would have repented and turned to Jesus had I been faithful during the previous 20 years?
That question haunts me to this day.
Preach the Word, my friends. Preach the Word.
To view the series that James preached and for more resources, click here.