Phil Robertson’s opinion doesn’t matter. Neither does mine. Get to work.

 

Let’s talk about Phil Robertson.  (How’s that for a little SEO?)  His opinion about homosexuality doesn’t matter.  Neither does yours, by the way.  Or mine.  Here’s why: It’s not our job to care about whether being gay is a sin.  Let’s read that again.  It’s not our job to care about whether being gay is a sin.

This is where Christians often say, “Yes… you are wise.  We should love the sinner and hate the sin.”

No.  Wrong.  Let’s try this again.  It’s not our job to care whether being gay is a sin.  This includes the process of “lovingly” deciding you will love a sinner anyway.

Our job is to make disciples.  “But how can I bring someone to Christ if they don’t acknowledge their sin?”  Who made you gatekeeper, pal?  Who put you in the judges robes to determine who should and should not be brought to Christ?

I am not interested in engaging you on your Biblical analysis of whether homosexuality is a sin.  I know my personal sin and there is no debating it… it’s a sin.  So I’m not interested in debating what is and is not a sin.  It’s a huge waste of time and a distraction from our mission.  I am interested in walking with you into a world that is full of every sin you can possibly imagine and treating every single person we encounter as a human being desperately in need of entering into a relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ.

End of story.  End of mission.

Every minute you spend debating about whether being gay is a sin is a minute that could have been spent telling your story to someone else in order to bring them closer the Christ.  And let’s not forget that your story is full of sin.  Someone, seeing your sin, talked to you about Christ, didn’t they?  In my case, the people who brought me to Christ did so SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE OF MY SIN.  They saved my life.

Who’s life are you saving by intellectualizing whether homosexuality is a sin?  How many people did you save by having a church committee meeting, or a synod conference, on this topic?

Enough already.  Your opinion of homosexuality doesn’t mean a hill of beans.  You are not a judge.  You are a servant of the Judge.  You bring people to His feet, not your own.  And this judge forgave the murderers who nailed him to a cross while he was still hanging on that cross.

We do not love homosexuals, or bisexuals, or Asians, or Africans, or short or tall, wide or thin.  We love people.  We tell them our story so that they can see the beauty of the words in the Bible and the amazing grace that pours from the God who created us.  We tell them our sin so they can see our God loves sinners.  He does not seek out the perfect, and neither should we.  When we bring people to the Bible, and to Christ, their sin is exposed before God.  Not before us.  It is exposed before God and they are given the chance to ask God to take it from them.  And the truly bizarre, unfair, unjust reality is that God does take it.  Even though we could never do anything to deserve that.

You are not a pre-screener for Christ.  You are a hero.  Right now.  Today.  You are a hero.  Heroes run into burning buildings, and dive into frozen waters, and they never… ever… ask first, “Is this person worthy of saving?”  They just save them.  That’s our job description.  It was kept simple for a reason.  Stop mucking it up.  We are surrounded by people who need a hero.  Let’s get to work reaching them, whoever they are.

We were built to be a heroes.  It’s about time we started acting like heroes.