On Monday, the U.
S.
9th Circuit Court struck down Proposition 8, which had banned same-sex marriages in California.
In May of 2009, the California Supreme Court upheld proposition 8, while, at the same time, ruling that same-sex marriages convened prior to the acceptance of this constitutional amendment are legally binding.
However, this week, the 9th U.
S.
Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the amendment by a 2-1 ruling, which will now send the challenge to the U.
S.
Supreme Court.
A number of Christian leaders have spoken out against this Circuit Court ruling, and perhaps they should.
However, too much vitriol on this, or any other issue, will not help the cause of evangelism.
In fact, it could be argued that the extreme focus on this issue, by the Christian community, serves as taking the Church down a rabbit trail away from fulfilling Jesus' call to make disciples.
After all, Jesus did not call Christians to clean up society or make this world more moral.
Instead, He issued the call to the Church to evangelize the world (Mark 16:15) and to help those who have believed in Jesus for eternal life to grow as His followers (cf.
Matthew 28:18-20).
In other words, He is calling us to help people prepare for the coming kingdom, which He will initiate at His return.
A focus on specific sins or on morality in general is to buy into amillennial heresy at two levels.
First, it adopts the false teaching that one's behavior is somehow vital to where one will spend eternity.
Though many amillennials reject that up front, they buy into it in a back-load kind of way by saying that if one truly has faith, it will be accompanied by works.
Thus, in the end, one's works become a critical aspect to where one spends eternity.
This is heresy at the most basic level.
Second, this focus submits to the amillennial following of Augustine's buy-in of neo-Platonism.
This is the unbiblical understanding that everything that can be seen is evil, which means that there will be no literal kingdom of God upon the earth; how could there be if all visible matter is wicked? Thus, the kingdom of God exists now in the hearts of men, so we need to focus on changing society now-and it needs to be done by focusing on behavior, since that is tied into one's eternal destiny.
(See point number one above.
) Am I arguing that homosexuality is okay-that it is not a sin? No; of course not.
The Bible presents it as morally wrong; yet, additionally, Scripture shows that ALL sin is wrong.
The Bible also shows us two other important points about sin.
First, sin is not the issue in terms of where one spends eternity.
According to Jesus, the only determinant of where one spends eternity is whether one has believed Him for eternal life (see John 3:18; also see John 3:16, 36; 5:24; 6:35-40, 47; 11:25-26; etc.
).
This is because Jesus has already paid for all sins for all time (Hebrews 10:12; 1 John 2:2) and, thus, has removed sin as a barrier to receiving eternal life (John 1:29), which is life with God forever.
Therefore, as Jesus clearly presents in the Gospel of John, eternal life is received simply-and only-by believing Jesus for it.
(As part of the only condition for receiving eternal life, a form of the word "believe" is used 99 times in this Gospel.
By this incredible repetition, God is seeking to drive home a point-believing Jesus' promise of eternal life results in the reception of eternal life.
There is no other condition for it.
) A second important lesson the Bible provides about sin is that a Christian's focus on sin is a detrimental focus.
It is true that Christians need to confess sin when God reveals it in their lives (see 1 John 1:9), but as the apostle Paul pointed out in an autobiographical illustration, the focus on sin, or on commandments that prohibit sin, will only entice the flesh (the physical body where sin resides) to sin even more.
Thus, this focus becomes self-defeating for the Christian and is a wrong-headed focus by Christian leaders.
(If leaders are trying to get their followers to sin even more, then they are accomplishing this goal by getting them to focus even more on sin in their lives.
Of course, I am seeking to make a point by this facetious comment.
) Instead, what the Christian needs to grasp is the importance of living by God's grace-living by the power of the Holy Spirit by faith in Christ (see Gal.
2:20; Phil.
4:13; Romans 7:24-8:39).
But the focus on one's behavior tends to lead the Christian away from reliance on Christ's enablement via the Holy Spirit.
This last point is also instructional in regard to those involved in a homosexual (gay) lifestyle.
Because the focus on sin is detrimental to the Christian, and because a non-Christian does not possess the Holy Spirit to empower him to overcome sin in his life, zeroing in on the sin of homosexuality does nothing beneficial for the one involved in that lifestyle.
What it can do is to keep the sinner from God's grace.
How? By making the practice of homosexuality the focal point, one makes behavior (and sin) the focus.
Thus, the one in need of God's grace interprets that to mean he has to clean up his behavior before God will accept him, a misunderstanding of monumental proportions! Because it is ONLY by God's grace (through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone who gives eternal life as a free gift to those who believe Him for it) in which a person can enter into an eternal relationship with God, this misunderstanding-perpetuated by the undue focus on behavior-could very well keep the person from accepting God's gracious offer of eternal life.
In addition, if the person wants to escape that lifestyle, he has most likely found that it is impossible to do so by his efforts.
Or, perhaps the individual likes what the sin has to offer.
In either case, for him to think he has to leave his lifestyle of immorality before he can enter into a relationship with God will undoubtedly cause him to give up on an eternal relationship with God altogether.
This is a tragic outcome of the serious misstep of focusing on the sin, rather than upon God's grace.
Fortunately, Jesus showed us that we do not have to "clean up our lives" before receiving eternal life.
In the one book possessing the purpose statement of showing us how to receive eternal life (cf.
John 20:31), the apostle John presents the amazing offer of Jesus to an immoral woman (in John 4).
From this encounter, we learn that the woman had been married five times and was living with a man who was not her husband (v 18).
Thus, we might expect Jesus to tell this Samaritan woman that she needed to leave this immoral relationship and stop her immoral conduct entirely.
However, there is not a word of that! Instead, Jesus offers eternal life as a free gift (cf.
vv 10, 13-14) to this woman with no strings attached! It is not that Jesus does not want us to live free from sin; the point in John 4 is that our behavior has absolutely NOTHING to do with receiving eternal life! Thus, by all of the hoopla by Christian leaders on the overturning of Proposition 8, they are taking the risk of turning people away from God's grace.
This includes both Christians and non-Christians alike.
In addition, this appears to be distraction for the Church from its primary purpose-that of making disciples of Jesus Christ.
Instead, what is needed-for all-is the experience of God's grace, something, unfortunately, many evangelical leaders have apparently forgotten.