Sexual Identity

Dr. Christopher Yuan, Speaker

| January 26, 2025 - Sunday Evening,

Sunday Evening,
January 26, 2025
Sexual Identity
Dr. Christopher Yuan, Speaker

I don’t think I need to convince anyone that we live in a world of infinite shades of gray, not just 50. Ambiguity is now viewed to be a virtue. The less clear you are the better. When you actually insist on being clear or even talk about objective truth, that’s oppressive, and this is the deception of our time, that your sexual desires define you, determine you, and should always delight you. But since the fall of Adam and Eve, the human heart has set itself in defiance against God’s perfect ways and this idolatry of sexuality and gender expression is on a collision course with the Gospel as my life was on a collision course with the Gospel, and as I now on this side of calvary and look to my past, if there is anything that I could pass on to you as I see as the most kind of pressing mistake that the world is making today, and also has crept into the church, it would be that we are now confusing sexuality with who you are. When we get that wrong our approach on this is also going to be wrong, that we are not going to be seeing this so much as a sin issue, we are going to be seeing this as just having compassion on the marginalized. We see this strictly as just a people issue. Well, people deal with sinners, sin, and we are sinners. Because we have to get that right. How we answer this question, who am I, is going to have enormous implications. Who am I? Who are you? Who are we?

For some, they answer that question with maybe their work or maybe a hobby or maybe sports, ya know, I’m a lawyer, or I’m a football player, or I’m a gamer. Still others wrongly will put their identity in their sexuality or in their gender. I am gay or I am trans. But do these substitutes actually describe who we are or does it describe something else? And I know sometimes people will say, well, what’s the difference, aren’t we just quibbling over words? You say tomato, I say tomato. Someone might say I am gay to the point where we can even have gay Christians or gay celibate Christians, even a gay pastor. Isn’t that the same thing as saying that a person has same sex attractions? No, because words matter. Are we quibbling over words? Well, words have meaning and meaning is important because meaning is truth. I mean, how do we formulate true statements with words and Jesus is the living word and He is the way the truth and the life so are we quibbling over words? Absolutely. We’re quibbling over words because we’re quibbling over truth and we’re really quibbling over Jesus. How we answer this question, who am I, it impacts so many things, it impacts the thoughts we have, the choices we make, and the relationships we build. See our thoughts, our choices, our relationships are shaped in large part by how everyone of us answers this question, who am I?

Beyond even the issue of sexuality and gender, who am I? You see, this suggests this close relationship between essence and ethics. Who we are, essence impacts how we live, ethics. And vice versa is true. How we live impacts who we are or how we wrongly view who we are. So take for example, if someone were to say, “I am a lawyer”, is that going to impact what she thinks about. She is going to think a lot about law. Or if a person says, “I’m a football player”, is that going to impact the choices he makes. He is going to chose to watch practice, play football. Or if a person says, “I’m a gamer”, is that going to influence the relationships she builds, most of her friends will be gamers. Our thoughts, our choices, our relationships are shaped by how we answer this question, so if you have a flawed view of who you are, you’re going to have a flawed personal ethic, and if you have a flawed personal ethic, you’re going to have a flawed view of who you are. Personhood affects practice, practice affects personhood.

Years ago before my conversion I identified as a gay man. My whole world was gay. That affected my thoughts, my choices, my relationships, actually all my friends were gay men. I lived in an apartment complex in midtown Atlanta that was 90 to 95% gay men. I worked out at a gay gym. I bought my groceries at the gay Kroeger. I bought my new sports car at a gay car dealership. My bookkeeper was gay, my housekeeper was gay, everything and everyone around me was affirming what my flesh was saying, “ I am gay.” This comes before discussing that this is sinful behavior. Now I know some of you may have a loved one, maybe a friend and you’ve maybe had that unfortunate experience where you’ve had this conversation about sexuality and we’ve said what the Bible says, this is sin. Usually what’s their response, good or bad, positive or negative? Usually quite negative. They are so offended and why is it, why are people so offended when we’re just simply saying that this is sinful behavior and here’s why. How can someone understand that this is sinful behavior when they don’t even view it as behavior. Let me say it again, how can someone understand that this is sinful behavior when they don’t even view it as behavior? What do they view it as? Sexuality is not behavior, it is who we are.

Going back in time, if we were to meet I would not be a Christian, and we were to meet and we were to have that conversation, ya know, this is sin, I wouldn’t hear you saying that what I’m doing is sin, I wouldn’t hear you say that the desires that I have are sinful, no I would hear you say that my whole person from head to toe is reprehensible to you and to God. See before I knew Christ, I could not hate my sin without hating myself. Now that I know Christ I can hate my sin without hating myself and this is why this is so important even among the Side B, if you’re familiar with that, or the gay celibate Christian movement. They cannot hate their sin without hating themselves. We are not simply quibbling over words, we are quibbling over what it means to be a Christian. For example, look at the verb that we put before gay, being gay, what does being mean? It’s talking about personhood, who we are, so when Christians, even Christian leaders, New York Times best sellers are trying to say, ya know, no gay does not mean, ya know, sin or sinful behavior, it’s just talking about if people have these attractions, unchosen attractions, and they try to minimize that. I wanna say conclusively as a person who has been in the gay community, identified as a gay, and it’s funny because it comes from these people who have never identified as gay themselves, never lived in the gay community, as someone who is not in the Chrisitan bubble, identified as gay, I can conclusively say, I never thought that gay simply meant same sex attracted. What I saw it as, this is who I am.

We are not quibbling over words. Being gay means this is who I am. And it reveals actually this deep philosophical and theological misunderstanding, actually it’s a faulty presupposition, it’s a wrong starting point that points to our essence and the core of our being, so being gay is no longer about what I’m attracted to, what I desire, what I do, it has fully and wrongly become who I am, and this conversation around sexuality, this subtle shift from what to who, meaning what I feel, what I desire, what I do, to who I am has created this radically distorted view of personhood.

Honestly I don’t know of any other feeling or desire or behavior or experience that we’ve made it who we are. Think for example, maybe happiness. So if someone who say, “I am happy”, we wouldn’t think, “oh, that’s who you are.” No, it’s what you feel now, fantastic. The other side of the spectrum, if a person says, “I am depressed”, now if someone were to confide that with you, “I’m depressed”, should we ever say that is who you are, you need to just embrace it, yes or no? No, don’t do that. And yet, here’s something interesting. I often hear people who are raised in the church, they say, I didn’t choose this. Anyone who have friends who say that, I didn’t choose this? And what’s their conclusion, I didn’t choose this, this is who I am. Do people choose depression, so it’s who they are? Or I also know people raised in the church and now they’ve left the faith and embraced a gay identify and they will say, “I prayed for God to take it away.” Anyone have friends who say that, and God didn’t so therefore God made me this way or this is who I am.

I know some Christians who struggle with depression and they pray and pray and pray for God to take it away and he doesn’t. So when God doesn’t answer our prayers and take that desire or temptation or struggle away, does that then mean that that temptation is good? See, regardless of whether you chose it or not, regardless of whether you prayed and God didn’t take it away or not, that desire temptation is never who we are. Let’s take maybe a behavior, a sinful behavior. If someone gossips all the time and we would say, “you’re a gossiper”, do we mean that’s who you are? No, that’s what you do, so stop it. Or maybe an adulterer, is that who he is or what he does? And yet when it comes to this sin somehow it has now become who we are.

So, if sexuality is not who we are, then what is it? Sexuality is not who we are, but it’s now we feel. That’s such an important distinction that we need to make as Christians and not conflate this because when we make the error and say, “well this is who a person is” and we might be inadvertently making that error, it’s actually a categorical fallacy. It’s an error of category, in other words, we’re putting sexuality in the wrong box, in the wrong category. We’re putting it in the category of personhood, or essence, when it should be in the category of our feelings, desires, our experiences. The term heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, it terms desire into personhood, experience into essence that then ultimately distorts or thoughts, our choices, our relationships, our actions, our whole lives.

Actually, the term heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, gay, straight, bi, don’t describe people, they describe our experiences, our feelings, our desires, our actions. But today, experience reins supreme and everything else needs to bow down before it. So no longer are we sola scriptura, scripture alone, today we are sola experientia, experience alone. So who am I, who are you, who are we? This really important fundamental question is a question of ontology of our essence and that it’s foundational for us to wrap our minds around this first for us to address this issue of sexuality. As a matter of fact, for us to properly understand human sexuality we need to begin with theological anthropology. We are created in the image of God, but we’re also sinners, all humans, and so how does that beginning with theological anthropology help us to understand and share Christ with our gay loved one. Well four things, beginning with theological anthropology helps us to rebuke the arrogant condemnor. You may have an uncle, a cousin, maybe a friend who is one of those people, that “oh those gay people, they have distain for the LGBTQ+ community, frown down their nose, “they’re ruining our country.” No, actually sin is ruining our country. Unfortunately they just deceive themselves. See these are individuals that are created in the image of God. They have value and they have dignity. Regardless of anyone’s age, of anyone’s sex, of anyone’s ethnicity, we’re all created in the image of God. Regardless of whether someone is in submission to God or not, regardless of whether they wrongly identify as gay or lesbian or whether they struggle with these temptations, every human being, every man, every woman is created in the image of God. It’s actually inherent to who we are is never erased.

When we actually say that every person should be treated with dignity and respect, it’s not because of our commitment to social justice, it’s not because of our commitment to human rights, but it’s actually because we’re all created in God’s image. Every person is endowed with value and should be treated with respect. Actually the imago dei is the only true foundation for justice. Second, beginning with theological anthropology, it has helped us to avoid a common incorrect diagnosis, so if you’re not feeling well you want to go see a doctor or a nurse, get some tests to figure out what’s wrong because a correct diagnosis leads to a correct treatment, but what if your doctor or nurse do the, ya know, they diagnose you incorrectly, well a wrong diagnosis often leads to an incorrect treatment. Correct diagnosis leads to correct treatment, incorrect diagnosis leads to an incorrect treatment, and unfortunately I think we have not diagnosed this correctly which has lead to an incorrect diagnosis. What do I mean?

Some of you may be familiar with statement like this, that homosexuality, the root cause of it, is an absente father, dominant mother, or trauma in one’s childhood. Anyone heard of something like that before? It seems to be often the main go to, that’s the cause. Now certainly if you had trauma, if you were abused, if maybe you had a broken home, now that’s going to affect you in negative ways. I don’t argue with that. What I’m saying the Bible doesn’t teach is that is somehow the cause for your sin. Where do we get that? Where do we get that, ya know, things in your childhood, your adult problems are rooted in your childhood not scripture. Anyone guess? Sigmund Freud. We get this where Freud is like, ya know we’re born as a clean slate and so the problems that we have that we’re dealing with is rooted in our parents or childhood and then trauma. I mean when we look at scripture, what does scripture teach, what’s the root cause of homosexuality or let’s just broaden it out, not just this sin, let’s broaden it out to kind of what’s generally the root cause of sinful behavior or a sin struggle. If you struggle with jealousy, what’s the root cause of that or maybe gossiping, what’s the root cause, or if you struggle with lust, pornography, what’s the root cause of that, your mom. Do you see how actually crazy that sounds? I mean, how unbiblical that sounds, how totally contrary to what scripture teaches. Now, is that an influence? Yes, it could be an influence, but an influence is not the same thing as a cause. Let’s ask that question again. What is the root cause of sinful behavior. What does scripture teach as the cause? Is our sin nature, what Paul calls flesh, it’s original sin. The consequence of the fall, that’s what scripture teaches. I mean, we can point to the biggest problem of humanity, it’s our fallenness, it’s not our childhood.

Because if, if your childhood is the problem, your biggest problem that’s the cause of your sin instead of sending Jesus, God might have just sent us a support group. When we realize the correct diagnosis that sin is the problem and Jesus Christ is the answer, that’s the, see Freud doesn’t save, Freud cannot set us free, even, ya know these secular concepts is not going to set you free from sin. Jesus is the one that sets us free from the bondage of sin. And this is important because this is big implications for many of you in this room, this is a real struggle in your life. You have a wayward child, a son or daughter, and you’ve raised them in the faith, covenant children and they’ve just walked away. And I know mothers who cry themselves to sleep, “what did I do wrong?” I wanna be very clear when I say this, it’s not your fault.

Perfect parenting doesn’t guarantee perfect children. Look at Adam and Eve. Did they have a perfect father? Did they have a perfect father? They did. Did they have a perfect environment, I mean it couldn’t get more perfect than the Garden of Eden, they still rebelled, so what makes you as a parent think you can do better than God? See the job as of a Christian parent, actually the main job of a Christian parent is not actually to produce Godly children, because if you could do that, you’d be God. The job of a Christian parent is not actually to produce Godly children, but to be a Godly parent. You be Godly, you pray your heart out that your children would follow Jesus. You still do everything to point them to Christ but recognize you’re not God and let God do his work because he is mighty to save. It’s not your fault.

And third, beginning with theological anthropology, we’re created in God’s image, but we’re also all fallen it helps us to also affirm repentance. So, the second point was kind of kind of addressing the old paradigm that as we saw kind of it is gay, it is straight, and kind of blaming parents and having the wrong diagnosis, what I am really seeing is that almost this popular way to respond and to address sexuality and it’s really popular among the Evangelical churches, even reform circles is this issue, and I mentioned it just a moment ago, it’s kind of having to do with the Side B gay celibate Christian movement, the Revoice Conferences if you’re familiar with any of that. So what’s wrong with that? I mean, it seems like well these people are sincere, they’re trying hard to not act on their sin, and I mean it’s, yes it’s a good thing that people aren’t acting on their sin, I mean why are we not helping them and walking with them? And here’s the issue, because it does not affirm repentance. And what do I mean by this?

When we’re talking about sin, is it just the act that’s sin. Let’s just focus on sexual immorality. Is it just don’t act? I hear that a lot, well, I ya know, someone might say well I just have same sex attractions, ya know, just don’t act on it, and I’ll be very, this is full disclosure, I used to think like that. When I first became a Christian I thought okay I have these temptations, these struggles, and I’m good as long as I don’t act on it. And here’s the problem, I started reading the Bible, and I came to passages like Sermon on the Mound, Matthew 5 where Jesus says if a man looks lustfully at a woman, which by the way that word lustful, lust is actually the same word for desire, epithumia. If you look lustfully at a woman, what does Jesus say, if a man looks lustfully at a woman he’s fine as long as he doesn’t act on it. Is that what Jesus says? Just don’t act. No. Jesus says if a man looks lustfully at a woman, how does it go, he’s already committed adultery. So is it just don’t act? No, no, no. We need to repent of the act and also the desire. So when we are not actually calling people to full repentance, we’re not calling people to freedom. They are still in bondage to their sin. We’re not calling this, this is not just simply quibbling over words. So if, ya know, gay they will say is just the act is wrong, that has led to so many of these crazy things within this movement. The group is even called Spiritual Friendship, even a book is titled “Spiritual Friendship” and I know that sounds, well, friendship, that’s a good thing, we should have deep Christian spiritual friendships. Yes, of course, until you realize that it’s been redefined. Isn’t that how Satan works, redefine terms.

Spiritual Friendship, that concept is from a Latin phrase, spiritualis amicitial, it’s a Latin phrase that where did that come from, well it came from 11th century Cistercian monk, and his name was Aelred of Rievaulx, and he promoted this idea that because these monks were off in the mountains and secluded and they, ya know, they were just away from people and they couldn’t, right, they couldn’t get married, they have to be celibate and notice I’m very careful not to use the word celibate anymore and the reason is in this conversation around sexuality, celibate though before had kind of the same meaning as chastity or abstinence, celibacy has kind of taken on this Roman Catholic view which is a vocation, it’s not just kind of well right now I’m being chaste, no, this is a lifetime vocation. And I’m careful not to do that because I think we’re called to chastity, purity, holiness in whatever situation we’re in.

I mean, I’m open to getting married as a single man, but ya know, it has to be God who’s doing that, but that doesn’t mean that I kind of close that down, I say I’m just celibate, I could never get married, so spiritual friendship, this monk in the 11th century, he said, ya know well we’re dealing with loneliness and we’re dealing, ya know, desire for intimacy and so what was his solution in the 11th century for these monks in these monasteries, in these secluded places in the mountains? We’ll form these spiritual friendships. So they actually, the Roman Catholic church, they have recorded where like two men would actually have a ceremony together, so they would almost like have a friendship ceremony. It’s kind of weird, I feel like I’m in 7th grade again, ya know, like pinky, ya know, best friend forever. And so they would like of do these ceremonies, but is that true just because it’s in history does that mean that we need to copy it? And what’s of upmost importance is that it had now been imported to this side of the world because Aelred of Rievaulx, these monks never talked about that, they struggled with same sex attractions. So what next has been kind of modernized is that these spiritual friendships are when two gay men, same sex attracted men, they then will come together in a union, an actual covenanted relationship. Sometimes they’re called celibate partnerships. We have some churches that will then bless these and have an actual ceremony and how do they justify it? Well, it’s fine as long as we don’t have sex. They will actually live together, they’ll even sleep together, they will even own property together, they will even hold hands, and they think it’s fine as long as they don’t act on it. So in other words, it’s redefining gay marriage to be spiritual friendship. It’s just gay marriage light.

Wives, would you be okay if your husband had a spiritual friendship with another woman in that definition? Yes or no? Absolutely not, but why, I mean we could say, well he’s not having sex with her. Because sin is not limited to just the act, is it? Even a thought Jesus says, it that thought, that desire that I have, that end I talk about in my book, all desire has a telos. There is a teleological nature for our desire. We desire something, an object, and then we desire to do something with that, and if that is sin, then that desire is sin as well. So, we need to call people to repentance. We’re not going to call them to just don’t act on the sin and if there’s patterns, I mean, John Owen and the puritans talked about indwelling sin. That’s not just kind of a theory out there, that should be the struggle of every believer. Our sin that we have to mortify everyday to put it to death, it’s a constant battle, then why would I chose to then identify with my indwelling sin? If your struggle is gossiping, don’t identify as a gossiping Christian. Here at Christ Covenant I see everyone has their name tags. I love name tags because I’m really bad at names. Should you have your name, and then underneath, “I’m a coveting Christian”, “I’m a jealous Christian”, “I’m a porn watching Christian”, I do not identify as a gay Christian, that is my dead man and no one is going to resuscitate him. We need to identify with life and not death.

And lastly, beginning with theological anthropology that we are created in God’s image, all of us, all humanity, and also all of humanity we are dealing with our fallenness, it actually also helps us to answer the born gay question. If you’re familiar with that often times people say, “I’m born this way, this is the way God made me.” How do we answer that? I know some Christians who will say, “Well, the Bible doesn’t really address this, we just don’t know which is actually not true. I’ve created a video called, “Is being gay genetic?” and we see a lot of the studies right now and there’s quite a few that is saying that nothing is conclusive, actually there’s no replicated study about the inheritability of sexuality, that it is inborn. Study after study after study, even the hypothalamus or hormones, chromosomes, nothing’s actually replicated and conclusive, and yet still people will say, teachers will teach in our public schools, in our colleges, people are born gay as if it’s a fact. Our loved ones will say, “I was born this way” and beginning with theological anthropology actually helps us to answer this question correctly. Because even though people wrongly think that they might be born this way or born gay, whether they might be born that way or born transgender, born gay, Jesus actually has an answer, that you must be born again.

The old is gone, the new has come. In Christ you’re a new creation. You might think you’re born an alcoholic, Jesus says you must be born again. You might wrongly think you’re born a gossiper, you must be born again. You might think you’re born a you fill in the blank, you must be born again. That is not a message just for the gay community, that is not a message just for those in the trans community or our wayward children, that is a message for the whole world, you must be born again. Let’s pray.

Father thank you for Jesus. We praise you Father that it is in all things that we know that Christ is preeminent, that he is the one that shows us perfection. God I thank you that it is your truth that binds us, that convicts us, that corrects us, that points us to life and I pray for those who have not joyfully submitted to that, that they would, that you by your grace would do so in your perfect timing. God we praise you, we thank you and we ask this in the beautiful, powerful precious name of Jesus. The people of God said Amen.