November 16, 2017
As some of you know, I’m preaching this weekend so I called in a reinforcement to help teach last night. Ryan Donovan showed up, made us laugh, and brought us the Word last night. A big thank you to him. Here’s a quick update on what we talked about:
The question that we addressed last night was: Why is homosexuality bad? Isn’t God the image of love, shouldn’t everyone love each other? I realize for some, this is a sensitive topic, especially for those that are in middle school. But increasingly, it’s so relevant (even in middle school), and, in turn, so crucial for our students to know how to respond as the culture around them changes drastically. Ryan Donovan directed us first to Romans 1, pointing out that man exchanged the truth about God, for a lie, worshipping creature rather than creator. At the heart of things, idolatry is the issue that Paul addresses when it comes to homosexuality. Importantly, Ryan stated clearly the fact that the Bible tells us that homosexuality is sinful. This is crucial, as so many churches today have chosen to disregard texts such as these. To see this in it’s fulness, we turned back to Genesis 2, and looked specifically at God’s design in the creation of man and woman. This led us to talking about the fact that anything outside of God’s design, which is perfect and good, is sin. Again we referenced Romans 10 (we’ve done that a lot in the past couple weeks) to point out that we as the clay have no right to talk back to the potter. He designed us male and female, helpers fit for each other, and his design was good… end of story.
That said, Ryan tried to help us answer the question of: what do we do with that? I really appreciated his teaching in saying that those who are homosexual in orientation need Jesus just as any non-christian needs Jesus. It is our calling to share Christ with them, to love them, and to uphold the word of God as we call them out of sin, and into fellowship with the living God. It led to some great discussion in small groups, and, I hope, gave the students some really good things to think about as they witness the shifting of culture. All in all, it was a really good night.
I’m thankful for each of you. Thanks for entrusting me with your students, and supporting me as I seek to serve your kids. Have a wonderful thanksgiving week.
Categories: Youth Night Updates, Youth Tough Questions