My goal in this post is to help us think Biblically about how to respond to our aggressive, paganizing culture. As more and more institutions and organizations sign on for pro-homosexual advocacy, Christians are finding themselves under increasing pressure to participate in the LGBTQ+ liturgy. 

The month of June is upon us and, with it, the celebration of America’s true public religion – Pride.  Our nation, with much of the western world, has committed itself wholesale to the worship of unlimited sexual license and the aggressive evangelizing of the LGTBQ+ agenda. This is not about politics, or social policy, or human rights. At its core, this is purely about worship. It is demonically driven rebellion against the Living God and His good creation. This is man “exchanging the truth of God for a lie” and God, in judicial response, giving our society “over to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (Romans 1:28). Pride Month is man shaking his fist in the face of God – and God revealing His just and awful response to that wicked pride.

How then shall we live? 

The most recent IX Marks newsletter contained an excellent article by Jonathan Leeman on how we should arm ourselves with gospel love and truth as we respond to the current cultural moment. Here are several Biblical texts that apply specifically to the issues we face.

1. IN EVERYTHING YOU DO, LOVE

Mark 12:29–3, “Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”  

For starters, don’t take love for granted. That’s easy to do when fear dominates us.  

Loving God and loving our neighbor should animate everything we say and do this month. We stand up for truth for love’s sake. We swim upstream for love’s sake. We share the gospel for love’s sake. We say, “No, I can’t do that” at work for love’s sake. We turn the right cheek to those who strike us on the left for love’s sake. 

As your pastor, I can’t tell you everything you will need to say at any given moment at work or school. But I can tell you that we must always love—both God and their neighbor.

2. DISTINGUISH GOD’S LOVE FROM THE WORLD’S LOVE

John 14:15, 21, 23, 24 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. . . Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. . . If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.  

Love, in the Bible, always works together with righteousness, obedience, and truth. Love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth,” (1 Cor. 13:6).  We have to say this because today’s culture has completely swallowed hell’s view of love: love means whatever you want it to mean. Yet that’s not real love. It’s a fake and a liar. Real love always points people to the God who is love, and anything that draws people away from this righteous and holy God is not love but is a deceiver.  

So, don’t be fooled by the empty platitudes and deceptive claims of our culture. Distinguish true love, God’s love, from the Devil’s love.

3. NEVER LIE

Exodus 20:16, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”  

Many situations at school or work will place you into situations where lying might seem like the easy road out of a dilemma. But Christians are called to truth. Scripture’s positive command to speak the truth in love doesn’t mean we have to speak up at every moment in which we could. Sometimes silence is acceptable. Yet Christians must never lie.    

4. NEVER AFFIRM EVIL—

Ephesians 5:11 “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”

Romans 1:32 “Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.’

An everyday rationale some Christians offer for going with the cultural flow is, “Well, not everyone here is a Christian, and we shouldn’t impose our morality on them.” That counsel can be correct sometimes. Yet just as you should never lie, so you should never participate in the unfruitful works of darkness, and you should never give approval to anything that provokes God’s judgment. 

Just because your classmates or colleagues decided to approve sin doesn’t mean you should put your hand to doing the same. Abstain. Pull back. Keep your hands off anything that might commend sin and provoke God’s end-time judgment.

5. REMEMBER WHAT YOU WERE BUT ARE NO LONGER BY THE GOSPEL

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”  

Sometimes our moral compasses get a little wobbly. For all of us “wobblers,” Paul’s words here set the record straight and put steel in our spines. It draws clear moral lines and also reminds us of the gospel.  

Remember, we still struggle with the temptations to do the very things listed here, such as sexual immorality, greed, or reviling others. Some will struggle with feelings of attraction toward the same sex, or even like they’re in the wrong body. For this latter group, put yourself in their shoes for a second: if they would only tweak their theology, they would be hailed as heroes by our culture.  Instead, we must hail them as heroes since they’re exercising extreme faith to follow Christ. 

Remind everyone of God’s law, but also remind them of the gospel of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. We’re no better than anyone on the outside because we’re all here by mercy and grace. Our worth and value and righteousness and hope is vicarious, imputed from Christ. What a gracious and loving Savior he is!

Harvest Church, never forget that the gospel has such a better story than anything offered by this world. May the humility of love and grace make us winsome witnesses to those enslaved in pride.

Recommended Reading: 

• Here is the original article by Leeman. (You’ve read most of it already. ☺)
• Here is an excellent article by Rosaria Butterfield. She is a courageous voice calling the false teachers of cultural accommodation to repent.