There are days when I like my work more than others. Today is not one of those.
Pride Month comes around every June. Accordingly, Sesame Street is once again seeking to influence children with LGBTQ ideology. This year, their characters form a rainbow as they clasp each other’s hands beside the post, “On our street, everyone is welcome. Together let’s build a world where every person and family feels loved and respected for who they are. Happy #PrideMonth!”
As usual, their message is worded so as to make objections feel irrational or even hateful. And LGBTQ advocates are quick to disparage anyone who disagrees with it. There will be parades and rainbow flags across the month; corporate and sports logos will display rainbows as well.
We must breathe out to breathe in
We can try to ignore all of this. Those of us who believe in biblical sexual morality can shrug our shoulders and wait for the month to be over. I would certainly rather do that than respond to this subject again today. I have gay and lesbian friends and do not wish them harm. I believe heterosexual sexual immorality is just as sinful as homosexual sexual immorality.
But not to speak biblical truth to such a pervasive cultural issue feels wrong as well. All people, whatever their sexual orientation or gender identity, deserve to know what God says about the issues we face. We need to counter the secularizing influence of the broken culture with our children and grandchildren as well.
The more people reject God’s word, the more they need God’s word.
If we keep our salt in the saltshaker and our light under a basket, those who need biblical truth won’t hear it. Those who need the compassion of Christ will not feel it.
But there’s more to the story: You and I experience the abundant life of Jesus to the degree that we share that life with others (John 10:10). We must breathe out to breathe in. We cannot love our Father without loving our neighbor.
The reason is simple: In Christ, God was “manifested in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16). Now he manifests himself through us, the “body of Christ” for whom Jesus is the “head” (1 Corinthians 12:27; Colossians 1:18). As St. Augustine noted, “The body as a unity cannot be separated from the head.”
Just as Jesus met the needs of his day, so he meets the needs of our day through us (cf. Hebrews 1:2). If we will not share his love with our world, we will not fully experience his love.
As I noted yesterday, partial obedience is Satan’s way of keeping us from experiencing the victorious life available only to those who belong fully to Jesus. Loving and serving others as holistically as he loves and serves us is vital to biblical Christianity.
This fact was reinforced for me recently through a painful conversation I am still reflecting upon today.
“And where were you?”
I met an older man last Sunday morning as we walked into the church sanctuary together. I noticed that he was wearing a jacket with a US Army insignia. Pointing to it, I thanked him for his service and added that my father had fought in the Army in World War II and his father in World War I.
He nodded and asked, “And where were you?”
I was immediately taken back. I said something about the answer being complicated and that I have often wished I had served in our military. But his question stung and provoked emotions in me that I later sought to understand.
My first realization was that by pointing to the military service of my father and grandfather, I was subliminally trying to claim their service as my own and thus a status of equality with this veteran. He was right to respond as he did. No one forced me to bring up his service as we walked into the sanctuary, but once I did, I had no right to suggest any personal equivalence to the years he gave up and the sacrifices he made for our nation.
In his essay “Why I’m Not a Pacifist,” C. S. Lewis describes the consequences of choosing not to serve in the military: “A continuance of the life you know and love, among the people and in the surroundings you know and love. It offers you time to lay the foundations of a career; for whether you will or no, you can hardly help getting the jobs for which the discharged soldiers will one day look in vain.”
I have no idea where this man served or what his service cost him, but no matter the answer, he paid a price for his nation that I have not. To suggest vicarious equivalence on my part demeans his sacrifice.
A war we cannot evade
My second thought turned immediately from military warfare to spiritual warfare. This is a conflict in which every person is engaged, whether we know it or not: “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
There is no evading this “draft” or refusing this service. We are all part of this spiritual war, either on the side of the Lord or the side of the enemy.
If I am to wage this war on the right side, I need to remember that every lost person I know deserves to hear the gospel. The hurting people I meet deserve to experience the compassion of Christ in mine. If Christians are the only salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13–16), its preservation from decay and darkness is my responsibility.
There is no vicarious equivalence here. It isn’t good enough to say that my wife teaches Bible studies or that my sons have served the Lord or that my church sends missionaries around the world. One day, I will be held to account by my Lord: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10).
Said differently, my Lord will ask me, “And where were you?”
I want to have a better answer for him than I had for my fellow worshiper last Sunday.
How will you answer your Father’s question one day?
Quote for the day:
“Sympathy is no substitute for action.” —David Livingstone
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