This month is “Pride Month,” and we are in the midst of a 30-day celebration of debauchery. Our White House and other governmental bodies have issued forth their proclamations of support. Corporations have lined up to spend their money and endorse the LGBTQQIP2SAA movement. In our post-Christian land, a large number of our neighbors are interested in dawning their flags, wearing their pens, showing their colors, and endorsing this cause. Parades, festivals, and coming out parties are found in abundance. And in the heat of the moment, many churches are scared silent while some boldly endorse the confusion, lust, immorality, pornography, fornication, adultery, androgyny, and lunacy of our day. Yes, it might seem ludicrous to have a month celebrating racism, sexism, vandalism, dishonesty, theft, abuse, murder, or adultery. Who could imagine such? But here we are, for an entire month, celebrating sin and its disastrous consequences.
However, to my Christian straight friends, willing to speak the truth, let us slow down before hurling our stones. You see, we are all cut from the same cloth. We are all more alike than we prefer to imagine.
All of us have private sin. Everyone reading this post has come from the same assembly line of humanity. All of us have been scarred by our parents long before our being further skewed by our environment. It is true, “we were born this way.” None of us have been conceived in righteousness. Even before we committed our first sin, we were deprave in the womb. Therefore, our being straight or gay is a real distinction but without a huge difference. We all have suffered a fatal, spiritual birth-defect. We all have come into this world with a moral cancer. We have all been born carrying the DNA of our father the devil. We have all started as godless hellions. That’s our natural condition.
Consequently, following our birth, we have matured in showing our indwelling sin through our many and varied public sins. Yes, in different ways, the spiritual cancer within has manifested itself in our thoughts, affections, words, and deeds. Sure, the symptoms are not all the same. The manifestations are not the same. The particular transgressions and sin-titles vary from person to person, but all of us continually show forth our inner depravity through our external displays of unrighteousness.
Then, sadly, we progress. Perhaps it is better said, “we digress.” Many of us find ourselves in various seasons of pride. God allows us to wander a long way down the forbidden road, and in the process he allows sin to have a numbing affect on our conscience. The embarrassment factor of our iniquity diminishes. The old man comes out of hiding, he comes out of the closet, and shamelessly, publicly, and arrogantly we practice, parade, and promote our folly. Friends, this is not just a homosexual tendency; this is a human tendency.
But, thanks be to God who graciously steps in and rescues us from our arrogant self-worship.
And if June can be “Pride Month” to some, perhaps July can be “Humble Month” to all. Perhaps in the upcoming weeks, we can all — sinners, straight and gay alike — engage in education, acknowledgment, repentance, right practice, and humble love.
Education: Let us all re-read the good words of scripture. Perhaps we can reacquaint ourselves with God’s revealed truths that apply to every ethnicity, culture, nation, community, sexual practice, and generation. It is good to know what the good God in the good book says.
Acknowledgment: Then, let us all realize how God has given us his true, right, and beautiful principles for living. God’s Law is so good; blessed is anyone who meditate on it day and night. Let’s all acknowledge and call out the propaganda of the Evil One as he seeks to discount and substitute his own perversity for God’s good truth. Friends, God loves us. He created us in his own image. He does not wish to harm us, and in his Word he tells us that which is pure and best.
Repentance: Then, seeing the standard, let’s all realize our own indwelling sin and its many, varied, and horrible ramifications. Some of the manifestations of our sin are theological, emotional, financial, and industrial. Others are relational and sexual. Some of the manifestations of our sin have different levels of consequences — all our transgressions are not equally harmful to us and to others. However, regardless of our personal sins of affection, thought, word, and deed, and regardless of whether or not we are in Christ, all of us have sinned, and all of us continue to sin. Therefore, knowing this, let us all respond with Gospel-fueled prayers of confession, thanksgiving, and adoration. God has nothing to grant the one who does not acknowledge and confess his transgressions. He also gives not grace to the one who grades himself as better than his neighbor. But, to the one who confesses his sin, he is faithful to grant forgiveness, reconciliation, pardon, the declaration of rightness, adoption, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and all the fruit that comes from this new relationship. Therefore proud friends, let us all go to God in prayer. Let us confess our sins, give him praise, and offer forth the thanksgiving that comes from those who know the depth of their own depravity.
Right Practice: Following this, let us supplicate and continually implore God to grant us spiritual fruit. Let us ask God for a more fiery hatred for Satan and sin. Let us request a white-hot passion for purity. Then, as he affects our hearts and informs our heads, let us enjoy bringing our practice into greater conformity with our new priestly identity.
Humble Love: Finally, after seeing ourselves as the “chiefest of sinners” and the worst kids on the block; yes, after rightly beating our breast and having nothing more to say than, “God, be merciful to me a sinner,” let us lovingly and boldly keep reaching out to our sin-cursed and proud neighbors with Gospel truth.
So let me practice and model. To you, my friends and neighbors, regardless of your alphabetic preference and proclamation …
- God is good.
- We are not good.
- I am no better than any of you.
- I know my proud sins, my public sins, and my private sin.
- I deserve nothing but the divine wrath of God — in this life and the next.
- I have no stones to throw.
- I have no clue why our temptations are not the same.
- I do not understand exactly how nature and nurture works.
- I know that Satan longs to ruin us all.
- I have found a Lover like none other — his name is Jesus Christ.
- He can grant us his righteousness.
- He can remove from our backs the condemnation and shame of all our sins.
- He offers us reconciliation for the asking.
- He grants us wisdom for living.
- He, through his Holy Spirit, changes and reforms us as quickly and as thoroughly as he desires.
- Do we want to trust his saving hand? Would we like a Savior?
- Do we want to follow his wise counsel? Would we like a Teacher?
- Are we ready to join the family of sinful saints continually repenting? Oh friend, please come with me to the Father who loves us so. He has rings, robes, and sandals in abundance. Together, let us leave behind the sinful choices that harm us so, and let us together find fresh rest and peace at the party of God, in the house of God, with the sinful but repenting saints of God me.
Unfathomable Grace 
Well said, Joe. Thank you.