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You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
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Trying to be a steady husband, an intentional dad, a man of God… but deep down, you feel like you’re falling short. Like you’re carrying more than you know how to hold.
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Are there gonna be gay people in heaven? Um, it totally depends on what you mean by gay people.
Welcome back to another episode of q and a with Chris. As always, um, Chris has not seen or heard any of the questions that I'm about to throw at him. If you have a question that you would like us to toss his way, go to dad tire.com/question. And he will do his best to tackle these questions. It's been really fun.
We've had questions come in from all over the world. Um, people are really enjoying this segment, so thank you, Chris, for doing this. Without further ado, man, we'll just jump right in. Let's do it. Um, this person said, I know that God forgives me, but I'm having a really hard time forgiving myself. How do I go about doing that?
Ooh. Good question. Um, I think the language that God gives us in scripture between a father and a son is really helpful. So a permit me to assume that you're a father if you're listening to this. We actually found out recently there's a lot of non fathers and like mm-hmm. College age students listening.
So welcome if that's one of you. But I, here's what I think is helpful in. Recognizing how totally you have been forgiven by God. If you can perceive that, that the language to be helpful for, if you can recognize what it would mean for your son to walk up to you and to ask for forgiveness and how totally and completely you would truly forgive them, translating that to self, sometimes we're not able to do that.
That's why like if I'm counseling with someone. And maybe they're a high school or like a, a college age dude, and there's a girl they're interested in, but they're just not good for them. I always ask, what would you give if, if your best friend, someone you loved were in the same situation, what advice would you give them?
And we actually often, um, give a lot better advice to a third party than we do to ourselves because we're not wrapped up in all the emotions. The emotions you're talking about here could be shame. Embarrassment. Um, there's also a, a recognition we have to have, which is, um, desiring that the punishment of our sin hurts more.
And some like self-flagellation, like, oh, I need to get more or hurt more, whatever. It robs God of the power of the beauty of his grace to go. Jesus took your punishment on the cross and so you thinking that you need to get punished or hurt more for it in order to actually forgive yourself is in a lot of cases competing with God for the beauty of the glory of his grace, right?
Like I only need your grace to come down this far and then I'm gonna punish myself to meet you in the middle. Sometimes it's our pride that actually leads us to that. Um, in the same way that some of us struggle with letting someone do something for us, uh, that's really not a mark of humility. That's a mark of pride, right?
I, I can't have you doing all these things for me. Um, for cer certain, the opposite side of expecting people to serve you. It would be another extension of pride, but never accepting help saying, um, I, I need to maintain this posture of always being the one who helps. Could also be a, a matter of pride. So when you read the text, God separates the sin as far as the east is from the west and remembers it no more.
So in those cases, if that's what God has done so totally in a finished work of Jesus, for us to bring it back up would be kind of goofy. Huh. Like, imagine sitting down with your son and being like, yeah, you are, you're forgiven, man. It's not a problem. Um, this has been paid for. There are consequences, but you are totally forgiven.
And then the next day your son comes up like, Hey, I just wanted to talk about that thing one more time. You would go, oh, I thought this was kinda solved. So, permit yourself to live in the role of son, but also to recognize it from the view of the father. These are helpful, relational, um, this is helpful relational language the Bible gives us.
I think that's a helpful way to, to recognize forgiveness for yourself. Wow. There was like three things in there that were super convicting and, um, five things that were really encouraging. So thank you man. That was really good. Yeah, for sure. Um, this person said, do people choose to be gay or are they born that way and will there be gay people in heaven?
I mean, that's a lot. For one question. It's like, this comes in three parts, A, b, and all of which could be their own podcasts. But yeah. Um, I think the first question is not an important one. Hmm. Uh, because, uh, my roommate in college was gay and so he would always tell me, Chris, if someone told you that.
Heterosexuality was seen in the gene pool. They discovered which gene it was, and they actually found out that you were, in fact homosexual, not heterosexual. Would you start liking men? And I'd be like, yeah, I don't think that would change anything if I thought that my genome was different than it actually was.
We don't have any instance right now that says that someone is, um, there, there's nothing in the actual. Bioscience of genetics that says there's a gay gene. So there's no way of looking at someone's right. You could, you know, you can find like old skeletons and old DNA and find out if they were male, female, what color their skin was, what part of the world they were from, some things like that.
But you can't discover whether they were, they. Where they were sexually oriented. Um, I am inclined to believe that it's probably a lot more has to do with the combination of a lot of different factors and not just one. Um, there could be genetic predispositions to certain things that could be in a case of a guy more effeminate and then the culture.
Um, gives language to that, that leads to that. But again, I could be proven wrong. Either direction wouldn't really make any difference to me. These are conversations that as an apologist I have all the time, so I've heard every single different side. So, um, there's, there used to be just side A, side B to the gay conversation in the church, namely side A was affirming and side B was, um, it.
Even if you are same sex attracted, you need to not act on that whatsoever. Now there's four sides, A, B, X, and Y and that could, again, it could be its own podcast that we might get to at some other point. I think there's actually some really helpful language in those four different perspectives. So I'm, I'm sure we could figure something out, Jared, on how we can lay those things out and not go into too much detail right here, just 'cause it's more of a quick q and a.
Um. But, uh, the second part, the third part of the question, are there gonna be gay people in heaven? Um, it totally depends on what you mean by gay people. That's like, are there gonna be people who have committed murder in heaven? Are there gonna be people who have had the intents of something in heaven?
Are there people who have messed, when you say gay people in heaven, um. The idea that people's same sex attraction, um, overdoes, the grace of the cross, I think is a really big problem. So, no, I don't think, uh, that we would be ever comfortable saying that, um, gay people are excluded from the kingdom of God.
That doesn't really make any sense. Now anyone who identifies themself first and foremost with their sexuality, before they do with their relationship in a covenant with God, there's a problem there, but it's not subjective to that. Um, anyone who looks into the law of God and says, actually, I'm King. I do what I want, not what you want.
There's a bigger problem, which is a Lordship problem, but that isn't exclusive to homosexuality. It is in some cases a little bit more, um, I would say damaging. Homosexual conversation because our culture, which is so sex starved and sex first permits you and actually gives you permission to identify with something that the Bible clearly speak, speaks against in its practice.
So homosexuality is spoken of, uh, as a prohibition. Um, explicitly homosexual marriages is spoken against explicitly in the text. And so just like marriage is spoken explicitly against anyone who says, I see what the Bible says, but I'm gonna do my own thing on this one. I suppose I'm just a murderer and these are the things that I do.
Um, the. The Bible would pick that up in Rev in Romans chapter 10 verses nine through 10 and say, if you have confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. The first half of that, which is the Sal Salvation Pure Curator in the whole, the whole New Testament.
Those two things. He's gotta be lord of your life and you have to submit and believe that his, um, work on the cross paid for the price of your sins. If you let any part of those two things go, we've got a really big salvation problem. So if you say, God's the Lord of my life, but I live however I want, then he is not truly Lord of your life.
So are there gonna be gay people in heaven? If insofar as you mean, people who experience same sex attraction, then of course 100% there will be. But if, by that you mean people who I've identified with their, with their, um, sexual preference and have followed that in lieu of following Jesus. That would be for the same person who's a straight person, but they decide to be fornicators their whole life or to commit adultery their whole life without any repentance or change.
Anything. We don't submit to the word of God and we keep away from him and say, no, I'm gonna live my own way. We've got a Lordship problem, not a homosexuality problem. The reason that homosexuality comes up explicitly when we have this conversation is because it's one of the few things that the Bible speaks against that human beings are willing to identify as.
That's why it finds itself at the forefront of these conversations, whereas other sins, which the, the gay person rightfully can say, but aren't these? Separating if we don't repent for them. Yes. But you rarely find someone who commits any of the other things the Bible speaks against as part of their identity.
And so that's where we get an an issue with that. And that's why that question has become more prominent in the church. But we can have another conversation on the AB BXY thing later. 'cause I think those differentiations are helpful. Is there is it's actual A BXY that's like how they're category categorizing.
Correct. Yep. Okay. Interesting. And I haven't heard that. Um. And so just to contrast, like you were saying, none of the other things that the Bible permits, like we are identifiers in our culture. Can you give us some examples of that? Like we wouldn't say like, no, I'm just a murderer. I think you might have said that, but like, just so it's like really clear.
Um, contrast for us the other things that the Bible permits that people are not identifying themselves as. That. The Bible forbids you mean? Yes. Yeah. So, uh, uh, if you walk around your life and you are living in a constant state of covetousness. Wanting what other people have and are willing to do things to do it.
If you're a liar, if you're a slanderer, um, let's say you're a gossip. This one's what it can be potentially dangerous, right? If you walk around your life and going, I'm not gonna surrender my my tongue to the Lord, I'm not gonna surrender my language to the Lord, I'm gonna use it however I want. He's just gonna have to either accept me or not.
I'm a gossiper. My family's gossip, so I've B born from gossip, so I'm going to use my words to hurt people, and he's gonna have to be okay with that. At least I'm not gay. Or at least I'm not a murderer. That's not gonna work in God's kingdom. Anything unsubmitted to God that you then obtain as part of your identity, right?
Like I, I, there are gay people who can be engaged in same sex sexual behaviors and then come to Christ and go, no, I, I have to stop this, but still mess up in their life or have these different instances where they experience another. Um, night or moment or experience of same sex, sexual relationships. And it's not like, oh, they're done.
But what I'm really looking for, I think from a pastoral point of view is I'm, I'm hoping that someone is wrestling with their sin and hasn't adopted their sin as an identity. Yeah. That is what's unique, I think, to sexual, uh, preference and sexual identity. That is you, that, that, that is not really clearly seen in other parts of who we are.
Someone who tells lies. We'll do everything they can to say I'm an honest person, but every once in a while I lie. But you rarely would encounter someone who's like, I'm a liar and I think that you need to start, start dealing with it. This is who I am. God made me predisposed to not tell the truth, and so this is how I'm gonna live my life.
Well, that would not be Lordship, that wouldn't be a part of your life surrendered to what Romans 12 says is a living sacrifice. So we do not mean to. Subjugate homosexuality as something unique. The Bible doesn't do that. The reason that it's unique in our culture is because the Bible forbids it, but people identify as it, as opposed to other things that people might commit but wanna do away with.
Right? Like, I lied, I'm so sorry, I've gotta do that. Um, and there's. Same sex sexual attracted people that go to my church that go, I had another mess up, I had a mistake. I don't wanna be part of that. And it, those two people are the same that go, I have to stop this and I have got to live in Lordship of Jesus.
The problem is we're taught in our culture that if you keep doing that, this is who you are and therefore God should be good with it and he should permit it, and then you change the scripture to adjust to your preferences. We don't do that with any other sin. That's why I think. It's particularly dangerous to have that conversation.
When we say all sin is equal, yes, but other sins we don't identify with. That's the difference. I just wanna say too, as, as some commentary here, first of all, um, you know, for those of you who don't know, Chris is pastoring a church in the heart of downtown San Diego. So for him to make these stands in that culture, um, it.
He's had, you've had to have thought about this quite a bit. Um, and we've got a, these are a, these are real people you're thinking about. We've couple, yeah. Yeah. That we've got a gay couple that sits 13 rows back in the second service. We've got another lesbian couple that comes and brings their kid to the preschool that we're at.
And so, um, we're in, in my. Part of the world. The thing that's kind of interesting is we have gay people coming and are listening to these conversations and are just, they're really asking what does the Bible say? Yeah. Where I feel like previous generations were like, don't you dare say that out loud. Now they're kind of like, okay, just tell me, just be fair with me.
Yeah. And so that's why I feel like it's been really cool to be able to sit down even with people who are same sex attracted or identify as gay and go, just tell me what. The Bible says, and let me deal with the truth of it. And so that's been a really powerful change, I think, in the church in the last five to 10 years.
Wow. Really cool. Um, what does the Bible say about whether communion is the literal body of Jesus as the Catholic's belief? Um, yeah. So. Yeah, we're probably, we're across the denominational ministry. So let me give you the answer from the seat that I sit in, which is systematic theologian. That's the class that I teach, and that's my field of study, which is what does the entire Bible say about any given subject?
And so if you put communion up on the mantle and say, what does the entire Bible teach us about this? Um, we find a lot of institutions throughout the time of Jesus and even previously where God gives us things in order to represent bigger and more important things, but the symbol is not the thing itself.
Okay. So I. I think of the Passover lamb in the Old Testament, which it, it in a lot of ways plays into the New Testament idea of the, um, this is what Jesus is celebrating when he grabs the cup and he grabs the bread and he breaks it. Right. This is, they're celebrating the feast of unleavened bread, so they're.
Remembering what happened when the Jews who were in bondage in Egypt had to leave in haste and didn't let their dough rise. They brought a lamb inside the house who was slaughtered. The blood of the lamb was pasted on the doorpost and the lentils of the, of the house, the angel of death passed over. So Jesus is celebrating this meal when he changes the meaning of it to fit himself.
And in the same way that the, uh. The coming Messiah. That's what they're waiting for in the, the Passover meal. We aren't to understand the lamb that was slain in the blood and the as the actual Messianic blood, the New Testament revelation of that, I don't think the symbol should change in the same way.
Romans Chapter six says that when we go under the waters of baptism, um, that we are, it's a symbol of a death to self. Romans chapter six, but then coming alive into Christ. This is a First Corinthians, uh, chapter six lays this out just like Romans six does. Uh, you are now, you were dead in your sins and have, have come to new life in Christ.
Um, I idolaters, slanderers, drunkard. This is who you once were. Um, one Corinthians six, but now you've been bought and you've been made new. So, but it's symbolic and there's nothing in that that is the symbol. It, it's, it's not the fulfillment of the symbol itself. It's, it's symbolic of such, uh, so we find this with a bunch of different things, right?
The, the Festival of Tabernacles, the. The celebration of Hanukkah. No one's saying that this is actually taking place, but that we're remembering it and it, it's pointing to a bigger reality. So I think part of the problem. That we come across when we believe in what's called transubstantiation, which is that when the priest gets up and says, haw corpus mayo, right?
That's how you, in Latin, how you change the bread into the body of Christ. You have broken the pattern all throughout scripture of this symbol of something as all of a sudden become the reality of it. And I don't think that plays out with any of the other things that were given in scripture. Um, that hocus corpus mayo.
Word, which is kind of funny, is how the, um, that's where we got the word hocus pocus from because the little Oh, interesting. Catholic kids would listen to the priest get up and say, hocus, and they thought he was saying hocus pocus. So it was, it's how you changed, right? So in a magic show, it's like hocus pocus and it's transformed.
So they would use that terminology, which we still use today, to mean something magical or supernatural taking place. So. Um, this is not, I don't think this is consistent with the other ways that we see it in the New Testament. The Catholic version of this is also why a lot of churches, their communion service is very somber and it's very sobering and it's very introspective because the early Catholic church taught that the actual body of Christ was there.
And when you've got a body of someone at mass, it's a funeral, right? Like you're. And you, you're being much more, um, sacro with everything that you're doing. So I don't think, um, it's an appropriate way of understanding the elements that they transition from one thing to the next. Um, you could go to like a zwen or like a Lutheran idea where the body and blood of Christ are in, with and under the elements, but they're not the elements themselves.
Um, but in like a Baptist tradition that I come from, it is. It plays the same role that Baptism does, the same role that, um, all the institutions play in the New Testament, which is, it's symbolizing the better reality and it isn't the reality itself. So I think that's a better way of understanding it. Um, but I.
This isn't an, an arena that we break fellowship over Catholics with. It's just a, um, as evangelicals this is probably how we see it a little bit differently. But, um, again, this is not a primary issue that we would break fellowship on. Love it. Uh, can loved ones in heaven see us or hear us when we talk to them?
No. Okay. Thank you guys for joining today. No, no, they can't. Um, we, that's, it's a lot more cartoon than it is gospel to talk that way. Um, I don't even understand a reality in which they could look down at us and I. Not experience the things that say are forbidden in heaven, pain, tears, sadness, sorrow. Um, I imagine my late wife looking down on my life now and my marriage and the kids, and they're growing up and not being there.
And I, um, so is there a reality where they, in their glorified state, are able to see that with such clarity that it doesn't bring them any sadness maybe. But, um, I think the broken world as it is. Would be a sight that God in his mercy would forbid someone else from having. But when you start getting into can they hear our prayers?
Absolutely not. My kids will ask Jesus to tell Mommy something. Um, and we always pitch that to the idea of, I. The Holy Spirit is wild. God can do whatever he wants to do. So it's no problem praying like, hey, uh, you know, uh, Brady, just a few weeks ago I was talking with him 'cause he was missing mommy and mm-hmm.
Um, so we prayed and he said, you know, Jesus, can you tell Mommy that I miss her God and. Choose to. Yeah. You don't know. I mean, I, I, I don't know if that's permissible or if Jesus just goes and gives her a hug and just says, um, you know, we have such an amazing family and they're following me. And I, I don't know how that process works out.
We have no biblical evidence that there's an interplay between that realm and this. It's certainly not a looking down upon, so it would be in some cases, interdimensional. And so I, I don't think that that. That doesn't square with the text. So if it is the case, it's extra biblical and God hasn't, that's part of his secret will not his revealed one man.
Well, I didn't expect that question to, uh, bring me to tears. Hold it up. Um, thanks Chris. Um, if you guys have a question that you would like Chris to tackle, again, dati.com/question, you can submit these questions anonymously. As you can tell, I'm not reading anybody's name. Um, as I'm, as I'm. Presenting these questions, but we would love to have your question again, dad tire com question.
We'll see you guys next week.