A season ago I posted a video sharing why I believe God’s wisdom for our sexualities is worth following. I anchored that reflection in Proverbs 4 and Matthew 7. Proverbs 4 tells us to seek wisdom, love wisdom, and hold onto wisdom because wisdom guards us. It portrays wisdom not merely as information but as a protective gift—something that keeps us from harm and guides us into life.
And then Jesus, in Matthew 7:24-25, describes the wise person as the one who hears His words and does them. That person is like a house built on a rock. Storms come—and storms always come—but the house remains standing. The point is not that wisdom prevents storms. The point is that wisdom determines what survives storms.
At the beginning of that video, I made a passing comment that I don’t believe gay sex is a salvation issue. I want to explain what I meant, why I meant it, and why that claim does not weaken a historic Christian sexual ethic but actually clarifies it. Because for many Christians, the conversation about sexuality swings between two equally damaging extremes.
On one side, there is panic and moral catastrophizing, as if disagreement about sexual ethics is the dividing line between who belongs to Christ and who does not.
On the other side, there is resignation, as if anything that is not strictly a salvation issue is therefore a negotiable preference.
Both extremes distort the gospel, and both extremes make it harder for the Church to offer a credible alternative to the world’s story about intimacy, love, and belonging.
I will explore three key ideas here: First, why gay sex—or disagreement about sexual ethics—isn’t a salvation issue. Second, how to answer the honest question that naturally follows: “If it’s not a salvation issue, why obey God’s wisdom here at all?” And then I want to close with what I think is the most important piece: what churches can do to offer something undeniably better than gay marriage—because if the Church doesn’t offer a viable, beautiful alternative, then we lose credibility.
That’s where we’re going.
Is same-sex sexual sin worse or less forgivable?
Let me begin with two clarifications that I consider essential. First, any suggestion that same-sex sexual sin is worse or less forgivable than greed or idolatry or any other sin is inconsistent with the Scriptures, and it is often homophobic. Scripture does not give us permission to create a hierarchy where certain sins are treated as uniquely disqualifying while others are casually excused or treated as normal. The gospel does not work like that. We are not saved by having the correct sins. We are saved by the mercy of Jesus Christ.
Second, while Scripture warns that sexual sin often has a particular way of impacting the sinner, because of how intimacy and our bodies are involved, Scripture never suggests that Christ’s work on the cross atones for sexual sin any less. The atonement is not partial. Christ’s forgiveness is not selective. If Christ is truly a Savior, He is the Savior of sinners, not the Savior of sinners-within-a-approved-range-of-failures.
With those clarifications in place, we can ask the more general question that sits behind nearly every controversy in this space.
The question is essentially this: what happens if a Christian consciously and repeatedly refuses to repent of a specific sin? Does that automatically mean they lose their salvation? My answer is that this question must be handled with both theological seriousness and pastoral realism. We cannot treat repentance as unimportant, because Scripture doesn’t. And we also can’t treat salvation as fragile, as if Christ’s grip is weak and His mercy is easily revoked, because Scripture doesn’t teach that either.
Call me an old-fashioned evangelical, but I remain convinced that all a person needs to do to become a Christian is to privately confess to Jesus, “I’m a sinner. I need a Savior. Jesus, I want Your forgiveness for all my sins, past, present, and future. I want You to be the Lord of my life, even though I know I will fail at that every day until I die or You return.” That is the posture of faith. That is the posture of surrender.
And then, as part of the ordinary life of discipleship, I would encourage that person to be baptized publicly as a public confession of their faith and their belonging to Christ and His Church. In other words, salvation begins with an act of trust in Jesus and an act of receiving what He gives. It is not earned by moral performance. It is not secured by flawless repentance. It is received by faith. When I prayed that prayer years ago, I repented in advance for all sin I would commit, and Jesus forgave in advance all sin I would commit.
I want to linger on that idea because it is one of the most liberating truths in the Christian life. If Jesus is only able to forgive the sins I can remember, or only able to forgive the sins I successfully confess with perfect insight, none of us have hope. But the New Testament presents the love of God as deeper than our self-knowledge. Christ’s mercy extends beyond our emotional clarity. He sees what we do not see. He knows what we do not know. And His forgiveness is complete. That is why, if a person fails to repent of a specific sin in the future, I do not believe their salvation is automatically in jeopardy, because Jesus has already forgiven them for that sin. That is how big the love of Jesus is.
Can a person lose their salvation?
At this point, some people understandably respond, “Are you saying there is nothing a person can do to lose their salvation? Nothing at all?”
No, that’s not what I am saying. I am not a Calvinist. I do not believe in a simplistic once-saved-always-saved model where perseverance is automatic regardless of the posture of the heart. But I also do not believe Jesus revokes our salvation as if His gifts are impulsive and His covenant love is unstable. I don’t believe there is anything another person or the Enemy can do to take our salvation from us. The only person who can change our salvation status is ourselves. In other words, I believe apostasy is possible, but I believe it is fundamentally self-chosen. It is not something God does to someone who is trying. It is something that happens when a person ultimately gives back the gift. Sometimes that is abrupt. Sometimes people consciously decide, “I no longer want Jesus. I no longer trust Him. I no longer want to belong to Him.” And Jesus, in His respect for human agency, will oblige. He does not force Himself on anyone.
But often it is more gradual, and this is the version that concerns me the most pastorally. After months or years of ignoring the Holy Spirit, drifting away from God, and hardening the heart, a person can arrive at a place where they do not even know when they left the faith. All they know is that they were a Christian five years ago, and today they are not. This gradual kind of departure is more sinister because people rarely start out intending to lose their faith. Instead, they slowly fool themselves into it. They slowly become numb. They slowly redefine things. They slowly distance themselves from prayer, from Scripture, from confession, from Christian community, from responsiveness to conviction—until one day they look up and realize their faith is no longer alive. Not because Jesus stopped being faithful, but because their heart stopped being responsive.
Before I go any further, I want to locate what I’m saying in Christian tradition, because I know this part can feel slippery to people depending on how you were taught. The approach I’m taking tonight isn’t new, and it isn’t a modern loophole. Its essentially Wesleyan–Anglican-Arminian historic evangelical theology, common in many non-Calvinist evangelical traditions. In those streams, the gospel is still crystal clear: we are justified by grace through faith, not by moral performance. We don’t earn our way into God’s family, and we don’t stay in God’s family by flawless repentance. At the same time, these traditions take holiness seriously. Repentance matters. Obedience matters. Formation matters. But those are treated as the normal fruit of discipleship and the normal means by which God leads us into freedom and life, not as a constantly ticking salvation-status test where every failure means you’re “out.”
And unlike a simplistic once-saved-always-saved model, these streams also say it’s possible for a person to walk away from Christ. That’s important for me to name because I’m not trying to flatten all the warning passages in Scripture. I take them seriously. I’m just trying to interpret them in a way that keeps two truths together: salvation is grounded in Christ’s finished work, and yet our hearts are not robots. We can resist God over time.
If you want to dive deeper into these perspectives yourself, check out some of John Wesley’s sermons on justification by faith and the danger of drifting or Methodist/Arminian doctrinal summaries on conditional security, often phrased as “a believer may fall from grace through persistent unbelief/apostasy” or Anglican formularies and catechetical teaching on repentance and perseverance.
Common objections & responses
I also want to acknowledge some reasonable objections that thoughtful Christians might raise. I’m not trying to dodge them. I just want to show you where I think they land. First, people might cite 1 Corinthians 6 or other vice lists that say, “… won’t inherit the kingdom.” I agree these are real warnings. But the lists function as wake-up calls against self-deception and unrepentant identity formation, not as a claim that one specific sin, especially sexual sin, is uniquely salvation-ending compared to greed, idolatry, etc.
Second, Hebrews 10:26 warns about willful sin and falling away. That’s a real warning that we should take seriously. But Hebrews is addressing apostasy and hardened unbelief over time, not a fragile salvation that flips the moment someone struggles or fails.
Third, some might say this sounds like cheap grace. I want to be clear: I’m not minimizing repentance. Forgiveness doesn’t insulate us from consequences. God’s wisdom is protective. Refusing repentance hardens us.
Fourth, some Christians might say, “If someone is truly saved, they will repent. Persistent unrepentance proves they were never saved.” I respect that view and many faithful Christians hold it. But I’m not convinced we find that in the Scriptures. I think real believers can drift into hardness. But the pastoral response should be calling people back to Jesus, not panicking and doubting their salvation.
That being said, some of us are still going to disagree on the answer to the salvation question. But I want to reiterate that that disagreement isn’t about sexuality. Rather, it’s about more fundamental questions like what “saving faith” is, how assurance works, how to interpret the warning passages, and whether perseverance is guaranteed or conditional.
If you and I differ on those deeper questions, we may land differently on whether persistent unrepentance automatically means “not saved.” But I hope we can still agree that repentance matters, grace is real, and the Church should not rank sins or motivate holiness through fear.
Here’s another reasonable objection: “But isn’t it different if someone consciously refuses repentance versus unconsciously refuses repentance? Surely someone is more accountable if they know what they are doing.”
Honestly, no. The more years I see clients as a mental health counselor, the more convinced I am that the popular distinction between conscious and unconscious refusal is often baloney. I do not buy that we are more responsible for conscious sinful thinking than subconscious or unconscious sinful thinking. It is all of us. Some of us are simply better at hiding ourselves from ourselves than others are. We are masters of rationalization. We can feel sincerely justified and still be self-deceived.
At some level, I think all of us are daily saying, “I know this is a sin and I do not care; I am going to keep doing it.” Some say it consciously. Others say it at another level. But our responsibility is the same. And here’s the good news: self-deception isn’t the end of the story. The Holy Spirit can bring what’s hidden into the light. Jesus meets us there with mercy, and repentance is possible.
Some people hear what I’m saying and assume I’m minimizing repentance. I’m not. Forgiveness is real, and consequences are real. If we sin, even if we’re forgiven, we still deal with the natural consequences of sin on this side of heaven. Jesus never promised to shield us from all consequences. Forgiveness doesn’t mean insulation; it means restored relationship, mercy, and the debt not held against us in the ultimate sense.
But consequences remain because God loves truth and reality can’t be manipulated by our wishes. That’s why Christians still repent of specific sins even when we’re already forgiven: repentance is how we face reality, receive mercy, and take practical steps to turn back toward what is life-giving.
Repentance matters because refusal forms us. Over time, repeated refusal can harden the heart. But I don’t want fear and shame to be the engine here. Fear can produce compliance, but it rarely produces love, and shame corrodes intimacy with God. The better engine is the promise of fullness of life: building a house on rock that holds in storms. That’s why I obey, not to earn salvation, but because I trust God’s wisdom leads to life.
Now, of course, there is a big obvious question that follows. If I’m saying disagreement about sexual ethics is not a salvation issue—if I am saying there are people I disagree with about gay marriage, gay romance, and gay sex who will be in heaven—then why not simply do what you want? Why not “have your cake and eat it too”?
Why obey God’s wisdom?
The short answer is because I actually believe God’s wisdom leads to life, so first I’ll show you why that wisdom is life-giving, not arbitrary, and then I’ll go to Jesus in Matthew 19 to show you what’s Christ’s wisdom is.
I think it’s helpful to start by going deeper on this key truth: God’s wisdom in the Scriptures isn’t arbitrary. God’s wisdom in Scripture for what will bring goodness versus pain in my life isn’t arbitrary. God didn’t intend for me to be gay, notice that I’d want gay sex, and then draw a boundary around gay sex to test me, as if He’s playing some cruel spiritual game. That’s not how I understand God, and it’s not how I understand Scripture.
I believe God made the world perfectly. He gave humans real choice, and then humans chose to disobey Him. Our sin bent everything about the world. It bent our desires, our bodies, our relationships, our instincts, and our stories. And yet God looked back at the world and noticed two things at once: He noticed what would bring us harm, and He also noticed the ways His best still shines through even in the midst of brokenness. So He revealed to us in Scripture what will bring harm and what His best still is for us. And He gave us the Church, not just isolated individuals, to read and interpret the Scriptures with, across time, across cultures, and across generations.
That means whenever a Christian asks a question about morality, the right question isn’t, “What can I get away with?” The right question is, “What is God’s best for me?” And we answer that question by studying His Scriptures and by paying attention to whether there’s a historic Christian consensus, and whether there’s a contemporary global Christian consensus, on what Scripture teaches and why. Now, when we ask, “What’s God’s best for gay people?” a lot of people immediately jump to a handful of verses that many believe call same-sex sexual activity a sin. Those passages are meaningful evidence, but I don’t think they’re even necessary to know God’s wisdom for my sexuality. What’s truly convincing is not those few passages but the whole of Scripture.
Consistently, Scripture reveals God’s design for our lives and God’s order for the world, even in the midst of brokenness. And when it comes to what to do with our capacities for romance and sex, God seems to be pretty clear. There are two options for all Christians: vocational singleness or Christian marriage with someone of the opposite sex. And we get that directly from Jesus.
In twelve verses in Matthew 19, Jesus tells us everything we need to know. He calls His people back to God’s original intention for marriage: a lifelong union between one woman and one man, not primarily to serve themselves, but to serve God. And then Jesus introduces an alternative: permanently giving up romance, marriage, sex, and biological children for the sake of doing kingdom work with undivided attention.
Those are God’s best for us—regardless of our sexual orientation. That’s what a vast majority of Christians have believed over the past two thousand years, and that’s what the majority of global Christians believe today.
So why obey God’s wisdom here at all? Because once you see that God’s moral instruction is not random—once you see that it’s rooted in His design and His love—it reframes the whole question. The issue is no longer, “How close can I get to the edge without falling off?” The issue becomes, “Do I trust that my Creator knows what leads to life?” And if Jesus is telling us that God’s best includes either Christian marriage or vocational singleness, then following Him here isn’t about earning salvation. It’s about embracing the path of wisdom—believing that God is not holding out on us but guiding us toward what is genuinely good.
Now, I can already feel the tension some of you are carrying. Because even if you agree that God’s wisdom is good, and even if you can see the clarity of Matthew 19, the lived question remains: why does this still feel unbearable for so many gay Christians? Why does it feel like we’re being asked to strain more?
Making celibacy good
I want to be clear at the outset: this isn’t because God is cruel or because vocational singleness is inherently more difficult than marriage. It’s often because the Church has not embodied a historic Christian sexual ethic in a way that makes it livable. So let’s name the real reasons gay celibacy feels so difficult—and then talk about the path toward thriving.
I’ll start by clearing away a few wrong explanations first, because they matter. This isn’t hard because God is depriving gay people of something we need. It isn’t hard because vocational singleness is inherently harder than faithful marriage. And it isn’t hard because gay Christians are destined to strain more. In my experience, it’s hard because of how poorly the Church has embodied a historic Christian sexual ethic.
Specifically, here’s 5 ways the Church has failed to do that
First, parents and pastors don’t know how to minister to us. Many parents and pastors first react to teens sharing about their attractions by sending teens to a therapist or a para-church ministry outside of the church to be “fixed.” Parents and pastors don’t know how to minister to gay people well, so they outsource the care. The shame and loneliness of gay people is amplified because their challenges are treated as weird problems that need special treatment. They are told to make sense of a key aspect of their personhood away from the church family they worship with, pray with, and take communion with.
Second, churches fail to invite everyone to God-honoring sexual stewardship. Too often, communities fail to teach what the Bible really has to say about vocational singleness and Christian marriage or offer robust support for either. They enable straight Christians to ignore God’s wisdom to their own detriment but then call gay Christians to a higher standard of sexual stewardship. This is hypocritical, and leaders lose credibility to ask gay Christians to live according to biblical wisdom.
Third, parents wait to talk about sexuality and unwittingly empower the closet. Many churches wait until a kid shares that he or she is gay to address the topic of homosexuality, which is a problem. Gay teens spend an average of five years in the closet, making sense of their sexuality often without the love and wisdom of parents—left alone with the lies of the Enemy and culture. This leads to loneliness, anxiety, shame, depression, sexual sin, addiction, abandoning God’s wisdom, suicide, and loss of faith. Gay teens are 5 times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers, and 54% of gay people have left the church. The wounds of the closet become the greatest barrier to gay Christians thriving according to a historic sexual ethic, haunting them for a lifetime. If we wait for kids to come out to us to share about God’s love and wisdom for gay people, it will be too late.
Fourth, churches speak poorly about God’s wisdom for gay people (or are silent, at best). Many churches avoid the topic of God’s love for gay people, so the average church-goer doesn’t know how to have compassionate and theologically accurate conversations with friends. As a result, gay people don’t know whether it is safe to share their story. Churches that refuse to speak publicly about God’s love for gay people hurt gay Christians, and their indecision limits their ability to invest in something better.
Fifth, vocational singleness and mixed-orientation marriage are inviable in most churches. Many churches may have the right beliefs about sexual ethics, but the pathways they offer for sexual stewardship aren’t viable. Those churches are places where few gay people are thriving in vocational singleness or the complexities of marriage with someone of the opposite sex. In response to the ways many Christians misused mixed-orientation marriage, the pendulum has now swung the opposite direction, and many churches teach that lifetime singleness is the only option for gay people. But these churches never teach about vocational singleness, there are no models in their church for doing this well, and they don’t invite straight people to consider vocational singleness. Vocational singles feel alone as roommate after roommate moves out—they’re starved of a consistent experience of family in the body of Christ. It begs the question: if we aren’t offering vocational singleness to straight people, do we really believe it is good?
But your community can become a place where gay Christians thrive according to a historic Christian sexual ethic. And in the process bless every Christian in your community. How?
First, your community needs to invite all Christians to think theologically about their sexual stewardship. You need to teach that God first calls everyone to a period of temporary singleness during which they discern whether they are called to vocational singleness or Christian marriage with someone of the opposite sex. Your community should teach that every Christian has the same inherent capacity for both vocations, and every Christian, gay or straight, should offer the question of vocational singleness or Christian marriage to God. And then your community needs to come around gay and straight people to help them faithfully live out the one God calls them to.
Second, your community must talk publicly about the cultural questions in the intersection of faith and sexuality. With compassion and theological accuracy, churches need to explore the following questions: How does same-sex attraction develop? What part did God play and why? Does same-sex attraction change? How should gay people meet their intimacy needs? How do gay people fit in God’s story? How is God’s invitation to gay people good?
As a result, everyone in a church would know how to love gay people well and reflect the love of Christ in conversations about sexuality. Plus, gay people in a church who are not out yet would know what the church believes and that it is safe to share their story.
Third, churches must protect kids from the wounds of the closet. You’ve got to equip parents to lead kids ages 2-12 in age-appropriate conversation about God’s wisdom for everyone’s sexual stewardship before puberty, demonstrating safety and inviting children to share early about their sexuality. If kids hear before puberty that gay people don’t choose who they are attracted to, that they have nothing to be ashamed about, that we won’t try to fix them, that we don’t love them any less, and that God has good and beautiful plans for them, then hopefully when some of them realize they experience same-sex attractions, they’ll quickly share with their parents and pastors, inviting the adults in their lives to help them learn how to steward their sexuality in God-honoring ways and preventing the wounds of the closet from ever being inflicted.
Fourth, pastors and other leads need to know how to offer compassionate one-on-one pastoral care to gay people. They need to do what it takes to gain the competency to provide pastoral care to gay people. While licensed counselors still may be included to help address clinical levels of anxiety or depression, these churches must recognize that same-sex attractions are not a mental illness to be cured. Parents and pastors should help gay people integrate their faith and sexuality in ways that lead to thriving in this life and deep relationships with God and friends.
And last but not least, churches must become places where gay Christians people can thrive in vocational singleness or a mixed-orientation marriage with reasonable effort. These churches should teach about the theology of vocational singleness in Scripture, adults should model thriving in vocational singleness and be celebrated in the church, and the church should invite all people—gay or straight—to discern whether God is calling them to vocational singleness or marriage. These churches need to teach about the possibility of mixed-orientation marriages for gay people, cautioning against getting into such a marriage recklessly while highlighting the beauty and brokenness of real stories. Most importantly, these churches must be places where celibate people can find the same depth of family that married people find, by helping vocational singles start intentional Christian communities by suggesting the idea, helping them cast vision for it, providing pastoral support while they explore the possibility, coaching them through the process, and even providing financial support in the early years.
Now, if you’re a pastor or Christian leader, you might be tempted to resist that responsibility to cultivate intentional Christian community for celibate people, but that’s in the DNA of the church from the very beginning. In Acts 6, we see that the first administrative act of the Church was to provide a home and family for celibate women. Acts 6 verses 1-7 describes a scene where immigrant widows were being accidentally neglected. The love of Jesus was drawing unmarried people to the church—thank the Lord!
But the need had become too great to be met organically and too great for those called to primarily preach/teach to also take care of these celibate women. Yet they recognized that it was the responsibility of the Church, so they empowered other leaders to take care of these practical responsibilities and they resourced that work.
Then fast forward to 1 Timothy 5, Paul is talking about the proper care of widows. And what do we see? A house of widows, the beginnings of one of these city celibate homes, a place where celibate women are finding family! While Paul is holding some of those women accountable for unfaithfulness and offering some lesser-of-two-evils-accommodations, top-line he’s still affirming that it would be best if they kept their commitments to permanent celibacy and family together in the house of widows. Clearly the Church had by 1 Timothy 5 made good on its commitment in Acts 6 to provide for widows, for celibate women, not only to have food but also to have a home and a family. That was the first administrative act of the Church. It’s what leads to establishing the first generation of church leaders after the apostles. Providing for celibate people is what the Church was created to do.
So get busy! Honor the broken reality and unmet need, accept responsibility, gather singles, inspire intentional Christian community, help them take early steps, support logistically and emotionally.
In conclusion, if you’re a straight Christian, don’t judge gay people for hesitating to give up gay romance and sex until your church has taken these 5 steps. If you’re not offering a community where they could actually thrive according to God’s wisdom with reasonable effort, then you have no credibility to call them to something more difficult than you’re calling other Christians.
If our churches want to be faithful on this topic, we can’t just be “right”; we have to become the kind of family where God’s wisdom is actually livable. So wherever you’re coming from tonight—pastor, parent, leader, gay Christian, skeptic, or someone quietly carrying questions—take one next step toward the light. Keep walking with Jesus. Keep practicing specific repentance as a return to life. Keep building spiritual friendship and thick community. And keep trusting that the God who calls us away from lesser loves is not holding out on us—He’s leading us into something deeper, steadier, and more beautiful than we imagined.
