PRIDE MONTH
I just finished a book by a former lesbian and gay rights activist who came to Christ through the hospitality of people who loved her unconditionally. She was a college professor working on a book, and in order to get to know the other side, she agreed to spend many evenings with a Christian family to see what made them tick.
They ate meals together—over 500 of them—and had family devotions together. They sang songs, prayed, and devoted themselves to each Lord’s Day, and after years of this kind of radical hospitality, this lesbian feminist activist finally was saved. She’s now an activist for the other side, using the very tool of hospitality that helped her see what Christ is all about!
The aptly named “Pride Month” is a celebration of evil, no doubt, but even Christians can unwittingly participate in their own “Pride Month.” We can pray with the Pharisee: “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.”
In other words, “Good thing I’m not as bad as all those bad people out there!”
Well, if you’re not broken over this world’s sin and their need for a Savior, if you don’t love people who are blatantly anti-God, if you can’t see past the surface and into these hearts that are craving a deeper love than they have ever known before, then is it not our own pride that we should condemn? As long as God’s grace is bigger than sin, there is hope for every sinner.
I am not letting Pride Month off the hook, as if it’s not an abomination. It is. There’s no way around Romans 1, Leviticus 20, 1 Corinthians 6, and other passages, no matter how hard people try. Don’t misread this and say, “He’s soft on sin.”
No. I am encouraging you to do what Jesus said, “Thou hypocrite, FIRST cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” Matthew 7 is not about “Judge not!” It’s about this: Judge yourself first.
Pride Month can just as easily apply to me and you as it applies to gay pride. Do you see your own sin as horrifying as theirs? God does, and he calls believers to repent as well. The publican understood his own standing, and responded to our holy God the right way:
Luke 18:13-14 “And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
Spurgeon said, “Let us measure ourselves by our Master, and not by our fellow-servants: then pride will be impossible.”
–Pastor Ryan