Andy Stanley Unpublished Sermon Addresses His Gay-Affirming Conference+ We Have The Audio
Here is a partial excerpt from Andy Stanley’s sermon today addressing the controversy over his gay-affirming conference. It was not streamed or publicly shared, but we have access to it, and we’re posting it in full at the end.
Because we were present at the Embracing the Journey conference, we will be giving a full report starting on Monday, but we can reveal here that this sermon sits in stark and diametric contrast to what was said at the conference. Stanley is lying, and he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth, and we’re going to expose him.
He preaches:
What do we believe? What does our church believe? In churches our size you can find individuals who believe just about anything, everything, and nothing. The better question, perhaps is this question, what do we teach? What do we teach your children, your grandchildren? What do we teach about these issues? And it’s the same thing we have taught for 28 years, nothing has changed.
As it relates to sexuality, here’s what we teach. And hopefully you notice, I feel like if you’ve been coming for a while there, there should be no question about this, but I don’t mind just putting it out there. We teach what I refer to as a New Testament Sexual Ethic...so from middle school, to high school, to college, to singles to marrieds to single again, every age and stage of life this is when we teach, whether a student is straight or gay or questioning this is what we say: Hey, if you’re gonna follow Jesus while you’re figuring this out, if you’re going to follow Jesus as you struggle with your identity, or some of the things you’re feeling, if you’re going to follow Jesus, here’s what it looks like sexually to follow Jesus. And the reason your Heavenly Father’s called you to live this way, is because He loves you. Here it is. It’s just three statements.
They are:
Number one, Honor God was your body. Because the Holy Spirit lives in you and your body is how people know what you believe and where you stand and your behavior through your body is to exemplify the goodness of God and the grace of God and the love of God. So you always honor God with your body and you always honor other people’s bodies.
Number two, Don’t be mastered by anything, not by porn, not by sexual addiction. Don’t be mastered by another person. Don’t be mastered by your infatuation. Don’t be mastered by your lust. Don’t be mastered by anything. You have a master and he’s the king. And he loves you and he created you and he knows what’s best for you.
And number three, the old fashioned one, Don’t sexualize a relationship outside of marriage. “That is so old fashioned! No sex before we’re married? If you’re not married, I mean who even teaches that anymore?” Always have, always will….we’re not going to blink on this.
Here, he reiterates a utilitarian emphasis and framework for his beliefs:
And I’ve asked, you know, people in crowds this question, I’ve asked many people, dozens of people this question: hey, has sex outside of marriage made your life better or is it made it more complicated? Has sex outside of marriage made the person you had sex with, did it make their life better or did it make their life more complicated?
And honest people say “yeah, it’s creating some complications.” Well, then what do you expect your heavenly Father to say who loves you and loves the person whose life you may have a set back? What do you think their Heavenly Father’s gonna say about sexual activity when oftentimes our sex outside of marriage makes you a liar for life? Because you’re never going to tell the truth about your past. Because you’re too ashamed. What do you what did you expect?
He gets explicit here, but it’s not what it seems:
So this message is the same for everybody: sex is for married people. Regarding marriage, and this feels weird even say this, just make sure everybody knows where we are. We talk about marriage, or we talk about and teach about marriage the same way Jesus and the apostles did. Every instruction in the Bible regarding marriage references or assumes a husband and a wife, a man or a woman.
So biblical marriage, biblical marriage is between a man and a woman. We’ve never shied away from that we don’t change the words in order not to offend people.
He continues:
Now, here’s what may surprise all of us straight people. Gay attenders in our churches, they aren’t shocked that we talk that way. They aren’t shocked by that. They expect that. They grew up on that. They hoped for that. They pray for that. They pray that God would change them so they can experience that.
I sat in small groups of gay men, 35 an up to 65, and watched them weep because they don’t have a family. They couldn’t have a family. They prayed for that and God didn’t answer their prayer, and many are convinced that traditional marriage is not an option for them. So they commit to living chaste lives. And for many men and women who put their faith in Christ, they just decide, okay, I’m just going to buckle down, I’m just going to bear down, I’m just going to be by myself, I’m not going to have family, I’m going to be sexually pure. And many, many, many, many do that for long seasons of time. And some for some, it’s their whole life.
Then finally:
But for many, that is not sustainable. So they choose a same-sex marriage. Not because they’re convinced it’s biblical- they read the same Bible we do- they chose to marry for the same reason many of us do. Love, companionship, and family. And in the end, as was the case for all of us, this is the important thing I want you to hear me say; it’s their decision.
Our decision is to decide how we respond to their decision. Our decision as a group of local churches is how are we going to respond to their decision. And we decided 28 years ago, we draw circles we don’t draw lines, we draw big circles. If someone desires to follow Jesus, regardless of their starting point, regardless of their past, regardless of their current circumstances, our message has (been) “come and see and come sit with me.” And this is not new. This is who we are, as we’ve always been.
And this is why I love our church, and this is why I’m so extraordinarily proud of you. We aren’t condoning sin. We are restoring relationships. And we are literally saving lives.
As we said, get ready for our upcoming series on the conference.
Audio only below as well/