40 Years of Ministry & Eight Lessons about Gender and Sexuality 

For followers of Jesus, our union with Christ is our new and lasting identity. And yet, seeking to live godly lives is not for the fainthearted. For many who pursue sexual integrity in thought and life, it can often seem like three steps forward, one step backward, on repeat. But God meets us in that struggle. In forty years of ministry at Harvest USA to those in turmoil and sin regarding gender and sexuality, I’ve seen God’s steady faithfulness. Here are eight things I’ve learned.

1. We’re all sexually broken to some degree and in some sense.

This side of the fall, few of us escape some sort of temptation or struggle with sex, sexuality, or gender. We may not all experience this to the same degree, but we carry the scars of our self-pursued sin or the sin of others against us. Sex was God’s idea and, in marriage, designed to picture something greater than itself. But we often give it a life of its own, turning it into something it was not meant to be. Singles can struggle with sexual integrity amid unmet, legitimate desires that have no avenue for fulfillment. Even in marriage, sex and sexuality can be confusing, shame-filled, and come with self-centered demands for the other person to “come through for me.”

2. Many of Satan’s schemes against us are directed at gender and sexuality. 

We’re told, “God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Some of the very first words in Scripture were about gender and sexuality! Then comes God’s first recorded words to man: “Be fruitful and increase; fill the earth. . . ” and, amid this mandate, “God blessed them” (Gen. 1:27–28).

We are made in God’s image and we are uniquely male or female. Gender is a binary reality. But God also said, in the right context of one man and one woman in marriage (and I’m paraphrasing here), “have sex and lots of it.” That’s pretty amazing. Doesn’t it make sense, then, that many of the strategies of the evil one are to shipwreck our faith, tempt us to compromise, and distort or bring havoc out of what God originally created and blessed?

3. The sexually broken are close to God’s heart.

I saw this myself when, as a sexually- and gender-confused young man, I began to consider Jesus. Because of my accumulated sexual appetites, behaviors, and feelings, I considered myself a sexual outcast—always on the outside looking in—the kind of person no one would want on their ball team, no matter what.

As I began to read the gospels repeatedly and got to know Jesus, I saw that people who were in great need and didn’t even know it were the particular objects of Jesus’s time, attention, and even affection. Jesus was always spending time around “sinners”—discarded outcasts—and being criticized for it.

If these people were important to Jesus, they should be important to us. If they were objects of his ministry and mercy, they should be objects of ours as well.

4. People don’t set out to get enslaved by sexual sin.

No one says, “I think I’ll be unfaithful, become a sex addict, or embrace an LGBTQ+ identity when I grow up!” Following our own hungry and empty hearts, we simply take the next step. Some use sex and porn as a drug to ease pain; some turn to identities and labels that seem to quell their inner chaos and promise fulfillment and purpose. In that sense, the increasing epidemic of rapid onset gender dysphoria, especially among teens, mirrors what we’ve previously seen with anorexia, bulimia, cutting, and so on. It’s an attempt to bring manageability to wayward emotions and an inwardly unmanaged heart.

As fallen creatures of habit, we become oriented to whatever we repeatedly give our hearts and minds to. That habit of behavior or thought becomes second nature; it seems like it was meant to be and we were born that way.

5. The church and parents must intentionally lead in areas of gender and sexuality.

Church leadership must stop allowing the culture (media, movies, educational systems, academia) to be the primary discipler and instructor of our people in these matters. Regardless of whether it’s because of not knowing what to do, naiveté about how all this is impacting our people, or fearing we will offend, the church must step up to help and instruct youth, singles, and families. It also must help people understand that sexual sanctification and the task of stewarding (that is, overseeing and managing) sex, sexuality, and gender are life-long endeavors! Harvest USA offers multiple resources, many of them free, to assist churches.

Similarly, parents must embrace the responsibility of teaching their children a biblical worldview of gender and sexuality. This is no easy task and can strike fear in the hearts of the most loving and well-intentioned parents. But we’ve got to repent of the lackadaisical and half-hearted ways we’ve instructed our kids (both at home and church). Most of us have crossed our fingers, hoping against hope that our kids would escape abuse, porn, gender confusion, and so on. Many won’t.

Parents and church leaders have failed our kids in two ways. First, probably out of fear (and parenting can so easily become fear-based), we’ve primarily warned our kids about the bad stuff. Our advice has been “watch out,” “don’t,” “keep away.” Some of that, of course, is good, but it doesn’t give the best picture. We must paint a picture of the holiness, goodness, and beauty of gender and sexuality as God designed it! Many of us can’t and won’t do that because of past or current scars. Therefore, our kids get the short end of the stick. But take heart, it’s never too late to begin. Again, Harvest USA has a lot of wonderful resources to help parents.

6. We were never meant to handle sex and sexuality on our own.

It really must be a community thing. Yes, how I handle sex is personal, but biblically speaking, it’s never private. Who I am as a sexual person, my sexuality, and my gender all impact those closest to me. As such, I need help stewarding these things for the glory of God and to bless others.

Sexuality is a force larger and potentially more dangerous and destructive than we can manage and oversee ourselves. We need help to walk in obedience, faith, and repentance regarding our sexual temptations and struggles.

That’s why sexual temptations—the places where I’m tempted to step outside God’s good boundaries—really are the business of some of my closest friends and some of the men in my men’s group. But it’s also the place where Satan will trick me into thinking that I can handle it on my own . . . that I can hide.

7. It’s not over ‘til it’s over.

Don’t write anyone off—no prodigal, no lost or wondering sheep. Our God is the great Redeemer; he is the God of the most hopeless situation. He can use anything, at any time, in any way to kindle or rekindle the flame of belief in the most wayward heart. I’ve seen it over and over through the years.

I tell parents of children identifying as LGBTQ+ that everything their child grew up knowing and believing, from their own instruction and that of their church, is still there, perhaps buried deep inside. Suppressing the truth (Rom. 1:18) takes a lot of intentional work and energy, but vestiges of what our children learned, no matter what their age, can lie deep down. I tell parents to pray for “holy” disruption (God interrupting them with truth) and “wholly” disruption (God interrupting them with circumstances) so they might be led to call out in desperation to God. We should pray for this in our hearts, too!

8. Whatever pit we find ourselves in, Jesus is deeper still.

This is a borrowed concept from Corrie Ten Boom’s book The Hiding Place, where Corrie records her sister’s dying words: “No pit is so deep that he is not deeper still.” Your years of pain and struggle, of ups-and-downs, of victories and defeats may have made you war worn. You’re tempted at any moment to throw in the towel. Don’t.

Maybe you’re tempted to think that your sexuality or gender is the most crucial thing about your life. It isn’t. Jesus is. And his love for us—his commitment to us— is deeper still.

While you may think your sexual history and ongoing struggles are unconquerable, Jesus will walk into that pit with you—he will walk with you to bring you out. Think of David, a man acquainted with guilt, sin, and failure, and his words from Psalm 40:

I waited patiently for the Lord; He inclined to me and heard my cry.

He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. (vv. 1–3)

We stand on Christ and his record, for us, in our place. Even when we are faithless, he is faithful.