You have probably heard of the recent judicial decision in California that declares that state's ban on homosexual marriage to be unconstitutional. Kevin DeYoung, pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing Michigan, wrote on his blog on the subject of the Court decision and gave these 5 applications that also apply in our situation:

1. We must accept that no matter how hard we try, some people will conclude we are bigots, homophobes, and neanderthals for thinking homosexuality is wrong. Our goal must not be to stop people from viewing us in this way. We can’t control perceptions. Our goal is that those ugly perceptions do not match reality.

2. No gay jokes. None. It doesn’t help our witness and they’re not funny. Plus, the more we laugh at sin the more it gets normalized.

3. We must be prepared to suffer. We must not revile when reviled. We must choose to love those who work at cross-purposes to God’s ways. We must be willing to be called names, discriminated against, or worse.

4. We must put away “hate the sin, love the sinner” and put homosexuality in the context of the Bible’s metanarrative (or larger story) of creation, fall, redemption, re-creation. This is one issue just screaming for the bigger picture.

5. We must be people of hope not despair. We know the Lord and he knows us. This is not the worst crisis in the history of mankind. Homosexuality is sinful, but God specializes in sin. Look at what he’s done with us. 

It has been tragic to watch the moral decline we have witnessed in our nation in our lifetime. But the fact is that, apart from some times of mostly localized revivals, from the founding of our nation until the present there has been spiritual decline that has troubled the people of God. Really, nothing has changed following the Court decision in regard to our calling to proclaim grace and live as befits those who follow the Lamb. What has happened is that what some people in society had been thinking and saying privately, and then more and more publicly, is now part of the ruling of a Federal Court. It may be overturned. It may not. But it is a symptom along with many others that our calling as the Church of Jesus is needed yet in this society. We do not lose heart in the face of sins made acceptable by our society because the resurrected Christ continues His quiet work that has changed hearts and minds among us and all over the world. We are citizens of a Kingdom that will never fade away. Therefore, as Jesus gives us strength, together we live in this nation in obedience to the King we serve.