One of the most talked about questions right now is this: Can a Christian attend a gay wedding?

I’ve heard countless viewpoints, arguments, and challenges from many different directions. But today, I want to speak from a perspective I rarely see represented.

Before I surrendered my life to Jesus, I was one of the first people in the country to travel to Massachusetts to enter into a same-sex marriage. In fact, we were the first couple from the state of Minnesota to do so.

Today, my life is surrendered to Jesus, and I minister to people who carry scars from lives like mine but have a burning desire to follow Christ. I’ve spent over 20 years studying Scripture on this topic and wrestling with what it means to love people living under the rainbow umbrella while remaining faithful to the Word of God. It is from that perspective that I write this.

It was June 18, 2004, in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

There was no one there for me.

No family present.

No friends celebrating me.

The woman I was marrying had family there, though even among them there were mixed emotions. Some were excited. Others came because they feared losing relationship if they didn’t.

People often ask me how it felt that no one came to support me or show they loved me.

Here is the honest truth, from that day on the beach until today:

I believed the people who stayed away were standing on their convictions. If they had attended my wedding, I would not have viewed it merely as love or support. I would have viewed it as agreement. As witnesses to what was happening.

Our actions speak louder than words.

People often say, “I just want them to know I love them.” And I believe many sincerely mean that. But if we examine that statement honestly, what is often underneath it is this:

“I don’t want them to hate me.”

“I don’t want them to cut me out of their life.”

Those are understandable fears. But they are also rooted, at least in part, in self-preservation.

And that leads us to another important question:

Do we fear God more than we fear man?

Scripture repeatedly calls believers to stand firm in truth even when it costs us approval, comfort, relationships, or reputation. The fear of man will always tempt us toward compromise. But the fear of the Lord calls us to obedience, even when it is difficult.

There is a long-standing argument that refusing to attend a same-sex wedding is unloving or unlike Jesus.

My question is this:

How are we defining love?

Scripture tells us plainly:

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” (1 Corinthians 13:6)

Read that again.

Biblical love is both grace and truth.

Jesus demonstrated this constantly, but one of my favorite examples is found in John 8. A woman caught in adultery is brought before Him while her accusers stand ready with stones in their hands. Jesus kneels down and begins writing in the sand. Then He looks up and asks her, “Where are your accusers?”

She answers, “They have left.”

And then we see grace and truth displayed together in perfect harmony:

“Neither do I condemn you.”

Grace.

“Go and sin no more.”

Truth.

Jesus did not separate the two.

Truth without grace becomes harshness and legalism, which is not love.

Grace without truth becomes affirmation without repentance, which is also not love.

Love requires both.

In the story of Lot, we see that he looked toward Sodom and liked what he saw. He saw prosperity. Opportunity. Potential.

But what God saw was a people who had rejected Him and were doing what was right in their own eyes.

At first, Lot merely pitched his tent near Sodom. He didn’t move into the city immediately. He just wanted to be close to it.

But eventually, he became a man sitting at the gate of Sodom — a place of influence and authority. Long before he physically moved into the city, his heart had already drifted there.

It was subtle.

One compromise at a time.

A wedding is not simply a gathering. It is a celebration and affirmation of a covenant. And marriage was designed by God, not government. Scripture defines it as between one man and one woman, reflecting Christ and the Church.

No one stood beside me in Massachusetts because they understood that what I was entering into did not reflect God’s design. They could not celebrate me walking further into deception and destruction.

Ephesians 5 tells us:

“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.”

People in same-sex relationships are not likely to interpret your attendance at their wedding as “loving disagreement.” They see it as affirmation. A mixed message.

They see it as compromise.

How do I know that?

Because I lived it.

And before surrendering my life to Jesus, I attended many same-sex weddings myself.

And before someone says, “But Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners,” let me ask this:

Why did Jesus eat with them?

Was it to say, “Keep living however you want”?

Look at Zacchaeus. What happened after he encountered Jesus? His life changed.

Not because Jesus gave him only truth.

And not because Jesus gave him only grace.

He encountered love — which is both.

One final thing to consider:

What are you afraid will happen if they get married without you there?

Do you think God needs your attendance to reveal His love to them?

Do you think they are beyond hope if you refuse to celebrate something you believe dishonors Him?

God is far bigger than that.

In closing, I want us all to consider what it truly means to love well — not only in this situation, but in every situation.

Jesus is our example.

He never compromised truth by affirming sin. Yet He was full of compassion toward sinners. He called people to leave their old lives behind and follow Him.

He showed compassion.

But He also spoke truth plainly.

We live in a world that has heard endless messages about compassion but is desperately starving for truth.

As Christians, we must be equipped to show the love of Jesus — the kind of love that is rooted in both grace and truth.

Written by Gracie Poole

Director of Operation 100th Sheep

A ministry of Agape First Ministries

Mar 25, 2022 | Daren Mehl, Gracie Poole, Agape First Ministries Ministry Guide

“Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” 1 Corinthians 6:11 NASB95

“Such WERE some of you” -this indicates a change, which is transformation.

The definition of transformation according to the Oxford Dictionary is, “A thorough or dramatic change.”

According to Webster’s, the definition is, “The act or process of changing completely.”

We see a lot of examples in the Bible of people struggling in sin, but then being transformed by the power of God. In the book of Hosea, Gomer, who was an adulterer, was reconciled to her husband, Hosea, and transformed into a godly wife. In the book of Exodus, Moses was identified as a murderer and hid from Pharoah because of what he had done. Yet, this murderer was later transformed by God into the leader of His people, and would stand up to Pharoah rather than hide from him. In the Gospel of John, chapter 4, the woman at the well was transformed from adulterer into an evangelist because of Jesus’ kindness and authority. Saul of Tarsus went from being known as the one who persecuted the Church to being transformed by Jesus into the Apostle Paul who wrote 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament.

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:4-5

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23

When a sinner turns from their sin, towards God in true  , we begin to see the manifestation of transformation within them. We see this by way of the fruits of the Spirit as mentioned in Galatians 5; and in John 15 it mentions, “remain in me” and we will produce fruit. This shows us that we cannot make this change on our own. To achieve transformation, our part is repentance and obedience, His part is the sanctification*and transformation. Our part is faith, His part is grace.

Ephesians chapter 2 tells us, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the Kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following it’s desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved.”

Later, the Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:8-10, “For you were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.”

The Bible clearly tells us that transformation is a changed life, and that life will bear new fruit. One who once lived a life contrary to what pleases God, bearing evil fruit, will change into a life that no longer conforms to the ways or the “pattern” of this world (Rom 12:2). This transformation occurs through the renewing of our mind and our flesh, and will then manifest itself through new actions, which is the bearing of good fruit. John 15 tells us that Jesus is the Vine, and we are the branches, IF we remain in Him, and He in us, we will bear much fruit–apart from Him we can do nothing. It is Jesus who causes fruit to bear.

More examples in the Bible can be found in places such as Colossians 1:9-10, which shows us that it is the Spirit that gives us wisdom and understanding in order that we may bear fruit in every good work; and this is a life that pleases the Lord.

Sanctification is a process

Philippians 1:6 says, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” God never stops working within us. Those who were once in darkness and now are light in the Lord, the Spirit is constantly working in them to make them more in the likeness of Jesus. The veil in the temple was there to protect the people from the holiness of God; but when Jesus died, that veil was torn and that makes it so that we can come into His presence. We who come with “unveiled faces” are being transformed into Jesus’ image. This happens because of the Spirit and “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:12-18). No chains. No condemnation. Freedom. Transformation. Hope!

If God is constantly at work in us, then this is a continual process until the day of Christ Jesus. This process starts with the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Rom 1:16). It is in the Gospel that we see that we need to put off the old nature, which belongs to our former way of living, and now put on our new nature (Eph 4:22-24). Other places, it says we are to “walk in the Spirit.” Transformation in the Bible is very much described like taking off old clothes. We take off, or as the Bible says, “put off,” or do away with our “old self.” If the old self has died, we cannot put it back on. We can only “put on” the new and learn to live in that new self.

Paul tells us that the Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, My  power is made perfect in weakness” (2Cor. 12:9). We cannot be changed or transformed on our own. WE cannot “will” it in our own strength. It is by the power of the love of God through the constant work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a repentant heart that we will experience transformation.