The gospel message is both truth and love. It is truth in that it requires the acknowledgement of sin and of the need to repent. It is also truth in pointing out the consequences of not repenting.
But it is love in that God welcomes all who repent. More than that, God has taken the initiative in seeking out the lost. Jesus said that seeking and saving the lost was His mission. The Luke 15 stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son illustrate the frantic searching and the joy when the lost object has been found.
The whole of the biblical narrative is a story of God trying to win back His lost people.
The motivation for sharing the gospel is love – a genuine distress at the thought that people will, unless they put their faith in Jesus, experience God’s wrath.
On several occasions the disciples were commissioned to go and preach the message of the Kingdom. That message, as modelled by Jesus, centred on the need to repent but with the promise of becoming part of God’s Kingdom.
At the end of His ministry, Jesus commissioned the apostles to “go and make disciples”. People were to hear from them the message of salvation through faith.
The sharing of the gospel is not only essential and commanded, it is a beautiful thing.
Romans 10:13-15
13 for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’
If people are to be saved, Christians must be sent with the gospel. They cannot believe if they don’t hear, and for them to hear the message, Christians must go to them. The gospel is good news to all who accept it.
The church must care about the salvation of practising homosexuals – care enough to go to them and to share the message of Jesus. The Christian’s response to a homosexual should not be anger but grief and concern leading to a sharing of the good news.