Sean Redfearn talks to Jack Sterling, who surrendered his life to Jesus Christ after a previous life of homosexuality, and is also opposed to a ‘conversion therapy’ ban
Several governments have promised to take action to stop ‘conversion therapy’. They claim that any support given to people to help shape their sexual desires is not just ineffective, but harmful.
Yet a blanket ban on ‘conversion therapy’ cannot be the way forward. While there are examples of distressing attempts to alter peoples’ sexuality, responsible counselling on biblical sexuality can be safe, effective, and appreciated by people who are same-sex attracted. Many people have experienced significant change in their same-sex attraction over time.
Jack Sterling is one such man, and I asked him about it.
Interview with Jack Sterling
Could you start by telling us your story?
When I was a baby, I was adopted and raised in Lancashire. However, my adoptive family were quite abusive: my dad was an alcoholic, and I grew up with a lot of timidity, anxiety, and rejection issues.
When I hit my teenage years, I went a bit off the rails and started smoking cannabis, sleeping around, and having lots of casual sex with other men. At that point, my life just consisted of living for the parties, the sex, and the drugs.
Then, when I was about 26, I was living in Suffolk. One day when I was out walking alone, I randomly heard an inner voice saying, “come to me”. In an instant, I knew it was Jesus: it was as if faith itself had been implanted in me at that moment.
I felt convicted that I needed to trust in Jesus and repent of my sins. It was as if a light switched on inside me. Straight away I was filled with excitement, and I thought, “Yeah, this is exactly what I need to do: I need to turn to God and I need to follow Jesus.”
So, I went out and got a Bible, began reading that every day, and joined a local church. Very quickly, I noticed a lot of radical change in unexpected ways.
The Lord then led me to move away from that town because I knew so many people who were connected to my former lifestyle. I think the Lord was helping me break free from all those unhealthy connections. So, I moved back to the North West and joined a church there.
How has your identity changed since coming to know the Lord?
It is completely the opposite. I now have a real hunger and passion for righteousness and holiness, and I want to love God wholeheartedly and put him first in everything. Soon after coming to the Lord, I found it was almost impossible even to use bad language. While I was living that LGBT life, I was part of gay pride events and was well-known in the communities there, and the Lord turned my life completely around.
I never could have imagined that one day I would be preaching against gay pride and the LGBT lifestyle. It’s the last thing I would have expected.
What would you say to someone who wants to keep their LGBT identity but also calls themself a Christian?
There is not an easy way to say this, but you cannot be a follower of Christ and identify as LGBT.
Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matt 16:24, NIVUK)
As soon as we are reborn in Christ, we must consider the old nature as dead and buried. It is in the past. We are now to walk in this new identity in Christ as someone who is holy and righteous, is a child of God, and is living a new life.
So, for those who still want to live that old life, it goes against what Jesus did on the cross and it goes against the gospel.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul calls out homosexuality as sinful. He warns that those who pursue it and indulge in it will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven: “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Cor 6:9-10, NIVUK)
However, in verse 11, he goes on to say, “and that is what some of you were”, using the past tense. This means, ‘you used to be that way’. He directs them to the fact that they are new creatures now. They have their new identity in Christ and are to leave the old behind.
Do you think Jesus’ teaching on sexuality is unfair?
No, not at all. God is perfectly fair, so anything that Jesus taught must also be perfectly fair.
Sex itself is a gift from God and it should be respected as such. So many of the problems we see in society today are because of people abusing the gift of sex.
If people obeyed God and saw the value in his commands, they would realise those commands come from a loving Father and are designed for our good.
There have been discussions in Parliament about banning ‘conversion therapy’. What would that entail?
I do not believe that attempts to ‘convert’ somebody to change their sexuality is the way; at the same time, however, responding to the gospel is itself a form of conversion. When you are reborn, you are converted into a brand-new creation in Christ.
I believe a complete ban on conversion therapy would go against the gospel itself and make it extremely difficult for church leaders, or anyone for that matter, to preach the true gospel.
My testimony attests to the fact that the more I focus on Jesus and spend time at his feet, through prayer and studying the Bible, the weaker my sinful desires become until eventually they reach a point of being fully overcome. God gets all the glory because it was his ministry to me, through the Spirit and his word, that changed me.
The danger of a blanket ban on conversion therapy is that church leaders will face persecution simply for leading a person to be fundamentally changed through Jesus Christ.
Change is the meaning of the gospel: to be reborn is a radical conversion, and the work of Christ could be misunderstood by many as conversion therapy. Is the government really going to make it illegal for God Himself to change a person inwardly?
It is scary that we could think that we have a better answer than God or that we know more about the human condition than the Bible does.
What about people who would say that we still need to ban ‘conversion therapy’ because your story is just an anomaly, and we shouldn’t be seeking to change the lives of LGBT people?
I have heard many testimonies of people who have been completely changed. I know someone who lives in Liverpool who was even deeper into the gay lifestyle than I was, and his testimony is incredible. He has a wife and kids now, and those children would not even exist if the Lord had not changed him. And he is just one of many!
So many people in the LGBT community attack those people who leave that identity: I have had quite a bit of criticism myself and accusations from the LGBT community. They do not like to hear about these conversions, but the testimonies are true. Why would any gay-identifying person risk their reputation and give up so much if it weren’t true?
At its core, Christianity has to do with conversion, and so putting a blanket ban on ‘conversion therapy’ in this area harms the spread of the gospel.
What would you say to people within the LGBT community who want to walk away from their current lifestyle?
I would encourage them that all the love and acceptance many of them are constantly looking for can be found in abundance through Christ – beyond what they could imagine. And what could be better than that?
God has offered salvation to all people. He gave his only son for us so that we could all have that relationship with him and be part of his loving family. He wants all people to be saved.
There is no sin too great: just look at the Apostle Paul! He was the biggest persecutor of the Christians, and then God saved him and used him to write the largest portion of the New Testament. That testimony alone proves that no sin is too great for Jesus’ sacrifice to pay for.
So, I would encourage anybody to trust in the Lord and take that step of faith. You will soon see that your relationship with God can be very real and personal.
I would also advise them to spend as much time as possible with the Lord every day.
The more a person spends time sowing to the Spirit, the more they will reap from the Spirit, and their desires will naturally change from within. Over the years, I have noticed that my lustful gay desires weakened the more time I spent with Jesus.
What makes following Jesus worth it?
Everything makes it worth it. Obviously, the best thing is knowing Jesus himself and having a personal relationship with God, who is the creator of all things. It is indescribable. He is awesome.
Jack Sterling is one example among many, of a same-sex attracted person who changed their life after encountering Jesus Christ. Here are four other examples:
Our Free to Talk website provides more information about why a ‘conversion therapy ban’ should not come into force.
