That's so far from my religious upbringing. There is no willfully living in sin. We are all sinners by nature. And if we accept Jesus as our Savior that's all that matters, no matter what sin you've committed, whether it's shoplifting or murder. There are no degrees of sin. And there is no escaping sin.
“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."
And finally
"For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one [point], he is guilty of all."
This last verse is basically saying that no one sin is greater than another. Every sin is equally bad in God's eyes. So, anybody who even thinks that homosexuality is a sin needs to remember that in God's eyes, it isn't better or worse than say, lying or gossiping. So the next time someone wants to bash someone for being homosexual, they should remember that they aren't any better than that person.
And here is another rare occurence where you and I can agree on something. You're absolutely right, this is what the Bible tells us, and this is what I too was brought up with knowing - not only is there no one sin greater than another in God's eyes, there's no sin that we can't ask His forgiveness for.
I can kind of see where this pastor was coming from about "willfully sinning" (not regarding homosexuality, mind you) in that as Christians, we shouldn't make an effort to sin, or to intentionally commit sinful acts. But like you say, sin is part of human nature, as we as human beings are not immune to it, nor can we avoid it all costs, because we are not perfect like the Creator is: we make mistakes, we fall short, but again, we can be forgiven, and He still loves us.
But a lot of what this particular pastor was saying was just leaving a really bad taste in my mouth - not just about homosexuality (of which he also still believes that it's a mental disorder because he saw it printed in a medical journal) or liberals, but just a whole mixture of things, which is what influenced my decision to resign from his church. One thing that a visiting pastor said one day, and I believe I posted about this in another thread, was that those who accept Jesus and become Christians are pre-destined to do so by God. That really rubs me the wrong way, because it comes across as suggesting that God is conditional and picks and chooses who He wants to bring into Heaven, which I don't believe at all: God gives us the free will to make our own decisions for ourselves, and that includes whether or not we choose to accept His one and only begotton Son - I can't imagine God would actually just sit around and be like, "Okay, you're in. You're in. You're in. Nope, not you. Sorry, not you either. Nothing personal, but you're not in either."