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Real Marriage: Week 7 of 7
Intro
· Nobody comes into marriage with a perfectly holy, healthy view of sex
o We have to look at the issue and inspect it based on truth
· The thinking on sex can be described in one of three ways: God, Gross, or Gift
o The culture often treats it as god; too often, the church speaks of it as gross.
o But, the Bible describes it as a gift
· We unconsciously approach sex as gross/taboo/not to be discussed
o Many Xn kids are taught in youth group:
§ “Sex is dirty, nasty, gross. So, save it for the one you love.”
· What’s the problem with this?
o If the church isn’t talking about it, we’re forfeiting the war. Because—the rest of the world is!
o If we don’t open our Bibles to ask, “What’s God say about this?”,
§ then we’re fighting a war without bullets.
· God’s view of sex has never changed, so let’s look at that:
Genesis 2:18–25 (NLT)
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” 19 So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 20 He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. 23 “At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’ ” 24 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. 25 Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.
Sex Essentials from the Creation Story
1. God made us male and female: equal dignity, but different abilities
2. Marriage is for one man and one woman by design
3. God created our bodies for sexual please and called it very good
a. Sex didn’t surprise God
4. All sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is a sin
a. Yes: it’s all sin. The Bible calls it fornication.
5. Sex is to be without shame
a. This is important, and it’ll help us answer the “Can we…?” question in a bit.
6. Your standard of beauty is your spouse
a. God does not give us a standard of beauty; he gives us a spouse
b. God did not go to Adam and ask what he liked
i. He came to Adam and said, “Here. This one is for you.”
1. That was a marriage.
2. He did the exact same thing for you when you got married.
c. I want you to get this more than anything else tonight.
i. Because, this is where the problem—the perversion—comes in;
ii. Supermarket magazines, Marketing, Porn, “Adultery of the Heart”, etc.:
1. They are all aimed at making you have a standard of beauty other than your spouse.
· God designed marriage to be between one man and one woman
o And then, as one of many great enticements for the man and the woman to keep it that way,
§ God gave them something really fun to do together: sex!
o Great freedom and beauty in a marriage relationship comes when we realize:
§ “Hey, this person IS beauty. AND…we can do things together. Really fun things!”
· Those things that we get to do are a gift, but they’re often treated as a god or as gross.
o Let’s break that down:
God, Gross, or Gift?
Sex is God
· Sex is your identity
o “I’m bi, straight, gay. I’m a lady’s man…”
§ Your life is consumed by it; Your identity is set by it.
o It is a dominating aspect of your being.
§ To find fulfillment or identity, you continue returning to things connected to sex.
Romans 12:1 (NLT)
1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
· Worship is what you do with your body
o What you do with your body is not just physical; it is deeply spiritual
· We all offer our bodies as sacrifices to something.
o Everybody is always worshiping something.
1 Corinthians 10:7–8 (NLT)
7…As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.” 8 And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.
· Perversion—IOW: abusing sex//using it in an ungodly way—is idolatry. It’s worship.
o Whenever we think of pagan worship or idolatry, we think of somebody sacrificing chickens or maybe a cult of temple prostitution.
§ The Bible says that misusing the gifts of our body and sex is idolatry.
o We’ll go into this deeper in “Can we…” section, but for quick/general purposes, this means:
§ Adultery, pornography, homosexuality, and sex before marriage are all forms of idol worship.
§ Your bed is a temple, sex is the idol, your boyfriend is a pagan priest, and you’re offering your body as a sacrifice to a pagan god.
o We like to think of idol worship as something with a stone temple, maybe prostitutes or statues or dancing naked.
§ These people would walk into our homes and see sex on our TV and ask, “What’s the difference?”
§ It’s still sex outside of God’s intentions. It’s still idolatry. It’s still worship.
· The #1 day of the week when porn is downloaded? Sunday. The day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
o On Sunday, it’s not Jesus worshiped as God. Sex is worshiped as god.
Sex is Gross
· This is often more prevalent in the church
o In the culture, sex is god; in the church, sex is gross.
· In many marriages, men treat sex as god while women view it as gross
o It’s a stereotype reinforced by culture/TV:
§ Men want more of it while women try to have just enough to please her husband
o This leads itself to abuse at either extreme
§ If you think sex is a god, you demand more of it and may even force your spouse into it
§ If you think sex is gross or to be avoided/kept to a minimum, you can use it as a weapon
· In God’s view, sex is a gift
o If you look at the Bible’s teaching on sex and bring that into your bedroom,
§ There’s a lot of pleasure to be found!
Sex is a Gift
1. It’s for pleasure
a. Pleasure is not bad
b. Some people are way too worried about pleasure.
i. “Pleasure could lead me to sin.” Yes, but:
ii. “Pleasure could also lead you to worship.”
c. As your pastor, I’d counsel you to go for the deep pleasures of God—that only He can give.
i. One of those forms of godly pleasure comes via sex in marriage.
d. In the SoS, kids are never mentioned.
i. The whole book is about pleasure//enjoying each other—not procreation.
2. For kids
a. If the time has come for you to start or add to your family, sex is pretty important.
b. Guilt, or feelings of “grossness” need not stand in your way of creating a life.
3. Knowledge & Intimacy
a. Adam lay with his wife and he knew her.
b. Intimacy and trust are cultivated in the marriage bed.
c. Studies reveal deeper levels of connection and emotional closeness immediately following sex.
4. Protection
1 Corinthians 7:2–5 (NLT)
2 But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. 4 The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
a. Sex is protection against one of our strongest desires and temptations: fornication/pornea.
i. IOW: what’s the answer to avoiding sexual temptations?
ii. Have sex (with your spouse)!
5. Oneness
Genesis 2:24 (NLT)
24 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.
a. The husband and wife were one
b. This is why a husband and wife need to have one name, one house, one marriage bed…one pool for their money, one mind in their future
c. God’s design is for you to come together as one person.
i. The best example of this? The Trinity/Godhead.
· If you have a biblical theology of sex as a gift, then you be lead to ask: “Can we…”
Can We?
· The questions that people ask about sex are not uncommon;
o they’re just treated as uncommon in many church cultures today
· However, they’re not uncommon in the Bible either.
o People have always had questions about sex.
o Three topics/questions sure to draw a crowd: Sex, The End Times, and Sex in the End Times.
· The church in Corinth had tons of questions
o Cross dressing, cohabitation, homosexuality, whether it was ok for a guy to sleep with his stepmother, etc.
o A “loose girl” was known as a Corinthian girl; fornication was nicknamed Corinthianizing.
o It was a very “progressive” city. Everybody had rainbow bumper stickers on their camels.
· In the midst of Paul’s teaching on this topic and answering the Corinthian Church’s questions,
o he gives them advice that enables them to think on their own and answer their own questions
1 Corinthians 6:12 (NLT)
12 You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything.
Is it Lawful?
· What does the government say? (Rom 13)
o If you’re 35 and want to date a 13-yr-old, that’s illegal.
· What does God say?
o There are some things the gov’t doesn’t see as wrong/illegal, but God still does.
§ Two of the big ones today: adultery, homosexuality
· God gave us sexual organs as a gift to be used in a variety of ways, but always to be used inside a marriage relationship!
o Using our sexual organs outside of that relationship is sexual sin (Heb 13.4)
§ The Bible uses one all-inclusive term: pornea // trans = “sexual immorality” or “fornication” to refer to this:
· You’re not married but you’re having oral sex, pornea.
· You’re consenting adults who like to “swing,” pornea.
· You’re engaging in sex with someone of the same sex, pornea.
o If God were to simply list all of the things that classify as pornea, sinners will find a way around things b/c of our sinful natures
§ Rather than giving us a list, God gives us questions to ask. [lawful, helpful, enslaving]
· BTW: Jesus did the same thing with the Sermon on the Mount.
o Remember all the, “You’ve heard it said…[OT], but I say… [NT]”?
o Jesus wasn’t changing the standard;
§ He was reminding them that being holy was not about fulfilling a checklist.
o It was about adopting a state of mind that aims to glorify God in everything we do.
§ So if you ask, “Well, I’m gay. What about my sexual needs?”
· The biblical response is, “What about God’s holiness?”
Is it Helpful?
· Does this help your marriage?
o Remember: sex is a gift created by God for several beneficial reasons.
· So ask, Does this help my marriage:
o By increasing intimacy?
o By adding children/procreating?
o By adding joy?
o By protecting against temptation?
o By increasing oneness?
§ Does it pull you together or push you apart?
§ Does it cause you to be two or one?
· Best way to find out if it’s helpful, go through this list together
o Talk about it.
o I’ve counseled//met with couples who were frustrated in this area, so I just asked:
§ “What would you like to do?”
· As they talked about it, they realized they were ok or already on the same page.
§ “You could have figured this out without me, at home on your couch!” J
Is it Enslaving?
· The question here is: “Are we going to get ourselves in trouble?”
o Are we going to get ourselves stuck on something that could eventually lead to pain, reduced happiness, or an inability to go without it?
o Can this become obsessive, out of control, or addictive?
§ The Bible calls this slavery.
· When most of us think of slavery, we think of imposed slavery—being taken against our will.
o The more common form of slavery is chosen slavery—a person freely chooses the master.
§ i.e.: drug abuse, alcohol, gambling, shopping, food, and sex
· You can’t enjoy life without it.
· In this case, you’ve conditioned yourself not to enjoy sex without it.
o Your sex life has become enslaved to something:
o Common examples include:
§ Sex toys, role-playing, cosmetic surgery, cybersex/videotaping, or masturbation.
§ These things may not be unlawful, but your body has a way of chemically reacting to things in a way that creates dependency.
o Masturbation is the most common example.
§ Many may automatically assume masturbation is lawful, and maybe even helpful.
§ But, you can actually masturbate to the extent and frequency that your body no longer reacts to the physical stimulation of your spouse. You’ve been enslaved.
o Are these things wrong?
§ That depends on your body and your marriage relationship.
· Sex needs to be started and kept on a path of lawful, helpful, free enjoyment between a husband and a wife that honors this gift God has given us.
Conclusion
· Let me close by restating and clarifying:
o The intent of tonight was not to tell couples what they must do. Only what they may do.
o I do not want to give either spouse ammo for your fight to force your spouse into something.
· The Bible gives us more liberties than our consciences can accept.
o We don’t have to choose to use all of our freedoms.
· What I want is for a married man and woman to develop a theology that says:
o Sex is a gift from God.
o We can do anything as long as it is lawful, helpful, and not enslaving to either one of us.
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