Finding Romance...Sexuality
- Michael Dennis
- Jan 24, 2010
- Series: Finding Romance In Complex Relationships
This morning we are going continue our series on Finding Romance. Last week we talked about a biblical understanding of marriage in Genesis 2 and saw Scripture teaching us about roles within marriage, romance, and how God created marriage to be a good thing. This morning we are going to talk about sex. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
I noticed some of our younger ones have volunteered to help with the children this morning, which is a good thing because that conversation needs to take place in the home at their age.
At our age sex is one of those topics that people don’t like to talk about. People will talk about it socially, medically, scientifically, but we tend not to talk about it in our marriages and in church and as a result it is left with a completely negative connotation. If we avoid talking about it we will ultimately create our own conclusions and this morning instead of creating our own conclusions we want to look to Scripture.
I know this can be an awkward topic so I want to let you know where we are going. This morning we are going to talk our sexuality in 3 different sections: Where did sex come from, where is it today, and how does it relate to our marriages. As a church we want strong healthy marriages and we believe a healthy sex life in marriage will help create stronger marriages.
There are some who will teach that sex is a bad thing and that it shouldn’t be talked about. They will teach that our sexuality exists only for procreation. We shouldn’t enjoy sex at any level. Those people are weird. They create a dualistic view of our physical and spiritual and the physical acts of sexuality are placed under the category of dark and shameful, dirty, nasty, and even within marriage, sex is something that should be avoided and not talked about. This trickles into our marriages and as a result couples are embarrassed to talk about their sex lives and it leaves people with a really unhealthy view of sexuality. However, Scripture describes our sexuality like this:
15 Drink water from your own cistern And fresh water from your own well…17 Let them be yours alone And not for strangers with you…. Instead rejoice in the wife of your youth….Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; Be exhilarated always with her love.
1:2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for your love is more delightful than wine.
1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it…”
2:25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Scripture describes our sexuality as a good thing and ultimately that our sexuality is a divine creation of God. Write that down in your notes. Sex is divine. Welcome to North Village Church!
When it comes to a biblical understanding of Scripture we need to have a completely different view then what our culture teaches us about our sexuality. Often times when we think of sexuality we think of the negative images, pornography, bad experiences, shame, regret, or even abuse in some cases and it reinforces that sexuality is dark, embarrassing, and something Jesus looks down on, but Scripture teaches us our sexuality was created by God and created to be a good thing. From Genesis 1 alone we see that we have a creator, who created sexuality, and created it to be a good thing.
This morning we aren’t talking about this subject because of shock value, but that when we have a biblical understanding of our sexuality it will help us have healthier and stronger marriages. That is our goal as a church is to have really strong and healthy marriages. Ed Wheat who wrote the book Intended for Pleasure describes the purpose of sex in marriage is to continually recreate the intimacy and tenderness in the relationship. However, if we have an unhealthy view of our sexuality it is going to hinder the intimacy in our relationships.
The Bible teaches us it was created by God to be a good thing. It also teaches that He created it to take place within marriage. Some have described sex like a fire in a fireplace. As long as that fire stays in the fireplace it is a place of heat, light, warmth for the family, however, if you take it outside the fireplace it is dangerous and destructive. If you are single here this morning and you want to have sex that is a good thing. He just created sex to take place within marriage. He knows the human body, He knows what it does, He created it that way, He is a big fan of sex, and He is just a bigger fan of marriage. When it takes place outside of marriage is when it will result in shame, guilt, and embarrassment, but in marriage it is awesome. Within marriage sexuality can be some of the most spiritual things we take part in as a married couple.
Not only does the Bible teach that our sexuality is a good thing, takes place within marriage, but it also teaches us our sexuality is an act of service between a husband and wife. It is a way to serve your spouse. Now this is a ministry team that I can get excited about! Scripture teaches us we can serve our spouses through sex, 1 Corinthians 7:
2 But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. 3 The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
When you get married the two become one and you give your body to your spouse as an act of service and meeting physical needs. All those times your husband is wanting to have sex he is just trying to serve you! It isn’t out of abuse, it isn’t against the other one’s will, but that both spouses enter into it thinking of how to please and serve, not yourself, but the other one. All the wives just got excited! New memory verse! Our sexuality is a way to serve one another. This is a honey-do-list that your husband is going to get really excited about. Ladies you make the list and he just gets to check them off. Done!
Our sexuality is created by God to be a good thing, take place within marriage, serving one another, but today it has been distorted. This brings us to our second point of where sexuality is today.
Scripture teaches us that when we take sexuality out of the fireplace, outside of the marriage that it will bring pain. This pain started in Genesis 3 when sin enters into human history. In Genesis 2 God looks to Adam and tells him that all of creation is for him to enjoy, but don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of responding in obedience Adam responds in disobedience and sin enters in and it takes all that God created for good and taints, distorts, and corrupts it.
It was created by God to be a good thing and to take place within marriage, however, because of sin the devil has taken it and distorted and corrupted a good thing. Which is what he does with everything. God created it for good, and Satan corrupts it. That is how we got to where we are today when we look in our culture and see sexuality distorted. The clearest example of this is in pornography.
This might be awkward to talk about, but we are part of a culture that spends more money each year on pornography than our music and entertainment combined. We live in a culture that worships our sexuality. We want to look younger, look sexier, wear less, and we worship our bodies and our sexuality to a point of destruction. There are all time highs of anorexia, bulimia, depression, cutting in women and men because we are so focused on our bodies. We are not skinny enough, fit enough, tall enough, and we bow down and worship our bodies and we have men and women turning to pornography to a point of a multi-billion dollar business and it is completely destructive to sexuality and marriage.
An article in the New Yorker said that it was once thought that pornography would create more sexual crimes, however, it is showing just the opposite and as a result it is reducing sexual drive in people because when people expose themselves to pornographic images and videos it makes it impossible for a real life person to actually compete with the sexual stimulation provided in pornography.
I once counseled a couple before they got married and the husband said he found it difficult to enjoy sex with his wife because there was so much stimulation from the videos in pornography that it was impossible for his wife to compete and hold his attention. Till this day they struggle in their sex life. Pornography has been paralleled to a drug that once you taste of it creates chemical release in your brain / bloodstream that creates a stronger drive for more and it will wreck your sex life.
Our culture will tell us that pornography is normal, healthy, and even healthy in a marriage, but that is a deception and a distortion of truth. They will tell us that it has been apart of cultures for 1,000 of years and it has been, but with our technology today we are in an age of experiment that we don’t know the results of what it will do to our marriages. I don’t want to sound graphic but until the last 40 years the worse pornography was an image in a magazine or a photo, and although still not acceptable, but today we have video, we have inter-net, we get it instantaneously and anonymously. We are in the midst of unchartered waters and we have no idea what it is doing to us emotionally, physically, and spiritually other than wrecking our lives. This is a dangerous experiment and we need to be on guard of what we are letting in our hearts, our minds, and in our homes.
Here’s the problem we find ourselves thinking things like it is just sex, it’s just the body, it doesn’t affect my relationship with God and we find ourselves thinking, “I don’t feel bad afterwards, ergo, it must be okay.” Which ultimately puts ourselves in the place of God and we can just do whatever we want and even though He created us we really know what is best.
However, Proverbs teaches us there is a way, which seems right to man and it is a way that leads to death. Scripture teaches us God made everything and created it to be a good thing and sin has tainted and distorted it to a point that it creates confusion. That means while we are living on this side of heaven the purpose of sin is to wage war against God’s creation and create confusion for us so that we will start thinking what is right is wrong and what is wrong is right. Sin will create confusion.
That is why Jesus entered into human history. He not only came to redeem our spiritual lives, but our physical lives as well. He takes the perversion, the past, the pain, He takes our sin, He became our sin, and He took it to the cross and died for it so that through faith we become a new creation. That means new desires and new pleasures. Jesus doesn’t come to take away our pleasures and passions so that we become boring stoic people, but that He gives us new pleasures and passions as a new creation.
That means that through Jesus sexuality can be enjoyed in marriage and it is a good thing. That is why we cling to Jesus. We can’t navigate through these things on our own. God tells us He has given us Scripture to know what is best and what is from Him. We need to cling to Him, cling to Scripture because just like we talked about a couple of months ago that we have an enemy who will accuse us day and night. He will whisper into our ear that we are dirty, shameful, guilty, and worthless and we should be embarrassed. We will run to sin, we will run to pornography, we will run to death and Jesus say, “That is not what I made you for!” He created us, died for us, gave us new hearts, new minds, new eyes, new bodies, with new pleasures, and new passions, and they can be expressed in a way that doesn’t bring shame, but joy and that can take place in our sexuality.
Remember sex is a divine creation of God that has been tainted and distorted by sin but through Jesus it has been restored and redeemed so that we can have a healthy sex life in our marriages, which brings us to our last section which is how does it relate to our marriages?
At the end of the day we want to have a biblical view of sex. Its not one of shame and guilt, but one that has been redeemed through Jesus Christ and something that He created to take place within marriage.
For us this morning we want to take a few minutes to help create a healthy discussion of sex within marriage. Our desire as a church is to have healthy sex lives in our marriages. Maybe talking about your sex life is a normal every day experience for you as a couple…great! Sometimes couples won’t talk about these kinds of things because they feel embarrassed, don’t want to hurt feelings, not sure where to start, so we want to help open some lines of communication to get the ball rolling. Some of this is from Scripture, some from counseling experience, and some from books, but look at it as a starting point. If you are single, then you file some of these points away for future reference:
Men and women are different sexually: I know. Great insight. Only at North Village Church! My wife and I use to do a lot of pre-marital counseling and it was so much fun to talk to the couples about sex before the wedding and after the wedding. We would split up the couples and I would talk to the guy and he is so excited to get married. All the plans he has for their sex life. Having sex 10 times a day. Then about 6 months after the wedding we would talk to them again and I would ask them, “How’s it going?” And they will all generally say, “It’s different then what I expected.” It’s not bad, it’s just different and men and women are different sexually.
Generally speaking men are available for sex at any time. In the midst of conflict, after dinner, after mowing the yard it doesn’t matter. Women tend to need a little more time. Gary Smalley described women as crock-pots and men are microwaves. Men are always ready to go and for women it takes a little time. Generally speaking a woman’s sex drive is closely related to her heart and if her heart fills neglected then sex will be neglected. There are times when I am not helpful with the kids or around the house and while Holly is getting beat up by the kids I will be on the couch and “working” on the computer and then when we go to bed I will give her the look and she will just role her eyes like, “That ain’t happening.” She’s exhausted, but starts with her heart. It is helpful for your sex life if women can tell their husbands what fills their hearts. For some it is helping with the kids, some it is flowers, some it is notes, some it is talking, but if husbands can find that out it will go a long way. Good thing to talk about.
Men and women have different goals: Again, generally speaking but most men and women have different goals sexually. For most women it is the tenderness and for most men it is the act. You have heard the expression that most men use romance to get sex and most women use sex to get romance. Women enjoy the before and after and the men enjoy the “during”. Women enjoy connecting emotionally and men enjoy the response, a little interaction.
Take some time to talk about your goals in your sex life. It is helpful when your husbands knows how to show that tenderness that can take place during sex. I know most of us just want our spouses to know these things, but sometimes a little conversation can go a long way. For wives it is good to talk to your husband about what he enjoys. Sometimes taking initiative, maybe being responsive, smiling every once in awhile, and not wearing a robe all the time. If your husband likes the “during part” then talk to him about what can make that part as fun as possible. If both agree, lines up with Scripture, enoy!
Men and women have different signals: The idea is to increase sex and if you know signals then it is a good thing. How does the other spouse know what the other one is thinking? You probably already have these signals but it is good to define them. There are signals when you are interested and signals when you are not. Take some time to define the signals. When there are kids, work, schedule, then we need to all be on the same page with signals to take advantage of every opportunity. And sometimes husbands don’t pick up on signals. Wives will be sighing, making comments, tones in their voice, giving looks and most husbands don’t get it. If he knows what to look for then it gives you a better shot at having sex.
Men and women have different past experiences: This is really people in general. Some people have had different past experiences that effect how they view sexuality today. Some of have had positive, but some have had painful experiences, and our past experiences are going to shape how we see sexuality. For some it brings up a tremendous amount of shame, guilt, grief, and as a spouse you need to be communicating and extremely sensitive. In some cases talk to a counselor to get a third party involved because those past experiences are going to shape our perception of sexuality and if we are trying to bottle it up, ignore it, suppress it, it is going to hurt the intimacy in our marriage. Jesus is aware of that past pain and we need to bring that pain to our spouses. We don’t need to give details, but we need to let them know so that it doesn’t drive a wedge in our relationship.
Now this kind of conversation doesn’t need to take place at the red light on Burnet with the kids screaming in the back. It needs to be handled with care. It is an extremely painful area that we need to be sensitive with. I know people have experienced a great amount of pain and confusion when it comes to sexuality and I don’t know what your experiences are, I don’t know the pain connected with this topic, but I know that Jesus does know. Jesus knows the pain. He knows what’s in our heart. He knows where you are scared. He knows those secrete sins we have been hanging on to and He has taken those pains to the cross so that we don’t have carry it. Did you know that? We don’t have to hold on to it. He took it to the cross, shed His blood for it, died for it, and He overcame it.
This morning we want to end our time with a celebration of communion. It would be really easy to have images of past mistakes in your heart and mind this morning and instead I want you to just close your eyes and imagine Jesus at the cross. Taking our pain, our shame, our guilt, our regret, even if it took place last night, and leaving it at the foot of the cross.
He took it, He killed, He overcame it, and through faith in Him we are new and that is the image that needs to be in our mind as we enter into communion. We go into it being cleansed by the righteousness of Jesus Christ.