Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

Today we’re beginning a four-part series called The Maze of Marriage. A lot of us have been taught from our childhood about this idyllic thing called marriage. It’s supposed to be a Snow White and Prince Charming deal. It’s a beautiful, wonderful, and spiritual relationship.

And then we get married. And we go on our honeymoon. And it seems like we are Snow White and Prince Charming in the flesh. And then we come home. And real life begins. And there are disagreements and arguments. There are hurt feelings and resentment. There is often too much month left at the end of the money. And then we have kids. And these little gifts from God seem to compound our stress and anxiety. And one day you wake up and realize that Snow White and Prince Charming, well, they don’t live here anymore. Love may be blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener, isn’t it?

Let’s just be honest with one another. Marriage is not easy. If it was easy, then the average American marriage would last longer than 7.2 years. But that is the current statistic. The average marriage in our country lasts 7.2 years. We’ve got a problem. And much of that problem lies in our misunderstanding of this maze called marriage.

Marriage is a maze that has a lot of potential wrong turns. In this four-week series, we’re going to learn what God’s Word teaches us about four different areas where a lot of couples make some wrong turns.

Today, we’re starting out in the bedroom. We’re beginning this series by talking about sex.

A lot of us are already turning red from embarrassment. Some of you can’t believe you’re going to listen to a sex sermon. You can’t believe we’re going to talk about this dirty subject.

What we need to understand is that God was not the one who made sex a dirty subject. When sex is expressed within God’s framework and plan, there’s nothing dirty or shameful about it.

Tommy Nelson wrote, “So many people within the body of Christ seem to be wounded and maimed emotionally and psychologically by issues and problems related to sexual intimacy, and yet nobody in the church wants to discuss these issues.” The church has historically been afraid to talk about this, but God has never experienced such fear. In fact, the Bible talks in explicit honesty about sexuality. So today, some of you are going to have your world rocked, but that’s a good thing. When your world is rocked, your mind and heart are primed to hear the truth. My goal for this message is to be graphic, but not pornographic. That’s the model that is set forth in the Scripture, and that’s what we’re gunning for today. So let’s pray, and then we’ll jump into this.

PRAYER

Today, I want to start from the negative and work toward the positive. We’re going to start by highlighting two views of sex that we have all encountered:

Sexual Realism and Sexual Platonism. These two views are polar opposites. They couldn’t be further apart. In fact, there’s only one thing that these two views of sexuality have in common: they’re both wrong according to God’s Word.

Let’s start with Sexual Realism. This was a popular view in the Roman Empire, and it is the predominant view of sex in our culture.

The philosophy of Sexual Realism treats sex as nothing more than an appetite to be satisfied. It’s just like eating when you’re hungry, drinking when you’re thirsty, or sleeping when you’re tired. When you feel like having sex, you have sex. It’s just satisfying a natural appetite.

In this view, sex is not moral or immoral. It’s amoral. There is no morality attached to sex. It’s a physical drive, it’s an appetite to satisfy. And since it’s just a physical appetite, you should simply follow that desire wherever it leads. If it leads you to multiple sexual partners, that’s fine. If it leads you to homosexuality, that’s fine. If it leads you to pornography, that’s fine.

If you’ve been brought up with Biblical values, you will attach a moral quantifier to all this. You’ll say, “No, wait a minute. These things are morally wrong.” But what you have to understand is that our culture doesn’t do that. Most times, people in our culture who are engaging in aberrant sexual behavior aren’t being purposefully immoral. In their mind, it’s not a right or wrong issue. That’s why the Bloodhound Gang released a song with the lyrics, “You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals, So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.” Sex is no more than an animalistic desire to be satisfied. There is no morality attached to it at all.

And not only is there no morality attached to sex, in Sexual Realism there are also no consequences attached to sex. If there is no morality attached to sex, then there is no guilt, no emotional or spiritual consequences to sex. This is the lie that is being propagated, especially in teen culture.

This is ultimately a message on marriage, but teens, you need to hear this. I know you’re not married yet, but over 90% of adults in our country get married. The odds are really good that you’ll one day be married. And if you want to mess your marriage up before it starts, buy into the lie of Sexual Realism. There are a lot of adults in this room who are carrying the scars of sexual mistakes they made earlier in their lives. It has taken toll in their marriage relationship. Instead of sharing a very special gift with their spouse on their wedding night, they gave away their virginity in the back seat of a Buick. And they’d give anything to turn back the clock and do things differently.

I was a youth minister for years and I heard all the excuses. “But, you don’t understand. We love each other.” I want to lovingly but directly tell you that actually, you don’t understand. God didn’t create sex for love. He created sex for marriage.

Don’t buy into the lie of Sexual Realism. Sex outside of a committed marriage relationship carries a price tag. And that price goes beyond an unplanned pregnancy or an STD. If you have sex outside of marriage, I promise you that it will cause you emotional and spiritual pain. I absolutely guarantee it.

Now, let’s talk for a minute about Sexual Platonism. This view is promoted by many well-meaning Christians.

This philosophy teaches us that sex is a necessary evil. This was a popular Greek view. Ultimately, sex is an animal passion that degrades us.

But it is a necessary evil since it’s the only way to procreate. Sex is only for procreation. This view looks down on sexuality. It tolerates sex so we can have children. You have sex to have kids. But sex, in and of itself, is dirty and debasing.

As I said, this is the polar opposite of Sexual Realism, but it is also just as wrong. Some of you came into your marriage having been engrained with the philosophy of Sexual Platonism. And so your wedding night was far from a joyful experience. It was embarrassing and shameful. You felt dirty. And maybe you’re still dealing with those feelings because of what you were taught.

And some of us are teaching our kids this philosophy today. We see all the problems that come from Sexual Realism, and so we overreact and teach our kids Sexual Platonism. And when we do that, we’re teaching them a warped and unbiblical view of sexuality. We’re robbing them of the joy of sexual intimacy in their marriage because they’ll be weighed down with all this baggage.

We don’t do our kids any favors when we avoid talking about sexuality. If we teach them that sex is taboo, if we lie to them about where babies come from, if we make them ashamed of their sexuality, they won’t soon forget those lessons. Now, obviously you have to tackle these lessons in an age appropriate way with your kids. But it is our job as parents to teach our kids about godly sexuality.

And that’s where we’re going to spend the rest of our time. We’ve talked about the two wrong views of sex that we’ll run into. But what about a right, godly view of sex?

God’s plan for sex is expressed in Genesis 2. The Bible says, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:18, NIV)

God’s plan is one man, one woman, for life. Sex is God’s wedding gift to us. We all understand that through sex, we can have children. But that is absolutely not all that God intended when you created us as sexual beings. His idea is for sex to bring richness and fulfillment to our marriage in a variety of ways.

First of all, sex brings understanding in your marriage.

In the early ‘90s, John Gray wrote a bestselling book called Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. The whole premise of the book is that we’ve forgotten that we’re supposed to be different. He wrote, “Without the awareness that we are supposed to be different, men and women are at odds with each other. We usually become angry and frustrated with the opposite sex because we have forgotten this simple truth. We expect the opposite sex to be more like ourselves. Men mistakenly expect women to think, communicate, and react the way men do; women mistakenly expect men to feel, communicate, and respond the way women do. We have forgotten that we are supposed to be different.”

The Bible tells us, “God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27, NLT)

Men and women are different by design. That’s a good thing because it’s a God thing. But for our marriages to work, we’ve got to work at understanding and appreciating the differences between men and women. And nowhere are those differences more evident than in the bedroom.

Sex forces husbands and wives to understand and appreciate the differing needs of their spouse.

You can say it any way that you want. A women’s sex drive is like a finely tuned orchestra. A man’s sex drive is like a drum solo. Men are microwaves, women are crockpots. But however you say it, the point is that God created us differently.

Wives, you need to know that your husband is a visual creature. We talked about that last week when we said that a godly woman dresses modestly. There is one exception to that: when the kids are asleep and you’re alone in your bedroom with your husband. Speaking for all husbands here today, ladies, this is when you throw modesty out the window. You want to give your husband a gift? Don’t always come to bed in those old flannel pajamas that he couldn’t see through if he had X-ray vision. Find a babysitter, go out to dinner, and then surprise your husband by taking him lingerie shopping. Tell him to pick out something. The only problem with that is your husband might get a speeding ticket as he’s driving home!

Guys, we need to understand the battle that our wives have to fight everyday. We talked last week about the warped view of body image that our culture sells to our ladies. One reason that your wife may be hesitant to be more free in the bedroom is because she knows how she looks in her eyes, but you haven’t told her how she looks in your eyes. When you read the Song of Solomon…which, by the way, is the most erotic love poem you’ll ever read. If you’re offended by my direct honesty about sex today, you have apparently never read this book in the Old Testament. I’m not coming close to the explicit and erotic nature of that book that is in the Bible. Anyway, guys, if you read the Song of Solomon, you’ll notice that the wife in this book doesn’t have a high view of her body image.

She said, “Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun. My mother’s sons were angry with me and make me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have neglected.” (Song of Solomon 1:6, NIV)

In our culture, a suntan is considered attractive, even sexy. It’s why tanning salons make millions of dollars a year. But that wasn’t the case in the cultural setting of the Song of Solomon. Women desired soft, white skin. It meant that they were more refined, that they hadn’t been forced to work outdoors. But the wife in the story had been forced into physical labor. She was tanned from the sun, and therefore she had a lower view of her body image.

Guys, notice how careful her husband was to tell her exactly how he saw her.

He said, “You are beautiful, my darling, beautiful beyond words. Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair falls in waves like a flock of goats winding down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are as white as sheep, recently shorn and freshly washed. Your smile is flawless, each tooth matched with its twin. Your lips are like scarlet ribbon;

your mouth is inviting. Your cheeks are like rosy pomegranate behind your veil. Your neck is as beautiful as the tower of David, jeweled with the shields of a thousand heroes. Your breasts are like two fawns, twin fawns of a gazelle grazing among the lilies.

Before the dawn breezes blow and the night shadows flee, I will hurry to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. You are altogether beautiful, my darling, beautiful in every way.” (Song of Solomon 4:1-7, NLT)

Some of that poetic imagery might sound a little strange to us. I doubt many husbands will go home tonight and tell their wives, “Your hair looks like a bunch of goats walking down a mountain.” But don’t miss the bigger picture here. The husband started at the top of his wife’s body, and began working his way down, telling her how beautiful and attractive she is. How much she turns him on. He wanted her to stop looking at herself in the mirror on the wall and start looking at herself in the mirror of his eyes.

Do you see how this requires a mutual love and understanding? Husbands want to be visually stimulated, but wives need their husbands to make them feel beautiful in order to do that.

Tommy Nelson said that, “Great sex to a woman is tenderness. To a man, it’s responsiveness.”

Men, our wiring is different. With our physical make up, we can be ready for sex in 7 seconds! It takes our wives a bit longer than that, and we have to understand that. Encouragement, tenderness, and love is what she needs.

Wives, when you’re in bed with your husband, he is looking for you to respond to him. Use his senses. Your husband is moved by what he hears, sees, and feels during sex. He is looking for you to be creative, to lose your inhibitions and be free.

The point is that sex brings understanding. This understanding grows over time, which is one more reason why God created sex to be part of a committed marriage relationship. The longer a couple is married, the more sexual intimacy brings understanding that stretches beyond the bedroom. A couple who understands one another in a physically intimate way will also have a great understanding of one another’s emotions and needs in all other areas of life. Honestly, if you measure sex by the clock, it doesn’t make up a large portion of your marriage. You spend far more time doing other things, right? But even though it’s a small part of your marriage as far as time is concerned, you can’t overestimate the impact that it has throughout every other aspect of your relationship. And that’s why it’s so important for us to have this honest discussion. If you’re married or you will one day be married, you have to understand godly sexuality. Otherwise your marriage will continually miss the mark that God has intended for you. And that mark is becoming “one flesh.”

Sex is God’s glue for your marriage. Sexual intimacy is a bonding experience in marriage. Without being overly graphic, when you consider the physical makeup of the male and female bodies, isn’t it obvious that God created the two to come together as one? The act itself is physically connective. But it’s also emotionally and spiritually connective.

Speaking of marriage, Jesus said, “Haven’t you read…that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6, NIV)

Look at the richness of Jesus’ teaching here. The two will become one flesh. They are no longer two, but one. God has joined them together.

Mark Batterson calls this at-one-ment. The Bible talks about atonement, but if you add a couple of hyphens, you get at-one-ment.

Mark wrote that this little made-up word, “may be the best description of what God wants you to experience with Him on a vertical plane and what He wants us to experience with each other on a horizontal plane. Marriage models on a horizontal plane what God wants us to experience with him on a vertical plane. A husband and wife become one—emotionally and spiritually and physically.”

God’s design is for your wedding night to be the time when you and your spouse become one flesh. And then, for the rest of your lives, every time you have sex, you are renewing your sacred covenant with one another. Isn’t that awesome? In a marriage context, what could be better?

This is why it’s so critical to live a life of purity. The Bible says, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” (Hebrews 13:4, NIV) This at-one-ment principle is why it’s so critical to remain faithful to our spouses and to remain pure in our sexual lives.

It’s why pornography is so damaging. It’s why connecting emotionally with someone other than your spouse is so dangerous. It’s why pre-marital sex is so destructive and it’s why marital infidelity is so damning. Because you are taking God’s at-one-ment principle that he designed for marriage, and you’re giving it away to other people.

Sex is like duct tape. How’s that for a weird simile? What did you learn at church today? We learned that sex is like duct tape. But track with me. Sex is a bonding agent, just like duct tape. The first time duct tape bonds to something, like my arm, it sticks very well. This tape is doing its job. It has bonded itself to my arm. And if it’s pulled off…it hurts. It hurts because it’s meant to bond permanently. It’s not meant to be pulled off.

And now, this tape has all kinds of hair and skin attached to it. And because of all the junk that’s attached to it, it’s lost its bonding ability. Now you can put it on somebody else’s arm and pull it right back off with little or no pain. It’s got so much junk attached to it that it can’t stick to anything anymore.

When we fall into the trap of pornography, when we wind up in bed with our boyfriend or girlfriend, when we don’t remain faithful in our marriage, it causes pain because we’re bonding ourselves to something or someone outside of God’s design. And then we hurt ourselves because the sexual relationship in our present or future marriage doesn’t have the binding power that it’s supposed to have. Don’t get me wrong…God can give you the power to overcome sexual mistakes. To be blunt, he can give you your sexual stickiness back. You can have that bond again, but it won’t happen without a lot of pain and a lot of heartache. The good news is that we can avoid that pain and heartache by following God’s plan, and uniting as one flesh to our husband or wife for the rest of our lives. Sex is God’s glue for your marriage.

Sex also brings joy to your marriage. If this morning hasn’t been blunt enough for you, let me lay the final card on the table. Sex is supposed to be fun! God created it to be enjoyed.

That doesn’t sound very spiritual, does it? To some of you, it probably doesn’t even sound Christian. You can’t believe I said that. A lot of Christians seem to think that we need to try to keep this a secret. We can’t admit to other people, we can’t even admit to ourselves, that God created sex to be fun.

In 16th century Spain, there was a professor named Fray Luis de Leon who was dragged out of his classroom and imprisoned for four years. You know why? He translated the Song of Solomon into Spanish. Song of Solomon is devoted to the joys of sexual intimacy, and he let the secret out by translating it into his nation’s language! And there are some Christians out there who are probably ready to throw me in jail along with the good professor because I’ve not only tackled a taboo subject, but now I’m even admitting that it can be enjoyed.

I love the way The Message reads in Proverbs 5. “Enjoy the wife you married as a young man! Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose— don't ever quit taking delight in her body. Never take her love for granted. Why would you trade enduring intimacies for cheap thrills with a whore? For dalliance with a promiscuous stranger?” (Proverbs 5:18-20, The Message)

Notice some of the key words there. Enjoy. Take delight. Enduring intimacies. That’s the biblical, godly picture of sex in the marriage relationship.

I hope you’re walking out of here this morning with a clearer picture of godly sexuality. I hope you’ve caught a glimpse of the joy it can be in your marriage.

When God created Adam and Eve, the Bible says, “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” (Genesis 2:25, NIV)

There is no shame and no guilt in sex when we follow God’s principles. It is a free, creative, fun, and godly expression of love between a husband and a wife.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: Genesis 2, marriage, sex