Issues: Sex Series

Last week we discovered that everybody has ISSUES! I’ve got ‘em! You’ve got ‘em! We’ve got ‘em!

What are some of the GREAT issues we face today?

1.Depression and eating disorders

2.Suicidal thoughts

3.Abortion and premarital sex

4.Cutting and other forms of self-abuse

5.Divorce

6.Abuse by family members

7.AIDS and other STD’s

As we started our series we first discovered that God cares for us … 1 Peter 5:7: “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you” (NLT).

Tonight, I want to talk a little bit about SEX … did I get red? Did you freak out when you heard that in a church building?

Yea, I know … you are not supposed to talk about SEX in church … NOT TRUE … anything God talks about in the Bible is fair game for us to talk about in church!

Did you know that every year you will see 14,000 sexual references on TV? (Josh McDowell)

By their 15th birthday, 10 percent of girls and 27 percent of boys have had sexual intercourse … and the numbers rise to 56% for females and 73% for males by their 18th birthday. (Alan Guttmacher Institute, ’94)

And listen to this sad statistic … 7 in 10 women who had sex before age 14, and 6 in 10 of those who had sex before 15, report that they were forced to have sex. (Alan Guttmacher Institute, ’94)

Everyone has opinions about SEX … When? Who? How? Why? Why Not?

Let’s look at a few people’s opinions about SEX …

LIGHTING / SOUND – Play the Video. It is in the powerpoint … make sure the volume is on and up.

Well, you can hear from people you don’t know … but how about listening to a young woman who valued her virginity …

ELLEN PETRAKIS

Hi guys…this isn’t easy for me to get up here and speak in front of you. I am a kindergarten teacher and do much better speaking to 5 year olds then teenagers. But God impressed on my heart to tell you my story so here it is…

I was about 14 years old, just starting high school, when I made the decision to save myself for marriage. Having grown up in church I knew that it was the right thing to do. I felt very strongly about waiting for my husband and even though all of my friends felt differently they always respected my decision. Even my guy friends respected how I felt, however they always tried to get me to change my mind! As the years went by, I watched as my friends dated guys, slept with them and then broke up.

I remember listening to my friend Pam as she cried her eyes out when she found out she was diagnosed with HPV, an incurable STD she got from a guy she hardly knew. I begged my best friend not to go through with her abortion when she got pregnant but she refused my help. I remember looking into my friend Rebecca’s eyes as she lay on a hospital bed at South Oaks recovering from her suicide attempt. She tried to kill herself b/c her boyfriend she gave her virginity to had broken up with her for another girl.

It confirmed to me that I had made the right decision. These guys didn’t really care for these girls, mostly they just used them. It became “known” that I was a virgin and wasn’t one of those girls. I kinda liked that. It made me different from everyone else. And when people would ask me why, I would be able to tell them about my relationship with God and how he wants us to wait until marriage and how I wanted to do that for him.

I would tell myself…until a guy is willing to get up in front of my family, his family and God and promise to love me forever, he didn’t deserve me. It was that simple. My mom always told me that I would be the one the guys would remember, not the 10 other girls he slept with. He would remember me b/c I wouldn’t sleep with him! And I can tell you today that my mother was right. Years later when I ran into old boyfriends or even just my guy friends they would always say there was something different about you – you weren’t like the other girls. They may not have known it at the time but in a way they respected me and realized later on why.

Well, high school came and went. I had boyfriends, some waited and respected my decision and some didn’t. College came and went, more boyfriends some waited, some didn’t. When I turned 25, I realized I had dated all these guys and not one was worthy, not one was the one that God had for me. I was so thankful that even though I may have wasted some time and went through a lot of heartache, I was faithful to God and did not give away my virginity. I was still waiting to give that gift to my husband. I promised God I would stop dating and just wait. Wait for the one he had for me.