Discovering True Sexual Freedom Series

This morning we are going to begin a series entitled Restoring the Gift of Our Sexuality.

No aspect of life that runs deeper… and no gift that has been more tragically confused and corrupted.. Sexuality reflects our deepest longings and our most painful wounds.

Before unpacking that further, I want to say a couple things about this series.

This series… carries in mind that we gather as both single and married adults. Over the course of these weeks we will address the dynamics of marital intimacy… yet healthy for all to understand… and we will address the dynamics of sexuality for those unmarried… yet I believe healthy for all to understand. And of course… most of what we address relates to us all equally if we breathe and have bodies.

This series is not rooted in a desire to be provocative. We have enough of selling sex… which simply strips our humanity from. The Scriptures speak about our sexuality in a way that is neither prude nor crude… and I want to join that good sense.

This series is simply a reflection of feeling our Father’s heart… of seeing that which is good become co-opted and corrupted… intended for love being misguided into enslavement… God sees sex as a gift… not a burden. His heart is never to burden us with the neurotic ideas and ideals of our culture. He knows the predispositions and patterns we each face… and wants to help us and heal us.

God surrounds us this morning… to speak of a gift that needs to be restored.

> PRAY

Rob Bell writes… "You can’t talk about sexuality without talking about how we were made. And that will inevitably lead you to who made us. At some point you have to talk about God." (SexGod, p. 15)

This morning let’s start at the beginning….in Genesis… the book of beginnings…

Genesis 1:26-28 (GW)

Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness. Let them rule the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the domestic animals all over the earth, and all the animals that crawl on the earth.” So God created humans in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female. God blessed them and said, “Be fertile, increase in number, fill the earth, and be its master.”

The Creator … speaking of the plurality of mutual oneness (note the term, ‘let us’)… Father, Son, and Spirit… has been bringing order to chaos… speaks of creating something distinctly reflecting His nature. Now we know that all of creation reveals something of God… the designer is reflected in the design… so this is something beyond that… something truly of similar nature. In this we are uniquely human… as we are created as male and female. He goes on to explain the experience…

Genesis 2:24-25 (GW)

That is why a man will leave his father and mother and will be united with his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, but they weren’t ashamed of it.

God created sexuality.... and the potential for sexual intimacy. It’s not like God created the first humans, went on lunch break and then came back and was like, “what are they doing? Who taught them that?!” God even created certain parts our bodies with the purpose of giving sexual pleasure.

The original state was His idea. And how different it is from what we often feel.

Last verse (25) – “ The man and his wife were both naked, but they weren’t ashamed of it.”

Can you imagine that? No shame in their sexual relationship. No shame from memories of past experiences. No shame that comes from falling short of some expectations for performance. That’s Pure Sex – the way sex was created to be.

The first thing we discover is that…

I. Our Sexuality Is Rooted In the Divine Nature of God

Sexuality is Sacred… Reflected in…

• Our Complimentary Nature… ‘male and female’…

Men and women equally reflect complimentary aspects of God’s character.

When did they become sexual beings? When they left and joined partners… when they multiplied life?

> NO… when they were created. That is why I use the term that we reflect the Divine Nature simply in the complimentary nature of being created as male and female… and THEN such a nature is further EXPRESSED in what follows… namely…

Expressed in…

• Our Covenant Partnerships (‘leave and become united’)

A unity of diversity (‘ultimately ‘become one flesh’)

1 Corinthians 6:16 (MSG)

There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, "The two become one."

This helps us begin to understand how sexual oneness is designed for marriage… where the bonds of oneness have been established.