Human Sexuality
Selected Scriptures
We begin a new message series with topics on current concerns. These topics were triggered by Chip Ingram’s “Culture Shock Series”. Topics will include Human Sexuality, Politics, Human Trafficking, Abortion, and Reaching our LGBTQ Neighbors.
Addressing these topics in church will help our people be ready to engage our culture, our family, and our neighbors. In growing young, the book, one of the keys is being a good neighbor. This includes empowering the church to respond to current concerns in a compassionate and biblical manner. We encourage our small groups to use these messages as your sermon based studies in the upcoming weeks.
A pastor became frustrated that a large portion of his congregation went water skiing last Sunday, rather than coming to church. So he said to his wife, “This Sunday, I’m going to preach about the evils of water skiing on Sunday.”
Sunday came and the minister’s wife tried to persuade her husband not to preach against water skiing. He refused to listen to her, so she refuse to go into the sanctuary with him. She said, “just tell people I am not feeling well” and she stayed in the car.
As the pastor walked into the sanctuary, he decided to abandon his water skiing sermon. Instead, he delivered a brilliant sermon on sex.
When the service ended, a lady saw the pastor’s wife in the car. She stopped by to compliment her husband’s helpful sermon. She said, “That is the best sermon on the subject I ever heard!”
The pastor’s wife replied, “I don’t see how that could be; he has never done it before.”
You are not going to hear a brilliant sermon on sex, but I hope you will hear a biblical sermon on sex this morning. This topic may cause excitement for some and discomfort for others. What most have heard about biblical sexuality from the church is: "Don't have sex until you are married (period)." The Bible says much more than this, as we will learn together.
In this message on Human Sexuality, we will look at 4 points. First, the purposes of human sexuality. Second, the place of human sexuality. And third, the passion of human sexuality, and fourth, the purity of human sexuality.
First, the purposes of Human sexuality. I was talking with a gay Christian some time ago. He claimed that there is no difference in the purposes between same-sex marriage and many evangelical Christian heterosexual marriages. The purposes are to experience sexual fulfillment and companionship. He pointed out that having children as a biblical purpose of marriage is no longer taught or considered in many evangelical churches.
There are at least three biblical purposes for human sexuality: Procreation of humankind, picture of Christ's love, and pleasure between husband and wife. Let's take a closer look at each of these purposes
Procreation of humankind or having children, if your health permits, is a biblical purpose of sex within marriage. Genesis 1:27-28 reads, " So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number....” God’s way to be fruitful and increase in number is to have sex.
Malachi 2:15 reads, "Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth."
Having and raising godly children is not just a desire of some but a design of God for sex within marriage. Everything else being equal, children grow up best in families with mother and father. Procreation of humankind is a purpose of God for human sexuality.
Picture of Christ's love is another biblical purpose of sex within marriage. Ephesians 5:31-32 reads, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
A man and a woman leave their parent to be united in marriage. This is a picture of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who left God the Father to love mankind as His bride. He demonstrated His love by dying on the cross as payment for our sin.
Biblical sexuality within marriage is to picture Christ's unselfish love. It is a picture of serving one another. Sex is about meeting the needs of your spouse. Not manipulating to meet your own needs.
Here’s how meeting needs with sex work. In premarital counseling, the question is asked, “How frequent are we supposed to have sex?” Answer: There is no correct number of times per week. It is as frequent as your spouse needs sex.
Now more need to be said than having sex as often as your spouse needs to. It helps if your wife feels loved. And it helps if your husband feels respected.
Here is how manipulating with sex works. There are 3 common ways I have seen. One is the wife withholding sex to punish her husband for a hurt or disappointment she experienced from him. Another is the wife who uses sex to reward her husband for meeting her expectations. And third is a woman using sex to start or stay in a relationship with a man.
Manipulating with sex does not give us the picture of Christ’s love. Christ’s love is not given as a reward for our performance. Nor is Christ’s love withheld as a punishment for a lack of performance. Christ’s love is given out of our need for His love.
Pleasure between husband and wife. This needs no explanation, but here is what is needed: For sex to be pleasure between a husband and wife, we need self-control to not lust after another who is not your husband or your wife.
Proverbs 5:18-19 reads, "May your fountain be blessed,and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer — may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love."
A young adult husband asked, “Why do I feel so perverted? I think about sex so often.” His wife didn’t understand God made him to be aroused by her. Instead, she made him feel weird because he was aroused by her.
Have you ever wondered why men are so turned on by a woman’s breasts? It’s only flesh like the rest of our body. Here’s why, because God made it so. Pleasure between husband and wife is a purpose of God for human sexuality.
Now let's look at the place of human sexuality. Today our culture and even public schools encourage experimentation with sex. At best, they recommend safe sex, sex protected from pregnancy and transmittable diseases.
A friend who worked at a hotel in SF's Fisherman's Wharf area told me that couples check in and check out of the hotel within an hour. I asked why. He said they just want a room for sex. They are probably not married couples.
What is the place of biblical human sexuality? Not in experimentation nor quick hook ups. Not at the end of a date between unmarried people who really love each other. But in a monogamous heterosexual lifelong marriage.
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 7:1-2: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.
Monogamous means married to one person. Heterosexual means having sexual attractions to the opposite sex. This is God's moral design for sexuality.
Matthew 19:3-6 reads, Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
“Haven’t you read,” Jesus replied by referencing Genesis 1:27; 2:24, “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 flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Monogamous heterosexual lifelong marriage.
If you understand what the Bible says, that the place of sex is in a monogamous heterosexual lifelong marriage, you might ask, "What about unmarried singles?" "What about gays and lesbians?" "What about the divorced or widowed who do not remarry?" "How can they fulfill their sexual desires or experience sexual release?"
The Bible gives celibacy as the only moral alternative. Celibacy is the state of abstaining from marriage and sexual relations. Let me comment from 1 Corinthians 7 about celibacy.
First, celibacy is not a lower state of life. In fact, Jesus and the Apostle Paul were both celibate. And they both modeled lives of highest fulfillment doing God's work. Lucy Swindoll characterized her single life as "narrow my bed, but wide my world." The single life is an unshackled life free to live fully for God.
Second, by definition celibacy will leave you sexually unfulfilled. None of us will live total fulfillment in this broken world with imperfect bodies and imperfect people and imperfect circumstances.
Third, if you can't accept the calling of celibacy, seek the place of biblical sexuality in a monogamous heterosexual lifelong marriage. But have these bare minimums for your prospect: He or she must be a person of strong character and have a growing relationship with Christ. These bare minimums will spare you of a troubled marriage.
Now that we've looked at the purposes and place of biblical human sexuality, we are ready to look at the passion of biblical human sexuality. Sex is God's idea. And the powerful sexual feelings, desires and urges that begin at puberty and for many continue to some degree throughout life is a part of God's design to promote procreation, pleasure and picture of Christ's love within marriage.
The question from singles and those who are single again is, "What do I do with this passion when I am not married? I still have the physical desires!"And the question from the married, “What do I do with this passion when my spouse is not available for sex?”
There are at least two ways to respond to your sexual passion. Repress it or express it.
Is repressing our sexual urges a good way to respond? Repression when needed with the right understanding and motive can build self-control. Repression as the only way of responding can lead to being out of control. Especially repression without understanding its unique benefits and limitations.
Another option is to express their sexual desire. For singles, expressing sexuality means pursuing marriage and sexual relations in marriage. For those who are married, expressing sexuality means intercourse or bringing pleasure to each other in some other ways.
Some would include masturbation as a way to express sexuality. Those who believe this see masturbation as a God-given relief for sexual tension. Those who don't believe this see masturbation as having sex by yourself, and God designed sex to be shared in a heterosexual monogamous lifelong marriage.
God's Word is silent about this practice. But Jesus does speak against sexual lust, and lust often comes along with masturbation. When I've talk with young adults who masturbate, pornography and lust are often involved. In this case, masturbation perpetuates lust in their lives.
If lust is not involved, people often masturbate to medicate emotional pain such as boredom, loneliness, anger, depression, anxiety or low self-worth. Masturbation, in this case is not about sex. It is a momentary escape, not a good solution to heal emotional pain. Best to ask God or an experienced counselor to show us ways to deal with our emotional pain rather than covering it up with masturbation. This is addressing the real issue.
Finally, we will look at the purity of biblical sexuality. A pastor friend of mine said, "When you talk to 10 people about suffering, you can be sure that 7 are hurting. We live in a broken world." And he continued, "When you talk to 10 people about sin, you can be sure that 11 are guilty. The pastor doesn't live outside the human experience."
The first point of sexual purity is fall. We have all fallen short of God's intention, if not in the area of sexual purity, there are 9 other areas to choose from. And the good news of Jesus Christ is found in Romans 5:6-10, " 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life."
The same pastor friend said this, "The only people who will get better are those who trust that if we don't get better that God will still love us." These are people who will get up after a fall because we trust God's goodness rather than our own goodness.
The next point about sexual purity is flee. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:18, "Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body."
Running away from sexual immorality is not weakness; it's wisdom. Sexual immorality is poison to our mind, body, spirit and relationship. Don't try to see how much poison we can swallow before we do irreversible self-damage.
I'm not suggesting we stop using our smartphones, tablets or laptops. I am suggesting we be smart about safeguarding our eyes from sexual immorality. In our moment of boredom, exhaustion or stress, we could be susceptible to temptation.
The final point about sexual purity is fill. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 reads, "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."
The good news of Jesus Christ is not only did his death pay the penalty for our sin, but his departure return to heaven made us a sanctuary for His Spirit. Because we are filled with His Spirit, we have His help as often as we want. We just have to want it.
Let me close with a personal experience. Early in our marriage, Susan and I went to marriage conferences and read marriage books. And we would discuss what we learned, which would almost always turn into an argument. I believe it was because we expected each other to live up to what we learned.
So my recommendation to you is to not expect your spouse to live up to what is taught today. But if you agree with what is taught today, you live what you’ve learned. And if you are in a mixed small group of guys and gals, I recommend you separate into guys subgroup and gals subgroup for your discussion of this study.
