Monday, February 21, 2011

JUNIOR HIGH SUNDAY SCHOOL



Session 3: Sex Is . . . Everything?

We tend to obsess about different things to the point where we don’t think we’ll be satisfied until we have it. We have had those thoughts, “If I had this, if she went out with me, if he asked me to prom, if she would just let me kiss her once, then I would be happy. Then I would be satisfied. Then everything would be right with the world.” Sex is serious and sex is powerful. But if we are not careful, we can start to treat it like sex is everything. Our happiness, our contentment, our expectations ride on this, and we start to believe that sex is everything. Is sex everything? Does it deliver all it promises to deliver? Is it everything we expect it to be?

TRUTH

Scripture is full of people who put their hope and expectation in things hoping that those things will be what they want them to be, hoping they will end up fulfilled and satisfied.

“lovely in form, and beautiful” (Genesis 29:17 NIV).

“I’ll work seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel” (Genesis 29:18 NIV).

So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they only seemed like a few days to him because of his love for her. Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her” (Genesis 29:21 NIV).

So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her . . . When morning came, there was Leah (Genesis 29:20,22-23,25 NIV).

If we are not careful sex becomes the thing we think will complete us—whether in marriage or in the relationship we are currently in. Sex can become our goal. We will never stay content when we put all our hope, all our expectation, all our dreams in something that was not meant to carry the weight. It’s amazing. It’s incredible. It’s mysterious. But it was not meant to complete us.

“Surely my husband will love me now” (Genesis 29:32 NIV).

“Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too. So she named him Simeon” (Genesis 29:33 NIV).

“Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have born him three sons.” So he was named Levi (Genesis 29:34 NIV).

She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children (Genesis 29:35 NIV).

Only God can meet our deepest needs. Nothing else—no perfect relationship, no amazing sex, no ideal boyfriend or girlfriend, wife or husband is going to compete with God. What is it that you are hoping sex will give you?

God created sex and made it a good thing.

But He didn’t make it everything.

Sex isn’t everything.