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.
Session 2: Sex Is . . . Powerful
We all define sex somehow. Sex is more than physical. Sex is emotional. The truth is, sex is far from casual.
Sex is powerful.
Some girls know that when they dress a certain way, look a certain way, portray a certain image, they will get a certain kind of attention from a certain kind of guy.
Some guys know that when they say and do certain things they get a girl’s attention.
For some guys the goal is to conquer, and they use sex to accomplish that goal.
When we take advantage of the power it has with the intent of getting something, do we ever end up getting what we want?
What happens when sex is used to accomplish something it wasn’t intended to accomplish?
When it comes to sex, who has the real power?
TRUTH
So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me what makes you so strong and what it would take to tie you up securely.” Samson replied, “If I were tied up with seven new bowstrings that have not yet been dried, I would become as weak as anyone else.” So the Philistine rulers brought Delilah seven new bowstrings, and she tied Samson up with them. She had hidden some men in one of the inner rooms of her house, and she cried out, “Samson! The Philistines have come to capture you!” But Samson snapped the bowstrings as a piece of string snaps when it is burned by a fire. So the secret of his strength was not discovered (Judges 16:6-9 NLT).
“How can you tell me, ‘I love you,’ when you don’t share your secrets with me? You’ve made fun of me three times now, and you still haven’t told me what makes you so strong!” She tormented him with her nagging day after day until he was sick to death of it (Judges 16:15-16 NLT).
Oftentimes when we use sex as a tool to try and accomplish something else we want—bragging rights, security, love or stability—we end up missing what we are after.
Sex in the right context is powerful. Sex in the wrong context is just as powerful but also dangerous.
Sometimes sex plays us, and sometimes we use it to play others.
We hear the message that we can use our bodies and use our words to leverage the power of sex. But very rarely do we get the message that when we do this, we lose something in the process.
Sex skews your perspective making you think you are ready for a future that may or may not happen with this person. Sex creates a false level of commitment that may not exist yet.
Regardless of your circumstances or your past, there is hope.
You can change your ways.
God is bigger than our failings in this area—no matter how big we may have messed up.
Sex is powerful.
You can see its power everywhere.
But it is not so powerful that it overwhelms and quenches God’s love for us
We act without being prompted by others. | |||
| We are eager to do what needs to be done without having to be told to do it. | |||
We take the first step towards the achievement of a goal.
Sometimes we misjudge a situation.
Have you ever been in a situation that you thought was casual when it ended up being serious?
Sex is often thought of as casual, as not a big deal.
If sex is casual, then why does it seem like a big deal?
TRUTH
Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.” But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.
Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body (1 Corinthians 6:15-20 NLT).
Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master’s body. You wouldn’t take the Master’s body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.
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.”
Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.”
There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body
(1 Corinthians 6:15-20 MSG).
There is more to sex than skin on skin.
Our bodies were made for God-given and God-modeled love.
God paid a high price for you.
The physical part of us can’t be separated from the emotional part of us, which can’t be separated from the spiritual part of us. We are all three.
Sex is serious.
We can’t compartmentalize sex and pretend that our emotions and our spirits are not involved.
The trap we fall into when it comes to sex, is believing that only the physical part matters.
Too much is on the line to treat sex casually.
God made it so that every part of us—physical, emotional, spiritual—is intricately impacted and affected by every other part.
If a relationship consists primarily of the physical side, then it skews where we think we are emotionally and spiritually.
God takes forgiveness seriously too.
Psalm 130:4 says: “But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared” (Psalm 130:4 NIV).
It doesn’t matter how causally you may approach sex, the effects it has, the impact it has on your own body—on every part of you—matters.
Sex is a big deal.
Paul thought so.
God thinks so.
