Of all lifegroup discussion topics to deal with, this one may be the most difficult. We will talk about it in this session, but please know that nobody is required to share anything that they don’t want to.
Sex is GOOD!
So, the second service was really happy about this idea. Apparently, preachers don’t say this enough.
Is this the message that The Church tends to send? Do you think we are willing enough to talk about sex in church?
Just in case you didn’t get it the first time, one of the “good sex” passages I pointed to on Sunday was Proverbs 5:19… Here, I’ve included two verses:
Proverbs 5:18-19 NLT
Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you.
Rejoice in the wife of your youth.
She is a loving deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts satisfy you always.
May you always be captivated by her love.
But something is wrong
Scripture clearly tells us that something has gone really wrong in our sex lives. Lust has run away with us.
How have we seen this in our culture?
Paul warns us about our sexual behavior:
Ephesians 4:17-19
With the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.
God calls us to a covenant relationship, and sex is a big part of that. How is that different from the consumer relationships that our culture defines?
Lust and sexual sin takes us away from God. It disfigures, disappoints and deadens us to a covenant relationship. It makes ME the center of my universe.
But, in Ephesians, and in 1 Corinthians, we are introduced to the concept of “mutual submission…”
1 Corinthians 7:3-4 NLT
The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.
How is this radically different than our culture’s version of sexual relationships?
1 Corinthians 6:15-20 NLT
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.
Did you notice that your body is part of Christ, and that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Why body and not soul?
What does this mean about how we should treat our bodies?