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A Biblical Perspective of Sex and Sexuality, Part 2
From the series Caring Enough to Confront
Did you know that God created sex? He designed it so you could experience closeness and intimacy with your spouse. But in this program, guest teacher Pastor Tim Lundy laments the brokenness and immorality that has marred this beautiful gift from our Creator. Discover how, despite the ways sin has distorted human sexuality, God’s redemptive and good purposes for sex are still active today.

About this series
Caring Enough to Confront
Bringing Light Not Heat to the Most Critical Issues of Our Day
Our world right now can be characterized by one word - divided. There is a dangerous us vs. them mindset out there that is invading every aspect of society. Unfortunately, even in the name of holiness, Christians have begun thinking this way, too. So, when confronted with the hot-button issues of our day, how should followers of Jesus respond? In this vital series, we will better understand what it means to be salt and light. Join us as we explore what the Bible says about topics like abortion, politics, and sexuality and how we are to lead with grace and truth when we engage those with different beliefs.
More from this seriesMessage Transcript
Here’s one of the things I love about the Bible, the Bible is not shy about talking about sex and sexual sin. I mean, if you start just in Genesis, start at the beginning of Genesis, from this point forward and look how many times sexual sin shows up even in the first twenty-five chapters of Genesis.
I mean, you go to Genesis 6, you know why it describes why the world was flooded? The way people treated each other and there was just this rampant sexual immorality. Right after the flood, one of Noah’s sons sees him naked and there is some sexual shame or sin that he committed. You go a little bit later, there’s Abraham, father Abraham having sex with his slave, Hagar, because he’s trying to figure out a way to fulfill God’s promises his own way.
Go a little bit later, you see Lot and there’s Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah and angels come to see him and a group in the city that come for a gang rape. And Lot offers his daughters. And then Lot gets out of the city and a little bit later, Lot and his daughters, they are there, they get their dad drunk so they can sleep with him so they can have babies.
Now, even as I’m walking through that, some of you are like, “Ugh.” And this is the Bible. And by the way, it’s only focused on the people of God. I say this because the Bible is not shy about representing this distortion that has come because of sin.
And, yet, go back to the first story. What is God doing in that story? He’s looking for them. He goes and finds them. Even in their shame, even in their nakedness, even in their rebellion, even in their sin God is a God who looks for us.
And even in the middle of that, He makes a promise to them that through your seed, through sex, through a baby that will come will be a Savior. And there’s a hope and there’s redemption. I love that because redemption in Christ brings forgiveness and healing to every area of our lives including our sexuality. There’s nothing beyond the pale of Christ’s redemption. There’s no sin, there’s nothing you have done, there’s nothing beyond what Christ has accomplished for us.
I love how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians. And just to give you a little context, 1 Corinthians talks a lot about sex, because Corinth was a very sexual city. There was sex everywhere. And this church was struggling with it, by the way, in different ways.
And so, Paul, when he writes them, look how he puts it. He says, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” People who are not right with God are not part of His kingdom.
“Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral,” married or not, “nor idolators,” people that have made an idol of something in your life, “or adulterers,” now it’s talking about married people, “nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers,” will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Something on this list got you. Anybody here struggle with greed? Isn’t it funny though that’s not the sin we go to. We’re like, “Ooh, yeah, those bad sexual sins.” Paul goes, “Hey, greed is just as bad.” Any of these sins will keep you out of the kingdom of God.
But then, well, look at what he says, “And such were some of you.” That’s not you anymore. Why can he say that about them? Because they so got their life cleaned up and they are such perfect people? No, he wrote a whole letter dealing with their issues. But here’s what is true about a believer in Christ: you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
This is why he can say that about them. That is not you because of what Christ did for you. This is what it means to be justified. I have been washed by Christ, I have been declared righteous. And if God says it about me, it has to be true, because God can’t lie. But I know some of you are going, “Yeah, but Tim, I still struggle with it.” That’s where that sanctification, that’s where that journey in Christ comes of: how do I walk in my struggles, living in my identity in Christ?
And here’s the core thing I want you to take away on this, especially on this point. Our culture is trying to tell you today that your identity is your struggles, that if you’re struggling with it, that’s who you are. And that’s not what Scripture says. If you are a Christian, your identity is Christ. And all that He is and all that He has done and all that He accomplished and all of His righteousness, that’s you. And you have got to embrace that. And you go, “Yeah, but I struggle.” He’ll deal with the struggles, but you have been declared righteous in Christ.
And if we don’t start with that identity and this is one of the reasons I think we have got to talk about this more, because we are allowing the culture to convince the next generation they have a different identity based on real struggles. And we have got to call them unashamedly, “Your identity is in Christ. As we say that as well then, God’s good purpose[s] for sex are still fully in place today.
And if I were to ask you, “Why did God design sex? What’s the purpose of sex?” I don’t know what your answer would be. Bruce Miller who is a pastor in Dallas, he talks about the fourfold purpose of sex that you see in Scripture. Four reasons God gave us sex.
First of all, first one is sex is a celebration of the marriage covenant. “And so, therefore, man shall leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife, the two shall become one flesh,” this is Jesus talking, “they are no longer two but one. What God has joined together let no one separate.”
And so, Jesus is emphasizing that. When a couple comes together sexually in that, it is an ultimate celebration and I would just say this as a married couple, every time you have sex, you are renewing your vows, you are renewing your commitment to each other. It’s one of the reasons Scripture commands us sex is so important in a marriage relationship. It’s that renewal of commitment, it’s that vulnerability together, it’s that openness together in that.
What it’s teaching here is sex is not just sex. You can’t just go, “Well, it’s just sex. I’m not really making that kind of commitment, Tim, when I have sex.” Look how Paul describes it, though. He says, “Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?” In other words, don’t you know you are making that same commitment that God designed sex for as a marriage commitment? “For it is written, ‘The two shall become one flesh.’”
See, he says, “You don’t get to rewrite the design.” And as much as you tell yourself it’s just sex, it’s never just sex. You’re writing a check with your body that you may not intend on fulfilling. That’s why it’s so powerful.
The second reason for sex: Sex is for pleasure between a husband and wife. It’s for pleasure. I mean, the Bible explicitly teaches that. Look how Proverbs puts it. He says, “Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth.” And then he is describing this wife, “A lovely deer, a graceful doe.” We don’t use that language today. Back in that culture, that was like you’re saying she’s really sexy. “Let her breast fill you at all times with delight,” and look at that word, “be intoxicated always in her love.”
I mean, there’s something about celebration. Now, notice how he puts it though. He says, “rejoice in the wife of your youth.” He doesn’t say, “Rejoice in your young wife.” Nor is he saying only rejoice in your youth. What he is describing here, and here’s the picture in Scripture, it’s supposed to be a lifetime celebration, a lifetime enjoyment. Doesn’t mean it’s without struggles. There are struggle’s in everything but there’s great joy out of it.
The third reason: Sex is for the procreation of children. It’s to make babies. I love in Genesis 4 when Eve has a baby for the first time. She’s amazed by it. Genesis 4:1, it says, “Now, the man was intimate with his wife and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain and then she said, ‘I have created a man, just as the Lord did.’” Or the Hebrew also says, “With the help of the Lord.”
She literally can’t believe in the same way I was taken out of Adam, a baby is taken out of me. I get to do this, I get to be a part of this, this is unbelievable. What a gift. That’s why Psalm 127 says children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him. Do we recognize that the key part of sex is to be able to have kids?
The fourth reason is: Sex is a celebration of God’s loyal love to us. Do you realize that when a couple is committed in a sexual relationship for a lifetime, and they protect that, you get the privilege of modeling how God treats us? Paul says it in Ephesians 5, and again he’s quoting Genesis again, you see the same quotation. “A man leaves his father and mother, holds fast to his wife, the two become one flesh.” He’s talking about they come together sexually. “This is a mystery. It’s profound that two can become one. I am saying this because it refers to Christ and the Church.”
So, one of the reasons that we get this privilege of not only experiencing a sexual relationship, but protecting a sexual relationship is we get to model to the world how much God loves us and how faithful He is to us in that.
Let me give you a few more. One, as Christians, our bodies are not our own to do with as we please. If you are a Christian, you know, you hear the phrase, “My body, my choice.” That’s not true as a Christian. It’s not true. It’s not your body. If you have said before, “Well, it’s my body as long as I don’t hurt anyone else.” As a Christian, that’s not true.
Why do I say that? Go back to Corinth again, remember? Paul had to write a lot to this church about it. He says, “Flee from sexual immorality, any form of it. Every other sin a person commits outside the body, but the sexually immoral person commits sin against their own body.” Sex, when you commit sin in it, it actually hurts your own body.
And then look what he says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” If you’re a Christian, this is true of you. “…whom you have from God,” you got your body from God. And then he says it explicitly here, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body.”
It’s not your body. Jesus paid for your body. And so, everything you do with your body, everything you experience, it’s under His authority, because He’s the one that paid the price for you. And I think for all of us, if we just embrace that, the health that brings, but it also may change our thinking in some fundamental ways.
A couple other things. As husband and wife we have sexual responsibilities to each other in marriage. So, if you are married, look at this, when Paul says, “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wife to her husband, for the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” So, if you’re a Christian who is married, you doubly don’t own your body. It’s God’s first and it’s your spouse’s next. You realize that?
[A] couple more things. A committed relationship and/or cohabitation is not the same as marriage in God’s design. Look what Paul says. He says, “Concerning matters which you wrote, it’s good for a man not to have sexual relationships with a woman, but because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own,” what does he say there? “committed relationship.” No. He says, “Wife.”
If you want to stay away from sexual immorality, you have your own wife or she has her own husband. Look a little later. He addresses it explicitly. “If anyone thinks he is not behaving appropriately toward his betrothed,” so, he’s talking to a guy. You’re engaged, you’re in this relationship, and you keep crossing the line. “If his passions are strong and it has to be, let him do as he wishes. Let them marry. It’s no sin.” You hear his prescription. Get married.
And even as I say that, some of you maybe here today, you’re living together or you’re in a sexual relationship as a couple. And as I say that, you just feel the weight of that. Or a lot of times, you feel stuck. You’re just like, “Okay, we want to but we can’t.” Here’s my commitment to you. I’ve got to speak to you the truth of what the Bible says so that you know what that truth is. And then here’s our commitment as a church: Let us walk with you. Talk to someone.
I promise you, we only teach this because there is freedom. But if your temptation is to hide or to ignore it, you’re not going to experience the freedom that Christ offers.
Give you my last point here and then we are going to close out. According to God’s good design, sex will be surpassed in the new creation. You say, “What do you mean by surpassed?” No sex in heaven? I don’t think so. From what I can tell, look how Jesus puts it. Jesus said to them, “You are wrong because you neither know the Scripture or the power of God,” they are trying to trap Him with a question. He says, “For in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.” And so, that marriage oneness, that bonding that comes out of that, it’s not in heaven.
Now, we’ll still have relationships in heaven. I have full expectation to see my wife and family and all that. But from what I can read out of it, sex is not a part of that.
Now, as I say that, some of you are like, “I don’t know if I want to go to heaven without sex.” I remember hearing this as a teenager, my first thought was, “Oh crud, I’ve got to get married and have sex before Jesus comes back.” Yeah, I mean, and maybe you feel that right now and the reason you feel that, it’s those desires God has given you. They are good desires. Remember, sex is a good thing.
But just for a moment, if we can’t conceive of a place that is good without sex, what does that say about the position we’re giving sex? If Jesus says in Revelation that He can make all things new and the reason I use the word “surpass,” God has got something better than sex for you that my mind can’t conceive it in some ways.
More joyous, more pleasurable, even greater and no one is limited from it, whether you’re married or single, whoever you are. We enjoy that together. See, it takes faith to actually believe that, doesn’t it? But that’s what Christ offers. If you’re here today and in my blitz I hit something that you’re struggling with, right now, the emotion Satan wants you to feel the most is hide. Don’t tell anybody. Because he likes you trapped and he likes you where you are.
And so, I say that no matter what issue I talked about, of people who are struggling - struggling with adultery and struggling with sexual immorality, if people that you’re struggling with pornography, struggling with same-sex attraction, struggling with sexual identity… the Church has all that. And, by the way, this is the place to be to struggle with all that. Because we serve a God of grace and truth that can lead us into freedom.