Reforming Sexuality Sermon Series Outline

Reforming Sexuality Sermon Series Outline

God and Sex: Naked

We’re starting a series today on Sex. I’ll tell you from the get go that this is going to be a very difficult series for me to teach. This might be a very difficult series for you to listen to. As I prepared to teach on this series, I have read a lot of material, studied how the culture talks about, how the church talks about sex, what the bible says about sex, even what my experience has taught be about sex.

I’ve thought about all of the sermons that I have heard about sex…I couldn’t think of one. I imagine that most of you are the same. So, I expect that it doesn’t matter too much what I say, the very nature of this subject is going to make you squirm in your seat a bit, which is a good thing.

Why have a series on sex?
So the question then is why have a series on Sex? In my studies these past few weeks, I have ran across a bunch of different churches that have had recent series on sex.

• A church in Indiana put up a billboard to advertise their sex series, it said MY LAMESEXLIFE.COM…another church in Florida followed suit with MYCRAPPYSEXLIFE.COM. The pastor of that church was quoted as saying, “We were going for shock and awe…we’re trying to build a church.”
• Another Church in Minnesota presented a series title “The Naked Truth about Sex.”

Subsequently, there is a lot of conflict in the Christian community. Meanwhile, our culture sits back and watches Christians fight each other over being TOO PRUDISH or TOO RACY. No one ever wins. But, I have come to understand that there are WRONG (Increase attendance, start a buzz = bait and switch) reasons and RIGHT (equip, educate, and provide healing) reasons for a series on Sex. When speaking about spiritual warfare, C.S. Lewis warned that we cannot become too enamored with the powers of darkness nor can we ignore them. The same is with sex. We cannot speak of sex with unabashed liberty and we cannot be silent.

So why have a series on sex? The reason is quite simple. Sex is destroying us. I don’t mean that sex is destroying our world, sin did that thousands of years ago. What I mean is that sin has destroyed sex through which it is destroying our world. More times than I care to remember I have dialogued with friends and family whose marriages were following apart because of some sexual sin. There are must as many marriages not experiencing true joy because of some sexual tension, or there are marriages that are simply confused as to what exactly they are supposed to do. Issues with Sex are more common than any other foothold Satan might have and more destructive than any of us are willing to admit.

Sex is destroying individuals, marriages, and communities…it is everywhere.

I could fill your mind with statistics that would frighten you about the destructive nature of the chaos that is our sexuality today. We talk about sex. We think about sex. We look at sex. We listen to sex. We live and breathe in world that is so inundated with examples sexuality it cannot be avoided: film, music, media, internet, advertising, TV, clothing, etc.

“Sex is the effective religion of our culture” - Peter Kreeft

If this is true, which I think it is, then Sex has become in some sense a spiritual experience. What does that mean? It means that people have found a means through which to find meaning and validation. Hell is no sex. And having sex saves. But what they are really searching for is an answer to the loneliness they innately desire. And, perhaps with all the sex “options” around, all the venues to get a sexual thrill, I might be tempted to think that this “religion” might in fact have some answers. But the loneliness is still there…it doesn’t go away.

Where is the church in all of this?

Out of all the sermons I have ever heard in church, I have never heard one about sex. I mean, we don’t talk about that stuff…right? Our SILENCE and TIMIDITY has allowed the culture to snatch this God given gift right out of our hands and wave it around as if it belongs to them. I mean, if I was having some sort of sexual problem (lusts, homosexual feelings, emotional affairs) where would I turn? Is the church the first place to go? Is my pastor open enough, real enough, honest enough, to talk about this problem with any sense of empathy? OR…is he playing the same fakey game that disgusts me about all Christians. When church leadership remains silent about these issues, then the church congregations remain silent about the issues—and we all suffer.

The only thing the church can offer is condemnation

We don’t remain perfectly silent of course. We’ve allowed ourselves to get trapped into just saying “no” to the wrong forms; condemning everything that is not God’s design even if we can’t explain why. But we’ve failed to paint a more beautiful alternative picture of what fruitful Christian sex looks like. Instead of decrying the problems of the culture’s view (homosexuality, lust, defending marriage), we should extenuate the beauty of God’s design. This only perpetuates the problem.

Our parents are supposed to tell us…not the church

That’s what “parents” are supposed to do, right? Well, I don’t know what your “sex talk” was like as a kid, but let me tell you mine. I had two talks. One was from my mom who is fairly cut and dry about these sort of things. Bless her heart. I love my mom but her advice was quite simple... “If you have sex before you get married, I’ll cut off your wiener.” That is quite effective actually. Of course, she proceeded to tell me that her and my father did everything but that….wow, ,that was effective advice too.

Then there was the “DAD” talk. Perhaps it should be mentioned that my Dad never really had a talk with his parents. His parents were the people who slept in separate twin beds and probably had sex once because my Dad is adopted and they have one child. But, when I turned 15, my Dad was charged with giving me the talk. I don’t really know what is supposed to be in “the talk” but I guess I imagined that he would impart to me some “secret knowledge” that had been passed down from Father to Son for generations. That isn’t exactly what happened. He took us on a boat trip from Seattle to the San Juans—just me, my good friend Tate, and Dad. After about 10 hours of cruising, we docked at a local harbor and my Dad gave us some LIGHT BEER. Wow. I am a man today. Then, he said, “Well….I guess I am supposed to talk with you boys about sex…” I waited for some golden piece of wisdom. “All I can say is, it feels good. Goodnight, fellas.”

My parents didn’t know what to say

Honestly, I don’t think my Dad had a clue what to say. And neither does anyone else. Not even the church. But people are asking questions and the WORLD is the only one giving answers—and none of them are coming from God’s perspective. Everyone is looking for answers as to what to do with sex. If we are going to gain a hearing in today’s culture, we not only have to speak POSTIIVELY—but FRANKLY. We need to tell people that Sex is God’s Idea. We stop the hijacking of sex by culture by telling people that God does have an answer.

Now, it is quite easy to talk about sex frankly.

But, talking if we only talk about SEX, then we miss the entire meaning of the word REFORM. What we are trying to do here…to reform the view of sexuality—because it is DEFORMED! What we can’t do is try and take sex out of the larger narrative of the Bible and try to deal with it as an isolated thing.

Romans 8.20-23

20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Sex is one of those things that broke. There are only two things in this world, sex and creation. Sometimes they are creations of man, whereby their really just perversions of what God originally created (sex and pornography). But God is on a mission to restore what broke to his original design.

Revelation 21

“Behold I make all things new…” including SEX!

If we try and take SEX and lift it up high apart from God, we do the same thing that the culture has done. Sex goes from being a gift of God to be enjoyed his way to the source of salvation itself. Men and women live this out differently.

• For men, their personal hell is that they are not important, respected, or regarded. It’s not a matter of being wanted, it’s a matter of being needed. A man wants a women to be a knight for. But, when God is left out of it, then it becomes a superficial and sinful moment of accomplishment and a level of validation—a sense of conquest.

• For women, their personal hell is not to be loved, to not feel beautiful, to be unwanted. That’s why affairs with women never begin physical but invariably end there. Women make themselves available as they seek to feel beautiful by men loving them. These feelings are not wrong, per se, but with God absent, other men sometimes many men become the means by which they find their fulfillment.

Separating Creation from the Creator creates CHAOS, perversion, and destruction. This goes with any aspect of creation. When we begin to WORSHIP THE CREATION rather than the CREATOR we confuse the goodness of sex with the goodness of God and think that any form of sex is “godly”. In other words, we let our understandings, our feelings, and our experiences with creation (sex, alcohol, etc.) dictate what God is supposed to be like versus letting God dictate what how the creation is supposed to work.

Culture reflects that which is broken in Sex. Being in the church does not protect us from brokenness, but it SHOULD be a place that leads us to healing. We hope that, after the next five weeks, you will have a clearer picture of what God’s design for sex is all about. It will mean you may have to rethink or REFORM what you have understood, what you have been taught, and definitely what the culture communicates as truth about sex.

As a start to these talks, I would like to identify some of the guiding principles for our all of our talks by addressing three different cultural lies. Ascent to these three points is essential in understanding our study of sex.

#1) DEFORM: SEX is CULTURE’S IDEAREFORM: SEX is GOD’S IDEA

(READ GENESIS 1.1-28)

SEX is not a cultural invention…Sex is God’s Idea

Sex didn’t come as a result of the fall. Sex was God’s idea. It was not an accident that Adam and Eve stumbled upon when they were playing around the garden one day. He designed how our bodies would react down to the very details of both men and women.

In verse Genesis 1.27-28: YOU ARE MADE TO BE THE IMAGE BEARERS….NOW GO HAVE SEX.

Now, whenever someone talks about the image of God we talk about what distinguishes us from animals…our ability to reason like we do, relate to one another like we do, to laugh like we do, to cry like we do. But, it seems that men and women somehow bear out the image of God through their sexual activity.

How in the world does this show the spark of divinity? When God gave the man and a woman to one another, (ONE FLESH), God wants them to experience an intimacy that is profound (give yourself to one another, physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc.) in our marriages. Our relationships, in some way, especially our sexual relationships manifest the image of God.

This idea is made more clear in Genesis 2.24: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

When men and women have sex with one another, something happens that is beyond the physical. I have heard pastors call this a “mingling of souls”, in hopes of emphasizing the point that to share your body with someone is more than just a physical experience.

“You and me, baby, ain’t nothing but mammals, so let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.” Blood Hound Gang

1Cor 6.14-17

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

“Don’t you know that when you sleep with someone your body makes a promise whether you do or not.” Tom Cruise, Vanilla Sky

This physical act is much more than a physical act. It can be the most incredible sharing of intimacy, an intimacy that in some way reflects the unity and intimacy that exists within the triune God himself. But outside the protective covenant commitment, it can only destroy and hurt. If you are sitting there and just think it is nothing more than a physical act, consider the victims of

Rape, Molestation, and Incest.

#2- DEFORM: RULES = OPPRESSION  REFORM: PARAMETERS = GLORY

Our culture teaches that to have any type of rules or guidelines on our sexual activity is wrong; that it’s oppressive, self-righteous, narrow minded, puritanical….the list goes on. So, in our culture, there are very few rules. Well, there are a few. As culture changes the rules change. Go back to the Greek and Roman times, then you will see as Plato the Philosopher did that sex with children was in fact valued.

Our culture lives out what it has decided are the rules for today. It’s scary to imagine how the rules might change—especially when change is initiated by broken people with deformed views of how things should be based on their own desires. AND, honestly, it might be tempting to believe that their experimentation might in fact lead to some sort of wonderful experience. With all the different forms of what the world calls “sexual expression”, but what I’ll call “sexual perversion”, you would think that people would have found a way to foster true intimacy apart from God. They haven’t. How do we know….loneliness still exists.

In fact, I would offer that ever since the sexual revolution broke out, humanity has gotten into a dark place….what they thought was freeing them in fact enslaved them.

So there are rules, their God’s not ours.

Quite simply, God says that culture does not define your sexuality, I do. But we rebel. And like our first parents, we don’t believe God’s word and we try to play this wonderful game that God created according to our own rules. God says…this is reserved for marriage. In fact, he values marriage so much that he talks about it all time.

The Bible is a Book about Marriage and Sex

-Genesis 2.23-25 First marriage in the beginning

-Revelation 19.6-76; 9; 21.2 Last Marriage in the end

-The central themes are underlined with marriage metaphors

-The sexual, in the Bible, is a chief arena of the brokenness of sin—and therefore occupies an important place among the things Jesus came to redeem

-Song of Solomon is a collection of love and wedding songs

#3 DEFORM: GOD DOESN’T WANT US TO HAVE REFORM: GOD LOVES SEX

The problem is that people begin to think that SEX in MARRIAGE is some sort of dark, unsatisfying, unexciting, duty that we are required to perform now that we have a ring on our finger. Regardless of what people say or do, that’s not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches the Sex is God’s idea and that it is a very Good Idea

Sex can be destructive, as can anything that sin touches. People can be repressive for fear that something will become perverted—that is what legalism is all about. Many people have used the Genesis 2.28 verse to teach that “being fruitful and multiplying” is the sole purpose of sex. While clearly many in our world go to the extremes of sexual perversion, there are many who go the opposite extreme of sexual oppression. Much like the argument of liberty and grace, for fear of sex become perverse, even within the marriage context, they will avoid anything that might make sex anything more than a mechanical exchange of fluids of the purpose of reproduction.