I think that it is safe to state that American’s are obsessed with sex. Sex seems to be a requirement for successful advertising. It seems that every sitcom and movie is required to include at least one scene and or instance of sexual humor. It seems that it is the priority in human relationships today. You might be surprised to learn that the Bible speaks about sex but makes a different emphasis from popular culture.
The last five weeks we have been looking at specific areas that are problem-causing in most marriages. Our emphasis to discover what God could teach us about finding the true meaning of marriage has lead us to the book of Genesis. Genesis once again provides instruction in the area of sex. “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.” (Genesis 2:24–25) This passage is essentially the first marriage sermon. It is in these few words that we gain a glimpse of God’s intention for sex, that married couples would engage in it! We see this in the phrase “and they become one flesh.” Now I believe that this phrase includes several truths about marriage and one of them is, God expects married couples to engage in sex. This should not come as a surprise since God fashioned the man and woman so that they could have sex. He also, on the sixth day of creation, after reviewing the day’s efforts, which include what is mentioned above, states, “It is very good.”
Now God intended that there would be several outcomes from sex. The one that we might fail to see is for the married couple’s enjoyment. This comes out in several Bible passages, but seems most clear in one passage from Proverbs. King Solomon, the smartest man to ever live, instructs his son in Proverbs 5 about the psychological, financial, moral and spiritual dangers of sex outside of marriage. It is in this section that he encourages his son to find his enjoyment in his wife, not other women or sources. “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.” (Proverbs 5:18–19) So God wants you to enjoy sex within the boundaries of marriage.
The challenge for most married couples is that we have adopted the culture’s definitions that making love is the equivalent of having sex. We have stripped the meaning of love limiting it to being a romantic feeling. And we have made “making love” or sex as the logical conclusion. Sex outside of marriage may have become more common as sex within marriage. We have removed a relational commitment from sex. Today we have allowed sex to become nothing more than casual entertainment, no different from the thrill of a roller coaster ride at an amusement park. And when it is over we look forward to the next ride. The reality is that this emphasis on sex has left many feeling emotionally empty and longing for something to fill the void of the soul. It is because God’s design for sex is that it would be the product of a loving relationship between a married man and woman.
Let me encourage you to check my recent message on “Making Sex an Act of Love” (click here) where I will encourage you to discover better sex by working on your relationship with your spouse. I suggest making time for sex by making time for your relationship, making sex voluntary and I encourage you to move from the stage 1 form of love: feeling to the stage 2 form of love: commitment.