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Grace City Church The Truth About Sex In Marriage Josh McPherson – March 13, 2016 1 Corinthians 7:1-5 Good morning! This is the sermon you've all been waiting for; here we are. If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), I encourage you to open to First Corinthians 7. It's in the New Testament, and if you don't know where that is, there's an index in the front of your Bible. First Corinthians 7 is where we'll do the preponderance of our work this morning. I titled my sermon The Truth About Sex In Marriage. As I contemplated the wall of misinformation the culture is rolling over you every day in most every song you hear, conversation you have, billboard you look at, or advertisement you take in, I thought, "What could I do in 45 minutes…" By the way, the clock isn’t started, so I'm going to make it 50 unless you start it. What could I say in 45 minutes that would have a prayer of slicing through the fog our culture creates? I decided I'm going to throw as much as is humanly possible against the wall of your life and hope something sticks. I'm going to say as much as I can about God's plan for sexuality. In saying that I want you to realize there's going to be no in-depth study here. I'm going to talk about a few snowflakes on top of the iceberg of sexuality, so even as I rush to cram things down our necks, I realize I'm just scratching the surface. Acknowledge this is going to be a bit of a snowstorm this morning, but it's because I'm young, impetuous, and basically have no self-control. That's what you're going to get, so buckle up. Here we go. You're going to have to work to keep up with me. Grace City Church

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As I contemplate this topic, I want to lay out seven progressive biblical foundational presuppositions to what I'm going to teach you and the commands that God gives in Scripture to us about sex in marriage. Each one of these I'm going to assume, not argue for. Each of these is a sermon we could take an hour to unpack and study. I'm going to give seven sermons to you in seven minutes. Are you ready? Here we go. Here are seven essential foundational biblical progressive presuppositions as we come to this conversation of sexuality. The first one is this: sex was God's idea. God created sexuality in the garden, when it all started in Genesis. He made a man, and he designed his body a certain way. He made a woman, and he designed her body a certain way. He put them in the garden with no clothes and said, "Have a great time." In paradise, there were no clothes. They were naked and running around. That's why I bought an orchard; I intend to bring paradise back. This is a really great way to go through life. Anybody who thinks God is a killjoy hasn't read the Bible. Sex was God's idea. If you're new to this show that might be a news flash for you, but he made it. He's not anti-sex. He's the originator of it. Biblical presupposition number two: sex is a powerful reality. The culture wants you to think it's nothing more than a biological function. You get an itch; you scratch it. You get hungry; you go eat something. You get some hormonal urges; you go have sex with somebody. It's not a big deal as long as it's consensual. No harm, no foul, no big thing. It's just a biological function. Nothing could be further from the truth. When sex is engaged in or participated in outside of God's plan, it has devastating results because it's more than just a biological function. If you eat a pizza (not the healthiest thing for you to eat), it's not super devastating. If you have sex outside of marriage, it's devastating. Conversely, if you exercise God's gift of sex inside God's design for sex, it has profoundly extraordinary effects and blessings associated with it because it's a powerful reality.

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So sex is God's idea, which is why sex is such a powerful reality, which is why sex is such a good gift. God made the act of sex. He made it powerful, pleasurable, and fulfilling, and he gave it to humanity, or more specifically, to husbands and wives, as a gift for us to enjoy. God isn’t against our sexual gratification or our longing for pleasure. He made that in us to be fulfilled in sex. It's a good gift from God. As Driscoll has written about in the book many of you are reading, sex is not gross, to be rejected. That's not the Christian worldview. Neither is the Christian worldview that sex is a god to be worshiped and adored. That's rejected as well. The Christian worldview is that sex is a gift from a good Father to be received with a grateful heart, which is why… Sex is talked about a lot in the Bible. I could spend hours proving my case, but I won't. I'm just going to have you trust me, take my word for it, read your Bible, and realize how much sex is explicitly and implicitly taught and referenced all throughout the Bible. The culture has a lot of opinions on sex: Men's Health Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, GQ (all of these sources), Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, Oprah, The Beatles, Coldplay. Everybody has an opinion on sex. Some of the things they have to say have echoes of truth in them, but what they're sharing are all inside of a broken narrative. Thankfully, the Bible has a lot to say about sex, and all of it is better than anything the world could offer. We don't have to look far for instruction; the Bible is very, very clear. It's right, true, helpful, instructive, timeless, time-tested, and for your good, which is why… Sex is Satan's main target of perversion. There's a reality about Satan you need to be aware of. Satan cannot create anything. God is the Creator; Satan is the Deceiver, Perverter. He can't create anything. He can only take that which God has made and pervert and distort it. It's not as if Satan is up there going, "Hey, let's see if we can come up with something better than sex to tempt people with. He can't do that. He's not good, and he can't make good things. He can only take that which is good and pervert it.

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Here's an analogy for you; it has a lot of holes in it, so don't shoot at it too much. God has a burger joint, and Satan has a burger joint. The only difference is God can make hamburgers; Satan can't make hamburgers, but nobody knows that out there. So God makes his burgers, and Satan, to have something to sell, has to go to the back alley of God's burger shop, dig through the trash, and find all the stuff that was thrown out (all the half-eaten burgers and the slime burgers… He pulls them out of the junkyard, and he's like, "Whoa." He brings them over, sprays some perfume on them, infuses them with food coloring, dresses it up, and charges a little less for it. And you buy it. That's sex outside of God's design for marriage. He can't create anything better than what God has made; he can only take what God has made and pervert it, distort it, and tempt you with that, which is why… Sex needs to be renewed in our minds. When it comes to sexuality, there is a lot of confusion in the church today. If anyone on the planet should be clear on this issue of sexuality, it should be us, the church. This is our thing. This is our deal. Our God made this; we should be clear on it. I can only conclude it's either due to our lack of knowledge of God's Word and his story, or our ignorance, or our stubbornness of receiving it. Either way, we ignore it to our own peril. What the church desperately needs is the renewing of the mind in this area related to sexuality. Like Paul says in Romans 12:2, do not be conformed to this world, but rather be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that by testing you may discern what the will of God is related to this issue of sexuality, what is good and acceptable and perfect. You are having things come at you all day long you're making decisions on. This is a sermon for married people and single people. All of us are sexual beings, and all of us will make decisions on how to handle and deal with our sexuality. God has a plan for us (married and singles). If we follow it, it will result in much blessing and grace, but if we peel off the road from it, it will result in much devastation, heartache, and long-term ramifications and consequences.

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There needs to be a renewing of our minds because all of us came into the world broken by sin, especially in this area of sexuality. Many Christians have their minds shaped more by the world than the Word. I was having a conversation with a man four or five weeks ago. He's a godly, growing man. He's walking with Jesus. He's in the Word. He's leading his home. He's loving his wife. He's in the game. He's trying. He's been following Jesus for about six or seven years, and yet as he talked about some struggles he and his wife are having and some things they were working through sexually, I heard come out of his mouth the framework of the world regarding sexuality. Again, he's walking with Jesus. He loves the Lord. His mind is being renewed by the Word of God. He's in the game and leading his home, but I heard thinking related to this area, and I instantly thought that framework was built in his mind from pornography and locker room conversations. It's still there, and he's working from it. He's just wrong. He has wrong views of what a woman needs and what a man needs to do. It's all broken and all wrong, and it's hindering their relationship because he's working from a wrong framework. All of us need our minds renewed in this area of sexuality, which is why… Sex should be talked about at church. That's where I was going. Sex should be talked about at church because I would argue that it's disrespectful to be ashamed of talking about something God the Creator has made. Here's what I mean; listen to Dr. Al Mohler: "Christians have no right to be embarrassed when it comes to talking about sex and sexuality. An unhealthy reticence or embarrassment in dealing with these issues is a form of disrespect to God's creation. Whatever God made is good, and every good thing God made has an intended purpose that ultimately reveals His own glory. When 'conservative' Christians respond to sex with ambivalence or embarrassment, we slander the goodness of God and hide God's glory which is intended to be revealed in the right use of creation's gifts."

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We have to get over this wrong-placed embarrassment of the topic as if it were taboo, because it's killing our culture that we're not talking about it. It's killing our culture that we're not thinking, wrestling, and writing about it. We're not processing and embodying it so they can see a different narrative and a different story to follow other than the broken, devastating one they're currently in. We need to be prophetic in how we speak about it in truth and pastoral in how we embody it in compassion. We need to be frank. We need to talk about it. I had a conversation with a gentleman after first service. He said, "I've been going to church for 63 years and I've never heard one sermon on this topic." That's a tragedy. Now he's been reading his own Bible and doing his own study, and I said, "How are things going?" He said, "Oh, things are going really well. But how come we're not talking about it?" I said, "I don't know." Not only should we talk about it, but we need to talk about it in a certain way. I'm going to give you three words that should shape how we as believers talk about it and how I'm going to talk about it this morning. The first word is waitingness. There should be a sense of waitingness when we talk about this topic of sexuality that's not flippant or cavalier, but weighty. This topic of sexuality is connected to the greatest realities in the universe that God created sex to display and reveal to us. As well, it's one of Satan's primary targets of attack, so there should be an appropriate sense of waitingness and seriousness when we talk about this issue of sexuality. The second word that should define how we talk about sexuality is gladness. Sexuality is one of God's greatest gifts where a husband and wife can experience some of the greatest pleasure. It's wonderful, it's good, and it should be talked about with great joy and great thanksgiving. There should be an aroma and essence of gladness around this topic of sexuality in the church. No shame, gladness. The third word that should shape our conversation about sexuality is frankness. It's a part of God's creation, and God created it to be good. Too many non-Christians think the church's view Grace City Church

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on sex is it's taboo; they see Christians as prudes. That's unfortunate because the Bible is everything but prudish when it comes to talking about sexuality. Christian men and women, while being modest, respectful, reverent, appropriate, and honoring, should never be prudes. Just for the record, your pastor and his wife are not prudes. If you need a stuffy, prudish pastor, you will need to go somewhere else, because we flat out have a lot of fun. Okay, here we go. It's just going to get better, so buckle up. Sex was God's idea, which is why sex is a powerful reality, which is why sex is such a good gift, which is why sex is talked about a lot in the Bible, which is why sex is Satan's main target of perversion, which is why sex needs to be renewed in our minds through the teaching of the Word and the work of the Holy Spirit, which is why sex should be talked about at church. Ready to go? Are we set up? Do those all make sense? Good, okay. Any questions? Awesome. The big idea this morning is the best sexual experience in the world comes not through mastering a technique but rather through cultivating a covenant. The best sex in the world comes not through mastering the six or seven hottest techniques that Cosmopolitan has to offer but rather through the cultivation of a holy, exclusive, sacred covenant. This means, then, the most amazing sexual experience possible can only happen within the covenant of marriage as God intended. There are two audacious commands Paul gives us here in First Corinthians 7. I'm guessing you've either read them but never caught them, or never read them. I want to unpack them for you, because they're in the Bible. You think, "Why are we talking about this in church?" Because any kid can read this at home in his Bible. This is in the Bible; this is God's instruction to us. Let's not be junior high kids about this. Let's be adults and see what God has to say about this topic. First Corinthians 7:1: "Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: 'It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.'" Here's the scenario. Paul's writing to the Corinthian church. It's a new church plant, and they're totally messed up. A few chapters Grace City Church

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earlier, Paul has to say, "Hey, you should probably stop sleeping with your mom." When somebody has to give that instruction to a church, that church is messed up. He says, "Hey, stop sleeping with your mom, and you need to get married before you can have sex…" Because they were total pagans immersed in their culture. They get saved, and now they're like, "Okay well now what do we do?" Paul says, "There is a distinctly Christian sexual ethic, and I'm going to instruct you in it." So he does that with the letter; apparently, he's responding to a question they had which apparently went something like this: "Well if sex is bad, then to be holy we must abstain from it." Paul's going to go, "No, no, you have it all wrong. First, sex isn’t bad. Second, you shouldn't abstain from it except in certain scenarios." He's going to actually go against their wrong thinking with a very, very explicit command which comes in First Corinthians 7:2: "But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband." I'm reading from the ESV because I lost my NIV yesterday. I don't know where it is. That's what I'm working from today. Here's what he's saying: "All of you have sexual desires. That's good, normal, and right. God gave you those sexual urges, and unless you have the gift of celibacy (which is real), you should have a longing and desire to be married. That's perfectly normal and perfectly right. God says, "Yes," and, "Amen." What Paul is doing here is not condemning sinful sex outside of marriage. He is commending good sex that happens inside of marriage. Do you see the difference? He's not condemning sex; he's commending marriage as the place where sex is to take place. Many people think Christians are anti-sex. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let the record show Grace City Church's official position on sex is that we are pro. We are for it. We think it's awesome and incredible, and we say, "Yes," and, "Amen, go for it," inside of God's intended design.

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Young men, if you want to experience God's gift of sex, great. You need to get married, which means you need to get a job, which means you may need to get an education, which means you might need to stop playing video games. You might need to go actually find a woman and have a real conversation with her, court her properly, talk to her dad, pursue her in an honorable way, make her an honest woman, engage her with a ring, get some premarital counseling, read your Bible, love Jesus, live in the counsel of community, serve in the church, get married, and enjoy the benefits of the marriage bed. Don't take the shortcut for short-term pleasure that will bring long-term devastation. Exercise some self-control and restraint now to experience long-term, better, and deeper satisfaction. Single ladies, don't give it to him. Don't take this precious gift God gave you to give and think it's just something for you to lose. Virginity is a gift for you to give. Don't give it to him without a cost. Don't undermine his need and desire to make you an honest woman and to do the hard work of cutting his own firewood, carrying his own firewood, and building his own home. You keep that gift as a means of motivation for him to be a man, and then you bless him with that precious gift on your wedding night. I'm telling you, it's just fireworks all over the moon. It's awesome! Sex is like fire. I think that's a helpful analogy. When you build a small fire in the confines and restrictions of a big, cold, immovable rock granite hearth, that fire will burn hot and long and heat the whole house for many years to come. Somebody say, "Amen." Do we have some warm households out there? Two. Okay, good. Well I'm going to keep preaching then; more of you need to hear this. If you build that same fire out in the middle of the living room, it'll still burn hot for a short amount of time, but it'll burn the house down, and then it's over. There can be short-term gratification in the sexual experience outside of God's design, but you're going to find it's going to be increasingly less return on ever-increasingly wild experiences. You will ever-increasingly

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experience the return on your investment decreasing as you build the fire outside of God's design. You build that fire in the hearth, and it will burn hot and long night after night after night… All you have to do is keep throwing wood on it, and it will heat that house for 63 years (I heard it confirmed this morning). But if you build a fire in the kitchen, it'll burn hot for a few minutes, and then it'll destroy everything around it. That's the power of the gift of sexuality. Here comes the command. Paul is going to give a command to married couples right here in your Bible that anybody can read (you've probably missed it). If you're not a believer, I'm so excited you're here. If you don't follow Jesus, I want you to hear God's command to married people. Are you ready? Here it is. Married couples, be sexually active. Don't you just love this? Intimacy is commanded by God. You're thinking, "That can't be true." Look at verse three: "The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights…" Now what does that mean in English? Does anybody have an NIV here? What does it say? "The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife…" Gentlemen, you have a duty here. There's one spirit-filled brother in the house. You have a duty here. A lot of guys in the house have had trouble memorizing Scripture. Every guy in the house just memorized that Scripture right there, so we're already making progress. This is your marital duty. This is your obligation before God. Here's a kind of cool thing. In the Greek language, there is much more grammatical access to wording things differently than the English language has access to. For instance, there are many different kinds of tenses of verbs. There are verbs that describe past tense action, future tense action, present tense singular action, and action you should take if you have time. Then we come to what we call the present imperative verb. You need to praise God for the present imperative verb Paul uses here. The present imperative verb means to "do an action in Grace City Church

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an ongoing and continual daily manner," meaning whatever you're commanded to do in that tense is something you should be doing right now, every day, and never stop doing until you die. Somebody say, "Amen," for the Greek language. Are you loving this sermon? I'm loving this sermon, and I'm loving Greek. Greek is awesome. This means, men, your wife has sexual needs and desires. Husbands, listen up. It's your Godgiven responsibility to meet those needs. She comes to you and says, "Honey, I think I'd like to…" You snap to and say, "Yes, ma'am, reporting for duty." This is your obligation before God. This is part of being a godly man. This means you need to ask questions, talk, listen, and know what she needs and wants. This means you are to be concerned about fulfilling her needs and satisfying her every desire. Isn't that an awesome verse? Nobody should leave here complaining about the sermon today. You're getting your money's worth today. Aren't you glad we're a church that takes the Bible literally. I'm glad. I love my job. The Puritans (actually, this is hilarious) were known for their theology, doctrine, rigorous study of the Word, incredible writings, and pious holy living. There are recorded documented scenarios of the Puritans exercising church discipline on men who were not sexually satisfying their wives. How would you like to be at that church meeting? How does that even go? "We're gathered here this evening to discuss the serious matter of sin in the life of Joe Schmuck. We find him guilty of being, sexually, a lame duck." That'd put the fear of God in you. As God is my witness, that will never be me, but let's make this happen, babe, how are we doing? It was viewed that seriously by the Puritans. In Song of Solomon, it's interesting to note, there's lots of communication from the woman. She's doing much of the sexual initiation, talking, directing, often speaking the most and speaking freely. There's none of this mind-guessing stuff, ladies. We need pictures and a checklist. Keep it simple for us, because we don't know jack about women. Help us out.

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He uses the present imperative verb there for men to fulfill their marital duties, which is awesome (praise God), but it doesn't stop there. Ladies, you have a verse too. "The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband." This sermon just keeps getting better! Do you know, men, what that actually says in the Greek? It says exactly what every dude in this room hopes it says: every wife should give to her husband his marital rights as a duty. Here's the thing. Too often sex gets negotiated in marriage. Paul is saying, "No deal." This is not about taking; it's about giving. It's not about demanding; it's about serving. It's the husband and wife saying, "Sweetie-pie, whatever makes you happy." We're serving each other. We're loving each other. We're taking care of each other's needs so there's mutual joy and satisfaction. That's the biblical portrait of sex in marriage: both parties being served and having their needs fulfilled and met by one who is trying to outdo in serving the other. Paul gives us a reason for this command in verse 4: "For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does." This sermon just got chauvinistic! Not at all; it's beautiful. This is so helpful for us. So many women are like, "Don't touch me!" What do you mean, "Don't touch me"? Some women come into my office, and I had a lady say, "My husband just can't keep his hands off me." I was like, "So what's the problem?" I can remember my grandpa walking through the kitchen, slapping my grandma in the rear, and her going, "Vernon! You'll scare the children!" Then she'd go, "Ah heck," turn around, and give him a big smooch. My grandpa would go whistling out the door. I had no idea why my grandpa was always so happy; I do now. It's awesome, because my grandma and grandpa were good, biblical Christians. "For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does." Here's what this practically means. The husband has a level of jurisdiction over the wife's body and appearance. For instance, in the McPherson home, Sharon knows it's a capital punishment to

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go get her hair cut short. Josh likes long hair. Her body is not her own, and if she came home with a bob cut, I would have a conniption fit. She called one day and said, "Hey, babe, guess what." I said, "What?" (I'm driving). She said, "I got my hair cut." "You what? It's gone? No more ponytail?" She's like, "Ah, I'm just kidding." I said, "I'm coming home just to see it and make sure!" You think, "Well, that's chauvinistic," no, it's beautiful. My wife understands her body is not her own, what she wears, how she looks… She wants to keep herself physically fit and attractive sexually for her husband. That's an awesome thing. Don't worry, ladies, you have your verse too. Here it comes. "For the wife does not have authority over her own body…" "This church is so chauvinistic." "…but the husband does." Hang on there. "Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does." Let it go, ladies. Whoo, yeah! See, Jesus loves you. This is so good. What this means practically, ladies, is if you don't want to hug a furry grizzly bear, guess what. It's time for him to shave. If you don't like the Tarzan jungle hair ears, men, it's time to get some clippers. Dudes, if she wants to look at two eyebrows, not one, you find the clippers, and you shave it off. Your body is not your own, dudes. It's your bride's. This is how it works out practically for us in the McPherson home. I have a problem. I think it's deep psychological wounding from my parents, and I told this in first service, but for some reason I don't think consciously a lot about fashion. My mind is concentrated on lots of exciting stuff in the future, and none of it revolves around fashion. You're like, "Well I could have told you that." Well thanks. My brother is completely different. Carey is the picture of fashion, but I didn't get that gene. One of my issues is… For instance (this is not a joke), if you run up to me sometime this week and tell me, "Josh, close your eyes." If I close my eyes, and you ask me what I'm wearing, 50

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times out of 100 I can't tell you what I'm wearing. I will have to conjure up images that I saw in the truck window when I closed the door. I just don't think about it. I put on clothes, it works, and I'm out the door. My mind is consumed with a thousand more important things, at least in my world. Here's how it works when we get ready to go for a date. I come out, and Sharon looks like a million bucks in heels… She looks like a million bucks in anything, really. See how I reeled that back in? That was awesome. So I come out, and in the radiance of her beauty, I become slightly self-conscious. I go, "Ready to go?" And then I'll say, "Hey, how do I look?" My wife is so sweet; this is what she'll say: "You look like you." To which I'll typically respond, "I am so sorry. Let me see if I can go fix this." My body is not my own; it's my wife's, and she has a right to it. John Piper summarizes this text by saying, "I think this text implies that husbands and wives have a spiritual duty to try to be attractive to each other. None of us can compete with the sex symbols of our day. And we shouldn't try. There are some of us, in fact, who put far too much emphasis on exterior appearances. But surely the biblical way is a balance between a nervous self-consciousness about every wrinkle and pound and gray hair on the one side, and on the other side a thoughtless negligence that gives no attention to the way our partner would like us to dress or eat or bathe or act in public. The exhortation of this Scripture is that we should be sexually satisfying to our spouses…" Here's the point: the underlying basis for Paul's insistence on husbands and wives to give each other their dues is his conviction about the responsibilities rather than the rights of each married person. The husband has no rights over his body, and neither does the wife over hers. Each have that right of the other person's body, and both of them have responsibility, obligation, and the privilege to serve and love and care for the other person. Paul is nailing any sort of selfishness (which has no place in the marriage bed) to the wall. The marriage bed, rather, is a place of safety and self-giving. It's a place where the husband and Grace City Church

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wife out of joy are focused on outdoing one another in serving the other. When this orientation is in place, the marriage bed soars to new heights, but when the marriage bed becomes about me, what I want, demanding, and taking, the marriage bed will sag, drift, and eventually crash. This is why Paul's approach of a quality and mutuality would have been revolutionary in his day and in ours. The average experience of sexually active adults, married or single, is one of the men taking what they think they possess, or the women taking what they think is due them. Paul is saying this isn’t male chauvinism; this is bestowing both spouses with the same equal rights to each other as sexual equals. He's not stressing duty of either spouse at the expense of the other. He puts them both on the same level of responsibility and privilege. That's command number one. Here's command number two. Are you ready? Married couples, don't not be sexually active. Just when you didn't think it could get any better, it does. Command number one: be sexually active. Command number two: don't not be sexually active. Yes, that's a double negative; take it up with Paul. Verse 5 (this is a command): "Do not deprive one another, except perhaps…" That's a double weak exception. "…except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." This is the second use of the imperative verb Paul uses. The first was that husbands and wives should fulfill their marital duties, and now it's to not deprive one another of the gift of sex. Be sexually active, and just in case you didn't get that message, don't not be sexually active in the marriage. It's interesting to note the concession he gives here is very weak. It must be for an agreed upon amount of time, it must be for a specific purpose of prayer, and it must have an end date to it.

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For the record, the McPherson home has never exercised this exception clause. Somebody else can pray; we're all about that action, boss. Anyway, the point here is Paul is calling out wives withholding sexual relations and using it to manipulate and husbands withholding sexual relationship in the name of being spiritual. He's saying, "No, no, unless you have an agreed upon, mutual agreement to sustain you through the abstaining of it, you're active. You're in the game. In other words (if you flip it around), if you are depriving your spouse of normal marital relations, you're in sin and need to repent. Ironically, the one oftentimes who holds back sexuality takes the self-righteous road ("Well, until we get things squared away in our marriage, we shouldn't participate.") Baloney. Perhaps precisely when you are struggling in marriage is when you should press into the gift of sexuality, not withdraw from it. This is one of Sharon's and my favorite ways to resolve an argument. We're at an impasse and can't figure it out? Well you know what that means. You'd be surprised how many arguments this thing has resolved. Don't withdraw from this gift when things get hard; move in and press into it and watch God's blessing flow. What's the reason for this? He gives it at the end of verse 5: "Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of selfcontrol." Here's the reality: when a husband and wife withhold marital relations from the other, they're opening the other one up to sexual temptation. They are needlessly making the other vulnerable to Satan. Sex is one way couples can wage spiritual warfare. Ladies, you want to invite division, dysfunction, spiritual warfare, and discord into your marriage? Just turn off the sex. Very few things will kill a marriage quicker.

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The irony, as I have mentioned, is you will oftentimes choose to withhold it when you have marriage problems, but you'll multiply the problems tenfold. It might be the solution to the problem is reengaging in this gift. Obviously, if there is sexual perversion or abuse in the life of a spouse, that is an exception. Ladies, if your husband is cheating on you, forcing you, or in perversion, don't serve his self-centered, devil-fueled needs. Call us and we'll take him out and shoot him. Other than that, there are no biblical warrants for you to withhold that. Are there some legitimate reasons? Yes, pregnancy, complications, sickness, travel… Totally, but there are many illegitimate reasons we often give. The other doesn't deserve it, it was something they did, they haven't earned it due to something they didn't do, abuse from past relationships, past hurts, misuse of sex in current relationships, not feeling appreciated, not feeling sexually fulfilled, loss of motivation, using it as leverage in an argument, using it because they're resentful… None of those things are biblically warranted for you to withhold this gift, which means you're in sin and need to repent. Don't think you'll make things better by violating God's commands here. I want to end here. Eight things we can learn about sex in marriage. I have six minutes to give you eight things, so buckle up, and we'll see if we can land the plane. I said I'll just keep throwing stuff and see what sticks. Here we go: eight things we learn about sex in marriage. 1. Sex is for our pleasure. Not one time are children mentioned in this text. Not one time are children mentioned in the book of Song of Solomon. Children and procreation are one of the many gifts of sexuality, but they're not the only benefit of it. Sex was also given for our pleasure. God didn't make a naked man and woman, put them in the garden together, go to make a turkey sandwich, come back, and be like, "What are they doing down there? Oh my goodness, I had no idea! How'd they figure that out?" Who do we think God is? God made this for pleasure and enjoyment, and we should receive it as a gift.

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2. Sex is for knowledge. Sexual intimacy is where a person is most vulnerable. You know them at a level that nobody else should know them. A husband and wife know each other like this. They know their sin and their failures. They forgive and give grace. They know their shortcomings, fears, vulnerabilities, hopes, dreams, aspirations, and desires. All of that intimacy leads to intimacy in the bedroom where they can know each other sexually like no one else knows them. The intimacy a husband and wife experience mentally, emotionally, and spiritually then crescendos and is embodied in the intimacy they experience physically. Sexuality and the gift of sex increases our ability to be intimate and to know our spouse. 3. Sex cultivates servanthood. I love this. It cultivates servanthood because it doesn't work any other way. Oh, you can have sex, but for sex to work as God has designed it and bring the robust and ever-increasing glory, joy, satisfaction, and pleasure, there must be two servants vying to outdo the other and serving the other within the covenant of marriage. Sex is about giving and serving, not demanding and taking. We've seen that all morning. The focus of the marriage bed is, "How can I serve you?" This is huge. The spouse is supposed to initiate conversation about the other's satisfaction. Too many wives spend energy trying to avoid their husbands. This is passive-aggressive deprivation, and it will kill him. Too many husbands just see sex as something that they'll take whatever they can get. "Well, I'll be on good behavior for three hours this morning so maybe I can get some tonight." That's so lame! It's not about how you can manage your behavior to get something for yourself; it's how you can come with a servant's heart to serve the needs of your spouse and watch it blossom into something more glorious than you could ever imagine it could become. 4. Sex is mutual, not manipulative, meaning it's not the husband's right and the woman's duty. It's the husband and wife's privilege to dutifully and joyfully serve the other. Never allow physical intimacy to fall to negotiations. Never use sexuality to manipulate, ever. That is a cruel Grace City Church

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form of sin, and it will kill any form of love, hope, respect, warmth, or oneness in a marriage faster than you can blink an eye. 5. Sex brings comfort. Paul is so clear as to the essential nature of a husband and wife actively, regularly, consistently, and joyfully participating in this relationship that he twice gives the command in the text to be active. Be sure you do it, and be sure you're not not doing it. One of the reasons is it brings great comfort. Life is difficult and hard; when you get married, in many ways it becomes harder. There's more obligation, more responsibility, and more vulnerability. When you kid into that mix… Holy mackerel. Then you add another kid… Holy smokes. You add another kid… Holy berries. You add a fourth kid like we did, and it's just off the tracks stressful, hard, and difficult. God gave a built-in vacation for husbands and wives to experience anywhere, anytime, and anyplace in this gift of sexuality. So, your husband comes home from a crazy day at work; he's stressed and exhausted. Wives, minister to him. Love on him. Call him that day, and give him a little heads up: "If you come home, I'll make it worth your while." Care for him, and you will send him back out on the day armed for battle, women. Does anybody want to send their man out armed for battle tomorrow? Yes! Dudes, your wife's tired. She's exhausted. Take the kids; give her a day off, man. Let her have some time alone, make herself beautiful, get her hair or nails done, or just be alone for a while so she can take a deep breath. Love her. Serve her. Care for her. This is one way we can take such good care of the other, because it brings comfort. 6. Sex creates unity. This is important for singles to understand, because you can honor God with your body sexually and actually experience God's blessing for sexuality when you're not even engaging in it. Sex was given as a commitment apparatus, meaning it has a uniting effect between two individuals. The world says, "It's a biological function. You can do it with whoever

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you want, wherever you want, as long as it's consensual. It's not a big deal; there are no actual ramifications." Who thinks that's true? That's baloney. That's why the girl expects a callback the next day, which the dude has no obligation to do socially, morally, or covenantially. They just met at a party that night, yet she hopes he calls. The impulse is there because the act of sex has a powerful, uniting effect. That's why Paul, earlier in the text, is flabbergasted they're having sex with prostitutes. Your body is not your own. You just gave them a piece of your body; what are you thinking? Tim Keller states, "…if you have sex outside marriage, you will have to steel yourself against sex's power to soften your hear toward another person and make you more trusting. The problem is that, eventually, sex will lose its covenant-making power for you, even if you one day do get married. Ironically, then, sex outside of marriage eventually works backwards, making you less able to commit and trust another person." This means there is blessing and benefit for those who are single and choose to follow God's plan for sexuality in not engaging in it outside of marriage because you will be freed from the devastating ramifications of it. I had a conversation with a single person last week. They're older, and they said, "I am so glad I honored God's plan for sexuality, because everywhere around me I see my friends that are devastated, and I'm walking in freedom, joy, peace, and grace. God's plan for sexuality is good, and even when I haven't experienced it personally, I've experienced the blessing of honoring God's plan. 7. Sex renews covenant. In the Old Testament, there were often covenant renewal ceremonies. You make a covenant, and oftentimes to keep the covenant alive, you renew it. You read the covenant and the vows again, you recommit yourselves to it, and then you throw a party. Sex is God's covenant renewal party for the marriage. Every time you come together in marriage, you're renewing the vows and that covenant.

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If you want to keep the covenant fresh, alive, strong, and vibrant, be sexually active as a married couple. If you want the covenant to dry up and get old, stale, crusty, brittle, and lifeless, just take sex out of marriage. Sex was given as a covenant renewal ceremony and a party you can throw any time. 8. Sex wages spiritual warfare. I won't read it because I'm out of time, but you can write down Proverbs 5:15-23. Read Proverbs 5 today, and you will see how God has given sex inside of marriage as a way in which we can wage spiritual warfare against the enemy. Just to let you know, one of the first questions we ask an elder or deacon candidate (we're an elder-governed church that has deacons serving as well)… To be qualified for an office and serving in this church in leadership, you have to have a vibrant, joy-filled, frequent, active sex life with your spouse. We know for a fact if that area is broken in a marriage, those individuals will be exceptionally vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy. The attacks of the enemy are coming, but ladies, if you want to put a chink in his armor, turn off this faucet and pull back from him sexually. He will be responsible for the decisions he makes, absolutely, but you will be responsible for the decisions you made with your body towards him to cover him and guard him in this area. If you want to send him out robustly ready to wage war against the temptations of the evil one who's tempting him and baiting hooks with perversions of this gift, if you want to gird him up for that, you give yourself to him, serve him, and meet his needs, and he will be a man equipped to meet the battle. Rob and take that from him, and he will be exceptionally vulnerable to Satan's stupid, hideous, nasty cheeseburgers he puts a cheaper price on and offers to him because he's hungry. If you want to wage warfare, be sexually active with your spouse. So we ask every interview we've had, "What's your physical relationship like?" You can know every elder and deacon, man or woman, in the church has a very active, happy, fulfilling, frequent, joy-filled sex life to the Grace City Church

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praise and glory of God. It's an instruction and a command given to be a good, faithful, joyfilled, blessed Christian. We'll end with this. Some of you here aren't Christian. You're hearing this for the first time, and you're like, "Ah, I'm not so sure about this." Let me ask you a question. Do you think God has a higher or lower view of sexuality than you? I would argue God has a higher, more beautiful, more glorious expectation on what sex can be than you do. It's not that your sexual desires are too strong, C.S. Lewis said, it's that they are too weak. You're far too easily pleased. If you were standing on a street corner, and someone walked down the street (no one's paying attention to him, normal Joe, not a big deal), how important would you think that person is? I don't know, of average importance. If you see someone come into town, and there's an SUV train, security vehicles, Humvees, 50calibers on top, black coats, Secret Service with earpieces, MP5s, and this and that… If they roll in, and that person gets out, how important do you think they are? Very important. So too with sex. God has placed security around sex, not because it's no big deal, but because it's a really big deal. Did you know sex is like the Colorado River? You didn't, did you? It is. In some places of the Colorado river, there's no shore or boundaries. It gets very slow, murky, dark, muddy, lifeless, boring, flat, and shallow. Then there are some places on the Colorado River where there are these really tall, granite, steep, narrow rock walls. Where there are those really tall, granite, steep, narrow, confining rock walls, the Colorado River runs the deepest, fastest, and freshest. So too with sexuality. Where there are no boundaries or shore, it gets wide, murky, muddy, and shallow, but when sex is experienced within the narrow confines of the marriage covenant, it runs deep, fast, and fresh. The greatest sexual fulfillment on earth comes not from mastering the most recent techniques put out by Men's Health magazine. The greatest, most fulfilling

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sexual experiences in the world come when we cultivate the covenant of marriage, because God's plan flat-out works. I know there are many who are very encouraged, because you're going, "Preach it son! That's true!" There are some of you that have recognized your life is the Colorado River with no boundaries. There's guilt, shame, hurt, or abuse outside of marriage or inside of marriage, and you're thinking, "Okay well now what do I do?" Here's what you do. Talk to Jesus, pray, read your Bible, and come back next week, and we're going to talk about it. Father, we're grateful for your plan that is so good. We're grateful for your design that is so incredible. We're thankful for your gifts that go beyond our wildest imagination and blow the circuits as we try to comprehend it. I pray, Father, you would bestow upon this church a very high, lofty, biblical view and understanding of sex. I pray both married couples and single people would grow in their understanding, appreciation, and embracing of God's design for this incredible gift. I pray that we would take back from the world that which God made. This is our thing. This is our corner. This is our domain. God made this gift, and it is good, and it is right. Whether it is experienced in marriage or abstained from in singleness, there is blessing that comes on those who obey and follow the good, precious, grace-filled, hope-filled, and helpful counsel of God's Word. Father, would your blessing be upon this church family, upon the married and single people in this church. Would we grow in our love and knowledge of you and trust your plan works. Even when we don't think or feel like it does, would you help us exercise trust in you and faith in you to follow you in obedience and experience blessing from it. I pray for the glory of Jesus in our city and for the joy of all those in this church. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

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