Sex is in our faces all the time. My guess is that most of you – even those of you who are pretty careful about what movies and TV shows you watch – have seen probably dozens of sex scenes portrayed already. It is just "out there." It is talked about, discussed; it is the subject of magazine articles and locker room gossip. Even in the grocery store checkout line, you can't avoid seeing headlines on magazines like: "10 Tips for Great Sex." I think we can all agree that our society is somewhat obsessed with sex.
And it shouldn't surprise us too much. We are, among other things, sexual beings. God has made us with urges, and with physical desires and appetites. On top of that, sex is enjoyable. We have to remember that sex is the way that God provided for humans to have children and multiply, but our God – the God who (remember!) created every pleasure — made sex enjoyable on purpose. Now, with that in mind, let's read our passage for tonight.
Read Song of Solomon 7:1-9
This passage was almost too much for the church – at various points in history – to handle! In fact, if you were in some churches a few hundred years ago, you wouldn't be allowed to read these verses. Now, some people have tried to get around the striking sensuality of this passage by saying that it's mainly an allegory; in other words, this is talking about some kind of spiritual experience, and not about physical attraction and sex. They're wrong. This, my friends, is a bedroom scene. It is the beginning of a sex scene – right here in the Bible. Look at how the husband is blatantly and unashamedly celebrating — and delighting in – the body of his wife! This brings us to our first point for tonight:
I phrased that to be a little striking on purpose. But, guess what, the Bible is pretty striking in talking about the enjoyment of the physical body in a sexual way! We serve a God who, in his love for joy and infinite creativity, designed human multiplication to be done in a very enjoyable way. And, he invites his people to soak up that experience. We do not need to be ashamed of sex; it is made by God and meant to be enjoyed by his people. In other words, Christians should enjoy sex and be FOR sex even more than non-Christians – because they see it in its right light: a good creation of the God that we worship and love. Christians should be INTO sex.
BUT, you all can anticipate the huge caveat here: everything I've just said depends on what? The CONTEXT for sex.
Read Song of Solomon 7:10
Do you see what is being communicated in that verse? It is, first of all, in the context of MARRIAGE that sex is to be enjoyed. This whole blatant celebration of physical love and sexual enjoyment is in a very specific, God-ordained, place: the bedroom of 2 MARRIED people. We observe something else, too. In marriage, this physical intimacy, desire, fascination…is completely EXCLUSIVE. "His desire is for ME," the bride exclaims. That is beautiful. There is a context for sex to be enjoyed – a context designed by God. It is the context of an absolutely exclusive, private, marriage relationship.
Now, this seems crazy to the world, doesn't it? But think about some other things (good things), where CONTEXT makes all the difference in whether they're used for good or bad:
In other words, EVERY good thing has a context which, if taken away, makes it into a BAD thing. It's like that with sex. So, this brings us to our second point for the night:
In other words, if we are followers of God and take seriously his design for sex, it should drive us crazy when sex is RIPPED from the context he intended for it and plastered on billboards, portrayed in movies, and joked callously about in the locker room. It should make us angry! We should have a sense that all is not right with the way sex is all over in our culture. It's a bedroom thing – to be enjoyed passionately, yes – but by married people.
So, the two points tonight seem contradictory, but they're not. Christians should be more INTO sex than anyone else, but they should be PROTECTING sex more than anyone else.
I believe that you all, as young Christians, need to be called to passionate, counter-cultural, purity – to an intense protection of God's context for sex. We need to begin thinking together in HYACKs about what counter-cultural, gospel-witnessing purity can look like for high school students who want to point others to not only God's plan for sex, but to God himself.
For those who have already fallen into sexual sin, it is not too late for you to embrace God's vision for sex and make a commitment to Christ and purity for His sake. The gospel that we preach is a gospel of GRACE; there is infinite forgiveness at the cross of our Savior who died for us. But the grace that Jesus gives is a grace that CHANGES us. I invite you tonight, if you have fallen into sexual sin, to repent and put your faith in Jesus – and live in purity for Him.
Finally, let's ask ourselves the "why?" question. Why is this God's vision for sex? Why should Christians both "get into" and "protect" sex as God intended?
The ultimate reason for this view of sex is…the gospel. In other words, it comes back to what the love between a man and a woman was ultimately designed by God to reflect: Christ and his people – the church! We began tonight by talking about our culture's obsession with sex. Here's the shocking thing: the problem is not that people today think sex is TOO great; it's that they don't understand HOW great it can be, and the GLORIES of the gospel that it can reflect.
Let's break this down a little bit:
Sex can and should be PASSIONATE. What is more passionate than dying on a cross? What is more passionate than embracing total suffering for the sake of saving those you love? What is more passionate than enduring intense pain to take the punishment of another person? That is the passion of Jesus – the passionate love he has for us! Sex, in its right context, can reflect and point to that love.
Sex is meant by God to be EXCLUSIVE. Think about the exclusive love of Jesus. He is completely devoted to his people, so much so that he would endure mockery, shame, and abuse for the sake of us! Jesus is crazy about YOU, and all he asks for his return is that you be exclusively devote to Him – crazy about Him! An exclusive sexual marriage relationship can reflect this kind of crazy, exclusive devotion that Jesus has for his people, and that we should have toward our Lord. This is why the most common metaphor for idol worship in the Old Testament was: adultery. It was spiritually "sleeping around" for God's people to turn away from the Savior who loved them with crazy devotion.
So, sex outside of its context is wrong because it rips up the picture God is trying to give us of the GOSPEL – of his crazy, passionate, exclusive love for us. SEX can reflect that in a marriage relationship. Passionate, physical, exclusive love in the context of a committed marriage relationship reflects the GOD-centered gospel of Jesus Christ.
