We are all driven to some degree by our urges and desires. Sometimes that is good and sometimes it is bad. If I am feeling hungry I am motivated by the action of getting something to eat. If I am tired I am motivated to sleep. If I have accumulated debt I am motivated to earn money to pay what I owe. We often act because of what we are feeling at the moment.
However, our world has learned that there is a lot of money to be made if they can offer a substitute for our basic human needs that is cheap and easy. Tired? You do not need to get more sleep. Just drink an energy drink and you are good to go. You do not even need a whole drink just take an energy shot and you are good for 5 hours.
How about hunger? No need to buy fresh and wholesome foods and eat a balanced diet. I can drink a chocolate shake with all the “stuff” I need, and I am good to keep going. We are offered a buffet of quick fixes for our true needs and they all seem to be saving us time and money.
Never is this truer than when it comes to our basic human desire for sex. Now, this might shock you, but you do not need to have sex in order to have a fulfilling and good life. Does it serve a purpose and is it important in the context of two people who are married and love each other to experience a very deep form of intimacy? Yes, it can be that but does a person need to have sex no matter what just because they are a human being?
This week I want to spend the time looking at what God’s purpose for sex is as we are taught in the Bible. So many are convinced that they must have an orgasm on a regular basis or they cannot even function normally. Add to that or fueled by that is the reality in which we all live that seeing something sexual that arouses me and having an orgasm is one of the easiest things I can do. All I need is my phone and 5 minutes alone and I can have all the satisfaction that an orgasm can bring.
However, that damn law of diminishing returns comes in to play and I want more sex and more orgasms more often. Until I end up in a place where my desires are controlling me instead of me controlling my desires and I have landed in Addiction Land.
Do you know where sex is first mentioned in the Bible? It was on the sixth day when God had just finished creating the universe and all that is within it. We read in Genesis 1:27-28;
“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it;”
It is clear from this passage that God created both men and women and a central part of His plan is for them to create other people by being fruitful and multiplying. I wonder how long it took them to figure out how to do that?
We get a better picture in Genesis 2 where we are told the process as it unfolded. God brings every creature of the field and every bird of the sky to Adam and told him to name them. As he was doing this he realized that there was no partner for him and all this was prefaced with the God saying it is not good for the man to be alone. Adam realizes this after the time of naming all the animals and birds, so God has him take a nap.
While Adam is sleeping God takes one of his ribs and fashions the woman from it. Adam wakes up and God brings the woman to him and he breaks out in song. After looking at hairy and feathery creatures all day here is this perfect and most beautiful creature he has ever seen. She is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh and for some reason, he is feeling things for this creature that he has not felt before. He is feeling desire.
Then in verse Genesis 2:24 we read God telling them;
“For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
This week I want to teach you about God’s intention for sex. Let’s have a biblical understanding for what our Creator had and has in mind for us and see if we can gain a perspective that will help us live in purity as we exist in our sex filled world.