Even the casual observer would have to admit that our society has an obsession with sex.
Sex sells.
Everything from razors and mouthwash to Uncle Ben's rice. Practically every commercial on TV either uses sex to gain attention or mentions how to cure some sexual dysfunction…as long as you are not on nitrates for a heart condition.
Sex is everywhere.
Sitcoms joke about it. Movies feature it. Magazines give advice about it…right there in the grocery line next to the candy and chewing gum.
Billboards display it. Talk shows analyze it. Music celebrates it…even allowing a 20-year old Disney star to simulate it on stage.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The internet makes it accessible anywhere, any time, any way you want it.
Even if you don't want it.
Image searches on Google almost invariably bring up a soft pornographic image (even with Safe Search on). News pages regularly feature two to three articles highlighting some sex-laden story or topic…usually with a sexual image to entice the reader…or viewer…to take a peek. Check your email and get ready for a few flashing advertisements showing you available singles in your area. Wow, thanks, Yahoo.
Of course, when statistics tell us that 1 out of every 5 searches on a mobile device, and 1 out of every 8 searches online, are for pornography, then I guess you can argue that the internet is simply giving us what we want.
But what's the big deal? It is just sex, isn't it? Just a physical act between consenting adults…or liberated youth. Why be prudish about it? Why act like sex is something pure, beautiful, exclusive, precious, sacred?
As a society, we have cheapened sex. And we are proud of it.
But deep down we know that sex is something more than a physical act. There is a reason that sex is practically worshiped in our society. There is a reason that people pursue it like an addictive drug. There is a reason we still recoil in disgust when we hear about its abuse.
Sex touches our soul.
Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body (1 Corinthians 6:18).
There is something about sex that sets it apart. That makes it different. That impacts us like nothing else.
God designed it that way.
Sex was designed to unite two people–male and female–into a lifelong covenant of intimacy, security, and vulnerability. It was designed to "glue" them together, to weave them into one, to point them to the closest union, strongest love, purest joy found only in Christ.
Sex is not an end in itself. It is a signpost to something greater.
It is not just an "act." It is a sacrament.
When God wanted to illustrate the intimate union that He would have with His people, He created sex within marriage…oneness between a loving, sacrificial man and his pure, beautiful bride…Christ and the church.
…We are members of His body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This mystery is great—but I am actually speaking with reference to Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:30-32).
That's why sex, outside of God's design, does not ultimately satisfy.
It entices. It tantalizes. It thrills. It seems almost "divine."
For a moment.
But then it vanishes. And leaves a wake of emptiness, loneliness, and a pang for something more.
Unfortunately, the hunger for "more" leads one further away from God, further into desperation, further into immorality. Like a cheap drug, illicit sex promises more than it can deliver. And the more one pursues it, the more it brings diminishing returns. Instead of the beauty of intimacy, it brings the bondage of addiction…and often the bane of abuse.
Welcome back to the ancient pagan religions. Our society is not progressing. We are regressing. We are becoming sexual idolaters. And we will sacrifice everything…even our babies and our children…for our new "god."
Christianity doesn't diminish sex. It blesses it. It purifies it. It preserves it. It heightens it.
As Ben Patterson notes:
The pleasures and goodness of sex are heightened, not lessened by proper restraint, in the same way the Colorado River is made more powerful by the walls of the Grand Canyon. The very narrowness of the river's channel there makes for a greater river. Farther south, as the river flows through the deserts of California and Arizona, it is shallow, wide, and muddy, even stinky in spots. Wider boundaries diminish the river; sharper, stronger, and narrower boundaries strengthen it. Less is more. The boundaries and proscriptions of sex in the Bible are for the sake of sex. Again, less is more–at least less as understood by one man and one woman together exclusively till death parts them. (Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, ed. by John Piper, 52)
Yes, believe it or not, sex according to God's design is the most satisfying.
Only within the security of marriage can a couple increasingly become vulnerable with each other and experience the true intimacy of sexual union.
No barriers. No fear. No shame.
Love instead of lust.
Self-giving instead of self-gratification.
Increasing joy instead of diminishing returns.
And this doesn't happen over night. It takes a lifetime.
Powerful. Beautiful. Intimate. Pure. Holy. Exclusive. Pleasureable.
Naked…physically, emotionally, spiritually…and unashamed.
That is sex as God designed it.
And that's a big deal.
