Sex in the city

I deeply appreciate my pastor's desire to communicate a godly view of sex and who we are as people. This is the 3rd of three sermons on that. If you listen, pay close attention to his reference to Augustine, one of the greatest theologians (and ostensibly a sex addict), and Jerome, the translator of the Vulgate. Augustine, and any believer who tells of the weight of his sin, knew God's doctrine of "unmerited grace", and Jerome, alone in the desert, realized no self-imposed rule, no effort of his own, undid his impurity. In Colossians 2, Paul says, "These rules seem like wisdom, but they won't work...because 'you' (people) thought of them. They're even an effort in false humility. Nothing can restrain sensual indulgence." EXCEPT, a turning from sin and turning to turning to Christ. v. 13 "When you were dead in your sins...God made you alive with Christ." This is the mystery Paul says he labors for, "struggling with all His energy, which so powerfully works in me." This is knowing Christ and having fellowship with the Father and their Spirit. Their spirit is so convicting, arresting, and transforming that it consumes a person with desires inseparable from the world...because we have these earthly bodies, but yet not worldly. A Christian cries to be sanctified.

Amazingly, I was listening to John Piper preach a sermon called, Battling the Unbelief of Lust. He references the exact same texts in Matt 22:34-40 and 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8. Jesus says in Matthew, the greatest commandments are to love God with everything in you and then love your neighbor as you yourself. Thessalonians 4:4 is saying, "be holy and honorable". Why? because you know God and the will of God. The will of God is sanctification, which in marriage, is explicitly tied to sex. That's why Piper thinks the RSV most aptly translates, "that each one of you know how to take a wife...." BUT whether that or "control his own body" isn't the final point because not everyone marries. The final point is that knowing God, loving Him with your very self, is demonstrated in a holy and honorable love for your neighbor. Lust, which cannot be bridled apart from its replacement with a greater affection, a desire for God, is akin to rejecting God and his sanctification. (He makes us holy so we can be honorable.) It's a denial of the Holy Spirit (v.8) to renew what we think can't regenerate. It is unbelief. It is powerless despondence. To me, that's when there is no more mystery in the world or hope within me. Worldly indulgence is all can I see.

Sexuality and spirituality are not, of course, exactly the same thing. They are not identical twins, but they are kissing cousins... The fact is that sex is the closest that many people ever come to a spiritual experience. Indeed, it is because it is a spiritual experience of sorts that so many chase after it with a repetitive, desperate kind of abandon. Often, whether they know it or not, they are searching for God. ~M. Scott Peck

i don't believe this. but i'm not married. therefore it's hilarious.

JERRY: I had a very interesting lunch with George Costanza today.
KRAMER: Really?
JERRY: We were talking about our lives and we both kind of realized we're kids. We're not men.
KRAMER: So, then you asked yourselves, "Isn't there something more to life?"
JERRY: Yes. We did.
KRAMER: Yeah, well, let me clue you in on something. There isn't.
JERRY: There isn't?

KRAMER: Absolutely not. I mean, what are you thinking about, jerry? Marriage? Family?
JERRY: Well...
KRAMER: They're prisons. Man made prisons. You're doing time. You get up in the morning. She's there. You go to sleep at night. She's there. It's like you gotta ask permission to use the bathroom. Is it all right if I use the bathroom now?
JERRY: Really?
KRAMER: Yeah, and you can forget about watching TV while you're eating.
JERRY: I can?
KRAMER: Oh, yeah. You know why? Because it's dinner time. And you know what you do at dinner?
JERRY: What?
KRAMER: You talk about your day. How was your day today? Did you have a good day today or a bad day today? Well, what kind of day was it? Well, I don't know. How about you? How was your day?

JERRY: Boy.
KRAMER: It's sad , Jerry. It's a sad state of affairs..
JERRY: I'm glad we had this talk.
KRAMER: Oh, you have no idea.

Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam...

Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam...

How simple is getting married? For those who think morals pertain...I'm wondering and noticing in social circles I know of that people are getting married later. I don't think this a "new phenomenon", but I'm certainly a part of it and wondering what it's going to take? It seems to me there are more women running around who are more willing to...to take life's many and varied scenarios and make the best of it. I don't know how a woman falls in love, but it does seem there's some point where not everything has to be in order or make sense and that woman is still willing, willing to get married. Hmm.... I think men want as much order and certainty as women, but perhaps they need it less, even so, men want to be prepared to some extent, men with morals.

Now if women have a need to know what their man is about or trying to do, and so doing his best to do it, men bring their own..."concessions". It seems to me men have a sex dilemma. Everything about the world today comments on and tries to define what is desirable and attractive in the opposite gender. Because men are leaders (or supposed to be), society has indoctrinated women with a man made concept of themselves and identity. ...I don't know when this started, but it has gone on a long time. Now women don't need or want men to tell them about themselves, probably because men have mostly only "edited" and commentated on them, as opposed to accepting and choosing them.

The dilemma for men is reconciling expectations of sex (societies overwhelmingly many ideas), to sex with a person. Men have to try to decide what doesn't matter so much before there's a willingness to be committed. To do this men must know and choose what to love. Everything that detracts from or diminishes the essence and magnetism of that one woman, all the comparisons and other secret desires, those must be set aside, only then afterwards to be discovered in that woman. This is choosing AND choosing to discover...her. Everything wanted and hoped for will be found because she's loved, and no one else in the world matters so much now. Options don't matter. This kind of thinking is very contrary to the norm because men sleep with women (and women, men) with no expectations or thoughts whatsoever of being with them for good. In fact, too many people marry now with some kind of loophole thought for backing out.

Men need sex. Women do too, but I think in a different way; it's a different kind of need. Sex though, seems to me one critical factor that brings a man to be committal and willing to marry. I don't know what kind of lovers men are, but sex drive is a basic part of the DNA. I also don't know exactly how emotional attraction fits into all this, but it does. The emotional connection is very key to how men over time grow to view that woman. (So women, be patient...and strong.) After there's a willingness, I think affection grows. We become emotionally engaged (matched or contracted...in my thesaurus), and then there's an eagerness to be together regardless. We stop worrying and do marriage. I think we're never fully prepared to be married. We step into it and trust.