Why Does God Care about Sex and Marriage?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Genesis 2, Malachi 3, Genesis 1, 1 Corinthians 6, Romans 1, Hebrews 13

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--why-does-god-care-about-sex-and-marriage
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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first of all we must start with the fact that god created us so he created us for a purpose god created us to have fellowship with him to worship him to love him and to have this wonderful reciprocal relationship then god did not just create one man he created a man and a woman because he said it wasn't good for the man to be alone he needed companionship so he created one man and one woman he joined them and in genesis chapters 2 you can see god's plan for marriage that the man would leave his father and mother which means his pre-existing family relationships be joined to his wife and the two would become one flesh so this union is physical emotional and spiritual they're to be treated as one family unit and the interest of this new unit would supersede the interest of the two individuals separately while they are still individuals they're joined together and then from that children would be born and this was god's plan to be fruitful he said multiply fill the earth replenish the earth so god plant god's plan for humans was to reproduce to multiply to have family relationships so of course sex is a very important gift in that process number one for procreation and number two for companionship for joining the husband and wife together in this close family unit the book of malachi chapter 3 says that god hates divorce and he hates it when a man puts the puts away the wife of his youth and breaks covenant and then he makes an interesting comment because he wants godly offspring so in other words for children to be nurtured to grow up to be healthy physically emotionally spiritually to be productive members of society church they need ideally two parents and not two identical parents but a man and a woman a father and a mother because genesis 1 says god created man in his image male and female he created them so to fully express uh god's he made them an image of god to fully express god's image and to fully express god's plan for humans it requires both male and female now let me pause to say if somebody's raised in a single parent home or if you are a single parent of course it's it's not ideal but there it's not a sentence of doom you trust god you pray god's grace makes up the difference the church can step in and and offer the things that are needed so i'm not disparaging but i'm making a sociological observation which is true uh that this is an interesting point if someone will uh a young person will grow up graduate from high school get a job get married and have children in that order 98 percent will be middle class or higher only 2 percent will live in poverty and then i don't have the exact statistics in front of me but children who are raised in a single-parent home or especially when there's no father there's a very high correlation multiple times five or ten times more correlation with juvenile delinquency criminal activity incarceration alcohol addiction drug addiction promiscuity uh children born out of wedlock and so uh poverty so all these dysfunctional outcomes which are the main ills of society that we spend trillions of dollars trying to fix really go back because we're not following god's plan for marriage and family so sex is a very strong bond it's it's strong not only physically but emotionally and spiritually and what what people today don't realize they just think of it as just um some kind of a casual pleasure so maybe like taking a drink of alcohol or eating chocolate well or are listening to um a concert so just having sex but first corinthians 6 is don't you know that when you're joined to a prostitute you're joined in spirit and how can you as a christian and you're supposed to be joined to the lord's spirit how can you be joined to the spirit of a prostitute so and i i've seen this as a pastor that when two young people maybe they love each other maybe they're infatuated but when they cross the line to a sexual relationship it changes and they think and typically the girl is more oriented to this they think well if i if i'm ready to quit i just quit but it's not so easy they're emotionally bonded they're spiritually bonded and even if it's a dysfunctional relationship a bad relationship abusive relationship somehow they can't let go and logically speaking hey if it's a bad relationship and you you start it for pleasure and it's no unpleasant just walk away just like if candy makes you sick stop eating candy but it's not so simple and often as a pastor i could even diagnose when a relationship had gone sexual because i could tell the spiritual bonding that had taken place so what i'm saying is there's something far deeper than what our culture understands and again when we violate god's word and we repent god can forgive us god can help us overcome but the point is there are consequences spiritual consequences so god created sex as for two reasons procreation reproduction of the species and companionship and bonding of marriage as the building block of family which in turn is the building block of church and of society so god's gifts can all all of god's gifts can be either used properly or abused so every talent every ability life health strength intellect can be used to further god's purpose or can be used against god's purpose so sexuality is one of those beautiful gifts that needs to be used according to god's purpose so god is not trying to inhibit us or take away our joy or restrict us he is trying to channel us for what sex is intended to be because he knows the true purpose and the true meaning and the true value and when we break uh those guidelines we're hurting ourselves we're misusing it's like any gift that we uh if we misuse it it only hurts us so god's plan is trying to help us our marriage our family our church our society when we break those rules we only hurt ourselves romans 1 tells us what's happened in our society that it says every human being has a certain knowledge of god through creation we know there's a creator and we're supposed to worship god and glorify him but when we don't when we face truth and refuse to follow it we never stay neutral we start going the opposite direction so the problem with the human race is in every culture every society we and we see this in our own culture when people don't worship god what do they do humans are created to worship humans are created for fellowship and companionship humans are created for the spiritual so refuse to worship god we're going to find substitutes so romans 1 says we worship the creat the creature instead of the creator so people started making idols so they're worshiping things their hands have made and these idols are often animals and and other things so things god created instead of worshiping the creator they worship created things well what happens when you start worshiping creation well then you start worshipping the human body because the human body is one of the most amazing creations of god and so then when you worship the body you focus on pleasure of all kinds you focus on sexual pleasure and you stop thinking about why god gave you pleasure what's it for and why god gave you sex and what's it for and you just focus on worshiping instead of worshiping god which would be to follow his plan you worship the creation which means you worship the body which means you worship sex but that doesn't give you ultimate satisfaction because it's misusing the gift and this is a psychological truth it's documented but when humans seek pleasure in other things there's the law of diminishing returns so let's say you eat a piece of chocolate you love it so you eat a second piece and a third piece finally there's a point where it's nauseating and you hate it or let's say addiction somebody gets addicted or somebody starts using drugs after a while that same amount of drugs no longer gives you the same high so you have to take more or you graduate to harder and harder drugs just to try to recapture the same initial euphoria pornography same thing you start with pornography that excites you but after a while it doesn't really give the same pleasure so you go to more explicit and harder stuff same with sex and so if you look for sex for your ultimate pleasure after a while it no longer provides that so you go okay new partners different people break more rules break more conventions and the bible talks about and so they go against nature so even if you're an atheist and just believe in evolution in biology well homosexuality would be dysfunctional it wouldn't provide the survival of the fittest it it would be at best an aberration or a mistake from a scientific point of view but uh you know humans are seeking more and more and so romans 1 says they are not satisfied with sexual promiscuity so they go into what's against nature homosexual behavior but even then that doesn't satisfy them so they end up what the king james calls a reprobate mind or what that really means is it's not saying they can't be saved necessarily it's saying a mind that's lost the distinction between right and wrong and that's what happened in our society look at the transgender phenomena where they're now taking small children and trying to give them puberty blockers and surgery that mutilates the body they're going to be forever sterile they're never going to have a normal development well even from a scientific biological or even evolutionary point of view that's dysfunctional so if a person does have a dysfunctional thought you would try to cure them you would try to give them therapy cognitive therapy help them realign their mistaken beliefs to the reality of their body not to mutilate their body because of some idea in their mind and now what's happening is culture is promoting this and the the causes of of homosexuality and transgenderism are complex but a lot of it has to do with broken homes dysfunctional families absent fathers or um overprotective mothers or just dysfunctional or abusive relationships a lot of it has to do with early sexual exp experiences when a person is just entering puberty they're trying to find out what is right what is normal what is to be expected and if they're exposed to to physical action or even uh psychological manipulation or indoctrination then their thoughts can be skewed so i do feel that a lot of young people are experimenting or thinking because our culture is molding them dysfunctional families and aggressive culture and ideology is molding them but it's all contrary to god's plan now i will make a a comment here is that when somebody's caught in this i'm not saying they're a worse sinner than anybody else but i do believe when you see this trend it's showing that society is going further and further away from god so the individual that's caught in it bears responsibility but i see them as a victim they're trapped in a dysfunctional culture and of course the gospel can come and break them free from that and they they do have a responsibility to respond to god but i think it's important for us not to attack or hate or ridicule or despise people in these various sins we despise the sin but we've got to be careful here is a lost soul here is someone created the image of god someone for whom jesus christ died and we have the answer that will set them free from habitual sin and actually give them a healthy whole life and i would argue that sexuality in god's plan is healthy and wholesome and psychological studies have actually shown that married couples in general and christian couples in particular generally have a a greater not only actual sex life but also greater fulfillment and meaning and purpose and joy than people who are promiscuous or who are in temporary relationships so while from a physical standpoint it may seem they're getting more physical enjoyment they're not getting the holistic emotional and spiritual enjoyment and truth be told many of these people end up with a very poor sex life even from their own standards in other words they're not having the kind of sexual life or experience that they envisioned because they don't have the opportunity and they don't have their relationships in other words when you try to separate the physical sex from everything else you end up hurting even the physical side and and studies have shown that people involved in pornography actually end up having a worse sexual relationship and people that go through multiple affairs and multiple marriages it's actually harder to have a wholesome relationship when they actually when they really want to have a relationship they've already built in some roadblocks uh not only for physical sex but but emotional intimacy and also i would say that this is one of those areas where more experience is not better because two unique human beings there's no two exactly the same so when a young man and a young woman get married and they have no prior sexual relationship that is not a disadvantage because they're not learning how to have sex in general they're learning how to build a relation with that one person prior experience doesn't help you it can actually hurt you as you learn and explore every dimension physically and emotionally spiritually you have to learn that unique person in that unique relationship no two people are alike and no two relationships are like that's why hebrews 13 marriage is honorable in all and the bid undefiled but whoremongers or fornicators god will judge so within marriage that sexual relationship we shouldn't tamper with it we shouldn't delve into that and that's why i think yes there are times when you might need professional counseling medical counseling or or maybe even psychological counseling but we should guard the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman and you don't need to know everything everybody else is doing you need to know what you're doing you need to please each other you don't need to have all kinds of experience that actually becomes hurtful when you're trying to build this relationship and whatever lack of experience that you have you you forge that experience with that one person and so what i'm trying to say is when you do it god's way you actually have a better relationship at every dimension so going back to the premise of your question why does god want to restrict us actually he's not he's trying to show us this wonderful gift he's given us what its real purpose is and how to maximize both the benefit and enjoyment ironically by trying to take it in our own do it our own way for what we think is our own enjoyment we actually kill the joy and we destroy the purpose but we do it god's way we try we find the true pleasure and the true fulfillment the way god intended all along