God's Design for Sex - Love Songs - A Study in Song of Songs | Tim Birdwell | Week 5

And this is what we know biblically but it's also what we know biologically. Right? We we know that when you have sex with another person, what happens is dopamine is released. Oxytocin is released. Oxytocin is a bonding agent. And this is why that outside of the covenant of marriage, outside of that fireplace, man and woman, sex with another person, enjoyment without commitment. It does one of two things. It harms a good relationship or it prolongs a bad one. [00:14:48] (32 seconds)  #SexIsBonding

You compliment your wife, you never stop doing that. You let her know, your wife is always, she did when she when you got married, she will till the day she dies. She's gonna wonder, am I beautiful? This woman in chapter one, one of the first things she says is, hey, I'm not beautiful. I'm too dark. I work outside in the vineyards. It's my brother's fault. And she doesn't feel beautiful. So over and over, what do you see this man saying? You are beautiful. When they got married, he says, you have no flaw. Does she have flaws? Yes. But you don't say those. [00:10:34] (32 seconds)  #TellHerShesBeautiful

Chapter seven verse six, he says how beautiful and pleasant you are, loved one, with all your delights. He's saying I genuinely like hanging out with you. I don't just wanna have sex with you, I wanna talk to you. I don't wanna just be shoulder to shoulder and pay the electricity bill with you, I wanna be face to face. I enjoy your friendship. I enjoy your relationship. Chapter seven verse 10, the woman receives all this. She says, I am my beloved's. His desire is for me. Men, notice she feels seen, safe, and celebrated. That's the way your wife is meant to feel. [00:13:06] (37 seconds)  #SeenSafeCelebrated

And and it comes back to this idea of like this is a peaceful place for them that sex and and their relationship and their friendship. There was a peaceful place in their relationship, in their marriage. And here's the reality, you actually don't stumble into that. Like literally in Getty, you have to hike to it. You have to go there with intentionality. And that's our last point as we close today. Sex isn't consuming, it is cultivating. It's not just consuming, it's not just take and give me your body, it is something that's cultivated really over a lifetime of marriage. You see it in verse 11. Look at the verse, they go to the fields. [00:31:30] (42 seconds)  #CultivateIntimacy

You're beautiful inside and out. Hey, they haven't put on makeup yet or they did or they're Hey, you're beautiful just the way you are. And you know why I do that? Because I want to ingrain the truth of God's word into their very soul. So that one day when some punk, stinky boy comes along and he says the opposite, he says a lie about my baby girl, they know to shut them down because they know what the truth of God's word says about them. Amen? [00:09:48] (33 seconds)  #RootedInTruth

And some of you know this. You have friends. They're divorced. Well, they once loved each other. They had a passion. They had lighter fluid on their fireplace and they had sex and everything was great. But that wasn't just the fruit of their connection. That was the foundation of their connection. And then they had sex with somebody else because guess what? They're not just addicted to sex, they're addicted to variety because of screens, because of pornography, because of the lie of the enemy. And forty percent of divorces in that way because of infidelity. And some of you, this is not theoretical. This is deeply personal. Some of you, this is you. [00:20:56] (43 seconds)  #SexIsFoundation

This man's singing. This is poetry. Right? And he's singing. He's, I I love you. I don't have eyes for anyone else but you. I've made a covenant not to look at another woman. Job says, with lustful eyes, I'm looking at you. You're my standard of beauty. He's complimenting her, pursuing her in that way. We see in verse four, he continues, her neck is like an ivory tower, eyes like pools in Heshbon, nose like a tower of Lebanon. Again, some translating. Ivory was rare and valuable. He's saying you're not just beautiful, you are valuable in my eyes and in the eyes of God. You're strong like a tower. You have dignity. [00:12:19] (40 seconds)  #ValuedAndDignified

Some of you have seen this. Right? I've seen this. It it harms a good relationship. I've seen couples dating and they're serving the Lord and they're raising their hands, way maker. And they're all into it and they're serving and they're bible study and all those things. And then you notice like one of them slips off or both of them, they're not as consistent. They stop serving. They're not as vibrant for Jesus Christ anymore. And you find out, oh, y'all had sex. And you didn't just have sex and bring that into the equation, what you brought in is sin, shame, and insecurity. [00:15:19] (36 seconds)  #SexCreatesShame

That's when we take communion. That's why Easter is such a big deal. He was buried for three days. We thought all hope was lost and yet he came out of the grave and he defeated your sin and he defeated Satan and all the sexual sin that you've done and has been done to you and all the shame has been defeated and overcome in Jesus name. And I would say, take hold of that. Don't just come to another church service and be religious. Take hold of that. That will change your life. That will change your sexuality. That will change your relationships. That will change your eternity. [00:41:17] (46 seconds)  #ResurrectionOverShame

Now the most prominent way we see sex in our culture, think we would all agree, is God. For for centuries, this is the way it's been treated. In the New Testament, it actually speaks to this. It gives a junk drawer term called sexual immorality. It's literally the word porneia where we get our word pornography. It's it's anything outside of that fireplace, that covenant between a man and a woman. And so all the the list of things that we see in scripture, that you see in our culture, it's treating sex not as a gift but as God. It's replacing love with lust. It's serving instead of serving the other person, you're using that other person. And we see this in our culture today and the effects are devastating. The effects are devastating. [00:20:09] (47 seconds)  #DontMakeSexAGod

Your whole life in church as a single person, they said sex is bad. Sex is bad. Don't think about it. Avoid it at all costs. And then you get married and they're like, sex is great. Have lots of it. And I see married couples all the time. They're like, wait, what? I don't this is confusing. Like, how do I do this thing? And we say things like, hey, sex is the devil's playground or sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And I'm just thinking, how does sex get put with drugs? And why is it country music in there instead of rock and roll? Anybody with me? What? This isn't the devil's idea. God created sex. Amen? It was his good design. Now Satan, he will counterfeit, he can't create, but he's a masterful counterfeiter. And he creates things that look like, he counterfeits all the time. [00:26:45] (52 seconds)  #GodDesignedSex

Sex is a gift. Many people will tell me, hey Christianity is rep repressive around sex. Why is the church gotta be so mean? Why is there gonna be all these things I can't do or these people can't do these things with one another? Like, why is it gonna be like that? And and it would be like if you told me, Tim, why do you if I said to you, I hate drunk driving. And you told me, hey, Tim, why do you hate people in cars? I'd be like, wait, I think you're missing it. I love cars. I love people way more. So therefore, I hate anything that distorts that, that damages that. So I hate drunk driving because I love people. God hates adultery, infidelity, pornography, casual sex, hookup culture. God hates all of those things precisely because he loves you. He's not holding out on you. He's holding you. He he's trying to help you experience joy not shame. He loves you. He loves sex. It was his idea. It's a gift. [00:27:49] (69 seconds)  #SexIsAGiftFromGod

And I would say, that is not true. What we're finding is that pornography, it rewires the brain. It creates addicts. It makes you addicted to this thing and now you're wanting to be addicted to everything. It inhibits actual sex with your married partner that God created and designed for your enjoyment and for your good. It inhibits guys from knowing how to walk up to a girl. We did a whole sermon on this on dating. From walking up to a girl with a real face, with a real body, with a real personality, not a digital one, not a fictitious one that, by the way, does not exist. And guys don't know how to ask a girl out and cultivate friendship because we're just so used to this rewiring of our brain with our phones and with pornography and it's hurting us. And listen, this isn't just like biblically we see this. This is in our culture. [00:23:17] (57 seconds)  #PornRewiresBrains

And listen, I don't say this, hear me. I do not say this to shame you. I do not bring this up. I can feel it in the room. There's shame in the room. There's nervousness in the room even as I say the word. And what I would tell you is this, our younger generation specifically, you didn't even go looking for pornography. It came looking for you. There's algorithms designed to come get you and that is from the enemy. And so any shame you're feeling, that's not from Jesus today. Conviction, that's from Jesus. Condemnation, Romans eight chapter one or verse one. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Praise God. Amen. [00:22:19] (40 seconds)  #ConvictionNotCondemnation

And this was used earlier in the text, it was used around their wedding. Here's what you need to know in the in the timeline of this thing. They're a few years into their marriage. This is not honeymoon. And yet, it's not winter. It hasn't grown cold. There's still spring. Why? They've cultivated it. They added some logs to the fire. They stoked the flames. You see the woman twice say, let us go. Let us go. The man, this whole section is compliments, pursuit, stacking logs one by one over that fire. You pursue Engeti. And so the question has to be, how are you as a married couple pursuing Engeti? What is Engeti in your relationship? Now, this looks different in all sorts of seasons. For my wife and I, this looks like a lot of day dates. You know why? Because we get tired. [00:32:23] (55 seconds)  #PursueEngeti

And so they feel like, hey, we gotta keep this thing going. Like, I just we've been together too long. We've we've gone too far to go back now. And they say weird things like, this is my ball and chain. And I'm like, you're 22 years old. What are you talking about ball and chain? You don't have to go forward with this cause you had sex together. But you know we feel like we we're just together. And I'm like, no. There's nothing else that you look at in this relationship that is working. But yet how many couples they stay in a bad relationship because they've gone too far sexually and physically. [00:17:07] (34 seconds)  #DontStayBecauseOfSex

And distrust and insecurity starts to tear a good relationship apart because you bring sex in too soon. Because it bonds you together in ways you're not in covenant together and your souls are not committed together but you're just smashing your bodies together. And it it's confusing and it's hurtful and it's damaging. It harms a good relationship but it also prolongs a bad one. And I've seen this as well. I I've seen couples who met, they don't communicate well. They don't have good connection. They they they aren't serving Jesus together. They're not like solid in their faith with one another, equally yoked together. They have a lot of conflict but they have great sex. [00:16:23] (44 seconds)  #SexBeforeCovenantHurts

And I would just say, man, I know I know sometimes it's hard to talk about these things. I know some of you have experienced loss, abuse. But seeing God redeem your sexuality doesn't just benefit you. It benefits the next generation who desperately desperately needs that. Amen? That's why we go through this as a church family. Right? And again, I know this is where we'll close. I know some of you today, you're feeling some shame right now. And maybe you're feeling like, hey, some other people out there who who dressed up nice today, who look great, a pastor and his wife, hey, they can have joy and meaning and purpose in their sex life, but not me. Tim, you don't know what I've done. You don't know what I've thought. You don't know what's been done to me. And I would say, you're right. I don't know, But God does. [00:37:42] (52 seconds)  #RedeemYourSexuality

And it keeps me up at night because we come to church every Sunday and we play a game and we go through the motions and do the bible study and memorize the verses and and sing a song and we leave and we don't realize Jesus Christ, the perfect son of God. He wasn't wounded. He was killed for hours on a bloody cross. He never sinned and yet he was killed for hours. And it wasn't just about physical pain. It was about public shame. They put him up on Calvary, on a hill, on a cross so that everybody could see it was sin and it was shame. And he died in agony. That's what Good Friday is all about. [00:40:33] (44 seconds)  #JesusTookOurShame

All the sin that you've committed, all the sin that's been done to you, all the lust, all the pornography, all the casual sex, all the lustful thoughts about that other person who's not your spouse, all of those things. God looks at all those things. I don't know all those things, but God saw all those things in you. He said, yeah. I'm gonna send my perfect son to save you, to sanctify you, to wash you from those things. And church, let let me just tell you, as a pastor, this is what keeps me up at night. Because I think even right now, some of y'all don't believe me. Some of y'all think your sin is greater than the power of the blood of Christ. Some of you think, well, maybe not my other sin, but my sexual sin is greater than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. [00:39:40] (52 seconds)  #ChristCleansesAll