Marriage Matters - Intimacy In Marriage

Introduction

Good Morning. We are in our series marriage matters. This week s sermon is labeled as PG13. We will be talking explicitly about sexuality in marriage. I won’t be able to tell if this weeks sermon will be too graphic, especially for your children. You might feel that your children, preteen or teen need to hear this. For our members and guests, please feel free to have your children attend children's church today. Or if you are listening this with your kids in the car or nearby, I want to put this out so you are aware too.

This week we’re going to look at what God has designed and desired in marital intimacy. I want to say a word to those who are not married…. I know it may be hard to hear anything about sexuality that you feel is not available to you.

Let me make this note that this will be the only week focused on marital intimacy per se. Later in our series we will discuss God’s wisdom for sexuality for those unmarried as we close our series. This will help on how we can relate together as married and unmarried adults and support each other.

Along those lines, I hope that you will not feel that what God intends for marital intimacy isn’t relevant to you.

If you could ever get married in the future… it is relevant to you.

If you are someone who is married … it is relevant to you. The ol’ saying, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks has just gone out the window. We when fall in love with God’s word, it’s exciting to anticipate what God would reveal and teach to you. Our spouse shares a common union. We are to keep learning about them, because what we might have known about them say 10-15-20-25 ago, even just 5 years ago, has changed. Things change. Likes dislikes change. They evolve.

Our passage this morning comes from 1st Corinthians. The reason Paul writes this section is many of the converts came from a permissive background of sexual license. The Corinthians had gained a reputation for sexual laxity, or lack of strictness. Because of their sexual license, scholars call it to “Corinthianize” into this behavior. I invite you to open your Bibles to 1st Corinthians. We will be reading from chapter 7 verses 1 through 6.

1 Corinthians 7:1–6 NIV

1 Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command.

Pastoral Prayer

Looking at verse 1: “Now for the matter you wrote about.” The Corinthians wrote Paul a letter. When we study this letter, Chapters 7 through 11 deals with the questions they asked. The Corinthians church had a lot of problems about marriage. The examples they had to follow were not biblical examples. For sample, Rome had no uniform set of marital laws. One way to get married was that a woman and a man could live together for one year. At the end of the one year, they would become identified as husband and wife. Today we would call that … what?… common law marriage. The church would have had to face people who were common law married, who had no legal paper or anything to identify their marriage. So, verse 1 is saying it is good not to have a sexual relationship. And he’s simply saying it is good to be single. It is good for a man not to be married. It is good.

Now you say—Whoa, Richard, how can you … That’s what it says in the Bible. Now, notice something, folks, before you all panic. He does not say it’s the only good. It is also good to be married. He is simply saying it isn’t evil to be single, and we’ll talk about that in our series. To this sexually saturated society, Paul was delivering these instructions on sex and marriage. The Corinthians needed special, specific instructions because of their culture’s immoral standards. He knew that God himself ordained marriage for the betterment of humanity.

To contrast the denial of sexual relations, Paul insisted that “each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.” The verb have does not suggest initiating a marriage, but rather married people to continue sexual relationships with each other.

And as long as God continues to allow me to serve in this role, I will continue to use verses like this one to define the design of marriage as one man one woman, singular. This is God’s pattern for marriage. The popular versions ESV, NIV, New King James, Amplified, Holman, NLT say man and woman. This does not give license to same sex marriage, polygyny or any other man-made version. Okay I’m done now - I’ll get off my soap box.

Paul maintained a high view of marriage, and we see that in Ephesians chapter 5 in verse 25 and following. If you look this verse up, understand when we see the words husbands and wives, he is not address groupings. He is addressing couples in a broad sense. Paul’s concern, however, is not merely to affirm monogamous marriage as God’s will but to encourage, even command, continued, uninterrupted mutual sexual exchange within the marriage relationship.

It’s important to understand this union is not to be considered a duty as verse 3 suggests. Although we see the word “duty.” Paul is not speaking in legal terms. To avoid sexual immortality and temptation, Paul is suggesting married couples should fulfill each other’s needs. This is particularly important in our day when the advertising and entertainment industries seem to function under the philosophy sex sells. We are bombarded with advertising everything from that shiny new Ford truck with that cowboy or cowgirl standing next to it to that hamburger.

Marriage is a provision. This means the married couple is to provide for one another. Providing for one another extends beyond that of sexual intimacy. It does not only have to include sex. Intimacy between a husband and wife includes time spent together, conversation with one another. When was it the last time you real time together and had a real conversation with one another. This could be somewhere you two drive somewhere together. It could be as simple as driving to Dairy Queen for an ice cream, talking a walk around the neighborhood or park. Or stopping at the top of Harper Hill and watching the sunset. If you decide to do something like this, leave the cell phones at home. I remember back in the old days when phones were only at the house. Leave them at home were you to can talk. And, guys when she asks how was your day - give her more than “fine” or “good.” She want to know about your day. She wants to experience your day through her feelings. You see - our ladies are creatures of the heart. What we men think, they feel. Same goes when she’s telling you about her day. For us guys it’s a little simpler. All we have to do is listen. Fight the urge to fix all her challenges. Just listen to her. This allows you two to share with one another. When husbands and wives open up to each other it help promote mutual ownership.

When a couple marries, they promise to give themselves to each other totally. Earthly possessions merge, they give each other their bodies for companionship, for mutual protection, and for intimate union. This is what verse 3 and leading into verse 4 is talking about. Paul says in verse 4: “The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.” The idea is that the wife (or husband) does not have the freedom to do as she (or he) pleases with her (or his) own body, because the other has a rightful claim to sexual fulfillment. Each time a couple a surrenders to each other from sexual fulfillment, they are demonstrating that mutual ownership commitment they made at the wedding alter. Marriage, then, is a permanent surrender of everything. I am hers or I am his in the fullest and truest sense.

But! Let me say one thing about intimacy, and that includes sexual intimacy. It’s something that should never be weaponized because the two of you are in a disagreement over something. Next week we’ll talk about how to handle conflict. Sex and conversation are not to be withheld just because you two aren’t seeing eye-to-eye at the moment.

Verse 5 illuminates this where Paul says “Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

There may come an occasion when the partners agree to abstain for a time from normal intimacy in order to give themselves whole-heartedly to, for example, prayer. For married people the breaking off of normal relations, even for such a holy purpose, this can be only by mutual consent. Then the couple must come together again. Otherwise they risk placing themselves at Satan’s mercy. Satan takes great joy in breaking the marriage.

Conclusion

I had someone tell me once “when a husband and wife are yielded to the Lord, and when they seek to please each other in the marriage relationship, the marriage will be so satisfying that neither partner would think of looking elsewhere for fulfillment.” It’s keeping God at the center of you marriage. As a married couple, the closer you get to God, the closer you two become.

Now I know there’s this thing called gravity, and this saying “gravity happens to us all.” Our earth suits change. Men do you believe that she is just as beautiful if not more than on the day you got married? Ladies, do you still see that essence of a man that caught your eye?

Men let me leave you with some words out of proverbs:

Proverbs 5:18–19 ESV

18 Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, 19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.

And, ladies let me leave you with some words from the Song of Solomon:

Song of Solomon 5:10–16 ESV

10 My beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand. 11 His head is the finest gold; his locks are wavy, black as a raven. 12 His eyes are like doves beside streams of water, bathed in milk, sitting beside a full pool. 13 His cheeks are like beds of spices, mounds of sweet-smelling herbs. His lips are lilies, dripping liquid myrrh. 14 His arms are rods of gold, set with jewels. His body is polished ivory, bedecked with sapphires. 15 His legs are alabaster columns, set on bases of gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars. 16 His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

The alter is open. Do you need to pray for your wife or husband or pray as a couple, take them in hand and come pray. If you need prayer this morning, I would be happy to pray with you.

Closing Prayer