The Science of Sex

Introduction

Whats up friends. Welcome back to NXT Senior High. Super stoked that you decided to spend your Wednesday night with us.

I’m really really excited because today we are kicking off a new series titled “Sexuality & Jesus” where we are going to spend the WHOLE month of February talking about sex, marriage/relationships, gender, homosexuality, sexuality, esc. Now, before I go any further I want to establish something. Every. Single. Message. Will be 100% based on and supported by scripture. Now, obviously all of our messages are…but, you may hear things over the next month that make you uncomfortable. They might make you mad. They might even offend you. Or, maybe, you’ll completely agree with every single thing I say (doubtful). Regardless, every thing we teach over the next week is what the Bible says. And here is what I know to be true:

Culture has gotten sex & sexuality all wrong, and many Christians have too.

So, we’re going to start this week talking about the science of sex, next week we will talk about sexual identity & more specifically about homosexuality, and the week following we’re going to do part 2 of sexual identity but more specifically on gender and holiness. The final week will be a Q&A with the whole teaching team & LB . We want you to be asking questions this whole series so we’ve set up a place and a day for you to ask them! Go to Grace.church/nxtquestion to ask any questions that come up during this series, whether its in the middle of my message, in small groups, or sitting at home. We’ll be using these questions to guide our Q&A.

So…now that I’ve got everyone (hopefully) excited for the next month, lets dive into the science of sex.

Content

I’m going to read a few scriptures here and I don’t want you to open up and read along, let me just read them to you. Focus on the words that you hear and the meaning of them.

1 Corinthians 5:1 ESV

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.

1 Corinthians 6:13 ESV

“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

1 Corinthians 10:8 ESV

We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.

1 Thessalonians 4:3–8 ESV

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

Ephesians 5:3 ESV

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.

Colossians 3:5 ESV

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Jude 7 ESV

just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

Here’s the reality friends. The majority of us have grown up in the Church. Some of you haven’t, and even some of you have never been to a Church before and tonight is your first time. But the truth is this: Everyone knows Christians believe you should not have sex before marriage. In fact, with a show of hands if you knew that Christians believed you shouldn’t have sex before marriage raise your hand. Everyone in our culture knows Christians believe this! (for the most part)

But, have you ever thought to ask yourself- why? Why is it that we as Christians believe it. The obvious answer,

Because the Bible says so!

Which is an overwhelming and resounding - YES! Correct. We believe it because the Bible says so. If you’ve been coming the past few weeks then you’ve heard me talk about how we believe the Bible is the literal word of God. That when we read the Bible we are reading God’s words to us…SO! If that is true, of course we believe what it says about sex! But, there’s another reason why…do you know what it is? I can promise you this- you haven’t heard it in school. You probably haven’t heard it in the Church…and you may not have heard it in the home.... SCIENCE.

Now, historically Christians have taken a stance against science. They’ve stood in opposition to it and claimed that science is anti-scripture. In some cases, yes, that is true. We’ll talk about how what modern science says about gender is wrong according to the Bible here in a couple of weeks. But in many, if not most cases, science supports scripture. This is most obvious in the case of sex before marriage.

So, we hear all the time that the Bible says not to have sex. But let me use science to tell you why God says that. Because here’s the reality- Science is God’s equation to creation. God created science, and God uses science and confirms much of what he has said in scripture through science. Science is evidence of God’s particular creation.

So we have on one hand,

The Bible saying: Don’t have sex before marriage. Where?

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

its through the lens of this scripture that we read every text about sexual immorality & adultery.

One of my favorite websites, Gotquestions.org (a website where you can search pretty much any theological/biblical question and a trusted answer can be found), describes it like this-

“Since 1 Corinthians 7:2 clearly includes sex before marriage in the definition of sexual immorality, all of the Bible verses that condemn sexual immorality as being sinful also condemn sex before marriage as sinful. Sex before marriage is included in the biblical definition of sexual immorality” (https://www.gotquestions.org/sex-before-marriage.html)

We also know that the author of Hebrews tells us that the only form of sexual relations that God approves of is between a husband & wife,

Hebrews 13:4 ESV

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

So we have clear evidence of scripture that says an obvious- don’t have sex before marriage! But we also have on the other hand, science that says the exact same thing-

I want to say one thing before I go forward- I may say words or phrases that are uncomfortable to hear but I need you to believe they are just as uncomfortable for me to say.

You may not know this, but your brain is filled with chemicals called neurochemicals one example of one of these chemicals is dopamine. Dopamine promotes feelings of desire, euphoria, satisfaction, and reward. Another neurochemical that is released is called oxytocin which is a hormone that acts as a neurotransmitter inside of the brain.

A neurotransmitter is just a chemical messenger, it talks to other parts of the brain.

Oxytocin is known as one of the "happy hormones,” along with dopamine, and creates a bond of trust in the brain. More on this in a minute.

An important thing to note is that these neurochemicals are being released in both the male and the female during sex.

So we know that a lot is happening in the brain during sex, studies also show that certain parts of your brain warm up,

“The limbic system—a more primitive region of the brain responsible for physical drives and elements of emotional processing—activates during sex, according to Jason Krellman, PhD, a neuropsychologist and assistant professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University Medical Center. Other parts of the cerebral cortex that govern higher reasoning, however, shut down. “As a consequence, the sexual act itself is driven more by instinct and emotion than rational thought,” Krellman says.”

https://www.thehealthy.com/sex/happens-to-brain-when-have-sex/#:~:text=Sex%20causes%20the%20brain%20to,%2C%20and%20reward%2C%20Krellman%20says

and other parts of your brain cool down,

“Two specific areas of the brain seem to shut off during sex for women, according to Jennifer Sweeton, PhD, a clinical psychologist in the greater Kansas City area. One region involves social judgments and awareness, which might be why people say, “love is blind,” Sweeton says. The areas linked to self-awareness and self-inhibition also have been found to deactivate in female brains, resulting in out-of-body-like experiences during sex.”

https://www.thehealthy.com/sex/happens-to-brain-when-have-sex/#:~:text=Sex%20causes%20the%20brain%20to,%2C%20and%20reward%2C%20Krellman%20says

But, I want to focus on the chemical reactions in the brain. Lets go back to the hormone oxytocin because I think its the most important for our topic today.

Fidelity means faithfulness to one person. And, studies show that the release of oxytocin in sex increases fidelity between partners during sex.

For the men, oxytocin has the ability to “make males view their partners as more attractive than other familiar and unfamiliar females [and] research from 2012 suggests that the hormone may influence males to keep a greater social distance from attractive female strangers” … but why?

Your brain has these things called reward pathways, its connected to areas of the brain that control behavior and memory. It begins in the ventral tegmental area, where neurons release dopamine to make you feel pleasure (sound familiar?). The brain then begins to make connections between the activity and the pleasure, ensuring that we will repeat the behavior. This is where addiction takes place…but its also where sexual pleasure takes place. It can either be a super dangerous, or a super helpful part of the brain.

And it is FLARING UP during sex.

When you combine the reward pathway of the ventral tegmental area and the release of oxytocin you get a chemical response in the brain that can change the way you view the person you are having sex with.

Each time you have sex with someone the oxytocin being released is bonding the two of you together. For the females it is causing a connection with the male that says “he will protect me” and for the males it is causing a connection with the female that says “I will protect her” and for both of them it is causing a connection that says “I will be loyal to this person.”

Now, lets go one step further. We know that reward pathways of the brain can be abused. Lets take for example an addiction to pornography. From the outside it may seem like an easy addiction to kick, its as easy as not typing in the website and not watching the video- right?

Wrong! Because addiction comes from a reward pathway that has been set up. Your brain literally expects you to watch it, so it lays down pathways which lead you to need to watch it in order to be rewarded. This is why addiction is so powerful from a neurochemical level.

So, in order to break a pornography addiction you literally have to rip up those pathways that have been laid down by denying them the reward.

From the perspective of sex, if you lay down these pathways with one girl, then another, then another, then another, but you never are loyal to her or never allow yourself to be bonded to her (by frequent sexual experiences together) then your brain stops having the chemical response it was designed to have within a monogamous and loving sexual relationship.

This means that the more sexual partners you have, guys, the less loyal your brain will chemically make you be, and the less you will feel the need to protect your future wife. If you sleep around now, you will not have the chemical reaction within marriage which promotes fidelity, a sense to provide protection, and loyalty.

Gals, this means that the more sexual partners you have, the less loyal your brain will chemically make you be, and the less you will feel protected by your future husband. if you sleep around now, you will not have the chemical reaction within marriage which promotes fidelity, a sense of being protected, and loyalty.

Why are marriages failing? There can be list upon list, but it seems, that because of the sexual revolution and the increase and availability of sex & adultery outside of marriage (including things like porn, sexting, esc) there are more and more people entering into marriage after their brains have been chemically stripped of the very process God gave them to create long lasting and healthy marriages on a chemical level.

So, the Bible & science both scream to us DON’T HAVE SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE!

Conclusion

But I want to be abundantly clear of something....There is no thing or no one that God cannot redeem. Maybe you are here and you have been having sex for years, or maybe you just recently had sex for the first time, or whatever other situation you may be in. You are not hopeless, you are not doomed.

You might be asking… so now what Matt? Am I screwed? No. First, ask for Jesus’ forgiveness. If you are in this room and you are not married and you have watched porn, you have had sex, or you have practiced ANY sexual expression with another person then you are guilty of the sin of adultery and sexual immorality and are in need of forgiveness for it. Ask for it… and you will receive it. The Bible says,

1 John 1:9 ESV

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

so confess your sins, and be cleansed from your unrighteousness! I’ll be the first one to admit that I have stumbled and sinned thousands of times personally, and relationally. In fact, statistics show that the majority of high school students will have had one or more sexual encounters with another person before the graduate…you are not alone in your need for forgiveness!

So start by asking for forgiveness, then ask for healing. God is able to restore your brain and the chemicals in it. I have heard countless testimonies of people who were addicted to porn, or sex, or whatever else it might be and were given healing who now have long lasting and happy marriages. Ask to be healed, plead with God to restore the reward pathways in your brain. It may seem silly, but God is able! If we truly believe Christ rose from the dead, we surely can believe that God can make your brain right again.

My hope is that you are walking out of here tonight with two realizations or two reminders:

That the Bible is clear with us that sex is meant for a husband & wife to enjoy within marriage.

And that science supports what the Bible says about sex.

To put it simply, the impact of having sex before marriage is much much greater than the momentary pleasure you will have having sex outside of marriage. For the sake of your future husband or wife, its not worth it.