Eccl 3 / Rom 1 Sermon - Desires, relationships, sex

Big Picture Outline:

Focal Passages:

Ecclesiastes 3:1–14 (NIV)

1 There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6 a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8 a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

What are some examples/illustrations/stories from culture that clearly portray the problems with our approach to friendship, relationships and sex?

Millennials in USA Today survey: It is less intimate (and therefore intimidating) to have sex with a stranger than it is to go on a first date with them.

Millennials/Gen Z: More sexualized than any previous generation, but having less sex. (Perhaps because of the work involved in cultivating intimacy with another person?)

Significant dip in the number of friends people have today, especially among men.

What are a few common problems most people have when it comes to relationships and sexuality? What are 2-3 clear examples that can be used to illustrate and diagnose the problem at the heart?

How do our desires (naming these precisely would be extremely helpful) in the realm of friendships, romantic relationships, and sex point forward to a greater longing in our hearts — the eternal expanse?

What practices can I prescribe in order to combat these desires so that we find fulfilment in God rather than in unhealthy friendships, relationships, or sexual encounters?

Seems to lead towards the concept of intimacy. Might be most helpful to paint picture of how our problems in friendships, relationships, and sex largely come from distortions of our need for intimacy. Then, the practices I assign could be designed most clearly to grow intimacy between us and God on the individual level.

Would be important to show how seeking intimacy with God will then lead to the ability to find true (rather than false) intimacy with others, both friends and lovers.

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