Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ *Sex--What’s Love Got to Do with It?* by Randy Croft \\ \\ 1 Corinthians 6:18-6:20 \\ \\ \\ Sex: What’s Love Got To Do, Got To Do With It? \\ \\ by \\ \\ Randy Croft \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ There couldn’t have been a worse time.

Just before Easter weekend, when millions of people around the world think about spiritual things, a cult group commits mass suicide.

Remember the story?

39 people took their lives.

21 women, 18 men.

Heaven’s Gate.

They were all happily looking forward to shedding their bodies and joining some UFO in the trail of the comet Hale Bopp.

At first, the police thought they were all men.

Why?

Because everyone in the cult had this androgynous look--sexless.

Women and men looked somewhat gender less.

All the Heaven’s Gate members wore baggy clothes lest they show their sexuality.

The body was only a container.

It was part of the Heaven’s cult teaching...There was no gender at the "next level" so look as neutral as possible.

Sex was evil.

The leader, Marshall Applesauce, preached celibacy...even going so far as castrating himself.

As it turned out, there were six men altogether who castrated themselves.

\\ \\ \\ I’m thinking--great.

Not only were their minds castrated and deceived, but several men actually castrated themselves.

One member said on video tape that castrating himself made him feel free.

\\ \\ \\ Just what the world needs--another weird religious group getting messed up on sexuality.

There have always been those groups who go off the deep end and forbid sex, castrate themselves, advocate celibacy.

That’s why the Catholic church has struggled with a massive shortage of priests--.

Other religious groups that advocate incest, orgies, prostitution, etc....total distortion.

\\ \\ Research has pointed out that it’s not religious groups that have the major hangups on sex...it’s our whole culture.

Sex is so pervasive in everything we do as a culture.

Advertisers use sex to sell cars, clothes, shampoo, sunglasses, even milk.

I saw a billboard advertisement in town using sex to sell milk...the slogan.. "Milk...It’s my obsession."

Is nothing immune?

\\ \\ A study estimates that the average person views over 9,000 sex acts, or implied sex acts, every year on television.

Of that, over 80% is by people who aren’t married.

Average kid, watching television, from age 8-18 (ten years) watched 93,000 scenes of sex, over 72,000 of these scenes would have been premarital or extramarital affairs.

Guess what happened.

Teenage pregnancies have skyrocketed.

So the government said, "Hey we better start passing out condoms at school."

Did it stop the pregnancies?

No, Pregnancies have increased 400%.

70% of unwed teen mothers will go on welfare.

Of teens who marry because of pregnancy, \\ \\ 60% will be divorced in five years.

2~/3 of teenage pregnancies are fathered by men over 20.

\\ \\ --But that’s teenagers.

Adults make wiser choices, right?

Yeah, right.

12 million Americans become infected with Sexually transmitted diseases every year.

There are more adult bookstores in America than McDonalds restaurants.

Pornography is an 8 billion dollar~/year business.

Many today, sex is like shaking hands.

\\ \\ Bible is considered to give outdated advice, unrealistic ethics.

For man people their sexual ethics come from Nike-- "Just do it", Or Budweiser "Why ask Why?" \\ \\ Someone wrote once that "Sex is like a great river that is rich and deep and good as long as it stays within its proper channel.

The moment a river overflows its banks, it becomes destructive, and the moment sex overflows its God-given banks, it too becomes destructive."

\\ \\ I couldn’t agree more...so allow me today to share from God’s word the principles for lasting happiness, including a more wholistic and healthy understanding of sex...written by the creator of sex...God.

\\ \\ What God says about sex from the bible.

3 principles.

\\ \\ I. Sex is more than just a physical act.

It’s physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.

\\ \\ Problem with topless bars, pornography, and sexual advertisements, is not that they emphasize sex too much, but that they don’t emphasize it enough.

They totally eliminate the depth of human relationship and restrain sexuality to the narrow confines of momentary pleasure.

They think genital sex alone defines sex, but that is only a small part of God’s beautiful design.

They have trivialized sex as a shallow "get high" drug, useful only until the next hit.

\\ \\ The bible is not squeamish about sexuality.

God boldly created it in the beginning and called it good.

Song of Solomon celebrates sex as a voluptuous adventure.

\\ \\ Song 8:6 "Put me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm..." \\ \\ Paul the apostle, in his letter to the Corinthians writes "The husband should give his wife all that he owes her as his wife.

And the wife should give her husband all that she owes him as her husband.

The wife does not have full rights over her own body; her husband shares them.

And the husband does not have full rights over his own body; his wife shares them.

Do not refuse to give your bodies to each other, unless you both agree to stay away from sexual relations for a time so that you can give your time to prayer.

Them come together again so Satan cannot tempt you because of a lack of self-control."

(I Cor 7:3-5).--Husbands

do not own wives.

Wives don’t own the husbands.

But neither do they have total ownership of their bodies.

\\ \\ Major difference between sex in our culture, and God’s original blueprint for sex, is that God’s design has a much deeper level of intimacy and commitment.

Not cheap.

Two examples \\ \\ To know: \\ \\ I thought it was funny, when I was 12 years old reading the bible through for the first time.

I would read about husbands and wives and the bible would say something like "Adam knew Eve and they had a son."

I would ask, "What does knowing someone have to do with childbirth?"

Yet the bible uses that terminology over and over and over for sex.

That’s why the Hebrew word for sex--yada--literally means "to know."

It’s not just a physical act.

It’s about knowing someone that you have a lifelong commitment to.

Knowing a persons heart, their emotional selves, their spiritual side.

\\ \\ The University of Northern Iowa once offered a general art course that included a most unusual exercise.

The teacher brought to class a shopping bag filled with lemons and gave a lemon to each class member.

The assignment was for the student to keep his lemon with him day and night--smelling, handling, examining it.

Next class period, without warning, students were told to put their lemons back in the bag.

Then each was asked to find his lemon.

Surprisingly, most did so without difficulty.

\\ \\ God designed sex in a way for people to know their partners in such a way that know one else will ever know.

\\ \\ One Flesh: \\ \\ It touches deep into the spirit of each person and produces a union between two people.

Something called the "one flesh".

Gen 2:24 "they leave, and cling, and become one flesh."

Jesus said, "So they are no longer two but one.

What therefore God has joined together, let no man pull apart" (Matt 19:6).

Obviously there was a merger, a unity.

I Corinthians 6:16 "Don’t you know that he who joins himself with a prostitute becomes one flesh with her?" \\ \\ That’s why sexual sins are different than most others...It’s the one-flesh that happens.

\\ \\ I Corinthians 6:18-20 "Flee from sexual immorality...All other sins a man commits..." \\ \\ \\ That’s why the bible says to wait for marriage to have sex.

It’s not just a safeguard against venereal disease, or unwanted pregnancy.

Tina Turner "What’s Love Got to do, got to do with it."

God’s word says, commitment and love have everything to do with it.