Sermon on the Mount - God’s Design for Sex
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Intro
Intro
Ok, now everybody go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Matthew 5:27-32 for our Bible passage tonight. And a quick recap:
What is this section of Scripture we’re studying called?
Who gave the sermon?
Why is the mount significant?
Now you’ll see that we’re going to cover a little bit of last week’s passage along with some new stuff. That’s because I think these two go hand in hand as they give us a picture of God’s design for marriage and our sexuality.
Text
Text
Ok so let’s read these verses together.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
So let’s explore this a briefly:
Explanation
Explanation
Lust
Lust
English Standard Version Matthew 5:27–28
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
We talked last week about how the way Jesus talks about adultery and lust here sounds like people were oversimplifying and narrowing the law. Jesus expands it to include the intentions, the way we look at others, and the state of our heart.
When we lust, we commit adultery in our hearts. I do not think this is equivocating it to an actual breaking of marriage vows, because he is contrasting it with a purely external obedience of the law. Jesus’s point is not to say that lust=adultery, but that lust is also a sexual sin. Sexual sin is not merely confined to adultery.
This makes us ask the question: If it is more than just adultery, how do we define sexual sin?
We could then respond, that it is anything contrary to God’s design for sex. A misuse of sex whether internally or in the heart.
This leads to the next question: what is God’s design for sex, internally and externally?
We start to see more when we look at the next verses in this passage that talk about divorce and adultery.
Adultery
Adultery
English Standard Version Matthew 5:32
But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Jesus expands the law against committing adultery to include the topic of divorce as well. And he expands it to say that people commit adultery when they “make” another person marry or when they marry another person themselves.
But an even bigger question arises?
Why Does God Care?
Why Does God Care?
God cares about sex because he cares about the people involved in it.
God cares who we sleep with because he cares deeply about the people who are doing the sleeping. He cares because sex was his idea, not ours. He cares because misusing sex can cause profound hurt and damage. He cares because he regards us as worthy of his care.
Allberry, Sam. Why does God care who I sleep with? (Questioning Faith) (p. 10). The Good Book Company. Kindle Edition.
Why Adultery is Harmful
Why Adultery is Harmful
The ESV Study Bible Matthew 5:27
5:27 Adultery was considered an extremely serious offense (cf.
The marriage covenant that reflects the relationship of God and his people should be highlighted whenever we think about lust, adultery and divorce.
Committing adultery is extremely harmful to others. It also destroys the symbolism that is to be reflected in marriage: a loving and committed relationship between God and his people.
Sex Was God’s Design
Sex Was God’s Design
I think another aspect we need to consider is that sex was part of God’s design. It was a commandment actually.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
So if he’s the one who designed sex and gave the commandment in the first place, it’s clear that he cares about it. It’s not something we figured out behind God’s back. He not indifferent towards the things he designs and commands.
So What is God’s Design
So What is God’s Design
Let’s start with the WHY? because I think that also gives more insight into why God cares.
Purpose
Purpose
A Few Purposes:
Procreation
Gen 1:28 “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””
We see this in the command to fill the earth, the first time sex is commanded. That is the first purpose of it.
God wants more image-bearers
Unity, Love, Intimacy
Gen 2.23-24 “Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Literally made for one another.
Sex is part of the process of unification. The creating of one flesh.
Deep interpersonal relationship, vulnerability, and involvement (Genesis 2.25 “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” )
Pleasure
Pro 5.15-19 “Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.”
I don’t think the fact that people enjoy sex is part of the fall. Human anatomy literally tells us that part of the way God designed us is to experience pleasure in sex.
When?
When?
Within the covenant of marriage. Once a person is married, not before.
Within the covenant of marriage. Once a person is married, not before.
Once again, back to Genesis 2:24
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
The key here is that it’s his WIFE.
Based on God’s design and Jesus’s explanation of adultery that we’re looking at in the Sermon on the Mount, I think it’s pretty safe to conclude from Scripture that God designed sex to be within marriage.
And it’s easy to see why, because of the purposes of marriage.
Marriage provides the safety of a lifelong commitment and covenant to:
Raise children within
Experience unity within
Experience pleasure within
Who?
Who?
One man and one woman who are married to each other. We see this is how God instituted marriage in the first place. With one man and one woman. There was a committed relationship there before God, and they are made ONE FLESH. You cannot be united with more than one other person. You’ll be divided in some capacity and it just won’t work.
We actually see examples from Scripture when people had more than one wife, it almost always caused lots of harm and drama.
Summary
Summary
So sex was designed to be between one man, and one woman, within a committed marriage relationship. Anything apart from this is contrary to his design and will cause deep hurt.
Close in Prayer
Close in Prayer
