The single best sermon I have ever heard—on any topic—is called Sexy on the inside by Rob Bell. It's a much grander image of sexuality than anyone in our culture is talking about. But would you expect less from Jesus? What does it mean to be single and sexual? How is it that there are highly sexually charged people who are perfectly celibate? How is it possible to be sleeping with a spouse and in some ways sleeping alone? What was really lost in the fall, and what is God's plan for restoring it back to us? Is our culture oversexed?We lost vital connections with God, each other, and our environment when all mankind fell. "And so we have more cell phones than ever, and we're more lonely and isolated than ever. And we have more chat rooms than ever, and we have people hurting more than ever, because they don't have somebody they can lean on. Our culture is not oversexed. We have no idea what sex really means..." Sex is better than I imagined, and it's more vital than I dreamed. It affects everything and is central to the restoration of the universe.
If you've heard it you know what I mean. I just checked, and it's no longer available (they only keep 12 weeks worth on their server here: http://www.mhbcmi.org/listen/index.php). I must look into a way to get it back.
2 comments:
"Will there be sex in heaven?" Absolutely.
If the experiences of this life foreshadow the way things will be when we live in the presence of Jesus and the Father, I can think of no more revealing picture of what it will be like than honest, intimate, bare, unashamed intercourse with one's spouse. To fully know and to be fully known--that is the ultimate experience of this human life.
Loving is nothing more than being fully known.
This reminds me of what Jesus said, in the most intimate prayer ever recorded in the history of mankind:
"I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me." [John 17]
*blushes*
Yes, yes. John Eldredge has a classic quid pro quo for this in Journey of Desire (p. 138):
"Is there sex in heaven? It would be better to ask, Is there worship in heaven?"
He also reminds that "God's design was that the two shall become one flesh." Regardless of what our experience has been, regardless of our cynicism as a society, regardless of the degree to which we have given up on real intimacy, on soul-oneness. Marriage is supposed to image the church's relationship with Christ, and that is supposed to be a full, real abandonment to one another, a holy romp.
I also love what he wrote under the heading "THE CONSUMATION OF THE AFFAIR: What Is Worship After All?" (p. 134):
The older Christian wedding vows contained these amazing words: "With my body, I thee worship." Maybe our forefathers weren't so prudish after all...To give yourself over to another, passionately and nakedly, to adore that person body, soul, and spirit--we know there is something special, even sacramental about sex. It requires trust and abandonment, guided by a wholehearted devotion. What else can this be but worship? After all, God employs explicitly sexual language to describe faithfulness (and unfaithfulness) to Him."
But now I feel like I'm mixing up my posts. Maybe this reply should go under the "What is worship?" thread. But the idea is connectedness, or in other words: knowing.
There is a good and pleasing "know in part" between us and God, and between us and each other now, and then a "know fully, even as I am fully known" coming later. There is a good and pleasing way for each of us to revere, embrace, and connect with each other, with God, and with our environment now (sexuality), and then there is an intercourse yet to be revealed in perfection.
I really need to add that I am FULLY aware that there are perversions to EVERY type of connection I have mentioned. And that should come as no surprise. Ah, the imposters. That could really open the floodgates...
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