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Week 3 Sermon Questions For Groups

September 27, 2015

Unforgettable Love Story: A Study of Love, Marriage and Romance    

Introduction:

When you read the Song of Solomon you think warm fire, Marvin Gaye playing in the background and the woman or man of your dreams silhouetted in the fire. Song of Solomon is the story of a young man and woman who fall in love in the springtime and sing each other songs about their feelings and desires. It is at times both steamy and at times pretty mushy. This book touches on relationships, and romance, and sex. But, at the end of the day it teaches us about love. In week 3 we are looking at sex and intimacy.

Something To Talk About:

It is hard to write a long love poem without a nice big section where a guy gets all mushy, right? Well, Song of Solomon is no exception. In Chapter 4, the groom gushes about everything from the bride’s beauty to her smell to the way she makes him feel. Song of Solomon is all about young love, and then about marriage. On Sunday we talked about the five attributes of great sex.

Great sex is affirming: If you read chapter 4 of Song of Solomon you will quickly come to the conclusion that Solomon has it bad. Really bad. King Solomon’s extended praise of the beauty of the maiden draws upon a wealth of natural images to convey how beautiful she is.It is high praise indeed. It is affirmation. Each time you give your spouse a loving word of affirmation, you are heaping value on to her. She feels treasured and adored. When we learn to verbally appreciate our spouse, love grows.

Great sex is tender; Tenderness is evident in Song of Solomon chapter 4. With God’s help and guidance we can become the unique combination of being thick skinned and tender hearted. Being thick-skinned means having the grace and strength to avoid being overly sensitive or easily hurt. It means cultivating hearts that are soft, tender, and warm. There will naturally be tenderness in a marriage where husband and wife are slow to be offended, quick to extend grace, and who genuinely love each other. That is the recipe for real intimacy.

Great sex is passionate: It’s not always easy to keep the passion alive in marriage. Over time, the newness of our relationship wears off.  Life becomes mundane as we succumb to our busy schedules and get caught up with other pursuits.  These things can easily snuff out the passion we once had for each other. That is why we need to work to keep the passion alive. There are ways to change the momentum if we are willing to invest ourselves. Make intimacy a priority and I guarantee you that your marriage will thrive and not merely survive.

Great sex is secure: I said in the message that the wife must be the gold standard and indeed the only standard for us as husbands. She must feel safe and secure and most of all completely accepted. Acceptance and security help open the door to sex and intimacy. It  means that we allow another person to “see into” us and they allow us to “see into” them.  Please don’t miss this: If you want your wife to open her heart to you, you’ve got to give her a safe place to do so. For hearts to thrive in intimacy, they’ve got to feel safe and accepted.

Great sex is holy: Marriage, sex and intimacy were created by God for a purpose. Maintaining a godly perspective of the purpose of marriage provides the foundation for a successful marriage relationship as we work to develop Christlike character.

Questions:

  1. How has the media influenced your life when it comes to the topic of sex? Are there insecurities or lies that you bought into as a result? 
  2. How would your perspective on sex/intimacy change if you were to really believe that we have to remove ourselves and what we want out of the way?
  3. In what ways has our culture limited sex simply to the physical act?
  4. Read Proverbs. 5:18-19: What do those verses mean to you today?
  5. Read 1 Corinthians 7:5: Is this warning relevant or justified today? Why or why not?
  6. What steps can you take to bring yourself to a place of being fully yielded to God’s design for sex? What attitudes, habits or relationships do you need to surrender to make that happen?

Take One Thing Home with You

The bottom line for Sunday’s message: Sex was designed to be more than just a physical act. Let me explain what I mean in a little more detail. Our culture tends to look at sex as pleasure-based physical interaction between two people. It is reasoned that since young people are pools of hormones and libido, they are biologically predisposed to have sex.  Culture teaches us that the best way to deal with the problem is to teach young people “safe sex” practices and thus teach them how to have sex responsibly.

Unfortunately that cheapens sex. Sex is more than another biological necessity that we are powerless to fight against just like eating, drinking or sleeping. Yes, there is a biological component to sex.  God wired all of us with a desire for sexual intimacy. Still, sex is more than the physical act. For starters, there’s an emotional side. It is nearly impossible to untangle the physical and emotional components of sex. They are dependent on each other and they work together. Whether or not we are even aware, our perceptions and interactions within a relationship are impacted by sex.

Then there is the psychological side. Some call it guilt issues, conscious struggles, or relational insecurities. 

And then there is the spiritual side. Marital sex is an incredible covenant that unites two beings into one. It is an act of worship, giving glory to the God who makes everything beautiful in its time. When we begin to understand the deep and meaningful components of sex our appreciation for this God-given gift will begin to grow.