Praying for Sex
I dare you!
Do you pray about sex?
Do you feel comfortable praying about your sex life?
I hope so.
Sex is a gift from God. Sex should be received in submission to God and enjoyed with thankfulness to God.[1]
Sinful humanity degrades God’s good gift of sex by misusing and abusing it and, through sex, misusing and abusing others.
Sex is often a frustrating part of our fallen world, even within God’s design in marriage.[2]
There are many discipleship issues and implications we can go into as a church… I’ll save those for later (and the footnotes).
I want to address one unhelpful idea that plagues many Christians.
Keeping God out of your sex life.
Because of the sinful sex all around us–many Christians see sex as fundamentally corrupted. Sex is an impure necessity that you must deal with or feel dirty desiring.
The brokenness and corruption connected to sex is not an inditement that sex itself is wrong.
We’re all still fighting the old habit of hiding sin.[3]
This can impact a good gift like sex when we’ve mislabeled it as sinful. So many Christians feel uncomfortable talking to God about sex because it feels like they’re talking about sin.
The logic is understandable and tragic–We don’t pray enough as it is… of course we’re not going to touch on sex!
God calls us into an intimate relationship in prayer. We don’t need to filter our lives. God already knows all about our sex lives and struggles.
Too many Christians talk to each other about things that should be brought to God first and foremost. The sex within our marriages should not be public knowledge or free conversation. We corrupt the gift God's given when we make it a cheap commodity instead of a treasure.
The weight of the Fall felt in your sex life doesn’t need to be carried by other people– but that doesn’t mean we don’t talk to anyone.
We should talk to God!
God can help you carry it in prayer. We can talk to the designer and Lord of our sex lives.
What’s keeping you from talking to God about sex?
If your sex is outside God’s design– you’re called into the prayer of repentance!
If your sex within marriage is straining under the Fall– you’re invited to cast your cares on the Lord who cares for you!
In a world that talks constantly about a wrong view of sex, Christian couples need to talk to God more about sex that glorifies Him.
I was told in my pre-marriage counseling what I’ve repeated to many couples since, “If you feel uncomfortable praying about your sex life–you don’t have a biblical view of sex.”
[1] Sex is given by God only within the boundaries of covenant faithfulness and love–the marriage of a man and a woman.
The lie of our day is that sex is a neutral commodity that can be freely exchanged without penalty or cost no matter who is involved.
Sexual contact outside of marriage is different than sex within marriage in a core way.
Marital sex is a re-union of the two bodies that were once one (Eve was formed from Adam). Sexual contact of other types is not acting in this same story or purpose.
Sexual contact outside of God’s design denigrates His gift and His people.
[2] We struggle to trust and serve which makes the self-giving act of sex challenging. We face physical injuries and limitations that challenge the function and pleasure of sex.
Sex is close to our hearts. This act of total vulnerability and self-giving is the epitome of “intimate” even when pretend it is not.
This is why sex presses profoundly on brokenness of our bodies and spirits in this fallen world.
[3] The deceitful impulse to hide sin from God or to keep shameful things covered from God’s sight has been conquered by the cross of Jesus Christ.
The promise of “no condemnation” frees us to get rid of what is deadly, degrading, and dishonoring. We can run TO God with our sin so that He can help us.