This past Sunday we finished our 4 week sermon series titled "Cooties." Cooties was a series all about dating, relationships, friendships with the opposite sex, and sexual purity. For the final week of the series we focused on sexual purity, to do this we broke the group into two and spent time discussing the same topic with just 6th and 7th graders and again with 8th graders only. The message was very similar, with some more explicit details for the 8th grade message.
Good things, used wrong ways.
Sex is a good thing. It was a part of creation. When we read the creation account in Genesis 1, God not only creates male and female, but he also commands them to be fruitful and multiply (aka: have sex). God created sex; it was his idea and he even called it "very good." This is an important reality for us as we talk about sex because it's easy for us to get caught up in an idea that sex is bad and we shouldn't do it. Sex is good...when it is used the way God intended it to be used.
Just like many good things; because of sin, good things often get used in wrong ways. Too much water can make someone die. Too much food might make someone extremely obese. The internet can allow for a wealth of information or it could allow for anonymous bullying. These are good things and can be very good, but they can also be misused. After sin enters the picture in Genesis 3, humanity starts to use good things in wrong ways. Sex, which is a good thing, when used in the wrong way can be very damaging.
Gross, God, or Gift.
There are three possibilities for how we might think about sex. Two of them are common, but not biblical. And the third is bibilical but probably the least common. Many people think gross as soon as they hear the topic of sex. In fact, gross might be most common in settings like a church where it is easy for us to simply give they message that "sex is bad." Sex is not gross; God created it. The most popular thought pattern in culture is most likely god. This is the idea that your own desires rule regardless of how that lines up with what God has set as the standard. The culture worships our own desires, often found in sexual behaviors, as god. The third way we can think about it is as a gift. God created it, God designed it, and God has given it to us so we need to be responsible and use it the way that he intended it.