Sex within marriage is like a fire in a fireplace- it lends a cheery warmth to a home. It’s altogether right and productive. Sex outside of marriage is like a structure fire, which is to say that it’s destructive. The blaze of such a fire may be exciting for a time and, yes, even intense, but ultimately it consumes homes and brings lives to ruin. Outside of marriage sex rages to ash and all that is left is bitter aftermath. Good fire. Bad fire.

The church is perhaps more practiced at speaking negatively about sex than positively, but why should that be? How amazingly extravagant is the Creator of this world who authored the colors of a sunset and poppies in the dunes, the smell of wood smoke on the beach and good things cooking, the sound of waves crashing and loons at daybreak, the taste of coffee and raspberries? He didn’t just give us the minimum, the barest essentials that we need to survive and propagate the earth. No, he gifted us with all of these extraordinary things and more besides. He’s extravagant and wonderfully generous, and in the gift of sex we see another example of God’s generosity and goodness to us.

I hope you can listen in as we continue our sermon series on marriage by seeking God’s Word for a Biblical view of sex and intimacy in marriage.