Have you ever done this with anything? Have you ever been so into something that it literally takes over your life? Maybe for you it’s clothes or getting the latest phone. Or maybe you do this with people.
You have your eye on a guy. You have his class schedule memorized. You have his lunch table scoped out. You have his football jersey ingrained in your mind. And he is all you can think about. He is your first thought in the morning when you wake up and the last thing on your mind before you go to sleep. You even dream about the guy. You are so obsessed, so consumed with him, that you even find yourself thinking, “My life would be complete if I could just get this guy to acknowledge my existence, smile at me, talk to me, sit next to me in class. Anything. If he did that, then I would be happy.”
We have all been there. We have had those thoughts, “If I had this, if she went out with me, if he asked me to prom, if she would just let me kiss her once, then I would be happy. Then I would be satisfied. Then everything would be right with the world.”
And what usually ends up happening is we either never get what we want, and we shift our obsession to something else, or we do get what we want. But what we want never ends up delivering what we thought it would.
And even though we have put all of this energy and thought and time into going after this one thing, whatever this thing may be, we end up getting a little burned because it didn’t deliver. It didn’t end up being what we hoped it would be. The past couple of weeks we have spent some time talking about sex. And so today I want to get rid of the idea that sex is everything because that is what a lot of people believe. A lot of people’s minds are consumed with sex. It’s all they ever think about or talk about with their friends.
They look at pictures and watch videos of sex. They get a boyfriend or a girlfriend with the hopes that one day they will have sex. In their minds, sex brings happiness and intimacy but does sex really deliver what it promises? Is sex the missing piece in our lives?
The Bible is full of stories of people just like us. People who want things and desire things. People who put their hopes in things hoping that those things will be what they want them to be. Hoping they will end up fulfilled and satisfied.
One of the earliest stories where this is the case is the story of Jacob. We pick up his story in Genesis chapter 29. Jacob, whose name means, “deceiver” is on the run from his brother. He has just ripped his brother out of his share of the family inheritance and his brother Esau isn’t too happy with him. In fact, he threatens to kill him for what he has done so Jacob takes off and flees to his Uncle Laban’s house.
While he is there, he sees a young woman named Rachel. The Bible tells us that she was “lovely in form, and beautiful” (Genesis 29:17). She was a hunk of burning love. And Jacob didn’t just notice her, he fell head over heels for her. This boy had it bad and her dad knew it.
One day Jacob’s dad tells Laban, Rachel’s dad, “I’ll work seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel” (Genesis 29:18). I know what you are thinking. Seven years? That sounds like a long time. And it was. But Jacob had his eyes on the prize—Rachel—and as long as he had to wait, he was willing to do it.
Genesis tells us, “So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they only seemed like a few days to him because of his love for her. Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her” (Genesis 29:21 NIV)
Now, I know that things were different back in the Bible times but let me tell you, that even back in Bible times, what Jacob says to Rachel’s father, Laban, is a little inappropriate. In fact, in the original language what Jacob is saying is even more explicit than it reads to us. It should read something like, “I can’t wait to have sex with your daughter. Give her to me now!” Saying that to your future father-in-law takes a lot of guts! But that was how badly Jacob wanted Rachel.
So, it seems like a happy ending. The guy wants the girl. The guy works seven years to get the girl. The guy marries the girl. And they lived happily ever after.
Unfortunately, it got a little messy and “happily ever after” was not really in the cards for them. See, the custom back then was that there was a particular order in which girls from a family got married. Older daughters got married first. And Rachel’s older sister Leah, wasn’t married and things weren’t looking good for her. The Bible describes her as having “weak eyes” (Genesis 29:17), and apparently there wasn’t a line of men waiting to ask for her hand in marriage.
So while Laban, the father of Rachel and Leah, could tell how badly Jacob wanted Rachel, he also knew that Leah needed to get married first before Rachel could, so Leah ended up marrying Jacob. I guess Jacob had too much to drink and it was dark and she had a veil over her face and the next morning there was Leah.
Jacob isn’t happy about this so goes to Laban and says what you did was sick and wrong. Laban makes another deal with Jacob. Laban tells Jacob he can have Rachel as his wife now if he agrees to work for him for another seven years. And Jacob does it. Out of love for Rachel.
Not long into their marriage, Jacob and Rachel realize she can’t have children. And Leah can. Leah in fact has several sons by Jacob.
Did you notice they are all looking to someone or something else to fill the emptiness they have inside? All of them fell into the trap believing that if they got the person they wanted, if they got the love they wanted, if they got the kids they wanted, they would be happy.
None of it fixed their lives.
If we are not careful sex becomes the thing we think will complete us—whether in marriage or in a dating relationship we are in before marriage. And the truth is, like with any relationship, any object, any guy or any girl, we will never stay satisfied. We will never stay content when we put all our hope and all our dreams in something that was not meant to carry the weight. And sex was not meant to carry the weight.
Don’t get me wrong. Sex in the confines of marriage is amazing. It’s incredible but it does not complete us.
Nothing else—no perfect relationship, no amazing sex, no ideal boyfriend or girlfriend, wife or husband is going to compete with God.
So, what is it that you are hoping sex will give you?
Maybe you’re hoping sex will give you security in your relationship with your boyfriend. You want to know that he is committed to you and cares only for you and no one else so you decide that sex is the only way to guarantee that so you sleep with him. But afterwards you realize you don’t feel any more secure at all. In fact, now you just feel more uncertain and you are wishing you never crossed that line to begin with.
Maybe you’re hoping sex will give you status. You want popularity. You want respect from the guys and by sleeping with your girlfriend you think you will get it. You talk her into it and now she regrets it and you feel terrible because she wishes the two of you never did it. You thought sex would get you what you were after—but it didn’t, and you hurt your girlfriend and your relationship in the process.
Maybe you decide pornography will fill the need you have. And what started out as a casual has become an addictive habit—something you need way more than you thought you ever would. And the problem is, it leaves you feeling emptier and lonelier than you were before. You were led to believe you would get fulfillment every time you visited the site or opened the magazine. But sex wasn’t created to fill that need. And while it led you to believe one thing, it delivered something much different.
Sex is serious isn’t it and wow sex is powerful.
But sex isn’t everything.
If you want peace, if you want purpose, if you want unconditional love and acceptance, you will only find those things in a deep and personal relationship with God. A relationship with God where you walk with God and talk with God and do life together with God. Many of you don’t have that. You prayed a prayer and asked Jesus into your life but you don’t take Jesus very seriously. You rarely talk to him and you rarely follow him. You still pretty much do whatever it is that you want to do.
You keep looking for other stuff to fill the void that only Jesus can fill in your life. It’s time to realize that Jesus is to be taken seriously. It’s time to realize that Jesus is powerful and Jesus is everything.
©2024 Sagebrush Church
