Matt Chandler - Physical Intimacy

If you have your Bibles, let’s go to Genesis chapter 1. Throughout this series, this is week two of our marriage series that we’ve titled «Captivated.» We’ll be returning to Genesis because we’re trying to bring to the forefront and examine what God has created and designed. Last week, we defined what marriage is, using Tim Keller’s definition from his book *The Meaning of Marriage*. I want to remind you what we said last week, in case you weren’t here. We defined marriage as a lifelong monogamous relationship between a man and a woman. Keller goes on to describe that, according to the Bible, God devised marriage to reflect His saving love for us in Christ, refine our character, create stable human communities for the birth and nurture of children, and accomplish all of this by bringing the complementary sexes into an enduring whole-life union.

What we said last week is that when we think about marriage, we’re not viewing it through the cultural lens of consumerism—where one must adjust to the other, meet all needs, ensure happiness, and solve all issues within one’s heart and mind. Instead, we examined marriage through the lens of covenant—a partnership designed by God to glorify Him and lead to human flourishing. According to Keller’s definition, we create safe environments in our homes for the birth and nurturing of children by coming together in this complementarian way.

Then we saw that our understanding of this view of marriage means it’s about my wife and me adjusting to God, rather than adjusting to one another. I can’t say to Lauren, «You make me happy»; we both fight together and work together so that we might submit our lives fully to God in Christ. Our marriage is focused on serving Him, glorifying Him, and creating an environment where our children can see and experience the glory of God in life together. That’s what we discussed last week.

This week, as I mentioned last week, we will talk about physical intimacy, or what I’ll refer to as physical oneness. But first, let me set up our time together this way: in December of 2006, a group of atheists started a project that went viral, calling it the Blasphemy Project. Perhaps you remember this; perhaps you don’t. A group known as «Reasonable Rationalists» put out a challenge encouraging young men and women to post on various media outlets—be it YouTube or Facebook—and to blaspheme the Holy Spirit as a way of daring God to act against them, crossing their perceived point of no return. The tragic irony is that the text they referenced does not even indicate that speaking badly about the Holy Spirit leads to eternal damnation. By participating in the Blasphemy Project, they revealed their ignorance of the Bible’s teachings. Even if you were to Google it today (please don’t do that right now), you would find hundreds of videos of young men and women recording themselves saying very wicked and deplorable things about the Holy Spirit of God.

Here’s something I want to draw your attention to: these individuals are purposefully blaspheming against God. If I were to take a hand-raised poll here and ask, «How many of you, on purpose, this week said, 'I’m going to blaspheme God in hopes of proving He is not real and that I am not afraid of Him'?» I suspect not many hands would go up. I believe that on Tuesday, not many would admit to wanting to defy the God of the universe.

Here’s something fascinating to note: of these thousands of people involved in this project, they enjoyed food, laughed with friends, took medicine when they had headaches, and engaged in sex. They were able to do all these things because of a concept we often overlook—common grace. It is God’s goodness to all mankind, regardless of whether they shake their fist at heaven. In the Blasphemy Project, we see individuals who publicly declare their disdain for God while simultaneously enjoying His common grace.

When we think about sexual intimacy and sexual oneness, we must recognize that sex is a gift from God—a gift of common grace. This means you don’t have to know God or love God to enjoy the physical act of sex. I’ll stay close to my notes here early on because I know that… well, I’m just going to continue.