Several years ago, a friend of mine who I just met, but he knew about our ministry asked me, he said, Joshua, why? Why do you like to talk about sex so much? I was like, I don’t. Why don’t we like to talk about sex? I think about you now, like, you might assume, Hey, Josh works regeneration. He does podcasts on this stuff. He teaches on the stuff, people regeneration, and we’re probably talking about sex. People who do this repression and have a problem talking about sex, but the rest of us do, that’s their gig, not ours. Well, okay, first of all, you need to know that those of us who talk about sexual matters for a living, it might get easier over time. But it’s never absolutely easy. So there’s not like some special magic wand that we have a magic pill that we have to be able to talk about sex. There are times in my life, where I just do not want to talk about this stuff. And I know that there are times in your life where you don’t either, but why should we? Why should we? And we’re talking about just me now talk about you. Should you be talking about sex? The answer that, in my opinion, is yes. And I want to offer you just a couple reasons why that I think are pretty significant for us at this point in history. But first, let me talk about why we don’t want to talk about sex. Because I think I think for a lot of us, it’s important that we recognize, we don’t wanna talk about sex. Number one, because it’s personal. It’s personal. I mean, God made it personal. This is something that God designed to be shared between a husband and wife, in that covenant, that safety, that security of marriage of a lifelong marriage, not talked about outside of that place. So whatever ups and downs a husband and wife might have had in their sexual relationship over the years, their marriage, it’s um, they share between each other and work through together, and it’s private. And I think that that’s, there’s there’s one way where that’s really just the way that God designed it, it’s meant to be that way. It’s meant to be this private thing. Not a scary secret, shameful thing. And I think some some people even in marriage, live with that. And that’s the real reason they don’t want to talk about it. But I think, on a healthy level, it is a private matter. And it’s meant to be shared, it’s meant to be a secret play space between husband and wife. If you think about it this way, I think in God’s original design, I can’t say this, for sure. But I think in God’s original design, it wasn’t a matter of of flaunting that husband wife, or having sex, it was that that people would kind of know that that was happening. And the celebration of sex would come about when a wife would would be pregnant, and begin to show and others would know, like we’re pregnant, we’re about to have a new baby. That’s when the life and the love that is shared between husband and wife goes public. Because now that life and that love is actually manifested in, in the mother’s womb, it’s manifested in that baby that now exists. That’s just a beautiful picture, I think. And if you if you dig in there, it’s actually I think, a beautiful picture of the life of God and how it manifests in the world and all sorts of places. So number one, sex is personal. I think it’s one of the reasons we don’t want to talk about it. Number two, is that few people have modeled it for us. Well, how do you talk about sex? Well, I think few of us have models of that we just don’t hear it talked about when we hear it talked about, it’s usually because there’s a problem. You know, it’s somebody standing up saying, Don’t do this. And don’t do that. Because those are problematic. That’s the place where we hear people talk about sex or in our culture, I think we hear about it as, as the culture flaunts sexual immorality and puts pornographic images and ideas and, and jokes about it and just about it. And my kids have come home, more than once frustrated with conversations they’ve heard on the buses, as kids, even as young, as elementary schooler are talking about sexual things in crass ways. And the older my kids get, the more used to that they get. But it’s just a reality of our world. People denigrate and dishonor, sex and talk about it. And we don’t have many people modeling. Well, how do we talk about this in a healthy holy way? Parents, many of us didn’t have parents who talk to us about sex. Many of us don’t have pastors who talk about sex or other Christian leaders to talk to us about sex. So how do we talk about this in a way that actually honors the goodness and sacredness of sex? So I think those are two reasons why we don’t typically talk about sex or don’t want to talk about sex when it’s personal. And too we don’t have a lot of models for how that’s done. Now, this week’s blog, just a quick update and I Right actually give you two other reasons why we don’t want to talk about sex. One is that it’s can stir up all sorts of emotions for us whether it’s pain or shame, or sometimes desire. And also, it’s contentious. There’s just a lot of debate right now, and a lot of vitriol around Christian sexual ethics. And so to bring it up in public can sometimes feel like you’re painting a target on your chest. And I talk about that more in the blog, as well as why we want to talk about in those areas as well. But for now, I want to I want to just talk about so why do we Why do I say that, that you need to be talking about sex, not just leaving it to those professionals who talked about it, but you in your circles need to be talking about sex. For the same exact reasons that I’ve just, I’ve just listed the same exact reasons, or the reasons we need to be talking about it. So let me let me unpack that sex is personal. So the fact that it’s personal, it might be reason why we don’t want to talk about it. But it’s also reason we do need to talk about because what I described as that husband and wife that marital security, that safe place with all the highs and lows that a husband wife might go through in their sexual relationship, they work through those together. Well, that’s not usually the reality for most husbands and wives. It’s certainly not the reality for singles, whether someone who’s permanently single, throughout the course of their life, or someone who’s newly single again, after a divorce or death, or somebody who’s single, because they hope to get married one day, all of us experienced trials and tribulations in the area of sex and sexual desire, whether it’s our own struggles with sexual desire, how to how to control and manage our own sexual impulses, whether it’s because of things that have been done to us because of somebody else’s sexual desire, or violent tendencies, that they acted out on us. And then even in the context of marriage, just differences between husband and wife, that can make a sexual relationship really difficult. There are so many Christian marriages, where the husband and wife have not had sex for a long time. So in all of these, it all of these for all of these reasons that that the fact that it’s so personal can be so difficult to talk about, is exactly why we need to talk about it. I don’t mean with everybody all over the place. But you need some safe people in your life that you can talk to about your own highs and lows, as a single as a married as a man, as a woman, whether it’s desire, hurt, or all the above, you need some safe people in your life, that you can unpack those things and process those things. So that you can be walking in greater sexual health. So you can be walking greater sexual integrity, to try to manage those things on your own, is just going to be to continue moving in the same circles in the same dysfunction in the same unhealth and the same addictions that you’re walking in. Now, wherever there’s a problem, you need to bring it to the light of safe community, even just one other person who can help you, so that you can work through those things. So that personal sacred thing that God’s given you can be stewarded again, in that safe, holy, holy, holy is that secret place in weather system yourself as you manage these things, or if you’re married in your marriage with your spouse. So the very fact that sex is personal is one of the reasons that you need to be talking to some one who is safe and mature, who’s further down the road with you than you who can walk with you and help you. And the second, I talked about, you know, a few of model that well, that’s another reason we need to talk about it. The another reason that that you need to be talking about it. The fact that no one modeled it for you means that that cycle of dysfunction in our Christian communities is just going to continue unless you and those around you learn to speak about these things, in healthy, appropriate holy ways. If you’re a parent, and your parents didn’t talk to you about sex, that is exactly the reason you need to break that cycle to begin to talk to your own kids and healthy holy ways. Shameless plug here for my book, treading boldly through a pornographic world we talk in that book, my co author, Daniel Weiss, and I talked in that book about how to be in conversations, plural, not conversation, but conversations with your kids about this important important topic. And then likewise, even if you’re not married, even if you don’t have kids, the very fact that others around you are dealing with these things is an important reason to be talking about it. We are in a world that is talking about this and not just talking about it, but putting up images and scenes all over the place that have powerful messages about what sex is supposed to be and what’s good. And meanwhile, Christian brothers and sisters and non Christian Brothers, non Christian friends and family alike are wrestling with wanting something More wanting something better. And so if Christians aren’t learning and speaking on a regular basis about God’s design for this, then I think we’re really, really missing out. We are leaving the world to fend for themselves in this area. We’re leaving our friends, our brothers and sisters, our children or family members to fend for these things on their own. And that won’t do. So just a couple quick things. How do we talk about it in inappropriate ways? Well, we want to be honest, but we don’t need to be graphic. You know, the world might say they’re being honest. But they’re also being graphic. And we don’t need to be graphic. So be honest, but don’t be graphic and there, tactful ways to do this. We want to always speak about sex in a way that honors people. So where the world will be crass and dishonouring of people treating people as just bodies. And as though there are no feelings. There’s no history, there’s no story. There’s no human person in the mix here. It’s just body parts. You know, one body part and another body part. That’s just a crass way of thinking and talking about sex. We don’t want we don’t want to be crass. We want to be honoring to people, we want to talk about sex, in the context of these are real human beings. And sex matters for who they are. Their sexual desires, their sexual hurts their sexual temptations, the sexual wounds they’ve experienced from the culture around them, these things matter. So we want to be honoring, not crass. And then also, we want to be talking about sex as as an expression of God given expression of faithful, fruitful, love, faithful, fruitful love. The culture does not talk about sex as something that’s meant to be faithful. They talk about sex as something that’s just meant to be fun. Now, sex can be fun. But it’s not fun. When it’s outside the context of faithfulness, at least not fun for long. hearts are broken. Bodies are ripped apart, we become one flesh with somebody when we have sex with them. And so to rip two people apart, because we’re just deciding to have some, you know, quote, unquote, fun. Without the faithfulness, that’s not fun. That’s not really fun. And it’s meant to be fruitful. Sex is meant to be fruitful sex is, as by God’s design meant to belong with pregnancy and children. That doesn’t mean that everybody who has sex, every husband and wife who has sex will have children every time they have sex. But it doesn’t mean that’s meant to be a part of this. It’s not meant to be separated from the procreative reality. Now that does put a level of somberness of soberness I said I should say soberness, on the sexual act, even between husband and wife. But that soberness actually elevates and esteems sex and helps us to revere sex because it’s not just a, you know, an activity. It’s not it’s not just two bodies, it actually is this God given relationship, faithful relationship that actually has the capacity to impart new life into the world. There’s nothing else a human being can do, that can actually bring about a new eternal creature into the world. Sex between husband and wife by God’s design does that. So I think as we talk about it, we want to be talking about it as an expression of faithful and fruitful love. And the last piece is love. It’s not just two people putting up with each other. It’s not just two people lusting after each other. It’s love and that means itself giving mutual self donation. So we want to talk about it in those ways. Not we don’t want to use people we don’t abuse people don’t talk about crassly we don’t talk about it just as though it’s just harmless fun or recreation. We want to talk about it as something that’s faithful and fruitful love. Now, why I’ve said why, but let me give you the big why, at the end of this. I was talking to a friend recently. Just a very insightful woman. And, and she put it this way, we were kind of reflecting on on God’s design for sexuality. And she paused and she said, it’s just too good. And too beautiful. To remain silent about. It’s too good and too beautiful. To remain silent about. So why don’t we want to talk about sex? Well, because it’s personal. And because they’re not very good many good models for it. Why do we need to talk about sex? Because it’s personal. And there are far too few models about how to talk about it. Well, for more on this read my blog this week, I actually give two other reasons why we don’t want to talk about sex. And those are the exact two other reasons that we need to thank you so much for listening, Lord, thank you for the gift of sex. It is so good and so beautiful. Would you help us sort of talk about it in ways that would recapture our imaginations and the imaginations of our friends and family that we might be enraptured and captured and captured? We might be enraptured, Lord, and just take in with your good design. For this great gift you’ve given us we pray this in Jesus name, Amen.