"Sex God" by Rob Bell

Clips from Sex God by Rob Bell

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And when we begin to sort through all of the issues surrounding our sexuality, we quickly end up in the spiritual,

because this

is always about that...

Sex. God. They’re connected. And they can’t be separated. Where the one is, you will always find the other. This is a book about how sexuality is the “this” and spirituality is the “that”. To make sense of the one, we have to explore the other.

And that is what this book is about.

[italics in original]

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Sex, God.

“We reflect what God is like and who God is.
A divine spark resides in every single human being.
Everybody.
Everywhere.
Bearers of the divine image…

…deciding who’s hot and who’s not.
It’s an industry, a form of entertainment, a culture…
The problem is that “that” is actually a “she”.
A person.
A woman.
With a name, a history, with feelings.
It seems harmless until you’re that girl- and then it hurts.
It’s degrading.
It’s violating.
It does something to a person’s soul.

Jesus had much to say about what happens when a woman, an image bearer, a carrier of the divine spark, becomes a “that” [Matt 5:27-30]
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Scholars believe that the word sex is related to the Latin word secare, which means “to sever, to amputate, or disconnect from the whole.” This is where we get words like sect, section, dissect, bisect.

Our sexuality, then, has two dimensions. First, out sexuality is our awareness of how profoundly we’re severed and cut off and disconnected. Second, our sexuality is all of the ways we go about trying to reconnect....

For many, sexuality is simply what happens between two people involving physical pleasure. But that’s only a small percentage of what sexuality is. Our sexuality is all the ways we strive to reconnect with out world , with each other, and with God....

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...the Red Light District in Amsterdam is so sexually repressed...
There are lots of people “having sex” night and day, but that’s all it is. There’s no connection...

And so in the Red Light District there’s lots of physical interaction and no connection. There are lots of people having lots of physical sex- for some its their job- and yet it’s not a very sexual place at all...

When its just sex, then that’s all it is. It leaves the person deeply unconnected.

You can be having sex with many, and yet you’re alone. And the more sex you have, the more alone you are.

And it’s possible to be sleeping alone, and celibate, and to be very sexual. Connected with many.

It’s also possible to be married to somebody and sharing the same bed and be very disconnected. It’s possible to be married to somebody and sharing the same bed and even having sex regularly and still be profoundly disconnected....

And so they’re sleeping together, but they’re really sleeping alone.
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If marriage is meant to show people what the oneness of God is like, what happens when everybody is one in the presence of God?

If marriage is a picture of something else, what would happen to marriage if we found ourselves living in the midst of that something else?

Is sex in its greatest, purest, most joyful and honest expression a glimpse of forever?

Are these brief moments of abandon and oneness and ecstasy just a couple of seconds or minutes of how things will be forever?

Is sex a picture of heaven?...

Maybe Jesus knew what was coming and knew that whatever we experience here will pale compared with what awaits everyone.

Do you long for that?

Because that's the center of Jesus' message.

An invitation.

To trust that it's true,

to trust that it's real,

to trust that God is actually going to make all things new.
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