In this concluding lesson the class will examine a “case study” of a couple dealing with sexual issues and how the principles we have studied can be applied to resolve their difficulties.

1. In Love for Life
Building or Rebuilding a Great Marriage
Mike Mazzalongo
#5 – Holy Sex – Part 2

2. Review
• Spirituality/Sexuality

3. Review
• Spirituality/Sexuality
• Sex = Spiritual
Physical

4. Review
• Spirituality/Sexuality
• Sex = Spiritual
Physical
• Oneness
Spiritual Truths

5. Review
• Spirituality/Sexuality
• Sex = Spiritual
Physical
• Oneness
Spiritual Truths
• Sex is Holy

6. Review
• Spirituality/Sexuality
• Sex = Spiritual
Physical
• Oneness
Spiritual Truths
• Sex is Holy
• Not all sex is Holy

7. Case Study
“Brenda kept apologizing for the feelings she was
sharing. She didn’t want to hurt her husband,
Kevin, but she’d kept her thoughts hidden for too
long. Now, for the sake of her marriage, she was
glad that everything was finally coming out. Kevin
was sitting next to Brenda in my counseling office,
but he wished he could be somewhere else.”

8. Case Study
“ ‘I know I’m not supposed to exaggerate,” Brenda
began, ‘but it seems that every time we’re alone,
Kevin makes some sexually suggestive comment
aimed at getting me to have sex with him. I feel like he
must spend his days coming up with new lines to try
and get me to say yes.

9. Case Study
And if it’s not a comment, it’s a grab. I can be cooking
or doing the dishes, and he’ll come up behind me and
plant both of his hands on my breasts. A hug would
be great. But he can’t seem to touch me without it
being an erogenous zone.’”

10. Case Study
“Now Kevin really wanted to be somewhere else.
Brenda assured me that she didn’t hate sex. ‘I can
get aroused, and sometimes I even have an orgasm.
But the more Kevin pushes, the less I want to have
sex. The more he talks about ‘doing it,’ the more I
feel that sex between us is just that: a cold
impersonal ‘it.’

11. Case Study
And have you begun to feel like an ‘it’ too?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Yes I have.’”
“Now Kevin wanted me to be somewhere else.
Brenda’s story is another sad example of how much
we’re missing in our sex lives. By losing sight of sex
as a holy act, we’re depriving ourselves of the
richness and deep satisfaction that God designed it
to provide.

12. Case Study
“Since sex is invested with so much spiritual
meaning, that should affect the way we approach our
moments of sexual intimacy – but how? When we
acknowledge the truth that sex on God's terms is
sacred, we can stop fighting about frequency,
positions, and who initiates it.”
- “Sacred Sex” T.A. Gardner Waterbrook Press 2002

13. What Kevin didn’t get…
#1 Reason for sex is unification.

14. Oneness outside of sex
promotes oneness within sex

15. What Brenda didn’t get…
It’s not just about Her needs

16. Whenever we make orgasm the
goal of sex, we fail to experience
holy sex.
For example: Masturbation

17. The Big “O” in sexual
experience is not orgasm,
it’s oneness.

18. Hebrew Word “Yada” = To Know

19. “Adam knew his wife and she
conceived” Gen. 4:1

20. Dutch Word “Naaien” = To Sew

21. God sews us together
in marriage through
human sexuality.

22. Sex pursued for its own
pleasure always follows the
path of diminishing return.

23. The pursuit of oneness affects
not only the way we think about
sex, but also the way we
experience it was well.

24. I Cor. 7:3-4
3 The
husband must fulfill his duty to his wife,
and likewise also the wife to her husband.
4 The wife does not have authority over her
own body, but the husband does; and
likewise also the husband does not have
authority over his own body, but the
wife does.

25. I Cor. 7:5
5 Stop
depriving one another, except by
agreement for a time, so that you may
devote yourselves to prayer, and come
together again so that Satan will not tempt
you because of your lack of self-control.

26. In sexual union my focus is her
pleasure, not my own.
And her focus is my pleasure,
not her own.

27. Homework
Find a time to pray together.

28. Homework
Find a time to pray together.
1. Confess sin to each other.

29. Homework
Find a time to pray together.
1. Confess sin to each other.
2. Bless each other

30. Homework
Find a time to pray together.
1. Confess sin to each other.
2. Bless each other
3. Practice oneness outside of sex.