Cave Sex 3.1

What is Cave sex?

20,000 ft

And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

Genesis 16: 8

Discussion Questions After “the Heart of Man” Movie

Personal Stories in The Film:

  • What did you connect with in the film and why? What parts spoke to you personally?

  • What testimony’s did you connect with? What stood out that you related to?

  • What testimony’s gave you hope? Why?

The Beginning Feast:

What do you think the director of the film was communicating to us about God in the beginning of the film"? Is this something you experienced as a child?

  • At place at the table

  • Training him on the violin

  • The Father’s love

  • Longing for a “table where we can all be comfortable in our own skin”?

The Director makes a big deal about a Hebrew word written on the violin, but it’s never explained in the film. Questioned about the meaning and purpose of this word online, the director answered:

We've been asked about the meaning behind the violin. The violin is this intimate and winsome expression of "choice" and "sonship." The inscription is a Hebrew word, "Timshel" which shows up in Genesis 4. The interpretation of this word is "Thou Mayest" taken from a novel written by John Steinbeck called 'East of Eden' Our hope is that we would all choose the better "yes" with the Father.

- Sypher Studios 2017

What do you think about the idea that God gives us the freedom to both walk away and walk back to The Father? How have you seen God’s love for you to allow you to walk away, but also longing for you to choose the right thing and return?

Leaving the Father:

  • How did you relate to the son playing music with The Father, but being pulled away looking and longing for the Island?

  • What have you lost or destroyed, like the Son loosing the violin and shattering it on the rocks? How has God’s Shalom (his love and plan for you to live in harmony with God) been shattered?

  • Was your journey into the cave a quick move, or lots of tiny steps? How did those steps start?

Into the Island:

  • How did you connect with the beautiful woman that turned into a rotten corpse? How has porn and acting out been the same way for you?

  • The son gets on a raft and tries to get back to the shore, but he can’t on his own. He tries and tries, until he gives up and reserves to living on the island, lost. How do you relate to this?

Deeper Into The Cave

  • We have been praying against Evil for a long time on the climb now. How do you relate to how Evil traps the man in the cave?

  • "It brings evil joy to break your sexuality.” How have you seen evil break your sexuality, your view of yourself and others?

  • At one point the son in the cave begins to hit his head on the wall of the cave. How have you seen self contempt in your life for going inner circle?

The Rescue

  • How have you experienced the Father’s love for you on this climb? Do you believe it?

  • How have you seen Jesus rescue you, personally, on this climb? Do you see yourself as the 1 sheep that God leaves the 99 for?

  • What does it feel like to be rescued? How does that change how you view the cave and the island? Is this a place you want to come back to?

The Feast

  • The son returns and has a place at the table, shame is no longer a part of his story and the community accepts him. Are you there? What do you love about this?

  • When the son is at the table, the scars from the cave as still with him. How do you feel you may carry the scars of Inner Circle the rest of your life? How is God going to use those scars? What do those scars say about you and about the Father?

  • The Father makes a new violin for the son and they play again. What about this is beautiful? What songs do you think God wants you to play?

3.1.0

The Path Into The Cave and Out

This next Elevation on the Climb is broken into 4 parts. The verse from Genesis 16: 8 is our core verse in this unit. God meets Hagar, left to die in the wilderness, shows up and asks her two questions that will be the framework for our time together:

  1. Where have you come from?

  2. Where are you going?

Now, thousands of years later, these two questions ring so true. God isn’t ashamed we are or were in the Cave. He’s been there the whole time, watching and waiting for us to choose to leave. Together we as a group of Climbers are going to look at our stories and explore how we got into the cave and we, together, are going to walk out into The Light with Jesus by our side.

Our journey into the cave will look like this:

  • An Introduction about The Cave

  • Where have you come from: How did you get in the Cave?

  • Choosing to Leave the Cave

  • Where are you going: How do we leave this Cave?

Watch the Heart of Man as a Group

To Start our time in the Cave, find a room and watch the Heart of Man movie, linked below together. Come with a note pad and ready to write. Listen to what God is sharing with you and what He longs for you to see and learn about this story of the Prodigal Son with so many great testimonies of God’s amazing Grace at work.

3.1.1

The Sad Truth:
We are confused about what sex Really is

Years ago I started therapy to stop going Inner Circle. It was hurting me, my marriage and it was only a matter of time until my kids got older and I would hurt them too.

I started following Jesus at 14 years old, but hid a secret: I loved to masturbate. Like many Christian men, I thought that since I wasn’t having sex with women, I was (in my mind) sinning less by just jerking off in the shower every morning.

So many things angered me about sex. I entered a Christian Marriage with a beautiful God loving woman. I made it up in my head that all of my sexual struggles were because I wasn’t married and I didn’t have a healthy outlet. But years into the marriage, sex was difficult, confusing and wasn’t anything close to what I made up in my head that it would be. In time I felt my wife become distant sexually; and when I felt that distance I became angry with God and my circumstances as a married Christian man.

One day I was meeting with my therapist admitted I was angry my wife had sex before marriage. I my mind, she had great sex, just not with me. And here I was, feeling like was the leftovers.

My therapist said, “John, she didn’t have sex with anyone before you. She had sex in the way the world understands it, but not in the way that God designed it. What she did wasn’t sex, it was something else.”

In that moment it occurred to me: Jesus had never told me what sex was, only people. And really what I knew about sex was driven my fantasies and pornography. The Church didn’t teach me about HAVING sex, my friends, the internet and pornography did.

I realized I had no idea what sex was. All of these years, evil had me chasing an alternate that was destroying me. I was pumped to find out what God’s version of sex was, but first, I had to name this bad sex and learn how to walk away from it.

I can even think back, with shame, to my honeymoon. Nothing horrible happened. But I didn’t know how to invite Jesus into the room of actually having Sex. All I knew was what I saw in Pornography. In my naiveté I thought that Porn was bad because they weren’t married and I wasn’t married, so I shouldn’t be watching this. But I thought, what I watched on the internet should be pretty close to what a loving husband and wife would experience.

And I couldn’t have been more wrong and mislead by Evil.

Cave Sex, not Garden Sex, ruled my thinking about intimacy.

Cave Sex

Cave Sex is what I call sex that we learned apart from God. Its secret, dirty, a thrill ride . . . and in the end it leaves me alone, damaged, and less secure as a man.

Evil has drawn us into a cave and sold us an alternative. And since the Church is largely quiet on what sex actually looks like, Evil gets away with it. We keep sex in the dark as Christians, and in the deep dark cave, this is where it grows into something evil. We loose our God image as it slowly changes what we look like, what we look for and what we long for.

We have all been changed by the cave.

Garden Intimacy

The Bible starts in a Garden, in Genesis 1, 2 and 3. Chapters 1 and 2 are all about how God intended the world to be and our relationship with Him.

Adam and Eve knew what God looked like. They walked with him in the Garden.

“Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” Gen 2: 25.

'Naked. No Shame. The Garden that God built, we had no clothes on and stood proudly and securely next to a naked woman, with God in the room, and it was beautiful.

Evil didn’t design your penis, God did.

Evil didn’t design a woman’s vagina. God did.

Evil didn’t design breasts. God did.

He designed it as a reflection of HIM. God wanted us to know Him, walk with Him, follow His lead. And a result of that in the Garden, was sex. Garden Sex.

Garden Intimacy, is about us going back to this amazing question: What did God intend for Sex to look like and why?

Discuss

  • What do you think about Cave Sex and Garden Intimacy? Do you agree? Disagree?

  • How have you seen Cave Sex in your life?

  • How have you seen Garden Sex in your life?

3.1.2

Two Doors

In this image below are two doors: one is dark and the other is light. The dark one will represent "Cave Sex” and the light one with represent “Garden Intimacy”.

Think back to when you were young, before you even knew the two doors existed. You had no idea there was a cave sex or a garden sex. You were just being a kid. If evil had no say in your life, and you were always protected, nurtured, cared for and guided, it’s possible you would never have known about the Cave Sex door. It’s possible you never would even know it existed.

But many of us weren’t guided and mentored, especially when it comes to sex and our sexuality. We were left to figure it out on our own, or let people or the internet show us what it was.

When life, even as a little guy, was hard, pornography and going Inner Circle is a powerful drug that you can literally carry with you anywhere.

Cave Sex:
The Dark Door

Garden Intimacy:
The Light Door

When any kind of trauma happens to us, we look for shelter, for a place of hiding or safety. That place for many of us at an early age became porn and inner circle.

  • We hid from our pain

  • We found a place we could be someone else

  • We found a way to create a new story for our lives

  • We found a place we can feel good, when we want

  • We found a place we can be satisfied

We found ourselves in a false world of fantasy that left our soul torn: the man of God we longed to be, and this hidden version of ourselves that we were afraid to expose to the light.

Discuss:

  • What reasons for going into the dark door above do you relate to?

  • What would you add to reasons you choose to the dark door?

God, the Good Shepherd, has been longing to care for us and show us His design for sex, intimacy and relationships. But leaving the dark door, and choosing to enter a light door, requires us to be humble, ask questions, listen to climbers and sherpas around us and open ourselves up to God’s great story for us.

When we choose to enter the Light Door:

  • We face our pain that we have experienced in the past

  • We face our pain that we experience today

  • We look to Jesus for healing and forgiveness

  • We are seen as we are

  • We are loved as we are

  • We choose to live in our suffering at the foot of the cross

  • We choose to live in the hope of the resurrection: there is nothing so broken that Jesus can’t restore

Going into the light door takes a lot of courage too: Can God rebuild me? Can God restore what the Locusts have eaten?

Joel 2: 25-27

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
    the great locust and the young locust,
    the other locusts and the locust swarm—
my great army that I sent among you.
You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
    and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,
    who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.
Then you will know that I am in Israel,
    that I am the Lord your God,
    and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed.

Discuss:

  • What reasons for going into the light door above do you relate to?

  • What would you add to reasons for choosing the light door?

3.1.3

Cave Sex vs. Garden Intimacy

Let’s take a look at the differences between Cave Sex and Garden Sex. Let’s start with a simple chart that we can try and fill out together. Please feel free to use your own notes and make your own chart.

Let’s start by quietly writing down what we can about the left side, Cave Sex. Let’s do our best to define it and turn on the “light” with Jesus by our side, freely thinking about what Evil has sold us about “Cave Sex”.

What Do you Think Cave Sex Is?

Try and Fill this Out, Quietly, Now

Questions Cave Sex Garden Intimacy
Who defines it?
What chemical is released?
How much do you need it?
Why do you do it?
How does it see the other?
What is the aftermath?
What are the limits?
Where is the focus?
How does it feel?
Where is God?
How do you see yourself?
What else?

Your view of sex isn’t God’s view of sex

Questions Cave Sex Garden Intimacy
Who defines it? Culture defines it God defines it
What chemical is released? Chemical release: Dophamine
(Craving, Reward, Memory, Rush)		 Chemical release: Oxytocin
(Trust, Empathy, Positive relationship memories, Positive Communication, Processing of bonding cues)
How much do you need it? I must have it at least ______ times a week It's a Blessing not a need. I wait for God.
Why do you do it? I use it to help me calm down / relax / sleep God uses it for me as a way to get to know the other person
How does it see the other? Focus on what the body looks like. I shop for the right body. My spouse's body is disappointing. Focus on what the heart looks like. She is a gift to me from God and her body is a sacred space.
What is the aftermath? Aftermath: Shame Aftermath: Joy
What are the limits? Anything goes God puts a clear solid fence up
Where is the focus? I am at the center Jesus and my spouse are at the center
How does it feel? Sex is hot; we work hard to keep it hot. Sex is holy; we work hard to keep it holy.
Where is God? God is not present: a glimpse of Hell God is present: a glimpse of Heaven
How do you see yourself? I am a Gorilla. I have to have it. I'll explode if I don't. I am a Man of God, loved by God. Jesus is my Bread of Life and Living Water. I am ok.
What else?

During Our Climb into Cave Sex, we are going to move into a Deeper Suffering J-Curve

Questions Cave Sex Suffering J-Curve: Death and Resurrection Garden Intimacy
Who defines it? Culture defines it God redefines me God defines it
What chemical is released? Chemical release: Dophamine
(Craving, Reward, Memory, Rush)		 I die to what my body wants: Dophamine. I say no to Evil and allow new healthy neural pathways to be created. Chemical release: Oxytocin
(Trust, Empathy, Positive relationship memories, Positive Communication, Processing of bonding cues)
How much do you need it? I must have it at least ______ times a week I learn to wait on God and need Him. It's a Blessing not a need. I wait for God.
Why do you do it? I use it to help me calm down / relax / sleep I have to learn soothe and stimulate in healthy ways; I learn to turn to Jesus God uses it for me as a way to get to know the other person
How does it see the other? Focus on what the body looks like. I shop for the right body. My spouces body is disappointing. God redefines in my heart what beauty really is Focus on what the heart looks like. She is a gift to me by God and her body is a sacred space.
What is the aftermath? Aftermath: Shame No more shame! Jesus begins a new work Aftermath: Joy
What are the limits? Anything goes Rediscover God's Law God puts a clear solid fence up
Where is the focus? I am at the center Jesus becomes my Master, my True Center Jesus and my spouce is at the center
How does it feel? Sex is hot; we work hard to keep it hot. Sex is redefined Sex is holy; we work hard to keep it holy.
Where is God? God is not present: a glimpse of Hell God is with me, cheering me on! God is present: a glimpse of Heaven
How do you see yourself? I am a Gorilla. I have to have it. I'll explode if I don't. God humbles me. Shows me that I'm not a Gorilla whos needs must be met. I am a Man of God. Loved by God. My needs come from Him. I am a Man of God, loved by God. Jesus is my Bread of Life and Living Water. I am ok.
What else?

Discuss

  • At the end of this unit, we are all on this climb, as a group, going to walk away from Inner Circle. Some of you have already done this and have gone weeks, months, maybe even longer. Now is the time to explore how we got here and how to leave.

  • For those who are still going Inner Circle: Are you ready to walk out of the Cave, face the suffering of stopping, and trust God? Do you think it’s possible to stop and never go Inner Circle again?

  • For those of you who have stopped: Are you ready to do the work of knowing how you got into the Cave and to make sure you don’t return? Do you think it’s possible to never return into the Cave and never go Inner Circle again?