Intro
What you just heard – in case you are unfamiliar – is the chorus of the song “good 4 u” by Olivia Rodrigo. This song, the third single from the album SOUR, was a mega-hit for Rodrigo in the spring of 2021. The story is a tale as old as time. She was dating a guy, but he broke up with her, leaving her a stupid rotten mess.
But Olivia turned that heartbreak into a string of hit songs, millions of dollars, and rabid screaming fans. But those of us in the 30+ demographic might find ourselves wondering… why though? Have we not been through this before?
Bieber in 2016 with ‘Love Yourself’. Adele in 2011 with ‘Rolling in the Deep’. Or ‘Apologize’ by One Republic in 2008. 1999’s ‘Believe’ by Cher. Whitney Houston’s 1993 smash ‘I Will Always Love You’. Or Whitesnake’s ‘Here I Go Again’ in 1987. 1974’s ‘The Way We Were’ by Barbara Streisand. To the evergreen ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’ by the Righteous Brothers in 1965. And even the King of Rock and Roll’s 1956 chart-topper ‘Heartbreak Hotel’.
What I’m getting at here, is that heartache and heartbreak are not new concepts in popular music. Although one could certainly argue that Miss Rodrigo is putting a unique spin on the genre with her quirky mix of bitterness and white-hot rage. The music video features her setting fire to her ex boyfriend’s room while literally calling him a sociopath. So… that’s a thing…
Prayer
The Problem
But the questions remains…
We’ve been through this so many times — hundreds of times — over the last 70+ years of popular music, why does it still resonate? Why are we still getting “the feels” over these sad, somber, sociopathic anthems to heartbreak? Because it’s a universal human condition. We tend to be deeply afraid of being alone. Or as Andy “Nard-Dog” Bernard puts it:
[ Office S05E16 – Nard-Dog Despair ]
So what do we do about this? How do we address this issue? Do we ignore it and hope it goes away? Unlikely. I’ve heard it said — and I think it’s true — that loneliness is grief. Fortunately popular culture has a ready answer for us!
The Pop Culture Solution
Dating! Sex! Remember that post-modern sexual revolution from the 1960s? Well, the advent of the modern condom in 1957 and the re-legalization of abortion throughout the 1960s began the process of decoupling sex from its obvious consequences. So what happens? No longer are we required to control our baser instincts for fear of consequences, rather we can indulge ourselves in any and every way we want and just pull the parachute if we get in trouble.
Like the band Great Big Sea sings:
I want to be consequence-free. I want to be where nothing needs to matter.
The Elephant in the Pop Culture Room
And so we did. And what happened? Marriage rates dropped. Fatherlessness rose. We started killing the unborn en masse. And we were whistling Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah past the graveyard the whole time. Just this week I read a piece by an author, podcaster, and political commentator named Bridget Phetasy. With your kind indulgence, I am going to read portions of this short essay. Please note that while Bridget was born into a Catholic family, she holds no particular religious position. What I am about to read to you is not from a Christian point of view whatsoever. But it is raw, and honest, and interesting. I should warn you that this is quite candid, but I find it fascinating to hear how this sexual freedom affected someone who was a proud and outspoken participant. Note that other than the title of the piece, I have made small content edits for language.
Bridget Phetasy, “I Regret Being a Slut” (August 17, 2022)
Upon opening Louise Perry’s new book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century, I’m moved to tears by the dedication:
“For the women who learned it the hard way”
Unlike many other people who have read and reviewed Perry’s work, reading her book wouldn’t be some academic exercise in contemplating how liberal feminism has let women down. It wouldn’t be evaluating what those poor [promiscuous women] over there have endured in the wake of the sexual revolution. Reading her book was personal.
I’m one of those [promiscuous women].
It’s a tough needle to thread. I’m grateful for the ability to control my reproductive cycle and make my own money. But that freedom has come at a price. The dark side of the sexual revolution is that even though it liberated women—unyoking sex from consequences has primarily benefited men.
I was first inspired to write this piece when a 19-year-old woman I used to wait tables with asked me: “Bridget, have you ever regretted having sex with a man?”
I laughed. “Yeah. All of them.”
That’s not entirely true. There was my first love in high school. And my first husband. But if I’m honest with myself, of the dozens of men I’ve been with (at least the ones I remember), I can only think of a handful I don’t regret. The rest I would put in the category of “casual,” which I would define as sex that is either meaningless or mediocre (or both). If I get really honest with myself, I’d say most of these usually drunken encounters left me feeling empty and demoralized. And worthless.
I wouldn’t have said that at the time, though. At the time, I would have told you I was “liberated” even while I tried to drink away the sick feeling of rejection when my most recent hook-up didn’t call me back. At the time, I would have said one-night stands made me feel “emboldened.” But in reality, I was using sex like a drug; trying unsuccessfully to fill a hole inside me with men.
I know regretting most of my sexual encounters is not something a sex-positive feminist who used to write a column for Playboy is supposed to admit. And for years, I didn’t. Let me be clear, being [promiscuous] and sleeping with a lot of men is not the only behavior I regret. Even more damaging was what I told myself in order to justify the fact that I was disposable to these men: I told myself I didn’t care.
I didn’t care when a man ghosted me. I didn’t care when he left in the middle of the night or hinted that he wanted me to leave. The walks of shame. The blackouts. The anxiety.
The lie I told myself for decades was: I’m not in pain—I’m empowered.
I lost my virginity at 17 to my boss at a restaurant where I worked. And a year later, I experienced my first sexual trauma. I felt damaged and dirty and I blamed myself. Everyone responds differently to these situations—I dealt with the overwhelming shame by becoming hyper-sexual and promiscuous.
The Culture was right there to pick me up and dust me off. I doubled down on being [proudly promiscuous] and internalized the biggest and most damaging lie: that loveless sex is empowering. I basked in the girl-power glow of that delusion for decades, weaponizing my sexuality while convincing myself I was full of the divine feminine.
I was full of [it].
I told myself that because I could seduce a man, I was powerful. But as Perry says in her book, “…women can all too easily fail to recognize that being desired is not the same thing as being held in high esteem.” Deep down inside, I knew that to be the case. But as a defense mechanism, I crafted a man-eater persona. My mantras were rigid.
- You can either have a career or a relationship—but you can’t have both.
- Intimacy is creepy.
- Motherhood and children are a trap.
- Sex is only about power.
Another set of lies built on lies built on trauma. Sex isn’t just about power—it’s also about intimacy and vulnerability and trust. Things I wanted nothing to do with. Because implicit in modern dating is a complete lack of expectations –– especially those of chivalry.
Whenever a man wanted to pick up the tab or pull out the chair or open the door or pick me up or take me to dinner or see me during the day or wait longer than the first date to have sex, I was shocked and suspicious of them. Was he a serial killer?
Casual sex is fraught with insecurity and miscommunication; intimacy and love are punch lines. When a man I slept with had the courtesy to reach out, I mistook relief for happiness, rewiring my brain to be grateful for the bare minimum. The saddest realization is how low I set the bar.
A lifetime of allowing myself to be the other woman, taken for granted or treated like a doormat under the false pretense of being “empowered” came to a head one night with the arrival of a text message from an on-again, off-again lover.
“Goodnight baby I love you,” it said. Quickly followed by, “Wrong person.”
Rock bottom doesn’t always look like losing everything or ending up in jail. Sometimes it can be that sick feeling in your gut when you know, emotionally, you’re done. I wanted to be able to have meaningless sex like a guy, but it didn’t work. (After years of writing for Playboy, I’ve learned it doesn’t work for a lot of men either.)
Or maybe you’re a trans or nonbinary person reading this, thinking “What quaint ideas about gender and sex this old trad[itional] con[servative] has.” And to that I’ll say, it makes sense to me that the generation of young women who have experienced and borne witness to some of the worst side-effects of unyoking sex from consequence and love that Perry meticulously outlines in her book, “rough sex, hook-up culture, and ubiquitous porn”—would take a look around and decide:
I’d rather be a man. Or more accurately, I’d rather not be a woman.
But maybe it’s the inevitable conclusion to the sexual revolution. Today’s youth are being fed an even more dangerous lie than the one that I was fed about loveless sex. I was told sex doesn’t matter. They’re being told biology doesn’t matter.
This is a tragedy.
Strong words. Powerful words. And from someone who bought wholesale into the fake “Girl Power” sex-as-a-commodity culture brought to us by pre-packaged pop culture icons like the Spice Girls.
[[[ Spice Girls – 2 Become 1 ]]]
A group who themselves released a song about a sexual encounter entitled “2 Become 1”. Even they recognized that there was something more happening than a bit of harmless fun between consenting adults. There is no way to keep your heart out of it. There is no way to stay at arm’s length in these sorts of relationships. That’s why so many of us can so easily identify with the feelings expressed by Olivia Rodrigo.
And like so many other solutions offered by the popular culture, it is empty and unfulfilling and hollows you out from the inside. So what do we do? Is the solution to embrace loneliness?
I Don’t Think So… but before I can truly provide an alternative, we need to go back.
God’s Ideal Setup
Remember last week Mike talked with us about how molecules-to-man evolutionary theory robs us of value, purpose, and direction? Because God was thoughtful and intentional with his creation. And the romantic relationships we pursue are no different. Let’s take a look back at the creation narrative from last week:
- Genesis 1:3 – The light was good
- Genesis 1:10 -The land and the seas were good
- Genesis 1:12 – The plant were good
- Genesis 1:18 – The sun, moon, and stars were good
- Genesis 1:21 – The animals of the sea and air were good
- Genesis 1:25 – The land animals were good
- Genesis 1:31 – All of creation was very good
But then, just one chapter later, the same author of Genesis hits us with THIS:
Genesis 2:18 (NET) — The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.”
Creation is good, good, good, good, good, good, VERY good. But then suddenly NOT good. Why not? Did God take a swing-and-a-miss at this one? No, God wanted to demonstrate something to Adam, and thankfully this was recorded so that we can learn from it as well. Let’s keep reading.
Genesis 2:19–20 (NET) — The Lord God formed out of the ground every living animal of the field and every bird of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man named all the animals, the birds of the air, and the living creatures of the field, but for Adam no companion who corresponded to him was found.
Did God genuinely believe that Adam would get a look at a chicken and declare, “My beloved! At long last I have found you!” Certainly not! I mean, maybe if you are starving after a loooong day and you hit the drive-thru for some fresh nuggs on the way home…
Of course I’m joking, the fact is that God was showing Adam that each creature had a mate, a partner, a helper… except Adam himself. And once Adam had this realization, God put Adam to sleep and formed Eve from his rib.
TANGET TOWN
Most of your Bibles probably use the word ‘helper’ when describing Eve in the Genesis account. I just want to take a moment to address this word. We heard helper and we might conjure up roles like sidekick or servant or secretary or something. Let me disabuse you of this idea. The Hebrew word used here for ‘helper’ is used 19 other times in the Old Testament. Every time. EVERY time. I mean EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. It refers to God. I doubt any Christian who values orthodoxy or good doctrine would relegate God to this role. Just as God is not Robin to your Batman, just as Eve is not Tonto to your Lone Ranger.
God is a friend, a companion, an ally, a partner. Eve is a friend, a companion, an ally, a partner. This is what you should be looking for. AND this is what you should be looking to BE.
/TANGENT TOWN
“But Conrad, you outstanding expositor and snappy dresser,” I hear you say, “what about the rib thing? Is that important? That seems like a weird detail to include.” To which I would reply… yeah. I understand why you would scratch your head at this seemingly weird or bizarre detail in the story. But this is actually a critical point. There are 3 reasons why this detail matters deeply.
- Because there is only one beginning to the human race. Not two. — But we’re not going to travel down this rabbit trail today. This is a whole other sermon.
- Because although Adam and Eve are equal before God, they are not identical or interchangeable. They serve different roles roles in the family as they live out the model set forth by the Trinity. — And we’re not going to spend any time looking at this either. This one is a whole sermon series.
- Because Eve was — as Adam says — flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. She was literally a part of him. God, again, was setting the standard for something bigger and more important than either individual… something that echoed the very nature of God Himself. This one we’re going to look at.
See, if we continue reading through Genesis we come to verse 24:
Genesis 2:24 (NIV) —That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Basically, God set up his creation with marriage as the overarching prototype… the meta-narrative, if you will. And this covenant of marriage serves as the foundation for the flourishing of the entire human race.
The marriage union mirrors the very nature of God Himself. Just as He is three persons in a single “Godhead”…. so a husband and wife are two persons, but a single “flesh”. The husband and wife become two sides of a coin, and they cannot be separated without damaging both sides irreparably. And when we try to mess about with what God has designed and make it fit our own wants and desires, that — THAT is when we find ourselves writing songs about that time we cried ourselves to sleep on the floor of the bathroom, heartbroken.
And note that marriage is not just a mirror of the nature of God, but a preview of the final union we read about in Revelation. In the same way that the Bible starts with the wedding of Adam and Eve, it concludes with the marriage of Christ and His bride, the church. Us. Again, God is allowing us to see a reflection of His love and commitment for us in the marriage covenant he laid out with Adam and Eve.
And I use that word, “covenant”, very intentionally. It is a concerted, purposeful effort. Sometimes it is not EASY to love my wife. And I’m sure she would say the same thing about me… because if she wouldn’t then I’m in for a very long conversation after today’s service. But the fact is that we made a commitment — an oath — to one another, and we intent to see that through. Today sex, relationships, and even children have nothing to do with a higher purpose or selflessness or even some evolutionary idea about “societal good”s.
Instead it’s all about me. And all this is for me. It needs to make me happy. And as Cheryl Crow opines:
[[[ Cheryl Crow – If It Makes You Happy ]]]
Free Love
See, what’s happened isn’t all that complicated. The ‘free love’ culture of the 60s has morphed into the ‘hook-up culture’ of today. It’s the same old song and dance. The problem is that there’s nothing free in this world. And relationships are no exception. Repeat after me:
There. Are. Always. Strings. Attached.
This is why, as Tricia read at the top of our service today, the book of Proverbs warns us…
Proverbs 4:23 (NLT) — Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
How?
Okay… guard your heart… but how tho? Should I never date again? Arranged marriage? Wait until I’m 42? What’s the answer?
When I was a teen, the thing I wanted more than anything else was a wife and a family. When I was 13 or 14 I was looking for my life partner. Seriously. That’s no joke. My brothers would tease me saying that I put the “tie” in MacIntyre.
I dated my high-school girlfriend for almost 4 years. I was convinced that we had a love that would last forever. Forever ended in mid–2001. I had 3 girlfriends before I met my wife and I was utterly convinced that I was going to marry each of them. The last one even led me to walk away from my faith and from the church. When I returned to the church after our break-up, I decided I was going to be single for life and just devote my time to ministry. Like the Apostle Paul… or Bill Wilson.
Let me just throw in a shot aside here, no extra charge, to say that singleness… celibacy… is a gift. I’m dead serious. Not everyone can hack the celibate lifestyle. Paul tells us that is it good to devote yourself to ministry. This is no way affects your value or worth. Yes… even the unmarried are made in God’s image. You’ll just need to spend more time on cultivating deep, meaningful relationships, since you don’t have one waiting for you at home. But this morning’s message is about romantic relationships, because that’s what Miss Rodrigo’s song — actually, her whole album — is about.
So anyway… 6 months after I! DECLARED! CELIBACY! …The woman who would actually become my wife walked through the doors of Surrey CLA for the first day of her summer internship.
What’s the difference? Why did that work out, when the others didn’t? Because I was pursuing God’s will… not my own. Kelly actually asked me out and I declined. HAHA. It wasn’t until a few days later that I realized I was out of my mind and called her back!
Friends, this is it. There is no grand secret. You need not climb the highest mountain or run through the fields to find what you’re looking for. Once again I will turn to Proverbs:
Proverbs 3:5–6 (NET) — Trust[a] in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. 6 Acknowledge him in all your ways, and he will make your paths straight.
It’s that simple, folks. Keep God’s will in focus and the rest will fall into place. In other words, seek first the kingdom of God and all things will be added. Can I get an ‘amen’?