Song of Solomon 5:9 - Why Do You Want Jesus So Badly?

Well, I know it's going to be a good verse because it's the ninth verse in the fifth chapter of the Song of Solomon and the ninth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, as you may know, is a tet, which is the letter that starts that, you know, God made all those things in the beginning of Genesis, and then he said it was good, and that's the word tav, so wonderful. And this verse is good like that, and so I love where this goes and what we're going to learn about today. I'll go ahead and read it in English, and I should catch this up a little bit, and as you might recall, that the bride had, you know, not gotten up, and then she got up, and then the watchman found her, they beat her, they bruised her, they took away her veil, and then she charged the daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved tell him that I'm sick with love. And then we get today's verse, which is the response of the daughters of Jerusalem, which is, what is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women?

What is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost charge us so? Wouldn't it be wonderful, I mean, wouldn't it be good, to make the point, if our lives and the questions that we ask our friends would lead people to the question is what's so good about Jesus? Why are you so, you know, engaged in Jesus?

What is your life about that you seem so desperate to find him, you know? And therein lies the beauty of the question, and so it actually, from my standpoint, this is a really beautifully simple understanding that this verse has, is that here we have the daughters of Jerusalem, which, you know, you can't help but ask the question, who are these? And I love that idea of myself, of looking at the word Jerusalem and realize that these people are the daughters of those who have brought peace, right?

They're the peace shooters, not peashooters, but peashooters because Jerusalem is that idea of the fear of and arrow shooters of peace, and so it's their daughters. And so, you know, our faith doesn't necessarily go to the next generations, but all our children are in the line of that. And so here's these people that clearly don't understand why she is so in love with Jesus so you can see that their faith yet hasn't been transferred. And so you can't help but even think that, wow, this could even be the Jews, as Paul would say, that our faith would make them jealous.

But it may be people that, you know, are sitting on the sidelines, the post-Christian generation, and they have yet to see, you know, what is it that's so spectacular about Jesus? And so wouldn't it be wonderful, I mean, wouldn't it be wonderful if people saw that in our lives and said, what is it that you charge us so? Why are you so intent, you know, that we find Jesus?

Because that's essentially what she's done is, you know, she's charging him to find him and tell him that she is sick with love. And so, you know, I thought about, you know, one of the things that really I feel like led to a lot of my ministry is for years and years and years as I read the Bible like I did this morning, I've found something that really excited me like I did this morning about this idea of the goodness of having a life that was so hungry for Jesus that people would see this and wonder, what is it that's so, what's the big deal here? And so as I read those and I end up with these needy out loud, like I really wonder what this passage means in the Bible.

And so I often will go to my friends or whatever and share a passage that I have studied or thought or even now as I do this podcast the same thing. And hopefully, you know, that people see what is it, what is it about that, that has him so perplexed that they themselves would find it necessary to go and answer that question for themselves by looking at the Bible. I mean, that's my hope and my prayer. But even this morning, you know, as I really thought about my own situation, about being needy out loud, and you may have heard me talk about that if you're regular listening to the Christian Car Guy Show, I love that concept of the blind beggar, you know, that asked Jesus, you know, to come heal him. And because he was needy out loud, you know, Jesus showed up and it's helpful to be needy out loud and especially needy out loud with those people around us because how are we going to get people to pray for us unless we ask them?

And how are we going to get Jesus to come and do stuff unless it's clear that that's what we need and that's what we want? And so in an effort to be needy out loud this morning, I will tell you that last night as I laid my head on the pillow, my heart was yearning for understanding of how my certain very, very close loved ones, my wife, but other people in my family that are very, very close to me that I was terribly worried about. Some of them, you know, quite honestly aren't even talking to me right now and I don't know why. And so my heart was broken about that and as I thought about it and thought about it, I realized that my heart was actually broken with God because for some extent, you know, I'm trusting him to make those relationships work. And so I thought, well, you know, it'd be good if I were needy out loud this morning and say, you know, those and I don't want to mention names of my family because I know some folks listen that obviously know me well and I don't want them to ask these people in my family, you know, why is it you're not talking to him?

But I'm not, you know, honestly, I'm just, I'm perplexed because I don't know and obviously I've tried to go to them and obviously I'm asking, you know, what's going on, but no communication coming back whatsoever. And so I'm going to be needy out loud and say, wow, you know, I'm, if you see Jesus this morning for me, you know, ask him, you know, to help me with this. I do realize, and I've thought about this, that God is good and right, we know seven times a day we praise him because of his righteous judgments. And this is something that he's doing in my life and these people in my life that he is after something that's going to hopefully, well, I won't say hopefully, that will bring us all back into a better relationship with him, right? And you might remember in the TET section of the 119 Psalm, it said, it was good that I was afflicted, right? That I might learn my statutes.

Well, I'm afflicted. And so it's good that I'm afflicted, but Lord, help me learn these statutes. And I pray that you all might be needy out loud with somebody today that in your being needy out loud, they're like, why, why is he so upset about something that has to do with God? Because I really see that it is God that I, that I need these answers from essentially to make sure that I'm in a right relationship. And when you think about, when you say in the Lord's prayer every morning, you know, your kingdom come, you know, your will be done. That idea of will has very, a whole lot to do with things being right. And so, you know, I'm very anxious. I am, I'm anxious to be in a right, right relationship with God and a right relationship with those people who are close to me. And so Lord help us with that. And I ask this in Jesus' name, and thank you for praying for me.