All right, well, hey guys, welcome to Mercy Hill across all of our campuses. Man, we're excited to be diving into a brand new sermon series today.
So, if you have a copy of scripture, you can take it out and turn with me to the book of the Song of Solomon. All right, as you guys are finding the Song of Solomon, I want to just kind of bring you in, especially those of you who are calling Mercy Hill home, especially those of you who tithe here and you give your resources here. I want you to take joy in some of the things that you may never get to see because it doesn't happen on the weekend or even with our church family. But we take very seriously at Mercy Hill Jesus's words that to whom much is given, much is required. And so, as you guys are fueling ministry here in one local church, we are trying to equip hundreds and hundreds of churches really all across the nation.
And that's a ministry called Breaking Barriers. It's right out of our church. It's a ministry of our church to other churches fueled by your generosity. And in September, we had, I want to show you guys, we had our Conference, our annual conference. Guys, celebrate this with me.
Three numbers: 280 pastors and leaders representing 58 churches across seven states came to be equipped. Can we praise God for that? And uh Man, they are just, I just want you to know, like, what have happened here. We steward as a movement, and we want other churches to be equipped with anything that we have, any resource that we produce. Man, it is all free game.
We try to give it away. We try to help these other churches so that they can reach people in their backyard so they can send them to the nations. All right. And that's kind of our big thing.
So, thank you. If you take joy if you're one who fuels the mission, a lot of times there's things happening that you don't even really get to see day in and day out, but man, it's really awesome what the Lord is doing. All right, Song of Solomon, guys. We're coming up on the fourth quarter here of a year of focusing on the family. You know, we talk about how Satan wants to tear families down, but God wants to build families up.
and a huge part of building families up. Is good theology around sex and marriage, all right? That sex is a good gift from God, all right, for His glory and for our good when it's handled the right way, okay? It's very much akin to a fire. A fire can warm a house or it can burn a house down.
And it's all about how it is handled and where it is confined, what the boundaries are.
So, here's the big idea for the message this weekend across all of our campuses: sex in marriage is a gift from God when it is handled the right way. And really, Song of Solomon is that in a nutshell, man. It's like, hey, the book tries to get us to see the goodness of the gift because of how desirous of each other, both the bride and groom, in this story, are. That's good, that's from God. Right, but at the same time, if it's not in the right boundary or not taken care of properly, then it's something of a destructive power in this world, and you see that in a culture that is just absolutely broken when it comes to these ideas.
You know, I think about. The value and the power of something being shown in the boundaries that we put around it, right? If you see something that is highly guarded, you immediately assume it must be valuable. I think about this in my home. Guys, you're probably the same way, okay?
Your guns get a gun safe. Your jeans get a closet, right? It's like you've never seen somebody have a thousand-pound biometric, fireproof, crazy expensive safe for their jeans.
Now, some of you guys probably have those for your sneakers, okay? Because we have a lot of guys that are into the Jordans and all that. But you understand, like, you get the analogy. One is so powerful and valuable that it's safeguarded, lock and key. The other is like, well, I can just go, you know, that's...
I want you to think about that when you think about sexuality in our culture. The church has a vision, and the world has a vision. Which one do you think values it more? You know, the church's vision is like, hey, good gift from God within marriage, no exceptions. God gives the gift of sex in marriage so that that value and that power has a good boundary around it.
You march that, you line that up against what we see in our culture. Man, pornography at every turn, hookup culture. Hey, I'm 18, been dating for six months. Why don't we just go all the way? That is cheap.
Compared to what the Bible has and what the church has, right? That's cheapening the value of the gift, and we want to hold it up high. Let's say not only do we want to see it for what it is, but we want marriages in our church across all of our campuses in the triad. We want marriages in this church to flourish and thrive in this area by holding up the value of the gift.
Now, I'm not just talking to the married people throughout this series, all right? We have thousands of single people in this church, okay? And for that, I want to say, hey, these are things, this is wisdom to prepare for that day. It's wisdom to prepare how to handle your life now when you're not married as well. We're going to get into all of this through this series.
Now, today, it's a little bit like class. We got to do some work today, okay? We got to do some work. Because here's the thing: we got eight weeks of this series. We're going to drill down on a bunch of topics.
But in my opinion, if you don't know the story, the overview of the book itself and how to interpret it, it's going to be hard to make those jumps into drilling down on some different issues, okay?
So, hey, we got to do a survey today. We got to just walk through this whole thing and make sure we understand what the book of Song of Solomon is all about. I'm going to show you to you in three terms, okay? I'm going to show you the courtship, the marriage, and life together. The courtship, let's go ahead and throw that up there.
We're going to look at the courtship first. Then we'll look at the marriage. And then we'll look at life together, okay?
Now, Song of Solomon, chapter 1, verse 1. Hey, this book don't really ease into it. Let's go ahead and read it. The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.
This is the betrothed woman. For your love is better than wine. Your anointing oils are fragrant. Your name is oil poured out. Therefore, virgins love you.
Draw me after you. Let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers.
Now, you can already see why we have the parental warning.
Okay. The parental warning is not based around anything I'm going to say. It's based around what the Bible says. I mean, you got two verses in. We're talking about kissing and drinking.
I mean, right off the thing.
Okay. So we got to just sort of realize what we're dealing with, what kind of literature we're dealing with here. And the book of Song of Solomon makes a few things shine: desire. For a husband or a wife, good thing from God. Man, our relationship with God, there's a great metaphor in scripture about it being like a marriage.
And so we're gonna see all of this stuff, but here's the thing with the Song of Solomon. I know some of you guys are newer. We have a lot of people in this church that have been around church their whole life, and we got other people that this is their first rodeo, okay?
So let me just tell you something about the Bible. Other than the book of Revelation, The Song of Solomon is probably the most highly debated in how you're supposed to try to interpret it.
Okay?
So lucky me here, all right, for the next eight weeks. But I'm just going to tell you, you sort of have to pick a lane. and go with it. And you know where that comes up? Let me just give you one example, all right?
The very first verse says this: the song of songs, which is Solomon's. The Song of Songs. What do you think that phrase actually means? The Song of Songs. Well, there's two options.
One phrase, Song of Songs, maybe it is a collection of songs. It's a song literally of songs.
So you have a bunch of poems, people have taken this part, this part, smashed them together. That's the Song of Solomon. Of course, there's another way to read it, Song of Songs, which is the way we're going to read it, which is: no, it's the greatest song. It's the song of songs. Of all the songs, it's the song.
Now, here's why I bring this up. Depending on which way you interpret that, is it a matchup or is it like the best one? It sort of puts you in a lane of how you're going to interpret the rest of the book, right?
So you have to make some decisions. And I just want to tell you guys that I've made some decisions in studying this where I'm going to sort of go the old route, all right? I look at this story and I see it as a story. Man, I see it as Solomon chasing down his first wife, or it's Solomon looking back and he's realizing how much he's messed up because he's got hundreds of wives and all these concubines, and he's recreating the story of the way he wishes it would have happened. Either way, that's how I'm going to look at it.
It's not a matchup of random literature, it's a story. And the reason I say that is because when I read it, I see a plot line, and it makes the most sense to me that there's not three characters. It's actually just Solomon and the woman, and then the community around them.
Okay. And now, here's the thing: I will tell you this, though. You may have heard this taught differently, or you may even have a different view on the way I'm going to walk through it. No matter which interpretive angle you take generally. The main points are still the main points.
That's a lot like the book of Revelation, right? Like, we can disagree on, hey, do I think this timeline or that timeline, but in the end, Jesus wins, you know? Like, that's kind of the same way in the Song of Solomon. God created sex. Our desire for a wife or a husband is good.
Marriage is a gift. Your spouse will always be your brother or your sister in Christ. And all this points us to our relationship with Christ in the gospel. Like, I could go on so many things. Depending on which way you go, those things are all still true about this text.
Now, All right, we're learning about the text, okay?
Now, chapter one and two. I'm gonna go back and read this again. Let him kiss me with the kisses of my mouth. This is her speaking. For your love is better than wine.
Your anointing oils are fragrant. I love she says this. Your name is oil poured out. Don't you understand? The first two full chapters.
of the Song of Solomon. Are these two people coming into the same orbit? I think the teenagers call it, but they're talking now, okay? And they're coming in, and then they're more than talking. They're dating, courting is what I've kind of called it, but they're moving toward marriage, and you can see the delight that is coming up in their life.
And that's good and right.
Okay, God has created us in some ways for this. There are some of us that are gifted in singleness. And that's fine. You're not going to miss a thing in this life in terms of your relationship with Christ, and you're going to have a fruitful ministry. But the overwhelming majority of us, there's gonna be a time where this is good and proper and right.
And I wanna tell you: the book of Song of Solomon. That's the way it thinks about desire. We think about it many times like desire bad.
Okay, that's of the flesh, bad. You know, like flesh bad, spirit good. That is not Christianity. That is ancient Greek philosophy, not Christian. Christianity is: God took the dust of Adam, breathed in, became a living soul, and now there ain't no part of you that you can pick out and say, well, that's bad, this is good, that's bad, this is good.
You are one being.
So, if God created the world, created you, gave the gift of sex and marriage to the world, then the desire for it is not bad, it's just distorted. And many times, and this is what she says in the Song of Solomon, it's awakened before it's time. It's stirred up and whipped into a flame. When there ain't no real outlet for us to, there's no viable option for marriage in the short term. That's the problem.
Don't look at it as bad. Look what she says in chapter 2, verse 7. You don't have to flip there. I'll read it to you. She says, I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field.
That you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Another way to say that is: don't awaken love until it's time. All right, desire not bad. Whipping that into a flame, thinking about it, dwelling on it. Man, I'm always, you know, thinking, and it's not time for that in your life.
I'm thinking about our younger people, or even some of our people that might be single again, but there's no real prospect on the horizon. Man, it's time to heal. It's time to focus on some other things right now. Then don't be whipping up the desire that you have for sex and marriage. Let me give you a good illustration of this that's simple, okay?
Guys, it's the young dude, it's a 20-year-old dude scrolling on Facebook Marketplace on his phone, looking at brand new trucks that he ain't got a prayer of affording. And you know what it does? It leads him to be discontent with where he is, and it leads him maybe into some real dumb financial decisions to go get something that it's not time for.
Now, you put your head down, you work hard. Guess what's going to happen? One day in your life, there's going to be a time to sit there and scroll because you actually got the money for it. The desire for it ain't bad. It's just that it's not time for that right now in your life, if that makes sense.
And so I would say the same thing. Like for our young people, hey, if this is not time in your life right now to awaken love, Then you know what? Focus on what is around. Don't just say desire bad. Focus on the other good things that God has put into your life right now: friendships.
Ministry. Man, you know, schoolwork, work, you know, serving in the church, those kinds of things.
Now, one of the things we get into in verse 5, you can look at this with me, is insecurities that come when you start getting into the orbit of someone else. All of a sudden, you start looking at yourself, going, wait a minute, I'm seeing flaws. I didn't know we were there. Look at what she says: I am very dark, but lovely. O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kadar, like the curtains of Solomon, do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me.
My mother's sons were angry with me. They made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept. Tell me, you whom my soul loves. Where you pasture your flock. Where you make it lie down at noon.
For why should I be like one who veils herself beside the flocks of your companions?
Now, I want to get to verse 7 because this is, we've got to talk about this idea of how Christian young men and women in the single realm can signal to one another in a godly way: I'm interested in knowing where your flocks are going to be.
Okay, we gotta figure that out, and we're gonna get to it. We're gonna get there, okay? But the first thing I want us to see is this: she says, I am very dark, like the tents of Kadar. Don't gaze upon me.
Now, this is really funny because that's like the opposite of our culture. I have a teenage daughter and a wife, so every summer, every single day, I know what the UV is outside. Right? Because they want to be more tan. Like, many times, dark is considered.
So, I just want to say this: when we look at the Bible with this stuff, you got to understand. And ancient culture views everything differently than we do.
Okay, so like all the beauty standards, all that kind of stuff are just gonna be different. But the point is this: skin deep, she's a little bit like, man, I'm insecure about the way that I look. And I want to make a deeper point about that, okay? Because a lot of our insecurities are way deeper than skin deep. And they only come out more when you get older and more mature and you realize how messed up you are inside.
And your heart. And I would say this, man. She's like, oh, you can feel this. Don't look at me. I want to cover some of this stuff up.
There's a lot of things that people keep covered up that you can't cover anymore when you're in a marriage. All right, and I'm just telling you right now, marriage. does not automatically erase all of those insecurities. It doesn't erase our insecurities. In fact, it will sometimes bring them out.
It'll either lead you to a deeper level of deception. Or actually, it will bring some of those things out. I think about my life. Man, I dealt a lot with anxiety and worry. As a kid through teenage years, all that.
But nobody around me really knew that a whole lot. Like that, you know, I was able to kind of keep it in a box, right?
Well, the thing is, you get married. And you live with somebody every single day, and then you start having a full-time job and kids and all this stuff, and all of a sudden, now you can't keep that stuff in a box. My point is this: this is what I want our church to hear. We always tell everybody, because the Bible says, be equally yoked, right? Like, you want to marry someone who has the same faith values as you.
Let me give you one reason that's true. When you get married, And you begin to realize how flawed you are over time and maturity, and things that you're insecure about come out, you are gonna thank God that you married a gospel grace-forgiven person. But here's why. Because when they realize that they were pretty jacked up too and God forgave them, guess what attitude that puts them in when they're looking at you? But when we marry someone who doesn't share that value, Now, I have flaws.
You know what they're going to do? Giant spotlight all day, every day. Because they're not looking at themselves. They're looking at you and what's wrong.
So just take this for what it is. When we have these insecurities, I'm very dark. Don't look at me. You can go way deeper than skin deep with that stuff. And if you do, man, you're going to be grateful that you married someone who understands grace and the gospel.
Now, this is what I want to get into. She says in verse 7: Tell me, you who my soul loves, where you pasture your flock.
Now, he says, verse 8. If you don't know, O most beautiful among women, follow the tracks of the flock and pasture your young goats beside the shepherd's tent. I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaoh's chariots. Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels. We will make for you ornaments of gold studded with silver.
While the king was on his couch, and this flips back to her, while the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance. My beloved is to me a satchet of myrrh that lies between my breasts. My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Angeti.
Now, this is one of those things that I feel like we got to bring up. You're talking about the courtship, all right? If you're younger, you're man, high school, college, maybe you're single again. Maybe you're a young professional, man. You did the business thing.
You're in your 30s. You're really thinking about marriage now.
Okay. There has got to be a way that Christians can, in a healthy way, Make this kind of connection. Where your flock's going to be Here's where they're going to be. You can follow. That's kind of what they're doing here, okay?
They're basically just kind of signaling to one another that the light is kind of on, open for business, if you're interested in a godly marriage and walking in this way in a godly marriage. She's not being too forward here. And here's what I would say: you know, in a church like Mercy Hill, that many times, in terms of the way we preach complementarianism, it's kind of an over, it can be sort of overly correcting what's so wrong in the culture. That we talk about men pursue, men pursue, men lead, men lead, and that's true, all right? And we, and you guys are gonna keep hearing me say that.
But that does not mean that this woman is not being too forward by asking where your flock's gonna be, okay?
So here's the thing: I'll say this specifically to our ladies. Like, ladies, you're kind of in that season of, man, I think I'd be open to a godly marriage. If you give off the vibe, Of I don't want to be noticed. And I don't want to be desired. When you don't get noticed or you don't get desired, don't fret about it.
And I would say the same thing to a lesser degree to our guys. Like, if you're giving off that vibe of I don't really want this, then don't fret about it if it don't come to you, you know? Instead, in a godly way, how do we say where your flock's gonna be? Here, you can follow the tracks, right? There's some interest there.
What are some ways we can do that? What I would say is: man, if you're single and you desire. A godly husband or a godly wife, be at everything the church does. Serve every single week. Make sure you're in a group.
Man, when people invite you to do things, when the singles of our church are invited to go do things, say yes. Like, don't be too tired to go, you know? Like, be around, and that's one of the things. Be open to conversation, man. Ask questions.
Like, there's a lot of things we can do, but I think I just want to make sure we understand it is good and right and godly for single people in a church like Mercy Hill to subtly make sure that other single people understand that, hey, I want to go toward marriage. I mean, guys, one of the most healthy things you can see in a local church is single people finding each other, getting married, and starting to have kids. I mean, it's just one of the most healthy things that we can see in a local church as the family of God grows.
So I would encourage you to do that. All right. That's the courtship. Number two, let's look at the marriage. All right.
And it's going to happen fast. All right. So he, hey, we go through chapter three. There's a preparation for marriage. We're going to get into that.
We're going to get into how men prepare their lives, not like a boy, but like a man. Not just about rights, but also about responsibilities to be ready to receive a woman into their life. We're going to talk about that. Different sermon. All right, but that's chapter three.
Chapter four, here's what he says.
Now he's starting to woo her, okay? Behold. You are beautiful. My love, behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead. Oh my, okay. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing. All of them which bear twins, and not one of them has lost its young. My man has got game, okay?
I mean, he has got aura, all right? And it's okay for me to say that because my daughter and her friend Gabby said I can say aura, okay?
So I think about this and uh And I just want you to think about this with me. Imagine if this was my first line to Anna. Anna, your hair is like goats. And And babe, you got all your teeth. Let's go on a date.
You know what I mean? It's like, man, it just doesn't.
Something don't ring about that in our culture. But you understand, hey, it's different times, all that. All right. Verse 7 is the money verse. And it's actually very deep.
You may not realize this, you may not be a believer. One of the greatest desires you have in your heart is for somebody to say this to you, what he's about to say. You ready? Look at verse 7. He says, you are altogether beautiful, my love, and there is no flaw in you.
Now this gets deep fast. You may not realize this, but the way the Bible teaches humanity This is actually the deepest desire of the human heart. You know why? Because it's what was lost in the Garden of Eden. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve looked upon one another.
because of the relationship that they had with God who was looking upon them. And they could look at one another and they could say, with integrity, there is no flaw in you. Because God was looking at them and they were enjoying a relationship with God where he was saying to them, There is no flaw in you. But you know what happened when we sin? All of a sudden, all of that was smashed and taken away.
And the first thing that they did, you remember in the story, what's the first thing that Adam and Eve did whenever they sinned and they realized they had lost that flawlessness before God? You remember what it was? They ran and hid. They had to cover up. And humans have been hiding and covering up ever since.
We know in our sin there is something wrong that we've got to hide from each other, and we've certainly got to hide it from God.
Okay, and so we are always constantly hiding these flaws that are inside. What we desperately desire is to get back again to the garden. Where God looks upon us and actually, in truth and integrity, not sentimentality, says, there is no flaw in you. And you know what? The Bible tells us that story.
That story is the gospel. There is only one way. That we get back to that place where there is no flaw in us. And it is through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus, we believe.
Came, never sinned so that he could be the perfect Lamb of God, died on the cross for our sin. And like a lot of the old times hymns would say, he washed away our sin with his blood. All right, so His blood covers us, and now when God looks upon us, if you've admitted your sin, believed in what Christ has done, and confess Him as the Lord of your life.
Now, if you haven't done that, Then I don't know what your strategy is when you stand before God because he's going to see every flaw. But if you have done that, that when he looks upon you, He truly says with integrity, there is no flaw in you. Because you are in Christ. Praise God for that truth. But then I just think, you know what?
Hey, when we say this whole thing that there is no flaw in you, this is very dangerous. A lot of marriages are destroyed. We live in a divorce culture for this reason. A lot of people marry somebody else hoping that that person is going to end up giving them this flawless feeling. And that is putting a weight on them that no human being was ever intended to carry.
You can't get from a human spouse what you need from your divine spouse, what God can do for you. And what happens in life a lot of times is this. Like you can see a dude kind of floating in a sea of loneliness and singleness. Right? And he's looking for that affirmation in his life to feel better and to feel like there is no flaw in him.
And all of a sudden, he looks up, and there's a 5'9, brown-eyed. you know, brown haired life preserver. And he grabs on for dear life. And he's kind of using her to boost himself up. And the problem with that is, she wasn't made to carry that weight.
We need to get this flawless thing settled first, and then we can actually look to our spouse and seek not to take from them, but to provide for them. And to pour out, but we can only do that from a heart that is already being seen in that state of kind of flawlessness, and that only comes up in the gospel.
Now, They're kind of getting around each other. Man, chapter four is so beautiful. He is just extolling her beauty. I want you to imagine what it would be like if you're not a Christian for God to look at you the way this groom looks at this bride, where he looks at you without flaw. I mean, that's what we're offering you in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But they finally come together, all right? And this is the moment, all right? This is the marriage, the consummation, and the processional, all in two verses.
Now, there's two verses, three characters are gonna come out, and there's debate on who's speaking when, but I'm gonna tell you the way I see it, okay? And so I'll read it, I'll read it here. Verse 16 and through chapter 5, verse 1. I feel like this is still the man that is speaking when he says this. Awake, O North Wind, and come.
O Southwind, blow upon my garden. Let its spices flow.
Now she says, Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its choicest fruits.
Now he says, Come to my garden, my sister, my bride. I gathered my myrrh with my spice. I ate my honeycomb with my honey. I drank my wine with my milk. I think that's a way of saying I got all there is.
All there was, I got it all. And then the community says, okay, we haven't talked about this, but there's a community around them that's egging them on. And the community says, eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love.
Now, I don't know how the best way to say this, but I would just say it like this: the deed is done.
Okay, you get here in the passage, and now the marriage has been completed in every way that it can, and the community looks on and affirms. And this is so important. In the Song of Solomon, when you're reading through, the way that we're interpreting it, there's actually three characters: there's the bride, there's the groom, and there's the community. There's the people around this bride that shout in. And encourage.
I mean, think about the language. Think about the metaphor of this. They're saying, go, be drunk with love. It's like they're driving away in the car and they're throwing the bird seed at them and they're yelling, be drunk with love, be drunk with love. Guys, I want you to understand this whole modern invention, I always joke around about it being me and Jesus and K-love and coffee, and that's my church.
You guys heard me say that before? That bleeds into marriage. Where now all of a sudden a couple begins to think: okay, it's us. And Jesus and K-Love and coffee and a Bible and church and no church. And it's just we don't need the community.
We don't need group. We don't need the people. We don't need to serve. Like we're good, man. I watch a celebrity pastor podcast and we read our Bible every day and we're good.
And what I want to tell you is in the Song of Solomon, marriage is not set up that way. It is set up to be unbelievably unbridled affection, love, intimacy between a man and a woman with a community standing there and egging it on. Man, be better in your marriage. Be more intimate in your marriage. And that's why we call you guys: hey, serve here, be in a group here at our campuses.
Man, there's all types of ways you can be involved in the community.
So that you don't get isolated, but you have people in your life that are egging you on towards a healthier and healthier marriage.
Okay, thirdly and finally, right? This will go faster. Thirdly and finally, we saw the courtship. We saw the marriage.
Now I want to show you life together. And this is so funny, man, because they go from the heights of go be drunk with love to the very next verse: there's trouble in paradise. And I don't know if anybody can relate to that.
Okay, there's some highs and lows when you get married. And look what happens. I slept. This is hers talking. I slept, but my heart was awake.
A sound. My beloved is knocking. Open to me, my sister. My love, my dove, my perfect one. For my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.
Now, I don't know if this is literal or if it's metaphorical, but what's happening is he is asking her to open herself to him.
Okay, now maybe that's something, maybe that's kind of a sexual metaphor, or maybe he literally has just been locked out.
Okay, I don't know if he got kicked out, I don't know what happened, but he's locked out, all right? And so he says, hey, let me back in.
Now, look at what she says. This is classic.
Well, you know, I'm putting that in, okay? But she's like. I put off my garment. How can I put it back on? Oh, yeah, that's real hard.
Okay. I had bathed my feet. How could I soil them again? It's like, all right, okay. We've got a little excusitis going on here.
Okay. Her way of saying, I don't really want to open to you.
Now, again, I don't know if this is some kind of metaphor or if this is just straight up like he's locked out and she's mad, or I don't know what's happening. But finally, whatever it is, she says, you know, okay, she opens the door. Verse 6: I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone. You see what's happening? It's this little bit, like, uh-oh, now you're gonna get up and get out of the bed.
You couldn't even put your shirt on, but now you're gonna get out, and now you're gonna, no, I'm gone.
Okay, I'm not even here anymore. That's what he's saying. My soul failed. Me, when he spoke, I sought him but found him not. I called to him and he gave no answer.
He knocks, she won't open. She opens, he doesn't want to knock anymore.
Okay, so they're having this kind of marital spat that's going on, and the community jumps in. This is one of those things I was telling you guys: don't do life alone. You know, we talk about life is better together. I would say it more like this: Christians grow together or they don't grow. And that's true in marriage as well.
Because look at verse 6: the community jumps into this situation. Where has your beloved gone? They're talking to her. This is chapter 6. O most beautiful among women, where has your beloved turned?
That we may seek him with you. You're in crisis, your marriage is in crisis. Let me ask you something right now. Man, when this is you, open to me. She doesn't want to.
Okay, she wants to. I don't want to knock anymore. When you're in that spot, Who do you call? You got any friends that can? Can you?
You got anybody that can egg you on towards godliness? This is why we do group. Man, we've got to be able to be open with these things with one another. But happy ending story here. Ready?
My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to graze in the gardens and gather the lilies. I am my beloved, and my beloved is mine. He grazes among the lilies. Y'all, they're back together. You are beautiful as tears of my love.
This is him talking, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. Turn away your eyes from me, for they are overwhelming me. Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead, and now he's just back to his old tricks.
Okay. Sounds like he ain't got a couple of lines, but they're pretty good. All right. Um Here's what I would say about this, and I'll just use a testimony here by God's grace. I think about my wife Anna.
We've been married for over 20 years. You know, the world would tell you, the world would absolutely say you get married. And then it's like, all the fun's over. Yeah. You know, you guys, I mean, you hear the language all the time, the ball and chain.
You know, it's like, you know, you get married, you're kind of, all right, now you're settling down in life, or whatever it is. And man, I just want to tell you that the Song of Solomon pictures an intimacy that can grow over time. You know why? Because you're going to go through some stuff together. You're going to go through some things that are hard.
You're going to go through financial things, health things. You're also going to go through strife. I don't know what the source of the problem was here, but you guys, man, that idea of open to me, I don't want to, okay, fine, I don't want to anymore. I mean, that idea is just, that plays out in marriage all the time. All right, in different ways.
And I just think, like, when you rely on the rock and you rely on truth and you have community in your life, you know what happens in a good marriage? You go through times like this, but then you come back together again. And even sexuality, even sex is a big part of that. Like you come back together again, and your marriage is stronger, can be than it was before. I think about this in my life.
When I think about 20 years ago, I don't ever go, man, I wish we could get back to where we were. I don't want to go back to where we were. Because there's been 20 years of things that we've gone through together that have brought a bond and an intimacy now that's different than it was 20 years ago. I would say it like this: like our relationship with Christ, our intimacy in marriage should grow over time. It should be something that gets better.
It's like that great 90s country song, There Might Be a Little Dust on the Bottle, but it's one of those things that gets sweeter with time. It should get better, right? And so here's my thing: you say, well, man, that ain't my story. Then you need to be here for the next eight weeks. You say, well, man, that ain't my story.
Like, I would go back 10 years ago.
Okay, then you need to seriously think about being in a group. You need to think about letting us get you some resources, getting around some people that are going to push you. You're probably missing the community aspect of people saying, hey, go after it in greater ways, right? The church has a protocol for intimacy with our spouse growing over time, but it may be that you're just kind of out of that protocol. We want to make sure that you jump back in.
All right? Let's conclude this, and we're going to be done for the day. Here's what I want to do: I want to tell you to honor God. Honor God's gift by handling sex in a godly way, right? What's our application?
Guys, there ain't there's not a bunch of stuff to do today. We don't have a sign-up sheet for something. We're not asking you to text anybody anything. I got one application. You ready for it?
I've laid out for you from the Song of Solomon the way that it's kind of supposed to work. You find a godly person. Your desire for them grows, you court them, you marry them, you try to grow in intimacy with them for the rest of your life, then one of you dies. That is the model. My question for you is: Do you want God's way?
Or do you want your way? I mean, we could get into it, man. All the back channel and that cell phone, all the things it's seen. Man, the ways that at work, people know that your light's on for business, even though you're married. Like there's a lot of sin that could be going on and we're gonna get into a lot of that stuff The 30,000 foot of it is?
Do you want what God wants? He created this as a gift. Do you want to do this his way in wisdom? And I would say this: you absolutely should want that. Because think about what God has done for you.
I would want to do marriage the right way because it is the model for the way that God has brought me into his kingdom. Think about this. In his kingdom, God is seen as Jesus is the groom, we are the bride, all of us. Like there's a great metaphor in scripture of the groom laying his life down. You and I were kicked out of the family because of our sin, but Jesus Christ, the great groom.
He came and laid his life down on the cross so that we could be brought into the family. We are called the bride, he is called the groom. If he did that for me and gave me purpose and life after this earth is over and heaven for all eternity to grow with my friends and him and intimacy with him forever and all the things that I get from the gospel. Then why would I not say, hey? Look at what he has done for me, like a marriage.
I want to do marriage in the right way. It must be right. It would lead men, lay your life down for your wife. Women, follow your husband, respect him, and you know. Boost him up.
And that dance there where he's laying his life down for you, you're taking the place of honor, but you're kind of showering him with respect. And the way that sort of works, man, that's. That's modeled after what God has done for us. The metaphor in scripture of Jesus as lover can be uncomfortable for us, sometimes, especially as guys. But it is there for a reason.
I remember one time we were doing this. Our worship team did this song one time that was one of these real touchy-feely. Kind of songs where it's like it's metaphor of Jesus as lover like to the max. I can't stand those type of songs, okay? It just makes me feel weird, all right?
To be honest with you. I, I, um, I call them Jesus is my boyfriend songs.
Okay, and we don't do at Mercy Hill, we don't do Jesus is my boyfriend songs. But this one time, we did this one Jesus is my boyfriend song. And I was, me and every other man in the room was highly uncomfortable, okay? And so I came off and I was like, hey guys, we can't do this on a Sunday. And they said, why?
And I said, because it feels like you got me and Jesus out there holding hands walking down the beach, okay, in the rain on a date. I was like, I can't do this, man. And I'll never forget. One of our worship leaders, I mean, it was just a sting in my heart when she said it. She said.
Pastor Andrew, exactly what problem do you have with the metaphor of Jesus being a lover? And I was like, I don't know, but we still ain't doing that song Sunday, okay? I don't know. And I'll think, but it did sting me. It did sting me a little bit.
Because I thought, man, there is a reason in scripture. that we are given that metaphor. There's a reason the Song of Solomon is supposed to push us. Beyond some of our comfort. in a way that God loves us.
Listen. God sees you with no flaw because of the gospel, because of what he has done for you, because the husband laid his life down for the bride. I think that gives us a pretty big motivation to say, man, I want to go out and do marriage in the way that God has modeled it for me. All right, let's pray. Father, we come before you.
And we ask right now, Lord, that you would make our church mature in the ways of wisdom around romance, sexuality, marriage. God, we're grateful for this gift. And we pray. Lord, that we would handle it the right way. Lord, I pray where there is sin over the next couple of months of this series, it would be revealed.
God, I pray we would have restoration, healing. Father, I pray that we would have marriages that are far more intimate at the end of this series formed by your word than they are right now. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
