In year 1 we solidified a food pantry ministry that is on hold for now since we needed to use the kitchen for more space, and are in the process of partnering with FSBC’s pantry and clothing distribution. We also began Young Life at Alhambra, and had them start meeting in our sanctuary (which is now used by Alhambra/Maryvale combined and Sevilla Jr. High YL). There have been many testimonies of how God has saved kids through YL), and it is continuing to this day.

We also were able to start our first 2 community groups at the end of year one, beginning of year 2, and our church body grew from 10-40 people. Going in to year 2 we were excited to go through a year of CG’s, and other ministries that became established the first year. Over the summer, I got a chance to connect with GCU at a more intimate level and was able to be a camp speaker at their leader retreat and we were able to recruit some significant student leaders who have helped us grow in the area of campus ministry and have seen many people come to know the Lord at GCU. By the end of year 2, we had 3 CG’s going strong and more than half the church attending a CG and 10 people who had gone (or were going) through Surge.

Year 3 comes and we were outgrowing our church building, so we had plans to remodel it, but the cost was more than we could raise, so we moved to night services as we rented from FSBC from April to Dec. This was a good, but hard season for us. Good, in that we had room to grow, but bad in the sense that we were not at home and our small congregation was dwarfed by the size of the sanctuary at FSBC. God then graciously gave us some money to do some work on our building (this one) and we were able to expand this place to hold almost double the amount of people.

So here we are in 2012, celebrating 3 years of God’s provision. We have 4 CG’s, 4 Surge tables, 3 Bible studies, Mending the Soul groups for men and women starting soon (healing from sexual abuse and neglect), a full time pastor coming on board (Kevin Rash) and Chris Sanchez as our worship and creative arts director coming on full time. God has been faithful! This is where this passage in Romans 15 picks up and applies to us.

God has been faithful and he uses fully devoted followers of Himself to continue to advance His church and show His faithfulness. Without you, Kineo doesn’t exist. You are the body of Christ. You are the hands and feet. You are the physical display of the gospel of Jesus. If Kineo grows, it’s gonna be because God has worked in the hearts of His people to advance His church, for His glory, and our good. Kineo needs workers!

I am here to ask you to jump on board with us; to commit to this local expression of Christ’s body at a more intimate and intentional level. To commit to being a vital part of our Sunday morning worship services. To commit to being more intentional with being a part of a CG. To commit to living your life radically different for the sake of God’s kingdom and to take it upon yourself to help Kineo grow in all aspects. We need you and I know the Lord desires of you to live in line with His gospel for His glory and others good! So let’s jump right into our text for this morning’s sermon.

Read Romans 15:1-6: LIVE THE GOSPEL
First off, Paul says, referring to those who are part of the church: 1 We who are strong (or “able”) have an obligation (“are indebted” or “bound to perform a duty”)  to bear with the failings of the weak (or “those who are weak in the faith”), and not to please (accommodate) ourselves. 2 Let each of us please (accommodate) his neighbor for his good, to build him up.’

And here is how we are equipped and able to be strong and not seek to please ourselves: 3 For Christ did not please himself (make Himself comfortable), but as it is written, “The reproaches (dishonor, insults, condemnation) of those who reproached you fell on me.” 4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 5 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant (to give of one’s own accord and with good will) you to live in such harmony (oneness, unity, of being the same) with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, (John 17:20-23) 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul says that what was written about Christ was so that you might have hope by trusting in and looking to the God of endurance and encouragement to live such humble and loving lives among one another.

And this is no easy task. People have junk. People are hard to be patient with. People are full of pride, envy, jealousy, deceit, gossip, slander, etc… We need something outside of ourselves to live in the way Paul’s writing! So let’s unpack the two key words here that God is to us:

God is our Endurance: hupomonḗ; fem noun to persevere, remain under. A bearing up under, patience, endurance as to things or circumstances. This is in contrast to makrothumía (3115), long–suffering or endurance toward people. Hupomonḗ is associated with hope (1 Thess. 1:3) and refers to that quality of character which does not allow one to surrender to circumstances or succumb under trial.

God is our Encouragement: paráklēsis; from para-kaléō (3870; para: It means primarily, from the presence or side of someone. // kaleo: It means to call to someone in order that he may come or go somewhere; particularly with a voice as a shepherd calls his flock (Matt. 4:21; 20:8; Mark 1:20, “he called them” means He called them to follow as His disciples).

So paráklēsis with that intimate root meaning is to implore or plead with in an intimate, knowing and loving kind of way. The act of encouragement and comfort.

All of Scripture is actually a paráklēsis, an exhortation, admonition or encouragement for the purpose of strengthening and establishing the believer in the faith (see Rom. 15:4; Phil. 2:1; Heb. 12:5; 13:22). In Luke 2:25, the title of Messiah, “the consolation of Israel,” is eschatological pointing to Him as the one who brings the predicted and long–awaited comfort to Israel.

So God hupomonḗ’s us (He will not allow us to surrender in dire circumstances or cave in under trial) and paráklēsis’ us (He comforts us by standing by our side and calls us by name so that we hear His voice and follow Him). May the God of endurance and encouragement cause us to persevere and comfort us during the times we don’t think we will persevere. May He be our good shepherd. This is how God gets things done in the church!

Read Romans 15:7-13: BE THE CHURCH
Then Paul goes on to motivate us with gospel motivation, not out of fear and/or guilt: 7 Therefore (because the Lord sustains and provides for what we need) welcome (to receive to oneself, admit to one’s society and fellowship, receive and treat with kindness) one another as Christ has welcomed you (this is gospel-centered motivation), for the glory of God.

Then Paul further explains how Christ welcomed us: 8 For I tell you that Christ became a servant (diákonos; a minister, servant, deacon. The derivation is uncertain, but according to some it comes from diakónis, which means “in the dust laboring”) to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, 9 and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.” 10 And again it is said, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.” 11 And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him.” 12 And again Isaiah says, j“The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope.” Paul breaks out in worship here and this indeed reason to worship the living God!

13 May the God of hope (or “the God of endurance/hupomonḗ and encouragement/paráklēsis”) fill you with all joy and peace in believing/pisteúō; faith (what is the means of receiving this filling, this hope? Believing; in placing your faith in God’s strength and provision, not your own; believing the gospel, not your news), so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope (have more than enough).

We can see clearly that Paul is saying that it is what God does, which is what enables us to love well, minister faithfully, offer hope, endure with the wicked, etc…

Read Romans 15:14-21: REMAIN KINGDOM DRIVEN
14 I myself am satisfied (persuaded, convinced) about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness (active and energetic character expressing itself in an act of love), filled with all knowledge (clear and exact knowledge which expresses  thorough understanding) and able to instruct (parakaleo) one another. 15 But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly (a sacred office, equal to the sacredness of the Levitical who offered sacrifices in theTemple) service of the gospel of God, so that the offering (Rom. 12:1; their lives) of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit (and not by the works of man).

17 In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. 18 For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, 19 by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God (by divine power, not man’s power)—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; 20 and thus I make it my AMBITION TO PREACH THE GOSPEL, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, (Paul’s case for world mission in places where the gospel in not planted) 21 but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.” (this can happen on our home turf; there are people who no not our Lord)

Ambition to preach the gospel: I make it my passionate and unswerving desire to be a messenger who publicly declares the divinely appointed announcement of the great and glorious news that our Lord Jesus Christ died for sinners, and that by faith in our Lord, one might be reconciled with and declared eternally righteous before the God Most High!

Romans 15 is what the Lord desires Kineo to look like this year; to labor in this manor. To make Jesus look beautiful through:

1) LIVING THE GOSPEL – May this good news dwell in you so richly that you trust Jesus’ words and Jesus’ power, not your words or your power.

2) BEING THE CHURCH – May the God of encouragement and endurance fill you with all hope to bear with the failing of the weak and to welcome one another.

3) REMAINING KINGDOM DRIVEN – May you never lose sight of the proclamation of the gospel to all who have not heard it. May the gospel motivate the church to labor for the fame of Jesus!

Let’s Pray!

Oh, the joy of our salvation from God (Ps. 51:12)! Our joy flows out of our new clothing we have put on in Christ (Gal. 3:27)! Isaiah says two key things here in the first verse of our passage today. First, he says that God has clothed him with the garments of salvation. Second, he says that he has been covered with the robe of righteousness.

These two things are vitally important for us to understand if we are to experience the kind of joy Christ desires for us. And to fully understand them, we need a little more context from this chapter, and then we will jump around Scripture for a bit before we come back to this passage. Let’s go!

Alright, at the very beginning of this chapter, Isaiah 61:1-2, Isaiah says this, speaking these words from the mouth of God, as if coming from the Messiah: 1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;

And in Luke 4:18-19, we read that at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, He came to the synagogue in His own hometown, Nazareth, and stood up to read Scriptures as was His custom, and as He stood up, the scroll of Isaiah was handed to him and this is what He read: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then Jesus rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the teachers of the Law, sat down and said this: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (v. 21). This is one of the places in the NT where we learn of Jesus being the Messiah, the Rescuer that the Israelites have been waiting for. He is the one who would come and clothe them with the garments of salvation, and cover them with the robe of righteousness. Jesus tells the teachers of the Law that the Scripture that Isaiah wrote was about Him!! Now, why did they need to be clothed? Why was that kind of wording chosen?

Let me ask you to turn to Genesis 3. Let me remind you, when we pick up in this passage, Adam & Eve are in the garden of Eden, perfect in the sight of God, everything is good, or very good (Gen. 1:25, 31), and they were naked together and not ashamed (Gen. 2:25). In verses 1-6 we learn that Satan, in the form of a serpent, came to Eve, enticed her with the fruit of the tree that God said was absolutely off limits….after some dialogue with the craftiest beast of the field, Eve gave in and her husband wasn’t doing his job. Eve ate the forbidden fruit, brought it to Adam and said this is good try it, he does, and now let’s read together what happens after that:

7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Genesis 3:7-11).

No one had to tell them that they were naked; this was the reality of their separation from God. They were given knowledge that God did not want them to have. They were informed by their sinfulness, that they were naked and it was not acceptable, so in their shame of being completely exposed, they hid foolishly behind fig leaves from an all-knowing, ever-present, good and gracious God.

They are broken and naked because of their rebellion with God. They are separated from Him and need to be clothed so their shame will not condemn them. Then, as broken people who are separated from God, they had babies, who had babies, who had babies…you get the point. Broken people can’t make whole people. No, but someone who is perfect and whole, can redeem broken people.

This is a God-job! He is sending a Rescuer to cover our nakedness not with perishable clothes that will not stand in the fire, but with imperishable clothes that will be received by this great God of justice and mercy. This is what Jesus was going to do, and this is why Isaiah says: I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness…

How did Jesus accomplish this? How could He make them (us) whole and perfect before God and clothe us with salvation, and robe of with righteousness? Turn to 2 Corinthians 5:21 with me: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. There it is! That’s how it happened.

God sent His Son, Jesus, who was perfect, who knew no sin, and had Him become sin (bear the weight and the consequences of our sin and treated by God as if all that sin was His own); so that Jesus’ perfect life and death and resurrection would be transferred to us by faith in Jesus’ work, not man’s work (and we would be treated as if all Jesus’ righteousness was our own). He has covered our shame and nakedness and sin and made us right with God again!

This is means for rejoicing! I once was lost, separated, broken, and poor… Now I am found, joined with God, redeemed from my brokenness, and rich in Christ! Hallelujah!! With this in mind, let’s re-read together Isaiah 61:10-11 together:

10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.

Through faith in Christ, we can be clothed in salvation and robed in the righteousness of Christ so that we will be accepted by the God of the universe! Then in verse 11 Isaiah says that this will surely happen just as surely as the earth brings forth sprouts and a garden causes what is sown to sprout up… those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus will assuredly be clothed with salvation and robed in righteousness.

So this is what I want to do as we close. I want to clarify what this righteousness is and what it looks like. Because depending on the way you view your righteousness in Christ, will depend on whether or not you truly get what Christ has done. And if you don’t get the kind of righteousness that is spoken of here in Scriptures, then you will come up short in the joy factor and will wonder what the big deal about Jesus is.

To do this we will turn back to 2 Corinthians 5:21: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Here Paul is making clear the biblical doctrine (belief) of righteousness with the goal of demonstrating beyond doubt the difference between Christian righteousness and all other kinds of righteousness, for there are many kinds:

- There is political or civil righteousness, the nation’s public laws.
- There is cultural righteousness, the standards of our family and social grouping or class, which parents and schools may teach.
- There is ethical  righteousness, the Ten Commandments and the Law of God, which the church may teach (but only in light of Christian righteousness).

I must add that it is right and good to be a good citizen, to be loved and respected by your social group, and to be a morally upright person. So all these may be received without danger, so long as we do not give them any power to satisfy God for our sin, to please God, or to deserve grace. These kinds of righteousness are are not a means of being clothed in salvation and being robed in righteousness.

Christian righteousness comes by faith, not works… For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. God grants it to us apart from our works; we become righteous, we don’t labor to become… in other words, it’s a non-active righteousness as the others are active. For we do nothing for it, and we give nothing for it, we only receive and allow another to work, that is God.

Italics adapted from Tim Keller: This non-active righteousness is a mystery that the world cannot understand. Indeed, Christians never completely understand it themselves, and thus do not take advantage of it when they are troubled and tempted. So we have to constantly teach it, repeat it, and work it out in practice.

For anyone who does not understand this righteousness or cherish it in the heart and conscience, will continually be beaten up by fears and depression and anxiety of whether or not they are good enough to be accepted by God. Nothing gives hope, peace, joy and acceptance like this non-active righteousness.

For human beings by nature, when we encounter danger or taste death itself, we will seek to view our own worthiness. We defend ourselves before all threats by
recounting our good deeds and moral efforts. But then the remembrance of sins and
flaws inevitably come to mind, and this tears us apart, and we think: “How many errors
and sins and wrongs I have done! Please God, let me live so I can fix and amend
things.”

We become obsessed with our active righteousness and are terrified by its
imperfections. “We must fix this!” we say… But the real evil is that we trust our own power to be righteous and will not lift up our eyes to see that Christ has robed us in righteousness…

The troubled conscience has no cure for its desperation and feelings of unworthiness unless it takes hold of the forgiveness of sins by grace, offered free of charge in Jesus Christ, which is this non-active, faith-in-Jesus driven righteousness.

If I tried to fulfill the law myself, I could not trust in what I had accomplished, neither could it stand up to the judgment of God. So…I rest only upon the righteousness of Christ…which I do not produce but receive: God the Father freely gave it to us through faith in Jesus Christ.

This is an absolute and unique teaching in all the world, to teach people, through Christ, to live as if there were no Law or Wrath or Punishment. In a sense, they do not exist anymore for the Christian, but only total grace and mercy for Christ’s sake. Once you are in Christ, the law is the greatest guide for your life, but until you have Christian righteousness, all the Law can do is show you how sinful and condemned you are. In fact, to those outside of Christian righteousness, the Law needs to be expounded in all its force. Why? So that people who “think” they have power to be righteous before God
will be humbled.

However, we must keep the law within its bounds! If we teach that we can be accepted by God through obedience, then Christian righteousness becomes mixed up with earned/moral (active) righteousness in people’s minds. On the other hand, if we teach to people outside of Christ about God’s acceptance and love, with no mention of repentance and the cross of Christ, we also confuse and fail to “rightly divide” the word of God.

Here is where the joy of our salvation comes in. Through (non-active) faith in Jesus, God sees no sin in us, for in this heavenly righteousness, sin has no place. So now we may certainly think: “Although I still sin, I don’t despair, because Christ lives, who is both my righteousness and my eternal life.”

In Christian righteousness, we can rejoice in saying: “I have no sin, no fear, no guilty conscience, no fear of death. I am indeed a sinner in this life and in my own righteousness, but I have another life, another righteousness above this life, which is in Christ, the Son of God, who knows no sin or death, but is eternal righteousness and eternal life.”

Now both these things continue while we live here. We are accused, exercised with temptations, oppressed with heaviness and sorrow, and bruised by the Law with its demands of active righteousness. These attacks fall upon our “flesh” [the part of our heart that still seeks to earn our salvation]…

If the truth of being justified by Christ alone (not by our works) is lost, then all Christian truths and joy and hope and peace are lost, because we have to labor for our own righteousness which is impossible before God.

There is no middle ground between Christian righteousness and works-righteousness. There is no other alternative to Christian righteousness but works-righteousness; if you do not build your confidence on the work of Christ you must build your confidence on your own work. On this truth and only on this truth the church is built and has it’s being…

Practically, to rejoice in God, you rejoice in what you see and know of God in the portrait of Jesus Christ. And this comes to its fullest experience when the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and we are clothed in salvation and robed in righteousness.

So hear this closing advent point. Not only did God purchase our redemption through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, but He also causes us to receive His righteousness through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Look to Jesus this Christmas. Receive the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus. Don’t put this gift on the shelf unopened this Christmas.  And don’t open it and then make it a means to gain other pleasures. Open it and enjoy the gift. Rejoice in God. Make Him your pleasure. Make Him your treasure. Look to Christ alone for your righteousness, and God will be your pleasure and your treasure!

Have faith in Jesus and allow Him to clothe you in salvation and cover up the shame of your nakedness, sin. Then preach the gospel to yourself every day and may God, who is our joy, remind you that you stand perfectly righteous before Him, now, today, because of Jesus’s works, not your own works!

Let’s pray!

Solomon goes back to the beginning, when Shulammite was a little girl, at home where her family deeply impacted her character development. This passage takes us back to her childhood when she was approaching puberty. And he zeros in on a conversation that her brothers had regarding their role in Shulammite’s life.

Apparently we are to see in this conversation something crucial and central to the development of intense and unconditional love. The basis of this understanding is the flashback in 8:10 where Shulammite clearly speaks of her being “a wall” referring to her inaccessibility sexually during that time.

(Others/Brothers) 8 We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for? 9 If she is a wall, we will build on her a battlement of silver, but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar. (Shulammite) 10 I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers; then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace. 11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he let out the vineyard to keepers; each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. 12 My vineyard, my very own, is before me; you, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of the fruit two hundred. (Solomon) 13 O you who dwell in the gardens, with companions listening for your voice; let me hear it. (Shulammite) 14 Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices.

It is clear from vv. 8-9 that her brothers are concerned for their sisters future marriage and husband by protecting her sexuality. Their strategy is simple and wise: 9 If she is a wall, we will build on her a battlement of silver, but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar.

Their strategy depends and is focused on her character.

If she’s a wall–withstands the little boys’ advances–then they will simply encourage and praise her for her virtuous and courageous stand! To place a battlement of silver on a wall was to decorate it to make it more beautiful.

But, if she became a door–open to the little boys’ advances and is easily seduced–they will barricade her with boards and fight for her and speak on her behalf. They will basically take responsibility for her chastity.

Encouragement and discipline seemed to be the characteristics of this caring home that produced a strong and pure love as a wife. But there is something else here. The family unit is responsible to help shepherd and protect, but one must also make responsible choices regarding their sexuality that represents their own values, not simply those of their parents.

And Shulammite informs us that she did take responsibility for her own choices and she began to own the values she learned for her self in verse 10: I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers; then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace. QUESTION: When was she in his eyes one who found peace? ANSWER: After deciding to be a wall and taking responsibility for her own virtue.

We need to take responsibility for our own purity as well as having good, healthy family and friends around us to teach, shepherd, and protect us, especially for the women, because of the sexual aggressiveness that is common in men. If you have no sisters and you are a brother in the Lord, you have many sisters and they are considered family to you.

Listen to the radical statement that Jesus makes in Mark 10:29-30: 29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

In Christ, we are family, our houses are one another’s. and our responsibility is to love. serve and protect one another, especially our sexuality. So what I want to do with the rest of our time together as we close out this series, is to talk more in depth about raising children to make their faith their own and not have them try to own your faith. This is huge for all of us to do. And then give us some practical steps for each age group of children as to what to talk to them about to prepare them for adulthood.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9: 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

This is job can seem overwhelming and many of us have no idea where to begin, so we’re gonna walk through this together to lay a foundation as to where to begin talking to your kids about God. Then we will close with age appropriate conversations and information to your kids regarding sex, sexuality, their bodies, etc… The following has been taken from the books Gospel Coach by Scott Thomas and You Can Change by Tim Chester:

1) Teach your kids that God is GRACIOUS: Because God sent Jesus to die for us, forgive our sin, and make us right with God through faith in Him; He is infinitely gracious. And since He is indeed gracious, we don’t have to prove ourselves to be acceptable. We are acceptable because of Jesus.

Opposite indicators of us not believing God is gracious:
-we take criticism and failures badly
-we find it hard to relax (not be anxious)
-we are proud or are envious of others
-we make people feel left out or guilty for leaving us out
-we will do anything for approval/acceptance (we fear man or love man too much)

2) Teach your kids that God is GOOD: Because God sent Jesus to die for us, forgive our sin, and make us right with God through faith in Him; He is infinitely good. And since He is good, we don’t have to look anywhere else for love, joy, peace, comfort, etc… We find the only lasting love, joy, peace, and comfort in the person of Jesus, who is God.

Opposite indicators of us not believing God is good:
-we feel that our responsibilities are a burden
-we often complain
-we make people feel burdened to live up to our standard
-we lack joy
-we are uncontrollably moody
-we fear man or love man too much

3) Teach your kids that God is GREAT: Because God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in it, and He holds everything together and keeps it going, and He knows all things that have been, that are, at that will be; He is infinitely great. And since He is great, we don’t have to try to be in control. Everything that happens in life is in the hands of this “gracious” and “good” God who loves us through His Son Jesus.

Opposite indicators of us not believing God is great:
-we are overbearing
-we are easily angered
-we are inflexible
-we are impatient
-we are irresponsible
-we hide our weaknesses
-we are overly anxious

Overview: 1) God is gracious, so we don’t have to prove ourselves to be acceptable or loved; 2) God is good, so we don’t have to look anywhere else for love, joy, peace, and comfort; 3) God is great, so we don’t have to try to be in control.

If you spent the rest of your days as a parent believing and teaching these three things, you and your kids will be equipped to love God and people in a more excellent way and will drastically increase their odds of being a healthy, functional adult in this world.

Now we will close with age appropriate stages of teaching your kids about sexuality.  The following has been taken from the book The Secrets of Eve:

Preface: Be positive whenever you talk about sexuality and use every opportunity to reinforce to your kids that 1) “God made you and your body parts”, 2) “Sex is good and it’s a gift from God”, and 3) “God designed this good gift for marriage.”

1) Ages birth to three: It all starts with the everyday talk about their body parts while bathing and dressing, while you model respect of their body and yours.

It is important to teach your children the proper name of all the body parts, especially their genitals. This is important for you as the parent to be comfortable using the proper names and showing your children that each part is respectable and good.

If you give genitals pet names without teaching them the actual name, you are communicating to the child that certain parts of our body are hard to talk about so we give them nicknames. There could be shame attached to this because we never give nicknames to eyes, ears, noses, or fingers; but we do for penis and vagina.

Finally, spend this time stressing to your children that each part of their body has dignity and special functions made by God.

2) Ages three to five: As you build on the basics of body parts and physical boundaries.

Also, you can now introduce your children to the simple basics of human reproduction such as the growth of a baby inside mommy (or other mother’s) and the birth process.

Be sure tress the importance of genitals being private with special (non-shaming) function and no one is supposed to touch them. Children are naturally curious and will begin exploring themselves and their body and ask lots of questions such as the difference between boys and girls. Remember the preface.

Many children at this age will become curious with other kids or your bottom, genitals, or nipples, or perhaps they will fondle their own. If this occurs, respond as calmly as possible and do not write your own sexuality into their understanding of what they’re doing. Every situation like this is an opportunity to teach them the basics and re-instill values. Teach them that their genitals are private, they are not to show their genitals to someone else, they are not to fondle their genitals in front of someone else, or ask to see or fondle someone’s else’s genitals.

Finally, it is very important that you take this season of life to lay a foundation for your child’s understanding of being a boy or a girl, created by God’s design. Let them k now that God chose to create them a boy or a girl and that they are a special gift from God.

3) Ages six to eight: A child can now be introduced to the changes the body goes through to become a man or a woman.

Explain to them in simple terms the basic nature of sexual intercourse between a husband and a wife (i.e. Mommy and daddy come together to make babies and enjoy each others bodies, or if they ask, tell them more specifics such as the man’s penis goes inside of the woman’s vagina; remember, this is the way God made it and we don’t want to create shame or dirtiness to tis act).

It is huge for you to be the first to introduce the facts about sexual intercourse from a biblical perspective, before they hear it from other kids at school, because they will. Curiosity will continue, to do your own work with your pain and wounds so you can make the most of every opportunity and conversation about sexuality.

Finally, it is very important to lay a foundation of biblical morality for your children. Cover all the essentials such as: God’s design for family through a husband and a wife (don’t jump over this because your situation is different or it’s hard for you to talk about; this is not about you, but your kids). Also continue to reinforce the fact of the sanctity of the sex act and their bodies being reserved for marriage.

4) Ages nine to eleven: Now you must explain the sex act in more detail. Remember, sex is good, it is a gift from God, and it is reserved for marriage.

Also, begin (or continue the talk) about their responsibility of making their own choice to remain pure (emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually). In girls, puberty most likely will begin during this stage. You need to provide details about all the changes they will go through and remember to use real names for their genitals and do not be shameful about their bodies.

Again, you should be expanding on the details of sex being good, being a gift from God to be enjoyed in marriage, Their will be many messages they hear by now that sex is either gross or a god to be worshipped, so this will be a huge season of you reinforcing God’s design and goodness with sex. You should also address teenage pregnancy at this stage and STD’s (introductory info).

5) Ages twelve to fourteen: Prepare your child for the variety of feelings, emotions, frustrations, and social pressures of adolescence.

By now menstruation has begun in girls and boys’ and girls’ bodies will drastically change and hair will begin to grow around their genitals. Bw honest with your children about sexual arousal, encouraging them to talk about what they are experiencing in their minds and bodies, as well as other beliefs and attitudes they are experiencing.

If you have openly talked about sex and their bodies up until this point, this won’t be as hard, but it is vital that you and them can communicate and they can feel safe talking to you about these changes. You may also want to read books with them about puberty and sex education and talk through with them the difference with the world’s view of sexuality and God’s design and purposes.

Finally, do not stop building on God’s beautiful intentions of His created order for men and women, how they are to respect their own body and other’s bodies, and that their gender is important to the Lord and He designed them specifically with gifts as a boy/man or a girl/woman.

6) Ages fifteen to nineteen: This is where all that you have taught them will come to surface in the way they live, as you continue to reinforce: God is gracious, good and great; and He created sex to be good, and only received as a git in marriage.

Your response to their moral failures will be crucial; do not add shame or condemnation to their sexual faults, but consequences need to be in tact. The dilemma we face in our culture is that while our children are now physically capable of sex at younger ages (because the ages of puberty has dropped over the years; up to 4-5 years; 17-12 years of age), they are definitely not emotionally mature to handle the responsibility of sex.

This is why you need to continue to talk and tech your children about God’s good plan and that they were created to save themselves for the one He calls them to marry. The only approach that will physically, emotionally, and spiritually protect our children is abstinence, not from shame and guilt, but from a heart that believes God at His word. You cannot guilt or fear your kids into abstinence.

Dating: The time between first dates and sexual intercourse has dramatically declined for those who have sex before marriage. The average time between someone’s first date with someone and their first time having sex is 3 years.

So if your kids begin dating and kissing and acting married at age 16, unless they get married at age 19, the statistics show that they will most likely become sexually active before marriage.

Parents: Be involved in your children’s lives. Don’t miss out on their development and expect church and school to teach them. You are responsible for them being walls for God’s glory and their good. Redeem the word “virgin” in your house. Be willing to learn the information and model the attitudes your kids need to learn.

Heal from your junk and don’t project your own views and pain onto them and their experiences. Let Jesus meet you and heal you at those places so your kids can be given better opportunities than you!

“Well, it’s a little late for me to hear that message.” said the boy. The counselor says, “Why’s that?” “Well, Sharon and I have already…you know…” The counselor says, “You know…what?” “We, uh, you know–went all the way.” “What do you mean, ‘all the way’?” asks the counselor.

The boy thought to himself, how could this counselor could be so dense? Then he said: “You know ALL THE WAY!” as he said it with emphasis as to clarify the meaning. But the counselor didn’t let him off the hook: “No, I don’t know what you mean. What are you talking about?” “You know, we had sex!” the boy blurted out. “Ohhhhh, that’s what you mean,” the counselor said with a show of surprise. “And you think that’s going all the way?” And the boy said, “Well, yes…”

“That’s not going all the way AT ALL…” the counselor explained. “I’ll tell you what going all the way is. There’s a guy in my neighborhood who has five kids, and his wife is now in a wheelchair. He gets the kids off to school each morning, sell insurance all day to make a living, then comes home and make dinner for the family. And at the end of the evening, he looks his wife in the eye and tells her he loves her. I know he means it, too, because he tells me he’s the luckiest guy he knows to have been blessed with her. That’s what going all the way is.”

Going all the way looks different than most of us know…Any weak, unloving person can “go all the way” and think that’s love! Sexual contact and immature decisions don’t classify love or “going all the way! Shulammite knows love to be stronger than death and it binds you to the object that you desire. Do you know that kind of love? We should? Turn with me to Song 8:4-7 and let’s read this passage together:

4 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. 5 Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Under the apple tree I awakened you. There your mother was in labor with you; there she who bore you was in labor. 6 Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the Lord. 7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.

Well, love now pleases to be aroused with Solomon and Shulammite. When it’s time to give in to this kind of love (on or after your wedding day), then as surely as the sun rises, awaken love because it is the very thing that binds your heart to mine. This kind of love will be the very thing that God uses to make you more like him. But what I want to do is unpack this passage and lay a foundation for us as to what this “strong, going all the way kind of love” looks like, because we are in a drought in seeing this kind of love:

1) Lose Your Life: Love Jesus and His kingdom more than yourself. John 12:24-25: 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

To begin to lay a foundation of understanding of what this “strong, going all the way kind of love” looks like, we must go counter culture in our belief here. Modern counsel would tell us that to truly love others, one must learn to love themselves first. This approach argues that the first priority to love, is yourself, your esteem & acceptance of yourself, your contentment & happiness, then you can esteem, accept & love others.

Although the gospel leads you to accept yourself in Christ, this approach to love couldn’t be more opposite that what we read in Scriptures. The “me-first” mentality is destroyed in the gospels where we learn of a radical “others-centeredness”.

The “take care of yourself” mentality has led many people to justify self-centeredness which definitely does not lead to the kind of love we find from Solomon or in the rest of Scriptures. This  approach actually promotes shallow love in such a way to where one is led to do things out of what’s comfortable for them, or out of fear of what others think, or out of guilt from their conscious of trying to be acceptable to themselves.

The gospel says that you are justified by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus!! If that is not enough to move you out of your self-contempt, poor self-esteem, self-protection mode, or lack of contentment in life, then there is a deeper problem (idol) that needs to be addressed, not self-acceptance or more work! You tracking with me?

Strong, all the way kind of love, as Dan Allender puts it in his book Bold Love,
“is courageously setting aside our personal agenda to move humbly into the world of others with their well-being in view, willing to risk further pain in our souls, in order to be an aroma of life to some, and an aroma of death to others.” (19).

2) Courage: A willingness to sacrifice for a better day. Romans 8:18: For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 2 Corinthians 4:17: For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,

Paul is saying that our suffering will be outweighed by future glory, and that our present suffering is preparing for us future glory! So not only is our suffering not compared to what Christ has for us, but it is also apart of achieving the fullness that Christ desires for us. The gospel of Jesus swallows up suffering and uses it as a means to the end!

Allender says in Bold Love: “…we will not be free to love until the cliche ‘this is not our home’ becomes real.” (139). We were created by God to defend that which is most precious to us. If something has value and worth to us, than we will courageously throw ourselves in to danger to protect or preserve it.

A mother will heroically save her children from a wild animal, and a husband will fight a man with a gun who broke into his home to protect his family. Whatever your heart treasures, you will have the courage to sacrifice for it. So the question you have to answer if you want to be a courageous lover is:

“Do you live for heaven?” or “Do you live demanding that life be like heaven?”

The root problem behind our desire to find concrete, manageable steps to live this Christian life often comes right down to the fact that we demand the right to find order, predictability, comfort and consistency in and from a world where there is little to none!

We spend most of our lives trying to change reality; the fact that life is awful and the truth that this world is not our home. “If we do not anticipate the regularity and tragedy of sin, we unavoidably come to believe that this world is our home.”

This belief and understanding will never help you be rid of the lie that “This is your home. You deserve life, love, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” You will never choose the path of courageous, sacrificial love as long as you believe that this life is all there is or is at least as good as the next. I can say this is also true for those of you who are spiritually stuck in addiction, anger towards God, compulsive habits, unforgiveness & works.

All this shows us that we treasure this life more than Jesus. We are far too easily satisfied if we think life would be good if i just had this, or if it was just like that!!

This is why Jesus says in Matthew 6:33: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. To the degree that this life holds the possibility of “getting something”, we will forever labor and toil and destroy ourselves over things that only heaven can offer (Hebrews 11)!

3) Calling: Living out the offense of the Gospel. 1 Corinthians 1:26-27: 27 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak… to shame the strong;

The calling of every Christian is to courageously live out a disruptive goodness that embraces the foolishness of the Gospel; the foolish confound the wise and the weak confound the strong.

Our mission is to confound (astonish) the world through being the aroma of weakness and foolishness. We appear foolish because our weapons are immaterial (Ephesians 6:10-19). We appear weak because our strength comes through humility and submission to Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30; James 4:7).

We can live this way because in the Gospel, we believe and understand our utter helplessness without Christ, and we know our complete acceptance because of Christ.
This Gospel of Jesus produces complete humility before others and rids our hearts and lives of self-righteousness…especially in marriage. But it also give us a profound boldness and security knowing that the God of the universe loves us, accepts us and calls us son or daughter of His. Thanks be to God!! Consider what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:7-12:

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Paul is saying that the way of the gospel is death leading to resurrection, weakness resulting in divine strength and power, and humility resulting in a triumphant exaltation, just like Jesus! Paul knows that his death seems to lead him to a greater life! Life comes out of death. Redemption comes out of devastation! This is the gospel and we are called to live in light of this news!! Do not miss this! This is the crux of the gospel!!

4) Conviction: Joining God’s hatred of sin. Romans 8:12-13: 12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

1) Losing your life centers everything around Jesus, His Gospel, and His power. 2) Courage prompts us to face the inevitability of the fight; 3) Calling compels us to actually fight the good fight; and 4) Conviction shows us the enemy who we should be fighting with passion and intensity.

We often hear the phrase “God hates the sin, but loves the sinner.” This sounds good, but the problem is that it is not completely biblically true. The problem comes because sin cannot be removed from the sinner without faith in Jesus.

Go with me here: Without the blood of Christ covering the sin of the sinner (you and I), what is sent to hell; the sin or the sinner? Hell is not a place that houses abstract concepts, sinful desires, and the like. It is a place that was created for Satan and his demons, and consequently, those who follow suit…rebellion/rejecting Jesus.

You may ask, “But doesn’t the Bible say that God loves the adulterer, the gossip, the sexually immoral, the enabler, etc…? Doesn’t he hate the sin but love the sinner?” The answer is yes and no.

He loves the sinner in that He sent His own Son to cover the cost of their sin and be acceptable to God. But no, in the sense that God hates the sinner who rejects His will and is rebellious and causes death and destruction. God loves shalom, therefore He hates those who break shalom.

Consider Psalm 5:5-6: 5 The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. 6 You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. Or perhaps consider Proverbs 6:16-19: 16 There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, 19 a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

If you are a child of God and have placed your faith in Jesus, He moves from hating and be against you, to loving you with the kind of love we are talking about tonight, to protect you, to care for you, to discipline and correct destructive habits, etc.. Proverbs 3:11-12: 11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, 12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

As a great Puritan writer once said, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you!” Our hatred of evil in ourselves & others will deepen the wonder of the cross & the depths of his forgiveness for our sinful hearts.

5) Craftiness: The wisdom of a snake, the innocence of a dove. Matthew 10:16: Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

1) Losing your life centers everything around Jesus, His Gospel, and His power. 2) Courage prompts us to face the inevitability of the fight; 3) Calling compels us to actually fight the good fight; 4) Conviction shows us the enemy who we should be fighting with passion and intensity; and 5) Craftiness enables us to get close enough to the enemy to destroy his power and offer the opportunity for surrender.

Only Jesus could make the kind of statement He did in Matthew 10. If anyone else said it, their motive would be questioned. But since we know Jesus is God, and He is good, perfect, loving and just, we now have insight into His intentions in saying this.

Frontal attacks are often expected, and easily guarded against, but surprise attacks often find the enemy on his heels, shocked, with his heart broken down by fear, wonder or amazement by which you have exposed him. This is actually spoken of directly and illustrated in Scripture quite a bit:

Proverbs 25:21-22: 21 If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, 22 for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.

Romans 12:21: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Confronting sin (yours and others) Nathan telling David a story that depicted what David had done to Uriah when he had an affair with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12: “You are that man.” v. 7).

Suppose a wife had a husband who is degrading to her and for years she just took it, acted tough and even loathed him, cussed him out, and fell into a deep depression, which he would use to call her weak, etc…These actions have done nothing to the problem and are only partially true. Then she realizes that his behavior is only fueled all the more by her own rage in return.

So over time she begins to experience deep sadness over her sin and the sin of her husband. This “redemptive sorrow” now opens the door to “restorative passion” and she began to deal with her husband in a sort of, crafty way. Most often she would weep in front of him because of the pain of his words and the sorrow she felt for him, and needless to say this confused him, it didn’t fuel him. Sometimes she would even giggle when his cheeks got all puffed up in anger because she thought he looked like a blow fish. In both cases, her tender, non-combative passion angered him way more than her lashing out at him and stonewalling. Her passion invited him to deal with his sin which will either expose him all the more for who he is and he will be found out, or he will break, and submit to the Lord and get some help.

Our craftiness at its core shows itself by choosing to do good to those who have done us harm.

You can be empowered to live this when you believe the cliche “this is not our home” (when you believe the gospel). Whatever your heart treasures, you will have the courage to sacrifice for it.

“Do you live for heaven?” or “Do you live demanding that life be like heaven?”

Again, the root problem behind all of our problems, particularly with love, is that we are looking to “get something” from this world, by our obedience to God or lack thereof. Let me remind you brothers and sisters, the words of Jesus again: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33

To identify Solomon’s bride, I have called her Shulammite this whole series, but here it seems as if she was just given this name, a new name if you will. I want to take a minute to unpack what Shulammite and Solomon’s names mean and what they refer to, and then build on that for tonight’s sermon.

Solomon’s name in Hebrew is literally pronounced: Shâlomoh (shel·o·mo) Shulammite’s name literally sound like the feminine form of Solomon: Shuwlammiyth (shoo·lam·meeth). Solomon has a masculine ending in Hebrew, and Shulammite a feminine one. It’s like the word waiter and waitress. This refers to the completeness of their union and that they compliment one another.

This compliment and completeness of one another stems from the root word Shalom found in both of their names. The primitive root meaning of Shalom means to be in “a covenant peace.” Cornelius Plantinga Jr. very poetically gives a definition of shalom in his book Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be : A Breviary of Sin:

“In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight—a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.” (10).

Shalom is the way things are supposed to be. Shalom is Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden before they rebelled against God. Shalom is things being done the way God intended for them to be done. Shalom is covenant peace!

Shulammite says in Song 8:10b: then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace. No wonder they have both shared how their eyes are like doves, windows to their soul. They represent a glimpse of the way things should be to one another. They are not perfect. We saw last week that they are human, they are not Ken and Barbie, but they do represent a place of peace for one another, the way things God intended them to be in a marriage covenant.

Tonight, we are going to see a beautiful dance of love between two lovers who are not just infatuated with one another, but who have labored unselfishly to be shalom to one another in radical ways. This is the way things are supposed to be, but only after passing through rough waters in their marriage is the princess given the name Shulammite. Then and only then can a couple be seen in the eyes of others, in a sinful world at least, as shalom in marriage.

I believe this shalom that they’ve shown one another is the very reason why they are able to be with one another the way we are going to read tonight and how Shulammite can so freely dance in front of her lover so freely. Again, this doesn’t just happen. This is labored over and grows out of humility, forgiveness & the grace of God.

Now in the privacy of their own room, the conflict they just resolved feels a thousand miles away. Here Solomon passionately describes his enjoyment of his bride:

7:1 How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O noble daughter! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand. 2 Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies. 3 Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. 4 Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus. 5 Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses. 6 How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights! 7 Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. 8 I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, 9 and your mouth like the best wine. And Shulammite’s response to this erotic encounter with her husband: It goes down smoothly for my beloved, gliding over lips and teeth.

This is the second love-making encounter that is recorded in this Song since they’ve been married and it seems to have matured and deepened in passion. Unlike their wedding night in chapter 4, Solomon has no need to address any fears because he has been shalom to Shulammite. She is secure in his love.

There is much talk of wine, the fruit of the vine, etc… which Solomon is likening their time together as lovely and relaxing as a nice smooth glass of wine that relaxes you and  intoxicates your body. Shulammite agrees with the imagery when she essentially says, “Yes Solomon, our love goes down smooth, relaxing and enjoyable like a fine glass of wine.”

This is the joy of marriage. Experiencing with your bodies what has been expressed with your hearts. A joyful union to be honored and kept holy…and Shulammite reminds us that she is confident in her man’s desire for only her and no other: 10 I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me. This is the ideal love between a husband and wife.

This seems to contradict contemporary stereotypes that men only seek sexual gratification and women only seek emotional intimacy. Here, they deeply delight in one another and Shulammite even dances and entices Solomon as if she wants him just as much. As well, Solomon has spent much time in the Song emotionally engaging with Shulammite.

In the return to paradise, shalom, each partner fully enjoys both emotional and physical intimacy and does not value one over the other; or neglects one or the other. Our culture has insulted God’s plan for shalom when it neglects mutual desires of lovers.
As they now lay in each others arms, Shulammite expresses to Solomon something that she has longed to do… she desires to go to the countryside and stay in a lodge. “Let’s go on a vacation Solomon!”, says Shulammite:

11 Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages; 12 let us go out early to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. 13 The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and beside our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up (or kept) for you, O my beloved.

Shulammite basically just said: “Let’s escape to the vineyards in the forest and there we’ll wake up early in the morning and make love outdoors. We’ll find a place where no one will see us!” Ok, this is any husbands dream and any married couple would do well to follow the instructions of Shulammite. Just sayin’! I know Solomon packed his suitcase faster than Shulammite could even get out of bed. This is an overflow of their emotional intimacy being so fulfilling. When that happens, this happens…

Wives, I’d say with a little careful research, you could find a spot of your own with your husband some time. That’d be a nice surprise for him and I’m sure he would not refuse your offer. It’s ok to want to add a little spice to your marriage. And you are welcome husbands…it’s my pleasure!

This is a part of the beautiful dance of love and the perks of marriage Don’t neglect these perks…. Shulammite hasn’t. She is actually very creative in building his sense of anticipation by appealing to his sexual imagination…this is ok to do…IN MARRIAGE!

The dream of the vacation continues as Shulammite goes on: 8:1 Oh that you were like a brother to me who nursed at my mother’s breasts! If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and none would despise me. 2 I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother— she who used to teach me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranate. 3 His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me!

Public romantic affection was frowned upon in that culture, but were Solomon the brother of Shulammite, then it would be acceptable to kiss in public. This is just very playful talk in this kind of literature. She is presuming to be the aggressor here with regards to their sexual intimacy, which is biblical.

This kind of playful, innocent love is as much of a return to Eden as anything else in the Song. Just like the first garden, they are naked and not ashamed of their nakedness. The problem with pictures like this one in this passage, is that we know not of them in this culture between a husband and a wife.

This kind of passion is often not protected for a husband and a wife. It’s often given away too freely. Not labored over. Not upheld to the place that God desires it to be upheld to. Thus, we have broken shalom compounded….which ultimately is the biggest hindrance to godly marriages…and lives!

We will not undo the broken shalom from the garden in Gen 3. Jesus will ultimately, when He returns to make all things new! But we do know that sexual sin is a major part of what Plantinga calls, the vandalism of shalom. When we are against shalom, God is against us, because He is for shalom. This is why we know not of this passion that Solomon and Shulammite share.

Also, we could say that the worship of this kind of relationship, this desire for this and thinking that if you had “that”, then you would be ok, life would be shalom for you, etc… This is still idolatry. The only thing that can and will give you the kind of shalom that fully satisfies is Jesus. This is why desiring anything above Him is compounding the problem

So let’s go there for a moment–let’s define what sin is and hopefully we can paint a bigger picture for why we need not ignore God’s desire for sex to be honored and kept only within a marriage covenant and for it not to be worshipped.

(The following paragraphs in italics are from excerpts from the book, Sin: Not The Way It’s Supposed To Be by Cornelius Plantinga Jr.)

Because God is at the pinnacle of shalom (“the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight”) Christians usually define sin with reference to God. Sin is a religious concept, not just a moral one. All sin has first and finally a Godward force. We could therefore draft a definition like this: a sin is any act any thought, desire, emotion, word, or deed—or its particular absence, that displeases God and deserves blame. Then “sin” is the tendency to commit sins.

But once we possess the concept of shalom, we are in position to specify our understanding of sin. God is, after all, not arbitrarily offended. God hates sin not just because it violates his law but, more substantively, because it violates shalom, because it breaks the peace, because it interferes with the way things are supposed to be. (In fact, that is why God has laws against a good deal of sin.) God is enthusiastically for shalom and therefore against sin. Let’s say that evil is any spoiling of shalom, whether physically (by cancer, say), morally, spiritually, or otherwise. In short, sin is to be blamed for broken shalom.

Philosophers and scholars of our day notice that “evil” is the main human problem. Even when these thinkers reject God, they recognize that the world is out of joint and that human beings, too, are “alienated” or “divided” or “repressed.” Human beings live irrationally, as philosophers put it, or “inauthentically.” Human life is not the way it’s supposed to be they will agree… And so the world’s great thinkers often diagnose the human predicament and prescribe various remedies for it:

They diagnose ignorance and prescribe education.
They diagnose oppression and prescribe justice.
They diagnose the conformism of “bad faith” and prescribe the freedom of authentic choice (or religious/irreligious freedom).
Others look at the world, fall into a depression, and put their prescription pad away.

Christians think that the usual diagnoses and prescriptions catch part of the truth, but that they do not get to the bottom of it. For example:

The human problem isn’t just ignorance; it’s also stubborn pride. It’s not just oppression; it’s also corruption. That’s why newly liberated victims of oppression often end up oppressing others. The human problem isn’t just that we passively conform to our cultures “superior” manner of life; it’s also that nothing “human” can jolt us out of our broken shalom (even a move to a quite town with very few people or isolating ourselves will never work, because we always bring the problem of broken shalom with us).

The real human predicament, as Scripture reveals, is that inexplicably, irrationally, we all keep living our lives against what’s good for us. In what can only be called the mystery of iniquity, human beings from nearly the beginning have so often chosen to live against God, against each other, and against God’s world. We live even against ourselves… and we can’t change this problem ourselves. We have tried for centuries with nothing to show for it! All the peace campaigns in the world, and we are still broken!!

An addict, for example, partakes of a substance or practice that he knows might kill him. For a time he does so freely. He has a choice. He freely starts a “conversion unto death,” and for reasons he can’t fully explain, he doesn’t stop until he crashes. He starts out with a choice. He ends up with a habit. And the habit slowly converts to a kind of slavery that can be broken only by God or, as they say in the twelve-step literature, “a higher power.”

According to Genesis 3, sin appeared very early in the history of our race. In this chapter our first parents try to be “like God, knowing good and evil,” and succeed only in alienating themselves from God and from each other. They choose to believe the tempter rather than their maker and turn their garden into a thorn-patch. The good and fruitful earth becomes their enemy (see Genesis 3:17–18; cf. 4:12–14) and their own sin then controls them in a terrible and unstoppable way. They are slaves to sin!

Adam and Eve’s pride and disbelief trigger revolt, scapegoating, and flight from God (see Genesis 3:4–5, 10, 12–13). Their first child ups the ante: Cain resents and kills his brother Abel, launching the history of envy that leads to murder. Like his parents and the rest of the race, Cain refuses to face his sin (“Am I my brother’s keeper?”), and God exiles him to a place “east of Eden” (see Genesis 4:9, 16). In a phrase that suggests the restlessness of all who are alienated from God, Cain becomes “a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth” (see Genesis 4:12), a murderer who now fears other murderers, and has to be saved from them by a mysterious mark that God places upon him.

This is the problem. This is where we must start. This is why Jesus offered Himself for mankind. The redemption of the cross is the particular thing that Christ died for us… to restore shalom (the way things are supposed to be). Romans 3 illustrates this same problem, but it also gives us the solution to our problem of being “shalom-breakers”.

“None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” 13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps (or cobra) is under their lips.” 14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Are you tracking with me here. We are the problem. Your marriage is not the problem. Your lack of a sex life is not the problem. Your husband or wife or parent or job or whatever else you want to tell me is the problem….is not the problem. We are the problem. If you get this, you are in great company!! If you deny tis, you are in terrible company!! This is why you are in company if you believe this…because what we are about to read is the reality for those who believe what we just read and trust in what Jesus has done:

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:11-26)

Jesus is the solution. Faith/belief in Him as the only cure for the restoration of shalom. Jesus being the only cure for your separation with God. Jesus plus nothing equals everything. It is not Jesus plus more obedience, equals everything. It is not Jesus plus worldly wealth equals everything. It is not Jesus plus good sex equals everything.

It is Jesus plus nothing that produces the life of obedience. It is Jesus plus nothing hat produces the joy you’re looking for in worldly wealth, or sex, or relationships. Jesus is it!!

First, Dr Lloyd-Jones insisted that we use the gospel as we edify Christians. In Preaching and Preachers, Lloyd-Jones warns preachers not to “assume that all…who are members of the church, are…Christians. This, to me, is the most fatal blunder of all.” (p.146) He goes on to say that many people have accepted Christianity intellectually but have never come under the power of the Word and the gospel and therefore have “not truly repented.” (p.150)

This is very significant. It is at the heart of the difference between the Old Side/New Side, Old Lights/New Lights controversy during the revivals in 18th century America. The Old Side and Lights insisted that what made you a Christian was, essentially, that you were in the church as a baptized, confessing member. They thought it inappropriate to make baptized, professing Christians consider that perhaps they were not regenerate. But here Lloyd-Jones comes down firmly on the side of the revivalists. He says that under real gospel preaching there will always be a steady stream of church members who, every year, come forward and confess that they had never understood the gospel and had, over the past months, finally repented and believed truly. “One of the most exhilarating experiences in the life of a preacher is what happens when people whom everybody had assumed to be Christians are suddenly converted and truly become Christians. Nothing has a more powerful effect upon the life of a church than when that happens to a number of people.” (p.152) Lloyd-Jones relates several intriguing cases. In one case, he tells of guest preaching at a church in Toronto in which an older lady, one of the biggest financial supporters and “pillars” of the congregation was led to see by his preaching that she was not a Christian. The preaching at that church had never revealed it to her, because the preaching was what the Doctor called “general expositions for believers”, helping them live a good Christian life, but mainly appealing only to the will, never going down after the heart and conscience.

Therefore, the Doctor warns about only exposing Christians to what he calls “general expositions” meant to teach, or “preaching morality and ethics without the Gospel as a basis.” (p.35) Not only have many professing Christians never truly repented and rested in grace, but regenerate Christians need to constantly feel the power of the Gospel, and “almost” go through the experience of conversion again and again. (p.151) He adds, “If our preaching is always expository and for edification and teaching it will produce church members who are hard and cold, and often harsh and self-satisfied. I do not know of anything that is more likely to produce a congregation of Pharisees than that.” (p.153)

As I’ve said in previous posts, Lloyd-Jones’ advice is largely being ignored today. The emphasis even within the Reformed world tends to bifurcate in two directions, neither of which follow the Doctor. On the one hand, many Reformed evangelicals are (rightly) enamored with expository preaching, but it tends to be highly doctrinal and exegetical—it is not very life-related and, while there is some general concern to preach Christ from Old Testament texts, does not regularly recapitulate the gospel the way the Doctor calls us to do. On the other hand, there are the more liturgically oriented, who follow (whether they know it or not) the high church Calvinism of John W. Nevin rather than his contemporaries Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge of Princeton. Nevin was completely against assuming that baptized believers might not be regenerate. He stressed the long processes of liturgical worship and catechizing for shaping heart and mind, not preaching that called for self-examination and conversion. Lloyd-Jones is far more in line with the Princeton theologians.

In his Thoughts on Religious Experience, Archibald Alexander writes that Christians must be exposed to the gospel of grace versus works again and again, not only to bring people to justification, but to enhance sanctification.

When persons are truly converted they always are sincerely desirous to make rapid progress in piety….Why then is so little advancement made?  First, there is a defect in our belief in the freeness of divine grace. To exercise unshaken confidence in the doctrine of gratuitous pardon is one of the most difficult things in the world, and to preach this doctrine fully without verging towards antinomianism is no easy task and is therefore seldom done. But Christians cannot but be lean and feeble when deprived of their proper nutriment.

It is by faith that the spiritual life is made to grow, and the doctrine of free grace, without any mixture of human merit, is the only true object of faith. Christians are too much inclined to depend on themselves and not to derive their life entirely from Christ. There is a spurious legal religion, which may flourish without the practical belief in the absolute freeness of divine grace, but it possesses none of the characteristics of the Christian’s life. It is found to exist in the rankest growth, in systems of religion which are utterly false. But even when the true doctrine is acknowledged in theory, often it is not practically felt and acted on. “The new convert lives upon his frames rather than on Christ, while the older Christian is still found struggling in his own strength and, failing in his expectations of success, he becomes discouraged first, and then he sinks into a gloomy despondency, or becomes in a measure careless….[U]ntil religious teachers inculcate clearly, fully, and practically, the grace of God as manifested in the Gospel, we shall have no vigorous growth of piety among professing Christians….The covenant of grace must be more clearly and repeatedly expounded in all its rich plenitude of mercy, and in all its absolute freeness.

Do we preach the gospel so clearly even when we are seeking to edify that there are always at least a trickle of people within our church who come to see that they never really believed? The purpose of every sermon, according to Dr Lloyd-Jones, is not to give information and general instruction but to preach the gospel and make it real to the heart. There’s a flip side to this, and we will look at it in the next post.

When I first came to New York City in the late 1980s, I realized that I had not come to a normal part of the United States. I remember reading at the time a brief religious comparison of Manhattan and the rest of the country. 30% of Manhattan residents said they had “no religious preference” compared with (at the time) 6% of U.S. residents. 5% of Manhattanites attended any Protestant church at all, compared with 25% of Americans. I realized that New York City was, religiously and culturally, more like secular and very post-Christian Europe. So I began to search for preaching ideas from the great preachers I knew who had labored in London.

One, of course, was D.M. Lloyd-Jones, and so I re-read his book Preaching and Preachers (which was a new volume when got to seminary.) In addition I listened to scores (eventually hundreds, I think) of his sermon recordings. Particularly I was fascinated with his evening sermons, which he designed to be evangelistic. In the morning, his main purpose was to edify the saints, to speak to his congregation and (as he put it) address their heart issues from the Bible. In the evening, however, he had the non-believer particularly in view. Until that time, like many others I had been mainly acquainted with his published Romans series, but those were preached on Friday nights and were, in his mind, more ‘instructional’ and more like lectures. Very different was his Sunday preaching. When I began to listen to his Sunday messages and especially compare the morning and the evening, it was something of an epiphany.

What was so striking to me as I listened to the recordings was how similar the morning and evening sermons were. The evening sermons, yes, usually had a more direct appeal to people to come to Christ and believe the gospel, but the sermons were richly theological and expository, and quite often from the Old Testament. On the other hand, the morning sermons, yes, generally assumed a bit more knowledge of Christianity, but they always got back to sin and grace and Christ, the gospel. Yet they too were expository and rich. It was most interesting that Lloyd-Jones insisted and urged that all his members come to both. While the evening service was ideal for bringing a non-believing friend, he wanted the professing Christians there regularly also for their own good. Nor was he concerned when non-believers showed up regularly at the morning services. In fact, he said, “We must be careful not to be guilty of too rigid a classification of people saying, ‘These are Christians, therefore….’ [or] ‘Yes, we became Christians as the result of a decision we took at an evangelistic meeting and now, seeing that we are Christians, all we need is teaching and edification.’ I contest that very strongly…” (p.151)

The lesson I eventually learned from him was—don’t preach to your congregation for spiritual growth thinking everyone there is a Christian—and don’t preach the gospel evangelistically thinking that Christians cannot grow from it. In other words—evangelize as you edify, and edify as you evangelize. These are two different by intimately related ideas, and we will tackle one in each of the next two posts.

So, I toughened up and went about my duties, played with the kids, tried to help with dinner but got kicked out of the kitchen only to get even more upset. Dinner was served by Amy and I got the kids around to eat dinner, we had superficial talk with the family but no interaction with her and I….the game was on! I wasn’t gonna give in and show my weakness, so I remained tough, even showing her outward signs of how unhappy I was by closing doors harder and making sure the fridge was shut hard enough for the dressing to rattle and sound threatening. I was gonna win this battle if it was the last thing I did. She needs to apologize to me, I thought. She doesn’t have to punish me like she did when I first got home, I mean come on, this only happens once a month or so….

Well, the night went on, we put the kids to bed and did our separate things for about an hour until it was time to go to bed. Now both of our hurts are much deeper than they should be, the wounds we gave each other are worse than they would’ve been had I humbled myself at the get go and confessed my forgetfulness and repented to her for not making her feel cared for. But now that I’ve waited all this time, our pain is not only deeper, but now it’s so much harder to repent and ask for forgiveness for my stupidness.

But because my wife is wise, she knew she wasn’t the one to rescue us from my lack of sticking to my word, I ended up heeding her wisdom and humbled myself as I was the one who was wrong, and told her how wrong it was of me not to call, and it was even more wrong not to humble myself as I realized I was wrong and that I was sorry for dragging this night through the mud and ruining a night with the family.

From there, we mutually confessed to one another, forgave one anther and enjoyed the rest of our night and went to bed friends, not enemies.

This is picture of the kind of night we have had in our marriage over the years and how we have handled conflict and reconciled. This is where we are going tonight as we read this text, except Shulammite refused to let her pride and fear control her (recap last week’s sermon very briefly). Last week, after Solomon had left from being rejected by his wife, Shulammite’s friends ask her do you know where he is?, to which Shulammite answers: 6:2-3: 2 My beloved has gone down to his garden to the beds of spices, to graze in the gardens and to gather lilies. 3 I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine; he grazes among the lilies.

Shulammite here expresses her commitment to her husband by saying “I am my beloved’s and my beloved’s is mine.” This small statement is sometimes assumed by married couples, but not often expressed and pressed until each spouse believes it. This is so huge for marriages. Husband, wife, are you for your husband even when you are mad at them? Are you committed to the relationship or are you waiting for the marriage to stop being a bargain for you and you are out of there?

Let me remind you of the covenant you made before your spouse, before God, and likely before many others. The marriage covenant was created by God and given supreme importance because He ordained it. In Ancient Near East culture, a covenant that one got married to was based on the way they did covenant’s then, just like God made a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15:7-21. Turn there and let’s read together.

In a marriage covenant, the animals that were cut in half were walked through by the man and the woman committing themselves together (this is where the idea of walking down the aisle came in the picture…romantic huh?). As they linked arms together and walked through the middle of the animal halves twice, they are saying, let what happened to these animals happen to one of us if we break this covenant. Marriage is no joke and it was never meant to be treated the way we treat it these days.

Husbands and wives must learn to stop threatening with the “I’m gonna leave” card or “I have options” or “I don’t have to put up with this”. God walked through the parts by Himself and this shows us that He is the one who is going to keep covenant with us, so then if God ever breaks His covenant, then you can break your marriage covenant. But if He never does, which He never will, then the marriage covenant will always stand as it should.

Spouses, are you looking at marriage as a bargain for you and if it ever stops being a bargain, then you will reconsider being a part of it? Let me ask you, when Jesus died on the cross for you, was it a bargain for Him? What was He getting for dying? He didn’t die because we were worthy, He died to make us worthy. Eph. 5:21 tells the husbands “to love your wives as Christ loves the church and gave Himself for her.” Husband, this means you die to make your wife lovely.

This is what we call costly love. We want to get rid of the bargain idea, and love like Jesus, which is a huge risk, and very costly. Solomon and Shulammite are modeling this kind of love here. As Solomon is gathering flowers for his bride that he is committed to no matter what, he realizes that flowers are always good to give to your wife, but they are never a replacement for loving words of affirmation, forgiveness and acceptance.

4 You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. 5 Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me—Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead. 6 Your teeth are like a flock of ewes
that have come up from the washing; all of them bear twins; not one among them has lost its young. 7 Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. 8 There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and virgins without number. 9 My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the only one of her mother, pure to her who bore her. The young women saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines also, and they praised her.
Solomon’s words are clear, direct and convincing. He loves her. He forgives her. He understands and is in it for the long haul! But notice what Solomon says in verse 5: “Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me–”

Solomon wants to assure her of his motives in the words that he is sharing with her. He is not only trying to flatter her so that they can have some make-up sex, he wants to reconcile personally and deeply before they express it sexually. He knows that emotional bonding must come before sexual bonding, or else their love making will be hollow and not as fulfilling.

At this point, I can just imagine Shulammite pulling a Jerry McGuire on Solomon here: “Shhhh, you had me at hello Solomon, you had me at hello.” And then throws her arms around him and begins to kiss him passionately! Solomon’s grace and words created more acceptance and safety for Shulammite. The day that began with fear and anxiety, is gonna end with joy and happiness.

And like all good girlfriends, they are right there wondering what happened. “Did you find him? What did he say? Why are you crying? Oh….they’re happy tears!” And then they all begin to cry together. Isn’t that kind of how it goes?

10 “Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners?” The same friends who shared in her sorrow, rejoice in her happiness as well. This is the kind of friend we all should seek to be.

Then Shulammite goes on to tell them the whole story and they all celebrate the relationship some more: 11 I went down to the nut orchard to look at the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom. 12 Before I was aware, my desire set me among the chariots of my kinsman, a prince.

In describing the moment of reconciliation, Shulammite shares the joy and excitement that is experienced when two lovers are committed to each other, basically saying in verse 12, my paraphrase: “Before I even realized it, I felt more lovely and more worthy than I could ever imagine.” This is the experience and joy of forgiveness and reconciliation. She can’t say exactly when it happened, but it happened. “Something happened inside and I can’t really explain it…but it’s good!!”

Now in verse 13 her friends are still rejoicing with her and long to share in the joy of Solomon and Shulammite’s commitment: 13 Return, return, O Shulammite, return, return, that we may look upon you.

COMMUNITY: It is so healthy for friends who are not married to see a healthy marriage and what it looks like to work through conflict, and forgive one another and show mercy. This is why community is so important. We were meant to disciple each other in this way, and this will never happen if we do not open ourselves to others. Healthy relationships are birthed out of good models being observed.

This last comment from Solomon serves as a transition to the next refrain, but we will include it today, as well as next week. Solomon ends with explaining to Shulammite’s friends of the importance of their reconciliation: Why should you look upon the Shulammite, as upon a dance before two armies? The next scene that we will cover is the “dance before two armies (or camps)” and is played out in chapter seven.

But for now, Solomon and Shulammite are reconciled and have displayed the beauty of Jesus to those of us who are on this side of the New Testament. This is what Christ intended to happen within marriage as a part of what He did on the cross. Yes, He took our sin, and reconciled us to the Father, but there is so much more. Once we are reconciled to the Father, now we can more freely forgive because we have been forgiven.

2 Cor. 5:17-19: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Because of what Christ has done for us, we can now administer reconciliation more boldly and not run from the pain of sin, because at the cross, it is no more and we are free to love, forgive and even be hurt and rejected while offering love and forgiveness because we are accepted before the throne of God and reconciled to Him no matter what happens here on earth.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 23, 25-26: “Our community with one another [in Christ] consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a human reality. In this it differs from all other communities.”

Tim Keller: “Christians in community are to never give up on one another, never give up on a relationship, and never write off another believer.”

This means we are to be voluntary sufferers for the sake of reconciling to others and becoming more like Christ. This is what forgiveness is. To forgive is to cancel a debt by paying it or absorbing it yourself. Someone always pays every debt. This is extremly costly!

Many here have been deeply wounded by broken relationships and unforgiveness. Much of those relationships are broken because of fear and pride. The very thing that the gospel of Jesus means to eradicate. Others are deeply wounded by some for of abuse. What Satan wants is to have the abuse forever get the upper hand in our lives.

When we harbor anger and never work towards forgiveness, we are letting the abuser have more effects on us than the abuse. Letting God deal with them is much more effective. Not forgiving is willingly walking into living death and destruction.

Tim Keller has put together three things you must be aware of when seeking to forgive someone:

1) Refuse to hurt the person directly; you refuse vengeance, payback, or the infliction of pain. Instead, you are as cordial as possible. When forgiving you must beware of subtle ways to try to exact payment while assuring yourself that you aren’t. Here are specific things to avoid:
-making cutting remarks and dragging out past injuries repeatedly
-being far more demanding and controlling with the person than you are with others, all -because you feel deep down that they still owe you
-punishing them with self-righteous “mercy” that is really a way to make them feel small and to justify yourself
-avoiding them or being cold toward them

2) Refuse to gossip or direct slander to diminish those who have hurt you in the eyes of others. You don’t run them down under the guise of warning people about them or under the guise of seeking sympathy and support and sharing your hurt.

3) Refuse to continually replay the tapes of the wrong in your imagination, in order to keep the sense of loss and hurt fresh so you can stay actively hostile toward the person and by contrast, feel better than them. Don’t vilify or demonize the offender in your imagination. Rather, recognize the common sinful humanity you share with him or her. Don’t root for them to fail or for pain. Instead, pray positively for their growth.

By bearing the cost of someone’s in against you, you are doing two things: modeling the deep love and forgiveness of our Lord Jesus and supernaturally becoming more like Him in that act of faith and love. Remember, on the cross, God’s love satisfied His own justice by suffering, bearing the penalty for sin. There is never forgiveness without suffering, nails, thorns, sweat, blood. Never.

For reconciliation to happen, forgiveness must first occur. But this is exactly the place where things get tricky. For reconciliation to be fully realized for us as sinners, we must confess our sin, and repent (turn and call on Jesus as Lord). So in our human relationships, the same goes for our reconciliation to one another. But it is still messy.

The speed and degree of this reconciliation entail the re-creation of trust, and that takes time, depending on the nature and severity of the offenses involved. Until a person shows evidence of true change, we should not trust him or her. To immediately give one’s trust to a person with sinful habits could actually be enabling him to sin. Trust must be restored, and the speed at which this occurs depends on the behavior.

Refusing repentance looks different w/ Xtians and non-Xtians w/ different courses of action on our part. Christian (discipline). Non-Christian (remain kind, open and cordial).

Because we are also to speak the truth to one another (Eph. 4:25). We are not to over look an unrepentant brother or sister and forgive without holding them accountable to be reconciled to God and others. JUSTICE AND MERCY GO HAND IN HAND! This is where the fullness of the gospel must be understood and believed:

Humility: The gospel on one hand tells us that we are so sinful and jacked up that we can do nothing on our own and are desperate for someone to save us. This is why Jesus came to die for us, because He knew we couldn’t fix what’s broken. This should drive out pride and cause us to fall on our faces before God and give Him continual thanksgiving for His deep mercy and acceptance of us on behalf of His son, Jesus. This should also cause us to humble ourselves in our marriages and relationships as well.

Boldness: On the other hand, the gospel tells us that we are more accepted than we could ever imagine and have nothing to fear because Jesus took God’s wrath and we now stand confidently before the God of the universe because Jesus purchased us. This should remove the fear of being rejected when trying to reconcile in your marriage or other relationships. This is the key to healthy, gospel-centered relationships.

Do you see this? Are you beginning to see the particular thing that Christ has done to bond humans together to display His beauty. This is how marriages make it, and any relationship for that matter. This is how forgiveness happens. This is how we can love when it’s terribly costly. This is how reconciliation works.

Closing Prayer: Eph. 2:11-16:
— 12 remember that you (v. 11: Gentiles) were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Let’s Pray!