Lessons In Love Pt. 2

Text- Song of Solomon

Title- Lessons in Love- Part 2

Lesson #4- Love Requires Maintenance- 5:9-6:9

- Communication

1. Genuine love

2. Learn to listen

3. Know your mate

4. Speak the right language

The 5 Love Languages

- Service

? How can I serve you better?

- Sacrifice

? What am I willing to give up for you?

Lesson #5- True Love is a Model to Others- 8:5-14

- Exemplify purity

- Exemplify faithfulness

- Exemplify Christ’s Love

Last week we started this study of the book of Song of Solomon. As we saw, Song of Solomon is this unusual poetical writing between a woman and the man she loves. It doesn’t mention God; it isn’t a deep theological discourse; it’s simply a collection of love letters between two people. And some of the letters are very explicit and passionate.

Why is this book in the Bible? What does it have to offer us in our spiritual lives or in our walk with God? We’ll talk a little more about that today.

Before we get into this week’s lessons in love, let me summarize what we talked about last week for those of you who weren’t here.

The first lesson was romantic love is a good thing. It isn’t something evil or something to be ashamed of. God created it for our enjoyment and well being.

We also talked about how it is something that needs to be protected and preserved. There is a right way to go about things, and a wrong way. The beloved in Song of Solomon kept urging the daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken or arouse love before the right time.

And we talked about how love is a commitment. It is more than a feeling, it is a choice. It is a commitment to that other person, even when the feelings of love fade.

This week we are going to finish out this short study in Song of Solomon. I have two simple application points today. First, love requires maintenance. Read with me from 5:9-6:9…

Any relationship takes some amount of investment on our part. In order to maintain a relationship with our friends, our family, and even with God we need to invest something. It takes some work on our part.

We can’t just take all the time and never give anything. Have you ever met someone like that? Someone who is very needy and selfish and tiring. In a marriage relationship both people have to be willing to give of themselves.

Just this week I read a great article in the Focus on the Family magazine I get. Let me read just a few paragraphs from the article…

This article goes on to explain that there will inevitably be times in your marriage when the weight of the relationship ends up on one person’s shoulders. Either due to illness, addiction, work, school, or selfishness, often a marriage will go through a season where one person isn’t as plugged in to the relationship as they need to be.

This is incredibly difficult for the spouse who is left to hold things up. Often it creates anger and bitterness and even hatred. The spouse who carries the weight will even justify divorce, or separation, or and affair.

So what can we do to make sure that our marriages are healthy, and balanced, and honoring to God? A great place to start is by improving your communication. I know that communication is such an obvious and almost cliché thing to talk about when discussing marriage, but communication really is vital to a healthy relationship.

This is one of those topics that has been studied and written about for generations. There is a lot of advice out there about how to improve communication, but there is still a lot of people that simple don’t know how to communicate effectively.

When we’re talking about communication between men and women the problem is even greater. Men and women are different. That isn’t a new idea to any of us. We think differently and we process information differently and we relay information differently.

Some keys to effective communication have to be established in your relationship if it is going to succeed.

First, you need to have a genuine love for the other person and a desire to make them happy. Selfishness and pride will kill communication.

Second, you need to learn how to listen. Guys, have you ever had one of those conversation with your wife where you didn’t say a single word? I had one like that just a few weeks back. Camille had something she wanted to talk about and I soon realized that this was one of those situations where she wasn’t looking for advice or a solution or an opinion, just some one to listen. So I just listened and added the occasional “Uh-Huh”.