Full Audio, Video, Outline and Devotional available at http://oldsite2.rockpointchurch.org/index.php/resources-mainmenunew-245/weekly-messages-2011/408-behind-the-music.
REVIEW: BEHIND THE MUSIC…SONGS OF THE REDEEMED…
1. Song: MANIFESTO: Colossians 3:16 MUSIC richly connects truth to life, by changing our Attitude and our Actions, and connects God’s people to our shared story. BI: Music takes my heart to the destination of its message!
2. Song: AWAKENING: Ephesians 2:1-10, 5:1-20; Isaiah 60:1 We must WAKE UP FROM our darkness, and WAKE UP TO love: Loving God and Loving Others in Unity and we must WAKE UP BY The Light! BI: AWAKE MY SOUL!
3. Song: I WILL FOLLOW: Matthew 10:37-39 We follow what our heart is devoted to; we follow step by step; and we follow Christ’s example! BI: Today, and every step of the way, we must follow Christ!
4. Song: FIRE FALL DOWN: JOHN 14-16, ACTS 2:1-13, GALATIANS 5 The Holy Spirit empowers us to witness, to pray, to overcome temptation, to strengthen the Church, to convict, and He changes lives! Is He evident in our lives? BI: The Spirit of God TO us is the Spirit of God THROUGH us!
5. Song: ALWAYS: Psalms 3, 91, 121, Proverbs 3:5-6 Will we see the greatness of God? Will we seek the goodness of God? Will we still trust in God in the midst of our troubles? BI: God calls us to entrust our lives exclusively to HIS protection and purposes!
6. TODAY…YOU WON’T RELENT…Song of Songs 8:6-7
None makes sense unless u embrace today’s message, and the message of this entire series, that JESUS is PASSIONATELY AND RELENTLESSLY PURSUING us with His AMAZING LOVE and HE WON’T RELENT until He has our WHOLE HEART! He LOVES us! He cares about us! He pursues us! He takes care of us! He’s our friend!
Psalm 8:3-4 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place—what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?
We can stand in awe about why God cares so much for us. Why would our Almighty God even love us? What have we done that deserves such a love? We’ve done nothing to deserve this genuine friendship. Why? Because He desires and INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP with His people, with each and every one us, and He’s on the pursuit!
Since the beginning of time, He’s been RELENTLESSLY pursuing us! From Genesis to Revelation! From day one of creation, he created man and woman to BE in RELATIONSHIP with Him and for them to BE in RELATIONSHIP with each other. From the beginning, the goal was INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP.
Even after Adam and Eve sinned, God the Father’s first words were Genesis 3:9 Where are you? His first words were not words of condemnation, but of LOVE. You can hear how God longs for Adam’s and Eve’s relationship. How disappointing it must have been to find out that they were hiding from Him. Sin always produces this horrible consequence of hiding from God, BUT He will not give up on us! He pursues us, no matter what, hoping for us to accept His friendship, AN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP with Him.
Genesis 6:9 Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God. Noah was another man who enjoyed his power walks with God. God’s friendship became indispensable to him. God’s desire for fellowship was fulfilled and as his friend, God warned him of the upcoming judgment that was going to take the world unaware. IT’S NO WONDER GOD CHOSE TO START HUMANITY ALL OVER THROUGH NOAH AND HIS FAMILY!
Genesis 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty.’ Serve me faithfully and live a blameless life. Abraham was another man who realized the importance of having a close relationship with God. God considered him as his close friend! What an honor! James 2:23 Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith. He was even called the friend of God.
Romans 9:13 I loved Jacob The Lord pursued Jacob throughout his lifetime, as he does with all of us, even though at first Jacob was not even pursuing God. It’s only after he wrestled with God throughout the night, several years later, that Jacob realized how much God loved him. He exclaimed, Genesis 32:26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Exodus 19:4 You know how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. God pursued lovingly the children of Israel. He freed them from their inhumane slavery in Egypt with the sole purpose to have fellowship with them. It is sad that Israel did not respond in same kind to His invitation. Instead they were grumbling and pursued God’s blessings rather than His presence. When God invited the people of Israel to draw near to Him, they refused, Exodus 20:21 As the people stood in the distance, Moses approached the dark cloud where God was. How saddened He must have been!
Moses was one of the only ones who responded to God’s invitation and hungered to have fellowship with Him. May we pursue the same ambition Moses had: Exodus 33:15 Then Moses said, “If you don’t personally go with us, don’t make us leave this place.
COULD GO ON AND ON about how God RELENTLESSLY PURSUED AN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP with His people throughout the ENTIRE BIBLE…Job & Samuel & Elijah & Daniel & Isaiah…
N.T. examples….Paul…Jesus…
AND HE’S RELELENTLESSLY PURSUING US TODAY! You won’t relent until You, have it all
And also throughout the scriptures, God describes His RELENTLESS PURSUIT of us as that of a BRIDE and GROOM…He is the Groom and we, the Body of Christ, the Church, are His bride! The use of the COVENANT MARRIAGE METAPHOR to describe the RELATIONSHIP God’s desires for His people is universal in the Bible. From the time that God chose Israel to be his own in the Desert, the covenant was pictured in terms of a marriage. Idolatry was equated with adultery. Yahweh is a jealous God.
The most AMAZING LOVE STORY EVERY TOLD…culminating in HEAVEN at THE wedding of all weddings! (GET MY HEAVEN MESSAGE!) The WEDDING FEAST, the MARRIAGE SUPPER OF THE LAMB! The final UNION of Bride and Groom! God has chosen a BRIDE and as believers in Jesus Christ, we who are the bride of Christ wait with great anticipation for the day when we will be united with our Bridegroom.
Isaiah 54:5 (NLT) For your Creator will be your husband; the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is his name! He is your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of all the earth.
Isaiah 61:10 (NLT) I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God! For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness. I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit or a bride with her jewels.
Matthew 9:15 (NLT) Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests mourn while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
2 Corinthians 11:2 (NLT) For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband—Christ.
Ephesians 5:24-27 (NLT) As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.
Revelation 19:7-9 (NLT) Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to him. For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself. She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear.” For the fine linen represents the good deeds of God’s holy people. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” And he added, “These are true words that come from God.”
Revelation 21:1-2 (NLT) Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
Revelation 21:9 (NLT) Then one of the seven angels who held the seven bowls containing the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come with me! I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”
Marriage is an earthly institution that in itself images something greater than itself. Human marriage is an earthly institution designed to teach us about our intended eternal destiny. We are made for union with God; we are made for love.
And since we’re looking at THE POWER OF SONG…THE MESSAGE BEHIND THE MUSIC…what is a Bride and Groom without a LOVE SONG? What was or is your LOVE SONG? What is that song when you were dating that became YOUR song? What is that song that you danced to, or for you single ladies the SONG you are planning, for your first dance at your wedding reception? Ladies…what’s that song that gives you goose bumps and makes your heart flutter for your man? Guys…what’s that song that makes you wanna….
Dena and I: “She Drives Me Crazy” by Fine Young Cannibals (#1 4-15-1989), “Shower Me With Your Love” by Surface (#1 7-22-1989), “You Are My Ministry” by Shirley Murdock (TD Jakes Sacred Love Songs), “Through The Years” by Kenny Rogers (“Come Grow Old With Me, The Best Is Yet To Be”)
But SERIOUSLY…we just sang this morning…I’ll set You as a seal upon my heart, As a seal upon my arm, For there is love that is as strong as death, Jealousy demanding as the grave, And many waters cannot quench this love, My heart is yours which comes directly from Song of Solomon 8:6-7 perhaps the greatest LOVE SONG ever expressed, spoken by a woman (of course), a BRIDE, to her GROOM… In all of human literature there are few passages on the power of love compared with these verses…
As you go there in your Bibles or on your Bible App (MIDDLE OF BIBLE Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes then SONG OF SONGS) …let me give you the context…
• WHOLE BOOK (117 verses): a WEDDING SONG honoring marriage!
• A SONG in praise of love for love’s sake and for love’s sake alone
• Been called a Collection of Ancient Hebrew Love Poems celebrating the experiences of a lover (Groom) and his beloved (Bride) as they taste the beauty, power, agony, and joys of human sexual love!
• Most EXPLICIT statements about SEX in the entire Bible! (SEX SERIES starts 8.14!)
• Criticized for its SENSUOUS, EROTIC language!
• God created sex & intimacy & they r holy & good within MARRIAGE
• physical love within that conjugal union is good, is God’s will, and should be a delight to both partners (Prov 5:15–19; 1 Cor 7:3).
• THEMES: Sex, Love, Commitment, Beauty and Problems
• 3 PURPOSES: 1) to tell of the LOVE between a Bridegroom (AUTHOR: King Solomon) & his bride, 2) to affirm the sanctity of marriage and 3) to picture God’s love for his people!
• Key Verse: 6:3a (NLT) SHE SAYS “I am my lover’s, and my lover is mine”
• Intimate STORY of a Groom and his Bride: their Wedding Day, their courtship, their Engagement, their Dreams, their Beauty and Appeal and THE POWER OF THEIR LOVE!
• More than a declaration that human sexual love, IN CONTEXT MARRIAGE, in itself is good
• A SYMBOL, A STORY, A PARABLE, A METAPHOR, AN ALLEGORY of GOD’S LOVE for His People!
SONGS OF SONGS captures the INTENSITY of the INTIMATE HOLY RELATIONSHIP God designed for a Husband and Wife and the INTIMATE HOLY RELATIONSHIP He PURSUES for His People!
Commentator: SONG OF SONGS is a song of human love. But when one sings of human love in a world that came from the HAND OF LOVE, can one only speak of human love? If we had found the Song of Songs in an archaeological dig with no Hebrew context, we could treat it as a secular song of love. The reality is that the Song originated among and was given to us, not by secularists, but by people whose model for love was election love. It would be wrong to separate the Song from its canonical context. It would be equally wrong to try to explain the beauty and the mystery of human love apart from the Creator God from whom it comes, who by definition is Love and love’s source.
Song of Songs 8:6-7 (NLT) FROM BRIDE TO HER GROOM…Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as enduring as the grave. Love flashes like fire, the brightest kind of flame. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers drown it. If a man tried to buy love with all his wealth, his offer would be utterly scorned.
3 verses in this LOVE SONG: a request by the BRIDE (8:6a), an explanation about the POWER OF LOVE (8:6b-7a), and a very practical application (8:7b).
Jesus’ RELENTLESS LOVE is Possessive (8:6a) SHE says… Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm.
In OT times a seal was used to indicate ownership of a person’s valued possessions. So the beloved, THE BRIDE, asked to be her lover’s, THE GROOM’s, most valued possession, a possession that would influence his thoughts and emotions (over your heart) and his actions (over your arm).
A seal was often a ring worn on the finger. Hot wax was placed on a document and then the seal on the ring was stamped on the wax. It showed everyone who was the owner of the document.
Interestingly, SHE didn’t ask for a ring to be put on her husband’s arm or finger. Instead, she asked him to take her herself into his very heart, and to make her the seal of his love. In other words, she said, “I am giving myself to you as a sign of my love for you. I will be your possession.”
God sets believers as a seal upon His own heart, indicating that we are his possession.
These next lines in this LOVE SONG sum up the nature and POWER OF THE LOVE depicted in the Song…
Jesus’ RELENTLESS LOVE is Perpetual (8:6b)
She continued For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as enduring as the grave.
It is as universal and irresistible as death, exclusive and possessive (in the sense of being genuinely concerned for the one loved) as the grave
Her love is so total and so strong that she wants their mutual possession of each other to be as lasting as life. It is a strongly poetic demand for “until death do us part.” Better to die than to experience the failure of love that produces jealousy. Love’s demands are all consuming.
The word jealousy can also mean “passion.” And what is being said is that true love lasts until death. Passion for her lover will last ETERNALLY.
Jesus is passionately pursuing us and he even went to death for us on the cross! His love is indeed strong as death in that He died for His own, showing the permanence of his love.
Ephesians 2:4-5 (NLT) But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)
Jesus’ RELENTLESS LOVE is Powerful (8:6c) Love flashes like fire, the brightest kind of flame.
Passionate as flashing fire!
IT’S HOT! HOT! HOT! A HUNKA HUNKA BURNIN’ LOVE!!!
words brightest kind of flame are, literally, “the very flame of the Lord” The Lord is portrayed as the Source of this powerful love.
1 John 4:8 (NLT) But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Jesus’s love for believers is powerful. Indeed, it is the very flame of the LORD.
Jesus’ RELENTLESS LOVE is Persevering (8:7a) Many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers drown it.
It’s as invincible and persevering as many waters and rivers. External forces cannot quench or drown it! It’s ABSOLUTELY UNQUENCHABLE!
The Bible sometimes speaks of water as a threat. One thinks of Noah’s Flood, Moses’ crossing of the Red Sea, and Joshua’s crossing of the Jordan River. NOTHING CAN THREATEN HIS LOVE FOR US!
Nothing in all creation can separate believers from the love of God that is in Christ.
Romans 8:37-39 (NLT) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus’ RELENTLESS LOVE is Priceless (8:7b) If a man tried to buy love with all his wealth, his offer would be utterly scorned.
Final statement about the love depicted in this LOVE SONG is that it is priceless. All one’s wealth would be totally inadequate to purchase such love. In fact such money would be utterly scorned, because love cannot be bought. Any attempt to “buy” love depersonalizes it.
If love is priceless, how then can it be obtained? The answer is that it must be GIVEN. IT’S GOD FREE GIFT TO US! Unlike our human relationships, it’s NOT A TO DO LIST! Cannot EARN IT!
Greater than all the possessions one might ever possess. We cannot earn His love. Instead, His love is given to his own.
You have seen those advertisements on TV that list the price of a number of different items, and then close with an item that is “Priceless.”
“JESUS CANNOT LOVE YOU ANY MORE AND HE CANNOT LOVE YOU ANY LESS!”
Pastor Shawn…”THERE WAS NO PRICE JESUS WAS NOT WILLING TO PAY!”
John 3:16-17 (NLT) “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
Luke 19:10 (NLT) For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”
God’s love was demonstrated ultimately in His son Jesus. God didn’t come just to save! He came to seek as well! HE WON’T RELENT….
God values us so much that He purchased us through Jesus Himself: 1 Corinthians 6:20 (NLT) "God bought you with a high price." and Ephesians 1:7 (NLT) He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.
God values nothing more than His own Son. Yet he considers us as valuable as His son, otherwise He would not have let Jesus die for us! His love for you and me is imaginable! IT IS RELENTLESS!
BIG IDEA: Jesus, the Bridegroom, passionately pursues us, His Bride, with His relentless LOVE…His POSSESSIVE, PERPETUAL, POWERFUL, PERSEVERING, PRICELESS…love!
What better way to celebrate HIS AMAZING UNCONDITIONAL LOVE than by coming around the Lord’s Table and celebrating COMMUNION:
Matthew 26:26-29 (NLT) As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it, for this is my body.” Take and eat!
And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. Mark my words—I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom.” Take and drink!
1 John 4:9-10 (NLT) God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
Even dying the most excruciatingly gruesome death on the cross, hanging there for you and for me, He continued to RELENTLESSLY PURSUE us when He said…
Luke 23:34 (NLT) Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
Was NOT just to get us to Heaven, but was bring back into an INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP wit Him!
So this morning, we’ve sung…
For thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever, Amen!
You are holy great and mighty
The moon and the stars declare who You are
I’m so unworthy, but still You love me
Forever my heart will sing of how great You are
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art!
Oh my God, He will not delay, My refuge and strength always, I will not fear His promise is true, My God will come through always, always
And as we STAND AND SING AGAIN, YOU WON’T RELENT…let’s sing it now with a renewed understanding as His Bride, to Jesus, our Groom, who is pursuing us with His RELENTLESS LOVE! Our GREAT ALMIGHTY God, the creator of the universe….LOVES EVEN ME…AND YOU!!!
I’ll set You as a seal upon my heart, As a seal upon my arm, For there is love that is as strong as death, Jealousy demanding as the grave, And many waters cannot quench this love, My heart is yours! You won’t relent until You, have it all, My heart is Yours! Come be the fire inside of me, Come be the flame upon my heart, Come be the fire inside of me, Until You and I are One!
