Song of Solomon 1:1-17
If you would ask somebody to quote John 3:16, there would be few people who could not do it, particularly people who attend church. But, if you would ask them what it meant you might not get the right answer.
They could tell you the Bible says that God loves the world, but many would not be able to explain it in the scope of personal experience.
If you would ask them why God loves them and how God expresses that love, you might not get much of a coherent answer.
Most people who have gone to church would respond by saying that God died on the cross for our sins and rose the third day and is now in heaven waiting for them to join him.
It is important to understand there is a huge difference between knowing that God loves you and experiencing God’s love in your life. This is where so many people fall short.
Out in the world they believe that they are experts in love. However, they are only experts in lust. All of the songs in the world about love are really about lust. Those who sing the most about love have been married and divorced half a dozen times. As far as they are concerned, love does not last very long.
The love we are talking about when referring to God’s love is that which is eternal. There are no time limits when we are talking about God’s love. One of the attributes of God is “love.” So when God is talking about love he is not talking about it within the confines of time, but that love which is rooted in eternity that has no beginning and no end.
This is something that we cannot really conceive, but through the Lord Jesus Christ we can experience.
The question I posed today is simply this, what is the path that leads us to discover the depths of God’s love?
If I can discover this path and then find out where I am on that path, my life will take on a dynamic I have never experienced before.
The passage in 1:2-4, sets the picture for us as far as divine love is concerned. The woman, The Bride of Christ, is referring to a love here that is “better than wine.”
Wine has to do with time. There is an aging process associated with wine, and so, she is setting the picture here that God’s love is better than anything time could ever produce.
This creates within her a passion to be with him. Human love has a time frame.
In our passage today, I want to point out three stages involved in our discovering the depths of God’s love.
I. The Reality Stage (5-7).
This is the most important stage. This is where it all begins, but many people do not survive this stage.
Most people do not want a real picture of themselves. Even celebrities have their pictures “Photoshopped” so they look a lot better than what they really are. Have you ever seen one of those celebrities without makeup on? It is hard to recognize them.
The woman in our text came to this reality, “Do not look hard at me because I am dark, for the sun has burned me. My mother’s sons were angry with me, and made me take care of the grape-fields. But I have not taken care of my own grape-field.”
Up to this point, she allowed other people and circumstances and situations to define her. Everything that defined her was external.
The point of reality came when she said, “I have not taken care of my own grape-field.”
This is an important crisis in a person’s life. Many people simply collapse here allowing external elements to define and control their life.
This is where we need to come. If we are going to understand God’s love for us, we need to come to this reality stage. I believe this is the initial work of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life.
To break through the exterior influences and get people to see the reality of their own life.
They are not as good as they thought they were…
They are not as bad as they thought they were…
Simply put, they are out of sync with God. God created them for his pleasure, but they are not pleasing God in their present condition.
Along with this moment of reality comes a deep passion for God. “Tell me, O you who my soul loves. In what field do you feed your flock?”
The reality brings her to a point of desiring God.
The harsh reality of this brings a person to the next stage.
II. The Restoration Stage (1:8-11).
The restoration stage is based upon the reality stage. Once a person comes to understand who they are and where they fit in with God, they then come to a point where God can do a work of restoration life.
The restoration begins with obedience. “… follow the path of the flock.”
What God desires to do in a person’s life is in complete harmony with the Fellowship (the flock).
The work of restoration is exclusively the work of God. We try to do the work ourselves. We think we know what needs to be done and so we take the initiative and try cleaning up our life; a self-improvement plan. How’s that been working?
The problem is, at this stage we still do not see ourselves as God sees us. We are trying to please God with what pleases us.
God wants to take full control of this restoration stage and lead us to a point where he is pleasured by us. This is God’s work exclusively.
Notice verse 9-11. “9 To me, my love, you are like my horse [strength] among the war-wagons of Pharaoh. 10 Your face is beautiful [beauty] with the objects you wear, and your neck with the beautiful chain around it[value]. 11 We will make objects of gold and silver for you.”
The key here is, “To me…”
Everything God is bringing into my life is to make me what he desires me to be.
We often hear people say, “You can be the best you possible.”
I like that, but it does not go far enough. In this passage, it goes something like this, “You can be the best you God can make.”
The key here is, “… for you.”
Everything in this restoration stage is to make you the best you that pleases God. God is not interested in the world.
Jesus prayed, “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine” (John 17:9).
Everything God has going on right now is focused on The Bride. There is nothing else God is really interested in. He wants to bring The Bride to a point of bringing him pleasure.
“I will bless them that bless thee.”
Once I come to the reality stage, it then takes me into the restoration stage and then I come to the resignation stage.
III. The Resignation Stage (1:12-17).
Very few Christians really get to this stage.
They do come to the reality stage and discover who they are which brings them to the restoration stage to bring them to a place of where God wants them to be.
This, however, is only the beginning.
The resignation stage is perhaps the most difficult and most misunderstood stage of the Christian life.
Many people have the idea that “salvation” is simply to fix us up and then send us out into the world to live as we please.
But if we take the marriage symbolism, we know that a married couple resigns themselves from the world and gives themselves exclusively to one another.
This is what Christianity is all about.
“For better, for worse. In sickness and in health. Till death do us part.”
Each one of us needs to figure out how this stage really affects our life. Some would refer to this as surrendering to God. How is this playing out in your life?
But we simply need to understand that we cannot surrender to God that which has not been through the restoration stage. God cannot take an unrestored life and use it for anything particularly to give him pleasure and delight.
It is that fully restored “bride” that brings pleasure to God. Once I am at that stage, I need to resign myself exclusively to God.
To use an Old Testament illustration, we go to Abraham and Isaac. Abraham would have given anything besides Isaac, but God would only accept Isaac. We do not have the right to choose.
We can give God anything and everything else but the only thing that he will accept from us is that about us that has been restored by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Notice the word “perfume” in verses 12 through 14. This is a reference to the Holy Spirit in a person’s life. What they are talking about here is that out of my life will flow that fragrance of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
This is what pleases God. The only thing that really pleases God is himself. We do not understand that, but what pleases God in my life is a reflection of himself coming back to him. We were created in “his image.” And until he can see that image in us, he can never bestow favor or pleasure upon us.
I know “obedience” is greatly abused these days. In some places, they want us to be obedient to their set of rules and regulations. That is simply religion. And religion only knows how to hurt people.
A. W. Tozer – “Hard on myself, easy on others.”
The obedience that God is looking for is that utter surrender to him, allowing him to restore us to a place that gives him pleasure.
John the beloved puts it this way, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (Revelation 4:11).
To realize that the God who created everything looks at me with pleasure is the most remarkable thing I could ever ponder.
Everything God is doing in my life is to bring me to that place where he can enjoy me for what he has created me to be.
Once I understand this, my surrender to the Lord is a very easy thing to do. I turn my back in the world and all of the things in the world and I follow exclusively the Lord Jesus Christ. And I know that the things of this world can never bring me pleasure, but the thing that encourages my heart is that if I am where God wants me to be I will bring pleasure to him.
That is unfathomable from a human perspective.
Conclusion…
Discovering the depths of God’s love is perhaps the most difficult thing we could ever achieve. And yet, when we begin to understand the depths, our lives begin a transformation enabling us to bring pleasure to God.
I know that all of us have wounds from some source.
I know there are times when we are absolutely exhausted.
I know there are times when we just want to quit.
But when I discover the reality of my life, as bad as it might be, and then realize God delights to restore me to a place where I can resign everything else and give myself exclusively to God, then my life resounds with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
Have you and are you discovering the unsearchable depths of God’s love?
How would your life change today if what I am saying would begin to happen in your life?
Aren’t you tired of allowing the world to define who you are?
Aren’t you tired of living below your divine potential?
Make a decision today to surrender yourself completely to the Lord Jesus Christ, come what may.
Get real and let God be God in your life.
