Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

A while back, had a unicorn of a day — no kids, no seminary work, no pressing ministry needs, even my precious wife was at work.

It was just a day to myself.

Now, I’m an introvert so basically for me it was like a quick glance of what life will feel like in the new heavens and the new earth.

And, I was enjoying my alone time so much that I decided it was a great opportunity to get as far away from civilization as I could.

I went on hike that I’ve done more times than I can count over the years, but it had been a few years since I had done it.

So, I started hiking, and I walked 3 miles or so to this big overlook, and I ate lunch and just laid on a rock and stared out over the mountains without anybody needing a drink or spilling their Spaghetti-O’s.

It was awesome.

I was having such a good, quiet day that I decided that I would take the long way home.

Now, on the long way home, the trail gets a bit tricky — which I knew — because there’s an unmarked section where you have to choose your turn carefully.

I had done it before and really wasn’t very worried about it — until the trail got narrower and narrower and longer and longer.

And, when I pulled out Google Maps to try to get some bearing on where I was, I realized that I had hiked miles off course, and I had miles and miles if I was going to make back to my truck.

What was supposed to be a 6 or 7 mile hike turning into about an 18 mile hike.

That’s a picture of what I see with a lot of marriages.

In most of the marriage counseling that I do, the couple hasn’t suffered from the 5-alarm, defcon 5 issues.

There’s no secret family or hidden bank accounts.

There’s been a quieter, more subtle threat to the marriage, which can be just as fatal.

In the beginning, everything seemed on course.

They enjoyed each other’s company and were excited to come home to one another at the end of the day.

But, over time, they’ve drifted from one another.

In the beginning, it was hardly even noticeable.

She spent more time on her phone, and he spent a little more time at work.

It still felt like they were on the right path.

But, as time has passed, as they’ve gone further and further down the path, the trail has gotten narrower and more difficult.

And, then one day, they realize that they’re way off course.

They don’t really know how it happened, and they don’t really know how to get back.

God’s Word

My conviction is that the word of God is sufficient to give us all that we need to flourish in our lives.

That’s because God’s word explains to us how He’s designed us and our world.

And, this is true of our marriages.

If we’re to flourish, if we’re to be experience marriage in the way that God intended us to enjoy it, we must get on course with his design.

The wisdom literature is especially helpful for this.

There are five wisdom books in the Bible (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs), and they’re given to us for the express purpose of teaching us how to thrive according to God’s design.

My experience is that most people think of Psalms and Proverbs when they think of the wisdom literature.

And, a lot of people have some concept of the book of Job.

But, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs are much more neglected.

But, I want to challenge you that these two books may be the most vitally important and critically relevant for the day we live in today.

So, I want us to go one of these mysterious — even shocking and uncomfortable — books to begin seeing how our marriages can get back on course so that they might flourish according to God’s design — The Song of Songs.

Read Song of Songs 3:1-11

A Nervous Bride

Song of Solomon 3:1-5 “On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not.

I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves.

I sought him, but found him not.

The watchmen found me as they went about in the city.

“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”

Scarcely had I passed them when I found him whom my soul loves.

I held him, and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her who conceived me.

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.”

Approaching weddings often reveal insecurity.

When the moment you’ve always waited for now stares you in the face, it’s a surreal experience.

And, behind all of the planning and all of the excitement, there’s often a low-grade anxiety.

What if he or she isn’t who I think they are?

What if I don’t get along with their family?

What if the honeymoon doesn’t live up to the hype?

What if this marriage doesn’t last?

That’s the question that we see this young bride wrestling with here at the beginning of chapter 3. She’s in her bed, but she’s hardly resting.

She drifts off to sleep, but anxieties are revealed in her dreams.

She has a dream where she can’t find her beloved.

She pursues him just as she has throughout the first two chapter, but now her search comes up empty.

What once seemed like mutual passion and longing now appears one sided.

She loves him with her very soul — her very being, the very essence of who she is as a person — and she is here desperately hoping that her love isn’t unrequited.

That’s when she sees him — “the one her soul loves” — and she clings to him as though he is life itself.

So, on what may be the night before her wedding, she finds herself wrestling with insecurity about her wedding and the future, and she can only be comforted by clinging with all that she has to her love for him and his love for her.

To love is to make yourself vulnerable.

Love opens you up to the greatest joys and the greatest pains simultaneously.

And, this love album isn’t in the dark.

What we see in the build up to chapter 3 is two lovers pursuing one another and being vulnerable with one another and risking the pain that could come for the sake of the delight they hope for.

That is, what we see here is that love is risky, but it’s a risk that should be taken.

Many of you have been wounded by people that you love, or you’ve watched as others have been; so, there’s reluctance to love and to pursue love.

You identify more with the insecurity of the bride than her passion.

But, wisdom isn’t saying that all attempts at love will leave you damaged; wisdom is saying that clinging to insecurity rather than love will rob you of delight and the fullness of life that God offers to you.

An Assuring Groom

Song of Solomon 3:6-11 “What is that coming up from the wilderness like columns of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of a merchant?

Behold, it is the litter of Solomon!

Around it are sixty mighty men, some of the mighty men of Israel, all of them wearing swords and expert in war, each with his sword at his thigh, against terror by night.

King Solomon made himself a carriage from the wood of Lebanon.

He made its posts of silver, its back of gold, its seat of purple; its interior was inlaid with love by the daughters of Jerusalem.

Go out, O daughters of Zion, and look upon King Solomon, with the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, on the day of the gladness of his heart.”

And, at just the right time, the wedding processional led by her beloved shows up to solidify their commitment to one another.

What’s beautiful here is that you have a doubting bride being met by an assuring groom.

It’s as if Solomon knew exactly the question that she was worried about, and took intentional actions to assure her that everything would be okay.

In fact, Solomon gives his doubting bride Four Assurances that Every Spouse Needs:

Provision: You’ll have everything that you need.

He shows that he will provide for her.

There are “columns of smoke” surrounding him because there is so much incense being burnt and so many people walking in the processional.

The maidens can smell the perfumes from far away.

He’s like a merchant coming with so much, as evidence that she will always be provided for and she will provided for with the very best he can provide.

In fact, he’s coming “from the wilderness like columns of smoke.”

It reminds us of how God provided for his people in the wilderness — a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

He made sure that there every need was met, that they were never hungry or abandoned.

But, for someone to have everything that they need, you have to address the fullness of the person.

A healthy marriage requires two healthy people, and it requires to being healthy person in the same way God understands a person.

The Hebrews understand people in two dimensions: the inner man and the outer man.

All of us tend to prioritize one over the other, and this can make for an insecure relationship.

Outer person.

The wellbeing of the outer person affects the wellbeing of the inner person.

Steady work.

Work ethic provides security.

Consistency.

Dependability.