Love True Love

Introduction

In two weeks from today Amy and I will celebrate 18 years of being married. However, our relationship began well before Saturday September 16, 2000. Amy and I first met at Danebo Elementary School in 1984 we were in first grade, I remember very little about first grade, but I do remember chasing a little pigtailed girl around the playground. Amy used to walk home with us and hang out at our house until her mom came and picked her up. I got my first kiss from Amy on one of those afternoons. In third grade I was transferred to Willamette Christian School having fully mastered all the cuss words and singing them in the garage with reckless abandon, not knowing what they meant. Mom and dad figured it was time for a change in environment. Amy eventually moved to Junction City and finished middle and high school there. After finishing 8th grade at Willamette Christian School I moved to Willamette High School.

I got my first job when I was 16 years old, I was hired as a lifeguard at River Road Pool, I was in my junior year of high school. It was a good job, better than fast food or other retail in my opinion. Working at the pool really helped me save money when I went to Lane Community College, it helped me be able to pay for most of college living at home. In January of 1999 I transferred to Oregon State University to finish my degree. I decided to keep working at River Road Pool on the weekends and would drive home, work all weekend stay at mom and dads and drive back late Sunday for school. It was one weekend that I was home that Sarah told me Amy Devereaux was now working at the pool teaching lessons and I could not for the life of me remember who it was. I asked a friend of mine who knew us both and he remembered her for some reason I couldn’t place her. Eventually my memory was jogged. At first, we really didn’t have much to do with each other and she vowed to other people that should would never date me. In July of 1999 we began dating and in those first few months we were inseparable. We couldn’t seem to find enough time to see each other. I was staying up late, getting up early working, my mom was concerned for my health and threated to take a way my keys to the car.

Our love was young, technically I think it was infatuation. We wanted to be together and spend all our time together, and never be separated. We wrote each other sappy cards, gave each other gifts and loved spending time together. Our passage of scripture today is from a book of poems that is typically thought of as the love between a man and a woman. However, the love described in Song of Songs is not limited to romantic love. Turn with me in your bibles to and if you are able, stand with me for the reading of God’s word out of reverence and respect for the word of the Lord this morning.

Page 1: Trouble in the Bible

Song of Songs or Song of Solomon usually will elicit a strong response when mentioned. As I was studying for this message I read many different opinions of what this book is. In the Church of the Nazarene we have an article of faith that addresses The Holy Scriptures, it’s our fourth article. Here is what our position is, “We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith.” Since the Song of Songs is one of the 66 books that is inspired by God and reveals something about God and our salvation, we shouldn’t ignore the book because we think it’s too racy. Eugene Peterson in his introduction to the book states, “The Song is a convincing witness that men and women were created physically, emotionally, and spiritually to live in love.” There is some disagreement among scholars as to who the people are, rather it’s a defined man or woman or if its more metaphorical.

This poem opens in verse 8 with three imperatives, Listen, Look, and in verse 11, see. In this first verse we get a picture of strength and agility, leaping across mountains and bounding over hills, there is energy and vitality as excitement is expressed. In verse 9 we get the description of the man as being like a gazelle or young stag. One of the notes that came up in my study was the use of gazelle or young stag is significant. The gazelle or young stag provides an image of beauty and grace and strength with violence, unlike a lion. (WBC) Next the female speaker describes the distance that is between them, “There he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice.” This isn’t a creepy weird kind of looking. The image of the wall is of a girl still living with her parents in the shelter and comfort of that house, while her betrothed is outside and away. The image of the window and lattice is that of the girl looking into the field in search of the one she loves. In verse 10 she remembers him calling to her to come to him.

In verse 11 we get that third imperative to see. In these next three verses we get a picture of nature that contrasts different seasons. “See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.” John Wesley, in his commentary on this verse interprets the winter as a season of spiritual troubles, brought on by guilt, or disobedience that has made the person afraid to come to God. The rains being gone was also important. Typically, that part of the world has two seasons, the dry season and the rainy season. Typically, they experienced flooding that while important for agriculture made transportation and other daily tasks difficult when it flooded. In verse 12 we see evidence of spring, flowers appearing, doves cooing, all signs of spring and new life. The coldness of winter gives way to a season of growth. In that culture spring was also associated with fertility, both in people and in the land. This passage speaks of an awakening of no longer being blinded by winter but instead seeing growth and new life around us.

Page 2: Trouble in the World

There is no shortage of examples in our culture for love. Since I am a walking juke box at times, many different love songs came to my mind as I was working on this message. “What’s Love Got to Do with it” By Tina Turner came to mind. The title of my sermon is actually a line from the movie, The Princess Bride. I tried to find a clip that would work, but without watching at least 10 minutes of the movie it didn’t work out. The phrase, “Love, True Love.” Is spoken by the priest in the movie when he is performing a wedding. We typically equate love with marriage, and then that reminds me of a frank Sinatra song that was used as the theme song from a 90’s sitcom. Our culture is full of references to romantic love. There is nothing wrong with romantic love. Romantic love blinds people into getting married and the filing the earth with children, romantic love has its place but romantic love is one small piece of the overall picture of love.

Sadly, in our culture love gets confused with sex. One of the issues that the Song of Songs presents is an appropriate biblical concept of sex. Our culture is hyper-sexualized and sadly sex is no longer what God intended and it has become an abusive tool that is used to manipulate. Sex is used as a commodity to be bought and sold and is used to enslave those that are the most vulnerable. We sit just 6 six miles west of one of the top corridors for sex trafficking, I-5. The church should be the leading voice on appropriate biblical views of sex, and instead the Christian church is largely silent because its uncomfortable or messy to talk about. Our teens and our children at appropriate levels need to hear a biblical prospective on love, sex and marriage from the church. The kids start getting human development and health in 5th grade in bethel. Noah has had two years of health and Jonah one. Each year we get a letter that allows us to exempt them from it. Each year they beg of exemption. We have great discussion each night during their health unit about what they learned and how that relates to God’s plan. What I would LOVE to get an exemption letter for is the evolution section instead of the health section.

Page 3: Grace in the Bible

This passage speaks to more than just the relationship of romantic love between a man and a woman. One of the early interpretations of this book is that is an allegory for the relationship between God and Israel and modernly the relationship between Christ and the church. In Revelation the church is referred to as the bride of Christ. Jesus’ parables frequently used the image of a wedding to describe the kingdom of God and the relationship between Jesus and those that follow him. Paul also used marriage to describe the relationship between Christ and the church. The relationship between God and his people certainly can be seen through the reading of the Song of Songs as a whole as well as this passage specifically.

In John Wesley’s interpretation of this passage the voice in verse 8 calling to Listen is the voice of Christ speaking grace to the church. It is Christ that leaps and bounds seeking out his bride, the church, despite difficulties. In verse 12 the flowers are methods of God communicating his grace, his comfort and is love. Another note that I came across explained this passage is the terms of prevenient grace. Prevenient grace is God’s grace that is always in front of us, and available to us, we just have to reach out and access it.

Page 4: Grace in the World

A few Sunday’s ago, we attended Norkenzie Christian Church. Their music that morning was led by their high school worship team. They sang a song that I don’t think I had heard before that Sunday. Since then I have heard it many times on the radio, and in other churches we attended, it is fairly new released in January. The song is called Reckless Love and it describes God’s love for us. Here is the chorus, “Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God. Oh, it chases me down, fights 'til I'm found, leaves the ninety-nine. I couldn't earn it, and I don't deserve it, still, You give Yourself away. Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God, yeah.” The second verse starts with a very important line, “When I was your foe, still your love fought for me.” God always loves you, weather you love him back or not he loves everyone. It doesn’t matter if you are actively opposing God or not, God loves you. God’s love is not reserved for those that have accepted him, God’s love is always there always waiting hoping that you will reciprocate that love, and if you don’t he will keep on loving you.

I read a few books during my sabbatical, one of them is a devotional book that I am still reading by one of my favorite authors, Ted Dekker. The book is called The Forgotten Way. In his book he talks about the very important fact that our identity in Christ is defined by how we see ourselves and how we see God. If God is a distant figure that is stern and harsh, the love of God is authoritarian, and cold. God loves but its stern, a lot of us have been raised with that type of “tough love” so our image of God’s love becomes tough love. The marriage relationship in scripture is a metaphor for our relationship with God. God wants to know us intimately as Adam knew Eve. There is deep intimacy in a marriage relationship and God desires to have that same level of intimacy with his children, he wants to know you intimately and he wants you to know him intimately. Amy knows everything about me, the good, the bad and everything in between. She knows my annoying habits, she can look at my face and know what I am thinking, if I am troubled or happy, she knows me so well because we have shared 18 years together, highs, lows and everything in between. God wants that same love relationship with you.

Closing and Application

1. What is your image of God? Is God distant and cold, or is God close and intimate?

2. You cannot earn or deserve the love of God, because of this you are also never too far away to receive the love of God. God will never stop loving you.

3. What do you need to let go and surrender so that you can see yourself as a loved child of God and begin to truly know God.

3. What do you need to let go and surrender so that you can see yourself as a loved child of God and begin to truly know God.