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This morning, we’re in the second week of our look at the Song of Songs, otherwise known as the Song of Solomon. This is a very unique book of the Bible that I’m preaching partly as commentary and partly as jumping off point to discuss Biblical principles related to love, sex, and marriage. As I expressed last week, the things I’m going to be talking about these next few weeks are so critically important – certainly after your decision to follow God, the decision of who you will marry is the next most important decision of your life, and how you live out their marriage will impact the rest of your life. This is not easy to speak on – I am not perfect in my marriage, and you are all coming from such different places when it comes to your love lives, and I am trying to speak frankly while not being indecent. But this is too important a subject not to discuss, especially with all of the bad teaching out there in our culture.

Let me give you an idea of where we are going from here over the next few weeks:

Feb 8 – Romance, intimacy & the threats to both – how do we love each other? What are some of the things that can kill intimacy in a relationship? Where does the gospel fit into this?
Feb 15 – Marriage – how do I have a thriving marriage? If I feel trapped in my marriage, how do I improve things? What is the purpose of marriage? What about roles, headship and submission? Where do I find the strength to love my spouse? What about divorce and remarriage? When is it okay to call it quits? Where does the gospel fit into this?
Feb 22 – Sex & purity – what is God’s design? What is the purpose of sex? What are we allowed to do? When are we allowed to do it? What about if we’ve blown it?
Mar 1 – Conflict & forgiveness – How do we work through the issues of our marriage? Where does the gospel fit into this?
Mar 8 – Practical ways to grow in your love – How can we cultivate our marriage? What are some practical ways? Where does the gospel fit into this?
Mar 15 – God & the community – how can we as a community support each other and come alongside each other in our struggles?

So today we’re going to talk about romantic love, intimacy, and the threats to both. If you listen to popular music or watch movies, it’s incredible how many of them concern romantic love. To the secular mind, there is nothing greater in the world than romantic love, than finding your soulmate, the one who knows you and loves you and makes you come alive. Of course, the movie always ends at the high point, leaving us to believe that they will live happily ever after. And those of us who are married know that the reality is much more complicated. If the majority of your lessons on love come from movies and TV, I would say your marriage is likely doomed. If you believe that your spouse should complete you, or that somehow if he or she doesn’t take your breath away every time they walk into a room, that you married the wrong person, then your marriage is probably not going to last. Conversely, if the majority of your lessons on love come from poor examples you’ve seen, whether your own parents, relatives, neighbors, etc., then you could be very cynical about all things romantic. And that is just as bad. The reality that we all face early on in marriage is that no other person can complete us, no one can fill up completely the void in our hearts that was only meant to be filled by God. Without that proper perspective, you will place a huge burden on the shoulders of your loved one.