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This morning, we’re in the last week of our look at the Song of Solomon.  Next week is the Bible in Two Years check-in, and then the week after that we’ll begin a 4 week series on the Passion of the Christ that will end on Easter.  As we finish up this morning, we’re going to do a little recap, finish up the book by looking at chapter 8, and then give a time for testimony if you have anything to share about what you’ve learned or what God has done during this series.  I want to begin by sharing 5 things that hopefully you have learned throughout this series with regards to love, sex, and romance: 

1) Servant love must replace self-centeredness (inside & outside the bedroom) remember Ephesians 5, where we are called to submit to one another and to serve each other.  Contrary to the world’s way, we are not consumers looking for what is best for us but servants looking to honor God and help another become the person God created them to be.  Instead of looking for what we can get for ourselves, we seek to serve the other person, to love them into the person God has created them to be.  

This may mean giving up our desires, or it may mean confronting them when they are in sin, but it will always mean doing so out of servant love and a ministry mindset.  Remember James 4:1-2 - What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?  2 You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.  

Self-centeredness is the root of so much conflict; we are called to serve and submit and minister to the other.  Instead of taking, we give ourselves to each other.  Remember how often the beloved in the Song of Solomon says “I am my beloved’s and he is mine”, as well as Paul’s words to husbands and wives in 1 Corinthians 7, that their bodies do not belong to yourself but to each other.  In the bedroom, you may have different sex drives, but if you seek to serve, you will find common ground.  And remember in the Song of Solomon how the lover is often verbally generous to his wife and the beloved is visually generous to her husband.  In marriage, we give ourselves to each other – all of us.

2) Catch the foxes that threaten your vineyard – throughout the Song of Solomon, the woman’s vineyard is a metaphor for her body and her sexuality.  And in this great verse, she talks about the need to catch the foxes that are ruining the vineyard.  In every relationship, there are issues that if not dealt with, threaten to destroy it.  You need to work through those issues, remain vigilant, and not to let them destroy your relationship and your love.  There may be foxes such as past issues of shame and abuse; lust; kids; work; or many other things.  In order to get past them, you may need accountability, counseling, or just to be honest with your spouse.  Don’t let foxes ruin your vineyard.

3) Marriage is a covenant with a foundation of grace – The model for marriage is God’s covenantal love for us, that loves us no matter what.  However, we also know that this covenant can be broken when one party deserts and is unrepentant, just as God divorced Israel for their unrepentant sin.  But where there is repentance, we are called to forgive, forgive, and forgive again.  Remember that we build our marriage on a foundation of grace, that says that I am on your side for better or worse.  When you get married, your wife becomes your standard of beauty, and you strive to live together naked and unashamed, as it says in Genesis 2.  

4) Sex is created by God and is a good gift intended to be enjoyed in marriage – Again and again the beloved tells her single friends, “do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.”  There is a God-ordained time and place for sex, and it is within the context of marriage.  And one of the clearest things you learn from this book is how beautiful sexual and romantic love is, and how it is celebrated.  It is not dirty, but it is also not god.  It is a good gift given by God to be enjoyed in marriage, that the two would become one, naked and unashamed.  And in Song of Solomon, the lover and the beloved are free to enjoy each other sexually and romantically.

5) Christ is our model and our savior – It is His covenant love, His servant love, and His forgiveness, that teaches us how to love.  But He is also is our Savior, the one on the throne, NOT our spouse, because we need His salvation.  And we need that, because none of us measures up to His standard.  If you have failed, He is your Savior.  He is your redeemer.  He is the God of second chances.