Staying in Sync

Song of Solomon, chapter 5, is where we're going to be today. Start with a story. There was a husband and wife who got into a fight, and no one wanted to go first. Here's the thing. In a fight, in a marriage, in a life, in a relationship, God is always really asking the question, who's going to go first? No one wants to do it. No one wants to uncross their arms. No one wants to unpuff their stubborn neck. Everyone wants to be the second to go, But God's always saying, who's going to go first? Who's going to put God first and deal with this thing? But they wouldn't. And the husband, the problem, here's the real problem. The husband had an important meeting the next morning. He needed to be up early for. And he was a notoriously deep sleeper, and he relied on his wife as his alarm clock. And she helped him out in this way. It was a way where she was strong, he was weak. And so because of the fact that neither of them were willing to stop the frosty, silent treatment, you know the type, right, where you give each other a wide berth. You see them come into the hallway, and you step back to let them pass before you go. It was one of those. And so going to bed, he had a dilemma.

Do I say I'm sorry and work through it, or do I stay stuck here and get to go to bed nursing my feelings? So he decided a solution was to write a note and leave it on his wife's nightstand before he went to bed early. And the note said, early flight, please wake me up at 5 AM. And then he went to bed. He communicated without communicating. When he woke up at 9 the next morning, having missed his flight, knowing now he would not make this important business meeting, he was so angry. And then he noticed on his nightstand a little note that said, it's 5, wake up. Two can play at that game. That hits a little too close to home. It's amazing how fast the passion, the fireworks, the newness of a marriage can devolve into a stalemate, to a cat's game, and to a cold war where no one wants to go first. No one wants to admit they're wrong. No one wants to humble themselves. I've titled this message Staying in Sync. And we are going to learn how to love well when life gets in the way. Because the reality is, even when love is forced to move at the speed of real life, you can still stay close together and united if you know how to have a good fight so that you can come back together as one.

Becoming one is easy. Any pastor, any officiant, two to one is not easy, is not hard. Staying one is. And that's what the real work of marriage is all about. Now as we jump in, we're jumping into chapter 5, verse 2. An indeterminate amount of time has passed. And I'll have you know that this is a song celebrating their marriage, written, I believe, from the vantage point of an old Solomon with perspective, with hindsight, looking back on his first marriage and realizing what he had, the power of it. So writing this song to posterity to say, don't follow my example. I learned the wrong way. I did things the hard way. Learn from what I'm celebrating here, which is the ideal, which is what God intends. It's a basic way of God saying amen on what he did in the garden when he brought Adam and Eve together and said, therefore, a man leaves his father and mother, is joined to his wife. And then here's the real hard work. The two have to work to stay one flesh, to be and live as one flesh. So as time has passed, the honeymoon, you could say, is over. But that's a good thing, because then it can really deepen and age into something that's precious, something that's worthy of being celebrated.

But conflict is table stakes for that. All right, so what we're going to find is verse 2 through 8 of chapter 5 is a dream. It's the second dream sequence in the book, the first one took place during the butterflies right before the marriage, when she was sort of like dealing with this, am I making the right decision, or is this a mistake? And just dealing with all of that energy. And the dream allowed her to articulate what was going on inside her mind. And here now, it's happening again. I sleep, but my heart is awake. It is the voice of my beloved. He knocks, saying, open for me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one. It's late, and he's tired coming home from work. But he's not too tired, as he is. He comes home from work. And so he decides to butter her up with not one, not two, not three, but four expressions of his love. And then he says to her, explaining the time, my head is covered with dew, my locks with the drops of the night, which experts will say in that part of the world of Israel, the heavy dew would fall at midnight. So he's coming home late from work. It's midnight. I remember this exact thing. I mean, it wasn't midnight.

I did better than Solomon. But early on in our marriage, I had worked. You know, 5, 6 o'clock came and went. I touched base with my wife. She said something to the effect of, I'm coming home late. She said, no, Barry, I just threw something together for dinner. No big deal. No big deal, right? I'll be right there. Well, then a friend called and said, waves are great. Do you want to go surfing? What's a guy to do? I just caught a few waves, and it was really good. So it led to a few more. And one thing led to another. And I came home to rose petals on the ground. I came home to candles that had been blown out. I came home to food that had been put into Tupperware in the fridge. I came home to a pregnant, sleeping wife, probably fell asleep crying. And I came home, like Solomon, horrified to what I was finding. And he has no idea as he rolls up. I'm just getting dagger shot at me by all the ladies. Thank you for that. I'm just admitting. I was newly married and an idiot, and here I am. But Solomon wasn't surfing.

We'll find out later he was working. But he's hoping to get a little tender love and care from Shulamite. And she, in being woken up from him, she says, I was sleeping my heart's awake. Some say that's her saying I was asleep, but he was awake because she would call him her heart. I'm asleep, but my heart's awake. And he's saying my love, my dove, laying it on so thick, bumping John Legend from the Sonos. You know what I'm saying? And she says, verse 3, I've taken off my robe. How can I put it on again? And he's probably thinking, you don't need to. That's not a problem. Just leave it off, right? Which it's her way of saying, like, I had something lacy on earlier when you said you were going to be back. But now it's flannel pajamas and a big old oversized t-shirt I've had for forever, right? She says, my retainers are in. It ain't happening, bro, right? It ain't happening. I have nothing, nothing says true love less like the sound of retainers going in. So that's how it's going to be. I have washed my feet. Look at this, underline it. How can I?

How can I? How can I defile them? How can I, they say, almost every commentary will say, is more sassy than that. It's not, how can I? It's, why should I? Oh, shoot. So he heard, why should I? Why should I get up? Why should I care now? You rolled up late. Why should I? Why should I care? In the original Hebrew, verse 3 is, I have a headache. It's, it's, the couch looks great. I threw some extra blankets, right? The guest room is comfy. That bed's comfy. I hear every guest says it's so comfy. She wanted him earlier. She had prepared, but she didn't feel loved. So now she says, I'll show you what it feels like to not get love. You didn't give it how I wanted to receive it. So now I'm not going to give it in the way that you want to receive it. So verse 4, my beloved put his hand by the latch of the door. Some say that there would have been lattice work that he could get his hand through. He's not trying to do a B&E here.

He's not picking a lock. He's just trying to like, let her see his hand. Maybe this is his truce. This is his white flag of surrender. With his hand by the latch of the door, he got to the inside of the handle and did something. And notice, my heart yearned for him. She said she began to feel herself melting. Not enough, but just a little bit. This is his, I still want you. I'm sorry, I get it. My gearing was wrong. I hadn't shifted to the correct gear here. But eventually, he finally gets the hint. She doesn't want anything to do with him tonight and decides to walk away. She's disappointed. He's disappointed. Maybe, speaking from experience, he thought, well, you want to be alone? Be alone then, right? Which only aggravates, I've learned the hard way, only aggravates the situation. Why are you walking away? You said walk away. I didn't mean to walk away. I meant hug me. Well, you could have said hug me if you want. Sure. That makes sense.

Walk away means hug me. So next time you hug her when she sees herself, well, don't touch me. Why? You said walk away. I meant walk away. This time or last time? I don't know. It's like, do figure out exactly what you want and let me know. I'm happy to say my script that you give me, right? And she's happy to tell him what she needs as soon as she figures it out, apparently. So she lies there for a while and very much realizes that even though she got what she asked for, it wasn't what she wanted. And she has a change of heart thinking, oh, dang. He blew it. No excusing Solomon, right? Yet I've overreacted is sort of what she comes to. And the melt just continues until she jumps up, runs to the door, and now finds, verse 5, when she arose to open for her beloved, her hands dripped with myrrh, with liquid myrrh on the handles of the lock. All throughout the romance, myrrh has been associated as the aroma of their sensuality, right? She described him as the necklace, the pouch of myrrh that was diffusing the perfume all throughout their relationship. He said, you are my myrrh, or she said, you are my myrrh.

He said to her, you are my mare, this exotic horse, right? It is their thing. You know, it's like farmer cosplay. I don't know what's going on here, but it's how they talk. So hold on. Some suggest that maybe Solomon's being late might not have been just as chalked up to his obliviousness that he had gone to a faraway place to get some exotic myrrh he wanted to bring to her. But he didn't ever get the chance to explain because she cut him off with, how can I? Well, she was busy clapping back while he was trying to explain, I got you a gift, right? Is it possible that what was going on in her mind is not exactly what was happening here? But he didn't choose to retaliate at the level that she was coming at him and not meet that same energy. What did he do? He diffused it, literally, by opening up the bottle of myrrh. And when he put his hand through, he poured some myrrh. Look at me. He poured some myrrh on the lock so she could see what was happening. So when her hand touched the handle, she found, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. What I thought he was doing, this is not at all what he was doing. Just want to pause right here and say that whenever we feel like retaliating, this is not just marriage advice.

This is all of life advice. In any conversation, in any colleague situation, in any spat, the answer, when you want to retaliate, is to stop and pour some oil on it. Oil in scripture always is this symbol of favor. It's a symbol of anointing. It's the symbol of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's associated with oil. So it goes without saying, you can't pour oil if you don't got any. And if you haven't let the Lord do what he wants to do, according to Psalm 23, and that is to anoint your head with oil, you won't have extra oil to give. You won't have any. If your car seizes up, there's not enough oil. There's metal on metal. There's friction. Oil lubricates. Oil helps things just assume the best and positive intent. And so I love here that Solomon, he could say this back to her. Oh, come on here. Oh, you don't care that there's lights? You don't care there's fuel? Instead, he chose to pour oil on it. And this is what we can do. We can pour grace on situations. And then he, without saying a negative word, he retreats here. I'm not saying that's right. And that's definitely something that, at times,

I've been guilty of. It's like, I feel this, armor up. I feel this, armor plating. I'm just easy to retreat instead of actually doing the hard work of talking. But there's times when what you think is happening, my point is, is not what's happening. I've been on the other end of that, man. I've been on the Shulamite end of that situation. I remember early on in our marriage, if I flash forward now, two kids, Livvy and Linya, and balancing church and speaking and flying, all the things. There's a lot of moving pieces. And one of the things that would always drive me crazy is if Jenny offered to pick me up from the airport, would be late. I'd say, I'll leave a car if you do. No, I don't want to pick you up. Well, just be on time. Because my car, if I leave it, it's going to be on time. It's going to be sitting there, right? And so I come home from a trip, and I've been out doing the Lord's work, as one does. And she's not there, right? Man of God coming home from a ministry assignment. Out there like Paul the Apostle, braving the demonic opposition, all this stuff. And from her perspective, it's like, oh, hotel room and eating out, and I'm here real life, and I must be nice.

You know, I'm like, well, I must be nice. And you know, all the things. So I'm steaming. I am steaming. How insensitive does she even know that I am? Does she even know? You know, no, she has no clue, you know? And life and death is in the balances. People going to heaven and hell. You know, oh, it's fine. No, just be late. It's great. And car pulls up 15, 20 minutes late. I just get in without a word. Just without a word. You know, I'm going to make sure. I'm not going to say anything rude, but I'm not going to say anything. You know, if you have nothing nice, don't say anything at all. My mom told me, I'm going to do that. How was your preaching trip, honey? Fine. Great. All one-word answers, you know? And then I began to take inventory of the situation. Two kids in pajamas in the back that she had to get into car seats to get to the airport. And then I noticed, what's that in the cup holder? She says, it's decaf Americano, piping hot. We just wanted you to have a hot coffee for the ride home.

Ah. And then I look around a little more. I'm like, wait, this car is immaculate. Did you stop and wash the car? She goes, yeah. And I go like, I'm like a jerk, aren't I? She's like, yeah. Turns out the story I was writing in my head was inaccurate. She wasn't trying to make it feel like I didn't. She tried to value, like, oh, he cares about the car. He cares about the car. I mean, she was thinking about my needs. And I didn't even stop to notice. That's where Shulamite's feeling, like I felt on that ride home that day. The point is, marriage takes constant adjustment by both parties, both of them constantly assessing and reassessing the story that they're writing in their heads versus what's actually happening. And sometimes it's good, because it takes a good fight to get it right. And sometimes it's good because it Let me tell you something. You know, falling in love is easy, right? The early part, it was just, they could do no wrong. They, oh, my love, and oh, my dove, and oh, my, you know, it's like, all of that, that's easy, right? That's why we said don't focus on the physical early on. That stuff is so easy.

The devil wants to just get you kissing and making out before you're married, and then to keep you from kissing and making out before you're married. And then to keep you from kissing and making out once you're married. But one thing is the forbidden fruit then. The other thing becomes the forbidden fruit now. And so you have to just continuously be adjusting. Now, we don't know what the actual fight was or fights were, because like I said, this is a dream. But dreams often, not always, but often come from material that your subconscious mind is trying to process, is trying to work through. So it's possible that years have passed in their relationship, and this is, in her mind, coming from 20 different things that had never been worked through, and so now are coming up, bubbling up inside of her dream. And he's unaware of it. So he just comes home, and he's thinking, man, the pressures of my job, and it's hard, and I just need a wife to love, and this is a way to blow off some steam for him from a busy day. But he needs to know, every man needs to know that any unresolved tension that's in the marriage automatically means it is not the time for any sexual advance at all, right? Now, he's not going to get that, because men, this is painting with a broom, but it's been well said, men are often like waffles.

You ever have waffles? I love waffles. Waffles, they have little squares. This is a little square. I like it, because it's neat and orderly. Butter goes in here, syrup goes in here. It's not like a pancake, where everything's just a mess and running all over the place. I get it. I get it. Everything's in its own. Oftentimes, for a man, that's how it is. How can he, if there's unresolved situations in their life they haven't talked through, have sex? He's like, because that's a completely different quadrant, right? This is over here, and this is over here. That's how a guy can be like, oh, I hate that co-worker. He's terrible. It's like, where are you going right now? I'm going fishing without a co-worker. Why? I don't know. It just had nothing to do with that, right? We're just going to go fishing. What are you going to talk about? Nothing, right? Has nothing to do. That's a different quadrant. But women, women, women are not waffles.

Women are spaghetti. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Spaghetti's wonderful. But confusing, you know? I pulled on this. Why am I yanking on that over there? For a woman, right? It's like, it's not like, well, if this issue could be happening with her sister, or this over here with work, or this with the kid, and until it gets worked right, ain't nothing working right in the system, right? Everything's all interconnected, all right? So just this highlights an opportunity to say the needs that a man has from his wife are different than the needs a wife has from her husband,

okay? So jot it down. It's been well said, and traveled, it's not original to me, but a woman, a woman primarily from her husband needs time, needs focused, concentrated time. This makes her feel valuable. Because you might spend money on things, this expensive bottle of myrrh to cover up the fact that he's late again, right? No, she actually wanted time. She just wanted him to be there. A woman feels valuable when her husband gives the currency of time. She also needs to talk. Women have, they say, on average, more words to communicate than men do in a given day. And oftentimes, a man has used all his words he has to say at work. And so he gets home, and he doesn't want to say anything, because he didn't save anything for his wife. You have to think about rationing, and saving, and being willing to listen, and to speak, and process out your feelings, and dreams, and ideas, and listen to what she says as well. Women also need tenderness. Tenderness, this is where you're not gruff. This is where you're not, great, close, deal, fine, great, we'll go there, stop talking about it, we'll do it. No, no, no, no, not just what you say, how you say it.

That there's tenderness. I've had to learn in the 22 years married to be gentle with my wife, to be gentle and to be tender. These things matter to her. Then there's also touch. And guys are like, finally, great, good, I can give that. No, no, no, non-sexual touch matters to women. Non-sexual touch. This is not just touching that's pre-game. This is the affectionate care. This is the arm around the shoulder. This is hand-holding. This is just the gentle acts throughout the day in every different situation. So time, talk, tenderness, and touch. And the cool thing about that is, guys, we can do that. These are not rocket science. This is all pretty basic stuff here. And so it is when it comes to what a man needs from his wife. A man needs for his wife to be his cheerleader. This is so important. I can get a compliment. I can get told that sermon was amazing. I can get told, oh, that book changed my life. I can get told this. But I'm telling you, one word from that woman has the power to make me feel like I can do anything. Mark Twain said something about, I could live for a week on a compliment. I could live for a year on this woman telling me

that she thought it was good, that it blessed her. So a man just needs his wife to be his cheerleader. She also needs her to be his champion. We're going to see in a minute, Shulamite is going to talk well about Solomon behind his back. And for that, that's intentional. You're seeding, you're seeding, you're seeding, you're seeding. To talk about your husband behind his back, she said what? You'll hear that, right? She said what? That could decimate a man. That could emasculate a man. That can make a man feel like, well, I play a game. There's no sense in winning. She doesn't believe in me, but that she's my public advocate and champion. Have you heard that story about the president of the United States and his wife at a gas station? It's not true. And while the gas was getting pumped, the president's wife looked out at the first lady, they call her. She looked out and saw the guy pumping the gas. And she said, oh my gosh, I can't believe it. That was my old high school boyfriend. And the president's like, him? Out there pumping gas? Are you kidding me? She said, he goes, roll down the window.

She said, no, stop, stop, stop. And so he sits back and is restrained. And she waves politely. And he goes, imagine that. You could have been married to a man pumping gas in a different version, alternate. And she goes, no. If I'd have married him, he'd have been the president of the United States. There is some power, too, that what a man can become if his wife believes in him. Women, be your man's advocate and do it publicly. A man also needs his wife to be his companion, to be his friend, to be there and care, just like she needs time. He wants that time. You to be there with him. It means so much when Jenny will do something with me that I know it's not her happy place to be doing that. But it just means that she needs to be there with him. It's not her happy place to be doing that. But it just means that she's willing to show up and care about it, even if she doesn't care about it. And then lastly, to be a compliment to you. There's ways in which you're good at things your husband isn't. Don't point out an attack. how he's not good at something, be good at it on his behalf, on behalf of the team, on behalf of the couple. Oftentimes, unaware and not giving,

we then clamp down on what we need to be giving because we're not receiving what we wanted, instead of the exact opposite, which is what causes things to flow. Amos 3.3 says, can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction? The answer is obviously no. Two people can't walk together without agreeing on what direction we're going. And a lot of that needs to be done during the dating and engagement. That's a whole discovery period. That's a due diligence period. That's when you're trying to figure out is there incompatibility. But oftentimes, you're in love. You're in love, and you don't care who knows. And so you marry someone you're not compatible with because you're just infatuated with the puppy love and sexual chemistry, and you haven't actually flushed out. You have incompatible ideas of what in-law relationships are going to look like, and how money spending is going to look like, and budgeting, and vacation, and time, and child rearing, and discipline, and all these things. And so now all these fights are coming up. They were always going to come up, but you were in such a rush that you turned a blind eye because I like making out with them.

Well, yeah, great, but you didn't actually have the time to talk to figure out. This was actually always going to be an issue. It was just a time bomb waiting to go off. So they're going to stay in sync with the help of two things, conscience and community. Conscience and community, in verse 7 and 8. It says, the watchman who went about the city found me. She's looking for him, right? And she gets to the night watchman guarding over Jerusalem. And she's like, guys, have you seen my husband? Same thing that happens in the dream sequence before the marriage. But this time, they're not helpful. Before, they're like, yes, your majesty, to be. They're usually over there. Now they're like, they struck me. They wounded me. The keepers of the walls took my veil away from me. Going to guess this is a dream, or they would all be executed the next morning, right? When Solomon finds out how they treated his wife. So what's happening? They, commentaries will tell you, might represent her conscience. And so she's taking the time to invoke Jiminy Cricket before the marriage. So important. Because your conscience is an advocate of the Holy Spirit

in your life. And when you feel that rumble strip going off, it's his trying to keep you back from making a mistake. So she now is being wounded. And she's got a tender conscience is a good thing. Because you can, through practice, through careful practice, dull your conscience to where it gets seared like a hot iron. That's not a good thing. So not being good at sinning is a great gift. That you feel awful, like, oh my gosh, my veil's been torn away. So she's saying, I'm not being a good bride here. I'm not keeping my marriage vows here. They wounded me. The words of my conscience are telling me, girl, you could have handled this better. You could have defused that situation. You didn't need to be like, why should I put my robe on, right? Because she's like replaying her words in her head, going, great. Why? Jerk story. Jerk story. Jerk story. You know what I'm saying? Like revisiting what she should have said. We've all been there. That's relatable.

So that's conscience. And then I want to show you community. Verse 8, I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, she says, if you find my beloved, will you please tell him that I am lovesick? Who are these girls? We know them as the bridesmaids. These are the people she stationed in her life that kept being advocates of them catching the little foxes, which during dating and engagement were premarital intimacy. But now they represent a different thing because the enemy is going to change his tack but not go away. She goes to the right people. And you can't hear the right words if you go to the wrong people. Imagine if she went to people who were like, that guy? He's a loser. Let me introduce you to this guy I work with. He'll treat you right. He'll do you right. No, no. She goes to the right people, so she hears the right things. In fact, in verse 9, look what they say. They say, what is your beloved more than another beloved, O fairest among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved that you so charge us? Because she went to the right people

who have been stationed in her life to help her keep her vows, they ask really good questions. Because she's been thinking what Solomon gets wrong, what do they ask her? What has he gotten right? What has he gotten right? Is he really the worst? You kind of feel like he's the worst right now. But what can you point out that he does well? So now what we're going to do is we're going to begin to, in this next passage, watch them work through the conflict. And I want you to look for three things. First is appreciation. Second is communication. And the third is regulation. When I say regulation, I mean that in two different ways. Number one, it means rules. There's rules to how they're going to work through this. We need rules to play a game properly. How annoying is it when you play a game with someone who's using a different set of rules? Oh, when I play Catan, you can trade wheat on a rock port. It's like, OK. OK, weird family, red flag. When we have rules, we can fight fairly. And then I also mean it, you've got to take time to regulate. By now, she's seeing it differently because she's not all up in her lizard brain. She's not all up in her emotions. They've both had time to cool down.

And you see things differently when you take a beat. And we all need to do the work to regulate so we don't react rashly and clap back, meeting energy with energy. But we can be our best self to respond in the moment with God's mind inside of ours. All right, so appreciation, communication, regulation. They've asked her, what's so great about Solomon? And look at verse 10. She goes off. My beloved is white and ruddy. He's chief among 10,000. Now remember, pale was a compliment back then. So when she says his skin is pale, later she'll say she can see his veins through it. That, to them, was like, oh, that guy's so tan, right? That's different than today. White and ruddy, chief among 10,000, that's awesome. She said, line up 10,000 men. I pick him every time. That's hot, right? Let that get back to him. His head is like the finest gold. His locks are wavy. Black as a raven. His eyes are like doves by the river of waters, washed with milk and fitly set. His cheeks are like a bed of spices, banks of scented herbs. His lips are lilies, drip in liquid myrrh. She says, my man is like a man of the sea.

She says, my man knows how to talk to me to get the juices flowing. His hands are rods of gold set with beryl. His body is carved ivory inlaid with sapphires. That's the vein. Sapphires are blue. His body's chiseled, she's saying, and I can see the veins through his abs. Just, just, she's like, I like it. Incidentally, you said that was your favorite verse, right, Jenny? That's the one that you always request. I didn't know where it was. I've been quoting that to me. That's crazy. I know it. Just to know verse 14, it's right there. I thought you were making that up when you said that to me last night. His legs are like pillars. The man does not skip leg day. Bases of fine gold. His countenance is like Lebanon. That's sweet. That's sweet. Excellent as the cedars. Lebanon today, like, you're like, it's dangerous. Largely Muslim city. Oh, listen, no, back then, back then, back then, it was considered the Paris of the Middle East, OK?

So this is Paris. This is City of Lights. This is Eiffel Tower. She's saying, his countenance, the way he looks at me, the way he looks at me, oh, it causes me to swoon, right? Like Paris, like Lebanon. Excellent as the cedars. Reference back to their early days dating in the cedar trees, having a picnic in the park that she said it was a simple date. We were at Applebee's, but it made her feel like it was the Ritz because of his care, his countenance, his kindness. The Bible says, better to eat a simple ramen noodles with love than to be able to have filet mignon, but there's no kindness, right? She says, it's not just how much money he's got. She hasn't talked about any of that. She's talking about his head's like gold, his mind, his eyes, the way his eye contact, his time, the way his words, right? She'll talk about that again in a minute. She's saying, he's been meeting my needs, actually, as I think about it. So she's starting to reconsider the story she was writing in her head. Verse 16, his mouth is most sweet. Yes, he is altogether lovely. Life and death is in the power of the tongue. And the way that he spoke has edified her, has built her up. Remember early on, she said, don't look at me.

I'm tan, and I'm not like the other girls. My skin's burnt. But then by the end, she started saying, I'm the rose of Sharon. I'm the lily of the valleys. And Solomon said, no, honey, you're not the lily of the valleys. You're the lily surrounded by thorns. Every other woman I see looks like a thorn. All I want is you. And she's like, ooh, boy. His words are sweet. This is my beloved, verse 16. And this, I love this, is my friend. This is my friend. She's giving him the need of companionship. She says, oh, daughters of Jerusalem, I'm glad you asked. I'm glad you had me sit down and make a list of things I like about him, because there turns out are a lot more things that I do like about him than I don't. But when we get all pinged, and when our emotional stuff's all everywhere, and our stuff from our past is starting to come back to haunt us, all of a sudden, we can write this, or he's insensitive, and he's mean, he's cruel. And it turns out the guy wasn't bad, she's saying. He was just busy and oblivious in the moment. And I could have said it better. I could have worked through it better. And of course, the application is, whenever you're ticked off at someone,

stop and make a list of the things that are good about them. If you can. This can work with a colleague. This can work with a parent. This can work with a boss. It changes the atmosphere in your heart. And functionally, to speak it changes how you see it. Because you will begin to see more of whatever you're staring at. You ever been looking for a car, and everywhere you see is Honda Accords, because you were researching Honda Accords? Your brain is looking for whatever you've told it to look for. So by looking for. the good, not just for the bad. By looking for the opportunity to say something encouraging, you'll start to see more of it. And functionally, people like being praised and try to repeat what they did to get that praise. So we can speak that out and see more of it, coax more of it out. Her friends then ask her in verse 1 of chapter 6, where is your beloved gone, O fairest among women? Where is your beloved turned aside that we may seek him with you? My beloved has gone to his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies. I am my beloved, she says, and my beloved is mine. He feeds his flock among the lilies. Commentaries will tell us that she's

referring to this garden, not as the garden of her body, but as the garden of his job, the garden of his job that he has, as the head of state, important responsibilities that she wasn't used to when they were courting because he met her on vacation when he was just doing agricultural work because it was replenishing to him. And she was a farmer, and so she's like, this is what our life's always going to be like. And now in the royal city, turns out, real life gets in the way. And so she's having to figure out, like, oh my gosh, I was so insensitive. You were out doing this that you have to do to bring lilies back and feed. So she chooses then to say, here's what she's going to live with. I'm my beloved, and he is mine. I know he's got to take care of my body, of my garden, and the garden of his job, just like I have other responsibilities. But what I'm going to let be the story of our life is I am his, and he is mine. I committed to him. He committed to me. We're going to stay in sync. We're going to make this work. Life is not going to get in the way. We are going to love well through this hardship. And they communicate. Between verse 3 and verse 4, we don't get it all,

but they don't sweep it under the rug. They talk. They listen. They own their part. And so now we have another speech from Solomon on his love for her. You are my love, verse 4. As beautiful as Tirzah, as lovely as Jerusalem, wish I had time to take you to both of those places. But boiled down, it means you are delightful and the perfection of Israel. You are delightful. He's like, honey, there's a world out there, but you are my capital city. You are an army with banners, as awesome as an army with banners. I mean, to imagine a military coming with full presentation of banners and colors to be standing watching in review, it would take your breath away. And that's how he feels seeing her. I just want you to know, you mean so much to me. Turn your eyes, he says. Turn your eyes away from me. They've overcome me. He says, I'm ashamed. I'm horrified that I was late. I wish I hadn't been late. I care for you. That's not what I meant to convey. Your hair is like a flock of goats going down from Gilead.

Your teeth are white like a flock of sheep which have come up from the washing. Every one of your teeth has a match. None of them are missing. You're not a pirate. None is barren among them. Your temple is like pomegranates behind your veil. OK, you're like, Levi, that's lazy. This is the same speech he gave at their wedding. Yeah, it is, with one key difference. There's nothing sexual. He omits the part about the sexual parts. He omits, I'm not doing it again. He doesn't talk about doe, a deer, a female deer. This is non-sexual touch. This is non-sexual affection. And he's going back to their wedding vows to anchor back his return and his remembering how he felt at the beginning. It's important. And now he's going to explain what actually happened. I went down to the Garden of Nuts to see the verdure of the valley, to see whether the vine had budded and the pomegranates had bloomed. But then, before I was even aware, this is verse 11 and verse 12. Before I was even aware, my soul had made me as the chariots of my noble people. What's happening is he's able to say,

this was out of my control. I was out inspecting gardening stuff, and produce, and meeting with the farmers union, and royal chariots came with some huge matter. And I didn't have a phone to be able to call you, so I got here as quick. He's finally now able to say what he should have said, instead of, hey, love, hey, dove, hey, perfect one. But they've done the hard work of getting this worked out. In verse 8, he says, there are 60 queens, and there are 80 concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the only one of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her. The daughters saw her and called her blessed. The queens and the concubines, and they praised her. What's the boiled down? It's the same as when she said to him, fairest among 10,000. He said, get 80 queens out here. Get 100 concubines. Get all the women of the land out here. I still am putting the glass slipper on your foot, honey. I still choose you. You ravish my heart. I still do. So what does this lead to? This is the last verse of the chapter. We close here, and then next week, we get to see the theme that comes after making up after a fight.

It's awesome. It is awesome. That's the next chapter. He says, or they say, the women of Jerusalem, return, return, O Shulamite. Return, return. Someone say with me, return, return. He's returned. She's returned. They're back at the table. You can't stay in sync when you've taken your ball and gone home. They're back at the table. Return, return. Return, return. OK, now we've returned. We've returned. What can we do? We can dance. What would you see in the Shulamite, as it were, the dance of two camps? OK, they were not synchronized. If they're an ice skating duo, people are getting kicked up the side of the head with a skate. But now there's a synchronization, and we've returned to the dance. Many theologians refer to the Trinity as the dance of God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How is there a unity? Because there's constant perfection and precision

of movements. That's the goal in marriage, that we're moving and we're flowing together. But you can't get there or stay there if you're more focused on being right than the relationship getting right. So healthy couples learn to say, I felt hurt when you did this. Or, I was wrong, but here's how I felt about what was happening. Or, what I need from you right now is. Or, the story that I'm writing in my head is blank. The point is, you can't just react. You have to communicate. And you have to be more focused on giving what the other's need is than you having your needs met. You'll notice today we were flying. And that's because we had to cover two chapters. It is the longest stretch of material dedicated to any single phase of their marriage. A full 25% of the book was dedicated to this fight. Why? To help you understand your marriage isn't bad. It's not broken. It just needs focus. It just needs work. It just needs attention. Conflict is not the enemy of your marriage. Unresolved conflict is. So what is piled up that you haven't dealt with? We said before that emotions in your heart or your life,

they're like kids in a car. They shouldn't drive, but you can't shove them in the back of the trunk either, right? Don't let your emotions drive. But also, don't shove them in the trunk because they will find their way out. Instead, what do you do? You process them through fairly. You got to fight fair. How do we fight fairly, Levi? Number one, don't let it fester. Number two, be specific. And by the way, you can't be specific if you let it fester. Because otherwise, five years from now, you get mad about something that they did. And you're actually mad about something you never dealt with that festered. And you can't be specific. And they can't do anything about it because they don't even remember it. I'm speaking for a friend here. Even if it takes all the strength you can muster, you must not condescend. You must take it seriously. Don't belittle them. Oh, that's a big deal. That guy, you all, oh, that's what you're so mad about? No, no, listen. If it matters to you, it matters to me. If it hurt you, it hurts me.

I'm listening. And you need to be humble. Avoid the inflammation of pride. You need to be humble. You need to, I wish we had more time to deal with the text. But there's parts of it that refer language back to the devil and how he became the devil, things that he said. So the way to disarm that is humility. And then lastly and most importantly, what would Jesus do? He'd be quick to forgive. Many commentaries point out when Jesus later in Revelation says, I stand at the door and knock, he's using language from the book of Song of Solomon. We've got to be like Jesus. We've got to let Jesus take the wheel. We've got to let Jesus into our lives. Why? We close here, Ephesians 4.32. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. If your marriage feels disconnected today, don't despair. You are not alone. Even Solomon and his bride, the Song of Songs, has nights like this. But it didn't end there. The story didn't end there. They chose appreciation. They chose communication.

They chose regulation. And so God is giving us the same grace to stay in sync in our marriages and our lives today. As we close in prayer, would you please stand with me? All across the church, all of us praying, with heads bowed, with eyes closed, all of us just considering the work that needs to be done in our relationships. And if you would say there's some action item or there's some step for me to take today in response to this truth, could I just ask you to raise a hand up so I could pray for you? Thank you, Lord. Thank you for the humility and the vulnerability being expressed by the hands that are being raised across the church, Lord. You know, Lord, I need your help in my marriage, God. Help us to do the hard work to stay in sync, day in and day out. Love at the speed of life. I pray you'd bless your people with peace today. You can put your hands down. I want to now invite anybody who's not made the most important step, and that is the step to invite Jesus into your heart. Oh, well, it's great that Solomon was at the door knocking, but Revelation says, indeed, Jesus stayed in your heart. hands to the door of our hearts, and he knocks. And if we invite him in, he will come and he will come into your life.

You can't save yourself. You can't fix yourself. Jesus died on the cross for you. He rose from the dead. Only God can forgive you. Only he can give you eternal life. On your own, you will head to hell and have no one to blame but yourself. But right here in this moment, you can be saved. That's not necessarily true tomorrow. The Bible says today's the day of salvation. So if you're here and you need to get right with God, do it now. I'm going to pray a prayer, and I want you to pray it out loud after me, no one praying alone. Church, we're all praying this together for the benefit of those making this important decision today for the first time. Say this, say, dear God, I'm sorry for my sins. Thank you for the cross, and thank you for your grace. Please come into my heart, into my life. Make me new. Make my life your home. Thank you for new life. I give you mine. In Jesus' name.