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Call to worship: Romans 8:12-25

Text: The Song of Songs 2:1-17

Summary:

Spouses, is our love the love worth waiting for? If single, and desiring marriage, are you waiting for it? Are you trusting God for it? And what does a love worth the wait look like? What does it involve? Welcome to chapter 2 of The Song. We're given two of the most beautiful poems ever penned. In them, we're given descriptions and depictions of heavenly love between the bride and her bridegroom. In between these two poems, the bride speaks to a group of ladies coming into the age of marriage. Her counsel to them? Wait for this kind of love! Trust me, the wait is worth it! And that love finds its climax in the love of Christ to us. Are we sick with love for Him? Is His love incomparable to us? Are we catching all the 'foxes' that threaten to ruin our resurrected walk with Him? Are we putting off immediate gratification (sin) by the eternal satisfaction promised us? It is a Love that's worth the wait.

Sermon Outline:

1. His banner over me is love: poem 1 on love worth the wait. (2:1-6)
2. Arise, my love, my beautiful one: poem 2 on love worth the wait. (2:8-17).
3. The bride's adjuration: wait for this love. (2:7)
4. Reflections on the most excellent love of Christ.

Prepare

Discussion Questions:

1. Read The Song of Songs 2:1-17.
2. In the first poem, 2:1-6, how does he love her? To what does she compare her bridegroom? What does she derive from him? What does he do for her? What does she beg of him? And why?
3. We often talk about being love-sick. What does that mean on the streets? What does it mean in 2:5? How is her sickness a sign of heart-health? What might it mean for his banner over her to be love? If he benefits her by, say, protection and provision (or pleasure!), why might the protection be intimated first? Why then is the provision (or pleasure!) intimated longest?
4. In the second poem, 2:8-17, how do you see the scene progressing? What words find repetition? What whole phrases are repeated? What does imply about a main theme or emphasis? What is the bridegroom, as the bride remembers it, calling her to realize? What might he mean by catching 'the foxes' that would spoil 'our vineyards'? What is her response in 2:16-17? What kind of language is 'my beloved is mine, and I am his'? Speaking of progression, note the movement from him gazing to grazing, from him bounding over mountains to being on them, from her depicting him as a stag to inviting him to be like a stag? What, perhaps, is the implication?
5. How do these two poems buttress the main charge in 2:7 to wait for this wondrous love? Spouses, are we modeling this love? Are we discipling others in it? Why is it critical that we do? Singles, in the end, why wait for biblical marital and sexual intimacy? Because it's right? Because 'the Bible tells me so'? Or (also) because there's something worthwhile on the other end? Because there is great benefit and blessing in it (regardless of whether or not you ever marry)? What do we see in this part of The Song that typifies Jesus and His love for us---and how does it point us to the enjoyment of it? What are we waiting for, and how does it control our lives?