LIFE AND BUILDING AS REVEALED IN SONG OF SONGS - 1

Message Title: Experiencing Christ as Life by Loving Him as a Person

God wants to have a romantic relationship with man. This is very sweet, and also crucial, because this love relationship is not shallow, and this concerns the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose. 

though the book of Song of Songs only has eight chapters, it covers the entire Bible, and it is a roadmap for our Christian life and church life. if we understand this book, then we will know how to go on with the Lord in the Chrisitian life and church life. in this book, there is no one word of teaching or doctrine, rather, this book is full of experience. 

the Bible is a book of life, and a book on building. from Song of Songs, we can see what is life and what is concerning building. unlike New Testament, in which so many places, especially in Paul's epistle, it tells us straightford that Christ is our life and that we are God's building; in Song of Songs, how can we see what is life, and what is building. we need to remember that this book is full of figures and types. therefore, we need to exercise our spirit with a proper mind to understand the figures in this book. 

according to God's desire, He wants us not only as our friend, our Shepherd,etc.  but particularly as our life. how do we experience Him??? by loving Him as a person. 

I. Life and building are the basic and central revelation of the Bible

Life is something mysterious and we cannot define life. we canot show others our life. but the Bible tells us in a wonderful way that life is a person, and life is God Himself. when we believe into the Lord Jesus, we are reborn as children of God. 

II. Life being a person

1 John 5:12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

in this verse, life is equated with the Son. if we have the Son, spotaneously we have the life. so this confirms that life is a person. Christ is in us, and life is in us. this has nothing to do with our feeling. it does not mean that, when we feel happy or energetic, we are full of life, and when we feel down, we do not have have. No, life does not depend on our feeling. 

III. Our need to contact this Person who is life

every person needs to be contacted. Life is also a person. this means that we need to contact this Person who is life, and who desire us to contact Him. our Christ is a living person in us, who desires to have interaction with us. 

1 Timothy 1:14 And the grace of our Lord superabounded with faith and love in Christ Jesus.

this grace refers to our enjoyment of the Lord. this verse tells us that the grace, this enjoyment superabounds with our faith and love in the Lord. 

our first contact with this Person is at the time when we first believe into the Lord. our beliveing into the Lord is different from the objectiving believing, or accecpting the fact of a certain historical person. when we believe into the Lord Jesus, we receive Him into our being. this is the New Testament definition of believing. after we receive this Person into us, we need to have constant contact with Him. we can talk to the Lord all day long. 

IV. According to Song of Songs, the lover of Christ is drawn to pursue Him for satisfaction

the begining of this book shows us that this country girs began with being drawn by her beloved. we believe into the Lord Jesus not just because we feel that we are in a miserable condition. the main reason that we believe into and love the Lord is that we found out that this person is so loving and so attracting. from the story of Mary who poured out her precious alabaster to anoint the Lord's head, we can see that Mary was so captured and attracted by this lovely Person, so she was willingly pouring all that her have upon the Lord. everyday, we need to be like the lover in Song of Songs, to be drawn by the Lord. because of the Lord's drawing and attracting, we pursue after the Lord. 

Hosea 11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, / With bands of love; / And I was to them like those / Who lift off the yoke on their jaws; / And I gently caused them to eat.

God does not draw us from heaven in His divinity. Rather, He draws us with cords of a man. when He became a man, though His countenance was not beautiful to look at, yet there was something in this Person, so charming and so fragrant. 

Song of Songs 1:4 Draw me; we will run after you — The king has brought me into his chambers — / We will be glad and rejoice in you; / We will extol your love more than wine. / Rightly do they love you.

The Lord wants His seeker to have a personal, affectionate, private, and spiritual relationship with Him. this shows what kind of relationship we should have with the Lord. no one can pursure the Lord for us. the gatherings with other believers are wonderful and do afford much spiritual values. but the actual pursuing the Lord is a personal matter. nothing can take the place of our personal relationship with the Lord. we cannot put all our pursue on our time with others, like our companions. 

The lover of Christ progresses by beginning with seeking and continues with finding. After finding comes appreciation which is followed by a rich enjoyment. we start with seeking Him. Those who seek will find Him. After we find Him, we start to appreciate and enjoy Him. 

V. Separated by a wall

Song of Songs  2:9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young hart. / Now he stands behind our wall; / He is looking through the windows, / He is glancing through the lattice.

sometimes, we feel that we no longer have the same excitement before. we no longer feel that the Lord is near and intimate as before. there is a wall between the Lord and us. the Lord is not as close, as sweet as He used to be to us. 

we do love the Lord, but we love Him not purely because we love Him, but we love the Lord with our own goal, aim or intention, so our love is not pure and single. 

VI. Needing to see this crucial turning point

in John 11, we can see that the discrepancy between the Lord and the seeking one is caused by two different personalities. The Lord is training and disciplining the seeking one to forget about herself, her personality, and her will, and to take the Lord Himself as her Person. The Lord will train us in one thing: to put our personality aside and to take Him according to His intention, His way, and for His goal. 

we have our own personality, so we want the Lord to do things according to our likes, our preferences and our own wills. this causes trouble to the Lord. 

VII. Our will must be subdued to His will

The Person we love is a stronger person with the strongest personality. We must be subdued and conformed to His personality, His will, His intention, and His goal. 

Song of Songs 4:4 Your neck is like the tower of David, / Built for an armory: / A thousand bucklers hang on it, / All the shields of the mighty men.

The crucified and subdued will is just like a flock of goats standing on the mountain side, but the resurrected will must be like the tower of David builded up as an armory where the weapons for fighting are kept. 

This is the lesson that we all must learn in order to really experience Christ as our life. we need to contact the Lord, and our will needs to be subdued.