Well, dear congregation, let us come now to the ministry of God's Word. I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Song of Solomon, Chapter 6. Song of Solomon, Chapter 6. And if you're visiting this morning, we have been working through a series on the Song of Solomon called A Portrait of Love on Two Horizons. And this morning, we find ourselves in chapter six. I'm gonna read in your hearing this morning the whole of chapter six, verses one through 13. So Song of Solomon, chapter six, verses one through 13. Give your attention, for this is the holy and inspired and infallible word of the Triune God. Where has your beloved gone, almost beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned that we may seek him with you? My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices to graze in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. He grazes among the lilies. You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me. Your hair is like a flock of goats sleeping down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of ewes that have come up from the washing. All of them bear twins. Not one among them has lost its young. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. There are 60 queens and 80 concubines and virgins without number. My dove, my perfect one, is the only one. the only one of her mother, pure to her who bore her. The young women saw her and called her blessed. The queens and concubines also, and they praised her. Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners? I went down to the nut orchard to look at the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom. Before I was aware, my desire set me among the chariots of my kinsmen, a prince. Return, O Shulamite. Return, return, that we may look upon you. Why should you look upon the Shulamite as upon a dance before two armies? That's Father reading of God's word. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord stands forever and we are grateful for it. Let's bow our heads once more and ask the Lord that he would illumine our hearts and minds in the ministry of his spirit under the ministry of God's word. Let's pray. Father God, you never cease to amaze us with not only the quality, but the quantity of grace that you lavish upon us. From sun up to sun down, Father, you lavish us with grace far beyond the grace of justification, far beyond the ongoing work of your Spirit and sanctification, but just blessings throughout the day, reminding us of our standing in you because of your Son, the rich blessings that crowd about us in the people of the church, and not only that, Father, but the many material blessings that you give. Father, I pray that this morning, very simply, you would help us to understand a little bit better this concept of grace. I pray, Father, that in this portrait of grace, we as your people would be animated to not only be reminded of our identity, but also of our mission and our purpose in this world, that we would be single-minded in that mission and single-minded in that purpose, and that, Father, we would see always, not just on Sunday, but Sunday through Saturday and on a loop over and over again, your kingdom first, not the kingdoms of this world, your kingdom first, your kingdom foremost. I pray, Father, that like that image in Daniel, that pebble that grows and grows and grows into a great mountain, that so your kingdom would grow and grow and grow in our minds and in our hearts and that that's all we see. And if we do look at other kingdoms of this world, even as we peruse our newsfeeds, that it would be through the lens of the kingdom of God, which you have given us in your Son, and that, Father, that would lift our countenance. And, Father, we would be pulled out of the doldrums and the dregs of depression. and pulled up into the heavenly places again, not just on Sunday, but on every day of the blessed week that you have given us. Do that through your servant as the word is proclaimed this morning. We ask these things in Christ's name, amen. In this passage, we have very simply a portrait of grace. It is a portrait of extravagant grace, and I'm gonna tell you in just a moment why and how that is. But the first thing I want to say this morning is that we must always distinguish between mercy and grace. You see, sometimes we conflate, we confuse, we combine those things, mercy and grace. And they're both wonderful words, they're both wonderful gifts from God, but mercy is not grace, and grace is not mercy. What is mercy? Well, very simply, and parents, this is good for you to remember as you are training your children and disciplining your children, mercy is not giving somebody what they deserve. Somebody, your child perhaps, deserves a spanking or a grounding, or whatever the case may be, and you say, you know what, I'm gonna show you mercy, and I'm not going to give you that punishment. That's mercy. But grace, you see, is much more profound and much more broad than that. Grace is not only not giving you what you deserve, but it's giving you what you don't deserve. I was keenly reminded of this as a child. I couldn't have told you the definition at that time. But when I was in kindergarten, and I've told this story before, but I was in kindergarten, I was trying to get in with the in crowd. It's funny, even in kindergarten, that's a temptation, right? And there was a group of boys at the table as we were waiting for our parents to come pick us up after school. Boys at the table that were, you know, using all manner of cuss words in kindergarten. Imagine that, the depravity of little children. And I was thinking to myself in my own depraved heart, I want to be accepted by these kids. And so I took pen and paper and I began to write down all the cuss words that I heard from these children. And then I proceeded to show it to them. And right when I went to show it to them to receive approval and acceptance and entrance into their clique, there was a, cafeteria duty lady who was right there hovering over the crew and she proceeded to take that paper and take me right to the principal's office and I knew that I was in trouble. And so I'm sitting there worrying about what's gonna happen when I get home and finally my mom comes to pick me up and she says those famous words, you just wait till your father gets home. And I go home and I'm sitting in the waiting room of my bedroom And all of a sudden I hear the door open, and it's my father coming home from work. And then I hear some murmuring going on between my father and my mother, and of course she's giving the report of what this disobedient son had done. And then I hear the footsteps coming down the hallway to my room, and with every step there is increasing anxiety and fear welling up in my heart and in my soul. And all of a sudden, the door clicks open, and I see my father there with his head down, looking at the paper. And all of a sudden, I start to feel tears welling up in my eyes. I feel horrible for what I've done. I feel repentant and remorseful for what I've done, and he could see it. And he says, Josh, I know what you did, and I could tell that you're sorry. I forgive you. That was mercy. He said, now get your skates, because your friend Jimmy's here, and he wants you to go with him to the skating rink to go skating. That's grace. Mercy, not getting what I deserved, and grace, giving me what I didn't deserve. Grace is a beautiful thing, beloved. And that is just a small, earthly example of what God and Christ has given us. He has not given us the judgment that we deserve. Instead, Christ has taken that wrath upon himself, but he has instead given us, as Paul says, all things, the righteousness of Christ, new heavens and new earth, the spirit and the gifts, they're all ours. Grace is a beautiful thing. And I was thinking, secondly, about the example with Peter, and that's why I had us read that in our responsive reading this morning. You recall that Peter had denied three times that he knew the Lord. Now, I don't know how much thought you've given to this, but there's a lot of horrible things you could do, and you can go throughout the Ten Commandments, and you could rank them in their heinousness. Murder would certainly be up there, adultery would certainly be up there, but I would submit to you this morning that worse than all of them would be to deny any connection that we have to the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only that, but in his presence. Now Peter did not know that Jesus was there, but Jesus witnessed what happened. And Peter probably felt on a much grander scale how I felt in my bedroom When he encountered the Lord, the ascended Lord, he thought, how is he going to forgive me? And as we read in that passage of restoration, not only does Jesus forgive him, there's mercy, but in grace he gives them a great and noble task, feed my lambs. You see, Peter was to be and was a great leader in the church, an apostle, a pastor, a pastor of passers, a leader of leaders. And Peter was gifted this task by the Lord, not because he had denied the Lord, but despite the fact that he denied the Lord. And I see in this, beloved, a picture of the church that we corporately, though we have failed the Lord time and time again, when we come back to the Lord on His terms, and we come back to the cross with a humble and remorseful heart, the Lord not only forgives us, but He lifts our countenance and says, now you have a job to do, church. I want you to go forth into this world and bear my name. You see, it is a big deal to bear somebody else's name. It is a big deal to represent that person, especially when that person is the God-man, Jesus Christ. And so he lifts our countenance as the church, and he calls us to go forward into the world with a special task of waging war with the world, the flesh, and the devil, and that is precisely what we see here. Let me recall the context to you. Remember that in chapter five, the Shulamite, her to knock at the door. And it was Christ. He was knocking at the door. But she was comfy in bed, right? So she didn't get up. And then after she didn't get up, she began immediately to feel bad for not getting up. Not responding to the overtures of love that her Lord had given to her. Come, open the door. Come, commune with me. Come, feast with me. I'm comfortable. The time is inconvenient. It doesn't work for my schedule. I'm not willing to make the sacrifice. So she feels bad and she gets up and goes to the door. But of course, Christ is gone. And yet Christ was gracious. He left the myrrh on the handle, which is a pathway back to him through the means of grace. But what does she do? She goes and she looks for him and she is punished by the watchman on the wall, chapter five, verse seven. And then she turns to the daughters of Jerusalem and she says, will you help me find my beloved? And if you find him, I put you under oath, tell him that I'm sick with love. And then they ask her a question. They said, well, what's so big about this lover? I mean, there's so many other lovers in the world. Why him and not another? And so she answers that in the remaining part of chapter five and gives a poetic ode to her lover and answers the question, why is he great? Well, he's superior and here's all the reasons why. And now in chapter six in verse one, the daughters of Jerusalem come back to her. and say, where's your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned that we may seek him with you? Apparently they were convinced by this description of him as superior to all other lovers. And then she, verses two and three, is the voice of the beloved, the Shulamite. She answers and she says, my beloved has gone down to his garden, to the bed of spices, to graze in the gardens, to gather lilies. I am my beloved's. and my beloved is mine, he grazes or better, pastures among the lilies. Now, I would submit to you that what this is saying is that Christ did indeed return to her. What is the garden here but the beloved? multiple times throughout Song of Solomon, the garden has been a picture of the people of God, the kingdom of God. That paradise that was lost will once fill the whole cosmos, and in the new heavens, the new earth, the garden will be pervasive throughout all the known universe. This garden, which started small, will conquer all known existence. So Christ is coming back to her and he is affirming his love for her by talking about how she is united to him by faith. But he's come back to the garden. And I want to under this idea this morning, give you four thoughts. about Jesus coming back to the garden and giving us a commission to go out into the world and make it more of the garden by spreading the kingdom of God through spreading the love of Christ upon our lips. So I want you to consider with me four things this morning. Four things that describe the church, that describe the beloved, that describe us. under this heading of Christ returning to the garden and giving us not only mercy but extravagant grace. And here's the first one. Here's the first one. She follows Christ to the epicenter of eschatological effulgence. Let me say that again. She follows Christ to the epicenter of eschatological effulgence. So as I said, she's looking for a beloved, After she had rebuffed his overtures of love, goes looking for him, puts the daughters of Jerusalem under an oath to tell him that she is sick with love. They come back and they say, where has he gone? And she says, verse two, he's gone down to his garden. And as I submitted to you, she is the garden. He's come back to the garden. In other words, where shall we go when we lose our way? Where shall we go when we lose our way as Christians? Where shall we go when affections of love and warmness toward Christ are low? Where should we go? Where shall we go when we have backslidden and are filled with shame? Where should we go? Where shall we go when our assurance of grace is at an all-time low, maybe because of our sin or maybe through some dark providence we feel distant from the Lord? Where shall we go when we have lost sight, listen to me, of what is most important in life, when we have set our sights perhaps on position or power or riches or any other idol which the world tempts us with? Well, the answer. is that we should return to the garden of God where the means of grace dispense life-sustaining grace. We should return to the garden of God where our beloved speaks to us, where we join the chorus of other like-minded saints who have been beaten and bruised by the law and the world and the flesh and the devil, and they come here to the hospital of the means of grace, the garden that has the aloes and the lotions and all the balms of Gilead that can heal our souls, and calm our spirits, and lower our anxieties, and cause us to rise again in worship to the living God. And if I can call your attention to verse 11, that's exactly what she does. Verse 11. I went down to the nut orchard. Now you could really translate that, the nut garden. Orchard is the same word as garden in verse two. To look at the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom. It's interesting that in both verse 2 and verse 11, Christ goes down to the garden in verse 2, and the beloved goes down to the garden in verse 11. They're both going to the garden. You say, well, how could she go to herself? Well, I think that that's precisely the point. Like the prodigal son, what does she do when she realizes the shame that she has brought upon herself by sin? Like the prodigal son, she comes to herself. She comes to herself. She realizes who she is. She may have been walking in some other identity that the world had offered to her. Maybe her identity as a mother. And oftentimes mothers can do this, right? Mothers, you put so much stock in your children, and that's a good thing, it's a wonderful thing, but your whole life seems to be wrapped up in those children, such that to the degree that they are successful, then ah, you have meaning and identity as a person. And to the degree that they fail, all your worth and all your identity comes crashing down because you pinned everything on them. We must walk that fine line and be balanced, should we not, children of God. We need to learn to grab onto one thing and not let go of the other. We need to be Christ-centered and Christ-focused in our parenting. We can do the same thing with our spouses, we can do the same thing with our jobs, but we need to come to ourself, come back to the garden, come back to the identity that God has given us in Christ and realize there's more than that. Who I am is who I am in Christ. It's in the church that we see the blossoming and the budding of a distant eschatological country. It's in the church that we see new converts whose eyes have been opened to the truth of eternal life. It's in the church that we see the growth of that new life and the sanctification of the saints. And it's when we go where Christ is most clearly seen that our awareness of our true identity is aroused. And we actually see that in verses three and five, and that leads me to my second point. Not only, number one, do we follow Christ to the epicenter of eschatological effulgence, which is the church, but number two, she is reminded of her mystical union with Christ. She is reminded of her mystical union with Christ, and really this kind of dovetails with what I've already said. But look at verse three. I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. He pastures among the lilies. Now you'll recall back in chapter two, that the church was described as a lily of the valley, a rose of Sharon. And it is amongst this lily of the valley, the church, that Christ pastures. It's among this lily, or group of lilies as it were, that Christ is found. And it is here that she is reminded of her union with Jesus Christ. Now beloved, I must say, The rabbinic tradition had it right on the Song of Solomon. The Song of Solomon was described by the rabbis in the Talmud, which was a commentary on the Hebrew Bible. as the Holy of Holies of the Old Testament. If you picture the Old Testament as the temple, the Song of Solomon would be the Holy of Holies. Why? Because it speaks of the relationship between God and His people in very intimate ways. In fact, in such intimate ways that at times we have blushed as we've read these verses, haven't we? We've blushed, and we have to be very careful not to overly sexualize it, but rather to see the union between Christ and His people, such that everything that Christ has is ours, and everything that Christ is, in some sense, is who we are. that we stand righteous before the Father, we stand righteous before the world, we are holy, set apart, undefiled, such that in the book of Revelation, it can describe the church as virgins. Those who are robed in white robes. pure and undefiled. This is a very very mysterious thing and in fact I would submit to you that is why in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 32 Paul says as he's describing the relationship between husband and wife in the context of the marriage he says this is mysterious. I'm speaking about Christ and the church. That's really what I'm getting at. That's really what marriage is getting at is this union between Christ and the church and it is so lofty that I have to slap the label mysterious on it. I don't totally get it. It's one of those things that you can apprehend but not comprehend. that all in Christ is mine. All is righteousness. All the penalty of sins has been vanquished by our more than conqueror Jesus Christ. And all the blessings of eternity, beloved, if you would think on your union with Christ, just a wee bit more than you think about the current state of our country and where the politics are going and where the future is going. If you just think about your union with Christ you won't have time. You won't have time to be down in the dumps because you are going to be like I've got everything coming to me and even now as Luther says the Spirit and the gifts are ours now. Now I could step high. Now I can be in communion with Jesus Christ in the heavenly places through what he has given me because my beloved is mine and I and my beloved's union is a mysterious and glorious thing. And just to give you an example of this, if you turn to verse 13, we'll come to this in a moment, but this is one of the rare instances in this book where the Shulamite is actually named. Return, return, oh Shulamite, verse 13. I'll come back to that in a moment, but I just want to say this, that word Shulamite, In the Hebrew, there's a different opinion on what it means, but I think it's safe to conclude what it literally means is Solomina or Solomess. It is the feminine version of Solomon. And so you see what's happening here is really very similar to a modern phenomenon that we have today, that when a man takes a woman as his bride, what does he do? He gives her his name. And so Solomon is giving her his name. You are the Solomina. You are the queen. You are the one that bears my name. And so in Christ, does he not do the same with us? One of the things I love about the Reformed tradition is they say, what is your Christian name? You know what they mean by that? They mean your name when you're baptized. Now, of course, we're Credo Baptists, so we would think of it in terms of a believer, but what they're getting at is you have a new name, and that name is Christian. That's your name. You are a follower of Christ. Christ has put his name on you in baptism. And beloved, what a blessed thing it is to bear the name of Jesus Christ to the world. What an awesomely tall responsibility that is. And I think that if we would think more about that in our union with Christ, it would give us great reserves of energy and fuel and ammunition as we fight against sin. And this idea of union is really all throughout the New Testament, but just to give you an example of this mysterious union, it's the doctrine that allows on the one hand Jesus to say, I am the temple, But then, as the apostles exposit that concept, he says, you are the temple. So Christ is the temple, and you are the temple. Which is it? Well, it's both. Why? Because I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. What's his is mine, and what's mine is his. What he has accomplished is what I have accomplished. Oh, beloved, that is a glorious thought. It is a glorious thought that all that Christ has accomplished is yours through the mystical union that we have with Jesus Christ. But there's one thing here in verse five that I must say took me a long time to figure out, and I must say this whole passage is very difficult. In fact, it's probably one of the most difficult to interpret, certainly one of the most difficult in verse 12 to translate in the whole book. But I want you to look at verse five, because from verses four through 10, we have the voice of Christ, the voice of Solomon, if you will, the greater Solomon. And in verse five, this is Solomon speaking, and on the second horizon, Jesus speaking. He's speaking about, and perhaps to, the church. And he says, turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me. I just thought, what does that mean? And one of the things that we encounter when we come to the book of the Song of Solomon is untapped theological categories that we don't commonly think of. But I want you to think of this, Christ looking on the church and he says, turn your eyes away from me, for they overwhelm me. Now this idea of overwhelm in the Hebrew, you could get the idea of Teheri, Don't, it harries me, it distresses me. It disturbs me. And the Septuagint has a similar phrase, it ravishes me. What is it that ravishes or harries or distresses Christ when he looks upon the church? Well, I think we have here an intimate and rare look into the emotional distress of our Lord concerning his church, and I think it's particularly in that scene in Gethsemane. What does he pray in Matthew 26, 38? As he's considering the cup that he's about to drink down to the dregs, he says, my soul is greatly distressed unto death. Beloved, who is he thinking about? Who was he thinking about when he was considering drinking that cup of judgment down to the dregs? He was thinking of us. He was thinking of his people. And it was there that he said, Father, if this cup can pass from me, let it be done, but not my will, but your will be done. A phrase that I still don't quite understand. It is wrapped up in the high and holy mystery of that hypostatic union. I don't quite understand it, but I know this. Jesus Christ was distressed as he was thinking about taking upon the anguish of death. It was not a death like the thieves on either side were experiencing, beloved. It may have had similar piercings in the hands and in the feet. but it was the unmitigated wrath of God poured out upon him, something that those two thieves did not experience. It was God the Father turning his back on the Son such that everything went dark. And some of you, when I've said that before, you've said, don't say that, don't say. Beloved, if the Father did not turn his back on the Son in judgment, then we have no atonement. Because somebody, somebody had to take the place of alienation from God. And it was Jesus Christ. If that doesn't cause emotional distress and anguish in the soul of the God-man, I do not know what does. And so he says, turn your gaze away from me, O church, for it distresses me, it overwhelms me. And I want you to think about that. I want you to think about that, beloved, next time you're tempted with whatever your besetting sin is, whatever your proclivity is, whatever you're drawn to, whatever your inclination is, that besetting sin that perhaps for years you've been fighting, and maybe you've tried this, and you've tried that, and they don't seem to work. Sometimes you get some traction, but sometimes you don't. Think about our Lord. Think about our Lord in the garden and the distress that was upon Him because of the punishment for the sin that He took upon Himself that you are about to engage in. You think about that. That puts a little bit of a different twist on it, doesn't it? That sin that I'm about to indulge in. That juicy morsel of gossip that I'm about to spread. That one dimensional image of a prostitute that I'm about to feast on with my eyes. That hateful and spiteful word that I'm about to spew out of my mouth for my wife or my children. That sin caused our Lord to sweat drops of blood. Turn your gaze away from me for you overwhelm me. That's union. Union in the positive and union in the negative. But now thirdly, there's a third way in which this union is expressed. And we see it here in verses four, 10, and 12. And her desire sets her, her desire sets her in her redeemer's war chariots. Her desire sets her in her Redeemer's war chariots. I want you to look at verse 12. So in verses four through 10, Christ is speaking to his church. And in verses 11 and 12, we hear the Shulamite, the church, speaking again. And we've already seen in verse 11 that she goes down to the nut garden, goes back to the church, she comes to herself. And as she comes to herself in the church, in the context of the means of grace, as it were, she sees the blossoming of She sees the blossoming and the budding of the pomegranate. She sees life happening in the church. Something overwhelms her, verse 12. Verse 12 is notoriously difficult to translate. I think the ESV does a decent job when it says, before I was aware. It's kind of like the idea, before I knew it. Something overtook me. Okay before I knew it my desire overtook me This is a positive desire my desire for Christ my desire for his kingdom my desire for his glory even if that means my Suffering my desire overtook me and all the sudden I was found in the chariots. I Would add war chariots of my kinsmen. I would add kinsmen Redeemer my Prince, what does Christ do? In the context of the church, beloved, he reminds us of our purpose in this world. Going back to Peter, Peter thought, oh, I denied the Lord three times. There's the ascended Lord. He's gonna give me a tongue lashing. I don't even know if he's going to accept me. Not only does he accept him, he gives him a role. He gives him a job. He gives him a mission and a purpose to go feed his lands. And so the Lord does with us. We feel horrible for what we have done and we come back to the means of grace. We come back to this house of worship and we're reminded at the beginning of our service, this is why we do it at the beginning of our service, we confess our sins and then we hear the assurance of pardon. Beloved, that is not just a pastor up here speaking gobbledygook, it is God through the pastor assuring you by the authority of the word of God that you're accepted. that those drops of blood were dropping from the brow of our Savior for you, and they were efficacious and atoned. They atoned for your sin, they covered your sin, and now you are accepted in the Beloved. You have His righteousness, so lift your head, O church, and go out of these doors and be the light and salt of the world that He calls you to be. There is strange language here. Look in verse 10. This is something that happens throughout the Song of Solomon, but it finds its highest concentration of uses here in chapter six. But in verse 10, I'm gonna read it and then explain it. He says, who is this, and this is Christ speaking of his church, who is this, speaking of the church, who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners. There are some points in the Song of Solomon where you find a role reversal. There are some points in the Song of Solomon where the church, the Shulamite, the church is described as some type of theophany or incarnation of God to the world. I mean, look at verse 10. Who is this that looks down like the dawn? You could almost say from the dawn. The idea is that the church is looking down in a similar way that God would. The church is looking down upon the earth, the mission field, if you will. And then it says, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun. Those images, moon and sun and stars, were representative of Joseph's father, Israel, and his mother, the moon, and his brothers, the stars, as they all bowed down as the people of God to Joseph, who was a type of Christ. So we have the people of God on the one hand, represented by sun, moon, and stars, and on the other hand, they're looking down. It's almost as if the church is representing God to the world. And yet we should not be surprised by such a theological category. Because in some sense, beloved, don't misunderstand me. I will not say we are God to the world, but I would say we represent God to the world. Did you know that? Do you know that there are some people you come into contact with that have never read a syllable in the Bible? And all they know of Christ and His promise of forgiveness is you. Now that could be overwhelming, can it? Especially if you're honest with yourself and humble. But we are to the world clothed with Christ. We are in some sense incarnating Christ with our actions and deeds. We are representing Christ to the world. And this is what this language is getting at. We're representing Christ to the world as his herald. And so union with Christ calls us to get into Christ's war chariots and join the fray, the army that has banners over it. Look at verse 4b. Verse 4b, you are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, lovely as Jerusalem. Look at this, verse 4, awesome as an army with banners. Verse 10b, or 10, who is this that looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun? Here it is again, this refrain, awesome. as an army with banners. Beloved, we are the army of God to this world. And I want to be very specific in what I mean by that. We are engaged in a war for souls, listen, not for culture. Let me say that again. We are engaged in a war for souls and the extension of the kingdom of God, not for culture. Beloved, there's a sense in which Christ has already fulfilled the cultural mandate. Christ has established his kingdom. Christ has established his kingdom. He established it when he first came. He's extending it right now through the church. We're not here to win culture wars. If that happens, great. If it doesn't happen, whatever. We are here to win souls and that those souls would be added to the kingdom of heaven. We are not overcome by political jockeying for position. You know how we overcome? by our faith. 1 John 5, 4 and 5, for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? How do we overcome as Christians? Through our faith, beloved. And that's why our focus and our attention needs to be on liturgy more than political maneuvering. Our weapons are spiritual, 2 Corinthians 10, four and five. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. So how does the church engage in spiritual warfare in this world? Let me just give you two simple summaries. Number one, answering the question, how does the church engage in spiritual warfare in the world? How do we get into Christ's chariot with him, the prince of peace, and join him in this war for the battle of souls? How do we do that? Number one, through the means of grace. That's how we do it. What are you talking about? Well, through word, sacrament, and prayer. That's how we wage war on the leaders and the principalities and the heavenly places. The God of this world who is blinding the eyes of people so they cannot see the glory of Jesus Christ? How do we reverse that through the means of grace? Through liturgy. Every war needs a headquarters, and the headquarters of the people of God is the house of God, where the liturgy of God is put forward. The corporate worship of the living and triune God, it's where we remember our identity, it's where we are re-salinated, it is where we remember that our purpose and goal and mission is this, the Great Commission. The Great Commission, not a culture war. And then secondly, I would say the means by which we engage in the spiritual warfare, is not with the theology of glory, but with the theology of the cross. Really what we're seeing here in this passage is a picture of the church militant. Have you ever heard that phrase, the church militant? The church triumphant is the church that's already in heaven, in the intermediate state, in the presence of God, okay? We read of that in, I believe, Revelation chapter 13, the souls under the altar, okay? The martyrs, they're in heaven with God, that's the church triumphant. But the church militant is us, that's we. We are here and we're still fighting the good fight, we're still trying to get to the end. We want to say that we not only began well, but we also want to say what? That we ended well. So we must continue to fight as the church militant. Well, how do you gauge success? Well, if you gauge success by winning the culture war, you're going to be discouraged. And you know what? Some of you are discouraged in this congregation right now. Because whether you realize it or not, that's how you think. I'm not rebuking you, beloved. I'm telling you there's something better, okay? There's a better way. There's nothing wrong with following the ups and downs of these political kingdoms, but just look, my friend, at the past and look what the Lord has done. These plucked up kingdoms, these planted kingdoms, it's just par for the course. But you go back to Daniel 7 tonight, and you read about that little pebble, that little rock that expands into a mighty mountain, Mount Zion. That's the kingdom of God. That's the kingdom that you're a citizen of. That's the kingdom that you can rejoice in even now. You don't have to wait for the new heavens and the new earth. It's here. It's now. It's in this church. It's with this people. As we sit shoulder to shoulder under the word of God, Jesus Christ speaking to us, giving us His marching orders, forgiving us and saying, okay, now you've got some work to do, so lift your countenance and get out there and be the salt and the light of the world. What a gracious thing that the Lord has given to us. And if we would spend more time and more thought and more energy on these things, not only would our countenance be lifted, but we would be preparing our children for the next generation to be the church militant in that generation. We gauge success, beloved. We gauge success by whether or not we are faithful. The Lord brings the increase. He brings the salvation of souls. And sometimes we are blessed to see that, but we must keep our eyes on the prize and continue to carry out the great commission. Well now finally, finally, she is desirable when she dances to the tune of heaven. Now I'm probably gonna get some emails on this, I don't know. But I want you to look at verse 13. Verse 13 says, return, return, O Shulamite, return, return, that we may look upon you. This is the daughters of Jerusalem. And then in 13b, it's unclear who is speaking here. It may still be the daughters of Jerusalem, it may be the Shulamite, or it may be Solomon, it's hard to say, but he says, whoever it is, says, why should you look upon the Shulamite as upon a dance before two armies? Now, I have tried my best to understand how verse 13 fits in the context of everything that's gone before, because it seems to be a call to repentance. It seems to be a call to return to something that you strayed from. But in verse two, Christ went down to his garden, which is the church, And in verse 11, the Shulamite likewise went to the garden, so she's gone to where she needs to be. So who or what is calling her to return if she's already there? Well, this is where a little Hebrew, well, let me put it this way, where a lot of Hebrew can help. Because some scholars have noted that this word, shuv in the Hebrew, it has some relations to other Arabic words and other Middle Eastern words that could mean something more like dance, to twirl. And so they've tried to amend the text, which means they've tried to change the text, which is a very Very dangerous thing to do. Sometimes evangelicals do it and there's reasons for that. But there doesn't seem to be a clear reason to do that here. But I would submit to you that we don't need to change the wording because the word shuv in Hebrew can simply mean turn. To turn and to turn and to turn like one who is dancing. And if you look at the second half of verse B, it actually makes sense because look at the question, why should you look upon the Shulamite as upon a dance between two armies. So I think what's happening here, whoever this is, probably the daughters of Jerusalem, upon seeing that she has returned to the garden of her beloved, she's gone back and find her identity, she's gone back and been forgiven, she's gone back and received her marching orders, now they're saying in an imperative way, dance, oh Shulamite, dance, dance, that we may look upon you. And whether this is other members of the church or maybe even the world, I think this is a call to all of us That we are most desirable when we are dancing to the tune of heaven. We are most desirable when we are making much of who we are in Christ. We are most desirable when we are who we were made to be. Be who you are. And I know that many of you who have gone through adolescence and teenage years and college years and everything else, you've learned that lesson, right? You try to be somebody who you're not and it never goes over well, right? It's only when you find who you really are that you feel comfortable in that skin. Well, for us as Christians, who we really are is who God has made us to be in Jesus Christ. He has quickened our spirits. He has given us a heart to believe and to repent. And in that skin and in that identity, we can dance. We can rejoice. We can take great joy in who God has made us to be. So beloved this morning, be who you are in Christ. Dance in the identity that Christ has made you to be. Dance, dance, O Shulamite, that we may look upon you. And if any of you who do not know Jesus Christ are jealous, you say, I want to dance too. All I have is ashes, and I want to turn these ashes to dancing. I want to turn this mourning to dancing. Well, you too can know of these eschatological blessings, new heavens, new earth, spirit of God within you, the law of God written on your heart, and all of eternity lying before you if you would turn from your sins. Turn from them. What have they done but given you grief? Turn from your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for this turn of the Shulamite because in so many ways, Father, it really pictures us How many times have we turned away from you? How many times have we gone off the path? How many times are we like that man or woman in Proverbs 18.1 who isolates themselves to seek our own desire, but we break out against all sound judgment? But it's when we return, Father, it's when we return to this garden that you have created, this garden that you have instituted, this garden where we find rich treasure in the sacraments of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. a melodious voice in the preaching of Jesus from heaven through the preaching of the word, and a megaphone that you have placed in our hands to be in front of our lips to lift our voices up to heaven through prayer, what blessed privileges you have given us in this garden. And I pray, Father, that we would indeed dance away from our newsfeeds long enough to rejoice in the eschatological bliss that you have given us to be experienced even now. Lift our heads, and may we welcome in the King of glory, for he is strong and mighty and able. And it is in his name we pray, amen.