As we come to the ministry of the Word this morning, dear congregation, I encourage you to open your Bibles to Song of Solomon, Chapter 4. Song of Solomon, Chapter 4, and I see that we have a number of guests this morning. We're delighted that you've decided to worship with us this morning. We are going through a series called A Portrait of Love on Two Horizons. And in it we have been considering really two lenses to read, or with which I should say to read the song of Solomon. The first horizon is the love between a man and his wife. And the second horizon is the love between Christ and his church. And that lens of marriage is the lens that is given to us in Ephesians chapter five. Paul tells us that marriage between a man and a woman on that first horizon is a picture of the love between Christ and the church. is really what we're doing, and that's about all the summary that I'm going to give, and I would encourage you to turn to Song of Solomon, chapter four. Song of Solomon, chapter four. Hopefully by now you have found it, and we're going to give our attention to the reading of God's word, something that the Apostle Paul instructed Timothy and by extension all the churches of Jesus Christ to do, because we believe that the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any double-edged sword. It is inspired, it is infallible, and so we come this morning to the sacred text. Song of Solomon chapter 4 verses 1 through 7. Listen carefully for this is the word of the living God. Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins and not one among them has lost its young. Your lips are like a scarlet thread and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. Your neck is like the Tower of David, built in rows of stone. On it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle that graze among the lilies. Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will go away to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. You are altogether beautiful, my love. There is no flaw in you. Thus far the reading of God's word. Dear congregation, the grass withers and the flower falls, but the Word of our Lord stands forever, and we are thankful for it. Would you bow with me this morning and join me in asking the Lord for help in the ministry of His sacred Word this morning? Father God, what a joyous and festive and holy convocation it is that you have called us to this morning. that we might convene, as Pastor Kim said, in this place as a sanctuary. And it is not a sanctuary, Father, because we believe the land itself is holy, the land upon which this foundation is laid. It is a sanctuary, Father, because your Spirit is among us. It is a sanctuary, Father, because Christ is at the helm. It is a sanctuary, Father, because you are reigning with your Son at your right hand, and as we heard this morning, we, through faith, are seated in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus. What a blessed thought. And Father, as we come to this word this morning and your son would speak from Mount Zion and tell us what he thinks of us, I pray that our hearts would be lifted to heaven. I pray, Father, that we would be diligent to contrast this depiction of how Christ thinks of us because of his imputed righteousness to us and contrast it with how we think of ourselves when we look in the mirror in the morning. how we think of ourselves when we have failed You and failed our neighbor and failed the church. Help us, Father, as we hear this description of how Your Son thinks of us, not to run back to sin and to relish it, but Father to run away from it and to embrace Jesus Christ crucified and to love Him and to be meek and gentle as He was and to seek the righteousness that you have imputed to us so that what we are forensically we would in reality strive after and be. Father help your servant this morning to unpack this word and to nourish your people with the bread from heaven. We ask all these things in Christ's name. Amen. Last week we looked at these seven verses on the first horizon as I said. And we mind out the application that it has for us in marriage. And this Lord's Day, we are looking at it on the second horizon, or from the second horizon, I should say. So very simply what that means is that this is Jesus Christ describing His church. Jesus Christ describing His church, and what He is doing, dear congregation, is He is extolling the beauty of the church. He's extolling the beauty of the body, which is the church. And there are all kinds of reasons that we need to give attention to this, but before I go into those, I just want to start first this morning with this consideration. I want to consider the appropriateness of the body metaphor. Because when the minister stands up and says in the book of the Song of Solomon that we should, based on the heuristic or the lens that Paul gives us in Ephesians chapter 5, view this marriage as it were between Solomon and the Shulamite as a picture of the love that Christ has for the church, and then you see or hear, as it were, Jesus Christ speaking about the beauty of the body, and the minister says that that's the church, some of you may be saying, really? And that's a fair question. But I want to say a few things. Number one, it's not as if Jesus Christ is speaking to one particular church, one local church. Jesus Christ in this passage is considering the Catholic church, lowercase c, the universal church, the church of all times, all peoples, and all places, the church militant and the church triumphant, the church in all its glory, the church as the bride of Christ. But then secondly, I want you to consider under this head that it should not surprise us in the old covenant. that the church, as we're reading this with New Covenant lenses, should be described as a body. I mean, after all, those of you who know your Bible know that in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, that is precisely the metaphor that Paul, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, uses to describe the church in verses 12 through 31. He describes the church as a body with many members. And I think we all understand that all analogies break down, right? When you seek to teach in the form of an analogy, an example, you realize that there are limits to that. And Paul realized that there were limits to the analogy of the body, but it did not stop him from pushing the analogy a little bit further to dig down and drill down and explain more of what he means, and in fact, He says in verses 12 through 14 of 1 Corinthians 12, just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit, we were all baptized into one body. Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. But then, as I said, Paul goes further. And Paul, interestingly, in verses 22 through 25, I will not read it, but just note this down, Paul talks about the less honorable parts of the body, and the body upon which we bestow greater honor. And then, in verse 23, he talks about our unpresentable parts. Boys and girls, you might even call those a person's or a body's private parts. Paul went there. Paul went there in describing the body. Why? Because he's trying to show through the pedagogy, the pedagogical tool of the body, that the body, as we think about it, describes all kinds of facets of the church. And so when we come to Song of Solomon chapter four and we read of Christ extolling the beauty of the breasts of his bride, we should not blush in an embarrassing way. So as I say, I'm embarrassed that the Holy Spirit put that in there. We should look for what the analogy points us to and seek to flesh it out in the body of the church. So the body analogy is a very appropriate analogy, but I want you to consider now, secondly, I want you to consider secondly, this beauty. And I would say this as a second head. The beauty, and this is very important, and I encourage you to write this down, I will send out an outline on the listserv for discussion this week in our home groups, but this is going to be a wonderful topic of discussion. The beauty is both the Christ-imputed righteousness and the Spirit-wrought righteousness in the church. Let me say that again. I know it is a mouthful and I intend to unpack it. The beauty here is both the Christ-imputed righteousness, and the spirit-wrought righteousness in the church. I want you to notice in what we call in literature uninclusio, uninclusio in verse one and verse seven is something akin to bookends, okay? So in verse one and verse seven, An inclusio will encapsulate the thought of the author. So it starts with one idea and then it descends into further thought and then it comes back in the final verse to the same idea with which it began. And we see this inclusio in verse one, you are beautiful, my love, you are beautiful. And then in verse seven, it comes back and it says, you are beautiful, my love, but it adds another refrain. And that other refrain is this, there is no flaw in you. Wow, Christ here seems to be speaking of perfection. And certainly when we think of ourselves and certainly when we look out on the landscape of the church, we probably would not have a good conscience saying of the church or about the church, there is no flaw in you. So how is it that Christ can say of his bride, not only are you beautiful, but I'm gonna sum that up by repeating it in this passage and then say, there is no flaw in you. Well, why is that? And here's the answer, because he is thinking as the church, as possessing the imputed or transferred righteousness of Jesus Christ and the punishment for the sins of the church Jesus takes upon Himself. And so we have this double transaction, this double imputation. Christ takes their punishment and we take His righteousness. And when He looks at us, therefore, and when the Father looks at us, therefore, The Father and the Son and yea, verily the Spirit are looking at the perfect righteousness and obedience of Jesus Christ. That is why Christ can say, there is no flaw in you. And this is Romans chapter four, this is forensic language. You don't need to turn there, but let me just read it in your hearing, Romans chapter four, verses three through eight. Paul says, for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him. This is language of banking transactions, as if a large sum of money was deposited into your account. He believed God, Abraham, and it was counted to him, imputed to him as righteousness. Not to the one who works. His wages are not counted as a gift, but his due. the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Those of you who know the language of Reformed Orthodoxy know that two things are here. Christ's imputed righteousness to the believer, and the punishment of the believer being imputed to Christ. And sometimes we often speak of those, for pedagogical reasons, as the active obedience of Christ, his work being imputed to my account, and his suffering as the passive obedience, but we only do that for teaching purposes. What you need to understand is that all of Jesus's life was both passive and active. All of Jesus' life in His obedience, yes, it was active, He was working, but you know what else He was doing? He was in a state of humiliation. He was suffering. When Jesus came down from heaven, He left the throne in heaven and was humbled to take on human flesh. A king did not deserve the treatment that Jesus received all of his life. The rejection, even as we heard this morning, taking him to the brow of a hill to kill the creator of the cosmos. This was suffering. All of his active was passive and all of his passive was active. This is the Reformed Orthodox doctrine of the active and passive obedience of Christ. So when, on the one hand, Christ looks at us. He is looking at us based on the foundation of the righteousness that He has established and has been imputed to us. But I want to go on from there this morning and say this, that does not mean that when God looks at us now, He is only pleased by what Christ has done. And listen to me very carefully because I think sometimes in our Reformed circles we can put so much emphasis on the imputed righteousness of Christ, and there's a good reason to put emphasis on that, but we are so accustomed to thinking in terms of justification that we give short shrift to sanctification, and we quote phrases in Isaiah like, all of my good works are as what? Filthy rags. They're just filthy rags. God thinks they're all miserable and horrible and shot through with sin. Well, look, friend, with respect to the question of justification, absolutely, that's absolutely true. But the question is, does that mean, does that mean that when the Spirit is working in me and moves me, draws me, compels me, propels me to obey Him and respond in humble obedience and repentance and contrition of heart and by God's grace and by the leading of the Spirit I do that, does that mean that God looks at it and says, pfft, pathetic? No. No, He doesn't. And you say, give me a text. I'll give you a text. I want you to consider, you could write this down, at the end of the age when Jesus will judge the living and the dead, Matthew chapter 25, there's a parable there. He talks about the parable of the talents, right? This guy had so many talents, this guy had so many talents. And at the end of the age, as it were, he comes back and he wants to know how did you handle those talents? And based on how they handle those talents as a manifestation of their faith in God, he says this, verse 21, his master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. Well done, my good and faithful servant. Now, Jesus is going to say that at the end of the age to us. He's going to say that to us. He's going to say that to a sheep. Later in Matthew chapter 25 verses 34 through 36, when he's considering literally the end of the age and the sheep will be on his right and the goats will be on his left, what will he say to the sheep? The king will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison. and you came to me. Now is Jesus saying here, I'm not talking about what you did, I'm talking about what Jesus did. That's not what he's saying. Certainly on the day of judgment, anything for which we will be commended will be based on the foundation of Christ's work for us, absolutely. But works will be in the judgment, not as an establishing of whether you get in. No, because in Matthew chapter 25, when the sheep are over here and the goats are over here, Jesus tells us that's after everybody's already been resurrected. That means that those who have been resurrected for the new heavens and the new earth will have one quality of resurrection, and those who are resurrected to eternal damnation and perdition will have another kind of resurrection. So everybody will see, just by looking at one another, what their destiny shall be. And having established those destinies through the act of resurrection, then Christ will say, let's talk about your works. And he commends them for their works. So I wanna say this, our goal and desire as Christians, listen to me, this is very important, is to strike symmetry between our forensic standing in Christ, that is to say, what God declares us to be through Jesus Christ, and our pursuit of the imitation of Christ in our spirit-led and spirit-wrought sanctification. We wanna strike symmetry, but let me put it this way, let me put it more simply. Be who you are. Be who you are in Christ. Who has Christ called you to be? He's called you to be a Christian. He's made you a Christian. And if you are a Christian, you will speak like a Christian. You will walk like a Christian. You will act like a Christian. Listen to me, you will repent like a Christian. Enough of this false repentance. Repentance that says, I don't like the way you rebuked me. Are you listening to Christ's voice, or are you listening to the voice of your brother or sister? Because let me tell you something, it's univocity. Christ speaks in the voice of your beloved. He speaks in the voice of your brother and sister. And it is not only nonsense, but manipulation to say, well, I'm gonna separate the two. The word of God, beloved, is the word of God. And if the word of God comes in the mouth of your brother and sister and says, repent of your drunkenness, repent of this, repent of that, if you don't hear the voice of Christ in that, that is a scary thing. Because Jesus says in John chapter 10, what does he say? My sheep what? Hear my voice. My sheep hear my voice. And if you're not listening for the voice of your beloved, that is a scary thing. So we need to strike symmetry between who God has declared us to be forensically, okay? God declares me by faith in Jesus Christ to be 100% perfect. Am I that? No, I'm not. But he also calls me to walk out that forensic declaration in my sanctification. Guess what? He does not leave me without help. He gives me the Spirit of God. He puts the Spirit of God in me so that the Spirit of God makes me a new creation and gives me all the benefits and all the privileges and all the resources and all the weapons of the new covenant to take up my warfare against sin and have victory. So we need to strike symmetry between our forensic standing in Christ and the work of the Spirit. And here's the thing, I was saying this this morning in Sunday school as we had a discussion about Ephesians chapter two. The reason we should not denigrate our works, not for justification, but for sanctification, and in our working in sanctification that Christ, that the triune God really is pleased, even though they're shot through with problems. is because to denigrate those things is to denigrate the work of the third member of the Trinity within us. Let's be fully and robustly and absolutely Trinitarian. Okay, we relish and worship God for the work of Christ in us and we think of that imputed righteousness and we say yes and amen, but the Spirit of God is also in us to sanctify us and bring us to glory. And we should not denigrate one, denigrate one to the denigration of the other to be redundant. Okay, there are some denominations that shout justification and whisper sanctification. but we should not be like those. What should we do? We should shout both of them. We should shout justification and sanctification. It's become commonplace to criticize the church, and some of that criticism is valid. I mean, Martin Luther says, when you look at the church, you're looking at the face of a sinner. That's true, that's absolutely true. And sometimes that criticism of the church is humorous, Somebody has put it this way. To dwell above with saints in love, oh, that would be glory. To dwell below with saints I know, well, that's a different story. We like the idea of dwelling with perfect beings, but we don't like the idea of being around other sinners, and the irony of all that is that we're sinners as well. But the way we strike symmetry between what God has called us to be and what he is working us out to be through the ministry of the Spirit is to first, listen to me, first look at what we are doing. How are we extolling the beauty of the church? We need to learn to look at the church the way Christ does, okay? And I'm not saying that there is not a place to criticize the church. There is a place to criticize the church. I remember hearing the story of a man who was engaged to marry this woman. And on a drive from point A to point B, he took his brother with him, and his brother didn't like this woman, didn't think it was a good fit for him. And so his brother was sitting in the passenger seat as this man was driving, and his brother for 15 minutes was telling him, man, I don't, you know, this woman is not good for you, she's this and she's that, and I can't believe you. And the man pulled the car over, and he turned the ignition off, and he stuck his finger in that guy's chest and said, don't you ever, ever talk about my wife that way. And beloved, I just want to remind you as we're looking at this analogy, the church is the bride of Christ. You be careful how you speak about the church. And as Joel Beeky told me in a private conversation, there is a place to criticize the church, but when we criticize the church, we should criticize her like Jeremiah did with tears coming down our face. Do you criticize the church with tears coming down your face, literally or metaphorically? Or do you do it with an arrogant condescension? So how are we to understand this body of Christ? We've looked at the appropriateness of the body. Secondly, we've looked at the reality that when Christ is extolling the beauty of the church, he's not simply looking at what Christ has done, though that is the foundation for it, but he is really and truly considering our works. And God is really and truly, on the foundation of Christ's work and through the work of the Spirit, pleased with our obedience, even though it is imperfect. But now thirdly, I want you to consider her virtues extolled, the virtues of the church extolled. And what I want to do here is just kind of briefly work through, and I mean briefly, these different figures in the poem and what they correspond to as Christ speaks of the church. And I want you to consider the first one, a dove. Behold, you're beautiful, verse one. My love, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Now, what does this mean? Well, I would submit to you that this picture of a dove, remember, we wanna think in a biblical, theological way here. This is what we did in the book of Zechariah, you recall. We look at other places in scripture, how a particular theme or topic is used, not in every place, but in many places, and we use that as a key, a key of interpretation to understand what the figure is here. And I would submit to you that the dove here communicates to us that the church is filled, led, and animated by the Holy Spirit of God. Because oftentimes in the Bible, the Spirit of God is portrayed as a dove. For example, the Holy Spirit is invisible, boys and girls, right? You can't see the Holy Spirit. But in fact, we see the Spirit of God at the baptism of Jesus in the form of a dove. And what God did there is he chose to portray the spirit so that all would see that Jesus was anointed of the spirit of God with a dove. And what did he know that you would do when you saw that? You would at some point search through your Bible to see how the dove figures into things, wouldn't you? And if you go back to Genesis 8, you see Noah sending out a dove from the ark, and that dove hovers over the waters. And boys and girls, when you think of a dove hovering over the water, what else do you think of in creation? You think of the Spirit of God in Genesis 1 hovering over the waters. the waters, the Spirit of God hovering over the waters. Just as the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep at the beginning of creation, so Noah's dove hovered over the waters. See, the eyes, Jesus tells us, or the window to the soul. He says in verse, chapter Matthew 6, 22 and 23, the eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness. You know what this is saying, beloved? All of life is viewed through a particular narrative. All of life is viewed through a particular worldview. And all of us come to the text with competing narratives and competing worldviews. And if I could sum up the whole Christian life in one phrase, it would be this, consistently and constantly comparing the narrative with which I bring to the scriptures, that I bring to the scriptures, with the narrative and the worldview that the scriptures tell me to have. And as I see that narrative in Scripture, that worldview in Scripture, how Scripture tells me to think about myself. Listen, how Scripture tells me to think about the words that come out of my mouth when I see myself in a particular way. The question is, is that how Scripture tells me to see myself? Is that how Scripture depicts me? Maybe in your narrative you're the good guy, you're the noble guy, you're the great guy or gal. And Scripture says, no, that's not quite true. You're not the noble guy, you're not the great guy, you're the sinner saved by grace. Maybe you're the person who says, you know, people need to serve me more and give more to me and I need to sacrifice less. And Scripture says, no, you need to sacrifice more. You need to be like Christ who emptied himself. emptied, emptied, emptied, like Paul, pouring myself out as a drink offering, drink offering, drink offering, not thinking primarily of myself, but thinking as others. And not only does the dove picture the Holy Spirit for us in that sense, but just as the dove finds refuge in the cleft of the rock, so the church, filled by the dove of God, hides herself in the refuge of Christ the rock, and that's what we should do. But what about verse 1b, her hair is like a flock of goats? Well, very simply, I think what this is getting at is that the church showcases her the beauty of Christ. What is the first thing that most men notice when they look at a woman? They notice her hair. They notice her beautiful, flowing hair. And one of the first things that the world should see when they look at us is the beauty of Christ. In some way, shape, or form, they should see the beauty of Christ. What about verse two, the teeth? Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them has lost its young. Well, I must admit, this was a difficult one, and so I looked to the old divines to see what they said. And many of the old divines, almost, I wouldn't say all of them, but a majority, suggested that teeth are something akin to ministers of the gospel. Why? Because as the ministers teach and preach the word of God, they're helping their people process and chew and assimilate the nourishment of the word of God into their souls. I think that that's appropriate. Teeth to take the bread of life. What about their lips? Well, lips are like a scarlet thread, verse three. The mouth is lovely as it speaks of the gospel of Christ. Verse 3b, your cheeks are blushing, and I think that this speaks of the humility that should be upon our face as we look upon and gaze upon the face of the Savior, and the humility that should characterize us as Christians in all the spheres of influence in which we find ourselves. What about the neck, verse 4? I think when it says in verse four, your neck is like the Tower of David, built in rows of stone. On it hang a thousand shields and all of them shields of warriors. I think this refers to those believers in the body who are instructed and knowledgeable of the scriptures. Notice that on that tower are hanging shields. shields, those who defend the faith, those who stand up for the truth. You might even use a common colloquium that we use today, those who stick their neck out in order to defend the truth of God. And by the way, that is a very appropriate way to think of it. How much hostility, friend, have you received from defending the Christian faith? whether it is at your work, whether it is in your family, how much hostility and invectives and vitriolic anger has been spewed your way because you had the audacity to name the name of Christ, because you had the audacity to call people to repent of their sin and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, because they're not good enough. God is not pleased with them in and of themselves. That is our message to the world. And we must take up the shield of truth as we take that message. Now what about these breasts then in verse five? Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle that graze among the lilies. Oh beloved, as I said last week, one of the things that the breasts portray is the nourishing of the young. An infant will feed on the breasts of her mother. And so it is with the church. The church cares for her newly born. The church has within her family those who care for the newly born. The bride of Christ nurses them in Christ. What is this speaking of? This is speaking of discipleship. This is speaking of discipleship. This is speaking of teaching the next generation to walk in the paths of Christ. Can I say this just to descend into the details? Teaching the next generation how to pray. Teaching the next generation the importance and priority and center of reading the Word of God every single day and meditating upon it. And how do I meditate upon it? And how do I see the Word of God as a compass? How do I see the Word of God as a mirror? How do I use the Word of God to confront myself? Because I need to examine myself in light of the image of the Word of God that I see. I want to confront myself. I want to call myself to repentance. I want to assure myself through faith in Jesus Christ. But beloved, Christians don't learn that in a vacuum. They have to be taught those things. It's one of the reasons that we at Grace Covenant Church try to put such an emphasis on discipleship. And by the way, if you think that's weird, beloved, if you think that's weird, just remember that the marching orders of Jesus Christ are given in Matthew 28, and what does it say? Go into the world, preach the news of the gospel, baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them all that I have taught you. Disciple them. Disciple the nations. We are to disciple one another in this place. So I think this is a picture of the church. This is her beauty extolled, and this is the beauty that we as a congregation should look upon. Beloved, I see that. Your elders see that in you. The elders see you discipling one another, I mean, just over the past five years, to see the vistas that have been open in your willingness to be transparent with one another in our prayer meetings on Sunday night. that you would get up to the microphone and say, I've got a heavy burden on my heart, and the scripture tells me, here's that narrative again, right? My narrative says, conceal it, don't let anybody know. It's none of their business. Stay out of my world. Stay out of my house. Stay out of my concerns. That's not what the Bible says. Not what the Bible says. Bible says, let the brethren of Christ bear your burdens. How are they gonna know what your burdens are unless you tell them? They're not. The answer is they won't. And one of the things that we've seen by God's grace in this place is as brothers and sisters have opened themselves up and become vulnerable, and become transparent, and they've asked the congregation to pray for them, you know what the Lord has done? He's answered those prayers. We heard that last Sunday night. He's answering those prayers. Does he always answer them the way we want him to answer them? No, but see, that's part of the school of Christ when we think about prayer. Part of the school of Christ is trying to conform our wills to the will of the Father as we're praying. So we pray, Father, we want this to be done, but not my will, but your will be done. And if you decide to make your will be done, that conform my heart and my emotions and my whole being to accept that. That's what happens in the school of prayer. And again, I come back, we have to teach our people to do that. And not only do we teach them, and then it's like, it's not like, okay, I got it, let's move on. No, you practice it, you maintenance it. Teenagers, do you just put oil in your car once a year? I hope you don't, okay? You need to keep maintenancing those pistons, okay? They're gonna burn up. I know some of you have told me stories, okay? But you're supposed to maintenance it. You don't put gas in your car one time. You continue, you just keep going, you maintenance it. That's the life of sanctification. Well finally, what is the price and purchase of this beauty? I want you to look at verse six. What is the price and purchase of this beauty? Christ says in verse six, Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will go away to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. There is so much biblical typology here. Myrrh, beloved, and you know this, you should know this, myrrh is associated with death. Myrrh is one of the oils, if you will, that they anoint the dead with. And so what he's saying here, I believe, is I'm gonna go away to the mountain of Myrrh, that is Calvary. I will go to the mountain and I will die for my beloved so that she will be beautiful. I will go to the mountain of Myrrh and I will take the punishment that stands over our people, the wrath, the unmitigated wrath of God that they deserve. I will take it upon myself and God will turn his back And I will be punished accordingly in their place. That is the mountain of Myrrh, but then he goes on. He will not stop there. He will rise and he will go to the hill of frankincense. What is frankincense often associated with? Well, it's associated with deity. And what we see here is a picture of Jesus ascending to the right hand of the Father. claiming and declaring victory over death, hell, and the grave, claiming victory over the kingdom of darkness, claiming victory over all his people. He has brought his elect in, he has given them the blessing of the spirit, and one day he will come back and he will reign on a final mountain, and that is Mount Zion and the new heavens and the new earth. And so Christ goes to the mountain of Myrrh, he proceeds to the hill of Frankincense, and one day he will be seated, finally and fully and forever, on Mount Zion. So this is Christ. He is laid out for you this morning. And some of you do not know Christ this morning. Some of you continue in your hard-hearted, unrepentant state. Some of you think that your narrative is just fine. I'm okay with what I'm doing. God's okay, you're okay, I'm okay. Somebody wrote a book about that in the 70s, and that's my life. You're okay, I'm okay. You're not okay, my friend. You're not okay. You may have come here this morning dressed up in your Sunday best, and that's great. Good on you. But as we heard in Sunday school this morning, the book of Ephesians tells us in chapter two that we are dead men and women walking, stinking, rotting, decaying zombies apart from Christ. And it's not that we are just passively being led along, no, we are actively leading this life because we love our sin. We love disobedience because Ephesians says we are sons of wrath and sons of disobedience and all of this by our nature. And so I would submit to you this morning that what you think to be natural, what you think to be right, okay, is the polar opposite of what God says you are to be. God says that you are to be absolutely perfect, and you're not, and that's the bad news. The good news is he sent his son into the world. absolute perfection, obeyed the law in the stead of his people, took the punishment of the sins of his people in their place, so that through repentance and faith, you get his righteousness, he takes your punishment, and on the final day, he will indeed say to you, if you believe in the Savior, well done, my good and faithful servant. I call you to repentance this morning, each and every one of us. Turn from your sins, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you that you have given us this picture of beauty, that you think this way about the church because of what your son has done, that you think this way about the church because you delight in the ministry of the Spirit in the hearts and lives of your people. And I pray, Father God, that as we are sent out from this place, We would seek to strike symmetry between what you have declared us to be and what we really are. I pray that you would help us by your spirit for your glory and through your grace to be who we are. Help us to relish repentance. Help us to seek repentance. Help us to be living, walking, breathing examples of humble contrition of heart repentance and faith in Jesus Christ that we might be an aroma