Song of Songs 2019

That's Mark chapter 14, starting to read at verse 3. While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the leper, A woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume made of pure nod, She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to 1 another, Why this waste of perfume, it could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor. And they rebuked her harshly. Leave her alone said Jesus.

Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor, you will always have with you, and you can help them anytime you want, but you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.

Truly, I tell you wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her. Our second reading this morning is taken from the song of songs chapter 1 verse 9 which can be found on page 680 of the church bibles. That's Son of songs chapter 1, starting to read at verse 9. I liken you my darling to a mayor among Ferro's chariot horses. Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings.

Your neck with strings of jewels. We will make you earrings of gold studded with silver. While the king was at his table, my perfume spread its fragrance. My beloved is to me a sachet of myr resting between my breasts. My beloved is to me a cluster of Hannah blossoms from the vineyards of Angeti.

How beautiful you are, my darling? Oh, how beautiful. Your eyes are dull. How handsome you are, my beloved, owe how charming and our bed is verdant. The beams of our house are cedars, our rafters, our furs.

I am a rose of Chevron, a lily of the valleys. Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the young women. Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved, among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade. And his fruit is sweet to my taste.

Let him lead me to the banquet hall and let his banner over me be love. Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples for I am faint with love. His left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me. Daughter of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the doze of the field. Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

Pete. Well, welcome. My name's Pete Woodcock. I'm the pastor of the church, and we've been going through this, book of song of songs. Or we started a couple of weeks ago, and you can pick up on those, talks if you if you want to on our our website.

Let me, just pray. Father god help us now, please, as we look at this amazing love poem, love song, help us to see great truths in it that would affect our lives Jesus name, Arm. God god is a very generous giver, and he's given us the 5 5 senses, touch and sight and hearing, smell and taste. And they're wonderful things if you think about them, but often we just don't. We we just sort of have them and never really think about them.

And 1 of the problems is we can be bombarded with a whole overload of in those senses. And never slow down and focus and savor. You get that with wine tasters. I was talking about wine tasters last last week, but you get that with wine tasters. They they savor the wine.

They never just gulp it, do they? They smell it and allow it to go over their palate. You get it with food tasters, you know, on these TV programs, a great British menu, and master chef, and stuff. It's not just like a canard eating, which is just for fuel to get out and play football. It's sort of savoring it and tasting it and allowing the flavors to grow in their mouth.

Think about smell. People will grow a particular flower and they'll spend a lot of their time and energy in growing that particular flower so that they can have that particular perfume and they'll spend a lot of time. Think about sight people spend lots of money to go on holiday to slow down, to see a beautiful view, or to, see a particularly rare animal or to to actually just enjoy sight in some ways and slow down in some ways or they go to an art gallery and have a look at a painting, and they'll spend a long time just meditating on that painting. Think of music. And it can transport you, can't it if you allow it to, not just sort of in a lift, not just bombarded with locked of noise, but actually you can slow down with music and it can give you great joy or make you very sad and bring tears.

Think of a warm shower and the feeling of a lovely warm shower when you've been on a dirty camp for a week and it's just just just delicious. Well, song of songs does this for us. It's very rich in this type of description. It it clearly uses the 5 senses, smell and taste and touch and seeing and hearing. And I think 1 of the most helpful things it's it's trying to heighten those senses or to slow us down to embrace those senses and see how beautiful things are to slow us down and see this lovely love story between a lover and his beloved to slow us down so we can savor and smell and look and taste It's a poem and that's what poems are meant to do.

They're a strange thing a poem really. They often use words and terms that we're not that familiar with and they're meant to. They're they're meant to slow you down and make you think about what you're reading and meditate a bit on that. And that's what this is. This is a love poem between a king Solomon and a woman called the Schulamite woman.

We don't even know her name. But it slows us down. So we're gonna go into a couple of scenes here. Scene 1. Scene 1 is before a banquet I think, anyway, as I'll try to show you.

It's before a banquet. It seems that Solomon is talking to his lover about what's gonna happen. He's gonna take her to a banquet. Some official do. You can see that in verse 12 of chapter 1 says while the king is at his table, he's at his banqueting table.

So she's gonna go as an invited guest and that would mean that she's gonna feel very out of place because remember the story. She's just a country girl. She's not a palace dignitary. But there's gonna be palace dignities and palace beauties all over the place and she's not that secure in her own looks and in her own body. And especially what's gonna happen is he will sit at a high kingly table and she will have to sit somewhere else in the room probably with the women.

And so before this banquet that she's gonna be very unfamiliar with, he wants to assure her that he has eyes only for her, not for the palace beauties. He wants to make her feel very comfortable in that setting, and he wants to adorn her with jewelry. So that people will know, wow, she's wearing the king's jewelry. That's what he wants. So let's listen to his pre banquet encouragement because she's gonna be nervous country girl in this situation.

Verse 9 then of chapter 1, I liken you my darling. Now the word darling is a word that he uses again and again for her. It seems to be their their lover's word. And people have that, don't they? And darling, actually it's fairly common word for just female companion but darling in the English means my only 1.

My you're you're my only 1, so is a lovely word to use. So he starts off well, doesn't he? This is the pre banquet encouragement. I liken you my darling, but it seems to go a little bit wrong. He's not thinking woman here.

He's doing male poetry here. Look at verse 9. I like it you, my darling. Great. To a male.

Now, a male, if you don't know what it is, is a female horse. I liken you my darling to a female horse harnessed to 1 of the chariots of pharaoh, a sort of enslaved female horse. Darling you're beautiful. I want to encourage you. When I think of you, I think of a horse.

You know, why the long face? You know, I think of a horse. Now blokes, if you're thinking of using this, I'm sorry, I'll get these jokes out of the way. I'm not normally a joke person. But, if you want a stable relationship, then, then it's it's it's not a it's not a good eyed not a good idea to to liken the 1 that you like to a horse.

1 commentator, and it just shows you how silly some of the commentaries are on this book 1 commentator thinks that she's compared to a horse because she has very large haunches, he says, suitable for child bearing, much child bearing. Now, I don't think I don't think there's any culture in the world where a woman would say I love your hon you know, if you said to a woman, I love your haunches because you could give me loads of children. Well, maybe there is, but it's it's not gonna work here. I can tell you. But the truth is that a horse is a very beautiful animal and solomons absolutely besotted with horses.

If you read about Solomon in the of the Bible in 1 kings chapter 10. We're told he has 12000 horses. He is the 1 that introduced Israel to horses. There weren't any his horses in Israel until Solomon and he got them from Egypt And what you're saying is I liken you my darling to a male, a female horse, Hasson harnessed to 1 of the chariots of of Ferrick. What he's saying in his strange way is that you're a pure bread.

Your well proportion Pharo wouldn't have any old man and any old horse, but you're beautiful. We're what he's saying is that you're like a Ferrari in the in the car park. Now that might be better but even that I'm not sure would work but you could try it. If you fancy a girl, you're like a Ferrari in the car park of voxels. But that's the sort of thing that he's saying.

You're precisionly made, you're a BMW. You run nicely. That's what he's saying. And then of course, for a mayor, to be harnessed to the chariot of Ferra. That would never be.

You only had male horses. If you put a female horse amongst the male horses, the male horses go nuts. They go crazy. And that's his point I liken you to a female horse amongst the horses. In other words, I'm mad over you.

I'm nuts over you. I'm like a male horse that has a female horse, fastened to it, and you're you've you captivate me. So he's trying to encourage her, and then he adorns her to make her even more beautiful verse 10 and 11 of chapter 1. Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of jewels. We will make you earrings of gold and studded with silver.

Jewelry, perfumes, clothes. He wants to give them because he loves her, and he wants to give them he wants to spend money on her. And adorn her to show off her beauty, to show that she is his. That's scene 1 Now what we're doing with song of songs is going to show what this means for Christ and the church, Jesus, and his people, and it's very beautiful. Much of our spiritual problems and our lack of commitment actually is down to the fact that we don't see our selves as the lord Jesus Christ sees us.

That is why I'm doing these sermons in song of songs. Don't you know if you're someone that's put their faith in Jesus, don't you know that you take pride that, or rather, he takes pride in you, that you're in his heart. Don't you know that? The trouble is we we look at ourselves so so quickly. We take selfies so quickly.

We saw that last week. We we see ourselves as so ugly and so unattractive. And then, of course, compared to others, how could he love me? I'm a sinner condemned and unclean. But he does love us.

He likens us to a mayor He's mad over us. Now let me put this in a doctrine away because I think we need to get this. This is the truth of what is called justification by faith alone. It's a wonderful Christian teaching Actually, is what we were going on and on about when we were dealing with Romans, the whole book of Romans, that's why we spent 3 years in Romans because we wanted to underline this amazing truth that we are justified made right with god by faith in what Jesus has done. Someone called the the doctor in this justification takes place in the courts of heaven not in the nervous system of the believer.

Let me say that again because I think it's so profound. Justification, in other words, being made right with god, takes place in the courts of heaven not in the nervous system of the believer. In other words, justification has been settled in heaven before god. The moment you trust in Jesus, the moment you look to the lord Jesus Christ. Something amazing takes place.

Something wonderful takes place. A wonderful exchange takes place. Your sin and you are sinful is put to his account and his sinless perfection. His beauty is put to your account. There's a swap His spotless beautiful rightness before the Holy all seeing God is put to your account and your blame and sin is put to his account and now you are robed in the rightness of Jesus.

So when god looks at you, he doesn't see your sin or your wrinkles or your ugliness. He sees the beauty of the lord Jesus Christ. Martin Luther, who was a great German reformer, called this doctrine. He said the he he he he said that this was the doctrine. The article of standing or falling of a church that the doctrine of justification that you're right with god by simply trusting what he has done for you in Jesus.

Is the article of standing or falling in the church that church stands or falls on this truth by this truth and you as a believer move forward or back according to the grasp of this truth. I know Christians that have been Christians for years and years, but they haven't gone anywhere. They've never grown in their Christian life. Because they've not really got to grips with this truth. They've not really understood it.

They keep feeling insecure or unsure of their place in the affections of Christ because they don't understand this teaching. They feel they can't come to him. They feel that he can't be affectionate towards me They come to church and they don't rejoice. They're not praising god with all of their heart because they feel like gate crashes at a party. They shouldn't really be here.

If you really knew what I was like, I shouldn't really be here. Better for me to go and find joy at home in a box set or something because at least I feel comfortable there. Or they feel insecure and they think I've got to try to win his favor somehow. So they're never filled with gratitude because it's always about what they to do and the duty of coming to church and doing this stuff and it's all becomes a sort of ugly duty rather than something that's trans formed your life. I'm here because I love him.

I'm here because I love to meet with him. I'm here because he loves me. He loves me. So they're like the sort of slaves. They come up into the into the top of the house and they do their Christian service, but they're always sulking back down into the into the basement because he doesn't really want me around, does he?

It's all duty. Have you grasped justification by fa have you read on it? Get some heavy books and read deeply on it. Not just lightly get into it. Are you just intellectual with it?

You know what it means but your heart hasn't been broken and transformed, and you don't realize that you take pride of place in the heart of the lord Jesus Christ, slow down, breathe in this wonderful truth take it into your senses. I am right with god, not because I'm good, not because I'm a preacher, not because I'm a anything, but because of him and what he's done. But then there's more, isn't there? In this story that this story shows because Solomon goes on not only shows that he loves her, loves her, unconditionally, but actually he adorns her Look at verse 11 again. We will make your earrings of gold studded with silver.

You're beautiful to me, but I'm gonna make you beautiful too. Here's another word. This is the doctrine of sanctification. Justification, we'll look at that again in a minute, This is sanctification. Doctor Martin Lloyd Jones, a preacher from last century defines sanctification as this.

Listen, Christ's beauty treatment for the church. Christ's beauty treatment for the church. Men love buying their wives gifts. They love it. It I mean, wives can't understand it half the time.

But blokes, we love buying wives things. And don't be stingy about that. I mean, if you've got this wrong your idea that you begrudge your wife a nice hairdo or some nice jewelry. You're you're strange. That's not Christian.

That's not. We love to adorn our wives. We love them to have their hair done. We love to buy them jewelry in whatever way we can afford it, but we love it. And Christ loves it too.

It's Christ like he loves to adorn. His, his, his beloved. Christ's intention and commitment to the church is found in ephesians chapter 5 verse 27. Just listen to it. He wants to present her.

That's the church. That's his people. To present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless That's what he loves doing. Now, it's very important to get these 2 doctrines not muddled up or see the difference between these 2 doctrines. Let me just go over them.

Justification has to do with the position that you hold in Christ's affection that has nothing to do with what you do. It's not to do with how you feel, actually. Although when what I'm trying to tell you today is when you understand that I'm in a right position with god through Christ, that Christ loves me as his bride when I understand that it has to bring feelings into it. It's a great joy. I'm at liberty to praise him.

But it's to do with our position. It's a legal word. Sanctification, on the other hand, is to do with what we're like now, what's going on in our lives now, how god is dealing and and adorning us now. An old puritan called Richard Tibbs says this, in the Court of justification, merits, as things you do, in the court of justification merits are worth nothing. What you do are worth nothing, but in the Court of sanctification, they are jewels and ornaments.

You see that? You can't earn a place in Christ's affections. But sanctification of jewels and ord ornaments that ornam or ornaments that he gives us and that we place on There's there's it's a cooperative work sanctification. God works in us and we work it out. We work it out.

God works in us. It's god's beauty treatment. He gives us these jewels and we put them on. And just 1 last thing under this this scene. It's it's a corporate thing.

Did you notice verse 11 where it says we will make your earrings? These are her friends making it. This is Christian Fellowship. This is what it's all about. We help each other understand justification so that we can be liberated and sing his praises.

It's all to him. It's not just duty. It's wonderful and sanctification that he adorns us and it's the church. See those 3 great truths that are here in this story. It's a corporate thing as we help each other.

We need each other. Are you still with me? Back to the story then. We're gonna do sort of back to what it means today and, and the story, we're gonna do this throughout So we have this intimate scene before the banquet. Now we have the banquet.

And in the banquet, we see her response. It's a hostile world, remember to her, and we see her response. So seen to the banquet, His warm words, verses 9 to 11, his gifts have produced a fragrance from her. She responds. The king is at his table.

You see that in verse 12. The room is probably full of foreign dignitaries and ambassadors and court officials and and their boring wives who are waffling on that she has to sit with waffling on about the latest face creams that she knew nothing about. And the latest entertainer that's touring around the the royal courts, and he say funny, isn't he? In thought he wasn't. And she's looking across the crowded room, and everything goes out of focus.

And she sees him who she's longing for. Verse 12, while the king was at his table, my perfume spread its fragrance. The perfume that is mentioned here is a particular perfume. It's called spike nerd. Those of you who know what Spike nerd is, I'm not gonna go into details, but it's Spike nerd and something about his words and something about how he's treated her.

It's it's a very expensive perfume that comes from from India. And it causes her fragrance to go. Look at verse 13. My lover is to me a sachet of myr resting between my breasts. Now, myrrh was was is like a a sort of disinfectant and you would wear it to stop the bugs coming and nasty diseases coming.

It's like a disinfect and so she's saying I'm wearing something between her breasts, intimate place where her heart is. So I'm wearing this thing in this intimate place to to protect me from anybody else, but your love. Look at verse 14, my lover to me is a cluster of Hannah blossoms. From the vineyards of Engedi. A henna, possibly, it's a small sort of clump They cluster together, their white yellow flowers, and they're found particularly in the valley of Engedi.

Engedi is like a little oasis on the shore of the dead sea. It's a desert all around. There is a dead sea that nothing lives in and there's this Imgedi, this little oasis, and in this oasis, the henna grows. And so her thoughts are going across the room. Remember?

She's in an alien place, a banquet she doesn't like with these boring women waffling on about whatever it is they're talking about. And her mind goes away from their waffle. She's not interested. She's in this desert, but she sees the Ngededi and she sees this this henna blossom and it's him. Got you got the picture?

Her senses are filled up. With love, her fragrance has given off. Did you hear that story in Mark chapter 14 that we read about the woman in Bethany. You hear that story? The woman with an alabaster jar Do you know what the perfume was in that jar?

Spike nerd. What does she do when she sees Jesus? Well, this is her inheritance almost definitely. It's worth a year's wages. A year's wages.

She comes and breaks it over Jesus' his feet and everybody's saying that's ridiculous because the fragrance goes off on his feet. It's extravagant. She's obsessive. A year's wages on his feet. Doesn't she care about the poor?

It's always someone saying something like that, isn't it? But she can't help herself. She's taken up with 1 man. So let's get into our thoughts of Christ and the church. Do you see it here?

Do you see it here? You know, it's lovely, isn't it? When the warmth of the sun comes up and then the flowers, the flowers are underneath the earth, and the warmth of the sun causes dead bulbs. To come up and flower. It's a beautiful picture, isn't it?

And the warmth of the sun of god on the church causes her to release her perfume. Is this what we do as a church? This is what I'm trying to say is. That's why I talked about the senses. Will you allow Christ to fill up your senses?

So that you'll release your praise. Just turn to Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians 3. And verse 16. Someone tell me what page number this is on.

Phhesians chapter 3, Page number, please? 1 1 7 4. 1 1 7 4 of the church Bibles. And here is Paul, and this is Paul, an apostle, sent by Jesus. He's writing to a church that are in the in the city of Ephasis.

And he writes this in chapter 3 verse 16, he he's showing us a prayer. This is his desire for the church. I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being. What a prayer. Now, I gotta be careful.

I don't preach this. So but do you get that? Verse 17, that look, look, so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith. And I pray that you may that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of god.

My goodness, do you see the filling words, the sense words, the taking over words? What does it mean then? Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith? What does it mean to have another person dwell in your heart? What does it mean for for Christ to dwell in your heart?

Well, it obviously means to occupy your affections and you're thinking. Now how does that happen? Well, look at verse 17 of chapter 3 of ephesians. Christ may dwell in your heart through faith. But what is faith?

Well, faith is is trust, and faith is trust of the soul trusting in what it looks at. It's like an eye. So faith is like an eye. An eye looks at an object. It focuses on the object.

I'm focusing on Daryl. I wish wasn't. It focuses on Daryl, and that image then is formed in my head. I have Daryl in my head. It's extraordinary.

Oh, now I have some others. But my eye focuses and that's what happens and that's what faith is. Faith looks to the lord Jesus Christ trusts in the lord Jesus Christ sees how he was revealed in in scriptures focuses our attention on him and his he is formed in my heart. Do you see that? Faith is like an eye.

As I gaze at the thing I gaze at, it's formed in my heart. It's like the sun, the sun came in. It's beautiful, isn't it? The sun this morning? Especially after yesterday.

There's a sun coming to your room. There's a little crack, isn't there first? And the sun sort of breaks into the room in the morning. It's just a little it has a way of getting through the curtain, and then you open up the curtains. What I do to Anne with a cup of tea.

It's a lovely day and the curtains are opened up and you you open the curtains. So it comes flooding into the room and it fills the room with warmth and light And that's what Paul is concerned about for these Christians. They have faith. Yes. They've looked at Christ.

Yes. But he wants Christ to dwell in their hearts. He once fling those curtains wide. Don't just let the crack. Wopen them wide.

Allow the warmth of Christ to come in. The light of Christ into your heart. Now of course in 1 sense, the sun isn't in the room. The sun is 93000000 miles away whatever it is and more, isn't it? The sun is millions of miles away, but in another sense the sun is in the room.

Of course Christ is at the right hand of god the father. Of course he is, reigning and ruling as he as he ascended into heaven. He's the court, but nevertheless by his spirit. There's something of the of Christ that comes into our heart. So I'm saying to you, will you be taken up with the sense?

Of Christ as we're taken up with the sun in the room and know his warmth and his light gaze at him, See how deep and wide and high. His love is. Can you see that? The shape of a cross, isn't it? High and deep, and wide as the ocean is the love of Christ.

We used to sing those little songs. They're terrific, aren't they? Why? Why does the ocean? High is the heaven above.

Deep deepest and deepest is my, savior's love. An amazing little song, isn't it? Fill up your senses. Spend time. Think deep drink deep about these doctrines of justification and sanctification and the church and his love for me be filled in the heart with it.

Be taken up. Don't rush. Spend this week. Eek out some time. Read some of the verses.

Be taken up with Christ. We're so taken up. Our senses are so full. So stuffed. It's like we've eaten sweets after sweets and therefore when a meal is presented to us, we can't eat it, we feel sick, but be filled with a good meal.

I love guess who's going, coming to lunch, especially when I'm a guest, which I am, because I don't eat much breakfast. Well, I look at I look and see who I'm going to, obviously. There's some people I eat a lot of breakfast, but it's quite nice not eating much breakfast because I'm going to burnt and yummies. So I'm looking for something good here. Yeah.

I haven't eaten much breakfast. So I'm pretty sure your parents better better be better be better be meat. Yeah? See, when I go to a vegetarian, I think, oh my goodness. But, you know, this is good.

So, you you know, we can spoil our senses with all kinds of things and forget Christ. He's saying, Get Christ to fill up your senses. There's a third scene I'm sorry. This is why it's quite long, but I want to get to this. There's a third scene that It's basically her senses are filled up and it and it goes like this.

You you fill up my senses like a night in the forest. Because she now seems to go outside. So scene 3 is outside. It's like down lovers Lane. So all the truths we've seen, it's rubbed in again.

This is a poem rubbing it in again. This time, it seems we're walking down lovers lane. At least we're outside. Well, if we're not outside, she's daydreaming of being outside. Remember she's an outside girl, Look at verse 17.

That's what tells me it's outside. The beams of our house are cedars are rafters of furs. In other words, she's in the forest. It's the night in the forest. She says in chapter 2 verse 1, I'm a rose of Sharon.

A lily of the lily of uh-uh lily of the valleys. Very common pla plants. If your name is Lily, you're a common person. If your name is Rose, you're particularly common. Yeah?

You can call yourself Rosie to try and sort of make it nicer. You're common. Yeah? Very, very common. You're just an average girl.

That's what she's saying. I'm just an I'm not a now hold it. You gotta get me and listen to me here. She's saying I'm not a cultivated palace orchid. I'm just a wild flower.

And what does Solomon do? Notice. He doesn't argue with her. He agrees. That is what you are.

But in a positive way, look at verse 2 of chapter 2, Like a lily among the thorns is my darling among the maidens. He doesn't make her feel inferior. He doesn't make her feel second best. He doesn't have a big argument about her and say, that come on my dear, you will be an orchid 1 day. Come on my dear.

You're my, you know, you're the woman I'm going out with. We're going to be married. You've got to grow up a little bit. He affirms her. He says, yes.

My love. You are a wild outdoor rose. You are a wild outdoor lily. But you're a lily amongst thorns when I compare you with these orchids, they're like thorns to me. He builds up her love.

He's not waiting for her to be made into an orchid. He doesn't want an orchid He could have had any orc that he liked. You see, you gotta get this. She's changed her position from a servant girl that she was in early chapter 1, to now becoming the wife of the king but she's not changed her personality, and he doesn't want her to. He wants to marry a wild rose, He wants to marry a common lily.

He doesn't want to cultivate an orchid. He's sick of them. And her response is to be refreshed and feel secure. Look at verse 3, Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my lover among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade and his fruit is sweet to my taste In other words, the way he treats her, she doesn't feel any harm, she feels refreshed, She's in the midnight in the mid sun and she's in the shade.

She was not normally used to being in the shade, but she's under his shade She's eating the sweet apple. She's not emotionally broken and confused after going out with him. She loves him. She's refreshed. It's sweet.

It's like eating a juicy apple in midday under his shade. It's beautiful. And then look at verse 4. He has taken me to the banquet hall, his banner over me is love. A banner, that's the thing that you rally the troops under.

You know, you lift up a banner and you blow the trumpet and the troops come together and she feels that secure that she is under the banner and his troops are there to protect her And so she's secure. It's beautiful. Okay. We're nearly finished. Christ and the church.

Christ and the church. When you became a Christian, Did you lose your personality? Did you stop being you I really hope not. I really hope not. When I became a Christian, There were many things I needed to repent of, but I noticed people tried to make me a personality that I wasn't.

And there's something wrong about that. I had to repent, of some of the music that I was listening to at the time because it was like a little god to me to to particularly me, but I remember someone gave me a record by a Christian woman I genuinely think at least in my mind. It's the worst music I've ever heard in my life. I mean, genuinely. It was a Christian woman, and she was blind, and I better be careful what I say.

I met her a few months ago. It was an awful experience. But, it was supposed to be that I thought, oh, this is what I'm to like now. It was a horrible voice of woman that couldn't sing. She played, I bet not tell you the instrument.

I thought rubbish. I hated the songs. I hated her voice. I hated her instrument. I hated the record, but I thought, oh, I'm a Christian.

I have to like this. I listened to it over and over again. And it just made me more angry. It made me hate the music more. I couldn't like it.

And eventually I suddenly thought, no, it's just bad music. I'm not listening to it. I think I might still have it somewhere. I'm gonna listen to it again to make sure it is that bad. I think it is.

This is the difference between Christianity and a cult. You are not lost in god when you become a Christian. You are not lost in God. You're found in Christ. That's the difference between mysticism and Christianity We are not lost in god and therefore lose our individual personality and become sort of some kind of blob non person.

We're found in Christ. You're a rose. You're a lily. He doesn't want an orchid. You don't disappear when you become a Chris It's the opposite.

You're enhanced. You're sanctified. That which is wrong in your personality is worked upon you're adorned, you become more you than you ever were before. It's sin that dehumanizes us It's sin that destroys our unique identity. It's sin that wants us to clone and be like everybody else and smell like everybody else and look like everybody else It's sin that conforms us to the pattern of this world so that we have to say and do what everybody else does.

But when we're in Christ, we're uniquely who we are in him justified as a wild rose. As a lily of the valley. Do you see that? And when you understand that, it's like eating apples, It's so refreshing. When you understand his love for you as you are, then It's like eating apples.

I can be Pete. Why are you trying to conform me to be like you? You can be Rose, you can be Lily. Why are we trying to conform you to be something you're not? When you're everything in Christ.

Do you see that? And his banner over you is love. God demonstrates his love to you in this. While you were still a sinner, Christ died for you. There's the banner of love.

Do you understand these things? Meditate on them. Let him fill up your senses like a night in the forest. Let him fill up your senses. Come.

Let me love him. Let me love him again. Father god, you know each 1 in this room, and you know these truths that we need to hear please give us the time and the senses to smell, to taste, to see, to hear, but we may be taken up with the love of Christ, amen.