It's what happens when you fly
back kind of late. But imagine if I had chosen to
drive. That wouldn't have worked too
well. Ok. Well they'll get some of the
informal banner here at Informal Grace Community Church. All right, let's pray. Heavenly
Father, thank you once again. And we always thank you for this,
Lord, because we're always thankful for it, that we can meet in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ and hear about him. And as we
meet this morning, we pray especially for our brother, Bruce Crabtree,
as he approaches the first Lord's
Day with his wife gone. And Lord, I know that he will
find a blessing at worship, but it'll still be difficult. Bless
him, Lord, in this day and in the coming days. In Christ's
name we pray, amen. Beginning in verse nine of Song
of Songs, chapter one, I liken you, my darling, to a
mare, harnessed to one of the chariots of Pharaoh. 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 lover is to me as a sachet
of myrrh resting between my breasts. My lover is to me a cluster of
henna blossoms from the vineyards of En Gedi. How beautiful you
are, my darling. Oh, how beautiful. Your eyes
are doves. How handsome you are, my lover.
Oh, how charming. The beams of our house are cedars,
our rafters are furs. Now, I've entitled this portion
Mutual Admiration Society. And that's a phrase I didn't
use too often, but I do remember there was a song probably from
the 40s, maybe early 50s. We belong to a mutual admiration
society, and it was a man and a woman, you know, singing to
one another. And so that's what we have here.
We have Solomon and the Shulamite going back and forth, speaking
with love, admiration, and praise regarding the other one. Now,
I don't know how far we'll get. I thought I was going to get
through that entire section, but I told Bonnie this morning
on the way over here, I really, I got through verse one studying.
And I mean, you know, writing notes and she said, well, we're
in there wherever you're done, you're done for now. We'll just
pick it up. And I guess I shouldn't, shouldn't bother me, but I, I
keep thinking, get these in neat, um, lesson chunks, but that's
what we'll do. We'll just get as far as we get
and then quit. Now in this. that we read, of course, it is
Solomon who first speaks. In the previous verse, he had
told the Shulamite how he was to be found. She says, how can
I find you? And he says, follow the sheep
and then find the shepherds and sit with them in their tents.
And we pointed out that the way we find Christ, our spiritual
lover, follow the sheep. Be where the sheep are. Find
his sheep. He's there. And then find his
shepherds, those whom he has called to declare his truth. They're watching the sheep. And
it's interesting, you know, he said, to find them in their tents. Now, one of the things she had mentioned
about herself was that she was black, but she was not black
because she was of the black race. She said, the sun has looked
upon me. She'd had to work. And so she
was just darkly tanned. woman has to act as a shepherdess
when she's out there unless she completely covers herself she's
going to get tanned just like anybody else would. So she said,
must I dwell as a covered woman you know out in the fields? He
said, no you go to the shepherds and you graze your goats with
them because they are grazing the sheep. But the picture I
think she's saying you find one of those shepherds and you get
in his tent you'll be in the shade. And not only will you
be able to see the ones you're in charge of, that shepherd will
be watching them too. He'll watch them. But the point
was, among the sheep, with the shepherds, that's where you'd
find the chief shepherd. No doubt, when he said, be with
the shepherds, he meant the shepherds he had hired to watch his flock. He said, that's where I'll be.
And our Lord said, where two or three are gathered together.
There I am. There I am. So having said that,
the next words are, I liken you, my darling. So she's done this.
She's followed the sheep, the tracks of the sheep. She's with
the shepherds and the great shepherd appears and speaks to her and
says, I liken you, my darling, to a mare harnessed to one of
the chariots of Pharaoh. Now translators, take a good
deal of liberty, especially when you get into poetry like this.
Because, you know, poetry is just by the very nature of it,
it will use words with broad interpretive possibilities. But some translations put it here
where he just calls her my love. But the word simply means friend. I'll give you some examples.
Now, it's only used 10 times. Well, I shouldn't say that. This
is the feminine form of the word friend. And it's used only 10
times in the Old Testament. Nine of them are in Song of Solomon. One of them is in the book of
Judges. And if you remember the story
of Japheth, who having, by the Lord's empowering, conquered
enemies, he comes home and he makes this oath. He's so thankful
to the Lord, he said, I'll sacrifice the first thing that comes out
the door. That turned out to be his daughter. And there's
great debate over whether he ever really sacrificed her, but
what she said was, give me two months to wander the wilderness
with my friends. Now, they wouldn't have been
romantic friends, she was talking about. just the other maidens
that she knew. And she said that I may mourn
my virginity. In other words, it's my opinion
that what happened was rather than her actually be sacrificed,
that a lamb was sacrificed in her place. However, she was from
then on as though a dead woman, never married, which was, you
know, never bearing children, which would have been tough for
a woman of that day to think in those terms. But nonetheless,
the word friends there just referred to friends as we normally think
of the word friend. Now, I looked up some scriptures
about friends and also just, you know, considered some things
about what we mean as when we refer to someone as a friend. A friend is someone who has,
or friends are those with a mutual love and regard. Now, you can't be friends with
somebody who does not consider you a friend. You may wish they
were friends, but there's not friendship until it's a two-way
street, really. Christ and his church. have mutual
love and regard for one another. Now, I'm going to just go over
these points that I've made briefly, because actually as I studied
them and I thought, okay, this is the morning worship service,
and I'm just going to touch on these points, because there are
six or seven of them, and then expand on them in the morning
message. But a friend, friends, they are those with mutual love
and respect. for one another. Look over at
John chapter 15. We'll see a few things about
what it is to be a friend as our Lord teaches them that he considers
them to be friends. John 15 verse 16. You did not choose me, but I
chose you. Friends are those you choose. Now earlier, I said, you can't
be a friend unless it's a reciprocal arrangement. Um, and that's true
for the most, you know, among strictly human relationships.
Uh, Christ was a friend to us, acted the part of a friend to
us far before we ever acknowledged that friendship. And that's his
point here. He said, our friendship didn't
start with you choosing me. It started with me choosing you.
And such is the power of the Lord that his choice of friends
always results in them choosing his friendship. So when he says
you did not choose me, he's not meaning that in the absolute
sense. Everyone chosen of God chooses him back. The point is,
how did this friendship start? But you've heard the phrase probably,
you choose your friends, but your family gets handed to you,
you know? And that's true. If someone doesn't
please us, if we don't have mutual love and regard, if we don't
have some of the other things I mentioned about friendship,
we don't choose to be friends with them. Maybe even if they
want to be friends with us. And a friend is constant. It
says in Proverbs 17, 17, a friend loves at all times. That was the first Bible verse
I ever learned. Of course, I learned it in King
James. The friend loveth at all times.
Now that's only half the verse. The next statement is a brother
is born for adversity or a brother is born for the tough times is
what it means. And, uh, but a friend loves at all times. And probably
all of us have experienced that in our natural friendships, because
sometimes we get upset at friends or sometimes we accidentally
offend a friend. But if it's a true friend, the
friend doesn't quit loving us because we did something wrong
and vice versa. Those friendships. that are based
on never being offended aren't really what I'd call friendships,
because there's no love involved in them. It's just almost like
a political friendship. You know, these politicians act
like they're friends, and they're friends until, you know, one
of them goes one way on a political issue and one goes the other,
and then their paths separate. A friend loves always. I hear people saying, you know,
I've had, this is a lifelong friend. And you know, if it's
a real friend, that's what it'll turn out to be. And then a friend,
um, a friend, Oh, forgot to apply that to Christ. Where else more
does that apply than our Lord Jesus Christ and the friendship
he initiated towards us and the friendship that we return. We are friends, and we will always
be friends. He's a friend of sinners and
tax collectors, said the Pharisees to condemn him. Well, if he's
a friend of sinners and tax collectors, let me be one, because I want
to be his friend. A friend is one with shared interests. Rarely is there any meaningful
friendship Friendship where the two do not have at least something
in common And that's where the word fellowship comes from to
have in common So you think about nearly all of your friends the
ones you associate with the ones that you expect that so long
as Circumstances allow you'll always find enjoyment with you
have some kind of interest in or some kind of common interest.
But what's interesting, as friendships develop, sometimes the common
interest becomes nothing more than one another. Because, you know, lives change.
Maybe you became friends in high school, you were both in the
band or something, you know, or whatever, and you became friends. Well, after high school, Not
in the band anymore because you're not in high school anymore. And
maybe one goes on to a professional career and, uh, doesn't marry
for quite a while, if ever. And the other one right away
gets married and begins having a family. And maybe they don't
even see each other very much, but when they do see each other,
here's what they have in common. One another. And they remember
that and they enjoy it. And so there is always this in
common. And then a friend is one who
a person likes to spend time with. I have acquaintances, but I don't
want to spend a lot of time with them. Wouldn't mind spending
a little bit of time with them. You know, you can have a cup
of coffee or something like that together. A friend is someone
you want to be with. You wouldn't call him friend
if you didn't. And the church delights in its time spent with
Christ, and is promised, this is the promise made to the church,
to be forever and always with the Lord. That's in 1 Thessalonians
4, speaking of the Lord's return. And it says, we'll be caught
up to meet Him in the air, and so shall we, and most of your,
most of the translations use the word ever, And that's okay,
but it doesn't carry the full meaning of what the Greek word
is there. You know, I have ever been with Bonnie since I married
her, but I've not always been with her. For instance, the last
three days, I was out of town. Now, I was with her in the sense
we were still married and we communicated, but I wasn't in
her presence. But the word that's translated
commonly ever there It means always, continuously. Now, how can our Lord, a human
being, always be with every one of his
people? Well, he's not just a human,
he's God. If I understand that scripture
right, he will never be off our minds. but we will have an eternal
communication, exchange of love with our Lord Jesus Christ. A friend is a confidant. John
chapter 15, verse 15. I no longer call you servants
because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead,
I have called you friends. For everything that I learned
from my father, I have made known to you." Now, here is where we
really see something of the wonder of friendship with Christ. That, you know, if you're at
the job, you and the boss may get along. You and your boss
doesn't mean you're friends. Because he's not going to invite
you in the office and say, here's my plans for this business for
the next five years. He doesn't tell you that, because
really, you're an employee. You are a servant for money.
You may like each other. In truth, management always holds
itself somewhat aloof from labor. It's just in the nature of things.
Because managers, management doesn't let labor in. on what
the goal is. It just tells labor, here's what
you do now. But he says, you're not my servants, you're my friends,
because I've let you in on everything my father's told me. They didn't
understand it all, but they were told all of it. Our Lord hides
nothing from us. And then, of course, our Lord
as our friend, He is our confidant. Isn't it nice when you have something
on your heart and there's some, you have a friend you can go
talk to and you know it will never get beyond them. You can
unload your heart to that person. You can seek their counsel and
all of that. And you know, they're going to give you a sympathetic
ear and they're going to tell you the truth the best they know
it. And they're not going to whisper a word of the conversation
to anyone else, such as our Lord. can tell him things you would
never tell anyone else. Of course we know we can tell
him because we know he already knows it. But to pour our hearts
out not only in confession of the things we've done but of
our disappointments. We can do in the presence of
our Lord what the world would call whining. You know Come on,
you don't get everything you want, that's true. But our Lord
doesn't mind if we tell him. You know, I'm disappointed that
this didn't happen or whatever. He's a confident. And then a friend will do a friend's will. You know, if you have a friend
and It's kind of an emergency situation. And this is just the
example that came to mind. You're a friend, and you've got
two or three kids. And something comes up, you've got to go take
care of it. You can't find a babysitter. You know, daycare's closed. You
call up a friend. Look, can I drop the kids off
at your house? I've got a couple of hours of
stuff I've got to do. And there's nobody to watch the
kids. Sure. Drop them off. I was just talking to someone
here several weeks ago. and going through some grief, you
know, lost a spouse. It wasn't Bruce, it was someone
else. But I advised him, I said, you've got to start building
a network. You've got to have people that you can call. We all do. No man is an island,
you know, said the poet. And isn't it wonderful to have
friends like that that you know In a pinch, you can call on them
and they'll say yes. And our Lord is our friend. And he says of us, you are my
friends. If you do what I command now,
what he commands is not grievous. And we'll get into that during
the morning message. But if the Lord did say to you, look, I need you to go over to someone's
house and talk to them about me. Would you hesitate for a minute
while you put down whatever you're doing and go do it? Now, I know
that our Lord doesn't come to us in that kind of vocal communication,
but a person unwilling to do what he knows the Lord would
have him do, there's a, you know, to wonder
if they're really friends after all, because friends do for friends. And he certainly did for us,
doesn't he? We couldn't begin. Not only does
he do the things we ask for that are wise for us, he's doing things
we never bother to mention. What a friend, that hymn, what
a friend we have in Jesus. Certainly so. and that a friend
will sacrifice for his friends. It says in John 15, verse 13, greater love has no one than
this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Now we can't
lay down our lives for Christ as though we are going to save
him from something bad if we don't. Though there have been
many who were willing for the sake of his name to lay down
their lives. But he doesn't need anything
from us. Our lives don't accomplish anything for him. But he did
lay down his life for us, didn't he? He says, no man takes my
life, I lay it down. All of us have seen a wedding
brochure with the opening line, today I marry my best friend. And sometimes I've looked at
that and I thought, well, the girl wrote that. And that's just
because I know guys. But there's really, we think,
Often when guys think of friends, they think of buddies. There's
a difference between a friend and a buddy. I guess you include buddies among
your friends, but you know something? Sometimes your buddies, you can
ignore them for a long time. Because being a buddy generally
has to do with what you do together, and if your interest changes,
you aren't doing anything together anymore. Friends, it keeps on
going. And I know this, the best marriages
have this element to them. It's the best friendship. They
do want to be with each other. They do have common interests. One of the biggest causes of
divorce, for certainly the times when it seems like divorce happens,
these are the ones that surprise us, but it's after the kids are
grown. Because they get married, Cause
they're interested in each other. Then kids come along and the
kids become the focus of the home and they don't, they don't
nurture the relationship between them. All the focus is on the
children or on building the household or whatever. But when the kids
are gone, there's two people in a house that hardly know each
other. And then they begin sniping at one another. And before long,
you know, you get this irreconcilable differences thing. Friendship. I was gone for three days. I
enjoyed myself with some other friends. I got home last night
and I opened the door. And in fact, as I was, and Bonnie
must've heard the garage door opener go off and I heard her
unlocking the door. And I walked in and, uh, if you
don't know my house, you won't understand this, but before I
could get into the kitchen, you just got across three or four
feet. We gave each other a big hug. That's my friend. don't like being away from my
friend. How much more than our heavenly
husband? Well, we're out of time. Did I even get through one verse?
I think I did, but the next one Solomon's still talking. We'll
work on that next week. You're dismissed.