The Way of Wisdom - Passion for the Lord | Week 5

Today's exploration delves into the often overlooked but deeply profound Song of Solomon, a collection of love poems intertwined into a narrative. we dissect its wisdom. From the outset, it emphasizes the intensity of love and passion, drawing parallels between human relationships and the divine bond between God and humanity. Its relevance to understanding passion, particularly within the context of marriage, cannot be dismissed.

Solomon, renowned for his wisdom, provides insight into the essence of passion within relationships. We draw a parallel with the sanctity of love within marriage, highlighting its sacredness and the exclusivity it demands. This passion is not to be frivolously indulged in but revered and protected as a divine gift. The imagery within Song of Solomon mirrors both human love and the spiritual pursuit of God, offering layers of meaning to explore.

Moreover, the text serves as a reminder to rekindle and preserve passion, both in our relationships with others and with God. It highlights the danger of apathy and the necessity of actively nurturing and safeguarding the flame of love. This call to maintain fervor extends beyond romantic relationships to our spiritual journey, urging us to remember the initial fervency of our faith and to continually seek renewal. Through reflection, commitment, and reconnection, we are invited to embrace and sustain the profound passion that enriches our lives and relationships.

CCC Social links

Cornerstone
https://www.cornerstoneaz.org/

Follow Jesus
https://www.cornerstoneaz.org/follow-jesus

Life Groups 
https://www.cornerstoneaz.org/life-groups

Giving 
https://cornerstoneaz.churchcenter.com/giving

Church Center App - Download then add Cornerstone Christian Center in Avondale, AZ

iOS
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-church-center/id1357742931?mt=8&ls=1&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Android 
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ministrycentered.churchcenter

----

Instagram 
https://www.instagram.com/cornerstoneaz

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/cornerstoneaz.org

Twitter
https://twitter.com/cornerstoneaz.org

Transcript

Celeste Brown: 0:00

Well, good morning. We are in the week of Valentine's Day, so if you are in the building or you're watching online and you are unaware, you are aware. So now you are accountable for what you do. This coming Wednesday we are going to share. This morning, jay and I are going to share a little bit together on the song of Solomon. So get ready, it's going to be fun.

Celeste Brown: 0:22

But how many of you have ever had a long distance relationship and Jay and I? When we started to fall in love, I was living up north in Sedona area in Cottonwood, and Jay was down here in the West Valley. We connected through some church activities and so we began speaking all the time, but we were far apart. How many of you know that? Just to get from one side of the valley to the other takes a long time now, and it was even longer to get up the 17 to Cottonwood.

Celeste Brown: 0:54

So Jay and I would spend a lot of time writing to each other. I remember writing cards, a lot, writing letters, and I kept all of them. How many of you have kept them? Because it's very special, very precious. So I have them all in a kind of like a storage thing, but we would write each other, we would call each other and, if you know Jay and I, we are completely opposite in many ways.

Celeste Brown: 1:18

Jay is a late night guy. He makes his best decisions after midnight. If he has to make a life changing decision after midnight, it's going to be the best decision. For me, my best decision comes before 9 AM. Between 6 and 9 AM in the morning Anybody else relate to me, I'm a morning person and so I would be asleep pretty early in the evening and I would have my phone under the pillow because we would do anything when we're in love, right, and my phone would ring, usually between 12 midnight and 1 AM, and I would hear it vibrate. I'd pick it up and he's ready to talk. He's like, done with his day, done with school, he's ready to talk. So here we go and I'd be on the phone with him about an hour, two hours, and then I'd go back to sleep for a little nap before my day started. But we would do anything when we're in love just to hear the voice of the other person, just to talk to them, get to know them, and so that was kind of our season of dating and being engaged.

Celeste Brown: 2:16

I used to travel a lot. I led teams all over the world for missions for the state of Arizona, young people and I remember coming off of the plane at Sky Harbor. I was a mess. I'd been on the plane 15 hours, so you can imagine the aroma, you can imagine the bad breath, you can imagine just looking like I just woke up after camping in a tent and I'd come off the airplane and I'm walking down to the luggage and I see him sitting in a chair with a dozen roses and my heart just melted. I was like he's here, don't hug me, but you're here. I stink and I smell and I don't look my best, but I'm so glad you're here. And so it's just those moments of interaction where you would do anything to be with the one that you love.

Celeste Brown: 3:02

So this morning we are going to dive in together and we're going to begin to talk about how we have such a passion for the Lord. And my question for you this morning is how often in our lives are we going out of our way to spend time with Jesus? I'm going to read to you out of Song of Solomon, chapter 8, verses 6 and 7. It says set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is strong as death. Jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised. And so today, as we go in talking about our passion for the Lord, I'm just going to say a quick prayer to get us going. Father, let your words speak to us, let it challenge us and let it do what it is set out to do today. In Jesus' name amen, amen.

Jason Brown: 4:09

We continue this theme the way of wisdom and we're so glad that you're with us today at Cornerstone. If we haven't met, I'm Jay, this is Celeste. We get a chance to lead an amazing team here at Cornerstone and we're blessed that you're a part of it, getting this chance for us to worship together, both here in the room and online. We see ourselves very much as people in need of a Savior. All of us are imperfect. All of us are needing a Savior, and that's who we are as Christ's followers is that we even braced what he's done for us and we have invited him into our lives and asked him to forgive us and start that life of following after Jesus. And so we use this imagery of walking with Jesus, because that's exactly who we are. We're going where he's leading us to go. We very much want to be more like Jesus. That's our ambition, and we do that not just here on Sundays or on the weekend, but throughout the week, throughout the city. We do that through life groups. We encourage you to get a part of a life group that you would connect, grow and serve, that you'd be a part of what God wants to do. How many people were a part of life groups this last week. They just kicked off man. What a blessing, so awesome. There's different ways to get involved and we encourage you to get involved. Be a part of what God is doing. I want to say a special thanks to all those who are part of serving at Mercy House. That's one of the life groups that gets a part, and a lot of people jumped in yesterday. We had many, many, many people get free clothes and food for all those in need yesterday, right here on campus, mercy House, getting a chance to partner together and to do an amazing thing here for the community. More of those days are coming up soon, so I encourage you that you give part of what God wants to do in our lives together. Amen.

Jason Brown: 5:45

Now, we started this year with this idea of prayer and it was a focus for us because we have a heart where we want to go after God and know the deep things of God, and so we had 21 days of prayer and fasting and during that time, we really felt like the Lord was giving us a message, knowing that this year is a battle for some, but we know that the battle is the Lord's. The battle is the Lord's, so, no matter what you're going through, whatever process you're in, the battle is the Lord's. When we align with Him, we are already victorious because he is a God who's already won, and so we are excited about that process and getting to walk this thing through. At the same time, we've been talking about the way of wisdom and looking to Solomon and his writings in different places about what things we could glean as those who want to live with wisdom in our lives. We looked first here to the Proverbs. In chapter 1, verse 7, says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. We talked about the fear of the Lord and this isn't a thing where we're afraid because he's going to smite us, but instead the idea that we honor Him as our Creator. God is the holy God. We put Him in His rightful place. It's a respect, and living with that kind of fear, that kind of respect of who he is, and when we live that way, we live in alignment with His teaching. For us, we're going to live a different kind of life.

Jason Brown: 7:09

We continue forward in the Proverbs. In Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, it says trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and he will make straight your paths. We talked about what it means to trust the Lord with all your heart, not just with the part of who you are, but with everything that you are, that you can trust Him, that he has your best interest in mind, that he loves you. He has a plan and a purpose for your life Very much. In that way, we understand what it means to trust in the Lord and we hear this and it continues forward. I've taught you the way of wisdom. I've led you in the paths of a brightness.

Jason Brown: 7:47

We talked about what it means to follow the Lord, to listen to His guidance and to ask Him, before we make the big decisions, which way we should go. Before we make the big decisions, which way we should go. And that's a big difference between after it, like God, please bless what I'm doing. He's like you shouldn't be on that path at all. But the Lord, help us to correct our lives to get in line with what he wants us to do, what the plan and purpose he has for us we talked about in Ecclesiastes last week. In this, the end of the matter for all has heard fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, for God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Jason Brown: 8:34

We talked about holding on to the Lord and we being those who, as we talk about it and we see that that Solomon writing to us, he says how it's trying to live this life is vanity. It's like grasping after mist or after the wind trying to catch it that you can't contain it, because this life is fleeting, it's temporary, but our eternal life in God is one that's eternal. So we're supposed to be those that live with eternal mindset. We live according to the Lord's teaching and promises for us that we would hold on to the Lord, not onto these things that are fleeting and going away. Live for God, hold on to the Lord.

Jason Brown: 9:13

Today we're taking another look at another piece of wisdom, the way of wisdom, and we're doing so out of the song of Solomon. Now, it's a little bit of an interesting place to go. It's a love set of poems and a weaving together this narrative from these two perspectives together, and it's, some Bibles say, the song of Solomon, some say the song of songs, but either way, most of us when we were growing up in church did not read it because we weren't allowed to read it. Today we're gonna go into it a little bit, but we wanna look again at the scripture that Celeste read. It says set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death. Jealousy is fierce as the grave. It flashes, or flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised. We're talking about passion for the Lord and passion in our relationships.

Jason Brown: 10:14

Now, as a kid growing up in youth group, that was exactly the case. Like we had all sorts of cool rock concerts and that was kind of the vibe of what I was in as growing up in that era. We went from like the DC talk version of Christian pop music right, it's like I love rap music. I'm like this is not a rap song, what is this? And then we were like listening to Christian metal. Some of us were like, wow, I love Jesus. People were like what is that? Well, we can do all that. You go to concerts, you can do all those things. You could not read song of songs because it might kickstart the wrong thing inside your heart. You know what I'm saying. Had all sorts of imagery that young adolescent boys were told not to read. So song of songs was kind of off limits and I didn't really hear a lot of people teaching on it until later on, and so it was something for that.

Jason Brown: 11:00

We wanna look at today and kind of unpack and see some different attributes that are there. Now we think about Solomon and his wisdom, we think about his writing. Sometimes we think about him as the old king, the old man, but we forget that for a long part of his reign he was the young, vibrant king, the good looking, handsome, super rich guy, super powerful guy that everybody wanted to marry and lots of people did marry. Do we remember that from last week? It's an insane thing. So we're talking a little bit about this Now.

Jason Brown: 11:27

Whether or not the book is attributed to him doesn't really matter. It's in the way of wisdom, the writing of Solomon, in that vein, and so we start to look at these different attributes, the passion, the fire that God gives us, but he gives it to us in a very specific way he gives it to us, as to be passion, as to be fire and sexuality within marriage. He very much says what it's supposed to be between a man and a woman, and he talks about how it be within marriage, not just, as we want to do, hook up culture with whoever we want. That's not the way of wisdom, it's not the way of God. Now, you can disagree with me, that's fine.

Jason Brown: 12:04

People come and disagree with me every week. I disagree with me sometimes Because I'm reading the Word of God and it's challenging to me and God's saying, no, you need to come into alignment with what I am doing. And so, man, you can disagree with me, but go and read it for yourself. Let the Word challenge you and challenge our lifestyles as well, that we would be those that live this life understanding that this thing, this passion he's given us, was meant for this very specific reason. It's supposed to be a fire unleashed within a marriage, within that sanctity, within that covenant.

Jason Brown: 12:38

And so we look at it here in scripture. It starts picking up in what we see, the imagery of what this book is meant to be. Now we see it in what it is it's a poem, a love poem, but it's also seen as the parallel of Israel's love for God. It's the pursuit after God and that relationship that's there. It's also, as we would see in the New Testament, christ's pursuit of the church and his love for the church. In that way and at the same time, we see all these parallels and we see the imagery of what it is. We have to understand. It's both the deep meaning and also the meaning on the face of it, that it's that one-on-one in the relationship, giving and taking, and talking about the passion they have.

Jason Brown: 13:18

And so we look to the scripture here in Ephesians 5, and it starts talking about what it means for a relationship between a husband and a wife. Picking up in verse 25, it says "'Husbands love your wives, "'as Christ loved the church' and he gave himself up for her, that he might sacrifice, sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water of the word. So, christ coming and he being the sanctification, him being the sacrifice for the church, for us". In the same way, husbands sacrificing. It says that so he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot, a wrinkle or any such thing that he might be. She might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Jason Brown: 14:04

So as we look at this idea of a couple together, we see the imagery that's there of Christ loving the church, sacrificing himself for us collectively. And how we as husbands are supposed to do the same way for our lives and for our wives is to give ourselves up for them to be that kind of devoted. He talks about it in this, in verse 31, "'therefore a man shall leave his father and mother "'and hold fast to his wife, "'two shall become one flesh'". And that's what it means is that it's not about my ambition. It's now that we are together.

Jason Brown: 14:37

This thing is one before God, and I don't mean one before a judge, like the judge says these people are together, so they're married. No, your covenant before God is what counts. So what kind of covenant are you living? How are you living up to that covenant? So today, as we take a look at this, we start to understand what that challenges to us to be and how the imagery is for there. Now we could talk about the birds and the bees and all sorts of other things. Today we won't get into all of that, but we will get into some imagery that's interesting here, talking about passion.

Celeste Brown: 15:12

So one of the themes that goes through the song of Solomon is that there's an intense desire. If you begin to read into this book, you will see that it doesn't actually flow chronologically but it jumps around a little bit. But there is some stuff in chapter two where you begin to see this intense desire in their relationship and there's a lot of seeking and finding, and so we're gonna look at chapter two. We're gonna start in verse three. It says this as an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. With great delight, I sat in his shadow and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love. So you're reading this and you're thinking, wow, I mean, how many of you love poetry? Let's just start there. Okay, one, so you can imagine how much fun this is to read. Poetry is not my go-to, I will just say that. But reading this is pretty interesting and as I dive in a little bit into the scripture, you will see what I mean. It says apple tree, that he's an apple tree among the trees of the forest. So she begins just by saying, wow, he's something to look at right, he's this amazing person. He's like a tall tree, he's solid and this is my guy. She says with great delight, I sat in his shadow. So whenever he's around, she has this sense of peace and security. There's something to it. When he's nearby, she just fills that peace. Everything changes in her world. It says that he brought me to the banqueting table. So all of a sudden she begins to dream man, things are going to be different once we're married. He's going to take me to places that I've never been before. I'm going to go to a whole new level in just life, just being with him. Then she says his banner over me was love. She's excited that their love is now public. So they're engaged. It's no longer a secret, it's no longer ooh, I think he's cute, I think he likes me. But now it's public, we're getting married, and his banner over me is love.

Celeste Brown: 17:20

We read on in verses five and six. It says sustain me with raisins. I'm going to stop right there. This is where poetry gets confusing, and I just want to let you men know do not buy your wife raisins for Valentine's Day. You probably will not be received with love. So, unless they're dipped in yogurt, I guess, correct. Ok, so sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am sick with love. His left hand is under my head and his right hand embraces me. So it says for I am sick with love.

Celeste Brown: 17:55

Oh, remember that moment when you were sick with love? Oh, come on, I see some women smiling. You remember, you remember what that was like when you were sick with love? There's these feelings that rush in and love gets emotional. How many of you know that? There's a passion, there's a desire, and your love gets emotional. And she says that I am sick with love.

Celeste Brown: 18:19

When you are first in that season of love with the one that you're going to marry, women kind of get these butterflies in their stomach. And when Jay would come in or surprise me at the airport or show up to Cottonwood, it was just this moment, kind of like when I saw the pyramids for the first time. It's a pretty cool moment and it was just amazing. It was like, oh my gosh, he's here, he chose me. You know that feeling. And so she says I'm sick with love. But, man, when you're sick with love you also become disoriented. Nothing else around you matters, you're just focused on him. It says his left hand is under my head. This is beginning to speak of imagery, saying man, there's going to be some moments when we are together. Our love is going to be exchanged in new ways. You'll see a picture here of Jay and I. This was on our wedding day. This was a couple hours before the ceremony. We went around the corner over here to Garden Lakes and we took this picture and it was just a celebration of hey, the day is here, the moment's here. Our love is going to be different from here on out.

Celeste Brown: 19:28

It says in Song of Solomon, chapter 3, verse 4, scarcely had I passed them when I found him, whom my soul loves, I held him and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother's house and into the chamber of her who conceived me. You get to that moment when, man, you're in love. You want everyone to know Remember the movie Elf at Christmas, when he's like I'm in love and I don't care who knows. That's that moment when you're just in love. And it says that she wanted to show him off to everybody, so she even wanted to go to the family's house. She wanted him to meet her parents. It's a big deal when you bring someone home to mom and dad. Javan Shiloh, it's a big deal when you bring someone home to mom and dad. Let me just say that I love you guys.

Celeste Brown: 20:19

But there's this passion within relationships. There's something that arises and awakens within us when we're in love. There's this emotional side that comes out. Now, the best example I can give you is to think of a friend of yours, a close friend, who started to become in love with someone and they changed. It was ridiculous. They did silly things.

Celeste Brown: 20:44

The other day I was talking to my son. I said hey, I haven't seen your friend in a while. How's he doing? Oh, he got a girlfriend. I haven't talked to that guy in like three weeks. You know you're laughing because you know everything changes. You're in love and all of a sudden I see guys crying at a movie. What man up, you're not supposed to be crying. You weren't crying when you were here with all the guys. But now they're in love and they're emotional and they begin to see a different side of everyone.

Celeste Brown: 21:11

But I say it jokingly, but love changes people. It changes people and you become a different person. Something happens inside of us when we enter into that understanding of God's love for us and all of a sudden you begin to think of how much your life has changed. When he walked in, you can remember vividly, I'm assuming that the day that you handed your life over to your maker and you said I'm going to follow you the rest of my life, there was a weight that lifted off. There was a moment of, as the scripture said, she was secure in the shadow of who her lover was. And when Jesus walked into your life, that peace, that security, that love that he had for you changed everything, and it was different. Something changes as we draw near to our Creator and our Lord. The passion of the Lord rises up within us and we want everyone to see it.

Jason Brown: 22:24

It's interesting the passion that we have because it talks about it's this fire, it's this flame, it's burning, it's not easily quenched. How many people know what I'm talking about? And so there's an interesting piece of the wisdom as we look at that, this tension between the passion that's described here in the song of songs and the wisdom that we see written about in Proverbs. It's more of an analytical mind versus like a passionate, emotional mind. How many people know what I'm saying? And there's a piece that's between that. It's funny as we start to look at the scripture, because it talks about some of these things from an outside perspective. Solomon writing some of this here, except in Proverbs 11, 22,. It says like a gold ring and a pig snout, is a beautiful woman without discretion. So you can kind of see this is definitely written from a man's perspective. But it starts to talk about character and who we are as being attractive Beyond just the physical. It's also who we are and how we are, and so it starts to talk about this a little bit more.

Jason Brown: 23:21

Proverbs 12, 4 says an excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in the bones. We've talked about this before in years past about the idea of love and respect and the cycle of those things within a relationship, within a marriage, and how we are called to be those who love and respect each other. And without love they don't feel respected and they don't show respect, they don't show love and the circle continues to get messed up. But if we are those who break that cycle and show love and show respect, then this begins to heal. So that's why it's so important to us to understand the difference between it. It talks about it in Proverbs 14, 1 and 2.

Jason Brown: 24:02

The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down. Whoever walks in uprightness fears the Lord, but he who is devious in his ways despises him. So it's talking about the difference between what we do with what we have and how we're called to be those. If we're acting stupidly or in folly, then it's going to destroy our home and it's going to destroy the things that we've made together. It talks about this in Proverbs 18, 22. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Same time, proverbs 19, 22 says what is desired is a man. In a man is steadfast love. A poor man is better than a liar. Think about that. It means that even though he doesn't have money, he might not be the richest person, he's still better than someone who's deceitful in their character.

Jason Brown: 25:01

It also says things like this it's better to live in the corner of a house top than to live in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife. True, do we say true? But I think this goes back to relationship, because you could say it on the other hand as well. But it's this give and take. It's why we need to be in relationship. It was we, why we need to be in communication and work on our relationships and on our marriages, because we don't want to be stuck like this. It also says this it says it's better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman. Guys, we already live in the desert land. What are we doing? We're in trouble, no matter what happened.

Jason Brown: 25:44

No, you can see how there's a tension between this wisdom writings and the passion we start to hear in song of songs. And so you know, as we talk about romance, we think about all the flowers we should be giving on those days. Let me encourage you guys. Give flowers. Flowers are well received. We know they're fleeting, we know all that, but that's half the beauty of it. So give flowers, even when you shouldn't have to give them anyway. Let it be a blessing, let it be something you do.

Jason Brown: 26:09

But we want to read some of this song of Solomon to each other today, Celeste and I, giving an example of what this might be like. And so, as I'm going to read to her today, you guys can follow along with some of the imagery. Now, this you know as you read in Hebrew, it's not exactly the same we think visually today, but you guys can follow along.

Jason Brown: 26:30

Song of Solomon 4-1 says Behold, you are beautiful, my love. You are beautiful. Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats Laying down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn youths that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and not one of them has lost its young. Your lips are like 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 and hung with a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. Your. I'm going to stop there, but it's a really good piece of scripture. You guys should look into it.

Celeste Brown: 27:25

I'm going to continue on. In chapter five, verses 10 through 16 to J, it says my beloved is radiant and ready, distinguished among ten thousand. His head is the finest gold. His locks are wavy, black as a raven. His eyes are like doves beside streams of water bathed in milk, sitting beside a full pool. His cheeks are like beds of spices, mounds of sweet smelling herbs. His lips are lilies dripping liquid mur. His arms are rods of gold set with jewels. His body is polished ivory, bedecked with sapphires. His legs are alabaster columns set on bases of gold. His appearance is like Lebanon choice as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend. Oh, daughters of Jerusalem.

Jason Brown: 28:23

You guys got to use some of these lyrics on each other in your marriage. Let your man know about how his white legs are like alabaster, how they gleam in the sunlight. It's amazing. You'd be like you know what you look like. You look like Lebanon. Let me tell you what's up you fire. Today we're talking about keeping the passion.

Celeste Brown: 28:48

One of the other themes that kind of weaves in and out of Song of Songs is in chapter 5. And I want to challenge you at some point to read this book, but when you do you might want to have a dictionary or a concordance with you, because there is a lot of things that you may need to look up just to understand where the writer is coming from. One of the things that really stood out to me is not just the passion, but keeping the passion. In chapter 5, we begin to see that some time has passed between the dating and the engagement and the actual marriage of these two. And now we're a ways on the other side.

Celeste Brown: 29:26

So they've been married for a little while and we see that apathy begins to set in. With her. Apathy is just this lack of enthusiasm, and it's begin to creep into her heart, this young maiden who was so full of love, so full of passion. She didn't care who knew, she wanted everyone to know. She would always say these nice things to him and every time he was in the room she would just melt. And then they got married and time passed, and here they are, on the other side and apathy has crept in. And it says in the scripture that even when he would appear to the room, she didn't want anything to do with him. She would just ignore him. She just let him just be in the room, but she would just act like she wasn't there with him. And then scripture says that some of her friends begin to ask questions. I mean, if you see a friend who's really in love and then all of a sudden they're still with the person and they're not even talking about him, you ask questions. So her friends begin to ask questions. And it says in scripture that when she began to respond to her friends, her own answers once again reminded her of how much she loved him. She herself, as she's telling her friends about him, she realized that she had a good thing.

Celeste Brown: 30:52

I want you to think back about those feelings that you had when you in first were in love, those feelings of butterflies, those feelings of just melting, those feelings of being disoriented. Sometimes you're married for a long time and it just becomes a habit. Oh well, we see each other all the time. Sometimes you just you lose the passion. You have to work on it. You have to be intentional. You got to fight for it or everything will take your time away from this and when we begin to see that in our own relationship with the Lord.

Celeste Brown: 31:29

My challenge to you this morning is you can be sitting here and maybe have been a follower of Jesus for just a couple months or a year. Maybe you've been following Jesus 10, 20, 30, 50 years and your passion is not the same as it once was. That moment when you first met Jesus and you remember all of the heaviness that was upon you, had lifted. You remember being flooded with a peace that only he could give you. Remember knowing that, no matter what happened, you were going to be okay because he was taking care of you, he was leading you, he's guiding you. You knew that if you came to him in prayer he would answer because he's good. And then you start to follow Jesus for a long time and almost just this apathy begins to rise up, even in your own heart, not because you wanted it to, but you just got used to it. I told you some of my favorite people to surround myself with are new believers, because they're so on fire. They're excited. They don't care who knows, they tell everybody about what Jesus is doing inside of them. And as you sit here this morning.

Celeste Brown: 32:47

My challenge to you is to remember what it was like when Jesus walked in the room for you. Remember what your heart felt when he met you for the first time in your need. Remember what it was like when you walked out saying I'm free. I'm free, jesus has set me free. And as you begin to share your love for Jesus with other people, may it remind you again that you have a good thing, that he is good and that he loves you.

Celeste Brown: 33:23

It says in scripture where two or three are gathered there, he is in the midst of them. Go to a life group, because when you walk into that room, he's there and he is the same yesterday, today and forever. Nothing's changed about him. Everything has changed about you. Keep the passion going. Keep the passion going so that, whenever Jesus is already here, you show up to meet him. He is pursuing you, but you need to pursue him. It's the same way in our marriage, man. We are busy people, but we got to keep this going. It's a work in progress, and so my encouragement to you is this not just to have a passion, but to keep the passion going.

Jason Brown: 34:12

Our passion for the Lord is what drives us. It's our passion for the Lord that gives us this gift, within our marriages as well, that we're called to be those that live with that kind of passion, to not just go about our lives in a hum dumb, but to live with passion, live with excitement, to live the word of God alive in us, to live the way of wisdom. As we start to look at this, we look here again to the scripture and we start to see what it means, as we see in Psalm 86, set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as fierce as the grave, its flashes or flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. That's the kind of relationship we want to have with God is we want to have that sealed relationship, that covenant relationship, where we're walking in close to him, where we have this passion to know more of God, to go deeper with him, to know that different level of trust and to walk in that place as he reveals those things to us. That's what we're called to also have in our relationship, in our marriages, is to live with that kind of passion for each other and to live with that kind of focus and that kind of covenant as well, protecting who we are in our relationship. Because we are two have become one. Friends, we're called to have a passion for the Lord, to remember what it's like when we are first saved and to hold that every day as we walk after the Lord. Today we have this opportunity, as we come to this altar, to come and to recommit our hearts and our lives back to Him, to come to Him and to ask Him to just empower us by His Holy Spirit, to charge us back up with a passion to live for God. In the same way, it's an opportunity for those who've never made a decision to follow Jesus to make a decision to follow Him, for instance.

Jason Brown: 36:08

Today is your opportunity. Each one of us has to answer these questions. We ask where does your wisdom come from and do you have passion? We have to be those who have a passion for the Lord. We also have to answer this question have you embraced Jesus? See, each one of us has to answer. No one can answer it for you. It's your question to answer. But each of us who's a Christ follower has said yes. We say Jesus, I believe you are who you say you are and, lord, I ask you to forgive me of my sins. I want to have a new relationship with you. I want to start a new life with you.

Jason Brown: 36:46

It says it like this Apostle Paul, writing to the church at Rome. He says because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Friends, today is your opportunity for salvation. It's your opportunity to ask the living God into your heart and life. The symbol of the cross is a powerful one. It's one of transformation for us. It's where he took all of our sin and all of our shame and all of our mistakes, and he took it to the cross as the ultimate holy sacrifice, and he paid for it once and for all, for all people, for all time. It's such a powerful thing. It's the only thing that he could do. No one else could do it, because what do we have to offer is broken, unholy people to a holy God. We never could offer enough, but Jesus, he came and he made a way for us to be reconnected in relationship, reconnected back to the Father, and what he asks of us is that we commit our lives to him, that we ask him into our lives. But we can only do that if we ask him to forgive us. We say, lord, that you would come into my life and change my life. Lord, I wanna follow you.

Jason Brown: 38:17

Friends, today is your day to make that decision. It's your opportunity to say yes to God. I'm gonna ask, if you're here in the room, if you just stand right where you're at, just bow your head. If you're online, you just prepare your heart for what God wants to do in you. If that's you and it says about here in the room, if that's you and you wanna make a decision to follow Jesus, you know if you're ready, If you just wanna raise your hand right where you're at, say, pastor, just remember me today as you pray that I wanna make a decision to follow Jesus today. Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord.

Jason Brown: 38:55

People making decisions, people with their hands raised today. Thank you Lord For you online as well, making a decision to follow Jesus. We just rejoice with you. It's a simple prayer, the one we pray. I'm gonna ask everyone here to pray it aloud together. It says Lord, thank you for loving me, thank you for sending Jesus. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you In Christ. I pray Amen. Amen. Friends, we rejoice with you making a decision to follow Jesus today. Those who raise their hand here, those online as well, praise God, such a powerful thing. We're gonna do this as we continue into worship and then, with a blessing at the end of service, we're gonna open up this altar. For you to respond Maybe you're in a place where you just want more of the passion for the Lord, and so you can come and just ask the Lord to fill you by his spirit for more passion.

Jason Brown: 40:03

Maybe it's you need more passion in your marriage.

Jason Brown: 40:05

At the Lord, we come and he would unite you together to be a passion.

Jason Brown: 40:08

That's there, but each one of us would draw near to him and experience the blessing he has for us today.

Jason Brown: 40:13

Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you, lord, how you've spoken it to us. You've breathed upon it Holy Spirit and made it alive. Ramah to us, lord. It's transformative, lord, into your character, lord, into who you've called us to be, lord. You charge us to be those that live with passion and live with wisdom, lord, and walk these things out, lord. You've called us to have that passion within our relationships and you give it to us as a gift. Lord, in the same way, we're called to passionately search after you and live after you in our lives, lord, to live a love after you, lord, with that same intensity, we pray that you would empower us by your spirit, lord, that we would know an influx, an impartation of your presence, lord, that we would be empowered to do what you've set us apart to do. We come to this altar today, lord, asking for that kind of manifestation, manifestation of your blessing and of your presence. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Celeste Brown: 41:09

Before we head out, we want to let you know that we are having party with the pastor. It'll be in the hallway to the side of us over here. If you are new or we have not had the opportunity to meet you, we would love to connect with you. Just come, it's real informal. It'll just be for a few moments. I think there's a little bit of food in there. We would love to talk to you, so take a moment, come and meet with us.

Jason Brown: 41:29

One more thing I want to ask you to put on your calendar is the night of worship we have coming up on February 23rd, so come and join with us. It's a Friday and we're gonna have an opportunity just to come and to worship together for around an hour. It's gonna be a powerful time, so we encourage you in that way. Before we go, we're gonna pray this blessing over us today the Lord bless you and keep you. Lord, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. Lord, lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Lord, I pray a blessing upon your church, your people. God, you would empower us by your spirit to live your love out to those around us. We pray all this in the powerful name that is Jesus Christ. Amen, amen. Know this. We love you very much here at Cornerstone. God bless you and have a great week.