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Let's pray together, family church. We bow before you, God. You are our King. You are our creator. You are our Father. You are our Redeemer. You are our friend. We come to you in the name of Jesus, crucified on the cross for our sins and raised from the dead. We've gathered today as your people. We've come today to open your word. Would you speak to us by your spirit? And God, as we learn today, as we study today, we pledge to receive everything you have for us this morning. We receive it by faith, and we receive it in Jesus' name. And all God's people say, Amen. You can't be seated. Welcome again to Family Church. My name is Jimmy Scrogins. I'm one of the pastors here. Glad you guys are gathered here in the room together today. If you are new to Family Church, we're especially glad that you're here. I hope I get a chance to meet you before you leave the building this afternoon when we get done in about three hours. Just kidding. It's just be a few more minutes. Every Sunday at Family Church, we have a Bible study, and we're going to have a Bible study right now. So I'd invite you to get your Bibles out, turn your Bibles on on your devices, grab a Bible from the pew in front of you, and open up to the middle of the Bible to the Song of Solomon. The Song of Solomon. We're beginning a five-week teaching series on the Song of Solomon that's going to go all the way through this book. And the focus of this teaching series is attraction and romance and sexual desire and marriage. Attraction, romance, sexual desire and marriage. Now, to be honest, to be honest, how many of you guys in your life have actually been through a study on the Song of Solomon? Would you raise your hand? Some of you guys have. How many of you say, I have never been through a study on the Song of Solomon? Would you raise your hand? How many of you guys would say, I don't even know what this book is about until you just told us? Would you raise your hand? Yeah, because no one reads the Song of Solomon. It's in the middle of the Bible. So anyway, this is the big idea of our talk today. The big idea is that God has designed us for romance and attraction. God has designed us for romance and attraction. Now, for all the parents in the room, I don't want you to worry. We're not going to get too sappy. We're not going to get too graphic, and we're not going to make it too weird. Not too sappy, not too graphic, we're not going to make it too weird. Now, some of you are thinking, like, what could Pastor Jimmy possibly even know about romance and attraction? Look at him. Look how old he is. What could he possibly tell us? Well, having always been this old. In fact, back in 1991, when I was 19, I met Kristen. She was only 17. We were both out of high school, to be clear. I met Kristen and we met. And I'll tell you how I met her. We were in a restaurant. I had never seen her before, as far as I knew, and I saw her at this restaurant, and I noticed her. And because I was a Christian young man, I immediately thought, I bet she loves Jesus with all of her heart, has a lot of godly character qualities. And I bet, don't you think that's what I was thinking about as a 19-year-old? What? What were you thinking about? Well, I was probably thinking what you were thinking about. I was I would notice some things about her, but it wasn't that. And I immediately felt attracted to her. And I began to try to romance her, to try to woo her, to try to I wanted to get her attention. That was 35 years ago, and I spent the last 35 years trying to get that woman's attention. And I'm gonna have to work on it some more today, I have a feeling. You know what's great is when you find someone that you're attracted to and you discover romance, and you find someone worth pursuing a life with, what happens is you realize this is all part of God's design. This is not a bug, this is a feature. This is how God wants us to live. God wants all of us who have these desires to pursue healthy, godly marriage for a lifetime, and that's the point of all of it. So in this series, we're going to talk about some things that I believe have the potential to strengthen your marriage, even if you've been married for a while. They have the opportunity, maybe the potential to strengthen uh your future marriage when you do get married. Some of you guys who are single, and it also gives you some tools, I hope, and some ways to talk about these things so that you can encourage your children and your friends and others in your life who are trying to pursue or are trying to develop healthy marriage. So let's talk about the book of the Song of Solomon for a minute. What is the book of Song of Solomon? It is found right in the center of the Bible. If you open the Bible, it almost opens right to the middle. That's where it is. It's not very long. You can read the whole thing out loud in about 15 minutes if you want to. There are eight chapters, it's only a few pages. This book was written by, guess who? It was written by King. Yeah, you guys are into this. I got it. All right. And what is the Song of Solomon? Well, how does the book put together? It is actually a collection of love poems. It is a collection of love poems or love songs. And so it's not just one long story. Uh, this is not just one poem, this is a collection of love poems that Solomon wrote or collected. It was inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is the word of God, and it is given to us as our for our instruction. Sometimes, if you hear someone teach through this book, they will tell you that this book isn't actually about what it appears to be about. The book is actually about how much God loves the church. And while I think it may have some implications for that, I don't think that's the right approach at all. I think you should approach it exactly as written. It is a series of a collection of love poems describing God's design for attraction and romance and sexual desire and uh marriage. Now, when you read the book, you're gonna notice there are different speakers who are speaking in these poems. Sometimes it's the woman, the girl that's being pursued. Sometimes it's the man, the man who is pursuing her. Sometimes it is their friends or family chiming in, chiming in, but it is all God's word and is all there for our instruction. So let's read this text of scripture, Song of Solomon. We'll read chapter one and we'll read chapter two up to verse seven. So this is the word of God, maybe different than some of you have ever heard it before. Verse one. The song of songs, which is Solomon, she says, Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. For your love is better than wine. Your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is oil poured out. Therefore, virgins love you. Draw me after you. Let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers. Then the friends say, We will exult and rejoice in you. We will extol your love more than wine. Rightly do they love you. And then she says, I am very dark, but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kadar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me. My mother's sons were angry with me, they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept. Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon, for why should I be like one who veils herself beside the flocks of your companions? He says, If you do not know, O most beautiful among women, follow in the tracks of the flock and pasture your young goats beside the shepherds' tents. I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaoh's chariots. Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels. Then the friends say, We will make for you ornaments of gold, studded with silver. And then she says, While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance. My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh that lies between my breasts. My beloved is to me a cluster of a henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi. And he says, Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves. And she says, Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful. Our couch is green, the beams of our house are cedar, our rafters are pine. I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. And then he says, As a lily among brambles, so is my love among the young women. And she says, 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 to me the banqueting house. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am sick with love. His left hand is under my head, his right hand embraces me. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. And this is the word of God, and all God's people say. That's a good amen today, right? That's a good one. This is the word of God, man. I want to point out some things from the text. When you look at the text, if you're not used to looking at this, you'll notice there are a lot of subheadings and headings throughout the text. Just by way of instruction, the words of the poems are inspired by God. That is God's word. The headings and subheadings, not inspired, those are just there to help you. I also want to remind you that this is poetry. So you're going to see a lot of images. There are a lot of things that are stated not directly, but they're stated by implication, if you will. So you may be reading this as we read through the Song of Solomon, and you may go, man, when she says that, it sounds like she's talking about. Well, she probably is. It's a love poem. And so this is a very explicit love poem. Now we're gonna not going to get explicit in here, but when you read the text, you will see that it is all there. Now, this first poem that we just read is about two people who are in love. These are young people who are headed for marriage, but they're not married yet. So, what you get a lot of in this poem is all this anticipation of what's going to happen for them. All this, uh, all this, all these things they're looking forward to, all this attraction they're expressing for one another. So I just wanted you to check out. So you have your Bible still open. Let's just walk through the text real quickly, and then we'll we'll uh we'll look at some things that we can take notes on. First of all, look at look at verse two. Verse two, it comes right out of the gate. You've never read a book of the Bible, it comes out of the gate. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. I mean, that's just that just tells you what this book is going to be about. That's what the whole thing is about. It's about mutual attraction. Verse 4, it's anticipation. She says, Let us run off together. I wish I could just run off and just be with you. Have you ever felt like that? It's been a while. Maybe you should fire it back up. Look at verse 6. It says, it says, I did, the girl says, I deal with insecurity. And so the girl basically she starts explaining, hey, look, I know my skin's dark, but the reason I look like this is because I've been out in the field. My brothers made me take care of our family vineyard. And while I was out there taking care of the family vineyard, I wasn't able to take care of my own appearance, my own vineyard. And so, and you guys, you guys know how this is, guys. Your wife or your girlfriend, and you're like, hey, you look good. And she's like, Oh, I don't look good. I I'm wearing these jeans that I hate. And I smell like I've been outside all day, and I just got my hair pinned up because I couldn't do anything with that. And the guy says, That's what I'm talking about. You know, you know, because that's that's what we always say, you know. So, so she's like, Oh, I I don't, I don't think I I look, I don't think I look my best. Look at verse 7. He's talking about exclusivity. She says, Why don't you tell me where you're going to be taking your lunch break today? Tell me where you're going to be taking your lunch break because I'm going to come find you. And I need to know where you're going to be, because I don't want to be hunting around with all these other shepherds out there with their flocks because I don't want them to think I'm there for them. I'm not there for them. I'm there for you, big boy. And he answers and he's playful. Look at verse 8. He says, Oh, you want to find me? Why don't you just follow the tracks of the flock? Follow the yellow brick road, baby. I'll be easy for you to find. Verse 9. And then he says something that you might not want to borrow this from. He says, You remind me, when I look at you, you remind me of a horse. That's what he says. And uh that might be cultural, that might have been good for them back then. Not 100% is going to be good for you. Try it. I don't think. Verse 12, she says, Love is in the air. My nard is giving off its fragrance. And she says, You, my beloved, are to me like a sachet of myrrh between my breasts. In other words, you you are as close to my heart, you are as close to my body as you could be. That's how close I want you to be. Look at verse 16 and 17. She says, This is pretty direct. She says, I'm so attracted to you. I wish we could just run off and go in the woods together. You say, Well, I didn't see that. I know, because you got to read the poetry. She says, When we go out in the woods, our couch is green. That's the grass. They're laying on the ground. And the beams of our house are pine and cedar. When we look up from laying in the grass together, you see the branches of the trees over the top of us. So in this poem, she's letting him know how much she wants him. And he's responding and saying, Yeah, I'm just as attracted to you as you are to me. And he's also being very careful to let her know I'm attracted to you, but I'm not attracted to anyone else the way that I'm attracted to you. And she says the same thing back to him. Look at verse 2. Verse 2. Well, she says, uh verse 1, she says, uh, of chapter 2, she says, uh, I'm like uh a rose of Sharon and like a lily in the valleys. Now, some of you guys are old-timey Christians. You've been growing up in the Christian world, and you've heard you say, hey, that's that's talking about Jesus. A lot of Christians talk about like that, like it's talking about Jesus. But when you really read the poem, what she's really saying is, there's nothing really special about me. I'm just one of the roses of many. I'm just one of the lilies of many lilies in the valley. That's why in verse 2 he says, Oh, no, no, no, no. He says, Compared to all the other girls in the world, you're a lily and they're a bunch of brambles, as far as I'm concerned. And then she says, Oh, yeah? Well, you're to me like an apple tree. And all the other guys are just trees. And then she says, verse 6, here's what I wish was happening right now. Right now, I wish your left arm was around my head, and I wish your right arm was around my waist. Now you might be thinking, it doesn't sound like they're following God's design if they're not married yet. They're trying to run off in the woods, they're kissing each other with kisses of their mouths. They're, they're, he's got his hair, they're laying down on the ground, they're laying down on couches, they they they got arms around their head and arms around their waist. What is going on? That's why verse 7 is such an important verse in this whole book. And verse 7 in the ESV, the English Standard Version that we use here, it says, I adjure you that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. And I think a more helpful translation is a translation called the CSB, and it says, Do not stir up or awaken love until the appropriate time. So all these things are good. These are things we want to do, these are things we're anticipating because we're strongly attracted to each other. We're not denying that. But hey, we're not married yet, and so it's better. We don't need to stir these things up, we don't need to take it too far until the appropriate time. What the Bible's trying to teach us is that desire is just not sinful, but desire can be rushed ahead of God's timing and mess everything up. So what you have in this poem is this real and vivid, like real life, visceral sense of attraction between this man and between this woman. It's emotional, it's physical, it's spiritual, it's personal. So, what can we learn from this text? If you're taking notes, and I hope that you will, we put some notes on here, some fill-in-the-blanks for you on these programs. It'll be good for you to be in the habit of writing things down when we have a Bible study together. These are some things you can learn. Number one, you should learn that we should be clear about God's design. We should be clear about God's design. If you don't see anything else in this text from a 50,000-foot view, you can see this. There is a boy and there is a girl. No one's confused about which is which. Unlike in our society, in this poem, everyone's clear. The boy is attracted to the girl, and the girl is attracted to the boy. No one's confused. Everyone knows this is what is supposed to be happening, this is what is happening, and this is being held up for our instruction because this is the ideal, this is what we're aiming for. You should be aiming for this. And if you are married, you should be aiming to rekindle and to cultivate and to continuously kindle this kind of attraction and this kind of romance and this kind of sexual desire in your marriage. And if you're not married yet and you anticipate being married one day or you would like to be, this is the kind of marriage you should hold up. This is what you should be aiming for. But how are you going to get there? How are you going to get there? So I've already told you some of this before, but um, when I go off on a vacation with Kristen by ourselves, sometimes we go to the mountains. When we go to the mountains, what I always do is I buy a 1,000-piece puzzle. And then I spread it out on the table, and then over the next few days, for an hour or two a day, I'll just go in there and kind of put this puzzle together. It calms my mind. I like doing it. I only do it on vacation, but I like doing it on vacation. It's just one of my things. You're like, well, you're super boring and super weird. Fine, you don't have to go with me. But but I this is what I do. If I spread out a thousand pieces on a table like that, and I said, Hey, why don't you put that together? Why would it be hard for you to put that puzzle together if that's all you have? What are you missing? What are you trying to put together? If you don't have the picture, how are you gonna know how the pillow pieces go together? How are you gonna pull it out? You have all the elements that can put the puzzle together, but you're unlikely to be able to do it because you don't have the picture. What you need is the picture. If you have the picture, you can begin to put this thing together. That's the way romance and attraction and sexual desire and marriage are. You have all the pieces there to do it, but unless you have the picture, you don't know how to put the puzzle together. And what is the picture? The word of God gives you the picture. If you are not doing this according to the word of God, you're just trying to put the puzzle together and you're wondering why it won't work and why doesn't this fit and why doesn't it look like it's supposed to? And some of you have been doing that for a long time. And what you need to do is submit yourself to the word of God because the word of God gives you the picture. And when you start doing it according to God's design, which is in the word of God, things begin to come together much better. Now, at family church, we have clarity around these things. Printed on your program are what we call the five pillars for God's design for these items. And I would like to walk through them with you briefly when you come to family church, whether you're in the kids' area, student area, singles, senior adults, this is how we talk about these things at family church. These are the five pillars for gender and sexuality in marriage. Number one, we say that biological sex and gender should always match. Biological sex and gender should match. What is gender? Gender is your experience and your presentation of maleness or femaleness. Biology is the reality of your maleness and femaleness. And according to God's design, your gender and your biology should match. So we want boys to think of themselves and present themselves as boys, girls to think of themselves and present themselves as girls and experience life according to God's design. Number two, heterosexual attraction is God's design and our goal in every case. Heterosexual attraction is God's design and our goal in every case. That means we want males to be attracted to females, females to be attracted to males, we want to nurture that. We recognize that some people experience same-sex attraction. Some people in our church experience same-sex attraction. We are compassionate about that, we are realistic about that, but God's design is always heterosexual attraction, and we want to help train people and disciple people and move people this direction because this is always God's design and this is always God's goal. Number three, sexual experience and expression is for marriage. Sexual experience and expression is for marriage. That means that if two if you're gonna be a Christian and you're gonna live like a Christian, you should not be sleeping with someone that you're not married to. You follow me? That's that's what we're saying right there. I just want to be clear. And some of you are like, yeah, of course, because we don't want these kids to all be running around sleeping with each other. And it also applies to people who are Christians if they're 40 or 50 or 60 years old, even if you've been married before. If you've been married before, you should follow God's design. Sexual expression experience is only for marriage. And you should be following that if you're a believer in Jesus. Number four, Christians should date and marry other Christians. Christians should date and marry other Christians. And we say that because if Jesus is the most important person in your life, if your Christian values are the most important values in your life, that defines who you are. How could you link your life up in marriage with someone? Who doesn't share the most important person and the most deeply held values for your life? How could you link lives like that? How are you going to do it? And then when children come along, how are you going to raise and train your children how to follow Jesus when both partners aren't trying to do that? And so there's reasons for this. Christians should date and marry a lot of the Christians. Number five, uh, marriage is one man and one woman for life. Marriage is one man and one woman for life. When two Christians are married, they're supposed to try to stay married for the rest of their lives, as long as they both shall live, like the vows say. Now, we recognize sometimes people get divorced. Some of you have been divorced. Some of you have been married before. You're not sure what to do about it now. I don't think you should beat yourself up about your past. If you're a Christian, that means Jesus has been crucified on the cross for your sins. You've turned from your sins, you've repented of your sins, you've turned to Christ, you've received Jesus by faith. And when you receive Jesus by faith for yourself, he forgives you of all of your sins, and you need to beat yourself up for your past. Christ has already taken care of your past. Now you need to move forward into your future. But the goal of marriage is one man and one woman for life. And some of you are like, well, I've already had a broken marriage and now I'm on this other marriage. Okay. It is now your job to do everything you can to make this marriage the best that it can be. That's what you're supposed to do as a Christian. Okay. So we have clarity around these things. That's what God wants from us, and we see these principles in this text. And by the way, moms and dads, we want to help you talk to your kids about these things in a clear way. Okay, the public schools aren't going to do it. A lot of the private schools aren't going to do it. The little leagues aren't going to do it. The Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts aren't going to do it. It is your job to train your children how to think about these things clearly, but we want to help you. We have a milestone for this. We have a class for this. And if you ever want to check it out, you can register for it. It comes up in September. You can go to the class with your kids. We'll train you and give you resources on how to talk to your kids with clarity around these issues. Okay, so we got to have clarity. Number two, on your notes, reject the world's distortions. Reject the world's distortions. We know that God has a design, but the devil is always distorting God's design. There's two distortions to avoid. Some of you guys were raised in a very conservative environment, even a church environment or religious environment, where you were basically taught that all things romantic and sexual were bad. And so you should avoid it. That's one ditch. That's one distortion that we don't agree with. The other ditch, the other distortion is attract, every attraction is irresistible, so you just have to take it as far as it goes. Pursue whatever attraction that you feel. Those are two ditches. What we want to do is stay in the lane of truth, which is that attraction is good when it's governed by God's design. Attraction is good when it's governed by God's design. Some Christians are so afraid of messing up in this area that they suppress or deny or try to avoid anything to do with romance or attraction or sexual desire because they're afraid they're going to mess it up. And so they tend to see sex as dirty and romance as shallow. But when you read the Song of Solomon, you're going to see God doesn't see it that way at all. On the other hand, some people, the way the world speaks about it, say you should give in and pursue any desire you have, any impulse you have, and take it as far as you want to go. Love whoever you want, love them however you want, love them whenever you want, and go as far as you want. That's the way people so if you like boys, go for it. You like girls, go for it. You like both, go for it. Polyamory, uh, go for it. Furries, you know, go go for it. Whatever it is that you like, just chase it as far as you want to go. As long as everyone consents, everything will be fine, but that's a lie. Because that's not God's design, it's not good for you, it's not good for the other person, it's not good for our society, it's not good for kids, and that's why we should be following God's design and have clarity around it. Attraction and romance are God's design for us, but how do we manage these things? How do we manage these things in a way that honors God? And what about attraction? Isn't attraction kind of shallow? Isn't that purely physical? Well, it's partly physical, and it's also good. And by the way, just so we're clear, just so everyone understands of what I'm saying and what the Bible is teaching. If you're interested in being married, if you're interested in staying married, you're interested in dating or getting married, you should find your other person, you should find them attractive. That's okay. I mean, some people kind of have the mindset, well, I find them physically repulsive, they're super boring, I can't stand being around them, but they love Jesus, so that's what I've got to go with. That's a terrible way to conduct a romance or a dating relationship or a marriage. Some people ask, well, Pastor Jimmy, in our day you don't understand because how much attraction is enough? I mean, how much attraction is really enough to sustain a relationship? And that's a really good question in today's world, especially with social media. Because I promise you, even if the person you're married to, when you meet them, when you first marry them, when you first get together with them, you may think this is literally the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life. But I promise you, if you open your eyes and look around, especially as you get older, there will be other people who are actually physically more beautiful than the other person. I mean, look, I think Kristen always tells me you're so handsome. She always tells me that kind of stuff. I'm not stupid, okay? Like, I know. I know she can look around the earth. I know there's other men that are more attractive in a lot of ways. I get it. But I'll tell you why I can say to her, You're the most beautiful woman in the world to me. Because it's not about comparing her to somebody else. It's about me focusing and directing and redirecting and concentrating all of my attractions on her. And any impulse that I have to pursue any attraction towards some other person, that's gonna be bad for me and bad for her and bad for us and bad for our kids, and it doesn't honor God, it's not God's design. So my job is to redirect and to focus and to concentrate my attractions on her. And that's what you should do too. And if you don't learn to do that, you're gonna be disappointed. That's why some of you guys are single and you should have settled down a long time ago, but you haven't. And the reason you haven't is Instagram and all these other social media because you keep thinking, yeah, but if I settle for him or I'll settle for her, I'm doom scrolling all day long, and I see someone I every day I see somebody better looking, and I'm gonna settle for this one, and I could have had somebody better looking. That is never not gonna be the case. At some point, you're gonna have to choose. You're gonna have to choose. This is my person. This is my person. I want this person to kiss me with the kisses of their mouth. I I want the banner over me to be her love. She's the one that I'm gonna put my arm around her neck and my hand around her waist. You've got to find the person and then you've gotta stick with it. Choose, direct, focus, nurture, cultivate, and be exclusive about it. Number three, on your notes, what else can we learn from this text? Pursue marriage as the destination. Pursue marriage as the destination. In this text, the boy and the girl are expressing attraction, anticipation, and it's fun to listen to them talk to each other. But they're going somewhere with this. They are moving towards marriage. They know what the destination is. And likewise, if you're a Christian and you're going to date, if you're coaching your kids or your grandkids on their dating, if you're a Christian when you date, you don't just date to date. You don't just date to manipulate somebody, you don't just date to fulfill your own desires and your own, you know, it's not for gratification of your own desires. You date because you're trying to find someone that you can marry. That's the goal. You're trying to figure out who you're going to marry. So Christians should be using dating as an evaluation tool. I'm trying to figure out are you the person that I want to marry? Am I the person that you want to marry? And so we've got to evaluate some things. Let me just give you some examples of things you might be evaluating. You might be evaluating. Do we have compatible values? Do you have a good work ethic? Which, by the way, that's one of my nightmares, because I have two daughters, is that one of them is gonna marry somebody who's lazy? I would rather have anything than that. I can just tell you right now. That would be like the nightmare scenario. I don't care how much money he makes, I just want them to work at it. Anyways, this has nothing to do with this. Venting, venting. Are they responsible with the resources that God gives them? Do they function with integrity? Do they keep their word? Do they love Jesus with all of their heart? Do you see evidence of that in their life? Are they fun and exciting and attractive to you? What about their future family? Do they have compatible ideas for a future family and what that could all look like? Because the deal is, once you figure out, hey guys, if you're dating, once you figure out this is not the person that I want to marry, it's time to land the plane. It's time to get them off of the plane, and it's time for you to get somebody else on the plane who might be going to the destination with you. And that's the whole point of Christian dating. Now, some of you are married, and you're like, hey, I think I married the wrong person. I'm not attracted to them anymore. I don't find them fun or exciting. And I would really like a do-over at this point. Being very serious about this. If you're a Christian and you're married, your job is to do everything you can to rekindle attraction and romance and sexual desire and drill love in your own marriage. That's your job. You gotta try to bring it back. You gotta try to go and figure out what got you going down this road in the first place. And if you need some help, we have a church family who will give you some tools and it'll help you try to rediscover that. But your job is not to fantasize about escaping or doing something different. Your job, if you're going to be a Christian, is how do I make this marriage right here, right now, the best that it can be. And the key is that you can't always help what you feel, but you can focus, you can direct, you can concentrate, you can choose how you deal with your own attraction. Let me just say it this way, whether you're married or not, any attraction that is a distraction from the destination, healthy marriage, must be redirected or shut down. Any attraction that is a distraction from the destination, healthy marriage, needs to be redirected or shut down. Last thing on your notes, number four. This is good news for all of us. Jesus came to restore God's design. Jesus restores God's design. Now, some of you are in the room right now and you're like, I'm so broken in this area, I don't even know where to start. I want to be a Christian, but I have really messed up here. And some of you are like, um, I've messed up so bad in this area that I don't think a Christian girl will ever really have me. I don't think a Christian guy will ever really have me because when they find out who I've been and who I've been with and what I've done, they're just, I'm just not gonna be good enough. And some of you parents are like, I have a difficult time discussing this with my children because they know how much I messed up in my own life, and when I try to talk to them about these things, they know that I'm a hypocrite. This is what Jesus is for, guys. This is some good news about King Solomon. It's in the text. Let me tell you something about King Solomon's biography. King Solomon was a good writer, but he was not good at taking his own advice. By the time King Solomon became an old man, he had had 700 wives and 300 concubines. His failures in these areas ruined his life, they ruined his nation, and they cost the next generation dearly. And yet God still loves Solomon, and God still used Solomon, and he used Solomon to give us this collection of poems where God's design is so beautifully put on display. And in this room right now, apart from Christ, we have a bunch of broken sinners who have messed up terribly. And I would just venture to say there is not one single person in the whole room who could stand up and say, I am totally sexually pure. I have never sinned in any way, shape, or form in this area. No one can say that. Because we've all wanted things we shouldn't want, thought things we shouldn't think, looked at things we shouldn't have looked at, done things we shouldn't do, with people we shouldn't do it with, and places we shouldn't have been. All of us have done that. And all we have in this room is a bunch of sinners who are casting ourselves on the mercy and the grace of Christ purchased for us on Calvary where he was crucified. And because of the mercy and the grace of Christ, I don't have to stand before you as a broken sinner. I can stand before you as a redeemed and forgiven son of the king. And you can stand before one another as redeemed and forgiven sons and daughters of the king. We don't have to we can't go back and change our past, but we don't have to beat ourselves up about our past either. Because now God's given us a whole new life, and God's given us a new start. And wherever you are and wherever you're coming from, it's not about how pure and how good you have been, it's about how pure and how good Christ is. And that's the name of the game for Christians that we're forgiven. That's what Jesus is for. Jesus fulfilled God's design in every way. He was crucified for our sins, and God raised him from the dead. So we're not a bunch of people who think we're better than other people. We're a bunch of beggars telling other beggars where we found the bread. We're a bunch of people who live in glass houses and we're not throwing stones at others. We are people who are receiving the mercy and the grace of Jesus and to help us remember how powerful the mercy and the grace of Jesus is in every aspect of our lives. On Sundays, we take the Lord's Supper, and we're going to take the Lord's Supper right now. And the Lord's Supper is the way we remember the sacrifice of Christ, the broken body, and the shed blood. It's a way that we remember the love of God for us. Now, the Lord's Supper is only for Christians. If you're here this today and you're not a Christian, you never received Jesus by faith for yourself, you should not take the Lord's Supper. Why don't you wait until after you become a Christian? Then you can take the Lord's Supper with integrity. And the Lord's Supper, at Family Church, we believe it, we teach, is for people who have been saved, it's for people who've been baptized, believers' baptism by immersion, people who become a part of a neighborhood church. Now, if you're here today and say, Well, this isn't my church, but I am a Christian, I have been baptized, and I would take the Lord's Supper at my church, then I'd encourage you to take it with us today as part of the extended family of Jesus that goes around the world. But right now, let's bow our heads. Let's pray to the Lord. Let's draw close to Christ. Let's remember the sacrifice of Christ. Let's confess our sins to the Lord. And let's remind ourselves of how much God loves us and how great his mercy and grace is to us. And in just a moment, we'll all eat and drink the Lord's Supper together.