The Long Game | Pastor Chris Kouba

I'm not crying, you're crying.

One of the most iconic scenes uh in all of cinema.

One of that that up, that opening scene of up.

Pixar nailed it.

Uh the scene is called married life.

And the reason why it causes so much emotion, and the reason why people connect with it the way that they do is because it does such a beautiful job of capturing the highs and the lows of life.

You see, what Hollywood misses so often is that they treat love like it's all about what you fall into.

And what Pixar did in that scene, which is what connects to us so much and what inspires us, it's not about falling in love, it's about staying in love.

It's about the choosing over and over and over again.

It's about dealing with that time when all of a sudden the tire blows out or the injury takes place.

And all the dreams that you thought were gonna be what defined your relationship get redirected and shifted, but guess what?

You still choose each other, you still say I'm all in.

Here's the tension how do we get there?

Like, how do we achieve that?

You see, the reality is this if you don't deal with intentionality to achieve that, you never drift into that.

You're gonna end up drifting apart.

You're gonna end up drifting as two selfish people, choosing selfish things, and you're gonna look up.

And what started as something super strong ends up becoming something very distant.

Grab your Bibles, open them up with me to Song of Solomon chapter seven.

What I want to show you is from a passage of scripture that we've been walking through this book, the book of Song of Solomon, the greatest love story ever written, how you can have that.

I want to show you four principles to lasting love.

My assumption is that that is the goal for you.

That's what you want to achieve, that's what you want to experience in your life.

And I want to walk you through the most practical book on relationships that's ever been written, found in God's Word, the book of Song of Solomon, that tells us how to do.

If you remember, we talked about intimacy a couple of weeks ago, and we describe how he goes into the wedding night and he begins to describe what takes place there.

And if you remember, on the wedding night, Solomon was very specific in the way that he talked to his bride.

And he started by working from the top down.

He talked about her eyes, then he moved to her hair, then her teeth, then her lips, then her cheeks, then her neck, then her breast, head to toe.

Look at where he starts many years into their relationship, in chapter seven, in verse one.

How beautiful are your feet and sandals, O noble daughter.

He's admiring her again, but this time, instead of rinsing and repeating what he did on the wedding night, multiple years in, he's trying a new angle.

He wants to see his bride in a different light.

He's looking at the woman with fresh eyes.

He mentions their sandals.

Sandals matter because in the ancient world, slaves went barefoot.

So mean wearing sandals meant that you had freedom.

His first observation in this passage is not about attraction, it's about trust.

He's honoring her.

He's not controlling her.

Look at what he says again in the universe one.

Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand.

Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine.

Your belly is a heap of wheat encircled with lilies.

Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.

Your neck is like an ivory tower, your eyes are pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bathraban.

Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, which looks towards Damascus.

Whoa.

He mentions her thighs, her belly, and her breast.

Here's the thing.

What changes over time in a woman's body?

After a woman has had children, what changes?

Her thighs, her stomach, and her chest.

Don't miss this.

Solomon is looking at his bride, the one who has changed over time.

He sees all of it, and you know what he says?

I still choose you.

You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Books, what this shows us is this none of us are gonna look as good as we look right now, all right?

It's all downhill.

What it shows us is that when you choose each other over and over and over again with those fresh eyes, then those things which have changed become beautiful because you trained your eyes to where the only source of beauty is them.

He says her neck is like a tower of ivory.

Ivory was extraordinarily rare.

He's saying she's still the most valuable thing in all the world.

Then the best detail in the whole passage, he says that her, he mentions her nose like a tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus.

Damascus was to the north.

The tower of Lebanon was Israel's northernmost watchtower, the thing that kept the nation safe, the thing that stood between the people and the enemy, and he's saying that her face brings him security.

Her face brings him safety.

Her face makes him feel like home.

Here's why this matters.

In chapter four, on the wedding night, Solomon described her eyes, her hair, her teeth, her lips, her cheeks, and her neck.

You know what he left out?

The nose.

Now he's a few years into this relationship.

They've been married for quite a while.

And you know what he says?

You know what I've never told you?

Your nose is really hot.

Folks, that's the beauty of long-lasting relationship with fresh eyes.

Is you all of a sudden begin to see things that you haven't noticed, and you say, You know, I really love this about you.

You know, I really noticed this about you.

He never told her about her nose.

And it's like he just realized it.

Oh, your nose.

It's great.

Folks, what I want you to see is that after all this time, there's still something new to discover.

There's still something to be said that has not yet been said.

He says in verse 5, your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple.

A king is held captive in the tresses.

Carmel is the most beautiful mountain range in all of Israel.

Purple is the color of royalty.

Then he says, A king is held captive in the tresses.

The most powerful man in the known world is still undone by her.

He's captivated by her.

Years later, he's still mesmerized by his girl.

Verse 6 through 9 shift from description to desire.

He says, How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights.

Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breast are like its clusters.

I say that I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit.

Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine and the scent of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine.

It goes down smoothly for my beloved, gliding over lips and teeth.

Things are getting hot here.

He compares her to a date palm tree.

Here's what you need to know about date palms.

The dates do not fall off on their own.

Meaning, you don't just go up to a tree and you stand there and you just wait for it to fall down.

The only way you can get dates off a palm tree is you have to climb it.

So what he's saying is this I will still climb the tree to reach the fruit.

It's a picture of pursuit.

Even years in, he's still willing to climb.

Why?

Because she is worth the effort.

Question this passage puts on the table for every married person in this room is very simple.

Are you still climbing?

Are you still looking at the same person with fresh eyes?

Solomon is years into this thing.

And he's not just doing the same thing that he's always done.

He's looking for new and fresh ways to compliment, new and fresh ways to notice, new and fresh ways to pursue his wife.

Here's what this means.

Do not let familiarity convince you that you have your spouse all figured out.

This week, look at your spouse the way that Solomon looked at that tower.

Find one thing that you've never actually said out loud, and then say it.

This habit, practiced consistently over decades, changes everything.

And do not text me if you compliment her nose and it doesn't go well.

All right.

Look at what it says in verse 10.

She says, I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me.

She responds.

And what she says, she said that before, but she says it in a different way.

The second principle that I want to give you for lasting marriage is this have a no-compete clause.

Have a no-compete clause.

She said this phrase twice before in the book, but the phrasing, the way in which she said it, has shifted over time and it's worth paying attention to.

Let me show you chapter two, verse 16, during the season of dating and courtship.

Here's how she said it.

She said, My beloved is mine and I am his.

The phrasing of that puts her at the center.

He is mine.

Then in chapter 6, verse 3, she says, I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine.

It's more balanced now.

It's mutual.

Here in chapter 7, after years of being married together, the phrasing shifts completely.

The emphasis has moved entirely to him being the focal point.

I am my beloved and his desire is for me.

This shows that she's not speaking from insecurity, she's speaking from absolute security.

She does not have to wonder where his attention goes.

Because she knows it rests on her.

The Hebrew word for desire, his desire is for me, is a powerful word.

It appears three times in the Old Testament.

Genesis chapter 3, verse 16, where God tells Eve that her desire will be for her husband.

Genesis 3:16

Genesis chapter 4, verse 7, where God tells Cain that sin's desire is to master him.

Genesis 4:7

And then right here in Song of Solomon chapter 7, it's a word for craving, overwhelming pull, gravitational desire.

Song of Solomon 7 · chapter mention

It's like magnets when you put them together, it just wants to be together.

That's the picture in the image.

I want you to see that his gravitational pull is aimed towards her, not at a screen, not at a hobby, not at the office.

It's her.

Guess what?

They will gladly take it.

So let it be said about you that you have this God-given desire and you have this God-given want to go and pursue your spouse, and that attention isn't debated, that attention is focused laser on them.

Let them not have to compete for your attention and your devotion.

Let them instead say, Oh no, no, no, no.

He would never do that.

Oh no, no, no.

She would never do that.

They're locked in with me.

They are locked in with me.

Folks, here's the thing.

Your phone is just gonna make you addicted.

Your work, you're gonna give all of your life to that.

You know what they're gonna do at the end of it?

They're gonna give you a clock, maybe a check, maybe a watch.

And you know what?

They're gonna have your replacement picked out likely before you walk out the door.

You get one of these.

And this relationship involves nurturing and pursuit and going after each other.

So there's no reason to have any competition because whatever you would compete it with is not worth it.

This, however, is worthy of all of that pursuit.

Keep reading for the third principle.

The wife, the woman continues in verse 11.

Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages.

Let us go out early to the vineyards and see where the vines have budded, where the great blossoms have opened, and the pomegranates are in bloom.

There I will give you my love.

The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and beside our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.

Third principle that I want you to see for a lasting marriage.

Pursue with purpose.

Pursue with purpose.

Three things come off the page that are just here worth sitting with.

First, she initiates.

Solomon has been doing all the pursuing in this chapter.

He's been complimenting her, he's been describing her, he's been desiring her, he's been pursuing her.

And now she responds and she says, Hey, you got to come away with me.

We got to go somewhere.

I want you.

What I want you to see is that men, you need to lead in this area of pursuit.

But women, do not miss it.

Your responsibility is also to initiate with your spouse.

God is very clearly laying it out here that there should be a desire to be with them.

There should be an initiation and a pursuit.

I noticed a lot of these that just took place just right now, all right?

I'm just what I want you to see, folks, is that there is an initiation that takes place, but there's also some adventurous that takes place.

She mentions fields and villages and outdoors, somewhere they'd not been together.

She's actively thinking about how to bring something new into their physical life together.

He mentions pomegranate, she mentions pomegranates in mandrakes in verse 13.

In the ancient Near East, mandrakes were a well-known aphrodisiac traceable all the way back to Genesis chapter 30, where Rachel and Leo were literally trading them.

Genesis 30 · chapter mention

She's strategic about creating conditions for intimacy.

There's no accidental romance here.

This is intentional, planned pursuit.

And then I want you to notice number three, she's creative.

She says, New as well as old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.

She's got some things she's been saving for him.

New expressions and old favorites.

She's thought carefully about what he loves and what he's and what has been prepared for him because he is worth preparing for.

I want you to notice what's not a part of this trip, working kids.

Okay?

Some of you in that early stage are maybe thinking, man, I don't know how in the world I can get away.

And you just got to figure out how to fight for each other.

We've talked about this throughout the series.

Kids are an invited guest to your already established family when a husband marries a wife.

They are designed to be launched out.

They are not designed to replace the marriage.

So, because of that, you must prioritize that relationship.

And at times it means setting aside all the other things so that you can intentionally pursue each other.

Both people here are attending the flame, which also means both people are capable of letting it go cold.

Most marriages I've seen don't actually blow up, they just slowly go quiet.

The trip never gets planned.

The date night disappears into school night.

Your spouse can feel the difference between a spouse who is maintaining and one who's still coming after them.

Here's what I want you to do.

Before you walk out to your car today, pull out your phone and put something on the calendar.

Hillary talked about this a couple of weeks ago with all the crazy number of calendars we have.

Intention without being on the calendar in our house never actually makes it to reality.

Perhaps some of you, the struggle is that all you've had is intention, but you've never scheduled it.

So before you leave today, schedule the date night, schedule the weekend, schedule the dinner.

Just the two of you.

Not next quarter, this month.

Because the pursuit does not schedule itself.

Final thing.

Key to a lasting marriage.

Guard the flame.

Guard the flame.

Skip ahead with me in the text to chapter eight.

To what is widely regarded as the theological and the kind of the poetic summit of this entire book.

Kind of everything has been building up to these three verses.

Song of Solomon, chapter eight, verse five, the beginning of it, I believe, is a shift in speakers.

It is actually the daughters of Jerusalem speaking.

Here's what they say.

Who is that coming up from the wilderness?

Leaning on her beloved.

I want you to picture this.

Back in chapter one, the woman did not want to be seen.

She was shy.

She was bashful.

She'd been out working in the field.

She didn't feel like she had taken care of herself really well.

And so therefore she was very insecure about who she is.

Now all of a sudden, the women, her friends, her girlfriends, see her, and what they see is a woman standing leaning up against her husband, and they're walking up from the wilderness together.

I picture an old couple, and they're leaning on each other, not necessarily because they're so old they can't stand up.

I think they're leaning on each other because they've just been doing it for years.

Hand in hand, walking up.

And the women see her and they're like, Who is this woman?

Implying this, you are not who you used to be.

You now show a different level of confidence.

Why?

Because you've been leaning, you've been practicing.

You're not holding yourself up, you're not performing, you're not standing on your own, you're leaning on the one that you love.

It says that they're coming up from the wilderness together.

Whenever you hear the word wilderness, what does that typically imply?

Struggle, challenge, difficult.

They're coming out of a tough season with their head held high, their hands held together.

Here we go.

We're gonna do this together.

The woman speaks in the end of verse 5.

Under the apple tree I awakened you.

There your mother was in labor with you.

There she who bore you was in labor.

Then we reach the heart of the passage, verse six.

Set me as a seal upon your heart, a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death.

Jealousy is fierce as the grave.

It flashes, its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord.

A seal was an engraved stone or a signet ring used to mark ownership.

So you pressed it into wax or clay to say, This thing belongs to me.

It could be worn as an ornament around the neck or over the heart or as a ring on the hand.

She's saying this: set me on your heart.

Let me be what you feel most deeply.

Set me on your arm.

Let me be what your strength is used for.

Inside and out, in your affections and in your actions, I am with you.

Then she says something pretty powerful.

She says, Here's what love is it's as strong as death.

I want you to think about what that means.

Death's the most absolute force in human experience.

It's irreversible.

It's final.

It's unavoidable.

Death never loses it, never changes his mind.

For those, for some of you who are struggling in your marriage, you need the fight that says this.

I need you to know no matter what, I'm not going anywhere.

This relationship is so important to me that no matter what opposition we may find ourselves in, I'm gonna lean on you.

And if you don't lean back, I need you to know this.

I'll be waiting for you whenever you decide to do.

Folks, here's the problem.

So often what we do is we spend so much time trying to fix our spouse, trying to change our spouse, trying to make them better spouse.

When what God is actually asking us to do is to follow hard after Him, let Him be the one that changes and have a mentality that says this, I don't care what happens.

I'm in.

I'm not going anywhere.

And so guess what?

If you're gonna run off into the wilderness, I'm gonna run there right there with you.

I'll be right next to you.

I'm gonna lean on you because death is strong, and their death is something that never goes away, and so therefore, because it never loses, my love for you is never gonna lose either.

Her jealousy is as fierce as the grave.

It's not possessive, it's protective.

It's the same Hebrew word for jealousy that talks about God's own exclusive love for his people.

God does not share with his people with what destroys them.

That's devotion that has made up its mind.

And this love does not share it beloved either.

It guards what it loves.

She says, That's how strong my love is.

Verse 7.

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.

This is what you're building.

Not just a marriage that survives, but a flame that no season of life can put out.

Which means guarding the flame is not passive.

It's the daily, active, sometimes inconvenient work.

Reminds me of a couple in our church.

Right here in the middle.

In 1971.

Joined the church, have been faithful, active church members ever since that time.

They've served in every capacity that you could possibly ever imagine.

They've served on building committee and stewardship committee and personnel committee and audit committee.

They've served in the nursery, they've served in kids, they've served just anywhere that they needed to do.

Many times you will find them today serving in our first impression.

Welcoming people as they walk in the doors.

They've got four grandkids, and they've got five great grandkids.

And next month they will celebrate sixty-eight years of marriage.

But can I tell you what Pixar missed?

Was that you can't experience the ultimate joy without faith as the bedrock.

What I want you to see is a living example of what God says.

This is the goal.

This is what it looks like.

I asked Billy this week, I said, hey, tell me a little bit about what's made this work.

He's like, Well, we don't hold on to stuff very long, and we go to every marriage counseling thing we possibly could ever go to.

They've had highs, they've had lows.

They've had challenges, they've had difficulties, but one thing has always remained their faith in the Lord and their commitment to each other.

Tomorrow, Hillary and I celebrate 24 years of marriage.

We got 44 left to go to catch up with Billy and Mirjan, all right?

Pretty crazy.

But that's our goal.

That's the North Star.

That's what we want to do.

You know, this entire series, our goal has been to walk through every single person that's here in whatever stage you may find yourself in relationships.

For some of you that are looking at dating and you want to consider what that looks like, we talked about the importance of making sure that you make the right choices early on.

We talked about how you need to run hard after Jesus.

And then if you're gonna date someone, look to see if somebody else is in your right or in your left, and they're running hard after Jesus because if you don't, there's ramifications for that.

Please hear me.

If you want to experience this, you gotta get it right before you even start.

You gotta make sure and see this is the image.

Instead of looking, are they attractive?

Instead of looking, are they somebody that I want to spend time with?

Instead say this: Are they somebody that I'm gonna choose over and over and over again under a bedrock of faith?

We talked about courtship.

We talked about what that looks like to date and what that looks like to then pursue each other towards marriage.

We know of at least nine relationships that broke up during this series.

I don't say that with pride, but I am kind of proud of that.

Because here's the thing, you gotta make these decisions before it gets so many more consequences.

We also had a couple that came to us in conviction of the results of the series that said, Hey, I want you to know we've been living together for off and on for a whole lot of time.

We've got a kid together, we haven't been doing this thing right.

And so just a few weeks ago, we did a wedding ceremony right after the 11:30 service on the lawn right outside here.

If you're gonna achieve this, for some of you, you need to start making the right decisions instead of just continuing to make the wrong ones.

Maybe you need to break up, you shouldn't be together.

Or maybe you need to have a lawn wedding as well.

For those of you that are married, we had a marriage night, we tried to pour in and invest in you, and our whole goal was for you to be able to know what it looks like to not only choose each other on your wedding day, but to choose each other every single day after that.

It doesn't mean it's always gonna be easy.

In fact, we know that to be the case because we saw that 25% of the book is all about conflict.

And so what we want to be able to do is be a people who continue to fight, but fight well.

You want to know how Billy and Miller have made it for every 86 years?

It's not because they avoided any conflict, it's because they learn how to do it well.

And they learn to allow the forgiveness of the Lord to be the very means by which they forgive each other.

Some of you may you find yourself on the back side of the journey.

And your life hasn't looked exactly like you thought that it would.

In times you've had to break that jar and you've had to use that money and those dreams to pursue something else that wasn't planned.

But here's my advice to you.

Please know this not only are your kids and your grandkids and this community as well as watching, we need to see people who keep choosing each other.

Let this be an opportunity for you to say, hey, you don't look the same as you used to look, but you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

And I choose you all over again.

Here's what I want you to know.

No matter where you find yourself in your relationships, God sees you.

God knows you.

But you gotta do it his way.

And when you do it his way, what you will begin to discover is his way is better.

It leads to joy and it leads to life.

Here's the thing about all of this: none of it's actually sustainable on your own strength.

The love that we see in chapter 7 and chapter 8 isn't something that we can manufacture.

You can leave here and just kind of gear up, and I'm gonna do better.

This is meant to be a picture of a love that's been given to you, that Jesus gives to his church.

He's the greater Solomon.

He looked at us not at our best but at our worst, and he called us noble.

He set us as a seal on his heart at Calvary.

His desire is for us not because we earned it or showed up with anything worthy of it, but because he chose you.

Because love is not an emotion that fades, it's a covenant that holds.

You cannot love your spouse the way the Song of Solomon describes in your own strength.

That deep, unquenchable, strongest death love comes only from him.

It's his flame in your marriage.

Which means the best thing that you can do for your marriage this week is to do the very first thing we said in the midst of this first message, and that's to run hard after Jesus.

If you've never given your life to Jesus, today's the day.

Give his life to Jesus and get baptized at this service.

Today could be your day.

Colin heard the gospel on Easter Sunday.

That was his day.

Is today your day?

What I want you to know is that the greatest relationship that you'll ever have isn't with another person on this earth, it's with your creator.

Bible says that all of us are sinners, all of us have fallen short of God's standard.

But God sent his one and only Son, Jesus, to die on a cross for us.

He rose from the dead.

And if you will give him your life, turn from your ways and turn to his ways, receiving his mercy as a gift, you can be saved.

If today you want to experience salvation, I'm gonna ask in just a moment.

We're all gonna stand up.

Our team's gonna be at the front of the aisles, other folks are gonna be at the bottom of the steps.

If today you want to receive Jesus, maybe you have questions.

Would you come and let us pray with you?

Others, if you need to come and join United City Church, if you're a couple and you don't have community, let this be your time to plug into community.

Don't do this thing alone.

But instead allow yourself to experience the life that comes from the church.

Others, if you need to come and be baptized, like these three that we saw earlier.

This is your next step of obedience.

You come.

Let's talk with you and schedule that today.

Others need prayer.

Maybe you've got a need of some kind.

Maybe you're a couple and you just want to pray together.

You just want to make a commitment.

Maybe you just want to grab the hand of your spouse, just pray right where you are while we have this time of response.

Whatever God's leading you to do, what I'm gonna ask you to do is to honor this time.

Don't slip out, don't get out early.

I promise you, you're gonna be out in plenty of time.

If you need to make a decision, you leave.

Otherwise, would you just sing?

Would you pray?

Father, I pray that you'd move in these moments.

Leave people to yourself.

In the powerful name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.

Man, what an amazing time that we had today.

Hey, if you know of someone that needs to hear this message, we'd love for you to share that on socials.

We'd love for you to actually go and check out our socials so you can stay up to date on everything happening in the life of United City.

And if you need to take the next step, we'd love to help you do that as well.

Love you guys so much, and we'll see you next week.