Text: Song of Songs 4:1–5:16
Topic: Understanding God's purposes for marriage and sex

• Illustration: Stone shares several examples of silly instructions.

• Instructions seem so simple, but they are designed to protect you from harm and to insure that you get the most out of that product.
• God gave us sex as a wedding gift.
• This wedding gift comes with some instructions and warnings that will protect you from harm and allow you to get the most joy out of this gift within your marriage.
• In the Book of Genesis, the merging of flesh is not instantaneous ("they become one flesh").
• Marital oneness is a lifelong spiritual, emotional, and sexual quest.
  • Illustration: Max Lucado writes, "God desires to make you one with your spouse, and sex is one of his tools. Don't overrate it like society does. Don't ignore it like religion has done. Just appreciate it."

• Wives wish their husbands would communicate and take a genuine interest in them.
• In a woman's mind, communication is the key.
• Husbands, your wife wants you to take an interest in her life's pursuits—to become a sounding board that she can bounce things off of as she thinks out loud.
• She wants to hear you call and say, "I was just thinking about you."
• Choose your words carefully and communicate with an attitude that honors rather than demeans.
• God wants us to understand both the seriousness and the joy of sex; he also wants us to understand the importance of communication in sex.
• The Old Testament book Song of Songs deals with these issues.
• In our passage, the husband praises his wife's body, closing with thoughts on how she has captured his heart.
• That's communicating with his wife face-to-face.
• Husbands, if you were to talk like that to your wife, with genuine sincerity, you would capture her heart.
• Josh McDowell says the chief dysfunction in failing marriages is not sexual but verbal.
• Fulfilled marriages are enjoyed by those who share their feelings and have a great amount of openness with their spouse.
  • Illustration: Dr. Kevin Leman wrote a book a few years ago entitled Sex Begins in the Kitchen, a look at how romance is an all-day process.
  • Illustration: Stone tells the story of how the men in his small group learned that doing simple chores scores big points.
• Husbands—make certain that you don't have ulterior motives; instead, "Love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."
• Wives also wish that their husbands would cuddle with no strings attached.
• When you're walking to your car after church, hold her hand, or when you pass her in the hallway, give her a hug.
• Women want to be held, and it is not a cue for you to try and take it to the next level.
  • Illustration: Pastor Gene Apple once said to a group of husbands, "If we're going to feed and care for our wives as Christ does the church, we're going to have to get down off of our high horses, step out of our world of career or self-importance, step out of our world of sports, and enter into the world of our wives and nurture them and fill their soul."
• Our wives are most impressed when we leave our world, and like the Son of God, we enter into their world, their sphere, their interests, and we get involved.

• When it comes to the sexual relationship, men are wired more like microwaves, and women are more like Crock-Pots.
• First, your husband wants creativity—make it an experience, rather than a duty.
• Ladies, you put so much planning and effort for some of the hobbies that you have; what about putting some effort into the most important earthly relationship that you have?
• Second, your husband is concerned about frequency.
• Is the marital act rarely on the menu, or is there regularity to this celebration?
• There are some exceptions to this, but surveys consistently show husbands desire this more often than wives.
  • Illustration: Stone tells a joke about the difference between men and women concerning sex.
• Discuss the sexual issues you face as a couple, and openly agree on one another's needs with flexibility and not legalism.
  • Illustration: Stone shares a story from Dr. Willard Harley that will help a woman understand a man's sex drive.
• The New Testament talks about the frequency of intimacy in 1 Corinthians 7.
• There are some times when you won't be together as regularly, but it doesn't go on for a long time.
• Finally, your husband needs and wants affirmation from you in his career, in his appearance.
• The male ego needs a lot of strokes and validation, and you might be shocked at what kind of person he might become if you paid attention to some of his needs.
• Consider the affirmation given by the wife to her husband in Song of Songs 5.

• If I could capsulate into one thought what I want to say to all the married couples, it would simply be this: strive to be intimate friends who unselfishly serve one another.
• Proverbs 5 begins with the first 14 verses telling us not to pursue the wrong type of a mate, and then it tells us what we should pursue in verses 15–19.
• The word captivated means, "may you be left staggering from your physical interaction with your wife."
• The Bible uses that word, husbands, so that you wouldn't even consider a fling with a coworker.
• The Bible uses that word, wives, so that you wouldn't act like a desperate housewife.
• Sex is not about getting; it's all about giving wholeheartedly to the person that you will spend the rest of your life with in a marriage relationship.
• The bed should be a place of servanthood, not selfishness.

• Illustration: Stone shares a story from an Ann Landers column about an older couple's passion for one another.
• For those who do it right, the relationship gets better and better the longer you are married.
• Do you assume sex has to be stale because it's in marriage, and the most exciting physical relationships can only be experienced in illicit liaisons or diverse lovers?
• Or do you believe that God can give you, within your marriage, immeasurably more than you all you ask or imagine?