Scripture:
Song of Solomon 2:2-4 “Like a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. 3Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down in his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. 4 He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love."

I.    Introduction
A.    What is love?
1.    One man defined love as a four letter word consisting of two consonants (L & V), two vowels (O & E), and two fools – you and me.
2.    Another said, “If life is one crazy thing after another, love must be two crazy things after each other.”
3.    A cartoon depicts two people, a man and a woman, on a dog sled in Alaska. The man said to the woman. “I’d drive my dog team one hundred miles to say ‘I love you,’” to which the woman responded, “That’s a lot of mush!”
B.    The Song of Solomon has a better interpretation for this thing called love.
1.    The Song of Solomon is primarily an allegory about the love of God for His people.
2.    In one sense, it is also the story of the intense love between a man and a woman.
3.    When viewed in the light of the strong love relationship between a man and a woman, we find the allegory that describes the love of God for His people.

II.    In true love, the object of our love makes all others pale in comparison. (In our eyes at least)
A.    The man addresses the woman, “Like a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.”
1.    Psychologists would call this the “halo effect”.
2.    This means that your general feeling about someone else influences your evaluation of his or her attributes or abilities.
a.    She/He’s smarter, better looking, stronger, more creative, and kinder than anyone else.
b.    Love is blind!
B.    The reality is usually a lot different than the fantasy.
Judith Viorst, writing in Redbook, defined the difference between infatuation and love like this: “Infatuation is when you think he’s as sexy as (Tom Cruise) Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as (Billy Graham) Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as (Oscar DeLaHoya) Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize he’s as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Oscar DeLaHoya, as funny as Henry Kissinger, as athletic as Billy Graham, and nothing like Tom Cruise – but you’ll take him anyway.
1.    God is not looking at our flaws and saying, “I don’t want you.”
2.    He knows everything there is to know about us and still says, “I love you.”
I John 4:9-10 “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
A minister one day sat in the vestry of his church to meet anyone who might have spiritual difficulties. Only one came. “What is your difficulty?” asked the minister. The man answered, “My difficulty is the ninth chapter of Romans, where it says, ‘Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated,’” “Yes,” said the minister, “there is great difficulty in that verse; but which part of the verse is difficult for you?” The latter part, of course,” said the man. “I cannot understand why God should hate Esau.” The minister replied, “That verse has often been difficult, but my difficulty has always been with the first part of the verse. I never could understand how God could love that wily, deceitful, supplanting scoundrel Jacob.”
C.    When you love someone, you see the best in them.

III.    In real love, you want to continually be around that person.
A.    The woman in Solomon’s Song says, “3Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down in his shade with great delight,”
1.    You would rather be with that person than anyone else.
2.    One man put it like this, “She loves him if, when she’s not thinking about him, she’s thinking about him.”
B.    When love is real, your attention will be upon the one you love.
A young man in Java spotted a beautiful young lady walking down the road. He fell in right behind her and followed her for over a mile. Finally, the young lady wheeled around and demanded, “Why are you following me?” With fervent emotion, he replied, “Because you are the loveliest thing I have ever seen, and I have fallen madly in love with you at first sight. Please be mine” The young lady responded, “You have only to look behind you and you will see my younger sister who is ten times more beautiful than I.” He turned quickly to see as ugly a girl as he had ever seen. “What a mockery!” he said to the beautiful maiden, “You lied to me!” “So did you,” she replied. “If you were so madly in love with me, why did you turn around?”
C.    When it’s real love, it’s hard to be casual toward the one we love.

Title: $3 Worth of God
Wilbur Reese writes with biting sarcasm:
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don’t want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want the warmth of the womb not a new birth.
I want about a pound of the eternal in a paper sack.
I’d like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
How much of God do you want?

IV.    Real love produces action.
A.    The lover in Solomon’s Song did not simply talk about his concern. He showed it. “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.”
B.    There’s a vast difference between real love and that stuff that’s portrayed on the big screen.
1.    Hollywood love asks, “What can I get?”
2.    Real love asks, “What can I give?” or “What can I do?”
C.    God’s book doesn’t tell us about a God who talks about love but a God who demonstrates love.
Romans 5:5-8 “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 6For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
D.    Real love is persistent.
Richard Armstrong, Make Your Life Worthwhile, reports the story about a man in Wales who sought to win the affection of a certain lady for 42 years before she finally said, “Yes.” The couple, both 74, recently became “Mr. and Mrs.”
For more than 40 years, the persistent, but rather shy man slipped a weekly love letter under his neighbor’s door. But she continually refused to speak and mend the spat that had parted them many years before.
After writing 2,184 love letters without ever getting a spoken or written answer, the single-hearted old man eventually summoned up enough courage to present himself in person. He knocked on the door of the reluctant lady and asked for her hand. To his delight and surprise, she accepted.
    Imagine God’s dilemma. Time and time again He tried to get His message of love through to His human creation with little response. Finally, when there was no other way, He wrapped up His message in person.
    Jeremiah 31:3 “The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”