Cultivating Spiritual Intimacy, Part 1

Sometimes it’s harder to keep love alive than others. Sometimes you cope in a crisis. I don’t know about you, I mean, I have been married forty-two years. This was one of the hardest years of my marriage.

You know, we had a number of things planned, they all got canceled. We had certain rhythms where we went and did certain things; they were all canceled.

But there’s all kind of times. Times when you have a health issue. Sometimes when you’re separated or relocate. Sometimes financial stresses put a lot of pressure on you.

And all I want to say is going through really challenging times doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you or your marriage.

And everything we are going to talk about is how do you move up toward God and closer to one another? And there are things you need to know, but there’s also skills you need to develop. And what I want to talk about in our time is four skills that we need to develop.

But before I do, I’m going to, remember I told you I was in Colossians a lot? As I prayed about what to share, I literally, I bet – I’m not going to exaggerate – but verses 12 through 17 I bet I have gone through that in my mind hundreds of times. I have said it out loud in the car, I have prayed it word by word, verse by verse. And what I realized was all the skills that I wanted to teach you, they all grow out of this one passage.

“So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved,” that’s who you are, here’s what you do, “put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone. Just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called into one body. And,” command, “be thankful. Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your heart to God. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”

Let me just give you a brief little outline. The first command is: Put on a heart. In other words, it’s not just an activity. Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

And then notice the second command, “Beyond all these,” it’s not just doing the things. Put on love. Unconditional, “I’m for you.” I give whether I get anything back or not, which is the perfect bond of unity.

And the third command, it’s interesting, and sometimes in the text it looks so small. It says, “Be thankful.” That’s a separate command. In other words, be grateful. Focus on what you do have in your marriage. Focus what you do have in life. Thank God for what you do have rather than focus on what you don’t have.

And then he goes, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” Another command. We’ll talk about what that means.

“Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you,” another command. And then, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

So, let’s dig in. Skill number one. How do you develop spiritual intimacy? Spiritual intimacy with Christ is cultivated by actively believing two things. Number one, whose we are. In other words, that you are chosen. Spiritual intimacy with Christ is cultivated by actively believing whose we are. You’re His.

The second thing, the second is: Who you have become, that you are holy.

Chapter 2, picking it up at verse 9, “For in Christ all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form,” that means all there is of God was in Jesus, “and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is head over every power and authority. In Him you were also circumcised in the putting off of your sinful nature. Not with the circumcision done with hands of men, but a circumcision done by Christ.” A circumcision of the heart.

“Having been buried with Him in baptism, raised with Him through faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature God made you alive with Christ,” He forgave all of our sins, “having canceled out the written code with regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it all away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed,” this is the spiritual powers, “and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

God looks at you this day through the lens of the blood of His Son. Not only you are precious and loved, but you are forgiven. You are clean. That is your position with Him.

Intimacy. It’s believing that He wants you, that He loves you, that He is for you, that it’s not for someone else, that when you draw near, He’ll draw near to you.

And in terms of marriage, here’s what I want you to get. I said it earlier: You can’t give away what you do not have. Until you see yourself the way God sees you, and love your mate out of overflow, you will instead have loving acts to get your own needs met, to get what you want, and to benefit you.

And when you don’t get them, you get angry. And if you watch enough TV, you’ll believe lies like there’s someone better out there. Or that you ought to have no problems and this person ought to come through. And so, you will love conditionally, and your love will be fragile, and it will only be horizontal, and it will crack under pressure. And you will probably live a very painful life to learn that there is no human being on the earth that can give you what you’re looking for.

Spiritual intimacy is cultivated with your mate by recognizing the supremacy of Christ’s role and relationship in your marriage.

He created all things; He sustains all things by the word of His power. He created – all things were created by Him and for Him. And He is the head of the Church and He’s the firstborn from the dead, and He has supremacy over everything.

If you want to have intimacy in your relationship horizontally, He has to have the same place in your life and the same place in your marriage that He has in the universe. That means if He says, “Men, I want you to love your wife.” Good days, bad days. What does love look like? Well, just ask Jesus. Well, what do you mean? He was willing to die for His. You need to be willing to die for her. And not just metaphorically.

Well, put her needs ahead, cherish her, protect her, provide for her, live with her in an understanding way. You be Jesus to her. That’s your call. Regardless of how she responds. Well, why should I do that? “Because I am God and I created it and I designed it and I told you to. How’s that?”

No, we’ve got, we’re in such error. The byproducts of marriage happen to be that you get to have children, you’re not alone, you have good sex if not great sex occasionally, and you have a life companion. But the major point of marriage is not so that you’re happy or even fulfilled. The major point of marriage is it’s a metaphor declare Jesus and the Church. Your marriage, your love, your forgiveness, your working through problems, you caring and loving and cherishing and respecting is to be the picture of Jesus and His bride.

And the loudest, the loudest, the greatest picture that the world will ever see of Christians is marriages where they love one another. Well, it’s easy to love one another – I mean, pagans can love one another when everything is great. The Church, your job, my job is to demonstrate as a man what Christ’s love is like to the Church; and as a woman, what is it like for a church to respond in love and respect and tender consideration and connection to Christ?

There are few things that will make a bigger difference in the watching world than your marriage.

If you want to have intimacy, it can’t be like, God, I really want a great marriage and, okay, there are some really good verses here for my wife. “Hon, you need to read these.

Man, these are really good ones. Yeah.” I’m not sure what all the “submissive” stuff is, but it sounds pretty darn good.

You want to have a great marriage? I mean, can you imagine the designers and the engineers and the people that have put together the things that you all do all around the world – can you just imagine going, “You know, I just don’t read manuals. I’m just going to do this any way I think is better.” How would that work?

The Creator of the universe has made it clear what He wants you to do and what it looks like and He did it because He loves you, He did it because He is good, He did it because He cares. And, yes, it counterintuitive. And, by the way, ready? It’s hard.

I had a guy come to me and he’s a young guy in the Silicon Valley and has done really well financially and he’s, you know, we’d meet him and think, Oh, you have this beautiful wife and kids and a great job and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we were playing nine holes of golf and he goes, “You know, I’m just, it’s – I just, something is really, really wrong.” I said, “What’s that?” He goes, “Like, this, man, I’m really trying hard to be a good husband and it’s just, it shouldn’t be this hard. There’s always something. I mean, there’s always something.”

And then he – I don’t want to be too crass; we’re good buddies. And, by the way, he has now done a one-eighty. But it was like, you know, “This and this and this and this,” and I’m thinking, Would you grow up? Those are such nickel and dime stuff.

And so, finally, he actually played in the area of football, was an excellent athlete. And so, I just asked him. I said, “Excuse me. Can I ask you a question?” I said, “Did you ever do two-a-days growing up in football?” “Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.” “Or what about in college? You know, you, all-American, all that kind of stuff. Did you, like, hit the weight room and nutrition and…?” “Oh, man, it was like your life. And that’s what we did.” “And when you played pro ball, what was that like?” “Oh man.”

I said, “So, what you’re telling me is to be a star and be a football player, it’s really hard. You get hit. You get up early. You lift weights. You eat, you go to sleep, and you focus your whole life. But your wife is not worth that? Really? Who told you it’s supposed to be easy?”

In fact, here’s the deal. I’m convinced, this is Chip Ingram, not the Bible. So, put this in your notes, asterisk, “Ingram thinks this. Don’t know if it’s really true.” No, I’m serious. I have a lot of Chip Ingram and I try to keep to the Bible. But this is one of mine.

I’m convinced that God actually has created marriage in such a way that it really doesn’t work. I mean, it really – two people with different personalities that are both selfish and both sinners, it really doesn’t work unless you follow the design and you get to where He gives you unconditional love and you can put the other person first and do all the super counterintuitive stuff.

Everything that has made our marriage really, really good is like, “This is crazy! I am the man! I should get up and make coffee in the morning? I should bring it to her? I should affirm her? I should do this? What about me? And every time I keep little by little learning what it means to cherish her and serve her and help her discover her gifts and understand in ways that they still don’t make sense to me how she thinks. You know what? I don’t have to understand it. But I’ve learned to not fix it and just listen.

And the more, the more you become like Jesus, the easier you are to live with. Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine being married to someone who is very kind? Can you imagine being married to someone who is humble, that just on a regular basis just not acts humble but just actually puts your needs ahead of theirs?

Or someone that bears with you that the underwear is still on the floor, the toothpaste is still like that, you still interrupt me when we’re with other people, and I love you. I mean, it’s an amazing thing. And that’s the core of building intimacy.

Let’s jump into how to get really, really practical. Why build a marriage God’s way? First, because He commanded it. And second, because it’s for your benefit. And let me give you some very specific benefits of marriage – doing it God’s way. These are so helpful. I listed them and you’ll notice there’s a little asterisk and at the bottom: Divorce Proof Your Marriage by Gary and Barbara Rosberg.

And spiritual intimacy allows you to connect at the deepest level. I mean, we connect emotionally, we connect spiritually, but I will tell you the deepest possible connection will be a connection of your spirits in the presence of God that will build a bond that it puts the emotions on steroids and the physical on steroids.

Spiritual intimacy, as you draw closer to God and as you begin and we’ll talk about how, and by the way, I’m going to tell you a little bit later, it’s really a challenge to develop spiritual intimacy. It’s a lot easier to develop physical intimacy, or even emotional intimacy.

Second is spiritual intimacy links you with God’s purposes and plans for your life. He says, “I know the plans that I have for you,” Jeremiah, right? 29:11. “They are plans for good, not for evil, for your welfare, to give you a hope and a future.”

When you connect, you with God and her or him with God, then it aligns you to know His voice and His plans and His direction for your life.

Third, spiritual intimacy allows you to bless each other with God’s love. That’s what I have been talking a lot about.

All I can tell you is we have over played, you know? I’m not going to go down my Hallmark story right now, but if I watched, like, fifty Hallmarks, I would think that all of love is about ooey-gooey emotions, starry-eyed, meeting people, and kissing when it starts to snow. Based solely on physical attraction by, seems to be, very, very pretty people who live in really nice houses, who actually have a lot of time to do everything except work, because they, I mean…

And within the first seven minutes, I have no idea how it’s going to end except I think they are going to fall in love. And ten minutes before it’s over, it doesn’t look like it’s going to work and, oh! Yes, it does!

And I don’t mean that as crassly, but there’s a diet of that that has so permeated our culture, we actually, people actually believe love is romantic feelings. And we have developed such a narcissistic culture that you think when you’re unhappy, something is wrong. You understand, Jesus was unhappy a lot. Hebrews says in the course of His lifetime, He shed many tears. He hurt for people. He was lonely. He was rejected. He was tempted in every way, just like you and just like me. He was fully human, yet without sin.

Part of life is down days, hard days, struggle days. “For you have been called to this purpose since Christ also suffered for you. Who though He suffered, He didn’t revile, or pay back, but entrusted Himself to a faithful Creator.” Suffering is, it’s a part of life. We have lived in this last thirty to forty years and it has creeped more and more into Evangelical Christianity at all levels that somehow Jesus wants to make you self-fulfilled and happy and make everything go great. And when Jesus doesn’t do that, you are disillusioned. When you demand from God promises He never made, you are worshipping a God that doesn’t exist.

His agenda is not to make you happy. He doesn’t work all things together for your good, to those that are called, to those that love Him, so that you’ll be self-fulfilled and happy.