Intimacy

Opening Prayer

Father, I’m so happy that you love a sense of humor and that you laugh. You’re not a God who just looks down and waits to discipline us. You rejoice in us. So, Father, we ask this morning that you would rejoice in what Patti has prepared, and that she would feel your Holy Spirit speak through her. Father, open our ears so that each of us will take at least one gold nugget home today, hopefully more, to know how precious we are in your eyes. In Jesus’ name we pray this. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Anna Marie.

Why We Have Values

All right. Today we are continuing on with our discussion of the FIRE values, and the value we’re looking at today is the I value: intimacy, his presence, and hearing his voice. Values are the core beliefs and guiding principles that define an organization’s identity. They shape its culture, and they guide daily decision-making across all levels.

It’s actually super cool. Years and years ago, when our kids were really young, we went through and defined four values that we wanted our family to live by. It became really easy, when we were faced with a very good situation to be a part of, to ask ourselves whether the opportunity in front of us aligned with the values we had decided were important for our family. If it did, awesome, let’s see if it’s something we want to do. If it didn’t, that was an easy one. Nope, it does not align with who we are and what we want.

So the FIRE values give us the ability to look at our actions, our words, our teachings and our ministries here in the church, and to see where they align with our values and where they don’t. Last week, Jonathan shared on the Father’s love revealed through Jesus. I can promise you that you will hear more of that message throughout the coming weeks and months, because it is so central to who we are and what we believe. This week we’re looking at I: intimacy, his presence, and hearing his voice.

Valuing His Presence

We value the presence of God here at The River. We know that he is with us. He has said he will never leave us and he will never forsake us. He lives inside of us. But we also want to cultivate an awareness of his presence. We can have the knowledge that he is always with us, but are we aware of his presence with us? We want to be people who take time to sit in his presence.

We love worship, but that’s not the only time you can experience his presence. It’s also one of the reasons we don’t just sing a couple of songs and move on. We linger, because we know we are in the presence of God. We can feel him. We can sense him. We know he’s there. We’re not here just to check boxes. We are here to meet with him, to be in his presence and to follow his lead. We want to be so aware of his holiness, his faithfulness and his goodness every day and in every moment, including when we are together in church. In his presence there’s fullness, completeness and wholeness of joy, and we can live out of that joy as we live in his presence. As a church, we value the presence of God.

A God Who Speaks

We also believe that he is a God who speaks, and that we were created to hear his voice. Hearing God personally moves you from an academic, head knowledge of him into an active, two-way, personal relationship with him, and it’s in that relationship that you build intimacy. I can’t really be intimate with someone I don’t connect with, right? He is speaking to us. He’s always speaking. Are we listening? Are we taking the time to tune in to what he’s saying?

Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call to me and I will answer you.” We have his assurance that he will speak to us. In John 10:27 it says, “My sheep hear my voice.” Revelation 3:20 says, “If any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him.” He says it over and over in the Bible. If you want to know more about hearing God’s voice, you can find the Hearing God’s Voice session from our Fatherheart weekend. It’s on our YouTube account, like John mentioned, and it goes more in depth into the topic. But we believe that God is speaking and that we can hear him.

Intimacy with the Father is more than knowing about him. When you are intimate with him, you experience his love, and as you experience his love, your life is forever changed. Now, I’m not talking about seeking an experience. We spend so much of our lives seeking experience. Maybe we’re seeking novelty. Maybe we’re looking for escape. Maybe we’re looking for something to satisfy places inside of us, something to soothe the loneliness, the hurting and the emptiness. The only thing that will ever truly satisfy you is him. Seek intimacy with him and you will be forever satisfied.

Maybe you’re saying, “I’m scared. I’m scared that he won’t be enough. I’m scared that the things I think I need are beyond him.” Some of us feel that way. I’ve been there. I know what that feels like, and I know how hard it is to wonder whether he can actually satisfy the things inside of us. I can promise you that he is enough to satisfy every single thing you think you need. But no amount of promising from me will prove it to you. That’s something you have to figure out with him. As you encounter his love, everything changes. I can promise you that.

Perfect Love Expels Fear

Let’s look at 1 John 4:15-21. It’s a decent-sized passage, and I’ve got it marked in my Bible. I’m reading from the New Living Translation. Starting in verse 15: “All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he first loved us.”

His perfect love expels fear. It gets rid of it. It casts it out. Fear cannot exist alongside his perfect love.

I want to turn over to 1 Corinthians 13 and look at it. “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” What does that say about God? God is love. This is God’s character. When we take the scripture that defines God’s character of love, and God is perfect love, we can say that this is how he loves you. He’s not keeping a record of your wrongs. He’s patient with you. He’s kind to you. He doesn’t demand his own way. He doesn’t get irritated or frustrated with you. Even when you make the same mistake over and over, he loves you. Perfect love expels fear.

Known Without Hiding

Intimacy is a two-way street. Think about this: God already knows everything there is to know about you. So intimacy with him, or with anyone, requires a knowing and a being known. It’s both. In knowing him and in being known by him, we can become secure enough in his love to be completely who he created us to be.

Intimacy can be a hard thing to understand, to grab hold of or to lean into, because of the limitations, the inconsistencies and the really messy humanity of our earthly fathers, mothers and authority figures. Maybe you received a message that you need to present perfectly in order to gain love or approval. Maybe you believed a lie that it was your inconvenience or messiness that made connection or acceptance difficult. Maybe you believed you were too much. Maybe you believed you were not enough, and you’ve spent years desperate to figure out what you needed to do to earn the love and connection your heart desired, the connection and love you were actually created for. That is not a wrong desire inside of you. It was put inside of you.

These lies and beliefs impact our intimacy with Father God, because we see relationship with him through the hurt, the pain, the fear, the insecurity and the disappointments we’ve known in relationship. It can be a really subtle belief that escapes your understanding, but it’s something you’ve experienced, and you see it as fact in your life. Yet the Father already knows everything there is to know about you. In Jeremiah 1:5 he says, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.” He knew you before sin ever had an opportunity to affect you. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice and his blood, he still sees that version of you and loves you. You are not too damaged. You are not too broken. You are not too messy or inconvenient. You are beautiful to him. He created a masterpiece when he made you, and he loves you.

Hebrews 4:13 says, “Nothing in all of creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes. And he is the one to whom we are accountable.” Intimacy with the Father means being known without hiding. We can’t actually hide from him, right? But that doesn’t stop us from trying, does it?

Bill and Melissa

I want to tell you a story about Bill and Melissa. They are a fictitious couple, but I want you to follow along with me. They’ve been married for 34 years, which puts them somewhere in their 50s or 60s. They’ve had three kids. They look like they love each other. They look like a lovely couple, don’t they? They are no longer 19, 21 or 25. They are 50 and 60 years old, with all of the ways that life has touched them.

Bill loves Melissa and Melissa loves Bill, but Melissa has some insecurities about the way she looks, and in those insecurities she wants to hold back or hide parts of who she is from Bill. Bill loves her because he’s a good man. He’s a godly man. But her insecurities affect their intimacy. Can you see that? Her belief about herself is the problem, and what he thinks about her has nothing to do with it. It could just as easily be reversed, with the husband carrying the insecurity. The point I’m trying to make is that we can’t hide from God, and that doesn’t stop us from trying.

He’s not looking for a perfect image of us. He sees us as perfect. He sees us covered by the blood, and he loves us. We can come to him angry. We can come to him disappointed. We can come to him confused. We can come to him joyful, or embarrassed, or with all the questions we have. There is no need for us to manage his opinion of you, because his love for you does not depend on what you do, how you look, how you present or what you say. He loves you because he created you. His love for you is certain. It is unchanging. It is unending. That’s how he loves you.

Being intimate means you can come naked and exposed, understanding that his perfect love expels any fear you feel. His perfect love comes and covers all of the fear and all of the shame and all of the insecurity and all of the uncertainty. It covers it until it’s gone. That’s how he loves you.

How the Father Hears You

We can be so good at loving God, at serving him, at obeying him, at doing all the things and keeping really busy, while struggling to receive his love. Jesus’ baptism gives us such a beautiful picture of this. Before Jesus did anything, before his ministry started, the Father spoke from heaven. Matthew 3:17: “This is my beloved Son, who brings me great joy.” The Father spoke love and delight over Jesus before he had done anything. He has that same love and delight for you, because of who you are, whatever you have done in the past or will do in the future.

If you look at John 17, the whole chapter, it’s the prayer of Jesus. That’s the title of it in my Bible. It’s a whole chapter of Jesus just talking to his Father, and it’s such a great example, because that’s what we can do. We can just talk to our Father. There’s no formula and there are no right words. In John 17:23 Jesus is talking to his Father about the disciples, and he wants the world to know that you, God, love them as much as you love me. We are loved by the Father the way that Jesus was loved. We can come to him at any time with anything and know with complete confidence that he has time for you, and that he hears you.

That’s an interesting word, “hears.” There are verses all over the place that say he hears and he will answer, or “I cried out and he heard me.” Do you know the verses I’m talking about? We might look at that word and think, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Right now I can hear the fan blowing. I can hear people moving in their seats. That kind of hearing is passive. I’m just taking information in. We lose something by not knowing some of the Hebrew meanings of the words. The word used so many times in the Bible is shama, and it’s an active listening. It’s listening with action put to it. It’s hearing and being moved to action.

As human beings we have a biological response that I believe comes from our Father. When a baby falls down and we hear them cry, something in us is moved to action. We are moved to comfort, to connect and to love. That word “hear” means hearing and being moved to action. That’s how the Father hears you. When you cry out to him, he hears you and he is moved toward you with compassion and love. You can count on that. You don’t have to wonder whether he’s just up there listening to your noise. He hears you, and he is moved to action.

Living Life With Him

He wants you to bring him into your everyday, ordinary life. If you spend five, fifteen or thirty minutes a day, or a week, reading about somebody, how intimate is that relationship? It’s not very much, is it? Intimacy is more than just a quiet time with God. Intimacy could look like, “Father, I’m making dinner right now. What is it that you want me to know?” It could be, “Father, I’m so frustrated with my husband, my child, my employer, my friend, my mother. What is it that you want me to know about this situation? Can you show me how you see them? What wisdom can you give me?” It could be, “Father, I’m so nervous about this conversation I’m about to have. Will you help me to show your love in it?” It could be, “Father, I’m so happy with this life that you’ve given me. I love that you have blessed me with this.”

Intimacy is living life with him rather than periodically checking in. Intimacy is trusting him with the parts of you that feel unsafe. Some of us learned from a very early age that we need to keep the people around us happy, calm or pleased in order to feel safe. The Father doesn’t want you to live that way. We don’t have to control the outcome to be okay. We can disagree with someone and still be loved. We can say no and still be loved. We can mess up and still be loved, because the Father loves you no matter what. His love for you is unending, unchanging and certain.

Correction Without Condemnation

Intimacy with him is knowing that his correction is done in love and won’t expose you or destroy you. The Father will teach us, challenge us and nurture us, because he loves us. There are so many things he has challenged me on in my life, but it has never felt like condemnation, and it has never brought me shame. It always draws me closer to him. His correction encourages me to rise above where I am or what I believe, and it brings me closer to his love and his truth.

Correction from a loving father sounds fundamentally different from condemnation. It sounds more like, “Oh, sweetheart, that is not who you are. Come closer and let me love you. Let me encourage you in my love, in who I am.” It doesn’t sound like, “You did something wrong. Go to your room. Be alone with what you’ve done.” Romans 2:4 says, “God’s kindness leads us to repentance.” Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin? His correction becomes evidence of his love, rather than evidence that we’ve lost his love.

Honest Enough to Wrestle

Intimacy means being honest enough to wrestle. It doesn’t mean pretending to understand God. Look at David in the Psalms. He questions. He cries out. He shares his anger and his confusion. Even in all of it, he keeps turning toward God. “Look at my best friend. They stabbed me in the back. They want to kill me. Look at these ones that I’ve given everything to. They’re just against me now. God, I don’t understand. It seems like everything is going wrong. But I know that you are God. I know that you are good.” That’s intimacy.

If you’re wondering whether we’re being too familiar with God, I don’t think intimacy diminishes awe. If anything, I think it increases it. When you truly encounter the supernatural love of God, the response is never, “Well, God’s my buddy, so he’s not that big of a deal.” The response is more like, “The God of the universe loves me. He’s infinite. He’s holy. He’s powerful. He’s glorious. And he is calling me to come closer to him.”

Hebrews shows us both sides of this. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us approach God’s throne of grace with confidence.” I want you to imagine this. It was the best picture I could find: a super ornate throne room, with a couple of stairs leading up to the throne. Imagine a king who represents God on that throne, talking to some of his advisors, maybe someone from a close nation. From the far back corner of the room, a child escapes the care of their mother or their nurse, rips across that throne room and up the steps, and throws their arms around their daddy’s knee. Why? Because they know they are loved. They know they have access to him. They’re not worried about the pomp and circumstance. They can throw themselves boldly at him, knowing that in that moment he is not going to say, “I’m too busy for you. I’m doing important things.” He is going to reach down, pick you up, hold you close and say, “I always have time for you. I want to hear what you’re saying. Come and let me love you.”

Hebrews 12:28 says, “Let’s be thankful and worship God with reverence and awe.” Confidence and reverence are not opposites. They don’t cancel each other out. We can crawl into our Father’s lap and still be overwhelmed by, and in awe of, who he is.

The more secure I am in the Father’s love, the less I rely on others’ views and opinions. The more secure I am in the Father’s love, the less I need to control other people’s emotions, their actions or the situations I find myself in in order to keep myself safe. I can love when I know his love. I can be patient and kind. I can be satisfied, humble and unashamed. I can be one who does not demand my own way. I can be generous and good-tempered. I can keep no record of wrong. I can rejoice when truth wins out. I can be one who never gives up, who trusts, who is forever hopeful, who endures in every situation. When I know his love and when I am known by him, I can be love.

The more we know him and the more we are known by him, the more secure we become in his love, secure enough to be completely who he created us to be. He wants us to know what it feels like to live every moment of every day in his presence. He wants us to hear his voice. He wants intimacy with you. He wants that place of being known by you, with you unafraid, because you know and experience his love, so that you can stand naked and exposed and still be so confident of his love for you.

Invitation and Prayer

Can we stand? I’m going to call the prayer team up. If there was something in today’s message that touched some part of you, if you are saying, “I’m scared. I’m scared of being exposed. I’m scared of being known. But I want it. I want to be known more. I want to know his love in such a way that I can come to him at any moment, at any time, with anything, knowing that his love for me is so great that I do not have to be afraid,” I’m going to ask you to come up and let our team pray with you. If you’re saying, “I have a degree of this, but I want to go deeper. I want intimacy with my Father to be more,” I’m going to invite you to come up too.

Father, thank you that you desire intimacy with us. Thank you for your love. Father, if there are any places of fear inside of us right now, I just ask that your love would be so strong and so evident in this place that every ounce of fear would be expelled, and that we would be able to freely come and say, “Yes, I want more. I want more of you, not being scared of who I am.” Father, would you speak to each of us in our hearts? Would you show us your love? Would we be ones who know you more, who want to know you more, and who are so confident in who you are that we can just say, “Here I am, this is all of me,” and allow him to speak into our lives. Amen.

So if that’s you, come on up and get some prayer. We have about 15 minutes before we have to go and pick up the kids, so take your time.