The Word for Today and Every Day

[HKHaugan]

Two events this past week got me looking at Ephesians 2 in a slightly different light. One was a discussion in the Mountain Men’s group. The other was when a plumber’s assistant who came to fix a leak aimed to convert me to become a Jehovah’s Witness. Actually when joined both stood in contrast. One approached from the heart and the other from a heartless system. Both used Scripture but one was an interpersonally sensitive attempt by a group of men to share from the heart and the other was rehearsed with a taped presentation, a trained strategy designed to set me up for institutional conversion. I’ve had the same experience with Mormons and, if you think about it, other denominational forms as well. What I think was a God-incidence led me to think of a relatively modern word that seemed to me to be the heart of what the heart is all about---intimacy.

The first part of Chapter 1 is a description of the length to which God the Son would go to restore our intimacy with the Father by sacrificing His. “He who knew no sin became sin for us that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2Cor.5:21).” An intimacy we lost in Adam’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden. This speaks to the amazing love that God has for mankind.

Intimacy, what is it? How do we achieve it? What prevents it? In the group’s discussion reference was made to Joseph not ‘knowing’ Mary until after the birth of Jesus. ‘Knowing’ in that context is physical intimacy expressing male-female intimacy in marriage. But it’s what’s behind the physical that is being expressed. In German one knows the language either intimately or academically, ‘Konnen Sie Deutsch?’ (academic knowing), oder ‘Kennen Sie Deutsch? (personal knowing), ‘Jeg tror Norsk’ (personal) eller ‘Jeg vet Norsk’ (academic).

Our primary example of perfect intimacy is the Holy Trinity---Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It was when we received Jesus, that we began our trek into intimacy. He prayed this for us, “I in them and you in me (Jn.17:23).”

In other words intimacy begins when we accept Jesus and He gives us the Holy Spirit (Jn.3:5).

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water (Jn.4;10).” As we relate to Jesus through the Holy Spirit we find ourselves being bonded to Him through His Word. It is not how much of the Word we get but how much we let the Spirit of intimacy touch us as we read it. "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things (Philippians 3:8).” “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews …true worshipers worship in Spirit and in truth…the Father seeks such to worship Him (Jn.4:22-24).”

There is the shared heart, mind and spirit experience, the unseen realities that make us the created images of God we are.

Intimacy is opening these three internal parts of our God image, first to God then to others.

Intimacy is allowing someone into our mind, heart and spirit because that was what Jesus did. Intimacy is humility exercised. Intimacy with Jesus is when you don’t have to win an argument. There is a difference between sharing and winning.

When you see Jesus in Scripture what you see is what you get. It starts with the mind, moves in trust to the heart and then acts intimacy out in faith. This is the road to maturity. The human Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature with God and man.” David knew this: Ps.26:2 “Test me O Lord and try me, examine my heart and my mind, for your love is ever before me and I walk continually in your truth.” David knew intimacy with God.

This brings us to:
Eph.2
Just when we were lifted up in the presence of the risen Christ and could grasp the significance of how mighty and glorious God the Son is we are immediately catapulted into the understanding of our fallen human nature from which we have been rescued. Men lived by systems and institutions but not intimacy with their Creator. “We were dead in our transgressions and sins when we followed the way of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” Paul’s reasoning here is obviously a result of his experience of Jesus having accepted him. Remember Paul thinks of himself as the worst of sinners (1Tim.1:15). So the end of vs.3, “Like the rest we were by nature objects of God’s wrath.” We can only ask with David “What is man that Thou art mindful of him and that Thou visitest him?”

Vs.1-3 What we discover is that we have three spiritual enemies, the devil, our sinful nature and the world. First, there is the devil, the ruler of the kingdom of the air. Second, there is our sinful nature with its desires and thoughts. Third, there are the ways of the world.

When Paul prayed in 1:18 that eyes of the heart could be enlightened it was with the idea that Jesus brings intimacy through the Spirit. This is a heart to heart experience. It is at this point that we can have the hope of the Resurrection in us.

Here is a second list emphasizing what Jesus has done to restore intimacy with us:
vs.4-5 spiritually restored ---God’s love and mercy made us alive with Christ while still sinners
vs.6 citizens of Heaven ---By the gift of grace He has seated us with Him in the heavenly realms
vs.7 heirs of heavenly riches to come---again, saved by grace through faith
vs.9,10 We have a mission. We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

Intimacy is Jesus personalizing Himself in our hearts. Intimacy is letting the Spirit take control.

This was the case of the rich young man that comes to Jesus and asks what He has to do to inherit eternal life (Lk.18:18). The Samaritan woman in John 4 is a classic story of progressive understanding until it hits her He is the Messiah. How about Thomas finally saying, “My Lord and my God?” Jesus is always on the move and running into people or people running into Him. He seeks out some, is sought out by others and has casual encounters with lepers, Pharisees, tax collectors, merchants, sick, lame, demon possessed not just to minister to them but that they may know Him, relate to Him and have a heart relationship with them.

What we are saying is that true intimacy begins in the Spirit, spiritual intimacy, and that can only occur when the One who gives us the Spirit is the One who saves us from the sin that blocks God’s love. Sin gets us to believe we can have intimacy by making it as in the arrogant phrase ‘making love.’ It can’t be made, only accepted. The question is, “Are we willing to accept the source of spiritual love that is expressed to the fullest in Jesus?” Here is where intimacy begins, with Him.

There are two country songs’ lyrics that spell out our intimacy issues, “Looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces.”
And
“We live in two different worlds dear, that's why we're so far apart
You made your world out of vows that are broken I built a world in my heart
Everyone here tried to warn me you were just playing a game
I told them all we were meant for each other I thought our worlds were the same.”

The Bible offers several means by which God’s intimacy is experienced---Baptism, the Lord’s Supper and Marriage.

Baptism is the outward sign of being bonded to Jesus through the Spirit. Baptism is the declaration of God’s grace that provides His intimacy with us as we die to self and rise in Jesus.

The Lord’s Supper is the constant reassurance of that intimacy. This is why some denominations have it as their central worship experience although they too have sometimes abused its meaning.

Marriage is the ongoing practice of intimacy as a man and a woman are reconciled to each other in God. It is the primary experience that provides for the foundation of all social intimacy. Man and woman are physically constructed to experience intimacy that is the outward sign of our being reconciled as man and woman in the intimacy in God. This is the basis for the family, a copy of the Holy Trinity, to bring the knowledge of God to the world through their witness.

Peace is the intimacy God the Holy Spirit conveys to our hearts that passes understanding (Php.4:7). This is why Paul says Christ is our peace. The essence of God is the peace that passes all understanding and comes from His grace through faith. Peace, grace, love, mercy, kindness, patience, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control and goodness: all are the fruit of the Spirit and each conveys the intentional intimacy the Father offers through His Son.

The gifts of the Spirit are given to minister Jesus’ wholeness in healing and growth to brothers and sisters in the Body. They are the exercise of the Holy Spirit’s power of intimacy. They free believers to witness for Jesus so that they can exercise the work of the Spirit in mission outside the Body of Christ.