I is for Intimacy-Psalm 63:1-11

Psalm 63:1-11

“O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you…” (Ps 63:1, NLT).

Theme: God created us for intimacy. No one can truly live happily without it. Jesus lived most fully as the happiest man who ever walked the earth, because of his unbroken intimacy with One who loved him.

Synonyms for intimacy include closeness, togetherness, affinity, friendliness, friendship, affection, warmth, rapport, attachment, familiarity, amity.

Quotes:

“Some of us know at times what it is to be almost too happy to live! The love of God has been so overpoweringly experienced by us on some occasions, that we have almost had to ask for a stay of the delight because we could not endure any more. If the glory had not been veiled a little, we should have died of excess of rapture, or happiness.” Charles Spurgeon. From his sermon entitled Prodigal Love for the Prodigal Son (or Many Kisses for Returning Sinners). The verse he based it on is “…and kissed him” (Lk 15:20).

“The glory of God is man fully alive.” St. Irenaeus (130-202 AD; early church father, apologist, bishop). This suggests that unless there is an intimacy between God and man, life may not feel like life.

“There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God.” John Calvin.

“There is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace, my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him.” Thomas Merton.

“How can you draw close to God when you are far from your own self? Grant, Lord, that I may know myself, that I may know thee.” Augustine.

“Salvation is not merely deliverance from sin, nor the experience of personal holiness; the salvation of God is deliverance out of self entirely into union with Himself.” Oswald Chambers.

“Being most deeply your unique self is something that God desires, because your true self is grounded in Christ. God created you in uniqueness and seeks to restore you to that uniqueness in Christ. Finding and living out your true self is fulfilling your destiny.” David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself.

“Intimacy begins with oneself. It does no good to try to find intimacy with friends, lovers, and family if you are starting out from alienation and division within yourself.” Thomas Moore (author, former Catholic monk), Care of the Soul.

“Solitude is very different from a ‘time-out’ from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially open for a deeper intimacy with each other.” Henri Nouwen.

Ps 63:1-11 contain multiple expressions of intimacy. It explains and expresses well:

1. What intimacy is like.
2. How to have intimacy.

I. What Intimacy Is Like

What is it like?

1. Thirst (Ps 63:1).
2. Sight (Ps 63:2).
3. A feast (Ps 63:5).
4. It involves your body with:
5. longing (Ps 63:1).
6. praise (Ps 63:4).
7. singing (Ps 63:5, 7).
8. clinging (Ps 63:8).
9. rejoicing (Ps 63:11).
10. It feels better than life (Ps 63:3).

II. How To Have Intimacy

Notice some of the verbs:

1. Seek, thirsts, longs for God (Ps 63:1).
2. Behold God’s power and glory (Ps 63:2).
3. Glorify God (Ps 63:3).
4. Praise and lifting up of hands (Ps 63:4).
5. Singing (Ps 63:5, 7).
6. Remembering God at night on our beds (Ps 63:6).
7. Clinging to God (Ps 63:8).
8. Rejoicing in God (Ps 63:11).

Practically, to have and to experience intimacy, consider the following:

1. A true knowledge of God and of ourselves (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Chapter 1, Sections 1,2*).
2. The love of the Father (Jn 3:16; 1 Jn 4:8, 16; Jer 31:3).
3. The grace of the Son (Ac 20:24; 2 Tim 2:1; Gal 2:20; Eph 2:8-9).
4. The presence ofHoly Spirit: love, joy and peace (Gal 5:22-23) and freedom (2 Cor 3:17).
5. Having family, friends and a safe church who truly love you, care for you, and are invested in your life, future, success and happiness, while respecting you and not violating your boundaries.

* What John Calvin wrote in Institutes about the two most important things to know (bold intalics headings are mine):

True wisdom consists of two connecting parts. OUR wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.

No person can know themselves without turning to God. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone. In the second place, those blessings which unceasingly distil to us from heaven, are like streams conducting us to the fountain.

Until we know how bad we are, we cannot know how good God is. …the infinitude of good which resides in God becomes more apparent from our poverty. …our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us (see Calvin on John 4:10), that in the Lord, and none but He, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves.

Until you truly know yourself, you won’t seek God. For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? …so long as he is unknown to himself; …contented with his own endowments, and unconscious or unmindful of his misery? Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him.

No true self-knowledge without contemplating God, because in our pride we always think we’re basically good. …it is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he have previously contemplated the face of God, and…after such contemplation to look into himself. For (such is our innate pride) we always seem to ourselves just, and upright, and wise, and holy, until we are convinced, by clear evidence, of our injustice, vileness, folly, & impurity.

…since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself. And since nothing appears…around us that is not tainted with very great impurity, so … anything which is in some small degree less defiled delights us as if it were most pure…

Flattering ourselves. …when we look up to the sun, and gaze at it unveiled, the sight which did excellently well for the earth is instantly so dazzled and confounded by the refulgence, as to oblige us to confess that our acuteness in discerning terrestrial objects is mere dimness when applied to the sun. Thus too, it happens in estimating our spiritual qualities. So long as we do not look beyond the earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms…

Until we see God for who He truly is… But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect what kind of Being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue, to which, as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; …and what presented the appearance of (virtue) will be condemned as the most miserable impotence. So far are those qualities in us, which seem most perfect, from corresponding to the divine purity.

When intimacy became enmity. There is no greater intimacy than that between the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. From eternity to eternity, the three divine Persons are inextricably bound together in love and inseparability. But for a moment in time, this was not to be. On the cross, intimacy became enmity, love became hate, closeness became distance, togetherness became separation, and affection became animosity. Why did this have to happen? It was the only way for each of us to restore the intimacy that we lost in the Garden. Unless the forever Intimate Ones became seperate at that moment in history, we would forever be lost. But because the eternal intimate Beings became seperate on the cross, we, by His mercy and grace alone, can fully restore our intimacy with God and with each other. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!

How then should we live?

1. Live daily with the passionate cries of intimacy of the psalmist (Ps 63:1-11).
2. Live daily with the earnest quest for truly knowing God and ourselves.
3. As Jesus availed himself fully to us, may we also likewise avail ourselves for the blessing, success and happiness of others. Let us no longer live for ourselves but for Him who died and rose again (2 Cor 5:15).

References:

1. God, Our Intimate Friend (Ps 63:1-11). Sermon by Tim Keller.
2. Intimacy with God (Rev 3:14-22). Sermon by Andy Stanley.
3. Institutes of the Christian Religion, Chapter 1, Sections 1,2. John Newton.
4. Prodigal Love for the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:20). Sermon by Charles Spurgeon.
5. Faith a New and Comprehensive Sense. Poem/hymn by John Newton.