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Sunday 10/26/25
Title: Purposeful Intimacy
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Purposeful Intimacy
The Past two weeks…
Now today is going to feel a little bit different than normal.
Last week I sort of wrapped up a near year of teaching about the inward work of the Spirit within us and its impact on our outward testimony empowered by the Holy Spirit upon us.
I focused a fair amount these past two weeks on our outward witness. Really pressing you on being a light to the world, bringing salt into the world, being letters strategically placed before the world for them to read and to seek God for people and opportunities to disciple clothes and to be discipled.
We also drew a connection between these activities our Lord commanded us to be engaged in and the natural growth of the local church assembly which we are in desperate need of.
I told you that word of mouth does more to build a secular business than any paid advertisement and those who go to those businesses often return because it began in relationship. When there is a relational component, it connects with people.
Now we are NOT a business, BUT we ARE a family and THAT IS relational.
The difference between the way this is typically encouraged in churches today and what I am calling on you to do are two major points.
- I want you to invite them to Christ – NOT church.
- I want those who follow you here, to have already met Christ or furthered their intimacy with Him through you!
Don’t bring them to church to have the pastor or others do you evangelistic work FOR you. You win the lost and they will follow you to where you get fed.
All of this can be accomplished by programs and pressure from your church or pastor… and that will work, but what it produces is NOT living or alive! It is like an altar built to God, but hewn by human tools.
The only way Christianity really works, is when it is real, living and an automatic overflow of your own walk with and hunger for God!
Intimacy with God – THE NEED
So we ended last week by telling you that we need to develop in our love of God, our fear of God and our eagerness in the work of the kingdom and that this comes from seeking Him!
Seeking God is also referred to in scripture as seeking His face. When the involvement is bi-direcitonal as it is with God, it is a relation that is best known as “face-to-face”.
Some of the most intimate statements regarding God’s relationship with people are directly connected with seeking His face or God speaking to them face-to-face.
David in one of his most well known psalms revealed his heart’s awareness that God was inviting him to come and know Him face to face.
David acknowledged God by saying.
“You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,
“Your face, LORD, do I seek.”
(9) Hide not Your face from me. Turn not Your servant away in anger, O You Who have been my help. Cast me not off; forsake me not, O God of my salvation!” – Psalm 27:8-9
You remember how during one of Israel’s most obnoxious times of spiritual unfaithfulness towards God, when even the prophet and priest lived intoxicated lives of discernment regarding God’s face and voice. It was then that Isaiah said,
“Truly, you are a God Who hides Himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.”– Isaiah 45:15
But we are also assured from God’s word that if we will draw near, if we will seek, if we will hunger we will be filled!
David, after being confronted by the prophet Nathan regarding his sin of setting up Uriah to die in battle so that he could cover up his adulterous collusion with Bathsheba and the resulting child.
He cried out,
“(7) Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. (8) Make me hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have broken may rejoice. (9) Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.”
This was another way of saying turn not your face from me and blot not out my name from Your book.
He went on to say,
“(10) Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. (11) Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. (12) Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.” – Psalm 51:7-12
Yet I think it a fair statement to say that if God were to turn His face from His church, many would never notice. May that never be us!
Even we who would notice, often do not live with a hunger that requires His face and seeks it with fervency.
Intimacy with God – the method
In the past few weeks I’ve had the Father opening my eyes to the connection between requiring intimacy with Him and the work of the kingdom.
Now I want to be clear that NONE of what I am sharing with you is a carved in stone formula you can work like a machine to generate greater intimacy with God. These are tools which God has given us and examples I am providing to help you along the way.
The first of which regards seeking God’s face.
Seeking God’s face reveals one of two things to us. Either His love or His majestic worthiness of reverent fear.
These all work together.
A revelation of God’s love for us, stirs up not only a reciprocation of that love, but it also stirs godly fear.
In turn, revelations and re-awakenings of Godly fear, stirs up our love for God and our awareness of His undying, loyal love towards us.
This relationship – like all relationships – requires maintenance, diligence, pursuit of the Lord and a fanning of the flame of our hunger for Him.
Now God, as He always does, has given us built-in awarenesses and experiences of this in human relationships so that our union with Him might be more intuitive.
Like parenting gives us a conceptual view of God with us, so He has in His infinite wisdom built this into us spirit, soul and body relational aids and instincts.
Not only does intimacy resonate with our spirits because we were created to worship God in spirit, intimacy is a requirement for the health of our hearts and minds as well. And it doesn’t stop there – even our bodies need this connection. Did you realize that there is a whole scientific discipline devoted to the body and the neurochemistry which facilitates intimate connection between two people.
All of this God baked into the human experience so that we might be better equipped for our pursuit of God and in our response to His pursuit of us.
So I have prepared a video which illustrates this from a neurochemical and physiological vantage point. Remember again not to take any of this too far. This is only being mentioned for purposes of illustration, but God DID in fact create us this way and He did so for a reason. Everything God does has purpose and this purpose is very, very clear! God is teaching us about intimacy and connection, devotion and loyalty over the long hull that does not fade with time!
How many of you can identify with the wavering – on and off again – nature of your passion for God. Books have been written about it, hymns sing about it “Lord I’m prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love” – David wrote songs, poems and prayers about it, Israel lived it and Paul wrote epistles encouraging the saints to press on and offering us vulnerably clear stories from his own life regarding his wavering allegiance.
This is not an experience that only touches a few. Though we are eternal beings our attention span and passions are often fleeting!
So the video I have put together for you illustrates the concept of purposefully maintaining a face to face relationship with those you love.
Now why would I do that?
Because if God baked these truths into our human experience they are there to facilitate our learning about our relationship with Him.
Two neurochemicals which are mentioned in this are oxytocin and dopamine. Without going too deep, these two neurochemicals play important roles in our social bonding, offering us rewards for bonding and motivation to pursue it.
CAN YOU SEE WHY THIS IS AN ‘ON TOPIC’ ILLUSTRATION?
These two neurochemicals have a complex and intertwined relationship:
They are co-released: Meaning that both oxytocin and dopamine are released in response to social interactions, such as cuddling, kissing, and intimate touch. This co-release reinforces positive feelings and promotes social bonding.
Oxytocin can stimulate the release of dopamine, while dopamine can increase oxytocin production. This reciprocal regulation creates a positive feedback loop that enhances the effects of both neurochemicals.
DO YOU REMEMBER HOW I JUST TOLD YOU THAT OUR SEEKING GOD’S FACE WILL RESULT IN AN INCREASED AWARENESS OF EITHER HIS LOVE FOR US OR HIS WORTHINESS OF OUR REVERENT FEAR? DO YOU ALSO REMEMBER THAT I TOLD YOU THAT ONE WILL PRODUCE THE OTHER.
AGAIN, ARE YOU SEEING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OUR SPIRITUAL NATURES AND WHAT GOD BAKED INTO OUR EARTH BOUND HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS AND BONDINGS?
Both oxytocin and dopamine act on overlapping neural pathways, particularly in the brain’s reward system. This suggests that they may work together to mediate feelings of pleasure and reward.
While both neurochemicals are involved in social bonding, they also have distinct functions.
- Dopamine, which we will hear about first, is more focused on reward, motivation, and pleasure.
- While oxytocin is primarily responsible for attachment, trust, and cooperation.
In the first part of this montage of a video, the woman says a statement which made my jaw drop, because it so struck to the core of our experience of vacillating loyalties towards God. I went like this…
“If you only relate in ways that feel efficient, productive and familiar your brain will file these in a folder called “predictable stimulus” and you’ll stop registering them as a source of aliveness.
So stop waiting to feel a spark, start building one, because dopamine doesn’t come from what’s known. It comes from what’s possible.”
You’ve heard the maxim, ‘overfamiliarity breeds contempt’. That is because the mind rebels against stagnation. You have to do things ON PURPOSE to keep relationships alive!
And as she said,
“If you only relate in ways that feel efficient, productive and familiar your brain will file these in a folder called “predictable stimulus” and you’ll stop registering them as a source of aliveness.”
Now I am about to play the video and use it as a springboard into covering whatever we can in our time left regarding intimacy, seeking God’s face, our fear of God, our devoted love of God and our urgent drive to accomplish kingdom work!
But PLEASE!!! Don’t just be a witness to the video – enter into it. Let it stir desire and when we get to the end when couples engage in an exercise designed to trigger the release of oxytocin is primarily responsible for attachment – that is to say, social bonding which requires trust and cooperation. Oxytocin is the physiological bodily trigger which excites or motivates these choices in your heart. They do not create them – they are still a choice, but like the wafting smell of well prepared food, baits your mouth to water and your stomach to growl in anticipation of partaking of the meal, so these neurochemicals, path the way for choices you can make in kind.
So BE the couples in the video. Allow that wonderful gift God gave us of imagination and empathy to experience what they are so that this illustration can serve its purpose in today’s lesson
NOTE: For copyright reasons I am not posting the montage video I made but I will link the individual videos here. I did not pick these participants and so please do not read into the fact that there is a sampling outside of standard and normal parameters. I did however find watching them instructional, because their interactions were less natural than all the others, which I find very telling.
->Here are the links – Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3 – Video 4 – Video 5
Seeking God’s face is connected to His presence.
Since it is so very true that we often understand the wonder of what we have by examining its opposite – I will begin with what it means to have God’s face turned away from us.
Turn with me to 2 Thessalonians 1…
As we read this, it isn’t hard to see all the elements I’ve so far mentioned being brought up in Paul’s correspondence and encouragement of them.
2 Thessalonians 1:3-12,
“(3) We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, BECAUSE your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other, (4) so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, (5) which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, FOR WHICH YOU ALSO SUFFER;
(6) since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, (7) and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, (8) in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not KNOW God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(9) THESE SHALL BE PUNISHED WITH EVERLASTING DESTRUCTION FROM THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD AND FROM THE GLORY OF HIS POWER,
(10) when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified IN His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.
(11) Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, (12) that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now I want to bear down on the negative in these verses which finds its greatest expression in verse 9.
In 2 Thessalonians 1:9, the Greek word prosōpon (πρόσωπον) literally means “face”. In a biblical context, it refers to a person’s presence or countenance and is used in a relational sense.
The face as a metonymy for “presence”.
In the Bible, seeking the “face of the Lord” is a metaphor for a close, personal, and favorable relationship with God. This is the relationship that the blessed enjoy.
The phrase “eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord” most accurately refers to a permanent and total banishment from God’s favorable and life-giving presence.
It describes an ultimate separation of relational connection, which is the antithesis of the blessed, face-to-face communion with God that believers will and do experience though our current experience of it is veiled by the flesh.
Here on earth – in what Paul called “this present distress” this coming to know God in true intimacy is rationed out based upon the thickness of our flesh, so to speak.
The more the world is within the believer, the less real estate remains for God.
So “Here a little, there a little” is the way we increase in knowing God, as the prophet Isaiah said – though admittedly under far more grave circumstances.
Nevertheless, the flesh is the veil and the attention we give to the flesh sets the pace for our growth in knowing Him.
As John told us, “The reason the world does not know us is because it does not know Him. Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him As He IS.” – 1 John 3:1,2
Our brother Paul explained this even further to the baby Christians in Corinth and the maturing saints in Thesselonica. In these accounts Paul hints at the other mechanism which will allow this transformation to be immediate and that is our flesh will be out of the way. To the Corinthians he says,
“Listen! I’m telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead in Christ will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.”
Then to the Thessalonians believers he says,
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will always be with Him!”
The opposite of beholding His face is His hiding his face:
In contrast, to be “hidden” or “cast out” from the “face of the Lord” means to be cut off from His presence and favor and the life they give.
A contrast to intimacy:
Revelation 22:4, says that the redeemed “will see His face,” highlighting a deep and joyful communion with Him.
For the wicked, to be “cast away from His face” is the ultimate punishment experienced in loss. It is quite literally the opposite of the saints’ reward.
The significance of the words “away from” in the Greek the preposition apo (ἀπὸ) precedes prosōpon in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 and means “from” or “away from“. This emphasizes the relational separation that defines the punishment.
It denotes a relational separation: Interpreters widely understand this phrase to mean that the unrighteous will be removed or shut out from the Lord’s presence and that this separation constitutes the “eternal destruction” of the wicked.
However, this CANNOT BE a physical separation, as God is omnipresent. Remember the words of David, “If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.” – Psalm 139:8
NOTE: While I concede that this verse “could” be referring to the sky above and the grave beneath, such an interpretation does not necessarily coincide with David’s actual point which is the omnipresence of God. Heaven here in this verse, while perhaps not specifically referring to the abode of God, most certainly means the highest place a human could ever go In clear distinction to this “hell” (sheol) is here meant to represent the lowest place a human could go. Thus the utmost extremes possible in human experience and so it is more than appropriate to allocate the meanings as the abode of God and the abode of the damned.
No this is not mere physical separation. It is FAR worse. Infinitely worse. This is nothing less than a complete severance from His favor, mercy and grace ALL while being surrounded with His omnipresent Self.
It is a total relational rejection and casting away from the potential of ever knowing Him.
Implied in this is a continual exposure to the beauty, majesty and glory of God with all of the drawing power that would have upon a human soul; yet forever being the recipient of a Divine cold shoulder knowing you first rejected and shunned Him.
The end result seems to indicate that there will be an eternal anguish of soul. A hunger for connectedness with the Creator. An awareness and an open view to His matchless beauty and infinite winsomeness but never able to draw near or know Him.
The resulting state is one of an eternal pining away. To be consumed from within by desire, longing, deep penetrating need, coupled with an unending and furious rage at the prideful and ignorant defiance they possessed in rejecting Him.
These will never be able to escape the fact that it was their free will choice that brought this upon them. This truth will be made all the worse due to the fact that MOST of those in eternal judgment based their rejection of God upon very limited information, influenced far more by pride and self-will than on the pursuit of facts.
This places them forever in a position of unsatisfied wanton desire.
The eternal response to this unshakable remembrance of cavalier rejection will be weeping and gnashing of teeth through personal, self anger and grief.
What, so far as I can see in scripture is not directly explained but implied by this is that since the flesh will be removed from the wicked as well, they will have nothing to shield their hearts from exposure to His majesty and glory, His eternal beauty and winsomeness, His grandeur and His unimaginable delightfulness. And so surrounded by His glory and yet forever denied what our very beings were created for, these will pine away in a soul agony that consumes them with grief, embitterment and self-loathing forever.
This is why their experience is described as tormented, bitter weeping and gnashing of teeth.
As I have now told you at least two other times, the words “gnashing of teeth” is not like what one used to do by “bitting a bullet” to endure pain. No this, on some level, could be worse.
This is the type of powerful emotion that rises from a deeply, enraged indignance in the soul. This basic expression appears a total of 14 times throughout scripture, 7 of which are clear references to eternal condemnation, though the one in Psalm 112:10 “could be” a reference to eternity as well. Context alone does not make that certain.
In the other 7 cases there is a clear indication of hatred and indignant rage. I tried to imagine this and it wasn’t very difficult. Attempt, if you will, to imagine something, the action or occurrence of which enrages you. I did this and literally found myself clinching my teeth and shaking. So evidently this is an emotional expression which is sort of baked into humanity.
This includes the reference in Psalm 112:9&10.
I will read it to you and you will be able to see how it is clearly an expression of indignant rage at someone, the context might imply eternal judgment as well.
“He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever; his horn is exalted in honor. The wicked man sees it and is angry; he gnashes his teeth and melts away; the desire of the wicked will perish.”
This verse is very helpful because it gives us a context of indignant jealousy when the wicked see the righteous rewarded. It also says, “the desire of the wicked will perish” which makes this a reactive response to very negative emotions.
Now again, why am I going through this? To better understand what we have available to us in a face to face relationship with God! I want this understanding of the opposite to cause you to better appreciate and therefore pursue that same face which we are NOT cut off from!
As so often is true, we better understand the fullness of what we have, by considering its opposite. Like the maximum goes, “You don’t know what you have, until it’s gone.”
This is why the punishment for the apostate believers will be infinitely worse than those who never knew God to begin with. Forever in their memories will be the sweet remembrance of that brief moment of intimacy they once enjoyed and reveled in, but from which they apostated themself due to some temporal consideration of the flesh.
Contrasting views on causality:
While some scholars argue that the destruction comes from the Lord’s presence (as a consuming fire), this is not the prevailing view. It is however in step with my view and understanding. It is an awful, awful reality.
The more widely accepted understanding is that the punishment consists of the separation itself, but I think that being eternally exposed to the unfiltered impact of the person of His majesty Whose intimacy they willfully rejected, is a fitting the crime of having rejected God in life.
The nature of eternal destruction
The passage describes the ultimate punishment as “eternal destruction” (ὀλεθρος αἰώνιος, olethros aiōnios). The Greek word olethrosdescribes ruin and loss of well-being, not non-existence. It is an irreversible and unending state of ruin, marked by the conscious exclusion from God’s loving and joyful presence, union and life.
In conclusion, 2 Thessalonians 1:9 depicts the eternal fate of the unrighteous as a final and conscious expulsion from the blessings and relational favor of God, which is the very essence of spiritual death. It is the ultimate form of spiritual exile.
Now we descend yet even one step further…
Those who knew God and apostated themselves will be far worse off, for they will have as a constant reminder the intimacy they once had and willingly forfeited for the temporary rewards of the self-life. It would have been far better to have no frame of reference for what closeness with God was like, then to have that as a constant cancer eating away at your soul forever.
The opposite will be the reality for God’s children.
They knew Him in part as through a glass dimly here on the Earth.
That limited, obscure knowing produced a longing to know Him better and an ardent pressing of the face against the Veil that we might see all we may of Him in this life.
From this longing comes an ardor to pursue Him and the revelations received from these pursuits generated Godly fear.
To let this ardor cool, is to lapse into a callused indifference. A casual loving of God that does not motivate living that is fully separated unto Him.
Blessings!
Tri
