Yeah, so my name is Josh Squires, Minister of Counseling down in Columbia. Got a undergrad in psychology, a master's in marriage and family therapy, a master's in divinity, a master's in ethics, and I'm now doing a PhD in biblical counseling. I'm a nerd, is all that that means, and I'm married to an amazing woman. Those are your two takeaways from that particular thing. I need a volunteer. We want to be done with this session by 7.30. Sometimes I can get talking. I know I've got at least one person in here who's willing to track time and let me know when we're getting close. You're the man. Give me like a five minute. I've got a clock back here, but sometimes I get going and I want to make sure that I am using our time well. Doing so, let's pray before we kick this thing off. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for this opportunity to come together and to think about what it means to be connected one to another and even to you, but especially to our spouses, those whom you give us to shepherd and shepherd well, that they may see in us and experience in us something of the divine love which you have for us. And so we ask that throughout all of these sessions, you would be at work, in, through, and by us, by your Holy Spirit, that we might be more and more the spouses you call us to be, knowing that we will always fall short. Help us to apply grace and that use that grace then to kill sin and to be more like you, not excuse us to be less like you. and all of this so that people can, in us and in our marriages, see more of you. And you'll get all the glory and honor. We love you and pray this in your son's name. Amen. Let me get my clicker. OK, so what is this? This is a four-session marriage conference on the issue of intimacy. Now, whenever anyone asks, hey, what are you doing your PhD on? If I'm around a bunch of guys, I have to prepare them. I have to say, I'm going to tell you what I'm doing my PhD on, but you're going to have to, like, your gag reflex is going to kick in. It's intimacy and they go like that. If I'm around a group of women, I guarantee you this did happen. I'm not making this up. I was with a fellow academic at a coffee shop down in Columbia. They're asking how I was doing on my dissertation. I told them. And whenever you ask that question, you better just strap in, because it's at least an hour-long conversation if you ask a human about their dissertation. And in the course of that, we had two separate women come over and ask if they could just sit down. Right? So this is me distilling for you something about what I've been studying, especially when it comes to the phenomenon or the language that we use when we talk about intimacy. So, this is also, it's more caught than taught. I've got slides here for you. If you're a note taker, you can take notes. You can take pictures. I don't care. But this is also more you just listening and absorbing as I go through with you kind of a multifaceted view of what I'm going to tell you. I believe intimacy really is so that we can have more intimate relationships, especially with our spouses. The word intimacy was first coined, actually it is a Latin word and it makes its way into the English very quickly. You're talking the first recorded instances of the word intimacy in the 1400s. And by the way, do you know where we find those uses of that word? Sermons. We find them in sermons, and we find them in theological texts, typically talking about the sort of closeness and connection that God the Father and God the Son have with one another, and therefore the sort of close connection that people like spouses are supposed to have with one another. The problem with intimacy, whenever you want to talk about intimacy, is that the word has got this huge range of meanings. And so you end up having to kind of define what it is that intimacy means. And because it's got this huge range of meanings, because it's this big kind of nebulous idea, it's what one person would call a natural word. Natural words are words that you and I use very naturally, but are hard to pin down and give definite definition. And there's that old saying that what you want to define, you often destroy. Let me give you an example. Think about the word trust. What does the word trust mean? And you might have a definition that you've heard somewhere or read somewhere that's super handy and yet it doesn't cover every single instance of the word trust. One of my favorites is by a guy by the name of John Gottman. He says that trust is knowing you are for me even when it costs you. I think that's a pretty good definition of trust. Oh, by the way, there was somebody who was so for me, he was willing to be for me when it cost him his life. physically and spiritually. And that while I was his enemy, not his friend, Romans 5. No wonder he's the most trustworthy person in all of existence. Nonetheless, trust is one of those natural words. It's a word that's hard to find and to pin down. Intimacy is likewise hard to define and hard to pin down. And that's why even though this word came over early, you barely find it in your Bible. If I said, quick, sword drill. Give me a verse that has intimacy. You're all going to go, boo, dial tone. For those under 30, dial tone was this thing when we picked up the phones. It's just you can't find it. And that's because in the ESV, which tends to be the version of the Bible that we use as our pulpit Bible, our pew Bible, the word intimacy is never used. Intimate is only used twice and used to describe a friend. Intimate friend. Again, it's because the word's just so nebulous. Every time a researcher begins to talk about intimacy, they almost always feel like they have to start with a definition. So we struggle for definitions. When you hear the word intimacy, what do you think? What's the first thing you think of? And you're all going to be embarrassed, so I'll save you the answer. Typically, we think of sex and sexuality when we think of intimacy. It's used euphemistically that way. OK, that's one valid definition of an act of intimacy, but that certainly isn't everything. It can't possibly be everything. If that act were in whole, in total, all that intimacy was, how could you ever apply intimacy to two people like father and son in the Trinity? You cannot. Right? Our minds can't even go there. So while that is an expression of intimacy, that can't be all that intimacy is. It's got to be something bigger. It's got to be something more. Sam Alberry, you'll see in that last point under point two, one of the things that he says when we limit intimacy to just sex, anybody who struggles with same-sex attraction, only same-sex attraction, if you tell them it's not righteous for you to have sex with the person you want to have sex with, you're only attracting the person of the same sex, and we would all hopefully say, that's not okay. Are you removing the possibility of an intimate relationship? All intimacy is now off the table. Sam Albury says that when we treat intimacy as just another word for sex, that's what we do. And it leaves people absolutely distraught. How is it I want to be in a relationship that has this deep and abiding connection? We'll talk about a definition here in a second. That's going to be part of it. And what's only sex and sexuality? You are foreclosing that option for them, an entire group of people that we want to be kind to and gracious to, and yet stick up for the truth. Truth is, that's not OK. That's a sin. You're not able to do that. And yet, you're able to have intimate connections, to be known. So what I suggest is that we have a way forward that is biblically-based and research-informed. It needs both of those. If we're going to move forward, we obviously have to move forward in a way that scripture says it's okay to move forward. I never want to move forward in a way that scripture doesn't say is okay. But again, it's tough because the word doesn't appear in our scripture. And in fact, the words that are often interpreted with that word, even by the Latin early, we only actually see it used once. And we see it in laws of consanguinity. Don't have sex with this person because you're too close to them, related to them. So again, the word kind of gets funneled down. So we want biblically based. We want research informed. People study humans and study humans in our contexts all the time. And so we want to use some of the information that they give us in as much as it's helpful and as much as it doesn't get sideways with what scripture tells us. But scripture is always paramount in everything that we do. So that's what I would suggest. We need to move forward with an idea of intimacy that's vividly based and researched, informed. So what do you want to walk away with by the time you're done with this session? One, you want a better understanding of what intimacy is. You just want to be able to have a whole paradigm for what it means to have an intimate connection. And I'm going to give you that paradigm, and I'm going to tell you it's a little bit more complex, but it's not infinitely complex. And actually, I can give you kind of a running pocket definition that you can use and use well and wisely. I want to give you a working model on how to create, maintain, and enhance intimacy. Most of you just, most of you, most of us fumble our way into it. There's somebody that I've got some chemistry with. And that person that I have chemistry with has chemistry with me. And we like each other. And we seem to like each other enough to think about being together for the rest of our lives. And then we make a commitment to each other and then we get married. And you only have to be married for longer than about six months to realize that that feeling kind of waxes and wanes. It comes and it goes. But what do you do? What do you do when it starts to feel like we're going to get disconnected? You know what it feels like to be very connected. Hopefully, when you get married, you marry to someone, it feels like, man, we're super connected. But life, children, vocation, all sorts of things have a tendency to push us into these sort of parallel lives. So how is it that we create, maintain, and even enhance the connections that we have with our spouses? That's what I want to do. I want to give you a clearer picture of what intimacy was designed for, and hint, it's not for you. It's not for your own satisfaction, right? It's actually, and we'll talk about this more when we get to our last session, it's the same thing, the same direction that all things are pointed to. Augustine, in his On Christian Doctrine says, all things, all things must point in two directions, increased love of God and increased love of neighbor. That's what all the law points us to. So somehow intimacy needs to help us increase our love of the Lord and our love of neighbor. And by the way, that one flesh union, that's another person. You can consider that inside the neighbor ideology there. And then I want to give you an increased ability to troubleshoot when things go wrong. Because they will. Things go wrong in every marriage. Every marriage has its points where things get frustrating and rough and maybe even sometimes just bored. Who knows? But you go through seasons where you feel disconnected. And so I want to give you some troubleshooting aids. What do we do? Oftentimes what couples do when they run into these phases where they feel less connected is they just try to do the thing that they used to do. right? Let's go back to the movies and let's go go on a date and let's do sometimes that works. But sometimes there are phases and seasons of life where that isn't the way forward. You're too exhausted, you're too stressed. And instead what you need is just some quality time with one another. So I'll give you a broader way to kind of troubleshoot this and to think through and apply no matter where you are, kind of on the timeline of your marriage. So let's give you a roadmap real quick. Okay, good. Session one, which we're in now, overview. Now, hint, what I'm gonna tell you is that there are really six different aspects, six different facets of intimacy that you and I need to be thinking through. And because I'm Presbyterian, they alliterate. So, session one over. Session two, product and places. What do you feel, where do you get it? Session three, process and procedure. This is actually the most important. And I'm sorry it's a Saturday morning, right? I know, that sucks. And there are a number of you who can't make it back. You got kids, stuff, and like it's fine. Go back and listen to this if this seems like something you want to continue to engage in. This is where the magic happens in the process portion of intimacy. So much good research here and we'll go through some of it together. And the last, people and purpose. With whom do we have intimacy and intimate relationships? And what is the purpose of intimacy itself? Especially that first piece, people. There's a lot of writing right now about, is it OK to have connections with people that aren't our spouses in a deep and abiding way? And what I will tell you is, you have them whether you want them or not. It's about shepherding them well. and allowing your spouse to have their correct place that you don't let anybody else in, but also recognizing there are other people that you have deep connections with and should. People like friends. Okay. So that's our roadmap. Just no review right now until 7.30, and when we get back we'll actually get into some detail, products and places, and then tomorrow we'll look at process, procedure, people, and purpose. Why is intimacy a big deal? It seems to have been around really from the beginning. But before the beginning, if we can say that, before time was, there was God. And God is a God who is one and yet three. We are quickly approaching the limits of my ability to both understand and explain. He is one God, one of essence. He is three of persons. And one of those persons has two natures. That's about as much as I can tell you. Any more than that, you ask Pastor Carl. I'm sure he can do a much better job. However, the fact that you have three persons in the Trinity that have always existed, existed before time existed, what does that mean? No, seriously, what does that mean? If you can explain to me what it means to exist outside of time, please let me know. I struggle with this. But there's some mystery here. And we don't worship at the idol of our own curiosity. So we just say, OK, there's mystery. There's threeness before there is thisness. And in that threeness, there is a complete and total connection. They know each other. They love each other perfectly. It's a part of what it means before there's even creation, even to exist. There is love and intimacy. That's incredible. And it's one of the things that makes Christianity unique is that you love and worship a God who always and ever knew what it was like to love another person and never be alone. By the way, doesn't that hint at least a little bit at the most basic covenant promise there is? I will never leave you. and I will never forsake you. Because that is an element of what the Godhead is. It also tells you about the terribleness of the cross, that for the first time and only time ever, one of them is forsaken, and forsaken for you. so that he could live inside you and never leave you and never forsake you. Something about intimacy, something about connection, deep and abiding connection, seems to be part of everything in our design. Give you a couple of examples. One, God has it with the first couple. In Genesis 3, 8, he's described as walking with them, walking with them in the cool of the garden. And this word walk in the Hebrew, it's halak. Actually, it's more guttural than that, but I don't want to spit on anybody. So it's got this sense. Walk means more than just the physical activity of walking. It wasn't just that God needed to stretch his legs and the garden was a good place to do it. And so, you know, Adam got to stretch his legs with God. No. Walking meant something more. It meant way of life and it meant intimate connection. If you go and you decide to do research in the languages, which I would highly advise you not do unless you're a nerd like me, and even if you are a nerd like me, I would still not advise it. But if you go, if you decide, okay, I want to make sure that this dude's telling me the truth, just go look up the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, or one of any of the major lexicons, Brown, BDB. You go and look, and you look at halak, which just means to walk. The word that is used to describe the type of walk is intimate relationship. There's an intimacy in that connection, in that walking, even there. Even Noah, how is he described as a man who walked with God? That's a description of his character, of his person, is that he is a person who walked with him. Not physically, but by way of life, by personality, by connection. So again, it seems to be part post-fall and pre-fall. God has it with us. Two different scriptures here. One, Psalm 2514. We'll come back to this Psalm at least once and maybe a couple of times. In Psalm 2514, God calls you his intimate friend. The ESV just says friends. or friendship, and then there's a little, you know, asterisk or whatever, and you look down and it says, like, deep counsel, right? But it's a form of that word which is actually personalized. It's someone with whom you would keep deep counsel. And the only other time that word is used is one of the two times that it's translated intimate friend. You only tell your closest friends your deepest secrets. And that seems to be the way God refers to you and I, as those he would reveal some of his deepest secrets, obviously through his word, by the person and work of his son. And John 15, 15. You know this one. This is Jesus with the disciples. I no longer call you students, I call you friend. Friend. And that's not like just a ha-ha, now we can joke together. We're peers and we can laugh and chuck it up. There's a maneuver here. Teachers didn't become friends with their students in the first century. There was too much authority, too much respect. It would have been nearly scandalous to think of some master all of a sudden telling his students that they were his friends. And that word, and as he uses it, it's an inclusion into a personal relationship, a personal relationship with his disciples where they are very well known and very well loved. Adam and Eve also have an intimate connection. The word to know is used euphemistically as to have sex with. Adam knew Eve, and she conceived and bore a son. That's Genesis 4.1. And then there's this word, one's known. Yada. Yada, yada, yada. That phrase. Yes? Yeah? OK. That's from Hebrew. It's the Hebrew yada. It just means to know. Yeah, I know, I know, I know. Right? And then there's a substantive version that is one's known, close friends. We see that again in Job and in 2 Kings. There's something about knowledge, and we'll see that in our first session tomorrow, kind of what do we mean by knowledge? And it doesn't just mean information. It doesn't mean that you can just say, hey, I know what my spouse's favorite toppings on their burger is. But rather, I know their favorite things because it's a part of me. We were created for it. Genesis 126, Genesis 218, it reflects the intimacy of the Godhead. It's always incredible to me. that before the fall, before sin enters creation, God chooses to create a world in which there is something that is not good. Why would he do that? Like, there are tons of reasons why I would do that. I might just forget, right? I might not read the instruction manual. I'm not so great at that. Some people read the instruction manual for all things, and they always put everything together well and wisely. And I'm more of a, eh, I can figure it out. That part seems to go there. So there are tons of reasons why if I were creating something, something might come out with some not goodness to it. But why is the God, who is infinite in power, infinite in knowledge and wisdom and goodness, Why does he make an element that's not good? And what is the thing that isn't good in perfect creation? That Adam is alone. We were designed to be intimately connected to others. And what's so interesting is that he had direct fellowship with God himself. He had all the animals around him, all of creation. And yet he's still alone because he doesn't have another like him. And God says, yeah, that's not good. It's only good when my people can be connected to others because I'm a God who is connected. In other words, it's just a part of our inherent design. You can try to pretend like you don't need intimacy, like you're tougher than all that. or you're immune to it, but it can't possibly be true. Because I have your design document, and so do you. And it's God's word. And he tells you you're made for it. So it's incredibly important. Well, what happened? If we were made for it, and we don't get it, what happened? Of course, you're a form. You know the answer. Sin. The grand disruptor of all things, it's sin. Look at what happens when sin comes into the world. All of a sudden, it interrupts that connection that Adam has both with his wife and the Lord. Both of them suffer disconnection. They're lonely. They're isolated. They run. They hide. And then Adam, in one of the most effective and efficient blame shifts ever recorded, it's the woman you gave me. He just blamed his wife and God in one phrase. That's efficient. And it creates this sort of barrier in Adam's own heart against God and against the one that he was most designed to be connected to. We begin to choose ourselves, and we begin to look for our own satisfaction rather than be connected and to look to one another as we were designed for. And in fact, a lack of intimacy, a lack of connection, is a preview of hell. So Isaiah 24. You may know Isaiah 25. Isaiah 25 is on this mountain. He will swallow up death. It's this beautiful feast. Oh, brothers and sisters, if you have not read Isaiah 25 recently, do your soul a favor and just read Isaiah 25. It is beautiful and it is a picture of that wedding feast that you and I are going to be a part of someday. It is so hopeful. It is so glorious. But that's the mountain of blessing. Do you remember when the Israelites came into the land and there was a mountain of blessing and a mountain of curses? What Isaiah is doing in his prophecy is he is giving you that sort of picture of two mountains. What does it look like to live on the mountain of blessing? Isaiah 25. What does it look like to live on the mountain of curses? Isaiah 24. And you know what one of the most prominent thing about that mountain of curse? that eternal darkness, that place that is hell itself, is that everyone will be by themselves, utterly alone, desperate, unable to find hope or joy or happiness. Loneliness is a small preview of hell. Connectedness is heaven. Sin brings that disruption in our hearts and in our minds. And you always need to know that in the back of your head. Why? Because your sinful heart is going to do things that's going to push you away from the right and natural connection you should have with your wife, with the Lord, and at various levels with others. So how do we get back? Well, I'm going to suggest a grammar rather than a definition. And I've got three minutes, so we're just going to run through this slide. Come on. There we go. A grammar rather than a definition. Why a grammar instead of a definition? And every English teacher in here is like, aha, see, I told you. Grammar is important. Grammar gives flexibility. Definition is important, and so each one of these facets, each one of these elements, I will give you definition of. But it's the whole, it's the grammar of the whole that allows you to have the sort of expression that is unique to you. Good English grammar should help you express yourself in a way that's unique to you. You don't just have to repeat a whole bunch of speeches or sentences that other people speak. Instead, you have the flexibility, the natural flexibility, to craft a word or a sentence how you want it in order for unique expression. A good grammar of intimacy should give you enough structure that it affords organic expression. Because your expression of intimacy with your spouse is going to look different than mine. And it should. That's what makes it wonderful. If they all looked the same, it would just be completely interchangeable. And that wouldn't be intimate at all. Part of intimacy is knowing something deep about another person that other people don't get to know. So what I'm going to tell you is there are these six facets, six elements of a proper grammar of intimacy. There's product, a sense of deep and abiding connection. That's what you and I feel. when we say that we feel intimate with somebody. There's places, different kinds of intimacy, spiritual intimacy, physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, intellectual intimacy, recreational intimacy. I will tell you that I believe there are at least those five, and there might be more. And then there's process. This is the magic. genuinely known and received by another. If you woke me up at 3 a.m. and said, what is your dissertation about? And I had only about 10 seconds, I would tell you that intimacy is a sense of deep and abiding connection as a result of being genuinely known and received by another. Click, going back to bed. But it's that second part, that process, that oftentimes we don't talk about and very little Christian material is out there that is thought and talked about, the process of it, that helps us then to think through what are good, wise habits for each other and what are good, wise limits for others. So process. Oh, I didn't even have it up there. Sorry. Procedure. That even, and I know those words are very close. It was a P. I had to find another P. I just couldn't, I couldn't have one hanging out there. Initiation, maintenance, and conclusion. There are ways in which each of us initiate, maintain, and conclude an intimate interaction. And how we do that is often very intuitive and therefore has a high chance of going awry. And then there are people. With whom do we have intimacy? God, spouse, family, friends, fellow believers, and others. And then lastly, the purpose of intimacy. to increase love of God and neighbor. So my hope is, is that by the time we're done, you've got at least some framework here where you can think through those and have appropriate intimacy with the appropriate people. I think we are, we'll skip this slide. We'll come back to it. I'll talk about it the whole time. About intimacy killers. because we are 7.31. I've put some Q&A at the end of each slide. Obviously, we don't have time for Q&A right now. But if you have a question, write it down because we'll have a time of Q&A tomorrow if we don't have time after the individual sessions where you guys can fire questions at me. You can play Stump the Chump. Okay? All right. 15-minute break. Is that right? 15-minute break. We'll come back together at 7.45.