Cultivating a Life of Intimacy - Charles R. Swindoll

our Chapel speaker today is no stranger to many of you you have listened to him you may attend his church but you've undoubtedly read something by him sometime dr. swindle serves as our Chancellor and in our structure that is primarily a ministry position of speaking and writing on occasion for us making appearances with us in different places as he will a couple times this fall once in Houston and then once when we celebrate our 90th anniversary here on the campus in October he has appropriately written as many books as the seminary has been in existence his most recent book published by Tyndale on the life of Abraham is his 90th book which is incredible they also have picked up his commentary series which if you have not seen it you need to it will help equip you for a lifetime of opening the scriptures he's the founding pastor of the Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco his desire is to establish the church with a solid biblical foundation based on the faithful exposition of the scriptures his vision includes the importance of corporate worship and an emphasis on small group ministries that provide encouragement and accountability in the body God in His grace has seen to extend his ministry led by his wife insight for living doctor swindles ministry is heard in over 2,000 times a day around the world through the insight for living ministry they reside in the Metroplex in Frisco they loves to spend time with their family they have four grown children 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren would you welcome dr. swindle or chance well I've been thinking about you for the last several weeks and I am I want to tell you that my thoughts have to do with a concern I have for you each one of you faculty as well as students and if there are any here that are working on your postgraduate work in advanced degree that would include you as well all of us who spend time on this campus are in a dangerous place let me go back and give you a little bit of background as to what prompted me to think like this a number of years ago Cynthia and I decided we would drive down to the place where we had lived at that time most of our lives we we were really reared in the city of Houston so we chose to drive we could talk together in and visit along the way we were at a sort of a high pitch peak of activity and felt like we needed to sort of slow our pace so we did that this was back in 1996 I just come to the school a couple of days before returning as a part of the leadership of the school and and we had gone through an enormous series of changes having left the role the password which I had filled since I graduated in 63 and she was sort of in a no-man's land we were moving insight for living from California to Texas so she commuted for about six or seven years in the process if you could imagine that I said to her there's something wrong when you know them airline personnel better than your neighbors as a result of all the fly saying that we had been doing and that two had added a stress to our our marriage in our lives so we thought we would go back to the place of our roots which we did it was wonderful we we didn't check into our hotel right away but deliberately spent time driving roads we had driven not just dozens but hundreds of times in our early years we drove to campuses of schools we had attended and and in front of and even got out and visited in churches that we had gone to in the the church where we had been married back in 1955 we we loved it we held hands like a couple of teenagers enjoying walking slower together and and lingering in places where there were memories that just swarmed over us it was a sort of a journey down nostalgia Avenue for us I'll never forget some of those moments when I heard bill talk about what he's going through with Shirley my heart was touched over what you've lost with her loss of health and and because of all of these emotions that have sort of swarmed around me lately I've I've come to realize that over the passing of time through the establishing of habits built on a fast pace and the responsibilities and requirements of earning a degree just as you can in a marriage you can you can cool off you can lose what I would call your touch of intimacy with the Savior I'm concerned about that for you when your notes as faculty members began to yellow with age because you've taught that course more times than you can recall I'm concerned for you now that there's anything wrong with those years is everything right about them it's just that they bring with them the threat of it's becoming a pro functor II job and you never you were never hired to do a job you were called to be here it's a calling your students are called to be on this campus and I have a feeling that much of what drove you to that calling was a zeal a zeal for the lost for the campus where you once were and and and the students you had the privilege of sharing Christ with and most of them you didn't and you think about that and you remember too don't you when you first were getting into the scriptures and you would open the Bible and it was a thrill there was an excitement about discovery of truth and now you're on a campus where this book is the textbook and you're your time in it if you're not careful we become mainly an academic exercise and I don't understand I understand this responsibility of earning this degree in all that goes with that but I can't help but remember the the great church at Ephesus and if I read revelation 2 1 through 7 correctly I find the kind of church you or I would have wanted to attend it was discerning it doctorally sound they didn't have time for any any a pretense or phony baloney they they understood the truth I mean they had had their lives honed by people like Paul and Aquila and Priscilla and the Apostle John you can't get better than that in your training and your learning and your growing up in the faith and then right in the middle of this brief profile of this grand church in Ephesus John drops in verse for the concern he has for them remember it I have this against you you don't love me or each other as you did it first one of the versions says you have left your first love it doesn't say they didn't love him it says that the loved changed Cynthia I loved each other years into our marriage and after her now 59 years together our love is deep and long-standing but if we're not careful over the years it can change which prompted our journey to the place of our roots sitting out in front of the houses where she lived and where I lived even drove through the old Washburn tunnel which I'd been through more times than I want to remember and and along that old ship channel when the fog would hang low as I would leave her home late at night to go back to my place longing for the day that I could call her my wife and loving her with an intensity that lacked the ability to put into words adored her and she and I talked while we were together on this journey about how we felt when we stood together at the altar of that little Baptist Church where two pastors participated in our ceremony and all those people who sang I mean our wedding was like operetta we had seven eight songs although we'd never get to the important part get out of there and I mean it was just it was just passionate how how profound our love was for each other and then years began to stack up had no idea when we married that I'd be away from her for 14 16 months on the island of Okinawa in the Marine Corps well I had no idea I'd be in graduate school no idea that they would allow me to be on this campus and to study under people like this and and to sit in the chapel and the seats in those classrooms and sometime after the classes were over I just stayed there I just couldn't get it in enough and I noticed over time Along Came of course a child and then another and we lost two and then another and then another and changes occurred in churches we served differ as far as New England to California and in the middle of it twice in Texas and there our marriage was rolling on at times cooling off I mean I knew the Bible better than I'd ever known it I'd studied here and I was able to develop gifts that God had given me in I I had no idea what the future held no idea I'd ever write any book or that anybody ever read one that I wrote has another thing I certainly didn't plan on and get on a radio know if you knew the background of that you laugh I mean it wasn't the fulfillment of plan or a dream it was sort of coming into it like CS Lewis describes in surprised by joy or the kicking and screaming into every every change I didn't want to come back to the campus as the president I wasn't qualified to be the president I was convinced that they really got in the wrong number so I said no several times and and they wouldn't give up and then I couldn't believe the faculty would accept me as a president or that I'd ever found a church I'm not gonna found another one I'll tell you that that's that is a mess when you get into that and all of this all of this takes a toll on you it takes a toll on your home it takes a toll on your marriage and and at times you you look at your children you can't believe they they've grown like that where were you I was involved in all the things the ministry all of them good every one of them good but I I look at this statement you don't love me or each other as you did it first and I'm haunted by that I want you to stay in love with Christ I want you to have such an intimacy in your relationship with him that you can without even bowing your head or closing your eyes just talk to him just connect with him just pour out your soul of your fears and your and your heartaches and your uneasiness your disappointments and your offenses and your mistakes and your failures and your successes and your great grades and your poor grades and all through it that your intimacy with him just intensifies it's deeper and deeper so that when you leave you don't you don't leave loving the text of scripture you love you leave loving the person of Scripture the person of Scripture who loved you and gave himself for you and loved you enough to give you his book and to preserve it in your language and the other languages are going to learn and there's everything right about that I love the languages and I love digging into them that was part of my problem I just I loved all of it and my heart was hardly big enough to have room for all them all the people I needed to keep loving you understand what I'm saying here I think you do when I read up different individuals rendering of this statement in Revelation 2 for I got an even better grasp of it 80 Robertson this early love proof of their new life in Christ had cooled off in spite of their doctrinal purity you're not watching it's going to cool off and your zeal for the lost is not going to be as intense as it was in your university years if you don't watch it your your affection for him will get academic and you'll know the text so well but but your love will have become cold John Orson W Stott says they had fallen from the early heights of devotion to Christ which they had climbed they had descended to the plains of mediocrity in a word they were backsliders the hearts of the Ephesian Christians had chilled not a great word chilled by the way 30 years had passed since Paul had written them that last line in the letters of the Ephesians don't know the last time you glanced at it but that last line refers to their loving him loving him in a deep love 30 years have passed and they've already begun to cool off saint church many of them remembering the voice of paul and john and equivalent priscilla those who had built their lives into them and and they're now standing for the faith they have a fortitude but they but they don't have a deep intimate affection for the Savior don't lose that don't lose that it was Paul's passion he says so in Philippians chapter 3 it is Philippians 3 I want to know Christ the New Living Translation I want to experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead I want to suffer with him sharing in his death back when I was in the Marines one of the early paraphrases that began to be passed around was the amplified bible and my mentor were the navigators bob Newkirk put a copy of it in my hand he said here chuck you'll you'll love this this version of the Bible and he had circled Philippians 3:10 listen to it in the amplified form I determined purpose is that I may know him that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately there's that word again more deeply and intimately acquainted with him perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of his person more strongly and more clearly and that I may in the same way come to know the power out flowing from his resurrection I'll be 80 years old in October have no plans to retire retirement stinks and so I I have my great goal is to have my chin hit the pulpit on my way down just right just lay me out right there so I have any plans to retire but I want to do it as long as I'm effectively able to do it and the longer I do it the more I want to love it and the deeper I want to serve it and the more intimately I want to understand it and the more passionately I want to represent him and I want to care less and less about the stuff of me and more and more about him I like the way the late songwriter Keith green put it my eyes are dry my faith is old my heart is hard my prayers are cold and you know how it ought to be alive to you and dead to me I want that I want that for you I want to know when you walk across that platform and you you get your well earned degree from from this president who gives it to you with a smile and we all ultimately applaud you for your accomplishment I want you to be able to say when you put your tassel on the other side of your cap I love it now more than I loved and loved when I came I know is worried better I know you'll be able to say that that's part of what concerns me you'll fall in love with exegesis as much as we believe in exegesis and the power of exposition and the significance of declaring the truth everywhere God takes us there's everything right about that but just keep loving him just keep staying intimate with it I love the scene out of that first wedding where Adam and Eve are together and it says that they were naked and they were not ashamed there was an intimacy in their relationship it was so great and so they were so preoccupied with the other they didn't even realize how many clothes on totally exposed totally open totally vulnerable and and I call that intimacy at its best for you by the time you have finished your years at this grand school I don't know of a better one the time you finished your years here you will have the kind of naked openness and intimacy with your Lord where you can say I talked to him now like I've never talked to him before Tozer put it well may not the inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be traced back to our habit of skipping through the car to the kingdom like children the marketplace always chattering about everything but pausing to learn the true value of nothing you'll just chatter about everything on this campus and you'll argue over the authorship of Hebrews a waste of time but you'll argue over the authorship of Hebrews a yang and you'll you'll do battle with some brother as he you see him as an extreme Calvinist or moving toward a minion I understand all of that that's all part of it is seminary that's the dumb stuff you get involved in and you spend your time doing and that's all part of it it's all part of it it didn't you know what I'm saying but compared to loving him it's dumb stuff nothing is more important than your having this passion for Christ and then when you walk away you're like you're on a cloud of excitement and enthusiasm wherever God may take you doesn't matter what money you make it doesn't matter what Fame you may have doesn't matter how large the minister grows it does not matter all of that is up to him what matters is your love my marriage isn't based on how many kids we have it's based on how deep our love is for each other I mean I know her so well I can finish her sentences sometime do and just this morning we have the most intimate conversation about something that's got her burdened and I left her almost in tears and I couldn't fix it I love fixing it I like fixing stuff and she said don't try to fix it but I drove away and I thought about how long we've shared our lives together and the stuff we've been through the heart breaks the disloyalty of some we thought were friends and the ugly criticism of some people who don't even know us and I I thought it takes a toll on you then I thought about that the accomplishments we've been able to do together and I just you mix it all together it's called a marriage it's called a love relationship and as a result you you really are one I when I learn from Bill about Shirley's recent illness I I said to him you know what I do not Cynthia she she does all our finances he said well Shirley doesn't mind I said I I don't like all those little numbers and Cynthia does quicken see I think that's a big deal I just don't want her to show me how to do it I want her to do it and there's some things I do that she can't do and doesn't do so we work it against like teeth and gears and again and the gear and made her run by itself it fits and when you add the third gear of Jesus it's remarkable how magnificent life becomes it's just remarkable my determined purpose is that I'm a progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with him every time I meet with you at the chapel services there will be six times counting today in these two semesters I want to talk about another facet of this the discipline the spirit of intimacy I will talk with you about simplicity and solitude and humility I'll talk about self-control sacrifice these are things you're not going to get in the textbooks here that's not what textbooks are about these are not academic subjects Sambas put it this way as the deer pants for the water brook my soul pants for you oh god my soul pants for you Joe put it this way he knows the way that I take your 23 10 through 12 he knows the way that I take when he has tried me I shall come forth his gold my foot has held his steps his way have I kept and not declined neither have a turn back from the command of his lips I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food I pass up a meal to eat at this feast why because he has a deers heart panting for the streams of water I warn you men and women God will not speed up so the two of you can walk together you have to slow down got to take time for it take time for learn from my mistakes I try to pack too many hours into in every semester one semester I took 21 hours stupid listen you're looking at stupid and we had a baby at home that didn't sleep through for 18 months and my wife typed all the way back then we typed our our papers that do 18 papers they at semester and by the way I tell you we I audited rapid Greek reading from to Saint by the end of it I called it rabid Greek reading now learn the Greek text much sure did but I didn't meant to know Bob my boy better or I love my wife more deeply that's that constant tension isn't it I understand that's why I'm concerned if it's an easy fix I'm not concerned I just say fix it but you're going to forever be dealing with this so he won't speed up to to walk with you he won't scream and shout you'll have to be quiet that's why the psalmist says be still and know that I'm God you'll have to have some hours where you don't have a an assignment in front of you for you deliberately and when you intentionally simply bow before him and wait upon him and pour out your soul to him he won't work in the framework we establish we must adapt to his peace style intimacy a relationship marked by a warm friendship developing through long association of a very personal and private nature I want that for you I'm I am deeply concerned that you may graduate without that and so are these fine women and men who teach you and administer at this school so let's make a deal I promise you that I will continue to grow deeper and more intimate in my relationship with the Savior and I want you to do the same thing let's do it a semester at a time let's do it this semester don't take it on for the next you can only do a semester at a time really a day at a time just make sure that you and he are on speaking terms and he really really becomes your most intimate relationship promise him that let's bow together so hard to pray in a dangerous place Lord but perhaps this is the one place we need to do it the most a valuable will be these years how important these contacts our spiritual relationship with you and with one another with our mates with our family with our parents even extended family how valuable all of this is we did not come here to become monks we came here Lord called by you to be fed and nurtured by you guard us father from this great tendency to see it all this business as usual especially for the the real sharp students do I pray so easy for them to be consumed in their own ability and even a growing arrogance and pride I pray that you would do whatever necessary to break their hearts to humble them I pray now for faculty I pray that these fine men and women who know the text of Scripture better than any of us ever will I pray that their love for you will outshine their knowledge of your truth I pray that their lives will be marked by integrity that they won't let us down with compromised moral failure or whatever maybe the temptation that plagues them give them strength may they become models without trying to be may they serve you as your representatives so we can learn how to do that from their example pray again for surely I pray for bill who now discovers the role of caregiver in the middle of the night when he's seized with fear I pray that you'd calm him and the heat of the day when he's exhausted I pray that you're streaming him and finally Lord for all of us who have a ring on our finger I have a partner in life enable us we pray over the years to grow more intimately and deeply in love with her or him like a deer panting for the water we are Souls pin for you

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

Views: 38,362

Keywords: Dallas Theological Seminary, DTS, Chuck Swindoll, Charles Swindoll, Chancellor, Stonebriar Community Church, relationship with God, Philippians, Jesus, Bible

Id: UeF9Am-Wk0o

Length: 39min 54sec (2394 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 03 2014