Garden Intimacy•22,300ft
“I would rather spend one lifetime with you, than face all the ages of this world alone.”
- The Lord of the Rings
Your Transformation Journey in Climb29
When you first joined Climb29, you were stuck going Inner Circle and needed help to find lasting change through Jesus.
After a period of time, Inner Circle became less of a struggle. Distance between Inner Circle began to increase. Then, you stopped. But this question haunts us: “Have I changed? Is this real? Will I go back?” In this stage of the climb we dig deeper into our stories and how we process pain and challenges in unhealthy ways. God is working in us and we long for it to be lasting and real.
Your Spouse’s Hidden Journey in Climb29
The Exchange During The Climb
What we Think Marriage Will be Like
What Marriage is Like
What God Wants Marriage to be
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
“Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you[a] of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.”
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”
Let’s take some time to think through what has been hard about sex in your life/marriage.
Marriage is two, people facing each other, and through strength and tenderness, addressing the darkness out of each others lives and bringing in the light of Jesus. Then, side by side, pushing the darkness out of this world and bringing in the light of Jesus as one.
Are you strong and tender? Are you providing for the family giving them a place to be safe? Are you tender with the family, giving them a safe place to mess up and experience grace?
How do you address each other’s failings?
How do you encourage each other to become like Jesus?
How are you as partners doing this in the world?
“Marriage has the power to set the course of your life as a whole. If your marriage is strong, even if all the circumstances in your life around you are filled with trouble and weakness, it won’t matter. You will be able to move out into the world in strength.”
Tim Keller
The Holy of Holies
Entering The Story of the Temple
To understand sex, we need to understand our story. This story is complex and beautiful. The role of and place of sex isn’t thrown together by God. It’s created by God. And it’s Holy.
True, Good and Beautiful
Sex is Designed for Shalom and Designed By God
Shalom is a word in Hebrew that interprets “the way things should have been”. It’s a beautiful word, a call to Genesis 1 & 2 and a desire to have things the way God intended them to be. Moments of Shalom can happen. One place of Shalom for me is at a place called Sandy Cove. I met Jesus here. I met my first great friendships here. Walking the bay at Sandy Cove I feel the peace of God. I feel heaven. I feel how things should be in the world. What I am feeling is something True, something Good and something Beautiful. This is what God longs for sex to be.
Song of Solomon
Falling In Love All Over Again
Tommy Nelson, Song of Solomon Series
Tommy Nelson, writer of the Song of Solomon Series, has done a beautiful job helping me see through the years what dating SHOULD have looked like and what marriage SHOULD look like.
God has used Tommy countless times to humble me, encourage me and help me grow in my love, passion and romance for my wife.
The Art of Attraction & The Art of Dating: 1 Hour
Listen at Tommy walks us through a simple and Godly way to approach what kind of person you are looking to marry and how to date in a complex time.
The Art of Courtship: 1 Hour
Once dating gets serious, it doesn’t matter what you call it. Here we call it courtship. We listen as Tommy Nelson guides us into a serious dating relationship that is leading to marriage and what it looks like to have Jesus at the center of that journey.
The Art of Intimacy: 1 Hour
The church never talks about sex, let alone showing us a Jesus centered way of intimacy. Tommy Nelson doesn’t hesitate to show you that sex is designed by God for men and woman to know each other deeply and beautifully.
The Art of Conflict: 1 Hour
Every couple fights the real question is, are you fighting in a healthy way that builds the other up and listens or are you too focused on your own way of doing things?
The Art of Romance: 1 Hour
As we get older, in the world, sex looses it’s attraction as we become less attractive. Not in the Bible. Sex, designed by God, following God is something beautiful between a husband and wife that grows in beauty in time, not fades. But it needs to be cared for like a garden.
The Art of Commitment: 1 Hour
In a marriage with Jesus at the center, it’s for life, and it’s the most beautiful and counter cultural thing in our world today.
What is Garden Intimacy?
Bible starts in a garden and ends in a Garden.
Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2: 8-9
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
Genesis 2: 15
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Genesis 2: 21-25
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Revelation 22: 1-5
A Garden is a place of life, nourishment, rest, sabbath and healing.
We are safe in a healthy garden.
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The garden isn’t about you
if you are single it’s about your community and family. If you are married, it’s about your wife, children and your community.
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God is in the center of the Garden
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