Affair-Proofing Your Marriage: Protect, Prevent, and Restore

Friends, what if I what if I told you, friends, the truth be told, this is about a fair proofing, but what if I told you that we all had been unfaithful to God? What if I told you friends that all of us had forsaken our first love? What if I told you that we've all fallen short of the glory of God? What if I told you it wasn't just about somebody else, it's about our relationship with God. Revelations three and four says, you've forsaken your first love. Go back and do the stuff you used to do. Friends, this is about you and God more than it is about you and somebody else. [01:31:16] (40 seconds)  #ReturnToFirstLove

Sometimes it means transparency with our devices. Sometimes it means it's it's not surveillance, it's not detective work, but it just means that I shouldn't have to jump on the phone and run out the room every time the phone rings. Right? It it means there ought to be I shouldn't have to turn my phone down every time I'm with my spouse. It ought to it ought to mean that that in some cases passwords are shared. There's an openness. There's a trans why? Because it gives you boundaries. Same thing with social media. It should mean that I'm comfortable with my spouse looking at my DMs. [01:09:48] (38 seconds)  #DigitalTransparency

That we can never here's the reality. I don't care who you marry, nobody is gonna meet all of your needs. No man, no woman was even designed to meet all of your needs. God is the only one that can meet all of your needs. If you put all that on someone else, you will always be let down. That was not the case. God didn't give you a spouse so that that spouse can meet all your needs emotionally, meet all your needs for that. No. That's God's job. He gave you a spouse to reflect him, but you can't put all expectations upon them that are not realistic. [01:02:42] (38 seconds)  #GodOverExpectations

But but the reality is what happened in that day was that the people continue to lower the standard. And Jesus comes along and says, listen, let me tell you what it is. He says it this way in the passage. He says he said, you've heard it said, don't commit adultery. He said, but I wanna tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in in in his heart. So Jesus comes along and says, I know you got your rules, but Jesus says that for him and for his standard is that infidelity starts not with my hands, not with my Texas, not not with my eyes, it starts with what's happening in my heart. [01:00:16] (42 seconds)  #SinBeginsInTheHeart

There's nothing worse than a person continuing to find out stuff because the person wouldn't be transparent about what they had done. It continues to reopen the womb. But here's what we learned from David's story, sin always has consequences. Whenever we have been unfaithful in a relationship, it always has consequences. There's pain, there's hurt, there is anger. Matter of fact, David's family even suffers broken relationships that he struggles with for the rest of his life. The first stage is this stage often called impact, and the second stage, as counselors say, is a search for meaning. [01:24:20] (44 seconds)  #SinHasConsequences

When we get married, two sinners marry each other. Two sinners saved by the grace of God. We're hurt each other. And unfortunately, sometimes we hurt each other, hurt our partners by infidelity and betrayal. Oh, it's it's painful, but we see it throughout scripture as well. Probably one of the most famous moments of this is a man by the name of David whom God has given everything. Matter of fact, when God finally confronts David, he says, David, I've given you everything. And if you asked, I would have given you more. [01:19:32] (46 seconds)  #SinnersSavedByGrace

The tension is sometimes that we have more people in our lives sometimes that will help us do dirt rather than help us do right. I mean, it's hard. It's hard. Right? It's it's hard but we've got sometimes we have relationships and sometimes it's easy for somebody to say, I'll cover for you. You can use my spot. I got you. You can just say you were with me. Rather than having people where we can be vulnerable and say, listen, man. There's somebody on my job that I'm struggling with. I need you I need you to hold me accountable. [01:13:02] (33 seconds)  #ChooseAccountability

One of the reasons that affairs sometimes can be so tempting is because many times, you see each other at your best. It's a fantasy. It ain't real life. That's what the enemy does. He gives you a fantasy that it'd be so much better over here, so much better over there, but that ain't real. Y'all at work, y'all dressed up all the time. Ain't nobody got no hairnet on their head. Ain't nobody got no kids pulling at them. Ain't nobody that ain't no real life. That's fake. [01:04:58] (28 seconds)  #AffairsAreFantasy

But today, what I wanna talk about is how do you protect your relationship from this matter of cheating? Here's the reality that the enemy has a plan for your life. That the enemy wants to disrupt your relationship, wants to shatter your marriage because he knows if he can get you to break the covenant that God has given you, he knows the ramifications that are there. So let me give you a game plan. These are strategies that we've used and that we found that couples use that research says helps a marriage to to protect itself from the threat of infidelity and cheating. Here's the first one. Number one, you gotta own your responsibility for the health of the marriage. [01:01:43] (42 seconds)  #OwnYourMarriageHealth

It's a fake fantasy world and the enemy tries to lure that it'd be so much better here and so much better there. It's a lie from the pit of hell. Proverbs five says this, we have the role. One of the best ways we protect our relationship is to pursue the one God has given you. Share your feelings and be vulnerable. And it even goes further to talk about having daily check ins and dating each other. So many times we get married and we get we get we get lazy with pursuing each other. [01:05:26] (34 seconds)  #PursueYourSpouse

This this passage is talking about the importance of the sexual relationship in marriage, That it's incredibly important that we don't deny each other, but that we make time for each other, that we enjoy one another, that we spend time together. It is incredibly important. The sex is not some nasty thing made in a back room somewhere. No. It's made in Genesis chapter two when when the bible says, and Adam and Eve became one flesh. It is important that couples protect and guard their sexual relationship spending time together. Here's another one. You gotta guard your heart. [01:07:27] (41 seconds)  #ProtectMaritalIntimacy

So when when we ask those questions, I was trying to see how we how you assessed it. And then when we look at this particular definition that I gave you, it gave us one definition, but we have to ask the question, what does scripture say? Right? Because all of us will have our own inclinations, and scripture gives us Matthew five verses twenty seven and twenty eight. This is where Jesus comes in and Jesus is teaching. And as Jesus begins to teach God's word to his people, Jesus begins to help them to understand because this commandment about adultery is not new. It's been there since the 10 commandments. [00:59:35] (40 seconds)  #Matthew528

And David is stuck in a situation ship and he's trying to figure out how in the world am I gonna get out of this. And that's the thing about sin. The the the secrets you think you keep, they only get worse with time. And David moves from this point to now putting the plan in place to have her husband killed. But first, brings Uriah back and says, Uriah, come on. He tries to get Uriah drunk thinking if Uriah gets drunk, he'll go home, sleep with his wife, and everything will be solved. [01:21:41] (32 seconds)  #SecretsSpiralWorse

Because when you and God are right, you can get right with somebody else. When you and God are right, you'll deal with your own stuff. When you and God are right, you can be repentant. You can be transparent. But when you off with God, if you can't get right with God, ain't nobody else gonna get you right either. It starts here, God, help me to be in connection with you so that my connection with you helps me show up for other people in my life. Lord, we confess our own sinfulness and brokenness and we come back to you saying, God, we need you. God, we can't make it without you. God, renew our walk with you so that we can love the people you sent our lives better because we're loving you better. Come on, family. Let's stand together. [01:31:55] (52 seconds)  #GodFirstThenOthers

We become roommates and we take each other for granted instead of saying, let's go take a walk. Let's let me date you. Let me spend time with you. And at the same time, it's incredibly important to protect the sexual relationship in a marriage. This is sad that some couples suffer from sexless marriages. Let me read you a verse in first Corinthians chapter chapter seven. We're gonna stay at this thing. We're stay at this together. First first first Corinthians chapter seven. [01:06:00] (40 seconds)  #DateYourSpouse

If you go to work and you're always complaining about your spouse, they'll never do this and I did you're such a good you work so hard here and I I see how hard you work and and I you're just such a good woman. You you if you go to all you're doing is complaining about your spouse and complaining about how frustrated you are, how how much you give or how they don't understand you, you are opening the door for the enemy. You have got to guard yourself whether it's one on one meetings or how you travel or how you understand. [01:11:36] (34 seconds)  #StopComplainingGuardMarriage

Is it cheating if you're texting someone every day and your partner doesn't know? Yes. Yes. Okay. Alright. Is it cheating if you're flirt in DMs but never meet in person? [00:56:03] (15 seconds)  #EmotionalCheatingCounts