#Relationship Goals (Week 2): Faithfulness (Teaching Only)

- lot they keep the chain so the guys are going out tonight seriously it's for work yeah you get a lot of work done at Chuck E Cheese I promise it won't be long you said that last week this weekend just doing needful seen elbows - I'm gonna hold you to that have I ever lied before you are such a child [Music] oh thank you guys thank you drew well it is great to be with you today I want to welcome each of our locations not only our Henderson location but Summerlin Southern Highlands sunrise mountain our Kingman family those joining us in our partnership with God behind bars and different prison facilities and those watching online thank you for being with us today well we've been talking about relationships and you know we said last week the quality of your life is directly contingent upon the quality of your relationships right like when things are good relationally there's peace there's joy there's all kinds of good stuff when things are not good there's all kinds of drama and bad stuff I mean the quality of your life the quality of my life is in direct proportion to the quality of our relationships and the good news is we don't have to just settle for wherever our relationships may be we can actually begin to do some things with intentionality to help those relationships and so we kicked that off last weekend and we talked about how every week we're gonna have one simple relationship goal for the week and last week it was togetherness and just the importance of being together of staying curious about one another of continuing to learn about what's going on in the hearts and minds of our friends and family members our dating relationships our marriages and today I want to talk to you about another relationship goal and that is the goal of faithfulness faithfulness faithfulness is something I think we all want in a relationship right now if you think about a romantic relationship or a marriage or a dating relationship we all want faithfulness think about a family relationship a friendship like you want that person to be faithful which just sort of implies that you and I should be working on becoming that faithful person right because we all want that kind of a relationship problem is we've all got trust issues because we've all been through some things right you know we've we've all been in relationships romantic relationships family relationships work relationships that ultimately the trust began to break down and faithfulness was there and it kind of scars us it's like me with the dentist hey I I'm scarred by the dentist I am every time I get anxiety every time I have to go back to that I haven't been to the dentist in a while because I avoid it as much as I can and then it's usually when I have a problem I know this isn't good dental hygiene forgive me then I show up at you know the dentist then I'll go but man you know I go to the dentist I remember so the issue is for me I grew up in Texas where we drink well water and just kind of water out out of the well so it discolored the front of all my teeth so all these teeth right here these these aren't real they're veneers over those teeth that's why they're white you know because my teeth were so discolored that I grew up going to the dentist again and again and again and then when I got out of college the dentist actually put veneers on my teeth you know what they do when they put veneers on your teeth they actually sand your teeth down they they you look like a vampire like I mean they sand your teeth down they rough them up they take the enamel off and all that so that they can then glue them in the the veneer on which is supposed to be hard like concrete like porcelain you know or whatever like it's super tough right the challenge is I've had my veneers come off so many times over the years I remember I was sitting at a baseball game once and and with Laurie and I bit into a bagel and sure enough I felt a pop and my veneer right at my front veneer was gone and it's not like it's just guys like there's just like this little thing it's the craziest thing in the world man I'm making on and I remember like I I sit back and I look at my bagel and there's my veneers sticking out of my bagel and and my wife looks at me and she looks at my tooth and she looks it in my mouth and she starts laughing and then this is no this is no joke Laurie's here Lord you remember that Laurie laughed so loud and so long tears started to come she could never get laughing and you just can't stop you just no matter what every time I looked at her she just kept going immensely she's crying and then I started getting ticked off right there's a place we are like all right now you're now you're disrespecting me it's gone to a whole new level now anyway um so I've got trust issues when it comes to teeth one time my veneer came off I went to the dentist he put it on but it just didn't feel quite secure didn't feel right you know felt a little off and I remember thinking like I could come off at any moment it could just happen and and I started having this reoccurring dream at night no lie like in my dream I was speaking publicly and I was speaking out of town to a group of people that I didn't know they didn't know me and my face was on this big Jumbotron in my dream no lie and all of a sudden my tooth goes flying out like slow motion on the screen into the audience and everybody gasps and people are passing out and it's they're like it's like a stampede people are getting walked on you know as everybody runs for the exits because my my tooth came up and then I would wake up so I go to the dentist and I'm like hey I make an appointment I go in and he goes he goes what's wrong I said man I really just you know I need you to take a look at this tooth and so he takes a look at it goes everything looks fine he said what's the problem I said what's I think it's just I don't know it could just come off and he goes no no and he actually took like what looked like pliers isn't this funny dentistry like I got the pliers from the hardware store and and he starts like jiggling and you know around he's like it's rock solid it's not going anywhere I said look please will you please just reglue it cuz I said like what if I'm out and I'm speaking and it comes flying off I keep having this dream it's flying off when I'm speaking I need you to read it so I had to talk him into it it took me like 20 minutes to get him there I'm like I will pay you the money just do it so he eventually does whatever he has to do to loosen it take it off Reese Duke get it all ready reglue the thing back on right awesome when he's all done he's like okay we're all done here I said well one more thing could you send me with like some temporary glue because what if I'm out of town and it comes off and then I could just sort of reglue it back on until I get back and they said something I'll never forget he goes Jed I could do that but I won't he said you have to trust me I got trust issues when it comes to Dennis right I've been burned I got trust issues when it comes to my teeth they've fallen out and that's how we are in relationships right like we get trust issues because we've been through stuff in our relationship you trusted somebody and then that's somebody maybe they didn't keep their word maybe they violated what they said to you maybe they lied to you for months or even years in your life well that hurts right that's gonna impact you in a serious way and it's gonna impact how you move forward and it really how you relate to other people you trust a kid or a friend and they don't honor that trust you have a parent violate your trust whatever it may be when you're hurt like that you begin to have trust issues how do you rebuild trust when it's been broken so if you're here today and you know you've come through some things in a marriage some of you have come through infidelity some of you've come through just addiction you've come through a lot of things and some of you have made it in your relationship and that's a powerful beautiful thing some of you that relationship couldn't survive that kind of stress and pressure and God has healed you and you've moved on and begun to move forward wherever you're at it is possible to honor the relationships that you're in it's possible even to start again treating people with faithfulness and over time look Trust is built on the foundation of faithfulness right over time small promises kept small actions followed through with and so no matter where we've been or what's happened in our relational world we've all got some trust issues and we can all make some progress when it comes to this area of being faithful faithfulness will give you the relationship you want and it will help you rebuild even the relationship you may have lost maybe not like it was but it could still help you rebuild it so I've got a Jenga set here today I don't know if any of you like Jenga anybody like Jenga J gah this is kind of the old school Jenga this is the DIY Jenga right here okay this is the backyard this is actually our backyard Jenga set and so you know the whole idea with Jenga is you've got like three boards and you just sort of lay them across and then you know you just flip it 90 degrees right you go three across the other way and then three across back the other way and you stack it all up and and you try to pull the different pieces out and do it in such a way that you don't want to be the person when you pull that piece out the whole thing collapses on you well I want to talk about faithfulness in the context of Jenga because I feel like faithfulness is a way that we build trust through small little decisions every day right so I tell you I'm gonna do something and I follow through and I keep my word what happens now there's another foundation piece that goes down right somebody tells tells you a confidence and it tells you something in confidence and you tell them you're not gonna tell anybody else about what they told you and you keep your word and you don't tell anybody else you keep that to yourself over time let's have another block down right you make a promise to a friend or a family member and and you keep your promise and over time it begins to build faithfulness begins to build trust in our life and this is why it's important all relationships move at the speed of trust if you want a good marriage you want a good parenting relationship you want a good sibling relationship you want a good work relationship it all hinges on trust right and to the degree that you have trust you can go you know to the degree that you have trust you can go right and to the degree that there's not trust everything gets slowed down right now we're like we got a second guess everything we got to have all kinds of conversations to get anything done we got a you know it's like all this work because Trust has been broken down and so you said you were gonna do something and you didn't do it it's sort of like taking a piece out of the Jenga set right it starts to weaken the trust in the relationship you know you made a promise and then you didn't keep it and and so you know you got a so if I find a loose one here there we go and so uh you know again another piece comes out now the good news is just because we may have done some unfaithful non perfect things and we all have the whole Jenga doesn't collapse right it's still there the important thing is yeah we all make mistakes yeah we all do dumb things yes we all you know say we're gonna do something and maybe have moments where we do something else the important thing is we want to be building a lot more than we're taking away for that trust to continue to grow faithfulness builds the relationship you want so I want to talk to you today about how we can build that kind of relationship in our hearts and in our lives and to set it up we're gonna look at some teaching of Jesus today in Matthew chapter 5 here's what Jesus says in Matthew 5 verse 27 we get to the red word help me out but he makes a pretty powerful statement here he says you've heard the commandment that says you must not commit adultery now Jesus was in the Sermon on the Mount doing this again and again where he would say you've heard and then he'll kind of state a commandment you must not commit adultery adultery would have been defined as having an inappropriate sexual relationship with somebody who is married to somebody else and he's like you've heard the commandments obvious commandment in the Old Testament and for the Israelite people you must not commit adultery but look who is this but I say anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his what in his heart what you talking about Willis like if you look at that just look at what Jesus actually says Jesus often says things that don't fit in our little box right it's like what I mean we live in a world where lust is just like in the air it's hard to even imagine a world where lust isn't on every billboard every other commercial every other song it's just kind of everywhere and Jesus is like look you're not even you're not even supposed to look well here's the thing I think Jesus is trying to help us get to the deeper issue so the deeper issue when it comes to adultery unfaithfulness relationally the deeper issue is a heart issue look before somebody ends up and somebody else's bed they allow them into their heart right it's a hard issue first so Jesus says look let's take it all the way back you know yeah don't commit adultery but let's go all the way back to the issue of lust look lust isn't look you you you may have a thought that flashes by your mind you could argue whether or not that's lusts my question is are you gonna you know let's just say you have a commercial flashes through your mind are you gonna stop and watch the movie then if then it becomes lust right are you gonna keep moving and keep with God I give that to you I mean I used to work with a guy at a water park and it was just you know guys walking around with their shirts off and women in bikinis everywhere everywhere you looked right it was lust on steroids and you know something he did he took he took a little pin real small and on his shoe he drew a little cross on the edge of his shoe and he said you know I walk around and every now and then I see somebody and I'm like oh I mean I looked down on my shoe I'm good I love it cuz what's he doing he's fighting the battle right he realizes there's a battle from my heart and I want to be faithful why because someday I want to be in a relationship with somebody that's faithful because I realized the importance of faithfulness so we want to be faithful first principle he'd simply this guards our heart guards our heart now I saw this little meme online and I loved it it was Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars and it was all these old sayings that he said and she said and then Admiral Ackbar like jumping in saying it's a trap so here they are let's bring a few of these up here her she says I don't need anything for Valentine's Day and add my Akbar says it's a trap don't believe it alright let's go the next one him mind if we stop by the car dealership come on it's a trap just gonna check a few out everything's cool her do whatever you want Akbar says it's a trap especially if she says I don't care do whatever you want then you need to find out what you've done that's gotten you in this situation alright here's the next one him what a backrub it's a trap a lot of traps that we fall in to happen when we don't guard our hearts and we find ourselves in situations where we're vulnerable and we're tired and when you want to think about relational unfaithfulness think about Jenga again and I think one of the reasons Jesus talks about adultery here is because adultery is a foundational thing in a marriage relationship right it's kind of it's the foundational piece like with Jenga if you're playing Jenga and you want to be successful I mean you don't usually take out one of the bottom blocks because everything rests on that you know you want to you'll play a little a little a little a little over here a little loose over here right I don't I don't want to necessarily mess with the bottom foundational blocks but when it comes to sexual unfaithfulness in a context of a marriage that's like now you're playing with the foundation you know and what can happen is some of you you've been able to restore relationship and rebuild trust and that's a beautiful thing but many of you also been through that road and you haven't right and the whole thing crumbled and Faolain I think that's why Jesus says you got a guard your heart because it starts long before it gets to adultery it starts way back here at the heart issue Henry cloud kind of breaks it down this way when he talks about the these four corners of connection I think we can bring this up here but Henry cloud sort of breaks it down first of all he says you know we all have start in relationships especially when they're deteriorating where we get to a place where there's hardly just any connection maybe we've got trust issues maybe we've been hurt but we just we don't have a lot of connection anymore we've pulled back maybe we're just afraid to even open our heart at all and so we're kind of in that corner of no connection or we find ourselves in another corner which is the corner the corner of bad connection bad connection is is where you often start to feel used in a relationship like somebody just wants to know you or relate to you for what you can do for them or you're only as good as your last performance right like you're having to perform in them relationship and you know that's that's great for like your uber driver but you don't want that with your marriage right you know it's not based on that kind of thing and so we get into this bad connection and we have no connection we have bad connection we have trust issues it can drive us into what he calls fake connection fake connection is often where we turn to other things to make up for the lack of connection we may feel at home or with the people that we love and so it may turn to drugs we may turn to alcohol we may turn to sort of escape as hobbies bait connection is where Affairs often actually start to happen because when you think about it fake connection is really what most affairs are affairs are romance without responsibility right it's all the stuff you don't want right now in a relationship and all the stuff you think you do and sometimes when people are in it they can't see anything else it feels like the most right thing in the world but then on the other side of it they look back and realize oh yeah that was that was an escape that I was engaging in and so Henry cloud says look what we what we really got a strive to do is move to real connection and real connection means that we guard our hearts because every relationship is going to go through no connection bad connection even fake connection at different ways and times we've got to guard our hearts when were in those vulnerable moments to get to real connection where we're sharing our thoughts and dreams with one another where we're open with one another where we're looking forward into the future together where we're building trust when you think about it Bible says that Satan is the enemy of our souls he'd love nothing more than to derail you and me our family our lives and you know what I think he's gonna if you think about the Jenga illustration he's gonna come around and he's gonna kind of poke around see if he can find a weak spot when you're tired and you're you're vulnerable and you're and you know what if he can find a weak spot that's even foundational even better right maybe eventually he could take the whole thing down and he's gonna push on that weak spot we gotta guard our heart so how do you guard your heart to make sure you remain faithful to your kids through your friends to your spouse first I think you just remember all great relationships are built on this foundation of faithfulness right faithfulness is what builds trust and faithfulness ultimately builds the relationship you want over the long term and it can help rebuild the trust that you've lost in my own life I'll just tell you what I've done and I know this isn't realistic necessarily for everybody but maybe it's just helpful to share it you probably have your own opinions about this but you know the media there was a backlash within the last year about something called the Billy Graham roll the Billy Graham rule was a rule that he had instituted in his life years before that basically said look he doesn't travel alone he never allows himself to be in a situation never allowed himself to be in a situation with a member of the opposite sex who he would have been attracted to alone he always had somebody with him now people have accused those who engage in the Billy Graham role of being chauvinistic right because you know it puts you puts women at a disadvantage in a work environment or whatever it can I get it there's a lot of layers and it may not even be realistic for you in your life right with you you may not even have those kinds of options with your work situation who you need to interact with them relate to but what I do respect is that Billy Graham had guardrails in place in his life and he honored them he's one of the few people that went all the way to his grave without a scandal related to his marriage and his family life related to unfaithfulness so I've lived by the Billy Graham rule for over 20 years now and again I know it's not realistic for everyone but I'll tell you what it does for me I go to bed at night and I don't have to worry you don't have to worry about a newspaper story coming out tomorrow that your pastors been unfaithful in his marriage with his wife why because I've never even been in a room alone with a woman other than my wife in the last 20 years it's never even happened I just you know so I understand it's not perfect and I'm not saying it applies to everyone in that way but I do I think when you guard your heart you acknowledge these kinds of things can happen to me and to anyone else I'm no better than anybody else especially when I'm vulnerable especially when I'm tired right and especially when the enemy comes around and starts poking around and so I've got a guard my heart I got to put some things in my life to ensure that I stay faithful maybe you need to guard your social media a little bit right all of a sudden you know you're married or you're in a committed relationship and somebody comes along and they start DMing you hey what's up so you just respond you're just being nice it's not you know there's nothing to it yet right but then a month goes by and two months goes by and now it's like what's up every hour and hey let's meet for coffee and hey and then you start kind of fantasizing about that person like all of those things or red flags watchu dm's all right just be wise be faithful be faithful maybe you're in a hard season right now in a marriage or in a family and we all go through hard seasons but you know studies show that if you will just be faithful through the hard season most couples five years later after the hard season will look back and realize that things are better now over 80 percent things are better now than they were then and they ask these couples what changed nothing time perspective right they just were faithful they just stayed in they pushed through the dry season to get to the other side and there are benefits to that faithfulness long-term benefits that you can experience in your life so guard your heart guards your schedule guards your time be careful be conscientious if you want to remain faithful faithfulness will give you the relationship you want it'll rebuild the trust that maybe you've lost here's another principle and that's to keep small promises keep small promises check this out Matthew Jesus words again let's bring it up Matthew where he's chapter 5 verse 33 he says you've also heard that our ancestors were told you must not break your vows so again there was this whole principle about not taking vows and in that culture it was getting really distorted people would take vows and make promises based on this whole hierarchy of things you know they take a vow based on the temple which everybody knew that was only sort of binding right or based on this thing or that thing based on the city of Jerusalem you know I'm a dick a bowel based on the holy city of Jerusalem so it was a little more binding than others and not as binding as some and it just became this really distorted way that people could say what they wanted and lie and break their word and then do what they wanted right so Jesus says you've heard hey you know you must not break your vows you must carry out the vows you make to the Lord but I say did not make any vows he's like this whole system is messed up I think you have to understand the context because I don't think Jesus is saying all vows are bad marriage vows are bad any promise is bad but there was a major abusive vows system that was happening in the Jewish culture at the time that Jesus is addressing so he says I say don't make any vows just say a simple what yes I will or what no I won't yes or no anything beyond this is from the evil one so Jesus is saying look just when you just let your yes be yes and your no be no and I'm telling you in a relationship when you let your yes be yes when you say you're gonna be somewhere for your kids and you show up it just begins to build more and more trust when you say you're gonna keep a confidence for a friend and you keep that confidence it builds more trust when you say you're gonna be faithful over time and you're faithful over time it builds more and more trust because that trust is foundational to everything else so keeping small promises can be really really powerful and important you know I've had a couple very close friends who got into a real mess in their personal lives and kind of blew up their marriage and being ended up being unfaithful to their spouses these people were actually pastors in ministry and it destroyed their churches that destroyed their families you know the the collateral damage was was huge you know one of the things that's interesting in a couple cases that I know of he particularly started keeping secrets from his spouse and particularly kept his phone private his social media accounts private from his spouse right more and more there was this separation of things to keep secret to navigate and you know I would just just a thought everybody's different we're all in a different place but I'll tell you my wife has full access to my phone she can access all my social media accounts she can see what direct messages I'm sending or not sending she could see my text messages she can even track me on the 360 app okay you say well that sounds really confining I'm not suitable to me it's freeing because here's what I know like sometimes discipline is what actually leads to freedom right and that kind of discipline over time builds more and more and more and more and more trust and then that trust is this beautiful sort of freeing thing and it empowers your spouse if you're in a marriage relationship to begin to interpret your behaviors in the best light possible because they trust you that much right instead of their first thought is like oh man can you believe you did that well you don't even know if he did anything giardia assuming it so secrets can be heavy Columbia University did a study about lies and secrets and they concluded with something that they called the secrecy burden I don't know why we needed a study to determine this but they did one and they concluded revelation when you're keeping secrets it's a heavy burden in your soul and it actually slows you down psychologically and emotionally you know what we say in recovery you're only as sick as your secrets you're only as sick as your secrets so the truth and being honest about things going on in your life can be really powerful and some we may need to confess and when I say confess I don't mean you have to confess to everybody or broadcast your worst things in your life but you may need to confess to somebody that you trust that you love some of the things that have gone on in your heart and in your life so that you can begin to heal and move forward look if we want to stay faithful I've gotta guard our heart we've got to keep our word keep small promises let our yes be yes and our no be no anytime we start living with secrets towards those that we love we've got to ask ourselves why I feel like any time you start keeping secrets financial secrets that secret credit card hmm getting up in your world now right you know right you start anytime you start keeping a gambling secret you know that prescription meds secret anytime you start taking something that may have been helpful in a season or just entertainment or whatever and now you start keeping secrets with it that is a huge massive red flag don't be in denial about that that's a red flag and the best thing you can do with that secret is to that person that you really love is let them in and be honest with them so that you can move forward and continue to build trust before that trust starts to be destroyed I saw this picture and we're gonna bring it up at this elderly couple and this guy had made some comments you see that man there was a guy who had just left this ice cream shop and he said he looked over it was like 90 degrees on this particular day and this man had been in line right ahead of him and he said here's this man probably 80 something years old and his wife she's got a bib on her shoulder she obviously can't feed herself and he's sitting outside in the hot Sun or in the heat spooning ice cream into her mouth and he snapped this picture and he's like look at this amazing picture of love you know that picture went it was like Tovar nine hundred thousand times it was shared all over the world it was commented thousands of common after that picture a lot of emojis you know a lot of a lot of a lot of women tagging their guys saying this is how you better feed me when I'm you know 90s in a car and you know a lot of guys responding back I will I'll be there I'll do it one person I thought said it beautifully they just said this is greatness I don't know what you think's great I think faithfulness is pretty great and it may be sort of out of favor in our culture but I think it'll make a comeback because I think when you're faithful to people you love and trust over the long haul it builds something beautiful and powerful and to do that you may go through some tough seasons and it may be hard you may have even had some moments of unfaithfulness and there's got to be forgiveness in conversations you may have that trust broken it and so you you know you've got to acknowledge where your heart is and try to heal enough to move forward and trust again but if will work toward it and if will be faithful I believe we can build something great with our relationships and when you think about that kind of faithfulness that's really the faithfulness that God has toward us the Bible says that God is faithful even when we are faithless sometimes we're faithless but God is faithful he loved you he loved me even when some of us he loved us in our unfaithfulness he loved us when we didn't keep our promise he loved us in our brokenness he loved us through our brokenness and now he can see us through it to the other side for some of you today could be an opportunity for healing for God to show up and move in your life and just help you realize look we may have been faithless in different seasons but God is always faithful and we can look to him and he can strengthen us and allow us to move forward maybe Trust has been broken in a relationship and it's caused all kinds of but look what's happened in the past doesn't have to dictate everything about what happens in the future you can rebuild that trust through faithfulness small acts of faithfulness over time is to allow God to move and work in it maybe for some of us we just need a reminder today that Christ came and lived and died and rose again because in spite of our imperfections God loves us and cares for us and he loves you and he wants to be in a relationship with you and so I'd love to give some of you an opportunity just to reach out to him and ask God to move and work in your life the name all of you please bow your heads and close your eyes if you'd like to become a follower of Jesus you can begin that journey by repeating this prayer after me to say dear God I thank you for loving me thank you for sending Jesus into the world believe he died on the cross for my sins I believe he rose again forgive me for my sins give me the gift of the Holy Spirit help me face the challenges I'm up against God I surrender my life to you Christ name friends with every head bowed and every eye closed if that's your prayer today if it's your commitment when I asked you to just slip your hand in the air just to acknowledge you're gonna follow God in your life you're gonna trust him you're gonna respond to all that he has done for you just slip your hand in the air god I'm grateful for each person just reaching out to you today and I pray he'll show up in their life in a huge way bring healing and hope and encouragement for all of us God may we just grow and not only our togetherness but in our faithfulness as we strive to be in relationships that honor you and that ultimately lead to a greater sense of fulfillment in our lives we thank you for who you are in Christ His name we pray amen

Channel: Central Church

Views: 2,844

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: central online, central live, central henderson, jud wilhite, relationship goals, faithfulness, faith, promise, believe, togetherness, series, teaching, sermon, special, drew bodine, central production

Id: QDvJRS3uL5E

Length: 35min 31sec (2131 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 15 2018