FRUIT THAT IS NEVER OUT OF SEASON
FAITHFULNESS
Hebrews 13:4
John Maxwell
INTRODUCTION:
Lord Jesus, I ask your blessing on us now, as we go back into the fruit of the spirit and talk about faithfulness, not in a generic way, but in regard to our spouse. Faithfulness in marriage. I ask that you would just encourage every person here today, for everyone in this building knows what it’s like to be tempted, especially in the areas of sexual matters.
And I just ask that, Spirit of God, you will come alongside of us. I pray, Father, for anyone that is entertaining an affair. Anyone, Lord, who is in one. And for our wonderful single people, Father, that are being caught in this trap. God, I pray that you would encourage them today to turn around and make a difference as far as their spiritual character is concerned and their commitment to you. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Last year there was a movie entitled "Indecent Proposal." I did not see it, but if you watched any television at all, because of the talk shows and the advertising, you know all about it. Robert Redford, a billionaire, saw another guy’s wife and offered to give a million dollars to have one night with her. Talk shows all over the country began asking the question: "Would you have an affair or a one night stand on your spouse for a million dollars?" Many people indignantly said no; thank God for that. But I find it quite interesting that about 45 to 50 percent of all Americans, at one time or another, have an affair, and yet so many said they wouldn’t do it for a million dollars. I said, "Some of them do it for a lot less than that."
When we have weddings in this church, as the bride walks down this aisle, that whole wedding is filled with hope. 96 percent of all Americans sometime in their life will get married. And that wedding ceremony is filled with hope and anticipation. Yet, to keep a marriage together, you need more than hope. You need commitment. And I want to talk to you about it today. Let me do a little informal survey among you. I’m going to poll those that are married. How many of you would raise your hand and say, "Pastor, it’s a lot easier to get married than to stay married?" Now, the person seated beside you, that didn’t raise their hand is either, A) not married, B) a liar, or C) utterly stupid.
I want to talk to you about faithfulness. I want to talk to you about sex as God created it to be. You know, sex is a wonderful thing. We’ve got a great God, don’t we? What an incredible God we serve. But he gave this to us for our pleasure in a right context. But something beautiful can become extremely dangerous. It’s just like water that we drink. Water can keep us alive, but too much water destroys us. Just like fire. It’s wonderful to have a fire in the fireplace, but it’s awful to have a house caught on fire. There are certain boundaries. I want to share with you five ways this morning to remain faithful to your spouse. I promise you they are simple and biblical, and if you follow them you will be faithful.
Five helps to remain faithful...
1. Make a commitment to God’s standard. Psalm 119:9; Prov. 5:15
There’s a standard that God’s word gives us concerning marriage, and if we make a commitment to his standard, it is truly life changing. Look at Psalm 1:19; it says, "How can a man keep his way pure? By living according to your Word." Look at Proverbs 5:15, "Be faithful to your own wife and give your love to her alone." By the way men, this is a command, not a suggestion.
Suggestions:
Share with your spouse your commitment to God’s standard for marriage.
Let your spouse know that you are committed to the standard that God gives us concerning marriage and sex.
Share with your friends your commitment to God’s standard for marriage.
Share that with the friends you run around with. Let them know you are committed to God’s standard concerning marriage. And the reason for this is to send out a signal to everybody. You see, most affairs begin with family and friends. And you’re sending a signal out to everybody that that standard is important and you are literally telling people, "I’m off limits."
Now, once in a while, probably because I’m a little bit of a public figure, I’ll get a letter from a woman -- and I mean, it’s very seldom -- that could perhaps be a little bit suggestive. I remember I got a letter like that back in 1962, if I remember right. You know what I do with those letters? I immediately give a copy to my secretary to file. Then I go home and give it to my wife, Margaret, and I say, "Hey Babe, look what some silly, stupid woman said. Go claw her eyes out." First person I want to see any kind of letter like that is my wife. You see, you and I need to develop safeties around ourselves.
Let me just stop for a moment. Because we have so many wonderful single people in this church, I want to say this also means you. The word in the Bible for you is fornication, but it’s the same thing. It’s basically having sex outside a marriage relationship. Single person, I’m telling you, God says it’s wrong. It’s wrong all the time. You shouldn’t be living together. You shouldn’t be having sex with anybody. It’s as wrong in a single sense as it is in a married sense. In fact, single people, let me give you a suggestion: just like I encourage the husbands and wives to go home and recommit themselves to God’s standard for marriage. I would suggest this to you: When you get into a dating relationship with someone, let them know that you’re going to follow God’s standard concerning sexual relationships right up front. Let them know that you’re a Christian and that you do not have sex outside of marriage. You say you’re not sure how they’ll respond. Well, let me tell you something, if they respond in any way except positive, you’re with the wrong person anyway. Get rid of that jerk as fast as you can. That’s Greek for scumbag.
Can you intellectually follow me this morning? First step for faithfulness is make a commitment to God’s standard.
2. Magnify the consequences of the affair. Proverbs 6:32; 6:26
What I want you to understand is that when you get into an affair, the consequences are going to be so much more severe than you could ever imagine.
I believe that if you could see the consequences, you would keep from becoming emotionally and physically entangled. Proverbs 6:32 says, "The one who commits adultery is an utter fool, for he destroys his own soul." Powerful, isn’t it? What does it mean? I want to tell you something: nothing damages the emotions like sexual sin. Nothing. I promise you when I used to do a lot of counseling, many times I listened to people as they’d sit there with tears flowing down their face. And they’d say, "If I could just turn the clock back. If I could just have that one day over again." You can’t turn the clock back.
I’m telling you, the reason I preach a message like this is I want to help you on the front end, because I’m telling you my friend, when you get on the back end, it’s too late. It’s not too late for God’s forgiveness; in fact, I want to tell you something. Listen to me. God will forgive you for any affair that you ever had. God will forgive you for any sin that you have ever done. God forgives all sin. And I’m glad for that. Amen?
But I want to tell you, you still pay the piper. And the best way to not get involved in that whole process is to understand and magnify the consequences on the front end. Look what it says in Proverbs 6:26. "Adultery will cost a man all he has." And that’s talking more than going to court and having to pay alimony, folks. And maybe you’ll say, "But John, you don’t know the problems I’ve got in my marriage." No, I don’t, but I want to tell you something, I know the problems you’ll have when you get out of the marriage. Try to heal that and get over that a relationship and get involved with another person. I know the problems and they’re much more severe.
I’ve been married to Margaret for 25 years. On June 14th, 1994, we’ll have been married 25 years. I can still remember the evening that Margaret asked me to marry her. I’ll tell you it was incredible, sweetheart. It was unbelievable. You ought to have heard how I told the first service when you weren’t in here. I mean I had you pleading and begging. But now that you’re here I’ve got to tell the truth. She just asked me three times is all. Now, I’ve been with Margaret for 25 incredible years and I’m going to tell you, this is a practical sermon. I’m just trying to help us live right. There are three reasons why I’m faithful to Margaret: (1) I love my wife and kids. Now, that may sound a little corny, but I want to tell you something, it’s the best way I know how to say it. And I’ll tell you what I mean by that: I wouldn’t hurt them for anything in the world. Nothing would be more hurtful to them then to find out that their daddy or husband’s had an affair. I love them too much to put them through that.
And I would rather die than go to my father, who taught me sexual purity, and tell him I have done wrong in this area of my life. In fact, if I ever have an affair, I will die. Margaret’s promised to kill me. She just says, "Honey, it’s like this. The church will forgive me for murder much quicker than you for adultery. I’ll just kill you." So if some Sunday I’m not here and you find out I’ve been killed, go talk to Margaret. (2) I love Jesus Christ. And I want to tell you something about loving Jesus Christ -- everything I am I owe to him, because he died for my sin. And the word of God tells me if you love the Lord, you’ll keep his commandments.
And just let me stop here long enough to tell you something. I run into so called Christians all the time who are so sexually promiscuous, and they’ll say, "Well, you know, God loves me and he’ll forgive me." Well, that’s a bunch of baloney. Can I tell you something? God loves you unconditionally; I want you to know that. But I want to tell you, if you’re fooling around and breaking his commandments every day and just turning around and flippantly flipping him off, you don’t love God. The kind of love you’ve got for God ain’t the kind of love I know. You ought to get some real good love for him, because then you’ll keep his commandments and you won’t hurt him. You will not hurt the one who died for your sins by constantly violating this area of your life, not if you really love him.
(3) I honestly fear the judgment of God. We don’t hear a lot about the judgment of God but I want to tell you something, you and I are going stand before him in this area. Hebrews 13:4 says, "God will judge those who are immoral and those who commit adultery." He’ll judge us.
Three good reasons to be faithful to your spouse. Love the Lord. Love them. And also have a healthy fear of the judgment of a holy, righteous God. You might be able to rationalize it to your counselor. You may be able to rationalize it in your mind. But I want to tell you what, you won’t be able to rationalize in front of a righteous God. When you look at him, I can promise you, all that petty stuff will go off real quick and he’ll cut right to the core.
3. Maintain your marriage. I Corinthians 7:3,5
You see, marriage needs constant maintenance and constant work. It’s not an, "I do. I do," and then it’s set for the rest of your life. You’ve got to maintain that marriage. I Corinthians 7:3 says, "A man should fulfill his duty as a husband, and a wife should fulfill her duty as a wife, and each should satisfy the other’s needs." Notice that, "Each should satisfy the other’s needs." Not their needs; the other’s needs.
There’s a wonderful book entitled His Needs, Her Needs, by a psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Willard Harley. And in this book he talks about interviewing thousands of couples and he has listed the top five needs of most men and the top five needs of most woman and let me give them to you.
Top five needs of most men:
1. Sexual fulfillment.
2. Recreational companionship.
3. Attractive spouse.
4. Domestic support.
5. Admiration.
Men want to be admired.
Top five needs of most women:
1. Affection.
Affection needs explanation to at least half of this crowd. He’s talking about tender love, hugs, pats, kisses. He’s not talking about going through this process to lead them upstairs or wherever the bedroom is. He’s not talking about "touchdown." You know, hugs and kisses without a second half. Now, if you don’t understand that, talk to the person beside you and they’ll explain right after the service is over.
2. Conversation.
I mean they like to talk. And when you think they’re done, no, no, they want to tell you again. "Let’s talk about it one more time."
3. Honesty and openness.
4. Financial support.
5. Family commitment.
Now, look at those lists just for a moment. I’m going to show you now why there are marriage problems. If you look at the five for men and the five for women, do you see they don’t relate? They don’t parallel at all. You see, that’s where the problem is. The problem is when a man gets married he thinks as a man. He hasn’t been trained yet, ladies. He tries to meet his wife’s needs according to how he wants his needs met. And when a woman gets married, she thinks as a woman and she tries to meet her husband’s needs as she would like. They’re missing. And that’s why the marriage problems. I heard a cute story the other day. In a scientific survey about husbands and lovemaking, they found out that husbands want to make love on days that start with T. It’s amazing what you pick up. That means husbands want to make love on Tuesdays, Thursdays, today, tomorrow, Taturday, Tunday.
I want to say one more thing about maintaining your marriage. If you’re really going to maintain your marriage, you do so through friendship. Margaret and I are best friends. I’d rather be with her, spend time with her, talk with her than with anyone else in this world. Now, here’s what I learned a long time ago, because marriages can get pretty tough: It is easy at times to leave your spouse, but -- listen to me -- it’s not easy to leave your best friend. So have the best friendship right in the middle of that marriage. If your spouse is your best friend, your marriage is going to succeed. And if your spouse is not your best friend, I can tell you right now, God’s going to have to help you and you’re going to have to help yourself a lot.
4. Manage your mind. James 1:14-15; II Timothy 2:2
If you want to be faithful to your spouse, manage your mind. And here’s the reason why. Affairs develop through the mind.
How affairs develop:
1. Accepting sinful thoughts in the mind.
When we let down our guard and accept sinful thoughts in the mind, pretty soon it will progress to something much deeper. Look what James said in Chapter 1, verse 14, "Temptation is the pull of a person’s own evil thoughts and wishes. These evil thoughts lead to evil actions and afterwards to death." When you have a sexual fantasy -- and Christians do, don’t look at me like that -- if you’re married, turn it towards your spouse.
Now there’s an incredible bombardment of this in our culture; if you’re single, Paul told Timothy something to do that I want you to note here. Look at this other verse in Chapter 2, verse 22. "Turn your back on lustful desires and give your positive attention to goodness, integrity, love and peace." What he’s saying is that you’ve got to be your own "thought policeman" as a single person. And there may be some movies you shouldn’t be watching. There may be some books you can’t read. But get active in ministry and begin to do good for others and that will help release you until you’re privileged to be married.
2. Emotional (not physical) involvement.
Now I think this is especially true with Christians. What I’m saying is that there becomes a heavy, emotional involvement where you like being together, you want to be together all the time. I think non Christians just cut through all that and go to bed. But I think Christians, because they know this is wrong, they’ll hang in this area way too long.
3. Physical involvement.
It’s going to eventually lead you there.
4. Rationalization of the affair.
We begin to convince ourselves that everything is okay. But Jeremiah says, "The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked." We say things like, "Well, if my husband were meeting my needs like this, I’d be okay." "Well, we’re in love." "After all, what are you going to do? I’ve got these feelings."
5. Minimize the opportunity. I Cor. 10:12; 15:33; Malachi 2:15
If you want to stay faithful to your spouse, minimize the opportunity.
The pattern downward is as follows:
Familiarity -- you become familiar with somebody.
Feelings -- you begin to feel something for them.
Frequency -- you now want to be around them more and more. Failure
That’s exactly the way the trend works. Look at what Paul said in I Corinthians 10, "So be careful if you’re thinking, ’Oh, I would never behave like that.’ Let this be a warning to you, for you to may fall into sin." In other words, none of us can look around and say, "Well, that would never happen to me." In fact, when Howard Hendricks talked to pastors who had messed up sexually in their life, he found out that one of the three things they all had in common was them saying, "Oh, that won’t happen to me." That’s an arrogant statement. And when he told me that, that grabbed me. I began to build some ways to protect myself. I’ve got them in your notes and they’re just simple but practical things:
How to protect yourself from affairs:
1. Seldom travel alone.
I’m very seldom away from my wife by myself.
2. Call your spouse every night.
I don’t care where I am or what I’m doing, we’ll get on the phone and talk 30-35 minutes. There’s nothing in this life so important that I can’t make that phone call and keep touching base.
3. Avoid being alone with someone of the opposite sex.
I’m never alone with a woman in the car, or in a restaurant. If I’m in any kind of a setting with them in the office, I make sure I have my secretary there.
4. Talk positively about your spouse.
You never hear me ever say a negative thing about my wife. Now, does that mean that she doesn’t do some things wrong? Oh, my Lord. If she does one thing I do two things wrong. I want to tell you something: when you begin to talk in a negative way about your family or spouse, you open the door for anyone that would ever entertain having an affair with you.
The door open to affairs almost always is someone disgruntled and unhappy with their mate. And I make it a practice to tell a lot of great stories about Margaret, my kids and my church. I do that not only because they are great, but also because I want everybody in this whole room to know that I am hopelessly, helplessly in love with my wife of 25 years. We’re going to have 25 down, got another 25 to go, and I can promise you right now, I ain’t looking, don’t need to look, got the best thing I ever found and married way above myself already.
5. Be accountable to others.
6. Choose your friends carefully.
Be careful who your friends are. Listen, the Bible tells me, "Bad company corrupts good character." Don’t hang around with bad friends. They’ll mess you up. You’ll get in trouble with those people.
7. Look beyond the temptation to the consequences.
The pathway back to purity:
1. Acknowledge the sin. Psalm 51:1-4
Do what David did in Psalms 51 after he committed adultery. Don’t rationalize it. Admit that you are wrong. It’s not an affair; it’s adultery.
2. End the relationship immediately.
I mean cut it off now.
3. Avoid ALL contact with that person from now on.
Don’t say, "This year I’m going to break that off." Shoot, you don’t break things off in a year. Break them off now. Now, there’s healing for you. There’s grace for you.
Do whatever it takes to do this!
CONCLUSION
Before you get out of here I want to read you a letter that will do more for you than the message I preached. It was written by a teenage girl by the name of Kimberly. Three minutes. Don’t move. Are you ready? She is drawing a word picture for her father who has just had an affair.
Dear Daddy,
It’s late at night and I’m sitting in the middle of my bed writing to you. I’ve wanted to talk to you so many times during the last few weeks, but there’s never been any time when we are alone.
Dad, I realize that you’re dating someone else. I know that you and Mom may never get back together and that’s terribly hard for me to accept, especially knowing that means that you may never come home or be an everyday dad to me and my brother again. At least I wanted you to understand what’s going on in our lives. Don’t think that Mom asked me to write this because she didn’t. She doesn’t even know I’m writing it. I just want to share with you what I’ve been thinking.
I feel like our family has been riding in a nice car for a long time. You know, the kind that you always liked to have as a company car, the kind that has every extra inside, no scratches on the outside. But over the years the car has developed some problems. It’s smoking, the wheels wobble, the seat covers are ripped, and it’s really hard to drive or ride because of all the shaking and squeaking, but you know, Dad, it’s still a great car or it could be. With a little work, it could run for some more years.
But brother Brian and I have always been in the back, with you and Mom up front. We’ve always felt secure when you were driving and Mom was beside you. But last month when you left, Mom had to take over the wheel.
It was nighttime. We’d just turned the corner and suddenly, we looked up and saw another car coming at us, out of control, heading straight for us. Mom tried to swerve out of the way but the other car smashed into us and the impact sent us flying off the road, crashing into a light post.
The thing is Dad, just before we hit, we saw that it was you driving the other car. We saw something else -- sitting next to you was the other woman. It was such a terrible accident. We were all rushed to the emergency ward. When we asked where you were, nobody knew. We’re still not really sure where you are in all of this or if you’re really hurt. Did you need help?
Mom was really hurt. She was thrown into the steering wheel and punctured her lungs, and it almost pierced her heart. When the car wrecked, the back door smashed into Brian. He was covered with cuts from broken glass, and shattered his arm. He’s now in a cast, and he’s still in so much pain and shock that he doesn’t want to talk or play with anybody. And as for me, I was thrown from the car and stuck out in the cold for a long time. My right leg was broken and as I lay there I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what was wrong with Mom and Brian, and I was hurting so much myself that I couldn’t help them at all.
There have been times since that night that I wondered if any of us would make it and, even though we’re getting a little better, we’re still here in the hospital and the doctor says that I’ll need a lot of therapy on my leg.
I know they’ll help get it better. But Daddy, I wish it was you helping me instead of them. The pain is so bad. But what’s worse is we miss you so much. And every day we wait to see if you’re going to visit us in the hospital and every day you don’t come.
I know it’s over, but my heart would explode with joy if somehow I could look up and see you walk into my room. At night when it’s really quiet, they push Brian and me into Mom’s room and we all talk about you. About how much we all loved driving with you and how we all wish you were back with us.
Are you all right? Are you hurting from the wreck? Do you need us like we need you? If you need me, I’m here and I love you.
A few days later, because of this incredible word picture that she painted for her dad, that little girl, Kimberly, walked out of her bedroom and down the stairs, and her dad was waiting for her. He stopped the affair and the family was reunited.
Listen to me very carefully. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. The payment’s too great. Stop now. Check yourself. Be faithful to God and your spouse.
