Building a Marriage That Lasts

This episode of All In with Pastor Jordan Easley has been made possible by the generous support of viewers like you. Welcome to All In with Pastor Jordan Easley. Today's message is about to begin, and we invite you to prepare your heart and mind to hear an inspiring message from God's Word. We hope and pray for God to speak to you today as you seek to live your life all in for Jesus Christ. And now from First Baptist Church in Cleveland, Tennessee, here's Pastor Jordan Easley. Well, I wanna welcome you back on this very special weekend as we continue this series we're calling Home Builders. You know, this entire series was really designed for all of us who are in a home, who are living a life that wants to be maximized for the kingdom of God. Nobody wants to waste this opportunity because guess what, you get one shot. And so we wanna make the most of it as people who love Jesus but also want God's very best in our life. You know, last week we talked about times of transition in the home, and I believe that message hit 100% of us last week, right? Because all of us go through transitions in our home, whether you're going to a new school or joining a new team, going to a new job, whether you're going through a time of transition dealing with death or marriage or new kids, all of us walk through seasons of transition. But I believe today is also one of those messages that applies to the majority of people in the room

because we're talking about marriage. Now, I know not everyone is married right now, but statistically speaking, 89% of people who are born on planet earth will be married on planet earth at one point or another. And for the other 11%, guess what? You know married people. And so hopefully God's word can give them some instruction and use you to inspire other people. So whether you're married or not, I wanna encourage you today to jot some notes down, to lean in just a little bit, and to work a little bit harder on taking notes than you are elbowing your spouse, amen? But we're gonna be in Genesis chapter three for the majority of our time together. If you wanna go ahead and open your Bible, Genesis chapter three is where we're going to land. Now, as you're turning there, use your imagination with me for just a second. Imagine that you're at home and you wake up in the middle of the night and your house is on fire. Imagine that scene. The alarm is screaming. The walls are glowing orange. There is smoke in your house. The heat is rising from the floor. In that moment, in that setting, how do you respond? What do you do? Now, hopefully you've never been through that before.

I know I haven't, but I can promise you this. If my house was on fire, I don't think I would be worried about getting my TV and taking it outside. I don't think I would start moving my furniture and choosing which couch I'm going to bring with me. In that moment, I wouldn't be looking for the knickknacks and all the toys and all the video games and all the things. No, in that moment, I believe I would be focused on the things and especially the people that matter most. I would grab my family and we would run for safety. Anybody else agree with that today? I think that's natural. I think we can all agree that that's a natural thing. When a fire alarm wakes you up and you look around and the indicators are clear that this really is an emergency, you got the smell of smoke, you have the glow of the flames, understand this. Those alarms and those warnings ought to launch you into purposeful action. Purposeful action. I want you to think about that phrase. I want to plant that in your brain for today, okay? Those alarms launch you into purposeful action, not careless action, not random action. No, you get very intentional when the alarms are real. So here's the question I want you to think about. You just zawed that thing from the alert. You don't even know it,

but you're unaware of whose alarm that belongs to right now. I want you to think about that. And I want you to think about how you are doing in your life by understanding that today. What if your marriage is on fire right now? But you just don't even hear the alarm. And the world that you're living in seems to be a part of your inevitable, an inevitable part of your journey, right? You're just like, this is chaos. It's always chaos. And you know what? We want God's very best, not the world's worst. Amen? So when you hear the alarm, think about how you would respond. If you hear an alarm right now, and you see that the house is on fire, you're not just gonna sit there on the couch and do nothing. You're not gonna flip through the channels when the house is burning down. No, that alarm is an indication that should launch you into purposeful action. So think about the next steps when you see the alarm. Think about your action and your response when you recognize that. there's something that's going on. Here's the thing, God loves you too much to let your marriage burn to the ground

without first sounding some alarms. And he doesn't just sound the alarms, understand this, he also shows you what you should do when you hear them ringing. So today, as part of our Home Builder series, I wanna show you seven alarms that God sounds in our marriages. Seven alarms that we experience and the purposeful actions that we should take to rebuild when we hear them. So once again, I wanna encourage you to jot these seven things down. The first one I want you to get is this, alarm number one, the alarm of distance. The alarm of distance. We see that take place in the very first relationship between Adam and Eve. Genesis 3.8 says, then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze. And they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. So get this, before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve enjoyed perfect fellowship with God and perfect fellowship with one another. They were, according to Genesis 2.25, naked and yet felt no shame. That's what the Bible said. They're the only people that ever got to experience that other than the guys in the locker room at the gym.

Amen, you'll get that later. They were naked, but they felt no shame, all right? And the Bible says they walked with God in the garden. They were united with one another. They were united with him. But then after sin, everything changed. And now instead of them running to God, they're running away from God. Instead of them being transparent, they're covering up, the Bible says. Instead of intimacy, there's now isolation. And so here's what I want us to see today. The moment distance enters your relationship with God, distance will enter your relationship with one another. This has been a biblical truth since the very beginning. That happened in the garden and it's still the pattern today. Marital distance doesn't begin in the bedroom. It doesn't begin by discussing the bank account. It doesn't begin at the dinner table. Marital distance begins in the heart when one or both spouse decides to drift away from God. That's why in the book of James, we read this. He says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. So the order here matters. He's saying, we don't need to try to fix the symptoms of distance in our relationship by pursuing one another. No, we start by moving towards God because when we're close to God, he draws us close to himself,

but he also brings us closer to one another. Think about Genesis 2 24 real quick. He says, this is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife and they become one flesh. That word bonds is the word debach. It means to cling to one another. It means to pursue closely. It actually gives you a picture of being glued together. That pursuit of one another is sustained by our pursuit of God. If you take God out of the equation, listen, what was glued together will eventually fall apart. This is the biblical principle that we need to understand in our relationships today. That your intimacy with your spouse will never rise above your intimacy with God. Not if you are in a biblical God-ordained marriage. This is true for all of us. So your intimacy with the Lord has to be primary. When you drift from him, here's what the Bible shows us. You're gonna drift from one another, but when you draw near to him, he's gonna pull you back together. So the alarm of distance is going off in your relationship right now. You say, man, there's a lot of distance between us as husband and wife. When the alarm goes off and you recognize it, it ought to lead you to purposeful action. So what is the purposeful action

the Bible says we should take? We ought to do what? We ought to pursue God together. We ought to pursue God together. You know, that's been the design for marriage since the very beginning. Jesus ought to be the center of your marriage. If you agree with this, will you say amen? Jesus ought to be the center of your marriage. If he's not, you're getting it wrong. If he is, you're getting it right. And this isn't a new concept. We didn't just come up with this idea that Jesus ought to be the center. In fact, this week I saw a wedding ring that dates back over 1600 years. This wedding ring is made out of pure gold. It dates back to the early fifth century in the Byzantine era. And I thought it was fascinating that even 1600 years ago in designing a wedding ring, they put Jesus at the center between the husband and the wife. It's a perfect triangle that says this is the way that God designed marriage to work. And this is what we are committing to in this new covenant. called marriage. Listen, if distance is sounding the alarm in your marriage, don't try to just close the gap horizontally, start vertically, draw near to God.

And guess what? God will bring you closer to one another. You've seen the triangle illustration a hundred times, but many times people follow up and they say, I get that. If I move closer to God and she moves closer to God, we're gonna grow closer together. But how are we supposed to practically do that? If you're asking that question, jot these things down. You say, I wanna grow closer to God and my spouse. What can I do? Pray together daily. Even if it's just for a few minutes. Pray together as a husband and a wife. Open God's word together. Do that as often as you can. Worship together, not just at church or in this room or in this building. Worship together as husband and wife, even in your home. Join a small group together. I believe God places godly marriages around you for the sake of sharpening you and equipping you to be the husband and wife that you're supposed to be. Ask each other spiritual questions. Ask what is God teaching you right now? How are you supposed to be walking by faith? What are we supposed to be doing together? See, when you pursue God as a couple, he's gonna draw your hearts closer together than you could ever do it without him. So when distance sounds the alarm, the action is pursuit.

Pursue God first and then pursue one another after that. You ready for alarm number two, say amen. Alarm number two is the alarm of disrespect. The alarm of disrespect. This is a big one in marriage. Adam and Eve experienced that to some degree as well. You know, in Genesis three, verse 12, it says this, the man replied, the woman you gave to be with me. By the way, that's one of my favorite verses in the Bible. I'm just like, man, you shouldn't have worded it like that. I mean, you guys learn from this, okay? This is what he said. He's talking to God. The woman that you gave to be with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate. He just threw her under the bus, all right? But that's what happens in relationships a lot of time. Adam stopped protecting his wife in this moment and he just started blaming her instead. You see this? Instead of honoring his wife, he chose to dishonor his wife. And all of a sudden respect gave way to resentment. And you know what? The same alarm goes off in our marriages today. Disrespect isn't one of those alarms that's like blaring. It's not like a siren that goes off when a tornado is coming. I think disrespect is more like the little constant beep, like a smoke alarm where the battery is going down. It's like a beep.

It just kind of irks you when it goes off. You're like, oh, somebody changed the battery, right? That's disrespect in our relationship. It's the little sarcastic comments that you're like, I really wish you would stop saying that. It's the comparison game when you start comparing your spouse to someone else and being like, I wish you would do the things that they do. It's the way you talk more kindly to other people than you do to your own spouse. It's those little, little beeps that just over time, they eat away at the intimacy in your relationships. You know, I heard about a husband and wife that were in a fight. It wasn't like a blow up fight. It was more one of those arguments where they're just going back and forth, back and forth. And both people would just want to get the last word. They want to win the fight. Have you ever been in one of those? Don't answer that. But they're going back and forth and they're just frustrated with one another. And finally, the husband, he just, he crossed the line. He just went a little bit too far. And he said something that he couldn't bring back. This is what he said. He goes, you know what? I don't know how you could be so beautiful and yet so clueless at the same time.

But this is what she did. She didn't skip a beat. She looked back at me and said this. She said, well, God made me beautiful so that you would marry me. And he made me clueless so that I would marry you. All right? I don't know. Listen, in those relationships, you better be careful, all right? It's funny when somebody else is having those conversations. But you know what? If you're in one of those relationships where it's constant disrespect and cutting each other down and just wearing each other out, let me say this. Disrespect is an alarm that if you ignore it for too long, bitterness is going to be born. And when bitterness is born, it doesn't just live there. Bitterness always spreads. And so you've got to have purposeful action. If you're like, I live in a relationship of constant disrespect, what do I do? Here's the purposeful action. You ready? It's honor and serve. You honor one another. You serve one another. And it flips disrespect upside down.

Ephesians chapter five tells us in marriage, we should be submitting to one another in the fear of Christ. We should submit to one another. Paul goes on to say, husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. So you look at the life of Jesus. He gives us a beautiful picture, a beautiful model of how. Now we ought to love one another. As Jesus loves the church, hey, we are the church and we're jacked up. And yet Jesus loves us anyway. So it's not about the church is so perfect but of course Jesus loves us. No, it's we're jacked up and Jesus loves us anyway. He gave his life for us, people like us. You know who you are, right? And yet Jesus said, that's the model for marriage. It's respect, it's honor. Respect is rebuilt through honor. Honor is choosing to speak life over the other person. Honor is choosing to serve the other person instead of hoping that they'll start serving you. Honor is building the other person up instead of tearing the other person down. Are you tracking with me today? Listen, when disrespect sounds the alarm and you're hearing that alarm right now in your marriage, the action here is honor.

Let me give you the third alarm today and that is the alarm of division. The alarm of division. We went from disrespect to now we're divided. In Genesis 3.16, it says, your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you. Interesting part of the story of Adam and Eve. So here we're not only, so here we're not only separated from God because of sin. No, here we see sin also created conflict within marriage itself. In other words, when sin entered the scene in the garden, division took the place of unity. Let's just make this really clear. You've got this perfect scene, but now sin enters and division takes the place of unity. And guess what, guys? We're still dealing with that in marriage today. You hear this alarm happening in your marriage when you and your spouse start living under the same roof as opponents instead of partners. And I'm not gonna ask you how many of you have done that before, but we know who we are, right? You know that you've lived like that. You may be living like that right now. And now you've got two people who were once united. You were bonded together on your wedding day. You were united as one, but you're divided today.

And now everything seems to be you versus me. Finances become a tug of war. Parenting turns into the blame game. Decisions feel like battles instead of conversations. And it's constantly just over and over and over again. Have you ever wondered why division happens in marriage in the first place? Because you look around and this is a constant battle that people are dealing with. Why does it happen? Well, Jesus told us exactly why it happens in Mark 3, verse 25. He said this, "'If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.'" And what that means is you experience division in your marriage because that's the enemy strategy. Everything about this is intentional from the enemy's perspective. His strategy is to divide you because his goal is to destroy you. And listen, he doesn't need to destroy your marriage from the outside. If he can convince you to destroy your marriage from the inside. So what does he do? How does he do this? You know how? He whispers lies into our ears. He doesn't scream, he whispers.

And he tells us things that he wants us to believe. He'll tell you things like, this is not your problem, this is his problem. So it's you against him now. He'll say, you're never gonna see eye to eye with this person, they've changed. They're different than they used to be. He's gonna say, your way is the only way. So stop trying to compromise. Don't let him control you. Don't let her control you. You're never gonna be able to reconcile this. You're never gonna be on the same team again. Not after what they did, not after what they said, not after his parents got involved or her family got, not after this. And you know what? He's gonna be like, this is the end of the road. And before too long, the two people who were joined as one are now living like two people pulling on opposite sides of the rope. But God's design was never for you to be opponents. It was for you to be teammates. So remember this, division is the devil's goal. Unity is God's plan. Division is his goal. Unity is God's plan. So if you're divided today, what is the purposeful action? Here's what the Bible says. You've got to fight for unity.

Fight for it. It says in Mark 10, eight, and the two became one flesh and they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, get this part, let no one separate, right? That's the word of God. That's God's intention. That's God's design. The devil wants you divided. God wants you united. And you know what? Unity doesn't mean that you're always gonna agree, but it does mean that you're always gonna fight on the same team. It means you're always gonna pull in the same direction. It means that you're always gonna refuse to let the devil drive a wedge between you and your spouse because you understand that's what the devil's plan is. But God's plan is greater, and I'm going to follow him. So when division sounds the alarm, here's your action. It's unity. Pursue unity. Fight for unity with all you've got. Alarm number four is the alarm of disengagement. And I know a lot of us think that looks a lot like the other ones. But believe it or not, it's a little different. In Genesis 3, 7, it says, then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Do you see what's happening here?

Remember, before sin, Adam and Eve were completely open. There's no barriers. There's no shame. Nothing is hidden. But the moment sin entered the picture, they disengaged. They covered themselves up. They pulled back. They created separation. Not because they were fighting each other, but now they're kind of avoiding one another. And that's what disengagement looks like in marriage. It's not the yelling match in the kitchen. It's not the blow-up fight over the budget. That's division. That's what we just talked about a second ago. Disengagement is quieter. Disengagement is sneakier. And you know what? It's even more dangerous in some ways, because when you're disengaged, you can live that way for years and really never even realize it. Disengagement is when you stop sharing your heart with your spouse, and you keep everything surface level. It's when you stop asking how the other person is doing, because you just don't talk about those things anymore. Disengagement is when your iPhone gets 10 times the attention as your spouse does. Disengagement's when you're living parallel lives, side by side, but you are rarely intertwined. Let me tell you something about intimacy. Intimacy will wither without intentional engagement. And I want you to focus on that word intentional. You've got to intentionally engage with one another, and Scripture makes that abundantly clear.

I mean, in the Bible, love is never passive. Real love is always intentional. It's always active. It's always fully engaged. And that's the kind of love that God calls us to in marriage. In fact, in 1 Peter 4, verse 8, we read this. It says, above all, maintain constant love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. I don't know about you guys. If I got a multitude of sins, and God said, love will cover that up, there needs to be a lot of love. And in order to have a lot of love, there's got to be a lot of intentionality in sharing that love with the person God connected you with. I want you to see what God's word says about this alarm. It's a dangerous, dangerous alarm. 1 Peter 4, 8, above all, maintain constant love. Look at that word maintain real fast. I want you to circle that word. That word means to keep it going. It means to sustain it. He's saying this is going to take effort on your part. Instead of the word effort, think purposeful action. So you say, Jordan, what is the purposeful action if we're disengaged today? I believe it's to reignite intimacy. It's to reignite intimacy in your relationships. There's a lot of things that are trying to destroy the intimacy that God designed you to experience. You know, in Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verse 15, we get this warning. Solomon says, catch the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, for our vineyards are in bloom.

A lot of people don't really understand what that's talking about, but let me kind of bring it into context. Imagine you're a couple thousand years ago, and you have a vineyard, and you're growing these grapes on vines, and you're trying to protect them, but all these animals keep eating the grapes. He said the little foxes are more dangerous than the big foxes, and this is why. If you're a big fox, there would be a fence about this tall that would go all the way around the vineyard. If you're a big fox, you jump the fence, you go up to the grapes, and you start eating the grapes off the vine, and when your belly was full, you would simply jump the fence, and you would leave until you were hungry again. And he said, but there's also these little foxes, and little foxes wouldn't be able to jump the fence, and so they would dig a hole underneath the fence, which allowed everything else to come in. And they wouldn't just come into the vineyard, they would go up to the grape on the vine, and they couldn't reach the grapes on the vine, so what would they do? They would start clawing and gnawing at the roots of those plants until the plants would eventually tip over and fall, hitting the ground, so that they would have access to the grapes. And once the plant was tipped over, they would eat the grapes, and then they would leave through the tunnel, and in doing so, they would destroy the entire vineyard in the process, killing everything in sight. And I think Solomon's saying the same thing to us. He's saying, if you're not careful, little foxes will destroy your marriage. Things that you believe are no big deal, things that everybody deals with these things, those aren't real. Something that we need to address. He said, no, no, no. You need to focus on those little things because they're not just gonna eat the grapes off the vine,

they're gonna kill the vine. Little things like busyness, little things like distraction, little things like neglect. Those are the things that are more dangerous and even more destructive than the big things sometimes. So the question we have then is, how do we fight little foxes? How do I kill the little foxes and learn to build my marriage on the rock? Here's how I'd answer that. It begins by choosing daily to re-engage and rekindle intimacy between you and your spouse. How do we do that though? How do I choose daily intentionally to rekindle that with my spouse? I believe there's three different categories we've got to get right. We've got to do that spiritually first and foremost. We've got to get this right spiritually, which means you and your spouse ought to be praying together, going to church together. You ought to be talking about what God's doing in your life. Having conversations that actually make a difference. But then not only spiritually, we've got to connect emotionally. This is what I'm talking about, putting the phones down, looking each other in the eyes

and asking questions that go deeper than just how was your day or what'd you have for lunch or what are we going to have for dinner? And then you've got to connect physically. And listen to this part guys. Don't allow affection to dry up in your relationship. You say, how do I rekindle that intimacy in my life and with my spouse? Hey, you know what I would encourage you to do? Hold hands on your way out of church today. You're like, yeah, I haven't held hands in forever. Try it today, just see what happens. Hey, find a way to hug today. Find a way to kiss today. Remind one another through physical touch that you are still connected. I think this is an area that people have to be very, very intentional with. I was talking to somebody this week that said, well, pastor, listen, I'm just not a physical touch kind of person. You know what I said? You're probably married to one. So be intentional with this one, all right? So even if you're like not a physical touch person, man, if you're married to one, sometimes that's what the Lord was calling you to do to rekindle that intimacy in the relationship. Engagement with one another

is not about a grand romantic gesture. It's about those constant small steps that say to the other person, I still choose you. So think about marriage that way. Think about your marriage like a garden. If you don't pull the weeds, if you don't water the soil, what happens? Well, the garden doesn't die overnight, but it eventually does what? It starts to wither. Disengagement is like, it's like neglecting the garden of your marriage. But when you water it, when you tend to it, when you give it attention, guess what's gonna happen? It's gonna come back to life. So when disengagement sounds the alarm, the action is intimacy. Pursuing the intimacy that's been lost. Let me give you alarm number five. Are you ready? Say amen. Amen. This one comes from the story about Mary and Martha. You guys remember that story from Luke chapter 10? Let's read this part together. Luke chapter 10, verse 41. It says, the Lord answered her and said, Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice

and it will not be taken away from her. Now you're probably familiar with this story, but if you're not, here's the scene. Jesus comes to the house of two ladies, Mary and Martha. Mary sits at his feet and she is completely locked in on Jesus. Every word he says, I mean, she is right there for it. She's locked in on him. Martha, meanwhile, is in the kitchen and she's rattling pots and she's preparing food and she's making sure every single detail is perfect for the Messiah who is in her house. Now, before we're too hard on her, let's just take a time out and realize something about this scene. In that particular culture, hospitality was a sacred duty. It was a big deal. Meals were not takeout orders, all right? It's not like she ordered some dough sprouts and she was gonna whip it up with some queso. This was a scene where everything she did was from scratch. She was baking bread from scratch. She drew water from a well. She was cooking over a fire. So hosting Jesus and his disciples was a big responsibility. In other words, I say all of that to point out, Martha wasn't doing something bad in this story. She was actually doing something good. The problem wasn't that she was just busy doing bad things. That's not it at all.

She wasn't doing bad things. She was doing good things, but she was focused on the good things and it made her miss out on the best things. Hey, good things oftentimes keep you from best things. And I want us to think about this in the context of marriage because that was the case in this story. But notice that. How Jesus gently rebukes her in this text, he said, Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. I love that phrase, one thing is necessary. Because Jesus right here, he's not dismissing her work, it's not saying work is bad, no, he's just reorienting her priorities. And in saying this, he's mentioning, you know what, the meal can wait, the dishes can wait, but this moment in my presence is too valuable for you to miss. So here's the principle that I think we all need to learn in our own lives and in our own relationships. And that is distraction isn't about bad things pulling you away, it's about good things taking the place of best things. Because let's be honest, that tends to happen a lot in marriage, work, many of us work, we work really hard. Work isn't bad, but work can be a distraction, shake your head if you've been there. Kids, kids aren't bad most of the time, but kids can be a distraction, shake your head if you've been there. Hobbies aren't bad, I've got a lot of hobbies, I've got a lot of things I like to do. I like to hunt, I like to fish, I love college football, yesterday was a great day in a lot of ways, not so great in other ways. But you know what, you can have a lot of hobbies, they're not bad, but you know what, they can distract you in your relationship. Even ministry, think about this, ministry's not bad, I think we can all agree with that.

But even ministry can be a distraction in your marriage. And here's the danger in this, we get so busy doing everything for our families that sometimes we stop doing the most important thing, which is being with our families. So you say, man, that's me, that's where I'm at, the alarm's going off in my mind right now, what is the purposeful action here? I believe the Bible would say, refocus your priorities, refocus your priorities. Jesus said, there is a list of priorities in your life, and you've got to make sure that they're in the proper order. In fact, Matthew 6.33, he said, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. So he shows you that the order is important. So the secret's not doing more, it's doing the right things first. It's about putting God first and protecting your marriage from all the distractions. And for some, that may mean to make a priority to eat dinner together every single week, just you and your spouse, with no screens. Maybe it means scheduling a date night, like you schedule an important meeting that you would never cancel. Maybe it means setting boundaries with work or setting boundaries with hobbies so that your spouse doesn't just get your leftovers all the time. Someone told me a long time ago, if the devil can't destroy your marriage, he'll just keep you too distracted to invest in it. So think about how dangerous this one is. When distraction sounds the alarm, the action is focus. You got to focus on what's really important. We've got two more I want to share with you real quick, and alarm number six is the alarm of deception, deception. We see deception really destroy a lot of marriages and it's simply just believing lies. You know, in Genesis 3, 13, it says this, so the Lord God asked the woman, what is it? What is this you have done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate.

So think about this setting real fast. You've got Eve, she's listened to the whispers of the devil. She believed the lie and believing the lie led to brokenness in her life. Believing the lie led to brokenness in her life. Think about this in the context of marriage. In marriage, this alarm sounds when we believe the lies. So once again, you've got the devil and he's whispering and he's saying, you married the wrong person. And you're like, you know what? He's right. I married the wrong person. Things will never change in this relationship. You're like, ah, things will never change. Someone else would have made you happier. Start looking for the next person and you're like, you know what? He's right. I need to look for someone else. So if you've ever been there, if you've ever been deceived, if you're, if the alarm of deception is going out, like what is the purposeful action? You know what? I believe God would say, replace lies with the truth. Replace lies with the truth. In John 8, we read these words. It says, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free, right? So if the truth is going to set me free, then I need to address the lies and replace the lies with the truth in my life. See, every lie from the enemy must be replaced with a truth from God's word. Think about this in your own, in your own journey. So now instead of hearing, you didn't marry the right person, you're, you're thinking, you know what?

I did marry the wrong person and God tells me to love the one that I'm married to. Now instead of believing change is never going to happen, you can say, you know what? Change is possible. because nothing is impossible with my God. That's what it says in the word of God. I'm gonna believe God instead of believing you. So when deception sounds the alarm, the action we've got to take is to chase the truth. We've got to pursue God's word and replace every single lie that we believe with his truth. And last but not least, alarm number seven is the alarm of despair. The alarm of despair, and this is a big one. You know, in Galatians 6, 9, we read, let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don't give up. Sometimes this is the loudest alarm you hear in marriage. It's the alarm of despair. It's when you look up at life one day and you've just gotten tired and you look around with no hope, you are hopeless. And when you think about your life, when you think about your relationship, when you think about the circumstance or situation that you're living in, to you, the walls look too high and the wounds all appear to be too deep and the pain is too great. So you say, Jordan, where do I go? Where do I turn when I am hearing the alarm of despair

and I've lost all hope? Here's the purposeful action. Are you ready? You persevere with hope. You persevere and keep moving forward and you fix your eyes on Jesus. Romans 15, 13 says, no, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. There's nothing the world can do to give a hopeless person hope that lasts forever. There's nothing the world can do. And yet the Bible says, when you are hopeless and hearing the alarm of despair going off in your heart, you can fix your eyes on Jesus and the power of God can fill you and you can be filled with hope even in those low seasons. Here's what we've got to get though. Hope isn't found in your spouse's perfection. It's only found in the person of Jesus and in the power of God. He can restore what sin has broken. He can heal what feels beyond repair. So when despair sounds the alarm, the only action is perseverance. Today, I wanna close by reading the words of Jesus over you from Matthew chapter seven. In verse 24, he says this, therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine

and acts on them will be like a wise man. A wise man who built his house on the rock. The rains fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded the house. And yet it didn't collapse because its foundation was on the rock. Alarms don't go off just to annoy you. Alarms go off to alert you that now is the time for purposeful action. And when God sounds an alarm in your marriage, he's not just trying to scare you. I believe he's trying to save you. He's waking you up before it's too late. He's saying, don't just sleep through this alarm. Do something, pursue me, have purpose and intentionality and chase the only God that can redeem you and restore you. So the question I wanna leave you with is this. If God is setting off an alarm in your life or in your marriage today, how will you respond? Will you continue to hit snooze and say, maybe another day, maybe another time, maybe another situation or circumstance? Or will you surrender to Jesus? Will you surrender to him? Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? Lord, I just wanna pray a prayer over every marriage in this room. I pray that you God would, that you would do a work in relationships that only you can do.

God, thank you that when we feel hopeless, there is hope. Thank you that we serve a God who knows how to pick up the broken pieces and make it new and make it good. God, we look to you, we cling to you, we chase you in this moment because we know, Lord, in a room this size, there are people going through a lot of different seasons. Lord, I pray that you would meet them at their point of need, that you would do a supernatural work in their story. And God, at the end of the day, that you would shame the devil, that you would quiet him as he whispers lies. And you would allow these people, these homes to be built on the rock with a sure foundation because of the person of Jesus. It's in his name we pray, amen. Hey friends, I'm Pastor Jordan Easley. You know, faith was never meant to be something we just talk about on Sundays. It's a journey, an adventure. And in a world that feels more anxious, more divided and more confused than ever, a lot of us are just not ready for it. Families are searching for direction. That's why I wrote my new book kingdom culture in this book And so I'm here to tell you that faith is a journey. We climb the mountain together and we sit at the feet of Jesus as he teaches the most powerful message ever preached the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew's gospel This book is designed to help you build a strong foundation for your home to understand God's heart and to trust him

With the things that worry you the most whether you're wrestling with big questions or just wanting to grow in your spiritual walk This book will help you live out a faith that transforms everything So I want to invite you to climb the mountain to embrace the kingdom and to live the life God designed for you pick up a copy of kingdom culture on our website by following the instructions on the screen Let's take this journey of faith together and know that I'm praying for you as you grow in your faith and live the adventure in following Jesus A We never want to end our broadcast without giving you the opportunity To know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior If you'd like to make the decision to trust Jesus and want to know more about what it looks like to follow Jesus Get in touch with me right now Follow the instructions at the bottom of the screen so that we can pray for you and also put information in your hands right away Today we celebrate your decision and look forward to being a part of your personal journey of going all-in with Jesus Christ This episode of all-in with pastor Jordan Easley has been made possible by the generous support of viewers like you We hope today's message encourages you as you strive to live your life fully committed to Jesus Christ