[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I'm Aaron, and I'm Jennifer.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're the host of the Marge after God podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our desire is to help you cultivate a marriage that chances boldly after God's will for your life together.
[SPEAKER_03]: We want to invite you to subscribe to our show wherever you watch or listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are so glad you're here and we pray that our discussion truly blesses you and your marriage.
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to the Marge after God podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Marriage I forgot podcast this episode or on week 26.
[SPEAKER_00]: Should I mention that we've been up for a month?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they've noticed we we've had a few interruptions in our life and it was my birthday month.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was Erin's birthday day and we got to celebrate in California.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we took a small vacation and we were hoping to jump back right in after we got home and then we just had a series of
[SPEAKER_03]: things that kept us from coming back.
[SPEAKER_00]: No excuses, we're back.
[SPEAKER_03]: Here we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: So welcome back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're almost done.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've only got four more chapters, former episodes in this marriage after God devotional series that we're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Based off our books has been after god and wife after god third in a devotionals You can get those at shop.
[SPEAKER_00]: That marriage after god.com I want to encourage you to do that because you can go through the questions the journaling all of the things You can do it as a couple You don't need it to listen to this episode, of course, but we'd love for you to get those
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, we're in week 26 of a 30 week study we're doing, before we get started, make sure you hit that like button, subscribe, or if you like to watch our listen, and also hit that review button.
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[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we are jumping straight into today's topic, which is about hiding from God and we're going to start with this ugly truth that we all know and that is we all sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, me, I don't, everyone else does.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, we all do.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think if we ever think that way, we are deceiving ourselves.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Bible is very clear that we have a signature and you guys would agree with me, like we're tempted all the time and we fail.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we choose, we choose it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so this is an important topic today because it's such a part of our lives, not that we want it to be, but it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so knowing how we should be responding to our sin individually, but as a couple, and just being able to safeguard our marriage in a way, when we deal with our sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just want to give a simple definition of sin that's found in James 417.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible tells us, whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him, it is sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Romans 1423, Be says, for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we think like there's only these like handfuls sins in her life, but
[SPEAKER_00]: In reality, like, we send way more than we think, and it's a good thing for us to recognize, because it will help us have grace for our spouse and grace for ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that it's an excuse, not that we should try to, but the Bible tells us over and over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, we should not go on.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should not continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should not try to and strive for, but walk in the spirit and not do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's an important thing to know that we do soon, that we choose wrong often, that we know the right thing to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know we should honor our wives.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that we should respect each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that we should walk in purity and yet we choose differently sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: The starting point for this episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and along this series, we've been sharing quotes from the devotionals and in addition to newer content, but in life after God, we explain it like this, sin is an offense of violation of disobedience against God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, do you do that?
[SPEAKER_03]: I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the Bible we talk about Ephesians 5 all the time and how we're to love each other, how we don't walk with each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: And man, every single day in our marriage, every single day in your marriage, we go against that truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not obedience to that truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we walk in our flesh, when we are speaking the way we speak to each other, when we act the way we act,
[SPEAKER_03]: And just to clarify when I say I do thin, and this goes for for I think as believers, you guys would agree with me that it's not that we are accepting of it and can boast in that fact that we are sinners, but but more so because what I'm trying to clarify is that we're not practicing our sin we're not getting better at it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It happens and we do have a sin nature, but as believers, people who truly want to obey God and His Word, we fail.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it's not that we're practicing our sin.
[SPEAKER_03]: We do recognize when we sin the Holy Spirit convicts our hearts and then we respond.
[SPEAKER_03]: And when we respond with repentance and humility, there's reconciliation.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that's, I just wanted to clarify like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: what we're trying to point out is having a healthy acknowledgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's not celebrating, it's also not giving excuse for, but I think there's the truth that we forget where sinners or maybe the desire that the strong desire that we don't want to be sinners because we don't want
[SPEAKER_00]: fail.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to be failures.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to keep making those mistakes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so maybe we avoid that truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: We pretend like it's not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, I didn't, wasn't that bad or it doesn't happen that often or we just need to acknowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the foundation we're setting for
[SPEAKER_00]: this topic that we would stop hiding from God because that's what happens because the truth is we choose to sin every day and often when we choose to sin when we do that
[SPEAKER_00]: Our natural response is going to be exactly what, someone we know, a famous person in the Bible, didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're trying to, we're trying to encourage you in your marriage that there's a, there's a very powerful and appropriate response that we can have as husbands and wives, as Christians in general, when we sit, what do we do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who we to go to?
[SPEAKER_00]: How are we to respond to it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we don't have to read through the whole scripture.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you guys want it, it's Genesis 3, 6 through 11, but it gives you that story from the beginning right away when Adam and Eve send their response to that sin and like you already mentioned it is that they hid and they hid from God in their shame.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you rebuilding though?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I love the context and there's a lot of stuff in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only a few verses.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so when the woman saw that the tree was good, sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.
[SPEAKER_03]: She took of its fruit in eight and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then the eyes of both were opened and and they knew that they were naked.
[SPEAKER_03]: and they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man in his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees in the garden.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the Lord called to the man and said to him, where are you?
[SPEAKER_03]: And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: He said, who told you that you were naked?
[SPEAKER_03]: Have you eaten
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm sure we can all relate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And many times we relate to Adam are father and the flesh, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the Bible would call him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we're now of Jesus as Christians, but in the flesh, we want to relate to Adam and even so much on this because when we choose to sin, we know
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going against the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know we're going against God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I look at this, this scripture when it says that he heard God walking in the garden, the cool of the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And often the conviction Holy Spirit, the fit that that that conscience, consciousness, and as the conscience, and as when we sin,
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like often we, in the flesh, we have this response to run and hide at a fear, because that's what we're fearing is judgment, what we're fearing is shame, what we're fearing is being seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: because they realized they were naked.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like exposed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we do this naturally.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done this for many years in my own life from walking in certain unrepentant sins, filling that guilt, filling that shame, motivating me to hide certain parts of my life, certain parts of who I am, from God, trying to pretend, you know, trying to hide in the bush.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't see me naked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm out here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was afraid so I hid and do you can you, do you relate to that at all?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that we get what our shame makes us feel embarrassed.
[SPEAKER_03]: I tied that word embarrassed to the nakedness of being, I don't know, exposed like you said.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that when we sing,
[SPEAKER_03]: It does make us feel like we know some things off and we don't want to have to talk about it or explain it or anything like that and so being held accountable is where that confrontation takes place.
[SPEAKER_03]: What makes me really sad to think about is you had mentioned that God was he that Adam heard him walking in the garden and prior to them sinning.
[SPEAKER_03]: That would have been a very familiar sound.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was probably something that stimulated joint excitement, something that they looked forward to.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we could probably even relate to that feeling of whether it's an intimate moment with your spouse or with the Lord, something that used to feel joyful, used to feel close and exciting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then becomes, when you're walking in, and we're petting thin like you said, if it comes, it's a fearful thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I'm comfortable thing and what I love about this scripture also.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is going to get to the point of everything we're trying to share with you today about how we said.
[SPEAKER_00]: God still came because God desires to restore God desires to reconnect.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when we sin willfully, when we go against with the Holy Spirit's convicting us, when we don't take the way of escape that God promises to every believer, we
[SPEAKER_00]: we feel that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We hide ourselves in bushes.
[SPEAKER_00]: We try and cover ourselves in other ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I just need to, you know, I need to go read some more of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to pray harder.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to do these things instead of running to God, the one who's pursuing us and looking for us.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if the enemy has a hand in that initial temptation to kind of put the lure out in front of us, he's also going to be the one to lure us to run, lure us to hide and be tempted all over again to keep that severed intimacy broken.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we need to be aware of how we're responding to our sin.
[SPEAKER_03]: It really does matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I love that God calls out to Adam and Eve and the garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: He calls out to them and we have an enemy who's going to call out to us, just like you said, and he's going to try and convince us.
[SPEAKER_00]: of who God has changed us from.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's in the trinkaments us of who we used to be and bring in that shame and make us listen, try and get us to listen to him rather than the God of the universe calling out to us, calling to us, where are you, where are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a pretty amazing thing that is believers we, we run from the God who gave everything up to forgive us, who sent His only begotten Son to forgive us,
[SPEAKER_00]: it blows my mind that we do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and just talking about the presence of the enemy and how, you know, this first initial situation with Adam and Eve took place when the enemy said, did God really say and tried to persuade bring down?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm bringing down.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that, you know, in this, like you said, the Lord's calling for them and calling for us,
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the enemy can also say, did God really say he's still going to love you even if he messed up?
[SPEAKER_03]: Does God really want you to draw close even though you've heard him over and over and over again?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that doubt it just looks a little different or phrased a little different, but he's still doing the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, do you feel like there's been times in your life and in our marriage?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you, I know we've talked about, I just wanted to bring it out a little bit, that you feel like you were hiding from God because of these very things.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm sure that there have been, I know there have been specific moments where we've both come brought our sin to the light and shared our hearts with one another and found grace and accountability and victory over those sins.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that's a that's a redeeming story that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think is a benefit when we choose not to hide and even in our relationship with God, like there have been times where just in my own choosing walked away from him or resisted him or
[SPEAKER_03]: convinced myself that I didn't need to be close to him, and that was not beneficial.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's amazing how deceptive sin itself is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Bible tells us that sin is deceptive, and that it can lead us to unbelief, and it can lead us to shame, and it can lead us away from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's why we're warned as believers.
[SPEAKER_00]: to not sin, to walk in holiness, to put the flesh to death, not to earn salvation, but because of salvation, because of our relationship with God, sin, severes intimacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: You brought this up like that they once, probably anticipated hearing the steps of God in the garden, hearing His voice, and that it invoked excitement and joy and like, oh, God, the God is here.
[SPEAKER_00]: where sin suffers that intimacy causes that shame, that fear, that guilt makes us separate and we've experienced this.
[SPEAKER_00]: When there's unrepentance and sin, like whether you know it or not, whether I know it or not, it breaks intimacy.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's like this tension that we can feel about.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of us will inevitably bring it up and say, is everybody got a real thing?
[SPEAKER_03]: What's going on?
[SPEAKER_03]: Which I think is a great place to start if you are having a hard time bringing stuff to the light, but transparency and honesty is so vital to marriage and something else that I wanted to point out is when we resist reconciliation with the Lord and when we are hiding from Him, it truly does affect the marriage relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're, and then the opposite of is true as well, if you're drawing close to the Lord, most likely it's going to be that much easier to draw close to your spouse.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so the two are very much intertwined.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's something amazing that happens when Adam and Eve finally come out and they confess what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now they shift blame.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's an interesting story, Maria, we can relate to.
[SPEAKER_00]: We shift blame.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, I did this because of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you did it,
[SPEAKER_00]: But what happens is God covers them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He covers their nakedness, and He does this for us all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: He covers us with Christ that we're clothed with Christ, and something amazing happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even though sin suffers intimacy, and it breaks it down and it causes death in the relationship between us and God, between us and our spouse, between those that we sin against,
[SPEAKER_00]: that when we confess it, when we repent of it, when we bring it to the light as the Bible calls us today, when we bring the things that are in the darkness and to the light, things happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good things like the power that that's in had over you gets broken instantly.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just destroyed in the light.
[SPEAKER_00]: It becomes like the Bible says.
[SPEAKER_00]: But another thing that happens is it restores intimacy with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It restores intimacy with your spouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: It restores intimacy with those you heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what our hardest today is that we would stop hiding from God because we've sinned that we would stop running into the bush to cover our own nakedness, but that we would run to the one who covers us perfectly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And just to add on to that, when I see the two ways of covering Adam and Eve's response was to try and do it themselves with fig leaves and they still felt naked.
[SPEAKER_03]: They still felt like hiding.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so what God does is so much better.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we can also relate to that in when we are hiding from our sin or
[SPEAKER_03]: or we are choosing to send and hiding from God.
[SPEAKER_03]: We oftentimes will say, well, I'll just figure it out on my own.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I don't need to bring it up.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't need to talk about it or pray about it because I'm going to try and figure it out and we do things our own way.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not good enough.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not.
[SPEAKER_03]: But when we bring it to the Lord, he does, he does have his way of covering us the way we need to be covered in that as through Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if we get an incursue with anything right now,
[SPEAKER_00]: Can we encourage you to have courage to confront these things often and always, to not let them exist in your heart, to not let them, because when we hide, when we run and hide,
[SPEAKER_00]: All we're doing is giving more opportunity for that sin in our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we're saying is, I can do it on my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in reality, what we're doing is just leaving that door open for that in our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not what God desires for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not what God desires for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so.
[SPEAKER_03]: and being able to submit to God in this way, it puts our flesh in check.
[SPEAKER_03]: It makes it harder to sin, but it also contributes to transformation in us.
[SPEAKER_03]: His word tells us in Romans 12, one through two, it says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
[SPEAKER_03]: that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
[SPEAKER_03]: So don't try and do things the world's way, do things his way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love when Jesus says, my people worship me in spirit and truth, and this just told us how we are to worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our spiritual worship is presenting our bodies as living sacrifices.
[SPEAKER_00]: What that means is that we are constantly like what Jesus says,
[SPEAKER_00]: And the way we do that is by repenting of our sin, by bringing it to the light, by not letting it have power.
[SPEAKER_03]: To line your flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: To line our flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it takes the more that we bring those things up, the more that we confess them out loud, the more that we say, hey, that is how I used to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I desired before, but that's not what I want now.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not who I am now.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what God desires now.
[SPEAKER_00]: The less power that that sin has.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it begins to break down and it's power and authority loses its grip in our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Holy Spirit gains his grip on our hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we want.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's so good.
[SPEAKER_03]: So part of that verse was talking about being a living sacrifice and part of being a living sacrifice is doing the uncomfortable thing which is repentance.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to God and even talking with your spouse about your repentance and how you don't want to sin again and choosing to do things God's way.
[SPEAKER_03]: The second part of that verse is all about renewing your mind and so that's like
[SPEAKER_03]: That's like the training field, yeah, you got to be able to train your mind so that you don't desire that thing anymore and so you got to step out of the world step into his word and yeah you won't be overtaken by it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The being transformed by the reading of our mind is such an underrated truth in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: told to do this, pauses do this, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: The renewing of our mind happens when we replace the things that we once believed when we replace the things that we heard, the things that we tell ourselves, the lies with God's truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we repeat those things over and over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: We believe the things that God says about us.
[SPEAKER_00]: that he, what he says about sin, what he says about lust, what he says about deception, what he says about lying, what he says about all of these things, we need to let God's word replace it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when that gets replaced in us, we actually change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: We become new things.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so sticking to the topic of today, which is hiding from God, why do you
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there's lots of different reasons, one of them, I believe, is going to be from consequences and repercussions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we were afraid of what did those choices are going to result in?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I remember if you were curious, I'm sure you were curious.
[SPEAKER_03]: You had some thin going on for a while that was really painful and you knew it was going to hurt me.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was hard for you to tell me when you did this thing because you knew that it was going to hurt me but it had already hurt me like even though I didn't know about it you kind of mentioned that earlier whether your spouse is aware of what's happening or not like the damage is already done and like you're saying the repercussions of those choices are done and yeah I just remember that weighing on your heart one of the reasons you hit and took so long to tell me was because
[SPEAKER_03]: the heart was already there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was afraid of it hurting you, but I was also afraid of and when you're talking, I know you don't want to say, but it's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: The more I bring it up, so my addiction to pornography for years of my life wasn't just hurting you, it was hurting me.
[SPEAKER_00]: My fear in confessing it to you was not just it was easy to say, I don't want you to be hurt, but reality was you already already hurt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was afraid of the shame I was going to feel from it hurting you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was afraid of the guilt I was going to have and seeing it on your face.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was really hard losing again.
[SPEAKER_00]: What didn't feel good.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I remember
[SPEAKER_00]: God convicting my heart and me realizing like I needed to fear him more than I feared the repercussions of my sin, you know, that shame, not out of him wanting me to be afraid of him, but that fear of him is supposed to take away all of the fears and realize if I want my
[SPEAKER_00]: If I want to put my flesh to death, the reason it's it's so uncomfortable confessing is because it hurts our flesh Yeah, it kills it and I want to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think another reason is I mentioned his guilt Knowing that we chose to hurt ourselves, knowing we chose to do something against you against God
[SPEAKER_03]: I think one of the reasons that I've struggled with hiding sin would be like disappointment and knowing it's kind of goes all in the same way, but like spouse, friend, whoever knows that I've let them down or see me differently.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's a big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, how we get seen like
[SPEAKER_00]: I got like who told you, you know, and so there's that fear of wondering if there's so going to be love or grace on the other side of that confession.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think is always a little bit scary.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I mean, having been a Christian most of my life and walking through confession and repentance and reconciliation, I'm pretty sure I've always received the love and grace and reconciliation afterwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like not what you think you're doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's never what you think you're going to get.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the ultimate reason that all of these stem from is pride, which pride is a self-inflation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we think so much of ourselves, but it's a self-protection, it's like, my pride says I'm going to protect myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be known.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want them to judge me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to feel guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to feel shameful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that pride is going to destroy us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've talked about pride a lot on this show.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Bible talks about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But pride it keeps us from being known.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is why we started off with, hey, you're a sinner.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a sinner.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you're not perfect.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't think we shared this first already, but I'm sure so many people have already heard it, but just to remind you guys, Romans 3 23 says it for all have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can we can start there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, well, if I confess that I send, at least they know I'm all, they already know I'm a sinner.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, like it like this is it's it's it's the reality and first John one eight says if we say we do not sin, we deceive ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you say don't sin your liar, then they're for you sinned.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even in saying you don't sin, you're sinning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there's a nature in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to say, as Christians, we are sinners, because we're actually were saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we have a sin nature that the Holy Spirit wants us to put the death and it's going to take a whole lives and in reality until we are renewed and have new bodies and we're in the new heaven and the new earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what we got.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so thank God for the Holy Spirit, live in us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've talked a lot about sin and blame shifting and justification and I just want to share this quote from wife after God.
[SPEAKER_03]: Justifying your behavior or blaming others as the fault is an illusion you convince yourself to believe manifested to protect yourself from being wrong, from experiencing consequences and from acknowledging your imperfection.
[SPEAKER_03]: The motivator is pride.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, the combination.
[SPEAKER_03]: You answered correctly.
[SPEAKER_03]: The combination of sin, fear, and pride is a deadly force that will keep the wounds of severed intimacy, raw, and infected, resistant against healing and restoration.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's sit in that for a second and really consider how sin impacts our marriages this way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Unrepeated said leaves wounds infected and resistant to healing.
[SPEAKER_03]: That doesn't sound like a thriving marriage.
[SPEAKER_03]: That sounds like the worst case scenario, a hospital trip, a military plan, needed ASAP.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and so often we, we hide and we, we keep others from helping us and supporting us and so we don't recover and that's really sad for marriages today.
[SPEAKER_00]: many marriages has been in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe there's a couple of things that you guys might confess and deal with and they're the big ones, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is happening in every marriage where the husband and the wife they are withholding and hiding their sin that they're being convicted on by the Holy Spirit and then expecting to have a thriving intimate relationship with
[SPEAKER_00]: And it keeps you distant and it keeps you broken and it keeps this progression of I'm gonna hide you're gonna hide and I'm not gonna show you who I really am and I And it's for the believer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just it's a silly thing for us that we do this When we have a God who loves us has forgiven us for all time all sin everywhere for everyone And then we can run to him in the confidence of our savior Jesus Christ
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet we listen to the enemy, we listen to our flesh and we hide, we say, oh, no, he doesn't want to see that, he doesn't want to know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of finding the true freedom that comes from confession, repentance, it's a true gift that God's given us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying it's easy because it, again, it makes our flesh not feel good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we scream every time.
[SPEAKER_00]: but it's so much better for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a husband and wife instead, who both first and foremost recognize their centers.
[SPEAKER_00]: yet there's an equality of nature that we come together and we have this back and forth of trust and freedom and confession for the sake of growing and maturing and bettering each other and encouraging each other and like you said, you confess and then you get love and you're a good man.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what I was expecting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think going back to the picture of an infected wound, hiding from God in your spouse is like just putting a bandaid on and putting a long sleeve shirt on and helping nobody notices and then you know a few days later you're like like my arm is turning black like that's nasty that's gross.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's like cleaning the wound.
[SPEAKER_03]: So is there just comfort?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, but is it worth it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you going to be able to heal?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so talking about wounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, yeah, I've been reading Leviticus, me and I later going to the Bible right now and the part it's tedious, but the part that we're in is the laws of like
[SPEAKER_00]: um, leprosy, like how to deal with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're not wounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in like man leprosy is like one of the horrible ones eats your flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this what's interesting is it doesn't talk about all diseases.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it talks a lot about leprosy, this disease that eats the flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God has this, these laws on if you have this wound, even if it's a little spot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it behaves this way in access way, go to the priest so that they can declare you cleaner
[SPEAKER_00]: And that law is repeated over and over again in different ways and like, well, if it's like this, and if it's like that, but spiritually, we have a wound and we can go to the high priest, the good one that declares us clean, that's what Christ wants for us is to come to him to shout to, here we are, Lord, like God going in the garden, where are you Adam and Eve?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what he's doing for us.
[SPEAKER_03]: So here's a bit of wisdom pulled from Proverbs 2013.
[SPEAKER_03]: It says whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the whole message today.
[SPEAKER_03]: I light it, underline it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've learned that confession really does help drag that scene into the light.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's this is one of the tools, one of the weapons I should say, or precision instruments that got given us to help cut away the dead flesh, to help us put our flesh to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we are going to be tempted and we are going to sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's how we deal with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Confession and repentance.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we also know that nothing is hidden from God so he can even start there with the reassurance that he already knows and this is what scripture says about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay Luke 817 for nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest nor is anything secret that will not be
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's just get out of the way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, rip the thing they don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: Take care of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then Psalm 139, 12, says, even the darkness is not dark to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: The night is bright as the day for darkness is as light with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it's safe with God.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it's safe with him, you guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: Whatever you've been told your whole life that you're so afraid of, like it's safe with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's versus like this that makes me think about our marriage and how if one of us has been sitting and there's a lack of repentance and confession, we feel it, even if it's not said.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like something shifted, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how many of you are walking in that, just existing in that, you feel a distance in your marriage, you try, you try and love each other, you try and walk and you try and pretend
[SPEAKER_00]: and you feel it slowly, drawing you away from each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: You also feel it drawing you away from God, like less prompted to pray, less prompted to be on the Word of God, less prompted to, like, when you're walking in an unrepentant sin, like you don't feel inspired, motivated, empowered, able to go do ministry, to speak to someone, to share someone, you know, such a Christ with someone, to pray for someone,
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I keep us to ourselves, hiding in that bush with Adam and Eve.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at each other, look what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've been in a lot of different seasons in our almost 20 years of marriage.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I will tell you that the best
[SPEAKER_03]: experiences and marriage that we have had are during moments of raw transparency.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's powerful.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's healing.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's almost like this immediate peace and reuniting and brings us closer.
[SPEAKER_03]: that is almost hard to describe.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, do you do fill the same way?
[SPEAKER_00]: I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew described it really well, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's very powerful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: The best part of it, I think, is not just the intimacy that we regain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just feeling like I can be close to God, but the freedom that it gives.
[SPEAKER_00]: true freedom like that you're it's like the moment you confess that the mummies like I don't want that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not who I want to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like how it makes me feel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like what it's doing to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like how it hurts God's heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want that anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then realizing like I am forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is just that freedom is irreplaceable totally.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what God wants for all of us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and what's something else that I really love is with marriage, being such an intimate relationship and a reflection of, you know, Christ in the bride and just the spiritual experience that we have within marriage, being able to.
[SPEAKER_03]: to walk through that in your relationship with God where he pours out his grace and love on you, helps you then to turn around and do that to your spouse.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I've experienced this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope you've experienced this where when there is confession and repentance that the other person gets to share in that same way of like why love you and forgive you, it's just really powerful and really beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm speaking to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to encourage everyone listening to things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope one of this is to encourage you to stop hiding from God, stop running from the one who's actually forgiven you, who paid the debt for that sin on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: But secondly,
[SPEAKER_00]: to go and make a practice of this in your marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: That you as a husband, you as a wife, make a practice of confession and repentance in your marriage that you don't hide from each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: That you don't hide these things and think, oh, it'll just work out on its own.
[SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't need to hear it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't need to hear it to kill that pride.
[SPEAKER_00]: And thirdly, the third thing I want to encourage you to do is to be very careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the spouse who's receiving the confession of repentance.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're hearing it from your spouse to not use that as an opportunity to smash, to crush, to say, see, I knew it, because, man, we all, everything on one of us want forgiveness.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're on the same boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I said, we started the episode off with, we're sinners.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you withhold that, if you use it as an opportunity to elevate yourself above your spouse, that's a very dangerous spot to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I just want to encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit to help you not do that, because it is a hard thing to hear a confession.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a very hard thing, but we got to put our flesh to that in the same moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was really good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: So.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just to remind you, like the enemy wants to convince you to hide your pride, we'll try and isolate you from God, marriage community, and we need to rise above that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And like you said, not because we are perfect or choosing what's better, but because God knows Jesus and that he is perfect.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that we're we're coming under his authority in the worship.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're forgiven by him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, our hiding, like Adam and Eve, it's trying to do it on our own.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to go to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to go to my wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to go to my husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's like doing what Adam and Eve did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Covering ourselves with his measly little fig leaf.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is no actual covering of the nakedness.
[SPEAKER_00]: But going to the creator of the universe, who sent his only son to die for us, he covers us with better garments.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he covers us with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the glorious truth about God and his great love for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're just trying to encourage you to be sensitive to Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lead, let him lead you.
[SPEAKER_00]: and give you courage and to destroy that fear of confession, because he loves you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's convicted of you because he loves you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's leading you to confession and repentance because he loves you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because he wants to destroy you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because he wants to point out your negativeness, but to cover you and to heal you and to fix you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what he's doing for all of us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we must not let fear and pride keep us from experiencing and cultivating true intimacy through the power of transparency and having that courage in marriage and in our relationship with God.
[SPEAKER_03]: Will there be effects and consequences of our sin?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, but more importantly, there will be an opportunity to heal through grace and forgiveness and accountability and prayer, which we've experienced.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like we've always prayed
[SPEAKER_03]: walk through it together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will say this, the longer you hide, the graver, the effects become the person.
[SPEAKER_00]: They compound as the button allows us as it when it gives foot birth, when it's fully grown, it gives birth to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's the ultimate.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got to do it quick, often, and boldly.
[SPEAKER_03]: A wife after God and a husband after God will confront their sins, repent of wrongdoing and run to God and each other.
[SPEAKER_03]: They desire to please God, they are a living sacrifice, pursuing victory that exists when we abide in Christ, victory over stronghold and sin, and victory in marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's read a quote from Mayor Jeff Degodd.
[SPEAKER_00]: A Mayor Jeff Degodd is one where the husband and wife are transparent with one another, one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: Transparency and marriage is like giving your spouse a flashlight and letting them explore the depths of your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Transparency is being honest with your spouse through the art of communication.
[SPEAKER_00]: Talking to one another, sharing details of your circumstance as emotions, past sins, and anything else that the Holy Spirit moves you to share.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how a husband and wife truly gets to know each other.
[SPEAKER_03]: element.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so discussion questions, these come from the devotionals.
[SPEAKER_03]: Have you or your spouse ever felt afraid of God or hid from him because of sin?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just kind of talked about that, but sin always makes me want to hide.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And fear, like, yes, I have experienced like fear of your response or fear of, you know, I don't know, how God will respond to me also.
[SPEAKER_03]: I make things up in my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: How has seen affected intimacy with your spouse or intimacy with God?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it creates a wall where there is no interaction, there's isolation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think also, depending on what the Senate is, if it's anger, just definitely making you feel or making me feel not loved, not close, pornography, lust, impurity, breaking that trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of things that keeps us
[SPEAKER_00]: not unifying.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it would let those things.
[SPEAKER_03]: Crazy how you said, you know, when sin gets afled, it's like, once you say yes to one thing and you aren't repentant, it's so much easier to say yes to other things.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, okay, last question.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why does hiding seem easier than telling the truth?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, hiding is very passive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can just go find a hole and sit in it and telling the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to actively come and I have to show my naikiness like they had to step out from the bush and reveal that there were naked, even though got already new it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's what it takes courage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it takes courage, it's terrifying.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so the call to action this week says if you are struggling with sin, drag it into the light, go to God and repent and then go to your spouse and talk to them about it and invite them to keep you accountable.
[SPEAKER_03]: We know we said that very easily just now, but we understand the challenges and the difficulties that come with doing something like this and the reason that we wanted to share it with you guys today is because we know.
[SPEAKER_03]: in our life, the courage that other people have had and sharing their stories and sharing how they've dragged their sin into the light, really impacted us in our marriage early on.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we just wanted to do that for you today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, we love you and we thank you for the gift of confession and repentance, Lord, that we can come
[SPEAKER_00]: and share our sin, and confess it, and repent of it, and turn from it, and Lord that the Bible tells us your faithful and just forgive us our sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father God, thank you for gave all of our sins already on the cross and Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were all poured out on Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray that everyone listening, myself and my wife included, or that we would remember this, that though we sin were forgiven, and that we can come to you, and that you can restore us and heal us, and I pray for healing and marriages.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray that they would, that husbands and wives would confess to each other, that they would repent of their sins, that they've been hiding, Father God, that they would restore intimacy, that they would forgive each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: draw each other to Christ that they would point to the truth, remind each other of what you've said in the word, and God, that we would see miraculous restoration and intimate relationships and strengthening of marriages all over the world, Father God, and that ultimately Lord, we would be reminded of your goodness in your love for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we thank you for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for forgiving us our sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: and that by believing in the work of Jesus and his perfection and his sinless life death and resurrection are that way are saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because we don't sin but because of Jesus didn't and we thank you for that in Jesus name we pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for joining us on week 26 of the marriage of God devotional series that we've been going through and we look forward to having you next week.