TEXT: "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14).

IDEA: Healthy relationships that lead to intimacy depend on honesty and integrity.

PURPOSE: To help listeners consider what it means to live with honesty and integrity in a marriage.

What do you think is the part that good communication plays in achieving intimacy in a marriage?

What place do you think truth-telling has in communication?

I. Healthy relationships depend on honesty.

Ephesians 4:25 states, “Therefore, putting away lying, 'Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,' for we are members of one another.”

That is true of all communication in all relationships, and particularly true in a marriage. Do you think that is easy to accomplish?

II. We lie to one another in different ways.

Sometimes we lie to one another directly.

A husband comes home from work late and senses as he enters the house that he’s in trouble. He asks his wife, “What’s wrong?” She simply says “Nothing” and turns away. He knows that something’s wrong and that it’s going to be a long hard evening. She feels that he owes her an apology for making dinner late. He’s angry about her refrigerator treatment, so heads for his shop in the garage.

Sometimes we lie to one another indirectly.

Dr. Erich Berne wrote Games People Play. His major point is that instead of being open and forthright with one another, we resort to playing a series of games–not healthy, positive games, but games in which we manipulate the situation to get the other person to do what we want.