Communication in Marriage

A woman walked into a lawyer's office and said she wanted a divorce. The lawyer said, do you have grounds for divorce? She said, as a matter of fact, I have an acre and a half.

The lawyer replied, perhaps I'm not communicating well. Let me try again. Do you have a grudge? She said, no, I don't have a grudge, but I do have a carport. So the lawyer tried again. He said, does your husband beat you up? She says, no, generally, I'm the first one up in the morning.

So he said, I don't understand. So he just said, are you sure you want a divorce? And the woman said, no, I don't. My husband says we have to divorce because we can't communicate. That's a groaner.

But one of the most common complaints and things we have to deal with in marriage is how do we communicate? I mean, usually when a couple gets married, they think nobody in my whole life has ever understood me and communicates the way he or she does. And about a year later, it's like, do you speak English? Because it's so complicated.

We're going to do something today. The Bible study afterwards is also going to be about this subject. And the reason why is I know I've been collecting ideas for Bible studies and there was one about the early fathers, or what they call the early church fathers, the Catholic people in the second and third century, and some things about the Bible. I'm going to get to those, but I realize something. I've been reminded that I had said I would do a marriage seminar in December or January. Well, now I've got the parenting classes going on. I'm going to have to put a hiatus on the men's club for probably five months so I can just get caught up. And I thought, I can't do a marriage seminar, but we can take the next few months and do the Bible study as the marriage seminar. We'll introduce it in the sermon today. So that way I get to do it. Then we'll get to the other things so I can complete what I had told people I would do.

You know, sometimes you think you're communicating so well and the person answers, and it's like, I don't get it. It's sort of like the old saying, I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

And of course, if you said that, the other person would say, what are you saying?

And that's because communication is a lot more... personal communication is a lot more difficult and complex as we realize. There's a complexity to it. When I went to a master college, I took two minors. My major was in mass communication, of course a minor in theology, and a minor in speech. And basically, a lot of the classes I took was on speech communication theory, like how in the world does the brain work? And the more you studied it, the more you thought, how do we ever even understand each other under any circumstance?

And so what I did years ago is I created a sort of model that I gave speakers on how to understand communication to a group. I took that same model that I created and I made it into personal communication. Now, before we hand this out, I want you all to do something. I want you to look at... there's a picture on there. I want you to glance at the picture and turn it upside down. Okay, don't read it. Don't study the picture. Don't read anything else. I want you to glance at the picture and turn it upside down. Okay, so if we'll hand those out, we should have enough for every adult, I think.

If not, a couple can communicate on who wants it and have a fight. So basically, we're going to be talking about, in a couple of Bible studies and in this sermon, communication and conflict resolution from a biblical viewpoint. We're going to be in the Bible on this. So just glance at the picture, turn it upside down.

Actually, I'm doing this because half the people in the church had asked me to give a sermon to Barry on marriage, so...

He raised his hand like guilty. Okay, you glanced at the picture. Didn't really look at it, didn't study it, just glanced at it. How many saw a vase? Okay, yeah, so there's your hands. So you raise them high so you can look at a vase. How many saw a birdbath? There's not like somebody sees a birdbath. Oh, no, nobody saw a birdbath. How many saw two faces? It's always interesting to me that how... obviously, you can see it three different ways, and it's always interesting to me how that numbers can change in any group. Now you can look at it. And those who saw the two faces can say, oh yeah, I saw... oh, by the way, how many saw both of them? See, I usually see both, yeah. Now, not everybody raised their hands. Some of you only saw two faces, and you're thinking, how did you see both? Right? It's so obvious. It's a vase. How did you see a vase and two faces? Right? So it's amazing the difference viewpoints that people have simply looking at an optical illusion. Designed to do that. Now, if we all saw something different in a little black and white cartoon, and we could argue over it, right? You could say people who saw vases obviously, you know, are short-sighted, I mean, or I mean, you know, nearsighted or whatever. We could come up with all kinds of reasons. And I don't know if anybody can figure out the reasons. But we do. If we glance at something, we see it differently. Now, that was simple compared to the communication process. What goes into it happens so fast is part of the problem. You and I are miscommunicating. We're communicating things we don't want to. Some things we're communicating things we don't even believe. Things are tumbling out because we do a process. And to me, human communication is one of the great proofs that God exists. Because no other animal on earth, you know, they look at animals, no animal does this process. Only us. Now, that's scientifically a fact. Only us does this process this way. That's because we're made in the image of God. But God isn't wired to a physical brain, you and I are. And this is so complex for us. So let's look at, you see, the sender. Okay, you want to say something to somebody. Now, there's a lot of factors involved here. The very first one is your personal need and desire to communicate. You ever been in a situation where you think, I should say something and you think, nah, I don't want to? At that point, you don't communicate anything. I mean, the first thing is you want to have to want to communicate something. Of course, many times we communicate things, even though we don't want to. You've all seen that. What's wrong? Nothing.

I know something's wrong. Nothing's wrong. Just leave me alone.

Okay, communication is taking place. And the words and the nonverbal communication don't match up at all. Okay, now we have ideas that we want to communicate. You know, to say, hey, it's raining outside, if it's really raining, 100% of us are going to look outside and say, oh yeah, it's raining. So as long as we're communicating those kinds of observations that are facts, it's pretty simple. Unless you have somebody who doesn't see the rain, then we all look at that person and say, there's something wrong, right? So, ideas, facts are okay. Ideas get more complex. Concepts are complex. Some things people have a hard time processing just because of their personality. That's very easy for other people. I mean, have you ever said and had a conversation with somebody who's like a doctorate in biology and they're talking about it? And after a while it's like, I don't care.

But those concepts are real to that person. You also have emotions the person wants to communicate. This gets real messy, real messy. We're going to communicate an emotion and expect the other person to understand it. There is the perception of self. Perception of self plays a real role in what we do.

If I perceive I'm a child of God that changes how I react to somebody or how I communicate, then if I see myself as a victim and everybody's out to get me, right?

If I see myself as a victim, I'm going to communicate as a victim. We don't realize how much we communicate to people that has nothing to do with the communication that's going on. It has to do with our perception of ourself. Then we have the perception of the other person. If you have ever worked with somebody that just is, I don't know what word to use, mentally incapable of logical thought. I didn't want to say stupid.

And you can't communicate. Your perception of them is going to cause you to react to them a certain way. And even if they want to do something right, you're probably not going to recognize it right away because you already have a perception. These things are taking place at fractions of a second point. Very, very quickly. You have the emotional, physical state of the person. You ever try to work out a problem with someone when you're upset or when you're really hungry or you've had too much coffee? It's like, you know, the person looks at you and says, why are you yelling? Why do you have the shakes? Years and years ago, I did it, and I've mentioned this before as an example, but I did, it's just so obvious. I was with a council a couple. They had some issues. Most wonderful guy you'd ever meet, except when he came home from work five nights a week. He'd walk in the door and just be raving. And we worked out everything. Do you hate your job? Oh, I love my job. Okay. How about the stress of driving over? Oh, that's stressful, but I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. It just starts building up in me. And okay, are you upset with your wife? We could not find any reason. He was perplexed. And I think it was the second time I went over, second or third time, to talk with him. I said, I'm going to ask you a question. What do you eat in the morning for breakfast? Oh, he says nothing. I don't have time. I have a big cup of coffee. When you go to work, do you eat anything? Oh, well, we always have this huge table of donuts. So I have a couple donuts, another cup of coffee. What do you have for lunch? Do you go out for lunch? No, sometimes my wife will make me like a little sandwich or something. Sometimes I just skip lunch. Do you drink more coffee? Oh, no. I drink Coke. How much? Oh, a can. You know, 20 ounces for lunch, another 20 ounces at three o'clock. Now, you're driving home in heavy traffic, and all day long you've had, what, three big cups of coffee, 40 ounces of Coke, a couple of donuts, and maybe a couple bites of a sandwich. Yeah.

I said, no wonder. It was that simple. He changed his diet and went back to being the sweetest guy in the world. See, the physical state and emotional state we're in has a lot to do with how we communicate. There's certain communication and listening skills, and some people have better skills than others. And then this loop starts between you and the person you're speaking to because you're interpreting the other person's communication. Right? I mean, you're talking to somebody, and they're saying, uh-huh, uh-huh, oh, no.

And they look back at you, and you realize what just happened was probably more important to them than what you're saying because they were on their phone. And so now we're interpreting that. We're interpreting the way they look. We're interpreting the look on their face. We're interpreting the gestures they make, how loud their voice is. We're interpreting all that. And this loop is happening between the two people. And then you have the effects of the environment itself. You've got to pick the environment in which you say certain things. I mean, my wife and I will be talking in the car just about making something important. Maybe something will come up, and she'll say, you know, one of the kids have been sick, and all of a sudden she reaches over and turns off the radio. I had some background music on that I was hardly listening to. You know, it was just background. It wasn't very loud. But to her, it's now a distraction to what she wants to say. That environment is keeping her from speaking. And she'll now think, oh, she turned that off. She has something she wants to say. That must be pretty important. She'll say, and she'll always say the same thing, I can't talk with that music because it keeps me distracted. So that the environment plays on. So you have this nonverbal, if you look now, you have this thing happening between the sender and the receiver. You have verbal communication, nonverbal communication, the environment, and all this stuff going on in the head of the person who's speaking. But you're not thinking all this through. Your brain is doing it, though. Your brain's doing it because you're designed that way. Now, what's happening with the person receiving the message? Well, they may or may not have a personal desire to communicate. Honey, can I talk to you? Huh? Now, I want to talk about something. Now? You realize they don't want to communicate, right? Perceived conclusions, or preconceived conclusions. How many times have you already thought what's going to happen before it happens? You know where the conversation is going to go, especially if you've been married very long because you've lived the same conversation sometimes, you know. Depending on how long you've been married, it could be a couple hundred times. So what happens is you already know where it's going. So you're not thinking about what the person's saying. You're thinking about your reply.

Or let's just skip to the end of this, and I'll say, I'm sorry. I don't know what for, but okay.

Right? Which is... I mean, not that you literally do that, but it's just people will do dumb things. We have a preconceived idea, and the person might be saying, you know, I figured it out. Sometimes you say, I don't make any sense, but I understand why. I can now tell you so it makes sense. Or the person might be saying, you know what? I've been thinking about it, and I was wrong. And you already say, oh, they're not... they never admit to anything, and you just cut them off. Because we have a preconceived idea, and in this loop, we're just skipping everything. We're jumping ahead, and we're just sidetracking any communication. There's the emotional, physical state of the person who's receiving. There's certain times when you have to say, I can't do this. I can't right now.

For the first few years of our marriage, it was easy to me. If there's a problem, we just talk it out and get it done. You know? Solve it. And I'll never forget one time Kim, I'm talking, and I think I'm solving it. I'm solving it, but nothing's being solved. And she's trying to tell me, and I'm just solving and solving and solving. And she gets up and walks away. So I get up and I follow her. She goes in the bathroom and shuts the door. And I'm standing there in front of the door talking, and it dawns on me, this is actually bizarre. And I said, why are you in the bathroom? Because she didn't say she had to go to the bathroom. She says, because I can't talk right now. I got to think this through. I thought, how bizarre is this? I'm really solving a problem right now. I'm like an idiot standing in front of a closed bathroom door talking. But if you could just say it this way, if we could just do this, you know, just probably in my, what she calls my minister voice, you know. And it's like, yeah, okay, I'll sleep. You know, I feel stupid now, and you go off someplace, though she can go out and, okay, I've thought this through. I can, I can talk now.

You also have your perception of yourself. We all know that person who is remarkably defeated. Early in their life, they were defeated by abuse. And all you have to do is look at them a little stirred, and they're just, you could, their body language, they're just defeated because of their perception of self. And we all know the guy, the persons you've met that's so arrogant, he's never wrong or she's never wrong. They're hard to deal with too, right? Because that's their perception of self. Then they have the perception of the person talking to them. You're just an idiot. Why don't you shut up? Okay. That's your, now you have conflict. We have to get into conflict. But this is all going on in our brains. You have the person receiving has either certain communication skills they need to develop. Then they have the interpretation of what's going on. They had interpretation. I mentioned this in a merry sermon a few years ago, too. I keep telling my wife, if I'm watching football and you walk up to me, this is what I hear. So what do you think? I don't know. What do you think? I mean, I've learned maybe I can get out of it that way, but nah. So she'll come up and say, can I talk to you now? Or, you know, next commercial, I want to say something to you. If it's real important, she'll just say, I need to talk to you now. Oh, okay. You've now got my attention. Okay, let's stop it. Turn it off and stop or turn it down or whatever and talk. So we're interpreting what the other person does, and there's the effects of the environment on us all the time. Now, when you look through this, this is simplistic, okay, because it's actually much more complicated than this. It's a wonder we ever communicate with anybody about anything because it is difficult. But we're designed to make this work, but it takes a lot of effort on our part because we have to work at it. What I want to do is I'm going to go through a couple main points. And by the way, was this shown? We needed to show this to the folks in Jackson. Did we do that? Oh, thanks. I forgot to ask you to do that so they could see it. So here's some things you could do. So we've looked through that. There's some scriptures there, too. We'll go through those scriptures in one of the other Bible studies in greater detail. So, okay, marriage communication. Now, I'm going to talk about this, and we're not going to turn to one biblical passage about marriage. So we're talking about communication of marriage, but we're not going to turn to one biblical passage. We're going to talk about biblical passages and look at biblical passages that have to do with how we treat each other as Christians. Love your neighbor as yourself, and there's no neighbor closer to you than your husband or wife.

So how are we to treat each other as Christians? Because that's actually more important than how we treat each other as husband or wife. We do this first, and we can learn the other much easier. And the first thing you can do is pray about your marriage. Remember that your marriage is not just a covenant between the two of you. It is a covenant with God. When we look at all the major covenants of the Bible, you know, the what we call the Old Covenant, the Sinai Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, the New Covenant, a covenant that's just as important in all that is the Marriage Covenant, established in Eden. It's a major covenant. That's why you've heard me say before, I fear sometimes for some of the divorces that take place in the church that nobody can judge, but God judges. I mean, nobody knows the reality of things sometimes. But God knows. Frivolous divorce is a sin, a grave sin.

So it is a covenant, and we must always remember that. And when you go and ask God, and you pray about your marriage, and you say, please take my husband and change him, you've already started on the wrong foot.

Because you start with your relationship with God and how you are supposed to relate to your husband or wife. And there are specific things how we relate to each other in the marriage passages in the Scripture. But we're just talking about relating to each other as a brother and sister in Christ. Because sometimes husbands and wives will treat each other in ways they would never treat anybody else. They would never treat anybody else that way. Because we're into the core problems of emotions. And once you've opened yourself to another person, the way we open to ourselves in marriage, you're into the ugly part. The good part and the ugly part of the human heart.

And the good and bad are all mixed together there. So we say, well, give us the secrets to dealing with that as husband and wife. First of all, how do we deal with each other as Christians? Ephesians 3. Now, Paul here isn't talking about marriage. Paul here is praying. Paul is praying. And he's praying for the church.

So let's see how Paul prays for the church and see how we would then pray for each other.

Verse 14. He says, For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, I'm bowing before God, the Lord of Jesus Christ, and this is what I'm praying. From whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.

And his entire viewpoint is that God is creating a family.

The Christian church is God, one of His steps in creating a family. It's not the only step, it's just one of the steps. And so we are part of the work of God that started with Adam and Eve, and will complete at the great white throne judgment of God creating a family. Now, this is his prayer. This is his introduction. That he should grant you, okay, so he's praying for the church. Let's think about a prayer like this for your mate, for your husband or your wife. We need to pray for each other.

But have you ever thought of a prayer like this for your husband or wife? That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man.

How about a prayer that says, help my wife to be strengthened by your spirit in the very core of her being to be in a better relationship with you. Oh, no, God, I'm here to tell you to correct my wife so she's in a better relationship with me. I tell you what, if she's in a better relationship with God, then you've got to be careful because you may become the problem, because you don't have a good relationship with God. It's a covenant with God. It's a three-way covenant.

So we actually pray, God, help my husband, help my wife, help me as a wife to be a helper to him, because that's one of the reasons that women were created for marriage. I mean, they weren't created just for marriage. That's a bad viewpoint. They were created to be the children of God. Marriage is a role. Okay, in that role of marriage, you're created to be as helper. That's what it says. And men were created to be... well, were created to serve them as Christ serves the church. Now, we get into that Scripture and it says, so you've got to die for them.

We sacrifice our lives with them. Okay, that's marriage things. So let's talk about praying for them in terms of God with your spirit in the inner person. Help them to be your son, your daughter. Now, we'll give a list of things to God that we want them to be. Help her to be a better daughter to you so that... well, I'd like her to lose some weight.

Is that the prayer?

Help her, help him through your spirit to become your child. That, verse 17, Christ might dwell in your hearts through faith.

Help them. He's praying for the church. So let's just take this and say, pray for each other. But let's now break this down. Pray for your husband or wife this way.

That Christ is living his life in them. That's a little scary because that prayer may be fulfilled, but Christ isn't living in you the way He should be because you're not letting Him, which will make you out of step.

Being rooted and grounded in love and may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge that you may be filled with the fullness of God. He says, verse 10, Now to him who is able to exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus for all generations forever and ever. So there's a prayer for how Christians are to be drawn to God, know Christ, and live as He congregates on the earth. And live as He congregates. The book of Ephesians is how a congregation is supposed to work. Ephesians is interesting because they were Gentiles for the most part. They had no experience. Some of them had some experiences as God fears and proselytes in the Jewish synagogue. Most of them did not. So they're coming into a congregation. How does a congregation work? And He has to tell them how it works in great detail. And there's three mysteries in this book. One is the mystery of Christ. One is the mystery that Gentiles are now all part of the people of God that are called. All Gentiles called are part of the people of God. And the third mystery is how the relationship between a husband and wife is God's teaching us the relationship between Christ and the church.

That's the three great mysteries that Paul says to this basically Gentile church. You need to learn. Which would have been enormous for them in a pagan society. That marriage was important in a pagan society, but it was very promiscuous too. Of course, no more than ours.

We live in a pagan society in that way. So we pray for each other.

That means we have to pray that God does this kind of work in our lives. God, help me be this. Help me be this. I pray for that you help my mate.

Help them with their issues. Whatever they're... you just keep praying for them. But you're praying for yourself. Help me be better. Here's a verse that we often use in relationships, but I've never heard it used in marriage. Let's go to Proverbs. Proverbs 18.

Verse 24. A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than the brother.

One of the reasons we marry. We marry for a lot of reasons. We want companionship. We want romance.

We're designed to want to get married and be with another person. We want to have children. We want to work together. We become a financial economic unit. I mean, it's the bedrock of real society is marriage and family. Now, if you want to be a good friend, according to this, you become a friend first. We talked about this in the men's group last month. In fact, tomorrow is our last men's group meeting for a while, because we'll be taking a hiatus. But a regular place, 9 a.m. But let's apply this to marriage. Who's your best friend? You can't have a best friend of the opposite sex except your husband or wife. You want to destroy a marriage? Have a best friend that's a female and not your wife. You say, well, I'm not having an affair, but ask her how that makes her feel. It's in very many ways. It becomes an emotional affair. Vice versa, too.

It's amazing how many times I've said down with someone who's committed adultery, and the thing is, well, first thing the wife says, well, she's not that pretty. I don't understand. And he says, no, no, no, it had nothing to do with the way she looked. She understood me. At work, we'd go out to lunch and talk, and I would tell her my problems and our marriage problems. Uh-uh. No, no, no, no, no, no. Those issues are between the two of you. You might see some counsel from some older people or a minister, or your parents or something, but you don't share that with peers of the opposite sex. That has to be between you two, because it'll divide your loyalties. If you want a best friend in your marriage, become a best friend. Work on yourself on being a best friend. But I need him to be more of a friend than be a best friend to him. Of course, you have to find out how he defines being a friend. Sometimes we define these things differently. We really do. One person sees a vase, the other sees two faces. Now, no one here saw a birdbath. The times I've done this before, there's always like two people that are like, real embarrassed, I saw a birdbath. When you look at it, you can see the birdbath.

So, we define things differently.

If you want to be that, if you want him or her to be that, to be your best friend, become the best friend.

Well, I'll do that when he does. I'll do that when she does. Well, accept what you're going to be stuck with.

You have to accept then what you're going to be stuck with.

This takes prayer. This covenant between us and God takes huge amounts of prayer.

So, that God develops us into what we're supposed to be, what we learn from this incredible relationship.

Incredible relationship.

After 44... How many years have we been married? Oh, I got it right.

She'll tease me sometimes. She'll say, you know, it takes two of us to have one brain. Yeah, yeah.

But she's just not a complete person in many ways, without them.

It's part of what we learn. It's part of what love is.

The second thing. So, you have to pray. Good marriages, people pray. I had an elder one time. I told him I wanted him to start speaking on different subjects. He was speaking on the same subject, every sermon that he gave. He got up and gave a sermonet on marriage. And the whole thing was, you know, a nade had been married, I don't know, over 40 years. And he said, one thing we do is sometimes we'll get in an argument. And he'll be getting where this isn't right. And one of us will say, we have to go pray about this. We have to go pray about this. When everyone says that, whichever one says it, they have an agreement. That's what they do.

We go pray. He says, we always come back and we're able to work it out. Sometimes we have to wait a while. When we go pray, we come back.

Afterwards, he didn't think that was very profound, you know. He called me, I think it was a week later, and he said, I've been an elder for decades. I have more people asking me for marriage counseling than I've ever had.

He said, yeah, what you had to give was more important than what you thought.

I mean, besides, you told them, yeah, but we have an argument. No, that didn't mean anything to you, but it's like, they have arguments?

But they fix them. He said, I feel like I'm just, I said, keep doing it. Sit down, talk with them. He says, yeah, my wife and I are visiting all these people. We're talking about just practical stuff.

Pray for each other. And it was just an example. They prayed for each other. Sometimes in the moment, they go off privately. They wouldn't say it out loud. You know, please help her to submit. You know, no, no, no, no. Let's go off here and let's go and get with God and say, I'm not doing this very well. And he needs some help, and I need some help, or she needs some help, whatever. We all, we both need help here. Help me to be what I'm supposed to be before you. Second thing, you can never find happiness in marriage if you do two different things. If you compete with each other all the time, and that's an interesting subject. Maybe we'll get into that. We talk about conflict. Or you truly believe that that person's purpose is to fulfill all your happiness. That person is supposed to make me happy 24 hours a day.

Sometimes people will put such a burden on their marriage that it's not possible for that marriage to work. They're expecting something that a marriage can't fulfill.

If you're a grumpy person before you get married, yeah, three months later you're going to be a grumpy person again. Now, marriage does bring us happiness, and it's a wonderful thing.

But it doesn't fulfill who you are. There's certain things only God fulfills. So marriage will fill what marriage? A good marriage fulfills what marriage is supposed to fulfill, right?

It can't fulfill what God fulfills. It can't fulfill other things, like the need to do work, the need to accomplish things. God designed that in us, too. Or the fact that sometimes you need something with people because of interest that's not your spouse.

Two weeks ago, I went to the Civil War Relic show, and Kim—did I tell you that? Probably did. I always say go every year, but okay, I didn't. And I said, Kim, why don't you go with me to the Civil War Relic show? She said, well, I went four years ago, and I said, yeah, that was four years ago. She said, you've seen one musket, you've seen the hundred muskets, you know.

You watched them fire the cannon once. She said, it cost ten dollars to get in. I said, yeah, but I mean, I go for about two or three hours. I spend a ten bucks. She said, I tell you what, you give me ten dollars to go buy some coffee. I'll go drink some coffee while you go into the show. I said, you really don't want to go. She said, I prefer not to.

And she said, why don't you call? Well, first thing she said, Mark Smith, he'll probably go with you. I said, Mark's probably hunting, okay? He's not going to go to the Civil War Relic show. And finally, Sunday morning came, and I was feeling guilty. I don't want to just leave her, and she doesn't want to go, so I'm not going to go. And she walks in and says, if you don't go now, you're going to be late. And I was free at last, and I ran out and I got in a car, and I drove to the Civil War Relic show. And I spent two hours by myself walking around, you know, talking to the guys, you know. I mean, everybody's talking about this, and, oh, let me show you something. Oh, I can't afford that. I don't care. You'll like this. You know, everybody's supposed to show what they have, because these guys all, I mean, there's over 200 collectors there, and they just stuff. I mean, one guy brought a mortar, you know, but these big round mortars fires a ball that big around. It was only 10 grand. I said, all came and said, hey, care if I buy a mortar?

Of course, I don't know where to put it. It'd go through the floor at the house. It's so heavy, so, you know, put that in your front yard. So, once again, I needed, not needed, it helped me. It did. I didn't realize it until I came home, and I thought, boy, that was fun. Just a couple hours by myself. I didn't think about all the stuff I'm always thinking about. I spent like $25. What did I buy? I don't even remember. Is that terrible?

Something for the Civil War, and brought it back, and I buy paper stuff because it's cheaper, and paper is hard to take care of, so it becomes actually more rare as time goes on.

So, anyways, I come home, and I'm... she knew what was going to happen. I would come home just sort it. Hey, do you have a good time? Yeah, dad. Yes, yeah. She knew I needed that. We need time alone. We need time with our hobbies or whatever our interests. We need time to be with other people of like mind. You know, Kim never liked softball. She never liked watching me play softball. I always wanted to come watch me so I could show off.

Yeah, wasn't that good. So it's probably better she did. Philippians, too.

There's times I will... I'll tell her, why don't you call your sister?

She'll be worried about something, and she'll call her sister. They'll talk for, I don't know, an hour and a half, you know. Or sometimes she'll just say, I'm going out for a while. And I thought, okay, she needs to. I realized that. One day I asked, what do you do when you go out? She just walks around the store. I said, well, you didn't buy anything. No, I just walked around the store. Or sometimes she'll just come home with some little thing, you know. Or I just, you know, she knows that I'll need to go to the park and walk through the park for an hour out in the woods. And she'll say, why don't you go to the park and go walk through the woods for a while? Why don't you come with me? I don't like walking through the woods, okay. Now there's time she goes with me, but most of the time she doesn't. We need that time. You need to understand those things with each other. We need to give each other permission, you know. I don't know how many times she said, why don't you get a bunch of guys together and get some beer and watch a football game? Wow, you are light. You are a blessing.

Get you out of my hair, you know. Got a bunch of football games. Philippians 2, verse 1.

This is, these are, instructions from the Apostle Paul to how the church should treat each other. Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection of mercy. You want this in your marriage? Consolation in Christ, comfort of love, fellowship of the Spirit of God, affection, mercy. Fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord of one mind. Well, how do we do that? Okay, that's what we want. I mean, we don't want to be clones of each other. I like the differences in my wife. She helps me. She is my helper. At times, she tries to help me too much. And I have to say, okay, there's only so much criticism a person can take, you know, just, and she stops. Men will say, why did my wife criticize me? Because she's designed to be your helper. She thinks she's helping you. And at times you have to say, that's not helpful. So let's just step back from this and leave me alone. It's okay, guys. You can do that. But you have to do it right. But we're not the same mind. We're two halves that come together to create a marriage, not to create one person in our minds, although they do to a certain degree, but to create a marriage. We're still individuals before God. He says, here's how you do this in the church. How much more in our marriages? Nothing to be done through selfish ambition or conceit. How much does vanity and pride play in the conflicts of marriage? How much? Or ambition. Here's where we compete with each other. We compete. We compete. You gotta win. You gotta win.

But in loneliness of mind, set let each esteem others better than himself. Now, he has to explain this in a minute, but let me stop for a minute. He says, the way you do this, as you value this person, that there are times you value them more than you value yourself. Now, you don't do that all the time because you can't. If your husband or wife wants you to do something against God, you value God more. There's times you have to value your own health. You can't do things that destroy your own health. So he's not saying here, you give up who you are, but you do. The point is, for one-mindedness to take place, you have to see that other person with such value. That at times, what they want is more important than what you want. That's what he's saying. Here's what it is. We try to shape our husband and wives than what we want them to be, and they don't quite measure up to the image we want to make them into. And so what we do is we don't value them. Well, yeah, he's a good provider, but you know, he has real hygiene problems. So I don't value him. Now, maybe you need to help him with his hygiene problems. I understand. That's why you're a helper. But at the same time, you can't devalue him. You married him with the covenant.

We have to value each other. We have to hold each other up. So he says, in verse 6, he really explains this, let each of you look out not only for his own interests. In other words, he doesn't say, give up all your interests, all your needs, all your desires. No, we all bring needs, desires, and interests into a marriage. We all do because we're designed to do that by God. He made us, man and wife, so they would come together and marriage. Jesus said that. That's what makes LGBTQ so evil, is taking one of the first core covenants God made between human beings and destroying it. You destroy that. The Abrahamic covenant is meaningless. The Sinai covenant is meaningless. The New Covenant is meaningless. If you destroy the marriage covenant, because you're not going to do any of those the way you're told to, you're not going to do the New Covenant as we're told to do if you destroy the marriage covenant. So, let each of you look out not only for his own interest, but also for the interest of others. That's in the church. That's what you and I are supposed to do with each other. How much more for your husband or wife? How much more for your husband or wife? So that we're not treating them through conceit or just ambition. We gotta win. We gotta win. Sometimes, guys, we can do that sometimes. I'm in charge. Well, we are. But, you know, you treat her like an employee, that's what you're gonna get.

You're gonna get an employee. And I don't think that's what you want.

So, we have to think about this. How much do I value him or her for who they are, not for who I want them to be? You're praying, right? You're praying and asking God to help that person become who they should be. But you're praying for you to become who you should be also. You have to be praying for yourself. If I want to be a good husband or wife, if I want to be a good spouse, I must become a good spouse. If I want to be a best friend, I must become a best friend. Yeah, but what she thinks is best friend, you know, that's what I think is best friend. Are you only getting her to be best friend for you and not you for her?

I, my wife told me this. Sometimes I can't remember. When I don't put it in my notes, I can't remember. I get so many stories, the ones I've told and I'm like, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. Remember when we had trumpets here, we had to go to the bathroom over here.

I went over there, and one of the women was there, and we both sort of showed up at the same time, and we were talking, and they opened the door, and I said, go ahead. And she said, oh no, you go ahead and go. So I went in, I came out, and I said, this is an important lesson. There was a younger man stand there. I said, my mom always taught me, you always let a woman go first.

A lady go first. Lady always goes first. I said, but I remember reading a story about Queen Victoria was getting into one of her carriages, and the Queen always gets in the carriage first back then. And she turned to one of the ministers. I can't remember, Prime Minister, I can't remember who it was, and she said, you go ahead and get in. And he did. And later, one of the protocol people just chewed him out, and his answer was just brilliant.

He says, a gentleman does what a lady asks him to do. And the young man looked at me and said, I'm amazed at every, every incident in life you have a story for. And it's somehow relevant. I said, well, yeah, it's, it's my, we all have quirks. That's my quirk. Okay. Sometimes I can't remember what stories I told. Anyways, what was the story I was going to tell? I can't remember because it's not in my nose. Oh. This was just a couple years ago. Kim says, I have something I want to tell you, and I don't want to hurt your feelings.

Oh, no, what did I do now? I mean, I, she said, I don't like it when you call me sweetheart. I said, I've called you sweetheart for years. I mean, I, I don't know, somewhere in my 50s, I started, she said, yeah, and I never liked it. Why didn't you tell me? Well, you were just so sincere. I mean, and I didn't want to hurt your feelings, but oh, any reason why? No, just don't like it.

Okay, honey buns. Well, she didn't like that one. She didn't seem to like that one either. So who was, because we laughed about it for weeks. Every time I say, well, good night, sweetheart, um, um, um, Kim. I mean, okay. Because it was such a habit to say that at times. Once again, you know, I can't impose that on her, right?

Okay, it's, I don't know, it's some quirky thing. It doesn't matter. She doesn't like it. I don't, I want to do it for her to like it, not because I don't want her not to like it. Oh, I'm the man. I can call you whatever I want. So we're not sacrificing everything, but we can say, I'll only sacrifice when he does. I'll only sacrifice when she does, because your marriage covenant is with God. And saying, I will only be a good wife when he's a good husband is like saying, God, I'll only be a good Christian when everybody else is a good Christian.

Until then, God will only be a good Christian. When everybody else is a good Christian. Until they're good Christians, I can treat them however I want. Now that we'd all say, no way. Boy, you want me to treat my husband like a good man? When I can, let me name you all the things he needs help on and God made me his helper, he won't listen to me.

So I'm not going to be a good wife, or I'm not going to be a good husband because she, because we have two little children and she spends so much time with them, she has no time for me, so I'm not being a good husband. Step back and tell God that. God, I tell you what, I'll be a good husband when the kids grow up and leave and she doesn't put so much energy into them. Then I'll be a good husband. Yeah, see what kind of marriage you produce.

Instead of, God, help me help her. That's my job. Help me to help her. And it's okay to communicate. You know, you and I have sat down and had a cup of coffee and a cookie for six months because of these rug rats, okay? It's okay. But you communicate it after you're doing your best to fulfill her interests. Well, that's your interest too. But you understand, help her do her job. Isn't that what a good leader always does? He helps his people do their job.

Don't you all like a good manager at work that helps you do your job?

Has your back? Well, that's what we're supposed to do.

Whenever we force our spouse, force them to meet all of our needs, or we make all the decisions for them, or we devote all of our time and energy to our interest and ignore their interest, you're laying a foundation for an unhappy lifetime. It's that simple. One person can't constantly dominate the other. Now, you give into each other's interest. That's what it says. There's a times you give into the other person, but you can't... one person can't dominate the other. We end up in competition all the time. It's a constant work here.

The third thing is that you have to offer true forgiveness. Now, I'm not talking here... Okay, my husband beats me. He gets drunk and beats me every Friday night. I keep forgiving him, but it's going on for, you know, 10 years, and he broke my arms. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is not what we're talking about. We're not talking about submitting to, you know, that kind of abuse. We're talking about the normal things we deal with in marriage. And what happens is we won't forgive them until there's restitution. I will not forgive you until you do this. And so we build walls. We build walls.

We begin to see them as an enemy. Why? It's an enemy because you made me feel bad. Now, the person may have done something wrong, and they did make you feel bad.

But it's not even logical to say, you made me feel bad, therefore I'm going to treat you bad until you repent.

Once again, we're not talking about these major things. We're talking about the things we do all the time. I'm not going to talk to you until you say you're sorry for forgetting it was our anniversary. Okay, is that going to be three days? A week? Five months? I've seen couples mete out punishment for years. They will decide something, and they just... a wall goes up. Once again, I'm not talking about adultery. These things are hard to work through. I've seen marriages survive that. Sometimes they can't. That's why there's a provision in the scripture for that. Sometimes they do. With God's help, people do amazing things.

But the bottom line is you can't build those walls.

I am waiting for you to meet my standards, and then I will be a good husband, or then I will be a good wife. I can tell you from experience, this is confession time, if my wife has done something that really, really bothers me, sometimes I can go talk to her about it. Sometimes I can get angry. I can do all different kinds of things, but I tell you what works every time. Just be a good husband. Eventually, it'll come up, or she'll come to me and say, yeah, I've been thinking about that. That wasn't... I'm sorry I said that to you. Why? Because I didn't put up the wall that kept her from doing it. That's why. When I put up the wall, it's like the wall's there. I can feel it. She can feel it. If I take down the wall, many times she'll respond by doing, well, what I'm going to do. You put up the wall, the other person probably is not going to respond well, unless they realize the wall's there and they're willing to come tear it down.

And how do you tear it down? By being a good spouse. By being a good spouse.

This forgiveness is so central to to what marriage is. It teaches us something about core love that we can then give to other people and hopefully give to children and teach them God's way. Now notice, all we've talked about are things that happen inside congregation. So we're supposed to do this, but I guarantee you, if we're not doing it between husband and wife, it's not working well in the congregation either. You work with core issues outward. Core issues are what we do with each other in the privacy, because we can pretend otherwise. You can't pretend there. And then you become that kind of person. So what we're going to do is eat first, right?

We're going to eat, and we're going to come back, and we're going to look at some instructions from Paul to the church. And we're going to actually discuss, we're going to have a discussion during the Bible study, on how we can take those core issues that he's teaching the church about communication and how that applies directly to our marriages. So we will continue, like I said, at least next month, maybe even another month, going through these core issues that I was going to cover in a marriage seminar. But like a seminar, we're going to get together, we're going to do some discussions, we're going to work together and work on a whole passage in Ephesians, do a little exegesis here as a group.