Communication Within Marriage

You've heard me say before when I graduated from college, my major was in mass communications, but I had two minors, one in theology, and the other was in speech. And you think speech, that's just about public speaking, and it wasn't. It was a minor in communication. How communication works, whether it's with a group, whether it's public speaking, whether it's in media, and a lot of it was in one-on-one.

How communication actually takes place. And a number of years ago, I took—I still have all my, you know, textbooks—I took a number of those textbooks, and I created a handout for the speakers, the public speakers, in which people give the sermonettes and the sermons, and I handed it to them, and we had a discussion. Well, I modified that same handout for today, but I just want you to look at the picture and then turn it—I just glance at it. Don't study it. Just glance at it. Is there enough? They think there should have been.

Some couples may have to share. Anyone not have one? Put your hand up. Oh, the walkers back there. They need marriage help, so please make sure they get one. Everyone had been married for what? I think the ceremony was done by Apostle Paul. It's been a while, you know. Oh, there's one way in the back, too. Okay. So you look at the picture, turn it upside down. Now, let me ask you something.

How many of you saw a vase? Okay. How many of you saw a birdbath? Some people say this. A birdbath. Yeah, a birdbath. How many of you saw two faces? How many of you saw both? All three. Now, it's always interesting because it's never equal. When you ask that question, it's never equal, and it wasn't equal here. I think like four people saw a birdbath. Others saw a vase. About it looked like about a fourth of you saw both.

Probably half of you saw the faces. Now, if we were going to have a discussion, prove to that other person it was a vase, that would be interesting, right? Can't show them the picture. We're just going to have a discussion on why you saw a vase, and the other person's going to say, no, I saw two faces. And they're going to look at you and say, what? Have you been drinking or something? How did you see two faces? Now, I want you to look at the handout. There is an enormous amount of brain activity for us just to have a simple statement made, and the other person listen and respond.

The amount of brain activity and what is involved in simple communication is amazing. In fact, when you really study it, you realize that God had to create us. I weird the image of God. Animals don't do this. I mean, you watch animals communicate all the time, right? I watch the mockingbirds and the cardinals in my backyard fight all the time, and they have different noises they make and warnings they give, but they're not exactly sitting around and discussing Plato, okay? There's no deep conversation here going on.

What we do is so complex. So just to start in a very simple thing that must happen in our brains to communicate something. You have a sender, okay? You're the one that's talking. You have to have a personal need and desire to communicate. Right? Do you ever be around somebody who doesn't have a desire to communicate?

They grunt. They don't say much. You talk. And it's like, well, what was that worth, right? So the person who's speaking has to have a need or a desire to speak. Then they have ideas they want to communicate. They have ideas, but they also have emotions they want to communicate. And that gets very difficult. Putting ideas into words is not easy. Putting emotions into words. I mean, if it's just a fact, oh look, it's raining outside, and everybody else looks outside and says, oh yes, it is raining.

That's a pretty easy communication. Although my wife told me the other day, I said, I was going to go out for a walk. She said, it's raining. I looked outside and I said, no, it's not. I must have walked 30 or 40 feet and it started to rain. And I came back in and I said, it's raining.

She says, I told you. And I said, no, you said it was raining. It wasn't raining. That wasn't good communication. It wasn't raining when I walked out. She said, no, but I just read it was going to start raining.

But you didn't tell me. Okay, we're going to have an argument right here. But you didn't tell me. But she didn't get to her side. I just gave her her side. Oh yeah, she did look it up. It's going to start raining. I walked outside. I just laughed when I came in. How do you know these things? That's what I always say. How are you? You're so smart. I feel like forced gump. I call her Jenny. You know, you're so smart, Jenny. I don't understand. How do you know? I just read it. I oh, okay. Facts are one thing. Ideas are something else. Emotions. I mean, you say someone says to you, I just feel like you ignore me. And the other person is going to have a reaction to that. You're trying to express an emotion. You have your perception of self. And that's something we won't get into today, but that's a huge thing. If you believe you're stupid, that is going to, or if you believe certain things about you, or you believe you're superior, you know, we all know those, that arrogant person thinks they're superior, that's going to affect how you treat other people. But then you also have the perception of the other person. You know, why should I even talk to this person? They're not going to listen anyways, but I have to, or I have to say something. Or this person's going to listen to me, so I better start yelling. You know, I'll introduce the conversation yelling. My brother, Lyle, and I were talking the other day about Kim's dad, and someone that worked in the nursing home they have him in, assisted living, said something like, well, when he disagrees with you, he just gets louder and louder, and he says, oh yeah. He said, I asked him one time, do you think you can win every argument by getting louder? And he said, oh yeah, I can.

His mind's still sharp at times, you know, yeah, I can do that. I can get so loud that I win. There's the emotional and physical state that you're in when you decide to talk. You ever try to talk about something serious with someone when you're overly tired? It doesn't work out very well, does it? Or when you didn't eat much? Or, and I've seen this happen, watch one of my, I've watched my grandkids eat a donut, and pretty soon they're in a fist fight. Right? Because why? Because the emotional and physical state they're in is with the sugar rush is not very good for dealing with some little problem they're having. That's all mixed in into this. Then there's communication and listening skills. Some people are just more skilled at it. Then you have to interpret the other person's communication, and there's the effects of the environment. You know, Kim and I can be driving in the car, and we're talking, and suddenly we're talking about something sort of serious, and the first thing she does is turn off the background music. She just turned the background music off. And I know what that means is I've got to process this, and I can't do it with that background. I'm not even noticing it's there. Oh yeah, the radio is on with some low background music. Because that environment affects us. All the environment affects us. So when she turns the radio off, I know, boy am I in for it. No, no. No, it means she's thinking. Okay, she's got something she wants to think through and say, and she turns that that music off. Like I said, half the time, I forget it's on. It's just background music. And then this all happens. This is just going on in the mind of the sender, and this is just a very simple way of saying what your brain is doing. It's searching out memories. It's amazing how we're designed.

Well then you have verbal communication, nonverbal communication, right? Now every man here is going to know what this is like. What's wrong? Nothing. No, I think something's wrong. Nothing's wrong. Now the words are saying one thing, right? The nonverbal communication is like, of course, guys are so, we're so adamant sometimes. Oh, okay. We miss the nonverbal communication. Or we're confused by it so much we don't know what to do. Then there is that environment. And this is all happening in an environment. You know, you think you're having a discussion and the baby cries. And one of you has to go take the baby. The result is you're both frustrated because you didn't get to deal with what you were dealing with. But the baby has to come first at this point. You see what I mean? This environment happens upon us. Then you have the person that's receiving the message. And they may have a need or desire to communicate or they may not. I'll go ahead and talk. I'm not really listening to you, right? They're on the phone. They're watching television. They're just, or whatever. Or they're walking away from you. Also, the person receiving the message already has preconceived ideas about what you're talking about and who you are. They may not even process what you're saying because they already have a preconceived idea. Of course, there's their emotional and physical state. I can't talk to you about that right now. I'm just too tired.

But I got to talk to you, so I'm going to keep pounding on you.

Their self-perception, oh no, you know, oh no, here's going to come more negative stuff. Or they have the perception of the other person. This person has never really treated me right. Communication and listening skills of the person who's receiving it. Interpretation of that in communication. And the effects of the environment. And then there's a loop. I have this little arrow over here called feedback loop. This is all going on in the mind of the sender. And it's all going on in the mind of the person who's receiving. And guess what's happening? They're looping that around because they're all communicating. If you're communicating to somebody, even if they're not saying anything, you're picking up signals, right?

I mean, if you're talking to somebody and, you know, they say, yeah, yeah, wait a minute, I got to take this because their phone's ringing. Oh yeah, I got to take this. And you're talking about something real important. And they push the button and say, oh yeah, I'll be there Saturday night for the party. You're like, well, that's not important. So this loop is happening constantly at that kind of speed. It's a wonder we communicate anything to anybody.

And when two people are married in that kind of close proximity and that kind of close emotional relationship, it gets very, very hurtful real quick. You know, if you have someone say something mean to you and you don't know them very well, sometimes you just walk away and think, wow, I don't know what's wrong with that guy, right? And you forget about it. But if your husband says it or your wife says it, you're thinking about it for the next three days. You know, there's five different levels of communication. We hardly ever get to the number five, which is just you really are able to be who you really are. Say what's on your mind with reason. I mean, we all have to control what we say, but you're able to really be honest with who you are to the other person. We're not there very often. A few friends and usually if you have a good marriage with your spouse. I mean, you can't be that way with your children, right? You can't sit down with your 10-year-old and say, I'm really having a bad day today at work. Let me explain all the bad things that happen to me and the troubles that are happening. And I mean, you're just going to, what? Discourage the 10-year-old. Now you can go tell your wife that or your husband that. So that level 5 communication is a wonderful thing. But when you get there, misunderstandings because of all this stuff happen very quickly. A look. Especially if you know them long enough to say, oh, I know that look. They're not really interested. You know, you've been married long enough, you know the looks. Or I know that look. He'd rather be doing, watching the football game. Right? Maybe because you're doing this. You know, she's standing there and you're looking around.

It's like I said before, I've told my wife, if I'm doing something I'm really zeroed in on, like if I was watching a football game and she comes up and starts talking, this is what it's talking. This is what it's like. So what do you think? Huh?

About what? You weren't listening to me. Yes, I was. You were going, I mean, that's all I heard. Because you got to get my attention first. You have to. Can we talk? How important is it? Oh, I missed the touchdown. It doesn't matter. You turn it off, right? Because if it's important, you turn it off.

So this is the problem we have. We're going to talk about this model some in the Bible study. What I want to talk about is how we have to then approach communication.

I mean, you both have the desire to communicate. Sometimes you just have a man or a woman that just says, I don't want to communicate in this marriage. I just don't think it'll do any good. That itself is an interesting statement because why don't you think it'll do any good? And it may not. Is it because of you or is it because the other person is a combination? Anyway, you look at it. The reason we get married is to have this close relationship. And when there isn't good communication, nothing else really works.

I mean, you live together. You have moments of happiness, but there's an emptiness in the relationship. How women and men sometimes even define communication is different. And that's a whole other subject. I'm just talking about the normal human process. Men and women process communication differently. I mean, we all do as individuals, but as a group, men and women tend to process communication differently. And so we have to understand that. So what I want to do is cover big principles. We'll get into more specifics in January when we go through some specifics about communication and marriage. I'm going to talk giant big principles. Now, I know some of you got your pens out and you're like, oh, good. I'm going to write these down and boy, is he or she going to hear it on the way home? Yeah. Cause I'm going to, this is what we got to do.

These are probably going to be surprising. This is the first thing you have a communication problem in your marriage, which everybody does from time to time. When you do, you got to remember something. You made a covenant with God, which means that you need to go pray about your marriage. Before you talk to each other, take it to God who made the covenant and pray to him first. Pray to him to help you and pray to him to help your husband or your wife. Now, pray for him to help you first.

This is real important. Please help me to change. Please help me to do what I must do to turn the heart of my husband or wife towards me. It's away from me right now. What do I do? Well, I know what he has to do. I know what she has to do. If she does this, it'll be fixed. So what do you do? Go to God. Please help my wife to do this. Please help my husband to do this.

Well, what we have is a prayer that starts with, help me to do what I must do so that he or she heart will be turned towards me. This is hard. This is not what you're going to get when you pick up the average help your marriage book.

But it's the realization that marriage is a sacred covenant that God makes with us. That's what's so hideous about the attempt to change the definition of biblical marriage. It destroys the very first covenant that God made with human beings. It was a marriage covenant. It was part of that covenant God made with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It was part of that covenant. Let's go to Ephesians. Now, this isn't about marriage. You say, well, wait a minute. There's a place in Ephesians that, you know, says that husbands, you have to lead your wives, and wives are just to admit to your husband. Shouldn't we go there? Nah, not now.

You go there after you've done other things. I mean, I could go there, give a whole sermon on it, and you all could go home, and all your husbands could say, God said submit to me, and all your wives could say, God said to love me, and you now communicated what? Nothing. You're back where you were.

So, there's a place to go, time to go there. That's not today. This is interesting. This is a prayer. Once again, it doesn't have anything to do with marriage specifically, but it's a prayer that's important because it teaches us something about praying for each other. Paul is praying for the members of the church. He says in Ephesians 3, verse 14, for this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says, this is this, I'm down on my knees praying this. And what is he praying? From whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. We're all Christians. We all bear the name of God. As husband and wife, you both bear your daughters and sons of God. We all bear the name of God. He sanctified our marriages. That he would grant you, so this is what God is praying for the people in Ephesus. That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit and the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, might be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height. And to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now that's what he prayed for his congregation. Have you ever made a prayer like that about your husband or wife?

God, I pray that you will fill my husband with your Holy Spirit, so that he can, in the inner man, be rooted and grounded in love.

Have you ever prayed for your wife? Now he's praying this for the church. This is an inaccessory prayer. Paul says, I get on my knees and I pray this for you, that this is what God does in your life. Or do we say, God, what I want you to please do is take my wife and help her to be more submissive. God, would you take my husband and help him to be more understanding? Now those are needs. I'm not saying those are wrong. What I'm saying is, do we pray for them as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ with an inaccessory prayer that says, Father, please, please help my husband and help me to help my husband. Father, please help my wife and please help me to help my wife.

You see, a lot of times people say, I go to God, we pray, but my husband just doesn't change. Oh, why don't you ask God to help change you? Why me? He's the one with the problems. Okay, he has problems. That's not the issue here. When do you intercede for your mate in prayer?

When do you go to God and say, help me to bring these good things into his life or her life? Help me to help him or her find comfort? Help me or her to help them? Because of all people, you know the damage that your husband or wife has had in life, don't you? You know the damage they've had.

And so you deal with that damage sometimes in the way that they treat you. When was the last time you want to ask God to heal them and help me to help them heal? Notice, God fixed them. Please heal them and help me, right, not fix them, help them heal. Because if we're healed by God, we will begin then to do the actions. We want the actions without the healing and that can't happen. Oh, it can happen, but it's not from the heart.

Intercessory prayer for your mate. It changes things. Now, I have to admit, there's times I've gone to God and said, you know, Kim may need some straightening out. I know that's hard for you to believe. And you want the answer... I've only done it a couple of times in 45 years. And part of it is because I learned early on, you know what the answer I says? Boy, are you messed up. That's the answer every time. Boy, are you messed up. That's God's answer.

But what about... No, no, no, no. What about you? Intercede for her. Don't blame her. Intercede for her.

Yeah, that's all I'm supposed to do. And all of a sudden, whatever was bothering me, I can't even tell you what it was anymore. Literally. With that prayer, I can't even remember what I'm upset over. Because wait a minute. What am I supposed to do? I'm supposed to go love her. I'm interceding for her before God. Two people do this. Good things are going to happen. You know why? Because God's going to do them. See, I can give you all the things to do. I have workbooks. I have two shelves at home of great marriage counseling books. I found out over the years I can give people all the information. But if the heart doesn't change, the information won't work. It will to a degree. But it won't get what we want. And I tell you what, the pressure on marriage today is enormous.

So the first thing, if you want to have better communication, is go talk to God. Can I be better at communication? Can I be better? What can I do to help? Now, we're not talking about here if you have a spouse that is beating you, one that's an alcoholic. Those things take special things. Although praying for them is the first thing you do, even in those situations. But we're talking about the things that you and I deal with our whole lives as we try to develop that close relationship that we all want. Right? I don't think anyone here picked your husband. You picked your husband because he was so wealthy. Sorry, you're in the wrong group. There's just nobody here with that kind of wealth.

You picked him because you wanted a relationship that you knew can only happen in this kind of union and covenant with God. Pray and intercede because that leads us to Proverbs 18, 24. Another little section of the Bible that we never apply to marriage.

Who's your best friend? My best friend is my wife, by far, because there's nothing I won't tell her and she's my best friend by far.

A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. If I want her to be my friend, I better be her friend. That's what it says here.

If we want our wives or husbands to be that close friend, then we have to be that close friend because, you know, when one's down, the other can only pick the other one up if they're willing to make that sacrifice. You're my friend, I will do that. And when you're picking each other up, that's what you want.

So we have to look at ourselves and we have to pray and say, how do I intercede for my friend? How do I be a friend to my husband or my wife? The second point, you can never find happiness in a marriage if a couple of things are happening. One is if you're in constant competition. Everything's about control and power. It won't work. Nothing will work. And if you believe that it's that person's purpose in life to fulfill all your happiness and all your needs, nobody can do that. You talk about a way to ruin a relationship. Your job in life is to make me happy. That's going to really fail. Now we bring happiness to each other and we help each other. But life is more than just marriage.

Fulfillment comes from other ways, too. My wife finds fulfillment in a lot of her relationship with her sister is very close.

And they're talking on the phone all the time.

And that's good.

There's something there I can't do. That's their relationship.

And so we have to understand that your husband, your wife can't heal everything and you only God can do that. And they can't bring all happiness. And they can't bring, you know, they just, there's certain things a marriage relationship cannot do.

And if you rely on it that way, it will fail. That's what good Philippians 2. Now, once again, Paul is talking about relationships in the church. Okay. Well, your husband, your wife, here's your closest relationship in the church. So let's just apply the basic principles here to your marriage.

He says in verse 1, Paul says, Therefore, if there's any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, Paul says, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord of one mind. Now that's church members. You know, the church member, most of us spend most of our time with is what? Our husband or wife. Now, some of you have mates that aren't in the church. But those of us who do, who's the church member? Called by God, forgiven by God, sanctified by Jesus Christ that you spend most of your time with. But we will treat each other in ways you'd never treat anybody else in the church, right? Because communication, when communication breaks down, the closer you are, the more dirty it gets. The closer you are, the more ugly it gets, or can get. It doesn't have to, but it does.

So this should apply really to that husband or wife that you have.

He says, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit. So we can't be ambitious. We want the other person to do everything we want. We might have control over everything, and we can't be conceited.

You know, Kim has never looked at me and said, you know, you really are Forrest Gump, and I appreciate that. And I appreciate that.

But in lowliness of mind, oh good, I want my wife to hear this. She needs to be lowly before me. This is every member to every member. There are roles in the, in the, in just like, I mean, there's roles in everything we do in life, and there's roles in marriage. There are husband-ordained roles and wife-ordained roles, according to the scripture. But what we're talking about here is how we communicate and treat each other. In lowliness, let each esteem others better than himself. In other words, you in your life have certain priorities in my life. Now, that doesn't mean you give up all your personal priorities. You can't. I mean, we can't. There's no relationship in life except God that you literally are the slave of that person, right? You're the slave of God. We're all slaves that go. We're all slaves of Christ, it says. And that's so there's no one we're a slave to, but it's once again, my priorities become secondary to your priorities in this situation. There's other cases you cannot do that. That's not what he's saying here. He's saying here, you hold them with such value that there's times you will sacrifice what you want for them.

You will sacrifice what you want for them.

And we, you know, kids, when children come along, we have to do that all the time, don't we? Oh, man, I really wanted to buy the whatever. But I can't be why because of shoes. I can't get what I want because of shoes. The kids need shoes and you say good to that priority. I esteem them of more value in than that. That's something I want this really frivolous compared to shoes. That's what he's saying here. Well, we have to value each other so much that there's times we are willing and we are happy to say, okay, I won't give what I want for you because that will be a benefit to you. Look what he says in the next verse. Look, each of you not look out only for his own interest. It's not saying you don't have any personal interest. But also for the interest of others. The only way you could do that is you value them so much that sometimes, well, we have a difference in interest here. Last week, I was going to do something, but I thought, well, maybe Kim needs me at home. They have a Civil War relic show in Franklin once a year. And if I ever have that Sunday off, I drive down and walk because it's like a giant museum. It's amazing. Letters and just all these things you find. And I said, hey, you want to go to that? She said no. Okay. I thought, well, I could go, but maybe she wants to do something. So what do you want to do? Oh, I don't have any plans. It's like the next day. It's sort of, I think she sort of figured out. She goes, hey, why don't you go to that relic show? I said, well, you didn't want to go. She said, well, get somebody else. Well, I am taking the grandkids. I've, you know, I took the Creech kids. Boy, those boys thought that was wonderful, you know, especially when they fired the cannon. They all thought that was sort of cool. And I thought about it, and I thought about it. Sunday morning came and she said, you know, if you don't go, you're going to miss it. I looked at the time because I just was on the phone with somebody in the church. I said, yep. I'll see you in a couple hours. Now, that's something little, but I had to realize to make her go. I mean, if I would have said, I want you to go with me, she would have gone with me, but she wouldn't have enjoyed it.

And for her to say, oh, go, take a couple hours. I'd be good for me, be away from me for a couple hours anyways. Go, go, get out of the house.

And what we're trying to do is esteem the other person. What is it you value here? What are your priorities? What are your interests? And that's not her interest. She knows it's my interest. So, go! I have no other idea what she did for the couple hours I was gone, but whatever it was, she probably enjoyed having me out of the house for a couple hours.

Each of us must ask ourselves how we treat our husbands or wives. Is it through control or is it through, I accept you for the unique person you are. And do what's weird. I mean, after all the years we've been married, we're not as much a unique people as we used to be. Sometimes we're like the same person. I mean, she's actually says to me all the time, you know, Gary, it takes our two brains to be one person now. I said, I know. What's Maria? What am I talking about, Kim? You know, I'm up here kind of thinking, okay, I get something mixed up here, and she tells me what it is. So it doesn't mean you sacrifice everything in your life. It means you find ways to help each other enjoy those outside interests, too. It's like I said before, though, your best friend has to, of the opposite sex, has to be your mate. You cannot have a best friend. So if you're a woman, you can't have a best friend that's outside your house. It has to be your husband. Men, you can't have a best friend that's not your wife. You want to go down the road to an affair? Just do that. Have an affair or not have a best friend that's not your wife or your husband that's of the opposite sex. Because, you know, even if you don't have an affair, you have an emotional affair because you know what you eventually do. You tell your deepest, darkest, most intimate things to your best friend, not to your wife. But you're actually breaking your marriage vows. Can't do that. Now, we can say, okay, I'll treat her the way you're saying as soon as she submits to me. I'll treat him the way you're saying as soon as I know he loves me. But you remember something. It's like why we pray for each other. Our covenant was with God. And that's like telling God, you know what? I'm going to be a good Christian as soon as you make other people be better Christians.

Is that the way this works? No? So, guys, I just talked to you because sometimes it's, I got to be a better husband and she actually has nothing to do with it. But it's my relationship with God that requires that. And I can only tell you, when I do that, I'm such a happy man because she, like, starts treating me really nice, you know? It's like, why is she treating me so nice? Yeah, maybe because it's because I'm doing something. That's why. You can't force the other person to always meet your needs. You can't force the other person to be what you want them to be. You just can't. I mean, you know, God even, God wants to create us into the image of Jesus Christ, but he doesn't make us do it. That's what's amazing. He does it through relationship. He does it through relationship. Good marriages are constant giving and receiving because they value each other for who they are, even with our flaws, right? Even with our flaws. We value who they are as a person, not the image that we've made up in our heads of who they are, but who they really are. Then the third point, and we're not going to go through all this because we're going to discuss this in the Bible study. That is, we have to really offer true forgiveness. We can't keep all the hurts and just catalog them and hold on to them. So that we remember every so that we remember every fight, every argument, every bad thing we did to each other.

I've always admired my wife for this.

She forgives me and forgets.

She just forgets, which is good. I wouldn't want to remember it all the times I've said something stupid or ignored her or all the things I've done. You know, she just forgets.

Don't you, honey?

What we do is we become enemies. We're entrenched. We're entrenched in, you've hurt me and you've hurt me. And what's so sad in marriage counseling, I sit down and I understand it. And it reaches a point where you understand where they're coming from and you realize they both feel the exact same way. I just want her to love me. I feel so alone and hurt by her. I just want him to love me, but I feel so alone and hurt by him. They actually feel the same way. But they're so far apart because of what's happened that they can't even understand that they're both wanting the same thing. But it's not going to happen exactly the way both of them want it. It's going to take some give and take care. And it's going to take a lot of communication. And good communication hurts. But I tell you something, silence or just being mean to each other hurts a whole lot worse because good communication deals with the tough stuff. It deals with it. It deals with the tough stuff. But silence or just, you know, sort of being okay until the next fight comes, that's not the way it's supposed to be either.

Let's go to Ephesians 4. Because we're going to read this. And then we're going to take a break, or, you know, have our song and take a break. We're going to go back and we're going to discuss the handout and discuss these verses. Well, none of this has to do with marriage. Oh, yes, it does. Everything we've discussed has to do with that relationship. Because communication is not just a marriage issue, but it really is the core of so many of the problems we have in marriage. Ephesians 4, verse 25.

Talking to the church or writing to the church, Paul says, Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are all members of one another. Now, the neighbor here is in the church. He's not talking about people outside the church because these were members of one another. So this is the body of Christ. You and your husband, you and your wife are members of the body of Christ. Your neighbors. This is your closest neighbor. This is your closest neighbor.

Be angry and sin not. This is one of the greatest problems we have in marriage. We get angry and we never let it go. Seeing people that have been angry with each other for 15 years, they don't even know why they're angry anymore. They're just angry.

Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. Nor give place to the devil. Give place to the devil here is a real important statement. There's a couple of things that Satan knows will totally sidetrack God's plan. You destroy individuals and you destroy the family unit. You destroy marriage. You take his plan in a different direction.

So Satan looks for cracks in our marriages because he knows whatever happens in your marriage affects everything else in life, doesn't it? Plus, it affects your children and it affects the marriages they have.

So you crack them up and you can have generational effects. Generational effects.

He goes on now in verse 29. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. But what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the ears of edification, it doesn't mean you just say nice things. Edification sometimes means correcting somebody and sometimes husbands and wives need to sit down and say, I think this was wrong or this was hurt for, this wasn't a good decision. We need to talk about this more. But the point is, that's not what we do.

We have to think about our words, but the one person you won't think about your words is your husband or wife. Well, sometimes we do because you know these words will hurt and you say them.

Right? Sometimes you know some words are going to hurt. You know well enough. You know where the buttons are. You know where the pains are and you can say terrible things.

He says, don't do this. Don't let corrupt communication come out of our mouth. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. This statement about grieving God, you know, the Holy Spirit is God, right? I mean, it's not a separate person, but it comes from God. He says, you're grieving God. God's Spirit comes out. What returns to him? Grief? Sorrow? Because of what we're doing? And he's saying this in the context of how we treat each other in a church. And I'm saying, let's break this down and start with our marriages. How do we treat each other in our marriages?

Let all bitterness, how much bitterness is in your marriage? All wrath, all anger, all clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Is any of that in your marriage? No, if not, then this isn't, this verse isn't for you. If there's any piece of that in your marriage that we have a spiritual issue, and we're communicating that to each other, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

If God forgave us, how much more should we not forgive the mate that God brought into our lives? Now, we get to choose the mate we marry, but I know God had a hand in bringing my wife into my life.

But you know what? We got married and made a covenant with God. I have to make that marriage work no matter what. Now, I say no matter what, there's reasons for divorce. We're just not talking about that today. I mean, they're certain that someone's going to kill you, you can divorce them, okay? So there are other reasons. But we're talking about two people that want to obey God are part of the body of Christ. How should we approach this? This is all about communication. And if we have to treat each other this way, how much more should I treat my wife this way? Okay. Now, none of us do it perfectly, so we have to learn to apologize a lot. Sorry, didn't do that that well this time.

No? That's not being less of a man, or it doesn't mean, oh, I'm just letting him control me. It means, no, you mean it, you say it, you do it, because it's the right thing to do. The right thing to do is, huh, I could have done better. You know what's great when you hear, it's okay, I understand.

You had a really bad day.

I said, oh, wow, thanks.

Or I can say back to her, I understand, man, you got 10 things on your mind. You didn't sleep last night because you're worried about your dad or something, you know, I'm just, there's something. And so therefore, I understand, it's okay.

Now, she and I are so different. We do different things in the way that we will do something wrong. It's very interesting to me. It's very interesting to me what we'll do, because it's based on our personality. But being able to know, I get forgiveness here changes everything. I just have to go say to God, I did it again. I shouldn't have been that mean or that. I shouldn't have ignored what she's going through or whatever. I should have been there. Why wasn't I there for her? I got to go say, I'm sorry, because you know why? That's the covenant I made with God, was to do that with her. It's covenant I made. Was to do that with her. It's covenant I made. And because I want her to be happy. As much happiness as I can give her, right? I can't make her completely happy. No more than she can make me completely happy. God, for one thing, without God, you're never going to have complete happiness. So if you think your mate can do what God can only do, boy, you're going to doom that marriage. Only God can do certain things. And we have to give it to him. Okay, so what we'll do is we'll take a break, maybe 15, 20 minute break, and then afterwards, bring back your hand out. And we'll get together in little groups. We'll discuss some of this and we'll come up with some ways that we can help. Come up with some ways that we can help. And if you're not married, it doesn't matter. The communication skills here are the same. You see what I mean? You say, well, I'm not married. This has nothing to do with me. Oh, no. These communication skills have to do with you and your best friend, too. They have to do with you and other people. So these are very important communication skills.