Father, we have taken time out of our weekend to devote this time in worship to you. It's a statement of our priorities. It's a statement of our values. It's a statement of our need. It's a statement of our dependence. Father, we pray you would meet us here over the pages of the Scripture of Truth. Thank you that you have provided lands by which we can view the world and navigate clearly into the future. You have given us, Peter said, "All things that pertain to life to the knowledge of Him who called us." Help us to see what that is regarding marriage in particular. In Jesus name, Amen.
Many years ago when I was young and single and I lived in San Bernardino, California, going to college, I had an apartment $99 a month. It's a long time ago, furnished. This little apartment was situated in the way so that when my kitchen window was open, my neighbors who were just a few feet away, their kitchen window -- it was a mirror of my apartment.
I was young and single. They were young and married. We could overhear kitchen conversations. There wasn't much going on in my house. But in their house, it was a very active conversation almost nightly and it wasn't always pleasant. I heard some arguments and some words that made want to close my kitchen window.
A few years later, I lived in an apartment in Santa Ana, California. It was the bottom apartment of a fourplex. There was a married couple this time right above me. I heard more foot stomping, not because there was great music and words coming out of the ceiling and it's like the heavens were speaking to me every night.
The only reprieve for me was the beach. I could take my surf board and hit down to the waves and enjoy the peace and the solace or so I thought. You see, one day I was down there waxing my surf board, ready to go out for a nice early morning surf and there was a young married couple having an argument on the beach in each other's face. I'm thinking, "Really?" They were both locals. They were both vocal. Their volume both got louder and the insults got more sharp as the repartee went back and forth.
Finally, the young husband pulled out what he thought would be the greatest insult to a local California beach wife. He turned to her and said, "You're a tourist!" Her face flushed with redness. She seized in anger and she stormed off. It was like, "That's it. That's the ultimate thing you could call me."
Experiences like that always would give me pause as a young single guy when it came to marriage, because I thought, "I don't want to do that. I don't want any of that." I would even sometimes wonder, "How many married couples are fighting tonight?" As the years went on and I got into the ministry, I made another discovery not only do couples fight, Christian couples fight. Good Christian couples fight. Great stellar Christian couples fight.
Many years ago when the wife of Billy Graham, Ruth, she's now in heaven, was interviewed about the ministry and about Billy and about their marriage. Interviewers always like to ask these tangential questions. So the interviewer said, "Have you ever considered divorce?" She smiled and she said, "Divorce, no. Murder, yes." It was a classic moment.
Every marriage relationship has sparks, has fireworks, has friction for two reasons. Number one, we're all human. We're all fallen. We're all sinful and a marriage is one sinner who marries another sinner.
There's a second reason. Not only are we're all human, we're different. We did a whole study on the temperament differences between male and female. So, just because we're human and because we are different, that is enough fodder to make for an interesting fireworks display in a relationship.
William Shakespeare was right when he said, "The course of true love never did run smooth," but it's the unresolved conflict that becomes a problem. Anger and conflict that becomes unresolved will become, eventually, like a cancer that erodes and undermines the relationship. There will be conflict. There will be conflict in every relationship. You cannot have two strong-willed individuals flowing together without current. There's got to be some kind of movement.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were able to spend a few days with friends in Hawaii and we were on the Windward Side of Oahu, right on Lanikai Beach. Right off the back porch, you could see two islands closed by the Mokuluas. I would get up in the morning and get in a kayak and I would paddle out to the Mokuluas -- the islands out there and paddle back. One day Lenya said, "I'd like to go along."
So, I put her in the front and I was in the back and we started paddling and I said, "Now, I'm going to warn you. The closer we get to this islands, it's going to get rough because there are two separate currents that flow between these islands and when they meet, it's (00:06:38). It'll be like Gilligan's Island for several hundred yards." Sure enough when those currents came together, those two flows came together, it got pretty exciting there. We even tipped the kayak once.
So when you have two individuals flowing together that have their own ideas about life, there's going to be current. A great concern to me is the issue of anger in a relationship. The short fuse over the long hall, that's unsustainable.
So how do you handle anger in a marriage? How do you deal with conflict? What do you do when somebody has a bad temper? How do you resolve a conflict? Maybe a better way to ask it is how can couples have a good fight?
I hope you have a good fight. There are bad fights, we've seen those, but there are good fights, there are good ways to resolve issues and to resolve conflict. Listen to this, Diane Sollee from the "Coalition for Marriage and Family." She shared an important truth. She noted that, "Happy couples who stay married have the same number of conflicts as unhappy couples who get a divorce." She noted that, "What makes the difference is not the absence of conflict, but the ability or inability to manage the conflict."
I've had, you turn to Ephesians Chapter 4, we're going to begin in verse 25 and read down to verse 32. Just a few verses and I'm well aware that the general context is about the Christian life that we are not living the past life that we were redeem from. We're in a new life and that makes all things new and its general truths for all believers but I apply it narrowly to the relationship here between husband and wife, it fits perfectly. I'm going to ask to do me a favor, as we read these verses today and as you listen to the message that I bring from these verses, I'm going to ask you to not listen for anybody else.
"Boy, I wish she could hear this. I'm going t get this message for him. They need to hear that." It's always a temptation, is it not? Listen today for just you and see what the Holy Spirit would say to your heart, verse 25, "Therefore, putting away lying that each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole, steal no longer but rather let him labor working with his hands what is good that he may have something to give him who has need. Let no corrupt word perceive out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification. That it may impart grace to the hearers and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clammer and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind to one another. Tenderhearted, forgiving one another just as God in Christ forgave you."
After reading those verses, let me pull out for you, four principles on conflict resolution. These are rules of engagement. When you're going to engage in a conflict with your spouse, they're ought to be rules of engagement. Just like in any battle field in any war.
Four principles on how to have a good fight, a fair fight. Number one, be honest without lying. That's right out of Verse 25, "Therefore put away lying. Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor for we are members of one another." Most every marriage counsel will tell you there are typically four, they are maybe more, but typically it boils down to four hot button issues that cause conflict in a relationship; money, sex, children, communication. Those four, those are the hot buttons.
Lot of conflict revolve around those four issues and not necessarily in that order, but it's that last one "communication" that verse 25 is addressing. Honesty and communication is absolutely fundamental and essential in any relationship that is healthy, most especially in a marriage relationship. Sometimes it's absent in a marriage.
Let me share something that's interesting. Do you realize that most fights happen after marriage, not before? Seldom, where you find it in an engage couple, in a knocked out, drag down kind of a fight, unless you're breaking up.
Now, why is that? Why do most fights happen after marriage? Couple of reasons, reason number one, is everything before you say, "I do," is voluntary, everything after you say "I do," is compulsory. The game is changed. The rules have changed. Just the virtue of the commitment, the covenant, the permanents of it all can sometimes bring out the worst in us. They say marriage brings out the best in a person. Sometimes it brings out the beast in the person.
A second reason is that when couples date, they often act. They're not real. It's like campaigning. That's a good picture isn't it? You're trying to sell schmooze, spin, put your best foot forward to seal the deal to get that person to like you. So, couples will often act like they like things that they really don't. So, he loves country music, she can stand it. He buys tickets to the concert and asks her, "Would you like to go to the concert with me?" And she says, "Love to." She wouldn't say that after they're married. "I hate that stuff." Sorry for calling country music that stuff for some of you I know I just crossed the line.
When we were first married, I invited Lenya to go camping with me when we first moved here, I loved camping. Notice I used that in the past tense. We camped once after that we camped together no more. She wouldn't into it. She did it because she knew I was in to it, but it wasn't a pleasant experience for her. So be honest without lying or as it says here, "Put away lying." I think that includes under the banner of lying, "exaggeration."
Have you ever noticed that we exaggerate when we argue? There are certain words we use and I'm just going to recommend you, put them away from your fighting vocabulary. "Words are always and never." You know what I'm getting at? We say things like, "You never tell me anything!" That's an exaggeration. "You always say that! We never go out anywhere! I told you not to that a million times!" That's exaggeration. It's untrue and it's unhelpful. Those words are untrue and unhelpful.
There's not someone who always does something and it's untrue that someone never does something. When you use words like that, you lower your credibility, because if those are the first words out of your mouth, you never, you always, your mate will tune you out instantly and believe less and less that you have to say and they get very defensive by the way, when that kind of language is used.
Notice what it says at the very of verse 25, it's says, "For," that's giving you a cause now, "For we are members of one another." Now stop right there. You know what makes a Christian marriage different from all of their married couples in the universe?
This truth, "We are members of the family of God." When a Christian husband takes on a Christian wife, he takes on more than a wife. He takes on a daughter of God. A member of the spiritual family which puts a different dimension on the marriage and I would say adds another level of responsibility. Speak the truth with one another. We are members of one another. If that is true generally for all believers it most true for a married couple.
To look at that husband and say, "You are a Son of the Living God." To look at that wife and say, "You are a daughter of the living God." That's a whole new texture to the relationship. So, be honest without lying. That's the first rule of engagement.
Second principle, "Be angry without sinning." Verse 26, a very famous verse, "Be angry and do not sin." Now I read that as a commandment, do you? Be angry and do not sin.
There was a lady, she went to a gun dealer and she said, "I want to guy a gun for my husband." The gun dealer said, "Okay. Great. What model of gun would your husband want?" She said, "I don't know. He doesn't know I'm going to shoot him." Now, the dealer understood what she meant. I want to buy a gun for my husband.
Anger or should I say unresolved anger is one of the most deadly enemies in a relationship. It irritates and it poisons. Proverbs 29 says, "An angry man steers up dissension." What a picture. Dissension is there under the surface, this guy steers it up and a hot tempered one commits many sins.
One author that I read calls anger, "The noise of the soul." It's a good description. The noise of the soul, it's that thing that hangs back in your mind that gets louder and louder and louder to pretty soon it's the only thing you can hear.
Many couples have unresolved anger issues but they don't want to deal with it or they don't identify it. So they'll come and they want to dance around it and they'll talk about this issue and that issue and this problem and that problem and all of those are problems but they really stem from and feed from the one problem of unresolved anger. The noise of the soul is just getting louder and louder and pouring out into all that these different issues in their marriage.
Back to verse 26, again, it sounds like a command, an imperative, "Be angry and do not sin." Scholars will call this a "Permissive imperative," a permissive imperative. It's not like God is saying, "Thus saith the Lord, get ticked off. Blow your stack, yell at somebody."
He's giving permission. He's saying in certain cases, "Anger is permissible, but here's the warning, don't let it lead to sin". That's the idea, because sin always leads to what? Anybody? "Death." Sin always results in death, the Bible says. The sin of anger always results into death of something, death of joy, death of peace, death of friendship, trust. A lot of things decimated by the sin of anger. Be angry, but the warning, don't let it lead you into sin.
Now, I think all of us know when anger gets to the level of sinful anger, we don't need to spell it out, but I'll offer some suggestions. Burst of temper are sinful. Anger that leads to out of control, rage is sinful. Anger that aims to hurt the other person or family members is sinful.
Listen to Proverbs 18:14, Solomon writes, "The Spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness but who can bare a broken spirit?" Interesting, great truth. The spirit of a man will sustain him and sickness but who can bare a broken spirit?
When the spouse become sick, physically ill, most marriages can sustain that. In fact, I would say they prepare for that even in the vows that they say, "For better, for worst. In sickness and in health till death do us part," but the writer says, "But who can bare a broken spirit when the spirit of a mate, when a spirit of a spouse gets crushed, broken." That's unsustainable, it's unbearable.
I'll be confessional with you for a moment, when we were first married and we got married pretty quickly. She lived in Hawaii, I lived on the Coast of California. We married and within a week we moved out here. So, we're adjusting to a new place, a new state, new friends, new job, new everything with each other at the same time, quite an adjustment, very stressful. Newly weds make discoveries about each other and sometimes those discoveries can be pretty interesting and not very easy.
I remember on a couple of occasions where we had some stressful words, escalating words and on one particular occasion. Our voices raised, words were very biting and sharp that crushed both of our spirits in that one fight. It left both of us in tears and when the smoke on that battlefield cleared and we got together again, we made an agreement that we would never, we could never allow an episode like that ever to happen again in our marriage because we saw what it did just that one time. We could never get to that of an escalation. Immediately we put two rules of engagement into place.
Number one, when we got into a spot like that, they would always be a cool down period. We wouldn't try to fix it when we're on high stress. We'd let it cool and we come back to it.
Number two, that we would go to a public place to resolve that. In those early days we would go to a restaurant and here's why, restaurant protocol is different than living room protocol. There are certain things in a restaurant you just won't do or say in a tone that you will not employ in a restaurant that you could if you were alone at home and your apartment, unless, you're just a maniac and out of control.
So those were helpful things to resolve our conflict early on. It prevented outburst. Cool down period, public place until we learn how to deal with our emotions and communicate clearly, openly, and honestly.
I will also say that my wife has shown me over the years, the grace of how to be angry and not sin. She, over the years has simply done this, she'll come up to me and she'll say, "I'm angry, we need to talk." I get the message with a smile, not a whole lot of words used just, "I'm angry we need to talk." That to me is a huge red flag, right? You got to be an idiot to not pick up on that. I'm pretty dumb and I just sort of need that, "I'm angry." "Okay." Very helpful. Be angry without sinning.
Here's the third, be reconciled without waiting. "Be angry and do not sin." Verse 26, "Do not let the sun go down on your wrath," and notice the next verse, "Nor give place." Some translation say, "Opportunity" to the devil." Resolve anger quickly.
Gary Smalley put it this way, "When we bury anger inside of us, it's always buried alive." Anger keeps growing and if you let it grow unresolved, you are giving Satan an opportunity to alienate you and your spouse. Listen, if you give Satan a foothold, he will make it a stronghold. You give him an inch, he'll take a mile, so resolve it quickly. Back to verse 27, look at the word, "place," "Nor give place to the devil." The Greek word is "topos." Think of topography.
It literally means the office of authority in a government place. The office of authority in a government place. So don't let Satan come in and have a place of authority in the government of your marriage and you give him that authority when you erect in alter of anger. When you erect in alter of anger, the devil makes himself the priest of that alter, so deal with it quickly. Many wise couples take this to heart and will not go to sleep at night until they resolve their issues. It's a good practice. We're going to stay up and talk about it. Of course at 3:30 in the morning you'll agree to just about anything. Even losing the argument but that's better than the alternative.
Now just a couple of notes on this, there is a proper time to disagree and whatever time you both agree on is the proper time. There's a proper time to disagree and there's an improper time to disagree. Example, when your husband, ladies, comes to the door after a long day of work or he travelled for a few days and battle fatigue has set in, that's not a good time to resolve disagreement.
Man, if your wives are looking at a stack of dishes, or clothes to be washed, or chores to be done, or demanding screaming children, not a good time. If either of you is highly stressed, those aren't good times. You need to find the right time to talk through these deep issues. So that when the conversation begins to escalate a simple, "Sweetheart, I want to resolve this, now is not that time." Or when the kids are down and they're asleep then we'll talk about these issues.
Now let me add to that, if you make that appointment, you keep that appointment. Guys don't think, "Well, she's not yelling at me now, everything is okay." It's not okay. It's not resolved. It's not fixed. If you make that appointment, keep that appointment. If you don't keep that appointment, more resentment, more anger will be the result. So there's a proper time.
Second, there's a proper place to deal with conflict and the public setting is not that place. Never swing at your mate in public, I mean that both figuratively and literally. Don't drag out dirty laundry. Don't say things that will embarrass your spouse. Let me just add to that little bit of it. Don't bring in the dirty details of your spouse to your family. They don't need to know it. It's not of their business and you will just make the wedge deeper and deeper if you share that. This includes not only public embarrassment but that settle cutting sarcasm, just that little word that little tone, "Sure." That communicates a lot doesn't it?
Years ago, we had a fellow who I meet in the foyer. A ministry leader from a substantial ministry volunteering to work with some of our leaders on the church willing to disciple them and we had a good conversation after a church service and his wife then after our little conversation came up and got just to tail on end of it and I conveyed to her that he was willing to train our leadership. She said something I'll never forget. She said, "He seems to think he can." I just said, "Hey, well, God bless you guys." After bringing those, it's one of those awkward kind of moments, right?
So something is not good. There are battle flags that tell you, "It's time to talk." When he gets really, really quite, it's time to talk. If she gets on the phone and talks, talks and doesn't let you say anything and just hangs up, it's probably time to talk. If little things irritate, one or the other, it's time to talk. If your husband doesn't eat, ladies that's a read flag. It's time to talk. If she bites her nails, if she buys a gun, might be too late but it's time to talk.
Here's the fourth and final rule of engagement. Be open without hurting, a "pause" principally here talking about words that you choose to use. Verse 29, "Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, no profanity, but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clammer and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another just as God in Christ forgave you."
The emphasis here is on the choice of one's words. Remember what James said in that great little of epistle he said, "If anyone is not at fault in what he says, the same as a perfect man, the speech." I read an article by a pharmaceutical manufacturing company that did research on anesthesia drugs that put a patient down under before they have surgery. What words sound like to patients that are heard in the operating room? Things that doctors and nurses shouldn't say like, "I'm going to shoot him now." Meaning over the hypoderm(ph) a needle putting medicine into the IV, but you don't want to say that, "I'm going to shoot him now, when you're going under."
Also, when they said, "Hook him up or hook her up to the monitor." The word "monitor" sounds like "monster" to a drug induced person. One of the worst things the doctor could say before his patient goes under is, "This just is not my day. Thanks doc." As you go under the knife.
Yet, how many times careless words have been said that get under, get into the mind and who wants a choice more solved, body language along with that word. Proverbs 18, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." They can bring life to our marriage or they can kill it.
See, whenever you attack the person rather than the problem, you're creating a bigger problem. You're using hurtful, not helpful words. Words that reject rather than reprove words like, "I wish I never would've married you!" Never should be said. "I wish I never would've met you," or "you're just like your mother." See that's a hot button. Or if he says, "You look horrible in that dress."
If I ever heard a guy say that I want to just say, "Are you like an idiot?" You can say, "I love that other dress you had on." That'll get the message across but not like, "You know, that's just stink and ugly."
Proverbs 12, some said better than I can. "There's one who speaks like the piercings of a sword but the tongue of the wise promotes health." Have you ever heard a word direct to you that cut through you, pierced you deeply? But the tongue of the wise promotes health.
Now tell me if I'm right, when you're having an argument with someone and you feel you have a point that needs to be heard, you raise your voice, you turn up the volume. "You need to hear what I have to say!" Why so loud? Because you feel they need to hear it and they'll hear it if you turn it up to ten. Do you know the opposite is actually true when you lower your voice? You'll be listened to. When you raised it up and you use ugly words, the less you have to say.
Proverbs Chapter 15:1, "A Soft answer turns away wrath, harsh words stir up anger." So, if you have something really important to say, try this, lower your voice. Kind words, tenderhearted and you'll watch it work. You can walk hand-in-hand without seeing eye-to-eye. That's called marriage but you have to be committed to resolve in conflict. The most productive fights are these ground rules employed.
Let me give you a little help. Three monosyllabic words, memorize them. Here it is, "I am wrong." It's not magic, but just watch that work. "You are right." So picture it, he comes home seeding angry, yelling and you say, "You're right." What's he going to do?
It's kind of over at that point, "Oh, well okay then, I'm glad you see in my way. It's not much else you can do with that."
I'll conclude with some anonymous but well-timed words to keep your marriage brimming with love in the loving cup. Whenever you're wrong, admit it and when you're right shut up. Is that helpful?
Let's pray. Lord, you're a God who communicates. You have communicated through the years by Prophets and Scribes, superintending the writings we call, "The Scriptures." You've always been honest, honest about yourself, honest about us, honest about even the heroes with all of their flaws in the Scripture. I pray that you would train us to be honest without lying, without exaggerating, without manipulating. To learn how to channel anger at issues rather than people, to resolve conflict especially involving anger very quickly to defuse it by a soft answer. To be able to be open without using words that hurt but rather words that heal, a soft answer, tenderhearted words, gracious communication. We can help but thank that that's how you are toward us. That's how Jesus was towards so many. In Jesus name, Amen.