Speaker 1: 0:13

Today we're going to continue our series called For Better or Worse. It's about relationships, not just marriages all relationships. And today I have a good friend coming in. His name is John Scott. He's from Himmet, california. My grandparents actually moved there Back in the 80s. It was the retirement capital of the world at that time and so it was like all the grandparents were there and I got to meet as a young boy he's going to tell you I was bigger, but I actually was this size one time Got to meet John and he's become a mentor Him and his wife Michelle. I get to visit them regularly and they are such beautiful pastors and carers of people and guess what they have in their life? Conflict just like we all do. So they're going to share some of that wisdom today, specifically through John. So would you please give John Scott a warm welcome.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Thank you very much. Oh man, it's so good to be here. How's everybody doing Good? Can you just give it up for your band for a second? Let them know how much you appreciate them. That was phenomenal. That was phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Finished this little thing with me. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but that's a big fat lie, like liar liar pants on fire kind of lie. That's what. That is right.

Speaker 2: 1:29

How many of you have ever show of hands? How many of you have ever said something in anger to your spouse, to a family member, a parent, a child? How many of you have said anything in anger to somebody that you knew as soon as it came out? It came out wrong. Anybody, yeah. So the statistic on that is 95%. 95% of the people have said something that they knew hurt somebody else in their family. The other 5% are completely oblivious to how stupid they are. All right, so if you raise your hand, at least you know what's going on, right? So here's the deal I think for many of us we find ourselves in, especially in relationship, and you guys are in a great series right now, for better or for worse. And I'll just add to this, if you missed one of the last two weeks. Pastor Ken and Pastor Jeff did a great job of talking about this stuff and marriage, and so we're kind of on the for the worst part this weekend talking about conflict. How do we walk through that? How do we talk through that? What does that look like for us? Right? Let me start it out this way.

Speaker 2: 2:34

I have scars on my body from different things. I've got some scars on my arm. I got 11 stitches. One time I was I was mountain biking and it's not even a cool story, no like I was jumping over this ravine and I you know nothing. I was literally going like three miles an hour. I was climbing up a hill. It was particularly what we call a rock garden. It was bumpy, it's technical. There's a cliff kind of on my right and I know if I fall that way, I'm going to be falling for a while, and on the left there's just a hill right there, and so I got the spot.

Speaker 2: 3:06

I'm like I know I'm not going to finish this pedal, I'm stuck. So I immediately split. Second decision just lean to the left, lean to the hill, don't lean to the cliff. That's smart right. And so when I leaned over, I impaled my arm on a broken branch. It went up into my arm and I pulled it out. I'm not going to make the sound I pulled it out. Wait, the sound was kind of cool. Anyway, I pulled it out.

Speaker 2: 3:28

I'm like an hour from my house. I had to ride all the way back home and I washed it out in the sink and when I could see my tendons I thought I might need stitches. So I went to the ER, got to the ER and as soon as the doctor came in the room I said doc, I need at least eight stitches. He's like what? Well, I had a buddy a couple of weeks ago wrecked. He got seven stitches, I went eight and I'm kind of competitive, right, so he goes, no problem, I wind up with 11.

Speaker 2: 3:57

But here's the truth. Like I don't even feel it, if I look for it, I can see it, but it doesn't hurt, it doesn't bother me. But I have wounds on my heart from things that people have said. I have scars that I carry on my soul because of what people have said, and sometimes it's in the heat of the battle, you know, with a friend, with a coworker, with somebody in the family, whatever it is. But man, sometimes when somebody says that that wound cuts deep and it remains. It doesn't necessarily heal, and maybe you don't think about it every day, maybe it happened 23 years ago, but it doesn't take much for the emotion to return, for the pain to return, because it's all of a sudden fresh again, and so what we say to each other and how we say it is a big deal, and I've gotten a lot of help from the book of Proverbs.

Speaker 2: 4:57

I love the word of God and there's 66 books. One of my favorite books in the word of God is the book of Proverbs and for those of you who may be ADHD, I highly recommend it. In Proverbs because, like one line is all you need, like, oh, that was good. I can't read two in a row. I can't do that, don't worry about it. Just one is good. It's like it's a bunch of one liners. It's like it's like the Bible for Twitter, so it's just like little one liner things. Sometimes this one and this one, they don't even go together. It's just like that's a great thought, that's a good thought, you know. But they're totally different. They deal with finances and money management. They deal with just like life stuff like work, ethic and success, but there's a ton about relationships. There's a ton about how we deal with the people who we love and care about in our life, and there's a couple of verses right away I just want to give you from Proverbs that I love.

Speaker 2: 5:45

Listen to this Proverbs 12, 16. A fool is quick-tempered, but a wise person stays calm when insulted. In fact, when you read Proverbs, you're going to see like there's this. Always this kind of dichotomy is like the wise person does this, the foolish person does this. Here's another one Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut and you will stay out of trouble. Some of you, that's all you needed. You were dismissed. Go get some coffee, get out of here, right, just keep your mouth shut and you'll stay out of trouble. I've needed that one most of my life. When I was a little kid, my grandma would say to me Johnny, put your mind in gear before you put your mouth in motion. Why would she say that? Because I got into trouble with what I said so often. If I would have just kept my mouth shut, I wouldn't have been in trouble.

Speaker 2: 6:38

Now I understand this is a marriage series, but I also want to understand. Not all of you are married and so I don't want to just keep it so tight that some of you feel like you could just check out. I want you to think a while. We're talking today in regard to your family, extended family, coworkers, friends, classmates. There's all kinds of relationships that we're going to talk about that will be affected by what we talk about. So, if you're married, though, I want you to just focus like a laser beam on you and your spouse as we talk about this stuff. Now, what I want to give you first are a handful of things, not an exhaustive list, but I'm going to give you five things. These are things, the kind of people that maybe you interact with and again, hopefully it's not a spouse, but you might see these in other people. Now I am going to ask that there's no pointing during this next section. There's no elbows, there's nothing like right, none of that right, but here's the five things.

Speaker 2: 7:32

First one is the manipulator. You might encounter a manipulator in your life. This is the person who always have to have their own way. They operate by guilt trips, by manipulator. Whatever they have to do to get the way, they're going to do that, and they, kind of like the puppet master, orchestrate everything to go as they want it.

Speaker 2: 7:52

Then there's the liar. This one's kind of obvious. These people are not burdened with the truth. In fact, the truth typically doesn't put them in the best light, and so they don't always tell the truth. In fact, they'll make up stories to make them look better, even though it has nothing to do with the truth. They'll look you in the eye and lie to you, and it doesn't really bother them, they don't even think about it. That's just who they are.

Speaker 2: 8:18

You might have to deal with a complainer. These are the people who nothing is ever good enough for. These are the people who go through life mumbling, grumbling, just they can't ever get happy, and so they think it's everybody else's fault. And there's the easily offended. You know, maybe what comes to mind right away might be like just some extended family member. You see them everything's giving every Christmas, whatever it is, and as soon as they walk in, everybody's like walking on eggshells. Maybe you have that person at work. You're just so sensitive. And what about the insulter? This is the person. It's ironic because they come across as though they're on top of the world and they're looking down at everyone, but the reality is their self-esteem. Their self-image is so low. The only way they think it's like a teeter-totter, the only way they think they can make themselves look better is if they can put somebody else down. Then they feel better about themselves. And so they just insult people and it might be your spouse, and it might be somebody in your family, it might be somebody at work, like. These are the kind of people that we like.

Speaker 2: 9:23

I said it's not an exhaustive list, but I've got a question for you and you're probably not gonna like this question, but we need to ask it which one are you? I don't mean like this as you all the time. I'll give you some grace. I'll just say on your bad day, which one is your default? Which one do you feel like you know what? That's probably me sometimes, even though you don't want to admit it, because part of being able to communicate when the pressure is higher is understanding my failures. I need to understand me in order to communicate better and to walk through some stuff with other people. So I've got to be able to do that, and one of the things I think we need to do is we need to ask that question Like which one am I? When I look at this list. Once we figure this out, it might help us. Now.

Speaker 2: 10:09

Some of you may be old enough to remember this book. How many of you I'm curious show of hands. How many of you remember the book how to win friends and influence people? Can you remember that was a classic? It was a good book. I read that years ago. It was a good book.

Speaker 2: 10:21

But I've been thinking like, how do I win friends but more, how do I influence, like my family, my spouse? You know, for better or for worse, this person I've committed my life to. Like, how do I make the best of this, even when we're not on the same page, even when it feels like we're at odds? Like how do we get back to this place that we want to be? So I'm going to give you a handful of things to think about today. The first one is this we want to be able to bless others generously.

Speaker 2: 10:50

Generously, when you follow the teachings of Jesus, you're going to see Him talk about this kind of thing a lot, and what he doesn't say is bless the people who are nice to you. He literally says it over and over. When people aren't nice to you, that's when you really need to be blessing people and Peter, who walked with Jesus for three years, who saw Him teach. They walked together, they ate together, they laughed together, they hung out together. He saw Jesus in action in all kinds of scenarios. He comes back in his letter in first Peter, in verse or chapter three, verse nine, and he says this don't repay evil for evil. Don't retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with what's the word Blessing. That is what God has called you to do and he will grant you His blessing. I love that part. I mean it was enough already before we got to the last verse, the last sentence, and then he says but when you do this, when instead of retaliating, instead of adding insult to insult, when you bless it, then God is actually gonna add a blessing to your life. There is value here. We gotta pick this up.

Speaker 2: 11:57

My mom was like this. My mom has been with the Lord now for almost five years, but she was the kind of person that people talked about being a blessing in their life. It was not uncommon for me because the last probably 10 plus years of their life they were living in my town. They were going to our church and I would have people come to our church and I would meet them for the first time hey, how did you find our church? And they would say your mom, your mom talked to us in a restaurant and what my mom would a lot of times do she would see a family. Now I don't know if you parents have already realized this a public restaurant might be the worst place ever to take your kids. You know what I'm talking about. Like they're arguing fight, no, I want this, no, I want that. And you're just like embarrassed, like you know the whole restaurant's watching you and my mom would see a scenario like that and she would walk up and she wouldn't give them that older person look down on you, kind of you need to take care of your kids. You know she would walk up and she goes hey, parents, hang in there, you guys are doing a great job. And then she just let that sit there and then let them kind of go. I was expecting a completely different conversation from this older lady who we walked up to, that sinks in and then she would say and you know what, I don't know if you have a church home, but a church loves kids. I have a great ministry. Your kids would get so much out of it, and, in fact, your kids are in one building and you get to be in another building. Doesn't that sound good right now, you know? So they would come to our church. Why? Because my mom blessed them. They didn't deserve it, maybe they were having a horrible day, but she brought a blessing to that situation, and it made a difference.

Speaker 2: 13:35

Now, when Jesus talks about the stuff, this is literally how he says it. Luke 6, verse 28 says bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. A couple of verses later, in 31, he says do to others as you would like them to do to you. Now, he doesn't say that the way we think it's like. It's a misinterpretation, a mistranslation. It should have said treat people the way they have treated you, because that's the way to operate. That's not what Jesus said. He said treat them the way you wish they would treat you the way you would like them. We call this the golden rule, and then so Jesus is setting a new standard for us.

Speaker 2: 14:19

What we do, though, is we say in this next conversation, let's say again marriage in this conversation, because the last time we had a conversation, it got heated. You hurt me. So this time my only goal is to bring as much pain into your life as you brought into mind in the last conversation. That's what we do to the people we love. Like I wanna insult you, I wanna bring pain because you're not a person. You hurt me last time. This time I get to hurt you. That's my agenda. That's not what Jesus said, but that's how we do it. So the encouragement is to bless others generously. I would just say it this way it's not about getting even. It's gotta be about getting it right. If we're gonna have a conversation with someone we love and we're trying to repair things, it can't be about getting even, because then we're just gonna go back and forth and back and forth. It's gotta be about getting it right. So we're gonna be blessing others generously.

Speaker 2: 15:16

Another thing is this resolve things quickly. Resolve things quickly when there's a problem. We need to deal with this right away and I know it takes too to argue, it takes too to reconcile, but I am responsible for me in the way I deal with this. Listen to this in Romans 12, 18. He says do all that you can. Everybody say you can. You can Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. Okay, I'm gonna read it again when we get to you. Can you say Thank you. One person understands what we're trying to do here. All right, do all that to live in peace with everyone. Say again here it is this may be my spouse, but I can't make them. I can't change their heart. I can't. But I am responsible for me. Another translation says it this way as far as it depends on you, live in peace with everyone. I gotta deal with me Now. If I want the pain to linger, if I want that, then just go about doing it the way you've been doing it. But if you want some better results, then let's just start with resolving things quickly. Now we have ways of coping, but they're not necessarily resolving things. One would just be called sweeping it under the rug. I don't know if you're familiar with this style I think most people are whether they understand that's what's going on or not.

Speaker 2: 16:49

So I'm going to give you a made up story. I want you to know what's made up Because, like Larry, who I absolutely love, didn't call me and say by the way, this has been going on with one of the families in my church. Could you address this? He didn't do that. This is a completely made up story. All right. In fact, we have an app in our church for phones and on that app we can access people's cameras and audio and we can listen to their home conversations. And that's how I get. That's a joke. It's not true. We don't do that. This is a completely made up story. Okay, it's not about my wife and I. It's like this is completely made up, but I've heard similar things through the year.

Speaker 2: 17:26

So here we go you have a date night coming up. As a married couple, you'd love to have a date night every week. That was kind of the goal originally, but then you have kids and there's other things, and there's work and there's life, and so sometimes it's once a month, sometimes it's twice a month, but you know, you got another one coming up. You set it aside. Okay, we got this.

Speaker 2: 17:44

And your spouse says to you something like this hey, where do you want to go? What do you want to do? And you're like whatever. Which, first of all, wasn't totally accurate, because even though you have the same go-to restaurant, you typically go to every date night and you like that place. There's a new restaurant and telling your friends have been telling you about that. But when your spouse said, what do you want to do, you said whatever. You didn't say I would like to go to that new restaurant. You did not say that. And then the moment is gone and you realized you blew it.

Speaker 2: 18:14

And so now for the next two and a half days, you just drop hints. Ladies, let me just let you in on a secret. Guys, don't have hint radar. We don't know. It's like you think it's obvious. Boom, I heard that new restaurant is pretty amazing and they're just like. I know where we're going. She said whatever, we're going to go to the same restaurant. Here's another hint. Here's another hint. Nothing happens. In fact, you get in the car and it's date night and you start driving and you realize he's going to that same old place. I thought some of these hints were like quality hints. He did not pick up. Now you're frustrated, but it's like but it's date night, we're going to have a good night. So you just sweep it under the road and you have a good night.

Speaker 2: 19:00

Next day you're both getting ready for the day. You're in the bathroom, you're getting ready to brush your teeth and you grab the tube. Now, by the way, side issue. Just because this is a marriage series, I'm just going to save some marriages before we move on. All right, each of you should be able to get a good night. Each of you should have your own tube of toothpaste Picking up what I'm throwing down, like some people are like I don't care if the cap's back, I don't need to be able to cap, better be on it and I squeeze it wherever I want. You have to squeeze from the back and you have to roll it very carefully. It's like just get your own tube, marriage is saved, you're welcome, all right.

Speaker 2: 19:39

So this couple, poor couple. They have one tube and so you go to grab the tube of toothpaste the next day because date night was last night. You went to the wrong restaurant but he didn't know that. So now you grab the tube and it's empty and you lose it. Like how is the toothpaste gone? In fact, why am I the only one that ever cares about the tube of toothpaste? And when it gets low, I get. How come you never get it? In fact? Here's the truth. I'm like if there was no toothpaste in the world, can you imagine the tooth decay and the bad breath? And if that happened, it all be your fault. Wait, is this about toothpaste? No, it's not Now, if they would have had two tubes, it wouldn't have even happened. That's another thing. But no, it blew up because we just put it under the rug. We didn't literally resolve it quickly, we just put it under the rug.

Speaker 2: 20:33

Listen to Ephesians, chapter four, verse 26. He says and do not sin by letting anger control you. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives the devil a foothold, or foothold of the devil. We talk about this in regard to marriage, even though the verse applies to all kinds of relationships. We usually say it this way don't go to bed angry. That's not just good advice, it's biblical advice. And don't just sweep it under the rug. Resolve it, figure this out like, have that conversation and work through it. Resolve things quickly.

Speaker 2: 21:15

In fact, I love chapter four because if you look at the whole thing here, he's saying now, those of us who are in Christ, we're going to look at life differently. It gives tons of examples. Instead of lying, I want you to tell the truth. Instead of stealing, I want you to work hard with your hands so you have something to share. I don't want you to hang on to the bitterness. I want you to forgive. I don't want you to hang on to your anger. I want you to get rid of that. So he's going through. This is what it's like now to be a follower of Christ, and this is one of the things that man dealing with our anger appropriately but quickly, and getting rid of it. This is such an important thing for any married couple. But where I really want to camp out is this thing Choose your words carefully when you have to have the discussion, when things are breaking apart, when you are at odds, you're not on the same page and you have to have a discussion.

Speaker 2: 22:02

Choose your words carefully, and James gives us all kinds of wisdom for this. Listen to this verse, verse 19. You must all be quick to listen. Everybody say quick to listen. Slow to speak. Everybody say that. And slow to get what? Angry. Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry. In fact, I think I was a little kid and somebody I first heard this. They said this is why God gave you two ears in one mouth. Quick to listen, slow to speak. And I think part of this whole lesson for us, we could spend weeks just on these three things. But he says quick to listen.

Speaker 2: 22:42

He starts there and I think part of the value especially the thing about marriage, any relationship, for this matter, but any intense, important conversation if we're quick to listen, we know more about what's making the other person tick. We can maybe put ourselves in their shoes a little better. So if we're listening, we also know how to approach this, because we've been paying attention. Now, typically, when we get into a conversation and things are heated, we're just waiting for their mouth to stop moving. Now it's my turn. That's not listening, and maybe if we'd listened we could pick up on something that would really help the situation. He then skipped it and he says slow to get angry.

Speaker 2: 23:23

Any of you parents, let me see your hands All right, so maybe you might remember the timeout method, which has way less to do with your kid and way more to do with you. Did you know that, like, you need to go to your room so that I don't throw you out the window, right? So just go to your room and then we count. We count to 10. That's what we're told you feel like, because in anger you can say some really hurtful things. You know that, so I'm going to count. Sometimes 10 doesn't get it. Have you noticed that? Just keep going 20, 21, 30, 100, 150, 300, 700, and just keep counting until you can actually have the conversation. Just keep counting. We can't go into it angry. But then he says slow to speak. And the way I would like us to think of this is just choose our words carefully, because our words have weight.

Speaker 2: 24:16

There's a book called how to have the Difficult, like that difficult conversation, and I highly recommend this book. It's by some pretty famous authors Henry Cloud and John Townsend. I came across this book in studying for this and I love the book. And he gave examples for marriage. He gave examples for parents and kids. He gave examples for workplace, when you have to have that difficult, like confrontive kind of a conversation. But they gave this quote about confronting that I actually liked. He says this the Latin word for confront means just that to turn your face towards something or towards someone.

Speaker 2: 24:54

Think of it this way when I've got to confront my spouse, when I've got to confront my friend, when I've got to confront someone, I'm saying I care enough about you. I'm looking at this head on. I'm looking at this with you. I'm going to confront this situation. I'm looking at you, I care about you, I care about us, I care about what's going on, and so this is all like important stuff, and you're important to me. So, in order to do this, I've got to choose the right plan and formula. I'm going to give you a formula that they gave in the book, but before I do that, let me just say this you've got to have the right time too.

Speaker 2: 25:35

There's a right time to have a good conversation. There are horrible times to have a good conversation. It's not going to work right. So, like in our family, my wife and I I usually go to sleep first and basically we pray together every night. That's one of our commitments. We pray together every night, and she's usually having to hurry to get into bed, because when I'm in bed, I'm going to be asleep real quick, and so it's like if it's my turn to pray, you better get in here because I'm done right. So could you just imagine that I'm laying down?

Speaker 2: 26:07

Slauber has already started, krusty's already kind of beginning to pile up, and then she says oh, by the way, we really need to talk about something. I'm not going to say oh, okay, let's talk. That's not going to happen. That's a horrible time to have an important conversation like find the right time where you can have the best results. But let me give you another thing. Can I have some chairs? I mean, we got to come. I'm going to show you something.

Speaker 2: 26:33

I think this will be super helpful if I can just illustrate it this way. All right, all right, we're going to go way over here. All right, here we go. I'm going to pull them just a little bit, all right.

Speaker 2: 26:44

So, by the way, ladies, this is how you talk To other lady. I know I'm completely stereotyping, just deal with it. All right, this is how ladies talk. Oh, I love what you did with your hair. It makes your eyes just glow and, in fact, the way that your jawbones look. Now I feel like I just know you even better. All right, this is how ladies talk. Guys do not talk like this. Do you know why? Because we think you're looking into our soul. No, this is how guys talk. Did you get a haircut? Yep, and, by the way, that was super deep right there. They just connected on a level you don't even understand, ladies.

Speaker 2: 27:30

So let me suggest something to you If you need to have a difficult conversation. Do not grab him and say let's hold hands and let our knees touch, because that's just going to freak him out. All right, just go ahead, sit on the couch together, maybe best. Yet I always like Michelle and I, we have some of our best talks in the car, and even she can bring up difficult things in the car. It's just way better One. I can't throw things at her. I need to pay attention on the road, right, but no, like we're just, we're connecting, we're right here. I don't.

Speaker 2: 28:05

I don't have to like look into her eyes to know that she cares about me or whatever, but you know what, guys, she needs. That Is your wife ever said this to you? Are you even listening to me? Now? Why is it? That's the only part of the conversation I heard, right? No, but why the reason? She says that she follows it up? Because because you're not looking at me. You know, maybe there's a game on, maybe your phone's out. She has every reason to believe you're not listening because you're not looking. She needs you to look her in the eye. So, as much as the guy talks like this and he's good with this, because you're not peering into his soul, it's like this. This works for him.

Speaker 2: 28:50

Guys, it is important, if you care about your wife, to look her in the eyes, and so maybe, maybe, I'm pretty sure you compromise, right, right, so you can look at her, but it's she's not able to still see in your soul, okay, so just work on that. So I give you this background, just so you know this. Right, this is important. Everybody's different. Not all guys are the same. Not all ladies are the same. When you're married this is part of the deal. You have to figure them out. And how do you communicate with this person? Sometimes that's going to take some time, but as you learn it, because you care about each other, you're going to work on this. And here's the formula that they recommend in the book and this is the formula I'm going to give you.

Speaker 2: 29:29

When you have to have that difficult conversation, when conflict is in the midst, it's like you're you're going through it. How do you talk about the hard stuff? Here's the formula. When you blank, I feel blank, okay. When you make fun of me, when we're with our friends, I feel small, unloved, like you don't care about me. Now, honestly, if we care about our spouse and they tell that to us, I'm heartbroken, because I don't want her to feel like that. I didn't know that's how she felt. I was just having fun and I thought it was pretty funny and everybody was laughing. But she says when you make fun of me in front of our friends, I feel this way. That's a great way to dive into some deeper stuff. But just know this confrontation is hard. It's hard for the person receiving it too.

Speaker 2: 30:31

Listen to this quote from that same book. It's a remember that even though confronting is hard, so is receiving a confrontation. Therefore, allow the other person the grace to have their own responses to your opinions. I think we can work toward the right conclusion when we have the right plan, the right formula. But then also we need to make sure that this is going on, that we bring the temperature down, and by temperature I mean volume. You know again, when we're angry we say really hurtful things and if we will just take a breath and bring the volume back down, it's hard for the other person to stay at that level. We can bring the entire thing down just by the way we deal with it. In fact, this is what it says in the Bible, proverbs 15,. He says A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make temperatures flare. So if I can, if I can bring the temperature down, it might help the other person bring the temperature down. If I meet them where they're at and take it up a notch so they can hear me what's going to happen. They're going to go back up, bring the temperature down. This is such a key, especially with somebody that we care about and we love, but we love them so much. It's like all the raw emotion is right there and in an instant we can say the things that hurt the person that we love the most. We can hurt them.

Speaker 2: 32:06

I once walked into a conversation. This is 25 to 30 years ago. This was the staff member of our church. Somebody had given me an air full about something they had done and I went to their house. I knocked on the door. He opens the door and I said how could you do this? Like, don't you even understand what this looks like for our church and how people then view our staff? Eventually, you're like how are they going to view me? Like, look, what's going on here? I came in hot and he said to me would you like to hear my side of the story?

Speaker 2: 32:41

Ever since that moment I realized the value of bringing the temperature down. I also realized that I should have asked him first his side before I drew my conclusions. And how often do we do that, even in our marriage? We come in hot. Without having been quick to listen, first, we got to bring that temperature down and then we also got to deal with one item at a time.

Speaker 2: 33:07

One guy is talking to his buddy at work one day he goes man, last time my wife got all historical on me. He goes. You mean hysterical, he goes. No, I mean historical. She reminded me of everything I've ever done. Right, yeah, back in 1986, remember that night? This is what happened in 2003.

Speaker 2: 33:27

Well, let me get back. 1994 was the worst. And then, yeah, that doesn't help anybody If you want to deal with one thing at a time. And what happens a lot of times is you say, when you made fun of me with our friends, I felt unloved and I said, well, yeah, but when you do this again, I'm going to bring the temperature down. You know what? You're right. I'd really love to talk about that, but can we just talk about this one first and then we'll talk about that one? I deal with with one thing at a time.

Speaker 2: 34:03

Proverbs 10 19 says too much talk leads to sin. Be sensible and keep your mouth shut. There's no end to verses that tell us we should just stop talking, because we just make it worse. I got one more from Proverbs Proverbs 16 7. But let me set it up this way the book of Proverbs is called the book is called the book of Proverbs, not the book of promises. These are not guarantees. They're just saying like, when wise people do wise things, it generally turns out in a good way. When foolish people do foolish things, it usually turns out a bad thing. But when fools sometimes get super lucky, great things happen. And sometimes wise people, christian people, god loving people, they still get cancer. Hey, you picking this up. It's proverbs, not promises. So listen to this proverb Proverbs 16, 7.

Speaker 2: 35:00

When people's lives, please the Lord, even their enemies, are at peace with them. It is possible that you treat people at work or in your own family or are hard to get along with neighbors. You treat them in a kind way and eventually they just like you know what. You're not so bad. That's not always the case. It wasn't true for Jesus. They still crucified him. It wasn't true for his disciples, he says they're going to hate me, they're going to hate you, but there's something about this. I don't want you to just gloss over it, especially when it comes to your marriage. Maybe you're just having a rough time right now. Be the person who brings peace. You are responsible for you. Bring peace into that situation and you know what. They might just they might just catch on. They might not. It's not a, it's not a guarantee, but at times, even our spouse might be our enemy just because of what you're going through. But it's the way that you treat them might be the thing that draws them back. It might be that thing.

Speaker 2: 36:09

Some of you wonder are you going to ever drink your tea? Maybe I will Now. I brought this out here for a reason. It wasn't because I needed some tea Now. To be honest, I don't like coffee. When I grow up, I'm going to. That's my plan, but it still hasn't happened yet, and I'm 60. So I don't. I don't have high hopes for that, but I do like tea. But this is how you do tea you let the tea bag stay, remain.

Speaker 2: 36:40

And in John, chapter 15, jesus says this. He says if you remain in me, if you abide in me now. Don't miss this. Some people are dippers. They get their tea bag on. I'm going to have some tea, I'm going to have some tea, I'm going to have some tea, I'm going to have some tea. And people do the same thing with Jesus. You know, lately things haven't been going very well. Maybe we should go to church this weekend. Boom, you know what? I've been looking at some stuff on Instagram. I shouldn't look. I'm going to look at a Bible reel. Boom, oh, very good, good for you, woo, you're over the top now. And then we have another idea. Maybe we get out of our Bible one month. We read it.

Speaker 2: 37:18

Jesus says the way I'm going to have an impact on your life is if you'll remain to me. And here's the beauty of this. This relationship, our relationship with Jesus, is the very thing that's going to impact your marriage the most. The relationship we have with Christ is the very thing that's going to impact your family and your coworkers and your classmates and your neighbors. This relationship is going to impact all these other relationships more than you could ever know, and so what I want to do today, as we close, is I want you to think about your relationship with Him.

Speaker 2: 37:53

Maybe this is old hat to you. You've been walking with Jesus for a long, long time. If that's the case, you should be kinder, more peaceful, more loving, more gracious than anybody else around you. It's one of my pet peeves Older people people who've been walking with Jesus for 50 years should be the kindest, most loving people on the planet, and sometimes they're just as crabby as all the other old people. Maybe for 50 years they've just been doing this, and we need to spend our time with Jesus so that he impacts our heart, so we can pass that on to the people, especially the people that we love the most in our marriage. If you would just put your hands out like this for a second and I want you to picture not the physical scars that you got by stupid mountain biking accidents I want you to think about the wounds of what someone said to you. Maybe it was the way your parents treated you.

Speaker 2: 39:12

Whatever it is, that stuff, we carry it with us into our next relationship. We carry it with us when we talk to our family, when we go to our partner for life this person we married. We stood before God and said, for better, for worse. We take the stuff with us into that relationship. When we remain with Jesus, you know what we get to do. We get to dump the stuff off, so just turn your hands over.

Speaker 2: 39:39

He says come to me. Are you a weary burden? And I will give you rest. Come to me. So let's take this stuff to Jesus. Let me pray for you, father. Thank you that you love us enough to take the junk that we've been carrying around and let us unload it. And my prayer right now, in this moment, is that you'll be with every marriage in this room, that you will infuse your grace and your love and your patience and your kindness, all the fruits of your spirit, that you would place that in our hands. We got rid of the garbage, god, just fill us up now with what you want us to have, that you would be honored through our life and the people around us would truly be blessed. In the name of Jesus, we pray Amen, amen.