A dietician was once addressing a large audience at a convention. The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago.
"Red meat is awful. Soft drinks erode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. Vegetables can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long-term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water.
"But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all have, or will, eat it. Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?"
A 75-year-old man in the front row stood up and said, "Wedding cake."
Welcome to WE-HARMONY.COM. SERIES ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS. Today is WE CAN WORK IT OUT, which you may be questioning. We start out with such idealistic hopes like Beauty and the Beast or Cinderella. We’ve all been programmed to believe in a "Fairy-tale" marriage. You know, Cinderella is beautiful, sweet, and hard-working, and the Prince is handsome, rich, and sensitive. They meet at the ball and the electricity flows and they are perfect for each other. Then he searches to find the girl that he knows will make him complete. He passes over the ugly, over-anxious Stepsisters, and finally he finds Cinderella and they live happily ever after with an SUV, a home in the Burbs and 2.7 kids.
And we say we know that it is a "Fairy-tale", but we kind of believe it. Until we GET married.
Bob Russell said - "Wouldn’t you love to see Cinderella -Part II?
The sequel would show them several months later. Cindy gets up and discovers little specks of toothpaste all over the mirror, hair in the sink, and she says "Gee, my ugly Stepsisters weren’t this bad!" and "I haven’t been to a dance in 6 months, I’m going to call this guy "Appendix" - he takes you out once and that’s it!"
And she goes in and yells at him for being a slob, and he says "C’mon, I’m a Prince" and then he starts thinking about how unsophisticated she is. She doesn’t look good; she’s spent too much time eating "Royal Bon-Bon’s".
Cinderella Part 2 would be suitable for family. It would be rated PG - some violence - no sex or nudity!"
That reality will create stress and unhappiness and in some cases divorce unless you learn how to deal with the conflict that comes.
Some one said, ’There are two things that ought not to be entered into lightly- EMBALMING AND DIVORCE.’
It surprises some Christian couples that they have serious conflict. They love each other, they believe in Jesus, yet THINGS HAVEN’T WORKED OUT THE WAY THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE GOING TO.
As I have been saying -- this series is not just for married people. These things we will talk about today again from the book of Ephesians -- are for any relationship. I’ll use marriage a lot, but apply it however.
Before we go too far, please don’t be afraid to get professional help and counseling at some time in their lives.
Prov. 13:10 - "Pride leads to arguments; be humble, take advice, and become wise." (Living Bible)
In every other area of your life, you get help. If your car breaks down, you don’t just give up on it. You don’t start taking all the parts off and replacing them one by one. You go see and expert. If you are sick, you go to see a doctor even a specialist. Financial -- CPA Legal -- Lawyer
So if you have a marriage problem - GO SEE A PROFESSIONAL CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE COUNSELOR.
The average wedding these days costs $27K. (Which means that my girls have to wait at least three years until the Capital Campaign is over--or it’s Ding Dongs in the church basement).
It’s amazing to me how much people spend on a wedding and never spend anything close to that on a marriage! Denise and I have been -- many times. We are going away to a ranch in June for 5 days of this STUFF to work on it. We require premarital counseling for our weddings here.
Let me remind you here again of the all important Einstein discovery of the 2nd LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. Every system left to itself will deteriorate!
It’s why your house is always a mess -- even if you don’t have kids. It’s why your car is rusting out and falling apart instead of turning itself into a BMW!
Any system left to itself -- including your marriage -- will deteriorate if it is not cared for.
The myth is that everything good in your relationship WILL get better. The truth is everything in your relationship CAN get better.
The good news about conflict is that conflict doesn’t have to divide you: it can deepen you. Actually - conflict is good.
Dr. Neil Warren - (the real E Harmony guy) said, "My years as a psychologist have slowly taught me a difficult-to-believe fact. The amount of conflict in a marriage only determines the speed at which the marriage is moving towards greatness or destruction. If you want to sit still in your marriage, rule out all conflict. If you want your marriage to crash and burn, let the conflict rage, but refuse to learn the skills necessary for managing it. Well-managed conflict is like a stairway that can lead you to higher and higher levels of marital greatness."
A. Anticipate some disagreements.
Jesus says, (John 16:33) "In this world you will have trouble."
There are going to be some troubles even in the best of marriages. A few of you grew up in homes where your parents never disagreed. You know they probably did in private but you never saw it.
You need to understand that that is not the norm. Happily married people usually have disagreements, we certainly do. Disagreements should not devastate you. Conflict will not destroy your marriage if it is handled properly.
I have wonderful Christian parents. I’ve seen them fight. I know they had conflict -- I know they have conflict.
Denise and I have conflict. And it’s usually my fault.
I know you’re waiting for me to share one -- MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.
Anticipate that there are going to be disagreements, and analyze what’s going on. This is just a little advice before I get into Ephesians 4. Be smart enough to analyze what’s going on. You remember really stupid arguments that you’ve had along the way, about taking out the garbage or something, and it’s escalated in this huge thing. Have you ever stopped and like the next day, go back in your mind, and ask "why are we having this argument? Why is this going on?" If you do that, if you’ll analyze it, and if you can do it soon, in the argument, in the conflict, you will realize that there’s probably something deeper going on, underneath. There are some hurt feelings. There’s some wounded pride. There’s some selfishness. Analyze your natural tendencies too. I get myself in trouble with my temper and by being prideful. So, I know to watch out for those times, when I’m feeling really low or not self-confident. I know not to try to deal with major issues on Monday. My tank is half full or maybe a fourth full on Monday, because of going through the weekend. We know not to deal with major conflict issues after 9:00 at night, because we know it’s going to be hard.
Hey, guys, I live with four women. The odds are one of them is not in their happy place at any given moment. The odds are against me. Oh, check the calendar. Here we go - just got to step away and analyze it. That’s all I’m saying, and also analyze which issues are resolvable.
Les and Leslie Parrot talk about the difference between solvable and permanent issues. There are some issues that aren’t going to be solved, and some that are better if we learn to deal with them.
Proverb 19:11 says "A mans wisdom gives him patience. It is to his glory to overlook an offense." Sometimes you just have to let some things go.
But when you get to the point where you’re in a conflict, where you’re having disagreements, where things aren’t going the way you hoped they would, here’s your advice from Ephesians 4:15-16. The first thing that we should do, according to Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:15-16 is to tell the truth.
"Therefore each of you must put off falsehood, and speak truthfully to his neighbor. For we are all members of one body."
Now, this is kind of surprising, isn’t it?
You’re like we’re talking about conflict, and you’re telling me to get in the conflict. That’s what you’re telling me. If I tell the truth, we’re going to get in the conflict. Well, listen here’s the deal. If we’re members of one body and we’re going to help each other, and we’re going to have our relationships work, we need to be able to tell the truth. If you’re covering up your thoughts and your feelings, and you’re burying those issues, they are likely to come up later on in a negative way. If this problem is solvable, then you confront it when necessary.
And you can do that in a kind and gentle way. You can do that in the right way. Two suggestions from the Parrots, who are Christian Marriage counselors, that they call the XYZ Formula. The XYZ tells us that in Situation X, when you do Y then I feel Z.
Just remember that. You might even want to write it down. In Situation X, when you do Y, I feel Z. That’s confronting, that’s telling the truth. But, it’s getting to the issue without criticizing them. I know what you’re saying. Wait a minute Tim. You told us last week that criticism is what got us in the crazy cycle. That’s true, but there’s a way that we can speak the truth in love. If it’s said in love, at the right time, in the right way, it can help you avoid the argument.
It’s like going to the dentist. Every once in a while you need to go to the dentist, right? Theoretically, you need to go to the dentist. And what’s going to happen when you go to the dentist? They’re going to say, "You haven’t been flossing enough." Don’t they always say that? I mean it wouldn’t matter if you’ve been flossing enough; they are going to say it. In my case, when I haven’t been flossing enough, they are going to stick that sharp little metal stick in there and dig stuff out. And then inevitably, the dental assistant is going to say, "Yes, look you’re bleeding Tim." That’s because you haven’t been flossing enough. You got gum problems. I’m like "I’m bleeding because you just poked me with a sharp metal stick. Are you kidding me?"
But the truth of the matter is, I need to go to the dentist every once in a while so that I can be confronted about taking care of my teeth, because when I leave the dentist, I do take better care of my teeth for a couple days. Don’t you? I need that. I need for that to happen. In your marriage, you get sloppy. You need to be able to talk to one another, and in some cases you’ve got some pretty serious things going on.
Here’s what Jesus said "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. Alright, we are supposed to speak the truth. Now don’t think of yourself as the Assistant Holy Spirit, and in charge of convicting your mate every time they screw up. But there are times when you need to practice some tough love in your home, and I want to tell you that right up front. It may lead to some conflict. "Look you’re working too many hours. You’re expecting me to handle everything at home. I’m going to have to put my foot down here; you need to own up to some responsibility. Look, the next time you go on a wild spending spree, I’m not going to pay the bill. I’m canceling the credit cards. Stuff is going to have to go back, and we’re both going to be embarrassed."
One guy said he had his credit card stolen but he didn’t report it, because the thief was spending less than his wife did.
We all have behaviors that need to be confronted. We need to go to the dentist every once and while. So pray for patience, and have a servant’s heart, but don’t be an enabler. A lot of you have come through AA. You’ve come through some of these programs. You understand that enabling personality that people can have. We need to speak the truth in love.
Scott Peck talks about moving from surface relationships to authentic relationships. And he says the only way to get from surface relationships to authentic relationships is to go through the tunnel of chaos. Sometimes you need to actually enter into conflict because of things that are going on.
And how do we do it? Again Ephesians 4:15 if you back up a few versus says, "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ."
Many of you grew up in homes where you were taught not to verbalize your feelings, and you need to get past that. Speak truthfully in love, and this may be where counseling needs to come in.
Now as you enter into this, as you’re having these conflicts, as you’re speaking the truths, the next thing is to control your temper. Ephesians 4: 26 says, "In your anger do not sin."
Best story I read on this, as I was doing research this week was about a woman who attacked her house with a forklift. This is the news report.
Diane Fittipaldi, 2013 Sunset Lane, told Municipal Court Judge Levi Grantham that she had launched the attack as part of a long-standing feud with her husband about housekeeping.
"Oliver is a horrible neat freak," Fittipaldi said, "and he drives me nuts about keeping everything tidy."
After the couple argued about the proper alignment of table place settings, Fittipaldi rented a 3,000-pound, pneumatic tire forklift Tuesday evening and drove it through the front wall of their one-story frame house. According to neighbors who witnessed the incident, she used the machine to smash the dining room table.
"Oliver yelled at me about where his fork was supposed to go," she said, "and I figured I’d fix it with a forklift."
Neighbors said Fittipaldi seemed "wild-eyed" and distraught during the attack and kept screaming "FORK THIS"!" at her husband, who took refuge in the kitchen.
That’s a true story. The moral of that story is never marry a woman who knows how to operate heavy machinery.
Ephesians 4:26 says, in your anger, Paul says, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry and do not give the devil a foothold. Now, notice the two extremes. Don’t just let the issue fester and cover it over. Speak the truth. Speak truthfully to one another, but in your anger do not sin. Anger is not sinful. What you do with the anger is what gives the devil a foothold. There’s a sermon I did in January, if you want to get it.
Proverbs 29:11 says "A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control"
When you loose your temper, you exaggerate the problem and you say stupid things you later regret. Don’t call each other names. Don’t use profanity, or violence, or grabbing or shoving. That’s entirely out of God’s will. Some people say "Well, I have a temper and I explode, but it’s all over in a minute." Well, so is a tornado. Wait until you are calm enough to lower your voice, walk away from it, and come back and be reasonable. In your anger, do not sin.
He goes on to describe what that should look like. Ephesians 4:29: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only that which is helpful for building others up, according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."
We could spend a whole series on that verse, couldn’t we? I mean if anybody’s got that one down, let me know, because I certainly don’t. Unwholesome talk could be anything that devalues or degrades the other person, because there’s the temptation when you get wounded to wound back.
Bill and Lynne Hybels in their book "Fit to be Tied" talk about planning peace talks. After you pray about this problem, you take emotion out of the way. Plan a formal peace conference away from interruptions, away from the children. Begin with affirmation. Don’t begin with the negatives. Say "First, I want to say how much I love you and I appreciate you and how committed I am to this marriage." And be willing to take the blame. "I should have never said what I said. I was selfish and out of line." And then have your peace talk, establishing ground rules.
I put these in your bulletin outline if you want to write them down and fill them in. There might be something you want to recall later on. Put them up on the screen as well.
This list is from Rick Warren the Pastor of Saddleback Community Church in California. There are seven of them; they all start with "C."
He calls this ’HOW TO FIGHT ON THE SEVEN "C’s"
1. Never Compare -- "Why can’t you be like ______?"
2. Never Condemn - those "you" statements - "you always - you never."
Condemning doesn’t work. That’s why I don’t preach in a condemning manner. We don’t change from condemnation. Jesus said, "I didn’t come to CONDEMN the world, I came to save it."
3. Never Command - don’t throw your weight around.
4. Never Challenge - Remember when your parents used to say, "I don’t want to hear a ’peep’ out of you" You instantly wanted to say "peep." Threats - NO - don’t use sex, money, divorce, kids.
5. Never Condescend - ridicule, be insensitive. Bring up past things that you know still hurt. I do this with my voice inflections. "When you throw mud, you lose ground."
6. Never Contradict - Don’t butt in - especially about them.
7. Never Confuse - When you start losing an argument, you bring up an unrelated argument. "What about YOUR MOTHER?"
Then express HURT instead of HOSTILITY. Hurt is a legitimate response.
"I was hurt when I felt ignored," instead of "You made me so mad." Make "I feel" statements - not "you" statements.
John Gottman calls this listening and speaking non-defensively. Here’s some scripture from the Old Testament from the wisest man who ever lived. "The heart of the righteous weighs its answer, but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil."
Guard your body language as well. One study concluded that we obtain seven percent of our communication from the things that we say. Forty-three percent comes from our tone of voice, and fifty percent comes from our body language, our facial expressions, and our gestures. Isn’t that amazing? I forget that all the time. Seven percent is what you say; the rest of it is how you say it.
Proverbs 15:1 says, "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."
Proverbs 12:18 "Reckless words pierce, like a sword, but the tongue of the wise, brings healing."
I don’t know what it is about me that is so insecure that I have to be defensive, but that’s my normal routine. When I start to get in a conflict, all I want to be is defensive. And the problem is I have a 007 tongue--I’m licensed to kill. I’m a professional. I’m good at slicing and dicing people. I don’t even realize it when I do it. I’m like Edward Scissor-tongue sometimes.
This also involves listening, which I’m also pathetic at. So the way to fix this is pretend like you’re going through a drive-thru at a fast food restaurant. You’re going through McDonald’s drive-thru and you know they always repeat your order, because you never know the quality of the intercom system. So the next time you’re having a disagreement, the best thing to do is to start right off and say, "Let me see if I heard what you said. So you feel like I don’t care about you, because I start to drive off before you have both feet in the car. I hear that." All right, that’s the first thing that you do, and you listen. You repeat it back to them.
The most important part of communication is listening, but as Paul finishes up with Ephesians 4:31-32.
"Get rid of all bitterness and rage, and anger, and brawling, and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."
Letting your spouse know in the many little ways that you understand him or her is one of the most powerful tools for healing in your relationship. That’s about apologizing, about complimenting, that’s about letting them know no matter what that you are committed like in Brian’s song. "No matter what, I’m committed to seeing this through" or as Shakespeare said, "Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that sun does move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt that I love." If we could just get to that point, getting through the conflict, it would happen so much better.
One of the saddest news stories I’ve read while I was studying for this was the Pina Colada story. Remember that old song, "If You like Pina Coladas..." This was one that really happened.
A Bosnian couple is getting divorced after finding out they had been secretly talking to each other on the internet and didn’t know it.
Sana Klaric, 27, and husband Adnan, 32, poured out their hearts to each other over their marriage troubles, and both felt they had found their real soul mate.
The couple met on an online chat forum while he was at work and she in an internet cafe, and started chatting under the names Sweetie and Prince of Joy.
They eventually decided to meet up - but there was no happy ending when they realized what had happened.
Now they are both filing for divorce - with each accusing the other of being unfaithful.
Sana said: "I thought I had found the love of my life. The way this Prince of Joy spoke to me, the things he wrote, the tenderness in every expression was something I had never had in my marriage.
"It was amazing, we seemed to be stuck in the same kind of miserable marriages - and how right that turned out to be.
"We arranged to meet outside a shop and both of us would be carrying a single rose so we would know the other.
"When I saw my husband there with the rose and it dawned on me what had happened I was shattered. I felt so betrayed. I was so angry."
Adnan said: "I was so happy to have found a woman who finally understood me. Then it turned out that I hadn’t found anyone new at all.
"To be honest I still find it hard to believe that the person, Sweetie, who wrote such wonderful things to me on the internet, is actually the same woman I married and who has not said a nice word to me for years."
Isn’t that sad? And it’s so illustrative, of what happens in our relationships. If your significant other person, if your spouse, was somebody completely different, you would probably still be attracted to them. If you didn’t know it was who it was, and they were on the internet, they still like pina coladas and taking walking in the rain, and they still like all those same things that you guys got together for in the first place, except this conflict has come along and it has messed you up. And I see so many couples get into the conflict, and they never get passed it. And the relationship goes, and they never get to the point where they can get back to the place, where each other knows that they are committed.
Because the truth of the matter is that if you could work through that, the joy would be so much deeper than if you like pina coladas and walk in the rain. You’ve shared life together. You’ve had kids together. You’ve shared all those things together. It can be beautiful - 24 years later or fifty years later.
Paul said you have to make allowances for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember you are to forgive others in the same way the Lord forgave you.
How did the Lord forgive us?
1 Peter 2:23 Peter says, "When they hurled their insults at Jesus, he did not retaliate. He didn’t return evil for evil. When he suffered, he made no threats. He refused to do the eye for an eye thing."
Instead, he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly and that might be the key - to let these hurts and these pains go. Hand them over to the one who judges justly, and not try to be the judge and jury yourself.
Then he says in 1 Peter 2:21 "To this you were called because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow, in his steps."
We will follow in his steps when we have people hurt us, and injure us, and we have a reaction to them, that is like Christ’s. If you’ve been mistreated, you’ve been hurt, God knows that. You need to entrust yourself, first and foremost to him. Wouldn’t it be strange to read in the scriptures that they spat upon Jesus, and Jesus, spat back at them, and said "You have no right to treat me this way!" That’s not the kind of thing Jesus would do, and it’s not the kind of thing Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. I know you’ve heard it said in Sermon on the Mount, "An eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth, but I tell you, if someone strikes you on the cheek, turn to him the other also." When someone hurts you, you don’t have to hurt them back. You could try to bring them back.
Now, I’ve been challenged a little bit through his whole deal, because I read something from Max Lucado’s book called "A Love Worth Giving" where he looks at love and what it’s all about and he challenges Pastors a little bit. He uses the example of 1 John 1:4:9, where it talks about the fact that John spends three sentences talking about the love of God for us, and one sentence talking about how we need to love others. Lucado says "Pastors are often guilty of coming in and preaching a sermon on how we need to love everybody else without first reminding them how much God loves them." And I think that’s pretty good, because if I could spend three sentences explaining to you how much God loves you and how much he forgave you, and how much he wants you to be his child and to be in relationship with you, then you could be a little more freed up to go out and to spread that love to everyone else. And in your relationship you could take it to the next level.
Doug and Sylvia Whitt were on their honeymoon, and it was late, after the wedding and all this stuff and they went into the room. It was this beautiful room, and it had all the amenities. They realized there was no bed there. They were like "this is kind of strange," but they were really, really just tired. They wanted to go to bed. They were just beat. So they realized that the couch was a pull out, so they thought "Well, I don’t know what the deal is, but let’s go to sleep." So they pulled the couch out, and they slept on one of those hide a bed mattresses that you know you can’t really sleep on - certainly not two people. And they had a horrible night. The next morning he called the manager and he’s like "What is the deal with this room? I thought I got a nice room. What’s the deal with this room? There’s no bed in here."
The manager said "Sir, did you open the door?" And he went over to the side door that they thought was one of those connector doors to another room, and he opened it up. Inside of there was the beautiful master bedroom suite with a fruit basket and chocolates waiting for them and a beautiful king-size bed that they could have slept in.
And when I read that story, I thought you know what, that’s exactly where a lot of us are at. Maybe you walked in here today, and you are sleeping on the couch. You are sleeping on the hide a bed and things are uncomfortable. Things are not good. If you could commit yourself to loving like Jesus, if you could understand how much God loves you, then you could work through that in your marriage and you could get to a better place. Where you could see the king size bed and you could have that kind of relationship.
This is why we have communion every week here. Is so that we can remind you how much you are loved. So that we can remind you how much God loves you. So that you can then go in and forgive as Christ forgave you, so that you could go in and love and learn to love as Christ loved you.
