03 - What You Say And How You Say It 2011

ILLUS: The speaker at a woman's club was lecturing on marriage and asked the audience how many of them wanted to "mother" their husbands. One member in the back row raised her hand.

"You do want to mother your husband?" the speaker asked.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman responded. "I thought you said smother."

Even in church-going, Christian homes there is yelling, nastiness, tension, and sometimes even violence.

This is not God's intention for your home.

God wants your home to have joy.

LISTEN!

Joy in the Home will change you.

Joy in the Home will change your spouse.

Joy in the Home will change your children.

This is not a "how to get those rotten people you live with to behave better" series.

This is God's plan for your home as revealed in the Word of God.

Last time we saw that communication breakdown is the number one destructive culprit in the home.

If we don’t learn good communication skills, we can come to the place of either divorce, or living under the same roof in our own private cold war.

What is a marital cold war?

It is two people that once said, “I do” becoming roommates that share the same bills, eat at the same table, raise the same children, without sharing life together.

So recapping from last time: What is genuine communication?

Communication is the SHARING OF MEANING.

Genuine, successful communication happens when I understand what you MEANT TO SAY.

When the sender of a message is understood by the receiver of the message—successful communication has taken place.

Real, authentic, effective communication requires two crucial things:

LISTENING TO UNDERSTAND, AND

SPEAKING TO BE UNDERSTOOD.

Last time we dealt with the Listening to Understand part of James 1:19:

“Be quick to hear…”

This time we’re going to look at the 2nd part—speaking to be understood.

“Be slow to speak…”

First, let’s talk about:

The Power that lies in the words we speak

When two psychologists studied newlyweds over the first decade of marriage, they discovered that couples who stayed together uttered 5 or fewer put-downs in every 100 comments to each other. But couples who inflicted twice as many verbal wounds -- 10 or more putdowns out of every 100 comments -- later split up.

The Bible is filled with statements about the power of the words we choose to use.

As I read some of these passages, place them in the context of your home life:

Prov. 18:21 “The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.”

We all remember the playground philosophy we’ve all spoken at least once: "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.”

And even while we were saying it, we knew it wasn’t true.

Words uniquely hurt us almost worse than actually being physically hit.

Words have the ability to make or break a child, a marriage, a working relationship.

What we say to members of our household can kill or bring life.

Can discourage or encourage.

Can destroy their self esteem or build them up.

Can grieve the Spirit of God out of our home or invite Him in.

The Bible says, “A word fitly spoken and in due season is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” (25:11)

TESTIMONY: I can think of a handful of people early on in my life who were sent by God to speak encouraging, up-building, visionary words over me when I had zero confidence in myself.

They were words that became like silver in my pocket.

They helped me believe in the God in me, and His call on my life.

Even when I failed (which was often enough) they would come back with life-giving, confidence inspiring, forgiving, and vision igniting words.

I treasure those people to this day above all others.

FACT: The home should be the primary place that these kinds of encouraging, uplifting, confidence building, affirming words are spoken.

The Bible teaches that words and how we use them will produce either bad or good far-reaching consequences.

Proverbs 6:2 says, “You are snared with the words of your mouth, you are taken with the words of your mouth.”

Proverbs 12:13 says, “An evil man is trapped by his sinful talk, but a righteous man escapes trouble.”

AND THEN ONE OF MY FAVORITES:

Proverbs 12:18 says, “Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing.”

Cutting remarks, or healing remarks—the choice is ours.

So, the words we speak in the home are of huge importance.

Second,

If we want things to change in our home, we must change what we say and how we say it.

Listen carefully to what James says about the power of words.

Again, place what we’re about to read in the context of your home:

James 3: 3- 5 “We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. 4 And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. 5 In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire.”

Look at the illustrations: a huge ship is turned around by a tiny rudder. A powerful horse is controlled by a tiny bit in its mouth. A raging forest fire is ignited by a tiny spark.

Three large, powerful things are controlled by something very small.

It’s exactly the same with what we say, says James.

If you want something as large, powerful and significant as your household to change and head in a positive direction, change what you say to each other.

FACT: Critical, demeaning, insensitive words must be replaced by uplifting, encouraging, and sensitive words in our homes.

And even no words is sometimes the better choice:

Ogden Nash said, "To keep your marriage brimming / With love in the loving cup / Whenever you're wrong, admit it / Whenever you're right, shut up!"

Paul tells us precisely how our home life should be conducted:

Eph. 4:30, 32 “And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live…Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh, abusive words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. 32 Instead…(in the home)

“…be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

SUMMARY: If you want to change your home, change your words.

And finally…

Learn how to have a good fight.

Drs Les and Leslie Parrott write: “Knowing how to fight fair is critical to your survival as a happy couple. Love itself is not enough to sustain a relationship in the jungle of modern life. Being in love is, in fact, a very poor indicator of which couples will stay married. Far more important to the survival of a marriage is how well couples handle disagreements.”

The Bible says, “The beginning of trouble (in the home) is like letting out water. So stop arguing before fighting breaks out.” Prov. 17:14

When the issue at hand starts becoming lost in a swirl of high pitched accusations and counter accusations, it’s no longer a Christian discussion, it’s a fleshly fight.

And one of the most unfair kinds of attacks is when you reach into the file cabinet of your history together and pull out the file marked,

“Things God has forgiven and buried.”

Rather than agreeing with the testimony of the blood of Jesus—(it’s forgiven and buried), we raise from the dead issues God has forgotten!”

When we dip into the painful past in search of artillery for a fight, we hand Satan the victory.

We get historical and then we get hysterical, because nothing throws gasoline of the fire of an argument better than saying, “Well in 1995 sitting in Chile’s you said…”

Now, I share this last part to set up next week when I want to deal directly with “How to Have a Good Fight.”

In Summary:

Healthy communication requires that we choose words wisely, stick with the issue, keep the decibel level down, and avoid historical, hysterical finger pointing accusations.