Sermon Tone Analysis

I. Introduction

- What a night, huh?

Delicious food.

Fantastic music.

I'm having a blast.

I hope you are, too.

We're glad you're here.

- And thank you for that introduction.

You heard that I'm a former television news reporter.

That surprises a lot of people since I've often been told that I have a real face for radio.

(Pause.)

Some of you will get joke that on your drive back home tonight.

- We're talking about talking tonight.

We're talking about communication, how a husband and a wife can best communicate with each other.

- And you might be wondering, "Alright, hot shot.

What makes you the expert on communication?"

- Well, let me tell you why I think I'm eminently qualified to talk to you tonight about communication.

- My last two years in seminary, my family lived in the guesthouse owned by the president of the seminary.

I mean, less than 50 yards from the home the seminary president and his wife and their children lived in.

- One weekend, my wife and our children were going out of town, but I was staying behind to do some work.

Knowing that I'd be home alone, the seminary president and his wife asked me to their home for dinner.

They told me we'd be having venison burgers.

That's deer meat to us less-highfalutin' types.

- Now, I really, really don't like venison.

But I wasn't going to turn down a dinner invitation from the president of the school at which I was both a PhD student and an adjunct professor, the very same person graciously letting us live rent free in his guesthouse.

- But since I didn't know how I was going to choke down the food I had been invited to eat, I thought I had to text my wife about the predicament I found myself in and we'd share a laugh about it.

- So, I texted my wife Sara, "The Spradlins have invited me over for venison burgers tonight.

Then in all caps.

THAT'S DEER MEAT!

As you know, I don't like venison."

And I hit send.

- Except . . .

I didn't text that to Sara. . . .

I texted that to the wife of the seminary president!

- You know those times in life—even if you have a bad memory—when you remember every single detail about a situation?

This was one of those situations.

When I made the horrible realization that I had texted the wrong person, I remember where I was sitting, what time of day it was, what the weather was like, what I was wearing.

- I also remember thinking, "Ok, if I could somehow manage to have a heart attack right now, I wouldn't have to face them ever again."

I mean, I was wondering where my family was going to have to move to.

It was bad.

- I immediately began trying to do damage control with apologetic texts to this nice lady who had invited me to her home for dinner.

No reply.

- I called Sara and told her what her goofball husband had done, and she called the seminary president's wife, and, thankfully, Sara called me to say that they had a good laugh about it.

- I actually still went over to their house that night for dinner, but I went with a white rose in my hand, playing Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry" on my phone as I went inside.

- And after all that, we had venison burgers.

And you know what?

They were actually pretty good.

- So, as you can see, I'm something of a communication expert.

Because now I know the first lesson in communication: Be sure you're talking to (or texting, in my case) the right person!

- I'm grateful, Wes, for the opportunity to talk about communication, and specifically communication between husbands and wives, here tonight.

II.

Practical Help in Communication in Marriage

- Go to google.com

(Not right now!) and type in "communication."

Among the top five ways Google will suggest for you to complete that phrase in your search, two of them have to do with marriage.

- So many people are searching for help in communicating in their marriage that you only have to type the word "communication" in Google to have Google begin to suggest resources to you for help in improving communication in your marriage.

- I read an interview between two marriage counselors, and one said, "Most of our marriage counseling that we do now . . . the communication issue is the No. 1 issue."[1]

- What are some of the things we think are essential to a marriage?

Children?

You know couples who for various reasons don't have children, but who nonetheless have a thriving marriage.

A nice house, nice cars, a big 401(k)?

Nah.

You know wealthy couples who can't stand each other and couples under the poverty line who are enraptured with each other.

How about a passionate sex life?

A couple that can't keep their hands off each other?

Now, hey, don't hear me say that that's not really, really nice.

But I know couples where one of the spouses has a profound physical disability that makes almost any physical intimacy impossible.

And I could point to some really tremendous marriages between couples like that.

- So, those are some things that really—though they're all great to have—are apparently not absolute necessary for the kind of marriage we all really want to have.

- But do you know what your marriage must have if it's going to be healthy?

Do you know what a thriving marriage absolutely cannot do without?

A pattern of good communication between the husband and the wife.

I don't hesitate to say that it's nearly impossible for a marriage to fail in which the husband and wife are communicating regularly and well, according to the principles I'm going to give you here tonight.

- Your marriage can be a blessing to both of you even if it doesn't have some of the things we tend to enjoy most about marriage.

But it can't be a blessing to both of you if it isn't marked by a pattern of regular, good communication.

- So, let's talk about what I mean when I say "good communication" in the context of marriage.

I want to give you three principles with some really practical ways to put these into practice.

- First, good marital communication requires intentionality.

- Intentionality is just a big word for the idea, "If you're going to have strong communication in your marriage, it will happen on purpose, not by accident."

- This is a truism for virtually every area of life, but it's certainly true in the context of marital communication: The most helpful, most valuable things in your life don't arrive by accident.

They happen as a result of thought, planning, and effort.

In a word, work.

- But you're not going to work to produce what you don't think is valuable.

And I want you to really grab onto the fact that your marriage will not thrive if you and your spouse aren't regularly communicating well.

Don't you want a healthy marriage?

Don't you want a marriage that both you and your spouse are happy to be in?

I know you want to leave work eager to get home instead of leaving work dreading the relational climate in your home.

No one wants a bad marriage.

And every married person wants a terrific marriage.

Well, one of the essential ingredients for the kind of marriage you know you want to have is good communication.

There's the value.

And anything really valuable requires some work to attain.

- Well, let me give you some tools to put in your toolbox.

- If you and your spouse aren't talking to each other face-to-face at least one night a week—without devices, or the television on in the background, or children present—let me challenge you to make that your aim: to, without distractions, sit face-to-face with your spouse at least one night this week.

15 minutes.

You can get a lot done in 15 focused minutes.

And if it turns into a half-hour or an hour, great!

- And though these times are really good for ironing out certain details—talking about your family's finances or about how the washing machine will get repaired or that the teacher wants a conference about your son's math grade—make sure you let your hair down some in these times.

Ask your spouse about their favorite vacation as a child or try to remember the circumstances surrounding when you met or your first date.

Sara still kids me about how nervous I was when I went into the ice cream shop where she worked in college to ask her out.