Building a Communication Network

Well many have called this the communication age and certainly we have seen in my lifetime and even less than that tremendous changes and advances particularly when it comes to digital communication. But I believe that still in spite of all of the advances in communication in our world today probably the greatest problem facing most marriages has to do with communication. It has to do with really sharing our lives and hearts with each other. Now at the risk of sounding really old and really uncool both of which I am I can relate to this recent car commercial. I would like to watch with me. I read an article while I read the majority of an article online about how older people are becoming more and more anti-social. So I was really aggressive with my parents. I was running Facebook. My parents are up to 19 friends now. I stick with my native family friends. This is really big. I'm not a real puppy. That's just a puppy or real puppy. Benza. From Toyota. Not selling cars. That's not the point. My point is that sometimes we trade in real communication for a digital form of communication. And please don't misunderstand me this morning. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to give the impression that I'm against technology. I love this new group that's starting and what they're going to do for us technology wise. I believe it's critical that we do get into the generation and be able to minister in an effective way. And I want to see that happen. I'm not the one to do it. So I'm grateful for people like Bill and Holly and others of you that will join with them and help us do a better job of communicating in this communication age. I do understand where young people are. I have a 16-year-old grandson and a 13-year-old granddaughter and I understand. I understand that's the world in which they live. I'm absolutely amazed at what they do with their devices. I also have a five-year-old grandson in school in Chicago. Jeannie was talking to him the other day and she said, Ruben, what's your favorite part about school? And he said, not a G. He can't even say it, but he can do it. He goes to school every day, five-year-old kindergarten and does his work with an iPad. Go figure. So the world has gone far beyond where I am, but I recognize we need to be there and we need to get there as a church. So please don't misunderstand me. But my point this morning in leading into this message on communication is that sometimes, and I'm not alone in this thought, sometimes we sacrifice real communication at the author of a more impersonal form. Sherry Terkel is a professor at MIT and last year she wrote a book entitled, Alone Together, What We Expect, or Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other. She spent the last 15 years studying how our plugged-in lives have changed who we are and how we relate to each other. And this is one of her conclusions. I won't take the time to read all of them, but this is one of them. She says, we are tempted to think that our little sips of online connection add up to a big gulp of real conversation. But they don't. Email, Twitter, Facebook, all of these have their places, but no matter how valuable, they do not substitute for conversation. Connecting in sips may work for gathering discreet bits of information or for saying, I'm thinking about you, but connecting in sips doesn't work as well when it comes to understanding and knowing one another. Here's my point. We live in a world of great, great advances in communication technology. And yet in many marriages, we don't know how to talk to each other. We don't know how to relate with a oneness of communication that really talks from the heart and gets into each other's lives and really communicates on a heart level. And so in the midst of tremendous communication devices, we often don't communicate well with each other. I am convinced that one of the greatest problems, if not the greatest problem in marriages today, is the lack of communication or the wrong kind of communication. And when either of those happens, what happens is you build up walls between you and every day you add a few more bricks to that wall. So if that is the case, and I believe it is, then how do we build a communication network that can blast through those walls of silence and bitterness? How do we do that? How do we go about getting back to real, genuine, honest, heart to heart, oneness in marriage of communication? How do we do that? Ephesians chapter four, please. Ephesians chapter four in your Bible where Paul says some very interesting things, powerful things about communication. How to communicate with each other. It's in the section of the book that is the practical section of the book following the first three chapters of doctrinal teaching. He gets into how we should take this doctrine and walk worthy, how it should change our lives. And beginning in verse 17, verses 17 through 24 of chapter four, Paul deals with the fact that we should live a new lifestyle because we're new people. We've put off the old man, what we were as unsafe people, and we've put on the new man. We're a new person in Christ. And so because we are new people in Christ, it ought to mean that we live new lives. And so Paul is going to deal in the rest of the book with what that looks like in the very first thing he mentions is communication. How to relate to one another, how to talk with one another in the body of Christ. And nowhere is that more important even though Paul is addressing it specifically to the church, the body of Christ, nowhere are those skills more needed and more important than in marriage. The same communication principles that he speaks of for us in relating to each other in the body of Christ are certainly true also in relating to your closest neighbor, your closest friend, your life mate, your husband or your wife. And so we're going to take a look at these communication principles. But before we dive into Ephesians four, let me begin this morning by just giving you some hindrances to communication. There are at least six, probably more, but I'm going to mention six this morning that will build those walls between you. So we're going to look first at how the walls are built and what I'm intending to do with this part of the message is to help you connect with where you are. Some of you are going to recognize that these walls exist between you and your mate. What built them? What caused them to be there? How did they get there over this period of years? One hindrance to communication is pride. I can take many forms in a marriage that can sound like this. I'm afraid to admit my weakness. I don't want to ask for help or it can sound like this. I can handle this. I can take care of this. We don't need to talk about this. I can take care of this by myself. When you took your wedding vows, you forfeited the right to do that. You forfeited the right to do it yourself. You covenanted before God that you were becoming one with another person and that your lives would be molded together into a oneness that would reflect the relationship between Christ and his body, the church. You forfeited the right to go it alone. Pride is a communication killer. Second communication hindrance is anger. Some people blow up that's typical in their tendency, maybe by virtue of their personality or the way they've been brought up themselves. But anger basically says, I don't want to face the problem honestly. I'll just explode and that draws a line in the sand and don't you dare cross that line. So it just squelches communication. It stops any kind of meaningful working through of a conflict or a problem when anger becomes a part of the equation. Someone has said a person is never in worst company that when they fly into a range and are beside themselves. That's true. That's true. Anger. Communication killer. Third communication killer is tears. Tears. Now there are lots of different kinds of tears and I always tell guys when I'm doing premarital counseling that guys would be wise to recognize the different kinds of tears that women cry in particular. I know guys can cry as well but guys you need to understand the kind of tears your wife may cry. There are tears of joy and tears of sorrow and tears of physical and emotional stress and all of us have those kinds of tears. But I'm not talking about any of those kinds. I'm talking about manipulative tears. I'm talking about what's called crocodile tears. Tears that are turned on with the purpose to manipulate and stop the conversation. You see some of you ladies have learned that us guys are awkward around tears. We don't know what to do when you start crying. We're a little awkward with that and we have learned it the best way to stop the crying is to throw in the towel and just stop back off. We've gotten too close. We've hit a nerve and that can happen the other way around too. That can happen with guys. But I'm talking about using tears to stop communication, to manipulate, to get your way. That's wrong. That's a sinful use of relationship, misuse of relationship, hindrance to communication. The fourth hindrance is silence. This is another way some people deal with anger. Some people blow up. Some people clam up. This is another way of dealing with anger. It's stifles communication. It basically says again, I draw a line in the sand. You've gotten too close. I'm going to back off. I'm not going to talk anymore. Some of you have become very good at using silence to stifle communication. If you do that, if you just pack away all that stuff deep down inside and don't want to deal with it, don't want to talk about it. I can guarantee you, you may think it's sitting down there in lawn chairs acting real nice, but it's going to come flying out someday in all kinds of ugly ways. Because you're doing untold harm to yourself emotionally, spiritually and physically by just stuffing all that stuff down inside and not dealing with it biblically. Silence, communication killer. A fifth communication killer is what I'm going to call misstatement and misunderstanding. Misstatement and misunderstanding. Boy, this game has played a lot in marriages. It's probably best explained just by way of an illustration. This child is left for college. The wife feels lonely, unneeded. Needs to get the attention of her husband. So she goes up to him and says, I don't understand why you can't come home from work earlier. Now, that's not what she really feeling. What she's really feeling is alone and needy of her husband's companionship. We've spent all of our energy raising the kids and not sure we know each other anymore. We need to sit down and talk. We need to get to know each other again. That's what she's really feeling, but that's not what she said. What she said was, I don't understand why you can't come home from work earlier. So she's guilty of misstatement. Now crawl into his mind. He has been working a lot of overtime. And by the way, there's been a woman at work that's been showing him way too much attention. And rather than being enticed by that, he's annoyed by it. He's embarrassed by it. But somehow he thinks his wife has heard about that. And so when she says, I don't understand why you can't come home from work earlier. He interprets it as a jealous attack. And so his response is, well, if you can't trust me, then who can? And he storms off into the other room. And what was intended to be a reaching out for some help ends up in another few bricks added to the wall because of misstatement and misunderstanding. And that's a terrible communication killer in relationships, particularly in marriages. The fifth one is this, for Sixth-Lin Reather. The failure to understand the differences in the way men and women communicate. I've talked a lot in this series about the differences between men and women. And that's a real key to harmony and understanding how to get along with each other in marriage. But in communication, it's so true. Women generally have a greater capacity for communication. Some research has actually been done, which is amazing in nature, which shows even the difference, even in the womb, in the way the speech part of the brain is formed between boys and girls. It's different the way it's formed even in the womb. Which really leads most to say that little girls are blessed with greater linguistic ability. And it remains a lifelong talent. Which is a nice way of saying women talk more. Seriously, women can, it seems, generally, express their thoughts and feelings better. I like the way James Dobson describes this in his book, Why Is Wish There Husbands New About Women? He says this, he says, let's just say it this way. Let's say God gives a wife, a woman, 50,000 words a day to use up. He gives a man 25,000 words a day to use up. By the time the guy gets home from work, he's used 24,975 of those words. He's got 25 words left. And that's why he grunts his way through the evening. That's why he'd rather sit down and say, that's why he'd rather sit down and watch a ballgame. That's why he'd rather get involved in a great movie or a ballgame, or a basketball game, because his words are all used up. But she's still got 25,000 words to use up. So you can see the conflict. You can see she wants to talk. And he just kind of grunts. Yeah. Because his words are all used up. Now that may be a little bit of an exaggeration, but I think Dobson has hit a point here. There's a difference in the way men and women communicate. If you don't understand that, if you don't learn how to navigate those waters and come together in some form of common ground and compromise, you're going to face communication difficulty in your marriage. Those are communication hindrances. Now let's get to the helps. What are the helps for communications? Some things that maybe will be keys to helping us chip away at those walls and break through those walls of silence and resentment and bitterness. Before we look at Ephesians 4, where we're going to spend the most of the rest of our time. Let me just mention this one first, because it's foundational. If you want good communication in your marriage, number one thing to do is pray for wisdom. Pray for wisdom. James chapter 1 and verse 5, James says it this way. It's on the screen. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. You have a difficulty communicating. You have a difficulty knowing where to even start with breaking down those bricks that wall that's between you, then start with prayer. Start by talking to the Lord. Put it on your prayer list, make it a daily matter of prayer. To ask for his wisdom to know how to begin the conversation, how to approach your mate, what to say, what not to say, what tone of voice to use, what body language to communicate with. Just pray for wisdom to know how to begin the process of building a communication network or rebuilding one that's been broken down. Pray for wisdom. I can't stress that enough. But I want to get into the principles in Ephesians 4. Number 2 is this, be open and truthful, but loving. The open and truthful, but loving. Look at verse 25, if you will, in Ephesians 4. Therefore, each of you, therefore, we've got to stop. Key principle of Bible interpretation, whenever you see the word, go back and see what it's there for. It's there for a reason. It is there because of what he's just said in verses 17 to 24. I mentioned earlier, he's just talked about the fact that we're new people in Christ. We've put off the old man, we've put on the new man, we are new creatures in Christ, and because of that, therefore, he says, first topic, first thing that should affect in your life. Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. Be open, be truthful. But look back at verse 15, be open and truthful, yes, but do that in love in verse 15. He says, instead speaking the truth in love, again, referring to the body of Christ, he says, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ. Because we've put off the old person that we were before we got saved, because we're no longer that old person, because we have put off lying, which is one of the evidences of that as he describes the old man in those verses. Because we've put that off, we are commanded to now speak truthfully to be honest, but to do that in love. The correction to the problem I just gave you, but we have an illustration, would have been honest communication. If that wife would have just come to her husband and said, honey, the kids are gone, and I'm really lonely. And I really feel like we haven't talked deeply and significantly in years. I want to start that process again. I need you that way. If she had been honest, maybe your husband would have been more honest. And if he had only been more honest, if he had only said, honey, I'm facing a problem at work, it annoys me to embarrasses me. I don't know what to do about it. I need your help. I need your counsel. Please help me with this. If they both been honest with each other, don't you think their hearts would have been better prepared for the kind of communication that would knit them together into the kind of oneness that the Bible says we ought to have as husband and wife? Be open. Be truthful. But be loving. You can honestly confront someone. You can be truthful with them, but you can do it in a loving way as well. So many of us live in the world of lies and deception and in marriage that sometimes comes out as hints. We drop hints. Not really saying what's on our heart and mind. We drop hints. And we hope our mate will catch the hint. And when they don't, we get frustrated and we just back away. That's really a form of deception. You're not saying what's on your heart. You're not being honest. You're not being truthful. You can do that and still be loving. We live in a culture of lies and deception. Back in May of this year, Readers Digest published a survey they had done with a national survey company about who is the most respected person in America. And they told enough about it in the article to describe the research process. They did not include people that you would normally go to confidentially and the kind of trust that's typically built there. So they did not include doctors. They did not include clergy pastors. Although that might have been interesting to see where that would come down. But anyway, they did not include those kind of, they did not include teachers. But they just threw it open for the rest of people. Who is the most respected person in America? And amazingly, maybe not in our culture. The people at the top of the list were all either actors, actresses, or politicians. And I'm thinking, did we get this upside down or what? I don't know. But you know who the most respected man in America is according to this survey? Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks. I just read after that survey came out that David Letterman had him on his late show to ask him about that survey. And the results of that that you know you're now considered the most respected man in the world. How did you do that? And here's what Tom Hanks said. I want you to listen to his response on the David Letterman show. When he was asked what he had done to become so trustworthy, these are his very words. What do I do exactly to earn the trust? Well, I'm honest because I tell people I'm lying to them. Because I'm in show business, somebody will send me a project and there is no way. And I'm not going to say what he says next, but he says there's no way I'm going to do it. Because it stinks and it's lousy and I don't want to do it. But I will say, Doug, I'm lying to you right now. But I love this thing so much. I want to do it, but I can't because I have a path to publicize a movie in Japan. By the way, Doug, I'm lying to you. The things I just said are lies, but don't you feel better? He went on to say, but then when I'm supposed to be in Japan to promote my new movie, I turn up in the crowd at a hockey game and it's kind of awkward, kind of blows it. But then I tell him, but dude, I opened the conversation by saying, I'm lying to you. So why is Tom Hanks the most respected man in America? Because he tells us when he's lying to us, does something sound wrong about that to you? Because he elevates lying to something that is now commendable? That's the kind of culture we live in. That is not acceptable in the body of Christ. It is certainly not acceptable in marriage. Paul says, be open and truthful with each other. Share from your heart, but loving, loving. Okay? Help number three. Don't clam up. Don't clam up. Here it is, verse 26. Look at verse 26. In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry and do not give the devil a foothold. Fascinating words. Let's, as you saw in the video earlier, let's unpack it a little bit. What does it mean? What's in here? Notice, he first of all says, in your anger, do not sin. It's a given that we will become angry at times. Anger is not necessarily sin in and of itself. The Bible gives us at least a couple of instances where Jesus clearly got angry. We know he never sinned. So anger is not necessarily sin in and of itself. And what Paul is admitting here, or giving us, is that anger is a normal human emotion that we will all experience at times, but it can turn into sin. It can lead to sin if we do not properly deal with that anger. So in your anger, he says, do not sin. What do you mean by that, Paul? Okay, he says, I'll tell you, do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. So at least one thing he means by not letting sin or anger turn into sin is deal with it as quickly as possible. If you let the sun go down, in other words, if you let time pass and you are still angry and you have not processed it and dealt with it in a biblical way, if you let a day go by, a week go by, a month go by, that anger is going to settle down inside you and turn into the kinds of things he talks about in verse 31, bitterness, rage, anger, flaming anger, brawling, slander, every form of malice, it's going to do a lot of ugly stuff down inside your heart. To you and ultimately to other people who feel the brunt of that. And it's all because you did not deal with the normal emotion of anger appropriately. Yes, it needs to be expressed, it can be expressed in constructive ways, but it needs to be talked about and dealt with with someone else before time, too much time passes by. And so he says, don't let the sun go down while you are still angry. Don't let time go by without dealing with that angry. And then he says in verse 27, do not give the devil a foothold. If you let time pass and you just clam up, you just stuff your feelings down inside, you don't want to talk about it, you don't want to deal with it. And all the time you're seething inside. You have just given the devil a foothold in your life to climb to a new level of attack and destruction in your life. If you don't deal with anger when you recognize it's there. Yesterday I was attended Jamie Parcell's wedding. Jamie and Evan, her uncle did the wedding from North Carolina and he did a fantastic job. It was a beautiful wedding. And in the midst of that, he was just giving them a personal challenge. And he referred to this verse and I love what he said. He said, Jamie and Evan, don't ever go to bed, mad. Stay up all night and fight if you have to, but don't go to bed, mad. He's got a point there. What Paul is saying is, do not let anger go unchecked. Don't let it seek down into your heart and begin to create bitterness, resentment, rage, malice, which is the desire to strike back at a person that you're angry with. The desire to do them harm. Don't let that happen. You say, well, John, you know, you talk about that wall that's been built up a brick at a time. That wall is pretty high in my marriage. I don't know where to start. I don't know where to start to overcome the silence and to break through that wall that's been built between us because one or both of us has just climbed up for years. We haven't talked about anything meaningful or significant in years. We've not really shared our heart deeply at all for years. So where do I start? Could I suggest where to start? Thanks. I will. Suggest by taking responsibility for what you have done wrong. Remember, when we dealt with conflict, the very first principle, Jesus spoke in Matthew 7. You got to deal with the plank in your own eye before you can get the sawdust out of your brother's eye. That principle is true in all human conflict and human relationship, and it also has to do with breaking down barriers between us. It may have been erected through poor communication. You can begin the talk. You can begin the process of opening up by going and admitting what you did wrong. And for the first time in a long time, you may agree on something. Rather than fingers pointing at each other, now they're both pointing the same way. That's at least a start, right? You say, well, John, I honestly can't think of anything I've done wrong. It was her fault. It was his fault. I didn't do anything wrong. Could I suggest one thing you've done wrong? Thank you. I'm going to anyway. It's this. You failed to initiate the reconciliation. Either you claimed up or you allowed the claiming up to go on unchecked. You did not initiate the reconciliation. I know what you're thinking. I've heard it plenty of times before. So as every other pastor has done any marital counseling. But I didn't cause this problem. She said he did. Did you know the Bible never gives you the opportunity to remain the silent partner in any conflict? Look at what Jesus said. On the screen, Matthew chapter 5, Jesus said this. If you are offering your gift at the altar, please have this in mind. This is not a church. This is before the cross. The gospels were still dealing with the temple in Jerusalem. People coming to worship there and bringing an animal or a grain offering or something that they're offering there in the temple. He says, when you're at the altar offering your gift, and they're remember that your brother or sister has something against you. Now, who has committed the offense here? Who is in the wrong here? You. Because you remember that your brother or sister has something against you. You've done something wrong. And they're holding it against you. Right? So you're in the wrong here. What does he say to do if you become aware of that? Somebody has something against me because of the way I said something the other way I spoke to them, the way I treated whatever I did. I was in the wrong. What are you supposed to do? Jesus says, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, notice the next two letter word. Go. You are responsible to go. If you realize someone has something against you. In other words, you've done wrong. You've offended hurt someone else. You are responsible to go. And be reconciled to them. Then come and offer your gift. Now, Jesus said something else in Matthew 18. Look at this. Matthew 18 verse 15, if your brother or sister sins. Okay. Now, who's at fault here? He is. She is. The other person is not me. My brother or sister has sinned against me. What am I supposed to do? Go. See that. Go. And point out their fault. Just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you've won them over. And then he talks about if this escalates and cannot be dealt with on a personal level, he says, but if they will not listen, take one or two others along so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. This goes to a new level and it may even get to the level eventually of verse 17. If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church. And if they refuse to listen, even to the church, treat them as you would have pagan or tax collector. So he says it is possible that a conflict between two people may result in someone being excluded from the church fellowship. And being treated as a pagan tax collector and outsider, that's what Jesus said. I didn't say that Jesus said that. It's possible that can happen. But the point in this message is this. Here's my point. No matter whether you are the guilty party or the offended party, you have the responsibility to go make things right. Doesn't matter. None of us ever has the option of saying I'm waiting on them to say something first. I'm waiting on my wife to come to me. I'm waiting on my husband. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't say anything. They're going to have to start this. They're going to have... No, no. No, no. Jesus said if you are aware of a distance, a problem, a wall, a brick wall between you go start the process of reconciliation. Regardless of whether you're the one who's been offended or the one who has offended someone else. So don't climb up. You do not have that privilege in dealing biblically with conflict and communication. Don't climb up. Number four, don't blow up. Don't blow up. Ephesians four, look at verse 29. Some people climb up. They kind of freeze. They kind of go into another room. They don't want to talk. Some people just blow up. I mean, they just, like a 12 gauge shotgun. They just let it fly. Notice what Paul says about that in verse 29. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths. What kind of unwholesome talk is he talking about? Well, in verse 30, it's obviously something that greaves the Holy Spirit, something that makes the Holy Spirit sad. And I think in the context that may move down to verse 31, these are the kinds of words he's talking about. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander along with every form of malice. All of those are angry words. All of those are spiteful words. All of those are cutting brute sarcasm kinds of words. Paul says, don't let any of that unwholesome talk come out of your mouth. But he says three things you ought to set at the guard as a guard on your lips. Three questions you ought to always ask yourself of everything you say to someone else. All of us need to do this. None of us do it perfectly. But here are the three things he says in verse 29. But only what is helpful for building others up. So I need to ask myself, does this build up this person? Does this really encourage them to lift them up, build them up? Second thing he says, according to their needs. Is this really addressing the need or is this attacking the person? That's another question I need to ask myself with any communication with my wife or my children or whatever brother, sister in Christ. Building them up, is it really addressing the need or is it attacking them? And the third question is he says that it may benefit those who listen. The word benefit comes literally from the word for grace. Is this gracious? Is my speech grace filled or is it hate filled? Am I really attacking this person or am I exhibiting grace? Those are the three questions. Paul says ask yourself, check your communication. That's how you know whether or not it's unholsome talk. If it meets those three criteria, it's not unholsome. It's good. It can be very honest. It can be hard for the other person to hear. But if it meets those three criteria, then Paul says it's okay. But don't blow up. When I was looking for illustrative material for this message, I came across a guy who described a company that he started in Germany, which is actually a hotline you can call to vent your spleen about whatever you're angry about. It's called in German. Shimfluss, which means swear away. And that's the idea of this hotline. If you're upset about something, you can call. You can jeer, taunt, curse at the paid operators and pay two dollars a minute to do it. And the guy says, we have a real service to people. I mean, it's better than doing it to your wife, right? Or your husband? Boy, some guys are real entrepreneurs, aren't they? Find a need and fill it. What does the Bible say about that? Here's what the Bible says. Look at these verses quickly in Proverbs on the screen. Proverbs 15, a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise adorns knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly. And then further down in that chapter verse 18, a hot tempered person stirs up conflict. But the one who is patient calms a quarrel 1632 better a patient person than a warrior. One with self control than one who takes a city. In other words, it requires more strength of character to demonstrate patience. Then it does to be a mighty warrior who takes a city. God says this in Proverbs 25, 15 through patience, a ruler can be persuaded and a gentle tongue can break a bone 29, 20. Do you see someone who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for them. And I would encourage you just to read what Proverbs says about a fool. It's not very complimentary. But he says there's more hope for a fool than somebody who speaks haste fully. And then verse 22 says an angry person stirs up conflict and a hot tempered person commits many sins. There's a lot of damage done. Someone once went to John Wesley and John Wesley preached on anger and guy came up to him after the service and said, well, you know, I'm like a 12 gauge shotgun. I just let it fly, but it's all over quickly. And John Wesley's response was, but yeah, what kind of damage does a 12 gauge shotgun do? You see, that's the problem. That's the many sins that happen when you blow up. It hurts so many people, including you. That's no way to do communication in a marriage that will just continue to build the walls. So don't blow up. Substitute it with wholesome words that ask yourself those three questions in verse 29. Does it fit those three criteria? That's how to deal with angry words. It's how to become more patient. Quickly number five, allow for reaction time. Okay, you're going to come. You're going to start the process of breaking down that barrier between you and your wife or your husband. You're going to start the conversation and you start talking and your mate begins to clam up or blow up. Now remember, you have you have the advantage of knowing ahead of time, what you were going to say, what you were going to address. You probably thought about this a number of times before you ever addressed it. And they don't have that same advantage. And so back off and give them some time. Allow for some reaction time. If it's a person by who nature of their personality tends to clam up, then have a commitment in your marriage that I'll give you some space. I know you need to process this and think it through. I know who you are. But we're going to come back together and sort this out. Right? Yeah. Right. We will just give me some time. If you're the kind of person who by nature of your personality tends to blow up, then your mate needs to understand. You're going to need a little time. You need to understand how to process that anger that it needs to be directed at something else rather than your mate. You know, journal talk to someone else. Placeports. I mean, sports is a great way to burn off. Pinch up anger or do something. You know, do needle work really hard something. Whatever you ladies do. Find another way to work out that anger, but then commit to come back and talk again. Allow for some reaction time. I think is a bit of wisdom. And then quickly number six, commit the problem to God together. Once you've begun the process of talking and communicating again, pray together about the issues. Hebrews is so beautiful here because it tells us that Christ understands what we go through. Verse 15 of chapter four, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses. But we have one who's been tempted in every way just as we are yet he did not send so the admonition because of our sympathetic high priest is this. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence confidence in ourselves. No, no, no, no, no, confidence in a sympathetic high priest. Let us approach with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. Pray. Pray together about the issues that have built up walls between you. Much more could be said about communication. I haven't even talked about listening as well as talking. I haven't even talked about body language, tone of voice, all of those things which communicate more than your words actually do. You know what it's like when you're talking with someone or you're in a meeting or something and all the right words are said but the body language communicates something entirely different. You know that. So a lot more could be said, but let me just challenge you to do this. Let me challenge you to begin talking. Let me challenge you to to turn toward each other and start working on that wall that's been built up between you. What I want to ask you that you go home today or tonight or sometime this week set a time when you can get together and start today to chip away at the wall between you. You know, they take a little while. Brick walls don't come down easily. But start today to chip away at that wall. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for the principles that your word gives us about communication. How important it is to talk openly and honestly from our hearts and not clam up or blow up and kill the communication. Lord, to bring you into the equation to pray for wisdom to commit our problems to you together and to deal with issues in a way that will be healthy, productive. Lord, I pray for marriages here today. I know there are marriages here today that must have huge, high, thick walls already built and they may feel hopeless. Father, give them the hope of your spirit to know that your word is true and it will be proven true in their lives. If they will patiently, consistently apply it, I pray that that would be the case. So I pray that marriages would be healed, helped and made whole in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.