Fight Night | Pastor Chris Kouba

And it's really, really good to see you on this Memorial Day weekend.

Of course, we know, as Bruce already mentioned, this is a weekend that we remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice as we sing about the blood of Jesus, which is why we gather, the reason we can gather every single week.

We also recognize that we get to do so in a country that allows us the freedom to express that openly and fully.

And that is because of so many who not only serve our country, but those who've also paid the ultimate sacrifice.

German Romero is here on the front row.

He is uh our Spanish pastor, but he's also a veteran.

And one of the things that's always touched me is whenever I talk to him about his service, uh, and he talks to me about how not everybody that he went out there with made it home.

Uh and it's something that I think we just we miss.

We just kind of go on with our lives.

And this is a weekend that's designed for us to be able to remember that and to show gratitude for that.

Uh, I also know I never want to take an opportunity, or miss an opportunity rather, uh, to highlight those who are in our active service, but also those who are veterans of our military.

And so I'm going to ask you to stand, and as you do, you can represent many of the folks that you know that maybe didn't make it home that we celebrate this weekend.

Praise God for all of you.

Thank you so much, not only for your service, uh, but that those who did not make it home that you represent and you're standing today does that.

Open up your Bibles, if you would, to Song of Solomon, chapter five.

Song of Solomon chapter five is where we're gonna be.

And I'm gonna ask you as you are turning in your Bibles to everybody grab the little card that should be in the seat back that's in front of you.

If you're on the front row, uh, it should have been in your seat.

Uh, if you're there on the front of the risers, there it should be there as well.

Everybody grab this card.

We're gonna play a little game to start.

We've done this a couple of times in the past few weeks as we've gone through this series.

We're gonna do it again.

I want the green to represent you agree or yes.

Okay, that's what you're gonna say.

And then on the other side is gonna represent red.

I don't agree or no.

All right.

I'm gonna read some statements and you're gonna interact by showing, holding up your card, whether you agree or whether you don't agree, whether you say yes or whether you say no.

Everybody know the rules?

Here we go.

First question: the driver controls the music, no exceptions.

What'd you say?

I disagree with that.

Depends on the driver's music selection is the answer.

All right.

All right.

Number two, whoever cooks doesn't do the dishes.

It all depends on whether I'm the one that cooks or not, all right?

So all right.

Whoever is coldest controls the thermostat.

Absolutely not.

We would not be able to afford to keep the house as cold as my wife wants it.

There's no way.

Next one, you have gone to bed angry at least once.

Should I say last night?

All right, that might change the scenario a little bit.

Okay.

You've said something in a fight that you immediately regretted.

Yes or no?

Okay, I got a f wow, you've got a few actual reds?

This is amazing.

I just assumed all of you.

Okay, good deal.

Last one.

If you're honest, you've wondered if the conflict in your relationship is normal.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Yeah?

Okay.

You can put the card down before we create some conflict in the room, all right?

Uh but here's what I want you to know.

Conflict is already in the room.

In fact, conflict may have been in the car on the way to the room.

Uh the question has never been whether you fight, it's always been about how you fight and whether you fight your way back to each other or whether you fight your way away from each other.

We've been walking through the book of Song of Solomon.

We've been looking at various aspects of relationships.

We talked about dating and attraction.

We talked about the courtship phase.

We talked about the wedding.

We talked about the marriage and what that looks like.

We talked about last week we talked about sex.

It was the most responded text message to me personally message I've ever done in the history of United City last week.

All right.

Uh I think there was a rise in sales of Hershey kisses throughout Northeast Houston.

All I'll say is that I hope it worked out for you.

We're trying to grow our nursery in nine months.

All right.

But today we're gonna continue and we're gonna get two chapters in the book of Song of Solomon on a topic that is probably the most relevant of all of the topics in the book.

Conflict.

Conflict.

25% of the entire book is on conflict.

God gave two full chapters to it, which shows that God is not surprised when you fight with the person that you love the most.

I want you to realize that.

You love them more than anything, yet they do things that you cannot stand.

All right?

That is normal.

I want you to hear me say that to you.

It's normal.

And the question is whether you're going to fight responsibly in light of the normalcy of conflict in your relationship.

If you think about it, every marriage travels through three seasons.

The first season is literally the honeymoon.

In Hebrew, the word literally means sweet month.

What it's suggesting is this is that you get like a month, or maybe you get a little bit longer, who knows?

But you get a little bit of time when everything is perfect and everything is wonderful, and you're just so amazed that you got to marry this person, that you get to be with this person, and it's just everything is absolutely wonderful.

Then you move after the honeymoon into what I would call the reality phase.

This is when you actually see who the person that you married really is.

The quirks that were so cute about them now become annoying personality traits that you want nothing more than to fix, right?

Uh, and it is in this stage that a lot of people get stuck and they assume it means that the marriage has failed.

It doesn't.

It means that you're right on schedule.

Because the other side of the reality phase is the commitment phase.

This is where you've seen everything you can possibly see about the other person, and you still choose them.

This is where you uh the covenant love actually is built, not performed in a ceremony, but forged in the ordinary conflict that's handled in an extraordinary way.

How do you do that?

That's what we're gonna talk about today.

Here's what I want to give you.

Because there's one thing that changes everything about how you fight.

Fighting right means that you are fighting with another person against a common enemy.

Here's though, what oftentimes happens instead of fighting with another person against something else, we begin to fight against the other person, treating them as the enemy.

And when you begin to shift from we fighting them to me fighting them, you've lost.

Because now all of a sudden, instead of working together, you're automatically working against each other while the enemy is still there working against you.

Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12 describes it.

Ephesians 6:12

He says, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Please hear me.

You do not need something extra in your marriage to fight up against.

That's plenty by itself, which means you have to go into this discussion realizing that the person sitting across the table from you is not the enemy.

If you determine that that is the case, you've already lost.

But instead, if you will lock arms, knowing this, we may not always agree, but we got bigger fish to fry, and we're gonna go up against the enemy against us, then it will allow you to play out many of the things we're gonna look at today.

What I want to do is I want to give you five keys to healthy conflict.

Five keys to healthy conflict found in the text.

Look at chapter five, verse two.

Song of Solomon, chapter five, verse two.

He says, I slept, but my, she says rather, I slept, but my heart was awake.

A sound, my beloved is knocking.

Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.

Uh picture this, it's late.

He's coming home after a long day of work.

He's got his hair's a little bit wet from having to work all day all along.

Uh, he's been, he's got uh clothes are damp, and he's looking to be with his wife.

He starts giving her some words that are similar to the same words that he used in chapter four on his honeymoon night.

My darling, my love, my bride, my perfect one.

You heard all this language last week, meaning this.

He is coming home looking for some loving.

That's what we got going on here.

All right.

Look at what it says in verse 3.

I'd put off my garment, how could I put it on?

I bathe my feet, how could I soil them?

She doesn't even get out of bed to answer them face to face.

She calls through the door.

In the ancient world, washing your feet was the last thing that you did before settling in for the night.

She says, My robe is off, she is done.

Her answer is essentially this I'm in bed, I'm already comfortable, I'm not getting up, and the idea of getting up sounds more effort than I want to spend on right now.

Here's what the Hebrew is saying in the actual language.

I've got a headache, not tonight.

That's what she said.

Here's what's happening beneath the surface.

He expected one thing when he came home, and she expected something completely different.

Neither of them is necessarily wrong, they just never talked about it.

And when expectations collide without a conversation, it always leads to conflict.

Here's the first key to having healthy conflict.

Number one, manage expectations.

Manage expectations.

Expectations are the hidden engine of most fights.

Like they're driving everything from the back seat and nobody can see them.

Where do they come from?

Some of it is how you're wired.

Men and women experience connection differently, and they expect their spouse to read that map without directions.

I'm celebrating 24 years with Hillary next week.

And yes, I know a lot about her.

I still have no idea what's happening half the time.

All right.

Uh it is a con, it's just this deal.

Men and women are different, right?

We're totally different.

Some of its history.

Maybe you handled things a certain way in the early years of your relationship.

And so you assume that's how you're going to always handle it going forward.

Maybe some of its family of origin.

Whatever you watch growing up is quietly filed under normal.

But here's what happens: your spouse files something completely different under that exact same category, and they're not the same.

Or maybe you have your expectations built on what the world sold you, a version of relationships built on rom-coms and social media that has nothing to do with reality.

Proverbs chapter 13, verse 12 says this hope deferred makes the heart sick.

Proverbs 13:12

You want to know what an unmet expectation is?

It's it's hope that things are gonna go well.

And then when it doesn't, it doesn't just disappoint, it wounds.

And what feels like a small thing can become a big thing because nobody addresses it when it's still a small thing.

The expectation moves from an assumption, which then should be a conversation, but when it's not met with a conversation, it then leads to a grenade that is just waiting to go off.

Let me give you a simple framework that actually works.

I feel this when you do this.

Okay, not you never or you always, but just simply saying, hey, I feel I feel hurt when you do this behavior.

You're just allowing yourself the opportunity to communicate these expectations in conversation before they become loaded grenades.

Keep reading it what happens in verse four and five.

My beloved put his hand to the latch, and my heart was thrilled within me.

I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh on the handles of the boat.

So what happens is she decides that she wants to change her mind, she gets up, but but she'd waited too long, she goes to the door, and the door is not able, he's not there, but she notices that there's this liquid myrrh all over it.

Myrrh is a love token in this culture that was used on the wedding night.

So what he's doing is he's leaving her a love note on the door handle of the woman who just told him, Not tonight.

He's still giving, even though he's disappointed.

He still says, I love you, and then he leaves.

And she responds in verse 4 I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone.

My soul failed me when he spoke.

I sought him but found him not.

I called him, but he gave no answer.

She goes to the door, there's myrrh all over the door, she opens it up, and he's gone.

She goes looking for him into the city.

Two seconds of pride ends up costing her the whole night.

Here's what I want you to see from this passage here: the second key to healthy conflict.

Respond, don't react.

Respond, but don't react.

It's important for you to see what Solomon did and did not do.

He didn't force the door open whenever he got told no.

He didn't blow up in anger and mad yelling at her through the door.

Nor did he go cold just walking away.

He responds, he leaves a love token for her, and then he left.

That's not weakness, that's wisdom that only comes from responding to God rather than reacting in the moment.

There are two kinds of reactors in relationships, okay?

This is the one that I am, maybe some of you can identify as well.

You're the hot reactor.

If you're gonna react to something, you're gonna react hot, meaning this.

If somebody comes at you strong, you're gonna match their intensity, okay?

If they're gonna raise their voice, you're gonna raise yours, okay?

And many times what happens if you're a hot reactor is that you're gonna end up saying things that you very much regret saying in the heat of the moment.

Are there any other hot reactors out there like me?

Okay, raise your hand nice and proud.

Praise God for you.

All right.

We've gotten ourselves in a lot of trouble, haven't we?

Yep.

Okay.

Other folks are cold reactors.

This is whenever some intensity gets up, man, they just shut down.

They back off, they walk away, they don't participate, they don't want to be a part of any of that, okay?

My wife is a cold reactor and I'm a hot reactor.

You can imagine conflict is not great at our house.

All right.

So if we engage in that, now that's why it's important, though, that we both respond instead of react.

Because when we react, it's two versions of the same sin, just dressed differently.

Think about it.

James chapter 1, verse 19 to 20 says it like this: Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

James 1:19–20

For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Human anger doesn't produce righteousness, meaning this, I can't react my way into godliness.

So I can't respond with either a hot reactor or a cold reactor and expect righteousness to happen in our relationship.

Instead, I've got to treat it differently.

The hardest battle that you're ever gonna fight is the one that's happening inside you when your spouse, your spouse does something that lights you up.

My son is a tennis player and uh I play tennis as well.

And so whenever we go out and we play before we play a match, one of the things that we will do is we will just warm up together, okay?

And whenever you warm up in tennis, the goal is not that you went get winners, or the goal is not that you pass the other person.

The goal is that you hit in such a way where you just continue to keep the point going, just continue to keep the rally going.

All right, we're just warming up, we're just going back and forth.

I think this is the exact image of what a marriage conflict should look like.

I'm just hitting the ball back, okay?

I feel this whenever you do this.

Okay, well, why do you feel that way?

And we're just having a conversation.

I'm not trying to win, I'm just trying to get the ball back.

Here's the problem.

So many of us, when it comes to just normal conflict, going back and forth, keeping the ball at play, we get frustrated.

And what do we do?

We slam it down as hard as we possibly can.

They're having to dive away from it, and then all of a sudden, what do they do?

I don't want to play like this, and then they walk away and they leave.

And what happens?

Yes, you won the point, but guess what?

You're no longer playing anymore.

It doesn't really help you in that moment.

Or what people will do is instead of just nice casual tennis, look, we're just having a conflict, okay?

We're going back and forth, we're just keeping the ball going.

Instead, we just say is somebody says something you don't like.

I don't like that.

And you put your racket down, you just walk away.

Back out altogether.

And then guess what happens?

You may not have engaged in the conflict, but guess what you also have done?

You stop playing tennis.

Some of you need to ask yourselves, how am I responding in this relationship?

Or am I actually reacting and I'm not responding at all?

I'm not saying that it's always gonna go perfect.

There's times when me and my son are warming up, that guess what?

One of us sits it into the net.

You know what we do?

We just pick the ball up and we go back and we hit it again.

And we just continue the conversation.

We just continue to go back and forth.

What I want to encourage you to do is to treat your conflict like a warm-up for a tennis match, not like you trying to win and the other person making sure that they lose.

Look at what happens as you continue in verse 7.

The watchmen found me as they went about in the city.

They beat me, they bruised me, they took away my veil.

Those watchmen of the walls, this is by far the strangest verse in the passage, probably the strangest verse in all of the entire book.

Okay.

Let me explain to you what happens because it sounds like this woman goes out and the guys in the city beat her up.

Okay.

Go back to verse 2.

I believe what's taking place here.

It says there at the beginning of verse 2, I slept, but my heart was awake.

It's a strong case.

Most commentators believe this to be the case, where what follows is a dream.

So she's describing a dream, and the imagery that's being used here is that these watchmen are roughing her up.

I believe what was trying to suggest is this is that this woman comes under the conviction of the Lord.

Have you ever been in a situation to where you feel God's conviction on you through the Holy Spirit because you're doing something that you shouldn't be doing?

Have you ever experienced that before?

Raise your hand, okay?

When you do, you know what that feels like?

It's very uncomfortable.

It feels like you're getting beat up.

It feels like you're being roughed up.

Like it feels like you're being tossed all around.

I believe that's the image of what's taking place there, which then allows us to see that this woman, she realizes I may have made a mistake because I didn't respond quickly.

I didn't respond in the situation.

I kind of told him no.

She gets up, she realizes that he's already gone, and now she walks out, and God begins to do some work on her in the midst of the conflict.

And she's gonna come back to the Solomon, totally changed.

But what I want you to see, it's not because Solomon said the right thing, it's because God worked on her while Solomon was gone.

Look at what happens in verse 8.

I jure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am sick with love.

She's saying, This, I want to reconcile here.

Something has shifted.

She's no longer defending her position at the door, she's now searching for him.

Look at what happens in verse 9.

This is the girlfriends, they come in and they start speaking.

What is your beloved more than any other beloved?

Oh, most beautiful among women.

What is your beloved more than any other beloved?

That you thus adjure us.

Here's what happens: she finds herself in the midst of a conflict situation with her husband.

And she's got these girlfriends that are speaking into her ear saying, You can do better than him.

You do realize he's not all that great.

You do realize that you don't have to put up with this.

Please hear me.

Whenever you're in the middle of a conflict, you will always have a temptation from the somebody else telling you what you want to hear more than what God has already said.

And you got a choice in that moment.

Am I gonna listen to the crowd or am I gonna listen to what God says?

Please hear me.

It's almost always easier to listen to the crowd.

What they're gonna tell you is gonna sound way, I should get back at him.

He is a jerk.

You're exactly right.

I don't need him, I don't want to deal with all that, and then all of a sudden you're running down a track that God never intended you to run on.

Instead, she doesn't take the bait.

What she does is starting in verse 10, instead of doing the comparison thing, she starts cataloging.

Let me tell you about my man.

And look at what she says beginning in verse 10.

And my beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among 10,000.

I didn't know ruddy was a compliment, but apparently it is.

All right.

She keeps going in the passage, head to toe, talks about the finest gold, the wavy black hair, the eyes like doves, cheeks like beds of spices, arms like rods of gold, legs like marble columns.

She's building a case for him, not building a case against him.

Don't miss that.

She ends in verse 16.

His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable.

This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

What you see is a picture of the lover and the companion, the romance and the relationship that's underneath it.

It shows you the third key to healthy conflict, which is this.

Let God work.

Let God work.

God worked on her.

Brought about conviction.

Helped her withstand temptation.

And Solomon did not have to manipulate the outcome.

He did not have to lecture her or campaign for her to see things his way.

He left a love token for his wife.

And then he let God do the rest.

And God moved.

I remember my first year of marriage, Hillary and I were, I was in seminary, and I was at Dallas Theological Seminary, and I would go down and we had chapel quite a few times a week.

And whenever I'd go to these chapel services, many times they would have people that would come in and speak, including married couples, and they would give testimony kind of about their marriage ministry that they were doing.

And I remember after seeing this a couple times, one particular one, that I just remember feeling this overwhelming sense of like, this is exactly what I want to do.

Like I totally want to do marriage ministry.

I think this is awesome.

Like I think this would be so exciting to be able to do together.

And so I was just pumped.

I remember so so ready to go home and tell Hillary this vision of what we were going to be able to do going forward.

And so I set her down and first year marriage, and I said, Hey, this is exactly what I think we're we're supposed to do.

And as I'm describing it to her, I'm noticing that she's not getting excited at all.

And then by the end of my pitch of what it is that I believe we're supposed to do, she starts crying, like sobbing.

Like, what is wrong?

She goes, That sounds like the worst thing I could possibly ever imagine.

I don't want to do that.

Like, what do you mean you don't want to do that?

Like, this is what God wants us to do.

She's like, I didn't want me to do it.

I just got angry.

I got really frustrated.

I remember praying like every day.

I we had a we had a journal, our first year of seminary, and so I remember in my journal just writing all these things out about like God, change her, fix her, get her on board.

Like, you know, this is what you want, so just make her get it figured out.

Like, God, I need you to do this.

I mean, I remember writing later on, like, it's not working.

Like, you need to keep going.

It's like maybe do a little different strategy.

Like, I've got some suggestions.

If you want to do these things, this might work, all right?

Our assignment was at the end of that year, we had to go back and read our journal entries from the previous year.

And I remember looking at it and reading through all of it and realized just how frustrated I was at my wife.

And I remember it vividly.

The Lord said, Are you done whining?

Because I actually want you to learn how to love the person I made her to be instead of you trying to make her into who you think you want her to be.

I was like, I like this a lot better when I was getting on to you for getting on not getting on to her, I suppose you getting on to me.

That following Sunday, I remember trying to find her.

And I vaguely remember her a few months prior to that telling me that she was going to go start working in the children's area.

So I remember going in there, she was teaching a kindergarten class, and she had these kids so lined up, like the classroom management was the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

And she's got them locked in and she's teaching them, and it was just literally unbelievably supernatural.

And God looked at me and He said, This is what I've made her to be.

This is the one I want you to love.

This is the one I want you to support.

Don't make her into your image.

My image is way better.

This is who I have for you.

Folks, what God was teaching me is what I believe he wants to teach you.

Your spouse's sanctification is not your job, and you're not really good at it.

Your job is obedience.

And re-engage, we're gonna hear about it more at the end.

John's gonna talk to you about it, but re-engage is a ministry of our church for marriages.

And one of the things that we do is we we put a hula hoop out.

And we we stand inside of a hula hoop.

And the idea is that your responsibility is whatever's inside the hula hoop.

Your responsibility isn't somebody else's hula hoop.

Your responsibility is your hula hoop.

Some of you, what you need to do is see what God wants to say to you instead of complaining to God about your spouse.

You need to work inside your hula hoop and see what God may be wanting to change in you.

And maybe even use the frustration and the conflict and the difficulty of the relationship that He has blushed you with.

Don't forget that.

He blushed you with it so that he can begin to teach you some things, not only about you, but about the spouse that he has gifted you to have.

Let me tell you what kills this more than anything else is comparison.

Comparison kills what God is trying to build.

In the middle of conflict, you're gonna be tempted, just like she was with the girlfriends there, to be tempted to compare your spouse's worst moments to everybody else's best presentation.

You're gonna be told, why can't they be more like that person?

Please hear me, that person's got their issues too.

You just can't see them.

So make sure that you're not comparing their behind-the-scenes footage against somebody else's highlight reel.

That is a rigged game that your spouse cannot win.

And when you play it long enough, you stop seeing what God is doing and you start seeing only what he's missing.

Don't compare your spouse to other people.

Compare yourself to what God is asking of you.

Chapter 6.

Her friends, they go back and forth.

Friends ask where Solomon went.

She knows exactly.

She says the same thing that they did when they were dating, I'm my beloved, my beloved is mine, and God's given her a vision for reconciliation.

So, what you're gonna see is she's gonna go back to Solomon.

They're gonna find themselves together, and we're gonna see who speaks first.

Look at what happens in verse 4.

It's him speaking.

You're beautiful as tears of my love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners.

Pay close attention.

Who is the offender?

In this particular story, she is.

Her comfort and her pride kept her in bed.

She's the one that owes the apology.

She's the one that ran the tab up.

Everything in us tells us that she has to go first.

But the response shows the fourth key to healthy conflict, which is this forgive early and often.

Forgive early and often.

Look who speaks first.

Verse 4, when they're together.

Solomon.

He's the offended party, and he opens not with a lecture, but with grace.

In fact, he starts using language similar to the wedding night language in chapter four.

He forgives her so completely that he speaks to her like the conflict never happened.

Skip down to verse 8.

There are 60 queens and 80 concubines and virgins without number.

My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the only one of her mother, pure to her who bore her.

The young women saw her and called her blessed, the queens and concubines also, and they praised her.

With all of the options in the royal world, he says, She's the only one.

That's when you know commitment is real.

When in the midst of challenge, you still say, I don't like this right now, but I'm with you.

It's when you have that idea that says this no matter what, we're not letting that enemy make us enemies.

We instead are going to be together.

And the only way you can accomplish that is when you forgive early and you forgive often.

Ephesians chapter 4, verse 31, or excuse me, verse 26, that says it like this be angry and do not sin.

Ephesians 4:31

Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.

Anytime, folks, you need to win, here's what's going to happen: you're going to lose something.

Control or sleep or respect or the relationship itself.

The goal is not to be right, the goal is to be reconciled.

How do I do that?

Look at verse 31 and 32.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

You do not forgive someone because of moral superiority.

I am better than you, and so therefore I'm gonna forgive you.

You forgive someone, why?

Because you've been forgiven.

Forgiven people forgive people.

It's not a slogan.

Like it's the only mechanism that actually works.

Forgiveness is a choice, it's not a feeling.

If you wait until you feel like forgiving, you will never forgive.

But instead, if you willingly make the choice to forgive, not because they deserve it, but because you know that you've been forgiven, it allows you to extend the same grace to them that you yourself have already received.

It leads to the results.

Skip down to verse 13 of chapter 6.

It says, Return, return, O Shulamite, return, return, that we may look upon you.

Shulamite is the woman.

Why should you look upon the Shulamite as upon a dance before two armies?

Here's what he's saying: the final key to healthy conflict, come out stronger.

Come out stronger.

What you see at the end of chapter six is that the conflict is over and something remarkable happens.

A crowd gathers.

Come back, come back.

They want to see the two people together.

The picture here is of two groups becoming one formation.

It's actually the Hebrew word, it's a dance, it's a celebration.

These two people coming through something hard like rejection or silence or distance or a night of searching.

And when they come back, people stop to watch.

James chapter 1, verse 2 through 4 tells us this.

James 1:2–4

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.

For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

And let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

You do not survive conflict in a marriage.

You do not just survive it.

If you fight the right way, you actually come out on the other side, knowing something about the other person and knowing something about yourselves that a conflict-free marriage would never be able to teach you.

You've had the opportunity to prove to each other that you're not going to leave.

The Gottman research on marriages is one of the most foremost uh authorities on relationships.

It confirms what the text has been saying for 3,000 years.

The couples with the healthiest and most lasting marriages are not the ones who fight the least, they're the ones who repair the fastest.

Two companies, one formation the watching world wants to see.

Would you bow your heads and would you close your eyes with me all across this room in prayer?

If you're married, would you grab the hand of your spouse right now?

If you're not join me in this prayer.

And he's been so active.

And we pray right now that you would bind the enemy against these marriages.

Do not give them any foothold in that relationship.

I pray for hope.

No matter how far gone it may feel, no matter how disconnected things have gotten.

I pray that today they would see that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power available to them in their marriage.

May they have living, active hope.

I pray for forgiveness, forgiveness to just cover these relationships.

I pray for a willingness to confess, a willingness to own what they've brought to the table, an ability to focus on their own hulu.

I pray we would lay down our arms and instead lock arms together against the enemy who wants to kill, steal, and destroy.

But Father, we choose to have life and to have that life abundantly.

I pray the marriages in this room and those that are being prayed for right now would represent you.

They'd be a gospel witness to Northeast Houston and beyond.

They'd be a gospel witness in our homes, and they'd bring life, hope, and healing, and joy.

Would you continue to keep your heads bowed and your eyes closed with me?

I need you to know the greatest conflict in history was between God and humanity.

God was the offended party, completely righteously offended by everything that we did and everything that we are.

He had every right to leave us on the other side of the door.

And the offended party went first.

Before we apologized, before we changed, before we even understood what we had done, he sent his son.

He walked through the conflict, through Gethsemane, through a rigged, through nails and a cross, not because we deserved it, but because that's what love does.

Forgiven people forgive.

Every bit of capacity that you have to go first in your marriage to respond instead of react, to let God work instead of taking his job.

All of it flows from what's already been done for you.

If the tomb is empty, anything can be forgiven.

It's the power source this passage is asking us to have.

What's your next step today?

For some of you, it's receiving Jesus for the very first time.

He made the first move.

Now it's your chance to respond, not by doing, but by receiving this gift of grace.

Others of you, you need to come and join United City Church.

This is home.

Make it official.

Coming forth for membership.

Others need to be baptized, like these two that we saw.

If God's leading you to make that your next step today, would you come?

Maybe others of you need prayer.

Maybe prayer for your marriage, maybe prayer for your family, maybe some personal need that you have right now.

We want to ask that you come and let us pray for you.

Here's what's gonna happen.

I'm gonna pray.

When I say amen, we're all gonna stand.

I'm asking you, unless you're coming forward to make a decision, or if you're coming forward to receive prayer, that you stay right where you are and just sing with us and pray with us and encourage others, do not be a distraction to anybody else around you.

You may be making the most important decision of their lives.

But if you are here, ready to make a decision today, and I say amen, that's your cue to step out from where you are, to come forward and make that decision public.

Father, in Jesus' name, I pray you'd give boldness, that you give courage, that you'd lead people to respond to you in faith.

It's in the powerful name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.

Man, what an amazing time that we had today.

Hey, if you know of someone that needs to hear this message, we'd love for you to share that on socials.

We'd love for you to actually go and check out our socials so you can stay up to date on everything happening in the life of United City.

And if you need to take the next step, we'd love to help you do that as well.

Love you guys so much, and we'll see you next week.