To Make A Marriage Better | Pastor Scott Kedersha

Let's go, 11 o'clock.

How are we doing?

Yes.

Hey, what a joy to get to be here with you.

My name is Scott Kadersha.

Pastor Chris and I went to seminary together many, many moons ago, and it is such a joy to get to be here.

I've heard a lot about what God is doing here, and it's so fun to actually get to be here and worship with you.

And as we continue in this series on marriage called Wedlocked, to give a little bit of background to my family, just so you know who I am.

I am very, very happily married to Kristen Kadersha.

As I said in the first service, that wasn't her maiden name, that's her name now.

And so Kristen and I met.

I was actually one of her students when I was in grad school.

It's not as scandalous as it sounds.

That's a story for another day.

But we met, uh, I was one of her students.

We got married four years later.

We got married the week of 9-11, so that was on a Tuesday.

We got married that Saturday, lived in Atlanta, moved to Dallas in 2002.

Uh we were in Dallas for way too long.

We were there until 2020 and uh served on staff at a church in Dallas called Watermark Community Church, was there for a long time as our worked as marriage ministry marriage pastor.

And then we moved to Waco, Texas, the Promised Land, four years ago.

In the middle of a pandemic, we picked up our four teenage kids and moved to a new home and a new church where I served as the marriage pastor at Harris Creek Baptist Church.

Love what I get to do.

I am giving my life to loving my wife and then raising our four young men.

We have four teenagers now: 15, 17, 19, and 19.

You'll hear a little bit more about them in a few moments.

Uh, but giving my life to loving my wife, raising four men who I hope and pray will change the world, and then to helping people understand what marriage is.

I have a very, very, very high view of marriage.

I'm giving my life to changing the narrative about marriage.

For way too long, we have told people marriage is hard, you're too selfish.

If you get married, you're gonna die, you can't handle it.

And there's no reason, I mean, that's why people are choosing to no longer get married.

Instead, I am trying to help people understand that while marriage is challenging, it's an amazing gift from a God who loves us.

I'm giving everything I can to helping couples, whether premarried, emptiness, everything in between, to understand the goodness of marriage, to understand what a gift it is.

And so whether you are single and hope to be married, married, maybe single after being married, widowed, divorced, whatever it may be, this message today isn't just about marriage.

It's about how to communicate and resolve and manage conflict.

Whether, whatever season of life you are in, this message will apply to you because we can all improve in the way that we communicate.

But specifically, we're going to take a little bit of a marriage focus.

Now, I have uh taught people how to communicate and manage conflict.

It's one of the things I teach on all the time.

Like it's if you're gonna be married well, you have to learn how to communicate.

If you're gonna be a marriage pastor, you've really got to be good at this.

And so I've studied, read, taught, I've spent a whole lot of time trying to learn how to do this really well.

But not surprisingly, I fall short sometimes.

And so with four boys, our house was really obnoxious and loud and stinky and like a really full schedule.

Saturdays with four kids, we'd have basketball and baseball and soccer and track meets and all that stuff, but we tried really hard to find time on Saturday to do one meal together.

And my wife would typically take care of the meals on you know the other days of the week.

She's a better cook, she likes it more.

I'm not a good cook, but there's one thing I could do really well, and I can make the best pancakes around.

And so Saturday comes around, and whether we're together early in the morning or late at night, we are gonna do pancakes.

And so I make my pancakes, and let me lay out the what our kitchen looks like just to give you the scene for this specific Saturday.

Now I'm at the counter, I got the griddle in front of me, I got the bowl, I'm mixing up, you know, with four kids, four boys.

I've got to make a big bowl of pancakes, a whole bunch of them.

And so the bowl is here, the griddle is here, the stove, the kitchen window and sink are over this way.

And to my right is the kitchen table where the other five Kadershas are sitting.

And it's like, you know, this is my time.

This is like Saturday, serve my family, make all the food, do all that.

And so I'm making my pancakes.

My pancakes are really good because I don't add water or milk to the mix, I put orange juice in the pancake mix.

They're yes, they're so good.

So you can come over to Waco anytime, I'll make you some.

And so I'm mixing the battery and it's not just, you know, it's not just mix and uh and orange juice, you gotta put chocolate chips in there as well.

Okay, and anyone who knows, I don't want to insult you, but you know, if you've made pancakes before, you know you don't just take the chips and put it in the batter.

Try to mix it up.

Because if you do that, the first couple pancakes you make are gonna have zero chocolate chips, and then the last one is gonna be one big giant chocolate chip.

And so you don't put the chocolate chips in the batter.

You actually wash your hands, you make the mix, and then you've got a bowl of chocolate chips, and then you reach in that bowl and you grab four or five chocolate chips for each pancake.

And so you make the mix, you pour the batter, six of them on there at a time, and you take a bunch of chips and you place four or five.

Pancakes are done, they're absolute perfection.

There's a little bit of chocolate chip in each bite, not too much, not too little, just right.

And so I'm doing my thing on a Saturday.

But this Saturday, for whatever reason, all six of us woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

We're loud, we're yelling, there's arguing, the kids are short with each other, Kristen's short with the kids, I'm short with the kids, the kids are short with us.

Kristen and I start arguing.

I'm like, those are your kids, fix them.

She's like, Those are your kids, fix them.

And so we're all frustrated with each other.

And as I'm making my pancakes and putting my chips in, I'm getting more and more and more frustrated.

Finally, I just lose it.

And I reach in, I get all the chocolate chips in my hand, and I throw them across the kitchen.

And so they're on the counter, on the stove, in the sink, all over the floor.

And now nobody's angry anymore.

Now everyone's just crying.

I mean, it's like this horrible scene of thinking, why is dad so mad?

And why wasn't that nicer?

And so, you know, one of them comes around, one of my twins, and he comes over to this side of me, and you know, and I'm standing here, and he kind of beckons for me to lean down and he whispers in my ear.

He says, Hey dad, all this stuff you always teach people on how to communicate and manage conflict and not get angry, and you teach us.

It says all that stuff just apply to other people, but it doesn't apply to you.

Uh-huh.

And man, so convicted.

Because I'm really good at teaching other people how to do it, but I wasn't applying it myself.

And so I turned to my son Drew and convicted deep to my core, and I said, You little brat, you keep your mouth shut and you pick up all those chips and don't ever tell me what to do again.

No.

So it's what I wanted to do.

It's not what I did.

He's so right.

Okay, the reason I tell you that story is because whether you teach communication to others for a living, or this is all new to you and you don't know what to do, wherever you are in that spectrum, we can all improve in this area.

See, the world tells us that if we're going to win, we need to speak up, we need to speak louder, we need to say what we want to say.

We can't be quiet because then the other person's gonna win.

We want to just respond, and we don't want to like give anyone else a chance to talk.

We want to win, and if I don't get to speak, then I'm not gonna win.

But God's word tells us the opposite.

It says a fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

We don't want to be fools.

That's Proverbs 18 2.

James 1 19 says, Let every one of you be quick to listen.

Slow to speak, slow to become angry.

But we do the opposite.

We're quick to speak, slow to listen, quick to get angry.

Nobody ever teaches us how to do this well.

There aren't classes that teach us how to listen better and how to understand what other people are saying.

Nobody tells us it's beneficial to seek to understand one another, not just win and plead your case.

And so we need to talk about how to communicate and manage conflict better.

Because this, if we don't get this right, it's going to continue to destroy our lives.

It destroys relationships between parents and kids.

It destroys relationships between coworkers and between in small group and community and work relationships.

And where I see it the most is it destroys marriages.

The inability to communicate and resolve conflict, to manage conflict always shows up in the top one or two reasons why couples get divorced.

We've got to do something about it.

So, week three of the wedlock series, I'm gonna teach you how to get unstuck when it comes to communication and conflict.

And the good thing is, you're not gonna you're not gonna learn my opinion because my opinion's not helpful.

We're gonna open up God's word and learn from the word on how to do this better.

Week one in this series, uh, Pastor Chris taught you that if you want to make marriage better, you've got to understand what marriage is.

Week two, Pastor Chris and Hillary said, if you want to make marriage better, you've got to understand what your role is.

You've got to understand what it's like to be a team.

In week three, we're gonna talk through to make marriage better, we need to learn to build up with our words.

And again, whether you're single, married, married for a minute, married for 70 years, everything in between, we can all improve this.

We need to learn how to build others up with our words.

You got your Bibles with you, open up to the book of Ephesians.

We're gonna look at Ephesians chapter 4, verses 25 through 32.

Ephesians 4:25–32

Set up the text a little bit.

The book of Ephesians is written by the Apostle Paul.

Uh, it's a really beautiful letter.

The first three chapters of Ephesians, Paul essentially teaches us how to think rightly.

He says, This is who you are in Christ.

You have been chosen, you've been selected.

Uh, God sent his son for us.

That he says, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, not by works.

He tells us how to think.

And then starting in chapter four, it actually changes, it shifts.

He says, Don't just think rightly, now you need to act rightly.

And the first thing he says in the beginning of chapter four is you need to take off some things and you need to put on some things.

And so we're gonna pick up, it's super, super practical.

I love the the idea of what Paul is doing in chapter four, is he said, you used to be like this, but now you're gonna be like this.

As followers of Christ, you got to put the old person away and start acting like the new one.

I I don't like uh, I'm a big college basketball, big college football fan, but one thing I detest is the uh the transfer portal.

Because all my favorite players, all my teams, take off one jersey and put on another.

They're like leaving my teams I love and they're transferring to teams of the enemy.

Okay, for instance, there was a guy who played at Baylor named LJ Cryer.

Loved LJ Cryer.

LJ took off his jersey and put on the jersey of the enemy, the Houston Cougars.

And so, you know, they take off the old and they put on the new.

I know some of you no longer like me.

At least I didn't make fun of the Aggies, which I could do that as well.

That would really make me an enemy.

That hissing is it's the sound of air coming out of the ego of every Aggie in this room, whatever that sound is made.

And so, you know, we're taking off the old and putting on the new.

That's what Paul is telling us to do.

And so uh, in this passage, in verses 25 through 32, it's not a marriage passage, but we're gonna see some principles that apply to all relationships with communication conflict.

They absolutely apply to marriage.

If you want to get married, you learn how to do these things.

If you're looking for someone to marry, you want to look for somebody who does these things.

If you uh want to help others get unstuck in any way, we learn these principles.

And so we're gonna talk through five principles that that really pop in this text that are gonna be incredibly helpful as we learn how to get unstuck when it comes to communication and conflict.

So let me read Ephesians chapter 4, verses 25 to 32, and then we're gonna go through it verse by verse.

Ephesians 4:25–32

Paul writes, Therefore, and every time there's a therefore, you're looking back, he says, In light of what I just shared, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as uh only such as is good for building up as it fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

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.

This is a packed text for seven verses, eight verses, whatever that is.

Can't do the math.

There's so much in there.

Anger, forgiveness, corrupting words.

You could do a full series just on this passage, but we're gonna unpack and then I think learn some really helpful principles from God's word that will help us in our marriage and really help us in all relationships.

And so let me go back to verse 25.

Paul says, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

And each of these five things I share, you're gonna see stop doing this and start doing this.

You used to do this, now you need to start doing that.

We see this in this verse.

He says, Therefore, put away falsehood and instead speak the truth to one another.

It's easy for us to be people who lie and deceive.

I I never had to sit down with my four sons, with Duncan, Drew, Carson, and Lincoln.

I never had to sit down with my four boys and say, Hey, let me let me teach you how to lie.

Okay, like this is what you say.

You say this, but you're actually doing this.

I never had to teach those sinful little brats how to do that.

They learned it all by themselves, probably from watching others, probably from the way I acted at times.

Like you never have to teach people how to be false, it just happens because we are ruled at times by sin, by selfishness.

And so the truth doesn't come out of us, lies come out instead.

And so, point number one is that if we are going to be unlocked in our marriages, we need to tell the truth and be honest.

We need to put away the lies and the falsehood.

You know who lies?

It's the enemy who lies.

John 8 44 says that the devil is a liar and the father of lies.

And so we've got to choose as married individuals, as single individuals, are we going to choose to be like our enemy, the devil, or are we going to choose to speak the truth to one another?

Because we tend to be really good at making promises but not keeping our promises.

I know in week one of the series, Chris led you, Pastor Chris led you through the marriage vows.

And in the marriage vows, you you make some really big commitments.

You promise to be with one another in sickness and in health and for better and for worse, and richer or poorer.

You're saying that I'm going to forsake all others and pursue you and you alone.

We make these big promises, but we look around and we see that people break these promises all the time.

And the big things and the little things.

And I learned very early on in my marriage to not speak lies to my wife.

I'm at work one day and I'm working as a physical therapist.

That was my former career.

And I'm working at the hospital, and this is back in the day of flip phones, and so I get my little flip phone and flip it open, and you know, there's no like air buds or there's no airpods or you know, beats or anything like that.

You got to hold it up to your ear and your mouth.

And I'm on the phone with my wife, and I say, hey, I'll probably be home about 5:30, 5.45 the latest.

I promise I'll be home by 5.45 because I have a problem of sometimes getting home late.

And so I promise I'm gonna be home at 5:30, 545.

And so I finish up.

I'm starting to pack my bag, put all my stuff away, walk towards the car, and I see my friend John.

And so John and I need to catch up on a patient that we were both seeing.

And so we have a 15-minute conversation, and then uh I run into a doctor who wanted to ask me a question.

I end up getting into a 10-minute conversation with Dr.

Apple.

That was his name, Dr.

Apple.

And then I walk over here and I want to catch up with a couple friends about some plans for the weekend.

And I look down, you know, at my uh watch because I don't even know if my phone told the time.

I don't know, it was so long ago.

But I realized that it's about 5 45.

I told my wife that I'd be home at 5 30, 5 45, and I hadn't even left the hospital.

I lived in Atlanta, traffic is the worst, and so I didn't get home until about 6.15, 6.30, somewhere in there.

And I walk in the door and Kristen's really frustrated with me.

And I didn't bother to pick up the phone again and call her and tell her that I was gonna be late.

Because I'm like, it's no big deal.

You know, I was it's not like I was getting drunk or getting high or, you know, having an affair.

I was just having conversations with friends, never bothered to tell her I was gonna be late.

And I walk in the door, she's really frustrated.

And you need to know my wife is the kindest, most gentle, loving person I have ever met in my life, but she was frustrated in that moment because I didn't keep my word to her.

And again, she says, you know, hey, you said you're gonna be home at 5:30, 545, and it's 6.15, 6.30.

You just walked in.

And I'm like, hey lady, it's not a big deal.

I just had confidence, don't do that ever.

Don't ever, you know.

And uh, and she says, but you promised.

I said, Well, I wasn't intentional.

It didn't, she said, it doesn't matter.

You told me you were gonna do something and you didn't do it.

And she didn't carry a grudge, you know, it was a really good conversation, but I learned in that moment, early on in my marriage, I'm not going to make promises to my wife unless I'm going to keep them.

Like, what would happen in my marriage, in your marriage, in Christian marriages, in Christian relationships, if we actually kept our word.

Even if it's unintentional, it would have been really simple.

I could have picked up the phone and said, Kristen, I got caught in a few conversations.

I'm running a little bit behind.

Is that okay?

I'll be home as soon as I can.

That would have solved so many problems, but instead I'm like, it's no big deal, she'll be fine.

And I didn't keep my word, and I learned early on that I want to be a person who keeps his word to his spouse.

See, in Genesis 2 24, it says a man leaves his father and his mother, becomes united to his wife, and the two become one flesh.

When I said I do to Chris and she said I do to me, we became one with each other.

And verse 25 says, We are members one of another.

It's not a marriage verse, but that is such a beautiful picture of marriage.

We are one with each other.

I don't want to lie to my wife.

I don't want to deceive, I don't want to tell half-truths, I want to put away falsehood and speak the truth.

What if we spoke the truth to one another in marriage?

What if we learn how to communicate in such a way that we honor the other by putting their needs and desires before our own and we put away the lies and put on the truth?

I think it would help us to get unstuck.

I think it would change our marriages.

Verse 26 and 27.

Be angry and do not sin.

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

In these two verses, Paul essentially says, be angry.

That's okay.

It's okay to be angry about injustice in the world.

It's okay to have emotions.

I think sometimes we're just told, like, you shouldn't cry, don't get angry.

Like we can be people who have emotions.

We we're flesh and blood human beings.

We're gonna get angry, we're gonna get sad, we're gonna be joyful.

Paul is not saying suppress your emotions, but he says, stop letting that lead you to sin.

The problem isn't anger, it's what we do with it.

And so often I hear, well, Jesus got angry, he flipped the tables and he got angry.

And I'm like, you're not Jesus.

In case you need a reminder, just to ask somebody who knows you, you are not Jesus.

And so you don't handle your anger in the same way he did.

He's under control.

We're not.

Even this week, you know, so I don't want to just, hey, there were some times like years ago when I got angry.

That's not helpful.

This week, within the last eight days, uh, three times when I've gotten frustrated.

And I've not just gotten frustrated, I've let that frustration bleed into sin.

Okay, one of them was one of my teenage sons was a little bit short with me and my wife.

He got home late at night and we asked him some questions, and he was short, and uh, and I just kind of snapped at him and I was frustrated about it.

I went to bed angry.

Kristen was very gentle with it, but I was frustrated, and I just had these thoughts running through my head over and over again about my teenage son that weren't helpful.

Second, uh, I was I got an email from a couple I was trying to help in our church, and I've spent so much time.

With them and and the email I got was, Hey Scott, I'm very disappointed in the way that you've tried to care for us.

If you knew the amount of time and if you honestly, if you would just do anything I told you to do, your marriage would be better.

And it's again, I'm not giving my opinion.

Like if you would just do what the Bible says.

But instead, I take it personally and I get frustrated.

Third, I uh there's a little gym in the neighborhood where I live, and there's two treadmills and a uh weight machine and some free weights, and you know, and I little neighborhood, and so when people come in, I I try to be friendly, I say hi to everyone, I want to build some community.

And there's this one bald guy, not just me, another bald guy.

And uh and he comes in there, and every time he comes in, he he never says hi.

Like, what's wrong with this jerk?

What's wrong with him?

And like, and I see him walking up, I'm like, okay, here he comes.

Today's gonna be the day.

And I and I say, hey, how's it going?

And he looks at me and doesn't say a word.

And then he goes over in the corner, he slams his weights too loud, and he just annoys me.

And it frustrates me.

I don't know this guy, but all of a sudden I start assuming he's the bald version of Satan working out in the gym with me.

I'm like, I get so angry, and I'm not I'm not like an angry person.

But these things just get me frustrated, and I let my anger lead to sin.

And instead of caring for this guy, I just get frustrated when I see him.

And so Paul says, be angry and do not sin.

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

This whole idea of do not let the sun go down on your anger, sometimes that's mistakenly taught as like as married couples, if you get into an argument late at night, then you've got to stay up as late as you need to until three in the morning, four in the morning, five in the morning.

You cannot go to sleep until you figure this thing out.

I think that's a little bit of a false teaching of diverse.

Because I don't know about you, but when it gets to be 11 p.m.

or midnight, I don't get better, I get worse.

And so instead of resolving it, we tend to spiral down in the wrong direction.

And so Paul is essentially saying, before you go to bed, make sure that you affirm the relationship.

Okay, tell your spouse you love them.

If you can't figure out an argument with your child and it's getting really late at night, just tell them you love them and then resolve to come back to it tomorrow.

Okay, so don't let the sun go down on your anger.

And then in verse 27, he says, give no opportunity to the devil.

Point number two is that we need to keep short accounts.

Keep short accounts.

Point one was speak the truth.

Point two, keep short accounts.

Because if we don't keep short accounts with one another, if we let the sun go down on our anger and we don't resolve the problem, then we allow the enemy to have an opportunity.

I love this verse.

In some translations, it says, don't give the enemy a foothold.

The ESV says, do not give an opportunity to the devil.

The Greek translation of that word opportunity really means place.

Don't give the enemy a place.

When we give in to our anger, when we sin, when we let the sun go down in our anger, we're essentially inviting the enemy to come hang out with us.

It's like I'm eating family dinner with my family, four of us at home, me, my wife, my son Lincoln, my son Carson.

The four of us are sitting at the table.

We've got two empty spots for our college boys who aren't living at home right now.

The doorbell rings, dinner's on the table, we're excited to eat, the doorbell rings, and I look at the door and it's the enemy, it's Satan.

And instead of keeping the door closed, I invite him in, I say, hey, come eat dinner with us.

We actually have two spots at the table.

Pick whichever one you want.

It's a ridiculous analogy and scenario, but that's what we do.

That's what the Greek tells us in the text.

That if we don't keep short accounts, if we let the sun go down on our anger, if we give into our anger, we're essentially giving the enemy a place at the table.

I don't want the enemy to have a spot on my table.

I want to fight for my marriage, I want to fight the enemy.

He does not get a spot at my table.

And so if we are going to do marriage right, if we're going to be unstuck, we need to keep short accounts.

Paul continues.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands, that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Point three, he's saying, don't steal, but labor, do honest work.

Point number three is that good communication does not come easy.

Stealing is easy.

Okay, our old home in Richardson, we had a back alley behind our home.

Garage door is up one night.

We left it up all night.

I don't I don't know if it was me, I don't know if it was my wife, one of the kids, it doesn't matter, but garage door is up.

Somebody drives down our alley, they pull into our driveway, they steal a couple bikes, they steal a lawnmower, they steal golf clubs.

My wife leaves her purse in her car, they get her purse.

That took 30 seconds, it took no effort whatsoever.

Stealing is easy.

But Paul says, don't steal.

He says, you need to labor.

Some of us are really lazy when it comes to communication.

We don't work hard, we think it's gonna come natural to us, we quit.

And I'm here to tell you that if you're gonna communicate well, it's going to take work.

The natural is to be quick to speak, slow to listen.

But God is saying we've got to do the opposite.

We've got to be really quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry.

It's gonna take some effort.

We don't want to be people who just think naturally and according to our flesh, that we're gonna communicate well.

That's not gonna go well for you.

It's not gonna go well for your marriage, it's not gonna go well for your family.

We need to be people who realize good communication doesn't come easy.

A lot of you, uh, this might be one of the best things you can do is that you might say to your small group, to your community, you might say, Hey, we need some help in our communication.

Some of you in your marriage might say, We're stuck.

We don't know how to communicate.

Re-engage would be an amazing place, a safe place for you to work on your marriage.

It takes effort to go to re-engage.

It takes humility to admit to others when we're stuck.

Don't be prideful, be willing to do the work to work on your marriage.

It is worth it.

Verse 29 and 30 let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as it fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Paul again gives us a beautiful contrast.

He says, You can either use corrupting words and tear people down, or you can choose to build up with your words.

Essentially means rotten.

Ramsey.

Ransom.

When I sit down with a husband and wife, and I and I see what they say, not just about each other, but to each other.

I see what parents say about kids, I see what kids say about parents, I see what we say about one another and gossiping about each other.

There's putrid words that come out of our mouths.

And Paul was saying, if we keep doing that, we're gonna continue to be stuck.

But instead, what if we used our words to build up?

What if what if we were people who were known?

What if followers of Jesus Christ, what if Christian marriages were not known for being putrid and rancid, but building one another up?

What if we had the most encouraging marriages around?

What if like people looked at your marriage, they looked at your family, they looked at the way you interact with one another, they looked at the way that you interacted with coworkers and said, I love that person, I love how encouraging they are to one another.

Okay, Hebrews 3.13, one of my favorite verses in the Bible, says, But let us encourage each other day by day, as long as it is called today, so that none of us may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Sin is going to deceive us and pull us away, but we get an opportunity to encourage each other day by day with our words.

To encourage someone means you're putting courage in them.

When they want to quit, when they want to give up on their marriage, when they're just stuck in parenting and relationships, we just want to quit.

But we get the chance to encourage with our words instead of letting corrupting talk.

What if we built one another up?

And so I think this might be the most helpful thing you might hear today is this simple question.

Is what I'm about to say?

Is what I'm about to type, is what I'm about to text, is what I'm about to share.

Is it going to tear somebody down or is it gonna build them up?

And I want to be somebody who does not tear down with my words.

I want to build up.

Now that doesn't mean you always lie.

We talked about that, but you've got to put away falsehood.

Sometimes building others up is having a hard conversation.

Sometimes it's pointing out sin.

Sometimes it's challenging someone.

It doesn't always mean you're amazing, you're the best.

Sometimes we need to wound one another, but we build up with our words.

And so is what I'm going to say, type text, is it gonna build somebody up or tear them down?

Last two verses.

Let all here's a list of six things to put away.

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander be put away from you along with malice, and instead put on, be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another.

And why do we forgive each other?

Because as God in Christ Jesus forgave you, you put off that anger stuff and you put on kindness and tenderness and compassion and you forgive.

Point number five is that let's be people who are kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving.

What if what if your communication was marked by those things?

What if your marriage?

What if your parenting?

What if all of your relationships and the words that you used were marked by kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness?

I love I love the word kindness.

Sometimes we're kind to people in order to get something in return, like we tell someone they look good only so that they can tell us we look good in return.

You know, that that's not what it means to be kind.

To be kind is this different thing.

It's it's that we're we're kind because Jesus is kind.

Romans 2, 4, it's the kindness of the Lord that leads us to repentance.

Galatians 5, 22 and 23, one of the nine fruit of the Spirit is kindness.

Uh 1 Corinthians 13, 4 says, love is patient, love is kind.

And so often our marriages and our words are not marked by kindness.

What if we were marked by kindness?

What if we were tenderhearted?

The word tenderhearted means compassion, it means we're empathetic, it means we see where somebody else is, and we don't just think, you know, sorry for them.

We actually engage in what they're thinking and we feel what they feel.

Jesus saw the people who were like sheep without a shepherd.

He had compassion on them, he wept for them.

And then and then we're forgiving.

What if we were forgiving?

God's nobody better be should be better forgivers than us.

Okay, Christian marriages, Christian relationships, parenting relationships, community relationships, as followers of Christ, we ought to be experts in forgiveness.

Nobody should do this better than we do.

Right?

Because nobody understands what forgiveness is like we do.

We don't forgive others because somebody deserves it.

We're not forgiven because we deserve it.

We are forgiving people because God forgave us in Christ.

And it says that we forgive just as we have been forgiven.

What if our marriages were marked by forgiveness?

What if we were tender and kind and compassionate and forgiving?

To make marriage better, to get unstuck in communication and conflict.

We need to build each other up with our words.

And I've shared five things really quickly.

That we would speak the truth.

That we would not be marked by sinful anger, that we wouldn't let the sun go down on our anger.

I said that we need to realize good communicate good communication.

Struggle saying the word community communication.

Good communication doesn't come easy.

It takes work, it takes effort.

We need to work at it.

Okay, fourth, what if we built up with our words?

And then fifth, like, what if we had marriages that were marked by tenderness and kindness and forgiveness?

Okay, I'm like, as a marriage pastor, that can't be like, like, what if that's what we were like?

What if you dated each other in that way?

What if your family was marked by that?

What if you want you went through engagement and that's how you engaged with one another?

What if you started your marriage with that kind of marriage?

What if you were married 70 years?

I don't think you make it to 70 unless you do these things.

And so Paul guides us, he gives us this beautiful instruction that we should be people who build up with our words.

Shared with you a week ago, I went through a couple times of being frustrated, and it just kind of sat with me.

And it one more story from last Sunday.

We have three services at Harris Creek and 9, 11, and 4.

And we go to a different service each week depending on what's going on with meetings for me and my wife and kids.

And so we were at the four o'clock last week.

So less than one week ago, we go to the four o'clock and I get there early to do a couple things.

Kristen texts me, says, Hey, can you save four seats so we could sit together?

Like, absolutely.

I love sitting with my family at church.

And so uh we're in like this section, I'm four rows back, I save four seats.

And people keep coming up and they want the seats.

It's four o'clock.

I'm like, nope, save for my family.

We're sitting together.

You'll have to find somewhere else to go.

These are hours.

And so it's four o'clock, it's four or one, it's four oh two.

Nobody's there, it's just me.

Well, there's other people there, but nobody in my family is there besides me.

Starting to go a little frustrated.

I'm like, I save the seats and they're not here, and it's 403, 404, trying to worship and trying to sing and try to praise Jesus and my slacker family, still not here.

You know, I don't know what they're doing.

405, 406.

Finally, I look at my phone and and Kristen says, Turn around.

And so I turn around and they're sitting, you know, pretty far back, and they're all waving at me to come back, the three of them.

And I'm like, no, you'll come up here to the seats I got.

Like, no, come on back.

And so I pick up all my stuff.

And you would think I was the most sacrificial person in the history of the world.

I'm gonna march 15 feet down to go sit with them and pick up my stuff.

I go sit down with them, and I've got a scripture journal.

I take notes in, I slam it to the ground, put my water, my yeti, and kind of slam it down.

I'm like, I'm frustrated.

I say that to Kristen, and we're still worshiping, and and you know, she tries to come closer to me, grab my hand.

I'm like, I'm not taking your hand.

In fact, I put a seat between us.

And I go walk in the in the lobby and I go get a cup of coffee and use a bathroom.

I'm like, I need to calm down, but I'm so frustrated right now.

And I'm like, I don't know why.

It's not a big deal.

But I sit back down and she tries to hold my hand.

She wants me to sit next to her.

And I went through that whole service.

I have no idea what my pastor taught that day.

So in my head, I was frustrated at Christian, and you know, I don't know why.

And I'll tell you why.

It's because I gave the enemy a spot in our marriage.

I didn't worship, I was a poor witness.

I lost the opportunity to learn with my wife and worship with my wife and grow in our marriage and grow in our relationship and learn from God's word, but I let the enemy have a spot in my marriage.

And I think we so often do that.

We don't build up with our words, we let anger dominate us, we let our anger lead to sin.

And uh, you know, I was just thinking, even this morning, I need to go back and listen to that sermon because I have no idea what I'm supposed to learn last week, because I was so mad and so frustrated.

And I just don't think God wants that for us.

I think he wants like so much more for our marriages.

I think he wants so much more for my marriage.

And so later that night, Chris and I resolved it, and candidly her one tiny thing to resolve was we should have left earlier and we got there late.

She said, I'm sorry, will you forgive me?

Said, I'll think about it.

No.

I said, of course.

You know, and I got the chance to apologize to her and said, I'm sorry for being prideful and selfish, and I let the enemy have a spot.

Will you please forgive me?

She said, Of course I do.

Because that's what we do.

Do not give the enemy a spot in your marriage.

What if we use our words to build up instead of tearing down?

I pray that this church will be marked by the best marriages, by people who long to be unstuck in their marriage, that you would build up, that you would be a community known as people who build up with their words instead of tearing down.

I'd love to pray that for you.

Thank you for letting me be here.

What a joy to get to be here with you.

I mean, I am.

Thank you.

And so let me pray for you for your relationships, you know, for marriages and for future marriages, and that this church would be marked by those truths from Paul's words.

God, I pray that this would be a place, that this would be a body of Christ marked by words that build each other up, not tear down.

I pray to make marriages better, to make relationships better, that we would build each other up.

I pray, God, we wouldn't give in to sinful desires, that anger that leads us to sin and gives the enemy a spot.

I pray that we would realize that this takes work, that we'd be willing to do the work because it matters and it counts.

I pray, God, that we would not be marked by lies like the enemy is and like the world is, but that we'd be marked by truth.

I pray, God, that we would be kind and tender-hearted, forgiving.

Thank you that you forgive us not because we deserve it, but because of what your son Jesus has done.

And I pray that his work, your sacrifice, would mark the way that we relate to one another.

I pray the marriages in this body would be different than those around, that they would be marked by all these things that we talked about.

I pray for future marriages that would be marked by these traits.

I pray for kids and youth and students and college students to grow up with the right picture of what it looks like to build up with our words.

And we just say, All this, God, we don't know how to do this well at times.

We need you.

We know that when we lack wisdom, we can come to you, that we can ask for it, and you will generously give it to us.

And so we confess that we need all the help that we can get.

Thank you for being a beautiful, good God.

You would keep eyes closed and head bowed as we continue to pray.

The thing I love about Pastor Scott's message is it it really opens the door for every single person in the room to take a next step this morning.

So, in a spirit of prayer, with your heads bowed and eyes closed, I just want you to ask yourself of these five things, where can I take my next step?

Number one, speaking the truth.

If you're honest with yourself, you'd say that you've allowed lies and deceit enter into your heart.

Some may be big lies, some may be small lies.

Maybe you're holding on to half truths.

Today what you need to hear is that it's time to come clean.

It's time to be honest.

Number two, maybe your next step is to keep short accounts.

Maybe you've been holding on to something for way too long.

You're not offering up forgiveness, you're not asking for forgiveness, but instead, your your heart is just growing more and more bitter, holding on to that grudge.

Today, your next step is to keep short accounts and extend forgiveness.

Number three, have you allowed your communication within your relationships to become apathetic?

Instead of doing the hard work, you've settled for a lesser version of the communication that God has for you within your relationship today.

And you need to deny apathy in order to communicate the way that God has designed.

Number four.

You just need to acknowledge that your words that you use.

Tearing someone down instead of building them up.

Maybe small things, maybe large things.

But you would just say, you know what?

I've got to figure out a way to be more encouraging.

I need to build up my spouse with my words.

Finally, number five.

Your next step is to be kind, to be tenderhearted, to be forgiving.

Understanding that those three things are a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that God, out of his kindness, sent his one and only son down to earth.

And his tender-heartedness, the son Jesus went to the cross for your sins and for my sins.

And his victory over the cross and raising from the dead is an extension of the forgiveness that only Jesus can offer.

You may be here today and you may say, Dave, I need to cling to that forgiveness.

Today I need to give my life to Jesus.

Today your next step may be to take the step of baptism like we saw earlier today.

And go public with your faith.

And have your faith not be something that is a private thing within your own life that happens on Sunday mornings, but instead to get it out there and to say, I belong to Jesus.

I've received the kindness, the tender heart, and the forgiveness that God has to offer.

And I want the world to know about it.

Next step may be to join the United States Church to link arms with us.

You maybe you've been attending for a little while and you're kind of kicking the tire seeing how you feel about things, and you know that God wants you and your family to be committed here to engage with this body of believers in order to build up and encourage your faith.

Finally, this morning, your next step may simply just be to ask for prayer.

Our team is making their way forward right now, and if that's you, if you this morning would like to be prayed for.

Maybe you want us to pray over your marriage.

Maybe there's uh struggle, maybe there's an issue going in on your life, uh, maybe there's a health care, maybe it doesn't matter what it is, but today you would just say, you know what, Dave, I need prayer today.

And our team would love nothing more than to have the opportunity to pray with you.

If you want to give your life to Jesus, here in just a moment, we're gonna stand and sing, and as we do, just make your way forward and tell one of the people on our team today I want to give my life to Christ.

Whatever decision that you want to make today, now's the time to do it.

I'm gonna pray.

We're gonna sing as we do, you make your way forward.

Lord Jesus, we give you these moments.

We ask that you would do with them what only you can do.

God, would you give people clarity on their next step?

Would you give them a boldness and a faith to step out and to pursue you in a different way?

God, I pray that you would lord over these next few moments that we have together today.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Wow, what an amazing message we got to hear this morning.

I hope the Lord should himself fresh.

Hey, if you made the decision today to follow Jesus or a decision for Christ, you would love to make myself for nine for my back.

If you missed the best or you missed the wanna go back, don't worry.