Love, Marriage and the Baby Carriage: Fight for Your Marriage with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Hey, if you're new with us, my name is Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at Meta, and you have joined us in the middle of a relationship series where we have made it to marriage weekend.

Some of you are so excited because you just got married and you're in love, and some of you have been married for a long time and you're like, oh no, we came on the wrong weekend.

This is gonna be so encouraging, and I think it's gonna be really instructive.

Uh, wherever you've joined us from, if you're here in Helotus or streaming with us online or here at Petrenko, I'm so glad that you are here.

We're also doing a thing on social media.

Uh, even though we're uh kind of deep into it, I'd love for you to join us in our stories on Instagram and Facebook.

Every day we're reading through the Proverbs.

This series is rooted in Proverbs.

We're just begging God to fill us with wisdom as we navigate our relationships.

So make sure you're following us on there.

My message today is fight for your marriage.

Fight for your marriage.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you.

We thank you for your great love for us.

We thank you for marriage.

It was your idea, not our idea.

And we give you um all of our time and attention right now.

Holy Spirit, we ask that you speak to us.

And we give all this to you in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Uh, I'm gonna start with some transparency.

Uh, I've I've been in ministry for a long time, you know, 15, 16 years.

I've never had a morning with as many technical problems across our venues as we have had today.

And let me tell you how I read that.

I read that as the enemy of God trying to discourage the leaders of this church because there are marriages who are going to get healed today.

That's how I read that.

And so, wherever you're at in your relationship, if you're single and hope to be married, if you're dating and hope to be married, if you're married and hope to stay married, if you're married and don't want to be married, if you used to be married and want to get married again, lean in today because the more opposition, the more opportunity.

And I believe there's opportunity in the Word of God.

Say amen if you believe that.

Last week we learned that we date to prepare for marriage.

And we look for three things compatible beliefs, compatible blueprints, blueprints for your life, and compatible boundaries.

And the reality is many of us did not do that before we got married, and even people who date with so much intention leading up to marriage still end up carrying lots of baggage into the marriage relationship.

We build walls around our hearts, and inevitably this leads to conflict.

Now, some of you heard my message, you know, you gotta fight for your marriage, and you're like, bro, I'm on expert mode.

We fight all the time, right?

And so let me just make this clear: there is a difference between fighting in your marriage.

Just because you are fighting in your marriage does not mean you are fighting for your marriage.

And what we're gonna learn about today is how to fight for your marriage.

Our job today is to learn how to leverage conflict as a net positive for our relationship.

There's all kinds of things, and like when you date, you're on your best behavior, right?

And so you think that they're an introvert and you're an introvert, and all you want to do is chill at home, and you think they want to chill at home.

They don't want to chill at home, they want to chill with you, and you happen to be at your house, right?

So you get married and you think you married an introvert, and they put the extra in extrovert, right?

And then there's tension because you always want to use your energy in different ways, and you thought that they were very frugal because they were just following suit.

You're a penny pinter and get married, and you learn they are a card swiper, you know?

And there's all these things that we don't usually negotiate, right?

So we're kind of uncomfortable talking very specifically about our sex lives, and then we get married and you realize one of you wants to have sex twice a week, and one of you wants to have sex twice an hour, right?

And so how are we going to manage this?

And then you have kids, right?

And that's very difficult because you were like maybe raised by very like soft, newer parenting, you know, uh honey, we're gonna redirect your energy, you know?

And then you were raised with like belts and chanklas, right?

So it's just it's a different ballgame altogether.

And so conflict is inevitable.

And conflict will either destroy you or it will build you up and help you meet your potential.

And the hard truth is, as much as we don't like conflict in our marriage, for your marriage to meet its potential, for both of you as spouses to meet your potential, it requires conflict, but it's gotta be done in the right way.

Every week we're rooting ourselves in the Proverbs.

Proverbs 15:1 says this a gentle answer turns away anger, but a harsh word stirs up wrath.

Proverbs 15:1

Now, this is the first verse.

It's like a new thought.

In movies, sometimes, especially action movies, sometimes the movie starts and you're already in the action, right?

Uh the dark night, you're just in the middle of a bank robbery, and you gotta just figure out what's going on.

Uh, I watched yesterday, I watched the new Captain America movie.

And the movie starts and you're just in an army operation.

And there's a technical term for that in storytelling.

It's called in media rest, which means in the middle of action.

And that's what Proverbs 15:1 is.

Proverbs 15:1

It is a verse that assumes action is already taking place.

It assumes that anger has already come your way.

When you're married, anger is gonna come your way sometimes, okay?

Like there is conflict, and we're not always gonna handle it well.

And so typically when I talk to couples about conflict, uh, you know, we're doing premarital or their marriage is is struggling, and we talk about how to have conflict, and and the the answer I usually get is like, hey, I'm good with conflict, right?

They just have to approach me the right way.

If they approach me the right way, I'll approach them the right way.

But if you want to get crazy, you know, if you bring crazy my way, I will bring crazy back, you know?

Like, this is how conflict escalates and escalates.

And Proverbs 15:1, it says, a gentle answer turns away, wrath.

Proverbs 15:1

This is like the the picture of a fire approaching, and you have a bucket of water, and you have a bucket of jet fuel, you know, and you have a decision to make, and a gentle answer for you to respond in a way that pours water on the flames, that settles things down.

However, it says a harsh word, and if you translated the Hebrew literally, it would be words that cause pain.

Being married is a is a beautiful thing, and one of the things that you learn as you're married longer and longer is how to better uniquely love your spouse.

Because no one loves them like you love them, and no one knows them like you know them.

And so you can uniquely love them, uniquely serve them, uniquely build them up.

The danger is no one knows them like you know them.

And so no one can hurt them like you can hurt them.

No one has the toolkit of words that cause pain like you do, because you know the insecurities that they carry that no one else knows.

And you know who to reference from their past that will tear them to the ground, and you know how to belittle their proudest accomplishments in ways that will flatline them.

When we use our words that cause pain, it stirs up wrath, it adds fuel to the fire.

And this is typically how we approach our conflict.

Now, this is obviously true that when we have anger come our way, we can de-escalate or we can escalate.

Fighting in your marriage is inescapable.

There will be conflict, but if you want to learn to fight for your marriage, the first step is acknowledging this as true.

How you respond to your spouse in conflict will determine whether it builds your marriage up or breaks your marriage down.

I read a book last year called Super Communicators by Adam Grant, and he was looking back at some research from the 1970s and 1980s, and it was a huge, huge research project.

There were all of these researchers and psychologists, and in the 1970s, for a lot of reasons, divorce started skyrocketing, and so they wanted to kind of figure out what was going on, and so they looked at thousands of couples and they would bring them in and they would study them and videotape them in.

Most of what they did was provoke conflict.

And over time, studying these people across years of time, they categorized them broadly into happy couples and unhappy couples.

The happy couples ended up staying married, you know, happily ever after.

And the unhappy couples, the majority of them, either ended in divorce or just lived in absolute misery.

And the job of the research project was to find out what is the difference between these happy couples and these unhappy couples.

They knew it had something to do with conflict.

Now, if you're in a really rough marriage right now, you probably have fantasies about what a good marriage is like.

And you think in a good marriage, they hardly ever fight, and when they do fight, they just kind of hold hands and like kind of talk it out, you know, as they skip through meadows or something like that.

And if you're in like a really good marriage, then you know that marriage is actually kind of hard.

And you might imagine that people in unhappy marriages, they just fight way more than you, and it's like way more brutal.

They don't have near the skill that you have in like problem solving, and both of you would be wrong.

So, like the most obvious thing they looked at first was we bet the unhappy couples fight way more than the happy couples.

And they were dead wrong.

There was no correlation.

There were some happy couples who fought a couple times a month, there were some happy couples who fought every single day.

There were unhappy couples who only fought every couple of months, there were unhappy couples who fought every single day.

There was zero correlation between the frequency of fights.

So they thought, okay, well, we were wrong about that.

Maybe the unhappy couples fight about way more serious issues.

They're fighting about their finances, they're fighting about how to raise their kids, they're fighting about religion, they're fighting about their in-laws, they're fighting about their debt, they're fighting about their careers, and you know, the happy couples, they're like fighting about like who looks better, you know, no, you look better, no, you look better, no, I love you more, you know.

It's like maybe that's the difference.

So they looked through all of their research, and what they found shocked them.

There was zero statistical difference between what people fought about.

The unhappy and happy couples fought about the exact same things.

So then they thought, okay, you know what it probably is?

Here's our hypothesis.

We think that the happy couples just have way, way better problem solving and conflict resolution skills.

They know how to compromise, they know how to set boundaries, that has to be it.

And they were wrong again.

As a matter of fact, some of the worst problem solvers in the entire experiment were the happiest couples.

So they were very confused, and you might be as well, because it starts to destroy the notion of what makes a happy and unhappy marriage.

It wasn't the frequency of fight, it wasn't the category of fights, and it wasn't even the skill in resolving the fights.

So, what did make the difference?

Hold that thought.

I want to go to Jesus because what the researchers were trying to figure out 50 years ago, Jesus saw for us 2,000 years ago.

This is part of Jesus' most famous sermon.

It's all his greatest hits, it's his most distilled wisdom.

And here's the three verses he says about how to deal with conflict.

He says this.

Who am I trying to change?

Every fight is a struggle for control.

You think they're being lazy and you want to change that, you're trying to control them.

You think they're being rude and you want to change that, you are trying to control them.

You want more intimacy, they want more money, you want more time away, they want more time at home, you're trying to control each other.

Remember the happy marriages and the marriage that ended in divorce, they fought just as frequently about the same topics, they were equally skilled or unskilled at resolving the conflict, but here's what they found.

Unhappy spouses tried to control each other.

Happy spouses focused on controlling themselves.

This is literally what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.

He said, Why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, but don't notice the beam of wood in your own?

Now, I gotta get something out of the way.

Probably none of you are as ADD as I am, but I could not learn this lesson because I have a thing with my eyes.

Okay.

Well, like when I get uh an eyelash in my eye, to me, it's a nine out of ten, okay?

I think I might actually have a torn ACL right now, and I'm fine.

An eyelash in my eye and I'm breaking down, okay?

And so when I was a kid, I heard this teaching from Jesus, and I could only picture a splinter in somebody's eye, right?

What does it mean?

Jesus, one chapter earlier, he explains himself.

He says, the eye is the lamp of the body.

It gives clarity.

And when the eyes are healthy, the body is healthy.

And when the eyes are distorted, there's no wisdom.

He's using this ancient framework where the eyes were the source of discernment.

Your eyes being clear was a picture of you being able to apply wisdom into your life.

And so what he's really saying is when you go into conflict trying to control the other person, you're focused on the splinter.

And you may know this, this is like one of the most proven-out psychological phenomena that the things you wrestle with the most about yourself are the things you hate the most about other people.

So if you're prideful, you cannot stand to see a splinter of pride in somebody else.

If you're insecure, you can't stand to see someone else grab the spotlight.

If you're bad with your money, you will be the first to judge someone making an illogical purchase.

Who are you trying to control?

Who are you trying to change?

Because for a lot of us, we get into these fights, especially in our marriages, and you can see the splinter.

You're like, oh girl, if you could only fix this, girl, you got some pride going on, you know?

And I'm gonna pray for you because you need to change.

Jesus needs to get a hold of your heart because I can see it just clearly.

And I'm gonna poke at that splinter and prod and point that splinter out until you finally get rid of that splinter in your life.

And the whole time she's looking at you like this.

You're like, girl, if you could just fix your splinter.

It's kind of cartoonish, but the actual picture that Jesus is using is maybe like one one hundredth of this and a telephone pole.

He's using like cartoonishly opposite examples.

And what it really does is it blinds us.

It's like I'm not even seeing what's wrong with you, I'm seeing what's wrong with me projected back on myself.

You've got like a little issue, but I've got like years of trauma I haven't dealt with to even be able to discern what's going on in my marriage right now.

And it sounds so cliche to say you gotta start with you.

This is a radical reshaping of how we approach conflict.

Here's what Jesus said in verse 5 you hypocrite.

First, take the beam of wood out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to help your brother with his splinter.

You want to engage in conflict that actually improves your marriage and deepens your union and increases your love.

It starts with you.

Jesus and the Proverbs are calling for a radically new approach to conflict.

Here's how we do conflict in our world today.

We enter into tension, a fight, an argument, a conflict, and here's our disposition.

We say, in our mind, I am right, and I will prove it.

And of course, the problem is your spouse is also entering into the Colosseum saying, I am right, and I will prove it.

I am going to change.

And this leaves us no choice but to go in and try and control and coerce and change your spouse, whether through fear or manipulation, passive aggressiveness, or withholding.

You want to fight for your marriage, you're gonna have to change your approach.

What Jesus is calling for, what Proverbs 15 is calling for, is not I am right and I will prove it, it is something is wrong, and we will fix it.

There's tension in our marriage.

You know, part of the problem with the approach of like, I'm right, no, I'm right, no, I'm right, and I'm gonna make you see that I'm right, and I'm gonna prove that I'm right.

I'm gonna yell louder, and I'm gonna put you down, and I'm gonna use the words that cause pain to knock you off of your feet, so I can have the upper ground, so I can make you feel a certain way, not because I actually feel a certain way, but because I have a beam in my own eye and I have my own pain and I have my own trauma and I haven't dealt with my own things, so I'm gonna project it onto you, and it's me versus you, even though we stood at the altar and say, I do, and I do, and God said, The two have become one.

And the world says that one, if you work hard enough, you can rip it apart, and then you can be right, and you can be right, you can battle it out, and you are throwing away the uniqueness of the covenant that you've entered into.

The two have become one, and two minds are better than one to problem solve the tension in your marriage, and two hearts are better than one to lead with the love that you have for each other, and and two sets of problem solvers are better than one.

This isn't me versus you, this is me and you fighting together for our marriage, and I get it.

You're part of the problem, and they're part of the problem, and so it's either gonna be spouse versus spouse, or it's going to be a marriage together, working for the betterment of both of you.

This is so fundamentally different than how we fight.

It is probably fundamentally different than how your parents fought, than the examples that have been set for you.

It is fundamentally different than the shows and the movies that we watch that inform us how relationships are supposed to work.

But this is the path of wisdom.

Dr.

John Gottman, he's a renowned relationship expert.

He says there are four ways that we communicate in conflict that destroy our marriages.

Criticism, contempt, those are the first two.

Criticism is focusing off of the issue, the tension, the problem to solve, and aiming your ire at who they are, at their character, at their personality.

Contempt is even worse.

As a matter of fact, Gottman finds that contempt is the number one predictor of divorce.

Contempt is treating your spouse with disrespect, mocking or superior superiority.

This is where we bring in sarcasm, name-calling, eye-rolling, ridicule.

The other two are on the other side when you're receiving criticism.

The first is defensiveness, where you become a victim and you can't take ownership of anything.

And the last is stonewalling, where you just block them out.

You give them the silent treatment, you're just not gonna deal with them.

Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling.

He calls those the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

When those are present in your conflict, it spells doom for your relationship.

And how you change that is you quit trying to control them and you focus on controlling yourself.

And I already know, like, here at one of our venues online, that there are some of you who are like, okay, Pastor, I love this, I love this.

Let me start with that.

I love it.

Um, and I will, like, I'm sure I've got I've got some stuff to work on, you know.

I'm sure I've got some little, I've got some little splinters in my life, you know.

But you don't know my wife, right?

Like, it's like I I'm going to, I hear you, and I'm gonna take some.

Inventory of who I am, you know.

Um, but if you knew my husband, bro, like you, you'd be preaching a different sermon to us today.

Because it's obviously, and you know what?

Uh you're probably wrong.

Not all the way.

And even if you're mostly right, the wisdom that is guiding us from scripture today, it acknowledges uh an undeniable truth.

There is one person that you have any control over.

And it's not your spouse, it's just you.

There's only one person you can actually change, and it's not your spouse.

It's you.

And if you think you are an expert at changing your spouse, you're probably an expert at manipulation.

And manipulation always sows seeds of resentment.

And it may take some time, but those seeds will come into full bloom and probably wreck your marriage.

This is the acknowledgement that it starts with us.

Marriage is very difficult.

We don't come here to play games, we come here to get very honest.

Marriage can be very difficult, and marriage requires conflict.

This isn't a message on how to get conflict out of your marriage.

You need conflict, but you need to be arm in arm, coming at it together, ready to take ownership of your part in it.

So together, as one, you can problem solve, and your marriage can reach its potential, and you as individuals can reach your potential.

I want to give you some very practical examples of what it looks like and how it sounds to try and control your spouse.

It sounds like this.

You need to stop talking right now.

It sounds like this.

Don't you dare roll your eyes at me.

It sounds like I expect you to be at the table when dinner is ready.

You need to show some respect when my parents are around.

We are gonna talk about this right now.

It sounds like don't you spend one more penny.

You better text me back immediately.

You are not going out with your friends tonight.

I don't care how tired you are, you need to help with this.

It sounds like you should know exactly what I need without me always having to tell you.

Here's what it sounds like to focus on yourself in conflict.

It sounds like I would really like to talk about what happened this morning.

It sounds like it bothers me when I feel ignored and I'd like to talk about it.

I'm feeling overwhelmed.

I really could use your help.

I want us to be on the same page with our money.

Could we look at a budget sometime?

It sounds like I feel hurt when my opinions are dismissed.

I'd like to work on our communication.

It sounds like I'm gonna take a few minutes to cool down before we continue this conversation.

I value our time together, and I'd like to have dinner as a family.

I wanna be more intentional about respecting who you respect.

It sounds like I know we're both upset.

Let's take a break.

Let's come back and visit this later.

James, the brother of Jesus, he gave stellar advice when he said, My dear brothers and sisters, understand this.

Everyone should be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to anger.

Quick, slow, slow.

Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry.

Here's the uncomfortable news.

When you start focusing on yourself, I I would like this.

Here's what I'm seeing, here's what I would like us to work on.

Your conflict is still going to be uncomfortable.

This isn't a magic silver bullet.

When there is tension, it's still going to be tense.

That's what tension means.

It's still going to be uncomfortable.

But you are focusing on yourself and you are choosing a calm answer.

You're putting water on the fire.

You're going from an adversarial position to standing side by side.

You're going from, I am right and I will prove it, to something is wrong.

And I trust that together we can fix it.

And I am ready and you are ready to both own our part of this so we can move forward towards the potential that God has placed on our life.

Even when you are approached with anger, and you will be, marriage is tough.

And your husband is going to really make you angry, and your wife is really going to make you angry.

And we all slip, even when approached with anger, if you will listen and then be slow.

Think through your response.

Quell that anger rising inside of you.

Ask yourself some questions, like, okay, am I about to try and control her?

Or am I trying to control myself?

What do I have in my eye?

How could I have been wrong in this situation?

What information about this does she not have?

How's this making me feel?

What do I need to do to be a good spouse in this situation?

Here's like a pro tip that could save your marriage.

Is when someone approaches you, your spouse approaches you, and they're angry, what will probably happen is that fire will immediately get lit inside of you.

You know that feeling?

Where it's like, I think I can hear my blood going through my arteries right now, you know?

Like, is everything red?

Am I blacking out?

What's happening right now?

You know, why is Eminem playing in my mind right now?

Like, I only got one shot, like I'm I'm getting hyped right now, you know?

Like, one thing is if you don't feel like you're in control, you will not respond well.

And so here's like, you could you could watch this back on YouTube and memorize this.

Hey, I hear you, and I think I understand, and I need like 30 minutes.

That could save your marriage.

Hey, I hear you, and I actually think I get why you're mad, and I don't know how to respond.

And can we talk about it after dinner?

And then, dude, just go have the most awkward dinner of all time and have a healthy, God-honoring conflict after it.

You can do this.

You can do this, but I want to boil it all down for you.

I want to put it in a sentence for you.

All that we've talked about, this is gonna be uncomfortable.

Fixing your marriage starts with fixing you.

If you're in a rough marriage, you don't want to receive that right now.

But I'm telling you, you cannot control your spouse.

Fixing your marriage starts with focusing on yourself.

And I can't tell you how many marriages I have seen through the years where one of the spouses wasn't even really interested in healing, they weren't interested in focusing on themselves.

And just one of them took on this challenge, and God brought healing.

It starts with one, it starts with one person humbling themselves and taking a radically different approach and throwing away the wisdom of the world and just begging God for his wisdom to infiltrate and change your marriage.

Building a great marriage takes time and it does take conflict, and you can do conflict well.

But let me remind you: unhappy spouses tend to control each other.

Happy spouses focus on controlling themselves.

And as believers, we're not just trying to do self-help.

As believers, controlling yourself is submitting yourself to the wisdom of God.

As we close right where you're at, if you'd bow your head and close your eyes, there's just nothing magic, just give some space for reflection.

And I want to go as you're reflecting straight into the gospel, and here's why.

Many people have this view of God, that God intricately micromanages every facet of his creation.

That really there is no free will, it's all an illusion.

And that in part is what we try to do.

We try to play God in our relationships, we try to micromanage and form our spouse into our preferred image.

But that's not what scripture shows us.

God creates us in his image and he gives us dominion on the earth.

Implied in that is free will.

God created us as free creatures, so free, in fact, that we could rebel against our creator.

Jesus came and he lived a perfect life.

He controlled himself, he never sinned, he chose to go to the cross for us.

When he rose again, he offered us a relationship.

He did not force us into one.

Jesus, in his offer of salvation, does not lead with fear or manipulation or coercion.

He leads with love.

He extends his arms and he invites us in.

If you're struggling in your relationships, the first thing you need is a relationship with God, your most important relationship.

And the great news is Jesus didn't come offering you a religious program.

He came offering you relationship right here and right now.

And I'm wondering if there's someone at one of our venues or who's watching online who hasn't taken that first step.

I want to give you the opportunity to do that today.

With everyone's eyes closed around the room, if you're here and you have never had a moment in time where you have been convinced and convicted that Jesus is your hope for this life and for your eternal life, I want to ask you, right where you're sitting, just to raise your hand.

Just to acknowledge I do not have a relationship with my Heavenly Father.

I have not believed in Jesus.

And by raising your hand, today you are signaling that you are ready, ready to make a decision, ready to put your faith in him.

Amen.

For those who raised a hand, I want you to know that God sees and accepts your faith, which means your sins are forgiven.

Scripture says you've been adopted as a child of God, and because of that, he's given you eternal life.

Here's what I want to do for those who raised a hand.

I want to very simply help you acknowledge this moment through a prayer.

I'm gonna ask you to repeat this prayer with me, and I'm gonna ask all the believers in the room to pray this with us as well.

Let's pray like this.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God, that you died for my sins and rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast.

You can rate and review or share it with your friends.

If you want to get connected further with what MetaCurch is doing, you can go online to metachurch.tv.

There you can learn how to take next steps.

You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit, and you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

Man, I love you guys and I hope you have a great rest of your day.