Fighting, Jesus Style, Part 3

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will never hurt us.

We all know that's actually not true though, right? Today, Pastor J.D. will give us practical wisdom for how our words can be grace saturated during conflict. It's part of our study in Ephesians chapter five called First Love. And make sure you listen all the way to the end where we'll give you more information on a practical next step for all of us.

All of your relationships. But right now, let's join Pastor J.D. for the final piece of a message he titled Fighting Jesus Style. You need to be practical in how you fight.

Again, the phrase as fits the occasion means that you're mindful of when a word is going to be profitable and helpful and when it's not. Just because it's true doesn't mean it's helpful at the moment. Proverbs 12 18. There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts. It didn't say they were untrue. It just said that they're rash. But the tongue of the wise brings healing. Rash words are words that might be true but are not thought out, not given in the right way in the right time. My wife and I have found it helpful to bounderize our conflict into certain zones.

Right? We know that there are certain times of day we should never fight. After 10 p.m. Because if we start fighting after 10 p.m. it's going to end with us angrier than ever at about 4.30 in the morning. Still yelling at each other. We just don't fight after 10 p.m. We're going to punt. We don't fight in our bedroom because that never turns out well.

We don't fight when we're either in a bad mood. We have what we call the 24 hour rule which either of us is allowed to invoke. 24 hour rule means I'm not ready to talk about this now but I promise you in 24 hours I will bring this back up. Now men, women, if you do this you've got to bring it back up otherwise you lose credibility. But you bring it back up at a time when the words will not come out like sword thrusts.

They're going to come out in a way that is healing. The Bible says don't let the sun go down in your wrath. I've heard that verse used and misapplied. First of all, it can't literally mean that you never ever go to bed without having resolved the situation.

Just think of it. That would mean in certain parts of Sweden you would have three months to resolve an issue because the sun doesn't ever go down for three months. That would mean during other seasons you've got two hours before the sun goes down you've got to get it worked out. That's not what he means. What he means when he says that is you've got to deal seriously with the rage and the wrath and the vengeance and you've got to get it out of your heart.

And sometimes 24 hours will help you separate unrighteous, selfish irritation from righteous anger that's concerned about the relationship. Number four, be quick to listen and slow to speak. Be quick to listen and slow to speak.

Again, as fits the occasion. How are you going to know what words fit the occasion if you don't listen? Brad Hamburg, our pastoral counselor, said that most of the communication problems in marriage, listen, the biggest problems in any relationship is communication. The biggest problem he said in communication is usually not an expression problem. It's always a listening problem.

Now, these points apply to both genders, but let me just talk to the men for a while. And ladies, you can just listen in on this because we're just really, really bad at this, including the guy on the stage. Proverbs 18, 13, he who gives an answer before he hears, it is a folly and a shame. My relationship with my wife consists of her beginning to tell me a problem and me interrupting her telling her how to resolve that problem or why she shouldn't really think it's a problem. You've got to develop the ability to be what we call a servant listener. A servant listener would be defined as one who seeks to understand before seeking to be understood. A servant listener is one who seeks to understand before he or she learns to seek to be understood.

Philippians 2, when it's defined a servant, remember, a servant is one who thinks of other people's interests more highly than his own. A servant listener is one who thinks of other people's opinions and other people's statements as more significant than their own, which is 100% the opposite of how I go into most arguments. I go into most arguments already with my points, and I'm just waiting on you to take a breath. Because the moment you take a breath, boom, I'm putting in my point because my point's more important than yours.

A servant listener is one who, jot these down, doesn't interrupt. Because whenever you interrupt, what you're saying is, my thoughts are more important than your thoughts. Your thoughts are so stupid, I'm not going to let you get to the end of that sentence.

Because it's just trash. I'm going to go ahead and put out the truth right here, right now, and I'm going to interrupt you. If you're a servant listener, you won't interrupt. If you're a servant listener, then if you don't know what to say, you're going to ask questions. If you don't know what to say after that, you're going to ask more questions. If you still don't know what to say after that, you just repeat what the other person said back to them.

Honestly, that will resolve 90% of the communication problems in your relationship. She is not a problem to be solved. She's a person to be heard. It means that you don't give premature advice because you're listening. He who answers before he hears is a folly and a shame.

You just listen. I'm telling you, don't use Aristotelian logic on her. Aristotelian logic, right? A equals B.

B equals C. Ergo, A equals C. You're not really hurt. I can promise you when she does that, when you do that, she is not going to be like, thank you. I am so stupid sometimes.

I could have sworn I was hurt, but now I see clearly by the force of your logic that I was not really hurt at all. I am so glad that you are my husband. She is not going to do that.

It's just a folly and a shame. You just listen. You repeat. You become a servant listener. The majority of communication problems are not expression problems. They're listening problems.

Listening, Brad says, is a skill that is most necessary when it is most difficult. Number five, seek their sanctification, not your vindication. Seek their sanctification, not your vindication.

You've just got to clarify what the goal is. Jesus' goal in saving us was not his vindication. God vindicated him later.

He knew that. What he did is he went to the cross un-vindicated, and God vindicated him. In my relationship with my wife, I have to say I don't need to win. In any conflict, I don't need to win because God is going to vindicate me at the right time, so that gives me the capacity to be able to forgive because I'm not worried about winning. I'm worried about making holy, and sometimes it's my blood for you that's going to make you holy.

My concern is not my vindication. God's got that. It's her sanctification. Number six, I'll start out applying this one to married people, and then I'll end it applying it to single people. You've got to believe in God's overriding purpose if you're married for your marriage.

Oh, this is so important. In some of the darkest days, listen, of my marriage, it was this one thing that got us through, is that she and I believe, Veronica and I believe, that God had appointed us to be together, and we knew that God had promised that he would make our marriage something beautiful. We knew that Jesus had died and resurrected to make it so.

And in some of the darkest chapters of our marriage, that's all we held onto is the power of hope, of God's promise, and that gave us the strength to keep going. You may have heard the infamous experiment that was done on rats, on how long they could swim. You ever heard this? I looked this up. I got the documentation on it.

Everything I'm going to say right now is legit because I got the documentation. This scientist took rats and just threw them into a pool of water to see how long they could swim. Ten minutes. Rats can swim consistently for ten minutes and then they drown. But, watch this, if that scientist, he figured out that if he would, after six minutes, get something to lift the rat out of the water just for a few seconds and then put it back down, and he would do that three times in six-minute intervals, then after the third time, if he'd left them in the water, they could swim for sixty hours. Sixty hours. An introduction of one element into that little rat's head gave it the ability from being a ten-minute swimmer to being a sixty-hour swimmer.

You know what that one element was? Hope. If the rat thought that hope was coming, then he could keep going. What some of you most need in your marriage is just this element of hope. And that hope is not a mental mind game, it's the promises of God. That God has a purpose, even in the difficult parts of your marriage, and that purpose is to sanctify you and your spouse, and that purpose is to glorify himself, and when you've got nothing else, you can hold onto that.

Some of you that are single. The same thing is true in your relationships. God has got a purpose in all things, even for the most difficult relationships. And what keeps you going at the end of some of the hardest days is the belief and the hope that God has given you, that he is working these things for your beauty, for his glory, and all things for good. Number seven, speak grace-saturated words. Speak grace-saturated words. Now, you're speaking words, again, that build up, not words that tear down. Let me give you a few characteristics so you can tell which one that you're doing. First of all, if you're speaking grace-saturated words, then you're gonna notice that for every one negative thing you say, like I told you last week, you're gonna say about five positive.

Not as an act of discipline, but just because that's your nature. It's grace. It means that you are continually lifting up in front of them what they could be, and then pointing out what they're not because you believe in what they could be. And if all you're doing is saying negative things, what you're doing is condemning, and it's coming out of a heart that's more angry at being inconvenienced than it is a heart that believes that this is what they could be, and you're trying to help them get there.

So if you're not naturally the kind of person who just says five positive things for every one negative thing you say, that's not your spouse's issue, that's your issue. You've got to see them for what God is making them, not what they are. You're listening to a message titled Fighting Jesus Style here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. We'll rejoin this teaching in just a moment, but I wanted to tell you about a daily devotional email from Pastor J.D. And I know the busyness of life can quickly choke out any joy we feel in our walk with God, so why not cut those weeds away each morning with a word from the Lord? The devotionals even follow along with our current teaching here on the program, so you can stay plugged in regardless of your schedule.

To sign up for this free resource, visit us at jdgreer.com slash resources. Now let's return for the final practical steps meant to help us in determining our priorities. Once again, here's Pastor J.D. Here's another characteristic. You won't use you are statements. You are this, you are that.

Instead, it's very simple, but you'll say you did this or you did that. Because a you are statement is condemning. A you did statement means, hey, you did this, that's not what you are. You're this beautiful thing God is making you, but you did this and that's wrong. It means that you'll avoid saying never and always in conversations. Because never and always means you're always like this and you're to be condemned. If never and always are true about the negative things in my life, then Jesus did not really die and resurrect for me. Because Jesus' death and resurrection put an end to my never and always. Here is what God has made me, which means I'm not always this way and I'm not never the right way. It means that sometimes I fail, but I believe in what God is making me and I believe in her.

You wouldn't use never or always. If you've got grace saturated words, you won't speak sarcastically. Listen, just so we're honest, I have this spiritual gift of sarcasm. It comes way too naturally to me. I love giving it, I hate receiving it.

Because it cuts like a knife. If you want a marriage that is going to be grace filled, you will identify ruthlessly every element of sarcasm and get it out. Smarty had a party and no one came. If you want your marriage to be a party, then get the sarcasm out. You won't be condescending when you talk because you are not looking down on the person, you are looking up at the person. You're looking up at the beauty of what they can be. Condescending, you know what condescension means, right? It means to talk down to, that's what I mean.

A little irony for you there. Condescension means to talk down. You're lifting them up. If grace saturated words, you are continually lifting up. Women, that means you avoid confronting your husband publicly. Because there's nothing that shuts a man down like having his wife tear him down in front of or to somebody else.

Number eight. Number eight, if you're grace saturated words, you won't give up until there's no longer a chance of reconciliation. You won't give up until there's no longer a chance of reconciliation. I'm not going to go deep here because this is not a sermon on divorce. But I will tell you, and you know this, the Bible says God hates divorce. And some of you have been through a divorce and you hate it too. So you know why God hates it.

Because you know the pain it caused you. Jesus said that most divorces, or many divorces at least, you should think of them as adultery because you are leaving the covenant that you made and you are abandoning it. Now, the New Testament does give some exceptions. There are, for example, in the case of adultery is one of the ones. Matthew talks about that. Paul in 1 Corinthians says that if an unbeliever, an unbelieving spouse leaves, that the remaining spouse is no longer bound.

Leaving there could mean, it means literally leaving, but you could also think of that sometimes as they become unable to be lived with, like they're abusive. I'm not going to get into all the particulars of that, only to say that if you're in a situation where you feel like an exception might apply to you, you should come see us. And you should help let us walk you through that to help you see that. But what I'm really trying to say in this is that 90% of the reasons people get divorced are not legitimate. We had irreconcilable differences. Hey, Jesus and I had a bunch of irreconcilable differences and he laid down his life for them.

Right? My wife and I have all kinds of irreconcilable differences. That's why our marriage is the way that it is, but God has a purpose in those.

If you had a divorce in the past, I'm not judging you. I'm telling those of you in the present, because Jesus' blood takes care of everything. But I'm telling you in the present that you should give grace a chance in your marriage. And you should realize that God appointed some of these things for you to be able to demonstrate the beauty of Christ in your marriage and teach you to love like him. So that's why the Bible's telling you, you don't walk away even when it's not a great marriage, because the point is not you just being happy. The point is you putting Jesus on display. The point of you learning to love like him. Now again, I realize I'm doing this quickly.

I'm not trying to judge you and I'm not saying, I'm answering all the questions. I'm just trying to say that if you're in a moment, you're in a difficult marriage, you need to think through this biblically and carefully and let us help you. And not give up until there's no longer a chance of reconciliation. Some of you have been there, I know that. And some of you walk through this painfully.

I've walked with you through it. And sometimes you don't know what to do and it's okay. I'm just saying that grace saturated doesn't give up because of irritation or disappointment. Number nine, you gotta truly forgive. You gotta truly forgive. Remember I told you forgiveness is a choice not to remember or bring things up. Ken Sandy's got a great book called Peacemaking for Families in which he defines forgiveness this way. True forgiveness says, I will not think about this incident, I will not bring it up or use it again against you. I will not talk to others about it, I will not allow it to stand between us or hinder our relationship. You look at past infractions, watch this, as if they're ammunition already spent.

A blank. Some of you know what it's like to supposedly forgive somebody or it's supposed to be forgiven and the next time you get an argument about the same thing they're bringing this thing back up. Some of you go hysterical in arguments, some of you go historical in arguments because you just love to bring up the past. That's not what Jesus does. Jesus doesn't bring up the past, he buried the past. And even when the past conforms to the pattern, he died to put away the pattern and he died to make you new. And what he does is hold up the beauty of what he's making you, not the inglorious past of what you've done. You're going to speak like Jesus speaks, you never bring up the past because that's ammunition already spent. And you say, I'm not commenting about your past, I'm commenting about this situation. This is what you did and this, the future, is what you are to be. And I'm evaluating this flaw in the present based on the promises of the future, not your mistakes in the past. By the way, some of you won't forgive because you still think the person that you're forgiving needs to repent before you'll forgive them.

Right? You're like, oh well, J.D., if they'd say I'm sorry, I'd happily forgive them. That's because you're confusing forgiveness and reconciliation. Reconciliation takes two people. Reconciliation is when they repent and you forgive. Forgiveness takes one. Forgiveness is not between you and them, forgiveness is about you and God. It's about you saying, I'm not going to take vengeance and I'm going to forgive them the way that Jesus forgave me. And that's irrespective of whether or not they ever say that they're sorry. To hold unforgiveness in your heart because somebody has not repented is like trying to punish them by drinking poison into your own body.

Some of you are there, you've had a spouse, you've had a friend, you've had an ex-spouse who has hurt you and you've got bitterness. You're going to have to forgive based on God and not based on them. You've got to let it go and you've got to bury it with Jesus. Which leaves me with the last one, number 10, do all things out of reverence for Christ. Do all things out of reverence for Christ.

The only way to do all of this, listen, is for the cross to grow larger in your life. Your spouse is not worthy of this, Jesus is. So forgiveness and conflict is, first of all, something between you and Him. Some of you are like, oh, JD, if my spouse was here, if he would hear, she would hear these messages, they would be awesome, but they're not here.

It doesn't matter. Maybe one day God will use you to change your spouse, but right now He's trying to change you. And how you go through conflict and how you rage and how you do all these things is more about you and Him than it is about you and them.

I cannot say this enough, keep your eyes on the cross. Maybe the way that God is glorifying Himself to you right now is by letting you demonstrate to all your watching friends that you've got a Jesus that is worthy enough to serve even when it doesn't create any change in your spouse. And you tell your friends, I'm not doing this for my spouse, I'm doing this for Jesus because He's worthy of it.

Maybe that's how He's going to bring glory to Himself, to your bad marriage. To do not make your reactions dependent on that other person because it's not. He says, do it out of reverence for Jesus. You've got to believe the gospel principle. Listen, the gospel principle is that grace changes, not retribution. You and I think retribution changes, but let me tell you this from experience. Retribution will coerce your behavior, only grace changes your heart. You know how God changed me? Not by paying me back for my sin. God changed me by absorbing my sin. You know how my wife changed me in our marriage? Not by paying me back for my sins against her. She changed me in our marriage by showing me grace. Retribution, anger, rage, negativity, consequences coerce behavior. Only the power of grace changes the heart.

Period. If you believe that gospel principle, then this will change vertically and then horizontally everything will start changing because you'll become a fountain of grace. Which is why Gary Thomas says it this way, couples don't fall out of love, couples fall out of repentance and faith. Because it is faith in the gospel, it is the gospel growing large that heals all relationships. Whether you're single or married, what heals that heart is vertically you getting connected to the grace of God. The beauty, the fullness of God.

And then everything else becomes trivial and it naturally heals itself. Why don't you bow your heads if you would. I told you that some of you are right in the middle of this right now. You have bitterness in your heart.

A past boyfriend, an ex spouse, a current spouse, a boss. I need you to clear them out of your head and just let this be between you and God. Will you stay in perfect peace because your mind is fixed upon him? Will you let the cross grow large in your life right now, both its treasure and its grace? Because I promise you when the cross grows large in your life, bitterness, anxiety, hatred, frustration, they just disappear. Father I just can't, I want the church that you've given me to pastor, I want them to be able to see this but I cannot make them see it. It's spiritual eyes that you've got to give.

I want it for them but I can't give it to them, I'm powerless. So I pray in these moments that the church, God that I love, the church that you've given me to pastor, that their eyes would be open to see how great, how wide, how deep, how high is the love of the father for us. And in light of the greatness of his love, all the other infractions and disappointments that others cause against us would disappear like the morning mist and seem as nothing in light of the treasure and the beauty and the depth of your grace.

I ask that God in Jesus name. Couples don't fall out of love. Couples fall out of repentance. Wow, that is good. We're about halfway through our relationship series called First Love here on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. J.D., we've been blown away by the generosity of our gospel partners, especially as of late. We mention them often here on the program, but what exactly is a gospel partner? Oh, my goodness, Miley, gospel partners are so much a part of our team here at Summit Life. They're listeners who have become integral pieces of our boldly proclaiming the gospel through our radio and podcast ministry. And so this group allows us to be able to expand into new places where the gospel is not being preached this way, or it allows us to stay on the air in your area. As a growing ministry, we would love to have more gospel partners join us because it allows us to accomplish that purpose of saturating our country in the gospel centered teaching that we find in the scriptures.

If God is stirring in your heart at all, just go to jdgreer.com and you can find information out about how to consider becoming a gospel partner. It's always good to be reminded that this ministry is funded by faithful partners, and we would love to have you join this special team today. We'd like to send you a copy of our exclusive Summit Life resource called Devotions for the Distracted Family.

Fifteen days on relationships, faith and rest. It comes with our thanks when you become a gospel partner or donate to support this ministry at a suggested level of thirty five dollars or more. Ask for your copy of the devotional and the accompanying set of conversation cards when you call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or request the pair when you give online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vitovich, and I'm so glad to have you with us. Be sure to tune in tomorrow as we learn about God's purpose and plan for gender in marriage. We'll see you Friday right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.