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We are in a series called "As For Me & My House"—a declaration from Scripture that we're laying before our congregation. The question we're asking is: what would it look like if you made this same declaration over your home? What if you adopted this as a mantra, saying come what may, as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord?
We recognize we can't control culture or manipulate society. People aren't robots with remotes—we can't dictate what others do. But as followers of Christ within our homes, we can commit to serving the Lord. And maybe, just maybe, out of the overflow of God's goodness in our homes, God uses our families to have an influence and impact in the world around us. The world desperately needs solid, healthy, thriving families. If we lean into God's work in our homes, He may use us in ways we don't even know to pray for.
This message has two parts: the first 20% is specific to marriage, and the final 80% focuses on communication. If you're single, don't tune out—you likely know someone who's married, and God may bring someone into your life someday. This could be a head start to prepare for one of life's most critical relationships. And when it comes to communication, we all can improve. We all can wave a hand at that.
When we look at marriages, five consistent themes emerge—areas where breakdown occurs, and where healthy, thriving marriages thrive. Often, our ability or inability to have productive conversations in these five areas determines whether a marriage is healthy or dysfunctional.
These five areas are:
I'm amazed by the number of couples who embark on the most important relationship this side of heaven—apart from Christ—without thoroughly thinking through the faith conversation. Scripture uses the imagery of a yoke. Two oxen yoked together can pull a wagon in unison—but if they're pulling in different directions, they work against each other.
When you're a person of faith, that faith informs everything. It shapes your identity and purpose. It informs your values and mission. It shapes how you view the world and others. It informs how you steward your finances. The list goes on—faith is indicative and shaping of every area of life.
This becomes most recognizable in times of crisis. Life is difficult. It comes with pain, trials, inconvenience, and confusion because we live in a fallen world. You don't have to go looking for trouble; trouble knows where to find you. What becomes very apparent in most relationships is that sometimes couples aren't on the same page in their faith. Then a crisis hits, and the question becomes: What are we going to rely on? Where do we find our foundation and wisdom? If you're not in lockstep and agreement when it comes to faith, you will deviate from one another when those difficult moments come. It is extremely difficult to navigate the difficulties of life when you and your spouse aren't aligned on faith.
Not a single one of us comes from a perfect family. We all come from families with broken tendencies. Yet every family has some things right—areas of wisdom, values, things that were done well. What we don't give enough consideration to is that not every family is the same.
There's a profound statement: "A fish never discovers water until it's out of it." Take a fish out of the lake and put it on a boat deck—it flops around. But that same motion in water is swimming. When we step into marriage, we're pulled out of the family dynamics we know. Scripture says you will "leave and cleave." You step into marriage and what was once normal—what felt like swimming in your family—is now flopping around in this new dynamic.
You're embracing a new family unit and building a new family with your spouse. The work is identifying what tendencies and assumptions we carry with us. The question "the two become one—but which one?" is real. I grew up in a very male-dominant home. Kristen grew up in a very female-dominant home. You don't even realize you're bringing expectations about roles with you into marriage.
The work is leaning in and saying: You and me have to figure this out together. There are things we've learned—for good and for bad—from both our families. Together, we learn to navigate this journey as we build our home.
Finances are always a key issue in marriages. I do think we tend to overrate money and become obsessed with it, while we underrate time. I believe we should flip that paradigm: I would rather spend money to save time than spend time to save money. Time is our most valuable commodity.
It requires clunky, awkward, and sometimes tense conversations where you identify: How are we going to approach finances in our home? Kristen and I arrive at the same answers but take different approaches—we have different math. You have to figure out together: What's our budget? How will we manage it? What roles and expectations do we put in place? Finances are critical to a thriving marriage.
Some might be surprised to see fun on this list, but I'm deeply concerned when we ask couples: "What are some of your shared hobbies?" and they struggle to name any.
Here's my conviction: Your kids cannot be your shared hobby. Kids facilitate much of our calendar and bring joy as we experience their activities. But if your kids are your only shared hobby, you're setting yourself up for crisis. Eventually, they move out of the house. There will be an immediate void, and you won't know how to connect with one another or enjoy each other's company apart from your children.
What's very common is that one person has their hobbies and friend group, the other has theirs. Unintentionally, they drift in different directions toward joy and fulfillment. Then they realize: How did we drift so far apart? Because you didn't strategically find hobbies you enjoy together.
This takes time. You have to try different things and explore options. Early on, Kristen tried to turn me into a runner—which I don't enjoy. She envisioned us as a couple running 5K races together. I'd end up in the back of the pack with women pushing strollers while she ran up front. It didn't work. But eventually you arrive at things and say: We enjoy this, and it cultivates greater connection and friendship in our relationship.
I know there are kids in the room and parents with kids the same age, so we won't overdo this. But speaking broadly, in most cases the man has a stronger appetite for physical intimacy than the woman. I sometimes get to level expectations for guys heading into marriage.
What's crucial to understand: Marriage is far more relational than it is physical. The better it gets relationally, the better it gets physically. We spend so much time winning a person's heart, but then we don't spend enough time and energy maintaining and keeping that person's heart.
You have to have those conversations. Especially this one—it's awkward for everybody. It's a level of intimacy and vulnerability foreign to most, if not all of us. But I promise you: couples who lean into it, who stay with it, who keep the conversation open, honest, and transparent—they get down the road and have the marriage everybody else is looking at and desiring.
So much of this hinges on communication. Every single one of these five areas requires you and me to be good, intentional, and constantly improving in our communication.
Communication breaks down into three categories:
It's wild: 93% of your communication isn't what you're saying—it's how you're saying it. How you're saying it is a big thing. Every single one of us, myself included, will come up short in this area. But it's learning to walk humbly, to acknowledge when we come up short, and to embrace the journey of growing in our communication—being intentional, especially in the most critical relationships in our life.
In the Bible, so many individuals had much to say about communication. One was Jesus's half-brother James, who has his own book called James.
The Book of James is fascinating. It reads like the Book of Proverbs—full of practical, pointed wisdom and advice on how to live a Godly life and grow in Christian virtue. Chronologically, most scholars agree the Book of James was the first written letter or book in the New Testament. James was a chief leader in the Church of Jerusalem. In Acts 12, we read of the Jerusalem Council, where they decided to extend the gospel to the Gentiles. Up until that point, this was exclusively a Jewish faith. They said: This good news is for all people, not just Jewish people. James was a critical leader in that decision. He writes this letter with deep concern for the Community of Faith.
If you're not a Christian, you're actually off the hook for this conversation. You get to peer into our group therapy as we figure this out. But what we're going to read from James applies specifically to people of God—those who truly follow Christ and are part of His family.
Right off the bat in chapter one, James says:
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless.
He's not pulling punches. He's saying: Folks, those who walk around professing faith they clearly don't possess—that's shallow, empty, and pointless. Sometimes we see this in American culture. We love the idea of religion and its ability to help us manufacture facades so we can go through life masquerading as virtuous people. But if you pay attention to our conversation, it becomes pretty apparent: it's an empty, shallow veneer. Behind it, there's no true redemptive work of grace taking place in our heart.
The overarching argument of James is: Faith without works is dead. This will be misinterpreted by many. Lean in on this: he's not saying you are saved by your works. He's saying your works are evidence that you have been saved—that you've been so marked by the grace of God and the finished work of the cross that it has had a profound, life-altering effect on your life.
Chuck Swindoll, one of my favorite authors, says it this way: > Grace is opposed to earning. It's not opposed to effort.
We're not out here trying to live certain ways to earn God's love. But we do put forth effort in living in ways that honor God and glorify Him to the best of our ability. James is saying: Those who claim to be religious yet cannot keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves. They're lying to themselves and have been sold on their own lie.
Watch where James picks up in chapter three on the idea of communication:
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways, and anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
Essentially he's saying: Be careful that your ambition doesn't get out of control, running around just pursuing influence. Wait patiently for God to entrust you with whatever measure of influence He feels you are worthy and able to handle. Every single one of us—myself included—will be held accountable to the measure of our influence.
James is saying: Don't just pursue becoming a teacher. Many of us shouldn't. Communication is hard. The more influence you have as a teacher, the more accountable you'll be held. It's a daunting thing as someone preaching that passage, but it's real. He says: The person able to bridle their tongue is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. What is he saying? The most difficult thing you and I can ever accomplish in life is learning to communicate. A person who is perfect at communicating—who has mastered that ability—can master anything else.
Watch what he goes on to say:
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Consider ships—although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body but it makes a great boast.
Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself on fire by hell.
James—if he were preaching in today's culture—doesn't have much of an audience because this isn't the type of message that builds a crowd. It's the type of message that builds a Christian. He's saying: When you are part of the family of God, you take on different behaviors. You think about your relationships more critically. You operate more intentionally. You are keenly aware of the role your words play.
He's saying: If you and I call ourselves Christians, we can't be living toward heaven yet living like hell. Is there anything in my life that is a living contradiction? Is there any way God sees opportunity for me to improve? I see opportunity every single day in the mirror. The idea isn't to take on self-deprecating, self-loathing thoughts, but to lean into the profound nature of grace that says: Come what may, God, I believe that even in my shortcomings, You can redeem those things and help me improve over time.
James gives us some really intriguing imagery. In a lot of Bible studies, people skip over imagery and metaphors in Scripture. But the imagery is profound. If you want to change the imagination, change the metaphor. God is constantly trying to stretch our comprehension and the way we think and view things. He's saying: Think of it this way, think of it this way—so you have a broader, more robust understanding of God's work and His ways.
He starts by saying the tongue is like a bit in a horse's mouth. What he's saying: The tongue is powerful. This small four-to-six-inch bit can control this large, powerful animal. That's a powerful thing. Most of us go through life casually engaging in relationships, unaware of that power.
I was a young leader who found myself overwhelmed by responsibility, adopting the habits of my workplace. I would come home, sit at the table with my laptop open, continuing to work and respond to emails. One day, I received an email from Kristen with the opening statement: "apparently this is the only way to get a hold of you." She went on to list out my shortcomings as a husband and as a father.
Looking back on that, it's comical how we were communicating. But I'm so thankful that over time, if you stick with it, you just get better. You improve and you learn some things and you develop some wisdom and practical handles for how to manage these situations well.
When it comes to marriage, there are five consistent themes and issues that rise to the surface as the main areas of either breakdown or healthy thriving. Our ability or inability to have productive conversations in these five areas leads to either a healthy marriage or a dysfunctional one. These five areas are: Faith, Family, Finances, Fun, and Sex.
I am sometimes amazed by the number of couples who commit to the most important relationship this side of Heaven apart from Christ, without critically and thoroughly thinking through the faith conversation. Scripture puts it in terms of a yoke—being "unequally yoked." If you think of an ox with a yoke over its shoulder, when you have two oxes with separate yokes, they pull the wagon in different directions.
If you're going to be a person of faith, you have to understand that your faith informs everything—your identity and your purpose, your values and your mission, the way you view the world and others, how you steward your finances. The list goes on and on.
Life is difficult. It's going to come with pain, trials, inconvenience, and confusion because we live in a fallen world. What becomes very apparent in most relationships is that sometimes a couple isn't on the same page in their faith, and then they hit a crisis. The question becomes: What are we going to rely on? Where do we find our foundation and our wisdom? What is our guide?
If you're not in lockstep and agreement when it comes to your faith, when those difficult moments come, you will deviate from one another. It becomes extremely difficult to navigate the difficulties of life when you and your spouse are not aligned in your faith.
Not a single one of us comes from a perfect family. Every single one of us comes from units with broken tendencies. One of my favorite statements is: A fish never discovers water until it's out of it. When you take a fish out of the lake and put it on the deck of a boat, it starts flopping around—but that same motion in the water is what swimming looks like.
When we step into marriage, we're pulled out of our family. Scripture says you will "leave and cleave." What was once swimming in the dynamics of your family is now flopping around in this new dynamic. You are embracing a new family unit and building a new family with your spouse.
I grew up in a very male-dominant home. Kristen grew up in a very female-dominant home. You don't even realize that when you step into marriage, you bring expectations about what the roles are. It's about leaning in and realizing: You and me have to figure this out together. There are things we've learned—for good and for bad—from both of our families, and together we're learning to navigate this journey as we build our home.
Finances are always a key issue in marriages. I will say that I think we tend to overrate money—we're obsessed with it—and we underrate time. I think that's a paradigm that should be flipped. I would rather spend money to save time than spend time to save money. Time is our most valuable commodity.
It requires clunky conversations at times—even awkward, even initially tense conversations—where you have to identify: How are we going to approach the finance conversation in our home? What's our budget? How are we going to manage it? What roles are we going to put in place? How do we do it together?
Kristen and I find that we arrive at the same answer but we have different math. You have to figure that out together. Finances are critical.
Some might be surprised to see fun on this list, but I'm always concerned for couples where we ask: Hey, what are some of your shared hobbies? I'm amazed by how many couples don't have shared hobbies.
Here's my opinion—and you can disagree with me—I do not think your kids can be your shared hobby. Our kids facilitate a lot of our calendar, and we find great joy in experiencing activities that our kids participate in. But if your kids are your only shared hobby, you're setting yourself up for a crisis. The moment those kids move out of the house, there will be an immediate void. You won't know how to connect with one another or enjoy each other's company apart from your children.
You have to identify shared hobbies. What's very common in our society is: the guy has his things, his buddies, his hobbies that he enjoys. The lady has her things, the things that she enjoys. Eventually, unintentionally, they start to drift in different directions toward joy and fulfillment. Then they realize: How did we drift so far apart? Well, they didn't enjoy and didn't strategically find hobbies that they like together.
This takes time. You have to try different things and explore different options. Kristen tried to turn me into a runner. She had the idea that we'd be one of those couples that run 5K races—which meant showing up early Saturday morning while I'd be in the back of the pack with women pushing strollers, and Kristen would be up front with a group from Kenya. It was always an issue. But you have to try and figure something out until you arrive at things where you say: We enjoy this, and it's cultivating a greater connection and friendship within our relationship.
I know there are kids in the room, and I have kids that are probably the same age as yours, so we won't overdo this. But I will say, speaking with broad generalizations—and I know there are outliers—in most cases, the man has a stronger appetite for physical things than the woman.
Often, I get the privilege of leveling the expectations of guys heading into marriage. It's about understanding that marriage is far more relational than it is physical. But here's the thing: The better it gets relationally, the better it gets physically.
We spend so much time winning a person's heart, but then we don't spend enough time and energy maintaining and keeping that person's heart. It's about having those conversations. Especially the last one—I'll say this: guys, it's an awkward conversation for everybody. It's a level of intimacy and vulnerability that is foreign to most, if not all of us.
But I promise you, the couples that lean into it, that stay with it, that keep the conversation open, honest, and transparent—they get down the road and they have the marriage everybody else is looking at and desiring. It's about learning to be a person who commits to the process, who puts in the work, so you can have a marriage that thrives.
So much of this hinges on communication. Every single one of these five areas requires you and me to be good, intentional, and constantly improving in our communication.
Communication breaks down into three categories: our words, our tone, and our body language. Here's what's wild to me: studies and research on communication break it down this way—only 7% of your communication is your words, 38% is your tone, and 55% is your body language.
That's wild. Ninety-three percent of your communication isn't what you're saying—it's how you're saying it. Tell your face. Adjust your tone. Your body language is a big thing.
Every single one of us will come up short in this area. But it's about learning to walk humbly, acknowledge when we come up short, and embrace the journey of growing in our communication. We need to be intentional, especially as it pertains to the most critical relationships in our life.
In the Bible, many individuals had a lot to say about communication. One of them was Jesus's half-brother, James. He has his own book called James.
The Book of James is fascinating—it reads like the Book of Proverbs. It's full of practical, pointed wisdom and advice on how to live a Godly life and Christian virtue. Chronologically, the Book of James is most widely agreed to be the first written letter or book in the New Testament.
James was a chief leader in the Church of Jerusalem. In Acts 12, we read of the Jerusalem Council—this is important for all of us—where they decided to extend the gospel to the Gentiles. Up until that point, this was an exclusively Jewish faith. In that moment, they said: No, we believe this good news is for all people, not just the Jewish people. James was a critical leader in that decision, and he writes this letter with deep concern for the community of faith.
Now, if you're not a Christian, you're actually off the hook on this conversation. But if you call yourself a Christian, James is saying: Pay attention to this. Right off the bat in chapter one, he says:
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless.
He's not pulling any punches. He's saying: Folks, those who walk around professing faith that they clearly don't possess—that's shallow, that's empty, it's pointless, and it's worthless.
We can see this in our American culture. We love the idea of religion and its ability to help us manufacture facades—so we can go through life masquerading as virtuous people. But if you pay attention to our conversations, it becomes pretty apparent: it's an empty, shallow veneer. Deep behind it, there's not a true redemptive work of grace taking place within our heart.
The overarching argument of James is: faith without works is dead. Now, this will be misinterpreted by many. Lean in on this: what he's not saying is that you are saved by your works. He's saying your works are evidence that you have been saved—that you have been so marked by the grace of God and the finished work of the cross that it has had a profound, life-altering effect upon your life.
Chuck Swindoll, one of my favorite authors, says it this way: Grace is not opposed to effort. We're not trying to live in certain ways to earn God's love, but we do put forth effort in living in such a way that honors God and glorifies him to the best of our ability.
James says in chapter three:
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways, and anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
He's saying: Be careful that your ambition doesn't get out of control. Patiently wait for God to entrust you with whatever measure of influence he feels you are worthy of carrying. Every single one of us will be held accountable to the measure of our influence.
He says: Do not just pursue becoming a teacher, because communication is hard. The more influence you have as a teacher, the more accountable you will be held. And he says: The person who is able to bridle their tongue is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
What is he saying? The most difficult thing you and I can ever accomplish in life is learning to communicate. A person who is perfect at communicating—if they've mastered that ability—they can master anything else.
Then watch what he goes on to say:
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Take ships as an example—although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes a great boast.
James starts by saying the tongue is like a bit in a horse's mouth. What he's saying is: The tongue is powerful. This small, four-to-six-inch bit can control this large, powerful animal. That's a powerful thing.
Most of us go through life casually engaging in relationships, not ever fully understanding the power of our words. Your words are powerful, and they can be harnessed for good or for bad—like nuclear energy can be used to make a bomb that destroys a city or for electricity that lights up a city.
The question is: How do you harness the power of your words? Do you destroy a situation or brighten it up? There's a powerful nature to our words. We can speak life into our marriages—hope, grace, love, joy, purpose, promise, and destiny—into those around us. Or we can project shame, lies, and all kinds of things that run against the grain of God's work in someone's life.
James says: Consider a ship—though it is driven by strong winds, it is steered by a small rudder. Essentially, what he's saying is this powerful idea: One of the main reasons why you are where you are is because of how you communicate. One of the main reasons why you're heading where you're heading is because of how you communicate.
Your words, your tongue, have a directional impact upon your life. It's about learning to ask: Where in my life, or how in my life, are my words shaping the direction and course of my relationships, my family, my friendships? They are directional.
James says: Consider a spark that creates an entire forest fire. I grew up for a portion of my childhood in Grand Junction, Colorado, on the western slope. It's a very dry terrain, so we were accustomed every single year to forest fires on that side of the mountains.
Every year, these fires would start, and we'd watch the news for updates, similar to tornado season. There was always this statement we'd look for: The fire has jumped the river. I remember as a kid thinking, I didn't know fires could jump rivers.
But that's certainly the case with forest fires in the Rocky Mountains. They not only jump rivers—they take over other mountains. Then the fire burns up all the vegetation, and vegetation holds the soil in place. When winter comes and snow falls, when all that snow begins to melt in the spring, mudslides happen.
You had a forest fire that jumped rivers, burned up mountainsides, burned up vegetation, and what happened in one season creates a mudslide in another season. It wasn't an isolated event.
James is saying: There is a transcendent nature to your communication. When you and I go through life thinking our conversations are just isolated situations, we foolishly miss the impact they're having on our lives. How you communicate to your spouse impacts your children. How you communicate to your children impacts them and their relationships with their peers. How you communicate at work—if you're constantly sabotaging your career through poor communication, that impacts your family.
These are not isolated situations. Your communication has a transcendent impact. What you do in this situation bleeds over into that situation. James is saying: You can take this as bad news—"Oh my goodness, my words are powerful, directional, and transcendent. I'm doomed." Or you can think: "Oh, my words are powerful, directional, and transcendent. This is great! Because of God's work in my life, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. I'm going to start speaking blessing, favor, and God's best and goodness in the lives of those around me. This is going to have an impact."
Scripture says: Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. If it's in your words, it's in your heart. What you say and what I say says a lot about us—more than it says about anyone else. You can learn a lot about a person just by listening to how they talk.
James is saying: Understand this—as people of God, we're called to represent something different.
Then he takes the conversation further and says:
With the tongue we praise our Lord and father, and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing, my brothers and sisters. This should not be! Can both fresh water and saltwater flow from the same spring? Brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a saltspring produce fresh water.
This is a conversation for the family of God. If you're not a Christian, you're off the hook. But if you are a Christian—if you say he's Lord and Savior, he's the king of your life, he's paid the ultimate price, and you've anchored your hope, identity, and eternity to him—well, brothers and sisters, no. This should not be.
He's making a powerful statement about the contradiction of praising God with our mouths while cursing the people made in his image. One mouth cannot do both things well.
He's saying that as long as you're connected to the wrong source, your life is going to produce undesirable fruit. It is only by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives that you and I can resemble anything godly, that you and I can produce any acts of righteousness. We cannot manufacture this on our own.
It is only by God's goodness at work within our life that we live beyond ourselves and beyond our ability. God does something in us that at times we don't even know to pray for.
Maybe what we need is to recognize that we need to connect our lives to a different source. Jesus is the source, the course, and the force.
He is not only the source of our identity, the source of our purpose, the source of unconditional grace, the source of joy, the source of peace—you could go on and on down the list. He is the source.
But he's also the course. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the author, the finisher, and the perfector of our faith. He is the only perfect human being to ever step foot on this ball of dust within this galaxy. He has laid before us a map and an example and has demonstrated: This is what true life and the fullness of life looks like.
He's the source and he's the course. If I keep following him, it'll lead in the right direction.
And he's the force. What does that mean? It is his power at work in my life that enables me to live like Jesus—not because I've developed some Messiah complex, but because I live every single day rooted at the foot of the cross. It is only by God's goodness that I produce any acts of righteousness.
I'm telling you, I think as a community, if we were to walk away today just saying, "Okay God, where can we get better?" Stop pointing fingers at culture. Stop pointing fingers at all the people we're disappointed with and all the foolishness that we see around us.
What would happen if we developed the courage to stare ourselves in the mirror and say, "God, I see the areas in my life that you are seeking to redeem and improve"?
I think God might do something profound in our families that might have an impact within the world. Because our world desperately needs healthy, thriving, beautiful, loving, peaceful families.
So as for me and as for you and your house, let's serve the Lord.
We are in a series called "As For Me & My House"—a declaration from Scripture that we're laying before our congregation. The question we're asking is: what would it look like if you made this same declaration over your home? What if you adopted this as a mantra, saying come what may, as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord?
We recognize we can't control culture or manipulate society. People aren't robots with remotes—we can't dictate what others do. But as followers of Christ within our homes, we can commit to serving the Lord. And maybe, just maybe, out of the overflow of God's goodness in our homes, God uses our families to have an influence and impact in the world around us. The world desperately needs solid, healthy, thriving families. If we lean into God's work in our homes, He may use us in ways we don't even know to pray for.
This message has two parts: the first 20% is specific to marriage, and the final 80% focuses on communication. If you're single, don't tune out—you likely know someone who's married, and God may bring someone into your life someday. This could be a head start to prepare for one of life's most critical relationships. And when it comes to communication, we all can improve. We all can wave a hand at that.
When we look at marriages, five consistent themes emerge—areas where breakdown occurs, and where healthy, thriving marriages thrive. Often, our ability or inability to have productive conversations in these five areas determines whether a marriage is healthy or dysfunctional.
These five areas are:
I'm amazed by the number of couples who embark on the most important relationship this side of heaven—apart from Christ—without thoroughly thinking through the faith conversation. Scripture uses the imagery of a yoke. Two oxen yoked together can pull a wagon in unison—but if they're pulling in different directions, they work against each other.
When you're a person of faith, that faith informs everything. It shapes your identity and purpose. It informs your values and mission. It shapes how you view the world and others. It informs how you steward your finances. The list goes on—faith is indicative and shaping of every area of life.
This becomes most recognizable in times of crisis. Life is difficult. It comes with pain, trials, inconvenience, and confusion because we live in a fallen world. You don't have to go looking for trouble; trouble knows where to find you. What becomes very apparent in most relationships is that sometimes couples aren't on the same page in their faith. Then a crisis hits, and the question becomes: What are we going to rely on? Where do we find our foundation and wisdom? If you're not in lockstep and agreement when it comes to faith, you will deviate from one another when those difficult moments come. It is extremely difficult to navigate the difficulties of life when you and your spouse aren't aligned on faith.
Not a single one of us comes from a perfect family. We all come from families with broken tendencies. Yet every family has some things right—areas of wisdom, values, things that were done well. What we don't give enough consideration to is that not every family is the same.
There's a profound statement: "A fish never discovers water until it's out of it." Take a fish out of the lake and put it on a boat deck—it flops around. But that same motion in water is swimming. When we step into marriage, we're pulled out of the family dynamics we know. Scripture says you will "leave and cleave." You step into marriage and what was once normal—what felt like swimming in your family—is now flopping around in this new dynamic.
You're embracing a new family unit and building a new family with your spouse. The work is identifying what tendencies and assumptions we carry with us. The question "the two become one—but which one?" is real. I grew up in a very male-dominant home. Kristen grew up in a very female-dominant home. You don't even realize you're bringing expectations about roles with you into marriage.
The work is leaning in and saying: You and me have to figure this out together. There are things we've learned—for good and for bad—from both our families. Together, we learn to navigate this journey as we build our home.
Finances are always a key issue in marriages. I do think we tend to overrate money and become obsessed with it, while we underrate time. I believe we should flip that paradigm: I would rather spend money to save time than spend time to save money. Time is our most valuable commodity.
It requires clunky, awkward, and sometimes tense conversations where you identify: How are we going to approach finances in our home? Kristen and I arrive at the same answers but take different approaches—we have different math. You have to figure out together: What's our budget? How will we manage it? What roles and expectations do we put in place? Finances are critical to a thriving marriage.
Some might be surprised to see fun on this list, but I'm deeply concerned when we ask couples: "What are some of your shared hobbies?" and they struggle to name any.
Here's my conviction: Your kids cannot be your shared hobby. Kids facilitate much of our calendar and bring joy as we experience their activities. But if your kids are your only shared hobby, you're setting yourself up for crisis. Eventually, they move out of the house. There will be an immediate void, and you won't know how to connect with one another or enjoy each other's company apart from your children.
What's very common is that one person has their hobbies and friend group, the other has theirs. Unintentionally, they drift in different directions toward joy and fulfillment. Then they realize: How did we drift so far apart? Because you didn't strategically find hobbies you enjoy together.
This takes time. You have to try different things and explore options. Early on, Kristen tried to turn me into a runner—which I don't enjoy. She envisioned us as a couple running 5K races together. I'd end up in the back of the pack with women pushing strollers while she ran up front. It didn't work. But eventually you arrive at things and say: We enjoy this, and it cultivates greater connection and friendship in our relationship.
I know there are kids in the room and parents with kids the same age, so we won't overdo this. But speaking broadly, in most cases the man has a stronger appetite for physical intimacy than the woman. I sometimes get to level expectations for guys heading into marriage.
What's crucial to understand: Marriage is far more relational than it is physical. The better it gets relationally, the better it gets physically. We spend so much time winning a person's heart, but then we don't spend enough time and energy maintaining and keeping that person's heart.
You have to have those conversations. Especially this one—it's awkward for everybody. It's a level of intimacy and vulnerability foreign to most, if not all of us. But I promise you: couples who lean into it, who stay with it, who keep the conversation open, honest, and transparent—they get down the road and have the marriage everybody else is looking at and desiring.
So much of this hinges on communication. Every single one of these five areas requires you and me to be good, intentional, and constantly improving in our communication.
Communication breaks down into three categories:
It's wild: 93% of your communication isn't what you're saying—it's how you're saying it. How you're saying it is a big thing. Every single one of us, myself included, will come up short in this area. But it's learning to walk humbly, to acknowledge when we come up short, and to embrace the journey of growing in our communication—being intentional, especially in the most critical relationships in our life.
In the Bible, so many individuals had much to say about communication. One was Jesus's half-brother James, who has his own book called James.
The Book of James is fascinating. It reads like the Book of Proverbs—full of practical, pointed wisdom and advice on how to live a Godly life and grow in Christian virtue. Chronologically, most scholars agree the Book of James was the first written letter or book in the New Testament. James was a chief leader in the Church of Jerusalem. In Acts 12, we read of the Jerusalem Council, where they decided to extend the gospel to the Gentiles. Up until that point, this was exclusively a Jewish faith. They said: This good news is for all people, not just Jewish people. James was a critical leader in that decision. He writes this letter with deep concern for the Community of Faith.
If you're not a Christian, you're actually off the hook for this conversation. You get to peer into our group therapy as we figure this out. But what we're going to read from James applies specifically to people of God—those who truly follow Christ and are part of His family.
Right off the bat in chapter one, James says:
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless.
He's not pulling punches. He's saying: Folks, those who walk around professing faith they clearly don't possess—that's shallow, empty, and pointless. Sometimes we see this in American culture. We love the idea of religion and its ability to help us manufacture facades so we can go through life masquerading as virtuous people. But if you pay attention to our conversation, it becomes pretty apparent: it's an empty, shallow veneer. Behind it, there's no true redemptive work of grace taking place in our heart.
The overarching argument of James is: Faith without works is dead. This will be misinterpreted by many. Lean in on this: he's not saying you are saved by your works. He's saying your works are evidence that you have been saved—that you've been so marked by the grace of God and the finished work of the cross that it has had a profound, life-altering effect on your life.
Chuck Swindoll, one of my favorite authors, says it this way: > Grace is opposed to earning. It's not opposed to effort.
We're not out here trying to live certain ways to earn God's love. But we do put forth effort in living in ways that honor God and glorify Him to the best of our ability. James is saying: Those who claim to be religious yet cannot keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves. They're lying to themselves and have been sold on their own lie.
Watch where James picks up in chapter three on the idea of communication:
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways, and anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
Essentially he's saying: Be careful that your ambition doesn't get out of control, running around just pursuing influence. Wait patiently for God to entrust you with whatever measure of influence He feels you are worthy and able to handle. Every single one of us—myself included—will be held accountable to the measure of our influence.
James is saying: Don't just pursue becoming a teacher. Many of us shouldn't. Communication is hard. The more influence you have as a teacher, the more accountable you'll be held. It's a daunting thing as someone preaching that passage, but it's real. He says: The person able to bridle their tongue is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. What is he saying? The most difficult thing you and I can ever accomplish in life is learning to communicate. A person who is perfect at communicating—who has mastered that ability—can master anything else.
Watch what he goes on to say:
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Consider ships—although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body but it makes a great boast.
Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself on fire by hell.
James—if he were preaching in today's culture—doesn't have much of an audience because this isn't the type of message that builds a crowd. It's the type of message that builds a Christian. He's saying: When you are part of the family of God, you take on different behaviors. You think about your relationships more critically. You operate more intentionally. You are keenly aware of the role your words play.
He's saying: If you and I call ourselves Christians, we can't be living toward heaven yet living like hell. Is there anything in my life that is a living contradiction? Is there any way God sees opportunity for me to improve? I see opportunity every single day in the mirror. The idea isn't to take on self-deprecating, self-loathing thoughts, but to lean into the profound nature of grace that says: Come what may, God, I believe that even in my shortcomings, You can redeem those things and help me improve over time.
James gives us some really intriguing imagery. In a lot of Bible studies, people skip over imagery and metaphors in Scripture. But the imagery is profound. If you want to change the imagination, change the metaphor. God is constantly trying to stretch our comprehension and the way we think and view things. He's saying: Think of it this way, think of it this way—so you have a broader, more robust understanding of God's work and His ways.
He starts by saying the tongue is like a bit in a horse's mouth. What he's saying: The tongue is powerful. This small four-to-six-inch bit can control this large, powerful animal. That's a powerful thing. Most of us go through life casually engaging in relationships, unaware of that power.
I was a young leader who found myself overwhelmed by responsibility, adopting the habits of my workplace. I would come home, sit at the table with my laptop open, continuing to work and respond to emails. One day, I received an email from Kristen with the opening statement: "apparently this is the only way to get a hold of you." She went on to list out my shortcomings as a husband and as a father.
Looking back on that, it's comical how we were communicating. But I'm so thankful that over time, if you stick with it, you just get better. You improve and you learn some things and you develop some wisdom and practical handles for how to manage these situations well.
When it comes to marriage, there are five consistent themes and issues that rise to the surface as the main areas of either breakdown or healthy thriving. Our ability or inability to have productive conversations in these five areas leads to either a healthy marriage or a dysfunctional one. These five areas are: Faith, Family, Finances, Fun, and Sex.
I am sometimes amazed by the number of couples who commit to the most important relationship this side of Heaven apart from Christ, without critically and thoroughly thinking through the faith conversation. Scripture puts it in terms of a yoke—being "unequally yoked." If you think of an ox with a yoke over its shoulder, when you have two oxes with separate yokes, they pull the wagon in different directions.
If you're going to be a person of faith, you have to understand that your faith informs everything—your identity and your purpose, your values and your mission, the way you view the world and others, how you steward your finances. The list goes on and on.
Life is difficult. It's going to come with pain, trials, inconvenience, and confusion because we live in a fallen world. What becomes very apparent in most relationships is that sometimes a couple isn't on the same page in their faith, and then they hit a crisis. The question becomes: What are we going to rely on? Where do we find our foundation and our wisdom? What is our guide?
If you're not in lockstep and agreement when it comes to your faith, when those difficult moments come, you will deviate from one another. It becomes extremely difficult to navigate the difficulties of life when you and your spouse are not aligned in your faith.
Not a single one of us comes from a perfect family. Every single one of us comes from units with broken tendencies. One of my favorite statements is: A fish never discovers water until it's out of it. When you take a fish out of the lake and put it on the deck of a boat, it starts flopping around—but that same motion in the water is what swimming looks like.
When we step into marriage, we're pulled out of our family. Scripture says you will "leave and cleave." What was once swimming in the dynamics of your family is now flopping around in this new dynamic. You are embracing a new family unit and building a new family with your spouse.
I grew up in a very male-dominant home. Kristen grew up in a very female-dominant home. You don't even realize that when you step into marriage, you bring expectations about what the roles are. It's about leaning in and realizing: You and me have to figure this out together. There are things we've learned—for good and for bad—from both of our families, and together we're learning to navigate this journey as we build our home.
Finances are always a key issue in marriages. I will say that I think we tend to overrate money—we're obsessed with it—and we underrate time. I think that's a paradigm that should be flipped. I would rather spend money to save time than spend time to save money. Time is our most valuable commodity.
It requires clunky conversations at times—even awkward, even initially tense conversations—where you have to identify: How are we going to approach the finance conversation in our home? What's our budget? How are we going to manage it? What roles are we going to put in place? How do we do it together?
Kristen and I find that we arrive at the same answer but we have different math. You have to figure that out together. Finances are critical.
Some might be surprised to see fun on this list, but I'm always concerned for couples where we ask: Hey, what are some of your shared hobbies? I'm amazed by how many couples don't have shared hobbies.
Here's my opinion—and you can disagree with me—I do not think your kids can be your shared hobby. Our kids facilitate a lot of our calendar, and we find great joy in experiencing activities that our kids participate in. But if your kids are your only shared hobby, you're setting yourself up for a crisis. The moment those kids move out of the house, there will be an immediate void. You won't know how to connect with one another or enjoy each other's company apart from your children.
You have to identify shared hobbies. What's very common in our society is: the guy has his things, his buddies, his hobbies that he enjoys. The lady has her things, the things that she enjoys. Eventually, unintentionally, they start to drift in different directions toward joy and fulfillment. Then they realize: How did we drift so far apart? Well, they didn't enjoy and didn't strategically find hobbies that they like together.
This takes time. You have to try different things and explore different options. Kristen tried to turn me into a runner. She had the idea that we'd be one of those couples that run 5K races—which meant showing up early Saturday morning while I'd be in the back of the pack with women pushing strollers, and Kristen would be up front with a group from Kenya. It was always an issue. But you have to try and figure something out until you arrive at things where you say: We enjoy this, and it's cultivating a greater connection and friendship within our relationship.
I know there are kids in the room, and I have kids that are probably the same age as yours, so we won't overdo this. But I will say, speaking with broad generalizations—and I know there are outliers—in most cases, the man has a stronger appetite for physical things than the woman.
Often, I get the privilege of leveling the expectations of guys heading into marriage. It's about understanding that marriage is far more relational than it is physical. But here's the thing: The better it gets relationally, the better it gets physically.
We spend so much time winning a person's heart, but then we don't spend enough time and energy maintaining and keeping that person's heart. It's about having those conversations. Especially the last one—I'll say this: guys, it's an awkward conversation for everybody. It's a level of intimacy and vulnerability that is foreign to most, if not all of us.
But I promise you, the couples that lean into it, that stay with it, that keep the conversation open, honest, and transparent—they get down the road and they have the marriage everybody else is looking at and desiring. It's about learning to be a person who commits to the process, who puts in the work, so you can have a marriage that thrives.
So much of this hinges on communication. Every single one of these five areas requires you and me to be good, intentional, and constantly improving in our communication.
Communication breaks down into three categories: our words, our tone, and our body language. Here's what's wild to me: studies and research on communication break it down this way—only 7% of your communication is your words, 38% is your tone, and 55% is your body language.
That's wild. Ninety-three percent of your communication isn't what you're saying—it's how you're saying it. Tell your face. Adjust your tone. Your body language is a big thing.
Every single one of us will come up short in this area. But it's about learning to walk humbly, acknowledge when we come up short, and embrace the journey of growing in our communication. We need to be intentional, especially as it pertains to the most critical relationships in our life.
In the Bible, many individuals had a lot to say about communication. One of them was Jesus's half-brother, James. He has his own book called James.
The Book of James is fascinating—it reads like the Book of Proverbs. It's full of practical, pointed wisdom and advice on how to live a Godly life and Christian virtue. Chronologically, the Book of James is most widely agreed to be the first written letter or book in the New Testament.
James was a chief leader in the Church of Jerusalem. In Acts 12, we read of the Jerusalem Council—this is important for all of us—where they decided to extend the gospel to the Gentiles. Up until that point, this was an exclusively Jewish faith. In that moment, they said: No, we believe this good news is for all people, not just the Jewish people. James was a critical leader in that decision, and he writes this letter with deep concern for the community of faith.
Now, if you're not a Christian, you're actually off the hook on this conversation. But if you call yourself a Christian, James is saying: Pay attention to this. Right off the bat in chapter one, he says:
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless.
He's not pulling any punches. He's saying: Folks, those who walk around professing faith that they clearly don't possess—that's shallow, that's empty, it's pointless, and it's worthless.
We can see this in our American culture. We love the idea of religion and its ability to help us manufacture facades—so we can go through life masquerading as virtuous people. But if you pay attention to our conversations, it becomes pretty apparent: it's an empty, shallow veneer. Deep behind it, there's not a true redemptive work of grace taking place within our heart.
The overarching argument of James is: faith without works is dead. Now, this will be misinterpreted by many. Lean in on this: what he's not saying is that you are saved by your works. He's saying your works are evidence that you have been saved—that you have been so marked by the grace of God and the finished work of the cross that it has had a profound, life-altering effect upon your life.
Chuck Swindoll, one of my favorite authors, says it this way: Grace is not opposed to effort. We're not trying to live in certain ways to earn God's love, but we do put forth effort in living in such a way that honors God and glorifies him to the best of our ability.
James says in chapter three:
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways, and anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
He's saying: Be careful that your ambition doesn't get out of control. Patiently wait for God to entrust you with whatever measure of influence he feels you are worthy of carrying. Every single one of us will be held accountable to the measure of our influence.
He says: Do not just pursue becoming a teacher, because communication is hard. The more influence you have as a teacher, the more accountable you will be held. And he says: The person who is able to bridle their tongue is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
What is he saying? The most difficult thing you and I can ever accomplish in life is learning to communicate. A person who is perfect at communicating—if they've mastered that ability—they can master anything else.
Then watch what he goes on to say:
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Take ships as an example—although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes a great boast.
James starts by saying the tongue is like a bit in a horse's mouth. What he's saying is: The tongue is powerful. This small, four-to-six-inch bit can control this large, powerful animal. That's a powerful thing.
Most of us go through life casually engaging in relationships, not ever fully understanding the power of our words. Your words are powerful, and they can be harnessed for good or for bad—like nuclear energy can be used to make a bomb that destroys a city or for electricity that lights up a city.
The question is: How do you harness the power of your words? Do you destroy a situation or brighten it up? There's a powerful nature to our words. We can speak life into our marriages—hope, grace, love, joy, purpose, promise, and destiny—into those around us. Or we can project shame, lies, and all kinds of things that run against the grain of God's work in someone's life.
James says: Consider a ship—though it is driven by strong winds, it is steered by a small rudder. Essentially, what he's saying is this powerful idea: One of the main reasons why you are where you are is because of how you communicate. One of the main reasons why you're heading where you're heading is because of how you communicate.
Your words, your tongue, have a directional impact upon your life. It's about learning to ask: Where in my life, or how in my life, are my words shaping the direction and course of my relationships, my family, my friendships? They are directional.
James says: Consider a spark that creates an entire forest fire. I grew up for a portion of my childhood in Grand Junction, Colorado, on the western slope. It's a very dry terrain, so we were accustomed every single year to forest fires on that side of the mountains.
Every year, these fires would start, and we'd watch the news for updates, similar to tornado season. There was always this statement we'd look for: The fire has jumped the river. I remember as a kid thinking, I didn't know fires could jump rivers.
But that's certainly the case with forest fires in the Rocky Mountains. They not only jump rivers—they take over other mountains. Then the fire burns up all the vegetation, and vegetation holds the soil in place. When winter comes and snow falls, when all that snow begins to melt in the spring, mudslides happen.
You had a forest fire that jumped rivers, burned up mountainsides, burned up vegetation, and what happened in one season creates a mudslide in another season. It wasn't an isolated event.
James is saying: There is a transcendent nature to your communication. When you and I go through life thinking our conversations are just isolated situations, we foolishly miss the impact they're having on our lives. How you communicate to your spouse impacts your children. How you communicate to your children impacts them and their relationships with their peers. How you communicate at work—if you're constantly sabotaging your career through poor communication, that impacts your family.
These are not isolated situations. Your communication has a transcendent impact. What you do in this situation bleeds over into that situation. James is saying: You can take this as bad news—"Oh my goodness, my words are powerful, directional, and transcendent. I'm doomed." Or you can think: "Oh, my words are powerful, directional, and transcendent. This is great! Because of God's work in my life, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. I'm going to start speaking blessing, favor, and God's best and goodness in the lives of those around me. This is going to have an impact."
Scripture says: Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. If it's in your words, it's in your heart. What you say and what I say says a lot about us—more than it says about anyone else. You can learn a lot about a person just by listening to how they talk.
James is saying: Understand this—as people of God, we're called to represent something different.
Then he takes the conversation further and says:
With the tongue we praise our Lord and father, and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing, my brothers and sisters. This should not be! Can both fresh water and saltwater flow from the same spring? Brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a saltspring produce fresh water.
This is a conversation for the family of God. If you're not a Christian, you're off the hook. But if you are a Christian—if you say he's Lord and Savior, he's the king of your life, he's paid the ultimate price, and you've anchored your hope, identity, and eternity to him—well, brothers and sisters, no. This should not be.
He's making a powerful statement about the contradiction of praising God with our mouths while cursing the people made in his image. One mouth cannot do both things well.
He's saying that as long as you're connected to the wrong source, your life is going to produce undesirable fruit. It is only by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives that you and I can resemble anything godly, that you and I can produce any acts of righteousness. We cannot manufacture this on our own.
It is only by God's goodness at work within our life that we live beyond ourselves and beyond our ability. God does something in us that at times we don't even know to pray for.
Maybe what we need is to recognize that we need to connect our lives to a different source. Jesus is the source, the course, and the force.
He is not only the source of our identity, the source of our purpose, the source of unconditional grace, the source of joy, the source of peace—you could go on and on down the list. He is the source.
But he's also the course. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the author, the finisher, and the perfector of our faith. He is the only perfect human being to ever step foot on this ball of dust within this galaxy. He has laid before us a map and an example and has demonstrated: This is what true life and the fullness of life looks like.
He's the source and he's the course. If I keep following him, it'll lead in the right direction.
And he's the force. What does that mean? It is his power at work in my life that enables me to live like Jesus—not because I've developed some Messiah complex, but because I live every single day rooted at the foot of the cross. It is only by God's goodness that I produce any acts of righteousness.
I'm telling you, I think as a community, if we were to walk away today just saying, "Okay God, where can we get better?" Stop pointing fingers at culture. Stop pointing fingers at all the people we're disappointed with and all the foolishness that we see around us.
What would happen if we developed the courage to stare ourselves in the mirror and say, "God, I see the areas in my life that you are seeking to redeem and improve"?
I think God might do something profound in our families that might have an impact within the world. Because our world desperately needs healthy, thriving, beautiful, loving, peaceful families.
So as for me and as for you and your house, let's serve the Lord.
