In his sermon "How to Have Tough Conversations," Scott Brown emphasizes the critical importance of communication in relationships, particularly within families. He references his book "When Talking Gets Tough," as well as works by Richard Baxter and Jeremiah Burroughs, which explore the significance of governing one's tongue. Brown highlights the special responsibility that husbands have in communication, as outlined in Ephesians 5, and stresses that both love and conversation skills must be learned. He warns against 19 harmful communication patterns, such as interrupting, presumption, and the silent treatment, which can derail conversations. Instead, Brown advises adopting 12 positive behaviors to sweeten difficult conversations, including preparing the heart, being on a mission to bless, and actively listening. He underscores the powerful influence of the tongue, as mentioned in James and Proverbs, and encourages listeners to strive for conversations that are honest and loving, aiming for positive outcomes.

Okay, here we go. Here we go. I want to talk about how to have tough conversations. I compiled a lot of these things in this little book called When Talking Gets Tough. It's out there.

It's a short book and has a little bit more to say than what I will today. But there are also a couple of other resources, Richard Baxter and Jeremiah Burroughs, Governing Your Tongue and Conquer a Murmuring Tongue. You know, the way we talk is really important, and I'll illustrate that in a minute. But also, just a couple things are fairly new. We wrote a book called How to Have a Christian Wedding.

It was myself and Jason Dome over there, and Carlton McLeod put this together after spending a half a lifetime doing weddings and giving, you know, counsel for young couples. So I encourage you to pick that up if you have. I know a lot of you kids, a lot of you have kids that are that are coming up. And I don't know if you've seen this book, Building a God-Centered Family. We published this a long time ago.

I think it's one of the best things ever written for how to have a God-Centered Family. Written by Matthew Henry. I didn't write it. I wrote the introduction to it. But it's just very practical, very simple, building a God-centered family.

Okay, so let's talk about how to have tough conversations. And let's pray before we begin. Lord, we seek your help. We thank you that you've you have given us words to speak words of life to one another and so help us to learn to do that even more. Help me to learn more and make progress in this area.

Amen. So learning how to talk, it's one of the most important things you'll ever do. Learning how to talk and learning how to listen, it's very important, especially when you're dealing with really critical matters where strong opinions are being expressed and important outcomes are being discussed. And frankly, it's how we talk that really determines the direction of our relationships. It's so critical.

Now, since the husband is the head of the wife. I want to make this really clear to husbands. Husbands have a greater responsibility in this matter. As we saw in Ephesians 5, God lays, God himself lays the greatest responsibility on a husband for how things go. And so this should be, you know, a lightning bolt for husbands, particularly as they lead their homes in the right direction.

Because when you're talking, you're not just saying something, you're actually becoming something. And every word you speak chisels your soul in one direction or another. And, you know, talking is how we work through disagreements. Talking is how we express strong opinions. There's nothing wrong with having a strong opinion.

Talking is how we share our concerns about things. And one thing that's really important to understand is that because, just because a wife is a weaker vessel and that she should win her husband without a word, that doesn't mean that she has nothing to say. A wife is a helper of her husband, and she actually should have a lot to say to help the family. I think I was talking to Al Burke after one of the talks about riding a bicycle. He said, sometimes a wife might need to throw a stick in the back tire and stop this bike.

That's true. Maybe your wives have done that and often that's that's really a blessing to the family but these things should be done really under the government of God. But the tongue is it either acts like a machete or it's like a shepherd's staff in your family. And people argue most about sex and money and raising kids and dealing with in-laws. That's usually where probably about 70% of the disagreements are, and I know there are more.

Okay, I'm gonna give you four points. The first is conversation is a fruit. The second is scripture is sufficient and that's where we'll spend our time. I want to give also 19 harmful patterns of communication. Specific landmines that can blow up your conversations and take you in the wrong direction.

And then I want to give 12 behaviors that scripture teaches us for how to sweeten our conversations and particularly, you know, our difficult conversations. So let's begin with conversation is a fruit. Learning how to talk is the fruit of learning how to love someone. Somebody once said, love must be learned, learned again and again. And there's no end to it.

This person said, hate needs no instruction. It just needs to be provoked. But learning to talk really is a function of learning how to love. What our conversations really ought to be is conversations that deal with our differences, honestly, but dealing with them in an uncommon way. And the problem with conversation is that you can easily get played.

You can get played by your own emotions and you can get played by the other person's emotions. And when we're talking we have to be very careful that we're not getting played. And then you then you add your fallen nature and your self-preservation impulse and your pride and things like that and then things get really really hard. James says that the tongue is a rudder, it takes you in a direction. He said the tongue is a fire, It can burn everything to the ground.

Solomon said it holds the power of life and death. That's in Proverbs 18.20. Your words can be a tree of life seasoned with salt. It can be like a spring of fresh water. So James says in James 3, 11.

And so it's critical that we learn how to govern the tongue. An English Puritan, Richard Alistree, calls the tongue an uncircumcised Philistine and he says the only way only God can deal with the armor of the uncircumcised Philistine. He wrote a book called The Government of the Tongue. And in his book, he says, I'm going to give you stones from the brook to heal, to hurl at the uncircumcised Philistine. And that's what I really would like to do here this afternoon.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Proverbs 1821. So these are really really critical critical matters. In English Puritan Edward West, he talked about the harmful effect of slander on the slanderer himself. He said that the slanderer's words are like a recoiling gun that lays its shooter in a shattered condition on his back while he wounds his brothers in his heart.

In other words, you know, bad conversations hurt everybody. So, and of course, you know, the Apostle says, if you want to love life and see good days, keep your tongue from evil. Okay, so everything you need for the government of your tongue has been given in the Word of God and So we're gonna cover some of that, but I want to start first of all with 19 Harmful patterns. Yes, 19 count them Somebody's gonna count them. I know 19 harmful patterns of communication and these are landmines that blow up conversations.

And one of the problems with our conversations is that there's always something underneath the surface of the conversation. Our conversations are a little bit like icebergs, where only the tip is showing, but underneath there are assumptions, there are feelings, there are experiences, there are some of them are toxic, some of them are like snakes and bats, you know, crawling around your soul, and those things get activated by strong opinions and emotions and those impulses you know cause all the problems. So let's talk about these 19 patterns. These are speech patterns that jettison communication and that that need to be abandoned in conversations. So I'm just going to give you a list here.

The first is interrupting. Interrupting. Most of us, we don't listen, we reload. Then the next, number two, contradicting. Just responding with a contradiction rather than doing something that's more profitable.

We'll talk about later. Number three, presuming that you understand what the person is saying. Presumption is really one of the things that derails a conversation. Presumption. That derails a conversation.

Presumption. And then number four, a focus on winning. When your focus is on winning, you've already lost the conversation. Number five, lodging threats. That's no help.

That doesn't diffuse trouble. Number six, name calling. If you're gonna call your spouse a name it should be an affectionate name name-calling number seven blaming blaming calling. Number seven, blaming. Blaming.

Number eight, the silent treatment. Now earlier today you know I talked about how men are often silent and their brains go to mush. They actually need to learn how to respond in a profitable way. And number nine, sullenness. You know what sullenness is, you see it.

You see it on your kids' faces and you see it on one another. But that's a landmine and a conversation. That doesn't advance the conversation in the right direction. Number 10, the cold shoulder. Number 11, discrediting.

Number 12, hurling insults. Number 13, labeling. Number 13, labeling. Number 14, exaggerating. Number 15, aggression.

And then number 16, lying. Just lie. Number 17, oversharing. Everything doesn't need to be said. We live in a world where people think that it's really helpful to share everything that's in your heart.

And everything in your heart is not worth sharing because some of it is poison. And then number 18, walking out. If you have a pattern of this in your family, I'm just going to encourage you to stop that pattern. Don't let your kids walk out of conversations, and don't you teach them how to do it. Learn to stick it out.

Learn to get the thing resolved. You don't want your kids leaving home and they're they're the kind of people that stomp out of conversations when they get married. That's really destructive. And then number 19, taking cheap shots. You know cheap shots are kind of like emotional vandalism.

It's like spraying graffiti you know all over the soul and you you might think you won the moment but you actually lose the war. So those are those are bad communication patterns. We've all participated in them in one level or another. But what a Christian should do is continue to make distance from those things and begin to eliminate them. So let's get positive.

Let's talk about behaviors that sweeten difficult conversations. And I'm going to give you 12 of them. And the first is prepare your heart. Prepare your heart. This is Matthew 12, 34 to 37.

And this same thing is repeated in Luke six and also in other places. But the idea is out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. That's what Jesus said in Matthew 12, 34. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things and So preparing your heart to spill for things that are good and true and lovely and of good report.

You know, James said that no man can tame the tongue. It's an unruly evil full of deadly poison. I was talking about this to my fellow elder a few years ago. No man can tame the tongue. And then he said, but you know the Lord Jesus can tame the tongue.

That's so true. But I doubt if any of our tongues will be perfectly tamed, not perfectly. So the disposition of the heart is really, really critical in this matter of preparing your heart. Thinking the best of one another is one of the most helpful things that you'll ever do in any conversation or relationship. A lot of times We inject motives into one another that don't exist.

And that's why the apostle Paul taught the Corinthian church, love thinks no evil. In other words, love thinks the best of the other person. And James makes it just so clear that the tongue is a rudder. James says it's a small thing that moves big things in your life. And it's, in James, the tongue is small, but it's driven by massive, purposeful, spiritual forces.

And there's this unseen power that moves the tongue. And it determines really the direction of your whole life. James 3 1 through 12 makes this really really clear in very very graphic language. That means that on our hearts there are there are spiritual forces at work and in James in James it goes like this the spiritual forces move the heart the heart moves the captain of the ship, and the captain moves the rudder, and The rudder guides the ship to its destination. That's the logic of James.

In other words, it determines the course of your life. And it begins with a very small thing called the tongue. So first, prepare your heart. Examine your heart. If you're getting ready to go into a difficult conversation or strong emotions and important outcomes are in play, then the first thing you should do before you go into that conversation is to prepare your heart and see what you've got going on in your heart.

The second, the second is be on a mission, Be on a mission to bless. Wise people set themselves on the best outcomes and the best mission. And 1 Peter 3, 8 through 12 speaks of this. He says, finally, all of you be of one mind having compassion for one another love as brothers be tender-hearted be courteous not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling but on the contrary blessing knowing that you were called to this that you may inherit a blessing for he who would love life and see good days Let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good.

Let him seek peace and pursue it for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." That's why Solomon in Proverbs 10 11 he said the mouth of the righteous is a well of life and so this this whole important mission that you are on, it's a mission to bless. So be on a mission to bless. The third, prepare to listen. Prepare to listen, Proverbs 15, 28. Good communication always starts with good understanding.

And that's why Solomon says, "'He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him. Taking time to listen is like injecting oil in the gears of this conversation. And we are all, We're often so intent on answering that we don't listen. And that will ensure that we don't understand. Solomon said in Proverbs 15, 28, The heart of the righteous studies how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil." Listening is one way that we serve one another.

Listening gets us on the same wavelength of the other person. You know, there's actually, there's a condition that some females have. It's called cookie bite hearing loss. And there's a frequency of sounds that certain women can't hear. They can't even hear what men are saying because of the frequency range that a man's voice is uttered and they they can't hear men.

It's called cookie by hearing loss. And it's, you can't hear the lows, you know, in the spectrum of a voice. But Good communication necessitates being able to hear one another. And one of the biggest conversation killers is distractions. Eliminating distractions is really important.

Multitasking is a conversation killer. And let me just say this, put your phone away. Stop picking up your phone when you are in an important conversation. I know Most of you have never done that. But I know people very close to me that have done that.

But it destroys respect. And instead of concentrating on what the other person is saying, you want to listen to somebody else that's that's pinging you on your phone. So the third is prepare to listen, prepare to listen. The fourth is don't interrupt, don't interrupt. Proverbs 18 13 he who answers a matter before he hears it it is a folly and shame to him.