A famous Mills Brothers song from many years ago says

You always hurt the one you love

The one you shouldn't hurt at all …

You always break the kindest heart

With a hasty word you can't recall, so

If I broke your heart last night

It's because I love you most of all

The song is rather absurd. It implies that the more you love someone, the more you hurt him/her. “I broke your heart because I love you.” That’s a form of love that I can do without. We should never hurt the ones we love. Love means that we try not to hurt others.

The song applies that in a romantic situation, but we could also apply it to the family. It’s easy to hurt those we live with, the people in our own families, those we love the most. Because we are sinners, the song is often accurate—we do indeed hurt the ones we love.

The song talks about hurting others “with a hasty word you can’t recall.” Words are very powerful tools for helping others or for hurting them. If we are not careful, we will allow words to come out of our mouths that hurt others deeply. And those verbal wounds can last a lifetime. If you are like me, you remember some of the hurtful and hateful things that others have said to you or about you, even if those words were said years or decades ago.

Christian families must insure that communication in the home is helpful, not hurtful. We don’t want to hurt the ones we love by our ungodly words.

Our text this morning is Eph 5:25-32. We can apply the principles from this passage to communication in almost any context, but this morning I want to consider how this text applies to the Christian home.