The Key to Maintaining Family Unity

What keeps a relationship together is forgiveness. Because we're going to fail, and we're going to offend, and we're going to wound, and we're going to hurt. But where there is instant and comprehensive and constant forgiveness, the relationship stays together.

And God is honored, and blessing is poured on us. Despite the attacks that threaten to destroy it, the family still remains a cultural adhesive. It stirs feelings of loyalty and ties people together. But that doesn't mean all families today are truly close, or all that they should be.

In fact, that may be even true in your own home, your Christian home. So how do you knit your family together and no true unity? What's the benefit of that sort of togetherness?

What are your responsibilities? John MacArthur considers those vital questions today on Grace to You as he shows you how you can know the blessings of the fulfilled family. That's the title of his current study, The Fulfilled Family.

And now with the lesson, here's John. What is it, most importantly, that causes relationships to be sustained over the long haul? In a word, it is forgiveness.

It is forgiveness. Why do I say that? Well, first of all, because no matter who you're married to, they're going to fail you. They're going to offend you. They're going to misunderstand you. They're going to misinterpret what you mean by what you do. You are going to offend them. You are going to sin against them.

You are going to disappoint them. This is true in any kind of relationship because we are sinful creatures. We are fallen creatures. And what essentially keeps that from destroying relationships is forgiveness, forgiveness. In fact, in Proverbs chapter 19 and verse 11, it says that it is a man's glory to overlook a transgression. Never is a man more lofty or more noble than when he forgives.

And frankly, we live in a society that would not accept this, would not acknowledge it, and consequently relationships are flying apart all over the place. We live in a sad, pathetic society on the road to really total self-destruction and one of the main contributors to that self-destruction is a disdain for forgiveness. People are filled with bitterness, filled with anger, filled with hate, filled with vengeance toward others. They believe that retaliation somehow is a virtue, that getting back is somehow right and healthy. Such attitudes are approved in our culture, approved on every front.

They are approved by counselors and psychologists who tell us we need to vent, we need to tell people what they need to hear, we need to make sure that we don't keep our anger in, but we explode when necessary so we don't carry it around. Such attitudes are exalted in the heroes of our culture who have an in-your-face kind of mentality. People make heroes out of the vindictive.

They make heroes out of the vengeful, the dirty Harrys, the Rambos, the Terminators, or whatever else you want to call them. Those types who find joy in killing for the sake of vengeance. There are those in our society who go around killing people because they feel they have been somehow mistreated or abused by cultural inequities and so they get their pound of flesh by random execution. The worst case, of course, is those kinds of vengeance which take lives. Coming along behind that are the lawsuits, about 300,000 lawsuits a year in America for every piece of flesh that people can get. Any way and every way that people can seek vengeance, they will seek it.

We have 70% of the world's lawyers just to keep up with the number of lawsuits. Even the people helpers, the counselors, and psychologists will tell us it is not healthy to forgive. In her popular book called Toxic Parents, one that I'm sure you haven't read but it's quite an interesting book, Susan Forward wrote the book and she presents what is really the prevailing attitude toward forgiveness in our culture.

She has a chapter in the book entitled, You Don't Have to Forgive. She says we should place the blame for our present problems on our parents because that's where it belongs. They poisoned us.

We all had toxic parents. And the new cry is, I am a victim. It's not my fault and I'm not responsible. Guilt for anything and everything is pushed off on others and left there until vengeance exhausts itself. And there's really no place for forgiveness. In fact, it's often suggested that forgiveness is unhealthy.

It's sort of wimpy. It's sort of cowardly. We've all been oppressed, abused, victimized, and we aren't about to forgive anybody. But the price of vengeance is extremely high. The price of unforgiveness is really severe. Let me tell you some of the things that unforgiveness does. Unforgiveness imprisons people in the past.

What do you mean by that? Well, as long as you are unwilling to forgive offenders and their offenses, you are shackled to them both. Unforgiveness imprisons you in the pain of your past. Secondly, unforgiveness inevitably produces deep bitterness, an infectious cancer in the heart. Such bitterness is malignant.

It is devastating. It brings those malignant thoughts, those harassing memories that distort how you see life. Anger rages out of control. Emotions become unbridled and unchecked. And you entertain desperate ideas for revenge.

Every conversation becomes a forum for slandering the person you hate for defamation and even for lies. Now, unforgiveness is a very, very severe thing. Beyond the sheer virtue of it, beyond the sheer nobility of it, let me show you a few of the compelling motives for forgiveness. Number one, forgiveness is the most God-like act a person can do. Forgiveness is the most God-like act a person can do. No act is more like God than forgiveness.

Never are you more like Him than when you forgive someone who has offended you. Forgiveness is a verbally declared, personally granted promise. It is a statement of undeserved, unearned love that affirms to an offender that there is no anger, no hatred, no desire for vengeance, no retaliation because guilt has been removed, blame has been removed.

There is no self-pity and there is no bitterness. And that is precisely the attitude of God toward sinners. God grants to us in Scripture a verbally declared, personally given promise of undeserved and unearned love that affirms that He is no longer angry, no longer carries hatred or a desire for vengeance, that there will be no retaliation, no condemnation because guilt and blame and shame have been removed. That's the attitude of God toward those who have put their faith in Him. That is, by the way, Paul's salient point in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Chapter 5, verse 1, therefore be imitators of God. You imitate God when you forgive.

This is a call to God-likeness. Be a forgiving person. It's hard to destroy a relationship if you continually forgive every offense. Colossians 3, 13, Paul says, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. It is God-like to forgive. Back in Matthew chapter 5, you remember the familiar words of our Lord Jesus, I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

When you do that, verse 45, you may be sons of your Father. He forgives. When you forgive, you're like Him. Beloved, in your marriage, you are headed for major disaster if you continually accumulate hostility because of offenses. If you continue to allow those bitternesses to develop. But whenever there's an offense and immediate forgiveness, it's disappearing.

It's gone. That's the key to any relationship. Children, the same toward your parents. Parents, the same toward your children.

Brother and sister, brother and brother, sister and sister, it's the same situation. Forgiveness, forgiveness because that is like God. Practice the God-like virtue. Second, in thinking about motives for forgiveness, it is not murder only which is forbidden by the sixth commandment. It is not murder only which is forbidden by the sixth commandment. The sixth commandment, thou shalt not kill, involves much more than just the idea of murder.

You say, well, how do you know that? Because Jesus made that very clear. Matthew chapter 5, listen to verses 21 and 22. You have heard that the ancients were told, you will not commit murder. You shall not commit murder.

That was the command. And whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. In other words, if you commit murder, you've committed a crime and you're liable to the court's verdict against you. But, Jesus said, I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. In other words, the point is not only that God says don't kill, but implied in that is the motive or the attitude that results in that, namely hatred.

Jesus says, I'm telling you, don't even be angry with your brother. Be humble enough so that no offense against you is worthy of hate. No offense against you is worthy of forgiveness because you see yourself as nothing. It's the opposite of self-esteem. All the self-esteem cult does is feed this monster by giving people permission to have an elevated view of themselves so that anything against them in any way, shape, or form, however trivial or minimal, is cause for great aggravation and justifiable offense. Thirdly, and this is a very important point when you talk about forgiveness, you must remember, thirdly, that whoever has offended you has offended God greater.

Whoever has offended you has offended God greater. Sometimes I hear somebody say, I'm getting out of this marriage. I have had it. I am up to my ears in this. I'm not going to take this another day.

I'm not living with this. And they think that that's the ultimate offense against them when the reality of it is that if there has been sin in the life of that person who has offended you, it has offended God far greater than it has offended you. You remember when David sinned by engaging himself in a liaison with Bathsheba, making sure that because he lusted after her, her husband wouldn't come back into the picture. He got him in a compromising situation in the battle where he basically lost his life, so there was murder as well as adultery. And you remember when David was reciting before God his penitence. He says in Psalm 51, against you and you only have I sinned.

He had the right perspective. Yes, he had offended Bathsheba. He had offended Uriah. He had offended the family. He had offended the nation over which he was king. He had offended his own family. He had offended his own friends. But more than anything else, he had offended God by his terrible, terrible iniquity. He says in Psalm 41, 4, heal my soul, for I have sinned against you. Now, God is the one most severely sinned against in any situation. Any sin is most severely against Him. We, frankly, are somewhat incidental. So what if it offended me?

That's really incidental to the main issue. And God, who is so severely offended, forgives so readily, how can we so minimally offended, not forgive? So we forgive. We forgive because we are never more like God than when we forgive. We forgive because God forbids anger, hate, and attitudes of vengeance. And we forgive because God who is most offended has forgiven, and we who are least offended can surely do the same.

Let me take you to a fourth point that just builds on the third one. It is only reasonable that those forgiven the greater sins should forgive the lesser ones. It is only reasonable that those forgiven the greater sins forgive the lesser ones. Now, this I know, if you think about it, will bring to mind Matthew 18. So turn over to Matthew 18.

Some people are brought in before the king. They owe him a massive debt that they could never pay. He forgives them. One of these guys is forgiven, this massive, unpayable debt, which is the picture of eternal punishment and our weight of sin.

And he's forgiven. He accepts forgiveness, goes out, finds a guy who owes him a few weeks' wages, and strangles the guy. Says, I want my pay.

I want my pay. And the guy can't pay, so he throws him in prison. It's unimaginable. And the disciples are really incredulous over this. They can't believe this, I'm sure, as Jesus outlined the story. It would absolutely shake them to the core that anybody could be forgiven so much and turn around and not forgive somebody so little. And isn't that exactly what we do all the time?

All the time? We have been forgiven by God an unpayable, inconceivable debt. Shall we not forgive the small debts that others owe us? In your marriage, you need to be in a hurry to forgive as fast as you can forgive. Even when the offense is going on, all your thoughts should be geared toward forgiveness. A fifth reason to forgive. The one who does not forgive will not enjoy the love of other Christians. The one who does not forgive will not enjoy the love of other Christians. Let me tell you what happens in a marriage.

It happens all the time. The wife says, I've had it with this guy. That's all. I'm done. I'm not taking it anymore.

I'm fed up. And I'm not going to forgive him. I've forgiven him enough. I'm not forgiven him anymore. I'm done with this guy.

I have nothing but resentment, hostility, hatred, bitterness, and I'm maintaining it and I'm feeding it. You know what happens? Immediately there's a severing of the marriage and instantaneously the loss of Christian fellowship. You're on the outs with the church immediately, right?

And in a matter of a few months, guess what? At a communion service, your name gets read because you've left your marriage without any grounds for that. You forfeit the fellowship. The church becomes really your judge. That's exactly what happens in the parable of Matthew 18. Alienation from others in the life of the church results in serious sin.

Hebrews 10 24 says that we need to be together for mutual stimulation. You need the life of God's people. And these friends turned against the unforgiving man and they turned him over to God. They prayed literally. They enacted church discipline. They turned him over to the Lord who then turns him over to the tormentors. And that takes us to the sixth point. Failure to forgive results in divine chastening.

What happened to this guy? Verse 32, the king or the Lord calls him in. You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you asked Me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave even as I had mercy on you?

It's incredible that he didn't. And his Lord now moved with anger, turns him over to the tormentors until he should repay all that was owed him. So shall My heavenly Father also do to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from the heart. What's it saying? If you will not forgive another, then the Lord is going to turn you over to the tormentors.

What's that? Chastening, serious chastening. Torturers, tormentors might be stress, hardship, illness, difficulty. James 2, 13 says the same thing. Judgment will be merciless to the one who shows no mercy. Blessed are the merciful, Matthew 5, 7, for they will obtain mercy. If you don't have the mercy of forgiveness, God's going to turn you over to the tormentors.

So what happens? You destroyed your marriage. You've destroyed your relationship with the church. You've spiraled down into iniquity and now comes divine chastening. I've had several people in my life say to me, I'm not going to live with this person anymore. I'd rather take my chances with God than live with this person. Well, you're not really taking any chances with God.

It's pretty guaranteed what's going to happen. Chastening, chastening. A seventh reason for forgiveness. The one who does not forgive will not be forgiven. Look at Matthew 6 and in verse 12, part of what He teaches them is to pray this, and forgive us our debts, or forgive us our trespasses as the other gospel records it, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Now there you have a statement that's pretty clear. You forgive us, God, as we have forgiven others. Go down to verses 14 and 15. For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Boy, this is some powerful stuff. If you forgive, you'll be forgiven. God's going to deal with you the way He deals with others. You say, now is this talking about the fact you might lose your salvation and go to hell?

No. No, eternal forgiveness we have in our justification. That settles the issue of our future. Temporal forgiveness we need in our sanctification, and that settles the issue of our blessing in the present. If there's anything I want out of life, it's God's blessing. I mean, I suppose I would go so far as to say I would live with anybody if I could have God's blessing.

That's what I would seek most of all. To humble myself and accept some difficulty in human life to have the joy of heaven is a simple choice for me. One final point that cries out to us for forgiveness. This is a very important point.

It could be a whole message, a whole series. Offenses against you are your trials. Offenses against you are your trials. Listen carefully. And by those trials, what is God doing?

Perfecting you. Let me tell you something. You may think you have a difficult marriage. You may think you have a difficult situation, young people with your parents. You may think you have conflict in the home.

Let me tell you this. Your offenses, the offenses against you are the very trials which God will use to make you like His Son. Be little concerned about your personal injuries and much concerned about your personal holiness. Remember that in your trials, God is at work making you strong and holy. When all is said and done, what keeps a relationship together is forgiveness.

Because we're going to fail, and we're going to offend, and we're going to wound, and we're going to hurt. But where there is instant and comprehensive and constant forgiveness, the relationship stays together. And God is honored, and blessing is poured out. That's Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. Today John continued the most popular study in Grace to You's 52-year history. It's titled The Fulfilled Family, and along with all the teaching John does on the radio, he also serves as chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. So John, to wrap this study up, what I hear you saying is that a strong family is not merely possible, it's within reach of any Christian husband or wife, dad or mom, who is willing to apply biblical truth. Is that fair?

Absolutely. The Lord doesn't ask us to do something that's impossible. It's clear, love your wife, and we talked about that this week already. Love your wife means you make all the necessary sacrifice to shower her with all the love that is for her spiritual well-being and her joy. Love your children, and that means you sacrifice yourself for the nurture and admonition of the Lord that you pour into your children.

You live as an exemplary life. The wife submits to the husband, loves the husband, both together love the Lord, and if they're both tuned to the Lord, they're tuned to each other and even to their children. No, it is not only not possible, it is really required. This is not suggestions. These things are commands of husbands and wives, and it can be done.

And obviously all of this in the power of the Holy Spirit, apart from the Spirit working in our lives, we can't restrain the flesh. So as we've been going through this Fulfilled Family series, it's just been a wonderful opportunity again, and we've done this a number of times through the years, to put this series on the air and help parents and families think through again what God designed for their family. This is not to be burdensome to you.

This is to produce the outcome that will bring you complete joy. The Fulfilled Family series is so very important, and I would love to get it into your hands. It's available from Grace To You. If you want CDs, they come in a package of 11 CDs and an album, and you can order them from us and we'll mail them to you. If you choose, you can download the series, The Fulfilled Family, on the MP3 downloads on our website.

This is something you ought to have and listen to frequently and share with your friends. The Fulfilled Family is available only from Grace To You. Husbands, wives, parents, children, whatever your role, God's Word shows you how to help your family honor the Lord and strengthen the bonds of love in your home.

This study has proven to have a dynamic practical effect on families for decades now, and it can have that kind of impact in your home as well. To order the series, The Fulfilled Family, contact us today. The 11-CD album is reasonably priced and shipping is free. To order, call 800-55-GRACE or visit our website, gty.org. And don't forget, you can download all 11 messages from The Fulfilled Family free of charge in MP3 or transcript format at our website, gty.org. Now, if John's study has helped you see how you and your family can glorify God and know greater future blessings in your home, remember that it's the support of listeners like you that keeps this broadcast on the air, not only in your neighborhood, but also around the world. To partner with Grace To You and to minister to believers, families, and churches across the globe, mail your tax-deductible gift to Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. You can also donate online at gty.org, or when you call us, 800-55-GRACE. Now, for John MacArthur and the whole Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to watch Grace To You television this Sunday, and then be back here next week when John looks at how you can know for certain that you are truly and permanently saved. The grip of God, that's the study John begins on Monday, 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.