Today I'm Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. How do you restore the love, connection, and joy in your marriage when you're completely at odds, when there's resentment and anger in your heart? when one of you has really messed up big time. That's today on Living on the Edge. Stay with me.
Can you truly rejoice when the person who hurt you is doing well?
Well, that's the test of complete forgiveness. I'm Dave Druy, and today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram shares a powerful message about the rhythm of forgiveness. We'll see how forgiveness has three distinct phases, an event, a process, and a destination. and SHIP will give you a practical roadmap to help you set things right with your mate. If unresolved conflict is calcifying your heart and stealing your peace, this message offers the way forward.
Well, here's Chip Ingram with a message titled, Forgiving, How to Restore Your Peace. Here's what I want to tell you. There's a difference between being forgiven and being restored. There's a lot of people who have been legally forgiven. Your sins are forgiven.
but you live as a second class citizen, or you're numbing yourself, or you have big walls between you and your mate and other people. practical implications, and this gets to your marriage. Is that you can't forgive your mate until you've received both forgiveness. and restoration. And you would be shocked at what would happen.
If you receive both God's forgiveness and His restoration, of how that would allow you. Remember what Jesus said to the disciples? Freely you've received, freely. Give. I don't know if you pray the Lord's Prayer.
I pray often when I wake up, I kind of go through Psalm 23 before I get out of bed and I ponder what that is. And then I kind of phrase by phrase often as I lay there because I want to, before I get bombarded in email or thoughts or problems, I want to, our Father, holy God, I want your name to be cherished in my mind, in my thoughts. Give me this day. Forgive me of my sins, please, today. as I forgive those who trespassed against me.
You're going to forgive as you have been Forgiven. You know for some of you the reason you're so critical And you can't resolve conflict in your marriage. Is he? You're holding on to all kinds of stuff. You must learn to receive and grant forgiveness.
as a regular rhythm of your life. And if you turn on the back of your notes, I want to give you a tool. Ephesians 4 32. You'll need to look that up. I highly encourage you to memorize it.
But be kind to one another. tenderhearted. Forgiving one another also, just as Christ. forgave you. Be kind.
Here's the key, tender-hearted. forgiving each other how. Just as Christ has forgiven you. You know how He forgave you? Exactly the same way He forgave Peter.
And until that happens... You will not release and forgive your mate. Dealing with your own guilt and shame. Under practical steps number four, It says, what do you need to do to fully forgive your mate and put the past behind you? You can write this under here, is deal with your own guilt and shame.
Second is experience God's forgiveness and restoration. And then as you do that, freely give what you've received. And when you can realize, oh, Ask, has God given you what you deserve? And you think, oh no. He's been merciful.
then you can't turn around. and do anything. But Give mercy first to your mate and others. what they don't deserve. The whole book of 1 John is whatever is true vertical, if it's not true horizontal, then it's really not true vertically.
You say you love God and hate your neighbor, you're a liar and the truth isn't in you. Let me give you a very specific game plan to take next steps. Notice where it says, is there an issue you need to defuse? Because this is unpacking something.
So this is a D E F-U-S-E. And I'm going to give you just a little acronym. 'Kay.
Okay. We've talked about the truth, we've talked about the grace, we've talked about you re-entering this. I just want to give you a little step-by-step plan. that you say okay. Lord, this is going to be hard.
It's going to be painful. I'm going to have addressed some issues. I'll need help. I'm going to go through this with my mate. Because I'm not going to let either what I've seen or what I've done in the past define me any longer.
And I will not allow it to ruin my marriage. And by the way, As a child, of a World War II vet? who never dealt with this. I got news for you, man. I was one messed up guy for a long time.
And despite as much I came to Christ as a young adult and as much as I worked really hard and renewed my mind, I've had some very significant conversations, especially with my older boys. Who said, Hey Dad, I'm glad you made a lot of progress, but I got news for you, Dad. You passed on a lot of that stuff, that bad stuff that your dad didn't deal with.
Some of your wounds you passed on to us. We've had some very honest conversations. There's a lot on the line people There's a lot on the line. There's no little boxes that get hidden. No more numbness.
No more saying, I'm not going to engage. I'm not going to let my mate in. Oh, I don't want to go to a counselor. I don't want to deal with this. It's too painful.
I'm just going to bury it. Stop it. The God of grace brought you here to re-engage in the most painful things in your life. and it will be the salve of both truth and looking at things and facing them honestly. And receiving grace at the same time that's the heart behind a new beginning.
Here's how you do it: diffuse. The D stands for define the issue clearly. I don't know what yours is. Could have been an event. Could be something you did.
Could be a lie. I don't know what it is. That I'm just going to take a wild guess that a lot of you are not thinking, oh gosh, I wonder what that is. I'm thinking it's coming to your mind. The E enter the pain and hurt.
Just decide, you know. No more denial, no more blaming, no more criticizing. No, I don't need that help. All that psychology, that counseling stuff. No, no, no, no.
I'm going to enter the pain. I'm going to enter the hurt. I'm going to go back to where the coal was burning when it happened. I'm going to go back to when I was called, and I'm going to go right through that. But this time I'm going to go through it with a God who loves me, who's paid for it, who cares for me, and He's going to give me grace.
The F. is ask for forgiveness. If you haven't. I'm amazed at the number of people I meet who who have things and and some of it is like it I got thrown into a situation, I feel overwhelmingly guilty. I needed to do, I had to do what I did, and yet I feel overwhelmingly guilty.
Well, just take it to God and say, I didn't sign up for this or this or that. But let's just get it clear. Just forgive me and cleanse me. David prayed that. He said, God, forgive me for the stuff that I don't even know about, even for presumptuous sin, or stuff in my heart.
Just once and for all, draw a line in the sand and ask God to help you and forgive you for anything done or anything done to you. or any shame that you feel. or any acts or acts of omission. And then The you is understand the process. I think people get very confused about forgiveness, whether it's forgiving someone else or even at times how God forgives us.
There's three phases to forgiveness. There's three tenses of the verb. When I'm going to forgive someone, it's a choice. By the way, it was a choice. Jesus chose to forgive you, it was an event.
When He died on the cross, He forgave you. God spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. He forgave you when he died on the cross. For God so loved the world, he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever would believe in him, might not perish but have eternal life. 1 John says, He died for us, not only for us, but for false prophets.
He's died for all people of all time. The only question is, is will... You receive it.
So, forgiveness is: say my wife does something, hurts me very deeply, I choose to forgive her. That's phase one. Phase two is a process, forgiving.
Some of you have been betrayed or hurt. or had horrendous things happen or been abused. And you forgive, but then... There's a flash, or there's a song, or there's an event, and it stirs up the emotions, and it feels like the scab gets pulled off, and the anger flares up, and you feel like, well, maybe I haven't forgiven him. No, no, no, no.
You're in the process.
So once you choose to forgive, Then You start to pray for the person who hurt you. It says, bless those, remember Jesus? What do you do with your enemies? Bless those. who persecute you.
Bless and curse not. Romans 12. If your enemy hurts you, pray for him. All I can tell you is it will release your anger and free you. I I was I've I've been betrayed um Most painfully in ministry situations.
Won't go into any of the details. But some of you would understand when you're so livid, you could do so.
Some things to a person because it's so unfair and so bad that you would regret the rest of your life. I've been there. And I I don't want to forgive. In fact, I I've heard Few weeks, I refused to forgive. I'm not letting them off the hook.
And then I came to the realization: so, would you like me to not let you off the hook?
Well then read the Lord's Prayer a little more carefully, Chip. Yeah. Because if you don't forgive them, I don't forgive you. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and there's more coming up in just a moment. If you missed any part of today's message, or if you'd like to share it with a friend, you can find it anytime online at livingonthege.org.
And while you're there, you'll also discover a full library of Chips teaching series, small group resources, and practical tools to help strengthen your relationships. Take advantage of all we have available at livingonthege.org.
Well now back to our message.
Okay, so it's a choice. By the way, you don't have to feel it. You choose it. I choose, I would write it down, here's the date.
Well, then, my emotions, forgiveness is an act of the will, but your emotions are a process. And so then I began to pray for this person. Lord help him see what a jerk he is. What's that? Lord, I pray that you'd help him to see what he did, how bad it was, and that he would publicly say it and come back and apologize to me.
Those were my early prayers. And the Lord said, Well, that's really not the blessing that I have in mind. And reluctantly, I'm just talking a two-year process. And so now I'm. Yeah.
Lord, would you... Would you bless his marriage? Oh, okay. Would you bless his marriage? Would you help his children?
He happened to be someone that was in ministry. Lord, oh gosh, this is painful. Would you bless the work of his hands? Would you cause good to come to him? And all I can tell you is, every time I took the Lord's Supper, I made a vow, and I don't make many vows at all before God.
I will never take the Lord's Supper until I go through again the process of blessing and calling down your goodness upon this person who did this to me. And little by little by little, you know what changed? My emotions. And then it was about a year in, someone came and just was from another town and visited this person and said, oh, hey, did you hear about so-and-so? and told me something good about him.
So, being the semi-hypocritical pastor that I am, I smiled and said, oh, wow, that's great. My insides were, that is such a bummer. God is answering my prayer. Down deep, I don't want him to answer my prayer. I want him to get what he deserves.
See, I still had the payback.
So I'm forgive a choice. Forgiving is the emotional journey. I kept praying. Every Lord's Supper and every time he came to mine or you know when I'd have a I call it a flashback I mean I had anger fantasies I had images of different things I was gonna do to embarrass him and blah blah blah blah blah blah you know and every time those would come I would start praying for him And it was about right around two years.
Someone came in again, had visited where he was ministering and said something good about him and what the blessing of God on his life and how well something was going. And before I could even think, my immediate reaction was joy. I was grateful. Phase one. Forgive, willful choice, an event on a certain day and time.
Phase two, forgiving, a process and a journey. Every time your emotions go up and down, when you feel anger and the things come back up. Phase three. Forgiven. You actually can rejoice.
That the person who hurt you is doing well. Because ultimately, isn't that what God wants for everyone? Restoration?
Some of you need to remember that's how it works with you.
So you've asked God to forgive you. And you have emotional times where you feel overwhelmed and guilty, and you still struggle. Guess what? Then you just reverse it. And so, God, thank you.
Thank you that you forgive me. Thank you as far as the East is from the West. I may be bringing this up in my mind, but it's not in your mind. God, and you sow gratitude, and you pray, and you ask, and so you begin to do for yourself exactly what we do with someone who would hurt you. And so D is defining it clearly.
E is enter the pain and the hurt. F is ask forgiveness. And if it's just forgive. You is understand the process. And then and then now we shift to our horizontal relationships, the S is set things right between you.
Um Okay now this was a lot of personal work up to now.
Some of you Have issues in your relationship that are unresolved, and you have not forgiven your husband, or you've not forgiven your mate.
Okay. Now a lot of it has to do with all this, but here's the S. Set things right between you. Own your responsibility. If I told you how many times in my mind, yes, we have a disagreement, we have a problem, but it's.
It's 90% Therese's fault and 10% mine. And when she Changes? Then things will be fine. Yeah. There's a lot of things, right?
Matthew 5, 23 and 24 says, If therefore you come before the altar to give your offering, and there remember your brother has something against you, leave your offering at the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then return and make your offering. In other words, Being right is far less important than a right relationship. If you're convinced that it's 90% his fault and 10% yours, and you know there's a conflict, you go and own your 10%. Honey, I am so sorry that when you did this, I responded in this way.
You go own your 10% because it causes the beginning to start.
So you own your part. And then are you ready? This is a bit odd. Confess. Th these are I was wrong.
When's the last time your mate heard that? I want to own my part. I was wrong. And the third phase Will you forgive me? And here's the response.
The response is not. Your eyes going to the left or the right. your eyes looking down, your eyes wondering. Here's the response. You look them right in the eye and you say, Yes.
I forgive you. And it's a choice. And it may take your emotions a while. to process that. But you set things right.
You own your responsibility. You confess I was wrong, you ask for forgiveness, and then the E is establish a specific game plan of action to move forward.
Okay. One of the other questions was, it just described how Theresa and I spent the first few years of our marriage. Big disagreement, you have an argument. And then you don't say anything for two or three or four days, and then you just pretend it didn't happen. And then you move on.
And you know what you do? You just plant little seeds and you push them down into your soul. and it builds what's called a root of bitterness. And then you don't say anything, but... The last thing in the world you ever want to do is make love with that person.
Because your heart is getting hard. And you go through the motions. But your emotions, you know, the tenderness, the connection, the joy. Because you know what? Think of thin little layers.
Unresolved conflict, thin little layer of resentment, thin little layer, thin little layer, thin little layer, thin little layer. You don't forgive, you don't set things right, thin little layer. You know what it's called? Calcification. And then pretty soon, you know, Jesus said there's only, you know, there's only one reason why people get a divorce, according to Jesus.
Moses gave the certificate of divorce because of the Hardness of your heart. Yeah. This topic on the front of your notes, if you turn it over, it says four biblical practices great marriages have in common, and we've talked about serving and planning. We talked about connecting, forgiving, and notice why. It's restoring your peace.
You don't have peace when there's unresolved conflict in your heart towards your mate, and you don't have peace when there's unresolved conflict with you and God, and you don't have peace when you have unresolved conflict in your own life. And so all those things come together. Great marriages practice forgiving in a rhythm. You practice it with you and your father. You practice it in your own journey, with your own heart and life, and you practice it with your mate.
I'd like you to think about just in your marriage relationship, is there anything that you need? to make right with your mate. Just pause quietly. And if not, great. Just that, Lord, is there Anything I just Need to tell her or tell him I'm sorry.
I was wrong, it could be little, it could be big. If it's a super heavy, heavy thing, get some counsel before you talk with your mate. Dropping bombs without a game plan is not a good plan. Lord, thank you that you will heal. everything in our hearts personally and in our marriages.
Lord, together we covenant before you. to have marriages that reflect Jesus and the church. We're asking you now for the courage to face hard things. We ask for the faith to believe that you love us as much as you do. And God, we ask for the grace.
to treat our mates the way that you've treated us. Mm. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and the end of a message titled Forgiving: How to Restore Your Peace. Today, Chip unpacked the three phases of forgiveness and gave us the diffuse acronym, A Practical Game Plan for Restoring Peace. Chip will be back with one final word in just a moment.
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Now, to go deeper on what we've covered throughout this series, check out Chip's book, I Choose Love. The title really says it all. Love is a decision, not just an emotion. Chip unpacks how God's agape love from Philippians 2 operates on an entirely different level than what our culture promotes. Whether it's your marriage, your family dynamics, or your friendships, applying this biblical framework changes everything.
Get your copy at livingonthege.org and start making the choice to love like God loves.
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Well, now here's Chip. As we wrap up today's program, in fact, wrap up a whole series, I have to tell you, this is one of those series I wish we could keep on going. It's been really, really exciting for me as I've had the chance to coach or mentor couples. And, you know, I've been pretty honest about my relationship with Teresa and our ups and downs. And, you know, it's been a lot of hard work, but a lot of it has been being intentional and using these kind of tools.
And so, you know, today I talked about that tool to resolve conflict with the acronym Diffuse. Let me encourage you, if you have some challenges, if you need to get on the same page and bridge the gap between anger and forgiveness and deal with some things, go to the website livingontheedge.org and download the notes and walk through that process of diffuse. Let me just encourage you, make your marriage the number two priority in everything that you do. Number one, your own personal development and growth in your relationship with Jesus Christ. And number two, your marriage.
And what I will tell you is, everything else will fall into place. Everything else will be where it needs to be. But these two things are where you need to make your primary focus. As those priorities are clear and you seek God's kingdom, He'll take care of the rest. May your marriage grow deep.
and strong and may you go for it like never before. I'm Dave Druy, and we'll see you next time as we continue our series called Choosing Love, A Daily Decision That Changes Everything. Monday on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge. Uh
