Keeping Love Alive - Forgiving - How to Restore Your Peace, Part 1

We all make mistakes in our marriages, big ones and little ones. We say hurtful things. We act in unkind ways. We create walls between us and the one we pledge to love, till death do us part. When all that happens, how do you resolve failure and restore the peace? That's what we're going to talk about today.

Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge features the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram on this international discipleship program. I'm Dave Drewy, and we're in Chip's series called Keeping Love Alive. Now, he's walking us through the four biblical practices that great marriages have in common. We've already covered three of the practices.

If you missed them, they're available online at livingontheedge.org or on the Chip Ingram app. In this program, he introduces us to the fourth practice, which is the most difficult one, but it's also the one that allows you to persevere with confidence when everything around the two of you seems to be falling apart. Let's join Chip now for his message, Forgiving, How to Restore Your Peace, from John chapter 21.

As we get started, I'm going to ask you to answer a question, not out loud for sure on this one, but I want you to think honestly and very deeply. What is something in your past or in your present that you're ashamed of? Something you'd rather no one know about or ever find out about, or at best, maybe the closest, most trusted friend in the world but no one else? Something that would embarrass you if others found out about it? Something that if you thought someone, even your mate, might know this, that they would have a lesser opinion of you? We all have some things like that, and we spend an ordinate amount of energy kind of putting them in boxes and categorizing them and pushing them down and denying them and pretending they're not there, and then in certain times, in certain ways, where they come rushing back over us. It's called shame.

Shame is a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior or, listen carefully, or regrettable unfortunate situation or action. My father was in his 80s and still having nightmares from Guam and Iwo Jima. He talked about his closest brothers falling on his right and his left. He was 16 and a half when he went in, but he was an athlete and he was strong. Mom signed for him because that's what you do.

You defend your country. So they gave him a.50 caliber machine gun, and on the islands at that season, it was better to die than to go home in shame, and he said, we would dig a trench, a big ark, 75, sometimes 100 yards, and the Japanese would rush us, and it was like I mowed grass all day, and I killed thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people. He got hit. It's the only reason he made it out, but he made it out, and those he loved and those who had his back didn't. He lived with the guilt of a just war, but it can be a just war, but when you kill people and you're not made to kill people, it does something to you that people don't understand, and when you have the guilt that why did I get to come home and others didn't, it does something to you that's hard to express. So he found he felt a little bit better by his numbing of choice, but he had unresolved angers. He had fears.

He came to know Jesus Christ in his mid to late 50s. He began to renew his mind, but he never got those things out in the open, never fully dealt with them, and lived with nightmares until the last years that he died. He had a combination of guilt and shame and confusion and it's not a surprise that he didn't ever tell me or any of his children that he loved them. He couldn't verbalize it. He had a hard time expressing them.

See, you can't give away something you don't have. Did he love me? Of course. Were there actions that he showed me? Yes.

In fact, all of his desire to want me to be successful was him expressing love, but the way it got translated was no matter what I did, it just needed to be a little bit better. Four As and a B. Let's work on the B. You went two for four? Hey. Inside pitch curve ball, you can't step out.

That's why you ground out. So no matter what, it was always, but it was his wound. We have shame for three major reasons according to the experts. One is a theological reason is we all have shame. The fall. Remember after sin, what did Adam do?

What did Adam and Eve do? They hid. We've been all hiding ever since. You don't have to go to war to hide from your shame. When you're naked, and I don't mean just physically, I mean when you're naked and you see who you really are or anyone else sees who you really are, not what we portray, not how we act, not how we cover it, not our sophistication and all of our defense mechanisms, but the real you, the parts of you that you know are not right, you hide. But it gets worse because it's not just shame that we inherit from the fall, but it's shame from things done to us.

And isn't it a weird thing? Over and over and over again, you can tell kids forever that, oh, it's not your fault. Kids who go through divorce blame themselves. Women and children that are abused blame themselves. People that are rejected unfairly have shame. And then there's the third level of shame.

It's things that we do. The affair, the addiction, the explosive anger, the cheating. When you're the abuser, crime, jail, prison, the abortion, the list can go on. Some of you have found yourselves in places and doing things that you hope no one, you can't stand to look at it, let alone the thought of anybody else. And so the response of this fundamental imprint on your soul that you don't measure up, that there's something wrong with you, that you're deficient, that you're flawed, that you're damaged, that you're unacceptable, that you're unlovable, that you're dirty, that you're rejected, that you're inferior, that you're broken and in times in your worst moment where you feel like you're disgusting, there's about three natural responses. Response number one is to hide. Response number two is to numb the pain. And it can be alcohol, porn, multiple partners, prescription drugs, work, ministry.

And the other is to compensate. I'll prove to myself and to others somehow. And it can come out in workaholism or some way that you're going to prove and somehow balance the scales and do good for all the things that are hidden inside. It's interesting.

Some of the questions, here's a question. Why do I clam up when things go wrong, sometimes for weeks, and ignore her and all the problems? Why? It's because of shame. Just bury it. You're frozen.

You're paralyzed. And yet here's what I want to tell you. It's one thing to be forgiven and I think most of you, I pray all of you have come to the point where whatever you've done and whatever you've recognized, you've come to a living God and said, I know I don't measure up. I want to trust fully in what Christ did on the cross for me and he paid for my sin and I've received that free gift and I've invited him into my life. But 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. There was just something about my dad that you could get so close and then it was just, that was it. Intimacy was just, couldn't do it.

That was probably my mid to late 30s. I kept long for the equivalent of my dad to put his arm around me and I finally came to the conclusion that something happened in the war and he got a compound fracture and they put it in a cast and that's what he had. He just couldn't do it. He was unable to literally give love because he never addressed that and you know what, he never knew how. Can I tell you this isn't something that's just modern warfare or the shame of people that have been abused or people that have abused others or all the rest. At the heart is a sense of betrayal where you have betrayed someone or you betrayed your conscience or you betrayed God and it's not an accident that when you read John chapter 21, Peter shortly, the day of the resurrection, Jesus did a quick one on one with him and he walked in a room with Peter and the disciples there and I'm sure he looked Peter in the eye. Yes, you betrayed me.

You did it publicly. You were arrogant and I think he got forgiveness but he didn't get restoration. He had this, oh I understand this up here but my life's a mess. I don't know what to do with my life.

I don't think I've got anything going for him anymore. His shame was never dealt with and in John chapter 21, Jesus sets up a unique situation to help Peter go from being simply forgiven to be restored because here's the thing, you can't forgive and connect with other people unless you forgive and get restored yourself. So open your Bibles to John chapter 21 and as you do, let me give you the context. Jesus has appeared now twice officially to all the disciples.

They were commanded to go wait for him in Galilee. Think about it. It's familiar.

It's safe. It's the home to a number of the disciples. It's where many of them were called.

It's where they were called into ministry to follow Jesus. Peter, like many of us, is not very good at waiting. We know from Luke 24 that he's had an encounter with Jesus and I can't imagine Jesus not forgiving him in that moment but he's still the leader because he decides that, you know what, I don't know what to do with my life so this is what we all do.

I'm going to default back to what I know. Under pressure, we all default back to where we're comfortable and what we know so he basically says, I'm going to go fishing and the six other guys, well, if you're going, I guess we'll go with you. We pick up the story, John 21. Afterward, Jesus appeared and again to his disciples by the Sea of Tiberius.

It's Galilee. It happened in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas, called Didymus, Nathaniel from Cana and Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, James and John, and two other disciples were together. I'm going to go out and fish, Simon Peter told them and they said, we'll go with you. So they went out and got into the boat but that night they caught nothing.

Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore but the disciples did not realize that it was him. He called out to them, friends, have you any fish? Literally the word is lads or children.

It's a term of affection by someone a bit older and a bit wiser. No, they answered. He said, throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. When they did, they were unable to haul in the net because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved, John, said to Peter, it is the Lord. As soon as Peter heard him say, it is the Lord, he wrapped his outer garment around him for he had taken it off and he jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, pulling the full net of fish for they were not far from the shore, about 100 yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals with fish on it and some bread. Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish that you've caught. Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore.

It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many, the net did not break. Jesus said to them, come, have breakfast. None of the disciples dared to ask him, who are you, for they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread, gave it to them, did the same with the fish.

This is now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he'd been raised from the dead. Now notice, first of all, Peter has gone back to where he's comfortable, dealing with life the only way he knows how. Jesus picks an opportune time and he's going to have a conversation.

Notice the conversation doesn't start with, hey, let's go deep right now. Does anybody remember when Peter was called the experience that he had as a fisherman? Remember he's sitting down on that boat and Jesus used his boat to preach a message and after he preaches the message, remember last time he had fished all night and got nothing and it was a time when you shouldn't catch fish and he said, just go out a little bit and lower your net. Do you remember what happened?

It was overwhelmed, full with fish. You think this is lost on Peter? This is like, I've seen this movie before. This is when Jesus called me to follow him and then he pulled it and then remember what he did? He left his nets and he followed him. Think it's an accident that he's saying, Peter, unless you go back and relive part of the journey of when I called you and who you were, then you're not going to be able to reassess this new journey. So he does the same thing.

What's the message there? Hey, I understand that Peter and I understand the Peter who betrayed me. And by the way, he didn't just, this isn't a little betrayal. I mean, I think in our culture we think sexual sin is the worst thing in the world. Betrayal is by far, far worse than sexual sin. In fact, at the heart of sexual sin, if you do it against your mate, it's not the act of sexuality, it's the betrayal, isn't it? It's the breaking of the covenant. It's the dissing of the person. It's breaking the bond. And it's not like Peter was just like, oh, you know, I kind of don't know him.

By the third time, the text is a little light. It's blankety blank blank, I don't know that blank blank. That's what he said. He's cussing. He's denying.

I don't know him at all. And then Jesus looks over. Remember, this is the guy in front of his buddies? Hey, they all might desert you, not me. Peter, I tell you and Jesus predicted it. I'm better, I'm stronger. I got your back, Jesus. If I have to die, I'll die. I mean, he had, right? It's one thing to betray someone, it's a lot worse when you've been the one to puff your chest out and say, everyone else might betray you but not me.

And then you're the one that goes down. Then do you remember where he was when he betrayed Jesus? Remember, the text says there was a, not just a fire, but a special kind of fire.

Notice the text talks about the coals again. You know, when he was warming his hands and that little servant girl asked him, can you imagine, you know, some of us have done some things we're not proud of and, you know, you can almost smell where you were and you can remember certain things. There's an imprint, like a little movie that's in your mind and Jesus is recreating. He's forcing him to go back and face and engage where he'd been before, where the pain was. Except instead of betrayal, what's he doing? Come and have breakfast.

I'm for you. All the fear, all the arms crossed, all the sense of shame, you don't measure up, you're a loser, how could you betray me? It's not that, it's, let's eat some fish. It's conversation. And do you remember, he did it in front of people, right? He boasted in front of the disciples, do you understand what he's recreating here? You know, psychologists and people who do work with PTSD and all this, they talk about the painful, dramatic necessity of going back through part of what you've been through and experiencing the grace of God in the reliving of some of those moments.

And long before there were experts or psychologists, Jesus is walking him back through the very journey, but this time it's with grace. This time it's with, I understand. This time, yes, you're fallen. Yes, you betrayed me.

And yes, I love you. And it doesn't define you. But he doesn't stop there. Because it's not enough to relive the experience.

Psychologists can do that with us. Only God can do what happens next. When they finished eating, notice it's a special time, it's a special place, it's recreated. Can you imagine, some of you don't have to imagine, but can you imagine what's going on in Peter's mind? I mean, he's reliving his calling. He's reliving his betrayal.

He's being treated in a way that just, it just, it's so foreign, it's so unnatural, it's so what he doesn't deserve. He's experiencing love and communication. And then when they finished eating, Jesus said to Peter, Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these? Yes, Lord, he said, you know I love you.

Feed my lambs. Again, Jesus said, Simon, son of John, do you truly love me? And he answered, yes, Lord, you know I love you. And Jesus said, you know, take care of my sheep. The third time he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? And Peter was hurt because he asked him a third time, do you love me? And he said, Lord, you know all things.

You know that I love you. And Jesus said, feed my sheep. And then he goes on to tell him, and I tell you the truth, that when you were younger, you dressed yourself, you went where you wanted, but when you were old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. And Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death in which Peter would glorify God.

Then don't miss the next line. Then he said to him, follow me. Remember the last time he said, follow me? Peter, you're back on the team. Peter, you're not just forgiven. I have a purpose for you. You can't wallow in your betrayal. You just can't live with the nightmares.

You can't make a little compartment and somehow go back to fishing and just try and be a nice person. I called you. You messed up. This was traumatic. It was difficult. We're going to relive it.

We're going to go back in the past. And then how many times did he deny him? How many questions does he get? I mean, you think it's accidental? Now, scholars will tell you and many of you probably heard messages.

It's interesting. The first two times he says, do you agape me? Do you agape me? Unconditional.

I mean, full court press. Love me unconditionally. And Peter answers, you know the facts. I love you. Do you love me? And you know the way you claim to be agape? Peter answers, you know the facts.

And then finally, Jesus changes it. Do you phileo me? Do you love me like family? You know, when you love like family, you mess up in families, don't you? Families are where it's safe to mess up. Families are where we accept that one another are human. He says, do you love me like a brother? And like brothers and sisters and families, we're going to give it our best shot and there's going to be times where we let one another down. But when we do as families, you come and you own your stuff and you say, I'm so sorry.

And it's not an end to it. And Peter interestingly changes and he says, you know, ginosko, you know, by way of experience, you look into my heart, you know my journey. And he said, he started first with, well, feed my lambs.

There's a little responsibility you could take. I want you to be, are you ready? I want you to be tender with what's a lamb is vulnerable. Peter, I want you, you know, remember Peter is, you know, he's the, hey, everyone else will, but I'm, remember, I'll walk out on the water. I mean, this is the fiery type A, I can make it happen.

And he's broken. And so his first assignment is, I want you, because of what you've now experienced, I want you to be vulnerable and tender with people that are vulnerable, lambs. I want you to feed them. Second time, I want you to take care of my sheep.

It's leadership. I want you to be responsible. And then finally, I want you to feed my sheep. I want you to be the kind of leader that I called you in the very beginning and that these six men that are around this fire are looking you to be. And I want you to follow me with your head up because you're not only forgiven, you're restored. And that broken betrayer had to relive his moment, the worst moment of his life.

But he received both truth and grace and it brought healing inside. And that's what some of you need. Because if you don't want that wall, you get so used to it, but your wife or your husband, they feel it. They're like, they keep trying to knock on the outside and get in and get in and get in. And you're almost oblivious, you won't let them in. And you won't let them in because maybe you've accepted God's forgiveness, but you just feel like this imprint, this shame, this picture, this experience, it defines you.

It doesn't. You got to go back through that and you've got to do it in the presence of Jesus. Before we go any farther in today's broadcast, I want to pause. I want to talk to those of you who feel exactly the way that I ended this teaching time with. Ashamed, you won't let people in.

You failed. I'm speaking to those of you that are in a crisis in your marriage. One of you has been caught with pornography or you've had an affair or you've lied to your mate and shame and all the emotions and the betrayal and the hurt. And if you could turn back the clock, you would do it in a minute and you're so sorry, but you feel so stuck.

You feel like there's no hope. I want to remind you that Peter felt exactly that same way, that Jesus is modeling this is how you treat the people that you love. You don't gloss it over.

You don't pretend it didn't happen. You walk back through that process, but you walk it through with grace, with understanding, with forgiveness. You need to fully and completely receive that yourself. If you're the one that blew it big time, let me encourage you, go to your pastor, go to a really good Christian counselor and walk through and work through this process. The Bible is filled and history is filled and my ministry of over 35 years is filled with people who blew it in such big ways but who received God's forgiveness and he actually took their mistakes and their pain and the things that were just the most regrettable and in his grace and kindness literally has the power over a journey that you'll walk through to bring healing, to bring restoration and you will actually find yourself in the years to come being a conduit of life and grace to those who feel like there's no hope for them.

Could I encourage you in this moment cry out to God, ask for his help, allow your mate in, get the help that you need, do the hard work that it will require, but understand this, your mistake cannot define you. Failure is never final because we live with a God of unconditional love and grace that is beyond anything you can imagine. Don't give up. In our next broadcast, I'll give you some very, very practical and specific steps to go through this process.

Till then, God bless you and keep pressing ahead. You've been listening to part one of Chip's message, Forgiving, How to Restore Your Peace, from his series, Keeping Love Alive, four biblical practices great marriages have in common. For each of these four practices, Chip gives you a couple of principles that explain why it's true, practical implications of what those principles look like in the day to day, and then very specific tools to get this practice into action.

In classic Chip fashion, he unfolds the roadmap to give you clear directions each step of the way. If you want to hear how to deepen your love, strengthen your hope, multiply your joy and restore your peace, you owe it to yourself and your spouse to dig into this series and integrate what you'll learn for the long haul. You'll be hard pressed to find a more practical resource for the health of your marriage. For a limited time, resources for Keeping Love Alive are discounted and the MP3s are always free. To order your copy or to send it to a friend, visit us online at livingontheedge.org or tap Special Offers on the app.

For additional information, just give us a call at 888-333-6003. Chip, as I listened to you today, you weren't mincing any words. If you were actually meeting with a couple on a regular basis, what curriculum would you go through with them? I mean, what would be your number one resource to help them in your sessions together? Well, Dave, after many, many years being married and then counseling people, I wrote a book called Marriage That Works. And so I then took all the truth out of them and I put them on these cards that you can review kind of each day, just three or four cards, very small, very measurable, very specific ways to love your mate, some specific lies that we all tend to believe. And we took that book and we took those cards and we made them a bundle. That would be the curriculum that I would use because in that, what I do, I go over the basics, but I get super practical. Everything from communication to meeting together to finances to even parenting issues in your marriage. Those cards and that book come together to be the actual content I would use if I was personally mentoring a couple. Sounds like the perfect combo. Thanks, Chip.

Okay, so let me give you that again in case you didn't catch it all. We've bundled Chip's book, Marriage That Works, with a companion resource called Marriage That Works Truth Cards. Now in the book, Chip presents the biblical design for marriage, what God intended it to look like, what it is, the unique roles of men and women, and how they play out in things like finances and parenting.

And then in the cards, he spotlights relational lies that tended to rail marriage, providing biblical truth to get us back on track. This is a powerful combination of resources that will give you the tools you need to strengthen your marriage or help you build a solid foundation before you even start. Now to check out the discounts on this Marriage That Works bundle, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org.

Tap special offers on the app or give us a call at 888-333-6003. At Living on the Edge, we want you to know about an easy way to listen to our extended teaching podcast. Hear Chip anytime on Amazon's Alexa Echo and Echo Dot. Just say, Alexa, open Living on the Edge, and you'll hear that day's extended teaching anytime you want. Well, for Chip and everyone here, this is Dave Drouy saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.