Keeping Love Alive - Forgiving - How to Restore Your Peace, Part 2

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. In this program, Chip wraps up his series, Keeping Love Alive, by sharing the principles, a few practical implications, and then a specific tool to help you with a step-by-step process of forgiveness. And what relationship doesn't have to deal with forgiveness, right?

We all mess up. Now, the tough part is putting things back together in a way where you can peaceably, happily keep going. After the teaching today, Chip's always with us in studio to share some additional thoughts about his message, so be sure to stay with us for that. Now, if you have a Bible, open it now to John chapter 21, and let's join Chip for part two of his message, Forgiving, How to Restore Your Peace.

Notice in your notes the principles. Three principles flow out of this passage for us. The first one is Jesus meets us where we are. The unspoken lie is somehow if you can be or do or have something different, then God will accept you somehow, some way. I don't know where you're at. I don't know how broken, how much denial.

I don't know how numb. I don't know how you're compensating. But Jesus says, I want to meet you today, just right where you're at. Second thing that comes out of this passage is he gently demands that we face the truth about ourselves. Did you notice? I mean, he was as gentle, and he had a meal, and he reminded him, but did you notice it wasn't words of condemnation.

They were questions of discovery. Do you love me? I mean, you said you did before, right?

Do you love me? He kept asking questions, so Peter had to go from denial to well to yes to, you know what, I'm going to own this happened in my life. And he faced it. I had a conversation last night with a person that has walled off in his words. He goes, I don't feel anything. I'm numb, and he told me about his life and why, and I just said, I can completely understand why you're numb. And the wife just feels like she's just, I mean, huge wall, can't get in. But I told him, because I could tell he was stuck, and I didn't know what to say.

I said, you know what? You need to keep going to that counselor, but you need to invite your wife in. I would never want her to hear any of the kind of things that I saw or I went through. And I said, you know, maybe you ought to let her decide that. But you know what she's feeling?

She's feeling like she can't get in your life. And maybe you say, I'm going to invite you to go to the counselor, but I'm going to share some things that are pretty graphic. They're the source of my nightmares. They're the source of my guilt.

They're the source of my shame. And you can leave any time, but I don't want to continue to try and work this out just by myself. And you know, I ask him, I call it the Dr. Phil question. You know, because he had lots of good reasons why he wouldn't want to share those things.

Just like my dad had lots of good reasons why he rarely, if ever, except for twice, shared those things. And I just ask him, well, how's that working for you? How's that working for you? How's that working for your marriage?

How's that working for your wife? Now, please, I'm not trying to say by any sense of authority, other than what I can tell you, after pastoring people for about 35 years, is that if you stay numb, if you keep compensating for it, or if you keep denying and blaming, your soul is going to die and you will ruin every relationship that matters. So as painful and as ugly and as difficult as it is to engage and allow God to help you see both the truth but in the context of grace, that's where healing is going to come. This man changed the course of all history and he sinned more greatly against our God than anyone.

Because part of the culpability of sin is the amount of truth and the knowledge that you have. No one saw more miracles than Peter. No one had more private conversations. No one saw more people raised from the dead.

No one saw the Mount of Transfiguration. He betrayed, but he betrayed and he had a level of knowledge. The most horrendous sin against the Son of Man was committed by Peter, save possibly Judas. And God made him live it again and not only forgive him but restore him.

And then in that brokenness, I'm guessing conversations that you'd have with Peter when you were struggling with something after this event and for the next several decades. I bet he was a pretty tender guy. I bet he was a pretty understanding guy. I bet he was a pretty compassionate guy. I bet he was a way, way more humble guy. And I'm imagining there was a church that was built around his vision and passion to the Jews like Paul was to the Gentiles that changed the course of the world because he didn't just get forgiven.

He got restored. The third principle that comes out of this is that he affirms, Jesus affirms our value and our worthiness by commissioning us to service. It's one thing to hear words. It's, I want to use you.

He wants to use you, your horrendous difficulty, experience, betrayal, sin, a lie that you committed, a crime that no one knows about. I always wish sometimes, especially in church when people, you know, they look so cleaned up on the outside, you know? And I get to know them all through the week and I would just love like their top five sins without their names, like have this huge board behind me and like, and all of our sins go up in multicolors. Wouldn't that be cool? And then maybe have, you know how they do those visuals where maybe like red would come over and it would be the blood of Christ and the cross would emerge and it would just go down through and cover them. And then we would look at each other and say, I guess we don't have to pretend anymore.

I guess we can just be ourselves. I guess we're all now saints, children of God, forgiven with wounds and scars and pain and difficulty and brokenness. And what if God actually causes His power to be perfected out of our brokenness and out of our hurt and out of our failure? Because that's where He takes us and puts us on the mantle of His grace.

Practical implications, and this gets to your marriage, is that you can't forgive your mate until you've received both forgiveness and restoration. There's something I don't know about the human psyche. When you've got unresolved issues in you, when it's the classic parable, the log in your eye, the speck, right?

Man, it is amazing. When we have stuff inside, it is so easy to see in someone else. And the person who lives close to you, you nag and she does that and he does that and he's like that. And a lot of our anger and a lot of that outward focus is because of the big log that we don't deal with. And you would be shocked at what would happen if you received 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. But see, if you haven't deeply and fully received, you're pretty judgmental.

You're pretty high on the truth than the judgmental instead of the mercy. I don't know if you pray the Lord's Prayer. I pray kind of 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, God, you're my Father today. You're in heaven. You're a sovereign God. Holy God, I want your name to be cherished in my mind and my thoughts. Give me this day what I need, not just physically but the daily bread of truth and everything. Forgive me of my sins, please, today as I forgive those who trespass against me. Lord, please, you know the meetings, you know the places. Guard me and lead me away from temptation and I pray through that.

But you know what's one of the big prayers? 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 you've got stuff.

You're holding on to all kind 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, tenderhearted, 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. I don't know what that looks like, and it might be a tough journey. In many cases, it will require some professional help. Second is experience God's forgiveness and restoration.

Only you know where you're at on that. And then as you do that, freely give what you've received. The reason I don't want to forgive my wife or anyone is I feel like if I forgive them, I'm letting them off the hook, and I want them to pay for what they did to me. At the heart of the lack of forgiveness is vengeance. And God says, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. If your enemy's hungry, feed him.

If he's thirsty, give him a drink. Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. That's the end of Romans 12. 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 because we've talked about the truth, we've talked about the grace, we've talked about you reentering 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 to address 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've 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, 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've got news for you, Dad. You passed on a lot of that stuff, that bad stuff that your dad, that he didn't deal with, some of your wounds, you passed on to us. And 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 reengage 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. Defuse. The D stands for define the issue clearly. I don't know what yours is. It could have been an event. It could be something you did. It could be a lie. I don't know what it is. But I'm 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 have things, and some of it is like 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 U 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 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 hurts 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've been betrayed most painfully in ministry situations. I won't go into any of the details but some of you would understand that when you're so livid, you could do 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 don't want to forgive. In fact, for a 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? No. I need to read the Lord's Prayer a little more carefully, Chip.

Because if you don't forgive them, I don't forgive you. 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. 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 talking a two-year process. And so now, Lord, would you bless his marriage? Okay, would you bless his marriage? Would you help his children? He happened to be someone that was in ministry.

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. But I still had the payback, so I'm forgive choice. Forgiving is the emotional journey. I kept praying. Every Lord's Supper, and every time he came to mind or when I'd have a, I call it a flashback, I mean, I had anger fantasies. I had images of different things I was going to do to embarrass him and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And every time this 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. So 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 define it clearly. E is enter the pain and the hurt. F is ask forgiveness. F is just forgive. U is understand the process. And then now we shift to our horizontal relationships. The S is set things right between you.

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 90% Teresa's fault and 10% mine. And when she changes, then things will be fine.

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. 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, 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, 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.

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've 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, in 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 say, 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 in 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. Chip will be right back with his application. Quickly, though, this message, For Giving, How to Restore Your Peace, is 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. And 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.

That's 888-333-6003. Well, Chip, I gotta say, over the course of this series, you've certainly been so open about the rough patches you and Therese have gone through and come out of. Well, thank you for helping us feel like our rough patches are normal. If there was a resource from all that you've learned, I mean, for people who want to go deeper, they want to finish well in their marriage, what would you say? Well, Dave, you know, I never dreamed I would write a book on marriage, but after about 35 or 40 years of marriage, I was asked to write a book on marriage as we see it crumbling in so many aspects in the Christian community. And so what I did is I took what I learned from Scripture about the man's role, the woman's role, what God says about it, and then I took the lies that I think trip us up in our marriage, and then some of the practical tools that have been so helpful for me and Therese, and I put them together. It's in a book called Marriage That Works and then Marriage That Works Truth Cards. And we put those together as a resource because what a lot of couples don't have is a game plan.

They don't have structure. They don't have this is what we'll do, maybe just once a week, or we'll do this with a couple other couples, but something simple that they can do and work through, and then the cards to reinforce it so they renew their mind, change their behavior, and grow deeper and deeper in their relationship. I'm so excited to get this into the hands of people who really want their marriage to be all that God wants it to be. Well, we certainly hope you'll take advantage of the discounts on the resource bundle.

And just a quick reminder, this is the last day. Whether it's for you or someone you know, let me give you the details one more time. 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'll 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. 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. I've been pretty honest about my relationship with Teresa and our ups and downs. It's been a lot of hard work, but a lot of it has been being intentional and using these kind of tools. Today I talked about that tool to resolve conflict with the acronym DEFUSE. 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 DEFUSE. And better, I would say for all of us, if you want your marriage to grow, I mean, by nature, marriages drift.

It just happens. Let me encourage you, listen to this whole message series again, and this time listen to it with your mate. Maybe you listen to it individually and then have a cup of coffee after dinner and you talk about it. Or you set aside Saturday morning or an hour sometime during the week to talk about, this is what I'm learning from this. How do we serve one another? How do we plan? How do we practically build hope in our marriage? How do we resolve things before they get too bad?

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. Well, just before we close, I want to thank each of you who's making this program possible through your generous giving. 100% of your gifts are going directly to the ministry to help Christians really live like Christians.

Now, if you found CIP's teaching helpful, but you're not yet on the team, would you consider doing that today? To donate, just go to livingontheedge.org, tap donate on the app, or give us a call at 888-333-6003. And let me thank you in advance for whatever the Lord leads you to do. Well, until next time, for everyone here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.