Unstuck - Overcoming the Pain of Broken Relationships, Part 1

Your spouse walks out on you. One of your kids rejects you. A lifelong friend turns on you and stabs you in the back.

What do you do when one of your most important relationships falls apart? How do you go on? Well, that's today. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram.

And we're nearing the end of his series, Unstuck, based in the book of Ephesians. For the past handful of messages, Chip's helped us learn how to overcome the most painful circumstances in life. And for these last two programs, he turns to the heartache we experience when a relationship ends. What can you do when conflict or sin destroys that bond with someone you love?

Is there any hope of fixing it? Well, that's what Chip will unpack for us today. So go in your Bible to Ephesians chapter 3, beginning in verse 14, for Chip's talk, Overcoming the Pain of Broken Relationships. Few things in all life compare with the satisfaction and joy and connectedness that comes when we're deeply loved and when we love deeply in authentic, meaningful relationships. I mean, when you think about life and ups and downs and everything you have been through or will ever go through, probably the greatest thing you'll ever, ever taste on this earth is that deep, authentic connection where someone loves you for you, not for what you have, not for what you can do, not for where you've been, not for who you know.

They love you, and then it's reciprocal and you love them. By contrast, few things in all of life can hurt as badly and as deeply as the wounds and sorrow and the alienation that comes when a relationship is broken. For some of you, it may be a long time ago, if you can ever remember the first time you actually fell in love, begin that early connection maybe as a late teenager or an early adult, and for whatever reason, you had that first breakup. And remember the emotions, how devastating and older people told you things like it's puppy love and there's other people and everything's going to be all right, but you didn't want to eat, you couldn't think. And then you grow up and for many, you go through a separation or a divorce or a lifelong friendship with someone and something happens that divides it. Or something occurs in a family relationship where you no longer talk to one of your kids or a brother or a sister.

And thanksgivings are weird because there's like two empty chairs. There's certain people's names that when they come up, they used to be close. They used to be people that you just, it was, you couldn't imagine going through life without them and at this point in your life, you're estranged from them.

They walked out, they betrayed you, maybe you messed up and your apologies have fallen on deaf ears. I think the hardest and most difficult thing in all the world is to overcome the pain of broken relationships because all those thoughts of it's probably because I don't measure up and you've been rejected and your dreams are usually revolving around doing things with people and part of those things often come because things are unjust. God brought a passage that I will be honest with you, I don't understand but I know it's where I want to be and it's where God wants you to land. And you just can lean back and listen, you can, if you want to check it out later, it's in Habakkuk chapter 3. Beginning in about verse 17, the historical situation is a devastation that is coming upon a group of people that is a result of their broken relationship with God and this is the statement of a prophet in the midst of everything and anyone that could ever bring delight to his soul. He says, though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines and though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls yet, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my Savior. The sovereign Lord is my strength.

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer and He enables me to go on the heights. And at the bottom of my Bible, I wrote a couple things that are hard for me to remember and I jotted down circumstances do not have the power to make or break me. There's just something in all of us as humans that think if this would change, if these circumstances, if these things could just get realigned then.

And don't get me wrong, I really want my circumstances to turn out well and I don't think it's wrong to want that. They just don't have the power to make your life if they align and they do not have the power to break your life when they don't. Second thing I wrote in my Bible was human relationships do not have the power to make or break me.

That's harder. It's one thing to get your arms and your mind around things, whatever those things are can't make or break you, but it's far different to come to grips with the reality and the truth that I am made for relationship. God will fulfill many of the deepest and most important needs in our lives through relationships, but a human relationship doesn't have the power to give you deep in your soul what you need most and it doesn't have the power to take it away.

People are people and I don't care how good, how loving, how kind, how godly, they will let you down. And so I'm commanded to not put my trust in things and I'm commanded not to put my trust in people and that command is rooted in God's great love for me because He doesn't want me to go through the horrendous experience of feeling hopeless when things and circumstances and people let me down. The third little thing I put in my Bible is only God can fulfill and sustain the deepest needs of my soul and He does it through Christ. Now I think most of us would agree, the question is then how does God do that?

I mean I want Him to, you know think of all the songs, I want Him to be my all in all. I want to grow up to all the fullness of the measure of Christ. I long for Him and Him alone to be my soul's satisfaction, but unless you're living on a different planet than me, that doesn't come real easy to me and I have times where at least in my emotional experience circumstances seem to break me and some people when they let me down or they don't fulfill the dreams that I have or even unintentionally when I feel rejected, they seem to make me both feel and act in ways that I don't like at all and I have to come back to this. And in the context of the book of Ephesians, he's written about these two groups that for centuries through hatred and miscommunication and wounds and prejudice, they have had hostility and hate for one another and he's told them in the second chapter of this book that through this one word he says over and over, through this one person Jesus, there's peace and in this peace of these two groups Gentile and Jew coming together in the person and the work, in this mystery and secret that's been hid from all generations, this new supernatural unity, the church and this temple of these men and women from Jewish and Gentile backgrounds coming together before God on the basis of the cross and the resurrection, he says His presence and His power dwell. But he's talking to them in the context of very broken relationships and chapter 3 verse 14 opens with a therefore, therefore. And in context we often quote this and the apostle Paul quite interestingly, the first three chapters are of course doctrine and truth about us and chapters 4 through 6 are about practically living out what's already true about us and what's interesting is at the end of the doctrine he stops and he prays and he's praying about how will all this work and what do we need to believe and what do you ask God for so that He can be your all in all, especially when it goes against all your emotions.

Those Jews do not want to love those Gentiles and those Gentiles do not want to love those Jews. But they're one new man now. And then when he ends, at the end of the book he goes through the entire book and talks about how to walk in a manner worthy and talks about the period of our life being filled with the Spirit and our marriage relationships and our parenting and our work and in the context of spiritual warfare and then how does he end the book? He stops again and he prays. Because there's something about living out this life, the independency of the Holy Spirit, it's when we cry out to God that His Spirit takes His written Word and makes it the living Word and transforms us from the inside out and where we experience with Him this fullness of love in such a way that we can actually be givers instead of takers. We can be makers of unity instead of manipulators. We can not look at every relationship by what did I get or why didn't they do that and you can be so filled with the fullness of God that you can forgive and that you can look at relationships by I wonder where they're coming from and you can be a little Christ as He's working in you and though you would like circumstances to be different, though you would long for relationships to be restored, you can say with integrity, though the fig tree doesn't blossom, though the olives don't produce, and though there's no sheep in the pen or cattle in the stalls, notice it's not I feel, I will, I choose to rejoice, yet I'll choose the Lord Sovereign God.

He'll be enough for me. And so the Apostle Paul in chapter 23 verses 14 to 21 is going to walk us through a model prayer about how you restore broken relationships. The first thing he says in verses 14 and 15 is talk to the Father. I mean, here's this steward of these divine mysteries looking at the supernatural groups that have come together with all this conflict and he says, for this reason I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. So he's thinking, he's praying not only for those on the earth, but the families, those in heaven, the angelic realm. He says, I'm praying to the Father who is the Father and the Creator of all. And interesting, he says, I bow the knee and literally that word, he comes prostrate before God in reverence before God and he says, only you can solve this problem.

A sovereign God has created all things, the author of every relationship, the one who has unlimited authority and unlimited resources, the one who really cares. Notice it's a father. The Jews have a father. The Gentiles have a father.

There's someone bigger than your network or my network. They have a father. The kids that alienated from you, they have a father. The family member that isn't on the same page within you, they have a father. There's someone that's in control of everything. And so the first thing Paul says, kneel, humble yourself. And then he gives the reason why. Because prayer is our passport to God's perspective.

I mean, when you think about the Habakkuk 3 that I read, what really is that? It's just perspective, isn't it? I mean, his circumstances, they don't sound any good.

The people situation, that doesn't sound any good. But he has a perspective. Jeremiah 33, it says, call to me and I will answer you and I will tell you great and mighty things which you do not know. What we taste and long for in every human relationship is a built in desire to be loved and to be accepted just for who we are. People are the primary avenues of this, but since they'll always let us down, God will take us through times, often through broken relationships, where he allows us to experience that he is the only one you can fully depend on and something happens in a Saint's walk with God when that occurs.

You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and he'll be back to continue our series, Unstuck in Just a Minute. But let me quickly tell you, we are more than a broadcast ministry. We're passionate about supporting pastors globally, developing helpful resources and sharing the gospel with this next generation.

So if you'd like to partner with us in these areas, go to livingonthedge.org. Well, here again is Chip. For me, I have to go back a long way and I hope for your age and maturity you won't consider this as trite because it wasn't trite to me. I've been a Christian about two and a half or three years, and by this time I'm growing. I'm in the Bible. I'm in a Bible study. God gave me a chance to lead a number of people to Christ.

Some guys on the basketball team were kind of getting it. I've been dating a girl now for about a year and four months who's a Christian that loved God. I'd taken her home to meet my family. I'd gone home to meet her family. And as far as I understood, this was the one for me and I was going to marry her. Down deep in my heart, if I could look back objectively, I would realize that this girl became an idol.

That basketball was really an idol and although I sensed in my spirit that I was wanting to use it for God's glory, every time something would happen like a stress fracture in my foot and pulled a muscle right out of my thigh, it was like God kept the velvet vise of His discipline in my denial and in my ego. And so in that third year of college, it became clear that this gal, no matter what, was going to live across the street from her parents. She was the only child and she was born late in life to them and they'd already bought a house across the street with a white picket fence.

It's classic. And they let me know that they really like me and they really love their daughter and the absolute expectation for us to be married was we live across the street here on the Ohio River. And all I can tell you, this may sound crazy, but I'm 20 years old.

I'm not like some little kid. I love that girl with all my heart and she loved God. And I got to this crossroads where as I was doing ministry on the basketball team and I was leading some Bible studies and I just had this inner sense from God that His will and vision for my life was not to live on the Ohio River with the white picket fence with that woman there, even though that's the woman I wanted to live with.

And the lordship issue was about common vision. She was awesome and loving and kind and godly and beautiful. And I remember coming to the point where I just, you know, how do you tell a girl I really love you, this won't work. And I remember making that decision and then for a year I didn't date anybody for a year because I didn't want to date anybody because I loved her. And I remember she was on a dormitory and I knew it was fourth floor, third light over and there was a little crest or a hill and I would go sit on that hill and I would cry and I would ask God to change her heart and allow her to say to her folks, you know what mom and dad, I really appreciate that but I just, I really need to, I need to do life with Chip. But she felt a very honest responsibility to older parents and she said I need to be across the street in probably 10 years.

They're going to be in health issues. And at the same time we had a little change in the basketball world and I had yet another injury that just took me out of my college basketball for a period of time. I was injured, I couldn't play and in the midst of it we had a coaching change.

So all I know is that basketball in the future is going to be completely up in the air. And then my spiritual leader who was the bricklayer that I talk a lot about, he got this great idea that we went from three or four people in a Bible study with him and he began to help me and we began to help others and pretty soon there's 250 college kids in personal Bible study all over this campus of about three or four thousand students. And people are coming to Christ and everyone's growing and he's sort of an entrepreneur so he goes, you know what, you guys got it down, you can stay in my house, why don't you guys live here, keep the ministry going, I'm going to go start another one in Fairmont, West Virginia.

So he leaves. Well at the same time my father is working through his alcohol issues and my mom about a year and a half earlier said, you know, it's Mabel Black Label or me, your choice. And my dad decided, wisely, it should be her. But when you ex-Marines who decide, okay, it's her, you don't get counseling, you don't figure out why you've been drinking, you just do it. So he was a jerk and they had huge marriage problems, he just didn't drink now.

So within a year he quit smoking three and a half packs a day and quits drinking and, you know, there was times I would say, Dad, here's a beer and it kind of lights you up. And, which I didn't but it would have been a lot easier to live with. And in that journey, in that process, God brought him to Jesus.

And you know how it works, okay? And I'm not talking to a bunch of little kids. You know, in a storybook would he have come to Jesus and everything's great. We just came to Jesus and everything got really, really hard.

And then his personality bent, you know, he came to Jesus and when he came to Jesus then he went like nuts off the end for a while. And so all I knew was my parents have zero to give me. The girl that I love is gone. My idol and my security is crumbling as I can't play now and who knows about the next coach and the one person that has been my mentor and spiritual coach for the last three years has left.

And I have never, you know, I didn't know much about fig trees or olives or sheep in pens or cows in stalls but it seemed like a pretty good parallel at the time. And I remember one night I was, I made that big decision and there was another guy on our basketball team and I won't mention any names and kind of hope he never listens to this because he would know who he is. And in locker rooms guys share lots of things and so I knew where this guy was coming from and I knew his dating life and I knew kind of, so about four or five months after I broke up with my girlfriend I was coming up from a game and my hair was wet and I still remember it was cold.

It was West Virginia. I put my collar up and I came up the stairs and there she was at the top of the stairs and it was like yes, this is so great. She's had a turn of heart and she's repented and she's going to be willing to do whatever God wants and I said hi and then the guy right behind me was that guard and he walks right by me with my girl and walks out. And I just remember saying to God, unless you speak to me in a way I can understand tonight, I'm done.

I'm out. This is what you do for people who obey you. You take their parents away, you take your spiritual leader away.

I'm hobbling up these steps and I didn't get to barely play tonight and now my girl with that snake is my prayer. And all I want to say is that I went, I literally, and you should never do these kind of things but I was pretty young and pretty immature and I went down to my room and I decided God knows where I'm at and I happened to be reading in the New Testament in the Psalms and I said God, I'll give you three Psalms. And you know what? Either you speak with clarity, I'm done.

And as stupid as it was, I really meant it. And so I read Psalm 71, nothing. I read Psalm 72, nothing. And I'm thinking well, this three year journey with Jesus is about ready to come to an end and I read Psalm 73.

And I had that to that point, had never heard God's audible voice but when I read Psalm 73, it was like someone had highlighted it and the words were levitating off the page. And Psalm 73 is about how do you respond to injustice and I've kept my heart pure and look at the proud and there's a necklace of pride around their neck and they have no concern for God and yet they have prosperity and they have this and they have that and they have that and I'm ready to check out. And then he stops in the middle of the Psalm and he says, yet if I would have said thus, I would have betrayed the generation of my children. And God brought all these guys I was discipling to mine and said, Chip, if you bail out, they'll bail out too. And then he says, then I went into the courts of God and I perceived their end, that the unrighteous are, this is a real loose translation, but the picture that came to my mind, they're on a slippery slope like on a banana peel and it looks good right now, but in a minute, everything changes and they have no hope, they have no real stability. And then verse 23 through about 26, he says, whom have I in heaven but you?

And besides you, I desire nothing on earth. My heart and my flesh may fail, but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and you've been listening to part one of Chip's message, overcoming the pain of broken relationships from our series, Unstuck.

Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. Pain, it's an unfortunate part of the human experience. Whether it's a broken promise, a dysfunctional family relationship or prejudice, we've all had to deal with being hurt.

So what are we supposed to do when that heartache cripples us to our core? In this insightful series, Chip reveals the hope and restoration that Jesus promises. As he studies the book of Ephesians, Chip will remind us who we are, whose we are and why our past pain doesn't have to define our futures. To learn more about this series, visit livingontheedge.org. Well, Chip's joined me in studio now to share a brief word before we go on.

Chip? Thanks so much, Dave. Hey, I want to take just a minute to ask you something really important. If you've been impacted by this ministry, would you please pray about partnering with Living on the Edge in a new way right now? Nearly everything we do is dependent on contributions from partners like you.

Our ability to reach people through radio, online or our app, sharing and developing small group resources, providing broadcasts that are international in Asia and the Middle East and literally dark places around the globe. Please pray how you might be able to come alongside and be a partner to Living on the Edge to help us reach people with the truth of God's Word. Thank you in advance for whatever God leads you to do.

Thanks, Chip. As you've heard, God has called this ministry to help Christians live like Christians both here in the U.S. and internationally. So if you'd like to help us fulfill that mission, we'd love to have you join the team by becoming a monthly partner. Set up a regular monthly gift by visiting livingontheedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. Again, that's 888-333-6003 or go to livingontheedge.org.

App listeners, tap donate. Now with a few final thoughts before we wrap up, here's Chip. As I ended today's message, I talked about how Jesus wants to be our portion, our sufficiency, the all in all in our life. And I don't know about you, but sometimes those spiritual truths really sound good and I really want everyone else to obey them. But they just kind of hit me flat like, God, are you kidding? Like, I mean, yes, you're my all, but it doesn't feel good. I don't want to do that.

That's not emotionally satisfying. And when I face that dilemma, and I do, and I know you do, and your friends do, what I've learned is that I have to allow the Spirit of God to activate my chooser more than my feeler. And my chooser is like Jesus in the garden when he's before the Father. And he says to his Heavenly Father, I don't want to go to the cross. I don't feel like going to the cross. I don't want this moment that's going to happen where you're going to forsake me because I'm going to take the sins of all people of all time on me. And because you're holy for the first time in all of history and all of eternity, the Father and the Son, there's going to be this separation as I bear those sins. I don't feel like doing that.

I don't feel like having those thorns put into my head. I don't feel like being mocked by those people that I love. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours. And I just want to remind you that Jesus said on the very last night on the earth, the one that has my commands and keeps them, he it is that loves me. And then here's the promise from John 14, 21. And he that loves me will be loved of my Father, and my Father and I will come and disclose or reveal ourself to you. Can I just give you a word? This is not a fun word.

If you know what's right to do right now in the midst of the pain of a broken relationship, if you completely do not feel like doing it, do the right thing anyway, I assure you, long term, you'll be so glad you did. Good word, Chip. And if you're in the midst of a painful life season right now, we'd love to pray for you. Call us at 888-333-6003 and a team member would be happy to pray for you. That's 888-333-6003. Or if it's easier, email us at chip at LivingontheEdge.org. That's chip at LivingontheEdge.org. We'll listen to next time as Chip wraps up his series Unstuck from the Book of Ephesians. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.