Today on 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? That's the test of
complete forgiveness. I'm Dave Drury, 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 Chip
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 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. I don't know if you pray the Lord's
Prayer. I pray kind of often when I wake up.
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 and my thoughts. Give me this day.
Forgive me of my sins, please, today, as I forgive
those who trespass 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 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. 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. 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 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, 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 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. D -Fuse. 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. 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 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, 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've been betrayed 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 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. Well, then read
the Lord's Prayer a little more carefully, Chip.
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 livingontheedge
.org. And while you're there, you'll also discover
a full library of Chip's teaching series, small
group resources, and practical tools to help
strengthen your relationships. Take advantage
of all we have available at livingontheedge .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 begin 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 I'm, 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. 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 choice. Forgiving is the emotional
journey. I kept praying. Every Lord's Supper
and every time he came to mine 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 gonna 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.
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 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. 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 Teresa 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 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 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 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. 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
DEFUSE acronym, a practical game plan for restoring
peace. Chip will be back with one final word
in just a moment. Friend, countless marriages
are being transformed right now because listeners
invest in this Bible teaching ministry. Couples
are learning to forgive, connect deeply, and
choose love daily. When you support Living on
the Edge, you're making that transformation possible
for families around the world. Would you join
this mission today? Give online at livingontheedge
.org or call us at 888 -333 -6003. You can also
mail your gift to Living on the Edge, P .O. Box
3007, Atlanta, Georgia 30024. 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 livingontheedge
.org and start making the choice to love like
God loves. Well, join Chip each weekday for practical
Bible teaching that transforms lives Monday through
Friday. Plus, get every episode delivered to
your phone by subscribing to the Living on the
Edge podcast, available now on your favorite
podcast app. 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 Drewy,
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.