Healing Your Marriage Through God's Design :: [Ep. 257]

Healing Your Marriage Through God's Design :: [Ep. 257]

This VowsToKeep Marriage Podcast episode centers on how confession, repentance, and forgiveness can restore broken marriages. Through biblical teachings, we highlight God’s design for healing relationships, emphasizing personal accountability and the role of grace in reconciliation.

We will cover:
• The importance of faithfulness when difficult times arise 
• How sin impacts marriage and personal relationships 
• The process of healing and that it starts with confession 
• The necessity of forgiveness, regardless of your spouse's actions 
• How to view our spouse through the lens of Christ’s love 
• The ultimate goal: demonstrating the gospel through reconciliation

We hope you will join us and learn more!

Chapters

• 0:04 Helping Hurting Marriages Through God
• 13:53 The Path to Healing & Reconciliation
• 23:03 Community Support for Restoring Marriages

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers. Our mission is to help couples develop biblically healthy marriages through the application of God's Word and a deeper relationship with Him. We desire to help you and your spouse grow closer to each other and closer to the heart of God's design for your marriage. Now here's David and Tracy with today's broadcast.

Speaker 2: 0:28

Hey, there we are David and Tracy, sellers, and, like you, we've made vows to keep.

Speaker 3: 0:32

We're nearing the end of a series we've been enjoying a lot on how to Help a Hurting Marriage. This series is all about being able to walk beside someone who is going through a hard time, because we've all had people who come and share the difficulty that they experience in marriage. Their spouse is deep in sin. They feel helpless and hurt. Sometimes they just want to feel relief. Other times they're to the point of rejection. Now they want to run On part 8 of our series.

Speaker 3: 1:02

We're talking about how God wants our faithfulness, when being faithful comes at a cost. After all, the word says it's easy to love someone who's returning love. But what we want to focus on today is that now is not the time when someone comes in deep hurt. Now is not the time to encourage them to go for relief. We want to encourage them to not ignore God's word, to fight the good fight, to not be the person in judgment, to forgive and, if needed, to ask for forgiveness, to love a spouse through the sinful spot they're in.

Speaker 3: 1:37

Sin is going to affect your marriage, my marriage and all of our friends' marriages. Sin isolates us from our spouse. God actually intentionally God specifically and intentionally places us with our spouse to help us both look more like him. He's not surprised by your sin or your spouse's sin. He actually anticipated it. Jesus went to the cross knowing exactly who you and I are.

Speaker 3: 2:04

God shows when we read his word how he handles people who consistently trip up in their sin. He doesn't ignore our sin, he doesn't pretend it isn't there. He doesn't hope that it's going to go away on its own. He doesn't complain about it. He doesn't slander us All things that we are guilty of within our own marriages, All things that we are guilty of within our own marriages.

Speaker 3: 2:25

So, when someone comes to you with a hurting marriage and they need healing, I like to turn to James 5. Verse 19 says my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. You see, when someone comes hurting and they're in need of marital healing, I think it starts by understanding and applying not only this truth, but some that are just above it. In James 5. Verse 16 says therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for another that you may be healed the prayer of a righteous person has great power, as it is working.

Speaker 2: 3:13

Could the healing that you or your friend are looking for start with confession, then repentance and finally forgiveness? We think so. Redemption is to be an everyday experience in our marriage, but we never see ourselves in the position of the person who's facilitating that redemption, especially when we're the one that's been wronged against.

Speaker 3: 3:35

Part of the problem is a positional problem. You see, when sin runs rampant, what you'll find is that that person coming to you is often not looking for a way to reconcile. They're looking for a way out. Sometimes, maybe, they're looking for just some way to console the pain. Sometimes, what they're looking for is just a way to numb the pain. Maybe today you are the one whose heart is hurt. You're the one who's finding it easier to shut off your feelings, to shut off godly advice, easier to harden your heart so that you don't have to deal with this any longer. People coming with hurt are often asking why should they want to reconcile to a spouse who does hateful and hurtful things?

Speaker 2: 4:22

It's a good question and one we're definitely going to be addressing here today. First, let's get this truth out in the open right up front. Reconciliation healing begins at the heart level first. No part or piece of having peace again with your spouse can be attained without addressing what's in the heart. You might be saying, okay, I've been trying, but my spouse's heart is the one that needs to change. They've got to change for this to work. I would say yes to that and I would also say no to that statement. See, if you're married, god wants you to stay married to that person. And the truth is we can't change our spouse's heart. That's God's job. But in the meantime, there are things you can do. You can pray for your spouse today, right now. You can model the love of Christ to them and, most importantly, you can ask God to change your heart, because that's going to change your words and your actions. That's where healing begins with you today, right now, not when both of you are at the same point, because that might not happen for a while. She might be much further behind in you in that change process. So don't wait for your spouse to change before you do the right thing. When someone comes in their hurt, you might be the only person in their life that's actually shedding light on why they should want to be reconciled to their spouse. They're probably hearing tons of other voices saying just leave.

Speaker 2: 5:43

We find the truth we need today in the New Testament 2 Corinthians 5.16, for the love of Christ controls and compels us. It's really plain and simple, short and sweet. That's the motivating force behind all of this, and here in this chapter of 2 Corinthians 5, we see the gospel of Jesus for our own hearts and the saving gospel of Jesus Christ for our marriages. I want you to think back for just a minute to when you first became a Christian. See, when I first accepted Jesus as my Savior, I was a pretty little girl and I definitely understood that I was a sinner. I remember getting on my knees and asking God to save me from my sin, and that simple little step that I took took me from eternal death to eternal life because I believed. But it was many years later until I realized that, hey, this good news about my sins being forgiven isn't just this one-time thing back when I was a little girl. This stuff is relevant today, right now, what Jesus did on the cross I can apply to my marriage, I can apply to my parenting. In this moment, it's with this mindset and with an eye on God's power for our own salvation and the hope for our marriages to be reconciled that we're going to pick back up in 2 Corinthians 5.

Speaker 2: 6:58

It says "for the love of Christ controls and compels us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have died to our old life". He died for everyone, so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they'll live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. And this is what I want you to listen to right now. Verse 16, we've stopped evaluating others. We can put in here. We've stopped evaluating our spouses from a human point of view. Why? Because of Christ's grace, of course, because at one time the verse goes on to say we thought of Christ merely from a human perspective. How differently we know him now. This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone and the new life has begun.

Speaker 3: 7:46

As we continue with the next three verses, I want you to actually count how many times God uses the word reconcile, picking up in verse 18,. All of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ, and God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them, and he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead. Come back to God, be reconciled to God, for God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

Speaker 3: 8:36

Our job is clear and, to be frank, it's only when our sinful pride flares up that we actually reject this message. We think that you know what. I would be better off without my spouse. I don't want to deal with the difficulty that they've created. What we find is that we're actually saying I'm happier without doing it. Your way, god. We look at our spouse from our own point of view. We look at their mistakes. We've forgotten that we've been made new in Christ.

Speaker 3: 9:05

Too many people in a hurting marriage, accept the lie that God is able to forgive my brokenness, my sins, but I'm not sure he's strong enough to put together this broken marriage. That's when we've stopped believing the healing truth of the gospel, the here and now healing truth of the gospel. The choice well, it is up to the person that you're working to help. Many people stuck in sin are finally able to see the futility of everything they've been trying to do in the past leading up to this point. All they've been doing has causing them to stumble in the darkness. Now they may not have put this together, but that's part of what your goal is Help them to see that doing it God's way has the ability to change the status quo. This is why you've really got to see the opportunity when it comes to your role in helping others being reconciled within their own marriage.

Speaker 2: 10:03

One thing they might need their eyes open to is that we don't have to make our spouses pay for all the wrong they've done to us, because Jesus already paid that price. He took the punishment for our sins and your spouse's sins upon himself. Even the sins that you or your spouse hasn't even committed yet, they're covered, they're paid for, and it's not our job ever to try to make them pay for what they've done. That takes a lot of faith in God. It takes trust that God is going to be the judge, that he's going to be the juror, he's going to make things right and that you are merely a tool in his hands. And it's okay to pray for that kind of faith, god. Maybe I'm not there right now, but I want you to teach me how to get there.

Speaker 2: 10:46

We are not in our spouse's life to execute any kind of punishment. And that includes the really practical things like holding your tongue when you feel like giving them a piece of your mind, the huffing and the eye rolling, those non-verbal things that say you are driving me crazy right now. Or even the verbal ones like throwing their mistakes in their face and just bringing them up repeatedly. Like we said before, none of the healing can come in a marriage. Until we realize this all starts with the heart. If the heart is right before the Lord, those things that we're inclined to do, like I just said, they're going to resolve themselves.

Speaker 3: 11:22

It's vital to help your friends see their spouse in light of the gospel. If they're a believer but blinded by this painful sin in their life, pray with them that they would no longer be deceived by the enemy. Pray that the eyes of their heart would be enlightened to the gospel once again, that they would have the courage and humility to turn and to replace sinful reactions and behavior with actions, thoughts and words that honor and restore them to God. God is in the business of healing. There's never a situation that's so horrible that it prevents him from using you and I to be a part of making it right again. Let me make this super clear there is no person with a sin that is so bad that God would want to turn his back on that man or woman. Every situation, every person, every marriage can have reconciliation.

Speaker 2: 12:19

If you enjoy a clean Christian historical romance, one with excitement and unexpected changes, you'll want to pick up your own copy of Roots Revealed, book two in my Roots Run Deep trilogy. Once you're introduced to the characters, you'll want their secrets to be revealed.

Speaker 1: 12:44

You'll want the mystery solved and the romances to blossom More at VowsToKeepcom. If you have a marriage question, please email questions at VowsToKeepcom. Vows To Keep will respond to you via email and perhaps use it on the air. Now let's rejoin Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers.

Speaker 3: 13:02

Tracy, let's walk through this in the three steps that you talked about earlier. That first part of healing is first confession, then it's repentance and finally it's forgiveness. And as we walk through this today, your job is to help anyone who you're helping in a hurting marriage to not just view and hear these steps in light of their spouse. They, for a moment, need to set their spouse's mess aside and look at what they themselves are called to do according to God's word. So often when we're working to help someone in a hurting marriage, what we find is that people sinned against tend to respond with sin. So even if this person's spouse isn't really willing to come to the table to start reconciliation, god can start the healing through the person that you are mentoring.

Speaker 3: 13:53

James 5.17 says confess your sins to one another and you will be healed. This sounds simple, but it's super hard to do. The point is that when you are ready to seek reconciliation, go to your spouse with a repentant heart, completely looking at only your sins, not theirs. In your confession to your spouse, you want to specifically address the offenses, the hurts, all the things you've done, all the ways you've sinned against them, and identify the thoughts as well as the actions and behavior that need to change. Acknowledge how you've hurt them and remember it's so important. Now is not the time to point out their sins. Don't try to shift the blame for what you did wrong on something they did wrong first.

Speaker 2: 14:40

A really interesting thing happens when you do this or when your friend does this. When your spouse sees that you recognize your sin, it will most likely soften their heart. But you might not see that fruit right away. You can expect questions when you come to them why did it take you so long to get to this point? They may put you on the defense. They may only react with defense. Be focused on confession. Share with them your heart. Hey, I want to be made right with you. I want to be made right with God.

Speaker 2: 15:09

This is kind of a speck log situation. If you're familiar with Matthew, chapter 7, where Jesus is teaching, he says why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there's a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite. First take the plank out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck. The point here is their sin is not worse than yours. See your sin in light of the cross and recognize your need for Jesus and the gospel and that will make it much easier to go to them.

Speaker 2: 15:47

This is the perfect time to repent before God for your sins and pray you could even write that in there with your spouse as witness Repent before God, asking both him and your spouse for forgiveness. Super powerful. We don't want to play the hypocrite here. That's not going to bring healing to our marriage. Pointing fingers is not going to get us to where God wants to take us. So, as you can see, the second step is repentance.

Speaker 3: 16:15

Ken Sandy wrote a book called the Peacemaker, and in that you will find a section that talks about that. Repentance is more than a feeling. It doesn't simply mean that we feel bad that we did something Ken is saying. To repent means to literally change the way we think. This is what Romans 12 says Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Speaker 3: 16:43

Repentance is recognizing I'm a sinner and my sin is rebellion against God. It's rebellion against what his word is commanding me to do. Repentance is an unyielding turning to God in total obedience. This step is individual. It's a spiritual about-face between me and God. Repentance is knowing that I've missed the mark and renouncing that sin and replacing it with the words and actions and thoughts that line up with God's word. True repentance will be seen in the fruit of a person's life. Let me make this clear An apology does not equate to repentance. A heart-level confession to God, with a true crying heart for his forgiveness and help to change, will result in outward actions changing as well.

Speaker 3: 17:36

Repentance begins by confessing our specific sin to God and then turning away from those sins. It's so tempting to see our sin, as you know, small minute compared to our spouse. It's so easy to believe that we actually don't need to repent of something because it is so small. It's not nearly as bad as what they've done to me. But God's word tells us, hey, if we've sinned and we all have if we've fallen short of the glory of God, that every sin is worthy of a spiritual death. Take time to examine your heart. Ask God to reveal those sins, even the ones that you might think are so small. You might hear from someone else that they think is so small. Guess what those things revealed. Help us to recognize areas that we need to repent.

Speaker 2: 18:23

And finally, the third step in this process of healing and reconciliation is forgiveness. To have reconciliation with our spouse, we have to continually remember God's forgiveness to us, because we can't give away something that we don't have. Neither can your friend Remember the verse we read earlier from 2 Corinthians 5, where it says God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. God reconciled us to himself through Jesus. Jesus was that bridge that we needed to get to God.

Speaker 2: 18:58

And after you have confessed your sin your response to your spouse's sin, after you've repented, we have to consider that we need to forgive them, even if they haven't asked for it. But God's word calls us to nothing less than just that, and the good news is God would never give us a command to do something without empowering us to do it. Forgiveness towards others comes when we remember how loving and gracious, and slow to anger and abounding in forgiveness our God has been to us, and letting that renewed awareness of God's love for us compel us to forgive our spouse. And let me tell you right now, when you offer that forgiveness, even if it's just done within your own heart, between you and God your attitude and the way you interact with your spouse is going to change dramatically.

Speaker 3: 19:43

We're reconciled to God when we ask for, and then receive, christ's forgiveness for our sins. It's in forgiveness that reconciliation takes place, because it demonstrates that forgiveness of God toward us and anyone else that's involved. When we apply these scriptures, because of the reconciliation model we have in Christ, there's hope that you too can have a completely restored marriage. What we want to encourage you, to encourage others to do, is to go to their spouse to confess their sins, to repent before God, to ask for forgiveness, to confess their sins, to repent before God, to ask for forgiveness and to give forgiveness, and then watch and see what the outcome is. You're going to see a marriage start to be restored.

Speaker 2: 20:32

And what a beautiful restoration process this is going to be for the marriage that you are working with or for your own marriage, given to you from the hand of the Father, who binds up the broken and builds what was torn down. You can find that in Isaiah, chapter 61. Restoration for your marriage is going to be a time of rebuilding trust, rebuilding respect and that closeness that was lost. And this is going to be a result of receiving and living out biblical truth under the counsel of God, being spirit-led, living a life of obedience to those truths and counsel. These aren't just words. We have seen this time and time again in the couples that we work with. God's word put into practice is powerful, more powerful than you maybe even realize. But do recognize that change is not instantaneous. Nor is it enough to just know the truth of scripture. We've got to put them into action. As James 2.26 says, faith without deeds is dead. If you're looking for a jumping off place today, start here. Become a preacher to yourself, preach the gospel to your heart every single day. And when that vertical relationship is in place and where it needs to be, your horizontal relationship with your spouse or your friend with their spouse is going to reap the benefits. That's when trust will be built back into the marriage. That's when respect and closeness come once again.

Speaker 2: 21:52

Christ is in the transformation business, and that includes your marriage, my marriage and your friend's marriage. A gospel-centered heart in yourself or in your friend is going to keep the motivation for change God-centered. You'll start to desire to bring God glory in every area of your life. It's like taking a snowball at the top of a hill. You start to make that one step of obedience and the rest follow so much easier. True commitment to change is only going to come when the motivation to change is God-centered. Now, your spouse, or your friend's spouse, may never reciprocate, or it may take them a very long time to decide hey, I want to build this thing back up again. In the meantime, though, your friend or you can be the one to follow that process of healing confession, repentance and forgiveness.

Speaker 2: 22:46

And don't discount prayer in this. Prayer is huge. Pray for them. Make it your goal to model your Savior's love to them daily and ask God to give you a love for them that you might not even feel. Trust me, he will answer that prayer he did for me this morning.

Speaker 2: 23:03

And finally, don't go the road of restoration alone. If this is where you're at today, find someone who can walk beside you. Surround yourself with Scripture and people who are going to speak the truth of Scripture in your life, people who are going to keep you accountable to obedience to scripture and make sure you are in the Bible every single day. Highlight those passages that speak to you, go back to them, read them out loud, pray them. Attend church every single week, take notes during the sermon and get involved in a Bible study or a small group in order to let people in on your life, so you can be further encouraged and admonished.

Speaker 2: 23:42

The body of Christ is there for a reason. Remember God has given you the ministry of reconciliation. God's heartbeat is to bring you into right relationship with him, so that you can share what he's given you with others, so that your relationships might be restored and reconciled and healed, so that the world will know that he longs for them to be reconciled to him. Join us next week as we continue on this series how to Help a Hurting Marriage, right here on Vows to Keep Radio.

Speaker 1: 24:14

Vows to Keep is supported by a team which includes biblical coaches, writers and pastoral advisors. If you have a desire to serve marriages in your community, we would love to hear from you. Vows to Keep is a not-for-profit marriage ministry designed to bring God's encouraging truth to the marriages of our area. As a not-for-profit organization, our commitment to Christlike marriages includes providing much-needed services, regardless of a couple's financial ability to offset the cost of Vows to Keep operations. If you are unable to donate your time or abilities, but would like to help support Vows to Keep financially, visit VowsToKeepcom and click on the donate link. This program is sponsored by Vows to Keep of Zanesfield, ohio.