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Conference Session
2023 Marriage Conference

2023 Marriage Conference – Session Three

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February 11, 2023
Sam Crabtree
Pastor for Care

Forgiveness

Marriage

Sin & The Fall

Grace

Transcript

0:05That's, uh, on August 4th, this coming fall. She'll be my wife for 50 years, God willing, if she doesn't kill me first, or something like that. This talk is about mercy, and I'm praying that she'll listen. It, it really truly does warm my heart to see all of you here, and so many of you radiate christlikeness to me. I see the life of Christ lived up, out and through you, and you're a good example to me of so many things. Some of you are examples of decisiveness and some of gentleness and some of creativity and mercy and so many aspects of christlikeness that are manifest through you. And so even though we're talking to you about kind of the difficult side of marriage, a lot of you are doing so well, and it's just a privilege to be a pastor in a church like this where there are people like you. And I just wanted to say that from the outset here.

1:16Um, I do, however, have to join the chorus of bad news in this talk. Um, if there's gonna be forgiveness and mercy, it's because there's first been offense. So we'll talk about some bad news and then we'll talk about some good news. For those of you who like alliteration, there'll maybe be three Ps here. One is the priority or the importance of mercy and forgiveness. It's very important, which I think we'll see shortly. Second is the possibility of forgiveness. It's possible There is no sin. Your spouse can commit against you that is not forgivable.

2:05It's possible. And third, practice of forgiveness. How should we do it? And how, what are some mistakes to avoid in doing it? We'll see if God gives us, uh, time to get to all of this stuff. So It was, it was our Lord Jesus who said, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray standing in the synagogues, in the corners of the streets to be seen of men. I tell you, they have their reward when you pray, first, enter into your closet. And when you've closed the door, pray to your father in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you after this. And, and, and don't heap up a lot of words like the Gentiles do they think that, that they'll be heard for their much speaking? Don't be like them.

3:03Your father in heaven knows what things you have need of before you ask. So after this, man, therefore, pray, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it's done in heaven. And give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Be they are spouses or whomever, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil four. He immediately says, if you forgive men their trespasses, your father will forgive you. But if you don't forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father in heaven forgive you your trespasses.

4:01This is a serious deal in God's mind, in God's economy, forgiveness is big. I even theorized that one of the reasons he made a universe in which their sin is because mercy is such a high value and such a quality in him, and he could never demonstrate it if he didn't create a world in which there was something to forgive, mercy to be shown. So I, I feel very dependent upon him now to show his mercy and his grace through these minutes that we'll invest together. So let me pray one more time. Father, it was your son, your incomparable son who said, I am the vine. You're the branches. Whoever abides in me and I and him will bear much fruit for without me. You can do nothing. And that's where we are.

5:05One o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. Without you, we can do nothing. We can't do marriage. Well, we can't digest this lunch. Well do nothing without you. So you come and accomplish what your, your love and your wisdom would want to accomplish in these minutes that we have together. In Jesus name, amen. All right, sin and grace in marriage, thoughts that have helped the crab trees for half a century. Um, this isn't so much a, um, a a lecture, an ordered lecture, although I gave you three P's, but it's just kind of a grab bag of some things that have been very helpful to us on this subject of sin and grace in marriage. Because as you know, you married a sinner and Vicky knows she married a sinner, and you need grace and mercy to put up with sinners and make life work.

5:58I was assigned by Brian to give you a fun fact at the outset here. So Vicky and I put our heads together. What would it be? A fun fact. Um, well, this is it. There's a, an LP album. You remember LP albums? No. The Sun Seekers, that's it's a singing group. It was a, it was a quintet. And, uh, this is an album that they made. And that's where I met Vicki, uh, at a rehearsal for this group. And in fact, if you, uh, were to look on the backside, there's her picture right there. I think I would like to marry her. And this guy who tried to trick her into marrying Kim and, uh, the sunset, we sang and traveled for four years. Uh, we made another album that these are unopened, these are collector's items. And, uh, 15, $15 said the singer with the Chancellor's Quartet back there.

7:12Um, we had a, we had a half hour radio program on a half dozen radio stations in Minnesota and Iowa and Wisconsin. And it was through our hearing each other's testimonies, being in each other's family's homes and that sort of thing that a relationship got cooked up. And now Vicky's stuck with me. So here we go. Forgiveness is one of the most important subjects in the Bible according to Jerry Bridges. Many of you have read him. In fact, I, there's a small group right now I think that's using one of his books for their discussions. Alistair Beg adds, an unforgiving spirit is perhaps the greatest killer of genuine spiritual life.

7:52So if we just slow down there a little bit, you wanna kill your spiritual life, get bitter, harden your heart towards somebody, Turn away from the grace that's available for forgiveness. So again, I'm, I'm emphasizing the P of the priority, the importance of this subject. It's important. Colossians three. Now, some texts put on then as God's chosen one, so you can put it on, put, put it on. Holy and beloved ones put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience bearing with one another. We're gonna come back to that phrase, God willing. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, forgiving each other, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, there's the underlying dynamic, the power Jesus taught that the one who loves much has been forgiven much.

8:52Or you can turn it the other way around. The one who's been forgiven much loves much, much. If you don't think you've been forgiven much, you probably won't love much. So there's the dynamic as the Lord has forgiven you, so you almost also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Ephesians, for let all bitterness and wrath and danger and clamor and slander be put away, not put on, put away from you along with all malice. How, how are we supposed to do that? By reading the next verse. Be kind to one another. Tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

9:36That's how we put away all that bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander. Forgive, whatever that is. We'll see if we can get there. Be merciful. Even as your father is a merciful. How many of you would like to, uh, obey, um, uh, Ephesians five, one, therefore, as children obey God, okay, three or four of you would like to obey God, imitate him is what it says there. Imitate as children imitate him. You're arguing about who's gonna, no, nevermind. Alright. Right. Life in a fallen world is hard. This is a place for a kind of a, mm-hmm. Is there, life in a fallen world is hard. No human interaction, including marriage, occurs without the possibility of offense, pain, injury, suffering. Thank you for that message, pastor Steven on suffering and alienation, offenses will come.

10:40It is a given. CJ Mahaney puts it this way. Conflict is inevitable. And in fact is heading your way right now. Maybe, uh, probably you've heard, uh, comparing marriage to, uh, uh, playing a game with playing cards. It starts with two hearts and a diamond. And eventually you want a club and a spade. Your marriage has an active, aggressive, malicious enemy. Doing marriage is not a mere matter of principles and practices performed in a benign world. I hear, just take this checklist here, do all these things and every, and, um, the world will leave you alone. No, it will not. Marriage is on a toxic battlefield upstream and into the wind. Furthermore, your own nature works against you.

11:51My nature works against me. Your spouse, therefore isn't your main problem. This is the bad news said there was gonna be bad news before good news. Some of you're thinking, I know my spouse isn't the main problem, it's my pastor. That's the thing. Self-righteousness is being more concerned for and motivated by the knowledge of sin in others than your own. And that creeps into our marital relationships. Does it not? Where I think if, if just he would change, if just she would change, things would really be looking up around here. And that may be true objectively. I mean, you did marry a sinner.

12:38We're not denying that. But that's not what's eating at you. You see your partner speck as a log and your log as a speck to refer to Jesus teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. So when asked, what's the problem with your marriage? To whom do you point? Do you point here first? Who are you desperate to see change? And we need change. I said our, our nature, our very nature, the way we're wired, the way you were raised, your parents were sinners. You were raised in the presence of sinners. Your pastors are sinners. I think it was Steven, maybe it was Brian who said, you know, we're not exempt from all this stuff.

13:22It's not like we've mastered marriage and we're gonna teach all you neophytes how to do this thing. We're, we're in this with you. Our relationships don't belong to us, but to God. You've maybe heard others say that you're, the story of your life is not the story of your life. It's, it's the story of God at work. Hebrews 1215. So now we're gonna shift a little bit to bitterness. What happens when we don't forgive? See to it. So there's the exhortation. See, to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God. That no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble. And by it many become defiled.

14:05Lack of forgiveness does not establish the offense of the offender, but establishes the hardness of the heart of the offended. So you're offended. Your spouse does something offensive, really wrong before God and all the angels, it's terrible. It's horrible. They did it. Your hardening toward them doesn't prove the wrongness of what they did. It only gives evidence of your own hardness. Yikes. Bitterness inclines us to naively pretend moral superiority. Well, of course, I'm a sinner. None of us would deny, I don't think anybody here would deny that they're a sinner. But I mean, I didn't do that. What my partner does or did, bitterness inclines us to assume God's role as avenger.

14:56We would only, we, we'd not only want to keep score, but we want to. Even the score, when frustration, I'll call it anger, settles into bitterness. It not only reacts to the offense, but fosters animosity toward the offender. I not only don't like what they did, I'm starting to not like them. And the impulse rises to cut them off. This is the, the word that Jesus was using still in the sermon on the mountain in the seventh chapter of Matthew when he, he said, judge, not, he wasn't saying that. You can't tell. You can't tell murder from something like you. He of course, you can tell good from evil. You should learn to do good, to tell good from evil. That's part of what the proverbs are about, that we're gonna be preaching about here in a few weeks. You, you can know good from evil.

15:52Judge not means don't cut off the evil doer. Don't sentence them to oblivion. But the impulse is to cut them off. I've had it with you. The same fence that shuts out your spouse, shuts you in to carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee. You can get the picture, ow, ow, ow. Leave me alone. Write injuries in the sand and kindness is in marble French proverb. I don't know who came up with it, but I thought it was helpful at this juncture. So these are sentences that have helped the Crabtree over 50 years. And if you don't like these sentences, we'll we'll move to the next one. God for can forgive your spouse without talking to you about it.

16:56He doesn't need your permission to forgive your spouse. Your spouse might have a clear conscience already about something that you just wish they'd get straightened around the sins of others against you are instruments in God's hand to mature you. Stephen said this, the offender's offenses against me are not a valid reason for refusing to treat him as God's appointed agent for my own sanctification, I'm so grateful for Vicky and um, I chose her and I would choose her again. But the longer I'm married to her, the more I firmly believe God chose her for me. I wasn't smart enough. She is the main agent, not the only agent, but the main agent for my growing up.

17:54We were talking at our table over here. It's not that you grow up and get married, it, you get married and then grow up. Or we've said to our kids, you raised us. And, and I thank God for this Vicky who is a sinner. She will sin and some of her sins will be against me. They will cost me. They will inconvenience me. They will betray me. They will leave me behind. They will reject me, belittle me. That's what sins do. And that's an agent of God's sanctifying work in my life. Forgiveness cancels the demand that the offender somehow save you from your pain. It's too late. The offense has already occurred.

18:51Forgiveness assumes the cost. And it can be outrageously costly. If we, if we took time in here to chronicle all the sins that have happened in your marriage. I'm sure there would be some, some whoppers that you have felt for decades. The consequences and the outcomes flowing out of it. Forgiveness asks for the invoice for the damages and hands it over, hallelujah to Jesus. What do you think he was doing on the cross? He took all the offenses written against us and he nailed them there, not just between God and us.

19:34Released the offender from his debt and from your judgment and entrust him to God. Plead with God for the grace to enable you to stop keeping score. I think this is a big one. It's a big one for me, is to stop rehearsing that. Quit replaying that tape loop. Oh, she did it again. Oh, she did it again. And then you keep, you're keeping score. It's not as though you can't remember. I mean, if she cuts off one of your legs and later she cuts off another, you can count to two. But well, we're gonna get to that in a minute. Vengeance belongs to the Lord and he's way better at it than we are. When I was teaching in the public school classroom sixth graders, and I really wanted one of the students to get it.

20:23I would ask the class what they thought we should do. They would choose something more harsh than the teacher would choose. God is way better at punishing unrepented sin than we are. And he's better at forgiving sin than we are. Mark Twain said, forgiveness is the fragrance. The violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. You get the picture there. This heel steps on a flower and walks away. And what do you know? It smells like the flower. And the flower doesn't smell like the boot. Be a model of forgiveness, not a judge of forgiveness. So do you want forgiveness to happen in your marriage? Then look in the mirror.

21:08How are you doing? Not how is your spouse doing at it? It's one of the risks of any marriage talk really as we start thinking, yeah, she could really benefit from this right here. She should hope she's listening, paying attention. If you're not yet willing to forgive, are you willing to become willing? This is so helpful because sometimes the, the wound is very deep and the hurt is massive and you're not there yet. You're not there yet. But are you willing to go there? Are you willing to become willing? Then you can pray about that. That's an action point. You don't have to just sit there and simmer and sizzle.

21:52You can proactively say, God helped me to become as merciful towards this person as you are to this person. I must either confront the sin or cover the sin. I must not cook it. It says Robert Jones. That's a good line I think. Cuz we, we tend to cook it. That's part of the score. Keeping and harboring ill will and becoming embittered and recalling those offenses against the offender. So here's some practicality I hope measures you can take to not cook it. Thank God for the sanctifying effect. This experience is designed to accomplish. So you've been offended and, and God has some good for you in being offended that way.

22:37Maybe we're gonna come to this. Maybe he just wants you humbled. Maybe he wants you to learn to persevere, learn to endure. Learn to forgive. Maybe he wants you to learn compassion for other people who've been offended. God has good for you in being offended. So go on the hunt for it. Welcome the humility of knowing you're not worshiped by the offender.

23:06That's part of the humility. I guess. They don't think I'm so hot because they, uh, just transgressed against me. Well, that's good for me. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. If there's one thing we need, it's grace. And he gives it to the humble. If there's one thing we don't need, it's God's resistance. He resists the proud. So take the humility of having been sinned against God himself is sinned against. Ask God to clear debris from your mind. Enable you to focus instead on whatever is true and honorable and just, and pure and lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise.

23:45Have you heard any of that preached recently at this church out of Philippians? Yes. Let your thoughts go there and then commend the commendable. I wrote a whole book on that. And you can get that in the bookstore. You can see me for 29 95 and act now and we'll throw in the kitchen knives that Vicky's tempted to throw at me when I'm not behaving. Forgiveness is not. Now here's some, some correctives. It's not saying it's okay. It doesn't matter. That is not forgiveness. It's not okay if it was okay. It doesn't need to be forgiven. It's not okay. We're forgiving something that's not okay and it matters.

24:34It's not justifying or excusing it. I, well, you were tired or I was tired or, and we could pile up. We could get out a piece of paper at each table now and pile up the excuses that we use to cover sin. Ours and, and others. Oh, the, they're just children. Well, there's a difference between being a child and being naughty. Well, I've had a long day at work, not an excuse for sin.

25:09Okay, fasten your seat belt seat belts here and put on your tra your crash helmets. Well, it's that time of the month. That's not an excuse for sin. Trying to erase from memory. I, I'm trying to forget it and I just can't forget it. We're gonna come back to that. If time permits asking the offender to understand how hurt you, you just don't understand how badly that wounded me. They may never understand. That's, that's not the goal of forgiveness. The goal of forgiveness is to release them from the debt making the offender pay. There's the, the debt and there's a thousand ways we can make the offender pay in marriage.

25:56I think Brian said it at the, at the very outset, we know how to push each other's buttons in marriage and forgiveness doesn't get into that button pushing game. It's also not peace at any price. I think Brian also talked about this, that there's a time to confront, there's a time to exhort. There's a time to rebuke in marriage. There's a time for that. And it's also not first and foremost a feeling, a feel like forgiving. You may have to act on faith at the early going, Neither forgiveness nor forbearance means denial didn't happen. That's not us. I didn't see it. It's not minimizing. Well, it was just, just a little, it was just a little amputation of one leg. Um, sins are sins there. I think there are, um, greater and lesser sins in the economy of God in certain contexts.

27:03But to say that, well, it was just a little thing. When you're talking about it, it's a thing. If it's gnawing at you, it's a thing, a significant thing. It's not holding the offender hostage that you're gonna withdraw something or withhold something from them until they manifest the kind of behavior that you're looking for in a controlling kind of a way. It's not biting time while accumulating tally marks. Okay, I'm gonna forgive at this time. I'm gonna, I'm, I'm, we're getting close to 70 times seven and then bang. It's not, that's not forgiveness, it's not withdrawal. Okay, now I'm preaching to be here. This, this is a, a weakness that I've brought to our marriage. I don't wanna fight with Vicky.

27:49I don't wanna disturb the atmosphere. I don't want to, I I don't want us to raise the decibel level of our voices and, and set our teeth on edge and not just, I don't want, so I'll go mow the lawn, I'll go wash the car, I'll go ride the bike. A problem with that is then when I just go wash the car, cuz I'm just gonna go wash the car. I can leave. Vicky wondering, what did I do now? Cuz he's washing the car.

28:21So be careful about withdrawal. So there have been times in recent years, and Vicky can confirm this, there'll be times when I'll stand there and say this, I'm not withdrawing. Might not know exactly what to say or where this conversation is gonna go, but I'm not withdrawing. I'm, I'm still here. We're together in this becoming a doormat. Some can misunderstand all this and say, well, I'm just, you know, forgiveness means I just need to let them trample all over me. No way, call the cops. I'm serious.

29:06There's certain behaviors that you should not be passive about and you can forgive them. But there are still consequences that will be born from those offenses. There's a significant difference between remembering and remembering against. So when, when we think of God casting all of our sea, our, our sins into the sea of forgetfulness, it doesn't mean that he suddenly is not omniscient, that he can't remember them. He, he knows them all. He knows my sins better than I know my sins, but he doesn't remember them against me. He doesn't, if, if he marked our sins, who could stand? The Bible says. So we might remember. I remember that she cut off both my legs. I remember that.

29:50You know, I look down and I remember it, but not against her. I'm not gonna hold this against you, meaning I'm going to bless you. Not just that I'm not gonna do this. I am gonna do this. I'm gonna be a blessing to you. Do not remember against us our former ties. That's, that's God. Forgiveness doesn't erase all the consequences of the sins. Even, even if it, it makes it possible for the relationship to be restored bottom line. But it replaces ill will against the offender with goodwill. I'm going to invest in the person who cost me something. I'm going to be a goodness to them to forgive us, to clear the record of wrong and allow God to love the offender through me.

30:36That's more than just stopping the bad. That's adding in the good. Not score, keeping slash judging, but investing, blessing, blessing. Finding a way that I can be an energy giver to this person who has offended me and cost me something. The first move is my move. The second is my move. Guess what? So is the third. It's always my move. Otherwise I get into score keeping. I keep thinking, well, it's their turn.

31:17You do what you're to do in the strength that God gives you. Forbearance. Here's some texts on forbearance and we'll circle for a landing here. The vaccination of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult. We do want to forgive and we want that to lead to reconciliation. We do, we do. But sometimes the other person is just, they can't get there or they're dead. You, you can't reconcile to them. They're gone.

31:46Ignore it. You have to find a place to say, I'm not gonna think about that. Which means you're coming up on an impossibility. It's like if I said to you, don't think about this clicker, this remote control. Don't think about it. Okay, start now not thinking about it. It's this, this black thing that's about five inches long that says Logitech right here. Don't think about it now. And it's got these controls. You're thinking about it. Don't think about this. You can't not think about something because you have to remind yourself what it is I'm not supposed to be thinking about. And then you think about it.

32:28So rather fill up your mind with something that would be good to think about, like the Philippians four, eight that we saw earlier. Whatever is true and lovely and a good report, et cetera. Proverbs 26, for lack of wood, a fire goes out. A lot of fires in marriages just need to burn out. Just don't put another log on that fire, let it go. A a good sense makes one slow to anger and it is his glory to overlook an offense. Seek glory in your marriage by overlooking well, it happened again. So what on we go. I love you. It is my privilege to be God's agent, to love you. To repeat Colossians three that we saw earlier, put on them as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience bearing with one another.

33:23And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you. So you also must forgive. Let me pray. I ask now, father that you would rescue me from being a hypocrite about this, talking about mercy and being harsh toward Vicki. Help me to love in such a way that I keep no record of wrongs. Help me to invest in her, be a blessing to her, build her up, commend the commendable. And I pray for these marriages here, that, um, a lot of the stuff that is supposed to be put away according to these texts would be put away. That's it. It's buried in a hole in the backyard and cause us to be agents of love to one another.

34:20And I include romance there, but I'm not thinking mainly romance. I'm thinking help us to invest in one another's wellbeing. Our sanctification, our eternal happiness and our temporal happiness help us to be good to one another. For some of us that might mean just being civil for a while, but I pray that the, the, uh, tendrils of love would grow deep and strong and sweet in these marriages. I ask in the name of the bride groom. Amen.

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