Marriage Lesson 4 Forgiving and Forbearing

Marriage Lesson 4 

Forgiving and Forbearing 

But first let’s have a review on the previous Lesson “Making Children Disciples”.


When we think we’ve blown it – we place our hope in the Lord.

Ps 31:24 Be strong, and let your heart take courage, All you who hope in the LORD.

 

It is not perfection in life that we are seeking… it is the direction of our life that we are taking.

Our lives are not one trip, it is an enduring Journey – not a snapshot, but a movie.

 

More important than our failures, are our rebounds.

The redeemed responds to God when we hear His voice, and we follow Him…that is what matters.

 

At some point, our children stand “accountable” on their own before the Lord

 

Parents, if you

Pr 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go

And should he fall along the way...

Even when he is old, he will not depart from it… (That Training)...he will always know where to go when he falls...

 

Parents, you have done your job.

 

“Parents provide the kindling for God to start the Fire”.

 

NOW, to the Lesson at hand - Forgiving and Forbearing

 

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
COL 3 : 12-19

 

Why this emphasis on forgiving (sin) and forbearing (strangeness)?

 

1. Because there is going to be conflict based on sin, we need to forgive sin and forbear strangeness, and sometimes you won’t even agree on which is which. 


“Because of sin….” Review:

“Because of Adams Fall, none of us are compatible! Every marriage is still affected by the curse.”

 

Thus…our only hope to remain together is to FORGIVE the offense because we can’t find compatibility with sinfulness! We have no where else to go.

 

Forgive: “freely or graciously give.” The idea is that when we forgive, we do not exact a payment. 

 

We not only don’t demand the payment (getting even), but we “freely give” good for evil. That is the meaning of this word forgive. Your ordinary disposition is forgiving—you do not return evil for evil, but you bless - THAT IS SUPERNATURAL! (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:27; 1 Cor. 4:12; 1 Thess. 5:15). 

 

“Because of Strangeness….” Review:

Husbands and wives, stop looking for those psychological traits or weird background realities from the family abyss.

Forbear or bear with

The word is literally endure—enduring each other. 

 

Paul uses it again in 1 Cor 4:12: “When persecuted, we endure.” That’s the meaning here: Become long-suffering persons and endure each other. Forbear. 

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Cor. 13:7–8). 

 

2. Because the hard, rugged work of forgiving and forbearing is what makes it possible for affections to flourish when they seem to have died.

 

There must be a biblical pattern of forbearance and forgiveness that can keep you from reaching the point of separation, and maybe even bring some of you back from the brink—perhaps even restore some marriages that the world calls “divorced.” 

 

And, in hope, this will also sow seeds in single people who may one day be married, so that they will build their marriage on this rock of grace. 

 

3. Because God gets glory when two very different and very imperfect people forge a life of faithfulness in the furnace of affliction by relying on Christ. 

 

“For Better or for Worse”

 

Paul recognizes that both forgiving and forbearing are crucial for life together—whether in church or marriage. 

 

Forgiveness and Forbearance says: I will not treat you badly because of your sins against me or your ANNOYING HABITS. 

 

And forbearance acknowledges (usually to itself): Those sins against me and those annoying habits really bother me or hurt me! 

If there were nothing in the other person that really bothered us or hurt us, there would be no need for saying “endure one another.”

 

When you marry a person, you don’t know what they are going to be like in thirty years. 

That’s why these vows were crafted “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, honor, and cherish, ’til death do us part, and thereto I plight thee my troth [I pledge you my faithfulness].” 

 

This is Real, Living faith!!

 

Women, be careful who you marry!

 

Speaking of Faith… (2 Cor 5.7), sort of...

 

There may be at least ONE TIME in a person’s life where at least TWO people will walk by SIGHT

 

That time is when the Minister officiates over a couple and says, “I now pronounce you Man and Wife.”

At that second in time, there is Sight! This is the one I will marry.

Immediately following the pronouncement, the two walk by faith into a ONE new life as ONE.

 

You don’t know what this person will be like in the future. It could be better than you ever dreamed, or worse. Our hope is based on this

 

We are chosen, holy, and loved. God is for us, and all things will work for the good of those who love him and are called according to His purpose

 

Rom 8.28: And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Ps 23.6: Surely goodness and loving-kindness will “pursue” me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Ps 84.11: For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

 

We are chosen, holy, and loved. God is for us, and all things will work for the good of those who love him and are called according to His purpose

 

IN THIS LIFE YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW!!!

Not in some other life…not when this marriage is over – IN THIS MARRIAGE!

 

Too often we miss the gest of this verse:

Rom 8.32: He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

 

We only see that last half of the verse about “Getting”

We miss the first part of the verse about the “Giver”.

 

We get it backwards... You see, He did the hard thing already when He gave His Son…the easy thing is the rest of the verse. 

 

We think that the hard thing is the freely given things.

 

We are chosen, holy, and loved

Col 3.12

And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.


Chosen

We are God’s elect. Before the foundation of the world, God chose us in Christ. 

Romans 8:33: “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” 

The answer is that absolutely nobody can make a charge stick against God’s elect. Paul wants us to feel the wonder of being elect as being invincibly loved. If you resist the truth of election, you resist being loved in the fullness and the sweetness of God’s love. 

 

Holy 

Then he calls us holy—that is, set apart for God. He chose us for a purpose—to be his holy people. To come out of the world and not be common or unclean anymore. 

Eph 1:4: “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy.” 

1 Peter 2:9: “You are a chosen race . . . a holy nation.”

This is first a position and a destiny before it is a pattern of behavior. That is why he is telling us the kind of behavior to “put on.” He knows we are not there yet practically. He is calling us to become holy in life because we are holy in Christ. Dress to fit who you are. Wear holiness. 

 

Loved

Then he calls us loved. “God’s chosen onesholy and beloved.” If you are a believer in Christ, God, the maker of the universe, chose you, set you apart for himself, and loves you. He is for you and not against you. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). 

 

On this basis now—on the basis of this profound, new, God- centered identity as chosen, holy, and loved—we are told what to “put on.” That is, we are told what kind of attitude and behavior fits with, and flows from, being chosen, set apart, and loved by God through Christ. 

 

This is the beginning of how husbands and wives forbear and forgive. They are blown away by being chosenset apart, and loved by God. 

 

Do not blow one another away with your sin. “No Dumping”

Get your life from this. Get your joy from this. Get your hope from this—that you are chosenset apart, and loved by God. Plead with the Lord that this would be the heartbeat of your life and your marriage. 

 

If we are to go FORWARD, we must look BACKWARD

 

The Future of our Marriage rests in the History of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection.

 

The Condition of my marriage will always be dependent on my Position in Christ.

 

Setting Sail in a life of Marriage is always anchored back at the Cross.

 

Pipers’ Compost (pg 59)

 

Your relationship is the field and the flowers and the rolling hills. 

 

But before long, you begin to step in cow pies. Some seasons of your marriage they may seem to be everywhere. Late at night they are especially prevalent. 

 

These are the sins and flaws and idiosyncrasies and weaknesses and annoying habits in you and in your spouse. 

 

You try to forgive them and endure them with grace. 

But they have a way of dominating the relationship. 

It may not even be true, but sometimes it feels like that’s all there is—cow pies. 

The combination of forbearance and forgiveness leads to the creation of a compost pile. That’s where you shovel the cow pies. 

 

You both look at each other and simply admit that there are a lot of cow pies. 

 

But you say to each other: 

You know, there is more to this relationship than cow pies. And we are losing sight of that because we keep focusing on these cow pies. Let’s throw them all in the compost pile. “

 

But one thing we know: We will not pitch our tent by the compost pile. We will only go there when we must. This is a gift of grace that we will give each other again and again and again—because we are chosen and holy and loved. 

 

We are not naïve; these two redeemed sinners will go to their graves imperfect and annoying. 

 

Grace not only gives power to endure being sinned against, it also gives power to stop sinning.

Marriage is based on God’s grace toward us. 

 

Over time, marriage is not just “Grinning and Bearing It” … “Forgiving and Forebearing”...

God gives grace not only to forgive and to forbear, but also to change, so that less forgiving and forbearing is needed. 

  

That too is a gift of grace. Grace is not just the power to return good for evil; it is also the power to do less evil—even power to be less bothersome. 

 

Grace makes you want to change for the glory of Christ and for the joy of your spouse. And grace is the power to do it. 


 

So, when will my spouse start changing?

 

“Finally, you are going to stop telling me to endure her and start telling her to change.” 

Focus first on YOUR need to change, not on your spouse. 

It may be that your spouse is sinning against you far more than you are against him or her. But you will not give an account for that to the Lord Jesus. You will give an account for your responses to it. That is the great battle. 

Why put the emphasis on forgiveness and forbearance first? 

This emphasis came first because it’s the essential rock-solid foundation for change. FIRST, to FORGIVE the other. 

Rugged covenant- keeping commitment based on grace gives security and hope so the call for change can be heard without feeling like a threat. 

Only when a wife or husband feels that the other is totally committed—even if he or she doesn’t change—can the call for change feel like grace rather than an ultimatum. 

 

What does forgiving do for the one who is forgiving? And note that forgiveness is not just a one-time thing for one event. It is a forgiving heart toward the other that inhales mercy from God and exhales grace to another.

 

It releases the one of bitterness and resentment.

 

As said, “when one forgives another, someone is set free; and, that someone is me.”

 

Eph 4:31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

 

Heb 12:15 See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;

 

Eph 4.30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. (To bring sorrow and hurt to the Holy Spirit)

That means obey the Word of God.

1 Thess 5.19  Do not quench the Spirit; (extinguish, put out, diminish the desire to forgive and love.)

 

There is never a time when we are more like Christ than when we forgive. (JMAC)

In Christ’s relationship to the church, he is clearly seeking the transformation of his bride into something morally and spiritually beautiful. And he is seeking it at the cost of his life. 

 

Forgiveness does not let the offender, or the one forgiven, off the hook before God, but it does bring miraculous freedom to the one forgiving.

 

It does reveal to the one forgiven a grace that is underserved … maybe ... stirring a response of release and acceptance and perhaps reciprocation.

 

Navigating through some dangers…Piper pg 66

 

Speaking of “Change”, Husbands, be aware that what change you seek in your wife is not actually some selfish desires cloaked in spiritual language.

 

Be Alert to the selfish, small-minded, controlling husband who has no sense of the difference between enriching dissimilarities between him and his wife and moral and spiritual weaknesses or defects that should be changed. 

 

This is a distorted love where a man thinks it’s his mandate to control every facet of his wife’s behavior.

 

Piper refers to some husbands who are “Pathological” in their understanding of a wife’s submission.

 

Related to “Pathology”: a condition altered or caused by a disease being such to a degree that is extreme, excessive, or markedly abnormal - a pathological liar - pathological fear… Pathologically Controlling.

 

One woman told Piper, as they were sorting through their dysfunctional relationship, that her husband demanded that she get permission for going to the bathroom. 

 

“Certain kinds of minds seem unable to bring many truths to bear on a relationship at one time. They are small, narrow, sick minds. They oversimplify. They distort. They ruin. There is no justification to twist anything thus said for a man to behave in such a way.”

 

Again, Ladies, be careful who you marry…“Marrying a Man of God” (see blog)

 

Eph 5.25-27

Principles by which to follow for change in your spouse:

 

1.     The Husband Is Not Christ

The husband is like Christ, which means he is not Christ. 

Verse 23: “The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.” 

The word as does not mean that the husband is like Christ in every way. 

The husband is finite in strength, not omnipotent like Christ. 

The husband is finite and fallible in wisdom, not all-wise like Christ. 

The husband is sinful, not perfect like Christ. Therefore, we husbands dare not assume we are infallible. We sometimes err in what we would like to see changed in our wives. That’s the first observation.

 

2. Conformity to Christ, Not to the Husband:

 

The aim of the godly husband’s desire for change in his wife is conformity to Christ, not conformity to himself. 

Notice the key words in verses 26–27. 

Verse 26: “that he [Christ] might sanctify her.” Verse 27: “that he [Christ] might present the church to himself in splendor.”

Verse 27 again: “that she might be holy.” These words—sanctifysplendorholy—imply that our desires for our wives are measured by God’s standard of holiness, not our standard of personal preferences

 

3. Dying for the Wife:

 

The most important: 

 

What Paul draws attention to most amazingly is that the way Christ pursues his bride’s transformation is by dying for her. 

V25–26: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her.” 

This is the most radical thing that could ever be said to a husband about the way he leads his wife into conformity to Christ in the covenant of marriage. 

Husbands, are we pursuing her conformity to Christ by lording it over her or by dying for her? When we lead her or even, if necessary, confront her, are we self-exalting or self-denying? Is there contempt or compassion? 

 

If a husband is loving and wise like Christ in all these ways, his desire for his wife’s change will feel, to a humble wife, like she is being served, not humiliated. 

Christ clearly desires for his bride to grow in holiness. But HE IS THE ONE WHO DIED, not the bride, in orderto bring it about. 

 

So we husbands should govern our desire for our wife’s change by the self-denying death of Christ. May God give us the humility and the courage to measure our methods by the sufferings of Christ.

 

Titus 2.14: who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

 

Wives changing Husbands:

 

Don’t be this wife: A wife decided to divorce her husband after years of changing him. Her grounds for divorce was because he was no longer the man she married.

 

What headship and submission are not..

Remember that a husband’s headship is not identical to Christ’s headship. It is like it. Similarly, therefore, the wife’s submission to the husband is not identical to her submission to Christ. It is like it. 

 

When Eph 5:22 says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord,” the word as does not mean that Christ and the husband are the same. 

 

Christ is supreme; the husband is not. 

Her allegiance is first to Christ, not first to her husband.

The analogy only works if the woman submits to Christ absolutely, not to the husband absolutely. 

 

Then she will be in a position to submit to the husband without committing treason or idolatry. 

What this implies is that a wife will see the need for change in her husband. 

 

He is not perfect like Christ is. 

He is flawed. 

Therefore, the wife may and should seek the transformation of her husband, even while respecting him as her head—her leader, protector, and provider. Who would care more than You?

The Analogy of Prayer:

Since we are the bride of Christ and we go to Him in prayer, and we have this analogy where the wife is the bride of her husband she may, and we ask him to change some ways he is doing things. 

 

All Husbands need to change:

 

Unlike Christ, we are sinful and finite and fallible. We need to change. That is a clear and universal New Testament teaching. 

All men and women need to change. 

 

Danger of Nagging

 

The word nag exists in English to warn us that there is such a thing as excessive exhortation. 

1 Pet 3.1 In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives,

“Without a word” means, don’t badger him. Don’t nag him. Be as wise as a serpent and as innocent as a dove (Matt. 10:16).

 

Discern whether any word would be heard. Mainly, Peter says, try to win your husband by your “respectful and pure conduct” (1 Pet. 3:2). 

 

 



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