Dale Partridge - Ultimate Marriage #14： How to Confess, Repent, and Redeem Sin in Your Marriage

00:00:00.000 welcome to ultimate marriage today we are gonna be talking about how to confess repent and redeem

00:00:17.100 sin in your marriage so pretty important topic I think we are you know people who sin and we need

00:00:27.100 to understand how to confess that sin, repent that sin, and redeem that sin. And I don't think that

00:00:34.800 these things are very common biblical topics, but I don't see the church talking about them

00:00:40.700 that much. Confession is hard. Yeah. It's humiliating. Right. Which is a good reason

00:00:47.500 to not do it again. Yeah. So, and, you know, repenting is hard. We know that repenting is

00:00:54.220 defined as turning away from. It means you've turned away from that lifestyle, that way of

00:00:59.860 being. I think of that quote, changed behavior is the best apology. And that's kind of the

00:01:09.960 concept of repentance. It's changed behavior. And then redemption, just the whole redeeming

00:01:15.140 of that process where you're getting back to square one, completely unified with your spouse

00:01:18.940 again. And that's again, a process that, uh, I think a lot of couples struggle with. Um,

00:01:25.300 you know, they might do it in, in, uh, you know, in verbal context, but they're actually not

00:01:30.880 emotionally and spiritually unified again. Um, so a couple of things guys, one, if you're watching

00:01:36.980 us on YouTube, would you guys subscribe to our YouTube channel? Uh, that'd be awesome. And if

00:01:43.240 you're listening to this as a podcast, uh, you can also watch it on YouTube. And one thing that

00:01:48.320 really does help the exposure of the show. And this is actually part of iTunes algorithm

00:01:52.000 is leaving a review. Uh, we are currently the highest and most rated marriage podcast on iTunes.

00:02:00.560 And it's because you guys have left reviews and the content is getting out and it's saving

00:02:05.420 marriages. I can't tell you guys how many couples we've had write us and just tell us incredible

00:02:13.260 stories um and i mean veronica gets emailed and wrote all the time you know what are you hearing

00:02:19.200 from people uh just how much of a blessing the show has been to them um you know we're finally

00:02:26.020 hearing what the bible actually says instead of tiptoeing around scripture um and it's actually

00:02:31.900 transformed their marriages yeah and so we that's our hope and our mission is to help just bring

00:02:37.240 uh you know ultimately help people build a biblical marriage and so how do you build a

00:02:42.580 biblical marriage in a broken world. And that's what we're here to do. So if you guys would be

00:02:46.600 interested in just leaving a review, you don't even have to write a review. Just tap the stars

00:02:50.140 in the iTunes app and that would be sufficient for us. Um, okay. So, um, uh, you know, we had a

00:02:57.140 really great, um, uh, we had a really great marriage retreat. I want to talk about that.

00:03:04.360 So we just got back from our marriage retreat. Yeah. And if, for, if this happens to be your

00:03:08.920 first time listening, we host a marriage retreat twice a year. So we just had one this past weekend

00:03:14.280 and it was awesome. Yeah. It's the ultimate marriage retreat. We had 17 couples join us

00:03:19.660 from all over the country and I guess out of the country too. We had some people from Canada come

00:03:24.580 and, um, people from Atlanta and Illinois and Las Vegas and California. I mean, it was just

00:03:31.420 everywhere. Yeah. All over the place. And, um, guys, God showed up in a huge way. We had some

00:03:37.000 massive spiritual breakthroughs. Um, you know, men, you know, grown men breaking down in tears,

00:03:45.900 uh, for just the spiritual change that's happening. And, and guys, just to be clear,

00:03:50.100 this isn't a retreat for emergency crisis marriages. Yeah. This was a retreat for

00:03:57.720 marriages that are already typically pretty healthy and they just are needing an extra step,

00:04:02.320 to grow closer and connected.

00:04:05.040 Yeah, so to have a marriage or a man

00:04:07.140 just break down in tears there,

00:04:08.960 it's not necessarily because of sin

00:04:13.300 that's being redeemed.

00:04:14.960 It's actually just for growth.

00:04:17.740 And so we saw that.

00:04:19.000 Families decided to have more children.

00:04:22.120 We had mothers that said,

00:04:23.600 we're going to go home and take our children 0.92

00:04:25.140 out of the public school system

00:04:26.280 and start homeschooling.

00:04:27.240 Just so much big, giant decisions

00:04:31.740 that were being made based off of the content that we talked about.

00:04:35.060 We go very deep.

00:04:36.840 And also, we have these really cool workbooks

00:04:40.360 that people get a chance to go deep with each other.

00:04:43.260 And they get to ask those hard questions

00:04:44.960 that we don't get to ask that often.

00:04:48.640 And a lot of people are just longing for Scripture.

00:04:50.780 They're longing for biblical community.

00:04:52.100 They're homesick for that.

00:04:54.160 And that was the general, I guess, trend that we saw there.

00:04:58.100 And it really reminded, I think, Veronica and I

00:05:00.600 how powerful the truth is when it's delivered in love and um and that's been that's what we try to

00:05:09.860 do here i mean some people we've had some people write us i like your podcast but you're too harsh

00:05:14.000 um you know i think that is probably sent to every pastor on the planet at some point

00:05:19.260 um you know i i'm constantly trying to make sure okay how do we deliver the truth in love

00:05:25.700 um but we were blessed and greatly encouraged and i think it just made us feel we're gonna read we're

00:05:32.620 gonna keep doing these for the rest of our lives they're just so fruitful yeah it was it was so

00:05:36.500 much fun the venue was beautiful um it was nice quaint cozy um and then and it was in fall and we

00:05:43.720 we got there seriously like at the peak of the most beautiful time of fall all of the trees are

00:05:49.360 like vibrant and red and yellow and it was it was just gorgeous yeah and um yeah the lodging was

00:05:55.920 awesome everyone had their own little private cabin um and with a little mini kitchen in it too

00:06:03.900 so that was really nice for some of the guests who had some food allergies are able to

00:06:07.500 yeah their own food there um but the food was all paid for provided with their um if you guys are

00:06:13.120 watching i'm i have a fly in our studio it always happens guys it's a big deal yep um and then the

00:06:19.460 dinner hall one of our nights was it was gorgeous it was called the great hall um in the venue and

00:06:25.800 it was like i felt like i was in beauty and the beast like in this just grand hall i felt like

00:06:31.200 there should be women twirling around in ballroom gowns it was gorgeous so beautiful yeah it was

00:06:36.980 just so awesome and um yeah we just had so many new relationships yeah we had lots of fun we made

00:06:42.880 so many new friends and it's so nice every time we do this because you get to meet people from

00:06:47.980 all over the country or even the world. Last time we had somebody from Israel, this time we had

00:06:52.160 two people from Canada or two couples from Canada. And so we get to meet people from all over the

00:06:56.980 country, all over the world. And so it's nice to have that anytime we travel, we're like,

00:07:01.720 Hey, we know people here. Let's connect with them. Um, so that was really fun. Um, and we just want

00:07:07.460 to let you know, if you guys are interested in attending something like that, you can go ahead,

00:07:11.760 to one of the ultimate marriage retreats, you can go ahead and go to ultimate marriage.com

00:07:15.240 forward slash retreat. And we would love to get to know you guys. Yeah. Just go ahead and apply

00:07:20.020 there. And I would love to have you guys at our next retreat. So let's go ahead and get started

00:07:26.620 for today's conversation. Yeah. So resentment and bitterness are the great destroyers of marriages

00:07:33.200 today. And as you have listened to the show before, if you know of Dale and I, if you've

00:07:37.700 heard of anything that we've shared before on marriage, you probably know that the first two

00:07:41.840 years of our marriage were really, really hard and we really struggled. And I especially really

00:07:47.520 struggled of letting go of faults that Dale had caused in our marriage, even after he had

00:07:52.640 apologized. Um, I was quite mean and angry and bitter. And I would, I was like the queen of

00:08:02.300 holding grudges. I would hold grudges for days at a time. And I think, um, a scripture that's

00:08:07.400 really important for us to remember in hebrews 12 15 it says see to it that no one fails to obtain

00:08:13.340 the grace of god that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many 0.56

00:08:18.340 become defiled so root of bitterness in first century hebrew culture represents a poisonous

00:08:25.580 plant so actually what the author is saying is bitterness is poisonous to your soul it is yeah

00:08:34.980 And this is a really important concept to just like grasp on for a second is that bitterness is designed to hurt you.

00:08:43.240 Yeah.

00:08:43.740 And obviously, if it's harmful to your soul, it's harmful to your marriage.

00:08:47.160 Yeah.

00:08:47.680 And it causes people to remain wounded, spiteful, angry.

00:08:51.120 And when it grows, it can hurt a lot of people.

00:08:53.620 So in my bitterness and my anger and my resentment towards you, I'm sure you can remember times that I caused pain and hurt to you.

00:09:01.380 Yeah.

00:09:02.040 Yeah. 1.00

00:09:02.380 It's literally drinking poison in your marriage.

00:09:04.180 And it's, it's, it's super dangerous. And I can't tell you guys how many emails we get that are from, ultimately aren't healing because of bitterness. A root of bitterness is in one of the spouses or both of the spouses. And so, and behind that bitterness, again, is pride. It's, it's forgetfulness of the forgiveness has been given to us by Christ. There's so much behind it we want to unpack with you guys today.

00:09:26.920 but it's serious we got to start at the core of this this whole thing guys is are we going to be

00:09:33.520 Christian or not are we actually going to behave like Christians not just believe like Christians

00:09:38.880 but behave like Christians so that we don't seem like hypocrites to our spouse we don't seem like

00:09:43.380 hypocrites to people that are watching our marriages but we're actually our children yeah

00:09:47.280 hypocrites to our children but we're actually going to just walk out the biblical text as it 0.99

00:09:52.480 says as Christ desires us to walk it out. And so, you know, this scripture, you know, when you look 0.93

00:09:58.660 at the, I believe, you know, each passage of scripture has one intended meaning, and the

00:10:03.900 author intended a certain meaning in that context. So I get that this, for you theologians that are

00:10:10.420 listening, this passage of scripture is actually a reference to a church not allowing someone to

00:10:16.240 fall away from the gospel and become bitter with the church and remain there, because it'll

00:10:22.160 actually pull many away. It'll pull many away from the grace of Christ. But the principles of

00:10:27.740 this concept are still the same. And I also believe that the affirmation of having, you know,

00:10:33.920 not letting a root of bitterness is supported throughout the Old Testament, supported through

00:10:37.680 the Proverbs, and obviously through the New Testament. So I think it's a great concept that

00:10:43.180 we could talk about today. And there's some other scriptures that we're going to be mentioning as

00:10:45.940 well. But the lesson really is this, that someone who has a root of bitterness growing within

00:10:52.140 them affects everyone they come in contact with. It's not just like you could be bitter with

00:10:58.740 somebody and then compartmentalize that bitterness towards just that person. I really do believe it

00:11:03.440 affects everybody and all of your relationships. Yeah, it comes out. It manifests. Yeah. And what

00:11:07.800 I mean is that any root bears fruit. So you guys got to remember that. Any root bears fruit. If you

00:11:13.220 have a root of joy, it's going to bear joyful fruit. If you have a root of bitterness, it's

00:11:18.020 going to bear this root of, of, you know, frustration, contention. Yeah. And people

00:11:24.840 feel it. They can feel it. And, um, you can tell when somebody's bitter, especially in their

00:11:30.320 marriage, when they're talking about their husband or their spouse, they've got like these little

00:11:34.460 subtle jokes that they call, but you can tell that there's not a joke. You can tell there's

00:11:39.260 something there that they're, they're bitter about. Yeah. And we see it all the time with

00:11:43.480 couples that bicker. Guys, if you bicker, stop it. It's unbiblical. It's not what the Lord wants

00:11:49.600 for you. Christ and his church don't bicker back and forth at each other. And so stop the bickering.

00:11:55.560 I mean, it's something that we need to recognize. It's small, but it's still sinful. And you need

00:12:00.280 to work at that. If it's something that you've kind of just allowed to be in your marriage,

00:12:02.820 don't let that happen. And the bitterness, again, any root bears fruit. And you're feeding that

00:12:09.060 poisonous fruit to your spouse and to your children and to everybody that comes in contact

00:12:14.560 with you. You're, you're feeding that poisonous fruit. Like that's what you're doing when you

00:12:18.560 allow a bitter root to take form and take growth. Uh, when it becomes full grown, it's just,

00:12:27.120 and you know what, there's, you know, John Bevere wrote a book called The Bait of Satan.

00:12:32.180 and it's about the concept of being offended and that the church the world is so easily offended

00:12:41.640 but the church man first corinthians chapter 13 talks about love is not easily offended

00:12:46.400 we believe all things we hope all things and so bitterness offense woundedness spitefulness anger

00:12:55.940 all these things are really important and they're destroyers of marriage and it's it's why couples

00:13:02.800 have to figure out how to confess repent and redeem sinful moments within their marriage and

00:13:10.120 that's you know again the big conversation we're going to talk about today yeah so we're going to

00:13:15.300 be pulling a few um scriptures today and i'm going to go ahead and read them for us yep so um james

00:13:23.980 5 16 confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed

00:13:29.160 the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much and then the next scripture is going

00:13:35.400 to be matthew 5 23 through 24 therefore if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember

00:13:42.300 that your brother has something against you leave your gift there before the altar and go your way

00:13:48.140 first be reconciled to your brother then come and offer your gift and then the last one we're going

00:13:54.500 to be going over is going to be matthew 6 14 and 15 for if you forgive men of their trespasses your

00:14:02.580 heavenly father will also forgive you but if you do not forgive men their trespasses neither will

00:14:07.400 your father forgive you forgive your trespasses okay these are like this this content we're about

00:14:14.200 to talk about it's not like allegorical suggestive scripture this is this is doctrine of the faith

00:14:20.460 um i'm going to break down these three these three scriptures for you guys and kind of concept

00:14:25.420 veronica is going to add some points here as we talk to um but you know james 5 16 the first one

00:14:31.180 confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed the effective

00:14:35.480 fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much um so first off you know number one is healing comes

00:14:42.300 through confession and prayer. We have to recognize that. You know, I've been, I've been

00:14:47.020 doing the church thing in terms of being in a church community for what, you know, 14 years

00:14:53.980 about now. And, and I haven't seen a lot of confession. Not a lot of people have come and

00:14:59.580 confessed sins to me. And to be honest, for a long time, I really struggled confessing when I had

00:15:06.420 faults to other people as well. I don't think it's a very common practice in the church today. And

00:15:11.520 It's sad, and if it's not common in just relationships, it's probably not common in

00:15:15.420 your marriage. And so the entire purpose of confession is reconciliation and to be unified

00:15:21.880 again as one body in terms of the members of the body of Christ, but also one body, one flesh with

00:15:28.400 your spouse. That's the purpose of confession is the beginning to be reconciled so that you can

00:15:33.000 become unified again. You're not going to be able to be unified if you have sin. You know,

00:15:39.860 we always say that, you know, if you're a marriage, there's no shadows. You need to

00:15:44.560 live a life that has no shadows. You want to make sure that all those things are brought into the

00:15:48.540 light. Um, and so the second thing is confession is a humble act. It's, um, it's where we get the

00:15:56.780 word humiliation, humble and humiliation and humiliation is an incredible teacher

00:16:04.800 because it's super awkward.

00:16:07.560 And you never want to experience it again.

00:16:09.080 No, yeah.

00:16:09.780 It's uncomfortable.

00:16:10.660 Yeah, and if you've ever confessed something,

00:16:14.600 it hurts.

00:16:16.520 And the Lord designed it to not feel good

00:16:18.780 so that we would use it as a way to recognize,

00:16:23.120 okay, let's stay away from that.

00:16:25.160 Let's walk righteously.

00:16:26.500 But it's a powerful thing.

00:16:28.860 If I confess something to you that I've done,

00:16:32.220 how does it make you feel?

00:16:33.080 if you've sinned against me well i guess a sin a sin in general it's it hurts well but how does

00:16:39.720 it feel when i confess like do you trust me more or less oh yeah i absolutely trust you more yeah

00:16:44.200 and so yeah because i trust in the future that if you were to mess up again or sin that you would

00:16:51.080 come to me um instead of hiding it yeah and sometimes confession is it doesn't come in the

00:16:57.380 way of like i've been hiding this thing from you but it's something like like hey i should have

00:17:01.980 shouldn't have behaved that way i'm sorry um that the way i was behaving is is unacceptable it was

00:17:08.400 sinful and i'm not going to do it again and that that confession of that behavior that's the process

00:17:13.180 there and um you know when you're married you know when we talk about confession who's your

00:17:19.200 accountability partner your spouse your spouse is it's not you know your buddy that you know at

00:17:26.340 your church group you know when you're married your accountability partner is your spouse so

00:17:29.500 there should be a lot of confession going on, um, back and forth with your spouse.

00:17:34.260 And, um, confession can mean I'm sorry, or it could also mean, um, you already apologized

00:17:40.960 and I'm still mad and I'm sorry for that. And I'm working on getting past my bitterness.

00:17:46.200 Um, and just one thing I want to mention about this passage of scripture, that's really important.

00:17:50.880 It says, you know, James says to confess to one another and pray for one another that you might

00:17:55.140 be healed. Confess to who the faults are made, okay? I'm going to talk about this concept of

00:18:04.740 us confessing to everybody else except the person that we actually sinned against, which is a very

00:18:08.960 common practice in the church today, here in the next passage. But it mentions at the end of that

00:18:14.600 passage that the effective and fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. And I want you to pay

00:18:22.540 attention to that word righteous. I think what that scripture is talking about is that if you've

00:18:27.360 sinned, don't go tell your gross sin to someone else who struggles with that same sin. Yeah.

00:18:34.200 Go and confess that sin, one, to the person you've sinned against, but two, maybe to somebody

00:18:40.720 who doesn't struggle with that sin, who has conquered that sin, because it's actually even

00:18:45.620 more humbling when you go, let's just say it's pornography. You don't go and confess that sin

00:18:51.280 to the brother, or that also struggles with porn, that they can go, you know, oh, me too,

00:18:55.460 man, I understand. And that's as far as you get. Yeah, that's as far as you get.

00:18:59.600 It's just like, oh, okay, I got it off my chest. Yeah, you want to confess that to the

00:19:03.380 righteous man who doesn't struggle with that, that can actually, doesn't have a log in his eye,

00:19:09.440 it can actually bring correction, rebuke, exhortation to redeem that, put you back on

00:19:17.500 a correct path. And also to your spouse. And also to your spouse if you're married.

00:19:21.280 If you're not married, then then, yeah, you get to do that to a to a righteous man.

00:19:29.080 Yeah. So, yeah, like speaking of this, yeah, just last weekend, I actually had to confess something to Dale and ask for forgiveness.

00:19:38.840 And it's never easy to do that. It's extremely humbling to do it because.

00:19:44.980 because my marriage is more important than my pride and i need to remember that yeah and yeah

00:19:53.440 it's super uncomfortable and it's awkward but i have to remember that keeping sin and hiding

00:20:00.500 from your spouse especially if you sinned against your spouse is dangerous yeah and it's also just

00:20:06.500 like you know let's just say that she wounded me um that reconciliation can't happen generally one

00:20:11.840 until the confession that had happened you know the repentance that it occurred you know that 0.99

00:20:15.920 she's not going to do it anymore we sound like veronica's this like worst wife ever

00:20:19.400 and then or or and then just the forgiveness so that it brings on the redemption of that process

00:20:24.700 which is you know what we'll talk about um and guys trust me there's been times um on the other

00:20:30.740 end where i'm um i'm the one that's that's confessing so and i think for me um i think

00:20:38.460 i've mentioned this probably in another podcast before where yeah i can easily just be like oh

00:20:44.260 i like in my head you know i sinned and i should okay i just won't do it again next time which

00:20:48.820 yeah what's what's the change behavior quote that you say oh uh yeah uh change behavior is the best

00:20:54.860 apology right so yeah i'm sorry for my sin i'll change it but for me actually acknowledging it

00:21:01.920 voicing it in humility and feeling the weight of my sin that way, especially to the person that I

00:21:08.940 sinned against. Um, yeah, it makes me not ever want to do that again. Yeah. And, and I say this

00:21:13.780 guys, if you guys or girls, if you're having like reoccurring sin, if you say, if, you know,

00:21:19.460 something happens one time and it's a sin that's, you know, like, you know, I'm trying to think of

00:21:25.180 an example. You got angry, but you never get angry. Um, you know, and you've confessed and

00:21:30.020 repented to God and you might have repented to your wife or confessed to your wife or whatever

00:21:34.440 it might be. I think confession is a really helpful tool for that repetitive sin that you

00:21:39.020 can't seem to stop doing. If you're a liar, confessing that, you know, hey, I exaggerated

00:21:44.960 there. I shouldn't have done that. I've had seasons of that where I'm a salesman. And so I've really

00:21:48.840 struggled with that in terms of just admitting that and confessing. It really helps me be

00:21:53.400 embarrassed and humiliated and it helps me grow um and um you know so i i know that it's it might

00:22:01.300 seem overwhelming to go and confess every element to every person but i think it is really helpful

00:22:06.680 for these repetitive sins in our lives that we can't seem to conquer on our own and i think

00:22:10.260 that's what the lord put that passage of scripture in there yeah and i think after you've confessed

00:22:15.040 that dale and i've talked about it in our other uh podcast before about fighting and forgiving

00:22:19.440 is that Dale and I never end a disagreement

00:22:24.140 without praying together.

00:22:25.440 It's the actual act that unifies us again.

00:22:29.180 Yeah.

00:22:29.660 And so this is part of the redemption process.

00:22:31.920 If you guys fight or have a heated discussion,

00:22:35.820 if it's a small tiff where we don't necessarily

00:22:38.060 will always go and pray together for that.

00:22:39.620 But if it's like, you know, we got an argument,

00:22:41.600 we had to sit down and talk about it in discussion

00:22:43.140 and it was deeper, like, you know,

00:22:45.300 there's some hurt involved, maybe some tears involved.

00:22:49.140 If that happens, yeah, we end that always with prayer.

00:22:52.540 And that's important, which we talked about in one of the other episodes a few episodes back.

00:22:57.120 Number two, which is talking about that second passage of Scripture in Matthew.

00:23:00.740 It's Jesus talking, and he says,

00:23:02.520 Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there, you know, when you're bringing your brother,

00:23:08.080 you remember that your brother has something against you.

00:23:11.560 Leave your gift there before the altar, and then go your way.

00:23:15.900 But first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift to God.

00:23:21.140 So, you know, couples, if you've sinned against your spouse, again, this is using Old Testament language.

00:23:30.220 You know, Jesus is talking about the Old Testament language of sacrifices at the altar.

00:23:34.660 But I think the principle is still pretty powerful.

00:23:37.800 But if you've sinned against your spouse, don't go confess your sin to your friend.

00:23:41.580 Go confess it to your spouse.

00:23:43.260 the church is filled with this i think a lot of christians that are desperate to escape the

00:23:49.460 ownership of their faults by confessing their sins to everyone except the person that they

00:23:53.560 sinned against and so this happens totally in the pornography space for men as we mentioned earlier

00:23:59.680 is the guys are just confessing their sins to other guys that struggle with it that struggle

00:24:05.040 with it and nobody ever gets any better because everybody's got logs in their eyes and nobody has

00:24:08.380 the ability to actually have authoritative conviction and change. And they're really

00:24:14.480 looking for this kind of condemnation-free, pain-free, humiliation-free, costless acceptance

00:24:22.020 of their trespasses. That's what you do when you confess. And we get this actually all the time.

00:24:26.740 People will email us. I'm like, we have no relationship with these people. And they will

00:24:33.100 email us their life story, their trials, their problems, and they go, I can't find anybody to

00:24:39.940 help me. And so they turn to this, us, strangers on the internet, you know, and want to have us

00:24:49.040 help them. And I go, it's pretty interesting that, one, we have no geographical connection

00:24:54.980 with these people. And they want to be, they don't want to be held responsible by anybody

00:25:00.520 that knows them. They want to be, it's safe to be known to strangers. And so I think that's a

00:25:08.040 pretty common trend that's happening. And it's that type of kind of consequence-free confession

00:25:15.840 that leaves so many men and women in bondage to sin, because we're not actually just confessing

00:25:22.200 to the people that we're sinning against. And so I want to remind us that, you know, confession

00:25:27.320 on the other end, requires grace and mercy and compassion, and we need to have that with people,

00:25:34.560 but not from a stranger. It requires it from the person who was actually sinned against,

00:25:39.900 and, you know, humiliation and shame are actually really important God-given elements

00:25:45.300 for spiritual growth, and God designed us to cause those to be painful so that we would grow from

00:25:51.420 them. And so confession, while it's hard, repentance, while it's hard, humiliation,

00:25:57.400 all those things are hard, but they're really good for us if we're actually trying to grow

00:26:02.140 and be sanctified. So yeah, next time somebody comes up to you and wants to confess the sin

00:26:09.640 they committed against their spouse or against their mom or against their friend, do the loving

00:26:13.780 thing and tell them, okay, well, thank you for sharing that with me, but I'd like you to go and

00:26:17.960 why don't you tell that to the person that you sinned against and point them back as jesus said

00:26:22.920 go do that and then go repent to god which is just an interesting concept be reconciled first

00:26:30.200 with the person and then go talk to god yeah it's not saying that god won't forgive you unless you

00:26:35.920 repent to the person you sinned against but it's giving us a principle that will help us restore

00:26:40.720 unity within our marriage yeah and that's the whole point right is that we're unifying again

00:26:46.040 It's that if you just repent to God for the sin that you committed against your spouse,

00:26:50.960 but you don't confess and repent to your spouse, you don't get that unity.

00:26:55.660 And sure, time can just kind of make things pass.

00:26:59.800 When you confess to the person that you sinned against, you feel the weight of it more.

00:27:06.280 You do.

00:27:07.260 Yeah, and it's a really important, yeah, just it's a really important moment.

00:27:11.500 And, you know, hopefully it happens less and less as you guys grow as a couple.

00:27:14.660 but it's really important to do that.

00:27:17.760 The third passage that is there,

00:27:21.680 Matthew 6, 14 through 15,

00:27:23.280 Veronica read it earlier.

00:27:24.260 I'm going to read it again

00:27:24.880 because it's one of the scariest scriptures in the Bible.

00:27:27.740 It says,

00:27:28.180 For if you forgive men their trespasses,

00:27:30.400 your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

00:27:32.520 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses,

00:27:34.680 neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

00:27:41.100 Yeah, so I'm just going to read John Gill.

00:27:43.720 he's a theologian from the 17th century, or sorry, 18th century, which I always get those

00:27:48.580 confused because 18th century means that they lived in the 1700s. It's so weird. Anyways,

00:27:53.720 but John Gillis, he's a theologian. He has lots of commentaries on the Bible, but I liked, I looked

00:27:59.560 up his commentary on this today, and I'm going to read it because it's just better than what I would

00:28:03.200 be able to say. Off that passage about Jesus saying, hey, you know, you better forgive people

00:28:08.920 because if you don't, your father in heaven won't forgive you. And I always ask the question, how

00:28:12.440 many unforgiven people are in heaven? Zero. Yeah, none. So John Gill says, it is a plain case

00:28:19.360 that your father has not given you a true sense of the pardon of your sins, nor can you be certain

00:28:26.900 that he will, nor have you any reason to expect it when you are so cruel and revengeful to others.

00:28:34.080 There is a considerable emphasis which lies upon the word men to which heavenly father is

00:28:40.660 contrasted. And the sense, according to it, is that if men who were upon an equal foot with each

00:28:46.560 other should not forgive one another, how should it be expected that our Father, which is in heaven,

00:28:51.560 who is so much above and no ways obliged to us, should forgive us? And so John Kills saying this

00:29:01.260 concept of we need to remember how much we're forgiven when someone sins against us. We have

00:29:09.520 been wiped free of like a billion dollars worth of debt. You know, there's parables about this.

00:29:18.100 And then we're struggling because someone sinned against us and owes us a little bit of money.

00:29:22.980 And so we need to be, it's hard. There's nothing harder than forgiving someone when you're wounded.

00:29:30.540 But if you want to receive the forgiveness from God the Father through Christ,

00:29:37.060 you don't get to hold a grudge it's very dangerous dangerous spiritual activity in your marriage

00:29:44.600 and just in your christian life yeah redemption in marriage requires forgiveness it does and so

00:29:50.620 we just want to encourage you guys that be biblical walk these things out uh confess repent

00:29:57.420 and redeem through through forgiveness and this is a really easy solution if you you know if you

00:30:03.220 want an awesome marriage that that that's the answer um in terms of just the damage control

00:30:09.240 element of it all so anyways that's what we'll we'll end with that section hopefully that was

00:30:14.040 helpful for you guys and um we'll we'll go into it we have a question that we're going to answer

00:30:18.460 all righty yes if you listen to our show regularly you know that we answer one to two questions every

00:30:24.620 week this week we've got one and i will read it to you i recently left my husband of four years

00:30:32.220 due to extreme verbal and emotional abuse i still want to work on the marriage but he has made no

00:30:37.260 effort to get help or reconcile was it wrong for me to leave in the first place and when i go back

00:30:42.360 what is my biblical role in the marriage with an abusive husband he has never hurt me physically

00:30:47.780 i have been um he's never hurt me physically i have been enjoying the podcast but find it

00:30:53.200 difficult to know exactly how it applies to my situation thank you you got any thoughts

00:30:58.600 i'll let you take this one okay um yeah i have a couple notes here uh you know one it's i'm sorry

00:31:09.660 that you're even going through this um we and we can only go off of what you've sent in we don't

00:31:15.940 know the situation exactly and we're um we witness when we're in marriage ministry we witness a lot

00:31:22.980 of hard cases. We get a lot of emails from just sad stories that are sent to us. And so if we

00:31:30.240 want to do the biblical thing, and that's what this woman asked, is the biblical thing. What's

00:31:35.900 the biblical thing here? And so what I'm going to say is 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 10. I'm just

00:31:43.000 going to give you what the scriptures say, because I don't want to have an opinion on this. I just

00:31:46.260 want to let you know what the Bible says. It says, now to the married. Now this is talking to

00:31:51.240 Christians. He's talking about married Christians. That's what Paul's writing to in this chapter and

00:31:56.300 verse. Now to the married, I command, yet not I, but the Lord. And he's, what Paul is saying is

00:32:03.800 that I'm about to talk about the principles that Jesus laid out in Matthew 19. And so he's saying,

00:32:11.900 I'm not giving you new commands right now. I'm actually just going to tell you what Jesus said,

00:32:15.920 but he's going to write it in 1 Corinthians.

00:32:18.200 And he says,

00:32:19.080 A wife is not to depart from her husband. 0.94

00:32:21.960 But even if she does depart, like this woman did, 0.92

00:32:25.260 let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.

00:32:29.520 And a husband is not to divorce his wife.

00:32:32.440 Now, I'm taking in consideration

00:32:34.000 that this is a husband who says he's a Christian.

00:32:39.260 So if that's not the case,

00:32:41.280 then there's a different perspective on this.

00:32:44.120 But if this is a husband and wife that are both Christian, struggling, falling into sin and temptation, struggling, that's the scripture that is clear on what not to do and what to do.

00:32:58.820 It continues in verse 13 and 14. 0.57

00:33:02.120 And it says, and a woman, so this is if a woman who has a husband who's not a believer.

00:33:06.740 It says, and a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him.

00:33:15.660 And so it sounds like you guys are separated.

00:33:17.320 So if he's not a believer, you know, the command is to stay with him if he'll have you.

00:33:24.480 If he's willing to, yeah.

00:33:25.840 Yeah. 0.94

00:33:26.460 And it says in verse 14, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. 0.90

00:33:33.840 It goes in verse 15. 0.91

00:33:35.080 it says, but if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage

00:33:42.340 in such cases. My interpretation of that is that you're not under bondage to the marriage vows

00:33:47.560 any longer if you were in a marriage with an unbeliever and they have decided to leave and 0.93

00:33:54.080 divorce you. And it says, but God has called us to peace. And so when I hear that you're in,

00:34:02.480 you know i'm glad that you clarified the abusive relationship thing um that it was verbal abuse and

00:34:09.380 not physical yeah that's what you mean yeah because what do we see all the time um just

00:34:14.160 people that they just everybody all just says abuse and um they kind of all categorize it under

00:34:20.360 one thing but there are different types of abuse so yeah and we've kind of stretched that word

00:34:27.060 right so any argument that you start yelling at each other i'm in all of a sudden i'm in an

00:34:31.700 abusive relationship and i go well you know if you're in marriage at some point you're going to

00:34:35.680 be yelling at each other um that that's a that's so i i don't know if i want to throw everything

00:34:40.620 under abuse it could just be that you had an intense argument yeah and there i mean there

00:34:44.860 are real such cases as abuse yes but yeah i think the word has been thrown around a little bit too

00:34:50.240 much for sure yeah and so abuse is like all the way from like he told me to shut up i'm an abusive

00:34:55.960 relationship yeah all the way to you know he hit me across the face which is in reality an abusive

00:35:00.500 relationship and so yeah i love that you brought clarity to that that this is a verbally abusive

00:35:05.320 situation there was no physical hitting um and the core thing here is that god has called us to

00:35:12.380 peace and if you can't live in peace then i think that's justification or grounds for separation for

00:35:19.800 a time um and you know the scripture in the same chapter i don't have it in front of me

00:35:25.180 talks about like just don't deprive each other uh deprive one another sexually because you know

00:35:30.080 that opens the temptation of the devil.

00:35:32.180 So know that separation is good in some ways

00:35:38.000 or helpful in some ways while repairing the marriage,

00:35:40.740 but it is also very dangerous in other ways

00:35:44.180 being sexually apart as a couple.

00:35:48.560 I don't know, what do you say to women

00:35:49.920 who were maybe in a situation like this

00:35:52.080 that are trying to figure out,

00:35:54.340 you know, when do I come back?

00:35:55.520 You know, did I do the right thing?

00:35:56.900 Like, you know, as a, you know,

00:35:58.720 um what what would you be doing in that situation you know would you be seeking out the word would

00:36:04.080 you be praying like yeah I mean absolutely definitely praying definitely seeking out

00:36:08.420 the word and if this person was already um and not under the same roof as their spouse

00:36:15.160 I would be still in constant communication with my spouse trying to reconcile yeah and 0.95

00:36:23.280 surrounding yourself with with other godly uh women yeah um and mentors to help walk you through 1.00

00:36:31.200 this trial yeah because you don't want to keep this as a private matter you know no proverbs 18

00:36:37.220 one says a man and that's a person a person who isolates himself seeks his own desire seeks his

00:36:43.340 own desire and so don't keep this stuff private bring it out in the open pull that ugly dark thing

00:36:49.760 out into the light and if you want to get that thing healed just yeah it's embarrassing you know

00:36:54.260 hey our life isn't all good right now and we're a little bit embarrassed and this is not fun but if

00:37:02.100 you are i mean i would rather be embarrassed and have my marriage saved than try and prevent the

00:37:09.700 embarrassment and humility and everything ends up going down the drain yeah and i think that's a lot

00:37:16.060 of people's demise they are so concerned about what other people think of them that they will

00:37:19.860 literally um yeah not talk about it just to save face you know and it's it's so sad especially in

00:37:29.380 social media and you don't need to have it as a public thing but but just bringing two or three

00:37:34.660 trusted safe people and if you don't have that then you do what everybody else does is you go

00:37:40.760 the counselor i mean which is fine if that's all you got um but i would also just make it known in

00:37:46.900 your own community let your parents know if that if they're involved let your let your best friends

00:37:50.780 know if you're involved so hopefully that was helpful for you guys um today's i guess i feel

00:37:56.200 like today's a little bit of a downer show it's just like hard heavy stuff but um it's important

00:38:01.560 we want you guys to have a marriage that can heal itself yeah so our memory verse this week

00:38:07.140 James 5 16 confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed

00:38:13.280 the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much yeah guys there's over a hundred one

00:38:19.840 another's in the New Testament it's what in theology would call them the mutual pastoral

00:38:24.600 mandates I love that he didn't say go confess it to an elder or go confess it to a priest

00:38:30.720 it's to one another yeah it's powerful and and so i know a lot of people are longing for

00:38:38.140 biblical community a place where they can actually fulfill those one another's and

00:38:42.780 others are fulfilling them in their life um it starts with just living it out and praying for it

00:38:48.760 and um so i just want you guys to encourage i want to encourage you guys to yeah memorize that

00:38:54.380 passage of scripture walk that passage of scripture out if there's a moment of confession

00:38:58.440 do it see what kind of fruit comes from it um on that note a couple closing announcements is

00:39:07.040 yeah again if you guys would be willing to leave a review uh for us that would be great on the on

00:39:14.280 the podcast and um also if you want to listen to the show watch the video get all the show notes

00:39:20.140 i take all of the like quotes i think you know it's weird like quoting ourselves but um the

00:39:26.940 one-liners the one-liners yeah and i i put them in there and all the scriptures that we reference

00:39:31.440 they're all available for you this is episode number 14 and you just go to ultimate marriage.com

00:39:36.520 you just go to the menu and then go to podcast and you'll be able to find it there and all of

00:39:40.220 our podcasts are there and they're easy to share with people if you uh if somebody needs a resource

00:39:45.660 to help grow their marriage um anything else i think that's it okay memorize that scripture

00:39:53.060 All right, guys, we will see you guys next week on Ultimate Marriage.

00:39:57.140 Take care.

00:39:58.900 Thank you for joining us on this episode of Ultimate Marriage.

00:40:01.780 If you're homesick for a stronger marriage, visit our website at ultimatemarriage.com

00:40:05.860 and consider enrolling in our one-year online marriage mentor program.

00:40:09.560 Also, if you're interested in learning more about building a better marriage,

00:40:12.500 follow Veronica and I on social media,

00:40:14.300 where each week we share tips, tricks, and lessons on building a biblical marriage.

00:40:23.060 Transcription by CastingWords

Dale Partridge - October 10, 2018

Ultimate Marriage #14： How to Confess, Repent, and Redeem Sin in Your Marriage

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