• Scripture reference: 
  • Exodus 20:16 
  • Acts 5 
  • Colossians 3:9 
  • 1 Timothy 1:9-11
  • Revelations 21:8 
  • Titus 1:2 
  • Numbers 23:19 
  • John 14:6 
  • 1 John 1
  • Matthew 18:21
  • Matthew 6:12
  • Ephesians 4:32
  • Colossians 3:13

• Recommended resources:
  • Gospel Centered Marriage
  • News is Good

 

Ryan: Selena, it’s high time we talk about lies and deception. All right? I’ve had it with your lies, [both chuckles] I’ve had it with your deception. No. Actually, the reason I proposed this content or this topic – what? I don’t know, a month ago, was we had somebody… And I’m just gonna… Just little rant here.

Selena: Oh, man.

Ryan: We had somebody go onto our site… Okay, we sell books, we have these rings, fierce rings… They’re silicone rings. They’re amazing. They’re my favorite silicone rings. We actually designed them. Check it out. Go to our shop, shop.fiercemarriage.com. [Selena laughs] And we sell these packages. You can get the rings and you can get these books. You get a big discount bundle.

And somebody… they do these chargebacks. Okay, so when you’re an online shop, chargebacks are like the bane of your existence. Because you not only someone says that it’s a fraudulent charge, which it’s not, We do not have to cheat people, so they’ll call their bank and say, “I don’t recognize this charge,” and then that bank will just flippantly say, “Okay, chargeback,” and they’ll take the money out of our account, and then they’ll tack on another $25 fee to it. And we have to prove that we made the sale. I’m trying to make this short.

So, of course, my job is when these come through, I have to go and try to find like, “Okay, was this a fraudulent thing?” Because it’s possible someone could have stolen a credit card and lied and deceived that way. Or it’s possible that it was a mistake. Or it’s possible that somebody is just trying to pull a fast one.

So anyway, I go on, I find this was a legitimate sale. This guy got on and bought two books, spent like $100 to buy books, but rings, buy all these packages, and then went to his bank and said, “That’s an illegitimate charge.”

Here’s the thing. If you wait 90 days after shipping the item, the post office gets rid of the archive of the shipping information. And so I had to go and pay to get the shipping information to prove that we shipped it. I was irritated at this point, because I had to pay like 10 bucks to get the shipping information to prove that we made the sale that we already made.

Anyway, I look up his name, I look him up on Facebook, I see… So I’m wondering, “Did he just not get the package? I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Selena: And mail has been going everywhere lately.

Ryan: It’s possible that he didn’t get the package and he thought, “You know what? I never got it. I didn’t get the refund, so I’m going to go do the chargeback.” That I can understand. But no, I get on his social media profile, I see pictures of him and his wife wearing the rings posing in these pictures. And here’s the kicker. He’s a pastor.

Selena: Oh, oh.

Ryan: He is a pastor. And then I thought to myself, “How does someone lie like this? How does someone lie?” Now there’s a chance that maybe his wife made the purchase and he did not recognize it? So maybe we’ll give him that benefit of the doubt.

Selena: Guys, if you need something, just give us a call. Let’s talk about it. [both chuckles]

Ryan: Generosity is our policy. So if you’re in need, let us know. We’ll do our best to help you out. The point is I got to thinking, what would happen if Selena or I or Carrie who works with us, we messaged his wife and said, “Did you know that this happened? That this purchase…” I was vindictive.

Selena: My, my, my. He’s feeling-

Ryan: What would happen if he was lying and his wife found out that he was lying? How does that affect the trust? And so all that to say this is what brought up the topic of lies and deception in marriage. I apologize for the rant. Hopefully, that was at least a little bit entertaining.

We’re gonna get into: what are the implications of telling the truth or lying either passively or overtly in our marriage? And we’re gonna talk about that on the other side.

[00:03:19] <music>

Ryan: I had to get that off my chest, Selena. [Selena chuckles] I’m really sorry.

Selena: And you didn’t even write the rundown for this.

Ryan: I didn’t.

Selena: You were just like, “Write about this. Here’s the story. [laughs] You know what? God will deal with that man’s heart.

Ryan: You guys, we got to be honest.

Selena: We do. We do.

Ryan: We got to be honest. Without honesty we are dead in the water. You got to be truthful, honest, we got to be truthful with God first and foremost, we got to be truthful with one another and with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Selena: Before we get started, thank you, listeners, raters, viewers on YouTube. Thank you for just subscribing. If you haven’t subscribed, smash that button. Please leave a review on your podcast app of choice. That definitely helps us get the word out. It’s kind of the currency of how people hear about us and hear about the Lord. [both laughs] Just put that weight on there. No, I’m sorry. I didn’t say that.

Ryan: One of those pyramids, like, “If you don’t forward this video to a friend…” [both laughs]

Selena: It’s not. But if you want to support this podcast or this video, if you wanna support anything Fierce Marriage, you can do that. We just ask that you pray about that and consider supporting us and partnering with fiercemarriage.com/partners.

Ryan: There it is. There’s perks and whatnot. So I wanted to share this thing. Some of you know who Jordan Peterson is. I don’t think he’s a believer. I think he’s dabbled in-

Selena: There’s a couple Peterson. Okay.

Ryan: Jordan Peterson.

Selena: Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.

Ryan: If you’re not familiar with him, he’s kind of all the rage in terms of like men on the internet right now. I read some of his stuff. You know, I’m not a raving fan, but I listen to what he says. [00:05:00] Not religiously. But anyway, he’s talking about of all things how to maintain romance in your life. He’s like an online mentor for aimless men, I say.

Selena: Okay.

Ryan: And he gives them meaning and purpose in putting their hands to the plow of just being responsible young men, doing hard things because of the responsibility that you’re meant to live with. Anyway, he says, “How to maintain romance in your life. There will come a time in your life when you have done something you should not have done or you failed to do something that you should have done, excuse me. Or you may need advice, you may need support.”

And he goes on. “Life is too difficult to negotiate alone. If you tell your partner the truth, your spouse, you strive and you strive to act so that you can tell the truth about how you act, then you have someone to rely on when the seas become high and your ship threatens to flounder. This can literally be a matter of life and death.”

And this is what struck me about what he said because this is kind of a long lines of what we’ve said in terms of life and death being in the power of the tongue and what Scripture says. He says, “In a relationship where romance remains intact, truth must be king.” So this is where I kind of think like he’s dabbling in the Judeo-Christian worldview. Because who do we know is the truth and the life and the way?

Selena: You just can’t get away from it if Jesus… Yes.

Ryan: Jesus is the way, the truth-

Selena: He always.

Ryan: In fact, truth happens to be king. His name is Jesus. [chuckles]

Selena: So maybe it always comes back to that.

Ryan: And that’s true in your marriage. When we talk about lies and deception, truth must be king, and not just the idea of truth, but truth Himself.

Selena: Yes, amen.

Ryan: Jesus must be King. So that’s what we’re talking about today.

Selena: Last week we talked about three lies about isolation. Definitely go and check that out. We’re kind of talking about lies and deception. We’re on this theme of discussing that in marriage, because like you said, truth needs to reign. When lies and deception begin to muddy the waters, your foundation starts to get cracked, it’s one of the most devastating, I think, potentials in marriage if it’s not dealt with immediately.

So we are going to talk about a few different things. We’re going to define a few things. Is there a difference between lying and deceiving someone because there’s hot debate about that. Biblical examples of lying and also instruction for the believers. What does the Bible say about lying?

We’re gonna go through three different questions that will help us navigate lying in our marriage. Hopefully, we don’t have to navigate it too much, right? [Ryan chuckles] But anyways. It’s a hot debate, and we’re just gonna go through this quickly. But I looked up what’s the difference between lying and deception? And is there an actual difference? And a lot of philosophers they don’t see a big difference.

Ryan: What do you say?

Selena: I say that lying is more of a verbal way I think of being deceptive. I think deception has to do with action. So like I will work to deceive you but my words will be lying to you. I don’t know. Again, there may not be a difference there. But I think they’re one and they have the same motive. We’ll just put it that way. They’re in the same boat.

Ryan: So there’s the lies of commission, where you’re committing the actual lie… You’re overtly lying about something. Selena says, “Did you take out the trash?” [Selena chuckles] “Yes, I did,” as it’s sitting in the trash; I have to take it out. I have lied about it.

Selena: Today. [laughs] But not really.

Ryan: Or it’s, you know, the fact that she asked me to take out the trash… This would be a lie of omission. She asked me take out the trash, I said I would, and then I just didn’t and I didn’t tell her about it.

Selena: I always know. [both laughs]

Ryan: So let’s talk about some examples. I just want to route this in reality. In our experience, how do couples sometimes lie to one another? I think the biggest prevalent lie nowadays is has to do with sexual integrity among men and women.

If you’ve struggled with pornography, you’re not alone. I’m here to tell you that that struggle is real, but you can find freedom from it. I’m a testimony to that, and many other men are testimonies to that. There’s freedom from pornography. But when you’re living in that bondage, lying becomes the norm. And you oftentimes-

Selena: Lying first to yourself, right?

Ryan: Yes, yes.

Selena: And then lying to others.

Ryan: Yeah. Because you can convince yourself that it’s really a problem. “You know, I know it’s wrong, but I didn’t really mean to make a mistake. It didn’t really hurt anyone.” If I just convinced myself that it’s not a continuing problem, then I’d convince myself not to tell my wife. That’s a lie of omission because you’ve sinned against your wife and you’ve not confessed it to her. So that’s one way.

Then the lie of commission would be if you know that your husband is struggling with it, or your spouse, and you ask him or her and she just says, “No, I’m fine,” like that’s a lie. Yeah. And addicts will face that in any addiction because the addictive personality kind of can lend itself to that. Another way would be, you know, ramping spending. Maybe- [00:10:00]

Selena: Using three credit cards without your spouse knowing, racking them up, paying the minimum.

Ryan: That’s one of the big reasons that we advocate, you know, as strongly as we can for couples to merge bank accounts.

Selena: We too to struggled with this early on in our marriage.

Ryan: Yeah, which we will talk about that in the second part of this, I don’t know, of this video. So yeah, financial decisions that I know that are against kind of the family policies or budget. They go against their budget. They damage us. And I’ll justify it in my head and I won’t speak the truth.

Selena: And then one that we are kind of butting heads about because I felt like it was very pointed question, he was saying that in communication with your spouse, and how you can lie to one another, “Hey, babe, you’re okay? How you doing? I’m fine. Like, clearly, I’m fine.” [laughs]

Ryan: I think it’ll rub you wrong because I was like, “Actually, you just lied, because you’re not fine.”

Selena: Because first of all, if you’re not fine, you’re not fighting with your spouse, and then they call you out on something that just multiplies the frustration, I think, because you’re like, “I’m already angry with you. [laughs] So now you’re telling me I’m wrong, which is really hard to hear.”

Ryan: And it turned that I’m a liar now.

Selena: And you’re calling me a liar. [chuckles]

Ryan: Which is technically true. So you use tact.

Selena: It is.

Ryan: I think what that draws out is this fact that words have meaning. And we oftentimes mean something other than the words we communicate. And if we go so far as to think through that, we kind of have to call it what it is.

Selena: Yes, I think-

Ryan: In that you’re saying something that’s patently false. You’re saying you’re fine when you’re not fine. Maybe you don’t know how to articulate what you’re feeling.

Selena: It’s true. And I think the call for that would be even in any sort of situation where you feel like you’re trying to justify the lie in your head is to pump the brakes. Like stop and slow down. Slow down. “Okay, in my head, in my heart, in my feelings, I know, I’m not fine.”

A lot of times, I feel like I’ve gotten better at saying, “I’m not okay right now. I just don’t know why yet. Like, maybe you can see why I’m not okay, but I’m still trying to sort through a lot. This is what’s happened in the day, or this is what’s happened last week. So I don’t know what’s going on but I’m not fully okay. I’m about 60%.” [chuckles]

Ryan: You know, as we’re talking through that, now that sounds like, “Oh, yeah, well, that sounds kind of weird to have to articulate it that way.” It’s easier said than done when you are emotionally in a hard spot to be able to have the wherewithal to put words to what you’re saying.

Selena: And I just want to give people those tools of saying, “Yeah, I’m not okay, but I will be, but I also don’t know why yet. So we’re gonna figure it out together.”

Ryan: And maybe that’s what we’re getting at here is that as you talk about lies and deception, there’s categories of lies that are pretty obvious, right? I’ve sinned against you and I’m lying about that sin, whether overtly or covertly lying to you. Then there’s some lies that are more subtle, which to me that that was the lies of isolation. And that has to do with lies that we believe implicitly.

So think through in those categories as we go through kind of what the Bible says about lying over the next piece here is, what lies do you feel like are more or less prevalent in your marriage, whether those are obvious lies or lies that you maybe didn’t realize were there and you’re operating off of?

Selena: So interesting research here on lying and deception in the Bible. We go to Genesis 3. The first sin came through a lie. The enemy came to Eve and fed her a lie. Lying is one of the ten commandments. I believe it’s number nine. In Exodus 20:16, thou shalt not bear false witness. Deception we see with Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. What happened to them.

Ryan: That did not end well.

Selena: It did not end well. Colossians 3:9 tells us to not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices. So we see them lying being a part of the old self that is not redeemed in Christ. And so it’s a call to putting on the new self of living in honesty, in the light. In 1 Timothy, lying is listed as something practiced by lawless people.

Furthermore, liars will be among those judged in the end. We see this in Revelations 21:8. In contrast, God never lies. I feel like this is obvious, but reading it, I was like, “Yes, thank you God.”

Ryan: He doesn’t lie. There’s no deception in Him.

Selena: There’s no deception in Him. He is truth. Like you said at the beginning, He is the source of truth. Titus 1:2 reminds us that He doesn’t lie and Numbers 23:19, it is impossible for God to lie. That is in there. And then like you said, John 14:6, Jesus called Himself the way, the truth, and the life. So He expects those who follow Him to be people of truth. That is the mark of a believer. The truth expressed in love, offering hope to those that are seeking redemption from the lies of this world.

Ryan: One of those verses stuck out to me. I mean, all of them. Amazing research. But in the 1 Timothy passage, in 1 Timothy 1:9-11 it’s lawless people practice lying. And what that to me draws out is this idea that lying… it’s as if you remove yourself from the reality of there is an objective truth and objective right and objective wrong. You act as if you’re outside of that. You’re lawless.

So you can convince yourself [00:15:00] because you’re not submitted to the capital T Truth, that is Christ, that is God who is the one who was without deception, without falseness. And you are not operating under the fear of the Lord under that dread that Isaiah talks about, the dread worthy God, and saying, “I must submit myself to His law or I’m in big trouble.” So just the rebellion that’s involved in lying, excuse me, that’s what jumps out at me is the rebellion and refusal to subscribe to God’s version of reality.

Selena: And with the disobedience there, we also have to understand the obedience part of it. Remember, God is a God of order. He’s a God of not chaos, not lawlessness, right? There’s boundaries set in place, not again for our restriction. Right? The enemy said, “Oh, you think God doesn’t… He doesn’t want you to know the difference. You’ll be like Him if you do this.” When ironically they were as much like Him as they ever would have been. Right?

So when we understand this obedience of it’s not just obedience and I gotta grit and get through it. Sometimes it is, but there’s a promise with that. There’s a hope. We’re trusting the order that God made for us to be living in the light, loving in a certain order, being truthful, and being upfront about these things. There’s an order to this. It’s not just arbitrary.

Ryan: Which is what strikes me about you get a guy like Jordan Peterson, who he himself said that he lives as if God exists though he’s not convinced that God does exist, right? He says it can literally be a matter of life and death, honestly, because he’s saying that there is an underlying structural morality that’s baked into the fabric of reality.

Selena: Imagine that.

Ryan: And he dances around it. He knows, but he says he’s struggling with it. He says, “In relationship where romance remains intact, truth must be king.” He’s saying that. To me that’s what strikes me about this idea of lying and deception is, is that when we go off the rails of truth, we can’t be surprised when the intimacy that we experience with our spouse begins to suffer, right? We must stay on the path.

Selena: Right. And do what it takes to get back to that if we have fallen off those rails.

Ryan: Which is why we these questions.

Selena: So we’re gonna go through three questions. And then after these three questions, we are going to have some content for our online course that will be – what?

Ryan: So if you’re not aware, we have an online learning platform called Gospel Centered Marriage. And you can imagine what that’s all about. It’s about building a gospel centered marriage. [both chuckles] And we’re going to begin having parts of these episodes that are more kind of application heavy are going to be kind of within Gospel Centered Marriage. That we’ll be… But we’ll still make this time valuable. So don’t worry.

Selena: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Ryan: So what’s the first question?

Selena: Answering these questions. So just to get you thinking, the first one is what do you do when your spouse lies to you or when they deceive you? The second question kind of two parts. Can you rebuild trust? We get this a lot. Can you rebuild trust after lies and deception? If so, how do you rebuild trust and when do you start that process? We’re going to address that?

And then what does the Bible actually say about forgiveness? This is huge. I feel like this is a whole podcast on its own. But we’re going to just talk through those briefly, so we can kind of get your foot on the right path if you have experienced lies and deception in your marriage.

So what do you do when you find out your spouse has lied to you? I guess the first question is to ask how. And I think “how” breaks out into three different ways. So just stick with me. How did you find out that your spouse was lying? Either they came to you or you discovered it. I’m pretty sure those are kind of the only two ways. Or someone else came to you and told you.

Ryan: That would be discovered in a different way. [chuckles]

Selena: Right. And how you came about the center of the lie often exposes the attitude of the heart of the offender. How are they responding to being exposed? Is there a repentance there? Or is there a blaming game? Are they shifting the blame? Or are they not taking ownership? Again, revealing the attitude of the heart, either the desire to get back on the rails of truth to live in obedience or the desire to not.

Ryan: So that’s interesting because, okay, I want to make sure that I’m tracking with you. The first question is, what do you do when you realize you’ve been lied to? To answer that you say then you have to assess how did you realize you were lied to. So if I lie to you, and I come to you and say, “Selena, I lied to you, will you please forgive me?” That’s going to be a completely different heart response from you? That’s heart indication for me to you than if you catch me in a lie and you have to come to me and confront me about that lie. And that’s what you’re saying.

And then based on that, then you have this other, okay, now how are they responding to this lie being exposed? Now, if I’m going to you and saying, “I’ve lied, please forgive me,” I’m responding with a repentant heart. And that is now an open door for forgiveness and reconciliation.

But if I’m but if you come and catch me in a lie, and I say, “Well, no, what are you talking about?” and I start gaslighting you and saying, “You’re crazy. I would never do that,” I’m unrepentant. And now I’m making you quit… That’s manipulation. [00:20:00] That’s a whole different topic. But-

Selena: So you’re either unrepentant. You know, it’s really hard to find reconciliation if a spouse is not wanting to repent, not wanting to take ownership. I would encourage the Christian spouse that’s dealing with that offender to pray for their heart, the heart of their spouse to soften for the Lord to get hold of them. Pray for your marriage covenant. Seek wise counsel with your pastor. Don’t fight that battle alone.

And then if they are repentant, like you’re talking about praise God. Again, I think the path is somewhat similar in that get wise counsel, get help, go to your pastor—they should know what’s going on. Because it’s really challenging to deal with lies and deception without an objective third party because you guys are so ingrained and hurt and there’s a lot going on.

So people who love God, people who love you, that know you, get those people involved so that… We call those marriage advocates. But get them involved.

Ryan: I think you really have to take the degree of the offense into account with-

Selena: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Ryan: …the degree of counsel that you get. If there is an affair, you need a lot. That’s about as devastating as it can get. Sin is sin, but the deceptions don’t have the same consequences. Now, on the note of repentance, there is such a thing as rote repentance where it’s… I see this a lot with men who know that pornography is a sin and they know that they’re sinning, but they don’t have the will to actually turn from it.

So they’ll admit, “Yeah, you know, I struggle and I made a mistake, and I’m sorry, and I’m gonna repent to my wife,” but there’s no turning from it. There’s a rejection of it verbally, but there’s not a rejection of it in action. And so, men, women, if you’re in sin and you find yourself reciting kind of rote repentant phrases, saying, “You know, please forgive me,” but there’s no turning from it, then that’s an indication that there’s something in you that’s deceived still.

Look at 1 John 1. With our attitudes, if we say that we are without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we walk in the light, and He is in the light, we will be cleansed from our own righteousness, we will have fellowship. That’s walking in the light. So it’s not just lip service. There’s gotta be something in us that wants to reject… I almost physically just finds it disgusting and wants to reject that lie, that sin.

Selena: And part of that rejecting I think there’s also a replacement of the virtue of what you’re… I’m dealing with pornography. I’m dealing with desires for, you know, sex and all of that. So how can we divert… not divert but repent? “Okay, God, these desires are wrong in this context. How can I then replace them with the virtue of sex within my covenant, with loving my spouse and pursuing them in the true and pure way? Again, that order. Sex is in an order. It is under the covenant of marriage. Again, turning, repenting, rejecting, and then replacing.

Ryan: That’s good. Fight the lie with the truth. Well said. Well said.

Selena: The last part, I think, to this first question is, how does the Bible instruct you as the offended to respond? And again, you have to take into consideration what the deception or the lie was, but ultimately we are called as believers to forgive. Defining forgiveness. It’s been kind of one of those terms that’s changed a lot people are thinking it’s freedom from myself, from him, and all his sin. But really, forgiveness is not a free pass. It’s not this instant trust and forgetting what happened, but forgiveness is acknowledging the sin.

And when Jesus says in Matthew 18:21, He says, You got to forgive seventy-seven times seven. Because we’ve been forgiven of so much, we can then forgive. But again, forgiving is not saying it’s okay. It’s an acknowledgment of saying, “Okay, God, we recognize that this is sin, and you’ve forgiven me, you’ve forgiven us of this. How can we move forward?”

Ryan: So we’re talking more about what the Bible says about forgiveness later on. But one of the things that comes to mind there is forgiveness of one another is I think more a function of our response to God than it is a response to one another, which we’ll talk about that more in just a few minutes.

Selena: I did want to ask one hard question. And this might rub people a little bit the wrong way, but I’m gonna put it out there. Before your feathers get ruffled, just listen. [Ryan chuckles] When you’re seeking forgiveness or your spouse is seeking forgiveness from you… Okay, let’s say Ryan is seeking forgiveness from me—it’s usually how it is—I think I need to ask myself this question. Did I play a part in this? Is there something that I need to own up to?

Again, it’s not taking [00:25:00] on the blame for your spouse’s sin, it’s not saying that I’m the cause of it, but it really is going to the Lord and asking the Holy Spirit, Lord, is there something that my own heart and sin that I’ve been dealing with… convict me and lead me in truth in light, God. Help me to know and own, and again, turn replace, live in the light, because I know that there’s freedom for our covenant in our marriage.

Again, it’s not an excuse. It’s just I was asked this hard question. Because if we really want to grow, then we don’t have to be afraid of these hard questions.

Ryan: And what we don’t want to hear is that if a husband struggling with sexual temptation, it’s his wife’s fault, because-

Selena: Yes, that’s not what we’re saying.

Ryan: …she’s not giving him everything that he demands from her. That’s not what we’re saying. But if you take both of you as individuals and look at your lives as people living in light of a holy God, I think that’s what you’re saying, is we can just ask in a healthy way. Not “how can I be manipulated by my spouse?”

Selena: How was my sin maybe contributed to this situation?

Ryan: Because we don’t ever stand from a place of self-righteousness. And that’s the key with seeing ourselves in light of Christ first, and then loving out of that forgiveness, is that I’m not forgiving you because I’m righteous. I’m forgiving you because I’m forgiven.

Selena: So good.

Ryan: We’re going to talk about that in a few minutes. Okay, so the next big question. So the first one, just as a recap, was, what do you do when you find out that your spouse has lied to you?

The next big question is, can you rebuild trust? Lies come out, whether you’ve confessed it to me or I’ve discovered it. The question is, can we rebuild trust? And the short answer is, yeah, you can. We’ve seen it. We know scripturally that reconciliation is good and right and true and possible through the power of the Holy Spirit. And trust-building is part of full reconciliation. You can be reconciled, but still be building trust.

Selena: Yes. It takes two to rebuild that trust. You both have to be willing to be involved in that. And then I guess the question starts, when do we begin to rebuild trust? You’ve had this bomb kind of go off or some sort of brokenness in your trust has happened. And I would say as soon as possible, as soon as you can start rebuilding trust.

Again, get a knowledgeable, experienced believer, a pastor, a guide couple, a counselor, depending on kind of the level of the lie and the deception. Get them on board, sit humbly beneath them, get their lead and get their encouragement, just get your foot on the right path, and know that you can rebuild trust. Do it as soon as possible. And start in small ways.

Ryan: And so much of rebuilding trust is having the same foundation. So that’s where we would say to you, if your marriage is not centered on the gospel, then that’s always going to be a problem. You’re never gonna feel like you’re completely on the same page because you’re living from two different playbooks. And you need to both come to Christ and come to grips with the reality that you are sinners saved by grace, and He is perfect and He’s calling you into His mission, not your… He’s not just a back pocket savior.

Selena: Mm-mm.

Ryan: …but He’s somebody who’s calling you into His agenda.

Selena: All of you, yes.

Ryan: All of you. Then you’ll be able to I think begin rebuilding true trust that is lasting, because you’re now looking at the same sheet music and playing off the same sheet music so. And that’s not to make it sound too trivial about sheet music-

Selena: Absolutely. We’re going to talk about this last question briefly, but I think we’re gonna save more of it for the Gospel Centered Marriage course. So you’ll have to check that out. But this quick part about what does the Bible actually say about forgiveness?

We kind of touched on defining forgiveness. But the relationship between vertical forgiveness. So God forgiveness of me and with God. And the horizontal forgiveness of forgiveness with each other those are actually linked. The Bible does tell us that our intimacy with God and day-to-day cleansing are dependent on our forgiveness of others. We see this in Matthew 6:12.

We’re supposed to forgive as God has forgiven us. Like I can’t hold something against Him because God has not held my sin against me. We see this in Ephesians 4:32, Colossians 3:13. So we need to make an effort to understand God’s forgiveness of us. If you find it hard to forgive your spouse, go read some of the Old Testament and how God has forgiven us sinners.

And again, I’m not trying to say that you’re right, he’s wrong; you’re better, he’s not. We’re just saying that we are all sinners saved by grace. Forgiveness was purchased through the blood of Christ. We have forgiveness. So what does that look like?

Ryan: And that strikes me because, you know, you read the words of Christ, and one of I’d say probably the primary theme of Christ’s teaching is always going to be one of repent and turn and belief. So it’s always this writing of wrong relationships, setting right wrong relationships, the wrong relationship between you and God, the fact that you’ve sinned against God, repent, turn from your sin, believe. [00:30:00] Christ being the one that is making that union with God, once again, it’s possible through His perpetuation on the cross.

But also now right the relationships between you and others—people that you’ve sinned against. Confess your sin to one another. Let that be the marker of us as believers that we recognize and we confess our sins to one another. We choose to reject the lies that I need to somehow posture in front of you because I stand before God, He sees me fully and completely and without any… He has no illusions about who I am. And yet, he still says that, “I’m going to call you righteous, I’m going to call you my own.”

And so that has to be the foundation of our forgiveness for one another. And it has to be our foundation for our stopping of lying and deception. Now, we can live in the light with one another so that we can, again, be cleansed from that unrighteousness. Now, this doesn’t matter if we don’t want to be more like Christ. This doesn’t matter if we don’t care what God thinks.

So I guess that’s how we’re gonna end this episode. We’re gonna go into the more application stuff, share some of our stories. If you sign up for gospelcenteredmarriage.com, you can get access to this course when it comes out. Through there we’re gonna share that piece.

But that’s how we’re going in this part of it is we want to call you… If you couple you’re watching this, you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, “I want that type of relationship, I want that type of transparency with my spouse. I want that type of closeness with my spouse, and more than that, I want it with God, I want to know God, and I want to be known by Him,” well, we’re here to tell you that He does know you. That He knew you when He died on the cross.

It says while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Christ died for sinners. He didn’t die for people who were perfect. So we want to invite you into relationship with Christ. If you don’t know who He is, you can go to… We set up this website for you. It’s the newsisgood.com. It’s gonna walk you through what it means to place your faith in Christ. It’s gonna give you some steps to go forward in that, to find a pastor, to walk alongside you as you become a disciple of Christ.

And we’re here to tell you that Jesus is the one reason that we’re still married. He’s the one reason I’m still alive. Literally, it’s a miracle of Christ that I am alive here today. And if you read some of our stuff, you’ll get to know what that story is.

But the point is, is that He’s inviting you into new life, He’s inviting you into forgiveness, He’s inviting you into walking in truth through the way that is Jesus Christ himself. So go to the newsisgood.com. Check that out. Send that to a friend. If you know who Jesus is, but you know somebody who doesn’t, share that with a friend. Share the gospel with your friends. You guys, Jesus is life. We’re here to spend our lives telling you that. Jesus is life.

So let’s pray that. Is that good? Did I miss anything? All right. Jesus, thank you. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for forgiving us. Thank you for being the truth so that we might walk in you, that we might walk in truth. Jesus said, “Thank you for that forgiveness you’ve given us on the cross. Lord, cleanse us from our sin, that we might walk in fellowship with you and fellowship with one another.

We pray for the husbands listening to this, watching this. Lord, I pray that they would be cleansed of their sin, not just so they can call themselves good, but so they can know you, they can know the one who is good, and they can walk in light of all you’ve called them to be.

I pray for the wives who might be struggling with sin or struggling with unforgiveness or struggling in whatever way. That they would know you more clearly, more truthfully. That they might walk in your light, walk in the truth. They might know what it means to be loved by You and to love another in light of how they’re loved by You.

Lord, it’s only by Your grace that we speak here today, that we were able to share this good news. We thank You for it and pray that it would hit our hearts with its full weight in effect. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Selena: Amen.

Ryan: Like I said, if you want to continue on, we’re going to do the part that goes just to gospelcenteredmarriage.com. That will release in the coming weeks. There will be a connection guide associated with that. We’re gonna do that periodically throughout the life of the podcast to help add value to you and to give you a way to go deeper in the stuff that we’re teaching on here. But we’re gonna dive into some of our own stories, some of our own stories of maybe deception in our marriage. I’ve never deceived you ever. Never. [chuckles]

Selena: A lie right there. A lie right there. [both laughs] Some of our stories.

Ryan: We’re gonna go to some of our stories, some of the things that we’ve experienced as a couple as we’ve had to walk through some of these hard paths. And we can tell you there’s hope on that side of it. So you want to be part of that, check out gospelcenteredmarriage.com. Sign up for a monthly subscription there and you’ll get full access to that. But as for this part of the episode, this episode is—

Selena: In the can.

Ryan: We’ll see you again in about seven days. Until next time—

Selena: Stay fierce.