Well, have we forgiven someone if the wrong they committed against us keeps replaying in our minds? It's a question from a listener named Emily. It's a very good question. But before we get to that question, today is the final day of T4G in Louisville, and we're talking today over the telephone, not over the studio line.

And so here's that email from Emily. Dear Pastor John, thank you for your years of faithful ministry online. My question is in regards to forgiveness. The other day, my husband made a hurtful comment about my appearance and with the help of wise counsel and older woman in the faith, walked me through expressing my hurt to my husband about it.

Of course, he asked for my forgiveness right away. But the lingering question I have is this, how do I know if I've truly forgiven him? It still hurts when I think about it. And I do think about the event. I'm seeking by God's help to serve and love him despite what I feel.

But is lingering pain from the offense a sign that I have not really forgiven my husband? Let me start broad in a way that I think will be more generally helpful to all of us who are married and even others in similar kinds of relationships, perhaps, and then get more specific for Emily's issue of whether she has really forgiven her husband.

What I have found in our marriage, which I did not expect, and which I think is true more generally in marriage, is that for Christians, that is for me, who want to bring their lives into complete conformity to the teaching of Scripture, the great battle for holiness, that is the battle for being the most loving person that you can be, as God portrays and defines holiness in the Bible, that battle consists more than I ever thought it would in the struggle to avoid sinning in response to being sinned against.

Let me say that again because it might sound a little complicated. One of the greatest battles for holiness and love in Christian marriage is the battle to avoid my sin in response to my wife's sin, which I may feel against me. But I have in mind the kind of thing that Emily's talking about, namely just being sinned against by words that hurt or by neglecting words that would have helped or by facial expressions that seem to indict or patterns of behavior that seem indifferent or disappointments that seem they could have been avoided with just a little more care, et cetera, et cetera.

And of course, complicating this is that we often feel sinned against when the words or the behavior had no sinful intention behind them at all. And if we tried to forgive such a behavior, it would be offensive because the other person doesn't even feel that she or he did sin against us, and so our offering forgiveness is like an indictment that they don't feel guilty of.

So with that complication, one of John Piper's major battles, and sounds like others share it, battles for holiness in marriage and other relationships is not simply avoiding sinning against others. That's the simple way I thought about it as I began marriage. I think I'm just going to avoid sinning against my wife.

But rather, the more complicated situation of avoiding sinful responses to the sins of others. And what makes this battle so peculiar is that in the very moment when we may be sinning against someone, we have strong feelings of self-justification because of how we've been sinned against. So it's subtle.

We can hardly bring ourselves to think of ourselves as right now having to deal with my sin when really the issue is her sin. What Paul Tripp calls your inner lawyer is rising up and saying, "Hey, it's her problem. It's her problem. You don't have any sin problem here.

It's her problem." When in fact, my biggest issue right now is my sin. And some of the feelings that we have may be warranted, may be justified. Some of the hurt or the indignation may be justified. So you can see how complicated the emotional moment is when there is an actual warranted sense of being wronged.

We say that again, an actual warranted sense of being wronged along with the hearts rising up sinfully in response to the wrong. So all of that to say that Emily's question is a very important part of a larger and common issue in most long-term relationships, especially marriage, where we inevitably say and do things that hurt or disappoint or frustrate the other person and where we must navigate the complexities of both being genuinely wronged and yet dealing with our own sinful responses to being wronged.

One of the most important things that I see in all relationships, especially marriage, is that my responsibility before God is not, not the behaviors of my wife, but my responses to those behaviors. It's my responsibility. It is very easy, especially in the beginning of a relationship, to feel like, "I gotta fix all the things that are coming against me that I don't like, you know, that frustrate me or disappoint me or wrong me.

I gotta fix that other person and help them stop doing the things that bother me or frustrate me or wrong me." Instead of realizing my number one responsibility before God and my number one challenge in holiness is not getting my partner changed, but getting myself changed so that I respond in godly, Christ-like, humble, loving ways, even if what is being said is hurtful.

It seems to me that the overwhelming challenge of the New Testament to all of us is, "Do not return evil for evil," 1 Peter 3:9. "Do good to those who hate you," Luke 6:27. Paul, "When reviled, we bless. When persecuted, we endure. When slandered, we entreat," 1 Corinthians 4:12.

The deep, sweet, strong contentment we have to have, we must have in Christ in order to have emotional resources to respond like that, that's the great beauty of the Christian life. That kind of sweet, deep, strong contentment in Christ. That magnifies Christ wonderfully. To have resources to respond encouragingly and hopefully and wisely to one who wrongs us instead of angrily or with self-pity or whining or manipulative moping or silent treatment or sullenness.

You can hear my acquaintance with my sin. This is the great miracle that the children of God, John Piper anyway, wants to experience. We all hurt each other and disappoint each other and frustrate each other almost every day in some degree. The great challenge in the Christian life is to be so deeply and joyfully content in our fellowship with Jesus and all that God promises to be for us in Him that we are not drained, we're not drained by the disappointments of our relationships.

So with regard to Emily's specific question, I would say this, consider the analogy between being emotionally hurt and physically hurt. When Paul was whipped with 39 lashes, even after he forgave his persecutor, there would have been big welts on his back and terrible lacerations on his back that would have hurt him for weeks to come.

So on this analogy, there can be both physical and emotional pain that lingers after the act of forgiveness. This pain in and of itself is not necessarily sinful. It's not necessarily a sign of unforgiveness. However, we all know that both physical pain and especially emotional pain can morph, morph in an instant into resentment and anger and bitterness.

And that morphing can be so subtle that it's hard to know when it's happened. And that's why Emily is asking her question. It's hard to know when her pain is morphing into selfishness and bitterness and resentment. So I would just conclude with four brief suggestions for Emily and for the rest of us to keep our pain and our sorrow from morphing into sinful, unforgiving resentment.

Number one, let's do what Jesus did in 1 Peter 2, 23, where instead of returning evil for evil, he handed over to him who judges justly. We consciously take any sense of being wronged and we hand it over to God who is able to settle accounts more justly and wisely than we can.

Number two, direct your mind away from the hurt, away from whatever act you're remembering to what is true and beautiful and pure and lovely and praiseworthy, like Paul says, with a sense of being treated by God better than we deserve. And number three, renounce all tendencies to punish or wound your spouse with acts or words or looks or silence.

And lastly, earnestly will and work for the good of the one you have forgiven. The real sign of forgiveness is that you don't seek to punish the other. You seek the good of the other. So good. Those are vital hedges that we need in our lives against this toxic resentment that grows up when we relive the wrongs of others against us, especially in marriage.

Thank you, Pastor John. That was John Piper over the phone today. Rarely do we do that, but sometimes we must. Thank you for making the Ask Pastor John podcast a part of your day. Stay current with our episodes on your phone or device by subscribing through your preferred podcast app.

And you can now even listen through Desiring God's official YouTube channel as well. And if you'd like to search our past episodes, browse our most popular episodes or send us a question of your own, you can do those things at our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well, when it comes to all those New Testament warnings aimed at the rich, are those warnings directed at middle-class Americans today?

Are we the wealthy ones? We're going to break for the weekend and tackle that one on Monday. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. We'll see you then. And have a great weekend. And if you're traveling home from Louisville, have safe travels on your way home. And we'll see you back here on Monday with John Piper back in the studio.

We'll see you then. 1. What is the New Testament? 2. What is the New Testament?