Formed by Jesus Podcast

In week 6 of our Peacemaking Practice we take all that we have learned about peacemaking and apply it to our marriages. Our marriages can be both a tremendous blessing and a painful burden. In Ephesians 5, Paul addresses this tension by giving commands to both husbands and wives. He starts by commanding both to submit to each other with humility in verse 21. Then he commands husbands to love their wives sacrificially and wives to submit to their husbands respectfully.

Both of these commands challenge our tendency to focus on what our spouse owes us rather than what Christ is calling us to give. Peacemaking begins when we stop trying to win and start allowing Jesus to form us into people who love, serve, forgive, and pursue one another.

Sometimes the hardest things we endure are not the things done to us, but the things we have done to ourselves. We carry past failures, mistakes, and missed opportunities with us throughout our lives. All of us have stories of relationships we have never repaired, chances we have never taken, and regrets from both things we have done and things we have left undone.

But in Ephesians 5, Paul gives us a way forward. He reminds us that our past is real. All of us began in darkness. But now, through Jesus, we are in the light. We can make the most of our time today by learning to make peace with our past, confessing darkness, and accepting the life in the Spirit God has called us to live today.

Your Clock Stuck at 8:40? Making Peace with the Past Through the Cross and Resurrection (Ephesians 5)

Using Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations as a picture of being stuck in the past, the message asks how to make peace with what cannot be changed. Drawing from Ephesians 5, it explains that people get stuck either through guilt over what they’ve done or grief over what they’ve lost. Paul reminds believers that they “were once darkness” but are now “light in the Lord,” so identity precedes behavior, and sins must be exposed to Christ’s light, which brings healing rather than shame. The sermon contrasts chronos (time passing) with kairos (God-given moments to steward), urging wisdom to grieve without wasting what remains and warning against numbing pain. It concludes that the cross pardons guilt and the resurrection promises restoration, then assigns practices: “confess and bless” in groups and memorizing Ephesians 5:15–16.

00:00 Miss Havisham at 840
01:45 Clocks Stuck in Us
03:12 Guilt and Condemnation
04:54 Darkness to Light
10:53 Expose Sin to Light
12:04 Christ Shines Not Shames
15:35 Grief and Regret
17:08 Wisdom and Kairos
21:06 Unmet Dreams and Loss
29:39 Cross and Resurrection Hope
32:09 Practices Confess and Bless
34:42 Memorize and Sendoff

Peacemaking, Church Hurt, and Healing Without Reconciliation | Pastor Trey & Jordan

Pastor Trey welcomes his wife Jordan to the Formed by Jesus podcast in their new studio to reflect on the Formed by Peacemaking practice and discuss making peace with church hurt. Jordan shares takeaways about understanding both the people involved and the process, examining her own heart, and approaching conflict with humility. They talk candidly about how young, inexperienced leadership can unintentionally hurt others, including early mistakes in staff management, unclear expectations, oversharing, and giving false hope, and how Trey has grown toward more intentional leadership. Jordan describes the hidden burdens of being a pastor’s wife, including carrying behind-the-scenes pain, resisting defensiveness, and enduring slander without setting the record straight. They explore Whitney’s points that healing can happen without reconciliation, forgiveness as release, the danger of bitterness, and the temptation to lock away one’s heart, while emphasizing that peacemaking is hard but rewarding.

00:00 Welcome and Studio Update
00:52 Peacemaking Takeaways
02:56 Church Hurt Topic Setup
04:13 Early Leadership Mistakes
06:46 Leading Staff Better
11:12 Oversharing and Boundaries
13:49 Pastor Family Hidden Load
17:04 Slander and Wolves
20:13 Truth And Boundaries
21:00 Healing Without Reconciliation
22:02 Bitterness And Malice Spiral
23:13 We Will Not Die
25:15 When Peace Isnt
26:29 Calling Survives Failure
27:53 Release And Forgive
30:30 Church Hurt And Transaction
32:16 Locked Heart Season
35:52 People Who Stay
38:40 Peacemaking Is Hard
40:45 Final Blessing And Comment