16. Presuppositions In Counseling Part II

Principles in Biblical Counseling

Okay, we're continuing in our series on biblical counseling, and the last time we met we started this topic of presuppositions and principles in counseling. This is quite a lengthy section, so we've divided it into a number of parts.

And last week when we, well, that was the last week, two weeks ago when we started, we sorted three specific areas that are important in counseling. Notice it says presuppositions and principles in counseling.

We've kind of combined the two. There are certain presuppositions. One presupposition is that the counselor must be grounded in the Word of God. You can't do biblical counseling if you don't know the Word of God.

Two, one of the things that is essential in biblical counseling is giving the person who is having problems, giving them hope. And that's actually, that's one of the first things that a biblical counselor does.

And of course, it must be based on prayer. Those are the three areas that we discussed two weeks ago. So tonight we're going to go to the reconciliation slash discipline dynamic. If you remember going back a number of weeks, we discussed that it's very difficult for a biblical counselor to be freelance.

And because you're missing a whole dynamic of discipline that a freelance counselor can exert, whereas a biblical counselor who's working under the eldership of a local church can use that. And tonight we're going to get into a little bit of that and see how that works and why it's so important.

So another presupposition, interpersonal problems between Christians must be resolved. In other words, this is not an optional thing. Biblical counseling is not optional. The fact that many churches have abandoned it does not negate the importance of it, nor the fact that it's commanded by scripture.

Because unresolved problems hurt the unity of the church, all right? And they do so by sapping the strength from the congregation. And then you wind up with members at cross purposes. So I grew up in a very fundamentalist, baptistic, it wasn't a Baptist church, but baptistic church.

And congregational meetings were like the wild, wild west. And everybody had their own opinion and shared a piece of their mind that they couldn't afford to lose in the first place. So with discipline and an understanding of who the local church is, what the local church is, and the fact that it's head is Christ is crucial.

So the consequences of unresolved problems go beyond the parties directly involved. And that is clearly seen if you've been around a church for any length of time. The whole church is affected. And Christ is dishonored.

As Paul says, you know, that the name of Christ is blasphemed amongst the Gentiles because of view. When we don't behave in a Christ-like manner, it's not just us that suffers the shame of it, but we put shame on the name of Christ.

Now, there's two important texts of scripture that deal with problems between Christians. It's not a magic bullet. And there's two portions that I'm sure you're all familiar with. But I wanted to read them anyway because it's so important.

Matthew 5, verses 21 to 26. You have heard that the ancients were told, you shall not commit murder. And whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the.

Court.

And whoever says to his brother, you good for nothing, shall be guilty before the Supreme.

Court.

And whoever says you fool, shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, put your finger in your Bible right there.

That's a very important verse. If you remember, what he's saying is if you're going to worship and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go.

First be reconciled to your brother, then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you'll be thrown into prison.

Truly, I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent. That's the first portion of scripture, and verse 23 was the key verse for that. Second portion of scripture is Matthew 18, 15 to 20.

Again, you'll all be familiar with this. If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

Again, I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am in their midst.

Now, in these passages, Jesus emphasizes the general fact is that reconciliation is a must. You can't have problems within the body of Christ, and they go unresolved. And as we address the topic of biblical confrontation, keep in mind that every little offense is not what Jesus is addressing.

He's not, it's not the little things, you know, that go on from day to day. Otherwise, we'd have to be confronting each other day, you know, constantly, all day long. In these two passages, Jesus addresses offenses that are difficult to cover with love.

All right, the first admonition is to cover it with love. If an offense is minor and you can cover with love, no confrontation is needed. All right, but that leads to a couple of questions. But 1 Peter 4, 8, above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

If every believer just memorized that verse and put it into practice, how much nicer would our society be? Just think about it. Love covers a multitude of sins. So, when can sin be covered with love? All right, the answer is profound, when it is truly covered with love.

Some people say, well, I'm not going to confront, I mean, I can cover that with love, and then walk away seething underneath. No, that's not covering it with love. What covering it with love means is not holding it against the person.

That means there is no hindrance to your relationship with the other person. If you can legitimately say, I don't hold this against you, and there's no hindrance in our relationship, our relationship is not broken, then you can just say that love covered it.

There's no need for biblical confrontation. So, when can sin not be covered with love then? When it bothers you and you harbor ill feelings toward the person. If you're walking away from a situation where you've been offended, and you still have hard feelings, then there has to be some sort of biblical confrontation and reconciliation.

Or, and this is an important one, if the person has developed a sinful habit and continues to offend people in the same way. Let's say, for example, somebody within the church does something to you. Have you ever said, oh, that's just Charlie being Charlie.

If you say something like that, that means that this person is known for aberrant behavior, for sinful behavior, and everybody's just accepted it because, well, Charlie's Charlie. Nobody's Charlie here tonight, are they?

I just took that name out of... Do you understand the difference? Why would the fact that he has developed sinful habits, why does it mean that you would have to go to him and confront him when he has offended you?

That wasn't rhetorical. Yeah, one of the things you're going to see throughout these lessons, everything we do towards the brother is for the brother's benefit, not for our own. And you're going to see that in crystal clarity.

As we go through this. In either case, remember, the reason for confrontation is to restore the brother who is in sin. Your own peace of mind and your own reputation are secondary considerations. More often than not, even within the Christian church, when somebody is confronting somebody else, they're doing so because I want to be vindicated.

I was not wrong. And that's not the main reason that we want. That's a secondary or third application at best. The method of reconciliation taught by Jesus in Matthew 5 and Matthew 18 is to go to your brother and immediately seek reconciliation.

Because there is an immediacy to this. You don't want to let hurts and offenses linger too long because then it starts to creep up that root of bitterness. And here, this is equally important. Both parties are required to seek reconciliation, both the offender and the offended.

In Matthew 5, Jesus says, if you remember that your brother has an offense. In Matthew 18, it's if you have an offense. So both, it doesn't matter if you're the offender or the offendee, the offended.

If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you are obligated to go and try to reconcile. Okay, makes sense, doesn't it? Ideally then, when an offense occurs in a church between two brothers, they should meet halfway because each one is desiring to be restored to his brother.

And Ginger and I laugh about this because when we've had some disagreements and we're a short while after, we have actually literally met coming towards each other to ask for forgiveness. And that's the way it really should work.

And Jesus teaches three steps to reconciliation in Matthew 18. And you've heard this before, but it's crucial. First, try to reconcile privately one-on-one or one-to-one. You're going to see a little while later, but as we go through this, privacy or confidentiality is built into the process that Jesus gives us.

Very first, if somebody has offended you, you go to him alone. You don't muster up an army to go with you. You don't look to see if he's offended somebody else in the same way. You go to him alone. If he refuses to listen, take one or two witnesses with you.

Why one or two witnesses? Why would you take one or two witnesses? That's the first one, the legal requirement. Sarah, that's what you were going to say. You sure that's what you were going to say?

Okay.

Yeah. Well, actually, that's the best answer is that it fits the legal requirement of having witnesses. But also, having somebody impartial. You don't bring your best friend and your two best friends with you because you know that they're going to side with you.

Realistically, if you follow the rest of the admonitions of Scripture, these should be spiritually mature people who can be objective. Because that's the whole teaching, especially in the Old Testament law and in the book of Proverbs, of being objective.

So, you go and you take one or two witnesses with you. And if he still refuses, tell it to the church. Okay. And what's the purpose to tell it to the church? Go ahead. Yeah, to have the church exert its influence on the person.

Because again, what's the goal? Goal in each step is reconciliation. Now, some important points concerning the process. First, there are privacy concerns built into the process. You can see that. If somebody offends you and you go to them and you can reconcile one-on-one, nobody else needs to know about it.

It's best if nobody else does know about it. Second, if the person responds privately, then the issue should be put to rest and not brought up to anyone else. Otherwise, gossip sets in and slander soon follows.

And the number of people involved expands slowly. Notice, first it's alone, then two or three people, and then ultimately to the whole church. If either one of the parties refuses to reconcile, then it is brought before the entire church body.

But even then, the goal is reconciliation. You're going to see that little phrase popping up here periodically because it's so important that we keep that in mind. If the member refuses to be reconciled, then excommunication is the last resort.

What does it mean to be excommunicated? It means that the offender is removed from the membership and from fellowship in the church body. And although church members are to break Christian fellowship with the offender, they should still seek to counsel him with a view toward restoration.

But they should not be included in the regular fellowship of the church. It's not to say they can't come to a worship service. They're allowed into the worship service, but not to enjoy regular Christian fellowship.

The excommunicated member should be an object of prayer. And if you notice on our prayer bulletin, we have every person who has ever excommunicated from this church is still listed on the prayer bulletin as an object of prayer.

Now, this statement on the slide that you're looking at now is very important and probably one of the most misunderstood steps in the excommunication process. Ultimately, the person is not being excommunicated because of the original sin.

I don't mean Adam's original sin, but the original sin or offense that he's accused of being guilty of. He's being excommunicated because of his rejection of the authority of the local church whose head is Christ.

Remember, if you refuse the authority of the church, you're refusing the authority of Christ as its head, as long as the church is working within biblical grounds. Does that make sense? Because there's no such thing in these terms as an unforgivable sin.

We're not talking about the unforgivable sin. That's a whole different ballgame. The scripture gives three reasons for this discipline. First, to honor the name of God. If somebody is repudiating the authority of the local church, that's poking your finger in the eye of God.

So it's to honor the name of God. Second is to keep the church pure. If you have an unruly member, that spreads like cancer. And then the third, to seek the reconciliation of the offender. Remember what Paul said, you know, in the cases in 1 Corinthians, I have decided to deliver the one over to Satan, so that the soul may be saved even to the destruction of the body.

Now, notice the relationship between counseling and discipline. This is what we've been talking about in the counseling process. If a person refuses to change sinful behavior, the counselor, at some point, needs to turn it over to the church.

Even if it's the eldership of the church that the person's a member of. So there's a direct relationship. That's why a lay counselor or an independent counselor, if they're not working under the authority of the eldership of the church, they can only go so far.

Okay, and that's at a detriment of the offending party. Much of the power available to the local church is being drained off by unresolved issues and the neglect of discipline. Undisciplined church members are a thorn in the side of the local body.

And so proper church discipline must be practiced if the church is going to accomplish the purpose God has given to it. And the purpose God has given to it is to what? To make disciples of all the nations.

Many churches have abandoned discipline because they have abandoned biblical counseling. If you just hand over counseling to psychologists and to psychiatrists and all you're doing is handing them over so they can be prescribed medication, biblical discipline never even comes into play.

And so you have unruly people. This is a new section. This is called Reconciliation and Forgiveness, but it's directly related to the reconciliation and reconciliation dynamic. So reconciliation is a change of relationship between the persons.

All right.

If true reconciliation takes place, there is going to be a change in the dynamic between the parties involved. And there are three elements involved in reconciliation. Confession to God and offended parties.

Forgiveness by God and offended parties. And third, establishment of a new relationship. And you'll see these as we go through. In reconciliation, enmity and alienation are replaced by peace and fellowship.

So you can see that there's a whole new relationship that develops. It's not enough to merely ask forgiveness from God. Yes, the sin is always against God, but the offenses are against individuals. People are offended by sinful behavior.

And true repentance will bear fruit that is appropriate to it, which means that if we have a brother who's in sin, the relationship with loving God, with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength is affected.

But what's secondarily affected? Loving your neighbor as yourself. You can see it's connected. Remember, we've been looking at, in Sunday mornings, we've been looking at the great commandment numerous times.

And we finally come to the conclusion that the great commandment, it's two commandments, but they're both just the different sides of the same coin. You can't love God without loving your neighbor and you can't love your neighbor without loving God.

So true repentance will bear fruit of it. That's why it's not merely enough to ask forgiveness from God, which means that the matters of the offense will be cleared up. Biblical fruit always involves change.

That's one of the biggest... Remember, well, let me ask you, what is the number one goal for biblical counseling? Spoiler alert, change. That's the number one goal of biblical counseling, is to change sinful habit patterns and put on righteousness.

And what does this change look like? Firstly, abandonment of the old ways. It's putting off, as Paul describes it, putting off the old self. Establishment of new relationships, okay? And if change doesn't occur, then more than likely the person will resort to his old ways.

It's the principle that Jesus taught about. Remember when he said, they swept the house so clean of demons, and what happens if you don't fill it with something? It's going to be worse than it was originally.

Remember, biblical fruit always involves change. Oh, wow, I said it again. That must have been a mistake. No, it wasn't. When that doesn't occur, it usually means the person doesn't understand biblical forgiveness, okay?

And that is a big misconception in the church today. Number one, forgiveness is a promise. Not too many people teaching this out there, but I'm going to show you right from the word of God, the biblical forgiveness is a promise.

Because when God forgives us, he promises not to bring the sins up against us again. Jeremiah 31, 34. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor. Oh, and by the way, Jeremiah 31, right? All of these verses right around 34.

What is the context? What is Jeremiah prophesying? The new covenant. People look, oh, Jeremiah, that's the old covenant. No, Jeremiah 31 is specifically talking about what is going to take place in the new covenant.

So this is new covenant teaching. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor. And each man, his brother saying, know the Lord, for they will all know me. From the least of them to the greatest of them declares the Lord.

For I will forgive their iniquity. And wait, wait for it, wait for it. Their sin, I will remember no more. There's a promise. God promises that in the new covenant, when he forgives sin, it will be remembered no more.

And also we are commanded to forgive like God forgives us. That's Matthew 18, okay? Therefore, the person forgiving the offender is promising not to hold the offense against the person. Now there's an implied threefold promise in forgiveness.

First promise, if I've offended you, okay? And you come to me and say, well, I forgive you, all right? What you're saying is, if you forgive me, you're saying I will not bring this up against you again, because I'm forgiving it, it's over, it's done.

That's the first promise, not to bring the offense up to the person again, all right? Second, not to bring it up to others again. You know, I forgave Pastor Jensen, but you know what he really did to me?

He really ticked me off, which is very possible too, by the way. I've been known to tick people off. If I just ask my wife, she's, no, never mind, don't ask my wife. But the third one is the hardest. Don't bring it up to yourself again, because God has promised that he will bring up your sin against him no more.

And we're told to forgive like God, so we can't bring it up to ourselves either. It only makes sense, doesn't it? But we always have some questions about this. But what if, what if the, firstly, what if the offended person continues to sulk?

What does that mean? Two possibilities, if a problem remains between the two parties. There are two possibilities if a problem remains between the two parties. One, there has not been genuine repentance, or two, forgiveness was actually not granted.

Just because you say, I forgive you, you have to forgive from the heart, not just with the lips. Then people always ask, well, what's the role of forgetting? I've always heard, you know, forgive and forget.

Okay, well, here's what I have to say about that. Forgetting is the fruit of real forgiveness. If you have really forgiven in time, you will forget, because you cannot command anyone to forget. I did a, I was teaching on this in this church a number of years ago, and I happened to have on somewhat of a cartoon character tie.

And I said, by the way, I said, I want everybody to forget that I wore this tie to prove a point. For weeks after that, people said, why did you say that? All I can see is that stupid tie that you had on.

In fact, the more you try to convince someone to forget, the more likely they are to remember. Forgetfulness comes with time and true forgiveness being granted. A person can begin to forget when the issue is resolved biblically.

If it's not resolved biblically, some of those feelings and those hurt feelings are still going to be there. Forgetting the offense is facilitated by the two parties establishing a new relationship. In other words, it takes work.

Any relationship takes work. If it's going to be a true, long-lasting biblical relationship. There are some signs that could reveal that a person has not forgiven biblically. One, if the person is acting like a martyr.

Oh, woe is me. Okay. Two, the person is depressed. Oh, I'm so depressed.

Why?

Forgiveness was granted. The person continually cries. Oh, I know it was resolved, but I still feel bad. The person wallows in self-pity. And that's just a couple of suggestions. There are many other reasons as well.

The counselor's job is to encourage the parties to discover the root causes of the problems and resolve them biblically. That's the key. They need to be resolved in a biblical fashion. Not just forgive and forget.

Not just, oh, time heals all wounds. Those trite little sayings don't work. The Bible gives us explicit directions on how to resolve interpersonal relationships within the body of Christ. When a person approaches...

Promise of Change in Forgiveness

Now, this is a question. I hope I have it in the right form here. When a person approaches someone he has offended and asks for forgiveness, should the offended party wait to see fruit of repentance? Who says no?

Who says yes? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Forgiveness should be granted when requested. That's the biblical model. Jesus says, if your brother... I think I have it here. Oh, well, let me answer this first.

Is it possible that the request then is not sincere? Yes. But Jesus taught to forgive based solely upon the verbal request of the brother. And that's found here. Look at Luke 17. Be on your guard if your brother sins, rebuke him.

And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times saying, I repent, forgive him. Remember how many times Peter asked Jesus, how many times? And what did Jesus say to clarify on this?

70 times seven. Built into that is the possibility that the person is not really sincere, but we're still under the obligation to forgive him. And you don't worry about bringing up the past because if he's still not truly repented, he's going to commit the same offense again.

And you deal with the new offense. You don't have to go back and dig up the old ones. And we see that also here, Galatians 6 .1. Brethren, if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted.

And in Matthew 18, if your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. Now, if the person you are counseling walks like granting forgiveness, the root problem is simply disobedience.

And that's something that you're going to have to deal with. This whole process encourages a dialogue between the parties before forgiveness is asked for. If you're going, if somebody has offended you and you go to them and you confront them, you don't say, you need to ask forgiveness.

You talk about it first. This is what you did. Make sure that the air is cleared. This is what you did. Do you realize that what you did offended me? You hurt me. And this is how you hurt me. Make sure that's, and the two witnesses can facilitate that as well.

So this whole process encourages a dialogue and paves the way for forgiveness to be asked for and given. And the discussion is necessary to guarantee that both parties understand the nature of the offense and the character of forgiveness.

Unfortunately, most Christians do not understand this biblical process. And it is not practiced in most churches, to the churches that we're in. Questions?

Yes.

I have a question, a comment.

Obviously, we're supposed to model ourselves after the way God forgives, ultimately. And we sin against God constantly. And hopefully we repent of most of the sins, but there's probably so many sins we don't even realize we're sinning that we don't even repent of, and yet God still forgives.

But yet we're so delusional. We think our repentance or offering forgiveness to others is so precious that we need to guard it or offer it sparingly. You know, God, of course, is bigger than self.

Yeah, good point.

Yeah.

And God doesn't wait for our fruit to develop.

No.

You know, and then he forgives us afterwards. So we have to just forgive.

Yeah, it would be okay. Like, let's say, you know, somebody has offended you and you go to them and they say, well, you know, will you forgive me? Just before you do that, I just want you to understand, do you know exactly what you did to offend me?

And why that offended me and how that offended me? Just to clear the air, you know, to make sure that the person knows what the offense is and knows what they're doing when they say, will you forgive me?

Because when you say, yes, I forgive you, that's it, you're closing the door on it.

Yeah.

Maybe that's the point that I was a little confused on on that section is, you know, when we're called to forgive as God forgives, but God doesn't forgive people just on their verbal request for forgiveness.

There's gotta be true repentance there, right?

Yeah.

And are we not in some way then called to discern whether or not someone's words are hollow or if there's some element of true repentance?

Right after you walk across Laurent's son, you can do that.

Yeah, I think that's the problem is we don't,.

Because of our limited nature,.

We can only see what we can see. God knows the heart, so even if it's true, and also if it's a brother, we have to assume the best of our brother, that they're not trying to deceive us with their repentance.

And again, remember now, this is talking about private individuals, you know, church members. Things change for the government and things change for the church as a whole, too. Because the church has that power of excommunication, and that can come not necessarily from individual offenses, but from blatant sin.

And depending on what that is, we can forgive a person, yet still excommunicate them. That came out wrong. We can discipline them, but even while granting forgiveness, and that discipline can have several forms, not excommunication.

Yeah, yeah. For example, if I committed a heinous sin and asked for forgiveness, I may be, I have to be granted forgiveness. But I may not be qualified to hold the office of elder anymore. That's what I was getting at.

Thank you for the look, Pastor Chris. Any other thoughts or comments?