Spiritual Health (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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So spiritual health part two. Last time we looked at physical health and spiritual health and while we pay a lot of attention to ailments, physical ailments that come our way and we look for help and try to get better sometimes when it comes to spiritual health we,

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I typically tend to ignore it until it gets into a catastrophe and then I need to get pulled out of a ditch.

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So the purpose of last week and this week is just to kind of remind ourselves of how we ought to be, you know, taking some spiritual vitamins, you know, for physical health we all take something, good food, rest and vitamins.

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We need to be in the word and being nourished by it in prayer and communing with the Lord and when we do get into ailments and we call the equivalent of those ailments as sin how do we deal with those sins that do fall upon us and so we looked at one specific sin, we looked at the sin of bitterness as more as an example of how you work through it.

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So while we, what we did was we just took some scriptures and touched upon them.

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We didn't really dive into them but at least it gives us an idea of what bitterness is and how do we deal with bitterness scripturally and so we just kind of laid some content or some foundation.

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Of course there's a lot more to speak about it and more specifically if someone is dealing with, if I am dealing with bitterness.

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But today I'm going to do something a little bit different. We are going to now work through the mechanics of how you take those scriptures and apply them in our lives and also not just for ourselves, for others.

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If someone, if you need someone to help you how do you go and approach them and if you want to help someone who's struggling with this how do you help them through the scriptures in this particular area?

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I mean, bitterness is just an example. We might actually pick something else today. So before I get started

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I need to wear my glasses so I can read what I've written. Did anybody have an occasion to apply what we learned last week?

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Anything that happened? Actually, if you did just raise your hand. I won't call upon you. I'll raise my hand because I did need to apply what

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I taught. It actually helps that you're teaching because it's like right on your mind. You can't forget it. And if anyone wants to share, feel free to in terms of how this was applied in your life but sharing some things like this is a little more challenging.

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You know, I always say you should be ready to share your testimony of how you got saved anytime. You know, and not a testifony but a testimony because it can be a lot more about myself, my sin and my greatness rather than the

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Lord and his goodness and his power. And the same thing here. You know, there are times when some things are appropriate to share and some are inappropriate to share.

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I can be bringing someone down or elevating myself up. But it is appropriate to share how the

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Lord has helped us in specific ways because it can encourage others how they can be helped going through their own trials.

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And just like testimony when it comes to salvation so also when it comes to our sanctification we can testify of how

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God has helped us because it will bring glory to God and also help others who might be going through the same trial.

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Now, a couple of preliminary comments before we dive into today's new material. Just a reminder again the whole premise of this spiritual health check and how do we work through getting healthier if we are sick or in sin begins with the gospel.

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Can someone just give me a quick one -minute summary of the gospel? The key points that you think come to your mind when you think of the word gospel.

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Grace is free unmerited favor. Okay, what else do you think of? So it is on the finished work of Jesus Christ on my behalf the perfect life substitutionary atonement and that's the basis of my we call new birth the spiritual life that begins.

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I'm born as a infant John 3 and then I'm growing now as a so my health as a spiritual being begins in the gospel and it begins with the person of Jesus Christ.

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Anything else? Did I say another? Redemption from sin.

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So we really want to be remembering that we were dead in our trespasses and sin.

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We were slaves to unrighteousness and really you know when I sometimes as a spiritual health, I think oh, you know,

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I'm saved. I must be this superhero great guy. Why do I do these things and I need to remember that this is the pit from which

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I got saved out of and God has given me positionally. He has made me perfect in Christ, but he is transforming me into his son's image progressively.

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So there is going to be this step movement upward and so when I think of where I am now with the specific sin

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I'm caught in, I need to remember that God is I don't need, I don't have to wallow in guilt because Christ has forgiven all my sins including the one that I'm in.

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I do need to confess and ask for his forgiveness, but it isn't the basis of what he has accomplished that I have my hope that he'll finish what he has started in me.

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Redemption. Great. Any other thoughts on the gospel? I think that pretty well covers it.

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The one thing I would probably add is just where it all begins. You know, we have a holy God, a righteous God, a God who is the judge of all the universe who is also a

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God who loves and has placed his affection upon me and he loved me so much that he sent a son.

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So there is this balance of the holiness of God and the love of God which we don't have to balance. They are all one in him, but I can tend to forget one over the other and I always want to be looking back to the nature of God while I'm working through my own sanctification and the gospel is anchored in the character of God himself.

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So that's one thing I want to remind. The second one is I said salvation, you know, we normally think of as three elements.

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I kind of alluded to it here. What were the three? I see a lot of hands going up, but they were not raised to answer.

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What are the three aspects of salvation as a whole that we normally refer to? Okay, I'm probably not making a lot of sense.

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Justification, sanctification, and glorification. Justification, positionally, you know, declared not guilty before the courtroom of God.

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Positionally, I am in the heavenlies, declared righteous. Sanctification, and that's what we are actually talking about yesterday and last week and this week,

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I'm being made holy. I'm practically working out, I'm switching to my next words.

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I'm being more and more into the image of Christ. There's going to be times when I'm going to keep sinning, and I will look for God's grace, and I will find his grace in my time of need, and I will be able to reflect the goodness of God even in the darkest of times.

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And when I look back at my life from when I got saved to where I am now, if I do not see a fruit that is in conformity with my faith, then

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I want to be looking back at whether I did have a regeneration to begin with. So if someone says I have no fruit at all, then we would ask them to go back to justification and make sure that they genuinely did trust in their

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Lord. But for those who are saved, sanctification is a joyful process where we get to see those areas of our lives in greater measure as the

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Word of God shines, and it illumines more and more. We understand in greater ways the holiness of God.

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We understand in greater ways how the sinfulness that I, the flesh that I have to struggle with, and so Paul at the end of his life would say, you know, the chief of sinners because he gets to see

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God in that much greater measure, and so also his own sin and failure that needs

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God's grace to help him through. But in this process, you get to see how you are transformed into the image of Christ and be an aroma to those around you.

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But the last one is glorification, and it's always helpful to remember glorification is in the future. Sometimes in my sanctification,

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I have such a zeal that I want to be in heaven, and that's not a bad thing, but if I have expectations and if I, maybe of myself, it's not a bad thing.

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If I have such expectations of others, and they don't live up to my expectation of being glorified, that can be problematic.

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We do have the assurance that one day we will not dwell in the presence of sin anymore, so that's something, a glorious future we're looking forward to where we get to see

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God face -to -face with nothing hindering our eyes. So all of these are foundations upon which we're going to be talking here, because our focus is going to be very narrowly on sanctification.

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It's going to be focused on what you must do as a believer who is dealing with sin in your life.

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And last week, again, I alluded to this, Philippians 2. It's not about just your effort, you know, here are seven steps to get out of whatever it is that you're struggling with, anxiety, bitterness, or anger, or you name it, sexual sins.

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But rather, this is something that God is working in you. Philippians 2, we looked at, you must work out your salvation with fear and trembling, energia, push, you know, you're going to bench press 140 pounds, not of just metal, but here of spiritual struggles that you go through.

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You must be sweating and toiling as you work out your salvation. It's not, you know, just play catch with a tennis ball.

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This is really something that you're just going to have to work out your salvation. But it's not just your effort alone, you know, just bootstrap, pick it up, and move on.

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Because for the believer, because you have this new life in you, you have a regenerate, your heart is regenerated, you have the

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Spirit of God indwelling you, you're one in Christ. There is something in that is working itself out, and it is

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God who puts that desire even for the things that you want to grow in holiness.

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And He's also the one who's enabling. He's the one who wills and to act according to His good purpose.

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He's the one who provides you the guidance, the wisdom, and the power in order to be transformed into His goodness.

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So everything that we're talking about is happening under that matrix. It's God's work in you. It's not just my work that makes me sanctified.

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So now, for today's thing, I mentioned it's not just for me, but also for others. If someone can open up to Galatians 6, 1 and 2, and just read that.

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Whoever has it first can read it, and the others can follow. You don't have to wait for me. So here's a command really for us that we ought to be able to not just watch out for the spiritual health of myself, but also for others who are, it says here, caught in any transgression.

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And the way you do it is by keeping watch so you don't actually fall in the same sin, but also bear one another's burden and fulfill the law of Christ.

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The law of Christ being love your neighbor as yourself. Bearing one another's burden.

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So this is, you know, we talked about bench -pressing, you know, when you're talking about your own spiritual growth.

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Now this is more like spotting. You know, this person is struggling to lift that weight that they are with, you know.

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Ultimately, the only person who can genuinely help them is who? Christ.

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Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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You know, Christ is the one who actually takes our burdens upon himself.

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He's the one who enables us, but we are meant as a body of Christ to come alongside one another and help and bear one another's burdens, as we read in Galatians 6 .2.

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And this is more like spotting, where you actually help the person from, you know, just putting their weight over their neck and choking to death.

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Or someone who's already in that state and you're like, okay, desperation. Come alongside and let's pull this person back to safety.

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So, I mean, with all those analogies aside, now, let's figure out how this process works.

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So, I'm going to be talking in the context of helping someone else, but this is, we'll go one level deeper to what we talked last time, which is about helping ourselves.

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How do we look to the Lord and to the Word and to through prayer for our own working out our salvation when we are stuck in a specific sin.

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But I'm going to speak it in the context of helping someone else, in terms of just the method that would be helpful to do.

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So, I have a bunch of books here. I might pull one of them based on the questions that we have, but I'm going to use a few steps just to kind of lay out the process and then we'll work through them specifically with bitterness in mind.

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But if some other example comes, we'll switch over to that. So, last time, if you remember, I gave you a few examples.

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I'll just refresh you. We talked about Becky. I didn't realize Becky. I think she's teaching.

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I didn't realize Becky was sitting here when I use this name. This example just gave that. But in that example, we had this person,

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Becky, who had an inappropriate advance by a worship leader, came to the church.

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They didn't seem to do anything about it and led her to bitterness. David's father, killed by a drunk driver, got away with a light sentence, bitter with the unfairness of life.

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Laura's husband, not interested in meeting her needs emotionally, and we saw how that led her to kind of wanting to give up on a marriage.

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Claire's boss, critical and humiliating her in front of her co -workers and treating her unfairly, and she was unable to let it go and looking for revenge.

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And so, these were just some examples. So, whether this is happening in your own life or in the life of someone that you are helping with, how do you go about looking to the word for help and then applying the word in growing out of that pit that you might be in, this particular one being bitterness?

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So, we began last week by doing some definitions. We just said, okay, here are some, what does the

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Bible talk about bitterness? What is bitterness to begin with? Can someone, if you remember, can you just tell me what you remember as definitions of bitterness?

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What is bitterness? Unforgiveness is a key component of bitterness. That's right.

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What else do we remember from the scriptures on bitterness? Anger, and we looked at it.

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There is a anger that can be righteous and an anger that can be sinful, but an anger that is sinful and not dealt in a biblical way over a prolonged period of time can come into a state of settled bitterness, and that is dangerous for our soul.

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It is a sin against God and against the person you are bitter with. Any other thoughts on bitterness that you remember from last time?

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I think that covers the key ones. There were a few others that I want to just throw them out to you.

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So, if you are looking to yourself and you are struggling with looking at God because of the guy who had his dad killed or maybe the boss who is being unfair, here may be a couple of things to be thinking of.

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One is, like you said, unresolved anger. Ephesians 4 .26

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tells us that be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. It needs to be dealt with quickly.

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The other part might be willingness to submit to God. We didn't touch upon this last time, but there may be trials and circumstances in my life that, they are happening, and I can just say, well,

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I'm going to take this on my own. I can handle this. Instead of submitting the trial and the problem before God, I might be saying, okay,

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I need to do this on my own. I keep failing, and then I just go down the path that can lead to bitterness because this situation or this person or this problem is just too big for me, and I need to remember that I'm dependent on God for my sanctification.

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Submission of the trial, but really submission of my own life before the Lord, because there may be things in which

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I'm required to respond in these particular circumstances, but I might actually be wanting to do things my own way.

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The Lord says, forgive, and I say, no, because I want to solve this on my own.

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They need to change, not me, in terms of forgiving the person that I'm dealing with. Another aspect is control.

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Last time I gave you an example from a few years ago in my life, and I had no idea that the source of what just led to bitterness was actually my desire to control the circumstances of life around me.

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I had not even realized it took months before I realized the reason I was so frustrated and I was just bitter was because I thought

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I could control these circumstances. It kind of goes back to that submitting to the Lord and to come to the point to realize

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I have absolutely no control in this world. There's only God who controls everything, and he does it perfectly.

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I need to be able to say, okay, uncle, I can do this. God, you are God, and I can trust you that you will do what is right.

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It can come out from the whole forgiveness thing. There could be jealousy that is involved in terms of looking at someone who is maybe sinfully successful and say, okay, why not me?

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Why him or her? Those could be all different aspects of it. But then comes the question where, let me ask you this question.

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We talked about spiritual health. What do you think is the goal of, if I'm in a spiritual ditch, let us say, what do you think is the goal that I should be shooting for when

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I'm in a spiritual ditch? Excellent. Actually, you went down a little bit of a different path, but you've used the verse that I was going to use.

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Just a moment, I'll come to you. The verse, why are you downcast, O my soul? Hope thou in God.

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Now, there is times when you feel like David is just talking to himself. What is that?

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Oh, I'm glad I have a psalmist here with me. Who was it? Asa? Okay. Thank you.

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And when the psalmist does that, there are times when we go through life,

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I have a pain that normally wakes me up to sin against me that I'm committing.

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But more often than not, I just want to get rid of the pain. And I don't really look to what are the circumstances in my life that are coming toward me, looking at them through the lens of scripture.

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Normally, I'm just trying to walk through them quickly so I can get out on the other side. But asking these questions help you look, take the time to just pause and say, what is happening?

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How do I examine what's happening in my life in the light of scripture? What are things in my soul that the

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Lord is doing business with? Those are all good questions to ask. Just a moment, Cora. You need to start writing some.

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I saw two hands back there. Yeah, excellent.

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And actually, we need to always remember the pain would be nice to go away. But maturity in Christ is a broader goal that we need to be thinking of.

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So the pain may or may not go away soon. But if through the pain, even if it gets worse, if I'm if I am conformed to the image of Christ, we will realize that I can have peace even when the pain is getting much more intense.

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I can have confidence in the Lord even when things just completely fall apart. I'm praying for the solution, and then nothing happens.

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I know that God's will is working itself out in me, and I'm submitting to his will in the process. Excellent.

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Excellent. And I think between the two of you kind of covered the two components I wanted to touch on in terms of what's your goal.

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Last time we looked at this, you know, what's the chief end of man? It is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

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Really, my purpose in this trial and recognizing especially that God is sovereign, that he ordained this trial, is that I would glorify

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God through this time. I need to be looking up to him. And everything else that we're going to be looking at scriptures take that sanctification component and then draws it out.

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You know, if the scripture says love one another and I do not love,

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I'm not glorifying God. Now, if I just make a list of, you know, here's all the love things I'm going to do and, you know, magic,

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I checked off the 10 and my trouble needs to go away, I'm thinking incorrectly. You know, I'm just, what I need to be looking at, this love is the character of God himself.

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And he's the one who has saved me, and he has showed his love upon me. And I need to be able to love others because that's what

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God tells me is his will. And how do I love this person in the circumstance that's actually causing me a lot of bitterness?

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And I want to be introspective. I just don't want to say, let go and let God, you know, when it comes to justification and sanctification, you know, theologically, we know that's foolish to say, okay, you know,

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God will kind of make all things happen the way they will, you know, because God says, work out your salvation.

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But the way I work them out needs to be from the scriptures for his glory and God's good purposes to make me conform and mature in Christ.

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Great points. And Corey? Oh, okay. Someone covered it already. Okay. So here are, these were all just the steps to think through this process as you get started.

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And now let's say we got started. Let's, let's look at a few things.

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Last time we looked at some scriptures. And so knowledge of the scriptures is essential.

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I'm actually, before I say that, there are two sides to it. One is I'll call them experience and the other one as biblical knowledge.

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Let's maybe just have a little bit of a conversation on this, because depending on how you see this or more than how you see this, how you actually deal with your own spiritual health, you'll recognize where you're putting your emphasis on.

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So let's say bitterness, because we're using this helping others.

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Someone's coming to you and they are just really mad. Let's take that last example of your boss. Someone whose boss is just really mean, unfair, unkind, and wicked.

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And they come and talk to you about it. And they're not asking you for counsel. They're just telling what's happening in their life.

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And through these two lens of experience and scripture, what do you think would be glorifying

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God and helping this brother or sister grow in godliness? Like for you to be able to speak to this person who is approaching you?

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Maybe my question wasn't clear. Yeah, Anthony? Excellent. And I think we're missing

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Brother Gary here. And he mentioned that last time. Why do we want to pray? You know, first and foremost, we want the

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Lord's help. You know, all of the great wisdom and experience or scripture knowledge is useless if God is not helping this person through this trial.

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And we love this person enough to care for them. And we need the Lord's help. So we need to go to the Lord to get his help.

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Let me maybe just expand what you just said a little bit. So if you let's, you know, Galatians 6, 1 to 2, it's talking in the context of the church.

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So anybody here in this church, you know, you could think of someone who's a close friend, someone who's just an acquaintance, you just meet them, you really don't know anything about their life, or just, well, you may know some things about their life, or someone who's a, like in BBC, so many people, you don't actually don't even know their name.

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They just, you know, just so distraught, and they just happen to bump into them as a brother or a sister in Christ. So depending on your relationship with this person, you may or may not be able to connect or understand and explain what is going on.

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But no matter where this person is, before you are actually even trying to help them, let's say you have gone through this trial, you actually understand what it is, or you have absolutely no experience at all.

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You're this one person who's never had bitterness in your life. And I mean, that's what I thought before I was bitter in my last trial.

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I was like, I'm never bitter with anybody. I was like, okay, here you go, try this out.

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So maybe you're in that pre -bitterness phase that I was in, and I'm like, I have no clue what bitterness is. Why would you be bitter?

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Come on, just trust the Lord. Or you know nothing about the scriptures that deal with bitterness, or you know everything.

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You've studied, you know what the scriptures speak about it. Now, what role do you think these both play in terms of ministering to a friend?

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And I will pick up what you said about how you get started with helping. Excellent points.

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There were many things here, and I was really hoping not to have to bring up a couple of books, but you've touched on it, now

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I have to. And actually, one of the things you mentioned, it's a confession of my own weakness.

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There are times when I have used the scripture in a very harsh way, speaking to people, rather than in a kind way, and in a very gentle way, in a way that actually applies it in a way that's helpful.

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And not just to people, to myself as well. You know, in terms of, you know, you look at the Psalms. The Psalms are just so honest about the struggles that people go through, and bearing everything before God.

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And we have a God who is loving, and kind, and still.

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And he works, and he's patient. He's not looking for me, you know, to be Mr. Perfect.

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Tomorrow, he's got all of my life planned out for him. And as someone who's counseling someone else, we need to be remembering that as well.

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When we are bringing God's word, it needs to be brought with long -suffering patience and with kindness.

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But I'm going to just pick up a couple of things, and have some cautions here, both in ministering to others and as well as for ourselves.

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Empathy, sympathy, and support. Those are three words that can be either used or misused.

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So if you think of secular, you know, there is a sense in which, you know, whoever is suffering, they're the right person, and they just need the empathy, sympathy, and support to kind of do what they want to be doing, rather than looking at what is the truth.

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What does the scripture say is the problem, whether it is what they're facing or what they're doing, and what does the word of God say as the solution through the problem.

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So counseling, ultimately, is we rest in the word of God as the power, you know, as we think of the gospel as a part of God into salvation.

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So also, it is in the word that we actually have the means by which to grow in our sanctification, to put off sin, and to look for God's help as we walk through this trial that we are going through.

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So we need to remember that it is always on the basis of God's word that we can actually help. You know, all my richest experiences, if it is devoid of God's word, is meaningless, because my experiences could or could not be right or helpful or even connected with what is happening here.

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So we need to make sure that the word of God is the foundation, the basis upon which I speak. Last week, we talked about this.

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You remember Pastor Mike's counsel, you know, if it is a sin, it is black and white. We say, here's what the

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Lord says, and this is what you need to do in order to grow out of this sin or, you know, to put off this sin.

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But if there is wisdom, and actually that will come back into this experience, he would say, you know, if I were you, you know, and then say, here's what would be helpful for you to do.

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And this part of it is actually more of a skill. It takes wisdom to be able to recognize what scriptures, what experiences would actually connect with this person who is actually going through something similar, be able to do it in a way with gentleness and compassion, not just, here's your medicine, open your mouth,

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I'm going to shove it down your throat, gobble it and do this five times a day, and, you know, your fever will go away.

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I need to be able to work with this person with gentleness as I'm trying to help them, because they are caught up in sin.

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And I need to recognize that I need to be, I'm repeating myself. So just a couple of extra words on this before we move on.

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So J. Adams, this is one of the books that we have, and I know we have MacArthur's Biblical Counseling as well in our library.

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Those give you the dangers to watch out for, you know, from the secular forms of counseling and how you need to be anchored in the

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Word of God in approaching this. And there was one thing that I was reading this summer, and I'm going to just read a little bit of a quote, because this may sound very counterintuitive.

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Talking back again about experience and knowledge of God, I'm going to ask you a question and then

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I'm going to read this. The question is this, does God feel your pain?

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I'm deliberately using the word feel there. Does God feel your pain when you're going through the suffering?

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And what do we think that means, whether he feels or does not feel? So just let that rattle in your head, and I'm going to read, this is again another book in our bookstore.

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Matthew Barrett, non -grader, I know all the elders are reading this, and I'm getting all the youth to get on it too, this summer as I teach their classes.

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And I got an audiobook from one of you, and I'm thankful for that, because I like to listen to audiobooks when

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I'm driving. So here's, and so the attribute that he handles, different attributes of God, the one that pertains to what

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Corey said is impassibility. And there, there's a theologian,

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I would call him liberal theologian, called Moltmann, and Jürgen Moltmann, and he was trying to answer the question of where was

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God during Nazi Germany, when the Jews were in the Holocaust. And the question is, where is

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God? Moltmann's answer, God is there suffering with you. Seems okay so far, let's just follow his thread a little bit further.

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And then he says, if you don't say God is hanging there on the gallows with you, any other answers, this is a quotation, would be blasphemy.

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To speak of a God who could not suffer would make God a demon, and that's what he says. And then

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I'm going to just read a couple more. Actually, let me just stop there.

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What do you think of what I just read? God's suffering.

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Vulnerable, that's a key word there. Okay, is God vulnerable? No. Okay, excellent.

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So when we look at the life, death, burial, and then the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have suffering and injustice and torment of a way that we can't even fathom, yes?

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And I think that that's precisely it. And I think that's really where he's going for with this whole experience of, you know, how can

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God help if he doesn't even identify with or understand or feel what we are going through?

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And I think that's what he's trying to get at. But any other thoughts on this? You can say counter views.

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It's okay. Don't feel like you have to give the right answer. You can raise your questions, even if you can't answer them.

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Yes, brother. Excellent.

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And that's referring to who in the Trinity? Jesus Christ. So, you know, here is Jesus, who is both fully

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God and fully man. As a man, he's been tempted in every way that we are. Can God be tempted? Come on, guys.

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I'm expecting a quick... God, no. Yeah. Sorry.

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Can God be tempted? And Jesus was tempted. This is where theology gets a little tricky.

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Jesus was fully God and fully man. And, you know, we have scriptures that say God... It was.

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And it's okay to give me the wrong answer because we want to work through these things because our goal is to put all the scriptures together as we are understanding the nature of God, the help that God gives us when we ourselves are struggling.

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And so we look to Jesus Christ as when he was the perfect man, fully tempted, never sinned, struggled.

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He knows all. And I think Hebrews 4 talks about that as well in terms of how he... 4 and 5.

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We can come before him because he is a great high priest who knows our weaknesses. And there is a sense of identification that you have in the person of Jesus Christ as one who is fully man.

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But what Mulkman was talking about was not about the man Jesus Christ. He's talking about God in his deity.

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And so the attribute that we were looking at is called impassibility. And that talks about how

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God is not, I think John put it well, vulnerable. He's not one who is just passing through these emotions.

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And actually, it's challenging because you have scriptures that talk about how God grieves. You look at the

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Israelites through the wilderness and how they are constantly fickle.

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And if you were to read just from a surface standpoint, it may seem like, okay, you know, God was all excited bringing them out with the 10 plagues.

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And then, you know, year one, and it's all kind of gone down. It's like, okay, you know, these people are just useless.

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Is that the nature of our God that is reflected in the whole corpus of the scriptures?

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And how do you read those scriptures that talk about the grief that God experiences in light of all the other scriptures that talk about the nature, unchanging nature of God, the sovereign and eternal purposes of God through my trials.

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And so when we look at this, here's Augustine, who does a better job. He's a better theologian as well of talking about God.

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He says, you, Lord God, lover of souls, you show a compassion.

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And I'm going to read this slowly. Far purer and freer of mixed motives than ours.

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For no suffering injures you. No suffering injures you.

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And actually this author, he takes some other theologians. He talks about how God is pure act.

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God is not reacting to my circumstances. And there's more to be said, but I'm out of time. So I'm going to, I'm just going to leave that there because especially in counseling, it's while we need to be kind hearted, tender, gentle, we need to be remembering how

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God is the one react, not reacting, ministering to us in our times of need. He's impassable.

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Thank you. And actually he uses that example of that fireman. You know, your house is on fire.

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You are in desperate state. Your child is burning in, in, in this burning home. Who do you want to help?

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Someone who has actually gone through the fire, who just comes alongside and just hugs you and says, Oh, I feel really bad for you. Or someone who actually knows, you know, how to deal with fire, gets in there and pulls your baby out.

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You know, who has never, you get the point. So really the, when counseling, you know, we are looking for the word of God to help us.

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We need the God of the universe to help us. And we need to come alongside someone who's weak with the strength that God has given us in his word.

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And we need to do it with kindness and compassion, but the way in which you engage with others, it needs to be done with skill and with wisdom.

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So now, um, you used another term, Cody, uh, you use, I think you used a map and I think that's kind of crucial here.

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So when I'm dealing with a sin, let's say bitterness, it might have some, as we saw, there's a many to many map here between the symptoms that you experience and the root causes.

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And the root sin of bitterness may have other sins that are dealing with it. Like I talked about control, jealousy, uh, anger.

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We talked about many things. So normally it's a mess of issues that I'm dealing with when I'm stuck in a deep hole or the friend that I'm dealing with is stuck in a deep hole.

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And, um, I can't, I can't make a list of all of those sins and say, okay, you know, let's just put them all off and put on the righteousness and we'll all be good to go.

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Right. You need to kind of, uh, put a little ladder, get them up a little bit.

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So, you know, if I'm going to be drowning and I need to get my nose over the water first before I can start breathing.

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And, uh, what is that particular aspect of the trial that I need to first work through? So, you know, as I, if it is someone

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I'm speaking with, it's good to maybe listen first, just ask the questions that will help us go through this questions.

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Um, you know, such as what, what have you tried, um, to deal with in this problem?

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What is the outcome of your, of that you're looking for? Many a time for me, the outcome is just pain go away, you know, and I need to kind of step back and say, there's a bigger plan if you're a believer that God has, and that's what you should be looking for.

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And then the pain in the process, we'll ask for the Lord's help to go away. Um, what are the events that led to this?

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And so as we talk about those circumstances, and this is actually for myself, because I'm such a McDonald's kind of guy, you know,

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I want to drive in, drive out with a, with an answer. I don't normally sit back and say, okay, what really happened in my life that got me to this point?

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And how can I now take the time to look at those events through the lens of scripture? Because, you know, when

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I go through life, it's too fast. I'm just reacting based on my past experience and whatever little biblical knowledge was in my head.

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But now I sit back and say, okay, here's what the scripture says about bitterness. And here's what happened in my life.

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How do I now engage? Where were the times when I've kind of started to slip away? And where are the things that people have sinned against me?

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And then, you know, look at this as the way God sees it, than the way that this person in this trial sees this, or way even

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I would see it, as one who's coming alongside to help. And, and then forgiveness we saw as a key component of, of the, of dealing with bitterness.

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And we need to, once we can lay out what the big issues are, you know, forgiveness will be one of the first things you want to start with.

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Because if I can't forgive, or at least recognize that forgiveness is central in terms of dealing with bitterness in my life,

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I'm not going to go too far off. And let's say, I mean, I know I dealt with this.

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I'm finding it hard to forgive this person who has injured me severely. After I can examine the circumstances through the lens of scripture.

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And for those of you who are married, your spouses are just such a wonderful gift from God.

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They can tell you truth that nobody else has the courage to say it. And, and, you know, and when you are desperately on your back, you will listen to your spouse.

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We should do that other times too. But the, the truth is when these things come our way, you know, so when

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I say forgiveness, forgiveness can become another checklist, or it can go back to the gospel. Have I been forgiven by Christ?

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If I've been forgiven much, can I forgive little? You know, the parables in the scriptures.

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So we go back to the parables, use those to just say, okay, let's just anchor ourselves. Maybe I feel I can never forgive this person, but let's go back to the gospel.

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Let's start there and work our way up. And until I'm getting to the point where I can actually genuinely say, okay,

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I'm forgiving, but it's going to come back. And I have to forgive this person again, because my brain is such a trap door for all the sins that are in my flesh.

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I need to be remembering that I need to go back to the gospel continually. So start with something that way.

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And then the second thing is if it is a sin that I'm habitually in, bitterness typically is like a progression that leads to this point.

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I need to remember that this is a habit and putting on and putting off is not just a one -time thing.

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It needs to be continually done. What are some scriptures that will help me to put off? So when

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I've looked at the events that have led me to this point, I can maybe flag some things that are patterns of thinking, patterns of relating to others, patterns of doing that I need to be cautious about.

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So I can maybe just watch out for some of those things. And some of those things may be extremely dangerous. It's like TNT in your soul and you say, okay, do not take a fire near this particular event.

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If this event happens, I need to be walking as far away from it as possible. Try not to let that thought entertain and stay in my head.

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We can all be tempted with those thoughts, but it doesn't need to build a nest in my head and then hatch its eggs of fury.

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So I need to be very careful about certain things. And I think for counseling for others and for myself, I need to say, just write them down, stick them on my wall and say, here's what the scripture says about it.

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Don't do not go back to this. And if I do confess and ask the Lord for help to work through it, to breaking some of these habits, you don't have the power to do it.

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Neither do I. And we need the Lord's help to work through these trials. And for those who have the spirit of God indwelling them, we have the power of God dwelling within them.

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And when you put off something, you need to put on something else or else you just have a clean house ready for you know what.

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So a good place to start would be Galatians five fruit of the spirit. You know, what aspects of the fruit of the spirit are not manifest in my life.

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Now, if I put this off, I need to be able to put something else back on for myself. I need to be reminding.

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I memorize those scriptures to say, here's what needs to. Here is my Tylenol or my chemo.

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I don't know what state I am in spiritually, but I need this in order to look to the Lord for help going through this particular trial.

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And so does my brother or my sister. And I want to be able to provide them that that input. And ultimately, it needs to rest in the person of Jesus Christ.

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You know, I need to be able to look up to Christ through this trial. And not myself or this counselor who's helping me, whoever is counseling someone else, if I'm just going to be a lifelong counselor for them, my job description is not paraclete.

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There is someone else who's who's always the paraclete. And my point, my goal should be to point this person or myself to the

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Lord to say, my sustenance needs to come from him alone. Let me stop here. I'm out of time. But there are two things that are essential.

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One is scripture. We saw some of the scriptures last time. I thought we'll dive a little bit deeper. We couldn't, whether it is

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Saul and his bitterness with David, Job and his lack of bitterness in the beginning, and then how he starts to get angrier and angrier through the book until he meets

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God at the end. You want to be able to engage with those scriptures and then let those scriptures transform your thinking, because once your thinking is transformed, your actions can follow suit.

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And then you look at how you can put off and put on, put off sin and put on righteousness. And prayer needs to be continual through this whole process because we need to be remembering that our dependency is on God and God alone.

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Let me stop here. Any quick questions and then we'll close. I'm sorry.

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I wanted us to be more interactive, but I couldn't get to it. I guess keep talking too much. And, uh, but I know the

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Lord is sufficient. Let's, let's pray. A loving father, we thank you for your word.

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We thank you for your presence in our midst. We thank you that you are a fortress that we can run to in our time of need.

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You who made the vast universe care for each person, and you have ordained not only the trial, but the sanctification with patience and long suffering, and you are our help.

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And for that, we give you thanks. I pray father that as we struggle in sin, that you would help us to look up to you and look into your word and find confidence and hope.

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Pray that as we minister to one another, that we would do so with gentleness and kindness, with compassion.

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And we would do it on the basis of your word and your word alone. I pray for the rest of this morning as we worship you in, uh, uh, in, uh, in the hearing of your word and in communion that you would be glorified and exalted.