15. The Theology of Counseling

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16. Presuppositions In Counseling Part II

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Okay, so we're going to continue. Pastor's got the series going on biblical counseling. Tonight, we're going to learn about the theology of counseling, and in fact,

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I brought this. It's a little book by Wayne Mack called

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A Practical Guide to Effective Biblical Counseling, and it's excellent. If you want a short summary of basically everything that J.

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Adams is going over, this is a good place to start. So we're going to start off with the theology of counseling.

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So let me ask you this. What is theology? How would you define theology? Thank you.

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That was the easy question. All right. How would you define religion?

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Okay. What else would you describe? How is theology different than religion?

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Okay, yeah, it can be that. Maria? Okay. Theology is the study of God.

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Theology is about who God is. Religion is how man relates to that God, right?

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Religion is how some men try to achieve Godness or please

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God. So the difference is one is studying the who, the other one is studying the man and what man does to get to God, okay?

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So biblical counseling is based on biblical theology. So this is first and foremost about God.

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God is the center of everything, especially with biblical counseling, and we're going to go through why that is, obviously.

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We're using the Practical Guide for Effective Biblical Counseling by Wayne Mack, and as he would have it, he uses alliteration, like a little acronym, all these

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I's. Now if anybody knows me, they know I'm Pastor A, Pastor Acronym, so this is like right up my alley.

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As soon as I saw this a couple years ago when I got this book, I'm like, I gotta do this. So he uses the eight

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I's to promote biblical change, and here they are. So the first one is involvement, and involvement means building relationships with the person that you're counseling, caring.

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In some cases, it means stepping into their pain with them and helping them through it.

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What did Jesus do? When he looked out at the people, he had compassion on them. What does that word compassion mean?

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With passion. That word passion is suffering. So he looked at them with compassion. He felt that they were suffering, and because they were suffering, he was suffering.

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So what was his role? What was his answer to that? To step into their suffering and suffer for them.

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Why? So that they wouldn't suffer, and that's what we do as Christians. We see people who are lost.

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They need to be rescued. So we step into their pain with compassion, and we try to pull them out of it.

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Then we have inspiration, which means to inspire people with hope. We have the hope of the gospel. We have the hope of Jesus Christ.

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If you're a Christian, it's Christ in us, the hope of glory. Inventory investigation, that would be collecting data, as J.

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Adams would put it, and understanding the problem. Then we'd have interpretation. What is the actual problem or the cause of the person's issue that they're having?

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Again, Pastor said it many times, repeating J. Adams, it's crisis discipleship. When somebody has an issue, well now we have to disciple them quickly, and apply the words of scripture to their minds and hearts.

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Instruction. We look to influence and persuade them, to shepherd them using the scriptures.

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Pastors. As a shepherd, you're to lead, feed, correct, and protect. That's our job as pastors.

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It's also men's job as husbands of their families. As a Christian, anyone you come in contact to who doesn't know the

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Lord, your job is to lead, feed, correct, and protect. Then we have inducement.

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We set a course, make a plan to reach it. We walk them in biblical reality.

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That's implementation. And then integration. We mentor and continue cultivating the relationship until that person is back on their feet and doing well.

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So obviously the Bible is front and center of all biblical counseling.

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That's why it's called biblical counseling. We're not using the means and the wares of men.

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Everything that the Bible talks about is useful for us. The Bible influences our sense of identity.

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It influences the way we make decisions. The Bible influences and shapes our friendships.

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Is this a godly friendship? Is this a friendship that's going to lead me away from God or toward God? The Bible influences how we approach our education.

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What is our education for? To educate ourselves to get a good job and make money? Or is it to hone our talents, gifts, and abilities and put us in a place where we can have a vocation and glorify

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God in the midst of it? It influences how we pursue our vocation. Is it a vocation?

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Is it your ministry? Or is it just a job? Pastor Chris talked about the correct use of time.

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And when you're on the job, using your time wisely, putting in a good effort.

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We're called to work as Christians. The Bible influences the way we approach romance and marriage.

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Is this a godly marriage? Is this a marriage that's going to reflect the gospel?

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As a husband, are you going to love your wife like Christ loved the church and glorify God in the midst of that?

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The Bible influences the way we parent our children. It influences how we deal with conflict, how we handle success and failure.

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What is success and failure in a Christian worldview? Is success marked by how much money you have in the bank account?

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Is it marked by how many houses and real estate you own? Or is it success how you sowed into the people around you for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of the glory of God?

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It influences the things we do with our money, where we look for fulfillment, how we deal with difficulty.

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The Bible influences the way we deal with media and entertainment. Are we using that to satisfy some inner need?

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To be entertained? I mean, there is a time and a place for entertainment, but that's your steady diet.

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You're avoiding God, and you're avoiding prayer, and you're avoiding church. To do those things, not a good thing.

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The Bible influences our relationship to the body of Christ. We are in covenant with one another, and each of us, the hand can't stay to the foot,

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I don't need you. We who are many form one body. Every single Christian is necessary and needed to come together as the body of Christ.

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So now we'll get to the meat and potatoes of the lesson. So biblical counseling is based on a biblical understanding of the doctrine of God, which is theology.

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These doctrinal truths about God have tremendous implications for us as we seek to counsel people.

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So now as I go through this outline, there's going to be two questions I'm going to ask continually. How does this particular doctrine that I'm going over inform the counselor?

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What is he to do with this doctrine? And how does it inform the counselee? So the doctrine is going to inform how we counsel people, and it's also going to inform the person being counseled.

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And I want to go, I want to go through these and ask those two questions. So the first place we start, obviously, is theology,

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God. We start with God. God is triune. That means three persons,

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Father, Son, and Spirit. And we can go through all those scriptures, I have the other laptop up here if we want to read them.

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So let me ask you something. Why is it important that we start with the triune

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God? Why is the Trinity important for counseling? Any ideas?

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You believe in the Trinity, yes. Absolutely.

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It is important to have God as the foundation, right? So now the question, I want to press it a little further and say, okay, why a triune

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God? Yes, Al. Amen.

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Nobody was created to be alone. Why? God was never alone. When God created man, he saw that it was not good for man to be alone.

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Why? Because God was never alone. The Trinity is a unity in community and a community in unity.

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So I don't want to go too far off base, but think about Islam or a God, a unitarian

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God that's only one person, right? Can that God be called love?

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Is that God love? Love requires more than one party, right?

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If it's self -love, it's ego, and that's not good, right? If it's a monad, a unitarian

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God, well, that God would have to exercise power in creating people and then loving them.

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So what would be foundational on that worldview? Power precedes love. I'll exert power and then

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I'll show my love. Triune God does not have to exert power because he's love already.

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The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The Holy Spirit loves both Father and Son. God is love because he's a unity in community.

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So the basis for our worldview is he, out of love, creates us and then exercises power to redeem us after we fall away.

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So on our worldview, love precedes power. Any other way, it's power preceding love, and that's an issue.

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You see what happens in Islam. I forget which word it is, but it's submission. You submit to Allah, and you don't even know if you're saved.

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Allah, by fiat, chooses who is and who isn't saved. So it's not a good thing.

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You had a question or a comment? It's ironic because, not really ironic, it's just following the pattern of the religion that we see in the

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Muslim community, what marriage is. He can be abusive, he can, they're not equal under God, they're, like as in a

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Christian perspective with the way the world is, there's different roles, but they're equal in value and they're supposed to show love to each other.

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Right, right, so that's a very power -driven faith, right?

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So the Trinity also solves the problem of the one and the many. So now, as a counselor, you're counseling a marriage.

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You guys tell me, what's more important, the marriage or the person? The marriage.

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Anyone else? There's only one other option. Actually, there's two other options.

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The marriage is not more important than the person, and the person is not more important than the marriage.

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It's equal ultimacy. The same way the father is not more important than the son, and the son is not more important than the father, they're co -equal.

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That's where we're able to solve the problem of the one and the many. So if we have a classroom full of children and there's one child outside and they're in imminent danger, who should we save?

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Both are equal, right? Oh, well, we should go with the more people and just let that person go.

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No, it's equal ultimacy. And again, the problem, not the problem, the Trinity solves the problem of the one and the many.

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So I've gone too far off on that. All right, God is creator. Why is that important for the counselor?

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Why is that important for the counselee? Yes? Well, because God is creator, he also provides meaning and purpose to each person, so he informs what you are.

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Excellent, yes. He informs what we are, he tells us what we are, and he has a purpose for what we are.

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Without a creator, you're just a blind, random chance collection of molecules and wherever you go, you go.

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But not with God. God is our creator. He creates us for a purpose and he creates us with meaning and value.

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Okay, God is holy, right? The word holy means other, set apart. How would that affect the counselor?

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Guess? Right? He has a law for the counselor.

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He does have a law, absolutely. Did you have an answer? He gives the goal and the perspective of the counselee.

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Sure, yeah. So God is other, he's holy, we're not God, right? There's a creator -creature distinction.

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So he's transcendent above us. So we come under his rule and reign. He's other.

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We're in the world, right, but we're not to be of the world. So God is not in the world in that sense, but he is outside of it, ruling and reigning over it.

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So when we're counseling people, we're talking to them about kingdom. We're not talking to them about worldly things.

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God is loving, gracious, and merciful. And I'm not going to ask these questions continually because we're never going to get through this.

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So I'm just going to, if you have a question or want to chime in, please just let me know. So God is loving, gracious, and merciful.

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That's excellent news for the counselor because as they're counseling the person with the theology, the knowledge of God, that he knows that that God, when you pray, is involved in the counseling with you, loving on that person if they're a

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Christian, right? Also for the Christian who's in distress, we go back over and over.

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God is love. If you sinned, we have a promise. If you confess your sins, repent of them,

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Jesus will forgive you of your sins, right? So we have a loving God.

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He's unchangeable. So this God who is loving promises to love you.

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Once he sets his love on you, it's a perfect love. It's never going to change. And he can't change.

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What does Malachi 4 say? Be grateful that I don't change or you be consumed, right?

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If God could change his mind about me, I'd be gone, right? Thankfully, he doesn't.

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He's immutable. He doesn't change. And that's great news again for the counselee. Why? Because God's rules now are not going to change tomorrow.

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They're not going to change in a year. They're not going to change in 50 years. So if you apply these biblical principles and stand on them, you're talking about something that has perpetuity, something that's solid.

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You can build your house on the rock because it's never going to move. Yes, Ted?

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I just had a question. Does the Islam or Muslim faith have anything comparable to what you just described about the forgiveness and loving

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God and loving the counselee? It's a good question. I'm not sure. I need to do – actually,

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I intend to have a couple guys on the show to walk through Islam and what they believe.

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Again, I only think that it's by fiat and submission to God that he will love you.

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So the Muslim has no assurance of salvation. The ones that I've spoken to, it's like – and I asked them, what's the payment for – what do you do with your sin?

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Allah just waves his hand and forgives it. So my usual question to them is, well, then what does it cost your

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God to forgive you? Nothing. I said, then what's your forgiveness worth? If there's no payment for the sin, it's not worth anything.

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Remember when – I forget which king wanted to give David the altar and the land to make the sacrifice.

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He wanted to give it to him. David's like, no, no, no, I have to pay for it. There's a cost to this and I'm not going to forgo the cost just because you want to give it to me.

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There's a cost for the salvation of souls. It costs God his only son.

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Our sin is of infinite wickedness. The only thing that can quell infinite wickedness is infinite perfection.

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And that was Jesus. God sacrificed him on our behalf. Again, what a great thing to hear in a counseling room, right?

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Okay, let's continue on. God is all -knowing, all -wise, and omniscient.

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You can see how that's going to come into play when you're counseling somebody. First of all, you know that when you stand on biblical principles and you go through the scriptures, you can say, listen,

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God who created you, who knows everything, put this in writing for us.

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That's true. Whatever God says is true. He's all -knowing. He knows you.

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Now for the counselee, it'll be a matter of, okay, am I going to submit to what God said? Right?

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We know God is true. We know that his word is true always. So are they going to submit to it?

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They know that if they do, again, the creator who created the person knows how to remedy the problem.

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God is omnipresent. So God is ever -present. At any moment, you can call on the name of Jesus.

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You can call on God, right? He's the God above, Father. He's the God beside,

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Jesus, and he's the God within, the Holy Spirit. So we have a Father in heaven. We have

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Jesus, our brother, interceding for us on the throne, and the Holy Spirit living inside of us, right?

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What an unbelievable notion to see that God is everywhere and here for us the moment we ask.

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God is truthful. Again, he cannot lie. So anything God tells the counselee and the counselor repeats biblically, it's true.

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In the Koran, you know what it says about Allah? Allah is the greatest deceiver.

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So if Allah is the greatest deceiver, how could you trust anything he says?

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How do you know he's not deceiving you? So presuppositionally, that undermines the whole basis for their religion, right?

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If Allah is the greatest deceiver, you cannot trust anything that's in the Koran. Why? Because you don't know if he's deceiving you or not.

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Whereas God says he cannot lie. He's immutable. He doesn't change. He never alludes to himself as a deceiver.

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In fact, who's the deceiver? Satan, the enemy of God. God is faithful and trustworthy.

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When we apply these biblical principles and do what God tells us, we are going to get the results that God expects, that God ordained.

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When we resist the devil and he must flee, like James tells us, he will.

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We resist the devil, submit to God, and the devil will flee. Biblical counseling is based on a biblical perspective on the doctrine of knowledge, which is epistemology.

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What is truth and how we come to know it? So epistemology is a big, fancy word that basically means how you know what you know.

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How do you know what's true or not? How could you figure that out? And I always use the illustration with the butter knife, and I use it as a screwdriver, as a mallet, as a self -defense weapon.

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I tell people I have scientifically, empirically viable evidence to show you that this is a multi -purpose tool.

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How could you prove me wrong and prove that it's a butter knife? The only way you could do that is to introduce me to its creator, who created it for a purpose.

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If there is no creator, then there is no purpose. So on an atheistic worldview, without a creator, you cannot have true knowledge.

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You could have a guess, but even then, you're still in the Christian worldview. Why would you even concern yourself about what something is?

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But on the Christian worldview, God creates everything for a purpose, including us.

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And it's up to us to go out and explore God's world and uncover the things that he's given to us.

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So epistemology is part of what we know. It's the study of what we know. So knowledge of truth is vitally important.

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That's John 8 .32. We are sanctified by truth.

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John 17 .17 says, Thy word is truth. We're sanctified by truth. What does the word sanctified mean?

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I'm sorry? To be made holy. Sanctified. You're set apart.

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You're being set apart for God's purposes. The more you study God's word, the more you obey

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God's word, the less you look like the world. The more you're going to stand out.

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And that's good in the eyes of God, but it's bad in the eyes of the world. They're going to get mad.

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They're going to try to hurt you. Most times, anyway. It's good and acceptable to God that we come to a knowledge of the truth.

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God desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. The truth doesn't change.

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The truth produces godliness. So, again, as you continue to walk in God's word, read

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God's word, pray and meditate on God's word, make use of the means of grace, coming to study and listening to the sermons on Sunday, the preaching of the word, it produces godliness in us.

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How else would you pursue godliness apart from God's word? So, again, for the counselee, we can sit down with them and say,

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God's word is truth. God's word, the truth will sanctify you and it will lead to holiness.

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You need to put it into practice. So the counselor has the confidence knowing using

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God's word. If the person applies it, they're going to achieve the desired result. And the counselee also knows

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God is omniscient. God is sovereign. He's the creator. These are his precepts.

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His precepts are true. He doesn't lie. Therefore, if I follow these things, I will lead a more faithful holy life.

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Whatever truth God reveals in his word is authoritative. Again, this is big, right?

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God is our supreme authority. We don't answer to a pope. We don't answer to a bishop. We don't answer to any of those people.

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We don't answer to the president of the United States. We're going to be judged and answer to God and God alone.

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So if you understand who God is, theology, you understand that he's king over all, his word has authority.

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He's your creator. He's sovereign over all things. What he says goes. So if God says something that you don't like, you're wrong.

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That's the way it goes. God is always right in everything that he teaches. Now, we can make mistakes in certain things that we understand or think that God's word says, but God doesn't make mistakes.

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So when you recognize God's your authority, God's your creator, well, now we can move forward and understand that, yes, we'll answer to him.

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The truth is sufficient to enable us to live godly and lives pleasing to Christ. It is unnecessary to add anything to the scripture to live godly lives.

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And that's why we have Christian brothers and sisters who are looking for a word from God outside of the scripture or a prophetic word or an utterance or all these kind of things.

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When the scripture says God's word is sufficient, you do not need those things to live a godly life in Christ Jesus.

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Therefore, we can rely on God's word. We can rely on the scripture and not have to seek anything outside of it.

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Now, we could seek a pastor's counsel, a father's counsel, right, people who've mature men and women in the

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Lord who've walked with God for a long time and seek their help. And they're going to point you back to the scripture.

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They're not going to pray for a word from God, thankfully. No other writings are of equal value to the scripture.

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Only the scripture is God -breathed. So when we use the God -breathed word and we breathe that word into the counselee and pray that the

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Holy Spirit would use it to transform the person's heart, now we're dealing with power.

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We're not dealing with mere opinion. We're not dealing with man's machinations or desires to change somebody.

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We're going based on the word of God and invoking the Holy Spirit to move on the person's heart. We should not consider any ideas of man from outside the scriptures as being necessary for us to live and function as God wants us to.

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We should not consider anything that is not clearly commanded by scripture to be a requirement for godly living.

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You know, there's certain parts of scripture that people say, well, this is what it means and that's what it doesn't mean.

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And you have to work through those things. If it's not specifically commanded by scripture, well, then you need to seek further counsel on that.

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Our living and counseling should only emphasize what the scripture emphasizes. We want to make the main things the main things, right?

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If we just had the Ten Commandments, think we could wipe all the laws off the books in the United States if we just followed the

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Ten Commandments, we'd be a much better nation, right? God's word is simple. When I say simple,

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I don't mean that it's not deep. I mean, it's simple to understand, especially when you come to the commandments, right?

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It's easy to understand those things. If we could just employ them, we'd be a much better nation. We should make full use and depend upon the truths of scripture rather than extra biblical ideas, concepts, methodologies, and or practices.

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And pastors told us about Freud and Roger and Skinner and all these other guys who came up with different ways to counsel people coming from a secular viewpoint.

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They don't understand that man is fallen and in need of restoration. You know, in Freud's psychology, he says, just get rid of the guilty feelings.

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If you're feeling guilty, well, get rid of the guilty feelings and continue doing what you're doing. Again, on that worldview, he doesn't understand that you were created by God for a purpose and will have to stand before that God and give an account for what you're doing.

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On their worldview, it doesn't matter because there is no judgment. There is no God. Biblical counseling is based upon a biblical perspective on the doctrine of man, anthropology.

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Why do you think this is important? Because we're dealing with people.

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Yes, what is the biblical view of mankind? Yes, sinful.

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We're fallen creatures, right? We're sinful at the core. Well, if that's the case, right, then the solution to the sin is going to have to come from outside of us, not inside of us.

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Look what they're doing to poor little children. You know, six, seven -year -old kids who say it's a boy who says they want to be a girl.

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Well, what do you want to be and what do you think that means? They're actually asking the person who's under a delusion to give them the solution to their problem.

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Oh, I want to wear a dress. I want to this. I want to that. As the adult, you should be telling them, no, no, no, no.

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You're a boy or you're a girl, whatever they actually are. Man is made in the image of God.

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Therefore, anti -biblical methods are wrong. This includes biochemical determinism, secular environmental determinism, behaviorism, victim mentality, and humanistic psychology, the idea that man has all he needs within himself.

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Biblically, the solution to our problem lies outside of ourself, not inside of ourself.

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Anyone who trusts in their own heart is a fool, right? That's what Proverbs tells us. You're trusting in your own heart.

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So you're trusting in the thing that's causing the problem. You need to trust in something outside of you, perfect God who created you to solve the problem.

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Now, biochemical determinism is talking about the chemical makeup of your body.

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Maybe you're predisposed to certain things, and some people use that as an excuse to do whatever it is.

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Well, I was raised in this kind of environment, so that's why I like it. Okay, that's fine, but you still shouldn't be doing that, right?

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Behaviorism, victim mentality. Well, this is what happened to me, so my outlet was to do something else bad.

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That's not a good excuse either. And humanistic psychology. Well, we'll just get around the problem by doing it differently.

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Man is a worshiping being. He was made to worship and serve God. Therefore, his relationship with God is the most important factor in his life.

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Man was not made to be an autonomous being. He will and does worship either the true

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God or a false one. So, in the absence of God, man is going to worship something.

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In fact, in the absence of God, man is going to worship anything. Anything that you put before him that he likes, he will end up worshiping.

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The question I like to ask people is, what do you think about most every day? What is the preoccupational thought that you have most of the time?

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Because that's ultimately what you're worshiping, right? If it's not God, you have to move that aside and put

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God first and foremost. So, man was created to worship God. And because of our fallen nature, we seek out anything else but God, right?

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There's none who seek after God. And that's going to lead to destruction and misery. Again, as the counselor, you want to explain to the person that what they're worshiping, that's not

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God. If it's not God, you will become like what you worship, right? And if what you're worshiping isn't perfect, and if it's not

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God, it's not perfect, you're not going to be perfected. You're not going to be sanctified and made holy.

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Man is directed by his heart. Therefore, any system of counseling that ignores the heart misses the heart of the issue.

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The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. Behaviorism and legalism that focus primarily on actions and behavior are wrong.

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You know, just because we got our dog to ring the bell before he wants to go to the bathroom, big deal, right?

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Doesn't mean that you can train a child to do something in a certain instance and think that he's good. It just becomes a behavior mechanism and the ultimate issue of his heart or her heart has not been addressed.

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Our job is to address the heart because when the heart changes, behavior follows. We can do behavior modification, but the heart stays the same.

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Man is a psychosomatic being made up of two important parts, the inner man and the outer man.

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No counseling system that ignores either of these aspects is biblical, right?

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So we can work with the flesh and get you to stop doing certain behaviors.

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Again, if it doesn't address the heart, it's not going to be biblical change. But if we address the heart biblically and the

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Holy Spirit transforms the heart and starts conforming you to the image of Christ, now you're going to be moving in the right direction and you're going to be moving into the direction of what we were created to be.

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Any questions? We're good right now? Good? Okay. Biblical counseling is based on a biblical perspective on the doctrine of sin.

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Harmonteology. Sin has corporate aspects. How many of you have heard the term federal headship around here?

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Hopefully most of you have. So what is federal headship?

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It's the sin taken on by the person like Jesus. He's our federal head.

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He takes our sin upon himself. But Adam's sin, we weren't there at the fall actually.

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We were in Adam, so to speak. When Adam fell, we all fell. So his sin affected

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Eve. His sin affected the environment that he was in. The curse came on the ground.

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His sin affected everything and all his posterity. So we are affected by sin.

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It has corporate aspects. When one part of the body hurts, the whole body hurts. When something happens, it causes a rift in the family.

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One person in the family sins, something happens, the whole family is going to hurt because of that.

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It's not just an isolated thing. So we have to remember sin has tentacles. It touches lots of stuff.

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Sin is hereditary. Man is not born good or innocent. In Adam's fall, we sinned all.

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Sin has its habitual aspects. Slavery to sin is very real. We develop sinful manners of life, habits, patterns of thinking, responses, desires, lifestyle patterns.

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Sanctification is a process involving the need to put off and put on. You're supposed to put off your old self and put on Christ.

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You're supposed to put away falsehood, put away slander, and put on the mind of Christ.

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Put on the whole armor of God. We did that recently. You put on the belt of truth.

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You put on the breastplate of righteousness. You put on the helmet of salvation. You put on all the armor.

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That's going to help us walk in Christ -likeness. But you also have to put off all those other things.

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Again, when you're coming at this from a secular vantage point, they might tell you to change certain behavior, but it's not sinful.

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Right? That's an important aspect. Sin has its conscious, personal aspects.

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Guilt is real, and a sense of guilt can be beneficial. Sin is a personal disobedience or rebellion against God.

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Have you guys ever felt guilty for doing something that you've done in your life? You know why you felt guilty?

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Because you were. Yes, that's right. Guilt is a good thing. It makes you recognize, oh, my goodness, that we know internally is wrong.

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Right? We have God's law written on our heart. Again, the secular humanists can't say that. There is no

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God. There is no ultimate law. It's just a matter of preference. You like butter pecan. I like Rocky Road.

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Right? You like kissing babies. I like killing them. You know, that doesn't work. That's not going to work in God's world.

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Biblical counseling is based on a biblical perspective on the doctrine of Christ and salvation. This is Christology and soteriology.

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Christ is the God -man. Thus, he reveals God to us. He's the mediator between God and man and is the ultimate prophet, priest, and king.

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Right? So, as Christians, when we recognize who Jesus is, we recognize that he's the

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Son of God, he's God in the flesh, and he's the mediator between God and man, and he's the only one qualified to be a mediator because he's sinless, and he's truly

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God, truly man. So, he can have one hand on both parties. Right?

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So, he's the one who mediates for us. He's the one who intercedes for us. He's the one who rescues us from our sin, so that as we're going through the process of counseling, if we stumble, if we fall, we recognize that we have a

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Savior. We recognize that we have a payment for our sins. We recognize that he intercedes for us, and he doesn't give up on us because he doesn't change, because he's immutable, because when he sets his perfect love on us, it can't be any stronger, and it can't be any weaker.

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It gives great comfort to the counselor to be able to say that to the person, and it gives great comfort to the counselee, who, as they go through the process of counseling, start to have these truths sink deeper and deeper and deeper into their minds and hearts.

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Christ is our perfect substitute. He died in our place, on our behalf.

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He kept the law perfectly for us. He lived a sinless, perfect life for us.

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He died a substitutionary death, and he's the propitiation for our sins. In other words, he satisfied

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God's wrath. He absorbed it. He's the model or example of what we should be.

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So when we're losing our way in life, we go back to the Scriptures. Let me look at Jesus.

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I fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith. I have something to shoot for.

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Again, from a secular humanist standpoint, what am I shooting for? If there's no target, there's no goal.

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How do I know I'm hitting the target? You don't. It's hopelessness, right?

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It's futility. With the Christian counseling, you were created, again, by a creator, with meaning for a purpose.

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And now we have Christ, who's the perfect God -man, who thankfully died for our sins, but who we can emulate.

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My prayer every morning is that I would reflect God better to the people around me, that I would be a better reflection of Him so that when

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I represent Him, I represent Him properly. Christ is the ascended

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Lord who sits at the Father's right hand in glory. What great comfort is that?

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I say it every morning from the pulpit that Jesus is Lord, He's ruling and reigning, and until His enemies are made a footstool for His feet.

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And as much as I say that for your benefit, I say it for mine. It gives me great comfort to know He's sitting on the throne.

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The Lord sits. He laughs at the people who are mocking Him, thankfully. He conquered sin, sickness, demons, and death.

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If God be for me, who can be against me? So again, I have all these things coming at me as the counselee who's going through issues, but I know that if God is for me, who can be against me?

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We know that He's sovereign, so if these things are coming against me, He's using them to shape and mold our hearts to create us into a stronger human being, one that would better reflect and glorify

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God. Jesus was tested, right? He was tempted in the wilderness. He passed the test.

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We want to be put in a situation. I don't know if we want to be put in a situation. We are sometimes put in a situation.

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We're tempted. And the question is, are we going to pass the test? If we fail, thankfully we have a

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Savior. But we want to be able to rise up to the challenge and pass the test.

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We want to be able to be tested and tried. A faith that's not tested is a faith that can't be trusted.

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So you want your faith tested. And as you grow, again, as a Christian, meditating on the

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Word of God, praying, making good use of the means of grace, being in fellowship, you're going to get stronger as a

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Christian. And that's going to be apparent to the people around you and to the people that you counsel. God sent

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His Son. God sent the Holy Spirit who can change our hearts and give us victory.

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He will come again in power and glory. Thank God. Biblical counseling is based on a biblical perspective on the doctrine of the

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Holy Spirit, pneumatology. And this is really important, right? The Holy Spirit is the person, the third person of the

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Godhead. He's the ultimate counselor, focuses on Christ and His activity, and always uses the

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Word of God. So the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us, His sole function is to point to Christ, right?

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So that as we're reading, I pray in the morning, Holy Spirit, illuminate the text to me. Point me to the things that I've missed as I've read some of these scriptures over and over again and I didn't see something.

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Point me to Christ in the midst of this. And as I'm reading, all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom, boom, right?

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As you're living your life daily, you might feel conviction of the Holy Spirit.

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Again, God placed His laws upon you and will compel you to follow them, right?

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And that's a function of God's Holy Spirit that lives inside of you. What a joy it is to know that God lives in us and He's going to accomplish what

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He started. Again, He's the God above, the God beside, and the God within.

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The Holy Spirit is necessary for a good counselor to do His job. Supernatural wisdom and power from the Holy Spirit is needed for a person to counsel effectively.

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Again, Pastor will tell you all the time, He's not the only counselor in the room. The real counselor in the room is the

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Holy Spirit and we invoke His presence. We invoke His illumination.

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We invoke His wisdom to be with us, to move in us as counselors and in the counselees as well, conforming them into the image of Christ.

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The Holy Spirit is necessary for the counselee to change. He's the only means of genuine change.

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Behavior modification is a short -term fix, but change produced by the Holy Spirit is lasting and effective.

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Again, when the Holy Spirit does a job, He does it fully and completely, right?

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Don't worry, after the Holy Spirit works on the issue that you have now, you'll find another one.

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But at least you'll know that you've gotten past the test that He's putting you through, right?

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There's things that I've worked on throughout my walk and as I gain victory over them, okay, now it's something new.

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And it's gonna always be something new until I die, until you guys die too. Biblical counseling is based on a biblical perspective on the doctrine of the church, ecclesiology.

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The church is vital too. The church is Christ's body. Christ is the head of the church, which is the temple of the

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Holy Spirit. The church, when teaching sound doctrine, is sufficient for evangelism, instruction, edification, and discipling.

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Other self -help groups are unnecessary. So if you're making good use of the means of grace, you're coming to Bible study, you're coming to prayer, you're coming to Sunday school, you're coming to church, you're plugged into Bible studies, the people around you who are the body of Christ are going to help lead you and guide you.

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You're gonna build and foster relationships and friendships such that when you need help, you can text somebody, hey, listen, can you pray for me?

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Or you call them, can you pray for me? Can you meet with me? Whatever it is. Again, as the body of Christ, we are to love one another, and I am to step into your pain with you.

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Right? We often talk about the temple and the priests, and they went in with white robes.

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What we don't picture, though, do you ever go to a butcher? Like you've been to Juntas, or you've been to these butcher places.

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When the guy comes out who's cutting the meat, what does he look like? It's not a pure white robe.

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Right? He's got stuff all over it. Imagine sacrificing hundreds of lambs every day.

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You know what your robe is gonna look like? It's gonna be red. Right? The life is in the blood.

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When you step into someone else's pain, you're getting their blood on you, and that's what we're supposed to do.

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That's how we share in the sufferings of Christ. He got his, he bled for us.

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He stepped into our pain. It wasn't his fault, but he did it anyway out of love, and we, too, are to reflect that.

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We're to step in someone else's pain and rescue them. Their pain should cause us pain, so much so that we go in and rescue them, and we both come out of it.

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They come out restored, and we come out satisfied knowing that they're restored. The church and its leaders have been given authority by God.

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No state, government, or organization has been given this authority. It is the church's mandate to preach

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God's word, to guide, counsel, and discipline the flock. Again, church discipline is necessary.

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You know, when somebody strays away, we pull them back. The church reaches out. We want to see that person restored back into fellowship with God.

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The church body has an important function, right? And it's important that we love one another, as God has loved us.

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Biblical counseling is based on a biblical perspective on the doctrine of end times, eschatology. You might not even realize this, right?

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God is sovereign over history, now and forever, so that we know God has ordained all of our days. Nothing that happens takes

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God by surprise. His decree is going to happen regardless. Men try to frustrate

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God's plans. They can't. God's plans are going to follow through.

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Christ is in control. He's defeated the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have a conquering king, a conquering savior.

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Humble prayer and dependence upon Him are important aspects of counseling. So when you recognize that you're going through a difficult time, you can say,

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God is in the midst of it with me. He's doing this for a reason. All things work together for good for those who love

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Him, who are called according to His purpose. In your deepest pain, in your deepest hurt, you can trust and know that God has your best interest at heart to get you through it, okay, to glorify

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Himself, and better conform you to the image of Jesus. Christ's present reign as king of kings gives hope for the present.

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I mean, look at what's going on in our country now. I mean, anybody who has faith in any kind of government, not just in the

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United States, but around the world, is a fool to think that going into the ballot box and casting a vote is going to change things spiritually, is naive at best, right?

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How are things going to change spiritually? The church. We have to do our job.

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We have to be bold. We have to proclaim Jesus is Lord and not be worried about being thrown out of a rally, right?

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We can proclaim Jesus is Lord anywhere we go. It may cause us pain, but it's the truth.

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That's what people need to hear. And we need to be loving towards people, showing them the love of Christ.

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Christ's second coming gives hope for the future. Christ's return should motivate us to greater holiness and perseverance.

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There's going to come a day where we all stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account of our lives for the things we've done in the body, whether good or evil, all right?

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Redeem the time, the days are evil. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We need to really pursue holiness, pursue perfection.

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I prayed the other day, Lord, help me to be perfect. And I've never prayed that before. It's like perfect wasn't even on my radar.

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But I'm like, just be perfect. I need to pray to be perfect. I know

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I'm not going to be, but I'll pray for that. That's what I'll strive for. If I strive for something less, God doesn't say, hey, listen, just keep 95 % of my law, you're okay.

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It's 100%, perfect. It has to be perfection. Okay, so biblical counseling is based on biblical theology.