Framework, Goals, Suggested Method

Introduction to Pastoral Counseling: Framework and Priority

0:04 Well, as we continue, brethren, our overview of pastoral counseling, I would ask you to take your last page, or was your last page from last week, it's page 191, discard your previous 191 and keep the one that you have today. The outline is fuller, has more references in it. Now, having gone over a broad introduction to our subject, we then proceeded to address two major headings last week, namely the necessity for pastoral counseling and then the proper place or relative priority of pastoral counseling. Now, this morning we come to Roman numeral 3 in this overview of pastoral counseling, namely the framework or the ideal setting of pastoral counseling. And you will notice that I've listed two categories under this heading of its framework. First of all, the general spiritual setting.

1:04 That setting ought, under normal circumstances, to be one in which the one you are counseling is involved as a member in the total life and ministry of the church in which you labor as an under-shepherd. And I've listed Ephesians 4, 11 to 16 as a watershed passage because in this passage, as in few others in the New Testament, the Spirit of God is made very clear that the maturation, the maturation of the individual saint, is realized only in the context of the maturation of the body.

1:44 The whole perspective of Ephesians 4, from the statement of verse 11 that the risen Christ has given those with peculiar endowments of authority and gifts for the benefit of the perfecting of the saints, it moves on to this vision of the people of God coming to their maturity in a context of the maturation of the body. And this is a very important point. It is a very important point. It is a very important point.

2:04 It is a very important point. It is a very important point. It is a very important point. It is a very important point.

The General Spiritual Setting: The Church as God's Context for Maturation

2:05 It is a very important point. It is a very important point in the context of vital corporate body life from whom, verse 16, all the body, fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplies according to the working and due measure of each several part makes the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love. And it is within the church, functioning in her identity as church, that God is known to us. God is committed to advance the maturation of the individual believer.

2:41 And therefore, if you seek to counsel, that is, to give individual pastoral care to someone, out of that context, you are seeking that person's maturation in a context that God himself does not envision. Now, we are not saying that God cannot mature one of his own in abnormal circumstances, i.e., John on the Isle of Patmos, a believer locked up in a sick room.

3:10 But we're talking about the ordinary framework within which God accomplishes this work of maturation. And this is one of the emphases that J. Adams has given, among others, that is so refreshing. For example, in his work, The Christian Counselor's Manual, J. Adams writes on, page 12, the resources upon which a truly Christian counselor relies are the Word, the Spirit, and the Church. There are major differences between a minister and a freelance counselor. The minister has the opportunity to do the preventive work that preaching and regular pastoral care provides. The counselor outside of the church has no opportunity to mold a congregation of people into a whole, a harmonious, loving body into which counselees may be assimilated and from which they may receive significant help.

4:10 And, perhaps most important of all, the processes of discipline, which are of utmost significance in scriptural counseling, are not available to the Christian counselor who operates outside of the church. He opts, therefore, for only a part of the full resources that God has put at the disposal of the Christian minister, consequently he can do but part of the full task of counseling. And what is true of the counselor is true of the counselee. In our case, you will not hear me use the word counselee, you will hear me use the term church member, the believer, a sheep, to whom you are providing, by God's grace, individual shepherding care.

4:54 And so, with respect to the framework or the ideal setting of pastoral counseling, that general spiritual, ought as a normal pattern to be carried on within the context of that individual being formally and really a part of the assembly in which you serve. Now, granted, as we mentioned last week, there may be occasional situations where your counseling activity is really a one-to-one evangelistic endeavor.

5:27 And that's perfectly legitimate. But that's something of a different kind. You are taking, someone's felt need that has brought them to you and using it as the bridge to address their true and deepest need. And you're using it as an occasion to build a relationship within which you can meaningfully apply the truth of the gospel.

5:49 But I emphasize this because in a day in which there's been a tremendous shift of emphasis on the role of the minister of God as a preacher of the word and a graciously assertive leadership among the people of God, a lot of people have the idea that the minister is this soft-handed, sweet guy who strokes you and who holds your hand and makes you feel good. And people will expect that of you in many communities. And if you allow yourself, you'll be like the father who neglects to feed his own children while going around the countryside looking for orphans to whom he can give a meal and on whose back he can put clothes. We are to shepherd the flock of God which is the father of God.

6:32 We are to shepherd the flock of God which is the father of God. We are to shepherd the flock of God which is the father of God. It is among us exercising the oversight as Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 5. So in this broad introduction to the task of pastoral counseling, I felt it was necessary to say that concerning the general spiritual setting which constitutes the proper framework for our counsel.

The Specific Physical Setting: Propriety, Security, and Privacy

6:53 But then I want to address briefly the specific physical setting. And here I want to say three things. First of all, it ought to be marked by propriety. And I'm thinking, especially of this matter of unnecessarily placing yourself in a compromising situation with women or in our day, you have to be particularly careful with young people or with children.

7:18 Remember the climate in which you're going to be ministering. It's one in which there is this obsession with sexual abuse.

7:26 And people will be suspicious. And if you give them any grounds to feed that suspicion, they will. Two texts that I've listed, Romans 13, 14. This points the finger at you and at me.

7:41 Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Now some would say in our ongoing sanctification all we need to do is put on Christ. The whole idea of thinking how and in what ways we might leave ourselves vulnerable, that's all puritanic, self-generated sanctification. Just put on Christ!

8:05 And what the text says. You do put on Christ. He is the object of your trust. We are to abide in Him in virtue of our life union with Him in death, burial, resurrection, and ascension and session.

8:18 Colossians 3. That's to be the given out of which we labor and work. But putting on Christ is not equal to making no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. And therefore, in this whole matter, particularly of counseling, it is very unlikely, you'll get in a compromising situation behind the pulpit.

8:39 Or greeting people at a door in the midst of a dozen or two dozen or three or four or a hundred or several hundred people. But it's in the counseling situation that many a man, to use the analogy of Samson, has had his head shorn and his strength vanquished. So recognize that and constantly tell yourself, am I in this setting making unnecessary provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust? But then with respect to what you do, as it appears to others, Romans 14.16, let not your good be evil spoken of.

9:18 Think as Paul constantly did. You remember his words in 2 Corinthians 8, in all the care that he was exercising about having such a broad-based, well-attested team of men to administer the benevolence offering. He said, we are careful to provide, all things honorable in the sight of God and of men. And you need to exercise the same care that when you are entering into a pastoral counseling situation, the setting in its specific dimensions is one marked by propriety, but then secondly, security.

9:57 And what do I mean by security? Well, simply this. Try to create a warm, non-intimidating context in the physical surroundings.

10:07 If you've got a man, a massive desk behind which you sit and you set a chair on the other side of it, there are some people that would feel that the desk between you and that person is symbolic of a distance in affection, in openness. And as you get to know your people, there are some that you'll want to arrange even the physical surroundings that they bespeak openness, warmth, non-intimidation. You may want to have a side chair that's a comfortable distance from where you sit so that there isn't a big physical barrier between you and that person. But these are things that are variables and I'm not going to set up ten rules for an ideal, secure counseling situation.

10:48 I only underscore this so that you'll think about these things. And that's why I do it because I have found on things that in my upbringing I'd say, well, anyone half aware of who he is and the world around him, common sense would tell you such and such. I've lived long enough to know that much of what I call common sense was deliberately imparted into me. Indecisive wisdom from my mother and my father.

11:11 But because they didn't formally sit down and say, I'm now going to give you page one, line six, point C of practical wisdom, I thought it was common sense. But a lot of people around me who aren't aware of these things, they have lots of sense. I say, why is that common sense? No, they didn't have people to train them.

11:28 They didn't have people to train them in these practical matters. So I hope it doesn't sound condescending, brethren, and that you will find it helpful to think in these terms. If you pass by, your kitchen, go into your study, or even if you don't, to ask someone, would you, welcome my brother, would you like a glass of water, a glass of juice? Letting them know that you're going into a situation where you know they might get thirsty, they might be a little uptight and get a dry mouth, and just the little things that seek to create a climate of security.

11:59 But then thirdly, as to the specific physical setting, it ought to be marked by privacy. While avoiding all indiscretion, if the person, that sheep that you're speaking to, has reason to believe that your wife might overhear your conversation, that someone, if it's in a church context, that someone might pass by a door and hear things, naturally that's going to create some reservation in terms of a climate not only of open, free, verbal communication, but where that communication would naturally be accompanied by certain emotional expressions, people will stifle those things. So you want to have a climate that has sufficient privacy that that kind of liberty that ought to be manifested in the shepherd-sheep interaction in the pastoral counseling setting would not be unattainable. So just those very simple things about the framework or the ideal setting for our pastoral counseling, the general spiritual setting, and then the specific physical setting. Now then, we want to move to Roman numeral number four, the goals of, of pastoral counseling. And here I've listed two.

Goals of Pastoral Counseling: Proximate and Ultimate

13:12 There's first of all the proximate goal, the one that is immediately at hand. When you are walking with the person or admitting the person into your study or wherever you're going to have this session of individual pastoral interaction with one of the sheep, what ought to be your proximate goal? Well, it ought to be, first of all, to create a climate in which you can meaningfully address the concern that has brought the sheep into the presence of one of his or her appointed shepherds. To create a climate in which you can deal with the problem.

13:52 Now here again, nobody can give you ten rules because much will depend on the physical and psychological state of the person who's coming to you. Much will depend on your previous relationship with that person. You may know them intimately. You may have had lengthy pastoral dealings.

14:13 They come to you with a whole well of goodwill towards you, confidence in you. And you in turn come with a deep well of knowing who they are. Your fingers have been in the wall of this sheep for many years. So immediately when you sit down and pray, even the way you pray reflects that.

14:35 And you can go right in and sometimes in those situations you don't even need to prep, the patient. You just say, bury your chest and you stick the scalpel in and split it open. You don't even need to pause to cauterize the bleeders. You know these people.

14:51 That's what they want. That's what they're most comfortable with. Then on the other hand, you've got that person that maybe has heard all kinds of garbage about you. Get alone with one of those elders and they pummel you and they look right through you and they ask you questions and they come in and they're like, why are you like this?

15:10 Well, you've got to be sensitive to that. And you've got to show them out the window and why you like to study where it is and you've got ten kinds of birds. I've done this many times. I talk about all the birds and all the animals in my backyard out my study window.

15:23 They don't know what I'm doing but I know what I'm doing. I'm trying to create a climate in which I sense that emotionally and psychologically they're relaxed enough to begin to really communicate. Now that's not a psychological ploy. That's a recognition of this fundamental principle that if there is not a climate in which you can deal with the problem meaningfully, you might as well cancel the session.

15:48 And so, the proximate goal in a pastoral sheep one-on-one interaction like this is to create that climate in which you can reasonably expect that you're going to be able to isolate and address the particular problems or concerns that has brought that sheep to you. But then there is the ultimate goal and that is to create and I cannot emphasize this enough, brethren. The ultimate goal is to see a lifestyle altered according to biblical norms. That's our goal.

16:22 To see a lifestyle altered in some area according to biblical norms. And that will mean and here I've just listed the specimen text that will mean in the language of Colossians 1, 27 and 28 that we desire that Christ in some dimension of the perfection of his work and person will be proclaimed that we might present this sheep perfect in Christ and to that end we're prepared to labor. In the language of Romans 12, 2 we are concerned with the transformation of the mind.

17:01 By the renewing of the mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 2 Corinthians 3, 18 that whole perspective of we all with open face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are transformed into that same image from one stage of glory to another. If there's a sin to be dealt with we're concerned that it is by the spirit that this person will mortify this particular deed of the body. And we are concerned when we think in terms of graces that are not yet cultivated that they be the fruit of the spirit.

17:35 In other words we are not concerned with mere behavior modification. We are not concerned with evangelical gospel transformation.

17:48 And that's not just the difference of phrases.

17:52 That's the difference between what God can do and what man can do. It's the difference between mere psychological and humanistic influence upon a man upon a woman and the influence of the gospel. Gospel dynamics gospel motives gospel standards these are the things that are woven into the world warp and woof of the ultimate goal that we have in dealing with this particular sheep in this particular session or series of sessions of what we call or what has been designated as pastoral counseling. And if you keep that in mind it will help you at many many levels.

18:34 It will help you to know when you're in over your head. If someone has a chemical imbalance that needs lithium no amount of gospel motive is going to help the person and you are a Job's comforter to press gospel motive to deal with something that maybe needs some shots of lithium. Now if a person thinks it's not spiritual to understand his or her body chemistry and to take a lithium shot now you need to bring biblical perspectives to show them that God's provision in this realm is no more to be despised than his provision in the realm of gospel. Unique gospel dynamics.

Suggested Method: The Physician of Souls Model

19:19 So you may have to bring gospel perspectives to persuade them that it's not unspiritual to have a blood test and to see if indeed this history of manic depression in the family lines is something that is causing their fundamental problem. It will help you not to be intimidated by issues that seem to be beyond you but in the light of scripture the problem can be identified and in the light of scripture we know that we can do all things through him who strengthens us. So that ultimate goal of gospel evangelical transformation must constantly be kept before us. Then in the overview we come to Roman numeral 5 what is the method that we will employ in our brief lectures this semester on pastoral counseling. Well we're going to follow the method of or the model of a physician of souls. You have to have some kind of a framework within which to operate and while this has some limitations I have found it helpful and I trust you will find it helpful as we work through this morning. Remember this is just the overview.

20:27 All of these areas will be amplified and more fully flushed out when we come to the appropriate section in the subsequent lectures. But I've listed in your notes these what are they A, B, C, D, E, F A, B, C, D, E, F that's six stages in the method employed using the physician of souls model. First of all there is accepting the case. Should I take on this particular sheet in this particular area of concern?

21:01 Should I take this on immediately? Should a visit to the doctor precede my first session? Should it come after? Those are the kinds of questions and we'll wrestle with that when we come to it.

21:13 But there's the first stage accepting the case. Should I take on the patient? Should I take on this sheet in this particular need? If so how when?

21:23 And then secondly setting the tone. There will be an introducing of the session and that will vary in terms of your perception beforehand of what it is that has brought this sheet into your study into that particular place where you were seeking to minister to him. And then there's diagnosis. Remember we're using the physician's model and attempt to discover what the real issue or issues are.

21:47 Seeking to discern what the problem is. People will often come to you thinking they really know what the problem is. And they don't. And you've got to help them to get at the root of that problem just like the physician.

22:01 There are people who come to the doctor why are you here? Well I have such and such and this is my problem. Well are you sure? Well I'm quite sure.

22:06 Well on what basis? And before long the doctor by the use of his diagnostic equipment and skill sends the person out of his office with a totally different understanding of what his problem was from that that he had when he came in. So diagnosis is critical and then there is the prescription of treatment. The treatment prescribed.

22:28 What biblical directives? What general directives? Some cases the treatment is such to use the medical model they need a trauma team. I mean they're in bad shape at a lot of levels.

22:43 Other times they need confrontation and challenge. Sometimes encouragement and encouragement. Exhortation. Consolation.

22:49 In your initial session it just may be that your major ministry is to convince this sheep in the light of the problem that he or she has disclosed that you're not going to cast them off and treat them as junk. And to persuade them that there's hope. Hope pinned upon the sympathetic ear and the heart that reflects something of the tenderness and the compassion of Christ and the confidence that God is able to resolve that particular issue. You can't accomplish everything at once.

23:19 Think of the doctor who's willing in his accurate diagnosis to commit himself to a long-term relationship to the patient to see him brought to physical health. Then I've listed follow-up. You monitor the results. Is the patient taking the medicine?

23:34 Is the sheep following the directives? If so, what are the results? And again, there'll be many ways to do the follow-up. I intimated some of them last week.

23:45 I'm not saying that it must of necessity involve a formal pastoral counseling situation. Given the nature of the relationship, telephone calls, discreet words at the door will give illustrations of this. I'll only slip in one now to give you a little idea. When we've got men, not just young men, but men struggling with masturbation, we have code words.

24:06 And I can ask them their progress in the presence of 20 people and nobody knows. But we agree on what our code words are. And when I ask them such and such with my code words, I'm not going to give any of them away, and they respond, they've made a covenant that when I use those words, their response is not to be generic social intercourse, it is to be a specific report to me. Then if the code word comes back saying I'm having a struggle, now I can give a call first of the week.

24:31 Hey, John, did I pick up right now your code word? Yeah, I've really had to. Okay, then we ascertain. Does it just need a reinforcement about the medicine?

24:40 Or does it need another session? That the medicine we've been giving hasn't been working. So you see, these things

24:48 mean me from biblical principles to personal experience rebels against wooden cookie cutter directives in these things. I just don't see it taught in the word of God. But some of the principles are vital. And so the follow-up, whatever you call it, monitoring the results, are they taking the medicine, is it working, is critical, and then using the medical model, dismissal.

25:13 That is, you go from this extraordinary intensive past experience, pastor-sheep interaction, back to the more normal levels of pastor-sheep interaction. So the dismissal is not dismissal from your affections, from your concern, but from this more intensified dimension of pastoral interaction. Sometimes it's dismissal in a resolution of the problem, in gospel triumph. Sometimes it's dismissal in an impasse.

25:44 And this will be one of your most frustrating experiences as a pastor. When God will teach you that the Holy Spirit is as sovereign in the sanctification of His people as He is in their regeneration.

25:57 And here again, I take my stand against even nephetic counselors that will say, if you do this, this, and this, then it, no, no, no, no, no, the ways of the Spirit are like the wind. And I could write a small book on how I've learned this over the years in this very assembly. I think of one couple where we came to an absolute impasse. There have been so many starts and falls, intentions in their marriage.

26:22 It wasn't such that it was scandalous. It wasn't known outside the home. It wasn't an occasion of public discipline. But the woman became so dispirited that she said, Pastor, I have no heart to make another tribe been disappointed so often.

26:35 And I said, well, I'll pray. A couple of years later, in a Sunday school class aimed at matters of parenting, the Holy Ghost took those things, some of you have listened perhaps to the how not to foul up your children when I was dealing with the climate of the home being one of warmth and acceptance, the Holy Ghost nailed that husband to the wall. And he went home from a class calculated to teach parents how to create a good climate for their kids and told his wife, this has got to stop. And within a matter of weeks, God turned that thing around and it has remained a most marvelous climate to this day.

27:14 And that story could repeat it again and again. So sometimes the dismissal is with an impasse. And then God just has to push the right buttons at the right time in his own way. Sometimes it's dismissal to escalation into formal corrective discipline.

27:30 But the bottom line is, you come back to the relationship of what I call pastoral normalcy. From this intensive, concentrated, focused pastor-sheep interaction, back to steady state, normal, ordinary pastoral interaction. All right, having then gone through this overview, and that's all it is, we now come to what I've listed as unit two on page 193, the presuppositional framework for pastoral counseling. And I'm telling you right now, brethren, I'm going to leave the role of a teacher at a few points in the rest of the lectures.

Presuppositional Framework: Universal and Active

28:06 And at least if God grips me afresh as he has in reviewing this, and I make no apology, I just want to warn you, I might go from teaching to preaching on these matters. All right? Now, when we come to this matter, the presuppositional framework, I have two introductory statements to make. Number one, all counseling has a presuppositional framework.

28:29 Now, you know what the presupposition is. That's something you assume to be true, whether rightly or wrongly, whether it's true or a lie. Now, when I stood to speak, I had some presuppositions. Presupposition one, you were all awake, that none of you was in a hypnotic trance or had learned the marvelous art of sleeping with your eyes open.

28:51 I presupposed that you were reasonably intelligent and could decipher the vocables coming out of my mouth in the kind of 20th century Americanese. I presupposed that. I didn't stand up and do a statistical analysis, give a test. I presupposed you're awake, you understand a contemporary Americanese, and that you all have the faculty of hearing.

29:14 I didn't, through sign language, tell one of you to get somebody in here to sign for you. Those were all my presuppositions. Now, suppose we had a Frenchman visiting the area, and someone had told him how this terrible rumor ever got out, but that we had such high academic standards here in the academy that no one could be admitted who was not fully competent to understand and speak French. And he was apprised that anyone admitted to this academy was fluent in the French language, both in understanding and speaking.

29:49 Now, he believed that crazy lie and stood up as a Frenchman and began to speak in very fluent French. You wouldn't understand him. Why? Because his presupposition was not true.

30:00 But for him, that presupposition made it perfectly natural to begin to communicate in the French language. Now, why am I going through this silly illustration? Simply to underscore and to fix afresh what I trust each of you already believes, this vital principle that in counseling there is always a presuppositional framework. When we sit with one of Christ's sheep in order to minister to him on a personal basis, a whole set of presuppositions is present.

30:31 We have presuppositions about the nature of man, about the nature of reality, about the nature of morals and ethics. We have presuppositions regarding the grace of God, the operations of the Spirit, the imminence of the Spirit of God, the objective criteria by which we judge things, the Word of God. We have a whole barrel full of presuppositions, and so does the person who comes to us have a whole barrel full of presuppositions. There is no such thing as presuppositionally neutral counseling any more than there is presuppositionally neutral education.

31:13 And therefore you and I must critically assess and constantly evaluate our presuppositions as they relate to this matter of how our individual shepherding of the people of God, i.e. pastoral counseling. And we must constantly remember the impact upon that reality in terms of such passages as Psalm 1.

31:37 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law does he meditate day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. Isaiah 8.20 To the law, to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, there is no light in them, or there is no dawning upon them.

32:03 And again, Romans 12, in verse 2. The negative be not conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And so, periodically, tell yourself, I have a present and growing set of presuppositions. What are they?

32:20 As I anticipate meeting with this particular individual. And then secondly, in flowing out of that, the presuppositional framework is constantly and powerfully active in all counseling. At every step in the application of the method, from taking the case all the way through to resolution, the framework is not only there, but it is active. It pulses, it breathes, it insinuates its influence into the entire process.

32:50 Now, I'm not saying that there is a heightened consciousness of the whole set of presuppositions or any one of them at every point in the interaction. I'm not saying that. All of you, from the moment you came in this room and thankfully long before that, you have been inhaling and exhaling oxygen. Now, until I said the word inhale, exhale, I'd almost be willing to bet that if not one of you thought cognitively in the last 50 minutes, I have been inhaling, I have been exhaling, but you've been doing it in the same way our presuppositions are like breathing.

33:29 They're there and they are operating and they are operating continually in the counseling setting. And as you move through the session and reflect back upon it, you'll need to test the presuppositional waters. Is this individual embracing full responsibility for his actions? Or is he or she reflecting a presupposition that has bought into the victimization mentality of the present day, in which ultimately I'm not responsible for who I am and what I do?

34:06 Either my gene pool is responsible or the fact that my dysfunctional family so warped me and distorted my views of life and relationships and etc. I'm a victim of societies this, societies that. You, you need to reflect during the counseling session and after that session are biblical presuppositions molding the way in which this particular person is responding. I've had a situation of an ongoing council with a very stressful marital situation and it's so evident that the one that I'm dealing with is being influenced by modern perspectives on guilt and responsibility.

34:52 It's just grievous to see it that the Bible is making very little impact on the presuppositions with which he or she is facing these marital difficulties. Jesus said make the tree good and its fruit good or the tree evil and its fruit evil. The tree is known by its fruits and you can't grow holy fruits upon unholy presuppositional perspectives and an unholy godless presuppositional framework. So, introducing this I want to underscore and you must constantly tell yourself all counseling has a presuppositional framework and that framework is both constantly and powerfully active in all of our counseling.

Counselor's Presuppositions: Identity as Overseer (Authoritative Servanthood)

35:38 Now then, having addressed these introductory concerns, I want to attempt to address with you these three specific areas with respect to the presuppositions. The presuppositions with regard to the counselor are secondly with respect to the counsel given and thirdly with reference to the one or the person counseled. And today we'll just have time to address Roman numeral one, the presuppositions as they relate to the counselor. And I think probably I've gone for 45-50 minutes, this will be the best place to break because as you can see I have three subheadings and I'd like to deliver them all in one basic homiletical unit. So let's take our break now and reconvene at 10 past the hour. All right? All right brethren, let's pick up where we left off and press through on page 193 of your printed notes, having taken up these two introductory strands of thought that all counseling has a presuppositional framework and that the presuppositional framework is constant and powerfully active in all counseling.

36:52 We now come to address the presuppositions of the counselor with respect to himself. And the first is this, that we must possess a consciousness of our identity as overseers of the flock of God. Now most of you are aware that one of the truths that Dr. J.

37:12 Adams has brought to the fore in recent years is the part that all mature Christians should have to some degree in the area of counseling their fellow believers. And his epitomizing text is of course Romans 15-14 where Paul speaking to the people of God in general says I'm persuaded of you my brethren that you yourselves are full of knowledge, full of goodness, able to admonish one another. And we all ought to be thankful for that biblical emphasis that Dr. Adams has brought to the fore and under God has injected into the bloodstream of circles far beyond his own theological and ecclesiastical circles. And in the light of what we heard in the chapel hour we can rejoice of the wholesome leavening influence that Dr. Adams has had upon evangelicalism in a much larger than reformed circle of influence. However, without negating or neutralizing that strand of truth we're addressing ourselves to that counseling which you do as a duly recognized biblically qualified under shepherd in the flock of Christ.

38:32 And just as it is important to have an awareness of your identity in this pastoral function when you stand publicly to teach and to preach, it is vital that you carry that identity with you into the counseling situation. You do not become something other than what you are in virtue of being a gift of Christ to the church, recognized by the church, your own internal sense of call validated by the people of God, and you must have that consciousness of your identity in the counseling situation. And if I try to distill what aspects of that identity are particularly critical in the counseling situation and which may be most severely threatened, in the counseling situation, I would underscore two of them in terms of this couplet of words. Authoritative servanthood. In the counseling situation, conscious of your identity as an overseer in the flock, placed there by the operation of the Spirit of God, you must think of yourself in these categories among others. First of all, that you counsel from a position of authority.

39:52 Not authority, authoritarianism, but authority. And frankly, brethren, I get weary of people being so dead scared that someone might label them authoritative that they back away from anything that exudes legitimate authority.

40:07 Now, a policeman can be authoritative and bully people with his badge, but I don't want a policeman directing traffic who says, I'm so afraid people think I'm abusing my authority.

40:20 I want a policeman that stands out in the square knowing what stands behind his badge, blows his whistle and puts his hand up. Now, that's a crude illustration, but you're living in a climate where this business of people being so fearful of being labeled authoritative, they become nothing less than wimpish. And particularly in the counseling situation, because they're not only bullied by an anti-authority climate in society at large and in many segments of the church, but the whole perspective of Jungian and Rogerian counseling where the essence of your ministry is the holy grunt.

41:01 Nothing more, just grunt. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And yes.

41:05 Mm-hmm. And yes. And what do you think? And the whole idea of anything that smacks of authority is antithetical to the prevailing mindset of what counseling is.

41:16 And I would raise my voice against this and underscore that just as surely as when you stand to preach, you stand to preach in the authority of Christ, so when you sit and counsel one of the sheep, you are given to Christ's church to govern and rule by the word of God, you are charged to take heed to the flock, you are governing by the word, yes, even as when you preach the word. But remember the words of Christ in John 13, 20, he that receives whomsoever I send receives me. And I'm struck with how the apostle underscores this with Timothy in particular in 1 Timothy. Notice what he says in 1 Timothy 1 in verse 3, I exhorted you to tarry at Ephesus that you might charge certain men. Chapter 4 in verse 11, these things command and teach. Chapter 5 in verse 7, these things also command, parangelo,

42:21 these things command, give orders, direct commands, instruct,

42:28 instructions given by the persons in authority, aren't in gingrig.

42:35 And I would urge you to prayerfully assimilate these biblical perspectives that when you come into the counseling situation you are determined that you will not be bullied into what I've called the Rogerian grunt and the humanistic notion that you're merely the catalyst to help a man to discover the answers that lie within himself. No, you are to under God administer these aspects of your ministry with all authority. Now, the expressions and the cosmetic trappings of that authority will be fundamentally different from those that may be attendant upon your public ministry. Authority may be manifested in a tone of the voice. In public ministry, they will be inappropriate. But that's merely secondary. The fundamental issue is that if Christ has given me to this flock, and this is one of the sheep, I sit in the counselor's chair with Christ-conferred authority with my Bible in my hand, and I'm not going to be embarrassed to make that evident.

43:45 But it is authority in the context of servanthood. You've been given your position of oversight to serve in love. I am among you as he that serves, Matthew 20, 28. Christ as the head of the church nourishes and cherishes his church.

44:06 In that sense, the head serves the body. But it's the head that doesn't relinquish authoritative headship in his service any more than the husband who is to reflect the Christ. He does not become an emasculated, feminized, non-authoritative leader. No, he is head over his wife.

44:28 But he is head in the disposition of loving, loving servanthood. 2 Corinthians 4, 5. We preach not ourselves, publicly or privately, but ourselves. But Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves, your bondservants, for Christ's sake.

44:45 1 Corinthians 9, 19, where Paul says that he's willing to make himself the servant of all. So our sense of authority will not lead us to a lording attitude condemned in 1 Peter 5, but one in which we're prepared to give the whole of our redeemed humanity to help the person before us. We're prepared with Paul to say in Galatians 4, 19, My little children of whom I travail again in birth till Christ be formed in you. 2 Thessalonians 2, 6 and 7.

45:20 We were well pleased, Paul says, to impart unto you not the gospel of God only, but we were willing, verse 8, being affectionately desirous of you we were well pleased to impart to you not the gospel of God only, but our own souls, because you were become dear to us. And there is a kind of internal spiritual immolation in real empathetic, spirit-filled servant-like pastoral counseling.

45:51 It is. But the one quality does not negate the other. Each must be suffused with the other. Few things are more demanding than empathetic, discerning, confrontational pastoral counseling.

46:07 And you seldom have those aspects in that ministry that are so exhilarating in preaching. When you're preaching and your soul is inflamed with the truth, and you have that sense of the Lord's peculiar nearness, and you know that mind and tongue and spirit are experiencing things far beyond what is your own order, you're conscious that all kinds of things are going on that you can't explain, and it's wonderful. You say, man, if ever I've got to die, Lord, kill me when I'm preaching. Don't you feel that way?

46:35 When God gives you a little touch of the powers of the age to come, you say, Lord, I feel like I'm one or two steps closer. Just push me the rest of the way. Now, I can't explain all of those things. There's the eager attention of the hungry hearts, the chemistry of the presence of the Spirit of God.

46:51 Well, many of those dimensions are not present in the counseling. So it makes it, in a sense, even more arduous, because you're not carrying along on the tide of those dynamics. Now, some may want to just write me off who may hear these tapes and say he's just nothing but a closet Pentecostal. I frankly don't care.

47:08 If a man doesn't know what I'm talking about, I pity him if he's a preacher. I pity him if he can't relate. Say, well, I wouldn't quite express it with that much volubility. That's a Martinism.

47:19 Fine, fine. But if you don't know the thing, you don't know that exhilaration, you don't know what it is to be carried out of yourself, then, brethren, I say, do you know anything of the anointing of the Spirit of God? I urge you, I urge you, don't ever write that off. As something that is for the charismatics and the Pentecostals.

47:39 Preaching a felt Christ is crucial to preaching Christ. And it's the Spirit of God who gives us to preach a felt Christ in the act of preaching. Whitefield, with all of his Calvinism, said the greatest curse of the ministry was ministers who preached an unfelt Christ long before the nonsense of modern charismania. Well, that's the first presupposition that we must constantly keep before us with respect to our spirit.

Counselor's Presuppositions: Identity as Sinner (Humanity and Limitations)

48:06 We must possess a consciousness of our identity as overseers of the flock of God and in the counseling situation, remember, among the many things you remember, that it ought to be marked in that consciousness by authoritative servanthood. But then, secondly, we must possess a consciousness of our identity as men who are still sinners. Now, let me break that down into the two strands. First of all, the consciousness of our humanity.

48:40 Why is it so important in this presuppositional complex to constantly remind ourselves, though we sit in the counseling situation, as overseers in the flock of God, under shepherds appointed by the Lord Jesus, that we still sit there as men with all of the reality of the limitations of our humanity? Well, let me give you some of the reasons. We will constantly remember that we are not omniscient. God alone knows the hearts of men.

49:13 All things are naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do, but not before our eyes. We are not omnipotent. We are not lords over men's consciences. In the Biblical language, we have the treasure in earthen vessels.

49:25 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 7. And we do well to constantly remember that that is our identity. This consciousness of our identity is our identity. This consciousness of our identity is our identity.

49:37 This consciousness of our identity is our identity. This consciousness of our humanity and its limitations will press us to a sense of our dependantness. Jeremiah 17.5 and following our text that I don't know how many times I found myself quoting them in prayer in the midst or in the front end of a counseling session.

49:52 Cursed is the man that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. He shall be like a heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, till he shall inhabit the place of the Lord. He shall be like a heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, till he shall inhabit the place of the Lord. He shall be like a park place, a wilderness, a barren land where no water is.

50:14 Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is, and God promises fruitfulness. So this remembrance that we are creatures will keep us from creature confidence, from the positive side. It will cause us to labor through a counseling session with an attitude of present conscious dependence upon Christ and His Grace. John 15.5 Without me you can do nothing. Don't ask me to bear any grudge over Abide in me and I in you. Furthermore, it will keep us from being embarrassed when we can't get the answer. We can't even analyze and identify the real problem.

50:51 We're creatures. We know that there are tremendous limitations. But then there must be the consciousness of our identity not only as men, but as men who are still sinners. It's evident that the great apostle Paul never forgot what he had once been and what he still was.

51:13 Remember his language in 1 Timothy 1, 12-16? He couldn't forget. God's appointed me a preacher, apostle, a teacher for which cause I suffer these things. Yet I'm not ashamed, for I know him whom I have believed.

51:27 He's able to keep that which I've guarded. Hold fast the pattern of sound words. I'm sorry, I'm in 2 Timothy. I'm reading the wrong passage.

51:36 1 Timothy 1, I'm sorry. I thank him that enabled me, even Christ our Lord, for he counted me faithful, appointing me to his service, though I was before a blasphemer, a persecutor, injurious. The grace of our Lord abounded. Faithful is the saying.

51:53 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Now I know there's a wrong use of the concept that I am chief. But I can't change the tense. And I can't change what the Holy Ghost said through the apostle.

52:12 And he not only forgot what he once was, but what he still was in his identity as a sinner. And when he says in 1 Corinthians 15, I labored more abundantly than they all, verse 10, yet not I, but the grace of God that was in me. And in writing to Titus, he says, you tell the people never to forget what they once were. Titus chapter 1.

52:33 Don't let them forget. Don't let them forget. Don't let them forget. Don't let them forget.

52:38 Don't let them forget. Don't let them forget. Don't let them forget what they once were. Chapter 3, verse 1.

52:42 Put them in mind to be in subjection to rulers, authorities, speak evil of no man. Verse 3. We also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lust and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. He puts himself in the category with all the others.

53:03 And what does this have to do with our competence to minister to others? Well, you remember what? The writer to Hebrews says in chapter 5. The priest is taken from among men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer gifts and sacrifices.

53:21 Who can bear gently with the ignorant and the erring? Why? For that he himself is compassed with infirmity.

53:32 He can minister as he is supposed to minister because of who and what he was existentially and experientially. And this is so critical in being an effective one-on-one shepherd to your people. Let me be specific. This consciousness of what you were and are as a sinner will keep you from any projection of a Pharisaic attitude in the presence of the sins of others.

54:02 Nobody can tell you a thing and get any legitimate vibes that you are thinking and feeling. I thank you, I'm not as other men.

54:13 What I've often said, what I've said over the years when I sense that a person is struggling to get out some deep, dark secret, I stop them and I say, look, there's nothing that you're struggling to tell me that's not been heard in this room and no one has ever got it out when it needed to come out and been crowned upon, been treated as junk. I used to say, every sin in the Bible listed except bestiality has been confessed in this room and not a person has been sent away being treated like junk. I no longer have to give the exception clause. There's not a sin listed in the Old or New Testament that I've not had to one degree or another confessed in my presence. And I've found when people are struggling, when I've just said something along those lines, it's like I knocked the cork out and out it came. I've also said, look, I don't know what you're struggling with, but I don't shock easily. And then, most frequently I will say, and there's nothing you can tell me, the seeds of which I know are not in my own heart.

55:23 Now, when you believe that, not as a theological tenet, but you really believe if God took his hand off you for half a day, there's not a sin that anyone's committed you couldn't commit with a high hand. And when you believe that, that communicates to God's people. They sense that here is someone that will deal sympathetically and gently, empathetically, with my situation. So it's critical then, when you come into the counseling situation, that you not only remember who you are as an under-shepherd of Christ, but who and what you are with respect to your identity as a man with all your creaturely limitations and as a sinner.

56:08 It will keep you from the projection of the Pharisaic spirit on the one hand, but on the other hand, it will make you guard your heart in the midst of the counseling session.

56:20 What information am I seeking and why? Am I crossing the line from loving, sensitive, judicious inquiry to be an able physician? Or am I indulging in a form of mental voyeurism?

56:37 And your heart is not beneath the latter. To get a kind of subtle, sick, wretched gratification by hearing the account of someone else's, don't ever forget you're a sinner. You'll guard your reactions. You may be internally shocked, but remember, you can react in a way that is either a manifestation of carnal anger, disappointment, or carnal sentimentalism.

57:09 Again, this idea that the person who counsels is to show no emotional reaction. You have a true child of God that you thought was walking in integrity and he comes in your study, as I have had, and says in a moment of weakness he plunked out his fifty bucks and spent an hour in a cheap hotel off 42nd Street and lay with a hooker. If you can sit there and look at one of your sheep and not weep or say, Brother, I'm grieved. I'm disappointed in you.

57:35 Jesus did that. Oh, faithless and unbelieving. How long shall I bear with you? This idea that you're not supposed to show.

57:44 That's nonsense, brethren. Don't you come into that wretched bondage. But remember, you've had remaining sin that will cause you to react emotionally in wrong ways. Either with a bland neutrality or with a carnal irritation.

57:59 Whatever it is, remember, you come into the counseling session to deal with the sheep, often who has a problem with a specific sin, but you come there as a sinner and then you will jealously guard your thoughts. What do you think when the single girl opens her heart and speaks of her frustrations and her yearnings to be a wife and a mother and be loved and possessed? In a biblical way and to have sexual fulfillment and the arrow come, hmm, you could fulfill her. Just a passing thought.

58:30 No thought of touching her, seducing her, but the thought of what you do right there at that moment may mean the difference between a grievous fall into sin or maintaining your integrity through the years of your ministry. And don't think those thoughts won't come. I've had them come.

58:46 And little did that person know that I was going to the cross of Christ right in the midst of seeking to enter in. To their problem. The wretched thought. You could relieve her attention.

59:00 It's a terrible thing to be a sinner. A terrible thing, brethren. But God isn't going to perfectly sanctify us before He uses us. But whoso trusts in his own heart is a fool.

59:12 And if you come to counseling sessions thinking you can come that close to the sins of others and not have it the occasion of your sin unless you watch and pray, you'll be a monument to your own self-trust. Whoso trusts in his own heart is a fool. Don't trust your heart. Don't trust your heart.

Counselor's Presuppositions: Connection Between Godliness and Counseling Ability

59:30 But then thirdly, the third presupposition we must have regarding ourselves is this. We must possess a conviction concerning the connection between our pursuit of godliness and our ability to counsel others.

59:48 Now I am not saying that our ability to counsel others rests exclusively upon our pursuit of godliness. Other factors will enter in. Our knowledge of the word of God, our understanding of human nature, our experience, our God-given endowments, many variables. But what I am saying is you must have a conviction as one of your presuppositions that there is this vital connection between your own pursuit of godliness and your ability effectively to counsel others.

60:20 You have controversies with God in your own life that you're not dealing with and you're going to have a grieved Holy Spirit. And with a grieved spirit there will be a withdrawn spirit. And what is pastoral counseling with a restrained and a withdrawn spirit when we desperately need him as the spirit of illumination, the spirit of discernment, the spirit of love and patience and long-suffering, the spirit of self-control? Do you see how it messes up any ability to effectively administer pastoral counsel?

60:54 And one of the key passages that I want us to look at is Matthew 7 verses 1 to 5. Matthew 7 verses 1 to 5. Matthew 7 verses 1 to 5. Well, we have the connection between these two things set forth in the principles of this text.

61:11 Judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge you shall be judged, and with what measure you meet it shall be measured unto you. And why do you behold the mote or the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not consider the beam that is in your own eye? Or how will you say to your brother, let me cast out the mote out of your eye and lo! The beam is in your own eye.

61:33 You hypocrite! Cast out first the beam out of your own eye and then you shall see clearly to cast out the mote out of your brother's eye. Do you see the intimate connection? The beam, the mote.

61:53 The speck, the log. And here our Lord says, if you are to see clearly to deal with another's, speck, you better be sure that the logs have been dislodged from your own eye. Here's the connection between spiritual integrity in the one who would help another and if we've come to the place where we really think, well, we've got enough experience, we've gone to enough seminars, we've read enough books, we've listened to enough tapes, we can come in. I trust we would never dare to think we could know the peculiar dimensions of the imminent ministry of the Spirit in preaching, if we had an unresolved controversy with our wives, that we were unwilling to humble ourselves, acknowledge that we were quick and short and irritable and confessed it, or an unresolved controversy with our kids or a fellow office bearer. I hope none of us comes to the place where we would dare to saunter up in the pulpit saying it's a matter of indifference whether I'm in present, living, non-controversy relationship with my Lord and living, walking, coming into this pulpit in the Spirit. Well, you see, if I know that in the study I'm not doing something qualitatively different, this is a ministry of the Word, circumstantially different, yes, many of the externals different, but I come as a servant of Christ, a minister of the Word,

63:19 to minister the Word. I desperately need those peculiar dimensions of the Spirit's ministry as much in counseling as I do in the public preaching of the Word. And therefore, there is an intimate connection between our pursuit of godliness and our ability effectively to counsel others. And understanding that and believing that, whatever we must do to keep short accounts with God, let every appointment for a counseling session as every commitment to preach, let it be a fresh and powerful call to make sure in the language of Acts 24.16 that we have a conscience void of offense to God and void of offense to God. Now, that's sort of the negative side of dealing with any controversy. The positive side is, of course, that if you are neglecting the ongoing cultivation of your own devotional interaction with the Word of God, where you come to it daily, not as the Christian minister, but as the disciple of Jesus, as your Lord, the servant of Jehovah, could say, He wakens my ear morning by morning as one that is taught, and the blessed Son of God came into the presence of God, the grace of His Father to be taught, that He might speak a word to him that is weary and be the great Counselor.

64:43 Then, dear brethren, you and I must recognize that if we are to have that acquaintance with our own hearts and with the ways of our own winding, devious pressures of remaining sin and the wonders of the manifold, many-sided grace of God, we've got to be living in that stuff in our own closets. For it's going to show in ineffective and unfruitful pastoral counseling. I remind you of the words of Owen, who, in setting out the requirements for the duties of pastors, writes in volume 16 and page 85, it belongs unto them on account of their pastoral office, see how he underscores that, to be ready, willing, and able to comfort, relieve, and refresh those that are tempted, tossed, wearied with fears, and grounds of disconsolation in times of trial and desertion. And then he quotes from the Isaiah passage, the tongue of the learned is required of them that they should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. And then he shows how our Lord Jesus was equipped for this ministry in the light of that passage. And then he goes on to say, now the troubles, the disconsolations, dejections, and fears that arise in the minds of persons in these exercises and temptations are various,

66:12 oft times urged and fortified with subtle arguings and fair pretenses, perplexing the souls of men almost to despair and death. And it belongs to the office and duty of pastors to be able rightly to understand the various cases that will occur of this kind. From such principles and grounds of truth and experience as will bear a just confidence in a prudent application unto the relief of them concerned. The tongue of the learned to know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.

66:45 A rose called by any other name is a rose. So he's talking about pastoral counseling, tailor-made to the distresses, spiritual desertions, and disruptions of the people of God. But then, how are we equipped for this? But not to dispute how far such helps as books written on cases of conscience may be useful herein, which they may be greatly unto those who know how to use them aright.

67:10 He would say, a Baxter's Directee is helpful in its place. Goodwin's Cases of Conscience and the other puritans, they're helpful if you know how to use them. Indicating that people didn't know how to use them. But what's the great equipment?

67:23 Listen to Owen. The proper ways whereby pastors and teachers must obtain this skill and understanding are by diligent study of the scriptures, meditation thereon, fervent prayer, experience of spiritual things and temptations in their own souls, with a prudent observation of the manner of God's dealing with others and the ways of opposition made to the work of grace in them. Without these things, all pretenses unto this ability and duty of the pastoral office are vain. Whence it is that the whole work of it is much neglected.

68:06 And the good doctor is simply reminding us that there is an intimate connection between our own pursuit of godliness and all that that involves and our ability to minister to others at the point of their critical spiritual needs. Some years ago when I was, I think the first time or second time I was giving this material, our good friend Pastor McDiarmid sat in, on one or two of those sessions, and I'm trying to find his letter. I had it here. Yeah, here it is.

68:43 After he sat in on the session, he wrote to me several days after and he said, thank you for the lunch and time we had together last Friday. I thought about point C under one. That's when the outline was different. The pastoral counseling handout in the indispensability of the pastor's pursuit of godliness relative to the counselor-counselee relations and relationship.

69:07 Then he opens up another dimension that I had not emphasized and I'm bringing in here as a point of application. I've spoken of the necessity of this in terms of our own heart being the crucible out of which our pastoral counsel grows. Now he approaches it from a differing perspective and writes, I am persuaded that the counselee's, the sheep's, readiness to come to us is dependent upon his conviction that we do ourselves pursue godliness. The reluctance of church members to seek out a pastor's counsel, the lack of confidence displayed in him, as well as the readiness of the sheep to seek extra-pastoral counselors, psychologists, counseling clinics, etc., may often be linked to the accurate perception that real godliness and thus credibility is seriously lacking. They're slow to come and reticent to be seriously candid quite possibly because the perceived inconsistency and hypocrisy which marks the pastor's life leaves them cold. Surely the connection between the multitudes attending our Lord's teaching and his teaching as one having authority, the authority of life and example, has application to us and the readiness of our people to seek us out for what we call counseling.

70:31 Very perceptive, brethren. And with the passing of time, your detractors notwithstanding, where you earn, by God's grace, the reputation for being a godly man, one who walks with integrity, one willing to own his sins privately and publicly, one seeking to press back new dimensions of conformity to Christ, and there will be amongst your people that growing confidence that I can come to this man. He himself manifests spiritual vitality and reality, and I know that he will point me to the way that he himself has trod by the grace of God. Be followers of me, even as I am of Christ.

71:14 And so I urge you, brethren, as you think of pastoral counseling, blow away all the mystique and the rest, and at the end of the day, one of the most critical elements in your ongoing preparation will not be your formal preparation for a giving session, and we'll be dealing with that, how to look up the subject in Scripture, and do some preparation to have a framework of addressing a problem that you know is going to be the focal point. I'm not despising all of that, but this is the ground-level stuff. This is the pool out of which all the particulars grow, and if we lack here, we've cut our own throats of usefulness in this sphere of pastoral endeavor. So I lay before you, then, these two subheadings of godliness and moral discernment, the Matthew 7 passage and then our brother's comments and the many texts in Scripture where the servants of God commend themselves as the living expression and the living embodiment of the message that they convey unto others. So those three basic presuppositions with respect to yourself are critical, and then, God willing, next week we will then take up the presuppositions as they respect the person that we counsel, who is this person, and the counsel that we actually give, and then that will conclude and complete the section on presuppositions, and then we will start into

72:43 the more expanded addressing of that basic framework of the medical model.