How to Care Like Christ: Changing Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth 1 Thessalonians 2:8

Session Two: How to Care Like Christ

Spiritual Friendship: Can Feel Like a Maze!

Need Some Directions?

Some Signs Are Spot On!

Some Signs State the Obvious!

Some Signs Are Confusing!

Some Signs Are More Helpful Than Others

We Need a Spiritual Friendship GPS

 Where would you start with Pastor Carl and why?  How would you minister to Pastor Carl in his suffering?  How would you minister to Pastor Carl in his struggle against sin?  What “map” or “model” would guide you? Pastor Carl’s Story

Everyone wants to “do biblical ministry” and to “be a spiritual friend,” but what does it actually “look like” in practice? We are here to learn how to use God’s Word to empathize, encourage, enlighten, and empower others. You are here to be equipped to become a skillful spiritual friend by developing the biblical soul care and spiritual direction arts of sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding to care like Christ. Why Are We Here?

Our GPS: Suffering and Sinning “Pastoral care is defective unless it can deal thoroughly both with the evils we have suffered and with the sins we have committed.”

Our GPS: Sustaining, Healing, Reconciling, and Guiding  Sustaining: “It’s Normal to Hurt”  Healing: “It’s Possible to Hope”  Reconciling: “It’s Horrible to Sin, but Wonderful to Be Forgiven”  Guiding: “It’s Supernatural to Mature”

Our GPS: Sustaining, Healing, Reconciling, and Guiding  Sustaining: Empathize—Romans 12:15  Healing: Encourage—Genesis 50:20  Reconciling: Enlighten—Romans 5:20  Guiding: Empower—Philippians 3:10

Our GPS: Sustaining, Healing, Reconciling, and Guiding

Soul Care Comfort for Suffering  Comfort: Co-fortitude  Parakaletic: Called along side to help  Sufferology and Sanctification: “God is good even when life is bad.”  Find God even when they can’t find relief.

Sustaining  “It’s normal to hurt.”  Permission to grieve.  “Life is bad.”  The earthly story.

Listen to Their Earthly Story “It was in the fall of 1879 that I met Charlotte Brooks. I have spent hours with her listening to her telling of her sad life of bondage in the cane-fields of Louisiana.” Do Not Be Ignorant of One Another’s Suffering: 2 Corinthians 1:3-8

Empathize with Their Earthly Story “Poor Charlotte Brooks! I can never forget how her eyes were filled with tears when she would speak of all her children: ‘Gone, and no one to care for me!’” Climb in the Casket!

Empathize with Their Earthly Story “Aunt Charlotte, my heart throbs with sympathy, and my eyes are filled with tears, whenever I hear you tell of the trials of yourself and others.” Compassionate Commiseration

Olaudah Equiano: Comfort Them in Their Earthly Story

Comfort Them in Their Earthly Story “The only comfort we had was in being in one another’s arms all that night, and bathing each other with our tears.” People Need Our Silence More Than Our Speeches

Comfort Them in Their Earthly Story “Are the dearest friends and relations still to be parted from each other, and thus prevented from cheering the gloom of slavery with the small comfort of being together, and mingling their sufferings and sorrows?” Shared Sorrow Is Endurable Sorrow

Enter Their Earthly Story “Happy should I have ever esteemed myself to encounter every misery for you, and to procure your freedom by the sacrifice of my own!” Incarnational Suffering

Point Them to Jesus in Their Earthly Story “La, me, child! I never thought any body would care enough for me to tell of my trials and sorrows in this world! None but Jesus knows what I have passed through.” Jesus with Skin On!

 Trialogues Engage in Sustaining Trialogues

 “Pastor Carl, I’m so sorry for all that you’re going through with your daughter’s illness and this unjust criticism.”  “I can only begin to imagine what you might be feeling.”  “If it were me, I think I might be feeling _______. How does that relate to how you’re feeling?”  “Who has been a source of comfort for you? Who has wept with you in your weeping?”

Engage in Sustaining Trialogues  “Pastor Carl, what are you grieving over the most?”  “What do you think the Bible teaches about feeling and expressing anger and even doubt in a situation like yours?”  “The Apostle Paul admitted that he despaired. How do his feelings compare to yours?”

Sharing and Growing As a Soul Care-Giver 1.Who has sustained you by helping you to sense that “it’s normal to hurt”? Who has “climbed in the casket” with you? How? 2. How could you use the principles of sustaining to empathize with and comfort Pastor Carl?

Healing  Healing—“ It’s possible to hope.”  Encouragement to grow.  “God is good.”  The eternal/heavenly story.

Stretch Them to the Larger Story  When Life Stinks, Our Perspective Shrinks.  Crop Christ Back into the Picture!  Ask: “What is God up to in this?”  Celebrate the Empty Tomb!

Stretch Them to God’s Story

 “Written expressly for God’s honor and people’s encouragement.”  “They were exhorting the people, warning them to remember the judgment of God.” Cling to Our Image of God’s Holy Love

Stretch Them to God’s Story  “Perpetua followed with a quick step as a true spouse of Christ, the darling of God, her brightly flashing eyes quelling the gaze of the crowd.” Cling to Our Image of Who We Are in Christ

Stretch Them to the Eternal Story  “Her friends were equally sad at the thought of abandoning such a good friend to travel alone on the same road to hope.” Travel Together on the Road to Eternal Hope

Stretch Them to the Eternal Story  “The day of their victory dawned, and with joyful countenances they marched from the prison arena as though on their way to heaven. If there was any trembling, it was from joy, not fear.” Weave in the Truth: We Are More Than Conquerors!

Stretch Them to the Spiritual Story  “Perpetua was singing victory Psalms as if already crushing the head of the Egyptian.” See Life with Faith Eyes

Stretch Them to the Scriptural Story: Engage in Healing Trialogues  “Pastor Carl, God’s timing and ours are often light years apart. What are you experiencing as you wait on God?”  “Satan wants to use your suffering to suck the life out of you. How can you connect to Christ’s resurrection power to find new zeal for God? How can you not only survive, but thrive?”  “How could you relate Paul’s perspective on his suffering in Romans 8:17-39 to your life? How could taking on his perspective alter yours?”

Stretch Them to the Scriptural Story: Engage in Healing Trialogues  “Pastor Carl, what might God be wanting to accomplish in your life through your circumstances?”  “God is all-powerful, holy, and loving. What impact do these attributes of God have on you as you face this?”  “How have you been able to worship God in the midst of this?”

Sharing and Growing As Soul Care-Givers 1.Who has joined you in the healing process by helping you to sense that “it’s possible to hope”? Who has “celebrated the resurrection with you” and stretched you to God? How? 2. How could you use the principles of healing to encourage Pastor Carl to see life from God’s perspective?

Spiritual Direction Care-fronting for Sinning  Care-fronting: Nouthetic—Care-fronting out of Concern for Change (Growth)

Spiritual Direction Care-fronting for Sinning  “You must be aware that you have become cold, have given your heart to idols… I am concerned about your soul. I cannot permit myself to cease praying for you and being concerned about you. For then I am convinced I would cease being the Church.”

Spiritual Direction: Reconciling  Sin and Sanctification: Grace!  Reconciling—“It’s Horrible to Sin but Wonderful to Be Forgiven!”  Romans 5:20

Spiritual Direction: Reconciling  “It’s Horrible to Sin!”  In Love and Humility, Load the Conscience with Guilt  Godly Sorrow: 2 Corinthians 7:8-13  “You have fallen away from such good beginnings and become a very different person. You are sharply and severely oppressive to your subjects. God will not suffer this.”

Spiritual Direction: Reconciling  Expose the Heart Sin: False Worship  “The human mind is so inclined that as it turns from the Creator it of necessity becomes addicted to the creature. He who rejects the Creator needs must worship the creature.”

Spiritual Direction: Reconciling  Catch Them Red-handed: Hebrews 3, 4  Leave the Conviction to God: 2 Timothy 2:24-26

Spiritual Direction: Reconciling  “It’s Wonderful to Be Forgiven.”  Lighten the Conscience with Grace: 2 Corinthians 2:5-11

Spiritual Direction: Reconciling  “You say that the sins which we commit every day offend God, and therefore we are not saints. To this I reply: Mother love is stronger than the filth and scabbiness on a child, and so the love of God toward us is stronger than the dirt that clings to us.”

Spiritual Direction: Reconciling  Recognize the “Quadrolog”: Matthew 4  “It is the supreme art of the devil that he can make the law out of the gospel. If I can hold onto the distinction between law and gospel, I can say to him any and every time, that he should kiss my backside. Even if I sinned, I would say, ‘Should I deny the gospel on this account?’”

Spiritual Direction: Reconciling  Be a Dispenser of Grace  “For who is able to express what a thing it is, when a man is assured in his heart that God neither is nor will be angry with him, but will be forever a merciful and loving Father to him for Christ’s sake? This is indeed a marvelous liberty to have the most high and sovereign Majesty so favorable to us.”

Spiritual Direction: Reconciling  Provide Tastes of Grace  “The word of a fellow-Christian has wonderful power. The voice of brethren and fellow Christians are to be heard and believed as the word and voice of God himself, as though God was speaking to them.”

Les Miserables

Spiritual Direction: Reconciling  Pen Psalms of Home Coming: Engage in Reconciling Trialogues

Engage in Reconciling Trialogues  “Pastor Carl, what does God’s Word say concerning your current way of relating? Thinking? Choosing? Handling your feelings?”  “Could we explore James 4:1-4 to understand what might be going on in your heart?”  “Pastor Carl, how would you compare the way you are relating to me right now to how you generally relate when a parishioner offers feedback?”

Engage in Reconciling Trialogues  “Pastor Carl, tell me about a time when you’ve experienced God’s forgiveness?”  “What role do you think Satan has been playing in tempting you to dismiss God’s gracious forgiveness?”  “What would it be like for you to write a Psalm 32 or a Psalm 51?”

Sharing and Growing As Spiritual Directors 1.Who has reconciled you by helping you to sense that “it’s horrible to sin, but wonderful to be forgiven”? Who has “dispensed Christ’s grace to heal your disgrace?” How? 2. How could you use the principles of reconciling to help Pastor Carl to repent of his sin and to receive Christ’s grace and forgiveness?

Spiritual Direction: Guiding  Guiding—“It’s Supernatural to Mature”  Envision: Who He/She Is in Christ: Eph. 1-3; 2 Tim. 1:5-7  Universal Identity

Maria Stewart “Many think, because your skins are tinged with a sable hue, that you are an inferior race of beings; but God does not consider you as such. He hath formed and fashioned you in his own glorious image, and hath bestowed upon you reason and strong powers of intellect.... Identity in Christ

Maria Stewart... He hath made you to have dominion over the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea (Genesis 1:26). He hath crowned you with glory and honor; hath made you but a little lower than the angels (Psalms 8:5).” Identity in Christ

Spiritual Direction: Guiding  Unique Identity

Spiritual Direction: Guiding  Empower: Be Like Christ: Ephesians 4:17-24; 2 Timothy 1:8-18  Putting Off: Mortify—Do Not Be Conformed…  Putting On: Vivify—Be Transformed…

Spiritual Nobility: From Hellcat to Heaven Saint “I love you as though you never hit me a lick, for the God I serve is a God of love” (Charlie).

Spiritual Nobility: From Hellcat to Heaven Saint “I had felt the power of God and tasted his love, and this had killed all the spirit of hate in my heart years before this happened. Whenever a man has been killed dead and made alive in Christ Jesus, he no longer feels like he did when he was a servant of the devil.... (Charlie).

Spiritual Nobility: From Hellcat to Heaven Saint... Sin kills dead, but the Spirit of God makes alive. I didn’t know that such a change could be made, for in my younger days I used to be a hellcat” (Charlie).

Spiritual Direction: Guiding  Equip: To Minister for Christ: Ephesians 4:11- 16; 2 Timothy 2:1-10

Spiritual Direction: Guiding  Enlighten: Through Christ’s Word: Romans 5-8, 12-15

Engage in Guiding Trialogues  “Pastor Carl, you preach it all the time, but for you, deep in your soul, who are you in Christ? What is unique about how God has designed you?”  “What is God wanting to release through all the sorrows and heartaches of your life?”  “So what would it look like for you to put off turning to the Internet and to put on turning to God and others when you are tempted?”

Engage in Guiding Trialogues  “Pastor Carl, what strengths do you have that if you surrendered them to God, you would powerfully advance His Kingdom?”  “As you leave here today, connected to Christ’s resurrection power, what will you be doing differently?”  “Imagine that over the next six months, God continues to do a mighty work in your life. How will your life be different?”

Spiritual Direction: Guiding  Guiding Pictured: Stir Up the Gift of God

Sharing and Growing As Spiritual Directors 1. Who has guided you by helping you to sense that “it’s supernatural to mature”? Who has “stirred up the gift of God” in you? How? 2. How could you use the principles of guiding to empower Pastor Carl toward growth in grace?

Whet Your Appetite

How to Care Like Christ: Changing Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth 1 Thessalonians 2:8