This is the diagnostics.  What about the cure?  Not much time for this!  Cure is NOT a system of redemption.  It is not 12 steps to happiness, or any other methodology.  We can usefully utilise all that the world is learning, but on the issue of CURE we have a fundamental difference.  We do not offer a system.  We offer much more than this.  We offer much more than a code of conduct that defines normal.  Don’t try to argue for a better ideology.

We offer a REDEEMER.  Our hope is in the Person, Presence, Promises, Provision and Power of a Redeemer.

Hope is not a set of insights or a strategy.  Hope is a person: his name is Jesus.

1.Sin is vertical.
Sin is against God.  Sin is self-sovereignty, self-worship; “I want what I want.”  But this is insanity!  We want to be God.

2.Sin as dramatically relational.
We sin in community.  Sin causes relational dysfunction.  E.g. Adam and Eve blaming each other.  Galatians 5:15 we destroy others by our sin, e.g. a child growing up in a home of violence.  Sin wrecks the lives of others.

3.Sin is environmental.
Think of Romans 8:18ff.  We see the effects of sin in diseases, physical brokenness, etc.  “Environment” means everything outside my heart.  Physical and neurological problems all flow from the Fall when the entire world was shattered.  So don’t deny that these things exist, e.g. children whose brains cannot process emotional issues.  Don’t look down on medical care.  Christians should be campaigning for good and safe working places, clean water, etc because we know these things matter.  We should be at the leading edge of things like neurobiology.

4.Sin as psychological.
Distortion and delusion and dysfunction are rooted in the depths of our thoughts and motivations and identities.  This dimension covers very broad categories, e.g. foolishness, evil desires, self-identities, motivations.
Tripp thinks that we are just scratching the surface.  The modern Biblical Counselling movement is 40-50 years old, so has a long way to go.  Don’t be arrogant!  Engage with research, culture, etc.  Learn.

5.Sin as historical.
Sin has effects down through history.  The Fall is a good example!  So don’t be scared of thinking about the historical impact of past sin.  The cause of sin is our sinful nature.  But our personal history gives tracks for our sinful nature to run on.  (Have you noticed that we all sin in different ways?)  Investigating the past is not necessarily trying to escape responsibility.

These are 5 wide-ranging areas of sin.  Do not be reductionist.  When sitting with a person all 5 dimensions need to be at play.

He starts with a quote from Eugene Peterson, in Subersive Spirituality.  (Link is to Amazon.co.uk; you can read inside.  Search for ‘caring’ then read pages 155 following.)

We know more about caring than any other generation that has ever lived on the face of the earth. We have more men and women professionally trained in the skills of caring and committed to professional lives of caring, and yet the reports coming back day after day from the field – people telling stories of what has happened to them in the hospital, church, with the social worker, at school – document an alarming deterioration of care on all fronts.   …

So, “Teach us to care.” We begin with a realization of our poverty: We do not know how to care. What we have been prayerlessly engaged in and glibly calling care, is not care. It is pity, it is sentimentality, it is do-goodism, it is ecclesiastical colonialism, it is religious imperialism. Caring, noble and commendable as it seems, is initiated by a condition that can, and often does, twist it into something ugly and destructive. That condition is need. (i.e. responding to need, which is good but not enough)

But there is another element in this scenario that is frequently missed and when missed, silently and invisibly squeezes all the cure out of care. That element is sin.

(The rest of this post is abbreviated notes from the talk.)

In the rush to care, don’t bandage wounds too quickly.  Wounds are the chance to open up to God and others.

To do caring we need to know our calling.  2 Corinthians 5:14ff.  This is not an evangelistic passage. It’s a counselling passage!  It is the Corinthian believers who need to be reconciled to God.  This reconciliation is progressive sanctification.  Sin is living for ourselves. To the degree we live this way, to this degree we need reconciliation.

Our calling is NOT (first) to fix people.  It is to be an ambassador of Christ and reconcile people to God, so they become people living for God.  We must not think of “normal” without thinking of God and people trusting in him.

What is our core diagnostic?  Every system of care has a philosophy of “what is wrong.”  Accuracy of diagnosis → effectiveness of cure.

The Bible is simple (but not reductionist) about this.  The Problem is Sin.  However, normally our understanding of sin is reductionist, i.e. about “bad behaviour.”

In the next post I’ll outline 5 Dimensions of Sin that Paul Tripp gives.

For an excellent book, you would be hard to find anything better than “You Can Change” by Tim Chester. Available here from The Good Book Company.  Chapter 5 – on the 4 Great Truths to Live by – is available as a free download (pdf) from here.

Tim Keller’s excellent article “Talking about Idolatry in a Postmodern Age” is all over the web.   Here as pdf or here as web page.  At 4 pages it’s a great beginning article.  In it he quotes David Powlison’s longer essay on “Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair.”  This is available as pdf here.

On the Lent Course I keep to the language of “over-desires.” See e.g. Ephesians 2:1-3; Romans 1:21-25; Galatians 5:16-18; 1 Peter 2:11 & 4:2; 1 John 2:15-17; James 1:14-15 & 4:1-4.  You will find some excellent material, reproduced from a book by Powlison, in a FAQ format, here at Theologica.

Happy Reading!

There was an illustration I wanted to use – one John Piper used in connection with the value of small groups.  Only problem: I couldn’t remember where on the web I’d found it, and in the end had to give up searching.

But now I’ve found it.  It’s from a John Piper sermon reproduced here on the Resurgence website.  The illustration is as follows:

A visiting pastor in Auckland, New Zealand was asked by the pastor of a church to come to a small group to help it understand its function. He came early for dinner and the husband was not there. The wife was embarrassed and explained that the husband owned a construction company and worked late.

The group arrived after dinner and the visiting pastor taught for a while on how to use spiritual gifts to build each other up. Then he asked them to get alone for a few minutes to seek God for how each one might channel God’s grace to the others for their upbuilding.

When they came back together he assumed they knew each other’s needs because they had been together for several years. The husband came home, showered and joined them in a few minutes. When the opportunity was given to speak or to pray for each other there was an awkward silence. They had never done anything like this before—seeking the Lord for how he might want them to minister to each other in that moment to build each other up.

The visiting pastor felt a fiasco was on his hands and turned the meeting back to the pastor to close. The pastor asked if anyone had a special problem they would like prayer for. The hostess said yes and showed the group the rash all over her arms. She said that the doctors had prescribed medicine but it hadn’t helped. They invited her to put her chair in the middle for prayer. And as they prayed, Christ, the head of the church, did his ministry. The pastor said, “I sense in my heart the Lord is telling me your problem is the result of great anger.”

She was silent for a moment then began to cry softly. Then she confessed, “I am so angry at my husband. He promises to be home for dinner , but night after night we eat without him. . . . He’s broken his promises to me over and over, and I feel I am a widow as I raise our children.”

There was an awareness that something had just been revealed that two years of small group meetings had not revealed. And the husband was blushing with embarrassment.

To make the story shorter, several of the men began to speak about how they had wrestled with the same problem in their homes and had almost ruined their marriages. One in particular spoke of a deep meeting with God in such a crisis and how God had made everything new.

By the grace of God the husband knelt down in front of his wife and wept into her lap, as the group prayed for them more earnestly than they had ever prayed. The visiting pastor commented later, “The Lord had invaded His Body, and the gateway into the supernatural world had been crossed by us all.”

The following Sunday the visiting pastor was to preach and saw the small group gathered on the parking lot outside the church. When they found him inside the woman pulled up her sleeves and said, “Look, no rash anywhere!” The husband approached and said, “I’ve cut back my workday to eight hours. I took the kids to the zoo yesterday. We have a new home.” (Ralph Neighbor, Where Do We Go From Here? p. 161-64)

Whenever we try to create ourselves, forming our own identity, we find ourself enslaved to idols.  Jesus calls us to die to self and receive Himself.  Our true name is found in Jesus Christ.

Melanie Phillips has just written a very good review of Look at Me: Celebrating the Self in Modern Britain by Peter Whittle.  You will find it here.  It is about the excessive narcissism in our contemporary culture.  She writes:

[The] modern cult of fame derives from a culture in which the individual has become the centre of the universe: the sun around which everyone and everything else must revolve. With external authority now considered an affront to the self along with the religious doctrines that imposed it, morality and culture have been systematically privatised and relativised so that no one’s values or lifestyle can trump those of anyone else. Every individual is thus a hero to himself.

This is nothing new.  The description of sin in Psalm 2 applies to every culture and time:

“Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?

2 The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together
against the LORD
and against his Anointed One.

3 “Let us break their chains,” they say,
“and throw off their fetters.”

God laughs at such foolishness.  In response, he enthrones Jesus christ, his Anointed Son, as King – and calls us to take refuge in him.

(For a good sermon on Psalm 2, head to Christ The Truth here.)

The thing about a society in collapse is that people are both culpable and victims.  Someone such as Karen Matthews (mother of the mercifully-found Shannon) has been through a horrendous time and our first reaction must be relief that Shannon has been found, and a desire to comfort the family.  Nevertheless, she has seven children by five different men, and sees no problem with this.  Mostly because she lives in a society that has no problem with it.  Melanie Phillips has a very good article about this, and be in no doubt that this is not a “oh those terrible poor people with their bad family life” rant.

I am no prophet, but it seems to me that all it will take is a financial crisis to make people realise that Mammon is no Saviour, and as the false comfort of material wealth and possessions is stripped away people are going to realise that this country is morally bankrupt.  My prayer is that, at that moment, the Church will be present in all areas of society saying “Come to Jesus and he will give you rest.  Take his yoke upon you and find life.”  Because if not Jesus then some other (false) saviour will be sought after.

“The heart is deceitful beyond all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” says Jeremiah 17:9

Occasionally, this is noticed by others. Here’s an article from www.lifehack.org saying “The Brain is not your friend”. A sample:

A mind is a terrible thing. Whether because of the brain’s internal structure or the way social and cultural pressures cause our minds to develop and function, in the end the result is the same: minds that are not only easily deceived and frequently deceptive in their own right, but when caught out, refuse to accept and address their errors. If you have a mind — or even half a mind — you might be best off losing it entirely. Barring that, though, there are a few things you should know about the enemy in your head. Before it hurts someone.

The article ends up a bit positivistic – thinking we may be able to fix it. The reality is we might be able to tweak ourselves, but only Jesus Christ can really sort us out. A life-time task completed only at the resurrection, I might add!