SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, Spring Lake.
SPEAKER_00: All right, you guys are awake and it's good to be with you.
SPEAKER_00: I uh as we think about just the Fourth of July, this being Fourth of July weekend, one of the things that just really um I guess has pressed upon me as Jeff was praying, just again, most of us don't have the fear that government officials are gonna come in here and arrest us for just gathering and and worshiping the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But then also just like the rights and freedoms that we have, as imperfect as our nation is, like, they find their foundation in the Imago Day theology, which is that we are made in the image of God and therefore worthy of dignity, value, and those rights.
SPEAKER_00: And so so much of that is is worth thanking the Lord for finding ourselves in a place in which that is a value.
SPEAKER_00: That's not just a human thing, that is something that God from the very foundation, even as we're gonna talk about today in Genesis, proclaimed over us that we have value because we are made in his image, and to be human is to image God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna hard turn into uh our context today, but um we are gonna touch on some issues uh specifically today.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Jeff Letter, I'm the care pastor here, and so I get to oversee a number of areas or G4 care groups or biblical care mentoring.
SPEAKER_00: We'll mention that a little bit uh throughout this series, as well as uh, or this sermon, um, as well as congregational care.
SPEAKER_00: This sermon is on mental health, and so um we're always touching on heavy kind of issues and issues that maybe we don't always speak about in church, and this one is definitely one that I think uh many of us in here have some sort of interaction with at some point that um it's deeply personal.
SPEAKER_00: The stats are staggering.
SPEAKER_00: So one in five adults experience mental illness each year, um, one in 20 experience what would be serious mental illness, one in seven youth experience a mental health disorder each year.
SPEAKER_00: And then if you look at 50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, that's pretty young, and 75% by age 24.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, the scary, just wild statistics, suicide being the second leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 24.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I say mental illness or you see mental disorder, what I mean and what that means is around 61 million individuals were diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder according to the diagnostic, the statistical manual, if you've heard the word DSM before.
SPEAKER_00: Essentially, this means one-fifth of people were dealing with a cluster of symptoms that lasted a considerable amount of time and rose to such an intensity that it inhibited their ability to do life the way they desired to.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this doesn't include those who are dealing with similar struggles or symptoms, like maybe they have depression, trauma, or anxiety, but they never reached out for help.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it never rose to the point where it inhibited their ability to do life.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so this was not a blood test, there wasn't a biological exam that came back positive for mental illness, like you didn't take a test, a blood test, and come back with anxiety or come back with bipolar disorder as a blood marker.
SPEAKER_00: But this is a cluster of symptoms that often appear together that helps counselors and care professionals how best to understand, like how to come alongside folks and what is most helpful.
SPEAKER_00: There are certainly biological and physiological factors at play, but I just want you to understand the difference between what would be called a mental illness or disorder versus, say, like cancer or diabetes that have kind of these defined tests and biological markers that tell us exactly what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we can argue all day long about the wording, definitions, the helpfulness of words like illness or health or disease or disorder or syndrome, but suffice it to say, this area affects all of us.
SPEAKER_00: I would imagine there's not a person in this room that doesn't know at least one person who is deeply struggling with mental, emotional, or spiritual issues.
SPEAKER_00: Issues like depression, anxiety, addiction, trauma, and then a host of relational issues that come along with them.
SPEAKER_00: The question for today that I want to answer is how do we understand a topic like this biblically and theologically?
SPEAKER_00: And then how do we respond when we or others are struggling?
SPEAKER_00: And then what can you expect from our care ministries when you step into ministries like G4 and care mentoring?
SPEAKER_00: Like how are we going to approach this topic?
SPEAKER_00: I want y'all to get a grasp of what that looks like.
SPEAKER_00: Now, to utter in order to understand this rightly, we really have to first understand who we are, what the root problem is, and what God has provided for his people in areas like this.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna jump to scripture.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be in two texts to start with: Genesis 2, 7, and then 1 Corinthians 6, 19 through 20.
SPEAKER_00: And um, you can either do that in Bibles you have with you, your devices, the UVersion Bible app, I'll put that before you if you haven't used that before.
SPEAKER_00: If you go to the events page, you can actually find some of the quotes, as well as I've got some diagrams, and so if you want to like look at them a little bit longer, then maybe shows up on the screens, they're gonna be in that UVersion Bible app as well, if you want to check that out.
SPEAKER_00: So let's start in uh Genesis 2, verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
SPEAKER_00: And in 1 Corinthians 6, 19 through 20.
SPEAKER_00: Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?
SPEAKER_00: You're not your own, you were bought at a price, therefore honor God with your bodies.
SPEAKER_00: Church, let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we are always first and foremost concerned with what you have to say about any topic we may encounter, no matter how heavy or um, Lord, even how we sometimes struggle to see exactly how you connect to issues, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You I know that you have wisdom to bring to us.
SPEAKER_00: You are sufficient, you are good, and you meet us exactly where we are.
SPEAKER_00: And so I pray, just in the midst of our time, that you would just illuminate your word and help us to see you rightly and maybe even see ourselves more accurately than when we entered this space.
SPEAKER_00: We pray all this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So the interaction of like the body and the soul has been one that philosophers and theologians have been battling around for ages.
SPEAKER_00: And there's one quote attributed often to C.
SPEAKER_00: S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis that says, You do not have a soul, you are a soul, and you have a body.
SPEAKER_00: Now the problem is C.
SPEAKER_00: S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis never said this, and Scripture speaks against this, just as we just read.
SPEAKER_00: The mystery is that we are both body and soul.
SPEAKER_00: Theologians have most often used the term embodied souls to describe the unity of body and soul that we are.
SPEAKER_00: Even in our Genesis text, we see that God uses dust to form man materially or physically, and then he breathes into him the breath of life.
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes the words for breath and spirit are interchangeable in the Hebrew and Greek.
SPEAKER_00: It's only upon being breathed into by the Lord that Adam became a nefesh in Hebrew, with the similar word in Greek being a psyche, a living being, which would later get connected with this word for spirit or soul, which is ruach in the Hebrew and pneuma in the Greek.
SPEAKER_00: So when you hear that word psyche, that is the sole word where we get the word psychology.
SPEAKER_00: As we head into the New Testament, specifically for those of us who are in Jesus, who have placed our faith in Christ, 1 Corinthians shows we get the idea that our bodies and our souls are united to Christ and they represent him in ways that mirror the temple of the Old Testament, where God's people communed with him and made sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: This text, among others, is why what we do with our bodies matters a lot to the Lord, because of the unity that occurs when we place our faith and trust in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In addition to the text we read, we've also learned over the ages that our souls have the ability to affect our bodies, and our bodies do, in fact, have influence and effect over our souls as well.
SPEAKER_00: Both matter, and both really have to be a part of any conversation on this subject of mental health.
SPEAKER_00: We know that sleep deprivation can affect your emotional capacity, like patients.
SPEAKER_00: Poor nutrition affects your mood.
SPEAKER_00: Has anybody had hanger?
SPEAKER_00: Hit them hard every once in a while, carry some crackers just in case you get a blood sugar spike.
SPEAKER_00: Exercise has been proven more effective than any medication for struggles like depression.
SPEAKER_00: Physical exhaustion can make temptation harder to resist.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's one example cited by Paul Tripp.
SPEAKER_00: I thought this was really interesting.
SPEAKER_00: It was a counseling experience with a guy who'd had a huge personality change.
SPEAKER_00: He became a very angry man.
SPEAKER_00: And they discovered it was a result of an accident that affected the limbic area of his brain that was swollen.
SPEAKER_00: Now they call that the rage center of the brain.
SPEAKER_00: He got medication and was fine after this.
SPEAKER_00: But by then his church had already put him under church discipline for sins against his wife and family.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul heard what was going on.
SPEAKER_00: He immediately sent him to a major hospital for a multidisciplinary examination.
SPEAKER_00: That is a lot of syllables.
SPEAKER_00: And they found out what was wrong with him.
SPEAKER_00: And it was like a light switch was turned off and on for the change to occur in him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this doesn't mean that he's not accountable for those sins against his family, but it is an important context for what was happening and really how healing needed to occur.
SPEAKER_00: In addition to situations like this, the medical community actually has a category for dying from a broken heart, where someone who loses a precious loved one and their heart begins failing just from the grief of it.
SPEAKER_00: And this is really our first point that God made us as embodied souls.
SPEAKER_00: This is why when you step into many of our G4 groups or care mentoring, don't be surprised when we start asking you about sleep and diet and exercise and medications taken and last time you saw a doctor and like daily hygiene type habits, that you're are you stewarding those well before we start talking maybe about depression, anxiety, or trauma?
SPEAKER_00: Because ultimately we're seeking to position you well physically and bodily in order to engage those issues.
SPEAKER_00: You can do all the things, you can check all the spiritual, emotional boxes, and perhaps still feel lousy if you're getting three or four hours of sleep every night instead of like, say, seven or eight.
SPEAKER_00: I know I've heard some of y'all, you're like, I only need five or six, but we don't stop there.
SPEAKER_00: So we we we engage the body, but we also know that part of good stewardship, but also your connection or your abiding in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So prayer and scripture and worship, Sabbath, community, these things matter too.
SPEAKER_00: And it's also why Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first and greatest commandment.
SPEAKER_00: Good stewardship, it's holistic.
SPEAKER_00: Love God with all of you, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: These things are all worship because we belong to the Lord and He desires only good from us.
SPEAKER_00: We have a diagram we use in our G4 training to seek understanding when folks come for help in the care ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And I know there's a lot here, and so I'm gonna explain some of the pieces, and like I said, the app actually shows it some of these pieces as well.
SPEAKER_00: But from the outside, we start with who God says we are, and the goals developed in biblical care arise from our understanding of ourselves in relation to the God who made us, with God as our Father, Christ as our Savior and hope, and the Holy Spirit who applies the person and work of Jesus to our lives from the inside out as revealed in God's word.
SPEAKER_00: The outside pieces, they really are the foundation of our identity.
SPEAKER_00: It's where authority is found, it's how we understand the difference between truth and falsehood, it's how we determine goals, what true healing or freedom looks like.
SPEAKER_00: And if you can see from the middle, struggles have multiple factors.
SPEAKER_00: And so you have like the physical-bodily struggles such as pain or illness, um, how God made our brains to work, like how those connections work.
SPEAKER_00: There's volitional, there's habits or choices that we've cultivated, and how God's made us into beings that can get into habits really easily.
SPEAKER_00: And some of those are good, some of those are bad, like addiction.
SPEAKER_00: Then there are circumstances, there are environments, how they've shaped or influenced us, like our family of origin, our work environments, the support systems in our life, trauma that comes upon us, and the cultures as well that we reside in.
SPEAKER_00: And then the final reality is we are spiritual beings.
SPEAKER_00: We're made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: We have an enemy that seeks to attack and isolate on top of areas where our flesh often is calling the shots more than living into the spirit for those who trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, meanwhile, the person in the middle has to interpret all of these avenues and decide what meaning they're going to assign to each area.
SPEAKER_00: How do they understand who they are as one who is pressed in by all these factors?
SPEAKER_00: How do they stand who God is?
SPEAKER_00: Is he present?
SPEAKER_00: Is he available?
SPEAKER_00: Like is he punishing them?
SPEAKER_00: Um, what's his role in their lives?
SPEAKER_00: And then what it looks like to steward these other areas in the healing process holistically.
SPEAKER_00: Paul Tripp's known for pointing out that we are revelation receivers and interpreters.
SPEAKER_00: We're not computers who receive raw data in and then have raw data come out.
SPEAKER_00: If this happens, then this causes that.
SPEAKER_00: We receive revelation from these different sources, including God, and then we have to assign meaning to each area, which I think is some of our dysfunction in because we come in and we start believing lies based on our interpretation, and we need the Holy Spirit and others to help us see what we can't see, the things that we've started to really believe in, because sometimes we're just too close to our situation.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we got emotions running high, and emotions give us information, but that sometimes they can also muddy our perception of our reality.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I say all of this, and I know you're like, that's a lot.
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of information, a lot of things going on.
SPEAKER_00: And I say that on purpose because issues are complex.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we try to simplify these situations to better understand like cause and effect.
SPEAKER_00: We could say things like anxiety is sinful or it's caused by sin without unpacking what we mean by that and nuancing any of it.
SPEAKER_00: Especially when something like that has this the same word used in with different definitions in counseling, the Bible, and popular culture.
SPEAKER_00: Are we even talking about the same thing?
SPEAKER_00: Can something like worry turn into sin when we don't trust God?
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
SPEAKER_00: Is every experience of anxiety because of sin?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you mean like sin with a big S, as in because Adam and Eve sinned, our bodies are now falling and not functioning the way God originally intended, then yes, technically it's all caused by sin.
SPEAKER_00: But if you mean is anxiety always present because you personally did something sinful as a cause and effect, then I'd say no, that's not always the case.
SPEAKER_00: To reduce a complex issue down to that creates a host of problems, including what do we do with texts like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane?
SPEAKER_00: Like, who demonstrates all the markers of like an anxiety or a panic attack in that moment?
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know any faithful believer or theologian is gonna say that that arose from Jesus' sinful heart in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: No, what this is not the reason he was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.
SPEAKER_00: No, Jesus rightly experienced fear.
SPEAKER_00: He invited his closest community to pray with him and for him, and then he ran to the Father for hope and salvation.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually a beautiful picture of what we can do in those moments where everything feels just so heavy.
SPEAKER_00: Was he immediately relieved from that anxiety or sorrow?
SPEAKER_00: We aren't actually told, but his prayers seem to indicate that despite what he felt, God was enough to sustain him for what he was about to endure, and it didn't keep him from stepping into faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: The sinful rebellion of Genesis 3 is the root of every form of evil, sin, and suffering in our world.
SPEAKER_00: And so we can point back to that.
SPEAKER_00: We had perfect communion in a secure relationship with our Maker.
SPEAKER_00: There was no fear, there was no shame, there was no suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And we traded that in for our own rule and reign and desire to determine what was good and bad for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: In the wake of that, you see the first appearance of like fight or flight instincts show up as Adam and Eve, after they sinned, they hid instead of embracing hearing the sound of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They were afraid, marking this disruption in their relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: As a result, God would then also inform them of the curse of their choice.
SPEAKER_00: They would also create enmity, it would create disharmony between each of them, as well as a struggle to be fruitful in their labor and fruitful in the formation of their families.
SPEAKER_00: As we see throughout Genesis, the infertility becomes a theme that follows Genesis from that point on.
SPEAKER_00: This is the root of our problems cosmically, but we have got to stop assuming that someone's personal sin is the cause of their suffering.
SPEAKER_00: This is an emotional prosperity gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It teaches that if you check all the right spiritual obedience boxes, then you should not be struggling mentally, emotionally, and spiritually the way you are.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's that's just not true biblically or historically.
SPEAKER_00: These things can correspond sometimes, and sometimes repentance is what is needed.
SPEAKER_00: Sin can cause suffering, but we've got to be able to approach people as sufferers and sinners, while recognizing that as believers, we're always carrying these realities intention.
SPEAKER_00: Mike Emlett, a biblical counseling professor, beautifully captures this reality.
SPEAKER_00: He says that Scripture reveals that God ministers to his people as saints who need confirmation of their identity as children of God, sufferers who need comfort in the midst of their affliction, and sinners who need challenge to their sin in light of God's redemptive mercies.
SPEAKER_00: Saint, sufferer, and sinner.
SPEAKER_00: All three of these are simultaneously true of every Christian you meet.
SPEAKER_00: If this is the way God sees and loves his people, then we should do the same, using these broad biblical categories to guide our overall approach to the people in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: They are signposts for wise love.
SPEAKER_00: This is why, as part of our ministry at G4 and in the care ministry in general, one of our big points is we must recognize there's a difference between sin and suffering.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I could say that the church or God's people have always done a historically awesome job of handling this topic in people's lives, but it sadly it just wouldn't be true.
SPEAKER_00: It's not because God has left us to fend for ourselves to figure this out or that he's not equipped us well, but rather it is again our interpretation of these issues where hurt and damage have sometimes occurred.
SPEAKER_00: I want to highlight one mistake that we actually see in Scripture, like a case study.
SPEAKER_00: So the oldest written book of the Bible in Job, if you want to turn to Job 2 in your Bibles, now if you'll remember, the book of Job starts off with a righteous man named Job who honored God in his life and his family, and then he is then attacked mercilessly by Satan.
SPEAKER_00: First with the murder of his family, all his all his family except for his wife, the robbing of his wealth, and then the robbing of his health.
SPEAKER_00: Job, through all this, does not sin against the Lord and his response, but instead he mourns in sackcloth and ashes, and he utters the famous line that we often sing today: The Lord gives, the Lord takes away.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we pick up as Job's three friends come after hearing what happened in Job 2.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 11, when Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Namathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes, they met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.
SPEAKER_00: When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him.
SPEAKER_00: They began to weep aloud.
SPEAKER_00: They tore their robes, they sprinkled dust in their heads, and they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights.
SPEAKER_00: No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was.
SPEAKER_00: Now, at this point, this is beautiful, this is embodied, this is incarnational, Jesus with flesh-on type ministry to someone who has just endured tremendous suffering.
SPEAKER_00: There's no, there's a coming alongside them, there's no pat answers, there's no, let me pull out this quick biblical proof text to kind of cover over your hurt, but rather just acknowledging, as we so often see in the Psalms, that this situation hurts.
SPEAKER_00: And the best thing I can do is just be present with you right now and let you know you're not alone in the midst of it.
SPEAKER_00: The problem with our friends come is when they open their mouths after this and they try to diagnose and offer their perspective of why this happened and what Job needs to do.
SPEAKER_00: So here's a highlight of the best hits from their voices.
SPEAKER_00: Let's start with Eliphaz.
SPEAKER_00: Eliphaz in verse 7 of chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Consider now, who being innocent has ever perished?
SPEAKER_00: Where were the upright ever destroyed?
SPEAKER_00: As I observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.
SPEAKER_00: So Eliphaz starts out strong.
SPEAKER_00: Basically, you had to have done something wrong, Job, because things like this just don't happen to people unless they do something to deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: You must have done something to bring this on.
SPEAKER_00: Which we know he didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Let's hear from counselor number two, Bildad.
SPEAKER_00: Then Bildad the Shuhite replied, How long will you say such things?
SPEAKER_00: Your words are a blustering wind.
SPEAKER_00: Ouch.
SPEAKER_00: Does God pervert justice?
SPEAKER_00: Does the Almighty pervert what is right?
SPEAKER_00: When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.
SPEAKER_00: But if you will seek God earnestly and plead with Almighty, if you are pre with the Almighty, if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore to you your prosperous state.
SPEAKER_00: So Bildad takes it a step further, and he also insinuates that not only was Job's suffering brought on because of his sin, but also his children were killed because of their sin.
SPEAKER_00: And then what Job needed to do was humbly repent and plead with God to restore him.
SPEAKER_00: Once again, counseling someone who is in deep suffering, having been sinned against, that repentance for their own sin was what was required.
SPEAKER_00: So let's round out the three friends to see how Zophar responds to Job.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Yet if you devote your heart to him and stretch out your hands to him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then free of fault, you will lift up your face, you will stand firm and without fear.
SPEAKER_00: So, having seen all three, to put skin in this, imagine inviting your friends in in a hard season, you're walking through a suffering, then each of them progressively goes on a sin hut to determine what you did wrong to bring this upon you.
SPEAKER_00: Not only is this like not helpful, heaps shame upon the trouble, but it has also never been true of God's people.
SPEAKER_00: This is prosperity gospel at its finest.
SPEAKER_00: Obey Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Check all the spiritual health boxes, and you will have health, wealth, and happiness all the days of your life.
SPEAKER_00: Yet scripture gives us a completely different picture.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes obedience is actually a path through suffering where you find God sustain you and demonstrate to everyone and to the world that its pleasures are not your greatest treasure and goal.
SPEAKER_00: And it's seen most vividly in Jesus, the Beatitudes, what the blessed life looks like in the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: The blessed life looks like those who mourn, those who are persecuted, those who are poor in spirit, those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: These are the ones that are blessed.
SPEAKER_00: This is the good life, this is where happiness is.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of the disciples outside of John, we know dies a martyr's death in faithfulness to Christ, not because they made some mistake somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: Multiple prophets dealt with rejection, poverty, and despair while faithfully proclaiming God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And then if church history is filled with individuals who found God in the midst of their struggle rather than because they had none.
SPEAKER_00: There's even a term coined sometime in the Middle Ages called a dark night of the soul to describe the heaviness that sometimes comes upon God's people.
SPEAKER_00: Job's response later in the book to his counselor friends sums it up.
SPEAKER_00: Miserable comforters are you all.
SPEAKER_00: And even later we see that God's anger burns against these three friends for their words.
SPEAKER_00: And he has Job actually pray for them.
SPEAKER_00: This is textbook treating a suffering issue as if it was a sin issue.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this does not mean those who walk through suffering cannot respond sinfully to what has come upon them, but we don't counsel them as if they are to blame for what happened to them.
SPEAKER_00: We also recognize that there are some sin issues that also have contexts and stories of suffering that give us a fuller picture of how that sin became an idol when it comes to areas like substance abuse or addiction, anger, or pornography, to name a few.
SPEAKER_00: This is where each person's story is unique and often their path of healing may look different, even if freedom in Christ is the same goal.
SPEAKER_00: In short, Christ is the same destination for all, but the path is often unique.
SPEAKER_00: We recognize that each person that comes looking for godly and biblical counsel in our care ministries has a unique story.
SPEAKER_00: Even though there may be similarities and the struggles encountered from person to person, we recognize that the specifics of why a struggle becomes stuck can be unique for each person.
SPEAKER_00: I honestly wish many times that I could copy and paste someone else's healing journey onto the next person.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work because I've tried it.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't like try, like, okay, this worked for this person, let me just put A, B, C and put in that same combination lock.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how it happens.
SPEAKER_00: Because the truth is that healing and holistic healing and transformation is something the Holy Spirit does as each individual gets personal with the God who made them.
SPEAKER_00: The specific areas of our hearts where lies take root, where strongholds become entrenched and hopelessness abounds, it varies a ton from person to person, as well as the time it takes for healing to happen, which can't be put on a clock.
SPEAKER_00: And it can't be force fed.
SPEAKER_00: And so that time and what needs to be healed looks different for each of us, which is why most of our G4 groups are ongoing, and there is not a set number of sessions when you meet with one of our biblical care mentors.
SPEAKER_00: Our desire is to truly help you walk in faithfulness with God and others, progressively growing over the course of time.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the hard thing about progress is that it rarely comes in the timing and the speed we desire.
SPEAKER_00: It's very rarely a steady, straight line.
SPEAKER_00: And this diagram, I know it's I know it's busy, but I hope it'll illustrate what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: As you can see on the top there, progress in many ways can be like sound waves where everything is intense.
SPEAKER_00: It's out of 10 in terms of how intense that struggle hits.
SPEAKER_00: It may be something you can't even feel like you could stand up underneath.
SPEAKER_00: How long it lasts when it comes, how often those feelings or temptations, how often those feelings or temptations hit as well.
SPEAKER_00: For some, and I've met individuals, the change can be immediate.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like the Holy Spirit zaps them, no desire, no intensity, completely gone.
SPEAKER_00: That does happen.
SPEAKER_00: But for many more, myself included, is a steady growth that ratchets down to where things are not as intense as they used to be.
SPEAKER_00: They're not tens anymore, maybe they're eights.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't last as long as it did, as it used to.
SPEAKER_00: And now it's not hitting as often.
SPEAKER_00: It used to hit me every day, multiple times a day.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's maybe every week or every month.
SPEAKER_00: On top of that, our goal is helping individuals walk in the fullness of Christ, that he might be enough for you while you continue to grow in your dependence, love, and surrender to him.
SPEAKER_00: As I've heard many testify, and those who have walk with, the strongholds or the things that used to own them are no longer in control.
SPEAKER_00: They feel the freedom to walk in faithfulness to the Lord in that area, even as symptoms can sometimes come and go over time.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's seasonal.
SPEAKER_00: We live in Wisconsin.
SPEAKER_00: It gets dark for vast portions of the year.
SPEAKER_00: We've got a number of individuals in our space that struggle with chronic pain and illness.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's just really hard, like days where it's just, man, it's just hard to get out of bed.
SPEAKER_00: The beauty is being able to look back, even in those moments, and see that your worst days now are better than your best days used to be.
SPEAKER_00: And the peace of knowing God is working in you and through you.
SPEAKER_00: And he's increasingly, as you ask the question of what faithfulness looks like for you in this season, in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the combination of all these things that we seek to understand and approach each individual who steps into our care ministry, offering the grace and mercy for those that are seeking help.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where the heart of our care ministry in G4 and Biblical care mentoring is really 2 Corinthians 1.
SPEAKER_00: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Compassion, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
SPEAKER_00: I share that to let you know each of us, those who lead and counsel and care ministry, we bring our own testimony of Christ meeting us in our seasons of struggle, which enables us to be gracious towards whatever someone's walking through.
SPEAKER_00: Whether that's addiction or pornography or trauma or abuse or depression or abortion or anxiety to name a few.
SPEAKER_00: If you step in to get help at spring length, you will not be ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: And we will testify of the ways that Christ met us in our struggles while we're meeting with you.
SPEAKER_00: I tell men of my own battles and freedom from pornography and sexual sin.
SPEAKER_00: I tell couples about the lessons that Kara and I had to learn in loving one another as Christ loved us, even when the feelings were not always there.
SPEAKER_00: And all we could see was like our rightness and the other person's wrongness.
SPEAKER_00: And the same holds true for our G4 leaders and care mentors.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody is nailing this 100%, and healing happens in community.
SPEAKER_00: So my hope is two things, really, as we're ending our time.
SPEAKER_00: One, that those who are hurting would know that Spring Lake is a place where it is okay to not be okay, and we will walk with you as Jesus meets you where you are.
SPEAKER_00: Don't suffer in isolation.
SPEAKER_00: We want to help connect you to real care and healing.
SPEAKER_00: Even if maybe that care and healing is in partnership with other care providers in the area outside the church that we often recommend and refer to and work with through G4 and other ministries.
SPEAKER_00: The other plea I want to make for those of you who are in here is for those who have been freed, those who have been healed or transformed in your own journey of your embodied soul struggles.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation says we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.
SPEAKER_00: And your testimony could be a ministry to someone else just by walking with individuals or groups, testifying how Christ met you in that struggle while facilitating a study like G4 or gospel-centered marriage.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to have a biblical care mentor training starting on July 28th.
SPEAKER_00: I want to put before you that you can register for in the events page where we're going to equip you to minister to others out of the comfort you received in Christ in an area of suffering or sin, an area that you've already met and had Jesus heal you in.
SPEAKER_00: Out of that, you'll have the opportunity to serve in an area like G4 or individual care mentoring, using your testimony to minister to others while facilitating a gospel-centered resource in that area.
SPEAKER_00: What you walk through and how God has met you is purposeful.
SPEAKER_00: And there are a few things better than seeing God use your story to encourage and minister to someone, to help them walk in the light, that they might actually see hope, even in your story, because maybe they've given up hope or they think it can't, this will never change.
SPEAKER_00: We are all in this together.
SPEAKER_00: And as the body of Christ, we are better together than we are apart.
SPEAKER_00: So whether you need help or you could be a helper in areas where body and soul hurt, take a step and consider what the Lord could do through you and what he might heal in you as you try to walk into the realities of what it means to be a new creation in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That we're saved not just from something, but we're also saved to something.
SPEAKER_00: Church, let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we uh we want to first and foremost just thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you've not left us alone to try and figure these things out on our own, but you have provided help, you've provided power and strength through the Holy Spirit, through the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to wonder where we land, where like where we stand with you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we know because of Jesus that we are free, we are forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Your mercy and grace is available and is not running out.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray for those who may be hurting in here, that they would take a step and invite someone else into where they're struggling and to some extent how we can come around them as a community.
SPEAKER_00: And likewise, those who may have had you move in their lives in mighty ways, Lord, that you would press them, how they can use their testimony.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's in the care ministry, maybe it's another another area in the church, that they can allow that to be a gospel influence in people's lives.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you for your love, your power, your mercy, your grace, and for the truth that uh lives and resides within us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray all this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.