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All right. Everybody has their handout, their Bible, a pen and their problems deal with biblical counseling together, right? Well guys, how about we open with the word of prayer and then we will go through our handout together on session number two on theological foundation of anthropology, the doctrine of man. Why don't we pray and ask for the Lord to help us. Father, thank you for all of the men here in this room. We thank you, God, that you have given your adequate, sufficient, clear word, as our brother Mike taught us last week, the God-breathed word. fully sufficient for us. We pray that you would teach us today as we talk about this great and important and thoroughly, thoroughly practical topic of the doctrine of man. We pray that you would teach in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Well, last week, Mike taught and laid the foundation of our biblical counseling class on bibliology, the doctrine of the Bible, right? That what you have right here in your Bible is the God-breathed, sufficient, clear, inerrant word of God. You know that. We talk about it. We preach on that. I hope that's not new to you. but a great foundation that Mike laid last week. And what I want to do today is look at class number two, and really, again, kind of by way of introduction, lay the foundation for understanding man. the person, humankind. The technical term would be anthropology, the doctrine of man. Look at the introduction there in your outline. Everyone and every counselor in particular is an anthropologist. An anthropologist studies the nature, the origin, and the destiny of mankind. Every person is an anthropologist. Everybody's got a view of man. It could be a good one, it could be a biblical one, or it could be a really unbiblical view of man. But everybody has an anthropology. And I don't want to spend much time on this, but I want to sort of lay before you the secular view of anthropology. And again, the way I'm coming at it today is with the view of counseling, biblical counseling. So contrast that with the secular view of anthropology. Basic tenets of modern psychology. This is Freudian psychology at its best. Human nature is basically good. People have the answers to their problems inside of them. The key to understanding and correcting a person's attitudes and actions lie somewhere in the past. Next individual's problems are the result of what someone else has done to them. Human problems can be purely psychological in nature that is unrelated to any spiritual or physical condition combined. Deep-seated problems can be solved only by professional counselors using therapy. Now, if you go with those basic tenets of modern psychology, all of those bullet points that I gave you right here in your outline are directly contradictory to the Word of God, every single one of them. There are four ways that men attain knowledge in our world. Number one would be revelation from God. General revelation in creation and special revelation in the word of God and given to the elect and the gospel. Another way would be empiricism, kind of discovery by human study, scientific methods and findings. Third, human reason, theories produced by men's own thinking. Fourth, intuition, just very experiential, subjective, maybe even mystical in a way, certainly cannot be adequately trusted. Now, I want to talk about the makeup of man, and I'm going to go quickly through a lot of the introduction here to kind of get to the main gist of anthropology. But still, by way of introduction for today, I want to talk about the makeup of man. Many people will disagree many secularists will disagree many of the greatest scholars in our country that would contribute to psychological findings and Psychiatric world that they would disagree with us right here but the makeup of man that the Bible teaches is that man is a creature with both a body and a soul and There is a physical and a spiritual element of man. Now, theologians have a word for this and we call it dichotomy. We call it dichotomy. Man's makeup is twofold. That is to say man is both a physical being and a spiritual being man has a body and a soul look at the next page if you would next page in Genesis 2 and verse 7 man became a Living soul 1st Corinthians 15 verse 45 and also in the book of Genesis God made man Living soul Genesis chapter 2 and then Matthew chapter 10 notice this fear God who kills both the body and the soul in hell If you affirm these verses then then you would affirm that man has both the physical part obviously and a spiritual part There is a dichotomy. There are there are two natures two elements to the interconnectedness of the human makeup. Look at the next paragraph here, the bullet point. I wanna talk about the body-soul interconnectedness for a minute. Guys, this is really important. In Psalm 32, David is repenting over his sin with Bathsheba. And we see that David harbors sin to the effect of his own physiology being influenced. His own bodily makeup is being impacted. But it affects, of course, spirit and body, right? Look at the next sentence. We see Elijah faced great physiological trials and the corresponding effects that had on his inner man. The physical trials affected his spiritual life. We see that in our day. If you're physically affected, that can affect your spiritual, right? make up for the day and so on. We see Paul describe the external deterioration and yet there's an internal, a spiritual maturation, a growth. So there is a relation between the body and the soul. You know, we're not, you know, some Christian people that neglect the body. We don't ignore the body. We don't care Nothing about the body and we're only concerned about the soul not at all we would acknowledge that there is both the body and the soul together and Biblical counselors have a big word for that. You see it in your outline Anthony Hokum and others call it they psychosomatic unity Those are just the Greek words for soul and body psychosomatic unity the body and the soul interconnected together Now here's where this is important In all biblical counseling and all soul care with other people, your focus as a man of God in counseling should be that which gives prominence to the soul. If it doesn't, then what you're saying is not Christian counseling. If you're just telling people how to get better, kind of the behavior, the external, the situational, the environmental change, how they can cope through life physiologically. If you're just going there, whatever you're doing, whatever you call it is not Christian. Because what is truly Christian, what is thoroughly Christian is certainly going to acknowledge the physical, but there's a great priority given to the spiritual. And that's what this little two-line sentence is all about, that our focus should be on giving prominence to the soul in the sanctification process. We're not neglecting the body. Again, we're not neglecting the physical. We're acknowledging that, but the priority needs to be given to the spiritual. A biblical anthropology next suggests that man is not only his body, but he is a soul and body. And if we're going to be a help to those who are facing real life struggles, then we must be counselors who espouse a biblical anthropology. Biological, or we might call it physical, focuses alone will never be adequate in counseling other people because we're made in the image of God and we have the makeup of both body and soul. Does that make sense? Now, next heading, your methodology in counseling. Again, kind of laying a foundation. I have here under this heading, your anthropology and your methodology. That is what you believe about man and how you provide help to people are inseparable. What you believe about mankind, about people in general, is going to directly affect how you help people, how you counsel people, how you provide guidance for people. Now, again, laying the foundation, look at these three aspects of anthropology that we've got to understand and we've got to embrace. Number one, all men are made in God's image. Genesis chapter one and verse 27. We God said let us make man in our image number two all men are Worshippers again. I want to read for you this verse everybody everybody even a two-year-old child is a worshiper and Everybody, believer or non-believer, is a worshiper. We have to get that in our mind. Romans 1.25 says this, They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and they worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator. Man's great problem is a worship disorder. We love and worship and need and crave something in our human nature other than God. That's depravity. But it reminds us that all people are worshipers. A third fundamental element here is that all actions overflow from the heart. Now, everything I'm gonna say for the next 40 minutes is gonna flesh that out. Everything that you do in your behavior, everything that comes out of your mouth, The way that you think, your motives, your ambitions, your cravings, it's really an expression of your heart. It's like your life is the PowerPoint presentation of the hard drive of your heart. Maybe there's a fourth fundamental that I probably should have put here. Maybe I assumed it was so obvious, but we need to say it. All people are sinners. It would be a fourth fundamental here. All people are sinners. God tells us through Solomon in 1 Kings 6.46, there is no one who does not sin. Ecclesiastes 7, verse 20, there is not a righteous person on the earth who continually does good and never sins. Romans 3, 10, all are under sin. And we know Romans 3, 23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But contrast that with just some other worldly counterparts that are all around. And there's all kinds of tangents and offshoots. But look at these secular counterparts. Look at Freudian psychology here. And I understand I'm kind of overly generalizing this. Much more could be said. But man is an evolutionary animal. Man is responsible for suffering harm and evil is not man's. Behaviorism therapies would acknowledge this. Responsibility for suffering and pain and loss and evil does not belong to man, but his environment has conditioned him to be the way that he is. You have a mental illness. It's part of the genetics. You just have a really bad past. Those kinds of, we hear it all the time. That's coming from this behaviorism sort of therapy. It's not really your problem. You're just sort of a recipient of your environment that has conditioned you to be the way that you are. Or maybe rational emotive therapy or relational emotive therapy. theory. Man is the victim of flawed, irrational beliefs about himself, and he is not responsible for evil. Now, when we are dealing with methodology, how do you help people that are struggling? Here's how practical it is. When you've got a young child who needs discipline, you're engaged in biblical counseling. If you've got a wife who's battling fear, if a man is battling anger and control and lust, we are dealing in the moment with biblical counseling. If there's somebody at your work who comes to you and they sort of unload for a few minutes about how bad their marriage is, You're kind of engaged right then and there in a biblical counseling session. Now, much more is gonna be said this week and next on how to flesh those things out, but this is how practical we deal with this, not just every day, every hour. This is so important for us to understand a biblical anthropology. What does God have to say about humankind? Now, bottom of page seven there in your outline, just a reminder in that little box, here's what biblical counseling is. Mike mentioned it last week. I mentioned it a couple of Wednesdays ago when we were dealing with 2 Timothy 3, that all scripture is God-breathed. Biblical counseling discerns desires, thinking, and behavior that God wants to change. Biblical counseling uses the Word of God by the Holy Spirit to change your desires, your thinking, and your behavior. Biblical counseling seeks the sanctification of the Christian, what's the goal, into Christ-likeness for the glory of God. Now, all of that by way of introduction. Turn to the next page. On page 8, the rest of our time, I want to give you an outline on studying anthropology, a biblical view of man, a biblical view of the heart, a biblical view of self. We're dealing with biblical counseling. This is not a class dealing with anthropology in a sense. We're kind of taking the direction of how do we help people that are struggling, right? How do we help people that are dealing with real problems of life, marital, parental, personal, dealing with the past, relational, sexual, whatever the context, whatever the situation could be, how do we help people that are dealing with real problems? The question is, in the top of the page, what's the problem and what went wrong? To answer that, here's God's answer. The problem is the heart. Take your Bible, go with me to Genesis chapter six. Now at the end of our time today, I hope to give some practical things on how we as guys can grow through this together. But if you mark your Bible, highlight this, box it, put a bookmark there, star it. This is a great verse, Genesis six and verse five. It's the context of the flood. Genesis six and verse five, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth. God's going to flood the world. People are wicked. What's the problem? And that every intent, that Hebrew word means it's a formation of the thought. That's the word. It's like the blossoming of a flower, but it's your thoughts. Every intent of the thought of his heart is only evil content. That's why God flooded the world. It's man's heart. That's the problem. Again, in Hebrews chapter three in the New Testament, this is the context of God pleading with the people of Israel, as Hebrews is recalling, They always go astray in their heart. Hebrews 3 in verse 10, quoting Psalm 95. They always go astray in their heart. But what about their family? What about their marriage? What about their murder? What about their adultery? What about the idolatry? They're going astray in their heart. One more, go to Jeremiah 17. Jeremiah, the prophet is preaching to the people of Judah and he's telling them the judgment of God is coming. Well, why is it coming? Well, Jeremiah 17 verse one, the sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus with a diamond point. It is engraved upon the tablet of their hearts. Verse 5, cursed is the man who trusts in mankind. Never follow your own heart. Never do what is right in your own eyes. Cursed is the one who trusts in man. Why? Verse 9, because the heart is more deceitful than all else and it's desperately sick. Who can understand it? Verse 10, I, the Lord Church, the heart, I test the mind even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds. What went wrong? Why do we even need counseling? Why is there therapy? Now, the secular world has a pretty big industry in therapy, psychology, psychiatry, help, self-help, whatever they call it. It's a massive industry. And guess what? Secularists don't get the real fundamental problem. The fundamental problem, God says, is the heart. Now, for the rest of our time, as I said, I want to give you this understanding of man. So what? What do you mean, Jeff, the heart? That's easy to say theologically, but how does it practically come into play? How does it really make an impact on my helping others and my counseling and my sharing guidance and advice and so on? Right above the box, you've got six little headings right there. This is my own little outline that I gathered from one of my counseling profs in seminary, and I kind of bundled it all together in kind of a simple form. I'm not going to deal with all of it today. What I'm going to do today is deal with numbers one, two, and three, the location, occupation, and frustration. Next week, and what I'm going to do really is kind of leave you hanging today with number four as needed, regeneration. How do people change? They need a new heart. I'll mention it today. I'll come back to it next week because next week we're going to look at number five, the transformation. How do people change? If you've got a guy who's living in adultery, if you've got a guy who's constantly lashing out in anger, if you've got a guy who's so wanting to be in control, he's like living in fear, or whatever the sin could be. He's looking at porn, whatever it could be, battling lust, whatever it could be. He has no control over the finances, whatever the issue could be. How do you change? We're gonna look at that next week on the transformation. But I want to look at numbers one, two, and three today, the location, the occupation, and the frustration. Now, to begin, we like charts, don't we? Look in your outline at this dark box right here. Okay, focus with me right in the middle on two hearts, literally hearts, the little figures there. On the left heart is worship of God. I know it's hard to read. We've got the worship of God. The right heart is you have the worship of idols. Now that dotted line is sort of the surface. You've got something below the surface that you cannot see, your heart, and something above the surface, that's the tree. Now, look at the top of the box. See that little cloud? Pressure. That's any situation of life. That's a child dropping the milk carton and it splatters everywhere. That's your boss coming to you, giving you a whole bunch of work that you need to do for the day. That's your wife coming to you and she says something to you that may be disrespectful. That's a situation of pressure. Now, how is your inner man going to respond? Now, If you look on the left heart, worship of God, if you have a heart that's worshiping God, you're gonna bear good fruit, a healthy tree on the outside. You're gonna look healthy, it's gonna be fruit bearing. But if you have the heart on the right, a worship of idols heart, you're gonna have a pretty barren tree right there. Now, let's talk about that. Underneath the box. Let's talk about the location. Let's talk about that heart. God said in Genesis 6, we already read it, that the thoughts of the intentions of the heart of man is only evil continually. That's God's declaration about man. Proverbs 4 and verse 23, I want you to turn there with me because we're going to kind of flesh that out here in just a moment. The Bible is going to reveal for us that the heart is the primary target as we seek God glorifying Christ exalting change. If you put a pill in your body, you go put your psychotropic drugs in you. You try to change your environment, you divorce your wife and get a better one, you change whatever your environment, that may change some external behaviors. It's not going to change the heart. Now, Proverbs 4.23, guys, is dripping with gold. Proverbs 4 23 Solomon says to his son watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life In your outline on page 8 under that heading there of the heart You know, we we don't just want superficial change Anybody can change their behavior. Anybody can make a New Year's resolution. Anybody can have a little external behavioral change if you sort of whip up enough energy and power and strength for the time. But we want to help lead people to have new tastes and new desires. Why is it God glorifying and Christ exalting? Because it is only through the gospel of Christ's death on our behalf and his resurrection that we can have any hope to change. Ultimately, we are totally depending upon God to change us. So if change is going to take place, we can be sure that it must take place on the heart. The heart is the target. Now, next page, page nine. I need to teach on what the heart is. I talk about it. You and I talk about it. We read about it in the Bible. But when we define the heart, we're not talking about the physical heart. We need to be clear on that. We're not talking about your physical organ that's pumping blood. We're talking about the spiritual heart. It's the central core person of who you really are. Look at the third bullet point down from the top of the page. To put it another way, to describe your heart, really biblically, just means we're talking about your inner person. Scripture often divides people into two parts. That's the dichotomy we talked about earlier, right? you've got the outer man and the inner man. The outer person is your physical self, and the inner person is your spiritual self. Paul says, I want you to be enlightened and informed in the eyes of your heart, right? That's the inner man. When the biblical authors want to describe your inner being, it uses the term heart. Now, look At two bullet points down, right above the box, we come to know humanity's deepest struggles by looking at the heart. If you've got a guy sitting in front of you and he says, you know, I hate my life. I want to commit suicide. You could say, well, well, okay, tell me facts, right? I mean, give me factual information, right? What's going on? you know, where are you when these things are happening? And those are good and right and legitimate observations to have and to make. But that's only dealing with the outer man. What you want to do is get to the deepest internal heart motives. That's the heart. Look at the box. Think of it like this. If we could define the heart biblically, it's like the mission control center of your life. I heard it once and it just stuck with me. It's like the cockpit of your life. It runs everything. It's like the hard drive of your life. It's the center point of your being. It's the cockpit of your life. It's what you live for. It's what you love. It's what you need. It's what you worship. You know, we hear it all the time. I need this to be happy. I crave this. That's the heart. That's what the Bible would describe as the heart. It's who you really are. What you do on the outside is not really your identity. A person's real identity is who they are on their heart, which will then manifest itself in what they do in their behavior. Does that make sense? Now, Proverbs 4.23. It's the context of a dad teaching his son about sexual purity. I mean, Solomon could have said, he could have said, son, don't go home with the wayward woman, period. Move on to a new topic. He doesn't do that. In Proverbs 4.23, watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life. And then for three chapters, Solomon is going to talk to his son, Rehoboam, about how to guard his heart. Certainly there's behavior and actions and so on, but he's really aiming for the heart. Look in your outline under the bold heading here, Proverbs 4.23. This verse is going to show us the importance of the heart. It's the inner you. It refers to all that you think, you decide, you plan, you do. Everything you say flows like streams from one common source, namely your heart. By the way, that's why as believers, we got to stick close to the word of God, right? We want to be pure and unpolluted by the world's poisonous springs by keeping our heart in the word of God. Next bullet point, Jesus referred to the heart as the basic source of one's life. He also called it a treasure. It's like the treasure chest of your life. So what your heart is like is what you are like. So you gotta guard your heart with all diligence. A couple of bullet points. Actually, look at the next one. We begin to see the central importance of the heart when we look at verses like Proverbs here. Just as a well spring is a source of water, and water was crucial, no doubt, for living and surviving in that day in Israel, so also the heart is the source or the fountain from which your life springs forth. Solomon wants his son to protect his heart because his heart is the fountainhead from which life springs forth. Let me prove it to you. Keep your Bible here and go to Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter 7, real quick. Remember the context when there's that story of the Pharisees who come to Jesus and they're all angry because the disciples don't wash their hands. You know, they're eating with unwashed hands. Jesus said, you hypocrites, you hypocrites. If anybody is unwashed and unclean, it's you. Now, he talks to them for a number of verses, and then he turns like the cannon right at their heart, ha, right? Verse 20, Jesus was saying, that which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, fornication. Where does all sexual sin come from? The heart. It's not the computer. It's not the prostitute. It's not the cell phone. It's the heart. Theft. Stealing. Where does all theft come from? It's the heart. Murder. Adultery. Deeds of coveting. Wickedness. Deceit. Sensuality. Envy. Slander. Pride. Foolishness. All these evil things come from within. They come from the heart. The heart is the real you. Now, go to the next page. We've defined the location. Now guys, we could have around this table here a bunch of the top scholars at WashU. We could have people that are some of the top psychologists, psychiatrists at whatever university around the world doing great findings, writing great articles in the American Psychological Association Journal. And they would think you're an absolute fool at this point. What do you mean all of this coming from the heart, the spiritual man? What are you talking about? There can be observations they can make about behavior and they can be good observations and right and wonderful, but they can't get to the real root of the problem because they don't have a biblical understanding of anthropology. Man is both body and a soul. Now, top of the next page, page 10 there. Number two, the occupation. So what's the big issue? I mentioned it earlier, but let me just say it again. It's all about worship. It's all about worship. Remember Jesus said in Matthew chapter six, you cannot serve two masters. You can't serve, that's the problem. We can't, that's a great biblical counseling verse. You can't serve two masters. So why do we do what we do? Well, we know our hearts are sinful. We already established that. But get this, next bullet point down, what you and I could call the idle factory of the heart, the idle factory of the heart. I was told in counseling classes and seminary, we have to get this, we have to get, this is biblical understanding 101, building on everything we've just said. The issue is not so much, what are you doing? The issue is, what are you worshiping? What do you crave? What do you need? What do you want? What can you not live without? I could go to my son, if he were to hit his sister, and I could say, what did you do? Don't do that. And I could discipline him and move on. And I've dealt with behavior. I've dealt with externals. But if I say, well, what did you really want in that moment? What made you respond in such a way that you would hit your sister? Well, now the conversation is going to his heart. Well, she didn't do what I wanted her to do. He wanted control. She touched my toy. Well, now you're dealing with control. You're dealing with pride. You're dealing with the heart on those levels. And that's what we must understand. We have a worship disorder. Again, look at that indented paragraph there. Your heart is not basically good. Here's a simple way to think of that. The world believes man is good. The Bible teaches that man is not. Even as a Christian, you and I struggle, right? With unruly wants and sinful desires and wrong motives. My goodness, we battle with that every day. Sinful passions and misplaced expectations. That's why the very end of 1 John 5, Pastor John, what does he say? Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. That's why Paul says to the Corinthians in chapters 10-10, guard yourselves, flee from Idolatry. Take your Bible, guys. You're in Proverbs. Turn over to the right a couple of books to Ezekiel chapter 14. Ezekiel chapter 14. I want to see if I can tackle a few more pages here, guys, before we are done for the day. But Ezekiel 14. What you have in this section right here is Beginning in let's just begin in verse 1 There are some elders of Israel who came to me. This is Ezekiel He sat down they sat down before him and the word of the Lord came to him saying son of man These men have set up their idols in there Well, they're in Babylon right now they've been Nebuchadnezzar already exiled them they've been judged and The issue isn't their pagan shrines all over Judah. The issue is their heart. And they have put a stumbling block before their faces and stumbling block of their iniquities. Should I be consulted by them at all? Therefore, speak to them and tell them, thus says the Lord God. Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity and then comes to the prophet. I, the Lord, will be brought to give him an answer in the matter, in the view of the multitude of the idols, in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are estranged from me through all their idols." Okay, what does God say? You have made idols in your heart. Verse six, therefore say to the house of Israel, here's what God demands. Repent and turn away from your idols. He could have said, you know what? Shape up your life. Just start going to Jerusalem, just start going to the temple. No, he says, repent. Turn away from your idols. Now, look at the next couple of paragraphs down in your outline. God's solution for sinful man, from Ezekiel 14, is to repent. Remember, we looked at Mark 7. Fornication, theft, coveting, all the list of sins, it comes from the heart. We've set up idols in our heart, God says, to the Old Testament Israel. They've set up idols. What's the solution? What do you do? Repent. Repent. So, next bullet point. Are we in danger of worshiping idols like the Israelites? Well, John Calvin believed so. Calvin said that the human heart is an idol factory. Idol. We just, our sinful heart is good. It's really good at making idols. Little gods, not a wooden block carved from a tree and you think, who would bow down to Baal? No, we're talking little things that we desire in the moment more than God. Control, comfort, pleasure. We could go on and on with, Dozens of lists of sins. As Christians, look at the indented paragraph, as Christians, God is to be our first and foremost priority in all things. So idols are anything that stands in the place of God. Any good gift that God has given to us, money, work, relationships, material possessions, plan, hopes, dreams, any of those things can be turned into an idol. Right? You see a box there on the bottom of the page that kind of visualizes that for you. Top of the next page. Everything in life has its own proper weight and influence, but idols are things that have grown to a place where they have too much influence. Look at that indented line. plaster this on your eyeballs, guys. This is a truth that I learned in seminary and it has guided me in my life, in my parenting, in my marriage, in my biblical counseling, in my own heart. A good thing that becomes a God thing is then a bad thing or a sinful thing. It doesn't mean you have to get rid of it and chuck it out the window. Think of a young man who gets engaged. I mean, he is head over heels in love with this young girl, and rightly so, rightly so. But how easy and how quickly that girl, he lives for her, he thinks about her all the time. He wakes up, first thought toward her, last thought in the day is for her. He can't imagine life without her. I mean, everything is revolving around this girl. That good thing, became a God thing, and that then became a sinful thing in that moment. What does he do? He's gotta repent of that. Lord, forgive me. Boy, I have misplaced priorities today, you know? Psalm 135, it's the context of idols have eyes that cannot see. They have ears that cannot hear, right? They have feet that cannot walk. They have a throat that they cannot speak. All who make them become like them. Idolatry, if we permit it in our lives, it kind of deadens our spiritual senses. It has kind of a numbing effect on us. So what do you do? You need to repent. That's the solution. We have to repent. Now, quickly, take your Bible, go to Proverbs 20. You say, well, that's the heart. Okay, so that's wonderful. I understand that. The problem is, God said, through Ezekiel, that you've set a stumbling block before your very own eyes. We're blinded to our own heart idols. Fellas, that's why biblical counseling is so important. Or we could even just simplify it. That's why the local church is so important. Even more, that's why Christian brothers and accountability is so... We're blinded to our own sin. Look at Proverbs 20. And verse five, a plan in the heart of a man, pause right there, plan, your motive, your desire, your ambition, the formation of your heart, why you do certain things. It's like deep water. And a man of understanding draws it out. That's counseling. You wanna draw out the deep motives of someone's heart. I could say, stop committing adultery. Stop getting drunk. Stop stealing. You're dealing with behavior. But my job is to go deep, deep, deep, deep in asking heart-probing questions. I want to get at the motive. I want to get at the heart. I want to get at, what is he needing? What is he longing for? What can he not live without? Bottom of the page, page 11, we've looked at the location, the heart, the occupation. It's really a worship thing. What do you need? Well, then the frustration. It's idolatry. It's lust. Now Solomon in first Kings chapter 11, you know the story. It's it's the tragic turn in first Kings. I mean my goodness listen to this now King Solomon loved many foreign women. That's bad. That's bad. But if you read first Kings 11, there's a repeated word. heart, heart, heart, heart, heart. The wives turned his heart away. His wives turned his heart away. His heart was not holy devoted to the Lord as God, like the heart of David, his father. The Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart turned away from the Lord. So what we need to do is diagnose the heart. Go to the next page of your outline here. We're on page 12. Now, we have just a minute or two left, but let's just read Luke chapter 6. Luke chapter 6. Because in your outline right here, it would be great if God gave us like a spiritual x-ray machine, wouldn't it? Like a spiritual x-ray machine. Man, we can just see the root of somebody's struggle and boom, we can print it off and go from there. It doesn't work that way. Well, how do you figure out somebody's heart? Your own, your wife's, your child's, your coworkers? How do you figure out the heart? Here's where we can end for the day. Luke 6, Sermon on the Mount in Luke's version here, Luke 6, 44. Each tree is known by its fruit. By the way, there's a whole diagram about three pages after this in your outline here that will kind of visualize the heart and the tree. But a tree is known by its fruit. You get that. An orange tree, you know it because it produces oranges, right? An apple tree is known because it produces apples. Men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush, for the good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure implied of his heart brings forth what is evil. For his mouth speaks from that which fills the heart." How do you get at the heart? Your outline has two brief ways. Number one, you examine the fruit of someone's life. Because Jesus said right here, your deeds, your behavior, your fruit comes from the treasure of your heart, good or bad? Well, second of all, not only looking at the fruit of somebody's life, but second of all, asking questions of the heart. That's Proverbs 20. The desires of the heart of man are like deep water. Wise is the man who draws it out. Your outline probably the last three or four or five pages, give a bunch of questions and sample little worksheets on how to determine the motives of your heart. It just kind of helps for you to get at the heart. Now, the question that you and I might say, okay, I get it. Jeff, I get it. I get the location, the heart. I get the occupation, it's worship. I get the frustration, it's idolatry and lust. What can be done? How do people change? Let me sort of give you a little launch and appetizer into next week. You can't change. I mean, I could have somebody on the street that I'm sharing the gospel with, or a high schooler, or somebody on a college campus, and I could tell them all kinds of wonderful truths from the Bible, but they can't change, really, in their heart. Their heart is at odds with God. Their heart isn't regenerate. They can't follow God. They must be regenerated in their hearts. All counseling is pre-counseling until somebody comes to faith. You could tell somebody at work, hey, I can help you with your marriage. I can give you a couple of pointers. You know what? There's actually a bigger issue. It's not just your wife. It's not just your marriage. It's your relationship with God. Let me tell you the good news, and you give them the gospel, and you call them to salvation, call them to repentance and faith. When they come to faith, they've got the spirit of God living in them. Now, change can happen. Now next week, when we come together, we're gonna pick up right here and say, so now you understand the heart, you're getting the motives, you're getting the longings, you're getting the worship desires. How do people change? How do you do this change? From every issue that's suicidal, life-threatening, to just battling in a moment with an outburst of frustration. How do we change as men of God? What is the process of change? Next week when we come together, we'll deal with that. Is that cool? Is that helpful? So hopefully this talk about getting to the heart, the anthropology, is helpful as we understand who man really is. Good? Okay. Father, thank you for our time. Thank you for these men. We thank you, oh God, for the gift of the Holy Spirit and the power of God to change the heart. We pray that you would do that work in us for your glory in Jesus name. Amen.
Biblical Counseling 2: Laying the Foundation of Anthropology—Understanding the Heart
Series Biblical Counseling Class
In this message, Pastor Geoff teaches class #2 in the biblical counseling course for men. Here we lay the foundation of BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY -- a proper understanding of the person, of man, of the "Heart."
What's the problem? What went wrong? How do we understand the 'heart'? How do we seek to change?
Sermon ID | 11419722590 |
Duration | 51:36 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday School |
Language | English |
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