And so today what our goal is, and I'm actually, the way I'm going to approach this is I want to be very practical. I want you to see, or hear at least, what I do when I counsel people that are struggling in these particular areas because you need to come away from this conference with tools in an effort to not only counsel your own heart, but in an effort to come alongside other women and counsel them.

So I'm hoping this will be super practical. I always use case studies, so we'll start with a case study. And my case studies aren't really one person. It's really kind of a combination of people, but you kind of make it into one case study, right? So that you can kind of identify with who I'm talking about because again, scripture says there is no temptation common to man.

Many many many people in the body of Christ struggle with bitterness. Many people. And so this is a common temptation to man. So anyway, I hope this will just kind of facilitate some good discussion in your groups later. I noticed on your schedule that you have to listen to two talks before you get into your groups.

And so you've got lots of questions to go through, and obviously you probably won't get through them all, but at least it will just kind of facilitate this good interaction that I love so much in an effort to help you apply. So let's start with a case study. By way of introduction, I'll talk a little bit about Polly.

So Polly, she's a Christian woman. When she came to me for help, she needed some counsel because she explained that her husband, who is an unbeliever, so you know, difficult marriage to begin with, she's married to an unbeliever, had become very self-destructive in his life. Most of that was due to the fact that he was really enslaved to alcohol, and this was starting to come out more and more in his life.

He was able to hide it for a while, but of course anybody that's enslaved to alcohol, it'll begin to show over time. And so it had an impact in his life, in his marriage, at his workplace, and all of the rest. And so over time, it became evident that when Polly came to me for help, what was really going on, what is kind of a common thing that women will do, is they look for a way of escape.

So what do you think she tried to ask me? Do you think she really wanted help for her bitterness, or do you think she wanted help to find out if she had grounds for divorce? What do you think? I'd probably divorce you. Well, you would be right. She was actually looking for a way.

She wondered if I could give her counsel on how to get out of this marriage. And so in the process of meeting with this dear soul, who was really hurting, you know, I mean, sure, she's struggling with bitterness, no doubt, but she's also a sufferer, right? And so you've got to have compassion for people like that.

And in an effort to just kind of minister to her soul, I just said, "Hey, you know, let's just meet for a while. Let's just meet for a while, and let's just explore what God's Word has to say. And let's just allow the Spirit to do a work, and allow me to be sort of your stretcher bearer, you know, someone who comes alongside and just really encourages you to that end." And so that's kind of how we started our relationship.

I was not going to give her any kind of indication that she could get out of this marriage, you know. She needed to try to, you know, just endure if she could. It's difficult when a person, especially a believer, I would say, finds herself bitter. Hebrews 12, 15 talks about that.

It points out that bitterness just has the potential to cause so much trouble in our lives, and not only in our lives, but in the lives of people around us. You know, when you think about it, I mean, just think of a bitter person right now that you might know.

Just think of how much trouble their life is, because it's just so heart deep. And it has the potential, when we're bitter, to defile so many. And so you can imagine that when someone is stuck in bitterness, the consequences of that. I know of churches that have divided over this issue of bitterness.

Of course, I know of marriages that have dissolved. I know of friendships that have been broken, all because of this bitterness issue that they struggle with, and the lack of forgiveness that ensues. I work on a college campus. This is such a common thing amongst roommates in dorms, you know, when they get on the wrong side of each other.

So again, it just causes so much trouble in a person's life. And so I kind of have a four-fold goal that I'm going to go over with you this morning, a way that I would approach this in counseling. The first thing is we've got to define it. How do we biblically define bitterness?

What does it actually mean in the Bible? And I've used extra biblical resources to define that, because the three people that I've quoted on your outline are people that I trust, people that love God's Word, and are biblical counselors. And it kind of just gives you a picture of what it is.

And then we're going to examine some evidences of bitterness in a person's life. Bitterness, the way that we would describe it as counselors is you've got behaviors and actions, and we call that the above-ground fruit, what I see in your life, what is coming out of your mouth. And then we've got what's driving the behavior.

That's what's happening in the heart level. And so we'll look at the evidences of bitterness, how I know that you're struggling that way, and then we'll look at the heart behind it, what you really need to be repenting of. Bitterness is a behavior or an attitude, but what is causing that?

What is driving that? What is the ruling desire behind that? That's the difference between biblical counseling and psychology. We're not just dealing with the behavior. We really need to look at a soul level as to what is driving some of these issues in our life. We are body-soul people, okay?

That's what we believe as Christians. We have a body and we have a soul. And so at the soul level, what's happening there? And then finally, we'll just kind of look at some biblical and practical steps, things that I would do as a friend to someone that's struggling. How would I practically walk her through the scriptures?

How would I have her help? How would I help her, basically? And it's just, it's not rocket science. This is something that you all can do. We actually know from the book of Romans that we who know the Lord, we can come alongside and we can counsel one another.

This isn't just for someone like me that has a lot of degrees in counseling and all of that. This is actually something that all believers can do in the body of Christ. So let's begin with that definition, or a few definitions, really. The definition of bitterness. What is bitterness?

So on your outline there, the first one that you have that defines bitterness is actually my boss, Dr. John Street. He's a wonderful biblical counselor and Christian, and he's done a lot of work in this area. And he says that bitterness is a perpetual, intense hostility and resentment that leads to harsh treatment and unloving opinion of others.

And so notice the words that he used there. There's perpetual, so it's ongoing. It's very intense on the inside. It's a resentment, and from that leads to a certain kind of action in a person. The second definition is another biblical counselor, a friend out in St. Louis. She's written lots of articles about this topic, and she says that bitterness is unresolved, unforgiven anger and resentment.

It is the result of anger changing from an experience to a belief, and bitterness is seething and constant. Bitter people carry the same burdens as angry people, but to a much greater extent. And I think she says that because bitterness is an attitude. You know, it's something that we're thinking upon.

But again, she's kind of majoring on the fact that it's a resentment. We're not just experiencing bitterness. We now believe, we feel justified in our bitterness, which people often do. And then the third one, Lou Priolo, he authored a book. It's going to be in the resources at the end of our talk, a booklet really that's called Bitterness, the Root that Pollutes.

And interestingly, I think it's an excerpt out of a bigger work that he did when someone breaks up in a dating relationship, How Not to Grow Bitter. But nonetheless, it's just a great little pamphlet that you could take anybody through that just helps you to think about it biblically.

And he says that bitterness is a resentful, unforgiving attitude which cuts and pricks others as well. To put it another way, bitterness is the result of responding improperly or unbiblically to an offense. And bitterness is also the result of dwelling too long on a hurt. So where does bitterness begin?

Well, from these definitions, it isn't too hard to see. It begins to take root in our hearts when first, we've been hurt in some way. So just kind of think about how it all gets started. You're hurt by someone. Someone's offended you. It's usually where it begins. And you begin to dwell on it.

And you think about it. And you think about it a lot. And it just consumes your thoughts. And then, you know, you don't deal with it biblically. You either don't go to the person to let them know that they've offended you or you don't choose to forgive them from the heart and you just continue to kind of keep a list of wrongs.

And so that can obviously lend itself to a lot of harsh treatment of others as a result. Now, I know that you're thinking, "Well, I'm a Christian. And I know intellectually and I know biblically that when I'm offended or sinned against by someone that I'm called by Christ to handle it, but biblically." Well, of course, of course that's true.

We all are called that way. And when we say biblically, what that means is that I am saying that I'm resolved to ultimately refuse to retaliate against somebody. And instead, for love's sake, kind of release that offender from his obligation to suffer this penalty of restitution. And that's kind of what we would call attitudinal forgiveness.

But even though we know this biblically, and even though that we know because of Christ we have the capacity to forgive and even trust Christ for the outcome, too often we don't choose God's way, right? Too often. And instead, we keep that record of wrong and we kind of grow anxious over it.

And so it's really that unbiblical thinking. I'd like to say the battle starts in the mind. Because when you start thinking unbiblically about something, you know, eventually the seeds of that begin to take root in the heart and it sprouts all kinds of bad fruit like bitterness in your life.

And again, you know, it has the potential to destroy marriages, to destroy friendships. Let me just ask you, just to kind of get you involved a little bit, how many of you know friendships that have suffered because of bitterness? Raise your hand. Be honest. Lots. How about marriages? Yeah.

How about churches? Anybody? Yeah. See? I mean, it's really, really something that's important to talk about. And so there are just going to be so many women that will need your love and your care and your concern over this issue. So in Polly's case, kind of getting back to our gal now, really what was happening with her, she kind of just had certain desires and expectations of her husband when they first married.

And when those desires were unmet, these expectations that she had when they were unmet, she began to retaliate towards her husband in a particular way. So she wasn't getting what she wanted. She had expectations. And so when she began to retaliate, she just started to believe that what was happening to her was unfair and unjust because he had claimed he was a Christian, apparently, when they married, but he misrepresented himself.

And so she began to believe that her bitterness was justified because he, in a sense, defrauded her. A lot of people feel that way. And of course, it's a difficult situation and it can feel unjust, but it doesn't give you justification, right, to grow bitter against somebody. And so when she came to me for counsel, it just really kind of gave me an opportunity to hear her story.

That's what I usually let people do. You know, just tell me your story. I want to know. I want to know what's going on. Help me to understand your world. Help me to understand your context. I take some notes and then I can kind of begin to open up scriptures and to help her to understand.

But, you know, even though this is happening, you didn't learn Christ this way. Christ doesn't teach us to grow bitter against people just because you're not getting what you want. And so, you know, we opened up the Bible. And so that's what I'll invite you to do now. Go ahead and open up to Ephesians 4.

We'll begin in 31. Maybe a familiar verse to you. Apostle Paul is talking here. Of course, he's under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And when you get to Ephesians 41, beginning in 31, he says, really the last two verses of this chapter, he says, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." One thing that I do when I meet with someone and I'm taking them to the Word, I actually let them read it. You know, I'll say, "Hey, let's look at Scripture and just go ahead and go to Ephesians 4 and why don't you read out loud verses 31 to 32?" And the reason why I do that is because I firmly believe in a sufficient Word and the Word has authority.

And so I know that the Holy Spirit is going to use that to convict their heart. So I have a really firm conviction that way and you ought to as well. You don't have to, you're not the Holy Spirit, you know, you're not going to make people change. It's a work of God.

He does that through His Word. And I'll often have them read it. And so Polly did read it and I just reminded her of a few important things after she finished reading. I reminded her that this is an exhortation for believers, you know, and Polly said she was a professing believer.

And this is part of the section in Ephesians, if you're familiar with the letter, that is part of our responsibility as believers to one another. You know, if you've spent any time here, maybe your pastor has preached through the book of Ephesians, but you know, in this section, Paul is exhorting believers to put away or abandon all of the different sins that are mentioned in here.

Even if you go back to verse 1 of Ephesians 4, if you look there, that very first word, typically in most, well if you have the ESV translation, I think it says "I therefore" or if you have NASV, it says "therefore I," it just kind of reverses the words.

But what's the "therefore therefore," right? And the "therefore" is there because Paul is basing his exhortation in this section of Ephesians on all of the doctrine that he's just taught in Ephesians 1 to 3. And so, you know, that's important to note. It's as if he is saying, "Beloved, you know, here is what your Savior's done for you." Ephesians 1 to 3.

It talks about all the things that God has done for us in terms of salvation. Here is what your Savior has done for you. So in light of this great salvation that's been bestowed upon you because of God's great mercy and great love, you ought to live like the new creature that you are.

That's really the whole point. He's trying to show us positionally we're in Christ and so we have this capacity to live for God. I mean, after all, don't we believe that we're no longer dead in our trespasses and sins? And we believe that because we know that it's only because of God's mercy.

He's the one that's redeemed our hearts. We know, we just celebrated the resurrection, that we're believers are also alive in Christ. We're not dead in our sin, we're alive in Christ. We're dead to sin, but we're alive to walk in a new life. And so Paul is just saying, in light of all those things, I'm beseeching you now, I am exhorting you now, I am encouraging you heartily now to walk in a manner worthy of your calling.

And if you read through the whole chapter of chapter four, you're going to learn that he exhorts you to walk in newness of life. He wants you to be, he's calling us to be humble. He's calling us to be gentle. He's calling us to be patient. He's calling us to love, to have unity, to be eager to maintain unity in the body of Christ.

He's calling us to be holy. He's calling us to be pure. And of course, here in our little two verses, he's calling us really to be forgiving. And so bitterness, though, and all of those other things he describes, all of those other attitudes and actions of anger, those things were to put away, you know, because it's connected with your old man, that old self before Christ.

Because again, as believers, we're new creations. Our life is to be set apart from the world. Your life needs to look different. It needs to reflect Christ in you, the hope of glory. And bitterness is not a part of that character, okay? So just kind of thinking through that a little bit.

In the original language, if you were to kind of look at that word when it was written in its heart language, if you will, the word that Paul uses for bitterness is "procreia." And it just means that when a person is bitter, what's happening there is they have this resentful frame of mind.

There's just a lot of harshness going on. There's an unsettled hostility, and it's beginning to poison the inner man or the inner woman. If you were to kind of literally translate what he is saying there, he's saying literally that all manner of bitterness and violent outbreaks of wrath and anger and brawling and slanderous speech needs to be put away from you together with all manner of malice.

And so the idea is for us as believers to abandon, you know, think about that word, just to completely abandon any kind of bitterness or any kind of mental condition, really, that's connected with your old man. And instead, as verse 32 indicates, we are to be becoming kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving each other even as and just as God in Christ has forgiven us.

And of course, that's connected, our characteristic of a true disciple. If you're a true disciple of Christ, this positionally is what you are, and this is what you should be striving towards. I mean, we obviously, I'm not teaching perfection here. I know there's a residue of sin. You know, I have reformed theology like you do.

I know that there's a residue of sin, but we can still strive towards being becoming. In fact, we'll look at it a little bit later, but he's saying you're not completely 100% kind or tenderhearted or forgiving. He's saying be becoming those things. So he's sanctifying you as you go along.

And so the point is we're to live new lives, and by God's grace, we do that when we begin to root out bitterness in our lives. But in order to do that, it's really important, you know, maybe some of your friends that you're thinking of right now, maybe they don't know that they're bitter.

Maybe they're just not seeing it. Maybe you see it. And so sometimes what I'll do is I'll just point to some of the evidences that I see in a person's life that are really common to people that are struggling with bitterness. And I think that'll help you because it gives you a better picture of what you're going to see, you know, action-wise.

So let's talk a little bit about the evidences now. And one thing I want to point out, as a believer, you know, we can see evidences in a person's life and kind of figure that this is probably what they're struggling with, but we're not God. So I can't say 100% that's what it is, but fruit helps us to understand probably what's going on.

And it's your job to ask a lot of questions and to ask the Holy Spirit to help you with discernment. And that's the super, super helpful when it comes to helping people. You know, Matthew 15, 19, Jesus says very clearly, "It's out of the heart that comes evil thoughts and murder and adultery and sexual immorality and theft and false testimony and slander." So he's just trying to point out that it's from the heart the mouth speaks.

It's from the heart behavior flows, that kind of thing. So let's kind of look at some of these evidences. The first one that I have on your outline there is withdrawing. I put this at the top of the list because it's probably the most common one I see. And I know because people are hiding when they're bitter and they're angry at people.

Sometimes when we're hurt, sometimes when we're offended by another person, we just choose not to deal with that situation at all. And so we succumb to retaliating in some particular way. And one way to retaliate, quite honestly, is to withdraw from the relationship. You know, you think that you're being a peacemaker, but actually you're being a peacekeeper because you're not dealing with it.

You're just withdrawing from that person. Okay, it's a big difference. And this is more or less what I call really passive retaliation because in a sense what you're doing is you're just depriving that person who's offended you with your presence rather than moving towards them in an effort to resolve conflict biblically.

In fact, you may even go so far as to plan all your activities avoiding that person altogether. You know what I'm talking about. You're at church, someone you're mad at, and you do everything you can to avoid that person. Am I the only one that thinks that? Come on, that's so common.

We all do it. And we've got to be careful because that is what divides churches. But it's going to show up. If you have a friend that's struggling in this way, you'll just see it. It'll show up in their relationships and how they deal with people for sure. My lady that I've been talking about, Polly, it was showing up in her marriage as well.

It's something that I noticed. She was withdrawing from her husband. You know, whenever he did something she didn't like or said something that hurt her, she just kind of defaulted to giving him the silent treatment. And silent treatment, ladies, is a form of sinful anger. It's just a way to say, "I'm not happy with you," right?

And so that's kind of how she retaliated against her husband, and it caused so much trouble in her marriage. It was really sad. Another evidence of bitterness that you will often see in a person that's struggling with bitterness is criticism or complaining or even slandering somebody. It just depends, you know.

It can be something like criticism as much as something like slander, but it's usually in your speech. And you know what I mean, because you hear it when someone's talking about somebody that they're mad at. You hear them be very critical against that person or they're slandering them. And, you know, for example, let's say that a person is embittered towards their friend and you're just kind of hanging out with her and she begins to talk to you, and suddenly you're just kind of noticing, "Wow, you know, her tone and what she's saying is very critical.

It's very harsh towards that person." And what she's doing is she's trying to put that person in the least possible good light, you know? She doesn't want to put her in a good light. And if you really listen to her carefully, the criticism usually isn't helpful, right? It's not really meant to help this person.

It's usually meant to tear the person down, so it's very destructive. Or a person who's bitter may be caught up in complaining by venting her bad feelings or her ill will towards that person. But it doesn't solve anything, you know? I mean, they're just spouting off, but it doesn't really help the situation.

They're sinning in their speech. And of course, slander is just another evidence in our speech, more embittered. And you see this manifested, I think, in the body of Christ when people are just talking behind each other's back and they're saying things that just are very negative. They want to convince you of this negative stuff that they're saying about this particular person and it's just so dangerous because it really divides the church or even a friendship.

Proverbs 16.28 says that a perverse man stirs up dissension and a gossip separates close friends. Isn't that the truth? I mean, it's just so true when you think about that. So again, with bitterness, it really divides people. And what I want to say is that ultimately, you need to know that Satan, your enemy, is very happy about this because his MO is to disunify the body of Christ.

That's what he's about. So if he can encourage you to this end, then he's done his job. But we live victoriously and we can overcome the enemy, sure, as believers, but I just want you to know this is one of his biggest tools in his toolbox is to cause division in the body of Christ and bitterness will help facilitate that for sure.

For Polly, how this manifested in her life was more like when she was with her husband, it's more like biting sarcasm, you know, just saying things that are unkind, condescending, being very caustic in her speech, treating her husband like he was a child. She often complained that he had a limited intellect, so it's just not very respectful and it kind of played into her sinning against him in this way.

Another one is just difficulty resolving conflict. People that are bitter just have a difficulty here. You know, it's kind of like Lou Priolo says, "Resolving conflicts with a person who's bitter or a person who's unwilling to forgive is like trying to build a skyscraper without first laying a solid foundation." And, you know, in other words, the bitterness is just going to doom the project before it even gets off the ground.

You know, and this is kind of the reason why. When you're bitter, what you're doing is you're keeping a list of wrong. You're constantly thinking about that person and you're just adding to the list all the wrongs that they've done to you. And so you're bearing a grudge. And when you bear a grudge against a person, when it comes time to working out the conflict because you haven't dealt with your attitude of bitterness, it will still go unresolved because you'll just think of other reasons why, you know, you think they should come to you or whatever.

And so it just kind of goes on and on and it just becomes an occasion to add another wrong to the list. And typically the embittered person will take that list, that record of wrong, and just rehearse it over and over again in their mind. You know, that comes from 1 Corinthians 13 because we're not supposed to keep a list of wrongs.

We're supposed to love people by not keeping a list. But at this point we're doing the opposite. We're keeping a list. And so, you know, again, Polly struggled in this area as well. She had gotten to a point where she wasn't really communicating to her husband at all. And every time they'd sit down to try to resolve something, it would just blow up into this big fight and someone would leave in a huff or withdraw from the situation.

Another evidence that's common is distrust. And this kind of temptation plays out when a person who's bitter has been kind of dwelling on a hurt a little bit too long. Even if the offender, someone that's, you know, offended them, comes to them and asks for forgiveness, and they even extend forgiveness, sometimes if the offended is still hurt, she will often just choose not to trust the person and still will be suspicious.

And you can imagine, this happens, right, when you're in a relationship, especially, you know, if you're married and maybe one of the spouses has committed adultery, but they've repented. And so, you know, they're trying to reconcile their relationship, but the spouse that has been sinned against is having a hard time trusting.

And so that takes time. They need to build trust because the person's repented and, you know, she's extended forgiveness. But you know, again, what happens is you're bitter, you're not dealing with that, and what you're doing is you're choosing to create scenarios in your mind of what might be.

And that's not fair, because the person has repented at this point. In Polly's case, where her distrust came from was just because of some other things. She, I think the biggest thing for her is that early on in her marriage, she discovered that her husband wasn't a believer. I think he just wanted to get married to her.

Maybe he was a lukewarm kind of a guy. It was enough for her. So they got married. The first question I asked her, too, was, "Before you guys got married, did you get premarital counseling? Did you seek out your pastor before you made this decision?" And of course, what do you think the answer was?

"No." So you know, they didn't seek out wisdom. I think that probably would have caused them a lot of, well, it would have helped them quite a bit because maybe the pastor perhaps would have seen some of these red flags had they taken the time, but she just wanted to get married so bad that she went ahead and went for it.

And so now she's deeply disappointed because he's not the real deal, you know, and he's struggling. Another evidence, I think, would just be acts of vengeance or repaying evil for evil. You know, when you're deeply hurt, you know, maybe you know someone that's been physically or sexually abused. Sometimes a person just wants to get back at somebody.

You know, they've just been hurt at such a deep level. Or maybe someone's gotten fired from work for no reason. They don't know why they were fired and they want to get back at the company. We see this all the time on the news, right? Or again, you know, maybe we could use the scenario that a spouse has been involved in adultery.

There's just lots of reasons that people use to motivate them to want to take action and repay evil for evil. And really their hope is that their lack of forgiveness will cause the other person that's hurt them to hurt. That's kind of their motivation. They're not thinking about Christ at all, of course.

They're only thinking about themselves. And, you know, of course, like I said, Polly, she wanted just to abandon the marriage. That would be probably the biggest act of vengeance that she could probably do at that point was just to leave him. Because she said the total weight of difficulties on her shoulders and she just wanted to get out of it.

She didn't want to live for the glory of God. She wanted to live, she wanted to just have relief. Big difference, huh? I just want relief from the pain. That's what she was thinking. I don't want to live for the glory of God. So these are just some things, some evidences.

This is not an exhaustive list. This is just kind of the, what you would commonly see in a person. Something that you need to be on the lookout for. And they're pretty common. But I think a person who's bitter can also have a hard attitude that's intolerant or hypersensitive, maybe very impatient, somebody that has a lot of contempt, maybe just rebelling against authority.

I might want to double check, come alongside my friend to try to find out why are you being so rebellious against authority? Maybe depression. Depression can be a result or an evidence because, just think about it for a minute. Remember the last time you held a grudge? And I know that you've all done it at least once.

Do you remember how much energy it took to hold a grudge? How much energy that takes? And that will manifest into depressed feelings. It just will when you hold a grudge. It's just a lot of emotional energy and it just depletes over time and it spirals. And of course, obviously, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that bitterness sometimes is the fruit of unbelief.

You know, you just might be dealing with a person that just isn't a believer. You know, you don't know until you spend time with her, until you just ask questions and you try to understand if she knows the gospel very well. Not only knows it, but has she truly embraced Jesus as her Lord and Savior?

That's really important. When I come alongside and help others, counsel others, one of the first things I do is I, aside from asking a lot of questions, we go over the gospel together. I really know that there are people that will come in and say, "I've been a believer for 20 years." Well, praise the Lord, but we're still going to go through the gospel together.

I'm sure it'll be a blessing to you. Because I want to make sure that she has embraced the gospel and that she knows it. And you know that like seven times out of ten, people cannot articulate the gospel well. And so it just gives me an opportunity to try to help them to understand it a little bit more fully.

But so that would just be something I would encourage you to do. Let's just take a moment to go over the gospel and just see where it is that maybe there's a gap in what you think and believe. Okay? Okay, so that's just kind of some evidences, okay? Just to kind of get you thinking a little bit.

If you were to help somebody, this is some things that you would look for on the surface level, but we have to get a little bit deeper than that. So now we're going to look at the heart driving bitterness. Why do people get bitter in the first place? What's causing that at a heart level?

I mean, it would be wonderful if we could just stop here and just tell our women friends to just stop it. Stop being bitter. Just stop it, you know, right? I would love it if that were something we could do, you know, and I just want you to be gracious.

Just be gracious. But it's not always that easy. So it's important that we look to God's Word and look at a few things. So now what I would like you to do is turn to James 4, and we'll just take a little bit of time just to kind of think through that.

James 4, and we're going to look at, let's see, I think I want to do 1 to 3. Okay. So James 4, beginning in verse 1, "What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have, so you commit murder.

You are envious and quarrel, oops, sorry, you are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you spend it on your pleasures." Okay? So when a person is bitter, it can cause so much conflict in their lives, and a lot of times the root of it, what's happening at the heart level, is it can be traced back to a person's desires, you know, what they're desiring, kind of like expectations, you know, what they're expecting.

Every person has desires. We all have them, some good, some bad. But here's an example of some good desires. How many of you in this audience who are single would like to be married someday? How many? Yeah. Is that a good desire? What do you think? Is it a good desire to be married?

Yes, it's a good desire to be married. How many of you, yes, it's a great desire, we're all praying for you, we want you to get married, how many of you that are married who don't have children right now, but would like to have a child, or would like to have children, right?

Or more children, you know, that kind of thing. Is that a good desire? It's a great desire. Children are a blessing, and of course we would want to have that happen and realize, what if that good desire goes unmet? You know, it's all in the Lord's timing, right? What if that desire goes unmet for a while, for a long time, or maybe not at all?

Then what do we do? Do we continue to trust the Lord with that? What do you think? Yeah. Or do we choose to respond in profound disappointment, which leads to bitterness of the soul? Do we continue to find ultimate fulfillment in Christ? Or do we allow these unmet good desires to rule the day, and then eventually grow bitter over it?

Some of you might be seniors out here. You know, I see this in college students too, where they are panicking because they're a senior and they want to do a particular something in their life vocation-wise, or they have a lot of hopes and dreams, and so they have these great desires, but maybe they're not being realized.

And so they're struggling with trusting the Lord, and they're beginning to grow profoundly disappointed, and bitterness can pursue that or ensue that. But when we do that, when we're not trusting God and we are not finding our ultimate fulfillment in Christ, what happens is this interesting little spiral. And as you dwell on those things that you think you deserve, those desires, what happens is it has the potential to work deeper into your heart, and when this happens, your spiral downwards begins to think that it deserves or needs these desires, and eventually you begin to think that if I don't have this good desire, I'm never going to be happy or fulfilled or satisfied.

And that is what we would say has now manifested into a demand. So your desires have now turned into a demand of the heart. It was a good desire to begin with, but now it's a demand. I think I deserve it. And so the dialogue kind of goes like this, just to kind of make it real in a practical way.

I've heard this before. I've worked very hard in my job, and I've done everything that my boss has asked me to do. I deserve that promotion. Okay? Well, there might be some validity to that statement, but what if she doesn't get that promotion? Then what? Does she grow bitter towards her boss, or does she trust the Lord with that decision?

He is sovereign. You know, there is a reason why he didn't allow that to happen. Here's kind of another scenario. These are simplistic, but just to kind of get you thinking. I've worked very hard this year. I deserve to buy that new car, right? But what if your husband says you can't afford it right now?

What if he says that you need to wait another year until your finances are in a good place, or your parents? It's kind of funny, because I just had this conversation with my youngest daughter. She wants to buy a new car, and this is exactly the conversation that we had, come to think of it.

So, yeah, she forgets when you're 20, you forget that there's insurance involved. But anyway, that's another story. So I told her, for example, her name is Hannah, you'd have to wait. I don't think you can afford that, because you're not considering the reality of the situation. So does she hold that against me, or does she choose to trust me and trust the Lord through that process?

I mean, it's just a car. She has a car, but she just thinks she needs a better car, right? But the point is, is the more we think about something, and the more we want it, the more we succumb to thinking that if only I had this, you fill in the blank yourself.

If only you had whatever that is that just came to your mind, then you would be happy and satisfied and fulfilled. And when it gets to that point, that good desire again has grown so strong in your life, it's beginning to rule your thoughts, and it's beginning to rule your actions.

And what do we call that, ladies? When something rules us, what's the biblical terminology for that? Say it out loud and proud. What? Did someone say "idle"? Yeah, exactly. It becomes an idol in your life. Martin Luther puts it this way, "To whatever we look for any good thing and refuge in every need, that is what is meant by God.

To have a God is nothing more than to trust and believe in Him from the heart." And so to whatever you give your heart and to whatever you entrust your being to, that I say is really your God. And so that's something to think about. Anything that we worship, we're worshippers, right?

We're worshiping Christ, but sometimes we worship other things. So whatever you're giving your full devotion to, that in that moment is your God. And so how can we be good discerners? How can we help our friends? How can we counsel our own hearts? How can we discern whether these good desires that we have have become demands or maybe a functional God in a sense?

And I've got some questions on your outline that you can use in your own reflection time, that you could use to just encourage somebody with if you're having this kind of a dialogue. Right out of the gate, I would just say, what is it that you're preoccupied with these days?

Is this something that's been on your mind morning and night? Is this something you constantly think about? Or how would you finish this sentence? If only I had blank, then I would be fulfilled, happy, and secure, satisfied, that kind of thing. Where do you put your trust? When a certain desire is not met, how do you respond?

Do you respond with frustration, anger, bitterness, depression? And is there something that you desire so much that you're willing to hurt others or to sin against others to have it? Those are great questions to ask. They're pretty probing, aren't they? Yeah, I'm kind of getting in your grill, right?

Yeah, this is biblical counseling. That's why it's so different, because I want to get into your life, and I want to help you for those that are off track with Christ to get back on track with serving your Savior with a whole heart, not a divided heart, not a distracted heart, which is something we'll talk a little bit more about in our next talk.

So when good desires go unmet, and we find ourselves frustrated and angry and bitter, we can easily fall into the trap of judging others. That's kind of the next level. And the reason for this is because those unmet desires are failing to be satisfied, and so we default to criticizing and nagging and attacking people, just condemning them for not living up to our expectations or even fulfilling those desires.

And that's sinful, because when you judge people like that, what you're doing is you're presuming upon them and you're questioning their motives. And you're not God. You can't question people's motives. You're to think the best. But when we get here, we get kind of just very judging in that sense.

And then unfortunately, when others fail to live up to our expectations or give in to our desires, we simply find ways to hurt or punish other people. And all of those evidences we went over already is kind of that form of evidence that I'm talking about, you know, the things that we do.

We lash out. We say hurtful things. We inflict pain. And really, at the end of the day, it's just a very controlling and manipulative tactic, because when you don't give me what I want, you know, I'm going to punish you by imposing guilt and shame and saying mean things and things like that, because I want to send a message that I'm not happy, because it's about me, right?

Is it about me? Is it about you? No, it's about Christ. So some things to think about. Desires can easily manifest into demands. If we don't deal with that, we can easily turn into a judge of others, which can easily -- we can easily turn into a person who punishes.

So if that's you, those -- there's some great tools there for you to kind of think about. And I use James 4 as a way to really filter through my heart. That is kind of an expanded idea behind James 4. So now that we know just a little bit more about unmet desires and how that connects to bitterness, it's really important, once you kind of are working with somebody and you're trying to help them understand the heart level, what's going on, what's ruling her, it's really important that we just help her to spend time looking to the Lord, right?

A lot of the music we sang this morning was so beautiful. We have to remind ourselves who we are in Christ, because we can get pretty discouraged if all we did all day long is just focus on our sin. We would just feel so wormy all the time. But it's not just about abandoning or laying aside or repenting of your sin.

It's also about walking in a manner worthy of your calling. That's the full picture. And so we kind of need to look at some of those things as well. And of course, you know, I always tell people, you know, there's hope. There's always hope for a sinner. That's why I balk at medical models, like when people call themselves alcoholics.

I say, you know, the problem with that is if you call yourself an alcoholic, the world says once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. But if we use biblical language and say that you're a drunkard, there's always hope for a sinner. And you can work through that. And so I just, you know, try to help people reorient their language, because there is always hope for a person.

They don't have to stay stuck here. You know, this isn't the end. They have hope, a lot of hope. And we're going to kind of look at that. And so what's the first thing that we can give people? We want to always give people ongoing hope. That's a big part of biblical counseling.

How can I give this person ongoing hope? The first thing I'm going to tell this woman is God has provided a Savior who has lived that perfect life that you should have lived, and who's experienced the punishment that we've all deserved because of our sin and for sin like bitterness.

And I'm going to remind you that there is always forgiveness in Christ, always, you know, and that's important. And so let's kind of work out the root of bitterness with that in mind. And so I'm going to encourage her, once we kind of understand what the root issue is here, I'm going to encourage her to repent.

You guys have heard the word repentance, right? It's not just when we become believers. That's a grace that God gives us to turn from, you know, our old life to the gospel for salvation. But I'm talking about the kind of repentance that's continual. We should be every day repenting of sin and, or confessing and repenting of sin.

That's just a continual act that should go on in our life every single day. And I just gave you something pretty practical there from an old dead guy, Thomas Watson. I love the Burgeons. And this is just really helpful, but he says that, this is like the six practical ingredients for repentance, but he says that first, when we're dealing with sin and repentance, there is a sight of sin.

In other words, a person must see herself as a sinner and nothing but a sinner. So let's be humble. You're not perfect. We are all sinners saved by grace. And so we see ourselves this way and we need to acknowledge that we're bitter. And we need to acknowledge that ultimately, you know, we're being unforgiving at the heart level and just to kind of give it away, not to beat around the bush, what really is happening here is this person's got a love problem.

Wouldn't you say, when you're bitter, would you say you have a love problem? We're not loving God with our whole heart, mind and soul. We're not loving our neighbor as ourself. And those are the two most important commandments in scripture. So when you're bitter and you're unforgiving, you've got a love problem.

You really do. It's not getting you any closer to those two goals. So just be honest. We need to talk to the Lord about these things. The second is that there is a sorrow for sin. This is not a superficial sorrow. This is not, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

It's more like I am broken because I have sinned against a holy God, mainly as you're sinning against another person in this way. The Puritans call it a holy agony. I think I kind of like that. Holy agony. Some other words are just kind of give you a bigger picture.

But it's like a breaking of heart. When you're repentant, just kind of think of your heart being rendered or broken. That's what he's, that's the idea that he's trying to give. Third, there's a confession of sin. Whenever you confess sin, it should always be voluntary. The heart must deeply resent it.

It must be sincere. It should be specific. And confession of sin should include a resolution never to do it again. Thankfully, the gal that I'm talking about today, when she became convicted over her sin as we were talking through these issues, she did. She got a little overwhelmed. You get overwhelmed when you start thinking about these kinds of things.

And she realized that her unwillingness to forgive her husband was just causing a lot of personal heartache. And so she ended up going to him and talking to him and asking for his forgiveness. And that became a witnessing tool anyway, because remember, he's an unbeliever, right? And so she's killing her witness by what she was doing.

But now she's going to try to win this guy without a word, like 1 Peter talks about. And so she confessed her sin, which was just amazing. That's how you know that someone's truly repentant. They get humble and they want to do these things. Then there's a shame for sin.

You know, your sin should cause a holy bashfulness. That's Puritan language. In other words, you realize that your sin is not just against this person, but ultimately it's against the Lord himself. That's what David realized when he was convicted over his sin of adultery. Then there's a hatred for sin.

Someone that's truly repentant is what I call a sin loather. In other words, they dislike their sin, not only in judgment, but they hate sin in the will of their affections at the heart level. And again, Polly realized that as well, and she began to hate her sin. And then finally, a person turns from their sin.

And as we kind of talked about yesterday, dying to self is really kind of the life of repentance. You know, you've got to deny yourself in order to continue on with this repentance journey. With Polly, she did confess her sin to God. She confessed it to her husband, and then eventually they went together to the pastor of their church to help them kind of continue.

You know, I don't know. I didn't hear if, in this particular case that I'm thinking of, if the husband got saved, but he was willing to go. So some good things could have happened there. For you, I would say that even though I'm giving you these little tips from the Puritans, I think Psalm 51 probably shaped a lot of what Thomas Watson's talking about here.

So I would just encourage you, if you really want to really dive into this issue of repentance, just go to Psalm 51 and read through it. The context there is David has been, Nathan has basically called him out on his sin of adultery and making a situation where Bathsheba's husband got killed in battle.

And so when he recognizes that, just really quickly, you'll notice in Psalm 51 that he goes to God first, that he has a side of sin, he has a genuine sorrow over his sin, he confesses it to God with sincerity, and he's ashamed of his sin, and he has a hatred for it, and he just desires to reconcile with God.

And that's largely due to the fact that he has a strong desire to reconcile his relationship with God and has a very strong view of man. Okay, so we would talk a little bit about repentance, because that's important, and then we would kind of move over to renewing your mind.

Another thing that I would encourage my friend in is I would say, "Look, you know, one of the great graces that God gives us to help us identify our sin and ungodly desires will also deliver us from those things in his word." And that's where kind of Hebrews 4.12 comes in.

It talks about how God's word is living and active. It's not just a two-dimensional, you know, piece of literature. It's obviously living and active, and when we read it, we feel conviction. It's like a double-edged sword, he says. And so I would just find opportunities to have my friend do some studies in his word.

I had Polly study through the book of Ephesians and just meditate on aspects of it. I'd make sure that she's coming to church regularly and sitting under the solid preaching that you all get to enjoy every Sunday, because when you meet with people, you want to make sure that they're listening to the same things you're listening to so you can continue to encourage them in that way.

That's important. Jesus says, too, that, you know, we need to abide in his word. He calls us to abide in him, and that's just talking about a relationship, being constantly aware of our total dependence upon him, because bitterness, in large part, has to do with a self-focus, right? It's all about what I'm dealing with.

And so you're trying to help a person go from the self-focus to a Christ-focus, and you do that by helping to renew their mind in Scripture. Don't use psychologized ways to help people, please. Use the word of God. You've got everything you need here for her life and for godliness.

I would have her think through gospel truths. That's important. You want to remind people of their position, because, again, people get very discouraged. So I would talk through the gospel and all its implications, how it keeps us humble because it forces us to admit that we're a sinner in need of God's grace every day.

I would have them meditate upon gospel truths. I already mentioned Ephesians 1 to 2 in particular, but I would take her to Colossians 1 to 3 as well. And I would have a dialogue about the preeminence of Christ. I think that would be really encouraging to her. I'm sure that your pastor has probably taught on that before.

I might even do a careful reading of Romans 1 to 11. That's something I'm actually studying again this year, because I'd want to help people, help her be reminded that she's dead to sin but alive to Christ, and that she's now a slave to righteousness. She's not a slave to sin anymore.

Those are just some really encouraging things. And then after that, I might have her just spend some time thinking through Matthew 7, which said to have her check her own heart. You know, Matthew 7 talks about taking the big old log out of your own eye before you, you know, dwell on the speck in your brother's eye.

And I just want her to think through that carefully because maybe in the course of her being bitter, maybe she has something, maybe she needs to take responsibility for something. Maybe it's not all 100% on the other person's end, right? So she might have something she needs to deal with and just confess her sin and all of that.

And the third thing as far as renewing the mind, just have her go to key scripture. I think key scripture could be like Romans 6, just looking at that whole issue about the old self being crucified with Christ. I would take her to Galatians 2.20, which reminds her that she has been crucified with Christ so it's no longer she who lives but Christ who lives in her.

And then after we've kind of dialogued through some of those things, I would then take her to just the put-on aspect. I call it reaffirm righteousness. That's the next point on your outline. Going back to Ephesians 4 where we started, remember, we put off bitterness and anger and clamor and slander and all of those things, but we put on a heart that is kind and tenderhearted and forgiving.

You know, we've learned that the believer is to put away bitterness, but now we're going to look at what we do next. And so as much as we're abandoning all of those other things, putting off that old self and renewing our mind in the scriptures, now we need to step out in faith and we need to actually live like the women were called to be in Christ.

And what's the first one there? We're called to walk in what? Kindness or tenderheartedness? Or no, kindness is the first one. So what does that even mean? It just simply means to be gracious to people instead of being harsh. That's what that means. We are called to be kind.

And when we're kind to others, we're loving people, even if they're the offender. We're still called to be kind. And so when we're extending kindness, we're really just choosing not to say unkind things about those who have hurt us and not to be excessively passive either, like withdrawing. You know, that's a big part of it as well.

But instead, we're actively looking. I'm helping my friend to actively look for ways to honor the Lord by blessing those who have hurt her. And that's how you overcome evil with good. Romans 12 at the end there talks about don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

That's part of being a believer. And so this command to be becoming kind is actually in the present middle imperative. And so that just means that we're to keep on becoming kind. It's something that we're human becomings, you know, this side of heaven. We've got to strive towards and continue to do that.

And the second one is instead of being bitter, we're exhorted to keep on becoming tenderhearted. And that just means to have compassion. We are to have compassion on others. We find the same exhortation in 1 Peter 3, 8 to 9. Instead of paying evil for evil, we're to have a unity of mind and we're to be sympathetic and we're to have brotherly love and a tender heart towards others.

In fact, compassion or tenderheartedness, kind of the same word, is the mark of a Christian life. That's something that we're to have as a fruit of the Spirit. So how do you extend compassion towards those who hurt you? How do we do that? Because sometimes people hurt us so much that to have a compassionate attitude is really, really hard.

And so, but one thing I can tell you is, you know, you never know. Your compassion and your kindness towards people that are unlovely, as it were, can be the very thing that wins them to Christ. Saw it in my own dad's life, okay? When I stopped being bitter towards my father and started realizing he was my mission field, instead of it being all about me and how he hurt me as a young person, and I started seeing him through the eyes of Christ, I was able to change my view.

And my, it's, you know, you're winning people without a word. It's the life that you're living. You're being a billboard for the gospel, in a sense. And that's what won him over, because I wasn't bitter anymore. He saw the change in my life. And I also asked him for forgiveness, kind of a thing.

So that very thing can be the thing that God uses. You never know. And then finally, you know, we're exhorted to be forgiving. And so Paul is just talking about that kind of forgiveness that just really bears up with people. It's the idea of forgiving in the sense of treating the offending party very graciously.

Paul talks about it in Colossians 3.13 as well, that we are to bear with one another, even if someone has a complaint, you're to forgive them. And you know, Paul knows that the believer's going to offend and hurt one another, but what he's urging us to do is just forgive for the sake of maintaining unity in the church.

And remember I told you yesterday, is the church a building? The church is a body of believers, right? And so, you know, we could be talking about this church right now, or we could be talking about your marriages or your friendships. So we need to be forgiving people. We've been forgiven so much.

How can we not forgive these little offenses against, that we dwell on so much? So in summary, I would just say that the believer is to lay aside the sin of bitterness once and for all, for sure. We're called to do that. And we're also called, though, to continue to walk or to be becoming kind and tenderhearted and forgiving as God in Christ has forgiven us.

And really the last part of that verse of 32, one thing I want to point out is that, you know, God has in your life once for all forgiven your sins. That's what he's talking about there. And so maybe that can be your motivator when you start thinking about how much forgiveness has been extended to you.

Could you allow that to motivate you to forgive others from the heart? I think it's important to think through. So forgiveness is just something that needs to be done in the heart before God. It kind of makes me think of the prodigal son. Are you familiar with that parable?

You know, when you think about the prodigal son in that whole scenario, after that son, you know, asked for that inheritance and he went away and he squandered that inheritance, that was a horrible thing that he did. But did you notice in that parable that when he repented and he came back, did you notice that the father was waiting?

And do you remember also that when he saw his son, he went running towards his son? That's forgiveness. That is an eager attitude that's ready to extend forgiveness towards another person. And that's how we're to be. We're to be that kind of forgiving person from the heart instead of being bitter.

Well you're probably wondering what happened to Polly. Did she repent? Did their marriage get, you know, fixed? It took a lot of time. I mean, these are not like easy things. You have to know that you're invested, okay? It takes time. I'm not in charge of changing people. God does the work and it's a process.

But once she began that process of repentance, she did begin to respond to her husband in a manner that was consistent with who she says she is. You know, when scripture talks about walking in a manner worthy of your calling, it means equal weight. So who you profess to be needs to be equal with how you live.

That's the visual. And she began to learn how to live in that way. She began to learn how to abandon her bitterness and be compassionate towards her husband like Christ is compassionate towards us. And actually, over time, instead of being sort of a victim, because that's kind of how she saw herself, of a terrible circumstance, she saw herself as somebody that was able to be like a missionary in a sense.

She was able to see her husband through the Lord's eyes as a very needy man who just needed Christ. And, you know, praise God for the work that he does. Praise God for the transforming work that he does in our lives. Can you imagine if we had a God that did not work in our lives that way?

I mean, we serve a God that we're in relationship with. This isn't some faraway deity that is cold. This is a God that we have a personal relationship with and he will do the work if you will surrender to his will. Okay, so on that last page there, you've got some resources.

These would be my top four. Bitterness, the root that pollutes, I already talked to you a little bit about that. I just had a counselee just finish reading that more recently, another discouraging marriage, but she got so much out of that resource and she repented. Praise the Lord for that.

The second one, unpacking forgiveness, biblical questions and deep wounds by Chris Bronze. I think that's the most balanced view I've ever read on the topic of forgiveness. I would highly encourage you to order that on Amazon or whatever just because it's such an important piece. From Forgiven to Forgiving, another great book that's not as long as the second one that I just named, but very helpful.

And then the fourth one is just a little booklet entitled Help, I Want to Change, which kind of takes you through the put-on process using Ephesians 4. It's a very balanced view, I think could be super, super helpful.