Lecture 4: Marriage and Family Counseling

00:00:00.000 | All right, we want to pick up where we left off in our last class period, and that has

00:00:10.880 | to do with the goals of Christian marriage and the family counseling.

00:00:17.480 | What should those goals be?

00:00:21.400 | Now it's amazing to me how many pastors and just general Christian people don't understand

00:00:33.700 | the importance of goals in the scripture.

00:00:35.240 | I want to take just a little bit of time and kind of highlight some of that.

00:00:40.160 | Why is it that we must have goals?

00:00:43.400 | That's not a secular idea, that's a godly idea.

00:00:50.920 | Goals are nothing but ideas about how we want to achieve something that we're going about

00:01:03.040 | to achieve.

00:01:05.040 | What are our goals?

00:01:06.300 | Sometimes we'll have intermediate goals, and sometimes we'll have long-term goals, but

00:01:09.800 | what should they be, and is it proper for us as pastors or as counselors to have goals

00:01:17.280 | in marriage and family counseling?

00:01:18.760 | The answer is absolutely yes.

00:01:20.400 | Let me explain to you why.

00:01:22.040 | If you have your Bible, grab it, and let's go over to Proverbs chapter 14, and we're

00:01:27.280 | interested in verse 8, Proverbs 14 and verse 8.

00:01:33.720 | Solomon here says, "The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to his ways."

00:01:42.520 | The word for prudent there in the Hebrew can also be translated sensible.

00:01:46.560 | The wisdom of the sensible is to give thought to his ways, and in fact, it actually, the

00:01:53.400 | root idea behind that word sensible or prudent is literally the Hebrew idea of naked.

00:02:03.520 | A person who was prudent was naked, in a sense fully exposed, but also sensible.

00:02:21.040 | The wisdom of the naked is to give understanding or thought to his way, but the foolishness

00:02:27.560 | of fools is deceit.

00:02:29.800 | A fool will not give thought to his ways, but a truly sensible person who's not covering

00:02:40.520 | over for any pretense will give thought to their ways, in other words, they'll set goals.

00:02:53.040 | Go over to Proverbs chapter 16 and verse 9, "The mind of the man plans his way, but the

00:02:59.160 | Lord directs his steps."

00:03:03.400 | Now God is not chiding people who plan their ways.

00:03:06.680 | He's not saying it's wrong to do that, but he is saying that God is sovereign over all

00:03:11.840 | that man does, and you can plan your ways, and you can set your goals, but God's going

00:03:15.800 | to redirect your paths.

00:03:18.480 | When you carefully prepare for your next counseling session with somebody, you may have an idea

00:03:23.000 | of where you want to go in scripture, but they may come to the counseling session with

00:03:26.440 | something that's happened, maybe a crisis event or something that's occurred in the

00:03:30.280 | family, and it may totally redirect your entire course of your counsel, and you've got to

00:03:35.000 | be flexible enough to follow that.

00:03:38.600 | But the bottom line here is that God is going to be sovereign, and he's going to overrule

00:03:43.960 | what we plan.

00:03:45.480 | That's okay.

00:03:46.480 | As long as you anticipate that, you're fine, nothing wrong.

00:03:52.320 | But it's also not wrong to plan your way either.

00:03:55.120 | You've got to do that so you know where you're going.

00:03:59.360 | More often than not, when you do that, usually the way that you've planned to go is the way

00:04:04.840 | that that'll end up going.

00:04:08.680 | You've heard that old saying, "If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail," and that's

00:04:14.360 | true.

00:04:16.040 | That's just a little proverb or a contemporary proverb that illustrates the fact that people

00:04:20.560 | who do not like to plan or set goals in their life are really setting themselves up ultimately

00:04:26.800 | for failure.

00:04:29.680 | But God says it's the prudent man who gives thought to his ways.

00:04:33.520 | You can plan your ways, but God can overrule them.

00:04:36.480 | Then if you go to chapter 16 of Proverbs in verse 1, you can see this there as well.

00:04:45.880 | Proverbs 16 in verse 1, he says, "To man belong the plans of the heart, but from the Lord

00:04:52.080 | comes the reply of the tongue."

00:04:56.360 | I can plan certain things, I can intend certain things in this sense, but ultimately the Lord

00:05:03.800 | directs what's really going to happen again.

00:05:07.220 | Or there's Proverbs 10 in verse 5, "He who gathers crops in the summer is a wise son,

00:05:13.440 | but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son."

00:05:17.760 | So the idea is you've got to plan to gather your crops in the summertime.

00:05:22.640 | If you're lazy and you're not diligent, and there are some people who do counseling who

00:05:27.000 | are very lazy, they're not diligent at making good plans, then you're not going to eat,

00:05:34.720 | is the implication of this proverb, you're not going to be successful.

00:05:40.480 | God says that kind of a son is a disgraceful son because he's sleeping, he's not diligent,

00:05:48.740 | he's lazy, he's a sluggard in that sense.

00:05:52.840 | Then go over to Proverbs 13 in verse 16, here Solomon says, "Every prudent man acts with

00:06:00.480 | knowledge, but a fool displays his folly."

00:06:04.360 | So when you act, you act from the standpoint of knowledge, that implies planning as well.

00:06:12.640 | You've got to plan your ways.

00:06:13.840 | Or Proverbs 20 in verse 18, "Make plans by seeking advice, if you wage war, obtain guidance."

00:06:29.800 | If you wage war, obtain guidance.

00:06:34.660 | So you've got to plan ahead again, is the idea behind this.

00:06:40.640 | Or there's Proverbs 24 in verse 27, here Solomon says, "Prepare your work outside, make it

00:06:49.200 | ready for yourself in the field afterwards, then build your house."

00:06:53.720 | Now what's implied by that proverb is you've got to plan ahead, that is work outside, make

00:06:59.560 | it ready for yourself in your field, in other words, prepare your fields first, then build

00:07:04.920 | your house.

00:07:05.920 | Because you can build your house any time of the year, but you can only plant a certain

00:07:10.760 | time of the year.

00:07:11.880 | So what are you going to prioritize?

00:07:12.880 | I've got to prioritize planting my field first, then I'm going to build my house.

00:07:17.760 | Sleep outside until you get those fields planted, then let the fields grow while you're building

00:07:22.440 | your house.

00:07:24.060 | But prioritize planting your fields.

00:07:26.960 | You've got to prioritize certain things in counseling as well.

00:07:31.600 | Or then again, there's Romans chapter 1, verses 9 through 13.

00:07:37.600 | So this brings us into the New Testament, and here Paul is dealing with the Roman church.

00:07:47.480 | Verse 9 he says, "For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of

00:07:55.760 | his Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers

00:08:01.000 | making requests, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to

00:08:06.120 | you.

00:08:07.120 | For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be

00:08:11.160 | established.

00:08:12.240 | That is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the

00:08:16.800 | other's faith, both yours and mine.

00:08:19.000 | I do not want you to become unaware, brethren, but often I have planned to come to you and

00:08:24.200 | have been prevented so far so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even among the

00:08:30.080 | rest of the Gentiles."

00:08:31.700 | So Paul talks about his ministry to them as a Roman church and his repeated plans.

00:08:38.280 | He set goals to come and see them, but God prevented that from happening.

00:08:44.400 | So again, God overrules those plans sometimes in life.

00:08:50.420 | He's done that probably several times in your life.

00:08:52.400 | He's overruled some of the plans, the expectations that you've had and you thought you were going

00:08:56.280 | one way and God sent you on another direction.

00:09:02.320 | Back several months ago, my wife and I were planning the fall and I had certain speaking

00:09:06.040 | activities that I had planned for and certain churches that wanted me to come in and do

00:09:11.400 | a conference or to speak and so we were planning those and setting all that up and setting

00:09:15.480 | the airline arrangements and et cetera.

00:09:17.720 | In some cases, they had my wife coming with me.

00:09:21.360 | One of the recent ones, in fact, one where I was supposed to go to Iowa, my wife got

00:09:26.180 | a notice three days before we were supposed to leave that she was responsible to go to

00:09:30.400 | jury duty.

00:09:33.560 | She thought, "Well, maybe I'll go to jury duty and they'll kick me off and I won't have

00:09:37.160 | to go."

00:09:38.160 | Well, no, they didn't.

00:09:39.480 | They kept her on for two or three days and so she ended up missing the entire weekend.

00:09:45.620 | She was supposed to speak to a group of women, so that left me speaking to them.

00:09:54.520 | So we can plan our ways and it's not bad that we do, but then we realize that God can redirect

00:10:02.500 | our steps.

00:10:04.120 | By the way, after that weekend was over with, on Monday, finally, she was dismissed from

00:10:11.200 | the jury.

00:10:12.200 | She didn't have to serve.

00:10:13.200 | That's wonderful because we had other plans weekends after that.

00:10:16.700 | If she would have been placed on that jury, it was such a serious case that probably she

00:10:22.000 | would have been on it for several weeks and we would have missed several different airline

00:10:27.900 | tickets and all of that money would have been spent for nothing.

00:10:33.300 | So Paul said, "I plan to come to see you as Roman Christians, but I was prevented from

00:10:40.560 | doing so," but that didn't stop him from planning.

00:10:44.080 | That's my point.

00:10:45.860 | He set a goal and he planned to do it and it didn't stop him.

00:10:50.140 | Let's go over to Colossians 1 and verse 28.

00:10:53.460 | This is a great verse, especially for people who do counseling because you notice how counseling

00:10:59.060 | was so central to the ministry of Paul.

00:11:02.820 | He describes his goal in counseling.

00:11:06.020 | What does he strive to do?

00:11:07.940 | He says, "We proclaim him," speaking of Christ, "Christ with the center of his counsel and

00:11:13.400 | his teaching, admonishing every man," and that word admonish is our Greek term, "nouthateo,"

00:11:19.660 | "admonishing every man, teaching every man with all wisdom that we may present every

00:11:26.000 | man complete in Christ."

00:11:27.780 | There's his goal.

00:11:29.560 | The emphasis is not preaching to congregations in this verse, the emphasis is upon the ministry

00:11:36.000 | of the word of God to individual people.

00:11:39.380 | Every man, every man, every man, that's repeated here.

00:11:42.460 | Verse 29, he says, "For this purpose also I labor, striving according to his power which

00:11:47.440 | so mightily works within me."

00:11:51.360 | So it's God's power who is at work.

00:11:53.800 | So God, it was very appropriate for the apostle Paul to plan and set goals for his personal

00:12:05.360 | ministry of the word of God.

00:12:07.680 | Ephesians 1, verse 17, here we see this in Paul's life again, Ephesians 1, verse 17.

00:12:18.760 | He says that, "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit

00:12:23.380 | of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him."

00:12:28.160 | And then, in other words, you can see that that is part of his prayer, that's what he

00:12:34.080 | desired for them, that's the goal that he had for them.

00:12:37.680 | Then you go over to chapter 3 and verse 14, he says, "For this reason I bow my knees before

00:12:43.520 | the Father from whom every family in heaven and earth derives his name, that he would

00:12:48.480 | grant you according to his riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through the

00:12:52.840 | Holy Spirit in the inner man.

00:12:55.000 | So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you may, being rooted and grounded

00:13:00.120 | in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length

00:13:05.720 | and the height and the depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses the knowledge

00:13:10.400 | that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God."

00:13:14.280 | This was his goal for them, that's what he desired, he set that as this goal.

00:13:20.040 | The purpose of his ministry was that this would happen in their lives, that was a goal

00:13:25.560 | that he set.

00:13:26.560 | All right, we can see this also if you go back to the Gospels in Luke chapter 19 and

00:13:32.720 | verse 10.

00:13:37.000 | Jesus says, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."

00:13:43.360 | Jesus had a goal, he wanted to seek and save that which is lost.

00:13:47.720 | You can see the same thing in the Gospel of John in verse 17 and verse 4.

00:13:56.200 | Jesus is speaking again, he says, "I glorified you on the earth having accomplished the work

00:14:07.200 | which you have given me to do."

00:14:10.000 | God gave Christ his goals, his purposes for coming to the earth and Christ accomplished

00:14:17.320 | everything that God gave him to do.

00:14:21.160 | Now you're beginning to get a sense at this particular point and we could go on and on

00:14:25.040 | and on and use many other references but the point is this, planning and setting goals

00:14:31.080 | for what you do in order to accomplish things for God is very important and it's no less

00:14:37.640 | important in counseling.

00:14:40.640 | In counseling you've got to set goals, where am I going to go this next counseling session?

00:14:46.120 | Sometimes when I supervise counselees who are in training or counselors who are in training,

00:14:53.760 | I ask them the question, "What are your goals for the next session?

00:14:56.120 | What do you want to do in this next session?

00:14:58.120 | Where do you want to go?

00:14:59.120 | Where do you want to take them?

00:15:00.120 | What do you want to do with them?"

00:15:03.040 | Now why?

00:15:04.040 | What are some of the benefits and usefulness of goals for marriage and family counseling?

00:15:09.720 | Well, when you have good goals and good planning, it's useful for planning what to do and not

00:15:16.720 | to do.

00:15:21.240 | It's useful for planning what to do, not to do and what to look for, we would say.

00:15:38.080 | I remember a woman that came in for counseling.

00:15:40.160 | She had been diagnosed by a psychiatrist with manic depression, sometimes referred to as

00:15:45.240 | bipolar disorder, and she wanted to know from me whether or not she should be on medication

00:15:53.600 | for her problem.

00:15:55.240 | Well, I told her, "Listen, I'm not a physician, but there are two things I do know.

00:16:04.440 | The Bible teaches us that some depression can be caused by organic disorders.

00:16:16.240 | There are actually legitimate illnesses that can cause depression-like symptoms.

00:16:23.400 | So you need to be checked out physiologically to make sure that you don't have a legitimate

00:16:28.900 | organic disorder.

00:16:30.940 | In some cases, if you have a tumor and the tumor is pressing on the wrong portion of

00:16:35.240 | the brain, it can cause depression-like symptoms.

00:16:38.680 | That's a tumor.

00:16:39.680 | That's a legitimate organic problem.

00:16:46.500 | But I also know, the Bible tells us, that some depression can be caused by wrong or

00:16:53.760 | inaccurate thinking or living along with our emotional reactions to that thinking or living,

00:17:01.040 | which causes us to be depressed.

00:17:03.920 | Now that, at that particular point, ceases to be a physiological problem and now becomes

00:17:08.760 | a spiritual problem, and that is something that I can help you with.

00:17:13.160 | Even if it is an organic problem, I can help you with the spiritual dimension of dealing

00:17:16.880 | with it.

00:17:17.880 | If you do have a tumor, we can talk about how does the Word of God talk about dealing

00:17:22.740 | with physical illnesses, but if it's not a physiological problem, then the issue becomes

00:17:29.200 | what is the root of this, what in your thinking and in your desiring and in your cravings

00:17:36.480 | in life brought about this particular depression.

00:17:39.880 | I can help you look at the latter and compare these with what God says you can do and what

00:17:44.600 | He expects from you.

00:17:46.000 | I can help you to do that.

00:17:49.880 | So if you have certain goals in counseling, you know what to do and what not to do, and

00:17:54.920 | you know what to look for in people's lives.

00:18:00.560 | Secondly, these goals also are useful for evaluating progress.

00:18:10.820 | Are we moving along?

00:18:13.560 | That's important for the counselee to have a sense of moving somewhere.

00:18:17.900 | Are we going somewhere in the counseling?

00:18:22.040 | If your counselee doesn't have a sense that you're moving in a direction, they'll lose

00:18:25.900 | hope.

00:18:26.900 | They'll become discouraged.

00:18:29.900 | Thirdly, they're also useful for a sense of confidence and confidence in the counselee

00:18:34.980 | as he or she is growing.

00:18:42.800 | There's a girl that came for counseling, in this case for depression.

00:18:53.560 | After receiving the counseling, eventually she graduated out from the counseling, went

00:18:59.640 | back into her normal life, started implementing what the Bible had to say about it.

00:19:04.880 | Several months went by and then I got another call from this particular gal and she came

00:19:09.660 | for further help for the same depression.

00:19:18.480 | When she came back, I said to her, "Listen, I'm not going to talk with you about this

00:19:23.360 | depression anymore because you know what to do."

00:19:25.880 | Remember all those notes I had you take during the time that you went through counseling?

00:19:30.320 | She said, "Yeah."

00:19:31.320 | "Do you still have those notes?"

00:19:32.320 | "Yes, I do."

00:19:33.320 | "Where are they?"

00:19:34.320 | "Well, they're in a box.

00:19:35.320 | I put them away."

00:19:36.320 | "Why?"

00:19:37.320 | "Because you now, and you saw relief, you saw help that the Word of God had for you,

00:19:44.480 | you now need to go back to those notes and re-implement until it becomes habituated in

00:19:48.680 | your life the same things that we talked about.

00:19:52.160 | I don't need to counsel you anymore.

00:19:54.800 | You have the capacity and all the information you need to counsel yourself.

00:19:58.960 | You can do this.

00:19:59.960 | You don't have to rely upon me any longer."

00:20:03.080 | So if you have good goals in counseling, that'll help to build some confidence and confidence

00:20:09.460 | in your counselee as they are growing too.

00:20:13.300 | So she was able to look back and say, "Yeah, you know, you're right.

00:20:16.280 | I shouldn't have to come back to you every time I have this experience in my life.

00:20:21.160 | What I should be able to do is open the Word of God and diagnose my own problem.

00:20:28.300 | What am I thinking that's wrong?

00:20:30.520 | And then deal with that.

00:20:32.080 | Repent of it.

00:20:33.520 | And then head in the right direction.

00:20:37.040 | Do what God wants me to do."

00:20:38.240 | Fourth, good goals also are useful for sustaining momentum.

00:20:48.120 | In other words, success breeds success.

00:20:52.480 | Sustaining momentum.

00:20:54.160 | When you and your counselee realize, "Hey, you're making progress.

00:20:58.520 | Things have changed.

00:20:59.660 | They're not the same person that they were when they first came to counseling.

00:21:03.080 | They're better.

00:21:04.160 | They know how to resolve problems better.

00:21:05.780 | They may be...

00:21:06.780 | They're not out of the woods, but you can sure see the edge of the woods."

00:21:10.600 | A lot better now.

00:21:14.200 | It's useful for sustaining momentum in counseling.

00:21:18.620 | Have good goals.

00:21:19.840 | What kind of goals do you have for your counselee?

00:21:26.920 | Number nine, or number five, I should say.

00:21:29.760 | Number five.

00:21:31.280 | They're also useful for keeping you on track as weeks progress and turn into months.

00:21:39.080 | This is so you don't get lost in the details yourself.

00:21:42.280 | That is, sometimes you feel like you're putting out fires on a week-to-week basis.

00:21:48.880 | Like the firemen here in Southern California.

00:21:50.760 | When all those big fires rush through the Angeles National Forest with all that chaparral

00:21:57.280 | and brush that burns up and the smoke, well, weeks after those fires are supposedly put

00:22:02.520 | out, they still have these hot spots that could easily reignite again.

00:22:07.880 | You find yourself running all over the place putting these hot spots out.

00:22:12.640 | Very similar thing can happen in counseling.

00:22:14.640 | One day I described it.

00:22:16.080 | I was sitting down with a group of pastors and we were talking about this various thing.

00:22:19.160 | I said, "Counseling sometimes it's like you're sitting in front of a great big board.

00:22:23.840 | Have you ever seen one of those sound boards with all the knobs on them?"

00:22:26.440 | Only these are the kind of knobs that pop up.

00:22:29.680 | One of them pops up over here and you push it down.

00:22:31.800 | Another one pops up over here and you push that one down.

00:22:33.880 | Another one pops up in the middle and you push that one down.

00:22:36.520 | You feel like all you're doing is just putting out fires on a week-to-week basis in counseling.

00:22:42.820 | That's because you're allowing the counselee and the individual little things that happen

00:22:47.600 | on a week-to-week basis to run your counseling.

00:22:50.040 | You're not allowing your goals to run your counseling.

00:22:54.880 | If you're setting broader goals, it doesn't mean you ignore those fires.

00:23:00.360 | You address them, but you quickly get right back on path to the overall progress you're

00:23:04.820 | trying to make.

00:23:06.560 | That's what you're trying to do.

00:23:08.280 | You're getting back on path, sustaining some kind of progress, especially as the weeks

00:23:15.560 | progress and turn into months of counseling.

00:23:20.160 | You want to get back on path.

00:23:25.120 | Number six, good goals also are very useful for saving time.

00:23:32.800 | If you don't know where you're going in the counseling, you will waste a lot of precious

00:23:37.840 | time.

00:23:39.780 | Your counselee will soon get the idea that we're really not going anywhere and that this

00:23:47.240 | is a futile activity.

00:23:51.960 | He'll come to the conclusion that the author of Ecclesiastes comes to.

00:23:58.480 | Have all havalim, futility of futilities.

00:24:02.480 | It's all futility.

00:24:03.480 | Meaningless, meaningless.

00:24:04.480 | It's all meaningless.

00:24:05.480 | Vanity, vanity.

00:24:06.560 | It's all vanity.

00:24:07.560 | Soap bubbles, soap bubbles.

00:24:09.600 | It's also bubbles.

00:24:10.600 | This is useless.

00:24:14.280 | Absolutely useless.

00:24:15.840 | Have all havalim.

00:24:18.160 | This is meaningless.

00:24:22.920 | Meaningless of meaningless.

00:24:25.960 | So we don't want that to happen.

00:24:29.200 | If you have good goals, it will save you time.

00:24:32.360 | Number seven, it's also useful for securing cooperation and participation.

00:24:38.340 | What I mean by that is that if your counselees understand the overall goals that you have,

00:24:43.880 | then they're more motivated to do their homework and to do it well.

00:24:47.920 | And also, they will not lose hope as quickly if they understand that you have a clear biblical

00:24:55.720 | goal in mind.

00:25:00.680 | It's very easy in their sinful depravity, in their struggle with this particular problem

00:25:07.680 | to lose hope.

00:25:08.680 | And you've got to realize that.

00:25:11.080 | And in order to help them hold on to the hope that you hopefully have yourself so diligently

00:25:19.120 | ministered to them, you've got to constantly remind them of the progress that they're making.

00:25:30.160 | Constantly remind them of the goals that you've set.

00:25:34.200 | Keep their eyes on that goal.

00:25:36.040 | Because the homework you give them, from their perspective, may be difficult, may be hard.

00:25:42.800 | They may want to give up with that kind of homework, but you can't let them do that.

00:25:51.720 | Because you're not giving them that homework just to keep them busy.

00:26:00.040 | That's not your purpose.

00:26:02.200 | You're giving them that homework in order to encourage change on a daily basis in their

00:26:09.840 | life.

00:26:11.080 | That's why you're giving them that homework.

00:26:15.140 | Courage change.

00:26:18.280 | To show them that counseling is not the magic hour of the week.

00:26:22.080 | There are some people who think that.

00:26:24.200 | I'm coming to counseling.

00:26:25.240 | It's the magic hour.

00:26:26.240 | That's where all of a sudden God really works and really changes me.

00:26:29.040 | No, counseling is not the magic hour of the week.

00:26:31.540 | Counseling is where I get directions on how to deal with my problems the rest of the week.

00:26:36.000 | The magic hour is every other hour of the week.

00:26:39.600 | The magic hour is where I take what I've learned in counseling and I put it into practice.

00:26:45.680 | Counseling is not the magic hour of the week.

00:26:55.720 | It's funny how many counselees think that.

00:26:58.440 | Because you have some training in counseling, I think they believe that God or maybe seminary

00:27:05.620 | equipped you with a bag of spiritual whiffle dust.

00:27:10.780 | If they come into counseling with all these problems, all you have to do is reach down

00:27:13.500 | into your bag of spiritual whiffle dust, grab a whole handful, and throw it on them.

00:27:18.900 | All their problems go away.

00:27:22.700 | That's not the way that counseling works at all.

00:27:25.200 | They have to work at it.

00:27:28.060 | They have to labor diligently in order for those problems to go away.

00:27:34.080 | They have to change their thinking and their behavior in order for their problems to go

00:27:39.020 | away.

00:27:43.840 | Well then, what are some of the characteristics of good goals then?

00:27:50.780 | If we're going to set good goals, then they've got to share some really solid characteristics,

00:28:00.780 | especially if they're going to be helpful and meaningful goals and they're not just

00:28:04.100 | going to be arbitrary ones or unrealistic or unreasonable goals.

00:28:09.620 | Wait until you have children and your children are going through school and your children

00:28:14.980 | have certain teachers and the children come home and they're all frustrated over the fact

00:28:18.940 | that they believe their teacher has given them an assignment that is beyond their ability.

00:28:23.960 | Here the teacher has a goal for them, but that particular goal is way beyond their ability

00:28:30.020 | to be able to handle, or at least they think so.

00:28:35.440 | Then they don't want to do the assignment.

00:28:38.180 | So we don't want to set goals that are unrealistic.

00:28:41.980 | We want to set goals that are very reasonable.

00:28:46.060 | What are some of the characteristics of these good goals?

00:28:48.180 | Well, number one, they have to be shared by the counseling and the counselor.

00:28:51.820 | They have to be shared.

00:28:55.500 | It's not enough for you to understand the goals and for your counseling not to.

00:28:59.500 | In fact, I think it's very important they understand them and you're able to explain

00:29:06.140 | them to them.

00:29:10.060 | Let me make a couple of comments about this that I think is really key because most people

00:29:13.580 | will come to counseling to get relief.

00:29:22.180 | That's their goal.

00:29:25.020 | Get me out of my problem.

00:29:28.740 | Now there's a Christian way that people say that and that is they'll say to you, why have

00:29:38.180 | you come to counseling?

00:29:40.220 | They'll say, "I've come to receive victory over my sin."

00:29:46.660 | Now as a pastor, my heart resonates with that.

00:29:49.980 | Okay, that's good.

00:29:52.100 | You want to have victory over sin, but what they mean by that and what you're thinking

00:29:56.580 | about may be two different things.

00:29:59.460 | When they say I've come to have victory over my sins, what they mean by that is I want

00:30:03.260 | complete liberation from my sin.

00:30:05.700 | I want complete freedom from my sin.

00:30:08.700 | I want to be completely relieved from this problem so that it's no longer a temptation

00:30:14.060 | ever anymore in my life.

00:30:18.620 | That may not be God's will.

00:30:23.340 | There's a wonderful example of that in 2 Corinthians 12 with the Apostle Paul and his thorn in

00:30:27.540 | the flesh.

00:30:29.540 | Paul prayed not once, but three times to have that thorn in the flesh removed.

00:30:33.460 | What is it that God said?

00:30:34.980 | My grace is sufficient for you.

00:30:37.300 | Why does God allow this thing to persist in Paul's life even though it was a huge irritant

00:30:43.940 | and Paul saw it as a big obstacle to his ministry?

00:30:47.860 | The answer was because God was using that particular thorn in the flesh to keep Paul

00:30:55.420 | humble.

00:31:00.900 | Sometimes you're going to have young men that will come in and they'll have terrible problems

00:31:04.140 | with their sexual desires, and maybe things like masturbation.

00:31:10.020 | That'll be a difficulty for them.

00:31:13.780 | And they'll come to you and they'll honestly say to you, I want victory over this and what

00:31:17.300 | they mean by this is I don't want to be tempted by this anymore.

00:31:20.540 | Well, you could help them with that.

00:31:23.660 | You could help them have victory.

00:31:24.740 | You could just sit them down to the local hospital and the hospital can turn them into

00:31:28.620 | a eunuch and they won't have any troubles with that anymore.

00:31:30.980 | There's not going to be any more temptation left.

00:31:35.780 | That'll be it.

00:31:36.780 | That'll be the whole thing.

00:31:39.660 | But is that what they really want?

00:31:41.820 | Maybe it is this weakness that's a part of their flesh that God is using to keep them

00:31:48.180 | trusting Him.

00:31:50.060 | It helps them to understand how weak they are.

00:31:53.980 | It keeps their hands clenched tightly in His hand.

00:31:59.300 | They can't see their way out of this by themselves.

00:32:02.140 | They have to trust the Lord in this every day.

00:32:06.500 | So every day this becomes a temptation that they have to fight.

00:32:11.500 | And in the process of fighting that as Romans chapter 5 and verse 3 says, it's that fight

00:32:16.900 | that produces godly character.

00:32:21.340 | So why would you want to remove something that is actually producing godly character

00:32:27.820 | in your life?

00:32:29.340 | Why would you want to do that?

00:32:33.420 | That's not good.

00:32:35.140 | If God's using that in a positive way to show you your weakness and ultimate helplessness

00:32:41.820 | in front of this particular sin, why would you want it removed?

00:32:45.020 | Now the issue is, you don't want to succumb to it, that's true.

00:32:48.540 | I want to learn how to deal with it.

00:32:51.780 | But the temptation, you may not have victory over where it never tempts you ever again.

00:32:57.160 | This may be something that you struggle with for the rest of your life.

00:33:01.540 | Same thing is true if you end up counseling someone who is a genuine Christian but still

00:33:07.300 | has homosexual or lesbian tendencies.

00:33:11.820 | This is something that they may not be able to totally rid themselves of.

00:33:20.400 | But it is that weakness that they sense in the flesh that keeps them dependent upon Christ.

00:33:27.620 | So your goal is not victory.

00:33:30.260 | It's not your goal.

00:33:34.400 | Your goal is faithfulness.

00:33:57.540 | The question is, how do you deal with a young man who has homosexual tendencies but yet

00:34:10.820 | nevertheless he professes to be a Christian, and as far as you know, he was a Christian.

00:34:16.380 | He had a good testimony for Christ, but he still had these weaknesses and tendencies

00:34:21.460 | in his life.

00:34:23.020 | And then what's your question about him?

00:34:45.220 | He didn't want to be alone and single the rest of his life, and yet at the same time

00:34:48.540 | he couldn't embrace marrying a woman.

00:34:50.580 | Alright, now we're assuming this guy is a genuine believer at this particular point.

00:34:55.660 | If he is, then there's going to be a natural responsiveness in his heart to the Word of

00:34:59.340 | God.

00:35:00.340 | Then a person like this has got to understand God's beautiful design in gender complementarianism.

00:35:09.500 | And you've got to help him to see that as a counselor.

00:35:13.060 | Because why is it that God created Adam uniquely male and Eve uniquely female?

00:35:18.780 | Because it says Adam was alone, alright?

00:35:24.580 | Genesis 2.18.

00:35:25.580 | "It was not good for Adam to be alone.

00:35:27.900 | I will make hell for suitable him."

00:35:29.660 | The only way that he was going to ultimately have satisfaction, not be alone, is to understand

00:35:40.940 | the beauty of the heterosexual relationship that God intended from the very beginning.

00:35:48.740 | And you need to paint a beautiful picture of that, alright?

00:35:53.580 | In fact, you know, in counseling homosexuals, sometimes that's the most effective counsel.

00:35:58.840 | It's not spending all your time describing all the different Bible passages that condemn

00:36:02.740 | homosexuality.

00:36:03.740 | Usually, people like that understand that the Bible condemns it.

00:36:07.340 | They're convicted in their own heart.

00:36:09.380 | They have a conviction that's deep in their conscience.

00:36:13.840 | But if you paint a beautiful picture of what God intended for the male-female relationship

00:36:18.060 | from the very beginning, they begin to see how their life and their desires are so out

00:36:22.100 | of whack with God's original plan.

00:36:24.940 | And God's plan is beautiful.

00:36:27.500 | That instills within them a real desire to get in line with God's plan, alright?

00:36:33.660 | Now, is it possible that he could get married to a wonderful Christian young lady and then

00:36:39.380 | later on still have those homosexual tendencies?

00:36:42.740 | Absolutely.

00:36:44.700 | Those things can still come back on him, which only should serve to remind him of his own

00:36:51.260 | weakness in his flesh and the fact that he has to absolutely 100% rely upon the grace

00:36:57.780 | of God every single day in his life.

00:37:02.860 | He needs to preach the gospel of grace to himself every single day.

00:37:09.180 | And that's the only way that he's going to, in a sense, keep his hands clenched and tightly

00:37:18.040 | gripping the hands of Christ, totally trusting him.

00:37:25.620 | That has to happen.

00:37:29.660 | Alright, well, secondly, the characteristics of a good godly goal is to reflect biblical

00:37:38.140 | values and perspectives.

00:37:40.660 | They have to reflect biblical values and perspectives.

00:37:49.940 | Sometimes you'll get counselees come in to you and they'll say to you, "Pastor, all I

00:37:54.340 | want, I just want to feel good real fast."

00:37:56.380 | Alright, they're just really honest with you.

00:38:00.980 | Well, you can help them do that.

00:38:02.820 | You can tell them, "Just go out and buy several six-packs and find a couple of girls and go

00:38:07.580 | to a resort for a weekend.

00:38:08.900 | You'll feel real good."

00:38:09.900 | Alright, but that's not going to be any more godly.

00:38:14.280 | So they've got the wrong goals.

00:38:18.100 | That's not the right kind of goal.

00:38:20.040 | Their goal is not, "I want to feel good real fast."

00:38:23.020 | Their goal should be, "I want to understand how to be God's kind of man in the midst of

00:38:26.980 | this temptation."

00:38:28.300 | That should their goal be.

00:38:29.920 | And then as they do that, eventually, as time goes along, they will feel better.

00:38:34.980 | But their goal can't be just simply to feel better any more than their goal can be to

00:38:39.900 | just have victory over homosexuality.

00:38:43.100 | No.

00:38:45.100 | As they practice biblical things and those biblical thoughts and desires and attitudes

00:38:51.900 | become more and more prevalent in their life, then the temptation will weaken as time goes

00:38:56.700 | on.

00:38:58.140 | But it still may be a temptation that God uses to keep them trusting in Him.

00:39:07.700 | They understand their weakness.

00:39:12.980 | So they must reflect biblical values and priorities.

00:39:16.360 | Their goal for coming into counseling should be, "I want to be God's kind of woman.

00:39:19.780 | I want to be God's kind of man.

00:39:22.220 | That's my goal.

00:39:23.220 | I want to glorify God.

00:39:24.220 | I want to become more Christ-like," whatever that means.

00:39:27.140 | So if they come in with the wrong agenda or the wrong goal, you're responsible for correcting

00:39:32.940 | that agenda or that goal.

00:39:36.700 | Let me give you a good illustration of this.

00:39:40.460 | Back several years ago, I had a young man who he and his wife had just started coming

00:39:47.060 | to our church.

00:39:50.020 | They had a little baby.

00:39:51.020 | The baby probably was about six months old.

00:39:56.020 | He showed up in my office one day and said, "I need help."

00:40:00.860 | I said, "Sure.

00:40:01.860 | Come on in.

00:40:02.860 | Have a seat."

00:40:05.740 | We had prayer and I said, "What's the problem?

00:40:07.820 | What's going on?"

00:40:09.580 | And he said, "I need for you to help me get my wife back."

00:40:12.740 | I said, "Oh, really?

00:40:15.660 | What happened?"

00:40:16.660 | "Well, she left.

00:40:18.500 | She took the baby, moved out.

00:40:20.660 | I didn't even know it had happened.

00:40:23.580 | Took off somewhere.

00:40:24.580 | I don't even know where she's at and I need you to help me get my wife back."

00:40:33.420 | And I knew at that particular point that that guy wanted genuine help that was certainly

00:40:37.580 | sincere in his heart, but I also knew something else really clearly, and that is that he came

00:40:43.180 | to me with all the wrong agenda.

00:40:47.740 | And I said to him, "I don't think I can help you."

00:40:51.580 | And he was kind of surprised.

00:40:52.980 | "I thought you guys did counseling at this church."

00:40:55.460 | I said, "We do.

00:40:57.900 | But you told me you can't help me."

00:40:59.300 | I said, "Right.

00:41:01.300 | I don't know where your wife is and even if I did, I couldn't force her to come back.

00:41:07.060 | So if your goal in coming to see me is to get your wife back, it's the wrong goal."

00:41:13.980 | That hit him like a ton of bricks.

00:41:18.700 | "Well, then why should I come and see you?"

00:41:27.260 | "I'm glad you asked that question.

00:41:32.460 | You should be coming in and sitting down and saying to me, 'Pastor, help me to be God's

00:41:37.920 | kind of man, God's kind of husband, God's kind of father, whether my wife comes back

00:41:43.860 | or not.'"

00:41:44.860 | "Okay.

00:41:52.300 | That's what I want to do," he said to me.

00:41:54.900 | I said, "Good.

00:41:55.900 | Now I can help you."

00:41:56.900 | All right.

00:41:58.500 | So we dove right into it, that first counseling session.

00:42:01.660 | About three weeks go by.

00:42:02.660 | I've had three or four appointments with him by this time.

00:42:05.500 | He shows up in counseling.

00:42:06.700 | He says, "Guess what happened?"

00:42:07.980 | I said, "I have no clue."

00:42:10.340 | "My wife showed up at the apartment."

00:42:12.740 | "Really?"

00:42:13.740 | "With the baby."

00:42:14.740 | "Why'd she show up?"

00:42:16.220 | "Well, she came back to get some stuff that she had left behind.

00:42:19.340 | She needed it."

00:42:20.340 | "I haven't seen her for about three weeks."

00:42:21.940 | "Well, what happened?"

00:42:25.580 | "Well," he said, "I was actually sitting at the dining room table and I was doing my

00:42:29.180 | homework that you had given me to do and I had my Bible open, was studying some things.

00:42:33.300 | And she walked in and she saw the apartment and everything was straight and everything

00:42:36.580 | was neat and everything was in order and I was cooking supper and it smelled really good

00:42:41.260 | in there and she looked around and she didn't say anything to me except, 'Wow, I should

00:42:49.820 | have left a long time ago.'"

00:42:58.780 | And he had, by this time, enough sense to be able to turn around and say to his wife,

00:43:05.060 | "I didn't do this to get you to come back.

00:43:11.020 | I did this because I realized this is what I should have been doing all along.

00:43:17.100 | I did this because that's what's honoring to God."

00:43:23.860 | And he told me her mouth dropped open.

00:43:28.540 | You could tell what she was thinking, "Okay, who are you and what did you do with my husband?"

00:43:37.420 | She was so impressed by that, to make a long story short, she moved back in.

00:43:43.380 | She started coming to church with her husband again.

00:43:46.240 | Then she started coming to counseling sessions with her husband.

00:43:49.380 | She ended up coming to Christ through the whole process.

00:43:55.580 | But I'll tell you, I think I would have lost him and the opportunity to counsel both of

00:44:01.060 | them if I would have bought his agenda right at the beginning.

00:44:05.780 | He came in and the first thing he says to me is, "I want you to help me to get my wife

00:44:10.740 | back."

00:44:12.400 | If I would have said, "Okay, sit down, let's talk about that," I would have lost that whole

00:44:15.860 | thing right there.

00:44:19.500 | The very fact that I challenged his agenda and got him focused on being a godly man,

00:44:25.580 | a godly husband, and a godly father immediately turned the whole counseling case in the right

00:44:31.380 | direction.

00:44:32.380 | We set the goal.

00:44:33.380 | It had to reflect the biblical value and perspective if it was going to do anything that was worthwhile.

00:44:40.580 | It had to do that.

00:44:45.260 | Thirdly, if this goal is going to be a good goal, then it has to be two-factored in nature.

00:45:00.860 | Permanent change in the Christian life is always two-factored.

00:45:06.140 | Ephesians 4, Colossians 3 talks about putting off, putting on the whole radical change process

00:45:15.020 | that needs to take place there.

00:45:18.380 | You haven't really changed if you've stopped your sin.

00:45:22.100 | But if you've stopped your sin and you have then replaced it with godly actions, attitudes,

00:45:30.860 | desires, then you've changed.

00:45:34.460 | And that really is the process of metanoeo, that's the Greek term for repentance, to change

00:45:41.380 | one's mind from sin to righteousness.

00:45:47.980 | There's the two-fold effect, from sin to righteousness.

00:45:56.340 | That's why we say that permanent change in the Christian life is always two-factored.

00:46:01.340 | What does metanoeo mean?

00:46:02.920 | It's a change of mind.

00:46:03.920 | Meta is change.

00:46:06.500 | Reduce is mind, so to change one's mind.

00:46:11.140 | But within the context of the way in which the word is always used in the New Testament,

00:46:15.900 | it's a word that means a change of mind that is so complete that it leads to a change of

00:46:20.380 | life.

00:46:21.720 | It's not just merely an intellectual change of mind.

00:46:26.260 | It's a change of mind that is so complete that it leads to a change of life.

00:46:31.020 | That's the kind of repentance we're talking about.

00:46:36.940 | So this person has got to be willing to put off and put on.

00:46:40.660 | This person has got to be willing to see the importance of repentance.

00:46:44.260 | If there's going to be real change in their life, all of that has got to be true.

00:46:48.740 | All right, let's pick up and talk about the characteristics of good goals.

00:46:54.880 | We've talked about they have to be shared by the counseling and counselor.

00:46:58.100 | They have to reflect biblical values and perspectives.

00:47:01.340 | They have to be two-factored.

00:47:03.460 | Not only must they put off the old way of life, they've got to also put on the new way

00:47:07.260 | of life.

00:47:08.260 | Well, then number four, they also need to be realistic and specific.

00:47:13.260 | Good goals need to be very realistic and they need to be specific.

00:47:24.700 | For example, when you're talking to counselees, you don't want to say to a counselee, "Okay,

00:47:29.580 | now George, you need to go home and love your wife more."

00:47:33.740 | He doesn't know what that means.

00:47:35.060 | George will have a tendency to think, "Okay, I need to go home and emote more good feelings

00:47:41.500 | towards my wife."

00:47:42.500 | "All right, now I love you more."

00:47:47.020 | "No, you've got to be specific about this.

00:47:52.580 | George, I want you to go home this week and I want you to do some things that will communicate

00:47:57.580 | to your wife that you really love her.

00:47:59.460 | What do you suppose those would be?"

00:48:01.380 | "Well," he says, "I guess I could fix some things around the house.

00:48:06.420 | She's wanted me to do that for a long time."

00:48:08.100 | "Hey, that's good, George.

00:48:09.460 | Let's fix some things around the house."

00:48:11.060 | "I guess I could wash dishes after supper at night."

00:48:15.180 | "Oh, yeah, that's good, George.

00:48:16.460 | That's really helpful."

00:48:17.460 | "I think I could help her out with the kids and let her run off and go shopping a little

00:48:22.780 | bit."

00:48:23.780 | "Yeah, that's good, George.

00:48:24.780 | I like that."

00:48:25.780 | Now you're being very, very specific.

00:48:27.700 | You're getting George to be specific.

00:48:30.520 | The more concrete and specific you are, the more you're going to see change in your counselee.

00:48:39.740 | The more concrete and specific you are, the more you're going to see change.

00:48:44.740 | George, you need to stop interrupting your wife when she's talking and to look at her

00:48:55.380 | when she's speaking until she's finished.

00:49:00.540 | So we're saying here that change really takes place in the specific and concrete, not in

00:49:04.980 | the abstract and vague.

00:49:07.560 | You have got to get out of Vaguesville, and then you can get your counselees out of Vaguesville.

00:49:16.600 | Or the other name for Vaguesville is Fuzzyland.

00:49:20.200 | You've got to get out of Fuzzyland, and then you get your counselees out of Fuzzyland.

00:49:26.120 | Be concrete.

00:49:27.120 | Be specific.

00:49:28.480 | Let them know what you're talking about in terms of change.

00:49:33.560 | That's very realistic.

00:49:34.560 | They understand that.

00:49:35.560 | "George, this coming week, I want you to wash the dishes for your wife three times."

00:49:40.720 | Okay, and then the next week, you increase it to four, and the next week, five times.

00:49:48.700 | She's a very busy woman, George.

00:49:52.000 | She's got a lot on her plate, and you can help her out.

00:49:55.480 | All right, number five.

00:49:59.880 | These good goals also should reflect the particular deficiencies and needs of the persons that

00:50:04.880 | are involved.

00:50:07.520 | For example, there are some people that just simply need to understand the gospel.

00:50:14.360 | One of the worst things you can do is just assume that a person is a Christian.

00:50:22.200 | They may think they're a Christian, but you begin to probe what they mean by that.

00:50:26.480 | You find out that their trust is not in Christ alone.

00:50:29.280 | They're trusting in some kind of behavior, some kind of penance that they do.

00:50:34.680 | They're trusting in something else, their church attendance, or their tithing.

00:50:42.560 | Something else that's not godly.

00:50:46.280 | So you need to help them to see the resources that they have

00:50:56.000 | in Christ alone and to trust him alone.

00:51:01.240 | Also, help your counselees use the resources that God provides, planning for some biblical

00:51:11.960 | self-talk.

00:51:12.960 | That's not a bad thing.

00:51:17.320 | You're not mentally ill if you talk to yourself.

00:51:21.120 | You only become mentally ill if you answer yourself.

00:51:26.560 | But you're not mentally ill if you talk to yourself.

00:51:29.080 | And there's a lot of good biblical self-talk that you can use with people.

00:51:36.460 | Help your counselees talk to themselves about what is right, what they need to think that's

00:51:44.040 | right, what they need to desire that's right, what they need to do that's right.

00:51:51.680 | "Oh, John, you did that very poorly.

00:51:56.920 | You need to do this and then do it."

00:52:01.560 | There's nothing wrong with that.

00:52:03.600 | Some biblical self-talk.

00:52:06.560 | When you fail, you say, "Wow, that was stupid.

00:52:09.120 | That was sinful.

00:52:11.240 | That's a wrong thing for me to do."

00:52:15.400 | Get them to talk to themselves and use biblical self-talk.

00:52:24.240 | Help your counselees recognize situations of temptation when there's wrong or unwise

00:52:30.920 | thinking and behaving.

00:52:37.140 | What are the situations that are wrapped around it?

00:52:38.840 | And if you help them to identify that, oftentimes you can help them also to identify when they

00:52:44.720 | are actually leading up to a failure.

00:52:49.600 | They can see the circumstances before it actually happens, are already set in motion for them

00:52:55.960 | to fail.

00:52:57.520 | They can identify it and cut it short.

00:53:02.400 | Help your counselee learn how to read and apply the Word of God on their own in a situation.

00:53:07.240 | Don't always spoon-feed a counselee.

00:53:09.600 | If you have a more mature counselee who's further along in their Christian walk, then

00:53:16.680 | take them to a passage of Scripture and begin to discuss it.

00:53:19.360 | But don't feed them all the answers.

00:53:22.040 | Give them questions.

00:53:23.280 | Make them take a look at the Scripture and then look at their own life and help them

00:53:26.720 | to see how their life has to change in relationship with the Scripture.

00:53:34.920 | There needs to be increasing of a counselee's awareness of biblical guidelines and priorities

00:53:41.920 | and principles like the nature of love, the importance of forgiveness, how to deal with

00:53:49.000 | a guilty conscience, and how to get a conscience cleansed.

00:53:56.800 | Also have a counselee have a sense of what God wants each to change from and to.

00:54:02.840 | Help them to understand that or help them to recognize and accept responsibility for

00:54:07.080 | his or her unbiblical thinking and behavior and get them to stop blame-shifting on their

00:54:13.800 | children or on their spouse or on their parents or whatever that they're responsible for their

00:54:20.760 | own attitudes and actions and even reactions to problems.

00:54:26.700 | Help them to procure genuine forgiveness from each person that they have sinned against

00:54:32.400 | or offended.

00:54:35.920 | Help them secure commitment from each person making Christ and His purposes their standard

00:54:45.920 | for what they think and say and do.

00:54:48.280 | Are you willing to be the wife, mother, woman that God wants you to be?

00:54:52.640 | Are you willing to be that way?

00:54:57.040 | Help each of them to commit to Christ-centered change regardless of the other person's behavior

00:55:03.760 | and help each of your counselees plan and implement personalized strategies.

00:55:09.840 | For example, a wife may say to you, "You don't understand my husband.

00:55:13.080 | When he gets home he's always irritated.

00:55:15.380 | He brings all the frustrations of the office home with him."

00:55:19.680 | Well then you can help her plan for that particular time.

00:55:25.040 | To allow her husband to in a sense have some unwind time, to let him decompress so to speak

00:55:31.280 | from all the pressures of the day before she hits him up with all the things that she wants

00:55:35.360 | him to do.

00:55:40.080 | So no deep discussions or deep questioning of why he does this or that when he first

00:55:47.360 | comes home from work.

00:55:49.100 | Give him a little bit of space.

00:55:50.900 | Allow him to adjust to the home environment and get away from the pressures of what he's

00:55:55.600 | had to experience during that day in the office.

00:56:00.400 | Help your counselee to practice new patterns long enough for them to become comfortable

00:56:03.720 | with them and don't let up too soon because it's easy to want to move on to the next agenda

00:56:08.760 | item and it gives you a false sense of progress.

00:56:13.000 | You don't want that.

00:56:14.000 | You want the false sense of progress by moving from one agenda item to the other.

00:56:17.980 | Make sure your counselee has really changed and the changes are complete there.

00:56:26.800 | And then help family members support each other in their changing and encouraging one

00:56:33.040 | another.

00:56:35.880 | If you're working with an entire family, that can be very, very critical.

00:56:40.640 | Help them to be supportive with one another.

00:56:45.480 | Now, so these good goals should reflect the particular deficiencies and needs of the person

00:56:51.960 | that's involved.

00:56:52.960 | What are they?

00:56:53.960 | Then in addition to this, these goals need to be focused upon heart change as well.

00:57:00.500 | Heart change.

00:57:03.440 | It's not enough for them to just merely change their behavior or their words or their technique

00:57:10.040 | of communication.

00:57:11.800 | All of that is external changes.

00:57:14.240 | But if their heart is not in it, it'll never be permanent change in that home.

00:57:20.200 | They've got to take a look at their heart, the desires, intentions, expectations, motivations

00:57:25.520 | that tend to rule what they say, tend to dominate their attitudes and behaviors towards one

00:57:31.880 | another.

00:57:34.760 | A wife who is bitter at her husband can change her communication technique towards him so

00:57:40.740 | that she doesn't sound as bitter anymore, but if her heart is still bitter, it's going

00:57:45.280 | to come out in some other way.

00:57:48.320 | And eventually she'll go right back into the pattern of communicating in a bitter, resentful

00:57:52.280 | way towards him.

00:57:54.800 | So her heart must change.

00:57:56.460 | She's got to be able to see this.

00:57:58.160 | What is it that she is idolizing in her heart that's more important than God?

00:58:02.220 | What has become her functional God in her heart?

00:58:05.520 | I want my husband to treat me well.

00:58:09.480 | I want my husband to get out of the job that he's in and he's not getting out of that job.

00:58:16.200 | I want him to get a better job where he can make more money for the family.

00:58:22.680 | And so she's bitter and resentful over that fact.

00:58:25.800 | I want him to do what I think should be done here.

00:58:33.240 | Now she could change.

00:58:34.440 | You can work on her communication skills with her husband so that she's not communicating

00:58:39.240 | bitterness.

00:58:40.680 | But if her heart hasn't changed, she's still going to go along and be bitter and it's going

00:58:45.240 | to come out in other ways.

00:58:48.480 | So her heart's got to change.

00:58:52.080 | Furthermore, good goals should be properly motivated.

00:59:02.680 | And they have to be related to the wide scope of biblical motives for change.

00:59:08.040 | Without motives being touched in our goal statements in teaching, we could really become

00:59:13.480 | very moralistic in our counseling rather than biblical in our counseling.

00:59:20.800 | Our purpose is to not set down a whole new law of right and wrongs that our New Testament

00:59:31.280 | laws.

00:59:32.280 | That's purpose, that's moralism, but it's certainly not biblical Christianity.

00:59:41.720 | So we have to speak to motives, especially heart motives.

00:59:48.560 | Now that's going to involve a theological motive, which is the primary overall motive.

00:59:57.400 | Why should they be in counseling?

01:00:00.560 | Not to get their wife back, not to get their husband to treat them better, not to get the

01:00:06.520 | children to obey.

01:00:09.120 | Why should they be in counseling?

01:00:11.560 | Ultimately so that they can be more Christ-like and they can bring more glory to God.

01:00:16.520 | That's the ultimate theological motive.

01:00:19.520 | That rules everything.

01:00:20.520 | I don't care what counseling circumstance it is, what marriage circumstance it is, it

01:00:25.880 | always has got to be that their theological motive is to please God and to be more Christ-like.

01:00:32.900 | How can I be God's kind of man, God's kind of woman, God's kind of husband, God's kind

01:00:38.220 | of wife, God's kind of father, God's kind of mother, God's kind of child?

01:00:43.060 | How can I be that way?

01:00:45.640 | How can I set as my goal His glory no matter what happens in my family, no matter how my

01:00:50.720 | wife responds to me, or my husband responds to me, or my children respond to me, or my

01:00:55.600 | parents respond to me, or my siblings respond to me, how can I be a more godly person as

01:01:01.440 | a result of the circumstances that I'm going through?

01:01:03.960 | That's the critical thing.

01:01:11.760 | The second one is an interpersonal motive, and that is, if you will, this kind of just

01:01:21.800 | runs right down through Matthew 22, verses 37 through 39.

01:01:31.280 | The Pharisees confront Jesus and say, "What is the greatest commandment?"

01:01:34.200 | And Jesus says to them, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength,

01:01:39.080 | and love your neighbor as yourself.

01:01:42.920 | Upon these two commands the whole law hangs."

01:01:47.240 | On those two pegs, loving God and loving others, everything else in life hangs.

01:01:55.120 | Every counseling problem, every family problem, goes back to how much that person loves God

01:02:02.600 | and how much that person loves other people, especially in their family.

01:02:09.480 | Loving your neighbor as yourself, and of course, the Bible is not saying there that we need

01:02:13.040 | to love ourselves more, and nowhere in the Bible does it ever say that.

01:02:18.080 | We don't need to love ourselves more.

01:02:19.960 | The Bible assumes all the time, and is literally replete with commands, that we love ourselves

01:02:25.340 | too much.

01:02:28.000 | And in fact, that's the assumption that Jesus makes here.

01:02:30.440 | We need to love God and love others with the same degree of passion that we already love

01:02:34.840 | ourselves.

01:02:39.300 | We need to love God and love others with the same degree of passion that we already love

01:02:43.200 | ourselves.

01:02:47.760 | Now that alone separates us from 95% of all the psychologies that are out there.

01:02:54.440 | Furthermore, there needs to be an ethical motive.

01:02:59.080 | Matthew chapter 6 and verse 33, "Seek first my kingdom and my righteousness, and all these

01:03:08.320 | other things will be added unto you.

01:03:12.760 | Be ye holy even as I am holy."

01:03:21.640 | Be ye holy even as I am holy.

01:03:24.560 | So the desire here is to be more holy, more righteous before God in our walk with him.

01:03:33.440 | Fourth, there has to be ultimately an existential motive.

01:03:39.520 | That is, we want to promote biblical relationships.

01:03:43.300 | We want to resolve specific problems in life, in their life.

01:03:55.120 | But our goal is not primarily to get rid of their problems.

01:03:59.340 | That's not our goal.

01:04:00.680 | Our goal primarily is to teach them to be God's kind of people in the midst of their

01:04:04.360 | problems.

01:04:05.540 | That's our goal.

01:04:06.540 | That's our purpose.

01:04:10.220 | You may or may not be able to get rid of their problems.

01:04:12.780 | I was pretty successful to get rid of my counselee's problems, and then they came back to me later

01:04:18.180 | and God had thrown problems 10 times worse into their lives.

01:04:22.780 | Ah!

01:04:23.780 | So I began to realize, listen, I may actually, trying to get them out of their problems,

01:04:31.020 | may be working against God here.

01:04:33.100 | Those problems are there for a purpose.

01:04:35.580 | So that's not my goal.

01:04:36.740 | My goal is to help them to be a godly man or woman in the midst of those problems.

01:04:43.060 | Now that I can help them do.

01:04:51.620 | But we don't take our eye off the fact that we want to help them be, solve problems.

01:05:07.140 | I mean we can't forget John 8, 32 where it talks about the truth will set you free.

01:05:12.820 | In Philippians 4, 7, the peace of God will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.

01:05:18.760 | So God wants us to be at peace.

01:05:21.260 | He wants truth to set us free.

01:05:24.940 | He's not opposed to problems like that or being set free from problems.

01:05:30.940 | It just may not be his immediate will for that to happen.

01:05:39.700 | So these good goals have to be properly motivated.

01:05:43.220 | Those are all the characteristics.

01:05:44.220 | There are at least seven of them that are characteristics of good goals for marriage

01:05:48.760 | and family counseling.

01:05:51.880 | Now if we can, we want to summarize these.

01:05:55.940 | There's a summary here of the basic and/or general aims or goals of marriage and family

01:06:01.720 | counseling.

01:06:03.020 | The first summary is we want to make sure these goals for marriage and family counseling

01:06:12.940 | will secure heart commitment from all family members to Christ and to his word as the standard

01:06:21.580 | for all that is said and done.

01:06:24.260 | That's what we want to do.

01:06:27.740 | We want to secure that kind of commitment for all that is said and done.

01:06:31.860 | Now what is that going to result in?

01:06:35.420 | All of that will manifest itself in a desire and a willingness to put off all that is

01:06:42.480 | unbiblical and thus dishonoring to God and destructive to the marriage and family relationships.

01:06:47.980 | That goal will do that.

01:06:50.100 | It will manifest itself in a desire and a willingness to put off all that is unbiblical

01:06:56.140 | and dishonoring to God and that which is destructive to the marriage and family relationship.

01:07:02.260 | Secondly, it will also produce a desire and a willingness to put on all that is biblical

01:07:08.800 | and thus pleasing to God and good for marriage and family relationships.

01:07:13.480 | That's where we say there's that "put off, put on" thing.

01:07:16.940 | Permanent change in Christian life is always two-factored.

01:07:18.700 | You've got to get rid of the old and replace it with the new.

01:07:23.980 | Furthermore, we have to foster and establish true companionship, the essence of marriage

01:07:30.100 | between family members.

01:07:33.020 | What is a true companionship there?

01:07:35.660 | These goals will also facilitate, on every level, the resolution of the problem that

01:07:39.580 | initially brought them for counseling.

01:07:43.060 | Furthermore, these goals will lead to deep unity and intimacy within the family.

01:07:49.940 | They will also cause their marriage to be a powerful witness for Christ and a tremendous

01:07:53.800 | example for others as they exemplify in their family the relationship between Christ and

01:08:00.300 | His Church.

01:08:04.500 | And they ultimately will help them to fulfill the purpose for which they and their families

01:08:07.980 | exist, namely, to bring honor and glory to God.

01:08:13.940 | If we were to summarize all those things that these goals are supposed to do, that's what

01:08:21.960 | it should do if you have a family that's willing and is ready to do things God's way.

01:08:34.340 | Now how do we do this?

01:08:37.260 | This is the how-to part.

01:08:40.380 | How do you identify, determine, and prioritize the what, when, and how of goals that should

01:08:45.100 | be pursued in counseling sessions?

01:08:48.900 | All right, number one, I think the first thing that we have to do, and we're doing much more

01:08:56.540 | here than just merely giving lip service to this.

01:08:59.020 | This is imperative.

01:09:02.020 | Prayer is really key here.

01:09:03.260 | James 1, 5, "If anyone lacks wisdom, he needs to ask of God who gives liberally."

01:09:12.220 | So, prayer is key here.

01:09:21.100 | When you set goals for marriage and family counseling, you need to pray over those goals

01:09:25.780 | and make sure that you're doing them as biblically as possible.

01:09:28.980 | This is not based upon what you would like to see.

01:09:31.980 | This is what God says should be done.

01:09:37.620 | Secondly, listen for the express goals of your counselees.

01:09:44.580 | What are the express goals?

01:09:49.020 | Proverbs chapter 21 and verse 22 says, "The wise man attacks the city of the mighty and

01:09:54.220 | pulls down the stronghold in which they trust."

01:10:02.260 | What are their express goals?

01:10:06.340 | Proverbs 25, 20, "Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day or like a vinegar

01:10:13.780 | poured on a soda is one who sings songs to a heavy heart."

01:10:20.740 | So we've got to be wise.

01:10:22.660 | You've got to start, in essence, where your counselee is, not where you would like him

01:10:29.780 | or her to be.

01:10:30.780 | You've got to start where they are.

01:10:33.740 | Is the counselee focusing on what they can control or what they cannot control?

01:10:37.420 | Are they focusing on their feelings?

01:10:39.020 | Are they focusing on righteous behavior?

01:10:45.020 | In other words, a counselee should be coming to you and saying, "I need to know how to

01:10:50.300 | handle my husband's anger."

01:10:59.780 | What they're really asking is, "How am I going to respond when my husband gets angry?"

01:11:04.180 | That's what they should be asking.

01:11:05.180 | But more often than not, what you get is something like this, "I want my husband to stop being

01:11:09.660 | angry with me and I need for you to help me to stop that."

01:11:15.940 | You may not be able to do that.

01:11:17.900 | The husband may not be a believer, and if he is a believer, he may not be willing to

01:11:23.220 | come into counseling.

01:11:31.260 | Or you could say, a mother says, "I want my child to open up to me.

01:11:35.820 | Help me to get my child to open up."

01:11:38.620 | Well, I can't do that, but I can teach you how to be a godly mother when your child doesn't

01:11:46.900 | open up.

01:11:48.420 | I can help you to understand that.

01:11:51.780 | "I want you to help me to get my daughter to trust my judgment," a mother says.

01:12:01.300 | Well, I can't do that, but I can sure help you in front of your child be a better, more

01:12:12.020 | godly mother so it will be easier for your child to trust you.

01:12:18.660 | That doesn't mean your child is going to trust you.

01:12:22.060 | I can do that.

01:12:24.520 | Or somebody says to you, "I want to feel more worthwhile in life."

01:12:27.340 | Well, even though all of us to some degree or another would like to feel that way, you

01:12:37.580 | may or may not be able to conjure that up in that counselee's life, but you can sure

01:12:42.100 | show them how to be a godly person in life.

01:12:46.260 | And when they're a godly person, then I believe the right feelings of being worthwhile and

01:12:50.760 | significant to other people will come.

01:12:55.900 | So you begin to see here, you've got to listen for your counselee's express goals.

01:13:06.820 | What are they?

01:13:07.820 | What is it that they really want?

01:13:16.620 | Like the young lady who came in, she's 19 years old and she says to me, "Dr. Street,

01:13:24.180 | I really need your help."

01:13:25.700 | I said, "How do you want me to help you?"

01:13:28.380 | "I need you to help me to get my parents off my back."

01:13:31.540 | Well, I have no control over her parents.

01:13:38.540 | I don't know what her parents are going to do, but as I can say to her with all confidence,

01:13:46.500 | "I can't do that.

01:13:47.500 | I can't get your parents off your back, but I can sure teach you how to respond in a godly

01:13:52.580 | fashion when your parents are on your back.

01:13:57.180 | I can help you with that."

01:13:58.180 | Oh, what are your counselee's expressed goals?

01:14:07.340 | And then, obviously, this brings us to the second one, and that is what are your counselee's

01:14:11.220 | unexpressed goals and intentions?

01:14:14.980 | What are their unexpressed goals?

01:14:17.740 | For example, you have passages like Proverbs chapter 18 and verse 15.

01:14:26.820 | In fact, grab your Bible just for a moment.

01:14:29.540 | That's a good passage to go back to.

01:14:32.780 | Proverbs 18, 15, "The mind of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise

01:14:43.140 | seek knowledge."

01:14:50.700 | So a person who's going to be a good counselor has got to ask yourself, "What are my counselee's

01:15:04.060 | goals that they're not expressing?"

01:15:14.780 | For example, you get a man who comes in to counseling with his wife, and he acknowledges

01:15:28.380 | in the counseling session that he's having an affair, and he's unwilling to abandon the

01:15:34.220 | affair.

01:15:38.740 | And so your natural conclusion is, "Why in the world does this person come for counseling?"

01:15:46.560 | If he came in unwilling to abandon his affair, why has he come to counseling?

01:15:55.160 | His goal certainly isn't to be God's kind of man.

01:15:58.140 | If that were true, he'd abandon his affair.

01:16:00.980 | Why does he come to counseling?

01:16:04.300 | Well, more often than not, a person like that will come to counseling, they'll use some

01:16:09.220 | kind of excuse, and they'll say, "Well, I knew that my wife was going to need some help

01:16:13.820 | when she found out that this affair was going on, so I came in for her sake," as if he really

01:16:18.220 | loves her.

01:16:19.220 | "Hello?"

01:16:20.220 | I don't buy that a minute.

01:16:24.100 | There's usually something else behind that.

01:16:27.220 | That's his express purpose for coming in.

01:16:28.960 | "I'm coming in to help my wife because this is going to be hard on her."

01:16:32.600 | Yeah, I believe that.

01:16:36.520 | What is it?

01:16:37.720 | Well, most guys will come into counseling because they want to look good in the eyes

01:16:41.600 | of their family.

01:16:44.680 | That's why.

01:16:45.680 | They want to look good.

01:16:47.280 | They want to be able to go home to mom and dad and say, "You know what?

01:16:50.020 | I tried.

01:16:51.120 | I went to counseling with her, and it didn't work."

01:16:55.760 | You know why it didn't work?

01:16:57.480 | Because long before he ever came to counseling, he determined in his mind, "I don't care what

01:17:00.760 | they say.

01:17:01.760 | I'm not going to follow this.

01:17:02.760 | I'm having too much fun having this affair."

01:17:04.800 | They've already determined that.

01:17:09.940 | That's the unexpressed goal.

01:17:12.040 | So they want to look good.

01:17:13.040 | They want to be able to say to their relatives long after the divorce, "You know, I tried.

01:17:16.800 | I did.

01:17:17.800 | I tried to make it work.

01:17:18.800 | I went to counseling with her."

01:17:21.420 | Boy, how deceptive the wicked human heart is, isn't it?

01:17:27.540 | How clever it is.

01:17:31.480 | By the way, I didn't know that as a young pastor.

01:17:33.700 | I got fooled a couple of times on that one, but I began to pick up on this.

01:17:39.700 | I'm a slow learner, but eventually I began to see what was going on here.

01:17:44.380 | I know why you're coming to counseling.

01:17:46.500 | I get the full picture.

01:17:48.200 | You want to be able to go home to mom and dad later on and say, "You know, I really

01:17:53.660 | tried to make this work, but this was all her fault."

01:17:56.940 | So I don't let them get away with that at all.

01:18:03.660 | What do you do?

01:18:04.660 | You say, "I think that your real reason for coming to counseling is because you want to

01:18:08.660 | look good in the eyes of your parents.

01:18:12.500 | You already have an agenda.

01:18:14.060 | You're already mentally out of this marriage.

01:18:17.180 | You're just going through, jumping through the hoops right now in the processes in order

01:18:21.340 | to make it look good to everybody.

01:18:23.140 | Well, you know what?

01:18:24.740 | I'm not going to play those games.

01:18:25.940 | I'm not going to play those games.

01:18:28.420 | Either you come to the realization that this is a wicked sin before God and you repent

01:18:33.860 | now, or I'm not interested in seeing you for counseling.

01:18:37.580 | I'll work with your wife, but I'm not going to work with you.

01:18:42.860 | You've got to come to that point."

01:18:47.500 | So or there's Proverbs chapter 27.

01:18:53.100 | As a counselor, you need to remember this in verse 19, "As in water, face reflects face,

01:19:00.620 | so the heart of a man reflects a man."

01:19:03.380 | What's going on in the heart of your counselee?

01:19:07.940 | What's going on in the heart?

01:19:11.220 | We could also go back to Proverbs chapter 16 in verse 2, twice in Proverbs, this is

01:19:17.620 | said by the way, "All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, but the Lord weighs

01:19:23.940 | the motives."

01:19:26.420 | If you go over to Proverbs 21 in verse 2, very similar statement there, "Every man's

01:19:32.040 | way is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the motives."

01:19:35.220 | Both of those particular passages, by the way, reflect the fact that man already has

01:19:39.820 | a very self-favoring view of himself.

01:19:44.980 | And that's the reason why he's so quick at self-justification.

01:19:50.220 | Because of that self-favoring view, he's very quick to justify himself.

01:19:54.740 | You're not in counseling very long before you pick that one up because sometimes when

01:19:59.860 | you're talking to a person about what's happened in their past, they wax eloquent about how

01:20:06.780 | other people have misused them, abused them, mistreated them.

01:20:12.060 | They'll paint it for you in living color, a huge picture of how other people have mistreated

01:20:19.820 | them and wronged them.

01:20:21.280 | And then when you ask them in the counseling session, "What is it that maybe you have done

01:20:27.820 | wrong or said wrong as part of your past?"

01:20:30.140 | They'll all of a sudden get this glazed look in their eyes, "Well, I know I didn't always

01:20:40.580 | do right, but let me tell you what that other person did."

01:20:43.940 | And then they circle right back around.

01:20:45.740 | Now why do they do that?

01:20:47.740 | Well, because that's what Proverbs 16, 2 and Proverbs 21, 2 says they will do.

01:20:52.900 | They already have a very self-favoring view of themselves, but the Lord ultimately is

01:20:58.020 | the one who weighs the motives behind it.

01:21:03.860 | Or here's another good passage.

01:21:05.900 | Let's go over to 1 Corinthians 4 and verse 4, 1 Corinthians 4, 4.

01:21:15.220 | Paul here says, "For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted,

01:21:24.720 | but the one who examines me is the Lord."

01:21:27.500 | So he says, "I can examine my own conscience.

01:21:29.620 | My conscience can be clear, but ultimately that's not the thing that really lets me off

01:21:35.580 | the hook.

01:21:38.400 | It's only when the Lord does it."

01:21:41.560 | And you know what?

01:21:42.560 | You're going to get counselees that will say that to you.

01:21:43.860 | You know that, don't you?

01:21:44.860 | They'll come in and say to you, "My conscience is clear."

01:21:49.140 | And I say to them, "That's too bad."

01:21:52.180 | "What do you mean it's too bad?"

01:21:56.220 | Because that means nothing.

01:21:59.340 | That doesn't mean you're guiltless.

01:22:02.140 | That just means that you have a poorly trained conscience.

01:22:07.480 | The point is, does God clear your conscience?

01:22:11.860 | Would God look at your conscience and say, "It's clear"?

01:22:15.980 | That's what Paul says.

01:22:17.660 | He says, "In his own conscience, I'm conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by

01:22:22.380 | this acquitted."

01:22:23.380 | I'm not acquitted because of this, but the one who examines me is the Lord.

01:22:29.580 | He's the one who acquits me, then I'm really not guilty.

01:22:36.380 | So you've got to listen for the unexpressed goals and intentions of your counselee because

01:22:39.620 | there are an awful lot of counselees who will make this statement.

01:22:43.900 | "I have a clear conscience in the way that I've treated my wife."

01:22:47.540 | "I have a clear conscience in the way I've treated my husband," they'll say.

01:22:53.660 | Well, you know what?

01:22:55.380 | That's not the standard for whether or not your conscience should be clear or not.

01:22:58.740 | The standard is whether or not the Lord acquits you.

01:23:02.460 | That's the standard.

01:23:04.000 | It's not whether or not your conscience is clear.

01:23:08.960 | So listen to the unexpressed goals.

01:23:17.260 | Back several years ago, there was a 20-year-old single mom that moved in with her single divorce

01:23:22.540 | older mother, and she complained after living with her for a while, this younger mother.

01:23:33.340 | She says, "My mother treats me like her little child.

01:23:37.300 | She has ideas about my little Joanna, my two-year-old, about when I should be in the house, et cetera,

01:23:44.220 | as though I was still some kind of a teenager."

01:23:46.060 | Now, when you listen to her explanation of what went on, it sounds like all of her problems

01:23:55.740 | stems from whom?

01:23:58.140 | Her mom.

01:23:59.140 | All of her problems stem from her mom.

01:24:01.580 | "If you can just help me to get my mother off my back, I'll be okay."

01:24:09.140 | She wants the conflict to disappear.

01:24:10.660 | She wants a good relationship with her mother.

01:24:12.180 | She wants to not feel the rejection from her abandoning father and now her husband that

01:24:19.500 | abandoned her.

01:24:22.380 | Each one of those goals goes just a little bit deeper into the water than the first expressed

01:24:27.140 | exasperation.

01:24:30.140 | She had been abandoned as a little girl by her father.

01:24:33.580 | Now she had been abandoned by her husband.

01:24:43.960 | These were part of the deep hurts and problems of the past that were flavoring her relationship

01:24:50.940 | with her mother and that she felt that her mother wasn't treating her well.

01:25:00.460 | Now, when counselees come like this, their intentions may seem quite acceptable and even

01:25:06.540 | godly to them.

01:25:07.820 | They may not be intentionally deceitful or blaming, and yet in the final analysis, they're

01:25:15.380 | really handling their situation in a sinful or wrong way.

01:25:20.620 | That's where that Proverbs 16.2 says, "All a man's ways seem innocent in his own sight,

01:25:24.540 | but the Lord weighs the motives."

01:25:32.460 | There's another woman who came in for counseling where she said, "I need to know how to handle

01:25:35.620 | my husband's insensitivity and incommunicableness."

01:25:42.180 | And so I asked if her husband would start joining us for counseling, and he started

01:25:46.460 | coming into counseling.

01:25:48.880 | And I began to immediately see in the counseling situation that her reactions to her husband's

01:25:55.340 | decisions of thinking were totally shutting him down.

01:26:01.020 | Any time her husband would say something that she didn't like, which was frequent, she would

01:26:07.660 | look over to him and say, "Well, that's kind of dumb," "Well, that's stupid," "We really

01:26:16.160 | don't think that," she'd say.

01:26:20.640 | So she was constantly demeaning him.

01:26:23.020 | Now she comes to me with the presentation problem that her husband isn't communicating

01:26:30.500 | with her.

01:26:33.500 | But the real issue was, every time he attempted to communicate something, he was challenged.

01:26:40.680 | Why do we want to do that?

01:26:43.340 | We shouldn't want to do it that way.

01:26:48.380 | And when he would ask her opinion, she'd say, "It's no use talking to you, you've already

01:26:52.260 | made up your mind."

01:26:53.260 | Now you'll hear people do that, they'll do that right in front of you.

01:27:02.440 | Now what was the problem?

01:27:04.580 | The problem was that her husband did want to communicate with her, but every time he

01:27:10.360 | attempted to communicate, she was chopping him off at the knees.

01:27:17.780 | What you say is stupid, you're a dummy, you can't think, you have nothing worthwhile to

01:27:24.860 | communicate and if you want to communicate something, then you've really already made

01:27:28.980 | up your mind so it's worthless for me to say anything.

01:27:36.940 | Unexpressed goals.

01:27:39.420 | Listen to those unexpressed goals.

01:27:44.960 | Listen past the most obvious problems, sins, and complaints.

01:27:48.900 | Listen past them.

01:27:52.300 | Proverbs 18, verse 2, "A fool finds no pleasure in understanding, but delights in airing his

01:27:57.580 | own opinions."

01:27:58.580 | Proverbs 25, verses 7 and 8, "What you have seen with your own eyes, do not bring hastily

01:28:06.180 | to court, for what will you do in the end if your neighbor puts you to shame?"

01:28:14.340 | Proverbs 18, verse 13 talks about, "He who is first to present his case seems just until

01:28:21.340 | another comes along and questions him."

01:28:27.060 | So you've got to listen past the most obvious problems, sins, and complaints.

01:28:30.700 | What's really going on here?

01:28:35.900 | Now this is something that I had to train myself to do because maybe as a man I'm not

01:28:40.980 | trained to do this.

01:28:42.420 | My wife is much better than this.

01:28:44.740 | She's really good at reading between the lines.

01:28:47.980 | I just take what people say at face value.

01:28:50.540 | They say this to me, "Okay, that's good, that works."

01:28:54.860 | But my wife's reading between the lines.

01:28:56.500 | You know what they really meant by that?

01:29:00.940 | No, what?

01:29:05.180 | So I have to train myself to think about this.

01:29:08.060 | I guess I'm just way too gullible.

01:29:09.700 | I want to take what people say straight up.

01:29:13.220 | Some people talk like that, but not everybody.

01:29:17.860 | There's a counseling case several years ago where husband and wife were seen together

01:29:24.800 | but they had been separated for about a month.

01:29:27.500 | He was unfaithful and left her, deciding he didn't want to be married anymore.

01:29:32.000 | He had had several affairs in their brief four year marriage and the joy obviously had

01:29:37.220 | gone out of their marriage.

01:29:38.420 | They can't talk without getting into an argument.

01:29:43.500 | Now he has come in sorrow saying that he believes divorce is wrong and he wants to make it work,

01:29:49.140 | but she isn't sure that she can trust him.

01:29:54.420 | So what are you going to do with this?

01:29:56.260 | He wants to reconcile the relationship.

01:30:00.220 | He was wrong.

01:30:01.220 | He says he repents.

01:30:03.320 | He's violated the marriage on a repeated basis.

01:30:08.820 | So the question as a counselor is, is your primary goal in your counseling to get them

01:30:15.300 | to live together as quickly as possible?

01:30:20.900 | Should you as a counselor to work first to unite them?

01:30:26.660 | What's the question?

01:30:30.580 | What's really going on here?

01:30:35.420 | I want to suggest to you that that's not your primary goal.

01:30:39.980 | Why?

01:30:41.740 | When you have a man who has repeatedly committed adultery, you probably have a what?

01:30:52.500 | An unbeliever.

01:30:55.260 | Your goal here then is what?

01:30:59.900 | The gospel.

01:31:02.900 | Your goal is the gospel.

01:31:06.760 | Your goal is not to primarily get them back together again as quickly as I can.

01:31:10.180 | I've got to get them back together again.

01:31:12.860 | No.

01:31:14.660 | Now that they're separated, that could be one of the worst things because she cannot

01:31:20.220 | remarry a man who is an unbeliever.

01:31:24.980 | She can't do that.

01:31:28.300 | So you can't get them together again, get them remarried and living together again because

01:31:38.620 | she would be in sin.

01:31:43.880 | But yet his express goal is what?

01:31:47.620 | The former husband's express goal is, "I want to get married."

01:31:50.500 | Well, you have to, in a sense, listen past the most obvious things, problems and sins

01:31:59.340 | and complaints, and get at the core things.

01:32:04.460 | What's really important here?

01:32:06.020 | What do we want to prioritize?

01:32:09.580 | Okay.

01:32:12.860 | Now there's just a couple more that we're going to do here and then we will take a break.

01:32:20.420 | Number five, take the expressed and unexpressed goals of the counselees and reframe them in

01:32:24.820 | Biblical terms and along the lines of God's priorities.

01:32:30.140 | We can see this in John chapter 8 verses 3 through 11.

01:32:33.660 | That's the woman who's caught in adultery and Jesus says, "Where are your accusers?

01:32:39.020 | Neither do I condemn you.

01:32:40.380 | Go and sin no more."

01:32:44.620 | Does the Lord show at this particular point sensitivity to her guilt, to her culpability?

01:32:49.100 | Her goal in all this was to avoid the temporal punishment of being stoned and minimize the

01:32:55.580 | shame through the secrecy and probably through escape, but she got caught.

01:33:00.460 | But what does Jesus do?

01:33:01.460 | He reframes the whole thing to direct her to avoid eternal punishment, not temporal

01:33:08.140 | punishment.

01:33:11.460 | Avoid eternal punishment and shame along with the temporal consequences.

01:33:14.940 | How do you do that?

01:33:15.940 | Well, the answer was through repentance.

01:33:19.940 | Proverbs 25, 20, "Like one who takes a coat on a cold day, sings songs to a heavy heart."

01:33:26.360 | So we need to show how righteousness addresses the real needs and is determined by God's

01:33:34.380 | purposes versus their felt needs.

01:33:36.580 | How does righteousness do that?

01:33:39.420 | Proverbs 25, 20, Jeremiah 6, 14, it says, "The priests of ancient Israel would dress

01:33:46.300 | the wounds of my people as though they were not serious," God says.

01:33:50.740 | We don't want to be like those priests.

01:33:52.900 | We don't want to dress the wounds as if they're not serious.

01:33:55.660 | Be sure to affirm God's motives for change, not pragmatic feelings, likely outcomes as

01:34:01.980 | though a technique were a manipulative strategy for helping people to get what they want from

01:34:06.620 | God.

01:34:07.620 | No, that's not our goal.

01:34:10.980 | 6.

01:34:12.860 | Then explain the process dynamics of biblical counseling for marriage and the family.

01:34:18.100 | Sometimes this involves talking about an interpretive hermeneutical bridge or what we sometimes

01:34:23.140 | refer to as the eight eyes in counseling.

01:34:26.540 | In our next session, we're going to talk about those at the beginning of it.

01:34:32.260 | What are those eight eyes?

01:34:33.820 | They're just a way to think about the entire counseling process.

01:34:37.440 | They involve involvement, inspiration, inventory, interpretation, instruction, inducement, implementation,

01:34:44.300 | integration.

01:34:45.580 | Those are the eight eyes.

01:34:46.580 | Now, I'll explain those later on.

01:34:48.980 | And then as a way to sort of remember them, this is a little acrostic, put CAPT and the

01:34:55.380 | eight eyes into practice.

01:34:57.260 | What are we talking about?

01:34:58.260 | Well, C has to do with context.

01:35:00.340 | What is the context of your marital and family counseling?

01:35:05.300 | What is it?

01:35:06.300 | Assessment and analyze is A. Promote and permanentize is P. And T is where do I find

01:35:13.180 | the final or at what particular point do I finally terminate the counseling?

01:35:18.220 | That's T. That's what we're talking about there.

01:35:20.300 | All right.

01:35:21.300 | Thank you.

01:35:21.300 | [end]

01:35:23.300 | 1

01:35:24.300 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Lecture 4: Marriage and Family Counseling - Dr. John D. Street

Chapters