Foundational Love

There were many things wrong with this young man’s perspective on pastoral ministry, but the most serious is this: it was devoid of love. There was no zeal to incarnate the self-sacrificing love of Christ. He saw lost and struggling people as impediments to what he was called to do, and the need to respond to them as a huge interference. His view of ministry centered on well-delivered sermons and well-attended programs that would produce a thriving and growing church. He saw the church as a well-designed, well-led, successful organization. But when I look at the church, I see a hospital full of people in various stages of dealing with the disease of sin.

Imagine a doctor coming out of an examining room to say to his receptionist, “Sick people, sick people, sick people! All I ever see is sick people! Why don’t healthy people ever come and visit me?” The church is full of people dealing with the effects of sin, people who are not fully formed into the image of Jesus Christ. The church is full of people who have lost their way and don’t even know it, who haven’t made a connection between their daily problems and the transforming grace of Christ. Everywhere you look, you will find couples who are struggling to love, parents who are struggling to be patient, children who are attracted to temptation, and friends who battle the disappointments of imperfect relationships. This is 100 percent of the church’s membership!

The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness, and sanctification center, where flawed people place their trust in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he has designed. The church is messy and inefficient, but it is God’s wonderful mess—the place where he radically transforms hearts and lives.

In class that afternoon, I wondered how this student could have gotten it so wrong. But as I drove home that night, the closer I got, the more uptight I became. I was thinking, Wouldn’t it be nice to come home just once to a house that wasn’t full of problems I needed to solve? As I voiced that frustration to myself, it hit me. I was just like my student! I wanted children who had never suffered the effects of the Fall and who possessed the innate ability to make all the right choices. I wanted family devotions and a few lectures to produce children who would do quite well on their own. I, too, lacked the self-sacrificing love essential in a family full of sinners. Like my student, I saw my children as being in the way of the plan, rather than the focus of it.

Foundational Love

I am deeply persuaded that the foundation for people-transforming ministry is not sound theology; it is love. Without love, our theology is a boat without oars. Love is what drove God to send and sacrifice his Son. Love led Christ to subject himself to a sinful world and the horrors of the cross. Love is what causes him to seek and save the lost, and to persevere until each of his children is transformed into his image. His love will not rest until all of his children are at his side in glory. The hope of every sinner does not rest in theological answers but in the love of Christ for his own. Without it, we have no hope personally, relationally, or eternally.

This love is not a band-aid attempting to cope with a cancerous world. It is effective and persevering. It is jealous, intent on owning us without competition. It faces the facts of who we are and how we need to change and simply goes to work. Any hope for the problems we face—with our own hearts and with a dark and corrupt world—is found in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for us. Hear the words of Paul:

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:31–39)

Paul says, “You are the recipients of Christ’s love and nothing can separate you from it.” This love offers hope to anyone willing to confess sin and cry out for transformation.

Yet this is where we often get stuck. We want ministry that doesn’t demand love that is, well, so demanding! We don’t want to serve others in a way that requires so much personal sacrifice. We would prefer to lob grenades of truth into people’s lives rather than lay down our lives for them. But this is exactly what Christ did for us. Can we expect to be called to do anything less? Hear again the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The love of Christ is not only the foundation for our personal hope, but our incarnation of that love is our only hope for being effective for Christ with others. Sadly, many of us have forgotten this, and we are resounding-gong people in cymbal-clanging relationships. There is a whole lot of noise but not much real change! As I drove home from class that day, I knew I was going to be called to love my family more than myself. I knew I would need to incarnate the love of Christ. But what I wanted was a good meal, a relaxed encounter with my newspaper, a nice conversation with my wife, and a few moments reading in bed before the lights went out. And I knew that the people in the house would surely step all over my plan!

We cannot be part of Christ’s life-giving work without being willing to lay down our own. That is why Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26–27). Christ is not calling us to hateful relationships. As verse 27 makes clear, the call is to die daily to our own selfish agenda, so that we may be part of his. Otherwise, we will hinder what the Lord is doing rather than help it.

How much are the people in your life a source of personal frustration? How often do you give in to stress and do things that do not honor Christ or incarnate his character? How often do you see people as obstacles to ministry rather than the objects of it? Whom have you given up on? We have been loved by Christ and called to incarnate that self-sacrificing love wherever he places us. Do people sense that love in you?

Redemptive Relationships

When we forget the call to incarnate the love of Christ, we take our relationships as our own. Soon they are governed by our pleasure, comfort, and ease. We get irritated at people who interfere with these things, and much of our anger is due to the fact that we are relationship thieves. People do not belong to us; they belong to God! Relationships are not primarily for our fulfillment. On the contrary, relationships between sinners are messy, difficult, labor-intensive, and demanding, but in that, they are designed to result in God’s glory and our good as he is worshiped and our hearts are changed. Effective personal ministry begins when we confess that we have taken relationships that belong to God and used them for our own selfish purposes.

When we have confessed and repented, we are ready to ask what role our relationships can play in the work Christ wants to do. If the relationships God gives us are not mere luxuries for our own happiness, what is God’s plan for them? This brings us to the Love function in personal ministry. God’s relationship to us is loving and redemptive, and he wants our relationships to mirror those qualities. This means at least three things:

1. He has a higher goal for our relationships than our personal happiness.

2. He wants our relationships to be the context for the change he works in and through us.

3. We need to build relationships that encourage this work of change.

We can understand this by considering the way Christ works in our own lives. Scripture uses three words to describe his work: justification, adoption, and sanctification. (See Figure 7.1.)

Justification and adoption explain how we enter into relationship with God. In justification by faith, God declares me to be righteous based on the perfect life, death, and resurrection of Christ. In justification Christ’s righteousness is legally credited to my account. Justification removes the sin that separates me from God and gives me Christ’s righteousness, making me acceptable to God and enabling me to have a relationship with him.

Adoption also involves my relationship with God. God not only justifies me, he adopts me; he welcomes me into his family with all the rights and privileges of a son. Justification and adoption give me a full and complete relationship with God.

As a result of justification and adoption, am I okay? This is a bit of a trick question. If you are talking about my standing or relationship with God, the answer is “yes.” Nothing needs to be added to Jesus’ work. I don’t need to do anything else to secure God’s acceptance. It is a gift of his grace.

But if you are talking about my condition as a person, the answer is “no.” I still struggle with sin daily, and radical change still needs to take place in me so that I can be and do what God has planned. Unlike justification and adoption, which are events, this work of personal transformation is a process—a process called sanctification. Sanctification is the process by which God actually makes me what he legally declared me to be in justification—holy.

This framework sheds light on the ministry God has given each one of us. God doesn’t justify and adopt me because I am okay, but precisely because I am not okay. He knows that lasting change will take place in me only when I am living in a personal relationship with him. In his magnificent love, he makes that relationship a reality. Only those who have a relationship with God through justification and adoption will undergo the radical change process of progressive sanctification. Without the relationship, there is no personal change. Our relationship with God is the beginning of our salvation, not the end; a necessity, not a luxury.

As Christ’s ambassadors, we, too, must begin by building relationships of love, grace, and trust with others. This is the covenantal view of change we considered earlier. Like the relationship God establishes with us through Christ, the relationships we build provide the context for his continuing work of change.

When we see God’s work in us as the model for our work for him, three practical principles emerge:

1. God’s redemptive activity always takes place within relationships.

2. God’s first step in changing us is to draw us into relationship with him.

3. Our relationships are essential to the work God is completing in us and in others.

This is why our relationships do not belong to us; they belong to the Lord and are holy. God uses them to prepare a people for himself. These everyday relationships are essential to the plan of personal transformation ordained before the world began. God daily gives us opportunities to serve the troubled, angry, discouraged, defeated, confused, and blind. This is the way he works and he calls each of his children to be part of it.

This view of our relationships must transform the way we respond to one another. A tense discussion about disappointments in marriage is more than a time of searing honesty between a husband and a wife. God is at work, revealing both their hearts. He is using the relationship to transform them both. If the couple remembers this, they will respond to each other in ways remarkably different from their normal pattern. But if their only goal is their own personal happiness, each spouse will say, “I want my partner to see how unhappy I am and to try harder to make me happy.” If they both have this goal, the conversation will be nothing more than a self-centered war for personal happiness. They may claim to love each other, but at the level of their hearts’ desires, both wife and husband are committed only to getting what they want out of the other person.

If this conversation takes place between two people who want to be part of God’s work of transformation (sanctification), things dramatically change. It begins with their attitudes. When they think of each other only from a horizontal perspective, they are discouraged, hopeless, and cynical. After all, they have done everything they can think of to get the other person to shape up, but nothing has worked. But when they are aware that God is present with his own redemptive purpose, they have every reason for hope. Yes, they are at the end of themselves, but the Redeemer is active in all of his power and glory. He has been changing them and will continue to do so. There is every reason to believe that he is up to something good in this marital difficulty.

Viewing this moment redemptively will also change their posture. In the horizontal model, they stand opposed to each other as enemies with competing agendas. They battle to ensure that their will prevails. From a redemptive standpoint, husband and wife stand on the same side. They ultimately want God’s will to be done in their marriage. They are not threatened by the presence of an enemy (each other); on the contrary, they know that they are members of the same family. Their Father has their highest good in mind. He will not forsake one in order to lovingly transform the other. So they do not have to compete and they do not have to win. They can be gently and peacefully honest about their relationship because they have forsaken their own agenda for the Lord’s.

Does this sound unrealistic? Have we slipped so far from God’s purposes for relationships that we can’t conceive of doing this? When you study what the New Testament says about relationships, this is the model that emerges. For example, what is God’s goal for your parenting? It goes way beyond clean rooms, good manners, proper dress, the right college, a good career, and marrying well. In all these things God calls parents to work toward something deeper and more lasting. Paul captures it in Ephesians 6 when he calls parents to bring their children up in the “training and instruction of the Lord.” This radically changes the parental agenda. Gone is the horizontal focus. The call is to be part of God’s work of heart transformation—to help the child change from a self-absorbed sinner to one who loves God above all else. Paul’s model of parenting is distinctly redemptive, but when parents forget that moments of difficulty are moments of redemption, they stand in the way of what the Lord is doing.

Or take this model to a more formal counseling context. A person asks to talk with you about a complicated situation. You can see that she is very discouraged—almost paralyzed. What should your goal be? It is wonderful to offer wisdom that clarifies confusion and makes the situation bearable. It is grace to offer her understanding, comfort, and hope. It is good to function as her advocate where appropriate. But a deeper focus must shape this counseling moment.

God is continuing his work of transformation in this woman’s heart and life. He has brought her to the end of herself, revealing the fruit of her choices and behavior. He is in the process of revealing her heart. His goal is that she would be conformed to the image of his Son, one step freer from her bondage to the creation, and one step closer to the freedom of worshiping the Creator. His goal is that he would consistently rule her thoughts and motives; that increasingly, her identity would be rooted in him rather than in the arid soil of personal achievement or the acceptance of others. Timidity and cynicism would give way to courage and hope rooted in his presence, power, love, and grace. God’s goal is deeper than emotional and situational change. It is nothing less than personal transformation.

What Does a Redemptive

Relationship Look Like?

What practical things can help the quarreling husband and wife to function redemptively? How can the counselor build a relationship that promotes God’s work in the discouraged, struggling woman? How can parents establish such relationships with their children? How can pastors build them into their ministry? What do relationships that promote personal change look like? Scripture highlights four things when it calls us to love someone in a way that promotes God’s work of heart change. Each aspect of Love promotes relationships where God’s goals are central. (See Figure 7.2.)

1. Enter the person’s world.

2. Incarnate the love of Christ.

3. Identify with suffering.

4. Accept with agenda.

In this chapter and the next, we will consider these elements of love in a redemptive relationship.

Element of Love 1:

Enter the Person’s World

There is no shortage of need in this world. Our problem is that we miss the opportunities God places in our path. How can we pursue them effectively? We begin by recognizing the entry gates God gives us, the means of entry from a casual relationship to a life-changing one. How can you recognize them?

It helps to understand what an entry gate is not. First, it is not the problem the person wants to talk about. We can focus on the problem and miss the person in the middle of it. Biblical personal ministry certainly includes problem solving, but it must be person-focused. God’s work of change certainly involves changes in situation and relationship, but it has radical personal transformation as its core goal.

Second, the entry gate is not a particular situation or circumstance in the person’s life. Beneath these are deeper heart struggles that are God’s focus. Nor is the entry gate another person or a problem in relationship. We should resist the tendency to be entirely problem-focused in ministry. When we have a problem focus as we listen to people, we will be like someone at the shooting gallery at the county fair. We will be hunting for problems like they are plastic ducks floating by, and when we hear them, our goal will be to shoot them down. We will listen for a problem word (adultery, doubt, fear, lust, stealing, greed, envy, conflict) and then fire away until we have said everything we know about the Bible’s views on the topic. Not only does this do violence to the way God wants his Word to be used, it completely misses the heart struggles of the person with the problem.

This is why it is so important to recognize God-given entry gate opportunities. An entry gate is a particular person’s experience of the situation, problem, or relationship. To recognize an entry gate you do not ask, “What are the problems in this person’s life?” Instead you ask, “What is this person struggling with in the midst of the situation?” Or, “What has this person in its grip right now?” The entry gate is not what you think the person is struggling with; it is the struggle the person confesses. People will tell you how they are struggling, and their struggle will give you common ground with them and a door of opportunity into a deeper level of ministry.

Is the entry gate strategy still fuzzy in your thinking? Here is an example. Imagine that a woman from your church calls you. She has been married for fifteen years and has three children. She awakens one morning to find that her husband is gone. She rolls over to turn on the bedside lamp and notices a note leaning against it. In it, her husband announces that he has left the marriage. He has fallen in love with someone else, taken his clothes, emptied the bank account, and hired a lawyer. Immediately after reading the note, your friend calls you. Ask yourself: what has this woman in its grip at that moment? What is she struggling with right then? In her heart, what is she experiencing? What has the power to paralyze her and rob her of hope?

The obvious answer is fear. She is flooded with terrifying questions: “What will happen to my house? How will I provide for us? Will he want the children? What will my family think? What will I tell the kids? How much is left in our bank account? Who has my husband talked to and what has he said? How can I face people? What does this other woman have that I do not?” Perhaps the scariest question of all is, “Why would God let this happen to me?” Fear is the most significant heart issue at this moment. It is where the war is taking place and where your ministry begins. This woman would not be helped by a recap of all the Bible has to say about marriage and divorce. If that’s all you offer, you will likely lose future opportunity to help her.

On the other hand, helping her face her fears gives you a wonderful opportunity to show love and build a ministry relationship. When we speak to people’s real struggles, they respond, This person has heard me. This person understands me. I want more of this kind of help. This is the power of a loving relationship. So an entry gate is not the objective problem a person has encountered, but his particular experience of that problem (fear, anger, guilt, anxiety, hopelessness, aloneness, envy, discouragement, desires for vengeance, etc.).

Recognizing Entry Gates

How can you recognize the entry gates God sends your way? Listen with purpose. Focus on the person in the middle of the problem. As she tells her story, it will come out as a chaotic mix of the present, the past, emotions, and personal interpretations. Train yourself to listen for four things that will show you where the person is struggling.

1. Listen for emotional words. (“I’m angry.” “I’m afraid.” “I can’t stop crying.”)

2. Listen for interpretive words. (“This shouldn’t happen.” “I guess I’m getting what I deserve.” “I wonder if it’s even worth getting up in the morning.”)

3. Listen for self talk. (“I am such a failure.” “This always happens to me.” “I don’t have what it takes to face this.”)

4. Listen for God talk. (“I thought I was doing what God wanted.” “He simply doesn’t hear my prayers.” “How could God let this happen to me?”)

Remember, your focus should be on the person and what she is struggling with at that moment. As you listen for the four things listed above, look for a theme (anger, fear, guilt, hopelessness) to emerge. Then grab hold of that theme, meet the person in the midst of that struggle, and incarnate the loving Lord she may be unable to see. We know that God has not given up on the person, gone home, or gotten busy helping others. But the dark clouds of circumstances can blind a person to the God who is there and active. God is her only source of hope as she faces a situation that is out of her control. As she is flooded with questions (many of which no one can answer), what she really needs is the rest that can only be found in the Lord who is “an ever present help in trouble,” who will never leave her or forsake her. In these first moments of ministry, I have a wonderful opportunity to reveal God to someone who is having trouble seeing him. He is here! He understands! He is able to help! He is up to something good!

Have you ever had a frustrating experience you wanted to share with someone? Perhaps you had an important appointment that you missed because you were held up in traffic. How would you feel if you told your friend, only to have him respond with a lecture on the fact that you took the wrong way and that he learned years ago that there was a much more efficient route you could have taken? How would you feel if he interrupted your story to share a tale of his own that had no connection to what was troubling you?

Your friend was not listening for you in the middle of your story. His responses may have had some logical connection to the facts you shared, but they weren’t helpful because they didn’t connect with the impact of the situation on your heart and life. In your friend’s mind’s eye, he saw traffic, but he didn’t see you. He didn’t see you nervously looking at your watch. He didn’t see you desperately trying to make a call. He didn’t see you pounding on the steering wheel. He only saw traffic and when he responded, he spoke to traffic and not to you. In many little ways we have all faced this frustration. But imagine the pain of facing a huge struggle, only to feel as if no one is really hearing you; no one is speaking to what you are battling in the midst of your crisis.

This is not God’s way. We can offer love that is personal and specific, not aimless and platitudinous. We can follow the model of the Wonderful Counselor, the Good Shepherd who goes right to where his lost sheep is, wraps him in his arms, and carries him to a place of safety. Following the Lord’s example means that we communicate several things to a struggling person:

Let the person know that you have heard her struggle. As you see the theme emerging, you need to restate it for her, ideally in her own words. In so doing you are saying, “God has sent you someone who hears you, who has begun to understand what you are going through.” Let her know that your focus is on her as a person, not just the issues she is facing.

Let the person know that God is there and that he understands the struggle. Don’t do this by referring the person to a theological outline. Turn to passages of Scripture that speak to the exact thing that has her in its grip. In so doing, you accomplish two things. You help her (1) to recognize that Scripture speaks to the deepest issues of human experience and (2) to see that God meets his people most powerfully in experiences where they fear he is absent.

The Psalms are particularly helpful here. I think the Psalms are in the Bible to keep us honest. They remind us that living by faith is not easy. The life of the believer is a daily war fought in our hearts, and the battles are dramatically depicted in the Psalms. Again and again, the Psalms put words to the struggles of the people God sends my way. But the Psalms do more. They are not only dyed with human struggle, they are dyed with the presence of the Lord. Again and again they remind us that we have hope, not because we are able and wise, or because circumstances are easy, but because God is our Father.

Let the person know you will stand with her. Returning to the example of the friend counseling you after a traffic jam, the friend’s words gave the impression that all you needed to do was recognize your mistake and acknowledge that you paid the price for your error. He believed he did his job properly and moved on. The problem is he didn’t counsel you, he counseled the problem. He didn’t recognize what you were struggling with as a result of the traffic jam. Little wonder that he felt free to throw a quick correction at you that in no way addressed the thoughts and desires of your heart. He thought he had been helpful, but he wasn’t. He was right that you went the wrong way, but he forgot that in doing so, You missed your appointment! And the implications of that fact would still trouble you. I fear that many of us offer care that doesn’t cure because, from the outset, our eyes are so focused on the problem that we miss the person and the struggles within.

One of the most common struggles in crisis is the feeling that you are all alone. Because of this, it’s very discouraging when people throw quick answers at you and walk away. It feels as if they have quickly let go of your life and gone back to their own. This is why it is so important to incarnate God’s “I will be with you” promises from the outset. In so doing we address a theological lie, the lie that God is absent in trouble. We offer people a living, loving presence that puts real flesh and blood on the presence of the Lord. We also do battle with the Enemy, who whispers in the ear of the believer, “Where is your God now?” Let the person know that you not only will help her address the problems she is facing, but you care for her and are with her.

The Beginning of Change

When you seek to minister to people in this way, their hearts will respond in three ways that set the stage for more ministry—and more change—in the days ahead.

1. Horizontal trust. Often, people in difficulty do not open up easily. They are afraid of further hurt and find it difficult to entrust themselves to others. But when I can connect with the person’s real experience in the midst of a trial, I have an opportunity to engender trust. The person says to herself, He really heard me. He understands what I am going through. He appears to be a person I can trust. This willingness to trust is crucial to a relationship in which God’s work can thrive. As you seek to serve this person, you are asking her to place the “fine china” of her life in your hands. You are going to ask her to talk about the most important and sensitive issues of her life. She will only do this when she trusts you. Most of our conversations are impersonal and self-protective. We talk a lot, but without much substance. We reserve moments of personal self-disclosure for people we trust. Trust is vital in a heart-changing relationship.

2. Vertical hope. God not only surprises struggling people with his grace, he calls them to do things that are difficult and unexpected, things that contradict the person’s normal instincts. God is going to say, “Hear me. Trust me. Follow me.” If the person is going to follow the Lord, he needs to look in his face and see hope. But often a person under great trial looks at the Lord and sees anything but hope. So, in those early moments we are helping the person to see the Lord, to recognize that he understands the secret struggles, that he is present with him or her, and that he offers help that really helps. We want to help the person move toward the Lord rather than away from him. We want to help a person who is hiding, avoiding, denying, accusing, doubting, running, or giving up to become a seeker—and not just a seeker after help, but a seeker after God. This is important because a counselee is not a counselee until he is a seeker.

3. Commitment to the process. A person will rarely come to you and say, “I know that God wants to work wonderful change in my heart. I wondered if you would be willing to help.” The person may not be seeking help at all, just a place to vent and tell his story. He may be searching for an ally or someone to validate his actions and interpretations. Even when people make a formal appointment to talk with me, not all of them are committed to seek help or to change.

But when you have identified with a person’s struggle and offered the hope of God in the midst of it, he will want more. I always tell my students to aim low at first. They shouldn’t try to solve a world of difficulty in a few moments. The main thing they should try to accomplish in their first talk with a person is to help him to be willing to talk again. The first talk may be nothing but venting, but the second talk signifies some kind of commitment to God’s process of change. That is my goal—to encourage the person to entrust himself to him.

Entry Gate Questions

Recognizing entry gate opportunities involves learning to ask the right questions. Here are some entry gate questions you might ask the woman whose husband left her. (However, it is unlikely that you would ask all these questions at once, especially when she first calls.)

• “What came into your mind as you read the note?”

• “What are you struggling with most right now?”

• “What are you facing now that you thought you would never face?”

• “What are you feeling?”

• “What are you afraid of right now?”

• “Are you feeling angry? Where is that a real struggle?”

• “Describe how you see God right now. What do you think he is doing?”

• “Do you feel hopeless? Do you feel like God is asking you to do the impossible?”

• “What questions do you wish you could ask your husband?”

• “What questions do you wish you could ask God?”

• “When you can’t sleep, what thoughts keep you awake?”

• “What part of the situation is getting to you most?”

• “What regrets do you struggle with?”

As you ask questions like these, listen for themes that show you where the war is raging within this woman. The goal is that the resulting horizontal trust, vertical hope, and commitment to the process would provide a platform for God’s work of change. But this is just the first way I seek to love the person. Let’s now consider the second.

Element of Love 2:

Incarnate the Love of Christ

If someone asked you how God uses us to change people, what would you answer? Is it just through the things we say? Do we simply confront people with the truth and call them to obey? Is personal ministry just a biblical form of talk therapy? Or does God use us in other ways to change people?

Think of the people God has used in your own life. Was it just because of what they said? No doubt God used their words powerfully at key moments. No doubt you benefited from their advice, insights, honesty, and confrontation. But in what other ways did God use the relationship to encourage change in you? Perhaps their willingness to forgive you taught you more about the true nature of forgiveness than any conversation. Perhaps you learned about the resources of Christ by watching them endure great difficulty. Maybe you began to grasp the power of biblical love by watching them love someone who was quite unlovable. Perhaps they stood as evidence that the promises of God were true as you saw them fulfilled in their lives. Maybe it was their willingness to stand with you for the long haul that gave you strength to continue. If you stop to reflect on these people, you will quickly recognize that their ministry was made up of more than words.

As Christ’s ambassadors, it’s not just what we say that God uses to encourage change in people; it’s also who we are and what we do. During his ministry on earth, Jesus said, “If you have trouble believing what I say, then look at the things I have done. They are all the evidence that you need” (paraphrase of passages like John 14:11). As ambassadors, we are not only called to speak the truth but to be real, living, flesh-and-blood illustrations of it. We are not just God’s spokespersons; we are examples. We are not simply God’s mouthpieces; we are his evidence. Our lives testify to the power of his grace to transform hearts. It is seen in the way we display the love God has shown to us.

The Right Clothes for the Job

Colossians 3:12–17 captures what it means to incarnate the love of Christ in ministry.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Verses 15–17 contain one of the New Testament’s clearest calls to personal ministry. In this remarkable passage, Paul calls us to activities we would normally assume are restricted to formal ministry. We are called to have Scripture so deeply engrained in our lives that we are wise and thankful, and thus always ready to teach and admonish (confront) one another. Paul is calling us to a state of biblical readiness for the ministry opportunities he will bring as he changes us through the ministry of others. The passage summarizes what this book is about. But to really understand it, you must start with verse 12.

Here Paul uses the metaphor of clothing—the thing that covers us, identifies us, and describes our function. Paul is reminding us that what we “wear” (that is, the character qualities we put on) to moments of ministry is as important as what we say. The list of character traits Paul gives is a summary of the character of Christ. Paul is saying, “If you are going to be involved in what God is doing in others, come dressed for the job!”

Paul’s view of change involves process as well as content, the manner as well as the message. It involves teaching with my life as well as with my words. As I incarnate the character of the Lord I am calling people to trust and obey. In effect, Paul is saying, “If you are going to teach and admonish one another, you must first put on Christ.” God changes people not simply because you have spoken the truth to them, but because those words were said with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and love. When we do this, we become the physical evidence of the truths we present. We are not only incarnating truth, but Christ himself.

From all physical appearances, they were a lovely young couple. She had called me and asked to get together. As we sat down, the emotions in the room changed. She began to cry before I had prayed or asked my first question. The more she cried, the more he squirmed in his chair in embarrassment and anger. She was beginning to tell her story when he jumped up with a red face and said, “I can’t do this! I can’t talk about my private life to some shrink [which I am not] who may not have a clue and who definitely doesn’t know me!” Looking at his wife, he said, “If you are stupid enough to subject yourself to this, then have fun, but I’m out of here!” And he stormed out of the room. I quickly prayed aloud for both of them and told the wife that I was going out to talk to him. I found him in the parking lot, ready to get into his car. He glared at me and said, “Would you please leave me alone?” I told him that I understood that he was angry and afraid and that it was hard to share private struggles with other people. I told him that I was willing to be patient, and that I would do whatever I could to help him get through the discomfort of these early moments. I said a few more things and told him I was going back to rejoin his wife.

As I walked down the hallway, I realized that he was behind me. He said, “I can’t run away . . . I just can’t,” and this time we began to really talk. Months later, we recalled that first day and he told me that he did not remember what I had said to him in the parking lot, but the fact that I came after him was what God used to soften him. It was not what I said but what I did that God used to rescue a man on the verge of destroying his life.

There are four main reasons to incarnate Christ in the relationships God gives us.

1. It is a protection for you. In personal ministry, the sin of the person you are helping will eventually be revealed in your relationship. If you are ministering to an angry person, at some point that anger will be directed at you. If you are helping a person who struggles with trust, at some point she will distrust you. A manipulative person will seek to manipulate you. A depressed person will tell you he tried everything you’ve suggested and it didn’t work. You can’t stand next to a puddle without eventually being splashed by its mud!

Galatians 6:1 says, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.” In ministry relationships, not only is the heart of the person I am helping being revealed, but my own as well. I am capable of being angry, proud, self-righteous, argumentative and harsh, impatient and unforgiving. When I do, I get in the way of what the Lord is doing. I need the very Christ I am holding out to the other person. The comforting reality is that he is working on us both!

We need to be aware of our reactions to the people we serve. They will sin against us in the same way they have sinned against others. One of the most loving things we can do is to be committed to humble self-examination: How do we respond when sinned against? As the person’s sins become part of our experience, are we demonstrating the power of Christ’s grace? Are we incarnating Christ as we deal with sin? Sometimes we will live up to our calling as Christ’s ambassadors; at other times we will fail. Even then, we can minister effectively if we apply the gospel to our own lives by confessing our sin, asking forgiveness from God (and the other person when appropriate), and claiming God’s strength to go on and serve him faithfully.

2. It offers a living example. We do not have to struggle to come up with creative definitions of the character qualities God desires his children to display; instead, we have an opportunity to model them. If we follow the example of Christ, the person we are seeking to help should experience in us what real love, compassion, gentleness, forgiveness, forbearance, kindness, and humility are like, even though we are fallen human beings. In this way, moments of personal ministry are not just the lecture part of a class; they are the lab as well! Life isn’t just discussed; it is lived! The things God calls us to do and be should be evident in the person who is ministering—as that person depends on Christ.

3. It gives evidence of what the Lord can do. The goals we lay out for people can seem unrealistic. They will have trouble imagining how they could ever do these things in their present circumstances. They may be so aware of their failures that they will see God’s new way as completely impossible. Personal ministry provides a sweet opportunity to speak to this doubt and fear, not only in words, but with your life as well.

If I am following the example of Christ and functioning as an ambassador, I will live as evidence that what the Lord says is true. He has given us everything we need to do what he calls us to do. He is with us in trouble. He will supply everything we need, when we need it. His grace is sufficient when we are weak. He gives wisdom as it is needed. When I love an unloving person, when I am gentle in the face of angry arguments, when I am patient in the face of failure, when I speak kindly to one who is unkind, and when I ask forgiveness when I have sinned, I demonstrate that God’s calling is possible. It is possible not because we are wise and strong or because our circumstances are easy, but because he is with us in the power of his glory, goodness, and grace.

4. It keeps Christ central. The hope we offer people is more than a set of strategies. Our hope is Christ! In him alone do lost, confused, angry, hurt, and discouraged people find what they need to be and do what God intends. We are not gurus. We are nothing more than instruments in the hands of a powerful Redeemer. The hope and help we offer is always focused on him. The most important encounter in ministry is not the person’s encounter with us, but his encounter with Christ. Our job is simply to set up that encounter, so that God would help people seek his forgiveness, comfort, restoration, strength, and wisdom.

It is foolish to embark on personal ministry without counting the costs. An ambassador not only delivers the message of the King, he incarnates it as well. He stands in the King’s place. Just as Christ’s ministry to sinners meant sacrifice and suffering, so it will for us (though on a different level). Because suffering is inevitable, we must be aware of our response to those trials. Are we representing the King well? Are we willing to die to ourselves to see life in this other person? Are we willing to be mistreated for the sake of the gospel? Are we willing to involve ourselves in things we would normally avoid so that Christ would change someone through us? Are we willing to be splashed by the mud because we find joy in serving Christ, even when we realize we have gotten dirty?

May Christ strengthen us to love as he has loved and to be part of his work of transformation in people’s lives. May this love not only direct our words, but our lives. May we stand as the example, the evidence, and the incarnation of our great Redeemer!

‣ Love

Know

Speak

Do

Building Relationships by Identifying with Suffering

She folded up her white cane and I led her to my office. She was not only blind but lame in one leg. I had worked at a school for the blind during seminary and thought it was amazing that God had brought her my way. I was familiar with the lifestyle and struggles of the blind, but I was not prepared for her story.

She was an only child. Her mother had tried for fifteen years to get pregnant, only to endure a string of miscarriages. Finally at forty she got pregnant and didn’t miscarry. Her mother felt blessed, as if her life was about to begin. She chose a beautiful name, Grace, and waited in anxious expectation. Early one morning after twenty hours of tortuous labor, Grace was born. But her mother’s dream was not to be realized. Grace was fretful, sickly, demanding. There seemed to be few moments when she wasn’t crying. She had problems with her breathing and digestion. She seemed to contract every childhood illness. She didn’t sleep through the night for her entire infancy. Her mother was seldom able to take her out of the house.

Grace’s mother thought she was the victim of a cruel fate. After all the years of waiting, she was left with a child who could barely live. Increasingly the demands, cries, and constant work made her angry. She wondered why she had ever wanted a child. She remembered how easy life had been before. In subtle ways at first, her anger began to spill over toward Grace: a yank here, a little slap there. But the irritation eventually grew into full-blown rage. When she looked at her little girl, she saw someone who had robbed her of life. Grace began to listen for her mother’s footsteps so she could hide under the bed or in the closet. Her mother would then have to search for her, making her even angrier. In one of those angry encounters Grace’s leg was permanently injured.

By the time Grace was eight years old, her eyes had begun to fail as a result of repeated blows to her head. She could no longer see to read, yet she was afraid to let anyone know how bad her eyesight actually was. She thought she was fooling everyone, but she wasn’t. Just after her ninth birthday, Grace went to school for what she thought was a normal day. She was asked to leave her classroom and go to the office, where a lady she didn’t know stood with a suitcase full of Grace’s clothes. Without saying goodbye to her mother or her friends, she was transferred to a residential school for the blind where she would remain until she graduated from high school. Grace never lived at home again.

She now sat before me, telling her story with angry tears. Grace was still alone. In her fearful, judgmental anger, she had trashed every relationship she had ever had. Yet she was deeply persuaded that people were abusing her as her mother once did. Her willingness to talk to me was itself an act of angry desperation. During her time in the school for the blind, Grace had taken a religion class where she met a wonderful teacher who shared the gospel with her. She had sought me out because she wanted to talk to a Christian; she was convinced it was the only way she would hear the truth. At the same time, she didn’t want anyone to feed her a bunch of biblical platitudes.

I listened to her in tears, praying as she talked, quite aware that I was called to incarnate the Lord in this suffering woman’s life.

What would you say to Grace? What do you think she needs to hear? What does the Bible say to the Graces of the world? How would you like Grace to look at her past, her present, and her future? How would you build a relationship with her in which God’s kingdom work would thrive?

In a World Where Suffering Is Common

We don’t like to think about it, but we live in a world where suffering is common. In a fallen world populated by sinners, we should not be surprised. We should be surprised that we do not suffer more. Our suffering ranges from the temporary wounds of someone’s thoughtlessness to horrible experiences of mistreatment and abuse. We are all suffering sinners. It is the thing we share with everyone we meet. As such, it is common ground for personal ministry.

Yet we don’t often see it that way. We tend to be shocked when we hear stories like Grace’s, and we live with the hope that the really bad things will never happen to us. More importantly, we struggle with how to relate to people who have suffered. Too often we reduce our ministry to biblical platitudes and promises of prayer, establishing a wide buffer zone around people who are in deep pain. Sure, we will send a card, pay a visit, say a prayer, and read a passage, but we are ill at ease and can’t wait to be on our way. But sooner or later, we will suffer, too. Our experience differs only in the degree of the pain. No wonder the Bible has so much to say about the reality of personal suffering.

1. The Bible clearly declares that God is sovereign over all things—even suffering. Many of us mistakenly think that God has nothing to do with the bad things that happen in our world. Yet Scripture takes us in a completely different direction. It roots our hope in the reality that God is not the author of our suffering, but he is with us in our suffering (Ex. 4:11; 1 Sam. 2:2–7; Dan. 4:34–35; Prov. 16:9; Ps. 60:3; Isa. 45:7; Lam. 3:28; Amos 3:6; Acts 4:27–28; Eph. 1:11).

2. The Bible clearly says that God is good. It is faulty thinking to say that a truly good God would never allow a person to suffer, or that if God really loved you, he wouldn’t let x happen to you. The Bible declares that an infinitely good God is in the middle of our most painful experiences (Ps. 25:7–8; 34:8–10; 33:5; 100:5; 136; 145:4–9).

3. The Bible clearly says that God has a purpose for our suffering. The Bible doesn’t present suffering as a hindrance to our redemption, but as a tool God uses to work his redemptive purpose in us (Rom. 8:17; 2 Cor. 1:3–6; Phil. 2:5–9; James 1:2–8; 5:10–11; 1 Peter).

4. The Bible explains the ultimate reasons why we suffer.

• We suffer because we live in a fallen world plagued by disease, natural disasters, dangerous animals, broken machinery, etc.

• We suffer because of our flesh. Much of our suffering is at our own hands. We make choices that make our own lives painful and difficult.

• We suffer because others sin against us. From subtle prejudice to personal attacks, we all suffer at the hands of others.

• We suffer because of the Devil. There really is an enemy in our world, a trickster and a liar who divides, destroys, and devours. He tempts us with things that promise to give life but actually destroy it.

• We suffer because of God’s good purpose. God calls his children to suffer for his glory and for their redemptive good.

5. The Bible is clear that God’s sovereignty over suffering never:

• Means the suffering isn’t real (2 Cor. 1:3–9; 4:1–16).

• Excuses the evildoer (Habakkuk; Acts 2:22–24; 3:14–23).

When we enter into other people’s experiences of suffering, we want our responses to be shaped by compassionate biblical thinking.¹

Suffering and Personal Ministry

This leads us to the third aspect of the Love that promotes God’s work in a person’s life. Here, too, Christ is our model.

Element of Love 3:

Identify with Suffering

Have you ever gone through a hard time and felt completely alone? Have you ever felt as if you were two different people—the private sufferer and the person who is “known” by the people around you? Have you ever wanted to tell your story but were afraid of what others may think? Have you ever wanted to exchange someone’s life for your own? Has your suffering ever diminished your desire for personal worship, the teaching of God’s Word, or the fellowship of the body of Christ? Have you ever wished you didn’t have to get up in the morning because of the difficulty you had to face? Have you ever tried to talk to someone about your suffering only to lose your courage? Have you ever been put off by people’s quick suggestions, wrong assumptions, and biblical platitudes? In the midst of life’s harsh realities, have you ever cried out (silently or aloud) for help?

If you are alive, you answered yes to at least a few of these questions. You are a sufferer who has been called by God to minister to others in pain. Suffering is not only the common ground of human relationships, but one of God’s most useful workrooms. As God’s ambassadors, we need to learn how to identify with those who suffer. We do this by learning from the example of the Wonderful Counselor in passages such as Hebrews 2:10–12.

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. He says,

“I will declare your name to my brothers;

in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.”

This passage is about how Christ, “the author of our salvation,” identifies with us. It tells us that we are in the same family as Christ. This family is more than the family of man. The author of Hebrews is pointing to a very specific shared identity. We are with Christ in the family of those who suffer. We must not forget that we serve a Suffering Savior. We do not seek help from someone who cannot understand our experience. Jesus is compassionate and understanding. He can help us because he is like us. He went through what we are going through now. He knows us and our experiences, because we are in the same family, the family of those who have suffered.

But there is more. The passage says that Christ is not ashamed to call us “brothers.” The title brother connotes a particular position in the family, a sibling relationship of equals. Christ could not have chosen a more powerful term to identify with us. Three aspects of this identification stand out:

1. We are in the same family.

2. We are in a similar position in the family.

3. We share similar life experiences because of that position.

This captures the humble character of personal ministry. Our service must not have an “I stand above you as one who has arrived” character. It flows out of a humble recognition that we share an identity with those we serve. God has not completed his work in me, either. We are brothers and sisters in the middle of God’s lifelong process of change. I am not anyone’s guru. Change will not happen simply because someone is exposed to my wisdom and experience. We share identity, we share experience, and we are of the same family.

This posture is essential for God-honoring personal ministry. First, it recognizes that God sends people my way, not only so that they will change, but so that I will too. The Wonderful Counselor is working on everyone in the room. God repeatedly uses the difficulties of a ministry relationship and the revelation of his redemptive glory to challenge, deepen, and strengthen my faith. Because I have a front row seat to the heart-transforming work of God, I minister to others with greater hope, expectancy, and courage. What is more, I live with more courage and hope for my own life. There is no question that the person who has benefited most from my ministry is me!

This shared-identity posture also protects us from the unhealthy dependency that can derail counseling, discipleship, and personal ministry. We are not what people need. Our purpose is to connect them to a living, active, redeeming Christ. He gives them what they need so that they can do what they have been called to do amid the difficulties of life. I am nothing more than a brother. I stand alongside you and point you to the Father. I stand next to you and tell you stories of his amazing love and care. I share with you the things I have learned on his lap and at his feet. I take your hand and walk with you to him. As brothers and sisters we put the focus where it must be—on our all-wise, almighty, and ever-present Father. We need more than acceptance or practical strategies for change. We need the forgiveness, deliverance, and empowerment that only God’s grace can give.

A humble identity as a brother-in-process also helps my life to be an example. Sometimes people put us on pedestals that rob our stories of their power. They hear our stories but forget that we are sinners just like them. They forget that we live with the pressures of relationships and work. We, too, have to control our thoughts and rein in our desires. As a result, they hear words that are meant to encourage them and think, Easy for you. Your life bears no resemblance to my impoverished existence. Your advice is nice, but it simply doesn’t apply to me. The more we are honest about who we are, the more we are willing to stand alongside people and not above them, the more our lives will offer hope.

Suffering with a Purpose

Look back at Hebrews 2. The core of our brotherhood with Christ and other people is suffering. But what is the purpose of our common suffering?

Verse 10 says something very interesting (and a bit confusing) about Christ. It says that, like us, he was made perfect through suffering. The writer is making a connection between Christ’s life and ours. If we understand it, we will gain a better understanding of how he has called us to minister to others.

How did suffering make Christ perfect? Wasn’t he already perfect? What did his suffering on earth (the same process we go through daily) add to his perfection?

Scripture teaches that Christ had lived in eternity as the perfect Son of God, yet something was needed before he, as the Son of Man, could go to the cross as the perfect Lamb for sacrifice. He had to live on earth as the Second Adam, enduring the full range of experiences, tests, and temptations that make up life in the fallen world. The first Adam had failed the test, so Christ had to face sin and suffering throughout his whole life without sinning. So how was Christ made perfect? Not only by being the perfect Son of God, but by proving himself to be the perfect Son of Man. His perfection successfully endured the test of suffering.

The author of Hebrews is suggesting that there is a direct analogy between Christ’s life and ours. Just as Christ was declared perfect in eternity, we are declared perfect in Christ (justification). And just as Christ’s suffering demonstrated his righteousness on earth, we also become holy through the process of suffering (sanctification). We are being made perfect through the same process that Christ went through! (See Figure 8.1.)

This is also the identity we share with those we seek to love and help. Even with unbelievers, this shared brotherhood (or sisterhood) is our goal. We stand alongside each other. We are equals. We share the same experience of suffering. And our experience has the same goal of holiness. Let’s consider the impact of this identity on personal ministry.

It gives us the opportunity to make truth concrete for people. Often the truths we share are robbed of their power because people are unable to see them in action. But because we share identity with those we serve, these truths can be presented as concrete realities in the midst of life. We must incarnate the truths we hold out, carrying them out of the abstract into the familiar locations of everyday life.

It encourages people to depend on Christ rather than on us. We must faithfully present ourselves as people who need Christ every moment of every day. We are never more than his ambassadors, his instruments of change.

It encourages humility and honesty. One of the radical differences between secular therapy and biblical ministry is the importance of sharing our own stories of struggle. Christ wants me to give evidence of what he can do. As I am humbly honest, the Redeemer will use my story to bring hope to another person.

It redeems my story. God has brought me through sin and suffering, not only to change me but to enable me to minister to others. My story is a small chapter in the grand story of redemption, and Christ is on center stage. My story is much more about him than it is about me. In this way even my failures result in his glory. In my own weakness, foolishness, and inability, I have learned the truthfulness of his promises and the reality of his presence. This makes my story a vehicle of change in the lives of others.

It makes my life a window to the glory of Christ. Often people look at us and want to be like us. We may be more mature and we may have greater wisdom, but we are not essentially different from the people we hope to help. But when we emphasize that we are brothers and sisters, we are no longer viewed as idealized models. We become windows people can look through to see the presence, power, love, and grace of Christ. Our lives frame the beauty of what he can do.

It results in worship of Christ. When you have spent fifteen minutes in front of a Monet, you are thankful that he had paintbrushes, but you are not in awe of them. You are in awe of Monet and his ability as a painter. The posture of brotherhood presents Christ as the great redemptive Artist. We are simply brushes in his hands. The glorious changes he paints into the hearts of people are not the result of good brushes, but of the skills of the Painter.

As we point people to Christ, he becomes the focus of our attention and the recipient of our praise. Truly biblical personal ministry always results in increasingly mature worship.

Comfort, Compassion, and Your Story

What does it mean to comfort those who suffer? How do we come alongside them with compassion? Often we are unsure of what to say. We struggle with how to comfort someone who has lost a loved one, or who faces past experiences that can never be undone. We do not want to communicate truths in ways that are cheap and platitudinous. We want to anchor the person in what is true as he deals with his suffering, but in a way that shows him that we understand the intensity of his trial. We want to show him that the truths we share are robust enough to carry him through. Most of all we want him to know that he is not alone, because Christ is present as his Helper in times of trouble. The question is, “How do we avoid these pitfalls and accomplish these goals?”

A helpful answer is found in Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many. (2 Cor. 1:3–11)

This passage summarizes the nature of Christian compassion and the process of communicating it to others. It can be neatly divided into two sections: a model or paradigm (vv. 3–7) and a process or methodology (vv. 8–11).

The Model: Viewing Suffering and

Comfort Redemptively

If you listed everything you know about suffering and comfort, what themes would emerge from your list? Do you struggle to put God’s love alongside his call for us to suffer? Do the two appear contradictory? In a culture that canonizes comfort and sees suffering as horrible interference, we need a biblical paradigm of both suffering and comfort. Paul offers that here.

God is the source of true compassion. Real comfort is more than thinking the right things in times of trouble. It involves having my identity rooted in something deeper than my relationships, possessions, achievements, wealth, health, or my ability to figure it all out. Real comfort is found when I understand that I am held in the hollow of the hand of the One who created and rules all things. The most valuable thing in my life is God’s love, a love that no one can take away. When my identity is rooted in him, the storms of trouble will not blow me away.

This is the comfort we offer people. We don’t comfort them by saying that things will work out. They may not. The people around them may change, but they may not. The Bible tells us again and again that everything around us is in the process of being taken away. God and his love are all that remain as cultures and kingdoms rise and fall. Comfort is found by sinking our roots into the unseen reality of God’s ever-faithful love.

But Paul is saying even more here. He says that there would be no such thing as compassion on earth if it were not for God. He is the source of all compassion. This point is important, because if God is the source of compassion, it makes no sense for his children to be uncaring. If we are members of his family and partakers of his divine nature, increasingly conformed to his image, we should be marked by our compassion. We should be more than theological answer machines. Because of our connection to the Father, we can bring comfort to a world where suffering is a constant reality. We should weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn, and so incarnate the One who is compassion.

The comfort we have received from the Lord has ministry in view. God has chosen me not only to be the recipient of his grace but to convey his grace to others. I must not hoard the comfort I have received like some spiritual heirloom. I have been called to share what I have received. The comfort we share is not rooted in abstract theology, but in our experience of being comforted by the Lord in our own times of trouble. We want sufferers around us to experience what we have been given by the Lord.

God wants us to share in Christ’s suffering. The logic in 2 Corinthians is simple: You have been called to suffer so that you would experience God’s comfort. You have experienced God’s comfort so that you can comfort others. As they receive God’s comfort through you, they can bring that comfort to others. Our suffering is not a gap in God’s love, as if the Devil crept in while the Lord’s head was turned.

Peter says it this way: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12–13). Suffering does not mean that God’s plan has failed. It is the plan. Suffering is a sign that we are in the family of Christ and the army of the kingdom. We suffer because we carry his name. We suffer so that we may know him more deeply and appreciate his grace more fully. We suffer so that we may be part of the good he does in the lives of others.

Even our suffering does not belong to us, but to the Lord. Perhaps it is easier to recognize that our blessings belong to the Lord than it is to recognize that he owns our suffering. If you watch someone suffer, you will see that we tend to treat suffering as something that belongs to us, something we can respond to as we please. We tend to turn in on ourselves. Our world shrinks to the size of our pain. We want little more than release, and we tend to be irritable and demanding.

It does not take long to learn that suffering gives you power. As you cry in pain, people run to help you. They offer you physical comforts, say nice things, and release you from your duties. I once watched a little boy fall off his bike several houses away from home. He started to cry, but then he quickly stopped. He picked up his bike and walked in silence to his house. When he stepped on his porch, he began to wail in pain. Clearly, he had concluded that crying half a block away from home was a waste of tears. When his mother hit the porch, he tearfully told a story of a mishap that was much more dramatic than anything I had witnessed. He pointed to a minor wound and screamed as if in major pain. I thought to myself, This little guy is enjoying this moment!

A whole host of self-absorbed temptations greet us when we treat suffering as something that belongs to us. This passage reminds us that our suffering belongs to the Lord. It is an instrument of his purpose in us and for others. The way we suffer must put Christ on center stage. The Redeemer owns our disappointment and fear. He owns our physical and spiritual pain. He owns those crushing past experiences. He owns our rejection and aloneness. He owns our dashed expectations and broken dreams. It all belongs to him for his purpose. When we feel like dying, he calls us to a greater death. He calls us to die to our suffering so that we may live for him.

This is not a call to some creepy form of Christian stoicism. It is a call to bring the full range of our suffering to him. We are to weep loudly and mourn fully before him, knowing that true comfort can only be found at his feet. We are to place our mourning in his hands, to be used for his purposes in our lives and the lives of others. And it is a promise of comfort from the God who is the source of it all.

The redemptive purpose in all of this is hope in a fallen world. God wants to raise up people filled with hope. True hope is not rooted in my achievements or assets, but in my knowledge that I am the child of the King. He loves me with a love that nothing can take away. He has given me his forgiving and empowering grace. He is daily changing and maturing me. He has promised to give me whatever I need to face what comes my way. And he has promised that I will live with him forever in a place without suffering, sorrow, or sin. This means that in the most difficult moments of my life, nothing truly permanent or valuable is at stake. What I really live for is safe and secure. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I know that I am in the family of God, eternally loved and cared for by him. This is real hope.

So this is the paradigm: purposeful suffering, leading to the experience of God’s comfort, producing the ability to comfort others, resulting in a community of hope. As we embrace the fact that God is in our suffering, we need to keep Paul’s suffering ➞ comfort ➞ comfort ➞ hope paradigm in view.

We must also ask ourselves, “Where has God called me to suffer? How has God used people to make his comfort known to me? What have they said and done? How can I use my experience to comfort others? How can I tell my story in a way that gives hope, rooted in the reality of Christ’s presence and love?” We can be thankful that Paul not only offers a paradigm but a methodology as well.

Telling Christ-centered Stories

In 2 Corinthians 1, Paul says that he does not want the Corinthians to be uninformed about his suffering in Asia. He wants his story to result in deeper hope, strengthened faith, and renewed worship among them. Paul’s experiences put flesh and blood on the promises of God. In them you see God in action, doing exactly what he promised to do for his children. As people see God in Paul’s story, they are given eyes to see God in their own, and they are comforted by this. This is one of the most personal and powerful methodologies of offering comfort. It presents realities that are deeply theological in the context of circumstances familiar to anyone in a fallen world. Our stories take God’s truth to the struggles of life and present strong reasons not to give up.

If God wants to use your suffering and his comfort to encourage others, how can you tell your story to accomplish this goal? Paul’s example offers some guidelines in verses 8–11.

Tell your story in a way that breaks down the misconception that you are essentially different from the person you are helping. Have you ever been in a Sunday school class where someone raised her hand and said, “This may be a dumb question, but I was wondering . . . ?” When you hear the question, you are thankful because it was precisely the question you had but were afraid to ask. This happens in relationships too. People assume that they are the only ones with particular problems; they assume that no one else can understand or help. But God wants us to remember that we are just like the people around us—flawed human beings facing very similar difficulties. Redemptive truth is invigorated when it is shared by those willing to reveal the ways they have faced real life.

Always tell a completed story. Your story needs to include (1) a difficult situation, (2) your struggle in the midst of it, and (3) how God helped you. This is not the “misery loves company” brand of storytelling. This is not disaster one-upmanship. Tell a story that is old enough for you to reflect on how the Lord brought comfort in the middle of it, and how he used people to do it.

As you tell your story, be honest in describing your struggles and failures. Your story must highlight God’s grace in your weakness, not your heroic faith. Be willing to expose your sin so that the redemptive glory of the Lord would live in the ears of the listener. Notice the things Paul says about himself, a man of great faith: We were far beyond our ability to endure . . . we despaired even of life . . . in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. Paul, beyond his ability to endure? Giving in to despair? Paul is willing to rip back the curtain of public reputation and take you into the private corridors of his struggles.

Be discerning and purposeful as you tell your story. Limit the amount of “gory” detail. Your focus is not the situation, but the God who met you in the middle of it. Notice that Paul gives almost no detail here, yet we are still able to sense the seriousness and drama of his situation.

Always tell your story in a way that makes God the key actor in the drama. Too often our stories of Christian suffering are incredibly man-centered. We even do this as we tell the great stories of Scripture, focusing on the heroic responses of Moses, David, and Daniel instead of the Lord who sustained them. This turns the great stories of Scripture into moralistic fables with no greater application than “Be like them.” But these stories are only chapters of the one great story of Scripture. God is the Actor. It is his story. Our stories, too, are merely part of the Great Story of redemption. Our stories belong to him and point to him.

Tell your story with humility, admitting your continuing need for grace. Sometimes we have a way of telling our story that has a “good student learning the ultimate lesson” character to it. It communicates spiritual “arrival” rather than continuing need. We must tell our story out of a fresh recognition of our helplessness apart from the resources we find only in Christ. It may even be appropriate to ask for prayer from the person you are serving. Often, when I ask people how I can pray for them, they ask me the same question in return.

Always make it clear that you are not what this person needs—God is. At best, you are one of God’s instruments, an ambassador who shares a need for God’s daily mercy and grace. Personal storytelling is a natural way to discourage a person’s inclination to develop an unhealthy dependency on you. If rightly told, your story will encourage people to trust themselves increasingly to Christ.

The goal of your story should always be worship. All true hope and comfort are rooted in thankfulness for God, his character, and his help. Giving hope is about helping a person see the Lord. Suffering commands our attention and clouds our vision, making it easy to forget what anchors our faith. Because trouble has such power to blind and confuse us, it is a sweet grace to have someone come alongside and point us to the One who is a rock, a fortress, a refuge, a hiding place, and a shield. We all need someone to remind us that life is not defined by our pain but by our union with Christ.

Giving hope is more than convincing people that things will get better, or helping them decide what to do. Giving hope introduces them to a Person. It helps people who are dealing with the unthinkable to view life from the perspective of God’s glory and grace and their identity as his children. As you tell your own story, you help people to see that the very suffering that seems to cloud their theology actually expounds it. It is in the darkest night that the glory of the Redeemer’s love and grace shines brightest. Hope points people toward the Light.

All of this should not only produce hope but deep thankfulness. Perhaps nothing has as much potential to produce true worship as suffering. Trials reveal critical things about us and wonderful things about God. People discover that there is strength to be found in weakness, love to be found in the midst of rejection, wisdom to be found in the face of foolishness, and that someone is with them even in their most profound loneliness. The result is worship that flows from an experience of the goodness of God. This is the ultimate reason for our personal storytelling.

Since suffering is a common human experience, identifying with suffering is critical to personal ministry. We should not greet these moments with fear, for they are moments of unique opportunity. As we approach suffering people as fellow sufferers and take them to a Suffering Savior, they can walk away with a stronger faith and a more heartfelt appreciation of the Lord. Suffering gives people who have been jolted out of their comfortable lifestyle a reason to stop, look, and listen. It can help them move out of the confines of their self-absorbed world into the grandeur of a world where God is central, where hope is rooted in things that cannot be seen.²

Building a relationship in which God’s work can thrive means looking for the entry gates of opportunity in the lives of those God brings your way. It means incarnating the love of Christ and being willing to disclose your own stories. And there is one more element in the Love function of our personal ministry model.

Element Four:

Accept with Agenda

Here again we follow the example of Christ’s love for us. The grace that adopts me into Christ’s family is not a grace that says I am okay. In fact, the Bible is clear that God extends his grace to me because I am everything but okay. As we enter God’s family, we are in need of radical personal change. God’s acceptance is not a call to relax, but a call to work. Paul says in Titus 2:11–12, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” The grace God extends to us is always grace leading to change. His acceptance is not the end of his work; it is the beginning! Our justification must never be separated from our sanctification. They are two parts of a seamless work of redemption.

Therefore it is wrong to approach a struggling brother or sister with a condemning, self-righteous spirit. This puts you in the way of what the Lord is doing in their lives. You must grant them the same grace and love that you received from the Lord. At the same time, you do not want that offer of grace to be misunderstood. God’s grace is always grace leading to change. Since God’s purpose is that we would become “partakers of his divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), change is his agenda. As we offer people a humble, patient, gentle, forbearing, and forgiving love, we must never communicate that it is okay for them to stay as they are. As long as a vestige of indwelling sin remains, change is God’s call. It must never be compromised in the relationships he gives us. To do so is to cease to be an ambassador and to stand in the way of the Lord’s work in that person’s life.

So we sturdily refuse to condemn, but we also refuse to condone. We accept people with a grace that empowers us for God’s work of heart change. Anything less cheapens his grace and denies the gravity of our need.

As we seek to minister by entering into people’s struggles, we look for ways to incarnate the presence and character of Christ. We come alongside people as brothers and sisters in the same family, going through the same process. As sufferers who are willing to tell our own stories, we become windows to the hope and glory of God. Finally, we offer others the same acceptance we have received from the Lord. It is grace that cannot be earned, but that always calls us to work. This work is our calling until we are fully conformed to the image of God’s Son. Relationships built this way become places where God’s work can thrive. They become places where people are renewed, restored, rebuilt, and refined; where God is central and given the glory that is his due.

Love

‣ Know

Speak

Do

Getting to Know People

Everyone felt like they knew Betty and Brad. Their presence was so central to the life of our church that no gathering seemed official without them. I had spent many hours in meetings with Brad. I had been impressed by how quietly practical he was. We had picnicked together as families, shared evening meals, and worked together on Christian school projects. We knew their children and their extended family well.

Late one autumn evening, Brad called me to go out for coffee, making it clear that he wanted to do it right then. I heard the urgency in his voice, so I got dressed and we met at a local diner. I arrived first and as I saw Brad enter the diner, I knew that something was seriously wrong.

Brad sat down and said, “I don’t know where to start. I guess I should have done this a long time ago, but I kept thinking that we could work things out. Now we’re in a mess and I don’t know what to do.” He seemed both discouraged and angry. “I’ve put up with her stuff for years,” he said. “It has been an everyday thing, constant demands, and when I don’t do things just the way she wants, there’s hell to pay! There is never a day that I am not in trouble for something. She has called me horrible things in front of our children. Once a month she threatens to leave. For the last week she has been so depressed that she hasn’t gotten out of bed, except to eat a cracker or go to the bathroom. The kids keep asking what is wrong with Mommy, and I’ve made up a thousand stories to cover for her in front of our friends.”

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Brad went on, “A few years ago Betty was making supper and was very angry that I couldn’t help her on a project that night. In the middle of our argument, she threw a saucepan lid at me. I ducked and it flew by me and broke our kitchen window. When I heard that window break, I guess I lost it. I rushed over and slapped her across the face. She responded by kicking me in the groin and we launched into the first of many physical battles. We have been physically fighting ever since. We have broken most of our pottery and lamps and put holes in almost every wall in the house. I have hit Betty so hard that she had to stay out of sight for a week so the bruises could heal. Most of the injuries that you thought were the result of my clumsiness at home repair actually came from Betty.”

“It has really affected our children,” he continued. “Our three boys swing from whiney and demanding to fearful and timid. They hide whenever they feel like trouble is brewing. They almost always disappear when I am expected home. Recently, when we are in the middle of a fight, our seven-year-old has taken to hitting and kicking whichever of us is closest, while screaming, ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.’ Betty is constantly telling me that I am destroying the children, yet she regularly points out to them the things that I do wrong. I am here tonight because I don’t know where Betty is. We had the most horrible fight we have ever had. Our house looks like a war zone. We fought from room to room. We said the most awful things we could think of and we threw everything we could get our hands on. She is out there now, insanely angry, with all of the debit and credit cards, and a huge bottle of wine.”

It was hard for me to pay attention because Brad’s story was so disorienting. I had known this man for years, yet I knew nothing of what he was telling me now. My mind went to the many hours we had spent with this family. I had assumed I knew them, so I had never asked anything that would give them an opportunity to say anything about the true state of their personal lives. I wondered how this could have gone on for so long without anyone knowing. In that moment I realized that the most personal and important parts of our lives fly under the radar of our typical relationships in the body of Christ. We live frenetically busy lives with activity-based friendships, punctuated only by brief conversations with each other. Now I was sitting across from a friend I did not know.

Breaking Through the Casual

Have you ever thought you knew someone well, only to discover significant details that you did not know at all? Have you ever started to share a story from your own life and been interrupted by someone who said, “I know exactly what you mean!”—but clearly didn’t? Think of someone you believe you know well. Try to identify some of the gaps in your understanding of his or her story. How much do you know of your friend’s family of origin? Do you know where he struggles in his relationship with God or in his understanding of Scripture? What do you know about the quality of her marriage or the struggles she experiences with her husband? If he is single, do you know how he spends his hours alone? If she is a mother, does she think she is a failure? Could your friend be fighting disintegrating relationships at work or long-term problems with his extended family? Perhaps his heart is driven by lust or eaten up with bitterness. Might she harbor deep regret over a past decision or jealousy over the successes of a friend? Are there financial woes or physical problems?

We tend to have permanently casual relationships that never grow into real intimacy. There are things we know about each other, but they fool us into thinking that we know the human beings who live within the borders of those details. So we fail to pursue them with good questions. This sets the stage for all kinds of misunderstandings. Our effectiveness as ambassadors is blunted because we don’t know others well enough to know where change is needed or where God is actively at work.

Think about it. Most of the conversations you had today were mundane and rather self-protective. We spend most of our time talking about things that are of little personal consequence—the weather, politics, sports, and entertainment. There is nothing wrong with this except that it allows us to hide who we really are. A person may be terribly distraught about her marriage, yet when people ask how she is, she will quickly answer, “Fine, how are you?” The person asking doesn’t really want to know and the person answering doesn’t really want to tell. They are co-conspirators in a casual relationship. Whether it is over the back of a pew, in passing at a school function, or over the phone, we are all skilled at newsy but personally protective conversations.

There are many reasons why our relationships are trapped in the casual. One is that, in our busyness, we despair of squeezing ten dollar conversations into ten cent moments. There are times when we would like to tell our story, but there doesn’t seem to be an opportunity to do so. We all deal with the disconnect between our public reputation and our private struggles. We wonder what people would think if they really knew us.

Another reason we keep things casual is that we buy the lie that we are unique and struggle in ways that no one else does. We get tricked by people’s public personas and forget that behind closed doors they live real lives just like us. We forget that life for everyone is fraught with disappointment and difficulty, suffering and struggle, trials and temptation. No one is from a perfect family, no one has a perfect job, no one has perfect relationships, and no one does the right thing all the time. Yet we are reluctant to admit our weaknesses to ourselves, let alone to others. We don’t want to face what our struggles reveal about the true condition of our hearts.

The Bible teaches that people love darkness rather than light because their actions are evil. We all find the searching light of true friendship a bit intimidating. True friendship calls you out of the darkness of personal privacy into the loving candor of mutual concern. It moves you from being a sealed envelope to being an open letter. The best relationships are built on a foundation of mutual trust-giving and truth-speaking.

Another reason we rarely talk beyond a casual level is because we do not see. The Bible has much to say about how blind we are. Sin is deceitful, causing us to see others with a greater clarity than we see ourselves. Because we tend to believe our own arguments and buy into our own excuses, we are often unaware of how great our need for help really is. We can’t bare what we don’t see. We think we are okay but wonder how the person next to us can be so unaware of his own sin. This not only distorts our perspective on ourselves, but shapes the way we tell our story to others. It may even lead us to question whether we need to tell our story at all.

Perhaps the simplest reason for our lack of self-disclosing candor is that no one asks. The typical rhythms of our lives mitigate against going below the surface. In the busyness of life it seems intrusive to ask questions that cannot be answered without personal self-disclosure. Yet there is a way in which we all hunger for relationships of that quality. These are the relationships in which the Redeemer does his good work.

We must not let ourselves become comfortable with the casual, where ministry is limited to offering general principles that would fit anyone’s story. The genius of personal ministry is that it is personal. It can take the grand themes of the Great Story and apply them with utter specificity to the particulars of an individual’s life. Personal ministry is not preaching to a very small congregation. It is the careful ministry of Christ and his Word to the struggles of heart that have been uncovered by good questions from a committed friend. This means that effective, God-honoring, heart-changing personal ministry is dependent on a rich base of personal information. You cannot minister well to someone you do not know.

Christ the Data Gatherer

It may seem like a stretch to think of Christ as a model of data gathering, but that’s exactly what he did when he walked among us. This is powerfully portrayed for us in Hebrews 4:14–16.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

This passage encourages us to come to the Wonderful Counselor with the full range of our experiences and the weaknesses they expose. We can come knowing that we will receive mercy and grace appropriate to the need of the moment. This is a promise of personalized help. Christ is able to sympathize with each of our weaknesses. And the Greek word translated “sympathize” here means much more than a flash of compassion or a surge of pity. Our experience of sympathy is usually limited to feeling sorry for someone and being thankful that we’re not in the same boat. But sympathy here means to be moved by what has moved someone else. Christ’s sympathy is so strong that our problems become his. This is much more than feeling sorry for someone in a tough spot. It is understanding what it is like to live in the middle of someone else’s circumstances, coupled with a desire to do whatever is within your power to help him out.

The double negative in the passage (“we do not have . . . who is unable”) is a positive assurance that this is exactly how the Wonderful Counselor responds to us as we struggle with life. It is an amazing comfort to realize that the One we run to “gets it.” He fully understands what we are going through and is motivated to respond with appropriate help. Isn’t this what everyone in trouble wants? You want more than pity, a pat on the back, or some hopeful words. You want someone who is able to grasp what you are talking about and cares enough to help you do something about it. It is a sweet grace to realize that we find all of this in Christ. He is not only our ultimate helper, but our model as well. Only in him do we learn how to interact with people in need.

The Greek word in this passage translated “weaknesses” is also very strong. It is best understood as “the human condition.” The writer of Hebrews is saying that Jesus really understands what it means to live in this fallen world. He understands the full catalog of temptations we face. He understands how difficult and complicated our relationships are. He understands betrayal, rejection, physical pain, and aloneness. Jesus knows what it means to be human. He knows us!

Perhaps you are thinking, But Jesus was perfect! Certainly he was perfect, but this does not mean that he didn’t experience the full range of the pressures we face. This is a common misunderstanding. But consider this illustration. Imagine a strong man who performs at a state fair by bending bars of steel. The first bar he picks up is a half inch in diameter. He bends it to a ninety degree angle and it breaks. Then he picks up an inch-thick bar and bends it until the ends of the bar touch, but still it does not break. Which bar endured the most pressure? The obvious answer is the second bar. It absorbed the full force of the man’s strength and did not break. On earth, Christ was like that second bar. Because he never gave in, because he did not run away, because he never went where temptation would lead, but stood strong until that moment of temptation was over, he endured the full power of temptation. Christ endured stress, pain, suffering, and sacrifice of an intensity that we will never face because he did not break. He stood strong against sin for us. He endured everything the world could throw at him.

What does all this have to do with data gathering? Look back at Hebrews 4:15: “We have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” Jesus understands us because he entered our world. For thirty-three years, he lived among us, gathering data about the nature of our experience. Not one minute of those years was wasted. Not only was he passing the test that Adam failed, he was also thoroughly acquainting himself with all we would face as we endured life and waited for his return. His years of experience between the stall in Bethlehem and the mound called Golgotha made him a high priest who can fully sympathize with our weaknesses. He entered our world and his understanding is first-hand and complete.

Since Christ is our model for personal ministry, we too want to understand people so that we can serve him in their lives. We too must be committed to entering their worlds. We can begin by taking the time to ask good questions and listen well. Our hope is that others would seek us out and share more of their true struggles, so that they may find, through us, the Lord himself. Entering a person’s world enables us to apply the truths of the gospel in a way that is situation- and person-specific.

The Problem of Assumptions

Why don’t we ask better questions and take the time to really listen? Why don’t we ask people more often what they meant by what they said, or why they did what they did? Why don’t we ask people to define their terms or explain their logic? Why don’t we ask people more about what they were thinking and feeling? Why don’t we get them to talk more about the purposes and desires that shaped their decisions? There are many answers to these questions, but one in particular seems to get in the way of our call to function as the Lord’s ambassadors. It is the problem of assumptions.

When you assume, you do not ask. If you do not ask, you open yourself up to a world of invalid conclusions and misunderstandings. You may try to be God’s instrument but miss the mark because you are putting two and two together and getting five—and you don’t even know it. Thanks to your assumptions, the person you think you are helping may exist only in your mind.

There are two main reasons we assume too much. One is theological and the other is experiential. Let’s look at the theological reason first.

When we approach moments of personal ministry, we do not come empty-handed, but with the theology of Scripture. The theology of the Word not only describes God’s plan of redemption, it explains people as well. The Bible knows us, even to the deepest thoughts and motives of our hearts. It dramatically depicts our suffering and our joy, untangling the complexities of human relationships. It depicts human feeling, knowing, and communicating. If you read the Bible, you will know and understand people.

This biblical insight is a great gift, but it is also where we get ourselves into trouble. Knowing fundamental things about people in general should not be confused with knowing the particular individuals God has sent your way. Our rich theological base should not make us lethargic data gatherers. However, because we assume we know people, we can easily fail to ask good questions.

We need to remember that God is not only the Creator of every person and the Revealer of who they are in Scripture, but he is also sovereign over every detail of their lives. Because of God’s sovereignty, no two people have exactly the same story. People are at once all the same and dramatically different. Take human noses, for example. Everybody has one, yet no two are exactly alike. God’s creative artistry is endless in its variations. All people are similar, yet the more carefully you look, the more you are impressed with how different we are from one another.

The endless variations of our physical bodies also serve as metaphors of our vast internal differences. Think of the endless variety of personalities or the diverse and unexpected ways different minds work. Some of us are mechanical, while others (like me) have neither the mind to figure out how things work nor the hands to fix them. Some of us are almost coldly rational, while others feel their way through life. Imagine the differences in life experience between a tall man and a short one, between someone who is obese and someone who is very thin. Think of the great difference in life experience between a man and a woman, or a thinker and a doer. The range of God’s creativity is vast.

God not only uniquely creates each of us, he also sovereignly authors and directs each of our stories. There are familiar elements in all of them, but each person’s story is a labyrinth of details that makes each one dramatically different from another. Because of this, you cannot know me only by knowing what Scripture says about me. You will know wonderfully helpful things about me as a human being, but you will not know how these truths are uniquely manifested in my life without asking. We must seek to know one another in a way that recognizes God both as our Creator (universal human truths) and as our sovereign Lord (the unique, individual details). This will not only make us thankful that we come armed with the truths of Scripture, but it will also drive us to know well the particular person God has sent our way.

The second reason we assume too much is our experience. We speak the same language, share many of the same experiences, live in the same community, and often attend the same church, so it is easy to assume that we know more about each other than we really do. More dangerous is the tendency to confuse similar experience with identical experience. For example, it is safe for me to conclude that you have some kind of family. But when I hear you say the word “family,” it is not safe for me to fill in the details of what that means from my experience and not yours. When we assume an exact correspondence of thoughts, desires, and experiences, we will not ask the questions we need to ask to be useful in God’s hands. We will be left with invalid assumptions about people and we will offer help that does not really fit their needs.

For personal ministry to be effective, the principle is simple: Don’t assume—ask. This is true not only for a good counselor, but for a wise teacher, elder, spouse, parent, or friend as well. Assuming that you already know what you need to know almost always leads to misunderstandings that blunt and derail personal ministry. If you think you can take something for granted, ask anyway. Only then can you be sure that the help you offer will fit this person’s situation and relationships.

Making Sure Your Conclusions Are Correct

In grappling with the reality of shared experience and the temptation to assume, it is important to make a habit of doing three things. They may seem cumbersome at first, but you will soon learn to do them naturally, and you will be thankful that you are able to avoid wrong assumptions.

Always ask people to define their terms (What?). Human language is messy. The more a word is used, the more nuances of meaning it takes on. We will speak with people who use very familiar words, but with very different functional definitions. For example, when a woman says that she and her husband had a huge fight last night, you should not assume that you understand what she means. If you do not ask her to define “huge fight,” you have simply reached into your own experience to define it. In doing so, you may have created a subtle but important area of misunderstanding that could affect the counsel you give her. This woman’s fight may seem like your normal marital conversation, or it may look like the domestic version of nuclear war. I regularly say to people, “I don’t want to put my definition on your words and end up counseling someone who doesn’t exist, so I am regularly going to ask you to define your terms.”

Always ask people to clarify what they mean with concrete, real life examples of the terms they have used (How?). If point 1 asked for their personal dictionary definition, then point 2 asks people to play us the video. The terms people use are verbal shorthand for significant situations. I want the woman to walk me through, step by step, what happened during the “huge fight” with her husband last night. Listening to her account will make my understanding concrete and personalized, and give me a sense of the drama and emotions of the moment.

Always ask people to explain why they responded as they did in the examples they have given you (Why?). Now you not only have a definition and a concrete situation, but you can begin to get a little bit of the heart behind the person’s behavior. Ask the person to share her reasons, values, purposes, and desires. You are asking her to step back and evaluate what was behind the words she said, the choices she made, and the things she did. In so doing, you are taking the camera off the scene and putting it on the person.

When you are careful to ask people to define, clarify, and explain, you will avoid many misunderstandings and false assumptions that rob personal ministry of its effectiveness. Remember, you are not seeking to broadcast the principles of the Word in a general way. Rather, in the privacy of this moment with this person, use the Word with focused specificity. Enter her world, get to know what she is facing, and help her to understand her resources in Christ to face her particular situation. Because you are eager to contextualize the gospel for this person, you won’t ask her to define, clarify, and explain just once. You will do it again and again, seeking to avoid subtle misunderstandings and to handle the truth with concrete practicality.

The Importance of Asking Good Questions

It is tempting to think that insightful people have all the right answers, and in one sense that is true. But it is also true that you don’t get to the right answers without first asking the right questions. The engineer who changes the face of a certain technology is able to do so because he first stepped back and asked questions that no one else was asking. Our thinking always rides on the rails of our questions. Good thinkers like to walk around a topic and look at it from different angles. They like asking new questions and asking old questions in new ways. Good thinkers don’t make uncorroborated assumptions, and they don’t allow themselves to think they know more than they actually do.

If you want to help people to see brand new truths (and old truths in brand new ways), you need to take on the habits of good thinkers. Asking good questions is one of the most important. I am regularly reminded that people get trapped in the conceptual cul-de-sacs of their own questions. For example, I have often heard people ask, “Why isn’t God doing anything in my life?” This is a bad question, based on wrong assumptions that can lead only to theological confusion and the emotional discouragement that follows.

What are the typical answers to our friend’s mistaken question? Many people will conclude that God doesn’t love them, or that he is not faithful to his promises, or that he plays favorites, or that he is absent in times of trouble, or that God’s Word isn’t true—or if it is, then it isn’t very practical. Remember that people were made by God to be interpreters, and the questions we ask ourselves (sometimes almost unconsciously) are what we use to try and make sense out of life. The answers we give will profoundly affect the direction of our lives. So it is important to understand that when you bring well-constructed, creative, biblically-shaped questions to a person’s life, you are doing more than getting to know them and uncovering where change is needed. You are, in fact, ministering to that person.

When I ask you questions you would never ask yourself, I am teaching you to view yourself through biblical lenses. I am doing something God can use to change you in fundamental ways. Perhaps my questions will help you see yourself more accurately. When my questions do this, I am incarnating the Messiah who came to give sight to blind eyes. Perhaps my questions will help you begin to see how Scripture explains your life. When my questions do this, I am incarnating the Messiah who came to teach as people had never been taught before. Maybe my questions will convict your heart and lead you to new levels of repentance. When they do this, I am incarnating the Messiah who sent his Spirit to convict and convince us of our sin. Perhaps my questions will help you to see that the Bible really does speak to the deepest issues of your experience, causing you to hunger to feed on the Word in new ways. In so doing, I am incarnating the Messiah who is the Bread from heaven that feeds his people. In these ways, even in asking questions we can function as the Messiah’s ambassadors, incarnating him before others.

Asking good questions is doing the work of change. Through them, we give sight to blind eyes and understanding to dull minds, we soften hardened hearts, encourage flagging souls, and stir hunger that can only be filled by the truth. This not only builds a platform for the work the Messiah does through us—it is that work!

My brother Tedd, who has always been a mentor to me, was riding home with me after a conference on marriage and family counseling. We were going about sixty-five miles per hour when he said to me, “You know, Paul, we probably should apply the principles that we learned this weekend to our own marriages. Why don’t you start?” He then proceeded to ask me a series of questions about my relationship with Luella. I don’t remember any of the specific questions, but I do remember the profound impact they had on me. It was as if God was tearing down thick velvet curtains that stood between me and an accurate understanding of my marriage. I saw myself with clarity, and what I saw wasn’t pretty! Through those questions I watched myself do and say things I could not believe. Through those questions I finally understood Luella’s experience and her frustrations. I saw my defensiveness and self-righteousness, and I saw that I had to change for the sake of the Lord and for the good of my marriage. Those questions were truly life-changing for me.

As Tedd questioned me, I remembered something I had once said to Luella during an argument: “Ninety-five percent of the women in our church would love to be married to a man like me!” (She lovingly informed me that she must be in the five percent minority!) Through Tedd’s questions I saw myself repeatedly defend myself by analyzing her words and shifting the focus off me and onto her. I saw that I was much more self-righteous and angry than I had ever realized. With stark clarity I saw how far I had fallen below God’s standards for a husband.

That night I got home late and asked Luella if we could talk. She could tell by the tone of my voice that something important was going on. As we sat down, I told her that I had known for a long time that God was trying to show me things about myself through her, and that I had been unwilling to listen. I told her that for perhaps the first time I was really ready to hear. She burst into tears, told me that she loved me, and then proceeded to talk to me for about two hours. That talk continued the work of change that Tedd’s questions had begun. Sometimes I wonder what my marriage would be like today if Tedd had not asked me the questions I would never have asked myself.

Now for Some Good Questions

Since the primary way we get to know people is through the question-and-answer process, it is important to know what is a good question and what is not. Here are four principles to keep in mind.

1. Always ask open-ended questions that cannot be answered with a “yes” or “no.” Yes and no questions do not give much information. The closed question (leading to a yes or no answer) can lead to misunderstandings because it forces you to fall back on your own assumptions about why the person answered as she did. For example, if you ask someone if she has a good marriage and she answers, “Yes,” what have you learned? Not much; you do not know her definition of a good marriage. On the other hand, open-ended questions cannot be answered without the person disclosing what she is thinking, what she wants, and what she is doing. Here are some examples of open-ended marriage questions.

• What things did you see in this person that made you want to marry him?

• What were your goals for your marriage when you were engaged?

• What things in your marriage make you sad?

• What things in your marriage make you happy?

• If you could press a button and change your marriage, how would it change?

• In what ways do you think God is honored by your marriage?

• How would you characterize your communication with your husband?

• Describe how you and your husband arrive at decisions.

• Describe how you as a couple resolve conflicts.

• How would you describe your spiritual life as a couple?

• Are there couples you look up to? What do you respect about their marriages?

• Why do you think you have struggled as a couple?

• What do you see as the strengths of your marriage?

• What do you see as the weaknesses of your marriage?

• What do you think you need to do as a couple to get from where you are to where you need to be?

• Describe the marriage of your dreams.

• What could your spouse do to greatly change your marriage?

• What problems in your marriage do you see as your responsibility?

• What specific things have led you to conclude that your marriage needs help?

• What do you think God is doing in your marriage right now?

• What do you think keeps you as a couple from solving your problems?

• Describe how your marriage has changed over the years.

• When you are hurt or angry with your spouse, what do you do?

• How do you communicate dissatisfaction to your spouse?

• Pick one area of your marriage where you think you have problems. Describe what is wrong and what each of you has done to solve it.

• In what ways have you attempted to communicate love and appreciation to your spouse?

• What are the biggest hot buttons in your marriage?

This list could go on and on. The point is to ask questions that require the person to examine himself or herself and to answer in a self-disclosing manner.

2. Ask a combination of survey and focused questions. We need both kinds of questions, because each discloses a different kind of information. We do not want to assume that a problem in one area of a person’s life only exists in that area, so we ask survey questions. We want to trace problems to their roots in the heart, so we ask focused questions. Remember, we want to break through the casual and guard against invalid assumptions so that we can help someone we truly know.

Survey questions scan the various areas of a person’s life and look at the person as a whole. Things that seem superficially different may actually be part of a larger theme of thought, motive, or behavior that you want to uncover. For example, Joe was a guy who lived for the respect of other people. The way he sought to get it at home was by establishing a violent autocracy (though what he got was more fear than respect). Outside the home Joe was known as a real servant, a guy who would give you the shirt off his back. People at Joe and Sarah’s church found it hard to believe that he could be capable of the things Sarah said he was doing with her and the children. It wasn’t until the police were called that Sarah began to get the help she had needed for so long. The point is that the public Joe and the private Joe were not completely different people. His behavior in both arenas was motivated by the same craving for respect.

Survey questions help uncover themes and patterns in the person’s life. Perhaps the problems in a marriage are part of a larger theme of relational sin in a person’s life. A lack of self-control in the area of sex may also be the reason a person is deeply in debt. A problem with tongue control that causes a man to lose his job may also explain his estrangement from his teenage son. Maybe the fear that paralyzes a young girl in one area of her life is more pervasive than it first appears. Take the wide angle view of a person; don’t assume that the confessed problem exists in isolation. Ask yourself how things that appear to be different may be different aspects of the same theme.

Focused questions look intensively into one area of a person’s life. For Joe, it would mean digging into his constant willingness to serve others, seeking to know the heart behind the behavior. Is this really motivated by a love for God that expresses itself in a love for others? Or is something else ruling Joe’s heart? The purpose of the focused question is to uncover roots and causes.

To really get to know someone, both kinds of questions should be asked. To illustrate this point, imagine yourself at the end of a motel hallway. The hallway, with doors every several feet, represents a person’s life. The rooms behind the doors represent various aspects of the person’s life (job, marriage, parenting, family, spiritual life, relationship to the body of Christ, relationship to neighbors, finances, sex, communication, problem solving, goals, motives, desires, etc.). Everything you need to know about this person is in that hallway and in those rooms. As you get to know a person, you will walk down the hallway, taking a peek in each room (survey questions). You will begin to notice certain themes (each room has a bed, desk, carpet, chair). Some rooms you will enter (focused questions), examining the contents more closely when you see something that seems worthy of special attention. Knowing when to ask which type of question is a matter of wisdom.

3. Remember that certain kinds of questions reveal certain kinds of information. To fill the gaps in your knowledge of a person, you must constantly ask yourself what you do not know. For example, I may know what a person did, but not how he did it. Or I may have established how he did it, but not where or when. I may have learned all of these things but still not know why he did what he did. To get the whole picture we need to ask ourselves, “What do I need to know about this person in order to help him? What kind of question will reveal that information?”

There are essentially five classes of questions:

• What? questions are the most basic, uncovering general information. (“What did you do?” “I talked to my wife.”)

• How? questions reveal the way something was done. (“How did you talk to her?” “I yelled at her for fifteen minutes!”) Notice how much more we know already, simply by asking a follow-up “how” question.

• Why? questions uncover a person’s purposes, desires, goals, or motivations. (“Why did you yell so long?” “I wanted her to know how angry I was at what she had done.”) Here we have gone beyond the husband’s behavior to examine the heart behind it.

• How often? and Where? questions reveal themes and patterns in a person’s life. (“Where did this happen?” “At the supper table. Suppers are hard. We are both tired. We have young children. Meals are not relaxing at all! The evening meal always seems to be tense for us.”)

• When? questions uncover the order of events. (“Tell me exactly when you began to yell during supper.” “In the middle of the chaos my wife said, ‘Well, how was your day?’ She was obviously annoyed because I hadn’t asked about hers. I said, ‘Do you really care or are you just being nasty?’ She said, ‘Well, you’re the only one here with an interesting and important life, right?’ At that point I blew up.”)

Each class of question uncovers different information, so each needs to be followed by the next. This will broaden and deepen your understanding of what took place (the situation), how the person interacted with it (the thoughts and motives of the heart), and what he did in response (behavior). Use these questions whether you are focusing on one area or surveying a person’s life.

These questions were very helpful when Jim called me, expressing concern about his relationship to his wife, Bonnie. Frankly, such calls are unusual; typically, the call comes from a frustrated wife. Jim got my attention and I agreed to meet with them. Jim was very successful in his business, where he and Bonnie worked together every day, apparently happily. Outwardly they seemed to be doing well. Their lifestyle had all the hallmarks of success, they were involved in their church, and had a close circle of Christian friends.

Jim was self-consciously theological as he described how he had dedicated many years of his life mastering the doctrines of the Word of God. Bonnie was a new Christian, much more intuitive and private in her faith. As we sat together, Jim shared his grief over the fact that they had never experienced the kind of marriage the Bible describes. He said he had prayed and prayed and sought the counsel of many, to no avail. He said he had done everything he could to encourage intimacy with Bonnie, only to be rejected. He said he didn’t care about his business success when he had a cold and lifeless marriage.

It was a convincing story, but I was distracted by the hurt and angry look on Bonnie’s face. I knew I needed to ask more, so I asked both Jim and Bonnie the “what” questions, and followed up with the “how,” “when,” “why” and “where” questions. Then I began to see what was really going on. Yes, Jim was theologically knowledgeable, but it was his business that really drove his life—and therefore Bonnie’s. Their daily schedule was completely controlled by work from early in the morning until late at night. Bonnie said that she only felt appreciated as a dedicated (and basically unpaid) employee. By the time she got home, she had nothing to give to the marriage.

I asked Jim to describe how he approached Bonnie with his concerns about the marriage. He repeated conversations, apparently unaware of the name-calling and condemnation he brought to those encounters. Bonnie was tired of being yelled at, tired of being called spiritually immature and romantically inept. She was tired of working hard with no reward, and living with someone who claimed to be close to God but was never thankful. She was at the breaking point, but did not want to tell Jim, since it would only reinforce his negative attitudes. Instead, she was distancing herself from him, hoping to avoid the ugly conversations, the accusations, and the emotional isolation.

What an incredibly different picture the follow-up questions revealed! They got below the surface impression of a godly husband and a cold and critical wife to reveal the driven, condemning man and the wife living in exhausted self-protection. The help I offered them was completely different from what I would have given without the understanding that came from asking those questions.

4. Ask a progressive line of questions, in which each question is based on information uncovered in the previous questions. There should be order and logic to the flow of your questions. Each question should be asked because you are seeking to fill gaps in your knowledge of what has already been uncovered. You accomplish this by continually asking yourself, What do I not know about what I have just heard? This challenges you not to make assumptions or settle for incomplete information.

The Redemptive Importance of Good Questions

What we have been talking about is crucial for serving as one of the Lord’s instruments of change. Asking good questions is vital to helping people to face who they really are and what they are really doing.

As sinners we all tend to recast our own history in self-serving ways. We hide behind the difficulty and pressures of the situation or the failures of others. We look for external explanations, not internal ones. We are more impressed with our righteousness than we are horrified at our sin.

Because of this, we all need people who love us enough to ask, listen, and, having listened, to ask more. This is not being intrusive. This is helping blind people to embrace their need for Christ. It is helping people to see the foolish ways they have lived for their own glory, and the subtle ways they have exchanged worship and service of the Creator for worship and service of his creation.

The forgiving and empowering grace of Christ is for sinners—the transgressor and the weak, the sufferer and the lost. People who do not see their need will not seek his help. But in the Messiah’s hands, our questions can become keys that open people’s prisons and cause them to rely upon Christ in new and profound ways.

Through our questions Christ changes people. The beaten down become strong in hope. Glory thieves begin to live for the glory of the Lord. The self-absorbed are freed to love God and neighbor. As the Holy Spirit is at work, our questions can be the beginning of God’s radical work of change. They are an integral part of what it means to incarnate him to those around us.

Love

‣ Know

Speak

Do

Discovering Where Change is Needed

Mike and Marsha had asked if we could talk because “things were such a mess.” They both seemed frazzled, so we got together as soon as we could. I brought along someone I was discipling for personal ministry. When I asked what was going on, Mike began to tell the most confusing family story I had ever heard. They had both been married before and had blended two families, each with four older children. Marsha occasionally jumped in with details that only added to my confusion. I don’t think I took as many notes in my theology classes at seminary as I did that afternoon! Their story was full of plots and sub-plots. Their attempts to solve problems invariably made them worse. It seemed that their children had made all the wrong decisions as well. It was a mess!

At the end of an hour Mike said, “As you can see, Paul, we are in desperate need of help.” That was an understatement. I sat there in silence, staring at my pile of notes and the faces of two hurting people who were reaching out for any help they could get. I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say. I was probably only silent for a few seconds, but it seemed like hours. Finally I told them that I would think and pray about what they had told me, and we would get together to talk again.

After they left, the person I was mentoring said, “Boy, that was encouraging! I can do personal ministry! All you have to do is get people to tell their story and then promise that you’ll think and pray. I thought it was much harder than it really is!”

I’ve thought back many times to that first afternoon with Mike and Marsha. I didn’t give them much hope to hold onto, and I wasn’t very successful at grabbing hold of their struggles. But given the mountain of confusing details, I think I made the right choice. Personal ministry gets you involved with people who are lost in the chaos of life, whose lives are complicated by their own foolish decisions or the sins of others. Often you will hear about years of attempted solutions that have only made things worse. You will see the destructive work of the Enemy who deceives, divides, and devours, and the impact of poor thinking and deficient counsel.

But personal ministry also allows you to see God at work, as he takes people far beyond their own strength and wisdom. You will witness his plan of redemption being worked out in the context of a person’s life. You will have the privilege of connecting people with the resources that are theirs in Christ in a way that transforms heart and life. You will be his ambassadors as you seek to incarnate the love of the Lord Jesus, entering another person’s world, being moved by his suffering, and offering the hope of the gospel. You will be part of the great work of God’s kingdom.

Personal ministry is not about always knowing what to say. It is not about fixing everything in sight that is broken. Personal ministry is about connecting people with Christ so that they are able to think as he would have them think, desire what he says is best, and do what he calls them to do even if their circumstances never get “fixed.” It involves exposing hurt, lost, and confused people to God’s glory, so that they give up their pursuit of their own glory and live for his. It is about so thoroughly embedding people’s personal stories in the larger story of redemption that they approach every situation and relationship with a “God’s story” mentality. We need to be filled with awe at what the Lord has called us to participate in!

As I thought and prayed for Mike and Marsha, two things happened. First, I was able to see God at work in the middle of their chaos. I got excited about helping them to see him. Second, their story began to be less confusing. I began to see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together. I had more questions to ask, but I also had things to say. I had a biblical sense of direction and that made me look forward to getting together with Marsha and Mike.

Making Sense of the Data

Personal ministry is not just about gathering the necessary information, but about making biblical sense of it. In chapter 3 we saw that people do not live life based on the facts of their experiences, but on their interpretation of those facts. The same is true of personal ministry. God created us to be interpreters, so when others tell their stories, we instinctively try to make sense of what we hear. Whatever we say or do in response will not be based solely on what the person told us, but on how we interpreted it.

Biblical personal ministry must be just that—biblical. This means that we look at people’s lives from the distinct perspective of a biblical worldview. We are concerned with the glory of God, the sinfulness of man, the fallen condition of the world, the reality of the Devil, the grace of the gospel, and the certainty of eternity. Biblical personal ministry is more about perspective, identity, and calling than about fixing what is broken.

In the case of marriage, what do struggling couples need? Will they be helped by communication techniques or honest discussions about sex? Do they need a unified front regarding parenting and finances, and healthy ways to deal with conflicts? The answer to all of these questions is, “Yes!” But they need more. They need to live out of an understanding of who they are, who God is, and what he is doing in their marriage. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 11:1–3 that our lives now are the training ground for our marriage then. We are the bride of Christ. God is preparing us for the perfect marriage to come. For that reason, the big question of our now relationships is not whether we will be happy, but whether we will give the love that has been promised to the Groom to someone or something else.

You cannot understand Christian relationships, particularly marriage, any other way. Why would God put the world’s most significant, demanding, and difficult human relationship (marriage) smack dab in the middle of the world’s most important process (sanctification)? If he did it so that people would realize their individual dreams, it would have made sense to get them fully sanctified before facing the trials of marriage. But God hasn’t made a mistake. He is working on a greater dream, so he tries and troubles us. He lets our dreams slip through our fingers so that as we learn to love each other, we grow more deeply in love with him.

When you look at marriage this way, you no longer try to get your spouse to fulfill your dream. You now know who you are (engaged to Christ) and what God is doing (preparing you for the ultimate marriage). As you deal with the stresses of parenting, communication, sex, and finances, you have greater joy than you thought possible in a less-than-perfect marriage. Only from this perspective do the biblical principles for husbands and wives make sense. They are practical applications of what it means to live in a now marriage with a then marriage focus.

The same is true, of course, for those who are not married. You too are being prepared to be the bride of Christ through the relationships and situations you experience with family, neighbors, coworkers, and church family. Though you may not have an earthly spouse, your life now is just as thorough a preparation for your marriage then as is true for your married counterparts. You too need a biblical identity, perspective, and calling, and God is committed to helping you get them.

If you do not help people to see their story from a distinctly biblical, Christ-centered perspective, your ministry will do nothing but lob theological platitudes and principles at them. Their hearts will remain unchanged, and any behavioral changes will be temporary. They will not only continue to be at war with others, but also with a God who will not concede his exclusive claim on their hearts.

Biblical personal ministry thrives when good exegesis of Scripture leads to an accurate exegesis of the person’s life. This two-sided interpretive process is what makes biblical personal ministry unique. We cannot properly understand people without accurately exegeting Scripture, and we cannot properly apply Scripture without accurately exegeting people. Because the Bible tells us that people live out of their hearts, we are always interested in how the heart’s thoughts and cravings are revealed by the choices people make and the things they say and do. It is in the convergence of this two-sided interpretive process that hearts and lives change for the long run.

Organizing the Information Biblically

We cannot allow ourselves to offer counsel to someone on the spur of the moment, with little or no preparation. Unless we take the time to think biblically about what others share with us, we are the blind leading the blind. We must ask ourselves, “What themes, perspectives, promises, and commands of Scripture make sense of this person and speak to this situation?” Our counsel will only be biblical if we filter what we have heard through a sound biblical grid.

Remember, there is never a day when we do not counsel one another. A wife may advise her husband as he is getting ready for work. A parent may coach a child on how to face a difficulty at school. A brother may help his sister talk through some problems with her friends. A boss may confront a worker. Every day we share our interpretations of life with other people, shaping the way they understand their lives. The question is whether our ministry to one another is biblical. In all of this talk, are we asking ourselves what the Bible has to say about it?

Getting to know a person is like going around the house and collecting the laundry. Before long you have a diverse pile of multi-colored clothes, but you’d better sort them before you throw them in the washer, or you will have funny-colored socks! The same is true of getting to know another person. No one ever says, “Pay attention now; I am about to share with you a significant piece of my past.” No one says, “Listen carefully, because I am about to reveal the motives of my heart.” Instead, we mix history with present circumstances, and emotions with logical reasoning. We interpret the behavior of others as we talk about ourselves. We say things about God as we describe circumstances. It all comes out as a messy pile of isolated facts that need organization and interpretation.

The first step in making sense of things is to organize the information into simple biblical categories. This step is like sorting laundry or assembling a puzzle. When we have finished the task, we can step back and ask, “Where does the Bible say that change needs to take place in this person, in this situation?”

Let’s practice organizing data biblically. Imagine that Greta, a woman from church, asks to talk to you. She is concerned about her husband John, who has an increasingly short fuse. He yells at her and the children at the drop of a hat. He is critical and demanding. He is spending more time at work, and most of his home time is spent on the computer. When she asks John what is wrong, he says that life stinks. Greta says that John’s dad was a negative guy who thought that people were out to get him. John was not like that when she married him, but Greta is afraid he is turning into his father. When Greta asks John how she can help him, all he says is, “Just give me a little space so I can breathe.”

Figure 10.1 is a simple data organization tool to help you sort information as you get to know someone. As you organize the information Greta has given you, it will help you to step back to see the big picture in a biblical way. (In this case, you are just beginning to gather information. To truly help Greta and John, you would need to gather much more information by asking good questions.)

The Situation. (What is going on?) Here we place all the information that describes the person’s world (his circumstances), both past and present. What we know so far about John is that, in the past, he was raised by a negative, cynical father. In the present he is an increasingly angry, critical, distant husband.

The Responses. (What does the person do in response to what is going on?) Here we include facts about the person’s behavior. We have learned that John is yelling at his family, spending more time at work, and staying on the computer at home.

The Thoughts. (What does the person think about what is going on?) This includes information on how the person has been interpreting his world. All we know about John so far in this category is that he says, “Life stinks.”

The Motives. (What does the person want out of, or in the midst of, what is going on?) This includes what you know about the person’s desires, goals, treasures, motives, values, and idols. What does he live for? What really rules his heart? All we know about John at this point is that he says, “Just give me a little space so I can breathe.” However, we don’t know what he means by “a little space” or why he wants it.

These four categories provide four simple hooks to organize the information you gather from the Johns and Gretas of the world. They also help you identify the kinds of information you still need.

Understanding and Using the Hooks

Let me demonstrate how the four hooks simplify the information-gathering process by introducing you to another couple and organizing their information with this tool.

Sharon approached me after the Sunday service. She said that her marriage was a disaster and that she needed to talk immediately. We set up a time to meet and I asked her to invite her husband, Ed. However, Sharon came alone, telling her story emotionally and in great detail. Ed had been unwilling to come, telling her to “get her act together” or he was “out of here.”

Sharon told of an increasingly violent relationship. She and Ed were no longer sleeping in the same room or going anywhere together. They had separate bank accounts and had recently agreed that it was best to eat supper separately. Their two young children took turns eating with each parent.

Even before their marriage, they had experienced communication problems. Ed felt that Sharon was always trying to control him. Sharon felt that Ed never paid attention to her viewpoint unless she “made it real clear.” Yet Ed said that Sharon was the most beautiful woman in the world and Sharon said that Ed was the best thing that ever happened to her.

Ed was a “mover and shaker” with an expanding import business, and Sharon enjoyed being with people that “matter.” She had lived in foster homes all her life and never knew her natural parents. Ed was raised in a working class urban neighborhood. Ed had said for years that Sharon was slowly destroying his manhood. Sharon confessed to two affairs during the marriage. Ed was very angry, and she appeared to be the same.

Sharon made her agenda very clear when we talked. “I am not here to work on me,” she said. “I think I am okay. I am here because my marriage is in trouble. Do you think you can get my husband to talk to you? He’s the one who needs help!”

Let’s use the four categories (Situation, Responses, Thoughts, Motives) to organize what we have learned about Sharon and Ed.

The Situation

For personal ministry to be effective, I must understand Sharon’s everyday world. What pressures, opportunities, responsibilities, and temptations does she face daily? Who are the significant people in her life, and what are they doing? What do I know about her past? As I review the facts, I ask myself, “What is (or was) going on?” and hang all of the situational information on this hook.

Here are two lists of questions you can use to sort out information about someone’s past history and present situation. These lists are not meant to be exhaustive, but “pump-primers” to give you a sense of the kinds of things to listen for and ask.

Historical

• Family of origin. What do I know about this person’s childhood?

• Crisis events. What major events (death in the family, divorce, crippling accident, etc.) influenced this person’s life?

• Significant relationships. Outside the home, who were the most influential people in this person’s life (coach, relative, friend, teacher, pastor)? How did they shape this person’s view of herself and her world?

• Significant experiences. These are not the crisis events, but the long-term experiences that shaped the person’s life (major family move, going to college, coming to Christ). What is the lasting impact of these experiences?

Remember, this list is not exhaustive. It simply suggests things that may be important to understand about the person’s past.

Present

• Life context. What situations and relationships does the person face every day (pressures, opportunities, responsibilities, temptations)?

• Significant relationships. Who are the influential people in this person’s life? What impact do they have?

• Present family. What do I know about the family in which she is living?

• Presenting problem. How does the person describe her struggle? What does she say is wrong?

The goal is to get to know Sharon in her world. I need to know the details because my call is to build a bridge of understanding from the Word of God to the details of her life, so that Sharon can understand what God has promised her and called her to do. Let’s begin sorting the information with Sharon.

Sharon’s Situation

• Troubled marriage

• Husband unwilling to seek help

• Violent relationship

• Separate bank accounts

• Communication problems

• Husband is a “mover and shaker” in an expanding business

• Husband angry—tells her to change or get out

• Many foster homes—never really knew her natural parents

The Responses

Here I focus on Sharon’s behavior. I collect all the information that describes her reactions to what is going on. I am looking for themes and patterns. What are the typical ways she responds to situations and people? These themes and patterns will give me an idea of what is going on in her heart. Any information that describes Sharon’s behavior is placed under the question, “What does this person do in response to what is going on?”

Sharon’s Responses

• Came for help (for Ed)

• Not sleeping with Ed

• Gets separate bank accounts

• Eats separately from Ed, alternating who gets the children

• Two affairs

• Confessed affairs

• Asked you to get Ed to talk

• Does not move out

• Continues to go to church

• Makes what she wants very clear to Ed (and you)

As you look at this list of Sharon’s responses, look for themes and patterns in the way she deals with her problems.

The Thoughts

This category looks at the “heart” that directs Sharon’s behavior. I know that, as a human being, Sharon is a meaning-maker. She is always trying to make sense out of her life. She doesn’t just respond to the facts of her life, but to her interpretation of those facts. If her interpretations are not biblical, her responses will not be biblical either.

If I have a distorted view of the past, the present, God, the future, and myself, there is no way I will respond properly to what God has allowed in my life. This is one of Sharon’s most significant problems. As we seek to minister to people like her, we need to look for the seeds of wrong behavior in distorted and unbiblical thought. We begin by identifying the facts that describe how she thinks about life and placing them under the question, “What does this person think about what is going on?”

Sharon’s Thoughts

• My marriage is in trouble.

• Ed doesn’t pay attention to my viewpoint.

• Ed was the best thing to happen to me.

• I like being with people that matter.

• I am okay.

• Ed is the one who needs help.

The Motives

There is always something or someone ruling our hearts, and whatever rules our hearts will control our behavior. In this category, we collect all the information that describes what Sharon truly wants, what desires rule her heart, and what idols have taken control. Since Sharon’s behavior is an attempt to get what she wants from people and situations, we need to identify her motives and place all of this information under the question, “What does this person want out of, or in the midst of, what is going on?”

Sharon’s Motives

• Wants to talk about marriage immediately

• Wants to separate herself from Ed

• Doesn’t want to be controlled

• Likes being with people who matter

• Wants Ed to change

• Wants you to know she is okay

• Wants you to know Ed needs help

At this point, what have we accomplished? Instead of immediately responding to the chaotic pile of facts Sharon has shared with us, we have attempted to organize them in biblical categories. Now the information speaks to us, and in many instances suggests further questions to ask Sharon and Ed. This is particularly true in the Motives category; we need to know more about why Sharon wants the things she wants. However, even at this early point in the ministry relationship, the categories help us to put the puzzle together, and start to see where change needs to take place in Sharon and in her marriage.

What About Emotions?

Perhaps you noticed that emotions were not one of the four organizational categories. How exactly should we think about the role emotions play in our lives?

The Bible paints human emotions with rich and deep colors. From family conflict to political intrigue, from rural farming to life in the big city, from times of national peace to generations of international war, from loyalty and friendship to rejection and betrayal, from affluence and plenty to drought and poverty, from the beauty of a garden to the horror of natural disasters, from freedom and rest to violent slavery, and from pure worship of God to all kinds of idolatry, the Bible captures the full range of human experience. It is filled with stories we can relate to and characters that are like us. Apart from the historical and cultural differences, the biblical world is just like our world in its symphony of everyday experiences.

The Bible is also brutally honest, presenting people and situations with a candor we probably would have softened had we written it. It refuses to gloss over sin’s impact on us and our world. But it is also honest for another reason: to demonstrate how the wisdom of the Lord and the transforming grace of Christ are powerful enough to address the deepest issues of human experience. If you read Scripture carefully, you will never get the idea that the work of Christ is for well-adjusted people who just need a little redemptive boost. It never presents any human condition or dilemma as outside the scope of the gospel. Redemption is nothing less than the rescue of helpless people facing an eternity of torment apart from God’s love.

What does this have to do with emotions? Everything. As it puts real life experiences on every page, Scripture depicts the full range of human emotions. It captures the violent jealousy of Cain, the bitter tears of barren Hannah, and the fear of Israel as their Egyptian masters close in on them at the Red Sea. It pictures the joy of national victory, the delights of pure worship, and the crushing grief of David over the death of his evil son Absalom. It depicts the death wish discouragement of Elijah, the heartlessness of the Pharisees, and the desperate pleas of beggars for someone’s help. It shows us the fury of Christ in the desecrated temple, his grief and pain over his separation from the Father, and his tenderness in seeking out his fearful and confused disciples after his resurrection. It shows Zechariah celebrating the birth of his son and Mary and Martha mourning the death of their brother. The full rainbow of human emotion is depicted in Scripture in a way that only the One who knows the heart could do.

Emotion pervades every aspect of our lives, which is why it is not a separate category by which we sort information about a person. Emotion is a significant aspect of all four categories. Every fact about people is dyed with emotion. It is woven into every situation, response, thought, and motive we have. Emotion is like the weather of our relationships and situations. We may live in the storm of someone’s anger or the heat of another’s envy. We may find ourselves in the cold, dark night of grief or the warm summer of life, health, and peace. Emotion is an essential part of every relationship and situation in which God sovereignly places us.

Our actions, thoughts, and words also have emotional components. Accurately grasping the themes and patterns of someone’s behavior includes recognizing the emotional color of everything that was said and done. Thoughts do not exist in an emotionless void either. If we think our work is impossible, we face the task with frustration and discouragement. If we grasp in our hearts the goodness, grace, and glory of the Lord, we live with joy and hope. You can’t fully understand what people are thinking unless you know what they feel as well. Our feelings express our reactions to our interpretations—and we turn around and interpret our feelings as well.

Motives are no different. My emotions are one of the ways my heart expresses what I crave, treasure, and serve. If I live for your affection and you reject me, emotions of sadness and anger will infuse my life. If I treasure personal achievement and succeed, I will be happy, though I may not have joy and my happiness may be fleeting. If we want to know what people really want, we have to learn about their emotional life. Happiness is the result of getting what my heart craves. Discouragement is the emotional response of my heart when the thing I live for moves farther away from me. My heart is filled with fear when I suddenly lose what I am convinced I need. In short, our emotions reflect what we worship. They reveal what has captured our hearts. God gave us emotions as he made us in his image; they are intended to help us live in communion with him. They are a key indicator of whether we are living in joyful covenantal communion with him or in the service of something else.

Our information-organizing model (Situation, Responses, Thoughts, and Motives) does not ignore emotions. Rather, it recognizes that emotions are present in every situation, every response, every thought, and every motive.

Loving God and People Enough to Take Time

If you understand the story of redemption, you know that God does not seem to be in the fearful hurry that often drives our efforts to help others. Following his example means that we can take the time to ask, listen, think, interpret, and pray. We should not assume that we know more about people than we really do. Following God’s example encourages us to take the time to ask biblical questions that help people take a long look at themselves and their lives. It encourages us to follow question with question, assuring them that we really want to understand, and organizing what we learn so that we can think about it from a distinct Scriptural perspective. We do all of this to bring the transforming grace of Christ to people as they really are in the midst of what they are really facing.

This work of knowing people well is propelled by the two great commands Jesus summarized in Matthew 22:37–40:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

Because I love God, I want to handle his truth with accuracy, clarity, and specificity. I want to build bridges of understanding from the wisdom of the Word to the details of people’s lives. And because I love people, I will not be satisfied with lobbing grenades of general truth at them. Rather, through good questions, committed listening, and careful interpretation, I will enter their world with the understanding necessary to bring Christ’s help to where it is really needed. For these reasons, even something as seemingly mechanical as gathering personal information can be fueled by love and become an opportunity to incarnate the presence and grace of the One who is love.

Love

Know

‣ Speak

Do

The Goals of Speaking

the Truth in Love

From the moment she entered my office, it was clear that Sally was ready for a fight. She glared her way into the room and made tense small talk with me until I prayed. I was the principal of the Christian school her daughter attended, and I had asked Sally and her husband to come and talk about the difficulties her daughter was having at school. I was there as a friend and ally. I was actually quite fond of her daughter and I was concerned that somehow we were missing an opportunity to help her.

I made my first statement, trying to be affirming and warm as I described the difficulties we were experiencing. To my surprise, Sally yelled back at me, accusing me of not loving her daughter and wanting only to rid the school of its “problems.” I tried again to quietly share my love and concern, only to have Sally yell at me again, this time sitting forward in her seat and moving closer to my desk. I made one more attempt to help her understand that I was not accusing her daughter (or Sally herself) of anything; my purpose was to share my concerns and look for solutions. As she began to shout a third time, Sally’s husband grabbed her knee and said, “Dear, he is not fighting with you.”

Sally looked at me for a moment as if she were disoriented. She mumbled, “I’m sorry. I just hate these kinds of meetings. I was sure you were going to tell us what bad parents we are.” Perhaps Sally isn’t too unusual. Perhaps many of us approach moments of truth speaking with fear and dread. Perhaps for many of us, words like confrontation and rebuke conjure up images that look like anything but love. Sally had obviously been hurt in previous confrontations and this time had been prepared to defend herself.

Rebuke is the word the Bible uses for bringing truth to where change is needed, yet most of us don’t react positively when we hear it. For example, if I called you one night and said that I would like to come over the next morning to rebuke you, how would you respond? Would you run to a friend and say, “The most wonderful thing is going to happen to me tomorrow! Paul is coming over to rebuke me. I can’t wait! It has been so long since I’ve been rebuked.” That would not likely be your reaction. Many of us would rather go to the dentist and be drilled without Novocain. When we think of rebuke, we think of harsh words, red faces, ultimatums, and threats. We don’t think of an act of patient and committed love. So it is important to consider what a biblical model of rebuke looks like. It is part of the Speak component of personal ministry, and we need to know what “speaking the truth in love” is all about.

Leviticus 19:15–18 discusses God’s intentions for this aspect of relationships and personal ministry.

Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

Do not go about spreading slander among your people.

Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the LORD.

Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

The principles of this passage provide a starting point for a biblical understanding of confrontation.

Confrontation is rooted in a submission to the First Great Command. This command calls us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). Twice the Leviticus passage says, “I am the LORD.” God intends confrontation to be an expression of our submission to him in our relationships with others. From God’s perspective, the only reason we confront one another is that we love the Lord and want to obey him. Our failure to confront one another biblically must be seen for what it is: something rooted in our tendency to run after god-replacements. We confront unbiblically (or not at all) because we love something else more than God. Perhaps we love our relationship with this person so much that we don’t want to risk it. Perhaps we prefer to avoid the personal sacrifice and complications that confrontation may involve. Perhaps we love peace, respect, and appreciation more than we should. Here is the principle: To the degree that we give the love of our hearts to someone or something else, to that degree we lose our primary motive to confront. But if we love God above all else, confrontation is an extension and expression of that love.

First John teaches us (3:11–20; 4:7–21) that one of the most reliable indicators of our love for God is the quality of our love for our neighbor. The foundation of the Second Great Command is the First Great Command—you cannot love your neighbor as yourself if you do not first love God above all else. Our willingness to gossip, to live in anger, and trim the truth reveals something deeper than a lack of love for people. It exposes a lack of love for God. We no longer serve as his ambassadors in relationships but use them for our own purposes. They become places where our needs can be met. Then, because we are afraid to lose what we crave, we live in silence as our neighbor steps outside God’s boundaries.

Love for God is the only reliable foundation for a ministry of truth speaking. Any other motivation distorts the process. We cannot come in anger, frustration, or a spirit of vengeance. We come because we love God and speak on his behalf to someone who may be wandering away. Confrontation has little to do with us. It is all about the Lord, motivated by a desire to draw people back into close, obedient, and loving communion with him.

Confrontation is rooted in the Second Great Command, which calls us to “love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:39). Isn’t it interesting that the Old Testament call to love your neighbor as yourself is tied to this call to frank rebuke? A rebuke free of unrighteous anger is a clear sign of biblical love, but I am afraid we have replaced love in our relationships with being “nice.” Being nice and acting out of love are not the same thing. Our culture puts a high premium on being tolerant and polite. We seek to avoid uncomfortable moments, so we see, but do not speak. We go so far as to convince ourselves that we are not speaking because we love the other person, when in reality we fail to speak because we lack love.

Please don’t misunderstand. True love is not offensively intrusive or rude. But the Bible repudiates covering sin with a facade of silence. It teaches that those who love will speak, even if it creates tense, upsetting moments. If we love people and want God’s best for them, how can we stand by as they wander away? How can we let them deceive themselves with excuses, blame, and rationalizations? How can we watch them get more and more enslaved by the fleeting pleasures of sin? How can we let a sufferer add to his suffering by the way he responds to his own experience? True love is neither idle nor timid. It is other-centered and active.

The truth is that we fail to confront, not because we love others too much, but because we love ourselves too much. We fear others misunderstanding us or being angry with us. We are afraid of what others will think. We don’t want to endure the hardships of honesty because we love ourselves more than we love our neighbors. Yet we know that the depth of love in a relationship can be judged by the degree of honesty that exists. Biblical rebuke is motivated by the Second Great Command.

Confrontation is our moral responsibility in every relationship. The passage says, “Rebuke your neighbor frankly.” This call extends beyond the borders of formal counseling, discipleship, and ministry relationships. It is a call to respond to all who live near us. Rebuke is not something that exists outside a good relationship, brought in only at crisis moments. The Bible presents confrontation as one of the cords of a strong relationship, a normal part of the interaction that makes the relationship what it is.

Often when people hear the words rebuke and confrontation, they think of a radical moment of truth telling, a long list of stern indictments against a person who is significantly rebellious or who has tragically wandered away. Yet the model here is ongoing honesty in an ongoing relationship. Rather than one big moment of confrontation, the model here is many mini-moments of confrontation. The biblical model recognizes that as we live and work with others, our hearts will be progressively exposed. It calls us to deal with whatever God reveals as he reveals it. In each small moment of truth speaking, the progress of sin is retarded and spiritual growth is encouraged. The model in Leviticus fits perfectly with the progressive sanctification model of growth and ministry that the New Testament presents. Here, too, problems are addressed while still in their infancy, before they mature into tragic consequences.

Notice also that the passage says, “. . . so that you will not share in his guilt.” There could be no clearer statement of our moral responsibility. Each of our relationships must be pursued in absolute submission to the will and way of the Lord. We have been called to serve as ambassadors of the One who is Lord of every relationship. We must never function as mini-kings, setting our own rules and pursuing our own way.

Rebuke does not mean that our love is conditional. However, the self-sacrificing love of this passage exists at the intersection of patient grace and intolerance for sin. This means that I love you and I will not walk away from you at the first sign of weakness or sin. I will extend to you the same grace I have received. At the same time, however, my love for you does not close its eyes to wrongdoing. It does not stay silent while sin is allowed to grow. The love I am called to extend is the love of the cross of Christ, which stands at the intersection of God’s grace and his complete intolerance with sin. His intolerance does not cause God to move away. He moves toward me in redemptive love, so that someday I will stand before him without sin. This is what we are called to embody in our relationships. Anything less is to be a moral accomplice in the sin.

How many sermons have you heard on the immorality of self-absorbed silence? How often have you viewed your unwillingness to confront as an act of rebellion in itself? Have you ever considered how often you have chosen to be silent, when God was calling you to be part of his rescue effort? We are called to accept moral responsibility for the things God reveals to us about others. To refuse to speak is to rebel against the Lord we say we love and serve.

Having said this, I should note that this passage does not give you permission to live as if you were someone else’s conscience. It does not call you to a self-righteousness that displays a rude and judgmental spirit. This passage repudiates all those things. It is a neighbor-to-neighbor passage. It does not assume two classes of people, the “rebukers” and the “neighbors.” The rebukers are the neighbors and the neighbors are the rebukers. As a neighbor I live in desperate need of the loving restraint God gives me through my neighbors. And as a neighbor I am called to serve others the same way. As long as indwelling sin remains, we all need help and we all need to help others. Sinners minister to sinners with the help of God.

Confrontation is meant to be more of a lifestyle than an unusual event. Confrontation is difficult when it is not a normal part of our experience. Sometimes it is so rare that we lack the necessary understanding, expectations, and skills. Instead, we fumble and fail, only making people dread the next time, like Sally. But from the Bible’s perspective, a good relationship always grows in its ability to recognize, confront, and deal with the truth. Each time we speak the truth, we grow in our understanding of our calling and our skill in carrying it out.

Often there is so little honest conversation between parents and teenagers that moments of rebuke are extremely uncomfortable. At one point in our family, there were important things we needed to discuss with our daughter. We decided to make weekly appointments to talk with her about them. The first time was very difficult, but each time got easier. Soon the ground we gained spilled over into our informal conversations. All our interactions began to be more comfortable and honest. This passage envisions a “constant conversation” model where the daily intervention of honest rebuke is a regular part of all relationships.

There is also a payoff for more formal discipleship and counseling situations. The person who has made honest, humble, loving rebuke a part of his daily relationships (as a giver and a receiver) will be clear and comfortable when he confronts a person in a more structured setting. The skills of family leadership and ministry also make us effective in the church of Christ. Perhaps we confront poorly or not at all because we do not have a ministry mentality or communication maturity at home. If we have avoided confrontation or been more angry than constructive in our rebukes, how can we expect to be ready when God gives us opportunities in the church?

We fail to confront in love because we have yielded to subtle and passive forms of hatred. Embedded in the passage is a contrast between love and hatred. If you tried to illustrate this passage, it would look like this: At the center is a high plateau of love, based on a commitment to honest rebuke. On either side is a dark valley of hatred. One is the valley of passive hatred and the other is the valley of active hatred. Both are temptations and both are wrong! Leviticus 19 is clear that we must find a way to lovingly confront sin when we see it in others. If we fail to do so, we cannot console ourselves by saying, “Perhaps I am not loving this person as God wants me to, but at least I do not hate him!” There is no neutral ground between love and hatred. Our response to the sins of others is either motivated by Second Great Command love or by some form of hatred.

One subtle form of hatred is favoritism, granting favor to some but refusing it to others because of a standard we have set up in our own minds. It may be based on economic status, physical appearance, race or ethnicity, doctrinal differences, self-righteousness, revulsion over particular sins, or something else. Some people live outside the circle of our favor (and therefore our ministry) simply because of who they are. This can even happen in families. I fear that there is much more hatred in our families and churches than we think.

A second form of passive hatred is bearing a grudge. We keep a record of what someone has done against us. We go over it again and again, each time growing more angry and giving ourselves more reason to despise the offender. Our anger grows even when no further sin has been committed; it becomes the interpretive grid through which we assess everything the person does. No matter what he does, he cannot do anything right in our eyes. Everything is distorted by the anger and bitterness through which we view it, destroying any possibility of dealing with sin in godly way.

This passage does not offer an exhaustive discussion of passive hatred, but it does warn us of the myth of “neutral ground” and indicate what passive hatred looks like. We are constantly dealing with the sins of others, as they are with us. The issue is whether our responses are motivated by biblical love or by self-righteous, prejudiced, and grudge-bearing hatred.

We fail to confront because we have yielded to more active forms of hatred. Here we not only act as the judge, but as the jailer and executioner as well. This passage says that there are three ways our hatred actively reveals itself: injustice, gossip, and revenge. All three have been present in all of our lives at some point, and all three responses destroy, or at least distort, the biblical ministry of rebuke. God ordained rebuke to restrain sin until our redemption is complete. We either position ourselves to be part of that work or we stand in the way.

Injustice perverts God’s system of restraint. It doesn’t protect, correct, or restrain the sinner. It hurts and mistreats him.

Gossip doesn’t lead a person to make humble confession before God or others. When I gossip, I confess the sin of another person to someone who is not involved. Gossip doesn’t restrain sin; it encourages it. It doesn’t build someone’s character; it destroys his reputation. Gossip doesn’t lead a person to humble insight; it produces anger and defensiveness.

Revenge is the opposite of ministry. Ministry is motivated by a desire for someone’s good; revenge is motivated by a desire to harm him. We have forsaken our call to bring the person to the Lord so that he can see himself as he really is, and given ourselves instead to a quest to settle the score.

What is so terribly serious about all this is that we have been called to incarnate the glory of Christ’s love on earth—to love as he has loved us so that people would know we are his disciples. The ultimate apologetic for the reality of the gospel is the loving unity of the body of Christ, a unity so deep, resilient, and pervasive that it can only be compared to the unity of the Trinity. (See John 13–17.) Our call is to find satisfaction in our relationships, not because people please us, but because we delight in displaying God’s love to a hopeless world.

What a difference it makes to see that being sinned against is not an occasion for vengeance but for God to be revealed! Instead of assuming God’s position as judge, we ask how we can incarnate his love to the people involved in the hurtful situation. Too often we forget that there is nothing more wonderful than to be Christ’s ambassadors. We participate in the most important work of the universe.

We can do this because sin’s mastery over us has been broken as we have been united with Christ’s life, death, and resurrection (Rom. 6:1–14) and indwelt by a Holy Spirit who battles the flesh on our behalf (Gal. 5:16–26; Rom. 8:1–11). Because of this, we can say “no” to powerful emotions (passions) and compelling desires (Gal. 5:24) and turn in a new direction. We do not have to give the parts of our body to favoritism, grudges, gossip, injustice, and revenge. Rather, we can offer ourselves to the Lord for his use. The cross of Christ not only provides redemption, but the resources we need to be part of his work.

Confrontation flows out of a recognition of our identity as the children of God. The passage repeats the phrase, “I am the LORD.” It reminds us that we have been chosen by him, and our lives are no longer our own. Everything we are and have belongs to him, and we will find our greatest joy in relationships when we recognize that they, too, belong to him. We are the Lord’s. They are the Lord’s. The situation is the Lord’s. Loving confrontation is rooted in an awareness that we are God’s children, and our goal is to be active in his purposes for us. To do less is to forget who we are.

Proper biblical confrontation is never motivated by impatience, frustration, hurt, or anger, but is one way God prevents these things from damaging our relationships. Failure to make loving rebuke part of our relationships gives the Devil a huge opportunity. I have met many couples who have lost all the tenderness, appreciation, patience, respect, sensitivity, and romance in their relationship. These precious commodities had been destroyed by a failure to confront sin biblically. Their marriages had become a cycle of accusation, recrimination, and revenge. Bitterness and anger had sucked the life out of their love until the spouses could barely remember what once attracted them to each other. They never intended it, but their refusal to confront sin in God’s way and their daily habit of devouring each other had gutted their relationship. The sweet, hopeful couple of the past had become two isolated, angry, and hopeless people who wanted out of their marriage.

A humble, honest lifestyle of rebuke protects us from ourselves. As sinners living with sinners, we need something to retard the progress of sin in our relationships. Early in our marriage Luella and I decided that we would not let the sun go down on our anger (Eph. 4:26). We promised each other that we would not go to bed angry. At first we would lie in bed, propping our eyes open, waiting for the other person to ask for forgiveness so that we wouldn’t have to. But as time went on, we saw how this principle restrained our sin, strengthened our relationship, protected our love, and matured us both. We have been married for over thirty years and we are still sinners, yet we love each other more than ever, and we don’t carry yesterday’s baggage into today’s encounters. Each anniversary we thank the Lord for rescuing us from ourselves.

Confrontation does not force a person to deal with you, but places him before the Lord. The most important encounter in confrontation is not the person’s encounter with you, but with Christ. Rebuke does not force a person to face your judgment; it gives him an opportunity to do business with God. It is motivated by a desire for the person to receive the grace of conviction, confession, forgiveness, and repentance—to experience the grace we also have received. Confrontation does not enforce legalities; it ministers the restraining, forgiving, restoring grace of Christ to someone who has turned from him. It is not motivated by punishment, but by the hope that the Lord would free this person from the prison of his own sin to know the freedom of walking in fellowship with him.

Biblical Confrontation Means

Starting with Your Own Heart

Since personal biblical ministry involves building relationships that encourage and support God’s work in hearts, it is impossible to serve without somehow being touched by the sin and struggle of those we serve. The angry person will get angry with you, the distrustful person will question your trustworthiness, and the discouraged person will probably receive your best counsel with cynicism and doubt. Since personal ministry is about incarnating the presence of Christ, we want to respond in the right way to the things we experience in the relationship.

If we are going to be faithful to Christ in such circumstances, we must begin by examining our own hearts. Are there thoughts, motives, or attitudes (self-righteousness, anger, bitterness, spirit of condemnation, vengeance) that would get in the way of what God intends to do? As instruments of Christ’s grace, we must confess that we need that grace just as much as the people we are helping. We need God to provide the love, courage, compassion, and wisdom we will need to represent him well.

Sadly, this step of preparation is often neglected. The result is that the rebuke is not effective, not only because the receiver was unteachable but because the ambassador was unprepared. If I do not start with my own heart I will tend to:

Turn moments of ministry into moments of anger. If I do not face the ways the person has made me angry, my words will be shaped more by my anger than by the good God wants to do through me.

Personalize what is not personal. If I do not deal with my heart, the horizontal offenses (against me) will seem more significant than the person’s vertical life (relationship with God). I will become increasingly sensitive to how the person is treating me. Before long, I will take offense at things that are not personal, but are simply indicators of where basic changes are needed in the person’s heart.

Be adversarial in my approach. This follows directly from personalizing what is not personal. The more I am hurt and fail to deal with it, the more I assume a “stand against” posture rather than a “stand with” posture when I encounter the one who hurt me. It is tragic but true: we do sometimes become the adversaries of people we are called to help. It happens with friends, spouses, parents and children, and pastors and their flocks. When it does, we get in the way of what the Wonderful Counselor is seeking to do.

Confuse my opinion with God’s will. The last thing a person needs in confrontation is my opinion. He needs to see himself from a biblical perspective, and he needs a sense of calling. (What is God calling him to do in response to what is happening inside and around him?) My job is to hold the mirror of the Word of God in front of him so that he can see himself accurately. However, when I fail to deal with my own heart, my words will be driven by my feelings, desires, and opinions. If I start by examining my own heart, I help ensure that my agenda is the same as the Lord’s.

Settle for quick solutions that do not address the heart. When I do not face my own sinful attitudes, my ministry to this person will be shaped less and less by Christ-like love and more and more by other attitudes. I will be less and less excited by what God can do (and by the privilege of being part of it), and more and more eager to get out of the relationship. Rather than being motivated to persevere until God has accomplished all that he intends, I will find the person irritating and the relationship burdensome. I will be attracted to quick, superficial solutions that allow me to move on. My responses are not driven by love for God or for the person, but by a love for self.

Take a careful look at your own heart. These things do happen to people in ministry. They impact the fellowship of the body of Christ and subvert the good God is seeking to do in our families. Are there sinful attitudes you have not faced that can hinder the ministry God has planned for you? Parents, are your daily interactions with your children shaped by Christ-like patience? Counselors, are you incarnating the character of the Lord? Pastors, are there people in church that you have given up on? Brother and sisters, do you have friendships that are tense or broken? Husbands and wives, is your marriage reduced to casual conversation and household plans? It is impossible to speak the truth in love when I am not dealing with the thoughts, feelings, desires, and attitudes that stand in the way.

Remember, God has ordained that difficult person to be in your life. It is not a sign of God’s inattention but his covenant-keeping care. Humbly embrace the fact that the Wonderful Counselor is working on everybody involved. Humbly acknowledge the ways God is using this person to expose the areas where you need to grow. Embrace the fact that God can transform the heart of that person without neglecting you—and vice versa! Most of all, celebrate! You are experiencing the jealous grace and glory of the Lord. Through you, he is fighting for that person’s heart and through him, he is holding tightly onto yours. He will not let either of you go, and he will not forsake the work he is doing in each of you. Remember, it is impossible to celebrate God’s work of transformation without confessing your need for more. No one is more ready to communicate God’s grace than someone who has faced his own desperate need for it.

Biblical Confrontation

Starts with the Right Goals

Once we have prepared our hearts, we can consider what God wants to accomplish when we confront someone. What is God seeking to do through our humble, loving, honest words of rebuke? The best way to answer these questions is to ask, “Why do people need to be confronted?” The answers will direct us toward the proper set of goals.

We all need the ministry of loving, honest rebuke because of:

The deceitfulness of sin. Sin blinds our hearts. We may have the occasional blind spot or be completely in the dark spiritually, but as long as indwelling sin exists, we need one another to help us see ourselves clearly.

Wrong and unbiblical thinking (Num. 11; Ps. 73). None of us thinks in a purely biblical way. We hold distorted, self-aggrandizing, or self-excusing perspectives on God, others, and ourselves. We fail to properly understand our past and present, and all this shapes our behavior.

Emotional thinking. We don’t do our best thinking in the middle of suffering, difficulty, and distress. We don’t think clearly when our emotions are raging. We forget what we’ve learned about God and ourselves when we find ourselves in trouble. It is a sweet grace to have someone come alongside us and help us remember what we need to remember.

My view of life (God, self, others, the solution) tends to be shaped by my experiences. Because I am the one who interprets my experiences, my conclusions will be reinforced by each new situation. I will interpret each new circumstance in a way that convinces me that I am right in my way of looking at things, oblivious to the impact of spiritual blindness, sinful desires, and wrong thinking. I need the intervention of truth from someone who really loves me, who can confront and correct the distortions in my view of life.

Our loving, honest rebuke can be equal to these challenges only if we pursue two goals. The first is to be used as one of God’s instruments of seeing in the lives of others. I am not trying to advance my own opinion. I want to help people see themselves in the mirror of God’s Word. I want to help them see what God sees.

The second goal is to be used by God as an agent of repentance. The biblical definition of repentance is a change of heart that leads to a change in the direction of my life. Joel 2:12–13 pictures this as not rending the garments (the external behavior of remorse in Old Testament culture), but rending the heart (heartfelt remorse for my sin accompanied by a desire to change). Our goal is not to pressure people into behavioral changes, but to encourage heart change that impacts the life. Repentance means turning to go in the other direction, and that turning must begin with the heart.

My goal is that through the things I say (message), the way I say them (methods), and the attitudes I express (character), God will change the heart of this person. Think of it! Think that God is connecting you with people so that he might complete his work in their lives! You are called to be more than a husband, wife, parent, counselor, neighbor, or friend. You have a kingdom worker identity. You have been chosen to pursue relationships with a sense of redemptive calling. You have been given the opportunity to see God miraculously transform people, up close and personal. Let that calling motivate you to give yourself to kingdom work. Look for ways to bring people to true heart repentance, and watch the harvest of change the Lord will produce.

Don’t Leave the Gospel at the Door

A mistake we often make when we seek to lead someone to repentance is to emphasize the law over the gospel. Yet Paul says (Rom. 2:4) that it is God’s kindness (goodness) that leads us to repentance. He also says (2 Cor. 5:14) that it is the love of Christ that compels us to no longer live for ourselves, but for him. The grace of the gospel is what turns our hearts, because the gospel is God’s magnificent promise of forgiveness in Christ. This draws us out of hiding into the light of truth, where true confession and repentance can take place.

Confronting people should not only confront them with failure and sin, it should also confront them with the gospel. We cannot forget this! We need to remind people of their identity in Christ (2 Peter 1:3–9; 1 John 3:1–3). We need to remind them of God’s amazing promise of forgiveness (1 John 1:5–10), and the wonderful gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Eph. 3:20), who gives us strength to obey. These truths give believers the courage to examine their hearts, confess their sin, and turn to Christ. If we are speaking as agents of repentance, the law is not enough. We must come with the gospel as well.

In Romans 8:1–17, Paul presents the gospel as a comfort and a call.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

You, however, are not controlled by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Paul begins by encouraging us with the comfort of the gospel (vv. 1–11). This comfort is rooted in two powerful realities. First, the work of Christ has removed the sentence of condemnation that was on our heads because of our sin. Jesus fully paid the penalty for our sin—past, present, and future. This comfort deals with the guilt of sin and should draw us out of the darkness of hiding and into the light of his grace. We do not need to give in to fear, denial, blame-shifting, self-righteousness, or rewriting our own history. These are all attempts at self-atonement, which is no longer needed because Christ has made full atonement for our sin. As we come to Christ in confession, we need not fear his wrath and rejection. Because Christ met the requirements of the law and died as an acceptable sin offering, we will never face condemnation! As we help people to see the gravity of their sin, we also comfort them with the fact that Christ’s work has satisfied God’s anger.

People need to hear the comfort of the gospel again and again. They need to be reminded of who they are in Christ and what they have received in his life, death, and resurrection. It is not safe to assume that a Christian who attends a good church understands this. People often live with huge gaps in their understanding of the gospel. One gap is in understanding how the comfort of the gospel radically changes our approach to life in the here and now. Daily confession of sin is essential to a gospel-driven lifestyle. It makes no sense to rationalize, blame-shift, or rewrite history to make myself look better. This is a denial of the gospel. Self-examination and confession flow out of a deep confidence that Christ’s work is effective for me today. I come to him confident that he forgives me.

The second comfort of the gospel is the Holy Spirit, who lives within every believer to combat the way sin renders us incapable of doing good. Before our salvation, we were controlled by our sinful nature. We were unable to think, choose, desire, act, or speak as God ordains. But now things are different because God lives inside us! We are no longer under the control of the sinful nature. God knew that our condition was so desperate that it was not enough to forgive us. He needed to live within us in all his power, grace, and glory, so that we no longer have to live as slaves to sin’s passions and desires. Because the Spirit controls our hearts, we can say “no” to sin and turn in another direction.

Paul puts it this way: “The Spirit gives life to your mortal bodies.” We are now dead to the controlling power of sin and alive for the purpose of obedience. We can follow God because the Spirit gives us the life, power, and desire to obey. It is our job, as Christ’s ambassadors, to take these truths to people, lest they be controlled by the fear that God requires them to do what they cannot do. Sometimes God does call people to massive life change. As one man said, “You are saying that I can no longer be me!” In a real sense, he was right. God was calling him to turn almost every area of his life in a new direction. This can be terribly intimidating unless we help people look at God’s call through a gospel lens.

But this is not all that Paul wants us to understand about the gospel. The gospel is not only a comfort, it is also a call, as summarized in verses 12 though 17. Paul reminds us that the work of Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit leave us with an obligation to get serious about sin and see it as God does—as a life and death matter. We have no right to say that, because we have been given blanket forgiveness, it doesn’t matter how we live. To Paul, grace leaves us obligated to deal rigorously with the sin that grace addresses. If God was so serious about sin that he sacrificed his own Son and filled us with his own Spirit, how can we be any less serious about our sins of heart and behavior?

The ongoing work of God in the believer’s life is to eradicate sin (“put to death the misdeeds of the body”). As a believer, I am obli-gated to participate in the Holy Spirit’s search-and-destroy mission. I have no right to live “according to the sinful nature” any longer. This denies the gospel and my identity as a child of God. I can never say, “I don’t want to;” “I would if I could;” “It is too hard;” or “It is okay, because I am forgiven.” The only proper response to the comfort of the gospel is to accept its call and follow Christ in obedience. I am called to accept my sonship, realizing that true sons of God are those who are “led by the Spirit” and not the sinful nature.

As we root our truth speaking (confrontation and rebuke) in the gospel, our goal is that hearts would be changed by the work of Christ that the gospel declares. First, we want the promises of forgiveness and power to give people real hope for change. Second, we want the call of the gospel to cause people to accept responsibility for their sin and accept God’s call to obey. The heart that has embraced both the hope (comfort) and the obligation (call) can receive honest words of confrontation. The person can see the gravity of his sin and the grandeur of God’s call to obey in light of gospel truths. He is ready to live as a true child of God, as someone who can be honest about himself and follow God in faith and obedience.

In the push and pull of personal ministry, it is easy to emphasize one side of the gospel over the other. For example, if you were talking to a husband who had verbally abused his wife for years, it would be tempting to emphasize the call of the gospel over the comfort. However, it is the comfort of the gospel that gives this man the courage to step out from behind his denials and rationalizations to confess his sin.

On the other hand, if you were talking with his wife, you might be tempted to emphasize the comfort of the gospel to the exclusion of the call. Yet it is the call of the gospel that exposes the bitterness, self-righteousness, and vengeance that are powerful temptations for those who have been sinned against. Everyone needs both sides of the gospel—all the time! These two aspects of the gospel (the grace of justification and the grace of sanctification) do not stand in opposition to each other; rather, they complement and complete each other. Together they express God’s grace in Christ; they depict what the gospel produces in those who live in its light. Figure 11.1 illustrates a balanced gospel and the dangers of gospel imbalance.

This is the goal of confrontation: not to force behavioral change, but to encourage people’s new natures with the gospel. We seek to open people’s eyes to the full glory of Christ’s grace as they see the gravity of their sin. The gospel is what turns idolaters into worshipers of God. It’s what makes the self-righteous humble and willing to listen. The gospel gives practical courage to the fearful and discouraged, and helps the weak to live with confident perseverance. The gospel turns victims into helpers and the self-absorbed into those who love to serve. True biblical confrontation confronts people with much more than their sins and failures. It confronts people with Christ. He really is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life!” Hope for change always rests on him.

Love

Know

‣ Speak

Do

The Process of Speaking the Truth in Love

You can’t have a relationship without some kind of confrontation. It happens every day. A mom wakes her daughter for school and talks to her about the state of her room. A brother confronts his sister, who took something from him without permission. A wife talks to her husband about his busyness. A pastor confronts a wayward man in his congregation. A married son approaches his mother about her interference in his marriage. An elder confronts a deacon about his prickly attitude. A woman talks to her friend about her tendency to gossip. An elderly man confronts his son who seldom visits.

We confront one another every day, but the question is, Whose agenda drives our confrontation? Are we trying to get people to do what pleases us? Or are we confronting them as ambassadors, using God’s Word to lead them to repentance?

Effective biblical confrontation often begins before we speak. How we live with one another from day to day sets the stage for the way our words will be received. There is no separation between our daily lives and God’s redemptive work. We don’t advance our own wills in “normal” situations and self-consciously serve the Lord in “ministry.” This divided world is a fabrication of the Enemy.

The Lord owns every one of our relationships. He has placed us in each one for the advancement of his kingdom and the sake of his glory. His agenda is so much bigger and better than ours! By his grace he is taking lost, suffering, blind, deceived, self-absorbed, fearful, and rebellious people and molding them into the likeness of his Son. He displays his glory by transforming the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

This display of glory is taking place wherever his children—his ambassadors—live, work, and relate. Every situation, conversation, relationship, trial, or blessing belongs to him. None of it belongs to us. We cannot be satisfied with pleasing ourselves in what we say and do, but must ask what would please him.

People who approach life this way are ready to serve as God’s instruments of change. They see beyond their own agenda and are motivated by his. They are convinced that there is nothing more worthwhile in life. People who live this way speak the truth to others out of a recognition of their own need and out of thankfulness for the help God faithfully sends their way.

Understanding the Steps of

the Confrontation Process

Our goal is to do more than read people a list of charges from Scripture or tell them what we think of them. We want to help people understand what is wrong and lead them to repentance. To that end, we will consider four steps in the confrontation process, with one real life situation in mind.

Jim and Dan are close friends. Dan comes to you concerned that Jim is doing things that are unbecoming of a Christian. He has admitted to cheating on his hours at work and to occasionally “borrowing” office supplies. He has talked about “chilling out” with co-workers at local clubs that Dan thinks should be off limits to a Christian. Dan has also been hurt that Jim has violated his confidence when he has shared personal things. Dan has tried to talk to Jim about his relationship with God, but Jim has been resistant, saying only that he is “discouraged with God” right now. Jim has said more than once that he is considering changing churches and moving away. You are concerned for Jim, know him well, and have a relationship of mutual trust. You decide to talk with him.

What will you say? What does it look like to lead Jim to repentance? How will you take the truth of Scripture to the specific places where change is needed? How will you encourage a hunger for heart change and not just for change in the situation? How will you love Jim with humble, honest, sight-giving, repentance-producing rebuke?

The following four steps frame the confrontation process:

1. Consideration

The question to ask yourself is, “What does this person need to see (about himself, God, others, life, truth, change) that he does not see, and how can I help him see it?” This question alone can refocus our confrontation. Our goal is not to communicate a list of offenses, but to help people see themselves. Often when people tell their story, they are not in it! They focus on the difficulties of the situation and the attitudes and behavior of others. They don’t include their own thoughts, desires, choices, and actions. While we are sensitive to the realities of suffering and being sinned against, our goal is to encourage people to look at their behavior and examine their hearts with biblical eyes.

Imagine a mother confronting her daughter about cleaning her room. The step of consideration encourages her to do more than express irritation or issue an ultimatum. The mother wants to help her daughter see that the way she treats her possessions is a reflection of her heart. This focus can also help the elder confronting a deacon about his bad attitude. He wants to do more than tell the man to keep his sighs to himself. He wants to help him recognize, own, and repent of his anger and impatience.

This first step calls me to forsake my agenda and take up the Lord’s. I am not permitted to unload on you everything I have always wanted to say, or to simply recite my complaints. All that I say, and the way I say it, must have godly change as a goal. Otherwise, I forsake my identity and my calling.

Five questions can help people see what God wants them to see. The order is important because it teaches us to think biblically about why we do the things we do and how God changes us. The questions are appropriate for young children and mature adults and for informal and formal ministry.

1. What was going on? This question focuses on the situations or circumstances that people are facing. Their responses are important for two reasons. First, you want them to see that circumstances did not force them to do what they did. Second, you want to understand the details of their world in order to speak truth into it. Just because you “know” a person doesn’t mean you thoroughly understand all his struggles. If you make assumptions, you are filling in the gaps of your knowledge out of your own experience, not his.

2. What were you thinking and feeling as it was going on? This question takes people’s eyes off the situation and asks them to examine their hearts. It reminds them that our hearts always interact with what goes on around us. We are never just victims, but incessant interpreters whose interpretations precede and shape our actions. We also experience powerful emotions that direct our behavior.

3. What did you do in response? This question comes after the question above because our behavior is shaped by our heart’s response to the situation. As you combine the information from the first two questions, you can help people see the connection between their interpretation of their circumstances and their response. By asking this question at this time, you help people to admit that their behavior was not forced by the situation (“It was the only thing I could do!”) or by others (“She made me so angry!”). Lasting change depends on seeing this connection. Without it, people revert to blame-shifting.

If we fail to expose the connection between interpretation and response, we give Satan a huge opportunity. He is the teller of plausible lies. Just as he did in the Garden, Satan works with partial and distorted truths. His lies have power because they begin with something true. For example, I could not walk into a room of strangers and convince them that I was an Olympic gymnast. That would be a lie, and not a plausible one. However, if I dressed in a fine suit, carried a nice leather briefcase, and learned some specialized vocabulary, I could probably convince strangers that I was an architect. My attire and conversation would give the second lie plausibility. This kind of lie is the Enemy’s specialty.

Returning to our example, it is true that everything has not worked out for Jim as he dreamed. He has faced tough situations and difficult people. The Enemy has material to work with. He can tempt Jim to believe that his behavior was caused by these pressures. If Satan is successful here, it won’t be hard to convince Jim that what needs to change is not himself, but the people and situations around him.

By asking these questions in this order, we are attempting to break through well-defended strongholds in the person’s heart. We seek to expose self-excusing arguments and self-atoning lies and help people, maybe for the first time, to see that their behavior reveals more about their own hearts than it does about the difficulties of their situations. If people do not see things at this level, they may decide to do some things differently, but in their hearts they will still be convinced that most change needs to take place outside them. The change will be temporary, because it is not rooted in the heart.

4. Why did you do it? What were you seeking to accomplish? If the second question uncovers thoughts, this question seeks to reveal motives. In asking this question, we are teaching that the heart is always serving something. In Matthew 6 Christ uses the metaphor of treasure to express this worship orientation. Human life is one big treasure hunt. We all have things that are valuable to us (acceptance, possessions, achievement, a certain lifestyle, God’s glory, vengeance, love, independence, health). In some way, we all seek to get those things from our situations and relationships. Our behavior always expresses these motives—or idols—of the heart. Notice that questions two and four connect behavior to the thoughts and motives of the heart (Heb. 4:12).

As you make these connections, you help Jim to see that what he sets his heart on shapes his response to suffering and blessing. In many ways, Jim’s struggle is with blessing. He works for a solid company. In the body of Christ he is surrounded by people who really love him, and to whom he can talk. Yet Jim is not getting what he craves and so he is sullen and discontent, even angry with God. Jim needs to see that his struggle is essentially a struggle of worship. To the degree that he seeks life from the creation, he will be dissatisfied and angry with God. Change will only take place as Jim recognizes the god-replacements that rule his heart, condition his emotions, and control his behavior. His insight, confession, and repentance need to be heart-deep.

At some point Jim needs to confess that he has been living for his own glory rather than the Lord’s. Lasting change takes place when people are not only shocked by the evil in their world, but by the degree to which they have lived as glory thieves, demanding for themselves what belongs only to the Lord. What lasting good does it do to teach self-absorbed idolaters how to establish a peaceful coexistence in their marriage? What lasting good is it to get a depressed person up and running, when the core of that depression goes unaddressed?

The Wonderful Counselor is a jealous god. He is not satisfied with the outside of the dish being polished when the inside is left unchanged (Matt. 23:25). Biblical personal ministry always moves toward issues of glory and worship. The most basic question in all personal ministry is, “For whose glory are you living?”

5. What was the result? This question not only seeks to uncover consequences (Gal. 6:7), but the way these consequences are a direct result of the thoughts and motives of the heart. The seeds planted in the heart grow into some kind of fruit in the person’s life. We are all quite skilled in denying our own harvest. (“If you had these kids, you’d yell too!” “He just pushed my buttons!” “I didn’t mean to say that.”) We need to help people examine the fruit in their lives and see the connection between their harvest and the thoughts and motives of their hearts.

We want to be used by God to give people two things. The first is a harvest mentality, where people understand that every day they plant seeds and harvest fruit from the seeds they have planted. The second is an investment mentality that acknowledges Christ’s teaching that our lives are shaped by the treasure in which we invest. Every day we invest in something, and live with the return on previous investments. Our goal is that people would “own” their harvest and the return on their investments.

As we help people to consider these things, it is important to remember that acquiring personal insight is generally a process. It may not take place in one sitting, or even in your presence. As long as people are willing to be part of the process, you can work to refocus their attention toward the heart and its fruits.

It can be helpful to have people respond to these questions in journal form. I typically ask people to identify two or three situations or relationships that are a regular source of struggle. I then ask them to journal about those struggles using the five questions listed above for two or three weeks. Then I take the journal and read it, highlighting themes and patterns. The next time we meet, I return the journal and ask them to read it in my presence and respond. Again and again, God has used this simple method to open people’s eyes to what is going on in their hearts.

Once I was talking with a man who was very angry but did not see it. He had driven away all of his friends, family, and coworkers, yet he saw himself as unjustly forsaken. Whenever I attempted to talk to him about his anger, he got irritated. So I asked him to do a five questions journal for three weeks. When he brought me the journal, I underlined all the roots and instances of anger with a red marker. By the time I was done, that journal was almost solid red! The next time we got together, he read the journal for a few minutes, and then, with eyes moistened with tears, said, “The man who wrote this journal is a very angry person!” That window of personal insight became a doorway to change for that man. He began to see the ways he had lived a selfish and demanding life, never allowing people to meet his expectations. He began to see how his judgmental attitude made him very hard to be around. For the first time in years, he began to live with his eyes wide open.¹

When you encourage this kind of change, you are doing the work of an ambassador. You are incarnating the presence of the Messiah who gives sight to those in spiritual darkness. When Christ gave sight to the blind during his days on earth, he also gave us a metaphor for his work with every blind sinner who comes to him in humility. Seeing is the beginning of the change process. It is the beginning of grief, not only for the things I have experienced, but for the ways I have stolen glory that belongs to God and demanded to be the center of my world—and others’ as well. This kind of insight smashes our idols and exposes the self-serving arguments and lies that have hidden that idolatry for too long.

The confrontation process begins with giving people insight not only into their behavior, but into the system of worship that directs it. This step is essential and cannot be rushed.

2. Confession

This is the next logical step in the confrontation process. If people have looked at themselves in the mirror of Scripture, they should have identified sins of heart and behavior that need to be confessed. Jim should be seeing the spirit of entitlement that allows him to steal from work without feeling guilty. He should be realizing how he has looked at a life of blessing and seen nothing but want. Along with these insights about his heart, he should be able to see the many responses that have flowed from them.

The problem is that sinners find confession difficult. We all have ways to take ourselves off the hook. When the light of truth shines on us, we instinctively deny, recast history, explain away, accuse, blame, defend, argue, rationalize, or hide. Yet confession is essential to the change process. It is the time when people finally admit what is in their hearts and take responsibility for what they have done. Therefore, we should never assume that people are confessing to the Lord, nor should we allow our words of confrontation to do their confession for them. We should call people to confession that is not weakened by “buts” and “if onlys.” Confession reminds people that their hearts and lives belong to the Lord, and misplaced worship lies beneath sins of behavior. True confession flows out of worship and results in a deeper, fuller worship of God.

As Christ’s ambassadors, we seek to lead people to speak humble, specific words of confession to the Lord. We also need to encourage them to identify people who have been affected by their sins and seek their forgiveness. We should lead them to pray, to admit their sin, and to seek God’s forgiveness and help.

To do this we have to deal with our own hearts as well. As we have seen, we will be affected by the sins of the people we serve. In more formal counseling sessions, the know-it-all, controlling, argumentative person will be rude, dismissive, and adversarial. After a few sessions, it is easy to hope for a cancellation! Or perhaps a brother or sister in Christ frequently seeks your advice but never seems to take it, yet still calls you in self-inflicted emergencies. We need to admit that we too are sinners, and that our responses do not always reflect the character of Christ. Unless we are honest and repent of our sin, we will not call someone away from his sin; instead, we will subtly become part of the cycle.

If we do not deal with the common temptations of ministry (self-righteousness, unbiblical judgment and condemnation, bitterness and anger, impatience, a lack of gentleness) we will subvert the confession process. Have you ever noticed that the way we sin against people in ministry has a pseudo-confessional quality to it? Harboring bitterness against people is actually confessing their sin to myself, over and over again. Anger is akin to confessing their sin to God, dissatisfied that he hasn’t done something and placing myself in his position as judge. Gossip is confessing their sin to someone else. Each of these can exist in subtle form in our hearts, subverting the ministry God wants to do through us. We aren’t always heartened by the fact that God will convict people, lead them to repentance, forgive them, and draw them into renewed communion with him. There are times when we are like Jonah, who became angry after the repentance of Nineveh.

But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, “O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” (Jonah 4:1–3)

Basically Jonah is saying, “This is exactly why I did not want to go to Nineveh. I just knew you would forgive these people! They don’t deserve your forgiveness; they deserve your judgment! Now they have gotten off scot-free!” I wish I could say that I have never felt that way about people, but I have. Often the people who need our ministry most are the hardest ones to serve. In those times it is very easy to be in the way of, rather than a part of, God’s plan to lead them to heartfelt repentance. As we call others to confession, we need to confess the sins in our own hearts at the same time.

3. Commitment

Consideration and confession make up the “put off” aspect of the confrontation process (see Eph. 4:22–24). Commitment is the first step of the “put on” phase of repentance. Questions to ask here might include, “Where is God specifically calling this person to radical new ways of living and thinking? What biblical desires would God want to control Jim’s heart as he deals with his church relationships and his job? In what new ways is God calling him to love and serve others? What steps of restitution is God calling Jim to make? What new habits should he insert into his daily routines? Is he committed to these things?”

Don’t soften God’s call for concrete commitments of heart and life. People’s commitments should be God-ward and not simply horizontal bargains with the goal of an easier, better life. God is worthy of their worship even if their circumstances remain the same. If the confessed sin was against God, the commitments must be made to him as well. If the person has lived for her own glory, a new way of living must be rooted in a zeal for God’s glory and a resolve to live for him. Biblical commitment runs deeper than learning the things that have been destructive to me, and doing the things that will make them better. “What’s in it for me” commitments are essentially old idolatries in a new form.

In both the Old and New Testaments, God repudiates this kind of surface commitment. He is unwilling to settle for anything less than our hearts. (See Isa. 1:10–20; 29:13; and Matt. 23.)

4. Change

It is easy to assume that change has taken place because the person has gained insight and made new commitments. This may tempt us to stop the confrontation process prematurely. But change has not taken place until change has taken place! Change—not personal insight or commitment—is the goal of confrontation. Insight and commitment are simply steps toward a life lived in the worship of God. We must help people to apply insights and commitments to their lives. If commitment focuses on the “what,” change focuses on the “how.”

How will Jim demonstrate his thankfulness to God and to others? How will he incorporate new habits into his daily routine to break down the distance from his friends and church family? Change applies new commitments to the situations and relationships of daily living.

If we want our words to be instruments of change in confrontation, we need a sense of direction. These four steps provide a road map.

1. Consideration. What does God want the person to see?

2. Confession. What does God want the person to admit and confess?

3. Commitment. To what new ways of living is God calling this person?

4. Change. How should these new commitments be applied to daily living?

How to Confront Biblically

As in all other aspects of personal ministry, confrontation must not only be shaped by biblical goals, but by biblical methods as well. We need to constantly scour Scripture for the theology and methodology of ministry it reveals. For example, when Paul instructs members of the body to minister to one another, he says, “Speak the truth [content] in love [method].” The two are equally important. Truth that is not spoken in love ceases to be truth because it is twisted by other human agendas. Love that is not guided by truth ceases to be love because it is divorced from God’s agenda. Once we understand the goals of confrontation and the steps of the process, we can ask how Scripture calls us to confront one another.

It bears repeating that we are not advocating a “reading the riot act” form of confrontation, where the receiver is silent and the confronter lays out a list of offenses. In Scripture, the more common style of confrontation is interaction. The confronter stands alongside the person, helping him to see, telling stories, asking questions, drawing out answers, and then calling for a response. There is a more conversational structure. Christ winsomely employed this method of confrontation in his parables. (See Luke 7:36–50; 14:1–14.) He spoke so that people might see, and in seeing, might confess, and in confessing, might repent. He confronted powerful attitudes, beliefs, and actions, yet in a way very different from our tense scenes of confrontation.

Another example of interactive confrontation is found in 2 Samuel 12:1–7.

The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”

Nathan was called to confront the king with his murder and adultery, but he did not burst into the throne room and read off a list of charges. His goal was to help David see what he had done and lead him to repentance, so the way he confronted David looks very different from what we often do. Nathan’s approach is noteworthy in at least a dozen respects.

1. Note the severity of the issues. Nathan is not just providing “spiritual guidance.” David has committed murder and adultery.

2. Note the degree of spiritual blindness. David is the God-anointed king, yet he has not only committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband, he has brought her into the palace to live with him. The more outrageous the sin, the more fundamental the blindness that covers it. This is why you should not settle for lecturing or reading charges. You are not simply dealing with the person’s sin, but with self-protective blindness that keeps the sin from the person’s view. The person you are called to confront will tend to be both willfully blind and blindly willful. If he is going to confess and turn, he needs to see what he has done. We need a style of confrontation that helps him do that.

3. There is no evidence that Nathan enters the throne room with flashing eyes, bulging veins, pointed finger, and words blazing. (“David, you are a murderer and adulterer!”) In fact, you might find Nathan’s patient manner unsettling.

4. Nathan stands before David and tells him a story, an extended metaphor crafted to open the eyes of David’s heart.

5. Notice that the story is built on subject matter related to David’s life (sheep). If we pay attention, we can learn many things about a person that will help us when the time comes to confront. The metaphors do not have to be dramatic or earthshaking. Sometimes using a little element from a person’s life to illustrate a biblical principle or reveal a sin is more effective than a long, dramatic story.

The angry man I mentioned earlier simply did not see what he was doing to his family. He was the head of a computer department for a large corporation and he wanted the same response from his family that he got from the computer. He did not want conversation or relationship, just immediate action in response to clear commands. I used the metaphor of “pressing the button again” to help him see what he was doing. His way of life at home was devoid of the self-sacrificing love and patience God calls husbands and fathers to display, but he did not see it because his family was “in order.” God used the button metaphor to open his eyes.

Weeks after I first used it, this man said to me, “You know, you have really spoiled my job for me! Every time I sit down at my computer, I think about what I have done to my family, and I ask for the Lord’s help.” My response was, “Praise the Lord!” When you use pieces of a person’s life as tools to help him see, they will continue to confront the person long after you are done speaking. This helps people to continually recommit themselves to what the Lord wants to show them.

6. In Nathan’s interactive style of confrontation, the focus is on the story, with the goal of stimulating David to see what he has not seen.

7. Notice that the story is short on details, yet very specific in application. The story is not the goal; it is a means to the goal. It must be pointed enough to cut through layers of blindness and expose the heart.

8. The story accomplishes its goal, resulting in a heart reaction: “David burned with anger” (v. 5).

9. Notice that David is the first person to speak after the story is completed. He has gotten the point of the story and says, “The man who did this deserves to die!” (v. 5). The story leads David to confront himself, even before he realizes the application to his life.

10. Nathan follows David’s self-confrontation by specifically applying the story to his sins of adultery and murder (vv. 7–12).

11. David then speaks clear words of confession that are free of blameshifting or excuse making (v. 13).

12. Nathan ends by assuring David of God’s forgiveness and the consequences of his sin (vv. 13–14).

The wise ministry of this prophet presents a wonderful model of biblical confrontation. The Gospels put this same model before us in the ministry of Christ. Again, because Jesus seeks to open people’s eyes and lead them to repentance, the confrontation is interactive. He tells stories, asks and answers questions, guides a person’s thinking, enters into conversation, employs imaginative metaphors, and waits for self-confronting responses, all with the goal of personal insight and heart repentance.

In truth speaking, the principle is to start with interaction. This includes:

Two-way communication. The person being confronted must be invited to talk. This is the only way to know if he has understood what you are pointing out; if he has owned what needs to be admitted and confessed; and if he is committed to new ways of living.

Use of metaphor. A metaphor is a familiar thing used to communicate a less familiar idea. God employs an extensive list of metaphors to help us see and know him. Metaphors such as rock, fortress, sun, shield, door, and light teach us that God is solid, stable, unmoved, unchanging, someone upon which we can stand.

In confrontation, we want to find things in a person’s life that illustrate truths or reveal sins he needs to see. We need to ask the question, “What do I know about this person’s background, job, interests, and experiences that can provide metaphors for me to use?” The metaphor may be a single comparison (“You’re pushing the button again!”) or an extended story (“The kingdom of God is like a man sowing seeds . . .”).

Self-confronting statements. Here you encourage the person to make connections between your examples and his own life. Don’t make connections for him! His heart needs to embrace what God is showing him and, without pressure, be ready to confess and turn from sin.

Summary. Here you summarize all that God wants to teach the person and call him to respond in heartfelt commitment. Make sure the issues are clear and don’t assume the person’s agreement. Stop and ask for specific commitments. Communicate the general principles of Scripture in a way that is concretely applicable to this particular person, so that he walks away not only with a clear sense of conviction, but a clear sense of calling as well.

Confrontation should always begin with interaction, but there will be times when you are called to minister to someone who is stubborn, rebellious, and proud. The person will not participate in the give-and-take of interactive confrontation, so he needs to hear God’s will pronounced and be exhorted to respond. This style of confrontation, declaration, is what we most often associate with confrontation, but it should be reserved for those who refuse to do the self-examination that interactive confrontation requires. It is for the stiff-necked and the hard-hearted. We should always begin with interaction (engaging a person in heartfelt self-examination) and only move to declaration (“Thus says the Lord—therefore repent”) when the person has refused to listen and consider. (See Matt. 18:15–20; 23:13–39; Amos 6.)

It is a sweet grace when we are surrounded by people who love us enough to confront us—who are unwilling to let us stay lost, blind, confused, rebellious, and wandering away. It is a sign of God’s covenant faithfulness when he sends people to help us see and repent. He heals our spiritual blindness most often in everyday moments of growing awareness and progressive conviction. He uses husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, elders and deacons, neighbors and friends to do his kingdom work. He calls us, wherever we are, to help each other see and pursue a life of faith.

It is tragic when we are too busy to see the need around us. It is terrible when we see wrong going on but trim the truth because loving, humble rebuke takes us beyond the borders of our safe lives and casual relationships. These responses are the fruit of self-love that has replaced a love for God. The ministry of loving, humble, biblical truth speaking always begins with examining our own hearts.

We have been called to participate in the most important activity in the universe. God is taking rebellious, self-absorbed people and changing them into those who pursue holiness for the sake of his glory, even as they suffer in a fallen world. To this end he has called us to call sinners to repentance, incarnating his presence and work.²

Love

Know

Speak

‣ Do

Establishing Agenda and Clarifying Responsibility

I was only eighteen when I asked my wife to marry me. I really loved her, but I didn’t yet know how to love her. We were committed Christians and we wanted to do marriage God’s way, but we lacked wisdom and maturity. We needed someone to apply the principles of Scripture to the realities of our particular relationship. Thankfully, we received much counsel on how to take the things God says about marriage and work them out in our life together. Now, more than thirty years later, we continue to learn a little more each day about what it means to apply God’s truth to our lives.

Change always demands a deeper understanding of the things of God and a more careful application of those truths to our lives. Since change is a lifelong process, it won’t be over until we are in the presence of the Lord. So, as we encourage people to change, dealing with the needs of the moment is not our highest priority; rather, it is answering God’s call to “Be holy, because I am holy” (Lev. 11:44). As we call people to do what God has called them to do, we must keep this ultimate destination in view.

After thirty years, I am still learning what it means to love Luella “as Christ loved the church” (Eph. 5:25). We are still learning how to embed our story in the larger story of redemption. I am still asking Luella to forgive me, and we still have misunderstandings. We still need to be rebuked and still benefit from accountability. We still help each other identify areas of spiritual blindness where we step outside God’s boundaries.

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