Why does grief bring such a heavy burden arising from the ashes of bereavement?  Why the accident?  Why the terminal illness?  Why the natural disaster? Why the finality of death?

Why does grief come in waves of anguish and pain? Grief has a way of leaving us feeling fragile and unstable.  All you want to do inside is withdraw from friends and even loved ones.

There is nothing you can do to prepare or plan ahead of time for your moment of loss.  Death has no warning signals.  It is unpredictable and unexpected.  When death comes, it can cause our lives to move in slow motion, resulting in numbness towards life.

God’s Word has no better word for death than “enemy” (1 Cor. 15:25-26).  Death is at war of everything beautiful and precious about life. The outcry of our hearts that death is wrong and unnatural is absolutely right and true. Death exists because of sin (Rom. 6:23). When Adam and Eve acted as king and queen of their own kingdoms, they abandoned God’s Kingdom and forsook God’s ruling love in their lives.  Everyone in humanity followed their footsteps (Rom. 5:12).   Thus, death became a reality.

But death and grief do not have the final word, but life:  resurrected life in Jesus Christ!  The gospel reminds Christians that Jesus Christ died the death we should have died and lived the life we fail to live.  Christ rose again so that death would be defeated.  When we hear the deaths of loved ones and the lives lost in earthquakes, it reminds us that death still lives.  Yes, death is our last enemy, and death will be defeated once and for all.  Christ’s bodily resurrection and supremacy guarantees this.

So preach to yourself that Jesus’ resurrection and life have the last word.

Preach to yourself that Jesus has already paid for your sins and you’re forgiven.

Grief would want you to seek and escape to other temporary comforts: old photo albums, material things, memorable stories, and distractions (tv shows, facebook, twitter, exercise, food, relationships).  They all provide some brief comfort but none can satisfy you except Christ alone.

Pray and believe that Jesus would be your true source of comfort.

Christ knows your pain. He experienced death Himself and conquered it.

Because Christ lives, you also will live (Jn. 14:19).

Read the compelling article, The Bible and the Pain of Infertility, written by a husband and wife who wrestled with God, themselves and others as they traveled the road of infertility.  Hear how the gospel penetrates beyond the depth of such heart-wrenching pain.

The same informational meeting will be offered twice, in two time slots: 11:30-12:30 and 5:15-6:15pm at the Germantown campus.  We will meet in room 306 on the 3rd floor at the Germantown campus

Please register if you plan to attend this informational meeting.

If you want to find out more info prior to the meeting, check out the “Getting Involved” tab on the Sojourn Counseling website.

First, God made the reality of great suffering real to me as I sat beside a 40-year old Haitian man, who hardly slept or ate in over two weeks due to the shock of death and destruction.  He explained in French, through an interpreter, that the earthquake that killed over 3,000 people in his home town, or ten percent of the 30,000 residents, took the lives of over 200 extended family members, destroyed his home, and decimated his business.  His wife and two daughters have been sleeping outdoors since the earthquake and have not been able to complete the paperwork needed to evacuate.  The Haitian man humbly asked that we pray for his wife and two kids as he showed Karen and me pictures of his lovely family.  He also asked for help in evacuating his family.

Second, God made the reality of my sinfulness real to me as He revealed deep sin in my heart. I can’t speak for the other Sojourners but before last Saturday, I struggled to connect with the reality of the January 12, 2010 earthquake that killed over 150,000 people who lived thousands of miles away.   Not only did I battle a disconnectedness, I also struggled with the fear of the unknown, not knowing how many Haitians would need counsel and how to deal with deep grief of each unique person.  I often forget that God is the One who ministers and I merely participate.

Lastly, God made the reality of international missions real to me here in Louisville. As Karen and I drove to the prayer service, God revealed the misplaced priorities of my self-centered life.  God convicted me that I tend to live for my own agenda as I battled giving up some of my Saturday evening to serve people I didn’t know and may not even see again.   I repented as I drove down the interstate.  I asked Karen to read Psalm 71 so that God’s word would prepare our hearts for His mission, instead of our typical Saturday night routine of self-indulgence.   God made me aware of how many gospel opportunities I miss because I am not living for Him and His mission but for myself.

Here are some practical next steps:

(1)   Ask God to open your eyes and step into the lives of hurting people.  God will change your heart so that you begin to grieve what grieves God’s heart.  Look for opportunities in your own family, with your neighbors, and with your Sojourn family.

(2)   Fight your disconnection and fear so that you can offer the gospel to others, especially in times of great need.  God grows you when you step out in faith to love those in need.  Take advantage of opportunities to learn how to help others in need by stepping into SEED, Sojourn’s Mercy ministry (mercy@sojournchurch.com) and Sojourn’s Counseling ministry (counseling@sojournchurch.com) .

(3)   Repent from living for yourself and not for God.  We tend to live for our own kingdom-this blinds us to God’s mission.  God has not only relocated 1200 Haitians to Louisville, but he has moved hundreds of internationals who desperately need to hear the gospel.  God has called you to step into international right here in your own city.  Contact missions@sojournchurch.com to find out how you can engage internationals here in Louisville.

God is constantly moving and working to build His church and advance His kingdom!  It is an exciting time at Sojourn as we see and experience how God uses His gospel message to call us to gospel mission as we live in gospel community.  Lives are being transformed, relationships and families are being changed, and our neighbors are being comforted and challenged by the gospel.

Sojourn Counseling plays an integral role in gospel mission as we care for and equip the body so that every member can not only live out the gospel in the midst of the struggles and triumphs of life, but are able to help others do the same-inside and outside the church.

The past two years have been a great time of understanding and developing God’s vision for Sojourn Counseling through much prayer, reflection, discussion within a growing network of gospel-driven churches around the world, and engagement in the “ground war,” or life-on-life ministry, at Sojourn.  It has become obvious that as the Lord continues to grow Sojourn, and as we continue to engage the city, Sojourn Counseling needs to grow and engage as well.  How will we do this?

This is where you come in!  We are praying for the Lord to raise up new leaders to be a part of the counseling team, as we are all called to help and equip others to understand, believe in, and apply the gospel to life and relationships-this is what gospel living is all about!   Whether you have formal counseling training or not, we have developed pathways for you to be equipped and serve in Sojourn Counseling.

If you want to find out more about Sojourn Counseling, click on the “Getting Involved” tab to learn more about the next Info Session, the Level 1-3 gospel counselor certification, the application process, and the intensive training program.  If you have any questions, e-mail us at counseling@sojournchurch.com.

There are four common, but treacherous traps that we can fall into as we deal with the possible ambivalence rooted in our hearts associated with heading home for the holidays.  First, we can be lulled into complacency.  It is way too easy to take life for granted.  Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you have next year, even next month, to pursue relationships with family (cf. Jas. 4:13-17).  Accidents happen.  The occurrence of disease and death are unpredictable.   Second, we can get caught up in the “blame game.”  The bifocals of blame and bitterness can blind us all, especially when it involves family.  The perspective that our parents are to blame for all of our life’s struggles can bring about relational paralysis and opportunities to love are missed.  Third, we can get stuck in the pit of unforgiveness.  Hurts leads to hardened hearts.  We can convince ourselves that we can never forgive.  Interestingly, encounters with family members on their death-bed often lead to long overdue forgiveness, reconciliation, and changed hearts.  Fourth, we can be absorbed by self-focus.  Too often, we can focus on the themes of “What can they do for me?” or “Look what they did to me!” or “This is what they haven’t done for me!!”  It is way easy to forget that relationships are a two-way street.  Don’t let your complacency, hurt, unforgiveness, insecurities, or self-centeredness keep you from moving towards your parents with Christ-like love and forgiveness (cf. Eph. 4:31-5:2).

If you are dreading or avoiding being with your family this upcoming holiday season, take a few moments to ask yourself the following questions:  Are you setting yourself up for a life of regret?  “I thought I had more time . . .” or “If I only I could have told them that I love them.”  Are there opportunities for you to shift from a posture of blaming to one of focusing on how you have wronged your parents, especially through your disrespect and tendency to receive and not give?  Remember that God uses the messiness of relationships and circumstances to reveal our sinful hearts and to compel us to cling to the cross of Christ for His forgiving and sanctifying love.  Are you too hurt or too hardened to forgive a family member?  Just as we have been forgiven and reconciled with God the Father through Jesus Christ, so too must we forgive and be reconciled to others.  Remember the riveting words of Christ, “If you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (Matt 6:14-15).  Are your thoughts more about your own agenda, rather than how you might obey, honor, and respect your parents (cf. Eph. 6:1-3) and love them like you love yourself (Matt. 22:39)?

God desires for each of us to move towards our parents with the love of Christ-to be Christ to them as Christ gave Himself for those of us who are His children.  We are prone to forget that Christ-like love involves giving ourselves to others, regardless of the cost, so that they will come to see and experience the love of Christ (cf. Rom. 5:8).  We are all called to pursue peace as far as each of us are concerned (Rom. 12:14-21) and to be ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:17-21).  Remember, the gospel is powerful to transform not only you, but also your relationships, including your family relationships.  Remember you are no longer a child, but a child who has grown to be a man or woman of God.

I have had the privilege of seeing how God uses gospel-driven adult children as instruments of redemption to bring about God-glorifying changes in the hearts and lives of their parents.  The beauty of God’s redeeming love is that both parent and child will experience the Lord’s blessings when the faith of a son or daughter works through love (cf. Gal. 5:6).  So, step out in faith in your Savior, Jesus Christ, know that you will be enabled by the power of His Holy Spirit, and take time to be with your family during the holiday season.  Sit with them, laugh with them, learn about and from them, bless them, and love them such that God will be glorified and you will experience the redeeming grace of God.

What do you do?   Do you isolate yourself and fail to ask for help because you believe the lies of the world-that we should be self-sufficient and “have everything together?” Do you keep others from knowing your struggles to avoid judgment and shame, thinking you are the only one who struggles in this way?  Or have you convinced yourself that no one can truly understand your “unique” struggle?

You want help, but where do you go?  You want to pour out your heart to someone, but who will listen?  What will you say?  Who can you trust?  Sure, you can go see your doctor or make an appointment to talk with a stranger but will prescribed meds or a weekly session with a therapist really get to the bottom of your heart’s struggle?  Are these your only options for help?

This is the exact point-when you come to the end of yourself and realize your efforts to “just deal with it” are futile-where the gospel breaks through!  The gospel reveals our life and suffering as a thread interwoven within God’s redemptive story.  The gospel points out we aren’t made to live alone, none of us have it all together, and we all struggle with life-we are all desperately helpless and sinful.  The gospel declares and demonstrates our hope is found in a person, not in different thinking, relationships or circumstances.  Christ died so that in Him, we might find comfort, refuge, strength and joy even in the midst of our sorrows.

In addition to our new life in Christ, God places other people around us to help us live out the gospel.  This is by design.  Our God in His infinite wisdom designed us to receive help, care, comfort, encouragement and love in community.  There is a simple, yet powerful pattern of care described in the gospel:

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. (2 Cor. 1:3-4)

The God of all comfort is the source of comfort in all of our troubles!  But notice the pattern-God comforts us so that we can comfort others with the comfort received from God.  God is glorified when we care for one another’s burdens in community (cf. Gal. 6:2). In the end, it’s all about the church being the church, demonstrating what it means to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is why we strongly encourage every member to be a part of a Community Group (CG).

So what does this look like at Sojourn?  When you are struggling with something in life we encourage you to take the following steps:

If you are in a Community Group …

1.    First share with your Community Group leader.  You may also want to invite other trusted group members to journey with you.  You will be surprised to learn when you share your struggles, others will be able to help you in the same way they have been comforted by God and others.

2.    If your CG leaders are not able to help, they are instructed, with your permission, to ask for help from their Group Life Coach, who is more experienced and equipped.  At this point, the Coach may get directly involved in offering care or may guide the CG leader through the process of care and counseling.

3.    If additional help is needed, then the coach will ask you to submit a Counseling Request Form.

If you are NOT in a Community Group …

1.    Request to get into a Community Group through the on-line sign up form.

2.    After completing the CG form, go to the Sojourn Counseling website and fill out the Counseling Request Form.

3.    We will review your Counseling Request Form and connect you with a hand-selected CG where you will receive the immediate benefits of living life in gospel community.

4.    Once you plug into the CG, you will be asked to connect with the assigned ministry leader to help you with your particular life struggle.

If you are bored one day, become a pollster.  Ask your friends, family members, even better yet a group of counselors or therapists and ask them a simple and straightforward question, “What is the goal of counseling?”  More than likely, you will hear a hundred different answers from those who even cared enough to answer your question.  Yet, you might hear a common theme described by a number of nebulous synonyms.

So why are there so many different answers to this seemingly simple question, even if you narrow the polling to counseling types?  Going one step further, why are there so many different explanations even to synonymous goals – like “healing,” “wholeness,” and perhaps even “recovery?”

Bottom-line, if you attempt to answer this question apart from a “grand unifying theory,” you will wind up with a myriad of answers based on your particular counseling or psychotherapeutic theory or framework.

Pastor John Piper addressed the world’s largest Christian counseling association (AACC) at their most recent conference in September 2009.  Listen to his riveting sermon that gives a clear answer to the question, “What is the goal of counseling.”

Loving MySelf

In our quest to understand counseling, we are working our way through seeing “what’s love got to do with it”–namely God’s radical double-love command.

Before we can love our neighbors, we need to know what it means to love ourselves.  For most of us, we have a self-centered notion, rather than a God-centered notion, of what it means to love ourselves.  The answer to how we should love ourselves is closer than we might think!

Inherent in God’s created design is the ability to take care of ourselves.  There are many practical ways we love ourselves–eating when hungry, drinking when thirsty, and sleeping when tired.  Avoiding danger and seeking safety, pursuing relationships, and grieving the death of loved ones are additional examples of how we love ourselves.  Because of our created design, all of these practical ways of self-love can take place, to a certain extent, apart from the gospel.  So how should we love ourselves in light of the gospel?  We love ourselves the best when we love God the most. God, as our Creator and Redeemer, loves us more than we can ever love ourselves.  God, through his Spirit and living word, gives life and satisfaction to our souls.  Therefore, the first love command defines how we are to love ourselves.

Given this understanding of self-love in light of the gospel, we are called to preach the gospel to ourselves as we struggle in our relationship with God due to our unbelief …

“Is God who he says he is?” “Does God really care about me?”  “Does he love me?”  ‘Why did God let this happen to me?”  “God seems so far away.”  “God seems like an angry judge, a disappointed father, etc.”  ‘God will never forgive me for what I have done!”  “His promises don’t apply to me …”  “Why doesn’t God answer my prayers …“ “Why doesn’t he change me?”  “I don’t believe God’s will and commands are best for me or good for me.”

We need to fight for the gospel to define and guide our most intimate relationship, our most true and important identity, and our divine calling to love and be like Christ.  There is much at stake if we don’t grasp how we should love ourselves in light of God’s double-love commands.  First, if we fail to love ourselves rightly, we fail to worship God rightly!  Second, if fail to love ourselves rightly, we fail to love our neighbors rightly!

Some Questions for You … Have you ever thought about what it means to love yourself in light of the gospel?  Can you relate to any of the questions about you and God (see above)? What do you think about the connection between loving yourself rightly and loving God rightly?

THE GOSPEL ENABLES LOVE

God desires for each of His children to come to him with a broken and dependent heart that pleads for God’s mercy and grace to love like Christ.  The mission of the gospel flows out of these two overarching love commands.

The First Love Command
‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ (Matt. 22:37; cf. Deut. 6:5; 10:12)

We are to know and love God with our whole life (cf. Rom. 12:1).  Since we no longer live, but Christ lives in us, we are to live no longer for ourselves but for him who died and rose again for us (cf. Gal. 2:20, 2 Cor. 5:14-15; Matt. 16:24).  Jesus is our greatest treasure (Matt. 6:21; 13:44; 19:21).  Knowing Him is of surpassing value (cf. Phil. 3:8) and in his presence, we experience ultimate joy and eternal pleasures (Ps. 16:11).

Given the first love command, we are called to help our members grow in their personal, intimate knowledge of and affections for God.  God’s primary means for such growth in grace are His Word and prayer in private and in community.

The Second Love Command
‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ (Matt. 22:39; cf. Lev. 19:18)

We are often fooled by our assessment of how well we love God.  We think we love God when we pray with eloquence, when we teach with all knowledge, or when we sacrifice all of our possessions for the sake of the gospel. But if we do not love others, we do not love God (1 Cor. 13:1-3; Jas. 3:9-10).  God issues the second love command as a watertight pathway demonstrating our true love for God—Jesus states if we love one another, we love God and will be known as His children and disciples (John 13:34-35; 1 John 3:10, 14; 1 John. 4:12-21).  According to the second love command, before we can love others according to the gospel, we must know how we should love ourselves in a way that glorifies God.

Some questions for you … Have you given much time to consider why and how all of God’s commands are summed up by God’s double-love command?  Given the call to love God whole-heartedly, how much of your time and thoughts are captured and compelled by the perfect and infinite love of God?  How does God make you aware you of the huge gap between your professed love for him versus your practical love for him–as evident in how you may or may not love others?

Next time, we will take a look at how should we love ourselves, which serves as a key in how we are to love others …