“Biblical Counseling and Christian Psychology Meet the Sermon on the Mount” by Seth Mattson

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Strength to Strength, and to you, um, folks from Oregon. God bless you for getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning, or earlier, to join us here.

Um, thank you all for joining us. I know it is early on a Saturday morning, but I believe we're in for, um, a real blessing. We have Brother Seth Matson here with us. Um, he's here in Boston at the time. I've gotten to know Seth over the last, um, six months.

Uh, he sits down the, down the study hall from me a little bit, and, um, I have to say, I've never met anyone that can study for so many hours straight. Um, he's a very hardworking, diligent man, and I've really appreciated getting to know Seth here, um, for the man of God that he is. So I'm really, I'm looking forward to what Seth has to say here this morning. Um, so, uh, actually, let's, let's have a prayer, and, um, we'll get Seth to give us a little introduction on himself and a little bit of his background, and we'll begin. All right, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence here this morning, and I'm so grateful that you are our Father and that you are listening and you care, and that you have provided a way for us to come to the throne of grace through the blood of Christ, our risen Lord and Savior and King. We thank you that you have, um, given us communities of believers to dwell in here, to live out our faith, and to bring the kingdom of heaven into this dark and evil world. Uh, I thank you for the brothers who have joined us here this morning.

Bless each one. I pray a blessing for, uh, Brother Seth as he shares from the scriptures to us from the Sermon on the Mount. Lord, pray that you would give him wisdom, um, give him clarity of thought, and may each one of us be, um, moved to serve you in a more compassionate and thoughtful way because of this talk this morning. May your name be praised in everything that is said, and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, Brother Seth, if you could, um, give us a little introduction and go ahead with your talk. Thanks, Brother. It is really good to be with you all this morning. It is a great privilege to be able to speak about God's word and speak about the teachings of our King. Um, I am 26 years old. I'm originally from Houston, Texas.

The last nine months, I've been out in Boston. I'm a student at Sattler College in their certificate program, and I'm also engaged to a gal here named Chloe, and we are, we're getting married in less than a month, um, as I mentioned earlier.

And I'm a member of Followers of the Way here in Boston.

I professionally, I am in medical school, um, so I have one year of medical school left, and then I will apply to residency. I'm planning on specializing in psychiatry. So I have a particular passion around mental health issues, particularly when it comes to caring for those who don't have access. Um, and then I'm also very interested in this intersection between our Christian faith and mental health issues and psychology. And that is a little bit about what I'm going to be speaking about today.

Biblical counseling, what does the Sermon on the Mount have to offer to this discussion? As a general outline for the day, first, I'm going to introduce a case example, something that we could possibly all relate to, um, that could help us understand what counseling is, particularly in the context of our local churches.

Then I'm going to define some key terms, and then we'll jump straight into the Sermon on the Mount and talk about three dimensions of Christ's teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. And then lastly, we'll offer some resources and have some discussion.

It is participation that I really appreciate throughout this. As we go back and forth, I really would just value your input as we talk through a few questions to create dialogue.

Here's a surprisingly common scenario that perhaps you have found yourself in in the past. So Mr. J is a 45-year-old man who attends your church. He has been struggling for the past few months, feeling disconnected from God and his family.

Five months ago, his wife had a miscarriage. He tells you that his relationship with her has been strained ever since, and he doesn't know why. They are constantly irritable with each other. He also confesses that he has been failing in the area of sexual temptation, an issue he had not previously struggled with for years. He wants to get out of this downward spiral and needs your help.

This is a moment for interaction. What are some questions that you would ask Mr. J if he was a brother who came to you in the church? We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Maybe, uh, Seth, maybe, uh, I would want to find out how his relationship with God is. Like, is he finding time for prayer and in the word? And even it says he attends your church. Yeah, like, um, church participation. Like, have you been joining into the, to the work of the church? Um, you know, would be some, some, some questions that I, that I'd think of. Good. So you, you would want to focus on how his spiritual life is through his, his disciplines, like prayer, scripture, and then also his communal life with the brothers. Good. Any other thoughts?

Okay, we'll go ahead and move on. Brian, that, that is a great starting place. And hold on to those questions because we'll come back to both of those topics.

First, I want to define key terms.

So what is psychology? Psychology within the Christian community is a, is a word with a lot of baggage, perhaps. Um, it's a loaded word. What is it? When we hear psychology, is this another worldview that's coming in? Um, is this another way of, of seeing others that we can, um, perhaps adopt or perhaps we should move away from? Um, and so there's, there's, when people hear the word psychology, many different things come to mind.

When I use the word psychology throughout this talk, I'm going to simply use it in terms of the study of how the mind and emotions affect behavior. It's a very simple definition. The mind, or the way that we think, and our emotions, or the way that we feel, and then how those, the, the constant interplay between our thoughts and between our emotions affects our behavior.

Here's a schematic that shows our, our thoughts and how they affect our feelings and then affect the way that we live. Um, and that's also affected by the situations that we find ourselves in. You know, a great example of this is every morning that you wake up, especially this morning, if you woke up in Eugene, Oregon, and it's 3 a.m., you, you, you woke up and you thought to yourself, wow, I have a long day ahead of me.

Um, when you started thinking about your to-do list, um, perhaps you started feeling a little bit tired and, um, you needed a little bit of energy boost. And so you decided your behavior was to go make a cup of coffee.

Um, and so your, your thoughts of, you know, thinking about the day and then your feelings of being a little bit tired led to your behavior. And so that's a psychological perspective of the process of someone deciding to make coffee. So it's a very, very simple definition that we'll be, we'll be using here.

You know, as a more serious example, um, how would we talk about Mr. J in his case that we, we just mentioned in terms of this schematic of thoughts, feelings, and behavior? You know, perhaps the thought that he's having is that the world and God are against him. Um, you know, he had the miscarriage recently and the marital strife.

His, his thought processes are, um, negative and even catastrophic at times in the way that he's viewing God and viewing his relationships. Um, because of these thoughts, perhaps he's feeling discouraged and sad, even frustrated. Um, and that could lead to certain behaviors, certain irritabilities with his wife, um, where he's moving away from her and avoiding her. Um, perhaps he's in the area of sexual temptation. He's watching pornographic material to, to numb the way he feels, this frustration and discouragement that he feels.

And from this psychological perspective, a psychologist who is a trained professional in the science of psychology would think about Mr. J's case in a very specific way. You know, the thought processes, you would try to really, as a psychologist, tackle those thoughts and say, you know, is the last six months really as bad as you're thinking, or is there another way to think about it?

When it comes to that discouragement that he's feeling, the psychologist would want to focus on emotional regulation, meditation, or breathing techniques that, you know, yes, these feelings and these thoughts are here, but how can we control them and not let them lead to a negative behavior?

And lastly, a psychologist will, um, if they want to take a behavioral approach, will say, hey, instead of in the area of sexual temptation, watching pornography, how about going to the gym or, um, going to spend time with your children instead, or going to journal, uh, the way that you feel and what you're thinking. And so a psychologist will tackle each, each dynamic of Mr. J's case, perhaps from a different angle. Um, an example of a psychologist, here's, here's Jordan Peterson. He's very popular, um, today, and he is a clinical psychologist. And so if you were to, if Mr. J were to go to Jordan Peterson and his clinical practice, those are some of the questions and the thoughts that, that he would have him think through to help him get past what he's struggling with.

So that's psychology. But what about Christian psychology? This is the study of the same thing, the mind, the emotions, and the behavior, but from a uniquely Christian perspective.

Christian psychology would be the same in many ways, um, but, and there's a wide spectrum of how Christian psychology is practiced. Some Christian psychologists say, wow, the, what we know from modern psychology is rich and powerful, and we can use it. And so they'll want to integrate a lot of, um, psychological principles into the way that they counsel others.

Um, but on the other end of the spectrum, there's Christian psychologists who say, no, we, we're going to, our starting place is going to be scripture, and then we're going to look back at the other psychological views and see what we can take from them. But our starting place will always be scripture. So you have a full spectrum, um, and we're not going to go into many of those details here.

But if Mr. J was to go to a Christian psychologist, how would they think about his last six months? And it would be very similar to the psychologist, but perhaps they would think more about the root issue from a Christian perspective.

They would say, you know, this last six months, you've been through some horrible things, um, with the miscarriage and the difficulties you're having in your relationships. But where has God been in the midst of this? How can you think about who God is?

As far as your feelings, these are legitimate feelings that you have, but how can you focus on experiencing God's love for you? And then when it comes to behavior, perhaps a better way to channel your discouragement is actually move towards your wife and serve her, even when it is difficult. And so you can see how you still think of thoughts and feelings and behavior in a similar pattern, but from a, a Christian perspective.

Many of you might know who, who this is on the screen. This is James Dobson. He is perhaps one of the foremost thought leaders in the camp of Christian psychology. Um, he's the founder of the Focus on the Family, and he's written extensively on different mood issues, different, um, relational things when it comes to child rearing, marriage, um, from a Christian perspective, but he also has a training as a, as a doctor in psychology. And so he's someone that integrates both those worldviews to create literature that is extremely popular today in the church.

So that's psychology, and that's Christian, Christian psychology. And then there's the camp of biblical counseling, which is unique from the other two. And to understand biblical counseling, we have to understand the historical context from which the modern biblical counseling movement came out of.

In the 1950s, uh, Protestants, and particularly evangelicals, the evangelical movement began to take America by storm. Prior to the 1950s, there was a, a chasm between more of the fundamentalist wing and then the mainline wing of Christianity. Um, the, the mainline wing would have said, you know, scripture is a good story that we can take part of, but they would, there's, there's less focus on the miraculous and the transcendent. And so the fundamentalists said, no, we, we, scripture is God's word, and it is what we live our life on. And so there was a, they said, we don't, we don't want to engage anymore. We want to move away actually from, um, from the discussion when it comes to things like integrating psychology and Christianity.

And so there was a, a, a wide chasm, um, in the early 1900s, especially the 40s and the 50s. However, in the late 50s, when the, with the rise of the evangelical movement, there were key figures who said, okay, we want to engage with modern culture. We want to engage with modern academic views on the world. We want to engage with modern views of psychology. And so a key, a few key figures, one is Clyde Narramore. Um, in the, in 1960, he wrote a, a book that integrated a Christian view to therapy with, which, which held a very high view of scripture, but also integrated it with the view of therapy from Carl Rogers, who was a, a, a famous psychologist who really focused on empathy and compassionate listening in the counseling relationship.

And so there was just, oh, many resources and people that got excited about this. There were seminaries that were started that, um, offered Christian psychology. There were foundations that were formed, such as the AACC, um, which is an association for Christian counselors, which is, um, still a large organization today and in fact growing.

But as you can imagine, you know, Christian psychology, it, as we said, it integrates modern psychology with Christianity. This begs the question though, how much integration? You know, where is our starting place as Christians? And this was a question, you know, asking how much of this psychological viewpoint should we bring into Christianity? And is it watering down Christianity? Is it, are we, instead of viewing something as a sin that we have a choice in, are we viewing it as a manifestation of some childhood conflict that hasn't been resolved? And so there were, there were many Christians who were thinking about this, and, and you can imagine this, this conflict and this turmoil that came in the movement, particularly in the 70s.

In 1970, back here, there's a gentleman named Jay Adams. He was a reformed Presbyterian, and he came along and he said, enough is enough, that this integration is going too far, and we need to, as Christians, return to scripture as enough for our counseling needs.

He, he, his seminal work in 1970 was called Competent to Counsel, and this was a book where he said, the local pastor is competent to counsel. He is competent to shepherd his flock. He doesn't need to send people to therapists. He doesn't need to send people to, um, psychologists. He said, no, we, we can take care of these needs in the church. He saw the Freudian and the Rogerian integration as weakening scripture, leading to the elevation of secular worldviews. And he was a very bombastic and dogmatic person. And so he, he led a movement called Newthetic Counseling, which meant to admonish. Um, he, he partnered with Westminster and started an organization called CCEF, where they begin training pastors and putting out resources.

And today, biblical counseling has many flavors, still rooted in a lot of Jay Adams' early thought. Um, the, the movement has shifted a little bit to integrate some modern psychology, but they still maintain that original sentiment of Adams, that the pastors are competent to counsel with the scriptures.

And a definition of biblical counseling brought out by Jay Adams is that he said, biblical counseling is discipleship primarily through the complex problems of, quote, our everyday life. And so what is unique about biblical counseling from Christian psychology, um, is that the starting place is scripture and the ending place is scripture, and it's scripture all the way through. Um, he, he said, you know, we can think about modern psychology and some of the observations that they make, but we don't want to make any leaps to the conclusions that modern psychology makes. And, and he was, as you can imagine, a controversial figure. Many of the Christian psychologists even said, you know, you're being too dogmatic and you're not, um, realizing that there's all truth is God truths and we can integrate these truths.

And so there were many different wings and schisms that came out of this and tension points. But his definition is very important though, and it's something that we can learn from today that biblical counseling is discipleship, meaning it is for the person in the church, the Christian, and it is in the same way you disciple through, um, disciple through relational issues that perhaps aren't as complex. You disciple, disciple someone through, um, purity and overcoming sin. Discipleship in biblical counseling is just for those complex problems of what he called, quote, everyday life.

And so how would, how would Jay Adams think about Mr. J's case? Well, his thoughts, he would say, you know, take them captive. You don't, you don't need to be enslaved to these thoughts. For his feelings, you know, he would say, turn to the Psalms in prayer.

In his behavior, he would call him, he'd say, no, you can repent and turn and change and find new life in Christ. And so you can see how that's different from the Christian psychology. And here's a picture of Jay Adams.

One key that I want to make sure I drive home here is that biblical counseling is for the problems of everyday life. Quote, this is a term that Jay Adams used because he recognized that there were, um, extremes of mental illness that needed addressing by more, by more professionals.

And I think a great way to think about this is if you imagine these two lines here, this is the course of your life from left to right. Imagine this is a timeline and in between those lines is your life.

And then here you, you see the ebbs and flows of normal life. The highs here being perhaps you, you get married or you have a child or you get a new job or make, um, some advancement that you've been really looking forward to. There's a lot of highs in life that give us much joy.

But then there's lows in life, perhaps losing a loved one, um, or losing your job. There's, there's different problems that, that we all face. However, these are the normal ebbs and flows of, and, and what I would call the problems of everyday life.

But what about outside of these, this, this norm and these extremes here?

These extremes of the human experience, when they cause functional impairment, meaning when, when the, the problems of everyday life all of a sudden become things that prevent you from working, prevent you from being able to interact with your family, prevent you from doing the things that you normally do, then it becomes a clinical mental illness. And a great example of this is clinical depression.

Um, last November, Verlin Yoder shared on Strength to Strength about his journey with facing clinical depression. And this, his experience would have been in this deep range, right outside of the norms of, quote, everyday life.

And you know, another great example of this is King David in the Psalms. He said that the ropes of death entangled me. And in many of the Psalms, he cried out day and night, yet he said, I, he's not hearing anything from God. God, why have you forsaken me?

And, and when I read this from, um, from my background, I, I say, wow, David, he's, he's crying out, he's doing the best he can, but he feels nothing. He feels like he can't go on. Um, and this, it starts to make me think, wow, perhaps David suffered with clinical depression.

If it's, it's not just a few, a few gloomy days, but it's consistent despair and lack of hope. And these extreme ranges, they happen. Uh, your clinical mental illness is not a bad thing. It doesn't mean you are weak. It doesn't mean you're sinful. And it's a part of many people's lives.

But the key is that, that I want to drive home is that biblical counseling and the way we're talking about is for these problems of everyday life, but clinical mental illness requires the help of a professional, either a psychiatrist or a psychologist who has, um, is a trained professional in diagnosing and treating these, these more severe mental illness.

And professional mental health workers are not in competition with biblical counseling in the church. And in fact, they work in tandem, if done well. Um, the pastor can still counsel and exhort and disciple his, his flock. Um, but in the psychologist or psychiatrist can take care of those extremes, um, through either medication or therapy. And they can work in synergy and they don't have to be pitted against one another as, as many times they are.

So more on biblical counseling. Biblical counseling, it must start with the end in mind. And so the key question in all of counseling is, what is the end goal? And if we have that end goal in mind, okay, what does it take to get there?

Our end goal as Christians is Christ himself. That is our end goal. And so when we counsel others, we should keep him in mind. But this still begs the question then, you know, what does it take to get to Christ, to walk in his ways, to know him, to remain in him?

This is all this schematic here of from where we are to who Christ is and what does it take to get there is also a helpful way to think about discipleship. Um, but again, biblical counseling being more for those complex issues in life.

All of this begs the question then, if who is Christ and how did he live? If we're going to counsel others through their, um, difficulties towards Christ, what does that actually look like?

A few weeks ago, John Dee gave a talk on Christ and the new humanity. And he, he talked extensively about the individual person being a body, soul, and spirit. And I, I want to refer to that discussion so you can go back and, and watch that because it, it has a lot of deep insight and he goes into detail that I don't have time for today, but it is a, it's a great resource.

Christ, there were, I'm going to make the case that there are three core dimensions of the life of Christ. And we can see all those dimensions through the Sermon on the Mount. First, Christ was an individual. He had a body.

He, he slept, he ate, he cried, he mourned, he suffered, he was tortured, all in a physical body. He had a soul, his mind, his emotions, his will. You know, he had a mind that constantly thought of heavenly things.

Our Lord had a wide range of emotions, from the joy of seeing his creation healed to the depths of despair, um, even sweating drops of blood. He also had a will that he constantly surrendered to his Father. And his spirit, which was invigorated by the Holy Spirit, by which he was lived as a son of the living God.

And so Jesus Christ was an individual in all these senses, in all the senses that we are individuals. He was God incarnate.

But beyond just the individual aspect of who Christ was, he also lived in community.

He had 12 disciples. He called them his friends. He was, he was both loved by them and abandoned by them at the end of his life. He had a family. He, there were crowds that followed him. He had many enemies.

And so yes, he had a body, soul, and spirit, but he was also a body. He was interacting with other body, souls, and spirits in the context of a community. And so here we have the individual and we have the communal aspect.

Lastly, the third, the third dimension of Christ's life is the heavenly or the God word. He lived his life abiding in his heavenly Father's love.

The Gospel of John portrays this aspect of Jesus, or continually Jesus says, you know, I do nothing of my own accord. Everything I do is because I saw the Father do. Everything I say, it's because I heard from the Father.

And so if Christ lived as an individual in a community and in relationship with his heavenly Father, the question becomes, how did he do this? Did he leave us? Did he just live this life and then leave us without knowing? No, he, he told us and, and he told us how does, what does it take to get there?

And the answer is the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon on the Mount, we, we have, it's the key that unlocks the life of Christ. And this, if we keep this in mind, Christ as our end with the Sermon on the Mount as the means to get there, this creates a Christocentric biblical counseling.

Many in Protestantism and much of what informed the modern biblical counseling movement, including Jay Adams' counseling framework, has a very high view of what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, the salvation that he brought about. And this is a core aspect of the life of Christ. However, what's often not talked about as much is the way of life that he, he taught and he lived. He actually brought about not just a pathway that we could get to heaven and, and believe in, believe in his name so that we can one day go to a place, but he actually came and lived and taught a way of life by which we could take part of, and we could become the new humanity with him.

So, so often, again, there's two dynamics of Christocentric biblical counseling. There's the salvation that he brings about, which is often emphasized, but there's also the fact that he brought about a way of life. So you may be asking, the Sermon on the Mount and, and counseling, like, sure, um, that's great. What does that actually mean?

Why the Sermon on the Mount?

You know, many people view the Sermon on the Mount as a very high bar. These extremely difficult commandments that show us how sinful we are. And it stops there. The, it, it's a teaching that, man, it just shows how much I, I just need to trust Jesus all the more.

Um, and that's an aspect of the Sermon on the Mount, but if it stops there, it stops from the fact that he came and taught. This is the crown jewel of Christ's teachings. And he not only spoke these words, but he lived them. And to show that these aren't just words that are supposed to show us how, how fallen we are and show us how much we need him, to show him, to show us that these are words that are our life and these are words that we can accomplish through him. These are teachings that we can live out because Jesus says at the very end, in at the end of Matthew 7, that anyone who hears his words and does them builds his life on the rock.

When the rain, when the rains come and the flood comes and beat against his house, it will stand because it is founded on the rock. And he contrasts that with the sand of ignoring those teachings. And so if the Sermon on the Mount is this, is what Christ says it is, then it should be what we primarily look to, to tackle our problems of everyday life.

You know, my fear on the Protestant side, from my background, is that the Sermon on the Mount is ignored because of the, the theological system that minimizes Christ as King, but elevates him as, as Savior. But I also have a fear that people have that come from more of an Anabaptist perspective. I think it's easy to fall into the trap of being Sermon on the Mount people and embracing truths such as non-resistance and not resisting your enemy. But if it remains there and it doesn't trickle down to our everyday life, um, then we're missing something.

And like I mentioned, there's three dimensions of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. And we're going to go into, I'm going to go and break down each individual one, and then we're going to apply them to Mr. Jay's case.

There's the individual that is found in the personal virtue, the kingdom ethics of the Beatitudes. There's also the communal, and these are the, the horizontal dynamics of living as an individual, but within a social communal sphere. And then there's the God word, and this is the vertical dynamics of living as the Son of the Father.

These three dimensions are by no means comprehensive, but they are the pillars, I would say, of the Sermon on the Mount.

First, the individual.

So much of counseling often focuses on getting rid of sinful patterns. You know, we, these patterns of thought, these patterns of action, you know, and it, it becomes, the Christian life can become like this game of whack-a-mole where you're just like hitting, hitting these things that come up and hoping that, hoping that you have enough energy to, to keep them all down.

Um, and then you might just white-knuckle your way through, right? But if we keep, if we limit the Christian life to that, and then we limit counseling to this, we're missing the question of what am I moving towards? Not just what am I moving away from? Yes, I'm saved from sin, but what am I saved for?

And that something that we're saved for is these kingdom virtues.

It's not just behavioral modification that these Beatitudes show in Matthew 5, Matthew chapter 5, verse 1 through 11, but it is in cultivating an inward life.

As Spurgeon calls the Beatitudes, it is the ladder of light. Each Beatitude is a rung of a ladder that we can climb up to and walk in the light of God's glory, as Christ did.

Again, I want to reference John D. Martin's recent talk on the new humanity to for a deeper look at these Beatitudes.

When it comes to these Beatitudes and counseling specifically, we should ask the question, how would this apply to Mr. Jay's case? I want to open it up here and, and ask you all, how would the Beatitudes and how would you, as a brother of Mr. Jay, point him to the Beatitudes to help him through this situation?

Are there any thoughts?

I think to begin with, um, thinking about the first Beatitude, it's, I would probably suggest that he spend the time in reflection on poverty of spirit and, um, considering, you know, is there anything in my life to mourn over and go down through? Um, but I see the Beatitudes as a, a place to start with reflecting on where we are in our own mind and hearts.

So I'd probably encourage him to do that. Thanks, Brother Sam. That is wise words that you just spoke. Mr. Jay is struggling, right? And so where do you start? There's many different, you know, is it the sexual temptation that he's facing, the marital dynamics, he's feeling disconnected from God. But as Brother Sam just mentioned, the entrance into the kingdom, those who have the kingdom of heaven are those who are poor in spirit.

And what does that mean? And what does that mean for Mr. Jay? Well, we, when we look to scripture, we, we see many examples of being poor in spirit. We see Isaiah when he is confronted with the living God. He says, "Depart from me, for I am a man of unclean lips." We see King David, he is poor in spirit in, in Psalm 51, when he is crying out in repentance for God's mercy after committing adultery and murder.

In the New Testament, we see Peter, when he's confronted with, with Christ, he says, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man." And so we see when, when men and women come into contact with God in the scriptures, that those who accomplish great things, that those who really know God and walk with him are those who are truly poor in spirit.

They say, "I can do nothing on my own accord." They're at the end of themselves. And a part of being poor in spirit, it requires a gut honesty with both yourself and with God. And it is surprisingly difficult, actually extremely difficult to be honest with ourselves and with God, to really get to the point where we say, you know, "I've exhausted all other options and, and God, I want to come to you and I want to start afresh."

And this doesn't have to be a shameful thing. Like Mr. Jay, you haven't, you haven't been poor in spirit. This is a hopeful message. This is that it says, no, that, that you don't need to bring yourself. You don't need to, you can ask Mr. Jay, "Hey, life isn't working right now, but what are you trying?

What, what are you trying right now to, to get yourself out? And, and is it working?" And Mr. Jay will tell you, I guarantee he'll tell you, "Well, I've tried this, I've tried this, um, but it's not working, it's not helping." And so to offer, "Hey, that to be poor in spirit, to come to the end of yourself, that is, that is the start, that's the first rung of the ladder." And that's actually a very hopeful message for someone. It doesn't have to be shaming to say, "Oh, you're not poor in spirit." But it, but it, it's a call to come and, and not bring anything of your own accord, but just to say, "God, I, I need you and I, I want to start up this rung, this ladder of light with you."

Brother Sam, you also mentioned mourning.

I am convinced that the first two Beatitudes, being poor in spirit and mourning, if, if we don't get those two down as individuals, then the rest of the Beatitudes become things that we can try to grab onto. But those first two are the, the soil with which the others spring out of. And, and okay, so why do I say that?

We, we talked about being poor in spirit, but what about if, if for mourning? Did Mr. Jay allow himself to mourn after the horrible loss and the miscarriage? If he did not mourn and, and really feel the weight of, of sin in the world and brokenness, perhaps he, he just moved on. Perhaps there was some bitterness towards, towards God and maybe, maybe even frustration with himself, like, "Ah, why didn't I do enough? What did I, what did I miss here? What did I do wrong?"

But, but to mourn is to, is to mourn the, just the weight of brokenness and sin in the world. After one is poor in spirit, you, you say, "You come, I, you know, I want nothing of my own accord. I want to come to you." Then to truly mourn, not both what the, the sin and the struggles in your own life and your own heart, but also that you see around you, that he's, that he's seen in his marriage and, and this miscarriage, it's a horrible thing that God never intended. And for him to mourn is to sit with that and say, "You know, this is broken. This is not right." Because those who mourn are truly comforted.

And the reason why those two are the first two rungs of the ladder is because to move on to meekness. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." That is a radical message. The world says, "No, blessed are the, are the strong. Blessed are the, the go-getters. Blessed are the, um, blessed are the, those who fight and, and, and gather all the resources and leverage everything they got. Blessed are those because, you know, they, they'll inherit the earth." But no, Jesus says, "Blessed are the meek." And the only way to truly be meek and have that, that temperament that Jesus had of love and warmth and, um, meekness that he lived his life with.

In order to do that, we must first be poor in spirit and we must first mourn. When we feel the weight of sin, we recognize, man, the only way to really confront this world is with meekness. It's not through being harsh or bitter, but it's that meekness of spirit by which we can see the world in its brokenness. But then we begin to see what God is doing. We begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness. We, we begin to be merciful. So all these other positive aspects of this, of the, of the Beatitudes start with those two rungs of the ladder. And so I appreciate you, Brother Sam, for bringing those two out.

And so this could be a starting place, like we said, for Mr. Jay. Come asking Mr. Jay, you know, "What have you tried so far? Is it working?" He'll tell you no. And then offer him the hope of being someone who is poor in spirit and coming at the end of themselves to God to receive from him his life. And then you can mourn, you can say, "Yeah," you can agree with God and say, "Yes, this is broken." So this could be a starting place for applying the Beatitudes to Mr. Jay.

There's also the communal or the social, uh, what I like to say is the horizontal aspect of the Sermon on the Mount. As we mentioned earlier, Christ was a relational person. He had disciples and community. And he taught, "How do we live in community? How do we live with others?"

Primarily in Matthew chapter 5 and 7, he talks about anger, not being anger, but then he, he cuts to the heart. He says, "Anyone who hates his brother, not just if you, not just if you murder someone is it wrong, but if you hate your brother, if you even say you fool to a brother," he's cutting to the heart with these teachings. He's not just condemning, he's offering, he's showing the way by which we reconcile, by which we forgive others, by which we love our enemies.

He talks about lust and adultery, divorce and remarriage, giving, judging others and not judging others, about loving your neighbor as yourself. And in Matthew chapter 7, he talks pretty extensively about, you know, who are the people we should model our life after? Who are those people that are in the kingdom? And he actually gives us litmus tests by which we can, we can know who we should, who we should be in relationship with in our churches.

And if you think of counseling needs that you've come to personally, um, perhaps it's even in your family, your own life, think about how much of it dealt with anger or lust or perhaps marital conflict. Maybe there were enemies that you faced. How did you interact with them?

What, what does it, what does it mean for you to not judge others, but to look at the, the plank in your own eye or looking at the speck in a brother's? These, if we really grasp these, it, these teachings trickle down to every aspect of life. And

I think everyone can hear as a good example could think of someone who's, who, who wasn't able to forgive another person who wronged them. And you probably have seen the ripple effect of how bitterness takes root and it has a detrimental effect on every aspect of life.

But how does this, these teachings in Matthew 5 and 7 about how to live in community, how do they apply to Mr. Jay? For sake of time, I won't take questions here. We'll just keep moving on. But one of the keys here, he says that they are, him and his wife are constantly irritable with each other.

So a question you could ask is, "Hey, what do you mean by irritable?"

Perhaps it's not over anger or hatred that he has for his wife. But Jesus says that even if you say, "Raka," that you have murdered your brother in your heart. And, and many, many people think that "Raka" is like the harshest statement that Jesus says.

There's, there's some early church commentaries that suggest that "Raka" is, is this subtle dismissal of someone that you say, "Raka," and you, you dismiss them. And if we, if we really see, man, our interpersonal interactions in that way, that, that, that is something that when we say, "Raka," and we, we say, "Ah, like this person," and we get frustrated and irritable and we dismiss them, right? It's so easily, it happens all the time. But if we, if we see that, that is, that mars the image of Christ in us and that mars the image of Christ in our communities.

And so, and so we could ask Mr. Jay, "Hey, what, what is this irritability you're feeling? What, what is another way that you can actually move towards your wife, even if she is wrong, is wronging you in some aspect of your, of your marriage? How can you love her and move towards her?

How can you serve her?"

And both, before we move on to the last and most important of these three dimensions, again, we have the individual, we have the communal.

I would, it's important to note that, you know, we just talked about anger and loving your enemies. And that is good. And we, we should teach that and disciple others and lead others like Mr. Jay through irritability and say, "No, how can you love others instead of being irritable with them and even angry?" For the individual Beatitudes, we should say, "Hey, we should seek after these things. We should be pure in heart and we should be merciful and hunger and thirst after righteousness."

But these, the individual and the communal can only be accomplished if we have, are we, we are anchored in this third and final aspect of, of the life of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. And that his, is his relationship with God the Father.

In Matthew 6 and 7, we get to see the beauty of Jesus' relationship with his Father. And I, why is this important? And I love this Tozer quote. "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." Think about that. What comes into our minds when we think about God, like we think about God, what's that first thing that pops into our mind? That that is the most important thing about us.

And if we were to do this case study on the life of Jesus, what did, what came to mind when Jesus thought of God?

What came to mind is that God was his Father and he could come to him as a needy child. Throughout his whole life, he, he, you know, it says when he's facing persecution, he says, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and understood and revealed them to helpless babes."

His, his first response to God is a thankful heart to his Father. In the Sermon on the Mount, specifically in Matthew chapter 6, he teaches us how to pray. "Our Father, who is in heaven."

In Matthew chapter 7, he, he says, "No, he really wanted to make sure that the people got it." And, and Jesus in his wisdom, he taught in ways that made it sticky. And he looks at the crowd, imagine, imagine the fathers in the crowd.

He looks at the crowd and, and he says, "Which one of you, if his son asks for, for bread, would give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, would give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?"