Counseling Under the Cross:Martin Luther on

Suffering, Sorrow, and Hope in Christ

Martin Luther Reformed Pastoral Counseling

Ø Martin Luther not only reformed theology; Martin Luther reformed pastoral counseling.

Ø We will learn from Martin Luther how to comfort one another with the comfort that we receive from the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort. We’ll learn what it looks like to apply Christ’s gospel of grace to suffering so that hurting Christians can find healing hope and sanctification growth in Christ alone.

Martin Luther:The Pastoral Biblical Counselor

Ø October 31, 1517: “Compelled by intense pastoral concern…”

Luther the Pastor-Shepherd-CounselorInspired Luther the Reformer

Ø “I bewail the gross misunderstanding among the people which comes from these preachers and which they spread everywhere among the common men. Evidently the poor souls believe that when they have bought indulgence letters they are then assured of their salvation.”

Luther’s Reformation MotivationØ “O great God! The souls committed to your

care, excellent Father, are thus directed to death. For all these souls you have the heaviest and a constantly increasing responsibility. Therefore, I can no longer be silent on this subject.”

Ø Luther the Pastor-Shepherd-Counselor Inspired Luther the Reformer.

Luther’s Pastoral HeartØ “In matters concerning the cure of souls the

German Reformation had its inception” (McNeil).

Ø “What provoked Luther to request such a discussion? Simply put, it was pastoral concern” (Sproul).

Ø “The leader of the Reformation was an untitled pastor with all of Germany for his parish” (Nebe/Hay).

Luther’s Pastoral HeartØ “Martin Luther is usually thought of as a world-

shaking figure who defied papacy and empire to introduce a reformation in the teaching, worship, organization, and life of the church. It is sometimes forgotten that he was also—and above all else—a pastor and shepherd of souls” (Tappert).

Ø “It is therefore well to remind ourselves that the Reformation began in Germany when Luther became concerned about his own parishioners who believed that if they had purchased letters of indulgence they were sure of their salvation” (Tappert).

Luther Reformed Pastoral Counseling

Ø The Fourteen ConsolationsØ Gospel-Centered Consolation: “The

consolation offered by the Word is a new vision, the power of faith to see suffering and death from the perspective of the crucifiedand risen Lord.”

Luther and the Sufficiency of Scripture:Sola Scriptura Applied to Counseling

Ø Preach the Gospel to Yourself DailyØ Preach the Gospel to One Another Daily

Applying the Gospel to Suffering:Martin Luther the Soul Care Giver

Sustaining and the Trial of Faith

Ø Level 1 Suffering: What Happens To Us—TheTrial

Ø “I am not so inhumane that I cannot appreciate how deeply the death of Margaret distresses you. For the great and godly affection which binds a husband to his wife is so strong that it cannot easily be shaken off, and this feeling of sorrow is not displeasing to God. Nor would I account you a man, to say nothing of a good husband, if you could at once throw off your grief.”

Level 2 Suffering and Understanding Satan’s Schemes

Ø Level 2 Suffering: What Happens InUs—The Trial of Faith (Anfechtung)

Ø Understanding Satan’s Scheme: “To tell the truth, Satan sometimes assails me so mightily and oppresses me with such heavy mental temptations, that he utterly shadows Christ from me, and, in a manner, takes Him out of my sight.”

Ø Satan Seeks to Crop the Christ of the Cross Out of Our Picture

Understanding Satan’s Scheme

Ø “When God sends us tribulation, it is not as reason and Satan claim: ‘See God flings you into prison, endangers your life. Surely He hates you. He is angry with you; for if He did not hate you, He would not allow this thing to happen.’”

Ø “In this way Satan turns the rod of a Father into the rope of a hangman and the most salutary remedy into the deadliest poison. He is an incredible master at devising thoughts of this nature. Therefore, it is very difficult to differentiate in tribulations between him who kills and Him who chastises in a friendly way.”

Prescribing Christ’s Gospel Remedy

Ø “The Holy Spirit knows that a thing only has such value and meaning to a man as he assigns it in his thoughts.”

Ø Cling to a Coram Deo Perspective: Faith Perceives the Presence of God in the Presence of Suffering

Ø “I cannot pretend that I do not hear the voice of Christ crying out to me from Your Lordship’s body and flesh saying, ‘Behold, I am sick.’ This is so because such evils as illness and the like are not borne by us who are Christians but by Christ himself, our Lord and Savior.”

Prescribing Christ’s Gospel Remedy

Ø Cling to a Christ of the Cross PerspectiveØ “Oh, if we could only see the heart of Christ as

he was suspended from the cross, anguishing to make death contemptible for us. If only a man could see his God in such a light of love, how happy, how calm, how safe he would be! He would then truly have a God from whom he would know with certainty that all his fortunes—whatever they might be—had come to him and were still coming to him under the guidance of God’s most gracious will.”

Luther’s Sustaining Pastoral Care

Ø Application Is Not: “Just Preach At People!”

Ø Application Is: Compassionately Journeying with Sufferers—Entering Their Earthly Story

Personal Suffering: 2 Cor. 1:3-4; 8-9

Ø “This death has cast me into deep mourning, not only because of the ties of nature but also because it was through his sweet love to me that my Creator endowed me with all that I am and have. My father’s kindness and the memory of his pleasant conversation have caused so deep a wound in my heart that I have scarcely ever held death in such low esteem.”

Participation in Suffering: 2 Cor. 1:4-7Ø “I wish to write this to you because I am

anxious about your illness, that I might become a participant in your suffering, temptation, faith, consolation, and thanks to God…”

Ø “The Christian cries out, ‘I suffer with you.’”Ø “So I pray that the Lord will make me sick in

your place.”

Permission to Grieve in SufferingØ “Accordingly we all are deeply grieved by his

death. As is natural, your son’s death, and the report of it, will distress and grieve your heart and that of your wife, since you are his parents. I do not blame you for this, for all of us—I in particular—are stricken with sorrow.”

Healing and Christ’s Gospel Medicine

Ø Sustaining: The Earthly Story, Life Is Bad, Empathy, “It’s Normal to Hurt,” Suffering With, 2 Corinthians 1:3-9a

Ø Healing: The Heavenly Story, God Is Good, Encouragement, “It’s Possible to Hope,” Pointing to the Suffering Savior; 2 Corinthians 1:9b-11

The Spiritual Significance of Suffering

Ø C.S. Lewis: “God whispers to us in our pleasure, but shouts to us in our pain. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a sleeping world.”

Ø Martin Luther: “God is apt to lay His hand upon us just where it will give us the most pain, in order to slay our old Adam.”

Christ’s Gospel Medicine

Ø Medicine for What?: “The most dangerous trial of all is when there is no trial, when everything is all right and running smoothly. That is when a man tends to forget God, to become too independent and put his time of prosperity to a wrong use. In fact, at this time he has more need to call upon God’s name than in adversity.”

Christ’s Gospel MedicineØ Medicine to Accomplish What?: “This is the

school in which God chastens us and teaches us to trust in Him so that our faith may not always stay in our ears and hover on our lips but may have its true dwelling place in the depths of our hearts. Your Grace is now in this school.”

Ø “Delicious Despair…”

Christ’s Gospel Medicine

Ø God’s good heart always produces good purposes in our suffering:

He sometimes chooses to cure us; He always chooses to mature us.

Ø God Uses Suffering to Form and Transform Us

Gospel-Centered Encouragement: Who God Is in Christ

Ø “For the spirit and heart of man is not able to endure the thought of the wrath of God, as the devil represents and urges it.”

Ø “Everything else, now, which the devil may suggest to us beyond this, that God the Father is reconciled to us, and graciously inclined to us, and merciful and powerful for the sake of his dear Son, we should cast out of our minds as wandering and unprofitable thoughts.”

Gospel-Centered Encouragement: Who God Is in Christ

Ø “Therefore treat the devil thus: Spit on him, and say: ‘Have I sinned? Well, then I have sinned, and I am sorry; but I will not on that account despair, for Christ has borne and taken away all my sin, yes, and the sin of the whole world, if it will only confess its sin and believe on Christ. This I am in duty bound to believe. I have been acquitted. Then away with you, devil!’”

Gospel-Centered Encouragement: Who We Are in Christ

Ø Our Universal Identity in Christ: “Praise be to God, who gave us the Word and also allowed his only Son to die for us! He did not do this in vain. Accordingly we should maintain the sure hope that we are saints, that we are saved, and that this will be manifest when it is revealed.”

Gospel-Centered Encouragement: Who We Are in Christ

Ø Our Unique Identity in Christ: “It is as if God would say, ‘To you dear Duke John, I entrust my most precious treasure, my pleasant paradise, and ask you to preside over it as father. I place it under your protection and government and give you the honor of making you my gardener and caretaker.’”

Gospel Prescription

When suffering tempts us to despair, we prescribe Christ’s gospel medicine

of healing hope—Christ-centered images of Who God is

and who the Christian is.

So What? What Now?

Ø From Martin Luther’s sustaining pastoral care, what could you apply to your life and ministry?

Ø From Martin Luther’s healing pastoral care, what could you apply to your life and ministry?

Counseling Under the Cross:Martin Luther on

Suffering, Sorrow, and Hope in Christ