Heath Lambert: This is 2017, and as most Christians are aware, it’s the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation –that time in the history of the church when the Gospel of Jesus Christ was recovered after hundreds of years of darkness. Evangelical Christians are right to celebrate this remarkable anniversary in the life of the church, and we are celebrating it here at ACBC at our annual conference this year entitled “Faithfully Protestant Biblical Counseling And The Reformation.”
At our conference will be looking at the five Solas of the reformation: Sola Gratia, Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Soli Deo Gloria, and Solus Christus. We want to show the Church of Jesus Christ the relevance of those Solas for counseling ministry, but some people really wonder about this. Why in the world would we be concerned about going to a conference on counseling that focuses on the five Solas that focus on these key doctrines of the Protestant Reformation? I would want to say really candidly that we wonder this because we need to grow in our understanding of the crucial nature of the heart of Reformation Theology, and we need to grow in our understanding of what’s going on in counseling ministry. As a matter of fact, the five Solas of the Reformation have absolutely everything to do with the kinds of problems that people face and, therefore, the kinds of conversations that we have in counseling ministry. As we lead up to our conference this year, we’re going to take some time on the podcast on several occasions to emphasize one of these Solas that we’re going to be talking about at our annual conference this year. And this week, we’re going to talk about Sola Gratia. Sola Gratia is a Latin term that means grace alone. It means that grace alone is at the heart of the Christian life. God’s grace alone occupies a fundamental position in the truths that we confess as Christians and in the lives that we live as Christians. This will be clear to you when you understand the kind of categories of pain that people struggle with. In a theology of biblical counseling, I wrote a chapter where I describe the kinds of difficulties that people confront that lead them to get counseling help. People get counseling and need counseling for all different kinds of reasons. Some of those reasons are a struggle with human sinfulness. I am broken and in pain and I need counseling care because of my own sin and because of the sins of others as they commit them against me. I also need counseling because I live in the pressure of a fallen world that is opposed to Christ, that is opposed to the gospel, and that tempts me away from living a life that honors Jesus Christ. People also are broken and in need of counseling because we have an enemy, the Devil and the forces of the demonic, that prowl around and look for Christians to devour. We can be afflicted in that sense and become broken and need counseling care. We also need counseling in a fallen world because of the pain of others. I can look at the plight of people who are dying apart from Christ, I can look at the plight of people who are suffering even within the body of Christ, and my heart is broken, and I need the encouragement and counsel of other Christians. People can need counseling care because they’re confused. We are limited. Even in a perfect world, our minds are not infinite, as is the mind of God, but in a fallen world in our human limitation, we do not depend on the Lord and it causes suffering as our minds are weak and we need counseling care to help with that. We also need counseling care because we live in a world plagued with death and dying. We face sickness and death and those we love face sickness and death. It is very painful, and it leads us to seek out counseling. For those and other reasons, we are a broken people who need counseling care. Here’s what all that has to do with Sola Gratia. In all of those problems, whether our sin, the sin of others, the brokenness of the world, the Devil, the pain of others, the confusion we face in a fallen world or the death of ourselves or those we love, in all those things, we need grace.
As people, and even as Christians, we don’t have our own unique brand of wisdom that we just offer to people because it sounds smart to us. We don’t have fundamentally tips and techniques to live a better or a more accomplished life. At the end of the day, all of those things are efforts to depend on ourselves and they don’t work in the pain of sin, the pain of the world, the ache of the Devil, the confusion that we face in a world where death plagues everyone, we know. We need God to show up and give us good things that we do not deserve and cannot earn. That is what grace is. It is the kindness of God directed at people who do not deserve it and cannot earn it. And you can only learn about the grace of God and you can only minister the grace of God if you are a Christian who’s committed to studying the Bible and teaching broken people about the grace of God that you find there. And so, we have to learn how to discover God’s grace in the Scriptures and how to be equipped to give that grace to other people. It is Christians operating in the faithful stream of the Protestant Reformation who alone can offer that kind of care. It was the commitment to grace alone that changed the lives of the reformers, and it is a commitment to grace alone that will change the lives of people in pain as we minister to them today.