Getting the Facts - Order and Disorder

[00:00:18] Hello and welcome to this latest episode of Become A Competent Biblical Counselor. I'm Dr. Dave Jones and today's episode is entitled Getting the Facts, Order and Disorder.

[00:00:32] Today we're going to talk about getting the facts. You know they used to say, and maybe they still do, that you cannot make a decision without knowing the facts.

[00:00:43] So, we need to talk about getting the facts. You know so often our lives are confused and upset simply because we are disorganized and we don't really put the facts together in the right way.

[00:00:57] It's a matter then of getting the facts and getting them organized. Disorderliness is in every way un-Christian.

[00:01:06] Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3.11, We hear that some of you are leading an undisciplined, that might be translated disorderly, life.

[00:01:17] Now, in their case they were doing no work and acting like busybodies. That was the extreme to which this disorderliness led.

[00:01:28] But often, disorder leads to other problems too. Let me tell you about a counselee who came in saying in his initial visit, I'm ruined.

[00:01:38] He said, I am going to lose my home. I'll probably lose my job. I'm going to lose everything.

[00:01:46] He said, creditors are phoning night and day. The collectors are at the door ringing the bell, he said.

[00:01:52] I simply have no resources. I can't meet my obligations. My needs are greater than I can handle. I'm ruined.

[00:02:01] And he was really in a stew. Now, here was a Christian man coming in declaring his utter ruin.

[00:02:09] He was going to lose everything. Well, it sounded pretty serious. So I said to him, well, how much do you owe?

[00:02:16] And he says, I don't know. I said, you don't know? You say you're ruined, that you've got all of these financial obligations and problems and no resources to meet them, but you don't know what your obligations are?

[00:02:32] Oh, he says, I don't know, but I know I'm ruined. Well, I began to ask him a few other questions.

[00:02:39] I said, you say that the creditors are phoning night and day. How many have really phoned you at night?

[00:02:46] He said, well, you know what I'm talking about. Nobody's phoned me literally at night, but they're phoning me all the time.

[00:02:53] You know what I mean? I said, well, now you say that the creditors have been at the door.

[00:02:59] How many have actually come to the door? Well, he said, nobody's really appeared at the door. That's just kind of an expression.

[00:03:07] You understand what I mean. I said, I think I do understand what you mean. You've got an assignment for this week.

[00:03:13] Your job is to go back and really get it all together and find out exactly what your resources are, exactly what your debts are, exactly how much pressure the creditors are putting on you.

[00:03:25] Call them, phone them, talk to them, find out exactly how they are willing to work out any arrangements.

[00:03:32] Let's get the data. Let's get the facts. Let's get them organized and let's go to work on them in a way that makes sense.

[00:03:40] And that's proper before God. It looks to me like disorder and disorganization and lack of facts is your basic problem.

[00:03:49] Well, when he came back the next week, we found out that there was only one creditor who was even pushing him hard at all and that this was not a man with a very large debt.

[00:03:59] And indeed, when he had said that he had no resources, we also found out that he had three automobiles.

[00:04:07] But it was he and his wife alone who were living in this home.

[00:04:11] And there's no way that I know that the two of them could drive three automobiles at once.

[00:04:16] So we had a resource that we could sell.

[00:04:19] Indeed, by selling it, he made more money than he needed to pay off the one creditor who was pressing him.

[00:04:27] And when he began to look at how much he really owed and a little consolidation of his loans

[00:04:32] and a situation where he could tighten his belt a little bit and cut down,

[00:04:36] he not only could work out a clear-cut budget for paying off his debts and meeting his obligations,

[00:04:42] but also the kind of life in which the future he could get himself out of such messes.

[00:04:49] Now, here was a man who, because of his disorganization, because of his failure to budget and schedule

[00:04:56] and his failure to actually get at the facts and find out exactly what was wrong,

[00:05:02] was creating misery for himself and creating an occasion for sin for those around him.

[00:05:08] He and his wife also worried about these matters.

[00:05:11] He had his children all stirred up, and everybody that he knew knew that he was becoming a physical wreck himself.

[00:05:19] Now, there's no need very often for us to become so concerned and so upset about these things,

[00:05:26] except that we have brought this concern and brought this confusion and brought this disorder upon ourselves

[00:05:33] because we simply do not do things in an orderly fashion.

[00:05:37] God is not a God of confusion.

[00:05:40] We read in 1 Corinthians,

[00:05:42] But he is a God of order.

[00:05:44] And in the church, we can have confusion.

[00:05:47] God says we must not have it there.

[00:05:51] Things must be done in an orderly way.

[00:05:54] Any church that does not operate according to order and discipline and proper arrangements,

[00:06:00] but operates in a disorderly manner is a disgrace and a dishonor to Jesus Christ.

[00:06:07] Any home that operates in a disorderly fashion is sinning against God and is dishonoring his name.

[00:06:14] And so, what we need to do then is to take a hard, long look at our lives, how orderly they are.

[00:06:22] Well, you just, for example, take a look at your kitchen if you'd like to start.

[00:06:28] Is your kitchen set up in an orderly way?

[00:06:31] Do you do things in an orderly manner?

[00:06:33] Or are you the kind of people who, a person who does things in this disorderly fashion,

[00:06:39] so that when you get something out, you leave it there and it never gets back in its place?

[00:06:45] And then you can't find it because it's underneath the 20 other things that didn't get back in their place.

[00:06:51] Are you disorderly, wasting God's time in this way, creating disorder for your family,

[00:06:57] creating disorder for yourself, creating confusion?

[00:07:01] It's time you started putting that family and that home back together again.

[00:07:06] And how about your basement?

[00:07:07] What does it look like?

[00:07:09] How about your attic?

[00:07:10] How about your living room?

[00:07:12] And how about your dining room?

[00:07:14] How about the bedroom?

[00:07:15] Is there order or is there disorder?

[00:07:18] That's the first place to look for a manifestation of order or disorder.

[00:07:23] Think again about your accounts.

[00:07:26] Do you really pay your bills on time?

[00:07:29] Is your problem not so much that you don't have the money to pay them?

[00:07:33] I know that's a problem, but of course,

[00:07:36] we shouldn't take on obligations that are beyond our ability to pay.

[00:07:41] But I mean, not so much that problem as the problem of not knowing

[00:07:46] when what bills are due or throwing them on the desk and forgetting they're there

[00:07:51] or losing bills because you're not orderly in the way that you care for them.

[00:07:57] How about your checkbook?

[00:07:58] Do you always write in what you have spent?

[00:08:01] Or do you find that you forget to do so many times?

[00:08:06] And then the bank has to send you a statement that you've overdrawn on your account.

[00:08:12] These are things that are important to our Christian witness and to our Christian testimony

[00:08:16] and to the happiness and joy of our lives.

[00:08:19] I can't tell you how many people come in for counseling who are suffering as much from disorder

[00:08:25] as from anything else.

[00:08:27] Just as a side note, there are many times people will come in and they say they're depressed.

[00:08:32] And so I'll start asking them questions just as I have just asked you relative to how orderly are they?

[00:08:39] How disorderly are they?

[00:08:40] And come to find out there's a lot of disorder that's the basis of depression.

[00:08:46] So I'll tell people to go and do the laundry, clean up your house, get some order in your house.

[00:08:52] And I'll call them in a couple of hours to find out if they've done that so many, many times.

[00:08:57] If you want to overcome depression, get your home in order, get your house in order.

[00:09:03] And simply by doing so, your depression will be lifted.

[00:09:08] But let's get the facts and let's get them organized.

[00:09:12] Today, if you are a disorderly person, sit down with the paper and pencil and start ordering your affairs.

[00:09:19] This is the way to begin.

[00:09:21] If you don't use paper and pencil, if you don't write out budgets, if you don't write out your schedule for the day,

[00:09:28] if you don't write out your obligations, if you don't write down these things that must be done,

[00:09:33] then you are disorderly to begin with.

[00:09:37] You can't begin to keep all of these things in your head and all of these things in your mind,

[00:09:41] no matter how smart you may think you are in this fast-moving, changing world in which we live.

[00:09:47] It's time for you to become orderly.

[00:09:51] Remember that the Word of God says in 2 Thessalonians 3

[00:09:54] that we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined or disorderly life.

[00:10:02] That's when people begin to become busybodies and not work as they should.

[00:10:07] You can't work in disorderly conditions.

[00:10:10] All you can do is to run around and talk to your neighbors and to become a busybody of this sort.

[00:10:16] Instead, listen to verse 12.

[00:10:19] We command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ that you work in quiet fashion and eat your own bread.

[00:10:28] May God make you an orderly person to the honor of Jesus Christ.

[00:10:33] Amen.